Journal publications by Theodora A . Maniou
Media Watch, 2024
Based on a qualitative analysis of news posts on traditional media Facebook pages, this work seek... more Based on a qualitative analysis of news posts on traditional media Facebook pages, this work seeks to explore the way(s) in which established news organisations in the United Kingdom use their social media accounts in times of extreme crisis. Specifically, we seek to assess what (other) types of news are publicised through social media beyond those related to the crisis itself. Findings show that wellrespected international news organisations choose to post news items that aim to (a) distract from a bleak reality, (b) suggest ways to cope with new challenges and (c) create a community to alleviate the sense of loneliness. We argue that social media posts about the 'rest of the news' in times of crisis do much more than emphasise the 'softer' aspects of the crisis; they attempt to deliver another kind of message that there are ways to cope with adversity and that, eventually, things will work out.
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Journalism, 2024
The issue of SLAPPs remains a largely understudied area in journalism studies. Limited academic w... more The issue of SLAPPs remains a largely understudied area in journalism studies. Limited academic work on the topic mainly focuses on its legal aspects and there is little empirical academic work engaging with the way SLAPPs are experienced by those who are personally involved. This study focuses on illuminating the impact of these vexatious and frivolous lawsuits on investigative journalism and press freedom, and recording whether journalists experience additional or different consequences from SLAPPs in comparison to other types of threats. Based on interviews with journalists who have experienced SLAPPs in recent years and documenting their personal experiences, the study sheds light on the hidden professional and personal costs of investigative reporting, attempts to assess this phenomenon in relation to its effects on journalism and journalists, and is one of the few to record and analyze journalists’ personal beliefs and experiences.
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International Communication Gazette, 2023
During crises the newsmedia are expected to provide relevant and accurate information to help cit... more During crises the newsmedia are expected to provide relevant and accurate information to help citizens comprehend the crisis and act upon it. As a source-driven practice, journalism relies on a variety of sources to validate news and provide perspectives. The disruptive nature of a crisis though raises questions about how journalists select sources and what these choices say about professional autonomy and criticality. Considering source choices as newsgathering venues and strategies, and drawing on semi-structured interviews with journalists in Greece and Cyprus, the study explores the factors that shaped journalists' sourcing practices during the COVID-19 crisis. We find that journalists over-relied on political sources and selective authoritative voices compromising the tenets of verification and independence. The fear to convey inaccurate or 'biased' information amid disinformation flows, bolstered journalist's elite orientation. Professional precarity and economic pressures are found to further worsen the 'lived experience' of journalists limiting their ability to question and scrutinise power in times of crises.
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Journalism, 2023
The implications of the COVID-19 pandemic for newsrooms across the world range from severe econom... more The implications of the COVID-19 pandemic for newsrooms across the world range from severe economic hardship to increased threats to press freedom. The "perfect storm" that engulfed the media and journalists globally has threatened and continues to challenge their existence, and the core of their mission to serve the public interest. This study maps the impact of external political, economic, legal and societal factors on journalistic freedom and the way(s) news organizations and journalists operate in times of global crisis in four Southern European countries. It provides a fuller cross-national perspective on the complex relationship between media, journalism and politics in countries with existing democratic deficits. Findings are based on 32 semi-structured interviews with journalists working in four Southern European countries, namely Bulgaria, Greece, Cyprus and Malta, conducted in 2022. We find increased economic challenges to their fragile media markets, high level of state intervention, political parallelism in coverage of the pandemic and beyond, and numerous threats to the autonomy of journalists that hamper journalism and question its development in the future. The study's implications are relevant to different contexts, particularly in countries where journalism and media face similar challenges.
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Journalism Studies, 2023
The existing literature presents several studies which show that the levels of press freedom can ... more The existing literature presents several studies which show that the levels of press freedom can affect the state of the economy. What has not thus far been investigated is whether the economy can affect the levels of press freedom, the specific economic conditions that mainly affect it and the differences among various countries. This study attempts to analyze the impact of economic conditions on the degree of press freedom, in 18 countries of the western world based on a quantitative analysis for the period 2002–2019, and advance our understanding of this relationship. We find that the state of the economy within a country can affect the level of press freedom while the effects of economic conditions on the degree of press freedom seem to vary among different media systems of the western world.
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Communications, 2023
This paper draws evidence from a national survey conducted in the Republic of Cyprus. Respondents... more This paper draws evidence from a national survey conducted in the Republic of Cyprus. Respondents provided evidence about their own self-promotion on social media while assessing other users' personal salience online. Furthermore, they provided evidence about their own reactions toward other people's personal salience. The study shows that respondents display affective, perceptional, as well as behavioral reactions toward other people's online visibility. Demographic characteristics along with certain types of control variables are associated with individuals' personal salience. Although transferring personal salience constitutes a segmented social media influence, this survey shows that it is recognized as a widespread objective and priority by ordinary individuals.
