Showing papers in "International Journal of Communication in 2020"

Reposting “Till Albert Einstein is TikTok Famous”: The Memetic Construction of Science on TikTok

Abstract: Since its launch in 2018, TikTok has become one of the fastest growing social media applications in the world, being particularly popular among young people. Memetic videos, which often feature lip-syncing, dance routines, and comedic skits, are a defining feature of the platform. This study used quantitative content analysis and qualitative thematic analysis to examine science memes, an increasingly popular genre of memes on TikTok, by analyzing 1,368 TikTok videos that feature science-related content. The results of the study uncover the most influential science-content creators, the most prevalent content in science memes, and three vernacular styles of science memes on TikTok. The results expand the existing science-communication scholarship focusing on the context of social media. Understanding the role of memetic science content on short-video platforms, as well as in the youth digital culture in general, also provides valuable insights into how science communicators can better engage with members of the young generation.

Political Parallelism in Transitional Media Systems: The Case of Libya

Abstract: Among the media systems in transitional countries of the Middle East and North Africa, political parallelism has become a widespread feature that has both promoted and undermined the transition to democracy. Political parallelism refers to structural ties between media organizations and political actors that often result in biased reporting. This article examines how political parallelism is shaping Libya’s newly liberated media system. Based on an analysis of ownership structures, financial sources, and political affiliations of all media outlets currently operating in this fractured country, we show that the structures of the Libyan media system indeed reflect the anatomy of political conflict. At the same time, the analysis sheds light on a large number of local radio stations that do not follow the pattern of political parallelism, but instead refrain consciously from taking political sides. We conclude that this kind of media, if invigorated and developed, could help overcome Libyan polarization.

Digital Platform Policy and Regulation: Toward a Radical Democratic Turn

Abstract: This article considers challenges to policy and regulation presented by the dominant digital platforms. A radical democratic framing of the deliberative process is developed to acknowledge the full complexity of power relations that are at play in policy and regulatory debates, and this view is contrasted with a traditional liberal democratic perspective. We show how these different framings have informed historical and contemporary approaches to the challenges presented by conflicting interests in economic value and a range of public values in the context of media content, communication infrastructure, and digital platform policy and regulation. We argue for an agonistic approach to digital platform policy and regulatory debate so as to encourage a denaturalization of the prevailing logics of commercial datafication. We offer some suggestions about how such a generative discourse might be encouraged in such a way that it starts to yield a new common sense about the further development of digital platforms, one that might favor a digital ecology better attuned to consumer and citizen interests in democratic societies.

What Does it Take to Sustain a News Habit? The Role of Civic Duty Norms and a Connection to a "News Community" Among News Avoiders in the UK and Spain

Abstract: Why do some people maintain a news habit while others avoid news altogether? To explore that question, we put findings from an interview-based study of news avoiders in the UK and Spain into dialogue with past research on factors found to shape news consumption. We found that news avoiders saw news as having limited informational benefits and high costs in terms of time, emotional energy, and mental effort. They also did not see consuming news as a civic duty to be pursued despite the costs, nor did they have strong ties to communities that highly valued news consumption. This meant they had few social incentives to return to news habitually and that connections between distant-seeming topics in the news and immediate concerns were rarely reinforced. We conclude that group-level social factors play an understudied but important role in shaping news avoidance.

Populism Fuels Love and Anger: The Impact of Message Features on Users’ Reactions on Facebook

Abstract: To increase the outreach of their messages, populists and nonpopulist political actors use populist communication strategies that stimulate users to interact with their messages on social media platforms. Yet, not much is known about the effect of such strategies on different types of user interactions of distinct valence. Applying a manual content analysis on posts of political parties and their top candidates ( N = 1,540) during the German federal election campaign in 2017, we take Likes and Facebook Reactions (Angry and Love) into consideration. We find that exclusive populist message features (anti-elitism, excluding out-groups) and negative portrayals of political actors increase the number of Angry Reactions, whereas inclusive populism and the positive depiction of ordinary citizens lead to higher numbers of Love and simultaneously reduce the number Angry Reactions. The study thereby reflects the results of experimental research on the effects of populist communication. Against this backdrop, we argue that Love and Angry can be categorized as positive and negative one-click expressions of emotional states.

