Global Crises and the Media – serie

Citizen Journalism: Global Perspectives examines the spontaneous actions of ordinary people, caught up in extraordinary events, who felt compelled to adopt the role of a news reporter. This collection of twenty-one original, thought-provoking chapters investigates citizen journalism in the West, including the United States, United Kingdom, Europe, and Australia, as well as its development in a variety of other national contexts around the globe, including Brazil, China, India, Iran, Iraq, Kenya, Palestine, South Korea, Vietnam, and even Antarctica. It engages with several of the most significant topics for this important area of inquiry from fresh, challenging perspectives. Its aim is to assess the contribution of citizen journalism to crisis reporting, and to encourage new forms of dialogue and debate about how it may be improved in future.

Citizen Journalism: Global Perspectives examines the spontaneous actions of ordinary people, caught up in extraordinary events, who felt compelled to adopt the role of a news reporter. This collection of twenty-one original, thought-provoking chapters investigates citizen journalism in the West, including the United States, United Kingdom, Europe, and Australia, as well as its development in a variety of other national contexts around the globe, including Brazil, China, India, Iran, Iraq, Kenya, Palestine, South Korea, Vietnam, and even Antarctica. It engages with several of the most significant topics for this important area of inquiry from fresh, challenging perspectives. Its aim is to assess the contribution of citizen journalism to crisis reporting, and to encourage new forms of dialogue and debate about how it may be improved in future.

Throughout the world, the mass media are responsible for shaping the form and content of experiences. In this book, David L. Altheide examines how the mass media, including news and popular culture, have cast terrorism, propaganda and social control post 9/11. Altheide shows how fear works with terrorism to alter discourse, social meanings, and our sense of being in the world. Emphasis is placed on the different institutional interventions and how these particular stories become framed and inform the wider media narratives of terror. The author argues that post 9/11 we are witnessing the emergence of new communication formats that not only constitute counter-narratives, but also shape future communicative experience. The text is suitable for scholars and students interested in the ongoing relationship between the media and terror post 9/11.

Throughout the world, the mass media are responsible for shaping the form and content of experiences. In this book, David L. Altheide examines how the mass media, including news and popular culture, have cast terrorism, propaganda and social control post 9/11. Altheide shows how fear works with terrorism to alter discourse, social meanings, and our sense of being in the world. Emphasis is placed on the different institutional interventions and how these particular stories become framed and inform the wider media narratives of terror. The author argues that post 9/11 we are witnessing the emergence of new communication formats that not only constitute counter-narratives, but also shape future communicative experience. The text is suitable for scholars and students interested in the ongoing relationship between the media and terror post 9/11.

Climate Change and the Media brings together an international group of scholars to discuss one of the most important issues in human history: climate change. Since public understanding of the issue relies heavily on media coverage, the media plays a pivotal role in the way we address it. This edited collection – the first scholarly work to examine the relationship between climate change and the media – examines the changing nature of media coverage around the world, from the USA, the UK, and Europe, to China, Australasia, and the developing world. Chapters consider the impact of public relations and fictional programming, the relationship between public understanding and media coverage, and the impact of the media industries themselves on climate change. At a time when governments must take action to alleviate the catastrophic risk that climate change poses, this collection expertly details the pivotal role the media plays in this most fundamental of issues.

Climate Change and the Media brings together an international group of scholars to discuss one of the most important issues in human history: climate change. Since public understanding of the issue relies heavily on media coverage, the media plays a pivotal role in the way we address it. This edited collection – the first scholarly work to examine the relationship between climate change and the media – examines the changing nature of media coverage around the world, from the USA, the UK, and Europe, to China, Australasia, and the developing world. Chapters consider the impact of public relations and fictional programming, the relationship between public understanding and media coverage, and the impact of the media industries themselves on climate change. At a time when governments must take action to alleviate the catastrophic risk that climate change poses, this collection expertly details the pivotal role the media plays in this most fundamental of issues.