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Communication & Society, 2023
This study explores the specific characteristics of science news stories posted on social media p... more This study explores the specific characteristics of science news stories posted on social media platforms during the first phase of the global pandemic crisis (the first semester of 2020). The focus of the study is to enhance our understanding of the selection criteria for science-related news content posted on social media platforms. Our approach takes into consideration the evolving technological environment of these platforms and the new relationships between media professionals and social media users. Our findings indicate that, under specific circumstances, scientific discoveries may be prioritized in the selection of news stories. We also suggest specific additions to the framework proposed by Harcup and O'Neil (2017), indicating that news stories during crisis situations are more internationally oriented, where audience proximity is created not around "nearby" events but those occurring in other countries around the world. In times of crisis, the main target of news stories is not simply to attract the audience's interest with classic clickbait tactics but to respond to the immediate socio-political context in a meaningful way.
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Journalism, 2023
This study compares the editorial coverage of the 2015 migration crisis in major centreleft and c... more This study compares the editorial coverage of the 2015 migration crisis in major centreleft and centre-right newspapers in three European countries affected (the UK, Germany and Greece). We test the empirical validity of the 'national media-system' hypothesis, and in particular the hypothesised characteristics of the different media systems these countries represent through a systematic content analysis of all editorials referring to the issue of migration/asylum for the period 2015-2016. For the purposes of data collection, we develop an original coding scheme that combines concepts and categories from the extant literature on media systems, as well as the literature on migration-related news frames. Our findings largely confirm the relevance of media-system characteristics in the coverage of the crisis, although UK editorials are markedly more polarised than expected. We also find that there was no consensus-based editorial coverage in the initial phase of the crisis.
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Communications: The European Journal of Communication Research, 2022
This article discusses the relationship between the post-2008 global economic crisis and trauma j... more This article discusses the relationship between the post-2008 global economic crisis and trauma journalism through a quantitative study of reporters covering austerity’s everyday manifestations and examines the effects on the media professionals involved. The findings indicate that journalists who cover economic crisis-related incidents suffer specific symptoms of trauma. As such, the study re-conceptualizes the economic crisis as primarily affective for media workers, it establishes a direct correlation between the economic crisis and emotional trauma, and provides an insight into the kind of trauma that stems from covering
austerity and its impact on society. A regression analysis of symptoms indicates trauma journalism as an emerging field of research into the economic crisis.
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Journalism Practice, 2022
This study focuses on contributing to the emerging international research agenda regarding press ... more This study focuses on contributing to the emerging international research agenda regarding press freedom, moving beyond the already established factors that relate to political and industrial norms as influences on press freedom. Its primary goal is to explore the dynamics of influence on press freedom in different media systems of the western world based on a quantitative analysis of data for 2008–2019 in 16 countries. Findings indicate that press freedom in democratic countries is severely challenged and in certain deeply worrying cases, it is steadily declining, whereas factors that influence this decline appear to be common in different, even contradictory, media systems. In addition, by examining the dynamics of influence on press freedom in different media systems, this work attempts to partially contribute to the discussion on the evolution of western media systems as regards their relationship with press freedom.
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Journal of Media Ethics, 2022
Based on the emerging argument that understandings of digital content comprising both editorial a... more Based on the emerging argument that understandings of digital content comprising both editorial and advertising components require alternative cultures for critical inquiry sufficiently sensitive to the online news environment, this study assesses the professional practice of balancing news and sponsored (commercial) information while focusing on preserving traditional journalism values within the realm of reasoned discussions of media ethics. The research is based on qualitative content analysis: different forms of sponsored editorial content published in global media digital platforms are examined and inductive content analysis is employed.
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MedieKultur: Journal of media and communication research, Oct 23, 2019
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Digital Journalism, 2021
Across the globe, governments have issued emergency and drastic measures aimed at tracking the sp... more Across the globe, governments have issued emergency and drastic measures aimed at tracking the spread of COVID-19 and safeguarding public health. Notwithstanding the necessity and importance of some of these measures, this work argues that numerous governments around the world used the pandemic crisis as a pretext to push through restrictions that hamper critical journalism. Drawing from worldwide press freedom monitoring tools and platforms established by various credible global organizations, this study shows that the pandemic crisis exacerbates existing obstacles to press freedom and adds new dimensions to the already documented threats. This is evident not only in authoritarian states, but also in western democracies. Most of the threats documented specifically aim to silence digital journalism, which has gained significant momentum as a result of the pandemic crisis. Overall, the main target of this work is to offer an enriched conceptual approach to the types of threats that press freedom faces in the context of global crisis situations.
