Editors’ note

Remediating the past: YouTube and Second World War memory in Ukraine and Russia

“…While a number of studies (Berengrer, 2006; Hoskins and O’Loughlin, 2010; Matheson and Stuart, 2010) examine how this transformation affects remembrance of contemporary conflicts, significantly less research has been done on the remediation of old wars in “new” media. In recent years, a number of works on the use of digital media for the commemoration of past conflicts have appeared (Benzaquen, 2014; Drinot, 2011; Jensen, 2012); yet, as Rutten and Zvereva (2013: 4) note, the majority of these studies paid only marginal attention to developments outside the West and, in particular, the post-Soviet countries.…”

“…Contemporary scholarship has demonstrated how the recent advent of digital technology brings fundamental changes in the way we remember the past and, in particular, how we deal with memories of war and conflict. 1 The connectivity of digital media makes them “the key modulator of security and insecurity today” (Hoskins and O’Loughlin, 2010: 2) by increasing our awareness of remote conflicts and articulating the presence of immediate threats through a variety of formats varying from video clips to blog posts. However, digital technology also enables a real-time memorialization that differs in its immediate and decentralized nature from earlier practices of war commemoration.…”

Cynicism ex machina: The emotionality of reporting the ‘refugee crisis’ and Paris terrorist attacks in Czech Television

“…The interrelations of fearful media messages, social crises and terrorism have been thematized by major media researchers; much of the research and theory stresses the shift towards a milieu in which media and spreading news become involved in decision-making processes, and thus central to the politics of conflicts (Altheide, 2004; Hoskins and O’Loughlin, 2010). Ben-Yehuda et al (2013: 72), Van der Meer et al (2016) and Neumann and Fahmy (2016) have argued that by making crisis news, journalists may affect escalation processes.…”

Conflict and responsibility: Content analysis of American news media organizations’ framing of North Korea

“…Scholars have also explored how the increased mediatization of war has added additional layers of complication to strategic decision-making during conflict (Hoskins and O’Loughlin, 2010; Oates, 2008). Miskimmon et al (2018: 10) argue that today’s media environment is characterized by ‘a reassertion of the mainstream and power elites in government, the military, and the news media’, giving elites more power to shape media narratives in their own favor.…”