Huawei Versus the United States? The Geopolitics of Exterritorial Internet Infrastructure

Abstract: The U.S. government’s recent indictment on Huawei—the Chinese telecom giant—can be used as a case study to unpack the increasing complexity in global Internet governance. By delineating the history of Huawei’s development and encounters in the United States, this article addresses the questions: In what ways and to what extent is the U.S. government using trade sanctions over a Chinese corporation to shape the future of 5G technology? The nature of this case is not much about bilateral trade disputes but, rather, the intensification of the geopolitics surrounding exterritorial Internet infrastructure. Connecting the Huawei case to the historical struggles in global communication order, the study explores implications for the debates in Internet governance concerning the “multistakeholderism” and the role of nation-states.

From “ Public Journalism” to “ Engaged Journalism”: Imagined Audiences and Denigrating Discourse

Abstract: At a moment of intense uncertainty within the news industry, a growing number believe the key to the profession’s survival depends on journalists improving their relationship with the public. As a result, many news practitioners, funders, and scholars have begun advocating for journalists to “engage” with their audiences, thus expanding the audience’s role in the news production process. In this study, we use a textual analysis of metajournalistic discourse from journalism trade magazines to reveal that although the specific language surrounding “engaged” journalism is new, its reconceptualization of the journalist–audience relationship traces back to the public journalism movement of the 1990s. Our findings illustrate that these movements are remarkably similar in their motivations, their goals, and—most importantly—the way in which their advocates imagine the news audience. The results are interpreted with an eye toward of the future of the industry and the potential effects of these interventions.

Mutual Group Polarization in the Blogosphere: Tracking the Hoax Discourse on Climate Change

Abstract: A salient tactic used in online communication about anthropogenic climate change is to accuse the opposite side of being untruthful. This hoax discourse identifies one side as deniers of scientific facts and the other side as manufacturing false alarm. We study the hoax discourse on climate change in the English-speaking blogosphere as a disruptive discursive practice. The study uses automated, qualitative, and quantitative content analysis as well as network analysis to identify the main patterns of the hoax discourse, drawing on a sample of almost 50,000 blog posts related to climate change published online for one year, from May 14, 2016, to May 14, 2017. The study shows that hoax discourses are a salient feature of online debates. They engage both mainstream voices and contrarians in mutual accusations. Accusations of untruthfulness are rarely voiced in a way that identifies concrete lies and liars; instead, they form part of broad attacks designed to vilify the other group. The discourse does not directly address the other side of the debate. It does not constitute a deliberation, but rather serves to affirm one’s social group identity and exacerbate mutual group polarization.

Growing Influence of University PR on Science News Coverage? A Longitudinal Automated Content Analysis of University Media Releases and Newspaper Coverage in Switzerland, 2003‒2017

Abstract: Universities have expanded their public relation (PR) departments in recent years. At the same time, news media have had to cope with reduced resources. This has led scholars to assume a growing influence of university PR on a weakened journalism. However, research on this phenomenon is scarce, and longitudinal research is missing entirely. The study at hand looks at the influence of university PR on science journalism in Switzerland by measuring the effects of media releases on media coverage. It uses large-scale, automated text comparisons combined with manual content analyses. The results show that an increasing amount of media coverage is based on media releases, and that the tone of this portion of media coverage is significantly more positive toward the university. Overall, our findings suggest an increasing influence of university PR on (science) journalism.

