Subjects -> JOURNALISM AND PUBLICATION (Total: 219 journals)
    - JOURNALISM (31 journals)
    - JOURNALISM AND PUBLICATION (148 journals)
    - NEW AGE PUBLICATIONS (8 journals)
    - PUBLISHING AND BOOK TRADE (32 journals)

NEW AGE PUBLICATIONS (8 journals)

Showing 1 - 8 of 8 Journals sorted alphabetically
Applied Psychophysiology and Biofeedback     Hybrid Journal   (Followers: 8)
Aries     Hybrid Journal   (Followers: 3)
New Educator     Open Access  
New Media & Society     Hybrid Journal   (Followers: 75)
New Perspectives Quarterly     Hybrid Journal  
New Political Science     Hybrid Journal   (Followers: 14)
New Scientist     Full-text available via subscription   (Followers: 600)
New Testament Studies     Hybrid Journal   (Followers: 34)
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New Media & Society
Journal Prestige (SJR): 2.262
Citation Impact (citeScore): 4
Number of Followers: 75  
 
  Hybrid Journal Hybrid journal (It can contain Open Access articles)
ISSN (Print) 1461-4448 - ISSN (Online) 1461-7315
Published by Sage Publications Homepage  [1176 journals]
  • Unraveling WhatsApp group dynamics to understand the threat of
           misinformation in messaging apps

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      Authors: Antonis Kalogeropoulos, Patrícia Rossini
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      In this article, we present an analysis of distinctive WhatsApp uses with a focus on group dynamics, and how they are correlated with exposure to, belief in, accidental, and purposeful sharing of misinformation as well as misinformation corrections. Based on two nationally representative surveys in Brazil, and after controlling for a range of factors, we find that (a) being part of WhatsApp groups with no ties is significantly correlated with higher exposure to, belief in, and engagement with online misinformation, including sharing misinformation and being corrected for misinformation, as well as correcting others for misinformation on WhatsApp; (b) frequency of posting on WhatsApp is also significantly correlated with all our dependent variables, suggesting the role of hyperactive minorities in the spread of misinformation; and (c) discussing current affairs in strong tie groups and having frequent one-to-one discussions are significantly correlated with only a limited number of misinformation-related attitudes and beliefs.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-09-30T04:35:44Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448231199247
       
  • Mind ascribed to AI and the appreciation of AI-generated art

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      Authors: Tanja Veronika Messingschlager, Markus Appel
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      Creative artificial intelligence (AI) has received a lot of attention in recent years. Artworks that are introduced to be generated by AI (rather than a human artist) are, however, often evaluated negatively. Integrating extant research, we suggest that AI is ascribed less mind (i.e. agency and experience) which is responsible for this effect. In two experiments (N = 176 and N = 381) we observed negative indirect effects of artist information (AI vs human artist) on the appreciation of visual artworks. The AI is consistently ascribed less agency and less experience than a human artist. Higher levels of experience and agency ascribed to an artist are, in turn, associated with higher appreciation of a piece of art. In both experiments the total effect of artist information on appreciation was not significant. Artist information did not predict whether the artwork deviated positively from viewers’ expectations developed before the actual artwork was encountered.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-09-26T09:19:27Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448231200248
       
  • Interpretive communities of resistance: Emerging counterpublics of
           immigration alarmism on social media

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      Authors: Tine Ustad Figenschou, Kjersti Thorbjørnsrud
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      Debates over immigration have become a defining political cleavage closely related to moral values, perceptions of threat, and the rise of online anti-immigration networks and agitation. Based on in-depth interviews with immigration alarmists, this article discusses how the participants’ anti-immigration position is sanctioned in their everyday social networks and how they find alternative networks online for information, community, and support. This online community takes the form of an emerging counterpublic, characterized by active curation and different levels of participation aimed at optimizing the trade-offs between gaining visibility (moderation and mobilization) and creating an alternative moral community (a “safe space” for peers). Combining notions of interpretative communities of resistance with the theory of counterpublics, the study provides insight into the internal life and values of emerging anti-immigration online communities.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-09-26T09:16:49Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448231198790
       
  • Platformized family politics: A case study of Chinese cross-border
           wives’ storytelling on YouTube

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      Authors: Xuezhi Du
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      This article explores Chinese cross-border wives’ experiences, challenges and coping mechanisms and their interaction with the ecology and algorithm of the platform by focusing on their storytelling and practices on YouTube. Through in-depth, semi-structured interviews, narrative analysis and more than 2 years of virtual ethnography, I observed the family politics and power dynamics presented in the videos of Chinese cross-border wives. I found two types of family politics within the ‘power game’ of interculturally married families. Wives who have experienced significant domestic injustice tend to demonstrate and reaffirm their moral capital, whereas those who are content with their marriage lives tend to demonstrate to subscribers how they play the power game with wisdom. Nevertheless, by focusing on a marginalized group on YouTube, I illustrate the platform’s role in these Chinese cross-border wives’ family politics, the great effort they made to attain popularity, the invisibility they endured and their highly unpredictable platform practice.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-09-26T09:14:37Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448231200877
       
  • “Indoctrinated by the left!.”: How politicians respond to
           street protest on social media

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      Authors: Luna Staes, Ruud Wouters
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      On social media, politicians present themselves on public issues to achieve re-election. Protest provides one opportunity for politicians to do so. In this study, we ask: How do politicians respond to protest on social media' And, which factors determine how politicians react' Building upon classic typologies of politicians’ rhetorical strategies, we study Twitter and Facebook posts (N = 8211) of Belgian politicians (N = 225) who respond to protest (N = 124) staged in Brussels (Belgium). Results show that politicians predominantly engage in position taking when responding to protest and rarely engage in advertising, blame attribution, or credit claiming, although latter reactions are more prevalent on Facebook than Twitter. A pattern of how politician features impact rhetorical responsiveness stands out. Executives are more likely to claim credit, opposition politicians are more likely to blame politics, right-wing politicians are more likely to blame demonstrators. Findings lay bare politicians’ online protest communication strategy and speak to party–protest interactions.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-09-26T09:12:27Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448231199396
       
  • The puzzle of misinformation: Exposure to unreliable content in the United
           States is higher among the better informed

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      Authors: Alvin Zhou, Tian Yang, Sandra González-Bailón
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      Healthy news consumption requires limited exposure to unreliable content and ideological diversity in the sources consumed. There are two challenges to this normative expectation: the prevalence of unreliable content online; and the prominence of misinformation within individual news diets. Here, we assess these challenges using an observational panel tracking the browsing behavior of N ≈ 140,000 individuals in the United States for 12 months (January–December 2018). Our results show that panelists who are exposed to misinformation consume more reliable news and from a more ideologically diverse range of sources. In other words, exposure to unreliable content is higher among the better informed. This association persists after we control for partisan leaning and consider inter- and intra-person variation. These findings highlight the tension between the positive and negative consequences of increased exposure to news content online.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-09-26T09:09:58Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448231196863
       
  • Assessing the perceived credibility of deepfakes: The impact of
           system-generated cues and video characteristics

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      Authors: Xinyi Jin, Zhuoyue Zhang, Bowen Gao, Shuqing Gao, Wenbo Zhou, Nenghai Yu, Guoyan Wang
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      The adverse effects of deepfakes are becoming apparent; however, less is known about what affects individuals’ credibility judgments concerning deepfakes. This article conducted two randomized controlled 2 × 2 × 2 experiments (N = 518) to explore the influence of heuristic cues (including the number of followers, popularity, and description as variables) generated by the system and video characteristics (including definition, duration, and editing as variables). The results suggest that the number of the source’s followers and the video’s popularity are positively associated with perceived credibility. Moreover, high-definition deepfakes are more efficient at deceiving viewers. Interestingly, an interaction effect indicates that it is not easy for users to detect editing traces in relatively long videos (greater than 30 s). Our study is an initial step to better understand how individuals assess video credibility and lay the grounds for approaches to combat the negative effects of deepfakes.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-09-25T11:49:39Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448231199664
       
  • Humorous hate speech on social media: A mixed-methods investigation of
           users’ perceptions and processing of hateful memes

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      Authors: Ursula Kristin Schmid
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      Humor that denigrates social groups can be just as harmful as hate speech. Despite research indicating the prevalence of humorous hate speech, how audiences perceive and process the combination of humor (e.g. irony as a humor cue) and hate speech (e.g. dehumanization as a hate cue) remains unclear. Using a sequential mixed-methods approach combining a qualitative think-aloud study (Study 1, N = 41) with an experiment involving implicit measurements of response times (Study 2, N = 65), it was examined how individuals perceive memes that contain both humor and hate cues. While think-aloud interviews indicated that processing humorous hate speech may require multiple steps, the relative time spent by participants in Study 2 to rate humorous and non-humorous hate speech as being hostile or not did not entirely support that conclusion. However, findings imply that hostile views may become more commonplace when hate speech is masked by humor.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-09-23T10:43:58Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448231198169
       
  • Interactive mediated contact on social media: Mechanisms and effects on
           attitudes toward Ukrainian refugees

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      Authors: Wenbo Li, Shan Xu, Masahiro Yamamoto, Kerk Kee
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      This study examined the effects of interactive mediated contact, intergroup contact enabled by social media engagement, on attitudes toward Ukrainian refugees, as well as the psychological mechanisms underlying these effects, such as empathy and perceived threat. A three-wave longitudinal survey of 555 US adults was conducted in March and May 2022. The results of a cross-lagged panel model showed that interactive mediated contact predicted greater empathy and perceived threat. Subsequently, these two factors predicted positive and negative attitudes toward Ukrainian refugees, respectively. Empathy and perceived threat mediated the effect of interactive mediated contact on intergroup attitudes over time. Furthermore, intergroup attitudes predicted increased empathy and decreased perceived threat subsequently, but did not predict further interactive mediated contact on social media. This study contributes to our understanding of mediated contact in social media environment.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-09-23T10:36:59Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448231197640
       
  • Book Review: Red Pilled: The Allure of Digital Hate

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      Authors: Kat Fuller
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.

      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-09-20T01:13:16Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448231199180
       
  • Book Review: Stolen Focus: Why You Can’t Pay Attention

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      Authors: Hakan Karahasan
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.

      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-09-15T12:51:38Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448231199219
       
  • Digital play on children’s terms: A child rights approach to
           designing digital experiences

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      Authors: Sonia Livingstone, Kjartan Ólafsson, Kruakae Pothong
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      Children have the right to play (UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, 1989), yet their opportunities to play on their own terms (free play) are under pressure, including online. Drawing on an analysis of the qualities of children’s free play across time and cultures, a nationally representative survey of UK 6- to 17-year olds compared their experiences of play across digital and non-digital contexts to identify design features that enhance or undermine children’s digital play and propose evidence-based recommendations for digital products and services likely to be used by children. Children viewed digital play more critically than non-digital play although both were judged poorly on key qualities of ‘intrinsically motivated’, ‘voluntary’, ‘risk-taking’ and ‘safety’. Logistical regression analysis shows that rights-respecting design features contribute to children’s enjoyment of digital play more than premium or freemium designs do, thus supporting Playful by Design recommendations that can benefit children.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-09-09T12:51:35Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448231196579
       
  • Book Review: Personal But Not Private: Queer Women, Sexuality, and
           Identity Modulation on Digital Platforms

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      Authors: Sophie Argyle
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.

      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-09-08T10:18:36Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448231199250
       
  • Book Review: On Black Media Philosophy

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      Authors: Victoria Netanus Grubbs
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.

      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-09-08T10:17:12Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448231199179
       
  • Social media suspensions as dignity takings: Users’ personal loss in
           “account bombing”

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      Authors: Shangwei Wu, Hui Fang
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      Moving beyond the publicness-oriented perspective in Internet censorship studies, this article directs attention to censorship’s consequences for users’ personal lives. We examine “account bombing” in China, a phenomenon where social media platforms suspend user accounts permanently, and we focus on the loss of the “victims.” Notably, people commonly use social media accounts as personal archives that store their digital traces, from which they obtain a sense of self, and perceive the accounts as their private property. We use the dignity takings theory to illustrate the dual harm the victims suffer in account bombing: Censorship deprives them of both their social media accounts and dignity. We propose the concept of “dual dehumanization” to explain the dignity violation in account bombing, as this arbitrary conduct not only occurs in a dehumanizing manner, but also destroys users’ identity work and community ties.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-09-08T10:15:37Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448231197370
       
  • Book Review: Worn Out: How Retailers Surveil and Exploit Workers in the
           Digital Age and How Workers Are Fighting Back

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      Authors: Subhalakshmi Gooptu, Shiv Issar
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.

