Elected representatives, online self-presentation and the personal vote: party, personality and webstyles in the United States and United Kingdom

This article examines the way politicians package themselves to their constituents via the Web. It looks at various aspects of online self-promotion by incumbent representatives in two advanced industrial democracies - the US and the UK. It seeks to ascertain the extent to which personal qualities are a key aspect of an elected representative's online persona, and any differences that exist between these democracies with different electoral cultures. It concludes by considering the findings of empirical research and what it reveals about the relationship between national electoral cultures and the politician's persona

Exposing politicians' peccadilloes in comparative context: explaining the frequency of political sex scandals in eight democracies using fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis

Political sex scandals are largely absent in some democracies but proliferate in others. However, there have so far been few if any comprehensive attempts to document the actual number of sex scandals that have occurred and to explain their presence (and, indeed, absence), and the one study that has (Barker's 1994 study) ended in the early 1990s and had numerous problems in relation to defining and documenting such scandals. Based on extensive research, this article documents the number of sex scandals in eight advanced industrial democracies and tries to explain their occurrence using Charles Ragin's fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis. The article has three goals: to determine the number of sex scandals in different democracies, explain why this might be, and demonstrate the utility of fuzzy set qualitative case analysis for small- and medium-N comparative research

Hunting corrupt officials online: the human flesh search engine and the search for justice in China

While there is growing research on online politics in China some political uses of the Internet have tended to be overlooked. The focus of this article is on an emerging phenomenon in Chinese cyberspace, the human flesh search engine (HFSE), a term first used by the Chinese media to refer to the practice of online searching for people or 'human hunting'. While existing examinations have focused on breaches of individual privacy by these so-called online 'vigilantes' this study focuses on the ability of HFSE to reveal norm transgressions by public officials and lead to their removal. In order to give readers a comprehensive overview of what an HFSE is, the first section of this article provides basic information about it. In the second part, 20 well-documented HFSE examples are listed to show their varying aims and then HFSEs which focus on local governments and officials are shown to highlight the political dimensions of HFSE. In the third section, four case studies of government/official-focused HFSE are explored in detail to show political HFSEs' internal processes and underlying mechanisms

Culture, boundary, and identity: a comparison of practices between two online punk communities in China

This article analyzes how digital technology can shape cultural practice in Chinese online communities. By using the concepts of boundary and identity, it explores the formation of two online punk communities in China, created by those who are interested in punk music originating from Anglo-American countries. Drawing on data from participant observation and 10 in-depth interviews, this article first reviews literature on Internet culture in China, online communities, boundaries, and identity. It then focuses on the differing practices of the two online punk communities. A discussion is subsequently provided concerning how boundaries are constructed in online communities through the exclusion that is enabled by the technological platform. An analysis of how the members identify themselves with online communities and form punk subcultures encouraged by the boundaries of their respective communities is then presented towards the end of the article. It is through this process that the members empower themselves in their relationships with the surrounding society

Mediatization: key concept or conceptual bandwagon?

Mediatization is emerging as an influential new concept that places the media at the centre of all kinds of important cultural, political and social developments. However, it has so far attracted little critical evaluation. In this article the authors identify three areas of concern, namely, how causal processes are thought about, how historical change is understood, and how concepts are designed. It is hoped this article will generate critical debate and reflection to prevent the term from being applied so inconsistently and indiscriminately that it becomes a ‘concept of no difference’

'Mediatization and' or 'Mediatization of'? A response to Hepp et al.

We welcome Hepp et al.’s (2015) response to our recent critique of the concept of ‘Mediatization’ (Deacon and Stanyer, 2014), which they also use to showcase new literature on this topic. Their article demonstrates why further robust debate on this matter is needed. For when internationally renowned academics start to declare ‘paradigmatic shifts’, then a much wider community of scholars need to consider whether or not the earth is moving for them (see Hepp et al., 2015: 314–315, 321)

Theorizing media, communication and social change: towards a processual approach

Debates about the role of media and communication in social change are central to our discipline, yet advances in this field are hampered by disciplinary fragmentation, a lack of shared conceptual language, and limited understanding of long-term shifts in the field. To address this, we first develop a typology that distinguishes between approaches that foreground the role of media and communication as an agent of change, and approaches that treat media and communication as an environment for change. We then use this typology to identify key trends in the field since 1951, including the sharp downturn in work focusing on economic aspects of change after 1985, the decline of grand narratives of social change since 2000, and the parallel return to media effects. We conclude by outlining the key traits of a processual approach to social change, which has the capacity to offer the basis for shared language in the field. This language can enable us to think of media, communication and social change across its varied temporal and social planes, and link together the processes involved in the reproduction of status quo with fundamental changes to social order

Comparative media analysis: why some fuzzy thinking might help. Applying fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis to the personalization of mediated political communication

This article examines the benefits of fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) for comparative media research. It shows the advantages of fuzzy set theoretic thinking in examining the causes of a major feature of contemporary political communication research, namely personalization. The article has three parts. The first is a critique of the method adopted by Hallin and Mancini, a generally laudable and highly influential recent contribution to comparative media analysis. The second is a brief introduction to fsQCA. The third demonstrates the method’s usefulness by investigating the personalized character of mediated political communication

Taking time seriously? Theorizing and researching change in communication and media studies

Questions of change are of central importance to communication and media research, yet discussions on the temporal nature of change, and the challenges it raises for theorizing and researching communication, have so far remained sporadic and disconnected. This article argues that in order to adequately comprehend and explain change, the field needs to engage more fully with the challenges of researching change over time, and ground the theorizing of change more firmly in empirical research. The goal of this article is to foster a more concerted discussion on these issues that will hopefully move research forward. The first part of the article reviews the breadth and diversity of existing empirical approaches to comprehending change over time across the field. The article then identifies some of the problems and oversights of current approaches and discusses possible solutions, drawing both on proposals developed by communication and media scholars and those developed in other disciplines

Rural areas in the UK impartiality review: a content analysis for the BBC Trust

This report presents the findings of a wide-ranging content analysis of the BBC’s coverage of rural matters over a defined sample period. The authors assess whether ‘the BBC’s coverage of rural areas taken as a whole, presents a partial view of the nature of those areas and the role that rural communities and areas play in the whole of the UK’.4 It is designed to provide accurate and robust data on the content of the BBC programmes (including news, current affairs and factual programming on radio, television and online and indigenous minority language programmes) over a defined sample period... cont'd