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Media and Information in Times of Crisis: The Case of the COVID-19 Infodemic

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Yossi David at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev
Yossi David
Elisabeth Sommerlad at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz
Elisabeth Sommerlad
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Abstract

Media play an important role in informing the public about issues on the political agenda, different opinions, and public statements, thereby establishing and bringing forth new spaces of information flow. One of the media's main roles in democratic societies is to give publicity to central issues on the political and public agenda, especially in times of crisis. Nevertheless, studies have found that, in times of crisis, the public and the media tend to "rally 'round the flag," leading to significant decreases in their criticality, alongside (almost) unreserved support for nation(al) or region(al) leaders. This paper aims to bridge the gap between both media and communication studies and geography by focusing on the interaction between media, space, and society. It will first address the role of media and information in times of crisis, then discuss the importance and dangers of homogenous (digital and mainstream) media discourses and technologies and offer a conceptual model for the role of media and information in times of crisis. Finally, we will examine the role of media and information during the COVID-19 infodemic and offer questions and directions for future studies.
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Media and Information in Times of Crisis: The Case of the Coronavirus
(COVID-19) Infodemic
Forthcoming in: COVID-19 and Similar Futures: Geographical perspectives, issues and
agendas
Yossi David
Department of Communication
Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz
Elisabeth Sommerlad
Institute of Geography
Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz
Bios
Yossi David is a visiting scholar in the Department of Communication, Johannes Gutenberg
University Mainz, Germany. His current work comparatively tracks the uses and effects of
gendered, racialized, and sexualized language and discourse in the mainstream and digital
media, examining their role in shaping and constructing public opinion and behavior in times
of crises (wars, terrorist attacks, and the COVID-19 pandemic). His research has been
published in journals such as Information, Communication & Society (2020), Discourse &
Society (2019), Media Culture and Society (2018), and Journal of Conflict Resolution (2018).
Elisabeth Sommerlad is a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute of Geography (Human
Geography Team), Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Germany. She studied geography,
communication studies and sociology. Her dissertation on “Intercultural Encounters in
Feature Films” (approved 09/2019) investigates the cinematic staging of intercultural
encounters in U.S.-American movies. Her research focuses on questions of media and film
geography, as well as topics related to spaces and places of intercultural encounters, identity
and belonging, and geographical perspectives on social inequalities. She is managing editor
of the book series Media Geography at Mainz (Steiner).
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Yossi David Department of
Communication, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Jakob-Welder-Weg 12, 55128,
Germany. E-mail: ydavid@uni-mainz.de.
Media and Information in Times of Crisis: The Case of the Coronavirus
(COVID-19) Infodemic
Media play an important role in informing the public about issues on the
political agenda, different opinions, and public statements, thereby establishing
and bringing forth new spaces of information flow. One of the media’s main
roles in democratic societies is to give publicity to central issues on the political
and public agenda, especially in times of crisis. Nevertheless, studies have
found that, in times of crisis, the public and the media tend to “rally ’round the
flag,” leading to significant decreases in their criticality, alongside (almost)
unreserved support for nation(al) or region(al) leaders. This paper aims to
bridge the gap between both media and communication studies and geography
by focusing on the interaction between media, space, and society. It will first
address the role of media and information in times of crisis, then discuss the
importance and dangers of homogenous (digital and mainstream) media
discourses and technologies and offer a conceptual model for the role of media
and information in times of crisis. Finally, we will examine the role of media
and information during the COVID-19 infodemic and offer questions and
directions for future studies.
Keywords: Media and information, public opinion, space, social behavior, crisis, COVID-19,
Coronavirus,
1. Introduction
Media and communication studies is an interdisciplinary field that is founded mainly
in the social sciences. It focuses on the representation, use, and effects of media discourses
and technologies on individuals, groups, and nations in different aspects of everyday life and
crises. The increased popularity and importance of media and communication technologies in
modern life has emphasized the need to study how the media can help us better understand
politics, sociology, culture, economy, psychology, international relations, and geography.
