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Anthropological Perspectives on the Religious Uses of Mobile Apps

Jacqueline H. Fewkes (ed.)

Cham: Palgrave Macmillan (2019), 248 pp.

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Living history: Zeitreisen(de) im Reality-TV

Monika Weiß

Marburg: Schüren (2019), 243 pp.

"Eine besondere Spielart von Doku-Soaps sind historische Rollenspiele im Fernsehen, die nicht konkrete Ereignisse nach-spielen (also keine Reenactments), sondern den konkreten Alltag vergangener Zeit nach-leben wollen. Menschen von heute agieren unter den Bedingungen einer vergangenen Epoche. Unters ... more

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The Bible and Digital Millennials

David G. Ford, Joshua L. Mann, Peter M. Phillips

Milton: Routledge (2019), xi, 126 pp.

"Explores the place of the Bible in the lives of 18 to 35 year-olds who have been born into the digital age. As the use of digital media becomes increasingly pervasive, it should follow that it will have a significant effect on people’s engagement with religion and the sacred texts associated with ... more

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Reporting Inequality: Tools and Methods for Covering Race and Ethnicity

Venise Wagner, Sally Lehrman (eds.)

New York; London: Routledge (2019), xii, 299 pp.

"Under increasingly intense newsroom demands, reporters often find it difficult to cover the complexity of topics that deal with racial and social inequality. This path-breaking book lays out simple, effective reporting strategies that equip journalists to investigate disparity's root causes. Chapte ... more

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The Dark Double: US Media, Russia, and the Politics of Values

Andrei P. Tsygankov

Oxford: Oxford University Press (2019), xv, 160 pp.

"In Dark Double, Andrei P. Tsygankov focuses on the driving power of values and media, in addition to political and economic interests, in structuring US-Russia relations. By analyzing mainstream US newspapers and other media sources, Tsygankov identifies five media narratives involving Russia since ... more

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Losing the News: The Decimation of Local Journalism and the Search for Solutions

New York: PEN America (2019), 114 pp.

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Environmental Communication Among Minority Populations

Bruno Takahashi, Sonny Rosenthal (eds.)

London; New York: Routledge (2019), xi, 120 pp.

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Free Speech in the Digital Age

Susan J. Brison, Katharine Gelber (eds.)

New York: Oxford University Press (2019), xvi, 259 pp.

"This collection of thirteen new essays is the first to examine, from a range of disciplinary perspectives, how the new technologies and global reach of the internet are changing the theory and practice of free speech. The rapid expansion of online communication, as well as the changing roles of gov ... more

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Faith-Based Media Literacy Education, History

Rose Pacatte

In: The International Encyclopedia of Media Literacy

Renee Hobbs; Paul Mihailidis (eds.)

Hoboken, NJ: Wiley Blackwell (2019), pp. 457-472

"This limited survey of the history of faith-based media literacy education includes its development in some communities, especially mainstream Protestants and Catholics, while acknowledging its existence in others, in one form or another, where extensive data is not yet available. In general faith ... more

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Climate and Sustainability Communication: Global Perspectives

Donnalyn Pompper (ed.)

London; New York: Routledge (2019), x, 149 pp.

"Climate and Sustainability Communication builds upon traditional approaches to understanding the role of mass media in shaping social issues by amplifying diverse perspectives of opinion leaders, as well as voices of those affected by climate and sustainability issues. From South Korea and China, t ... more

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Digital News Report 2019
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Nic Newman, Richard Fletcher, Antonis Kalogeropoulos, Rasmus Kleis Nielsen (eds.)

Oxford: Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism (2019), 153 pp.

"Despite the efforts of the news industry, we find only a small increase in the numbers paying for any online news – whether by subscription, membership, or donation. Growth is limited to a handful of countries mainly in the Nordic region (Norway 34%, Sweden 27%) while the number paying in the US ... (16%) remains stable after a big jump in 2017. • Even in countries with higher levels of payment, the vast majority only have ONE online subscription – suggesting that ‘winner takes all’ dynamics are likely to be important. One encouraging development though is that most payments are now ‘ongoing’, rather than one-offs. In some countries, subscription fatigue may also be setting in, with the majority preferring to spend their limited budget on entertainment (Netflix/Spotify) rather than news. With many seeing news as a ‘chore’, publishers may struggle to substantially increase the market for high-priced ‘single title’ subscriptions. As more publishers launch pay models, over two-thirds (70%) of our sample in Norway and half (50%) in the United States now come across one or more barriers each week when trying to read online news. In many countries, people are spending less time with Facebook and more time with WhatsApp and Instagram than this time last year. Few users are abandoning Facebook entirely, though, and it remains by far the most important social network for news. Social communication around news is becoming more private as messaging apps continue to grow everywhere. WhatsApp has become a primary network for discussing and sharing news in non-Western countries like Brazil (53%) Malaysia (50%), and South Africa (49%). People in these countries are also far more likely than in the West to be part of large WhatsApp groups with people they don’t know – a trend that reflects how messaging applications can be used to easily share information at scale, potentially encouraging the spread of misinformation. Public and private Facebook Groups discussing news and politics have become popular in Turkey (29%) and Brazil (22%) but are much less used in Western countries such as Canada (7%) or Australia (7%). Concern about misinformation and disinformation remains high despite efforts by platforms and publishers to build public confidence. In Brazil 85% agree with a statement that they are worried about what is real and fake on the internet." (Summary, page 9) more

