Global Mass Media Research Articles

Konflikt o niskiej intensywności: sytuacja rosyjsko-gruzińska po 2008 r.

The signature of the so-called Six-Point Ceasefire Agreement and the Agreement on Measures Implementing to the Six-Point Plan by all parties of the Russian-Georgian conflict, resulted in the international arena considering the Russian-Georgian conflict as frozen. Successive indistinguishable politicians elected as a president and prime ministers have ensured that Georgia and its problem have been forgotten by the international arena and the global mass media. Recognition of such a status has only emboldened the Russian Federation, leading it to take further steps in the area of the occupied republics and, in the longer term, the Near Abroad space. Moreover, despite its official frozen status, the active phase of the conflict has been, and continues to be, maintained by the Russian Federation by keeping military bases and border guards on Georgia’s occupied territories, as well as by carrying out a delimitation process (so-called borderisation) with the defector separatist authorities. The spikes in tensions at the so-called unrecognized borders indicate that neither side wants to tolerate a further deterioration of the security situation in that area. In the face of recent events, including Russia’s renewed aggression on Ukraine, the protracted Russian-Georgian conflict, though of low intensity, should notably return to the agenda of Russia’s talks with the West.

Поствыборный кризис в Мьянме

The article analyzes the current political situation in Myanmar where the military came back to power in February 2021. The legality of introducing the state of emergency by the military and of transferring the state power to the Commander-in-Chief of the Defence Services Senior General Min Aung Hlaing is addressed. The situation in Myanmar is also compared with the neighbouring Thailand where military takeovers have become a political routine. The difference between Myanmar’s and Thailand’s coups and their perceptions by the international community is highlighted. The “Daw Aung San Suu Kyi factor” and the political-information campaign against Myanmar in global mass media are analyzed. Special attention is paid to the U.S. policy towards Myanmar as a country that is strategically located at the coast of the Bay of Bengal. The role of U.S.-based charity funds and social networks in organizing mass protests in Myanmar, in reaction to the state of emergency declared by the military, is explored. The Civil Disobedience Movement’s actions, goals and practical results are discussed. Finally, the article outlines scenarios of future developments and focuses on the key role of Myanmar’s military (the Tatmadaw) in peaceful solution of the post-election political crisis in Myanmar.

State News Agency Frames on Terrorist Attack : Study in TVNZ New Zealand and news.lk Sri Lanka

Many of the global mass media tend to deliver a particular news frame in a terrorism case, especially linkage terrorism with certain religions, races, at so on. The global mass media is influenced by Western media. The news frame will be different from the news agency level. This article aims to discuss news frame by the national news agencies in New Zealand (TVNZ) and Sri Lanka (news. lk) in a terrorism case, using the Robert N. Entman frame model. The result shows TVNZ defines the problem as an unprecedented action and creates a dark history in the country, the cause of the problem is terrorists from outside New Zealand, moral judgments in the form of evidence that New Zealand society remains united, the victims are also part of the New Zealand family regardless of their background, so the recommended resolution of the problem is that the government guarantees the safety of Muslim communities. Differently, news.lk defines the problem as the motive of the attack as revenge with religious sentiment. Meanwhile, the security forces are not aware of the threat, that define the cause of the problem as the perpetrator is an organized group and an indication of religious sentiment. This media makes moral judgments by revealing the fact that Muslims not guilty, the government facilitates representatives of the religious community in Sri Lanka to express their opinions to find solutions for reconciliation and maintaining peace. The recommended resolution is that the government is ready to fight terrorism without foreign intervention, improve the performance of the security forces, and reveal the active role of the different Sri Lankan people's ethnicity and religion.

Between Emotion and Calculation

Abstract Operation Truth (Operación Verdad) was the Cuban Revolution’s first major intervention in the global mass media. In late January 1959, the revolutionary government invited journalists and politicians from around the world to witness the trials and executions of individuals accused of committing human rights abuses during the Fulgencio Batista dictatorship. This essay argues that Operation Truth prompted a battle of information waged to define the legitimacy of emotion and calculation as a way of supporting political action in Cuba. Operation Truth coverage judged the revolutionary leaders’ suitability as governing officials by characterizing them as bearers of a “true masculinity,” and positively or negatively judging their “Latin” identity.

