Pub Date : 2022-05-22DOI: 10.1177/19401612221102058
Johannes B. Gruber
Research indicates that when mainstream news media report about demonstrations, protesters often face delegitimizing coverage. This phenomenon, known as the “(journalistic) protest paradigm,” is thought to be a default mindset that leads journalists to emphasize the method of protesters over their message. However, empirical work has so far limited itself to specific protest movements or events and only covers brief periods. This study first identifies and then codes the main frames in all reports about domestic protest in the United Kingdom. Analysing data that covers eight national newspapers during a 26 year period (N = 27,496), I provide a more systematic understanding of how the mainstream news media in liberal democracies report about protests. The analysis shows that a stable majority of articles uses frames linked to the protest paradigm throughout the time period. However, a substantial and growing number of articles employ legitimizing frames—either on their own or co-existing with delegitimizing framing.
{"title":"Troublemakers in the Streets? A Framing Analysis of Newspaper Coverage of Protests in the UK 1992–2017","authors":"Johannes B. Gruber","doi":"10.1177/19401612221102058","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/19401612221102058","url":null,"abstract":"Research indicates that when mainstream news media report about demonstrations, protesters often face delegitimizing coverage. This phenomenon, known as the “(journalistic) protest paradigm,” is thought to be a default mindset that leads journalists to emphasize the method of protesters over their message. However, empirical work has so far limited itself to specific protest movements or events and only covers brief periods. This study first identifies and then codes the main frames in all reports about domestic protest in the United Kingdom. Analysing data that covers eight national newspapers during a 26 year period (N = 27,496), I provide a more systematic understanding of how the mainstream news media in liberal democracies report about protests. The analysis shows that a stable majority of articles uses frames linked to the protest paradigm throughout the time period. However, a substantial and growing number of articles employ legitimizing frames—either on their own or co-existing with delegitimizing framing.","PeriodicalId":47605,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Press-Politics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":4.8,"publicationDate":"2022-05-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48381333","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-05-22DOI: 10.1177/19401612221102056
Min Jiang
With growing income inequality, persistent social discontent, and a worsening global geopolitical environment, the Chinese state—one that vouches to carry on its socialist transformation, deliver rising living standards to its populace and ultimately revitalize the Chinese Communist Party in the new millennium under President Xi Jinping— faces a daunting challenge. While China is the world’s number two economy with a GDP of $15 trillion USD—two thirds the size of the U.S. GDP of $21 trillion USD (World Bank 2020)—after four decades of breathtaking economic growth, 600 million Chinese, 40 percent of its population, earn barely $150 USD a month (BBC 2021). This group lags far behind the ambitious poverty deduction targets set by the central government, posing a major concern for social and political stability. So, how does China care for its poor and distribute its social welfare? It is within this context that Jennifer Pan’s exceptionally researched book Welfare for Autocrats: How Social Assistance in China Cares for its Rulers (Oxford University Press 2020) took place. This work focuses on Dibao, or Minimum Livelihood Guaranteed Scheme, which is “China’s only non-regressive social welfare program, and the largest unconditional cash transfer program in the world” (Pan 2020: 2). Contrary to conventional wisdom, Pan (2020) argues that Dibao, rather than efficiently addressing the widening income gap in China by delivering social assistance to those who need it the most, has been reshaped over time into “a tool of repression and surveillance” (p.13). Dibao, she shows, favors the “targeted populations” which include ex-prisoners, banned religious cults, suspected would-be protesters, and dissidents as the interaction between them and the system allows for continuing state surveillance of this population and creates relationship of dependency to preempt disorder, protests, and collective action. Further, Pan argues that this preferential treatment given to targeted populations could ironically create a backlash, resulting from anger over unfair distribution amongst deserving Dibao recipients. Book Review
{"title":"Book Review: Welfare for Autocrats: How Social Assistance in China Cares for its Rulers by Jennifer Pan","authors":"Min Jiang","doi":"10.1177/19401612221102056","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/19401612221102056","url":null,"abstract":"With growing income inequality, persistent social discontent, and a worsening global geopolitical environment, the Chinese state—one that vouches to carry on its socialist transformation, deliver rising living standards to its populace and ultimately revitalize the Chinese Communist Party in the new millennium under President Xi Jinping— faces a daunting challenge. While China is the world’s number two economy with a GDP of $15 trillion USD—two thirds the size of the U.S. GDP of $21 trillion USD (World Bank 2020)—after four decades of breathtaking economic growth, 600 million Chinese, 40 percent of its population, earn barely $150 USD a month (BBC 2021). This group lags far behind the ambitious poverty deduction targets set by the central government, posing a major concern for social and political stability. So, how does China care for its poor and distribute its social welfare? It is within this context that Jennifer Pan’s exceptionally researched book Welfare for Autocrats: How Social Assistance in China Cares for its Rulers (Oxford University Press 2020) took place. This work focuses on Dibao, or Minimum Livelihood Guaranteed Scheme, which is “China’s only non-regressive social welfare program, and the largest unconditional cash transfer program in the world” (Pan 2020: 2). Contrary to conventional wisdom, Pan (2020) argues that Dibao, rather