This article investigates how institutional authority and individual agency are co-constructed in the closing moments of courtroom testimony. Drawing on conversation analysis within a critical-discursive and Foucauldian framework, it examines the final re-cross-examination of Amanda Hayes in State v. Hayes. The analysis shows how question design, timing, and repeated phrasing both sustain and contest power, and how micro-level practices—overlap, repair, and expressions of stance—allow the defendant to momentarily reclaim knowledge and moral authority, even under strict procedural constraints specific to the re-cross-examination phase. By conceptualising authority as a dialogically sustained interactional accomplishment, the study highlights how compliance and resistance make courtroom power visible. These findings demonstrate how language performs and negotiates legitimacy, control, and agency in highly regulated legal interactions. In doing so, the article offers new insight into how institutional talk enacts and contests power at the very moment testimony concludes.

Politically motivated rumors on social media can ignite brand animosity and mobilize boycott movements, posing reputational risks to brands. This study examines Orange Egypt, a telecommunications brand targeted during heightened geopolitical tensions, to explore how politically charged narratives emerge, spread, and mobilize collective action online. Using a qualitative netnographic approach, over 2,000 Facebook posts and 616 tweets were analyzed through semantic and lexical analysis, complemented by network mapping with Netvizz and Gephi. Findings reveal that social media affordances—particularly sharing and retweeting—substantially amplified the visibility and virality of emotionally loaded narratives. Hashtags, provocative language, and coordination between activist pages and individual users were instrumental in sustaining momentum. Network visualization showed transnational clustering patterns shaped by cultural and ideological proximity, aligning with Latané’s Dynamic Social Impact Theory. The study extends the literature on consumer animosity and digital activism by highlighting how geographically and culturally linked online communities can accelerate the dissemination of politically charged content. Practical implications underscore the importance for multinational brands to proactively monitor online discourse and develop culturally sensitive strategies in politically volatile contexts.

This article examines how political elites in Kosovo and Serbia employ rhetorical polarization to establish legitimacy amid disputed statehood. This study analyzes 180 quotes of political leaders published in international media spanning 2012–2020, using keyword frequency analysis and Critical Discourse Analysis within van Dijk’s socio-cognitive framework (text–cognition–society) to explore how positive self-representations and negative portrayals of others influence the conflict narrative. Serbian discourse often uses delegitimizing terms like “so-called state” and “illegal,” while Kosovo’s rhetoric emphasizes themes of recognition and sovereignty. Both sides advocate for peace and stability while accusing each other of fueling insecurity. Although justice and victimhood are important, they are less prominent, with Kosovo stressing accountability for war crimes and missing persons, and Serbia casting itself as a guardian of minorities. International alliances have further sharpened the division between the two countries; Kosovo supports the EU and NATO, while Serbia references the UN, Russia, and China. This research contributes theoretically by applying the ideological square to recognition conflicts; methodologically, by combining quantitative and qualitative discourse analysis; and empirically, by providing enriched insights by situating the Kosovo–Serbia dialogue within broader discussions of contested sovereignty. The corpus reveals cross-actor convergence and shared ideological grammar with findings showing a shift from procedural to moral–affective legitimation and a pattern of mirror polarization across Kosovo and Serbia. Given that ongoing discursive polarization hinders conflict resolution, the findings underscore the need for mediation efforts to focus on shared values rather than zero-sum claims.

Interest in refugees and emigration in general has increased over the last decade, becoming a central topic of political and social debate in many Western countries. However, this process cannot be understood without the creation of a socially shared narrative and imaginary around refugees and emigration. In this regard, although many studies have analysed this process, the role of AI in the construction of this imaginary in recent years has not been investigated in depth. The aim of this research is to fill this research gap by examining how Google’s generative AI systems —specifically Google AI Overviews and Gemini image generation—construct representations of refugees through algorithmic content selection and visual synthesis. To achieve this, the study employs a primarily qualitative design, supported by simple descriptive counts of source selection patterns, to analyse textual and visual representations generated by Google’s generative AI systems. Following these analyses, it has been observed that AI-generated images resort to pre-established iconographies in the imaginary about refugees. Furthermore, the analysis reveals how AI Overviews implicitly construct boundaries between “us” and “them” and reproduce previous prejudices and stereotypes with a tendency to simplify diversity.

This paper examines parasocial mourning, mediated intimacy, and the emotional repertoires that shaped the public response to Charlie Kirk’s 2025 assassination. Drawing on news coverage, social media posts, and public statements, the analysis shows how grief, anger, fear, and hope were expressed and circulated in ways that made the loss feel both personal and political. The paper clarifies how mediated intimacy, symbolic elevation, and forms of collective expression took shape in the aftermath, and distinguishes these dynamics from esthetic elements rooted in evangelical culture. It also highlights how practices of remembrance, shared symbolism, and boundary enforcement sometimes resembled secular religious forms without implying theological equivalence. The paper concludes by outlining the implications of parasocial politics for democratic practice and platform-mediated political engagement.

