How Russians used credibility heuristics

The study “Harnessing Distrust: News, Credibility Heuristics, and War in an Authoritarian Regime” by Maxim Alyukov from King’s College London looked at how Russian citizens used credibility heuristics to assess regime propaganda during the conflict in Ukraine in 2016-2017. Addressing the current, escalated conflict starting in 2022, the author notes the worrying trend noted by … Continued

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Published: 8 May 2023

ARTICLE: Russian Sputnik’s three strategies against Sweden

The Russian government-sponsored broadcaster Sputnik has consistently attacked Sweden since 2014, Charlotte Wagnsson and Costan Barzanje, both of Swedish Defence University, write. They analysed 208 Sputnik news stories featuring the word “Sweden” in their title, published between 2014-2018. The stories comprised one consistent narrative: “Sweden in decline”. Further, Wagnsson and Barzanje identified a host of … Continued

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Published: 13 Nov 2019

ARTICLE: Sensational news coverage contributes to Islamist radicalization

Mainstream news media can contribute to the radicalization of Muslims into violent Islamists, write Philip Baugut and Katharina Neumann, both of the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich. They interviewed 34 Islamist prisoners and 10 former Islamists over how media and online propaganda had affected their radicalization. Online propaganda by Islamist preachers often derides the Western … Continued

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Published: 16 Oct 2019

ARTICLE: Most mainstream media fell for fake Twitter accounts

Most major American news sources ended up citing Twitter accounts connected to the Russian Internet Research Agency (IRA), a research conducted at the University of Wisconsin-Madison reveals. A team of scholars investigated the appearance of influential Russian-linked Twitter accounts in American news. First, the researchers identified the 100 most active and well-connected Twitter accounts linked … Continued

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Published: 9 Mar 2018
CFP JRN

CFP | 16.4. | Fake news and filter bubbles

The journal Quaderns del CAC, published by the Catalonian Audiovisual Council, is calling for article submissions for its upcoming thematic section on fake news. The section is entitled “Fake news, algorithms and filter bubbles” and it accepts articles written in English, Catalan, and Spanish. The journal is open access. The section is particularly interested in … Continued

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Published: 15 Jan 2018

ARTICLE: Israeli newspapers follow the government line

When reporting the 2014 Gaza War, Israeli newspapers’ narrative closely followed the official line presented by Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), Oren Livio and Shani Cohen-Yechezkely, both of University of Haifa, write. The authors analysed the war’s news coverage in three Israeli online newspapers: Ynet, Nrg, and Haaretz Online. The news coverage was then compared to … Continued

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Published: 10 Jan 2018
Picture: Stop by Sunny Lapin, license CC BY-SA 2.0

ARTICLE: Deciding which news to trust among competing narratives in Ukraine

With contradictory strategic narratives from different parties and governments, propaganda and disinformation, Ukraine’s news media environment has been a difficult one to analyze properly. Joanna Szostek of Royal Holloway, University of London, investigated how Ukrainian people decide where to get their news and what to believe. The author gathered 30 audio-diaries and in-depth interviews with … Continued

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Published: 30 Nov 2017
Picture: untitled by Christina Gottardi, license CC0 1.0

ARTICLE: Institutional constraints cause varying forms of censorship towards critical journalism

Andrew Kennis of Universidad Iberoamericana, México, studied “whether institutional constraints are more powerful than standardized journalistic norms and practices in determining news content”, also looking at news media independence from poweful corporate and state interests in the United States. The author examines the theoretical tension between two models of media analysis – the indexing and … Continued

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Published: 5 Oct 2017
Untitled by Davie Bicker, licence CC0 1.0

ARTICLE: Four types of “fake news”

So-called fake news have become a widely discussed topic especially since the 2016 presidential elections in the United States. The concept and the term, however, are older, write Edson C. Tandoc Jr., Zheng Wei Lim and Richard Ling, all of Nanyang Technological University. The authors searched for scholarly articles using the term and analysed the … Continued

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Published: 4 Sep 2017
CFP JRN

CFP | 31.10. | Why is the modern world so susceptible to fake news?

The journal Policy and Internet is calling for articles for its upcoming special issue on fake news. Entitled “Reframing ‘Fake News’: Architectures, Influence, and Automation”, the issue is scheduled for publication in September 2018. The guest editors outline the issue’s scope as being: “1) the role of platforms and their architectures and interfaces 2) the … Continued

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Published: 1 Sep 2017