Comparing Media Systems. Three Model of Media and Politics
Abstract
Building on a survey of media institutions in eighteen West European and North American democracies, Hallin and Mancini identify the principal dimensions of variation in media systems and the political variables which have shaped their evolution. They go on to identify three major models of media system development (the Polarized Pluralist, Democratic Corporatist and Liberal models) to explain why the media have played a different role in politics in each of these systems, and to explore the forces of change that are currently transforming them. It provides a key theoretical statement about the relation between media and political systems, a key statement about the methodology of comparative analysis in political communication and a clear overview of the variety of media institutions that have developed in the West, understood within their political and historical context.
... In order to examine the Australian and Chinese media, it is essential to decipher their media systems, a concept which was established by media and communication scholars Hallin and Mancini (2004). However, Australian and Chinese media systems are not the focus of this thesis, so only general background information regarding their media systems has been employed in this research. ...
... However, Australian and Chinese media systems are not the focus of this thesis, so only general background information regarding their media systems has been employed in this research. The notion of a media system is multi-interpretive and has never been uniformly defined (Bastiansen, 2008;Hallin & Mancini, 2004;Sonczyk, 2009). In brief, "this is so for two reasons: firstly -because of the term's content specificity; secondlybecause it is dynamic and variable in time and therefore difficult to precisely define" (Sonczyk, 2009, p. 1). ...
... Furthermore, Hallin and Mancini (2004) Liberal Model" (p. 69). ...
This thesis focuses on Australian mainstream media narratives about the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) from 2013 to 2020. Set against the background of Sino-Australian relations, and taking into account the different media systems of China and Australia, this thesis also critically investigates the Chinese public diplomacy narratives of the BRI. The research addresses an important but under-explored research question: how have Australian mainstream media narratives portrayed the BRI of the Chinese Government from 2013 to 2020? Drawing on frame analysis and semi-structured interviews, this thesis takes an interdisciplinary approach; it sits in the fields of media studies and — to a lesser extent — political communication, but ultimately aims to inform the fields of international relations and political economy.
This research fills a gap regarding the portrayal of the BRI in Australian mainstream media, and provides new insights into the reasons for narrative shifts in the coverage of the BRI. More concretely, the thesis finds that the public diplomacy narratives of the BRI were not explained well by Chinese officials, thus allowing Australian journalists and commentators to project their own negative, fearful narratives of China onto the BRI project, particularly from 2017 onwards.
More importantly, this thesis argues that the Australian Federal Government’s policy towards China had a significant impact on the Australian media’s coverage of the BRI; that the media clearly followed the Australian Federal Government’s lead, and not vice versa. Thus, in many ways, Australian mainstream media narratives of the BRI have had a similar outcome as China’s ostensibly much more restrictive and propagandistic state-dominated media system. Noticeably, this research not only has academic significance in the international research
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community, but also holds practical importance in the real world, benefiting Australian business leaders, media professionals, think tank specialists, as well as policymakers.
... El segundo elemento se refiere al grado de alineación que mantiene el sistema de medios con el sistema político (Hallin y Mancini, 2004). El paralelismo político se hace evidente cuando las preferencias o tendencias políticas de cada medio de comunicación determina los temas, las fuentes, y el encuadre de las noticias que producen (Echeverría y González-Macías, 2022). ...
... El pluralismo externo está del lado de la oferta y se refleja en un sistema con diversos medios de comunicación, que proveen información variada a una audiencia de diferentes segmentos con una demanda igualmente diversa. Por el otro lado, el pluralismo interno alude a lo que hacen los medios internamente y cómo cubren los temas, es decir, si incluye o no diferentes voces y actores en las piezas que producen (Hallin y Mancini, 2004). ...
... De manera relacionada, la tercera dimensión del modelo de Hallin y Mancini (2004) es el nivel de profesionalización de los medios. Al respecto, existen tres factores para evaluarla: la autonomía, o qué tanto los periodistas pueden controlar su propio trabajo; las normas profesionales distintivas del medio, que son un conjunto de rutinas periodísticas compartidas y aceptadas; y, la orientación al servicio público por parte de los medios y periodistas (Hallin y Mancini, 2004). Así, "la profesionalización periodística puede verse comprometida por la instrumentalización, cuando un agente externo (gobierno, anunciante, grupo de interés, etc.) ejerce presión para imponer su agenda por encima de la del medio informativo" (Echeverría y González-Macías, 2022, p. 6). ...
En un estudio de caso se describe y explica cualitativamente la manera en que los medios de comunicación mexicanos retratan al cabildeo como objeto noticioso. Dentro de los hallazgos, se encuentran seis encuadres específicos que caracterizan de una manera sesgada e incompleta al cabildeo, en particular al que hicieron los diferentes grupos de interés en torno al etiquetado frontal de alimentos y bebidas en México.
... When it comes to reporting on health issues, the stakes are high because parents seek information on immunizations through the media. Moreover, media systems differ from one country to another (Hallin and Mancini, 2004). In Denmark, press freedom co-exists with strong state support for and regulation of the media market. ...
... Journalists reporting on technical issues such as science and health typically are close to their sources, particularly experts (Vestergaard and Nielsen, 2016). Compared to other Western media systems, the Danish media system is relatively closed with a high degree of democratic corporatism and homogeneous professional standards (Hallin and Mancini, 2004;Blach-Ørsten et al., 2021). Danish journalists refer to common criteria of newsworthiness such as significance (or relevance), identification, sensation, actuality, and conflict (Gravengaard, 2010). ...
Traditional news media play an important, yet notoriously complex role in vaccination communication. News media remain a common source of information about vaccines and potentially influence individual decisions to choose vaccination or not. In Denmark, Human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination rates remained relatively high until suspected adverse reactions began to receive extensive coverage in the news. Existing research studies associate the decline in HPV vaccination rates with misleading or negative news stories. We probed Danish media coverage beyond dichotomies such as misleading vs. informative, or negative vs. positive. We combined quantitative and qualitative approaches to media coverage of the Danish HPV vaccination crisis and recovery. Our research design focused on six national newspapers and allowed us to identify 865 articles published in periods of peak media coverage from 2008 to 2018 (extracted from a total sample of 1,437 articles published between 1991 and 2019). We used qualitative content analysis to discern the main topics covered, and we analyzed contextual factors that affected the meanings of our main topics. Our results confirm the rise of suspected adverse reactions as the dominant main topic in 2015. However, we find that news stories about adverse reactions were diverse and closely related to other main topics such as conflicts of interests and debate among experts and other stakeholders. In 2017, the media began downplaying suspected adverse reactions when concerns about declining vaccination rates and misinformation by the media were voiced. Our findings suggest that controversial media messages about vaccination are hard to classify as either negative or positive but must be interpreted carefully in context of what is known about the controversy. Learning from past media controversies remains important to understanding the media's role in the social construction of risks and benefits associated with vaccination.
... No doubt, these two denitions hint at the different fundamentally contradistinctive rendering of what a profession is. While Wilensky's, cited in Hallin and Mancini (2004) theorisation of a profession is the acquisition of formal knowledge to function effectively in the execution of the practice. In other words, a professional is certied through formal learning. ...
... In other words, a professional is certied through formal learning. On the contrary, Collins' cited in Hallin and Mancini (2004) understanding of a profession emphasises a uniformly prescribed ethical subscription that guides the conduct of members on the one hand and a form of identity that makes it difcult for non-initiates to gate-crash into, in another. ...
This paper explores the growing inuence of China in the world and the possibility of it dominating international news or prescribing a journalistic template that could suit the normative developmental challenges of Africa. Under the aegis of the Non-Aligned Movement, the Third World countries demanded a New World Information and Communication Order (NWICO). This was to challenge the journalistic philosophy of the West. Unfortunately, Third World countries were not able to realise the objectives of NWICO chiey due to the Cold War politics of that period. However, the challenges of the 21st century have made the need to restructure global information architecture more urgent now than before. The position of this paper is that since Africa looks to China for economic sustainability, would it be out of place for the continent to also imbibe China's journalistic model as an alternative model to cater to the aspirations that led to the demand for new world information and communication order?
