Post-Truth and Critical Communication Studies

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jayson Harsin
Keyword(s):  
Digital Media ◽  
News Media ◽  
Mass Communication ◽  
Social Trust ◽  
Climate Science ◽  
Weak Form ◽  
The United States ◽  
Historical Period ◽  
Political Condition ◽  
False News

While the periodizing concept “post-truth” (PT) initially appeared in the United States as a key word of popular politics in the form “post-truth politics” or “post-truth society,” it quickly appeared in many languages. It is now the object of increasing scholarly attention and public debate. Its popular and academic treatments sometimes differ in respect to its meaning, but most associate it with communication forms such as fake or false news, rumors, hoaxes, and political lying. They also identify causes such as polarization and unethical politicians or unregulated social media; shoddy journalism; or simply the inevitable chaos ushered in by digital media technologies. PT is sometimes posited as a social and political condition whereby citizens or audiences and politicians no longer respect truth (e.g., climate science deniers or “birthers”) but simply accept as true what they believe or feel. However, more rigorously, PT is actually a breakdown of social trust, which encompasses what was formerly the major institutional truth-teller or publicist—the news media. What is accepted as popular truth is really a weak form of knowledge, opinion based on trust in those who supposedly know. Critical communication approaches locate its historical legacy in the earliest forms of political persuasion and questions of ethics and epistemology, such as those raised by Plato in the Gorgias. While there are timeless similarities, PT is a 21st-century phenomenon. It is not “after” truth but after a historical period where interlocking elite institutions were discoverers, producers, and gatekeepers of truth, accepted by social trust (the church, science, governments, the school, etc.). Critical scholars have identified a more complex historical set of factors, to which popular proposed solutions have been mostly blind. Modern origins of PT lie in the anxious elite negotiation of mass representative liberal democracy with proposals for organizing and deploying mass communication technologies. These elites consisted of pioneers in the influence or persuasion industries, closely associated with government and political practice and funding, and university research. These influence industries were increasingly accepted not just by business but also by (resource-rich) professional political actors. Their object was not policy education and argument to constituents but, increasingly strategically, emotion and attention management. PT can usefully be understood in the context of its historical emergence, through its popular forms and responses, such as rumors, conspiracies, hoaxes, fake news, fact-checking, and filter bubbles, as well as through its multiple effects—not the least of which the discourse of panic about it.

scholarly journals Digital Media and the Entrenchment of Right-Wing Populist Agendas

2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 205630511988532 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ralph Schroeder
Keyword(s):  
Digital Media ◽  
Political Communication ◽  
News Media ◽  
The United States ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Negative Effects ◽  
Electoral Success ◽  
The Media ◽  
Media Manipulation ◽  
Political Divide

Since Brexit and the election of President Donald Trump, news media around the world have given extensive coverage to the issue of disinformation and polarization. This article argues that while the negative effects of social media have dominated the discussion, these effects do not address how right-wing populists have been able to successfully and legitimately use digital media to circumvent traditional media. The article uses the United States and Sweden as case studies about how digital media have helped to achieve electoral success and shift the political direction in both countries—though in quite different ways. It also argues that the sources of right-wing populism go beyond the hitherto dominant left–right political divide, capturing anti-elite sentiment, and promoting exclusionary nationalism. The dominance of the issue of media manipulation has obscured the shift whereby the relation between the media and politics has become more fluid and antagonistic, which fits the populist agenda. This shift requires a rethinking of political communication that includes both the social forces that give rise to populism and the alternative digital channels that entrench them, with implications for the prospects of the role of media in politics in the two countries and beyond.

Journalistic Depictions of Uncertainty about Climate Change

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Painter
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
New Media ◽  
News Media ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
Qualitative Content Analysis ◽  
Climate Science ◽  
The United States ◽  
Political Debate ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Many

Media research has historically concentrated on the many uncertainties in climate science either as a dominant discourse in media treatments measured by various forms of quantitative and qualitative content analysis or as the presence of skepticism, in its various manifestations, in political discourse and media coverage. More research is needed to assess the drivers of such skepticism in the media, the changing nature of skeptical discourse in some countries, and important country differences as to the prevalence of skepticism in political debate and media coverage. For example, why are challenges to mainstream climate science common in some Anglophone countries such as the United Kingdom, the United States, and Australia but not in other Western nations? As the revolution in news consumption via new players and platforms causes an increasingly fragmented media landscape, there are significant gaps in understanding where, why, and how skepticism appears. In particular, we do not know enough about the ways new media players depict the uncertainties around climate science and how this may differ from previous coverage in traditional and mainstream news media. We also do not know how their emphasis on visual content affects audience understanding of climate change.

