Abstract Under the premise that the use of alternative news frames is a key characteristic of alternative media, this study examines frame repertoires of alleged mainstream media and right-wing alternative media (RAM) in Germany. This endeavor is based on quantitative content analyses of eighteen news websites, including seven RAM, on two issues: immigration and the coalition talks following the German

Abstract This study examines how people tailor their news environment in an era of news abundance. In particular, the researchers attempted to clarify the concept of news tailoring by identifying its structures in the context of digital news consumption. The study’s findings show that news tailoring takes place either through excluding (decreasing the quantity of news to process) or including (lowering

Abstract It is well documented that TV viewers avoid advertisements by switching channels during commercial breaks (“zapping”). Ads with lower audience retention ability lead to more consumer zapping. Given that several ads are sequentially broadcast during a commercial break, an ad with a low retention rate will negatively affect the viewership of subsequent ads by decreasing their opportunities to

(2022). What a Difference 50 Years Makes!. Journal of Advertising. Ahead of Print.

Abstract Celebrity endorsements are a time-tested tactic, but marketers have added a twist: endorsements featuring not actors as themselves but as the characters they play in film or television. In two experiments, the authors investigate these “character endorsements.” Study 1 establishes that a construct that is new to endorsement research, certainty of meaning, helps to advance understanding of

Abstract This study provides a broad overview of literary criticism in advertising and discusses its relevance in understanding advertisements as textual narratives while also suggesting some avenues for future research. We do so by framing it through the work of Barbara Stern, who helped introduce literary criticism into the marketing discipline. We then explain our thoughts concerning why renewed

This study draws on the social identity approach (SIA), to examine how political elites (i.e., members of the 116th United States Congress) communicated norms about mask-wearing on social media during the COVID-19 pandemic. Using Twitter data collected in 2020, we found that Republican members of Congress were significantly less likely to promote mask-wearing than Democratic members. We also observed

Abstract ?This paper points out the main opportunities and challenges when qualitative data collection (both in-depth interviews and focus groups) is transferred from an in-person setting to a video conferencing platform. Online video research interviews (OVRI) permit an overcoming of limitations in in-person interviews such as access to participants, time, expense, and a potential impact of the researcher's

Local newspapers are increasingly subject to predatory corporate acquisition—corporate takeovers in which media conglomerates purchase publications in financially precarious states, drastically cut staff, and in certain cases consolidate newsroom operations. We investigate how this practice alters the information environment of 31 corporate-owned local newspapers across over 130,000 articles. Formalizing

Self-presentation on social network sites (SNS) such as Instagram is often assumed to be inauthentic or even fake. While authenticity on SNS has been linked to increased well-being, most research has investigated it either monolithically (e.g., via screen time measures) or with regard to stable self-presentations (e.g., in Facebook profiles). In contrast, this study compares subjective authenticity

An online experiment was conducted to examine the causal effects of digital content permanency on perceived anonymity, as well as the correlations between perceived anonymity, perceived consequences of anonymous cyber bullying, normative beliefs about cyber bullying, and cyber bullying intentions. College students in the United States were introduced to a social media platform described as featuring

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

Contrary to popular narratives, it is not clear whether using social media for news increases belief in political misinformation. Several of the most methodologically sound studies find small to nonexistent effects. However, extant research is limited by focusing on few platforms (usually Facebook, Twitter or YouTube) and is heavily U.S. centered. This leaves open the possibility that other platforms

The present study examined how individuals describe the nature of interpersonal violence perpetrated against them using the Twitter hashtags #NotOkay and #MeToo. Iterative qualitative coding of 437 tweets resulted in four major themes (i.e., the nature of violence and tactics utilized, the identity of the perpetrator, the location of the assault, and whether the perpetrator was held accountable). Subthemes

The video-sharing social media platform TikTok has experienced a rapid rise in use since its release in 2016. While its popularity is undeniable, at the first glance, it seems to offer features already available on previously existing and well-established platforms such as Instagram, YouTube, and Facebook. To understand processes of self-making on TikTok, we undertake two methods of data collection:

When virtual reality (VR) entered the consumer market in 2016, it was accompanied by claims of its potential as a “revolutionary” new technology. This article examines these claims of newness by focusing on statements made by industry leaders and other professionals. The findings suggest repetitions of problematic discourse, in which colonialist language of “pioneering” expansion appears to be used

