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EU member states must not water down critical legislation protecting media independence and pluralism.

Is social media in a period of change? David Beer considers whether trends towards repetition and uniformity are prefiguring a new standard for the way in which social media intersects with academic life. Might we be moving into a different period for social media? A period defined by a growing sense of disenchantment. A slipping … Continued

Social Media bestimmt bis auf wenige "Aussteiger*innen" unseren Alltag. Dabei gelten viele Influencer*innen auf Instagram, YouTube usw. als die neuen Idole unserer Zeit. Fast alle Influencer*innen werben dabei für Produkte und machen Werbekampagnen für allerlei Firmen. Dass man dies auch kritisch beleuchten sollte, zeigt z.B. ein Video des deutschen YouTubers Marvin.Eine bestimmte Gruppe fällt dabei besonders ins Auge, die sogenannte Christfluencer*innen. Ihr Ziel ist es, das Evangelium und ihre Überzeugungen auf Social Media zu verbreiten. Mithilfe aufwendig gestalteter Videos und Bilder sollen neue Anhänger für ihre Kirchen gewonnen werden. Statt klassische Sonntags-Gottesdienste gibt es die Predigten über Livestreams direkt aufs Smartphone.Obwohl Kirche nun modern und neu dargestellt wird, sind die Überzeugungen in der Regel sehr konservativ gehalten. Kein Sex vor der Ehe, die Ablehnung von Homosexualität und die Gefahr von Pornos stellen dabei die bekanntesten Themen dar. In Bezug auf Pornos soll zudem die Plattform "xxxchurch" helfen. Dabei wird ein Add-on installiert, das automatisch den Pastor oder Pfarrer kontaktiert, falls man in Versuchung gerät, doch Pornos anschauen zu wollen.Inwiefern von Christfluencer*innen mit ihrem Missionsauftrag und ihrer konservativen Haltung eine Gefahr für junge Menschen entsteht, ist noch nicht abzusehen, da sich in Deutschland die Szene erst am Anfang befindet.Basierend auf https://www.deutschlandfunk.de/christfluencer-menschenfischer-auf-youtube-100.html

Die Zahl der in Deutschland durchgeführten Schönheitseingriffe hat sich in den letzten 10 Jahren mehr als verdoppelt. Auffällig ist, dass vor allem junge Menschen an den Eingriffen interessiert sind.Promis wie die Kardashian/Jenners, die Hadid Schwestern, Christiano Ronaldo, David Beckham, Zac Efron und viele mehr hatten auf Instagram und tiktok ein Glow-Up oder sogar ein sogenanntes puberty Glow-Up. Diese Glow-Ups sind in den meisten Fällen allerdings chirurgischen Eingriffen zu verdanken und nicht der Pubertät, dem Sport oder irgendwelcher Produkte selbst.Eine Nase wird durch die Pubertät nicht kleiner, die Lippen nicht voller und auch Muskeln wachsen nicht innerhalb weniger Monate ohne Hilfe. Darüber hinaus geben viele der genannten Promis nicht oder nur teilweise zu, dass sie etwas haben machen lassen. Deshalb entsteht der Eindruck, die Veränderungen würden auf natürliche Weise durch die Pubertät, Sport oder beworbene Produkte stattfinden.Auf Instagram und tiktok sieht man hauptsächlich glatte und perfekte Körper und Gesichter, die dem westlichen Schönheitsideal entsprechen. Das sorgt gerade bei Mädchen, aber auch immer mehr bei Jungen dafür, dass der eigene Körper als fehlerhaft und unattraktiv wahrgenommen wird. Dieses Selbstbild birgt ein großes Risiko für die Entwicklung von Essstörungen oder Depressionen und baut insgesamt einen großen Druck auf, diesen unerreichbaren Idealen entsprechen zu müssen.Deshalb lassen auch junge Menschen Schönheitseingriffe mit großen gesundheitlichen Risiken durchführen. Aber selbst mit den risikoreichen Eingriffen ist es oft nicht möglich, den Idealen zu entsprechen, denn nicht nur Schönheitseingriffe sind an den falschen Vorstellungen von Schönheit schuld, sondern auch die Möglichkeit, Bilder und Videos einfach und schnell bearbeiten zu können und Filter zu benutzen. Ohnehin schöne Menschen, die oftmals auch viele Eingriffe hatten, benutzen zusätzlich Filter und erschaffen so ein Schönheitsideal, dem nicht einmal die Promis / Influencer selbst gerecht werden.Dieser gefährlichen Entwicklung wirkt beispielsweise Norwegen entgegen, indem jede Form von Filter oder Retouch seit dem 1. Juli 2022 gekennzeichnet werden muss. Das ändert zwar nichts daran, dass man auf Social Media immer noch mit den Schönheitsidealen konfrontiert ist, aber es macht die Bearbeitung für die Zuschauer zumindest sichtbar. Auch in Deutschland wird die Debatte um eine Kennzeichnungspflicht, eine höhere Altersgrenze oder höhere Hürden für Schönheitseingriffe immer lauter. Die Erfolgschancen für große Veränderungen sind eher gering, aber es findet zunehmend eine Sensibilisierung für das Thema statt.Quellenhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQb9ytVdLw4https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gin2BR0I0M

