International Journal of Communication
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc
<em><strong> <br /></strong></em>USC Annenberg School for Communication & Journalismen-USInternational Journal of Communication1932-8036The <em>International Journal of Communication</em> is an academic journal. As such, it is dedicated to the open exchange of information. For this reason, IJoC is freely available to individuals and institutions. Copies of this journal or articles in this journal may be distributed for research or educational purposes free of charge and without permission. However, commercial use of the IJoC website or the articles contained herein is expressly prohibited without the written consent of the editor. Authors who publish in The <em>International Journal of Communication</em> will release their articles under the <a href="http://creativecommons.org/about/licenses/meet-the-licenses" target="_new"><strong>Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives (by-nc-nd) license</strong></a>. 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Thus, we view the inclusion of “quotations” from existing print, visual, audio and audio-visual texts to be appropriate examples of Fair Use, as are reproductions of visual images for the purpose of scholarly analysis. We encourage authors to obtain appropriate permissions to use materials originally produced by others, but do not require such permissions as long as the usage of such materials falls within the boundaries of Fair Use.</p><p>The<em> International Journal of Communication</em> encourages authors to employ fair use in their scholarly publishing wherever appropriate. Fair use is the right to use unlicensed copyrighted material (whether it is text, images, audio-visual, or other) in your own work, in some circumstances. We consult the <a href="https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.icahdq.org_pubs_reports_fairuse.pdf&d=DgMFaQ&c=clK7kQUTWtAVEOVIgvi0NU5BOUHhpN0H8p7CSfnc_gI&r=z0jMYK4APs76R0TPptWZekUQTuP6GnDVQWtzytMdv9U&m=37DK6OjiYtTDAnFaj6_dV6Oq2LTSOXch3n5z48GHWxQ&s=SHJr7fsXNC5jPLU2k55iR97scx6KjEeNDj8PS7lpnvg&e=">Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Scholarly Research in Communication</a>, created by the International Communication Association and endorsed by the National Communication Association, and you should too. If you have any questions about whether fair use applies to your uses of copyrighted material (whether it is text, images, audio-visual, or other) in your scholarship, simply include your rationale, grounded in the Best Practices, as a supplementary document with your submission.</p>Envoi: Looking Back With Pride and Looking Forward With Optimism
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/22583
Larry Gross2024-01-262024-01-2618Passing the Conductor’s Baton: The Score Remains the Same
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/22649
Silvio Waisbord2024-01-262024-01-2618Local Production for Global Streamers: How Netflix Shapes European Production Cultures
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/21881
<p>This article examines how Netflix’s increased production of local streaming content affects European television production practices. This inquiry is developed in critical dialogue with current research, primarily focused on the United States, which suggests that Netflix’s production practices largely correspond with legacy practices in the television industry. The question is whether this observation also applies to Europe. Addressing this, 14 semi-structured interviews were conducted with television and film industry workers based in the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Denmark, and Spain. Emerging themes demonstrate that Netflix <em>is</em> reshaping production practices in these countries by importing a U.S. production model and influencing storytelling practices. </p>Daphne Rena Idiz2024-03-142024-03-1418Researching Social Media and Activism With Children and Youth: A Scoping Review
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/21717
<p>This scoping review explores current research on social media and activism involving children and youth under the age of 18. After analyzing a selection of 34 journal articles published between 2010 and 2021, available in major scholarly databases, this study provides a comprehensive overview of the research topics, participants, methodologies, and the sociocultural and political contexts surrounding this area of study. Most of the articles, published in the Global North, focused on the roles that social media play in inspiring activism among minors, on the online and offline media in children’s civic lives, and on the support and education they receive. However, there was a notable lack of children’s active involvement in the research process and limited inclusion of diverse participants. We contend that future research should prioritize inclusivity, acknowledge children’s diverse identities, and apply participatory methodologies that empower children and youth to share their subjective experiences and unique standpoints. </p>Annamária NeagMarkéta SupaPaul Mihailidis2024-03-142024-03-1418Impact of Media and Culture on Constructions of Homomasculinity Among Gay and Queer Men in Aotearoa New Zealand
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/21651
As a cultural industry, the mass media has symbolic power in articulating the prevailing images of society and its members. For minority groups, including gay and queer individuals, this power exerts symbolic violence, in that their identity is constructed as an aberration from a desired norm. This study analyzes the narratives of gay and queer men in Aotearoa, New Zealand, as they negotiate and resist dominant representations of themselves circulating in mainstream media and culture. The participants reflect on the negative impact of cultural themes of hypermasculinity and White heteronormativity on the development of homomasculinity as the core element of their queer identities, which manifests in their perceptions of self-loathing and internalized homophobia. However, the participants also acknowledge unrealistic expectations enforced by mediatized White male beauty standards and express their desire to resist the patriarchal model of masculinity rooted in the colonial settler ideology.Martin KaulbackElena Maydell2024-03-142024-03-1418Dehumanized in Death: Representations of Murdered Women in American True Crime Podcasts
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/21473
<p>How do American true crime podcasts represent women victims of murder? Emerging research shows that the podcast storytelling format can produce more personal and compassionate discourse, potentially countering the overall harmful representations of the true crime genre. However, research focusing on the representation of women victims of violence in the podcast genre has so far been limited. Based on a discourse analysis of 14 popular true crime podcast episodes released between 2014 and 2021, we identified that the murdered women in the podcasts are represented as part of a dehumanized group who are complicit in their deaths and who serve as a cautionary tale for other women. Based on these findings, we argue that although podcasts’ discursive dynamics can potentially introduce alternative representations of the victims based on social group identification and self-reflexivity, overall, American true crime podcasts align with dominant representations and discourses about stigmatized victims. </p>Jessica LangAudrey Alejandro2024-03-142024-03-1418Is Communication Visibility a Threat or an Opportunity? Social Media and Anonymous Social Support Organizations
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/21192
<p>The communication visibility afforded by social media is vital to organizing. Although hidden organizations are in greater danger than ever in this visible world, less is known about how communication visibility has affected the organizing processes of hidden organizations. This study uses a framework of hidden organizing and social media visibility to examine how Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) members practice anonymity on social media as a core communication principle. The author conducted 16 in-depth interviews with members of four AA groups to analyze their experiences and perspectives. The study aims to provide insights into how hidden organizations navigate the challenges of maintaining anonymity on social media while also utilizing the benefits of increased visibility. By understanding how AA members preserve anonymity principles on social media and how social media enables or constrains key organizing processes, the study may offer valuable implications for other hidden organizations facing similar communication challenges. </p>Katie K. Kang2024-03-142024-03-1418The Making of Elihu Katz, 1926–1956: Generations and Ethnoreligious Identities in the Transnational Development of Communication Studies
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/21854
<p class="ANAbstract"><span style="color: windowtext;">Elihu Katz (1926–2021) was among the leading media researchers of the 20th century, making major contributions to the fields of communication, sociology, and public opinion research over a 7-decade career. His life is both significant in its own right and a window into broader historical developments: He was a member of the first generation of Jewish-born scholars to enjoy relatively unconstrained career possibilities in the United States and among a group of American-educated scholars who helped develop the social sciences in Israel, where he established the field of communication. This article, guided by the concepts of generations and opportunity structures, provides a sociologically infused intellectual biography of the young Katz as shaped by historically specific patterns of social communication and ethnoreligious identity. It shows how his lifelong thought style came into place by the time he was 30 and throws new light on the transnational development of communication studies in its formative, mid-century period.</span></p>Peter Simonson2024-02-272024-02-2718Glittering Generalities: Reconsidering the Institute for Propaganda Analysis
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/21783
<p>Political communication and journalism studies scholars have focused on how present conditions have resulted in the epistemological crisis known as “post-truth.” This new push toward mis/disinformation studies parallels a movement during the Interwar era, when early mass communication scholars began studying the perils of propaganda. Among media historians, there has been renewed interest in the U.S.-based Institute for Propaganda Analysis (IPA), a short-lived progressive educational initiative concerned with teaching the public how to spot and not be swayed by propaganda campaigns. This article contends that the IPA’s public-facing messaging against propaganda masked its own propagandistic aims. Using scientific language and claiming to be above the political fray, the IPA unwittingly exacerbated the problem it claimed to combat. This article concludes by drawing lessons for contemporary communication researchers invested in understanding and counteracting mis/disinformation. </p>A.J. Bauer2024-02-272024-02-2718Do They Stop? How Do They Stop? Why Do They Stop? Whether, How, and Why Teens Insert “Frictions” Into Social Media’s Infinite Scroll
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/21618
<p>Teenagers’ social media use is often cast as problematic and addictive, and moral panics are a persistent theme. The scholarly literature reveals a gap in studying whether teens actively resist social media design by applying “frictions” (e.g., screen locks and reminders). The concept of “frictions” is situated in conversation with the “frictionless” design of social media apps, which eliminate stopping cues. Using developmental theory to understand and compare age differences in teen social media practices, this study investigates whether, how, and why teenagers pause or stop social media use. Based on in-depth interviews with 20, 13–16 year olds, from the United States and Canada, this study finds that when teens acknowledge and grapple with feelings of discomfort with social media experiences, some introduce frictions. As policymakers struggle to play catch-up with technology regulation, this study highlights how teenagers are thinking about social media effects, and designing their own exit paths. </p>Nikhila Natarajan2024-02-272024-02-2718In Dishonor of: The Assemblage of Counter-Memory as Networked Resistance on Twitter
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/21308
<p>This study investigates the performance of counter-memory in the intersection of networked publics, counter-discourses, and technologies of memories. We map the social network and analyze the discursive practices of the Twitter hashtag network #ArawNgMagnanakaw (“Day of Thieves”) as a counter-commemoration of Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos Sr. We theorize the “assemblage of counter-memory” as the connective, discursive, and material assemblage that has the capacity to privilege subjugated knowledge, reconstruct history, and shape the trajectories of reality. It acts as a counter-structure to the order of knowledge of history, built on the substructure rendered by the affordances of digital media. We argue that the assemblage enacts a kind of “relational” agency that emerges and reemerges to resist both established historical orders and systematic political manipulation. More importantly, it can reconfigure itself to respond to new issues and contexts and weave counter-memory practices with contemporary forms of political participation. </p>Fatima GawJon Benedik A. Bunquin2024-02-272024-02-2718Memories on Steel and Vinyl: The Northern Pacific Railway and the Sound of Memory
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/20799
This project examines a peculiar rhetorical artifact: A vinyl record issued in 1964 to commemorate the centenary of the chartering of the Northern Pacific Railway. Following work by Bartmanski and Woodward, as well as memory and sound studies scholars, I argue that the materiality of this vinyl record actively involves the listener in its narrative of westward expansion. But even as this material involvement recruits the listener into participation with its teleological national narrative, its sonic characteristics simultaneously expose discontinuities that undermine its memorial goals. <em>A Thousand Miles of Mountains</em> uses sound to manipulate space and time, yet these same dimensions work to expose memory’s artifice.Bryce D. Tellmann2024-02-272024-02-2718Mapping Chinese Digital Nationalism: A Literature Review
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/20767
<p>A growing empirical scholarship examines the rise of Chinese digital nationalism. This scholarship remains scattered across disciplinary and area studies journals, making it difficult to systematize findings and identify knowledge gaps. We review <em>N </em>= 71 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters (1990–2021) to map the empirical findings on the (re)production and circulation of official and everyday Chinese nationalist discourses. We note the dominance of single-case textual analyses of online data, the underdeveloped theoretical frameworks, and the unclear research designs across this scholarship. In China, the online (re)production of official nationalism remains driven by the Party state, with netizens’ everyday forms of nationalism generally reinforcing or being co-opted by official nationalism. We call for a fuller picture of the ecosystem of state-driven digital nationalism and its influence as well as more attention to the challenges to official nationalism online mounted by everyday nationalism. </p>Xiaoyu ZhangDelia DumitricaJeroen Jansz2024-02-272024-02-2718Physiological Response to Political Advertisement: Examining the Influence of Partisan and Issue Congruence on Attention and Emotion
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/20686
This study investigates voters’ physiological response to real political advertisements that are issue focused and sponsored by three different political entities (2 × 3 design). Eye-tracking and facial expression analyses were used to gauge viewers’ cognitive and affective responses. Results show that voters’ attention to political advertisements is influenced more by partisan congruence than by issue congruence. Viewers’ facially expressed emotions after their exposure to political advertisements are significantly less negative but hardly elated. Participants’ self-reported issue involvement and their eye-tracking measure do not necessarily match, neither do their stated discrete emotions and automatically coded facial expressions. Conceptual issues and implications from self-reported and physiological measures are discussed.H. Denis Wu2024-02-272024-02-2718Digital Artivisms: Creative Practices, Digital Technologies, and Political Participation Among Young Portuguese Artivists
