#Commladies know stuff about political communication, too. The International Journal of Press Politics opens articles from 2018 of women-led and solo female authors…..
What is always interesting as an academic — but in a lot of fields, too — is when you start to see your personal networks of horizontal peers really start to take over. These are the folks you aren’t scared of because you remember “those days” of youthful scholarly anxiety — and then all of a sudden, they become journal editors. Or book series editors (cough). Or division chairs of your associations. And as your friends become badasses, this means that the people who you know have been longtime allies for the causes you believe in are now in a position to do something.
This happened in part one with what we saw with Digital Journalism’s efforts to get women’s work out thanks to great allies and friends like Oscar Westlund. Senior scholars jumped on the cause with their contributions (thank you Louisa Ma of Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly and Barbie Zelizer and Howard Tumber of Journalism). And now, a shout out to Cristian Vaccari, whom I first met when we were both a little shocked to be invited as assistant professors to give a master class at the University of Laval in Quebec City (maybe that was just me?), and who is now the editor of the International Journal of Press Politics. He has freed the files, so to speak, of women-led and women-solo-authored articles from 2018 for a brief time, so take a look!
Mediated Leader Effects: The Impact of Newspapers’ Portrayal of Party Leadership on Electoral Support
Loes Aaldering, Tom van der Meer, Wouter Van der Brug
The results confirm that media coverage of party leaders’ character traits affects voters: Positive mediated leadership images increase support for the leader’s party, while negative images decrease this support. However, this influence is not unconditional: During campaign periods, positive leadership images have a stronger effect, while negative images no longer have an impact on subsequent vote intentions.
The Polarizing Effects of Online Partisan Criticism: Evidence from Two Experiments
Elizabeth Suhay, Emily Bello-Pardo, Brianna Maurer
Affective and social political polarization — a dislike of political opponents and a desire to avoid their company — are increasingly salient and pervasive features of politics in many Western democracies, particularly the United States. One contributor to these related phenomena may be increasing exposure to online political disagreements in which ordinary citizens criticize, and sometimes explicitly demean, opponents. We conclude that online partisan criticism likely has contributed to rising affective and social polarization in recent years between Democrats and Republicans in the United States, and perhaps between partisan and ideological group members in other developed democracies as well.
Nothing Is True? The Credibility of News and Conflicting Narratives during “Information War” in Ukraine
Joanna Szostek
In international politics, the strategic narratives of different governments compete for public attention and support. The Russian government’s narrative has prompted western concern due to fears that it exerts a destabilizing effect on societies in Eastern Europe and elsewhere. Evidence comes from thirty audio-diaries and in-depth interviews conducted in 2016 among adult residents of Odesa Region. Through qualitative analysis of the diary and interview transcripts, the paper reveals how participants judged the credibility of news and narratives based on their priorities (what they considered important), not just “facts” (what they believed had happened).
From Liberal to Polarized Liberal? Contemporary U.S. News in Hallin and Mancini’s Typology of News Systems
Efrat Nechushtai
The 2016 presidential election demonstrated the extent to which U.S. news has changed since its “high modernist” moment. Evidence of these shifts — fragmented and poorly monetized news markets, politicization of news content and funding, uneven professionalization, and even increasing openness to state involvement — have been documented in the literature for some years, but often framed as exceptions. This paper revisits Hallin and Mancini’s typology of news systems to suggest that as variants of Polarized Pluralist elements are entrenched in the American news system.
Approximately Informed, Occasionally Monitorial? Reconsidering Normative Citizen Ideals
Brita Ytre-Arne, Hallvard Moe
Starting from the widespread but unrealistic ideal of the informed citizen, and its more realistic development through notions of the monitorial citizen, we analyze comprehensive qualitative data on news users’ experiences. We describe these news users as approximately informed, occasionally monitorial. This description emphasizes the limited, shifting, and partial figurations of societal information that citizens are able to obtain through their use of journalistic and social media, and thereby challenges normative ideals.
