Media and Communication is an international peer-reviewed open access journal dedicated to a wide variety of basic and applied research in communication and its related fields.

While peripheral contributors to journalism—those individuals or organizations not traditionally defined as or aligned with journalism—are not new, their work for and with journalism has expanded with the advent of the internet as well as social and mobile media. This is due, at least in part, to the eroding boundaries of entry to professional journalism and the rising reliance on individuals and organizations with alternative technologically-oriented skill sets (e.g., bloggers, web coders, web analytics managers, artificial intelligence creators, virtual reality operators, etc.), whether these operators offer a service as part of a consultation business or are embedded in newsrooms intrapreneurial units.

This thematic issue seeks to deepen current understandings of who these individuals are, describing and explaining what impact they are having on journalism culture, practice and overall performance. The thematic issue seeks to advance related journalism studies and mass communication theories. It welcomes contributions with a variety of methods and emphases, though articles that specifically focus on journalists, news organizations, peripheral actors, and the interplay between them are encouraged.

Broadly, this thematic issue aims to answer questions of who peripheral actors in journalism are today, what their motivations may be, what impact they have culturally, practically, and institutionally on other journalists and news organizations, how such actors are shaping the culture, norms, and practices of journalists and news organizations, what impact they may have on the business and management of journalism, and how they may be illustrative of the shrinking authoritative control news organizations have traditionally had on journalism. All methods of approach are encouraged as are international perspectives.

This issue also encourages proposal that examine the challenges and opportunities presented by these peripheral actors, including:

• the roles these peripheral actors have in news process;
• where and when they impact news production;
• their influence on journalism culture and practice;
• the social construction of these actors in journalism;
• questions of diversity and inclusion (e.g., races, ethnicities, genders, ages, religions, disabilities, and sexual orientations) in how these organizations approach journalism.

This thematic issue will feature scientific commentaries by Laura Ahva (University of Tampere, Finland) and Edson Tandoc Jr. (Nanyang Technological University, Singapore).

From the first SpaceWar! to the Mario's most recent odyssey, video games and digital worlds continue to engage the attention and imagination of their users. The medium is both chided and heralded for its capacity to listen to the input of its player, and adjust with an array of what have been labeled “interesting decisions” (Meier, 2012). As players engage those decisions, they jointly and individually influence the form and content of what is eventually displayed on-screen. This requirement of co-creation between the player and the program is what makes video games among the most culturally, economically, and socially successful forms of media entertainment.

Although their technologies and production practices have changed dramatically over the years, at least one aspect of games remains constant: they are demanding technologies. By their nature, video games require player's constant engagement in the on-screen environment. This engagement exists on (at least) four different dimensions: the cognitive engagement required to solve a game's puzzles and logics, the emotional engagement that results from being wrapped up in a compelling narrative, the physical engagement of a game's controller system, and the social engagement between players and characters as well as players and each other—both on-screen and off-screen (Bowman, 2018). These different demands can complement each other, but can also conflict in ways that drastically alter the use of games as well as their effects on our thoughts, emotions, and behaviors.

This special issue invites scholars in and around video games to submit manuscripts—both theoretical propositions and developments as well as completed studies—that speak to the cognitive, emotional, physical, and/or social demands of video games and virtual worlds in their own right, as well as the impact of those demands on the motivations for and consequences of playing video games. Submissions can take the form of both late-breaking brief reports (of no longer than 3000 words, inclusive of all manuscript elements) and longer-format manuscripts (of no longer than 6000 words, inclusive of all manuscript elements). Data-driven manuscripts ascribing to open sciences practices (such as sharing study materials, data and analysis scripts, and other supplemental materials) will be prioritized. Pre-registered research reports will also be considered and prioritized, but pre-registration is not required.

“Safety for journalists is a matter of public concern that is wide-ranging. It is vital for those who practice journalism, for their families and for their sources. It is essential for the wellbeing of media institutions, civil society, academia and the private sector more broadly. If we value the free flow of information for citizens, their governments and their international organisations, then the safety of journalists is central.” (Getachew Engida, Deputy Director-General of UNESCO)

Journalists throughout the world are increasingly faced with threats that range from harassment to arbitrary detention, kidnapping, physical attacks, and in the most extreme cases, killing. On average, every five days a journalist is killed for bringing information to the public. Whereas only two correspondents were killed during the entire period of World War I, a bit more than a hundred years later the situation is radically different. Threatening and killing journalists is becoming more common and there is an increasing tendency that journalists themselves are the aim of violence. Threats to journalists occur both online and offline and women journalists are particularly affected by gender-specific forms of attacks, such as sexual harassment and violence. Promoting the safety of journalist is closely related to press freedom.

