scholarly journals Resilience to Online Disinformation: A Framework for Cross-National Comparative Research

2020 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
pp. 493-516 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edda Humprecht ◽  
Frank Esser ◽  
Peter Van Aelst
Keyword(s):  
Political Communication ◽  
Comparative Research ◽  
The United States ◽  
Northern European ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Cross Country ◽  
Southern European Countries ◽  
National Approach ◽  
Western Democracies ◽  
Cross National

Online disinformation is considered a major challenge for modern democracies. It is widely understood as misleading content produced to generate profits, pursue political goals, or maliciously deceive. Our starting point is the assumption that some countries are more resilient to online disinformation than others. To understand what conditions influence this resilience, we choose a comparative cross-national approach. In the first step, we develop a theoretical framework that presents these country conditions as theoretical dimensions. In the second step, we translate the dimensions into quantifiable indicators that allow us to measure their significance on a comparative cross-country basis. In the third part of the study, we empirically examine eighteen Western democracies. A cluster analysis yields three country groups: one group with high resilience to online disinformation (including the Northern European systems, for instance) and two country groups with low resilience (including the polarized Southern European countries and the United States). In the final part, we discuss the heuristic value of the framework for comparative political communication research in the age of information pollution.

Hyperpartisan news: Rethinking the media for populist politics

2020 ◽  
pp. 146144482091041
Author(s):  
Maria Rae
Keyword(s):  
New Media ◽  
Digital Media ◽  
Political Communication ◽  
The United States ◽  
New Agents ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The Media ◽  
Start Ups ◽  
Better Than

Online media sites such as Breitbart News in the United States and The Canary in the United Kingdom have come to prominence as powerful new agents. Their reach and influence in the contemporary digital media ecology have been widely highlighted, yet there has been little scholarship to situate these important new players in the field of political communication. This article argues that, first, these ‘interlopers’ known as the ‘alt-right’ and ‘alt-left’ need to be understood as embedded in the context of populist politics. Second, ‘hyperpartisan’ describes these sites better than the framework of alternative media as it mirrors populism’s ideological pillar of ‘us’ versus ‘them’. Finally, a deliberate provocation is argued to name these digital start-ups as news to create a starting point for conceptualising these disruptive new media forces.

scholarly journals Youth Political Talk in the Changing Media Environment: A Cross-National Typology

2021 ◽  
pp. 194016122110556
Author(s):  
Neta Kligler-Vilenchik ◽  
Keren Tenenboim-Weinblatt ◽  
Pablo J. Boczkowski ◽  
Kaori Hayashi ◽  
Eugenia Mitchelstein ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Young People ◽  
Digital Media ◽  
Political Communication ◽  
Qualitative Interviews ◽  
The United States ◽  
Media Environment ◽  
The Us ◽  
Political Talk ◽  
Unique Dataset ◽  
Cross National

While political communication scholarship has long underscored the importance of political talk—casual conversations about news and politics that occur in everyday situations—as a way for citizens to clarify their opinions and as a precursor for political engagement, much of this literature tends to depict political talk as uncomfortable and difficult for citizens. Yet, this focus on the challenging aspects of political talk has been informed predominantly by the US context. To what extent may a different picture emerge when looking across different cultural contexts? And how are these dynamics shaped by the affordances of the multi-platform social media environment? This paper explores these questions through a unique dataset of 122 qualitative interviews conducted between 2016 and 2019 with young people (ages 18–29) from five countries: Argentina, Finland, Israel, Japan, and the United States. Rather than solidifying the avoidance of controversial political talk as the key strategy at the disposal of young people, our findings point at a five-pronged typology of young people, with each type representing a different approach toward political talk. Our typology thus contributes to a more comprehensive and nuanced picture of various approaches towards political talk employed by young people across different countries and in relation to different digital media affordances.

