Issue salience (Public Diplomacy) (see also theme or media coverage salience)

The variable “issue salience” refers to visibility or prominence of a given topic or theme occurring in the news coverage and is used to explore first-level agenda-setting (McCombs & Shaw, 1972). In addition to actor salience and valence, issue salience is analyzed to describe and explore the news coverage on different events and public debates. Mostly, issue salience is measured as the number of mentioning a particular issue, topic, or theme. Field of application/theoretical foundation: Issue salience is analyzed using content analysis across different subfields of communication and media research, including the field of public diplomacy. In public diplomacy research, scholars measure issue salience in the context of governmental communication on their official channels online and offline or the representation of countries in social or mass media. Researchers embed the concept of issue salience primarily in agenda-setting theory (McCombs & Shaw, 1972), analyzing it as an independent variable from which to derive implications of news media coverage on audiences’ perceptions on a certain object or examining the relationship between issue salience in the media and the public agenda. References/combination with other methods of data collection: When it comes to analyses on issue salience and its link to public perceptions, a mixed-method study design incorporating content analysis in combination with surveys is used to validate issue salience. Exampe study: Zhou et al., 2013 Information about Zhou et al., 2013 Authors: Zhang et al. Research question/reseach interest: Comparison between news coverage on Great Britain (in terms of themes) in U.S.-American and Chinese news media during the Olympic Games 2012 RQ: What were the most salient themes in British, U.S., and Chinese media when they covered the opening ceremony of the London Olympics? Object of analysis: Newspaper (30 media outlets across three countries (the United States, the United Kingdom, and China, not explicated) Time frame of analysis: 24 July 2012 to 12 August 2012 Information about variable Varible name/definition: Media coverage salience: Number of mentions given to a particular theme Level of analysis: Story Values: (1) Countryside (e.g., emphasis of British natural beauty and scenic sites) (2) Creativity (e.g., focus on British creative sector, such as arts, film, and literature) (3) Entrepreneurship (e.g., portrayals on entrepreneurs and investors, or global investment) (4) Green (e.g., emphasis on Great Britain’s sustainability and environmental protections efforts) (5) Heritage (e.g., focus on British royalty, museums, and historic landmarks) (6) Innovation (e.g., discussion of science and technology in Great Britain) (7) Knowledge (e.g., portrayals of research and development at British universities) (8) Music (e.g., mentions of British and music artists) (9) Shopping (e.g., emphasis on British shopping venues such as London as shopping city) (10) Sport (e.g., emphasis on sporting events or athletes, such as David Beckham) (11) Technology (e.g., focus on digital media, e-commerce, and IT services in Great Britain) Scales: Nominal Reliability: Krippendorf’s alpha = .90 References McCombs, M. E., & Shaw, D. L. (1972). The Agenda-Setting Function of Mass Media. Public Opinion Quarterly, 36(2), 176–187. Zhou, S., Shen, B., Zhang, C., & Zhong, X. (2013). Creating a Competitive Identity: Public Diplomacy in the London Olympics and Media Portrayal. Mass Communication & Society, 16(6), 869–887.

Empowerment Discourses in Transnational Sporting Contexts: The Case of Sarah Attar, The First Female Saudi Olympian

This article starts with the occasion of the 2012 London Olympics as “The Women’s Olympics” and looks both backward and forward to situate this occasion within the global north’s discourses of global human rights and neoliberal feminism. The global north’s coverage of the 2012 Olympics and Oiselle’s branding campaigns of Sarah Attar acts as data. I use transnational feminist analysis in combination with Foucauldian discourse analysis to trace how the global north’s discourses of human rights and neoliberal feminism travel and operate in transnational sporting contexts. As such, I trace the female athlete’s representation as white, middle-class, and heterosexual as a regime of truth. The discourses of human rights and neoliberal feminism, when networked with commodified images of women from the middle east and the politics of US feminism and the middle east, uncovers the neoliberal feminist cultural logics surrounding the branding of Attar.

Imperialism

This chapter extends the analysis of religious formations in colonial situations by focusing on imperialism. As critical research on religion, the study of imperialism and religion directs attention to religious creativity within the asymmetrical power relations of contact zones, intercultural relations, and diasporic circulations. Starting with the imperial ceremony of the 2012 London Olympics, which featured a pageant of the imperial myth of progress from savagery to civilization, this chapter recalls how the Shakespearean drama of the imperial Prospero and the colonized Caliban has been a template for analyzing religion under colonial conditions. Like Shakespeare’s enchanted isle, colonizing and colonized religion have been shaped by oceans, with the Mediterranean, Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific worlds emerging as crucial units of analysis. By attending to imperial and colonial formations, this chapter indicates some of the important landmarks, sea changes, and possibilities in the study of imperialism and religion.