“How Godfather Part II of You”: The Gangster Figure and Transnational Masculinities in Marlon James’s A Brief History of Seven Killings

Set in Kingston, New York and Miami in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, James’s novel A Brief History of Seven Killings charts the transformation of politically affiliated Jamaican gangs into transnational criminal organizations. The novel references various incarnations of the “gangster” in the context of mid- to late-twentieth-century Jamaica: the rudie, the shotta and the don. In this essay I consider how, through its engagement with the iconography surrounding the gangster figure both within Jamaican popular culture and in the global mass media, A Brief History examines and complicates models of masculinity associated with this figure. In the process, I suggest, the novel at once reflects on and contributes to evolving Jamaican and transnational discourses of masculinity. Reading A Brief History as a gangster narrative, I position it within an increasingly global tradition of gangster fiction and film. The novel’s multiple narrative voices and perspectives, along with its eclectic range of cultural reference points, render the gangster icon – a central component of the genre – ambiguous and plural. I argue that through his reworking of the gangster figure, James both queers the gangster genre and extends its transnational reach.

Adolescents Exposure to Global Mass Media: Influences on Sexual Behavior and Sexuality in Hawassa City, Ethiopia

Over the past decade, new research has identified media as having the potential to serve both roles Brown JD (2007). Much of this work focuses on traditional media, such as television, film, music, and magazines. But the media landscape is evolving at a startling pace, and a greater diversity of content, new types of media, and new platforms for delivering media are constantly emerging. This study had largely tried to address the gaps in addressing the youth’s problematic sexual behavior arising from uncontrolled media influence. The study employed cross-sectional survey design so as to obtain information about the present situation which is related to the issue under study. It utilized both quantitative and qualitative methods of data collection and analysis to obtain the strengths from both methods and to address their weakness by using strengths from each other. While survey questionnaire was utilized as technique of collecting quantitative data, the qualitative was collected using interview, FGD and observation. Under the implementation of simple random technique, 40 sample students have been selected (20 female and 20 male) students. Through a detail investigation the analyzed data dictates that though media used as a source of entertainment, information, sensation and coping gender role modeling, and youth culture identification are the negative effects. In terms of exposure, adolescent respondents spent almost 3-4 hours of the day using media with the most time spent watching television and visiting websites. Case respondents also use print media put the fact remains the same that there exist large individual variations in adolescent media use. Even if there is minor positive media influence, largely there exist negative aspects of consumption of media side of side with its advantage. Though, the function of televisions, Internet and other mass media include providing information and entertainment as well as a portrait of the world beyond the immediate context in which they live however, one negative aspect of this medias is that it involves passive learning. Special concerns are the ways sexual contents, aggression are portrayed on television and other mass-medias. Therefore, from the finding of the study it can be recommended as first it’s important to encourage socially responsible programming second; Mass Medias should have to regulate themselves in regard to their influence adolescents and finally, encourage media literacy programs as part of school curricula, youth and community organizations. Keywords: Adolescents, Sexual Behaviors, Sexuality, Mass Media DOI : 10.7176/RHSS/9-17-03 Publication date :September 30 th 2019

Sustainable Development—A Poorly Communicated Concept by Mass Media. Another Challenge for SDGs?

Thirty years after “Our Common Future” by the Brundtland Commission in 1987, sustainable development remains the only internationally and consensually recognized global development concept. The last major United Nations event—the Rio+20 Conference in 2012—endorsed it by proposing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and their more specific targets and indicators (adopted in 2015). We claim that educators, politicians, and civil society organizations have failed to a large extent in making the sustainable development concept broadly appealing. Among the missing enabling factors are a good narrative (making an extremely complex sustainable development concept comprehensible to all, thereby raising public support), social norms (reflecting commonly held sustainability principles and goals), and sustainability indicators (providing clear information for steering policies as well as for daily decisions). In this paper we focus on the role of mass media (English-written printed newspapers) as an important information channel and agenda-setter, and analyze their modes of sustainability communication. We look into how these media communicate selected key sustainability themes, and how they make connections to the overarching concept of sustainable development. We hypothesize that the media predominantly informs people and sets the agenda by communicating themes of current interest (e.g., gender inequalities), but misses the opportunity of framing them in the broader, overarching concept of sustainable development. This may be a significant sustainability faux (error)—great political intentions need efficient implementation tools, not just political resolutions. To this end, we need well-narrated and framed sustainability themes communicated through mass media to activate the social norms that potentially support societally beneficial conduct. By undertaking an extensive mass media analysis, this paper offers rare empirical evidence on sustainability communication by the global mass media during the last ten years, and identifies the main caveats and challenges for sustainability proponents. As sustainability communication does not yet have its own theoretical framework, SDGs seem to offer a suitable mechanism for this.

