Scoms Studies in Communication Sciences Volume 18 (2018), Issue 2
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SComS Studies in Communication Volume Issue 18.2 Sciences Contents 209 Editorial (by Katharina Lobinger, Sara Greco) General Section 215 Marie-Isabell Lohmann, Andreas Riedl: Public nuisance or an asset to democracy? Does the free press aim to provide a public service? An empirical study examining journalistic functions within the normative framework of the European Union 231 Dorothee Arlt: Who trusts the news media? Exploring the factors shaping trust in the news media in German-speaking Switzerland 247 Diana Ingenhoff, Dominique Richner: The effects of public diplomacy on country identity in countries with different language regions and cultures: The case of Switzerland Thematic Section 269 Nadzeya Kalbaska, Teresa Sádaba, Lorenzo Cantoni: Editorial: Fashion communication: Between tradition and digital transformation 287 Annick Paternoster, Francesca Saltamacchia: Il vestito forma la persona – “clothes make the man”: Fashion morality in Italian nineteenth-century conduct books 307 Pelin Ok: European luxury fashion brand advertising, and marketing relating to nostalgia 325 Myles Ethan Lascity: Girls that wear Abercrombie & Fitch: Reading fashion branding aesthetics into music videos 339 Deborah A. Christel, Susan C. Williams Née Dunn: What plus-size means for plus-size women: A mixed-methods approach 353 Paula von Wachenfeldt: Communicating seduction. Luxury fashion advertisements in video campaigns 365 Simonetta Buffo: Body in fashion films: The new net-aesthetic era 383 Matthew Hibberd: Key challenges for the fashion industry in tackling climate change 399 Rachel Matthews: Taste-making in turbulent times: Vogue and its social networks 411 Alexandra Tuite: Communicating material characteristics in a digital age: Three case studies in independent fashion 425 Cristina González Fernández, Raquel Martínez-Sanz: Fashion influencers and Instagram. A quasi-perfect binomial 439 Patricia SanMiguel, Simone Guercini, Teresa Sádaba: The impact of attitudes towards influencers amongst millennial fashion buyers Available online at www.scoms.ch ISSN 1424-4896 SComS Studies in Communication Sciences Volume 18 (2018), Issue 2 Studies in Communication Sciences 18.2 (2019), pp. 209–211 Editorial Katharina Lobinger, USI – Università della Svizzera italiana* Sara Greco, USI – Università della Svizzera italiana *Corresponding author: [email protected] Dear Reader, regions. Finally, the papers provide im- portant empirical findings about media This issue marks the second year since Stu- environments in Switzerland and Austria. dies in Communication Sciences (SComS) This empirical data and evidence is essen- is published Open Access on the HOPE tial for understanding our own media platform of the University of Zurich (www. environments and for providing relevant scoms.ch). information to decision-makers; in other The present issue of SComS perfectly words, this information is essential for re- reflects the unique character of the journal. search to have an impact on society. Not only do we present you a thematic sec- The first article of the general section tion with a very innovative topic, namely is entitled “Public nuisance or an asset to Fashion Communication. We also collect democracy? Does the free press aim to pro- three papers in the general section that, vide a public service?”. The authors, Marie- despite their different topics, have some- Isabell Lohmann and Andreas Riedl, thing in common that is telling for the role col lected data from Austrian journalists of communication in Switzerland. within the Aus trian part of the Worlds of The papers of the general section fo- Journalism Study, funded by the Austrian cus on the free press in Austria, on trust in Science Fund. The authors were interest- news media in German-speaking Switzer- ed in different journalists’ opinions re- land and on the implications of public di- garding the functions of journalism and plomacy for domestic audiences in differ- the role of journalism in society. In par- ent language regions of Switzerland. With ticular, they were interested in identifying their focus on Austria and Switzerland, similarities but also differences between the articles highlight the importance of journalists working in free press and jour- examining closely and of acknowledging nalists working in paid press with respect the peculiarities of national and regional to three main functions: the information markets and environments. function, the monitoring function and the What do they have in common? First communication function. These functions of all, they all focus on smaller European represent a translation of EU legislation countries and markets. This allows for with respect to the democracy-building comparisons with existing