1-The Mission of Arab Journalism: Creating Change in a Time of Turmoil
Lawrence Pintak
American University in Cairo
Jeremy Ginges
New School for Social Research
The International Journal of Press/Politics
July 2008, Volume 13, No. 3
http://hij.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/13/3/193
In the years after 9/11, the Bush administration repeatedly charged that the Arab media are biased against the United States. A cross-border survey of 601 Arab journalists found that much of the conventional wisdom that has shaped U.S. public diplomacy policy toward the region lacks substance.Arab journalists see their mission as that of driving political and social reform in the Middle East and North Africa. Iraq and Palestine fall well below such internal Arab issues as political reform, human rights, poverty, and education as priority concerns.They draw a clear distinction between U.S. policy and the American people; criticize the U.S. for failing to live up to its ideals, which they largely share; and exhibit skepticism about the role of the clergy. Politically, half call themselves "democrats," and they most closely identify with the pan-Arab region and the broader Muslim world, not with an individual nation-state.
Key Words: Middle East • terrorism • foreign news • journalistic norms • nationalism • news reporting
2- Four Phases of Mediatization: An Analysis of the Mediatization of Politics
Jesper Strömbäck
Department of Media and Communication, Mid Sweden University, S-851 70 Sundsvall, Sweden, jesper.stromback@miun.se
The International Journal of Press/Politics
July 2008, Volume 13, No. 3
http://hij.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/13/3/228
Two concepts that have been used to describe the changes with regards to media and politics during the last fifty years are the concepts of mediation and mediatization . However, both these concepts are used more often than they are properly defined. Moreover, there is a lack of analysis of the process of mediatization, although the concept as such denotes a process.Thus the purpose of this article is to analyze the concepts of mediated and mediatized politics from a process-oriented perspective. The article argues that mediatization is a multidimensional and inherently process-oriented concept and that it is possible to make a distinction between four phases of mediatization. Each of these phases is analyzed.The conclusion is that as politics becomes increasingly mediatized, the important question no longer is related to the independence of the media from politics and society. The important question becomes the independence of politics and society from the media.
Key Words: mediated politics • mediatization • press politics • media logic • political logic
3- What's the Fuss About? The Interplay of Media Hypes and Politics
Christian Elmelund-Præstekær
Department of Political Science and Public Management, University of Southern Denmark, Campusvej 55, 5230 Odense M, Denmark, cel@sam.sdu.dk
Charlotte Wien
University of Southern Denmark, chw@sam.sdu.dk
The International Journal of Press/Politics
July 2008, Volume 13, No. 3
http://hij.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/13/3/247
Media hypes on social problems occur on a regular basis and they seem to generate a lot of political activity. This article asks the question whether media hypes have any influence on public policies central issue of the hype—and if any, what kind of influence? Five media hypes on the same subject area (the care for and spending on the elderly) are analyzed.Their immediate influence on policy making is traced, and although the media often is assumed to exercise real political power through media hypes, no—or only few—traces of such direct political influence is found. Instead media hypes are used strategically by politicians to forward their ongoing work and their positions in the public debate, thus if the media gains political influence because of media hypes one can only see this influence as diffuse and not directly linked to the media hypes themselves.
Key Words: media hype • media power • welfare policy • policy making • news making
4- Media in the Game of Politics: Effects of Strategic Metacoverage on Political Cynicism
Claes H. de Vreese
Amsterdam School of Communications Research, University of Amsterdam, Kloveniersburgwal 48, 1012 CX Amsterdam, The Netherlands, c.h.devreese@uva.nl
Matthijs Elenbaas
University of Amsterdam
The International Journal of Press/Politics
July 2008, Volume 13, No. 3
http://hij.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/13/3/285
This study examines the effects of generic strategy news, self-referential press news, and "spin" spotlighting publicity coverage on political cynicism, against the backdrop of governance and policy. Drawing on data from two experiments allowing for replication within a single study, the authors demonstrate that exposure to both generic and publicity strategy news aroused political cynicism relative to issue-based news. In addition, the authors found positive interactions between political knowledge and strategic press and publicity news exposure, showing that more knowledgeable individuals were more strongly affected by these frames. The findings are discussed in the light of extant knowledge about framing effects and the media's increasing use of metareporting.
