Dennis and Sampaio-Dias presenting at the MeCCSA annual conference in Brighton

UoP journalism lecturers James Dennis and Susana Sampaio-Dias will present research at the MeCCSA annual conference at the University of Brighton from 8–10 January. Details of both papers are provided below. The full programme is available here.

Not just swearing and loathing on the internet: Analysing BuzzFeed, VICE, and the Affective Turn in Election Reporting
James Dennis and Susana Sampaio-Dias (University of Portsmouth)

Given the significant growth in youth engagement in the 2017 UK general election, it is important to examine the information sources that young people draw on when deciding how to cast their vote. In this paper, we combine human-coded content analysis and in-depth discourse analysis to analyse two news organisations, BuzzFeed and VICE, and explore how they draw on emotional forms of storytelling when reporting to younger audiences.

Drawing on 337 articles from the official campaign period, we show how BuzzFeed maintained a journalistic style that blurred the lines between information and entertainment, as humour was a constant feature. In comparison, VICE hovered between satirical features and long read pieces that pushed a more serious agenda. Unlike BuzzFeed, VICE was not concerned with balance, attacking the Conservatives with fearless partisanship. Authentic, informal, and identifiable, their coverage was unapologetically subjective.

More than simply distributing partisan coverage designed to appeal to specific audiences, BuzzFeed and VICE embrace the culture of social media. Their reporting reflects the subjective, confessional, and personalised forms of expression that characterise communication on social platforms. By drawing on the ideas, language, and behaviours of the social web, BuzzFeed and VICE offer election coverage that is uniquely tailored to a younger audience. This emotional storytelling challenges the norms of election reporting in the UK. In doing so, this study adds to the growing body of work in journalism studies that illustrates how emotional reporting can help facilitate audience engagement (Pantti, 2010; Wahl-Jorgenson, 2019).

A party within a party posing as a movement? Momentum as a Movement Faction
James Dennis (University of Portsmouth)

This paper examines how the UK political organization Momentum uses social media within its campaigning. Drawing on a mixed-method research design, combining interviews with activists in Portsmouth and discourse analysis of content posted on Facebook and Twitter, this paper tests whether the leadership provides meaningful influence for members. At the national level, there is little evidence of Momentum fulfilling its “people-powered” vision. Instead, supporters are instructed to undertake tasks at the direction of the leadership. However, this is not a straightforward case of controlled interactivity. The local group in Portsmouth is semi-autonomous, providing member-driven advocacy that is coordinated through a Facebook Group. By using social media to underpin different organizational norms and campaigning tactics at different spatial levels, Momentum represents a “movement faction”.