Revisiting News Value Theory in the Age of Globalization

This study reviewed the existing literature on news value theory andexamined its validity and implications in the contemporary world.The study refers to digital journalists and academicians. Are the newsselection criterion still the same as they were in the past or are editors,journalists, and media outlets changing their approach due toglobalization? Do journalists and editors still consider the same newsfactors to publish a story or not? These questions are addressed inthis study. This paper is relevant for future researchers andprofessional journalists. Today, journalists need more skills than everbefore. At the same time, due to digitalization and competition,organizations need stories continuously throughout the day to runtheir businesses and maintain their ranking among other mediaoutlets. Scholars need to empirically revisit media theories includesmiddle range theories, according to the needs of the time. Existingliterature shows that the globalization has changed a bit news factorsand researchers need to revisit existing news factors

Advocacy journalism and climate justice in a Global Southern country

Being among the world’s most affected countries by climate change, Pakistan is facing a variety of cases of climate injustice committed by internal and external drivers. Waisbord’s referred “Advocate-journalist” model carries a good potential to advocate these injustices to stimulate democratic dialogue among the audience that eventually pushes leadership to make eco-friendly policies. This study critically analyses advocacy journalism coverage of cases of local and regional climate injustice in the editorial contents of mainstream Pakistani newspapers by using the quantitative content analysis method. Results reveal that selected newspapers gave inappropriate coverage to climate injustice issues both in quantity and quality. Besides muddled local and regional climate injustice issues’ priorities, editorialists also excessively recommended dirty energy solutions to the policymakers. The final analysis suggests that the findings of climate and energy-related scientific studies were not being reflected in the advocacy journalism contents as well. This failure of “advocate-journalist” model to perform its normative role of potentially advocating the cases of climate injustice with compelling scientific evidence seems to attribute to the political economy of the press or editorial inattention. As a way out of this journalistic lack, Waisbord’s endorsed “civic advocacy” groups must intervene to plug the loopholes

#Scamdemic, #Plandemic, or #Scaredemic: What Parler Social Media Platform Tells Us about COVID-19 Vaccine

A grant from the One-University Open Access Fund at the University of Kansas was used to defray the author's publication fees in this Open Access journal. The Open Access Fund, administered by librarians from the KU, KU Law, and KUMC libraries, is made possible by contributions from the offices of KU Provost, KU Vice Chancellor for Research & Graduate Studies, and KUMC Vice Chancellor for Research. For more information about the Open Access Fund, please see http://library.kumc.edu/authors-fund.xml.This study aims to understand public discussions regarding COVID-19 vaccine on Parler, a newer social media platform that recently gained in popularity. Through analyzing a random sample (n = 400) of Parler posts using the hashtags #COVID19Vaccine and #NoCovidVaccine, we use the concept of echo chambers to understand users’ discussions through a text analytics approach. Thematic analysis reveals five key themes: reasons to refuse the COVID-19 vaccine (40%), side effects of the COVID-19 vaccine (28%), population control through the COVID-19 vaccine (23%), children getting vaccinated without parental consent (5%), and comparison of other health issues with COVID-19 (2%). Textual analysis shows that the most frequently used words in the corpus were: nocovidvaccine (348); vaccine (264); covid (184); covid19 (157); and vaccines (128). These findings suggest that users adopted different terms and hashtags to express their beliefs regarding the COVID-19 vaccine. Further, findings revealed that users used certain hashtags such as “echo” to encourage like-minded people to reinforce their existing beliefs on COVID-19 vaccine efficacy and vaccine acceptance. These findings have implications for public health communication in attempts to correct false narratives on social media platforms. Through widely sharing the scientific findings of COVID-19 vaccine-related studies can help individuals understand the COVID-19 vaccines efficacy accurately

How effective are fact-checks in Pakistan and who engages with them?

For fact-checks to be effective, they must first and foremost reach their intended audience. Yet, little is known about what determines engagement with fact-checks and how to enhance their reach. We conducted a pre-registered online survey experiment in Pakistan (N participants = 302, N observations = 1208) investigating the effectiveness of fact-checking, and the determinants of engagement with fact-checks and misinformation. We found that fact-checking reduced misperceptions, especially among the most misinformed. Trust was an important moderator of the effectiveness of fact-checking and of engagement with both the fact-checks and misinformation. For instance, fact-checks were more effective among participants who trust the news the most and least effective among participants who trust social media the most. Participants more concerned about misinformation were more likely to like and share fact-checks on social media. Understanding and promoting engagement with factual corrections on social media is a pressing challenge to increase the quality of our information ecosystem