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Media History, 2021
This article presents an overview of the role of the media in nationalism and identity-shaping in... more This article presents an overview of the role of the media in nationalism and identity-shaping in post-crisis societies experiencing conflict, focusing on the impact of the recent economic crisis on diversity in political news reporting. The research is based on a time series analysis (2000–2019) of diversity in traditional and online political news reporting, framed by a thematic analysis of journalists’ interviews. Cyprus is used as a case-study, as an example of a ‘divided’ country. Findings suggest that news diversity in societies experiencing conflict significantly reduced after the economic crisis in traditional media but increased in online media. At the same time, representations of nationalism in the news media seem to be taking alternative directions. The study challenges the way(s) in which media history is read in post-crisis societies experiencing conflict where the media play a significant role in assessing notions of togetherness as opposed to images of separatism.
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Sustainability (Special Issue: Cultural Heritage Storytelling, Engagement and Management in the Era of Big Data and the Semantic Web), 2021
In the era of big data, within the intense environment of social media, the effective
communicati... more In the era of big data, within the intense environment of social media, the effective
communication of cultural heritage initiatives is considered of equal or—in some cases—even greater
importance than heritage data themselves. Media and journalists play a critical and in some cases
conflicting role in audience engagement and the sustainable promotion of cultural heritage narratives
within the social media environment. The aim of this study was to assess the role of media and
journalists in propagating cultural heritage news through social media platforms, and the narratives
they tend to create in the digital public sphere. A qualitative approach is employed as a means of
examining in-depth specific narratives, their meaning(s) and connotation(s), using semantic analysis.
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Journal of Greek Media & Culture , 2020
This article examines significant changes in the television news industry, from 2015 until 2019, ... more This article examines significant changes in the television news industry, from 2015 until 2019, a period characterized by a severe financial crisis that swept throughout the country, bringing to the forefront of the Greek public sphere, new political voices of both the right and the left. Using secondary data to examine media ownership patterns, we adopted a political economic approach to highlight the ways in which television news have adopted a populist outlook that has its origins in similar practices in the 1980s political and media contexts, while reviewing and assessing long-term interactions between media (television) industries and the political system.
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Journal of Digital Media & Policy, 2020
In recent years, digitalization has detached television content from the television screen, and s... more In recent years, digitalization has detached television content from the television screen, and so the television is no longer the only choice for personal audiovisual consumption. The audio-visual market is facing increased fragmentation due to the multiplicity of delivering platforms. Furthermore, the digital touch has brought about far-reaching changes in people’s audio-visual consumption practices. The protagonists of this new digital landscape are the members of Generation Z (GenZ), who are early adopters of the digital innovation. In this article, contemporary consumption behaviours of audio-visual content, contrasting those at the times of traditional television viewing, are explored in the context of the GenZ community. In Greece, GenZ represent nearly 20 per cent of the entire population and makes an interesting target to be scrutinized under the prism of ongoing studies of media usage.
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Media Watch, 2020
This experiment was designed to explore people’s critical, differentiating capacity between actua... more This experiment was designed to explore people’s critical, differentiating capacity between actual news and content that looks like news. Four groups of postmillennials read four versions of a news story. While the first condition included a real news story derived from a mainstream medium, the other three conditions tested three attributes of fakeness, namely an exaggerated, satirical, and popularised frame of disinformation. Although readers differentiated between satire and the actual news story, no significant differences were observed between exaggerated and simplified versions of news and the actual news story. Additional intervening variables were scrutinized, showing a connection between the
salience of a story and its perceptions of fakeness.
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Encyclopedia of Information Science and Technology, Fifth Edition, 2021
Papadopoulou, L. and Maniou, T. (2021). The chapter offers a theoretical overview and understandi... more Papadopoulou, L. and Maniou, T. (2021). The chapter offers a theoretical overview and understanding on issues regarding the way technological disruption transforms old habits and practices in newsrooms leading to innovative storytelling that transcends time and space. The emergence of social media as a main news source, the extensive use of mobile platforms and the advent of complex technologies such as virtual reality (VR) and artificial intelligence (AI) are paving the way for new forms of journalism that are shaping the future of the industry. In this context, this chapter defines and adequately describes the term digital media while, at the same time it sheds light on new forms of journalism that arise from the vast outspread of ‘smart technology' such as conversational journalism, data journalism, drone journalism, network journalism, robot journalism, selfie journalism, slow journalism, and virtual reality journalism.
