外文橱窗丨政治传播研究前沿

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1

Brevity Is the Soul of Twitter: The Constraint Affordance and Political Discussion

简洁是推特的灵魂：制约因素和政治讨论

Kokil Jaidka, Alvin Zhou, Yphtach Lelkes

Abstract

Many hoped that social networks would allow for the open exchange of information and a revival of the public sphere. Unfortunately, conversations on social media are often toxic and not conducive to healthy political discussion. Twitter, the most widely used social network for political discussions, doubled the limit of characters in a Tweet in November 2017, which provided a natural experiment to study the causal effect of technological affordances on political discussions with a discontinuous time series design. Using supervised and unsupervised natural language processing methods, we analyze 358,242 Tweet replies to U.S. politicians from January 2017 to March 2018. We show that the doubling the permissible length of a Tweet led to more polite, less informal, more analytical, and overall healthier discussions online. However, the declining trend in the political relevance of these tweets raises concerns about the implications of the changing norms for the quality of political deliberation.

Keywords

Political Communication, Political Discussion,Social Media, Computational Social Science

Source

Journal of Communication,Published:14 August 2019

https://doi.org/10.1093/joc/jqz023

2

Hitting a Nerve: Populist News Articles Lead to More Frequent and More Populist Reader Comments

击中神经：民粹主义新闻文章导致更频繁和更民粹主义的读者评论

Sina Blassnig,Sven Engesser,Nicole Ernst &Frank Esser

Abstract

Although research on effects of populist communication has increased, it is still unclear how populism in news articles affects the readers’ manifest behavior, such as whether and how they comment on online news. To address these issues, we conducted a content analysis of online news articles (N = 332) and corresponding reader comments (N = 2786) during election campaigns in France, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. We find that populist key messages by political and media actors in news articles do not only provoke more reader comments but also prompt citizens to use populist key messages themselves in their comments – regardless of how journalists contextualize these statements.

Keywords

populism, populist communication, online news,reader comments, election campaigns

Source

Political Communication,Published online:16 Aug 2019

https://doi.org/10.1080/10584609.2019.1637980

3

The Strategic Use of Fear Appeals in Political Communication

政治传播中恐惧诉求的战略性运用

Simon Scheller

Abstract

Fear appeals constitute a frequent theme of populist rhetoric. One potential motive for this is that they decrease people’s reliance on partisan habits and increase openness to new information. Political actors can use this effect to attract more ideologically distant groups of voters, but not without drawbacks.This paper analyses the strategic use of fear appeals in the framework of the Bounded-Confidence model. It is shown that attracting undecided voters between two opinion clusters is decisive for the success of a party’s fear appeal strategy. Hence, fear appeals can increase a party’s reach for new supporters, yet only if the party manages to clearly differentiate itself form ideological competitors.

Keywords

fear appeals, affective intelligence theory, strategic communication, bounded confidence, agent-based modelling

Source

Political Communication ,Published online: 23 Jul 2019

https://doi.org/10.1080/10584609.2019.1631918

4

‘Think of Him as The President’: Tabloid Trump and the Political Imaginary, 1980–1999

“将他视为总统”：小报化的特朗普和政治想象，1980-1999

Geoffrey Baym

Abstract

Years before Twitter, Fox News, or reality TV, Donald Trump became a public figure through his presence in tabloid media. Much of that focused on sex and spectacle, but early tabloid coverage of Trump was also surprisingly political, with speculation about a possible presidential campaign beginning as early as 1987. Although that coverage has been largely overlooked, this study reveals that tabloid media played a central role in building the foundations of Trump’s political identity. It tracks the early articulation of the Trump character and its simultaneous politicization within a media space outside the ostensibly legitimate arena of institutional public-affairs journalism. In so doing, it reveals the deeper contours of an imagined political world in which a Trump presidency could be conceivable in the first instance—a political imaginary adjacent to the deep assumptions of liberal Democracy, and therefore long invisible to most serious observers of presidential politics.

