"In this article we theorize a new organizational face of political parties that we term the ‘party-on-the-net’, defined as a set of digital partisan activist roles enabled by the affordances of digital technologies. We first explain the conceptual advantages of understanding parties’ media hy
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bridization as an organizational face rather than as a specific party subtype. Then, we provide a taxonomy of digital partisan roles comprising the party-on-thenet and its links with traditional party bureaucracies and functions. We define and discuss ten roles on the basis of two general organizational variables, namely functional alignment with party structures and influence over core party decisions. Finally, after illustrating each of these roles through examples across different geographical regions, we consider how our framework can help scholars to develop hypotheses for further empirical scrutiny. We focus on the relative prevalence of the party-on-the-net within subtypes of digital parties, its relation to other organizational faces, and its development under different institutional scope conditions." (Abstract)
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"Visuals hold a special place in the field of communication. Politicians, in a move to position themselves or market their activities, use visuals that stand as a testimony to their principles. However, their importance and value in political communication are not highly reflected in academic litera
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ture. This article is built from this understudied field by looking at the role photojournalists play in framing opposition political parties in Zimbabwe. Photographs are important tools in politics as evidenced by experimental research on political communication that found that ‘a single photograph can have a clear impact on voters’ judgements regarding a candidate’s demeanour, competence, leadership ability, attractiveness, likeableness, and integrity’. This study seeks to analyse photographs that were used by photojournalists to frame the newly formed political party, amidst the power struggles within the party, and political repression from the authoritarian regime. Informed by visual framing, the study found that photojournalists framed Nelson Chamisa as youthful and vibrant while his party was seen as resembling the new dawn. However, photographs also showed that Chamisa and his party had nothing to offer as they did not have a constitution, guiding policy nor a clear ideology." (Abstract)
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"This volume explores the implications of digital media technologies for journalists’ professional practice, news users’ consumption and engagement with news, as well as the shifting institutional, organizational and financial structures of news media. Drawing on case studies and quantitative an
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d qualitative approaches, contributors address questions concerning: whether China is witnessing ‘disruptive’ or ‘sustainable’ journalism; if, and in what ways, digital technologies may disrupt journalism; and whether Chinese digital journalism converges with or diverges from Western experiences of digital journalism." (Publisher description)
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"Ahead of the general election in April and May 2019, Indian political parties are using social media aggressively to propagate their ideology, mobilise public opinion, set policy agendas, and discredit detractors. Since the 2014 general election, India’s two major political parties – the Bharat
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iya Janata Party, which currently leads the coalition government, and the Indian National Congress, the main opposition party – have invested heavily in digital political campaigning." (Abstract)
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"Las personas basan sus decisiones y participación democrática en la información de la que disponen y si dicha información es deliberadamente manipulada a través del uso indebido de sus datos personales, sus decisiones posteriores podrían no ser genuinas. En el presente documento, los analista
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s de estudios se adentran en los principales elementos que problematizan la relación entre Democracia y Protección de Datos Personales en la era digital, reflexionando acerca de las investigaciones que comenzaron a gestarse desde las ciencias sociales, pero que se traspasaron a los actuales asesores y consultores políticos para que -con evidencia científica- fuese más probable la elección de algún candidato. También analizan el rol decisivo que han asumido los datos personales para que, a través de algoritmos y la integración de un sinnúmero de bases de datos, puedan influenciar las decisiones políticas de los ciudadanos. También indagan en la transformación y adaptación que han asumido los partidos políticos frente a la digitalización para no perder el nexo con la ciudadanía, la identificación de sus necesidades desde el comportamiento social visible, sus deseos y motivaciones, lo que evidencia un cambio de paradigma del control ciudadano. Exploran las herramientas para lograr influenciar las decisiones de los ciudadanos y analizan estrategias para minimizar el riesgo que conlleva la digitalización, actualizando, por ejemplo, la legislación vigente, empoderando a la ciudadanía respecto al uso de sus datos personales y generando un mayor comportamiento ético por parte de organismos o empresas que tratan esos datos personales. Dada la utilidad y los riesgos que se observan en la relación que se establece entre Democracia y Protección de Datos Personales en la era digital, consideramos que es tiempo de ir subsanando los vacíos regulatorios e informar a la ciudadanía sobre los eventuales riesgos que conlleva el desarrollo digital, para que así cada cual pueda disfrutar de sus beneficios y aceptar conscientemente sus riesgos o evitarlos, en la construcción de una sociedad mejor." (Presentación, página 4)
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"In contrast to earlier publications on Chinese propaganda and media, 'Chinese propaganda seducing the world' offers the first comprehensive analysis of propaganda from Mao to today. Here lies the book’s strength. The author, Jeanne Boden, holds a PhD in Oriental Languages and Cultures (Ghent Univ
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ersity), and draws on years of experience studying the complexity of cross-cultural cooperation, in particular, between Europe and China. She has conducted an impressive analysis of more than 2,500 photographs of propaganda in public spaces all over China taken between 1994 and 2018, and, additionally, on other formats like propaganda movies, television programs, and myriad publications. Displayed throughout the book, these materials include gems such as the unique picture taken in Lhasa in 2002 with a Chinese propaganda slogan dating back to 1966–1976 (pp.61), the somewhat surreal Communist Party Theme Park (pp.82), or the striking example of a public humiliation campaign from during the Cultural Revolution that has been turned into a tourist commodity (pp.64). Substantial context is added to the analysis. For example, how “[c]onstruction itself has become a political measure of China’s success and growth and is therefore actively put to use for political purposes” (pp.31), or how “the absence of the idea of privacy in the socialist work unit paved the way for the technologically advanced control seen in China today” (pp.142)." (Review by Jono van Belle in: Communications, vol. 45:1, 2020)
