Journal. Media, Volume 7, Issue 1 (March 2026) – 54 articles

What are the nature and characteristics of freelance journalism in the UAE media system? To answer the main research paper question, this study investigates the usage and influence of freelancers in the Emirati media ecosystem through a comparison among the national media organizations. Self-determination theory (SDT) is used to analyze four dimensions of global freelance journalism. The study uses semi-structured interviews with 15 subjects, including three accountable for dealing with freelancers and twelve freelancers who freelance in the U.A.E., and applies a thematic analysis to this data. Additionally, SDT interprets the clustered themes. This paper discovered that freelance journalism is still taking shape in the UAE; the national journalism and media industry are using freelancers who undergo strict standards to add a valuable output within a harmonious, cooperative, and participatory form that influences the Emirati media ecosystem positively. The paradox is that all use their professional autonomy voluntarily to serve the national media’s interests through their contributions in accordance with national trends. However, their usage nationally has decreased to control the budgets with a tendency to depend on Emirates freelancers as new players, which increases the competition with residents and foreign freelancers in particular, who are preferred over domestic freelancers. Full article

This study is grounded in the premise that local media should be understood beyond a market-oriented framework, with their social role theoretically redefined through the concept of symbolic capital. The central thesis is that the survival of local media must be regarded primarily as a matter of public interest and as a prerequisite for strengthening the democratic capacity of communities in contemporary socio-communicative contexts. Representative examples of both active and defunct local media in Serbia were analyzed to assess how, across different historical periods, they contributed to the formation and transformation of symbolic capital in local communities. The theoretical framework draws on Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of symbolic capital and Jürgen Habermas’ theory of the public sphere. The analysis indicates that local media functioned as institutional carriers of legitimacy during the socialist period, as spaces of resistance during the transitional period, and as sources of moral and professional capital in the contemporary era. Nevertheless, current project-based funding models and precarious working conditions undermine their autonomy and long-term sustainability. It is therefore concluded that the disappearance of local media represents not merely an economic problem but also a profound symbolic and democratic loss, as communities lose spaces of trust, dialogue, and public representation. Full article

The image of the journalist in popular culture has increasingly added value to metajournalistic discourse. These portrayals have the power to influence the audience’s perception of real-world journalists and the industry. However, most research analyzes portrayals in film and television. Using Terry Pratchett’s fantasy novel “The Truth,” this study explored how journalism, the media industry, and the journalist are portrayed in fantasy literature. Through a textual analysis of the novel, it was found that the work was a celebratory portrayal of journalism that shared a variety of themes found in film and television portrayals. Though its ethics were challenged throughout the novel, the Ankh-Morpork Times was devoted to the truth, served the watchdog role, and practiced social responsibility. Additionally, the novel’s historical rendition of the penny press highlighted the competitiveness of the media industry, how the public interest was challenged by political and corporate influence, and offered a portrayal of naïve news consumers. Lastly, it was found that William de Worde portrayed an ethical journalist and followed the common investigative journalist trope, but his character strayed from the usual editor, publisher, and male reporter tropes found in film and television. This study also suggests the possibility of looking at negative portrayals of journalism in fiction as a series of critical incidents in which journalism has difficulty fully repairing its paradigm. Full article

This paper explores the use of infographics by Líbero magazine, which is a benchmark of design and the epitome of slow journalism in Spain. The aim is to pinpoint the characteristics and role of these graphic features at a time when visual data journalism is becoming crucial in sports publications. This case study is based on analysing all 52 issues published by Líbero throughout its history. The authors apply a triangulation methodology that combines several techniques: qualitative, including content analysis based on an ad hoc form, designed to formally describe the purposes of the infographics, along with semi-structured in-depth interviews; and qualitative techniques, used to address the statistical aspect. The findings indicate a regular presence of infographics in the early issues, which were complex and large, yet with a strong emphasis on international football matches. However, the last few years of the sample reflect a trend towards gradual simplification of the infographics, together with less frequent use. Data suggest infographics are used to create complex narratives with simple visual compositions in order to improve the reader’s understanding of data that accompanies a journalistic story. This is consistent with Líbero’s commitment to slow journalism, which focuses on detailed explanations and in-depth information. Full article

