Studies in Communication Sciences

Editorial

Thilo von Pape — 2022-12-28

While our journal enjoys increasing recognition by international readers and authors, it also remains a vital forum for Swiss communication and media studies. The current issue testifies to this attachment, as it includes research from universities in Switzerland’s German-, French-, and Italian-speaking parts. The General Section opens with two articles addressing the micro level of in-person communication and the macro level of mass-mediated discourses in the public sphere. In the first article, Jonathan Gruber, Eszter Hargittai, and Minh Hao Nguyen from the University of Zurich investigate the value of face-to-face communication in a world where digital communication technologies are omnipresent. The researchers draw on survey data collected in the U.S. when the first COVID-19-related lockdown limited in-person interactions. They use this opportunity to study what people value in face-to-face interactions, as this likely becomes more salient to people when in-person interactions are less available. Their results show that most people missed elements of face-to-face interaction, such as the special value of spontaneous conversation and physical closeness. The study also sheds light on which modes of digital communication seem to compensate for the lack of face-to-face interactions better than others.

Enrico Morresi. L’autodisciplina della professione giornalistica in Svizzera (1972–2022). La prassi del Consiglio svizzero della stampa

Roger Blum — 2022-12-28

Im Fokus von Morresis neuestem Buch stehen der Schweizer Presserat sowie der Journalismus-Kodex, auf den sich der Presserat bei seinen Erwägungen abstützt. Bisher hat sich die wissenschaftliche Literatur, in der der Schweizer Presserat eine Rolle spielt, vor allem auf die Funktionen (Blum, 1998), die Strukturen (Blum & Prinzing, 2010; Blum & Prinzing, 2020), die Arbeitsweise (Blum, 2000), die Akzeptanz (Prinzing & Blum 2015; Wyss, 2007) und den internationalen Ver-gleich (Blum, 2012; Puppis, 2009) konzentriert, nur wenig auf die Spruchpraxis. Das holt Morresi nun nach. Und während sich der praktische Ratgeber für Journalistinnen und Journalisten (Studer & Künzi, 2011) auf die grossen Linien stützt, zieht Morresi rund 300 Fälle bei. Er ordnet die Fälle entlang den elf Pflicht-Ziffern des berufs-ethischen Kodex (1: Wahrheitspflicht, 2: Informations-, Kommentar- und Kritikfreiheit, 3: Quellengerechtigkeit, 4: Verzicht auf unlautere Methoden, 5: Berichtigungspflicht, 6: Redaktionsgeheimnis, 7: Res-pektierung der Privatsphäre, 8: Diskriminierungsverbot, 9: Korrup-tionsverbot, 10: Abstand von der Werbung, 11: Journalistische Weisungen nur von Berufskolleg:innen) und fasst die wichtigsten und interessantesten aus der Gesamtmenge von gegen 1600 Stellung-nahmen zusammen.

Rethinking digital media use for diasporic political participation: An investigation into journalism advocacy, digital activism, and democratic divides (Dissertation summary)

Rana Arafat — 2022-12-28

By presenting five studies on connected research questions, this cumulative dissertation develops a novel understanding of the concept of Hybrid Diasporic Public Sphere by examining how three groups of diasporic exiles, including journalists, activists, and ordinary refugees settled in democratic states, use digital media to engage in transnational conflicts and advocate for political and social change in their homelands. The study demonstrates that the roles of the three diasporic political actors are highly interactive, overlapping, and complementary and their digitally-empowered collaborations blur boundaries between their normative role distinctions creating new interchanging political logics, norms, and practices. The novel contribution of this thesis lies at three levels. First, it redefines diaspora journalism in conflict contexts by examining the Syrian journalists’ media advocacy strategies and digital networks that blend activism, human rights advocacy, and social movements. Second, it further identifies five barriers to the digital diasporic political participation of ordinary refugees demonstrating new forms of democratic divides. Third, the study develops the concept of connected diaspora activist identifying the current challenges that undermine the potential of social media use for mobilizing a political change in non-revolutionary times. The dissertation employs four qualitative research methods including digital ethnography, content analysis, metajournalistic discourse analysis, and a total of 94 in-depth interviews.