What Drives Populist Styles? Analyzing Immigration and Labor Market News in 11 Countries

2018 ◽  
Vol 96 (2) ◽  
pp. 516-536 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Wettstein ◽  
Frank Esser ◽  
Florin Büchel ◽  
Christian Schemer ◽  
Dominique S. Wirz ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Political Communication ◽  
News Media ◽  
Mass Communication ◽  
Empirical Studies ◽  
Communication Styles ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
The Past ◽  
Quantitative Content ◽  
Western Democracies ◽  
Cross National

The success of populist political actors in Western democracies and the dramatization and emotionality of political communication in news media have been the object of several theoretical and empirical studies in the past decade. It has been argued that the mediatization of politics and the convergence of populist and tabloid communication styles foster these developments by mutual promotion in mass communication. This article uses a cross-national quantitative content analysis to disentangle associations among news genres, populist actors, content, and style. In spite of indisputable prevalence of populist styles in tabloid style media, populist ideology is identified as their strongest source.

scholarly journals Between-Class Earnings Inequality in 30 European Countries

2021 ◽  
Vol 20 (6) ◽  
pp. 741-778
Author(s):  
Tim Goedemé ◽  
Marii Paskov ◽  
David Weisstanner ◽  
Brian Nolan
Keyword(s):  
Social Class ◽  
Earnings Inequality ◽  
European Countries ◽  
Social Classes ◽  
Class Inequality ◽  
Class Differences ◽  
Northern European ◽  
Class Composition ◽  
Southern European Countries ◽  
Cross National

Abstract This article studies earnings inequality between social classes across 30 European countries. Class inequality in earnings is found across the board although there are some exceptions. However, the degree of class inequality varies strongly across countries being larger in Western and Southern European countries and smaller in Eastern and Northern European countries. Furthermore, we find that differences in class composition in terms of observed characteristics associated with earnings account for a substantial proportion of these between-class differences. Differences between classes in the returns to education and other characteristics play less of a role. In all these respects there is a sizeable cross-national variation. This points to important differences between countries in how earnings are structured by social class.

scholarly journals Problems of conceptualisation and operationalisation of attitudes toward immigrants in cross-national comparative research

2020 ◽  
pp. 89-100
Author(s):  
Dmitry S. Grigoryev
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Research ◽  
Measurement Problem ◽  
The United States ◽  
Host Population ◽  
Survey Method ◽  
Attitudes Toward Immigrants ◽  
Measurement Models ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Feeling Thermometer ◽  
Cross National

The paper continues the ongoing discussion among experts by considering in detail the problematic inconsistency in the conceptualisation and operationalisation of attitudes toward immigrants in cross-national comparative research. The sources of the identified problems, which are primarily associated with a theoretical impasse, namely the isolation and replication of the tradition of the theory of competitive threat and excessive reliance on literature (especially American) on racial prejudice (but attitudes toward immigrants and attitudes toward the African American population of the United States are far from the same thing). Suggestions are being raised regarding the need for a clear definition of the boundaries between groups (immigrants and host population), applying group-specific approach, overcoming terminological diversity, greater differentiation of related constructs, transition from reflective approach to measurement models to formative one to compile a special comparative index of attitudes toward immigrants taking into account country (regional) specifics, solving the measurement problem in the framework of the survey method when selecting items for the questionnaire (including avoiding double-barreled items). It is also considered options for applied conceptualisation of attitudes toward immigrants within metaphors of distance (social distance) and temperature («feeling thermometer») and related issues of their operationalisation. If necessary, illustrations and examples relevant to Russian reality are given.

Comparative Journalism Research

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Hanitzsch
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Research ◽  
The United States ◽  
Turn Of The Century ◽  
Subjective Perception ◽  
The West ◽  
News Production ◽  
Journalism Studies ◽  
The North ◽  
Journalism Research ◽  
Cross National

