Media Scholars Research Articles

Task information types related to data gathering in media studies

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine what types of task information media scholars need while gathering research data to create new knowledge.Design/methodology/approachThe research design is qualitative and user-oriented. A total of 25 media scholars were interviewed about their research processes and interactions with their research data. The interviews were semi-structured, complemented by critical incident interviews. The analysis focused on the activity of gathering research data. A typology of information (task, domain and task-solving information) guided the analysis of information types related to data gathering, with further analysis focusing only on task information types.FindingsMedia scholars needed the following task information types while gathering research data to create new knowledge: (1) information about research data (aboutness of data, characteristics of data, metadata and secondary information about data), (2) information about sources of research data (characteristics of sources, local media landscapes) and (3) information about cases and their contexts (case information, contextual information). All the task information types should be considered when building data services and tools to support media scholars' work.Originality/valueThe paper increases understanding of the concept of task information in the context of gathering research data to create new knowledge and thereby informs the providers of research data services about the task information types that researchers need.

The “First Great Purge” of American Television Programming: Understanding How and Why Popular Television Changed So Dramatically from the 1950s to the 1960s

Though “purge” may seem a rather dramatic choice of terms to refer to a drastic shift in the overall nature of network television programming in the United States, it has long been used by media scholars, notably in reference to “The Great Rural Purge of 1971”, when CBS suddenly decided to cancel all of its most popular, rural-based sitcoms and variety shows in exchange for a new lineup of hard-hitting, urban-based sitcoms that leaned left and dealt unapologetically with the most burning social issues of the day. This study, however, hopes to show that this shift was in fact not the first big “purge” but the second, the first having occurred circa 1957 and having moved in the exact opposite direction. One of the great misconceptions about network television is indeed that it was very conservative at its onset and grew steadily more progressive and inclusive over the decades, for pre-1957 network television and especially its comedy programs – those of the first era of the Golden Age of Television, as it were – were remarkably avant-garde and politically incorrect for their time. Anti-establishment humor, budding feminist themes (with independent women both on screen and in the writing room), racial and ethnic diversity, in-your-face insolence and transgressional humor – all of these progressive topics were showcased in very urban settings before that first “purge” erased those gains and reset the U.S. TV landscape as white, patriarchal, rural, conservative and harmlessly escapist. This study will not only discuss those breakthrough sitcoms of the early 1950s themselves, but, just as importantly, it will trace the many factors that led to that first great shift – a vast confluence of decisions and incidents that would lead to what could be dubbed “The Great Urban Purge of 1957”.

State-media relations in post-apartheid South Africa

In 2004, Daniel Hallin and Paolo Mancini published a landmark work of media theory entitledComparing media systems: three models of media and politics. The theory, like the models itmakes use of, has a high degree of relevance for South African media scholars. Primarily, thetheory investigates the relationship between the state and the media, an interconnection of profoundsignificance in the South African context, yet one that has not been explored sufficiently by scholars.This article, which focuses primarily on South Africa’s print media sector, sets out the parameters,major dimensions and some indicators of the Three Models paradigm. It then presents recentresearch in which the theory is applied to South Africa. It concludes that South Africa’s mediasystem falls largely into the Polarised Pluralist model though it retains strong liberal model traits

Peace journalism and the usage of online sources

This article looks at reporting practices in the South African news media with regard to onlinesources and the realisation of peace journalism. Based on data collected from questionnairesand interviews with journalists, media scholars and media monitors in South Africa, the articleexplores their responses to suggestions that Internet sources are more politically biased thanare traditional sources and determines both the extent to which journalists use them and theextent to which they should rely on online sources. The discussion around online sources andpotential bias and even hate speech is linked up with normative ideas and debates around peacejournalism in the South African news media and the promise of peace journalism through theusage of alternative news sources.

The Mob, the State and Harassment of Journalists via Twitter in India

Media scholars exploring online harassment of journalists have described it as a form of ‘mob censorship,’ a type of citizen vigilantism aimed at delegitimizing and silencing journalists. Arguably, this trend is most pervasive in India, where online supporters of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) troll and abuse journalists critical of the Narendra Modi government. Over the years, the BJP has harnessed the digital work of these online Hindu nationalists for agenda setting, spreading their political ideology, and influencing public discourse. Such a symbiotic relationship between the mob and the state has put to question the argument distinguishing mob censorship and state censorship of the press. Through a qualitative textual analysis of tweets posted by online Hindu nationalists, this article explores the discursive strategies employed by right-wing activists to influence the BJP government in its censorship of the press. This study finds that through tactics such as calls to ‘cancel’ journalists, intimidation of foreign correspondents, and digital surveillance of news reporters, online Hindu nationalists aid the BJP government in the suppression of dissident reporting in India.

