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The article is devoted to the analysis of the “communicative turn” in media systems theory which, based on the continuity of the theoretical and methodological foundations formed by the “linguistic turn” and “discursive model”, presents new opportunities for research of the media communication industry and for its practical activity. The article reveals that the “linguistic turn”, prioritizing language as a key means of communication, had a significant impact on the development of theoretical and methodological justifications of communicative action. The author examines the features of journalist’s activity in the context of multimedia and formation of new media communication models in interaction with digital transformations of the industry.

Mass school shootings in Russia have become a symbol of deep social and cultural dysfunctions, reflecting a crisis of identity and youth alienation. The paper emphasizes the importance of exploring how the media constructs the image of a school shooter, influencing public perception and the perception of the perpetrators themselves. The media’s role in intensifying the alienation and marginalization of shooters through the ritualization and narrativization of acts of violence requires in-depth analysis. The aim of the study is to analyze the phenomenon of school shootings through the lens of the ritual of chiral initiation and to identify the sociocultural factors contributing to the construction of the shooter’s image. The analysis shows that media coverage of school shootings follows a ritualized script that reinforces the perception of the shooter as an alienated and dangerous individual, cementing his marginal status. The “Non-Return” stage in the chiral initiation ritual illustrates the shooter’s irreversible break from society and self-identity. The study underscores the need for a comprehensive analysis of the media and cultural factors shaping public opinion about school shooters. The target audience of this study includes scholars in sociology, cultural studies, and anthropology, as well as professionals involved in media studies and public safety.

The article analyzes the socio-demographic characteristics and value-worldview self-positioning of the distributors of conspiracy narratives (“conspiracy theories”) about vaccination against COVID-19 on the Russian social network “VK”. The research material consists of 33,674 profiles of VK users who published at least two messages during the pandemic that explicate the stated narrative. The collection and analysis of the material was carried out using big data analysis technologies. The purpose of the study is to determine whether it is possible to identify typical socio-demographic and ideological traits of anti-vaccer conspiracy theorists, which to a certain extent explain their penchant for conspiracy thinking. The results obtained refute the marginal dominance of conspiracy theorists in a pandemic situation. Versions popular in the scientific literature about the predominance of insufficiently educated people among “conspiracy theorists”, or the elderly as more gullible, or women as more suggestible, or residents of villages and small provincial towns as more conservative, etc. are not confirmed by the large-scale empirical studies of large user data. The results of the study may be useful for developing countermeasures and strategies to address public mistrust of institutions and official trends in public health, in particular vaccination policies. The traditional focus on information and educational measures (explanations about the dangers of the disease and the benefits of the vaccine) seems to be ineffective in the context of the emergence of value systems, cognitive distortions, general socio-political tension and other reasons that are still awaiting serious study.

Press play a crucial role in studying the process of creating the USA’s public perception of the State of Palestine of 1919. Newspapers and magazines enable a researcher to define the distinctive features of the ‘Other’ profile. The reconstructing and explaining of the Palestinian public image from the point of the traditional historical research methods prove insufficient. Being a peculiar phenomenon of American social, political, and cultural life, Palestine’s public conception requires an interdisciplinary examinational approach based on historical imagology. In 1919, there were three models of the State’s future under discussion in the US periodical literature. The first one considered it as two separate countries; the second one – as one Arabic-Jewish country; the third one – as the territory under control of the United Kingdom. Journalists raised questions regarding each of the models evolving representation of the political system in The Middle East: the prospects of the colonial institution; transferring from Colonialism to Postcolonialism; opportunities of applying the experience of Colonial Empires. Studying an informational discourse of the USA in 1919 will allow us to compile a comprehensive list of public images of the State of Palestine and the Middle East (from the territorial as well as political point of view); monitor their evolution, and discover its structural components.

This article delves into the digital art produced by the internationally renowned Turkish artist Refik Anadol and his team, emerging at the intersection of diverse disciplines such as mathematics, physics, computer science, and aesthetics, within the context of its intellectual connotations. This qualitative study encompasses 26 projects featured on the Refik Anadol Studio’s website. In addition to the projects, we utilize as data sources the videos, visuals and texts that are available on the website, Anadol’s social media posts, audience comments, interviews, academic articles, and news and critiques related to his works. We analyze the works in the context of the artistic creation process, the nature of the technological collaboration, the relationship established with memory, time, space and audience, particularly in the context of the meanings they signify, and we assess the data we obtain along with their philosophical connections. In short, Anadol transforms public data such as images, sounds, and social media posts that constitute collective memory into art with the aid of digital technology capabilities, especially artificial intelligence, creating in these works molecular, fluid, transient intermediate spaces by superimposing different temporal and spatial layers, images, and realities. Through art, he opens up for discussion questions such as what is the position of the artist in the age of artificial intelligence; how art can help us understand the relationship between the virtual and the real; and what it means to experience memory in the digital age. The heterotopic spaces he constructs in his works offer utopian imagery which suggests a life based on peace, optimism, and relationship shared among humans, nature, and other forms of existence.