Key Words: strategic news • press framing • publicity framing • political cynicism • moderators of framing effects
5 -The 2008 Spanish General Elections: "Antagonistic Bipolarization" Geared by Presidential Debates, Partisanship, and Media Interests
Víctor Sampedro
URJC, Camino del Molino s/n, E 28943 Fuenlabrada, Madrid, Spain, sampedro@nodo50.org
Francisco Seoane Pérez
Institute of Communications Studies, University of Leeds, LS2 9JT, Leeds, UK, icsfsp@leeds.ac.uk
The International Journal of Press/Politics
July 2008, Volume 13, No. 3
http://hij.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/13/3/336
The Spanish general elections of 2008 held attributes familiar to Western democracies: permanent campaigning, negativism, and personalization. The mainstream media played along the strategy of bipartisan polarization encouraged by the Socialists and the conservatives, which resulted in a loss of power for the smaller nationalist parties and the postcommunist left. Candidate debates returned to Spanish television after fifteen years, but the moderating role of journalists was banned by the two big parties, who defined and agreed on the debate topics beforehand.The use of new communication technologies by political parties did not result in an open-source campaign. Spontaneous citizen participation was more feared than desired, and formerly revolutionary Web 2.0 was co-opted and tamed by the parties, integrating it into their political marketing tool kit.
Key Words: Spain • elections • campaigns • political communication • Web 2.0
6- Politics and Media in the 2007 Argentine Presidential Elections
Lila Luchessi
School of Social Sciences, University of Buenos Aires; Saint Andrews, Columbia, Clarín Group; Faculty of Humanities, National University of Tucumán; and National University of La Plata, luchessi@fibertel.com.ar , luchessi@gmail.com
The International Journal of Press/Politics
July 2008, Volume 13, No. 3
http://hij.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/13/3/345
The 2007 elections put in evidence the current relationship among politics, media, and public opinion in Argentina. Whereas the 2001 crisis palpably showed the gap between political leadership and social demands, the 2007 election showed a gradual realignment of political and social cleavages.The media, particularly newspapers, clearly express this realignment as editorial positions closely matched audiences' political preferences during the campaign.
Key Words: campaign • media • public opinion • readership
7-Virtual News
BBC News at a `Future Media and Technology' Crossroads
Peter Lee-Wright
Goldsmiths College, UK, p.lee-wright@gold.ac.uk
Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies
August 2008, Volume 14, No. 3
http://con.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/14/3/249
This article assesses the strategies of BBC News as it repositions itself for the digital future, explores how impartiality is being redefined, evaluates the impact of technology-led strategies on newsgathering and notes the tensions between rival forces inside the BBC. The corporation is engaged in an internal upheaval of seismic proportions, as technological change accelerates and the largest ever round of job losses threatens. There is a titanic struggle between the technologists — who have been rebranded as über-divisional force Future Media and Technology — and the programme makers, who feel their role and resources have been cut to make way for the new platforms. In the FMT corner, its director Ashley Highfield is making apocalyptic announcements, characterized by BBC house newspaper Ariel as `Get web savvy or we die', while programme executives are saying that the BBC needs to recognize and protect its core strengths in content provision, not pretend it can compete with the cyber-cities of Google and co. It's not future technology, it's here and now, they say, but it should not be allowed to override the values and objectives of their public service remit. This article is based on research carried out for the `Spaces of the News' research project, one of five strands of the Goldsmiths Media Research Programme, Spaces, Connectivity and Control , funded by the Leverhulme Trust, which is designed to evaluate the social impact of changes in communication technology.
Key Words: BBC News • digitalization • newsgathering • Ofcom • user generated content
8- Discussion Forums, Games and Second Life
Exploring the Value of Public Broadcasters' Marginal Online Activities
Hallvard Moe
University of Bergen, Norway, hallvard.moe@infomedia.uib.no
Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies
August 2008, Volume 14, No. 3
http://con.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/14/3/261
Across Western Europe, public broadcasters have built their internet presence into sprawling sites encompassing a multitude of services. This development illustrates the need for redefining the role of public service media in a digital era. The article scrutinizes dilemmas following the emerging EU competition law-inspired policy approach to public broadcasters' internet activities, and discusses the potential public service value of online communication. The article draws on three cases representing services seemingly far removed from redistribution of radio and television: an internet discussion forum (ZDF), a web-based game (NRK), and a virtual online world activity (BBC). These sometimes controversial experiments are well suited to challenge both accustomed perceptions of public service, and ideas about the potential contributions of online communication. By scrutinizing marginal parts the article explores the limits of public broadcasters' publicly funded activities. It thereby aims to revitalize the discussion about the functions of public service as a media policy tool.
Key Words: internet • media policy • online communication • public broadcasters • public service media
9- Online Media Within the Public Service Realm?
