Pub Date : 2023-01-02DOI: 10.1080/10714421.2023.2167911
Erica Scharrer, Alina Ali Durrani, Nora Suren, Y. Kang, Yuxing Zhou, Emma Butterworth
ABSTRACT YouTube is popular among early adolescents who engage with the platform, in part, to explore and express their identity. Yet very little is known about the ways in which early adolescents approach representation and identity expression on YouTube with a critical lens. This qualitative study details an in-school media literacy program conducted with a sample of 54 sixth graders (ages 11 and 12) from a public elementary school in New England, USA, on the topic of gender and media. Data stem from a homework assignment in which students are asked to observe and analyze gender expression and representation on YouTube. The findings show a range of interpretations of the people and content encountered on the site, including interpretations characterized as gender-stereotypical as well as counter-stereotypical by the students. Some comments from students speak directly to the implications of user-generated content for gender expression and representation.
{"title":"Early adolescents’ views of gender on YouTube in the context of a critical media literacy program","authors":"Erica Scharrer, Alina Ali Durrani, Nora Suren, Y. Kang, Yuxing Zhou, Emma Butterworth","doi":"10.1080/10714421.2023.2167911","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10714421.2023.2167911","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT YouTube is popular among early adolescents who engage with the platform, in part, to explore and express their identity. Yet very little is known about the ways in which early adolescents approach representation and identity expression on YouTube with a critical lens. This qualitative study details an in-school media literacy program conducted with a sample of 54 sixth graders (ages 11 and 12) from a public elementary school in New England, USA, on the topic of gender and media. Data stem from a homework assignment in which students are asked to observe and analyze gender expression and representation on YouTube. The findings show a range of interpretations of the people and content encountered on the site, including interpretations characterized as gender-stereotypical as well as counter-stereotypical by the students. Some comments from students speak directly to the implications of user-generated content for gender expression and representation.","PeriodicalId":46140,"journal":{"name":"COMMUNICATION REVIEW","volume":"26 1","pages":"67 - 86"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2023-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43800219","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-01-02DOI: 10.1080/10714421.2023.2165767
Jing Wang
{"title":"Creative Visibility in the Digital Public: The Evolution of the Chinese Internet","authors":"Jing Wang","doi":"10.1080/10714421.2023.2165767","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10714421.2023.2165767","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":46140,"journal":{"name":"COMMUNICATION REVIEW","volume":"26 1","pages":"87 - 90"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2023-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45214960","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-01-02DOI: 10.1080/10714421.2022.2163830
Caitlin Cieslik-Miskimen
ABSTRACT Through a case study and historical textual analysis, this article explores how small-city newspapers offer a window into urbanism and identity formation in the early twentieth century. These newspapers pursued a content and circulation strategy that combined publishing characteristics associated with the mass circulation dailies and industrial journalism of major metropolitan areas with more community-oriented elements, such as booster content and hyperlocal news items. These newspapers operated as an important part of the early twentieth century American media system and represented a distinct type of publication that embraced the aspirational urbanism of local business interests and civic boosters. Despite flourishing literature on newspapers in twentieth century American society, large, urban areas tend to dominate scholarly analysis, while leaving out the sorts of communities that had a self-conscious experience of industrial modernity. By focusing analysis on the 1920s, this article explores how the Superior (Wisconsin) Telegram embraced this aspirational urbanism. It shows how the Telegram operated as a platform for its readers to navigate the tensions of the decade, articulate the city’s urban ambitions, and serve as a symbol of the city’s modern and progressive ideals.
{"title":"Navigating the Urban-Rural Divide: A Case Study of a Small-City Newspaper in the United States, 1920 - 1929","authors":"Caitlin Cieslik-Miskimen","doi":"10.1080/10714421.2022.2163830","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10714421.2022.2163830","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Through a case study and historical textual analysis, this article explores how small-city newspapers offer a window into urbanism and identity formation in the early twentieth century. These newspapers pursued a content and circulation strategy that combined publishing characteristics associated with the mass circulation dailies and industrial journalism of major metropolitan areas with more community-oriented elements, such as booster content and hyperlocal news items. These newspapers operated as an important part of the early twentieth century American media system and represented a distinct type of publication that embraced the aspirational urbanism of local business interests and civic boosters. Despite flourishing literature on newspapers in twentieth century American society, large, urban areas tend to dominate scholarly analysis, while leaving out the sorts of communities that had a self-conscious experience of industrial modernity. By focusing analysis on the 1920s, this article explores how the Superior (Wisconsin) Telegram embraced this aspirational urbanism. It shows how the Telegram operated as a platform for its readers to navigate the tensions of the decade, articulate the city’s urban ambitions, and serve as a symbol of the city’s modern and progressive ideals.","PeriodicalId":46140,"journal":{"name":"COMMUNICATION REVIEW","volume":"26 1","pages":"42 - 66"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2023-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49144982","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-10-05DOI: 10.1080/10714421.2022.2129949
Gregory Narr, Anh Luong
ABSTRACT Research on ghosting has focused on individual user experiences, psychological dispositions, and attachment styles. We add to this scholarship by broadening the level of analysis to encompass what we call the “dating app assemblage” – entailing users, moods, and algorithms. Through in-depth interviews and the “walkthrough” method, we argue the dating app assemblages of Tinder and Bumble foster boring textual exchanges conducive to ghosting (cutting off communication without notice) and flaking (canceling dates at the last minute) by algorithmically creating unequal engagement. This makes it hard for users to find substantial relationships, but it aligns with the exigencies of data-driven capitalism, where more social relations can be sold when they often disappear.
