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Until recently, cyberspace was considered largely a matter of low politics. But over the last decade, it has begun to shape the high politics of national security and other core concerns of national governments, as evidenced by the Wikileaks release of US classified information and the social media-influenced Arab Spring. The field of international relations has not kept pace with this emerging significance of cyberspace. As the international system and the empowered non-state groups and individuals of cyberspace shape one another, the potential collisions of law, policy, and the practice of governance have barely even been identified. Before the international community can begin to minimize the negative consequences of those inevitable collisions, it needs to understand how and where cyberspace and international relations intersect and influence one another. The authors provide two complementary systems for analyzing those intersections and influence points. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Print media research is a slow but sure-footed beast. This paper describes some notable developments in readership research around the world. Pressure to measure an increasing number of titles and, in some cases, newspaper sections has led to some new solutions. Two recent studies have addressed the growing demand for media planning data on how long it takes for print titles to accumulate their readership. Some countries are exploring the potential of the new technology available for data collection. Debate about the different ways of estimating readership and minimising bias continues, and there have been some changes in the ways that different countries address these issues. Concern over declining respondent cooperation is becoming more pressing, and may have an increasing influence on how methodologies are adapted and developed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the framing of the Ukraine crisis in German and Russian television political talk shows. Informed by peace journalism and constructive journalism, it investigates how Russian and German shows frame the Ukraine crisis and to what extent constructive and destructive frames are used. Qualitative content analysis of 20 shows (10 Russian and 10 German) enables examination of frame content and their constructive or destructive character. While constructive frames address situational causal interpretations and constructive problem treatments, destructive frames blame one party for the crisis and apply either no treatment or a destructive one. Findings reveal that shows in both countries provide different frames on both the situation inside Ukraine and international tensions between Russia and the West. While large parts of both strands of the debates are destructive in character, the country's shows include more constructive frames in different periods of the crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How do differences in ownership of media enterprises shape news coverage of international conflict? We examine this relationship using a new dataset of 591,532 articles on US-led multinational military operations in Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan and Kosovo, published by 2,505 newspapers in 116 countries. We find that ownership chains exert a homogenizing effect on the content of newspapers' coverage of foreign policy, resulting in coverage across co-owned papers that is more similar in scope (what they cover), focus (how much "hard" relative to "soft" news they offer), and diversity (the breadth of topics they include in their coverage of a given issue) relative to coverage across papers that are not co-owned. However, we also find that competitive market pressures can mitigate these homogenizing effects, and incentivize co-owned outlets to differentiate their coverage. Restrictions on press freedom have the opposite impact, increasing the similarity of coverage within ownership chains. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction to articles published within the issue is presented, including mass media communication and multipolar relationships in public diplomacy, the role of non-governmental organizations as a part of public diplomacy, and the framing of the territorial dispute between Japan and South Korea over Dokdo by four international news agencies.

This study aims to research mass media communication and multipolar relationships in public diplomacy by using announcement of China Air Defense Identification Zone (CADIZ) in November 2013 as a case. Based on importance of mass mediated public diplomacy, to examine wording and message structure, language analysis program of semantic and ego network is applied. In addition, considering the environment of Korean media, newspapers from democratic and conservative are selected. The CADIZ issue takes place in Northeast Asian region but reactions and the relations of the USA are mainly dealt with. The USA is closely connected to China and Korea and has an important influence as a consultant in the given situation. Moreover, Korean media keep monitoring Japan's response to refer Korea's response strategy. Semantic and ego network seem to be powerful when analyzing international conflicts. This research shows that international relationship can be a significant asset to public diplomacy. In short, analyzing multipolar relations seems essential to understand construction of related countries and seek to solve diplomatic conflicts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the impact of the British newspaper the "Daily Telegraph's" 1908 interview with the German leader Kaiser Wilhelm II on the relations between Great Britain and Germany. The impact of Great Britain and Germany's press on international relations, including in regard to their impact on British and German attitudes, is discussed.

