Pub Date : 2023-07-24DOI: 10.1177/02673231231188418a
{"title":"Book notes: Behind the Search Box: Google and the Global Internet Industry by ShinJoung Yeo","authors":"","doi":"10.1177/02673231231188418a","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/02673231231188418a","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":47765,"journal":{"name":"European Journal of Communication","volume":"38 1","pages":"429 - 430"},"PeriodicalIF":2.4,"publicationDate":"2023-07-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47679585","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-07-19DOI: 10.1177/02673231231189043
R. Nielsen, R. Fletcher
Platformization has been used to describe how platforms such as Facebook, Google, Twitter, WhatsApp and TikTok have become increasingly important for how people communicate and access information, including news. But to what extent have news media systems in different countries become platformized? Using online survey data from 46 countries, we show that: (a) although over 90% of internet users use at least one social platform, there are large country differences in the proportion that use them to access news; and (b) large country difference in the proportion that still go directly to news websites and apps. Furthermore, we find (c) that country differences at least partly reflect path dependency, more specifically the historic strength of the newspaper market leading to lower levels of news platformization and continued high levels of direct access. These findings show how platformization varies in different parts of the world, provide a framework for capturing how it changes over time, and highlight the potential benefits of bringing together platform studies and comparative media systems research.
{"title":"Comparing the platformization of news media systems: A cross-country analysis","authors":"R. Nielsen, R. Fletcher","doi":"10.1177/02673231231189043","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/02673231231189043","url":null,"abstract":"Platformization has been used to describe how platforms such as Facebook, Google, Twitter, WhatsApp and TikTok have become increasingly important for how people communicate and access information, including news. But to what extent have news media systems in different countries become platformized? Using online survey data from 46 countries, we show that: (a) although over 90% of internet users use at least one social platform, there are large country differences in the proportion that use them to access news; and (b) large country difference in the proportion that still go directly to news websites and apps. Furthermore, we find (c) that country differences at least partly reflect path dependency, more specifically the historic strength of the newspaper market leading to lower levels of news platformization and continued high levels of direct access. These findings show how platformization varies in different parts of the world, provide a framework for capturing how it changes over time, and highlight the potential benefits of bringing together platform studies and comparative media systems research.","PeriodicalId":47765,"journal":{"name":"European Journal of Communication","volume":"38 1","pages":"484 - 499"},"PeriodicalIF":2.4,"publicationDate":"2023-07-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47887987","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-07-18DOI: 10.1177/02673231231189046
Nikos Smyrnaios, Olivier Baisnée
The platformization of the public sphere refers to the increasing dominance of digital platforms in shaping public discourse, access to information, and the production and dissemination of political content. The public sphere, where citizens inform themselves and engage in political debates, is being transformed by global private corporations like Alphabet and Meta. Their platforms exercise control over cultural producers, political actors, and the distribution of information and communication resources. At the same time, in a context of multiple crises of liberal democracies under capitalism, they offer personalization of content, services, and experiences contributing to the fragmentation of the political landscape. Thus, the platformized public sphere bears a fundamental contradiction in that it emerges through the dialectics between concentration and fragmentation. This has significant implications for freedom of expression, journalism, and the way public discourse is constructed and disseminated. The aim of this issue is to shed light on these fundamental stakes.
{"title":"Critically understanding the platformization of the public sphere","authors":"Nikos Smyrnaios, Olivier Baisnée","doi":"10.1177/02673231231189046","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/02673231231189046","url":null,"abstract":"The platformization of the public sphere refers to the increasing dominance of digital platforms in shaping public discourse, access to information, and the production and dissemination of political content. The public sphere, where citizens inform themselves and engage in political debates, is being transformed by global private corporations like Alphabet and Meta. Their platforms exercise control over cultural producers, political actors, and the distribution of information and communication resources. At the same time, in a context of multiple crises of liberal democracies under capitalism, they offer personalization of content, services, and experiences contributing to the fragmentation of the political landscape. Thus, the platformized public sphere bears a fundamental contradiction in that it emerges through the dialectics between concentration and fragmentation. This has significant implications for freedom of expression, journalism, and the way public discourse is constructed and disseminated. The aim of this issue is to shed light on these fundamental stakes.","PeriodicalId":47765,"journal":{"name":"European Journal of Communication","volume":"38 1","pages":"435 - 445"},"PeriodicalIF":2.4,"publicationDate":"2023-07-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44735233","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-07-12DOI: 10.1177/02673231231188418
Lord Harold Rothermere, L. Beaverbrook, W. Hearst
Knowledge in Children’s News’, focuses on children’s news about the environment. Chapter 4, ‘From Knowledge to Efficacy: The Greening of Children’s Television’, then looks at children’s television. Chapter 5, ‘Nature on Screen: Making “the Environment” Visible in Children’s Film’, considers the role children’s films can play in enhancing knowledge and understanding about the environment. Chapter 6, ‘Young Explorers in Virtual Ecosystems: Environmental Empathy in Animated and Digital Worlds’, is also about children’s screen media but with a focus on empathy. The final chapter, ‘The Mainstreaming of Children’s Voices in Environmental Communication’, explores the powerful role young climate activists have played in recent years. All in all, this is a thought-provoking and well-researched book.
