Rethinking journalist-politician relations in the age of populism: How outsider politicians delegitimize mainstream journalists

 Journalism, vol 22 issue 11 https://doi.org/10.1177/1464884919887822

Autor: Van Dalen, Arjen;  

Keywords: Key words: Journalist-politician relations; political communication culture; delegitimation; legitimacy; mainstream; outsider. 

Abstract: The relation between journalists and politicians in liberal democracy is traditionally conceptualized as highly institutionalized, based on mutual dependence, and grounded in a shared culture of jointly respected role relations. While this conceptualization provides a fruitful framework to understand the relation between mainstream journalists and politicians, it falls short in explaining the way outsider politicians, such as Beppe Grillo, Donald Trump, Thierry Baudet or Nigel Farage address the mainstream media. Thus, this paper rethinks the relation between journalists and politicians in the light of the Western political-media environment in the 2010s, where the rise of authoritarian populism, the fragmentation of media audiences, and the fading boundaries around the journalistic profession have substantially changed media-politics relations. The paper aims to make a theoretical contribution by conceptualizing the relation between outsider politicians and mainstream journalists as an ongoing negotiation over legitimacy. Central in this conceptualization is a classification of five strategies which outsider politicians use to delegitimize mainstream journalists: attacking their character; connecting them with other institutions which are seen as illegitimate; attacking their ethical standards; challenging the claim that journalists work in the public interest; and questioning the beneficial consequences of their work. The consequences of these delegitimation strategies are discussed.  

Idioma: inglés. 

Publicación: 12 de Noviembre del 2019. 

Volumen: Journalism, vol 22 issue 11.

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Disinformation and the Structural Transformations of the Public Arena: Addressing the Actual Challenges to Democracy

Social Media + Society, January-March 2021, https://doi.org/10.1177/2056305121988

Autor: 

1. Andreas Jungherr; Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Germany; andreas.jungherr@gmail.com;  https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2598-2453
2. Ralph Schroeder; University of Oxford, UK; ralph.schroeder@oii.ox.ac.uk;  https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4229-1585

Keywords: public arena; journalism; gatekeepers; social structures; disinformation. 

Abstract: Current debate is dominated by fears of the threats of digital technology for democracy. One typical example is the perceived threats of malicious actors promoting disinformation through digital channels to sow confusion and exacerbate political divisions. The prominence of the threat of digital disinformation in the public imagination, however, is not supported by empirical findings which instead indicate that disinformation is a limited problem with limited reach among the public. Its prominence in public discourse is instead best understood as a “moral panic.” In this article, we argue that we should shift attention from these evocative but empirically marginal phenomena of deviance connected with digital media toward the structural transformations that give rise to these fears, namely those that have impacted information flows and attention allocation in the public arena. This account centers on structural transformations of the public arena and associated new challenges, especially in relation to gatekeepers, old and new. How the public arena serves actually existing democracy will not be addressed by focusing on disinformation, but rather by addressing structural transformations and the new challenges that arise from these. 

Idioma: inglés. 

Publicación: 21 de enero del 2021.  

Volumen: Social Media + Society, January-March 2021.

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Especial highly cited paper: The catastrophic effects of groundwater intensive exploitation and Megadrought on aquifers in Central Chile: Global change impact projections in water resources based on groundwater balance modeling.

Science of The Total Environment, Volume 914, 1 March 2024 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.169651

Autor: 