Media and communication geography aims to bridge the gap between both media and
communication studies and geography by focusing on the interaction between media, space,
and society. Media and communication geography focuses on mediated spaces and places, as
well as on space and place components of media itself. It provides a processual perspective
on media and communication as spatial constructions, while at the same time maintaining a
multidimensional perspective on space and spatial mechanisms as both a cause and effect of
communication and mediated communication processes (Adams & Jansson 2012). The
interdisciplinary nature of both fields and the increased popularity of mass media and media
technologies has led to a “spatial turn” in media and communication studies and a “medial
turn” in geography. While geography focuses on the role of spaces and places, media and
communication highlights the role of mediated discourses and technologies.
This interdisciplinary paper will first address the role of media in times of crisis and
the importance and dangers of digital media. Second, we will discuss the role of homogenous
media coverage and public opinion. Finally, we will examine the implications of the role of
media and information during the COVID-19 era.
2. Media and Information in Times of Crisis
Media play an important role in informing the public about issues on the political
agenda, as well as different opinions and public statements. Societal and political
uncertainties during times of crisis enhance the need for information and, as such, increase
the importance of media discourses and technologies. Studies of crises have found an
ethnocentric bias in media coverage (Wolfsfeld et al., 2008) and an increase in negative
emotions and hawkish attitudes in public opinion (David et al., 2018). During stable times,
legacy and new media technologies are used mainly as a source of information (Entman,
2003; Katsabian, forthcoming; Middleton et al.,2013). However, in times of crisis, they may
be (ab)used in order to police, indoctrinate, and intimidate the public. They may even be used
as a weapon (Kampf & Liebes, 2013; Singer & Brooking, 2018).
Media discourses and frames can be used to shape public opinion (Entman, 2003;
Shamir & Shamir, 2000), emotions (David et al., 2018; Powell et al., 2015), and actions
(Antilla, 2010; David, 2020). Previous research has highlighted the importance of legacy and
new media in times of crisis, such as natural disasters (Middleton et al., 2013; Sood et al.,
1987), wars (Powell et al., 2015), and terrorist attacks (Entman, 2003; Kampf & Liebes,
2013; Singer & Brooking, 2018). Some examples include increases in hate speech, sexism,
and xenophobic ideologies, as well as increased support for human rights violations,
perceptions of international relations as a zero-sum game, and ethnocentric perceptions and
actions. During these times, the media and public change their behavior by withholding
disagreement and criticism, tending to “rally ’round the flag,” adhere uncritically to
instructions that governmental and public institutions issue in the name of the common good
(Mueller, 1970). During crises, there is also an increased risk of the media being used as a
weapon (Kampf & Liebes, 2013; Singer & Brooking, 2018).
Ethnocentric bias in time of crises is characterized on the one hand by increased
solidarity towards the in-group, and on the other by increasing hatred, discrimination, and
violence against those who are perceived as out-groups (Wolfsfeld et al., 2008). Ethnocentric
bias lead to a binary perception of the relationship between in-groups and out-groups and to a
categorization of the world in the form of “us” vs. “them.” This perspective is assembled
when existing social constructions, such as gender, race, and ethnicity, lead to an interactive
effect with media and information on emotions, attitudes, and actions. The phenomenon of
“rallying ’round the flag” (Mueller, 1970) has both positive and negative aspects. Some of the
positives include increased empathy toward fellow nation(al) or region(al) residents and
increased solidarity. Among the negative components are an increase in ethnocentrism and a
tendency to ignore the danger of not criticizing the actions and decisions a government takes
that affect its citizens’ and residents’ lives.
The process of weaponizing media discourses and technologies has a long and varied
history (from propaganda and misinformation to cyber-attacks). Media can also serve as a
channel for self-proclaimed—and often populist—counter-media, as well as the spreading of
hatred and intolerance (Baden & Tenenboim-Weinblatt, 2017; Kampf & Liebes, 2013;
Wolfsfeld et al., 2008). New media might be used as a weapon to disseminate
misinformation, spread intimidating and threatening messages, and demoralize opponents
(Singer & Brooking, 2018). The rise of digital technologies and new digital spaces has,
therefore, created and established new channels of information flow. Digital media
technologies themselves might also serve as a weapon, since digitizing civilian and
governmental infrastructure makes those infrastructures more vulnerable to cyber-attacks.