Reasons to Include Online into the Public Service Mission
Josef Trappel
University of Zurich, Switzerland, j.trappel@ipmz.uzh.ch
Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies
August 2008, Volume 14, No. 3
http://con.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/14/3/313
Public service media are no longer limited to radio and television as new media genres emerge. Among others, the online medium has supplemented radio, television and the press since the mid-1990s and has become a medium in its own right. Moreover, online media have become essential elements of media consumption patterns. Public service media compete not only with private radio and television broadcasters but also with the press. The question arises, whether such competition in the online field results in more diversity and higher output quality, serving the public interest better. In Europe, there are at least two different schools of thought. One line of argument accepts the public service expansion into online media and regards online media as a necessary and important field for public service activities. Another line of argument suggests limiting the public service remit strictly to radio and broadcasting and considers online media as an emerging market subject to competition among private companies only. Based on the results of a comparative empirical analysis of online media provided by public service broadcasters and print publishers in Switzerland, Germany and Austria (from 2006) this article shows that the achieved results in media output are disappointing. Only few online media live up to the expectations. The article finally argues that the extension of the public service remit to online media might enhance quality and diversity.
Key Words: digital media • diversity • online media • online performance • public service media • quality
10-Can PSB Stake its Claim in a Media World of Digital Convergence?
The Case of the Flemish PSB Management Contract Renewal from an International Perspective
Hilde Van den Bulck
University of Antwerp, Belgium, Hilde.vandenbulck@ua.ac.be
Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies
August 2008, Volume 14, No. 3
http://con.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/14/3/335
Taking the renewal of the management contract (2007—11) of Flemish PSB as a case in point, this article — by means of a policy analysis model — intends to contribute to a better understanding of the role of the technological argument of digitization in policy making and to the ongoing discussion in public and academic forums about the role and position of PSB in the 21st century. Theoretically, the article concentrates on the dominant and alternative paradigms that feed contemporary discussions regarding the possible and `legitimate' role(s) of PSB in a globalizing and digital interactive cross- and multimedia environment. Special attention is paid to the positions of technology and culture in the discourses on what constitutes a `legitimate' future for PSB, as these two aspects seem to have (re)gained momentum in the renewed debates regarding the raison d'être and accountability of PSB. This article focuses on the policy process leading up to the new management contract of Flemish PSB. In particular, it analyses the discourses of relevant stakeholders that have dominated the process and influenced the eventual outcome. To this end, desk research and close reading of relevant texts are combined with interviews with relevant actors and privileged witnesses. These findings are then evaluated against the wider international context of European discussions regarding the future of PSB and some of its core characteristics in a media world dominated by digital convergence.
Key Words: digital convergence • media policy • public service broadcasting • public service media • stakeholder analysis • technological determinism • technological nationalism
11-Public Service Broadcasting in Converging Media Modalities
Practices and Reflections from the Netherlands
Johannes Bardoel
ASCoR/University of Amsterdam and Radboud University Nijmegen, j.l.h.bardoel@uva.nl , j.bardoel@maw.ru.nl
Leen d'Haenens
Catholic University of Leuven and Radboud University Nijmegen, leen.dhaenens@ soc.kuleuven.be
Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies
August 2008, Volume 14, No. 3
http://con.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/14/3/351
This contribution makes a case for the convergence between technologies as a basis for public access to digital cultural heritage in an age where citizens increasingly seek alternative sources of information and have the power to choose, compare, and publish opinions of their own online. The stage on which European public broadcasters perform nowadays is being thoroughly transformed, and although the preconditions for multimedia strategies seem to be much more advantageous than just a few years ago, public broadcasters will need to decide to extend their portfolio of platforms and channels if they want to reach out to all generations, including the young ones. The Dutch public broadcaster seems to adopt an active strategy in the digital domain, however, this strategy is still expressed in technological and economical terms and takes insufficient account of the viewers' present and future media use. This touches on another angle from which to view the link between public broadcasting and ICT: the necessity for PSB to capture new user groups with innovative content, consistently clustered, and in line with the public service mandate.