This study investigates the emotional tone in international news coverage of Saudi women’s empowerment, with a focus on their recruitment into the military as a milestone reform. The analysis is based on 22 news articles published between 2018 and 2023 across Western, regional Saudi and Arab, and non-Western international media outlets, including coverage from Asian media contexts such as China and India. Drawing on sentiment analysis; the study employed lexicon-based tools (LIWC; Bing; and AFINN) alongside thematic analysis using Speak AI to capture both polarity and narrative framing. This triangulated approach addressed the limitations of word-level sentiment tools by integrating contextual and thematic interpretation. The findings reveal clear regional contrasts: Western media predominantly employed negative framings, emphasizing human rights concerns and ongoing gender inequality. In contrast, regional Saudi and Arab outlets highlighted empowerment, modernization, and Vision 2030 alignment, while non-Western international outlets tended to mirror these positive narratives with limited rights-based critique. Asian media presented mixed framings. These results complicate assumptions of a simple East–West divide by showing convergence between regional and non-Western portrayals. The study contributes methodologically by demonstrating how combining polarity-based sentiment tools with thematic analysis provides a more nuanced account of media sentiment, and substantively by revealing how empowerment narratives are unevenly distributed across global media systems. Full article

This study explores how digital media ecosystems shape collective visions of the future under conditions of rapid technological innovation and the growing influence of artificial intelligence (AI). Drawing on a large corpus of social media content comprising 50,036,592 tokens, the research examines institutional narratives and user-generated responses through a hybrid methodological framework. This framework combines information-wave detection, network analysis, semantic and associative modeling (TextAnalyst 2.32), and interpretation supported by a large language model (GPT-5). The methodological contribution of the study lies in the integration of network-based and semantic algorithms with AI-driven analytical tools for the examination of large-scale textual data. The findings indicate that media discourses about the future operate as key mechanisms through which societies interpret the environmental, social, and economic consequences of technological change. Institutional actors promote multiple future-oriented models that often conflict with one another at both discursive and practical levels. In contrast, user-generated content reflects widespread fear, skepticism, and distrust. Prominent themes include nostalgia for the past, anxiety about socio-economic and environmental consequences, and concerns related to expanding forms of digital control. The analysis also reveals divergent perspectives on urban development. Positive narratives emphasize ecological balance, a comfortable urban environment, thoughtfully designed mixed-use development, and solutions to transportation challenges. Negative narratives, by contrast, focus on over-densification, environmental degradation, and the erosion of privacy in technologically saturated urban spaces. Full article

The disruptive effect of digital platforms is forcing media companies to rethink their business models, particularly when it comes to increasing revenues from the audience as a share of their total revenues. Audience engagement has become a key issue for media companies since, without it, there is no basis for the introduction of subscription fees, paywalls of any kind, or schemes for soliciting donations/support. Hungary is no exception in this regard; but Hungarian media companies must also contend with other challenges. In a captured media environment, independent media are struggling to survive and have essentially been relegated to the digital space. However, in the last decade, several projects have been launched in the digital market, and many of these projects have become financially sustainable. This sustainability owes largely to the fact that these media companies have been able to monetise their popularity: the awareness of Hungarian media consumers has increased, and more people are willing to pay for quality content. The present study examines the extent to which news media have been able to build communities around their organisations, as well as the special place these communities occupy for many consumers in Hungary’s illiberal democracy. The paper presents the various forms of community-building used by independent media, and it draws on in-depth interviews to examine how media company managers view the importance of these communities. Full article

UNESCO’s 2030 Agenda recognises education as a strategic pillar for sustainability, underlining the fundamental role that educational institutions need to play in equipping students with theoretical and practical skills geared towards developing best practices in today’s media ecosystem. However, recent technological transformations have not only failed to guarantee the responsible use of media but have also highlighted new challenges that need to be addressed from a media literacy perspective. This paper proposes a methodology that, applied in the fourth and final year of a journalism degree course, is based on relating the filmography of Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne to news content through transmedia strategies. This methodology, employing a tool called Transmedia Quest, aims to foster students’ application of critical reading of reality that leads to an awareness of threats in terms of inequality and the lack of guarantees for fundamental rights. Several conclusions can be drawn from the results, which not only help to understand the tool’s usefulness in this specific study, but also highlight the opportunities it offers for its use in future projects that incorporate similar content, approaches, and methods, in line with both transmedia strategies and the Sustainable Development Goals. Full article

