"Placed at the crossroads of diverse disciplines – medical sciences, information and communication science, sociology of food, agricultural sciences – this book focuses on media, food and nutrition. Contributors to this volume come from different countries including the United Kingdom, Germany,
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Mexico and Romania, and consider comparatively their native cultures. The book answers several questions: How are food and nutrition made visible and publicized? What is the role of media in relation to food and nutrition? What are the strategies of discourses surrounding food and nutrition within new public spaces?" (Publisher description)
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"Die Studie basiert auf 21.929 Beiträgen, von denen mithilfe einer geschichteten Stichprobe 4.164 in die Analyse einbezogen, ausgewertet und mit Korrespondenten-Interviews kombiniert wurden. Sie beleuchtet die Auswahlkriterien und Mechanismen der Berichterstattung zu Lateinamerika und füllte eine
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Forschungslücke zu einem Thema, das außenpolitisch extrem relevant ist. Das Buch betrachtet Themen und Merkmale des Mediendiskurses in kombinierter Form, stellt Länderprofile dar und sucht nach theoretischen Erklärungen für die Bildkonstruktionen. Die Studie kommt zum Ergebnis, dass es das Lateinamerikabild in der deutschen Presse nicht gibt, sondern sich eine Perzeption nach Ländern und Landesgruppen ausdifferenziert lässt." (Verlagsbeschreibung)
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"The present paper identifies five key roles of media in contributing to the SDGs delivery. These include: channeling information flow, ensuring proper monitoring and accountability, acting as an enabler of a ‘culture of peace’, upholding marginalised voices and facilitating the localisation of
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SDGs. Based on a mapping exercise on selected national and sub-national Bangla, English and online newspapers, this paper finds that among the five identified roles, the media in Bangladesh at present is primarily playing the role of channeling information flow. Media is also playing a watchdog role in a limited scale, while their participation in the SDGs accountability process is almost non-existent." (Abstract)
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"This report was commissioned by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to examine women’s representation in COVID-19/coronavirus newsgathering and news coverage in India, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, the UK, and the US. It is rooted in a computational news content analysis of 11,913 publications an
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d 1.9 million stories between 1st March and 15th April 2020 undertaken by Media Ecosystems Analysis Group; an in-depth qualitative portrayal analysis of 175 highly ranked COVID-19/coronavirus stories across the six countries; quantitative analysis of eight public-facing bespoke Google surveys, as well as multi-country secondary surveys; a pronoun content analysis of COVID-19 headlines; story frames analyses using Google’s news search engine, the Internet TV News Archive in 2020 and the GDELT Project global online news archive for 2017 to 2020; and interrogation of a number of global statistical databases [...] The report has examined the news coverage of the COVID-19/coronavirus story through the lenses of three indicators of gender equality: women as sources of news expertise; news stories leading with women protagonists; and coverage of gender equality issues. The insights from the report have led to the creation of 21 recommendations which aim to support news providers who wish to amplify the substantially muted voices of women in news coverage of the COVID19/coronavirus story. The report has uncovered a substantial bias towards men’s perspectives in the newsgathering and news coverage of this pandemic across both the global north (the UK and US) and the global south (India, Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa). This bias operates against a backdrop of women’s effective political invisibility within the COVID-19-related decision-making process in the countries analyzed and the unique socioeconomic, health and psychological challenges that women face globally. Every individual woman’s voice in the news on COVID19 is drowned out by the voices of at least three, four, or five men. The women who are given a platform in the COVID-19/coronavirus story are rarely portrayed as authoritative experts or as empowered individuals but more frequently as sources of personal opinion or as victims/people affected by the disease." (Executive summary)
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"Recent reports indicate that over 20,000 Arab fighters traveled to join ISIS in Iraq and Syria and another 5-15 percent of millennials across seven Arab countries consider some violent extremist groups to be on the right path. In response, Arab countries have experimented with entertainment-educati