Key Words: convergence • digitization • Dutch public broadcaster • multimedia • public service broadcasting • public service media • public service mission
12-Biotechnology and the Popular Press in Northern Belgium
A Case Study of Hegemonic Media Discourses and the Interpretive Struggle
Pieter A. Maeseele
Ghent University, Belgium, Pieter.Maeseele@UGent.be
Dimitri Schuurman
Ghent University, Belgium
Science Communication
June 2008, Volume 29, No. 4
http://scx.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/29/4/435
The media representation of biotechnology has received widespread attention during the last decade. Two gaps, however, are present in this literature, both of which are addressed in this study. We present data from a content analysis of coverage appearing in three popular newspapers in Northern Belgium between January 2000 and October 2004 (N = 506). The main findings reveal that the trends identified in the European elite press from 1992 to 1999 are confirmed and strengthened after 2000 in popular press coverage, resulting in a greater diversity of sources and perspectives than before. Our findings also reveal that different media sources achieve standing to strategically frame the biotech issue in advantageous terms, resulting in different representations for each application. Hegemonic discourse in terms of a source-generated pro-biotechnology bias is found to be solid for biomedical biotechnology, heavily under siege by challengers in the case of agricultural biotechnology, and characterized by dissension in the case of reproductive cloning.
Key Words: Belgium • biotechnology • framing • media sociology • popular press
13-Global Bird Flu Communication
Hot Crisis and Media Reassurance
Sheldon Ungar
University of Toronto at Scarborough, Canada, ungar@utsc.utoronto.ca
Science Communication
June 2008, Volume 29, No. 4
http://scx.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/29/4/472
Drawing predominately on a once-a-day Google News Alert for newspaper coverage of the "bird flu," this study examines global discourses on this topic in terms of alarming and reassuring coverage. Three stages of discourse are identified. The first is termed sounding the alarm, where fearful claims making predominates. The second is mixed messages, and involves a continuation of the threat with efforts to moderate it with elements of reassurance, including scientific promises and national plans to combat bird flu. The third stage is hot crisis and containment, and involves efforts to undo the most frightful elements of the avian mutation interpretative package as the H5N1 virus spreads into Europe.
Key Words: bird flu • hot crisis • interpretive packages • media • moderation effects • risk
14-Web-Based Network Sampling
Efficiency and Efficacy of Respondent-Driven Sampling for Online Research
Cyprian Wejnert
Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, cw79@cornell.edu
Douglas D. Heckathorn
Cornell University, Ithaca, New York
Sociological Methods & Research
August 2008, Volume 37, No. 1
http://smr.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/37/1/105
This study tests the feasibility, effectiveness, and efficiency of respondent-driven sampling (RDS) as a Web-based sampling method. Web-based RDS (WebRDS) is found to be highly efficient and effective. The online nature of WebRDS allows referral chains to progress very quickly, such that studies with large samples can be expected to proceed up to 20 times faster than with traditional sampling methods. Additionally, the unhidden nature of the study population allows comparison of RDS estimators to institutional data. Results indicate that RDS estimates are reasonable but not precise. This is likely due to bias associated with the random recruitment assumption and small sample size of the study. Finally, this article presents methods for testing the validity of assumptions required by RDS estimation.
Key Words: respondent-driven sampling • online research • network sampling • higher education
15-From the air to the ground: the internet in the 2004 US presidential campaign
Cristian Vaccari
University of Bologna, Italy
New Media & Society
August 2008, Volume 10, No. 4
http://nms.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/10/4/647
Political campaigns have learned how to take advantage of online tools not only to communicate their message, but also, and more importantly, to mobilize supporters and provide opportunities for e-volunteers to become engaged in the process. Among the most significant developments in the 2004 US presidential election were strategies and tools designed to facilitate the transition from online to off-line engagement, thus strengthening field operations in a campaign where the ground game proved to be a crucial asset. These topics are addressed through in-depth qualitative interviews with senior aides to the e-campaigns of George W. Bush and John F. Kerry. Online political communication professionals predict that in the future the internet will become an increasingly relevant tool in campaigns and that its functions will be adopted all through the campaign organization.
Key Words: 2004 elections • grassroots • internet and politics • online activism • online campaigning • online mobilization • political participation
16-Focus on form: foregrounding devices in football reporting
Jan Chovanec
MASARYK UNIVERSITY, CZECH REPUBLIC, chovanec@phil.muni.cz
Discourse & Communication
August 2008, Volume 2, No. 3
http://dcm.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/2/3/219
This article documents some foregrounding devices that the media use to attract readers' attention to linguistic forms, all identified in sports reports relating to the Euro 2004 Football Championship published in various British newspapers. A functional explanation is offered in terms of the poetic and interactive character of such devices and their role in simulating friendship and encouraging `bonding' between the writers and readers (phaticity). Their omnipresence in the British media is linked with structural characteristics of the English language, the readiness of the British to tolerate manipulation of linguistic forms, and the general trend towards `infotainment' in the media.