Migrations and the Media critically explores the global reporting of «migration crises,» bringing together a range of original interdisciplinary research from the fields of migration studies and journalism, media and cultural studies. Its chapters examine, empirically and theoretically, some of the most important contemporary political, cultural and social issues with which migration is entwined, developing existing and new conceptual understandings of how forced migration and other instances of migration are represented and constructed as «crises» in different international contexts, including within news narratives on human trafficking and smuggling, asylum seeking and humanitarian reporting, «climate refugees,» undocumented and economic migrants, and in election debates and policy making. This edited volume also examines the reporting practices through which migration coverage is produced, including the rights and responsibilities of journalism and the presuppositions and pressures upon journalists working in this area.

Disasters in today’s globalized world are becoming not only more frequent but, often, more catastrophic. The media play a critical role in communicating and making sense of these cataclysmic events. This book offers unique insights into how news media today make disasters culturally meaningful and politically important, drawing on cutting-edge theoretical work and recent examples. It looks at how globalization is affecting the meanings of disaster but also considers the continued relevance of nations and their citizens as interpretive frameworks. It examines how journalists’ witnessing of disasters is changing in response to new technologies, including social media, and how the ideal of objectivity might be challenged by new, more emotional and more compassionate forms of story-telling premised on an injunction to care. Ultimately, the book calls attention to the media possibilities for addressing disasters as global social, political, cultural and economic events in which we all have a stake.

Disasters in today’s globalized world are becoming not only more frequent but, often, more catastrophic. The media play a critical role in communicating and making sense of these cataclysmic events. This book offers unique insights into how news media today make disasters culturally meaningful and politically important, drawing on cutting-edge theoretical work and recent examples. It looks at how globalization is affecting the meanings of disaster but also considers the continued relevance of nations and their citizens as interpretive frameworks. It examines how journalists’ witnessing of disasters is changing in response to new technologies, including social media, and how the ideal of objectivity might be challenged by new, more emotional and more compassionate forms of story-telling premised on an injunction to care. Ultimately, the book calls attention to the media possibilities for addressing disasters as global social, political, cultural and economic events in which we all have a stake.

Recent instances of global crisis reporting on climate change and the financial crisis are early embryos of a new form of journalism that is increasingly needed in global times: global journalism. Instead of associating global journalism with national comparisons of media systems or defining it as an ethically «corrective» form of journalism, Peter Berglez sets out to develop the idea of global journalism as an epistemological updating of everyday mainstream news media. He theoretically understands and explains global journalism as a concrete practice, which can be applied in research, training, and reporting. He argues that the future of professional news journalism is about leaving behind the dominant national outlook for the sake of a more integrated (global) outlook on society.Emerging examples of global journalism are analyzed throughout the book alongside the historical background and the challenges it faces.

Recent instances of global crisis reporting on climate change and the financial crisis are early embryos of a new form of journalism that is increasingly needed in global times: global journalism. Instead of associating global journalism with national comparisons of media systems or defining it as an ethically «corrective» form of journalism, Peter Berglez sets out to develop the idea of global journalism as an epistemological updating of everyday mainstream news media. He theoretically understands and explains global journalism as a concrete practice, which can be applied in research, training, and reporting. He argues that the future of professional news journalism is about leaving behind the dominant national outlook for the sake of a more integrated (global) outlook on society.Emerging examples of global journalism are analyzed throughout the book alongside the historical background and the challenges it faces.

Offering a comprehensive analysis of mediated representations of global pandemics, this book engages with the construction, management, and classification of difference in the global context of a pandemic, to address what it means – culturally, politically, and economically – to live in an infected, diseased body. Marina Levina argues that mediated representations are essential in translating and making sense of difference as a category of subjectivity and as a mode of organizing and distributing change. Using textual analysis of media texts on pandemics and disease, she illustrates how they represent a larger mediascape that drafts stories of global instabilities and global health. Levina explains how the stories we tell about disease matter; that the media is instrumental in constructing and disseminating these stories; and that mediated narratives of pandemics are rooted in global flows of policies, commerce, and populations. Pandemics are, by definition, global crises.

Offering a comprehensive analysis of mediated representations of global pandemics, this book engages with the construction, management, and classification of difference in the global context of a pandemic, to address what it means – culturally, politically, and economically – to live in an infected, diseased body. Marina Levina argues that mediated representations are essential in translating and making sense of difference as a category of subjectivity and as a mode of organizing and distributing change. Using textual analysis of media texts on pandemics and disease, she illustrates how they represent a larger mediascape that drafts stories of global instabilities and global health. Levina explains how the stories we tell about disease matter; that the media is instrumental in constructing and disseminating these stories; and that mediated narratives of pandemics are rooted in global flows of policies, commerce, and populations. Pandemics are, by definition, global crises.