Climate Change Journalism in Pakistan: Ethical Deliberations

In the 21st century, research on climate journalism has received exponential growth globally. However, the media’s ethical role in covering climate change has not sufficiently been explored enough. In this chapter, we provide a broad overview of climate change journalism in Pakistan, the role of stakeholders that are directly involved in this crisis, and further highlighted the need to follow the UNESCO-led ethical principles and deliberations by the local climate journalism. We conclude that though a great deal of attention has been paid by the local scholars and scientists to highlight different dimensions of climate emergency, however, the findings of such research has been scant in the climate and environmental journalism practices of the country. Finally, we proposed that being as an important stakeholder, the local mass media should not only adopt UNESCO’s climate ethics but also persuade all other stakeholders to adhere to its guidelines and, eventually, influence the environmental policymaking process

Crisis communication for public organizations: Examining Pakistan Railways\u27 use of information technology and social media for image repair

This study examines the induction of information technology and the use of image-repair focused crisis response strategies on social media by Pakistan Railways amid a recent crisis. A mix-method based content analysis (i.e., qualitative and quantitative) to investigate whether and if so, how Pakistan Railways used Benoit\u27s suggested image restoration strategies on social media to repair its image among customers and in print media. Our results show that Pakistan Railways predominantly used reducing the offensiveness of event (40%), followed by corrective action (34.6%), evasion of responsibility (10.6%), denial (8%) and mortification (6.4%) strategies, respectively. In addition, the use of image-repair focused crisis response strategies significantly varied by social media platform. An analysis of the publics\u27 emotions found in their online comments reveals that, during the course of the organizational crisis communication, negative public emotions gradually subsided into ambivalent ones; and contrary to a highly negative newspaper coverage tone in the beginning of the crisis, the introduction of the Twitter handle has associated with more positive media coverage afterward. Theoretical and practical implications, especially the need for advancing social-mediated crisis response effectiveness in developing countries, are discussed

Ethnic newspaper industry in Pakistan and impacts of corporate ownership

During the Indian independence movement, the Urdu-language ethnic newspapers played a significant role in instigating resistance against colonial authorities within local communities. However, later on, Urdu journalism underwent a transformation, shifting from the ‘advocate-journalist’ model to one dominated by corporate ownership in Pakistan. These commercial agents have faced criticism for using journalism as a shield for their other businesses, yet their presence has profoundly impacted current newspaper practices in various ways. Our case study of the Daily Express reveals that this newspaper, by implementing innovative journalism, technological advancements and efficient management practices, has influenced both preceding and subsequent Urdu dailies, transforming Pakistani newspapers into a modern print media industry. Despite these advancements, the impacts of corporate concerns also include a lack of adequate coverage on various human development issues and science-related topics, posing risks to the attractiveness of such papers for the reading public

Ethical Dimensions of Climate and Environmental Issues in Pakistani Media

One of the world’s most disaster-prone countries, Pakistan, is facing a variety of cases of climate and environmental ethics violations by a number of local and regional actors. Advocacy journalism has the potential to publicize these violations and injustices, stimulating democratic dialogue among the public audience that can eventually push leadership to make eco-friendly policies and raise public concerns on international platforms. The present study critically analyses the advocacy journalism coverage of cases of local and regional climate and environmental ethics violations in almost 8000 editorials in mainstream Pakistani Urdu and English language newspapers over two years and examines the amount of space and priority of coverage given to them. The quantitative content analysis method is used to measure and compare the frequency of sample content in two major categories and two subcategories to determine the role of advocacy journalism in highlighting the ethical violations of climate and environmental issues in Pakistan. In the first case, selected newspapers are argued to give inappropriate coverage on both climate change and environmental degradation issues to their readers. Moreover, the editorial priorities of newspapers in both languages to advocate local and regional threats of climate change are mainly jumbled and therefore misleading to the readers. In conclusion, results reveal that both state and mass media are non-adherent to different articles of UNESCO\u27s Declaration of Ethical Principles in Relation to Climate Change. The final analysis suggests that Pakistani advocacy journalism is equally responsible for present climate change woes of the country and hence – instead of being part of the solution – has become part of the problem

The COVID-19 pandemic and international students: A mixed-methods approach to relationships between social media use, social support, and mental health

The COVID-19 pandemic and international students: A mixed-methods approach to relationships between social media use, social support, and mental healthThe COVID-19 pandemic has added significant stress to international students in the U.S. who already facemyriad challenges in adjusting to their host country. We used a mixed-method approach combining surveyand interview research involving international students enrolled in undergraduate or graduate programs at aU.S. university to analyze how their social media use and perceived social support and social adjustmentare associated with their sense of mental well-being when taking into account demographic and socialpsychological characteristics. Our findings show that international students spent an increased amount oftime on social media during the pandemic for both networking and information seeking purposes. Thosewho use social media primarily for networking purposes reported better mental health, whereas socialmedia use for information seeking was not significantly associated with their mental health. Social supportwas an important predictor of international students’ social media use. This study provides scholarly andpolicy implications for supporting international students during a public health crisis