外文橱窗丨政治传播研究前沿
1
Sourcing and Automation of Political News and Information over Social Media in the United States, 2016-2018
2016-2018年美国社交媒体上政治新闻和信息的来源和自动化
Samantha Bradshaw,Philip N. Howard,Bence Kollanyi &Lisa-Maria Neudert
Abstract
Social media is an important source of news and information in the United States. But during the 2016 US presidential election, social media platforms emerged as a breeding ground for influence campaigns, conspiracy, and alternative media. Anecdotally, the nature of political news and information evolved over time, but political communication researchers have yet to develop a comprehensive, grounded, internally consistent typology of the types of sources shared. Rather than chasing a definition of what is popularly known as “fake news,” we produce a grounded typology of what users actually shared and apply rigorous coding and content analysis to define the phenomenon. To understand what social media users are sharing, we analyzed large volumes of political conversations that took place on Twitter during the 2016 presidential campaign and the 2018 State of the Union address in the United States. We developed the concept of “junk news,” which refers to sources that deliberately publish misleading, deceptive, or incorrect information packaged as real news. First, we found a 1:1 ratio of junk news to professionally produced news and information shared by users during the US election in 2016, a ratio that had improved by the State of the Union address in 2018. Second, we discovered that amplifier accounts drove a consistently higher proportion of political communication during the presidential election but accounted for only marginal quantities of traffic during the State of the Union address. Finally, we found that some of the most important units of analysis for general political theory—parties, the state, and policy experts—generated only a fraction of the political communication.
Keywords
Social media, political news and information, news sources, elections, junk news, US 2016 election, state of the union address
Source
Political Communication, Published online: 26 Oct 2019
https://doi.org/10.1080/10584609.2019.1663322
2
Advances in Comparative Political Communication Research through Contextualization and Cumulation of Evidence
借助语境化和证据积累的比较政治传播研究的进展
Frank Esser
Abstract
The recent demand to strongly contextualize findings of political communication research (Rojas & Valenzuela, 2019) should be welcomed. Such a call is pushing at an already open door, particularly with scholars engaged in comparative research. Comparative research is essentially about context; it is context-sensitive in the way that it aims to understand how the contextual environment shapes individual-level political communication phenomena (Blumler, McLeod & Rosengren, 1992). Not only are individual-level processes better understood through the consideration of contextual factors but the significance of macro-level characteristics only becomes visible when different national political communication arrangements are compared with each other.
Source
Political Communication, Published online: 11 Oct 2019
https://doi.org/10.1080/10584609.2019.1670904
3
Like, Post, and Distrust? How Social Media Use Affects Trust in Government
喜欢，发布和不信任？社交媒体的使用如何影响对政府的信任
Elad Klein &Joshua Robison
Abstract
There is much discussion about the potential negative effects of social media use on people’s political attitudes. But, does social media use shape trust in government? We use evidence from the 2012 and 2016 ANES as well as the 2018 American Institutional Confidence Poll to test competing expectations regarding this question: that social media polarizes versus de-polarizes trust judgments across partisan lines. Our analyses provide greater support for the expectation of polarization. We then unpack the potential mechanisms behind these findings. We use the number of “stealth” issue campaigns targeted to the respondent’s state in 2016 as a proxy for the amount of political conflict the respondent was likely to have experienced when using social media during the 2016 Presidential election. Notably, we find that polarization is substantially impacted by the nature of the voter’s broader political environment. These findings are consequential for our understanding of how social media influences public opinion and draws attention to the role of the broader political context for this relationship.
Keywords
social media, partisan polarization, trust in government
Source
Political Communication, Published online: 16 Oct 2019
https://doi.org/10.1080/10584609.2019.1661891
4
Never Say Never … Or the Value of Context in Political Communication Research
从不说从不……或语境在政治传播研究中的价值
Susana Salgado
The need for context is so obvious in everyday life that we could ask why is it so often overlooked in political communication comparative research? The fact that political communication deals with things as bound to circumstances and therefore as context-dependent as communication and politics further substantiates the need to pay attention to context and to its implications in theory-building. The examples put forward by Rojas and Valenzuela (2019) show that without proper contextualization, research results can easily be misinterpreted and consequently misguide the ensuing theorizing efforts. The relation between social media news exposure and political polarization is a prime example of how context mediates effects and any attempt at generalization would result in flawed conclusions if the conditions under which occur the proposed relationships among variables are not examined thoroughly.