When Platform Capitalism Meets Petty Capitalism in China: Alibaba and an Integrated Approach to Platformization

Abstract: Combining platform studies with insights from research on petty capitalism and the political economy of the Chinese Internet, this article takes an integrated approach to analyze key moments in the historical evolution of the Chinese e-commerce monopoly Alibaba since 1999. It argues for a dynamic model of technological and cultural transformations that treats platformization as a set of historically and culturally specific processes and relations constituted by constantly shifting and interacting forces. It finds that in the early days, Alibaba deployed platform mechanisms of participation and commodification to position itself as a democratic and participatory platform contra the deficient infrastructure of the state, while relying on foreign venture capital to keep the tensions of commodification at bay to prioritize market expansion. After Alibaba had achieved monopoly after the 2008 global crisis, it has formed more symbiotic relations with the state, ramping up mechanisms of datafication, selection, and commodification to more effectively extract the surplus value generated through the labor of platform-based petty capitalists. Platform-labor tensions intensified as Alibaba’s profit imperatives began to override its earlier promises of universal access and democratic participation.

What Happens to Public Diplomacy During Information War? Critical Reflections on the Conceptual Framing of International Communication

Abstract: Discussions about state-sponsored communication with foreign publics are increasingly framed in the language of “information war” rather than “public diplomacy,” particularly in Eastern Europe. For example, media projects supported by Western governments to engage Ukrainian audiences, and Ukrainian government efforts to engage international audiences via the media, are considered necessary responses in the information war with Russia. This article highlights several potentially problematic assumptions about communicative influence that are embedded in the language of information war. First is the assumption that communication can be targeted like a weapon to achieve a predictable impact. Second is the assumption that audiences engage with communication from an adversary because they are “vulnerable.” Third is the assumption that “winning” in an information war means getting citizens to believe particular facts. Although these assumptions may hold to some degree, this article argues that adopting them uncritically can have detrimental consequences in policymaking.

Thinking With Care About Personal Data Profiling: A More-Than-Human Approach

Abstract: People’s understandings and practices related to their digitized personal information are urgent topics of social inquiry in an increasingly datafied world. This article draws on findings from an Australian qualitative study in which the stimulus of the “data persona” and an online platform were used to engage participants’ social imaginaries concerning how data profiling can benefit or harm them and to what extent they care about their personal data. The findings were theorized by thinking with more-than-human scholarship and theories of care. The study found that although these participants were well aware of data profiling and algorithmic processes such as those used for targeted advertising, most did not feel personally vulnerable to harms or risks. The participants suggested that datafication and dataveillance could never access their “real selves.” Data profiling was predominantly viewed as helpful in providing better customization. In some situations, however, data profiling and related data processing could be selective, fragmentary, and dehumanizing. The article ends with discussion of the broader implications of the study’s findings for theorizing and understanding human–data relations.

What Data Can Do: A Typology of Mechanisms

Abstract: This article offers an analytical framework for understanding the effects of data on the social world. Specifically, I ask: What happens when new data —digital or not—is introduced in a given context? Drawing on a mix of historical and contemporary examples, I provide a typology of 5 mechanisms: tracking, homogenizing, triaging, nudging, and valuating. I then demonstrate how this framework can change how we understand two empirical cases involving data-driven software programs, one in Web journalism and the other in criminal justice. Based on this analysis, the article makes three main points. First, at a time of rapid technological development, we should pay particular attention to what is not changing with digitization. Second, we need further theoretical integration in the rapidly growing field of critical data studies. Third, I suggest that the umbrella concept of “data” should be broken down into smaller and more manageable components depending on the mechanisms scholars are interested in studying.

“We Need You to Listen to Us”: Youth Activist Perspectives on Intergenerational Dynamics and Adult Solidarity in Youth Movements

Abstract: This study aims to surface youth perspectives on their own activism, their experiences of age-based power dynamics in activist spaces, and their understandings of adult allyship. Using semistructured interviews and innovative participatory visual methods that invite youth to create and discuss original memes, we investigate these questions from the perspective of 10 youth activists involved in counterhegemonic organizing movements in the United States. Our analysis reveals that youth activists feel fundamentally misunderstood along multiple dimensions, including the practice of activism in online and offline spaces, the meaning of young people’s participation in activism, and their desires or expectations in terms of intergenerational allyship. By highlighting the key frustrations experienced by youth organizers and the solidarity practices that they desire from adult allies, this research contributes to a bottom-up understanding of youth activist praxis in relation to larger cultural discourses and adultist systems, while identifying practical implications for intergenerational support.

