International Media Research Articles

Gaza Crisis and the Arabic Press: A Discourse Analysis

The Hamas attack of October 7, 2023, and the Israeli military response have been widely covered in the Arabic press, reinforcing the popular narrative of a strong and aggressive Israeli state and the victimized Palestinians. The coverage underlines the wide support for Palestinians in the Arabic press. Broadly, one can divide the Arabic press into state-aligned and independent media, with the former’s coverage reflecting the opinions of the respective governments, while the latter showcases the views of non-state actors. A key trend that emerges is the strong anti-Israel sentiments prevailing in the Arab countries and the increased support for Palestinian statehood. Notably, there are serious discussions about the possibility of a two-state solution and the role Arab governments can play in convincing the two warring sides. There are some nuanced and veiled criticisms of Hamas’s actions that triggered the current spate of violence. A closer reading of select international Arabic-language media (print and online) reveals the nuanced shifts in their coverage toward the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Political PR in International Digital Communications: The Experience of the Eurasian Media Space

Digital media has become an integral part of the political life of citizens, as an increasing number of people around the world use digital media technologies for communication. Digital media contribute to the formation of socio-political factors that raise concerns about the spread of disinformation, information disagreements and political polarization.Aim. To analyze the tools, problems and opportunities of political PR in the context of digitalization of the media space in foreign countries and the EAEU countries.Tasks. To give significant ideas about the concepts of “political public relations” and “political communication”; to identify factors influencing political communication processes; to present international experience in the application of political PR in the context of digitalization of media; to formulate the possibilities for the development of Eurasian integration in the context of digitalization of the media space.Methods. The methodological basis of the scientific research was such modern general scientific research methods as: comparative analysis, statistical and structural-logical methods, content analysis of open sources of information.Results. The paper defines the role and importance of digital media in political PR activities, identifies traditional and modern factors of influence on political activity, as well as problems in the new digital reality. To build political communications with the audience, its impact and increase engagement, political organizations use new media technologies using multimodality. In practice, the digital inequality of the world population deprives a number of people of digital communication, and as a result, the necessary conditions for participation in the political and economic life of the country. The digital divide of the EAEU countries reduces the political communicative impact on citizens’ beliefs in the need to strengthen integration processes. It seems appropriate to introduce consistency in the formation of the Eurasian integration agenda and a single digital information field to increase the political culture of civic engagement in all EAEU member states.Conclusions. With the help of variation of resources, the necessary content is formed to create the necessary audience effect. Indeed, digital media has a number of advantages that have been proven in practice, however, political PR is influenced by the negative side of the development of digital communications — the spread of fake news, most of which cannot be traced to the source. Therefore, the transformation of digital opportunities, the distribution of political resources, the dissemination of political discourse and the structure of political opportunities in the digital age is the most relevant in the modern world. Using the example of the EAEU countries, it is proved that digitalization in the international media space causes the involvement of citizens of different countries in integration, generalization and formation of public support for the state.

‘Discursive Interpretations of Cultural Symbols in Mega Sporting Events: The Case of Messi’s Bisht at the 2022 World Cup’

This study examines the dominant narratives and media frames surrounding the moment when football celebrity Lionel Messi wore a bisht during the World Cup 2022 crowning ceremony. Employing a frame analysis approach, the research seeks to uncover the discursive meanings tied to this moment, which is heightened by national identity and nationalism in the context of globalized sport across international media platforms. A corpus of 25, 208 words from 59 online news articles was analyzed. At a macro level, the articles were largely framed within themes of conflict, controversy, criticism, and public and media reactions. The findings, which include specific cultural, national, political, economic, and identity frames, offer valuable insights into the complexities of globalization, nationalism, and cosmopolitanism in mega sporting events. Through discursive interpretations, this study provides a nuanced understanding of cultural exchange and identity issues in the globalized world of sports. Global media portrayed Messi’s bisht moment both positively (as a symbol of honor and respect) and negatively (as an instance of identity exploitation for cultural publicity). The study also reveals that Qatar was perceived as leveraging the event for national branding. Notably, nationalism and ideologies emerge as critical factors in media framing of mega sporting events.

