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Digital Dimensions of Conflict: Analyzing Malian conflict and violence through Social Media and Mixed-Methods Approach

Jelena Prokic, Luca Bruls, Mirjam de Bruijn

Digital Culture and Society, volume 11, issue 2 (2026), pp. 199-222

"Our findings show that Twitter is a battlefield of imaginaries of conflict. Ford and Hoskins (2022: 117-68) would refer to this as ‘attention’ in which the war is archived, defined, and imagined. People who participate in conflict-Twitter are no longer passive actors in conflict, but they shape ... it by their online behavior. Although many users rarely initiate debates or engage in discussions, they shape the content’s visibility and interpretation through what they tweet, retweet, and amplify. As such attention itself becomes a form of involvement. Meanwhile, Twitter users who create messages focus on certain parts or layers of conflict. Hence, those who click, read, and retweet endorse these imaginations or representations of war. Tracing digital war on Twitter revealed 4 clusters of imaginaries: 1. National politics referring to the role of the French, the arrival of the Russians, and the government’s events and celebrations. 2. International politics that discuss ECOWAS sanctions, the role of France, Russia, the European Union and MINUSMA, reference to news agencies RFI and France 24, as well as a discussion of Ukraine. 3. The economic and security situation which affect the population. 4. The local violence that results in massacres, killings, the role of jihadist groups, framed as ‘terrorists’. Imaginaries 1 and 2 are most prominent. The tweets on politics have a supportive tone for the actions of the government. They are anti-French and supportive of Russia. Imaginary 3 popped up especially in the frequency and keyword analysis. The crisis related to national politics, under IBK and later under Assimi Goïta, is a consequence of the political and economic situation of Mali that the population immediately feel in their daily life. Imaginary 4 occupies a small space in Twitter discussions. Twitter users hardly discuss the horrific atrocities of the conflict. We conclude that Twitter discursive practice generally has a positive attitude towards the military government and is supportive of its measures. Twitter does show popular reasons for protest, which addresses the economic situation in daily life and the ‘hatred’ of the French military interventions. However, Twitter users hardly discuss violence against civilians, which we as ethnographers considered as important events in the conflict. Hence these events do not enter the general Twitter discourse on conflict. Twitter creates an imagination of the war in which extremely violent events are avoided. As a result, Twitter informs the public on the heroic actions of the Malian army and legitimizes the government as a righteous actor in the conflict. Due to the selective framing and circulation of content that celebrates the violent state on Twitter, cultural violence and participatory warfare emerge. Users participate not through debating or addressing massacres against civilians, but by amplifying political and geopolitical narratives through tweeting and retweeting. They thereby normalize a pro-government imagination of war. Malians read and participate in Twitter to find news about the situation in their country. They ‘trust’ Twitter. For many it is one of the only reliable media where they can find information about conflict, or about the political situation in the country. This comes close to Galtung’s definition of cultural violence, information that legitimizes actions of the government and military, or information that feeds biased interpretations. Twitter helps them to legitimize the protests and the actions of the government. The silencing of massacres and violence also influences people’s opinions as they do not ‘see’ the horrors of the conflict. Hence, Twitter operates as a medium through which digital cultural violence is produced and transmitted." (Discussion and Conclusion, pages 218-219) more

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El insulto como estrategia: Un análisis de 113.000 tuits del presidente Milei

Sandra Crucianelli et al.

Foro de Periodismo Argentino (FOPEA) (2026)

"La llegada de Javier Milei a la arena pública, primero como panelista televisivo y líder de opinión, luego como diputado nacional y finalmente como presidente, marcó el inicio de una forma de comunicación plagada de ofensas hacia quien piensa diferente. Un equipo de DJV Bootcamp analizó 113.6 ... more

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AI in the media: Kenya and South Africa

Karen Allen, Herman Wasserman, Nande Mbekela

Bonn; Stellenbosch (ZA): Deutsche Welle DW Akademie; Centre for Information Integrity in Africa (CINIA) (2026), 27 pp.

