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Industrial Journalism

Snurb — Friday 27 September 2024 18:17

Relations between News Avoidance and Conspiracist Beliefs

Politics | Polarisation | Journalism | Industrial Journalism | ‘Fake News’ | ECREA 2024 |

The final speaker in this ECREA 2024 session is Dominika Betakova, whose interest is in news avoidance – a growing pattern around the world. Such news avoidance is a multi-dimensional phenomenon, though: it may be intentional, or may simply represent a low level of news consumption – and the people who engage in one or the other practice are not necessarily the same.

Intentional news avoidance may be temporal (e.g. during the COVID-19 pandemic), and can lead to better mental health; it can also be related to greater adherence to misbeliefs, a lack of political knowledge, and less political participation …

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Snurb — Friday 27 September 2024 18:15

Effects of Engagement with the Inconspicuous Content Shared by Conspiracist Actors

Politics | Polarisation | Journalism | Industrial Journalism | ‘Fake News’ | Social Media | ECREA 2024 |

The next speaker in this ECREA 2024 session is Ernesto de León; his focus is on hyperpartisan, alternative, and conspiracy (HAC) media. These are all united by an anti-establishment dimension: they peddle misinformation that has a potential to shape public perceptions. Ernesto points here for example to a strange case of such sites promoting stories about elite sportspeople collapsing on the field; they promoted these stories as part of an anti-vaccine campaign claiming (falsely, of course) a connection between such medical cases and their vaccination with the COVID-19 vaccine.

But such content also circulates on non-HAC media sites, and through …

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Snurb — Friday 27 September 2024 18:14

Connecting Misinformation Perceptions and Anti-Establishment Sentiment

Politics | Polarisation | Journalism | Industrial Journalism | ‘Fake News’ | ECREA 2024 |

The third speaker in this ECREA 2024 session is Michael Hameleers. He begins by highlighting the supposed threat of mis- and disinformation, but also notes that the dissemination of such content is not necessarily very widespread; news users are very concerned about misinformation, however, and about their own susceptibility to such misinformation – they think much of the information they encounter is mis- or disinformation.

This means that we need to focus further on such risk perceptions, and on what groups in society are most likely to hold such perceptions. It seems likely that such perceptions about misinformation are also …

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Snurb — Friday 27 September 2024 18:13

Relations between Alternative and Social Media Use and Conspiracist Beliefs

Politics | Polarisation | Journalism | Industrial Journalism | ‘Fake News’ | Social Media | ECREA 2024 |

The next speaker in this ECREA 2024 session is Peter van Aelst, whose interest is in how news media consumption affects conspiracy theory beliefs. Mediating factors here might include misperception and populist attitudes, and the present paper examines this in the context of conspiracy theories that believe that a small elite of actors deliberately hide the truth about what is happening in the world.

These beliefs might be heightened if people hold existing misperceptions already – e.g. about the efficacy of vaccines, or the impacts of migration –, as well as by populist attitudes that predispose people to be sceptical …

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Snurb — Friday 27 September 2024 18:11

Conspiracy Theory Dynamics across Alternative and Mainstream, Social and News Media Platforms

Politics | Polarisation | Journalism | Industrial Journalism | ‘Fake News’ | Social Media | Facebook | Twitter | ECREA 2024 |

The final day at ECREA 2024 begins for me with a panel on conspiracy theories, and a paper by the great Annett Heft. Her focus is on the diffusion dynamics of conspiracy theories across platforms. She begins by noting the substantial growth in conspiracy theory diffusion, and the severe consequences these ideas can have. Cross-platform activity (involving social media, social messaging, multimedia platforms, alternative news media, and mainstream media) can further heighten this impact.

This project focusses on the two far-right conspiracy theories of the New World Order, with a strong anti-Semitic component, and the Great Replacement / White Genocide …

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Snurb — Thursday 26 September 2024 23:58

Understanding the Three Stages of the Illiberal Public Sphere

Politics | Government | Polarisation | Journalism | Industrial Journalism | Social Media | ECREA 2024 |

The next speakers in this ECREA 2024 session are Sabina Mihelj and Václav Štětka, presenting a new framework for the understanding of current trends towards illiberalism. This focus on illiberalism follows the dismissal of the concept of populism as ill-defined; illiberalism is instead marking a grey zone between democracy and authoritarianism, and communication is a central element in its rise – indeed, there is a need to better investigate the illiberal public sphere.

There are three constitutive features here: the paradoxical emergence of and dependence of illiberalism on liberal democratic institutions and values, and their championing of liberal values such …

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Snurb — Thursday 26 September 2024 23:54

‘Ill Liberalism’ in Bulgaria Following the Tabloidisation of Commercial Media in the 1990s and 2000s

Politics | Polarisation | Journalism | Industrial Journalism | ECREA 2024 |

The next speaker in this ECREA 2024 session is Martin Marinos, whose interest is in populism and the far right in Bulgaria. He begins by challenging the notion of illiberalism, suggesting that the opposition between liberalism and illiberalism is not absolute, and that many countries instead display a kind of ‘ill liberalism’ instead. Historically, too, liberalism has sometimes led to the emergence of far-right regimes, so the border between liberalism and fascism is somewhat porous. Especially on economic matters, there are certainly sometimes parallels between liberalism and far-right authoritarianism in their support for an unrestrained capitalism.

Notably, for instance, the …

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Snurb — Thursday 26 September 2024 20:00

Navigating Uncertainty in the Transitional Media and Political Systems of the Western Balkans

Politics | Government | Polarisation | Journalism | Industrial Journalism | ‘Fake News’ | Social Media | ECREA 2024 |

We continue this second day of the ECREA 2024 conference with the second conference keynote, by Jelena Kleut. Her focus is on uncertainties in transitional media systems. She begins by noting the various present-day communicative disorders – disinformation, political dysfunction, hate speech and abuse, etc. – but also warns us not to lose track of the positive potentials of contemporary communication technologies amongst all the doom and gloom. A balanced assessment of the current situation remains critical.

This points to a considerable level of uncertainty, too – and this can be generative (of research, and of overall progress for society) …

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Snurb — Thursday 26 September 2024 18:08

The Effects of Ideological News Use on Societal Belief Gaps in Sweden

Politics | Polarisation | Journalism | Industrial Journalism | ECREA 2024 |

The final speaker in this ECREA 2024 session is Dennis Andersson, whose interest is in the effect of ideological news use in Sweden. The observation that people hold diametrically opposed beliefs about where society is heading is not new, and predates online and social media use; education and other socioeconomic factors, as well as news media use, are often seen as factors in influencing citizens’ belief structures. Increasingly, sociocultural dimensions – such as attitudes on environmental, gender equality, and migration policies – are also recognised as important dimensions here, however.

These may be reflected in ideological news media consumption patterns …

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Snurb — Thursday 26 September 2024 18:04

Does Greater Media Choice Actually Fragment the Public Sphere?

Politics | Polarisation | Journalism | Industrial Journalism | Social Media | ECREA 2024 |

The second day at ECREA 2024 starts with yet another panel on polarisation, with begins with a paper by Diógenes Lycarião. His interest is in testing the hypothesis that digitalisation and platformisation are fragmenting the public sphere. This is critical since much of the scholarly discussion on this public sphere fragmentation hypothesis to date builds on unverified assumptions. This has two elements: the idea that the expansion of the mediasphere fragments the public sphere, and the suggestion that this then causes phenomena such as ‘echo chambers’ or polarisation.

First, then, is an expansion in media choice actually fragmenting the public …

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