The article examines how framing and actor identity structure attention in short-video politics using a country-level corpus from Ecuador. It assembles 4612 public TikTok videos from official accounts and politically salient hashtags, extracts multimodal text via automatic speech recognition and on-screen OCR, and constructs two continuous indices: a quality index (programmatic, efficacy-oriented content) and a populism index (antagonistic, people-versus-elite cues). Engagement is modeled as a fractional response (binomial GLM with logit link), with robustness checks using OLS on logit(ER) and Poisson counts with an offset for log(plays + 1). Models include affect (positive sentiment and anger), hour/day controls, and actor fixed effects (leader, creator, institution, party, and media). The indices display construct validity: quality aligns with positive/joyful tone and populism with anger. Net of controls, populism is positively and consistently associated with engagement across estimators; quality is small and often null or negative. Effects are heterogeneous: leaders gain under both frames, creators primarily under populism, and media modestly under populism, while institutions face penalties under both, and parties show limited returns. Monthly series reveal event-linked intensification of populism, and hashtag networks are modular, mapping onto institutional, partisan, and creator ecosystems. A design analysis identifies a non-populist pathway—benefit-first micro-explanations, concise captions, targeted hashtags, and joyful/efficacy affect—that raises engagement without antagonism. The study contributes a reproducible, open-source pipeline for survey-free, multimodal framing measurement and clarifies how persona × frame interactions and meso-level discursive structure jointly organize attention in short-video politics. Full article

(1) Background: The incidence and impact of misleading information on public opinion in the field of nutrition and food science, focusing on the mechanisms of dissemination and their potential consequences, are increasingly being explored in academia. It is therefore essential to highlight the importance of studying discourse to understand the contexts and motivations behind the persistent circulation of hoaxes. For this reason, this research compiles and analyses the news content on food fake news published in the web repository of Spanish information verifiers Newtral and Maldita Alimentación. (2) Method: The period analysed extends from the launches of both platforms (2018 and 2021, respectively) to 2024, examining a total of 564 news items using computerised analysis software. (3) Results: The results show three thematic clusters related to the information refuted by Newtral and five clusters belonging to Maldita Alimentación. The findings of this research are consistent with a prevalence of concern for public health; the risk of disease due to poor food management; the role of authorities, especially in the European context; the supervision of food quality and the protection of public health; and the debunking of messages about food properties without scientific evidence. (4) Conclusions: The article highlights the importance of implementing strategies that foster trust in information sources, such as fact-checkers, and encourage the scientific dissemination of food-related content in an accessible manner. Full article

Journalism is an inherently fast-paced and pressure-filled profession with features such as industry competition and reporting on traumatic events that can cause mental health issues for journalists. However, little work has examined the extent to which rapid implementation of new technologies might also contribute to the stress that journalists experience. In this study, I carried out qualitative interviews with working journalists to understand how they manage technostress in their work. The journalists’ experiences indicated that they approach technostress based on different levels within the decision-making process to adopt, reinvent, or reject an innovation. At the individual professional level, journalists used the strategies to adapt and alter technology for their needs and implement new tools when meeting timeliness, not just deadlines; at the social connection level, journalists built off educational encouragement through personal experimentation and engaged with mentors, coworkers, and audience for support; and at the foundational meaning level, journalists took breaks from technologies while acknowledging their downsides and kept humanity at the center of journalistic work. These findings contribute to diffusion of innovations theory by focusing on the ongoing decisions made to manage adverse impacts of a new tool being adopted. Further, the findings showcase that humanity remains central to the journalistic enterprise even in the technology-saturated digital age. Full article

This study aimed to examine the impact of utilizing artificial intelligence techniques on developing media content production skills among media students in three different educational contexts. This study employed a quasi-experimental design with independent groups, involving 90 students distributed across: France (n = 30) from the École Supérieure de Journalisme et de Communication, Egypt (n = 30) from Minia University, and the United Arab Emirates (n = 30) from Al Ain University. Each group received an applied training program integrating AI tools into editing and proofreading, fact-checking and media verification, and digital media production. The results showed significant improvement in all measured skills after the training, with high effect sizes, most notably, France: η² = 0.949, Egypt: η² = 0.912, and the UAE: η² = 0.887. The results also indicated that the French group outperformed the others in the effective use of the tools and the quality of the produced content, followed by the Egyptian and then the Emirati groups. These results underscore the importance of integrating artificial intelligence techniques into media curricula to enhance students’ skills and improve the quality of their media production. Full article