"This study shows that AI remains largely an underexplored, and often misunderstood, topic for journalism in South Africa and Kenya. Stories can be framed in overly positive terms, such as the potential AI holds for development and social change, or negative terms, by highlighting the extractive nat ... ure of big tech firms or the potential of AI to foster disinformation. Either way, these reports frequently lack a more nuanced understanding of the impacts of AI in African contexts. Fear of the impact of AI on the media workforce may also explain why reporters say they often face resistance by editors when seeking to get AI and tech stories commissioned. AI articles tend to be siloed and reactive, framed as business, security or technology stories. Seldom is AI presented in terms of its multidimensional, layered impact on society. Furthermore, the geopolitical aspect of AI rarely gets interrogated in mainstream media. Journalists interviewed for the study admitted that many of their stories were reactive, and identified areas where synergies could be harnessed from other parts of the world. On issues of AI and social media regulation, for example, where precedents have been set by countries such as Australia, South African and Kenyan media could use such precedents to develop locally focused stories. AI reporting often adopts a framing promoted by technology vendors who derive interest from presenting a one-dimensional, optimistic view of AI. The unintended consequences often go unreported unless supported by an investigation, such as the CCTV camera surveillance reportage by Swart referenced above. Furthermore, the topic is often presented through a Global North lens, with little contextualisation or interrogation of these issues from an African point of view amid resource and access constraints. This occurs against a background of under-developed policy frameworks for AI on the continent generally, and in newsrooms in particular. Consequently the playing field can be tilted in favour of AI and tech vendors who fill the vacuum with hyperbole and hype about what the technology is capable of delivering. At the same time, more nuanced and specialised reporting on AI is constrained by the familiar obstacles of journalism, such as lack of resources, over-stretched newsrooms and story competition. To enhance coverage of AI in Africa, a multifaceted strategy is needed. While training and AI literacy programmes can deepen the knowledge needed by African journalists to investigate the topic more comprehensively, increased investment in newsrooms can provide the structural support to provide more context-specific coverage of AI on the continent. Crucially, training and education of African journalists should be done from within the African context, as solutions cannot be imposed from newsroom contexts in the Global North." (Conclusions, page 21) more

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Afrika-Wissen: Transdisziplinäre Analysen zu Medien im deutschsprachigen Raum

Hans Peter Hahn, Sylvestre Kouakou (eds.)

Bielefeld: transcript Verlag (2026), 264 pp.

"Was wissen Menschen in Deutschland über Afrika? Und wie kommen sie zu ihrem Wissen? Die Beiträger*innen antworten auf Basis einer ausgewählten Medienanalyse und blicken kritisch auf die Quellen, Bedingungen und Wirkungen bestimmter Wissenstraditionen – denn seit Generationen bestehen Vorurteil ... more

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Information Manipulation in Sudan: A Baseline Assessment of Actors, Narratives and Tactics

Aida Al-Kaisy, Amal Hamdan

Thomson Foundation (2026), 81 pp.

"The destruction of Sudan’s established information infrastructure at the outset of the conflict in April 2023 has created an environment where systematic information manipulation and disinformation campaigns now flourish unchecked. This has intersected with increasing systematic information manip ... more

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Age Discrimination and Media: Experience of Older Adults (60+)

Halyna Budivska, Diana Dutsyk

Kyiv: Ukrainian Media and Communication Institute (2026), 33 pp.

