Anita Varma
Dados Biográficos
| ID | 4899634 |
|---|---|
| NOME | Anita Varma |
| PRENOMES | Anita |
| SOBRENOME | Varma |
| ASSINATURA | VARMA A |
| AFILIAÇÕES | Stanford University |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-5951-6536 |
| VERIFICADO | Sim |
| TOTAL DE OBRAS | 12 |
| TOTAL DE CITAÇÕES | 103 |
| TOTAL COMO AUTOR | 12 |
| TOTAL COMO EDITOR | 0 |
| PRIMEIRO ANO DE PUBLICAÇÃO | 2017 |
| ANO MAIS RECENTE DE PUBLICAÇÃO | 2026 |
| ÍNDICE H | 5 |
Vanishing Victims and Silencing Survivors
Cyclone Freddy, the longest-lived tropical storm in recorded history, provides a critical case study for interrogating the dynamics of social inequality in journalism on climate crisis. We develop a distinction between colonial reporting and solidarity reporting through a qualitative textual analysis of 534 news stories on Cyclone Freddy published from February 1, 2023 to March 31, 2023. Most stories perpetuate colonial logics by deferring to off…
A Solidarity Framework for Representing Suffering
Media representations of suffering are regularly critiqued for contributing to desensitization. Grounded in media studies, journalism studies, psychology, and political philosophy, I develop a solidarity framework for media practitioners who seek to resist the normalization of what they define as suffering due to social injustice. By concretizing people's immediate needs (moral solidarity), accounting for collective resistance already underway (p…
The impact of using person-centered language to reference stigmatized groups in news coverage
News coverage often uses stigmatizing language to label marginalized groups. Person-centered language has been discussed as a potential remedy, which this study tests for the first time. Using a between-subjects experiment with members of three marginalized groups ( n = 339), we investigate whether news articles that use person-centered terms (e.g., “person with substance use disorder”) instead of stigmatizing terms (e.g., “drug abuser”) improve …
Conceptualizing feminist solidarity through resistance in the “Woman, Life, Freedom” movement
The question of what constitutes solidarity (and what does not) has been a persistent concern for feminist scholars. In this conceptual article, we develop a distinction between superficial feminist solidarity and substantive feminist solidarity, grounded in illustrations of digital resistance during the transnational “Woman, Life, Freedom” feminist movement. The categories of superficial feminist solidarity and substantive feminist solidarity pr…
Attacks Against Journalists in Brazil
Attacks on journalists have become a growing concern in democracies around the world. Past scholarship suggests that such attacks could lead to a chilling effect of journalists self-censoring their reporting. However, there is limited empirical work that substantiates the effects of attacks on journalists. To empirically test the existence of chilling effects, this mixed-methods study uses the conditions of journalism under Jair Bolsonaro’s gover…
Solidarity Reporting on Marginalization
A dominant monitorial reporting method means that journalism shines a spotlight on officials’ activities, plans, and statements. While this reporting method has brought official wrongdoing to light, monitorial reporting has also participated in amplifying, emphasizing, and normalizing problematic official definitions that neglect structural factors contributing to persistent issues of marginalization. Using qualitative textual analysis, this stud…
They Always Get Our Story Wrong
This study positions social justice activists’ objections to dominant reporting norms as a catalyst for critically reassessing these norms and their connection to diminishing trust in US journalism. Based on a conceptual application of discourse ethics to journalism and qualitative analysis of 28 in-depth interviews with social justice activists, we examine how participants experience and evaluate mainstream coverage of social justice, and why th…
Moral solidarity as a news value
Solidarity is a longstanding, though seldom acknowledged, news value in coverage of marginalized communities. As a principled commitment to social justice, solidarity as a news value helps account for news stories that deviate from elite focus and individualistic framing, which have been regularly critiqued in scholarship on dominant news values. This article contributes a grounded framework for locating and analyzing types of solidarity that ope…
Evoking Empathy or Enacting Solidarity with Marginalized Communities? A Case Study of Journalistic Humanizing Techniques in the San Francisco Homeless Project
American journalists regularly humanize marginalized communities in an attempt to bridge social distance. Journalists’ techniques for doing so may constrain representations to the level of individual turmoil and resilience without accounting for structural factors, however, which has troubling social justice implications. This study examines how journalists humanize homeless people in the case of the collaborative San Francisco Homeless Project. …
The Constructive Role of Journalism
This paper examines the normative role of constructive journalism—also called “solutions journalism”—by analyzing metajournalistic discourse about solutions-focused journalism. The findings show that constructive and solutions journalism are defined similarly: they profess traditional Anglo-Saxon journalistic norms and practices, even as they shift focus from problems to solutions. The metajournalistic discourse indicates a tension over the norma…
