(De)constructing societal threats during times of deep mediatization provides an introduction to a Special Issue based on research presented in the Crisis, Security and Conflict Communication working group at the conference of International Association for Media and Communication Research (IAMCR) in 2021.
We provide an overview of the literature on mediatization of conflict and crises, with a specific focus on how online platforms present both challenges and opportunities to the agenda-setting powers of mainstream media and political institutions.
The list of papers published in our Special Issue are as follows:
Minos-Athanasios Karyotakis (2022) Framing the Macedonian name dispute in Greece: nationalistic journalism and the existential threat, The Communication Review, DOI: 10.1080/10714421.2022.2129125
Zhe Xu & Mengrong Zhang (2022) The “ultimate empathy machine” as technocratic solutionism? Audience reception of the distant refugee crisis through virtual reality, The Communication Review, DOI: 10.1080/10714421.2022.2129118
Olivia Inwood & Michele Zappavigna (2022) A Systemic Functional Linguistics Approach to Analyzing White Supremacist and Conspiratorial Discourse on YouTube, The Communication Review, DOI: 10.1080/10714421.2022.2129122
Gregory Asmolov (2022) Internet regulation and crisis-related resilience: from Covid-19 to existential risks, The Communication Review, DOI: 10.1080/10714421.2022.2129124
We would like to thank all the authors, reviewers and the editorial team at TCR for their help bringing this Special Issue together.
In May 2021, I provided expert testimony to a hearing organised by the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly Committee on Culture, Science, Education and Media. The session organised by Rapporteur Annicka Engblom (EPP/CD) focused on the role of the media in times of crises. The agenda can be found here.
PACE adopted a resolution based on this session this week, which referenced my testimony and several of my publications from CascEff and IMPROVER. It also included my recommendations to protect public service media and compel online platforms to take stronger action on misinformation and disinformation.
Many thanks to Eugen Cibotaru for the invitation to contribute to this resolution. I look forward to giving expert testimony to a PACE hearing on ‘the control of online communication’ next month.
IAMCR Crisis, Security and Conflict Communication Working Group
The International Association for Media and Communication Researchers (IAMCR) are hosting their elections for Section and Working Group Heads over the summer. I am standing as Vice-Chair for the Crisis, Security and Conflict Communication Working Group, with the (online) vote due to close on 14 September (less than two weeks to go).
Details on the WG, and how to vote, can be found here
My election statement can be found below:
I am a Senior Lecturer in Social Media & Digital Society at the University of Sheffield. My research focuses on social media sousveillance, digital activism and the use of digital media to promote better community relations in divided societies. Although I am primarily a qualitative researcher, I have also used Social Network Analysis to explore key broadcasters and gatekeepers within crisis hashtags, such as #PorteOuverte.
I have been a member of IAMCR for the past six years, presenting my work at Leicester, Cartagena, Madrid and Nairobi (virtually) as part of panels organised by the Crisis, Security and Conflict Communication Working Group at Leicester, Cartagena. I have always been particularly impressed by the diversity of the sessions organised by Rikke, Virpi and the team, which demonstrate the broad range of case studies, theoretical frameworks, and research methods in the field of crisis communication. During this time, the Working Group has excelled at facilitating collaborations between communication researchers based in countries as diverse as Australia, Chile, Nigeria and South Africa. A cursory glance at the research interests of members neatly illustrates its value as a ‘meeting point’ for scholars working in journalism studies, media and communication studies, and political communication.
If elected Vice-Chair, I would work with the Chair to promote the activities, accomplishments and publications of Group members. This would include drafting the call for papers, reviewing abstracts and organising panels for the annual conference, co-editing special issues of journals like Media, War and Conflict based on these papers, and increasing membership of the Group. My experience chairing panels at conferences e.g. ECPR, MeCCSA would also enable me to fulfil similar duties at IAMCR events. I believe it is vitally important that the diversity of the Group is consolidated, and would be happy to mentor early career researchers, particularly those from outside Europe and North America, who are new to presenting at international conferences. I would also advocate trying to increase the number of crisis communication practitioners active within the Group, perhaps as part of a seminar series in the run-up to the annual conference.