"Focus group discussion findings: 1. The wording preferences used to address older adults vary significantly depending on the region and socio-cultural environment. The participants respond positively to expressions that emphasize the experience and dignity, like “people of respectable age”, � ... �people of golden age” or “elegant age”. The addressing terms “pan” (Ukrainian term for “sir, mister”) and “pani” (Ukrainian term for “madam”) are considered universal. Whereas, the words “zhinochka” (Ukrainian term for “woman”, belittling tone) or “titonka” (Ukrainian term for “auntie”) often cause a negative reaction. 2. Though some discriminatory practices in the field of labor, healthcare, social protection and access to services persist, the focus group participants say that the full-scale war has partially changed the attitude toward older people: the shortage of staff and active volunteer engagement of older adults increased recognition of their experience, professionalism and contribution to support the country. 3. Unlike participants of other focus groups, journalists experience age discrimination in their profession more strongly (in newsrooms or when searching for a job). 4. The respondents do not generally perceive the Ukrainian media as openly ageist but underline poor visibility and subjectivity of older adults in the public space. According to them, the media rarely involve older adults as recognized participants in social discussions and do not cover enough the problems and needs of this age group. Media Monitoring Results: 1. The subject of older adults (60+) was secondary or occasional in most media materials of the sample, and main and cross-cutting topic in only 38.5%. 2. Although direct ageism is rare in Ukrainian media, reporting about older adults is generally extremely stereotypical. For example, Ukrainian media portray people 60+ either as requiring care and assistance or in the context of pension and social security issues and demographic crisis. 3. Materials about active older adults and their stories of development or success are scarce, and even if they do get posted, they are usually about well-known Ukrainians or about foreign pensioners. Older adults’ voices are rarely heard in the media: other people (journalists, experts, relatives, etc.) comment in place of them. 4. The term “elderly people” most commonly used in the media (27,3% mentions) is discriminatory. Although it is still present in the Ukrainian legislation, linguists recommend removing it from public use and from the language of official documents as it is insulting. 5. When speaking of older adults, the media focus on social problems, health and pension issues; this once again confirms the trend of perceiving and representing older adults mainly as a socially vulnerable group that needs care and support. 6. The topic of ageism is still underrepresented and sporadic in the media (about 2% of the materials). Hardly any publications provide a clear explanation of what age discrimination is, how it manifests, and what impact it has on society. This may indicate a lack of public attention to the problem of ageism and a limited awareness of its importance as a separate form of discrimination. 7. The frames with negative connotations dominate in the media field, in particular (1) about the biological fragility and vulnerability of older adults; (2) about older adults as a burden for families or for the country. 8. The active agency frame comes up occasionally in Ukrainian media and does not construct the image of people 60+ as an active and independent group. Thus, the model of active long life remains not visible enough in the information space. 9. The family objectification frame is one of the most common examples of hidden ageism, since even with a positive tone it limits the diversity of social roles of older adults and narrows their representation to traditional family functions. 10. The idealized activity or “super-ageing” frame is not that common, but it may create a new type of age-related stereotypes by imposing an unrealistic standard of "successful aging". 11. The electoral conservatism frame, though rare in the media so far, has the potential to grow if the political activity restores. This frame is of destructive nature, since it deepens the opposition of generations and pins responsibility for social and political problems on a certain age group."(Summary, pages 6-7) more

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How Strategic Information Operations Affect Peacekeeping: Two Case Studies from the Central African Republic

Naomi Miyashita, Zarine Kharazian, Laura De Backer, Kate Starbird

International Peacekeeping, volume 32, issue 3 (2025), pp. 414-456

"Strategic information operations – efforts by individuals or groups to shape public opinion using propaganda, rumors and facts – pose significant challenges to peacekeeping missions. These operations undermine trust, hinder communication with the public and complicate the implementation of peac ... more

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Digital occupation: Pro-Russian bot networks target Ukraine’s occupied territories on Telegram

Yuliia Dukach, Iryna Adam, Meredith Furbish

Atlantic Council, July 16 (2025)

"This joint report from OpenMinds and the Digital Forensic Research Lab (DFRLab) analyzes the activity of a network of 3,634 automated accounts that posted pro-Russian comments on Telegram channels between January 2024 and April 2025 targeting Ukrainian populations inside Russian-occupied territorie ... more

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Künstliche Intelligenz im medialen Diskurs: Wird soziale Gerechtigkeit ausgeblendet?

Elke Grittmann, Lina Brink, Peter Kann

Frankfurt am Main: Otto Brenner Stiftung (2025), 84 pp.

[.] Auf Basis von über 2.000 Artikeln aus neun reichweitenstarken Print- und Onlinemedien untersuchen die Autor*innen, welche Themen in der Berichterstattung über KI gesetzt, wie Bezüge zu Fragen sozialer Gerechtigkeit hergestellt werden, welche narrativen Muster sich zeigen und welche Akteur*inn ... more

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Hate Speech Events in India. Report 2025

Washington, DC: India Hate Lab (IHL); Center for the Study of Organized Hate (CSOH) (2025), 111 pp.