Native advertising and the cultivation of counterfeit news
When Empathy is Not Enough
Journalism that humanizes marginalized communities can advance social justice by appealing to collective solidarity. News reporting, however, often encourages audience empathy instead of solidarity by representing social injustice as individual problems. This paper examines mechanisms of empathy and solidarity in two news outlets that participated in The San Francisco Homeless Project. The San Francisco Homeless Project was a collaborative journa…
The Constructive Role of Journalism
This paper examines the normative role of constructive journalism—also called “solutions journalism”—by analyzing metajournalistic discourse about solutions-focused journalism. The findings show that constructive and solutions journalism are defined similarly: they profess traditional Anglo-Saxon journalistic norms and practices, even as they shift focus from problems to solutions. The metajournalistic discourse indicates a tension over the norma…
Evoking Empathy or Enacting Solidarity with Marginalized Communities? A Case Study of Journalistic Humanizing Techniques in the San Francisco Homeless Project
American journalists regularly humanize marginalized communities in an attempt to bridge social distance. Journalists’ techniques for doing so may constrain representations to the level of individual turmoil and resilience without accounting for structural factors, however, which has troubling social justice implications. This study examines how journalists humanize homeless people in the case of the collaborative San Francisco Homeless Project. …
Moral solidarity as a news value
Solidarity is a longstanding, though seldom acknowledged, news value in coverage of marginalized communities. As a principled commitment to social justice, solidarity as a news value helps account for news stories that deviate from elite focus and individualistic framing, which have been regularly critiqued in scholarship on dominant news values. This article contributes a grounded framework for locating and analyzing types of solidarity that ope…
Solidarity Reporting on Marginalization
A dominant monitorial reporting method means that journalism shines a spotlight on officials’ activities, plans, and statements. While this reporting method has brought official wrongdoing to light, monitorial reporting has also participated in amplifying, emphasizing, and normalizing problematic official definitions that neglect structural factors contributing to persistent issues of marginalization. Using qualitative textual analysis, this stud…
They Always Get Our Story Wrong
This study positions social justice activists’ objections to dominant reporting norms as a catalyst for critically reassessing these norms and their connection to diminishing trust in US journalism. Based on a conceptual application of discourse ethics to journalism and qualitative analysis of 28 in-depth interviews with social justice activists, we examine how participants experience and evaluate mainstream coverage of social justice, and why th…
Native advertising and the cultivation of counterfeit news
When Empathy is Not Enough
Journalism that humanizes marginalized communities can advance social justice by appealing to collective solidarity. News reporting, however, often encourages audience empathy instead of solidarity by representing social injustice as individual problems. This paper examines mechanisms of empathy and solidarity in two news outlets that participated in The San Francisco Homeless Project. The San Francisco Homeless Project was a collaborative journa…
Conceptualizing feminist solidarity through resistance in the “Woman, Life, Freedom” movement
The question of what constitutes solidarity (and what does not) has been a persistent concern for feminist scholars. In this conceptual article, we develop a distinction between superficial feminist solidarity and substantive feminist solidarity, grounded in illustrations of digital resistance during the transnational “Woman, Life, Freedom” feminist movement. The categories of superficial feminist solidarity and substantive feminist solidarity pr…
Attacks Against Journalists in Brazil
Attacks on journalists have become a growing concern in democracies around the world. Past scholarship suggests that such attacks could lead to a chilling effect of journalists self-censoring their reporting. However, there is limited empirical work that substantiates the effects of attacks on journalists. To empirically test the existence of chilling effects, this mixed-methods study uses the conditions of journalism under Jair Bolsonaro’s gover…
When Empathy is Not Enough
Journalism that humanizes marginalized communities can advance social justice by appealing to collective solidarity. News reporting, however, often encourages audience empathy instead of solidarity by representing social injustice as individual problems. This paper examines mechanisms of empathy and solidarity in two news outlets that participated in The San Francisco Homeless Project. The San Francisco Homeless Project was a collaborative journa…
The Constructive Role of Journalism