This study investigated the level of awareness of personal data protection among Facebook** and Instagram** users. The research evaluated the number of Facebook and Instagram users who have taken precautions to secure their personal data, why they did so, and the identification of regulatory authorities responsible for data protection in Nigeria. The Privacy Calculus Theory was used as the theoretical framework. The survey research design was used for this study, with the web-based questionnaire as the instrument for data collection. A sample size of 396 was drawn from the student population at the University of Port Harcourt. The data were analyzed in tables using frequency and percentage. The results indicated that users are strongly aware of the significance of safeguarding personal data on Facebook and Instagram. The users acknowledged implementing precautionary steps to safeguard their personal data. However, they still need to determine the specific agencies and regulatory entities accountable for ensuring the safety of personal data. In order to tackle this problem, the study recommended that the University management and student bodies should organize specific educational workshops to promote understanding of the pertinence of safeguarding personal data on social media platforms (Solove, 2021), create easily accessible materials and guidelines on the University of Port Harcourt portal designed for social media users, outlining the best methods for protecting personal data, including personal data protection awareness in its orientation programs and student events and also set up a system for reporting potential data breaches and offer assistance to affected users. ** – A social network owned by “Meta”, which is recognized as extremist in Russia

The aim of this article is a critical analysis of the logocentric representation of brain as a conceptual basis for artificial neural networks (ANNs). Neuro-logocentrism turns possible mostly because of some similarities of brain activity to logical reasoning. They are discrete mode of action, semblance of realization of logical connectives and inferences, presence of two “values” (“all-or-none” principle). It is demonstrated that they are only loose analogies. The idea that neurons are net nodes that realize logical and computational operations as quite simple automata is based on the concept of connectionism that appears a new special type of hylemorphism. On the contrary, brain activity demonstrates the primacy of the whole and its irreducibility to the aggregative sum of elements and parts. It appears continual totality, where everything is reciprocally interconnected, so that it is impossible to establish any unified formalism for it. Brain essentially is a part of the living, not “bio-logic” but fully biological reality, which has an emergent mode of existence with its unique properties. Such processes as neuroplasticity and synaptic pruning are responsible for adaptive and teleonomic re‑shaping of the brain. Usual conventional logic is suitable for computing machines and their nets, but it is incapable of reproducing such autopoietic phenomena. As a result, there is a fatal ontological gap between natural networks of neurons and ANNs. The second ones are not able to implement complex cognitive functions as they are product of the logocentric hypertrophy of algorithms which is fully devoid of flexibility of the living brain.

In the situation of a shrinking field of public politics and a crisis of political trust, citizens may seek an alternative arena for presenting their own point of view. The social Internet space serves as a virtual projection of public contradictions and acts as an arena for the presentation and confrontation of political interests. At the same time, the increasing state presence in virtual space and the growing trust to online sources of information make social media an important channel for promoting certain patterns of political interpretations. The aim of this paper is to analyse the reactions of social media users to discover their attitudes towards the main narratives of contemporary identity politics of the Russian state. We used the Topic modelling method to study citizens’ reactions to various aspects of state identity politics. The total number of comments in the collected database is 8,023 (09/2022‑09/2023). In almost all the identified topics we can note the polarity of citizens’ opinions, examples of which are given in the article. However, there are a few topics where the users’ opinion is quite consolidated; for example, the image of the Crimean bridge on the cover of new textbooks was widely supported in comments, while the topic of traditional values, on the contrary, evokes negative feelings and shows “public tiredness”. Despite the limitations described in the conclusion of the article, the study demonstrates the high potential of applying the method of topic modelling to the analysis of the reactions of social media users.

School shootings, defined as acts of mass armed violence perpetrated within educational institutions, elicit significant media attention. This extensive coverage, however, raises concerns regarding its potential contribution to the “copycat effect”, where subsequent crimes are inspired by media portrayals of previous incidents. Furthermore, media narratives can significantly influence public perceptions of both the victims and the perpetrators involved. This study aims to analyze the narrative of school shooting within four key categories: victim portrayal, perpetrator description, perceived motives, and the act itself. The results reveals a dominant narrative structure that closely follows the chronological sequence of the perpetrator’s actions. This mirroring effect, likely driven by the inherent demands of streaming media formats, results in a construction of victim narratives “through the lens” of the perpetrator. Consequently, information regarding the perpetrators and their actions tends to dominate the media landscape, potentially overshadowing the experiences and perspectives of the victims. These findings carry significant implications for the development of ethical guidelines within journalism and professional standards for reporting on mass gun violence in schools. Moreover, the identified patterns in media narratives could serve as valuable input for developing mathematical models that explore the potential link between media representations of school shootings and the occurrence of copycat crimes.

The formation of youth identity in communication is on the agenda of many areas of humanitarian knowledge. We analyzed communication within the framework of an educational media project, which resulted in the construction of the expected identity. In the course of the analysis, we used a conceptual model of communication that combines the stages of identity construction in interaction with the environment and the actions of actors from the standpoint of the methodology of actor-network theory. A three-dimensional model of communication is presented for the first time, where actors and actants change the communicative process by their affordances and resistance. The obtained results allow to delineate the necessary actions of human and non-human actors at each stage of communication and identity integration, giving the opportunity to justify a new theoretical direction in the study of the problems of identity construction through media communication. The methodology requires further testing, but there are already positive results. The tendency of actualization of urban identity of young people depending on the focus on interaction with the heritage of the city and according to the stages of communication, according to the conceptual model, has been established. The article is intended for specialists in mass communication and journalism, and will also be useful for those interested in the ontological turn in humanitarian knowledge, actor-network theory, discourse and media text analysis.

