Showing papers in "Media, Culture & Society in 2013"
TL;DR: A comparative interface analysis between Facebook and LinkedIn is offered, suggesting that both platforms deploy similar principles of connectivity and narrative – strategies that can be succinctly revealed in recent interface changes.
Abstract: Social media are popular stages for self-expression, communication and self-promotion. Rather than facilitating online identity formation, they are sites of struggle between users, employers and platform owners to control online identities – a struggle played out at the level of the interface. This article offers a comparative interface analysis between Facebook and LinkedIn. While Facebook is particularly focused on facilitating personal self-presentation, LinkedIn’s interface caters towards the need for professional self-promotion. And yet, both platforms deploy similar principles of connectivity and narrative – strategies that can be succinctly revealed in recent interface changes. These changing digital architectures form the necessary backdrop for asking critical questions about online self-presentation: How are public identities shaped through platform interfaces? How do these features enable and constrain the sculpting of personal and professional persona? And what are the consequences of imposed c...
603 citations
TL;DR: It is identified that four values of open-source culture that connect with and depart from journalism—transparency, tinkering, iteration, and participation—and assess their opportunities for rethinking journalism innovation.
Abstract: Journalists and technologists increasingly are organizing and collaborating, both formally and informally, across major news organizations and via grassroots networks on an international scale. Thi...
190 citations
TL;DR: This paper lay out the methodological pitfalls for the systematic investigation of the prevalent pattern of racism in online comments in the public sphere and suggest steps by which scholars may deal with these methodological intricacies.
Abstract: In 2004, awash with the hope for a public sphere reinvigorated by the popular internet, the online arms of many U.S. newspapers opened their websites for comments. Now, nine years into this experiment, many newspapers have abandoned the practice of allowing comments. Online news sites have adopted a variety of strategies to deal with offensive comments, including turning “comments off,” not archiving comments, and adopting aggressive comment moderation policies. These strategies present researchers who wish to understand how racism operates in the new public sphere of mainstream news sites with a set of methodological dilemmas. In this article we (1) lay out the methodological pitfalls for the systematic investigation of the prevalent pattern of racism in online comments in the public sphere and (2) suggest steps by which scholars may deal with these methodological intricacies. We conclude by pointing to the broader implications of online content moderation.
172 citations
TL;DR: The structure of gatekeeping in Twitter is explored by means of a statistical analysis of the political hashtags #FreeIran, #FreeVenezuela and #Jan25, each of which reached the top position in Twitter Trending Topics, to suggest an alternative scenario to the dominant view regarding gatekeeping.
Abstract: This article explores the structure of gatekeeping in Twitter by means of a statistical analysis of the political hashtags #FreeIran, #FreeVenezuela and #Jan25, each of which reached the top position in Twitter Trending Topics. We performed a statistical correlation analysis on nine variables of the dataset to evaluate if message replication in Twitter political hashtags was correlated with network topology. Our results suggest an alternative scenario to the dominant view regarding gatekeeping in Twitter political hashtags. Instead of depending on hubs that act as gatekeepers, we found that the intense activity of individuals with relatively few connections is capable of generating highly replicated messages that contributed to Trending Topics without relying on the activity of user hubs. The results support the thesis of social consensus through the influence of committed minorities, which states that a prevailing majority opinion in a population can be rapidly reversed by a small fraction of randomly distributed committed agents.
135 citations
TL;DR: This paper explored the role of media in the making and experiencing of environments, centring on their salience to daily routines of transition in the home and argued that media content forms part of how people make their homes, attention to these routines brings into focus a notion of the'media-saturated' household that goes beyond attention to media content in significant ways.
Abstract: Recently media scholars have made renewed calls for non-media-centric, non-representational and phenomenological approaches to media studies. This article responds to this context through an investigation of how media form part of the experiential, habitual and unspoken dimensions of everyday routines. Drawing on examples from ethnographic research into digital media and domestic energy consumption, we explore the role of media in the making and experiencing of environments, centring on their salience to daily routines of transition in the home. While media content forms part of how people make their homes, attention to these routines brings into focus a notion of the 'media-saturated' household that goes beyond attention to media content in significant ways. This, we argue, has both theoretical and practical implications for how we situate and interpret media as part of everyday life. © The Author(s) 2013.