"India Hate Lab (IHL) documented 1,318 hate speech events targeting religious minorities, particularly Muslims and Christians, in 2025 across 21 states, one union territory, and the National Capital Territory (NCT) of Delhi. On average, four hate speech events occurred per day. This marks a 13% incr ... more

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Redefining objectivity: Exploring types of evidence by fact-checkers in four European countries

Regina Cazzamatta

European Journal of Communication (2025), 21 pp.

"Fact-checking journalism challenges procedural norms of objectivity by providing truth verdicts. By actively evaluating statements and online rumors based on evidence weight, fact-checkers aim for robust, scientific objectivity. Despite this trend, there is a lack of studies analyzing evidence type ... more

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Energy Discourse in Thai Media

Pijitra Suppasawatgul

Bangkok: Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES) (2025), 20 pp.

"The content analysis reveals that Thai media primarily focuses on energy issues related to policy, regulation, and economic aspects, with less attention to environmental concerns. This emphasis reflects the top-down structure of the Thai energy industry and the economic implications of traditional ... more

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„Das größte lösbare Problem der Welt“: Die mediale Vernachlässigung des Globalen Hungers

Ladislaus Ludescher

Heidelberg: Universitätsbibliothek Heidelberg (2025), 293 pp.

"Hunger gehört zu den elementarsten menschlichen Erfahrungen. Etwa jeder zehnte Mensch auf der Welt hungert. Jeden Tag sterben etwa 24.000 Menschen an den Folgen von Hunger, etwa alle 13 Sekunden ein Kind unter 5 Jahren. Hunger ist aber keineswegs ein unabwendbares Schicksal. Das Welternährungspro ... more

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Who Makes the News? Progress on a Plateau. Global Media Monitoring Project (GMMP) Special Edition: 30-year Findings on Change in Gender Equality In and Through the World News Media
Deep Insights

Sarah Macharia, Maximiliano Dueñas Guzmán, Rodrigo Molina et al.

Toronto: World Association of Christian Communication (WACC); Global Media Monitoring Project (GMMP) (2025), 123 pp.

"This report presents the findings of the seventh iteration of the Global Media Monitoring Project (GMMP) global snapshot, based on 30,049 news articles containing 58,563 people and 26,708 news personnel in 94 countries on the 7th global monitoring day, May 6, 2025. Key Findings: 1. Thirty years a ... go, the report of the first GMMP called for a shift in coverage beyond the male-dominated realms of political and economic power. Not only has the hierarchy of “hard news” in legacy media persisted across time, it has also crossed over into digital outlets. 2. Digitalization did not bring a radical break from the patriarchal norms of traditional journalism. Instead, it continues to reinforce and amplify a news hierarchy that privileges spheres and issues centred on power, namely, those dominated by men. The challenge is threefold. First, to dismantle the “hard news” bias, second, to integrate more intentionally spaces and issues of greater concern to women, and third, to enable visibility and voice to women present in traditionally male-dominated spaces. 3. After a period of slow but steady improvement, progress toward gender parity in the news has flatlined since around 2010, failing to reach 50% in any media type. Thirty years after Beijing, women are 26% of those seen, heard, or spoken about in legacy news (29% on news websites). The needle has shifted 9 points in legacy media since 1995, and 4 points in online news during the past 10 years. Minority groups are five points more likely to be present in digital news than in legacy media. The probability of minority women being featured in the news as the main protagonists or as interviewees is two in a hundred in traditional media (3% for men) and 4% on news websites (5% for men). 4. Women’s visibility in political and economic news beats has increased significantly – by 15 points each – over the past three decades. The severe underrepresentation noted in 1995 (7% in political news, 10% in economic news) has improved. Women’s presence in sports news is abysmal, at only 15% of news subjects and sources. 5. The proportion of women providing expert testimony has grown remarkably over the decades, showing the highest increase (+7 points) in digital news since 2015. In legacy media, the gender gap in authoritative roles as experts and spokespersons has closed at a slower pace than for persons providing testimony based on popular opinion and personal experience – ordinary roles that require no specialized knowledge. 6. Patterns of gender-biased portrayal endure despite decades of change in women’s roles in the real world. Women have remained about twice as likely as men to be portrayed as victims since 2010. Historically, women were most often portrayed as victims of accidents or poverty. This pattern was overturned in 2025, with “other crime” and “domestic violence” (by intimate partners and family members) becoming the top victim categories. Women depicted as survivors in legacy media were most likely to have survived “accidents, natural disasters, poverty, and disease” in previous GMMP studies. In 2025, they are most frequently portrayed as domestic violence survivors in equal proportion to accident/disaster survivors. The over-representation of women as homemakers/parents decreased from 81% in 2000 to 73% in 2025, indicating some progress, albeit a persistent journalistic bias toward defining women by domestic roles, despite women’s current unprecedented engagement in work outside the home. Underrepresentation in occupations and in positions of power has remained consistent. The tendency to describe women by their age and physical attributes has also persisted. They have been photographed more often than men (a 7–9-point difference) over the past two decades, with qualitative analysis continuing to show patterns of sexualised portrayal [...]" (Key findings, pages 2-3) more

