Why All the Outrage? Viral Media as Corrupt Play Shaping Mainstream Media Narratives

In this chapter, Theresa Hunt explores the trajectory of the anti–sexual harassment campaigns in Egypt as one example of women’s prerevolution and antiregime protest. She examines the extensive campaigns of the Egyptian Center for Women’s Rights, El Nadim Center for the Management and Rehabilitation of Victims of Violence, and the new, technology-fueled project HarassMap. By strategically gaining national and even international attention, these campaigns engaged in critique of the state’s failure to address the alarming level of sexual harassment on Cairo’s streets and pressured the state to develop appropriate policy. As these organizations combined consciousness raising with subversion of state obstacles and mobilization of the public, their work reflects aspects of the 2011 revolution that mainstream media narratives find compelling but rarely attribute to women’s activism.

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A Level Playing Field? Media Constructions of Athletics, Genetics, and Race

The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science ◽

10.1177/0002716215588067 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 661 (1) ◽

pp. 182-211 ◽

Cited By ~ 11

Author(s):

Matthew W. Hughey ◽

Devon R. Goss

Keyword(s):

English Language ◽

Genome Mapping ◽

Media Discourse ◽

Genetic Traits ◽

Mainstream Media ◽

Playing Field ◽

Media Constructions ◽

Jack Johnson ◽

Athletic Success ◽

Media Narratives

The link between black athleticism and biological determinism has been wrought with debate. With the domination of black athletics over white challengers—such as boxer Jack Johnson or sprinter Jessie Owens—some began to assert that blacks possessed a biological predisposition toward athletic excellence and that Darwinian winnowing during chattel slavery’s harsh conditions magnified African American and West Indian athletic prowess. Despite biological and sociological evidence to the contrary, recent mainstream journalism has collectively advanced the proposition that black athletic success is the product of little more than genetic traits. In this article, we examine the events and ideologies employed to reify a media discourse of “black brawn vs. white brains.” We demonstrate how such a thesis is empirically untenable. Through an examination of English-language newspaper articles ( N = 292) published in the decade immediately following the completion of human genome mapping (2003–2014), we examine contemporary media discourse surrounding athletics, genetics, and race. We demonstrate how mainstream media narratives construct and reinforce racial essentialism and provide a unique space for racist discourse in an age dominated by “postracial” and “color-blind” dialogue.

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The making of Ophir - Bougainville stories and silences: An exploration of the documentary

Pacific Journalism Review – Te Koakoa ◽

10.24135/pjr.v27i1and2.1218 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 27 (1and2) ◽

pp. 150-172

Author(s):

Wendy Bacon ◽

Nicole Gooch

Keyword(s):

Public Debate ◽

Community Leaders ◽

Archival Research ◽

Mining Company ◽

Gender Distribution ◽

Mainstream Media ◽

Award Winning ◽

The 1960S ◽

Media Narratives ◽

Aid Policy

This article focuses on the making of the award-winning film Ophir in the context of issues relevant to journalism and documentary production. It explores how a partnership of filmmakers, scholars and Bougainvillean community leaders worked to create a documentary that goes beyond bare facts to create deeper meaning. Based on an interview with one of the filmmakers, Olivier Pollet, it discusses issues of archival research, gender, distribution and language. It raises ethical questions about how mining company Rio Tinto used an anthropologist to produce covert corporate intelligence in the 1960s. Through a discussion of the work of independent investigative journalist Antony Loewenstein, it considers how recent Australian aid policy was used to shape public debate about options for Bougainville. It highlights the importance of supporting grassroots storytelling that penetrates distorted mainstream media narratives, especially at a time of shifting geopolitical interests.

