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This essay complicates interpretations of digital architectures in online journalism production in terms of journalistic interlopers and intralopers during an age of increased influence of technologists on online news development. While much normative scholarship revolves around social media, metrics, algorithms, artificial intelligence, VR, and other forms of digital innovation applied to journalism, the essay argues that such work must not focus merely on the actions of today's tech-savvy journalism but should interrogate social and cultural relationships at the center of journalistic production so not to as become distracted away from the embedded practices of ideological incorporation that shapes media messages and reproduces inequalities through what and how journalism covers. In the future, as we approach a notion of the Metaverse, scholars must interrogate the long-standing embedding of elite ideologies into the news as journalists collaborate with technologists (or as journalists become technologists), interact (and re-interact) with elite ideologies at accelerating rates in networked societies, and move into new digital realms we have not yet imagined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many studies have argued that watchdog journalism cannot flourish under authoritarianism. However, the effect of the democratization of previously authoritarian regimes on watchdog journalism is still poorly understood. This article aims to fill this knowledge gap by using Kompas, Indonesia's oldest daily newspaper, as a case study. Drawing on four years of ethnographic fieldwork (2013–2017) within Kompas 's newsroom and one year of archival review (2020–2021), this study shows that the newspaper did not truly function as a watchdog. Instead, it developed a specific style that we conceptualize as "polite" watchdog journalism, that is, monitoring the wrongdoing of those in power in such a manner that does not hurt the feelings of those in power. This style of journalism was developed in response to the cultural and political-economic forces that intersected in and shaped its newsroom. Kompas developed close relationships with authoritarian power holders, thereby avoiding the persistent threat of bans and securing the economic advantages of their close ties with those in power. After the regime change, polite journalism continued to be practiced, both to maintain its political leverage and to preserve its economic advantage in the post-authoritarian era. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Radio B92 was an iconic independent media institution in Serbia. Founded in 1989, B92 provided Belgrade listeners with subversive rock music, high-quality journalism, and independent perspectives on politics in the former Yugoslavia. An early adapter to the internet, B92 has been credited with sparking the many demonstrations that took place in Belgrade during the 1990s. While the role of Radio B92 during the turbulent days of the Yugoslav Wars is well known, less known is the role of its first CEO and news director in the creation of what would become the Media Development Investment Fund (MDIF). Drawing on semi-structured interviews with journalists, scholars, funders, diplomats, and media observers conducted in Belgrade in 2022, this study argues that much can be learned from the case of Radio B92 and the short history of independent media in Serbia. Although B92 ultimately met a tragic death at the hands of privatization and "market censorship," the "impact investment" model of media development it sparked lives on. Combining affordable loan and equity financing with technical assistance and advisory services, MDIF's model helps struggling news organizations avoid dependency on grants. Although the 2022 reelection of President Aleksandar Vučić demonstrates his party's successful state capture of Serbian news media, a look back at the case of Radio B92 has implications for the broader question of what works in international media assistance and why. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the conflict between press censorship and free speech in post-partition Delhi, focusing on the Urdu press. It demonstrates how conflicts over free speech became a focal point for the intersection of two fundamental tensions underlying postcolonial state formation—between civil liberties and the authoritarian legacy of colonial rule, and between a secular democracy and a religion-based partition. The article explores the Urdu refugee dailies that relocated from Lahore to Delhi amid the partition upheaval and emerged as significant media voicing refugees' interests, often at the expense of Muslim residents. Their provocative writings simultaneously challenged the boundaries of free speech and advanced an exclusionary notion of citizenship based on blood-based descent (jus sanguinis). This narrow conception of citizenship, underlying the partition migrations themselves, challenged the secularist vision of India's first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru. In response, the Delhi administration took actions against the refugee papers, making them central to contemporary struggles over press censorship. By taking the state to court, refugee editors promoted citizens' right to free speech, but simultaneously advanced a circumscribed notion of ethno-religious citizenship. Navigating this dual role, the article unveils the exclusions and contradictions that marked citizenship formation in the early postcolonial period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Throughout journalism studies scholarship, the market orientation of lifestyle journalism has been associated with its diminished place within the journalistic field. Specifically, because lifestyle journalists are often thought to entertain and not inform, they hold less social capital within the journalism industry. This study aims to explore how lifestyle journalists perceive their own market orientation and their role relative to the audience. Through the lens of market theory for news production, this study reports on semi-structured interviews with US-based lifestyle journalists (n = 30) and argues that lifestyle journalists perceive that they do feel effects of market influence, but no more than those experienced in hard news specialties. However, lifestyle journalists did perceive expectations in their newsroom that their work ought to be market-driven, and bring in revenue, in order to support the reporting of hard news. