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The purpose of this study is to understand challenges and constraints in reaching top leadership positions for women in the Portuguese press. Specifically, it aims at characterizing their communication and leadership styles, and at identifying main gender biases in newsrooms routines from their point of view.

A qualitative method was employed by conducting in-depth interviews with four women who have held higher management positions in Portuguese leading newspapers. Participants were asked to characterize their communication and leadership style, but also newsrooms environment, trying to understand how gender asymmetries persist and manifest. Results were analyzed using thematic analysis.

While considering that Portuguese newsrooms are no longer environments marked by a sexist/macho environment, through increasing female participation, women still represent a minority in leadership. Leadership traits linked to male styles, including assertiveness and courage, were revealed, though mixed with a more participative/relational leadership. Also, female leaders regret when emotional ties with teams are not developed and recognized some degree of privilege towards other women through family support or not having children.

There is a limited number of interviews, although they represent the few top women leaders in Portuguese journalism.

Policymaking recommendations derived from conclusions include participative leadership, implementing quotas, and monitoring tools of gender biases and special training.

Media literacy policies and open debates on main media outlets concerning female leadership and communication styles may contributes toward the acknowledgement of lingering gender biases in the industry.

This study contributes to a fuller insight into the identification of leadership and personal traits among women who managed to disrupt stigmas and break barriers. Their voices are seldom heard in studies focusing leadership, so results enable ascertaining whether there is a female way of leading in journalism and comprehending the sense of privilege these women perceive.

This paper aims to understand whether Portugal, being a relatively peripheral country – in political, economic and military terms – of Southwest Europe, was recently a target of hybrid threats. The prevalence of a specific type of threat was found. Thus, this paper analyses the non-kinetic hybrid threats in Portugal, in a temporary hiatus of two years (2017-2018).

This study has two parts: a conceptual analysis of hybrid threats created by us and, based on the typology previously presented, an analysis of the hybrid threats in Portugal between 2017 and 2018. The first part relied on source analysis, as the result of a desk review methodology, supported by monographs, declassified official documents and reports. The second part is also the result of source analysis, but more extensive. In addition to the desk review methodology, the study included semi-structured interviews with different stakeholders from the Portuguese security and armed forces, who asked not to be quoted. Media content analysis was also carried out – for trends and fact-check – mostly for the events related to the “narratives led operations” (for propaganda, misinformation, counter-information and strategic leaks).

To date, Portugal – compared with other European states – has not been a significant target for hybrid threats. It is diluted in the Portuguese geopolitical dimension. Nevertheless, not escaping what is happening in Europe, it has also been the target of non-kinetic hybrid threats, especially in cyberspace. In the field of so-called “narrative-driven operations”, there have been some occurrences – whether related to fake news, far-right movements or strategic leaks. In addition, cyberattacks from foreign groups for information and data gathering have increased in recent years, making governmental and private critical infrastructures more vulnerable.

One of the characteristics of hybrid threats is their difficult identification. Therefore, information is scarce, which has complicated the research, leading us to assume, in many cases, speculation about the threat. It should also be taken into account that, in the case of cyberspace, until 2018, 90% of the occurrences were not reported, and the study has dealt with only official numbers.

It is not a policy paper. Although it neither points out national vulnerabilities to this type of threat nor makes procedural recommendations or considerations, it is fundamental in identifying the peculiarity of hybrid threats in a democratic state.

The platformisation of journalism has compelled news media to adapt to network media logic, affecting journalistic practices and norms. Several challenges emerged for media outlets, including competition for attention, news avoidance and the dominance of social media as primary news sources. Among platforms, TikTok represents an opportunity for news media to engage with new audiences, particularly those who tend to avoid traditional news sources. TikTok's algorithm assesses content virality based on factors like sound, hashtags and content itself, prompting media outlets to develop new strategies to compete in this space.

Our study focuses on Portuguese media, which received limited attention despite TikTok's rapid adoption rate growth, rising from 13% in 2020 to 45% in 2023.