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/20560
<p>This article discusses young people’s uses of the Internet and digital platforms as a central resource for their civic intervention in the production and dissemination of specific content linked to artistic practices. We set out to find what repercussions digital technologies have in this specific field of “artivism.” We argue that digital media not only presents itself as a public space for intervention and debate but also offers a field for creative experimentation and for the production and circulation of aesthetic content. To this end, we analyze recent empirical data collected as part of a research project on young activists in Portugal, aiming at the articulation between creative practices, activism, and civic intervention. Following a qualitative research frame, about 50 young people mobilized around different causes were interviewed. In our analysis, we highlight 3 main functions that stand out in the interviews: (a) communicational functions, (b) creative and artistic functions, and (c) identity and emotional functions. </p>Ricardo CamposJosé Alberto Simões2024-02-272024-02-2718Jair Bolsonaro’s Populist Communication on Brazilian Television: An Analysis of Television Newscasts on Globo and Record During the COVID-19 Pandemic
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/20452
<p>News media continue to play a central role in promoting public debate and the visibility of populist messages. This study discusses how Brazilian television journalism reacted to the populism of Jair Bolsonaro during the COVID-19 crisis. We adopted a content analysis and a framing analysis to identify the main themes and frames in reports at the beginning of the crisis by the country’s 2main television news programs. The corpus consists of 26 editions of <em>Jornal Nacional</em> (<em>JN</em>) and 26 editions of <em>Jornal da Record</em> (<em>JR</em>). Our hypothesis is that these news programs had significantly different interpretations of the Bolsonaro government’s actions. The data show that <em>JN</em> voiced its opposition to the president, while <em>JR</em> assumed the role of the government’s official voice, creating mechanisms to normalize populism. These results have important implications for understanding how the political positions adopted by traditional media affect how populism is promoted in the public sphere. </p>Bruno AraújoLiziane Guazina2024-02-272024-02-2718Analyzing Media Representations of Terrorist Attacks Against Muslims: A Comparative Content Analysis of the Christchurch Mosque Attacks on BBC, Al Jazeera, and Al Arabiya Websites
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/20245
<p id="docs-internal-guid-74b751b1-7fff-2a9c-ff6e-bcb7f5f37d4e" dir="ltr">This study investigates how mainstream Arab and Western media outlets differed in their coverage of the Christchurch Mosque terrorist attacks in 2019. It examines the Arab media websites of the two most popular Arab news channels (Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya), which vary in their agendas and funding, and the BBC website, one of the biggest and most popular Western media outlets. It examines how the Arab and Western media websites differ in their framing of the attacks concerning the association of “terrorism” to the perpetrator and the attack, sympathy for the victims, the importance given to the perpetrator’s religion, and the sources quoted, covering a period from March 15, 2019, to June 14, 2019. Contrary to previous literature, this study finds that the BBC’s coverage was close to Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya regarding sympathy for the victims, the importance given to the attack, and the official sources quoted. However, BBC still applied double standards in describing the perpetrator according to his religion although the official New Zealand position explicitly indicated that the perpetrator was a “terrorist.” The BBC did not label the perpetrator as a “terrorist,” except in a few instances. This finding aligned with previous literature. </p>Fatima Abdul RehmanRuba Salma2024-02-272024-02-2718“They Are Amongst Us”: News About Islamist Terrorism, Perceptions of Sleeper Terrorists, and Negative Stereotypes Toward Muslims in the West
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/19846
<p>In the debate around Islamist terrorism, experts and journalists often refer to the notion of “sleeper terrorists.” This notion rests on the idea that Islamist terror attacks in the Western world are difficult to prevent because potential terrorists typically live completely ordinary and inconspicuous lives among us while plotting terror attacks. We investigated how exposure to news about Islamist terror relates to audience perceptions of sleeper terrorists and how these perceptions are associated with negative stereotypes about Muslims. A two-wave panel survey conducted in Austria (<em>N</em><sub>T2 </sub>= 524) showed that exposure to news about Islamist terror was not directly related to negative stereotypes but was positively associated with the perceived existence of sleeper terrorists. These perceptions, in turn, were positively related to negative stereotypes. Additionally, we found a positive association of negative stereotypes with sleeper terrorist perceptions. Implications for news reporting about Islamist terrorism are discussed. </p>Jörg MatthesRuta Kaskeleviciute2024-02-272024-02-2718Reviving the “Yellow Peril” Digitally: Anti-Asian Hate on Twitter During the COVID-19 Pandemic
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/19502
<p>Racist sentiments against Asian, specifically Chinese, communities have risen alongside the COVID-19 pandemic. Combining Twitter data, employment data, and COVID-19 case data, this study uses interrupted time series analysis and traditional time series analysis to investigate how the revival of anti-Asian sentiments on Twitter has been facilitated by the combination of elite discourse on social media, economic slowdown, and public health crises. Results suggest that tweets about the “Chinese virus” from former president Trump serve as elite cues that positively and significantly impact the spread of anti-Asian hate on Twitter. This correlation is unidirectional. In addition, newly confirmed COVID-19 cases and unemployment rates are also positively correlated with the increase in anti-Asian hate tweets. The results draw attention to how the historical racialization of Asian populations has been extended to the social media arena during the public health crisis. </p>Fangjing TuShanshan JiangXue Gong2024-02-272024-02-2718Spoilers as Self-Protection: Investigating the Influence of Empathic Distress and Concern for the Self on Spoiler Selection
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/19466
<p>Despite the commonly held belief that spoilers detract from the narrative experience, research results have been equivocal. In fact, some research has indicated that spoilers can reduce para-social breakup distress, pointing to the potential of spoilers to serve a protective function and help people manage their moods. A naturalistic experiment examined how concern for the characters and the self might impact the likelihood of selecting spoilers. Graphic warnings were provided before participants viewed a suspenseful television episode, and they were also given the opportunity to read either a review with spoilers or a review without spoilers before the narrative climax. Results indicate that those who experienced greater concern for the characters and subsequently greater self-concern were more likely to choose the spoiled review. Interestingly, their exposure to spoilers did not affect their enjoyment or suspense at the conclusion of the episode. This suggests that the desire to avoid emotional distress plays a role in spoiler selection: People may seek out spoilers to protect themselves from negative feelings. </p>Sarah E. BrookesJudith E. RosenbaumMorgan E. Ellithorpe2024-02-272024-02-2718The First Spanish-Language Album to Reach Number One: El Último Tour del Mundo, Bad Bunny, and the Billboard 200
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/19204
<p>In 2020, Bad Bunny released <em>El Último Tour del Mundo</em>, the first Spanish-language album to claim the top spot in the multi-decade history of the <em>Billboard</em> 200 album chart. Scholars have written about Spanish-language music and industry charts, but the question of how that album reached number one in a geo-linguistic context where many listeners do not understand Spanish remains unanswered. This article contends that English-language textual and paratextual markers have been overlooked for their significant role in helping to make the predominantly Spanish-language album successful in the United States. Its discourse analysis shows how an artist works to upend the music industry’s long-standing dependency on any one language to reach mainstream audiences. </p>Christopher Joseph Westgate2024-02-272024-02-2718How Chinese Women Cope With Physical and Psychological Traumas in Gynecological Examinations: A Situational Analysis of Patients’ Communicative Accommodations
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/21804
<p class="Abstract">Based on 792 posts and 14 in-depth interviews, this study employs situational analysis to examine Chinese women’s communicative accommodation strategies and the complex situations that motivate their adoption of specific strategies. It finds that strategies such as interpersonal control and discourse management have empowered them to negotiate with medical authorities on the one hand and challenge the sexual and moral connotations of gynecological symptoms on the other hand. However, coping with disadvantageous material, relational, and spatiotemporal situations necessitates not only the enhancement of patient-provider communication but also the advocacy for institutional intervention and sociocultural transformation. The approach of situational analysis goes beyond the focus of intergroup relationships by original communication accommodation theory to highlight broader sociocultural and structural barriers to women’s health. </p>Xinying YangHongfeng Qiu2024-02-142024-02-1418Bibliometric Analysis on the Research Trend of Over the Top Platforms—Focusing on Social Science Research on Netflix From 2001 to 2020
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/21699
<p>This study examined trends in Netflix research in the social sciences over the past two decades through bibliometric analysis. Using the Scopus database, we extracted 269 articles and analyzed the topics that received the most attention in Netflix research through keyword co-occurrence network analysis. The analysis revealed that the most frequently co-occurring keywords were “Netflix,” “television,” “streaming,” “recommendation system,” and “SVOD.” We also identified influential social science journals and research articles related to Netflix. Based on these analyses, this study provides comprehensive insights into the progress and intellectual structure of research on over-the-top (OTT) platforms. We expect that this will enhance our understanding of the overall development of research on OTT platforms and provide useful guidance for future researchers in this field.</p>Xiaole ZhuYeajin JooYoonjae Nam2024-02-142024-02-1418Debunking News as a Journalistic Genre: From the Inverted Pyramid to a Circular Writing Model
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/21570
<p>This research identifies the common elements present in debunking news that define this sort of information as a new journalistic genre. For this purpose, after a standard literature review related to journalistic genres, fake news, fact-checking, and the state of journalism, a qualitative methodology consisting of a content analysis of 60 debunk news from politifact.com (the United States) and maldita.es (Spain) and interviews with editors (5) of the fact-checking platforms were carried out. Findings indicate a circular writing structure with common elements present in debunk news: A headline that points out and stresses the falsehood; a first paragraph that presents the origin of the disinformation; a body of the text that exposes the evidence found when analyzing the facts; and finally, a closing paragraph, that is the final verdict, that asserts whether the news is true or false, underlines the truth, and labels the credibility of the information. </p>Paula Herrero-DizDavid Varona-AramburuMarta Pérez-Escolar2024-02-142024-02-1418Intersectional Powers of Digital Repression: How Activists are Digitally Watched, Charged, and Stigmatized in Thailand
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/21411
<p>This article examines how digital repression tactics—surveillance, prosecution against online activists, and influence campaigns—work in tandem to contain dissent. I applied a mechanism-based approach to analyze interactive patterns of digital repression amidst Thailand’s 2020<em>–</em>2021 protests. These were multidirectional. First, digital surveillance provided the intelligence necessary for targeting key dissidents with charges for their online activism. Second, data gathered through surveillance sharpened narratives of proregime cyber troops to stigmatize protesters. Third, smear campaigns gave a pretext for lawsuits against protesters painted as a national security threat. I argue that these mechanisms leverage and reinforce the intersection of panoptic, punitive and framing powers underpinning digital repression, with panoptic power constituting the bedrock. This article speaks to broader studies on social movement repression: Digital repression allows states to deter and incapacitate movements while avoiding backlashes caused by overt crackdown. </p>Janjira Sombatpoonsiri2024-02-142024-02-1418Different Dimensions of Communicative Exchanges in Online Political Talk: Measuring Reciprocity Through Structures, Behaviors, and Discourses
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/21235
<p class="ANAbstract"><span style="color: windowtext; letter-spacing: .15pt;">Reciprocity, a foundational feature to ensure the quality of communicative exchanges, is a subject of extensive investigation in empirical research. However, the absence of a singular and precise conceptualization has resulted in diverse operationalizations across studies. This article identifies and categorizes three distinct approaches to understand and measure reciprocity in online political discourse: (1) by examining interactional structures within discussions, (2) by analyzing users’ communicative behaviors, and (3) by exploring the discourses expressed by users. Each form of conceptualization evokes different measurement strategies. By unpacking these components and systematizing the three types, this article offers an integrative analytical framework. To illustrate this possibility, we investigate discussions on Facebook about abortion in Brazil between 2013 and 2019. Our findings emphasize the significance of each dimension and underscore how the absence of one may lead to misdiagnoses regarding the level of reciprocity within a discussion. This nuanced understanding of reciprocity has crucial implications for researchers aiming to navigate the intricacies of online political discourse, facilitating a deeper comprehension of variations in listening and mutual communicative exchange dynamics.</span></p>Tariq ChoucairRousiley C. M. Maia2024-02-142024-02-1418That Is So Mainstream: The Impact of Hyper-Partisan Media Use and Right-, Left-Wing Alternative Media Repertoires on Consumers’ Belief in Political Misperceptions in the United States
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/21055
Two studies examined hyper-partisan and alternative media audiences in the United States and their relationship with misperceptions—or false beliefs—despite available evidence to disprove them. Study 1, which used secondary data (ANES), yielded limited findings and suggested that hyper-partisan conservative content was associated with holding misperceptions. Study 2 used an original survey (<em>N </em>= 661) to examine American alternative media repertoires and their relationship with holding false beliefs. The findings of Study 2 suggested that not only is alternative media exposure related to misperceptions but so was exposure to media generally among our respondents.Brittany ShaughnessyMyiah J. HutchensEliana DuBosar2024-02-142024-02-1418Agenda-Setting Effects During Times of Social Disruption: The Influence of Mass Media and Personal Experiences on Societal Concerns
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/20884