Social media platforms record and fuel the construction of memories and social identities through discursive processes of memory work—or reconstructing the past in the present—and identity work—or representing individual and group characteristics. In this article, I interrogated sites of intersection and friction between mediated memory and identity work to uncover their shared political potential

The growing ubiquity of algorithms in everyday life has prompted cross-disciplinary interest in what people know about algorithms. The purpose of this article is to build on this growing literature by highlighting a particular way of knowing algorithms evident in past work, but, as yet, not clearly explicated. Specifically, I conceptualize practical knowledge of algorithms to capture knowledge located

Digital media use can connect citizens across geographic boundaries into coordinated action by distributing political information, enabling the formation of groups, and facilitating political talk. These activities can lead to political consumerism, which is an important and popular form of political participation that translates across geographic borders. This article uses original survey data (n?=?9284)

Digital self-tracking devices increasingly inhabit everyday landscapes, yet many people abandon self-trackers not long after acquisition. Although research has examined why people discontinue these devices, less explores what actually happens when people unplug. This article addresses this gap by considering the embodied and habitual dimensions of self-tracking and discontinuance. We consider the potential

Depression is a significant and limiting health problem, and living alone has been identified as an essential determinant of depressive symptoms in middle-aged and older adults. This study looks at this relationship by introducing a new factor into the equation—the Internet—which has become increasingly relevant for communication and interaction. It aims to assess to what extent the use of the Internet

This study investigates how exposure to favorable messages about one's preferred party can affect emotional reactions and subsequent behavioral intentions. Integrating the motivated reasoning and discrete emotions’ frameworks, we offer a theoretical framework of motivated mobilization for explaining political engagement in response to poll exposure. Specifically, we examine the mediating role of emotions

Pre-election opinion polls are an increasingly prominent aspect of political campaigns, yet they often vary in terms of their results, sources, and where they are published. Citizens are therefore increasingly confronted with the proposition of which polls to give more credence to than others in shaping their voting behaviour. This study investigates the relationship between subjective determinations

In this study, we explore two parallel networks of discourse during the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) negotiations of 2019 in Madrid (25th Conference of the Parties, COP25): one produced by news media coverage of the talks; the other by Twitter users who shared news content about the talks. Findings show that transnational public spheres can emerge out of relatively

In recent years, gambling has become increasingly prominent in everyday life; the term ‘gamblification’ first emerged in the late 2000s and was used to describe the colonisation of sports and sporting cultures by the gambling industry. Since that time, gamblification has been used to describe a range of phenomena in increasingly diffuse contexts; it has been variously used as a proxy for the convergence

Abstract Citizens these days feel inundated with news online and are worried about its veracity. This study examines if these concerns in the digital news environment led to greater news avoidance and news authentication behaviors. The relationships were tested across 16 countries by combining individual-level survey data from the Reuters Institute Digital News Report (N?=?34,201) with country-level

Abstract With the promise of AI, the use of emerging technologies in journalism has gained momentum. However, the question of how such technologies can be interwoven with newsroom practices, values, routines, and socio-cultural experiences is often neglected. This article investigates the ways in which AI-driven tools are permeating newswork and design strategies for blending technological capabilities

This article investigates the interaction between digital capital and some offline components (economic, cultural, political, social and personal) that represent the background against which we access and use the Internet. Based on a stratified sample of the UK population (868), six indexes (one for each component) were generated through factor analysis and univariate analysis. We summarised them into

Abstract Media startups tend to stretch the boundaries of journalism, but are still influenced by values and ideas from legacy journalists. Guided by Bourdieu’s field theory, this study will utilize in-depth interviews to understand Singapore-based media startups, examining the disconnect between these new entrants and legacy newsrooms. This study proposes that there is a hysteresis in the field, which

‘To-Do List: Masturbate’ reads one of the Instagram posts for the fashionable, new Lioness vibrator and tracking app. Lioness is just one of the most publicised of a spate of sex tracking apps principally aimed at women that have emerged over the past 5?years, which asks users to monitor their sexual interactions, and which also offers medical and holistic advice on how to improve one’s sex life. This

The degree to which civility norms are upheld or violated is an important criterion in evaluating the democratic quality of public debates. We investigate civility across media types, political systems, and levels of socio-cultural division, offering a comparative perspective on how these factors shape levels of civility in public debates around a key question for societies around the world: What is