To understand how student journalists handle news coverage surrounding suicide, this study took a case study approach and analyzed how two student newspaper staffs at U.S.-based universities reported on the topic throughout the 2022–2023 academic year, in which multiple student deaths by suicide occurred on each campus. Guided by the literature on trauma in journalism and the Communication Theory of Coping, and through interviews with reporters, editors, and the newspapers’ advisors and a thematic analysis of the newspapers’ coverage during that academic year, we were able to glean insight into how coverage decisions were made, how students navigated such a sensitive topic, and how they enacted care for each other during and after the coverage period. Our findings underscore the pivotal role of the newspaper advisor in helping students navigate such sensitive reporting. Full article

This study explores how institutional- and ideological-level pressures affect both the gatekeeping role and mental well-being of journalists reporting on traumatic incidents, particularly war, conflict, and crime in Pakistan. Using a qualitative research design, the study draws on in-depth interviews with (n = 50) journalists, including Directors, Reporters, Editors, NLEs, Cameramen, and Photographers from print, broadcast, and online media outlets across Pakistan. Participants were selected through purposive and snowball sampling techniques. Thematic analysis was applied, and the data were interpreted through the Hierarchy of Influences (HOI) model, an extension of gatekeeping theory. Findings reveal that official/unofficial sources, government agencies, interest groups, and cultural norms significantly influence journalistic decision-making. Importantly, participants also reported emotional distress, moral injury, and institutional neglect when covering traumatic stories. The study concludes that journalists’ dual pressures from media owners driven by ratings and audience interest in sensationalism not only shapes news content but also contributes to psychological strain and burnout. The head office’s demand for emotionally charged coverage often clashes with reporters’ ethical limits, intensifying the internal conflict between professional duty and emotional resilience. The study argues that traumatic event coverage in Pakistani media is not only ethically complex but also psychologically stressful. It highlights the need for trauma-informed newsroom policies, organizational support, and ethical editorial leadership to protect journalists and their mental health. It contributes to the broader discourse on mental well-being in high-risk journalism, especially in conflict zones. Full article

An emerging body of literature argues how social media significantly shapes behaviours and perceptions related to body image. The main aims of the present study were two: (1) to examine the influence of online exposure to fitspiration and thinspiration images on body image preoccupation in women and men, and (2) to explore the influence of online exposure to these images on appearance-related pressures and the internalization of esthetic ideals by family, peers and traditional media in women and men. A total of 238 subjects (120 women and 118 men) participated in this study. They completed two questionnaires before and after online exposure to fitspiration and thinspiration images. One questionnaire measured body image preoccupation and another one evaluated sociocultural pressure towards body image. The results indicated that exposure to such images negatively affected men’s body image preoccupation and positively affected women’s body image preoccupation. Both groups reduced their adherence to sociocultural attitudes promoting extreme thinness as a beauty standard. Men exhibited increased perceived media-related appearance pressure; women showed no significant change in this variable. This study suggests sex-based results and supports the importance of investigating specifically body image preoccupation to distinguish gender differences related to fitspiration and thinspiration online contents. Full article

The rapid acceleration of artificial intelligence (AI) and, more recently, generative AI is reshaping journalism in ways that extend far beyond earlier forms of news automation. As generative AI tools become widely accessible and capable of processing unstructured data, longstanding definitions of automated journalism—once centered on structured datasets and template-based text generation—are being fundamentally reconfigured. This paper presents the most comprehensive and up-to-date systematized review of automated journalism scholarship, expanding on earlier research by synthesizing 185 peer-reviewed, English studies published between 2012 and 2024 about machine-generated textual news content published online. Through a rigorously designed search strategy across four major social science databases, this review maps how the field’s conceptual, methodological, and geographical contours have transformed as AI and generative AI become increasingly ubiquitous. The findings show a surge of research in 2024 alone, as well as the emergence of more than 150 overlapping terms used to describe AI- and algorithmically generated news, illustrating significant conceptual fragmentation. Despite no overly dominant theories, concepts or frameworks, key themes include credibility and trust, human–machine collaboration, newsroom adoption and institutional logics, transparency and disclosure, and the ethical and regulatory challenges introduced by increasingly sophisticated AI systems. By consolidating patterns, evaluating an expanded selection of key terms, and assessing theoretical and conceptual frameworks, this review demonstrates how AI and especially generative AI reflect the speed of industrial change, but also the lack of shared academic frameworks to make sense of that change. Full article