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the current state of the media industry in the United States, highlighting the decline of legacy news organizations, the closure of local news companies, and the rise of "news deserts" where people lack access to fact-based local news. It also explores the increase in labor activity among journalists and the role of media unions in improving working conditions. The article draws parallels between the current labor movement and the development of the American Newspaper Guild in the 1930s. It further examines the impact of union membership on income inequality and suggests that media unions could help address the challenges facing the news industry. [Extracted from the article]

This article discusses how media unions have responded to the integration of artificial intelligence (AI) in journalism. It highlights the concerns of journalism workers regarding job security, transparency, and ethical use of AI in the workplace. The unions have taken various actions, such as conducting surveys, launching strikes, negotiating technology clauses in collective bargaining agreements, starting petitions, and organizing social media campaigns, to address these concerns and advocate for worker protections. The article emphasizes the importance of unions in shaping the future of work, labor rights, and innovation in journalism. [Extracted from the article]

During the Second World War and the austerity period that followed it, the British government operated clothes rationing as a welfare policy. Its official aim was to ensure that all citizens had equal access to essential clothing. Despite being associated with the principle of 'fair shares', rationing did not work well for large-bodied consumers. Government agents' assumptions about citizens' bodies generated a rationing scheme that overlooked large bodies. As a result, rationing regulations and economic controls amplified the normalizing impulses of mass production, creating a constant shortage of ready-made large garments and a market in which purchasing power and access to goods depended on body size. Struggling to navigate this market, consumers attempted to hold the government accountable for its declarations of equality. Tracing this issue in government records and in local, national, and trade press, this article discusses how the conflicting motivations of state, trade, and citizens shaped rationing in a way that prioritized the culturally and statistically 'normal' and reflects on what mass welfare meant for citizens with 'abnormal' needs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the rise of inequalities in developed countries and challenges the effectiveness of post-war redistribution policies in reducing these inequalities. It discusses philosopher John Rawls's critique of welfare state capitalism (WSC) and his proposal for a property-owning democracy (POD) as an alternative. The article explores criticisms of both WSC and Rawls's proposal, highlighting the importance of fighting inequalities to strengthen democratic societies. It suggests that a just welfare state should aim to empower citizens and increase social mobility, rather than solely providing assistance. [Extracted from the article]

In November 2023, Argentina elected Javier Milei, a right-wing former television personality, as its president. Milei promised to implement radical, libertarian policies such as abolishing the central bank and eliminating public institutions. His victory, with 56 percent of the vote, was supported by sections of the working class, particularly young males in the informal sector. This election marks a potential transition to a new political and social regime in Argentina. The country has previously been governed by populist left and neoliberal right governments, but neither type of government has been able to fully address the country's economic challenges. [Extracted from the article]

This article critiques the Information Technology (Intermediaries Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules 2021 ("the Rules") as they relate to online journalism. The Government's stated objective for making the Rules is to "level the playing field" of online journalism with print journalism. I examine whether and how the Government satisfies this objective. I make two broad claims. First, the Rules fail to "level the playing field". The objectives, philosophical approach, and substance of the new regulatory scheme are significantly different from those that govern print journalism, and to the disadvantage of online journalism. Second, rather than "levelling the playing field", the Rules give the Government overwhelming control of online journalism. The Government exercises ultimate control over the regulatory structures and gives itself unprecedented censorship powers over online journalism. If my claims are correct, the Rules will have catastrophic consequences for online journalism and Indian democracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pragmatists are interested primarily not in representing a purportedly unchanging Reality but in articulating prophetic future possibilities on the basis of the values most venerated by a culture/society in the present. This makes pragmatism sound a little like 'Conceptual Engineering'. Conceptual engineers too are interested in transforming our ways of talking, which implies some notion of how such improvements are to be evaluated. Nevertheless, this paper argues that accounts of conceptual engineering that regard it as key to the project of elucidating an externalist semantics find it difficult to accommodate on their own terms the problem-phenomena taken to be of shared interest: regions of discourse where the demand for change are at their most pressing culturally. This difficulty takes the form of what I call the Conceptual Engineering Dilemma (CED), an inability to accommodate simultaneously the ethical and ameliorative dimensions of contestation. I argue that acknowledging the formalist commitments that undergird CED should make pragmatism more appealing to the practically-orientated analytic philosopher and conclude with a brief survey of some of the tools that it makes available for the pressing work of changing minds for the better. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The sports media landscape has shifted to favor outlets with inside access to sports organizations, teams, and athletes. This study interviews 21 NFL in-house reporters working at 19 official team websites to determine how they view their roles as sports journalists, including ethical standards and shifts in media boundaries. Qualitative interviews uncovered that cultivating a positive team image and protecting the interests of stakeholders supersede the production of objective news stories, even from those who started their careers as external sports reporters. Internal reporters are often conflicted with their roles in the sports media ecosystem. Additionally, interviews reveal their efforts to maintain a balancing act between the established ideals of journalism with the positive spin that accompanies public relations. The present study illuminates how such positions both mirror and diverge from the expectations typically placed within sports journalism, while offering fruitful avenues for subsequent scholarly investigation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the efforts of missionaries in Cape Palmas, Liberia, to create written texts in the Grebo language using Roman script. Led by Reverend John Leighton Wilson, the missionaries printed various texts, including primers, religious books, and Bible stories, with the aim of teaching the Grebo language, Christian values, and Anglo-American social ideals. The texts also provide insights into the cultural and linguistic exchanges between the missionaries and the Grebo people. Additionally, the article discusses the smaller tracts printed at the Fair Hope mission, which were widely distributed and may have served as physical markers of affiliation with the mission and offered protection to Grebos in a politically volatile climate. Overall, the article highlights the complex relationship between missionaries, settlers, and Grebos in Cape Palmas. [Extracted from the article]

This introductory paper will (a) review the intersection between science, journalism and development from a historical perspective, (b) propose normative directions for science journalism of the Global South, (c) contrast that normative framework with the rather weak state of science journalism across the South, (d) identify potential solutions to current problems, and (e) propose a research agenda for the future. Throughout, I will advance a framework of theoretical and practical principles to transform the science–journalism–development relationship in the Global South, which entails four normative dimensions: glocalisation, decolonisation, indigenisation and dewesternisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Science journalism associations at a national and international level have aimed to form networks of support for the professionalization of the field. In this article, we focus at the process of consolidation of one of the first of such international organizations: the Ibero-American Association of Science Journalism (AIPC), created in Medellín in 1969, which sowed the seeds for the creation of new national associations across Latin America and connected these national organizations in Latin America and Spain through international conferences, exchange programs, and training initiatives. Through the analysis of historical documentation from the personal archive of one of its main leaders, the Spanish Manuel Calvo Hernando, we explore the dynamic between the AIPC and the national associations in Latin America during this formative period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reports show that media freedom is under pressure worldwide. Violence against journalists has a legal facet that takes the form of Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (SLAPPs) that aim at silencing critical speech. While in some countries there are legal protections against SLAPPs, in Europe a debate is only recently being carried out, mainly fostered by professional journalist associations and civil society. This article explores the role that European journalistic self-regulatory bodies perceive they (could) have in fighting SLAPPs, analysing 16 qualitative answers gathered via a questionnaire. Self-regulation has historically been a way to protect the independence of journalism and uphold its ethical standards. The open-ended responses help to understand how SLAPPs put into question the representations that media councils and professional associations use to construct their 'professional jurisdiction', and therefore, their 'territory' and the way in which they see their role in society. Our results provide food for thought on the handling of legal attacks against journalists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyzes the challenges and opportunities facing communication in Latin America towards the year 2030. Aspects such as technology and digitalization, social and political challenges, environmental sustainability, cultural diversity, freedom of the press and participation are examined. citizen. The implications of the UN's 2030 agenda are discussed and the social metamorphosis driven by events such as the pandemic and climate change is reflected on. