scholarly journals On Special Issue «The Politization of social problems in mass media»

2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 3-6
Author(s):  
Ilya Bykov
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Political Communication ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Corporate Citizenship ◽  
Thematic Issue ◽  
Political Regime ◽  
Diverse Range ◽  
Political Issues ◽  
Political Communications ◽  
The Media

The thematic issue of the magazine is devoted to the problems of politicization of socially significant topics in the media space and ultimately touched on a very wide and diverse range of issues, which, nevertheless, revolve around the role of the media and social media in modern politics. In this context, politicization is interpreted as the process of involving non-political issues in political communication. That is why the choice of political problems discussed in the media can reveal the essence of the political regime in a particular country, reveal the adequacy of political institutions to the needs of society and assess the effectiveness of political governance. Most of the articles are in the nature of empirical research, which investigate important problems of modern political communications in Russia and abroad. The range of research methods is also very extensive and includes polls, questionnaires, focus groups, content analysis, discourse analysis, case studies, etc. Following the problem of "politicization", among the most important concepts are the ideas of "media literacy", “network leadership”, “political mobilization”, “personification of politics”, “corporate citizenship”, etc. Research shows that social media has become an important factor in the politicization of socially significant topics. This thematic issue is aimed at specialists in the field of applied political science and political communication.

scholarly journals Youth perspective on social media discourse on “Lazy Nigerian Youths” conversations

INFORMASI ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 50 (2) ◽  
pp. 111-122
Author(s):  
Nkiru Comfort Ezeh ◽  
Augustine Godwin Mboso
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Political Communication ◽  
Freedom Of Expression ◽  
Media Discourse ◽  
Focus Group Discussions ◽  
Group Discussions ◽  
Political Issues ◽  
The Social ◽  
Youth Perspective

The Social Media has emerged as a new platform for discourses. It has no doubt provided people with easier and faster accessibility to information and has become an outlet for them to share their views on socio-political issues. It has also been observed that negative and hate comments seem to dominate on social networks used for social and political communication. Anchored on Public Sphere Theory, focus group discussions were conducted with undergraduate youths in South-east Nigeria examined on the issue of President Mohammadu Buhari’s referring to Nigerian youths as lazy, while speaking at the Commonwealth Business Forum in Westminster on 18th April 2018. This article, therefore, explored the opinions advanced in the discourse based on the principles of freedom of expression and responsibility. The study suggests that while Twitter platform was more objective in the discussion of the issue of the day because it allows the use of filters to ensure that contents posted on the platform adhere strictly to rules and fair usage; Facebook and Whatsapp trailed with abuses and hate comments. The study recommended that owners of blogs and media houses who now post their contents on the social media should coordinate comments on such platforms and continue developing mechanisms that work to regulate the quality of posted content.

scholarly journals Emotionalization and Privatization of Political Communication on Facebook

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (22) ◽  
pp. 3-23
Author(s):  
Milica Vučković ◽  
Tanja Oblak Črnič
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Content Analysis ◽  
Quantitative Analysis ◽  
Political Communication ◽  
Longitudinal Analysis ◽  
Private Life ◽  
Personal Life ◽  
Political Issues ◽  
Emotional Appeals ◽  
Political Figure

Social media are usually accused of being one of the major forces for personalization of ‏political communication and consequently for depolitization of recent politics. However, personalization ‏seems to stimulate certain users to pay more attention to political issues and to act more responsively to ‏such highly personalized political profiles. This article presents the results of a longitudinal analysis of ‏online presence of Barack Obama to assess his political communication through Facebook. It also answers ‏if presence of emotional appeals and private life cues in the posts have any effect on users’ responses in‏ terms of numbers of their likes, comments and shares. Based on a quantitative analysis of 2804 Facebook ‏posts, published in the period from 2008 to 2016, the results of content analysis revealed that Obama ‏used his Facebook fan page almost exclusively to communicate about political issues instead of his ‏personal life. The analysis also confirmed that a smaller number of posts, which contained emotional ‏appeals or cues from private life had significantly higher numbers of users’ responses than posts that ‏were not emotionalized or privatized. While personalization of Obama’s political figure is part of a wider‏ debate, this study confirms that the presence of private cues and emotional appeals stimulates greater‏ responsiveness from Facebook users.

