World of Media-2024. Journal of Russian Media and Journalism Studies. Issue №1.

The issue was published in 2024 by the Faculty of Journalism, Lomonosov Moscow State University.

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LEAD ARTICLE

Vartanov, S., & Vardanyan, E. (2024). Macroeconomic indicators of Russia’s media communication industry in 2000-2020: Quantitative analysis. World of Media. Journal of Russian Media and Journalism Studies, 1: 5-29. DOI: 10.30547/ worldofmedia.1.2024.1

Technological and social processes of last years inspired by the information and communication technologies development, such as processes of digital transformation of society and the convergence of (mass) media, have led to the formation of a new macro-social entity – the media communication industry, integrated into the national and global economy and interacting in various ways with other sectors of the economy and the world media system. At the same time, instrumental methods of data analysis, widely used in economic studies, are still not very common for media communication industry studies. To bridge this gap and answer the question of how the macroeconomic situation affects the media industry and vice versa, the authors conducted a statistical analysis of the joint dynamics of macroeconomic indicators and those of the Russian media communication industry over the past 20 years.

Key words: Media communication industry, macroeconomics, statistical analysis

Received: 22.01.24

Accepted: 20.03.24

ARTICLES

Choi, Y. (2024). A study of modelling the antecedent factors of fake news sharing and the moderating effect of SNS dependency. World of Media. Journal of Russian Media and Journalism Studies, 1: 31-49. DOI: 10.30547/ worldofmedia.1.2024.2

The purpose of the present study is to examine the relationships between behavioral factors and fake news sharing and explore the moderating effect of social networking sites (SNS) dependency on those relationships. For this, the study collected data from 352 social media users in South Korea through a survey method and used hierarchical multiple regression analyses. The results show that the more self-expression, social tie strength, or parasocial interaction participants perceive online, the more favorable fake news sharing they have. Conversely, status-seeking was not significantly associated with fake news sharing in this study. A positive relationship between self-expression and fake news sharing is stronger for participants with high rather than low SNS dependency. However, SNS dependency was found to have no significance on the relationship between other behavioral factors and fake news sharing. This study is believed to be the first to model the behavior of social media users in sharing fake news and authenticating it before sharing it online.

Key words: Affordance theory, social impact theory, SNS dependency theory, fake news sharing

Received: 19.05.23

Accepted: 21.11.23

Makwambeni, B., & Matsilele, T. (2024). South African media’s framing of the terrorist insurgency in Mozambique. World of Media. Journal of Russian Media and Journalism Studies, 1: 50-74. DOI: 10.30547/worldofmedia.1.2024.3

This paper investigated South African media’s framing of the terrorism insurgency in Mozambique. It specifically sought to understand how South Africa’s flagship online publications: News24, TimesLive, and IOL, framed the insurgency. Methodologically, the study employed a qualitative content analysis with the framing theory as our theoretical lens. Our findings show that South African media’s coverage of terrorist attacks in Mozambique is informed by five prominent frames: the social consequences frame, the morality frame, the economic consequences frame, war against Islam militants frame and the national interest frame. We argue that the use of these frames in the construction of the terrorism attacks in Mozambique limit the South African media’s ability to provide a nuanced picture of the complex and multi-faceted nature of the terrorist insurgency in Mozambique. Our findings show that the reliance on official lines tends to influence the manner in which the terrorist attacks in Mozambique are framed by the three South African publications. We also argue that the use of these five frames in the reportage on the terrorist insurgency in Mozambique limit the South African media’s ability to provide the South African public and policy makers with a balanced perspective on the insurgency in Mozambique. In conclusion we recommend that future news reportage as well as future studies consider looking at the complexity surrounding the socio- economic status of the regions experiencing terrorists activities. Such studies and future news stories could be enhanced by looking at multiple stakeholders, including affected communities, to get a broader understanding of the causal effects and possible solutions to terrorism.

Key words: Mozambique, conflict, framing, Al Shabaab, terrorism, Peace Journalism

Received: 29.03.23

Accepted: 25.11.23

Bodrunova, S. S., & Nepiyushchikh, D. (2024). Unhealthy communication on health: Discursive and ecosystemic features of opinion cumulation in the anti-vaccination discourse on Russian Telegram. World of Media. Journal of Russian Media and Journalism Studies, 1: 75-108. DOI: 10.30547/worldofmedia.1.2024.4

With the advent of social networking sites, the so-called health dissidents have received unprecedented possibilities for online community building and spreading their views. In particular, the combination of social uncertainty and the platform affordances that bordered antivaxxer communities from outer communication led to formation of (allegedly) closed-up online milieus where vaccination denialists’ (‘antivaxxers’) irrational views resided and grew.

The deliberative counter-productivity of such communities needs to be investigated. In this respect, Russia is a special case, characterized by low trust in the public sphere as a ground for the spread of conspiracy theories, and by ‘mixed’ trust to the healthcare system, thanks to highly-reputable Soviet-time medical services but negative attitudes to the current ones. We look at @anti_ covid21, the largest Russian pandemic antivaxxer community on Telegram, to explore by what means destructive opinions accumulate in this community. We investigate the combination of three discursive elements usually studied separately in research on COVID-19 denialism: 1) distrust, including its addressees, and interconnectedness of the destructive features of the antivaxxer discourse, namely distrust, aggression, and conspiracy thinking; 2) the patterns of micro-opinion cumulation that lead to general growth of distrust; 3) content sourcing that supports ‘the discourse of distrust.’ We follow the conceptual framework of cumulative deliberation; it implies that micro-acts of opinionated participation matter both en masse and in deliberative micro-patterns. Our sample includes all posts and comments from @anti_covid21 of six months of 2021, with 1,185 posts and 282,000+ comments altogether.

Out of this sample, three datasets were formed. In particular, Dataset 1 was received by semi-automatedly reducing from 282,000+ to 12,188+ texts and then coded by 28 coders. Dataset 2 comprised comment threads of three most active days in terms of commenting, of 411 comments altogether, that were coded as continuous samples by 6 additional coders. Dataset 3 consisted of the 1,185 posts in which the available attracted content (text, photo, or video) was coded by 4 coders on its formal belonging to certain media types and countries of origin.

Our results show that @anti_covid21 was a reactive community centered around one-sided anti-vaccination content that left no room for multi-view discussing. Content sourcing united user-generated evidence, criticized mainstream media pieces, and publications of blurred origin of many countries, making the community open to world experience but of highly biased nature. The ‘discourse of distrust’ that emerged in response was politicized, distrust to national and global actors potentially being a mediator to vaccine distrust. We identified two stable micro-patterns of accumulation of distrust triggered by both the published content and user behavior. Altogether, our conclusions differ from other countries’ experiences and call for pre-emptive resolution of the multi-faceted issue of social distrust before new health crises erupt.

Key words: COVID-19, anti-vaccination, distrust, conspiracy theory, information sourcing, cumulative deliberation, Russia, Telegram

Received: 10.09.23

Accepted: 17.11.23