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The watchdog role has been one of the most widely discussed normative functions of the press. In this study, we examine the public's attitudes toward the news media's watchdog performance and how they correlate with trust in news and news avoidance, two important phenomena for democracy and the health of the public sphere. We further examine how individual predispositions (e.g. political interest, ideology) and contextual variables (e.g. press freedom) moderate these relationships. Based on data from the 2019 Reuters Institute Digital News Report, and controlling for a range of factors, we find that across 38 countries, watchdog performance evaluations are positively associated with trust in news but that they are also positively associated with higher levels of news avoidance. Last, we find that evaluations of media in other functions like helping citizens understand the most important topics of the day and choosing relevant topics were more strongly associated to trust in news and lower news avoidance levels than watchdog performance evaluations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Incivility in parliaments is always prominently displayed in media reports, often with the implicit or explicit commentary that the situation is getting worse. This paper processes and analyses the records of verbal interactions in the Australian Parliament for over 100 years to provide a first approximation on the evolution of civility. It provides a framework for understanding the multidimensional nature of civility that examines both 'politeness' and 'argumentation', with the latter grounded in notions of public-mindedness. The analysis focuses on the interactions between parties of the orators and the party in power, the chamber of utterance, and the year. The results indicate that instances of impoliteness have increased since the 1970s but only modestly and remain highly infrequent. Minor parties, particularly those representing right-wing and Green politics are more likely to use dismissive or offensive language than the dominant centre-left and centre-right parties, although direct insults and swearwords are the particular remits of right-wing 'system-wrecker' parties. All these minor parties, nonetheless, also display higher levels of argumentation in their interventions. This combination of aggressive language and increased argumentation highlights the pressures on minor parties to convey their points in a forceful way, a challenge that is particularly pressing in two-party systems like the Australian one. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While research on journalism in social media is extensive and approaches the topic from different perspectives, the consideration of what contributes to quality journalism in social media is underdeveloped. Our paper addresses this by providing a comprehensive literature review of journalism research relating to aspects of quality in social media. Based on a systematic Scopus search, 54 peer-reviewed, English-language papers published between 2015 and 2022 were selected for in-depth textual analysis using MAXQDA. Two important takeaways emerge from the analysis. First, the literature suggests that journalists and media organizations adapt work routines, norms, and values in a context-sensitive manner when producing content for social media. By enabling many-to-many communication, social media platforms force journalists and media outlets to reflect on audience demands and to develop audience engagement strategies. Second, the findings underscore that journalistic social media activities diverge depending on how individual journalists and organizations approach journalistic quality in social media. As these findings are only pieces to the puzzle of what quality journalism in social media entails, we hope to encourage further research in this area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

New forms and practices of journalism evolve and stabilize when they are socially, culturally and institutionally enabled [Bossio, Diana, and Jacob L. Nelson. 2021. "Reconsidering Innovation: Situating and Evaluating Change in Journalism." Journalism Studies 22 (11): 1377–1381], signifying their acknowledgement in the triad of practice, academic research, and education. In the case of news podcasting, the practice is emerging in India, and so is academic research in the domain. However, the third vortex of education is largely missing in this case, as found in the course of the present research. This paper argues the need for podcasting to be included in the curricula of journalism schools in the Indian context. It presents the findings of 24 qualitative in-depth interviews with podcasting journalists and journalism educators in India, highlighting the need of including podcasting in curricula and the challenges to this. These two perspectives are then bridged to present a case for including news podcasting in the training of new journalists. The paper strongly argues that podcasting is a great value addition to journalism curricula, facilitating both aims of a journalism programme-employment and performing the normative function of journalism. Specifically, in India, this inclusion is necessary since news podcasting is a major way of reinventing audio journalism, which has been limited to only the public radio broadcasting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the recovery and mapping of New York City's nineteenth-century Spanish-language press, with a focus on Néstor Ponce de León's bookstore and its role in the Spanish-language publishing community. It discusses the potential of digital mapping projects and student collaborations in uncovering lost stories and voices from this period. The article also introduces the concept of "SIGuache," a digital mapping project that aims to amplify suppressed stories in Latinx studies and engage the public in contemplating history. It highlights other digital humanities initiatives that challenge dominant narratives and empower students to fill gaps in our understanding of history. Additionally, the text discusses the SIGuache project's investigation of a 20th century Afro-Atlantic Republic of Arts and Letters and draws connections between Chicanx punk and SIGuache as forms of resistance against oppression. It emphasizes the importance of reanimating past connections and possibilities to imagine a more just world. [Extracted from the article]