than efficiently addressing the widening income gap in China by delivering social assistance to those who need it the most, has been reshaped over time into “a tool of repression and surveillance” (p.13). Dibao, she shows, favors the “targeted populations” which include ex-prisoners, banned religious cults, suspected would-be protesters, and dissidents as the interaction between them and the system allows for continuing state surveillance of this population and creates relationship of dependency to preempt disorder, protests, and collective action. Further, Pan argues that this preferential treatment given to targeted populations could ironically create a backlash, resulting from anger over unfair distribution amongst deserving Dibao recipients. Book Review","PeriodicalId":47605,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Press-Politics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":4.8,"publicationDate":"2022-05-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46907526","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-05-18DOI: 10.1177/19401612221100418
B. Moffitt
How do populists visually represent “the people”? While the literature on populism has tended to focus on text- and language-based documents, such as speeches, policies, and party documents to consider how populists characterize “the people,” in this article I undertake a systematic visual content analysis to consider how populist leaders on either side of the ideological spectrum visually represent “the people” in images from their official Instagram accounts ( N = 432). Comparing the cases of Donald Trump on the populist right and Bernie Sanders on the populist left, I code for the majority gender, race, and age of “the people” in each image, and supplement this with a discussion of the depictions of these categories. I find that Trump’s images of “the people” are significantly more homogenous across all categories—specifically more white, more masculine, and with less young people—than Sanders’, and situate these findings in the context of the literature on the differences between left and right populism. This article contributes to the study of populist communication by highlighting the role of images in representing “the people”; analyzing how left and right populists do this differently; and developing a method for measuring the demographic characteristics of “the people” in populists’ images that can be used in future studies. In doing so, it seeks to push the literature forward by highlighting that images are not something “extra” to be studied in populist communication, but rather are a central battleground for the construction of populist identities.
{"title":"How Do Populists Visually Represent ‘The People’? A Systematic Comparative Visual Content Analysis of Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders’ Instagram Accounts","authors":"B. Moffitt","doi":"10.1177/19401612221100418","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/19401612221100418","url":null,"abstract":"How do populists visually represent “the people”? While the literature on populism has tended to focus on text- and language-based documents, such as speeches, policies, and party documents to consider how populists characterize “the people,” in this article I undertake a systematic visual content analysis to consider how populist leaders on either side of the ideological spectrum visually represent “the people” in images from their official Instagram accounts ( N = 432). Comparing the cases of Donald Trump on the populist right and Bernie Sanders on the populist left, I code for the majority gender, race, and age of “the people” in each image, and supplement this with a discussion of the depictions of these categories. I find that Trump’s images of “the people” are significantly more homogenous across all categories—specifically more white, more masculine, and with less young people—than Sanders’, and situate these findings in the context of the literature on the differences between left and right populism. This article contributes to the study of populist communication by highlighting the role of images in representing “the people”; analyzing how left and right populists do this differently; and developing a method for measuring the demographic characteristics of “the people” in populists’ images that can be used in future studies. In doing so, it seeks to push the literature forward by highlighting that images are not something “extra” to be studied in populist communication, but rather are a central battleground for the construction of populist identities.","PeriodicalId":47605,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Press-Politics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":4.8,"publicationDate":"2022-05-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47079494","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-05-16DOI: 10.1177/19401612221102027
T. Olesen
On July 17, 2021, the CDU's chancellor candidate Armin Laschet was photographed laughing during a speech by the German Federal President in the flood-stricken city of Erftstadt. The photographic images caused an uproar and contributed to the CDU's defeat in the September 23 election. The paper analyzes why these images resonated with such damaging effects. Theoretically, it sets the analysis on the background of the moralization and personalization of politics and argues that photography, with its ability to capture behavior at a distance, plays a prominent role in these processes. While this condition explains why an image of a laughing politician can generate such indignation in the first place, the paper discusses how this effect was amplified in the case of Laschet by a range of contextual features: (a) the timing of the images in the middle of an election period where politicians come under intense scrutiny; (b) their appearance in a crisis situation (the German flooding disaster) where politicians are surrounded by other role expectations than in routine periods; (3) Laschet's new, insecure position as leader of the CDU; (d) his history of scandals and poor political judgment; and (e) the frivolous and boisterous manner of his laughter. At a general theoretical level, the paper's insights caution us to avoid prima facie conclusions about the autonomous power of photographs. Instead, they encourage analytical sensitivity to the importance of timing and context as explanatory elements in our understanding of photographic exposés.
