This content analysis offers a benchmark of product placement (PPL) in eight Korean dramas that earned top viewership on Netflix during the COVID-driven media consumption of 2020 and continued streaming 5 years later. Researchers found 507 labelled products from 78 unique brands, including a heavy presence of brands from 11 non-Korean countries. Automobiles appeared most frequently as a product category, followed by food and beverages. Branded products were often used by primary characters for extended periods of time. Findings add to PPL literature by evaluating non-US over-the-top (OTT) programming with continuing global SVoD viewership and includes explanations of regulation differences in South Korea.

This study examines the Eurovision Song Contest (ESC) media coverage of Azerbaijan and Sweden to consider possible Eurocentric bias in international communication. Using Media Influences Theory and textual analysis, it analyzes visual symbology and notes consistent differences in portrayals of Western and non-Western participants. Western European media appear to respond to ingrained audience preferences, which may reinforce Eurocentric frames. These tendencies shape intercultural perception within ESC coverage. The study suggests reconsidering media practice toward representation that reflects global cultures rather than privileging Western norms.

This article examines closures of American Cultural Centers in the People’s Republic of China and Confucius Institutes in the United States as actions taken in alignment with, and justified by, government produced strategic communications. In the sphere of public diplomacy, these cases represent dynamic resistance action linked to US/PRC global paradigms. Here, shuddering state-sponsored education and cultural activities displays the strategic competition apparent in the Trump (2017)/Biden (2022) US National Security Strategies as well as the PRC’s National Defense White Paper (2019). When public diplomacy is deferred, the shifting US-PRC relationship and pathways for opposing strategic influence processes are made apparent.

This article introduces and explores the concept of ‘hybrid political actors’ (HPAs) and the implications of their rise for contemporary democracy. It argues that the phenomenon is not new but has become increasingly significant amid the digital disruptions of the fourth age of political communication. As explained, professions in the fields of politics and journalism have lost their communication primacy within the political public sphere, while hybridity has simultaneously enabled further boundary blurring between these and other professions. Thus, HPAs have flourished. Four of which are sketched out here are politician-publishers , political pseudo news sites , celebrity-politicians and political flexions . As the piece concludes, the growing influence of such actors challenges democracies in various ways. The recent rise to power of Donald Trump and a number of allied business celebrity-politicians , epitomises these trends and the challenges.

This study seeks to identify the digital media frames of the violations committed by the Israeli occupation against Palestinian female journalists as presented on the AlJazeera YouTube channel and BBC YouTube channel from 1/1/2020 to 30/06/2023. The media framing theory foregrounds the current study. This study is considered descriptive and uses the media survey methodology as well as quantitative and qualitative analysis. A sample of 105 videos posted on the two YouTube channels were analyzed using qualitative content analysis. The study results reveal that both TV news channels covered Israeli violations against Palestinian female journalists, such as killing, arrests, and abuse, while completely ignoring Israeli violations related to restricting freedom of opinion and expression. Furthermore, the YouTube channels primarily documented Israeli violations against Palestinian female journalists through videos created by citizens using mobile phones. The study also revealed that the assassination of the Palestinian journalist Sherine Abu Aqelah is the most significant incident featured in YouTube videos. Results indicate that the number of videos published on AlJazeera YouTube channel is greater than that published on the BBC channel. In addition, AlJazeera’s YouTube channel used emotional and rational persuasion techniques in covering Israeli violations. The news coverage by AlJazeera gives more attention to the violations against its journalists and reporters than those working for other media organizations.

Heightened geopolitical tensions give rise to digital diplomacy scholarship that frames social media as a digital battleground where rival states amply diplomatic messaging. Yet, interactions between ambassadors and host countries amidst geopolitical tensions remain underexplored. This study used mixed methods to analyze the 2022–2023 X posts of China’s ambassadors in Washington, DC, and their US counterpart in Beijing. Computational analysis reveals different sentiment curves and diplomatic priorities on ambassadorial accounts. Qualitative interpretation reveals that ambassadors were positive on topics of bilateral cooperation, interaction and historical connections. Whereas Chinese ambassadors were critical of the US on Taiwan and human rights, the US ambassador was negative on China’s human rights, geopolitical actions and censorship.

This study analyzes the X communication strategy of the IDF’s Arabic spokesperson, Avichay Adraee, during the short 3-day Operation Breaking Dawn in August 2022. Using grounded theory, the analysis of 126 posts reveals five core strategies: segmented digital diplomacy, justified power framing, digital credibility control, psychological fragmentation tactics, and strategic morality framing. These strategies targeted diverse Arabic-speaking audiences to influence perception and control the wartime narrative. The study contributes a conceptual framework for understanding strategic digital diplomacy and state propaganda in conflict zones.

This article examines the discursive representation of the Nile Water Treaties as portrayed by Ahram Online , Sudan Tribune and The Ethiopian Herald , national newspapers in Egypt, Sudan, and Ethiopia, respectively. Guided by Postcolonial Theory, the study employs the Postcolonial Critical Discourse Analysis method. Findings reveal that these newspapers divergently portrayed the Nile treaties as binding, alternative and obsolete trichotomies, respectively. We argue that the structural legacies of colonialism, as evidenced by colonial treaties, still influence how contemporary media portrays projects on transboundary resources. Consequently, such divergences contribute to conflicting terms rather than cooperation between the three riparian countries regarding the project.

Using qualitative content analysis and in-depth interviews, this study examines the hybrid media culture within which the pan-Arab diasporic media in the UK function as they exist physically in a liberal media system while operating virtually in a more restrictive one. The paper further investigates the hybrid patterns of interactions, spaces and politics/media logic to specify new connections between social actors within such a transnational system. It employs two conceptual frameworks: comparing media systems and the hybrid media system as starting points for developing a novel definition of the ‘Transnational Hybrid Media System’ and advancing a comprehensive discussion of its characteristics.

This paper empirically analyses the way Russian, Iranian, Arab (Saudi, Emirati and Egyptian), and Chinese trolls targeted Canada with their Twitter campaigns, which often contained disinformation. The multimodal findings of this empirical study confirm that all these trolls promoted their respective countries and attacked Canada for its foreign policies that conflicted with their political agenda and geo-strategic interests, with the trolls only diverging in some areas. The more sophisticated trolls are found to be the Russian and Iranian ones due to their focus upon internal divisive issues in Canada.