Voices and Perspectives from Our Online Press on the State of English Language Teaching in Mexico

This documentary research on the discourse in electronic media surrounding the teaching and learning of English as a foreign language on the Mexico’s border describes the social framework and analyses various linguistic contexts to make provisional recommendations regarding foreign language policy in Mexico. The digital journalism selected issues an opinion on (1) the teaching of English as a language additional to Spanish in Mexico (English Language Teaching, ELT), and (2) Mexico’s position (at Federal and State level) implicit in their regional implementation of ELT. Thirteen articles from 12 regional, national, and international media sources were analysed using Guespin and Marcellesi’s (1986) and Arnoux and Bein’s (2015) theories, alongside Bardin’s (1996) content analysis method for linguistic contexts in border regions. Qualitative analysis techniques were employed to identify and categorize the positions on foreign language policy presented in the Mexican media. The authors conclude with recommendations for ELT policy, proposing actions for foreign language policy planning. We argue for raised teacher-training standards to improve foreign language learning in mainstream education and Private language schools, thus positioning the Universidad Autónoma de Baja California to take more agency in our regional support role to the Mexican Secretariate of Education

The Heralds of the Gospel: Catholic anti-modernity as new right utopia in Brazil

ABSTRACT The ‘Heralds of the Gospel’ are a Brazilian ultra-Catholic group with a long history of far-right lobbying and activism. Recognized in 2001 by the Vatican as ‘International Private Association of Christ’s Faithfull’, they are also ‘of Pontifical right’ and since 2005 allowed to ordinate their own priests. As ”soldiers of Christ” they are inspired by the Templars and pursue a utopian mission to subvert, transform and ultimately overturn the modern, secular state through their apostolate. The Heralds have also created an international education network and media imperium, underpinned by a robust business model, and are starting to reach out to the US and Europe. The article argues that this kind of exotic, Catholic far-right utopianism matters if we are to understand the diversity of the global new right today, in particular because the Brazilian tradition, which the Heralds refer to, anticipated some of the by now recurrent elements of this strand of the right such as metapolitics and antimodernism. The article explores the century long (neo)integrist tradition that the Heralds grow out of and through their own publications, PR and leaked evidence, show how this tradition is brought to life in the 21st century as communitarian practices and material artifacts.

Up in the air: A strategic narrative contest in the U.S.–China Balloon Incident 2023

Emerging crises such as the 2023 US–China balloon incident present opportunities for states to leverage murky events to justify their behaviors, rally political support, and promote favorable worldviews through projecting strategic narratives. This study examines narratives deployed by the US and China and evaluates their diffusion in the international media environment. International news coverage of the balloon incident ( N = 776) was analyzed by a human-in-the-loop machine-learning narrative analysis. Results show the US set the tone by framing the incident as a matter of surveillance, linking the issue to identity narratives, and forcing China to engage in narrative contests on spying. The US remained dominant in the international narrative sphere although China attempted to project alternative storylines. Implications for other countries are discussed. Findings illuminate the utility of strategic narratives in unpacking strategic interactions in the flow of international political communication, in an absence of major escalations.

Gaza and the Chronology of Perpetual Return

Abstract It doesn’t take much effort for a Palestinian to fall back on a narrative of recurring catastrophe, nakba, with Gaza the latest and most horrific in a long series of catastrophes. With Israel forbidding international media to enter Gaza, this newest catastrophe is mediated to us by the Gazans themselves. They try to communicate to us their suffering, but also other ways in which they want us to see them. How do we make sense of songs, smiles and small moments of hope in the middle of so much death and destruction? In their explicit defiance to being reduced to numbers, victims and refugees, Palestinians in Gaza challenge us who remain at a distance to think differently about the chronology of being Palestinian and re-inscribe it with a series of returns rather than catastrophes.