Neural networks have filled the information space. On the one hand, this indicates the scientific and technological movement of contemporary society (perhaps, AGI is already waiting for us outside the door). On the other hand, in everyday discourse there are extensive discussions about the fact that when neural networks are created, a person is left with hard work. However, a holistic understanding of the neural network is associated with a movement from the mythotechnological framework to the phenomenon itself and the questioning of its social role. The key aim of the paper is returning, through observing the range of functions of current LLMs, to the classic question of whether a machine can think. At the same time another question remains, are humans ready to accept the social subjectivity of machines.

This article is a review of Pippin Barr’s book The Stuff Games Are Made Of (2023), which explores various elements of game worlds. Over the course of ten chapters, including introduction and conclusion, the author of the monograph examine samples with stable basic concepts of computer games and their production. Being a game designer and a theorist, Pippin Barr reflects on many ‘medianized’ aspects of computer games, such as goals and rules, calculations and algorithms, graphics and interface, time and space, cinematography prism, cruelty and violence, and monetarization.

The mixed assessment by critics and theorists of the deus ex machina artistic device common in popular cinema requires a more thorough study of its dramatic and narrative functions in science fiction films. It is in the construction of film images of the future that this technique is combined with a fantastic assumption, expressing the narrator’s attitude towards artistic narration and becoming an argument in dialogue with the viewer. The study reveals, based on the analysis of empirical material, the multifunctionality of deus ex machina using the example of the development of the theme of technological singularity in cinema. The analysis of films significant for the development of the science fiction (Sci-Fi) genre and the most popular television series among science fiction fans today demonstrates the evolution of the deus ex machina technique. In addition to the trivial function of arbitrary resolution of peripeteia, it acquires various dramatic functions (accelerating or slowing down the rhythm of action, connecting parts of the plot in a large form), obtains the properties of scaling and fragmentation, synchrony and asynchrony with a fantastic assumption, adding complex narrative functions to the toolkit of expressive means, through which the narrator reveals or, on the contrary, conceals his attitude to artistic reality, involving the viewer into the game of probable meanings. The authors of the article come to the conclusion that the theme of technological singularity has been penetrating cinema since its appearance in the work of L. Lumiere and determines, depending on the narrator’s attitude to the topic, the vector of techno-skepticism or techno-optimism in the eschatological dilemma that characterizes the cosmogony of traditional religions. The article is of interest to researchers and film lovers and contributes to the study of artistic and scientific communication.

This article looks into the ethical issues raised by AI-generated content, focusing on ‘sensitive’ topics like school shootings. As AI technologies progress, there is a greater risk that such information can accidentally reinforce negative narratives, glorify acts of violence, or cause psychological damage to victims and their communities. The study tackles these concerns by estimating the existing ethical frameworks and finding their limitations in dealing with these complicated situations. A main goal of the research is to create a refined set of ethical principles specifically geared to address the risks connected with AI-generated information about school shootings. The paper contains actual experiments using AI models such as ChatGPT, Claude, GigaChat, and YandexGPT to generate and analyze information about school shootings. These experiments highlight important issues in ensuring that AI-generated texts do not reinforce negative themes or cause suffering. For example, while some models, such as GigaChat, declined to generate content on sensitive themes, others, such as ChatGPT, created elaborate texts that risked retraumatizing readers or praising offenders. The findings show that, while current frameworks take into consideration basic concepts such as transparency, accountability, and fairness, they frequently lack precise direction for dealing with difficult issues. To close this gap, the suggested ethical framework incorporates particular content development criteria, stakeholder participation, responsible dissemination techniques, and ongoing research. This paradigm prioritizes the protection of vulnerable people and the prevention of psychological injury.

The rapid development of neural network technologies in recent years has given rise to the formation of many interdisciplinary research areas, including neural network aesthetics. The aesthetics of generative creativity today is studied not only in the context of the history of digital art, but also in comparison with the practices of other artistic trends and schools. Thus, the expression “neural surrealism”, which has become entrenched in popular discourse, undoubtedly refers to the aesthetics of classical surrealism, framed and fixed in Andre Breton’s program texts: neural network algorithms allow you to create images that seem both realistic and absurd due to unexpected combinations of objects, distorted proportions and presence of uncanny images. Although “neural surrealism” can be seen as a depoliticized and unbiased game of generated images in contrast to the surrealism of the 1920s and 30s, which was not merely an artistic movement but a radical social project, it appears that the very ability of neural networks to generate extraordinary and unpredictable images holds a certain critical potential. Using the methods of formal-stylistic and ideological-content analysis, the author of the article concludes that “neurosurrealism” in a sense continues the line of classical surrealism to undermine the automatism of perception and patterns of thinking. Generative algorithms become a kind of “exclusion production machines” that allow you to see reality from an unexpected angle. In addition, the very fact of using neural networks in art raises important questions about the nature of creativity, the limits of artificial intelligence and the future of man in the world of smart machines. Neurosurrealism problematizes well-established ideas about the originality and intentionality of artistic expression, which indicates the close connection of generative artistic practices with the aesthetics of classical surrealist creativity. The conducted research will be useful to specialists of a wide profile: media theorists, art historians, philosophers, cultural scientists, as well as developers and representatives of the creative industries.