      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-09-08T07:05:02Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448231199176
       
  • Push notifications and news snacking: The impact of mobile news alert
           framing on reader engagement

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      Authors: Renee Barnes, Rory Mulcahy, Aimee Riedel
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      How news media, such as newspapers and magazines, is consumed has dramatically changed due to technological developments, such as mobile and high-speed Internet technology. As a result, there has been a dramatic shift in consumer consumption of news from desktop and television to mobile platforms such as smartphones and tablets. Due to the shift of news consumption from desktop and television platforms to mobile, journalists have had to consider how news headlines and alerts must be tailored to match the distinctive characteristics of mobile platforms and consumers’ engagement patterns on such devices. Drawing on construal theory (CLT), this study will examine how mobile alerts should be framed to optimize engagement. Overall, it finds a combination of abstract construal through combination of a gain and other frames results in heightened levels of curiosity in readers leading to further engagement with news products.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-09-08T07:03:17Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448231196580
       
  • Truth be told: How “true” and “false” labels influence user
           engagement with fact-checks

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      Authors: Natalia Aruguete, Ingrid Bachmann, Ernesto Calvo, Sebastián Valenzuela, Tiago Ventura
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      When do users share fact-checks on social media' We describe a survey experiment conducted during the 2019 election in Argentina measuring the propensity of voters to share corrections to political misinformation that randomly confirm or challenge their initial beliefs. We find evidence of selective sharing—the notion that individuals prefer to share pro-attitudinal rather than counter-attitudinal fact-checks. This effect, however, is conditioned by the type of adjudication made by fact-checkers. More specifically, in line with motivated reasoning processes, respondents report a higher intent to share confirmations (i.e. messages fact-checked with a “true” rating) compared with refutations (i.e. messages fact-checked with a “false” rating). Experimental results are partially confirmed with a regression discontinuity analysis of observational data of Twitter and replicated with additional experiments. Our findings suggest that fact-checkers could increase exposure to their verifications on social media by framing their corrections as confirmations of factually correct information.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-09-01T10:32:29Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448231193709
       
  • ‘Audiencing’ the travel blog: Examining how practices of audiencing
           influence the affective labour of travel bloggers online

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      Authors: Nina Willment
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      This article demonstrates how applying the concept of audiencing allows us to better understand how the presence of different audiences online mediates the affective labour practices of content creators. The article focuses on one distinctive example of online content creators: British travel bloggers. First, the article argues that audiencing provides an important lens to witness the diversity of affective labour practices being undertaken by travel bloggers, contributing to the wider literature around affective work. Second, the article also demonstrates how travel bloggers are an important focus of study, as they utilise visual and narrative experiences of place as the key foci through which they tailor their affective work to different relationships of audiencing. This finding contributes to the labour on audiencing, by demonstrating how creative labourers use a stimulus (such as discussions of place) as a mechanism through which to tailor their affective work.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-08-31T06:21:55Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448231193982
       
  • Algorithmic indifference: The dearth of news recommendations on TikTok

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      Authors: Nick Hagar, Nicholas Diakopoulos
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      The role of recommendation systems in news consumption has been hotly contested. From one perspective, the combination of personalized recommendations and practically limitless content diminishes news consumption, as people turn to more entertaining fare. From another, algorithmic systems and social networks heighten incidental exposure, raising opportunities for news consumption regardless of explicit individual interest. In this work, we examine the potential for algorithmic exposure to news on TikTok, a massively popular social network built around short-form video. In the context of US-based news audiences, we examine the accounts TikTok recommends, the videos it shows new users, and its trending hashtags. We find almost no evidence of proactive news exposure on TikTok’s behalf. We also find that, while TikTok’s algorithms respond slightly to active signals of news interest from simulated users, that response does not lead to increased exposure to credible news content. These findings highlight a lack of algorithmic news distribution on TikTok.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-08-30T09:14:47Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448231192964
       
  • Algorithm dependency in platformized news use

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      Authors: Nadja Schaetz, Emilija Gagrčin, Roland Toth, Martin Emmer
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      Previous research has highlighted the ambiguous experience of algorithmic news curation whereby people are simultaneously comfortable with algorithms, but also concerned about the underlying data collection practices. The present article builds on media dependency theory and news-finds-me (NFM) perceptions to explore this tension. Empirically, we analyze original survey data from six European countries (Germany, Sweden, France, Greece, Poland, and Italy, n = 2,899) to investigate how young Europeans’ privacy concerns and attitudes toward algorithms affect NFM. We find that a more positive attitude toward algorithms and more privacy concerns are related to stronger NFM. The study highlights power asymmetries in platformized news use and suggests that the ambivalent experiences might be a result of algorithm dependency, whereby individuals rely on algorithms in platformized news use to meet their information needs, despite accompanying risks and concerns.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-08-29T06:37:32Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448231193093
       
  • Finding a rhythm: The mediality of researching digital skill as process

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      Authors: Frederik Lesage, Nicole K Stewart, Song Tang
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      Our objective for this article is to illustrate the importance of understanding digital skill as process by taking its mediality—interweaving tools, technologies, and media—into consideration. Drawing on 12 case studies with participants performing digital tasks, we use Ingold’s four phases of skill (getting ready, setting out, carrying on, and finishing off) to research and represent the rhythm of digital skill. By using medialities of inscription, scripting, and annotation, we demonstrate how researchers can use mediality to perceive rhythms of digital skill without being physically co-located in the performance. As different medialities enable and constrain the perception and descriptions of digital skill, we develop spotlines as a method that combines different medialities particularly well suited for describing and comparing the temporal order of phases for performing digital skill by rendering each performer’s pace and intensity.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-08-29T06:34:45Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448231192966
       
  • Black representation in social media well-being research: A scoping review
           of social media experience and psychological well-being among Black users
           in the United States

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      Authors: Jennifer Park, Jada Hallman, Xun Sunny Liu, Jeff Hancock
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      There has been a wide array of scholarship that has investigated the effects of social media use on psychological well-being since 2006, with most focusing on general populations, specific populations of non-Black individuals, or specific use patterns such as passive use, active use, and addictive use. Comparatively, the extant literature focusing on Black populations is sparse. In this scoping review, we collected 38 articles that studied social media experience and psychological well-being by Black social media users in America. We found recurring research themes that focused on the Performance of Signifyin,’ cyberbullying victimization, racial stereotyping and discrimination, along with more common well-being measures, including self-esteem, social support, depression, stress, anxiety, and negative affect. The findings of this research suggest nuanced dynamics of Black social media experience, potentially due to the unique overlapping influences of social practices and exposure to traumatizing content that Black users encounter on social media. Because our examination of articles was limited to populations of Black users in the United States, we note that our findings may not be extendable to Black social media users who reside in other parts of the world.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-08-29T05:45:16Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448231191542
       
  • Playbor, gamble-play, and the financialization of digital games

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      Authors: Trevor Zaucha, Colin Agur
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      This article examines non-fungible token (NFT) applications and their users through a qualitative textual analysis of NFT-based video game Axie Infinity’s Discord server. It considers NFT applications’ dual purposes as entertainment media and financial instruments and posits that the interests of capital inform users’ engagement. In an environment defined by distrust and uncertainty, predominantly Filipino digital laborers’ (“Scholars”) experiences and interactions with the game’s ownership class (“Managers”) reflect pre-existing patterns of exploitation made inexpensive by differences in currency valuations, accessible by access to digital devices, available by global financial uncertainty, possible by a lack of user protection and governance, and permissible by light government regulation. To navigate an interplay of designed systems and human behavior, users share gameplay and marketplace knowledge. The blurring of gaming, gambling, and finance discussed here risks fostering an increasingly gamified approach to work and finance and facilitates exploitation of global, stratified labor.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-08-26T12:30:52Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448231190907
       
  • Corrigendum to ‘Does aggressive commentary by streamers during violent
           video game affect state aggression in adolescents'’

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      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.

      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-08-24T05:11:34Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448231194873
       
  • Posting photos that reflect positive aspects of everyday life on Instagram
           increases appreciation, life satisfaction, and happiness

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      Authors: Ewelina Smoktunowicz, Olga Białobrzeska, Zuzanna Jakubik
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      We conducted two studies to verify whether using Instagram to post photos that reflect positive aspects of one’s life increased appreciation and subsequently improved well-being. In the correlational Study 1, participants (N = 291) were regular users of Instagram, and in the randomized controlled trial Study 2 (N = 283), they were newcomers. We found that regular users are motivated to use Instagram to capture life’s positive moments, and their higher frequency of posting was associated with increased appreciation and, in turn, greater life satisfaction and happiness (Study 1). New users, regardless of whether they were instructed to post positive photos (experimental conditions) or not (control conditions), posted exactly this kind of content. The more positive the photos were, the higher participants’ appreciation, life satisfaction, and happiness (Study 2). Posting appreciative content on social media might have a beneficial impact on users’ well-being and become a foundation for future interventions.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-08-23T11:08:04Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448231193092
       
  • TikTok as algorithmically mediated biographical illumination: Autism,
           self-discovery, and platformed diagnosis on #autisktok

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      Authors: Meryl Alper, Jessica Sage Rauchberg, Ellen Simpson, Josh Guberman, Sarah Feinberg
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      Scholarship in the sociology of medicine has tended to characterize diagnosis as disruptive to one’s self-concept. This categorization, though, requires reconsideration in light of public conversations about mental health and community building around neurocognitive conditions, particularly among youth online. Drawing upon Tan’s notion of “biographical illumination” (BI), which describes how medical frameworks can enrich personal biographies, we explored the shifting nature of BI through the case of TikTok. Combining quantitative and qualitative methods, we argue that TikTok serves as a space to discuss diagnosis and refine one’s sense of self as a result of diagnosis. However, such personal transformation is inseparable from the app’s affordances, or what we term “algorithmically mediated biographical illumination.” BI shapes TikTok as a platform, and TikTok informs BI as a psychosocial process, leading to what we call “platformed diagnosis.” These findings have broader critical applications for the study of algorithms, disability, and digital platforms.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-08-19T11:49:10Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448231193091
       
  • “You dumb cracker b*tch”: The legitimizing of White supremacy during a
           Twitch ban of HasanAbi

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      Authors: Aisha Powell, Dana Williams-Johnson
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      Despite newer media technologies alleviating barriers of entry for marginalized groups, media still fails to address White supremacy at large. The live-streaming service Twitch banned one of its top streamers Hasan Piker in December 2021 for using the word “cracker” during a stream. Despite the myriad of complaints from women, people of color, LGBT +, and people with physical disabilities about targeted harassment they received on the platform, Twitch has taken little to no action on to ban those attacks. Utilizing critical whiteness and white framing theory, this study reviewed the discourse of Twitch influencers, who created YouTube reaction videos about the ban. All three of the influencers used rhetoric that sustained White supremacy like downplaying the impact of systemic racism, victimizing White men, and calling for freedom of hate speech. The implications of this study outline how the policing of hate speech can facilitate White supremacy on platforms.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-08-19T06:58:19Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448231191776
       
  • The higher the news literacy, the wider the partisan gap on misinformation
           acceptance' The three-way interaction effects of news literacy,
           partisanship, and exposure to partisan YouTube channels on misinformation
           acceptance

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      Authors: Kyungeun Jang, Young Min Baek
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      Drawing on two competing hypotheses from the prevention and partisan gap frameworks, this study tests how news literacy, partisanship, and exposure to partisan YouTube channels interact to influence misinformation acceptance. Partisan YouTube channels in this study refer to a type of soft journalistic content with a partisan perspective. Panel survey data (N = 808) collected during the 2020 South Korean General Election campaign were analyzed. Supporting the partisan gap hypothesis, the results show that when exposed to partisan YouTube channels, those with higher news literacy were more likely to process misinformation in a biased manner, such that party-congenial misinformation is more likely to be accepted, while party-uncongenial misinformation is more likely to be rejected with an increase in news literacy level. This indicates that the effects of news literacy on misinformation acceptance vary depending on political factors. Furthermore, in the context of politically biased media, the partisan gap widens among those with greater news literacy.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-08-18T10:58:51Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448231191142
       
  • Mapping verification behaviors in the post-truth era: A systematic review

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      Authors: Wenting Yu, Fei Shen
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      Given the widespread misinformation problem in societies across the globe, scholars aiming to combat misinformation wish to change verification behaviors at the individual level. To map what is known about media users’ verification behaviors, this study reviewed 52 articles and analyzed how verification research has progressed so far. The results indicate that verification research has been conducted since 2000 but has increased considerably in recent years. However, a clear definition and a standard measure of verification behaviors were missing. Theories and methodologies from different disciplines have been adopted to investigate verification behaviors. The examined variables are diverse, but the overall understanding of the findings is fragmented. Interestingly, the COVID-19 pandemic boosted the number of studies on media users’ verification behaviors and brought changes to the direction of the research. This review calls for a better conceptualization and validated measures of verification behaviors and examinations of verification in more diverse contexts.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-08-18T10:53:04Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448231191138
       
  • Online memes on anti-American propaganda and the overlooked “silent
           majority” in support of authoritarian populism in Putin’s Russia