... As elsewhere in the Nordic region, the country's media system is characterised by proactive state interventions operating at an arm's-length distance and a popular publicly funded broadcaster. But Norway stands out with a fine-masked structure of local and national newspapers with a very egalitarian readership, and a high penetration of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in general (Hallin & Mancini, 2004;Syvertsen et al., 2014), also mirrored in widespread reliance on the smartphone as a main apparatus for media use and high levels of social media use across the population (Aalen & Hoem Iversen, 2021;Newman et al., 2022). ...
... Social media use is one of many elements of a process of sense-making, in which values, political attitudes, and lifestyle choices come together to work towards mobilisation. Even though the Norwegian news landscape is comparatively less polarised (Hallin & Mancini, 2004;Newman et al., 2022), we here see contours of activist work across potentially separate issue publics. In this process, after navigating group positions, the use of different social media for mobilisation within and beyond activist groups appear as a key form of use. ...
This article analyses how people use social media to make sense of climate change, exploring climate issues as part of everyday communication in media-saturated societies. Building on prominent themes in the environmental communication literature on social media, such as mobilisation and polarisation, we respond to calls for more qualitative and interpretative analysis. Our study therefore asks how people use social media in everyday life to make sense of climate issues, and it expands on previous findings in the field through a qualitative typology of everyday social media use. The empirical data stems from in-depth interviews with Norwegians who are engaged in climate issues, with informants ranging from activists to declared sceptics, although we find widespread ambivalence across group positions. Our findings contribute to disentangling contradictory findings in the field through a discussion of how climate change is part of everyday communication.
... The construction of the sample followed the guideline purposed by Bardin Researches about the relationship between media and politics are being developed both in Political Science and Communications fields but analyses involving greater spans of time are still rare. Considering that the importance of media as a mediator of the symbolic forms of modern life cannot he ignored it is important to note that the media impact on politics and representation has been the object of classical studies, but its impact in other areas still needs attention (COHEN, 1963;COOK, 1998;HALLIN;MANCINI, 2004;MANIN, 1997;MIGUEL, 2002;PITKIN, 1967). The media constitute a social space that represents interests and discursively produces the importance of some topics, sharing world views (CHAMPAGNE, 1998;FAUSTO NETO, 1994;WOLTON, 1995). ...
... The construction of the sample followed the guideline purposed by Bardin Researches about the relationship between media and politics are being developed both in Political Science and Communications fields but analyses involving greater spans of time are still rare. Considering that the importance of media as a mediator of the symbolic forms of modern life cannot he ignored it is important to note that the media impact on politics and representation has been the object of classical studies, but its impact in other areas still needs attention (COHEN, 1963;COOK, 1998;HALLIN;MANCINI, 2004;MANIN, 1997;MIGUEL, 2002;PITKIN, 1967). The media constitute a social space that represents interests and discursively produces the importance of some topics, sharing world views (CHAMPAGNE, 1998;FAUSTO NETO, 1994;WOLTON, 1995). ...
The paper focus on how The Economist dealt with the human rights affairs in Brazil between 1964 and 2010. Through content analysis texts addressing the topic directly or indirectly were visited and analised. The Economist position was also compared with The Times and The Guardian, as well as with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) dispatches. The ambition is to make a portrayal of the publication’s behaviour about human rights in Brazil, clarifying the evolution of its perspective about the theme. It is possible to suggest that political issues had had low priority, mainly during the so called “economic miracle”.
... Los países del sur de Europa, aunque diferentes en su identidad, comparten una serie de patrones que definen los medios de comunicación en lo que Hallin y Mancini (2004) denominaron el modelo mediterráneo. De esta forma, el presente artículo examina si las diversas iniciativas de verificación actualmente en funcionamiento en Francia, Portugal, España, Italia y Grecia tienen presencia mediática o contenidos televisivos propios que garanticen el acceso de sus audiencias a la información verificada. ...
... En el sistema mediático europeo y norteamericano podemos encontrar afinidades y diferencias entre países que han dado lugar a tres modelos diferentes tal y como estipularon Hallin y Mancini (2004). Según defienden Vázquez, Vizoso y López-García (2019), la verificación es un fenómeno primordialmente europeo y norteamericano, ya que en este segmento geográfico se aglutinan casi el 50% de las iniciativas activas actualmente (Duke Reporter´s Lab, 2021). ...
En los últimos años la proliferación de fake news se ha convertido en un tema habitual y la lucha contra este fenómeno en uno de los principales retos en medios de comunicación, instituciones y gobiernos, sobre todo al hilo de la crisis sanitaria provocada por la Covid-19 en la que la desinformación y el concepto de infodemia han tenido gran protagonismo. La pandemia y las restricciones de movilidad han supuesto un revulsivo para las audiencias televisivas siendo este medio el más utilizado para la informarse. En este sentido, han tomado especial relevancia las estrategias y recursos dedicados por los medios de comunicación a la verificación de datos. Este estudio analiza los sistemas de verificación de los países que conforman el modelo mediterráneo, Portugal, España, Italia y Grecia. Dado el contexto extraordinario que ha supuesto la infodemia originada por la COVID-19 y sus consecuencias en el ecosistema político resulta de interés evaluar qué tratamiento se ha llevado a cabo en los mencionados países debido a sus características mediáticas singulares. El enfoque metodológico eminentemente cualitativo se ha centrado en la revisión de fuentes documentales y en la comprobación empírica de los sistemas de verificación de Portugal, España, Italia y Grecia y cómo estas iniciativas ejecutan la difusión de la información verificada. En total se han identificado 30 iniciativas que responden a estrategias de verificación basadas en recursos humanos, en recursos tecnológicos o mixtas, en XX casos tienen un espacio de emisión propio o sección en medios de comunicación tradicionales, suponiendo estas experiencias una vía de difusión de la información verificada. Se comprueba la hipótesis de partida que sostiene que las iniciativas de verificación de la información son herramientas útiles y necesarias que actualmente no tienen un reflejo efectivo para conectar con las audiencias, si no es a través de la búsqueda activa de los espectadores.
... The connections between these three countries are obvious, but they also have many similarities in the journalistic field. According to the theoretical model developed by Hallin and Mancini (2004), they belong to the Mediterranean media system. This model is defined by weaker professionalization, strong state intervention in the media, and high political parallelism between parties and news outlets. ...
In a new communication context, factors such as the rise of hate speech, disinformation, or a precarious financial and employment situation in the media have made discursive menaces gain increasing significance. Threats of this kind challenge the legitimacy of institutional news media and professional journalists. This article contributes to the existing literature on the legitimization of journalism and boundary work through a study that seeks to understand the perceptions of Southern European journalists of the threats that they encounter in their work and the factors that help explain them. To this end, a survey of 398 journalists in Spain, Italy, and Greece was conducted to learn what personal or professional factors influenced their views and experiences of discursive and non-discursive menaces. Results show that discursive threats, such as hateful or demeaning speech and public discrediting of one's work, are the most frequent to the safety of journalists, while expressions of physical violence are less common. Younger and more educated journalists tended to perceive themselves as having been victims of discursive menaces more often, although not many significant differences were observed between different groups of journalists. Even though it could show a worrying trend, this finding can also indicate a growing awareness about menaces of this kind.
... The media systems of both countries can be termed as polarised pluralism, characterised by deep social and political divisions, difficulty in achieving consensus, high degrees of apathy, non-participation in politics, and occasional legitimacy crises (Sartori, 2005). As regards the media, its conditioning by the market and political powers is worthy of mention, as well as its limited professional independence (Hallin & Mancini, 2004). Thus, this article is underpinned by two main research questions: RQ1: What are the keys to the representation of politics and politicians in these fiction products? ...
This article deals with recent Spanish and Portuguese political television series. Within this sub-genre, it is pertinent to consider the symbolic construction of politics, as well as the differences caused by each series’ geographical adscription. Six Spanish productions have been selected— Isabel (Isabella the Catholic), Carlos Rey Emperador (Charles the Emperor King), La Embajada (The Embassy), Crematorio (Crematorium), Vamos Juan / Venga Juan (Come on, Juan/Let’s go Juan), and El Partido (The Party)—along with three Portuguese productions— A Rainha e a Bastarda (The Queen and the Bastard), Teorias da Conspiração (Conspiracy Theories), and Os Boys (The Boys). The narrative of these audio-visual stories has been examined utilising qualitative content analysis, looking at the plotlines and characters involved. The type of characterisation of politics has been identified by means of the deconstruction of the main characters. The conclusion is that the evaluation is eminently negative, although differential frameworks are present, depending, in particular, on the fiction’s genre, either historical drama, drama-thriller, or comedy.
