International Journal of Communication Publishes a Special Section on Media Use and Political Engagement: Cross-Cultural Approaches

While democracies around the world are struggling with the decline of traditional civic and political engagement, new forms of engagement are on the rise in many parts of the world. These new forms of engagement are exemplified in countless social movements, including the current Iranian protests for women’s rights, Black Lives Matter, the Gezi Park protests, and the Arab Spring. These movements have convincingly shown the enabling power of digital media, especially social media, for political engagement. Around the globe, media are increasingly at the center of political engagement, most notably in countries where political rights and civil liberties are restricted.  

In this global climate of media-enabled citizenship, this Special Section on Media Use and Political Engagement: Cross-Cultural Approaches, guested edited by Özen Odağ, Frank Schneider, Larisa Buhin, and Jinhee Kim, takes up a cross-culturally comparative perspective to the uses of media for political engagement. Central questions of this Section are: In what ways does cultural context affect the enabling power of the media toward political engagement in various parts of the world? What are the roles of diverse media formats, such as visual communication, news podcasts, and entertainment media, for political engagement and mobilization cross-culturally? What are the social-psychological drivers of mediated political engagement across countries? How do these differ across repressive countries in which human rights are violated versus democratic countries in which civil liberties are protected? The Special Section speaks to a broad audience of academics and practitioners alike, interested in understanding and embarking on the potential of the media for mobilizing citizens for political action.

The study of digitally-enabled political engagement brings together a highly interdisciplinary and multicultural group of authors in the Special Section. Communication scholars, media scholars, political scientists, and psychologists from in Asia, Europe, Oceania, and North America have created this edited Section together. The works compiled are empirical, based on rigorous quantitative and qualitative data collection and analysis procedures. The Special Section therefore represents an effort to collate state-of-the-art scholarship across disciplinary, cultural, and methodological borders. 

We invite you to read these articles that published in the International Journal of Communication on February 14, 2023. Please log into ijoc.org to read the papers of interest. We look forward to your feedback! 

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Media Use and Political Engagement: Cross-Cultural Approaches—Introduction 
Özen Odağ, Frank M. Schneider, Larisa Buhin, Jinhee Kim

News Podcast Use, Press Freedom, and Political Participation: A Cross-National Study of 38 Countries
Yoonmo Sang, Sunyoung Park, Jiwon Kim, Sora Park

When Pop and Politics Collide: A Transcultural Perspective on Contested Practices in Pop Idol Fandoms in China and the West
Qian Huang, Simone Driessen, Daniel Trottier 

What Role Does Media Entertainment Play in Emerging Adults’ Political Identity and Engagement Across Cultures?
Frank M. Schneider, Katharina Knop-Huelss, Jinhee Kim, Larisa Buhin, Miriam Gröning, Audris Umel, Özen Odağ 

Political Engagement Through Visual Mediation: The Visuality of the Christchurch Attack and a Cross-Governmental Analysis of Performative Populist Responses
Balca Arda

Media Use and Green Lifestyle Politics in Diverse Cultural Contexts of Postmaterialist Orientation and Generalized Trust: Findings From a Multilevel Analysis
Laura Leissner

Between Individual and Collective Social Effort: Vocabularies of Informed Citizenship in Different Information Environments 
Emilija Gagrčin, Pablo Porten-Cheé 

The Role of Media Use in Political Mobilization: A Comparison of Free and Restrictive Countries
Regina Arant, Katja Hanke, Alexandra Mittelstädt, Rosemary Pennington, Audris Umel, Özen Odağ

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Larry Gross, Editor
Kady Bell-Garcia, Managing Editor
Chi Zhang, Managing Editor, Special Sections
Özen Odağ, Frank Schneider, Larisa Buhin, Jinhee Kim, Guest Editors

Please note that according to the latest Google Scholar statistics, IJoC ranks 9th among all Humanities journals and 9th among all Communications journals in the world — demonstrating the viability of open access scholarly publication at the highest level. 

