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Open research questions in Media Studies and Communication

268 unresolved questions extracted from the limitations and future-work sections of 13,570 Media Studies and Communication papers in our library. Each links back to the study that raised it.

What the literature leaves open

  • In the Romanian Media and Communication • 2026 • Volume 14 • Article 12365 14 context, this remains an underexplored area, particularly in relation to resilience, mental health, professional safety, and the conditions required to sustain this type of reporting.

    Resilience as a Structural Condition: Mental Health and Safety Challenges in Watchdog Science Journalism · 2026 · DOI

  • Future research could address these limitations through comparative and longitudinal studies, including those that track students into professional settings. Further investigation into the design and governance of AI systems, especially regarding transparency, bias, and cultural specificity in non‐Western contexts, remains essential for understanding the broader implications of AI in journalism.

    Fact-Checking With Machines: Journalism Students’ Perceptions of AI and the Ethics of Counterspeech · 2026 · DOI

  • I recommend that a fund should be established for investigative journalism. This fund should be set up by international organizations that protect the journalism profession. That is the best way for investigative centres to be independent and to make them sustainable. It would be very unfortunate to lose investigative centres that are vibrant. I also recommend that journalism should focus so much on investigative journalism to produce vibrant reporters that can join the investigative centres. Presently journalism centres only teach investigative journalism for just one or two semesters in the eight semesters that journalists are in college. I recommend that there should collaboration between journalists around the world. One story that required investigations in another country or region can easily be done. These institutions that would pool money together for the fud can also coordinate in the transfer of information. I also recommend that watchdogs to protect journalists should have regional or national offices, based on the funding. In that way investigative journalists can have a better protection from the state and non-state actors. I recommend that there should be punishments in the media, especially for those that are not following professional ethics by Media Council of Malawi. Gregory Gondwe mentioned of the corruption in the media and this had not been investigated thoroughly. In the legal profession, allegations are investigated and the culprits punished. As the fourth pillar in democracy which checks on accountability of the three, the executive, the judiciary and parliament, there is need to put checks and balances. How can they be checking on others when they are doing the same? ATPS, 2026, n. 29, p.

    What about the independence of investigative journalism centers in Malawi · 2026 · DOI

  • https://knightcolumbia.org/content/understanding-social-media-recommendation-algorithms (2023, March social media algorithms. Novoselov, V. (2014). Meaning, https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ss.20140301.12 interpretation and unlimited semiosis. Social Sciences, 3(1), 5-8. OECD. (2023, December 5). PISA 2022 results (Volume I and II) – Country notes: Slovak Republic (Factsheet). https://www.oecd.org/content/dam/oecd/en/publications/reports/2023/11/pisa- OECD Publishing. 2022-results-volume-i-and-ii-country-notes_2fca04b9/slovak-republic_a1c3223e/00a54e97-en.pdf Orban, K. (2024). Mass media culture in Slovakia (on the example of tracking the value message of media content the public). European Journal of Media, Art & Photography, 12(1), 96-103.

    On the Epistemological and Ethical Conditions of Information in Journalism · 2026 · DOI

  • Future research should investigate the real-world application of EMFA provisions and their effectiveness in countering media monopolization and safeguarding journalistic autonomy.

    Media Ownership Concentration and Pluralism In The European Union: An Assessment Within The Framework Of EMFA · 2026 · DOI

  • Brundtland report To what extent and in what (1987/2022) ways does journalism oscillate between the past, present, and future when covering an event or problem?

    Sustainable journalism redux: What are the “cornerstone” media frames of a sustainable future? · 2026 · DOI

  • Although the findings are based on professional discourse and do not include direct observation of production routines, the comparison between national and regional media offers a cross-cutting perspective on editorial autonomy within the Chilean digital media ecosystem, an area that remains underexplored in the country.

    The Medium’s Agenda or the Audience’s Clicks? Tensions Between Editorial Lines and Audience Interests According to the Editors of Digital Media in Chile · 2026 · DOI

  • The stages of the formation of the journalism education model and the processes of its historical transformation, particularly within the European émigré environment (Poland, Czechoslovakia, Germany) of the first half of the twentieth century, remain insufficiently studied and are important for understanding the national paradigm of professional training.

    From Podĕbrady to Regensburg: Traditions of Ukrainian Journalistic Education in the 20th-century Europe · 2026 · DOI

  • The study was conducted only at Armed Forces Radio Abuja and FRCN Precious FM Lafia in Nasarawa State, limiting generalizability to other broadcast stations and regions in Nigeria.

    Assessing the Adoption of Social Media for Broadcasting at Armed Forces Radio Abuja and FRCN Precious FM Lafia, Nasarawa State, Nigeria · 2026 · DOI

  • Against this backdrop, and given the ongoing scholarly debate and lack of consensus over the definition of fake news, this paper adopts the terms disinformation and fake news interchangeably to refer to any news that is deliberately false or misleading—whether entirely fabricated or biased—and produced with the intent to deceive and cause harm.

