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Bringing together studies from across the Nordic region, this book examines the challenges brought by the COVID-19 pandemic, with a particular focus on vaccine hesitancy. Shedding light on the political tensions that emerged as a result of the pandemic and the debates that ensued both within and between the Nordic nations, it investigates the vociferous discussions surrounding the COVID-19 vaccines and their presumed negative side effects through the lens of trust; trust in and between the neighbouring countries, in healthcare systems, fellow citizens, and experts; in public authorities, politicians, researchers, journalists, and pharmaceutical companies. The first volume to explore vaccine hesitancy in the Scandinavian context, this ground-breaking volume offers fresh perspectives on vaccine scepticism not as a form of ignorance or lack of knowledge, but as a manifestation of a more fundamental lack of faith in modern government and science. As such, it will appeal to scholars of sociology, politics, anthropology, media studies, communication and cultural studies with interests in public health, popular and political discourse and questions of public trust.The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons [Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND)] 4.0 license.

This book explores narratives of vaccine hesitancy using samples from the UK press, and looks at the ways these have changed between the 1950s and the present. The work draws on a variety of research instruments including semantic network analysis and analysis of metaphor to provide a rich description of anti-vaccine narratives in different historical periods. The work considers the ways that concerns about and resistance to inoculation were informed by cultural and social pressures in two case studies, firstly that of polio in the 1950s and secondly the so called ‘pertussis crisis'of the 1970s, wherein a period of social activism and newspaper campaigning led UK and US governments to offer compensation schemes for vaccine damaged children. The studies chosen provide a detailed comparison of the politics of childhood inoculation over two eras in the UK. Chapters also cover the use of metaphor and representational analysis in health communication, comparing ways in which the work of Moscovici, Sontag and other theorists can be used to provide complementary insights, and the affordances and concerns around the use of ‘big data'analyses in historical work. The work also features discussion of the implications of the findings for approaches to more recent vaccination crisis points. This book argues that anti-vaccination narratives, far from showing a stable and coherent set of concerns, are highly mutable. The work compares anti-vaccination and conspiracy theory narratives, drawing out areas of continuity and schism.

This edited collection, follows on from'Communicating COVID-19: Interdisciplinary Perspectives'(2021) and brings together different scholars from around the world to explore and critique the ongoing advances of communicating COVID, two years into the pandemic. Pandemic life has become familiar to us, with all its disruptions and uncertainties. In the second year of COVID, many societies emerged well attuned to new waves of infections, while others, having initially demonstrated'gold standard'responses, regressed, either through a premature end to public health restrictions or challenges around vaccine rollouts. In many countries, bitter social divisions have arisen over mask-wearing, lockdowns, quarantine and vaccination. To better understand the ever evolving communicative landscape of COVID-19, this collection shares updated perspectives from the disciplines of media and communication, journalism, public health and primary care, sociology, and political and behavioural science, addressing the major issues that have confronted communicators, including vaccine hesitancy, misinformation, and the mobilisation of community driven communication responses as restrictions eased in various parts of the world.

As the global COVID-19 pandemic that broke out over two years ago is showing signs of relenting, and the world's attention draws towards yet another military conflict in Ukraine, the roles of crisis communication and media research couldn't be more critical. These roles, particularly in a post-truth and post-COVID era, call for new knowledge and enlightenment around discourses on: the infodemic of misinformation, information and communication rights, the role of online social networks, critical media literacy and the changes occuring in media and journalism ecosystems. Drawing on the region's distinct geo-political, economic, socio-cultural and technological contexts, COVID-19 and the Media in Sub-Saharan Africa brings together diverse interdisciplinary and multi-country perspectives, innovative methodologies as well rigorous theoretical and empirical analyses. The volume helps us deconstruct COVID-19 discourses on crisis communication and media developments focusing on three areas: Media viability, Framing and Health crisis communication. The chapters unpack issues on marginalisation, gender, media sustainability, credibility, priming, trust, sources, behavioural change, mental health, (mis)information, vaccine hesitancy and myths and more. Ultimately, this volume roots for sustainable and quality journalism, human (information and communication) rights, commitment to truth and efficacious (health) crisis communication. It is an excellent resource for academics, media industry, Journalism and media students, public health communication specialists, policy and advocacy groups in the region and globally.

The SAGE Handbook of Intercultural Communication offers a global, interdisciplinary, and contextual approach to understanding the complexities of intercultural communication in our diverse and interconnected world. The handbook brings together established theories, methodologies, and practices and provides a comprehensive exploration of intercultural communication in response to the challenges and opportunities presented by our global society. Featuring contributions from leading and emerging scholars across multiple disciplines, including communication studies, psychology, applied linguistics, sociology, education, and business, this handbook covers research spanning geographical locations across Europe, Africa, Oceania, North America, South America, and the Asia Pacific. It focuses on specific contexts such as the workplace, education, family, media, crisis, and intergroup interactions. Each chapter takes a contextual approach to examine theories and applications, providing insights into the dynamic interplay between culture, communication, and society. From managing cultural diversity in the workplace to creating culturally inclusive learning environments in educational settings, from navigating intercultural relationships within families to understanding the role of media in shaping cultural perceptions, this handbook delves into diverse topics with depth and breadth. It addresses contemporary issues such as hate speech, environmental communication, and communication strategies in times of crisis. It also offers theoretical insights and practical recommendations for researchers, practitioners, policymakers, educators, and students. The handbook is structured into seven parts, beginning with the theoretical and methodological development of the field before delving into specific contexts of intercultural communication. Each part provides a rich exploration of key themes, supported by cutting-edge research and innovative approaches. With its state-of-the-art content and forward-looking perspectives, this SAGE Handbook of Intercultural Communication serves as an indispensable resource for understanding and navigating the complexities of intercultural communication in our increasingly interconnected world. Part 1: Theoretical and methodological development of the field Part 2: Intercultural communication in workplace contexts Part 3: Intercultural communication in educational contexts Part 4: Intercultural communication in family contexts Part 5: Intercultural Communication in media contexts Part 6: Intercultural communication in crisis contexts Part 7: Intercultural communication in intergroup contexts

Examining popular media portrayals of various health topics, this book offers a critical analysis of how those mediated messages can impact, for good or ill, people's physical and mental health.Looking specifically at how various depictions of health topics have both aided in the normalization of health topics such as neurodiversity and HIV while also critiquing the dissemination of misinformation on these same topics, this book offers insight into the ways in which humorous content can both help and hurt. The author draws on a critical analysis of popular media including shows, social media, and stand-up specials, as well as interviews with those who use humor within health settings, such as Red Nose Docs, comedians who focus on their own health issues.This insightful study will interest scholars and students of health in popular culture as well as health communication, media studies, public health administration, and health policy.