Exploring the Prevalence of Agenda-Setting Theory in Africa-Focused Research, 2000–2020

This study adopts meta-analysis and text mining approaches to systematically explore the prevalence of agenda setting theory (AST) in Africa-focused publications indexed in high-impact databases from 2000 to 2020. It aims to evaluate the usage frequency of AST in Africa-focused studies, the dominant perspectives explored in these studies, the dominant communication medium of reference, the dominant academic disciplines, the dominant regions of focus in Africa, frequent keywords within these studies, and the authors’ institutional affiliations. The findings revealed a dearth of quality literature from 2000 to 2008, after which at least one paper was published each year from 2007 to 2020, with the exception of 2016. The research showed that media scholars (51%) published more papers, followed by scholars from political sciences (12%), ethnic studies (12%), public health (9%), development studies (6%), and public administration (6%). Although many papers were about South Africa (33%), other dominant countries of focus were Ghana (18%), Nigeria (12%), and Kenya (9%). The qualitative review revealed the major perspectives of the AST- related papers to be issues of political advocacy, governance, and social activism; rural, national, and regional transformation and development; and social representations and framing. The medium of communication most often referenced for agenda setting was the newspaper.

Music technologies and AirPods: Considering Theodor Adorno as media ecologist

When new technologies emerge, they inevitably bring to mind many of the same questions that media scholars have been asking for decades. In this study, we will analyse Apple AirPods through a theoretical framework based in the writings of media ecologists like Harold Innis, Marshall McLuhan and Neil Postman, as well as media theorist Theodor W. Adorno. Adorno is included here because very few articles in media ecology scholarship discuss his contributions to media research. The exclusion of Adorno from media ecology appears to relate to his different ontological assumptions about media. While Innis, McLuhan and Postman contribute to the ‘structures and patterns narrative’ of medium theory, Adorno clearly fits into the ‘power and resistance narrative’ of critical/cultural studies. However, there are more significant connections between Adorno and the field of media ecology than have been previously acknowledged. In particular, there is a confluence between Adorno’s writings and others by media ecology scholars like Postman and Lewis Mumford, particularly in Adorno’s arguments about technology and music. In this article, we consider the question: can Adorno’s writings on technology be considered appropriate for inclusion in the media ecology canon? In this article, we will explore representative essays from Adorno’s extensive body of work on music reproduction technologies and discuss the parallels between his arguments and those made by others in media ecology.

What Social Media Could Be: Normative Frameworks for Evaluating Digital Public Spaces

Increasing attention has been placed to the societal downsides of social media, and appropriately so. Less attention has been paid to the qualities to which social media should aspire. We contend that this is critically important. Not only must social media, and social media scholars, identify and reduce negative outcomes, but we must also critically engage with what is desirable. The purpose of this theoretical essay is to propose a normative framework for digital public spaces. We lay out four categories, and 14 sub-categories, of normative ideals to which social media could aspire. It is our hope that chronicling these qualities will allow scholars to more critically reflect on their normative assumptions when they research social media and will encourage practitioners to think about how social media could be built with these ideals in mind.

Lexicon of Media Terms as an Attempt to Synthesize the Knowledge about the Mediasphere of the 21st Century from the Polish Perspective

The article presents the idea of a new “Lexicon of Media Terms” in Poland, showing important reasons for undertaking such a project. The preparation of the “Lexicon” is prompted, on the one hand, by the dynamic development of Polish and global media studies in the 21st century (its institutionalization in many research centers and universities, the development of professional and scientific periodicals, etc.), and on the other hand by the certain gap in Polish publishing market (the last publications of this type were created in the middle of the first decade of this century), and thus at a different stage of development of the mediosphere. Being aware of the availability of multi-volume international publications and online encyclopedias on the publishing market, the authors recognize that the aim of the project is not only to provide a processual and interdisciplinary account of contemporary changes in the mediosphere, but above all – from the Polish perspective, to popularize and highlight the achievements of Polish scholars – media researchers and representatives of related disciplines. “Lexicon” will differ from the previous publications in terms of form – it will include a much larger number of entries (about 3000) and content, entering areas that are new in terms of technology (resulting in an exponential growth of entries related to Internet media and in general – digital media), also covering new phenomena, new research areas and results of achievements of numerous circles of media scholars.