Drawing on my recent experience as Social Media and Publicity Officer for the MeCCSA Policy Network, I would prioritise building the Group’s social media presence, with a specific focus on using Twitter to curate a list of members and promote their work online. YouTube could also be used to share videos of both in-person and online seminars sponsored by the Group throughout the academic year. Finally, I would explore the possibility of creating a mailing list in order to encourage members to share updates on their research activities. My experience to date suggests that these initiatives would consolidate the identity of the group whilst also encouraging future collaborations between its members.
I am happy to answer any questions from members should they wish to contact me using the details below.
IAMCR Crisis, Security and Conflict Communication Working Group
The International Association for Media and Communication Researchers (IAMCR) are hosting their elections for Section and Working Group Heads over the summer. I am standing as Vice-Chair for the Crisis, Security and Conflict Communication Working Group, with the (online) vote due to close on 14 September. Details on the WG, and how to vote, can be found here
My election statement can be found below:
I am a Senior Lecturer in Social Media & Digital Society at the University of Sheffield. My research focuses on social media sousveillance, digital activism and the use of digital media to promote better community relations in divided societies. Although I am primarily a qualitative researcher, I have also used Social Network Analysis to explore key broadcasters and gatekeepers within crisis hashtags, such as #PorteOuverte.
I have been a member of IAMCR for the past six years, presenting my work at Leicester, Cartagena, Madrid and Nairobi (virtually) as part of panels organised by the Crisis, Security and Conflict Communication Working Group at Leicester, Cartagena. I have always been particularly impressed by the diversity of the sessions organised by Rikke, Virpi and the team, which demonstrate the broad range of case studies, theoretical frameworks, and research methods in the field of crisis communication. During this time, the Working Group has excelled at facilitating collaborations between communication researchers based in countries as diverse as Australia, Chile, Nigeria and South Africa. A cursory glance at the research interests of members neatly illustrates its value as a ‘meeting point’ for scholars working in journalism studies, media and communication studies, and political communication.
If elected Vice-Chair, I would work with the Chair to promote the activities, accomplishments and publications of Group members. This would include drafting the call for papers, reviewing abstracts and organising panels for the annual conference, co-editing special issues of journals like Media, War and Conflict based on these papers, and increasing membership of the Group. My experience chairing panels at conferences e.g. ECPR, MeCCSA would also enable me to fulfil similar duties at IAMCR events. I believe it is vitally important that the diversity of the Group is consolidated, and would be happy to mentor early career researchers, particularly those from outside Europe and North America, who are new to presenting at international conferences. I would also advocate trying to increase the number of crisis communication practitioners active within the Group, perhaps as part of a seminar series in the run-up to the annual conference.
Drawing on my recent experience as Social Media and Publicity Officer for the MeCCSA Policy Network, I would prioritise building the Group’s social media presence, with a specific focus on using Twitter to curate a list of members and promote their work online. YouTube could also be used to share videos of both in-person and online seminars sponsored by the Group throughout the academic year. Finally, I would explore the possibility of creating a mailing list in order to encourage members to share updates on their research activities. My experience to date suggests that these initiatives would consolidate the identity of the group whilst also encouraging future collaborations between its members.
I am happy to answer any questions from members should they wish to contact me using the details below.
Last Friday I provided expert testimony to a hearing organised by the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly Committee on Culture, Science, Education and Media. The session organised by Rapporteur Annicka Engblom (EPP/CD) focused on the role of the media in times of crises. The agenda can be found here.
This morning my Research Associate Giuliana Tiripelli will present our paper “Challenges and opportunities of dialogic communication in crisis situations: Twitter, affective publics and the 2015 Channel Tunnel fire” at the Understanding Transition V: Developing Dialogic Communication conference at the University of Bucharest. The abstract for the paper can be found below:
Challenges and opportunities of dialogic communication in crisis situations: Twitter, affective publics, and the 2015 Channel Tunnel Fire.
