Journal of Mass Communication & Journalism

Fast food advertising seeks to persuade fractured families that the atmosphere of home consumption of food can be fused into fast food outlets as part of popular culture. Fast food is niche-marketed as a desirable community ritual with slogans, songs, toys, and architectural décor. This synthesis of studies traces the ties of food, family and home to socialization, gender roles, power, identity, convenience, time, work, civility, nutrition, changes in food production and service, parenting, and the popularity of the car.

The study analysed online audience comments on the 2016 subsidy removal issue in Nigeria. The analyses of the comments were made to find out the positive comments, negative comments, tones of comments (ethnic, regional, political) and the overriding position. The researcher employed the propositions and guidelines of Critical discourse analysis (CDA) and discursive psychology to analyse the comments, this is because it has suitable proposition that match the desire of the study. The study found that, negative comments had the highest portion of all the comment analysed while positive comments had smaller portion though it has significant number. The analysis found that among the negative comments, even the media that reported the issue was attacked. It was also found that some comments were fragmented in ethnic, political and regional tones. The study recommends that more online vetting of comment should be used by online media to ensure the positive exploitation and use of the platforms by the audience. The study further studies should be conducted to find out the diverse understanding, acceptance and rejection of government policies by Nigerian populace on the online platforms.

This paper examines Al-Jazeera television channel’s coverage of the Egyptian popular uprising and investigates the alleged bias in reporting that led the Egyptian authorities to close down al-Jazeera’s office in Cairo. The paper uses framing and qualitative content analysis to explore Al-Jazeera’s headlines as well as sources of information and news, particularly the interviewees on Friday, Jan. 25, 2011 (Friday of Anger). It also examines the sites of demonstrations highlighted in the coverage, namely Maidan al-Tahrir (Liberation Square). To see the divergence in news coverage, the paper juxtaposes Al-Jazeera’s coverage and the official Egyptian television’s coverage of the protest. It concludes that al-Jazeera’s sources were predominantly leading figures in the Muslim Brotherhood, Islamists, and political groups calling for Mubarak’s downfall. Al-Jazeera’s interviewees and headlines saw no merit in the reshuffling of the government and considered that as a ploy to gain time and perpetuate Mubarak’s repressive rule. On the other hand, the official Egyptian television, unsurprisingly, underscored and deplored acts of vandalism (Baltajah in Arabic), praised young protestors’ efforts to protect the Egyptian national museum, called for calm, and asked the people to protect Egypt’s security. In a nutshell, al-Jazeera’s reporting was anti-government, highlighting voices demanding the toppling of the government, and calling for Mubarak’s departure.

One of the most interesting phenomena to come out of the internet revolution is its utilization as a channel for social development and a contribution to community cohesion. Many volunteers, working in task forces and were recruited through the net, work to improve the lives of many in need people throughout Yemen. This study focused on the knowledge management in social media and turning them into tangible results to develop the behavior of responding to humanitarian crises and creating social cohesion in real society. Based on a quantitative methodology, the data were collected by distributing 530 questionnaires on managers of nonprofit organizations in Yemen which were participating in disaster relief. The data were collected from the questionnaires and analyzed through the quantitative methodology. The results showed that there was a promoted social coordination, volunteering and social cohesion that have resulted in speeding the accessibility of backgrounds for decision making through knowledge management inside social media. These results indicated the importance of developing knowledge management in social media in the process of public communication during disasters in order to alleviate the problem of the delayed response, prevent random relief works and increase community cohesion after the crises that often cause the collapse of social relations as a result of the scarcity of resources.

The study is a ten year study (1999-2009). It involved both content analysis and historical study. Total sample sizes of 227 editions were used from an accessible population of 1,133 drawn using Australian Calculator from five daily Nigerian newspapers, namely: Daily Times, Daily Champion, The Vanguard, The Guardian and This Day newspaper. All the newspapers are privately owned except Daily Times, which, hitherto, was owned by the Federal Government of Nigeria. These newspapers were selected because of their objectivity in writing reporting and their national spread. The instrument for data collection was the code sheet. The code sheet was constructed to contain such data as unit of analysis, depth of the stories (measured in inches), sources of information, content categories, directionality and placement of the stories. Also, we did a constructed years, months and days study. The constructed years at one interval included 2000, 2002, 2004, 2006 and 2008. For the constructed months of study, we had January, March, May, July, September and November. To determine the number of editions to be studied from each paper, for five and months, within the selected years and months, we used multi-stage sampling and divided the sample size of 227 by the number of years (5) studies and we got 45 editions per year. To further get the editions for paper, per month, the newspaper were stratified into months (constructed for the study) and we had eight (8) edition paper per month

Whereas the US President Donald Trump names American Media and their journalistic practices fake news and enemy of the people hence complement the long scholarly claims that the American Liberal Journalism is in crisis and unfriendly on social-economic development initiatives and to the global south, “China’s journalism model” which put particular emphasize on social-economic development with government intervention is now gaining grounds. While some scholars see the ‘Going Global’ of Chinese media a high time for the Chinese model to be globalized others reserve contentious.