{"title":"No Laughing Matter: Armin Laschet and the Photographic Exposé","authors":"T. Olesen","doi":"10.1177/19401612221102027","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/19401612221102027","url":null,"abstract":"On July 17, 2021, the CDU's chancellor candidate Armin Laschet was photographed laughing during a speech by the German Federal President in the flood-stricken city of Erftstadt. The photographic images caused an uproar and contributed to the CDU's defeat in the September 23 election. The paper analyzes why these images resonated with such damaging effects. Theoretically, it sets the analysis on the background of the moralization and personalization of politics and argues that photography, with its ability to capture behavior at a distance, plays a prominent role in these processes. While this condition explains why an image of a laughing politician can generate such indignation in the first place, the paper discusses how this effect was amplified in the case of Laschet by a range of contextual features: (a) the timing of the images in the middle of an election period where politicians come under intense scrutiny; (b) their appearance in a crisis situation (the German flooding disaster) where politicians are surrounded by other role expectations than in routine periods; (3) Laschet's new, insecure position as leader of the CDU; (d) his history of scandals and poor political judgment; and (e) the frivolous and boisterous manner of his laughter. At a general theoretical level, the paper's insights caution us to avoid prima facie conclusions about the autonomous power of photographs. Instead, they encourage analytical sensitivity to the importance of timing and context as explanatory elements in our understanding of photographic exposés.","PeriodicalId":47605,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Press-Politics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":4.8,"publicationDate":"2022-05-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42326845","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-04-28DOI: 10.1177/19401612221093008
Jakob Ohme, Kim Andersen, Erik Albæk, Claes H. de Vreese
In the modern world, every person will come of age in a future that is hard to foresee. However, the way citizens born today will navigate their future world will be affected by the context and the institutions that structure the world of their young life (Sigel 1965). Maybe more importantly than ever, the technologies and the information environment they grow up with shape the ways in which today’s youngsters are socialised into the political world (Ohme and De Vreese 2020). Youth is a reference point that can reveal two important things: the past years of a cohort’s development and an outlook into the future. Every generation is specifically shaped by their formative years which in turn will influence the society in which they come of age, once they enter the job market and end up in positions of responsibility and decision-making power. This is why this special issue focuses on Youth, News, and Democratic Engagement. We want to understand the formation of media habits and democratic engagement practices of today’s young citizens, where they are now, and to develop an idea of where they are heading. This special issue builds and expands on the ‘Communication and Public Engagement’ research project (2013–2019) that studied generational gaps in political media use and civic engagement (see Andersen et al. 2021). Youth, News, and Democratic Engagement takes the temperature of how young citizens navigate today’s digital news media environments, which forms of engagement they prefer or reject, and how these two sets of phenomena are connected. This can help us understand whether and how youngsters today will become politically
{"title":"Anything Goes? Youth, News, and Democratic Engagement in the Roaring 2020s","authors":"Jakob Ohme, Kim Andersen, Erik Albæk, Claes H. de Vreese","doi":"10.1177/19401612221093008","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/19401612221093008","url":null,"abstract":"In the modern world, every person will come of age in a future that is hard to foresee. However, the way citizens born today will navigate their future world will be affected by the context and the institutions that structure the world of their young life (Sigel 1965). Maybe more importantly than ever, the technologies and the information environment they grow up with shape the ways in which today’s youngsters are socialised into the political world (Ohme and De Vreese 2020). Youth is a reference point that can reveal two important things: the past years of a cohort’s development and an outlook into the future. Every generation is specifically shaped by their formative years which in turn will influence the society in which they come of age, once they enter the job market and end up in positions of responsibility and decision-making power. This is why this special issue focuses on Youth, News, and Democratic Engagement. We want to understand the formation of media habits and democratic engagement practices of today’s young citizens, where they are now, and to develop an idea of where they are heading. This