Source
Political Communication, Published online: 11 Oct 2019
https://doi.org/10.1080/10584609.2019.1670902
5
US Dominance of Research on Political Communication: A Meta-View
美国对政治传播研究的主导地位：一种元视角
Shelley Boulianne
The United States is the focal point of research on political communication. The dominance of the US scholarship is not an outcome of the efforts of a single peer reviewer, but rather an outcome of a larger system of knowledge production. Rojas and Valenzuela (2019) essay points out two issues related to cross-national research in political communication: how the US is treated as the “context-less” norm and how American scholarship shapes expectations for other areas of the world. Adding to this argument, I provide data about citation patterns inSubfields within political communication as well as provide a summary of recent meta-analysis studies in political communication. These data affirm the US dominance in political communication scholarship.
Keywords
political communication, United States, cross-national, meta-analysis, publication bias, citation patterns
Source
Political Communication, Published online: 11 Oct 2019
https://doi.org/10.1080/10584609.2019.1670899
6
The Media Smells like Sulfur!!! Leaders and Verbal Attacks against the Fourth Estate in Unconsolidated Democracies
媒体闻起来像硫磺！！！在未稳固的民主国家中，领导人和对“第四权力”的口头攻击
Jonathan A. Solis &Iñaki Sagarzazu
Abstract
Government perpetrated attacks against independent media, ranging from journalists’ imprisonment to verbal attacks against outlets, carry an adverse effect for freedoms in democracies. Verbal attacks specifically provide leaders with a low-cost, easy to execute tool to delegitimize critical media. In this paper we present a theoretical contribution on when leaders in unconsolidated democracies verbally attack the media. Furthermore, we propose a way to quantitatively measure such attacks. Focusing on unconsolidated democracies, we argue that verbal attacks against independent media will increase when leaders face non-institutional ouster attempts like major protests and coups due to two reasons: 1) the surprise nature of these events, and 2) their disconnect to fully democratic means of staying in power. Our analysis examines verbal attacks on independent media by former Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez. We code 385 airings of Chávez’s weekly program Aló Presidente, from May 1999 to January 2012, counting verbal attacks against independent media. Using a Box-Tiao intervention model, we find Chávez’s verbal attacks against independent media significantly increased during non-institutional ouster efforts, such as major protests and the 2002 coup attempt. These findings show the degree to which elected leaders will go to discredit uncomfortable media outlets in unconsolidated democracies during uncertain political events.
Keywords
verbal attacks against media, text analysis, Latin American politics,
measurement, media freedom, Venezuela
Source
Political Communication, Published online: 14 Oct 2019
https://doi.org/10.1080/10584609.2019.1660440
7
Informing the Public: How Party Communication Builds Opportunity Structures
告知公众：党际交往如何建立机会结构
Sebastian Adrian Popa,Zoltán Fazekas,Daniela Braun &Melanie-Marita Leidecker-Sandmann
Abstract
We argue that the attention parties devote to a topic contributes to expanding the opportunity structure to acquire information that party supporters have. We evaluate this proposition in a comparative manner by focusing on an elite-driven new topic, namely the Spitzenkandidaten system in European Parliament elections. We link candidate recognition survey data from 28 countries with over 175 party electoral programs, press releases, and Twitter communication before the 2014 European Parliament elections. Our results show that especially what parties emphasize or decide to talk about on Twitter contributes to what their supporters will know. As proposed, this is an indirect effect through a general contribution to the information environment in election campaigns. However, party communication portfolios should not discount traditional tools given that these can also contribute to the opportunity structures available to party supporters.
Keywords
political knowledge, party communication,
Spitzenkandidaten, European Parliament elections
Source
Political Communication, Published online: 8 Oct 2019
https://doi.org/10.1080/10584609.2019.1666942
8
Putin’s International Political Image
普京的国际政治形象
Greg Simons
Abstract
This article concerns how publics perceive and relate to a foreign politician. There is no formal relationship between these groups as the publics have no ability to participate in national elections that could validate or detract the aura of legitimacy of the politician. Therefore the relationship could be more informal in nature and based upon perceived similarities and differences of held norms and values. President Vladimir Putin of Russia is a well-known (high profile) global political figure, which may mean a more intensely generated set of attitudes toward him as a political figure. There has been an overwhelmingly negative flow of information in mainstream mass media, especially after the Ukraine crisis. The question posed in the paper sets out to answer, given the negative coverage and associations, could any foreign (non-Russian) publics still like or admire him? The answer found is yes, there are in fact diverse sets of foreign publics like or admire his actual/perceived values and norms – for example his conservative values or his conflict with the US-led West.
