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This editorial introduces the thematic issue on inspirational media; including its role in the elicitation of meaning and self-transcendence, audience responses to inspirational narratives, and the potential for inspirational media to be used for manipulative purposes. We first set the stage for the thematic issue by describing an organizing framework by Thrash and Elliot (2003) to study inspiration. We then situate the seven articles published in this thematic issue along the logic of different components of this framework, namely media content capable of invoking transcendence through emotions and excitatory responses, and a motivational impulse to act upon the ideas acquired from content. This thematic issue thereby highlights unique perspectives for understanding media's ability to serve as the source of inspiration - be it for social benefit or detriment. Finally, we consider directions for future research on inspirational media.

Children with disabilities have been an overlooked group in the debates on privacy and data management, and the emergence of discourses on responsibilization. In this article, we offer a preliminary overview, conceptualization, and reflection on children with disabilities, their experiences and perspectives in relation to privacy and data when it comes to existing and emergent digital technology. To give a sense of the issues at play, we provide a brief case study of "sharenting" on social media platform (that is, sharing by parents of images and information about their children with disabilities). We conclude with suggestions for the research and policy agenda in this important yet neglected area.

Young people spend an increasing amount of time in front of a screen, developing new forms of content consumption and production. In this context, the so-called YouTubers emerge. They are the new actors of the information society, who acquire prominence specially in the creation of audiovisual content. This article studies the narrative of YouTubers and the media competition behind the process. To accomplish this task we have selected the 10 most relevant young YouTubers in the Andean Community (Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru), ranked by number of followers. Their products were analyzed with the following criteria: the narrative that they use, the impact that they generate, and the media competence that they demonstrate. The research we have made is descriptive and uses a mixed-methods approach, which employs technical datasheets that collect general information on the channels studied and the impact of their accounts. In general terms, we have observed that the videos contemplate new standards, which are not related to the contents of traditional media; the narrative is self-referential and through it, YouTubers manage to identify with niches of younger audiences, that can see in them similar life experiences. An interesting aspect is that a good part of the language used is violent and even foul, considering that young people are a vulnerable population group on the internet. Finally, the use and mastery of technological tools is evident on YouTubers, as well as the interest in self-training in content production processes.

Fanfiction is the creative appropriation and transformation of existing popular media texts by fans who take stories, worlds and/or characters as starting points and create their own stories based on them. As a cultural field of practice, fanfiction questions prevalent concepts of individual authorship and proprietary of cultural goods. At the same time, fanfiction itself is challenged. Through processes of mediatization, fanfiction grew and became increasingly visible. Third parties, ranging from the media industry (e.g., film studios) and copyright holders to journalism and academia, are interested in fanfiction and are following its development. We regard fanfiction communities and fan acting as fields for experimentation and as discursive arenas which can help understand what appropriating, writing and publishing in a digital culture and the future of writing might look like. In this paper, we outline important debates on the legitimacy and nature of fanfiction and present preliminary results of current research within Germany.

This article outlines an analysis of the ethical organization of digital media and social and individual space in everyday life. This is made from a perspective of an "ethics of the ordinary", highlighting the mundane negotiations and practices conducted to maintain a "good life" with the media. The analysis shows a sensorial organization of space is conducted in relation to social space, as well as individually. The interviewees use facilities provided by media technologies in order to organize space, as well as organize their media devices spatially in order to construct space for specific purposes, and maintain a good life. These results call for a deepened analysis of the sensorial dimensions of everyday space, in order to understand the ethical struggles of a life with digital media. It is important to include the full spectrum of sensorial experiences in our approach to everyday life and to take the sensorial experiences of ordinary media users into account in our analysis of space as part of an everyday ethics.

The current communicative ecosystem has profoundly transformed journalistic work and the media, generating with great eagerness the emergence of digital native media that do not follow the logic of their conventional peers. Although the advent of these media is not entirely negative, as they create multiple voices that contribute to pluralism, their quality has undoubtedly been questioned on several academic fronts. This work analyzes the most important Latin American digital native media by number of accesses (traffic), using a taxonomy of evaluation of dimensions of the informative quality, in which aspects such as informative sources, uses of international news agencies, correction of contents and factuality levels, ideological plurality in their opinion contents, among others, are taken into consideration. Of the emerging results, the 'use of statistical indicators' was the least rated (32.5%), mainly due to a lack of data journalism in the media studied. It is also worth noting that the indicator 'comments and monitoring' obtained the second-lowest rating, indicating an absence of conversation between the media and its audience through the comments section of each content.