In democratic societies, media often publicize reliable, fact-checked information,
helping people make informed and knowledgeable decisions. This is indeed a crucial
precondition for the functionality of democratic societies. Therefore, two of the key
components for a functional media landscape are a legal anchoring in freedom of the press
and a degree of independence from the state, i.e., ensuring the state does not regulate the
media (and information) via either direct ownership of media channels or indirect regulation
and mechanisms of censorship and control. One possible policy that could undermine these
key components is the declaration of a state of emergency, which reduces human rights (e.g.,
freedom of movement, expression, and the press). Such rules are sometimes officially
enforced through censorship or indirectly by the creation of a conformist climate of opinion
(Shamir & Shamir, 2000) that leads to public self-censorship in the name of the common
good (Antilla, 2010).
Fig. 1 Media and information in times of COVID-19
Building on the abovementioned literature related to the role of media and
information during times of crisis, we propose a conceptual model (see Fig. 1, above) of the
effect that media and information have on public opinion and actions during crises. The
model aims to describe the direct and indirect roles that media, information, and social
constructions play in shaping emotions, attitudes, and actions. We argue that social
constructions influence emotions, attitudes, and actions, which are all intercorrelated. At the
same time, media and information flow moderates or reinforces the intercorrelations between
these different factors. Sociological and psychological processes during times of crisis are
shaped by the intersection of time and space. At the intersection of these framing phenomena,
any crisis that occurs (in our case, COVID-19) influences our actions directly but also
through other factors, emotions, and attitudes. This effect is, in turn, mediated by media and
information flow. We offer this model in order to help launch a scholarly debate on the
effects of media, information, and social constructions on social actions, through emotions
and attitudes.
3. Media and Information During the COVID-19 Infodemic
Often, the effects of media and information on the actions of individuals and groups
are indirect, being carried out through a reinforcement or moderation of existing perceptions,
beliefs, and attitudes. While COVID-19 is a viral disease that does not distinguish between
groups, people from social minorities have lower socioeconomic status, and as such, they
often cannot perform their jobs from home. This is one way that social constructions create
situations in which different groups have different levels of risk of COVID-19 infection.
Individuals’ ability to detect fake news and dis-information is also influenced by social
constructions (e.g., people who adhere to extreme political orientations tend to believe more
in conspiracy theories). Different groups are thus affected differently by both the epidemic
and the associated infodemic.
The COVID-19 pandemic is a health crisis, but it is at the same time a crisis of
information—one which has created an overabundance of information and misinformation
that has in turn constructed a global infodemic. As we suggest in our model (Fig. 1), social
constructions influence actions, emotions, and attitudes. At the same time, media and
information have a reinforcing or moderating influence on the effects of these different
factors. Moreover, the effect of each of the predicators also depends on where it falls on the
COVID-19 timeline (starting with the outbreak of the epidemic) and the space in which it
occurs (e.g., the country, city, or neighborhood).
In the context of the COVID-19 infodemic, we have witnessed various attempts by
both democratic and authoritarian regimes to increase control over the flow of media and
information and to control information regarding the spread of the virus. One important
function of the media was to act as mouthpieces for the governmental and public institutions
that issued declarations of states of emergency, which resulted in additional regulations
limiting press freedom and freedom in general. These enforced restrictions on the media have
been met with, among other things, allegations of fake news, public risk, and censorship.
