commbox Eastern & Southeast Europe

Search Engines as “Globalizing Machines”: International News Flow Through Google During the 2020 Belarusian Presidential Election

Daria Kravets

International Journal of Communication, volume 18 (2024), pp. 2577-2597

"News is increasingly consumed via search engines. Yet, there is little research on foreign news consumption through search engines. This study thus focuses on the presence of foreign news in political search results in a peripheral country that is at the focal point of the international conflict be ... more

Russia's Information Warfare in the Middle East

Arik Segal

Potsdam: Friedrich Naumann Foundation (2024), 36 pp.

"This policy paper provides an overview of Russian information warfare in the Middle East. It includes a brief overview of Russian information warfare methods and Russian foreign policy in the Middle East. It then delves into Russian information warfare in the Middle East, evaluates its effectivenes ... more

The Invisible Hand of Media Censorship in the Balkans: A Closer Look at Media Ownership in the Balkans and the European Media Freedom Act

Balkan Free Media Initiative (BFMI) (2024), 80 pp.

Commodification of Spirituality and the Spiritual Healers’ Labor on Facebook

Berit Renser, Katrin Tiidenberg

International Journal of Communication, volume 18 (2024), pp. 1405-1425

"Facebook is home to a plethora of spiritual healers who use the social media platform for giving advice, selling products, and offering their services. In this ethnographic study, we examine the Facebook endeavors of Estonian spiritual healers. The study discusses the different forms of commodified ... more

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The Handbook of Conflict and Peace Communication
Top Insights

Sudeshna Roy (ed.)

Hoboken; Chichester: Wiley (2024), approx. 448 pp.

"This book offers an in-depth view of how intricate and intractable conflicts can be and how the communicative aspects of conflict are equally challenging. The author reviews and guides readers through classic and contemporary analysis in the field, providing a truly interdisciplinary work. Handbook ... more

Media pluralism in selected Black Sea countries: The influence of European standards

Andrei Richter

Strasbourg: European Audiovisual Observatory;Council of Europe (2024), 35 pp.

Narrative Framing of EU Accession on Most Popular Moldovan Online Platforms: A Discourse Analysis

Anja Wollenberg, Marian Vogel

Berlin: Media in Cooperation and Transition (MiCT) (2024), 18 pp.

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How Artificial Intelligence is Changing Media and Journalism in Central Europe: A study mapping the use of AI by newsrooms in the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia

Marius Dragomir (ed.)

Thomson Foundation;Media and Journalism Research Center (MJRC) (2024), 18 pp.

Reconnecting Audiences: Understanding the Role of Local Media in Promoting Social Cohesion

Fondation Hirondelle;Institute for Regional Media and Information (IRMI) (2024), 62 pp.

"Key findings: Critical role of local media in addressing specific population needs, compared with national media which is increasingly seen as painting a false picture of reality. Audiences on the frontline feel excluded from national discourse. Ukrainians (57%) use local Telegram channels more tha ... more

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Wild paroxysms of the turbulent 90s: How 'The Traitors' documentary exposed the Russian liberal milieu

Lev Kadik

Bonn: Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES) (2024), 13 pp.

"The story which The Traitors tells is pretty simple and well known to academic scholars who deal with the modern Russian state: it was corrupt from its inception and Putin’s regime is in no way an aberration, but smooth continuity of the Yeltsin system. The documentary precipitated a wave of slan ... more

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Media diversity activism in Serbia: Mapping actors and activities

Jovanka Matic

Media Diversity Institute (2024), 33 pp.

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Grauen ohne Grenzen: Horror in Film & Literatur

iz3w, issue 394 (2023), pp. 22-41

"Wie einst im ursprünglichen Gothic die verlassenen Schlösser des Feudalismus als Orte des Spuks in die bürgerliche Ära hineinragten, so sind es heute die globalen Ruinen des geplatzten Traums von Freiheit, Gleichheit und Brüderlichkeit, in denen das Grauen haust: Von den vom Immobiliencrash ge ... more

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Media Framing of Immigrants in Central Europe in the Period Surrounding the Refugee Crisis: Security, Negativity, and Political Sources

Jan Kovár

Communications: The European Journal of Communication Research, volume 48, issue 1 (2023), pp. 5-27

"This article investigates how all the main quality and tabloid newspapers and the television newscasts of the main broadcasters in Czechia and Slovakia framed immigrants, what the tone of the employed frames was, and who the main framing actors were before and during the EU refugee crisis (2013–2 ... more

Staatliche Cyberkonflikte: Proxy-Strategien von Autokratien und Demokratien im Vergleich

Kerstin Zettl-Schabath

Bielefeld: transcript (2023), 424 pp.

"Welche Rolle spielen nichtstaatliche Akteure, sogenannte "Proxys", in staatlichen Cyberkonflikten? Und wie unterscheidet sich regimetypenspezifisch das (De-)Eskalationsmanagement? Kerstin Zettl-Schabath vergleicht mithilfe eines umfassenden Datensatzes für die Jahre 2000-2019 die staatlichen Cyber ... more

When Children Draw Gods: A Multicultural and Interdisciplinary Approach to Children's Representations of Supernatural Agents

Pierre-Yves Brandt, Zhargalma Dandarova-Robert, Christelle Cocco, Dominique Vinck, Frédéric Darbellay (eds.)

Cham: Springer (2023), viii, 569 pp.

"This open access book explores how children draw God. It looks at children's drawings collected in a large variety of cultural and religious traditions. Coverage demonstrates the richness of drawing as a method for studying representations of the divine. In the process, it also contributes to our u ... more

Identities and Intimacies on Social Media: Transnational Perspectives

Tonny Krijnen, Paul G. Nixon, Michelle D. Ravenscroft, Cosimo Marco Scarcelli (eds.)

London; New York: Routledge (2023), xv, 218 pp.

"This edited collection illuminates the scope with which identities and intimacies interact on a wide range of social media platforms. A varied range of international scholars examine the contexts of very different social media spaces, with topics ranging from whitewashing and memes, parental discou ... more

The Media Systems in Europe: Continuities and Discontinuities

Stylianos Papathanassopoulos, Andrea Miconi (eds.)

Cham: Springer (2023), vii, 194 pp.

"This open access book traces the evolution of the European media landscape in the last 30 years, from 1990 to 2020. It is based on the theoretical classical hypotheses of regional media systems provided by Hallin and Mancini and at the same time puts them to test. The book further defines the propo ... more