International Journal of Communication Publishes a Special Section on Encounters Between Violence and Media

Guest-edited by Anu A. Harju and Noora Kotilainen, this Special Section on Encounters Between Violence and Media offers new approaches on encounters between violence and media and how these are circulated, negotiated or contested, or altogether rejected. The Section brings together scholars from media and communication studies, social sciences, as well as the humanities, with contributions ranging from interrogations of the more visible and often spectacularized violence to the more invisible violence, for example, gendered violence and violence against marginalized groups. Drawing on the philosophical notion of recognition, the articles in this collection examine what kinds of frames of recognition are assigned to victims of violence, to perpetrators of violent acts, or indeed to different types of violence and injury. Thus, problematizing regimes of visibility as regimes of power, the authors ask in what ways are the different forms of violence obscured or absent from the media, but also which types of violence gain hypervisibility and what implications this has for recognition, on the one hand, and marginalization, on the other. With this collection, we ask what happens to conditions for recognition in the context of violence, suffering, and death when recognition’s mutuality and relationality are altered through mediation and distance? Or indeed, what potential for recognition might lie in our collective existence when faced with violence, given that the roots of recognition are social and embedded in communal life? 

With this thematic issue, we bring into the discussion of recognition real-life perspectives on violence in contemporary media contexts. The collection highlights the need to focus on the recognition of suffering and violence experienced by those often existing on the social margins. 

We invite you to read these articles that published in the International Journal of Communication on February 6, 2023. Please log into ijoc.org to read the papers of interest. We look forward to your feedback! 
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Encounters Between Violence and Media—Introduction 
Anu A. Harju, Noora Kotilainen 

Remembering January 29: The Québec City Mosque Shootings and the Struggle for Recognition  
Yasmin Jiwani, Marie Bernard-Brind’Amour 

“We Are One”: Mediatized Death Rituals and the Recognition of Marginalized Other
Tal Morse  

“You Will Never Hear Me Mention His Name”: The (Im)possibility of the Politics of Recognition in Disruptive Hybrid Media Events
Katja Valaskivi, Johanna Sumiala  

Echo of Experience: A Feminist Response to Racialization of Sexual Crime in the Hybrid Media Event 
Kaarina Nikunen

Trafficked Women in Press Journalism: Politics and Ambivalence in the Quest for Visibility
Tijana Stolic

Sticky Violence—Afterword 
Barbie Zelizer 

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Larry Gross, Editor  
Kady Bell-Garcia, Managing Editor
Chi Zhang, Managing Editor, Special Sections
Anu A. Harju and Noora Kotilainen, Guest Editors

Please note that according to the latest Google Scholar statistics, IJoC ranks 9th among all Humanities journals and 9th among all Communications journals in the world — demonstrating the viability of open access scholarly publication at the highest level. 

International Journal of Communication invites you to read these 71 papers that published in January

The International Journal of Communication is pleased to announce the publication of 71 papers in JANUARY 2023, which includes the “Special Section on Theorizing the Korean Wave” and the “Special Section on COVID-19, Digital Media, and Health.” To access these papers, Ctrl+Click on the titles below for direct hyperlinking or go to ijoc.org to read the Special Sections.
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ARTICLES

Journalistic Role Performance of the Thai Press on the Issue of Transgender Rights
Nattawaj Kijratanakoson 

From Westernization to Internationalization: Research Collaboration Networks of Communication Scholars From Central and Eastern Europe
Marton Demeter, Dina Vozab, Francisco José Segado Boj

Morally Driven and Emotionally Fueled: The Interactive Effects of Values and Emotions in the Social Transmission of Information Endorsing E-cigarettes
Jiaxi Wu, Yunwen Wang, Yusi Aveva Xu, Jessica L. Fetterman, Traci Hong 

Knowledge Work in Platform Fact-Checking Partnerships
Valérie Bélair-Gagnon, Rebekah Larsen, Lucas Graves, Oscar Westlund 

