The EU-funded Mediadem project, which ran for three years from April 2010, explored the factors that promote or hinder the realization of media freedom and independence in 14 European countries.  The countries included in the study  included long-standing EU Member State, such as Germany, Finland and the UK; more recent members, such as Slovakia, Estonia and Croatia; and applicant states such as Turkey.

Edited by Rachael Craufurd Smith, this Special Section on Supporting Free and Independent Media in Europe: Findings from the Mediadem Project,  by academics and experts working in the field, draws on the Mediadem research and focuses on three key themes that were central to the project:  1) The future of public service media provision in Europe and the extent to which international standards can, and  have been, used to direct its development;  2) How journalistic ethics can be nurtured and maintained in today’s highly competitive, and often financially stretched, media markets and 3) the constitutional limits of state regulation and the role of self-regulation in a media environment dominated by powerful private corporations.

The articles thus explore the influence of international and European standards on economically, politically and culturally diverse countries and whether there remains a role for professionalization in supporting independent reporting, given the rise of “citizen journalism” and the increasingly casual and precarious nature of journalists’ employment.

We invite you to read these articles that published in the International Journal of Communication on May 8, 2017.  Please Ctrl+Click on the article titles below for direct linking to the papers of interest.

Findings From the Mediadem Project: Supporting Free and Independent Media in Europe Introduction
Rachael Craufurd Smith

The Freedom and Independence of Public Service Media in Europe: International Standards and Their Domestic Implementation
Evangelia Psychogiopoulou, Dia Anagnostou, Rachael Craufurd Smith, Yolande Stolte

Journalistic Autonomy as a Professional Value and Element of Journalism Culture: The European Perspective
Epp Lauk, Halliki Harro-Loit

Of Journalists and Money: The Employment of Journalists in Romania and Its Influence on Media Freedom and Quality
Ioana Avădani

Private Regulation and Freedom of Expression
Fabrizio Cafaggi, Frederica Casarosa, Tony Prosser

Larry Gross
Editor     

Arlene Luck
Managing Editor

Rachael Craufurd Smith
Guest Editor

The International Journal of Communication has published 23 papers in April 2017. We invite you to read these papers which can be accessed at ijoc.org, or Ctrl+Click on the article title below. We look forward to your feedback!

ARTICLES

The Hostile Suffering Effect: Mediated Encounters With the Suffering of Opponents, Recognition, and Moral Concern in Protracted Asymmetrical Conflict
Rotem Nagar, Ifat Maoz

Mainstream Versus Ethnic Media: How They Shape Ethnic Pride and Self-Esteem Among Ethnic Minority Audiences
Srividya Ramasubramanian, Marissa Joanna Doshi, Muniba Saleem

Informed Switchers? How the Impact of Election News Exposure on Vote Change Depends on Political Information Efficacy
Sabine Geers, Linda Bos, Claes H. De Vreese

Putting Out Fire with Gasoline in Tahrir Square: Revisiting the Gamson Hypothesis
Bahaa Gameel, Shuning Lu, Hyeri Jung, Thomas J. Johnson

Valuing Victims: A Comparative Framing Analysis of The Washington Post’s Coverage of Violent Attacks Against Muslims and Non-Muslims
Mohammed el-Nawawy, Mohamad Hamas Elmasry

 Information, Interest, and Ideology: Explaining the Divergent Effects of Government-Media Relationships in Argentina
Eugenia Mitchelstein, Pablo J. Boczkowski

Reading the 13th Five-Year Plan: Reflections on China’s ICT Policy
Yu Hong

Creative Appropriations in Hybrid Spaces: Mobile Interfaces in Art and Games in Brazil
Adriana de Souza e Silva, Fernanda Duarte, Cristiane S. Damasceno

Attributional Chromatics: How Does the Color of Written Communication Affect Interpersonal Perceptions?
Adam S. Richards, Edward L. Fink

Public Spheres of Skepticism: Climate Skeptics’ Online Comments in the German Networked Public Sphere
Jonas Kaiser

Testing the Power of Game Lessons: The Effects of Art Style and Narrative Complexity on Reducing Cognitive Bias
Rosa Mikeal Martey, Adrienne Shaw, Jennifer Stromer-Galley, Kate Kenski, Benjamin Clegg, James Folkestad, Tobi Saulnier, Tomek Strzalkowski

Complex Structures: Meaning Formation amid China’s New Rural Cooperative Medical Scheme
Mohan J. Dutta, Kang Sun

Exploring Message Targeting at Home and Abroad: The Role of Political and Media Considerations in the Rhetorical Dynamics of Conflict Resolution
Elie Friedman, Zohar Kampf, Meital Balmas

Colombian Journalists on Twitter: Opinions, Gatekeeping, and Transparency in Political Coverage
Victor Garcia-Perdomo

The Value of Representation: Toward a Critique of Networked Television Performance  Aymar Jean Christian

