Making Sense of Media and Politics: Five Principles in Political Communication
... Bahkan para politisi berusaha keras untuk menarik perhatian wartawan agar aktivitas politik mereka diliput oleh media (Perloff, 2021;Wolfsfeld, 2022). Kedua, tingkah laku dan pernyataan para aktor politik seringkali menjadi subjek berita meskipun peristiwa politik yang diliput adalah kegiatan biasa sehingga setiap hari pemberitaan politik menghiasi berbagai media (J. ...
... Pada pemberitaan Prabowo Gibran terlihat adanya bias ideologi pemilik untuk memasukkan propaganda pihak tertentu dengan tujuan komersil (Hall, 2018;Perloff, 2021;Wolfsfeld, 2022 ...
... Media adalah tempat seseorang memperoleh informasi mengenai realita politik, bingkai yang disajikan media akan mempengaruhi pembaca dalam menafsirkan peristiwa. Biasanya peristiwa politik dikemas lebih dramatis sehingga mudah untuk mempengaruhi pandangan khalayak(Hall, 2018;Perloff, 2021;Wolfsfeld, 2022). Hal ini terjadi pada pembingkaian yang dilakukan Radar Semarang terhadap kandidat Prabowo Gibran. ...
Latar Belakang: Pilpres 2024 memicu banyak polemik di kalangan masyarakat. Majunya Gibran sebagai cawapres mendamping Prabowo dinilai tidak etis. Pasalnya berdasarkan putusan MK 141/PUU-XXI/2023, Gibran tidak memenuhi syarat usia minimal. Bukan bertindak sebagaimana mestinya, Radar Semarang justru menjadi wadah kandidat 02 untuk berkampanye dalam bentuk produk jurnalistik. Tujuan: Tujuan penelitian ini untuk mengetahui framing yang dibangun media online Radar Semarang pada pemberitaan Prabowo Gibran. Metode: Analisis yang digunakan adalah konsep framing Robert Entman melalui empat perangkat analisis yaitu define problem, diagnose causes, make moral judgement, dan treatment recommendation. Penelitian ini menggunakan pendekatan kualitatif dengan paradigma konstruktivistik. Teknik pengumpulan data dimulai pada tanggal 2-31 Januari 2024. Periode tersebut dipilih karena mendekati masa akhir sekaligus masa tenang kampanye Pilpres 2024. Setelah melalui seleksi data, terpilih 19 artikel. Hasil: Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa pembingkaian berita yang dilakukan media online Radar Semarang terhadap isu pemilihan presiden dan wakil presiden Prabowo Gibran menunjukkan adanya keberpihakan. Keberpihakan dapat dilihat dari dominasi Prabowo Gibran pada berita pilpres 2024, penekanan terhadap judul maupun isi berita yang mengarah pada kesan baik, penggunaan metafora yang cenderung menjatuhkan kandidat lawan, menampilkan fakta yang dikehendaki media juga memasukan propaganda kepentingan beberapa pihak. Dari sisi jurnalistik, wartawan belum menerapkan prinsip cover both side dalam membuat produk jurnalistik. Hal ini menyebabkan peran Radar Semarang sebagai arus komunikasi politik tidak berjalan dengan baik. Radar Semarang berusaha menjadi wadah membangun citra bagi Prabowo Gibran untuk berkampanye demi memperoleh dukungan suara. Oleh karenanya, konstruksi realitas yang dilakukan Radar Semarang mampu menggiring opini publik.
... Even without overt censorship, informal power relations can limit public access to information vital to critical analyses, political action, and the maintenance of civil society. Sometimes, media organizations develop a professional culture that accepts and relays the views of high government officials (Gans, 1979;Schudson, 2008;Wolfsfeld, 2011). When this happens, journalists have turned political power into media power, giving powerful political actors first priority and positive news coverage. ...
... When this happens, journalists have turned political power into media power, giving powerful political actors first priority and positive news coverage. By contrast, weak political actors, such as unpopular opposition political parties, receive low media attention and negative coverage (Schudson 2008, Wolfsfeld 2011. Moreover, when power translates into access to the news media, it affects the circulation of news to urban and rural areas. ...
... Moreover, when power translates into access to the news media, it affects the circulation of news to urban and rural areas. In this case, news generally comes from the richest and more populated towns (Wolfsfeld, 2011). In more problematic situations, the dissemination of news may be so selective and biased that the media can be accused of manipulation and propaganda (Herman & Chomsky, 1988). ...
This study assessed TBC1 2015 Presidential Election news coverage. The study used the specific objectives firstly, to assess the extent TBC1 coverage of CCM and UKAWA 2015 Presidential candidates, secondly to examine TBC1 news tones coverage of CCM and UKAWA 2015 presidential candidate and lastly, to find out types of TBC1 news coverage of CCM and UKAWA 2015 Presidential candidates. This research applied concurrent mixed research methods to collect and analyze both qualitative and quantitative data. The study examined news content in 448 news bullets aired in months of the election campaign from August to October 2015. The results showed that there is biasness in the TBC1 news coverage as ruling part, CCM received wide coverage and UKAWA Presidential candidate received lower coverage in all items including news frequency, news length, news placement and news tones. The general findings demonstrated that CCM candidate received 1,700 % equivalent to 75% while UKAWA candidate received only 566 news, which is 25% of news frequencies for both candidates. The findings showed that the agenda-setting effect of journalism reflects the interests of media owners (McCombs & Shaw, 1972). Unbalanced media coverage affects political candidate’s especial opposition party. The findings suggest that there is a need to reform the policies and regulations informing electoral coverage to ensure a more balanced portrayal of all presidential candidates as it stated in the National Elections Act, 1995 Cap. 343 (URT, 2015).
... Nyhedsmedier (Mortensen, 2013a). Journalister på nyhedsmedier beskrives sjaeldent som neutrale eller objektive budbringere men derimod som selvstaendige aktører med betydning for udviklingen af (potentielle) problemsituationer (Cook, 2005;Wolfsfeld, 2011). ...
... Udvaelgelsen af nyheder sker desuden på baggrund af moralske og professionelle normer for god journalistik (Wolfsfeld, 2011). Nogle journalister ser sig selv som den fjerde statsmagt, der holder øje med landets politiske ledelse og antager rollen som befolkningens advokat eller vagthund. ...
... Forklaringen kan vaere, at ministerudtalelser haever problemsagers nyhedsvaerdi ved at højne deres vaesentlighed, sensationsvaerdi og måske konfliktniveau (Wolfsfeld, 2011). Dette argument underbygges af, at sager, hvor ministre fremstilles som vaerende skyldige fra starten, får signifikant flere omtaler end andre sager (model 2). ...
Hvis en regering ønsker genvalg, er det afgørende, at dens ministre forstår det politiske spil. En central del af dette spil er spillet om skyldsunddragelse. Her kan ministre benytte forskellige spinstrategier. Spørgsmålet er, hvilke spinstrategier ministrene anvender, samt hvor effektive strategierne er. Dette undersøges ved at sammenligne seks danske ministres anvendelse af spinstrategier baseret på indholdskodning af 1412 artikler fra Politiken. Analyserne viser, at trods ændringer i hvilke strategier ministrene benytter, er anvendelsen af spinstrategier ikke øget de seneste tyve år. Mest effektiv er anvendelsen af én spinstrategi, næstmest effektivt er passivitet, og værst er det at kombinere flere spinstrategier. Endelig er hurtig respons hverken mere eller mindre effektiv end langsom.
... Studies of Lewis (2022) and Engelbert et al. (2022) suggest that politicians with clear and engaging sentence structures are more likely to foster a sense of trust and openness among followers, which in turn enhances audience interaction and promotes transparency in governance. Politicians who adopt a straightforward style, characterized by shorter sentences and simplified language, tend to attract higher engagement, suggesting that sentence structure plays a crucial role in public reception and credibility, particularly on social media (Wolfsfeld, 2022;Sahly et al., 2019). Effective political communication relies on an engaging and accessible tone, with sentence structures that resonate with diverse audiences (Perloff, 2021;Wolfsfeld, 2022). ...
... Politicians who adopt a straightforward style, characterized by shorter sentences and simplified language, tend to attract higher engagement, suggesting that sentence structure plays a crucial role in public reception and credibility, particularly on social media (Wolfsfeld, 2022;Sahly et al., 2019). Effective political communication relies on an engaging and accessible tone, with sentence structures that resonate with diverse audiences (Perloff, 2021;Wolfsfeld, 2022). Hence, there should be a balance between formality and informality, for example on social media with successful posts often using simple, dynamic sentence structures to maintain audience interest (Ikrambayevna, 2020;Calude, 2023). ...
This study examines sentence structures of Chomsky and communication styles of male and female senators through Tannen’s Genderlect Theory. The research reveals that male senators predominantly use simple sentences (26 occurrences), complex sentences (14 occurrences), and compound sentences (7 occurrences). In contrast, female senators favor varied structure, including compound-complex sentences (7 occurrences), simple sentences (23 occurrences), complex sentences (6 occurrences), and compound sentences (5 occurrences). Furthermore, the frequencies of Genderlect styles in male and female senators reveal distinct communication. The Information vs. Feelings is the most frequently occurring category, with a total of 111 occurrences. Furthermore, the Conflict vs. Compromise follows, with a total of 50 occurrences. In the Status vs. Support, female senators recorded 10 occurrences compared to six occurrences among male senators. A similar trend is observed in Advice vs. Understanding where female senators registered seven occurrences, significantly higher than the one occurrence among male senators. In addition, the Orders vs. Proposals shows a relatively balanced distribution, with six occurrences among male senators and four among female senators. Lastly, Independence vs. Intimacy recorded the least number of occurrences, with only one instance, observed in male senators. The findings reveal that both genders adjust their linguistic choices based on political context, demonstrating flexibility in communication strategies. The study concludes that gender significantly influences discourse patterns, with male senators prioritizing assertiveness and status assertion, while female senators emphasize inclusivity and engagement. Future research should explore how these linguistic differences affect public perception, media representation, and policy outcomes in political communication.
... Studies addressing protests and the media have thus far characterized the relationship between journalists and protest activists as "competitive symbiosis" since protestors need media for wide exposure, and the media needs a certain type of protest image-dramatic and provocative. Within these relationships, the legacy media usually had the upper hand due to its control over the means of information dissemination, and the protests could reach the media interest only through the back door-violence and provocation (Wolfsfeld, 2011). This common form of coverage has been defined as the protest paradigm. ...
This study examines the evolving relationship between online media coverage and protest movements by analyzing year-long demonstrations in Israel against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Through comprehensive qualitative thematic analysis and content analyses of 219 online newspaper articles from five major Israeli newspapers; 324 social media posts across Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter; and 9 semi-structured interviews with protest leaders, this research identifies a gradual paradigm shift in protest representation in online media. The findings reveal a transition from the traditional “protest paradigm”—which frames protests as violent and remote through warlike discourse and visual distancing—toward an emerging “our protest paradigm”, characterized by rhetorical and visual proximity to protesters. This new paradigm manifests through personal testimonies in mainstream media and portrait photography on social media platforms, both creating a sense of closeness and accountability. The study further reveals a significant disconnect between protest leaders’ perceptions and legacy media, as leaders increasingly view traditional media as irrelevant despite their advisers’ recommendations to engage with it. Using polysystem theory as a theoretical framework, this research demonstrates how two media systems—legacy media and social media—operate with epistemological rigidity, challenging the previously established notion of “competitive symbiosis” between protesters and journalists. This investigation offers a novel analytical perspective through the lens of distance, illuminating how changing dynamics in online information transfer are reshaping protest coverage and production. The resulting paradigm model explains the coexistence of two simultaneous protest paradigms and provides valuable insights into the contemporary relationship between social movements, legacy media, and digital platforms in an evolving media ecosystem.
... Researchers Davis [1] and Wolfsfeld [2] focused on studying political communication in the context of global crises. Thus, Davis concentrated on highlighting the aspects of a successful political speech and the principles of expanding the target audience of politicians. ...