We examine the impact of fiscal decentralization reforms on two central components of public service delivery outcomes, viz., health and education using feasible generalized least squares on a balanced panel of 18 non-special category states of India for the period 2002–2020. Given India's complex decentralization framework, intertwined with dynamic political and socioeconomic dimensions and weak institutional processes, our analysis is critical to examining the efficacy of decentralization as a policy instrument to augment the provision of public services. The novelty of our study stems not only from its longitudinal and multidimensional approach towards analyzing the effectiveness of decentralization reforms but also from its unique construction of an 'institutional quality' index that is critical for ensuring accountability in the decentralization process. Our findings underscore the positive impact of fiscal decentralization as a reformative intervention on public service delivery outcomes, highlighting the role of Indian polity and socioeconomic channels of accountability in shaping those outcomes. The study emphasizes the imperative to augment institutional quality, safeguard press freedom, enhance local government capacity, and delineate distinct functions within key policy domains for successful decentralization reforms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Privacy, traditionally understood as a right applicable only to individuals, often loses in policymaking to "social" interests, such as national security, medical progress, or the freedom of the press. Recent work in the philosophy of privacy has therefore begun to emphasize the societal value of privacy, its contribution to the common good. However, to be secure privacy should be anchored in both the right and the good. Properly delimited, privacy is an absolute right of the individual. It also benefits society in several ways. While not a "public good" in the economists' sense, privacy is in several precise respects constitutive of the common good. As such, it is compatible not just with liberalism but with social democracy and democratic socialism. Moreover, the arrival of the "global information society," with its facilitation of openness and connectedness, offers a new avenue for congruence between privacy and community. The argument draws on the ideas of Green, Rawls, and Regan, among others. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research systematically and empirically examines challenges that confront Nigerian foreign correspondents, including how foreign correspondents manage the demands of their job such as pressures from senior editors at their head offices, restricted access to information and state officials, and government officials interfering with objective news reporting. The study also looks at correspondents' accounts of their individual experiences and the strategies they deploy to circumnavigate the challenges they encounter in their professional practice. The merit of this research lies in its intent to fill existing gaps in the scholarship of foreign correspondence in Africa. Specifically, the study contributes to knowledge and understanding of foreign correspondents in Nigeria, the most populous country in Africa, including an understanding of the difficult environment of journalistic practices in a non-Western country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mainland: This study investigates the intermedia agenda-setting (IAS) relationships among major newspapers in Hong Kong, the U.S. and mainland China concerning the 2019 anti-extradition bill protests. It builds on the protest paradigm to characterize the news attributes adopted by leading media outlets and examined the transfer of attribute agendas at both regional and international levels. A total of 9,646 news items were content analyzed. Granger causality tests revealed that mainland Chinese media were the primary agenda-setter among the three, contrary to previous findings that media agendas mostly flow from the U.S. to other countries. Hong Kong newspapers exerted a bottom-up influence on their U.S. counterparts, setting the attribute agenda regarding Chinese authority and international society. A breakdown of the Hong Kong press into three political camps showed diverse IAS relationships. The findings testify to the co-existence of dominant flows and contra-flows in regional and international news flows and imply that organizational and socio-cultural factors can potentially influence IAS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Our daily dealings with media products are shaped by the use of generic designations such as journalistic presentation modes, for example, news, commentary, and Instagram-story. Yet, scholarship has examined presentation modes only selectively and lacks empirical investigations in this domain. Based on literature and a quantitative content analysis of jury protocols of the German online journalism award "Grimme Online Award," this article explores how presentation modes are constructed and further develops a framework for a categorization of presentation modes with eight dimensions: Content and Function, Author, Sources, Periodicity, Material Substrate, Structure, Media, and Interactive-Engagement Elements. This study is the first to empirically assess journalistic presentation mode dimensions and manifestations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As an international issue entangled with geopolitical tensions, the conflict between Russia and Ukraine has had significant media coverage in China and is reflected in the battle for global media supported by different powers. This study analyses the domestic context of news production to examine how this ongoing conflict is portrayed by leading news media in China with a special focus on the 'domestication' effect in global journalism, reflecting diverse frames in different countries. News