Communication’s forgotten narratives: the lost history of Charles Siepmann and critical policy research

The field of communication has much to recover from its intellectual history, particularly critical traditions that have been pushed to the margins. Such a project is inherently political: how scholars narrate the histories of their fields reflect tacit assumptions about discursive boundaries and what counts for legitimate scholarship. Prominent historical narratives typically emphasize certain sub-fields and research traditions while giving short shrift to others. Suggesting larger erasures and deeper tensions in the history of the field, this article aims to recover one such neglected thread, embodied by a reformist policy scholar who is all but forgotten in communication research: Charles Siepmann.     

政治信息沟通对传媒的诉求

政治信息沟通是一个国家政治文明建设的缩影.现代化传播媒介以其不可替代的优势,正日益成为世界政治舞台上重要的信息沟通工具.本文从解析传媒的政治功能着手,论述了传媒在当代政治信息沟通方面发挥重要作用的可能性,并对当代中国政治信息沟通对传媒的诉求进行了阐述.     

European News Culture during the English Revolution

This paper analyses a little-known London newspaper which appeared every week between 1650 and 1661, and which is remarkable for being published in French, as Nouvelles Ordinaires de Londres. The aim is to use this little-known journal to develop new avenues of enquiry regarding print culture in early modern Europe, and to argue that, despite ongoing interest in seventeenth-century journalism, and repeated claims about the need to understand the European context of the English revolution, scholars have been strangely dismissive of this extraordinary journal. My suggestion will be that Nouvelle Ordinaires raises important issues about the commercial, confessional and political forces which influenced the flow of texts across state borders, as well as about novel practices relating to the translation of texts for distribution and consumption on a Europe-wide scale, all of which can be addressed by assessing its audience, its message and its purpose, not least in terms of the newspaper’s multi-vocality.     

Politics of representation in the digital media environment: presentation of the female candidate between news coverage and the website in the 2007 Korean presidential primary

This study analyzes how a female candidate was presented in the news media and on her campaign website, in order to compare the politics of gender representation in news coverage and campaign communication. Content analysis of news coverage of a Korean female candidate and the candidate's website shows that the female candidate was differently portrayed in the two media in presentations of personal trait frames, the linkage between issues and personal traits, and other gender-related characteristics, although the quantity of issue frames did not differ significantly. The findings suggest that although the news coverage still tends to reinforce gender stereotypes regarding a female candidate, the candidate used or articulated gender identities in her campaign website to oppose framing stereotypes in the traditional news media.     

Intellectual-run-newspapers versus Statesman-run-newspapers

The purpose of this paper is to explicate two competing journalistic paradigms in China in the pre-reform era. The time frame is from the establishment of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in 1949 to the launching of the reform and open policy in 1978. A common view is that during that period the Chinese government, under the leadership of Chairman Mao, adopted the Soviet press model, in which media were tightly controlled by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and journalism was overwhelmingly dominated by the principles of a party press. In this paper, however, I argue that two journalistic paradigms operated simultaneously during that period: while the CCP and the government tried to impose the principle of statesman-run-newspapers, some journalists tried to maintain a tradition of intellectual-run-newspapers. The differences between the two paradigms regarding the role of the media, journalistic identity, levels of autonomy, narrative style, historical origin and others are discussed. The paper concludes that although intellectual-run-newspapers faced severe crackdowns, the inspirational force of the paradigm never became extinct. More importantly, it has been a continued influence on critical-minded journalists in China today.     

The last refuge of media persuasion: news use,national pride and political trust in China

This study examines theoretical connections among three variables, each in its own way engendering profound political implications for the Chinese society today: news use, national pride, and political trust. We focused on the impact of ‘positivity bias in news’ and advanced a theoretical model on the basis of framing theory to address the dynamics of propaganda and its persuasive effects. Using data from the World Value Survey, we found: (1) news use in general, television news viewing in particular, was positively associated with political trust and national pride; (2) impact of news use on political trust disappeared once national pride was statistically controlled; and (3) intensity of national pride moderated the bivariate relationship between news use and political trust. The effect of party propaganda intended to consolidate political trust in China was contingent upon both one's affective ties to the state and the form of news media regularly consumed.     