1. J. Jódar: Centro Nacional Instituto Geológico y Minero de España, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas IGME-CSIC, España; j.jodar@igme.es; https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8708-0303 View this author’s ORCID profile
2. J. Urrutia: Center for Research and Development of Water Ecosystems, Universidad Bernardo O'Higgins, Santiago, Chile; javier.urrutia@uantof.cl; https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7598-5471 View this author’s ORCID profile
3. C. Herrera; Center for Research and Development of Water Ecosystems, Universidad Bernardo O'Higgins, Santiago, Chile; Universidad Católica del Norte, Antofagasta, Chile; christian.herrera@ubo.cl;  https://orcid.org/0009-0002-1800-0765
4. E. Custodio; Real Academia de Ciencias de España, España; Emeritus Professor Groundwater Hydrology Group, Technical University of Catalonia, Barcelona, Spain; Instituto de Estudios Ambientales y Recursos Naturales (iUNAT), University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria (ULPGC), Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain; emilio.custodio@upc.edu
5. S. Martos-Rosillo; Centro Nacional Instituto Geológico y Minero de España, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas IGME-CSIC, España; s.martos@igme.es; https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8493-7789
6. L.J. Lambán; Centro Nacional Instituto Geológico y Minero de España, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas IGME-CSIC, Spain; javier.lamban@igme.es; https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8493-7789

Keywords: Groundwater depletion, Groundwater management, Groundwater governance, Sustainability, Anthropogenic drought. 

Abstract: Central Chile is undergoing its most severe drought since 2010, affecting ecosystems, water supply, agriculture, and industrial uses. The government's short-term measures, such as increasing groundwater extraction (by 383 % from 1997 to 2022), are exacerbating the situation, leading to long-term hydrological deterioration. The objective of this research is to establish the main processes driving the water table depth evolution within Central Chile over the period 1979–2023. This is done by conducting groundwater balances on five major hydrological basins of Central Chile. For the Megadrought (MD) period (2010−2022), the groundwater level depths reflect not only the recharge variability but, especially, the forcing trend of groundwater withdrawals: they represent 35 % and 65 %, respectively, of the total phreatic level drawdown. This result underlines the dominant role played by groundwater withdrawals in the current delicate state of Central Chile's groundwater resources, while revealing that drought is a new complex phenomenon to deal with, in the midterm, to revert the current water resource trend in Central Chile. Our study moreover presents the impact of climate change in the basin in the framework of six different groundwater withdrawal scenarios. In the worst case (i.e., RCP8.5), the aquifer recharge decreases 18 % with respect to 1979–1997, which is the period assumed to be unaffected by the impact of MD and withdrawals. Such a reduction may be irrelevant in the dynamics of the aquifer system if the current extraction rate does not change. The estimated recovery time needed to reach aquifer conditions equal to those of the unaffected period is approximately 50 years.

Idioma: inglés. 

Publicación: 28 de diciembre del 2023. 

Volumen: Science of The Total Environment, Volume 914, 1 March 2024.

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"TAKING THE TEMPERATURE OF THE ROOM" HOW POLITICAL CAMPAIGNS USE SOCIAL MEDIA TO UNDERSTAND AND REPRESENT PUBLIC OPINION

Public Opinion Quarterly, Volume 84, Issue S1, 2020, Pages 236–256, https://doi.org/10.1093/poq/nfaa012

Autor: McGregor, Shannon C; Hussman School of Journalism, University of North Carolina, Carroll Hall, Chapel Hill, North California, USA; shannon.c.mcgregor@gmail.com; https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3275-0397

Abstract: For most of the twentieth century, public opinion was nearly analogous with polling. Enter social media, which has upended the social, technical, and communication contingencies upon which public opinion is constructed. This study documents how political professionals turn to social media to understand the public, charting important implications for the practice of campaigning as well as the study of public opinion itself. An analysis of in-depth interviews with 13 professionals from 2016 US presidential campaigns details how they use social media to understand and represent public opinion. I map these uses of social media onto a theoretical model, accounting for quantitative and qualitative measurement, for instrumental and symbolic purposes. Campaigns’ use of social media data to infer and symbolize public opinion is a new development in the relationship between campaigns and supporters. These new tools and symbols of public opinion are shaped by campaigns and drive press coverage (McGregor 2019), highlighting the hybrid logic of the political media system (Chadwick 2017). The model I present brings much-needed attention to qualitative data, a novel aspect of social media in understanding public opinion. The use of social media data to understand the public, for all its problems of representativeness, may provide a retort to long-standing criticisms of surveys—specifically that surveys do not reveal hierarchical, social, or public aspects of opinion formation (Blumer 1948; Herbst 1998; Cramer 2016). This model highlights a need to explicate what can—and cannot—be understood about public opinion via social media.