{"title":"Book notes: The Newspaper Axis: Six Press Barons Who Enabled Hitler by Kathryn S. Olmster","authors":"Lord Harold Rothermere, L. Beaverbrook, W. Hearst","doi":"10.1177/02673231231188418","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/02673231231188418","url":null,"abstract":"Knowledge in Children’s News’, focuses on children’s news about the environment. Chapter 4, ‘From Knowledge to Efficacy: The Greening of Children’s Television’, then looks at children’s television. Chapter 5, ‘Nature on Screen: Making “the Environment” Visible in Children’s Film’, considers the role children’s films can play in enhancing knowledge and understanding about the environment. Chapter 6, ‘Young Explorers in Virtual Ecosystems: Environmental Empathy in Animated and Digital Worlds’, is also about children’s screen media but with a focus on empathy. The final chapter, ‘The Mainstreaming of Children’s Voices in Environmental Communication’, explores the powerful role young climate activists have played in recent years. All in all, this is a thought-provoking and well-researched book.","PeriodicalId":47765,"journal":{"name":"European Journal of Communication","volume":"38 1","pages":"429 - 429"},"PeriodicalIF":2.4,"publicationDate":"2023-07-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46697725","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-07-06DOI: 10.1177/02673231231186581
T. Flew
Regulation—The very idea In 2018, the Economist newspaper identified a ‘techlash’ that was holding Big Tech responsible for multiple imbalances and inadequacies of local and global communication systems (Economist, 2018). The immediate background was intensifying public and policy debate in the wake of Edward Snowden’s 2013 revelation of massive online surveillance by the U.S. National Security Agency, the 2018 Cambridge Analytica scandal revealing Facebook’s involvement in the monetization of personal information and its recycling for political gain, and other instances of whistleblowing exposing abuses of power in and by communication (Di Salvo, 2022). In a slightly longer historical perspective, the techlash was responding to a new category of critical infrastructure that had become entrenched in less than two decades: the internet as configured by the Big Five platforms (Alphabet [Google], Amazon, Apple, Meta [Facebook], and Microsoft). The two books I review here together offer knowledgeable and balanced guidance—in the complementary genres of textbook systematics and essayistic reflections—for readers to understand how the ‘platformization’ of the internet came about in the first place, and to reflect further on what might be the sequel to platformization. What comes after the techlash is still an open question, subject to geopolitical contestations and scholarly interventions imagining what the internet could become, beyond cycles of tech utopias and dystopias since the 1990s. The common theme of the two volumes is regulation and its constituents: Who should regulate digital platforms—the platforms themselves, communities of users, political authorities, or some public-private partnership—and what is to be regulated: technical standards, business models, freedoms of information and communication? The subtitle of the essay Review Essay
{"title":"After the techlash","authors":"T. Flew","doi":"10.1177/02673231231186581","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/02673231231186581","url":null,"abstract":"Regulation—The very idea In 2018, the Economist newspaper identified a ‘techlash’ that was holding Big Tech responsible for multiple imbalances and inadequacies of local and global communication systems (Economist, 2018). The immediate background was intensifying public and policy debate in the wake of Edward Snowden’s 2013 revelation of massive online surveillance by the U.S. National Security Agency, the 2018 Cambridge Analytica scandal revealing Facebook’s involvement in the monetization of personal information and its recycling for political gain, and other instances of whistleblowing exposing abuses of power in and by communication (Di Salvo, 2022). In a slightly longer historical perspective, the techlash was responding to a new category of critical infrastructure that had become entrenched in less than two decades: the internet as configured by the Big Five platforms (Alphabet [Google], Amazon, Apple, Meta [Facebook], and Microsoft). The two books I review here together offer knowledgeable and balanced guidance—in the complementary genres of textbook systematics and essayistic reflections—for readers to understand how the ‘platformization’ of the internet came about in the first place, and to reflect further on what might be the sequel to platformization. What comes after the techlash is still an open question, subject to geopolitical contestations and scholarly interventions imagining what the internet could become, beyond cycles of tech utopias and dystopias since the 1990s. The common theme of the two volumes is regulation and its constituents: Who should regulate digital platforms—the platforms themselves, communities of users, political authorities, or some public-private partnership—and what is to be regulated: technical standards, business models, freedoms of information and communication? The subtitle of the essay Review Essay","PeriodicalId":47765,"journal":{"name":"European Journal of Communication","volume":"38 1","pages":"415 - 421"},"PeriodicalIF":2.4,"publicationDate":"2023-07-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48114730","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-07-04DOI: 10.1177/02673231231185879
Konca Yumlu
