Mega-crisis communication connects institutions whose procedures for establishing knowledge, making decisions, and assigning responsibility differ. Building on Niklas Luhmann's theory of functional differentiation, this article develops cross-system credibility disturbance as a relational construct: a claim's recontextualization across functional domains changes its epistemic or institutional status and disrupts expectations concerning the procedures that authorize its subsequent use. The concept specifies a mechanism linking institutional differentiation to credibility problems that cannot be identified from aggregate trust or source credibility alone. Political untruth is one possible initiating or amplifying mechanism, neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition. The framework distinguishes ordinary translation, legitimate disagreement, and scientific revision from disturbances of credibility. Five sensitizing concepts guide a proposed qualitative-reconstructive design based on group discussions and the documentary method. Rather than translating the framework into directional hypotheses, the design reconstructs collective orientations toward status transformation, crisis pressure, political untruth, correction, and institutional traceability. Two COVID-19 illustrations reconstruct hydroxychloroquine communication and changing mask guidance using public documents and published research. They identify contrasting claim trajectories that can sensitize future group discussions but do not themselves constitute documentary-method evidence. The analysis explains why correcting a proposition and repairing confidence in an institutional procedure are distinct tasks. It derives interventions at specific institutional interfaces while identifying risks to freedom of expression, public accountability, and legitimate contestation. Functional explanation neither legitimizes deception nor assumes that institutional trust should always be increased.
The Igbo language has been embroiled in dialect selection controversies for close to two centuries. Literature and primary data show that although Igbo is characterized by considerable dialectal diversity, Central and Onicha Igbo are the most commonly used. However, while the Central Igbo is accepted in the academia, publishing, and the media, Onicha Igbo has largely been rejected and repressed. The ill feelings and disloyalties the recognition of Central Igbo generates among many Igbo dialect communities may be among the factors that put Igbo language on the path of extinction. Drawing on a bounded historical analysis of BBC News Igbo content and user interactions from August 2020, this study proposes that incorporating Onicha Igbo alongside Central Igbo offers a theoretical and strategic framework for language revitalisation through plurilingualism. Based on the patterns observed in the sampled digital data, the paper recommends adopting a dual-spelling framework, analogous to British and North American English, as a prospective policy option for literary and media practice.
IntroductionShort-form video is increasingly important in destination communication, but evidence on its associations with travel intention and the role of destination image remains fragmented.MethodsFollowing a preregistered protocol and a transparently reported postregistration journal-only amendment, we synthesized nine independent samples (N = 3,200) reporting correlations among short-form travel video characteristics, destination image, and travel intention. Random-effects two-stage meta-analytic structural equation modeling pooled study-level correlation matrices.ResultsVideo characteristics correlated positively with destination image (r = 0.514) and travel intention (r = 0.492), while destination image correlated with travel intention (r = 0.541). Structural paths were a = 0.514, b = 0.391, and c′ = 0.291. The indirect association was ab = 0.201, 95% CI [0.133, 0.290]. Expanded exposure-boundary, reconstructed-proxy exclusion, and leave-one-out analyses yielded the same substantive pattern.DiscussionThe findings are consistent with partial statistical mediation but not causal mediation. Interpretation remains constrained by cross-sectional self-report evidence, inadequate confounder control, substantial heterogeneity, geographic concentration, incomplete retrieval, and incomplete coverage of planned sources.Systematic Review Registrationhttps://osf.io/5vhet/, identifier 5vhet.
Article 2 TEU has received significant attention in the literature. Scholars have sought to develop a better understanding of its implications for the Member States, to clarify the obligations it entails and to shed light on–and improve–the Union’s mechanisms for ensuring Member States’ compliance. This article focuses instead on the EU institutions and the implications of Article 2 TEU for their operation, situating the European Media Freedom Act (EMFA) in this context. What are the obligations deriving from Article 2 TEU for the activity of the EU institutions and specifically for EU law-making? Can the EU legislator adopt legislation to ensure respect for, and promote, the Union’s values? In light of the recent upsurge in legal instruments that seek to give effect to the values enshrined in Article 2 TEU and the seminal 2026 Commission v Hungary ruling of the Court of Justice of the EU (Case C-769/22), the analysis reads Article 2 TEU as a horizontal clause of EU primary law that both mandates and opens the way to EU values-based legislation. Against this background, it examines the internal market, considering that it has long been a multi-purpose project that is open to non-market considerations, and investigates the EMFA as a concrete example of an internal market legal instrument that combines market-building considerations with values-based aspects. It discusses the media-related values that have been associated with it, and the ways in which market- and values-based considerations interacted in the original European Commission proposal and through the legislative process leading to the EMFA Regulation.
Generative artificial intelligence does more than make image fabrication cheaper and more realistic: it destabilizes the conditions under which photographs are accepted or rejected as journalistic evidence. This conceptual article asks how visual trust should be understood when synthetic images can be mistaken for records of real events and authentic photographs can be dismissed as artificial-intelligence outputs. Drawing on photography theory, journalism studies, visual-misinformation research, media-trust research, and digital-provenance scholarship, the article distinguishes veracity, authenticity, provenance, credibility, and trust and proposes the Layered Visual Trust Model (LVTM) as an integrative diagnostic framework rather than an empirically validated theory. The LVTM links five interdependent layers: referential relation, production process, provenance and traceability, institutional warrant, and audience interpretation. A structured maximum-contrast comparison of the 2023 synthetic images depicting Donald Trump being arrested and the 2024 false claim that an authentic Harris-Walz rally photograph was AI-generated illustrates two hypothesized failure pathways: false acceptance and false rejection. The article also evaluates C2PA Content Credentials, camera-based provenance, professional rules, and European Union transparency obligations. Because the model and its propositions have not yet been empirically tested, claims are limited to conceptual and diagnostic utility. The analysis suggests that provenance can reduce uncertainty but cannot establish semantic veracity by itself; visual trust is more plausibly supported when technical traceability, editorial verification, institutional accountability, contextual explanation, and audience-facing media literacy operate together.