Source

Journal of Communication, Published:14 August 2019

https://doi.org/10.1093/joc/jqz022

5

The “Arbiters of What Our Voters See”: Facebook and Google’s Struggle with Policy, Process, and Enforcement around Political Advertising

“我们的选民看到的仲裁者”：Facebook和谷歌围绕政治广告的政策、流程和执法的斗争

Daniel Kreiss &Shannon C. Mcgregor

Abstract

The question of how Facebook and Google make and justify decisions regarding permissible political advertising on their platforms is increasingly important. In this paper, we focus on the U.S. case and present findings from interviews with 17 former social media firm employees (n = 7) and political practitioners (n = 11). We also analyze emails (n = 45) exchanged between Facebook government and elections staffers and two campaigns, a U.S. gubernatorial (2017) and presidential campaign (2016), regarding the platform’s policies in the context of paid speech. In addressing questions about Facebook’s and Google’s processes and policies regarding paid political content, the rationales for them, and the ability of campaigns to contest decisions, this study shows how while Facebook and Google resist being arbiters of political discourse, they actively vet paid content on their platforms. These platforms differ with respect to how and what decisions they make in the context of paid speech and within each company there are active and ongoing debates among staffers about speech. These debates at times take place in consultation with political practitioners and often occur in the context of external events. Across these firms, policies regarding speech evolve through these internal debates, appeals by practitioners, and outside pressure. At the same time, both Facebook and Google make decisions in often opaque ways, according to policies that are not transparent, and without clear justifications to campaigns or the public as to how they are applied or enforced. This limits options for political practitioners to contest regulation decisions. Finally, we conclude by arguing for the need for expanded capacities for political practitioners and the public to exercise voice around the content decisions that these firms make, and for firms to create more robust institutional mechanisms for incorporating it.

Keywords

Facebook, Google, electoral politics, political advertising, U.S. politics

Source

Political Communication,Published online: 19 Jun 2019

https://doi.org/10.1080/10584609.2019.1619639

6

Twitter, social movements, and claiming allies in abortion debates

Twitter、社会运动和堕胎辩论中的盟友

Kate Hunt

Abstract

Pervasive use of social media as a communication technology has allowed social movement organizations to more easily claim allies, especially public figures, to amplify their messages in the public sphere. This research utilizes the contentious debate over abortion rights in Ireland surrounding the 2018 referendum on abortion to examine the social media tactics by both anti- and pro-abortion organizations on Twitter. Previous research is suggestive that movements can easily claim outspoken public figures on Twitter, but social movement research suggests that movements may target certain allies more frequently than others. This study finds that what types of public figures movement organizations claim as allies by “retweeting” them on Twitter depends on social movements’ position relative to the legal status quo of abortion in Ireland, pre-referendum.

Keywords

Twitter, social media, social movements, abortion, celebrities, elite allies

Source

Journal of Information Technology & Politics，Published online: 26 Aug 2019

https://doi.org/10.1080/19331681.2019.1659901

7

From Cyberspace to Independence Square: Understanding the Impact of Social Media on Physical Protest Mobilization During Ukraine’s Euromaidan Revolution

从网络空间到独立广场：乌克兰亲欧盟示威期间社交媒体对身体抗议动员的影响

Aaron Franklin Brantly

Abstract

Cyberspace has dramatically affected social and political movements over the last 10 years. There is anecdotal evidence to suggest a strong role for information communications technologies (ICTs) in a changing landscape of organization and mobilization for large-scale social and political movements in countries around the world. This paper analyzes the 2013–2014 Euromaidan revolution in Ukraine using big data collected from open source content including blogs, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, forums, and news sites and mixed methods and assess the ramifications and impact of social media on social mobilization. This work compares digital and physical engagement directionality and finds the impact of social media on physical protest turnout is significant and leads to increased numbers of protestors in the streets. The analysis also highlights means of developing and assessing social mobilization through the use of linguistically and regionally categorized social media.