Plant-Based Meat and the Perceived Familiarity Gap Hypothesis: The Role of Health and Environmental Consciousness
Pengya Ai, Sofia Contreras-Yap, Shirley S. Ho

Googling in Russian Abroad: How Kremlin-Affiliated Websites Contribute to the Visibility of COVID-19 Conspiracy Theories in Search Results
Florian Toepfl, Anna Ryzhova, Daria Kravets, Arista Beseler

Echo Chambers, Cognitive Thinking Styles, and Mistrust? Examining the Roles Information Sources and Information Processing Play in Conspiracist Ideation
Brian McKernan, Patrícia Rossini, Jennifer Stromer-Galley

Meditating the Revolution: Analysis of the Sudanese Professionals Association Communicative Strategies During Sudan’s 2018–2019 Revolution
Hala A. Guta

A Persuadable Type? Personality Traits, Dissonant Information, and Political Persuasion
Alessandro Nai, Yves Schemeil, Chiara Valli 

More a Red Herring Than a Harbinger of Democracy: Myanmar’s Experiment With Media Freedom and Domestic Media Coverage of the Rohingya
Halle M. Young, Nicole Anderson, Mona S. Kleinberg, Jenifer Whitten-Woodring 

The Politics of Being a K-Pop Fan: Korean Fandom and the “Cancel the Japan Tour” Protest
Jennifer M. Kang 

“Seeing but not Believing”: Undergraduate Students’ Media Uses and News Trust
Ana Isabel Melro, Sara Pereira 

Blame It on the Algorithm? Russian Government-Sponsored Media and Algorithmic Curation of Political Information on Facebook
Elizaveta Kuznetsova, Mykola Makhortykh 

Making Sense of Human Advocacy Narrative: Raising Support for People Seeking Asylum Among Diverse Audiences
Merrilyn Delporte, Bree Hurst, Jennifer Bartlett, Caroline Hatcher

Migrating Counterpublics: German Far-Right Online Groups on Russian Social Media
Vadim Voskresenskii

Diraya.media—Learning Media Literacy With and From Media Activists
Philipp Seuferling, Ingrid Forsler, Gretchen King, Isabel Löfgren, Farah Saati 

“We Have No Newspapers . . . Dull! Dull!”: Mass Media Dependency During the American Civil War
Betty Houchin Winfield, Chad Painter 

From the Global to the Local and Back Again: MFAs’ Digital Communications During COVID-19
Ilan Manor, Moran Yrachi

Collaborative I-Docs Beyond the Screens: Face-to-Face Participation Processes in Interactive Non-Fiction
Juanjo Balaguer, Arnau Gifreu-Castells

Cuteness in Mobile Messaging: An Exploration of Virtual “Cute” Sticker Use in China and the United States
Dongdong Yang, Laura Labato, Shardé M. Davis, Yuren Qin

Health, Concerns, and Finance: News Framing of Wearing Masks in China From 2001 to 2020
Zhifei Mao, Huaxin Peng, Di Wang, Mengfan He, Kun Zhou

Language Ideologies and Behavioral Attitudes Toward Ethnolinguistic Outgroups: Perceived Linguistic Competence and Intergroup Anxiety as Explanatory Variables
Gretchen Montgomery-Vestecka, Yan Bing Zhang

Social Entrepreneurship Versus Conventional Entrepreneurship: How Entrepreneurship Orientation Moderates the Effects of Human Capital and Social Capital Signals on Media Crowdfunding Success
Jiyoung Cha

Crisis Communication on Twitter: Differences Between User Types in Top Tweets About the 2015 “Refugee Crisis” in Germany
Sanja Kapidzic, Felix Frey, Christoph Neuberger, Stefan Stieglitz, Milad Mirbabaie

“A Very Difficult Choice”: Bolsonaro and Petismo in Brazilian Newspapers
Juliana Gagliardi, Camilla Tavares, Afonso de Albuquerque