117 citations
91 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the growing dominance of private donors problematizes the conceptualization that development is meant to alleviate problems in the interests of the public good, yet the dominating power of the private donors in the development process hinders this conceptualization.
Abstract: Development is meant to alleviate problems in the interests of the public good, yet thegrowing dominance of private donors problematizes this conceptualization. Workingthrough a political-economic ...
61 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that the current public sphere tends towards a more dispersed structure than its 19thand 20th-century versions critically analysed by Jürgen Habermas.
Abstract: Since the late 1990s, the plethora of internet-based media made it evident that the mass media had not exhausted the potential of the concept of the public sphere. But, the radically democratised access to media that this entailed indicated that the Habermasian line of theorising the public sphere needed revisions, particularly when applied to internetbased media on a supra-national scale. The contemporary public sphere tends towards a more dispersed structure than its 19thand 20th-century versions critically analysed by Jürgen Habermas. In the 1960s, Habermas was highly critical of the intervention of large-scale commercial mass media into the public sphere but, in later writings, realised and appreciated the (quality) press’s role in a modern public sphere (Habermas, 1989, 1996, 2008). The continuing structural transformation of the public sphere propelled by the internet has consequences for its normative power; its ability to provide legitimacy. From the perspective of formal politics, this forms a paradox: democratisation of media and an extended freedom of expression imply less power for formal politics to fulfil what is envisioned precisely as democratisation. With the expansion of the public sphere through digital media, politics will find it more difficult to identify normative foundations for legitimate decisions.
55 citations
TL;DR: This paper conducted semi-structured guided interviews with 18 freelance journalists with secondary employment in the field of PR to understand how they cope with inter-role conflicts and how they perceive and come to terms with conflicts.
Abstract: There seems to be an internationally shared consensus on the ethical norm that journalists may not ‘moonlight’ for PR since this might conflict with their commitment to autonomy, truth, neutrality and objectivity. However, there is a gap between the normative demands on freelance journalists and the reality of their occupation: The changing world of professional working conditions is challenging journalists and has led to growing numbers of freelance journalists who also work for PR. Whether or not, and if so how freelance journalists with secondary employment in the field of PR perceive and come to terms with conflicts has not yet been thoroughly examined. This contribution is dedicated to this gap in research and asks how freelance journalists who simultaneously work in the field of PR deal with their fundamentally conflicting roles (journalists’ perception of inter-role conflicts; how they cope with inter-role conflicts). We conducted semi-structured guided interviews with 18 freelance journalists simu...
55 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors studied the domestication of foreign news by identifying the different ways in which the Egyptian revolt was reported and discussed in Britain, Finland and Pakistan, and the data comprise t...
Abstract: The article studies the domestication of foreign news by identifying the different ways in which the Egyptian revolt was reported and discussed in Britain, Finland and Pakistan. The data comprise t...
54 citations
TL;DR: The authors examined the characteristics of 20 emerging adults (18 to 23 years old) who were non-adopters of social media, and found that non-addopters had less economic stability, more fractured educational trajectories, and weaker support from parents and friends.
Abstract: Public opinion has embraced social media as a vital tool to reach U.S. emerging adults, but this generation has not universally adopted social media technologies. Using in-depth interviews, this study examined the characteristics of 20 emerging adults (18 to 23 years old) who were non-adopters of social media. Compared to social media users, non-adopters had less economic stability, more fractured educational trajectories, and weaker support from parents and friends. Non-adopters did not use social media because they lacked access or leisure time, were not socialized into their use, lacked skills, or did not want to maintain social contacts via social media technologies. If social media are increasingly used in attempts to to improve young people’s lives, practitioners must understand who is left behind in the wake of these technologies.
TL;DR: The Muslim minority in Germany has been historically misrepresented in and excluded from the mainstream public sphere as discussed by the authors, and some Muslims in Germany have turned to blogs as an alternative source of information.
