Singapore's 2025 General Election signalled a novel development in political communication, bearing witness to the extensive use of podcasting by all sides of politics. The ruling People's Action Party, traditionally slow to adopt emerging media technologies, took easily to the emerging format, which helped to present a more charismatic face of a party better known for its technocratic prowess. This new development in Singapore's media frontier witnessed traditional news conglomerates foray into the podcasting space, while front-running podcasting brands emerge as significant contributors to the political landscape. This paper is based on a transcript from a plenary discussion at the 24th conference of the Malaysia and Singapore Society of Australia, held at Murdoch University, Australia in January 2026. The panel brought together experts in Singapore politics, internet culture, social sciences and digital journalism. It probed the allure of performative politics in Singapore's digital mediascape, its appeal to a younger generation of voters, and the new status of the podcasters in this evolving space. Panellists critiqued the podcasting turn, questioning if it reflected a passing trend enabled by the relentless development of new technologies, a significant emergence of youth online culture, or a media practice emblematic of a particular political culture.
This study adopted a corpus-assisted discourse analysis to examine a stratified corpus of science news (N = 1,995) published in the news sections of Nature and Science. Guided by Discursive News Values Analysis (DNVA) framework, the study investigated how science journalists discursively constructed vaccine concerns before and after the outbreak of COVID-19. The findings revealed that Impact, Eliteness, and Proximity were the most prominent news values across both periods, though their discursive construction differed markedly. During the pre-COVID-19 period, Impact was associated with parental concerns and ethical considerations, Eliteness foregrounded government actors, and Proximity was geographically restricted to Anglo-American contexts. During the COVID-19 period, Impact expanded to encompass side effects among high-risk populations, vaccine hesitancy, and misinformation; Eliteness shifted towards pharmaceutical companies; and Proximity extended beyond Western nations to reflect a more global outlook. These shifts correspond to changing sociocultural contexts. Implications for science journalism practices are discussed.
This study explores experiential press events in the automotive industry as relational communication practices that organise emotional and professional dynamics between journalists and brand communication teams. The research adopts a mixed-methods design, combining semi-structured interviews with Chief Communication Officers of leading automotive brands in Spain and a qualitative survey of 53 specialist motoring journalists. The analysis shows that shared time, informal interaction, and memorable experiences support the development of professional trust and orient how journalists relate to brands across encounters. These affective dynamics inform the framing, tone, and narrative orientation of subsequent media coverage. Journalists situate this influence within ongoing professional relationships and the experiential logic of press events, where proximity, familiarity, and embodied interaction structure communicative. The findings contribute to research on media-corporate relations by conceptualising a form of emotional promotion in which affective ties generated through experiential communication practices participate in the co-construction of media narratives
Generative large language models (LLMs) increasingly shape public discourse, yet their role in framing reality remains underexplored. This study introduces the concept of AI super-frames, high-level narrative patterns embedded in synthetic news output, and examines how ChatGPT and DeepSeek construct and circulate such frames. Drawing on 144 human- and AI-generated news articles derived from CNN and CCTV headlines, the study combines NVivo-assisted thematic coding, mixed-method framing analysis, and Critical Discourse Analysis. Findings identify six dominant AI super-frames: Conflict & Competition, Security & Threat, Moral Responsibility, Technological Solutionism, Economic Progress, and Human Progress, alongside tendencies toward artificial neutrality and procedural legitimacy. Despite identical prompts, ChatGPT amplified U.S. security concerns and geopolitical rivalry, whereas DeepSeek foregrounded technological progress and China's global ambitions. These findings extend framing theory by demonstrating that framing agency can emerge from algorithmic probability rather than deliberate human intent, highlighting implications for digital literacy, journalism, and AI governance.
This article asks: 'What might an ethical journalistic reportage on digital hostility directed against women look like?' While there is growing scholarship on the online hostility that women (including women journalists) experience, that there is relatively little scholarship on how this is depicted in journalistic reportage, and the processes that journalists follow when producing this reportage. The article seeks to address this research gap by applying Thematic Analysis to a small corpus of five semi-structured interviews with Australia-based journalists. In doing this, the article seeks to identify examples of what an ethical reportage on digital hostility against women might constitute. The article also seeks to identify the obstacles that can obstruct such reportage.
Given the well-documented intention-behaviour gap in green consumption, effective communication is crucial in addressing and reducing it. The relative persuasive potential of narrative and non-narrative advertisements in the context of environmental communication, and the psychological processes underlying their actions, has been minimally explored. This study, conducted in the Indian subcontinent, tested the hypothesis that there is a significant difference in the effectiveness of narrative and non-narrative advertisements on green purchase decisions, and examined processing fluency and affect as explanatory factors. A pre-test-post-test quasi-experimental design was employed, with 40 participants subsequently assigned to either a narrative group (n = 20) or a non-narrative group (n = 20). Results revealed that although narrative advertisements were easier to process, non-narrative advertisements were more effective in influencing consumers' green purchase decisions. The pattern of affect was asymmetric, with no relation between positive affect and green purchase decision, but negative affect had a significant influence.