Introduction: The article examines the place of communication and broadcasting in today's political conflicts and draws attention to their impact on society. At the same time, political speech, social mobilisation, and affective polarisation are singled out as three essential aspects of the impact of political communication on society. Objectives: The article aims to examine the place of communication and broadcasting in today's political conflicts, emphasizing their impact on society. The objective is to understand how media and political speech shape the public's perception of conflicts, as well as how these forms of communication affect societal engagement and economic change. Methods: The first part of the study reflects how the media and the style of political speech influence the public's understanding of political conflicts. At the same time, the second part of the paper presents the results of the impact of political communication on affective polarisation and social mobilisation. The third part of the study focused on political conflicts as catalysts for economic change. Results: According to this, it was determined that the main trends in the reflection of political conflicts in the media are a decrease in the content load in speeches, the use of emotional narratives, and an increase in influence on voters by demonstrating a strategy for future actions. The Coleman-Liau case study found that political speeches of the last 50 years are less complex in form and content, making it easier for voters to understand the essence of the message. However, the quality of political speeches has declined significantly. According to the results, citizens are mobilised to increase their political engagement mainly through social media. This can be explained by the fact that social media allow for the public display of information and, simultaneously, grouping voters into specific categories. This revealed that such conflicts impact the decline in sales of certain goods, the refusal of buyers to use certain goods, and a decrease in tourist flows in certain areas. In addition, it was determined that the study's novelty lies in the study of political speech and communication comprehensively, and thus their impact on society. At the same time, the study was limited to clear regional zones and a specific period for data analysis.
... Omitting these issues, which we manipulated experimentally, would have further limited the information available to respondents and expanded the number of experimental conditions from 12 to 27, making reliable statistical inferences impractical. Our experimental design, simulating typical media coverage, focuses on significant changes rather than unchanged aspects of the status quo (Wolfsfeld, 2011). Additionally, most municipalities maintain good credit ratings. ...
This study investigates how information about municipal credit ratings influences voters' evaluations of incumbent mayors. Through an original survey experiment, we assess the impact of credit rating downgrades and crime rate increases on citizens' perceptions of mayoral performance. Our findings reveal that information on both issues significantly affects voters' evaluations, with negative news about public finance and crime rates leading to decreased support for incumbents. Notably, the effects of credit downgrades are nearly as substantial as those of crime increases despite public finance being a more complex and less salient issue. Additionally, we observe that voters with varying political knowledge respond similarly to changes in municipal credit ratings, suggesting that such information serves as a useful heuristic in local elections. Our study underscores the importance of accessible financial information in promoting accountability in local governance.
... Pemerintah dan aktor politik perlu menggunakan berbagai saluran komunikasi untuk mengedukasi masyarakat tentang dampak negatif dari pengelolaan sampah yang buruk, sekaligus memperkenalkan kebijakan dan program yang bertujuan untuk mengatasi masalah ini. Selain itu, komunikasi politik dapat digunakan untuk membangun konsensus sosial yang lebih luas tentang pentingnya menjaga lingkungan serta mendorong penerapan kebijakan pengelolaan sampah yang efektif (Wolfsfeld, 2022). ...
Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk menganalisis peran komunikasi politik dalam kampanye kebijakan pengelolaan sampah di Indonesia, mengingat pentingnya pengelolaan sampah dalam menghadapi tantangan lingkungan. Di tengah meningkatnya perhatian terhadap isu sampah dan keberlanjutan, komunikasi politik menjadi instrumen vital dalam menyebarkan informasi, mengubah sikap, serta mendorong partisipasi masyarakat dalam kebijakan pengelolaan sampah. Namun, tantangan sosial, budaya, dan infrastruktur sering kali menghambat efektivitas kampanye ini, sehingga diperlukan analisis mendalam mengenai strategi komunikasi yang telah diterapkan. Penelitian ini menggunakan metode kualitatif dengan pendekatan studi literatur. Data dikumpulkan dari berbagai sumber sekunder, termasuk jurnal ilmiah, laporan pemerintah, regulasi terkait pengelolaan sampah, dan artikel media. Studi ini menganalisis berbagai strategi komunikasi politik yang digunakan oleh pemerintah dan aktor politik dalam mengampanyekan kebijakan pengelolaan sampah, serta mengevaluasi tantangan dan solusi yang ada. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa komunikasi politik berperan penting dalam meningkatkan kesadaran dan partisipasi masyarakat terhadap kebijakan pengelolaan sampah. Namun, implementasinya menghadapi kendala seperti rendahnya kesadaran masyarakat, lemahnya penegakan hukum, dan kurangnya infrastruktur. Kesimpulannya, keberhasilan kampanye komunikasi politik dalam pengelolaan sampah memerlukan strategi yang inklusif, berkelanjutan, serta kolaborasi lintas sektor antara pemerintah, swasta, dan masyarakat untuk mencapai perubahan perilaku yang signifikan dan berkelanjutan.
... To examine this association more closely and over time, we will investigate features of personalization from political communication in journalistic war/conflict reporting. Other scholars of war/conflict reporting, for example, have already pointed to a dominant focus on elite orientation in journalistic coverage (Lawrence, 2010;Wolfsfeld, 2022). ...
The study compares communication patterns of German political journalists with correspondents assigned in covering Russia/Ukraine regarding the ongoing Russo-Ukrainian War discourse on Twitter (now "X"). During the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, Twitter has been an important platform for (European) politicians, journalists, and other stakeholders to share their views on the war. In general, journalists differ largely in terms of Twitter activity and in posting individual contributions. This comparative research delves into the analysis of journalistic communication in 4,460 tweets, focusing on war and peace journalism framing. The study also investigates the personalization characteristics present in these tweets, considering individual-level influences through the hierarchy of influence model. Specifically, the work employs both peace journalism theoretical framework and the hierarchy of influence model to scrutinize the communication strategies of German political journalists and correspondents covering Russia/Ukraine on Twitter amidst the ongoing Russo-Ukrainian War discourse. So far, both approaches have not been combined for the analysis of conflict and war communication in social media. We tracked journalistic tweets for five months from September 2022 to February 2023. Our content analysis shows that within the journalistic contributions a peace journalism framework dominates. More than three-quarters of the tweets contain an expression of opinion and around one-third evaluations. Personalization characteristics of politicians are present in almost one-quarter of the tweets.
... As defined by Heywood (Johnson & Williams, 2020), political leadership encompasses behaviour patterns influencing group goals, personal qualities like charisma, and political values such as mobilizing through moral authority or ideology. Burns (Liao et al., 2021;Wolfsfeld, 2022) further describes it as driven by personal drive, social influence, political motivations, and career structure. Essential competencies include communication, teamwork, creative problem-solving, interpersonal skills, self-direction, team leadership, and conflict management. ...
Public trust in the legislature has waned due to society's failure to recognize skilled political leaders despite high self-efficacy among many legislative members. Recently, it has been suggested that many legislators have too much self-efficacy, which affects their performance and political leadership. This study examines the impact of self-efficacy on political leadership and performance in the Lamongan Regional Representatives Council (DPRD) for 2019-2024. Conducted quantitatively with a sample of 200 Lamongan DPRD members, data was collected via questionnaires and analyzed using Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) with LISREL 8.50 software. Findings indicate a significant positive relationship between self-efficacy and political leadership, confirming the first hypothesis. However, contrary to the second hypothesis, self-efficacy showed a negative and insignificant impact on members' performance. These results highlight the complex role of self-efficacy in political leadership versus performance among DPRD members in Lamongan during the 2019-2024 period.
... They employ every available method to win. In such scenarios, media serves as a powerful tool (Talbot, 2007;Wolfsfeld, 2022). Therefore, it is worthwhile to examine media narratives and their role in generating crises and conflicts, particularly from an ideological standpoint, as they have significant consequences. ...
... This statement is particularly true when the parties involved do not want to engage into brazen warfare. The use of media has now gained ground as one of the viable options to win the hearts of global supporters (Talbot, 2007:3;Wolfsfeld, 2022). This study finds the rationale through various standpoints to analyse the media narratives, especially in the Arab world on the functions they play in prevailing crises and obvious conflicts that are grounded on ideologies in the region as well as the consequences of these occurrences. ...
... In this regard, political scientists Clore and Huntsinger [43] emphasized the importance of creating a public atmosphere because people who lack political knowledge or information generally make vague judgments that negatively afect political participation. Terefore, it is necessary to refer to research results that show a high correlation between political interest in social issues or efcacy and political participation in political science research [44][45][46]. Meanwhile, nurse activists pointed out the environmental factors of shift work, lack of nursing staf, and gender issues, which are consistent with previous studies suggesting heavy workload, time constraints [10,11,26,28,33,36], and male-centered gender issues [13,26,28,33,36]. ...
Background
Nurses, who comprise the largest proportion of healthcare professionals, must advocate for public health in a changing healthcare environment. Therefore, nurses have a social responsibility to be interested in politics, political participation, or healthcare policy interventions as leaders in healthcare policy reforms. However, previous research has reported that nurses' political interests and participation are insufficient in most countries.
Aim
This study systematically reviewed and synthesized qualitative data to identify the barriers and facilitators influencing nurses' political participation and healthcare policy interventions.
Methods
This study performed a systematic review and qualitative meta-synthesis. Literature searches were conducted using seven databases to comprehensively examine published journals, including doctoral dissertations, until December 31, 2023. The selection criteria for this study were articles analyzed using phenomenology, ethnography, qualitative research, and grounded theory, targeting nurses with extensive experience in healthcare policy intervention and political activities. Two researchers, professors in nursing with extensive experience in healthcare policy interventions and qualitative research screened the qualitative studies and extracted the data. Eighteen papers were analyzed, and the quality of each study was evaluated using the Critical Appraisal Skills Program Qualitative Checklist. Meta-ethnography was applied as the qualitative meta-synthesis method using ATLAS. ti.
Results
Barriers include nurses' lack of political interest and competence, nursing education, restrictive organizational cultures, and the nursing profession's political activities. Facilitators include recognizing social responsibilities, enhancing political competence, innovating organizational environments, and strengthening nursing organizations' political activities and policy interventions.
Conclusions
This study could be used as data to enhance nurses' political participation and to plan policy interventions and strategies. Implication for Nursing Management. To activate nurses' political participation in the future, it is necessary to develop strategies, such as developing nursing political education programs and expanding opportunities for policy intervention.
... This change has often been characterized as a process of mediatization where news media have become more central and decisive for peoples' understanding of politics and consequently with greater potential power to influence voter behavior (Mazzolini & Schulz, 1999;Asp, 2014). Second, and given the assumed importance of news media, the debate about media bias in political reporting has raised questions around news media potentials to influence the outcome of elections, (Wolfsfeld, 2011;Kreiss & McGregor, 2022). ...
The study explores the perspectives of political parties regarding news media coverage in election campaigns. By analyzing official post-election analyses produced by Swedish political parties from 2010 to 2022, the study offers a novel approach to the study of political party views of news media. The findings largely support the arguments proposed by mediatization literature, highlighting the significance of media in party communication. Parties display eager-ness to attract positive media attention while expressing regret over inadequate or negative publicity. More surprisingly, there is a lack of references to media bias in the reports, suggesting that the hostile media effect is not a major concern among Swedish parties. Despite criticisms related to irrelevant reporting and perceived negative coverage, party perceptions towards the media remains predominantly neutral. The study contributes to the understanding of the complex relationship between political parties and news media in the context of election campaigns.
... Furthermore, the importance of political leadership (institutional attributes) in news media coverage of elected leaders is not new in political communication literature, only that the current evidence comes from pictorial coverage, which is an under-researched area. Numerous studies demonstrate that politicians who hold highly regarded positions in governance architecture attract significant media coverage (Vos, 2013(Vos, , 2016Wagner & Gruszczynski, 2017;Wolfsfeld, 2011). For instance, analyzing a 20-year coverage of the U.S. Congress, Wagner and Gruszczynski (2017) reported that party leadership and committee chairs predicted media visibility. ...
Content analyzing 491 photographs, the present research explores whether noninstitutional characteristics (gender, ethnic group size, and seniority) and institutional attributes (party size and political leadership) predicted newspapers’ pictorial coverage of 349 Kenyan members of Parliament (MPs) between 2013 and 2017. Findings indicate that political leadership was the overall predictor of the MPs’ photographic coverage. The implications of these are also discussed.
... Stories of victimization have powerful effects on audience empathy and support for the victimized (Knightley 2004), especially when they include visual images, due to their strong affective appeal and sense of realness (Hoskins and O'Loughlin 2010;O'Loughlin 2011). Such effects translate to international support, from sympathetic public opinion to formal resolutions and sanctions (Wolfsfeld 2022;Yarchi and Ayalon 2023). Image considerations can dissuade powerful actors from using their military capabilities (Roger 2013). ...
... Adanlawo and Reddy (2020) suggest that this communicative dimension of politics leads to the practices of political communication, which incorporate all forms of communication undertaken by politicians and other political actors for the purpose of achieving specific objectives. According to Wolfsfeld (2022) and De Wet (2010), politicians gain power mostly as a result of their ability to persuade people and political elites. As a result, the primary characteristics of all languages are shared by the language of political persuasion. ...