Informed by critical theory, this book employs Social Network Analysis (SNA) to examine the ever-increasing impact that social media has on politics and contemporary civic discourse.In just the past decade, social media platforms have been at the forefront of political discord that played out in the January 6th insurrection, the expulsion of a US President from major social media platforms, the attempted regulation of social media in various states, and the takeover of Twitter (now “X”) by one of the richest and (arguably) most financially influential persons in the world. This book examines these phenomena through a comprehensive and in-depth exploration of their meaning and implication for democratic society. Informed by SNA, James Jaehoon Lee and Jeffrey Layne Blevins examine several types of social and political commentary on one of the most influential social media networks and argue that the use of emotional appeals in these posts about social and political topics degrades the quality of civic discourse and encourages the abandonment of reasoning in democratic self-governance.A timely and vital text for upper-level students and scholars in a variety of disciplines from media and communication studies, journalism, and digital humanities to social network analysis, political science, and sociology.The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.

Changing Geopolitics of Global Communication examines the rapidly evolving dynamics between global communication and geopolitics. As an intersection between communication and international relations, it bridges the existing gap in scholarship and highlights the growing importance of digital communication in legitimizing and promoting the geopolitical and economic goals of leading powers. One central theme that emerges in the book is the continuity of asymmetries in power relations that can be traced back to 19th-century European imperialism, manifested in its various incarnations from ‘liberal'to ‘neo-liberal', to ‘digital'imperialism. The book includes a discussion of the post–Cold War US-led transformation of the hardware and software of global communication and how it has been challenged by the ‘rise of the rest', especially China. Other key issues covered include the geopolitics of image wars, weaponization of information and the visibility of discourses emanating from outside the Euro-Atlantic zone. The ideas and arguments advanced here privilege a reading of geopolitical processes and examples from the perspective of the global South. Written by a leading scholar of global communication, this comprehensive and transdisciplinary study adopts a holistic approach and will be of interest to the global community of scholars, researchers and commentators in communication and international relations, among other fields.

This book analyzes questions of platform bias, algorithmic filtering and ranking of Internet speech, and declining perceptions of online freedom.Courts have intervened against unfair platforms in important cases, but they have deferred to private sector decisions in many others, particularly in the United States. The First Amendment, human rights law, competition law, Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, and an array of state and foreign laws address bad faith conduct by Internet platforms or other commercial actors. Arguing that the problem of platform neutrality is similar to the net neutrality problem, the book discusses the assault on freedom of speech that emerges from public-private partnerships. The book draws parallels between U.S. constitutional and statutory doctrines relating to shared spaces and the teachings of international human rights bodies relating to the responsibilities of private actors. It also connects the dots between new rights to appeal account or post removals under the Digital Services Act of the European Union and a variety of fair treatment obligations of platforms under American and European competition laws, “public accommodations” laws, and public utilities laws. Analyzing artificial intelligence (AI) regulation from the point of view of social-media and video-platform users, the book explores overlaps between European and U.S. efforts to limit algorithmic censorship or “shadow-banning”.The book will be of interest to students and scholars in the field of cyberlaw, the law of emerging technologies and AI law.

In Misinformation Studies and Higher Education in the Postdigital Era: Beyond Fake News, Paul Cook argues that the epistemological complexity of the postdigital age demands a new, metadisciplinary approach to information and media – misinformation studies. Cook posits that institutions of higher education can work toward regaining the public's trust and reinvigorating general education programs by developing a metadiscipline that directly addresses the problem of misinformation in all its various and dangerous forms. This book outlines how such a curricular pivot may be accomplished in an age saturated with generative AI, algorithmic manipulation, ubiquitous networked computing, and information overload, coupled with the myriad challenges higher education faces from seemingly all sides. Ultimately, this book makes a compelling case that universities and colleges can instead harness the fragmentation caused by this ‘perfect storm'currently facing higher education so they can not only weather the crisis, but also emerge stronger because of it.

There's never been a more important time for students to develop media literacy competencies. When students ask critical questions about the media they consume, they develop fundamental knowledge and critical thinking skills that prepare them for life, work, and meaningful citizenship. Media Literacy in Action addresses learners who are simultaneously active as both creators and consumers of media messages. At the same time, the book recognizes that everyone is vulnerable to media influence because of our dependence on the instant gratification and feelings of connectedness that digital platforms provide. To thrive in a media-saturated society, people need to ask critical questions about what we watch, see, listen to, read, and use. This book gives students those tools.Key features of the second edition: Critical examination of AI technologies, algorithmic personalization, data privacy and surveillance, and the increased global regulation of digital platforms Attention to media literacy for empowerment and protectionInquiry-oriented approach to learning that cultivates intellectual curiosity and creative expressionFull-color presentation with figures and photos to increase student engagement Each chapter includes: Media Literacy Trailblazers: Profiles of key thinkers and their theories connect students with the discipline of media literacyMedia Literacy DISCourse (NEW): Visual representations of media literacy theoretical principles help learners internalize the practice of asking critical questions as they respond to specific media examplesLearning in Action (NEW): Summary and vocabulary sections combine with Analyze, Create, Reflect, and Act activities to empower students to apply ideas from each chapter.Supplemental Materials available at www.mlaction.com: Students can review key ideas, learn about more Media Literacy Trailblazers, and watch videos aligned with each chapterInstructors can access a Teacher's Guide of best practices, in-class activities, homework, and projects. Also available are chapter summaries, lecture slides, YouTube playlists, and test materials.