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(Neo)Liberal populism and Ireland’s ‘squeezed middle’

Race & Class ◽

10.1177/0306396820905729 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 61 (4) ◽

pp. 29-49

Author(s):

Rosie R. Meade ◽

Elizabeth Kiely

Keyword(s):

Middle Class ◽

Liberal Democracy ◽

Welfare Recipients ◽

The Political ◽

Discursive Construction ◽

Economic Relations ◽

Parliamentary Debates ◽

Mainstream Media ◽

Media Narratives ◽

The Unemployed

Acknowledging definitional problems associated with the concept of ‘populism’, this article shifts the analytic gaze away from actors or politics that are conventionally characterised as populist, on to an analysis of the doing of populism by those who typically evade the populist label. Tracing the discursive construction of the ‘squeezed middle’ in Irish mainstream media and parliamentary debates between January 2014 and March 2019, the authors analyse how this signifier was mobilised to fuel and foment ressentiment among middle-earning taxpayers. This article analyses how the discourses of the ‘squeezed middle’ functioned ideologically, as a form of anti-welfare populism, redirecting blame for middle-class ontological and material insecurities on to unemployed welfare recipients who were depicted as immoral, lazy and insulated from hardship. This article highlights how populism operates from the so-called moderate centres of liberal democracy and not exclusively from the political margins. Irish political and media narratives of the ‘squeezed middle’ are seen as part of a larger project whereby damaging myths about the unemployed are propagated in service of ideological class warfare; legitimising neoliberal austerity and normalising unequal economic relations.

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American “Universal” Values and Russia

The Dark Double ◽

10.1093/oso/9780190919337.003.0003 ◽

2019 ◽

pp. 33-56

Author(s):

Andrei P. Tsygankov

Keyword(s):

United States ◽

Political System ◽

The United States ◽

Transition To Democracy ◽

Media Influence ◽

Mainstream Media ◽

The Media ◽

Universal Values ◽

Media Narratives

Chapter 3 describes in greater detail the Russia discourse in American mainstream media. It identifies four media narratives of Russia—“transition to democracy” (1991–1995), “chaos” (1995–2005), “neo-Soviet autocracy” (2005–2013), and “foreign enemy” (since 2014). The space for debating Russia in the media has narrowed considerably since the mid-2000s, when Russia’s political system began to be viewed as a nondemocratic and increasingly anti-Western regime. Russia’s values were now viewed as incompatible with and inferior to those of the United States, which rendered relations with the Kremlin difficult, if not impossible. In the 2010s, US officials adopted this view partly from media influence and partly out of their own frustration with the Kremlin’s policies.

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Understanding factors and barriers to alternative media development in emerging economies: Learning from the Check Global project

First Monday ◽

10.5210/fm.v26i2.11370 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Jerome Turner ◽

Dima Saber

Keyword(s):

Social Media ◽

Digital Literacy ◽

Alternative Media ◽

Development Project ◽

Operational Experience ◽

Mainstream Media ◽

Arab Uprisings ◽

Starting Point ◽

Social Media Platforms ◽

Media Narratives

Check Global is a journalism and digital literacy development project (2019–2021) supporting countries and regions affected by conflict or state controls. In such contexts, expectations are set high for alternative journalism to accurately counter mainstream media narratives, controlled as they often are by the state; this article presents factors to be taken into consideration as a starting point for better understanding the challenges involved in developing journalism, e.g., through funded training initiatives. The article draws on interviews with prominent alternative and independent media outlets (some of them Check Global partners) from India, Latin America, Egypt and Lebanon, who therefore have operational experience of these issues. By viewing digital and social media through an anti-determinist lens, we challenge assumptions — especially prevalent following the 2011 Arab uprisings — that ‘open access’ and social media platforms can easily provide solutions to media plurality concerns. We explore factors such as the role of technology in alternative media, but also the main barriers faced by alternative media projects and outlets. This article therefore opens up a more honest discussion about the nature of alternative media projects in such contexts, and the ways in which digital literacy projects such as Check Global could support them.

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Speaking Out

10.5406/illinois/9780252038129.003.0005 ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

Leigh Moscowitz

Keyword(s):

Gay Rights ◽

Married Couples ◽

Gay Marriage ◽

Mainstream Media ◽

News Stories ◽

Internal Conflicts ◽

News Discourse ◽

Moving Images ◽

Lgbt Community ◽

Media Narratives

This chapter examines how media narratives and activist strategies for representing gay perspectives in news discourse evolved over time. Drawing on activist interviews conducted in 2010 and 2011 as well as sample of news stories from 2008 through 2010, the chapter considers the journalistic devices that produced dominant meanings of the gay marriage issue, including the prevalent frames, sourcing patterns, photographic and graphic images, moving images, voice-over narration, and visual representations of married couples and the LGBT community more generally. It shows that, despite an overall more favorable tone and nuanced coverage of the debate, gay rights activists struggled in dealing with journalistic frames that resorted to the “God vs. gays” argument and played the race card. Mainstream media outlets continued to look to religious leaders as “obvious” oppositional sources on gay rights, while the movent's leaders faced internal conflicts over how best to represent pro-gay perspectives in media discourse and gain support from the “moveable middle.”

