Uninvited Dinner Guests: A Theoretical Perspective on the Antagonists of Journalism Based on Serres’ Parasite

In the digital age, the crisis of journalism has been exacerbated by antagonistic actors infiltrating the journalistic system without adhering to its norms or logic. Journalism itself has been ill-prepared to respond to this challenge, but journalism theory and research have also had trouble in grasping these phenomena. It is thus the aim of this article to propose a theoretical perspective on a specific set of antagonists characterized by its paradoxical nature. It is ‘the excluded third, included’ as described by Serres, the parasite that is both part of the system and its antagonist. From the perspective of systems theory, the parasite is a subsystem that threatens the integrity of the primary system. Thus, the parasite is defined by the relations that describe its position, its behaviour towards the host system. Due to these peculiarities—this contradiction, this vagueness—it evades a classical bivalent logic. This may be one reason why the paradoxical nature of the antagonist from within, the ‘uninvited dinner guest,’ has not been described as such until now. The parasitic practices follow the logic of the hacker: He is the digital manifestation of Serres’ parasite. Accordingly, parasitic strategies can be described as news hacks whose attack vectors target a system’s weak points with the help of specific strategies. In doing so, they not only change the system output but also compromise its values and exploit its resources

Tales from a crisis: diverging narratives of the euro area. Bruegel Policy Contribution Issue n˚03 | February 2018

Economic analyses largely ignore Europe’s fragmented public sphere, a feature that distinguishes the euro area from other major currency areas. This Policy Contribution identifies how narratives of the crisis developed since 2007, by identifying the key crisis-related topics in articles from four opinion-forming newspapers in the largest euro-area countries (Germany’s Süddeutsche Zeitung, France’s Le Monde, Italy’s La Stampa and Spain’s El País). In particular, the analysis considers where blame for the crisis has been laid with the aim of informing the current debate on euro-area governance reform. Such an exercise can help to understand the difficulties euro-area policymakers face when it comes to formulating solutions that are both appropriate and commonly acceptable. The analysis showed that Süddeutsche Zeitung blames everyone but Germany, the chief suspects being Greece and the European Central Bank; the paper stresses the need to return to a perceived status quo of stability and fairness. Le Monde blames everyone including the French political class, but largely refrains from criticism of European institutions such as the European Commission and the European Central Bank. La Stampa sees Italy as the victim of unfortunate circumstances, including the European Union austerity measures promoted by Germany, and Italy’s own politicians. El País primarily blames Spain for misconduct during the boom years preceding the crisis. This picture of differing narratives shows that each euro-area country faces different pressures from its respective public when discussing how to press ahead with effective euro-area governance reform. The global financial crisis and the subsequent recession had quite different effects in different euro-area countries. Therefore, it is unsurprising that the narratives differ in the four papers. National problems and solutions took centre stage in national discourses leaving systemic euro-area issues largely unmentioned

Noise Pollution: A Multi-Step Approach to Assessing the Consequences of (Not) Validating Search Terms on Automated Content Analyses

Advances in analytical methodologies and an avalanche of digitized data have opened new avenues for (digital) journalism research—and with it, new challenges. One of these challenges concerns the sampling and evaluation of data using (non-validated) search terms in combination with automated content analyses. This challenge has largely been neglected by research, which is surprising, considering that noise slipping in during the process of data collection can generate great methodological concerns. To address this gap, we first offer a systematic interdisciplinary literature review, revealing that the validation of search terms is far from acknowledged as a required standard procedure, both in and beyond journalism research. Second, we assess the consequences of validating search terms, using a multi-step approach and investigating common research topics from the field of (digital) journalism research. Our findings show that careless application of non-validated search terms has its pitfalls: while scattershot search terms can make sense in initial data exploration, final inferences based on insufficiently validated search terms are at higher risk of being obscured by noise. Consequently, we provide a step-by-step recommendation for developing and validating search terms

Don't put the blame on me: how different countries blamed different actors for the Eurozone crisis

Eight years since the Eurozone crisis began, there is still no agreement on a comprehensive set of reforms to the governance of the Eurozone. But why has such agreement been so hard to reach? Henrik Müller, Giuseppe Porcaro and Gerret von Nordheim suggest that part of the reason lies in the different narratives that have been expressed in each Eurozone state. Using data from a study of newspaper coverage in France, Germany, Italy and Spain, they highlight that coverage of the crisis, and particularly which set of actors were to blame for it, has varied substantially across different countries

Exploration of a fragmented discourse. Privacy and data security in Süddeutsche Zeitung: 2007–2017

The goal of this exploratory case study is to identify different facets of news reporting on surveillance, privacy and data security, and more specifically, how risks in this context are portrayed. The theoretical foundation consists of two elements: 1) the concept of mediatized risk culture, and 2) the discursive arena model of risk communication, which provides the normative background for assessing news reporting. A text-mining approach (topic modeling) is applied to analyze relevant coverage of the German quality newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung. The study yields a total of seven topics which belong to three categories: violation of privacy norms, power and law enforcement, and datafication. The results show that despite the de-mystification of digital technology after the Snowden leaks, coverage has recently become more affirmative and less focused on risk. We conclude that this may indicate a normalization of mass surveillance and data harvesting even in Germany, a society which traditionally values privacy. In order to add more context to our findings, however, further qualitative analyses were needed. The paper serves as a starting point for further research on media reporting of surveillance, privacy and data security

