Drawing from communication infrastructure theory, I propose a methodological and analytical intervention for the smart city and related initiatives: a community-driven approach to urban data-driven governance. This approach contends that data-related actors increasingly act as key storytelling agents within urban governance, given the rise of datafication. Moreover, it emphasizes the importance of an alternative storytelling network, positing the local storytelling network as a key—yet often minimally visible—set of experts and storytellers that can activate data-driven change and overcome extant gaps in dominant, “limited” versions of the smart city. As such, I spotlight two counterdata projects as prototypes for this intervention. In all, I argue it is imperative that urban governance explores this framework to incorporate, and design with, a wider range of local actors and knowledge in mind: not only to address critiques but, more so, to build more inclusive models in the public interest.

This study assesses journalism student motivations and role conceptions among Tunisian and US students to compare aspiring journalists in a country with well-established free-press norms to those in a transitional democracy with a recent history of authoritarianism. Results suggest that Tunisian journalism students are more interested than US journalism students in covering public affairs and using their work to fight social injustice. A Tunisian drive toward public-service journalism is consistent with these socially conscious inclinations.

This article examines Russia's practice of the ban introduced by the so-called ‘fake news laws’ during the war against Ukraine. It blends doctrinal legal with discourse analysis to study how and why Russian courts have applied the laws, which epistemology of knowledge they have constructed while limiting fake news about the war and what implications this has for freedom of expression and public debate of the war within Russia. The dataset covers 446 Russian court decisions from 2022 to 2023. A historical approach is utilised to discuss the results in connection to the Soviet Communist ideology. The article argues that Russian courts have used the laws to make truth in Russia conditional and loyalty unconditional, actualising the Soviet principles of ‘partyness’, ‘objectivity’ and ‘scientificalness’. It demonstrates how courts construct a mythologised reality about the ‘imaginary’ ‘military operation’ to help the government monopolise the public debate and misrepresent the war against Ukraine within Russia.

Journalists in Egypt and the UAE have been differently challenged by the COVID-19 situation at multiple levels, (1) individual (2) work/routines and (3) media/organizational while covering COVID-19. Using the hierarchy of influences model, we analyze the differentiated journalists’ role conceptions, perceived performance, and challenges they faced in covering COVID-19, and how that affect their performance, as Global South-based journalists. Applying a mixed method approach, we conducted in-depth interviews with 20 journalists who reported COVID-19, representing different media platforms, as a part of the Global Risk Journalism Hub project. We also surveyed journalists ( n 102) from both countries, as a part of the Journalistic Role Performance project. Findings revealed that media-organizational level challenges influenced journalists more than other levels. Journalists also shifted from the Civic Role Conception to performing the Loyal-Facilitator Role followed by the Interventionist Role during the pandemic.

News personalization in one-party dominant countries has been understudied or often analyzed through a Western lens. This study unpacked this phenomenon in one-party dominant country with the theory of leadership cult and soft power and compared news personalization of Xi Jinping in China with that of Donald Trump in the U.S. against the backdrop of the U.S.–China trade conflict. This study also investigated the influence of press ideology, political–geographical scope of news coverage and the trade conflict period on the presence and valence of personalization within each country. Results showed that leadership personalization was less prominent in China than in the U.S. The manifestation of news personalization in the U.S. was affected more by press ideology, while contextual factors, such as news political scope and the conflict period, played bigger roles in China. These findings provide insights into how news personalization is displayed in divergent political and media systems.

Despite gradually increasing consumption patterns, the notion of memory remains a key concept that is rarely drawn on by scholars to better understand television (TV) series. This research contributes to the existing literature on the reception of Turkish TV series in the specific case of Macedonian audiences by conducting interviews in Skopje, the capital city of Macedonia. By focusing on a majority Christian demographic that does not speak Turkish and has no familial bonds to Turkish people, this study hopes to move beyond cultural proximity arguments. The findings suggest the crucial importance of photographic (eidetic) and prosthetic memories from mediated accounts of Turkish series in creating cultural and collective affinities with local audiences.

The present study provides a comparative analysis of the media convergence of China Media Group and US Agency for Global Media to illustrate the increasing US–China rivalry in international communication. It yields the following tentative findings: Both have been undergoing rigorous development at the technological and operational levels of convergence to enhance international communication; both are made to show more explicit loyalty to its official ideology, and both have become more monolithic via convergence; both have integrated their broadcasting services for an increasingly integrated market of information and news; both seem to be weaponizing itself against each other to fuel rivalry in international communication between the two nations rather than deepening mutual understanding and cooperation for mutual good and global good. The two case studies reveal that media convergence has not been able to liberate journalism from nationalistic constraints and transform it into an instrument to spawn new ideas and disseminate high-quality information and news for global public good.

This article examines how Carlos Alvarado and Nayib Bukele, presidents of Costa Rica and El Salvador, respectively, employed Facebook throughout 2020 to communicate about the COVID-19 pandemic. The study draws on content analysis of 1584 posts made by both presidents on Facebook throughout 2020. The article argues that Alvarado and Bukele turned the pandemic into a means to build political legitimacy in their specific political context through two main strategies: populist communication and permanent campaigning. Whereas Alvarado relied on these strategies to demonstrate that he was in control of the country amid mounting backlash, Bukele infused both strategies with a religious imaginary to attack political opponents and perform the role of El Salvador's messiah. This analysis broadens the understanding of the relationship between populist communication and permanent campaigning in two main ways. First, by employing a comparative approach to identify singularities and differences in the ways that presidents built political legitimacy during the pandemic in a largely under-examined region (Central America). Second, by situating findings within a wide temporal perspective that included posts in an entire calendar year and comparisons with Alvarado's and Bukele's presidential campaigns.

A close analysis of puhutv’s Şahsiyet ( Persona, 2018) and its Mexican adaptation for HBO Max Latin America (HBO Max Latinoamérica), Asesino del Olvido ( Before I Forget, 2021) reveals that the show’s hybridization of the Turkish series’ melodramatic conventions with the Anglo-American quality TV characteristics is the key to its adaptability for Mexican audiences. Melodrama’s domination in both Turkey and Mexico contributes to the similar utilization of melodramatic elements when the Anglo-American quality TV model is adapted for the local audiences. Therefore, the proximity around the mainstream popularity of melodramas in both markets and the shared juxtaposition of melodrama and quality allow Şahsiyet to flow as a quality TV format between Turkey and Mexico.

Drawing on field observations and extensive interviews, this study investigates how Kenyan media practitioners exercise their agency when interacting with Chinese stakeholders. When dealing with Chinese stakeholders or China-related stories, Kenyan media practitioners developed three strategies to exercise their journalistic agency: (a) situational negotiation, (b) collective reflection, and (c) resistance, through which they have approached, negotiated with, and resisted their relations with their Chinese counterparts. This article challenges the misconceptions that Chinese media organizations always hold a powerful position vis-à-vis African media organizations, and that African agents are dependents or innocent victims with neither agency nor creativity.