<p class="ANAbstract">Using an 8-wave panel survey of German citizens, the present study investigates the media’s agenda-setting power in the context of the disruptive coronavirus pandemic. By examining how societal concerns are influenced by mass media and<em> </em>personal experiences, this study shows differences regarding the health, political, and economic dimensions of the crisis. Only health-related societal concerns were influenced by the perceived issue salience in the media. Societal concerns regarding the economy were shaped by individuals’ evaluation of the adequacy of the perceived issue salience in the media and thus not by the media agenda per se. In contrast, societal concerns regarding restrictions on fundamental rights were strongly influenced by people’s personal experiences. Variations in the role of mass media and personal experiences over the course of the pandemic can be traced back to changes in the severity of the crisis and its different phases.</p><p> </p>Sophia SchallerDorothee ArltJens Wolling2024-02-142024-02-1418Developing an Affordance-Practice Framework to Data Practices: How Civic Technologists Practice Data Literacy Cross-Regionally
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/20585
Data literacy is integral for civic technologists to work with data and develop technologies to affect civic outcomes. However, the techno-civic capacities afforded by data literacy remain understudied because the contexts in which civic technologists learn to work with data vary worldwide. This article advances an affordance-practice framework to characterize and compare the data literacy practices of civic technologists in the Global South and Global North—primarily in India and the United States. Through a thematic analysis of 14 interviews with civic technologists, I argue that data literacy practices are comprised of dimensions including data patchworking, remediating accountability, multimodal communication, and scaling relations. I conclude by discussing the significance of data literacy practices for civic tech and data activism more generally.Alejandro Alvarado Rojas2024-02-142024-02-1418From Information Poverty to Information Deficit: An Intersectional Analysis of Women of Color’s News Information-Seeking Habits in the Digital Age
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/20528
<p>Scholars have used information poverty theory for decades to understand when and why marginalized individuals feel disconnected from news and information. However, by focusing on how individuals create information-poor environments, these studies shift attention away from the role of institutions in sustaining informational deficits. This article engages intersectionality as a systemic analysis of power to understand the structural, societal-level dimension of women of color’s news information-seeking habits in the digital age. Through eight focus groups with <em>N = </em>45 women of color, this study elucidates the dynamic role of intersecting forms of systemic marginalization in informing women of color’s information-seeking habits. This study contributes to our understanding of the role of media institutions in creating and sustaining informational inequities. </p><p> </p>Chelsea Peterson-Salahuddin2024-02-142024-02-1418From Emancipation to Confusing the Nation: Social Media and Figurations of Disinformation a Decade After the Arab Uprisings
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/20310
<p>This study examines how digital disinformation occurs through the creation and sustenance of figures or cultural tropes. It focuses primarily on the figure of the e-committees, a phenomenon that refers to online fake accounts mobilized by various political actors to tarnish their opponents and propagate their own ideologies online. Based on a frame analysis of Egyptian news articles published between 2011 and 2021, we trace the emergence of this figure in the wake of the 25th of January revolution, its development over time, and its impact on (dis)information. We illustrate how the framing of e-committees contributes to an atmosphere of chaos and confusion about the digital realm, and how such framing tactics can be understood as a practice of digital authoritarianism. The study proposes a novel theoretical and methodological approach to studying disinformation from a cultural studies perspective that is centered around the role of every day media messages. </p>Nermin ElsherifTasniem Anwar2024-02-142024-02-1418Dual Impact of Tie Strength and Visibility of Action on Political Participation Types
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/20297
<p>This study examines the combined effects of visibility of action and tie strength with digitally enabled social movement organizations on mobilizing supporters for high- and low-cost political action Survey findings from this study show that different dimensions of tie strength interact with cost and visibility of political action differently to influence future participation. The findings contribute to our theoretical understanding of the underlying factors that contribute to social media’s relationship with political participation and have practical implications for social movement organizers seeking to mobilize online supporters for different types of political action. </p>Simin Michelle Chen2024-02-142024-02-1418Unfair Competition: How States Use Disinformation to Exercise Public Diplomacy
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/19964
<p>The research examines Chinese and Russian public diplomacy in the new disinformation order and whether their strategies can be defined as public diplomacy when their dynamics, ethos, and scope break with the established literature. Both countries have gained an advantage over their competitors, mimicking public diplomacy techniques on an unfair basis. Putinism is not consistent and is not interested in Western reputation. Its objective—as confirmed in Ukraine 2022—is the control of the Russian living space and the comeback to the spheres of influence narrative. China self-promotes as an alternative to American hegemony. Its reputation is framed on long-term relationships excluding political values or interference in each domestic political agenda. In conclusion, the new practices represent a change in the ethos of public diplomacy, which abandons its orientation to dialogue and mutual understanding. Reputational security represents the realist turn (legitimacy, territory, security) and suggests the end of an era in public diplomacy studies. </p>Juan Luis Manfredi2024-02-142024-02-1418Commodification of Spirituality and the Spiritual Healers’ Labor on Facebook
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/19853
<p dir="ltr">Facebook is home to a plethora of spiritual healers who use the social media platform for giving advice, selling products, and offering their services. In this ethnographic study, we examine the Facebook endeavors of Estonian spiritual healers. The study discusses the different forms of commodified spirituality, the affective and aspirational labor of healers put into creating those commodities, and the role social media affordances play in shaping these practices online. </p><div><span><br /></span></div>Berit RenserKatrin Tiidenberg2024-02-142024-02-1418From Cultivation to Self-Cultivation: Alternative Media and Reinforcing Spirals in a Fragmented Media Environment
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/19737
Media environments have changed rapidly since cultivation theory was proposed in the 1960s. This study analyzes whether growing opportunities for media choice reinforce and polarize public perceptions of crime development. This is done by synthesizing cultivation theory with the reinforcing spirals model. The study relies on a combination of a quantitative media content analysis (<em>N </em>= 904) and a three-wave panel survey (<em>N </em>= 1,508) conducted in Sweden. The findings suggest that there are significant differences between violent crimes news content in alternative media and traditional media and that there are reinforcing effects between alternative news orientation and crime perceptions but not between traditional news media use and crime perceptions. We propose self-cultivation as a new concept that can be used to understand cultivation processes in today’s high-choice media environment.Angelica CösterAdam Shehata2024-02-142024-02-1418When Partisans Do Not Share Partisan News: Third-Person Effect in an Era of Polarized Politics
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/19511
<p class="ANAbstract"><span style="color: windowtext; letter-spacing: .15pt;">In the context of partisan news, the present study examines (1) how partisan news slant and comparison target interact in inducing the third-person perception (TPP) and (2) how TPP is related to online behavioral reactions to the news. An online experiment reveals a significant interaction between content slant (proattitudinal vs. counterattitudinal news) and comparison target (in-group vs. out-group others) on TPP. That is, TPP as a function of exposure to proattitudinal news, as compared to exposure to counterattitudinal news, is larger when the comparison target is out-group members. Further, the interaction pattern is more evident among strong partisans. Next, TPP indirectly reduces news-sharing/posting/commenting intention through devaluing perceived news quality. Yet, the indirect effect is significant only when partisans are compared with political out-group members, not to in-group members. This implies that partisans are motivated to correct public opinion by suppressing the opposite side in the online public sphere.</span></p>Seungsu LeeJaeho Cho2024-02-142024-02-1418Communication Inequality and the Technopolitical Structure of Platform Work: Aotearoa New Zealand Platform Workers During COVID-19
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/21832
<p>Drawing on the culture-centered approach (CCA), we conducted 25 in-depth interviews with Aotearoa New Zealand rideshare and delivery drivers, demonstrating how the technopolitical structure of platform work intensified communication inequality, and resultingly, precarity, during the COVID-19 crisis. Although literature has recognized that the platform has become the place of employment, less researched is how this makes it the place of information distribution, handing power to the platform operators, while contributing to the precarity of platform workers. The concept of communication inequality has been underapplied to considering the intersections between the structure of platform work and worker precarity. A thematic analysis concentrates on 4 key themes linked to the centralization of information flows through the platform architecture: information restriction, indirect management, unilateral term-setting, and accentuated precarity. We conclude by arguing for more research on platform work from a communication perspective that foregrounds the voices of workers. </p>Leon A. SalterMohan J. Dutta2024-01-292024-01-2918The Heteronormative Male Gaze: Experiences of Sexual Content Moderation Among Queer Instagram Users in Berlin
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/21576
<p>Recent research suggests that social media moderation policies banning sexual content systematically disfavor LGBTQIA+ people. However, specific impacts on particular communities remain understudied. This article contributes to the literature with a qualitative interview-based study of LGBTQIA+ Instagram users in Berlin. Participants perceived Instagram’s policies as not only homophobic, but heteronormative in the broadest sense, enforcing interrelated norms around gender, sexuality, and bodies that privilege cis-straight male perspectives. These policies significantly limited queer self-expression. Importantly, these impacts were largely relational: Users were not only affected by the moderation of their own posts but by broader impacts on self-expression and sociality in their communities. This study also explores the transparency and appeals processes introduced by the EU’s 2022 Digital Services Act (DSA) as a primary safeguard against arbitrary and discriminatory moderation. The participants did not see such processes as an adequate response to moderation systems built to enforce a heteronormative “male gaze.” </p>Rachel Griffin2024-01-292024-01-2918Using Radical Co-Design to Create and Develop a Technology-Based Solution to Improve Post-Release Outcomes for Formerly Incarcerated Women: LindaBot
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/21208
<p>Most women exiting prison face profound disadvantages and are likely to struggle with poor mental and physical health. Rarely are women furnished with the resources needed to flourish post-release, and seemingly simple-sounding tasks like getting formal identification are quite complicated. The contributions of lived experience to human service delivery and research are incredibly valuable, yet the ability to contribute meaningfully to interventions is rarely afforded to formerly incarcerated women. Our project seeks to address this gap through the co-design of a chatbot, called LindaBot. In this article, we discuss the method and methodology we used when working with formerly incarcerated women to ideate, design, develop, and test a technology-based solution to support their transition out of prison. </p>Michele JarldornSusannah Emery2024-01-292024-01-2918“O Ever Youthful, O Ever Weeping”: Exploring Youth Empowerment Through Platform-Dependent Creative Labor in China
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/21202
<p>This study presents “platform-dependent creative labor” as a typology for exploring youth empowerment through the performance of creative labor on Bilibili, the most prevalent Chinese digital entertainment platform among young people. It employs digital ethnography and semistructured interviews to investigate the research question: How does the performance of creative labor on Bilibili affect youth empowerment in China? Findings show that youth empowerment is dynamically achieved through the performance of creative labor on Bilibili in economic, cultural, and sociopolitical terms. However, youth empowerment through platform-dependent creative labor is still faced with multifaceted challenges stemming from capitalist exploitation, stratification barriers, and nation-state censorship in China against the background of marketization, digitalization, and globalization. Overall, I argue that social media can be an empowering tool for the youth as content generators; however, it should be used more cautiously and skillfully. </p>Yunyi Hu2024-01-292024-01-2918Vaccine Misinformation for Profit: Conspiratorial Wellness Influencers and the Monetization of Alternative Health
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/21128
<p dir="ltr">Influencers in the alternative health and wellness space have leveraged the affordances of social media to make posting misleading content and misinformation a lucrative endeavor. This research project extends knowledge of antivaccine misinformation through an examination of the role of social media influencers and the parasocial relationships they build with audiences in the spread of vaccine-opposed messaging and how this information is leveraged for profit. Through digital ethnography and media immersion, we focus on three prominent antivaccine influencers—the Wellness Homesteader, Conspiratorial Fashionista, and Evangelical Mother—analyzing how they build community on Instagram, promote antivaccination messaging, and weaponize this information to direct their followers to buy products and services. </p><div><span><br /></span></div>Rachel E. MoranAnna L. SwanTaylor Agajanian2024-01-292024-01-2918Explicating the Effects of In- Versus Out-Group Membership and Collective Action Framing on Social Media Activism Messages
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/20982
<p>Social media activism is a relatively recent phenomenon that has taken off worldwide, where many have taken to social media platforms to relay messages on sociopolitical issues such as racism. However, factors that influence the effects of such activism messages are yet to be studied. This research seeks to address this gap. Informed by self-categorization theory (SCT) and collective action framing, we conducted an online experiment to test how group membership (in-group vs. out-group) and message framing (diagnostic vs. motivational) affect individuals’ responses to social media activism messages. We found that activism messages promoted by out-group members with a motivational frame (vs. a diagnostic frame) led to greater perceived persuasiveness of the message, whereas activism messages promoted by in-group members revealed no such difference, regardless of the use of frames. The findings promise theoretical contributions to SCT and framing literature and provide insights on using social media to effectively deliver activism messages. </p>Chen LouChelsea Ning Rei YapXuan ZhouJi Ah LimMelody Tingyi KohAik Tan2024-01-292024-01-2918Platform Analogies: How Bookstores, Libraries, and Supermarkets Can Inform Thinking on Social Media
