A Europe of Rights and Values? Public Debates on Sarkozy's Roma Affair in France, Bulgaria and Romania

This article analyses press coverage between July and October 2010 in three different European Union (EU) member states (France, Romania and Bulgaria) of the French government’s expulsion of Roma in 2010. It asks what the international reaction to France’s actions tells us about the way in which Europe is deployed in debates over discrimination, minority rights and freedom of movement in national media. The article finds evidence in national public debates of a Europeanisation of normative discussions, thanks to a willingness by a range of actors to use the EU in an instrumental way for political gain. However, the representation of issues and actors by the press also demonstrates the ways in which the prominence of supposedly European norms, and the framing of the EU’s role, can be associated with national political dynamics, both in relation to the political environment and contemporary narratives regarding national identity

Twitter (X), Fast Fashion and Backlash: Argumentation and Ethics on Social Media

Social media backlashes have emerged as important phenomena complicating how businesses communicate online and representing significant brand risk. This article demonstrates the value of content analysis and argumentation theory for understanding and responding to social media backlash events, using two examples from the UK fashion industry (hashtags #ThanksItsASOS and #boycottboohoo). The results provide lessons about the way backlashes operate in practice, how to analyze these effectively, and have implications for business approaches to communicating about Corporate Social Responsibility and managing social media. The authors conclude with suggestions for training on social media and CSR for businesses. </jats:p

Lifting lockdown: Renewed access to arts and cultural activities.

BackgroundThe effects of COVID-19 on mental health are profound. While there is a growing body of evidence on arts supporting mental health, the re-engagement with in-person arts and cultural activity has remained slow following the lifting of restrictions.MethodsInterviews with 14 representatives, including providers and practitioners, from 12 arts and cultural organisations within the Liverpool City Region (LCR) were conducted. The aim was to examine the impact of COVID-19 restrictions easing on arts and cultural provision in the LCR, and on the mental health and wellbeing of those whom arts and cultural organisations serve, including those who would usually access arts through formal healthcare routes (e.g., those usually served via arts organisations' partnership with health or social care providers). Data were analysed using framework analysis.ResultsThree overarching themes were identified: The new normal: 'Out of crisis comes innovation'; Complexities of operating 'in the new COVID world'; and Reimagining arts in mental healthcare.ConclusionAs engagement in community and cultural activities plays a public health role, a hybrid delivery of arts and culture - ensuring continued online access alongside in-person provision - will be vital for people's recovery. Alongside efforts to reimagine arts in mental healthcare in the wake of the crisis caused by the pandemic, the role of arts and culture in providing stigma-free environments to reconnect the vulnerable and isolated is more critical than ever. Recommendations on the role of arts and culture in sustaining the mental health and wellbeing of the population and embedding the arts within clinical care and public health prevention schemes are provided

Ethics, politics and migration: Public debates on the free movement of Romanians and Bulgarians in the UK, 2006–2013

Public debates on immigration have become the subject of much concern, particularly in the UK. This article applies an ethical lens to assess changes in public debates over intra-EU migration in six UK national newspapers during 2006 and 2013. It finds an almost complete dominance of communitarian justifications, mainly based on welfare chauvinism, but a notable increase in security-related arguments and a decrease in economic nationalist ideas. Alternative cosmopolitan arguments about immigration go from rare to virtually absent. The discussion links these shifts to a failure of the UK centre-left to overcome historic difficulties in presenting a coherent narrative on immigration policy

Media power during humanitarian interventions: Is Eastern Europe any different from the West?

The role of the media in foreign policymaking has been the subject of significant academic enquiry, particularly in response to the so-called 'CNN effect', but this work has mostly focused on prominent Western nations (particularly the United States). This article enlarges the debate by adding a comparative and post-communist perspective. Taking the Kosovo conflict as a case study, it analyses the role of the media in foreign policy in Bulgaria and Britain. Through the application of Robinson's policy-media interaction model, the article argues that the Bulgarian press did not have any substantial impact on the government's position on the Kosovo conflict because it framed its reports in a neutral way. The British press/foreign policy relationship discloses a clear case of media support for governmental policy. The findings raise questions about the validity of certain claims about the media-policy relationship in former socialist countries. The article identifies limitations to models based on Western media systems and suggests that their construction is often based on certain cultural assumptions and hence very much context bound.CNN effect, Kosovo conflict, media-foreign policy relationship, media-policy models, post-communist media