How can we have meaningful public conversations in the algorithmic age? This book explores how digital technologies shape our opinions and interactions, often in ways that limit our exposure to diverse perspectives and fuel polarization. Drawing on the ancient art of arguing all sides of a case, the book offers a way to revive public debate as a source of trust and legitimacy in democratic societies. This is a timely and urgent book for anyone who cares about the future of democracy in the digital era.

Through interviews, news analysis, and personal observation, Meredith D. Clark presents the first book about how Black Twitter users carved out a vital space for fast-paced, incisive commentary on Black life in America not found in the mainstream press. Since 1827, when Freedom's Journal, the first newspaper to be published by free Black men in the United States, Black folks have been making use of the media technologies available to them to tell their own stories in their own ways. In We Tried to Tell Y'all: Black Twitter and the Rise of Digital Counternarratives, Meredith D. Clark explains how Black social media users subvert the digital divide narrative while confronting centuries of erasure, omission, and mischaracterization of Black life in'mainstream'media. This ethnographic exploration of Black Twitter draws on news media analysis, in-depth interviews, and personal observation to trace the phenomenon's three levels of community connection, and advances a theory of Black Digital Resistance that illustrates how Black social media users harnessed the platform to annotate and narrate everything from play to protest to everyday life. From chapters that recognize the'locomotive power'of Black women and femmes'intellectual labor to a thorough takedown of so-called'cancel culture', We Tried to Tell Y'all offers readers a rich exploration of the latest chapter of Black media production. Regardless of the future direction of the platform, Black Twitter will forever remain an important moment in the long history of the Black press and Black social movements in the United States.

This book explores how unresolved questions of social justice shape the character of the political terrain and political actors, through the lens of social media. It treats communication as the medium through which social issues and processes are made visible. Given the rise and spread of populist politics, the views of ordinary people on social issues have never mattered more. One platform through which these voices can be studied extensively is social media. Platforms such as Facebook, Twitter now X, YouTube, and Instagram, among others, afford ordinary citizens—often marginalized by traditional mainstream media—space to vent their opinions, engage in discussions of whatever topic, share information and ideas, and explore various kinds of information as well as data, links to which are often provided through various macro and micro discursive spaces therein. Arguably, therefore, social media have become a quintessential platform for studying contemporary sociality. Social media mustbe studied not just as a communication platform, but one through which the social world, social processes and social issues are made visible and, in some cases, enacted. With rich case studies from the Global South, and a particular focus on Africa, this collection does just that.

What is disinformation, and why does it matter? How can we understand and detect different kinds of disinformation? With an analysis of relevant events of the period 2012-2022, the book attempts to answer these questions. The book is organized into four parts. (1) The first part presents the notions of post-truth and fake news using some of the most recent critical studies, analyzing some typical examples and the environment in which some of them originated. (2) The second part introduces the notion of conspiracy theory and describes the emergence of the idea of white supremacy and its ramifications, together with the narratives developed during the COVID restrictions. (3) The third part describes the emergence of the algorithms behind social networks and their role in propaganda, making examples of US and European elections and the Brexit referendum. An analysis of'Cambridge Analytica'shows the tip of an iceberg of disinformation that is spreading around the world. Some remarks by comedians and philosophers help to give a new view on the concept of freedom of speech, with particular attention to the more and more difficult freedom of the press. (4) The fourth part gives some “emergency tools” for detecting disinformation at an individual level, understanding the most hidden mechanisms of disinformation, and the biases that almost unavoidably enter our minds. These tools come from the results both of traditional theories and the most recent social philosophy of language, not despising references to statistics. This is a fundamental book for having a general survey of this period of political turmoil, consulting a wide list of references and official documents, and having a grasp of the means of intellectual self-defense. This book is non-standard: it relies on the most sophisticated theories of language and yet it gives everything in simple and colloquial language. Differently from sophisticated analyses of linguistic phenomena, it gives the feeling of participating in a tour around what happened in the last decade, with a disenchanted eye that uses some results of the critical literature, without compelling one to become a theoretician in the field of philosophy or critical analysis. The hidden focus of the book is freedom of speech and freedom of thought, and what they mean today in an era of more sophisticated and widespread disinformation permitted by the algorithms governing social networks...

This handbook provides a detailed and sustained examination of the scope, purpose and practical application of crisis and disaster management communication in this critical region of the African continent, sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). The volume lays the foundation that enables a nuanced appreciation of two significant issues. The first pertains to SSA's vulnerability to both natural and man-made phenomena. Secondly, it argues that communication plays a critical role in so far as the identification, social construction, raising awareness, preparation, mitigation and eradication of crises and disasters in the region. Communication plays a critical role in potentially reducing the impacts of crises and disasters before their occurrence. This handbook is a key resource for academics, students and practitioners in areas such as political communication, media communication, language and communication, brand communication, social/digital media communication, and crisis communication, among others.

This open access book offers a comprehensive overview of available techniques and approaches to explore large social media corpora, using as an illustrative case study the Coronavirus Twitter corpus. First, the author describes in detail a number of methods, strategies, and tools that can be used to access, manage, and explore large Twitter/X corpora, including both user-friendly applications and more advanced methods that involve the use of data management skills and custom programming scripts. He goes on to show how these tools and methods are applied to explore one of the largest Twitter datasets on the COVID-19 pandemic publicly released, covering the two years when the pandemic had the strongest impact on society. Specifically, keyword extraction, topic modelling, sentiment analysis, and hashtag analysis methods are described, contrasted, and applied to extract information from the Coronavirus Twitter Corpus. The book will be of interest to students and researchers in fields that make use of big data to address societal and linguistic concerns, including corpus linguistics, sociology, psychology, and economics.