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Routledge Handbook of Ecocriticism and Environmental Communication

Scott Slovic, Swarnalatha Rangarajan, Vidya Sarveswaran (eds.)

London; New York: Routledge;Earthscan (2019), xxi, 412 pp.

"Ecocriticism and environmental communication studies have for many years co-existed as parallel disciplines, occasionally crossing paths but typically operating in separate academic spheres. These fields are now rapidly converging, and this handbook aims to reinforce the common concerns and methodo ... more

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Trusting News Project Report 2018

Rob Jones

Reynolds Journalism Institute (2019), 25 pp.

"In interviews with local journalists, 81 news consumers explained the qualities of trustworthy journalism, perceptions of fact-checking organizations, and expectations of transparency. A thematic analysis found balance, depth, and honesty among the most prevalent themes relating to trustworthy jour ... more

A Badge of Honor? How the New York Times Discredits President Trump’s Fake News Accusations

Juliane A. Lischka

Journalism Studies, volume 20, issue 2 (2019), pp. 287-304

"News organizations in many Western democracies face decreasing trust amid fake news accusations. In this situation, news organizations risk losing their license to operate and need to defend their legitimacy. This study analyzes how The New York Times (NYT) discredits fake news accusations, which a ... more

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Surprising News: How the Media Affect - and Do Not Affect - Politics

Kenneth Newton

Boulder; London: Rienner (2019), x, 277 pp.

"In chapter 2, the book lays down its foundations with a review of a large body of experimental psychology research on how and why individuals can preserve their beliefs, sometimes in the face of all evidence, logic, and argument to the contrary. The second part of the chapter shows that millions of ... people do the same in the real world outside the laboratories, whatever the media say [...] Chapter 3 considers political partisanship and party identification - that is, strong attachments to political ideas, values, and organizations. Experiments show that people are likely to engage in belief preservation where partisan opinions are concerned, and the same seems to be true of partisans in the outside world [...] Chapter 4 broadens the scope of inquiry to examine how non-partisanship and non-party political beliefs and values can influence the ways the majoritiy of individuals receive and process news reports and draw conclusions from them [...] The first eight chapters deal mainly with the micro, demand side of the equation - but there is also the macro, supply side of news media systems. Supply and demand are often analyzed separately, although understanding media effects requires examining the interaction between them [...] Chapter 9 compares commercial and public service broadcasting, showing that they have different effects on political knowledge, trust, participation, and democratic support. Chapter 10 turns to the classic theory of news media pluralism as a cornerstone of modern democracy [...] The research strategy of this book involves comparing and contrasting a large number of studies of media effects on political attitudes and behavior in order to compare and contrast the conclusions they reach. The book does not merely traingulate in order to reach reliabe conclusions, but it polyangulates, using many different studies written by sociologists, political scientists, psychologists, and economists who employ a variety of methods to investigate many possible media effects on politics. American and British research is used in the main, but single-country research on Russia, the Netherlands, Canada, France, Italy, Spain, Germany, and Belgium is included, as are comparative studies of European Union member states." (Chapter 1, page 2-5) more

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Global Information Society Watch 2019. Artificial Intelligence: Human Rights, Social Justice and Development
Top Insights

Association for Progressive Communications (APC);Article 19;Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida) (2019), 87 pp.

"Artificial intelligence (AI) is now receiving unprecedented global attention as it finds widespread practical application in multiple spheres of activity. But what are the human rights, social justice and development implications of AI when used in areas such as health, education and social service ... more

The Effects of Journalistic Transparency on Credibility Assessments and Engagement Intentions

Alexander L. Curry, Natalie Jomini Stroud

Journalism, volume 22, issue 4 (2019), pp. 901-918

"Transparency is an oft-cited remedy for the public’s lack of confidence in the news media. Yet scant empirical evidence exists to support this claim. This article presents a test of the relationship between increased journalistic transparency and credibility evaluations of a news organization. Ex ... more

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Comunicación, cultura de paz e igualdad: Tejiendo ciudadanía comunicativa

Claudia Cecilia Flores Pérez, Alex Iván Arévalo Salinas, Alejandro Barranquero Carretero (eds.)

Zacatecas, México: Universidad Autónoma de Zacatecas “Francisco García Salinas” (2019), 173 pp.