Analysis of Data Model for News Media

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
O Balalaieva ◽  
Keyword(s):  
New Media ◽  
Digital Media ◽  
News Media ◽  
Data Model ◽  
Mass Communication ◽  
Synergetic Effect ◽  
Active Role ◽  
Metadata Model ◽  
Modern Mass

Abstract. The article deals with communicative aspect of using metadata in news media. The relevance of the study is due to the objective need for theoretical justification and the specification of new communication models that have arisen with new channels of communication emergence, media digitalization and convergence. Some modern scientific works raise issue of “the communication of metadata model” in connection with the development of metadata journalism. In particular, the purpose of this article is to analyze the components of the metadata model in news media by the standard of the International Press Telecommunications Council. The rNews standard defines the terminology and a data model for embedding metadata in web documents. It was found that the rNews data model is nonlinear, because the communication in new media is positioned as a two-way process of interaction of actors. The model captures the feedback elements: one of its components is the User Comments Class with the relevant attributes, which, on the one hand, helps to make communication more effective, as the active role of the audience is provided, supported and stimulated, and on the other – makes it possible to create the original metatext. In the communicative aspect, the model is based on a two-way asymmetric model that fixes the feedback, but retains the leading role of the communicator. Asymmetry is reflected in the quantitative (disproportion between the number of “professional” and “naïve” communicators), communicative (disproportion of the “voices” of communicators and recipients, interfering with the building a dialogue) and intentional (unequal intentions of communicators and recipients) forms. The model reflects the general trends in the development of modern mass communication: the target setting for the formation not knowledge, but opinion, the removal of barriers to the involvement of audience in communication, the shift of information from the objective, factual, not related to the situation and participants of communication to a pragmatic, subjective one, synergetic effect of interactive polycode content. Issues of modeling communication processes in new digital media, the transformation of the roles of communicators and recipients, the formation and dissemination of polycode content, its impact on the audience are promising areas of further research and can be explored in various aspects.

scholarly journals The CogMedia Project: Open Data and Tools for Linking Cognitive Science and Mass Media

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rick Dale
Keyword(s):  
Quantitative Analysis ◽  
Mass Media ◽  
Cognitive Science ◽  
News Media ◽  
Mass Communication ◽  
Empirical Work ◽  
Open Data ◽  
The United States ◽  
Mass Scale ◽  
Collective Attention

Minds produce and consume news media. Because of this central relevance of minds, theories of mass media may be informed by the methods and measures of cognitive science. These measures could enhance understanding of the factors guiding news consumption habits. These measures could also help to explain how news themes accumulate collective attention. CogMedia is introduced here as an open resource for facilitating a connection between mind and mass communication. It contains hundreds of thousands of major headlines from large news media organizations, primarily in the United States. In addition, it has a set of open analysis tools for conducting quantitative analysis in R. This paper motivates CogMedia with background theoretical and empirical review. Theoretical discussion centers on complexity science as a framework for understanding mass-scale systems and the cognitive agents that underlie them. Following this background review and motivation, the paper introduces CogMedia, and illustrates potential quantitative analysis and data visualization using these open tools. Future empirical work is discussed, along with relevant theoretical implications.

scholarly journals Populist Attitudes and Selective Exposure to Online News: A Cross-Country Analysis Combining Web Tracking and Surveys

2020 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
pp. 426-446 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sebastian Stier ◽  
Nora Kirkizh ◽  
Caterina Froio ◽  
Ralph Schroeder
Keyword(s):  
Digital Media ◽  
Web Sites ◽  
News Media ◽  
Online Survey ◽  
The United States ◽  
Selective Exposure ◽  
Online News ◽  
News Sources ◽  
Data Limitations ◽  
Demographic Attributes

Research has shown that citizens with populist attitudes evaluate the news media more negatively, and there is also suggestive evidence that they rely less on established news sources like the legacy press. However, due to data limitations, there is still no solid evidence whether populist citizens have skewed news diets in the contemporary high-choice digital media environment. In this paper, we rely on the selective exposure framework and investigate the relationship between populist attitudes and the consumption of various types of online news. To test our theoretical assumptions, we link 150 million Web site visits by 7,729 Internet users in France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the United States to their responses in an online survey. This design allows us to measure media exposure more precisely than previous studies while linking these data to demographic attributes and political attitudes of participants. The results show that populist attitudes leave pronounced marks in people’s news diets, but the evidence is heterogeneous and highly contingent on the supply side of a country’s media system. Most importantly, citizens with populist attitudes visit less Web sites from the legacy press, while consuming more hyperpartisan news. Despite these tendencies, the Web tracking data show that populist citizens still primarily get their news from established sources. We discuss the implications of these results for the current state of public spheres in democracies.

scholarly journals A digital media literacy intervention increases discernment between mainstream and false news in the United States and India