Giuliana Tiripelli & Paul Reilly
The ‘ambient storytelling infrastructure’ of Twitter today enables ‘affective publics’ to present their own perspectives on events and issues (Papacharissi, 2015). This phenomenon challenges established top-down communicative dynamics, in which definitional power appeared to lie with institutions, organisations, and journalists rather than citizens, and seemingly presents new opportunities for dialogic communication between these actors in the digital age. At the same time, ‘affective publics’ “are mobilized … through expressions of sentiment” (Papacharissi, 2016: 311), creating new information flows that challenge the ability of organisations and journalists to channel communicative resources that manage public responses to crises. This paper explores this binary role of ‘affective publics’ in contemporary media ecologies through the study of the Twitter debate that emerged during the Channel Tunnel Fire. The incident on 17th January 2015, during which a lorry was set alight by an electricity bolt from overhead power lines, led to the evacuation of the passengers and significant disruption to Eurostar services for the next few days. Specifically, the study analyses the role played by journalists and Eurostar staff in the co-construction of meaning of the incident. A critical thematic analysis was conducted (Braun and Clarke 2006) to explore key themes of the 12,652 English-language tweets posted between the 17th and 19th January 2015. URL links shared in tweets were also classified using an inductively-developed content analysis codebook. Results indicate that Twitter accounts belonging to members of the public, rather than the affected organisation (Eurostar) or emergency institutions, were primarily responsible for starting information flows about the Channel Tunnel fire and subsequent disruptions. Although many tweets expressed gratitude for the professionalism of the company and their prompt reply to customer queries, the study suggested an ‘imbalance’ between organisations and private citizens in the co-creation of meaning of the incident in favour of the latter. One interpretation of this finding was that it was a manifestation of the increasingly important role played by flexible and mobile affective publics in defining news events within the contemporary ecology, often at the expense of less flexible news organisations and political institutions that operate in these online spaces. This may present practical problems for emergency managers during incidents such as the Channel Tunnel fire, especially when the cacophony of views on Twitter make it difficult to both filter and share real-time crisis information on the microblogging site. In this way, the paper adds to the emergent literature on dialogic communication and disasters by considering the extent to which the mobilisation of affective publics online challenges the ability of emergency managers to share accurate real-time information with members of the public during such incidents.
Braun V and Clarke V (2006) Using thematic analysis in psychology. Qualitative Research in Psychology 3(2):77-101.
Papacharissi Z (2015) Affective publics: Sentiment, technology and politics. Oxford University Press.
Papacharissi Z (2016) Affective publics and structures of storytelling: sentiment, events and mediality. Information, Communication & Society 19(3):307-324.
I have written an article entitled “Is the medium more important than the message? Communicating with disaster affected populations in the Information Age”for the publication France Forum, which was published last month (December 2016). The article (published in French) can be viewed below:
I am looking to recruit a part-time RA to assist Dr Dima Atanasova and I on the CascEff project. This position will run for the next few months with the successful candidate helping transcribe interview data and develop a project wiki.
Further information on this role (including salary and closing date) can be found here
For more information on CascEff please see the project website and the university press release
Dima Atanasova and I are currently working on two work packages as part of the EC FP7 funded project ‘CascEff: Modelling of dependencies and cascading effects for emergency management in crisis situations.’ We will be posting regular updates on the project on Twitter between now and the completion of the tasks in December 2015.
Our research has recently been highlighted in two magazines:
I am currently a Work Package leader for a project funded by the EU FP7 programme. The project involves 11 partners from across Europe and focuses on the cascading effects that emerge from crisis situations.
1) Leicester work packages
My two tasks will focus on the communication strategies adopted by incident managers and first responders, with a specific emphasis on how social media is deployed in such situations to provide accurate, real-time information to the public. I look forward to working with Xavier Criel and Safety Centre Europe on this project, which is due to finish in December 2015. Further information on the Leicester-based Research Associate who will assist me on the project will be published in a press release next month.
2) CascEff Website launched
Further information on CascEff can be found on the project website:
3) CascEff on Twitter
CascEff is now on Twitter – please follow the official Twitter account for updates on the project.
About the Project:
CascEff – “Modelling of dependencies and cascading effects for emergency management in crisis situations” is performed and funded under the Seventh Framework Programme (FP7) of the European Union (SEC-2013.4.1-2).
Dr Paul Reilly 