Drawing on theoretical principles related to goal pursuit and inference, the present study investigated the extent to which specific message features led to better or worse conversational outcomes of end-of-life discussions between older adults and their adult children. Actor-partner interdependence modeling analysis of longitudinal reports from 66 parent/child dyads revealed that tactical attention

While many have asked whether the law can keep up with new technologies, we may need to ask bigger questions, lest in ‘updating’ we redraw the circuits of inequitable power relations. The fundamental ideas of autonomy and sovereignty that sit at the heart of the circuitry of platform and technological regulation must be reconsidered. How can we rewire this system? Examining the ways that relational

While cancel culture has become a social media buzzword, scholarly understanding of this phenomenon is still at its nascent stage. To contribute to a more nuanced understanding of cancel culture, this study uses a sequential exploratory mixed-methods approach by starting with in-depth interviews with social media users (n?=?20) followed by a national online survey (n?=?786) in Singapore. Through the

In this article, I analyse the Steam platform as a configuration of several market contexts. I argue that Valve, the owner of Steam, maintains a classical retail market catering to large game publishers, while the emphasis of Valve’s own game titles is in alternative market contexts based on player-driven economies. I first discuss Steam as a distinct type of platform economy due to its roots in player-driven

ABSTRACT Governmental mandates requiring mask wearing in public spaces to slow the spread of the COVID-19 virus have been controversial in the United States. We test theory related to anger and anger expression in the context of posts about masks appearing on Twitter during a 12-week period in which mask mandates were adopted in 18 states. The results were consistent with an appraisal of mandates as

ABSTRACT Mobile instant messaging (MIM) services have emerged as digital platforms for closed and private modes of communication. The present study adopts a dynamic network approach to understanding how MIM apps are used in combination with each other. The changing patterns of cross-platform MIM use are reflected in the structural dynamics of the audience overlap network among 58 MIM apps over March

This article explores strategies and practices of approximation to cope with needs of pregnancy and maternity in the locked-down home at a distinct point in time – the earliest lockdown in the course of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom, where, disruption of in-person support, both formally and informally, had implications for new mothers, babies and families. Amid a turn to digital for mental

This article proposes the notion of the ‘Lovelace Effect’ as an analytical tool to identify situations in which the behaviour of computing systems is perceived by users as original and creative. It contrasts the Lovelace Effect with the more commonly known ‘Lovelace objection’, which claims that computers cannot originate or create anything, but only do what their programmers instruct them to do. By

ABSTRACT Contemporary media environments are rife with contested information. Unable to rely on contradictory or deliberately distorted media accounts, socially interactive audiences turn to trustworthy others to make sense of the political world outside. This study uses the context of the Russian–Ukrainian conflict, marked by discordant media agendas and ideological narratives, to explore how citizens

Social media posts and profiles have become a key part of hiring and firing processes, producing a “hidden curriculum of surveillance.” When hiring, employers routinely engage in “cybervetting” job candidates, making judgments based on their social media presence (or absence), and so too can social media disclosures impact (positively and negatively) employment progression and even result in termination

Social paleontology is a burgeoning field of research that seeks to understand the natural world through the collection, preparation, curation, and study of fossils via online communities. Such a community represents an ideal case for examining scientific practice as the expression of conversation topics in relation to the people who participate. Using Communities of Practice as a theoretical framework

Allam, Rasha, and El Gody, Ahmed. 2021. “Diffusion of Development Journalism Inside Egyptian Newsrooms.” The International Journal of Press/Politics. Advance Online Publication. https://doi.org/10.1177/19401612211040026

Abstract In the mid-to-late 1990s, readers reacted to journalistic accounts of the world around them, from sending emails to posting to message boards on newspaper sites. Some of these practices, especially positive suggestions of sources and conversations with reporters, represent an earlier time’s web-optimism, now perhaps lost. This article will explore how design practices, including integrated

Abstract The study presented in this article demonstrates journalists’ abilities to debunk mis-, dis- and malinformation in everyday work situations. It shows how journalists use core skills and competencies to verify the information and it describes why false information evades the journalistic filter and gets published. We combined semi-structured interviews with a think-aloud method in which 20