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on (E-E) by using anti-extremism narratives in popular culture to address radicalization at the societal level. This study explores whether those narratives can elicit viewers’ parasocial interaction (PSI)—pseudo friendships with or animosity toward mediated personas that can catalyze persuasion—with fictional characters. Using qualitative and quantitative content analyses of more than 8,600 YouTube comments, this study explores Arab viewers’ responses to a recent E-E project, al-Siham al-Marika (The Piercing Arrows) drama series, that portrays life under ISIS’s control. The findings identify recurrent themes in the pool of comments, such as show debates, religious contestations, political disputes, empathy for victims, and engagement with plotline/characters. More importantly, they reveal at least one out of six comments (n=1477) exhibits PSI with fictional characters, addressing them as part of their social milieu. The study further traces the variations in the nature of PSI in relation to mediated positive role models, negative role models, and transitional characters in the narrative. It concludes with a discussion of E-E’s potentials as an anti-extremism messaging strategy and PSI’s role as a useful metric in assessing such narratives." (Abstract)
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"Investiga os efeitos de sentido, como são construídos e que valores são colocados em circulação no espaço destinado aos comentários nas transmissões ao vivo das missas pelo Facebook. Busca entender como, ao longo da transmissão, acontecem as interações entre público, padre e plataforma
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no espaço dedicado aos comentários. Toma como corpus os comentários das lives das celebrações transmitidas através da página do Padre Anderson Gomes, responsável pela administração da Paróquia Nossa Senhora do Perpétuo Socorro, em Vila Velha (ES). Constitui pesquisa documental, a partir dos posts extraídos da página, com recorte feito após o levantamento das transmissões das missas realizadas no período de um ano, entre 01 de outubro de 2017 e 30 de setembro de 2018. Analisa a transmissão ocorrida no dia 1o de julho de 2018. Trata os dados de forma qualitativa, à luz do referencial teórico e metodológico da sociossemiótica, de Eric Landowski, A.J Greimas e colaboradores. Tem como hipóteses que a experiência religiosa on-line do público está vinculada à experiência off-line e que a interação entre os sujeitos acontece não só através dos regimes de manipulação e programação, mas também a partir do regime de ajustamento." (Resumo)
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"The study examines content produced and distributed to ethnic minorities in Mon, Kayin and Kayah and looks into the news and media habits and understandings of the same groups. It consists of two different research efforts: a content analysis and a qualitative audience study. The content analysis f
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ound that media targeted at ethnic minorities - here represented by three ELTV contributors: Mon News Agency (MNA), Karen Information Center (KIC) and Kanthayawaddy Times - consistently involve their target groups in news coverage compared to national averages. Representatives from ethnic minorities were used as sources in eight out 15 stories analyzed. Yet, ethnic minorities are often portrayed as victims and therefore rarely framed from an empowered position. Furthermore, the audience study showed that some minorities felt less represented by the media than others, resulting in limited trust in the media." (Executive summary)
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"This research demonstrates the complexity of the vaccine information ecosystem, where a cacophony of voices and narratives have coalesced to create an environment of extreme uncertainty. Two topics are driving a large proportion of the current global vaccine discourse, especially around a Covid-19
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vaccine: the “political and economic motives” of actors and institutions involved in vaccine development and the “safety, efficacy and necessity” concerns around vaccines. Narratives challenging the safety of vaccines have been perennial players in the online vaccine debate. Yet this research shows that narratives related to mistrust in the intentions of institutions and key figures surrounding vaccines are now driving as much of the online conversation and vaccine skepticism as safety concerns. This issue is compounded by the complexities and vulnerabilities of this information ecosystem. It is full of “data deficits” — situations where demand for information about a topic is high, but the supply of credible information is low — that are being exploited by bad actors. These data deficits complicate efforts to accurately make sense of the development of a Covid-19 vaccine and vaccines more generally. When people can’t easily access reliable information around vaccines and when mistrust in actors and institutions related to vaccines is high, misinformation narratives rush in to fill the vacuum." (Page 2)
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"The most mentioned religious groups include Muslims (Sunnis and Shiites). This is logical given that Islam is the majority religion in the three monitored countries. There is also a fair amount of content mentioning Christians in each country as well as Shiites and Sunnis in both Lebanon and Iraq.