This article highlights the readiness of Chinese media and journalism practices in affecting local media and journalism practices across the World in reflecting to the U.S’s liberal journalism model. It reviews various scholarly suggested journalism models in China such as ‘positive reporting’, ‘developmental journalism’ and ‘Soviet-Communist model’ but argues that while these values are now exported globally, there is no clear and consistent model due to what articulate China’s domestic media and journalism environment is unpredictable depending on the political and economic circumstances and regulations are prone to party-state interventions. Through thoroughly reading various publications by researchers and scholars from both China and the Western perspectives, reading official documents and adhering to direct commentaries or directives from Chinese top officials and academicians on media and journalism practices; this article have concluded that due to political system dissimilarities among emerging global powers there should be a new approach of joining and mobilizing other developing countries and especially the emerging BRICS powers in developing a clear and consistent media and journalism model since majority of the world countries are already caught in a trap of liberal democracy and journalism regardless the impasse the model bleeds especially in social-economic development.

This article discusses the representation of the ruling party, Zimbabwe African National Union Patriotic Front (ZANU PF) internal succession battles, particularly presidential succession. The paper argues that two factions within ZANU PF, Team Lacoste (a faction that backed Mnangagwa to succeed Mugabe) and G40 (a faction that supported Grace Mugabe to take over Presidency) fought fierce battles which the media extensively reported on. The article also argues that Grace’s overwhelming ambition to succeed her husband, Robert Mugabe, led to the events where she publicly attacked Emmerson Mnangagwa until Mugabe fired him. Mnangagwa’s dismissal from the post of Vice President precipitated dramatic events that led to the ‘military coup’ or intervention on 15 November 2017. It was widely believed that Mnangagwa enjoyed the support of the country’s securocrats, who include the country’s military, intelligence and the former liberation war fighters. This article further argues that the ‘military coup’ was a long planned strategy which began in 2008 but was brewing until it was finally triggered by the dismissal of Mnangagwa. The Zimbabwean electronic, print and social media platforms as well as foreign media actively covered the succession struggles. However, this paper only analysed the state-controlled daily, The Herald, and two daily privately owned newspapers Daily News and News Day, to examine how they framed the internal succession battles from October to December 2017. The three newspapers have diverse editorial and ideological agendas. The article concluded that The Herald, which is pro-government and ruling party, was torn-in-between Mugabe and Mnangagwa. News reporters were in a crisis on how to cover the events, especially from 13-15 November 2017, until state capture of strategic institutions by the military. However, privately owned newspapers maintained their middle of the road approach in covering the events. The paper can argue that state-controlled media’s ideological and editorial policies may change to suit interests of those in power thereby compromising ethical reportage. The article also concluded that Zimbabwe’s new dispensation is characterised by militarisation of state institutions with many key posts occupied by retired military personnel; which arguably may lead to manipulation of 2018 general elections. There is systematic purging of all perceived G40 members, (who are labeled as cabalists by Team Lacoste), including top civilian CIO members by Mnangagwa’s administration which is allegedly guided by Military Intelligence. ZANU PF succession politics may be far from being over as G40 members might be planning a comeback – only time will tell.

Afghanistan has been known one of the most unstable countries in the world for more than three decades. It has suffered from both foreign and civil wars and still it has been experiencing a tragic conflict across the country.

The core purpose of this study is to explore the history of newspapers in Afghanistan. In the past, there were many kings who ruled Afghanistan, and the new King was not interested to accept old publications of newspapers. Therefore, Afghanistan has witnessed many authors and companies of newspaper publications. However, due to limited time, this study covers a brief history of newspaper. Shamsul Nehar (known as a sunny day) was the first publication and newspapers in Afghanistan under the responsibility of Sayed Jamalodin Afghan.

This research examines the gender differences among children in cognitive learning from television with a special focus on vocabulary and perception building. 60 female and 60 male children aged between 7 to 12 years from different schools of Karachi were selected through random sampling. 10 sequential experiments were conducted in those schools’ laboratories. Selected animated cartoon episodes were shown to children in each session. After which, children’s responses were evaluated by means of questionnaires measuring vocabulary and perception tests. Results showed that female participants performed slightly better than male participants in both tasks. However, this association might have occurred due to chance.