From precarious conditions to permanent positions? Problems, responsible actors, and solutions for strengthening the academic mid-level staff in Switzerland

Quirin Ryffel — 2022-12-28

The precarious situation of doctoral and postdoctoral researchers, resulting from fixed-term contracts and the demanding working conditions of young researchers at Swiss universities, has been increasingly discussed in recent years by academic organizations, political actors, and the broader public. While discussions on various levels are intensifying, concrete measures remain largely absent, and young researchers find themselves in an environment of job insecurity and a lack of prospects. Therefore, we organized a panel discussion on why and how to create permanent positions in the Swiss academic system during this year’s annual conference of the Swiss Association of Communication and Media Research (SACM). The panel included presentations of preliminary results from a recent study analyzing the working conditions of young and emerging communication and media scholars in Switzerland as well as discussions with researchers and actors from science organizations regarding: 1) the need for improvement of the current working conditions and the future perspectives of mid-level staff at Swiss universities, 2) the responsibilities of different actors, and 3) alternatives to the status quo that help solve the precarious situation of young and emerging scholars in Switzerland and beyond. The discussion showed several reasons for establishing more permanent positions and inducing a systemic change. While there are manifold arguments for creating more permanent positions, these arguments must appeal to those with decision-making power.

Communication of higher education institutions: Historical developments and changes over the past decade

Silke Fürst — 2022-12-28

Higher education institutions (HEIs) are pivotal organizations in modern societies. Over the past decades, the higher education sector has expanded considerably in countries across the world, with many newly founded colleges and universities and rapid increases in student enrollment and research output. In addition, new public management reforms and a growing need for societal legitimation have led many HEIs to establish or enlarge their communication departments, pursue branding and reputation management, and professionalize their communication efforts across various channels. Although a growing body of literature has shed light on how HEIs engage in public relations (PR) and science communication, we know little about how their communication has developed over time and in relation to the fundamental transformations in higher education systems and the media landscape in recent years, decades, and even centuries. Most existing sketches of such historical developments have focused on one country – as is typical for histories of PR in general – and have been dedicated to the second half of the 20th century. In contrast, the early beginnings of university communication since the late 19th century and recent trends in the past decade have been little researched. This guest editorial and the contributions of this Thematic Section on Changing Communication of Higher Education Institutions address these gaps in research and together shed light on developments in different European countries, as well as in the U. S.

“One might tweet just for money”: Organisational and institutional incentives for researchers’ social media communication and public engagement practices

Kaisu Koivumäki — 2022-12-28

The changing media landscape and proliferation of social media potentially increase agency amongst researchers to communicate individually. It also points to a need for studying science communication at an organisational level to understand how science communication activities can be collectively organised to have a substantial impact. Despite these changes, there are ongoing questions regarding the perceived value of science communication and the ways in which it can receive institutional support in credit-driven academic cultures. Therefore, this study set out to explore how incentives relate to researchers’ communication activity and how these can be influenced by digital communication contexts. This article presents a qualitative analysis of semi-structured interviews with 17 researchers and 15 communication professionals in Finland. Results indicate that academic leaders are in the key position to support organisational science communication culture, and their acknowledgement for science communication can be more effective than encouragement from in-house communication staff. This suggests that there may be a key gap vis-à-vis training in science communication and engagement which is targeted towards scientific and organisational leaders. The results also imply there is enduring value in communication activities featuring in periodical performance evaluation and that analytic data from digital media endeavours can form an intrinsic reward.

Branding the “wow-academy”: The risks of promotional culture and quasi-corporate communication in higher education

Esa Väliverronen — 2022-12-28

This article examines the branding of the new Tampere University in Finland and the reactions it evoked in Finnish social media and news media between 2018–2020. The merger of the University of Tampere and Tampere University of Technology into a new foundation-based university provoked considerable public debate and sparked uproar over the communication style and practices of the university’s new management. The main reason for the outcry was that the new governance model of the university ignored the traditional democratic way of running a university. Our article contributes to the growing literature on public relations communication in higher education by focusing on promotional culture and the role of the changing media landscape in university branding. We analyze how and why the brand messages were contested and transformed into memes and satirical commentaries on social media. When the university’s management tried to restrain this subversive play with legal sanctions, the issue escalated into the news media. Our qualitative analysis demonstrates the possible repercussions of a quasi-corporate style of communication on the credibility of the university as a higher education institution in a hybrid media environment.

Assessing changes in the public communication of higher education institutions: A survey of leaders of Swiss universities and colleges

Silke Fürst — 2022-12-28

Over the past decades, higher education institutions (HEIs) across the world have institutionalized communication departments and played an increasingly important role in communicating science to the public. While a growing body of research has analyzed the practices and structures of central communication departments in HEIs, little is known about developments over time. This study examines perceived changes in HEI communication along different analytical dimensions and across HEI types. Conceptually, neo-institutional theory is used to derive the factors that foster this change, specifically the new public management reforms and the accompanying coercive, normative, and mimetic pressures on HEIs. The empirical study is based on a survey of 196 members of HEI leadership in Switzerland. The results show that, according to organizational leaders, HEI communication has diversified and intensified considerably over the last five to ten years. It has also become – albeit to a somewhat lesser extent – more professional and strategic. Multiple linear regression analysis reveals that the strongest predictors of perceived change in HEI communication are the goal to build public reputation, the perceived competition among HEIs for public reputation, and the observation of other Swiss HEIs. The study outlines implications for future research and for HEI communicators.