Has the hype associated with the «revolutionary» potential of the World Wide Web and digital media for environmental activism been muted by the past two decades of lived experience? What are the empirical realities of the prevailing media landscape? Using a range of related disciplinary perspectives, the contributors to this book analyze and explain the complicated relationship between environmental conflict and the media. They shine light on why media are central to historical and contemporary conceptions of power and politics in the context of local, national and global issues and outline the emerging mixture of innovation and reliance on established strategies in environmental campaigns.With cases drawn from different sections of the globe – Australia, the United Kingdom, the United States, Europe, Latin America, China, Japan, the Pacific Islands, Africa – the book demonstrates how conflicts emanate from and flow across multiple sites, regions and media platforms and examines the role of the media in helping to structure collective discussion, debate and decision-making.

The second volume of Citizen Journalism: Global Perspectives seeks to build upon the agenda set in motion by the first volume, namely by: Offering an overview of key developments in citizen journalism since 2008, including the use of social media in crisis reporting; Providing a new set of case studies highlighting important instances of citizen reporting of crisis events in a complementary range of national contexts; Introducing new ideas, concepts and frameworks for the study of citizen journalism; Evaluating current academic and journalistic debates regarding the growing significance of citizen journalism for globalising news cultures. This book expands on the first volume by offering new investigations of citizen journalism in the United States, United Kingdom, China, India and Iran, as well as offering fresh perspectives from national contexts around the globe, including Algeria, Columbia, Egypt, Haiti, Indonesia and West Papua, Italy, Japan, Lebanon, Myanmar/Burma, New Zealand, Norway, Palestine, Puerto Rico, Russia, Singapore, Syria and Zimbabwe.

The second volume of Citizen Journalism: Global Perspectives seeks to build upon the agenda set in motion by the first volume, namely by: Offering an overview of key developments in citizen journalism since 2008, including the use of social media in crisis reporting; Providing a new set of case studies highlighting important instances of citizen reporting of crisis events in a complementary range of national contexts; Introducing new ideas, concepts and frameworks for the study of citizen journalism; Evaluating current academic and journalistic debates regarding the growing significance of citizen journalism for globalising news cultures. This book expands on the first volume by offering new investigations of citizen journalism in the United States, United Kingdom, China, India and Iran, as well as offering fresh perspectives from national contexts around the globe, including Algeria, Columbia, Egypt, Haiti, Indonesia and West Papua, Italy, Japan, Lebanon, Myanmar/Burma, New Zealand, Norway, Palestine, Puerto Rico, Russia, Singapore, Syria and Zimbabwe.

HIV/AIDS is a global health crisis of unprecedented proportions. Afflicting millions worldwide, its social, political, economic, and ethical dimensions have rendered explicit the vast inequalities of our «negatively globalized planet». Since the late 1990s, a major feature of the crisis has been the dispute over intellectual property protection and medicines access.In this book, Thomas Owen examines the mediatization of this dispute. Weaving together contemporary media theory and interdisciplinary research with computer-assisted news analysis and interviews with journalists and civil society campaigners, the book illuminates the intersecting constitutive relationships between global crises, global governance, and global media. In a context of changing media technologies, logics, and practices, this book observes where the mediatized conflict surrounding global medicines access has at times consolidated elite political economic power, and at other times provided civil society campaigners their greatest opportunities for global social change.With an interdisciplinary approach, this book is suitable for courses on global media communication and global journalism, as well as advanced undergraduate and postgraduate courses in public health communication, political communication, social movement studies, and international relations.

Communication and Political Crisis explores the role of the global media in a period of intensifying geopolitical conflict. Through case studies drawn from domestic and international political crises such as the conflicts in the Middle East and Ukraine, leading media scholar Brian McNair argues that the digitized, globalized public sphere now confronted by all political actors has produced new opportunities for social progress and democratic reform, as well as new channels for state propaganda and terrorist spectaculars such as those performed by the Islamic State and Al Qaeda. In this major work, McNair argues that the role of digital communication will be crucial in determining the outcome of pressing global issues such as the future of feminism and gay rights, freedom of speech and media, and democracy itself.