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The report provides a first analysis of the nature of the conversation, while understanding the limitation of this research in providing a comprehensive overview of the narrative. Also, sectarianism and components were among the most popular concepts mentioned, often in claims that there are attempts at minimizing sectarian strife and appeasing the diverse segments of the population. The minimal coverage of certain topics pertaining to law, gender, the environment, science, and technology in their relationship with religion reflects the interests of the region and its governments. Social and political turmoil are perceived as more crucial for survival and worthy of attention. Social and political topics are more present in the public debate. As for the general discourse and tone of the narrative, they were mostly neutral if not even positive at times. Though it’s important to note that whatever points the authors aimed to make, they were rarely ever explicit." (Some of the key findings, page 8-9)
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"This study identifies and evaluates the quality assessment of radio news in the country. To conduct this research, the researcher first posed the questions and objectives of the research and then, according to the nature of the work, used exploratory and applied research. The researcher consulted w
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ith professors from Al-Beroni and Kabul University to choose the research method and used quantitative method to collect information and qualitative content analysis method to analyze and interpret information. The researcher selected 4 half-hour news programs of Afghanistan, Killid, Azadi and BBC radios from the 6 months of news programs of the mentioned media as a sample population and after analyzing them with remarkable and interesting results acquired. BBC Radio follows all principles and standards of journalism and news reporting in radio, but the writing style of BBC Radio vocabulary is not simple and limited, so it is sometimes difficult for listeners to understand the news events or news programs. On the contrary, Radio Azadi’s writing style and reporting as well as presentation of news program is very simple, and listeners immediately can get the concept of news items. Independent and private radio stations follow development system as well as social responsibility theory of the media, but foreign media have their specific system of covering the events." (Abstract)
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"In this research, we found that:
1. The media tend to play safe during the 2019 presidential election. When addressing certain issues, the media rarely provided their own in-depth analysis based on certain values. They let the public decide by itself by bring debates and use comments from prominent
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figures or expert to avoid a certain stance on their coverage. In this regard, online media tend to provide superficial coverage, while printed media offer more in-depth coverage.
2. The media fully aware of the threat of hoax and tend to be cautious in dealing with sensitive issues related to religious intolerance. This happens because there is a growing concern among the media regarding the impact of irresponsible and inaccurate news coverage which they believe might potentially harmful to democracy and society in general.
3. Thus, in response to the hoax, the media has been actively contributing and participating in the fact-checking process by applying certain fact-checking mechanism in their own media organization. Despite the massive spread of hoax, this mechanism helps the public find the truth while proving that the media is still reliable as a credible source of information.
4. Media referred to their fundamental value when carrying out work/coverage. However, the degree of importance of value and its application on their work varied among the media. This strategy applied as a means of survival in a competitive media market in order to protect media stance both politically as well as their economic interest." (Conclusion, page 45)
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"To successfully monitor and counter hate speech, we must first identify specific terms and define the social and political context that makes them offensive, inflammatory, and potentially dangerous. To that end, PeaceTech Lab has pioneered a process to identify and contextualize inflammatory langua
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ge that can lead to violence, and has a growing portfolio of hate speech lexicons that can be used by civil society organizations, social media and technology companies, and other interested individuals and organizations to better identify, track, combat, and remove hate speech. The Lab is partnering with a growing network of local organizations that work to address hateful content and that seek to curb the potential for violence. This lexicon investigates the landscape of hate speech and narratives in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Since 2018 there has been an uptick in violence in the country, with over 140 armed groups and militias (based in the DRC as well as in neighbouring countries) currently active in the DRC. There are more than 5 million people living in the country who are either internally displaced or who are refugees from neighbouring countries. Most recently, in the wake of the long-delayed December 2018 presidential election, tensions have increased between contenders and their followers, exacerbating old and new conflicts between ethnic communities and/or political groups. In this complex and multilayered context, hate speech in the DRC, as in other contexts, is used as a tool to achieve political and material ends (e.g., polarizing opinions, dehumanizing opponents in local or regional conflicts, exacerbating feelings of frustration and grievance, and calling for violent action). A steady increase in internet penetration as well as growth in the number of social media users are expected to increase the frequency of hate speech across all online platforms. This lexicon aims to serve as an initial guide to specific words and phrases identified during a finite period of time in the DRC." (Introduction)
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"PeaceTech Lab, in partnership with Andariya and the Sudan Development Initiative (SUDIA), intends this effort to contribute to understanding language and the context for potential conflict during the transition to civilian government and to eventual elections in Sudan. This project seeks to tackle