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/20854
<p>A growing body of research contends that social media platforms (SMPs) are not “mere intermediaries” in a worthwhile effort to convey the magnitude of platforms’ influence on public information. However, this article argues that their unprecedented scale notwithstanding, SMPs can be usefully analogized with information intermediaries that preceded them—and that conceptualizing them in this way need not understate their power. Via an examination of brick-and-mortar booksellers, public libraries, and supermarkets that sell periodicals, this study finds that information intermediaries have long shaped the cultural and political landscape via three key mechanisms that also apply to contemporary SMPs: strategically directing human attention, moderating objectionable content, and intervening in the production of third-party content. By taking the political and normative dimensions inherent in information intermediation seriously, this article deepens contextual understandings of SMPs and suggests future avenues for platform change. </p><p> </p><p> </p>Caitlin PetreNicole Weber2024-01-292024-01-2918“Drop a Bomb on Them . . . and Problem Solved!” An Analysis of Poverty Discourse on TikTok
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/20761
<p>This research analyzes the discursive characteristics of hate messages posted on TikTok Spain against people at risk of social exclusion. Using critical discourse analysis, we analyzed 679 hateful messages generated by 100 videos found about poverty. This method considered the social groups mentioned in those messages, actions attributed to them, the evaluative concepts associated with those actions, and the solutions proposed to eradicate this social problem. We used the qualitative analysis software <em>Atlas.ti </em>to code, categorize, and analyze co-occurrences of derogatory terms. The analysis shows that poverty is linked to migration, laziness, and groups at risk of exclusion. Although insults and degrading terms take on a metaphorical form or are less prevalent, the call to violent action is explicit, openly advocating the extermination of these groups. Underlying these messages is a clear neo-Nazi ideology gaining ground with the advance of the extreme political Right. </p>Ana Mayagoitia-SoriaJuan Manuel González-AguilarSalvador Gómez-GarcíaMaría Antonia Paz-Rebollo2024-01-292024-01-2918Scrolling Past Public Health Campaigns: Information Context Collapse on Social Media and Its Effects on Tobacco Information Recall
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/20667
<p class="ANAbstract"><span style="color: windowtext;">Although traditional media usually present content separated by topic, social media feeds are usually unsorted, shifting topics from post to post, a feature called “information context collapse.” Public health groups have often failed to consider how the presentation context of their campaigns may influence message reception. This study uses a mock social media feed that presents content across six topics in a sorted or unsorted fashion to see how presentation order of content influences recall of information about a novel tobacco product. The moderating impact of topic relevance and source congruency are also tested. Results show that for some measures of recall unsorted presentation reduced recall. Impacts of source congruency and topic relevance are reduced when the content is unsorted. The application of these findings for both scholarship and digital health campaigns is discussed.</span></p>George D. H. PearsonJoseph N. Cappella2024-01-292024-01-2918Health Information Orientation, Social Support, and Diabetes Self-Care Behavior Among Indian Adults: The Roles of Education and Self-Efficacy
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/20650
<p class="ANAbstract"><span style="color: windowtext;">This study examines the direct and indirect influences of health information orientation and social support on diabetes self-care behavior through self-efficacy and the moderating role of education on such indirect effects. Data were collected from Indian adults with type 2 diabetes using a self-administered questionnaire. Results suggest that self-efficacy fully mediates the link between health information orientation and diabetes self-care behaviors. In addition, social support is directly related to self-care behaviors and indirectly through self-efficacy. This indirect association was stronger among patients with higher education compared with those with a lower level of education. The results offer several public health education and promotion implications for promoting diabetes self-care behaviors and developing self-care interventions. In particular, the findings provide evidence for explaining the mechanism through which health information orientation and social support influence diabetes self-care activities.</span></p>Yam LimbuDevon JohnsonC. JayachandranChristopher J. McKinleyP. Raghunadha Reddy2024-01-292024-01-2918Ethical Challenges of Digital Communication: A Comparative Study of Public Relations Practitioners in 52 Countries
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/20636
<p>Digitalization is fundamentally changing media ecosystems and posing ethical challenges for media and communication practitioners. One of the professions affected is public relations (PR), which today can analyze target groups based on their digital data traces or spread messages via paid digital channels. Although these practices are effective, they raise ethical concerns. However, it remains unclear whether PR practitioners around the world perceive such practices as morally challenging and whether their perceptions are shaped by individual dispositions or national backgrounds. This study analyzed data collected in 4 cross-national surveys involving 5,970 communication practitioners from 52 countries. Results from multilevel modeling indicate that individual predispositions, that is, personal values and beliefs and age, influence ethical perceptions far more<strong> </strong>than national context. These findings are interpreted as an indicator of the ongoing globalization of PR ethics, which presumably leads to similar perceptions in different regions. </p>Jens HagelsteinSophia Charlotte VolkAnsgar ZerfassAndréia Silveira AthaydesJim MacnamaraJuan MengChun-Ju Flora Hung-Baesecke2024-01-292024-01-2918Social Norms, Referent Group Specificity, and College Students’ COVID-19 Vaccination Intentions: Risk and Efficacy Perceptions as Boundary Conditions of Normative Influence
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/20538
<p>How social norms affect people’s decisions to enact protective behaviors when they encounter danger is both theoretically and practically meaningful. This research investigated how social norms varying in referent group specificity, perceived risk, and perceived efficacy affect college students’ COVID-19 vaccination intention. We collected data from 640 undergraduate students during March and April 2021. The results showed that social norms in different referent groups are associated uniquely with vaccination intention. We also observed two 3-way interaction effects. Personal- and community-level norms interacted with perceived risk of COVID-19 and perceived efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines to influence participants’ vaccination intention. Specifically, perceived risk attenuated the effect of personal- and community-levels of norms on vaccination intention among participants who perceived higher levels of vaccine efficacy. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed. </p>Jie ZhuangPaul SchrodtMengfei Guan2024-01-292024-01-2918Network Informational Complexity, Epistemic Political Efficacy, and Fact-Checking
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/20117
<p>This study used three surveys to assess the role of information network complexity in the use of fact-checking tools. The overarching contention was that those exposed to conflicting political information (i.e., are part of informationally complex discussion networks) are more likely to access fact-checking websites. The rationale underlying this prediction was that exposure to conflicting information produces epistemic uncertainty, which, for some, can be addressed via the use of fact-checking websites. It was further suggested that those high in epistemic political efficacy (EPE) might be especially inclined to use fact-checking websites. The results indicated that those with complex online information networks were more likely to report engaging with fact-checking tools. Therein, the data suggested that EPE was positively related to fact-checking tool use but did not condition the relationship between online network complexity and involvement with fact-checks. Further analyses indicated that fact-checking consumption is positively associated with fact-check sharing. </p>Toby Hopp2024-01-292024-01-2918Feeling Threatened and Thinking of Actions? Examining Consumers’ Responses to Corporate Social Advocacy Messages Through Intergroup Threat Perceptions
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/19971
<p>Drawing from intergroup threat theory (ITT), this study examines how perceptions of intergroup threats influence counter-attitudinal corporate social advocacy (CSA) messages. A 2 (issue: abortion vs. same-sex marriage) ´ 2 (CSA position: pro vs. anti) ´ 2 (message: value-based CSA vs. action-based CSA) experiment was conducted online. The results suggested that action-based counter-attitudinal CSA messages reduced consumer-company identification (CCI) more so than value-based CSA messages did, primarily through perceived symbolic threat. Compared with value-based CSA messages, action-based CSA messages increased the intention to boycott and engage in discursive activities through perceived symbolic threats and realistic threats. The two intergroup threat perceptions also explained the influence of issue-related identification on reduced CCI and the intention to participate in two types of consumer activism. The findings extend the theoretical discussion of ITT research and have practical implications for organizations engaging in CSA efforts. </p>Xueying ZhangMei-Chen Lin2024-01-292024-01-2918Consumer-Generated Visual Advertisements in Social Media Brand Communities
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/19332
<p class="ANAbstract">Despite the advent of social media, few studies on online brand communities examine how user-generated content influence community members’ perceptions and behaviors toward a brand. Thus, we study how consumer-generated visual advertising influences brand community advertising and marketing. Our model includes motivation and the perceived value of consumer-generated visual advertisements, consumers’ brand attitudes in a brand community, attitudes toward other members of the community, brand community identification, engagement, word-of-mouth marketing, and purchase intention toward brands. We demonstrate the importance of brand communities and their implications on social media marketing.</p><p class="ANAbstract"> </p>Hui-Fei LinPei-Chih LinBenjamin Yeo2024-01-262024-01-2618Civil Society Chatbots: A Plurality of Conceptual Approaches
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/21795
<p>This article examines chatbots that have been developed by civil society for social, political, and/or cultural purposes. I ask what conceptual approaches have influenced the design of civil society chatbots and how these frameworks are actualized in practice. To do this, I first propose the concept of “civil society chatbots” to understand how and why civil society has chosen to use chatbots to support their campaigning and advocacy work. I then examine four conceptual approaches that have influenced them in the design of their chatbots and illuminate each with short case studies. The conceptual approaches under study are entertainment education, community media and technology, feminist design, and human and digital rights. Using these approaches helps situate a practice that is increasing and plural within civil society but relatively eclipsed by the hype around generative artificial intelligence chatbots. </p>Sophie Toupin2024-01-142024-01-1418Finding Sarah Everard: A Critical Discourse Analysis Exploring the First Two Weeks of News Media Coverage Following Her Disappearance and Murder
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/21612
<p class="Abstract">On March 3, 2021, Sarah Everard, a 33-year-old marketing executive, was last seen walking around Clapham Common in South London. Through the lens of a content and discourse analysis, this article analyzes a total of 525 news media headlines, covering the first 2 weeks of her disappearance and murder. This analysis unpacks the pedagogic process of the mediated performance of violence against women and girls (VAWG) to principally argue that the British news media construct a narrative arc that invites audiences to follow a curated ideal victim. The utility of this narrative leads Sarah to become a sympathetic narrative citation, to be called on by various interest groups when negotiating social performances of VAWG. Crucially, this article interrogates the power and affect behind news media performances of VAWG that privilege an ideological conception of the ideal victim, a disturbed perpetrator, a period of mourning, and a neoliberal discourse of justice. </p>Sim Gill2024-01-142024-01-1418Discussing the Role of TikTok Sharing Practices in Everyday Social Life
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/20993
A crucial element of TikTok consumption is the act of sharing TikTok videos with others, such as friends. In this article, I draw on ethnographic fieldwork with young adult TikTok users based in the United Kingdom to investigate this practice. I show how people use TikTok’s “For You” page as a resource to facilitate social relationships at a distance and in settings of physical copresence. I highlight how TikTok clips are shared in a phatic manner to activate social relationships, for example, by communicating messages such as “thinking about you” or relating to others by referencing TikTok memes in conversations. Attending to sharing practices, I argue, provides a fruitful way to understand how self-identities and interpersonal relationships are articulated in social media environments increasingly organized around the logic of personalization.Andreas Schellewald2024-01-142024-01-1418Information Sources, Credibility, Knowledge, and Risk Perceptions: Findings From the National Tuberculosis Survey in South Korea
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/20972
<p class="ANAbstract"><span style="color: windowtext;">This study explores the sources of tuberculosis (TB) information used by Koreans, focusing specifically on how sociodemographic variables influence perceptions of source credibility and how the use of different information sources influences TB-related knowledge levels and risk perceptions. Based on the secondary cross-sectional data of the Korean National Tuberculosis Association, a series of analyses of variance and multiple regressions were conducted. The result showed that TV and the Internet are perceived as the most credible information sources, and that age, gender, and income predict credibility in different information sources. The TB-related knowledge was positively related to the use of TV/radio, interpersonal sources, and the Internet, whereas perceived susceptibility to TB was positively associated with the use of TV/radio and interpersonal sources. The findings suggest that health officers or public health campaign practitioners must understand their primary targets and select the most appropriate information sources to develop their campaigns.</span></p>Jarim KimSunouk YouYesolran Kim2024-01-142024-01-1418The Daily Show’s Climate Change Content: Two Decades of Late-Night Science Communication
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/20958
Late-night shows provide important venues for climate change communication, and studies have demonstrated their ability to influence viewer attitudes. This longitudinal study examines climate content featured on one of America’s most popular late-night shows, <em>The Daily Show</em>, from 2000 to 2021 (including Jon Stewart’s and Trevor Noah’s tenures as hosts). The quantitative analysis demonstrates that climate content increased significantly in this period, and the qualitative analysis found that the show used framing to define problems and identify responsible political actors. Herein, the thematic emphasis is on Republican presidents Bush and Trump’s climate skepticism, specifically their supporters, opponents, and environmental deregulation. <br /><p> </p>Charlotte Gehrke2024-01-122024-01-1218The Role of Second Screening in Online Political Participation in Jakarta and Islamabad
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/20739