Comparative research in journalism studies typically involves systematic comparison of two or more countries or territorial entities with respect to some common dimension (e.g., journalistic practices, orientations, and cultures). Early works in this tradition can be traced back to the 1930s, but it was not until the late 1990s that cross-national research gained popularity in the field. Comparative journalism studies have historically evolved and developed around four distinct but partly overlapping paradigms: the United States and the rest (1950s–1960s), the North and the South (1970s–1980s), the West and the West (1980s–2000s), and the West and the world (2000s–2010s). In all these eras, comparative journalism researchers have focused on three topical areas: journalists’ professional orientations (journalistic roles and professional ethics), the contexts of news production (influences on news work and their subjective perception), and news cultures (normative and empirical analyses of press systems and journalistic cultures). Overall, a growing awareness of the advantages of comparative research has led to an explosion of these studies since the turn of the century. Comparative journalism research has thus become a principal avenue of study in the field, and it has meaningfully contributed to both knowledge about journalism and the formation of journalism studies as a discipline.

Strategy and Structure in Large Italian and Spanish Firms, 1950–2002

2012 ◽  
Vol 86 (3) ◽  
pp. 503-525 ◽  
Author(s):  
Veronica Binda
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Business Groups ◽  
The United States ◽  
Product Diversification ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
European Economies ◽  
Southern European Countries ◽  
Dominant Paradigm

Taking as its starting point Alfred D. Chandler's studies of big business, this investigation explores how the largest corporations in Italy and Spain transformed their strategies and structures during the second half of the twentieth century. Empirical evidence reveals that, in contrast to the more advanced nations of Europe, these two southern European countries did not adopt either product diversification or the multidivisional structure until later in the century and, even then, did so only partially. By forming business groups and focused companies, the two nations came up with their own viable alternatives to the dominant paradigm that originated in the United States and spread among the bigger European economies.

scholarly journals Bot, or not? Comparing three methods for detecting social bots in five political discourses

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 205395172110335
Author(s):  
Franziska Martini ◽  
Paul Samula ◽  
Tobias R Keller ◽  
Ulrike Klinger
Keyword(s):  
Political Communication ◽  
Comparative Research ◽  
Detection Methods ◽  
Exact Science ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Political Discourses ◽  
Quantitative Estimates ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
Bot Detection ◽  
Western Democracies

Social bots – partially or fully automated accounts on social media platforms – have not only been widely discussed, but have also entered political, media and research agendas. However, bot detection is not an exact science. Quantitative estimates of bot prevalence vary considerably and comparative research is rare. We show that findings on the prevalence and activity of bots on Twitter depend strongly on the methods used to identify automated accounts. We search for bots in political discourses on Twitter, using three different bot detection methods: Botometer, Tweetbotornot and “heavy automation”. We drew a sample of 122,884 unique user Twitter accounts that had produced 263,821 tweets contributing to five political discourses in five Western democracies. While all three bot detection methods classified accounts as bots in all our cases, the comparison shows that the three approaches produce very different results. We discuss why neither manual validation nor triangulation resolves the basic problems, and conclude that social scientists studying the influence of social bots on (political) communication and discourse dynamics should be careful with easy-to-use methods, and consider interdisciplinary research.

Selective Avoidance on Social Media: A Comparative Study of Western Democracies

2021 ◽  
pp. 089443932110054
Author(s):  
Marko M. Skoric ◽  
Qinfeng Zhu ◽  
Karolina Koc-Michalska ◽  
Shelley Boulianne ◽  
Bruce Bimber
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Social Media ◽  
United Kingdom ◽  
The United States ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Avoidance Behaviors ◽  
Political Views ◽  
Cross Country ◽  
Western Democracies

This study examines the phenomena of political unfriending and content removal on social media in three Western democracies—France, the United Kingdom, and the United States. We seek to understand the role of crosscutting discussion, confrontational discussion style, and ideological extremity in triggering unfriending and content removal on social media, while shedding light on cross-country differences. The findings show that selective avoidance behaviors are much more common in the United States than either in France or the United Kingdom. They also show that crosscutting discussion and confrontational style are the predictors of selective avoidance across all the above countries, while ideological extremity plays a role in the United States only. We suggest that while social media provide opportunities for citizens to engage in discussions with people with dissimilar political views and socioeconomic backgrounds, they also allow them to easily reestablish more homophilous environments via content removal and tie dissolution.

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