Citizen Media Practices at the Digital Startup Mvslim

Belgium-based Mvslim.com is a citizen media platform that aims to create a space for Muslims and non-Muslims to contribute content dedicated to challenging stereotypical portrayals of Muslims in legacy media. Launched in 2015, this non-profit digital media startup claims to reach over 10 million unique visitors per month worldwide and is one example of a successful grassroots citizen media initiative that attracts and appeals to a global community. Based on a combination of content analysis and in-depth interviews with the platform’s editors and contributors, this paper examines the citizen media practices used by the editorial team at Mvslim to foster participatory engagement amongst contributors and connect Muslims and non-Muslims. Theoretically, the study takes the practice approach proposed by Stephansen, which enables us to understand “what citizen media do” not only as news-making practices, but also as “public-making practices”. We argue that digitally native citizen media platforms like Mvslim are blurring the boundaries of journalism, as they can fulfil democratic functions once limited to legacy media.     

Solidarity Through the Visual: Healing Images in the Brussels Terrorism Attacks

This study applies a semiotic lens to argue that news media are not only conveyors of images of terrorism but, through a combination of photographs, editorial cartoons, and anchoring texts, have the potential to serve as facilitators of healing and solidarity in both the local and the global media arena. This anchoring function is essential for audience decoding—especially in the global—because many photographs and cartoons are culturally bound and therefore not readily accessible to the broader audience. Through the information they provide, written texts help to anchor meanings of the visual texts, conveying a sense of solidarity against terrorism.     

News and Islamist Radicalization Processes: Investigating Muslims’ Perceptions of Negative News Coverage of Islam

This study investigated how Muslims perceive negative news coverage of Islam and how these perceptions possibly contribute to radicalization processes. Utilizing qualitative interviews with former Islamists, Study 1 indicated that radicalized Muslims perceive a governmental infiltration of the media resulting in negative content. Analyses indicate that perceptual phenomena (hostile media, third person), negation, and anger play an important role in radicalization processes. We built on these findings in Study 2, utilizing a laboratory experiment in which Muslims were exposed to negative news content. Indeed, Muslims engaged in negation, perceived news as hostile, and perceived strong effects on non-Muslim Germans. These effects were stronger among Muslims with religious fundamentalist beliefs. Interestingly, negative news elicited anger, independent of such fundamentalist beliefs.     

Interpersonal attraction and religious identification: a comparative analysis of Muslims and Hindus in India

This study compared whether an individual is more likely to perceive interpersonal attraction toward a member of his/her own or a different religious group. Self-identified Hindus (N=526) and self-identified Muslims (N=301) in India participated in the study. Results indicate members of a religious group (Hindus and Muslims) are significantly more likely to perceive physical, social, and task attraction for members of their own religious group than for individuals from another religious group. These results support an ethnic group vitality and in-group/out-group dichotomy.     

克利福德·克里斯琴斯:用存在伦理学替代理性伦理学——媒介伦理研究对个体理性的“抵制”

本文通过深度访谈,对美国知名伦理学家、传播学者克利福德·克里斯琴斯的学术思想进行梳理和阐释。研究发现,克里斯琴斯的媒介伦理学思想体系建立在对启蒙主义的"个体理性崇拜"的抵制和反思的基础之上。他主张用"存在伦理学"替代"理性伦理学",并呼吁基于作为整体的全人类而非具体的个体及个案,探索普遍性的德性原则。他同时认为,传播学界在追求"规范理论"的过程中必须警惕掉入技术决定论和历史宿命论的虚无主义窠臼。     

THE EDITORIAL PRODUCTION PROCESS AND EDITORIAL VALUES AS INFLUENCES ON THE OPINIONS OF THE BRITISH PRESS TOWARDS EUROPE

British newspapers have been criticised for their coverage of the European Union and accused of contributing to the strength of anti-European opinion in the United Kingdom. Despite these claims, research by media sociologists and political communications scholars has commonly focused on news reporting, overlooking editorial opinions on European issues. This article addresses this gap by presenting a sociological analysis of editorial journalism in relation to European integration at 10 British national newspapers. The findings show that newspapers vary widely in the resources and roles they have assigned for editorialising on Europe, and provide an original insight into the common routines employed for producing editorial opinion. A model, entitled the editorial production process, is developed to illustrate the key stages of this routine. The specialist practices of editorial journalism are discussed through the identification of a set of editorial values used to select issues for comment.     

Critical Analysis of Racist Post-9/11 Web Animations

This study employs a critical historical approach to situate a corpus of 106 post-9/11 anti-Arab Web cartoons as populist wartime narrative that remediates U.S. racist animation and racist wartime cartoons produced during World War II. Analysis of the production, distribution, and exhibition circumstances, as well as general narrative strategies deployed in the animations, demonstrates that these amateur texts resurrect and reproduce racist narrative strategies employed historically in professionally produced government-sanctioned animation. These cartoons illustrate how animators can use the Web as a folk venue for racist wartime animations that are currently unrepresentable by dominant mass media.     