<p>This study aimed to investigate the direct and indirect impacts of second screening on online political participation in Indonesia (Jakarta) and Pakistan (Islamabad). The results showed that second screening had a significant effect on citizens’ online political participation in Jakarta directly or mediated through social media elaboration and political efficacy. However, the practice did not have any effect in Islamabad, and the differing results might be attributed to sociocultural distinctions inherent in the two countries. The study confirmed that second screening significantly impacted online political discussion and elaboration on social media. Further studies could be carried out to examine the degree of acceptance accorded to news disseminated through these platforms. </p>Drina IntyaswatiQasim MahmoodHermina Simanihuruk2024-01-122024-01-1218Engaging International Students via Dialogic Communication
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/18857
<p>This study explores the role of communication in engaging international students at higher education institutions, focusing on the efficacy of communication strategies, channels and tactics, and the involvement of key campus players. Using a co-oriented approach, this study gathered insights via 16 in-depth interviews with administrators and faculty/staff, who had 5 years of experience communicating with international students, and 2 focus groups of approximately 19 international students. The findings highlight discrepancies between university representatives and international students about the use of dialogic communication, communication channels, and tactics as strategies for engagement. </p>Rachel DeanLinjuan Rita Men2024-01-122024-01-1218Knowledge Migration and the Politics of Innovation
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/21565
<p>This article illustrates how transborder knowledge migrants cocreate sociotechnical imaginary in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR) in the wake of the Anti-Extradition Law Amendment Bill protests and during the COVID-19 pandemic. Through interviews with migrant-led and -staffed startups and analysis of documents published by the Hong Kong SAR government and its institutions, the study shows how these actors shape an imaginary of socioeconomic well-being through technological innovation and diversity. Young people are protagonists in this narrative and are envisioned as transforming desires for political emancipation into desires for self-actualization and creative labor for the common good. The startups’ narrative of growth through technology backs the official narrative of the innovative knowledge society firmly embedded in a sovereign China. By referring to other regions in the world, the study argues that migrants become a socioeconomic prosthesis for a society under pressure as they are implicated in narratives of cultural and economic reproduction that serve political goals. </p>Saskia Witteborn2023-12-262023-12-2618Getting out of Debt: The Communication Begets Communication (CBC) Typology as an Approach to Theoretical Advancement in the Field
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/21538
<p>A typology rooted in the field’s common object—a communicative act—and the notion that communication begets more communication is presented and evaluated. The organizing power of the typology is illustrated by showing key differences and similarities among existing theories in terms of their communicative dynamics concerning information getting and information giving. The typology’s ability to systematically expand existing theories and increase the theoretical coverage of the field is exemplified by a focus on the spiral of silence and the transportation-imagery model. This article concludes with a discussion of limitations, caveats, and an agenda for theoretical advancement arising from the typology. </p>Nathan WalterR. Lance HolbertJohn Jennings BrooksCamille J. SaucierSapna SureshFloor Fiers2023-12-262023-12-2618Ambiguity Undermines Persuasive Effectiveness: Ego Involvement, Motivated Reasoning, and Message Ambiguity
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/21474
<p>Motivated reasoning is a form of biased processing where people evaluate messaging in such a way that it allows them to confirm their preexisting beliefs. The self-concept approach to motivated reasoning assumes that ego involvement drives this process, such that greater ego involvement leads to greater post-message dissonance and increases the likelihood of motivated reasoning. However, the theoretical framework proposes that motivated reasoning can be mitigated when message ambiguity is minimized. Across two experiments, we tested components of the self-concept approach to motivated reasoning, including this ambiguity principle. In general, the results did not provide support for the framework or the ambiguity principle. However, the direct effects of ambiguity suggest that it dampens the persuasiveness of messages. We consider what these results mean for the self-concept approach to motivated reasoning, theorizing about message ambiguity, and designing real-world messages that minimize ambiguity. </p>David M. KeatingQinjun Fan2023-12-262023-12-2618Cryptid Communication: Media Messages and Public Beliefs About Cryptozoology
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/21417
Popular documentary television programs and news outlets have prominently featured messages about cryptids, or creatures whose existence mainstream science has not confirmed. Building on cultivation theory and priming theory, the present study tests how patterns in media use and exposure to specific media messages predict belief in these creatures. The study also draws on uses and gratifications theory to explore how motivations for consuming paranormal television predict belief in cryptids. Analyses of data from two national surveys (2021:<em> N</em> = 1,032; 2022: <em>N</em> = 1,020) incorporating random assignment to different image treatments demonstrate that viewing paranormal documentaries and reality programs predicts belief in cryptids, as does consuming paranormal news. Moreover, exposure to images priming television documentary programs about cryptids bolsters belief in such creatures. Informational uses of paranormal television predict belief in multiple cryptids. These findings suggest potential directions for future research on media use, media messages, and fringe beliefs.Wyatt DawsonPaul R. BrewerLiam Cuddy2023-12-262023-12-2618The Labor of Cultural Conception and Uncertainty in Cultural Work: The Work of Korean Drama Writers
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/21392
This article explores writers’ labor and precarity in the drama production sector of the South Korean television industry. In particular, to examine what is often referred to as creative labor, I suggest the concept of <em>the labor of cultural conception</em>, which I define as the labor of imagining, conceiving, and developing ideas and expressing them through language in the production process of cultural and symbolic products. For this research, in 2018 and 2019, I conducted in-depth interviews with 20 research participants who produced dramas airing on broadcasters and cable channels in South Korea. The findings show that the industry structurally accumulates value from writers’ unpaid labor of cultural conception in planning a television drama show by offloading risks to writers and using a piecework pay system. Writers also suffer from pressures, anxiety, and stress because they are required to generate ideas and write scripts according to shooting and editing cycles and rhythms. I argue that applying the concept of labor of cultural conception clarifies the distinctive forms of precarity and exploitation that workers face in cultural industries.Hoyoung Kim2023-12-262023-12-2618“A Significant Impact on our Democracy”: Chilean Media Audiences’ Claims for Dignity
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/21116
<p>Chile’s largest social uprising in 30 years began in October 2019. Protests erupted throughout the country, inspired by a widespread belief that the state and powerful institutional actors, such as the media, had undermined the dignity of much of the population. In this article, we explore how and the extent to which mainstream media, specifically television, has affected the dignity of the Chilean people and how participants in the social uprising defined the concept. Drawing on the hundreds of complaints filed with the National Television Council (CNTV) and using grounded theory, we argue that allegations against harm to people’s dignity caused by the media have become more prevalent in Chile. The reasons given by audience members include the violence of the broadcasts themselves, the stigmatization of certain people and groups, and a lack of journalistic ethics. Ultimately, this article analyzes a key concept for social uprisings and connects it to the ethical and political role of media systems and newsmaking in contemporary democracies.</p>Mónica Humeres-RiquelmeClaudia Jordana-ContrerasJorge Saavedra-Utman2023-12-262023-12-2618Trust Divide in Health Information Sources? Investigating the Role of Techno-Capital and Social Capital: A Comparative Analysis of General and Low-Income Populations
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/21029
<p>Trust in the source of health information has become increasingly critical from the advent of the Internet as a primary health information source. Especially as unauthorized entities now have similar gatekeeping powers in health information as health-care professionals. This study strives to conceptualize the factors that affect people’s trust in different sources of health information. Specifically, this study proposes ICT usage, digital capabilities and skills conceptualized as “techno-capital,” and individuals’ health social network behaviors as critical elements explaining one’s level of trust. Furthermore, this study addresses the ways in which social inequality interacts with these factors by taking advantage of two samples representing different populations within a major U.S. city. Our findings highlight the significance of techno-capital and ICT utilization in explaining the trust of different health information sources as well as the interesting mediating role of health social network behavior in one of the sample populations. </p>Jaewon R. ChoiJoseph StraubhaarSoyoung ParkMaria SkourasMelissa SantillanaSharon Strover2023-12-262023-12-2618Effects of Intergroup Communication on Intergroup Anxiety and Prejudice Through Single Sessions of Peer Counseling in Online Settings
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/20786
<p>Counseling represents a form of intergroup communication that could theoretically lead to less intergroup anxiety and prejudice but represents a form of intergroup contact that has not previously been studied. Two hundred and ninety-two undergraduate college students were recruited to participate in a single 30-minute peer counseling session with either a White, an Asian, or an African American counselor. Participants were randomly assigned to either in-group or out-group counselors. Results indicated that intergroup communication in counseling significantly reduced participants’ racial intergroup anxiety although the findings for prejudice were less uniform. This study not only extends research on intergroup contact theory but also provides a practical tool to improve intergroup outcomes by developing a peer counseling mental health intervention. </p>Romy RWNick Joyce2023-12-262023-12-2618Journalistic Theater: A Case Study of Reporting on People’s Emotional Response to Current Affairs With the Body as Medium
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/20529
This article provides a detailed case study of “journalistic theater,” focusing on Teatro di Nascosto, an Italy-based international group creating public events in the Middle East and Europe. Employing a reconstruction method, the study explores the production process of <em>The Catwalk</em> (2018, 2019), a series of performances on people’s daily lives and emotional responses to current affairs in conflict zones. The article offers 3 main perspectives on news work at the intersection of journalism and performance arts. First, <em>live experience performance</em> can enhance news work with artist-journalists engaging in intimate relationships for which they “dissolve” in a real-life situation. Second, empathy-driven news work succors performers and audiences with a sense of hope for recovery and healing, drawn from communal experiences, and advancing journalism’s “emotional turn” with a compassionate orientation. Third, journalistic theater’s physicality extends news work with the stage as a platform and warrants a perspective of embodied journalism, spotlighting the human body as a medium. <br /><br />Stijn Postema2023-12-262023-12-2618Talking Facts and Establishing (In)Justice: Discussing Public Matters on Instagram
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/20118
<p>This study considers Instagram comment sections, drawing on an in-depth investigation of 400 comments. It identifies forensic rhetoric, so far largely overlooked in online communication research, entangled with epideictic rhetoric, reflecting talk about truth and justice entailing moral positioning. Although participants are oriented toward shared truth construction across disagreement, they are not explicitly oriented toward changing their own opinions or views. This article discusses what this implies in terms of deliberative democratic perspectives, and highlights the need to move beyond stages of proclamations to reach practical reasoning in public conversation. It shows that rhetorical approaches may help elucidate intricacies of online conversations and that forensic rhetoric may emerge to meet pertinent topics of what is true and just. It also contributes to filling the gap of scarce research on Instagram comment sections as places for public conversation. </p>Luise Salte2023-12-262023-12-2618Chilling Effects as a Result of Corporate Surveillance in Digital Communication: A Comparison Between American and Dutch Media Users
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/19999
<p>Individual data used by companies contribute to perceptions of corporate surveillance among media users, who may respond to them by inhibition of legitimate behaviors, the so-called chilling effects. We investigated how media users respond to corporate surveillance by studying chilling effects, focusing on TV consumption and related media multitasking behaviors. A survey in the United States (<em>N</em> = 148) and the Netherlands (<em>N</em> = 156) showed two types of chilling effects, namely media use increase and decrease, and four different behavioral changes in media use, namely change in type of media activity, in mobile device settings and use, in multitasking behaviors, and in TV viewing. These chilling effects were mostly driven by privacy-related factors and psychological differences. Furthermore, cross-country differences were identified as U.S. media users showed more intention to change media behaviors, while Dutch users to increase their TV viewing and multitasking. This may suggest a certain effectiveness of current privacy regulations as they prevent Dutch media users from behavior change but can also be seen as an indication of the so-called control paradox. </p>Joanna StrycharzClaire M. Segijn2023-12-262023-12-2618Janus-Faced Portrayal: News Representation of Migrant Workers in Malaysian Newspapers Amid COVID-19
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/19491
<p class="ANAbstract">The global pandemic has adversely affected migrant workers psychologically and economically, leading to a poor quality of life. How the Malaysian media portrays this group during uncertainty remains unexplored. Aside from Eurocentric-focused scholarship, this study uniquely examines the representation of migrant workers in Malaysia. An inductive qualitative analysis of two Malaysian newspapers, <em>Malay Mail</em> (n = 36) and <em>New Straits Times</em> (n = 33), was conducted from January 2021 to August 2021. The findings show that the media portray migrant workers in a Janus-faced manner: They sympathetically represent them as vulnerable groups but also with an antagonistic stereotypical representation. This shows that media outlets adopt a more versatile approach to reporting on this group, which differs from previous studies. This study adds new perspectives and broadens the literature on the representation of migrant workers in ASEAN countries, such as Malaysia. It is also significant because it highlights subaltern erasures in the news discourses of marginalized groups, reducing xenophobia and racism toward them.</p><p> </p>Huihuang LaiHanizah IdrisJiankun Gong2023-12-262023-12-2618Public Service Media and the Internet: Two Decades in Review
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/21544