The disruptive acceleration of Generative Artificial Intelligence (GAI) has amplified the phenomenon of Global Friction (Globofriction), where technological speed undermines informational stability and weakens democratic resilience. Within higher education, this scenario demands training models capable of preparing future communicators to act as guarantors of truth amid automated erosion of discourse. This research evaluates the digital competence of Communication students through an interdisciplinary STEM-SSH (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics—Social Sciences and Humanities) nexus approach based on the Kirkpatrick model. A mixed-methods methodology was employed, analyzing self-perception and cybersecurity data (n = 59), technical performance in the production of interactive infographics (n = 25), and qualitative evidence from reflection forums on systemic risks. The results reveal a “showcase digital competence”: a functional dissonance where future communicators demonstrate technical excellence under academic supervision but maintain negligent habits in their autonomous praxis. The study concludes that, given risks such as data porridge and strategic disinformation, it is urgent to transition toward a model of ethical resilience. This shift is imperative to reclaim the sovereignty of human judgment and ensure the integrity of public debate amidst current technological friction. Full article

Social media platforms have become central arenas for political communication, electoral mobilization, and institutional contestation. This study examines how TikTok, Facebook, and Instagram were used during and after the 2025 Romanian presidential elections to circulate populist, sovereignist, and anti-institutional narratives. Drawing on a mixed-method content analysis of 764 public posts and over 2000 associated comments collected between 1 April and 30 June 2025, the study identifies dominant themes, discursive frames, and forms of user participation across platforms. The findings reveal marked platform-specific differences. TikTok emerges as the primary space for emotionally charged, visually oriented political communication and post-electoral contestation, while Facebook facilitates more argumentative and institution-focused discourse. Instagram plays a marginal role in political communication within the analyzed context. The results further indicate that content challenging the legitimacy of electoral institutions persists beyond the electoral moment and is amplified through coordinated dissemination patterns and interactive forms of participation, including AI-modified visual materials. By integrating thematic, discursive, and participatory analysis in a comparative platform framework, this study contributes to the literature on digital political communication and online populism. It highlights the role of social media platforms as amplifiers of symbolic conflict in democracies undergoing processes of institutional consolidation. Full article

This study investigates the spread of disinformation and perception management on X concerning the Treaty of Lausanne, a pivotal 1923 agreement that defined the borders of modern Türkiye. By analyzing the hashtags #LozanHezimettir and #LozanDarbesi, we explore how social media discourse shapes public understanding of this historical event. Using a mixed-methods approach, we collected tweets containing these hashtags from X Dataset which was released in 2020 and analyzed their content, reach, and engagement metrics. The study applies the Hypodermic Needle Theory and Cultivation Theory to interpret the data, demonstrating that repeated exposure to disinformation influences users’ perceptions of the treaty’s significance. These findings highlight the challenges of maintaining an informed public in the digital age and emphasize the need for enhanced media literacy education. The research offers valuable insights for policymakers, educators, and social media companies in developing strategies to combat the spread of historical disinformation online. Full article

Geothermal energy—despite its potential as a reliable source—has received limited media attention and is less familiar to the public than other renewable technologies. This study is part of a regional interdisciplinary research project and analyzes how geothermal energy has been framed in German news media over the past decade. A quantitative content analysis (n = 452) of the coverage of the five largest regional (focus on Saxony) and four largest national public and private media in Germany between March 2014 and March 2024 was conducted. The results show that coverage on geothermal energy has become more political and increasingly linked to the energy transition, while negative examples and risks associated with the technology receive less attention. Acceptance of geothermal energy in media discourse has grown, and forecasts on the technology are mostly positive. Political stakeholders dominate media coverage, whereas economic experts are mentioned less frequently, and scientists are underrepresented. Reporting on geothermal energy is mostly event-driven and focuses on regional projects. The technology remains rather poorly depicted, particularly regarding broader societal discussions on climate change or energy independence. The results demonstrate a prevailing lack of technological differentiation in media discourse which contributes to a blurred risk perception and limits the communicative potential of shallow geothermal energy as an ecologically sound alternative. Full article