"News has various shades": Quantifying and Analyzing Media Bias at Aspect-level Granularity

This research presents a novel approach to dissecting media narratives, with a specific focus on aspect-level granularity and variance in addressing multifaceted news topics. Unlike previous studies, which often concentrate solely on ideological or political biases, our methodology delves deeper, exploring how diverse media outlets navigate the complexities of various news aspects. Through a detailed case study on Indian government policies, we uncover distinctive biases and variations in reporting between Indian and international media. Crucially, our methodology leverages Natural Language Inference (NLI) to identify news aspects and ascertain aspect-level sentiment from news text, enabling scalable and precise quantification of bias across diverse media narratives. Our findings illuminate the multifaceted layers of media coverage, revealing nuanced stances on different aspects of the same topic and the dynamic nature of biases over time. Importantly, our comprehensive framework quantifies media bias through data-driven quantitative evaluation, capturing both selection bias based on news aspect coverage and statement bias based on sentiment polarity. It is relevant to note that in our context, bias is not inherently favourable or unfavourable but rather serves as a quantitative metric to measure divergence in news presentation from the overall average. Thus, our contributions not only enhance understanding of media bias but also introduce a methodology distinguished for its comprehensive and scalable approach to analyzing media narratives, with substantial implications for future research and discussions in this domain.

The Humanitarian Crisis in the Media: Framing Analysis of Rohingya-Related International News Using BERTopic

ABSTRACT The Rohingya crisis is one of the most severe humanitarian tragedies of our time, yet its portrayal in international media often lacks justification. Utilizing BERTopic, a transformer-based semi-supervised topic modeling technique, we analyzed 8,074 news articles about the Rohingya crisis, spanning newspapers from ten countries between 2009 and 2023. We aimed to observe the framing of the Rohingya crisis across countries and track frames’ evolution over time. We identified eleven frames: Politics, Departure, Repatriation, Human Rights, Resettlement, Refuge, Relief, Crisis, Retribution, Condolence, and Press Freedom, with the Political frame as the most frequent. Notably, host and non-host countries differed in framing the crisis, with Retribution and Crisis frames exclusive to host countries’ media, while Resettlement and Press Freedom frames were exclusive to non-host countries’ media. Host countries focused on Repatriation, Human Rights, and Relief news, whereas non-host countries prioritized Politics, Departure, and Refuge frames. Additionally, neighboring host countries were less likely to publish news on Resettlement. Changes in frames displayed significant variability across countries, indicating a lack of consistently identifiable patterns and suggesting that news media's framing habits may prioritize national interests over the chronological progression of the crisis.

Rooted in Family, Exploring the World: The Integrated Identities of Advantaged Guatemalan Adolescents

Adolescents in today’s globalized world construct their identities within complex and intersecting ecologies. In majority world countries, such as Guatemala, adolescents are exposed to external influences through international media, travel, and visitors from other cultures. In this study, 131 middle and high school adolescents (53% girls, Mage = 14.5, range = 11–19) attending a bilingual school in Guatemala completed two quantitative measures (concerning local and remote acculturation and identity domain importance) and two qualitative measures (open-ended responses to the prompt “I am” and an autophotography exercise). The quantitative results showed that cultural affiliation with Guatemala was associated with a collective identity. Qualitative findings provided a deep and complex view of identity in the context of collectivism and global influences. In response to the prompt “I am,” adolescents described themselves as profoundly social, embedded in networks of nuclear and extended family and friends. They reported personal qualities that foster and maintain social bonds, including friendliness, kindness, sincerity, and a sense of humor. Reflexive thematic analysis of the text from the autophotography activity revealed participants’ interdependent self-construals and their developmental model of growth strategies and aspirations. Integration of traditional and global influences was creative and seamless for these adolescents who saw themselves as firmly embedded in family, Guatemala and its culture, while confidently growing and exploring the world. A mixed-methods approach can provide complementary findings that are more meaningful and expansive than either quantitative or qualitative methods alone.