Abstract: The Muslim minority in Germany has been historically misrepresented in and excluded from the mainstream public sphere. In response, some Muslims in Germany have turned to blogs as an alternative sp...
TL;DR: In this article, the authors presented a study in the journal Media, Culture and Society (MCS) which was accepted for publication in the Journal of Media, Science and Society.
Abstract: This article was accepted for publication in the journal Media, Culture and Society: http://mcs.sagepub.com/content/35/1/44
TL;DR: In this paper, a call to rethink new media practices in the global south by looking at the implications and impacts of ICTs as leisure (entertainment/pleasure/ play) artifacts is made.
Abstract: Photoshopping of newlyweds, downloading the latest movies, teens flirting on social network sites and virtual gaming may seem like typical behavior in the West; yet in the context of a village in Mali or a slum in Mumbai, it is seen as unusual and perhaps an anomaly in their new media practice. In recent years, some studies (Ganesh, 2010; Mitra, 2005; Arora, 2010; 2012; Rangaswamy & Nair, 2012; Kavoori, Chadha & Arceneaux, 2006) have documented these leisure-oriented behaviors in the global south and argued for the need to emphasize and reposition these user practices within larger and contemporary discourses on new media consumption. Yet, for the most part, studies in the field of Information and Communication Technologies for Development (ICT4D) have duly relegated such enactments as anecdotal. This is partly due to the fact that much of this research is driven by development agendas with a strong historical bias towards the socio-economic focus (Burrell & Anderson, 2009). Data that is not directly addressing project-based outcomes is sidelined. However, as emerging economies globalize and urbanize exponentially, and their users become more critical consumers and creative contributors of digital content or ‘prosumers’ (Bruns, 2008) and arguably free laborers (Scholz, 2012) instead of classic development beneficiaries, a paradigm shift is needed in approaching this new media audience with a more open-ended, explorative and pluralistic perspective.
Thereby, this commentary piece serves as a call to rethink new media practices in the global south by looking at the implications and impacts of ICTs as leisure (entertainment/pleasure/ play) artifacts in the context of developing economies and emerging markets. We believe this line of inquiry is timely and enables a strategic bridging of the new media studies and development communication domain. Despite studies yielding insightful commentaries on ICTs in this arena, we believe resource constrained environments generating rich usages that are not overtly utilitarian have remained hitherto unexplored. A critical movement is needed among scholars focusing on emerging economies to re-conceptualize the mobilization and serviceability of ICTs to extend beyond a conservative understanding of developmental value. This will help in focusing on the heterogeneous and life enhancing aspects of technological use encompassing both experiential and purposive elements of ICT adoption: their interplay with systematic/systemic ecological constraints to provide an analytical and descriptive study of the technology spectrum and use in these contexts.
To illustrate our argument, we offer some critical points of contention that need addressing and new avenues for research if we are to rethink, reframe and refresh our thinking on Web 2.0 enactments in the global south.
TL;DR: The role of experts in producing the discourse of creativity has been examined in this article, where the authors consider the role of academic experts in British cultural policy-making and the so-called creative economy.
Abstract: My research into British cultural policy-making and the so-called creative economy has led me to consider the role of experts in producing the discourse of creativity (Schlesinger, 2007, 2009a).1 To date, the efforts of critics to deconstruct the creative economy have had little effect on its salience as a focus of policy-making (Bustamante, 2011). Moreover, research on the topic is growing and it is increasingly institutionalized in learning and teaching. One long-standing advocate of the cause, Stuart Cunningham (2009: 375), sees the depth of opposition to the creative economy among critical scholars as ‘a textbook case of the disabling gap between policy and critique’. However, rather than academics constituting two opposed camps – those of ‘policy’ and ‘critique’ – in reality, a much more nuanced situation prevails. The polemical context that dogs the creative economy makes it a particularly apt case for a discussion of the role of academics in ‘cultural governance’. Tony Bennett (2007: 12) has characterized one key feature of this practice as that of ‘producing work that might have an impact on actually existing cultural policies’. Although favouring such interventions by academics, Bennett emphasizes that they not should cease ‘to be critical of such policies’ where criticism is merited. To be a critic as well as a kind of insider raises hard questions about whether one can actually ride two horses at once. Contemporaneous criticism may be limited by the rules of the game into which one has entered – for instance, by observing official secrecy laws or confidentiality agreements. Or – much more subtly – by accepting the trade-offs that arise between obtaining access and exercising the discretion that keeps the field open.