While power asymmetry typically defines security relationships between allies, there exist other forms of asymmetry that influence alliance politics. In order to illustrate how they can shape policy outcomes that cannot be explained solely through the lens of power capabilities, the authors examine the role of relative attention that each side pays to the alliance. It is their central argument that since the client state has a greater vested interest in the alliance and given that attention depends on interest/need, the client state can leverage attention to get its way. By analysing two specific cases, the 2002 South Korean schoolgirls tragedy and the 2008 beef protests—instances where the South Koreans succeeded in compelling US concessions—the authors show that because the alliance was more central to the client state's agendas, there existed an asymmetry of attention that offered leveraging opportunities for the weaker ally. In this study, the authors emphasise the role of media attention as a key variable, and seek to contribute to debates on weaker party leverage in asymmetrical alliances. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article breaks new ground by reframing the context in which the governments of India and the Soviet Union arrived at an understanding that determined the course of cinematic exchange between the two countries during the cold war. It suggests that official Indian attitudes to the export of commercial films to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics were not formulated on the basis of carefully calibrated political considerations, but rather on an ad hoc footing, and in response to a combination of unwelcome Soviet pressure and commercial concerns voiced by Indian film-makers. To fully understand the origins of Indian cinema’s emergence as a prominent feature of cultural life behind the Iron Curtain, it is necessary to travel back to the early 1950s, when an unlikely alliance was forged between K.A. Abbas, a flamboyant and politically well-connected Indian film-maker, and N.P. Koulebiakin, a dour communist apparatchik in charge of the Indian arm of Sovexportfilm, the Soviet agency responsible for the import and export of feature films. Specifically, this article recovers the hitherto elided role played by Indian film-makers, such as Abbas, and lesser known Indian films, such asRahi, in establishing the political ground rules that governed bi-lateral Indo–Soviet cinematic interchange. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article discusses the use of the political doctrine of containment by authoritarian states, particularly China and Russia, so as to prevent the spread of democracy and democratization in countries, including in the former Soviet republics Ukraine and Georgia. An overview of authoritarian states' use of the mass media to prevent democratization, including Russia's international media company RT (formerly Russia Today) and China's multi-billion dollar international media broadcaster CCTV's programs in Arabic, Russian and French languages, is provided.

The article looks at the Bilateral Security Agreement (BSA) between Afghanistan and the U.S. and the impact of the relationship of the two countries on Pakistan. Topics include the threat of troop withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan if the agreement is not signed, the administration of Afghan President Hamid Karzai, and the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) umbrella organization of Islamist militant groups. The article also discusses the stance of Pakistani media on foreign policy issues.

This article examines how the United Kingdom’s media represents contemporary China. Using the context of the Beijing Olympics, the article examines the UK media’s representation of China through the prisms of ideology, history and geopolitics. Using Content Analysis, the inquiry examines news reports on the Olympics published in the UK’s ‘national newspapers’ (as classified by Lexis Nexis) between 9 May 2008 and 8 August 2008, the three-month period immediately preceding the games. The article finds the UK media’s narrative on China prejudiced by ideological differences, biases traceable to historical presuppositions, and anxieties emanating from China’s resurgence on the world stage. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article shows how the popular press debate over Europe was fundamentally conditioned by the wider political, social, and cultural tensions of early 1960s Britain. By asking how the Daily Express and the Daily Mirror came to represent almost diametrically opposed views on Europe when both reached out to broadly comparable mass readerships, it exposes the many diverse and often contradictory responses that the far-reaching domestic and international transformations of post-war Britain provoked in the public discourse over Europe. Yet, while the Express’s opposition to the British application, based on its conservative and imperialist self-identity, has often been highlighted, the Mirror’s strong support of European integration, as part of its wider agenda for social and cultural change, has been all but ignored. Thus, the article exposes a previously overlooked line of public engagement with Europe at that time: through the eyes of the young, affluent consumer, unmoved by the claims of ‘tradition’. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