This book offers a comprehensive exploration of the widespread issue of fake news and misinformation. Using real-life examples and semiotic theory, the author demonstrates how language, images, and symbols are being utilized in media production and distribution with the intention of altering the perception of individuals and shaping their beliefs. The book also addresses how social and cultural factors influence the spread of information and emphasizes the importance of understanding the context in which information is being received and shared. This book is a must-read for anyone seeking to understand the impact of fake news and misinformation on society, especially academics, researchers, journalists, policymakers, and media professionals at all levels. The author provides contemporary theories and practical strategies to navigate the complex and ever-changing media landscape.

The Anthropology of Digital Practices connects for the first time three distinct research areas – digital ethnography, causal ethnography, and media practice theory – to explore how we might track the effects of new media practices in a digital world. It invites media and communication students and scholars to overcome the field's old aversion to ‘media effects'and explores the messy, complex, open-ended effects of new media practices in a digital age.Based on long-term ethnographic research and drawing from recent advances in the study of causality and ethnography, this book tells the ‘formation story'of the anti-woke movement through a series of critical media events. It argues that digital media practices (e.g. podcasting, YouTubing, tweeting, commenting, broadcasting) will have ‘formative'effects on an emerging social world at different points in time. One important task of the digital ethnographer is precisely to distinguish between the formative and non-formative effects of specific media practices. This book makes three contributions to our understanding of media practices in the digital era, namely a theoretical, methodological, and empirical contribution. Theoretically, it furthers the ‘practice turn'in media and communication studies by engaging with the latest thinking on causality and ethnography. Methodologically, it serves as a compelling, up-to-date guide to doing digital ethnography, with special reference to the study of digitally mediated practices. Empirically, it is the first book-length study of the anti-woke movement, a major actor in the ‘culture wars'currently being fought across the Western world.With its accessible language and rich case studies, The Anthropology of Digital Practices will make an ideal supplementary textbook for a range of undergraduate and graduate courses in research methods, digital ethnography/anthropology, and digital activism.

This book explores the phenomenon of distortion of information through media via the lens of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the ways in which relevant information distortion and virality have occurred in regard to the disease and its risks. Positing that the interrelated processes of misinformation, disinformation, fake news and conspiracy theories are related forms of distortion of information through media (DIM) and can only be understood through a multilevel theoretical model that incorporates message-based, individual difference, social network-based, societal and geotechnical factors, Brian H. Spitzberg develops an integrative, well-argued, and well-evidenced framework within which these issues can and should be addressed. This book offers a model for further research across such disciplines as communication, journalism/media studies, political science, sociology, cognitive psychology, social psychology, evolutionary psychology, public health, big data analytics, social network analytics, computational linguistics and geographic information sciences, and will interest researchers and students in those areas.

This open access book explores contemporary practices that challenge science, arguing that this matter cannot be simply disregarded as a new manifestation of “anti-scientism”. It scrutinizes the processes through which knowledge claims, refused by established institutions and the scientific community, seek legitimacy. Assuming an agnostic analytical stance, it explores the actors involved in such processes and their social worlds, their interactions with epistemic institutions, and the ways in which they enact such refused knowledge in their daily lives. Drawing on a three-year mixed-method research project, this collection demonstrates how refused knowledge can be seen as a distinct mode of knowing, employed in response to the uncertainties of everyday life. Thus, it offers a deeper understanding not only of how refused knowledge garners credibility, but also of how knowledge at large – including scientific knowledge – emerges from specific sociotechnical assemblages.

Why is being a victim such a potent identity today? Who claims to be a victim, and why? How have such claims changed in the past century? Who benefits and who loses from the struggles over victimhood in public culture?In this timely and incisive book, Lilie Chouliaraki shows how claiming victimhood is about claiming power: who deserves to be protected as a victim and who should be punished as a perpetrator. She argues that even though victimhood has long been used to excuse violence and hierarchy, social media platforms and far-right populism have turned victimhood into a weapon of the privileged. Drawing on recent examples such as the overturning of Roe v. Wade, movements like #MeToo and Black Lives Matter, and the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as historical ones from the major wars of the twentieth century and the Civil Rights Movement, Wronged reveals why claims of victimization are so effective at reinforcing instead of alleviating inequalities of class, gender, and race. Unless we come to recognize the suffering of the vulnerable for what it is—a matter not of victimhood but of injustice—Chouliaraki powerfully warns, the culture of victimhood will continue to perpetuate old exclusions and enable further injuries.

In Brexit, Facebook, and Transnational Right-Wing Populism, Natalie-Anne Hall takes Brexit as a case study for examining the critical consequences of the diffusion of transnational right-wing populist politics on social media. Through multi-method, qualitative research with avidly engaged pro-Brexit Facebook users in the tumultuous post-referendum period, Hall explores the effects of this participation on the on- and offline experiences of these individuals and on their interpretation of events surrounding Brexit. The book examines the socio-political and technological opportunities for this engagement with right-wing populist politics and the consequences of this engagement for transnational White victimhood and what Hall coins “Right victimhood.” Hall demonstrates how the “mainstream” political issue of Brexit acted as a catalyst for engagement with more extreme forms of right-wing politics via Facebook.

