“I don’t Teach Violence, I Teach Self-Control”; The Framing of Mixed Martial Arts Between Mental Health and Well-Being

This paper draws on conceptual and analytical tools from cultural sociology to analyze media representations of the MMA right after the murder of a twenty-year-old boy, that took place in a small village in central Italy by a gang of young men, two of whom frequented a MMA gym. While often characterized as violent and uncivilized, MMA has a core following of fans who watch and practice MMA out of an interest in the effects of the sport in terms of health and well-being. Through in depth qualitative analysis of MMA media discourse offered by traditional and new media, this paper explores the way the MMA media constructs symbolic boundaries around different kinds of fights inside and outside the gym, through aesthetic and moral evaluations based on the hierarchical ‘distinctions’ between “violence” and “health” as possible outcomes of the MMA training process. Particularly, we carry out a discourse analysis based on Italian Newspapers, Magazines and Facebook groups dedicated to MMA, through which we frame the multiple representations of the discursive production built around the MMA in Italy. Our aim is to identify the different ways in which the discussion about this event provided narrative paths and points of view about the meaning of MMA, focusing on the reputational consequences concerning health, especially in its physical and mental expressions. This research may prove useful for scholars interested in MMA, culture, and sports media studies.

No need for the needle. A qualitative analysis of the antivax movement in Romania

The antivax movement is now a constant phenomenon with increasing social implications. This study explores how the antivax movement is articulated in Romania on the basis of qualitative analysis applied to interviews. Our pilot study focuses on the opinions of 100 persons who oppose vaccination interviewed between 2017 and 2020. We conducted both face-to-face and online semistructured interviews to trace the factors determining attitudes against vaccination. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first such extended study to target individuals rather than groups or media discourse. We strive to provide a multifaceted view on how the antivax phenomenon is taking shape. Responses varied in style and length, so we needed to systematize the narratives. We filtered the answers using the interpretive net described by Entman (1993), thereby grouping the main narratives into four sections. We then reconstructed the implicit frames used by individuals in interpreting their position. We consider content quality analysis to be a relevant method to reveal the facets and depth of the antivax phenomenon, thereby enabling more complex explanations. We compare the results of this study with rationales stemming from similar investigations conducted around the world and then highlight opinions specific to the Romanian public.

Sorry Not Sorry: (Non-) Apology, Satire, and the Vacuum

This essay considers the theme of apology and what happens when the demand for apology is subverted, using the Vacuum newspaper as a case study. I consider the argument that played out in 2004 between the Vacuum and Belfast City Council, which partially funded its production. The Vacuum’s publication of themed double issues entitled ‘God’ and ‘Satan’ provoked the ire of conservative Council Members who proposed that the publication's editors must apologize to Members of the Council and the citizens of Belfast for the offence they had caused. In so doing, the publication secured its place as one of the most controversial Northern Irish print publications of recent years. In their response to the Council’s demand – a themed ‘Sorry’ issue – the Vacuum’s editors struck a defiant tone. Media discourse around the ‘Sorry’ issue of the Vacuum has centred on the element of public spectacle it generated, but this essay represents a reconsideration of its importance. I read it as informed by an ethics of resistance. By refusing to be co-opted into making a sham apology, the ‘Sorry’ issue illuminates the crucial importance of apology in the place and time of its production – in a country still reeling from the violence of the Troubles.

Information and Communication – The Limits of Media Discourse. Case Study – Romanian School in the News

In this study we propose an analysis of the media discourse on education. This paper is based on questions such as: in what manner is the media an echo for the public policy authors, for the dominant ideology, and what are the stories featuring the school topic. Using the content analysis, we aimed to find the narrative frames, and a map of the most cited journalistic sources. We found that the media is a very important source for public agenda. In fact, the media is one of the most powerful public and social policy agents. Our analysis covers the journalistic discourse in Romania for a period of one year, from the moment of declaring the state of emergency. One of the hypotheses was that the type of journalistic discourse under analysis is specific to crisis communication. Regarding the corpus of texts, we selected a publication where there are published only features on education, edupedu.ro, a quality publication with stories from different fields, including education, libertatea.ro, and a soft publication, kanald.ro. The texts were analysed from a multidisciplinary perspective, in order to define and describe a narrative pattern. One of our main findings is this fear of contaminating the quality press with false information. And, as a consequence, we have found a journalistic conformism and a lake of creativity and new approaches, respectively assuming a role of facilitating the information, of carrier, rather than of a watchdog.

Analyzing natural herd immunity media discourse in the United Kingdom and the United States

Natural herd immunity, where community-acquired infections in low-risk populations are used to protect high risk populations from infection–has seen high profile support in some quarters, including through the Great Barrington Declaration. However, this approach has been widely criticized as ineffective and misinformed. In this study, we examine media discourse around natural herd immunity in the United States (US) and United Kingdom (UK) to better understand how this approach was promoted. Country-specific news media publications between March 11, 2020 and January 31, 2021 were searched for references to herd immunity. News articles focused on herd immunity and including a stakeholder quote about herd immunity were collected, resulting in 400 UK and 144 US articles. Stakeholder comments were then coded by name, organization, organization type, and concept agreement or disagreement. Government figures and a small but vocal coalition of academics played a central role in promoting natural herd immunity in the news media whereas critics were largely drawn from academia and public health. These groups clashed on whether: natural herd immunity is an appropriate and effective pandemic response; the consequences of a lockdown are worse than those of promoting herd immunity; high-risk populations could be adequately protected; and if healthcare resources would be adequate under a herd immunity strategy. False balance in news media coverage of natural herd immunity as a pandemic response legitimized this approach and potentially undermined more widely accepted mitigation approaches. The ability to protect high risk populations while building herd immunity was a central but poorly supported pillar of this approach. The presentation of herd immunity in news media underscores the need for greater appreciation of potential harm of media representations that contain false balance.

Linguistic Image of a TV Hostess in Chat and Portrait Interviews

The present study featured the image of a TV hostess in such genres as chat interview and portrait interview. The speech genre is a factor that affects the linguistic image of a media personality. The linguistic image explicates various linguistic means used by TV hostesses to achieve the main goal of the speech genre. The research objective was to demonstrate the interrelation between the TV hostess image and the chat / portrait interview speech genres. The study involved the descriptive method, the qualitative and quantitative content analysis, and the discourse analysis. The linguistic image was analyzed at four levels. Each level revealed units that served as markers of the linguistic image of a TV hostess during chat and portrait interviews. The research results can be applied in theoretical and practical courses of media discourse theory, as well as in special courses of media linguistics, linguistic imagology, and communicative genreology. Further research is required to identify the nonverbal means of the image of a TV hostess in these speech genres.

Current metaphoric models in modern Spanish media discourse

In the article, a metaphor as a universal category of thinking, a special cognitive analogy-based operation, and a method of modeling reality, is investigated on journalistic materials of modern Spanish media discourse, the online version of the Spanish newspaper EL MUNDO in particular from the discursive point of view. The use of various types of metaphors by Spanish politicians, which are part of the national-linguistic picture of the world, is examined on the example of media materials concerning the most significant events in the internal life of Spain and international community. Based on the classification by A.P. Chudinov, a semantic and quantitative analysis of metaphorical models in Spanish media discourse is carried out. It is concluded that at the time being Spanish political discourse abounds predominantly in anthropomorphic and sociomorphic metaphors. It was also found that the most frequent is the use of morbial metaphors, which reflect the crisis the Spanish society is undergoing in the pandemic period and its economic, political and social impact on the life of modern Spanish society.