One of the major global challenges that the EU currently faces is the establishment of a multipolar world order with Emerging Powers—Brazil, Russia India, China and South Africa—as prospective cooperation partners. News media is the key information gatekeeper. Therefore, this research probes the EU’s place in the emerging world order by scrutinizing the visibility and framings of the EU’s dyadic relations with China, India and Russia in the daily coverage of leading press in these three ‘rising powers’. We investigate the importance newsmakers ascribe to the EU’s dyadic interactions at the time of the Euro debt crisis in terms of volume, intensity and evaluation of EU representations and link this analysis to issue areas reported (political, economic, social, environmental or developmental). The results are discussed in the context of the importance of external perceptions studies for informed dialogue between modern-day ‘Great Powers’. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In the international political environment preceding the 1st World War the diplomatic and economic relations between the Tsarist Empire and the Kingdom of Romania can be characterized positive, especially because of the fruitful cooperation and contribution of Romania to the Russian military actions in Bulgaria. Although, from another point of view it is important to mention and can not be denied the tensions which appeared in this relationships mostly on account of Romanian national revival feeling of belonging between the inhabitants of Bessarabia. This phenomenal is visible at political level to, but becomes more vocal through the local, provincial romanian mass media. The aim of the study is to present an inventory of the relations between the two neighboring countries. In the actual international and geostrategic context, we believe that this type of historical/inventory studies are necessary and useful in the management process of bilateral relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article applies the homophily thesis to public diplomacy and offers an empirical examination of a country's success in its mediated public diplomacy efforts. It analyzes international frame building, the process of creating or changing media frames in the international communications arena, by applying it to the case of Israeli mediated public diplomacy efforts during the war in Gaza in the winter of 2008–2009. The article claims that one way to use the homophily thesis in empirical analyses of international frame-building campaigns in conflicts is to measure the political and value proximity of a country promoting frames to other countries. Yet, proximity should be measured relatively rather than in absolute terms. Therefore, one should look not only at the dyadic proximity between two actors (i.e., Country A that attempts to promote its frames to Country C), but at the relative proximity between Countries A and C considering the proximity between the rival Country B and the target Country C. The study proposes a model and a method to facilitate empirical analysis of this claim. Using sophisticated computerized content analysis, our analyses demonstrate that relative proximity is related to successful international frame building in the hypothesized direction: The closer the relative proximity between Israel and a foreign country, the greater the acceptance of Israel's views. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Between 1958 and 1960, all of France's colonies in West Africa became independent. While recent historical studies have shed light on the sociopolitical developments that led to the collapse of the French empire in this part of Africa, very few of them have explored the American or other third-party dimensions of this process. In so doing, they have confined the story of decolonisation to an exclusive Franco-African affair. Using a transnational historical approach, this article argues that a number of US public spheres, including various newspapers contributed to the decolonisation saga in French West Africa. This was carried out through their performative coverage of the colonial situation. Although the French imperial state attempted to hold back the tide of anti-colonial sentiment in the USA through judicious public relations campaigns that targeted American public opinion and policy-makers, its efforts proved largely illusory. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper examines the Cold War rhetoric in US-Russia relations by looking at the 2008 Russia-Georgia war as a major breaking point. We investigate the links between media, public opinion and foreign policy. In our content analysis of the coverage in two major US newspapers, we find that the framing of the conflict was anti-Russia, especially in the initial stages of the conflict. In addition, our survey results demonstrate that an increase in the media exposure of US respondents increased the likelihood of blaming Russia exclusively in the conflict. This case study helps us understand how media can be powerful in constructing a certain narrative of an international conflict, which can then affect public perceptions of other countries. We believe that the negative framing of Russia in the US media has had important implications for the already-tenuous relations between the US and Russia by reviving and perpetuating the Cold War mentality for the public as well as for foreign policymakers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Existing research on civil war interventions provides contradicting evidence about the role that the media plays in affecting the likelihood of intervention. To date, studies often focus on specific cases (frequently by the United States) leaving it unclear whether the media's influence extends more broadly. In this article we examine this question cross-nationally and argue that we need to account for the possibility that interventions also lead to increases in media coverage. We test our hypotheses using cross-national data on civil war interventions and media coverage. These data include a new measure of media coverage of 73 countries experiencing civil wars between 1982 and 1999. These data allow us to determine whether media coverage is more likely to drive leaders’ decisions or follow them. Toward this end we employ a two-stage conditional maximum likelihood model to control for potential endogeneity between media attention and interventions. The results suggest a reciprocal positive relationship between media attention and civil conflict interventions. Specifically, an increase of one standard deviation in media coverage raises the probability of intervention 68%. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