From partner to rival: changes in media frames of China in German print coverage between 2000 and 2019

Western countries’ relations with China are characterised by a dichotomy of partnership and conflict, of rapprochement and demarcation. To date, research lacks longitudinal studies that examine how these economic and political tendencies become manifest in the image of China conveyed by Western media. Taking Germany as an example, this study aims to shed light on the development of China coverage in print media between 2000 and 2019. Following a triangulating mixed-method approach, the results of computational topic1 modelling (N = 55,893) are complemented by semi-standardised interviews with China correspondents. A framing analysis shows that China was depicted as a valuable economic partner until a rivalry frame started to become dominant in 2016/17. This shift was accompanied by a significant increase in media interest

Machine Learning meets Data-Driven Journalism: Boosting International Understanding and Transparency in News Coverage

Migration crisis, climate change or tax havens: Global challenges need global solutions. But agreeing on a joint approach is difficult without a common ground for discussion. Public spheres are highly segmented because news are mainly produced and received on a national level. Gain- ing a global view on international debates about important issues is hindered by the enormous quantity of news and by language barriers. Media analysis usually focuses only on qualitative re- search. In this position statement, we argue that it is imperative to pool methods from machine learning, journalism studies and statistics to help bridging the segmented data of the international public sphere, using the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) as a case study.Comment: presented at 2016 ICML Workshop on #Data4Good: Machine Learning in Social Good Applications, New York, N

The State of Europeanisation: between Clash and Convergence. A comparison of the media coverage of the 2019 European Elections in seven countries

The issue of the Europeanisation of national public spheres is a question as to how a discursive media space can be created within the EU. There are forces of convergence at work, such as networking within the borderless digital space. At the same time, there are counterforces: increasing nationalism and populists who identify 'Brussels' as a target for their criticism of elites. The vision of a European public sphere appears to share the same fate as the European project as such; as a result of years of crisis, optimism has given way to disillusion. Using coverage of the 2019 EU elections in seven European countries (a total of 57,943 articles from Germany, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Portugal, the Czech Republic, and the UK), we draw a picture of a heterogeneous EU public. What is particularly clear is that the phenomena of horizontal and vertical Europeanisation require more nuanced interpretations. While a high degree of horizontal Europeanisation indicates convergent and pro-European media coverage (as in the cases of Germany and Portugal), a high degree of vertical Europeanisation may indicate polarised publics or an unfree media landscape (as in the UK and Hungary). From a methodological point of view, the study shows that a combination of computational content analysis and international cooperation between scientists can advance research into the European public

El estado de “Europeanización”: Entre conflicto y convergencia. Una comparación de cobertura de las Elecciones Europeas 2019 en siete países

The issue of the Europeanisation of national public spheres is a question as to how a discursive media space can be created within the EU. There are forces of convergence at work, such as networking within the borderless digital space. At the same time, there are counterforces: increasing nationalism and populists who identify ‘Brussels’ as a target for their criticism of elites. The vision of a European public sphere appears to share the same fate as the European project as such; as a result of years of crisis, optimism has given way to disillusion. Using coverage of the 2019 EU elections in seven European countries (a total of 57,943 articles from Germany, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Portugal, the Czech Republic, and the UK), we draw a picture of a heterogeneous EU public. What is particularly clear is that the phenomena of horizontal and vertical Europeanisation require more nuanced interpretations. While a high degree of horizontal Europeanisation indicates convergent and pro-European media coverage (as in the cases of Germany and Portugal), a high degree of vertical Europeanisation may indicate polarised publics or an unfree media landscape (as in the UK and Hungary). From a methodological point of view, the study shows that a combination of computational content analysis and international cooperation between scientists can advance research into the European public.La “europeización” de las esferas públicas nacionales es una cuestión de crear un espacio mediático discursivo dentro de la UE. Hay fuerzas de convergencia, como redes en el espacio digital. Al mismo tiempo, hay fuerzas contrarias, un creciente nacionalismo y populistas que critican las élites a “Bruselas”. Aparentemente, la visión de una esfera pública europea comparte su suerte con el proyecto Europeo: después de años de crisis, el optimismo se convirtió en desilusión. Utilizando la cobertura mediática de las elecciones de la UE de 2019 en siete países europeos (57.943 artículos de Alemania, Hungría, Italia, Polonia, Portugal, la República Checa y el Reino Unido), dibujamos cuadro de un público heterogéneo de la UE. Resulta claramente que la europeización horizontal y vertical requieren interpretaciones diferenciadas. Un alto grado de europeización horizontal indica una cobertura mediática convergente y pro-europea (como Alemania o Portugal), un alto grado vertical puede indicar un público polarizado o un panorama mediático poco libre (como el Reino Unido o Hungría)