Since the beginning of the 21st century, public service broadcasters (PSBs) have been confronted with the rise of the Internet as a mainstream medium of communication. This has sparked a debate on the transition from PSB to public service media (PSM). In this article, we present a review of the academic literature on PSM and the Internet produced from 2000 to 2021. We focus on contributions interrogating the implications of PSM’s online activities for the delivery of public service values. We identify seven streams of research and show how, as a whole, this body of work has highlighted the main tensions and dilemmas that PSM organizations have faced, given their special nature, when engaging with the technological affordances of the Internet. Researchers have also shown how the delivery of public value can be enhanced via PSM’s online services. Arguing for the continued relevance of PSM, they have reasserted traditional values while also identifying new roles that PSM are called to play in the context of today’s digital communications.Alessandro D'ArmaSteven BarclayMinna Aslama Horowitz2023-12-262023-12-2618Uncertainty Communication in a High-Trust Society: Source Type, Political Preference, and Trust
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/21389
<p class="ANAbstract"><span style="color: windowtext;">Studies of uncertainty communication have produced mixed results concerning the consequences for trust. In this article, we focus on uncertainty communication as it concerns trust in a message about vaccine effectiveness and safety, seeing source type and political preference as mediators. These factors have become increasingly important as public health issues are becoming politicized in several countries. To test these relationships, we conducted a survey experiment in Norway—a high-trust society. Our results show a consistent tendency that statements expressing certainty were trusted more, especially when the source of the statement was the government or public health authorities. Importantly, however, the differences between statements expressing certainty and uncertainty were small. Also, when asked about their trust in messages from the public health authorities, respondents’ political beliefs played a minor role. The relatively high acceptance of uncertainty communication may be interpreted in the light of generally high levels of trust in authorities, as well as low levels of polarization in the Norwegian context, in general, and in the context of the pandemic.</span></p>Øyvind IhlenAudun FladmoeKari Steen-Johnsen2023-12-262023-12-2618Online Toxicity Against Syrians in Turkish Twitter: Analysis and Implications
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/21314
<p class="ANAbstract"><span style="color: windowtext;">This study examines the portrayal of Syrians on Turkish Twitter between January and August 2021 through a big data analysis of more than 30,000 tweets. We employ the concept of online toxicity to differentiate between disinformation and hate speech and explore how they are embedded in the negative debates about Syrians on Twitter. Through opinion analysis, the study recognizes disinformation and hate speech patterns within tweets and questions the role they play in boosting anti-Syrian narratives, as well as the main actors behind them in the Turkish Twittersphere. The findings indicate that the discourse about Syrians on Twitter was overwhelmingly negative, with both disinformation and hate speech playing a significant role. Furthermore, a considerable portion of the disinformation tweets could be traced back to opposition political actors, highlighting how negative sentiment on Twitter was not only expressive of generalized public resentment against Syrians but also instrumentalized for political purposes. Overall, this article demonstrates how Twitter contributes to the public debate about Syrians in Turkey, reproducing nationalist narratives and serving political agendas.</span></p>Hala MulkiSamir AlabdullahAhmed HalilNawari Al-AliMaria KyriakidouLudek Stavinoha2023-12-262023-12-2618“I Care Where You Come From”: Testing the Conditional Moderated Mediation of Country-of-Origin Effect in Multinational Enterprises’ Corporate Social Responsibility Communication
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/21156
<p>In today’s polarized global environment, multinational enterprises’ (MNEs) performances are more prone to the influence of the host country stakeholders’ animosity toward their country of origin (COO). In seeking social legitimacy, MNEs often use corporate social responsibility (CSR) programs as a relationship-building strategy in host countries. Drawing on the COO research and attribution theory, this study attempts to reveal how animosity influences host country stakeholders’ attributions of CSR motives and their subsequent evaluations of organization-public relationships with MNEs. In addition, CSR fit and individual ethnocentrism are tested as moderators. An online survey with 671 participants recruited from China supports the proposed conditional moderated mediation model. This study bears theoretical significance to public relations, CSR communication, and COO research. Managerial implications for MNEs are discussed. </p>BaoBao Song2023-12-262023-12-2618Convergent Television Audiences, Digital Inequalities, and Social Support in Getting Audiovisual Content
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/20759
<p>Seeking help from others is one of the major strategies enabling online viewers to overcome their inability to access audiovisual content. Nevertheless, existing research on digital inequalities has given limited attention to help-seekers. Using a representative sample of Czech adults (N = 4,294), we examined how these viewers differed from successful self-reliants and those who remained on the disadvantaged side of the digital divide. The study rejects the assumption that help-seekers distinction can be attributed to socioeconomic differences. It concludes that the availability of helpers and attitudes toward social interactions are essential and that help-seekers are more likely women. </p><br /><strong></strong>Štěpán ŽádníkJakub Macek2023-12-262023-12-2618What You See from These Survival Games is What Machines Get and Know: Squid Game, Surveillance Capitalism, and Platformized Spectatorship
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/20723
<p>This study examines the Netflix original serial <em>Squid Game</em> in light of the interdisciplinary framework of critical digital media studies and platform studies. It identifies the show’s several key elements applied to the operation and management of the bloodthirsty games that it depicts, particularly the “Red Light, Green Light” game, in terms of what Shoshana Zuboff terms “surveillance capitalism,” the parasitic and self-referential capitalist system based on the apparatuses aimed to mine and commodify privatized data. Unveiling how these survival plays disguised as Korean traditional games give expression to how computers and artificial intelligences see and know, I also expand my textual operation of the elements into an underlying factor of the show’s global impact, namely, Netflix’s platformized spectatorship composed of its personalized recommendations based on its algorithmic data mining, its hyperspecific genre categories that influence the viewers’ selection of what they see, its enticing of binge-watching, and its technopsychic construction of voyeurism based on the viewers’ screen intimacy. </p>Jihoon Kim2023-12-262023-12-2618“These Parents, Themselves, Are Using These Children as Pawns”: The Politicization of Childhood at the U.S.-Mexico Border
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/20425
<p>By investigating cable news coverage of Donald Trump’s family separation policy at the U.S.-Mexico border, this article analyzes how colorblindness and American exceptionalism came to be the uniform framing of these stories across <em>Fox News</em>, <em>MSNBC</em>, and <em>CNN</em> in the summer of 2018. Through qualitative content analysis and critical textual analysis of one month of news coverage, I argue that this policy’s impact at the intersection of childhood and race prompted a series of self-corrections on the part of newscasters and invited guests to maintain a cohesive narrative of a colorblind nation that loves children and is decidedly not racist. I explore a confluence of the imagined nation, the racist nation-state, and colorblind ideology as an explanation for why ideologically diverse news outlets would broadcast the same, ultimately patriotic messaging in a moment of panic over U.S. national identity. </p>Alyvia Walters2023-12-262023-12-2618Spreading Like Wildfire: The Securitization of the Amazon Rainforest Fires on Twitter
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/20420
<p>As a tool of political communication and information diffusion, social media has transformed the process of securitization, allowing (in)security messages to spread and scale up rapidly. Focusing on the case of the Amazon rainforest fires in 2019, this article seeks to answer two questions: How does securitization spread in online networks? And who are the actors that contribute to the diffusion of security messages? To explore this puzzle, the study develops a dictionary of query terms and performs a full-archive search to collect tweets posted between June and October 2019 and reconstruct the communication network of more than 3 million users. Drawing from theories of online activism and research on information diffusion in networks, the study uses both the structure of the Twitter network and the dynamics of activity in message exchange to identify four types of users and explore their roles in the spread of the message. The findings shed new light on the ways in which social media facilitates the definition of security problems and provide empirical evidence of the prominent position of influence taken by lay actors in the process of securitization. </p>Natalia Umansky2023-12-262023-12-2618Trust and Online Privacy Concerns in a General Population of Internet Users
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/20146
Even though research on online privacy has been accumulating for the last two decades, the etiology of online privacy concerns is still open to more inquiry. The present study investigates whether and to what extent online privacy concerns are affected by trust, a variable that has received limited dedicated attention in this respect. Using data from a telephone survey of a representative sample of the general population of Internet users in a Mediterranean society, the study models trust in people and trust in institutions as the focal predictors of Internet users’ concerns about online privacy violations by other people, corporations, and governments. Five hypotheses are tested using multiple regression equations with several controls, including measures of offline and online social capital, digital literacy, length of Internet use, and privacy violation experience. The study concludes that trust, independently and consistently, albeit mildly, reduces online privacy concerns.Stelios Stylianou2023-12-162023-12-1618Two-Sided Narration and In-Group Narrator: Examining the Effects of Different Strategies of Mediated Public Diplomacy
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/19881
<p>With the COVID-19 pandemic reducing multilateral cooperation and acting as a multiplier of “decoupling” major-power relations, the potential of public diplomacy for rebuilding trust has been highlighted. The present study examines the effects of different strategies for improving international attitudes with perceived credibility as a mediator. Using China-U.S. relations as case study, a 2 × 2 between-subject factorial design (<em>N</em> = 425) crossed-narration perspective (one-sided vs. two-sided information) with narrator identity (in-group vs. out-group of targeted audiences). Results indicated when American participants were exposed to China-related media content that (a) told stories from both positive and negative perspectives or (b) was produced by in-group members, they perceived the information as having high credibility and showed significant positive attitude increases. However, combining two strategies did not bring additive effects. The findings illustrate that two-sided narration and in-group narrator are effective approaches to mediated public diplomacy. Implications for public diplomacy research and practices in the post-pandemic epoch are discussed. </p>Tianru GuanYue YinYilu Yang2023-12-162023-12-1618Visual Hate Speech and Its Discontents: Young Adult Chinese and Malaysians’ Perception of Visual Hate Speech
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/19787
<p>As visual elements increasingly dominate communication, we propose to include these as constituting elements that extend hate speech to visual hate speech (VHS). The article explores manifestations of hate speech in an Asian context to understand young people’s perceptions and attitudes toward VHS. In September 2021, a convenience sampling technique was used to collect data from young Chinese and Malaysians aged between 19 and 23 years. A total of 26 and 28 undergraduates from a Chinese and a Malaysian university, respectively, were selected. These cohorts were used to further study how much, if at all, their perceptions and attitudes were colored by their respective cultural backgrounds. As an exploration, the respondents were given a simple test with visual stimuli to understand their perceptions and attitudes. Their responses were textually analyzed and thematically organized. The finding suggests that while definitions of VHS vary, it is very much an observable phenomenon and that respondents’ perceptions and attitudes not only overlap but also differ in significant ways. </p>Jamaluddin Bin AzizHolger Briel2023-12-162023-12-1618Mapping the Russian Media Field Through Audience Networks and Agenda Choice
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/19504
In light of the “gardening” of the public sphere in autocracies, the question of how power is distributed in the media field calls for empirical investigation. We use computational methods of network analysis, topic modeling, and semantic analysis to test if the Russian media landscape is organized around the three “publics” as suggested by earlier theory. Using the data from the media outlets’ public pages on the social network VKontakte and the texts of the publications, we reveal which groups of outlets exist in the media field and compare the similarity in terms of coverage with how the media are seen by the audience. We validate the previously suggested structure of the Russian media landscape. The differentiation among the “publics” is consistently pronounced on the levels of coverage specifics and the audience subscription profiles.Alla LosevaAnna MorozEgor ShmidtDaniel Alexandrov2023-12-162023-12-1618<b>Rethinking Artificial Intelligence: Algorithmic Bias and Ethical Issues| Mapping Scholarship on Algorithmic Bias: Conceptualization, Empirical Results, and Ethical Concerns</b>
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/20805
<p class="ANAbstract"><span>As artificial intelligence (AI) becomes more seamlessly integrated into our social life, the unfair outcomes and ethical issues associated with AI and its subtechnologies have been widely discussed in scholarly work across disciplines in recent years. This study provides an overview of the conceptualization, empirical scholarship, and ethical concerns related to algorithmic bias across diverse disciplines. In doing so, the study relies on the framework of AI-mediated communication and human-AI communication, as well as topic modeling and semantic network analysis to examine the conceptualization and major thematic areas of AI bias literature. The study reveals the complexity of the concept of algorithmic bias, which extends beyond the algorithm itself. Empirical scholarship on AI and algorithmic bias revolves around conceptualizations, human perceptions, algorithm optimization, practical applications, and ethics and policy implications. Understanding and addressing the ethical challenges require a multilevel examination from the perspectives of different stakeholders. Theoretical and practical implications are further discussed in the context of AI and algorithmic justice.</span></p>Seungahn NahJun LuoJungseock Joo2023-12-262023-12-2618Rethinking Artificial Intelligence: Algorithmic Bias and Ethical Issues| How Gender and Type of Algorithmic Group Discrimination Influence Ratings of Algorithmic Decision Making
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/20806