This thematic issue of Media and Communication will present fresh discussions on the current situation of safety of journalists and reflections on how democratic developments may be safeguarded by finding ways to protect journalists and freedom of speech. Topics that are especially encouraged include:

• The safety of journalists during times of elections;
• Journalists engaged in debunking and/or investigating disinformation;
• Specific threats faced by women journalists online and offline;
• How best to monitor and report on safety of journalists in terms of Sustainable Development Goals indicator 16.10.1 which specifies the “number of verified cases of killing, kidnapping, enforced disappearance, arbitrary detention and torture of journalists [and] associated media personnel” each annual cycle.

Currently, there is a great deal of discussion, particularly among practical science communicators on how individuals can be reached, not only through pure science communication, but also through emotional appeals and ‘edutainment’ that focuses on the emotional experience of the audience. From an academic viewpoint, these new formats of science communication are often met with skepticism; empirical research on the reception and effects is needed.

Public discussion around so-called ‘alternative facts’ and ‘fake news’ direct the glance toward negative aspects of emotional appeals and debates. These phenomena are often attributed to social media in which trolls, bots, echo chambers and paradoxes of participation potentially influence the public discourse about topics such as science. Emotions that are evoked by science communication or intentional emotional appeals are often explicitly associated with an overarching trend of disaffection with elites and a (possibly profound) loss of trust in societal authorities and systems.

For this thematic issue, we welcome theoretical and/or empirical papers that engage with the following or similar thematic areas:

(1) Emotional perception, interpretation, and effects from the recipients’ perspective: What is the role of emotions for the usage and reception of science-related content? In what way do humans interpret scientific information? What is the role of emotions in a (positive/negative) relationship of trust between science and the public?

(2) Emotions and participation: Who participates and why? To what extent do emotions motivate participatory processes? How do different forms and degrees of participation influence the (emotional) attitude toward science?

(3) Emotional(ized) content from the communicators’ perspective: Can or should the rational position of science and the presentation of abstract results be abandoned in favor of more emotional narratives? What emotions can/should be evoked or prevented and by what means? How emotional is the recipients’ communicative contribution?

Please find the detailed Call for Papers here.

In many ways, young people are trailblazers when it comes to digital participation. They are often the first to adopt new technologies and platforms, to experiment with modes of production and practices of sharing, and—due to the significant role that social relations play in their lives—often spend significant time and energy socializing online (Ito et al., 2009, 2019; Jenkins et al., 2016). Youth digital participation has been explored as an opportunity for areas including learning and professional development (e.g., Ito et al., 2019); self-expression and identity exploration (e.g., Renninger, 2015); social connection (e.g., Weinstein, 2018); as well as for civic and political participation and expression (e.g., Kligler-Vilenchik & Literat, 2018). At the same time, youth digital participation should not be uncritically celebrated: Rather, researchers should be cognizant of the nuances of youth participation and a focus on when, how, why and for what youth digital participation matters (Literat et al., 2018).

For this issue, we invite theoretical and empirical (quantitative, qualitative or mixed-methods) papers that delve into youth digital participation from such a nuanced perspective, including papers which explore:

• The potentials and opportunities for youth digital participation, including learning, self-expression, social connection, identity formation and more;
• Youth civic/political expression and participation, including civic learning, cross-cutting exposure, and political socialization;
• How young people’s participatory practices in digital spaces contribute (or not) to youth empowerment and agency;
• Youth perspectives on their own digital participation;
• Challenges and risks around youth participation;
• The digital participation of marginalized youth;
• Methodological perspectives and innovative approaches to studying youth digital participation;
• Ethical issues related to the study of youth digital participation.

These issues can be explored in relation to a variety of digital contexts, including mainstream social media platforms but also online affinity networks, smartphone applications, hybrid online/offline contexts, etc. Authors should be cognizant of strict ethical considerations regarding the use of data pertaining to minors, even when publicly available (see, e.g., Livingstone & Third, 2017; Zimmer & Kinder-Kurlanda, 2017).

References:

Ito, M., Baumer, S., Bittani, M., Cody, R., Stephenson, B.H., Horst, H.A., . . . Tripp, L. (2009). Hanging out, messing around, and geeking out: Kids living and learning with new media. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Ito, M., Martin, C., Pfister, R.C., Rafalow, M.H., Salen, K., & Wortman, A. (2019). Affinity online: How connection and shared interest fuel learning. New York, NY: NYU Press. 