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Charity representations of distant others: An analysis of UK charity visual communications in direct mail campaigns

David Girling, Deborah Adesina

University of East Anglia, School of Global Development (2025), 29 pp.

"In this phase of our research on charity advertising, we aimed to examine how INGOs represent distant others in direct mail communications compared to newspaper advertisements, building on findings from earlier studies. While the direct mail format offers greater potential for nuanced storytelling, ... more

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Small world: International factual programming on public service channels (2023-24)

Martin Scott

London: International Broadcasting Trust (IBT) (2025), 19 pp.

"This study aims to evaluate the effectiveness of the UK’s Public Service Broadcasters (PSBs) in covering global events through current affairs and other factual programmes on television channels. To achieve this, we analysed the volume, originality, scheduling, genre, and geographic focus of inte ... more

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Religion in der Krise - Krise der Religion? Eine empirische Medienanalyse christlicher Publizistik in der Corona-Pandemie

Constantin Plaul ed.)

Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt (2025), 223 pp.

"Hat die Religion während der Corona-Pandemie einen spezifischen Beitrag zur Bearbeitung der entsprechenden Krisenerfahrung geleistet? Diese Frage wird anhand christlicher Publizistik in unterschiedlichen massenmedialen Formaten untersucht. Es wird gezeigt, dass religiöse Deutungsangebote in betr� ... more

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Memes, humor, and the far right’s strategic mainstreaming

Ursula Kristin Schmid, Heidi Schulze, Antonia Drexel

Information, Communication & Society, volume 28, issue 4 (2025), pp. 537–556

"The far right is increasingly relying on visual and less extreme online communication, for instance by using memes, to strategically mainstream their ideology. The use of humor in particular renders their communication more relatable to a mainstream audience. However, little is known about the actu ... more

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Countering Misinformation in Political Reporting: Enhancing Journalistic Legitimacy

Stephen Cushion, Maria Kyriakidou

Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press (2025), 200 pp.

"This book examines how journalists should deal with the growing tide of political disinformation and public scepticism towards news media. Informed by the latest research from the UK and around the world, the book draws on a series of UK-based studies over a six-year period between 2019-2024, syste ... more

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African Media Reporting on the Russia Ukraine War

Zaphesheya Dlamini, Samba Dialimpa Badji

Johannesburg: Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung (KAS) (2025), 38 pp.

Who Makes the News? Progress on a Plateau. Global Media Monitoring Project (GMMP) Special Edition: 30-year Findings on Change in Gender Equality In and Through the World News Media Deep Insights

Who Makes the News? Progress on a Plateau. Global Media Monitoring Project (GMMP) Special Edition: 30-year Findings on Change in Gender Equality In and Through the World News Media
Deep Insights