Volume 50, Issue 4

In certain cases, children can react strongly in favor of product placements inserted in movies. Scholars therefore argue that existing disclosures might be one strategy in protecting children from any negative effects. However, disclosure research indicates that viewers should both notice disclosures and, in cases of textual cues, read them. We conducted an experiment with 139 children (M age = 8.46; SD = 1.12; girls = 53.2 %) and tested the influence of textual disclosure format on disclosure awareness as well as brand-related effects. When comparing with no disclosure, results showed that exposure to an existing textual disclosure positively affects disclosure awareness while exposure to an expanded version of it (i.e., by using more textual elements) did not. Further analyses revealed that prior movie exposure positively affected brand evaluation. However, disclosure awareness reversed this effect. We conclude that children appear to be socialized with the existing textual disclosure and that disclosure awareness might be of importance in shielding children against persuasive influence.

This study investigates virtual community-building practices and discriminatory views in PAL NWS, a Dutch-speaking Belgian far-right alternative news medium, by examining discussions in the comments sections. Thematic analysis was applied to a total of 1,127 comments by 343 users in response to 50 articles about LGBTI topics. The findings show that far-right alternative news sites can function as virtual communities that facilitate polarization. The comments exhibited a high level of hostility towards LGBTI individuals, particularly toward transgender people and public displays of LGBTI inclusion. Furthermore, Muslims were homogeneously perceived as homophobes, and LGBTI topics were understood as (woke) ideological suppression by a dogmatic minority. The results of this study have implications for understanding the dynamics of comments sections on alternative media and the potential for far-right news platforms to facilitate the spread of intolerance.

This article examines how the fights in Ukraine were framed in U. S., French, Polish, and Russian media in the first month of the conflict. Using a modified version of Semetko and Valkenburg’s (2000) method, we found patterns in media portrayals of the events. An analysis of 400 articles showed that media in these countries used roughly the same frames. The most important differences concerned the war and human interest frames, clearly avoided by Russian media. The most profound differences stemmed from how the frames were utilized. Despite using the same frames, media in different countries were able to produce different images of events.

In an unprecedented situation of uncertainty, the COVID-19 pandemic tested the public crisis communication capacity. Using focus group data, this study analyzes public reactions to COVID-19 policies in Scandinavia. In line with the “rally around the flag” hypothesis, trust in public health authorities remained high in all three Scandinavian countries throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. We asked how people assessed the trustworthiness of authorities, and how they discussed reasons for complying with regulations and recommendations. Our findings suggest that the trustworthiness of experts and leaders was continually negotiated, manufactured, and renegotiated, producing critical and conditional trust. Willingness to and reasons for complying with measures to curb the disease were expressed and justified by participants from Sweden, Norway, and Denmark, notwithstanding the national policies consisting of harsh regulations and mild pressure.

Rural mediatisation defines the simultaneous transformation of rural community life and its media environment, particularly in the digital age. Typical rural problems such as declining meeting places are being addressed by developing village-specific communication apps. Due to the so-called “urban bias,” not much is known about rural mediatisation, and theoretical concepts are also lacking. This study addresses this research gap by analysing three German village communities, where a village communication app has been introduced. For this analysis, the applicability of the approach of communicative figurations (Hepp and Hasebrink, 2017) is assessed and further developed by adding the dimension of “power dynamics” to the characteristics. Moreover, the findings indicate that a rediscovered sense of belonging to the village community, resulting from a combination of internal and external factors, is a transformation associated with this process of rural mediatisation.

In the past two decades, the public communication of universities has become more important and received increased scholarly attention. While many studies have focused on individual university communicators (micro level) or all such practitioners in one country (macro level), our study analyzes organizational differences. It is the first-ever study to typologize universities’ communication practices and structures at the organizational level across an entire country. Based on a survey of communication practitioners in the central communication offices at all universities in Switzerland and using hierarchical cluster analysis, we classify 37 universities into four types of communicating universities: minimalists, well-resourced competitors, specialized strategists, and professional all-rounders. Those types are further characterized on the basis of official statistics. The analysis shows that the four types of universities differ considerably in their communication patterns and organizational characteristics and that the amount of resources available for communication is only loosely coupled with professional and strategic communication practices.

The relationship between objective accounts of reality and expressions of subjective points of view has been discussed in journalism studies in terms of two dominant epistemological paradigms: the modern and the postmodern. This article proposes a different epistemological model, defined as ‘neomodern,’ whose aim is to articulate a dialectical relationship between subjectivity and objectivity that is better able to account for the processes of information production and consumption on digital platforms. An overview is given of the principles of the neomodern model and its main exponents. To understand the implications of a neomodern epistemology when discussing the practices of contemporary journalism, the journalistic genre of fact-checking is analyzed as a case study.

This work involves a comprehensive review of qualitative research focused on analysing the experience of social ostracism. The voices of the ostracized are essential for uncovering that subtle, small, invisible, and silent practices of social exclusion, such as not paying attention, treating someone like air, lack of interest, or being left out, are sufficiently real and painful enough for those who have to deal with them. The term “social (in)visibility” allows us to openly name feelings that are an internal response to external ostracism, but which remain unexpressed in everyday interactions. The article focuses on understanding the role of social attention and social recognition in social encounters. As the social challenges described document a set of practices that prevent engagement in social interactions and reinforce cultural otherness, the construct of “social (in)visibility” may thus provide a framework for explaining how the lack of acknowledgment of someone’s presence in an appropriate manner in a given situation initiates the process of excluding those with so-called ‘spoiled identities’ and may help reveal mechanisms of escalating negativity. The work concludes with reflections on future research areas and the practical implications of social (in)visibility within the context of social relationships, co-presence, and social encounters.