Analyzing e-government agencies’ Twitter/X engagement: A case study of Nevada

This research aims to investigate the dynamics of interactivity between Nevada’s e-government and its citizens through the utilization of social media, with a specific focus on Twitter. Employing a mixed-methods approach, the study analyzed how Nevada state agencies engage with the public on Twitter, while concurrently assessing citizens’ responses through qualitative empirical research. These responses were categorized into content features, encompassing subjective opinions and sentiments (positive/negative), and structural features, comprising objective elements like special characteristics and multimedia components. Content analysis was employed to explore these features, leading to the identification of seven themes within a hypothesized two-dimensional framework, encompassing both the reflection of interactivity and the transmission of interactivity.<br /> Quantitative methods, specifically ANOVA and multiple regression analysis, were utilized to test the hypothesis. The findings revealed that Nevada e-government agencies predominantly used Twitter for one-way information dissemination, with limited two-way communication with citizens. To enhance interactivity, it is suggested that e-government posts incorporate multimedia elements and external links to facilitate information dissemination. Public administrators in the State of Nevada should focus on providing valuable and beneficial government posts, encouraging citizens to respond and express their opinions. Continuous training for public administrators is recommended, given the rapid advancements in technology and social media platforms.<br /> Furthermore, adopting best practices from domestic and international social media companies is advised to stay innovative. Public administration should transition from merely governing individuals and information to becoming facilitators and moderators of discourse on social media platforms. State e-government can strengthen citizen interaction by consistently delivering valuable information on social media, thereby obtaining immediate feedback, and influencing public opinion.

Mantas Kvedaravičius’s Mariupolis (2016) and Šarūnas Bartas’s Frost (2017): Soft Advocacy for the Ukrainians in the Russo-Ukrainian War

This article examines the visual testimonies and evidence of the Russo-Ukrainian War in its initial phase, shortly after Russia annexed Crimea in 2014, in the films of two Lithuanian filmmakers, Šarūnas Bartas and Mantas Kvedaravičius, who took the stance of advocates and made their internationally acclaimed films, namely the mixed-genre feature Frost (2017, dir. Š. Bartas) and the documentary Mariupolis (2016, dir. M. Kvedaravičius), in war zones, when international media coverage of the ongoing military operations on Ukrainian territory was gradually decreasing, along with political and other support. In these films, viewers do not see the apparent warfare, the clashes between the Ukrainian army and Russian troops or separatist fighters. But they do see the testimonies of Ukrainians, captured on film and mobile phone cameras, and they see images of despair and anxiety, destroyed settlements and lives that prove that the war has been going on since 2014. The article explores what makes these films an instrument of soft advocacy for the Ukrainians in the war, drawing on the prevailing concepts of advocacy in film and media studies.

DELIBERATIVE DEMOCRACY AND GENDER EQUALITY: CASE STUDY OF THE 2023 WOMEN'S SOCCER CUP IN SOCIAL AUDIT AND CITIZEN TRANSPARENCY

This article aims to analyze deliberative democracy, based on Jürgen Habermas' theory, applying it to the context of public and private entities, with a focus on gender equality in the 2023 Women's Football World Cup. The article will present a replicable model of social auditing, integrating Habermas' communicative rationality with the guidelines of the Brazilian Courts of Auditors. A connection will also be established between communicative rationality and administrative practices for the management of complex systems, since they share foundations of validity, correctness, sincerity, and truthfulness. The questions are based on the reports produced by the international media during the mega-event, using gender inequality as a category. The central argument lies in measuring the permeability of democratic civic common sense and identifying barriers to communication and effective engagement. The article seeks to contribute to citizen education and the integration of theory and practice in the face of the challenges of participatory democracy. The research presents two important results, the first confirms recent research on gender inequality in sport, as media coverage demonstrated disparities in women's football, and the second is the failure to comply with the rules of citizen transparency of sports entities.

