Accountability and Transparency of Entrepreneurial Journalism: Unresolved ethical issues in crowdfunded journalism projects

Crowdfunding is a new business model in which journalists rely—and depend—on (micro-) payments by a large number of supporters to finance their reporting. In this form of entrepreneurial journalism the roles of publisher, fundraiser and journalist often overlap. This raises questions about conflicts of interest, accountability and transparency. The article presents the results of selected case studies in four different European countries—Germany (Krautreporter), Italy (Occhidellaguerra), the United Kingdom (Contributoria) and the Netherlands (De Correspondent)—as well as one US example (Kickstarter). The study used a two-step methodological approach: first a content analysis of the websites and the Twitter accounts with regard to practices of media accountability, transparency and user participation was undertaken. The aim was to investigate how far ethical challenges in crowdfunded entrepreneurial journalism are accounted for. Second, we present findings from semi-structured interviews with journalists from each crowdfunding. The study provides evidence about the ethical issues in this area, particularly in relation to production transparency and responsiveness. The study also shows that in some cases of crowdfunding (platforms), accountability is outsourced and implemented only through the audience participation

Online Italian fandoms of American TV shows

The Internet has changed media fandom in two main ways: it helps fans connect with each other despite physical distance, leading to the formation of international fan communities; and it helps fans connect with the creators of the TV show, deepening the relationship between TV producers and international fandoms. To assess whether Italian fan communities active online are indeed part of transnational online communities and whether the Internet has actually altered their relationship with the creators of the original text they are devoted to, qualitative analysis and narrative interviews of 26 Italian fans of American TV shows were conducted to explore the fan-producer relationship. Results indicated that the online Italian fans surveyed preferred to stay local, rather than using geography-leveling online tools. Further, the sampled Italian fans' relationships with the show runners were mediated or even absent

Cream Soda. The rhythm of everyday life

In this work I will focus my attention on a specific manga, Cream Soda by Adachi Mitsuru (1996). As suggested by Eco (1999), I will analyze this single work keeping in mind that it belongs to a medium and some genre practiced through this medium, but focusing my attention on the specific syntax of the speech of Adachi. This means that in this work I won’t talk about manga in general or in itself, at least, not in the foreground and in the first instance, but I will consider Adachi’s specific execution of the art of manga. This work will start from the analysis of single panels, and their relationship with each other inside the page layout, following the critical path indicated by Thierry Groensteen (1999), and will be then accompanied by the analysis of images and texts contained inside those panels, with special regard to their relationship with each other and with images and texts contained in other panels, following the lead of Barbieri (1995) and Pellitteri (1998).<br /><br />The analysis of the elements that this text brings together to create a coherent narrative, and those elements it will not, will show that to properly understand Adachi’s manga the reader must recognize the fictional nature of what he is reading and his function as co-author of the story. Obviously this reflection is based on a first level or narrative interpretation of the text because it is starting from this basic layer that all the other layers can be explored. This is also the reason why this work provides a punctual examination of the single panels.<br /><br />The analysis here proposed will also demonstrate that, despite many panels open up to different levels of readings, the activation of the second or third level of reading is not a given. It will also become evident, though, that if one stops at a first level reading, the most obvious one, the text in question isn’t really fulfilled according to its author’s expectations: the reader’s high engagement with the text and how, as a result, he is able to better understand it, forms the heart of Adachi’s style and language.<br /><br />Disseminating his work with clues, spoilers, symbolic objects and inside jokes, Adachi invites, in fact, his reader not only to re-read the text but also to read between the lines. As it will be demonstrated through this work, with his stylistic solutions and meta-narrative approach, Adachi often brings into question the art of manga and its specific language, and therefore I believe that the analysis of his peculiar execution of this art and language can represent a good starting off point for a more general discourse on the manga language.p { margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;

Filling the gap: An exploration into the theories and methods used in fan studies

Interdisciplinarity involves the interaction, combination, and integration of theories, concepts, and methods across different disciplines—and fan studies is commonly seen as an interdisciplinary field of research. This contribution sheds light on the question of interdisciplinarity by investigating contemporary notions of theory and methods used in two discipline-related scholarly journals through a metadata analysis of the keywords as well as a content analysis of fifty randomly selected abstracts in order to investigate the dominant theoretical approaches and methods used in the field of fan studies