The Influence of Religiosity and Ethnic Identification on Media Use Among Muslims and Non-Muslims in France and Britain

This is an examination of the ethnic media use of French and British Muslims. A total of 677 Muslims participated in the study. Analysis reveals being an immigrant or a native of a nation does not significantly influence ethnic media use in France but does in Britain. Ethnic identification was also revealed as an influential predictor of ethnic media use among Muslims in France but not in Britain. Religiosity significantly predicted ethnic media use among British Muslims. The article argues religiosity and ethnic identification should be included in studies examining media use among ethnic groups.     

Islamophobia in China: news coverage,stereotypes, and Chinese Muslims’ perceptions of themselves and Islam

An analysis spanning 10 years of news reports about Muslims and Islam in Chinese state news media (N?=?15,427) demonstrates that Chinese news reports project an overall negative view of Muslims. An implicit association test performed in the non-Muslim Chinese population (N?=?1479) reveals negative stereotypes of Muslims. In addition, a survey of Chinese Muslims (N?=?384) shows that they perceive negative coverage of Muslims and Islam in Chinese media, and that real-life discrimination might be a consequence of such negative stereotyping. This study reveals that (1) there is an overall negative framing of news coverage of Muslims and Islam; (2) non-Muslim Chinese hold a negative stereotype of Muslims and Islam; (3) Chinese Muslims are cognizant of a negative media portrayal of Islam and of themselves; and (4) some Muslim Chinese experience discrimination in their daily lives. The present study contributes to the literature on global Islamophobia, a phenomenon that is understudied in China.     

Cultural Context and the Conventions of Science Journalism: Drama and Contradiction in Media Coverage of Biological Ideas about Sexuality

Recent biological research into homosexuality has been heavily publicized in the media and has been central to intense political and cultural debates over sexuality. This paper presents an analysis of how biological ideas about sexuality have been represented in the media, and of the role that the media have played in circulating ideas about biology and sexuality throughout society. The content of media coverage of scientific research on homosexuality is influenced by the conventions of scientific journalism, which require discussion of the scientific context of particular studies and qualified statements about the conclusions that can be drawn from the research. The coverage is deeply contradictory, however. Biology is popularly understood as biological determinism and in terms of a dichotomy between being born gay and choosing to be gay. The idea that being gay is a choice is prominent in the political agenda of the religious right, but the role of the right as political actor in debates over sexuality is not included in most media coverage of specific scientific studies. Instead, only the claims of gay people are presented as self-interested and political, and science is presented as an arbiter that will grant or deny legitimacy to these claims.     

Precarious Balance

This article explores how journalists negotiate notions of autonomy in their daily exchanges with politicians. Based on qualitative data analysis of semi-structured interviews conducted in Chile, this article argues that, when analysed from the perspective of journalists, notions of autonomy appear to be negotiated in three distinct dimensions. First, a professional narrative built upon news values firmly grounded in commercial considerations; second, an organizational narrative that rests upon editorial lines that occasionally become explicit editorial biases, and third, a sense of belonging to an encapsulated community inhabited by journalists, politicians and communication officers. Data analysis suggests that core claims of autonomy in political reporting stem from values of newsworthiness greatly influenced by a commercial logic of audience maximization. This professional autonomy, though, has to be upheld at the organizational and the relational level, and appears tensioned by the appearance of new media and political actors who push journalists towards a public-oriented role. The implications of these findings for journalistic practice are discussed.     

Graphic Violence as Moral Motivator: The Effects of Graphically Violent Content in News

Common wisdom holds that graphic media violence leads to antisocial outcomes. This common wisdom is reflected in the Society for Professional Journalists’ Code of Ethics. However, theory and research regarding moral emotions’ ability to increase moral sensitivity suggests that this type of negative content may be capable of yielding prosocial responses. This article describes this logic and tests its predictions in two experimental studies utilizing news footage of a mass execution conducted by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS). Results corroborate claims that graphic media violence can serve as a moral motivator. Higher levels of graphic violence led to stronger anger and disgust responses, which in turn predicted higher levels of (a) moral sensitivity, (b) desires for anti-ISIS interventions (including military and humanitarian efforts), and (c) eudaimonic motivations (i.e., seeking meaning in life). Important to note, no increases in negative attitudes toward Arab Muslims were observed. Theoretical implications are discussed.     

Readers' Perspectives on Advertising's Influence in Women's Magazines: Thoughts on Two Practices

This study explores how consumers react to advertisers' attempts to influence editorial content of media. Two practices are explored: complementary editorial (magazines giving editorial mentions to advertisers' products or services) and attempts at content censorship. Specifically, the study looks at how adult female readers of women's magazines make sense of the 2 aforementioned practices. Findings indicate that women believe editorial mentions of advertisers' products and services can be useful. Based on what the women in this study stated, attempts by advertisers to prevent media content from being published has greater potential to damage the credibility of both the advertiser and the magazine. Participants drew a basic distinction between the practices of complementary editorial and advertiser influence to prevent content: Editorial provides information, but advertiser influence to prevent content denies information.     