Language and liberty

Linguists consider language, the most important tool of human existence, as first and foremost, a cognitive experience actualized through speech. Liberty, a principal concept, has since the beginning of the renaissance attracted the attention of philosophers, jurists, political scientists, ethicists, media scholars, among others, as an indispensable facet of human life in the areas of governance and the constitution of order, peoplehood, and societal value systems. Following the philosophical traditions of Sir Isaiah Berlin and drawing on African (Akan) axioms, the paper presents a theory relating to the entwining between language and liberty by elucidating how one indexes the other in a political process and practice, judicial process, in the foundation of people’s social and moral value systems, as a healthcare construct, and in free speech. Also explicated is the fact that actors’ effective use of language (linguistic and discourse-pragmatic tools) ensures success in the fight for liberty. Finally, the theory calls for liberty to be rooted in a nation’s laws, politics, philosophical traditions, value systems, healthcare practice, and the construction and enactment of free speech in order to make the fight for it (liberty) a reality.

Online media and global communication research in Nigeria

Abstract The growth of global online media necessitates a better knowledge of how these media affect the world. Communication researchers have examined how rhetoric and globalization interact dynamically; how information spreads through cross-cultural interactions, and how a growing global media landscape affects culture, society, economy, and politics. However, no study has aggregated the areas of focus of such studies in order to establish a trend of the discussion of online media and global communication scholarship in Nigeria. In this essay, we offer a pathway for understanding approaches to scholarship in online media and global communication in Nigeria. We review all articles on online media and global communication that were published in two Nigerian academic journals, The Nigerian Journal of Communication and the Journal of Communication and Media Research between 2015 and 2021 using our content categories of authorship, theory/theories used, study population, method of study and research focus. We found that social media, which has proved to be a very hot area of research among scholars worldwide, also occupied the pride of place among Nigerian scholars and that collaboration in research, which is a major way of growing and advancing knowledge, was also significantly common among Nigerian communication researchers. On the low side, however, we found, among others, that lack of funding was a major issue in Nigerian communication research as none of the 73 articles that we analyzed was funded.

Far-right boundary construction towards the "other": Visual communication of Danish People's Party on social media.

This paper explores how images are used in online far-right political communication to create distinct groups of "otherness." Focusing on the Danish People's Party, we look at how symbolic boundaries are constructed through images to emphasize an exclusive conception of the nation and its citizens, who need protection from the threatening "others." In order to understand the global rise of the far right, scholars of social movements and digital media have called for new research on how visual images serve the mainstreaming of extremist and nationalist beliefs online. We look at images communicated by the Danish People's Party on their Facebook page, exploring how digital images visually communicate the party's slogan of "Safety and trust" (in Danish: "Tryghed og tillid"). With a focus on boundary construction, we present a multimodal visual analysis of 1120 images posted by the party from 2012 to 2020. The data shows how the party constructs an imaginary of Danishness through an exclusionary impermeable boundary construction of a trusted in-group's values and traditions in opposition to culturally distinct "others."

Review: Echo’s Chambers: Architecture and the Idea of Acoustic Space

Review: <i>Echo’s Chambers: Architecture and the Idea of Acoustic Space</i>

What Does the Idea of Media Cultivation Mean?

ABSTRACT Over the past half century, media scholars have generated a large literature of empirical studies, criticisms, and reviews that present many different ideas about what cultivation means. Those meanings are analyzed across three major components of the cultivation literature: George Gerbner’s macro theory, the Cultural Indicators Project design, and the large number of exploratory studies that have attempted to expand the explanatory ability of cultivation. These different meanings for cultivation are then evaluated on the criterion of their potential viability to increase our understanding about media processes and effects as we move into the future.

The Influencer Economy: Exploring the Work of Social Media Cultural Production

Social media platforms such as Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube have created a new group of workers who are commonly referred to as ‘influencers’, ‘content creators’, or ‘creators’ . These terms have a loose connotation and generally refer to people with a large number of followers/subscribers who engage in digital cultural production on social medial platforms and can mobilize their audience’s attention to generate income. It is estimated that the influencer marketing industry, marketing based on the contents created by influencers on social media, will grow to be worth up to $15 billion by 2022 compared to $8 billion in 2019 (Geyser, 2019). Leading corporations are increasingly incorporating influencer marketing in their budget; Estée Lauder, for example, announced that the company is committing to spend 75% of its marketing budget towards influencer marketing (Gerdeman, 2019). While this growth has implications for the organization of work and the experiences of workers, most research in this area is conducted by scholars of media and communication studies (e.g., Baym, 2018; Duffy, 2017; Marwick & Boyd, 2011) and management and organizational scholarship on the topic is scarce. More research is needed in order to understand the nature of this work, the experiences of workers, and the role of different social identities such as those based on gender or race in this market. The aim of this symposium is to initiate a conversation about studying social media cultural production and the influencer economy in management and organization studies. The dialogue will focus on questions concerning theory, methods, and future directions. This symposium will provide conceptual depth in terms of philosophical underpinnings for digitally-mediated cultural production, and will explore theoretical frameworks and methodological tools most suitable for studying social media content creators.