This study investigated the discursive strategies used in major speeches in South Africa with distinct socio-political systems, which put nation-building in a central place, making the nation both the context and an analytical unit for the study of nation-building. The research question that needed to be answered was: to what extent does a presidential speech, as a tool, reflect South Africa’s nation-building objectives? This study specifically examined various discursive techniques used in the political language of former President Thabo Mbeki. Two speeches by former President Thabo Mbeki were collected from the GCIS website. A general textual description of the speeches is made in terms of lexis and syntax to uncover the underlying ideology in the speeches. Thematic content analysis was adopted. The analysis was predominantly qualitative, supported by some statistical data, on the assumption that a purely qualitative analysis would not necessarily yield reliable results. The occurrence of linguistic features was presented; each text was transcribed and marked for relevant linguistic features. The critical discourse analysis revealed that, on a macro-level, the text of the speeches can be viewed as a manifestation of larger socio-political processes within the country. The texts illustrate a type of political speech positioned in a society in transition, as there are references to building a cohesive society, policy implementation, new programs of government, job creation, and poverty alleviation. The speeches did serve as a nation-building tool, as they conveyed the steps undertaken by the South African government to strive towards an inclusive and all-encompassing approach in an effort to achieve nation-building.
... Por outro lado, executou uma intensa estratégia de aproximação aos cidadãos, permitindo às televisões o acesso a conteúdos visualmente apelativos. Ao criar condições para os media contarem boas histórias (Wolfsfeld, 2022), Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa reforçou o seu domínio do espaço público. ...
Nesta pesquisa procuramos saber até que ponto, o Presidente da República (PR), Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, no primeiro mandato, foi um dos protagonistas das notícias nos canais de televisão generalista em sinal aberto e quais as razões que explicam esse facto. Assim, procedemos a uma análise quantitativa da presença do PR nos blocos informativos da RTP1, RTP2, SIC e TVI, ao longo dos 5 anos, em termos de número e tempo das notícias. Posteriormente, realizámos entrevistas a todos os jornalistas que, nesse período, foram Diretores de Informação das televisões. Concluímos que o PR foi o ator político principal das notícias televisivas nos primeiros três anos do seu mandato e, o segundo, nos dois anos finais, apenas atrás do Primeiro-ministro. Apresentamos um modelo assente em 3 vetores; pessoal, político e mediático – que explica o domínio da arena informativa televisiva do PR pela forma como se afirmou nestes três eixos.
... After all, media attention strongly follows power (e.g. Habermas, 1991;Wolfsfeld, 2011). The more powerful a policy level becomes, the greater its news value (and thus, the more it should be covered). ...
The functioning of Belgium relies on the power-sharing of Flemish and Francophone
politicians. As this collaboration often proves to be particularly hard, the governability of Belgium and the feasibility of power-sharing is regularly questioned. In this respect, observers and scholars typically point towards the impact of the decentralization reforms that transformed Belgium into a peculiar federation. Decentralization is often promoted as a tool for conflict management, but according to the ‘paradox of federalism’, it might exacerbate tensions and undermine stability. As the debate goes on, a solid empirical view on the ethno-territorial clashes that burden everyday power-sharing is yet to be presented. This doctoral dissertation aims to address this lacuna. It sheds unprecedented light on over 1,000 cabinet conflicts in Belgium (1979-2018). Studying their characteristics, evolutions, outcomes, and several conflict determinants, two questions are tackled. (1) How did the ethno-territorial conflict in Belgian power-sharing cabinets evolve? (2) And how did decentralization impact this conflict? The results disprove the paradox thesis on all levels. There are fewer ethno-territorial clashes than in the past, the ones that still arise have a friendlier face, the pacification trends are statistically related to decentralization, and hollowing out the central level did not burden the process of conflict resolution in the long run. In making sense of these results, the author provides some counterweight to conventional views on bipolar federalism, the political incentives in split party systems, and the idea that the Belgian federal level has been emptied to a problematic degree.
... Furthermore, the importance of political leadership (institutional attributes) in news media coverage of elected leaders is not new in political communication literature, only that the current evidence comes from pictorial coverage, which is an under-researched area. Numerous studies demonstrate that politicians who hold highly regarded positions in governance architecture attract significant media coverage (Vos, 2013(Vos, , 2016Wagner & Gruszczynski, 2017;Wolfsfeld, 2011). For instance, analyzing a 20-year coverage of the U.S. Congress, Wagner and Gruszczynski (2017) reported that party leadership and committee chairs predicted media visibility. ...
Content analyzing 491 photographs, the present research explores whether noninstitutional characteristics (gender, ethnic group size, and seniority) and institutional attributes (party size and political leadership) predicted newspapers’ pictorial coverage of 349 Kenyan members of Parliament (MPs) between 2013 and 2017. Findings indicate that political leadership was the overall predictor of the MPs’ photographic coverage. The implications of these are also discussed.
... • The most significant impact of the news media on citizens tends to be unintentional and unnoticed (Wolfsfeld, 2011). ...
Political communication refers to a process in which that process the political discourses, then are the essential characteristics of politics, affect the attitudes and behaviors of voters. Political actors try to convey their messages toward public through various communication channels in the effort of political communication process. Political advertisements are one of the most essential and effective political communication methods. The television commercials are widely used in the political communication process and are accepted as to be one of the most effective tools in political communication. This study examines both the ruling AK Party's and the main opposition party CHP's television commercials, which competed against each other to be ruling party in the 12 June 2011 General Elections in Turkey. The method for analyses is the advertising analysis model introduced by Rutherford (1996) in his book "New Icons: The Art of Advertising on Television". The model bases on aspects of “Meanings, Aesthetics, Structure, Metaphors and Images, Binary Logic, Cultural References, Symbols and Ideology”. The voters' opinions about the election are subject to change affected by the media and the propaganda activities of the political parties during the election periods. Based on the analyisis on commercials, both commercials use a positive and a unifying language in it. Ruling AK Party’s advertisement shows people wearing local clothes from various age groups. Thus, it aims to create an emotional bond between the party and the potential voters. On the other hand, CHP’s commercials give the message around unity and solidarity also yet it framed in a pessimistic manner. That commercial, portrays the
opposition leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu as he meets the public and appears as a solution to the problems. So that way, it follows a strategy to create a bond between the voter and the leader.
... This deference may be due to the fact that the Abu Ghraib scandal was essentially a foreign policy issue. It is established that governments dominate in this area (Hallin 1986, Robinson 2001, Wolfsfeld 2011). Governments may even produce "pseudo events" (Daniel Boorstin quoted in Livingston & Bennett 2003, pp. ...
Do media influence policy making? To what extent can governments or other actors manipulate this influence? Our understanding of the relationship between media and policy making remains limited, as separate research agendas look at parts of the puzzle in public policy, political communication, and related fields. This article tries to bridge these divides, to show how knowledge from different fields may be complementary, and to point to shortcomings and blind spots in existing research. By bringing different strands together, I show that media, old and new, are the main arena for the battle over the scope of policy conflict. The review discusses different factors determining or influencing media coverage of and influence on policy making, before looking at how governments and administrations deal with media coverage of policy making. I explore how ongoing changes in the media landscape are likely to affect the media–policy making nexus. The final section presents future research directions.
Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Political Science, Volume 25 is May 2022. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.
Political communication can be defined as strategic communication with the aim of influencing the perceptions and attitudes of the target audience. Voters need information about the candidates they intend to support and election campaigns allow voters to share their opinions, suggestions and thoughts with politicians. During these periods, political parties tend to use mass media and digital media to provide voters with the information they may need. Today, TikTok as an important platform in the digital political communication process, it plays a critical role for politicians to interact with the target audience and shape public perception. This role also attracted attention during the United States of America (USA) presidential elections held on November 5, 2024. In this context, in this study, which focuses on the digital political communication process in the 2024 US Presidential Elections, the emotional distribution of public perception towards the Republican Party candidate Donald Trump and Democratic Party candidate Kamala Harris, who competed in the election, was analyzed through the sentiment analysis method based on the comments made on the TikTok posts of the candidates. According to the research findings, comments on Donald Trump's posts are characterized by a positive emotional tone. However, deeper and more lasting interactions, such as feelings of support and loyalty and social/contextual comments, were observed to be limited. Although the comments on Kamala Harris are largely positive, the low level of loyalty and commitment of her supporters is noteworthy. As a noteworthy finding, it was observed that Trump supporters were more likely to comment with loyalty and commitment than Kamala Harris supporters. In conclusion, the social media interactions of both candidates provide a view of the emotional states of their supporters and how they interact in the social context.
Local elected leaders make decisions that affect service delivery and quality of life. But budgetary constraints mean that cities cannot indefinitely expand and improve services. Maintaining fiscal balance may be prudent, but doing so can impair service delivery. How are elected officials incentivized to make those trade-offs? Do voters actually care about the financial health of their city government? This research examines these questions in two ways. First, it uses data on elections, local finance, and the political environment in 44 large city governments to demonstrate a relationship between signals of financial health and voter support for incumbents in local elections. Second, it tests those findings using an experimental design that manipulates two dimensions of the political environment, crime rate, and financial health via credit rating. Both demonstrate that voters in local elections hold elected officials accountable for changes in financial health.
У статті проаналізовано зміст та завдання політичної комунікації. Обґрунтовано, що ментальність та політичні традиції мають суттєвий вплив на зміст й ефективність сучасних політичних комунікацій, оскільки відображають історичний досвід державотворення, взаємодії між владою і народом, визначають рівень довіри між учасниками комунікації, суспільні настрої (симпатії/ антипатії) та прагнення, особливості сприйняття інформації, маркери її важливості (насамперед, це стосується актуальних історично чутливих дискусійних тем), схильність громадян до певних форм політичної участі тощо. Досліджено й обґрунтовано особливості ментальності та політичних традицій українського суспільства, які доцільно враховувати при вибудові сучасних політичних комунікацій, здійсненні взаємодії між громадянами та політичними інститутами, суб’єктами політики різних рівнів: слабкість раціонального компоненту й високий рівень емоційного сприйняття інформації та прийняття рішень значної частини українського суспільства; низький рівень довіри до влади, політичних інститутів, політиків; високу чутливість до соціальних проблем (бідність, нерівність, зловживання владою); місцеві традиції та регіональні відмінності; патерналістичні настрої, досить високий рівень толерування корупції та зловживань владою, комплекс меншовартості (насамперед у старших поколінь, пов’язаних з перебуванням у складі СРСР); популярність харизматичних лідерів з популістичними гаслами й обіцянками та ін. Після повномасштабної військової агресії рф на масовому рівні простежується глибокий патріотизм українців, бажання зберегти національну ідентичність, власну державність у поєднанні з мужністю та відвагою захищати Батьківщину, продовжуючи традиції козацької боротьби, воїнів УПА, усіх, хто боровся за незалежність та самобутність Української держави.
The rapidly changing global security environment necessitates a reassessment of the concept of total defense, in which, the society plays a key role alongside the Lithuanian Armed Forces and allied forces in collective defense. Many modern threats to state security, such as information warfare, target the public’s will to resist. As a response, civil resistance has emerged as a critical tool to address these challenges. Its essential components include resilience, civic will, and knowledge with practical skills. Recognizing the growing importance of civil resistance, the Republic of Lithuania’s Strategy for Preparing Citizens for Civil Resistance was approved in September 2023. Coordinated by the Ministry of National Defense, this strategy aims to equip the public with the necessary information and tools to foster societal readiness. Lithuania’s historical examples of successful civil resistance serve as valuable references for shaping communication strategies to engage the public. In the field of security studies, civil resistance is a prominent research topic, analyzed as a vital element of the security policy. A key issue arises how the Ministry of National Defense, as the primary coordinator of civil resistance efforts, leverages the advertising campaign strategies to effectively implement the strategy’s goals and how it engages society in collective defense.
Bilgisayar sistemleri ve dijital teknolojinin kullanıma başlamasından sonra kitle iletişiminde köklü bir değişim yaşanmıştır. Dijital teknolojinin sağladığı imkânlar gazetecilik, sinema ve reklamcılık gibi iletişim alanlarının da dönüşmesine ve gelişmesine imkân sağlamaktadır. İletişim teknolojileri son yıllarda hızla gelişmekte geleneksel medya yerini hızlı bir şekilde sosyal medya-ya bırakmaktadır. Özellikle son on yılda akıllı telefonların yaygınlaşması ile beraber sosyal medya uygulamaları hem gelişmekte hem de çeşitlenmektedir. Aynı zamanda sosyal medya araçlarını kullanan kişi sayısı da hızla yükselmektedir. İşte bu artış ile beraber sosyal medyanın etkisi, gelişimi, avantajı ve dezavantajı gibi konular araştırmacıların dikkatini çekmiştir.