TL;DR: A comparative study of leading news websites in nine nations showed that online news is strongly nation-centred, and much more inclined to cite the voices of authority than those of civil society and the individual citizen.
Abstract: While numerous studies view the internet as a patron of internationalism and public empowerment, this comparative study of leading news websites in nine nations shows that online news is strongly nation-centred, and much more inclined to cite the voices of authority than those of civil society and the individual citizen. Online news is very similar, in these respects, to newspaper and television news. This convergence is due to the way in which leading media conglomerates have extended their hegemony across technologies. It also reflects the constraints exerted by the wider societal context across all media.
TL;DR: This paper explored the professional views of 89 Australian and German lifestyle journalists through in-depth interviews in order to explore the ways in which they engage in processes of influencing audiences' self-expression, identities and consumption behaviors.
Abstract: Despite having experienced rapid popularity over the past two decades, lifestyle journalism is still somewhat neglected by academic researchers. So far mostly explored as either part of wider lifestyle programming, particularly on television, or in terms of individual sub-fields, such as travel, fashion or food journalism, lifestyle journalism is in need of scholarly analysis particularly in the area of production, based on the increasing importance which the field has in influencing audiences’ ways of life. This study explores the professional views of 89 Australian and German lifestyle journalists through in-depth interviews in order to explore the ways in which they engage in processes of influencing audiences’ self-expression, identities and consumption behaviors. The article argues that through its work, lifestyle journalism is a significant shaper of identities in today’s consumer societies.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors examine the effect of government crackdown on peer-to-peer video sharing sites in China in 2008 and point out the counter-productive effect in terms of cultural loss and the resurgence of offline piracy.
Abstract: While a rich body of literature in television and film studies and media policy studies has tended to focus on the media activities in the formal sector, we know much less about informal media activities, its influence on state policies, as well as the dynamics between the formal and the informal sectors. This article examines these issues with reference to a particularly revealing period following a large-scale government crackdown on peer-to-peer video sharing sites in China in 2008. By analyzing the aim and consequences of the state action, I point to the counter-productive effect in terms of cultural loss and the resurgence of offline piracy; and show the positive impact on forcing the informal into the formal sector, and pressuring the formal to innovate. Meanwhile, an increasing rapprochement between professional and user-created content leads to a new relationship between formal and informal sectors. This case demonstrates the importance of considering the dynamics between the two sectors. It also offers compelling evidence of the role of the informal sector in engendering state action, which in turn impacted on the co-evolution of the formal and the informal sectors.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors focus on the recurrence of visual tropes in press photographs and argue that these tropes are gendered along traditional conceptions of femininity and masculinity, appealing strongly to both judges and wider audiences.
Abstract: Photography contests have assumed an increasingly significant public role in the context of the global surge of mass-mediated war reporting. This study focuses on the recurrence of visual tropes in press photographs awarded in the annual contest World Press Photo (WPP) in the years 2009–11. By tropes, we mean conventions (e.g. a mourning woman, a civilian facing soldiers, a distressed witness to an atrocity) that remain unchanged despite their travels across the visual sphere, gaining professional and public recognition and having a strong affective impact. We contend that photography contests such as the WPP influence and organize a process of generic understanding of war, disaster and atrocity that is based on a number of persistent tropes, such as the mourner, the protester or the survivor amidst chaos and ruins. We further show that these tropes are gendered along traditional conceptions of femininity and masculinity, appealing strongly to both judges and wider audiences. The evidence for our claim co...
TL;DR: This article explored the role of "asylum shopping" in the cultural politics of asylum in the UK and argued that the naturalisation of this term has been conditioned by the operation of powerful logics underpinning fundamental insecurities in the identity of the national and neoliberal subject.