scholarly journals The Coevolution of Media and Politics in Taiwan: Implications for Political Communications

2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 85-110
Author(s):  
Jonathan Sullivan
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
Conceptual Framework ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Political Communication ◽  
Information Environment ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
Political Communications ◽  
The Media ◽  
Empirical Case Studies ◽  
New System

Over the course of democratisation, Taiwan’s communications environment has experienced significant changes. Liberalisation and commercialisation of the media, and the emergence and popularisation of digital, have substantially altered the information environment and the expectations and behaviours of both citizens and political actors. This article explores the implications of these developments for political communications, and the vitality of Taiwan’s democracy. The article combines a conceptual framework rooted in mediatisation and hybrid media logics with empirical case studies on election campaigning, social movements, and other modes of political communication. It demonstrates how a new system of coevolving media, civil society, and political spheres is taking shape, characterised by complexity, heterogeneity, interdependence, and transition.

scholarly journals The First Prime Minister of the Instagram Age: The Visual Rhetoric and Image Management of Justin Trudeau

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Loren Dingwall Dingwall
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Content Analysis ◽  
Political Communication ◽  
Visual Rhetoric ◽  
Prime Minister ◽  
Management Strategies ◽  
Image Management ◽  
Political Communications ◽  
Emotional Appeals ◽  
Key Techniques

This research focuses on an analysis of the visual rhetoric and image management of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Instagram photographs. As Instagram has grown in popularity, politicians and celebrities alike have harnessed the platform to convey their stories, brands, and messages to audiences, thereby curating and controlling the images presented to a wider audience. In Trudeau’s case, Instagram is employed as a strategic tool for image management. The literature review draws from key relevant subject areas: visual rhetoric and rhetorical studies, research on Instagram, political communication, and visual methodologies. Drawing on key elements from Hill (2006), Filimonov et al. (2016), and Kress and van Leeuwen’s (Harrison, 2003) research, research questions focused on examining the use emotional appeals, image management strategies, and how Trudeau engages his audience. This research investigates how Trudeau’s image is crafted using visual rhetoric and image management in his Instagram photos through a content analysis. The project involved coding fifty of Trudeau’s Instagram images—through content analysis—systematically from October 19, 2015-March 2, 2017. Examining these images provides insight into the rhetoric and image management constructed through the visual images Trudeau presents on Instagram. Findings reveal that emotional appeals are a prominent factor in the images, that Instagram is used as a strategic tool for image management, and that Trudeau’s images engage his audience by balancing personalization and professionalism while inviting users in on private personal and professional moments. This research highlights key techniques in strategic political communications with key tools for image management and building visual rhetoric through visual means on social media. The methods explored in this research can inform professional communicators’ decisions regarding the images posted to social media (and Instagram in particular) and their content, their captions, and how they work to construct a narrative on social media that aligns with offline communications goals.

scholarly journals Towards the Efficient Communication of Political Messages in Thailand: An Empirical Investigation

2012 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 145-152
Author(s):  
Wilaiporn Laohakosol
Keyword(s):  
Political Communication ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Effective Means ◽  
Personal Contact ◽  
Political Messages ◽  
The Public ◽  
Political Communications ◽  
Eclectic Paradigm ◽  
Quantitative Sample ◽  
Consumption Decision