{"title":"Bored ghosts in the dating app assemblage: How dating app algorithms couple ghosting behaviors with a mood of boredom","authors":"Gregory Narr, Anh Luong","doi":"10.1080/10714421.2022.2129949","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10714421.2022.2129949","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Research on ghosting has focused on individual user experiences, psychological dispositions, and attachment styles. We add to this scholarship by broadening the level of analysis to encompass what we call the “dating app assemblage” – entailing users, moods, and algorithms. Through in-depth interviews and the “walkthrough” method, we argue the dating app assemblages of Tinder and Bumble foster boring textual exchanges conducive to ghosting (cutting off communication without notice) and flaking (canceling dates at the last minute) by algorithmically creating unequal engagement. This makes it hard for users to find substantial relationships, but it aligns with the exigencies of data-driven capitalism, where more social relations can be sold when they often disappear.","PeriodicalId":46140,"journal":{"name":"COMMUNICATION REVIEW","volume":"26 1","pages":"1 - 23"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2022-10-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48565745","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-10-02DOI: 10.1080/10714421.2022.2129124
Gregory Asmolov
ABSTRACT A broad literature on Internet regulation relies on imaginaries of the Internet as a socio-political technology. Deep mediatization of everyday life, however, increases the role of the Internet as a critical system for crisis response and mitigating global catastrophic risks. This article offers a theoretical contribution to exploring the role of regulation in crises through critical engagement with the concept of mediatization. The article addresses the question of what is “the meaning of Internet regulation in crisis situations and how it may diminish capacity to address future emergencies?” It stresses that understanding the consequences of mediatization in the context of future crises requires an exploration of Internet regulation from the mediational perspective and of the concept of generativity. Relying on an analysis of the role of digital platforms in Russia during the Covid-19 pandemic, the article illustrates how different forms of regulation limit resilience by restricting the generative potential of innovations that offer new forms of response to emerging threats. It highlights how the limitation of political freedoms in specific countries and the degree of global catastrophic risk are interrelated.
{"title":"Internet regulation and crisis-related resilience: from Covid-19 to existential risks","authors":"Gregory Asmolov","doi":"10.1080/10714421.2022.2129124","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10714421.2022.2129124","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT A broad literature on Internet regulation relies on imaginaries of the Internet as a socio-political technology. Deep mediatization of everyday life, however, increases the role of the Internet as a critical system for crisis response and mitigating global catastrophic risks. This article offers a theoretical contribution to exploring the role of regulation in crises through critical engagement with the concept of mediatization. The article addresses the question of what is “the meaning of Internet regulation in crisis situations and how it may diminish capacity to address future emergencies?” It stresses that understanding the consequences of mediatization in the context of future crises requires an exploration of Internet regulation from the mediational perspective and of the concept of generativity. Relying on an analysis of the role of digital platforms in Russia during the Covid-19 pandemic, the article illustrates how different forms of regulation limit resilience by restricting the generative potential of innovations that offer new forms of response to emerging threats. It highlights how the limitation of political freedoms in specific countries and the degree of global catastrophic risk are interrelated.","PeriodicalId":46140,"journal":{"name":"COMMUNICATION REVIEW","volume":"25 1","pages":"235 - 257"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2022-10-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46330783","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-10-02DOI: 10.1080/10714421.2022.2129122
Olivia Inwood, Michele Zappavigna
ABSTRACT Since the 2016 US Presidential Election, extreme right-wing communities have gained extensive popularity on YouTube, spreading discourses of white supremacy and conspiracy. This paper focuses on how methods drawn from Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) can be used to analyze this communication and contribute to research interests within the field of media and communication studies. SFL is a social semiotic model of language concerned with systematic analysis of language choices in terms of their social context. More specifically, this paper draws upon the Appraisal and Affiliation frameworks developed within SFL, in order to understand how patterns of evaluation are expressed in language and how these function in terms of aligning ambient audiences with particular values. YouTube videos and comments about the Notre Dame Cathedral Fire are used as a case study. The aim is to illustrate how this approach can offer an additional perspective on the issues of information disorder and hate speech that does not attempt to homogenize the multiple reasons why people engage in such hateful behavior.