A recent article in an online website reveals how the former central bank governor had journalists and commentators on his payroll.

Over the last ten years, PiS has not only systematically dismantled Poland's rule of law, but also strategically corroded the country's media freedom. It has successfully politicized Poland's media regulators, abused public service media for propaganda purposes, captured private media outlets and supported friendly private media, and created regulatory, legal and political obstacles for private media which criticized it. In this blogpost, I will detail three core steps that must be taken to restore media freedom in Poland in conformity with European standards. In particular, I argue for the restoration of the National Broadcasting Council (KRRiT), the constitutional media regulator, as an independent body; the dissolution of the "bonus" media regulator introduced by PiS, the National Media Council; and for reforming the status of Poland's private media and the government's approach to the media in general.

Call for Papers for a Conference in Kalmar, Sweden, on October 12–13, 2023. Deadline: August 15, 2023

The China's State Council is the sole shareholder Contemporary World Publishing Co., Ltd, the company behind Star Media Group's latest media partner, Contemporary World Magazine.

In diesem Werkstatt-Gespräch ist der Journalist Simon Hurtz vom Social-Media-Watchblog zu Gast. Er erklärt, wie viel KI hinter unseren Feeds steckt und was das mit unserer Gesellschaft macht.

A Pew Research Centre survey showed that citizens of 19 advanced economies consider social media simultaneously constructive and destructive in political life. A majority of citizens believe that social media has had a positive impact on democracy. What about frontier economies? How has social media affected politics and political interaction in African countries with rapid population growth, increasing life expectancy, and widespread poverty? Consider Nigeria. In mid-2017, Nigeria was the most populous nation on the continent. By 2050, Nigeria will be the third most populous nation in the world. This large population has increasingly adopted social media. There were approximately 33 million users in 2022, up from 18 million in 2017. Young people aged 18 to 34 make up the ...

A Pew Research Centre survey showed that citizens of 19 advanced economies consider social media simultaneously constructive and destructive in political life. A majority of citizens believe that social media has had a positive impact on democracy. What about frontier economies? How has social media affected politics and political interaction in African countries with rapid population growth, increasing life expectancy, and widespread poverty? Consider Nigeria. In mid-2017, Nigeria was the most populous nation on the continent. By 2050, Nigeria will be the third most populous nation in the world. This large population has increasingly adopted social media. There were approximately 33 million users in 2022, up from 18 million in 2017. Young people aged 18 to 34 make up the ...

Die Landeszentrale für politische Bildung Baden-Württemberg lädt zur nächsten Ausgabe der Stuttgarter Präventionsgespräche ein mit dem Thema: "Macht – Medien – Möglichkeiten. Social Media und der Einfluss auf politische Meinungsbildung".Wann: Mittwoch 4. Oktober 2023, 19:00-20:30 UhrWo: Stuttgarter Hospitalhof (Büchsenstraße 33, 70174 Stuttgart)Referent:innen: Prof. Dr. Bela Mutschler, Professor für Online-Marketing und E-Business, Hanna Veiler, Präsidentin der Jüdischen Studierendenunion Deutschland (JSUD) und politische Influencerin Zum Thema: Social Media spielt eine immer größere Rolle für die politische Meinungsbildung. Bots, Fake News und Filterblasen sind hierbei wesentliche Begriffe. Aber auch Influencer:innen, also Menschen, die im digitalen Raum eine starke Präsenz haben und damit auch andere Menschen beeinflussen können, haben eine wichtige Schlüsselrolle. Wie genau beeinflusst Social Media die politische Meinungsbildung? Welche Chancen und Herausforderungen bringt das mit sich? Und welche Möglichkeiten gibt es, den Gefahren für die Demokratie entgegenzuwirken? Diese Fragen werden im Präventionsgespräch aufgegriffen und diskutiert. Weitere Informationen und die Möglichkeit zur Reservierung gibt es hier: https://www.team-mex.de/praeventionsgespraeche

In April 2023, the Polish National Broadcasting Council, the so-called KRRiT, imposed a high fine on an indipendent media outlet. It was not the first fine of this kind to independent media organisations. The growing number of KRRiT decisions targeting independent media in Poland is the result of the political nature of the procedure for appointing members of the KRRiT and the broad, unclear legal basis for imposing fines. Since 2005, the decisive voice in the composition of the KRRiT was that of the ruling political majority. This blogpost analyzes and criticizes the vague legal framework for KRRiT and the institution's apparent political capture in recent years.

