Was Sky News softer on Qatari affairs due to Qatar Airways’ sponsorship of Sky weather reports? An empirical analysis

This paper examines the ability of national companies to sponsor global media content in order to advance the sponsoring countries’ narratives. Specifically, the analysis examines Sky News’ coverage of Qatar, which has sponsored Sky News’ weather reports for more than a decade via its national airline Qatar Airways. The article examines how Sky News presented allegations that Qatar sponsors terror organizations, as well as allegations that Qatar bribed the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) to win the 2022 World Cup bid. To put the analysis in perspective, the study compares Sky News’ coverage of Qatari affairs with that of CNN International and Independent Television (ITV). The analysis revealed that Sky News covered Qatari affairs at large in the most positive tone of all three networks examined and its specific coverage of Qatari terror-related affairs was also significantly more positive than the other networks’. Sky News’ output advanced Qatar’s desired image as an intermediary force in the Middle East much more than the other stations’. In contrast, Sky News was more critical than the other stations toward Qatar regarding the FIFA bribery allegations. The study offers a unique perspective regarding the potency and boundaries of commercial sponsorship of content on global media to advance the sponsoring country’s image.     

News Stories on the Facebook Platform: Millennials’ Perceived Credibility of Online News Sponsored by News and Non-News Companies

ABSTRACT

This experimental study examined whether stories presented on Facebook that appeared to be from a news organization were rated as higher in perceived credibility than stories that appeared to be from a non-news organization. One-hundred-and-seven participants took part in the online study. One group saw stories that appeared to be from a news organization and another group saw the same stories that appeared to be from a non-news organization. Both groups rated the stories the same in terms of perceived credibility. The study also found that the higher the participants rated the stories in terms of perceived credibility, the higher they rated the organization’s perceived credibility. These findings point to potential implications for traditional journalistic outlets regarding their ability to be seen as credible, reliable online news sources—particularly through a social media platform like Facebook.     

Social noise and segmented rhythms: News,entertainment, and celebrity in the crusade for animal rights

Building out from a case study of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), this essay offers a cultural account of popular social protest in the narrowcast era. Founded in 1980, PETA has grown into the world's largest and highest profile animal rights group. I trace the evolution of the group's public relations efforts and describe them via vocabularies of sound— as creating social noise and generating popular rhythms. Through the mid‐1980s, PETA made public noise primarily by orchestrating news‐based controversies, but by 1987 they were increasingly turning to narrowcast and broad circulation music and entertainment media as a way to spread the word to outsiders and ritually express the beliefs of the group. I argue that these cultures of entertainment and celebrity provided structured rhythms of affection that took the cause further than the more discordant sounds of news‐based controversy.     

Traversing the “Twittersphere”

This article examines the workflows, editorial guidelines, and managerial oversight of social media, particularly Twitter, at seven international news agencies. Through a series of in-depth interviews with news managers, social media producers, and public relations officials at Al Jazeera, CNN, Globo, Telecinco, RTVE, the US government's Office of Cuba Broadcasting, and Voice of America, the authors examined how these policies may affect the framing of news stories. Results indicated that social media resources are currently being used more for promotional and audience tracking purposes than for newsgathering, although the Office of Cuba Broadcasting departed somewhat from that model.     

领导干部的媒介素养探讨——基于媒介公关视野

本文运用公关关系学理论对领导干部面对记者和大众媒介的操作指引和要点进行了探讨.     

Networking or Not Working?

This paper examines journalists' changing sourcing practices in the context of an emerging media ecology initiated by processes of globalization, digitization, commercialism and concentration. Social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter or YouTube provide the means to access a more diverse range of sources, including civil society organizations and ordinary citizens. We developed a quantitative content analysis to examine to what extent Belgian news coverage showed signs of diverse sourcing practices during the 2011 uprisings in three Arab countries. We analysed a total sample of 1121 news items about the street protests in Syria, Egypt and Tunisia, in four Belgian newspapers (two popular and two quality dailies) and two Belgian broadcasters (the public broadcaster VRT and the commercial channel VTM). The analysis shows that ordinary citizens and non-mainstream groups are important news sources and that social media platforms are consulted relatively often compared to everyday foreign news coverage. In terms of inter-media differences, the findings show that broadcasters' dependency on video footage and eyewitness accounts is reflected in their use of ordinary citizen sources and amateur footage. Moreover, the analysis confirms that quality newspapers display more diverse and more innovative sourcing practices than popular newspapers.     