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Imagining a “post-carbon” future? Climate change as represented by media and film industries

Świat i Słowo ◽

10.5604/01.3001.0014.3078 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 34 (1) ◽

pp. 47-62

Author(s):

Katarzyna Molek-Kozakowska ◽

Stankomir Nicieja

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

News Media ◽

Future Climate Change ◽

The Public ◽

Mainstream Media ◽

Current Trends ◽

The Media ◽

Potential Failure ◽

Media Narratives ◽

Fictional Representations

This study explores current trends in representing and communicating climate change by media industries. It reviews the current literature on mainstream media narratives of climate change focusing on their naturalization of progress and their techno-optimism (e.g., as regards geoengineering). It provides insight on how the media industry’s commercial agenda is linked to the types of disseminated messages and dominant imaginaries. It compares respective codes inherent in news media and film/fictional representations of climate change on representative examples. It traces the evolution of disaster/dystopian genres that involve climate issues. It discusses the implications from such a comparative analysis in terms of the potential failure to mobilize the public – to first imagine the alternatives and then to act collectively for the sake of the “post-carbon” future.

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Tribal radio stations as key community informants and sites of resistance to mainstream media narratives

Journal of Alternative & Community Media ◽

10.1386/joacm_00057_1 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 4 (3) ◽

pp. 43-55

Author(s):

Jana Wilbricht

Keyword(s):

Alaska Native ◽

Social Activism ◽

Indigenous Communities ◽

Community Radio ◽

Community Media ◽

Radio Stations ◽

Mainstream Media ◽

Digital Divides ◽

The Us ◽

Media Narratives

Rural US Indigenous communities are disproportionately affected by digital divides, insufficient infrastructures, and health disparities, so that community radio still represents a key medium in the lean mediascapes of these communities. The first US radio stations licensed to American Indian/Alaska Native tribes began broadcasting in 1971, about 50 years after the rise of rural radio in the US, which until then had almost entirely ignored Indigenous news, concerns, and voices. This paper draws on interview data from 2016 fieldwork conducted in Alaska and Arizona with two community radio stations serving the local, mostly Indigenous audience, to highlight how its historical ties to social activism continue to play a role in how tribal radio functions as a medium today. Tribal radio stations value not only traditional journalistic standards, but also advocacy for the community, combating stereotypes, and view themselves as distinct from mainstream and other community media.

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What is Privacy Anyway? A Longitudinal Study of Media Frames of Privacy

Journal of Intellectual Freedom and Privacy ◽

10.5860/jifp.v3i1.6414 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 3 (1) ◽

pp. 8 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Federica Fornaciari

Keyword(s):

Technological Development ◽

Frame Theory ◽

Media Frames ◽

Mainstream Media ◽

The Right To Privacy ◽

Political Events ◽

The Right To Know ◽

Fundamental Value ◽

Media Narratives ◽

The Right

Technological development often prompts individuals to rethink the boundaries of their privacy. The decision of sharing or withholding information is also prompted by greater narratives that help readers to understand the shape of privacy and its relations to evolving societal landscapes. Informed by frame theory, the current study implements a longitudinal discourse analysis of 140 editorials published in US mainstream media outlets between 1900 and 2016 to explore how media narratives have framed privacy, and how they have rendered its connection with overarching societal contexts, across decades of technological development. Findings suggest that, in media narratives, the shape of privacy has shifted from a fundamental value to a more materialistic one. Also, across the decades, media frames have kept wavering between “the right to know” and “the right to privacy” – suggesting the importance of one over the other, mostly to respond to current political events.

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