{"title":"Book review: Young People and the Smartphone: Everyday Life on the Small Screen by Michela Drusian, Paolo Magaudda and Cosimo Marco Scarcelli","authors":"Konca Yumlu","doi":"10.1177/02673231231185879","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/02673231231185879","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":47765,"journal":{"name":"European Journal of Communication","volume":"38 1","pages":"422 - 424"},"PeriodicalIF":2.4,"publicationDate":"2023-07-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44731841","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-07-04DOI: 10.1177/02673231231184702
Lone Sorensen
This paper argues that understanding populism as a communicative process and contextualising its modern forms in relation to our current political communication environment improves our understanding of how it grips citizens. The paper identifies the disruptive communicative practices of modern populist politicians as characteristic of a digital media-dominated fourth age of political communication in extension of Blumler's account. It explores the reaction of the current wave of populism against institutional norms of political communication and its recognition and construction of a perceived disconnect between public representatives and citizens. The paper identifies three aspects of modern populist communication that, through this oppositional positioning, erode institutional communication in the fourth age: a populist pragmatics of disruptive symbolic action, an ontology that sees directness as the only means of breaching the divide between appearance and reality in politics, and an epistemological stance that replaces expertise with authenticity. These constitute an injection of grassroots communicative forms into institutional politics. The result is the exposition but also deepening of the lopsided efficacy of the fourth age whereby citizens feel inefficacious in relation to institutional politics but increasingly able to participate at a grassroots level.
{"title":"Populist disruption and the fourth age of political communication","authors":"Lone Sorensen","doi":"10.1177/02673231231184702","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/02673231231184702","url":null,"abstract":"This paper argues that understanding populism as a communicative process and contextualising its modern forms in relation to our current political communication environment improves our understanding of how it grips citizens. The paper identifies the disruptive communicative practices of modern populist politicians as characteristic of a digital media-dominated fourth age of political communication in extension of Blumler's account. It explores the reaction of the current wave of populism against institutional norms of political communication and its recognition and construction of a perceived disconnect between public representatives and citizens. The paper identifies three aspects of modern populist communication that, through this oppositional positioning, erode institutional communication in the fourth age: a populist pragmatics of disruptive symbolic action, an ontology that sees directness as the only means of breaching the divide between appearance and reality in politics, and an epistemological stance that replaces expertise with authenticity. These constitute an injection of grassroots communicative forms into institutional politics. The result is the exposition but also deepening of the lopsided efficacy of the fourth age whereby citizens feel inefficacious in relation to institutional politics but increasingly able to participate at a grassroots level.","PeriodicalId":47765,"journal":{"name":"European Journal of Communication","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.4,"publicationDate":"2023-07-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49227477","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-07-02DOI: 10.1177/02673231231186580
Kenneth W. Murphy
{"title":"Book review: Media Engagement by Peter Dahlgren and Annette Hill","authors":"Kenneth W. Murphy","doi":"10.1177/02673231231186580","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/02673231231186580","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":47765,"journal":{"name":"European Journal of Communication","volume":"38 1","pages":"427 - 428"},"PeriodicalIF":2.4,"publicationDate":"2023-07-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43647453","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-06-27DOI: 10.1177/02673231231185880
Limin Huang
more confidence in their computers than smartphones. The use of smartphones by young adults leads on to the debate of ‘addiction’. Are people addicted to smartphones? This question is discussed in the last chapter of the book. For some, there is ‘a generation of smartphone and social media addicts incapable of taking their eyes off Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp’ (p. 108). For others, it is ‘a gateway into socialising’ (p. 109). The young are aware of their attachment to this technology coupled with their need to be connected, but they are also critical about such technologies having taken primacy over human relations. The authors suggest that the use of smartphones ‘must be seen as a cultural practice integrated within a more complex interweaving between consumption, production, representation, and (self) regulation practices. This enables us to go beyond the idea of addiction and embrace a vision capable of encompassing the behaviours and dynamics around young people and new communication technologies’ (p. 123). This book is the result of a well-designed research project. The authors have approached key questions from their background and expertise in sociology and culture, and these areas of interest add to its strengths. Questions relating to the use of smartphones by young people are explored by means of in-depth interviews as well as by a thorough examination of the literature relating to the usage of digital technologies. I recommend it highly for academics, researchers, educators and scholars.