The effect of “rallying ’round the flag” was ubiquitous during the outbreak and spread
of COVID-19 and manifested in the form of journalists and media outlets deciding to be
responsible and thus support the measures announced by governments and health
organizations worldwide. This decision led to media homogeneity and an overwhelming
media support for governmental and health organizations’ regulations around the world (e.g.,
in Germany, Israel, and Sweden). As in previous crises, the overwhelming and full-throated
support offered by different media outlets led to the successful implementation of
government and health organizations’ instructions related to the COVID-19 pandemic. This
support may have a positive influence, as it has helped prevent the spread of the virus, save
lives, and increase solidarity within the in-group. Nonetheless, it also has negative effects,
since it encourages ethnocentrism, discrimination, xenophobia, and hatred towards out-
groups. A prominent example is the stereotyping of and discrimination against ethnic
minorities (e.g., people identified as “Chinese-looking”), gender minorities (e.g., LGBT
individuals, who have been denigrated in some countries for spreading the virus), and a zero-
sum game perception of international relations.
Relatedly, there have been further violations of human rights during the COVID-19
infodemic. The implementation and use of technologies to slow down the spread of COVID-
19 by tracking, monitoring, and mapping citizens’ movements, for example, might lead to
human rights violations. This highlights the legal and ethical questions related to the
conditions under which it is (im)possible to use such tracking technologies, and how we can
prevent human rights violations caused by the misuse or abuse of these technologies. We
critically ask: What kind of regulations are needed in order to prevent the (ab)use of media
and information to violate human rights? How does the knowledge that such monitoring
technologies exist affect self-discipline, social and political behavior, and spatial practices?
Which measures are needed to prevent the use of monitoring technologies for other purposes,
such as the detection of undocumented immigrants or the criminalization of minorities?
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  • Dec 2023
This study aimed to examine the relationship between digital media use and maternal health care utilization among young pregnant mothers in Kenya. Using a mixed methods approach combining questionnaires and focus group discussions (FGDs), data were collected from pregnant women and new mothers aged 19–35 years in Nairobi. Using Microsoft Excel Data Analysis ToolPak Ver. 2016, primary data were statistically analyzed, while FGD data were subjected to thematic analysis and narrative interpretation. Findings revealed that 88% of participants preferred internet searches for information, 92% used different digital media during pregnancy, 56% used pregnancy apps, and 9% abstained from digital media for maternal health information. The study concludes that, in addition to the continued importance of traditional sources of information, digital media have a significant impact on the use of maternal health services. It recommends that health care providers actively usedigital media, especially apps, as educational tools to disseminate reliable information to young pregnant women and new mothers in Kenya. It also recommends that planners and policymakers incorporate digital media into maternal health interventions to increase their effectiveness.
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... According to generally accepted interpretations, media are means of communication or tools used to store, transmit, and deliver information or data from one object to another (Paul & Rai, 2021;Metzgar et al., 2011). Throughout the entire period of existence of this phenomenon, the essence and content of the concept were transformed, but the idea remained unchanged: communicating information in the most convenient and profitable way (David & Sommerlad, 2020). The Law of Ukraine "On Media" (2022) interprets the concept of media as a means of distributing mass information in any form, which is periodically or regularly published under editorial control and a permanent title as an individualising feature. ...
Trends in media development in Ukraine: Social communication and legal aspects
Article
Full-text available
  • Sep 2023
Globalisation and the development of new trends lead to the emergence of innovative tools for influencing the public; today, such tools are the mass media. Media is an important element of interaction between the authorities and society in the context of forming the necessary opinion on events and phenomena occurring in a particular historical period. The purpose of the study is to investigate the features and specifics of the functioning of mass media in Ukraine by examining the social communication and legal aspects of media activity in a historical context. The main method of research was the system and analytical method, by which the key characteristics and basic signs of the dynamics of the formation and development of Ukrainian media are considered, the specifics of the process of media influence on public opinion in Ukraine are outlined, and the prospects for the development of the direction in the future are presented. The essence and content of the concept of mass media, the history of its origin and general global trends in the development of the direction were analysed. The characteristic features of the transformation of the media sphere in independent Ukraine are identified, and the basic features and trends of the main types of media are summarised. The level and intensity of influence of certain media tools on public opinion in Ukraine were investigated. Based on the results obtained, the prospects for the evolution of mass media in Ukraine in the future are outlined; the main threats and challenges to further development in the context of the transformation of the social and communication sphere of social development are listed. The results and conclusions of this study can be used as a basis for future research on the presented topic, in particular, in the specialities “Sociology”, “Economics”, “Law”, as well as during the development and implementation of the legal framework in the field of regulating media activities in the social and cultural life of the state.