This paper examines the normative role of constructive journalism—also called “solutions journalism”—by analyzing metajournalistic discourse about solutions-focused journalism. The findings show that constructive and solutions journalism are defined similarly: they profess traditional Anglo-Saxon journalistic norms and practices, even as they shift focus from problems to solutions. The metajournalistic discourse indicates a tension over the norma…
Native advertising and the cultivation of counterfeit news
Evoking Empathy or Enacting Solidarity with Marginalized Communities? A Case Study of Journalistic Humanizing Techniques in the San Francisco Homeless Project
American journalists regularly humanize marginalized communities in an attempt to bridge social distance. Journalists’ techniques for doing so may constrain representations to the level of individual turmoil and resilience without accounting for structural factors, however, which has troubling social justice implications. This study examines how journalists humanize homeless people in the case of the collaborative San Francisco Homeless Project. …
Moral solidarity as a news value
Solidarity is a longstanding, though seldom acknowledged, news value in coverage of marginalized communities. As a principled commitment to social justice, solidarity as a news value helps account for news stories that deviate from elite focus and individualistic framing, which have been regularly critiqued in scholarship on dominant news values. This article contributes a grounded framework for locating and analyzing types of solidarity that ope…
Attacks Against Journalists in Brazil
Attacks on journalists have become a growing concern in democracies around the world. Past scholarship suggests that such attacks could lead to a chilling effect of journalists self-censoring their reporting. However, there is limited empirical work that substantiates the effects of attacks on journalists. To empirically test the existence of chilling effects, this mixed-methods study uses the conditions of journalism under Jair Bolsonaro’s gover…
Solidarity Reporting on Marginalization
A dominant monitorial reporting method means that journalism shines a spotlight on officials’ activities, plans, and statements. While this reporting method has brought official wrongdoing to light, monitorial reporting has also participated in amplifying, emphasizing, and normalizing problematic official definitions that neglect structural factors contributing to persistent issues of marginalization. Using qualitative textual analysis, this stud…
They Always Get Our Story Wrong
This study positions social justice activists’ objections to dominant reporting norms as a catalyst for critically reassessing these norms and their connection to diminishing trust in US journalism. Based on a conceptual application of discourse ethics to journalism and qualitative analysis of 28 in-depth interviews with social justice activists, we examine how participants experience and evaluate mainstream coverage of social justice, and why th…
The impact of using person-centered language to reference stigmatized groups in news coverage
News coverage often uses stigmatizing language to label marginalized groups. Person-centered language has been discussed as a potential remedy, which this study tests for the first time. Using a between-subjects experiment with members of three marginalized groups ( n = 339), we investigate whether news articles that use person-centered terms (e.g., “person with substance use disorder”) instead of stigmatizing terms (e.g., “drug abuser”) improve …
Conceptualizing feminist solidarity through resistance in the “Woman, Life, Freedom” movement
The question of what constitutes solidarity (and what does not) has been a persistent concern for feminist scholars. In this conceptual article, we develop a distinction between superficial feminist solidarity and substantive feminist solidarity, grounded in illustrations of digital resistance during the transnational “Woman, Life, Freedom” feminist movement. The categories of superficial feminist solidarity and substantive feminist solidarity pr…
A Solidarity Framework for Representing Suffering
Media representations of suffering are regularly critiqued for contributing to desensitization. Grounded in media studies, journalism studies, psychology, and political philosophy, I develop a solidarity framework for media practitioners who seek to resist the normalization of what they define as suffering due to social injustice. By concretizing people's immediate needs (moral solidarity), accounting for collective resistance already underway (p…
Vanishing Victims and Silencing Survivors
Cyclone Freddy, the longest-lived tropical storm in recorded history, provides a critical case study for interrogating the dynamics of social inequality in journalism on climate crisis. We develop a distinction between colonial reporting and solidarity reporting through a qualitative textual analysis of 534 news stories on Cyclone Freddy published from February 1, 2023 to March 31, 2023. Most stories perpetuate colonial logics by deferring to off…
Sociology (10 obras) · Law (9 obras) · Political science (9 obras) · Solidarity (9 obras) · Journalism (7 obras) · Media Studies and Communication (7 obras) · Media studies (6 obras) · Politics (6 obras) · Psychology (6 obras) · Law (5 obras)