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the problem of identifying and contextualizing the particular type of language that’s likely to cause violence. Rather than assessing the existence or prevalence of hateful speech, this project instead examines the terms, their origins and context, and their use in a particular country context. To successfully monitor and counter hateful speech, we must first identify specific terms and the social and political context that makes them offensive, inflammatory, or even potentially dangerous. This research also seeks to identify alternative language that would mitigate or counter the impact of this speech and thereby contribute to building peace in the country. Finally, this resource intends to inform other individuals and organizations involved in monitoring and countering hateful speech in Sudan so that their work can be more effective." (Introduction)
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"La pobreza constituye un problema estructural en Argentina, realidad que se evidencia, más allá de las controversias en torno a su delimitación conceptual y su medición, desde diversos enfoques teórico metodológicos que abordan el fenómeno. Este trabajo busca aportar a la explicación de est
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a agenda urgente desde el análisis de la representación mediática de la problemática. El artículo presenta los primeros resultados de un estudio en curso sobre un sector de la prensa de la ciudad de Bahía Blanca, Argentina. Se analizan las agendas y noticias construidas sobre el tema en la actualidad focalizando en los criterios de selección informativa, los temas jerarquizados, y las ocurrencias y regularidades discursivas. En el período analizado, la pobreza en la región no constituye una agenda jerarquizada en el diario La Nueva, hecho que invisibiliza, de algún modo, la problemática social. La pobreza y los sujetos pobres son representados en la publicación desde una categoría amplia y abstracta, ligada a cifras que legitiman los discursos y son útiles para el conocimiento del problema, a la vez que lo despersonalizan y deshistorizan. Las noticias se presentan de manera descontextualizada, sin información sobre las causas de emergencia y profundización del fenómeno, ni acerca de posibles soluciones, con el riesgo de que se resienta la capacidad de interpretación y comprensión por parte del lectorado, ergo, el debate público y político sobre el tema." (Resumen)
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"This Issue Paper examines nearly 1,500 news articles from four EU member states (Germany, Italy, Spain and the Czech Republic) published between May 2019 and July 2020. It shows that disinformation narratives about migration seek to exploit readers’ fears to polarise public opinion, manufacture d
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iscontent, sow divisions and set the political agenda. Disinformation actors link migration to existing insecurities, depicting it as a threat to three partly-overlapping areas: Health (migrants as violent criminals, potential terrorists, or a COVID-19 infection risk); Wealth (migrants as social benefits cheats, unfair competition for jobs, or a drain on community resources); Identity (migrants as a hostile invasion force, a threat to European or Christian traditions, or the subject of a conspiracy to replace white Europeans). An effective communication strategy based on alternative narratives should take account of the following recommendations: The message should aim to reframe the debate. It should resonate with the target audience’s lived experience, acknowledging their values and concerns, but avoid amplifying anxieties [...] The medium should aim to restore trust among groups. Institutions, which are often subject to discrediting campaigns, should prioritise communication through trusted intermediaries who can get messages to the hard-to-reach [...] The selection of the audience should aim to reclaim readers from the fringes. Audiences should be targeted based on their values and what they feel is important." (Executive summary)
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"WhatsApp is a key medium for the spread of news and rumors, often shared as images. We study a large collection of politically-oriented WhatsApp groups in India, focusing on the period leading up to the 2019 Indian national elections. By labeling samples of random and popular images, we find that a
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round 10% of shared images are known misinformation and most fall into three types of images. Machine learning methods can be used to predict whether a viral image is misinformation, but are brittle to shifts in content over time." (Abstract)
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"Recent studies on conflict and terrorism news coverage have documented an ingroup bias as well as an increasingly negative discourse about Muslims in the wake of Islamist terrorist attacks. Yet, as most of these studies have focused on Western media and settings, the determinants of news media’s
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religious biases and out-group categorizations remain insufficiently understood. In this article, we draw on interviews with Nigerian media practitioners and a comparison of Boko Haram news coverage in two Nigerian newspapers—one Southern-based / Christian-affiliated and one Northern-based / Muslim-affiliated—to argue that it is crucial to consider a country’s political-religious demography in order to understand the way in which religious-based violence is covered in the news. In this respect, we identify micro-, meso- and macro-level theoretical mechanisms through which a country’s demography can promote domestic news outlets—regardless of their background and readership—to cover conflict in a more balanced, nuanced, and objective way." (Abstract)
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"This research investigates the types of environmental issues represented in Malaysian newspapers and Environmental Non-Government Organisation (ENGO) newsletters and examines the factors in the selection of stories by both social actors. A quantitative content analysis was conducted on 2050 environ
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mental articles in The Star and Utusan Malaysia newspapers, together with the World Wide Fund for Nature’s (WWF) and Malaysian Nature Society’s (MNS) newsletters from 2012-2014. A total of 13 people from The Star and Utusan Malaysia, and 11 from the WWF and MNS were chosen for in-depth interview sessions. The study showed that the methods of choosing environmental information for newspapers and newsletters were slightly different. The ENGOs gave more attention to environmental effort topics like sustainable living while the media focused on more environmental problems like floods. The study also found that the Malaysian media and ENGOs shared some criteria for selecting environmental issues, especially proximity, timeliness and impact." (Abstract)
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