A guide to the doing of critical and creative research with a range of unusual means to apprise places and build ethical relationships.This catalogue of methods draws on the wealth of cutting-edge critical and creative social research from the Goldsmiths Sociology Department to offer an engaged guide to doing research with a range of unexpected relations. The collection focuses on multiple assemblages of objects, media, materials, practices, relations, devices, and atmospheres, spanning methods and topics involving food to activism, knitting to ghosts, theater to documents, collaging to corridors. Through hands-on discussions of the practicalities, ethics, and politics of doing social research, the catalogue showcases a wide range of examples of what methods might mean and do. It builds a case for an understanding of contemporary social research as interdisciplinary, responsive, dynamic, vital, and urgent in studying and shaping social worlds. Goldsmiths Sociology Department is internationally recognized as being at the forefront of some of the most daring, original and unconventional methodological innovation. Their unbounded approach to social research offers textured yet clear paths through the problems and issues before us, as contributors present the methodological puzzles they have become knotted with. The short and imaginative case studies offer new ways of teaching, learning, and doing lively and rigorous research. This is research as close-up observations, infrastructural interventions and imaginative play. How to Do Social Research With … will be essential for anyone interested in expanding their repertoire of social research methods.

Using an engaging how-to approach that draws from scholarship, real life, and popular culture, this textbook, now in its fourth edition, offers students practical reasons why they should care about research methods and offers a practical guide for conducting research.Explaining quantitative, qualitative, critical, and performance research methods, this new edition helps students better grasp the theoretical and applied uses of method by clearly illustrating practical applications. The book features all the main research traditions in communication, including applications of the methods through effective examples and exercises, and sample student papers that demonstrate research methods in action.This textbook is perfect for beginning and advanced scholars using critical, cultural, interpretive, qualitative, quantitative, rhetorical, and performance research methods.Additional resources for students and instructors can be found on the eResource at www.routledge.com/9781032557380, which includes links, videos, outlines, activities, recommended readings, test questions, and more.

This collection presents policy and research that addresses digital inequalities, access, and skills, from multiple international perspectives. With a special focus on the impact of the COVID-19, the collection is based on the 2021 Digital Inclusion, Policy and Research Conference, with chapters from both academia and civic organizations.The COVID-19 pandemic has changed citizens'relationship with digital technologies for the foreseeable future. Many people's main channels of communication were transferred to digital services, platforms, and apps. Everything ‘went online': our families, friends, partners, health, work, news, politics, culture, arts and protesting. Yet access to digital technologies remained highly unequal. This brought digital inclusion policy and research to the fore, highlighting to policymakers and the public the ‘hidden'challenges and impacts of digital exclusion and inequalities. The cutting-edge volume offers research findings and policycase studies that explore digital inclusion from the provision of basic access to digital, via education and digital literacy, and on to issues of gender and technology. Case studies are drawn from varied sources including the UK, Australia, South America, and Eastern Europe, providing a valuable resource in the pursuit of social equity and justice.​This is an open access book.

This book advances our understanding of communicative relationships and key barriers to more effective health communication. In this, it offers a humanistic orientation of health communication as well as its social, cultural, political, ethical, and spiritual dimensions and contexts. The book therefore brings a more inclusive and integrated approach to the major challenges and opportunities in contemporary health, medicine, and wellbeing.

WhatsApp is used by over half a billion people in India today in all fields – in business, corporate and informal sectors, in government, for education and among friends, families and acquaintances. This book critically explores the social messaging app's rapid expansion in India and its growing influence and looks at whether, as a form of horizontal communication, it poses a challenge to more traditional structures of communication.The book examines WhatsApp's spread in the personal and professional lives of Indians and the myriad ways in which people in India are using the app in social and business interactions, including among people living with disabilities. Using case studies, interviews, surveys and in-depth research, it analyses key aspects of WhatsApp's massive popularity and its impact on how people communicate. It also explores its impact on the psycho-social dynamics in India, including the dissemination of fake news and politically motivated content, and the consequent need for media regulation in the country.One of the first books to analyse the pervasiveness of WhatsApp and social media apps in different areas of Indian society, this book will be of interest to scholars and students of media studies, communication studies, digital media, cultural studies, cyberculture studies, sociology and social policy and media law.

This book studies Indonesian and Philippine English-language printed media outlets to examine how regional public opinions of China and China-made vaccines progressed amid the coronavirus pandemic.By quantifying the presence of certain words, themes, and concepts within the qualitative, textual data of news articles from the most prominent English newspapers in Indonesia (i.e. The Jakarta Post) and the Philippines (i.e. The Philippine Daily Inquirer), the book investigates the trajectories of the regional narratives on Chinese vaccines, Beijing, and China. Through this same methodology, the book also explores indications of the degree of soft power exerted by Beijing through such media outlets in both Indonesia and the Philippines.Analysing how Sino-Southeast Asian relations changed during the COVID-19 pandemic, this book will be a valuable resource to students and scholars of international relations, media studies, and Asian politics.

This book tackles the infodemic—the rapid, widespread diffusion of false, misleading, or inaccurate information about the disease and its ramifications—triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic. With a focus on four Asian societies, the book compares and analyzes the spread of COVID-19 misinformation and its broad impacts on the public in Beijing, Hong Kong, Taipei, and Singapore.Providing both a comprehensive overview of the phenomenon of misinformation and cross-societal analyses of patterns, the book features in-depth analyses of the prevalence of COVID-19 misinformation and engagement and explores its consequences in an Asian context. The book sheds lights on these key questions: What types of infodemic messages circulate widely on popular social media platforms? What factors account for exposure to and engagement with debunked yet popular COVID-19 misinformation? How does exposure to widely circulated COVID-19 misinformation affect people's beliefs, attitudes, and adoption of preventive measures to cope with the pandemic? How do macro social differences condition the diffusion and impacts of COVID-19 misinformation? What intervention strategies can counter the misinformation? Presenting scientific insights and empirical findings on the pressing issues about infodemic, this book will be of great interest to students and researchers of communication studies, political science, public health, crisis communication, and Asian Studies, as well as policymakers and practitioners who wish to acquire cutting-edge, evidence-based knowledge about combating misinformation during a global pandemic.

