Political communication in and about crises. Potentials of a fragmented field

While there is growing interest in political crises in political communication research, crisis has not yet become a meaningful concept. Also, research tends to be reactive, which is suggested by an analysis of when and how the “crisis” label occurred in Swiss media from 2000 to 2018 and how recent scholarship examines political crises. This commentary gives an overview of different research areas within this fragmented “crisis” field and discusses a nuanced concept of crises that is more sensitive to the causes and dynamics of communicatively constructed crises on the macro level. It argues that a more systematic, more comparative and more macro-oriented research on political crises will help reduce the reactive nature of the field and enhance its public relevance

Referendum Campaigns in the Digital Age: Towards (More) Comparative Analyses in Hybrid Media Systems

Referendum campaigns, which happen in many countries on the national or sub-national level, are highly important and special periods of political communication. Unlike elections, however, referendum campaigns are understudied phenomena. This thematic issue addresses patterns of referendum campaigns, which increasingly take place in digital and hybrid media environments, where political actors conduct campaigns through various channels, news media react to and shape debates on social media, and citizens receive a large share of political information from traditional and digital media. In this editorial, we provide a short overview of how research on referendum campaigns has evolved and how it has started to shift its attention away from news coverage and toward the role of campaign actors and the citizens who use (or engage with) search engines and social media platforms. The articles in this thematic issue reflect this shift but also show that news media remain important actors in referendum campaigns. Finally, we outline further research steps, which should include even more holistic analyses of the hybridity of referendum campaigns and hopefully more comparisons across cases

Intersection Points Between Contemporary Art and Design

New tendencies in the design of cultural spaces have been used to visualize futuristic ideas in design through contemporary art. This research aims to identify the intersection points between contemporary art and design based on a survey of students and to carry out a SWOT analysis of the latest technology implementation process for the professional training of future specialists in the design and contemporary art to establish the benefits of using the latest technology. Results. We analyzed the elements of contemporary art and principles of art and design in modern art to identify points of intersection between contemporary art and design. As a result of the study, it was found that the use of the latest technology benefits both students and teachers; contributes to the development of practical skills of future professionals in the field of contemporary art and design based on the use of the latest technology; development of the ability to use the latest technology in contemporary art and design; development of algorithmic style and culture of thinking of students

Investigating News Deserts on the Content Level: Geographical Diversity in Swiss News Media

With its diverse landscape of regional and local news media, Switzerland seems far from being a news desert. However, the centralization of editorial offices following the economic crisis of journalism has led to news outlets that share most of their content but appear under different names in different regions. This development has fostered fears about declining geographical diversity at the regional level in the news coverage of Swiss news media. We argue that this centralization by regional news outlets affects news content; it constitutes a specific process of news desertification, which is not aptly captured by news desert research’s focus at the outlet level. With our explorative study, we aim to analyze news deserts at the content level. We apply an automated geoparser to a manually annotated dataset of local news media articles (n = 5,173) published by six regional news outlets of two news organizations between 2016 and 2021 to determine the extent and development of geographical diversity in Swiss regional news media. The geoparser uses a weighted gazetteer-based approach to determine the most relevant locations of news articles within Switzerland. We find early signs of news desertification. At the output level, we observe a declining number of articles published by the analyzed outlets. At the performance level, we see a declining number of unique place names in the articles and more mentions per article. However, the diversity of place names in the coverage remains stable

Investigating News Deserts on the Content Level: Geographical Diversity in Swiss News Media

With its diverse landscape of regional and local news media, Switzerland seems far from being a news desert. However, the centralization of editorial offices following the economic crisis of journalism has led to news outlets that share most of their content but appear under different names in different regions. This development has fostered fears about declining geographical diversity at the regional level in the news coverage of Swiss news media. We argue that this centralization by regional news outlets affects news content; it constitutes a specific process of news desertification, which is not aptly captured by news desert research’s focus at the outlet level. With our explorative study, we aim to analyze news deserts at the content level. We apply an automated geoparser to a manually annotated dataset of local news media articles (n = 5,173) published by six regional news outlets of two news organizations between 2016 and 2021 to determine the extent and development of geographical diversity in Swiss regional news media. The geoparser uses a weighted gazetteer-based approach to determine the most relevant locations of news articles within Switzerland. We find early signs of news desertification. At the output level, we observe a declining number of articles published by the analyzed outlets. At the performance level, we see a declining number of unique place names in the articles and more mentions per article. However, the diversity of place names in the coverage remains stable

ФОРМУВАННЯ СОЦІАЛЬНОЇ АКТИВНОСТІ ЯК ПРОВІДНА СКЛАДОВА СУЧАСНОЇ ПЕДАГОГІКИ

In the article the problem of scientific approach is examined to organisation to the process of education of social activity of young people. On the basis analysis of researches in area of philosophy, sociology, psychophisiologe, history,. pedagogics the complex model of social activity is offered as factor of trunsinon of society on the new level of development