From moral ambivalence to differential congruence: Understanding transnational sexuality using cultural schemas

Through in-depth interviews, this study aimed to show how lesbians and gay men in India may construct their sexuality as a result of being globally connected through accessing “transnational pathways," such as the global mass media, diasporic experiences, and transnational workplaces. This study indicates that these pathways aid the interaction between externally derived sexual schemas and pre-existing sexual schemas, which may in turn lead to a configuration of “differential congruence” whereby competing sexual schemas may coexist rather than fuse or replace each other in an individual’s life, albeit in different spheres.

Adolescents Exposure to Global Mass Media: Influences on Sexual Behavior and Sexuality

Adolescents Exposure to Global Mass Media: Influences on Sexual Behavior and Sexuality

Orientalizing Socialism: Architecture, Media, and the Representations of Eastern Europe

After two decades of being ignored, the architecture of the so-called ‘former East’ has recently been discovered by global mass media. The photographs of Soviet sanatoria, Bulgarian resorts, Central Asian bus stops, and Yugoslav war memorials can now be seen in print publications, in music videos, and even in sci-fi movies, as well as endlessly circulating within social networks. The phenomenon contradicts the previous negative stereotypes of socialist architecture—the overblown monumentality of the Stalinist period and the drabness of prefabricated mass housing—introducing the formerly adventurous structures of the 1970s and 1980s as objects of genuine fascination. Presented through the seemingly objective medium of photography, however, these buildings are nevertheless firmly inscribed into the old ideological framework inherited from the Cold War that reduced all agency under state socialism to totalitarian control. Contradicting recent scholarship that has revealed a great deal of complexity in the construction of the socialist built environments, these new media representations constitute a novel form of Orientalism. Its object is still coincidentally located in the East—Europe’s own East—but this time around the alleged otherness rests on ideological rather than cultural or racial grounds. The paper analyzes two widely known projects responsible for this neo-Orientalist turn, Jan Kempenaers’ Spomenik and Frederic Chaubin’s Cosmic Communist Constructions Photographed, which pose fundamental questions for the historians of European architecture: Who should have the right to shape the public perception of architectural history? How is architectural history used to maintain the geopolitical divisions and hierarchies within Europe itself?

Can college students’ global competence be enhanced in the classroom? The impact of cross- and inter-cultural online projects

This study examines college students’ global competence acquisition at a US and Korean university and assesses the effect of cross- and inter-cultural online projects implemented simultaneously at both universities. The data were collected through a pre- and post-survey of the participating students. The findings were as follows: (1) overall, the projects significantly increased students’ intercultural communication skills and knowledge of the other country, (2) among three antecedents, the global mass media had mixed effects on the global competence and the effect of the projects, (3) mass migration was identified as a significant influence on students’ global competence and the effect of the projects, and (4) language barriers, technology, and time differences were found to be the main challenges of the project.