This essay situates the protest actions of the German environmentalist group Die letzte Generation (LG) within an environmental critique of digital capitalism. It specifically examines the temporality of LG’s activism at the intersection of the affective ecology of digital capital and certain aspects of an apocalyptic imagination. I propose a Spinozist approach to the media environment in which LG operates that may open a path toward an immanent critique of LG’s publicity-oriented practices.

European countries are required to establish equality bodies to combat discrimination. For the success of such bodies, informing citizens about their existence and functioning is essential. Therefore, this study conducts a thematic content analysis of news coverage (N = 129 Flemish news articles) pertaining to the recently established Flemish Human Rights Institute (FHRI) in Belgium. The analysis focuses on the subjects addressed in the news articles, the individuals or groups involved, and the interpretation of the three components of the responsiveness triangle (policy system, social perspectives, and policy environment), which collectively determine the perception of a legitimate policy. The study’s findings reveal that the articles extensively feature varying viewpoints from politicians and civil society organizations regarding the FHRI’s policy system, including its competences, institutional formation, and operation, as well as its role in protecting citizens’ rights. However, the news articles refrain from offering a conclusive assessment of the institution’s legitimacy.

Over the past decade, Hungary has become a noteworthy example of democratic backsliding, marked by a pronounced shift towards conservative values and traditional gender roles within government policies. This trend, centred around Christian principles, has manifested in political campaigns actively opposing LGBTQ+ rights and the challenging of normative family structure. The resultant media campaigns and policy implementations have ignited extensive public discourse on gender and sexuality, prominently visible on social media platforms. This study conducts a qualitative analysis of the online discussion surrounding the LGBTQ+ children’s book, Fairyland Is for Everyone, to explore the contemporary gender discourse in Hungary. By examining social media comments under Hungarian online news articles, the research identifies three prevailing discursive lenses—heteronormative familism, neocolonialism, and diversity and inclusion—illustrating both the concurrent rise of anti-gender movements and the fortification of LGBTQ+ allyship in Hungary, while also considering broader transnational trends in LGBTQ+ rights and visibility.

The way digital news platforms represent migration issues can significantly impact intergroup relations and policymaking. A recurring question in the debate on the role of news platforms is whether they merely transmit information on migration, or actively hype specific issues. Drawing on a comprehensive set of socioeconomic statistics on migrants in Denmark, and employing a longitudinal automated content analysis of migration news content, we utilize time-series analysis to understand how four distinct categories of threat (security, economic, cultural, and generalized) relate to socioeconomic data on terror attacks, migrant crime levels, economic performance, and demographic trends. The results reveal a direct effect of terror attacks, economic performance, and demographic trends on migration news. We discuss the implications of socioeconomic and demographic developments as factors in digital media content to understand the role of media and substantiate contemporary debates.

We examine a network of over 40,000 tweets posted before the 2019 European election in Slovenia. The discussion observed is highly polarized: analysis of communication patterns reveals a partisan structure with limited connectivity between centre-left and right-leaning clusters. Users tend to communicate with like-minded peers and share content originating from their own communities. Bridges – accounts enabling the diffusion of content between ideologically different communities – are almost non-existent. Right-wing politicians are among the most prominent users in the network and can dominate the discourse within their communities. This shows that politicians effectively use Twitter as a strategic communications tool to engage with their supporters, spread their partisan messages and make use of the polarized social media environment. The data mirrors findings from other democracies, providing further evidence that polarization of political discourse is a prominent feature of the contemporary communication environment, present across various national, geographical and political contexts.

This paper investigates the diversity of mediated parent networks from the perspective of communicative figurations, by focussing on what kinds of networks can be identified (RQ1) and what expectations parents hold towards these networks (RQ2). It draws upon a qualitative, exploratory study conducted in Austria, Denmark, Portugal and the UK, with interviews conducted with parents across 16 families in 2021. Different kinds of parent networks are described in terms of size, perceived publicness, frames of relevance, actors involved, communicative practices, and media ensembles. Our analysis of parents’ expectations shows that disappointment seems to be closely connected to practical sense, social barriers and exclusion.

The Yugoslav wars of secession in the 1990s left traces of the past among the societies living in the successor states. Those traces can be found within the collective memory of these societies, and are transmitted through various communication channels to the next generation. Today, this post-war and post-Yugoslav generation, born during or shortly after the violent conflicts, are young adults dealing with the recent past. Based on findings from life-story interviews that are examined and interpreted using the approach of sequence analysis, I elaborated a model of the transregional post-Yugoslavs’ communication system regarding the wars. I identified three communication practices on war-related topics by actively reflecting on the “Other,” which I present in this paper. During their adolescent years, post-Yugoslavs created their own narratives, and thus their own, authentic communication strategies in response to the “invisible war,” which still continues today, according to the post-Yugoslav generation.

In the ongoing 2024 elections, European democracies are facing multiple challenges, including declining voter turnout, extremist factions gaining electoral ground, and various risks posed by technology platforms. This article explores the characteristics of online political advertising in Romania, focusing on the advertising budgets allocated by mainstream and extremist parties and their specific targeting strategies based on voter segmentation. The study examines multiple electoral cycles in Romania, employing a longitudinal approach to analyze the online political advertising of the mainstream and extremist Romanian parties with a significant electoral impact. Utilizing data from the Meta Ad Library Reports, the study aims to explore the scale of online political advertising expenditure, and discuss voter segmentation and its potential impact on voter mobilization. Through this lens, the paper highlights the significant role of political advertising leveraged by online platforms in modern politics and the consequent challenges to the integrity of the electoral processes. It discusses gaps in existing national and EU regulations, and argues for regulatory measures to enhance transparency and accountability in political advertising.