Keywords
political brand, political image, political marketing, President Vladimir Putin,
Russia, values and norms
Source
Journal of Political Marketing,Published online: 24 Oct 2019
https://doi.org/10.1080/15377857.2019.1678904
9
I Can Feel What You Feel: Emotion Exchanges in Twitter Conversations between Candidates and the Public
我能感觉到你的感受：Twitter上候选人与公众之间对话中的情感交流
Newly Paul&Mingxiao Sui
Abstract
Twitter offers politicians a direct path of communication to the public, and by its very nature, encourages tweets that are often heavy on emotions. Given the rise of Twitter and emotional appeals in politics, this paper investigates two important questions: How “emotional” are political candidates on Twitter, and, how does the public respond to candidates’ tweets containing emotional appeals such as joy, fear, anger, and disgust? Based on Crimson Hexagon’s sentiment analysis of over 500,000 tweets for 541 members of the 115th Congress and the public’s corresponding replies, we find that the tone of candidates’ tweets and the public’s reactions is primarily positive. We also find congruence in the emotions between a political tweet and its reply.
Keywords
Twitter, emotional appeals, strategic communication, Crimson Hexagon
Source
Journal of Political Marketing,Published online: 2 Nov 2019
https://doi.org/10.1080/15377857.2019.1684419
10
Evolution of Political Branding: Typologies, Diverse Settings and Future Research
政治品牌的演变：类型学，多样化的环境和未来研究
Christopher Pich &Bruce I. Newman
Abstract
Political branding has developed into an established and vibrant sub-discipline of political marketing. Indeed, political branding research continues to push boundaries by critically applying consumer based branding theories, concepts and frameworks to the political environment. Recently, political branding scholars have segmented research into different categories such as corporate, candidate, leader, local-regional, internal or external in orientation. Despite this development, there continues to be limited research on alternative or different typologies of political brands. This study reaffirms political branding as a distinct area of research and discusses how political brands can be conceptualised and operationalised. Further, drawing on seven empirical and conceptual papers, which focus on different typologies of political brands from a range of international contexts including Canada, USA, Iceland, Indonesia and India, we reflect on the current political branding environment. We conclude that there are multiple relationships and numerous interconnected political brands, which represent an intricate environment or ecosystem. This study offers academics and political actors guidance on how to conceptualise political brands and provides a starting point to map out the ecosystems of political brands. Finally, this study provides explicit calls for further research in political branding.
Keywords
political branding, , political brand typologies, political branding concepts,
political brand ecosystems
Source
Journal of Political Marketing,Published online: 27 Oct 2019
https://doi.org/10.1080/15377857.2019.1680932
11
Social Media Prosumption and Online Political Participation: An examination of Online Communication Processes
社交媒体刺激和在线政治参与：在线交流过程的考察
Masahiro Yamamoto, Seungahn Nah, Soo Young Bae
Abstract
This study examines the extent to which social media prosumption, an integrated act of consumption and production, is associated with online political participation. Data from an online panel survey of American adults reveal that social media prosumption has a positive relationship with online political participation indirectly through online political information seeking. Social media prosumption is also positively related to online political participation through online political information and online discussion heterogeneity in serial. Implications are discussed for the role of prosumptive use of social media in online political participation.
Keywords
discussion heterogeneity, information seeking, online political participation, prosumption, social media
Source
New Media & Society, Published online: 18 Nov 2019
https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444819886295
12
Temporality Alignment: How WeChat Transforms Government Communication in Chinese Cities
时间一致性：微信如何改变中国城市中的政府沟通
Ji Pan
Abstract
Drawing on media practice and mediation literature, this study explores how the media practices of WeChat account employees have transformed government communication in major Chinese cities. In-depth interviews were conducted with government WeChat account (or Fabu) employees in Shanghai, Hangzhou, and Shenzhen. The analyses of the interview transcripts demonstrated that in daily media practices, the Fabu employees penetrated deeper into internal government decision-making processes by identifying themselves with the municipal authority, building binding ties by forging trustworthy dependence relations with other government offices, and spreading multiple WeChat expert networks to public sectors of the entire city. These routinized practices aligned the digital temporality of WeChat-based public engagement to the legacy temporal order of communication within Chinese city governments. The findings of this study contribute to the literature by suggesting that WeChat engenders temporal alignment as a reconciliatory and asymmetrical mode of mediation that exploits trust and interpersonal relationships to re-establish the time–space order of (semi)authoritarian city governments in which certain processes are difficult to change.