... These issues are undoubtedly important, but whether they are actually global issues is debatable. For example, the idea that the survival of journalism depends on its revenue model suggests the "North Atlantic" liberal model of media in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Ireland (Hallin and Mancini 2004). Large comparative journalism research studies, such as the Reuters Institute Digital News Report and Worlds of Journalism Study, suggest that the issues threatening the survival of (digital) journalism around the world extend beyond revenue-related factors (Hanitzsch et al. 2019;Newman et al. 2022). ...
Recent years have seen an increasing amount of self-reflective discussion among media and communication scholars, about the hegemonic structures and inclusive participation within the field. In the scholarly community of journalism studies, similar reflections have emerged in recent years. Digital Journalism has also been actively pursuing a diverse and equitable scholarship in its journal. As part of the 10th anniversary issue of Digital Journalism, this article offers a systematic diagnosis of the diversity within published journalism scholarship between 2013 and 2021. In total, 3068 publications from a group of five journalism journals—Digital Journalism, Journalism, Journalism Studies, Journalism Practice, Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly—were analysed. The operationalisation of ‘diversity’ focuses on both the authorship and content levels. Findings from this study suggest that (1) Digital Journalism published research papers mostly from and on the Global North, (2) the gender distribution of corresponding authors in the journal is slightly less balanced than the group average, (3) the methodological approaches employed in Digital Journalism are more asymmetric towards quantitative and computational approaches in comparison to the group average. Based on the empirical evidence, this article makes several recommendations to Digital Journalism, and to the field at large, to achieve better equity and inclusiveness.
... Comprised of two parliamentary government systems based on a multiparty democracy with proportional electoral systems, with Poland being a republic and Spain a monarchy, the sample provides sufficient variation regarding their political systems. According to Hallin and Mancini (2004), media systems in Spain and Poland reflect the characteristics of the polarized pluralist model. Spain presents a low degree of press circulation (contrasting with a high level of TV viewing), an authoritarian past in which part of the media was involved in the struggle for freedom, a low degree of autonomy among Spanish journalists under both political and commercial pressure, and a high degree of state interventionism in public media. ...
In the context of “pop politics” and “politainment,” the irruption of TikTok has changed the landscape of social media and become the fastest-growing application among young people. Based on the peculiarities of the social platform’s affordances and the political personalization approach, we explore the differences between political parties and political leaders in terms of digital persuasion on TikTok in Spain and Poland. This work contributes to the scarce knowledge about the strategic use of TikTok for political purposes. It also attempts to fill the gap in the comparative research into the practical uses of TikTok in different political contexts. The study explores the three classical persuasion appeals—pathos, ethos, and logos—based on a visual, quantitative analysis of N = 372 videos posted on the official TikTok profiles of the main political parties and leaders from January 1st to March 31st, 2022. Differences were found in how political parties and political leaders used TikTok’s affordances as well as in the main rhetorical resource they use to persuade. We noted the use of more rational resources (logos) in the case of political parties and more emotional resources (pathos) for political leaders. Further, the rare presence of the personality in the videos of the political actors (ethos), along with their unusual privatization role, indicate that personalization on TikTok is far from being considered as part of their digital persuasion strategy.
... However, none of these studies have tested which of the two variables-ideology or party affinity-has more weight when it comes to explaining the selection of political information. The Spanish media system fits the polarized pluralist model (Hallin & Mancini, 2004), which is characterized by a high level of political parallelism, external pluralism, and an underdeveloped press market. Furthermore, the audience is ideologically polarized, and the journalistic profession combines opinion reporting style with weak professional autonomy due to a dependence on political and economic systems (Humanes et al., 2013;Humanes & Roses, 2018;López-Rabadán & Casero-Ripollés, 2015). ...
The literature on selective exposure has shown that ideology and voting govern media consumption decisions, but longitudinal studies are still scarce. To fill this gap, this work analyzes: (a) whether selective exposure guided by ideology and partisanship to three media types (television, radio, and newspapers) is a stable phenomenon in Spain (2008-2019) as expected from a polarized pluralistic media system; and (b) which variable has the strongest effects on news choices (ide-ology or partisanship). Multinomial logistic regressions are carried out using data sources from six post-electoral surveys conducted by the Center for Sociological Research in the last six Spanish general elections (2008-2019). As dependent variables , we consider the four most important preferred media outlets for each media type, and as independent variables, we include the vote in general election and ideology. Moreover, interest in politics, gender, age, education, and social class are included as control variables, too. Findings show strong evidence that selective exposure based on ideology and partisanship is a well-established phenomenon in Spain for the three media types during the 11 years. Results also show that the effect of partisanship is always stronger than that of ideology for the three news media types. We conclude that selective exposure in Spain needs therefore to be conceived as partisan selective exposure.
... As Siebert et al. (1956) point out, the press adopts the form of the political and social systems in which it operates. Hallin and Mancini (2004) identify three types of media systems: democratic corporations, liberal, and polarized pluralist. According to Panayırcı et al. (2016, p. 552), Turkey's media system matches the characteristics of the 'polarized pluralist model' including high media integration into party politics (or political parallelism) and state intervention, along with low media commercialization and journalistic professionalism. ...
This study examines the framing of the social movement in Iran launched on 29 December 2017, by analyzing the news texts of six national Turkish newspapers. It discusses the movement in the context of news framing, focusing on problem definition, causal interpretation, moral evaluation, and treatment recommendation. The findings suggest that each newspaper has reported the social movement in Iran quite differently. The most obvious difference is that the left-wing, anti-government press mainly explained the events in terms of political, economic, and social factors while the right-wing, pro-government press attributed the events to ‘foreign forces’ and reflected the dominant discourse of political power while framing the news. Thus, the way Turkish newspapers frame a social movement outside the country reveals the intense polarization in the Turkish press.
... Trzeci typ charakteryzuje argumentacja koncentrująca się na słabo rozwiniętym kirgiskim systemie medialnym, w obrębie którego nie powstały niezależne media prezentujące obiektywny przekaz i w którym w niewystarczającym zakresie zachodzą procesy demokratyzacji. Przepracowanie problemów etnicznych nie odbywało się zatem w ramach otwartej publicznej debaty, ale często ich prezentacja była konsekwencją zjawiska paralelizmu politycznego w mediach (Hallin & Mancini, 2004). Kirgiski rynek medialny przez pierwsze dekady budowania niepodległości państwa cechował się silnym wpływem instytucji politycznych, przede wszystkim władzy wykonawczej, na nadawców medialnych. ...
Artykuł dotyczy wydarzeń w Kirgistanie, które miały miejsce w 1990 i 2010 roku. Doszło wtedy do starć między Kirgizami i Uzbekami, w wyniku których zginęły tysiące osób. Analizując przekazy medialne poświęcone tym wydarzeniom, odnosząc się także do dyskursu akademickiego, poszukujemy sposobów tłumaczenia oraz narracji dotyczących przy-czyn i atrybucji odpowiedzialności dotyczących wspomnianych konfliktów. Zestawiając ze sobą relacje medialne o różnym charakterze, próbujemy ustalić, czy można mówić o uzgodnionych i prawomocnych sposobach opisu konfliktów etnicznych w Kirgistanie, które miałyby w dyskursie publicznym dominującą pozycję. Słowa kluczowe: stosunki międzyetniczne, konflikt, Kirgistan, przekazy medialne, analiza ramowa, narracje.
... Από τη μία, η πολιτικοποίηση γίνεται με τους όρους της κοινωνίας της ενημέρωσης (Πλειός, 2011), όπου η στράτευση των Μέσων συνδυάζεται με την ένταση της δραματοποίησης και του ψυχαγωγικού χαρακτήρα των μέσων. Συνάδει όμως και με τα γενικά χαρακτηριστικά του ελληνικού επικοινωνιακού συστήματος, όπου η ένταση της εμπορευματοποίησης και η απότομη διαδικασία της απορρύθμισης συνδυάστηκαν με την ενίσχυση του πολιτικού χαρακτήρα των ΜΜΕ (Papathanasopoulos 1999;Hallin & Mancini, 2004). Επιβεβαιώνεται, υπό αυτή την έννοια, η παραδοχή των Carney & Bennett (2014) για τη σημασία, ως προς την κάλυψη πανδημιών, των πολιτικών συνθηκών και του εκάστοτε εθνικού επικοινωνιακού συστήματος. ...