This book reviews and advances the theoretical and empirical knowledge at the intersection of opinion change and democracy. Specifically, the volume addresses how opinion change and political persuasion unfold in three main domains of media effects: private media (i.e., news organizations), public service media (state-own media services), and social media platforms. Divided in these three different sections, the volume serves as a venue to discuss and further advance the most recent theoretical assumptions and empirical findings that underpin our current understanding on how media influence public opinion and shape liberal democracies. The book also explores how media literacy and critical thinking can mitigate the effects of misinformation and propaganda, emphasizing the importance of educating the public to discern credible information from deceptive content. Furthermore, it discusses the ethical implications of media practices and the responsibilities of media producers in maintaining the integrity of democratic discourse. By highlighting these aspects, the book provides a comprehensive understanding of the complex interplay between media, public opinion, and democracy, offering valuable insights for scholars, policymakers, and anyone interested in the role of media in shaping public opinion.

This two-volume work brings together studies focusing on the Greek realities of class as they appear in and through the Greek media realm. Critically engaging with traditions of class analysis, it brings to light various class perspectives and their explanatory power for the Greek context. In doing so, it embraces intersectional approaches that study class structures in their co-constructions/co-articulations with other forms of social organization and identification, such as race, ethnicity, gender, religion, geography and labor. Instead of providing clear-cut definitions, the chapters reveal the complexities and relationalities of class cultures and classed selves in their making. Volume one brings forth studies concerned with intersectional questions of class, notions of otherness, and forms of exclusion as they appear in popular media genres over a variety of social issues. Further, the volume also deals with class-related issues connected to the study of reactionary, far-right, and racist content advancing in Greek public spheres.

This edited volume explores the media and political discourses during the COVID-19 crisis across thirteen nations. Despite warnings that a global pandemic was a matter of if rather than when, the virus caught governments worldwide unaware. The nature, extent and timespan of governmental responses varied significantly from country to country, but a number of features were common to all. The nation became the frame of reference used in an attempt to make sense of the crisis, to keep citizens united, to gain their trust, and to ensure compliance with unprecedented health mandates. With the same purpose, there was a recourse to ‘non-ideological'values and narratives (sometimes abstract, sometimes political) that could be accepted by all stakeholders. The analyses evidence the perception of the fragility of liberal democracy, caused by too much political and media consensus, by too much political and media dissent and by the threat of populism. The wide-ranging scope and multi-perspective methodology of the analyses offered in this book are an essential reading for academics and students of Media Studies, Politics, Political Communication, and Discourse Analysis and their associated disciplines. Written in accessible language, this volume (full of insightful and at times surprising ideas) will be of interest for all those keen to understand the role of political and media discourse in the communication of the COVID-19 crisis and its wider implications for liberal democracies.

Bringing together experts from a range of disciplines, this collection critically examines science journalism, paying special attention to the points of tension that science journalists navigate in their work today.Faced with the twin crises of climate change and a global pandemic, science journalism has never before been so prominent. This book showcases perspectives that transcend the particulars of the specific news events and outlets studied, in order to provide an overview of the key areas of scholarly interest regarding the nature of science journalism. The volume is organised into three sections: the first provides historical case studies illustrating the demarcation of science journalism from science as science journalism emerged as a recognisable news beat in the twentieth century; the second examines the relationship between science journalists and their sources, particularly scientists, and the mediation of this relationship through organisations, foreign journalism and political constraints; and the final section considers the style and voice of science journalism content. Case studies and original empirical research are compiled from across the globe, including the UK, US, Germany, Vietnam, and Russia, and are synthesised to offer a readable and engaging insight into the beat.Insights on Science Journalism is recommended reading for advanced students and researchers of science journalism and communication and will also appeal to those working in the fields of science and technology studies and risk communication.

Exploring social media's integration with modern society, this text empowers students as social media consumers and creators. The thoroughly updated second edition includes a new chapter on AI technologies. Features include full color visuals; glossary; chapter questions and activities; and theory, ethics, and diversity and inclusion boxes.

With the revolution in information technology, concerns about the proliferation of false, unverified, and misleading information have been growing. As one of the severe public health crises in modern history, the COVID-19 pandemic has provided a novel context for the'post-truth'research. In a'post-truth'era, people are no longer interested in investigating objective facts, but tend to curl up in echo chambers and resonate with like-minded others. Against this backdrop, this book (1) systematically conceptualises'post-truth'and analyzes its defining characteristics and driving forces, (2) examines the nuanced effects of information sources and news consumption behaviours and strategies on COVID-19 misperceptions and knowledge, (3) explores the role of social media in shaping COVID-19-related misperceptions and knowledge, and (4) highlights the importance of news media literacy in navigating the'post-truth'era.The book will be essential reading for students and scholars of media and film studies, communication studies and comparative studies. It will also be a useful reference for medical and media professionals such as doctors, nurses and journalists.

Responding to mounting calls to decenter and decolonize journalism, The Routledge Companion to Journalism in the Global South examines not only the deep-seated challenges associated with the historical imposition of Western journalism standards on constituencies of the Global South but also the opportunities presented to journalists and journalism educators if they choose to partake in international collaboration and education. This collection returns to fundamental questions around the meaning, value, and practices of journalism from alternative methodological, theoretical, and epistemological perspectives. These questions include: What really is journalism? Who gets to, and who is qualified to, define it? What role do ethics play? What are the current trends, challenges, and opportunities for journalism in the Global South? How is news covered, reported, written, and edited in non-Western settings? What can journalism players living and working in industrialized markets learn from their non-Western colleagues and counterparts, and vice versa? Contributors challenge accepted'universal'ethical standards while showing the relevance of customs, traditions, and cultures in defining and shaping local and regional journalism. Showcasing some of the most important research on journalism in the Global South and by journalists based in the Global South, this companion is key reading for anyone researching the principles and practices of journalism from a de-essentialized perspective.