Bu kitap çalışması, sosyal medyanın getirdiği yenilik ve etkisini disiplinlerarası tartışmayı hedeflemektedir. Bu kitapta, gazetecilik, medya, sağlık iletişimi, siyasal iletişim, halkla ilişkiler, tanıtım, sinema gibi farklı alanlardan sosyal medya çalışmaları ele alınırken aynı zamanda sosyal medyanın getirdiği yenilikler, yeni sosyal medya araçları, sosyal medyanın etkileri gibi konular da ele alınmıştır. Bu bağlamda “Disiplinlerarası Yaklaşımla Sosyal Medya” kitabı sizlere, farklı disiplinlerden bir perspektifle sosyal medyaya yönelik bütünlükçü bir okuma fırsatı sunmaktadır.
La reciente literatura sobre Comunicación Política enfatiza en la digitalización de todos los aspectos de la infraestructura social, institucional y técnica de la comunicación pública, así como la deslegitimación de los antiguos flujos autorizados de información que conformaban las agendas públicas, la desprofesionalización del periodismo y la confrontación de las instituciones democráticas por los intereses comerciales, los grupos populistas y las intervenciones disruptivas externas. El artículo desarrolla argumentos sobre estas problemáticas y propone una ilustración de la transformación del objeto de estudio de la Comunicación Política, la subversión de su racionalidad normativa e interpretativa, la complejidad generada por la digitalización y las redes sociales, así como los retos culturales e institucionales para las democracias liberales. Un objetivo importante es subrayar como el nuevo sistema de medios híbridos, especialmente, la infraestructura digital, produce una esfera pública disonante caracterizada por la implosión de voces contestarias y la desconexión social, y en esta emergente pluralidad de espacios híbridos -interpersonales y en redes sociales-, se producen las expresiones de una nueva cultura cívica perfomativa, caracterizada por la visualidad, la fugacidad, el intimismo, el carácter lúdico, la sátira y la afectividad. El potencial disruptivo de estas nuevas condiciones tecnológicas y culturales favorece la emergencia de nuevos cleavages y líneas de conflictos que acentúan el déficits de representación de los partidos políticos tradicionales y los exitosos liderazgos y partidos populistas.
O artigo discute o papel da mídia na carreira política de Guilherme Boulos. O modo como ele conseguiu acumular “capital midiático”, que se voltou ao âmbito político, é o foco do estudo de caso, que utiliza informações da literatura, dados de coberturas noticiosas e artigos opinativos de Boulos publicados em um jornal de referência (Folha de S.Paulo), bem como informações sobre o uso feito por ele de mídias digitais (aspecto no qual é feita comparação com outros agentes). O estudo demonstra que o acúmulo de capital midiático se deu de maneira paulatina, relacionando-se a aspectos do capital social e cultural que Boulos possuía. Também é notável que ele soube se inserir na mídia hegemônica e utilizar meios digitais próprios para confrontar representações negativas.
Humanitarian aid is often accompanied by broad media coverage. In academic research, there is a dominant bias toward Western studies on the topic. Following studies that emphasize the negative role of autocratic regimes using their media to frame threats as an intra‐state diversionary strategy, this study contributes to our understating of how autocratic regimes use the media and illuminates how they employ a diversionary benevolent strategy in the media through framing humanitarian activities. We illustrate this theory by using the case of media strategy models used by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) that frame its provision of humanitarian aid to global and national audiences. The empirical approach is based on an analysis of 263 articles from four leading Saudi newspapers published online in English and Arabic. The result indicates that the KSA encourages two different diversionary benevolent strategies. The first strategy is aimed at increasing the KSAs international community prestige, focusing on mediatization that depicts its alliance with global efforts while employing “threat” strategy towards its adversaries. The second strategy is aimed mainly at Saudi nationals with the purpose of increasing their support of the royal family.
در مقاله حاضر چهارچوبی نظری به نام اصل «سیاست-رسانه-سیاست» تشریح میشود. هدف این اصل، فراهم آوردن بنیادی مفهومی است که بر اساس آن، روشی جامع برای شرح نقش رسانههای خبری در فرآیندهای سیاسی دولتها ایجاد شود. اصل سیاست-رسانه-سیاست بر اساس دو ادعای محوری بنا شده است. نخست اینکه، به خوبی میتوان نقش رسانهها را در فرآیندهای سیاسی، بهصورت چرخهای درک کرد که در آن، نوسانات در محیط سیاسی یک دولت به نوسانات در جریان رسانهای منجر شده و این امر متعاقباً موجب نوسانات بیشتر در محیط سیاسی میشود. دوم، رسانهها با توجه به تواناییشان برای تبدیل واقعیتهای سیاسی به روایتهای خبری (که برخی مواقع تأثیر به سزایی بر روی نتایج سیاسی دارند) میتوانند نقشی مستقل در پروسههای سیاسی داشته باشند. این بحث به سه بخش عمده تقسیم میشود. در بخش نخست، برخی از نظریههای مهم ارتباطات سیاسی بررسی شده که درواقع اصول مبنایی اصل سیاست-رسانه-سیاست هستند. در بخش دوم، از یافتههای محدوده متنوعی از مطالعات استفاده شده تا سودمندی این اصل را تشرح شود. در نهایت در بخش سوم این مقاله برخی استثنائات این اصل بیان شده است
The article presents the results of a study of the influence of social media on the information privileges of political elites. In the ―Introduction‖ section, the author substantiates the relevance of the topic and problem of his research. In his opinion, it is determined by the rapid development of social media, which have become a tool of various political actors who use them to achieve various goals. With the development of social media, political elites face new difficulties in exercising information privileges, but at the same time receive new opportunities for information dominance. The study of the information privileges of political elites is becoming even more relevant in the context of an information war. In the section ―Materials and research methods‖ the author characterizes the empirical and methodological bases of his research. The first includes reports and reports from various research organizations, regulations, etc. The second includes the classical theory of elites, the modern theory of political communication and the modern theory of mediatization of politics. In the ―Literature Review,‖ the author systematizes publications related to the topic and problem of their research. He identifies three groups of works: 1) works that examine the interaction of elites with the mass media, their communication activity and strategies for mastering the information space; 2) works whose authors analyze the influence of social media on the political process; 3) works in which social media are correlated with such an important political science category as the political regime. In the ―Research results and their discussion‖ section, the author formulates a definition of information privileges, understanding them as priority access to the media space, which provides significant opportunities in the field of information dominance. He argues that, firstly, social media acts as a factor preventing political elites from exercising information privileges, because imply practices that contradict elite models of managing society, and secondly, that in order to realize information privileges and maintain their socio-political status in general, political elites are currently using two ―reactive‖ and one ―proactive‖ strategies. The author emphasizes that in conditions of political crises, through social media, the opposition is trying to eliminate the communication monopoly of political elites. The authors also point out that in the ―post-truth‖world, political elites receive new opportunities to exercise their information privileges. However, ―post-truth‖ circulating in the space of social media also determines the formation of opposition centers of information gravity. Using the latest data, he comes to the conclusion that the hybrid war unleashed against Russia involves the involvement of existing and the formation of new hostile centers of information gravity, the key task of which is precisely to undermine the information dominance of the Russian elite, and then to create and manage internal crises, in destabilizing the political regime in the country. In the ―Conclusion‖ section, the author summarizes his research, briefly listing the results obtained.
Political communication refers to developing and exchanging political ideas and opinions among the general public, elected officials, political parties and affiliated organisations like the media. Recent years have seen an enormous amount of literature in the area of political communication owing to the growing interest of academics in the subject. Using the R package bibliometrix and the Visualisation of Similarities viewer programme, this study aims to enhance graphical mapping of the bibliographic data for political communication publications in select countries of Asia. The results show that, especially since 2016, scholars have been paying more and more attention to the study of political communication in the age of fake news, hyperpolarization, etc. They also show that research publications on the topics of communication, China, Taiwan, India, the USA, social media, articles, politics, the internet, decision-making, democracy, governance and elections are gaining momentum in recent years. Additionally, the findings show that the top three nations for publishing articles on political communication are the USA, China and Russia. The findings also reveal that even scholars from non-democratic or less democratic countries have made substantial attempts to improve political communication studies, despite the fact that political communication is one of the most crucial components in democratic countries.
Since the September 11 attacks, security issues have been embedded in the media routines of the world's mainstream media reporting on international affairs. This way of dealing with, managing and exposing information to the public is easily visible when the media report on the development of armed conflicts. In other words, several authors argue that there is a phenomenon of media securitization. Likewise, no one doubts that the information dimension of war conflicts has played an important role in their evolution. However, if we go to the specialized literature, we find two well-differentiated approaches. On the one hand, research framed within political communication, with a strong empirical component, which address issues such as the dehumanization of victims, the demonization of political leaders or the concordance between media discourses. And, on the other hand, works of international relations and strategic studies that pose information as a strategic entity on which one of the pillars of the relative power of state and non-state actors is based. However, it is still necessary to develop more applied studies with multidisciplinary theoretical frameworks in which both research areas converge. Therefore, the general objective of this doctoral thesis is to analyze whether this securitization process is also present within the Spanish media system. Specifically, this research aims to: (i) study and compare the incidence of security and human drama frames in reference newspapers in Spain; (ii) compare the use of frames in the media with different editorial lines and divergent ideological currents to clarify whether the ideology of the medium is a determining variable; (iii) explore whether the media securitization process is also identifiable within the so-called new media (specifically Twitter and YouTube); (iv) compare traditional media coverage with alternative media. The selected case studies represent some of the armed conflicts that have attracted the most media attention in the Spanish press in recent years: The civil conflict in Yemen (2015-2019), the war in the Donbass (2015-2019), the dynamics of violence within the Palestinian- Israeli conflict (2000-2019), the war in Syria (2011-2020), the Resolute Support Mission in Afghanistan (2015-2020), the war between Armenia and Azerbaijan over Nagorno- Karabakh (2020) and the Libyan conflict (2018-2020). To achieve the different specific objectives and hypotheses, a multidisciplinary theoretical framework has been designed based on the postulates of framing theories (political communication) and the premises of the Copenhagen School (international relations). Regarding the methodological design, automated processing models have been used, specifically the supervised model SVM (Vector Support Machines) and the unsupervised model LDA (Latent Dirichlet Allocation). In short, techniques of the socalled Natural Language Processing. This doctoral thesis aims, in turn, to incorporate the use of computational science into the studies of media and conflicts, that are giving such good results in other areas of the social sciences. The main findings indicate that the security frame is predominant within the media routines of the Spanish media; leaving the news that refers to humanitarian issues in a very secondary place. Therefore, we can establish that the Spanish press has undergone a process of securitization when it reports on war. Likewise, it has been detected that the editorial line of the medium is not a determining variable in any case study except in the case of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Also, it is evident how this securitization is rooted within other communication channels (YouTube and Twitter) and how the use of frames allows to establish if there is an unconventional behavior. This last aspect has made it possible to detect how certain media (foreign public property) do not follow the classic media routines of what is known as traditional media.