Communication and Political Crisis explores the role of the global media in a period of intensifying geopolitical conflict. Through case studies drawn from domestic and international political crises such as the conflicts in the Middle East and Ukraine, leading media scholar Brian McNair argues that the digitized, globalized public sphere now confronted by all political actors has produced new opportunities for social progress and democratic reform, as well as new channels for state propaganda and terrorist spectaculars such as those performed by the Islamic State and Al Qaeda. In this major work, McNair argues that the role of digital communication will be crucial in determining the outcome of pressing global issues such as the future of feminism and gay rights, freedom of speech and media, and democracy itself.

Global News explores how media representation is conceived and enacted in a world of diversity and transborder flows. Among the ‘new media’ crowding the global mediascape are influential television outlets that promise viewers alternative vantage points to those of established Western broadcasters. The different worlds depicted by Al Jazeera English and Russia Today are compared with those of CNN International and BBC World. At a time when media organizations are slashing their budgets for international reporting, these channels represent a spectrum of financing solutions and relations to political power, being variously privately-, publicly-, or state-owned, backed by corporations, democratic states, authoritarian regimes, and ruling dynasties. Despite their differences, however, they have much in common. Their journalists espouse the universal values of professionalism and objectivity and speak to their global audiences in English. This book explores the different theoretical worlds of global media studies, takes a rare look at content, has a comparative perspective, and moves beyond the conflict frame that has dominated much of the literature in the field.

Global News explores how media representation is conceived and enacted in a world of diversity and transborder flows. Among the ‘new media’ crowding the global mediascape are influential television outlets that promise viewers alternative vantage points to those of established Western broadcasters. The different worlds depicted by Al Jazeera English and Russia Today are compared with those of CNN International and BBC World. At a time when media organizations are slashing their budgets for international reporting, these channels represent a spectrum of financing solutions and relations to political power, being variously privately-, publicly-, or state-owned, backed by corporations, democratic states, authoritarian regimes, and ruling dynasties. Despite their differences, however, they have much in common. Their journalists espouse the universal values of professionalism and objectivity and speak to their global audiences in English. This book explores the different theoretical worlds of global media studies, takes a rare look at content, has a comparative perspective, and moves beyond the conflict frame that has dominated much of the literature in the field.

With developments in media technologies creating new opportunities and challenges for social movements to emerge and mobilize, this book is a timely and necessary examination of how organized labour and workers movements are engaging with this shifting environment. Based on extensive empirical research into emerging migrant and low-wage workers movements and their media practices, this book takes a critical look at the nature of worker resistance to ever-growing global corporate power in a digital age. Situating trade unionism in historical context, the book considers other forms of worker organizations and unionism, including global unionism, social movement unionism, community unionism, and syndicalist unionism, all of which have become increasingly relevant in a digitized world-system. At a time when the labour movement is said to be in crisis, this book is essential reading for anyone interested in the state of the labour movement, the future of unions, and the possibilities for challenging corporate exploitation of workers today.

With developments in media technologies creating new opportunities and challenges for social movements to emerge and mobilize, this book is a timely and necessary examination of how organized labour and workers movements are engaging with this shifting environment. Based on extensive empirical research into emerging migrant and low-wage workers movements and their media practices, this book takes a critical look at the nature of worker resistance to ever-growing global corporate power in a digital age. Situating trade unionism in historical context, the book considers other forms of worker organizations and unionism, including global unionism, social movement unionism, community unionism, and syndicalist unionism, all of which have become increasingly relevant in a digitized world-system. At a time when the labour movement is said to be in crisis, this book is essential reading for anyone interested in the state of the labour movement, the future of unions, and the possibilities for challenging corporate exploitation of workers today.

Humanitarianism, Communications and Change is the first book to explore humanitarianism in today’s rapidly changing media and communications environment. Based on the latest academic thinking alongside a range of professional, expert and insider views, the book brings together some of the most authoritative voices in the field today. It examines how the fast-changing nature of communications throws up new challenges but also new possibilities for humanitarian relief and intervention. It includes case studies deployed in recent humanitarian crises, and significant new communication developments including social media, crisis mapping, SMS alerts, big data and new hybrid communications. And against the backdrop of an increasingly globalized and threat-filled world, the book explores how media and communications, both old and new, are challenging traditional relations of communication power.