Jenkins, H., Shresthova, S., Gamber-Thompson, L., Kligler-Vilenchik, N., & Zimmerman, A. (2016). By any media necessary: The new youth activism. New York, NY: NYU Press.

Kligler-Vilenchik, N., & Literat, I. (2018). Distributed creativity as political expression: Youth responses to the 2016 US presidential election in online affinity networks. Journal of Communication, 68(1), 75-97.

Literat, I., Kligler-Vilenchik, N., Brough, M., & Blum-Ross, A. (2018). Analyzing youth digital participation: Aims, actors, contexts and intensities. The Information Society, 34(4),261-273.

Livingstone, S., & Third, A. (2017). Children and young people’s rights in the digital age: An emerging agenda. New Media & Society, 19(5), 657-670.

Renninger, B. (2015). “Where I can be myself… where I can speak my mind”: Networked counterpublics in a polymedia environment. New Media & Society, 17(9), 1513-1529.

Weinstein, E. (2018). The social media see-saw: Positive and negative influences on adolescents’ affective well-being. New Media & Society, 20(10), 3597-3623.

Zimmer, M., & Kinder-Kurlanda, K. (Eds.) (2017). Internet research ethics for the social age: New challenges, cases, and contexts. New York, NY: Peter Lang.

Authors will be notified about acceptance by 31 August 2019. The deadline for the submission of full papers will be 31 January 2020. Final papers should be a maximum of 8,000 words. Note that all invited articles will still go through full and anonymous peer review, and that being invited to submit a full article is no guarantee of final publication in the themed issue.

Since the beginnings of digital journalism, in the 1990s, the first purely online news media were launched in many countries. In that initial stage, the digital native (or digital-born) news media—defined as “media companies that were born and grown entirely online” (Wu, 2016, p. 131)—remained overshadowed by online media derived from press, radio and television brands, which represented the most important part of the news media market.

Throughout the first two decades of the 21st century, the digital native media have multiplied and consolidated. This development has been accelerated as a result of the global economic crisis that began in 2008, which has especially affected the traditional media companies during the last decade. The financial and reputational problems suffered by many legacy media companies have favored the appearance of a myriad of new digital media brands, of very different types, but with a common denominator: they have been founded purely in and for the internet (Nicholls et al., 2016).

Today, digital native news media constitute a substantial part of the emerging media market left by the economic crisis and, in front of the decline and public questioning of a large part of the news industry, they bring a breath of fresh air to journalism (Harlow & Salaverría, 2016; Majó-Vázquez et al., 2017). Their natural adaptation to the internet allows digital-born news media to explore technological, editorial, and business models that are many times distinct from those used by legacy media. However, at the same time, their smaller infrastructure and usually limited human and material resources raise questions about their capacity to carry out a long-range quality journalism. Despite these limitations, in several countries, digital native news media are becoming a powerful vector of journalistic innovation (Küng, 2015), as well as a benchmark for alternative and independent journalism (Salaverría et al., 2019).

This special issue of Media and Communication invites scholars to examine the models and professional protocols of the digital native news media. Both empirical and theoretical manuscripts; quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods approaches; single-country and comparative research; and historical and contemporary inquiries are welcome. Possible topics include, but are not limited to:

• Profile and typology of digital native news media.
• Relations between digital native news media and legacy media.
• Origins and historical evolution of digital native news media.
• Production models and professional routines of journalists in digital native news media.
• Editorial, technological and business models of digital native news media.
• Professional standards and ethical codes of digital native news media.
• Digital native news media and social media.
• Alternative journalism in digital native news media.
• Algorithmic journalism and data journalism in digital native news media.

This thematic issue invites a broad range of communication and media perspectives on privacy research. Under the umbrella of an ECREA Communication and Democracy Section off-year workshop, we are particularly interested in political implications of privacy communication and technologies. We will invite a selection of workshop participants to submit full article manuscripts for publication to this thematic issue. Full articles will be selected based on peer review.

Both, the workshop and the thematic issue discuss questions related to the individual and organizational management of information boundaries as well as related infrastructural aspects. It considers a broad range of views from across the field of communication and media studies. Herein, politics, in a narrow system-related and broader decision-making related sense, play a role in myriad ways: How can one conceive of privacy as realized within mediated societal and communicative relations? How can we explore the management of privacy affecting processes of institutionalized and practice-based joint decision-making? Which notions of privacy play a role across policies and media? Not least, which political affordances do privacy technologies imply?