H πανδημία COVID-19 κατέστη ένα φαινόμενο εξαι-
ρετικά μεσοποιημένο (Δεμερτζής, 2020). Σε συνθήκες εγκλεισμού και
εντεινόμενης αβεβαιότητας, ο ρόλος των ΜΜΕ αναβαθμίστηκε. Τα
ΜΜΕ οργάνωσαν νοηματικά ένα ιδιαίτερα σύνθετο φαινόμενο, ανέ-
δειξαν ορισμένες πλευρές, υποτίμησαν άλλες και, κυρίως, το ερμήνευ-
σαν, διαμορφώνοντας συνδέσεις σχετικά με τα αίτια, τις επιπτώσεις
και τις πιθανές διεξόδους από την πανδημία. Τα ΜΜΕ συνέβαλαν στον
προσανατολισμό του δημόσιου διαλόγου σχετικά με την ανάθεση ευ-
θύνης (ατομική-συλλογική), την ανάγκη ή μη πειθάρχησης στα μέτρα
περιορισμού, τις ευρύτερες (οικονομικές, κοινωνικές, κ.α.) επιπτώσεις
της πανδημίας COVID-19 αλλά και σε σχέση με την πρόσληψη των επι-
στημονικών εξελίξεων (κατανόηση του ιού, εμβόλιο). Στις συνθήκες της
πανδημίας, η διαχείριση της επικοινωνιακής διάστασης συσχετίζεται
με την κατανόηση ή μη του ζητήματος από τον ευρύτερο πληθυσμό, τη
συμμόρφωση των πολιτών προς τα προτεινόμενα μέτρα αλλά και την
ψυχολογική διαχείριση της αίσθησης απειλής (Lee, 2014). Επιπλέον, ο
ορισμός ενός κινδύνου για τη δημόσια υγεία, η προετοιμασία για αυ-
τήν και η αντιμετώπιση της είναι ένα πεδίο όπου η επιστημονική πρα-
κτική συναντιέται με κατεξοχήν πολιτικά ζητήματα, όπως η κατανομή
πόρων, η επίδραση της πολιτικής κουλτούρας και ο ρόλος της κυβέρ-
νησης (Carney & Bennett, 2014).
Η μελέτη της πλαισίωσης μας επιτρέπει να κατανοήσουμε τόσο τις
πλευρές της πανδημίας COVID-19 που αναδείχθηκαν όσο και τα κυρί-
αρχα ερμηνευτικά σχήματα. Μελετώντας, για την περίοδο 1/2 έως 30/4,
την πλαισίωση σε έξι ιστοσελίδες μεγάλης επισκεψιμότητας και σε έξι
τηλεοπτικά κανάλια (5 ιδιωτικά και 1 κρατικό), επιδιώκουμε να μελε-
τήσουμε τις κεντρικές κατηγορίες της πλαισίωσης (θεματική-περιπτω-
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... Specifically, as the media report on political issues in majoritarian democracies, they "communicate to the public the degree to which politicians are polarized along party lines" (Arceneaux & Johnson, 2015, p. 309), which, in turn, causes citizens to align more clearly with party ideologies, a process referred to as "partisan sorting" (Levendusky, 2009). While consensus-oriented democracies tend to have comparatively regulated democratic corporatist media systems, majoritarian democracies usually have rather liberal media systems (Hallin & Mancini, 2004) whose market-oriented structures further facilitate the depiction of "politics as a struggle between irreconcilably opposed parties" (Tucker et al., 2018, p. 40). As they follow the polarization trend within the political system by catering to increasingly divided audiences, these systems can become rather polarized liberal media systems (Nechushtai, 2018) that facilitate a rise in toxic outrage spurred by (partisan) media (Berry & Sobieraj, 2014). ...
This study is the first to simultaneously investigate country-level and platform-related context factors of toxic outrage, that is, destructive incivility, in online discussions. It compares user comments on the public role of religion and secularism from 2015/16 in four democracies (Australia, United States, Germany, Switzerland) and four discussion arenas on three platforms (News websites, Facebook, Twitter). A novel automated content analysis ( N = 1,236,551) combines LIWC dictionaries with machine learning. The level of toxic outrage is higher in majoritarian than in consensus-oriented democracies and in arenas that afford plural, issue-driven rather than like-minded, preference-driven debates. Yet, toxic outrage is lower in forums that tend to separate public and private conversations than in those that collapse varying contexts. This suggests that user-generated discussions flourish in environments that incentivize actors to strive for compromise, put relevant issues center stage and make room for public debate at a relative distance from purely social conversation.
... The patchiness of this evidence is problematic because there are reasons to expect that the size of online news echo chambers will vary by country. In addition to the fact that there is a long tradition of comparative research that highlights fundamental differences in national media systems (Hallin & Mancini, 2004), empirical research has found sizable variation in the extent of news audience polarization , selective exposure (Castro-Herrero et al., 2018), and media-party parallelism (van Kempen, 2007). ...
Concern over online news echo chambers has been a consistent theme in recent debates on how people get news and information. Yet, we lack a basic descriptive understanding of how many people occupy bounded online news spaces in different countries. Using online survey data from seven countries we find that (i) politically partisan left-right online news echo chambers are real, but only a minority of approximately 5% of internet news users inhabit them, (ii) in every country covered, more people consume no online news at all than occupy partisan online echo chambers, and (iii) except for the US, decisions over the inclusion or exclusion of particular news outlets make little difference to echo chamber estimates. Differences within and between media systems mean we should be very cautious about direct comparisons between different echo chambers, but underlying patterns of audience overlap, and the continued popularity of mainstream outlets, often preclude the formation of large partisan echo chambers.
This paper examines the media systems in the “Donetsk People’s Republic” and the “Luhansk People’s Republic,” both unrecognized states. After a conflict outbreak in 2014, the media landscape in the unrecognized republics acquired the features of an authoritarian media system. Employing qualitative methods (primary source analysis and in-depth interviews), the research explores a combination of instruments that pushed media into an authoritarian mode that entailed declarations of loyalty, severe vertical subordination, predominantly state ownership, and the designation of a military subdivision at the information frontline. Other decisive factors that allowed an authoritarian media system to be instated are the loyalty of the pre-existing media landscape to local authorities and oligarch media owners, the political isolation of the unrecognized republics, and the strong influence of the Russian information space.
Book review of Herman Wasserman and Dani Madrid-Morales (Eds.), Disinformation in the Global South
This paper examines journalistic metadiscourse on verification and professional identity in the UAE. Using in-depth interviews with journalists from various UAE institutions, the study interprets journalism as a culture of practice where journalistic roles and practices are discursively constructed as a “part of a wider framework of meaning” within the parameters and conditions where news are produced and circulated. Drawing on the hierarchy-of-influences model, the paper analyzes the epistemological, institutional and professional factors shaping journalists’ construction of journalism as a field of practice and professional identity. It also examines how journalists in the UAE interpret the notion of verification and apply it in their work, especially in the context of COVID-19 pandemic. The paper argues that journalists’ professional identity in the UAE is marked by an exclusionary boundary discourse legitimizing the social role of journalists within a loyalist press model that is increasingly challenged by a fast changing communicational ecosystem at the regional and global levels.
U.S. journalists work in a digital environment in which they actively promote their news stories – and themselves – via social media. Prior research has identified an emergent marketing function, albeit one that journalists seemed hesitant to embrace in normative terms. This study seeks to understand how the legitimacy of this marketing function has been discursively constructed in the U.S. over 25 years. In line with discursive institutionalism – which sees institutional discourse as sites for normative contestation, (re)creation, and (re)interpretation – we seek to understand the ways in which a marketing function is being legitimized as a morally viable social role. This study analyzes 1978 examples of journalistic discourse from 20 online sites where primarily (but not exclusively) U.S.-based journalism is discussed and debated. We find the marketing function gaining traction as a normative role but falling short of formalization. Journalists continue to see a tension between emerging marketing work and longstanding journalistic norms.