Abstract Social sciences are facing a crisis of replicability, and concerns about the confidence in quantitative findings have resulted in an increasing interest in open science practices across many fields. In this article we introduce scholars of (digital) journalism studies and communication science to multiverse analysis while addressing the possible reasons of heterogeneity in the findings of

Abstract Drawing on Bourdieu’s field theory, this study investigated how the quality and reputation of news outlets were related to their social media capital. Social media capital is conceptualized as the resources that news organizations can generate via social media efforts, and measured by examining each outlet’s audience size and engagement metrics on Twitter. To triangulate findings, we used

Abstract Given the centrality of news media to democracy, it is concerning that public trust in media has declined in many countries. A potential mechanism that may reverse this trend is independent fact-checking to adjudicate competing claims in news stories. We undertake a survey experiment on a sample of 1608 Australians to test the effects of fact-checking on media trust using a real-life case

This article revisits claims made a decade ago about the importance of the word “sharing” in the context of social network sites (SNSs). Based on an analysis of the home pages of 61 SNSs between the years 2011 and 2020, the findings incontrovertibly show that “sharing” has lost its central place in the terminology employed by social media platforms in their self-presentation. Where in the mid-2000s

ABSTRACT Renewed scrutiny of how U.S. journalism functions as a political institution is warranted in an era of democratic backsliding. While news media cannot deliver policy on their own, they are fully equipped to represent, interpret, and amplify grievance. If disaffection is directed at retribution rather than policy, journalism contributes to backsliding in the further pathologizing of (non)-responsive

This commentary considers the concept of “disconnection” as a way to understand practices of contemporary digital journalism while advocating for consideration of disconnection as a necessary component of sustainable journalism.

In this article, we investigate the socio-technical ecology of Twitter, including the technological affordances of the platform and the user-generated discursive strategies used to create and circulate anti-Muslim disinformation online. During the first wave of Covid-19, right-wing followers claimed that Muslims were spreading the virus to perform Jihad. We analyzed a sample of 7000 tweets using Critical

Russian influence operations on social media have received significant attention following the 2016 US presidential elections. Here, scholarship has largely focused on the covert strategies of the Russia-based Internet Research Agency and the overt strategies of Russia's largest international broadcaster RT (Russia Today). But since 2017, a number of new news media providers linked to the Russian state

In this paper, we explore U.S. young adults’ strategies for evaluating news and information value within the rapidly changing, increasingly digitalized media environment. We draw on interviews with U.S. young adults conducted between April and November 2020. Based on our findings, we develop the concept of information cacophony to characterize young adults’ experience of the contemporary information

ABSTRACT Politics now intrudes into many aspects of social life. How does this occur and what are its consequences? We study the sources of politicized attitudes toward ESPN, a sports media outlet involved in controversies where politics and sports intersect, and consider their implications for sports news use. We assess two potential contributors to politicized attitudes toward ESPN: exposure to political

Concentrations of power over the internet among a small number of corporate platforms have motivated attempts to build alternative social media. Using the contemporary internet routinely involves relying on a small number of dominant corporate platforms. In reaction against this centralization of power, there are many attempts to build alternative Web technologies that reconfigure the internet’s power

ABSTRACT On Facebook, patterns of user engagement largely shape what types of political contents citizens can see on the platform. Higher engagement leads to higher visibility. Therefore, one of the major goals of political actors’ Facebook communication is to produce content with the potential to provoke user engagement, and thereby increase their own visibility. This study introduces the concept

With growing concerns over children’s data agencies, researchers have begun to draw attention to children’s and young people’s privacy practices in social media environments. However, little is known about the experiences of pre-service teachers who play a key role in educating future generations. This study aimed to address this gap by exploring Finnish pre-service teachers’ conceptions and experiences

The literature on spatial-temporal barriers shows that temporary migrant workers are vulnerable to exploitation and has concentrated on how they utilize new media to address underpayment and exploitation. These studies, however, have left unexplored the agency, temporality, and spatial considerations that underpin why workers prefer to activate “informal” mechanisms of complaint rather than accessing

This article examines how individuals proximate to online body justice communities utilized and experienced social media during COVID-19. The majority of research during the pandemic has been quantitative and survey-based; it has also tended to center (dis)information spread or mental health concerns. Our qualitative interviews with 44 individuals offer nuanced insights into what social media meant