Strategies of German Bundesliga and English Premier League clubs for the COVID-19 crisis: the case of international broadcasting fans

During the COVID-19 pandemic that paused sports worldwide, the German Bundesliga League (GBL) and English Premier League (EPL) took two different strategic approaches to agree with their players on returning to play. To become better informed and prepared for future crisis management, this study examines consumer responses to these opposing strategies. We also identify how perceived organizational legitimacy, trustworthiness, reliance, and justifiability have an impact on consumer multimedia consumption of the games. A sample of 503 participants responded to an online questionnaire regarding the contrasting decisions taken by the GBL and the EPL during the global health crisis. SEM with multi-group analysis was conducted to test the research hypotheses. When comparing the two selected sport leagues, the league that reached an agreement with their players experienced higher levels of perceived legitimacy while needing fewer perceptions of trustworthiness, reliance, and justifiability to obtain higher multimedia consumption intention from consumers.

ICYMI: RT and Youth-Oriented International Broadcasting as (Geo)Political Culture Jamming

Research in political communication has recently begun to explore the role of non-Western English-language state-funded international broadcasters (NEIBs) in influencing international audiences. Despite this, there has been little attention given to understanding how NEIBs engage and influence young people in ‘Western’ democracies. Our article addresses this gap by providing a detailed analysis of RT's English-language, youth-orientated news product ICYMI. Launched in 2018, ICYMI is a social media-based news brand that consists of a series of 2–3-min videos that deliver satirical takes on recent global events including military conflict, financial scandals, and culture clashes. Our findings, which examine the first year of the platform's activity, show that ICYMI is a novel form of engagement, one that is not easily categorised as either public diplomacy or propaganda, nor can it be described as traditional journalism. Instead, we label this approach as geopolitical culture jamming. In this article, we conduct a discourse analysis of 45 videos published on YouTube by ICYMI over its first year to examine how the platform attempts to influence how young people relate to traditional foreign policy discourses. Our empirical analysis centres on how viewers engage with and interpret ICYMI's videos with the aim of addressing how RT may be influencing younger audiences, particularly its core demographic of Anglophone white males whose comments reflect an attachment to ICYMI's populist, anti-elite worldview.

Linguocultural Features of the Representation of the Great Victory Anniversary by the Sputnik Agency (Russia Today)

The research examined linguocultural features of media coverage of the Great Victory anniversary the Sputnik agency (Russia Today). The purpose of the study was to determine, from the standpoint of linguistic cultural studies, the key images that formed the media. The object of the research is the materials of three editions of the Sputnik agency (Sputnik Polska, Sputnik International, Sputnik Türkiye), the geography of distribution and the composition of the audience of which reflect differentiated linguocultures. A set of methods is used: content analysis; contextual analysis, comparative analysis, case study. The empirical base was made up of publications dedicated to the 75th anniversary of Victory in the Great Patriotic War, posted on the websites of the editorial offices of Sputnik Polska, Sputnik International, Sputnik Türkiye. Sample type: solid. Chronological scope of the study: April 15 — May 15, 2020. Based on the results of the study, we concluded that the nature of representation is directly related to linguocultural characteristics and is due to historical, political and sociocultural preconditions. At the same time, all editions are united by the commonality of the constructed images: Victory Day (attitudes towards victory over fascism in the international arena); nations (both winners and losers); preservation of historical memory. The presence or absence of certain stable linguistic units depends on the cultural and ethnic specifics of the audience. The greatest efficiency from the standpoint of the implementation of international broadcasting activities (transmission of cultural codes and meanings) is achieved in a situation of a common / close mentality, interaction of ethnic groups and territorial proximity.

Linguocultural Organization of the International Broadcasting in Russia Today

In modern political and socio-cultural realities, a special role and importance are assigned to international broadcasting as a technology for positioning a content-producing country in the external environment, i. e. the global media space. The subject of this study is the explication of the specifics of the linguocultural organization of international broadcasting. The experience of Russia Today was taken as the flagship of international broadcasting in the Russian segment of the media space, through its activities influencing the formation of the geopolitical situation in the modern globalizing world. A complex of methods was used: historical and political analysis, structural analysis, contextual analysis, secondary analysis of sociological and statistical data. The empirical base was made up of four editions of the Sputnik Agency (Sputnik International, Sputnik Polska, Sputnik Trkiye, and Sputnik Belarus), representing various linguocultures - with differentiated ethnic and religious characteristics that have not only linguistic but also cultural manifestations in general. Based on the results of the study, it is concluded that the linguocultural organization of international broadcasting is considered as a means of implementing the diplomatic mission of the state-broadcaster with soft power tools in the globalizing world. It is based on the representation of positioning content, taking into account ethnicity, religion together with the linguistic and cultural characteristics of the audience. Both the effectiveness of promoting program statements and ideas and strengthening the countrys geopolitics depend on the degree of linguocultural orientation of international broadcasting activities.