This book offers an alternative approach to developing media literacy pedagogies for marginalized communities and people in postcolonial countries, especially in the Global South, tackling unexplored issues such as media literacy of war, terrorism, pandemics, infodemics, populism, colonialism, genocide, and intersectional feminism.With an emphasis on developing critical and emotive consciousness — or unveiling the oppressor within — the book provides a unique perspective that fits the needs of people at the margins and challenges mainstream media literacy approaches that are mainly designed for the center and the Global North. The book offers a framework for designing curricula at and with the margins through an emancipatory media literacy approach. This approach directs energy toward resistance and praxis, focuses on local priorities of the margins, contextualizes issues within a postcolonial historical moment, and concentrates on fighting oppression structures and social injustice.This book will be an important resource for scholars, educators, and students of media literacy, communication, cultural studies, critical pedagogy, health communication, postcolonialism, Arab studies, feminism, and human rights.

This open access book provides the first systematic analysis of the role of the media in the rise of illiberalism, based on an original theoretical framework and extensive empirical research in Eastern Europe – a region that serves as a key battleground in the global advance of illiberalism. Liberal democracies across the world are facing a range of challenges, from the growing influence of illiberal leaders and parties to deepening polarization and declining trust in political elites and mainstream media. Although these developments attracted significant scholarly attention, the factors that contribute to the spreading of illiberalism remain poorly understood, and the communication perspective on illiberalism is particularly underdeveloped.Štětka and Mihelj address this gap by introducing the concept of the illiberal public sphere, identifying the key stages in its development, and explaining what makes illiberalism distinct from related phenomena such as populism. Their analysis reveals how and why the changing communication environment facilitates selective exposure to ideologically and politically homogeneous sources, fosters changes in normative assumptions that guide media trust, increases vulnerability to disinformation, and goes hand in hand with growing hostility to immigration and LGBTQ+ rights. The findings challenge widespread assumptions about digital platforms as key channels of illiberalism and suggest that their role shifts as the illiberal sphere progresses.The arguments presented in this book have important implications for future research on challenges to liberal democracy, as well as for journalists, media regulators and other professionals committed to rebuilding media trust and containing the forces of polarization.

Readings Best Books of 2024, Non-Fiction Crikey owner and ex-News Corp and Fairfax editor lifts the lid on the abuse of power by media moguls – from William Randolph Hearst to Elon Musk – and on his own unique experience of working for (and being sued by) the Murdochs. What's gone wrong with our media? The answer: its owners. From William Randolph Hearst to Elon Musk, from the British press barons to colonial upstarts Conrad Black and Rupert Murdoch, media proprietors have manipulated the news to accumulate wealth and influence as they meddled with democracy. Eric Beecher knows the news business from bottom to top. He has been a journalist, editor and media proprietor (of Text Media and Crikey), with the rare distinction of having both worked for and been sued (unsuccessfully) by the Murdochs. This book reveals the distorted role of the media moguls of the past two centuries: their techniques, strategies, behind-closed-doors machinations, and indulgent lifestyles. It explains how they have exploited the shield of the freedom of the press to undermine journalism – and truth. In an era of fake news, AI and misinformation, this is democracy's chillingly important story: how a small coterie of flawed and narcissistic moguls created a shadow of power that has contributed to making the media an agent of mistrust.

Disinformation Debunked: Building Resilience through Media and Information Literacy examines the way media and information literacy (MIL) can address disinformation in conjunction with fact-checkers and developers, to benefit from the expertise of these fields in fighting disinformation.The book highlights the underlying stakes that are involved in the fight against disinformation, from producing smart tools to generalizing their use beyond the journalistic profession. It considers the MIL theories and methodologies at work in the digital era, especially from the perspective of digital visual literacy. Offering a comparative study of four European national experiences (France, Romania, Spain, and Sweden), the authors also make public policy recommendations to improve the fight against disinformation.This book is of great importance to students, scholars, and educators working on media and information literacy, digital media, journalism, mass communication, misinformation and disinformation.

The unprecedented spread of false and misleading information is the flip side of the Internet's promise of universal access and information democratization. This volume features original contributions from scholars working on the challenge of misinformation across a wide range of STEM, humanities, and art disciplines. Modeling a collaborative, multidisciplinary'convergence approach,'Truth-Seeking in an Age of (Mis)Information Overload is structured in three parts. Part 1,'Misinformation and Artificial Intelligence,'confronts the danger of outsourcing judgement and decision-making to AI instruments in key areas of public life, from the processing of loan applications to school funding, policing, and criminal sentencing. Part 2,'Science Communication,'foregrounds the need to rethink how scientific findings are communicated to the public, calling on scientists to cooperate with colleagues in other disciplines and community representatives to help minimize the negative effects of mis/disinformation in such vital areas as climate change science and public health. Part 3,'Building Trust,'further advocates for and explores instances of trust-building initiatives as a necessary precondition of both community-oriented scholarly activity and effective intervention strategies in high impact areas such as public health.

How did we become a world where facts—shared truths—have lost their power to hold us together as a community, as a country, globally? How have we allowed the proliferation of alternative facts, hoaxes, even conspiracy theories, to destroy our trust in institutions, leaders, and legitimate experts? Best-selling journalist Steven Brill documents the forces and people, from Silicon Valley to Madison Avenue to Moscow to Washington, that have created and exploited this world of chaos and division—and offers practical solutions for what we can do about it.'A precise description of the punishment cell we have built around our minds and the first few steps back towards light and air.'–Timothy Snyder, Author of On Tyranny and Professor of History, Yale University“A seminal, ground-breaking, documented and honest examination of two of the central dilemmas of our time—what is truth and where to find it.” —Bob Woodward, associate editor at The Washington PostAs the cofounder of NewsGuard, a company that tracks online misinformation, Steven Brill has observed the rise of fake news from a front-row seat. In The Death of Truth, with startling, often terrifying clarity, he explains how we got here—and how we can get back to a world where truth matters.None of this—conspiracy theories embraced, expertise ridiculed, empirical evidence ignored—has happened by accident. Brill takes us inside the decisions made by executives in Silicon Valley to code the algorithms embedded in their social media platforms to maximize profits by pushing divisive content. He unravels the ingenious creation of automated advertising buying systems that reward that click-baiting content and penalize reliable news publishers, and describes how the use of these ad-financed, misinformation platforms by politicians, hucksters, and conspiracy theorists deceives ordinary citizens. He documents how the most powerful adversaries of America have used American-made social media and advertising tools against us with massive disinformation campaigns—and how, with the development of generative artificial intelligence, everything could get exponentially worse unless we act. The stakes are high for all of us, including Brill himself, whose company's role in exposing Russian disinformation operations resulted in a Russian agent targeting him and his family.Crucially, Brill lays out a series of provocative but realistic prescriptions for what we can do now to reverse course—proposals certain to stir debate and even action that could curb the power of big tech to profit from division and chaos, tamp down polarization, and restore the trust necessary to bring us together.

