<abstract><title style='display:none'>Abstract</title>Extreme metal music is held to be a destructive genre of popular culture, treated as a pariah for many. Being a seriously misunderstood genre, I would like to highlight that metal music is a result of conscious work process that cannot only be noticed on the level of the music but on the level of verbal and pictorial expressions too. In my paper, I would like to show the working mechanisms of the so-called “(neo)pagan/mythological metal” movement, focusing on the rhetoric side of its mentioned expressions, searching for the ways these bands rewrite ancient myths and legends.For my research, I will use three main threads: 1) history of religion (looking for the connections of the reception of ancient topics in contemporary society, e.g. New Age Cults and New Religious Movements); 2) reception theory, as the thoughts of Northrop Frye, <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="j_auscom-2017-0002_ref_022_w2aab3b7b1b1b6b1ab1ac22Aa">Wolfgang Iser (1972)</xref>, and <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="j_auscom-2017-0002_ref_009_w2aab3b7b1b1b6b1ab1ab9Aa">John Fiske (2011)</xref> all should help to understand the general processes behind reading and producing texts; 3) subculture studies – e.g. the works of Richard Schusterman and <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="j_auscom-2017-0002_ref_042_w2aab3b7b1b1b6b1ab1ac42Aa">Deena Weinstein (2002)</xref> to have a deeper insight to the genres standing on the edge of mass and high culture.After a general introduction, I would like to demonstrate the above mentioned through some case studies. The chosen mythological cultures are going to be the world of the ancient Middle East (Mesopotamia, Egypt, and the Old Testament), the classical Roman world, and the Viking Era, also showing some Hungarian and Romanian examples in the last section. In each section, the following issues should be examined: band and stage names connected to the topic, album titles, lyrics, and album covers. All these together will show us many clear patterns from romantic nostalgia to allegoric concepts, all revolving around the essence of metal music: being a Stranger in a familiar society.</abstract>

Strangers of Popular Culture – The Verbal and Pictorial Aesthetics of Mythological Metal Music

<abstract><title style='display:none'>Abstract</title>Art Spiegelman’s MAUS, a Pulitzer-prize-winning two-volume graphic novel, zooms into wartime Poland, interweaving young Vladek’s – the author’s father – experiences of World War II and the present day through uncanny visual and verbal representational strategies characteristic of the comics medium. “I’m literally giving a form to my father’s words and narrative”, Spiegelman remarks on MAUS, “and that form for me has to do with panel size, panel rhythms, and visual structures of the page”. The risky artistic strategies and the “strangeness” of its form, to use Harold Bloom’s term, are essential to how the author represents the horrors of the Holocaust: by means of anthropomorphic caricatures and stereotypes depicting Germans as cats, Jewish people as mice, Poles as pigs, and so on. Readings of MAUS often focus on the cultural connotations in the context of postmodernism and in the Holocaust literature tradition, diminishing the importance of its hybrid narrative form in portraying honest, even devastating events. Using this idea as a point of departure, along with a theoretical approach to traumatic memory and the oppressed survivor’s story, I will cover three main topics: the “bleeding” and re-building of history, in an excruciating obsession to save his father’s – a survivor of Auschwitz – story for posterity and to mend their alienating relationship and inability to relate; the connection between past and present, the traumatic subject, and the vulnerability it assumes in drawing and writing about life during the Holocaust as well as the unusual visual and narrative structure of the text. The key element of my study, as I analyse a range of sections of the book, focuses on the profound and astonishing strangeness of the work itself, which consequently assured MAUS a canonical status in the comics’ tradition.</abstract>

Holocaust Representation and Graphical Strangeness in Art Spiegelman’s Maus: A Survivor’s Tale: “Funny Animals,” Constellations, and Traumatic Memory

<abstract><title style='display:none'>Abstract</title>Fake news texts often show clear signs of the deceptive nature; still, they are shared by many users on Facebook. What could be the reason for this? The paper tries to answer the question by collecting the linguistic and non-linguistic characteristics of fake news. Linguistic characteristics include among others the exaggerating, sensational title, the eye-catching, tabloid-style text, the correct or incorrect use of terms, and the fake URLs imitating real websites; non-linguistic characteristics are expressive pictures often featuring celebrities, the use of all caps, excessive punctuation, and spelling mistakes. The corpus was compiled using snowball sampling: manipulative news not originating from big news portals were collected from the social networking website Facebook. The aim of the study is to identify the characteristics of Hungarian fake news in comparison to the English ones and to elaborate a system of aspects which help identify fake news.</abstract>