We analysed the last 58 TikTok posts of the most popular Portuguese media according to the Digital News report 2023 starting from 1 September 2023, identifying various elements, such as music, hashtags, featured subjects, topic, etc. To uncover newsroom strategies, we applied multiple correspondence analysis and hierarchical clustering on principal components to identify post clusters. These strategies have been then be correlated with the number of views to determine their effectiveness in engaging audiences.

The chapter addresses the unique aspects of Brazil’s news agencies and the Brazilian news syndication market. It reveals the pattern of Brazil’s two prevailing business models regarding the wire services industry: that of the State, particularly the federal government, which invested little in a nationwide distributor to peripheral and alternative media; and that of major media conglomerates, which set out their syndication services labeled as “news agencies” in order to multiply profits with no extra labor. In the latter case, an asymmetrical relationship of dependency and circularity ensues between these major conglomerates and regional media groups, who rely on these “news agencies” to perpetuate their dominance in local markets. The chapter also assesses a few causes for this unique model and describes the main players in Brazil’s news agency sector. A concise historical background is presented (Molina, Morais, Saroldi & Moreira) and provides context for the present-day players in the news agency business in Brazil, including the institutional framework they form with their customers, predominantly smaller newspapers. The chapter analyzes attributes of the Brazilian news agency ecology, including the parallel reach of distribution networks belonging to the private and state-owned agencies; the adaptation of conglomerate agencies to challenges entailed by the digital convergence (shrinking newsrooms, multitasking staff); and the prevalence of the interconglomerate model within the Brazilian news syndication industry.

How do citizens who live in municipalities that are in ‘news deserts’ find out about what is happening where they live? Developed in the United States and investigated in Brazil and the United Kingdom, the concept of ‘news deserts’ has aroused the curiosity of scholars and agents involved in the development of public policies in Europe, with the mapping of such areas being the target of a European Commission Call for Proposals to support local media in news-poor communities. The phenomenon of news deserts results from a systemic and wide-ranging crisis that journalism as a whole is facing, with profound effects on the local media. A ‘news desert’ is defined as a community without a local newspaper and also a community whose inhabitants face significantly reduced access to news that feeds the foundation of local democracy. One of the first mappings carried out in Europe, the News Deserts Europe 2022: Portugal Report, revealed that 25.3% of Portugal's municipalities did not have media outlets based in the municipality about which they produced contents, a phenomenon linked to more isolated communities with lower economic activity and smaller. But people somehow obtain information in these news deserts. Studies show that much of the local information in those regions is accessed through social media, such as Facebook pages and groups, which can be sources of disinformation and manipulation. When there is no media covering local affairs, communities are left without a point of reference.

This study based on qualitative data aims to highlight emerging journalistic practices. It analyzes entrepreneurship in Brazilian journalism in order to determine to what extent this development can be regarded as a form of organizational innovation. Over 30 case studies of Brazilian journalistic startups are examined.

The method adopted in this analysis consists of four complementary stages. In the first stage we identify Brazilian media’s political and economic standing and the impacts of digitization on journalism. Then we assess journalistic startup experiences in Brazil through innovation and entrepreneurialism and map the cases. Finally, the fourth and final stage involves interviews of journalists responsible for such startups.

In the past, startups were associated with oppositional forms of journalism aimed at producing alternative views. We find that these startups represent a hybrid of innovation and conservation in news production. On the one hand, they create the potential for journalism’s independence, a crucial asset for the democratic societies utilizing various forms of news production. On the other hand, they remain tied to political and economic interests springing from the neoliberalism that characterize the global media industry.

This chapter focuses on journalistic startups in Brazil and identifies five relevant characteristics of these entrepreneurial organizations. These innovative forms of news production open up spaces for a plurality of social actors and productive sectors. They also offer alternative approaches to covering many relevant issues in Brazilian society, such as legal and judicial topics.

Investor relations literature reports that after an era that “the higher the stock price, the better”, currently investor relations entered into a new era where “overvaluation is perhaps as bad as undervaluation” (Laskin, 2018a, p. 19). This paper searches for evidence on whether news coverage around abnormal returns indicates that corporate communication effectively seek fair value prices.

Using data of the Portuguese market, it investigates if the news coverage and the investor relations' influence on such coverage (namely as a source of the news) are symmetrical before and after extreme abnormal positive or negative returns. This paper uses event study methodology, performs content analysis and applies statistical and econometric analyses.