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... To these; (Geeng, Yee, & Roesner, 2020), (Alcott, Gentzkow, & Yu, 2019), (Cinelli, ve diğerleri, 2020), (Moravec, Minas, & Dennis, 2018), (Talwar, Dhir, Kaur, Zafar, & Alrasheedy, 2019), (Gottlieb & Dyer, 2020) and (Meinert, Mirbabaie, Dungs, & Aker, 2016) When we look at the current studies in the literature on the Covid-19 pandemic and disinformation, different categories are seen. These studies can be grouped as follows: digital and traditional media; ; (Andreu, 2020), (David & Sommerlad, 2021), (Tunez-Lopez, Vaz-Alvarez, & Fieiras-Ceide, 2020), (Güz, Seden Meral, Bozkurt, & Durmaz, 2021), (Akyüz, 2020), (Çelik, 2020), (Topsakal, 2021) social media; ; (Cinelli, ve diğerleri, 2020), (Al-Zaman, 2021), (Shani, Dirkson, & Majchrza, 2021), (Röchert, ve diğerleri, 2021), (Al-Rakhami & Al-Amri, 2020), (Kouzy, ve diğerleri, 2020), (Islam, ve diğerleri, 2020), (Hossain, ve diğerleri, 2020), (Tasnim, Hossain, & Mazumder, 2020), (Soğukdere & Öztunç, 2020), (Ateş & Baran, 2020), (Çerçi, Canöz, & Canöz, 2020) content types; , (Sanchez & Pascual, 2020), Covid-19 vaccine topics (Savolainen & Reijo, 2021), (Loomba, Figueiredo, Piatek, Graaf, & Larson, 2021), (Marco-Franco, Pita-Barros, Vivas-Orts, Gonzales-de-Julian, & Vivas-Consuelo, 2021). ...
Fake News Pandemic: Fake News And False Information About Covid-19 and An Analysis on Fact- Checking from Turkey in Sample Teyit.org
Article
Full-text available
  • Jan 2022
As in all crisis periods, eyes have turned to both mass media and social media platforms in the period of COVID-19. Misinformation about the spread of the disease, preventive measures and treatment methods can leave much deeper effects than the false news seen in other periods and cause the pandemic to spread further and seriously affect public health. Therefore, the COVID-19 pandemic becomes even more dangerous with the fake and false news pandemic, which is effective on a global scale, and the need for news validation activities and the organizations that carry out this process increases. In this study, fact-checking activities carried out by Teyit which continued to work as a member of the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN) in Turkey, during the pandemi period were discussed. In the study, when compared to the same time period in 2018 in Turkey, the number of suspects examined by Teyit in the first three months of the year 2020 has been shown to increase. In addition, it was determined that the policy category, which ranks first in the questionable content type that has been passed through the fact-checking process, has been replaced by the health category.
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... order to impose social distancing in the population, it tends to have a disproportionately negative impact on academic learning over time, with half of students affected worldwide [1]. This reality has left a poor impression on digital learning (countries used television, radio, online platforms, and take-home packages [2]) as inequalities have increased as a result of the digital divide [3,4], but more importantly, due to the lack of an education expert where many responsibilities and tasks were imposed on parents [5]. In order to prevent future scenarios, it is important to focus on methods that guarantee autonomous learning trough interaction with digital expert tutors able to monitor the learning process efficiently to mitigate learning loss. ...