Iran nuclear deal: from nationalism to diplomacy

PurposeSelected countries in the world have the technical capability of creating nuclear energy. Iran has striven to acquire the know-how to harness nuclear power and has been scientifically successful. However, it was sanctioned by the foremost world powers for doing so. The purpose of this paper is to analyze how the Iranian nuclear dossier came about and how it became a global issue, how it was resolved and who will benefit from its resolution.Design/methodology/approachThe paper is designed to review the antecedents, to study the international community’s position, to analyze the outcomes and to make some recommendations. The study’s methodology is therefore analytical.FindingsAccess to nuclear technology is a political matter and those who are allowed to use it might be subject to the ideological preferences of those that have long had it. The holders of nuclear technology normally interact with allies to provide them with help to fulfill a nuclear power program under certain circumstances. If an individual country decides to go its own way and develop an indigenous technical capability, it will come under scrutiny and measures will be taken to control it. If those measures fail, sanctions and pressures will be employed to hamper the achievement of nuclear independence. In the absence of tangible results, negotiations will start and agreement may be reached based on the expertise of the two sides’ negotiators. A peaceful agreement could be a win-win solution if it respects the rights and responsibilities of the parties involved. Iran’s nuclear deal, if implemented properly, would be a success story and will shape future policies in the Middle East.Research limitations/implicationsThe first prerequisite for research is to have access to credible literature. When dealing with a new phenomenon, researchers face the challenge of not having sufficient material to develop a hypothesis or respond to all the questions that they have to pose. For Iran’s nuclear deal hundreds of articles have been written, but few books. Furthermore, because of the delicacy and confidentiality of the negotiations undertaken, one cannot interview the authorities involved either.Practical implicationsThere are some Asian, Latin American and African countries with similar plans concerning nuclear energy. The paper will provide food for thought to evaluate the cost of their decisions and make suggestions for how they should proceed so that they can be perceived to be acting properly.Social implicationsAlthough nuclear themes are largely political and a part of the security arena internationally, access to nuclear technology as a power source could have a significant impact on the social development of the countries pursuing nuclear energy programs. The paper studies the effect of the Iranian deal on health, education, social networks and civil society.Originality/valueThe author has been involved in part of the negotiating process and has, thus, been in a position to verify different information discussed in the global mass media. The subject is also a brand-new issue in international relations, since a peaceful solution was found for a scenario that had previously been solved by military intervention, without exception. Finally, it is interdisciplinary research with an innovative analysis approach.

Disaster’s Face

The global mass media in general depicts disasters as a spectacle for an audience of consumers. As a result, the individuals depicted effectively become generic victims, not fully developed human beings with distinct needs and interests (Drake, Tierney). In Sinha’s novel, however, the chemical plant explosion, though drastically noxious to Khaufpuri citizens, is not restricted to harming only Khaufpuris. In fact, Animal’s narrative conveys visual punctual violence on a Western audience, as well as the Khaufpuris. He reminds his Western audience that there are exposed human bodies in specific geographic locations. This essay investigates the corporeal experience Animal’s audience has with disaster because of his narrative style. I argue that Animal’s People rhetorically constructs a Western audience, and in doing so, reorients the Western audience’s relationship with disaster and disaster victims. Put another way, this essay argues that Sinha’s novel discloses both non-Western and Western human beings amidst catastrophe by deconstructing the fantasy that Westerners are far removed and invincible from disaster.

The ethics of talking about 'HIV cure'.

BackgroundIn 2008, researchers reported that Timothy Brown (the ‘Berlin Patient’), a man with HIV infection and leukemia, received a stem-cell transplant that removed HIV from his body as far as can be detected. In 2013, an infant born with HIV infection received anti-retroviral treatment shortly after birth, but was then lost to the health care system for the next six months. When tested for HIV upon return, the child (the ‘Mississippi Baby’) had no detectable viral load despite cessation of treatment. These remarkable clinical developments have helped reinvigorate the field of ‘HIV cure’ research.DiscussionAlthough this research field is largely in a pre-clinical phase, talk about curing HIV has become a regular feature in the global mass media. This paper explores the language of HIV cure from philosophical, ethical and historical perspectives. Examination of currently influential definitions of ‘functional’ and ‘sterilizing’ HIV cure reveal that these conceptualizations are more complicated than they seem. Cure is often understood in narrowly biomedical terms in isolation from the social and psychological dimensions of illness. Contemporary notions of HIV cure also inherit some of the epistemic problems traditionally associated with cures for other health conditions, such as cancer. Efforts to gain greater conceptual clarity about cure lead to the normative question of how ‘HIV cure research’ ought to be talked about.SummaryWe argue that attention to basic concepts ethically matter in this context, and identify advantages as well as potential pitfalls of how different HIV/AIDS stakeholders may make use of the concept of cure. While concepts other than cure (such as remission) may be appropriate in clinical contexts, use of the word cure may be justified for other important purposes in the struggle against HIV/AIDS.