THE POLITICS OF FIDESZ-KDNP OF HUNGARY UNDER V. ORBÁN IN WESTERN MEDIA, 2010-2024

This article offers a comprehensive analysis of Western media coverage of the Hungarian government's political course under Viktor Orban and the FIDESZ-KDNP coalition from 2010 to 2024. The study encompasses a wide range of aspects of Hungary's domestic and foreign policy, tracing the evolution of "Orbanism" perception in international media discourse. The author examines in detail the key themes that dominated Western media regarding Hungary, namely: The transformation of the country's democratic system and discussions around the concept of "illiberal democracy". Systematic conflicts between Hungary and the European Union, especially on issues of rule of law and democratic values. Hungary's strict migration policy and its impact on European policy in this area. Economic reforms known as "Orbanomics" and their controversial perception in the international arena. Changes in Hungary's media landscape and discussions about press freedom. Hungary's foreign policy course, including its relations with Russia, China, the USA, and neighboring countries. Special attention is paid to the impact of the Hungarian governance model on regional politics in Central and Eastern Europe, as well as its perception by right-wing and conservative movements in Europe and the USA. The article also examines the dynamics of Hungary's relations with the EU and NATO, particularly in the context of Russian aggression against Ukraine and Hungary's position on this conflict. The research is based on a wide range of Western media sources, including leading newspapers, magazines, television channels, and online publications. The author traces changes in the tone and focus of coverage of Hungarian politics during the specified period, identifying key trends and turning points in the international perception of Hungary. The article also examines Western media's reaction to Hungary's presidency of the Council of the European Union. The author summarizes the main trends in Western media coverage of Hungarian politics and assesses their impact on Hungary's international reputation and its relations with key partners.

NO MEIO DA GUERRA E DO RACISMO: O PAPEL DA MÍDIA NA CONSTRUÇÃO DE NARRATIVAS DA RÚSSIA X UCRÂNIA E SUAS IMPLICAÇÕES SOCIAIS

The article analyzes how the international media demonstrates structural and institutional racism in its coverage of global conflicts, focusing especially on the unequal attention given to wars in developed countries compared to crises in peripheral regions. Using a qualitative and exploratory approach, the research examined news and advertisements from recent wars, revealing that the media tends to prioritize tragedies involving white Europeans, while marginalizing conflicts in impoverished countries. The results show that this unequal coverage perpetuates a selective commotion, highlighting racial and social prejudice in the media narrative. The conclusion is that in order to promote fairer coverage, it is essential for the media to value all lives equally and re-evaluate its practices, combating the institutional and structural racism present in its operations.

‘Plastic addicts’: troubling consumer tropes in Thailand’s neoliberal waste environment

ABSTRACT Amidst mounting alarm over plastic waste’s impact on ecosystems and health, Thailand has gained global attention as one of the top six contributors to marine plastic debris. Narratives that Thai people are ‘addicted to plastic’ circulate widely in local and international media. This article unpacks this and related tropes by investigating their historical development and everyday usage. Based on ethnographic research among regulators, activists, plastic industry members, and recyclers in Bangkok, and a media analysis, I demonstrate how co-constructed civic epistemologies frame plastic waste solutions in Thailand. As public knowledge-ways that inform decision-making, these epistemologies drive plastic pollution by perpetuating neoliberal ideologies of personal responsibility and deregulation. In doing so, they reframe Thailand’s plastic waste challenges as a question of individual morality that requires consumer-based solutions rather than a question of structural production that requires a regulatory response. While scholars have addressed plastic pollution from technical, governance, and new materialist perspectives, this article offers a socio-cultural geography approach that accounts for the cultural narratives that mediate plastic pollution debates and drive plastic production and policy in Thailand and beyond.