This exploratory project uses muted group theory and qualitative methods to examine the personal and professional experiences of Palestinian journalists in the United States during the ongoing genocide in Gaza. The survey responses and interviews uncovered changes to Palestinians’ professional relationships, the impact of the current political climate in the U.S. on newsrooms, and how these factors have affected reporting experiences. The findings underscore the dangers of attacks on Palestinian voices in journalism and media, and the heightened importance of amplifying Palestinian stories and sources in media coverage. Full article

This research examines the contemporary policy framework through which the European Union seeks to counter-disinformation, situating this agenda within the broader challenges posed by ongoing democratic backsliding. It focuses on the EU media regulatory architecture and addresses the institutional and normative capacity of candidate countries such as Serbia to achieve alignment. The applied theoretical framework conceptualizes the disinformation within the contemporary processes of democratic backsliding and the growth of autocratization. The analysis further explores the regulatory challenges that arise in the context of current autocratization processes. The study is guided by two central research questions: (1) What are the main challenges associated with defining and implementing counter-disinformation policies within the EU and Serbia? (2) How do differences in political systems shape the respective approaches to countering disinformation? The research design combines theoretical source analysis with descriptive comparative methods. The paper maps the principal obstacles that hinder Serbia’s alignment with the EU’s evolving media regulatory framework. Also, the findings highlight several contextual patterns that characterize the approaches to disinformation across EU member states and Serbia. Full article

This article examines how political journalism can distinguish itself in a fast-paced information environment by providing in-depth contextualization and thereby contribute to the functioning of democratic societies in a digitalized world. Focusing on the ‘Causa Brosius-Gersdorf’—a highly polarized controversy surrounding judicial appointments to Germany’s Federal Constitutional Court in July 2025—we ask the following questions: to what extent can German-language podcasts offer in-depth analysis, and which types of contextualization can be observed across different podcast formats? The study is based on a qualitative content analysis of 39 episodes from 15 popular podcasts drawn from the German Spotify Top 200. Drawing on a theoretically grounded analytical framework comprising the categories ‘topics’, ‘dimensions of context’, and ‘relational levels’, we identify distinct types of contextualization. We analyze the distribution of these types using distant reading and interpret salient patterns through close reading. Our results show that the podcasts analyzed offer an in-depth contextualization of the issue, with a focus on political and societal evaluation. In doing so, they provide their audiences with orientation and therefore enable them to form their own well-founded opinions. Since we conducted our analysis at the level of individual statements rather than at the level of the news items themselves, our study advances research on quality in journalism, highlights the role of podcasts in digital transformation, and addresses the democratic value of contextualizing political communication. Full article

As the world grows more and more out of kilter with wars and fake news, the climate crisis is being ignored, leaving eco-media scholars striving to uncover new ways of keeping it firmly in the spotlight. This paper draws on extensive scholarship across eco-film studies, using narratives I have not analysed before—The Age of Stupid and Zone of Interest—to speak to contrasting ways of representing and communicating the crisis. While in the academy and within particular strands of environmental communications (EC), eco-textual analysis is often sidelined and replaced with a focus on empirical audience and behavioural research, together with more political economy types of investigations. Nevertheless, there remains a central place for understanding and appreciating how stories and images function, both in stylistic and thematic terms, while deploying new creative imaginaries to represent the climate crisis and provoke debate over future, more sustainable models of living. These readings will be analysed through an ethics of care lens while being underpinned by environmental media literacy, which can be argued to drive pro-active engagement and consideration. Full article

In the context of polarized media discourse, this study examines how outlets with distinct political leanings constructed multimodal representations of the 2025 Los Angeles protests. Adopting a corpus-assisted Multimodal Critical Discourse Analysis (MCDA) framework, this study integrates Entman’s framing theory with Kress and van Leeuwen’s visual grammar to analyze news coverage of the protests. The results reveal a divergence in multimodal strategies. Fox News employs a delegitimization frame through a dominant strategy of reinforcement, where images serve as direct evidence for textual claims. Conversely, CNN constructs a conditional legitimacy frame via a more nuanced strategy, through which the outlet strategically utilizes multimodal contradiction to negotiate with the “protest paradigm” and mitigate the visual reality of disorder. The findings demonstrate how partisan media leverage distinct multimodal strategies to reconstruct opposing social realities. The study contributes to political discourse research by going beyond textual bias to reveal how multimodal strategies function in media polarization environments. Full article