The Politics of Good Enough: Rural Broadband and Policy Failure in the United States

Abstract: The U.S. rural–urban digital divide has been a policy concern for more than a decade. The issue has intensified with the COVID-19 pandemic and the requirement that people live, work, and study online from home. This is not possible for more than 42 million Americans, most notably those in rural communities, who lack access to high-speed Internet (broadband). Despite a policy of universal service and billions of dollars for deployment, policy makers have been unable to close the rural–urban digital divide. To understand this disjuncture between policy and deployment, this article analyzes current U.S. rural broadband policies as developed and implemented by the Federal Communications Commission. Drawing on critical political economy and theories of policy failure, I argue that rural broadband policy has failed in three capacities: meaning, mapping, and money. These failures occur because of a “politics of good enough” that dominates U.S. rural broadband policy.

Video Screen Interfaces as New Sites of Media Circulation Power

Abstract: This article examines the screen interfaces that have become central to the experience of television, film, and video content in an era when Internet-distributed video coexists with older technologies. We outline how these interfaces represent new sites of media circulation power in their ability to direct audiences toward certain kinds of experience and content, and therefore away from others, power that we contextualize in the longer term history of media industries. We identify multiple levels of video interface: those provided by various video devices, those offered by video services, those of marketplaces that sell services, and aggregated interfaces that blend all of these activities. We identify mechanisms of circulation power that can be applied to all of these interface types, including interface placement, recommendation, search and other functions, and metric display power. We conclude by outlining some ways in which policy and regulation might respond to these emerging forms of media circulation power, and the implications for research on streaming services and other developments in the media industries.

Women’s Responses to Online Harassment

Abstract: Given the ubiquity of social media platforms, the online harassment of women is deservedly drawing significant attention from the media, academics, and the platforms themselves. This study uses data from in-depth interviews with 23 women university students, who were harassed/cyberbullied, to explore how young women respond to negative experiences online. Findings suggest women deploy various defensive strategies while navigating online spaces, from normalizing harassment—and taking it for granted—to self-censorship and withdrawal. Interpreting these responses through a feminist lens clarifies the implications for women’s willingness and ability to participate in public spaces and highlights an increased urgency for social media platforms to address and mitigate harassment.

Algorithmic Knowledge Gaps: A New Horizon of (Digital) Inequality

Abstract: Algorithms serve as gatekeepers and arbiters of truth online. Understanding how algorithms influence which information individuals encounter better enables them to properly calibrate their reception of the information. Yet, knowledge of platform algorithms appears to be limited and not universally distributed. In line with the long history of knowledge inequities, we suggest that algorithmic knowledge varies according to socioeconomic advantage. We further argue that algorithms are experience technologies in that they are more easily understood through use. Nevertheless, socioeconomic background continues to shape information and communication technology use, thereby further influencing disparities in algorithmic knowledge. Using data from a survey of a random sample of Internet users in the United States, we found support for the relationship between algorithmic knowledge and socioeconomic background in the context of online search. The findings provide preliminary evidence that extant structural inequalities underlie algorithmic knowledge gaps in this domain.

Ideological Health Spirals: An Integrated Political and Health Communication Approach to COVID Interventions

Abstract: As evidence mounts regarding Americans’ politically polarized responses to COVID-19, researchers need a comprehensive explanatory model to account for how and why political dynamics operate in the context of health behaviors. By conceptualizing interpersonal discussion and media selection behaviors as outcomes of identity-driven motivations shaped by political and psychological variables, the ideological health spirals model (IHSM) remedies a gap in current empirical analyses of COVID-related behaviors. The model explains how media fragmentation, political polarization, and social sorting reinforce communication discrepancies that create gaps in attitudinal, normative, and efficacy-related beliefs, which then inform health behaviors. This process is cyclical; the beliefs that result from this identity-motivated process support the same identity-driven motivations that again encourage interpersonal network and media selection behaviors. The hope is that health communication scholars and public health experts can use the IHSM to (a) identify the groups least likely to receive or act on the most beneficial health messages and (b) determine the most effective expert-informed regulations, recommendations, and communication strategies to disrupt dysfunctional spirals.