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      Authors: Volha Kananovich
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      Although memes are considered disruptive to elite control over political discourse, their viability for contestation in authoritarian settings remains uncertain. The present study addresses this question by analyzing Russian memes created to ridicule the Kremlin’s propaganda, which accuses the United States of undermining Russia domestically and internationally. These memes depict US presidents engaging in trivial acts of sabotage, from damaging worn-out roads to urinating in dilapidated buildings, thereby exposing the absurdity of Russia’s claims to superpower status. Importantly, the memes go beyond ridiculing the regime to vilify “ordinary Russians” as unsophisticated subscribers to the government’s narrative. The study shows that by focusing on the tug-of-war between the authorities and the protesting “vocal minority,” communication scholars may overlook a sizable “silent majority” that enables authoritarian consolidation. I argue that such outgroup memetic articulations, despite their limitations in mobilizing broader publics, offer valuable insights into authoritarian populism that surpass this empirically flawed binary logic.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-08-18T10:43:04Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448231191137
       
  • Politics of Deliberate Inaction: The disconnect between platform
           justifications and user imaginaries on content moderation in a ‘free
           speech’ online forum

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      Authors: Mathilda Åkerlund
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      This article analyses the ‘free speech’ online forum Flashback, which adheres to a strict non-interference policy when it comes to user-generated content, but beyond this also forbids users from deleting their own content or accounts. Through a qualitative content analysis, this article sought to understand the relationship between the platform and its users with respect to this unconventional approach to moderation and content removal. This article discusses both the position(s) taken by Flashback as it pertains to its policy of minimal moderation, and the expectations as expressed by users navigating Flashbacks rules and their practical implementations. The article shows a discrepancy between how Flashback (incoherently) justifies minimal moderation and how users had imagined the platform operating. The article also discusses how Flashback maintains these policies through its community’s active encouragement via supportive posting and silencing of non-conformers, and the consequences that Flashback’s inaction has in terms of residual hate.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-08-18T10:32:12Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448231190905
       
  • “Ironic memes” and digital literacies: Exploring identity
           through multimodal texts

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      Authors: Vinicio Ntouvlis, Jarret Geenen
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      This study examines so-called “ironic memes,” a seemingly inscrutable genre of memetic Internet content, as meaningful digital multimodal text. Considering Internet memes’ semiotic construction patterns and their social functions, this study connects these two concerns, asking: How is the provocatively “nonsensical” design of ironic memes organized and connected to the construction of (group) identities online' Adopting a digital ethnographic approach, we employ a combination of multimodal discursive methods in order to jointly analyze semiotic design patterns and the social actions underlying them. The analysis suggests that, despite their nonsensical appearance, ironic memes rely on distinct design strategies that contribute to the construction of (group) identities rooted in digital literacies. Specifically, ironic memes constitute generic hybrids where semiotic practices are associated with personas that are “less literate” in Internet memeing. Our findings indicate that digital literacies can feature as central in the construction of superdiverse identities through digital text-making and text-sharing.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-08-18T10:27:13Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448231189801
       
  • Moderating mental health: Addressing the human–machine alignment problem
           through an adaptive logic of care

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      Authors: Anthony McCosker, Peter Kamstra, Jane Farmer
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      Covid-19 deepened the need for digital-based support for people experiencing mental ill-health. Discussion platforms have long filled gaps in health service provision and access, offering peer-based support usually maintained by a mix of professional and volunteer peer moderators. Even on dedicated support platforms, however, mental health content poses difficulties for human and machine moderation. While automated systems are considered essential for maintaining safety, research is lagging in understanding how human and machine moderation interacts when addressing mental health content. Working with three digital mental health services, we examine the interaction between human and automated moderation of discussion platforms, contrasting ‘reactive’ and ‘adaptive’ moderation practices. Presenting ways forward for improving digital mental health services, we argue that an integrated ‘adaptive logic of care’ can help manage the interaction between human and machine moderators as they address a tacit ‘risk matrix’ when dealing with sensitive mental health content.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-08-14T10:21:24Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448231186800
       
  • Go big or go home: Examining the longitudinal relations between exposure
           to successful portrayals on social media and adolescents’ feelings of
           discrepancy

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      Authors: Sarah Devos, Lara Schreurs, Steven Eggermont, Laura Vandenbosch
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      Social media abound with successful portrayals in nearly every life domain (e.g. appearance, social life). Many researchers have expressed concerns about such portrayals, claiming that they might be detrimental to adolescents’ self-development. More specifically, continuous exposure to successful portrayals on social media may encourage adolescents to perceive these portrayals as standards to meet, which might evoke feelings of discrepancy (i.e. the feeling of falling short of important standards). The results of a three-wave longitudinal study (N = 1032, Mage = 14.55, SD = 1.65) revealed that exposure to different types of successful portrayals on social media (i.e. attractive appearance and a perfect life) does not relate to feelings of discrepancy over time, and vice versa at a within-person level. Yet, between-person associations were present for both types of successful portrayals with feelings of discrepancy. Hence, our findings stress the importance of taking into account both between- and within-person relations when examining social media effects.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-08-10T09:09:08Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448231188935
       
  • Information processing likelihood, eHealth literacy, and complexity of
           seeking strategies as predictors of health decision-making quality

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      Authors: Yaron Connelly, Nehama Lewis, Ilan Talmud, Giora Kaplan
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      eHEALS is one of the most prevalent scales used to measure eHealth literacy. However, significant criticism toward its conceptualization had raised. This study tests the effects of eHEALS alongside constructs from the elaboration likelihood model and information seeking processes, within a multidimensional model to predict medical decision-making quality. We test this model using a sample of 56 participants who completed a 45-minute online simulation task, requiring them to offer recommendation for a hypothetical medical scenario. Findings revealed that neither eHealth literacy nor elaboration likelihood independently predicted decision quality. However, eHEALS was positively associated with higher decision quality, but only among participants who had greater motivation and ability to process health information, and who used more complex information seeking strategies. Findings suggest that the eHEALS measure can be examined using a multidimensional theoretical approach to illustrate the ways in which patients obtain and utilize health information to make informed decisions.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-08-08T09:00:41Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448231189856
       
  • Towards a ‘pluralist’ approach for examining structures of interwoven
           multimodal discourse on social media

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      Authors: Chamil Rathnayake, Daniel Suthers
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      This study proposes a framework for examining hashtagged content on social media, which captures how specific issue frames (i.e. hashtags) contribute to navigable structures. We introduce ‘interwoven multimodal discourse’ as a pluralist alternative to the widely applied unitary approach in which trending hashtags serve as primary sites of analysis. The study argues that ‘interweaving’ of social media discourse takes place through practices such as hashtag colocation, which result in ambient and navigable structures. Analysis of hashtag colocation networks can serve as an approach for mapping ambient affiliations accessible through such structures. We analyse a hashtag colocation network constructed using a sample of 1100 Instagram posts related to climate change uploaded during the United Nations Climate Change Conference 2021 (COP26) held in Glasgow to demonstrate two structural properties of interwoven discourse on Instagram: (1) hashtags contribute to multiple thematic clusters and (2) micro-level hashtags representing secondary topics are nested within larger thematic clusters.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-08-08T08:56:27Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448231189800
       
  • Navigating the gray areas of content moderation: Professional
           moderators’ perspectives on uncivil user comments and the role of
           (AI-based) technological tools

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      Authors: Andrea Stockinger, Svenja Schäfer, Sophie Lecheler
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      Professional content moderators are responsible for limiting the negative effects of online discussions on news platforms and social media. However, little is known about how they adjust to platform and company moderation strategies while viewing and dealing with uncivil comments. Using qualitative interviews (N = 18), this study examines which types of comments professional moderators classify as actionable, which (automated) strategies they use to moderate them, and how these perceptions and strategies differ between organizations, platforms, and individuals. Our results show that moderators divide content requiring intervention into clearly problematic and “gray area” comments. They (automatically) delete clear cases but use interactive or motivational moderation techniques for “gray areas.” While moderators crave more advanced technologies, they deem them incapable of addressing context-heavy comments. These findings highlight the need for nuanced regulations, emphasize the crucial role of moderators in shaping public discourse, and offer practical implications for (semi-)automated content moderation strategies.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-08-08T08:53:21Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448231190901
       
  • Doing gender in game spaces: Transgender and non-binary players’ gender
           signaling strategies in online games

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      Authors: Aiden James Kosciesza
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      Transgender and non-binary people manage public perceptions of their genders not only in the material world, but also within the virtual worlds of online digital games. Game spaces offer a site of trans and non-binary embodiment that can be decoupled from the physical world, yet these spaces remain embedded in structures of cisnormative hegemony. In this exploratory study, I interviewed 10 players whose gender identities do not conform to the static male-female binary that is encoded, both literally and ideologically, in games. This work centers the experiences of non-cisgender people with particular attention to the differences in how virtual environments are approached by those who wish to present within binary gender/sex categories and those who do not. I consider both the features and the constraints of the digital game environment, and their implications for non-cisgender players’ processes of gender expression and identification.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-08-07T07:00:09Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448231168107
       
  • Effects of #coronavirus content moderation on misinformation and
           anti-Asian hate on Instagram

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      Authors: Traci Hong, Zilu Tang, Manyuan Lu, Yunwen Wang, Jiaxi Wu, Derry Wijaya
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      This study evaluated the intended and unintended effects of Instagram’s content moderation on #coronavirus for both the short- and long-term effects on misinformation and anti-Asian sentiment. We performed manual coding of images (N = 9648), and a series of supervised machine learning methods to classify three waves of comments (N = 22,676) published in 2020 on Instagram. Welch’s F tests were used to compare misinformation, emotions, toxicity, and identity attack across three time periods. The results showed that hashtag moderation had an intended effect in reducing misinformation, and an unintended effect in reducing anger, fear, toxicity, and identity attack. Images with people of East Asian descent were associated with more anger, fear, toxicity, and identity attack than images with people of other races. Prior to content moderation, misinformation was associated with identity attack. Stigmatization on social media, and content moderation of misinformation and hate speech are discussed.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-08-04T11:52:10Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448231187529
       
  • Book Review: Redefining Sports Media

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      Authors: Moch. Zainul Arifin, Benni Setiawan, Jalaluddin B
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.

      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-08-03T12:08:29Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448231191194
       
  • Shifting platform values in community guidelines: Examining the evolution
           of TikTok’s governance frameworks

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      Authors: Ngai Keung Chan, Chris Chao Su, Alexis Shore
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      Social media can establish governance frameworks for their users through public-facing documents and policies. Such governance frameworks are value-laden and embody platform values. As a newly dominant platform in the United States, TikTok serves as an exemplary medium to study the evolution of platform values. Based on the iterations of TikTok’s Community Guidelines from 2018 to 2022 (N = 25,641), we conducted longitudinal lexical analyses to determine changes in their structure and value salience. Then, through network analysis, we demonstrated how values co-exist by constructing co-occurrence networks. Our results reveal that the lexical complexity and value interconnection of these policies have increased over time. Certain values are more central in the networks than others (e.g. privacy, safety, and fairness), which may be attributed to a public outcry for change. The evolution of TikTok’s governance frameworks follows three mechanisms (mediation, reversion, and founding paths) in shaping the core-periphery structures of platform values.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-08-01T08:54:46Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448231189476
       
  • Anti-COVID = Anti-science' How protesters against COVID-19 measures
           appropriate science to navigate the information environment

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      Authors: Anna Berg
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      Opponents of COVID-19 measures invoke science in curious ways: they collect data, cite scientific studies, and even conduct their own research projects. Previous research has explained these scientific appropriations as the product of motivated reasoning, the result of widespread disinformation, or a populist strategy. This study provides a further explanation by focusing on these scientific projects. Drawing from repeated interviews with a select group of 36 anti-lockdown protesters in Germany, I find that my interviewees draw on scientific repertoires in order to overcome information insecurities triggered by their discovery of online countermedia. Although the results of their scientific efforts often remain inconclusive, through the process of doing research, protesters achieve a reorientation in the information environment and begin to rely on countermedia as a source of information and political opinion. Based on these findings, I argue that protesters refer to the sciences as a conversion technique.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-08-01T05:28:14Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448231189262
       
  • Beyond ownership: Human–robot relationships between property and
           personhood

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      Authors: Marco Dehnert, David J Gunkel
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      As artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled social robots continue to enter our lifeworlds, we will need to grapple with challenges to assumptions about our relationship to and even with these technological objects. This essay works at the intersection of social robotics, legal studies, and human–machine communication to explore the concept of ownership in human–machine relations. In particular, we draw on more-than-human approaches to ask: To what extent should (need) we retire the concept of ownership in the context of AI-enabled social robots' With a particular emphasis on companion robots, we explore alternatives to the ownership modality by investigating concepts such as personhood, a degrees-of-relationship perspective, and a situational approach to understanding human–robot relationships. The goal is to re-imagine human–robot relationships beyond legal confinements by engaging a pragmatic perspective that supplements existing philosophical approaches. We conclude the paper by discussing practical implications of our proposed perspective.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-08-01T05:25:33Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448231189260
       
  • (How) did self-rated health status shape Internet use among older adults
           during the COVID-19 pandemic in Germany'