Key Words: foregrounding • headlines • infotainment • media discourse • multimodality • poetic function
17-Remembering Public Service Broadcasting
Liberty and Security in Early ABC Online Interactive Sites
Maureen Burns
University of Queensland, Australia
Television & New Media
September 2008, Volume 9, No. 5
http://tvn.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/9/5/392
In the late nineties the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) website, ABC Online, was very successful at a time when the ABC experienced severe political hostility and funding reductions. This paper offers case studies of the early implementation of interactive online sites at the ABC to explore an alternative remembering of the ABC. Using the success of ABC Online as a model of how to remember the ABC, one might choose to remember the ABC as dispersed and plural, even rhizomic. Rather than being nostalgic for a unified past or future, we might instead be nostalgic for the diversity, plurality and in-between nature of ABC practices and programming.
Key Words: new media • public service broadcasting • Australian Broadcasting Corporation • online interactive sites
18-AGlobal 24/7 news providers
Emissaries of global dominance or global public sphere?
Simon Cottle
Cardiff University, UK, cottles@cardiff.ac.uk
Mugdha Rai
University of Melbourne, Australia, m.rai@unimelb.edu.au
Global Media and Communication
August 2008, Volume 4, No. 2
http://gmc.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/4/2/15
The study of international and global news to date has focused on the operation of foreign news values, the unequal flows and emergent contra-flows of transnational news as well as the phenomenology of 24/7 live broadcasts. Today these debates are often played out under opposing `global dominance' and `global public sphere' positions. Each in its own way is concerned about communications democracy — whether its discerned curtailment by processes of geo-political economy or temporal-spatial extension by increased global cultural flows. In this article we contend that there is a `democratic lacuna' at the heart of these debates. This silence concerns how exactly leading world news channels — principally CNNI and BBC World but also international competitors such as Sky and Fox News — communicatively present the voices, views and values of contending interests and identities from around the world. Elaborating a new conception of `communicative frames' based on contemporary positions of social and political theory and applying this to a large corpus of news output, we begin to evaluate generalizing theoretical claims, both critical and celebratory, about the contribution of global 24/7 news to processes of global dominance or an emergent global public sphere.
Key Words: BBC World • CNNI • communicative frames • Fox News • global dominance • global news • global public sphere • Sky
19-The death of news
Martin Bell
Former BBC war reporter
Media, War & Conflict
August 2008, Volume 1, No. 2
http://mwc.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/1/2/221
Martin Bell argues that war reporting as it has been practised from the time of William Howard Russell in the Crimea is no longer possible. He describes this commentary as its obituary. Twenty-first century warfare as conducted in Iraq and Afghanistan offers no foothold for independent and free-ranging journalism. Reporters are driven back into green zones and fortified compounds where they no longer have a function as eyewitnesses. Embedded reporting is so limited in scope that it serves as little more than a recruiting movie. Wars which are fought among the people are no longer reported from among the people. The news agenda has also retreated from the real world into a comfort zone of its own. A cloud of obscurity has settled over the battlefield.
Key Words: Afghanistan • embedded journalism • Iraq • war reporting
20-Contra-flow from the Arab world? How Arab television coverage of the
2003 Iraq war was used and framed on Western international news
Channels
Hartmut Wessler and Manuel Adolphsen
Media, Culture & Society
July 2008, Volume 30, No. 4
http://mcs.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/30/4/439
This article empirically addresses the prospects of contra-flow from the periphery to
the center in international conflict communication. It investigates how Western international
TV news channels used and framed material from Arab television stations in
their coverage of the 2003 Iraq war. Utilizations of and references to Arab channels
make up a limited but not negligible portion of nightly newscasts of CNN
International, BBC World and Deutsche Welle-TV. In some areas the three Western
channels rely considerably on material from Arab channels, namely in their coverage
of meetings of the Iraqi leadership, Allied prisoners of war and, to a lesser degree,
Allied military failures, Iraqi war victims and statements by Iraqi officials. The study
reveals six different frames used in characterizing Arab news broadcasting on the
Western channels. These range from Arab stations being framed as a remarkable source
of front-line information and a discerning watchdog of humanitarian concerns on the
one hand, to being the willing mouthpiece of the irrational on the other. The impact of
Arab channels mainly lies in showing that a different (Arab) perspective on the war
exists – rather than in creating a genuine global discourse through contra-flow.
Keywords: Al-Jazeera, BBC World, CNN International, conflict communication,
Deutsche Welle-TV, framing, war coverage
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