Review: Schlüsselbegriffe der Public History, by Christine Gundermann et al.

Review: <i>Schlüsselbegriffe der Public History</i>, by Christine Gundermann et al.

Trump Lies, Truth Dies? Epistemic Crisis and the Effect of False Balance Reporting on Beliefs About Voter Fraud

Media scholars have long recognized the potential for falsely balanced reporting to distort public opinion, but existing empirical evidence is inconclusive. In this study, we examine the effect of falsely balanced reporting and explicit journalistic intervention on perceptions of voter fraud in U.S. elections through original internet survey experiments conducted in the United States shortly before and after the 2020 U.S. presidential election held on November 3, 2020. The results show that exposure to falsely balanced reporting largely has a null effect on perceptions of voter fraud, though we also find evidence of partisan-based heterogeneity in its effect. The results of the study also show that explicit journalistic intervention equally decreases belief in voter fraud among both Democrats and Republicans before the election, but among Republicans the corrective effect of intervention disappears in the post-election period, suggesting that there are sharp contextual limits on the effect of explicit journalistic intervention.

‘Healthy Publics’ and the pedagogy of It’s a Sin

The UK television series It’ s a Sin (2021) emerged alongside ongoing cultural projects that re-script acquired immunodeficiency syndrome crisis narratives and contribute to a broader ‘post-acquired immunodeficiency syndrome’ media culture. In this Cultural Commons piece, we consider how community health promoters have adapted the imagery from It’ s a Sin to create new human immunodeficiency virus educational materials. We situate these media practices in relation to an ongoing practice to think about the ‘end of acquired immunodeficiency syndrome’ through strategic health communication practices and question the cultural significance of adapting It’ s a Sin for health advocacy initiatives. We argue that more attention needs to be paid to the exchanges between popular culture and health promotion imagery. Critical health and media scholars should develop more complex cultural health criticism to capture the exchanges between health promotion and melodrama, to create accountability and avoid re-scripting normative perspectives of health and illness within post-acquired immunodeficiency syndrome media.

Colors and Orientalism as associations: Exploring the semiotic (re)presentation of Saudi women in British and Saudi newspapers

AbstractMedia representations can have significant influence in shaping opinions and influence public response to certain communities or gender and ethnic representations around the world. Investigating semiotic representation in linguistic discourse as vehicles for meaning in culture has been a fruitful area of research over the past decades. This study explores how stereotypes of women feed into the representations of Saudi women in contemporary press in Britain and Saudi Arabia. The focus is on the newspaper genre. Data for this study have been gleaned from a particular set of British and Saudi newspapers. Using the Color Image Scale (CIS) as a research tool, this study yielded a number of findings, the main one of which is the discrepancy in Saudi women's representation in the journalistic discourse under study. In addition, variances in color choice and usage between the newspapers in the present study were apparent. The study provides an important opportunity to advance our understanding of Saudi women's representation in British versus Saudi newspapers. The present study also makes a major contribution to research on critical discourse analysis by demonstrating how power as well as orientalism impact Saudi women's representation. The findings of this study are important for scholars of gender, religion, media, and cultural diversity.

Sheik Sadid Al_Din Yusuf Al_Hilli The father of Al_Alallamah (His life and it's effect He was alive in 665 AH)

Research summary our media scholars have boastd to the generation after them the way of truth in accordance with Jurisprudence،speech and ect. But unfortunately some of them have inherited so that even the names of their books have not reached us، and the ones who come to us from their thoughts and jurisprudence have some of their theories and opinions conveyed in the books of others،otherwise we did not know anything about their work. Among those scholars is sheikh Sadid al_Din Yusuf bin al_Mutahar al_Hilli، the father of the scholar who was a liberal scholar. The article which is in the hands of the honorable reader shows his views of his political stances،and whoever reads the history of the Mongols and their entry into the land of Rafedeen،can understands the depth of wisdom that this great world was upon،and his jurisprudence views have reached us through some of the books of his son the scholar and his grandson،the pride of the investigators،may God be pleased with them.