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      Authors: Miriam Grates, Martina Brandt
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      This study aims to shed light on health disparities in Internet use among older adults at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Using data from the 2020 German Ageing Survey short survey (N = 2243), we examined the links between self-rated health (SRH, independent variable) and four Internet use purposes (dependent variables) that might have been particularly relevant for older adults with health limitations during the pandemic: online information search, maintaining social contacts, religious purposes, and consultations with doctors or therapists. Multivariate regression analyses revealed that older adults with poor SRH were more likely than those with good SRH to use the Internet for online consultations with doctors or therapists, whereas they were less likely to use the Internet to search for information and to maintain social contacts at least once per week. This hints to health-related inequalities in Internet use which merit further investigation.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-08-01T05:23:15Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448231188971
       
  • Bursts of contemporaneous publication among high- and low-credibility
           online information providers

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      Authors: Ceren Budak, Lia Bozarth, Robert M Bond, Drew Margolin, Jason J Jones, R Kelly Garrett
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      In studies of misinformation, the distinction between high- and low-credibility publishers is fundamental. However, there is much that we do not know about the relationship between the subject matter and timing of content produced by the two types of publishers. By analyzing the content of several million unique articles published over 28 months, we show that high- and low-credibility publishers operate in distinct news ecosystems. Bursts of news coverage generated by the two types of publishers tend to cover different subject matter at different times, even though fluctuations in their overall news production tend to be highly correlated. Regardless of the mechanism, temporally convergent coverage among low-credibility publishers has troubling implications for American news consumers.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-07-31T12:08:01Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448231183617
       
  • Exploring citizen discussions’ potential to inform smart city agendas:
           Insights from German-city-centered online communities

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      Authors: Max Schindler, Emese Domahidi
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      With more than 50% of the world’s population living in urban areas, the smart city concept has been introduced as a solution to urbanization problems, with a focus on technological and social innovation. However, critics argue that the concept is more about marketing than actual benefits for citizens. Given the limitations of conventional and formalized e-participation and smart city procedures, we highlight the value of shared citizen knowledge and the potential of e-interaction in this context by analyzing city-related informal social media communication, following recent calls to embrace citizens’ opinions in the smart city framework. This work focuses on major German cities with more than 100,000 inhabitants. The authors identify nine categories of interest in citizens’ discussions. Unlike official channels, citizens tend to focus on social and societal issues. The results of this study can complement existing tools by including citizens’ perspectives in smart city decision-making processes.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-07-31T11:11:02Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448231187032
       
  • Platform rules as privacy tools: The influence of screenshot
           accountability and trust on privacy management

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      Authors: Alexis Shore, Kelsey Prena
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      Society has normalized the use of the screenshot feature to surreptitiously capture and share private digital messages. While screenshots have utilitarian purposes, we provide evidence that this feature enables violations of interpersonal privacy expectations. In addition, we extend communication privacy management (CPM) theory beyond its interpersonal limitations to include platforms as privacy rulemakers through explicit cues and embedded trust. We conducted a 2(Accountability cue: present or absent) × 3(Platform trust: high, low, control) between-subjects experiment to understand their conditional impact on control over and disclosure of personal and co-owned information within a proposed digital messaging platform (N = 307). Our experimental results showcase the power of a screenshot accountability cue and platform trust on privacy perceptions and management within messaging platforms. Implications for design against the screenshot feature are discussed.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-07-29T04:56:24Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448231188929
       
  • Media framing and public support for China’s social credit system:
           An experimental study

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      Authors: Ping Xu, Brian Krueger, Fan Liang, Mingxin Zhang, Marc Hutchison, Mingzhi Chang
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      Although China’s social credit system (SCS) is widely portrayed by Western media as repressive surveillance, recent studies show that it receives high levels of support among Chinese citizens. Previous research suggests that people support the SCS because they lack knowledge about the system. This study further examines the roles of media framing (Western vs Chinese framing) and monitored behaviors (financial vs social behaviors). The results from a survey experiment conducted in China (N = 1600) demonstrate that when exposed to Western framing, public support for the SCS is lower, but only when participants are informed that the SCS monitors social behavior. By contrast, when people are told that the SCS focuses on financial behavior, Western framing exposure is not associated with low levels of public support. The findings suggest that an expansion to social domains and exposure to Western media framing will likely result in decreased support for the system.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-07-28T11:29:03Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448231187823
       
  • Satellite surveillance and the orbital unconscious

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      Authors: Siobhan Lyons
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      Satellite data are frequently attached to discourses of infallibility, objectivity and omnipresence. Yet the value of satellite data in everyday society largely depends on the strength of our interpretations, interpretations which are easily misled. Satellite images can be fabricated, misread and restricted, yet companies like Google encourage users to see themselves as active agents in a collaborative process of accumulating data, obscuring users’ true relations with satellite technology and giving them a false sense of power and anonymity. In this sense, satellites constitute a new unconscious terrain of perception. For Geert Lovink, we have reached an age where we can ‘read satellites as metaphors, as a new type of technological mirror’ and as ‘an unconscious apparatus’. This article argues that our lack of conscious awareness around the presence, nature and infrastructure of satellites allows them to thrive under the radar as a new species of unconscious surveillance technology.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-07-28T11:25:24Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448231187352
       
  • An issue public’s confirmation-biased news feeding in changing political
           constellations: A quasi-experimental field study in the German conflict
           over genome editing

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      Authors: Senja Post, Nils Bienzeisler, Franziska Pannach
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      Contributing to the study of curated news flows, we investigated how conflicting participants in an issue public fed mainstream news into their Twitter networks. In a quasi-experimental field study in the context of the 2018 European Court of Justice’s ruling on genome editing, we combined standardized manual content analyses of a universe of legacy media news items (N = 165), users’ tweets (“feeds”) linking these news items (N = 2014), and users’ profiles (N = 1070). Confirming existing knowledge, opponents and proponents of genetically modified organisms largely fed news items confirming their issue attitudes. Extending existing knowledge, we show that counter-attitudinal news feeding became more likely when users had a political disadvantage rather than a political advantage in the controversy. However, this was only true for the more active but not for the more inactive news feeders.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-07-27T09:34:47Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448231185764
       
  • The interplay between game design and social practice

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      Authors: Kristian Haulund Jensen, Lars Fynbo, Nicolai Nybro Hansen
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      Game design’s influence on how gaming is practiced is a debated topic within video game research. Overlapping with this debate are questions of how game design and social practice each contribute to experiences of problematic gaming. In this study, we drew on focus groups and individual interviews with a total of 107 adolescents. We deployed practice theory to demonstrate how game design is an integrated part of the material configurations of everyday gaming practices. Furthermore, we will provide empirical examples of how interplays between game design and social practices can shape experiences of problematic gaming. In the analysis, we will demonstrate how adverse consequences of gaming can emerge in the clash between game design and everyday life obligations. Additionally, we will show how strategically designed monetary mechanics and patterns can be intensified or stifled by players’ socializing practices. Finally, we will address the interplay between gendered practices and game designs.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-07-26T11:37:59Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448231187820
       
  • Do people believe in misleading information disseminated via memes' The
           role of identity and anger

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      Authors: Maria D. Molina
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      Do people believe in misleading information disseminated via contemporary Internet memes' Do they believe in it more compared with information provided via text' This research explores these questions via a 3 (modality: contemporary internet meme vs text-only vs text-with-explanation) × 2 (identity-congruence: congruent vs incongruent) between-subject online experiment, using two contexts of investigation (crime and taxes). Findings indicate that identity-congruent posts (vs incongruent), regardless of modality, were perceived as more credible. These effects occurred due to the invocation of the self-identity heuristic (if content is similar to my identity, then it is automatically credible) and the other-identity heuristic (if content is similar to the identity of others in my network, then it is automatically credible). However, the effects of identity-congruent posts were diminished when the content was presented as a contemporary Internet meme (vs text). This occurred because identity-congruent posts in meme modality evoke anger.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-07-26T11:31:40Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448231186061
       
  • Belonging here and there: How social media affect the transnational lives
           of Spaniards in Iceland

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      Authors: Sigrún K Valsdóttir, Miranda J Lubbers
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      Following the economic crisis of 2008–2014, the number of Spaniards in Iceland has quintupled. This study explores how young, highly qualified Spanish migrants in Iceland adopt social media to become embedded in Iceland and to maintain relationships in Spain, and how it affects their sense of belonging. For this aim, semi-structured interviews were held in 2017–2018 with 29 Spaniards residing in Iceland, and their personal networks were analyzed. We found that migrants who felt they belonged to both Spain and Iceland had more social relationships in Iceland and used more social media platforms to sustain their local and transnational networks compared with migrants who felt they belonged nowhere or only in Spain. Not only did they extend their repertoires with new social media, they also adapted how they used platforms to the media environment in Iceland. In this way, social media facilitated a sense of local and transnational belonging.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-07-24T12:46:05Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448231185595
       
  • Demystifying Schadenfreude: How disposition theorizing explains responses
           to social media stories of unvaccinated COVID-19 deaths

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      Authors: Matthew Grizzard, Rebecca Frazer, Charles Monge
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      Herman Cain Awards are presented on reddit.com/r/hermancainaward to individuals who share COVID-19 misinformation on social media (SM) and subsequently die from the disease. We apply affective disposition theory’s moral judgment predictions regarding message and audience factors and Schadenfreude theorizing to explain reactions to similar SM posts. In an experiment with a large census-matched sample, participants viewed a series of SM posts similar to those on featured on reddit.com/r/hermancainaward. We manipulated two message factors: whether the poster was dogmatic or uncertain in their anti–COVID-19-vaccination stance and whether they expressed regret before they died. Dogmatic posting resulted in perceptions of the poster as more immoral and deserving of worse health outcomes, but regret mitigated these effects. Notably, political party and vaccination status, two audience factors, moderated these processes. Our findings demonstrate that SM posting is a morally relevant behavior and that narrative moral judgment theories seem capable of explaining reader’s responses.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-07-22T11:46:04Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448231184868
       
  • Imagining permanence on the web: Tracing the meanings of long-term
           preservation among the subjects of web archives

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      Authors: Kieran Hegarty
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      This article explores how web archiving impacts the online communication practices of individuals whose personal websites have been archived by major public libraries. Drawing on interviews with website creators and analysis of their written reflections on the archiving process, it demonstrates how web archiving alters the meanings people attach to their online activity. In most cases, the preservation of their website in a national web archive sees individuals perceive their communication practices as having wider cultural and historical significance. These meanings are shaped by the distinctive interaction between archiving and archived actors and propelled by imaginaries surrounding the culture and history of the collecting institution. Based on these findings, this article argues that web archiving can be productively understood as an intervention in the dynamics of online sociality and calls for reflexive archival and research practices that attend to the short- and long-term impacts of altering the visibility of online material.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-07-22T09:35:38Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448231187031
       
  • Book Review: Seen & Unseen: Technology, Social Media, and the Fight
           for Racial Justice

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      Authors: Heath Row
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.

      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-07-22T09:32:00Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448231186407
       
  • Book Review Essay: Transmedia Storytelling in East Asia: The Age of
           Digital Media

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      Authors: Xiaoyi Sun
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.

      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-07-17T10:18:50Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448231187635
       
  • Book Review: Metrics at Work: Journalism and the Contested Meaning of
           Algorithms

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      Authors: Gabrielle Beacken
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.

      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-07-12T11:14:56Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448231186128
       
  • Discourse integration in positional online news reader comments: Patterns
           of responsiveness across types of democracy, digital platforms, and
           perspective camps

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      Authors: Julia Jakob, Chung-hong Chan, Timo Dobbrick, Hartmut Wessler
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      Online discourse integration, or the degree to which online user comments are responsive, that is, address or refer to other debate participants, is a normatively valued yet neglected quality dimension of online discussions. This preregistered study features the first cross-country/cross-platform investigation of online discourse integration, using manual and computational content analysis (N = 9835 and N = 30,753 positional news reader comments). Unexpectedly, about one quarter of the comments was responsive in both majoritarian and consensus-oriented democracies (Australia/United States vs Germany/Switzerland) and on platforms that separate or mix public and private contexts (websites vs Facebook pages of mainstream media), even though other deliberative quality criteria were previously shown to vary by country and platform. Comments that are responsive to fellow commenters in the opposing perspective camp were more likely to contain negative evaluations of those addressed, whereas comments responsive within the same perspective camp were more likely to contain positive evaluations.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-07-12T11:13:36Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448231183704
       
  • Book Review: The Prison House of the Circuit: Politics of Control from
           Analog to Digital

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      Authors: Malcolm Ogden
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.