The media–terrorism symbiosis: a case study of Mumbai attacks, 2008

There has been a long-standing debate among scholars, policy-makers, politicians and journalists about the relationship between terrorism and the news media for whom terrorism is usually a newsworthy story. A primary focus of the debate is to investigate the media–terrorism symbiotic relationship. This paper explores this relationship through a qualitative, thematic analysis of how British TV news channels covered a major terrorist incident after the 9/11 – Mumbai attacks 2008. It examines the interpretive theme of ‘awe, terror and chaos’, and how it is selected, prioritized and developed in the presentation of the events which spread over a period of more than 72 hours. Additionally, it considers the kind of political and organizational factors that might shape or modify the editorial decision-making processes and ideological assumptions that may lie behind such coverage. Ultimately, the study maintains that British TV news outlets play an important role in mediating terrorist messages and focus primarily on images of terror and violence during the coverage of Mumbai attacks. While there are key differences between public and commercial TV news in the style and presentation of coverage, with the former being more careful in approach, the news channels concentrate on televising death and injury and the propagation of chaos and confusion in the affected city.     

严肃议题的消解与重构--亚文化视域下的青少年政治社会议题传播

传统社会向信息社会转型的过程中,文化格局随之重塑。亚文化通过各种新媒体渠道广泛传播,从边缘地带走向繁荣。作为青少年群体的重要文化形式之一,亚文化对当代文化图谱有着独特的价值和贡献;但由于其政治性的局限,在政治传播议题中的论述还相对有限。青少年因大量时间被娱乐消费覆盖,政治参与呈现下降趋势。米姆作为社交媒体中流行文化的重要景观,大量出现在政治议题中,对识别和理解青少年亚文化有至关重要的作用。本文以青少年通过亚文化语言和符号参与在线公共议题的案例出发,探讨青少年在政治议题建构中的话语参与与认同构建;并探讨这种泛娱乐的参与方式中,公共性如何体现。研究认为,内容娱乐化的同时,米姆的政治功能也在逐渐凸显;亚文化参与代表了青少年对政治议题的多样化诉求,促进青少年对社会政治议题的关注和参与,融合且推进了个体表达与公共话语呈现,是兼具文化价值和政治意义的参与路径。     

政治传播·媒体管理·民族主义——略论当代欧洲一体化中关于媒体的几个焦点问题

本文探讨了欧洲一体化中欧洲媒体的作用与变化。作者将长期困扰欧洲一体化的“民主赤字”问题与政治传播联系起来 ,认为欧洲一体化缺少有效的政治交流并存在结构性的政治交流障碍。作者从媒体发展与媒体社会责任两方面对欧盟的媒体管理进行了历时的梳理和评析 ,指出其所面临的挑战。同时 ,对当代欧洲民族主义的勃兴与媒体的互动进行了简要考察 ,并指出在欧洲实际掌控媒体“游戏规则”的仍是多国政府。     

Mapping the infotainment literature: current trajectories and suggestions for future research

ABSTRACT

Academic interest in what has been termed “infotainment” has grown considerably since the term was coined in the 1980s. Today, the burgeoning field of infotainment research has become an important interdisciplinary field of study producing numerous political, cultural, and social insights. Nevertheless, infotainment remains highly contested, multifaceted, and incoherent, both as a term and a field of study. Preliminary attempts have been made to give greater conceptual clarity and standardization to the term, although their success has been limited, leaving difficulties in analyzing and comparing findings in a unified manner. In this review essay I outline the findings from a comprehensive literature review by delineating three mains trajectories of infotainment research: (1) research on soft news programming; (2) research on traditional news media; and (3) research on media systems and global infotainment. To conclude, I offer three suggestions for future infotainment research, arguing that scholars should attempt to achieve standardization and conceptual clarity within, rather than across research trajectories, that political theory should be more explicitly incorporated into the literature for the purposes of standardizing methods and clarifying normative debates, and that research should also focus on the synergies between contemporary trends in political campaign/communications strategies and trends in infotainment.     

Politicians as Media Producers

The emergence of social media raises new questions concerning the relationship between journalists and politicians and between news media and politics. The increasingly complex media milieu, in which the boundaries between media producers and audiences become partly dissolved, calls for new theoretical approaches in the study of journalism. This article reassesses central theoretical arguments about the relationship between journalism, sources, politics and democracy. Drawing on a pilot study of the printed press, it explores the increased social media use among politicians in Sweden and its implications for political journalism. The article suggests that power relations between journalism and politics can be fruitfully explored from the perspective of mediatized interdependency, a perspective that acknowledges that journalists and politicians have become both actors and sources through mutual interaction in online spaces. Furthermore, it argues that social media use has expanded journalism's interest in the private life of politicians, thereby contributing to a de-politicization of politics.     