UKRAINIAN INTERPRETERS IN THE WAR ZONE (2014-2015)

The article focuses on the study of interpreters’ work in Donetsk, Ukraine in 2014-2015, the first two years of the Russian aggression against Ukraine. Complex legal, political and personal aspects of interpreters’ work with international media teams indicate that the legislation regulating the work of interpreters and the general preparedness of Ukrainian professionals for the dangerous working environment are lacking. What political and personal factors affect the language professionals in the field, what risks and challenges they have to overcome, and how they do their best to stay impartial and politically neutral in their work. The study shows that the environment, in which Ukrainian interpreters had to work was complicated and dangerous: they faced many challenges which included performing new functions, taking safety measures to protect their lives and health, adjusting to fast-changing conditions of work and life, coping with psychological pressure, etc. There is an obvious necessity to improve the legislation regulating the work of interpreters in a war zone, introduce training programmes for interpreters working in extreme and dangerous environments, and conduct further research of the work of interpreters in the war zones.

What works? Researching participants’ experiences of a social policy RCT through qualitative interviews

Increasingly, evidence-based policymaking, in the form of randomized control trials (RCTs) in particular, are advocated as a means for studying the effects of planned social policy measures. Additionally, a Finnish basic income experiment was conducted in 2017–2018 as an RCT as a means of exploring alternative policy solutions, which gained widespread national and international political, media and scholarly attention. Despite the popularity of RCTs, there is a lack of studies of participants’ experiences of participation in social policy RCTs. In this article, we depart from the notion of ‘lived experiences’ when investigating a bottom-up participant perspective of the Finnish social policy experiment with the purpose of contributing to the understanding and future planning of ethically and methodologically sustainable policy experiments. Drawing on a qualitative, in-depth interview study of 81 Finnish basic income experiment participants, we examined their lived experiences and related views on the experiment. The analysis shows that although the idea of experimenting to demonstrate ‘what works’ in social policy was supported by participants in principle, various questions arose both concerning the tactical and political purposes of the experiment and the nature of scientific ‘evidence’. Furthermore, the results demonstrate that the impact of the media and political attention often surrounding more controversial policy experiments, like the Finnish one, can also challenge the RCT principles of ‘non-contamination’. Participants in highly politicized experiments also easily feel that they become objects of strong moral expectations and judgements, which in the Finnish basic income case clearly resulted in feelings of frustration and personal failure.

Quran Desecration Rallies in Scandinavia and the Netherlands: The Formation and Transnational Diffusion of an Anti-Muslim Protest Tactic

ABSTRACT Since 2019, Quran desecration rallies have proliferated across Northern Europe, leading to geopolitical tensions with Muslim-majority countries and domestic debates about freedom of speech. This article traces the diffusion trajectories of Quran desecration acts from their initiation in 2019 until November 2023 across Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and the Netherlands. Combining protest event analysis and process tracing based on mainstream media reporting and far-right social media, it shows how the desecration tactic spread from Denmark to remnants of the transnational Counter-Jihad Movement through a within-movement diffusion process involving both indirect and direct channels. Following Rasmus Paludan’s Quran-burning outside Turkey’s Embassy in Stockholm in January 2023, the tactic attracted massive international media attention. In Denmark and Sweden, the tactics’ repurposing toward geopolitical issues led to a spillover to actors unaffiliated with the far right, while in Norway and the Netherlands, the tactic hardly diffused beyond the anti-Islam activists. Drawing on far-right transnational diffusion literature, the article provides an empirically grounded and theoretically informed mapping of the recent wave of Quran desecration rallies, showing the various ways the same tactic spread throughout and into different domestic settings.

The European response to Russian disinformation in the context of the war in Ukraine

AbstractDisinformation and propaganda directed at foreign countries is an important tool in Russia's geopolitical power ambitions, including its war against Ukraine. The European Union and individual nation states, both inside and outside the Union, have developed complex responses to this multifaceted phenomenon. This article focuses on just one of them: the EU embargo on the RT television channel. It will review media analyses of RT, some of the legal action taken against it, and analyse the background and rationale behind the EU's blocking regulation. It points out that, while international media law literature has examined the issue from the perspective of freedom of expression, the European Union has treated the channel as a political weapon. The article argues that democracies need to take decisive action to defend their structures, and that this may require unconventional measures in times of disruption to the international order.