Obesogenic Features of Food-Related Content Aimed at Children on YouTube

Obesity, and particularly childhood obesity, is considered an epidemic by the WHO because of the health problems it causes and its impact on the lives and environment of those who suffer from it. In this article, the term “obesogenic features” refers to the set of supposedly aggravating risk factors that could intensify the proven effect on minors of exposure to food-related media content. The article explores the characteristics of food-related content in YouTube videos aimed at children, with the objective of identifying videos that pose a high risk due to the presence of obesogenic arguments, as well as videos with innovative media trends. It presents an exploratory study of 293 videos (22 hr 41 min) aimed at children and containing food and/or food brands, posted from May 2020 to April 2021 on 28 YouTube channels of food brands and child YouTubers with the largest numbers of subscribers. Child YouTubers often appear to explicitly promote calorie intake as a diet alternative and to disseminate content in which the presence of low-nutrition foods undermines childhood obesity prevention policies. The sensitivity of this target audience and the highly emotional nature of the formats in which messages with obesogenic features appear, such as “challenges,” point to an urgent need to adopt ethical standards and legal measures to regulate such content.

(Not) Very Important People: Millennial Fantasies of Mobility in the Age of Excess

In her fascinating but frustrating new book, <em>Very Important People: Status and Beauty in the Global Party Circuit</em>, American sociologist, Ashley Mears (2020) offers both academic and mainstream readers a titillating, cross-over tour around the “cool” nightclub and party scene of the “global elite.” It is perhaps not so much global, however, as American, in the sense of the heteropatriarchal, middle-aged, male, working rich of America (or more precisely of its financial capital New York), jetting into their traditional party hotspots of Miami, Saint-Tropez, or the French Riviera, to party with young women who are (indirectly) paid (in-kind) to pose with them. Whether intentional or unintentional, along the way Mears also offers a dark mirror to the fears and fantasies of a rather lost millennial generation, raised in a new media, image age, which has coupled fast and furious performative excess to old fashioned sexual objectification, in the guise of fun and empowerment for the beautiful people.

Blurring Boundaries Between Journalists and Tiktokers: Journalistic Role Performance on TikTok

In recent years, media has adapted to the logic of each new social network to respond to renewed consumption habits and journalists have developed new roles on these platforms. TikTok is an emerging platform with its own influencer culture and in which the main audiences are the millennial and centennial generations. The main objective of this study is to analyze the presence of journalists on TikTok through the type of content and strategies used in adapting to this platform. The research is based on methodological triangulation. First, a database of journalists on TikTok (<em>n</em>₁ = 212) was developed and the profiles were reviewed. Second, a questionnaire survey (<em>n</em>₂ = 63) was developed. Finally, a content analysis (<em>n</em>₃ = 520) of profiles exceeding 100,000 followers was conducted. This research provides a first description of the activity of journalists on TikTok, where a variety of roles, usages, and strategies are identified, beyond those of their profession. They join the of-the-moment platform with different purposes (to inform, entertain, or introduce themselves) and targets (new audiences, young people, fans). Journalists adapt their presence to the TikTok social media logic, seeking a space of influence on a platform that is the natural habitat of younger generations.

A Case Study: Mada Masr—A Progressive Voice in Egypt and Beyond

This article questions the role of the media in times of political transformation. In doing so, it draws on theories on the interconnectedness of the different fields of society to explain the sets of roles that media outlets and journalists adopt during phases of transition. Before 2011, the Egyptian media mostly acted as collaborators of the ruling regime and rarely as an agent of change. Journalists took over the latter role more often following the advent of privately-owned media outlets, thus helping to pave the way for the events of the so-called Arab Spring. This case study focuses on the development of the online news portal <em>Mada Masr</em> and therefore traces the development of two newsrooms. Starting as the English edition of a privately-owned Arabic newspaper in 2009 and changing its status to an independent news outlet in 2013, <em>Mada Masr</em> is one of the few voices which still openly criticise the Egyptian government. Founded in a time of political turmoil and struggling against an increasingly authoritarian environment, the outlet implements innovative ways of producing content, securing funding, and reaching out to its readers. A group of young Egyptian and international journalists make use of new spaces for expression that have opened through the global changes in communication infrastructure while struggling with frequent attacks by representatives of the ruling regime. As such, <em>Mada Masr</em> is a role model for small and regime-critical media outlets.

From Chiapas to Palestine: Historicizing Social Movement Media Before and Beyond the Arab Uprisings

Critical scholarship investigating media and the Arab uprisings has called for “a return to history.” This article argues that researching the contemporary constraints and opportunities of social movement media in the Arab region requires historicizing such practices. Reflecting on the role of media activism within the Arab uprisings necessitates broadening the historical context of social movement media in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region by investigating the diversity of media tactics and alternative political economies mobilized to resist the military-industrial communications complex. This article develops a political economy framework to historicize social movement media practices from Chiapas to Palestine and provides a critical reflection on the use of media for revolution before and beyond the Arab uprisings. Learning from the long and global history of revolutionary media struggle is beneficial to media activists and researchers working in the MENA region.

Beyond Mainstream Media and Communication Perspectives on the Arab Uprisings

This editorial argues for more research connecting media and communication as a discipline and the Arab Uprisings that goes beyond the mainstream techno-deterministic perceptions. The contributions in this thematic issue can be summarized around three central arguments: First, mainstream media, like TV and journalism, are central and relevant actors in the post-Arab Uprisings phase which have often been overlooked in previous literature. Second, marginalized actors are still engaged in asymmetric power struggles due to their vulnerable status, the precarious political economy, or a marginalized geographic location outside centralized polities. Finally, the third strand of argument is the innovative transnational geographic and chronological synapses that studying media and Arab Uprisings can bring. The editorial calls for more critical and interdisciplinary approaches that follow a region marked by inherent instability and uncertainty.