Cultural Relativity, Human Rights and the International Regulation of Broadcasting

<p>When a broadcaster broadcasts directly to people living in another state disputes can arise. The audience may find the programmes offensive. The programmes may foment disorder and rebellion and corrupt the values and traditions of the inhabitants of the receiving state or even threaten their very survival. The problem is not new. It has been a source of international tension since the inception of broadcast technology. The problem has however become more pointed as that technology has become ever more sophisticated. The power of radio is aptly illustrated by recalling the panic caused in 1938 by Orson Welles' famous hoax broadcast announcing the invasion of Earth by Martians. More recently commentators such as James Miles, BBC correspondent in Peking at the time, have suggested that the rebellion in China before and after the massacre at Tianamen Square was fomented, prolonged and to a degree coordinated by programmes broadcast on overseas radio stations such as Voice of America and the BBC. Television has a much greater graphic capacity than radio and is also vulnerable to abusive techniques such as subliminal suggestion and advertising. The impact of television is set for another great leap ahead as the development of High Definition Television technology proceeds apace. The development of communications satellites has greatly increased the range and quality of broadcasts. There have been a number of attempts to address this problem but none have met with much success. The international community has polarised into two camps, one taking a position based on a very strict view of the right to freedom of expression, and the other insisting that that right yield to a degree at least to accommodate peoples' rights to determine their own economic, social and cultural development. This paper offers a solution to this impasse. It offers guidelines to help resolve international broadcasting disputes. The guidelines are based on the international human right to freedom of expression as viewed particularly by the two bodies responsible for drafting that right's most famous exposition in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and in the host of other international and constitutional instruments which it inspired. It is argued that cultural relativity in the human rights context is consistent with the sources of international law specified in article 38 of the statue of the International Court of Justice, and that by incorporating a degree of cultural relativity the guidelines advocated herein are similarly consistent with current international law. It is also shown that the view of human rights the guidelines evince is consistent with a version of constructivist human rights theory which accords with observable practice and which enjoys widespread academic support. Some alternative methods for addressing the problem arising from international broadcasting are examined and their shortcomings identified. This leads to the conclusion that the method proposed in this paper for regulating international broadcasting, notwithstanding that it is most surely within the realm of de lege ferenda, is both consistent with current international law and jurisprudentially defensible, and therefore better than the alternatives.</p>

Cultural Relativity, Human Rights and the International Regulation of Broadcasting

<p>When a broadcaster broadcasts directly to people living in another state disputes can arise. The audience may find the programmes offensive. The programmes may foment disorder and rebellion and corrupt the values and traditions of the inhabitants of the receiving state or even threaten their very survival. The problem is not new. It has been a source of international tension since the inception of broadcast technology. The problem has however become more pointed as that technology has become ever more sophisticated. The power of radio is aptly illustrated by recalling the panic caused in 1938 by Orson Welles' famous hoax broadcast announcing the invasion of Earth by Martians. More recently commentators such as James Miles, BBC correspondent in Peking at the time, have suggested that the rebellion in China before and after the massacre at Tianamen Square was fomented, prolonged and to a degree coordinated by programmes broadcast on overseas radio stations such as Voice of America and the BBC. Television has a much greater graphic capacity than radio and is also vulnerable to abusive techniques such as subliminal suggestion and advertising. The impact of television is set for another great leap ahead as the development of High Definition Television technology proceeds apace. The development of communications satellites has greatly increased the range and quality of broadcasts. There have been a number of attempts to address this problem but none have met with much success. The international community has polarised into two camps, one taking a position based on a very strict view of the right to freedom of expression, and the other insisting that that right yield to a degree at least to accommodate peoples' rights to determine their own economic, social and cultural development. This paper offers a solution to this impasse. It offers guidelines to help resolve international broadcasting disputes. The guidelines are based on the international human right to freedom of expression as viewed particularly by the two bodies responsible for drafting that right's most famous exposition in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and in the host of other international and constitutional instruments which it inspired. It is argued that cultural relativity in the human rights context is consistent with the sources of international law specified in article 38 of the statue of the International Court of Justice, and that by incorporating a degree of cultural relativity the guidelines advocated herein are similarly consistent with current international law. It is also shown that the view of human rights the guidelines evince is consistent with a version of constructivist human rights theory which accords with observable practice and which enjoys widespread academic support. Some alternative methods for addressing the problem arising from international broadcasting are examined and their shortcomings identified. This leads to the conclusion that the method proposed in this paper for regulating international broadcasting, notwithstanding that it is most surely within the realm of de lege ferenda, is both consistent with current international law and jurisprudentially defensible, and therefore better than the alternatives.</p>

Protection of Intellectual Property Rights in the Field of Television and the Internet. The Notion of Teleformat

The article is devoted to the main issues of protection of intellectual property rights in the field of television and the internet, related to the spread of piracy in the field of copyright and related rights, and to the unlicensed copying of television broadcasts. Moreover, there is an emphasis on the exacerbation of existing problems in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic and how this affected the industry. This research considers international and national legislation in the field of intellectual law, international experience of various countries, approaches to theory, and problems of implementing existing measures, in order to propose some options for optimizing existing mechanisms. The research methodology use the following methods: formal-legal, historical-legal, comparative analysis, and modeling. The main issues under consideration are the following ones: international broadcasting regulation, the problem of uniform terminology, and prospects for the legal regulation of copyright in television broadcasting. The authors defend the uncompromising protection of intellectual property, highlighting the lack of basic definitions, to propose their own definitions, in order to avoid the weak copyright protection of television broadcasting organizations.