Keywords
government communication,
WeChat, media practice, Chinese cities
Source
Chinese Journal of Communication , Published online: 22 Oct 2019
https://doi.org/10.1080/17544750.2019.1679855
13
Refocusing Democracy: The Chinese Government’s Framing Strategy in Political Language
重新聚焦民主：中国政府政治语言的框架策略
Yue Hu
Abstract
Authoritarian governments talk about democracy frequently. Why do they do so? What does the term democracy mean in an authoritarian political language? This research uses a computer-assisted text analytical approach illustrating how an authoritarian government strategically manipulates the discourse about democracy to benefit itself. By analysing over a million political articles published in People's Daily over five decades, the study shows a refocusing framing strategy, in which the Chinese government defines democracy not with regime justification but with national policy priorities while denoting democracy most frequently alongside the fundamental values. With this strategy, the framed discourse appear to be consistent with the fundamental values in Western democracies but work for the preservation of the authoritarian regime.
Keywords
Framing strategy, democracy, political language, China, text analysis, People’s Daily
Source
Democratization , Published online: 14 Nov 2019
https://doi.org/10.1080/13510347.2019.1690461
14
Designing Authoritarian Deliberation: How Social Media Platforms Influence Political Talk in China
设计威权式商议：社交媒体平台如何影响中国的政治言论
Daniela Stockmann,Ting Luo &Mingming Shen
Abstract
Discussion is often celebrated as a critical element of public opinion and political participation. Recently, scholars have suggested that the design and features of specific online platforms shape what is politically expressed online and how. Building on these findings and drawing on 112 semi-structured qualitative interviews with information technology experts and internet users, we explain how major Chinese social media platforms differ in structure and motivation. Drawing upon a nationwide representative survey and an online experiment, we find that platforms aiming to make users a source of information through public, information-centred communication, such as the Twitter-like Weibo, are more conducive to political expression; while platforms built to optimize building social connections through private, user-centred communication, such as WhatsApp and Facebook-like WeChat, tend to inhibit political expression. These technological design effects are stronger when users believe the authoritarian state tolerates discussion, but less important when political talk is sensitive. The findings contribute to the debate on the political consequences of the internet by specifying technological and political conditions.
Keywords
Authoritarianism,social media, technology, China, political sensitivity, deliberation, political talk
Source
Democratization , Published online: 31 Oct 2019
https://doi.org/10.1080/13510347.2019.1679771
15
Rethinking China’s Global ‘Propaganda’ Blitz
重新思考中国的全球“宣传”闪电战
Falk Hartig
Abstract
China’s global communication activities are mainly perceived as sinister propaganda to mislead international audiences, and related discussions exemplify Western unease about China’s global communication efforts. While not trivializing these efforts, this article objects to some of the assessments and argues in favour of a critical but open-minded engagement with China’s global communication activities. Such an approach should pay attention to potential audiences and should closely scrutinize the real-life circumstances of China’s communicative practices and put them into perspective for its audiences. The article highlights these aspects by analysing the screening of a video in New York City’s Times Square in Summer 2016 and one version of the China Daily supplement, China Watch.
Keywords
Audiences, China, China Daily, propaganda, public diplomacy, Times Square
Source
Global Media and Communication , Published online: 23 Sep 2019
https://doi.org/10.1177/1742766519871694
16
Do Social Media Create Revolutions? Using Twitter Sentiment Analysis for Predicting The Maidan Revolution in Ukraine
社交媒体会带来革命吗？使用Twitter情绪分析预测乌克兰的Maidan革命
Iana Sabatovych
Abstract
A wide variety of social media platforms have become integral to contemporary forms of social engagement, including mass protests. Twitter is considered specifically indicative of public attitudes in this regard. This study attempts to examine the feasibility of using Twitter sentiment analysis to predict the 2014 revolution in Ukraine. Tweets representing public opinion are clustered by means of the ‘StreamKM++’ algorithm into three classes (likely, neutral and unlikely). The resulting prediction model for the three classes (using Naïve Bayes) was 96.75 per cent. As such, this study offers a promising way to perform an online prediction of social movements.