Keywords

Internet, social mobilization, protest, revolution, Ukraine, social media

Source

Journal of Information Technology & Politics，Published online: 21 Aug 2019

https://doi.org/10.1080/19331681.2019.1657047

8

Party v. The People: Testing corrective action and supportive engagement in a partisan political context

党与人民：在党派政治背景下测试纠正行动和支持性参与

Megan Duncan &David Coppini

Abstract

Today’s audiences have an opportunity to hear the political opinions of a more diverse sample of voters through online comment sections. Two theories suggest that the hostile or supportive climate created by peers will influence the audience’s engagement with comment sections. Corrective action hypothesis posits that citizens will engage offline and online when they perceive a hostile opinion climate. Meanwhile, the supportive-based engagement theory suggests that some audience members will be more likely to participate when a homogenous opinion climate speeds opinion crystallization. This study extends the engagement literature to the opinion climate created by online comments by investigating the interaction between political partisanship and the hostility of comments about a political candidate. In a 3 (political party congruence) X 3 (level of comment hostility) controlled experiment (N = 350), party identification of a candidate and the hostility of comments were manipulated. The change in opinion about the candidate and the likelihood of expressing a public opinion were measured. Results indicate the audience is most likely to express an opinion when the candidate and the audience member share party identification. Further, the study finds an interaction so that hostile opinion climate increased opinion polarization. Results suggest that audiences are more likely to support a fellow partisan being attacked than to attack a member of the political outgroup who is being supported. Finally, it finds the perception that comments will influence others has a role in opinion change and likelihood of expressing an opinion.

Keywords

Corrective action, elections, opinion climate, online comments, political expression, experiment

Source

Journal of Information Technology & Politics，Published online: 20 Jul 2019

https://doi.org/10.1080/19331681.2019.1644266

9

Media, information, and political participation: The importance of online news sources in the absence of a free press

媒体，信息和政治参与：在没有新闻自由的情况下在线新闻来源的重要性

Suveyda Karakaya ,Rebecca A. Glazier

Abstract

Social media use is positively associated with political participation, but does this relationship persist when traditional and social media are restricted by the government? We argue that, under conditions of repression, social media and other online news sources play a key role in providing information free from government filters, which makes political participation more likely. We test this theory using data collected through an original, nationally-representative, face-to-face survey conducted in Turkey in April 2015 (n = 1,068). We find that both conventional and protest participation are significantly higher among respondents who use online sources, including social media, to access political news.

Keywords

Social media, information, protest, participation, Turkey

Source

Journal of Information Technology & Politics，Published online: 28 Jul 2019

https://doi.org/10.1080/19331681.2019.1645784

10

The Emergence of Science as a Political Brand

科学作为政治品牌的产生

Todd P. Newman

Abstract

This article seeks to explain how science has emerged as political brand. While science and politics have intersected for centuries, more recent social, cultural, and political events led to increased attention to the role of science in everyday life and how science is used in policy decision-making. This led to a tipping point in 2017 when the March for Science was formed, following what many in the U.S. and countries around the world viewed as anti-science stances by political leaders. The political spectacle of the March for Science not only brought increased attention to the scientific community, but also emerged to define the brand of science in society. Drawing on research from the role of brands in consumer culture – including political marketing, brand resonance, and brand community – I describe the implications of the science brand for the scientific enterprise, and the ways in which the scientific community consider the strategic communication of their brand within the political marketplace.

