Journal of Media, Culture and Communication

Analyzing the frameworks of american guardianship over tunisian democracy: a corpus-assisted approach

Mohamed Ben Fredj — 2026-02-21

This paper analyzes U.S. news coverage of Tunisia’s democratic trajectory between 2011 and 2024 and its connection to American foreign policy in the Southwest Asia and North Africa (SWANA) region. It applies corpus-assisted discourse analysis on an original collection of news articles published in the New York Times, New York Post, National Review, and Wall Street Journal during the Obama, Trump, and Biden presidencies. The American guardianship framework consists of three recurring patterns: Americentrism, benchmarking economic prosperity by capitalist values, and Western ownership of democratic successes. Altogether, these frames present post-2011 Tunisia as both a fragile political experiment and the region's litmus test for democratic viability. While Obama-era coverage celebrated Tunisia as a success story, Trump-era reporting criticized its economic fragility and security concerns. News coverage during Biden's mandate increasingly focused on authoritarian retrenchment under President Kaïs Saïed and the erosion of constitutional norms. By combining corpus methods with critical discourse analysis, the paper conveys how U.S. news outlets placed their respective administrations' geopolitical interests at the center of reporting on Tunisia's democratic development.

Digital media and student life in india during covid-19: cultural shifts, coping mechanisms, and communication patterns

Innasimuthu Sebastian — 2026-03-31

The COVID-19 pandemic affected education first, then it spread to social life, and cultural practices afterwards. College students in India were at the very bottom of the pile, as they had to cope with the struggle of academics, social life and cultural practices all at once. Conducted through digital media technology, the present research is about the ways of the students in Tamil Nadu who were in the pandemic times. The methods used for data collection included brainstorming sessions, interviews, digital diaries, and online discussion logs with college students.Major psychosocial and cultural experiences were fear psychosis, relationship deprivation, online dependence, ritual-less religiosity, gratitude and grief expressions, financial difficulties in online education, health hazards, and talent showcasing. The discovery indicates that digital media was a way for people to deal with the situation and also an avenue for creativity. However, it also exposed the risks of overuse, digital fatigue, and unequal access. The research emphasizes the double aspect of digital media in the development of resilience, identity, and culture, and technology's critical role in students' crisis experiences comes out loud and clear through the insights gained.