The realted “Politics of privacy” workshop intends to explore contemporary and future directions of communication and media research on the political implications of privacy. Beyond well-established fields of media related privacy research, such as media psychology or privacy activism, we seek for debates across the discipline. Political dimensions of privacy emerge in diverse subfields, such as political communication, journalism, media management, political economy or visual communication. Theory-wise we will take into account contributions with diverse notions of information boundary management, whether relational, rational, contextual, differential concepts of privacy or even approaches beyond privacy, such as data justice.

Digital media open a vast array of avenues for lay people to engage with news, information and debates about the science and health issues that shape their private and public life. Many of these are innovative and effective in providing users with the voices to go with their eyes and ears about science issues. At the same time, however, recent climate-change-denial, anti-vaccination, pro-creationism and other campaigns show that digital media could become a fertile land for vested interests to spread mis-and dis-information, stimulate uncivil discussions and engender ill-informed, dangerous public decisions. On social networking sites, for example, people’s values, beliefs and emotions are often brought to the forefront—with the substantial aid of algorithms—and/or skillfully deployed for political, commercial and/or religious gains, at the expense of scientific evidence.

This thematic issue invites scholarly investigations—critical, interpretive or empirical—into the above and their implications for public engagement with scientific evidence. We welcome contributions on the pros and cons of digital media in science debates and how they might impact public understanding, attitudes and actions regarding science and health issues. Topics might include, but are not limited to, issues around the following broad questions:

1. How is mis/disinformation around science controversies produced, distributed and redistributed in digital environments?
2. In what ways do laypeople use social media to obtain news, gain knowledge and/or engage with science controversies—and with what effects?
3. How do factual knowledge and scientific evidence interact with emotions and values/beliefs in the fast-moving digital world to shape public engagement with science controversies?
4. Is the authority of the scientific expert declining faster in social platforms than other media environments? Why or why not?
5. What techniques and strategies can the news media employ to tackle the dark sides of digital technologies in public communication of controversial science issues?
6. What are the potential mechanisms for the news media, the science establishment and the civil society to cooperate in the fight against science mis/disinformation online?

Drones have quickly become ubiquitous in numerous sectors of society. One of the most interesting developments concerns the application of drones in media production and journalism. Researchers have called the early media use of drones a disruptive innovation, and a new genre named drone reporting has been proposed. However, the view from above is also connected to a ‘surveillance gaze’ in modern society, where aerial overview and CCTV play key roles. Some empirical studies have indicated that the actual use of drones by the media is limited by safety concerns and integrity issues, as well as legal uncertainty. Drones can therefore be seen as a recent example of how the meanings and uses of new media technologies are always subject to negotiation and experimentation by different actors and interests in society.

The thematic issue of Media and Communication will discuss drones in relation to the media and journalism from social, cultural, historical, technological, professional, ethical or other perspectives. Examples of possible topics include but are not limited to: adaption of new technology in the newsrooms, cultural perspectives on reporting from above, the evolving roles of photo journalism, drone imagery and audience preferences in a changing media landscape.

Since its subject of study is changing constantly and rapidly, research on media entertainment has to be quick to adapt. This need to quickly react and adapt not only relates to the questions researchers need to ask but also to the methods they need to employ to answer those questions. For several decades now, the large majority of quantitative research on the content, uses, and effects of media entertainment has been based on data from surveys, manual content analyses, or lab experiments. While there is no doubt that these studies have produced numerous important insights into media entertainment, they have certain limitations, some of which may entail significant biases. For example, several recent studies have shown that self-reports of media use tend to be unreliable. This is especially problematic if researchers are interested in very specific, rare, or socially undesirable forms of media entertainment. Experimental lab studies, on the other hand, tend to have relatively small samples and often occur in somewhat unnatural settings. And manual content analyses are not suitable for the large amounts of data that new forms of media entertainment generate (e.g., comments on YouTube videos). Over the last few years, the nascent field of computational social science has been developing and using methods for the collection and analysis of data that can help to address some of the limitations of traditional methods. For example, the use of digital trace data, such as data collected via APIs or tracking apps/plugins, can alleviate some problems associated with self-report data, and methods from the area of machine learning can be used to (semi-)automatically analyze large amounts of media content (or reactions to it). For this thematic issue, we invite substantive as well as methodological contributions that employ computational methods—either standalone or in combination with traditional methods—to study the content, uses, and effects of media entertainment. Submissions should either apply computational methods to investigate the content, uses or effects of media entertainment (studies that combine different types/sources of data, such as surveys and digital trace data, are especially welcome) or present and discuss novel computational methodologies for collecting and/or analyzing data on the content, uses or effects of entertainment media.