FOUR RUMOURS AND AN EXPLANATION

Our analysis of 2207 domestic news reports in a structured sample of UK “quality” (the Guardian, The Times, the Independent and the Telegraph) and mid-market (Daily Mail) newspapers, revealed journalists’ extensive use of copy provided by public relations sources and news agencies, especially the UK-based Press Association. A political economic explanation for this reliance on news stories produced “outside the newsroom”, draws inspiration from Gandy's notion of information subsidies and presents findings from a substantive content analysis of selected UK national newspapers, interviews with journalists working on national titles and news agencies, as well as detailed archival analysis of UK newspaper companies’ annual accounts across 20 years to deliver information about newspapers’ profitability, their expansive editorial pagination as well as the number of journalists they employ. The argument here is that this reliance on public relations and news agency copy has been prompted by the need for a relatively stable community of journalists to meet an expansive requirement for news in order to maintain newspapers’ profitability in the context of declining circulations and revenues.     

MEDIALIZED SCIENCE?

Because the neurosciences affect many areas of society and culture, they receive much public attention. Brain research and other focuses of neuroscience are regularly featured in the mass media, calling on neuroscientists to serve as sources. Based on 30 semi-structured interviews with neuroscientists in the United States and Germany, this article analyzes neuroscientists' motivations to interact with journalists, their perception of problems with the media reporting of neuroscience and media contacts, and the strategies they apply in order to gain some control over the coverage. Results show that most neuroscientists perceive benefits of media coverage and are willing to cooperate with journalists and conform to their expectations, but only to a certain degree. Neuroscientists perceive problems regarding the quality of coverage, risks related to public visibility and negative consequences of being distracted from research and scientific publication because of the time demands of media interactions. The scientists discussed several strategies to improve this perceived cost–benefit ratio.     

PERSUASION FROM BELOW?

Guided by the belief that anonymity inevitably breeds the kind of uncivil discourse that hurts their readers, many news organizations have chosen to ban anonymous comments sections on their websites in recent years. Unfortunately, little empirical research has been conducted to assess whether exposure to anonymous comments actually does influence people's attitudes. In this paper, we address this oversight by asking: do anonymous comments posted on a newspaper website shape how internet users feel about the media? Using an online experiment to systematically manipulate exposure to anonymous comments attached to a “hard news” report, we find strong evidence that exposure to non-attributed posts—regardless of their tone—leads internet users to feel more negatively towards specific news organizations and the media in general.     

INCREASED NEWS ACCESS FOR INTERNATIONAL NGOs?

The combined interplay of commercialisation, digitalisation and globalisation offers opportunities for international non-governmental organisations (NGOs) to gain more news access. We set up a quantitative content analysis to study how and to what extent press releases from the international NGO Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) were adopted in foreign coverage by four Flemish newspapers (1995–2010). First, the analysis shows that fewer articles were based on MSF press releases in 2010 than in 1995. Furthermore, we found that Flemish journalists generally supplemented the MSF press releases with additional information. The decreased agenda-building capacity of MSF can be explained by the nature of events (violent conflicts in 1995 versus natural disasters in 2010) and by the increased competition between NGOs in 2010. The fact that MSF press releases and articles increasingly discuss global issues nonetheless indicates that globalisation offers opportunities for international NGOs to enhance their agenda-building capacities. Second, our research found less evidence to support often heard complaints about “churnalism” in newsrooms and showed that public relations can also be a positive factor in the news production process; specifically, we found that MSF press releases are often used to counterbalance the “official” message coming from political representatives or contending parties.     

Repatriated Germans and ‘British Spirit’

Following the end of the Second World War, the ideals of public service broadcasting that had first been exemplified by the BBC came to lay the groundwork for a new type of broadcasting system in Northern Germany. This led to intensive discussions between British Military Officers and their German counterparts about the principles of public service broadcasting. Repatriated Germans came to play a crucial role. Having worked for the BBC German Service during their years of exile, some of them helped to nurture a new generation of democratic journalists. Focusing on these men, this article reveals the difficulties in transferring and adapting public service ideals. Making use of a wide range of sources, we highlight the multifaceted roles of the repatriated Germans, as both intermediaries and transmitters of public service broadcasting. We show how many of them came to play a pivotal role in resisting pressure from conservative forces in West German society.     

新媒体环境下档案工作发挥主流价值观引导的路径分析

新媒体在移动互联网快速发展中不断涌现,传播模式不断创新,形式不断丰富,这为档案工作带来了机遇与挑战.本文指出新媒体环境为档案部门形象塑造带来了机遇,这对档案在宣传工作中发挥主流价值引导作用提出了更高的要求,从而提出档案工作要从转化意识、健全机制、开放融合三个方面入手,发挥主流价值观引导作用.     

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