Justice, Communication and Media Uses (I)
Vol. 17 No. 2(34) (2024)
Guest Editors: Stefan BRATOSIN & Mohamed BENDAHAN
The purpose of this edition of Essachess – Journal for Communication Studies is to explore different aspects of media uses and justice and discuss the issues and challenges they present. It provides an opportunity to consider how to ensure that justice is done fairly, that information is shared responsibly and that the risks associated with the use of social networks and the Internet are taken into account.
Digital Methods and Fields: Feminist Perspectives
Vol. 17 No. 1(33) (2024)
Guest Editors: Audrey BANEYX, Hélène BOURDELOIE & Mélanie LALLET
This issue of Essachess – Journal for Communication examines how digital tools, methods, fields, and research objects transform the methodologies of the humanities and social sciences while challenging the gender system. From a feminist perspective, it argues that science and technology are not 'pure', that digital calculations are not neutral, and that massively collected data do not guarantee objectivity. Operating on the principle that knowledge production is situated, this issue questions the gender biases that appear in the production and analysis of digital data and explores how these biases can be leveraged to develop more reflexive and inclusive research.
The Global Digital Information Warfare in the Context of the Ukraine War
Vol. 16 No. 2(32) (2023)
Guest Editors: Sorin NASTASIA & Amiso M. GEORGE
In the context of the war in Ukraine, various forms and means of communication have been utilized by actors involved in and impacted by the conflict, with differing target publics and degrees of effectiveness, yet with an overall sense that an information warfare is taking place. This special issue seeks to make a contribution to the understanding of the strategic communication practices related to armed conflict, and in particular of the premises, patterns, and outcomes of the information warfare pertaining to the war in Ukraine. Specifically, the articles in this special issue make sense of aspects of the information warfare by focusing on: a) communication lessons from the Ukraine war in regard to the effectiveness of strategies and narratives employed in situations of armed conflict and particularly in the information warfare component of conflict, and b) ethical implications of communication campaigns and propaganda in times of war, specifically related to how we identify and address the alarming issues related to the spread of misinformation and disinformation.
Crisis Communication and Challenges of Disinformation in an Era of Information Warfare: The Ukraine War
Vol. 16 No. 1(31) (2023)
Guest Editors: Sorin NASTASIA & Amiso M. GEORGE
In the context of the war in Ukraine, various forms and means of communication have been utilized by actors involved in and impacted by the conflict, with differing target publics and degrees of effectiveness, yet with an overall sense that an information warfare is taking place. This special issue seeks to make a contribution to the understanding of the strategic communication practices related to armed conflict, and in particular of the premises, patterns, and outcomes of the information warfare pertaining to the war in Ukraine. Specifically, the articles in this special issue make sense of aspects of the information warfare by focusing on: a) communication lessons from the Ukraine war in regard to the effectiveness of strategies and narratives employed in situations of armed conflict and particularly in the information warfare component of conflict, and b) ethical implications of communication campaigns and propaganda in times of war, specifically related to how we identify and address the alarming issues related to the spread of misinformation and disinformation.
Mediatization, New Forms of Militancy and Digitalization
Vol. 15 No. 2(30) (2022)
Guest editors: Mihaela-Alexandra TUDOR & Mohamed BENDAHAN
Les contributions à ce dossier apportent des visions complémentaires sur les rapports qui se tissent entre la médiatisation, le militantisme et la numérisation. Elles partagent un intérêt commun pour la façon dont le militantisme est « raconté » par les différents acteurs dans différents contextes médiatisés et considèrent que le militantisme à l’ère de la médiatisation est un processus socialement et culturellement construit avec les médias et par les médias. De ce point de vue ainsi que dans une perspective méthodologique basée sur une diversité d'approches, ce numéro d’Essachess – Journal for Communication Studies construit des ponts entre les différents courants de recherche et consolide un travail interdisciplinaire caractéristique du domaine des sciences de l’information et de la communication
Information and Communication Technologies’ Role in the Preservation of Cultural Heritage
Vol. 15 No. 1(29) (2022)
Guest editors: Ana MELRO, Lídia OLIVEIRA & Ana Carla AMARO
By looking to the past, this special issue aims not only to contribute to the understanding of cultural heritage, but also to reflect on the potential that communication systems can have for its dissemination and preservation. By looking to the future, it aims to contribute so that present and future generations understand the importance of what, later on, will also be cultural heritage, be aware of it and perceive it as a space where they can find ways to combine communication systems and cultural heritage preservation. Assuming, here, a logic of looking to the future.