special issue builds and expands on the ‘Communication and Public Engagement’ research project (2013–2019) that studied generational gaps in political media use and civic engagement (see Andersen et al. 2021). Youth, News, and Democratic Engagement takes the temperature of how young citizens navigate today’s digital news media environments, which forms of engagement they prefer or reject, and how these two sets of phenomena are connected. This can help us understand whether and how youngsters today will become politically","PeriodicalId":47605,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Press-Politics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":4.8,"publicationDate":"2022-04-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48179541","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-04-14DOI: 10.1177/19401612221094246
Lauren Kogen
The terms ‘indices’ and ‘indicators’ may immediately cause eyelids to droop. How, then, might they serve to impassion publics and, ultimately, promote social change? This paper examines the extent to which indices and indicators can be considered communication tools for social movements and social change. The analysis is based on a 2018 evaluation of one index based in the United States – the Ranking Digital Rights Index, which assesses privacy and freedom of expression in the ICT space – and incorporates interviews with civil society stakeholders. Bringing theory from the fields of journalism and social movements together with the data from the evaluation, the findings suggest indices can serve as useful communication resources for social movements under certain circumstances. In particular, the analysis suggests three communication resources – legitimate information, newsworthy information, and flexible information – that human rights indices are most likely to provide.
{"title":"From Statistics to Stories: Indices and Indicators as Communication Tools for Social Change","authors":"Lauren Kogen","doi":"10.1177/19401612221094246","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/19401612221094246","url":null,"abstract":"The terms ‘indices’ and ‘indicators’ may immediately cause eyelids to droop. How, then, might they serve to impassion publics and, ultimately, promote social change? This paper examines the extent to which indices and indicators can be considered communication tools for social movements and social change. The analysis is based on a 2018 evaluation of one index based in the United States – the Ranking Digital Rights Index, which assesses privacy and freedom of expression in the ICT space – and incorporates interviews with civil society stakeholders. Bringing theory from the fields of journalism and social movements together with the data from the evaluation, the findings suggest indices can serve as useful communication resources for social movements under certain circumstances. In particular, the analysis suggests three communication resources – legitimate information, newsworthy information, and flexible information – that human rights indices are most likely to provide.","PeriodicalId":47605,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Press-Politics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":4.8,"publicationDate":"2022-04-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42440531","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-04-13DOI: 10.1177/19401612221087179
Ernesto de León, M. Makhortykh, T. Gil-López, Aleksandra Urman, S. Adam
This study explores shifts in political trust during the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in Switzerland, examining the role that media consumption and threat perceptions played in individuals’ trust in politics. We combine panel surveys taken before and during the first nation-wide lockdown with webtracking data of participants' online behaviour to paint a nuanced picture of media effects during the crisis. Our work has several findings. First, political trust, an attitude known for its stability, increased following lockdown. Second, consumption of mainstream news on COVID-19 directly hindered this increase, with those reading more news having lower over-time trust, while the relatively minor alternative news consumption had no direct effect on political trust. Third, threat perceptions a) to health and b) from the policy response to the pandemic, have strong and opposite effects on political trust, with threats to health increasing trust, and threats from the government policy response decreasing it. Lastly, these threat perceptions condition the effect of COVID-19 news consumption on political trust: perceptions of threat had the power to both exacerbate and mute the effect of media consumption on government trust during the pandemic. Notably, we show that the expected negative effect of alternative news on political trust only exists for those who did not think COVID-19 posed a threat to their health, while public service news consumption reduced the negative effect produced by government threat perceptions. The paper therefore advances our understanding of the nuanced nature of media effects, particularly as relates to alternative media, especially during moments of crisis.