College television at German higher education institutions in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic

Charmaine Voigt — 2022-12-28

Higher education institutions (HEIs) create a range of media products. Among them are college media produced by students. Even though this heterogeneous media form exists throughout Germany and is therefore part of HEIs’ public visibility, it remains unnoticed in the field of higher education communication. This study aims to examine the specific type of college television (CTV) in terms of organizational and editorial structures and altered workflows due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The study combines a two-wave online survey among all operating German CTV stations in 2017 and 2021 with a qualitative social media analysis of twelve stations. In 2017, intra-curricular CTV operations rated a higher satisfaction level than extra-curricular cases, whereby the explicit support and cooperation with the HEI scores better. The data shows that CTV operations with an intra-curricular linkage to the respective HEI enjoyed a more stable continuity than extra-curricular operations, some of which were forced to cease production over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic has limited the CTV operations’ workflows in terms of access to equipment and social exchange but has also stimulated a shift in topic selection and distribution strategy.

The role of organizations in the public communication of science – Early research, recent studies, and open questions

Hans Peter Peters — 2022-12-28

Organizational science communication of higher education institutions (and research institutes outside the university sector) came into view of scholars of “science journalism” soon after the begin of systematic studies of the scientist-journalist relationship. While the pioneering French study of scientists’ relationship with the mass media by Boltanski and Maldidier (1970) focused on implications of the norms of the scientific community for public communication by scientists, early surveys of scientists in the United States (Dunwoody & Ryan, 1982, 1983) and – peripherally – also in Germany (Krüger, 1985; Peters & Krüger, 1985) considered both the scientific community and the university (or other public research organizations) as relevant contexts of the scientist-journalist relationship. The issue of organizational science public relations (PR) was also addressed by scholars and practitioners in publications and workshops in Europe (see, e.g., Peters, 1984; Ruß-Mohl, 1990; Zerges & Becker, 1992) in the 1980s and early 1990s. While researchers were not oblivious of self-interests’ influence in public communication activities of universities and other research institutions, the dominant perspective on science communication was that of the relationship of science and the media, and PR officers at science organizations were largely conceptualized as “mediators between scientists and journalists” (Dunwoody & Ryan, 1983) or as “practitioner in the middle” (Rogers, 1988).

The value of face-to-face communication in the digital world: What people miss about in-person interactions when those are limited

Jonathan Gruber — 2022-12-28

Face-to-face communication is important for building and maintaining relationships. The COVID-19 pandemic led to severe limitations in people’s face-to-face interactions, resulting in most people relying more heavily on digital communication for social connection. Existing research has contributed to the understanding of how face-to-face communication is used alongside digital communication. However, we know little about what elements of face-to-face interactions people miss especially when in-person meetings are heavily reduced, and how this is related to their use of digital communication for social connection. In this study, we draw upon survey data that we collected in spring 2020 from a national sample of U. S. adults to answer these questions. We find that most people missed elements of face-to-face interactions and particularly valued spontaneous interactions, physical closeness, and independence from technology about in-person interactions. More frequent and increasing use of popular digital modes such as voice calls, video calls, text messages, and social media were all positively related to missing face-to-face communication. Our results contribute to the understanding of the role and value of in-person interactions in a digital world.

Bad guy or good guy? The framing of an imam

Regula Hänggli Fricker — 2022-12-28

In this paper, we investigate framing in the case of an imam in Switzerland. We conducted a qualitative content analysis of 175 articles from Swiss newspapers and public broadcasting websites in German and French to examine how Bekim Alimi, an imam in Wil, Switzerland, was portrayed in the news media from 2015–2019. Powerful and / or prominent actors who made an effort, journalists, as well as the object of the debate, Bekim Alimi, contribute to frame building. We identify two key events (the inauguration of the Gotthard Base Tunnel and Alimi’s naturalization process) as highly crucial for the framing of the debate because they stimulate some frame sponsors to become active. When they speak out, the debates become more intense and broader. In this way, key events hold the possibility to discuss a situation in depth, to create orientation, to offer solutions (prognostic framing), or to motivate people (motivational framing) to become active.