How to reach Swiss digital natives with news : a qualitative study

The media significantly contribute to shaping public opinion and social participation. However, news media are increasingly confronted with the challenge of not reaching younger people. The present study, "Reaching Swiss Digital Natives with News", aims to providesolutions by analyzing the demands and expectations of young people regarding news, as well as their media behavior, their activities associated with news consumption, and their media literacy. The study was conducted from August 2019 to February 2020 by the IAM Institute for Applied Media Studies at the ZHAW Zurich University of Applied Sciences in collaboration with the Universities of Lugano (USI) and Lausanne (UNIL). The study participants were 66 young people aged 12 to 20 years from three Swiss language regions (German-, French-, and Italian-speaking Switzerland). The data was collected in all three language regions with a qualitative multi-method approach. First, interviews were conducted to gain insight into the everyday world of the young people and determine topics for the focus groups. The focus groups provided information about the participants' understanding of news, attitudes towards news consumption, and news consumption motivations. The subsequent ethnographic and diary studies examined the participants' news consumption in real-time: the ethnographic study recorded the participants' interactions on news topics on social media platforms. During the diary study, the participants documented their news consumption using pictures, texts, and predefined keywords. This procedure provided insights into online- and offline news consumption, as the participants also documented newspaper articles read, television broadcasts watched, and radio broadcasts listened. The diary entries were validated with interviews and recordings of cell phone usage time. The triangulation of the data from all research steps shows that young people's news consumption can be systematized according to four dimensions: duration and times of consumption, news habits and behavior, restrictions, and media literacy. These dimensions varie according to the young people's age, but the boundaries are fluid. 12 to 14 years: This group accesses news primarily via smartphone, which they usually use at home, where Internet access via WLAN is available. The usage time of the smartphone is 2 to 3 hours a day. The use of smartphones, and thus the news consumption of young people, is strongly regulated by parents and school. These restrictions mean that young people hardly ever use online news services. They come into contact with news mainly through media available at home. The primary motivation for news consumption in this age group is the opportunity to talk to parents or at school about news content. Reading news articles is not easy for this age group; the young people need help from parents and teachers. 15 to 17 years: At this age, the parental influence and restrictions decrease, while the influence of peers increases. Adolescents in this age group spend a lot of time on social media platforms where they follow numerous channels and come into contact with news. Wildly popular are Instagram and YouTube. The news is hardly selected; these people consume whatever is accessible. Despite their understanding of rather complex news items, they prefer shorter and easily understandable information units. As soon as young people have a data package, they are almost always online and use their phones up to 6 hours a day, mainly on weekends, vacations, or when commuting on public transport. 18 to 20 years: At this age, the news consumption behavior is stabilizing, and individual patterns are emerging — young people in this age group access news via selected apps and social media channels. News is usually consumed in the morning during a commute, on the way home, and shortly before bedtime. The daily phone usage time is 3 to 4 hours. The interests and motivations for news consumption become more specific. Young people at this age want to understand what is going on, so they can share their knowledge and opinions with peers from special interest groups. Additional language skills enable them to consume news from foreign news providers. Also, young people in this age group critically reflect on their news consumption. The results across all three age groups show that young people prefer visual formats such as pictures and videos. When scrolling on social media platforms, they often come across news content by chance. Memes and Instagram stories are particularly popular in this context. They often motivate the young people to trace back the content and find the original news source. Furthermore, specific news apps are used as news distribution channels. In general, young people want the news to be less negative. They also feel overwhelmed by the large amount of news they are exposed to on a regular basis. They wish for news apps where news items can be selected according to predefined criteria and where they get a summary of the most important topics, illustrated with pictures and short videos. The main motivations for news consumption are passing the time, entertainment, personal interests, and discussing news topics with others. Young people want to be informed to have a say in current, critical issues and topics that are "in vogue." The study resulted in an audience model with personas that depicts and systematizes young Swiss people's news consumption patterns. The model shows that the chance to reach young people with new news formats exists above all in the group of 15 to 17-year-olds. This age group has not yet developed a routine for its news consumption and is very receptive to new news formats

How the Web was told: Continuity and change in the founding fathers’ narratives on the origins of the World Wide Web

The essay investigates the evolution of the “narratives of invention” used by the founding fathers of the World Wide Web in a selected corpus of papers written by Tim Berners-Lee and colleagues from 1989 up to 1993 and later in the books of James Gillies and Robert Cailliau and of Berners-Lee himself in 2000. Thanks to a textual analysis that cross these sources, we identify three main sets of common keywords that did not change and three couples of conflicting keywords that depict the evolution of the narratives over time. Change and continuity, intertwined with conservation and innovation, emerge as the key strategies of the Web’s founding fathers in narrating their idea