      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-07-12T10:56:48Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448231187114
       
  • ‘Neither work nor leisure’: Motivations of microworkers in the United
           Kingdom on three digital platforms

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      Authors: James Muldoon, Paul Apostolidis
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      This article examines the experience of microworkers living in the United Kingdom. Based on a survey of 1189 microworkers and 17 in-depth interviews, the article explores the experiences of UK-based microworkers on three digital platforms: Prolific, Clickworker and Amazon Mechanical Turk. The article draws on the theoretical framework of self-determination theory to analyse workers’ motivations for performing microwork. It reveals that workers’ relatively high satisfaction with otherwise low-paying and low-status work was possible because workers conceptualised their activity as occupying an ambiguous space and time in their lives, blurring traditional distinctions between work and leisure. These findings contribute to our understanding of how microworkers experience their relationship to work in the United Kingdom.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-07-12T10:51:19Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448231183942
       
  • Communication between grandparents and young grandchildren over distance:
           Establishing contact with constitutive nonhumans

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      Authors: Marije Nouwen, Janne Mascha Beuthel, Verena Fuchsberger, Bieke Zaman
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      Physical items are often taken for granted in mediated communication between grandparents (GP) and young grandchildren (GC). This article puts “constitutive nonhumans” at the center of inquiry to understand the potential of physical items and communication technologies to communicate over distance. The notion of phaticity operationalizes the role of constitutive nonhumans to establish and maintain contact over distance, which might have pleasurable or unpleasurable outcomes. A relational view on agency supports the entanglement of humans and nonhumans when they cooperate to communicate over distance. The article reports on a two-phase qualitative study that was conducted in two European countries with 10 GP (aged 60–75 years) and 10 GC (aged 6–11 years). The results identify how the entanglement between constitutive nonhumans conflates emotional connection and contact. Furthermore, the results suggest that the condition of familiarity can direct contact to pleasant or unpleasant outcomes that might differ across mediated and co-located communication.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-07-12T10:38:38Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448231183703
       
  • Book Review: Computing Taste: Algorithms and the Makers of Music
           Recommendations

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      Authors: Jack Webster
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.

      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-07-10T11:41:48Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448231185902
       
  • Book Review: Strategic communication and AI, public relations with
           intelligent user interfaces

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      Authors: John Maina Karanja
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.

      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-07-10T08:34:17Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448231185908
       
  • Behold the metaverse: Facebook’s Meta imaginary and the circulation
           of elite discourse

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      Authors: Brent Lucia, Matthew A Vetter, Isaac Kwabena Adubofour
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      Despite pushback from regulatory and non-governmental entities, Meta’s control over the public narrative remains consistent. Using a method of corpus analysis, this study investigated the company’s sociotechnical imaginary as it circulates in media artifacts (428) responding to Zuckerberg’s 2021 Metaverse announcement. Analysis of how these artifacts respond to issues related to identity, security, and connectivity revealed that the majority amplify Meta’s corporate messaging, empowering its elite discourse and solidifying its socio-technological power. As it relates to user privacy, however, this study uncovered a limited number of artifacts in which journalists challenged rather than repeated Meta’s rhetoric. As an implication of this finding, future tech journalism should consider privacy as a starting point for critiques that also interrogate the underlying logic of surveillance capitalism and user exploitation. Ultimately, this article addresses the rhetorical functions deployed in the circulation of elite discourse while acknowledging the dynamism of sociotechnical imaginaries.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-07-10T08:28:08Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448231184249
       
  • A new solution to political divisiveness: Priming a sense of common
           humanity through Facebook meme-like posts

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      Authors: Gina M Masullo
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      This two-study package examines sense of common humanity—a subcomponent of the psychological construct of self-compassion—in relation to political divisiveness. Study 1 (n = 1010) employs a survey with a probability sample representative of the US population to show that sense of common humanity—recognizing that feeling bad about oneself is a common human experience—is associated with feeling competent to form relationships with those one disagrees with politically. This finding paved the way for Study 2, an experiment (n = 955) that showed sense of common humanity can be primed using meme-like posts on Facebook, and, as a result, lead people to have more positive attitudes toward their political outgroup. From a theoretical perspective, this study demonstrates the relevance of using self-compassion as a framework for addressing political divisiveness, and that a sense of common humanity can be primed in the computer-mediated space of Facebook.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-07-08T06:36:46Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448231184633
       
  • Book Review: Mixed Methods Perspectives on Communication and Social Media
           Research

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      Authors: Chenghui Wu, Ya Sun
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.

      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-07-07T12:20:10Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448231185896
       
  • Does aggressive commentary by streamers during violent video game affect
           state aggression in adolescents'

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      Authors: David Lacko, Eliška Dufková, Hana Machackova
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      In the past 10 years, live-streaming services have gained huge popularity. Streamers usually play video games and complement their performance with commentary. We examine the role of this streamer commentary on state aggression in Czech adolescents who were randomly assigned into one of the three experimental groups (i.e. aggressive commentary, non-aggressive commentary, no commentary). The findings suggest that a short-term streamer’s commentary has no effect on affective and cognitive state aggression. In addition, the experimental conditions did not moderate any effects of personal traits (i.e. aggression, empathy) and long-term environmental factors (i.e. exposure to violence, watching violent streams, playing violent video games) on state aggression. We found that trait aggression, trait affective empathy and long-term exposure to violence were positively associated with state aggression, whereas trait sympathy was negatively associated with state aggression. The findings enrich the research with evidence for the lack of influence of streamer commentary on viewer aggression.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-07-07T12:13:31Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448231182620
       
  • The tension between connective action and platformisation: Disconnected
           action in the GameStop short squeeze

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      Authors: Michael Vaughan, Johannes B Gruber, Ana Ines Langer
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      Although the Reddit-led short squeeze of GameStop shares in 2021 drew comparisons with Occupy Wall Street, this article focuses on one key area of difference: where Occupy exemplified the theoretical model of connective action through its discursive and technological openness, mobilisation around the short squeeze followed a different pattern characterised by discursive and technological disconnections, which we argue partly reflects the intervening decade of platformisation. Our case shows how platforms can establish boundaries as well as brokerage points in contentious politics, with particular regard to repertoires of action, collective identities and discourses. We show how in our case, these boundaries impeded discursive and technological connections, instead organising users into relatively disconnected zones and ultimately reducing their power and impact over broader discursive systems. Our argument is explored using three data sets from Reddit, Twitter and legacy news media outlets, using a combination of non-negative matrix factorisation (NMF) topic modelling and manual content analysis.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-07-01T08:27:31Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448231182617
       
  • What do we know about algorithmic literacy' The status quo and a research
           agenda for a growing field

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      Authors: Anne Oeldorf-Hirsch, German Neubaum
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      The increasing role of algorithms shaping our use of communication technology—particularly on social media—comes with a growth of empirical research attempting to assess how literate users are regarding these algorithms. This rapidly emerging field is marked by great diversity in terms of how it theorizes and measures our understanding of algorithms, due, in part, to the opaque “black box” nature of the algorithms themselves. In this review article, we summarize the state of knowledge on algorithmic literacy, including its definitions, development, measurement, and current theorizing on human–algorithm interaction. Drawing on this existing work, we propose an agenda including four different directions that future research could focus on: (1) balancing users’ expectations of algorithmic literacy with developers’ responsibility for algorithmic transparency, (2) methods for engaging users in increasing their literacy, (3) further developing the affective and behavioral facets of literacy, and (4) addressing the new algorithmic divide.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-07-01T07:07:58Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448231182662
       
  • Decolonizing the pocket monster: Smartphones, Pokémon Go and generational
           conflict in Malaysian Borneo

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      Authors: Asmus Rungby, Poline Bala
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      This article analyzes the generational politics of smartphones in the Malaysian state of Sarawak in the context of Bornean history and contemporary Sarawakian political economy. We respond to a global north bias in the standing literature on smartphone media and suggest approaches to improve representation of global south perspectives. Concretely, we propose three programmatic maxims as a methodological guide to incorporate perspectives and concerns from the global south more fully. Drawing on long-term ethnographic research in Sarawak, we demonstrate the value of these suggestions by framing smartphones in the perspective of Bornean history as tools for maintaining instrumental social networks more than exchanging information across spatial disjunction. These tools are used differently by young urbanites and older rural populations. This leads us to show how Pokémon Go refracts generational conflicts by becoming the cultural touchstone of the changing political economic conditions of Malaysian urbanization.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-06-29T09:08:51Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448231181620
       
  • Not all skepticism is “healthy” skepticism: Theorizing accuracy- and
           identity-motivated skepticism toward social media misinformation

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      Authors: Jianing Li
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      Fostering skepticism has been seen as key to addressing misinformation on social media. This article reveals that not all skepticism is “healthy” skepticism by theorizing, measuring, and testing the effects of two types of skepticism toward social media misinformation: accuracy- and identity-motivated skepticism. A two-wave panel survey experiment shows that when people’s skepticism toward social media misinformation is driven by accuracy motivations, they are less likely to believe in congruent misinformation later encountered. They also consume more mainstream media, which in turn reinforces accuracy-motivated skepticism. In contrast, when skepticism toward social media misinformation is driven by identity motivations, people not only fall for congruent misinformation later encountered, but also disregard platform interventions that flag a post as false. Moreover, they are more likely to see social media misinformation as favoring opponents and intentionally avoid news on social media, both of which form a vicious cycle of fueling more identity-motivated skepticism.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-06-26T11:52:30Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448231179941
       
  • Cross-cutting interaction, inter-party hostility, and partisan identity:
           Analysis of offensive speech in social media

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      Authors: Zeyu Lyu
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      This study utilizes social media data and deep-learning-based text classification methods to investigate cross-cutting interactions on social media. Our findings reveal that people are more likely to use offensive speech in response to content published by opposing partisans. Furthermore, we demonstrate how inter-party hostility is associated with the partisan identity of both the message sender and the target in the interaction. On one hand, the findings indicate that strong partisans and people who publicly assert their partisan identities tend to attack opposing partisans, suggesting a relationship between the salience of partisan identity and value defense mechanisms. On the other hand, strong partisans, especially politicians, are more likely to be the target of offensive speech from opposing partisans. The disparity in the extent of received offensive speech is argued to result from individuals’ tendency to maintain their partisan identification by expressing hostility toward representative individuals of opposing partisans.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-06-23T09:47:52Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448231180654
       
  • Machine visions: A corporate imaginary of artificial sight

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      Authors: Wei-Jie Hsiao, Samantha Shorey
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      Machine vision is one the most consequential applications of artificial intelligence (AI) in contemporary society. This article analyzes how companies that produce machine vision technology articulate what it means for machines to “see.” Through a thematic analysis of more than 200 corporately produced documents, we examine the companies’ product offerings and identify three discursive techniques that entwine basic explanations of emerging technology with the ideologies of AI producers: dismantling sight into technical action, expanding the parameters of sight, and seeing through data. These recurring corporate narratives organize perceptions of automation, educating outsiders how to value computational outcomes and support them through rearranging the real-world conditions of labor. We argue that the social power of machine vision is not only in how it detects objects, but also in how it arbitrates what work is visible in visions of the industry’s future.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-06-23T08:12:50Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448231176765
       
  • Disconnective action: Online activism against a corporate sponsorship at
           WorldPride 2021

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      Authors: Sine Nørholm Just, Jannick Friis Christensen, Stefan Schwarzkopf
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      Disconnective action, this article argues, is an important supplement to the logic of connective action, which enables social movements to organize informally online. Through the (threat of) disconnection, members may (re)assert their agency in relation to social movement organizations. In conducting a case study of LGBTI+ community members’ protests of a corporate sponsorship of WorldPride 2021, we establish disconnective action as a particular form of within-movement activism that relies both on social media affordances and the conditions of possibility of hybrid media ecologies. Thus, we explore how individual members of the LGBTI+ community were able to influence the formal organization of WorldPride 2021, as the threat of community members’ disconnection from the event led the organizers to terminate a corporate sponsorship. On this basis, we conceptualize disconnective action as a central means for individual activists to shape the movements of which they are part.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-06-15T09:26:44Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448231178775
       
  • To move closer or farther away: Active domestication and limited role of
           using digital media by the visually impaired people in China

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      Authors: Tian Jing, Linxuan Gao, Huifeng Zhang
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      There are about 13 million visually disabled people in China, among which more than 8 million are blind. As an information-vulnerable group, they have unequal access to digital media. In this context, this study, by applying domestication theory, analyzes the use of digital media by the visually impaired in China based on 40 deep interviews and finds out that digital media, as a necessary opportunity, can indeed create more possibilities for increasing the social participation and improving the daily life of the visually impaired. But due to systematic and personal factors, this opportunity cannot be enjoyed by all visually impaired people. Visually impaired people have a strong subjective initiative, which can weaken the impact of digital exclusion on themselves to a certain extent. But social inclusion still determines the effect of digital inclusion, which needs to be taken seriously.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-06-15T09:22:05Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448231178316
       
  • Investigating social presence in “In Real Life” streaming for
           community building

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      Authors: Yu-Hao Lee, Chien Wen (Tina) Yuan, Nanyi Bi
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      Watching other people share their lives in real time via streaming platforms, also known as In Real Life (IRL) streams, has gained popularity as a form of entertainment and a meaningful way for people to experience social presence and community with others. Our study focuses on IRL streams to investigate how the multiple dimensions of social presence (cognitive copresence, psychological involvement, and behavioral interdependence) with the streamers and other viewers are associated with community identification. Through an online survey of 423 IRL stream viewers, our study found that community identification is associated with different dimensions of social presence derived from the streamers and other viewers. Specifically, cognitive copresence was not sufficient to evoke a sense of community. Psychological involvement with the streamers and behavioral interdependence with other viewers were significantly associated with the participants’ community identification. The findings provide support for examining social presence as a multidimensional construct in studying online interactions on platform with asymmetrical affordances in which different groups of users have varying communication affordances.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-06-12T11:30:00Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448231176769
       