This study aims to investigate to what extent citizen journalists in the Kingdom of Bahrain comply with social responsibility code by adhering to the media law and legislation in Bahrain. This investigation is done using news verification tools as a variable. The methodological framework of the research relies upon a survey of a sample of 132 citizen journalists carried out from January 1 to March 28, 2025. Three research findings emerged. First, two key pillars need to be emphasized for the success of citizen journalism in the Kingdom of Bahrain. These two pillars which are raising awareness of media laws and regulations and fostering a sense of social responsibility are viewed to be capable of leading to increased verification of news before publication, making citizen journalism an effective tool in societal engineering and avoiding sensationalism at the expense of credibility. Second, there is the need to adopt professional ethical guidelines to fit the specific context of citizen journalism. Third, the imperative of organizing educational initiatives and outreach programs in order to promote professional ethical practices among citizen journalists cannot be overstressed. These results explain that the essence of establishing citizen journalism in the Kingdom of Bahrain lies in transforming publishing from an available technical act to a responsible standard practice that is subject to the balance of law, ethics, and professional culture.

Introduction This article investigates the linguistic and computational challenges of detecting antisemitism in digital communication, integrating discourse-analytical and artificial intelligence (AI) perspectives. It conceptualizes antisemitic discourse as a continuum ranging from explicit incitement to implicit, coded expressions whose interpretation depends on contextual, cultural, and pragmatic knowledge. Methods The study draws on empirical case studies from the Decoding Antisemitism project, analyzing YouTube reactions to two events: the Hamas terror attack of 7 October 2023 and the antisemitic double murder in Washington, D.C., in May 2025. Qualitative discourse analysis is combined with computational considerations related to annotation practices and model design for automated detection. Results The analysis shows that antisemitic discourse has become normalized in mainstream digital spaces. Reactions to 7 October were characterized by open glorification of violence, whereas responses to the Washington case centered on denial, irony, and the inversion of victimhood. Together, these cases illustrate both the normalization and diversification of antisemitic communication online. Discussion Building on these findings, the article discusses methodological and computational implications for antisemitism detection. It highlights challenges such as semantic ambiguity, pragmatic drift, multimodal signaling, and data scarcity, and evaluates emerging computational approaches, including transformer-based fine-tuning, retrieval-augmented systems, and context-engineered large language models (LLMs). The study concludes that effectively confronting digital antisemitism requires sustained collaboration between linguists, data scientists, and policymakers to develop context-sensitive, transparent, and ethically grounded AI systems capable of reliable interpretive reasoning.

Calls for climate action often emphasize the need to reduce harm, such as by eating less meat, driving less, and shopping less. A more productive approach, however, may be to encourage people to do more good. To compare the two approaches, we conducted two pre-registered online experiments in which participants were randomly assigned to either a do-more-good condition or a do-less-bad condition. The do-more-good condition presented 15 actions framed so that doing more of each action would benefit the environment (e.g., reuse, repair, recycle, or repurpose all of your items). In the do-less-bad condition, the 15 actions were framed so that doing less of each action would benefit the environment (e.g., do not throw away any of your items). In Experiment 1 ( N = 779), participants were more likely to take climate action and felt happier about doing so in the do-more-good condition than in the do-less-bad condition. Experiment 2 ( N = 770) replicated these results. Exploratory analyses revealed the effects of do-more-good frames differed depending on the action. These findings provide implications for climate communication, suggesting that calls for certain climate actions may benefit from encouraging desired behaviors rather than discouraging undesired behaviors.

The importance of advancing healthcare through effective communication that speaks directly to healthcare professionals (HCPs) is well recognized. With the landscape of communications changing rapidly, there is an ever greater need to closely assess human behaviors and tailor messages accordingly, such that communications effectively address the concerns of the audience and evoke the appropriate behavioral change. To address this need, The Bloc developed a comprehensive health communications strategy, Behaviorally Enriched Communications (BE-COMMS ® ). BE-COMMS is based on well-established, validated behavioral models and is developed to ensure communications can be targeted toward specific behavioral barriers and drivers, thereby evoking the desired behavioral change. Consistent application of BE-COMMS in different healthcare communications scenarios has demonstrated that, regardless of geographic location and therapy area, HCPs’ behaviors are influenced by many overt and covert factors related to capability, opportunity, and motivation (as defined in existing behavioral models). While capability and opportunity factors are easily identified, motivational factors are frequently overlooked when designing communications. We also found similarities in HCPs’ behavioral drivers and barriers across different therapeutic areas, but the combination of them in a specific scenario is often unique. Although our analysis is not systematic, it provides a well-rounded overview of factors influencing HCP behavior, as well as our perspective on effectively tailoring communications to bring improvements to patient care. Our accumulated years of practical experience with BE-COMMS demonstrate that communications require a tailored approach for different circumstances to drive behavioral change and improve patient healthcare.

Background Food safety scandals pose severe threats to public health and social stability, often triggering widespread emotional reactions and disruptive public opinion crises. Understanding the mechanisms driving public opinion evolution in such scenarios is crucial for effective crisis management. Method To investigate these mechanisms, we developed the HK-SNPR model, which incorporates differentiated dissemination propensities. The model was applied to analyze public opinion data from the "McDonald's relabeling expired food" incident in China. Result The analysis revealed that negative opinions from high-influence users are most likely to provoke large-scale dissemination of public sentiment. Authoritative individuals exerted stronger influence than professional experts. Furthermore, the interaction between incident severity and individual involvement significantly steered the evolution of public opinion. Additionally, positive opinions played a critical yet asymmetric role, serving as a key leverage point for accelerating the attenuation of public opinion crises. Conclusion These findings provide important insights for the effective management and control of public opinion related to food safety scandals, highlighting the pivotal influence of key user groups and the stabilizing potential of positive information.