Humanitarianism, Communications and Change is the first book to explore humanitarianism in today’s rapidly changing media and communications environment. Based on the latest academic thinking alongside a range of professional, expert and insider views, the book brings together some of the most authoritative voices in the field today. It examines how the fast-changing nature of communications throws up new challenges but also new possibilities for humanitarian relief and intervention. It includes case studies deployed in recent humanitarian crises, and significant new communication developments including social media, crisis mapping, SMS alerts, big data and new hybrid communications. And against the backdrop of an increasingly globalized and threat-filled world, the book explores how media and communications, both old and new, are challenging traditional relations of communication power.

This book engages with the mediatized dynamics of political, military and cultural conflicts. In today’s global and converging media environment, the interrelationship between media and conflict has been altered and intensified. No longer limited to the realms of journalism and political communication, various forms of new media have allowed other social actors to communicate and act through media networks. Thus, the media not only play an important role by reporting conflicts; they have also become co-constitutive of the ways conflicts develop and spread.The first part of the book, Transnational Networks, addresses the opportunities and challenges posed by transnational media to actors seeking to engage in and manage conflicts through new media platforms. The second part, Mobilising the Personal: Crossing Public and Private Boundaries, concerns the ways in which media framings of conflicts often revolve around personal aspects of public figures. The third part, Military, War, and Media, engages with a classic theme of media studies – the power relationship between media, state, and military – but in light of the mediatized condition of modern warfare, in which the media have become an integrated part of military strategies.The book develops new theoretical arguments and a series of empirical studies that are essential reading for students and scholars interested in the complex roles of media in contemporary conflicts.

This book engages with the mediatized dynamics of political, military and cultural conflicts. In today’s global and converging media environment, the interrelationship between media and conflict has been altered and intensified. No longer limited to the realms of journalism and political communication, various forms of new media have allowed other social actors to communicate and act through media networks. Thus, the media not only play an important role by reporting conflicts; they have also become co-constitutive of the ways conflicts develop and spread.The first part of the book, Transnational Networks, addresses the opportunities and challenges posed by transnational media to actors seeking to engage in and manage conflicts through new media platforms. The second part, Mobilising the Personal: Crossing Public and Private Boundaries, concerns the ways in which media framings of conflicts often revolve around personal aspects of public figures. The third part, Military, War, and Media, engages with a classic theme of media studies – the power relationship between media, state, and military – but in light of the mediatized condition of modern warfare, in which the media have become an integrated part of military strategies.The book develops new theoretical arguments and a series of empirical studies that are essential reading for students and scholars interested in the complex roles of media in contemporary conflicts.

Reporting Human Rights provides a systematic examination of human rights news and reporting practices from inside the world of television news production. From an interdisciplinary perspective, the book discusses the potential of journalism in contributing to human rights protection, awareness and debate, in ignoring, silencing or misrepresenting human rights issues around the world or, in extreme situations, in inciting hatred, genocide and crimes against humanity. It provides insight into how journalists translate human rights issues, revealing different reporting patterns and levels of detail in reporting, and suggesting different levels of engagement with human rights problems. The book explains the most important factors that encourage or limit the coverage of human rights news. Grounded in a close examination of the news production processes and key moments where possible human rights stories are contemplated, decided or eventually ignored, the book opens up new insights into the complexities and constraints of human rights reporting today.

How are media and communications transforming armed conflicts? How are conflicts made visible in the media in different national and transnational settings? How does the media serve as a means by which various actors manage and communicate conflict? These are some of the questions addressed in this book. Using a variety of disciplinary perspectives and analytical approaches, contributors discuss the complex, multi-level Ukraine conflict as it is imagined and enacted in and through various media. Covering a wide range of media forms and content, including television news, newspapers, PR campaigns, and social media content, they offer new, empirically grounded insight into the ways in which traditional mass media and new media forms are involved in narrating and shaping conflict. This book is suitable for students of conflict and media courses in journalism, media and communication, politics, security, and Russian and Eastern European studies.