scholarly journals Hostile emotions: An exploratory study of far-right online commenters and their emotional connection to traditional and alternative news media

Journalism ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 146488492098572
Author(s):  
Karoline Andrea Ihlebæk ◽  
Carina Riborg Holter

In this article, we explore media use through the perspective of emotions. We specifically focus on a contested group of media users, namely those who engage in uncivil online behaviour and have had one or several comments deleted by moderators due to xenophobic and racist content. Our point of departure is that the informants represent a particularly engaged yet controversial audience. Based on theoretical perspectives on ‘hostile emotions’ like anger and fear and how the news media function as ‘emotional regimes’, we explore how the informants talk about their worldview and how it affects their media choices. We argue that political fear constitutes a powerful part of the informants’ narratives, which again influences their media use. Even though they are highly sceptical and suspicious, the participants in the study seek information from a wide selection of traditional and alternative sources where their worldview is both contested and confirmed. Furthermore, the strong fear expressed by informants constitute an important element of the anger they feel towards the established news media. This particular anger is structured around the notion of objective reporting that they consider highly provocative, both factually and emotionally, as it does not match how they experience the world around them.

Author(s):  
Kim Schrøder

Taking its point of departure in the upheavals in the Danish newspaper market spawned by the emergence, in two waves 2001 and 2006, of national free dailies, this research project argues four points: 1. The free newspapers accelerate an emerging division between ‘overview newspapers’ and ‘depth newspapers’. 2. This process is both part of, and a driving force in, a general division between overview and depth news media, across print, broadcasting and net media. 3. An understanding of these complex developments in news provision depends on the empirical exploration of the consumption of news media and genres among consumer-citizens in everyday life. 4. In order to reach specific insights about newspapers in the age of media convergence, such exploration must aim to develop a general map of news consumption across media. At the end, the paper outlines a research design, anchored in theories of civic agency and public connection, that will use the concept of ‘perceived worthwhileness’ to explore the patterns of media use among Danish citizenconsumers with an innovative methodology. The research project has the dual aim of understanding our contemporary media culture and feeding insights into the editorial processes of the news media.


2021 ◽  
pp. 75-92
Author(s):  
Bronfman Alejandra

During the commercial broadcasting boom of the 1920s, mica became an essential component of various radio parts, especially the audion vacuum tube, which became central to signal amplification during this period. As uses multiplied and factories produced greater quantities of sound-reproduction machines, the demand for mica exploded. This chapter traces a history of mica through the interwar years, arguing that the newfound necessity of this mineral pushed radio manufacturing into an existing—and vexed—infrastructure held together through exploitative labor regimes, environmental degradation, and the tense politics of empire during this period. It uncovers the surprisingly far-reaching political and social contexts involved in the production of a single radio component. The point of departure is RCA’s effort to find alternative sources of mica, which was primarily controlled by UK interests that, in turn, controlled key mica mines in India. These mines relied on female and child workers, deemed by many observers as the most efficient at splitting the extracted mineral into fine sheets. Such considerations drew RCA into direct negotiations with the US Bureau of Mines, the US Army, and mica mines in Appalachia and New Hampshire, thereby tethering them to hundreds of women and children in various parts of the world whose labor they deemed essential to their enterprise.


2021 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dolors Palau-Sampio

The Coronavirus pandemic has triggered an authentic infodemic, which is a global epidemic of disinformation that has spread throughout most of the world. Social media platforms and pseudo-media outlets have contributed to the problem by producing and disseminating misleading content that is potentially dangerous to public health. This research focuses on a rather unknown phenomenon, which involves digital sites that mimic the appearance of news media but provide pseudo-information. Five Spanish pseudo-media have been analyzed with the aim of enhancing understanding of the issues and the frames presented. The results show clear links with the far-right ideology as well as the presence of a populist, polarized discourse through the use of belligerent, offensive expressions to refer to institutions and their representatives. Politics is the main issue represented, with a frame that clearly points out the incompetence and cynicism of the Spanish government. Conspiracy theories associate the origins of the pandemic to a Chinese laboratory and emphasize a global plan to establish systemic control. Measures to stop the virus are framed as harmful and ineffective, linked to a euthanasia scheme targeted at older people, especially regarding vaccination, which is presented as a solution offered for economic interests.


