As an inherently mixed medium including visual and verbal tracks, comics is open to experimentation with techniques and tools characteristic of other media, such as photography. The origins of photocomics can be traced back to mid-twentieth century Italy and to the local variations of comics, fumetti and the roman dessiné. The latter is a genre of comics heavily influenced by cinema, as it compiles hand-drawn reproductions of film stills to create a tactile version of the movies. Although besides adaptations, original stories also appeared as roman dessinés, cinematographic and photographic references remained clearly recognizable in them: illustrations mimed the greyscale shades and compositions of the film stills, and characters were look-alikes of the movie stars.

Later, comics employing sequential photographs in their panels appeared as a distinct subgenre, spreading all over the world in local varieties. Until the 1980s photocomics were most popular in Europe, Latin America and South Africa, afterwards being replaced by different television genres. Nevertheless, graphic novels, memoirs, travelogues, and other genres of comics still recur with the integration of photographs, both in the traditional printed format and in the newly emerging digital environment. Photocomics remain in circulation in pedagogical and civic education functions, as they have proved to be an ideal medium for reaching persons with low literacy skills.

With the rise of graphic journalism, photocomics and comic books integrating photographs also acquire a new relevance, linked to the power of attestation and objectivity attributed to photos. Graphic reportages often rely on the use of visuals in a documentary function, such as charts, maps, and photographs, to provide evidence and enhance the credibility of the reportage in the eyes of the reader.

Research on popular geopolitics brings together the cultural study of media with the earlier tradition of geopolitical analysis. As Klaus Dodds says, “‘popular geopolitics’ considers films, magazines, television, the Internet, and radio and the way in which they contribute to the circulation of geopolitical images and representations of territory, resources, and identity”. Perhaps the most discussed aspect of the geopolitics of comics so far has been the popular geopolitics constructed through popular media narratives, the geopolitical knowledge that is constructed in media representations and in the everyday practices of media audiences and users.

In recent years, critical geography and geopolitical studies journals and other publications have explored a range of comics phenomena in relation to popular geopolitics, from the aesthetics of war comics to Joe Sacco’s reports; and from the relationship between geography and comics representations of cities to the geopolitics and geographies of Tintin. It may well be that the some of the richest scientific literature deals with this popular adventure series by the Belgian cartoonist Hergé, “Tintin”. The almost global recognition, the popularity in English and French, the relatively closed corpus (published between 1929 and 1976) at the time of the author’s death, and the spread of allusions, pastiches and parodies, may have stimulated scholarly research. Colonialism, the Cold War, takeovers, attempts at conquest, espionage, smuggling, international crime, oil politics – Tintin reflects on geopolitical topicalities in the framework of adventure stories.

Although there is no stable definition of comics, interaction between verbal and the visual components is more or less ubiquitous in the different descriptions of the medium. Thierry Groensteen claims the visual component is dominant, arguing that a sequence of images can create a coherent narrative without any verbal elements added, as the example of silent comics shows. These visual sequential narratives communicate through pictures exclusively. According to the structuralist approach of comics studies, the comics medium operates as a language, a system of several smaller signifier units, including page layouts, strips, margins, speech bubbles and panels. These are used to convey a narrative following the rules of the “grammar” of comics: cartoonists break the narrative down by framing, sequencing and organizing the images in the space of the page so that the reader can decode them in the right order. How the cartoonist constructs the page layout determines the order and the mode in which the panels are read. If we scramble the order of the panels, or if we remove some, we either lose the meaning or we generate a new one. In this  manner, we destroy (and reconstruct) the braiding, which is how the visual elements of the page layout are linked together, how their division is bridged, creating a network of visual motifs across the graphic narrative. Whenever we look at the page layout, we see a multiframe: the panels that we are actually reading share the same space with panels about the past and the future of the story-time. Some cross-cultural differences exist, however, between the visual languages of the various comics cultures of the world (e.g., manga is read from right to left).