studies on dif- role of mass media, as detailed particular- ferent national and cultural contexts. But ly in the European Convention on Human at the same time, the application of exist- Rights, into a survey design. A general take ing concepts and approaches to smaller on the detailed results indicates that jour- contexts represents a challenge, not least nalists working for different kinds of me- due to the fact that many of these con- dia in Austria widely agree on the import- cepts and approaches were originally de- ant democratic functions that journalism veloped for the US context. The studies in must fulfil for the public. However, some the general section thus enable reflections differences were also found. For example, on how to situate and adapt concepts to journalists working for free daily newspa- certain national, regional or even local pers seek to fulfil communicative func- contexts with their specificities. And they tions to a greater extent. Connecting with also point to the fact the seemingly small their readers is thus a particularly relevant contexts are nevertheless highly complex, part of their daily work. At the same time, with differences even between language they are subject to greater commercialisa- https://doi.org/10.24434/j.scoms.2018.02.001 © 2019, the authors. This work is licensed under the “Creative Commons Attribution – NonCommercial – NoDerivatives 4.0 International” license (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0). 210 Lobinger & Greco, Editorial / Studies in Communication Sciences 18.2 (2018), pp. 209–211 tion demands than journalists from paid the identity of their country and exam- media. ines the effects of public diplomacy on In the second article of the gener- such perceived identity. Public diploma- al section, entitled “Who trusts the news cy is understood as a strategy based on media? Exploring the factors shaping trust commu nication which sets out to influ- in the news media in German-speaking ence another government’s foreign policy Switzerland”, Dorothee Arlt engages with decisions. In their paper, Ingenhoff and the decline of trust that is currently being Richner measure how public diplomacy observed in many countries. Switzerland communication influences the perception represents a special case in this regard, of a country’s identity by domestic pub- as media trust is relatively high and sta- lic(s) – the “s” being particularly important ble compared to other national contexts. in a multilingual context such as Switzer- Never theless, the need for critical exam- land. This article introduces an experi- inations and empirical studies of the fac- mental design study using the example of tors and predictors that lead to a reduction the mass immigration initiative voted in of media trust are highly relevant also for 2014 as a stimulus. The authors analyse the Swiss context. In order to examine the collected data quantitatively, based on trust, Dorothee Arlt conducted an online a multidimensional model (4D model) for survey with 1,019 participants of the pop- measuring a country image/identity de- ulation of the German-speaking part of veloped by one of the authors in previous Switzerland. Media trust was measured in research (Buhmann & Ingenhoff, 2015)1. terms of a) trust in the journalistic quality Their findings show that a public diploma- of media coverage about political issues cy strategy designed by the government of and b) in terms of trust in the indepen- a given country for a foreign public may dence and impartiality of media cover- indeed influence the perception of that age about political issues. First of all, it is country for domestic public as well. The noteworthy that the study found a positive effects of such influence are moderated by association between watching public tele- personal beliefs of the concerned publics vision and trust in journalistic quality. On and by the framing of the public diplo- the other hand, the use of particular news macy messages. As a whole, this study websites that provide alternative informa- paves the way to a nuanced understand- tion on political issues is related to a lower ing of the complexity of communication media trust in general. Corresponding to effects on different – intended and unin- previous research, the study also found a tended – publics, also shedding light on significant relationship between political cultural and linguistic differences within disenchantment and media trust, which one and the same country. was found to be an important predictor The thematic section of this issue of among others, such as populist attitudes, SComS, entitled “Fashion communica- anti-establishment attitudes or demand tion: Between tradition and digital trans- for people’s sovereignty. Overall, this pa- formation”, is an example for SComS’ in- per provides important empirical findings