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People differ in their general tendency to endorse conspiracy theories (that is, conspiracy mentality). Previous research yielded inconsistent findings on the relationship between conspiracy mentality and political orientation, showing a greater conspiracy mentality either among the political right (a linear relation) or amongst both the left and right extremes (a curvilinear relation). We revisited this relationship across two studies spanning 26 countries (combined N = 104,253) and found overall evidence for both linear and quadratic relations, albeit small and heterogeneous across countries. We also observed stronger support for conspiracy mentality among voters of opposition parties (that is, those deprived of political control). Nonetheless, the quadratic effect of political orientation remained significant when adjusting for political control deprivation. We conclude that conspiracy mentality is associated with extreme left- and especially extreme right-wing beliefs, and that this non-linear relation may be strengthened by, but is not reducible to, deprivation of political control.

This chapter discusses several patterns of media accountability, as a process influenced by stakeholders with different expectations and colliding interests. To clarify the issue, the chapter presents three main cultural-cognitive definitions of journalism: public interest watchdog, instrument in the hands of power holder, and profit generator. It discusses them using the concepts of horizontal, voluntary accountability toward peers and society and vertical, compulsory accountability toward owner and public authorities. Research results from two international projects, MediaAct and Digital News Report, indicate that journalists in Europe face an accountability overload, while multiple definitions of journalism are imposed on the same newsroom. In addition, communication professionals have to solve a fundamental paradox: The state is the principal source of legal accountability. Yet, in regimes with autocratic tendencies, media workers have to refuse any delegitimizing patronage from the power holders, in order to protect public interest and democracy.

The crisis in Ukraine was one of the dominant topics in international news coverage of 2014 and the following years. Representing a conflict along the lines of an East-Western confrontation unprecedented since the end of the Cold War, the news reporting in different European countries with different historical backgrounds is an essential research topic. This article presents findings of a content analysis examining coverage of the conflict in the first half of 2014 in newspapers from a diverse set of 13 countries: Albania, Czech Republic, Germany, Latvia, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Serbia, Switzerland and the United Kingdom, as well as Ukraine and Russia. Drawing on prior literature on news values, key events, and news cycles in foreign coverage, this study maps the evolution of the conflict in the course of four key events and identifies specific characteristics of the coverage in different newspapers. The results show that attention for the conflict varies considerably across the countries, which might be traced back to different degrees of geographical and cultural proximity, domestication, and economic exchange, as well as lack of editorial resources especially in Eastern Europe. Russia dominated the news agenda in all newspapers under study with a constant stream of conflict news. Contradicting prior literature, media sought to contextualise the events, and meta-coverage of the media’s role in the crisis emerged as a relevant topic in many countries with a developed media system.

Cumulative prospect theory, one of the major contributions to behavioral economics to explaining decision-making under uncertainty, is used to analyze two perspectives on punishment for professional misconduct, in one developing and one developed journalistic professional world. Using cumulative prospect theory, this article aims to explore why Romanian journalists show greater support for a liability model, compared to their Swiss counterparts, who favor an answerability model of accountability. To this end, several semi-structured interviews with experts in both countries were conducted. The discussions started from data gathered in a previous survey, called MediaAcT. The cumulative prospect theory of Kahneman and Tversky is based on a framing hypothesis, but has not been used before by media scholars. The approach proves to be fruitful, as it allows for a better understanding of journalists’ attitudes to accountability and responsibility.

Traditionally, research on conspiracy theories (CT) is not at the heart of communication and media studies. Still there are theories, concepts and findings in this discipline which can be fruitfully linked to CT research. If one sees CT as certain forms of narratives, one important question is how they spread within societies, communities and groups. To analyse this, one can apply the concept of "diffusion of innovations", alongside theories and concepts which stem from media studies, such as agenda setting or two-step flow of communication. Moreover, research on strategic and political communication, news bias and even fake news can be linked to the study of CT.

The research results of a pan-European project (the author was part of), that included also two Arab countries, indicate that the approach journalists manifest toward issues of ethics, responsibility and accountability depend on their national backgrounds. The article proposes the introduction of another factor in the discussion about responsibility, following Max Weber’s line: the religious tradition. The discussion of research results will be based on the sociology of work and religion and on previous results of other cross-national analyses of religion and work attitudes. The need to be accountable and responsible, the approach to guilt, the acceptance of regulatory and normative institutional pressures and the possibility of negotiation with different pressure factors may be better explain by general religious context, traditional understanding of work and leisure and traditional understanding of guilt and absolution. These all are rooted in a national religious context, even if the country is a laic one.

