UK-China relations: Labour need to communicate a consistent and clear stance toward China, now

Declan McDowell-Naylor explains why the Labour Party need to take a clearer stance towards China. While the issue is complex and good policy takes time, he writes that Labour must at least make it clear in what direction their policy will head in the weeks to come

Why National Media Systems Matter: A Longitudinal Analysis of How UK Left-Wing and Right-Wing Alternative Media Critique Mainstream Media (2015–2018)

In recent years, the growth of new alternative media has brought greater editorial choice and diversity to political coverage in many advanced democracies. But their coverage of mainstream media and portrayal of professional journalism has been subject to little academic attention. This study examined the role alternative political media play in advancing public debate about the value and editorial standards of a national media system. Drawing on a longitudinal content analysis of UK alternative media between 2015 and 2018 (N = 3452), we found that mainstream media was often crticised—particularly in left-wing sites—and that disapproval of professional journalism intensified over time, most strikingly during the 2017 general election campaign. We also discovered that BBC news was often singled out for its political reporting, with criticism directed at its perceived bias and lack of impartiality. Overall, we argue it is the dominant characteristics of mainstream media in national media systems that help shape the editorial agenda of alternative media and the nature of criticism directed at professional journalism. We conclude that more comparative research is needed about how alternative media represent professional journalism, and whether they are influencing people’s understanding of politics and public affairs

Understanding 'good' and 'bad' Twitter practices in alternative media: an analysis of online political media in the UK (2015-2018)

Alternative Online Political Media (AOPM) have become increasingly important within international news landscapes, but their social media practices have received limited academic attention. Our large-scale content analysis (N = 14807) offers the first comprehensive study of how APOM in the UK use Twitter. Drawing on a pertinent model of social media use that enhances notions of “good” and “bad” journalism, and through our own sentiment analysis, we find Twitter norms closely aligned with those of legacy media, including a relatively limited online interaction with audiences. We conclude that while AOPM follow many social media logics consistent with mainstream news sites and add to the wider realm of political analysis, their highly partisan content means that their Twitter use cannot be considered balanced, neutral or objective

A typology of alternative online political media in the United Kingdom: A longitudinal content analysis (2015-2018)

Alternative online political media (AOPM) have become increasingly prominent elements of the media system in many countries. In response, numerous academic studies have examined the nature of these newer forms of alternative media. In line with this recent scholarship, in this study we carry out a longitudinal and systematic content analysis of nine AOPM websites in the United Kingdom (UK) (N = 3452) between 2015 and 2018. Overall, we found a diversity of content, contrasting values and degrees of partisanship, which we develop into a typology of outlets. This includes four overlapping areas: electoral hyperpartisans, cultural partisans, political cycle specialists and vernacular macro-blogs. We conclude by recommending that scholars need to develop more detailed content analyses in order to better understand online alternative media, their interactions with the wider media system, and the system itself

Alternative online political media

This chapter examines the rise of new alternative online political media (AOPM) and aims to ask whether these sites challenge or exacerbate the spread of populism and mis/disinformation. AOPM are distinguished by their digital-native status via websites and social media. Long-standing conceptual debates fundamentally ask how alternative media are understood in relation to legacy/mainstream media. The study argued that AOPM were characterised by a focus on a narrow set of topics according to their editorial biases and that ‘disinformation is only one, and a rather minor, aspect’ of alternative media. Moreover, biases can be perpetuated by dominant discourses within commentary and analysis of AOPM. The sporadic evidence of links between alternative media and mis/disinformation tends to focus on high-profile incidents, such as Pizzagate or The Canary’s false reporting on Laura Kuenssberg. As J. Rone points out, there are few sources of systematic academic evidence directly linking alternative media and mis/disinformation

Authority signaling:How relational interactions between journalists and politicians create primary definers in UK broadcast news

How journalists construct the authority of their sources is an essential part of how news comes to have power in politics and how political actors legitimize their roles to publics. Focusing on economic policy reporting and a dataset of 133 hours of mainstream broadcast news from the 5-week 2015 UK general election campaign, we theorize and empirically illustrate how the construction of expert source authority works. To build our theory, we integrate four strands of thought: an important, though in recent years neglected, tradition in the sociology of news concerned with ‘primary definers’; the underdeveloped literature on expert think tanks and media; recent work in journalism studies advocating a relational approach to authority; and elements from the discursive psychology approach to the construction of facticity in interactive settings. Our central contribution is a new perspective on source authority: the identification of behaviors that are key to how the interactions between journalists and elite political actors actively construct the elevated authoritative status of expert sources. We call these behaviors authority signaling. We show how authority signaling works to legitimize the power of the United Kingdom’s most important policy think tank and discuss the implications of this process