Such a phenomenon as school shooting, which entered the everyday life of society, frightened humanity with its cruelty and unpredictability, found a response in scientific community. The school shooting discourse is wide: from theoretical understandings (towards analysis of theories of anomie and deviance, stigmatization and criminology, the concepts of differential associative, communicative, axiological and existential approaches) to empirical justifications. They showed that this multifactorial destructive phenomenon is labile, its configuration changes along with the changing social reality, which significantly expands the research field. The study concerns the expert characteristics of this phenomenon. Authors have concluded that the most likely motive for violence in educational institutions is in most cases psychological trauma or school shooter’s disorders. Society’s reaction to school shooting is superficial and mainly reduced to appeals to limit Internet content. The root cause of tragic incidents of school shooting should be considered the deformation of value-motivational sphere of an individual in children and adolescents. The key channel for spread and rooting of destructive attitudes among young people is messengers, where teenagers and children are actively recruited. However, the main hazard lies in the fact that these virtual contacts and connections subsequently find their consolidation and materialization in real environment of educational institutions, where “cells” of destructive behavior are formed, capable of attracting more and more new participants into their orbit.

The article examines how issues of identity construction in Russian urban agglomerations are reflected in the Russian regional politicians’ discourse in mass media. The study concerns theoretical problems of identity construction and the role of regional government bodies in shaping the territorial identity of the population. The specificity of the Russian situation is the absence of governing bodies related to the agglomeration level in most urban agglomerations. The empirical basis of the study is the texts of subnational politicians posted on the official websites of regional government bodies: websites of governors and regional governments, official pages in the mass media. The empirical information on identity policy were collected from the Internet sources (official portals of regional executive authorities, media reports). Discourse analysis was carried out after monitoring social media materials (VKontakte web-pages of regional leaders). The article reflects five cases out of sixteen Russian ones related to the Ural and Siberian agglomerations with a megalopolis core. The empirical data cover the period from December 2022 to the end of 2023. The choice of the time period for analysis is determined by the fact that by this period the most significant factors influencing the policy of our state at present (the pandemic and the Special military operation) have already manifested themselves in full. It has been confirmed that the problems of agglomeration development in the public official subfederal discourse in most cases are reduced to economic problems; first of all, it concerns the development of industry, science (high technology), transport, and waste disposal. In all analyzed cases, insufficient attention was found out, paid to the role of the implemented socio-cultural projects of subfederal identity policy, and also distancing from the discussion of the problems of integration of labor migrants in the public space. Insignificant number of messages from representatives of the regional political and administrative elite about the socio-cultural meanings of the formed agglomerations can become a significant limitation of information support for the agglomeration development of modern contemporary Russia.

The spread of health conspiracies and misinformation online threatens public health as most Americans choose to acquire health information online. This study examines how discrete emotions like anger and sadness influence individuals’ responses to narrative-based health misinformation, proposing a theoretical model of narrative misinformation coping and exploring the mechanisms through which these emotions affect risk perception and misinformation coping.

This study examines and compares online incivility on China’s Weibo and the U.S.’s X (Twitter) amid the Russia-Ukraine conflict, aiming to unravel how different cultural and geopolitical contexts influence online incivility and identify factors that may influence the occurrence of online incivility in different national contexts.

Scholarship about worker precarity, economic insecurity, and individualized risk in platform work tends to ignore that these trends are common features of informal economies in countries like Kenya, which has a culture of hustling rooted in economic opportunism and political resistance. Recognizing the parallels between the platform economy and Kenya’s informal economy, we examine individual and collective strategies ride-haling drivers in Kenya use to navigate the precarity of platform work.

This review essay provides a systematic overview of online media communication research conducted in Vietnam over recent decades. The authors employed comprehensive review methods to analyze published research papers, dissertations, and references within Vietnam, all of which discuss online media and communication studies and their influence on various aspects of the country’s development. The review highlights that Vietnam’s determination in pursuing a digital transformation strategy has significantly altered the landscape of media and communication within the country. As a result, research on online media and communication has grown in both quantity and diversity. Key topics of investigation include technological development, the roles of online media, journalistic ethics, audience behavior, social and business impacts, legal aspects, and digital security. Despite exploring various dimensions of media and communication digitalization, these studies share common characteristics. Notably, they focus heavily on the practical side of digitalization, aiming more at proposing solutions rather than contributing to the theoretical development of media and communication.

This study seeks to understand the relationship between a country's political system and its content removal request to Google. It also investigates the trends in content removal requests to Google over 11 years (2011–2021).

This study examines the Twitter/X networks of U.S. ambassadors in Israel, Iraq, and Qatar from 2017 to 2024, aiming to assess how digital diplomacy is conducted through these platforms. Utilizing Sprinklr, we gathered 586,736 mentions involving the ambassadors’ Twitter handles, with a focus on evaluating the influence and communication strategies within these networks.

Recently, Power-to-X (PtX) has come to play a prominent role in the public discussion of a green energy future, with high hopes expressed by political and business players. In the Danish news media, PtX has experienced a steep rise in attention, which calls for studies of how PtX is made sense of as a societal, not only a technological, phenomenon. Informed by the notion of sociotechnical imaginaries, this article investigates the local introduction of PtX in Frederica, one of the forerunner towns for PtX in Denmark, as represented in the coverage of the daily newspaper Fredericia Dagblad. The study analyses how PtX is made sense of by being connected to local actors, circumstances, and imagined futures. Two diverging sociotechnical imaginaries are identified, centring on 1) local (business) cooperation for green energy solutions towards a PtX adventure, and 2) concerns for scarce nature in a densely industrialised area. The findings show both similarities with and differences to already known mediatised environmental conflicts and point to dynamics between media, market, politics, and civil society in future mediatised environmental conflicts.

