How the ubiquity of eyewitness media changes the mediation and visibility of protests in the news

This chapter examines how eyewitness footage travels from the street, through verification procedures in newsrooms, or diffusion on social media until it reaches our screens, and whether its ubiquity, the fact it is now systematically collected, processed and authenticated by newsrooms, has changed the mediation and visibility of protests. It argues that eyewitness footage is polysemic and polyvalent, because it is easily stripped of the context of its original upload, to appear in different contexts, with different descriptions, advancing different interpretation of events and different political goals. Eyewitness media of protests complicates journalism’s task of providing a trusted record of the present

International journalism and the emergence of transnational publics: between cosmopolitan norms, the affirmation of identity and market forces

Much has been written about transnational public spheres, though our understanding of their shape and nature remains limited. Drawing on three alternative conceptions of newswork as public communication, this article explores the role of international journalists in shaping transnational publics. Based on a series of original interviews, it asks how journalists are oriented in their newswork (e.g. are they cosmopolitan or parochial in their orientation) and how they ‘imagine’ the public. It finds that interviewees imagine a polycentric transnational public and variously frame their work as giving voice to those affected by an issue (imagining the public as a cosmopolitan community of fate), performing and reaffirming a particular kind of identity and belonging (imagining the public as a nation) or pursuing audiences wherever they may be (imagining the public as the de facto audience)

E-Democracy and the European Public Sphere

The chapter starts with an outline of outstanding recent contributions to the discussion of the EU democratic deficit and the so-called “no demos” problem and the debate about European citizenship and European identity—mainly in the light of insights from the EU crisis. This is followed by reflections on the recent discussion on the state of the mass media-based European public sphere. Finally, the author discusses the state of research on the Internet’s capacity to support the emergence of a (renewed) public sphere, with a focus on options for political actors to use the Internet for communication and campaigning, on the related establishment of segmented issue-related publics as well as on social media and its two-faced character as an enabler as well as a distorting factor of the public sphere. The author is sceptic about the capacities of Internet-based political communication to develop into a supranational (European) public sphere. It rather establishes a network of a multitude of discursive processes aimed at opinion formation at various levels and on various issues. The potential of online communication to increase the responsiveness of political institutions so far is set into practice insufficiently. Online media are increasingly used in a vertical and scarcely in a horizontal or interactive manner of communication

A Field Trial on Mobile Crowdsourcing of News Content Factors Influencing Participation

Abstract. We conducted a five-week field trial on mobile crowdsourcing of hyperlocal news content to 1) understand the readers ’ experiences and 2) explore factors affecting their participation. In the end of the study the participants were surveyed with an online questionnaire (17/104 respondents) and five participants were interviewed. Although respondents and interviewees were enthusiastic about the trial, the activity in the trial was low. Results indicate that participant characteristics (age, gender, participation motivations and hobbyist background in photography) and task characteristics in terms of the subjectively perceived task significance (possible impact on important issues in the environment or on community), task relevance (related to the background and participation motivation), and task engagingness have an effect on the participation. In addition, participation was influenced by the estimated needed effort vs. the expected benefit (monetary benefit or having a possibility to influence), vicinity to the assignment location, enjoyment of the activity, and the monetary reward. To plan and manage the crowdsourcing activity the news publishers need information about the characteristics of the participants, participation patterns and motivations that could be provided by the crowdsourcing platform

Networked communication and the Arab Spring: linking broadcast and social media

A plethora of media platforms were involved in communicating recent protests across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), though it remains unclear exactly how these interacted. This qualitative article, based primarily on interviews with British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) newsworkers, explores the networked linkages between social and broadcast media, asking how social media content moved into broadcast news, which standards shaped the interface between the two and how these standards were defined. It finds that a set of normative and practical standards caused significant friction at the interface, which is reduced as content assimilates these standards. Standards are shaped mainly in response to broadcast imperatives, but also through the mainstreaming of social media and more efficacious and practicable networked communicative practices, indicating how power may shift in the networked age. Responding to the optimistic view that networked multimedia environments enable unencumbered communication, it argues that the scope and limits of communicative affordances depend on these standards

Is there an author behind this text? A literary aesthetic driven approach to interactive media

In this paper we employ a conceptual repertoire from philosophical hermeneutics and literary aesthetics to examine people’s expectations of and trust in interactive media. Drawing on data from two projects, first, with young professionals on their perceptions of the informational value of various media, and second, with youthful users of the online genre of social networking sites, we present findings on perceptions of authorial presence and constructions of an imagined author. We conclude that an (imagined) author plays a key role in media users’ ability to critically use interactive media and evaluate the relevance and reliability of media content, rather than functioning as an authoritative originator of the meaning. We argue that this is important not only for contemporary research in critical digital literacies, but also for the intrinsic importance of trust in any act of communicative engagement

The personalization of engagement: the symbolic construction of social media and grassroots mobilization in Canadian newspapers

This article explores the symbolic construction of civic engagement mediated by social media in Canadian newspapers. The integration of social media in politics has created a discursive opening for reimagining engagement, partly as a result of enthusiastic accounts of the impact of digital technologies upon democracy. By means of a qualitative content analysis of Canadian newspaper articles between 2005 and 2014, we identify several discursive articulations of engagement: First, the articles offer the picture of a wide range of objects of engagement, suggesting a civic body actively involved in governance processes. Second, engagement appears to take place only reactively, after decisions are made. Finally, social media become the new social glue, bringing isolated individuals together and thus enabling them to pressure decision-making institutions. We argue that, collectively, these stories construct engagement as a deeply personal gesture that is nevertheless turned into a communal experience by the affordances of technology. The conclusion unpacks what we deem as the ambiguity at the heart of this discourse, considering its implications for democratic politics and suggesting avenues for the further monitoring of the technologically enabled personalization of engagement