coverage was selected from February 2022 to March 2023 from the online databases of Xinhua News Agency, People's Daily and China Daily. By employing the framing analysis, this study discusses the strategies used by the Chinese media in domesticating the global news for the audiences in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reports on early results of a research project examining popular support for media freedoms in sub-Saharan Africa. Using data from the Afrobarometer surveys, as well as other sources, we specifically examine cross-national variation in support for media freedoms, seeking to account for the national-level factors that affect that variation. Our findings suggest the importance of two factors in particular. The first is the level of polarization in society. Using a novel measure of this factor, we find that higher levels of polarization are associated with lower levels of support for media freedoms. The second factor is the level of professionalism characterizing the media sector. We find that lower levels of media professionalism drive down support for media freedoms. Further research will explore these through the use of multilevel analysis that incorporates investigation of individual-level factors shaping support for media freedoms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the public relations challenges faced by the United States Supreme Court, which have resulted in a decline in public trust. It discusses various controversies involving the justices, including financial ties to wealthy donors, failure to disclose gifts, and potential conflicts of interest. The author argues that a free and active press is essential in holding the justices accountable and regulating their behavior. The article also examines current ethical standards for the Court and proposes alternative reforms. It suggests that media-based approaches, such as transparency and public accountability, may be more effective in promoting an ethical Court than traditional legal solutions. [Extracted from the article]

In the analysis of decolonization process and nationalist struggles for political independence of Africa, labour agitations and the press activism for human rights are common features. But most studies have treated labour crisis and the press activism during the period of decolonization as mere subsets of the linear narrative of independence movement. Drawing on the empirical data of the Enugu Colliery Shootings incident, this paper examined labour agitation as an independent event and reviewed the area of overlap with the nationalist struggles. It re-examined the Colliery Shootings beyond the preponderant nationalist view that lumped every social, economic and political protest of the decolonization period as a single metanarrative of nationalist movements. Lastly, the roles of Nigerian newspapers as mediators in the crises between the labour unions and the colonial government, and the nationalists with the colonial government were appraised. The paper argued that, despite the interconnection of labour agitations with nationalist movements of the period, the former was both characteristically independent and coincidental with the latter. Similarly, not all human rights agitations by the newspapers were independence-focused. Finally, the nationalists, through networking process, benefited from labour agitations and press activism by expanding and molding local protests as independence movements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper introduces a theoretical perspective for the comparative analysis of the advocacy behavior of political parties and interest groups in legislative policy-making. It conceptualizes the policy-centered and group-centered statements of political actors as policy frames and constituency frames, respectively. In order to gauge the analytical leverage provided by policy and constituency frames, I will theorize the extent to which political parties and interest groups rely on these two types of frames respectively. The empirical relevance of both types of frames is assessed in two cases of legislative policy-making in Germany. Drawing on parliamentary debates, position papers presented in committee hearings, and press statements released by interest groups, I show, amongst others, that constituency frames play a significant role in these actors' advocacy. While the use of policy and constituency frames varies between radical and moderate parties, there are hardly any differences in their use between parties and interest groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"Postmedia Effect: How Vulture Capitalism Is Wrecking Our News" by Marc Edge explores the decline of the newspaper industry in Canada due to the influence of hedge funds. The author highlights the actions of Paul Godfrey, the central figure at Postmedia Network, and criticizes his decisions, such as merging competing newspapers and prioritizing bond holders over shareholders. Edge argues that hedge funds have drained newsrooms financially, leading to the downfall of independent journalism. He also discusses the impact of government subsidies and suggests nonprofit journalism as a potential solution. The book emphasizes the need to protect the industry and explores the struggles between news publishers and tech giants like Google and Meta. [Extracted from the article]

This article is a review of the book "Xi Jinping. Political Career, Governance, and Leadership, 1953–2018" by Alfred L. Chan. The book provides insights into Xi Jinping's political career and his ambitions for China's domestic and international standing. It covers Xi's early life, his time in various bureaucratic posts, and his first two presidential terms. The book explores Xi's anti-corruption campaigns, his consolidation of power, and his vision for a modern China guided by the Communist Party. The review suggests that understanding Xi's vision is important, especially as China faces economic challenges and increasing international tensions. [Extracted from the article]