We invite two types of submissions: (1) late-breaking brief reports (of no longer than 3000 words, inclusive of all manuscript elements) and (2) longer-format manuscripts (of no longer than 6000 words, inclusive of all manuscript elements). Submissions engaging in open science practices will be given particular consideration in the review process (for some practical primers on the adoption of open science practices see https://how-to-open.science or http://psych-transparency-guide.uni-koeln.de). We also especially welcome preregistered studies (for an introduction to preregistration see https://how-to-open.science/plan/preregistration/why or http://psych-transparency-guide.uni-koeln.de/preregistration.html).

Media performance is constitutive for a democracy’s functioning. Media of high quality ensure a free political discourse, inform the public about politics, enable citizens’ well-informed decision-making, and contribute to the integration of society. Recently, however, fundamental structural changes such as the digital transformation of news markets and the “platformization” of news distribution pressurize the media and call into question how democratically valuable quality of news can be further ensured: Newspapers all over the world are facing decreasing readerships. An increasing part of the advertising budget is spent on the Internet, especially for information intermediaries such as Google or Facebook. An increasing number of (particularly younger) recipients consume news (only) online, often approaching them via the intermediaries.

Against this background, it is important to examine critically how the media perform most recently and how their performance is influenced by the structural frameworks in which they are embedded. The thematic issue aims at collecting a broad range of theoretical, methodological, and empirical studies on media performance that address (but are not limited to) the following questions:

• Which theoretical approaches can be and are used to investigate media performance in a changing media landscape?
• How can we measure media performance in the face of a diversifying media supply?
• How can computational methods be applied in media performance research?
• How far can the traditional news media still fulfill their normative obligations in times of increasing economic pressure?
• Which media performance is provided by different media types and in different countries, and how can similarities and differences be explained by structural factors?
• How has media performance developed over time, particularly since the rise of the Internet?
• What do different groups (e.g., scientists, journalists, media users, politicians, media managers) understand by the term “media performance”, and how far has this understanding changed most recently?
• Which media performance do the users receive through information intermediaries (e.g., social networking sites, search engines, and news aggregators)?
• How strongly is the quality of the public discourse impaired by disinformation (“fake news”) spread (intentionally or unintentionally) also by some news media as well as by hate speech on the news media’s websites and social media sites?
• What can media policy do to ensure democratically valuable media performance (e.g., initiatives to counter disinformation and hate speech)?

Algorithms are capable of influencing nearly every aspect of contemporary journalism, from the production and dissemination of news content to its consumption both by members of the public and other algorithmic actants. Algorithms play an active role in a broader quantitative turn within journalism and are already used to automate the production of hundreds of thousands of articles per year and to quantify audiences into measures that influence manual forms of news production. Algorithms are also employed to personalize content and experiences, leading to responsive distribution and algorithmically curated news environments. Consequently, traditional theoretical models of newswork and news consumption are being challenged amid the proliferation of algorithmic actants, and the resulting reconfiguration of journalistic activities, relationships with audiences, and roles of existing and newly “journalistic” actors. In addition, when investigating these reconfigurations, established research methodologies and data perspectives are equally challenged, calling for innovative computational approaches. However, while the literature at the intersection of algorithms and journalism has grown rapidly in recent years, the area is still in its infancy.

This thematic issue focuses on advancing the theoretical, empirical, and methodological scholarship at that intersection. We invite scholars to explore questions pertaining to how algorithmic actants are impacting attitudes, behaviors, content, discourse, and ethics associated with journalism. In doing so, authors are welcome to engage with either the technical or social aspects of algorithms, or how scholars must adapt existing methods or develop news ones to examine such phenomena.

Relevant questions for this thematic issue include:

• How are emergent algorithmic actants impacting social arrangements, institutionalized structures, practices, (e)valuations of labor, and self-conceptions within organizations or across journalistic spaces?
• To what extent are journalistic roles and functions challenged and/or advanced by algorithmically driven individualization and datafication?
• What new methods—or revisions to existing methods—do we need in order to study news algorithms and automation?
• How can concepts and ideas from fields outside of mass communication be leveraged to advance our understanding of algorithms within journalism?
• Who or what are the visible and transparent intermediaries behind news algorithms and connecting algorithms within an assemblage?
• What are the mythologies around algorithms, computation, and quantification in different contexts, and how might they impact epistemological orientations in those contexts?

