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Social Sciences
Special Issues
Media and Nationalism in the Network Society
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Media and Nationalism in the Network Society

A special issue of Social Sciences (ISSN 2076-0760).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 December 2018) | Viewed by 24284

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Martina Topic

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Guest Editor
Leeds Business School, Leeds Beckett University, Leeds, UK
Interests: media and journalism studies (with special focus on journalism practice and agenda setting theory); public relations history; women’s studies
Dr. Niamh Kirk

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Guest Editor
School of Communications, Dublin City University, Dublin, Ireland
Interests: media studies; mass communication; communication theory; cultural studies; new media

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Articles are invited for this Special Issue of Social Sciences on the theme of media and nationalism in a network society. According to the network society theory eloquently elaborated by Van Dijk and Castells, in an age of hyper-connectivity and blurred cultural boundaries, those who are not part of the network society are becoming unemployable and thus turn to national as opposed to global and cast so-called protest votes. Thus, the past decade has witnessed an upsurge of nationalism in the West, with the rise of the Far Right movement. This eventually resulted with victories of nationalist parties, national sovereign governance as opposed to transnational collaborations, seclusion as opposed to connectivity and inclusion, demise of equality and diversity policies, demise of identity politics, criticism of women’s rights and feminism, etc.

While many see events in the UK and the US (Brexit vote and the Donald Trump’s victory) as new and problematic victories of the Far Right and the upsurge of nationalism masked under the term patriotism or conservativism, this movement started much before with Far Right winning national elections in many European countries not all of Western origin and culture. For example, in Austria Jorg Heider won elections and joined the Austrian Government as a coalition partner in 2000. In post-Communist Europe, nationalist parties gained power after the fall of Communism and in that they advocated return to the tradition and enforced nationalist policies.

While there has been lots of work published on media and nationalism, new events deserve a new consideration. The question is no longer whether the media push an agenda because agenda studies have demonstrated so for decades. The question is how nationalism is conceptualised and how nationalist policies and ideas are being promoted? How traditional media promote these particular policies and what this means for current media landscape? What is the role of social media in promoting nationalism and nationalist candidates? How candidates reach out to potential voters and which media are driving these new nationalist movements? Is there a strong generational divide and how different generations respond to different policies? Have traditional media embraced a stakeholder orientation and started to produce content that their readers want to read? If so, what does this mean for the future of journalism? How have editorial policies changed over time and how editorial policies affect political divides? If social media activism is influencing the publics, what is the role of traditional media, to join in and continue producing content for SEO enhancement or insist on their traditional role to report the truth and be impartial? What is the role of SEO in current media landscape and has SEO influenced changed in current journalism?


The articles for this special issue should tackle questions such as,

Which platforms do nationalists use and how they promote their work, and achieve popular support?

What is the role of traditional media in promoting nationalistic policies?

Have media turned towards stakeholder orientation (advocated predominantly by the Left) and started to produce content that their readers want to read, which helped the Far Right agenda? If so, how this happened, i.e. is it because of changed nature of journalism and the need to follow user-generated content such as comments, blogs, vlogs, SEO strategy, etc.?

How is it possible that two diametrically opposite political candidates use social media to promote their policies (Obama vs Trump) in a very similar way?

What media Diaspora reads, and what is their role in national elections?

Is there a generational divide when it comes to nationalism, and if so, how is this negotiated in network society? Who is networking and in which way? Which platforms people use and for which purposes?

How is SEO changing journalism?

Changes in editorial policies and their influence on political divides

Dr Martina Topić
Dr. Niamh Kirk
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Social Sciences is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1800 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • Media
  • Nationalism
  • network society
  • Far Right Media
  • social media and nationalism
  • SEO and journalism
  • generational divide
  • Brexit
  • Donald Trump
  • European Far Right

Published Papers (4 papers)