Politicians are decision-makers responsible for policy and opinion leaders with unique powers to construct challenges and problems as political. An emerging problematic issue pertains to users’ experiences of digital overload and invasive media (Syvertsen 2020; Lomborg and Ytre-Arne, 2021). Existing studies report that users struggle to self-regulate their digital media use – or ‘disconnect’. This relates to how connectivity platforms develop increasingly advanced techniques to keep them from logging off (Karppi 2018; Zuboff, 2019; Ytre-Arne et al., 2020).
This article aims to unpack how politicians understand problems about digital overload and invasive media and to what degree they regard digital disconnection as a potential political issue. We have selected Norway as our case country because of the population’s level of digital connectivity and the tradition of media regulation in the Nordic region (Syvertsen et al., 2014). Based on 16 research interviews with politicians and think-thank experts and a document analysis of official party-political platforms, we ask to what degree the politicians experience digital overload and invasive media as problematic, and if so, whom they believe is responsible for causing and solving the problems, and what specific solutions they suggest to the issues. In addition to digital disconnection literature, we draw on theoretical perspectives from media policy, political theory, and responsibilization.
Key findings indicate that politicians regard digital overload and invasive media as highly problematic. However, they are reluctant to suggest political interventions as solutions to these problems but rather place responsibility on the users and the platform industries. The politicians struggle to imagine political interventions that could help users disconnect while respecting personal authority and are doubtful about their power vis-à-vis the global tech companies. The article concludes with a critical discussion about the politicians’ acceptance of the neoliberal idea of responsibilization. This ultimately produces a reluctance to discuss disconnection as a political issue, not just an individual challenge.
The existing literature presents several studies which show that the levels of press freedom can affect the state of the economy. What has not thus far been investigated is whether the economy can affect the levels of press freedom, the specific economic conditions that mainly affect it and the differences among various countries. This study attempts to analyze the impact of economic conditions on the degree of press freedom, in 18 countries of the western world based on a quantitative analysis for the period 2002–2019, and advance our understanding of this relationship. We find that the state of the economy within a country can affect the level of press freedom while the effects of economic conditions on the degree of press freedom seem to vary among different media systems of the western world.
Although historically newspapers and their audiences in Flanders, Belgium, have reflected economic left–right differences in society, they have grown closer together in recent decades. However, a new left–right dimension related to attitudes towards various topics such as refugees, immigration, Islam and terrorism gained influence in the 2000s. This chapter presents two studies: a first one on how two Flemish newspapers, one historically left-leaning and the other historically right-leaning, currently differ in the representation of terrorism (study 1); a second one on whether this difference is reflected in fear of terrorism among their readers (study 2). In the left-wing newspaper, contextual themes such as the family background and religious experience of terrorists are discussed more; the readers of that newspaper also hold lower levels of fear of terrorism. The audience of the right-wing newspaper holds a greater fear of terrorism, which may be explained by the fact that this newspaper uses a vocabulary that is more about crime and political intervention. Both the content and audience perspectives show divergence rather than homogenisation.
By shining a light on the previously neglected combination of public service media (PSM) and the audience perspective, this paper adds to the debate on (algorithmic) news personalization. While news personalization may offer new opportunities, it can clearly also conflict with the PSM mission of universality of access, reach, and content. This empirical study compares the audience perspective on the news personalization of users and non-users of public service news in Germany, France, and the UK. Overall, the findings of the online survey show that users of public service news in Germany and the UK—in comparison to non-users of these services—perceive more risks such as missing out on certain topics or viewpoints, place greater value on a shared public sphere, and more strongly prefer a news selection primarily made by professional news editors. In France, however, the differences between users and non-users of public service news are rarely significant, which is interpreted against the background of the different media systems and the role of PSM. The findings add to the understanding of what public service news audiences expect PSM organizations to provide while keeping the difficult balance between personalization and universality.
In this article we look at how people’s relations to the media shape their anti-establishment, people-centrist and exclusionist populist worldviews. We propose to establish the relation between the media and populist attitudes by measuring media consumption with citizen’s attitudes towards a democracy-related function of the media, and we postulate that research should consider the peculiarities of political situations. The results of a representative public opinion survey in Slovenia confirmed a relation between tabloid media consumption, negative media attitudes and populist worldviews – however, with differences according to specific dimensions of populism, reflecting characteristics of an illiberal political landscape in the country.
In this essay, ideas and reflections on the problem of income inequality and its relationship with the news are exposed. The general state of the art is described: the relationship of the media, especially the digital news media, with economic inequality and the many aspects related to it. Perspectives on the subject or related ones, such as social classes, are provided. There is also a discussion about the ownership of the media or the multiple variables that unevenly influence how we access, or avoid, the news. Information equity is on the horizon. Any interested person should be guaranteed reasonable access to quality news to form their own opinion and, therefore, be able to decide on any aspect of society. This is what makes democracies strong. Resumen En este ensayo se exponen ideas y reflexiones sobre el problema de la desigualdad de ingresos y su relación con las noticias. Se describe un estado general de la cuestión: la relación de los medios de comunicación, especialmente los medios informativos digitales, con la desigualdad económica, y los muchos aspectos relacionados con ella. Se aportan perspectivas sobre el tema o relacionadas, como las clases sociales. También se discute sobre la propiedad de los medios o las múltiples variables que influyen desigualmente en cómo accedemos, o esquivamos, las noticias. La equidad informativa está en el horizonte. Cualquier persona interesada debería tener garantizado un acceso razonable a noticias de calidad para forjarse su propia opinión y, por tanto, poder decidir en cualquier aspecto de la sociedad. Esto es lo que hace fuertes a las democracias.
Media representations of the future are a key component of climate change and energy policies. This study integrates media analysis with futures studies and focuses on the media framings and representations of futures related to key national-level energy and climate strategy documents. It utilizes qualitative content analysis of online news articles of Finland’s national public broadcasting company committed to high-quality journalism. The results show that a more multifaceted coverage of climate action increased during the study period of 2015–2020, especially in terms of frames and future scenario archetypes, and indicate gradually widening awareness of climate risks. However, climate change has been framed as an isolated policy area, and climate change mitigation and adaptation remain framed as subordinate to economic policy targets.
Academic and popular discussions of misinformation, disinformation, and "fake news" have prioritized the concerns of Western liberal democracies. In the rather different context of Vietnam, we highlight how the interplay of authoritarian state logics, corporate interests, weak journalism, and repressed civil society culture explains the way mis/disinformation manifests in Vietnamese news media. We argue that the ongoing need to de-Westernize media and communication studies must be part of any satisfactory answer to the question of "what comes after disinformation studies."
El presente artículo aborda el proceso de conformación de la identidad social en el hashtag #CaravanaMigrante en México en el año 2018. Este hecho fue ampliamente cubierto por los medios nacionales e internacionales, además de que tuvo una acalorada repercusión en la opinión pública a través del sistema mediático híbrido. La recolección de unidades de análisis en Twitter se desarrolló a través de cuatro episodios seleccionados por su relevancia mediática en México. El análisis del corpus se realizó a través de la metodología cualitativa conocida como Análisis Temático (Braun y Clarke, 2006; Sanderson, Frederick, y Stocz, 2016), proveniente de la psicología social. Los resultados arrojan una mayor tematización de mensajes encaminados a una identidad social antirracista en tres de los cuatro episodios seleccionados. También, los resultados permiten conocer cuáles fueron las justificaciones de las acciones racistas o xenófobas, así como las valoraciones a las acciones y actitudes del grupo migratorio y ver cómo las y los usuarios gestionaron a través de diversas estrategias la amenaza a su identidad social.