Linguistic and Non-Linguistic Elements in Detecting (Hungarian) Fake News

<abstract><title style='display:none'>Abstract</title>The social learning theory emphasizes that model giving or guiding has always been one of the most powerful means for transmitting values, for demonstrating and accentuating the expected attitudes, habits, thinking, and behaviour (Bandura, 1986; <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="j_auscom-2017-0005_ref_003_w2aab3b7b4b1b6b1ab1ab3Aa">Crosswhite et. al., 2003</xref>). Studies have shown that a role model could motivate a teenager’s sporting habits and performance in a positive way. They also found that the top athletes, those celebrities who appear frequently in the media, can become role models. Do Szekler teenagers have role models? Do they choose their role model from their physical environment or the international popular media stars or mediatized persons become their idolized model? We wanted to find out who those teenagers are from our region who choose as their role model a star, a famous person, a media celebrity – a well-known person but still a stranger for the teenagers of Szeklerland. If so, who are their icons and role models? Who are those people that have an exemplary behaviour in their eyes? To whom they would like to compare themselves when they grow up? And what are those characteristics which have decisive roles in choosing as role model a person they have never met before? The analysis is based on three important surveys conducted among teenagers from Romania (Covasna, Harghita, and Mureş counties). The surveys took place in the springs of 2012, 2014, and 2016. About two thousand pupils in the 7th and 11th grades were involved each time. On the basis of variables, such as age, gender, and type of residency, we will present general profiles and general types of Szekler teenagers regarding the role models of their choice.</abstract>

The Beautiful Stranger – Szekler Teenagers’ Role Models

Ryan Holiday: Trust Me, I’m Lying: Confessions of a Media Manipulator

<abstract><title style='display:none'>Abstract</title>With the growing importance of digital practices in young children’s everyday routines, parents and educators often face frustration and confusion. They find it difficult to guide children when it comes to playing and learning online. This research note proposes an insight into parents’ and educators’ concerns related to children’s and their own digital literacy, based on two exploratory qualitative inquiries carried out from March 2015 to August 2017 among 30 children aged 4 to 8 from Romania, their parents and educators. The research project <italic>Digital and Multimodal Practices of Young Children from Romania</italic> (2015–2016) and its continuation <italic>The Role of Digital Competence in the Everyday Lives of Children Aged 4–8</italic> (2017–2018, ongoing) are part of a broader effort within the Europe-wide COST network IS1410 – <italic>The Digital and Multimodal Practices of Young Children</italic> (2014–2018). Parents and educators are disconnected from young children’s universe, our research has found. The factors enabling adults’ access to “Digiland” and ways of coping with the steep learning curve of digital literacy are explored through parents’ and teachers’ narratives, guided observation of children’s digital practices, and expert testimonies.</abstract>

Strangers in Digiland

<abstract>
<title style='display:none'>Abstract</title>
The phrase “vaccine diplomacy” spread in the media during the COVID-19 pandemic. The authors examine where it comes from and locate it in health-related strategic communication. The article provides an overview of the history of vaccine diplomacy taken from the literature and then places the phenomenon among the branches of specialized diplomacy as well as among the components of public diplomacy. It highlights the difference between vaccine diplomacy and 20th-century public diplomacy. The article concludes that vaccine diplomacy as a tool of soft power and persuasion hardly differs from vaccine solidarity announced by the G7 member states. In fact, the only difference between vaccine friendship, vaccine diplomacy, and vaccine solidarity is in the perspective, that is, the evaluation by the speaker. These phrases are manifestations of the rivalling narratives that accompany the global power shift.
</abstract>

What Is Vaccine Diplomacy?

<abstract>
<title style='display:none'>Abstract</title>
The aim of this paper is to provide a critical analysis of the discursivemediatized image of the digital environmental subject. An ambivalent element of the neo-developmental language of digital life is the “digital divide”, which often takes ideological form when it constitutes the (non-)digital Other on the other side of the digital world, in the rigid binaries of centre–periphery. Of course, nothing illustrates the inequalities in access to digital and non-digital goods better than global crises such as the coronavirus epidemic, where the disparities between the living conditions (e.g. learning opportunities) of privileged and disadvantaged areas are widening, and this is one of the proofs of the existence of the digital divide. The school, which is the ideological state apparatus responsible for the reproduction of the subject as a basic productive force, became dysfunctional in different ways in different countries of the world, including Hungary, during the epidemic. In the latter, the epidemic has, according to many trusted research studies, further increased the backlog of disadvantaged and/or Roma students, and thus their segregation. Although it seems certain that the most important condition for the sustainability of digital life, and with it of the state, is the re-creation of digital environmental subjects through the education of digital literacy and critical-reflexive media use, the state seems to be abandoning these social groups in this respect; in their case, the interpellation value of digital education, or more precisely the lack of digital education, is the deterrence from learning. In the analytical part of the paper, I compare two media materials to highlight the possibility of a different narrative, coexisting with the negative trend briefly described above. These two items construct two images of digital environmental subject, and by analysing the differences between them, I would like to demonstrate that the hierarchy of centre–periphery can be made relative through the (non-)digital Other’s emic and critical self-repositioning, facilitated by participatory research.
</abstract>