The Voice of Silence: Patterns of Digital Participation Among Palestinian Women in East Jerusalem

Facebook is one of the world’s largest social networks, with more than 2,7 billion active users globally. It is also one of the most dominant platforms and one of the platforms most commonly used by Arabs. However, connecting via Facebook and sharing content cannot be taken for granted. While many studies have focused on the role played by networked platforms in empowering women in the Arab world in general and on feminist movements in the Arab Spring, few have explored Palestinian women’s use of Facebook. During and after the Arab Spring, social media was used as a tool for freedom of expression in the Arab world. However, Palestinians in East Jerusalem using social media witnessed a decrease in freedom of expression, especially after the Gaza war in 2014. This article focuses on the Facebook usage patterns and political participation of young adult Palestinian women living in the contested space of East Jerusalem. These women live under dynamic power struggles as they belong to a traditionally conservative society, live within a situation of intractable conflict, and are under state control as a minority group. Qualitative thematic analysis of 13 in-depth interviews reveals three patterns of usage, all related to monitoring: state monitoring, kinship monitoring, and self-monitoring. The article conceptualises these online behaviours as “participation avoidance,” a term describing users’ (non-)communicative practices in which the mundane choices of when, why, and how to <em>participate </em>also mirror users’ choices of when, why, and how to <em>avoid</em>.

Understanding Emerging Media: Voice, Agency, and Precarity in the Post-2011 Arab Mediasphere

The decade following the 2010–2011 Arab uprisings saw a flourishing of emerging media organisations across the region. The most recognisable examples of these new independent media actors include <em>Enab Baladi</em> in Syria, <em>Mada Masr</em> in Egypt, and Inkyfada in Tunisia. However, this phenomenon comprises a much more diverse set of actors from small-scale associative radio stations in Tunisia to numerous exilic Syrian media outlets. Building on previous research as well as recent fieldwork in Tunisia and Turkey, this article is an attempt to make sense of the genesis, development, and relevance of this new class of media actors. We argue that these emerging media organisations can be seen to represent specific interventions into the politics of voice in their various national and local contexts, but ones that share similar logics. To elucidate this argument, we propose a multi-dimensional understanding of these interventions that brings together voices (actors, issues, discourses), modalities of voice (organisational models, values, production value), and the underlying political economy of these emerging media (funding, institutionalisation). However, the article also argues that these interventions, and the logics they share, themselves belie a complex interaction between the political and professional agency and precarity of these media organisations and the individuals, and groups, behind them. We believe that combining these two perspectives is a necessary step for a more nuanced understanding of the nature and practice of these emerging media organisations.

The Role of Media and Communication in Reducing Uncertainty During the Syria War

Ten years after the uprising in Syria, millions of its citizens remain displaced and uncertain about their fate. Throughout that period, media coverage about the ensuing civil war played a major role in informing Syrians and contributed to altering their levels of fear and anxiety about their country’s future and their survival prospects. This study examined the role of legacy media, online media, and interpersonal communication in increasing or reducing uncertainty among displaced and non-displaced Syrians. Through a revised construct of uncertainty reduction theory within the context of a civil war, we assessed the relationship between exposure to these media sources and feeling anxious, uncertain, angry, and in danger, and whether these feelings influenced information consumption trends. We also probed the connection between their anxiety levels and sharing information, both interpersonally and on social media. The study surveyed 2,192 Syrian adults (95% CI, ±2.5) living in Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and Turkey, both inside and outside refugee camps, using a random multistage cluster sampling technique. The findings revealed a strong relationship between positive emotions and time spent on legacy and online media. The more secure, proud, and hopeful people felt, the more likely they were to spend time on media sources. This relationship, however, was moderated by the perceived importance of these sources. Feelings of pride, security, and hopefulness generated by television and online media correlated with the time people spent on these media sources, and the perceived importance of such media further strengthened this relationship. A different picture appeared in the relationship between positive emotions and interpersonal communication, where the perceived importance of talking to people not only significantly moderated the relationship but also canceled out the main effect of positive emotions on the time people spend communicating with others. The findings also indicated that feelings of uncertainty about these sources may stand in the way of sharing information about the war on social media.

Mediatizing Slum Relocation in Egypt: Between Legitimization and Stigmatization

In Egypt, the relocation of residents of informal areas of housing into “proper” living environments is presented as a major political achievement offering citizens a much-improved quality of life. Therefore, it is not surprising that, following the Arab Uprisings, the current regime is widely publicizing relocation projects as success stories on TV and social media. As a way of garnering legitimization and securing stability, this official representation is reshaping the residents’ urban life and evoking narratives of slum dwellers’ transformation into respected citizens. Tackling a new area of interdisciplinary research between urban studies and media and communication studies, this article investigates the portrayal in mainstream media channels and social media platforms of two relocation projects (Al-Asmarat in Cairo and Al-Max in Alexandria), contrasting them with the residents’ perceptions of their new homes and their efforts to produce counter-imagery. The authors argue that both the state-dominated representation of the Al-Asmarat resettlement as an ideal solution to the crisis of informal settlements, as well as the more bottom-up construction of the Al-Max community as a picturesque fishing community, do not reflect the material experience of the inhabitants—despite it being presented as such in nationwide reporting. The effective centering of the public debate around the mediatized images has thus deflected criticism and enabled urban development projects to be positioned to legitimize the current rule despite the shortcomings of their implementation.