{"title":"Book review: News Discourse and Power: Critical Perspectives on Journalism and Inequality by Henry Silke, Fergal Quinn and Maria Rieder","authors":"Limin Huang","doi":"10.1177/02673231231185880","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/02673231231185880","url":null,"abstract":"more confidence in their computers than smartphones. The use of smartphones by young adults leads on to the debate of ‘addiction’. Are people addicted to smartphones? This question is discussed in the last chapter of the book. For some, there is ‘a generation of smartphone and social media addicts incapable of taking their eyes off Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp’ (p. 108). For others, it is ‘a gateway into socialising’ (p. 109). The young are aware of their attachment to this technology coupled with their need to be connected, but they are also critical about such technologies having taken primacy over human relations. The authors suggest that the use of smartphones ‘must be seen as a cultural practice integrated within a more complex interweaving between consumption, production, representation, and (self) regulation practices. This enables us to go beyond the idea of addiction and embrace a vision capable of encompassing the behaviours and dynamics around young people and new communication technologies’ (p. 123). This book is the result of a well-designed research project. The authors have approached key questions from their background and expertise in sociology and culture, and these areas of interest add to its strengths. Questions relating to the use of smartphones by young people are explored by means of in-depth interviews as well as by a thorough examination of the literature relating to the usage of digital technologies. I recommend it highly for academics, researchers, educators and scholars.","PeriodicalId":47765,"journal":{"name":"European Journal of Communication","volume":"38 1","pages":"424 - 426"},"PeriodicalIF":2.4,"publicationDate":"2023-06-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42737422","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-06-26DOI: 10.1177/02673231231184703
M. Hameleers, T. G. van der Meer, T. Dobber
Although deepfakes are conventionally regarded as dangerous, we know little about how deepfakes are perceived, and which potential motivations drive doubt in the believability of deepfakes versus authentic videos. To better understand the audience's perceptions of deepfakes, we ran an online experiment ( N = 829) in which participants were randomly exposed to a politician's textual or audio-visual authentic speech or a textual or audio-visual manipulation (a deepfake) where this politician's speech was forged to include a radical right-wing populist narrative. In response to both textual disinformation and deepfakes, we inductively assessed (1) the perceived motivations for expressed doubt and uncertainty in response to disinformation and (2) the accuracy of such judgments. Key findings show that participants have a hard time distinguishing a deepfake from a related authentic video, and that the deepfake's content distance from reality is a more likely cause for doubt than perceived technological glitches. Together, we offer new insights into news users’ abilities to distinguish deepfakes from authentic news, which may inform (targeted) media literacy interventions promoting accurate verification skills among the audience.
{"title":"They Would Never Say Anything Like This! Reasons To Doubt Political Deepfakes","authors":"M. Hameleers, T. G. van der Meer, T. Dobber","doi":"10.1177/02673231231184703","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/02673231231184703","url":null,"abstract":"Although deepfakes are conventionally regarded as dangerous, we know little about how deepfakes are perceived, and which potential motivations drive doubt in the believability of deepfakes versus authentic videos. To better understand the audience's perceptions of deepfakes, we ran an online experiment ( N = 829) in which participants were randomly exposed to a politician's textual or audio-visual authentic speech or a textual or audio-visual manipulation (a deepfake) where this politician's speech was forged to include a radical right-wing populist narrative. In response to both textual disinformation and deepfakes, we inductively assessed (1) the perceived motivations for expressed doubt and uncertainty in response to disinformation and (2) the accuracy of such judgments. Key findings show that participants have a hard time distinguishing a deepfake from a related authentic video, and that the deepfake's content distance from reality is a more likely cause for doubt than perceived technological glitches. Together, we offer new insights into news users’ abilities to distinguish deepfakes from authentic news, which may inform (targeted) media literacy interventions promoting accurate verification skills among the audience.","PeriodicalId":47765,"journal":{"name":"European Journal of Communication","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.4,"publicationDate":"2023-06-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46451055","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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