Public Relations and Communications during the Covid-19 Pandemic
Vol. 14 No. 2(28) (2021)
Guest editors: Ana ADI & Thomas STOECKLE
The COVID-19 pandemic has provided rich learning opportunities for public communicators: from positive, and unfortunately too often, also from negative examples. From the difficulties of relaying scientific information to publics and political partisanship colliding with public health interests, to the ‘misinfodemic’ (in particular, but not only, on social media) exacerbating the pandemic, to HR departments and managers struggling with the work-from-home dynamic: communicators around the globe were affected by, as well as affecting the repercussions of the pandemic. In this special edition, researchers from Belgium, Estonia, France, Morocco, Portugal and the UK explore impacts of the pandemic on media communication, internal and external communication of public as well as private sector organisations. They present studies and findings on the mediatization of science, the evolving role of institutional communication, organisational spirituality, the stakeholder perspective of internal publics, the role of solidarity communication and third places in urban centres. Together, they provide a fascinating and diverse view of academic engagement with an evolving topic of local as well as global significance.
Future of Communications and Public Relations (PR). (Re)Imagining the Role, Function and Purpose of the Communication Profession
Vol. 14 No. 1(27) (2021)
Guest editors: Ana ADI & Thomas STOECKLE
Every crisis brings opportunities and challenges. In this special edition, the future of communications and PR in and beyond the context of the Covid-19 pandemic is being (re)imagined by scholars addressing the topic from theoretical, practical and educational perspectives. Following Thomas Kuhn’s insight that paradigm shifts are often triggered by – epistemological and practical – crises, this special edition invites and encourages the exploration of alternatives to established ways of thinking, the challenging of established mindsets. In doing so, this edition addresses the future of public relations and communications from multiple perspectives: paradigmatic (metamodernism) and theoretical (astroturfing), organizational (newsrooms), competences vs. capabilities and educational (the heritage and challenges of neoliberalism) while also revisiting current premises including PR’s role in deliberative democracies. In a time of seemingly growing polarization of perspectives, we need to get beyond dichotomies and toward integration and synthesis.
Ageing and Digital Communication
Vol. 13 No. 2(26) (2020)
Guest editors: Loredana IVAN & Alina DUDUCIUC
The current special issues brings into attending the use of digital technologies later in life and shed the light of a social groups that would always left behind in the technology adoption, not necessarily because they are old, but because we will all have a limited capacity to embrace and develop new skills in areas and with devices we have not been used in out formative year. This issue is timely, as the pandemic COVID-19 shows the importance of digital technologies for older people in critical times and how societies should create equal opportunities for the groups at risks of social exclusions and marginalization when it comes to technology infrastructure and basic skills.
Interpersonal and Inter-linguistic Communication in the Digital Age. Digital Inclusion and Accessibility
Vol. 13 No. 1(25) (2020)
Guest editors: Najwa HAMAOUI & Daniel DEJICA
This special issue of Essachess – Journal for Communication Studies intends to contribute to the existing endeavours in the field and offers its readers, scholars and professionals, a series of novel approaches on Interpersonal and inter-linguistic communication in the digital age, with a focus on digital inclusion and accessibility. As such, the collection of five selected original contributions for this special issue provide in-depth analyses and perspectives on respeaking and live subtitling for deaf and hard-of-hearing, computer aided interpreting, the audio-description landscapes in Russia, Greece, and the Arab world, and last but not least, the contribution of Information Communication Technology (ICT) in giving accessibility to population with special needs.
Gender, religions and media: emerging themes and perspectives
Vol. 12 No. 2(24) (2019)
Guest editor: Magali DO NASCIMENTO CUNHA
The significant number of submissions for this Essachess – Journal for Communication current issue is indicative that there is an increasing trend in this field of study, not only in approaches to the intersection of gender, religion and media but also a significant diversity of objects of analysis, methodologies in different regions of the world. Essachess offers here a contribution to open the way for new possibilities for analysis and new studies.