    Manufacturing Disinformation and Deceptive Narratives in Algerian News Coverage of the Moroccan Sahara · 2025 · DOI

  • While the broadcasting of Russia Today (RT) in Europe has received significant attention, comparatively little is known about its impact and audience reception in Latin America.

    Disinformation in Crisis Contexts—Perception of Russia Today’s Narratives in Ecuador · 2025 · DOI

  • Despite the lack of consensus on its definition and measurement, this paper introduces a practice-oriented methodology for evaluating news media quality across print, radio, and TV.

    Exploring a Practice-Oriented Methodology for Measuring News Media Quality in Tanzania · 2025 · DOI

  • However, the study also emphasizes that full automation entails risks of content homogenization and erosion of audience trust — especially in cases where transparency around AI authorship is lacking.

    Application of artificial intelligence in sports journalism: from news automation to content personalization · 2025 · DOI

  • Now an international producer in 13 countries and a local streaming platform owner, he has essentially been understudied as a media personality and an enterprise.

    Surviving authenticity: Acun Ilıcalı and/as his reality-entertainment enterprise · 2024 · DOI

  • Described as "infodemically vulnerable" due to their reliance on social media for news, I draw on 25 interviews to consider if this underresearched population was exposed to harmful information.

    How News Found the Avoiders: The Changing News Routines of Infodemically Vulnerable Young People in England During Covid-19 · 2024 · DOI

  • Previous research has emphasized that media workers’ subjective experiences need to be explored further and more in-depth; however, if we wish to depict a more holistic but realistic picture, those experiences should be contextualized and thus linked with the specific organizational configurations and macro structures in which media work is embedded.

    The Nature of Work in the Media Industries: A Literature Review and Future Directions · 2022 · DOI

  • Employing the hierarchy of influences model this study examines source use in Covid-19 news coverage by Kenyan and Zimbabwean newspapers, an understudied area in Africa.

    Who gets to speak? Sources in Covid-19 news coverage by Kenyan and Zimbabwean press · 2022 · DOI

  • Although research into the relationship between quantitative literacy (QL) and news reporting is sparse, the consensus among researchers is that journalists tend not to place QL very highly among their professional values and that journalism suffers as a consequence.

    Journalism and Numeracy in Context: Four Case Studies · 2021 · DOI

  • Correlation of different segments of society is a major function of mass media and works by broadening individual’s perspectives and creating common ground between these different segments Little is known about how consensus building works in the networked, digital environment or how it works in Latin America.

    News Organizations in Colombia Building Consensus through Social Media: A Case of Digital-Native La Silla Vacía · 2021 · DOI

  • The study made it possible to systematize the problems of Kazakhstani journalism about protest moods: a large amount of fake information on the Internet, lack of media literacy of readers, restrictions from the government, insufficient information from officials or ministries, and the inaccessibility of specific statistical data from the authorities.

    Media coverage of protest moods · 2021 · DOI

  • Commentators have observed a “discourse of derision” in news coverage of the US education system, but the contours of this discourse are not well understood.

    The “Discourse of Derision” in News Coverage of Education: A Mixed Methods Analysis of an Emerging Frame · 2020 · DOI

  • In contributing an empirical narrative of the African perspective to global literature on investigative journalism, this paper concludes that further scholarly attention is warranted, not solely into social media use in African investigative journalism production, but with a deliberate incorporation of the wider socio-political contexts in which practice is occurring.

    “Wearing a Bullet-Proof Vest”: Social Media Use in Journalism Production Within African–Intercontinental Investigative Networks · 2019 · DOI

  • The problem is that at this stage, the phenomenon of digital immersive journal- ism has not been studied in Kazakhstan in all its directions, and the lack of knowledge of the theoretical base affects the analysis of the practical application of immersive journalism products in the mass com- munication system.

    Immersive journalism: creativity, technologies, industry · 2019 · DOI

  • The topic is relevant because the classifica- tion and differentiation of attacks has not been explored by Mexican studies on the press and power, apart from identifying and defining the structural violence and investigating physical attacks against journalists (murders, assaults and “express kidnappings”).

    Agentes, no victimas. Estrategias de periodistas para evadir las agresiones no fisicas en Baja California · 2018 · DOI

  • To ascertain the extent to what these claims are warranted, this article compares NRK’s online content with that of nine commercial competitors in national and local markets, using a hybrid methodological approach combining quantitative content analysis with Latent Dirichlet allocation, analysing in excess of 115,000 documents.

    Is public service broadcasting a threat to commercial media? · 2018 · DOI

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268 open questions have been extracted from the limitations and future-work passages of 13,570 Media Studies and Communication papers in our library. Each one below links back to the study that raised it, so you can read the original claim in context.

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