Keywords
Euromaidan, opinion mining, protests, sentiment analysis, Twitter
Source
Global Media and Communication , Published online: 17 Nov 2019
https://doi.org/10.1177/1742766519872780
17
The Family Politics of New Media Domestication: An Ethnographic Study of Mobile Phones’ Influences on Rural Adolescents’ Socialization in A Central Chinese Town
新媒体驯化的家庭政治：关于中国中部城镇手机对农村青少年社会化影响的民族志研究
Cheng-yun Guan,Jia-mei Tang &Min Wang
Abstract
Due to the low access rate of cable Internet connection in rural China, the mobile phone has become the most favored new media terminal for rural residents to surf the Internet. Particularly for rural adolescents, the mobile phone has become their primary medium to engage in social activities. By selecting Ou town, located in Central China, as the site of fieldwork and applying the theory of ‘domestication’, this paper aims to thick describe the structure of rural family politics where new media use has become an integral part of the rural adolescents’ lives. The research enriches the study of Internet politics at the micro-level and further reveals major practical issues related to the growth and socialization of rural adolescents in the digital era. This study finds adolescents live in varied ‘family politics’, and the respective family powers influence the measures and extent of domesticating new media.
Keywords
Adolescents, rural China, new media domestication, family politics
Source
Asian Journal of Communication, Published online: 28 Oct 2019
https://doi.org/10.1080/01292986.2019.1683753
18
An Anti-migration Campaign and Its Impact on Public Opinion: The Hungarian Case
反移民运动及其对公众舆论的影响：匈牙利案例
Péter Bajomi-Lázár
Abstract
During the 2015 migration wave, Hungary was a transit, rather than a target, country for migrants fleeing from North Africa and the Middle East to Europe. In reaction to this, Viktor Orbán’s right-wing populist government built a wall on the country’s southern border and launched an anti-migration communication campaign, portraying itself as the saviour of European, Hungarian and Christian values. This article reconstructs the messages and effects of this campaign. It finds that in a context of limited political and media pluralism, an anti-migration campaign may exert a significant impact on public opinion and political behaviour.
Keywords
Campaign, migration, propaganda, public opinion, xenophobia
Source
European Journal of Communication, Published online: 11 Nov 2019
https://doi.org/10.1177/0267323119886152
19
Does Political Efficacy Equally Predict News Engagement Across Countries? A Multilevel Analysis of The Relationship Among Internal Political Efficacy, Media Environment and News Engagement
政治效力是否同样可以预测各国之间的新闻参与？对内部政治效力，媒体环境和新闻参与之间关系的多层次分析
Shuning Lu, Luwei Rose Luqiu
Abstract
This study serves as the first to examine the mechanism of news engagement with regard to the three proposed dimensions (i.e. overall news engagement, user-user news engagement, and user-content news engagement) across 36 countries. We employed hierarchical linear modeling to test how internal political efficacy and media environment—both political and technological, shape news engagement based on the multinational cross-sectional survey data (N = 72,930). The findings showed that internal political efficacy was positively associated with news engagement. Press freedom was negatively associated with user-content news engagement; Internet penetration was negatively associated with the three indicators of news engagement. Press freedom negatively moderated the effect of internal political efficacy on user-content news engagement. The study advances our understanding about the individual and contextual mechanisms of news engagement. It also renders significant implications for news organizations to consider the role of media environment while practicing engagement.
Keywords
Internal political efficacy, Internet penetration, media environment, multilevel analysis, news engagement, press freedom
Source
New Media & Society, Published online: 21 Nov 2019
https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444819888417
20
Tabloid News, Anti-immigration Attitudes, and Support for Right-wing Populist Parties
小报新闻，反移民态度以及对右翼民粹主义政党的支持
Trevor Diehl, Ramona Vonbun-Feldbauer, Matthew Barnidge
Abstract
government communication,
WeChat, media practice, Chinese cities
This study examines the role of individuals’ media diets in contributing to the growing support for right-wing populist parties. Drawing on social identity theory and the notion of populism as political communication, this study argues that socio-economic status and tabloid news use explain support for right-wing candidates through heightened out-group hostility. Using survey data from the Austrian National Election Study (N = 1161), we present a process model in the structural equation modeling framework, and we compare the direct and indirect effects of attention to tabloid versus broadsheet news on the probability to vote for the Freiheitliche Partei Österreichs. Results show that the link between social status and support for right-wing populism is mediated by attention to tabloid news and anti-immigration attitudes. Implications for democratic norms are discussed in light of the overlap between news media and politicians in their use of populist narratives.
Keywords
anti-immigration, media populism, populist parties, social identity theory, tabloids
Source
Communication and the Public, Published online: 18 Nov 2019
https://doi.org/10.1177/2057047319884122
相关文章：
近期文章：
专题丨卢春龙 马玉宁：反思政治传播研究方法：以理论为导向的实证研究
摘录与编辑：陈胜勇
中国传媒大学政治传播研究所博士研究生
校对：于淑婧
中国传媒大学政治传播研究所博士研究生