Increased partisan apathy, affective polarization, and purposeful selection of homogenous political discussion groups are of growing concern as politics within the United States becomes more contentious. While previous work has considered when political discussions occur, if discussions are deliberative, and whether discussions affect democratic outcomes, this study focuses on the process someone undergoes when determining whether to participate in a political discussion. This paper examines political communication apprehension by considering how personality predispositions and uncertainty reduction influence the expectancy-value judgments made when determining if participating in a certain political discussion situation is worth the cost. Factors of political communication apprehension were determined through an exploratory factor analysis of a batter of questions designed to capture elements of political communication apprehension. Findings indicate that even if people are not very attached to their political parties, their political communication apprehension is largely informed by expectancy value judgements based on information they have learned from the political world.

Studies of journalism have predominantly focused on the West, neglecting large parts of the world including all parts of the Americas apart from the USA. Studying media in Mexico attempts to contribute to the de-Westernisation of media studies, since there is a clear research gap in the field. The Natural Resources Defence Council (2021) has warned that Mexico's retreat from international climate commitments is globally significant and notorious. This makes a study of journalistic representations of climate change and environmental issues relevant in an international perspective. The aim of this study is to analyze a series of articles collected in the digital newspapers Milenio and La Jornada whiting the scope of framing theory. Frames are organizing principles and they will be analyzed in the form of frequency as well as patterns of frame usage, taking as a guide some of the main modes of framing which scholars have pointed out, and by being open for framing categories that could be detected inductively in the material. The work carried in by the research attempts to shed some light on specific variables such as actors that are given voice in these digital outlets and the frames which are salient in the media coverage of climate change, as well as the events that trigger the coverage. The results of the study indicate that in Mexico, a country with its vital productive sectors deeply intertwined within North America and Latin America, the coverage on climate change relies highly on sources from abroad, especially on global news agencies.

The purpose of this study is to investigate how the Green Party, which is a part of the Swedish parliament, uses emojis on Instagram. In addition, the study examines whether the usage has increased or not during the time period 2014-2021. The thesis also aims to find out how the use of emojis affects media users' perceptions of the message. Lastly, the study intends to find answers about the effect emojis have on media use, if emojis generate engagement in the form of likes and comments. To understand and analyze the purpose of this thesis, we have used Stuart Hall's theory of encoding/decoding. We have also discussed political communication based on the mediatization of politics through media logic and social media logic. The material collection is based on two methods, quantitative content analysis and questionnaire survey.  The findings of the study showed that the Green Party’s use of emojis had increased between the time period 2014-2021. Further on it was shown that the use of emojis increased in relation to likes and comments which indicates that emojis generate engagement. The study also displayed that the chances of a media user to perceive a message in a positive and humoristic way enlarge significantly by the use of emojis.  The thesis offers an understanding on how the Green Party have changed their political communication over time and also highlights the power of using emojis on Instagram.

The theory of motivated reasoning predicts that partisan cues in the media will affect political attitudes, by encouraging individuals to align their views with those of their party's elites. The effect has primarily been tested by looking at issues which have pre-established partisan positions (e.g. immigration reform, gay rights, etc.). This study looks at the effects of partisan cues in the media on attitudes toward a non-partisan issue, the NSA's collection of American's meta-data. Additionally, the study extends research on partisan cues by exploring the moderating role of an individual's political communication network and, specifically, exposure to cross-cutting political communication. Findings are mixed: although there was no main effect of exposure to partisan cues in general, strong partisans were more affected by exposure to partisan cues than weak partisans. Additionally, although frequency of political discussion was not found to moderate the effect of partisan cues, individuals with high exposure to cross-cutting communication were significantly less affected by partisan cues than those with low exposure to cross-cutting communication. Limitations, implications, and future directions are discussed.