Aktualitas dan imparsialitas merupakan elemen penting dalam menentukan kualitas pemberitaan.Berita menjadi diminati ketika mengandung aspek aktualitas.Namun, liputan yang imparsial pada media yang tidak independen terhadap sumber berita, menjadi hal yang perlu dicermati.Aiman dalam produksi berita “Mereka Yang ditinggalkan”, menggambarkan aktor atau pelaku tindakan terorisme di tiga gereja Surabaya, sebagai pihak yang melakukan aksi bom bunuh diri untuk mendapatkan target sasaran, ada juga pelaku sekaligus korban yang pantas diselamatkan, yaitu anak yang masih di bawah umur. Pandangan tersebut mengeksplorasi bahwa terorisme merupakan tindakan yang keji tak terperi. Tujuan penelitian ini adalah untuk mengetahui framing atau pembingkaian terkait aksi terorisme ditinjau dari segi aktualitas dan imparsialitas di program acara jurnalistik investigasi Aiman Kompas TV edisi “Mereka Yang Ditinggalkan”.Jenis penelitian ini deskriptif atau tidak mencari hubungan sebab-akibat tetapi melihat sebuah realitas yang sedang terjadi tanpa menjelaskan hubungan antara variabel.Semangat penelitian ini adalah konstruktivis dengan pendekatan kualitatif. Teknik analisis data yang digunakan adalah analisis framing Gamson dan Modigliani, yang terdiri dari Framing Devices (Metaphors, Exemplars, Catchphrases, Depictions, Visual Images dan Reasoning Devices (Roots, Appeal to Principle, Consequences). Hasil penelitian ini menunjukkan bahwa program Aiman melakukan framing atau membingkai aktor terkait aksi terorisme di dalam edisi “Mereka Yang Ditinggalkan” dengan sebutan korban sekaligus pelaku. Salah satu faktor yang mendukung bingkai yang dilakukan Aiman Kompas TV tersebut adalah peliputan/penyajian aktual namun tidak imparsial.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 has shown that cyberwarfare is integral to modern military strategies. Although the Russian army has developed cyber capabilities and capacities over the years, Ukraine has quickly created a new and innovative cyber defence that includes public and private actors. Using online communication platforms to reach out to populations, internally and externally, has been instrumental for military success. Inventive thinking has enabled the actors to utilise the online space and develop new computing tactics to defend the country. The intense online presence of Ukrainian President Zelenskyy stands in clear contrast to Russian President Putin. President Zelenskyy is mastering online communication and is speaking directly to the people. Because of his constant use of virtual communication platforms, new public and private resistance movements have formed based on civic activism and a defiant stance against Russian aggression. Various non-governmental groups of hackers, hacktivists and activists have created a structure of resistance, where each has taken on a role in a nodal system depending on skills and engagement levels. This article will focus on how the Ukrainian leadership has been able to carry out a successful speech act that has activated numerous online users internally and externally. This speech act has enabled a new form of online civic activism where online actors fight with the military forces — but mostly without being employed by the state. Within the first 40 days, this activism has proven beneficial to the existing military force to defend Ukraine. The article investigates Ukraine’s role in the David and Goliath fight and how Ukraine’s initiatives have helped develop its cyber defence. The research is based on secondary sources predominately based on grounded theory, where the data collected are critically compared with theoretical content. All data is theoretically sampled and analysed based on the established socio-political approaches deriving from discourse analysis. The timeframe for this research is the first 40 days of the conflict, starting on February 24 2022.
This introductory chapter sets out the rationale for the book, which offers an analysis of the role of media in shaping governments and particularly the standing of prime ministers and uses Sweden as a case study. It also offers the term “logic of centralization,” as a way to capture the movement upwards of communication in governments. The chapter relates this approach to bodies of literature in political science, public administration, and political communication. The central analytical concern is the empowerment of prime ministers and the reasons behind this development. The book advances the argument that an important contributing reason is media, which presents governments with functional pressures for the adaptation of procedures and practices. This involves an increased centralization of structures and functions, in part driven by the demands of media.KeywordsFunctionInstitutional changeLogic of centralizationMediaPrime minister empowerment
Politische Parteien verlieren an gesellschaftlicher Verankerung, messbar an zurückgehenden Mitgliederzahlen und weniger Stammwählern. Einen Teil der lockerer gewordenen gesellschaftlichen Bindung substituieren sie durch eine strategisch motivierte Hinwendung zu medialer Kommunikation, da Medien einen gesellschaftlichen Relevanzgewinn verbuchen können. Folge der Anpassung an Medienlogiken ist eine Personalisierung und Professionalisierung der politischen Kommunikationsleistungen der politischen Parteien. Neue Online-Medien haben diese Prozesse verstärkt, gleichzeitig neue Entfremdungstendenzen bewirkt.
Newspapers’ editorializing exigencies as a mere publication of spot news would not be enough. Editorials clarify, explain, interpret, or integrate the news based on events, incidents, situations, or trends. Events of and during political movements are the main subjects of newspaper editorials. Editorial coverage of everyday exigencies builds up and helps represent narratives of various actors directly or indirectly involved in the events. In the public texts in Nepal, including newspapers, ‘Nepali people’ feature as principal actors and participants in socio-political transformations. Through Fantasy Theme Analysis of editorials on political subjects, this article explores how The Kathmandu Post and The Himalayan Times covered ‘Nepali people’ as the participants, actors, and agents of political transformation during the people’s movement in 2005-2006. The article inductively concludes that with a principal rhetorical vision for establishing peace and republic, ‘Nepali people’ performed the agency of transformation in the country.
Although forced migration has always occurred throughout history, it has increased significantly recently. The largest increase took place between 2012 and 2015 and was largely driven by conflicts in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, and Central African and East African countries (the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees [UNHCR], 2021). Worldwide, forcibly displaced people are, however, nowadays confronted with hostility, xenophobia and the increasing popularity of extreme right-wing political parties (Frelick, 2007; Freedman, 2015). Furthermore, in recent decades, several states have tightened their asylum policies and/or become more reluctant to cooperate with refugee organizations (Johnson, 2011; Freedman, 2015). Since 2015, the theme of forced migration has been ubiquitous in (often polarized, overlapping and interacting) public, media and political debates (Hellman & Lerkkanen, 2019).
Within such contexts, UNHCR, which is mandated to lead and coordinate refugee protection worldwide (Jones, 2013), and other international nongovernmental organizations (INGOs) play key roles as providers of assistance and/or protection to forcibly displaced people (Betts et al., 2012). However, through public communication, they also try to inform, raise awareness and set news media, public, political and donor agendas. Therefore, they provide diverse communication content to news media and increasingly communicate directly with citizens via social media and websites (Atkin & Rice, 2013). Hence, these organizations can significantly influence how the general public perceives forcibly displaced people and related displacement crises (Chouliaraki, 2012a) and consequently can have broader policy and societal consequences. Nevertheless, few studies have examined how they attempt to influence public, media and political agendas, and even less studies have analysed the underlying reasons behind the use of their discursive strategies. While most research has analysed the news-making activities of humanitarian organizations, and broader changing journalism-NGO relationships in evolving news and humanitarian ecologies (e.g., Ongenaert & Joye, 2016; Powers, 2018; Van Leuven & Joye, 2014), fewer studies specifically investigated refugee organizations. Second, most research centres on agenda-setting (e.g., McCombs & Valenzuela, 2021) and, to lesser extents, stakeholders’ efforts to influence about which subjects news media, citizens or other stakeholders should think (cf. first-level agenda-building) (Kim & Kiousis, 2012). However, to our knowledge, only a few studies, have thoroughly explored refugee organizations’ second-level agenda-building strategies which attempt to influence how stakeholders perceive certain subjects (Kim & Kiousis, 2012). Further, they mainly textually focus on one organization, media genre, year, and/or crisis, lacking essential explanatory comparative, production, and/or societal perspectives.
Therefore, adopting a mixed-methods research design, this research project analysed refugee organizations’ public communication strategies from multiple perspectives. More specifically, we examined various relevant international refugee organizations’ public communication strategies regarding the recent Syrian and Central African crises. Hence, the central research objective of this project is to investigate the conceptual, textual, production and societal dimensions and their interactions involved in international refugee organizations’ public communication strategies. This overarching objective is operationalized through three more specific, interrelated sub-objectives, corresponding to three components and adopting a source-to-end product perspective.
First, we examined the conceptual dimension of international refugee organizations’ public communication strategies (component 1). How can the public communication of international refugee organizations be conceptualized? For this purpose, we conducted an extensive literature review.
Second, we studied the textual dimension of international refugee organizations’ public communication strategies (component 2). Which discursive strategies do international refugee organizations mainly use (cf. how, who, what)? Acknowledging current trends and gaps within the literature, this sub-objective can be further divided into three more specific objectives:
1. How are forcibly displaced people mainly (not) represented and discussed in international refugee organizations’ public communication? In other words, which representation and argumentation strategies do the international refugee organizations use?
For this purpose, we conducted two empirical studies. First, acknowledging potential organizational differences, we applied a comparative-synchronic (Carvalho, 2008) critical discourse analysis (CDA) according to Fairclough’s (1992, 1995) CDA model on the international press releases (N=122) of UNHCR and two INGOs, de ‘Danish Refugee Council’ (DRC) and de ‘International Rescue Committee’ regarding the Syrian crisis (2014-2015). Additionally, we conducted semi-structured expert interviews (N=6) with press and regional officers at these organizations to yield additional empirical material about the underlying production and societal contexts. Second, recognizing potential media genre and crisis differences, we applied a comparative-synchronic multimodal critical discourse analysis (MCDA) (Machin & Mayr, 2012), again following Fairclough’s (1992, 1995) CDA model, on UNHCR’s international press releases (N=28), news stories (N=233), and related photos (N=462) and videos (N=50) of the key year 2015.
2. Who is mainly (not) represented and given a voice in international refugee organizations’ public communication?
3. What is mainly (not) represented and discussed in international refugee organizations’ public communication? Which key characteristics (e.g., organizations, crises, media genres, years) and themes do international refugee organizations represent?
To meet these specific objectives and acknowledging organizational, media, crisis and temporal differences, we applied a comparative, longitudinal, intersectional quantitative content analysis (Neuendorf, 2017; Riffe et al., 2019) on the press releases and news stories (N=1244) about the recent Syrian and Central African crises (2015-2018) of UNHCR, and two INGOs, the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) and the European Council on Refugees and Exiles (ECRE).
Third, we focused on the production and societal dimensions (component 3). Central to the corresponding component are the production, political, economic and socio-cultural contexts, forces and motivations behind the public communication strategies. How do the underlying production, political, economic and socio-cultural contexts, forces and motivations explain the discursive strategies of international refugee organizations (cf. why)? Likewise, this sub-objective can be further divided into three more specific objectives that correspond with the specific textual objectives:
1. How can we explain how forcibly displaced people are mainly (not) represented and discussed in international refugee organizations’ public communication?
2. How can we explain who is mainly (not) represented and given a voice in international refugee organizations’ public communication?
3. How can we explain what is mainly (not) represented and discussed in international refugee organizations’ public communication?
Therefore, we conducted a three-week office ethnography at NRC’s main press and communication department, semi-structured expert interviews with press and communication officers of NRC (N=10), and a document analysis of the key communication policy documents of NRC. We thereby focused each time on the production and societal contexts of NRC’s public communication regarding the recent Syrian and Central African crises.
In general, we found diverse, often mixed results that nuance, extend and sometimes contradict the existing literature on the public communication of refugee organizations and, more generally, humanitarian communication, and frequently interact with and explain each other. For reasons of relevance, focus and space, we discuss below interactions between different dimensions, as evidenced within one or more studies. The literature review indicated that in recent decades the social and scientific relevance of research on strategic and non-profit communication in general and on refugee organizations’ public communication particularly have increased. Nevertheless, these fields remain underdeveloped and are mostly text-focused, while the production and reception dimensions are barely explored. Remarkably, however, little or no research has been conducted from an organizational communication perspective, although this study demonstrates that the subject can be adequately embedded in and examined from the fields of strategic, non-profit and public communication. Specifically, our dissertation highlights the relevance of the holistic Communicative Constitution of Organizations (CCO) perspective. This perspective argues that communication is not just an activity that occurs within or between organizations, but forms the constitutive process of organization (Putnam & Nicotera, 2010). Further, strongly influenced by the understandings of Oliveira (2017), Atkin and Rice (2013), and Macnamara (2016), we define refugee organizations’ public communication as the practice of organized and systematic symbolic social action (diversified communication disseminated through a variety of channels and activities) within the public sphere to reach set goals, co-create the refugee organization, perform civic relations and fulfil its mission by groups of people that pursue the (perceived) common good for forced migration. Finally, our conceptual study argues that future research can benefit by adopting multi-perspective, practice-oriented, multi-methodological, comparative and/or interdisciplinary approaches to which we respond in our empirical studies.
Regarding the ‘how’ and related ‘why’ dimensions, the critical discourse analysis shows that the observed organisations to varying extents dehumanize forcibly displaced people and subordinate them to the ‘Western Self’ and national state interests in their press releases. Acknowledging organizational and media genre differences, these power inequalities can be explained by the use of various discursive strategies, as well as the broader production and social contexts. The findings demonstrate that forcibly displaced people are often portrayed as a homogenous and suffering collective, confirming the dominance of the regime of pity’s traditional ‘negative’ representational strategies (Bettini, 2013; Chouliaraki, 2012a; Johnson, 2011). However, unlike existing fragmented research, this analysis also found evidence of the use of other discursive strategies and explored the production process and the social context. The aforementioned depersonalising humanitarian discourse can be considered to be the product of the specific features of the press releases. The importance of news media attention and commercial reasons are other explanatory factors. In addition, the study found articulations of a simultaneously existing post-humanitarian discourse. The interviews revealed that the humanitarian sector has evolved from a non-economic to a market-oriented sphere within which private choice and self-expression are central. One can relate this post-humanitarian discourse to the regime of irony and consider it as an expression of neoliberalism (Chouliaraki, 2012a). While post-humanitarian discourses respond to the needs for personal development and self-expression, the oft-deployed cross-issue persuasion strategy responds to state interests and reflects political realism (Grieco, 1999). Both strategies are self-directed and reduce forcibly displaced people principally to secondary figures.