  • Contingent connectivity: Internet shutdowns and the infrastructural
           precarity of digital citizenship

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      Authors: Rohan Grover
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      The Indian state has invested simultaneously in connectivity by pursuing universal Internet access and in disconnectivity by leading the world in state-ordered Internet shutdowns. How can we make sense of these contradictory approaches to technology policy' This article argues that this paradox illustrates a bifurcated experience of digital citizenship moderated infrastructurally through differential access to mobile connectivity. While previous research has largely interpreted Internet shutdowns as curtailments of freedom of expression, this article evaluates the implications for citizenship itself by bringing together scholarship on digital governance, science and technology studies (STS) approaches to Internet governance, and postcolonial and decolonial theory. More broadly, this article raises the stakes for critical analysis of how authoritarian states approach Internet policy to bridge digital divides—and for evaluating quality and contingency of connectivity experienced by marginalized and peripheral communities.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-06-08T08:46:30Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448231176552
       
  • Men who hate women: The misogyny of involuntarily celibate men

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      Authors: Michael Halpin, Norann Richard, Kayla Preston, Meghan Gosse, Finlay Maguire
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      This article uses computational data and social science theories to analyze the misogynistic discourse of the involuntary celibate (“incel”) community. We analyzed every comment (N = 3,686,110) produced over 42 months on a popular incel discussion board and found that nearly all active participants use misogynistic terms. Participants used misogynistic terms nearly one million times and at a rate 2.4 times greater than their use of neutral terms for women. The majority of participants’ use of misogynistic terms does not increase or decrease with post frequency, suggesting that members arrive (rather than become) misogynistic. We discuss these findings in relation to theories of intersectionality, masculinity, and sexism. We likewise discuss potential policies for mitigating incel misogyny and similar online discourse.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-06-06T08:11:53Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448231176777
       
  • Platforms, programmability, and precarity: The platformization of research
           repositories in academic libraries

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      Authors: Jean-Christophe Plantin, Andrea Thomer
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      We investigate in this article how repository platforms change the sharing and preservation of digital objects in academic libraries. We use evidence drawn from semi-structured interviews with 31 data repository managers working at 21 universities using the product Figshare for institutions. We first show that repository managers use this platform to bring together actors, technologies, and processes usually scattered across the library to assign to them the tasks that they value less—such as data preparation or IT maintenance—and spend more time engaging in activities they appreciate—such as raising awareness of data sharing. While this platformization of data management improves their job satisfaction, we reveal how it simultaneously accentuates the outsourcing of libraries’ core mission to private actors. We eventually discuss how this platformization can deskill librarians and perpetuate precarity politics in university libraries.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-06-06T08:10:22Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448231176758
       
  • In different worlds: The contributions of polarization and platforms to
           partisan (mis)perceptions

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      Authors: Christian Staal Bruun Overgaard, Jessica R Collier
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      Partisanship, polarization, and platforms are foundational to how people perceive contentious issues. Using a probability sample (n = 825), we examine these factors in tandem across four political claims concerning US presidential elections and the COVID-19 pandemic. We find Democrats and Republicans differ in their belief in true and false claims, with each party believing more in pro-attitudinal claims than in counter-attitudinal claims. These results are especially pronounced for affectively polarized partisans. We also find interactions between partisanship and platform use where Republicans who use Google or Twitter are more likely to believe in false claims about COVID-19 than Republicans who do not use these platforms. Our findings highlight that Americans’ beliefs in political claims are associated with their political identity through both partisanship and polarization, and the use of search and social platforms appears critical to these relationships. These findings have implications for understanding why realities are malleable to voter preferences in liberal democracies.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-06-06T08:07:11Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448231176551
       
  • Exploring subjective sociocultural understandings of “fear of missing
           out” (FoMO) and the unsettled self in a time of deep mediatization

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      Authors: Irvin Goldman, Charles H Davis, Rory Austin Clark
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      The public sphere has become increasingly digitalized and transformed by the intermeshing of social media platforms and mobile devices cultivating reimagined selves. The negative impact of living in a deeply mediatized world has fostered a phenomenon both in the public mind and academic discourse known as “fear of missing out” or by its acronym FoMO. Historically, and consistent with the “media effects” tradition, hundreds of studies have highlighted the psychological and behavioral dimensions of this construct, noting its negative effects. In opposition to the “effects” paradigmatic studies, we utilize social constructionist mediatization theory and Q methodology as frameworks for audience research that foreground subjectivity and understandings concerning the mediations of FoMO as a sociocultural construct. A total of 37 millennials and post-millennials Q sorted 55 statements resulting in three selfhood factors. Both dominant and counter “hegemonic” accounts were uncovered in the factors, respectively, identified as envy/exclusion, grounded vigilance, and managed vulnerability.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-06-05T12:23:11Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448231177966
       
  • Hate prompts participation: Examining the dynamic relationship between
           affective polarization and political participation

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      Authors: Sangwon Lee, Jihyang Choi, Chloe Ahn
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      Political participation has long been considered a cornerstone of democracy. While most studies on political participation have been grounded on a normative approach, which assumes that political participation is driven by positive civic actions, recent studies suggest that political participation is also driven by negative forces such as overconfidence in knowledge and partisan communication flows. This article builds on the latter line of research by exploring the role of affective polarization on political participation. While this line of research is not new, it suffers from a lack of clear causal order. This study relies on three-wave panel data collected during the 2022 Korean presidential election. To ensure methodological rigor, we utilized both cross-lagged and fixed-effects panel analyses. Our findings show that affective polarization stimulates political participation rather than the reverse path. In addition, we did not observe a reciprocal relationship. Implications for democracy are discussed.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-06-05T12:19:37Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448231177301
       
  • Unpaid digital care work: Unmasking the parental mediation practices of
           contemporary mothers

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      Authors: Fae Heaselgrave
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      As primary carers of children, mothers provide a central role in mediating and negotiating children’s digital media use in the home. In parental mediation research, this work is often reported with a gender-neutral tone, implying both parents play an equal role. This study challenges this bias by unmasking the mediation practices and experiences of mothers. Qualitative interviews revealed mediation is bound by maternal desires to protect, guide and educate children in their media use. The intensity of this care role, often conducted in parallel with other unpaid and paid work, also leads mothers to deploy self-satisfying strategies that facilitate repose. The study illustrates how the gendered role and experience of mothering influences the mediation strategies mothers’ use and argues for broader recognition of these nuanced practices in parental mediation research. It also discusses the implications and impact of parental mediation on the unpaid digital care work of mothers.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-06-03T05:55:44Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448231174420
       
  • Ambassadors of ideology: A conceptualization and computational
           investigation of far-right influencers, their networking structures, and
           communication practices

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      Authors: Sophia Rothut, Heidi Schulze, Julian Hohner, Diana Rieger
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      Increasingly, influencers are employed to market not only products but also ideas and beliefs. The far right has recognized the strategic potential of influencer communication to tap into new target groups and mobilize supporters. This paper provides insights into the little-explored field of far-right influencers. We conceptualize them as individual actors characterized by far-right ideology, positioned as political influencers, actively advocating for their ideological aims. Employing a multi-layered computational approach to explore communication practices and networking structures of 243 German-speaking far-right influencers on Telegram, we derive a typology and observe the emergence of a functionally differentiated influencer collective. In this collective, each community has specific functions and characteristics that emphasize different ideological aspects, mobilization modes, and influencer practices. Despite the decentralized organization, we find high efficiency in information dissemination. The results corroborate the assumed potential of far-right influencers as disseminators of ideological content who can be particularly persuasive through their role as parasocial opinion leaders.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-06-01T01:00:04Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448231164409
       
  • Paralympic cripvertising: On the gendered self-representations of
           Paralympic athletes on social media

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      Authors: Emma Pullen, Laura Mora, Michael Silk
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      Paralympic athletes are increasingly using social media platforms such as Instagram and TikTok to self-represent and engage audiences in disability counter narratives that resist dominant disability stereotypes. This is particularly the case at the intersection of gender and sexuality where social media is being harnessed to visibly reclaim gendered and sexualised disabled identities in new and diverse ways. In this article, we advance scholarship on female Paralympic athletes’ self-representational practices through an intersectional visual media analysis of the most popular female British Paralympic athlete Instagram pages. We capture a particular trend in Paralympic athletes’ self-representational practices, termed cripvertising, that intersects with gendered heteronormative scripts centred on neoliberal ableism, kinship normativity and consumption (‘branding’) capabilities. We discuss the contradictions and complexities of Paralympians self-representations and their role in relation to the subversive, pedagogical and emancipatory potential for shaping new disability media narratives, disabled (online) normativity and representational politics.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-05-29T09:50:40Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448231173882
       
  • A systematic literature review of the motivations to share fake news on
           social media platforms and how to fight them

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      Authors: Cristiane Melchior, Mírian Oliveira
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      This review aims (a) to investigate the motivations to share fake news on Social Media Platforms (SMPs) according to the Self-Determination Theory (SDT); (b) to identify the solutions to fight these motivations and the agents in charge of implementing them; and (c) the user’s role in this process. We reviewed 64 journal articles published up to April 2022. Misinformation belief and entertainment stood out as the most cited intrinsic motivations, while self-promotion, conspiracy theory, and political ideology were the most cited extrinsic motivations in the reviewed literature. The main solutions to fight fake news spreading on SMPs are improving users’ digital literacy, refining interventions, rating headlines, and sources, and promoting users’ engagement to consume content sustainably. These interventions should be adopted by four agents: governments, SMPs, civil society, and private health organizations. However, the role of SMP users themselves is critical in this process.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-05-27T11:42:31Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448231174224
       
  • The influence of group membership on online expressions and polarization
           on a discussion platform: An experimental study

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      Authors: Nick Wuestenenk, Frank van Tubergen, Tobias H. Stark
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      Despite much attention for group polarization in online environments, little is known about how group membership affects online behavior. We designed an online platform where ethnic minority and majority users in the Netherlands participated in discussions about controversial topics (homosexuality and abortion). Participants were randomly assigned to either progressive, conservative, or mixed discussions on these topics, which were ostensibly held among ethnic minority or majority users. We find that when ethnic minority users are exposed to discussions among the ethnic majority (i.e., outgroup) with which they disagree, they are less likely to express their opinions and more likely to deviate from their personal opinions. Among ethnic majority users, we find the opposite: when confronted with a discussion among the ethnic minority with which they disagree, they are more likely to voice their opinion and less likely to deviate from their personal opinions. This shows that group membership can affect online polarization.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-05-27T10:43:08Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448231172966
       
  • The influence of the deliberative quality of user comments on the number
           and quality of their reply comments

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      Authors: Teresa K Naab, Hanna-Sophie Ruess, Constanze Küchler
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      Comment sections below news posts on social media pages of news outlets provide spaces for user engagement and public discussions. However, from the normative perspective of deliberative discussions, user comments often lack quality. We analyze how deliberative characteristics of Facebook user comments, namely, reciprocity, respect, rationality, and constructiveness, can influence the number and deliberative quality of the reply comments they receive. The manual content analysis shows that rationality in top comments increases the number of replies; additionally, respect, rationality, and constructiveness in top comments increase the occurrence of these characteristics in replies. The findings support assumptions about the involvement mechanisms in commenting behavior and the applicability of social norm theory in online discussions. They contribute to understanding spirals of deliberation as well as those of incivility.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-05-25T11:05:33Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448231172168
       
  • Digitally mediated code-switching in transnational families in Australia:
           Fathers and children

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      Authors: Piotr Romanowski
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      The article focuses on Polish-speaking families residing in Australia and their digitally mediated communication practices. Against the backdrop of social changes influencing family roles, a new father–child relationship characterised by presence and active involvement in a child’s life has recently transpired. As the fathers’ role in minority language transmission has not been given much prominence in research, this article offers novel insights into how Polish fathers endeavour to maintain Polish through digitally mediated communication. Research on digital practices in the context of code-switching (CS) has been scant, despite the fact that everyday reality of transnational multilingual families has been permeated by technology. With this article, I aim to touch upon the themes situated at the intersection of transnationalism, family multilingualism, language transmission, as well as new media and their role in contemporary communication practices. Six excerpts containing examples of CS practices among three different families, where instant messaging via Messenger has been adopted to maintain Polish will be scrutinised.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-05-23T09:27:13Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448231174518
       
  • The inhibition effect: Privacy concerns disrupt the positive effects of
           social media use on online political participation