Processing Vaccine Misinformation: Recall and Effects of Source Type on Claim Accuracy via Perceived Motivations and Credibility
Michelle A. Amazeen, Arunima Krishna  

From System to Skill: Palo Alto Group’s Contested Legacy of Communication
Yonatan Fialkoff, Amit Pinchevski

User Perceptions and Trust of Explainable Machine Learning Fake News Detectors
Jieun Shin, Sylvia Chan-Olmsted 

Activists and Journalists as Co-Creators and Co-Revisionists of U.S. Histories: The 1619 New York Times Project
Elaine Almeida, Sue Robinson

When Do Data Collection and Use Become a Matter of Concern? A Cross-Cultural Comparison of U.S. and Dutch Privacy Attitudes
Jessica Vitak, Yuting Liao, Anouk Mols, Daniel Trottier, Michael Zimmer, Priya C. Kumar, Jason Pridmore

Cues Signaling Gender Segregation and Gender Inclusion in Public Spaces Affect Adolescents’ Binary Conceptualization of Gender and Attitudes Toward Transgender and Nonbinary People
Traci K. Gillig, Sonia Jawaid Shaikh, Leila Bighash

Self- and Social Corrections on Instant Messaging Platforms
Sheryl Wei Ting Ng, Taberez Ahmed Neyazi

Is the MENA Surfing to the Extremes? Digital and Social Media, Echo Chambers/Filter Bubbles, and Attitude Extremity
Kevin M. Wagner, Jason Gainous, Allison Warnersmith, Dane Warner

The New American Dream: Neoliberal Transformation as Character Development in Schitt’s Creek
William Joseph Sipe  

Distinction and Cosmopolitanism: Latin American Middle-Class, Elite Audiences and Their Preferences for Transnational Television and Film
Joseph Straubhaar, Melissa Santillana, Vanessa de Macedo Higgins-Joyce, Luiz G. Duarte

Social Media and Protest Behavior in a Restrictive Traditional Media Environment: The Case of the Philippines
Jason P. Abbott, Jason Gainous, Kevin M. Wagner

The Mediating Role of Depression in the Relationship Between News Consumption and Interparty Hostility During Covid-19
Meital Balmas, Renana Atia, Eran Halperin 

“They Just Want to Erase Us”: Triumphant Modernity and Catastrophic Witnessing in Debates About Genocide in Xinjiang 
Stephen J. Hartnett, Andrew Gilmore

A Systematic Literature Review of Research From 2010 to 2020 Addressing User-Generated Online Comments Related to Health Issues and Recommendations for Future Research
Muhammad Ittefaq, Mauryne Abwao, Ioana A. Coman, Waqas Ejaz

A Leader and a Lady? A Computational Approach to Detection of Political Gender Stereotypes in Facebook User Comments
Aliya Andrich, Emese Domahidi

Believing in Credibility Measures: Reviewing Credibility Measures in Media Research From 1951 to 2018
Anina Hanimann, Andri Heimann, Lea Hellmueller, Damian Trilling

A Multiple-Stakeholder Perspective of Patient–Provider Communication Among Families With Rare Diseases in Taiwan Through a Cross-Cultural Lens
Jinli Wu, Hsinyi Hsiao, Lei Chen, Chun-Ying Weng, Pao-Sheng Chang, Shao-Yin Chu

Intergroup Contact, Traditional and Social Media Use, and Attitudes Toward Chinese People in COVID-19: U.S. College Students’ Perspective
Yan Bing Zhang, Teri Terigele, Molly Han, Sile Li, Yang Yu, Racheal Ruble

FEATURE

Renewing Pedagogical Research and Practices: Helping International Students Succeed Post-COVID-19
Piyawan Charoensap-Kelly, Narissra Punyanunt-Carter

BOOK REVIEWS

Amir Hetsroni and Meriç Tuncez (Eds.), It Happened on Tinder: Reflections and Studies on Internet-Infused Dating
Min Wang