Practicing Media—Mediating Practice | News as Relational Social Practice: A Theoretical Framework

Abstract: Most studies of news focus on production structures, texts, or audiences, often in isolation. But what might be the value of theorizing them together? A practice framework lends itself to this task. Both durable and contingent practices underlie news consumption and communication. These practices manifest in news content that expresses a dual-layered meaning system of enduring moral foundations and specific cultural codes. The problem-solving practices of news consumption and the goal-seeking practices of news communication intersect at the content of news, fomenting reciprocal relationships of mutual support and dependency between the two. This is news as relational social practice. Theorizing news as such provides a way of negotiating the dichotomies of durability/specificity, citizen/professional, and similarity/difference that currently structure the scholarship on news and social theory.

Communicating Academic Knowledge Beyond the Written Academic Text : An Autoethnographic Analysis of the Mirror Palace of Democracy Installation Experiment

Abstract: The article first discusses five approaches that aim to transcend, complement, or overturn the hegemony of the written academic text. These five approaches are (1) the cluster of science communication, science popularization, and knowledge dissemination; (2) the cluster of knowledge exchange, and participatory, transformative, and interventionist (action) research; (3) multimodal academic communication; (4) the cluster of visual anthropology and visual sociology; and (5) arts-based research. As each approach deals with (overcoming) the hegemony of the written academic text differently, the first part of the article details these approaches. In the second part, the Mirror Palace of Democracy installation experiment, which had the explicit objective of moving beyond the written academic text while still remaining in the realm of academic knowledge communication, is autoethnographically analyzed. The experiment allowed reflection on the integrated and iterative nature of academic communication, on the hybrid academic–artistic identity, and on the diversification of publics. Both the theoretical discussion on the five approaches and the Mirror Palace of Democracy installation are part of a call for more experimentation with, and theorization of, multimodal and/or arts-based academic communication.

Mapping Connective Actions in the Global Alt-Right and Antifa Counterpublics

Abstract: The study examines how the Alt-Right and the Antifa counterpublics build counteridentities and influences through three connective actions: crowdsourced gatekeeping, hashtag-based framing, and political jamming. By studying social networks of Twitter-based information flows and semantic networks based on hashtag co-occurrence, coupled with bot-detection algorithms, the study presents how counterpublics build like-minded communities for information sharing and use Twitter mentions to seek rapport with fellow counterpublic members and challenge ideological opponents. Both counterpublics adopt counteractions to varying degrees in the form of oppositional framing, mockery, and trolls. Their hashtags suggest that the Alt-Right is a transnational alliance of populism and ethnonationalism capitalizing on U.S. President Donald Trump and his Make America Great Again movement, whereas Antifa’s identity is more decentralized and activist-oriented, defined by progressive causes, offline rallies, and cyber operations. The results of the study shed light on digitally mediated counterpublics and how connective actions support their goals.

Assessing Digital Threats to Democracy, and Workable Solutions: A Review of the Recent Literature

Abstract: Concerns surrounding the threats that digital platforms pose to the functioning of Western liberal democracies have grown since the 2016 U.S. election. Yet despite a preponderance of academic work in this area, the precise nature of these threats, empirical solutions for their redress, and their relationship to the wider digital political economy remain undertheorized. This article addresses these gaps with a semisystematic literature review that identifies and defines four prominent threats—fake news, filter bubbles/echo chambers, online hate speech, and surveillance—and constructs a typology of “workable solutions” for combating these threats that highlights the tendency to silo technical, regulatory, or culturally embedded approaches.