This book delves comprehensively into organisational communication in Africa in the digital age, alongside other organisational changes. This makes it a valuable resource for scholars, practitioners, and students in organisational communication, corporate communication, public relations, and development communication – both within Africa and across the globe. Through diverse perspectives and evidence-based insights, the book equips readers with the knowledge and tools needed to navigate the ever-changing organisational landscape and achieve success in our rapidly evolving world.

The weight of constant digital connection is the default condition of working life, home life, and everyday personal life – driving us to engage more with platforms than with people, a new state of constant disconnection that we cannot escape. Overflowing email inboxes, deluges of mobile phone notifications and torrents of social media posts—the flow of communication in its abundance is today's individualized interface for interpersonal and professional practices. Communication technologies and their use are both the needle and the thread of the wider social tapestry of everyday contemporary life. This ever-changing communication environment is where the neoliberal economic policies of the West and the commercial imperatives of the platform and data-mining industries meet. It is where the contradictions they produce can be felt day-to-day by citizens-turned-users. How does it feel to live at the pressure points of intersecting economic realities and why does it matter? Drawing on extensive sociological research, Burchell examines how individuals try to manage connection as participation in everyday life and how, on a larger scale, the ever-expanding knowledge, communication, and data-driven economies depend on the very pressures that result from our disparate communication needs. With so much time spent managing the pressures of our communication environment, we often overlook the way media technologies produce systemic tensions that are reshaping how we interact with each other and what we understand to be social connection today.

In this book, Yuxia Qian and Rukhsana Ahmed explore health acculturation, which they argue is a complex, multidimensional communication process involving concerted efforts from migrants, health professionals, researchers, community members, policymakers, and the media, rather than a unidimensional process synonymous with assimilation. Qian and Ahmed examine individual migrant health acculturation experiences, community-based culturally-centered health interventions, and cross-cultural health promotion and campaigns. Ultimately, this book unpacks the complexity surrounding the health acculturation process through different theoretical frameworks and cross-cultural applications in a range of communication contexts, including the interpersonal, family, community, organizational, and media.

Dieses Buch untersucht die zugrundeliegenden und bis dato unterrepräsentierten Dynamiken der Auseinandersetzung mit der Digitalisierung in der strategischen Kommunikation. Dies findet ausgehend von einer leitenden Grundannahme statt, die die strategische Kommunikation durch das soziale Transformationsphänomen der Mode geprägt sieht. Demnach wird die Auseinandersetzung mit Digitalisierung von verschiedenen Modedynamiken in drei Diskursen des Felds – dem Forschungs-, Branchen- sowie Praxisdiskurs – bestimmt und angeleitet. Der Schwerpunkt der Arbeit liegt in dem Untersuchen und Aufzeigen des Zusammenspiels dieser Dynamiken anhand von narrativen sowie rhetorischen Analysen.

This volume investigates the practice and challenges of journalism addressing globalized risk from various world regions.With chapters written by members of the Global Risk Journalism Hub, an international research network of leading scholars from the Global North and Global South, this collection brings together international journalism researchers from a wide range of theoretical and methodological backgrounds to uncover key issues of'global risk journalism'within their regional contexts. Using the climate crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic as a point of departure, this book explores the effect of digital platforms on news production, how the reporting of these transnational emergencies affects the misinformation ecosystem, the power relations between global and local news sources and the ethics of conducting research in the face of globalized crises.This truly international and comparative volume will interest researchers and students of global and local journalism, risk journalism, journalism practice, media and communication studies, intercultural communication, political science and sociology.

This comprehensive and up-to-date resource presents the state of the science in the expanding and widely influential field of media psychology and technology. Covering theoretical concepts, research, and practice, this handbook explores key areas relevant to developing media psychology and technology in today's world.The impact of media and technology is discussed as are the uses and misuses of various media outlets, including television, film, and social media. How media affects public opinion and attitudes is given special attention, as are psycho-social and neuropsychological factors. The authors are recognized experts in this field, many associated with the American Psychological Association's Society of Media Psychology and Technology. This relevant and timely handbook provides researchers and academics with rich wide-ranging presentations of an area critical to the dissemination and discussion of results and implications of ongoing scientific investigations for bringingabout social change in democratic societies through the use of media and technology.

Interpreting and Transmitting Kynicism in Joker: The Dark Side of Film Fandom focuses on fan discourse and discussion surrounding Todd Phillips's Joker (2019), analyzing how white nationalist movie fans code racist, sexist, ableist, and otherwise marginalizing logics into seemingly innocuous speech. Kyle A. Hammonds posits that, by arguing that their communication is “just their interpretation” of a movie, rather than explicitly political speech, white nationalists can communicate bigoted, extremist rhetoric under the pretext of good-faith film criticism. Hammonds leverages hermeneutic traditions often overlooked in communication and fan studies research to argue that interpretation is the key element of fan communication processes in struggles for authority over the meaning of texts—and that fan communities have a civic duty to identify and delegitimize exclusionary interpretations of pop culture in their fandom.