The landscape of journalism is rapidly evolving, with bundled subscription offerings from the New York Times, Apple and Schibsted becoming increasingly important. These offerings allow consumers to access a wide variety of content in multiple formats, representing a significant shift in how news and information are consumed. However, the impact of these offerings on publishers’ revenues remains underexplored in journalism and media research. The results suggest that bundled offers generate higher revenues for publishers than individual offers. This supports the introduction of internal “all-access” bundles within the European journalism sector, as well as external collaborations between unaffiliated publishers. However, the relatively small differences in revenues suggest that there is limited strong evidence to support the adoption of a centralized, cross-publisher “Spotify for News” model.

Conceived as institutions funded by the public purse and intended to exist devoid of political influence, the mandate of public service media (PSM) entities is to disseminate reliable news content and high-quality audiovisual productions to all demographic segments, inclusive of marginalized communities and audiences that are typically under-served. Over the previous ten years, the rise in prominence of global platforms in national media systems has precipitated many changes in the media sector, including unique challenges for PSM institutions guided by specific public service values. Using a holistic conceptual framework for assessing the implementation of these values, this article analyzes the impact of platformization on Europe’s PSM and discusses how the Union’s policy approaches affect related challenges to PSM. The analysis indicates that while the European Union (EU) has accorded a high priority to PSM within its media policy framework, the role that Brussels plays in protecting the independence and efficacy of PSM has been circumscribed, given that the onus of regulating PSM entities rests with national governments. This has engendered contrasting experiences wherein certain PSM outlets enjoy political independence and command significant public trust while others function as state-controlled propaganda vehicles, advancing the objectives and interests of governing bodies. The EU has addressed global platform power in recent attempts to safeguard its digital future, including the Digital Services Act (DSA), Digital Markets Act (DMA), and the European Media Freedom Act (EMFA). However, these acts do not adequately address PSM’s two central and often interconnected problems: funding challenges and political pressures.

This study explores the role of populist leaders as gatekeepers on social media, seeking to understand how André Ventura, president of Chega!, uses news to legitimize his political discourse. The methodology involved collecting 90 tweets containing legacy media news features, posted by Ventura on the social media platform X. These tweets cover key political events such as the resignation of Portugal’s Prime Minister, the dissolution of the Portuguese Parliament, and European elections. Quantitative analysis using Voyant Tools identified key terms related to Ventura’s ideological stance, while Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) examined how these terms support his political narrative. The findings reveal a strategic use of news to promote themes like nationalism, immigration control, corruption and social dichotomy between “us” and “them”. Ventura’s tweets leverage news headlines to enhance his persuasive appeal, acting as heuristic shortcuts to reinforce his political messages. This study highlights the relevance of understanding social media’s role in promoting populism and suggests avenues for future research, including comparative analyses of other populist leaders and the impact of these narratives on voter behavior and perceptions.

Artificial intelligence (AI) technologies have been increasingly developed and applied in the audiovisual sector. Over-the-top (OTT) services, directly distributed to viewers via the Internet, are associated with a shift towards automation through algorithmic mediation in audiovisual content led by digital platforms. However, scientific knowledge regarding algorithmic recommender systems and automation in OTT services is not yet systemized; researchers, practitioners, and the public thus lack full awareness about the still largely opaque phenomena. To address this gap, we conduct a systematic literature review in the communication domain (2010–2022) and answer four key research questions: What research objectives have been pursued? What concepts have been developed and/or applied? What methodologies have been privileged? Which OTT platforms have received the most research attention? Challenges and opportunities are highlighted, and an agenda for future research is advanced.

This study focuses on analyzing face attacks in the conflict discourse of cross-linguistic online chats on the instant message application WeChat among a group of international students at a prestigious university in China. Drawing on the previous impoliteness theory of Leech and Culpeper, this article selectively combines these two theories and proposes that in face-attack studies, especially with respect to online discourses, impolite multimodal discourse should be considered and subsumed in the theoretical framework. It is found that a wide array of face attacks in conflict discourse manifest themselves both in verbal discourse as well as in multimodal counterparts. The present study might shed light on online impoliteness research that is beyond monolingual and single-mode contexts.

TikTok has more than 1.5 billion users globally. Health and wellness content on the application increased by more than 600% in 2021. This systematic review seeks to summarize which fields within medicine have embraced researching health communication on the TikTok platform and the most common measures reported within this literature. Research questions include what categories of health topics on TikTok are investigated in the literature, trends in topics by year, and types of outcomes reported. Embase, CINAHL, Scopus, and Ovid MEDLINE databases were searched in March 2024. Eligible studies met four criteria: (1) investigated human health topics on TikTok; (2) conducted in the United States; (3) published in English; and (4) published in a peer-reviewed journal. Of the 101 included studies, 50.5% (N = 51) discussed non-surgical specialties, 9.9% (N = 10) discussed topics within surgery, and 11.9% (N = 12) discussed COVID-19. The number of papers referencing non-surgical topics spiked in 2023, and no increase was seen in the number of COVID-19 papers over time. Most papers reported a number of interactions, and papers about mental health were least likely to report accuracy. Our findings highlight several health topics with a wide breadth of research dedicated to them, such as dermatology and COVID-19, and highlight areas for future research, such as the intersection of cancer and TikTok. Findings may be influential in the fields of medicine and healthcare research by informing health policy and targeted prevention efforts. This review reveals the need for future policies that focus on the role and expectations of the healthcare worker in health communication on social media. Implications for clinical practice include the need for providers to consider an individual’s perception of health and illness, given the wide variety of information available on social media applications such as TikTok. This review was pre-registered on PROSPERO (CRD42024529182).

