Published by De Gruyter Mouton

Volume 40 Issue 1

Issue of Communications

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Contents
Journal Overview

Publicly Available March 2, 2015

Debate

March 2, 2015

Articles

March 2, 2015

Theorizing adversarial guests: The resistance to (and restoration of) media routines

Mirjam Gollmitzer

Page range: 21-41

Abstract

This article traces ‘difficult guests’ who violate the tacit rules that guide interactions between talk show hosts and their guests, between news anchors and their interviewees. The goal is to theorize the appearance of such guests on television against the background of four case studies. Using the media events and media scandals concepts as well as more recent work on ‘mediatization’, a new category of remarkable media occurrences is developed. Such ‘media incidents’ capture the resistance to media routines as well as the incorporation of resistance into those very routines. I will illustrate how media incidents make visible, for large audiences, the media’s daily habitual construction of reality. Despite their complex, even ambivalent nature, it is argued that media incidents perform a more critical function for citizens in media-saturated societies than both media events and scandals.

March 2, 2015

Parasocial relationships with audiences’ favorite celebrities: The role of audience and celebrity characteristics in a representative Flemish sample

Nathalie Claessens, Hilde Van den Bulck

Page range: 43-65

Abstract

This article provides insight into one form of audience involvement with celebrities: parasocial relationships (PSR). To address several shortcomings in PSR research – focus on TV, confusion between PSI (parasocial interaction) and PSR, use of student samples, neglect of socio-demographic variables – a representative online survey was conducted with 1000 Flemish adults who indicated 382 celebrities as favorites. A new scale reveals that PSR contain two important elements: emotional connections and an analogy with social relationships. Confirming previous research, most favorite celebrities are male, and cultural proximity is especially important for older respondents. In one combined model, respondents’ and celebrities’ (socio-demographic) characteristics are included as potential PSR predictors. This model nuances previous research and reveals that people who are male, older, more lowly-educated, and interested in celebrity news have stronger PSR. Further, stronger PSR are found for local and religious, political, sports, and music celebrities than for film celebrities.

March 2, 2015

Investigating people’s news diets: How online users use offline news

Damian Trilling, Klaus Schoenbach

Page range: 67-91

Abstract

The question how offline media use is related to online media use has been heavily debated in the last decades. If they are functionally equivalent, then advantages like low costs, rapid publication cycles, and easy access to online news could lead to them displacing offline news. Data from a large-scale survey with detailed questions about media use in the Netherlands show that, interestingly, the functions that online and offline media are used for are often the same: Those who use online media to gain a broad overview of the news, for fast updates, or for background information use offline media for the same purpose. There are some differences, though: For many citizens, the need of a broad overview of the news seems to be fulfilled by repertoires consisting of several outlets of different types, while they seem to have favorite specific outlets for news updates or background information, respectively. This suggests that outlets can especially focus on the latter two functions to distinguish themselves.

March 2, 2015

Older adults’ television viewing as part of selection and compensation strategies

Margot J. van der Goot, Johannes W. J. Beentjes, Martine van Selm

Page range: 93-111

Abstract

A large share of the available literature on television and ageing depicts old age as a life stage characterized by losses in which people use television as a substitute for decreased activities. The aim of the present study is to investigate how television viewing is part of both selection and compensation strategies. Based on a qualitative interview study among a diverse sample of older adults ( N = 86, aged 65–92 years), we found three ways in which television viewing is part of selection strategies and three ways in which it is part of compensation strategies. In contrast to the focus on compensation in previous research, we found that selection strategies appear to provide a better characterization of older people’s television viewing than compensation strategies. Moreover, particular television viewing behavior does not automatically signal whether television viewing is part of selection or compensation strategies.

March 2, 2015

Towards a theoretical model of social media surveillance in contemporary society

Christian Fuchs, Daniel Trottier

Page range: 113-135

Abstract

‘Social media’ like Facebook or Twitter have become tremendously popular in recent years. Their popularity provides new opportunities for data collection by state and private companies, which requires a critical and theoretical focus on social media surveillance. The task of this paper is to outline a theoretical framework for defining social media surveillance in the context of contemporary society, identifying its principal characteristics, and understanding its broader societal implications. Social media surveillance is a form of surveillance in which different forms of sociality and individuals different social roles converge, so that surveillance becomes a monitoring of different activities in different social roles with the help of profiles that hold a complex networked multitude of data about humans.

Book Reviews

March 2, 2015

Book Review

Jessica Taylor Piotrowski

Page range: 137-139

March 2, 2015

Book Review

Tom Evens

Page range: 140-142

March 2, 2015

Book Review

Eline Huiberts

Page range: 143-145

About this journal

Objective
Communications: The European Journal of Communication Research is an established forum for scholarship and academic debate in the field of communication science and research from a European perspective. Communication science is concerned with the investigation of the structure and function of communication processes and their impact on society, social groups and individuals. Communications highlights the concerns of this discipline through the publication of articles, research reports, review essays and book reviews on theoretical and methodological developments considered from a European perspective. The journal encompasses the entire field of communication science as its domain of interest. The contributions published in the journal cover a wide range of subfields in communication science.

Topics

Communication reseach
Structure and function of communication
Impact on society, social groups and individuals
Interpersonal communication
Intercultural communication
Mass communication
Communication theory
Philosophy of communication
Media history
Media development and communication technology

Article formats
Original articles, research reports, review essays, and book reviews

Volume 40 Issue 1

Issue of Communications

Frontmatter

ECREA, quo vadis?

Theorizing adversarial guests: The resistance to (and restoration of) media routines

Abstract

Parasocial relationships with audiences’ favorite celebrities: The role of audience and celebrity characteristics in a representative Flemish sample

Abstract

Investigating people’s news diets: How online users use offline news

Abstract

Older adults’ television viewing as part of selection and compensation strategies

Abstract

Towards a theoretical model of social media surveillance in contemporary society

Abstract

Book Review

Book Review

Book Review