Publications
All research publications from PREPARE are available open access.
Main content
2025
听(2025) Journalism. Authors: Hallvard Moe, Brita Ytre-Arne, Solveig H酶egh-Krohn.听
This article examines how people understand climate news. In a study conducted in Norway, involving multiple interviews and open questionnaires, participants were asked to share their thoughts on three current news stories. The examples were about climate change on local, national, and global levels, with varying degrees of conflict and different narrative styles and images. The study found that news articles with different characteristics led to three ways of forming opinions: uncertain reasoning, moral attitudes, and recurring climate discussions. The study helps to understand how different types of journalism can increase interest in climate news. Methodologically, the study is innovative because it uses real news examples. Finally, it discusses why the most important aspects of climate change often make the least sense as news.
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2024
听(2024)听Information, Communication & Society. Author: 脰zlem Demirkol-T酶nnesen.
Introduction.听This paper introduces the 鈥楻evolutions鈥� themed special issue which includes research presented at the 24th annual Association of Internet Researchers (AoIR) conference (2023). The conference theme centered on revolutions, highlighting the connections between digital transformations and social movements across time and space. Focusing on the affordances of digital technologies for mobilization, resistance and achieving social justice, but also their limitations in enabling lasting social change, the conference theme asked participants to reflect on the tradeoffs between empowerment and subordination, and the relationship of digital 鈥榬evolutions鈥� to racial justice, anticolonial movements, and the rising tide of white supremacist and fascist mobilization. This special issue includes six papers that offer new angles on critically assessing the groundbreaking early ideas underpinning online networked spaces and questioning the revolutionary potential of the internet today. The range of papers includes contexts related to platform power and user agency, online political subcultures and memeification, the balance between visibility and power for content creators revolutionizing live streaming and influencer cultural industries, and perceptions of AI鈥檚 revolutionary impact on romantic relationships. The studies in this issue also offer a global view, with geographies stretching from the MENA region and China to subcultures and marginalized groups in Western contexts such as the US and Canada.
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听(2024). European Journal of Communication. Author: Hallvard Moe.
Scientific article. This article addresses the question of whether a withdrawal from social media platforms represents a viable strategy in the ongoing relational power negotiations between public service media and platforms, and if so, under what conditions. Recent diverging strategic efforts from public service broadcasters in two European countries 鈥� Germany and Norway 鈥� serve as illustrations of how existing organizations attempt to manoeuvre the current online realm dominated by platforms. I discuss findings from qualitative studies of news use in Norway and draw on comparative survey data on news use. I propose that high levels of trust in public service media, and widespread use of the public service broadcaster's own sites and offers, are key prerequisites to consider when assessing the viability of a withdrawal from third-party platforms in different countries. By zooming in on one type of media organization (public service broadcasters), and looking at different such organizations鈥� characteristics and context, and the dynamics of their relations to online platforms, the paper contributes to our understanding of platform power.
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听(2024) Political Communication, 1-7. Authors: Emilija Gagrcin, Hallvard Moe.
Discussion paper. Digital media have fundamentally altered how knowledge is produced and distributed, often being blamed for contemporary democratic problems. This short essay examines recent contributions to normative democratic theory, focusing on three questions: 1) characterization of media-related threats, 2) media and communication aspects supportive of democracy, and 3) diagnosis of democracy鈥檚 core challenges. Our reading reveals that while digital media is seen to contribute to the epistemic crisis, the core problem can be traced back to the profound impact of communicative capitalism on our epistemic infrastructures. We call for political communication scholars to prioritize the study of epistemic inequalities by critically examining and addressing the pervasive influence of market logic in both our work and the subject of study. In doing so, we can make an empirically informed contribution to democratic theory鈥檚 quest to defend democracy.
听(2024) Tidsskrift for Samfunnsforskning. Author: Hallvard Moe.
Book review. A review of the Norwegian-language edition of J眉rgen Habermas:听Ein neuer Strukturwandel der 脰ffentlichkeit und die deliberative Politik (2022, in German). Only available in Norwegian.
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2023
(2023)听Communication Theory. Author: Hallvard Moe.
Scientific paper. This article takes issue with public sphere theories鈥� lack of focus on the consequences of social inequality. Citizens divide the work of following politics between them, and we need a cohesive conceptualization of such divisions, through and beyond today鈥檚 intrusive media and with attention to social inequalities. Instead of ideals of fully informed individual citizens, I propose we take the empirical fact of distribution of citizens鈥� public connection as a starting point and anchor our theoretical ideals in the social world with an 鈥渆thnographic sensibility.鈥� Doing so facilitates an operationalized concept of distribution of citizens鈥� public connection into four elements:听issues,听arenas, and听communicative modes, which citizens variously rely on听over time. With such an operationalization, we can assess when and for whom the distribution of public connection goes too far and disfavors certain citizens. This helps bring public sphere theory beyond the conundrum of our societies鈥� paradoxically uninformed citizens.
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