In recent years, there has been a notable increase in the integration of technology and the employment of technological experts within newsrooms. However, there remains a paucity of scholarly research examining the evolution and maturation of these practices. This article addresses this gap by analyzing data from ten semi-structured qualitative interviews with developers embedded in the editorial departments of Norwegian news outlets. The findings reveal that developers have become fully integrated and indispensable actors within newsrooms. They contribute comprehensively to the journalistic news production process, engaging in routine tasks such as news visualization as well as participating in extensive investigative projects. Furthermore, developers navigate their work and practices within the framework of journalistic logic, culture, and the principles of objectivity, thereby reinforcing the democratic function of journalism in society. Interestingly, the integration of developers has also induced spill-over effects among non-technical staff. While developers are the primary bearers of technical expertise, there is an increasing expectation for reporters to acquire technical competencies.

Struggles for social inclusion necessitate efforts to enhance democratic communication. Communication practices and institutions are deeply intertwined with movements advocating for and against social justice, particularly in contemporary contexts of developing inclusion. We designed and evaluated the “Telling the Truth: How to Inform While Promoting an Inclusive Society” program. This program aimed to enhance knowledge and increase positive attitudes toward inclusion among 61 journalism students through quantitative and qualitative methods. The results indicate that participants demonstrated higher positive attitudes in the post-test, showing increased support for a more inclusive socio-economic vision and a greater inclination toward activism. Overall, these findings underscore the significance of journalism training in advancing a socially inclusive context.

In this paper, we study the Greek wiretappings scandal, which was revealed in 2022 and attracted significant attention from the press and citizens. Specifically, we propose a methodology for collecting data and analyzing patterns of online public discussions on Twitter. We apply our methodology to the Greek wiretappings use case and present findings related to the evolution of the discussion over time, its polarization, and the role of the Media. The methodology can be of wider use and replicated to other topics. Finally, we publicly provide an open dataset and online resources with the results.

Em um contexto de desconfiança eleitoral, impulsionado, dentre outros fatores, por debates em plataformas digitais e aplicativos mensageiros, este estudo tem como objetivo mapear os enquadramentos conceptuais acionados em movimentos dialógicos ao longo do debate sobre fraude nas urnas no Brasil. Para isso, uma sintaxe de busca relativa ao tema foi executada na aplicação CrowdTangle (Meta, Inc.), no esforço de identificar o link sobre fraude nas urnas com maior engajamento no Facebook durante o pleito de 2022. Foram analisados os comentários ao link, bem como as respectivas respostas, que tiveram o maior número de interações, o que gerou um corpus de 363 comentários e respostas. A partir da análise, conclui-se que na interação dos usuários da plataforma a segurança da urna eletrônica é colocada em uma disputa partidária de “direita versus esquerda” e, ainda, são construídos sentidos que classificam as universidades públicas negativamente, como espaço de “balbúrdia” contrário às regras socialmente instituídas. Nota-se, com isso, que o processo de enquadramento conceptual da urna eletrônica evoca vozes diversas, nem sempre relacionadas à urna em si, refletindo traços de moralidade e recusa às instituições.

In the context of methodological discussions surrounding the “interdisciplinary turn” and “computational turn” of communication studies and media and journalism studies in particular, this paper raises awareness for corpus linguistics as a specific form of computer-assisted textual analysis with the potential to contribute to these developments. To date, corpus-based approaches have been embraced in media linguistics but have been underestimated in journalism and media studies. This paper argues that such neglect, especially when compared to other computational approaches towards textual analysis, is unwarranted. It examines relevant work from the areas of media linguistics and media and journalism studies and provides practical examples of how linguistic corpora and tools can inform pertinent research. Eventually, corpus-linguistic approaches are posited as an efficient technique for content analysis. They represent a potentially valuable addition to the (digital) methodological toolbox of media and journalism scholars as a useful “middle-ground” empirical approach that does not require extensive computational skills but allows conducting theory-driven work while maintaining control over the data and research procedures. Additionally, they facilitate the integration of quantitative and qualitative perspectives and open avenues for meaningful triangulation with other methods.

The diffusion of innovation (DOI) literature and the uses-and-gratifications approach (UGA) meet in the people’s beliefs and expectations. We explore the users’ and non-users’ beliefs about streaming television (SVoD). A survey about Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, and Disney+ reveals substantial differences in the mental representations of users and non-users. Nonetheless, the aspects that support the decision to adopt streaming television, or to cancel a subscription, are very similar. While there are relevant beliefs beyond traditional gratifications, its most influential aspect is still anticipated entertainment gratification.

As a result of digitalisation, journalistic media organisations are confronted with product innovation at an increasing pace. The pressure to innovate is driven not only by competition between media organisations, but also characterised by internet intermediaries introducing and controlling hardware, software and platforms, and thereby access to large audiences. Furthermore, enablers, such as agencies, accumulate relevant production knowledge. Hence, to survive, innovation management in media organisations is vital. Due to the strong focus on specific new products published by journalistic media organisations, a systematic overview of internal factors influencing organisational innovation structures and processes of innovation management is missing. In addition, little is known about the functions of external actors for innovation structures and processes. By means of an interdisciplinary systematic literature review, this paper therefore maps the state of research. As a result, several external actors are identified that influence the innovation structure and process. In addition, internal factors were derived which positively or negatively influence the innovation structure and process. The literature analysis also indicates research gaps and implications for future research.