Mobil İletişim Teknolojileriyle Değişen Örgütlenme Biçimleri: Ağlarda Örgütlenen Toplumsal Hareketler / Organizational Forms Which Covaries With Mobile Communication Technologies: Social Movements Which are Organized in Networks

In recent years, governmental protests in Ukraine improvements in information and communication technologies have been affecting concourse and organization forms of people, like affecting every field of life. Revolution of information technologies which has been penetrating into the field of entire human activites has an effect on having these transformations. With the technological segmentation in 1970’s, electronical communication network that becomes today’s internet , going beyond the scope of military bounds makes social upheaval acquires dimension. With becoming internet a global mass media, society went into a new transition period ‘’technocentricly’’. At this point, a communication form which mediating with communication technologies shows up. Today, from social relations to political organizations, all kinds of organization activites occurs via information technologies. People who came together at cafes, parks, visits and associations in conventional period, come together at social networks today. Similar situation stands out itself in exposure of social will. Today, when wireless internet forms network with mobile information technologies, when images and ideas spread like virus; the latest example of social movements which form networks is anti-governmental protests in Ukraine.In this study, the circumstances that have caused the rebellion that cropped up in Ukraine will be revealed and the question of how social solidarity networks and mobile communication technologies have affected this process will be answered. With this aims, effects of information technologies - spesifically opportunities of mobile communication devices on organization process will be analyzed through antigovernmental protests in Ukraine

Shipwreck with spectator: snapshots of border security in Australia

On 15 December 2010, variations of the image shown in Figure 1 circulated through global mass media, emanating from Australia. Figure 1. Screenshot of news broadcast footage showing survivor of SIE...

The interplay of mediascapes and cityscapes in a sports mega-event

Drawing on critical literature on the neoliberal practices of event and place branding, the article addresses the interplay of mediascapes and cityscapes in the making of the South African football spectacle in 2010. In analysing the world’s biggest football mega-event, orchestrated by FIFA (Fédération Internationale de Football Association) in collaboration with the South African hosts and mainly multinational sponsors, the article first addresses the manifestations of branding in the built environment, from flamboyant stadium architecture to transport and media technological infrastructures. Next, it scrutinizes people’s expected and actual acts and roles in the urban stages of the tournament. Ordinary South Africans were exhorted to co-create the tournament brand in the role of wildly celebrating ideal fans. As the flipside to and prerequisite for the emotionally captivating images circulated in the global mass media, the event-led enclaves of the tournament in the urban space were actually cleansed of people, symbols and actions that threatened the harmonious place brand.

Konstruksi Identitas Kultural Masyarakat Pluralis dalam Terpaan Globalisasi

This article aims to consider the construction of cultural identity through communication process within globalization era. The article based on qualitative research to look at communicatioan procces in which the cultural identity construction is taken place. The recent research focus on cultural identity of community living along the sea area, named Kaliwungu sub district, Kendal, Central of Java. This research conclude that cultural identity constructed by people of Kaliwunggu is influenced by global mass media. Televisioan as main media has good and bad impact toward people of Kaliwungu. Nevertheless, their tradition, local people forum and central mosque has been achore in which local value and tradition is maintained.

Masculine identity and the projection of ‘male images’ in mass media: towards a pastoral hermeneutics in theory formation

Human identities in general - including gender and sexual identities – have recently become more diverse and malleable. This is to a great extent because of the pervasive influence of the mass media and popular culture, which proposes to offer important tools to help men (and women) adjust to contemporary life. Some parts of popular culture are reasserting traditional forms of masculinity, whilst others are challenging them - telling men what they are now ‘supposed to’ look like, act like, be like.Media representations can be viewed as influencing our socialised schemata of interpretation for gender identities. This is also applicable to theological schemata of interpretation concerning commercialised men and masculinities. We drew upon work in variety of disciplines, such as cultural and media studies, sociology, theology and psychology, in order to examine issues concerning masculinities within this information era, influenced by the prescriptive role of mass media. In this way more insight was gained in terms of the dominating discourses reflected by images of men and masculinities in the global mass media, and how this can be investigated critically, from a pastoral hermeneutical perspective.Magazines were also viewed as crucial media to analyse in order to understand male identity in a more comprehensive way. Therefore we chose our own South African cultural context within which we suggest the critical assessment of the influence of certain mass media representations – particularly displayed in magazines - on various expressions of masculinity. This was suggested in order to promote and co-create men and masculinities that focus on life-giving intimacy, vitality and human dignity.

2008 World Economic Crisis as the Print Media Informative Treatment

Que en pleno Siglo XXI haya miles de personas que mueran cada día por no tener alimento suficiente clama al cielo, pero el silencio es mucho más escandaloso de lo que serían todas sus voces gritando al unísono. Silencio que también muestran, sin reparos, los medios de comunicación de masas en esta coyuntura mediática que nos ha tocado vivir.