Media framing of immigrants in Central Europe in the period surrounding the refugee crisis: Security, negativity, and political sources

This article investigates how all the main quality and tabloid newspapers and the television newscasts of the main broadcasters in Czechia and Slovakia framed immigrants, what the tone of the employed frames was, and who the main framing actors were before and during the EU refugee crisis (2013–2016). Using quantitative content analysis (N = 7,910), we show that security and cultural frames are most commonly employed while the victimization frame is much less common. Whereas tabloids use the security and cultural frames more often, the victimization, economic and administrative frames are more often invoked in quality media. We also show that the framing of immigrants is predominantly negative, and that the security and cultural are the most negatively valenced frames. Finally, we document a dominance of political actors and the practical invisibility of immigrants and refugees in the media coverage.

Socio-cultural and political sources of ethnocultural split in Ukraine

The article examines the socio-cultural and political sources of the modern ethnocultural division of Ukraine and shows that the historically formed cultural division of Ukrainian society due to geographical and political factors was significantly leveled in the Soviet assimilation policy, but was not completely overcome due to slight industrialization of Ukrainian villages and west. As a result, the Ukrainian population was divided into several separate strips, which contributed to the deepening of the cultural divide with other, industrially developed, but de-ethnicized Ukrainian regions. The lack of ethnic unity of Ukrainians and the active position of national minorities in regions with a large number of ethnically related groups, in the absence of a balanced national policy, have become the main causes of ethnocultural division in Ukraine. Overcoming the latter is possible in the process of gradual introduction of general civilizational principles of civil society and the formation of economic, social and spiritual conditions for the development of both the individual and the community. Only when the permanent economic crisis is overcome and science, education and culture broadcast by the national language are raised to the level of state values, without marginalizing the nation-building significance of the languages of interethnic communication, Ukrainian society will become a nation.

Fuentes informativas en tiempos de Covid-19: Cómo los medios en Chile narraron la pandemia a través de sus redes sociales

This study analyzes the use of social media sources by nine news outlets in Chile in regard to Covid-19. We identified the most frequently used types of sources, their evolution over time, and the differences between the various social media platforms used by the Chilean media during the pandemic. Specifically, we extracted 838,618 messages published by Chilean media on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter between January and December 2020. An initial machine learning (MA) process was applied to automatically identify 168,250 messages that included keywords that link their content to Covid-19. Based on a list of 2,130 entities, another MA process was used to apply a set of rules based on the appearance of declarative verbs or common expressions used by the media when citing a source, and the use of colons or quotation marks to detect the presence of different types of sources in the news content. The results reveal that Chilean media outlets’ use of different voices on social media broadly favored political sources followed by health, citizen, academic-scientific, and economic ones. Although the hierarchy of the most important sources used to narrate the public health crisis tended to remain stable, there were nuances over time, and its variation depended on key historic milestones. An analysis of the use of sources by each platform revealed that Twitter was the least pluralist, giving space to a more restricted group of voices and intensifying the presence of political sources over the others, particularly citizen sources. Finally, our study revealed significant differences across media types in the use of political, health, and citizen sources, with television showing a greater presence than in other types of media. Resumen Se analiza el uso de fuentes en redes sociales de nueve medios de información de referencia en Chile frente al Covid-19. Se identificaron los tipos de fuentes más utilizados, su evolución en el tiempo, así como las diferencias encontradas entre distintas plataformas de redes sociales de los medios chilenos. Específicamente, se extrajeron 838.618 publicaciones de medios nacionales desde Facebook, Instagram y Twitter entre enero y diciembre de 2020. A ese corpus se aplicó un primer proceso de machine learning (MA) para filtrar automáticamente 168.250 publicaciones que incluían palabras claves que identifican su contenido con el Covid-19. A partir de una lista de 2.130 entidades, se utilizó otro proceso de MA para aplicar un conjunto de reglas basadas en la presencia de verbos declarativos o de expresiones comunes usadas por los medios cuando se cita a una entidad, así como el uso de dos puntos o de comillas, con el objeto de detectar distintos tipos de fuentes en el contenido informativo. Los resultados muestran que el uso que los medios chilenos dieron a distintas voces en sus redes sociales favoreció ampliamente a las fuentes políticas, seguidas por las fuentes de salud, y más desde lejos por las ciudadanas, académico-científicas y económicas. Aunque la jerarquía de las fuentes que se usó para narrar la crisis sanitaria tendió a mantenerse estable, tuvo matices a lo largo del tiempo y su variación dependió de los hitos que marcaron la historia del país. Al analizar el uso de fuentes según plataforma, se observa a Twitter como menos pluralista, dando espacio a un grupo más restringido de voces e intensificando la presencia de las fuentes políticas por sobre las demás; en especial, por sobre las ciudadanas. Finalmente, nuestro estudio reveló diferencias significativas en las fuentes utilizadas por publicaciones de origen televisivo, particularmente en el uso de fuentes políticas, de salud y ciudadanas, las cuales tuvieron una presencia mayor que en los demás tipos de medios