{"title":"News, Threats, and Trust: How COVID-19 News Shaped Political Trust, and How Threat Perceptions Conditioned This Relationship","authors":"Ernesto de León, M. Makhortykh, T. Gil-López, Aleksandra Urman, S. Adam","doi":"10.1177/19401612221087179","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/19401612221087179","url":null,"abstract":"This study explores shifts in political trust during the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in Switzerland, examining the role that media consumption and threat perceptions played in individuals’ trust in politics. We combine panel surveys taken before and during the first nation-wide lockdown with webtracking data of participants' online behaviour to paint a nuanced picture of media effects during the crisis. Our work has several findings. First, political trust, an attitude known for its stability, increased following lockdown. Second, consumption of mainstream news on COVID-19 directly hindered this increase, with those reading more news having lower over-time trust, while the relatively minor alternative news consumption had no direct effect on political trust. Third, threat perceptions a) to health and b) from the policy response to the pandemic, have strong and opposite effects on political trust, with threats to health increasing trust, and threats from the government policy response decreasing it. Lastly, these threat perceptions condition the effect of COVID-19 news consumption on political trust: perceptions of threat had the power to both exacerbate and mute the effect of media consumption on government trust during the pandemic. Notably, we show that the expected negative effect of alternative news on political trust only exists for those who did not think COVID-19 posed a threat to their health, while public service news consumption reduced the negative effect produced by government threat perceptions. The paper therefore advances our understanding of the nuanced nature of media effects, particularly as relates to alternative media, especially during moments of crisis.","PeriodicalId":47605,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Press-Politics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":4.8,"publicationDate":"2022-04-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42264076","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-04-04DOI: 10.1177/19401612221092994
Jakob Ohme
In a time where youth-led movements like Fridays-for-Future make the news, it is easy to think that European youth has found their role as citizens in a society. Ultimately, the way young citizens act in the political system they have been socialized in, is an important indication about the state of this political system. But while societies at large mostly care about the question if youth is active, researchers from disciplines like political science, psychology, sociology, cultural and media studies, and communication science have an ongoing interest in the question, how young citizens act politically and what these acts entail. This book reintroduces these questions by focusing on Youth Active Citizenship in Europe. The edited volume gathers ethnographic studies on young political activists. In the beginning, it problematizes the ‘binaries of civic participation’. The editors Shakuntala Banaji and Sam Mejias argue that questions about what is ‘political’ or what counts as ‘active’ have been answered unsatisfactory by large-scale survey research’s attempt to categorize the rich field of youth engagement. The goal of this volume, hence, is to go beyond these categories and to provide insights into how young Europeans become active in political matters. It approaches the question of what active citizenship today entails from a variety of angles and theoretical schools: What are motivations of being active? What is the role of emotions for participation? How diverse are youth movements and what are the chances of an activist burnout? For readers of International Journal of Press and Politics, Chapter 6 on “Hybridity in the Media and Political Strategies of Leftist Youth Organisations” by Alena Macková Macková, Sam Mejias and Jakub Macek may be of greatest interest, as it illustrates the long-known struggle of balancing communication strategies between offline and digital activities. There are several things to like about this book: First, the cases of ethnographic studies undertaken in eight countries—the Czech Republic, Estonia, Germany, Greece, Italy, Portugal, Sweden and the UK— are illustrative of youth engagement to an extent that quantitative research will never be. The rich ethnographic work, Book Review
{"title":"Book Review: Youth Active Citizenship in Europe: Ethnographies of Participation by Shakuntala Banaji and Sam Mejias","authors":"Jakob Ohme","doi":"10.1177/19401612221092994","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/19401612221092994","url":null,"abstract":"In a time where youth-led movements like Fridays-for-Future make the news, it is easy to think that European youth has found their role as citizens in a society. Ultimately, the way young citizens act in the political system they have been socialized in, is an important indication about the state of this political system. But while societies at large mostly care about the question if youth is active, researchers from disciplines like political science, psychology, sociology, cultural and media studies, and communication science have an ongoing interest in the question, how young citizens act politically and what these acts entail. This book reintroduces these questions by focusing on Youth Active Citizenship in Europe. The edited volume gathers ethnographic studies on young political activists. In the beginning, it problematizes the ‘binaries of civic participation’. The editors Shakuntala Banaji and Sam Mejias argue that questions about what is ‘political’ or what counts as ‘active’ have been answered