What does a rising China mean to the world? While some countries take China as a salient threat, others regard China as their role model for development and governance. However, limited research has offered a systematic comparative analysis in this regard. China's spectacular celebration of its 60th anniversary uniquely showcased its increasing military might, mounting economic wealth and carefully-maintained mass support. Taking advantage of simultaneous worldwide news coverage of this all-in-one event, we scrutinize how different societies responded to a rising China. We find significant variance in the news coverage from 42 top printed media in 21 sampled societies. Moreover, these societies' political features affect their newspapers' reporting styles the most. This analysis significantly enriches our understanding of the rise of China. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The mass media have a strong impact on International Relations. Foreign Correspondents are the key pieces of international information. This paper presents the model of peace journalism as a tool to analyze the frames that journalists give in covering a conflict. The case of study is the coverage made by correspondents in the Spanish press to the Israeli- Palestinian conflict in 2007 -2008. The results show that all journalists analyzed were prone to a peace journalism frame. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Turkish Foreign Policy (FP) has seen a paradigmatic transformation. This study presents a comparative analysis of 1535 articles, written by more than a hundred columnists and published in ten Turkish newspapers between June 2008 and June 2011. Results show a strong polarization of opinion such that articles with realist theoretical stance are highly likely to be critical of the Justice and Development Party's (AKP) FP for Turkey, whereas articles with liberal and constructivist theoretical stance are highly likely to have pro-government positioning. In this close association, the question is whether attitude to government policy precedes or follows theoretical stance. Results suggest that newspapers employ mostly whatever theory will support their stance for or against the AKP's new-era FP. In addition, results suggest little attention to Turkey's bid for European Union membership and little attention to world problems outside the Middle East. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article investigates the volume of foreign news provided by public service and commercial TV channels in countries with different media systems, and how this corresponds to the public's interest in and knowledge of foreign affairs. We use content analyses of television newscasts and public opinion surveys in 11 countries across five continents to provide new insight into the supply and demand for international television news. We find that (1) more market-oriented media systems and broadcasters are less devoted to international news, and (2) the international news offered by these commercial broadcasters more often focuses on soft rather than hard news. Furthermore, our results suggest that the foreign news offered by the main TV channels is quite limited in scope, and mainly driven by a combination of national interest and geographic proximity. In sum, our study demonstrates some limitations of foreign news coverage, but results also point to its importance: there is a positive relationship between the amount of hard international news coverage and citizens' level of foreign affairs knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article presents a list of French and English abstracts of French-language articles within the issue on topics related to international relations and the press, including "From Our Correspondent in Rio: The Transnational Media System in the 19th Century," by André Caparelli, "Quand la press défie les États: Les ambitions internationales du Matin (1897-1944)," by Dominique Pinsolle, and "Propagande allemande et renouveau patriotique: L'enjeu médiatique des Feuilles suisses du dimanche (1915-1918)," by Alexandre Elsig.

The article discusses the political aspects of journalism, with information on the French government's control over journalists covering French military operations in Africa from 1994 to 2008. Topics include the relationship between the press and international relations, press coverage of military conflicts in Africa, and the leadership of France in military operations in Africa.

The article discusses the history of foreign correspondents in the French Press Agency (l'Agence France Presse), with information on the political aspects of journalism and the history of the relationship between the press and the French government. Topics include the role of the French press in foreign relations and government, the political power of journalists covering international affairs, and news publications in France from the 19th to the 20th century.

The article discusses a lawsuit in Switzerland in 1938 and 1939 before a civil tribunal in which the daily Parisian newspaper "Paris-Soir" opposed the daily Catholic publication of Geneva, Switzerland, "L'Écho Illustré," for slander. Topics include structural tension between the two press organizations, a comparison of the political aspects of journalism in France and in Switzerland at the beginning of World War II, and the role of language in Swiss publications and newspapers.

The article discusses the renewal of patriotic sentiment, nationalism, and German propaganda through the Swiss publication of "Sonntagsblätter," from 1915 to 1918, with information on the political activity of the press in Switzerland during World War I. Topics include the political role of mass media from 1914 to 1918, the role of mass media in war propaganda, and geostrategies related to the neutrality of Switzerland.

The article discusses the political activity of the publication "Le Matin," a journal published in France from 1897 to 1944, with information on the role of the mass media in France in exposing political corruption in global politics. Topics include the history of journalism in France during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the historiography of the role of the press in international relations, and the political power of mass media in opposition to government.

The article discusses the history of the satirical publication "Der Nebelspalter," which was published in Zurich, Switzerland from 1875 to 1922, with information on the journal's caricaturization of global politics. Topics include the cultural, political, and linguistic geography of Switzerland during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the journal's editor Jean Nötzli, and the role of the publication in international relations and world politics.

The article discusses the history of journalism and the political role of the press during the 19th century, with a transnational comparison of cultural transfer between France and Brazil. Topics include the impact of journalism on cultural relations and exchange between France and Brazil, transnational communication in an era of increasing globalization, and studies of the cultural impact of newspaper circulation in Brazil based on the French model of mass media.

An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses various reports within the issue on the history of international relations as of 2013, including the role of journalism and media in history, the history of the press since the 17th century, and the historiography of geopolitical reporting.

The growing popularity and use of news Web sites around the world provides new possibilities for studying the position of the United States in the world system charted by digital news items. In this article, we look at 35 popular news sites in 10 different languages over a 2-year period, in order to assess the position of the United States in world news as well as to identify possible explanations for it. Our findings show that the United States is by far the most prominent country in the news sites that we studied from around the world, except for the French and Arabic ones. The network structure of news links clearly exhibits its key position as the centerpiece of a global system. Economic factors better explain America's news prominence than political, social, and geographical factors. Yet, none of the many variables we examined could explain the large gap between the news prominence of the United States and that of the rest of the world. We discuss possible reasons for these findings and suggest directions for further studies in the field. [Supplementary material is available for this article. Go to the publisher's online edition of Political Communication for the following free supplemental resource: network data.] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]