Media coverage of climate change induced migration: Implications for meaningful media discourse

This article focuses on how the construction of ‘migrant’ and ‘refugee’ as a social threat is involved in the specific ways in which climate change induced migration is communicated in Western media. It puts a spotlight on a major drawback of climate policies: the failure to make room for the issue of climate migration. The article explores how a climate justice frame would allow the evolution of conceptual perspectives that are more conducive to safeguarding vulnerable communities’ rights and interests.

Airing imperium: A historiography of radio governance in South Asia

The 1920s emerged as a landmark decade in the world history of radio, more particularly in South Asia. About a century later, this paper seeks to stitch together a critical historiography of radio governance in colonial South Asia. In doing so, the paper seeks to unravel colonial constructions, norms and rationalities associated with the modern medium of radio in the South Asian context. This paper draws on the works of Pinkerton, Zivin, Brayne, Potter and gleanings in their work of the autobiographical writings of Fielden and Reith, the first broadcasting controller of All India Radio and the general manager of the British Broadcasting Corporation, respectively, besides some official documents cited in these works pertaining to the goings-on in British South Asia and its broadcasting. Ultimately, this paper seeks to not only historicize the eventual decolonization and democratization that occurred, but also sets the stage to locate, understand and move towards sustainable media governance in a post-2015 world.

Moving people: Proper distance and global news coverage of migration in 2019

Moving people comprise both a subject of news reports (of refugees, migrants and other people-on-the-move) and a way of reporting on the issues involved. Viewers can be moved and placed in a discursive relation to the displaced when news stories construct what Arendt called ‘proper distance’. This possibility is explored in the article, which compares coverage of migration issues in 2019 on four global television news channels: Al Jazeera English, BBC World, CNN International and RT. The results provide evidence of approaches that differ in striking and thought-provoking ways, giving global television news consumers different resources for making sense of a complicated global crisis.

How Twitter drives the global news agenda: Tweets from Brazil, Russia, India, China, the UK and US and online discourse about the 2016 US presidential election

A manual content analysis compares 6019 Twitter comments from six countries during the 2016 US presidential election. Twitter comments were positive about Trump and negative about Clinton in Russia, the US and also in India and China. In the UK and Brazil, Twitter comments were largely negative about both candidates. Twitter sources for Clinton comments were more frequently from journalists and news companies, and still more negative than positive in tone. Topics on Twitter varied from those in mainstream news media. This foundational study expands communications research on social media, as well as political communications and international distinctions.

WhatsApp disruptions in Brazil: A content analysis of user and news media responses, 2015–2018

Brazilians have adopted WhatsApp as a national media and communication infrastructure over the past several years, although it is controlled by its private US-based owner, Facebook. This article explores the diverse, contentious and influential roles the app played in the country during disruptions to its use from 2015 to 2018. Using content analysis, we critically engage with user-generated memes and news media coverage responding to these disruptions. In these cases, Brazilians self-reflexively questioned the app’s role in their everyday lives and country, reassessing what it means to rely on a national infrastructure owned by an unaccountable global media conglomerate.

Proximity hype as a frame attribute in the reporting on North Korea: Frame strength in competitive contexts

This study analyses generic frames exhibiting varying strength when in a competitive context in an effort to identify the most recurring and repeated patterns and schemata in the framing of global news. The two-level analysis revealed six recurring attributes (official and/or credible sources, repetition, journalistic lexical bias, proximity hype, episodic nature of frame and negativity bias) that are believed to encompass frames and influence their power of persuasiveness. Special focus is placed on proximity hype with its three dominant angles recurring in the publications, which implies a common use of this aspect in the framing of news content.

Visual content of Twitter during the 2018 protests in Iran: Analysis of its role and function

This study examines the visual content of Twitter posts, including photos and videos, published during the 2018 protests in Iran. Our main objective is to understand how these protests were visually represented on Twitter. The theoretical framework of this study is drawn from the ‘dynamic dual path way model of approach coping’ that categorizes responses of collective action in emotion-focused and problem-focused coping. Our findings reveal that visual content with efficacy-eliciting characteristics was posted more often than emotion-arousing content. Furthermore, visual content with more protest activity is more likely to be retweeted.

Topic modeling for frame analysis: A study of media debates on climate change in India and USA

We argue that ‘topics’ of topic models can be used as a useful proxy for frames if (1) frames are operationalized as connections between concepts; (2) theme-specific data are used; and (3) topics are validated in terms of frame analysis. Demonstrating this, we analyse 12 climate change frames used by NGOs, governments and experts in Indian and US media, gathered by topic modeling. We contribute methodologically to topic modeling in the social sciences and frame analysis of public debates, and empirically to research on climate change media debates.