This study investigates if headlines in journalism are genre-specific. Taking a starting point in Austin's concept of illocutionary act, Searle's development of the concept, and the adaptation of the concept to texts within rhetorical genre studies (Bazerman, 1994; Miller, 1984) and pragmatic text linguistics (Borchmann, 2005, 2010, 2014), the study assumes that the texts of a specific genre comprise various subordinated illocutionary acts which must contribute to the fulfilment of the typified purpose that the textual macro-act serves. Accordingly, headlines are considered to be subacts, i.e. illocutionary acts whose conditions of satisfaction are determined by the typified purpose of the text they form a part of. This functional account suggests that headlines are genre-specific. The present study tests this hypothesis by means of two analyses: a comparative pragmatic analysis of 300 headlines from three different genres, and a comparative pragmatic analysis of 90 texts from three different genres. The material used in both surveys are texts of the genres news, analysis and column in the Danish omnibus newspaper Politiken. The result of the comparative analysis of headlines is that it is possible to identify genre-specific pragmatic features of headlines. The results of the comparative analysis of texts are that there are functional relations between pragmatic features of headlines and the accepted purpose of the textual macro-act they form a part of, and that there are genre-specific rhetorical relations between headlines and the body of the texts. On this basis, the distinctive conditions of satisfactions of each of the three illocutionary subacts news headline, headline of analysis and headline of column are stated. By applying a pragmatic text linguistic and genre theoretical development of the concept of illocutionary act the manuscript demonstrates that headlines of journalism are genre-specific: • Headlines of news articles, analyses, and columns in the online version of the Danish omnibus newspaper Politiken are different in terms of their pragmatic features • There are functional relations between the pragmatic features of headlines and the purpose of the genre • There are genre-specific rhetorical relations between headlines and the body of the text • The conditions of satisfactions of headlines as illocutionary subacts are genre-specific The results of the study call for caution with regard to the association of certain linguistic features and certain functions with headlines in journalism in general. The study demonstrates that genre control can be obtained by a pragmatic analysis using the concept of illocutionary subact as a framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Today, our free speech marketplace is often overwhelming, confusing, and even dangerous. Threats, misdirection, and lies abound. Online firestorms lead to offline violence. This Article argues that the way we conceptualize free speech and the free press are partly to blame: our metaphors are hurting us. The primary metaphor courts have used for a century to describe free speech--the marketplace of ideas--has been linked to violence since its inception. Originating in a case about espionage and revolution, in a dissent written by Oliver Wendell Holmes, a thrice-injured Civil War veteran, the marketplace has been described as a space where competition and force order the rungs on a ladder climbing toward truth. Power and violence are at home in the speech marketplace. Perhaps unsurprisingly then, these same characteristics animate the defining metaphor for a key free speech institution: the press is a "watchdog." In First Amendment law, the press's role is to attack government for its misdeeds. As linguists have shown, metaphors are not simply rhetorical icing. They shape human understanding and behavior--sometimes in dangerous ways. The marketplace and watchdog metaphors have this power, and with it they have helped to create a speech environment where violence can feel routine. As linguists have shown, metaphors are not simply rhetorical icing. They shape human understanding and behavior--sometimes in dangerous ways. The marketplace and watchdog metaphors have this power, and with it they have helped to create a speech environment where violence can feel routine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The decline in local newspapers is leading to a local news 'desert', where there is little or no coverage of important local issues like policing, court cases and council politics. At present, the BBC attempts to fill some of the gap by paying for 'local democracy reporters' who work for private local media companies, but this creates tensions and is not a sustainable solution. This article argues that granting small local media organisations charitable status, as in the United States, would also be problematic. Instead, it advocates an independent 'Local Press Council'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ghana is a poster child of the consolidation of liberal democracy in Africa, the signal evidence of which is the freedom of the Ghanaian media as the fourth estate of the realm. However, recent developments in the media landscape of the country, such as sustained death threats, assaults, use of unwarranted brute force, suspicions and murder of journalists seem to mar the democratic image of Ghana. These incidents have raised concerns about the erosion of freedom and independence of the media in Ghana, a situation that is worrying enough to ignite a debate on whether the dark days of the culture of silence are returning to the country under democratic governance. Drawing on qualitative data collected through personal in-depth interviews and grey literature of media attacks and intimidations, the article examines the extent of the erosion of press freedom in Ghana. We argue that media freedom seems to be under increasing threat by elements of the state, despite public rhetoric of freedom of the press. Specifically, the threats are coming from officials of state such as national security operatives, the police and political party supporters. Concluding, the article calls for sustained civic activism against these threats. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aimed to examine the conceptual, theoretical, and methodological trends and gaps in data journalism research by conducting a systematic literature review of 102 articles published in English in SSCI-indexed communication journals. The review revealed that the majority of the literature focused on empirical investigations of data journalism practice, with weak conceptual and theoretical foundations and limited methodological diversity. Additionally, the authors and topics examined were predominantly from the Global North, which makes it challenging to generalize the findings to different contexts and scales. However, recent larger-scale studies incorporating the Global South offer hope for deepening the data journalism discussion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Automated tools for parsing and communicating information have increasingly become associated with the production of journalistic content. To study this phenomenon and to explore the development of automated journalism across two locales at the cutting edge of technology, we leverage insights from in-depth interviews with news technologists from pioneering news organizations and Internet companies specialized in the construction of "news bot" technology in the United States and China, including The Associated Press, The New York Times, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, BuzzFeed, Quartz, Xinhua Zhiyun, Southern Metropolis Daily, Toutiao, and Tencent. Based on these interviews, we document how the creation of automated journalism products is heavily dependent on the successful assembly of actor networks inside and outside organizations. While metrics for measuring the success of automated journalism are applied differently, they often center around the augmentation of existing reportorial activities and focus on replacing rote and mundane (human) work processes. Some of the biggest challenges in automated journalism lie in curating high-quality datasets and managing the associated high stakes of errors in a business defined by trust. Lastly, automated journalism can be seen as a form of experimentation, helping its protagonists to future-proof their respective organizations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current increase in religiously motivated radicalism is a serious social problem in various countries. Through our qualitative research, which was based on the knowledge and experience of experts recorded during the focus group interview, it was possible to identify the most frequent causes of religious radicalism in Slovakia today. The Slovak Republic, a small post-communist country in the region of Eastern Europe, served as an empirical example for research purposes. Following the research findings, a second research objective was set, namely to present the possibilities and contribution of citizen journalism that can play a key role in tracking, documenting and sharing cases of religious radicalism. The research presents the causes of religious radicalism and the optimal possibilities of citizen journalism, which would adequately respond to contemporary religious radicalism with the use of online media. The activities of "people's journalists" appear not only as a trigger for public debate that takes place on social media, blogs, and independent journalistic platforms but also as a necessary voice calling for accountability and transparency of solutions concerning religious radicalism, which is inherently complex and a multifactorial process, often leading to extremism. This study attempts to answer the question of why civic engagement using online media is important in this issue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In contemporary societies, communication becomes increasingly plural, with the multiplication of information channels, connections, and social actors. On the one hand, this promotes greater democratization of communication and information systems, but, on the other hand, these become increasingly complex, requiring a growing degree of literacy to understand the value of each message and its potential impact. In this context, this article highlights the privileged role that professional journalism has in promoting media literacy, largely thanks to its ability to reach different audiences and actively contribute to opinion-forming processes. With this objective in mind, three projects are discussed involving the newspapers Público (Portugal) and O Estado de S.Paulo (Brazil), as well as the BBC (United Kingdom). It concludes that there is a need to diversify the role of journalism, which is often reduced to promoting knowledge about news production methods. The theoretical-methodological framework adopted is based on Cultural Studies, Critical Discourse Studies and Communication and Media Studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The media plays an important role in disseminating vital information and being ‘watchdogs’ of government misconduct. Press freedom is constitutionally guaranteed in the Philippines, but the space for journalists and media companies continues to shrink. This is because constant attempts have been made to suppress and silence them through the government’s targeted attacks, which can be characterized into three categories: classifying media as allies and enemies, the weaponization of laws, and personal and institutional attacks. The emergence of COVID-19 made press freedom even more challenging due to the threat of infection and government-imposed restrictions and measures. This research deployed interviews with multiple journalists and a review of secondary data. The study shows that state interference, challenges in fulfilling journalistic roles, and the obstruction of the free flow of information during the pandemic resulted in three levels of fear among journalists: fear of losing one’s network, fear of losing credibility, and fear of personal safety. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]