Amid the intensification of state control over the digital domain in Russia, what types of online activism are tolerated or even endorsed by the government and why? While entities such as the Anti-Corruption Foundation exposing the state are silenced through various tactics such as content blocking and removal, labelling the foundation a "foreign agent", and deeming it "extremist", other formations of citizens using digital media to expose "offences" performed by fellow citizens are operating freely. This article focuses on a vigilante group targeting "unscrupulous" merchants (often ethnic minorities and labour migrants) for the alleged sale of expired produce - the Hrushi Protiv. Supported by the government, Hrushi Protiv participants survey grocery chain stores and open-air markets for expired produce, a practice that often escalates into violence, while the process is filmed and edited to be uploaded to YouTube. These videos constitute unique media products that entertain the audience, ensuring the longevity of punitive measures via public exposure and shaming. Relying on Litvinenko and Toepfl's (2019) application of Toepfl's (2020) "leadership-critical", "policy-critical" and "uncritical" publics theory in the context of Russia, this article proposes a new category to describe state-approved digital vigilantes - citizen-critical publics. A collaboration with such publics allows the state to demonstrate a façade of civil society activism amid its silencing; while state-approved participants gain financial rewards and fame. Through Foucauldian discourse analysis, the article reveals that vulnerable groups such as labour migrants and ethnic minorities could fall victim to the side effects of this collaboration.

The erosion of political and societal trust, polarization, and the omnipresence of disinformation may undermine the perceived trustworthiness of established sources of information. Yet, many forced exposure media effect studies in the field of political communication studying polarizing issues such as disinformation and populism assume a baseline level of trust among participants exposed to seemingly neutral information. This neglects long-standing issues of distrust in the press and trends toward increasing distrust among growing segments of the population. Resistance toward established information presented as news may result in unanticipated findings, as a substantial part of the population may not accept these sources as trustworthy or neutral. To enlighten confusion, this article relies on two different experiments (N = 728 and N = 738) to explore how citizens with low levels of trust and high dissatisfaction with the established order respond to information from established information sources. Our main findings indicate that participants with higher levels of populist attitudes, media distrust, and fake news perceptions are more likely to find established information untrustworthy. They are also less likely to agree with the statements of such content. These findings indicate that media effect studies assuming univocal acceptance of seemingly neutral information may fall short in incorporating problematic trends toward factual relativism in their design.

The Nordic countries have been regarded as so-called ""media welfare states." Despite the large amount of public money used on press subsidies over the decades in the Nordic countries, there is not much academic research on the financial performance of the newspaper publishing industry in these countries. This study examines the "media welfare state" approach to public support for newspapers and the financial performance of newspaper companies in three Nordic countries: Finland, Sweden, and Norway. Our data consists of the key financial figures of newspaper publishing companies in the aforementioned countries from 2005 to 2019. Based on our analysis, we argue that direct press subsidies in Sweden and Norway have not been able to prevent a decrease in the number of titles and, importantly, have resulted in a number of subsidy-dependent news outlets unable to survive on their own income. By contrast, the Finnish newspaper publishing industry has been in a better financial situation in terms of almost all indicators and throughout the review period, despite Finland abandoning direct press subsidies in the 1990s.

Contents -- Preface -- Notes on Contributors -- Chapter 1 Globalization, Media and Empire: An Introduction -- PART ONE: GLOBAL MEDIA OR LOCAL MEDIA GLOBALIZED? -- Chapter 2 Cosmopolitans and Conquistadors: Empires, Nations and Networks -- Chapter 3 Film and Globalization -- Chapter 4 Cyberspace, Globalization and US Empire -- PART TWO: REGULATION AND CULTURAL COMPETITION -- Chapter 5 Globalization, Public Service Broadcasting and Citizen Responses -- Chapter 6 Regulating Globalization: Domestic Response to International Investment in China's Media Market

Examines the social media mechanism and how it is transforming communication in an increasingly networked society Social Media Communication: Trends and Theories explores how social media is transforming the way people think and behave. Providing students with an in-depth understanding of the mechanism underlying social media, this comprehensive textbook uses a multidisciplinary approach to examine social media use in a wide range of communication and business contexts. Each chapter is based on original research findings from the author as well as recent work in communication studies, neuroscience, information science, and psychology. Divided into two parts, the text first describes the theoretical foundation of social media use, discussing the impact of social media on information processing, social networking, cognition, interpersonal and group communication, the media industry, and business marketing. The second half of the book focuses on research-based strategies for effectively using social media in communication and business such as the news industry, heath care, and social movements. Offering detailed yet accessible coverage of how digital media technology is changing human communication, this textbook: Helps readers make the best use of social media tools in communication and business practices Introduces more than a dozen theories in the areas of communication, psychology, and sociology to highlight the theoretical frameworks researchers use in social media studies Identifies a variety of trends involving social media usage, including the app economy and patient care Addresses the relation between social media and important contemporary topics such as cultural diversity, privacy, and social change Presents 14 imperative social media topics, each with the power to change the ways you see and use social media Social Media Communication: Trends and Theories is the perfect textbook for undergraduate and graduate courses in communication, business, journalism, business, and information science and technology. It is also an invaluable resource for researchers, educators, journalists, entrepreneurs, and professionals working in media management, advertising, public relations, and business marketing.