Similarly, the comparative-synchronic multimodal critical discourse analysis reveals that UNHCR primarily represents forcibly displaced people in its press releases and, to lesser extents, in its news as generic, anonymized, passive, victimized, deprived, and/or voiceless masses, reproducing humanitarian saviour logics and hierarchies of deservingness. However, stories, photos, and videos frequently combine these representations with portrayals of empowered individual doers, speakers, and/or thinkers. Both representation strategies can be partially explained by news logics such as genre characteristics, news media conventions, and representations, and by respectively political and private sector discourses and agenda-building opportunities, and related organizational goals, as the expert interviews show. Furthermore, we identified several argumentation methods, particularly in textual communication genres. UNHCR mainly attempts to stimulate pity-based solidarity but also voices various neoliberal post-humanitarian (mainly Western) Self-oriented solidarity discourses. Refining cross-issue persuasion, we discovered that UNHCR links protection to states’ (perceived) interests in various issue areas but also in various principles and values, and propose the more appropriate concept of ‘cross-interest persuasion’. Rather than just to other (perceived) important issue areas, refugee organizations link contributions to protection to the interests of states in general. Moreover, the term emphasizes the political realist nature of the pragmatic argumentation strategy. Finally, we consider these discursive strategies as reflections and reproductions of, and responses to dominant migration management paradigms and the increasingly neoliberalized and political realist international refugee regime.
Concerning the textual ‘who’, ‘what’ and connected ‘why’ dimensions, the comparative, longitudinal and intersectional quantitative content analysis shows a mixed picture of what and who are (not) represented, involving interorganizational commonalities and differences. First, regarding ‘what’, the refugee organizations predominantly communicated in 2015 and 2016 about forcibly displaced people involved in the Syrian crisis, because of intertwined organizational, societal and/or financial reasons and mainstream media logics. More specifically, it is far more difficult for international refugee organizations to obtain media attention for the Central African crisis than the Syrian crisis, because of various factors such as the nature, magnitude, implications, mediatization and comprehensibility of the conflicts, and geographic and cultural proximity. As there is more media attention on Syria, international refugee organizations generally obtain also more resources specifically intended for the Syrian crisis, including for press and communication efforts. This leads on its turn to even more attention for this crisis, creating a ‘Vicious Neglected Crisis Circle (VNCC) effect’. Organizational factors generally reinforce this effect, while security and political factors in the case of communication about Syria limit it.
Regarding ‘who’, we observed that primarily forcibly displaced people and refugee organizations obtain voices in het public communication about the investigated forcibly displaced people, refining earlier studies. Additionally, examining several (largely unexplored) sociodemographics, this study finds that individualized forcibly displaced people are represented in significantly unbalanced manners (e.g., mainly along age, geographical location, legal status, current country and continent, nationality, life stance, sexual orientation, family situation, marital status and former and current profession). This can be explained by a myriad of pragmatic, humanitarian, societal, organizational, ethical/personal, practical, security, political and/or narrative reasons. Shaped by production and societal contexts, humanitarian communication reproduces and reflects quantitative mediated hierarchies of suffering, both between (cf. what) and within (who) crises. In general, we can conclude that various pragmatic and contextual factors explain ‘how’, ‘who’ and ‘what’ are represented. Finally, we argue that well-balanced humanitarian communication is essential for societal and strategic reasons (e.g., negative long-term implications of imbalanced humanitarian imagery and sensational public communication, branding opportunities as reliable, accountable ‘authorised knowers’).
The chapter outlines the theories on journalism, peace and conflict that lead this work. The central arguments are that journalism is a socio-historical construction, and therefore, its meaning is not fixed but fluid. Journalists renegotiate their roles and responsibilities according to the values and expectations of their societies and reconstruct their professional identities. Despite structural restrictions, such as political, economic or organisational forces, journalism has a certain degree of autonomy. Journalists are active agents because they define, frame and promote the issues related to conflicts and peace efforts. That is why understanding how journalists see and practice their roles in conflict societies is essential in comprehending journalism in conflict and post-conflict periods. The section explores how patriotism affects journalism and discusses the relationship between peace and journalism. The chapter also briefly describes peace, conflict and journalism in Cyprus.
This chapter explores professional journalism in Cyprus through autonomy, professional organisations and education. The concept of professionalism is essential in maintaining standards and identity and closely linked to journalists’ perception of roles and societal responsibilities. The chapter looks at the broader context of journalism in Cyprus and examines the influences of forces, such as political, economic and ownership, on journalists’ work on both sides of the island. It considers how political parallelism, clientelism, commercial pressures and media ownership structures undermine journalists’ autonomy. The internalisation of official ideologies concerning the Cyprus problem and self-censorship affect journalistic work. Journalists are also concerned about unethical practices. Working under these pressures, they worry about failing to meet their responsibilities towards their societies and losing public trust.
Starting from the assumption that after 9/11 discursive patterns on Islam got a global
dimension, and exceeded the national usual approach, the present paper is trying to analyze the most frequent stereotypes in “reading” Islam, along with a profound change of experts‟ profile in Islamic field, comparing to the classic traditional scholar, that occurred after 9/11 attacks. The research is focusing on media commentators` discourses in both the United States and Europe (especially France and Italy), by analyzing various types of public discourse: books, articles, blogs, conferences, and TV talk-shows, and pinning down themes, topics and patterns in public Western “talking” about Islam, after 9/11. The research cannot provide a comprehensive perspective, since it would be unrealistic to attempt a comprehensive analysis, but it will try to identify the main influences in shaping stereotypes about Islam and Muslims.
Many states in the United States allow a “belief exemption” for measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccines. People’s opinion on whether or not to take the vaccine can have direct consequences in public health. Social media has been one of the dominant communication channels for people to express their opinions of vaccination. Despite governmental organizations’ efforts of disseminating information of vaccination benefits, anti-vaccine sentiment is still gaining momentum. Studies have shown that bots on social media (i.e., social bots) can influence opinion trends by posting a substantial number of automated messages. The research presented here investigates the communication patterns of anti- and pro-vaccine users and the role of bots in Twitter by studying a retweet network related to MMR vaccine after the 2015 California Disneyland measles outbreak. We first classified the users into anti-vaccination, neutral to vaccination, and pro-vaccination groups using supervised machine learning. We discovered that pro- and anti-vaccine users retweet predominantly from their own opinion group. In addition, our bot analysis discovers that 1.45% of the corpus users were identified as likely bots which produced 4.59% of all tweets within our dataset. We further found that bots display hyper-social tendencies by initiating retweets at higher frequencies with users within the same opinion group. The article concludes that highly clustered anti-vaccine Twitter users make it difficult for health organizations to penetrate and counter opinionated information while social bots may be deepening this trend. We believe that these findings can be useful in developing strategies for health communication of vaccination.
Hate speech is considered to be one of the major issues currently plaguing the online social media. With online hate speech culminating in gruesome scenarios like the Rohingya genocide in Myanmar, anti-Muslim mob violence in Sri Lanka, and the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting, there is a dire need to understand the dynamics of user interaction that facilitate the spread of such hateful content. In this paper, we perform the first study that looks into the diffusion dynamics of the posts made by hateful and non-hateful users on Gab (Gab.com). We collect a massive dataset of 341K users with 21M posts and investigate the diffusion of the posts generated by hateful and non-hateful users. We observe that the content generated by the hateful users tend to spread faster, farther and reach a much wider audience as compared to the content generated by normal users. We further analyze the hateful and non-hateful users on the basis of their account and network characteristics. An important finding is that the hateful users are far more densely connected among themselves. Overall, our study provides the first cross-sectional view of how hateful users diffuse hate content in online social media.
Democratic publics have always been at a disadvantage when it comes to constraining their elected leaders’ independent foreign policy preferences. By its very nature, foreign policy leads to information asymmetries that disadvantage average citizens in favor of governing elites. An important and unresolved question, however, is whether this disadvantage has deepened with the advent of the Internet and the fundamental changes in the media and politics that have ensued. We argue that it has. The current information and political environments erode constraint by inclining constituents to reflexively and durably back “their” leaders and disapprove of opposition. These changes short-circuit the process by which citizens can informationally “catch up” with and constrain leaders because views that contradict citizens’ prior positions are less likely to break through when media are fragmented and siloed. These changes have important implications for key literatures that link democracy to foreign policy behavior including those on the democratic peace, audience costs, rally effects, and diversionary war. The current information environment may also contribute to instability in foreign policy, since holding public support in place past the point when it might otherwise shift can contribute to sudden and destabilizing changes in public opinion that undercut commitments abroad.
Terrorist attacks often dominate news coverage as reporters seek to provide the public with information. Yet, not all incidents receive equal attention. Why do some terrorist attacks receive more media coverage than others? We argue that perpetrator religion is the largest predictor of news coverage, while target type, being arrested, and fatalities will also impact coverage. We examined news coverage from LexisNexis Academic and CNN.com for all terrorist attacks in the United States between 2006 and 2015 (N = 136). Controlling for target type, fatalities, and being arrested, attacks by Muslim perpetrators received, on average, 357% more coverage than other attacks. Our results are robust against a number of counterarguments. The disparities in news coverage of attacks based on the perpetrator’s religion may explain why members of the public tend to fear the “Muslim terrorist” while ignoring other threats. More representative coverage could help to bring public perception in line with reality.
Objectives
This article examines the effect of both modern and traditional sexism on vote choice in the 2016 presidential election, and posits that they played a major role in explaining Hillary Clinton's defeat to Donald Trump.
Methods
Data from the 2016 American National Election Study are analyzed using a logistic regression model.
Results
Both modern and traditional sexism exerted a statistically significant effect on presidential vote choice in 2016. Indeed, its effect rivaled that of racial resentment and was only exceeded by partisanship.
Conclusion
While a variety of factors may have cost Hillary Clinton the presidency in 2016, sexism needs to be addressed as one of those factors. More broadly, the findings of this article suggest that women candidates continue to face obstacles and are evaluated differently than men, especially when running for the most visible offices in American politics.
Most users want their Twitter feed, Facebook page, and YouTube comments to be free of harassment and porn. Whether faced with “fake news” or livestreamed violence, “content moderators”-who censor or promote user-posted content-have never been more important. This is especially true when the tools that social media platforms use to curb trolling, ban hate speech, and censor pornography can also silence the speech you need to hear. In this revealing and nuanced exploration, award-winning sociologist and cultural observer Tarleton Gillespie provides an overview of current social media practices and explains the underlying rationales for how, when, and why these policies are enforced. In doing so, Gillespie highlights that content moderation receives too little public scrutiny even as it is shapes social norms and creates consequences for public discourse, cultural production, and the fabric of society. Based on interviews with content moderators, creators, and consumers, this accessible, timely book is a must-read for anyone who’s ever clicked “like” or “retweet.”.
Data suggest that the outcome of the 2016 American presidential election was a surprise to most people. We conducted a study to examine the role parasocial bonds formed with Trump due to his appearances on reality television played in his surprising victory. Results suggested that exposure to Trump though The Apprentice and through other media predicted the formation of parasocial bonds with Trump. These parasocial bonds with Trump predicted believing Trump’s promises, disregarding his unpopular statements, and having generally more positive evaluations of him. Parasocial bonds with Trump were also a significant predictor of self-reported voting behavior, even when examined concurrently with other likely predictors. This research suggests that parasocial bonds played an important role in the election of Donald Trump to President of the United States.
In a high-choice media environment, there are fears that individuals will select media and content that reinforce their existing beliefs and lead to segregation based on interest and/or partisanship. This could lead to partisan echo chambers among those who are politically interested and could contribute to a growing gap in knowledge between those who are politically interested and those who are not. However, the high-choice environment also allows individuals, including those who are politically interested, to consume a wide variety of media, which could lead them to more diverse content and perspectives. This study examines the relationship between political interest as well as media diversity and being caught in an echo chamber (measured by five different variables). Using a nationally representative survey of adult internet users in the United Kingdom (N = 2000), we find that those who are interested in politics and those with diverse media diets tend to avoid echo chambers. This work challenges the impact of echo chambers and tempers fears of partisan segregation since only a small segment of the population are likely to find themselves in an echo chamber. We argue that single media studies and studies which use narrow definitions and measurements of being in an echo chamber are flawed because they do not test the theory in the realistic context of a multiple media environment.