<p class="ANAbstract"><span>Algorithms frequently discriminate against certain groups, and people generally reject such unfairness. However, people sometimes display an egocentric bias when choosing between fairness rules. Two online experiments were conducted to explore whether egocentric biases influence the judgment of biased algorithms. In Experiment 1, an unbiased algorithm was compared with an algorithm favoring males and an algorithm favoring married people. Experiment 2 focused only on the first two conditions. Instead of the expected gender difference in the condition in which the algorithm favored males, a gender difference in the unbiased condition was found in both experiments. Women perceived the unfair algorithm as less fair than men did. Women also perceived the algorithm favoring married people as the least fair. Fairness ratings, however, did not directly translate into permissibility ratings. The results show that egocentric biases are subtle and that women take the social context more into account than men do.</span></p>Sonja Utz2023-12-262023-12-2618Rethinking Artificial Intelligence: Algorithmic Bias and Ethical Issues| The Realienation of the Commons: Wikidata and the Ethics of “Free” Data
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/20807
<p class="ANAbstract"><span>Wikipedia’s founding in 2001, accompanied by the techno-optimism of Web 2.0 and the ambitious agenda for free knowledge, inspired countless volunteers to contribute. The success of the encyclopedia both inspired and provided evidence of the power of “wikinomics,” “crowd-sourcing,” and “commons-based peer production.” In many ways, Wikipedia, and its parent company Wikimedia, can be viewed as the standard-bearers of Web 2.0’s early promises for a free and open Web. However, the introduction of Wikipedia’s sister project Wikidata and its movement away from “share alike” licensing has dramatically shifted the relationship between editors and complicated Wikimedia’s ethics as it relates to the digital commons. This article investigates concerns surrounding what we term the “re-alienation of the commons,” especially as it relates to Google and other search engine companies’ reliance on data emerging from free/libre and open-source (FOSS/FLOSS) Web movements of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Taking a Marxist approach, this article explores the labor relationship of editors to Wikimedia projects and how this “realienation” threatens this relationship, as well as the future of the community.</span></p>Zachary J. McDowellMatthew A. Vetter2023-12-262023-12-2618Rethinking Artificial Intelligence: Algorithmic Bias and Ethical Issues| Rage Against the Artificial Intelligence? Understanding Contextuality of Algorithm Aversion and Appreciation
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/20809
<p class="ANAbstract"><span>People tend to be hesitant toward algorithmic tools, and this aversion potentially affects how innovations in artificial intelligence (AI) are effectively implemented. Explanatory mechanisms for aversion are based on individual or structural issues but often lack reflection on real-world contexts. Our study addresses this gap through a mixed-method approach, analyzing seven cases of AI deployment and their public reception on social media and in news articles. Using the Contextual Integrity framework, we argue that most often it is not the AI technology that is perceived as problematic, but that processes related to transparency, consent, and lack of influence by individuals raise aversion. Future research into aversion should acknowledge that technologies cannot be extricated from their contexts if they aim to understand public perceptions of AI innovation.</span></p>Tessa OomenJoão GonçalvesAnouk Mols2023-12-262023-12-2618Rethinking Artificial Intelligence: Algorithmic Bias and Ethical Issues| Making Algorithms Public: Reimagining Auditing From Matters of Fact to Matters of Concern
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/20811
<p class="ANAbstract">Stakeholders concerned with bias, discrimination, and fairness in algorithmic systems are increasingly turning to audits, which typically apply generalizable methods and formal standards to investigate opaque systems. We discuss four attempts to audit algorithmic systems with varying levels of success—depending on the scope of both the system to be audited and the audit’s success criteria. Such scoping is contestable, negotiable, and political, linked to dominant institutions and movements to change them. Algorithmic auditing is typically envisioned as settling “matters-of-fact” about how opaque algorithmic systems behave: definitive declarations that (de)certify a system. However, there is little consensus about the decisions to be automated or about the institutions automating them. We reposition algorithmic auditing as an ongoing and ever-changing practice around “matters-of-concern.” This involves building infrastructures for the public to engage in open-ended democratic understanding, contestation, and problem solving—not just about algorithms in themselves, but the institutions and power structures deploying them. Auditors must recognize their privilege in scoping to “relevant” institutional standards and concerns, especially when stakeholders seek to reform or reimagine them.</p>R. Stuart GeigerUdayan TandonAnoolia GakhokidzeLian SongLilly Irani2023-12-262023-12-2618Rethinking Artificial Intelligence: Algorithmic Bias and Ethical Issues| How Process Experts Enable and Constrain Fairness in AI-Driven Hiring
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/20812
<p class="ANAbstract"><span>Organizations risk losing their competitive edge as they struggle to find and hire qualified talent. Hiring personnel turn to artificial intelligence (AI) tools to help acquire talent, increase efficiency, and reduce costs. Yet despite the best intentions for integrating fair and evidence-based systems, exacerbated levels of bias may occur from using these tools. Drawing from scholarship on process expertise and emerging practices of AI use at work, I provide a case study of 42 high-volume recruiters and uncover how hiring personnel enact and justify unsystematic sourcing practices within the confines of their held expertise, organizational demands, and technology choices. I explain how AI-based hiring decisions in organizations are context dependent and blend the capabilities of algorithmic-powered tools with choices and judgments made by process experts. I conclude by offering theoretical and practical considerations for expertise, hiring, and the integration of algorithms at work.</span></p>Ignacio Fernandez Cruz2023-12-262023-12-2618Rethinking Artificial Intelligence: Algorithmic Bias and Ethical Issues| Questioning Artificial Intelligence: How Racial Identity Shapes the Perceptions of Algorithmic Bias
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/20814
<p>Growing concerns indicate that automated decision-making (ADM) may discriminate against certain social groups, but little is known about how social identities of people influence their perception of biased automated decisions. Focusing on the context of racial disparity, this study examined if individuals’ social identities (white vs. People of Color) and social contexts that entail discrimination (discrimination target: the self vs. the other) affect the perceptions of ADM. A randomized controlled experiment (<em>N</em> = 604) demonstrated that a participant’s social identity significantly moderated the effects of the discrimination target on the perceptions of ADM. Among POC participants, ADM that discriminates against the subject decreased their perceived fairness and trust in ADM, whereas among white participants opposite patterns were observed. The findings imply that social disparity and inequality, and different social groups’ lived experiences of the existing discrimination and injustice should be at the center of understanding how people make sense of biased algorithms. </p>Soojong KimJoomi LeePoong Oh2023-12-262023-12-2618Rethinking Artificial Intelligence: Algorithmic Bias and Ethical Issues| Algorithmic Bias or Algorithmic Reconstruction? A Comparative Analysis Between AI News and Human News
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/20815
<p class="ANAbstract"><span>Despite a substantial body of scholarship at the intersection of artificial intelligence (AI) and journalism, it remains relatively unexplored as to how AI-generated news is different from news produced by professional journalists in terms of news bias. To fill the gap, this study compares human versus GPT-2-generated news in terms of the linguistic features, tone, and bias toward gender and race/ethnicity on two highly controversial issues, namely abortion and immigration, using news transcripts from CNN and Fox News. In doing so, the study adopts a mixed-method content analysis approach, including dictionary and coreference analysis, topic modeling and semantic network analysis, and manual content analysis. The results reveal that although AI news differs from human news in terms of language features and thematic areas, machine news is not necessarily more biased compared to human news regarding gender and race/ethnicity. Implications are discussed for future scholarship on algorithmic bias in lieu of the roles that AI-generated news may play in journalism and democracy.</span></p>Seungahn NahJun LuoSeungbae KimMo ChenRenee MitsonJungseock Joo2023-12-262023-12-2618Book Review Forum: Eszter Hargittai's <i>Connected in Isolation</i>| Studying the Fire From Inside the Burning Building: Reflections on <i>Connected in Isolation</i> by Eszter Hargittai
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/21747
Paul DiMaggio2024-02-062024-02-0618Book Review Forum: Eszter Hargittai's <i>Connected in Isolation</i>| Reflections on <i>Connected in Isolation</i>
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/21786
Hyunjin Seo2024-02-062024-02-0618Book Review Forum: Eszter Hargittai's <i>Connected in Isolation</i>| What Does it Mean to be <i>Connected in Isolation?</i>
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/21811
Daniel Kreiss2024-02-062024-02-0618Book Review Forum: Eszter Hargittai's <i>Connected in Isolation</i>| What is 21st-Century Digital Autonomy?
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/21831
Amy Gonzales2024-02-062024-02-0618Book Review Forum: Eszter Hargittai's <i>Connected in Isolation</i>| Connected in Isolation: How Zoom Enabled Ritual Communication for the Digitally Privileged During the Pandemic Lockdown
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/21888
Lee Humphreys2024-02-062024-02-0618Book Review Forum: Eszter Hargittai's <i>Connected in Isolation</i>| Personal Reflections on Our Context and Cognitive Digital Skills
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/21891
Teresa Correa2024-02-062024-02-0618Book Review Forum: Eszter Hargittai's <i>Connected in Isolation</i>| Exposed in Isolation
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/21923
Dmitry Epstein2024-02-062024-02-0618Book Review Forum: Eszter Hargittai's <i>Connected in Isolation</i>| Temporality and Truth in <i>Connected in Isolation</i>
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/21976
Kevin Munger2024-02-062024-02-0618Book Review Forum: Eszter Hargittai's <i>Connected in Isolation</i>| Disability and Digital Connection in COVID-19 Times
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/22006
Gerard GogginKuansong Victor Zhuang2024-02-062024-02-0618Book Review Forum: Eszter Hargittai's <i>Connected in Isolation</i>| Increasing the Scope of Digital Inequality Research and Addressing Methodological Challenges: A Response to Book Forum Contributions
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/22341
Eszter Hargittai2024-02-062024-02-0618<b>Sociotechnical Change: Tracing Flows, Languages, and Stakes Across Diverse Cases| Creating a Language of and for Sociotechnical Change: Interdisciplinary Sites, Stakes, and Senses of Transformation—Introduction</b>
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/21835
<p>The study of sociotechnical change—differences achieved through human-nonhuman relations—is a core concern of many disciplines and communities. Even a desire to <em>prevent</em> change needs an understanding of which differences are more or less likely, achievable, or lasting. Whether as sites (places) or agents (instruments) of change, sociotechnical systems offer a rich set of aspirations, forces, dynamics, and outcomes for seeing how relationships between people and materials create, resist, interpret, endure, or ignore differences. Nurtured through the interdisciplinary research group Media as SocioTechnical Systems, this article and the forum that it anchors examines “sociotechnical change” from a variety of historical, disciplinary, methodological, and normative perspectives, offering short accounts of change intended to be complementary, generative, provocative, and playful.</p>Mike AnannySimogne Hudson2023-12-262023-12-2618Sociotechnical Change: Tracing Flows, Languages, and Stakes Across Diverse Cases| From AAA TripTik to Google: Maps as Sites of Sociotechnical Change
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/21834
<p>From the American Automobile Association’s (AAA) TripTik to Google Maps, mapping technology changed tremendously from applying a highlighter on a dozen papers to interactive mobile digital maps. Along with the technological change from analog to digital, the main organization that makes and distributes navigational maps has also changed from a nonprofit automobile organization to a for-profit tech company. This article scrutinizes how these changes in the sociotechnical infrastructure of mapmaking are reflected in the maps we use. First, I explain how AAA’s TripTiks were made and distributed in the 20th century and compare it with the operation of Google Maps. Next, I follow the route from Los Angeles, California, to Battle Creek, Michigan, on a 1949 TripTik and on Google Maps, attending to their differences. This journey reveals that despite the convenience and advanced technology, Google Maps deliberately ignores the core value of AAA’s maps: making a trip an enjoyable process of learning.</p>So Yun Ahn2023-12-262023-12-2618Sociotechnical Change: Tracing Flows, Languages, and Stakes Across Diverse Cases| Disautomated Realities in South Africa: Loadshedding, Poultry Death, and the Promises of Failure
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/21836
<p>In an increasingly automated world, what does it looks like when sociotechnical change occurs as infrastructural failure? Since 2007, South Africa’s ability to provide energy for its people has dramatically deteriorated. Scheduled power cuts, or “loadshedding,” has become a norm in daily life. Because of loadshedding, systemic failures of automated systems used in the poultry industry have resulted in moral and socioeconomic disaster as producers lose millions of livestock and prices rise above affordable levels. Recent reactions to these mass chicken deaths and the resultant political activism provide an illustrative case study of how longer term <em>infrastructural failure</em> in a critical sector like energy can suddenly heighten popular awareness of the unspoken life and death <em>funerary economy</em> that governs people’s lives and thus foment the potential to <em>revitalize the democratic space</em>. The South African experience is therefore not a purely negative one—rather it shows how failure as a species of sociotechnical change can generate technopolitical promise. </p>Ziyaad Bhorat2023-12-262023-12-2618Sociotechnical Change: Tracing Flows, Languages, and Stakes Across Diverse Cases| Digital Nations and the Future of the Climate Crisis
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/21837
<p>This article discusses sociotechnical change through the case of Tuvalu’s Future Now project, a set of initiatives Tuvalu is implementing to digitize their lands and traditions into the metaverse to preserve Tuvaluan culture amid impending climate destruction. In this article, I examine potential challenges Tuvalu faces in navigating this digital future given the social reality of the technology platforms and people Tuvalu would encounter during the transition process in making their digital dreams a reality. I detail challenges related to surveillance, sovereignty, and empathy intended to inform the country of Tuvalu on negotiating with these powerful entities as they embark into uncharted (digital) waters.</p>Alfonso Hegde2023-12-262023-12-2618Sociotechnical Change: Tracing Flows, Languages, and Stakes Across Diverse Cases| Plasticity: Accounting for Adaptation in Sociotechnical Systems
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/21839