Computer-assisted instruction versus inquiry-based learning: The importance of working memory capacity
Article
Full-text available
The Covid-19 pandemic has led millions of students worldwide to intensify their use of digital education. This massive change is not reflected by the scant scientific research on the effectiveness of methods relying on digital learning compared to other innovative and more popular methods involving face-to-face interactions. Here, we tested the effectiveness of computer-assisted instruction (CAI) in Science and Technology compared to inquiry-based learning (IBL), another modern method which, however, requires students to interact with each other in the classroom. Our research also considered socio-cognitive factors–working memory (WM), socioeconomic status (SES), and academic self-concept (ASC)–known to predict academic performance but usually ignored in research on IBL and CAI. Five hundred and nine middle-school students, a fairly high sample size compared with relevant studies, received either IBL or CAI for a period varying from four to ten weeks prior to the Covid-19 events. After controlling for students’ prior knowledge and socio-cognitive factors, multilevel modelling showed that CAI was more effective than IBL. Although CAI-related benefits were stable across students’ SES and ASC, they were particularly pronounced for those with higher WM capacity. While indicating the need to adapt CAI for students with poorer WM, these findings further justify the use of CAI both in normal times (without excluding other methods) and during pandemic episodes.
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Infotainment During Pandemic: An Analysis of Gidan Badamasi Television Drama of Arewa 24
Article
  • Jan 2021
Media is central in the matrix of communication exchange between people and authorities, especially in the time of unplanned and unexpected crises like the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper investigates the use of infotainment to educate the public about COVID-19 by a leading Hausa language television station Arewa 24 through one of its prominent weekly drama series Gidan Badamasi (“House of Badamasi”). Specifically, this paper analyses how the producer of Gidan Badamasi presented the non-pharmaceutical COVID-19 preventive protocols as outlined by the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) in two specially produced episodes on COVID-19 and aired intermittently on the Arewa 24 Television Station. In its conclusion, the paper acknowledges the display of creativity in presenting the protocols to families and businesses.
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Queer Safe Spaces and Communication
Article
Full-text available
  • Sep 2022
Historically, organizations and individuals have (un)consciously produced safe spaces out of various backgrounds and in myriad ways. Specifically, queer safe spaces represent a significant construct within queer discourses and practices that articulate the need for physical, psychological, rhetoric, virtual, and imagined safety. In this context, safety means being protected from heteronormative and patriarchal violence that shapes the everyday lives and subjectivities of queer and LGBT+ individuals in public and private spaces. Whether these are offline, online, physical, or educational settings, queer safe spaces are defined as relational and deliberative spaces in which unsafety cannot be completely undone. Queer safe spaces then provide refuge for activism, social and personal transformation, facilitation thereof for productive spaces of dialogue, and identity construction. Even though the term “queer safe space” is commonly used, it remains undertheorized and no comprehensive understanding of queer safe spaces, their social role, or the practices involved in producing them exists. This article therefore defines queer safe spaces by encompassing the use of a critical perspective to foreground their qualities and fallacies as well as their inherent dilemmas and contradictions.
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A Clearer Picture: The Contribution of Visuals and Text to Framing Effects
Article
Full-text available
  • Nov 2015
  • J COMMUN
Visuals in news media help define, or frame issues, but less is known about how they influence opinions and behavior. The authors use an experiment to present image and text exemplars of frames from war and conflict news in isolation and in image-text congruent and incongruent pairs. Results show that, when presented alone, images generate stronger framing effects on opinions and behavioral intentions than text. When images and text are presented together, as in a typical news report, the frame carried by the text influences opinions regardless of the accompanying image, whereas the frame carried by the image drives behavioral intentions irrespective of the linked text. These effects are explained by the salience enhancing and emotional consequences of visuals.
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Real-Time Crisis Mapping of Natural Disasters Using Social Media
Article
Full-text available
  • Mar 2014
The proposed social media crisis mapping platform for natural disasters uses locations from gazetteer, street map, and volunteered geographic information (VGI) sources for areas at risk of disaster and matches them to geoparsed real-time tweet data streams. The authors use statistical analysis to generate real-time crisis maps. Geoparsing results are benchmarked against existing published work and evaluated across multilingual datasets. Two case studies compare five-day tweet crisis maps to official post-event impact assessment from the US National Geospatial Agency (NGA), compiled from verified satellite and aerial imagery sources.