Abstract: This article critically explores the construction and discursive role of ‘asylum shopping’ in the cultural politics of asylum in the UK. Despite the unusual combination of a concept predominantly associated with consumerism with one largely associated with human rights or sanctuary, the expression ‘asylum shopping’ has featured in the mainstream news media and political discourse surrounding asylum and refugee issues since the early 1990s. Drawing upon cultural studies theory, post-Marxist discourse theory and critical discourse analysis, the article argues that the naturalisation of this term has been conditioned by the operation of powerful logics underpinning fundamental insecurities in the identity of the national and neoliberal subject – logics associated with Britain’s postcoloniality on the one hand and its neoliberal modernity on the other. While the erosion of collective models of solidarity in favour of entrepreneurialism of the self have provided conditions of possibility for an overwhelmingly negative asylum discourse, outrage at asylum seekers’ perceived agency and choice of destination encoded in the notion of ‘asylum shopping’ have been indexed to nostalgic longings for a more secure national or social identity, as well as deep-seated fears and uncertainties about future prospects in the neoliberal subject.
TL;DR: A loosening of controls on the Pakistani media in recent years has meant the influence of Pakistani journalists is increasingly being felt in country's tumultuous internal politics and its relation with the US as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: A loosening of controls on the Pakistani media in recent years has meant the influence of Pakistani journalists is increasingly being felt in country’s tumultuous internal politics and its relation...
TL;DR: In this article, the authors analyze the consolidation of local news and the paradox of expanded news hours in times of shrinking staffs and less-trusting audiences, focusing on Portland, Oregon, characterized as one of America's most civically active cities and a top-25 market.
Abstract: In response to the dearth of critical literature on the transformation of local news ownership structure and the impacts of technological reorganization of news production on the television profession and local communities, we analyze the consolidation of local news and the paradox of expanded news hours in times of shrinking staffs and less-trusting audiences. Focused on Portland, Oregon, characterized as one of America’s most civically active cities and a top-25 market, we interviewed many key workers from among the city’s four television newsrooms. Despite having union representation, once discrete news production professionals and functions have been radically integrated, resulting in a multitasked news staff forced to provide fast-turnaround for multiple platforms, while seriously weakening investigative reporting, the quality of news production, and the utility of local news for the community.
TL;DR: The concept of political parallelism was introduced by Seymour-Ure and Blumler and Gurevitch as discussed by the authors, and it gained further prominence after Hallin and Mancini took it as one of their key variables in the comparison of the two models.
Abstract: Used by Seymour-Ure and by Blumler and Gurevitch the concept of “political parallelism” gained further prominence after Hallin and Mancini took it as one of their key variables in the comparison of...
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that political accountability is fundamental in a democratic society. Societal changes such as the marketization of the public sector have, however, made accountability issues complex and negotiable.
Abstract: Political accountability is fundamental in a democratic society. Societal changes such as the marketization of the public sector have, however, made accountability issues complex and negotiable. Th...
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors investigate how the biofuel controversy plays out in the Swedish press and Google search engine results and analyze winners and losers in the tight attention economy of contemporary media, and identify a form of technoscientific promotion that hybrid actors use to succeed in the day-to-day struggle for media attention.
Abstract: What are the conditions for the public understanding of biofuels and how do the media shape these conditions under the influence of a new production of knowledge? This article investigates how the biofuel controversy plays out in the Swedish press and Google search engine results and analyses winners and losers in the tight attention economy of contemporary media. It describes different visibility strategies biofuel stakeholders employ in both media arenas, and identifies a form of technoscientific promotion that hybrid actors use to succeed in the day-to-day struggle for media attention. To conclude, it raises broader societal questions of the contemporary blurring of knowledge boundaries and the emergence of new information hierarchies and their biases. By understanding how contemporary media shape controversies, we can address the democratic potential of both mass media and science.