Over the past two decades, substantial research has been devoted to how individuals manage their privacy in relation to technological innovations such as social media, recommender systems, wearables, IoT, and smart cities. Increasingly, children are also navigating and experiencing these technologies and their complexities. Because these technological innovations drive on children’s personal information, it is oftentimes assumed that children need to develop certain awarenesses, skills and attitudes that help them to manage their personal data responsibly, thereby safeguarding their personal information.

While there appears to be agreement on the empowering potential of privacy literacy for children, some scholars have lately voiced their concerns over the burden that this responsibility places on children and their capacity for resilience. A pertinent question concerns the role of society in mitigating such data responsibilization, for example by putting the focus on the responsibilities of service providers and other stakeholders, rather than exploring how and to what extent children need to be cognizant, literate, and responsible for their personal information. While a balance between empowerment and protection is suggested, it appears difficult to obtain.

Given that children are key stakeholders in this debate, it is surprising that very little attention has been given to their opinions, perceptions and experiences. This is unfortunate, as their stories may inform about how children themselves perceive the responsibilities of the different actors involved. Moreover, their narratives may inform about how the social positions of children in contemporary digital societies are reflected in this debate. 

This thematic issue of Media and Communication aims to amplify the voices of children and invites scholars to examine their practices, perceptions and opinions with regard to privacy management and data responsibilization. We are especially interested in empirical research that investigates how children think about how their personal information might and should be used, as well as how they define their own and other actors’ rights and obligations, but also welcome critical analyses of the current debate. This thematic issue welcomes submissions on topics involving, among others, sharenting, intimate surveillance, privacy literacy, personalized advertising, social media and social games.

Example questions that are relevant include (but are not limited) to the following:

• What do children think about their parents sharing personal information about them?
• How do children perceive parental monitoring through social media, apps and or wearables?
• In what ways do children experience surveillance in (online) educational contexts (e.g. digital learning environments)? What is their opinion on data collection and usage by schools?
• How do children experience and what do they think about privacy literacy?
• How do children think about personalization and data usage in social games (e.g., Clash Royale, Farmville)?
• What do debates surrounding children and privacy management reveal about contemporary notions of childhood, parenthood, privacy, empowerment and responsibility?

Just about a decade ago, participation in online media was supposed to be a crucial factor in democratic change and a savior for institutionalized—and somewhat congealed—journalism around the world. The hopes for the new options of online participation were high, both in society and science.

Current debates on online communication are in stark contrast to these early hopes: social media seem to be pervaded by hate communication and trolling, communities develop into toxic environments. And democracies around the globe are challenged by a wave of ultra right-wing, religious or ideological campaigns applying a range of online disinformation strategies. In sync to these developments, established information sources and other societal institutions are criticized for spreading misleading information or ‘fake news’—often by exactly the same groups that misuse social networks for their malicious purposes. Some researchers regard this as a double-strategy to undermine existing institutions and set new standards for public communication.

There is no consensus in this debate, though: Scientists have discussed worrying effects of these developments, including a growing polarization, diminishing trust in journalism, and a large-scale degradation of civil discourse. However, there are also critical voices who note a lack of empirical proof, paired with a tendency towards simple explanations that follow an obsession with apocalyptic predictions. They criticize the current fascination in mis-/disinformation and online hate as a form of moral panic that greatly overestimates effects, and some even see the current development as a sign of healthy participation—that includes voices at the extreme sides of the political spectrum.

In short, there is no unitary perspective that can synthesize these disparate viewpoints on ‘dark participation’ in online media. Given the societal relevance of the issues, it is essential to organize the multi-faceted debate—which is the purpose of this thematic issue.

Recent events such as the victories of Trump in the US, Bolsonaro in Brazil, and Brexit in Great Britain, show how the public sphere is no longer configured exclusively by the media, but rather by new actors such as technological platforms (Google, Twitter, Facebook,...) or hyperpartisan media, which face citizens with important challenges that result in a growing polarization.

Polarization and the configuration of echo-chambers, together with the consolidation of filter bubbles, stimulates the creation and distribution of fake news and other forms of disinformation. In the current digital environment, disinformation is amplified and any dissonant voice is expelled from the predominant discourses. While users tend to believe that they act autonomously, evolutionary, cognitive and neurological phenomena induce to confirm their own convictions and to refuse antithetical information. Thus, the illusion of certainty and the extreme identification with the group and the lack of diversity intensify.