2017 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 46-72
Author(s):  
Jacob Tootalian

Ben Jonson's early plays show a marked interest in prose as a counterpoint to the blank verse norm of the Renaissance stage. This essay presents a digital analysis of Jonson's early mixed-mode plays and his two later full-prose comedies. It examines this selection of the Jonsonian corpus using DocuScope, a piece of software that catalogs sentence-level features of texts according to a series of rhetorical categories, highlighting the distinctive linguistic patterns associated with Jonson's verse and prose. Verse tends to employ abstract, morally and emotionally charged language, while prose is more often characterized by expressions that are socially explicit, interrogative, and interactive. In the satirical economy of these plays, Jonson's characters usually adopt verse when they articulate censorious judgements, descending into prose when they wade into the intractable banter of the vicious world. Surprisingly, the prosaic signature that Jonson fashioned in his earlier drama persisted in the two later full-prose comedies. The essay presents readings of Every Man Out of his Humour and Bartholomew Fair, illustrating how the tension between verse and prose that motivated the satirical dynamics of the mixed-mode plays was released in the full-prose comedies. Jonson's final experiments with theatrical prose dramatize the exhaustion of the satirical impulse by submerging his characters almost entirely in the prosaic world of interactive engagement.


Author(s):  
Lina Yurievna Lagutkina

The author of the article discloses the prospects of development of the world feed production for aquaculture based on the analysis of key innovative technological and market trends. The author specifies that shortage, high cost, low ecological compatibility of traditional raw materials - fish flour - are among major limiting factors in the development of production of feeds for aquaculture. This fact, in turn, limits sustainable development of aquaculture both in Russia, and in the world in general. The article presents the overview of a current status of the world industry of feed production in aquaculture, where the regional situation is studied, as well. For the first time, there is given the outlook of innovative technologies in feed production based on the alternative sources of protein (on the example of projects of leading aquabiotechnological companies) which will determine industry’s objectives for the mid-term perspective.


Author(s):  
Mark Grimshaw-Aagaard

Mark Grimshaw-Aagaard addresses the role of sound in the creation of presence in virtual and actual worlds. He argues that imagination is a central part of the generation and selection of perceptual hypotheses—models of the world in which we can act—that emerge from what Grimshaw-Aagaard calls the “exo-environment” (the sensory input) and the “endo-environment” (the cognitive input). Grimshaw-Aagaard further divides the exo-environment into a primarily auditory and a primarily visual dimension and he deals with the actual world of his own apartment and the virtual world of first-person-shooter computer games in order to exemplify how we perceptually construct an environment that allows for the creation of presence.


Author(s):  
Janice L. Waldron ◽  
Stephanie Horsley ◽  
Kari K. Veblen

We all feel the implications of the force of social media—for good and for ill—in our lives and in our professional world. At the time of this writing, Facebook continues with its struggle to “clean up its act” as more revelations surrounding breaches of trust and hacked user data surface in the news and various countries attempt to hold Facebook to account. Despite this, social media use continues to grow exponentially, and the potential for responsible, ethical, and transparent social media to transform the ways in which we interact with and learn from each other increase with it. As we wait to see what the future holds for social media in society, we are reminded once again that it is the careful selection of pedagogical tools such as social media, as well the guided awareness of the challenges and benefits of those tools, that remains constant, even as tools may change, disappear, or fall out of fashion.


2021 ◽  
pp. 205015792098482
Author(s):  
Linus Andersson ◽  
Ebba Sundin

This article addresses the phenomenon of mobile bystanders who use their smartphones to film or take photographs at accident scenes, instead of offering their help to people in need or to assist medical units. This phenomenon has been extensively discussed in Swedish news media in recent years since it has been described as a growing problem for first responders, such as paramedics, police, and firefighters. This article aims to identify theoretical perspectives that are relevant for analyzing mobile media practices and discuss the ethical implications of these perspectives. Our purpose is twofold: we want to develop a theoretical framework for critically approaching mobile media practices, and we want to contribute to discussions concerning well-being in a time marked by mediatization and digitalization. In this pursuit, we combine theory from social psychology about how people behave at traumatic scenes with discussions about witnessing in and through media, as developed in media and communication studies. Both perspectives offer various implications for normative inquiry, and in our discussion, we argue that mobile bystanders must be considered simultaneously as transgressors of social norms and as emphatic witnesses behaving in accordance with the digital media age. The article ends with a discussion regarding the implications for further research.


2020 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Florian Follert ◽  
Lukas Richau ◽  
Eike Emrich ◽  
Christian Pierdzioch

AbstractVarious scandals have shaken public confidence in football's global governing body, Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA). It is evident that decision-making within such a collective provides incentives for corruption. We apply the Buchanan-Tullock model that is known from Public Choice theory to study collective decision-making within FIFA. On the basis of this theoretical model, we develop specific proposals that can contribute to combating corruption. Three core aspects are discussed: the selection of the World Cup host, transparency in the allocation of budgets, and clear guidelines for FIFA officials and bodies with regard to their rights and accountability. Our insights can contribute to a better understanding of collective decision making in heterogenous groups.


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