Challenging the Models of Terrorism Discourse in the News: European and Islamic Values in the French and Italian Press

2017 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 384-413
Author(s):  
Lorenzo Ugolini ◽  
Dario Fanara

The aim of this paper is to reflect on the social role of European journalists as they cover the issue of terrorism, which is a potential threat to European society itself. For this purpose, the paper presents the results of a qualitative media content analysis related to the news coverage of the aftermath of three major terrorist attacks. Specifically, the research focuses on the values involved in the coverage of the event rather than on the strict report of what happened. The authors observe that both liberal/‘trustee’ and polarized pluralist/‘advocacy’ models engender a double paradox concerning the interest of citizens in being informed or being protected by news media. Nonetheless, the liberal value of responsibility emerges as fundamental, in order to face and resolve this paradox.

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 218-236
Author(s):  
Jakub Jakubowski

Abstract Against the background of research conducted in other EU countries, Euroscepticism is a marginal sentiment among Poles. Nevertheless, this attitude and the arguments associated with it are noticeable in many areas in the public space: among members of the public presenting Eurosceptic arguments on the social media, journalists in press commentaries or politicians themselves. The aim of this article is to analyse the scale of such statements, their specific character and presence in the Polish press during the election and post-electoral period in 2015–2017. The study involved content analysis of selected text units which allowed the fundamental research question to be answered—namely, what is the nature of Eurosceptic attitudes manifested in the Polish press during the electoral/post-electoral period of lively discussions on the role of the European Union in Poland.


2018 ◽  
pp. 1060-1068
Author(s):  
Galina A. Dvoenosova ◽  

The article assesses synergetic theory of document as a new development in document science. In information society the social role of document grows, as information involves all members of society in the process of documentation. The transformation of document under the influence of modern information technologies increases its interest to representatives of different sciences. Interdisciplinary nature of document as an object of research leads to an ambiguous interpretation of its nature and social role. The article expresses and contends the author's views on this issue. In her opinion, social role of document is incidental to its being a main social tool regulating the life of civilized society. Thus, the study aims to create a scientific theory of document, explaining its nature and social role as a tool of social (goal-oriented) action and social self-organization. Substantiation of this idea is based on application of synergetics (i.e., universal theory of self-organization) to scientific study of document. In the synergetic paradigm, social and historical development is seen as the change of phases of chaos and order, and document is considered a main tool that regulates social relations. Unlike other theories of document, synergetic theory studies document not as a carrier and means of information transfer, but as a unique social phenomenon and universal social tool. For the first time, the study of document steps out of traditional frameworks of office, archive, and library. The document is placed on the scales with society as a global social system with its functional subsystems of politics, economy, culture, and personality. For the first time, the methods of social sciences and modern sociological theories are applied to scientific study of document. This methodology provided a basis for theoretical vindication of nature and social role of document as a tool of social (goal-oriented) action and social self-organization. The study frames a synergetic theory of document with methodological foundations and basic concepts, synergetic model of document, laws of development and effectiveness of document in the social continuum. At the present stage of development of science, it can be considered the highest form of theoretical knowledge of document and its scientific explanatory theory.


Author(s):  
Eduardo Manzano Moreno

This chapter addresses a very simple question: is it possible to frame coinage in the Early Middle Ages? The answer will be certainly yes, but will also acknowledge that we lack considerable amounts of relevant data potentially available through state-of-the-art methodologies. One problem is, though, that many times we do not really know the relevant questions we can pose on coins; another is that we still have not figured out the social role of coinage in the aftermath of the Roman Empire. This chapter shows a number of things that could only be known thanks to the analysis of coins. And as its title suggests it will also include some reflections on greed and generosity.


Author(s):  
Julia Partheymüller

It is widely believed that the news media have a strong influence on defining what are the most important problems facing the country during election campaigns. Yet, recent research has pointed to several factors that may limit the mass media’s agenda-setting power. Linking news media content to rolling cross-section survey data, the chapter examines the role of three such limiting factors in the context of the 2009 and the 2013 German federal elections: (1) rapid memory decay on the part of voters, (2) advertising by the political parties, and (3) the fragmentation of the media landscape. The results show that the mass media may serve as a powerful agenda setter, but also demonstrate that the media’s influence is strictly limited by voters’ cognitive capacities and the structure of the campaign information environment.


2015 ◽  
Vol 47 (3) ◽  
pp. 390-413 ◽  
Author(s):  
António Carlos Valera ◽  
Thomas Xaver Schuhmacher ◽  
Arun Banerjee

1997 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 189-198 ◽  
Author(s):  
K. CODELL CARTER

In early-nineteenth-century medical literature, one finds an elegant symmetry between causes of disease and causes of death: both were sufficient causes of particular events. However, as I will argue, by the end of the century physicians no longer sought sufficient causes of individual disease episodes – instead almost all of medical research was organized around the quest for necessary causes that were shared by all the episodes of each particular disease. Such causes carried great practical and theoretical advantages: they enabled physicians to control and to explain disease phenomena.One might wonder why there has been no parallel change in our thinking about causes of death; to this very day, causes of death are sufficient causes of particular events. In principle there is no apparent reason why we could not identify necessary causes for classes of deaths – indeed, we sometimes do so. But, in the case of death, such causes hold little interest. Because of how they are used, sufficient causes for individual deaths are more interesting and more important to us than are necessary causes of deaths. Thus, the change in thinking about causes of disease – the change that destroyed the symmetry between causes of disease and causes of death – may not reflect simply progress within a fixed system of medical goals and values, but a profound change in the social role of physicians.


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