Mormon "Family Values" Versus Television: An Analysis of the Discourse of Mormon Couples Regarding Television and Popular Media Culture

This research is premised on Stuart Hall's encoding/decoding model and on Berger's concept that religiosity is socially constructed. However, unlike the early Birmingham studies' emphasis on socioeconomic status as a “cultural code” through which audience members would decode media texts, this study examines the readings of television texts from the perspective of audience members who are, because of their religious practices, ideologically situated to the right of much that is offered on television. The findings in this case are consistent with Hall's notion that individuals bring contradictory and conflicting discourse into their readings of media texts.     

媒体漫画的主要类型与特征

本文从美术学角度出发,根据现代媒体漫画表现形式,论述了媒体漫画的主要类型以及基本特征。     

The Indirect Effects of Partisanship and Partisan Media on Knowledge About Same-Sex Marriage Policy: Exploring the Knowledge and Belief Gap Hypotheses

This study applies the knowledge gap and the belief gap hypotheses to explore knowledge about same-sex marriage rights in the United States. Whereas the knowledge gap predicts that individuals of higher socioeconomic status will be better informed on political issues, the belief gap suggests that that political ideology is a stronger predictor of knowledge and beliefs than education or income levels. Results from this study indicated that higher income levels were a significant predictor of more knowledge about same-sex marriage policy but education was not related to knowledge. As for the belief gap, political party affiliation was not a stronger predictor of knowledge than education level. However, political party affiliation and partisan media (both conservative and liberal) indirectly impacted knowledge through attitudes toward homosexuality, such that Democratic partisanship and liberal media use indirectly led to more knowledge about same-sex marriage rights and conservative media indirectly led to less knowledge about same-sex marriage rights.     

Effects of Violence Against Women in Popular Crime Dramas on Viewers' Attitudes Related to Sexual Violence

This study analyzes portrayals of female and male superheroes in children's cartoons. Specifically, this study investigated whether or not animated superheroes were portrayed in gender-role stereotypical ways. Coders analyzed 70 characters from 160 hours of recorded programming. Surprisingly, the researchers found few instances of traditional gender-role stereotyping. However, a trend toward defining “superheroics” in strictly traditional masculine terms was noted. Various media theories are used to discuss the potential effects of these portrayals.     

Segmenting the Electorate: The Effects of Exposure to Political Extremism Online

The Internet provides people with an opportunity to preselect the ideological perspective of the political content they encounter, allowing them to fragment themselves into narrow interest groups and ultimately polarize along ideological lines. This study seeks to test the extremism portion of the fragmentation thesis: that if individuals sort into cocoons of homogeneous perspectives their attitudes will polarize and greater political extremism will result. A random sample of students was exposed to one of four experimental conditions: ideologically homogeneous and highly conservative media, ideologically homogenous and highly liberal content, moderate content, and a condition that included media from each of the three prior conditions. The results demonstrated that exposure to ideological homogeneity did drive attitude extremism in the conservative condition but not in the liberal condition. The moderate condition reduced extremism and the mixed condition demonstrated no significant attitude change. This article concludes that, given media fragmentation, greater extremism is possible. However, this result was only evident in the conservative condition.     

Facilitating cross-cleavage communication online: Findings from interviews with ultra-Orthodox,religious, and secular participants

One of the key questions addressed by the study of online social media is whether or not they facilitate cross-cleavage communication between users of different nationality, ethnicity, religiosity, and other group affiliations. This study contributes to the literature by addressing communication across religious cleavages, which has scarcely received attention. The study is based on 97 semistructured interviews of a layered sample. Of the respondents, 40 were secular (21 men and 19 women), 28 Modern Orthodox (14 men and 14 women), and 29 ultra-Orthodox (11 men and 18 women). We found that groups differing by their majority/minority status and type of religious observance used the Internet for different purposes. Many secular respondents (members of the majority group in Israel) were motivated to make contact on social media by social needs. On the other hand, ultra-Orthodox respondents (members of the minority group) were exclusively focused on professional objectives as a motivation to use social media. Consequently, their online behaviors were quite different and they more frequently encounter people from groups differing by type of religious observance through social media.     

The Role of Non-Government Organisations (NGOS) In Practising Editorial Photography in A Globalised Media Environment

The news media industry has changed dramatically into a global business with ever-increasing attention being devoted to entertainment and celebrity across the last 10–20 years. There has also been a growing reliance on images produced by citizens (citizen photojournalism), by media outlets and publishers. It is widely acknowledged that in tandem these changes have shrunk publication opportunities for professional photographers undertaking editorial projects. As a result, photographers are increasingly relying on non-government organisations (NGOs) to gain access to photographing issues and events in developing countries and to expand their economic and portfolio opportunities. This increase in photographers working for and alongside NGOs has given rise to a new genre of editorial photography which I call NGO Reportage. By way of a case study, an exploration of this new genre reveals important issues for photographers working with NGOs and examines the constructed narratives of images contained within these emerging practices.