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Research

14 pages, 3358 KiB  
Article
Native History and Nation Building on Personal Online Platform: Implications in Hong Kong Context
by Simin Li
Soc. Sci. 2019, 8(2), 60; https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci8020060 - 16 Feb 2019
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 3812
Abstract
Nationalism in the era of social media is more complex and presents new opportunities and challenges in different levels and contexts. Therefore, the paper hopes to contribute to understanding the roles of social media in identity presentation and formation in a transition society. [...] Read more.
Nationalism in the era of social media is more complex and presents new opportunities and challenges in different levels and contexts. Therefore, the paper hopes to contribute to understanding the roles of social media in identity presentation and formation in a transition society. Writing on Facebook is a civil practice. Thus, it chooses a typical and clear-cut Facebook fan page “Hong Kong National History” run by a nationalist and followed by over 5700 fans as a case study. Posts of the fan page are collected from 1 April to 31 December in 2017, and it analyzes the contents and forms of posts with content analysis. Then, the self-made digital publication “Hong Kong People’s History of the Thousand Years” attached to the fan page is analyzed with narrative analysis. Through the personal systematic discourses, this paper presents a special mode of user-generated content online and a civic Hong Kong story. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Media and Nationalism in the Network Society)
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11 pages, 225 KiB  
Article
An Examination of the Impact of Astroturfing on Nationalism: A Persuasion Knowledge Perspective
by Kenneth M. Henrie and Christian Gilde
Soc. Sci. 2019, 8(2), 38; https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci8020038 - 28 Jan 2019
Cited by 6 | Viewed by 6468
Abstract
One communication approach that lately has become more common is astroturfing, which has been more prominent since the proliferation of social media platforms. In this context, astroturfing is a fake grass-roots political campaign that aims to manipulate a certain audience. This exploratory research [...] Read more.
One communication approach that lately has become more common is astroturfing, which has been more prominent since the proliferation of social media platforms. In this context, astroturfing is a fake grass-roots political campaign that aims to manipulate a certain audience. This exploratory research examined how effective astroturfing is in mitigating citizens’ natural defenses against politically persuasive messages. An experimental method was used to examine the persuasiveness of social media messages related to coal energy in their ability to persuade citizens’, and increase their level of nationalism. The results suggest that citizens are more likely to be persuaded by an astroturfed message than people who are exposed to a non-astroturfed message, regardless of their political leanings. However, the messages were not successful in altering an individual’s nationalistic views at the moment of exposure. The authors discuss these findings and propose how in a long-term context, astroturfing is a dangerous addition to persuasive communication. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Media and Nationalism in the Network Society)
10 pages, 1449 KiB  
Article
An Investigation of the Use of Language, Social Identity and Multicultural Values for Nation-Building in Malaysian Outdoor Advertising
by Siti Nor Amalina Ahmad Tajuddin and Noraini Zulkepli
Soc. Sci. 2019, 8(1), 18; https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci8010018 - 11 Jan 2019
Cited by 9 | Viewed by 7289
Abstract
The mass media in the form of advertising is extensively employed in the process of nation-building in Malaysia. Advertising has been used as an important tool for educating the public about State issues, ensuring diverse cultures are equally represented and the multicultural values [...] Read more.
The mass media in the form of advertising is extensively employed in the process of nation-building in Malaysia. Advertising has been used as an important tool for educating the public about State issues, ensuring diverse cultures are equally represented and the multicultural values are emphasized to the fullest. The objective of the present study is to investigate how outdoor advertising, particularly billboards, promotes the language, social identity, and multicultural values of Malaysian society for nation-building. In Malaysia, the extensive use of advertisements has been argued as one of the most powerful mechanisms to enhance Malaysian identity, foster interactions and thus contribute to the process of nation-building even though it is portrayed in a banal and routine way. To achieve its objective, this paper utilizes semiotic methodology to examine 11 billboards to understand the relationships between texts and visuals that communicate messages to the public. The findings revealed that the billboards do not only communicate pro-social messages, but also reflect the language, social identity and multicultural values of Malaysian society towards nation-building. This study expands the work of outdoor advertising within the Malaysian society and contributes to Semiotic Analysis by examining textual-visual elements of billboards. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Media and Nationalism in the Network Society)
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16 pages, 244 KiB  
Article
Evolving Responsibility or Revolving Bias? The Role of the Media in the Anti-Sugar Debate in the UK Press
by Martina Topić and Ralph Tench
Soc. Sci. 2018, 7(10), 181; https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci7100181 - 29 Sep 2018
Cited by 7 | Viewed by 3800
Abstract
This paper analyzed the coverage on the anti-sugar debate and the supermarket industry in the British press, in a period between 2014 and 2015. Using social responsibility of the press theory and a qualitative two-tier content analysis, we first conducted a documentary analysis [...] Read more.
This paper analyzed the coverage on the anti-sugar debate and the supermarket industry in the British press, in a period between 2014 and 2015. Using social responsibility of the press theory and a qualitative two-tier content analysis, we first conducted a documentary analysis of public relations materials (press releases and surveys published by Action on Sugar as a main anti-sugar advocate in the UK), and then we traced these public relations materials in the press coverage. We also analyzed whether some sources are preferred more than others by focusing on the nature of quoted sources and whether the media give a voice to everyone, both the anti-sugar activists and the relevant industry figures who claim that sugar is not the only reason for the current obesity problem in the UK. The results show that the media have not given a representative voice to the industry but only to the anti-sugar NGOs, thus opening a question of journalism standards and the extent the press could be considered as socially responsible in this particular case. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Media and Nationalism in the Network Society)
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