Starting from the findings a Romanian research group gathered during the project “Models of mass-media consumption in the Romanian rural world: traditional identities, European identities” of the Faculty of Journalism and Communication Studies, University of Bucharest, this article identifies some risk factors in the conceptual design of an audiovisual programme for the rural world. These factors are: (1) differences in the definitions of the public - in our case, the Romanian peasant - as they are held by the journalist, the programme editor, the sources and by the public itself; (2) a quasi-general lack of vision about the future of the rural world, based on a lack of information; and (3) deficiency in applying journalistic information gathering techniques and text writing rules. The conclusions are based on media product analysis of business journalism programmes broadcast by the Romanian public broadcasting services for rural audiences and on questionnaire-based and in-depth interviewing with potential members of the public.

This article presents key results of a comparative journalists’ survey on media accountability, for which 1762 journalists in 14 countries had been interrogated online. The article explores how European journalists perceive the impact of old versus new media accountability instruments on professional journalistic standards – established instruments like press councils, ethics codes, ombudsmen and media criticism, but also more recent online instruments like newsroom blogs and criticism via social media. Thus, the study also adds empirical data to the current debate about the future of media self-regulation in Europe, ignited by the Leveson Inquiry in the United Kingdom as well as the European Commission’s High-Level Group on Media Freedom and Pluralism.

Starting from eight in-depth interviews with Romanian media managers, this article explores the institutional resources and institutional draw-backs in creating professional systems around creative journalistic products. In proposing a product, the media company proposes a sub-set of rules for the production, distribution, promotion and consumption of the product. This article shows that the leaders of a creative team can use, while building a professional system, the same instruments that govern an institution (Scott, 2001): work rules, accepted norms, cultural-cognitive definitions. A case study, of an all news television, is used to explain the concept proposed by the paper. Nevertheless, several factors impede this effort of building a professional system: • the background of the leaders and their understanding of the professional world, •the often dual or multi cultural-cognitive definition attached to a journalistic product (defendant of public interest, profit generator, political or business weapon), • external factors, such as a political or an economic crisis, that exacerbate the conflicts among supporters of different cultural-cognitive definitions of journalistic products. The interviews are focused on eight media products that were launched after 1989, in a period of profound institutional changes in Romania. These changes refer to a new economic system (capitalism), a new political system (democracy) a new technological environment (digitalization), a new consumer behavior (fragmented; different journalistic products for different personal needs) and a new professional world (state financing and revenue from sales, before 1989, versus state and private owner financing and revenue from sales and advertising, after 1989).

The process of digitalisation in Romanian companies started in 1995. At the beginning, the computers were expensive, thus few, and not powerful (one computer could store some 100 radio commercials at once). The newsrooms were hybrid, with both analogical and digital equipment, and some still are. Some jobs disappeared. The typists are now replaced by computer operators or desktop publishing designers, web-designer and on-line editor. Some new jobs and some new companies appeared. For example, every newsroom has IT specialist support now. The Internet advertising is done by specialized companies, the advertising brokers, and the editor is supported by the technology provider and the Internet service provider. Depending on the age of the interviewee, the researcher could identify a different relation with the computer. These different kinds of relations were also point out by the interviewees in a managing position. For example, there is a nostalgic perspective on handwriting, editing on paper or on hard copy and working with analogical devices. The nostalgic (from 40 years on) put in relation human creativity with the use of old equipments they were used to and they learned their job on. The younger generation has a different approach to the computer. They enjoy discovering functions of new software and doing new things with technology, but they get bored in the classroom. Some of them feel they don’t need extra training for using the new technologies, others admit that structured knowledge in this area is very much needed.

This paper is focused on the relation between the internal publics' motivation and the organisational image projected towards external publics through a supplement of the annual report: the Intellectual Capital (IC) Statement. Group-related theories from sociology, communication studies, and management are used as a frame of reference in understanding the Danish experience in intellectual capital statement development, as this experience is presented by the Danish researchers. The IC Statement presents, in its ideal form, the organisation's knowledge management, as the way an organisation creates value for its publics.