Regular issue
Vol. 12 No. 1(23) (2019)
This regular issue of ESSACHESS – Journal for Communication Studies intends to offer a panoramic, an inter and pluridisciplinary view on the matters related to information and communication sciences by bringing together scholars and researches from different disciplinary fields which present new tendencies in terms of theories, concepts, methodologies, empirical results, etc. The rich articulation of different scientific points of view on a large diversity of topics and the impact of new emerging themes (especially related to the digitalization and technology) on communication sciences are the main objective of this regular issue.
Critical thinking – inside out. Public discourse and everyday life
Vol. 11 No. 2(22) (2018)
Guest editors: Gheorghe CLITAN & Daniela DUMITRU
Critical thinking is ranked as the second most essential skill, in the order of importance, on the 2020 needed skills list (World Economic Forum, 2016). Additional needed skills to survive the fourth industrial revolution include complex problem solving, judgment and decision-making, creativity, cognitive flexibility and negotiation. All mentioned skills have something in common with deliberation, with thinking in general or with arguing and defending a point of view. The current Essachess – Journal for Communication Studies issue is attempting to present critical thinking (CT) in its various forms, as it may appear in everyday life. Each selected paper provides an in-depth analysis of CT, reviews of newly coined concepts and discourses on relevant contemporary applications of the concept.
10th Anniversary
Vol. 11 No. 1(21) (2018)
“In the field of communication studies, debates on the experiences and participatory ethics of Internet users in civic and democratic issues stand out more and more. Sometimes limited in its conceptualization, the different approaches to the concept of participation lack theoretical elaboration, which reduces also its scope of interpretation in research related to participatory practices in the media. Nico Carpentier, professor and theorist of the concept of participation, has published numerous studies about the concept of participation, in many different social contexts, making it possible to better apprehend the differences between the concepts of access, interaction and participation. He presents the close relationship of participation with the notions of power (following a Foucauldian approach to the notion) and decision-making. Carpentier presents during this interview a summary of his analytical model for the study of media participatory processes, his conception about the use of the notion of power, and the different forms of participation.”
Koffi Robert BADOU, Vania BALDI: Essachess Interview with Nico Carpentier, Professor in the Department of Informatics and Media, Uppsala University, Sweden
Mediatization of religion and power
Vol. 10 No. 2(20) (2017)
Guest editors: Stefan BRATOSIN, Pedro Gilberto GOMES, SJ & Antonio Fausto NETO
Cette livraison de la revue ESSACHESS – Journal for Communication Studies, qui fête ses 10 ans d’existence, met en dialogue les sociétés et les cultures du Nord et du Sud en croisant les travaux sur la médiatisation de la religion et du pouvoir des chercheurs participant de divers champs disciplinaires. Bien qu’il existe une abondante production d’études et de recherches liées à cette thématique en Amérique Latine qui met en exergue la transcendance des médias sociaux numériques et la place centrale de la politique et de la religion dans les processus médiatiques, ce dossier montre au travers des contributions présentées que la même préoccupation vive et soutenue existe en Europe en même temps qu’en Amérique du Nord ou en Asie qu’il s’agit des recherches théoriques, ou appliquées, ou des études de cas.
Rhetoric and Peace at Crossroads: Public and Civic Discourse, Culture and Communication Perspectives
Vol. 10 No. 1(19) (2017)
Guest Editors: Noemi MARIN & Lara MARTIN LENGEL
This special issue of ESSACHESS—Journal of Communication Studies offers rhetorical and/or cultural-critical perspectives on peace, non-violence, and the role of civic discourse in contemporary times. Intended for both academic and civic readership, the issue covers international scholarship that focuses mainly on the last 30 years of communication and rhetorical perspectives on peace-related discourse, including the historic period following 1989 that created a democratization of public discourse throughout the world, yet engaging even more peace and conflict as paradigmatic perspectives on migration, terrorism, communism, and political and social change.