Keywords

Branding, marketing, political communication, science communication

Source

Journal of Political Marketing，Published online: 24 Aug 2019

https://doi.org/10.1080/15377857.2019.1652225

11

Scripted Messengers: How Party Discipline and Branding Turn Election Candidates and Legislators into Brand Ambassadors

脚本化的信使：党的纪律和品牌如何将选举候选人和立法者转变为品牌大使

Alex Marland &Angelia Wagner

Abstract

Political parties with strict party discipline are well-placed to demand that their election candidates and legislators promote the party brand. The franchise-franchisee relationship causes representatives to relinquish individual expression in exchange for centralized party messaging. This article looks at how a strategic desire for party unity combines with internal brand management to turn lower-ranking politicians in a parliamentary system into party brand ambassadors. Our Canadian case study draws on in-depth interviews with party leaders, Members of Parliament, political staff, candidates for office and prospective candidates. The implications for representative democracy in a Westminster system are considered, including the representational constraints for racial and sexual minorities.

Keywords

brand ambassadors, Canada, centralization, franchising, message control, parliamentary system, party branding, party discipline, political parties, representation

Source

Journal of Political Marketing，Published online: 28 Aug 2019

https://doi.org/10.1080/15377857.2019.1658022

12

Symbolic Political Communication, and Trust: A Young Voters’ Perspective of the Indonesian Presidential Election

象征性政治传播与信任：年轻选民对印尼总统大选的看法

Ihwan Susila,Dianne Dean,Raja Nerina Raja Yusof,

Anton Agus Setyawan &Farid Wajdi

Abstract

Communication in political marketing plays an important role in political mobilization, building trust both in political actors and the government. Politicians construct their messages through careful branding as the power of the cultural symbols and signs conveyed through the brand are potent heuristic devices. This is particularly important in emerging democracies, where there is limited political knowledge and understanding. Therefore, this research explores how young voters understand the symbolic communication fashioned by political actors in Indonesia and how it relates to their brand. Indonesia is an interesting area for study; it is both secular and the world’s largest Muslim democracy. Using a phenomenological approach, a total of 19 in-depth interviews with young voters were conducted to gain rich insight into perceptions of the complexity of political symbolism, and trust among young voters. This study conceptualized political communication as a dual approach. The political brand promise is intrinsically linked to cultural references and conveyed through symbolic communication combined with a distinctive brand message. This builds trust, which then affects political participation. This conceptual framework provides insights into the importance of culture in branding which has implications for policy makers and actors in emerging and established democracies.

Keywords

emerging democracies, Indonesian politics,political branding, political communications, young voters

Source

Journal of Political Marketing，Published online: 29 Aug 2019

https://doi.org/10.1080/15377857.2019.1652224

13

Government public relations when trouble hits: exploring political dispositions, situational variables, and government–public relationships to predict communicative action of publics

在遇到麻烦时的政府公共关系：探索政治倾向、情境变量和政府与公共关系，以预测公众的传播行为

Myoung-Gi Chon

Abstract

Government agencies may face a crisis due to their inappropriate responses to natural or man-made disasters. However, crisis communication in government public relations has not been extensively researched. This study aimed to explore a segmentation framework to predict the communicative action of citizens by using political dispositions, situational variables and organization–public relationships (OPRs). Ideology, voting history, trust, and problem recognition were significant factors to predict pro-government megaphoning, whereas referent criterion was a significant factor to predict anti-government megaphoning.

Keywords

Government public relations, public segmentation, crisis communication, megaphoning, communicative action of publics

Source

Asian Journal of Communication，Published online: 30 Jul 2019

https://doi.org/10.1080/01292986.2019.1649438

14

Pick your language: how riot reporting differs between English and Hindi newspapers in India

选择您的语言：印度英语和印地语报纸之间的防暴报道有何不同

William O’Brochta

Abstract

Riot reporting is one aspect of newspaper coverage that can drive people into the streets in acts of collective protest or violence. Media observers and scholars have proposed that the language of Indian newspapers, be it English or vernacular, partially dictates the kinds of riot events reported and the quality of those reports. I tested whether this conventional wisdom holds by investigating the content of Indian riot coverage in the English Times of India and Hindu Hindustan. 