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"The main subject of this work is the dynamically evolving Polish media system, which is under the influence of institutions and external stakeholders. Thanks to this, it is easier to understand that the "crossroads" is not only a problem of the Polish media system, but a global one. For this reason
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, a comparative perspectiveis employed. Three chapters help to provide an answer to research questions dedicated to political parallelism and journalistic professionalization. The analysis would be limited and unrepresentative if the book enclosed it with one country's border, omitting the broad global, European and Centro-European context." (Publisher description)
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"This guide categorises data-driven campaigning methods to loosely reflect how value is created along the data pipeline, from acquisition (asset), to analysis (intelligence) to application (influence)." (Page 3)
"Focusing on sub-Saharan Africa and occasionally drawing comparisons with other regions of the world, this book critically addresses the development of the field focusing on the current opportunities and challenges within the African context. By using a wide variety of case studies that include Moza
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mbique, Zambia, Rwanda, Zimbabwe, Ghana, Kenya, Uganda, South Africa, Ivory Coast and Nigeria, the collection gives space to previously understudied regions of sub-Saharan Africa and challenges the over-reliance of western scholarship on political communication on the continent." (Publisher description)
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"Arranged in chronological order mainly, this book examines the initial development of Chinese journalism in ancient times, which from then manifested strong political attributes. After the Opium War in 1840, missionaries and businessmen from the West started to set up newspapers and periodicals in
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China, which brought about the birth of China’s modern journalism industry. Then China’s private newspapers and political party’s press are studied, which are closely linked with political revolutions and have a far-reaching impact on modern Chinese society. What happened to Chinese journalism and communication after the founding of People’s Republic of China in 1949? This book reviews the newspaper reforms, and studies the great negative impacts brought by “Cultural Revolution”. Noteworthy news phenomena after the reform and opening-up are also covered." (Publisher description)
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"Die ägyptische Muslimbruderschaft hat in den fast 90 Jahren ihres Bestehens immer wieder neue Kommunikationstechnologien adaptiert und Medienpraktiken inkorporiert, um ihre Außenkommunikation zu professionalisieren. Der Beitrag zeigt unter Rückgriff auf Ansätze der Sozialen-Bewegungs-Forschung
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sowie zu Medienpraktiken, wie diese Anpassungen im Kontext politischer Entwicklungen vorgenommen wurden und mit veränderten Materialitäten, Kompetenzen und Bedeutungszuschreibungen in Zusammenhang stehen. Das Fallbeispiel der Rabi’a-Ereignisse von 2013 illustriert schließlich einen Höhepunkt der auch performativen und transnational zirkulierenden Medienpraktiken der Muslimbruderschaft." (Abstract)
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"This book presents the first systematic and historical contextualisation of the development of Hamas’s media strategy. It determines three key phases in Hamas’s development and explores the complex and important relationship at work between its politics and use of media. Assessing four elements
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of the Hamas media strategy – the media message (discourse), the media objectives, the infrastructure, and the target audience – this book tracks how Hamas grew its media infrastructure, and looks at how the idea of resistance has permeated the media discourse. Determining both tactical and strategic objectives and detailing the various layers of the target audience, it offers the first in-depth academic study of the Hamas media strategy." (Publisher description)
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"This article examines the Palestinians perceptions towards the role of Palestine TV and Al-Aqsa TV in providing a platform for open discussion and create an arena for different groups to communicate freely with each other. Focus groups with a range of participants, from university students and huma
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n rights activists, to journalists and non-governmental organization employees were deployed. The article argues that the two political factions are trying to manipulate the public and conceal information that affects their power. It provides an overview of comments, and views expressed by the participants during the focus group sessions in response to a set of questions. The key findings of the study were, in the view of many respondents, that the two television channels, Palestine TV and Al-Aqsa TV, were controlled by the two political parties – Fatah and Hamas, respectively and that this has compromised the media’s function to public participation." (Abstract)
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"The author argues that differences in media freedom and in the politicization of the news media are rooted in differences in party structures between old and new democracies, and, notably, the fact that young parties in the new members of the European Union are short of resources, which makes them
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more likely to take control of and to exploit media resources. The book takes a closer look at five former communist countries (Hungary, Bulgaria, Poland, Romania, and Slovenia) to explain variations in media freedom and the politicization of the news media in and across countries. It offers general country descriptions as well as detailed case studies of the media policies and party backgrounds of two governments in each country." (Publisher website)
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"Glenda Daniels examines the pattern of paranoia that has crept into public discourse about the media and the ANC, and their conflictual relationship. She analyses this fraught relationship through various popular media stories, such as Manto and Mondli, Zapiro and Zuma. Her argument ist that there
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is some hysteria on the part of the ruling party and its allies, for instance the SACP, regarding the media's exposés, which partially rests on the problem of conflating party, state and 'the media'." (Back cover)
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