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It’s the End of Working Time as We Know It: New Challenges to the Concept of Working Time in the Digital Reality
Article
  • Jan 2020
This article strives to unpack the concept of labour time in the digital reality. It does so by exploring the apparent gap between de jure notions of work and rest times, especially in Canada, and the way that people conduct their work time de facto given the technological advancements that enable them to work from a distance. These recent challenges to the notion of working time have led to two main proposals of regulation. The first aims to return to the classical concept of working time and to restrict the working schedule. The other aims to celebrate the new technological capabilities to conduct work anytime and anyplace and disregards the dominant role of time in labour law. This article argues that these opposing models provide only partial solutions and both suffer from crucial deficiencies: they either ignore the dramatic changes in the world introduced by digital technology, or worse, they ignore the basic idea and purposes of labour rights. Based on this struggle between labour law and technology, this article suggests a new paradigm for working time regulation—one which brings together the logic and structure of the new flexible online world with the basic principles of labour rights. This article thereby proposes default rules that provide basic protection to the employee and retain the idea that employees should be compensated for their actual working time and enjoy genuine rest time during the workday. This protection is enabled through the format and logic of information communication technology. At the same time, this article suggests that the default rules will also enable the parties to negotiate and agree on the financial value of additional working hours, in a way that takes into account the new possibilities of the digital age along with the purposes of labour rights.
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Public opinion, media and activism: the differentiating role of media use and perceptions of public opinion on political behaviour
Article
  • Jan 2021
To what extent do perceptions of public opinion effect individual support and political participation in political action? To what extent might media use moderate the role of public opinion in predicting political participation in the digital age? This study investigates these questions by analysing unique data from an experiment and a representative survey designed and conducted at the height of the summer 2011 protests in Israel. This study offers a new analytical model for studying activism by independently and simultaneously examining the direct and indirect effects of perceptions of majority support, individual support and media use on political behaviour. The experimental results suggest that perceptions of public opinion and media use did affect participation in the 2011 social movement. Specifically, increased perception of majority support for the movement led to increased rates of participation. Moreover, media use was inconsequential among those respondents who perceived that a majority of the public supported the protest. Digital media had a moderate effect on the association between perceptions and support for the protest movement, but there was no such effect with respect to mainstream media use. The findings provide new empirical insight into the effects of perceptions of public opinion and media use on political behaviour. In doing so, they help to explain the development of mass protest movements in the digital age and especially the potential effect of perceptions and media use in promoting the evolution of social movements as well as involvement in collective action in the digital age.
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The search for common ground in conflict news research: Comparing the coverage of six current conflicts in domestic and international media over time
Article
  • Apr 2017
In its search for media influences in violent conflict, most existing scholarship has investigated the coverage of specific, salient conflict events. Media have been shown to focus on violence, sidelining concerns of reconciliation and disengaging rapidly as time proceeds. Studies have documented ethnocentric bias and self-reinforcing media hypes, which have been linked to escalation and radicalization. However, based on the existing studies, it remains hard to gauge if the unearthed patterns of media coverage are generally pervasive or limited to a few salient moments, specific conflicts or contexts. Likewise, we cannot say if different kinds of media apply similar styles of conflict coverage, or if their coverage is subject to specific contextual or outlet-specific factors. In this article, the authors compare the contents of both domestic and foreign opinion-leading media coverage across six selected conflicts over a time range of 4 to 10 years. They conduct a diachronic, comparative analysis of 3,700 semantic concepts raised in almost 900,000 news texts from 66 different news media. Based on this analysis, they trace when and to what extent each outlet focuses its attention on the conflict, highlights specific aspects (notably, violence and suffering, negotiations and peaceful solutions), and presents relevant in- and out-groups, applying different kinds of evaluation. The analysis generally corroborates the media’s tendency to cover conflict in an event-oriented, violence-focused and ethnocentric manner, both during routine periods and – exacerbated merely by degrees – during major escalation. At the same time, the analysis highlights important differences in the strength and appearance of these patterns, and points to recurrent contingencies that can be tied to the specific contextual factors and general journalistic logics shaping the coverage.