Social media has become an arena for political discourse in Indonesia, enabling collective action while exposing movements to coordinated counter-narrative pressure. This study examines how activist networks sustain coherence and participation under such conditions. Using Social Network Analysis, it analyses interaction networks surrounding the Indonesia Gelap protests on Instagram, TikTok, and X during 16-21 February 2025. The study maps relationships across protest hashtags and counter-hashtags to assess network structure and engagement dynamics. Findings reveal that despite low network density, high centralisation, and community segmentation, protest discourse remained stable and dominant. Counter-narratives appeared as short-lived spikes and did not alter engagement patterns. This persistence was supported by early narrative stabilisation, symbolic continuity through reused protest hashtags, and the containment of counter-narratives within segmented clusters. The study identifies this pattern as 'connective resilience', namely the capacity of digital activism to sustain shared meaning and participation amid external disruption in contested online environments.
This qualitative study explores how digital games function as communicative platforms for visually impaired students. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with nine educators at a U.S. school for the blind (elementary through high school, ages 6-18), and framed by Uses and Gratifications Theory and Self-Determination Theory, the analysis reveals a central tension: games enable social connection yet risk isolation. Students actively select multiplayer and audio-based games to fulfill needs for enjoyment and relatedness, building peer relationships and engaging sighted peers from a position of competence. This challenges digital isolation narratives, positioning games as sites for autonomy and reshaping perceptions of ability. However, an "accessibility chasm"-market-driven failures limiting game choice-constrains this potential. The study concludes that accessible gaming is a vital communicative affordance, highlighting the interplay between individual agency and structural constraints for marginalized users.
The accelerated integration of generative artificial intelligence (AI) into journalistic practice is transforming the epistemological, professional, and pedagogical foundations of journalism education. Although the literature has addressed digital teaching, information automation, and AI ethics, theoretical fragmentation persists, hindering an integrative approach to journalism training. This article proposes a critical socio-technical model (CSM) specifically geared towards journalism education. The model, based on socio-technical theory, platform studies, algorithmic governance and critical epistemology, conceives journalism training as a system articulated on three interdependent levels: infrastructures, pedagogical and professional practices, and symbolic-epistemic processes. Artificial Intelligence (AI) should not be understood solely as a tool, but as a structuring force that redistributes epistemic authority and reconfigures journalistic work. From a Global South perspective, the analysis reveals disparities in access to technology, data governance, and knowledge production. Based on a structured narrative review (2018-2025), seven principles were formulated to guide the curriculum, institutional policy, and future research.
This article examines the celebritisation of Dr. Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar within Indian English-language digital news media between 2015 and 2025, focusing on how his public presence is constructed and negotiated across contemporary news coverage. Based on a qualitative textual analysis of 206 news articles and opinion pieces, it identifies three recurring modes: ritualised reverence in Ambedkar Jayanti reporting, coverage of statue desecration, and digital activism linked to anti-caste mobilisation and diaspora engagement. Drawing on communication, media, and celebrity studies, the article examines how visibility is sustained through repetition and participation in digital news environments. The findings demonstrate that Ambedkar's public presence is extensive and widely recognisable, yet uneven in its articulation. Mainstream coverage often relies on commemorative and institutional narratives that produce recognition yet restrict sustained engagement with Ambedkar's anti-caste thought. In contrast, digital platforms enable counter-public formations where his ideas are reinterpreted and mobilised across national and transnational contexts.
Upcycled food is a novel food category that reinserts valuable byproducts back into food production, thereby reducing food waste. Given the close relationship between food and media, this study investigated how upcycled food is currently discussed on social media, guided by the Social Representation Theory. We employed the text mining approach to analyse relevant posts from X and Facebook. Sentiment analysis indicated 56% of the content was positive, 26% negative, and 18% neutral. Clustering analysis identified four themes: (1) public concerns, (2) events and initiatives, (3) circular food system, and (4) commercialisation efforts. Findings revealed dual contested discourses: sustainability framing, promoted by industry, emphasised positive frames such as environmental benefits, scientific innovation, and commercialisation; negative posts converged into sceptical framing, expressing consumer safety concerns, misconceptions of upcycled food, and mistrust in food industry. The study provides a live case for the online construction of multifaceted representations about novel foods.
Amidst growing tensions between China and allies of the US (of which Australia is one), there is an increasingly prevalent view of China as a national security threat. At the same time, the US and its ally countries have also been favourite destinations for outbound immigrants from China. Against this geopolitical backdrop, this paper gauges the level of trust in mainstream news stories among individuals in the cohort of first-generation Chinese-Australian migrants from the PRC. It also aims to identify the key factors that lie behind an observed difference in the level of trust between members of this Chinese-Australian cohort and Australia's general public, in relation to mainstream news stories about China or Chinese-Australians. Integrating quantitative survey data with insights from in-depth interviews, this paper points to the need to update existing understandings of the relationship between trust and the media in an era of changing geopolitical dynamics.