Experts who explain technological and complex content in the media could provoke negative responses regarding their competence due to stereotypical anticipations based on their gender. In an online experiment the impact of an expert’s gender on the perceived competence in technology communication was examined, using a written interview about a technological topic with portraits of the expert as stimulus. Besides gender, the 2x2x2 design manipulated two further source characteristics, the effect of which, according to literature, interacts with gender: the expert’s age and visual appearance. Contrary to the theoretical expectations, participants rated the female expert as more competent than the male expert. A higher age leads to a higher perceived competence. However, the age of the female expert did not significantly affect perceived competence, while the male expert seemed to benefit from an older appearance. The gender-neutral appearing female expert was perceived as the most competent, while a gender-neutral appearing male expert was rated as the least competent, highlighting the complex interplay between gender, visual appearance, and perceived competence.

As a minority group, Disability Communication Forum of Kudus Regency (FKDK) uses social media to advocate and carry out social change. This research aims to explore the utilization of social media to articulate the interests of disability groups. This research employed a descriptive-qualitative method. The primary data are collected from in-depth interviews with the chairman of a disability organization, disability activists, and a regional parliament member. Meanwhile, the secondary data are collected from journals, books, and websites related to this issue. This research defines social media usage for Disability Communication Forum of Kudus Regency (FKDK) to encourage the passing of Local Regulations regarding the protection and fulfillment of disability rights. They mobilize communities, raise awareness through sharing videos and photographs, and use media as a fundraising instrument. Social media empowers marginalized groups by providing a platform to articulate their interests, advocate for rights, and facilitate social justice movements. It enhances accessibility, promotes community mobilization, and offers innovative fundraising opportunities. Advocacy groups leverage social media strategically for policy influence, public engagement, and collaboration. However, addressing digital regulation is crucial to ensure inclusivity and digital advocacy endeavors benefit all community members.

In this article, we investigate traces of a news media logic in the Swedish parliamentary speeches from 1920 to 2019. Drawing on theories of mediatisation, we examine two aspects: the length of the speeches and repeated political slogans. Our analysis is based on a complete corpus of parliamentary records with annotated speeches. Speech length was measured based on word count, and the identification of slogans was based on repeated seven-word segments, filtered to exclude generic phrases. While it is difficult to draw any definitive conclusions about the influence of an external media logic, the speech length has dropped by 50 per cent since 1920. This change relates to new parliamentary procedures, and from the 1980s, with the explicit goal to attract the news media. Short and snappy political slogans have increased significantly since the 1990s. This development reflects previous research stating that sound bites are getting shorter.

A partir de uma revisão sistemática de alcance na literatura sobre televisão universitária produzida nos últimos dez anos, este artigo buscou compreender quais os conceitos de TV universitária usados em pesquisas científicas e suas relações com os estudos de políticas públicas. A investigação foi realizada em trabalhos publicados entre os anos de 2014 e 2023 em dois tipos de bases de dados: 11 revistas científicas de Comunicação Social e anais de três congressos de pós-graduação na área. Em tais repositórios, 17.105 títulos foram pesquisados para este levantamento. Nesse universo, apenas 25 artigos corresponderam aos critérios adotados no protocolo de buscas desta investigação e, por isso, foram selecionados para análise. O resultado aponta para uma carência de estudos acadêmicos recentes sobre TV universitária e para a escassez de pesquisas que tragam correlação com os estudos sobre políticas públicas. Além disso, verificou-se grande heterogeneidade conceitual sobre o veículo, com prevalência de uma definição fortemente associativista.

This paper is a reply to Elisabeth Korn and Jens Schröter’s essay “On a Potential Paradox of Public Service Media” which is part of tripleC’s special issue “Critical Perspectives on Digital Capitalism: Theories and Praxis”. My reflections focus on the notion of filtering, the relationship between broadcasting and the Internet; the relationship of media, technology, and society; and questions of (digital) democracy. On the one hand, there is a number of points where I agree with Korn and Schröter. On the other hand, their reflections also raised questions that I point out and that are not answered in their paper.

This paper is a rejoinder to Christian Fuchs’ “Democracy, the Internet, and Capitalism,” published in tripleC as a reply to our essay “On a Potential Paradox of Public Service Media” (2024), which was part of tripleC’s special issue “Critical Perspectives on Digital Capitalism: Theories and Praxis”. In this rejoinder, we will critically engage with open questions and unsolved contradictions of three points of discussion: the ideal of deliberative democracy in relation to the Internet, the broadcast model applied to ICTs, and the neutrality of (digital) technology.

Nordic life vlogs are a popular genre among avid watchers of YouTube influencers across East Asia. The vlogs showcase “a slice of life” content, documenting the simple living, daily routines, beautiful landscapes, cultural festivals, and everyday norms of what it is like to live in the Nordic region. While there are many Nordic life vloggers, in this article, we focus on a subset: young immigrant women from Japan and South Korea living in the Nordics. By attending to the genre, content, and interactions between vloggers and viewers, we explore how female East Asian YouTube vloggers who have immigrated to Nordic countries construct fantasised and fantastical narratives around Nordic imaginaries. The discussion of multifaceted layers of Nordic imaginaries explains how Nordic life vlogs serve as a platform for young East Asian women to project their desire for a better life and cultivate subtle resilience at the juncture of postfeminism and postcolonialism.