The findings are consistent with the idea that companies communicate differently in face of positive and negative abnormal returns. Particularly, before the event, companies are more frequently cited as a source of the news for positive events. This indicates that companies seek to capitalize the positive impact of the favourable subsequent disclosures. After the occurrence of abnormal returns, companies are more often a source of the news for negative cases, seeking to mitigate their impact. Additionally, after negative events companies are more frequently mentioned in the news with a positive content than they are mentioned before.

The new approach of this study allows the companies' information stakeholders (namely investors and regulators) to become more informed and critical in the analysis of news coverage and its sources.

As far as the authors of the paper know, this is the first study that addresses the question of eventual asymmetric behaviour of companies’ communication in face of positive and negative abnormal returns.

In the context of American institutions of higher education, the practical implementation of strategies associated with the development of L3+ or multilingual education often remain difficult to implement. Furthermore, students who reach the university level with pre-acquired bi/multilingual and bi/multicultural skills may perceive their competencies as trivialized and undervalued due to the lack of linguistically relevant opportunities available to them.

By contrast, the recent implementation of a multilingual course titled “Intercomprehension of the Romance languages: a pathway to Multilingualism,” at California State University, Long Beach (2014–2018) and St. Lawrence University (2018) offers bi/multilingual students the tools to develop skills geared toward language learning in a continuous effort to appraise, nurture, and upraise the ever-growing linguistic diversity present among students and faculty members in universities across the United States. This course and its iterations specifically benefit students’ pre-existing bi/multilingual competencies while offering them opportunities to reinforce and expand their multilingual repertoire. Students learn how to read in 5+ Romance languages, reinforce their knowledge of English, as well as of their Romance language, all while strengthening their metalinguistic awareness by learning how to navigate a larger repertoire of either foreign or unknown related languages.

In addition to discussing the pedagogical and theoretical framework of the course, the authors propose to explore how this innovative approach favors the development of multilingualism among students in North-American universities by examining course demographic data collected from several of these courses and key results relating certain aspects of students’ initial contact with new languages through intercomprehension.

This chapter examines the professional identities of Brazilian journalists. It does so through an analysis of the growing professional autonomy of journalism from 1950 to 1990 through the life stories of 10 intellectual-journalists, individuals whose journalistic activities have crossed over into other intellectual fields.

This study applies a symbolic interactionist framework to understand how these actors managed their reputations and careers within the intellectual world. The narratives were taken from qualitative semi-structured interviews, and supported by additional research such as interviews, biographies, and articles which have been published about their lives.

The life stories were compared to the extensive structural changes affecting the world of journalism and the world of intellectuals in Brazil. This comparison revealed gaps between these two spheres of practice, within which the ambivalent form of journalists’ identities have been constructed.

This chapter offers two contributions to the study of Brazilian journalists. From a theoretical and methodological viewpoint, it advances beyond other studies that focus more on the prevailing representations of journalists’ professional identities and their role in society. From an empirical standpoint, it describes the complex negotiations between the worlds of journalism, culture and politics. This chapter also reexamines the current dominant explanation for the changes in Brazilian journalism. It shows that building careers and new levels of interpersonal cooperation for intellectuals and journalists has been a slow process. Ultimately, this development has left some behind, especially those actors stretched between multiple professional identities such as those who self-identify as intellectual-journalists.

LIBRARIES in War have, alas, been too often the theme of this and other library magazines owing to the times in which men and women of middle age have had to live. To‐day, even younger ones can see some reflection of the atmosphere, because they have been brought up in a pervading spirit of threats and preparations; insomuch—and this is the tragedy of i t—they ask “What is the good of preparing for life in this world when we are likely to be bombed out of it at any moment?” There is much good, because, even if the ultimate tragedy came, England and the majority of us would survive; and the world must go on. It is a descent from this perhaps grand attitude to the thought that less money may be available for libraries for the time being. We know that rates are rising in many places, owing to unemployment relief needs and A.R.P. demands, but there is the consolation that last year many new libraries were opened. It may be a result of the truth that never are libraries more needed than in hours of stress.