US campaign financing rules have been relaxed even further in recent years, making a worrying problem about the state of American democracy worse (because those with money have even more ability to try and buy votes or influence policy).

Media coverage of this issue, though it may pop up from time to time, seems quite limited. Perhaps because it is estimated that television stations this year could make as much as eight billion dollars from political campaigns.

The state of US mainstream media has unfortunately been lamentable for many years, and after the issues around hurricane Katrina, it was thought that the media would be rejuvenated. Unfortunately it does not seem that way.

This page has been updated with further information about campaign financing issues and how limits in the US have been lifted making the problem worse. Also added were notes on US press freedom, and an info graphic on media ownership concentration.

Read full article: Media in the United States

 While doing one of my recent posts, I looked at the Gallup report on their question about "trust and confidence in the mass media ... when it comes to reporting the news fully, accurately, and fairly."  That report showed changes by party identification*:The obvious feature is the growth of polarization since the late 1990s--the partisan gap has gone from about 10-15 percentage points to 50-60.  I haven't kept a systematic record, but offhand I can't think of any opinion question that's shown a bigger increase in partisan polarization.  There are a couple of other things that are worth noting:  1.  Like Republicans, independents show a clear downward trend.  As a result, they are now closer to Republicans than they are to Democrats.  In the 1970s and 1990s they were about midway in between Democrats and Republicans--in 2022, they were about three times as far from Democrat as from Republicans.  This may be because people (especially people who aren't that interested in politics) tend to react to controversy by concluding you don't know who you can believe.  As a result, it's easier to make them lose trust than to gain trust.  2.  There is some tendency for people to be more positive about the media when a president of the opposite party is in power.  The strongest case is with Trump, when Democratic confidence increased substantially and stayed high while he was in office--it also rose under Bush and declined under Obama.  It's harder to tell with Republicans because the trend is so strong, but the decline in trust seemed to slow down or stop under Obama, and there's been a slight increase under Biden.  Probably this occurs because the president gets a lot of attention, and news stories tend to focus on negative things, giving supporters of his party more to object to (and opponents more sense that the media is doing its job).  The second point leads to a question about short-term changes in opinion:  do the opinions of Democrats and Republicans move together or in opposite directions?  One possibility is that there are changes in the general quality of news coverage, and people of all parties react to them in the same way--for example, confidence might have declined as it became clear that many stories about "weapons of mass destruction" in Iraq had been inaccurate.  Then the opinions of Democrats and Republicans would move together, even though there would be a persistent difference between them.   This would be similar to assessment of current economic conditions--if unemployment or inflation increases, both Democrats and Republicans will rate the economy as worse.  Another possibility is that people react according to whether the news reflects well or badly on their side--for example, a negative story about Biden will cause Democrats to lose confidence and Republicans to gain confidence.  To judge this, I computed the change from the previous year.  There was one case with a 21-year gap, which I discarded because change over a long period is dominated by the trend, and a few with a two-year gap, which I kept.  Comparing changes among Democrats and Republicans:There is no association (the correlation is -.03), but it's not just noise--some of the individual changes make sense in terms of what was happening then.  In 2001 and 2009, supporters of the new president's party lost confidence in the media, and supporters of the other party gained.  In 2016, supporters of both parties lost confidence--presumably because of negative coverage of Trump for Republicans, and stories about Clinton's e-mails for Democrats.  In 2017, confidence in the media increased substantially among Democrats but also increased a little among Republicans, suggesting that some Republicans had qualms about Trump.  The changes among independents had positive correlations with both the changes among Democrats (.50) and Republicans (.21).  This pattern suggests that the changes are a mix of consensus and partisan reactions.  What if we looked at changes among independents to get a sense of the consensus part?  Sampling error has a large impact on those figures, but for what it's worth the biggest positive changes among independents are in 1974, 2017, and 2013; the biggest negative changes are in 2004, 2007, and 2012.*The question has four possible answers, but the Gallup report collapses that into two, and the recent datasets aren't publicly available.