Managing Conflict of Interest

When a journalist returns to political reporting after working as a political media adviser it can trigger concern about conflict of interest based on a suspicion of partisanship. Despite this, there is little discussion in the journalism literature about how reporters should manage this type of conflict when it arises. This paper reports on a selection of findings from wider inductive, qualitative research into the career transition from journalism to political media advising and back again. Semi-structured, in-depth interviews conducted with 21 journalists who had moved between the two roles revealed that the media advisers took four main routes back to journalism in an attempt to manage the possible conflicts: “Escape”; Being “laundered”; Going “straight back in”; and “Cooling-off”. Based on these findings, this paper argues that a uniform approach to managing the transition from political advising to journalism could be useful in easing public concern about conflicts of interest.     

Media Logic and Political Logic Online and Offline

One aspect of the mediatization of politics is the idea that political actors adapt to the communication logic of news media to gain, for example, news media attention. Currently, this process may be influenced by the diffusion of the internet as a political communication channel, especially because online communication provides a new opportunity for political actors to communicate directly with citizens. Thus far, the adaptation to media logic by political parties has mainly been examined in the context of election campaigns. In order to transfer these findings to regular political communication, this study compares the use of media logic in the mass media and in direct political communication channels online and offline about the United Nations Climate Change Conferences 2011 and 2012. A quantitative content analysis of the conference protocols (input) and the presentation of the conference results in the seven most frequently used German offline news outlets (print and TV) and their online counterparts, as well as political offline and online communication channels like parliamentary speeches and websites of the six parties represented in the German parliament (output), was conducted. Results show that in the context of regular political communication, political actors seem to follow media logic to a lesser extent than in the context of election campaigns. Thus far, the influence of online communication on the mediatization of politics seems to be rather marginal. The causes and consequences of these findings are discussed.     

Media Studies and the Mainstreaming of Media History

During the first half of the twentieth century, colonial rule in the Indonesian archipelago was an important marker of international prestige for the Netherlands, which was merely a small power on the European continent, carefully guarding its neutral status against the Great Powers. After World War I, there was growing concern amongst several groups in Dutch society about criticism of the colonial regime in the foreign press. This article considers three organizations that aimed to set up an international information service about the Dutch East Indies in the 1920s. Although private individuals ran these organizations, they had close links with the authorities in The Hague and Batavia, indicating the emergence of a controlled media environment. Moreover, despite the fact that people involved preferred to use neutral terms to describe their activities, they aimed to provide the international public with propaganda supporting the Dutch colonial regime.     

Media Archeology in Spain

Based on a carefully selected list of references in Spanish, the following text presents a brief history of the magic lantern in Spain, from its invention to the beginning of its decadence as a social medium of communication. The magic lantern emerged in the seventeenth century, with the application of a series of physical principles that allowed the first attempts and experiences of image projection, such as the one described by Juana Inés de la Cruz in Sueño, a silva strophe published in Seville in 1692. As a device, the magic lantern finally was consolidated during the last quarter of the eighteenth century, mainly due to the popular sessions of phantasmagorias, which, in Spain, were run by projectionists such as Juan González Mantilla, or Robertson himself. After the magic lantern became institutionalized and commercialized throughout the whole Iberian Peninsula—the same as in the rest of Europe—its decline took place in the last decade of the nineteenth century, when it had to compete with the cinematograph.     

Confirmation biases in selective exposure to political online information: Source bias vs. content bias

The present work examines the role of source vs. content cues for the confirmation bias, in which recipients spend more time with content aligning with preexisting attitudes. In addition to testing how both source and content cues facilitate this biased pattern of selective exposure, the study measures subsequent attitude polarization. An experiment (N?=?120) presented messages with opposing political stances, associated with unbiased or slanted sources. Software tracked selective exposure in seconds, and attitudes were measured before, immediately after, and two days after message exposure. Further, information processing styles were assessed. The confirmation bias emerged regardless of source quality. Information processing styles moderated the confirmation bias as well as selective exposure to messages from unbiased vs. slanted sources. Selective exposure reinforced attitudes days later.     

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