FEATURES

Journalism Professors in the German Democratic Republic: A Collective Biography
Michael Meyen, Thomas Wiedemann

A Word to Set the Stage for a Memento from the Recent Past
Howard S. Becker

BOOK REVIEWS

Jiyeon Kang, Igniting the Internet: Youth and Activism in Postauthoritarian South Korea
Steffi Shook

Stephen T. Russell and Stacey S. Horn (Eds.), Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity, and Schooling
Traci Gillig

Christopher Chávez, Reinventing the Latino Television Viewer: Language, Ideology, and Practice
Lindani Mbunyuza-Memani

Patrick Burkart, Pirate Politics: The New Information Policy Contests
Kenneth Merrill

Hongmei Li, Advertising and Consumer Culture in China
Min Wang

Shilpa Davé, LeiLani Nishime, and Tasha Oren (Eds.), Global Asian American Popular Cultures
Cynthia Wang

 

Thank you for your continuing interest in the work that IJoC publishes.

Larry Gross                                                   
Editor  

Arlene Luck
Managing Editor

The International Journal of Communication has published 41 papers in March 2017 including a Special Section on Digital Storytelling as well as a Special Section on Mediating Asia. To access these papers, please Ctrl+Click on the article titles below or go to ijoc.org.

ARTICLES

The Relativity of Sociodemographic Determinism on the Digital Divide in High School Students in Ecuador
Ramón Tirado-Morueta, Damian Mendoza-Zambrano, Isidro Marín-Gutiérrez, Mariuxi Mendoza-Zambrano

The Ontology of the Intellectual Commons
Antonios Broumas

 Pivot to Internet Plus: Molding China’s Digital Economy for Economic Restructuring?
Yu Hong

Analyzing the Existence and Relation of Optimistic Bias and First-Person Perception for an Impersonal Environmental Change
Rebecca M. Rogers, Cornelia Wallner, Bernhard Goodwin, Werner Heitland, Wolfgang W. Weisser, Hans-Bernd Brosius

New Urban Players: Stratagematic Use of Media by Banksy and the Hong Kong Umbrella Movement
Paola Monachesi, Marina Turco

Good News in Bad News: How Negativity Enhances Economic Efficacy
Helle Mølgaard Svensson, Erik Albæk, Arjen van Dalen, Claes de Vreese

The Afterlife of Critique: The Communicability of Criticism and the Publicity of Polemic Concerning Public Debate in the Turkish Press
Özgür Gürsoy, Gokcen Karanfil

Celebrity Influence and Young People’s Attitudes Toward Cosmetic Surgery in Singapore: The Role of Parasocial Relationships and Identification
Nainan Wen

The Curious Absence of Economic Analysis at the Federal Communications Commission: An Agency in Search of a Mission
Gerald R. Faulhaber, Hal J. Singer, Augustus H. Urschel

The State of the Field of Social Norms Research
Hillary C. Shulman, Nancy Rhodes, Emily Davidson, Rachel Ralston,
Lorraine Borghetti, Lindsey Morr

Extreme Speech Online: An Anthropological Critique of Hate Speech Debates
Matti Pohjonen, Sahana Udupa

Look Who’s Talking To Our Kids: Representations of Race and Gender In TV Commercials On Nickelodeon
Adam Peruta, Jack Powers

Values and Configuration of Users in the Design of Software Source Code
Stéphane Couture

FEATURES

A Coming Singularity in Media Regulation: The American Case
Russell Neuman

“Coder,” “Activist,” “Hacker”: Aaron Swartz in the Italian, UK, U.S. and Technology Press
Philip Di Salvo

BOOK REVIEWS

Eszter Hargittai and Christian Sandvig (Eds.), Digital Research Confidential: The Secrets of Studying Behavior Online
Lisa Farman

Deborah A. Macey, Kathleen M. Ryan, and Noah J. Springer (Eds.), How Television Shapes Our Worldview: Media Representations of Social Trends and Change
D.M. Greenwell

Gregory Ferrell Lowe and Fiona Martin (Eds.), The Value of Public Service Media
Luwei Rose Luqiu

Tilman Baumgärtel (Ed.), A Reader in International Media Piracy
Dom Caristi

Joseph D. Straubhaar, Jeremiah Spence, Vanessa Higgins Joyce, Vinicio Sinta, Adolfo Mora, Víctor García, and Luiz G. Duarte, The Evolution of Television: An Analysis of 10 years of TGI  Latin America (2004-2014) (Volume 1)
Sebastião Guilherme Albano

Kate Nash, Craig Hight, and Catherine Summerhayes (Eds.), New Documentary Ecologies: Emerging Platforms, Practices and Discourses
Heather McIntosh

Shi-xu, Kwesi Kwaa Prah, and María Laura Pardo, Discourses of the Developing World: Researching Properties, Problems and Potentials
Geqi Wu

Rahab Nyaga, Dorothy Njoroge and Charles Nyambuga, An Introduction to Communication
Irene Awino, H. Leslie Steeves

Olga Baysha, The Mythologies of Capitalism and the End of the Soviet Project
Oliver Boyd-Barrett

Sara Ahmed, Willful Subjects
Ayanna Serenity Dozier
Thank you for your continuing interest in the work that IJoC publishes.