Thanks to digital technology and the new possibilities offered by the web, a new category of comics is emerging, one that can only really exist on the internet. These are webcomics. Starting in 1998, Scott McCloud, who works in a variety of genres, has explored the creative possibilities offered by the web in theory and practice. Webcomics are also present in graphic journalism, with many examples on graphicjournalism.com and drawingthetimes.com, among others. Since 2006, North American digital comics have been moving from their original space, the web, to the mobile application market.

It is remarkable that the techno-cultural diversity of the comics medium, which exists in geographical and cultural versions that often vastly differ in terms of genres, markets, audiences, and graphic styles, is not lost in the case of digital comics. The history, distribution, mediatic arrangement, and environment of the North American webcomic, Korean webtoon, and Francophone bandedessinée numérique, as well as their uses, are significantly different to each other, but they are also characterized by a huge internal variety. It should be noted here that the term numérique, of Latin origin, cannot be fully equated with digital, which is also of Latin origin, or with the term web.

A webtoon, a word coined from “web” and “cartoon”, refers to a digital comic of South Korean origin, recognizable by its reading mode based on scrolling. Taking full advantage of scrolling and its potential, webtoons perfectly embody the principle of the “infinite canvas” described by Scott McCloud, namely the possibility of producing unlimited size strips, by relying on the infinite scrolling possibilities offered by the screen.

Convergence refers to a situation when media content flows across different platforms and media audiences spill over with it. Typical also is collaboration between diverse media industries. Thus, by its very nature, convergence is based on the combination of old and new media. Moreover, with the emergence of the internet, we have reached a stage where media are all around us and their uses can be combined. Suddenly, it is no longer a problem to watch a series on TV and simultaneously write about its content with friends via instant messaging. Similarly, convergence has led to the integration of different types of multimedia content into a single device – typically a smartphone or a computer. Specifically important for convergence is the internet, which “unlike traditional media, allows for both synchronous and asynchronous communication”. From a journalistic perspective, then, convergence is “the practice of sharing and cross-promoting content from a variety of media, some interactive, through newsroom collaborations and partnerships”. The exploration of how convergence has affected journalistic work has received significant interest in academia. For example, studies have examined how media outlets have managed to integrate newsrooms, how audiences are migrating, and how video-on-demand platforms have changed the consumption of audio-visual content. Moreover, convergence is a necessary condition for the emergence of a high-choice media environment characterized by a significant increase in sources audiences can choose for content that matches their current mood and appetite, or that is in line with their political attitudes – the fragmentation of media audiences.

The term refers to a situation where media audiences fragment around the channels of their own choice. The beginnings of the fragmentation of media audiences occurred primarily with the development of cable television in the 1980s. Audiences no longer watch the limited number of existing broadcast television channels, but fragment according to which channel they prefer, whether in terms of subject matter or political opinion.

With the advent of the internet, this situation is even more accentuated as audiences are given another media type through which they can consume media. According to research, this results in both a significant increase in the number of media titles and platforms, which can fragment audiences, and an increase in the diversity of these titles, which can result in audiences moving away from each other or choosing only those sources that align with their views (so called selective exposure). In addition, alternative media are developing alongside the internet, as publishing on the internet does not require the same significant resources as running a radio or television station. Audiences thus find themselves in a so-called high-choice media environment.

On the one hand, the fragmentation of media audiences thus can be seen as a sign of the strengthening of information pluralism, but on the other hand, it can serve as a catalyst for opinion and political polarization and mutual definition against media or audiences with different opinions. The phenomenon of fragmentation can also be a challenge for public service media, which are tasked with publishing content that has the potential to reach as many people as possible. As media audiences fragment, they are forced to devise strategies to maintain this role. 

Finding agreement on a definition of trust in the media is very difficult. In principle, however, it can be said that the definition of trust as such has its origins in social theory, specifically trust in expert systems. This can be defined as trust in, or reliance on, a given expert system to perform exactly as it is expected to. Thus, the relationship between the trustor and the trusted is important. An essential component of trust is also a degree of uncertainty whether the expected behaviour will actually occur. Trust in the media itself is, then, an important indicator of how well expectations of the media appear to be met by their audiences.