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      Authors: Saifuddin Ahmed, Sangwon Lee
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      The literature on the relationship between social media and online political participation continues to expand. Yet, attention to the effect of cognitive dispositions central to user engagement on social media is rare. This study advances the current theoretical understanding of the effects of social media news use by focusing on online privacy concerns. Two studies in Singapore (Study 1 using cross-sectional survey data) and the United States (Study 2 using two-wave panel data) find that social media news use is positively associated with online political participation. Still, public concern regarding online privacy is negatively related to online political participation. Moreover, moderation analyses suggest that those with more significant privacy concerns are least likely to engage in online political participation, even at higher social media news use levels. We also identify that those with lower cognitive ability are more likely to curb online participation due to privacy concerns.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-05-23T09:13:53Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448231173328
       
  • Twitter activism: Understanding the Twittersphere as the foremost
           community for activism and dragging in Nigeria

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      Authors: Vincent Obia
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      This article appraises the use of Twitter as the principal platform for activism in Nigeria to underscore why it is preferred above all others when it comes to the formation and operation of activist communities. Drawing from reflexive thematic analysis of interviews (n = 15), I demonstrate that four reasons explain why the Twittersphere has become the central platform for activism in Nigeria. These include the use of Twitter for activism, justice, and dragging; the functional uses made possible by Twitter’s architecture; twitter as a platform for young elite influence; and the perception of Twitter as a leveller. I expand on what these themes mean for Twitter activism and social media regulation, further arguing that research into digital activism and communities should start to recognise Twitter’s centrality as a tool of choice in the formation, coordination, and amplification of activist voices.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-05-23T09:03:06Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448231172967
       
  • Correcting vaccine misinformation on social media: Effect of social
           correction methods on vaccine skeptics’ intention to take COVID-19
           vaccine

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      Authors: John Robert Bautista, Yan Zhang, Jacek Gwizdka
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      This study identifies the effect of six social correction methods on vaccine skeptics’ intention to take COVID-19 vaccine. In April–May 2021, we conducted a 3 (corrector on Twitter: ordinary person vs medical doctor vs nurse) × 2 (correction strategy: priming vs rebuttal) + 1 (control: misinformation only) between-subjects online experiment with 569 vaccine skeptics in the United States. Results show that exposure to priming-based corrections performed by a corrector, regardless of their expertise, is positively associated with intention to take COVID-19 vaccine if the information shared by the corrector is perceived to be trustworthy. This is evident among those with high or moderate vaccine skepticism. What is only evident among those with moderate vaccine skepticism is that exposure to corrections using priming (any corrector) or rebuttal (ordinary person or medical doctor) is positively associated with intention to take COVID-19 vaccine if the respondents perceived that the corrector was an expert.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-05-19T10:49:54Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448231169697
       
  • “Is everyone alive'”: Smartphone use by Ukrainian refugee
           children

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      Authors: Natalia Khvorostianov
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      By giving voice to 15 Ukrainian refugees, aged 10–14, who sheltered in a refugee camp in Poland in March 2022, this qualitative study reveals how and why they used smartphones, to cope with the challenges they faced in the first days of the Russia–Ukraine war. The results showed that by the second week since the inception of the war, the children and adolescents already had created new practices of smartphone use, suitable for war. They extensively used their smartphones offline and online for three overarching purposes: in order to emotionally regulate themselves; make significant contacts with other people; and maintain identity. The current study shows the important role of avoidant and collective coping strategies in the lives of children and adolescents in war and contributes to a deeper and pragmatic understanding of their digital coping in war.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-05-16T05:37:16Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448231173657
       
  • “Pepe the frog, the greedy merchant and #stopthesteal”: A comparative
           study of discursive and memetic communication on Twitter and 4chan/pol
           during the insurrection on the US Capitol

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      Authors: Andrey Kasimov, Regan Johnston, Tej Heer
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      Following the January 6 insurrection on the US Capitol, we sought to explore how two social media platforms were being used concurrently to disseminate far-right memes and discourse. Our study employs a mixed-methods approach to collect a large data set of images from 4chan/pol/ and using the “#stopthesteal” hashtag on Twitter between 1 January 2021 and 13 January 2021. Our findings reveal how each platform influenced the usage of memes toward identity building and far-right activism in the days leading up to and immediately after the insurrection. Our findings reveal that Twitter was used to mobilize users leading up to January 6 but led to in-fighting among the pro-Trump crowd in the days after. Meanwhile 4chan/pol users took advantage of the Overton window of the Insurrection to disseminate far-right ideology and attempt to recruit and radicalize disgruntled Trump supporters after the insurrection was deemed a failure.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-05-12T10:44:58Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448231172963
       
  • Investigating digitally mediated temporal experience: From empiricism to
           ethics

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      Authors: Tim Markham
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      Much recent scholarship in the field of media phenomenology has investigated the role of temporality in shaping our experience of digital media in everyday life, as well as the ethical and political ramifications that flow from it. Consistent with the central phenomenological tenet of locating the present as ontologically prior to any past origin, the idea is that in order to properly understand the texture of day-to-day digital navigation our focus should not be on discrete media texts or objects, but on the way they are experienced first and foremost as presents into which we find ourselves repeatedly thrown. The aim of this article is to establish an empirical framework for scrutinizing the ethical dimensions of digitally mediated temporal experience. The traces of this experience are not paths from a past or causal origin, but traces of mobility experienced as always-already presentness.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-05-12T10:38:58Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448231173121
       
  • Can a self-regulation strategy help make social media more civil'
           Exploring the potential of mental contrasting with implementation
           intentions to reduce incivility in online political discussion

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      Authors: Matthew J Kushin, Masahiro Yamamoto
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      Civil interaction is a core practice of democratic participation. However, this condition is undermined by a contemporary landscape of online political discourse rife with incivility. Given the seemingly dismal state of American politics, a remedy to this problem is needed. We test the effects of a self-regulation intervention, mental contrasting with implementation intentions (MCII), on the expression of political incivility in a social media discussion setting. Data from two online experiments show that participants in the MCII condition expressed more civility and selected civil responses in response to uncivil communication cues. Implications are discussed.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-05-11T06:52:56Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448231170814
       
  • The rich get richer and the poor get poorer' The effect of news
           recommendation algorithms in exacerbating inequalities in news engagement
           and social capital

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      Authors: Han Lin, Yi Wang, Yonghwan Kim
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      Personalized news recommendations shape social media users’ information environment. However, whether news recommendation algorithms asymmetrically influence users’ news engagement remains largely unknown. Drawing on the three-level digital divide framework (access, use, and outcomes), we test a moderated mediation model in which social media usage motivations influence social capital via news engagement, conditional on using algorithmic news. Using two waves of survey data from South Korea (N = 948), the results show that the indirect effects of motivations for social media use on social capital via news enagement are conditional on the level algorithmic news usage. News algorithms enable information- and socialization-oriented users to increase news engagement and develop social capital but fail to help highly entertainment-focused users increase news engagement, and thus, they do not develop social capital well. We discuss the possibility that news recommendation algorithms lead to a Matthew effect in which the poor become poorer and the rich become richer, exacerbating information inequality.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-05-11T06:42:00Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448231168572
       
  • Care as (re)capture: Data colonialism and race during times of crisis

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      Authors: Chelsea Barabas
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      This article examines the role that data-driven technologies play in expanding and reasserting the legitimacy of the US racial state during times of crisis. Specifically, I examine how prison officials used a software called Verus to reinforce the perceived necessity of penal institutions during the COVID-19 pandemic. Government officials used Verus to produce narratives that (1) recast criminalized communities as dangerous and therefore disposable and (2) shielded carceral institutions from liability for systematic neglect. Ultimately, the aim of this article is to contribute to emerging critical concepts such as “data colonialism,” a term that has largely been used to describe the social and economic consequences of parasitic data extraction and monopoly control of digital infrastructure. In addition to these issues, I argue that data-driven technologies are used as vehicles for movement capture and the reproduction of prison logics that enable modes of racialized economic exploitation that extend far beyond the high-tech innovation economy.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-05-11T06:28:01Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448231165902
       
  • Making a complex story simple: The exclusion of social media from life
           stories

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      Authors: Aysha Agbarya, Nicholas John
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      This article offers an account of the absence of media in general, and social media in particular, from a set of life story narratives. After conducting both unstructured life story interviews and semi-structured interviews with 15 Muslim Palestinian women in Israel, we analyzed the stories presented in each interview and the explanations given by interviewees for excluding items about (social) media from their life stories. Interviewees resolved what they saw as a contradiction—referencing “shallow” media in their “serious” stories about their identity—by sifting out items that could threaten the proper flow of such stories, as they perceived it, despite acknowledging their centrality in identity change. Cultural context and individuals’ beliefs are presented as preventing events related to media, especially new media, from being related in life stories. Moreover, our findings show the significance of life story interviews in interviewees’ identity development. It is argued that identities of both interviewer and interviewee play a role in constructing the story told. Life-storying occurs in a complex context that involves introspection, which itself affects the process of the storyteller’s identity formation. This study contributes to debates about the place of media in everyday life, as well as to our understanding of the relationship between identity and life-storying. The argument proposed here—that the absence of media from life stories might be due to conscious considerations rooted in the cultural specificity of those stories—is one that can be tested in further research.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-05-10T06:56:20Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448231170605
       
  • The “digital village” revisited, or the re-ruralization of the public
           and private spheres in contemporary digitality

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      Authors: Anke Fiedler
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      This article aims to make a theoretical contribution to clarify the societal impact of the reorganization of public and private in the digital age. Drawing on the spatial-sociological approach of German sociologist HP Bahrdt, the discussion is guided by the thesis that the specific dynamics of privacy risk attributed to the digital revolution pre-date the digitized age, specifically in rural environments. The analogy between rurality and digitality is used to illustrate why the increasing blurring of public and private through transparency potentials—along with the accompanying convergence of social contacts (characteristic of both rural and digital space)—threatens not only individual privacy but also democratization by violating forms of individual freedom that are constitutive of a critical public realm. Therefore, this article serves as a call to understand digital privacy protection as one of the pressing challenges of our time.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-05-10T06:51:51Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448231172976
       
  • Misinformation rules!' Could “group rules” reduce misinformation in
           online personal messaging'

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      Authors: Andrew Chadwick, Natalie-Anne Hall, Cristian Vaccari
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      Personal messaging platforms are hugely popular and often implicated in the spread of misinformation. We explore an unexamined practice on them: when users create “group rules” to prevent misinformation entering everyday interactions. Our data are a subset of in-depth interviews with 33 participants in a larger program of longitudinal qualitative fieldwork (N = 102) we conducted over 16 months. Participants could also donate examples of misinformation via our customized smartphone application. We find that some participants created group rules to mitigate what they saw as messaging’s harmful affordances. In the context of personalized trust relationships, these affordances were perceived as making it likely that misinformation would harm social ties. Rules reduce the vulnerability and can stimulate metacommunication that, over time, fosters norms of collective reflection and epistemic vigilance, although the impact differs subtly according to group size and membership. Subject to further exploration, group rulemaking could reduce the spread of online misinformation.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-05-10T06:49:10Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448231172964
       
  • Non-consensual sharing of images: Commercial content creators, sexual
           content creation platforms and the lack of protection

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      Authors: Teela Sanders, Gaynor Trueman, Kate Worthington, Rachel Keighley
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      In this article, we explore the experiences of commercial content creators who have their content (videos, photos, and images) misused. This article reports from a mixed-methods study consisting of 16 interviews with content creators; nine interviews with practitioners who support sex workers and interviews with seven adult service website (ASW) operators. These qualitative data are supported by 221 responses to a survey from the content creators’ community. We describe how content creators experience blackmail, threats of exposure and recording without knowledge, stalking, harassment, doxing, ‘deepfakes’ and impersonation. We conclude that the online sex work environment may not be as safe as previous research has demonstrated, and that commercial content creators are often ignored by governance and platforms following sex workers’ complaints regarding their content being misused. We reflect on the forthcoming UK Online Safety Bill as compared to the US Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act/Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act (SESTA/FOSTA) law which have seen implications across the globe for digital sex workers. We offer solutions for ASWs to act more responsibly.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-05-10T01:09:07Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448231172711
       
  • Morality in social media: A scoping review

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      Authors: Dominik Neumann, Nancy Rhodes
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      Social media platforms have been adopted rapidly into our current culture and affect nearly all areas of our everyday lives. Their prevalence has raised questions about the influence of new communication technologies on moral reasoning, judgments, and behaviors. The present scoping review identified 80 articles providing an overview of scholarly work conducted on morality in social media. Screening for research that explicitly addressed moral questions, the authors found that research in this area tends to be atheoretical, US-based, quantitative, cross-sectional survey research in business, psychology, and communication journals. Findings suggested a need for increased theoretical contributions. The authors identified new developments in research analysis, including text scraping and machine coding, which may contribute to theory development. In addition, diversity across disciplines allows for a broad picture in this research domain, but more interdisciplinarity might be needed to foster creative approaches to this study area.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-05-09T05:21:37Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448231166056
       
  • Co-presence, dysco-presence, and disco-presence: Navigating WeChat in
           Chinese acquaintance networks