This master's thesis project examines the content of Andrej Babiš's social media profiles and their function as a source of information. This study captures and describes current trends of political communication with an emphasis on the use of social media as an influential tool used for sharing content for the general and professional public. In this case, the focus is on internet communication of the Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babiš. The emphasis is to examine social media as a part of media routines and its role in the concept of gatekeeping and subsequent creation of the news and opinion journalistic content. The research part of this thesis consists of three segments and focuses on the process of using social media as a source of information. The main research method is quantitative research supplemented by a questionnaire. The research was conducted to find out what informational value the social media of Andrej Babiš's have.

This thesis explores an understudied area in political communication research by examining populist communication on the social media platform TikTok. Specifically, the study focuses on content related to the Sweden Democrat party during the 2022 election. This thesis also proposes an integrated methodological and quantitative empirical framework for analyzing the multi-dimensional relationships present in political communication on digital social media. By identifying key hashtags used by followers of the party during the time of the 2022 election, including the campaigning leading up to it and the government formation following the election, new empirical data consisting of 250 TikTok videos and their accompanying information was collected. Firstly, the data was used to map SD tagged content on TikTok. Secondly, while difficult to measure, a framework was created to code and operationalize populist characteristics within the TikTok posts. Through quantitative content analysis and linear regression, the study examines the relationship between TikTok affordances and populist communication. Affordances are used to describe what an object, or in this case, a technology, can be used for and let a user do. Finally, the data collected was used to determine potential relationships supporting that populist style communication is favored by social media affordances. The results show that videos on the topic of immigration and videos from accounts with many followers were significantly related to virality. However, limitations in studying content on TikTok, due to the platform’s API were highlighted, as well as the difficulty of handling and coding video data from the platform. Overall, this study contributes to the field of political communication by demonstrating the multi-faceted relationship between media logic, social media affordances, and populist communication.

This thesis contributes to the digital and narrative turn in International Relations, supplying a response to the inquiry ‘Which strategic narratives have emerged in Ukraine’s digital diplomacy following the February 2022 Russian invasion?’ The paper observed how the field of politics is revitalised by the interplay between political communication during times of incertitude, digital diplomacy and the trend of personalisation. The thesis evaluated different approaches taken by prior theorists of these spheres and leveraged their knowledge in order to respond to the research question. The treatise employed a qualitative content analysis upon 12 presidential speeches, 4 parliament addresses and 10 social media posts. This content was published by Ukrainian elite political figures during the initial phase of the war, between February 24th and March 29th, 2022. This methodology generated three national identity archetypes (NIAs): the ‘hero’, the ‘partner’ and the ‘victim’. The treatise further conceived Ukrainian’s strategic narratives mechanism composed of distinct values, objectives, demands, target recipients, channels and ensuing initiatives, adjacent to these three NIAs, pillars of Kyiv’s political communication. The paper concludes with future directions for strategic narrative research deriving from the experiences of the Russo-Ukrainian conflict.

<p>Political socialization has been of interest to political science and communication scholars for decades. Focusing primarily on parents, few studies have examined how peer relationships can affect the political socialization process. Additionally, much of the literature does not examine political socialization past the age of 18. Using social penetration theory, this study proposes that the unique features of the college context—independence, new relationships, political organizations—make it a particularly ripe context for political socialization to occur. The study utilized a survey-based to test this assumption and examine if/how college students between the ages of 18 and 24 are communicating with their peers and to what political socialization effect. The findings contribute to political socialization literature, social penetration theory, and our understanding of how young people talk about politics.</p>

No description available.

This study will provide a clearer understanding of the construct, Third World, which may not seem to have a consensus meaning. This is because its perceived definition, which is linked, first to feudalism and then to the socio-politico conditions that existed during the period leading up to and immediately after the cold war means that its conceptual metamorphosis should have ceased once these periods were relegated to the annals of history. Whether and how contemporary definitions of Third World have changed since then should be of interest to scholars and is the focus of this study. This is because anecdotally speaking the media have reframed this construct in a manner that recreates, so called, Third World nations into the three categories of very Third World, somewhat Third World, and not at all Third World. What this study reveals, however, is that these distinctions and to some extent the designations of nations as first, second, and third worlds are misleading colloquialisms.