In this context, the objective of this themed issue is to deepen knowledge about the dynamics of creation, dissemination and consumption of fake news and other forms of disinformation.

Topics of interest for the issue may be related, but not limited, to the following:

• Genealogy of post-truth and its different expressions: misinformation, disinformation, manipulation, fake-news, conspiracy theories, rumors, memes,...
• Origins and historical evolution of disinformation;
• Fact-checking and digital platforms for verifying public discourse: experiences and results;
• Effects of disinformation on democratic stability;
• Polarization and success of disinformation: perception and influence;
• Reception studies of fake news;
• Neuroscience and disinformation;
• Active audiences and the fight against the spread of false news: counter-narratives and different civic society initiatives;
• Bots and dissemination of fake news: who is behind the massive dissemination of false or manipulative messages?
• Algorithmic transparency: the role of platforms such as Google, Facebook and Twitter in the control of false news;
• Regulation and self-control: viability of regulation;
• News transparency and fact-checkers in the newsrooms;
• Reputation of the sources: Value assignment and social credibility;
• Disinformation and human rights;
• Media literacy and disinformation;
• Trends, styles, and narratives of fake news;
• Dynamics of dissemination;
• Clickbait and other disinformation strategies.

Freedom of expression is regarded as a corner stone of democratic societies. Historically, traditional media has served as the principle forum for the public discourse, which is so imperative for upholding a democracy associated with deliberation and accountability. With the advent of social media and social networking sites, the conditions for this democratic discourse changed in several ways. New forums for political debates and discussions have evolved, forums that are governed by different norms and rules than those that were predominant in the pre-digital media world. Even though the possibility for the public to actively partake in the public discourse has increased significantly, actual participation is still often limited to certain groups and fractions. Audience fragmentation, personalisation of digital media output and the network principle imbedded in social media have nourished apprehensions about echo chambers and balkanization, and in the long run the demise of democratic discourse and democracy itself. The discourse of social media is governed by a logic of its own, different from the logic that we know from traditional media. However, the ramifications of this are not restricted to the social networking sites, the blogs and the discussion forums on internet—they spill over on the traditional media, for instance through the dissemination of fake news and when overinflated storms of opinion get turned into regular news. Furthermore, this is taking place in a social and political context that in many Western societies is undergoing an increasing polarization. This polarization is picked up by different groups on social media where it gets amplified and sometimes distorted. This interaction between traditional democratic discourse, social media and the political climate has altered the conditions for expressing different opinions and ideas in the public sphere. These changing conditions, and the consequences these changes may have on the public’s possibility to exercise their freedom of expression, are the main focus of this issue.

Research has provided consolidating evidence for two processes of entertainment experiences: a hedonic one related to pleasure, suspense, or fun; and a eudaimonic one, resulting from the consumption of moral or meaningful media and associated with feelings of appreciation, elevation, and inspiration (Oliver & Bartsch, 2010; Tamborini et al., 2011; Vorderer, Klimmt, & Ritterfeld, 2004; Wirth, Hofer, & Schramm, 2012)

Inspiring media content motivates self-transcendence (Oliver et al., 2018) and contributes to prosocial behavior (Bailey & Wojdynski, 2015) and positive intergroup relationships. Narratives in movies and news articles can reduce prejudice (Igartua & Frutos, 2017; Oliver, Dillard, Bae, & Tamul, 2012), counter desinformation (Sangalang, Ophir, & Cappella, 2019) and increase attraction to democratic activists (Frischlich, Rieger, Morten, & Bente, 2019).

At the same time, such “inspiring content” can also have a darker side in the context of manipulative communication such as extremist propaganda, populist campaigns, disinformation, or hate speech. For instance, terrorists across the ideological spectrum frame their motivations in a moral way (Hahn, Tamborini, Novotny, Grall, & Klebig, 2018); right-wing populists refer to collective nostalgia for a rose-tainted past in which their country was great and “pure” (Mols & Jetten, 2014) and “narrative” quality can also foster attraction to extremists(Frischlich et al., 2019).

The thematic issue thus seeks to contribute to a more balanced understanding of inspirational media content by both the “good” and “bad” sides of accordant media communication.