unsatisfactory by large-scale survey research’s attempt to categorize the rich field of youth engagement. The goal of this volume, hence, is to go beyond these categories and to provide insights into how young Europeans become active in political matters. It approaches the question of what active citizenship today entails from a variety of angles and theoretical schools: What are motivations of being active? What is the role of emotions for participation? How diverse are youth movements and what are the chances of an activist burnout? For readers of International Journal of Press and Politics, Chapter 6 on “Hybridity in the Media and Political Strategies of Leftist Youth Organisations” by Alena Macková Macková, Sam Mejias and Jakub Macek may be of greatest interest, as it illustrates the long-known struggle of balancing communication strategies between offline and digital activities. There are several things to like about this book: First, the cases of ethnographic studies undertaken in eight countries—the Czech Republic, Estonia, Germany, Greece, Italy, Portugal, Sweden and the UK— are illustrative of youth engagement to an extent that quantitative research will never be. The rich ethnographic work, Book Review","PeriodicalId":47605,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Press-Politics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":4.8,"publicationDate":"2022-04-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45560000","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-03-29DOI: 10.1177/19401612221089482
Ximena Orchard, Bastián González-Bustamante
This article studies determinants of political actors’ visibility in the news, and their stability over time, observing the press coverage received by Chilean politicians in the elite press since the beginning of the democratic transition in 1991 and until 2019. In dialogue with theories of news values, we test how political positions in a markedly presidential system, the belonging to a government coalition, gender, and the association to conflict frames behave as determinants of the presence and prominence of politicians in the news in the three decades following the recovery of democracy in Chile. We have three key findings. Firstly, the visibility of political actors in the news follows a clear institutional hierarchy led by the president and cabinet members. Secondly, female politicians are less likely to be mentioned or have speaking space in newspapers than male politicians. Lastly, although an association with conflict-framed news boosts politicians’ visibility, such association is unable to disturb structural power hierarchies, and the value of conflict does not increase over time.
{"title":"Power Hierarchies and Visibility in the News: Exploring Determinants of Politicians’ Presence and Prominence in the Chilean Press (1991–2019)","authors":"Ximena Orchard, Bastián González-Bustamante","doi":"10.1177/19401612221089482","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/19401612221089482","url":null,"abstract":"This article studies determinants of political actors’ visibility in the news, and their stability over time, observing the press coverage received by Chilean politicians in the elite press since the beginning of the democratic transition in 1991 and until 2019. In dialogue with theories of news values, we test how political positions in a markedly presidential system, the belonging to a government coalition, gender, and the association to conflict frames behave as determinants of the presence and prominence of politicians in the news in the three decades following the recovery of democracy in Chile. We have three key findings. Firstly, the visibility of political actors in the news follows a clear institutional hierarchy led by the president and cabinet members. Secondly, female politicians are less likely to be mentioned or have speaking space in newspapers than male politicians. Lastly, although an association with conflict-framed news boosts politicians’ visibility, such association is unable to disturb structural power hierarchies, and the value of conflict does not increase over time.","PeriodicalId":47605,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Press-Politics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":4.8,"publicationDate":"2022-03-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49084675","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-03-24DOI: 10.1177/19401612221088987
D. Schmuck, Melanie Hirsch, Anja Stevic, Jörg Matthes
Social media influencers promote not only products and brands but also their opinions on serious topics like party politics or climate change. These so-called digital opinion leaders may exert a powerful impact on their followers’ political attitudes. Accordingly, we explore new directions to explain how influencers’ communication is related to political outcomes by proposing the concept of perceived simplification of politics (PSP). We argue that PSP may fuel political cynicism but also stimulate youth's interest in politics. We also explore important boundary conditions of these associations. We use data from three studies, a two-wave panel survey of adolescents (NT2 = 294), a cross-sectional survey of young adults (N = 632), and a two-wave panel survey of young adults (NT2 = 496) in Germany between 2019 and 2020. Findings of all three studies show that the frequency of exposure to social media influencers’ content increases PSP. In Studies 1 and 2, PSP is related to higher political cynicism, while in Study 3, this relationship is restricted to influencers’ communication about environmental topics and gender equality. Furthermore, Studies 2 and 3 suggest that PSP also increases political interest—yet this association requires a certain level of parasocial interaction (PSI) with the influencer and is contingent on specific political topics.
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