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Gender-empathic Constructions, Empathy, and Support for Compromise in Intractable Conflict
Article
  • Apr 2017
The goal of the present study was to investigate how empathy and gender-empathic constructions affect the levels of support for political compromise in an intractable conflict. Gender-empathic constructions relate to perceptions that individuals hold about self or others as having feminine-empathic gender traits. We hypothesized that empathy will be positively associated with support for compromise, but that perceiving one’s own group as feminine empathic will be negatively associated with such attitudes, with empathy being a significant mediator. Data were collected through a public opinion survey conducted with a representative sample of Israeli-Jewish adults (N = 511). The findings supported our hypotheses, thus indicating that perceiving one’s own group as having feminine-empathic traits and empathy toward opponents made significant contributions to explaining Jewish-Israeli willingness to compromise with Palestinians. The implications of our findings for understanding the role of gender-empathic constructions and of empathy in conflict resolution are discussed.
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Presidential Popularity From Truman to Johnson
Article
  • Mar 1970
I think [my grandchildren] will be proud of two things. What I did for the Negro and seeing it through in Vietnam for all of Asia. The Negro cost me 15 points in the polls and Vietnam cost me 20. Lyndon B. Johnson With tenacious regularity over the last two and a half decades the Gallup Poll has posed to its cross-section samples of the American public the following query, “Do you approve or disapprove of the way (the incumbent) is handling his job as President?” The responses to this curious question form an index known as “Presidential popularity.” According to Richard Neustadt, the index is “widely taken to approximate reality” in Washington and reports about its behavior are “very widely read” there, including, the quotation above would suggest, the highest circles. Plotted over time, the index forms probably the longest continuous trend line in polling history. This study seeks to analyze the behavior of this line for the period from the beginning of the Truman administration in 1945 to the end of the Johnson administration in January 1969 during which time the popularity question was asked some 300 times. Four variables are used as predictors of a President's popularity. These include a measure of the length of time the incumbent has been in office as well as variables which attempt to estimate the influence on his rating of major international events, economic slump and war. To assess the independent impact of each of these variables as they interact in association with Presidential popularity, multiple regression analysis is used as the basic analytic technique.
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Communication Geography: A Bridge Between Disciplines
Article
  • Aug 2012
  • COMMUN THEOR
We call for a fundamental restructuring of research paradigms in geography and media/communication studies to form a bridge between core concerns of the 2 disciplines. This endeavor responds to contemporary historical changes: mediated/mediatized mobility, technological convergence, interactivity, new communication interfaces, and the automation of surveillance. Long-standing concern with a set of issues we call representations, textures, structures, and connections provides a foundation for this interdisciplinary bridge. Integrating these concerns would produce a semi autonomous field, manifested through collaborations between geographers and media theorists.
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Transforming Media Coverage of Violent Conflicts: The New Face of War
Book
  • Sep 2013
Transforming Media Coverage of Violent Conflicts offers a fresh view of contemporary violent conflicts, suggesting an explanation to the dramatic changes in the ways in which war and terror are covered by Western media. It argues that viewers around the globe follow violent events, literally and metaphorically, on "wide" and "flat" screens, in "high-definition". The "wide-screen" means that at present the screen is wide enough to include new actors - terrorists, 'enemy' leaders, ordinary people in a range of roles, and journalists in the field - who have gained status of the kind that in the past was exclusive to editors, army generals and governmental actors. The "high-definition" metaphor means that the eye of the camera closes in on both traditional and new actors, probing their emotions, experiences and beliefs in ways that were irrelevant in past conflicts. The "flat-screen" metaphor stands for the consequences of the two former phenomena, leading to a loss of the hierarchy of the meanings of war. Paradoxically, the better the quality of viewing, the less the understanding of what we see. Through these metaphors, Kampf and Liebes systematically analyse changes in the practices, technologies, infrastructures and external institutional relationships of journalism.
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