Models of consumer behavior generally posit an eclectic paradigm in which diverse elements may have an influence on an individual consumption decision. These elements might include personal experience, bias, the influence of family members and peer groups. This understanding of human behavior has been relocated from the commercial realm to the political realm with a view to helping to understand how the formation of people is voting intentions might take place and how it might be influenced. Since politics consists of a series of competing ideologies contending for the scarce resource of votes with a view to aligning state policies and the distribution of state resources along the lines of the manifesto on which a party is fighting, it follows that politicians will wish to use communication strategies to encourage as many eligible individuals as possible to vote for their policies. To date, in Thailand, most forms of political communication have been based on establishing personal contact and, hence, a form of personal relationship based on personality rather than policies. This situation is beginning to change, there is a need for those involved in determining the nature, and extent of political communications to understand which channels are appropriate for which groups of voters and which voters will not be influenced by any medium or message. Using a quantitative sample of 400 voters in four provinces of Thailand, this paper provides evidence to show that the degree to which people pay attention to political communications and to different channels varies in reasonably predictable fashions. This will enable political institutions and parties to work together to determine good and effective means of communicating their policies to the public in ways which will strengthen democratization in the country.

scholarly journals Agenda Setting in English Canada in the Age of Minority Government, 2004-2011

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Malachy Ryan
Keyword(s):  
Political Communication ◽  
Agenda Setting ◽  
Wait Time ◽  
Policy Formation ◽  
Communication Policy ◽  
Coalition Governments ◽  
Political Communications ◽  
Minority Government ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Government

Keywords: Agenda Setting, Informational Politics, Frames Analysis, Network Theory, Political Communication, Policy Formation This dissertation examines the contemporary relationship between agenda setting and frames analysis in Canadian federal politics from 2004-2011. The research project tests Savoie's thesis that the centralization of power has grown with the increasing size of the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) and that the leader of the office has most clearly exerted that power in controlling the government's agenda by applying it to the experience of minority government at the dawn of the 21st century. To test his thesis, textual analyses of the PMO's agenda-setting documents were conducted to identify the key language, frames, and controlled policy announcements that were reflected within the political discourse. How does the discourse represent and reflect the shift in power in a dramatically changed political environment when, at least in theory, a minority government would be at the mercy of opposition parties who hold the balance of power? From 2006 to 2011, the Harper Conservatives stayed in power by cleverly manipulating the agenda through framing and reframing issues to their advantage. The prime minister retained the final executive decision on party and government political communications and was, therefore, the leading arbiter of the messages delivered to represent key party agenda-setting strategies. Harper has often been identified as a shrewd strategist by academics and the media alike, but how different were his agenda-setting techniques compared to previous minority government strategies? This research identifies the communication tactics that the PMO used in 2006 to ensure its unique five key policy frames of “accountability”, “child care tax credits”, “cutting the GST”, “patient wait time guarantees”, and “tough on crime” were consistently delivered and coordinated across media in their platforms, websites, speeches, and outlays. The Harper Conservatives’ new strategies included narrowing agendas, promoting wedge issues, priming voters using distracter frames, and using strict media communication protocols to attract popular support from the key segment of middle class families. Using these tactics, the government set the agenda on the dismantling of the firearms registry, framed the skills and motivations of two opposition leaders as ineffective and weak with attack advertisements, and sold the illusion that coalition governments were undemocratic.

scholarly journals Logics of the Icelandic Hybrid Media System

2019 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 43-59
Author(s):  
Birgir Guðmundsson
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
New Media ◽  
Political Communication ◽  
Parliamentary Elections ◽  
Media System ◽  
Network Media ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
The Media ◽  
Media Logic

AbstractThe increased importance of social media platforms and network media logic merging with traditional media logic are a trademark of modern hybrid systems of political communication. This article looks at this development through the media-use by politicians before the 2016 and 2017 parliamentary elections in Iceland. Aggregate results from candidate surveys on the use and perceived importance of different media forms are used to examine the role of the new platform Snapchat in relation to other media, and to highlight the dynamics of the hybrid media system in Iceland. The results show that Snapchat is exploited more by younger politicians and those already using social media platforms. However, in spite of this duality between old and new media, users of traditional platforms still use new media and vice versa. This points to the existance of a delicate operational balance between different media logics, that could change as younger politicians move more centre stage.