Personal economic security in COVID-19 pandemic

Introduction. The personal economic security is a complex phenomenon that consists of many components. In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, it is important to identify and analyze which of these components contain the main threats that require priority protection of the individual. Aim. Based on the analysis of scientific psychological, economic, sociological, political sources devoted to the study of the personal economic security, clarify its content and parameters, highlight the main threats in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Results. The article is devoted to the analysis of the concept "personal economic security", considered as a state of the economic consciousness, in which the subject must perceive the existing quality of life as adequate and reliable. The relevance of the study is confirmed by the list of modern publications dedicated the problem of the negative impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the personal economic security. The article analyzes the content, target function and structure of the personal economic security. The essence of the categories "challenge", "danger", "threat", "risk", the ratio between them are disclosed. Threats to the personality economic security in a pandemic and the main directions of protection against these threats are shown. Conclusions. The information presented in the article can be useful in studying the psychological consequences of the impact to the personal economic security caused by the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic.

Diaries of a Surveilled Citizen after a Failed Revolution in Egypt

Under a pseudonym in December 2011, I published an article titled “al-Jaysh wa-l-Iqtisad fi Barr Misr” (The Army and the Economy in Egypt) in Jadaliyya. I wrote it after months of participating in numerous protests in Cairo against the government of the Supreme Council of Armed Forces (SCAF), which took power upon President Hosni Mubarak's abdication in February 2011, and of searching fervidly for the political sources that had allowed the military to prevail over civilian forces. In addition to the tanks and fighter jets, I found some of these sources hidden in a gigantic business empire that the military had clandestinely developed for years. In early 2012 the editor of an online edition of a widely read Egyptian newspaper, a revolutionary female journalist who would later be arrested and detained, invited me to write a series of articles on this business empire, this time using my real name. The first work in decades to be published on this taboo topic, this became the foundation for my later book-length study. As a scholar, this was my humble contribution to an ongoing revolution.

Stylistic devices as means of forming discursive features of advertising minitexts (exemplified by English economic and political media sources)

The article is devoted to functional and stylistic features of advertising minitexts in English economic and political mass media and Internet sources. The scientific relevance of the topic is proved by the significant role of advertising in building up not only market relations but also cultural stereotypes and public opinion. Besides, the necessity arises to reveal the human linguistic consciousness potential of integrating different meanings and small forms of their verbalization, as the trend towards contracting speech acts is gaining momentum in both oral and written communication. Hence, advertising texts make a proper object of analysis since the need for quick catching of the customers attention and saving money on publication space determines advertisements small volume. The authors set the purpose of analysing the stylistic features of advertising minitexts in economic and political sources in terms of the formation of their discursive features. Methods of discourse functional analysis, descriptive and contextual analyses are implemented thereto. The article addresses the issue of correlation between text and discourse with regard to the advertising linguistic status, types of advertising texts, extralinguistic factors (including psychographic and demographic profiles of consumers) determining the choice of means that actualise advertising discourse functions. The analysis focuses on the expressive means forming peculiar advertising stylistics and special pragmatic increments aimed at making efficient impacts on the recipient. The findings of the empiric analysis are presented in reference to such expressive means as metaphors, allusions, wordplay, antithesis, etc. The prevalence of metaphors, epithets and hyperbole as the most frequent stylistic devices in advertising discourse has been revealed. The authors conclude that discursive features of the texts under analysis are actualized in pragmasemantic increments which are not inferred from speech elements direct meanings alone but are synergistically formed in advertising functional space in the course of text generation and perception based on the communicating parties living backgrounds.

Willingness to Use an Approved COVID-19 Vaccine: Cross-National Evidence on Levels and Individual-Level Predictors

The management of the COVID-19 pandemic critically hinges on the approval of safe and effective vaccines but, equally importantly, on high willingness among lay people to use vaccines when approved. To facilitate vaccination willingness via effective health communication, it is key to understand both levels of skepticism towards an approved COVID-19 vaccine and the demographic, psychological and political sources of this skepticism. To this end, we examine the levels and predictors of willingness to use an approved COVID-19 vaccine in large, representative surveys from eight Western democracies that differ both politically and in terms of the severity of the pandemic: Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Sweden, Italy, United Kingdom, and United States (total N = 9,889). The data reveal large variation in vaccination willingness, both across and within countries ranging from 79 % in Denmark to 38 % in Hungary. Thus, most national levels fall below current best estimates for the required threshold for reaching herd immunity. Across national and demographic groups, the analyses demonstrate that a lack of vaccination willingness is associated with low levels of trust in authorities, conspiracy-related beliefs and a lack of concern about COVID-19. These factors also account for cross-national levels in vaccine willingness.

Backlash to policy decisions: how citizens react to immigrants' rights to demonstrate

Focusing on one specific aspect of immigrant political integration—how authorities deal with their political right to demonstrate—we show in a large-scale survey experiment that liberal policy decisions permitting demonstrations lead to a polarization in attitudes: citizens who agree with a permission become more sympathetic, while those in favor of banning become more critical of immigrants. This notion of opinion backlash to policy decisions adds a new perspective to the literature on immigration attitudes which has either assumed a congruence between public opinion and policy or ignored political sources of anti-immigrant sentiment altogether. By exploring the unintended consequences of policy decisions, we provide an alternative view and demonstrate the inherent dilemma of balancing citizen opinion and minority rights.