Larry Gross
Editor                                                    

Arlene Luck
Managing Editor

International Journal of Communication Publishes a Special Section on Mediating Asia: Information, Democracy,
and the State In and Before the Digital Age

What are the political, economic and cultural implications of an increasingly robust and globally penetrating Asia-based media industry?  How have Asian states tried to manage the diffuse representations of Asia emerging from informal yet globalized media channels?

Guest-edited by Tim Oakes, this Special Section on Mediating Asia by Asian media scholars and professional journalists explores the changing relationships between Asian states and Asia-based media institutions and industries as the nature and role of media in Asian society undergoes profound change.  With the increasing visibility and power of Indian film, Korean television, and Japanese animation industries, and of Asian broadcasting networks such as Star TV and Aljazeera, there has been no shortage of scholarly attention devoted to the rise of Asian media.  This collection, however, focuses less on the meteoric rise and power of Asian media itself and more on how that rise has been negotiated by Asian states, with a particular focus on China and Indonesia.  As digital media technologies become ubiquitous, both formal and informal media platforms push beyond state boundaries, challenging state efforts to control the content of and access to information and entertainment.  This challenge is addressed in commentaries by three journalists with extensive Asian experience, and three academics exploring the spatial and historical contexts of an increasingly mediated Asia.

We invite you to read these articles that published in the International Journal of Communication on March 23, 2017.  Please Ctrl+Click on the article titles below for direct linking to the papers of interest.

Mediating Asia: Information, Democracy, and the State in and before the Digital Age ―  Introduction
Tim Oakes, University of Colorado Boulder

Mediating Indonesia: The Slow Emergence of a Young Nation ― Commentary
Endy M. Bayuni, The Jakarta Post

Reporting From China: 400 Reports, on 1.4 Billion People, in One Authoritarian State ― Commentary
Melissa K. Chan, Al Jazeera

Guidance and Transgression: The Contest for Narratives of Environment and Pollution in China ― Commentary
Isabel Hilton, Chinadialogue

Pressing the Issue: Sino-American Discourse on the Proper Role of the Media, Past and Present
Timothy B. Weston, University of Colorado Boulder

Enlightenment and the Revolutionary Press in Colonial Indonesia
Rianne Subijanto, Baruch College, City University of New York

Between State and Capital: Asia’s Media Revolution in the Age of Neoliberal Globalization
Michael Curtin, University of California Santa Barbara

________________________________________________________________________

Larry Gross
Editor                                                            

Arlene Luck
Managing Editor

Tim Oakes
Guest Editor

International Journal of Communication
Publishes Special Section
Voices for a New Vernacular: A Forum on Digital Storytelling

Changing media and communications technologies have ushered in an era of constant digital connection. And yet, in the face of all this change, it seems that storytelling — the human impulse to create narrative — persists. Across video games, social media, and various Internet platforms, the dynamics of audience agency have shifted. New technologies have allowed for stories that illuminate new political possibilities, while media companies have created new ways to profit from this activity. Still, the impulse to craft and consume narrative provides a common strand that unites digital storytelling with its earlier, analog forms.

 

Leading digital communication scholars have gathered as part of this Special Section, Voices for a New Vernacular: A Forum on Digital Storytelling, to explore the overlaps of old and new that comprise the term “digital storytelling.” Conducted as interviews, these free-ranging contributions explore the following: What makes digital storytelling unique? What are its possibilities for social and cultural transformation? How does it draw attention to the relationship between humans and machines? Is there actually anything new about digital storytelling at all?

 

Edited by Anandam Kavoori, Mark C. Lashley, and Brian Creech, the Special Section features interviews with the following scholars that published March 13, 2017. Please Ctrl+Click on the scholar’s name below to link to the interview that published. 

 

Henry Jenkins                   University of Southern California

Zizi Papacharissi                University of Illinois-Chicago

Knut Lundby                     University of Oslo

Janet Murray                     Georgia Institute of Technology

Hector Postigo                  Temple University, USA

Veena Raman                    Pennsylvania State University

Vladimir Barash                 Independent Scholar

Marie-Laure Ryan              Independent Scholar

 

The contributors offer their provisional thoughts on the perils and potentials of digital storytelling. Because the technology is open-ended, so are the answers. Each response offers the germ of a new idea or line of research and, in their collected form, represent many of the ways the digital has come to occupy a central place in the study of human communication. To quote from Zizi Papacharissi’s contribution, “Technologies network us, but it is our stories that connect us, or further drive us apart.”