Idioma: inglés. 

Publicación: 15 de julio del 2020

Volumen: Public Opinion Quarterly, Volume 84, Issue S1, 2020, Pages 236–256.

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How behavioural sciences can promote truth, autonomy and democratic discourse online

Nature Human Behaviour, vol 4 noviembre 2020; https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-020-0889-7

Autor: 

1. Philipp Lorenz-Spreen ; Center for Adaptive Rationality, Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Berlin, Germany; lorenz-spreen@mpib-berlin.mpg.de; https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6319-4154
2. Stephan Lewandowsky ; School of Psychological Science and Cabot Institute, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK, School of Psychological Science, University of Western Australia, Perth, Australia; stephan.lewandowsky@bristol.ac.uk; https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1655-2013
3. Cass R. Sunstein; Harvard Law School, Cambridge, MA, USA; csunstei@law.harvard.edu;  https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4194-3008
4. Ralph Hertwig; Center for Adaptive Rationality, Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Berlin, Germany; hertwig@mpib-berlin.mpg.de; https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9908-9556

Keywords: Communication, decision making, psychology, science, technology, social policy. 

Abstract: Public opinion is shaped in significant part by online content, spread via social media and curated algorithmically. The current online ecosystem has been designed predominantly to capture user attention rather than to promote deliberate cognition and autonomous choice; information overload, finely tuned personalization and distorted social cues, in turn, pave the way for manipulation and the spread of false information. How can transparency and autonomy be promoted instead, thus fostering the positive potential of the web? Effective web governance informed by behavioural research is critically needed to empower individuals online. We identify technologically available yet largely untapped cues that can be harnessed to indicate the epistemic quality of online content, the factors underlying algorithmic decisions and the degree of consensus in online debates. We then map out two classes of behavioural interventions—nudging and boosting— that enlist these cues to redesign online environments for informed and autonomous choice.

Idioma: inglés. 

Publicación: 15 de junio del 2020

Volumen: Nature Human Behaviour Vol 4, November 2020.  

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Resilience to online disinformation: A framework for cross-national comparative research

 

The International Journal of Press/Politics, volumen 25 issue 3 https://doi.org/10.1177/1940161219900126 

Autor: 

1. Humprecht, Edda; University of Zurich; edda.humprecht@uzh.ch; https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8127-2088
2. Esser, Frank; University of Zurich; frank.esser@uni-mainz.de;  https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1627-1521
3. Van-Aelst, Peter; University of Antwerp, Belgium; vanaelst@uia.ac.be;  https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2548-0309    

Keywords: online disinformation, theoretical framework, resilience, cross-national comparison, cluster analysis. 

Abstract: Online disinformation is considered a major challenge for modern democracies. It is widely understood as misleading content produced to generate profits, pursue political goals, or maliciously deceive. Our starting point is the assumption that some countries are more resilient to online disinformation than others. To understand what conditions influence this resilience we choose a comparative cross-national approach. In the first step, we develop a theoretical framework that presents these country conditions as theoretical dimensions. In the second step, we translate the dimensions into quantifiable indicators that allow us to measure their significance on a comparative cross-country basis. In the third part of the study, we empirically examine 18 Western democracies. A cluster analysis yields three country groups: one group with high resilience to online disinformation (including the Northern European systems, for instance) and two country groups with low resilience (including the polarized Southern European countries and the United States). In the final part, we discuss the heuristic value of the framework for comparative political communication research in the age of information pollution. 

Idioma: inglés. 

Publicación: 24 de enero del 2020 (publicación electrónica) 

Volumen: The International Journal of Press/Politics, volumen 25 issue 3. 