The polarization of society and the fragmentation of the media are causing a strengthening of the relationship between trust in the media and trust in politicians. Thus, when there is a decline in trust in traditional political elites in politically polarized countries, there is also a decline in trust in the professional media. One of the factors contributing to this is the emergence in recent years of a large number of ultra-right alternative media that espouse particular viewpoints.

It is then much harder for the traditional mainstream media to maintain trust and show that they have value, even if they do not hold a particular political position. Moreover, in the context of declining trust in institutions and with a tendency to avoid information that does not match a person’s own viewpoint, disinformation can be spread.

Alternative media have traditionally been seen as non-hierarchical, decentralized, community and activist media, empowering people without a voice and often being initiated from the bottom up. For some time, this term also included all media that operated on the Internet. However, as this media type stabilized, this idea ceased to be accurate. This is partly due to the fact that most online media are now run by publishers of traditional professional media.

Currently, there is no full agreement on how to define alternative media. However, researchers at least agree that this type of media is somehow an alternative to conventional mainstream media, whether in the form of alternative content, format, or distribution. So, these are media that differ in some way from the mainstream idea of ​​what a traditional medium should look like. Some theorists further posit that in the current fragmented media environment, the boundaries between alternative and professional media are beginning to blur, and that they have long since ceased being two different categories, but rather form a spectrum with two ends.

In recent years, the concept of so-called far-right alternative media has very often appeared in the literature. These media strongly support right-wing initiatives and are strongly critical of traditional professional media. They are also often referred to as producers of fake news.

Traditionally, the media has been seen as both an institution and an industry. This creates several tensions that the media must constantly deal with. As institutions, they are supposed to inform the public about important events in the public interest, but as an industry, they are supposed to generate as much profit as possible. The process whereby the media subordinates all its interests to profit is called the commercialization of the media. The commercialization of the media can lead to a number of undesirable phenomena, typically tabloidization and sensationalism. Media owners are traditionally considered to be sources of pressure on the media and the disruption of journalistic professional autonomy. These pressures usually do not manifest as open and direct interference; they are rather more subtle (e.g., economic constraints, the spread of certain values, or the organizational culture). Inherent in media ownership is the concept of media ownership concentration, which refers to a situation where the media in a given country is owned by a few individuals. These owners are sometimes referred to as media moguls. The most famous contemporary media moguls are, for example, Silvio Berlusconi and Rupert Murdoch. Researchers distinguish between two types of media ownership concentration – horizontal and vertical. Horizontal concentration refers to a situation where a given owner owns several media houses that can support each other’s sales. Vertical concentration refers to a situation where the owner owns other types of companies that enable him to produce newspapers/radio/TV – typically, for example, printing houses – and thus create a sequence of production chains.

Public service media are one part of the so-called dual broadcasting system, which is typical of most of Europe. The second backbone of this system is commercial media. The main goal of public service media is to serve the public by educating, informing, and entertaining. These institutions are usually established by law, and they are typically impartial and independent. These conditions were originally set in response to the state’s tendency to control the media and exert power over a fragile and limited frequency spectrum. In the early 1950s, reflections on World War II propaganda suggested that public service media could contribute to the development of democracy. With this idea, there was a demand to provide citizens with information that could help them to form opinions and support democratic participation. Another requirement for public service media is to serve as an alternative to commercial media.

Research shows that public service media, compared to commercial media, contribute to the strengthening of democratic values and are also far more effective at increasing people’s knowledge and understanding of politics and public affairs.

In recent years we have seen efforts by European politicians to interfere with the independence of public service media. For example, in Poland, a controversial law was signed in 2015, which allows a government minister to appoint and dismiss at his own discretion the supervisory and management boards of the state-funded media. Another example is the situation in the Czech Republic, where in 2020 an election of members of the broadcaster’s governing council provoked debate after many people with known links to the governing party were put on the shortlist.