This paper examines the organisational culture of European student radio stations through the lens of the tight–loose cultural continuum, drawing on the author's previous studies that explored these organisations at the levels of artefacts, espoused values, and underlying assumptions using Edgar Schein's model of organisational culture. European student radio stations exist within resource-constrained and transient environments, requiring constant adaptation. This paper reinterprets data from three earlier empirical studies, an analysis of organisational artefacts, a competing values framework analysis of espoused values, and a qualitative case study of core assumptions, through the theory of cultural tightness and looseness. The findings reveal how stations balance flexibility and structure, with some gravitating toward tighter rules for stability, while others maintain looser norms to foster creativity. The paper contributes to understanding the organisational dynamics of youth-driven, mission-oriented media institutions, offering a analytical framework to evaluate how cultural regulation shapes their evolution.

A critical mode of being is not only written into the Swedish law of university education as a learning outcome for all students, but also vital for Media and Communication students approach to their studies and their future lives as media producers. Taking on this challenge, I created an experiment 15 years ago, which I term performance teaching. It was a way to force students out of their uncritical absorption of course-content only focusing on exams, into a critical mode of thinking and doing. At first this performance teaching entailed lecturing in totally different lifestyle outfits every day, with the aid of colleagues and the city theatre. The following 13 years, however, only the first day of term was used for the performance and the experiment turned into a permanent teaching method, tied in with theories of critique of sources and media critique. This is the case that will theoretically discuss in this article. I will argue for didactically designing learning processes that tackles the issues embodied critical thinking and doing. My main argument is that by acknowledging that we, as lecturers and students, are physical beings and that learning should take place through one’s entire body, learning processes can be didactically designed to better learning processes. The aim of the article is showing how performance teaching can create a positive base for critical learning, thinking, and doing media, and theoretically analysing and discussing this. Theoretically, the concepts I use are mainly based on bell hooks’ works on feminist critical pedagogy. I also lean on Bourdieu’s (2001) concept hexis and habitus, and Larsson and Fagrell’s (2010) The Conception of Performed Body. I’m furthermore inspired by Selander and Kress’ (2010) book on didactic design and Toke Gissel’s (2016) work on Media Didactics, which ties my research to my subject Media and Communication studies. Methodologically the case study is based on student questionnaires and interviews. The result shows that students yearn the familiar, they want what they believe a university education and a “proper university lecturer” should be. When taken out of their pre-understandings of this and when the course didactics are consciously designed to foster criticality, they start to think and do critically. The performance lecture is but a small starting point in achieving this, but its effects seem to last students’ entire bachelor program (and possibly beyond). The article does not argue for a performance lecture as such, as it could be a hard act hard to follow, but that university lectures should aim for what bell hooks terms practical wisdom. Furthermore, we need to bring embodied learning into the classroom, and we must acknowledge that fostering critical thinking and critical doing is key to any university education.

This article proposes PRANC as a theoretical framework to help rethink, understand, and deconstruct the monopolizing influence of mass media in this social media age. From Marxist perspective, mass media centered on and dominated capital accumulation through excessive culture production such as television drama programs. Mass media was also manipulated and controlled from the center with producer-consumer dichotomy. However, I argue in this article that through its affordances social media disrupts a centeralized information production and dissemination discouraging mass media’s monopoly on capitalism and culture industry. Social media also serves as a platform with which societies challenge dictatorship, expose, and withstand various forms of oppression as has been witnessed in different parts of the world over the last decade. Portability of communication technologies enabled users to carry along their devices that enables them have access to social media anytime anywhere, while retrievability allows users to search and recover information shared on social media. Affordability is another social media feature that promotes broader participation in sociocultural and political activities, while networkability is the ability of agile social media to empower marginalized voices to stand united for a common good fighting oppression. On the other hand, customizability of social media enables users to conceal and shape their identities to protect themselves from attack due to the content they share or due to their engagement with contents users share. Social media viewed from PRANC framework offers a new opportunity for the powerless communities to struggle for their rights. It fosters inclusivity, democratizes cultural landscapes, and redefines how culture is produced, disseminated, and consumed in the digital age, challenging capitalism and culture industry. Keywords: PRANC, portability, retrievability, affordability, networkability, customizability, capitalism, culture industry, creative culture