Across Scandinavia, one can witness a situation where gender equality has previously been at the forefront of the political and societal agenda, but where progress now seems to be slowing down. The news media is a domain where this negative development is particularly pronounced, and several studies have established that the Scandinavian news media display a more unequal gender representation than the society they supposedly mirror. In this article, we report on an ongoing cross-Scandinavian research project on news media content, where we explore not only the traditional metrics of how many men and women are in the news, but also, more importantly, how women and men are portrayed in news media content. The study demonstrates significant gender discrepancies, echoing findings from previous studies on the quantitative representation of women and men, and, more importantly, it introduces presentation as an additional qualitative metric. Consequently, we contribute with an analytical framework involving a range of qualitative parameters through which the news media industry can comprehensively evaluate gender equality within their content.

Despite a long-standing trend of increasing women in the profession, masculine norms and gender inequality persist in media work. During the #metoo movement, Swedish journalists launched the #deadline campaign, shedding light on the connection between gender and worsening working conditions. Increasing demands for flexibility have institutionalised temporary contracts, eroded job security, and expanded job precarity, with women and young journalists disproportionately affected. In this article, we explore gendered journalistic precarity and systemic inequalities, challenging the assumption of professional homogeneity in the field of journalism. We conducted 23 interviews with Swedish journalists on temporary contracts, applying a feminist analysis to understand how power dynamics affect their experiences. Five years post #metoo, gender issues have faded from professional discourse. However, the interviews reveal continued gender discrimination and harassment, exacerbated by factors such as age, class, and position in the labour market.

This article contributes to a social history of Swedish broadcasting through an analysis of a movement for media reform: the Swedish Women’s Associations’ Radio Committee, formed in 1933 and operating until 1940. The committee was a joint effort by many established women’s organisations in Sweden, formed with the goal of strengthening the role of women in the developing public service radio, and especially providing a platform for women to raise demands on influence in the decision-making around the development of this new media form. In this article, I analyse the Swedish Women’s Associations’ Radio Committee and their work in the 1930s and ask what they did, how they did it, and with what effects? In what ways can their work be understood as a movement for media reform? The analysis builds on archival material documenting the Swedish Women’s Associations’ Radio Committee, as well as secondary sources such as memoirs and newspaper materials.

A new generation of transnational anti-gender actors are framing themselves as human rights champions and protectors of the rights of the “natural family”. To better understand these actors’ norm diffusion, including their re-styling of anti-gender narratives in contemporary iterations of heteroactivism and its potential threat to LGBTIQ+ rights, in this article we analyse the social media tactics of a key transnational anti-gender actor: the International Organization for the Family (IOF). The analysis is focused on the organisation’s Twitter (now X) account and we draw on theories of network media logic, connective action, and connective emotions. Two periods of activism – the first a low-intensity period in 2021 and the second a high-intensity period in 2022 – were purposefully selected for the analysis. In this article, we identify differences between the two periods, noting that the period covering the flagship event, the World Congress of Families (WCF) in 2022, was markedly less LGBTIQ-hostile and adversarial than the first period. IOF thus appears to be inspired by heteroactivist frames during the WCF and abides by logic that should trigger user interaction and content spreading. The lack of interactions and engagement with IOF Twitter content in either period indicates the need for more research on which logics apply to anti-gender audiences. We discuss the findings and what they may imply in a context like Sweden, a country whose self-image as a global champion for women’s and LGBTIQ+ rights may make it ill-equipped to counter the onslaught of transnational actors’ norm entrepreneurial activities.

Political leaders play a crucial role in shaping societal perceptions and citizens’ expectations of gender roles. Through their self-presentation on social media, political leaders have the power to either reinforce or challenge existing gender stereotypes, thereby influencing how citizens perceive and interpret gender norms. However, research on how women and men politicians present themselves on social media is scarce. This comparative study contributes to remedying this research gap by content analysing the official Facebook and Instagram pages of 18 political leaders during the 2021 national election campaigns in Germany and Norway. In contrast to earlier research on gendered presentations of politicians in the news, we did not find strong evidence of gendered self-presentations in either country, neither in terms of personalisation nor in terms of gender issue ownership. This could be because gender roles in Germany and Norway have become more fluid, or because the successful politicians we have analysed have been successful due to their ability to “walk the double bind” of needing to conform to both masculine and feminine gender expectations. Our study calls for more comparative research into this field, including studies of lower profile politicians and politicians in countries with lower degrees of gender equality.

In this article, we ask if there was a backlash against film feminism in Norway in the 1980s. In Norwegian film history, this decade is known as “the helicopter period” and is associated with a turn towards commercial genre film and classical dramaturgy. This has usually been narrated as a success story for Norwegian cinema. It is, however, also a decade connected to a loss of position for the women directors who had gained a footing in Norwegian cinema in the 1970s. We thus question the idea of progress associated with this decade in film history and propose avenues of investigation. We explore the loss of position of female directors by looking at film reception and film criticism. We further present and discuss a numerical breakdown of women directors and female lead characters in the 1980s and 1990s and point to thematic readings of the on-screen portrayal of women characters in this time span. We find evidence of aggression towards women and a disappearance of women’s film and argue that this points to an anti-feminist pushback in Norwegian cinema of the 1980s and 1990s.