Lindsay Ems, Virtually Amish: Preserving Community at the Internet’s Margins
Louisa S. White

Lisa M. Tillmann, Kathryn Norsworthy, and Steven Schoen, Mindful Activism: Autoethnographies of Social Justice Communication for Campus and Community Transformation
Courtney D. Tabor

Emily Hund, The Influencer Industry: The Quest for Authenticity on Social Media
Tyler Quick

Qiao Li, Yanqiu Guan, and Hong Lu (Eds.), Development of the Global Film Industry: Industrial Competition and Cooperation in the Context of Globalization
Youwen Ma

Elaine J. Yuan, The Web of Meaning: The Internet in a Changing Chinese Society
Eileen Le Han 

Last Moyo, The Decolonial Turn in Media Studies in Africa and the Global South
Burçe Çelik  

María Pia López, Not One Less: Mourning, Disobedience and Desire
Lucila Rozas Urrunaga

Victor Fan, Cinema Illuminating Reality: Media Philosophy Through Buddhism
Jacob Green

Zac Gershberg and Sean Illing, The Paradox of Democracy: Free Speech, Open Media, and Perilous Persuasion
Yotam Ophir

Rolien Hoyng and Gladys Pak Lei Chong (Eds.), Critiquing Communication Innovation: New Media in a Multipolar World
Liting Lu

Louisa Ha and Lars Willan (Eds.), The U.S.-China Trade War: Global News Framing and Public Opinion in the Digital Age
Tanja Vierrether

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Larry Gross, Editor
Kady Bell-Garcia, Managing Editor
Chi Zhang, Managing Editor, Special Sections

Please note that according to the latest Google Scholar statistics, IJoC ranks 9th among all Humanities journals and 9th among all Communications journals in the world — demonstrating the viability of open access scholarly publication at the highest level. 

International Journal of Communication Publishes a Special Section on COVID-19, Digital Media, and Health

What role do and did digital media play in individuals’ health during the COVID-19 pandemic? And vice versa, what impact does or did individuals’ health have on their digital media use in pandemic times?

Guest-edited by Kathrin Karsay, Anne-Linda Camerini, and Jörg Matthes, this Special Section on COVID-19, Digital Media, and Health addresses the role of digital media as an information source, a tool for emotional expression, and, consequently, a determinant of psychological and social well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic. It includes six articles covering research data from the United States, Ireland, the Netherlands, and South Korea. As such, the authors provide diverse and rich perspectives on the correlations of COVID-19, digital media, and health. The theoretical and empirical contributions provide lessons for research on digital media and health in a pandemic—but also beyond. We conclude that the pandemic has provided an impetus for reflection within the discipline and call for renewed focus on theory building as well as longitudinal, multi-data, multi-platform, and multi-method designs.

We invite you to read these articles that published in the International Journal of Communication on January 10, 2023. Please log into ijoc.org to read the papers of interest. We look forward to your feedback! 

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COVID-19, Digital Media, and Health: Lessons Learned and the Way Ahead for the Study of Human Communication—Introduction
Kathrin Karsay, Anne-Linda Camerini, Jörg Matthes

Communicating About Mental Health During a Pandemic: An Examination of Active and Aware Publics on Twitter
Jesse King, Audrey Halversen, Olivia Morrow, Whitney Westhoff, Pamela Brubaker

Health Messaging and Social Media: An Examination of Message Fatigue, Race, and Emotional Outcomes Among Black Audiences
Hope Hickerson, David Stamps 

Children’s and Parents’ Worries About Online Schooling Associated With Children’s Anxiety During Lockdown in Ireland
Derek A. Laffan, Seffetullah Kuldas, Beatrice Sciacca, James O’Higgins Norman, Tijana Milosevic

Beliefs in Times of Corona: Investigating the Relationship Between Media Use and COVID-19 Conspiracy Beliefs Over Time in a Representative Dutch Sample
Marloes van Wezel, Emiel Krahmer, Ruben Vromans, Nadine Bol 