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Evaluating the fake news problem at the scale of the information ecosystem

Science Advances vol 6, issue 14; https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aay3539

Autor:

1. Jennifer Allen; MIT Sloan School of Management, 100 Main St., Cambridge, Massachusetts 021, USA; jnallen@mit.edu; https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9827-9147
2. Baird Howland; Harmony Labs, New York, USA. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2190-8101
3. Markus Mobius; Microsoft Research New England, 1 Memorial Dr., Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA; mobius@fas.harvard.edu; https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4725-7896
4. David Rothschild; Microsoft Research New York, 641 Avenue of the Americas, 7th Floor, New York, USA; david@researchdmr.com; https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7792-1989
5. Duncan J. Watts; University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA; djw24@columbia.edu; https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5005-4961

Abstract: “Fake news,” broadly defined as false or misleading information masquerading as legitimate news, is frequently asserted to be pervasive online with serious consequences for democracy. Using a unique multimode dataset that comprises a nationally representative sample of mobile, desktop, and television consumption, we refute this conventional wisdom on three levels. First, news consumption of any sort is heavily outweighed by other forms of media consumption, comprising at most 14.2% of Americans’ daily media diets. Second, to the extent that Americans do consume news, it is overwhelmingly from television, which accounts for roughly five times as much as news consumption as online. Third, fake news comprises only 0.15% of Americans’ daily media diet. Our results suggest that the origins of public misinformedness and polarization are more likely to lie in the content of ordinary news or the avoidance of news altogether as they are in overt fakery.

Idioma: Inglés

Publicación: 03 de abril del 2020

Volumen: Science Advances, vol 6 issue 14. 

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¿Quién va a filmar la Historia? Artificio y heterocronía en El movimiento de Benjamín Naishtat

Dixit. Comunicación, Profesión, Conocimiento vol 36 issue 1, enero-junio 2022. https://doi.org/10.22235/d.v36i1.2790 

Autor: Iván Zgaib, Universidad Nacional de Córdoba, Argentina; jizivan@gmail.com; https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0832-1832 

Keywords: cine argentino, cine latinoamericano, artificio, heterocronía, espacialidad

Abstract: El movimiento (2015) by Benjamín Naishtat is part of a constellation of recent Argentine and Latin American films that deal with the historical past, but far from being based on a plausible representation of the period, it puts the illusionist nature of the classical narrative in crisis. With the aim of thinking about the communicating vessels that El movimiento establishes with the history and present of Argentina, this article not only contemplates the discursive constructions, but especially the material surface of its images and sounds. Naishtat’s film, through a series of formal operations that exacerbate artifice, composes an abstract space and a broken temporality made of anachronisms. It is a procedure of estrangement: it attempts to trace another path, another territory, and other rhythms of time. It confronts a narrative’s form: the celebrations of the Bicentennial and the objectivist visions of certain period cinema to crystallize Argentine history.

Resumen: El movimiento (2015) de Benjamín Naishtat se inscribe en una constelación de películas argentinas y latinoamericanas recientes que aborda el pasado histórico, pero que lejos de basarse en una representación verosímil de la época, pone en crisis el carácter ilusionista de la narración clásica. Con el objetivo de pensar los vasos comunicantes que establece El movimiento  con la Historia y el presente de Argentina, este artículo no solo contempla las construcciones discursivas, sino la superficie material de sus imágenes y sonidos. El filme de Naishtat, a través de una serie de operaciones formales que exacerban el artificio, compone un espacio abstracto y una temporalidad rota hecha de anacronismos. Se trata de un procedimiento de enrarecimiento: intenta trazar otro recorrido, otro territorio y otros ritmos del tiempo. Confronta la forma de un relato: las celebraciones del Bicentenario y las visiones objetivistas de cierto cine de época para cristalizar la historia argentina.

Idioma: español. 

Publicación: 24 de mayo del 2022

Volumen: Dixit. Comunicación, Profesión, Conocimiento vol 36 issue 1, enero-junio 2022. 

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