Same Place, Different Bicycles. The Etic and Emic Perspectives of Digital Life in Hungary

<abstract>
<title style='display:none'>Abstract</title>
The presented research investigates the case of non-metropolitan, regional universities in Central-Eastern Europe to understand how their third mission strategy and practice contribute to the societal development of their localities. It intends to fill a gap in related contemporary research, which usually neglects such universities in this part of the EHEA. The investigation is built on a comparative case study design with non-random, purposive sampling on the cases of <italic>Universitatea Transylvania din Braşov</italic> (UTBv) in Braşov, Romania, and <italic>Dunaújvárosi Egyetem</italic> (DUE) in Dunaújváros, Hungary, and employs a mixed methodology of the convergent parallel design (parallel databases). The paper presents an outline of a doctoral research plan with an overview of its preliminary results, the author’s related publications, the present state of the research, and its possible future directions.
</abstract>

The Third Mission of Central-Eastern European Regional Universities: Two Cases from Romania and Hungary

<abstract>
<title style='display:none'>Abstract</title>
Research on the political role of digital media, including social media, is often based on the assumption that new communication platforms can contribute to new forms of political participation such as taking part in deliberative political debates more actively and exercising the right to vote more often. Most of the studies focus on national processes: nationwide political campaigns and general elections. In this paper, we offer a different angle on these issues, focusing on a specific locality, more specifically the activities of a politically themed local Facebook group in a middle-sized town in Hungary. We also apply a digital anthropology approach that enables us to use a hybrid methodology combining online and offline tools in our research design. Results are presented in this paper in a research report format. We are far from a final conclusion about the interplay of social media use and political activity, but hopefully the experiences we share will shed some light on the functioning of these types of online communities.
</abstract>

Pécs Chatter. A Digital Anthropological Study on the Impact of a Facebook Group on Local Politics

<abstract>
<title style='display:none'>Abstract</title>
Social sustainability is a development alternative that focuses on preserving and sustaining opportunities and resources for future generations rather than exploiting them. In addition to resource management, it is important to emphasize the focus on human well-being, in which the provision of a healthy life is a key factor. One possible alternative to improve the quality, safety, and affordability of universal healthcare is to integrate artificial intelligence into the health system. The development of AI in healthcare has brought a paradigm shift, as big-data-driven analytics can enable AI itself to identify symptom complexities and communicate with patients. In this process, it is important to explore the attitudes of healthcare professionals towards AI-based technologies, as doctor–patient communication is moving away from authoritarianism towards partnership medicine, in which AI will be an integral part of communication. In my research, I investigate the attitudes of future doctors, i.e. medical students and doctors already in practice, towards AI by using a hybrid research method of semi-structured interviews, photo collage techniques, and a questionnaire survey. The photo collage technique, due to its projective nature, can be used to reveal the respondent’s underlying evoked memories and attitudes. The new image network (collage) can be used to model the doctor–patient–AI relationship envisioned by the doctors. The results highlight the aspect of the application of AI in medicine and point out that it is not only the capabilities of the software but the attitudes of the entire health stakeholder community that influence the uptake of innovation. The exploration of issues of authority and trust in the field provides an opportunity for the creation of educational and outreach programmes.
</abstract>

Social Sustainability in Medicine: The Role of Artificial Intelligence in Future Doctor–Patient Communication. A Methodological Experiment

<abstract>
<title style='display:none'>Abstract</title>
This article examines the relationship between social sustainability and the fake news phenomenon in the light of the COVID-19 epidemic. Using existing statistical data and relevant media-related concepts, it compares the harmful impacts of the pandemic and the accompanying infodemic. The problem can be placed among the components of hybrid warfare. Examples, statistics, and research on COVID-19-related fake news are discussed with a focus on efforts for building resilience against fake news.
</abstract>

Pandemic and Infodemic – Which One Is More Dangerous?