Exposure to COVID-19 Misinformation Across Instant Messaging Apps: Moderating Roles of News Media and Interpersonal Communication      
Woohyun Yoo, Sang-Hwa Oh, Doo-Hun Choi 

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Larry Gross, Editor 
Kady Bell-Garcia, Managing Editor
Chi Zhang, Managing Editor, Special Sections
Kathrin Karsay, Anne-Linda Camerini, and Jörg Matthes, Guest Editors

Please note that according to the latest Google Scholar statistics, IJoC ranks 9th among all Humanities journals and 9th among all Communications journals in the world — demonstrating the viability of open access scholarly publication at the highest level.

International Journal of Communication Publishes a Special Section on Theorizing the Korean Wave

Has the Korean Wave meaningfully changed the direction of cultural flows? Does the Korean Wave advance any tangible theoretical frameworks in media studies and Asian studies? Three decades after the emergence of the Korean Wave, many theoreticians and students are wondering whether Korea continues to develop popular culture, and therefore, whether Korean cultural content provides new conceptual and theoretical foundations in globalization and transnationalization studies. 

Guest-edited by Dal Yong Jin, this Special Section on Theorizing the Korean Wave aims to provide a space for discussions surrounding the possibilities for advancing non-Western theories or new perspectives amid the continuing Korean Wave, or Hallyu, phenomenon. As demonstrated by the popularity of Squid Game, Parasite, and BTS, the Korean Wave has become one of the most significant cultural scenes originating from the East. Against this backdrop, authors in this Special Section seek to shed light on current debates centered around the Korean Wave and place them in renewed perspectives that further future transnational cultural research. 

Written by 10 leading theoreticians and emerging media scholars located in various parts of the world, including the United States, Canada, Israel, Hong Kong, and South Korea, these papers investigate the recent surge of Hallyu from diverse perspectives, including transnationality, K-pop, Korean dramas, platform imperialism, gender and sexuality, and artificial intelligence. Together, they advance non-Western theoretical frameworks that media scholars and students learn and apply to their works. The Special Section provides new concepts, ideas, and knowledge that showcase the significant movements taking place in Hallyu research and point to directions for future studies. 

Together, the contributions to this Special Section provide new lenses to understand the increasing role of the Korean Wave in media studies, cultural studies, area studies, and gender studies.  

We invite you to read these articles that published in the International Journal of Communication on January 1, 2023. Please log into ijoc.org to read the papers of interest. We look forward to your feedback! 

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Theorizing the Korean Wave: Introduction to New Perspectives—Introduction 
Dal Yong Jin

Transnational Proximity of the Korean Wave in the Global Cultural Sphere 
Dal Yong Jin

Shock and Surprise: Theorizing the Korean Wave Through Mediatized Emotions
Irina Lyan 

K(Q)ueer-Pop for Another World: Toward a Theorization of Gender and Sexuality in K-Pop
Jungmin Kwon 

Netflix and Platform Imperialism: How Netflix Alters the Ecology of the Korean TV Drama Industry
Ji Hoon Park, Kristin April Kim, Yongsuk Lee

K-Pop Without Koreans: Racial Imagination and Boundary Making in K-Pop
Ji-Hyun Ahn

Translational Audiences in the Age of Transnational K-Pop 
Kyong Yoon

Virtual Technology in Netflix K-Drama: Augmented Reality, Hologram, and Artificial Intelligence
Jinhee Park

K-Culture Without “K-“? The Paradoxical Nature of Producing Korean Television Toward a Sustainable Korean Wave 
Taeyoung Kim

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Larry Gross, Editor
Kady Bell-Garcia, Managing Editor
Chi Zhang, Managing Editor, Special Sections
Dal Yong Jin, Guest Editor

Please note that according to the latest Google Scholar statistics, IJoC ranks 9th among all Humanities journals and 9th among all Communications journals in the world — demonstrating the viability of open access scholarly publication at the highest level.