In the current cross-media ecosystem, which is characterized by technological disruption, the prominent relationship between public service media (PSM), sport and cultural citizenship is undergoing a profound transformation. Currently, PSM can utilize its myriad platforms, channels and services to transcend the constraints of linear broadcasting, find new ways of advancing diversity and overcome the perception of disability sport as a media ‘blind spot’. Through content analysis, the objective of this research has been to examine the agenda diversity on Twitter offered during the timeframe of the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games by 15 PSM corporations in Europe. This comparative analysis of 6072 tweets demonstrated the uneven attention devoted by European PSM to the Tokyo 2020 Paralympics. In the aggregate, 39.42% (n = 2398) of the messages focused on the event, although significant imbalances can be observed among the different media organizations, both in terms of the volume of coverage and the attention given to the various Paralympic disciplines and protagonists. From a theoretical perspective, the article adds to the existing literature on the nexus between media, sport and cultural citizenship, signaling the need for PSM to reimagine its social media strategies to counteract the limited visibility of different societal groups and to adequately contribute to enhancing cultural citizenship in the digital age. The results can also inform media practitioners. Despite that the conditioning factors and trade-offs linked to the commercial nature of social networking sites cannot be overlooked, PSM should take into account the importance of promoting inclusion and observe audiences’ increasing interest in disability sport.
This chapter reconstructs the research work developed within the volume, with the aim of bringing out new elements. Using the abductive process within this chapter, therefore starting from the facts—understood as the infodemic disorder that afflicted public institutions and citizens during the first period of the Covid-19 pandemic—the evidence is presented. It is therefore a question of inserting the six research into the nested case study. Through the technique of lexical worlds, the views of the crisis have been reconstructed. The chapter also traces the limits of this study by opening new avenues for the analysis of the communication crisis produced by the pandemic.
This essay examines the generative effects of claiming moral failure within a Ukrainian liberal movement for media reform in post‐Maidan, pre‐invasion Ukraine. The reformers wished to reorganize news reporting around the ideals of autonomy, balanced objectivity, impartiality, and corrigibility, which they believed underpinned Western media. They decried most Ukrainian media as failing such standards, highlighting the individual moral failure of journalists bankrolled by oligarchs in return for favourable media representation. In turn, those from whom the reformers tried to distinguish themselves morally mocked them as ‘grant‐eaters’ for their dependence on Western democracy promotion grants. This tussle pitted material success against yearnings for moral and professional probity. Developing Selka's idea of moral distinction, I argue that while the reformers’ pursuit of virtuous difference was sincere, their structural vulnerability vis‐à‐vis the mainstream media also made morality more salient as the basis for agonistic differentiation. Échec et distinction morale dans un lieu d’échange d'idées ukrainien Résumé Le présent essai examine les effets normatifs de l'invocation de la faillite morale dans un mouvement libéral ukrainien pour la réforme des médias, dans la période post‐Maïdan et jusqu’à l'invasion de l'Ukraine. Les réformateurs voulaient réorganiser le journalisme d'information autour des idéaux d'autonomie, d'objectivité équilibrée, d'impartialité et de corrigibilité, sur lesquels ils pensaient que les médias occidentaux étaient fondés. Ils décriaient l'absence de ces principes dans les médias ukrainiens, mettant en lumière la faillite morale de journalistes financés par des oligarques en échange d'une représentation flatteuse. En retour, ceux dont ces réformateurs essayaient de se démarquer se gaussaient de leur « appétit de subventions » et de leur dépendance des fonds occidentaux pour la promotion de la démocratie. Cet affrontement mettait face à face la réussite matérielle, d'un côté, et de l'autre l'aspiration à la probité morale et professionnelle. Développant l'idée de distinction morale proposée par Selka, l'auteur avance que, bien que les réformateurs aient été sincères dans leur recherche d'une différence vertueuse, leur vulnérabilité structurelle vis‐à‐vis des grands médias a aussi contribué à mettre en lumière le rôle de la moralité comme base d'une différenciation agonique.
This paper examined the framing of televised deliberations in selected Ethiopian media, including EBC’s ETV Medrek, FBC’s Zuria Meles and LTV’s Sefiw Mehidar programs. We employed both quantitative and qualitative content analysis as data collection techniques. The study findings revealed that the selected programs dominantly used the responsibility (attribution) frame suggesting solutions and blaming political parties to take responsibility and actions for the problems. The EBC’s ETV Medrek and FBC’s Zuria Meles described Abiy Ahmed positively. But the LTV’s Sefiw Mehidar represented the PM negatively. Overall, the study findings indicated that the ETV Medrek and the Zuria Meles programs proposed solutions as the debaters were from academia, experts and government authorities. However, the LTV’s Sefiw Mehidar debates took positions, as most of the debaters were political partisans who sided with their internal motives.
This article draws upon and contributes to current discussions in the study of conversion, Muslims in Europe, and gender and emotion by taking media productions as an ethnographic starting point for analyzing the subject position of women who converted to Islam. In contemporary Western European contexts, the phenomenon of conversion to Islam evokes various affective responses, including bewilderment, concern, and fear. This article assesses the frames through which female converts to Islam are represented in the media and particularly explores the existing focus on mother and daughter relationships. Based upon an analysis of the emotions named and generated, this article argues that such affective framings contribute to the shaping of the subject position of female converts to Islam. It moreover demonstrates that emotions such as concern, sadness, grief, and fear are the result of, as well as constructively infuse, contemporary debates on religious and cultural diversity in the Netherlands in which Islam and Muslims are considered to pose a “problem” for Europe.
Mediatization has often been viewed as a western phenomenon with scholars focusing largely on the relationship between the media and politics, especially in the United States and Europe where the concept originated. However, globalization and its attendant impacts have allowed for the intercourse of ideas and disciplines across borders. The concept of mediatization is not an exception in this regard. The rise of television news, increased media influence, and dependence on media logic have arguably become a global trend. Mediatization is a perspective that can be used to understand the roles of the media in society and politics, especially electoral campaigns and their dynamics across the world. This paper attempts a review of mediatization and politics in Nigeria. It examines the nature of political news journalism in the country; the character and structure of media ownership; the influence that the media wields on the Nigerian society among other key features that reflect meditatization of politics in the country. The paper argues that indeed, the Nigerian media reveals different dimensions of the mediatization of politics.
Is it helpful, and appropriate, for experts from the North to fly into countries of the Global South to deliver journalism training courses, usually as part of a wider programme of ‘democratisation’? It’s an issue that has long been contested both in development and academic circles. The authors of this chapter, who work together on G&G Media—a media development consultancy—have wide experience of training journalists and leading media projects in the Global South. Over the past twenty years the authors have undertaken media development work in more than 40 countries, many of them in Sub-Saharan Africa. All of the projects have been organised by international NGOs on behalf of Northern donors—either private, national or international. They both have long recognised that their professional experience is from, what has long been seen as almost the universal form of journalism i.e. the Anglo-American model. Much of the formal journalism training in the Global South still uses this model as its ‘ideal type’ but this has been in conflict with the ongoing challenge of the development journalism model. This tension is continuously played out both in the professional and academic spheres. So, in this context, we they reflect on their experiences, some similar, some different and address some of the arguments about the role of Western journalists’ role in media development in the Global South.
This chapter explores the interplay between democracy and journalism in India, the world’s largest democracy, with one of its most complex media systems. With a brief excursion into the historical context, the chapter focuses on the transformation of the Indian news media beginning in the late 1990s, particularly in broadcasting, which has grown from a state-controlled monopoly to a multiplicity of private television news channels. The expansion and consolidation of media corporations have transformed India’s media landscape and significantly affected broadcast journalism. The chapter argues that this marketized, multi-channel television environment is dominated by a scramble for ratings, resulting in news content increasingly taking the form of infotainment. The informational role of television in India, where millions of people still cannot read or write, has been undermined by this market-led journalism and the privatization of television news is eroding the public sphere in the world’s largest democracy.
Introducción: los medios de comunicación utilizan diversos marcos interpretativos (enfoques, frames) a la hora de cubrir los escándalos políticos. En el presente trabajo se estudian dos de ellos -el de ataque y el de defensa- que reflejan de manera clara el posicionamiento político de los medios y su actitud hacia los casos de corrupción política. Metodología: este trabajo realiza un análisis de contenido cuantitativo de la cobertura otorgada por la prensa tradicional y digital española a los escándalos de corrupción ligados a la figura del rey emérito, Juan Carlos I. Se sigue para su análisis el marco teórico completo apuntado por Entman (1993 y 2012) desarrollado empíricamente por Maier et al. (2019). Resultados: los principales resultados muestran que la prensa española enmarcó de forma generalizada el escándalo del rey emérito, sobre todo presentando los hechos desde el enfoque de ataque aunque existen diferencias significativas dependiendo de la cabecera analizada. Discusión: los datos analizados corroboran otras investigaciones internacionales sobre escándalos políticos, aunque la prensa española parece ofrecer enfoques fragmentados más habitualmente que la prensa alemana estudiada por Maier et al. (2019). Conclusiones: finalmente encontramos que, en el caso estudiado, la prensa española, más la tradicional que la digital, sí ofrece un sesgo interpretativo y se polariza.
