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Background: The COVID-19 pandemic initiated a great global crisis, during which media influenced society and social interactions affected media use. Researchers from various research fields have studied the pandemic both globally and locally. This study aims to summarize the research on COVID-19 pandemic within communication studies, taking into account 358 articles published in SJR best ranked journals in 2020–2022. Methods: The study uses both qualitative and quantitative methods. Using manual coding and qualitative content analysis, we investigate articles' distribution according to journals, time, accessibility (either open, free or restricted) and methodological approaches. We also provide a qualitative summary of trending research themes. Using quantitative social network analysis (SNA) we present the distribution of institutions and countries in articles' affiliations, and the collaboration network at institutional and country level. Results: Results show an in-time increase of COVID-related publications. Articles were affiliated with 490 institutions from 68 countries, with the USA having the greatest representation. There was an underrepresentation of African and South American countries, which reflects the core-periphery challenge in knowledge production. The network analysis revealed that very few of possible connections were actually achieved. There is an observable trend of using quantitative methods. A growth on the gap between qualitative and quantitative studies was observed each year. More than a half of articles using qualitative methods were published in restricted access. Our qualitative summary of the addressed topics and main findings in articles related to COVID-19, media and society revealed a wide research interest in pandemics impacts on news consumption, media use and journalism, as well as infodemic, conspiracy narratives, science mistrust and discrimination and inequalities increased by the pandemic. Conclusion: To provide a wider perspective on the worldwide impact of pandemic, more studies from underrepresented countries are needed. The collaboration between institutions and countries requires strengthening. Qualitative studies were conducted considerably less than quantitative studies and they were usually published in restricted access, which leads to a methodological gap. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While studies of live video streaming focus primarily on donations from an economic perspective and streamers’ endorsement of donations, our study draws attention to the phenomenon of unwanted content, particularly in the context of donations. The paper examines the behavior of gaming live streamers on two leading streaming platforms: YouTube and Twitch. Our study covered hundreds of hours of public live streams conducted by streamers from four countries. Recognizing the unequal roles of streamers and their audiences, we introduce the term ‘audience generated content’ (AGC) as a subset of user generated content (UGC). In the article, we present features and conditions that may cause streamers to be reluctant about the donations they receive. We also provide typology and characteristics of strategies to overcome unwanted donations. Since aversion to certain donations is often related to their hateful nature, our article also highlights the major flaws in algorithmic monitoring. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]