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The image of Public Access Television in the minds of most people has been distorted over time. Tabloid TV segments and magazine articles often lingered on the controversial and the absurd and skewed the understanding of what Public Access represented in the evolution of free speech and community media. The reality is that Public Access Television was the first popularized form of electronic free speech readily available to most Americans. Any resident of a municipality within a cable TV franchise had the opportunity to produce and distribute their own television programs, free of censorship or mediated interference, for little or no cost. As long as it did not break the law, you could view it on your cable Access Channels. Public Access in New York City, and specifically Manhattan, proved to be one of the epicenters of free speech television in the United States. The late 1970s and 1980s proved to be a tumultuous time, as the technology and architecture of mass media raced forward. As is often the case, policies and regulations lagged far behind, but Public Access programming in Manhattan broke boundaries and served as a microcosm of the societal and cultural change that urban centers across America were experiencing. It also serves as a model that can be applied to digital and social media today, on issues such as censorship, corporate interference, new technologies, and regulation. All these issues were first manifested in the early days of Public Access TV in New York City. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Community broadcasting is anecdotally considered a 'training ground' for the mainstream media. However, there is little empirical research that supports these claims around skill development and career outcomes. Similarly, while community broadcasting is broadly recognized as contributing to social cohesion, the focus of much of this research is on audiences rather than the experiences of community media practitioners. This article is based on a broader programme of research that interrogated the experiences of people with significant involvement in the Australian community broadcasting sector to examine the impact of community media participation on career pathways. Here we consider a key finding: working or volunteering in community radio plays an important role in developing robust and meaningful networks, connections, and relationships which are central to shaping personal and professional pathways. These findings draw on rhizome theory to highlight the importance of community broadcasting for building and maintaining diverse and enduring networks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Luxembourg is a de facto multicultural country, with 179 different nationalities represented. It is, however, complex to identify who among the latter is perceived as an immigrant by public opinion. In the same vein, immigration stories rarely make the headlines of some of the most prominent outlets of Luxembourg's mainstream media. This study covers the print content of some of Luxembourg's dominant media outlets in the search for the representation of (im)migrants and refugees. It thus takes a perspective whereby media act as a vehicle for a quintessential aspect of interculturalism, that of local meaningful interaction. Its overarching question regards the role that both local mainstream and minority media sectors can play in promoting integration through intercultural dialogue. It is hereby argued that immigrants are foremost represented and given a voice in media outlets created for the immigrant and cross-border communities as well as in mainstream media with more local (Tageblatt) and independent political views (D'Lëtzebuerger Land). In stronghold media such as RTL Lëtzebuerg and Luxemburger Wort, immigrants are, instead, scarcely represented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The demand for health-related information has increased dramatically in recent years. Media is crucial in reaching health messages to audiences, especially those who are distant and rural. Therefore, the study aimed to assess demands, access, and factors associated with access to health messages through mass media in the rural community of Kersa District of East Hararghe, Eastern Ethiopia.Methods: A mixed-methods study was conducted from October 15 to November 20, 2020. A quantitative cross-sectional and a qualitative phenomenological study design were applied. A total of 578 participants were included by using a systematic sampling technique. Collected data were entered into Epidata version 3.1 and analyzed using SPSS version 22.0. A multivariate logistic regression analysis model was used and reported using an adjusted odds ratio (AOR) with a 95% confidence interval (CI). Statistical significance was set at p < 0.05. For qualitative, six-focused group discussions (FGDs) were used and then analyzed thematically.Results: Overall, the demand of and access to health messages through mass media was 32.5% (95% CI=28.5– 34.2%) and 26.6% (95% CI=24.6– 28.7%), respectively. Factors such as having electric services (AOR=2.36, 95% CI=2.13– 5.41), having a mobile phone (AOR=4.56, 95% CI=4.32– 8.73), exposure to TV (AOR=4.73, 95% CI=1.03– 11.62), and exposure to social media and printed media (AOR=5.24, 95% CI=1.07– 15.63), a preference for programs such as news, current affairs, entertainment, health and educational were 2.37, 9.47, 4.75 and 7.55 times more likely to access health messages (AOR=2.37, 95% CI=1.00– 5.61; AOR=9.47, 95% CI=3.54– 25.34; AOR=4.75, 95% CI=1.23– 18.38; and AOR=7.55, 95% CI=3.12– 8.66, respectively). Qualitative findings, participants demand for health messages from health workers, radio, and the main source for accessing the message was the radio.Conclusion: Approximately one in every three and one in every four rural communities in the study area had demand, and access to health messages through mass media, respectively. As a result, all stakeholders should emphasize and strengthen expanding methods of reaching health messages using mass media. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Various alternative forms of communication have emerged, such as community radio, radio podcasts, publications in networks, and press releases. These tools have served communities of eastern and southwestern Antioquia and the organizations COA and MOVETE, to sustain their causes over time, make the communicative task massive, and extend an invitation to more people to take action in favor of the defense of the territory. This has the advantage that popular communication strategies allow many stakeholders to become not only consumers and receivers of the information that other people produce, but also creators and transmitters of their own information, which emerges from the dynamics of their daily lives, by helping to reduce the communication gap between mass media and the excluded communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are many studies that deal with the role of media and the motives for their creation. The present article explores the background behind the development of Ultra-Orthodox journalism. It examines the establishment of Ultra-Orthodox daily newspapers in Israel at the end of the twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty-first by analyzing semistructured texts and ideas. The historical background and the way this journalism developed in general and specifically during those years reflect a strong social and censorial orientation. This study concludes that these newspapers can be seen as social definers that help preserve a community through censorship aimed at the general and other Ultra-Orthodox media. It helps communities and individuals self-define and can delineate an additional role for mass media as a social definer. The contention herein is that the establishment of Ultra-Orthodox newspapers in Israel serves as a mode for social definition; a definition that is arrived at by being part of the circle of the newspaper's readers, and the newspaper, in turn, defines itself by its censor board. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explores the rhetoric, discourse, visual representation, and news narratives regarding asylum seekers (AS) in the European Union in Israeli media. Integrating cultural representation theory and foreign news proximity-distance approaches, this research focuses on differences in media coverage of AS in the EU between mainstream, community, and social media, and then suggests a model and theoretical implications. The sample included 340 Hebrew language news items from television, print and online newspapers, radio broadcasts, and social media posts from 2011 to 2019. A thematic analysis was conducted. Based on theory of representation, this study found that AS are presented as Others in two different ways based on media type. Community and social media seek to productively compare the Other (AS) to Israelis to encourage concern over Israeli identity and values. In contrast, mainstream media promote narratives that do not invite comparisons—either tacit or explicit—to Israel. Based on proximity-distance approaches, we found that mainstream media content is appropriated by social and community media for different rhetorical ends using a scale of proximity ranging from hostile to hospitable. Community and social media used mainly domestication rhetoric in contrast to mainstream media, which distance the issue, covering it as newsworthy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Within journalism, social media has become a vehicle of communication that keeps the audience up to date regarding the content they publish. To manage this relationship, the figure of the community manager, a professional directly linked to studies of Information Sciences, is indispensable, especially in Journalism and Advertising. A qualitative methodology is used on the basis of Grounded Theory in 13 telephone interviews with Spanish media community managers. The data were later treated and coded with the analysis tool Atlas.ti version 8.4.3. Journalistic community managers have quite varied functions and are in constant evolution. The perception that the quality of content published on social media has more weight than results (in the form of clicks and interactions) prevails in an environment where information is consumed at high speed, and where competence is more difficult to discern. Journalism does not have to turn to social media only as simple intermediaries for official websites; it must build up a community of users interested in the media and the current topics being disseminated. Despite communicative noise, digital platforms are perceived as positive and as an effective tool for the medium, keeping the audience informed through the community manager's daily management as the voice of the medium. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In super-ageing Japan, COVID-19 vaccinations were starting to reach older people as of June 2021, which raises the issue of vaccine literacy. This study focuses on family members who work and also care for their older parents, as they are at risk of COVID-19 and also risk transmitting COVID-19 to the parents they care for and potentially influencing their parents' vaccine uptake. Such family carers are central to the approach in Japan to achieving a sustainable and resilient society in response to ageing. Contrasting family carers' COVID-19 vaccine literacy with their overall health literacy provides insights into their preparedness for COVID-19 vaccinations. The purpose of this study is to understand how vaccine literacy, compared to health literacy, varies across family carers and the sources of information they use. Through a cross-sectional online survey, family carers' vaccine literacy, health literacy and their sources of information, including mass media, social media, health and care professionals, family, colleagues, friends, and others, were assessed. The participants' (n = 292) mean age was 53, with 44% women, and an average of 8.3 h per week caring for their parents. Notwithstanding the increased risks from COVID-19 with age, COVID-19 vaccine literacy relative to health literacy for older family carers is lower on average, higher with increased provision of care, and more variable, resulting in a substantial proportion of older family carers with relatively low vaccine literacy. At this stage of vaccine rollout in Japan, family carers' sources of information to inform COVID-19 vaccine literacy is distinct, including more national and local mass media versus less health and care professionals and informal networks, which indicates the importance of tailored health communication strategies to enhance vaccine literacy [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]