Social media: between freedom and utopia
Vol. 9 No. 2(18) (2016)
Guest editor: Philippe VIALLON
Ce numéro de la revue Essachess – Journal for Communication Studies fait suite à un colloque organisé du 23 au 25 novembre 2015 par la chaire Unesco « Pratiques journalistiques et médiatiques » à l’Université de Strasbourg, intitulé « Les réseaux socio-numériques : un espace de liberté ou une utopie mort-née ? ». Trois axes se sont imposés pour penser dans ce numéro d’Essachess les médias sociaux : le premier concerne leurs interactions dans leur propre écosystème, avec les médias traditionnels et au niveau sociétal. Le deuxième envisage l’empowerment rêvé ou réel des citoyens et des internautes, les réseaux comme instruments de liberté ou d’enfermement discret, bref l’utopie d’Internet. Le troisième et dernier axe traite de la culture, du rapport à la culture et donc de l’identité des individus et des groupes. Ces trois thématiques se retrouvent de manière transversale dans la plupart des textes qui suivent et qui rendent bien compte de la diversité de la richesse des pratiques sociales liées aux médias sociaux.
Communication in Statistics: Why? When? and How (not) to do it?
Vol. 9 No. 1(17) (2016)
Guest editors: Tudorel ANDREI & Claudiu HERTELIU
It is well known that many press releases by Official Statistics Offices all around the world became suddenly subjects of breaking news. On the other hand there are occasions when released statistical information became subject of debates : sometimes on technicalities: how was measured? was correct measured? is the methodology uniform all around the world in order to permit international comparisons? etc. The interested scholar can found answers to these questions in the articles published in the current issue of Essachess – Journal for Communication Studies which covers communication questions in official statistics in several EU countries. From cultural statistics to political communication and the potential power of influence of information supported by statistics, the contributions try to clarify the problems raised by the communication in the modern era of official statistics.
The alimentary and gustative imaginary
Vol. 8 No. 2(16) (2015)
Guest editors: Jean-Jacques BOUTAUD & Stéphane DUFOUR
Ce numéro d’Essachess s’organise autour d’un triptyque essentiellement construit sur des fondations imaginaires : (I) manger du signe, produire du sens, cinq articles dont l’empan s’ouvre des arômes et saveurs, aux aliments, la cuisine, la gastronomie ; pour les deux autres volets, une évidente charpente ontologique autour de l’espace et du temps : (II) Carte du goût, territoires de l'imaginaire, où la question des lieux est envisagée à différentes échelles et sous différents régimes de représentation, espaces physiques ou cartes mentales ; enfin, (III) Parcours du goût, du matin du monde au soir de la vie, des premières stades de l’incorporation aux imaginaires angoissés et mortifères d’une temporalité de survie alimentaire.
Symbolic Communication
Vol. 8 No. 1(15) (2015)
Guest editor: Mihaela-Alexandra TUDOR
Ce numéro de la revue Essachess – Journal for Communication Studies se propose de mettre en relief en quoi la communication symbolique contribue à la compréhension des transformations des formes de communication dans notre société à travers les différentes méthodes, problématiques et postures des chercheurs. La rubrique Varia présente une sélection de contributions originales retenues pour publication dans le cadre du 19e Colloque bilatéral franco-roumain: Actualité scientifique en communication des organisations : questionner les nouveaux enjeux, problématiques et pratiques qui a eu lieu à Bucarest, les 14, 15 et 16 mars 2013. Ce 19e colloque bilatéral a été organisé conjointement par l’Université de Bucarest, Faculté de Lettres, Département des Sciences de la Communication et l’ORC IARSIC du CORHIS (EA 4700), Université Paul Valéry de Montpellier.
How does Gender matter? Analyzing media discourses, media organizations and media practices
Vol. 7 No. 2(14) (2014)
Guest editors: Margreth LŰNENBORG & Daniela ROVENTA-FRUMUSANI
This special issue of the journal ESSACHESS, established in the francophone field of media and communication studies, wants to bridge both fields of investigation. Being aware that the identification of the reasons why gender matters will only convincingly be done when using multiple empirical and theoretical approaches, relying on feminist theory as well as on post-structuralism and queer theory we have brought together a collection of articles rooted in both traditions.
