"This study examines the portrayal of Syrians on Turkish Twitter between January and August 2021 through a big data analysis of more than 30,000 tweets. We employ the concept of online toxicity to differentiate between disinformation and hate speech and explore how they are embedded in the negative
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debates about Syrians on Twitter. Through opinion analysis, the study recognizes disinformation and hate speech patterns within tweets and questions the role they play in boosting anti-Syrian narratives, as well as the main actors behind them in the Turkish Twittersphere. The findings indicate that thediscourse about Syrians on Twitter was overwhelmingly negative, with both disinformation and hate speech playing a significant role. Furthermore, a considerable portion of the disinformation tweets could be traced back to opposition political actors, highlighting how negative sentiment on Twitter was not only expressive of generalized public resentment against Syrians but also instrumentalized for political purposes. Overall, this article demonstrates how Twitter contributes to the public debate about Syrians in Turkey, reproducing nationalist narratives and serving political agendas." (Abstract)
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"This handbook critically analyzes cross-border news production and "transnational journalism cultures" in the evolving field of cross-border journalism. As the era of the internet hasfurther expanded the border-transcending production, dissemination and reception of news, and with transnational co-
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operations like the European Broadcasting Union and BBC World News demonstrating different kinds of cross-border journalism, the handbook considers the field with a range of international contributions. It explores cross-border journalism from conceptual and empirical angles and includes perspectives on the the systemic contexts of cross-border journalism, its structures and routines, changes in production processes, and the shifting roles of actors in digital environments. It examines cross-border journalism across regions and concludes with discussions on the future of cross-border journalism, including the influence of automation, algorithmisation, virtual reality and AI." (Publisher description)
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"Fact-checking has been identified as a significant journalistic tool in the fight against disinformation. Relevant studies have focused on its emergence as a movement within journalism aiming at renewing the profession, as well as its effectiveness in challenging disinformation, especially during e
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lections. However, little has been said about how audiences themselves understand factchecking and employ it in their daily consumption of news. In this article, we answer these questions by drawing upon two sets of data. The first consists of fourteen focus group discussions in the UK, which included 52 participants, and were conducted online between April and May 2021. The second consists of two qualitative surveys that explored news consumers’ understandings of fact-checking and their evaluations of current fact-checking practices of UK media during the same period. We conclude that the use of fact-checking remains largely peripheral, and its influence is minimal in people’s news consumption. However, there is an appetite for more fact-checking in television news, as a way of holding politicians into account and helping the public better understand politics. In this context, we argue, if factchecking is to play an important role in political discourse, it should become a regular part of broadcast journalism." (Abstract)
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"Recent years have seen the expansion of critical scholarship on humanitarian communication across a range of academic fields, sharing recognition of the centrality of media and communications to our understanding of humanitarianism as an agent of transnational power, global governance and cosmopoli
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tan solidarity. The Handbook brings into dialogue these diverse fields, their theoretical frameworks and methodological approaches as well as the public debates that lie at the heart of the contemporary politics of humanitarianism. It consolidates existing knowledge and maps out this emerging field as an important site of interdisciplinary knowledge production on media, communication and humanitarianism." (Publisher description)
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"This companion brings together various concepts used to analyse dimensions of media disinformation and populism. The companion is theoretically and methodologically comprehensive and features various historical and critical approaches providing a full and incisive understanding of media, misinforma
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tion and populism. It is both interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary consisting of contributions from scholars analysing aspects of misinformation, disinformation and populism across countries, political systems and media systems. A global, comparative approach to the study of misinformation and populism is important in identifying common elements and particular characteristics, and these individual essays cover a wide range of topics and themes, with contributions from both leading and young scholars. The distinctiveness of the companion is its encompassing of a variety of subject areas: Political Communication, Journalism, Law, Sociology, Cultural studies, International Politics, and International Relations." (Publisher description)
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"From Christian missionary publications to the media strategies employed by today’s NGOs, this interdisciplinary collection explores the entangled histories of humanitarianism and media. It traces the emergence of humanitarian imagery in the West and investigates how the meanings of suffering and
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aid have been constructed in a period of evolving mass communication, demonstrating the extent to which many seemingly new phenomena in fact have long historical legacies. Ultimately, the critical histories collected here help to challenge existing asymmetries and help those who advocate a new cosmopolitan consciousness recognizing the dignity and rights of others." (Publisher description)
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"This article aims at demonstrating the relevance of the concept of 'media witnessing' as an analytical lens for the study of audience engagement with media reports of distant suffering. Drawing upon existing theoretical work on the concept, the article approaches media witnessing as a distinct moda
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lity of audience experience and constructs an analytical framework for its study. Applying this framework on an empirical study of Greek audiences, the article provides a typology of witnessing, consisting of four different types of audience engagement with media stories of human suffering. This typology illustrates the complexities inherent in the practice of watching suffering on television, as well as the limitations of mediated cosmopolitan imagination." (Abstract)
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