{"title":"A Systemic Functional Linguistics Approach to Analyzing White Supremacist and Conspiratorial Discourse on YouTube","authors":"Olivia Inwood, Michele Zappavigna","doi":"10.1080/10714421.2022.2129122","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10714421.2022.2129122","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Since the 2016 US Presidential Election, extreme right-wing communities have gained extensive popularity on YouTube, spreading discourses of white supremacy and conspiracy. This paper focuses on how methods drawn from Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) can be used to analyze this communication and contribute to research interests within the field of media and communication studies. SFL is a social semiotic model of language concerned with systematic analysis of language choices in terms of their social context. More specifically, this paper draws upon the Appraisal and Affiliation frameworks developed within SFL, in order to understand how patterns of evaluation are expressed in language and how these function in terms of aligning ambient audiences with particular values. YouTube videos and comments about the Notre Dame Cathedral Fire are used as a case study. The aim is to illustrate how this approach can offer an additional perspective on the issues of information disorder and hate speech that does not attempt to homogenize the multiple reasons why people engage in such hateful behavior.","PeriodicalId":46140,"journal":{"name":"COMMUNICATION REVIEW","volume":"25 1","pages":"204 - 234"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2022-10-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44313942","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-10-02DOI: 10.1080/10714421.2022.2139056
P. Reilly, Virpi Salojärvi
This special issue focuses on mediatizations of societal threats in the era of hybrid media. Mediatization is a theoretical framework which has evolved somewhat in parallel with media ecologies. It was originally defined as the “growing intrusion of media logic as an institutional rule into fields where other rules of defining appropriate behavior prevailed” (Esser & Matthes, 2013, p. 177). Much of the early work in this area focused on the processes whereby modern media constrained and directly influenced the behavior of political actors (Maurer & Pfetsch, 2014; Strömbäck, 2008), as well as other institutions like the military (Maltby, 2012). However, this arguably goes much further than media-centric approaches which privilege the internationalization of media logics over other factors. Kissas (2019, p. 236) disentangles mediatization from this media centrism through the prism of “media performativity” i.e., the ways in which power is wielded within the context of mediatized politics. What is increasingly clear is that we live in deeply mediatized, datafied societies characterized by fragmented audiences that pose a challenge to the hegemony of established media and political institutions (Couldry & Hepp, 2018). While legacy media emain influential in the construction of societal threats, audiences increasingly experience these via platforms that, nominally at least, appear beyond the control of political elites. Hoskins and O’Loughlin (2015) argue that we are currently in the third phase of mediatization. This new paradigm has seen legacy media and military institutions harness the chaotic dynamics of user-generated content in order to re-assert the agenda-setting power they exercised prior to the social media era. Yet, politicians’ dependence on social media continues to create opportunities for underreported conflicts, such as the Syrian civil war, to appear on parliamentary agendas (Herrero-Jiménez, Carratalá, & Berganza, 2018). While it may be overly optimistic to suggest we are witnessing a shift in informational power from elites to non-elites, there do appear to be more fluid opportunity
{"title":"(De)constructing societal threats during times of deep mediatization","authors":"P. Reilly, Virpi Salojärvi","doi":"10.1080/10714421.2022.2139056","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10714421.2022.2139056","url":null,"abstract":"This special issue focuses on mediatizations of societal threats in the era of hybrid media. Mediatization is a theoretical framework which has evolved somewhat in parallel with media ecologies. It was originally defined as the “growing intrusion of media logic as an institutional rule into fields where other rules of defining appropriate behavior prevailed” (Esser & Matthes, 2013, p. 177). Much of the early work in this area focused on the processes whereby modern media constrained and directly influenced the behavior of political actors (Maurer & Pfetsch, 2014; Strömbäck, 2008), as well as other institutions like the military (Maltby, 2012). However, this arguably goes much further than media-centric approaches which privilege the internationalization of media logics over other factors. Kissas (2019, p. 236) disentangles mediatization from this media centrism through the prism of “media performativity” i.e., the ways in which power is wielded within the context of mediatized politics. What is increasingly clear is that we live in deeply mediatized, datafied societies characterized by fragmented audiences that pose a challenge to the hegemony of established media and political institutions (Couldry & Hepp, 2018). While legacy media emain influential in the construction of societal threats, audiences increasingly experience these via platforms that, nominally at least, appear beyond the control of political elites. Hoskins and O’Loughlin (2015) argue that we are currently in the third phase of mediatization. This new paradigm has seen legacy media and military institutions harness the chaotic dynamics of user-generated content in order to re-assert the agenda-setting power they exercised prior to the social media era. Yet, politicians’ dependence on social media continues to create opportunities for underreported conflicts, such as the Syrian civil war, to appear on parliamentary agendas (Herrero-Jiménez, Carratalá, & Berganza, 2018). While it may be overly optimistic to suggest we are witnessing a shift in informational power from elites to non-elites, there do appear to be more fluid opportunity","PeriodicalId":46140,"journal":{"name":"COMMUNICATION REVIEW","volume":"25 1","pages":"147 - 151"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2022-10-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41738299","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-09-30DOI: 10.1080/10714421.2022.2129118
Zhe Xu, Mengrong Zhang
ABSTRACT This article aims to deconstruct the myth of technological utopianism which contends that immersive virtual reality (VR) can inevitably lead to a more moral and egalitarian world due to its promises of copresence, immediacy and transcendence in humanitarian communication. The problématique we explore is whether existing VR artifacts, as exemplars of the “ultimate empathy machine,” construct a technocratic solutionism which becomes constitutive of humanitarian crises themselves. Drawing upon empirical material from focus group discussions and in-depth interviews with VR audiences in China, Germany, and the UK, the findings show that VR may easily construct a depoliticized hyperreality of intense spectacularity and trap audiences within an improper distance, thereby reworking the colonial legacies of humanitarianism while also obfuscating complex asymmetries of power and structural political exclusion. These findings have important implications for reminding humanitarian news organizations and aid agencies that they should not rely entirely on the particular affordances of VR to gain a moral bond with the distant refugee crisis.