<p>This article advances the concept of plasticity to consider the racialized ways by which adaptation is envisioned under conditions of sociotechnical change. When used, adaptation is often advanced as a neutral process, as if adaptation is meant to benefit all populations equally and carries universal meaning for all parties involved. Plasticity raises the point that adaptation comes to us in ways already directed—the imagined shape that adaptation takes is already a notion that privileges some populations over others. Engaging with the critical literature around plasticity and a case study of telecommuting, this essay argues that plasticity can do the important task of orienting us to the structurally unequal nature of adaptation, especially how adaptation to sociotechnical change can be used to perpetuate embedded racial hierarchies.</p>Renyi Hong2023-12-262023-12-2618Sociotechnical Change: Tracing Flows, Languages, and Stakes Across Diverse Cases| Humanitarian Innovation in Forced Displacement
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/21840
<p>The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has been at the forefront of major humanitarian innovative undertakings in the forced displacement context. From the launch of Project Profile, geared to address the lack of identification documents (IDs) among refugees through biometric systems, to the use of machine learning techniques to detect xenophobia against refugees, the UNHCR has been experimenting with different technical solutions to ostensibly address complex operational challenges in humanitarian settings. This article uses the case study of the UNHCR to analyze sociotechnical changes that can be observed throughout the organization’s innovation journey over the last two decades—before and after the establishment of the UNHCR Innovation Service. I particularly grapple with this question: What is distinct about the current logic of innovation at the UNHCR? Drawing on content analysis of publicly available reports, articles, and policy documents, I suggest that the establishment of the Innovation Service at the UNHCR enables the agency to internally experiment with novel sociotechnical systems while also reinventing its collaborative undertakings with public and private stakeholders to meet its humanitarian goals effectively. </p>Alphoncina Lyamuya2023-12-262023-12-2618Sociotechnical Change: Tracing Flows, Languages, and Stakes Across Diverse Cases| Digital Diaspora and Nationhood: Sociotechnical Imaginaries and Practices of Nationhood
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/21841
<p>Drawing on digital ethnographic observations I carried out on Instagram between June 29, 2020, and July 2021, as well as interviews with content creators and activists, this article considers the digitally mediated identity negotiations and nationalist boundary-making practices of diaspora youth during Ethiopia’s 2020–2022 war. On top of protesting, debating, and transmitting information, young people used Instagram’s communicative affordances to formulate collective identities and competing imaginaries about Ethiopia and their respective ethnonational identities. Using visual affordances like emojis, hashtags, profile images, and bio statements, they adopted and inscribed markers with political meanings that enabled them to signal difference and belonging as well as readily identify potential wartime allies and adversaries. These sociotechnical and constitutive processes shaped the formation of diaspora youths’ national imaginaries as well as the features and uses they associated with Instagram.</p>Azeb Madebo2023-12-262023-12-2618Sociotechnical Change: Tracing Flows, Languages, and Stakes Across Diverse Cases| “A Fountain Pen Come to Life”: The Anxieties of the Autopen
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/21842
<p>The autopen is a technology widely used by celebrities and politicians—often covertly—to automatically sign letters and other media. When the autopen’s use comes to light, public indignation often follows; learning that something has been signed robotically, rather than by hand, seems to breach the relational values assumed to inhere in the social ritual of signature. We describe three controversies involving the autopen to probe how sociotechnical change can reveal latent values and challenge assumptions about authenticity. The autopen provides a useful analog to emerging anxieties about AI-mediated communication and synthetic media. </p>Pegah MoradiKaren Levy2023-12-262023-12-2618Sociotechnical Change: Tracing Flows, Languages, and Stakes Across Diverse Cases| The Stadium as Sociotechnical Change
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/21843
<p>Stadiums appear to be singular colossal structures—hosts of spectacular performances that are removed from the everyday environs they loom over. Yet they are intricately networked with the built and social environments around them. They are technologies that change the relationships between the material and the sociocultural elements of their surroundings. In this article we zoom into SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California, to explore how the stadium redirects flows through complex local and global networks. We trace how the stadium mobilizes flows of state funding for transit infrastructure; convenes a network of security actors and local and federal resources; and attracts media attention, circulating competing discourses and images. Approaching stadiums as networked infrastructure highlights how the development of a stadium produces uneven outcomes.</p>Cerianne RobertsonPratik Nyaupane2023-12-262023-12-2618Sociotechnical Change: Tracing Flows, Languages, and Stakes Across Diverse Cases| Structures of Capital and Sociotechnical Change: The Case of Tech Startups and Venture Capital
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/21844
<p>This article argues that financing shapes processes of sociotechnical change in profound yet underexamined ways. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork at two digital technology startups, we show how their dependence on venture capital (VC) influenced how they developed, marketed, and deployed products. Through this examination of VC-funded startups, we aim to make a broader point: Structures of capital should be central to studies of sociotechnical change.</p>Benjamin ShestakofskyCaitlin Petre2023-12-262023-12-2618Sociotechnical Change: Tracing Flows, Languages, and Stakes Across Diverse Cases| Counting on Stability: The Social Construction of the Los Angeles Homeless Count
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/21845
<p>Sociotechnical change stabilizes inherently indeterminate and contingent phenomena as bounded, comprehensible, and absolute. Through an examination of the Los Angeles homeless count, I highlight three simplifications that render homelessness legible: geographic and temporal boundaries, processes of categorization, and the construction of metrics. Considering statistics as sociotechnical constructs underscores the inherent subjectivity, uncertainty, and contingency erased through claims of objectivity.</p>Will Orr2023-12-262023-12-2618Sociotechnical Change: Tracing Flows, Languages, and Stakes Across Diverse Cases| Pedestrian Mobilities at the Crossroads: The Contestation and Regulation of Jaywalking
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/21846
<p>California Assembly Bill (AB) No. 2147, commonly referred to as the “Freedom to Walk Act,” took effect on January 1, 2023. It virtually prohibits police officers from citing pedestrians who cross the street away from pedestrian crosswalks or intersections, all but legalizing “jaywalking.” However, this paper argues that AB 2147 is only a transformation of the existing enforcement regime, not a mobility reform. The dominance of car-centered urban mobility remains unchallenged. In fact, it highlights the accepted stability of the current system, where even seemingly significant reform can be passed without expecting a change in pedestrian behavior. The article outlines the historical issue of regulating pedestrians and cars in cities and how, with the production of the “jaywalker,” a public problem has been solved in a particular way and is now considered so stable that policing it is no longer deemed a necessary component. A way of explaining the stability of the current mobility system is through the concept of governmentality, which describes the ways in which populations allow themselves to be governed. The article concludes that this solution was not inevitable; as cases such as the Netherlands and China show, different paths to resolving this public problem are possible to either reinforce or challenge the dominance of automobility.</p>Josh Widera2023-12-262023-12-2618What Is the Value of Cultural Analytics? Discerning Value in Digital Environments
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/21777
<p class="Keywords">How do we measure the contribution of online content creators toward our social fabric, particularly when platforms use bespoke measurement systems? Embedded in the value theory and social media visibility literature, this article provides an overview of the variety of metrics currently available within our everyday platformization experiences. In doing so, this article explores how metrics can move toward a system that engages cultural analytics to better understand our digital media environment. These insights have implications for online content creators, agencies who manage those creators, cultural institutions, and the digital intermediation processes that determine cultural production. With a better-informed measurement system for online content creation within digital media environments, policy makers are also better equipped to begin to answer emerging regulatory questions around generative AI practices to reflect important societal issues of our time, not just those that are “popular” or “visible.” </p>Jonathon Hutchinson2024-03-142024-03-1418Members in Good Standing? The Relationship Between NoFap/Reboot Communities and the Manosphere
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/20524
<p>NoFap/reboot communities are online groups of mostly men trying to abstain from pornography and/or masturbation. For researchers exploring the manosphere, a loose collation of digital communities in which men affirm and replicate antifeminist/promale hegemonic identities and attitudes, controversy exists as to the extent to which they align with other groups. Members and content creators share fundamental manosphere values, including the perception of a battle for masculinity, a natural male hierarchy, and the instrumentalization of women. However, individuals abstain for many reasons, indicating motivational variance. There are also competing narratives surrounding the supposedly harmful impact of pornography that vary in their compatibility with the manosphere. The potential for ideological crossover and a pipeline into more extreme content are discussed. </p>David S. Smith2023-12-262023-12-2618Lois M. DeFleur, Sandra Ball-Rokeach, and Marilyn Ihinger-Tallman, <i>We Few, We Academic Sisters: How We Persevered and Excelled in Higher Education</i> (Betty Houchin Winfield, Ed.)
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/22817
Gaye Tuchman2024-03-142024-03-1418Dan Bouk, <i>Democracy’s Data: The Hidden Stories in the U.S. Census and How to Read Them<i>
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/22812
Emilia Ruzicka2024-03-142024-03-1418Mike Piero, <i>Video Game Chronotopes and Social Justice: Playing on the Threshold<i>
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/22806
Sabrina Sonner2024-03-142024-03-1418Jennifer Clary-Lemon and David M. Grant (Eds.), <i>Decolonial Conversations in Posthuman and New Material Rhetorics<i>
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/22747
Fatima Zahid Ali2024-03-142024-03-1418Rules and Rivals: A Review Essay
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/22694
Sue Curry Jansen2024-02-282024-02-2818Leland G. Spencer, <i>Rape, Agency, and Carceral Solutions: From Criminal Justice to Social Justice<i>
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/22767
Courtney D. Tabor2024-02-272024-02-2718David Goodman and Joy Elizabeth Hayes, <i>New Deal Radio: The Educational Radio Project<i>
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/22751
David Elliot Berman2024-02-272024-02-2718Thomas Poell, David Nieborg, and Brooke Erin Duffy, <i>Platforms and Cultural Production<i>
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/22750
Mustafa Oz2024-02-272024-02-2718Laine Nooney, <i>The Apple II Age: How the Computer Became Personal<i>
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/22661
Rongxin Ouyang2024-02-272024-02-2718Lee McGuigan, <i>Selling the American People: Advertising, Optimization, and the Origins of Adtech<i>
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/22628
Jennifer Hessler2024-02-272024-02-2718Elyakim Kislev, <i>Relationships 5.0: How AI, VR, and Robots Will Reshape Our Emotional Lives<i>
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/22615
Jinyuan Zhan2024-02-272024-02-2718Sue Robinson, <i>How Journalists Engage: A Theory of Trust Building, Identities, and Care<i>
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/22669
Andrea Dione Wenzel2024-02-142024-02-1418Aynne Kokas, <i>Trafficking Data: How China Is Winning the Battle for Digital Sovereignty<i>
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/22630
Jing Zeng2024-02-142024-02-1418Jeremy Packer, Paula Nuñez de Villavicencio, Alexander Monea, Kathleen Oswald, Kate Maddalena, and Joshua Reeves, <i>The Prison House of the Circuit: Politics of Control from Analog to Digital<i>
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/22602
Michelle Phan2024-02-142024-02-1418Patrick Ferrucci and Scott A. Eldridge II (Eds.), <i>The Institutions Changing Journalism: Barbarians Inside the Gate<i>
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/22601
Thomas R. Schmidt2024-02-142024-02-1418Senta Siewert, <i>Performing Moving Images: Access, Archives and Affects<i>
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/22555
Kelsey Moore2024-02-142024-02-1418Peiren Shao, <i>New Perspectives on Geography of Media<i>
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/22545
Yingzi QuGuofeng Wang2024-02-142024-02-1418Exploring Creativity Under Platform Capitalism
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/22334
Barry John King2024-02-142024-02-1418Mark Andrejevic and Neil Selwyn, <i>Facial Recognition<i>
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/22570
Katerina Girginova2024-01-292024-01-2918Jürgen Habermas, <i>A New Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere and Deliberative Politics<i>
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/22534
Elizabeth Folan O'Connor2024-01-292024-01-2918Alex Preda, <i>The Spectacle of Expertise: Why Financial Analysts Perform in the Media<i>
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/22542
Micky Lee2024-01-142024-01-1418Dan McQuillan, <i>Resisting AI: An Anti-Fascist Approach to Artificial Intelligence<i>
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/22495
Florencio Cabello Fernández-Delgado2024-01-142024-01-1418Eszter Hargittai (Ed.), <i>Handbook of Digital Inequality<i>
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/22399
Christopher Ali2024-01-122024-01-1218Moya Bailey, <i>Misogynoir Transformed: Black Women’s Digital Resistance<i>
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/22461
Hyejin Jo2023-12-262023-12-2618E Cram, <i>Violent Inheritance: Sexuality, Land, and Energy in Making The North American West<i>
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/22458
Shelby R. Crow2023-12-262023-12-2618Jennifer McClearen, <i>Fighting Visibility: Sports Media and Female Athletes in the UFC<i>
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/22388
Evan Brody2023-12-262023-12-2618Larisa King Mann, <i>Rude Citizenship: Jamaican Popular Music, Copyright, and the Reverberations of Colonial Power<i>
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/22385
Jiaxi Hou2023-12-262023-12-2618Meredith Broussard, <i>More Than a Glitch: Confronting Race, Gender, and Ability Bias in Tech<i>
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/22376
Melike Asli Sim2023-12-262023-12-2618Sara Shaban, <i>Iranian Feminism and Transnational Ethics in Media Discourse<i>
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/22374
Laila Abbas2023-12-262023-12-2618Amanda D. Lotz and Ramon Lobato (Eds.), <i>Streaming Video: Storytelling Across Borders</i>
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/22370
Melina Meimaridis2023-12-262023-12-2618Janaki Srinivasan, <i>The Political Lives of Information: Information and the Production of Development in India<i>
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/22368
Rajdeep Pakanati2023-12-262023-12-2618Johanna Dunaway and Kathleen Searles, <i>News and Democratic Citizens in the Mobile Era<i>
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/22350
Ana Melro2023-12-262023-12-2618Richard Rogers and Sabine Niederer (Eds.), <i>The Politics of Social Media Manipulation<i>
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/22325
Qing Xu2023-12-262023-12-2618Cory Barker, <i>Social TV: Multi-Screen Content and Ephemeral Culture<i>
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/22318
Aidan Moir2023-12-262023-12-2618