<abstract><title style='display:none'>Abstract</title>In the past more than six months, not only the cultural institutional network but also all of humanity has entered in a peculiar existential state. All that was previously commonplace, accepted, or natural has become in many ways impossible or, in some cases, even illegal. In the last period, we could also witness the changes regarding museums and museum environments, and we ourselves, who inhabit/use the spaces of the museums, have also changed. These changes affect the frameworks of representation and reception as well as our habits of viewing and interpretation. The pandemic has caused in museum practice a backward step towards a previous practice. Museums have suddenly re-become archives preserving objects and meanings, and it will take time for them to recollect themselves and start searching for solutions.</abstract>

Museums and Online Spaces. The Society-Building Role of the Museums during the Pandemic

<abstract><title style='display:none'>Abstract</title>We live in a networked world with a fast pace of digitalization, and yet about half of the humanity is still offline (<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="j_auscom-2019-0007_ref_020_w2aab3b8c14b1b7b1ab1ac20Aa">United Nations, 2018</xref>). Information and communication technologies are playing a key role in our public and private lives, both during work- and playtime. No wonder that social inequalities are increasingly reflected as digital inequalities in terms of infrastructural access, skills, and cultural practices online: those left behind can hardly keep up. The present research note brings together theoretical and practical resources related to <italic>digital inclusion issues globally, with local examples</italic> from Romania, where <italic>digital naïves</italic> – the poor, the rural, the elderly, the disabled, and the less educated – are more at risk.1</abstract>

Digital Naïves Go Online

<abstract><title style='display:none'>Abstract</title>The literature contends that youth are particularly fashion- and brand-sensitive, and they mostly prefer fast fashion brands; however, up to now, there has been little empirical data regarding Romanian youth’s fashion brand preferences. In order to fill this gap, the article presents the results of an exploratory research based on mixed methodology which was realized among students in Cluj-Napoca, Romania in connection with their fashion brand preferences. The online survey showed that a little more than half of the students do have a preferred fashion brand, and these are indeed mostly fast fashion brands. However, taken relatively, i .e. compared to other cues, the brand of the apparel is less important for the students. The most brand-sensitive individuals are those who are fashion involved, early adopters of trends, and less price-sensitive. The narratives of the focus-group research enriched the insight about students’ brand preferences.</abstract>

Young Consumers’ Fashion Brand Preferences. An Investigation among Students in Romania

<abstract><title style='display:none'>Abstract</title>The number of marketing communications tools and channels is steadily increasing – in addition, this growth has been accelerated since the emergence of the Internet and social media. On the one hand, there is an increasing dilemma of which tools one should choose from the plentiful options, and, on the other hand, the (material, human, and time) resources devoted to this are limited. This is valid for the marketing communications of “classic” products, services, and countries. This review article attempts to present the variety of available options with the help of the POE (paid, owned, earned) model and describe their advantages and disadvantages. The novelty of the study is that it focuses on a review of country communication campaigns and initiatives. It offers various visual examples for the different components of the POE model, clarifying the paid media, owned media, and earned media options for country brand communication. It mostly uses examples from Hungary, but other countries’ good practices are also included. Finally, as a result of the analysis, the article summarizes the possible ways of country brand communication according to the POE model in a summary table, which may also contribute to the work of academics and practitioners in the field.</abstract>

The Possible Ways of Country Brand Communication and Their Classification Based on the POE Model

<abstract>
<title style='display:none'>Abstract</title>
Digital transformation and the expansion of social networks have essentially modified journalistic practice, facing challenges concerning its essential operation and boundaries. The traditional business models have collapsed, young people’s media consumption habits have changed, and more non-professional journalists participate in news production. Social media platforms have an immense effect on journalistic work, especially journalists’ professional and ethical standards. Perhaps traditional public service media are the ones that stand the farthest away from participatory practices and platform logic, characterizing today’s media environment. What are the public media services’ opportunities to fulfil their commitment of authentically and objectively informing citizens, including young people, about public affairs? This study aims to picture the boundary work of journalism currently underway by reviewing the phenomena emerging on the border of journalism and social media. Additionally, the study attempts to answer what a successful social media strategy looks like in public service media by presenting the social media activities of “tagesschau”, the newsmagazine of ARD, a German public-service channel.
</abstract>

Public Service Media in the Age of Social Networks

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Acta Universitatis Sapientiae, Communicatio

The Journal of Sapientia Hungarian University of Transylvania

 Communicatio is a peer-reviewed scientific journal published yearly. It aims at publishing theoretical and empirical research in communication studies,...

 Communicatio is a peer-reviewed scientific journal published yearly. It aims at publishing theoretical and...