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Journal publications by Theodora A . Maniou
austerity and its impact on society. A regression analysis of symptoms indicates trauma journalism as an emerging field of research into the economic crisis.
communication of cultural heritage initiatives is considered of equal or—in some cases—even greater
importance than heritage data themselves. Media and journalists play a critical and in some cases
conflicting role in audience engagement and the sustainable promotion of cultural heritage narratives
within the social media environment. The aim of this study was to assess the role of media and
journalists in propagating cultural heritage news through social media platforms, and the narratives
they tend to create in the digital public sphere. A qualitative approach is employed as a means of
examining in-depth specific narratives, their meaning(s) and connotation(s), using semantic analysis.
salience of a story and its perceptions of fakeness.
austerity and its impact on society. A regression analysis of symptoms indicates trauma journalism as an emerging field of research into the economic crisis.
communication of cultural heritage initiatives is considered of equal or—in some cases—even greater
importance than heritage data themselves. Media and journalists play a critical and in some cases
conflicting role in audience engagement and the sustainable promotion of cultural heritage narratives
within the social media environment. The aim of this study was to assess the role of media and
journalists in propagating cultural heritage news through social media platforms, and the narratives
they tend to create in the digital public sphere. A qualitative approach is employed as a means of
examining in-depth specific narratives, their meaning(s) and connotation(s), using semantic analysis.
salience of a story and its perceptions of fakeness.
diversity of news media ecosystems in 2022 in the three
countries comprising the Mediterranean Digital Media
Observatory (MedDMO) Hub.
Η τουριστική βιομηχανία αποτελεί μια ιδιαίτερη περίπτωση. Καταρχήν, ο τομέας επηρεάστηκε λόγω του περιορισμού των εισοδημάτων αλλά την ίδια ώρα αποτέλεσε και μια συνιστώσα της επιστροφής στην ανάπτυξη για τις χώρες του νότου, συμπεριλαμβανομένης και της Ελλάδας. Εξετάζοντας την περίπτωση της Ελλάδας η ανανέωση του τουριστικού προϊόντος συνέπεσε με την έκρηξη των νέων μέσων, τα οποία και προσέφεραν νέες δυνατότητες ανάπτυξης των τουριστικών προορισμών.
Το κεφάλαιο αυτό παρουσιάζει τη σχέση του τουρισμού με την οικονομία στην περίπτωση της Ελλάδας και εξετάζει τους τρόπους με τους οποίους τα νέα μέσα μπορούν να βοηθήσουν στη διαμόρφωση μιας σταθερής πολιτικής ανάπτυξης προορισμών. Η ανάλυση δείχνει πώς, ιδιαίτερα στην εποχή της οικονομικής κρίσης, ο τουρισμός μπορεί να λειτουργήσει ως παράγοντας προστιθέμενης αξίας με στόχο την ενίσχυση των εθνικών πολιτικών αλλά και την επικοινωνιακή προβολή θεμάτων και αξιών, προς όφελος ενός κράτους.
This paper presents the results of a survey conducted in January 2016 on a sample of 48 Greek-Cypriot journalists specialising in political reporting and employed by the printed and digital editions of the five newspapers with the highest circulation in the country. The main aim is to determine their practices and to compare them to the methods they perceive as ideal journalistic performance, in order to discuss the manifestation and level of professional freedom they enjoy within the current digital environment.
The journalists answered 28 questions concerning their personal characteristics, routine practices and perception of ideal journalistic performance. We used the chi-square statistic to test the correlation between demographic variables and journalistic practices, and Pearson correlation to measure the strength and direction of the relationship between two variables, including the comparisons between actual journalistic practices and those perceived as ideal.
The results show that although most journalists in our sample seem to aspire to the performance of watchdog journalism, they do not enjoy the autonomy to practice it. Lack of journalistic freedom is evident despite age, gender, position, education and experience, which implies that they have little effect on their profession and its changes. Nevertheless, we can discern some attempts to pursue some of these ideal practices (e.g., in exposing cases of abuse of power, monitoring political leaders).
stress; increasing insecurity and pressures in the sector – aspects that undermine journalism capacity to offer useful information needed for an informed and engaged citizenry. Still, these changes in both countries are not solely driven by the pandemic situation. Rather the recent crisis seems to have deepened structural pathogenies of journalism in both Greece and Cyprus, including sustainability issues intensified by the recent economic crisis, the lack of a strong professional culture that makes journalism
vulnerable to political pressures, as well as dependences and deficiencies in interacting with new technologies.