Social Media and Protest Attitudes During Movement Abeyance: A Study of Hong Kong University Students

Abstract: Much research in the past decade has illustrated the role of social media in protest mobilization and coordination, but few have examined whether and how social media facilitated movement continuity after the end of a protest cycle. This study contributes to knowledge about this research gap by examining levels of social media use and how social media use relates to protest attitudes—persistence, pessimism, and radicalism—among young people during movement abeyance. Analyzing a survey of university students in Hong Kong in March 2019, several months before the onset of the antiextradition bill protests, the findings show that political use of social media related to how young people evaluate the Umbrella Movement, the previous peak of mobilization in the city. Both social media use and evaluation of the Umbrella Movement shaped people’s protest attitudes. Overall, the findings suggest that social media help maintain protest potential even at a time when social mobilization is generally weak.

Parenting Style, Personality Traits, and Interpersonal Relationships: A Model of Prediction of Internet Addiction

Abstract: This study examined how parenting style can help or hinder the development of healthy family relationships when Internet addiction is a concern. A sample of 700 middle school and 500 college students in Zhuhai (a special administrative city in Southern China) were surveyed using self-report questionnaire scales to examine the links among Internet addiction, parenting style, personality traits, and interpersonal communication skills. The findings indicate that problematic parenting styles, such as strict attitudes, heavy punishment, and regularly withholding affection significantly predict individuals’ Internet addiction. Dysfunctional parent–child relations can drive children to extensively use the Internet for escape. In addition, personality traits of introversion, tendency to lie, neuroticism, and psychoticism are positively associated with Internet addiction. Poor interpersonal skills are also linked to self-reported Internet addiction. This study found an interaction effect among parenting style, interpersonal relationships, and personality traits that produced a significant joint effect predicting Internet addiction. The findings provide some guidance for policy makers and professional counselors involved with youth and families struggling to treat Internet addiction.

Professional Autonomy and Structural Influences: Exploring How Homicides, Perceived Insecurity, Aggressions Against Journalists, and Inequalities Affect Perceived Journalistic Autonomy in Colombia

Abstract: Journalistic autonomy has been studied more frequently in countries with secure democracies in terms of journalists’ perceptions of freedom and independence to work in the midst of the controls, pressures, and influences perceived in the newsrooms. Based on objective variables and on a national survey completed by 546 Colombian journalists, this article examines how inequality, violence, and insecurity affect their perceived autonomy to develop and publish news. Using regression analysis and statistical mediation, it was found that political and economic influences intervene in the relationship between aggressions against journalists and the decrease in journalistic autonomy. This decrease is strongest when violence comes internally from the work environment and when gender inequalities, homicides, and insecurity are connected to newsrooms. In the conclusion, recommendations are offered for future studies and postagreements of peace in Colombia.

The European Refugee Crisis Discourse in the Spanish Press: Mapping Humanization and Dehumanization Frames Through Metaphors

Abstract: The European refugee crisis has a central role in media and political narratives about migration these days. By applying critical metaphor analysis, this article explores how the Spanish press framed the crisis using metaphors in 2015, 2016, and 2017. The evolution of the different ways of conceptualizing migrants and European policies shows two metaphorical frames: the dehumanization frame, where refugees are a natural disaster/mass water or objects/goods, and the humanization frame, where migrants are positively framed as travelers, but also negatively, as troublemakers. Spain as a political actor has no agency till 2016 and 2017, when it is portrayed under the living thing source domain, mainly in a negative way. It is concluded the way in which the refugee crisis is framed is in line either with EU relocation or resettlement policies and points out the connection between language and policy.

Click It, Binge It, Get Hooked: Netflix and the Growing U.S. Audience for Foreign Content

Abstract: Analysis of survey results from U.S. residents ( N = 288) watching foreign content on Netflix found that respondents watch foreign content more than they did before starting to access it through the platform and hold favorable attitudes toward foreign countries and subtitles. The data also support a theorized synergistic relationship between viewing frequency and use of the recommendation system for foreign content discovery. Results are discussed in terms of accessibility and cultural affinity as video on demand (VOD) platform affordances that may affect global media flows from the reception side. Implications for passive soft power accumulation are also considered.