Environment and communication
Vol. 7 No. 1(13) (2014)
Guest Editors: Pieter LEROY & Marie-Gabrielle SURAUD
This special issue of ESSACHESS – Journal for Communication Studies, entitled “Environment and communication”, focuses on the processes of communication through which environmental issues conquer and gain their omnipresence. Even though one may largely agree on the increasing societal momentum over environmental issues, the processes of communication thereon cannot be conceived as linear or univocal. They are rife with disagreements and controversies. The gradual pervasion of environmental issues paralleled by varying conceptions and translations of their very nature, diverging ideas on their seriousness and urgency, and multiple and even contradictory strategies to tackle them. In other words, the adoption and incorporation of environmental issues in different spheres of society is mediated by ongoing communicative processes of multiple interpretations, adaptations and transformations. The contributions to this special issue illustrate and unravel these transformation processes in different spheres: the transformation of civil society’s environmental concerns and debates, the transformation of environmental public policies, the emergence of so-called environmental economics, the reconfiguration of research resulting from environmental issues’ priority, etc.
Secret, Publicity, and Social Sciences Research
Vol. 6 No. 2(12) (2013)
Guest Editors: Olivier CHANTRAINE & Patrice de la BROISE
Le numéro d’ESSACHESS – Journal for Communication Studies que nous proposons au lecteur témoigne d’une réponse large et diversifiée à l’appel à articles que nous avions lancé. Il s’agissait, et il s’agit toujours d’interroger les sciences sociales au prisme de la question du secret et d’interroger le secret lui-même comme principe structurant de l’espace public et de tous les espaces de communication partagée, y compris dans le conflit, l’inégalité, la domination ou la coopération. A l’origine de nos interrogations se trouvent quelques paradoxes de la recherche, qui font que fouiller les secrets et les dévoiler ne manque pas d’être autant une démarche d’action qu’une démarche de description, si bien qu’aucune neutralité axiologique de la recherche ne persiste quand on prend le secret pour objet. Dans le même registre de paradoxe, la recherche sur le secret tourne court quand elle prend pour fin le « simple » dévoilement de ce que le secret cache, pour la raison d’abord que ce qu’il cache il le montre tout autant, car nous ne le chercherions pas s’il n’était pas caché. Pour la raison ensuite que la découverte du contenu est généralement moins intéressante que l’exploration des dispositifs qui en gèrent la visibilité et l’invisibilité, le voilement et le dévoilement, à la manière d’un Jacques Lacan manipulant le diptyque qui met en scène plus qu’il ne censure « L’Origine du Monde » selon Gustave Courbet… Aussi le lecteur trouvera dans les nombreuses contributions de ce numéro de quoi interroger le secret comme pratique de communication, en s’attachant plus à sa performativité, donc à son efficacité sociale qu’à ses relations avec des valeurs de vérité ou de description, dont il relativise et transcende la préoccupation.
Experimental Methods in Communication
Vol. 6 No. 1(11) (2013)
Guest Editors: Françoise BERNARD & Vincent MEYER
Pour quels enjeux, quels objets, à quelles conditions et avec quelles approches et techniques peut-on parler aujourd’hui de méthodes expérimentales (ME) en sciences de l’information et de la communication (SIC) ? Ce dossier de la revue Essachess – Journal for Communication Studies expose, dans la diversité de leur mise en œuvre et des objets traités, différents apports de la ME avec le projet de présenter et de mettre en regard les travaux des chercheurs en SIC engagés dans cette voie en France et à l’étranger.
Communication and/of memory
Vol. 5 No. 2(10) (2012)
Guest Editors: Yves CHEVALIER & Lucian-Zeev HERSCOVICI
This volume of ESSACHESS – Journal for Communication Studies has brought together research contributions from over nine countries. This special issue of ESSACHESS on “Communication and/of memory” advances our understanding of memory concepts in the field of communication Sciences. Communication and/of memory are explosive, complex and challenging topics in the contemporary research in communication and memory studies. Over the years, research involving communication and/of memory has concentrated on the examination of a variety of interconnected aspects of the mediation of memory through different academic approaches. Starting of these approaches and the current research heritage related to the communication and/of memory this volume offers an interdisciplinary and international perspective on how to connect communication and memory.