During the last year we all were banned to participate in our everyday life using online transmission, homework, homeschool and different digital tools. But with all this we also gained access to cultural or other practices that previously were not part in our everyday life. That resulted in a detailed spectrum of participation from the form of listening-observing to the different levels of giving feedback and taking control (for example putting questions to the other participants or to the crew, taking part in the discussion, pausing or leaving an event). This paper investigates the possibilities of agency given to the participants by the online theater. It starts from personal experiences, but ends in questions regarding the medial nature of this new transmission form: to what extent should digitally transmitted performances, shows be considered theater? And if they are not theater, what are they?

This study is a critical mixed-methods investigation of the Joker’s ubiquity within international media discourse. The research comparatively examines the myth’s presence within The Guardian and The New York Times’ news reporting (1999–2020), and determines intermedia agenda-setting processes. Using a corpus linguistics approach, the paper also analyses news media’s deployment of the Joker as a figure of speech, with the purpose of identifying prom­inent news values. The results indicate a high prevalence of consonance, eliteness, proximity, negativity, and superlativeness. Moreover, the study investigates the role that user-generated media plays in perpetuating or countering dominant hegemonies, by semiotically analysing internet memes that use the myth within the r/meme subreddit community. Overall, the study finds that the Joker is a popular resource for the mediated construction of a derogatory stereotype, associated with sexist, racist and ableist myths, often in connection to political elites (Donald Trump, Boris Johnson, Barack Obama), and serves as a tool for mockery, shame, and dramatization of events.

With the rapid rise of digital technologies, the short video, as a low-threshold media form, enables rural subjects to become visible in the public sphere and to realize expression and performance of self-identity. Drawing on Laclau and Mouffe’s discourse theory as the theoretical backbone, this study adopted discourse-theoretical analysis on 294 short videos about rural daily life on the Chinese video sharing website Bilibili to discuss how short videos function in the discursive construction of rural areas. The study finds that, first of all, rural people’s active media practice dislocates the hegemonic identity formation by demonstrating various dimensions of rural areas. Secondly, we can see three nodal points of the counter-hegemonic discourse on the rural at work: humanized space for daily life, diversified citizenship with dignity, and subjects with initiative and responsibility in national ideologies. Last but not least, although short videos unprecedentedly amplify the voice of the countryside’s counter-hegemonic discourse, such resistance is still limited by the inherently unbalanced power relations between the urban and the rural.

FUNDING ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

This work is supported by the China Scholarship Council [grant number: 202007050042].

In the print media in Albania, opinions are a very controversial part of the way public discourse is created. Positioned in the capital of Albania, they often circulate the same information. Important in this genre of information are: comments, analysis and opinions in editorial form, and headlines. It seems that the most important information is served on a golden plate for the public that is being overloaded and bombarded by other media such as television, radio, or online media. Mass communication here unfolds in a wider range, that, apparently informative, turns into a game with gates between political camps. Opinionism openly announces its strategies from one medium to another where more than the public benefits those who make these opinions, i.e. journalists, politicians or explicitly linked exponents for the purposes of political communication. On the other hand, we see a lot of spectacle in the form of entertainment and so far the information stagnates. Necessary information for citizens is missing. This paper tends to theoretically analyze the genre issues of opinion in the print media.

Binging – and binge-watching in particular – has been receiving growing interest from communication scientists for a couple of years. Thus, after five decades of watching audiovisual content according to TV schedules, a recipient gained more autonomy regarding the content and ways of watching. The author aims to analyse the factors influencing the potential permanence of this specific way of media consumption, with literature review as the main method. These factors include different definitions of the concept, synonyms, applying the binging term to different media formats (binge-watching – binge-listening – binge-reading – binge-gaming), technological and social circumstances. These factors differ in their quality and scale. Will their convergence and synergy permanently change the practices of media consumption? Referring to previous changes in media differentiation, accessibility, and reception, although binging would probably become rather next, but not the dominating form of media practices of leisure time. The cognitive value of the article is to offer a theoretical basis for further quantitative and qualitative research on the reception of different media formats and genres; binging included.

The article presents the idea of a new “Lexicon of Media Terms” in Poland, showing important reasons for undertaking such a project. The preparation of the “Lexicon” is prompted, on the one hand, by the dynamic development of Polish and global media studies in the 21st century (its institutionalization in many research centers and universities, the development of professional and scientific periodicals, etc.), and on the other hand by the certain gap in Polish publishing market (the last publications of this type were created in the middle of the first decade of this century), and thus at a different stage of development of the mediosphere. Being aware of the availability of multi-volume international publications and online encyclopedias on the publishing market, the authors recognize that the aim of the project is not only to provide a processual and interdisciplinary account of contemporary changes in the mediosphere, but above all – from the Polish perspective, to popularize and highlight the achievements of Polish scholars – media researchers and representatives of related disciplines. “Lexicon” will differ from the previous publications in terms of form – it will include a much larger number of entries (about 3000) and content, entering areas that are new in terms of technology (resulting in an exponential growth of entries related to Internet media and in general – digital media), also covering new phenomena, new research areas and results of achievements of numerous circles of media scholars.