While Hindustan emphasized official statements and interviews with political parties, neither newspaper accurately represented the actual number of riots in their reporting. In fact, coverage in both papers followed predictable patterns likely driven by a new focus on selling newspapers at any cost in order to increase advertising revenue. This study contributes to a growing literature highlighting the similarities between media outlets and the degree to which their reporting is removed from actual events.

Keywords

Riots, topic models, communal violence, newspapers, India

Source

Asian Journal of Communication，Published online: 02 Aug 2019

https://doi.org/10.1080/01292986.2019.1651883

15

Old concerns, renewed focus and novel problems: feminist communication theory and the Global South

旧关注、新焦点和新问题：女权传播理论与发展中国家

Ingrid Bachmann,Valentina Proust

Abstract

Feminist theorizations have made important contributions to communication, albeit somewhat less visible and on the sidelines. Even less visible is research conducted with a feminist lens from the Global South. This article provides an overview of current ways of approaching, understanding, and applying feminist theoretical perspectives at the intersection of gender and communication from non-Western contexts. It also identifies feminist contributions to communication scholarship and makes suggestions for future directions.

Keywords

Feminist theory,globalization,gender,feminist scholarship

Source

Annals of the International Communication Association,Published online: 25 Jul 2019

https://doi.org/10.1080/23808985.2019.1647445

16

The Evolution of the Immigration Debate: Evidence from a New Dataset of Party Positions Over the Last Half-Century

移民辩论的演变：来自过去半个世纪党派立场新数据集的证据

Rafaela Dancygier, Yotam Margalit

Abstract

Immigration is one of the most contentious issues across contemporary democracies, but this has not always been the case. What accounts for this development? We study how immigration has evolved in the political debate in Western Europe over five decades by creating and analyzing a comprehensive new data set—Immigration in Party Manifestos (IPM)—of all immigration-related appeals made in preelection manifestos by major parties. Our account focuses on three central debates. First, contra to perceived wisdom, we find no evidence of polarization between left and right. Instead, we document a striking co-movement. Second, we find only modest support for the argument that the success of anti-immigrant parties significantly shapes how centrist parties position themselves on immigration. Finally, our evidence counters the claim that cultural issues have overtaken the debate over immigration. Although the prominence of immigration-related cultural appeals has increased in certain countries and elections, the economic dimension has remained prevalent.

Keywords

immigration politics, extreme right, migrant integration, party manifestos, cultural threat

Source

Annals of the International Communication Association，First Published July 22, 2019

https://doi.org/10.1177/0010414019858936

17

The meanings of racism: Public discourses about racism in Finnish news media and online discussion forums

种族主义的含义：在芬兰新闻媒体和在线讨论论坛上关于种族主义的公共讨论

Mervi Pantti, Matti Nelimarkka, Kaarina Nikunen

Abstract

Understandings of racism are produced and circulated in contemporary networked media forms, contributing new opportunities to both extend and challenge racializing discourses, images and frameworks. This study investigated how the concept of racism is used in Finnish public debate by employing a computational text analysis technique to derive topics related to racism from a large corpus of news media content and online discussion forum comments. Our findings show that discourses about racism are different in legacy media and online platform regarding both their prominence and framings. While social media produce various discourses of ‘reverse racism’, news media connects racism to historical and international contexts. We conclude that what racism is understood to be is not only an intensely political process but also one shaped by the type of media platform, specificities of Finnish language and national ideological battles.

Keywords

News media, racism, social media, topic model

Source

Comparative Political Studies，First Published September 17, 2019 

https://doi.org/10.1177/0267323119874253

18

 A network analysis of political incivility dimensions

政治不文明维度的网络分析

Toby Hopp

Abstract

Although online political incivility has increasingly become an object of scholarly inquiry, there exists little agreement on the construct’s precise definition. The goal of this work was therefore to explore the relational dynamics among previously identified dimensions of online political incivility. The results of a regularized partial correlation network indicated that a communicator’s desire to exclude attitude-discrepant others from discussion played an especially influential role in the variable network. The data also suggested that certain facets of incivility may be likely to be deployed together. Specifically, the data suggested the existence of two identifiable groupings of incivility factors: (1) variables pertaining to violation of speech-based norms and (2) variables pertaining to the violation of the inclusion-based norms that underlie democratic communication processes. These results are discussed in the context of political discussion and deliberation.