This article sheds light on the impact of the media on economists' expectations for future economic developments. We conducted a worldwide economic expert survey and find that the media provides most economists with valuable information that influences their expectations. This applies significantly more for economists in countries with long standing democratic systems and developing countries with somewhat flawed democratic institutions than for economists in newer democracies and countries with authoritarian regimes. Moreover, the experts estimate the influence of the media remarkably higher on others than on themselves. This is consistent with the theory of the third‐person effect that says that an individual's behavior is influenced due to the belief that other people find certain issues important and act accordingly.
After a period in which affective polarization—defined here as the difference between positive feelings toward in‐parties and negative out‐party animus—has mostly focused on the single US case, there has recently been an increase in large‐N comparative analyses and single case studies in other countries, including in the Nordic region. This study adds to this by studying and comparing affective polarization in the Nordic countries. In line with what previous comparative and single case studies have already indicated, the results show that affective polarization has tended to be higher in Sweden and Denmark than in Norway, Iceland, and Finland. The article also tracks time trends for the association between ideological distance from parties and affective party evaluations. As expected, placing parties further from oneself on the left‐right scale has been more strongly associated with party affect in Denmark and Sweden. Furthermore, the results show that there are some variations between the countries in terms of how distance from parties on other ideological dimensions than left‐right placement is associated with out‐party affect.
This study explores emerging fact-checking service in China and how it operates in China's context. News articles from Fact Check, the first fact-checker in China, are analyzed in comparison with PolitiFact in the United States (N = 379). Results show that fact-checking in China, in its start-up phase, pursues a weakened form, concentrates on health issues, and avoids discussion of hardcore public issues such as political, economic, and other current affairs. Despite journalists and various specialists making efforts on fact-checking items, it exposes the inadequate, fragmented even distorted journalistic culture in China's fact-checking practice. Further studies can employ qualitative approaches to get insights into how fact-checking practitioners perceive this news genre in authoritarian China at a mesolevel.
This article analyses how objects of investigative journalism challenge journalistic authority and knowledge production from the textual space of their own platforms. Drawing on theories of image repair discourse, legal defense strategies, and socio-moral meaning making, a thematic analysis is used to research how the defenses criticize the investigations, what type of dialogical socio-moral meaning making they initiate, and what challenges that meaning-making poses to journalism. The article identifies three positions vis-à-vis the accusations: disclaiming, mitigating, and character boosting. The positions represent journalism respectively as either malevolent adversary, legitimate censor, or associate moral champion, and the stances criticize investigations for being either wrongful, exaggerated, or a distortion of character. The defenses challenge investigative journalism to substantiate accusations, justify methods, renegotiate guilt, acknowledge the validity of excuses and justification, and give credit for alleged moral qualities. The study ends with a discussion on the importance for journalism to engage seriously with defenses to uphold its role as a just and fair institution of accountability, and as a relevant actor in the construction of societal moral.
Media is one of the platforms for delivering information to an audience. The role of media plays in framing issues is very important when it can impact how an audience thinks. Therefore, this article analyses frame construction by focusing on by-election news. The study using semi-structured interviews with journalists was done to explain how the internal and external factors affecting journalists in the newsroom affected the framing of the by-elections news in Malaysia. The informants for this face-to-face interview are Malaysian media practitioners, print journalists (Utusan Malaysia and Daily News) from different backgrounds, roles, and experiences in political journalism. Three informants from Daily News and three informants from Utusan Malaysia. The interviewer is an experienced journalist who reports on the news of a by-election or general election has been interviewed. The results show that there are internal and external factors that influence journalists in the construction of news frames. However, there is a dominant factor affecting the framing of the by-elections in Malaysia, namely journalist education. Journalist education plays an important role in providing insight into delivering news reports to audiences. Specializing in the field of journalism, it has an impact on news writing as well as brings journalist thinking into the selection of themes, news directions, and resources, although internal organizational factors and external factors influence news production.
Collaborative journalism has drawn mounting interest from both practitioners and researchers over the last decade. Partnerships among news outlets, and between journalists and civil-society groups, have been heralded as ways to leverage digital tools and technologies to produce in-depth, impactful reporting in the face of economic and professional challenges besetting the news industry. While collaboration is widely seen as a way to do more with less, few studies have focused on the mechanisms that allow successful collaborations to overcome competitive friction, particularly at the local level, where resources are most constrained and economic pressures most intense. We used qualitative case-study research, including in-depth interviews (N = 29) with leaders and participants involved with collaborations in three European countries, to examine the ways they minimize competitive friction through their approaches to developing reporting projects, coordinating activities, and distributing benefits in pursuit of producing high-quality local news. We use these findings to propose three ideal types of collaborative practices —here termed the co-op, contractor, and NGO models — which are specific to local news provision and potentially applicable to similar efforts around the world.
Parliamentarians, as political personalities, are also media personalities insofar as political news is very present in the media. The objective of this article is to question the links between the political position, media presence and digital visibility of French deputies elected in 2017. Have the patterns of mediatisation changed with the digital age? What are the relations between the ‘positions’ occupied by political actors in the media as well as in the political and digital spaces in our hybrid media system? Inspired by a Bourdieusian framework, results are presented. They allow us to confirm some conclusions of the current literature and, more importantly, to rethink the process of mediatisation of members of parliament in our networked age.
This article analyses political power's media capture strategies in Spain by addressing the central government's and several regional governments' actions between 2016 and 2021. The policies implemented by parties from across the political spectrum are studied, with similar behaviours that continue to pursue or even reinforce strategies from previous eras being observed. This confirms the trait of strong government interventionism that is typical of Polarised Pluralist media systems. This article specifically takes an in-depth look at control over public media's governing bodies, the fragility of independent regulators, and opaqueness and indicators of instrumentalisation in the management of institutional advertising. The conclusions are of a propositional nature. Potential solutions to the forms of capture highlighted throughout the article are proposed. The legal reform of the General Audiovisual Communication Law—in progress at the time of writing—does not contemplate such solutions.
Football has developed to different degrees in Europe and Asia. Wu Lei, who played for Reial Club Deportiu Espanyol, was the only Chinese footballer in the top five European football leagues from 2019 to 2022. Applying critical discourse analysis, this study examines how Chinese and Spanish news reports have constructed Wu Lei’s identity and represented the political and economic forces that supported Wu Lei in becoming the only Chinese player in La Liga in Spain. The research reveals the same subject was constructed by nationalism in China and Orientalism in Spain. Chinese nationalism is reproduced through the semi-colonial memory of an underdeveloped China and articulated in tandem with neoliberalism. Facing aggressive investments from Chinese private capital, Spanish media reproduced Orientalism by constructing the image of China as an economic hegemon and site of political otherness.
Broadcasting has been a source of controversy in Greece since its beginning. It is not surprising that the deregulation of the broadcasting sector has been closely associated with politics rather than a well-organized plan according to the needs of the industry. The speed with which private broadcasters have moved into the broadcasting arena has been impressive, while politicians seem unwilling (or unable) to bring order to the sector. This article attempts to review and analyse the politics of deregulation of Greek broadcasting and the side-effects of an undisciplined television environment.
This article explores the ways that Greek election campaigns have changed as a result of the development and growing dominance of private television. It sketches some of the reasons behind those changes and discusses the centrality of television in contemporary Greek election campaigning and politics. The main argument is that television has become a significant, if not indispensable, medium for politicians' public communication. Television's importance is the result of both institutional and cultural transformations, namely, the inability of political parties to maintain stable mechanisms for communicating with citizens and the weakening of previously strong partisan identities. A combination of political and media dynamics have therefore created a situation whereby the electronic media, principally television, have become central to contemporary political communication in Greece.