The Nordic countries have been regarded as so-called "media welfare states." Despite the large amount of public money used on press subsidies over the decades in the Nordic countries, there is not much academic research on the financial performance of the newspaper publishing industry in these countries. This study examines the "media welfare state" approach to public support for newspapers and the financial performance of newspaper companies in three Nordic countries: Finland, Sweden, and Norway. Our data consists of the key financial figures of newspaper publishing companies in the aforementioned countries from 2005 to 2019. Based on our analysis, we argue that direct press subsidies in Sweden and Norway have not been able to prevent a decrease in the number of titles and, importantly, have resulted in a number of subsidy-dependent news outlets unable to survive on their own income. By contrast, the Finnish newspaper publishing industry has been in a better financial situation in terms of almost all indicators and throughout the review period, despite Finland abandoning direct press subsidies in the 1990s.

In this article we look at the Polish media discourse on privacy. In the analysis, we draw on theoretical approaches that understand privacy as having four dimensions: Relational, participatory, contextual, and technological. Moreover, we seek whether a specific norm of data-related privacy could be defined/redefined within the discourse. Considering the post-communist past that shapes a specific approach to surveillance and the general polarisation of polish media discourse, one would expect the key role of privacy issues in the public sphere. Thus, applying a critical discourse studies analysis, the aim was to capture the character of the so far under-researched privacy in Polish media discourse. We study what types of institutional agents are mentioned as creating privacy policies and what dimensions of privacy they tackle. Moreover, we also try to capture whether the institutional position offers a specific normative understanding of privacy and whether this norm is citizen/user-oriented. The results of the study indicate that: both the media discourse and the normative content of privacy policies are dominated by legal aspects concerned with the issues resulting from EU regulations (i.e., General Data Protection Regulation); privacy policies are institutionally dispersed and monopolised by journalists and experts instead of state officials or politicians; and there is only limited evidence of a discursive frame of a citizen-oriented norm of how to protect data-related privacy.

European local authorities increasingly use social media to present services and activities organized for citizens living in the particular area. Previous studies found that authority-managed social media visually depicted older adults as being active, sociable, happy, and physically capable, reflecting the normative "third age" representation. Yet few studies to date have examined how local authorities produce the photos of older adults for social media posting. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with communication officers in a Swedish municipality, the purpose of this study is to investigate the production process for social media photos of older adults within local authorities from an institutional logics perspective. The analysis illustrates that communication officers strive to create a good image of the municipality and its services, follow municipal policy and EU law on data protection, seek photos through particular sources, adjust to and develop photographic standards of good photos, and endeavor to promote social media engagement in the photos. These motives and work practices of communication officers contribute to the visual representations of older adults as engaging in municipal services, being socially active, and staying physically capable. The analysis also indicates that both social media and bureaucratic logics encourage officers to produce photos of older adults that highlight the bright side of later life. The findings contribute to previous studies on online representations of older adults generated by local authorities, by showing how the third age representation may come about in practice, and which logics may influence officers to generate such representation. Furthermore, the knowledge provided could be used as a basis for assessment and improvement on authorities' production for social media photos of older adults, which in turn contributes to more diverse and thoughtful representations of older adults and later life in authority-managed social media. ; Funding: European UnionEuropean Commission [764632]

This study examines how household composition and news media consumption and trust are related to attitudes towards two minority groups -immigrants and refugees- in a representative sample of the adult population (n = 6000) in Belgium, Sweden, France, and the Netherlands. We find that Swedes hold the most positive attitudes towards both groups, while the French are found to be most negative. The Belgians and Dutch hold moderate attitudes. There is also evidence that attitudes on refugees are more negative than attitudes on immigrants in Sweden and France, but not in Belgium and the Netherlands. Using structural equation modeling, we find that household composition is not directly related to attitudes, but indirect effects through socio-economic status and media consumption indicate that singles hold more negative attitudes than couples. Public television consumption, popular online news consumption, and trust in media are positively related to attitudes, whereas commercial television consumption is negatively associated with them.