This research aims to contribute to the debate on the concept of alternative media by trying to understand what this term means for its users. The responses that emerged in the focus group discussions revealed which values and which characteristics are important in the eyes of the participants to define a media as “alternative”. The interviews were analyzed with the grounded theory method and the themes and sub-themes were determined with the open coding method. The first point to note is that interviewees consider a wide range of media as alternative. These include a channel affiliated with a large conglomerate; news broadcasters of different countries; some small-scale media organizations, journalists broadcasting through social media platforms, opposition and pro-government publishers coexist. In the study, it was determined that the alternative media users of the focus groups attach more importance to the content than the formal features such as being non-commercial. Keywords: alternative media, mainstream media, user research, journalism, focus group

“Predatory publications in the era of internet and technology: Open access publications are at risk” was published in the Athens Journal of Mass Media and Communications and Prof. Papanikos has given his insightful inputs on it in the article entitled “Predatory Publications in the Era of Internet and Technology: A Comment”. As a response to his article, the authors identified that the “Predatory Practices” go beyond the “Predatory publications” and are prevalent in many formats other than scientific publications. Although naming such practices as “Academic pornography” is too harsh, no other word could be used for such biased conspiracy in the name of so called quality and predatory publications. No one is authorized to judge that this particular publication model is good and others are bad. We wanted to communicate that predatory vs. non-predatory debate is pulling back the novel idea of open access. We are at the same track with Prof. Papanikos, the ways are different. Keywords: predatory journals, open access, predatory practices, predatory conferences

In an article published in this journal entitled “Predatory publications in the era of internet and technology: Open access publications are at risk”, Akhilesh Kumar, Ravi Gupta, Krishna Kant Tripathi & Rajani Ranjan Singh argue that the definition of predatory publications defame the open access journals putting the sustainability of these type of publications at risk which mushroomed in the age of internet and electronic freedom in disseminating academic and non-academic information. This note comments on their paper by arguing that (a) predatory practices are ubiquitous in the academic world, not only in publications; (b) charging a fee does not make an academic practice predatory; and (c) in the long-term no publication or an academic practice can survive if it does not offer some sort of “satisfaction” to users (readers and authors). The argument of peer review or not is irrelevant because a publication, once it becomes available, is constantly reviewed by its readers who are the ultimate judges of its quality. At the end of the day, what counts are the number of readers and the number of citations of a published work. Thanks to the internet these are now easily measurable. Keywords: open access, predatory journals, article processing charges, peer review

This study examined the value of ethnopolitics during media reporting of the 2017 electoral process in Kenya. The study relied on the political economy of media theory by Vincent Mosco the propaganda theory by Herman and Chomsky and the theory of agenda-setting by McCombs and Shaw. The study used descriptive research design with the population of the study drawn from Nakuru Town Sub-County. Our research relied on observation schedules to obtain data from the televised political analyses shows and propaganda political videos clip. Interview schedules were used for media practitioners (editors, reporters and media sellers) and politicians (MPs and MCAs), while unstructured questionnaires were used for the media consumers (audience). All qualitative data were processed and analysed using the critical interpretative approach, while the quantitative data were presented descriptively in tables, graphs, charts and percentages generated using SPSS software. The study findings indicated that during the 2017 electoral process in Kenya, political players used ethnopolitics to capture extensive media coverage. Similarly, there was a direct influence of ethnopolitics and ethnopolitical journalism on the media consumer knowledge and ethnopolitics normalisation. The study recommends that media, being the most influential cultural institution and player in the political economy, self-regulates to minimise ethnopolitics dissemination. The output of this study adds to the existing knowledge in communication and media studies and the political economy of mass media. The findings should be able to inform policy formulation among the mass media industry and media regulatory bodies in Kenya. Keywords: ethnicity, ethnopolitics, ethnopolitical oligarchy, political economy of communication

forums, colloquiums, courses, roundtable discussions) organized by ATINER throughout the year and entail significant costs of participating.

forums, colloquiums, courses, roundtable discussions) organized by ATINER throughout the year and entail significant costs of participating.

ATINER is a World Non-Profit Association of Academics and Researchers based in Athens. ATINER is an independent Association with a Mission to become a forum where Academics and Researchers from all over the world can meet in Athens, exchange ideas on their research and discuss future developments in their disciplines, as well as engage with professionals from other fields. Athens was chosen because of its long history of academic gatherings, which go back thousands of years to Plato's Academy and Aristotle's Lyceum. Both these historic places are within walking distance from ATINER"s downtown offices. Since antiquity, Athens was an open city. In the words of Pericles, Athens"is open to the world, we never expel a foreigner from learning or seeing". ("Pericles"