Authoritarian regimes craft and disseminate reasons, stories, and explanations for why they are entitled to rule. To shield those legitimating messages from criticism, authoritarian regimes also censor information that they find threatening. While committed opponents of the regime may be violently repressed, this book is about how the authoritarian state keeps the majority of its people quiescent by manipulating the ways in which they talk and think about political processes, the authorities, and political alternatives.
Using North Korea, Burma (Myanmar) and China as case studies, this book explains how the authoritarian public sphere shapes political discourse in each context. It also examines three domains of potential subversion of legitimating messages: the shadow markets of North Korea, networks of independent journalists in Burma, and the online sphere in China. In addition to making a theoretical contribution to the study of authoritarianism, the book draws upon unique empirical data from fieldwork conducted in the region, including interviews with North Korean defectors in South Korea, Burmese exiles in Thailand, and Burmese in Myanmar who stayed in the country during the military government. When analyzed alongside state-produced media, speeches, and legislation, the material provides a rich understanding of how autocratic legitimation influences everyday discussions about politics in the authoritarian public sphere.
Explaining how autocracies manipulate the ways in which their citizens talk and think about politics, this book will be of interest to students and scholars of Asian politics, comparative politics and authoritarian regimes.
Growing up taking survival for granted makes people more open to new ideas and more tolerant of outgroups. Insecurity has the opposite effect, stimulating an Authoritarian Reflex in which people close ranks behind strong leaders, with strong in-group solidarity, rejection of outsiders, and rigid conformity to group norms. The 35 years of exceptional security experienced by developed democracies after WWII brought pervasive cultural changes, including the rise of Green parties and the spread of democracy. During the past 35 years, economic growth continued, but virtually all of the gains went to those at the top; the less-educated experienced declining existential security, fueling support for Populist Authoritarian phenomena such as Brexit, France’s National Front and Trump’s takeover of the Republican party. This raises two questions: (1) “What motivates people to support Populist Authoritarian movements?” And (2) “Why is the populist authoritarian vote so much higher now than it was several decades ago in high-income countries?” The two questions have different answers. Support for populist authoritarian parties is motivated by a backlash against cultural change. From the start, younger Postmaterialist birth cohorts supported environmentalist parties, while older, less secure cohorts supported authoritarian xenophobic parties, in an enduring intergenerational value clash. But for the past three decades, strong period effects have been working to increase support for xenophobic parties: economic gains have gone almost entirely to those at the top, while a large share of the population experienced declining real income and job security, along with a large influx of immigrants and refugees. Cultural backlash explains why given individuals support Populist Authoritarian movements. Declining existential security explains why support for these movements is greater now than it was thirty years ago.
This article investigates the use of social media for visual framing of the conflict in Eastern Ukraine. Using a large set of visual data from a popular social networking site, Vkontakte, the authors employ content analysis to examine how the conflict was represented and interpreted in pro-Ukrainian and pro-Russian online communities during the peak of violence in summer 2014. The findings point to the existence of profound differences in framing the conflict among pro-Ukrainian and pro-Russian online communities. The former tended to interpret the conflict as a limited military action against local insurgents, whereas the latter presented it as an all-out war against the Russian population of Eastern Ukraine. The article suggests that framing the conflict through social media facilitated the propagation of mutually exclusive views on the conflict and led to the formation of divergent expectations in Ukraine and Russia concerning the outcome of the war in Donbas.
Opinion leaders can be influential in persuading their peers about news and politics,
yet their potential influence has been questioned in the social media era. This study
tests a theoretical model of attempts at political persuasion within social media in
which highly active users (‘‘prosumers’’) consider themselves opinion leaders, which
subsequently increases efforts to try and change others’ political attitudes and behaviors.
Using two-wave U.S. panel survey data (W1, 1,816;W2, 1,024), we find prosumers
believe they are highly influential in their social networks and are both directly
and indirectly more likely to try to persuade others. Our results highlight one theoretical
mechanism through which engaged social media users attempt to persuade
others and suggest personal influence remains viable within social media.
The revelation of the surveillance practices of the US National Security Agency (NSA) and the UK Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) serves as a compelling case study of the new agenda-setting capacities in the 21st century. We use a stream of 14 million messages on Twitter to note how its reach equals that of television. Next, we demonstrate the interactive communication characteristics of social media in the use of hashtags, retweets, and shared URLs. Finally, we draw upon data from Lexis-Nexis on newspaper stories and broadcast transcripts to emphasize the different ways social and mainstream media constructed the story about surveillance and interacted with each other. We conclude agenda setting can no longer be understood as a monopoly of the mainstream media, indexed to the actions of political elites. Social media, through its reach, interaction, and broadening of ideas brought into the discussion, emerge as a distinctive mode of large-scale communication. Giving voice to the people introduces an entirely new dimension to agenda setting.
Although there is plenty of research investigating the linkages between news media use and political distrust, virtually all of these studies focus on the impact of media use on political distrust at a particular point in time. At the same time, the transition from low-choice to high-choice media environments suggests that the relationship might not be stable across time. Whatever the linkages between news media use and political distrust were in the 1980s, 1990s, or 2000s, it cannot a priori be assumed that those linkages are the same or of equal strength today. Against this background, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the changing relationship between news media use and political trust across time. Among other things, the results show that there is a positive linkage between news media use and political trust but also that for some media, this relationship weakens across time.
Online social media has recently irrupted as the last major venue for the propagation of news and cultural content, competing with traditional mass media and allowing citizens to access new sources of information. In this paper, we study collectively filtered news and popular content in Twitter, known as Trending Topics (TTs), to quantify the extent to which they show similar biases known for mass media. We use two datasets collected in 2013 and 2014, including more than 300.000 TTs from 62 countries. The existing patterns of leader-follower relationships among countries reveal systemic biases known for mass media: Countries concentrate their attention to small groups of other countries, generating a pattern of centralization in which TTs follow the gradient of wealth across countries. At the same time, we find subjective biases within language communities linked to the cultural similarity of countries, in which countries with closer cultures and shared languages tend to follow each other's TTs. Moreover, using a novel methodology based on the Google News service, we study the influence of mass media in TTs for four countries. We find that roughly half of the TTs in Twitter overlap with news reported by mass media, and that the rest of TTs are more likely to spread internationally within Twitter. Our results confirm that online social media have the power to independently spread content beyond mass media, but at the same time social media content follows economic incentives and is subject to cultural factors and language barriers.
A review of the evidence leaves no doubt election campaigns do matter in a variety of important ways. The serious questions concern when, where, why, how, for what, and for whom they matter. This essay reviews a selection of high-quality studies that address these questions, focusing on several distinct lines of research that have been particularly productive in recent years: on the effects of events and advertising in presidential elections; on the effects of campaign spending in elections for down-ballot offices; on the effects of mobilization campaigns on voting turnout; on campaign influences on the vote choice (with special attention to the effects of negative campaigns); and on the nature of persuadable voters. It also offers some suggestions of areas where additional research should be productive.
This study examines the relationship between various forms of media use and political participation. The major argument is that in today’s high-choice media environment, individuals and groups with the highest level of political interest are more likely to develop richer political information repertoires that involve exploiting both digital and traditional ways of searching for political information. Individuals and groups with richer political information repertories can be expected to have higher levels of political knowledge, efficacy, and participation. This article argues further that a clear connection exists between peoples’ informational and participatory repertoires and tests these propositions using a large, heterogeneous sample of the Israeli public during the 2013 election campaign. The analysis supports the claims of this study, with a few intriguing exceptions.
Although past research suggested that entertainment viewing may weaken political trust, only a few studies have investigated
this outcome for specific types of nontraditional news shows. This study examines the relationship between exposure to three
forms of nontraditional news that merge entertainment with informational content—comedy talk shows, satirical news, and cable
opinion news—and political mistrust and cynicism. Using data from a national survey (n = 777) conducted in the United States, findings indicate that viewing satirical news programs appeared to be related to systemic
cynicism, while exposure to all three shows was either directly or indirectly associated with distrust in politicians. Mistrust
in the news media, on the other hand, appeared for comedy talk shows and satirical news use only in particular contexts.
Public relations research has paid considerable attention to foreign terrorist crises but relatively little attention to domestic ones—despite the growing salience of domestic terrorism in the United States. This study content analyzes 30 years of network television news coverage of domestic terrorism to gain insight into four theoretical issues of enduring interest within the literature on news framing and crisis management: sourcing, contextualization, ideological labeling, and definitional uncertainty. Results indicate that the sources called upon to contextualize domestic terrorism have shifted over time, that ideological labels are more often applied on the right than the left, and that definitional uncertainty has increased markedly in recent years. Implications for the theory and practice of public relations and crisis management are discussed.
Since its initial introduction, the paradigm of agenda-setting has become more refined and complex. In addition to the introduction of intervening factors the agenda-setting paradigm is now challenged by a rapidly changing media environment. This paper reviews the impact of online media technologies and digital platforms on the basic assumptions of the theory. The review sets out to reassess the conceptualization of the agenda-setting theorem by highlighting the development of new processes, attributes and features applicable to the online media. Our review, based on the findings of numerous studies on new media and agenda-setting, suggests several modifications of the basic theory.
Despite major advances in vaccination over the past century, resurgence of vaccine-preventable illnesses has led the World Health Organization to identify vaccine hesitancy as a major threat to global health. Vaccine hesitancy may be fueled by health information obtained from a variety of sources, including new media such as the Internet and social media platforms. As access to technology has improved, social media has attained global penetrance. In contrast to traditional media, social media allow individuals to rapidly create and share content globally without editorial oversight. Users may self-select content streams, contributing to ideological isolation. As such, there are considerable public health concerns raised by anti-vaccination messaging on such platforms and the consequent potential for downstream vaccine hesitancy, including the compromise of public confidence in future vaccine development for novel pathogens, such as SARS-CoV-2 for the prevention of COVID-19. In this review, we discuss the current position of social media platforms in propagating vaccine hesitancy and explore next steps in how social media may be used to improve health literacy and foster public trust in vaccination.
The present study uses data from the 2011 Seoul mayoral election to study attribute agenda setting and affective priming. By combining a content analysis of the candidate coverage in seven major news outlets and an exit poll of voters (N = 690) on Election Day, it investigates the relationships between the cognitive and affective components of candidate attributes most highlighted by the news media and most accessible in voters’ memories, feelings toward political candidates, and vote choices among actual voters who had just cast their ballots. It also explores how these relationships differ depending on individuals’ news media exposure. The study found that mediated election campaigns influence public opinion and behavior through both cognitive and affective priming. That is, campaign news can semantically prime certain aspects of candidate images while eliciting affective reactions to those aspects through its evaluative tones. In this process, political candidate traits mediated by the news media can meaningfully influence voters’ political judgments.
The diffusion and rapid evolution of new communication technologies has created a pressing need to understand the complex forces reshaping media and politics. Who is emerging as powerful in this new context? Written by a leading scholar in the field, this book provides a new, holistic interpretation of how political communication now works. In The Hybrid Media System Andrew Chadwick reveals how political communication is increasingly shaped by interactions among older and newer media logics. Organizations, groups, and individuals in this system are linked by complex and ever-evolving relationships based on adaptation and interdependence. Chadwick shows how power is exercised by those who create, tap, and steer information flows to suit their goals, and in ways that modify, enable, and disable the agency of others across and between a range of older and newer media settings. The [CE1][NN2]book examines a range of examples of this systemic hybridity in flow in political communication contexts ranging from news making in all of its contemporary “professional” and “amateur” forms, to parties and election campaigns, to activist movements and government communication. Compelling stories bring the theory to life. From American presidential campaigns to WikiLeaks, from live prime ministerial debates to hotly contested political scandals that evolve in real time, from historical precedents stretching back five hundred years to the author’s unique ethnographic data gathered from recent insider fieldwork among journalists, campaign workers, bloggers, and activist organizations, this wide-ranging book maps the emerging balance of power between older and newer media technologies, genres, norms, behaviors, and organizational forms.
Since 9/11, scholarly work has demonstrated that Muslim Americans are viewed unfavorably, but existing measures lack enough contextual specificity to capture the unique experiences and situation of Muslims in the United States. Given the central role that Muslims and the war on terror played in the 2016 presidential campaign and election, we fill this void by introducing a new measure that focuses on Muslim Americans, specifically, and then examine its role in explaining presidential vote choice in 2016. Across five distinct surveys fielded on convenience and nationally representative samples from May 2016 to June 2017, we find that anti–Muslim American sentiment is a strong and significant predictor of supporting Trump, even when controlling for a whole host of factors. Our measure of Muslim American sentiment also more strongly and consistently predicts support for Trump, relative to previous measures of anti-Muslim sentiment. © 2018 by the Southern Political Science Association. All rights reserved.