References:

Bailey, E., & Wojdynski, B. W. (2015). Effects of “meaningful” entertainment on altruistic behavior: Investigating potential mediators. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 59(4), 603–619. https://doi.org/10.1080/08838151.2015.1093484

Frischlich, L., Rieger, D., Morten, A., & Bente, G. (2019). The power of a good story: Narrative persuasion in extremist propaganda and videos against violent extremism. International Journal of Violence and Conflict, 12(2018), 1-16. https://doi.org/10.4119/UNIBI/ijcv.644

Hahn, L., Tamborini, R., Novotny, E., Grall, C., & Klebig, B. (2018). Applying moral foundations theory to identify terrorist group motivations. Political Psychology, 40(3), 507-522. https://doi.org/10.1111/pops.12525

Igartua, J. J., & Frutos, F. J. (2017). Enhancing attitudes toward stigmatized groups with movies: Mediating and moderating processes of narrative persuasion. International Journal of Communication, 11(1), 158–177.

Mols, F., & Jetten, J. (2014). No guts, no glory: How framing the collective past paves the way for anti-immigrant sentiments. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 43, 74–86. https://doi.org/10/gf3gzh

Oliver, M.-B., & Bartsch, A. (2010). Appreciation as audience response: Exploring entertainment gratifications beyond hedonism. Human Communication Research, 36(1), 53–81. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2958.2009.01368.x

Oliver, M.-B., Dillard, J. P., Bae, K., & Tamul, D. J. (2012). The effect of narrative news format on empathy for stigmatized groups. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 89(2), 205–224. https://doi.org/10/gf3gpd

Oliver, M. B., Raney, A. A., Slater, M. D., Appel, M., Hartmann, T., Bartsch, A., . . . Das, E. (2018). Self-transcendent media experiences: Taking meaningful media to a higher level. Journal of Communication, 68(2), 380-389. https://doi.org/10.1093/joc/jqx020

Sangalang, A., Ophir, Y., & Cappella, J. N. (2019). The potential for narrative correctives to combat misinformation. Journal of Communication, 69(3), 298–319. https://doi.org/10.1093/joc/jqz014

Tamborini, R., Grizzard, M., David Bowman, N., Reinecke, L., Lewis, R. J., & Eden, A. (2011). Media enjoyment as need satisfaction: The contribution of hedonic and nonhedonic needs. Journal of Communication, 61(6), 1025–1042. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1460-2466.2011.01593.x

Vorderer, P., Klimmt, C., & Ritterfeld, U. (2004). Enjoyment: At the heart of media entertainment. Communication Theory, 14(4), 388–408. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2885.2004.tb00321.x

Wirth, W., Hofer, M., & Schramm, H. (2012). Beyond pleasure: Exploring the eudaimonic entertainment experience. Human Communication Research, 38(4), 406–428. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2958.2012.01434.x

Increasing digitization of journalism and other forms of media continue to attract the attention of social scientists and sociological approaches to interpret change and to predict the future for audiences and producers alike. However, emerging forms of surveillance and sousveilliance among and by media producers, privacy amid massive data collection, and globalization at the center of digital communication across continents and economies warrants a revision of critical theory within media and communication studies. While critical theory, which deals with, in the words of Horkeimer, that which attempts to “liberate human begins from the circumstances that enslave them” – promises for much engagement with new technologies and interactions of power systems in media and communication, the area largely remains in select corridors of scholarship and industry discussions. There is a need to revisit (and return to) the works that emerged in the 1970s and 1980s in the U.K. and U.S. not only as a targeted approach against increasing neoliberalism globally but as commentary about the dangers of established social scientific and sociological approaches to politics, advertising, and journalism that failed to question dominant ideologies of the day. The work of scholars most aligned with contemporary attempts at critical scholarship in journalism and media research amid technological change include Stuart Hall, Hanno Hardt, bell hooks, Marx, and, of course, a host of postmodern theorists. This special issue is an attempt to capture the state of critical theory in journalism, media, and communication scholarship to reveal what deeper meanings exist within dominant, normative assessments of journalism and the Fourth Estate, sociological inquiries into journalistic boundary work, and deterministic interpretations of technology that remain at the forefront of popular journalism and media studies. This issue will not argue against the need for normative work that asks difficult questions about technological advancement or positions journalism fully outside of fulfilling its democratic aims. Yet, the predominant position of this issue is to engage and enlighten researchers to ask about and apply critical positions in order to develop those theories, unveil new ideas about current questions, and plow a way forward for critical perspectives in increasingly digital means of communication. This issue welcomes discussions from a variety of media and communication areas, from journalism and advertising to platform studies, social media networks, virtual reality and AI, to political communication.