{"title":"The “ultimate empathy machine” as technocratic solutionism? Audience reception of the distant refugee crisis through virtual reality","authors":"Zhe Xu, Mengrong Zhang","doi":"10.1080/10714421.2022.2129118","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10714421.2022.2129118","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This article aims to deconstruct the myth of technological utopianism which contends that immersive virtual reality (VR) can inevitably lead to a more moral and egalitarian world due to its promises of copresence, immediacy and transcendence in humanitarian communication. The problématique we explore is whether existing VR artifacts, as exemplars of the “ultimate empathy machine,” construct a technocratic solutionism which becomes constitutive of humanitarian crises themselves. Drawing upon empirical material from focus group discussions and in-depth interviews with VR audiences in China, Germany, and the UK, the findings show that VR may easily construct a depoliticized hyperreality of intense spectacularity and trap audiences within an improper distance, thereby reworking the colonial legacies of humanitarianism while also obfuscating complex asymmetries of power and structural political exclusion. These findings have important implications for reminding humanitarian news organizations and aid agencies that they should not rely entirely on the particular affordances of VR to gain a moral bond with the distant refugee crisis.","PeriodicalId":46140,"journal":{"name":"COMMUNICATION REVIEW","volume":"25 1","pages":"181 - 203"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2022-09-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46811836","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-09-27DOI: 10.1080/10714421.2022.2129125
Minos-Athanasios Karyotakis
ABSTRACT In the Macedonian Name Dispute (MND), the Greek media promoted the country’s main nationalistic narrative that treats the compromise between Greece and its neighboring country (now-named North Macedonia) as a national crisis that could even lead to an existential threat to Greece and its people. To investigate the recent events related to the MND, this study examined 615 news articles throughout 2018 and 2019 to identify how the news media framed the events associated with the MND and the Prespes Agreement. The results revealed that most news stories framed the MND incidents as a political or mobilization tool of the public and an existential threat to Greece. Furthermore, the news coverage showed that several news stories employed the patriotic and nationalistic frame to support or undermine the country’s then-government. These findings offer insights into the use of territorial name disputes as a communication tool, how news articles and journalism promote the idea of an existential threat connected to the MND, and the alarming non-critical news coverage that could lead to a further democratic backsliding of Greece.
{"title":"Framing the Macedonian name dispute in Greece: nationalistic journalism and the existential threat","authors":"Minos-Athanasios Karyotakis","doi":"10.1080/10714421.2022.2129125","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10714421.2022.2129125","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT In the Macedonian Name Dispute (MND), the Greek media promoted the country’s main nationalistic narrative that treats the compromise between Greece and its neighboring country (now-named North Macedonia) as a national crisis that could even lead to an existential threat to Greece and its people. To investigate the recent events related to the MND, this study examined 615 news articles throughout 2018 and 2019 to identify how the news media framed the events associated with the MND and the Prespes Agreement. The results revealed that most news stories framed the MND incidents as a political or mobilization tool of the public and an existential threat to Greece. Furthermore, the news coverage showed that several news stories employed the patriotic and nationalistic frame to support or undermine the country’s then-government. These findings offer insights into the use of territorial name disputes as a communication tool, how news articles and journalism promote the idea of an existential threat connected to the MND, and the alarming non-critical news coverage that could lead to a further democratic backsliding of Greece.","PeriodicalId":46140,"journal":{"name":"COMMUNICATION REVIEW","volume":"25 1","pages":"152 - 180"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2022-09-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43276427","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}