The outbreak of the COVID-19 Pandemic that purpoted to originate in the city of Wuhan draws a lot of questions on the extent of crisis health communication concerning the international media. At the inception stage, in January 2020, it was reported that about ten major cities in China had been affected by this virus at that time labelled as 2019 nCov. By March 10, 2020, the disease had spread to Europe, the UK, Middle-East, and Africa, with more than 114,344 confirmed cases reported globally. In this situation, various scholars have often criticized the media for framing, misinformation, or exaggeration in the news information. In contrast, others have hailed the media for playing an educative and informative role to the public. Utilizing content analysis, framing and consecutive day sampling, this study focused on examining the media coverage of the initial two months of the COVID-19 Pandemic by four international news media organizations namely; BBC, CNN, Al-Jazeera and the People's Daily. The article contributes to the discourse of mass media practice, and application of various research paradigm in deconstructing media framing during critical periods.
Contribution/Originality: This study logically analyses and contributes to the existing ever-growing literature on the new media and political economy. Therefore, it documents the importance of alternative usage of open source software that is feasible as a strategy to minimize exploitation from the few corporates' giants in the new media economy. INTRODUCTIONNew media is defined differently by scholars to mean different things. In the analysis of these definitions, essential elements that erupt, including interactivity, connectivity, convergence, and technology (Doğan & Oze, 2019). Other scholars have delved themselves in offering the characteristics of what is so-called the old media to distinguish them with what is current media that is majorly hosted by the internet. Scholars like Livingstone and Lievrouw, base their argument on the way messages are conveyed using technology in social media platforms.While scholars like Gitelman and Pingree look at them specifically on the practices that include digitization, telecommunication, and collaboration in general (Forte, Mudambi, & Navarra, 2014). Therefore, it is inevitable to note that new media can be defined differently based on the period of technological transit in comparison with other media. Consequently, the article borrows the definition of Monovich, who defines new media as the use of digital
Digital diplomacy has become a subject of scrutiny and public interest in recent years. As technology change, so is the functions of diplomats and ministry of foreign affairs (MFA). Most of the countries and MFAs have tried to streamline their services as well as their communicative context by adopting strategies that make them possible to articulate their position in the digital diplomatic sphere. Different scholars have come up with different definitions of digital diplomacy in regards to their context and content of interest. Although this field is on its embryonic state, it is vital in international relations with few studies done in this field. This study aims to provide a systematic analysis of the current literature on digital diplomacy studies. Therefore, this study contributes to a significant gap in research and provides an ongoing reference to digital diplomacy. It argues that most of the previous studies focused on a qualitative methodology to investigate in countries in Europe, America, Asia, and the Middle East with little attention to African countries. Twitter and Facebook were the major online digital platforms that were investigated as a tool for digital diplomacy while there were no specific theories to study digital diplomacy. Finally, based on the study findings, the study suggests key areas of interest for future research on digital diplomacy.
This study explored social media use by CGTN Africa and BBC Africa under the concept of digital diplomacy. Digital diplomacy has been seen recently as an important component that international media adapt to set agendas, expand their online presence and create, engage and sustain relationships with their foreign audience. A content analysis was employed to analyse 1200 posts from Facebook accounts of the media. The study's findings show that the media set an agenda through actively posting stories that promote African values and culture to generate interaction among their readership. Also, findings indicate that foreign media prioritized reporting on specific issues in Uganda, Sudan, South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya and Ethiopia over others. The audience engaged more with reports on sports and less with those on tourism and wildlife. CGTN Africa rarely engages in conversation with its audience. Thus, there is a need to build the capacity of its staff, which might help China's media perform better on social media.
The rise of fake news into the new media platform has raised significant concern in Africa and Kenya in recent years. The new media has embedded itself with fake news, which sometimes has led to the misunderstanding and misinformation of particular events that might be of the public interest. The general public, policymakers, and scholars, as well as the media, have found this as a very challenging issue. The upsurge of the new technologies, mainly social media, has posed challenges as youth immerse themselves in utilizing these social media for their own benefits. This is coupled with the creation and spreading of fake news, which sometimes when it goes viral; they lead to stress, panic and uncertainty to the individuals that come across them. The ability of users’ exceptional capacity to produce, reproduce, and distribute their information to a broad audience makes social media, an essential tool in the information age. The article critically reviews the literature on fake news and recommends for media literacy, strengthening the legal structures and use of sophisticated technologies as a strategy to fight fake news in the social media in Kenya.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.