2020 ◽  
Vol 117 (27) ◽  
pp. 15536-15545 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew M. Guess ◽  
Michael Lerner ◽  
Benjamin Lyons ◽  
Jacob M. Montgomery ◽  
Brendan Nyhan ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Digital Media ◽  
Media Literacy ◽  
Representative Sample ◽  
The United States ◽  
Literacy Campaign ◽  
Northern India ◽  
False News ◽  
Digital Media Literacy ◽  
News Headlines

Widespread belief in misinformation circulating online is a critical challenge for modern societies. While research to date has focused on psychological and political antecedents to this phenomenon, few studies have explored the role of digital media literacy shortfalls. Using data from preregistered survey experiments conducted around recent elections in the United States and India, we assess the effectiveness of an intervention modeled closely on the world’s largest media literacy campaign, which provided “tips” on how to spot false news to people in 14 countries. Our results indicate that exposure to this intervention reduced the perceived accuracy of both mainstream and false news headlines, but effects on the latter were significantly larger. As a result, the intervention improved discernment between mainstream and false news headlines among both a nationally representative sample in the United States (by 26.5%) and a highly educated online sample in India (by 17.5%). This increase in discernment remained measurable several weeks later in the United States (but not in India). However, we find no effects among a representative sample of respondents in a largely rural area of northern India, where rates of social media use are far lower.

Agenda Setting and Journalism

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sebastián Valenzuela
Keyword(s):  
Digital Media ◽  
News Media ◽  
Agenda Setting ◽  
The United States ◽  
Radio Stations ◽  
Journalism Studies ◽  
Psychological Mechanisms ◽  
Media Agenda ◽  
The Media ◽  
Digital Algorithms

People use the news media to learn about the world beyond their family, neighborhood, and workplace. As news consumers, we depend on what television, social media, websites, radio stations, and newspapers decide to inform us about. This is because all news media, whether through journalists or digital algorithms, select, process, and filter information to their users. Over time, the aspects that are prominent in the news media usually become prominent in public opinion. The ability of journalists to influence which issues, aspects of these issues, and persons related to these issues, are perceived as the most salient has come to be called the agenda-setting effect of journalism. First described by Maxwell McCombs and Donald Shaw in a seminal study conducted during the 1968 elections in the United States, agenda-setting theory has expanded to include several other aspects beyond the transfer of salience of issues from the media agenda to the public agenda. These aspects include: the influence of journalism on the attributes of issues and people that make news; the networks between the different elements in the media and public agendas; the determinants of the news media agenda; the psychological mechanisms that regulate agenda-setting effects; and the consequences of agenda setting on both citizens’ and policymakers’ attitudes and behaviors. As one of the most comprehensive and international theories of journalism studies available, agenda setting continues to evolve in the expanding digital media landscape.

The Setting

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicolette D. Manglos-Weber
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Social Trust ◽  
The United States ◽  
Evangelical Christianity ◽  
Interracial Relations ◽  
Personal Trust ◽  
Conceptual Background ◽  
History Of ◽  
Role Of Religion

This chapter presents the historical and conceptual background to the book’s argument. It starts with a history of Ghana, followed by an analysis of the trends that have led to high levels of out-migration, and then to a description of Ghanaian populations in Chicago. Next, it addresses the concept of social trust in general and personal trust in particular, developing a theory of personal trust as an imaginative and symbolic activity, and analyzing interracial relations through the lens of racialized distrust. It concludes by describing the role of religion in the integration of immigrant groups into the United States and the particular religious frameworks that characterize Charismatic Evangelical Christianity in Ghana.

Stranger Danger

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul M. Renfro
Keyword(s):  
News Media ◽  
Sex Offender ◽  
The United States ◽  
Family Values ◽  
Law And Order ◽  
High Profile ◽  
Amber Alerts ◽  
Actual Figure ◽  
Stranger Danger ◽  
Murdered Children

Starting in the late 1970s, a moral panic concerning child kidnapping and exploitation gripped the United States. For many Americans, a series of high-profile cases of missing and murdered children, publicized through an emergent twenty-four-hour news cycle, signaled a “national epidemic” of child abductions perpetrated by strangers. Some observers insisted that fifty thousand or more children fell victim to stranger kidnappings in any given year. (The actual figure was and remains about one hundred.) Stranger Danger demonstrates how racialized and sexualized fears of stranger abduction—stoked by the news media, politicians from across the partisan divide, bereaved parents, and the business sector—helped to underwrite broader transformations in US political culture and political economy. Specifically, the child kidnapping scare further legitimated a bipartisan investment in “family values” and “law and order,” thereby enabling the development and expansion of sex offender registries, AMBER Alerts, and other mechanisms designed to safeguard young Americans and their families from “stranger danger”—and to punish the strangers who supposedly threatened them.

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