Keywords

Online incivility, political discussion, regularized partial correlation network

Source

Communication and the Public，First Published September 19, 2019 

https://doi.org/10.1177/2057047319877278

19

Fake news as a two-dimensional phenomenon: a framework and research agenda

假新闻是一种二维现象：框架和研究议程

Jana Laura Egelhofer& Sophie Lecheler

Abstract

Based on an extensive literature review, we suggest that ‘fake news’ alludes to two dimensions of political communication: the fake news genre (i.e. the deliberate creation of pseudojournalistic disinformation) and the fake news label (i.e. the instrumentalization of the term to delegitimize news media). While public worries about the use of the label by politicians are increasing, scholarly interest is heavily focused on the genre aspect of fake news. We connect the existing literature on fake news to related concepts from political communication and journalism research, present a theoretical framework to study fake news, and formulate a research agenda. Thus, we bring clarity to the discourse about fake news and suggest shifting scholarly attention to the neglected fake news label.

Keywords

Fake news, review, journalistic legitimacy, disinformation, media criticism, political instrumentalization, research agenda

Source

Annals of the International Communication Association，Published online: 09 Apr 2019https://doi.org/10.1080/23808985.2019.1602782 

20

Exploring the effect of Weibo opinion leaders on the dynamics of public opinion in China: A revisit of the two-step flow of communication

探索微博舆论领袖对中国舆论动态的影响：对“两级传播”的重新审视

Yan Su

Abstract

Using a random sample of posts on Weibo, this study content analyzes the extent to which Weibo opinion leaders’ tweets are associated with the shifts and variations of public opinion—in terms of topic salience, emotional reactions, agent of responsibility, motivation for condemnation, rhetorical techniques, conviction of blame, and emotional intensity—in the case of the Tianjin Explosion. Building upon a burgeoning research agenda examining the role of Chinese Weibo in the context of two-step flow, this study found that opinion leaders generally reinforce Weibo users’ subjective assessment (e.g., attitudes and emotional responses) of the incident. An overwhelming sleeper effect is also observed in that most posts by the opinion leaders did not contribute to peaks until 2–3 days later. All opinion leaders achieved between one and three peaks.

Keywords

China, opinion leader, public opinion, social media, two-step flow, Weibo

Source

Global Media and China，Published August 12, 2019 

https://doi.org/10.1177/2059436419866012

21

Intelligence for Sale: The ‘Party–Public Sentiment, Inc.’ and Stability Maintenance in China

待售情报：“舆情监测公司”与中国的稳维

Tao Wu& Bixiao He

Abstract

Chinese journalism became more professional during the reform era, escaping the old propaganda model under Party control. However, of late a new industry has emerged. Based on interviews, fieldwork, and other material, this article focuses on the Guangzhou provincial party media group and its affiliated “public sentiment” (yuqing) business sector, which arose to cope with the decline in print media by developing a clientelist relationship to Party institutions. The group takes preemptive measures to maintain regime stability by collecting information to help the Party manage crises and troubleshooting potential dangers to the state, representing an innovative paradigm for maintaining stability.

Source

Problems of Post-Communism，Published online: 12 Jul 2019

https://doi.org/10.1080/10758216.2019.1625710

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外文橱窗丨政治传播研究前沿第十一期

外文橱窗丨政治传播研究前沿第十期

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摘录与编辑：陈胜勇

中国传媒大学政治传播研究所博士生

校对：于淑婧

中国传媒大学政治传播研究所博士生