Construal level theory of psychological distance suggests that people are likely to pay more attention to contextual cues when appraising proximal, rather than distant stimuli. We tested the theory in the climate change context by examining if framing climate change impacts in a psychologically close way may motivate the American public to support climate-mitigating policies and enact climate-mitigating actions, accounting for their political ideology, cultural worldview, and environmental value. Results of an experimental survey based on a large adult sample (N = 1,086) supported some of our hypotheses. Ideological polarization in climate change perception was reduced when climate change impact was portrayed as influencing a spatially close and familiar exemplar, as compared to a spatially distant and novel exemplar. However, cultural worldview and environmental value had consistent influence on policy support and environmental action, regardless of message framing.
This book offers a comprehensive investigation of the ways in which social media has affected change to the constitution of mainstream journalism. The volume does this in a unique way – by tracing the links between the different changes social media has brought to individual journalism practice, organisational processes and policies and institutional understandings of journalism. The role of social media platforms in the changing professional landscape of journalism is explored, both in terms of the changes that social media platforms have impacted on journalism, but also the way in which journalistic use of social media has impacted on particular uses of these platforms. Therefore, Journalism and Social Media is not simply a description of changed journalistic practices, but endeavours to encapsulate a complex and integrated techno-social relationship, incorporating both the individual practices of journalists, as well as the larger organisational and institutional changes that have occurred due to the increasing use of social media to investigate, present and disseminate news.
In this paper, we present quantitative and qualitative analysis of the top retweeted tweets (viral tweets) pertaining to the US presidential elections from September 1, 2016 to Election Day on November 8, 2016. For everyday, we tagged the top 50 most retweeted tweets as supporting or attacking either candidate or as neutral/irrelevant. Then we analyzed the tweets in each class for: general trends and statistics; the most frequently used hashtags, terms, and locations; the most retweeted accounts and tweets; and the most shared news and links. In all we analyzed the 3,450 most viral tweets that grabbed the most attention during the US election and were retweeted in total 26.3 million times accounting over 40% of the total tweet volume pertaining to the US election in the aforementioned period. Our analysis of the tweets highlights some of the differences between the social media strategies of both candidates, the penetration of their messages, and the potential effect of attacks on both.
The Chinese government has long been suspected of hiring as many as 2 million people to surreptitiously insert huge numbers of pseudonymous and other deceptive writings into the stream of real social media posts, as if they were the genuine opinions of ordinary people. Many academics, and most journalists and activists, claim that these so-called 50c party posts vociferously argue for the government’s side in political and policy debates. As we show, this is also true of most posts openly accused on social media of being 50c. Yet almost no systematic empirical evidence exists for this claim or, more importantly, for the Chinese regime’s strategic objective in pursuing this activity. In the first large-scale empirical analysis of this operation, we show how to identify the secretive authors of these posts, the posts written by them, and their content. We estimate that the government fabricates and posts about 448 million social media comments a year. In contrast to prior claims, we show that the Chinese regime’s strategy is to avoid arguing with skeptics of the party and the government, and to not even discuss controversial issues. We show that the goal of this massive secretive operation is instead to distract the public and change the subject, as most of these posts involve cheerleading for China, the revolutionary history of the Communist Party, or other symbols of the regime. We discuss how these results fit with what is known about the Chinese censorship program and suggest how they may change our broader theoretical understanding of “common knowledge” and information control in authoritarian regimes.
Despite dramatic increases in available political information through cable television and the Internet, political knowledge and turnout have not changed noticeably. To explain this seeming paradox, I argue that greater media choice makes it easier for people to find their preferred content. People who like news take advantage of abundant political information to become more knowledgeable and more likely to turn out. In contrast, people who prefer entertainment abandon the news and become less likely to learn about politics and go to the polls. To test this proposition, I develop a measure of people's media content preference and include it in a representative opinion survey of 2,358 U.S. residents. Results show that content preference indeed becomes a better predictor of political knowledge and turnout as media choice increases. Cable TV and the Internet increase gaps in knowledge and turnout between people who prefer news and people who prefer entertainment.
The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) has made great use of the Internet and online social media to spread its message and encourage others, particularly young people, to support the organization, to travel to the Middle East to engage in combat or to join the group by playing a supporting role—a role often carved out for young women persuaded to join ISIS. Social media has proven to be an extremely valuable tool for the organization and is perfectly suited for ISIS’ target audience—the “Millennial generation,” and now more often, those from Western countries. What messages from jihadists convince young people to become involved with the terrorist group? How is it that so many are drawn in over the Internet by ISIS operatives—people they’ve never met face-to-face? And yet these young people (many still in their teens) are willing to leave their families and comfortable life styles to join remote communities half way around the world to engage in war. Understanding the characteristics that can put young people at particular risk of being lured by ISIS will help the U.S. and other nations to identify at-risk individuals and implement improved preventative measures.
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.
Online publishing, social networks, and web search have dramatically lowered the costs of producing, distributing, and discovering
news articles. Some scholars argue that such technological changes increase exposure to diverse perspectives, while others
worry that they increase ideological segregation. We address the issue by examining web-browsing histories for 50,000 US-located
users who regularly read online news. We find that social networks and search engines are associated with an increase in the
mean ideological distance between individuals. However, somewhat counterintuitively, these same channels also are associated
with an increase in an individual’s exposure to material from his or her less preferred side of the political spectrum. Finally,
the vast majority of online news consumption is accounted for by individuals simply visiting the home pages of their favorite,
typically mainstream, news outlets, tempering the consequences—both positive and negative—of recent technological changes.
We thus uncover evidence for both sides of the debate, while also finding that the magnitude of the effects is relatively
modest.
Since the Justice and Development Party (AKP) came to power in 2002 Turkey has undergone double regime transitions. First, tutelary democracy ended; second, a competitive authoritarian regime has risen in its stead. We substantiate this assertion with specific and detailed evidence from 2015 election cycles, as well as from broader trends in Turkish politics. This evidence indeed confirms that elections are no longer fair; civil liberties are being systematically violated; and the playing field is highly skewed in favour of the ruling AKP. The June 2015 election results and their aftermath further confirm that Turkey has evolved into a competitive authoritarian regime.
This is the first book to examine in detail the roles that the news media can play in an ongoing peace process. Gadi Wolfsfeld explains how the press's role in such processes varies over time and political circumstance. He examines three major cases: the Oslo peace process between Israel and the Palestinians; the peace process between Israel and Jordan; and the process surrounding the Good Friday Agreement in Northern Ireland. Wolfsfeld's central argument is that there is a fundamental contradiction between news values and the nature of a peace process. This often leads the media to play a destructive role in attempts to make peace, but variations in the political and media environment affect significantly exactly how the media behave. Wolfsfeld shows how the media played a mainly destructive role in the Oslo peace process, but were more constructive during the Israel-Jordan process and in Northern Ireland.
The new media environment has challenged the role of professional journalists as the primary source of politically relevant information. After Broadcast News puts this challenge into historical context, arguing that it is the latest of several critical moments, driven by economic, political, cultural, and technological changes, in which the relationship among citizens, political elites, and the media has been contested. Out of these past moments, distinct “media regimes” eventually emerged, each with its own seemingly natural rules and norms, and each the result of political struggle with clear winners and losers. The media regime in place for the latter half of the twentieth century has been dismantled, but a new regime has yet to emerge. Assuring this regime is a democratic one requires serious consideration of what was most beneficial and most problematic about past regimes and what is potentially most beneficial and most problematic about today's new information environment.
Americans consistently name Republicans as the party better at handling issues like national security and crime, while they trust Democrats on issues like education and the environment – a phenomenon called “issue ownership.” Partisan Priorities investigates the origins of issue ownership, showing that in fact the parties deliver neither superior performance nor popular policies on the issues they “own.” Rather, Patrick J. Egan finds that Republicans and Democrats simply prioritize their owned issues with lawmaking and government spending when they are in power. Since the parties tend to be particularly ideologically rigid on the issues they own, politicians actually tend to ignore citizens' preferences when crafting policy on these issues. Thus, issue ownership distorts the relationship between citizens' preferences and public policies.
The use of wedge issues such as abortion, gay marriage, and immigration has become standard political strategy in contemporary presidential campaigns. Why do candidates use such divisive appeals? Who in the electorate is persuaded by these controversial issues? And what are the consequences for American democracy? In this provocative and engaging analysis of presidential campaigns, Sunshine Hillygus and Todd Shields identify the types of citizens responsive to campaign information, the reasons they are responsive, and the tactics candidates use to sway these pivotal voters. The Persuadable Voter shows how emerging information technologies have changed the way candidates communicate, who they target, and what issues they talk about. As Hillygus and Shields explore the complex relationships between candidates, voters, and technology, they reveal potentially troubling results for political equality and democratic governance. The Persuadable Voter examines recent and historical campaigns using a wealth of data from national surveys, experimental research, campaign advertising, archival work, and interviews with campaign practitioners. With its rigorous multimethod approach and broad theoretical perspective, the book offers a timely and thorough understanding of voter decision making, candidate strategy, and the dynamics of presidential campaigns.
The terms Deep Web, Deep Net, Invisible Web, or Dark Web refer to the content on the World Wide Web that is not indexed by standard search engines. One can describe the Internet as composed of layers: the “upper” layer, or the Surface Web, can easily be accessed by regular searches. However, “deeper” layers, the content of the Deep Web, have not been indexed by traditional search engines such as Google. Michael K. Bergman who wrote the seminal paper on the Deep Web, compared searching the Internet to dragging a net across the surface of the ocean: a great deal may be caught in the net, but there is a wealth of information that is deeper and therefore missed. In fact, most of the Web's information is buried far down on sites, and standard search engines are unable to access it.
This article assesses the evidence used to in arguments for the role of the media in conflict and post-conflict situations. It focuses on two broad areas
within the literature. First, it examines literature on the contribution of media in war to peace transitions, including assessment of evidence used to show
how the media may contribute to violent conflict and how they may provoke, or hinder, post-conflict reconstruction. Second, it assesses evidence used in arguments for the role new Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) such as the Internet and mobile phones may have in liberation or
oppression in developing country contexts. Through reviewing some of the most significant papers that were systematically selected in a literature review on media and conflict, our findings suggest that there are serious gaps
in the evidence and the majority of evidence is located in the “grey literature” or policy documents. The article concludes by suggesting future research agendas to address these gaps.
1972. The Munich Olympics. Palestinian members of the Black September group murder eleven Israeli athletes. Nine hundred million people watch the crisis unfold on television, witnessing a tragedy that inaugurates the modern age of terror and remains a scar on the collective conscience of the world. Back in Israel, Prime Minister Golda Meir vows to track down those responsible and, in Menachem Begin's words, "run these criminals and murderers off the face of the earth." A secret Mossad unit, code named Caesarea, is mobilized, a list of targets drawn up. Thus begins the Israeli response-a mission that unfolds not over months but over decades. The Mossad has never spoken about this operation. No one has known the real story, until now. Award-winning journalist Aaron Klein's incisive and riveting account tells for the first time the full story of Munich and the Israeli counterterrorism operation it spawned. With unprecedented access to Mossad agents and an unparalleled knowledge of Israeli intelligence, Klein peels back the layers of myth and misinformation that have permeated previous books, films, and magazine articles about the "shadow war" against Black September and other terrorist groups.
Scholars have investigated the characteristics of volatile voters ever since the first voter surveys were carried out and they have paid specific attention to the role of political sophistication on vote switching. Nevertheless, the exact nature of this relationship is still unclear. With increasing volatility over the past decades this question has furthermore grown in relevance. Is the growing unpredictability of elections mostly driven by sophisticated voters making well-considered choices or is the balance of power in the hands of unsophisticated ‘floating voters’? Several scholars have argued that even under conditions of increasing volatility switching is still mostly confined to changes to ideologically close parties. Most researchers, however, have used rather crude measures to investigate this ‘leap’ between parties. To advance research in this field, this article directly models the ideological distance bridged by volatile voters when investigating the link between political sophistication and volatility. This is done using Comparative Study of Electoral systems (CSES) data that encompass a broad sample of recent parliamentary elections worldwide. Results indicate that voters with an intermediate level of political knowledge are most likely to switch overall. When taking into account the ideological distance of party switching, however, the confining impact of political knowledge on the vote choices made is clearly dominant, resulting in a linear decrease of the distance bridged as voters become more knowledgeable.