TL;DR: The New York Times and the Washington Post have in the past two decades presented discourses of anniversary journalism to commemorate the Tiananmen Square crackdown and the fall of the Berlin Wall as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: This article examines how the New York Times and the Washington Post have in the past two decades presented discourses of anniversary journalism to commemorate the Tiananmen Square crackdown and the fall of the Berlin Wall, both of which occurred in 1989 and had global implications. These two events ideologically signified the failure of Communism and the victory of the West. However, they posed different challenges to the U.S.-orchestrated “new world order.” Insofar as the Tiananmen crackdown was remembered as an “unfinished revolution” and fell within the “sphere of legitimated controversy,” the elite U.S. press had greater leeway in presenting the views of elite factions, albeit all within the orbit of “established pluralism.” In contrast, since European integration after the fall of the Berlin Wall was an issue of broad elite consensus, the press constructed its perspectives more closely aligned with those of official foreign policy. Anniversary journalism connects personal reminiscences of distinguis...
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors conducted case studies of two European regions, Flanders and Denmark, focusing on the political economy of retransmission payments in the broadcaster-to-distributor market, and suggested that the competitive position of an actor in a bargaining game crucially depends on contextual factors, including market concentration, vertical integration and product differentiation.
Abstract: As a considerable area of conflict in the US broadcast market, the issue of retransmission payments has gained momentum in Europe as well. By conducting case studies of two European regions, Flanders and Denmark, this article focuses on the political economy of retransmission payments in the broadcaster-to-distributor market. It is suggested that the competitive position of an actor in a bargaining game crucially depends on contextual factors, including market concentration, vertical integration and product differentiation.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present an embeddedness perspective on business journalism and report on the findings from a study of the way the major Swedish corporations and financial analysts contribute to and participate in the production of business news.
Abstract: The relations between the media and their corporate sources have become increasingly routinized and organized. In contrast to traditional perspectives on news making this article introduces an embeddedness perspective on business journalism and reports on the findings from a study of the way the major Swedish corporations and financial analysts contribute to and participate in the production of business news. Through a qualitative analysis of two cases we show that such production is organized and carried out in a stream of continuous and well-coordinated activities and structured interaction settings – that is, in a system of recursive mediation. Our analysis further illustrates how this system is maintained through the technological, relational and situational embeddedness of the activities and settings. Through our studies we show how news production has developed outside the journalistic domain. One implication of our findings is that the possibility of individual actors influencing the content of the news is likely to be limited. Instead, it is the actors’ ability to join the organizational and technological settings in which news material is generated that gives them the opportunity to actively participate in news production.
TL;DR: In this paper, the specificity of women sports journalists' writing in the context of the French-speaking Swiss daily press was investigated by analyzing their working practices (observations and interviews) and their output (content analysis).
Abstract: This study investigates the specificity of women sports journalists’ writing in the context of the French-speaking Swiss daily press. By analysing their working practices (observations and interviews) and their output (content analysis), it shows that women sports journalists do not adopt the customary professional norms of this journalistic speciality. Their ‘feminine’ writing is characterized by an interest in soft news and ‘human’ perspective which is different from the usual treatment of sports news, focused on facts and technical analysis, developed by the large majority of their male colleagues. It takes place within structural mechanisms – particularly modes of recruitment, gender division of labour, the acknowledgement of skills and the organizational mechanisms within sports newsrooms – as well as daily interactions in the workplace and the taste of women journalists. Women journalists employ a subversive strategy and play with the stereotypical images of their professional competences. However, ...
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examined Why We Travel, a New York Times collection of over 2000 reader-submitted photos and captions about travel, focusing on changing notions of culture, media, and mobility.
Abstract: Travel journalism provides unique insights into changing notions of culture, media, and mobility. This study examines ‘Why we travel,’ a New York Times collection of over 2000 reader-submitted photos and captions about travel. To locate trends within this multi-authored text, the author refers to the theories of tourism scholars MacCannell and Urry to distinguish between enduring and emergent travel representations. The former include unequal distributions of certain subject matter across regions, emphasis on ‘authentic’ touristic experiences, and visual methods for minimizing signs of western culture. Within the same collection, however, emergent representations feature ‘new’ tourisms, highly reflexive portraits of tourists, and conscious confrontation of interconnectivity. In conclusion, the study considers some of the cultural messages communicated by ‘Why we travel’ as it coheres under the New York Times’ authoritative aesthetic. More than a travel feature, the collection can be read as a guide to glo...