This thesis provides an overview to a series of reforms undertaken at RAI (Radiotelevisione Italiana), the Italian public service broadcasting company between June 1993 and April 1996. The reform process began as a direct result of the collapse of the Christian Democrats and its coalition partners after 45 years of continuous government and was initiated by the centre-left 'Technocrat' government led by the former governor of the Bank of Italy, Carlo Azeglio Ciampi (April 1993 to May 1994); it was also continued by the centre-right Berlusconi government (May 1994 to December 1994) and by the centre-left Dini technocrat government (January 1995 to April 1996). The research aims to focus on two related topics in order to fully explain the broad social, economic and political context within which the reforms took place. Firstly, especial interest wil be given to an historical analysis of public service provision in Italy in the light of the twin pressures coming from the state and market. Historically, these twin pressures have had a detrimental effect on public service broadcasting in Italy. Secondly, the research also focuses on the impact of the reform process on the functioning of public service broadcasting in Italy. It identifies four areas of RAJ's operations which merit special attention: the system of political occupation, the so-called lottizzazione; the internal network system; the devolution of Raitre; and RAI and Fininvest-Mediaset duopoly. This thesis uses a combination of qualitative and quantitative methodologies, including primary and secondary analysis and interviews with key architects of the reform process.
Pierre Bourdieu's recent research on the media offers a valuable although somewhat inconsistent appraisal of what he describes as the 'journalistic field'. The French sociologist applies his main conceptual tools to the media - and more particularly to television - in order to shed light on hidden forms of domination and symbolic violence exercised by television. He emphasizes that market journalism has become a threat to the autonomy of fields endowed with specific rules and capital, such as the academic and the political fields. Bourdieu insists that it is this process that endangers democracy. This article proposes a critical assessment of Bourdieu's sociology of television. Despite a generally sympathetic account, it stresses the epistemological weakness of his work and argues that it is difficult to understand the recent evolution of the French journalistic field - Bourdieu's main case study - without paying more attention to the impact of the political field on the media than Bourdieu does. While ultimately welcoming his stimulating analysis of the overlapping of the political, academic and journalistic fields, the article stresses that Bourdieu's negative diagnosis of television is largely to be explained by his erroneous tackling of 'journalists' as a homogeneous category.
Regardless of one's field of interest within sociology (or social anthropology or social psychology), studies which explicitly and systematically compare data from two or more societies can make distinctive contributions to theory. Four of these contributions are: (1) to broaden the range of variation in variables, thereby requiring theory to explain more than it has heretofore:. (2) to replicate studies done in one society in other, similar societies; (3) to generalize propositions from one type of society to other types of societies; and (4) to specify apparently discrepant findings from different societies by developing new propositions which account for the originally discrepant findings. A number of comparative studies, drawn from the several hundred published since 1950. and distributed through a wide variety of sub-fields of sociology, are codified in terms of these four kinds of contributions that comparative analysis can make to sociological theory.
This article examines Chicago's newspaper ecology between 1880 and 1930, demonstrating that the Chicago newspaper scene was far more complex than generally recognized. A rich variety of specialized and foreign-language newspapers coexisted with the English-language dailies that dominate historians' accounts.
Newspaper reading habits differ over Europe and many reasons have been suggested from climate to newspaper distribution. During the 1980's and 1990's the future position of the European press has been regarded as insecure along with a growing interest for computer-based media. This article draws development trends of newspaper industries in Western Europe from a readership point of view. The approach is comparative: countries are grouped according to newspaper penetration into three newspaper regions and patterns of similarities and differences are analysed. The position of the newspapers among readers are compared with the position of the newspapers among advertisers. The data originate from international statistics on newspaper consumption (FIEJ) and on advertising expenditures (ETA) but also on national reports on newspaper industry structure presented by the European Newspaper Association (ENPA) in 1996. The comparative newspaper penetration analyses show that the differences of newspaper penetration are explained by structural factors like economic and political conditions, by media factors like competition from free sheets but not radio or television, and by newspaper industry strategies regarding product, price, place (distribution) and promotion. The analyses of advertising market shares of newspapers divided Western European countries into three main groups: from newspaper countries with a market share of more than 50% for newspapers over newspaper and television countries with about equal shares, to television countries with more than 50% for television. The advertising market share ranking is a mirror of the newspaper penetration ranking. Even if newspaper penetration seems to be explained by economic, political and socio-cultural trends the newspaper industry can change development trends by changing market strategies. The European newspaper industry is still very strong and there is room for further expansion, interestingly enough also in countries with low newspaper penetration.
This article reports on a study which tries to define types of discursive event produced by the journalistic institution and relate these events to three different sociopolitical and historical situations in Sweden. As well as a strong substantive and historical argument, there is also a methodological argument about the way in which discursive practices have to be analysed at both micro (for example, grammar and word frequency) and macro (for example, text constructions, modes of address) levels in order to be correlated with discursive formations and shifts in the social order. Linguistic, content and sociostructural aspects are brought together to produce three complex time-tableaux, each of which is given synchronic as well as diachronic attention.
This paper tests several factors hypothesized to influence the visibility of the two candidates running for Bundeskanzler at the 1990 German national elections: the incumbent Helmut Kohl and the contender, Oskar Lafontaine. In a survey of the main news bulletins aired during the final seven weeks of the campaign by the major public service channels ARD and ZDF and the leading private channels SAT1 and RTL, type of event emerged as the most powerful determinant of TV attention. In terms of making it into the news both candidates were most successful with typical pseudo-events. Campaign issues had no significant effect on the candidates' appearances on television but the TV channels with their different news styles and policies were sources both of main effects and of interaction effects. The candidates had much more coverage in the bulletins of the public service channels than on private TV. This was superimposed by a resonance effect originating from the different political preferences of the channels which reacted differently to the specific event types which favoured each candidate. The results are interpreted with reference to the idea of a `discretionary power' wielded by either one or the other.
The ongoing process of professionalization and internationalization of electioneering and campaign practices in media-centered democracies is the central topic of this comparative study. Only recently have scholars in the United States begun to study the professional norms and standards of a new power elite: the professional political consultants. Prominent figures of the U.S. political consultancy business have worked as overseas consultants since the 1970s. In the 1980s, they concentrated on Latin America and Western Europe. Since 1989, Russia and the former communist countries of Eastern and Central Europe, as well as newly democratized countries in Asia and Africa, have become competitive marketplaces for American overseas consultants. Between 1998 and 1999, a sample of 502 political consultants and leading party managers in the United States, Australia, New Zealand, India, South Africa, Latin America, Western Europe, Russia, and Eastern Europe were interviewed about their professional experience and their concepts of campaigning, with the main focus on their professional evaluation of various campaign techniques and communication strategies. This article deals with the market-driven proliferation of American campaign techniques from a global perspective.
Laws, judicial actions and privatizations of public firms have come together over the past two years to outline a new Spanish communications policy. Wrapped in a discourse that is paradoxically both neoliberal and deregulatory, this policy is curtailing freedom of expression. The central role in these events of Telefónica, the Spanish telephone company, raises questions of international importance.
In the past few years a considerable amount of literature has appeared concerning talk shows, in particular those with active participation of studio audiences. The evaluation of these shows in the light of their contribution to mediated public debates, varies from praise for presumed postmodern qualities to utter condemnation for their trivialization of everything deemed serious. This article confronts these views with an analysis of Dutch audience discussion shows dealing with racism and a multicultural society. The main question is in what ways do audience discussion shows offer a forum for public debate on racism and a multicultural society in the Netherlands? This question is answered by looking at the numbers of white and ethnic minority participants and the perspectives included in the debates. The article also tries to establish the impact of characteristics of the genre on the debates. The results indicate that talk shows have some potential for offering unexpected, controversial and oppositional perspectives from ethnic minority groups.
GARY C. JACOBSON asserts the 2000 election and its bizarre aftermath in Florida accurately reflected the configuration of partisan politics that crystallized during the Clinton administration: close partisan balance in Congress and in the electorate; distinct regional, cultural, and ideological divisions between the parties' respective electoral coalitions; and a sharp partisan polarization among political elites, echoed, though more faintly, in the broader public. The trends that produced this political configuration predated the 1990s, but they accelerated during the Clinton years, and Clinton himself was a catalyst in their development.