This study explores the intersection of social advocacy and commercial brand endorsements, with a particular focus on the role of gender in shaping these dynamics. Drawing from Social Role Theory, the study examines how male and female social media influencers engage in advocacy, their motivations, and the strategies they employ when balancing activism with commercial interests. Using qualitative methods, in-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with 20 social media influencers (10 male, 10 female) recruited from diverse geographic regions across Africa, Asia, the Americas, and Europe. A reflexive thematic analysis of the interview data reveals significant gender differences in advocacy approaches. Female influencers tend to engage in social causes with a strong relational and emotional investment. In contrast, male influencers approach advocacy with cautious engagement, often prioritizing objectivity and risk management. In examining the intersection of brand endorsements and advocacy, the study finds that female influencers emphasize ethical consistency and audience trust, aligning brand partnerships with their social values. Male influencers, on the other hand, view advocacy as a strategic asset that enhances brand reputation while maintaining professional neutrality. The research also offers practical implications for brands considering hiring influencers who engage in social cause advocacy. Full article

The phenomenon of daily news podcasts, which has emerged due to the success of The Daily, launched by The New York Times in 2017, has spread to major newspapers around the world in just a few years. This research aims to explore this phenomenon and contribute new knowledge regarding the digital transformation of the written press. To analyze the objectives, characteristics, and production routines of daily news podcasts, several in-depth interviews were conducted, along with a content analysis of a sample of episodes produced by the Spanish newspapers ABC, El Mundo, and El País, which were selected due to their prominence. The results show that these podcasts have emerged in Spain to reinforce brand awareness and increase audience share, and, due to their impressive audience figures, they have become well-established news products. In newsrooms, specialized teams seek the cooperation of executives, correspondents, and special correspondents, who have taken a leading role in production routines. Full article

This study explores the role of TikTok in shaping emotions and communicative dynamics within the broader context of digital culture. The research is grounded in a theoretical framework that traces the shift from a linear communication model to a participatory and convergent ecosystem, characterized by user-generated content and horizontal interaction. Drawing on the concept of digital affordances, the analysis examines how comments on TikTok serve as a crucial dimension, simultaneously driving the algorithmic visibility of content and fostering the construction of social bonds. The study employs a quantitative, descriptive approach, conducting content analysis across three dimensions (syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic) on a corpus of 4206 comments drawn from four self-help videos by influencers Irene Albacete, Daniel Habif, and Yoroi. Additionally, a structured survey of 336 participants, based on a Likert scale, was administered to assess perceptions and emotions associated with these contents. The findings reveal that comments function as interaction multipliers that amplify algorithmic dissemination, generating opportunities for democratizing visibility while also posing risks of reinforcing echo chambers and cognitive biases. Moreover, TikTok demonstrates a dual emotional impact: while it fosters supportive communities and enhances socioemotional skills, it can also intensify challenges such as anxiety, low self-esteem, and large-scale negative emotional contagion. In conclusion, TikTok emerges as a central arena of contemporary digital experience, where algorithmic logic and user participation coexist within a landscape of tension between inclusion and risk. These findings underscore the need for conscious, critical engagement with digital platforms, as well as the ethical responsibility of algorithmic systems in shaping social and emotional life in the digital era. Full article

This paper examines how the Malka Leifer child sexual abuse crisis, mediatised across Australian mainstream, local and social media, impacted the Australian Jewish community. Guided by framing theory, this study uses mixed methods: a news framing analysis of ABC, The Age, the Herald Sun and the Australian Jewish News across four critical discourse moments, and “peer conversation” focus groups across Jewish denominations. Findings reveal that, despite news media’s intentions, coverage consistently adopted an “otherness” frame when reporting Jewish community issues. Such simplified and limited approaches to news framing contrast with the multi-faceted nature of the ethnoreligious Jewish identity, exacerbating vulnerability in a community already navigating the legacies of the Australian Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, and triggering responses ranging from engagement to unjustified notions of shame. The article argues that more reflexive reporting practices are needed to recognise the community’s multidimensional identities and mitigate harm in future public crises. Full article