Framing the Taxation-Democratization Link: An Automated Content Analysis of Cross-National Newspaper Data
Volha Kananovich
Although it is true that paying taxes is a responsibility, it also entitles citizens to claim control over government spending, which may facilitate a greater democratization of a country’s political regime. Consistent with this reasoning, a growing body of scholarship has documented a positive relationship between the size of tax revenues extracted by the state and the adherence of the country’s regime to democratic values. What has been left underexplored is the role in this relationship of the media, a commonly available and relied-upon source of information about taxpaying for the public. This study offers a first contribution in this direction, by exploring the relationship between the nature of the political regime and the rhetorical construction of the concept of a taxpayer in the national press.
Reporting in Latin America: Issues and Perspectives on Investigative Journalism in the Region
Magdalena Saldaña, Rachel R. Mourão
This study investigates challenges faced by investigative journalists in Latin America, one of the most dangerous places in the world for reporters. Guided by the hierarchy of influences model, we analyzed answers from 1,543 journalists, journalism educators, and journalism students in the region. Despite two decades of media liberalization, crime and corruption, state violence against the press, and the lack of a free-speech culture cut across all layers, posing severe constraints to investigative reporting in Latin America.
Twitter Makes It Worse: Political Journalists, Gendered Echo Chambers, and the Amplification of Gender Bias
Nikki Usher, Jesse Holcomb, Justin Littman
Given both the historical legacy and the contemporary awareness about gender inequity in journalism and politics as well as the increasing importance of Twitter in political communication, this article considers whether the platform makes some of the existing gender bias against women in political journalism even worse. Using a framework that characterizes journalists’ Twitter behavior in terms of the dimensions of their peer-to-peer relationships and a comprehensive sample of permanently credentialed journalists for the U.S. Congress, substantial evidence of gender bias beyond existing inequities emerges.
Mediated Personalization of Executive European Union Politics: Examining Patterns in the Broadsheet Coverage of the European Commission, 1992–2016
Katjana Gattermann
The personalization of politics is a popular thesis but often challenged when it comes to media personalization. While previous research compared the prominence of different types of political actors across national political contexts, this article situates its research in the context of European Union (EU) politics and, thereby, studies similar reference points across countries. Its focus lies on the European Commission and its members. Personalization is conceptualized as individualization and presidentialization, respectively. The article proposes that the EU integration process provides journalists with the opportunity to report more often about individual politicians, while political developments should further incentivize journalists to personalize their news from Brussels.
Local-Level Authoritarianism, Democratic Normative Aspirations, and Antipress Harassment: Predictors of Threats to Journalists in Mexico
Sallie Hughes, Mireya Márquez-Ramírez
Cross-national research has identified crime, corruption, and human rights abuses as explanations for threats against journalists in democracies and authoritarian hybrids plagued by antipress violence. In-depth studies additionally suggest gender or occupational characteristics such as risky newsbeats increase the likelihood of being threatened. We overcome data limitations in many of these studies by analyzing work-related threats reported by journalists in Mexico, a territorially uneven democracy. Findings confirm that contexts of criminal insecurity are the strongest predictor of threats but only for journalists who are frequently harassed. For the infrequently threatened, democratic normative commitments are a stronger predictor. Subnational government corruption is another important predictor of threat but operates counter to expectations.
Populism and the Gender Gap: Comparing Digital Engagement with Populist and Non-populist Facebook Pages in France, Italy, and Spain
Giuliano Bobba, Cristina Cremonesi, Moreno Mancosu, Antonella Seddone
Our case selection considers three countries falling into the pluralist polarized media system: France, Italy, and Spain. A human content analysis was carried out on a sample of 2,235 Facebook posts published during thirty days in 2016 by the four main parties/leaders in each country.Findings confirm the existence of a gender-oriented reaction to populism: Men tend to support populist actors and parties on Facebook more than women do, by providing likes to their content. Yet the difference in gender gap between radical and moderate parties is not significant. We also found that the antielite component of populist discourse obtains more likes by male Facebook users. This pattern is common for both populist and non-populist parties.