scholarly journals Network Propaganda

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yochai Benkler ◽  
Robert Farris ◽  
Hal Roberts
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Political Communication ◽  
Coming Out ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
The United States ◽  
Mainstream Media ◽  
Fox News ◽  
The Media ◽  
Political Media ◽  
Political Spectrum

This book examines the shape, composition, and practices of the United States political media landscape. It explores the roots of the current epistemic crisis in political communication with a focus on the remarkable 2016 U.S. president election culminating in the victory of Donald Trump and the first year of his presidency. The authors present a detailed map of the American political media landscape based on the analysis of millions of stories and social media posts, revealing a highly polarized and asymmetric media ecosystem. Detailed case studies track the emergence and propagation of disinformation in the American public sphere that took advantage of structural weaknesses in the media institutions across the political spectrum. This book describes how the conservative faction led by Steve Bannon and funded by Robert Mercer was able to inject opposition research into the mainstream media agenda that left an unsubstantiated but indelible stain of corruption on the Clinton campaign. The authors also document how Fox News deflects negative coverage of President Trump and has promoted a series of exaggerated and fabricated counter narratives to defend the president against the damaging news coming out of the Mueller investigation. Based on an analysis of the actors that sought to influence political public discourse, this book argues that the current problems of media and democracy are not the result of Russian interference, behavioral microtargeting and algorithms on social media, political clickbait, hackers, sockpuppets, or trolls, but of asymmetric media structures decades in the making. The crisis is political, not technological.

New Media and Politics: A Synopsis of Theories, Issues, and Research

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ran Wei ◽  
Larry Zhiming Xu
Keyword(s):  
New Media ◽  
Information And Communication Technologies ◽  
Political Communication ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Communication Technologies ◽  
Political Issues ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
International Setting ◽  
Information And Communication ◽  
Media Systems

The ongoing revolution in information and communication technologies (ICTs) has fundamentally transformed the landscape of democracy and the way people engage in politics. From the configuration of media systems to the decision-making of the voting public, the changes have permeated through almost every level of society, affecting political institutions, political actors, citizen groups, and mass media. For each aspect, a synopsis of classical and emergent political communication theories, contemporary and contentious political issues, and cutting-edge research adds to the discussion of new media. The discussion is unfolded with an account of research of new media effects on politics in international setting and cross-cultural contexts with insights of how Western theories and research apply (or fail to) in international contexts.

Online Versus Offline Strategies in Comparative Perspective

2019 ◽  
pp. 903-924
Author(s):  
Tiago Silva
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Political Communication ◽  
News Coverage ◽  
Political Information ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Media Campaigns ◽  
Political Issues ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
Electoral Campaigns ◽  
The Press

The Internet has undoubtedly become, in this last decade, an important new arena for political communication. Nonetheless, during electoral campaigns, the use of this medium poses both challenges and advantages for the institutional communication made by political parties and candidates. An often-overlooked advantage is the possibility, particularly on social media, for parties and candidates to bypass journalists and communicate directly to a large and varied audience. This aspect is particularly relevant since the literature has been noting, in the last decades, a decline in the salience of substantive political information in the mainstream news coverage of political events. By comparing the political actors’ campaigns on social media with press news coverage of those campaigns, this chapter examines the role and impact of the Internet on modern political communication. An extensive content analysis of four electoral campaigns in four different countries (United States, Italy, Brazil, and Portugal) shows that candidates’ and parties’ online campaigns, compared to news articles in the press, tend to be more frequently framed in terms of substantive political issues. Even though there are differences between political actors and the social media platforms used (Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube), the results suggest that, overall, candidates and parties do actually try to convey substantive political information when communicating directly to the electorate. Furthermore, compared to articles in the press, social media campaigns also tend to be less frequently framed in terms of conflict, political scandals, and strategy aspects.

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