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      Authors: Chuyue Ou, Zhongxuan Lin
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      This study contributes to the line of digital dis/connection by stretching it into the concept of mediated co-presence and dealing with complex Chinese acquaintance networks on WeChat, thereby creatively proposing three modes of digital interactivity—co-presence, dysco-presence, and disco-presence. Therein, dysco-presence and disco-presence refer to resistance awareness and resistance actions toward co-presence, respectively. Based on a 2-year ethnographic study of Chinese youth, we further reveal the complex combination of mediated dis/dys/co-presence and acquaintance networks on WeChat. Ambient co-presence enables WeChat users to extend their social interactivity with acquaintance networks in a superficial dimension, while guanxi maintenance determines that they cannot completely quit WeChat-mediated co-presence, resulting in an ambivalent dysco-presence. Yet disco-presence comprises the ambiguous strategies of human and technological aggregation that offer possibilities for reorganizing resistance, temporality, and sociality.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-05-09T05:19:21Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448231168566
       
  • Infrastructures by the users for users: Motivations, constraints, and
           consequences of user-driven infrastructuring of mobile phones

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      Authors: Thomas Berker
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      Users adapt infrastructures materially to fit their needs, they engage in maintenance and repair, and they learn about the inner workings of infrastructures. Different degrees of user engagement with infrastructures are empirically analysed using the case of user-developed alternative mobile operating systems. Some observations of user agency made already in early studies of the appropriation of media and technology were found to be still relevant: moral considerations motivate users to engage in infrastructuring and users actively negotiate their infrastructural attachments. But ‘acting on’ infrastructures is also different from ‘acting on’ devices: the users’ experiments with infrastructures require redundancy and they are inherently collective. Moreover, certain designs of infrastructures can enable and demand user-driven infrastructures, while others block it.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-05-09T05:16:37Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448231166896
       
  • Co-addictive human–machine configurations: Relating critical design and
           algorithm studies to medical-psychiatric research on “problematic
           Internet use”

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      Authors: Paula Helm, Tobias Matzner
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      Next to popular term Internet addiction, problematic Internet use (PIU) has established itself as an umbrella term for all types of repetitive impairing behaviors associated with new media technologies. Yet, debates about categorization, prevention, and treatment are nowhere near settled. When it comes to classification, medical-psychiatric research has so far retained authority. Here, PIU is examined primarily at the level of the individual user, and it is at this level that solutions are sought. Complementing this, research from critical algorithm studies and technology ethics emphasize the design of many applications as problematic, while cautioning against a determinist view of technology making people addicted. Based on new materialist conceptions of responsibility, the article argues for integrating the different perspectives into a relational understanding of co-addictive human–machine configurations. The goal is to capture the interactive character of PIU, and to achieve a well-calibrated distribution of responsibilities in avoiding destructive habits.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-05-08T10:27:41Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448231165916
       
  • From Comic-Con to Amazon: Fan conventions and digital platforms

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      Authors: Melanie ES Kohnen, Felan Parker, Benjamin Woo
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      San Diego Comic-Con is North America’s premiere fan convention and a key site for mediating between media industries and fandom. In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic forced Comic-Con to abruptly move its programming onto an array of digital platforms in an apparent “platformization” of the con. Informed by research on fan conventions, media industries, and the platformization of cultural production, this analysis of the online convention argues that Comic-Con was primed for platformization because it is already platform-like. Conventions organize markets, infrastructures, and governance to bring together attendees, media industries, and other “complementors.” Moreover, platform logics were already shaping the convention pre-pandemic in the form of experiential marketing and brand activations designed to capture attendee data. Rather than a radical break, the Comic-Con@Home online convention and in particular Amazon’s Virtual-Con activation are part of a longer process of reconfiguring the relationships between fan conventions, cultural producers, and platforms.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-05-06T09:47:31Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448231165289
       
  • Exploring older adults’ ICT support: A mismatch between needs and
           provision

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      Authors: Nelly Geerts, Werner Schirmer, Anina Vercruyssen, Ignace Glorieux
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      Because findings in prior research are ambiguous, it remains unclear whether and under which circumstances formal and informal support sources help older adults with their Information and Communication Technology (ICT) use. Our qualitative interview study with 96 older adults (>65, including Internet users and non-users) aims to shed light on older adults’ ICT support by addressing two research questions: (Q1) What types of ICT support needs do older adults experience in their everyday lives' (Q2) For each type of need, who provides the support' Our results show that there are four analytically distinct types of support needs that are often conflated in the literature: motivational support, instructional support, technical support and support by proxy use. Each support type has its suitable support sources. To foster digital inclusion, older adults require access to the specific type(s) of support that fits their occurring need(s).
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-05-05T10:54:46Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448231166356
       
  • Enforcing platform sovereignty: A case study of platform responses to
           Australia’s News Media Bargaining Code

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      Authors: KB Heylen
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      Australia’s News Media Bargaining Code requires Google and Facebook to negotiate payments with news publishers for news content appearing on the platforms. Facebook and Google lobbied against the code through a highly visible public-facing campaign which included a series of blogs, videos and pop-up communications across their interfaces including News Feeds, Google Search and Home Page, and You Tube, and culminated in Facebook banning Australian users from accessing Australian news and related content. This article presents the findings of a detailed study of platform discourse in response to the News Media Bargaining Code, using critical discourse analysis, and drawing on theoretical frameworks from Althusser, Foucault and Chun. It also investigates the role of the user interface in platform power, particularly how platform users are interpellated by digital platforms. The findings suggest Facebook and Google’s discursive strategies were deployed to protect, strengthen and enforce platform sovereignty. The case study offers lessons for platform regulation globally in understanding how platforms respond to legislation.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-05-05T10:53:18Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448231166057
       
  • A feminist embodied ethics of social media use: Corporeal vulnerability
           and relational care practices

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      Authors: Kim Toffoletti, Holly Thorpe, Rebecca Olive, Adele Pavlidis, Claire Moran
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      This article adopts a feminist relational orientation to investigate the care practices that women develop when producing and engaging with body-focussed content online. We propose and argue for an embodied ethics of social media use to understand women’s enactments and exchanges as they relate to shared corporeal concerns. Drawing on qualitative interview data, and using Judith Butler’s understanding of corporeal vulnerability as the basis for mutual recognition, this article investigates social actors’ ethical orientations towards, and attempts at, improving the collective experiences of women in the context of Instagram use for physical activity. We identify several ways in which exercising women practice an embodied ethics of care on Instagram, including sharing unedited images of themselves, not judging others’ bodies, awareness-raising and supporting others. By conceptualising women’s everyday social media encounters as an embodied ethical practice, this study develops new theoretical insights to understand women’s sharing of body-focussed content online.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-04-29T11:07:23Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448231171560
       
  • The influencer pay gap: Platform labor meets racial capitalism

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      Authors: Angèle Christin, Yingdan Lu
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      Existing research emphasizes the precarity of workers engaged in the exchange of goods and services through digital platforms. Yet few studies have systematically examined how racial discrimination shapes the opportunities of platform workers. Here, we focus on influencers, or people who monetize content on social media platforms. Drawing on a mixed-method analysis of 1,082 posts crowdsourced by the @InfluencerPayGap Instagram account, we document three findings. First, while most influencers in our sample received monetary payment for sponsored campaigns, rates are significantly lower than expected based on industry estimates. Second, social media metrics are racialized to justify paying influencers of color less than white influencers. Third, influencers of color are less likely than white influencers to receive monetary compensation or succeed in their negotiations with brands. Contrary to the rhetoric of fairness and democratization promoted by digital platforms, these dynamics reproduce racial domination and undermine collective action among social media influencers.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-04-29T11:06:14Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448231164995
       
  • Ephemeral design: Platform capitalism and the making of a feature

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      Authors: Ella Klik
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      The rapid rise and fall of digital products and the ebbs and flows of Internet culture may seem antithetical—or at the very least a significant hurdle—to historical investigations. Can media scholars write digital histories “on the fly” and of recent events, some still unfolding in front of our eyes' This article addresses this question by studying objects, designs, and values in motion and in flux. I track the quality of ephemerality from the early days of cyberspace to the present and as it relates to different players and stakeholders. In so doing, a historical perspective of the perceptions and applications of evanescence will serve as the foundation for engaging with several contradictory and dynamic processes (commodification, resistance, and metabolization). This piece spotlights ephemerality’s evolving role from a de facto state of affairs to a rarity, a resistive strategy, and, finally, a popular feature.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-04-26T08:52:38Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448231164934
       
  • Differential media exposure and perceptions of fear and behavior change in
           China and Israel during the COVID-19 pandemic

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      Authors: Gustavo S Mesch, Xue-Jing Liu
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      Understanding the media effect on behavioral outcomes is critical during a health crisis. Mechanisms explaining the mediation effect of media induced risk perception on individual fears and preventive behavior adoption rarely attend to the assumptions and methods to make a causal inference, nor to explore how the effect differs by socioeconomic status. We applied a causal framework to estimate how differential media exposure motivates fear and behavioral reaction, and to what extent these effects can be explained by risk susceptibility and risk severity perceptions in Israel and China, and whether the effects are conditional on socioeconomic situation. Our results suggest that media consumptions are explanatory predictors for increased fear and behavior through provoked risk perceptions. Moreover, socioeconomic status is a pronounced moderator in differentiating the media effect. These findings emphasize the media effects in the context of pandemic and have potential implications for media campaign and policy making.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-04-26T08:51:40Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448231164638
       
  • The psychological influence of dating app matches: The more matches the
           merrier'

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      Authors: Marina F Thomas, Alice Binder, Jörg Matthes
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      Swipe-based dating apps characteristically provide quantitative social feedback in the form of mattches. Surveys suggest a link between dating app success and well-being, but the nature of this correlation has yet to be examined. In an experiment with 125 undergraduate women, we manipulated dating app feedback: When accepting a profile, participants had either a high (27/31) or a low chance (3/31) of receiving matches. We found no effect of chance of matches on women’s loneliness or fear of being single. However, a higher chance of matches led to higher partner choice overload. Furthermore, in those who accepted seven or more profiles, women in the low chance of matches condition reported higher loneliness than women in the high chance of matches condition. This could mean that matches are rewarding for women with a high approach orientation. Manipulating social feedback in a dating app paradigm seems suitable to study the effects of social acceptance and ostracism.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-04-21T06:12:47Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448231161598
       
  • Platformed cultural production and calibration in the Covid-19 pandemic

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      Authors: Jordan Foster
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      The COVID-19 pandemic created a period of social and economic crisis that introduced two distinct problems for social media influencers. At the same time that the pandemic made their work economically precarious, it also made their work morally hazardous, as large-scale human suffering made influencers’ lifestyle promotions appear out of step with their audiences’ day-to-day experiences. How did influencers and the personnel they work with organize their labour to navigate uncertainty and avoid moral criticism' Drawing on 40 in-depth interviews with fashion influencers as well as the industry personnel they work with, I explain how influencers and those close to them respond to and combat issues of uncertainty and change during a period of crisis. I pair this interview data with a year-long online observation of influencers’ labour online. In a calibrated move from aspiration to authenticity, influencers stressed the ‘ordinary’ and ‘everyday’ qualities of their lives during the pandemic, evading moral sanctions against profit-making. Throughout, they leveraged their tentacular connections with audiences to refine content in step with shifting demand and desire online, maximizing their market reach and annual revenue.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-04-19T06:50:15Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448231163284
       
  • User agency–based versus machine agency–based misinformation
           interventions: The effects of commenting and AI fact-checking labeling on
           attitudes toward the COVID-19 vaccination

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      Authors: Jiyoung Lee, Kim Bissell
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      This study aimed to examine the effects of commenting on a Facebook misinformation post by comparing a user agency–based intervention and machine agency–based intervention in the form of artificial intelligence (AI) fact-checking labeling on attitudes toward the COVID-19 vaccination. We found that both interventions were effective at promoting positive attitudes toward vaccination compared to the misinformation-only condition. However, the intervention effects manifested differently depending on participants’ residential locations, such that the commenting intervention emerged as a promising tool for suburban participants. The effectiveness of the AI fact-checking labeling intervention was pronounced for urban populations. Neither of the fact-checking interventions showed salient effects with the rural population. These findings suggest that although user agency- and machine agency–based interventions might have potential against misinformation, these interventions should be developed in a more sophisticated way to address the unequal effects among populations in different geographic locations.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-04-19T06:47:48Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448231163228
       
  • “A friend who knows what they’re talking about”: Extending source
           credibility theory to analyze the wellness influencer industry on
           Instagram

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      Authors: Mariah L Wellman
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      While many scholars have explored the norms central to the success of social media influencers, credibility is a necessary attribute of creator presentation that remains underexplored. This essay argues for the application and extension of source credibility theory (SCT) to unpack how credibility manifests within the wellness influencer industry on Instagram. SCT originally included three constructs: expertise, trustworthiness, and attractiveness. I extend this theoretical framework by considering a fourth construct: positionality. When applied with the additional construct, SCT can help explain how influencers build and maintain credibility over time, especially within the wellness industry, where some influencers do not have more traditional forms of expertise like degrees and certifications in a health-related field. Through in-depth interviews with wellness influencers across the United States, I detail how credibility is operationalized within the wellness industry on Instagram and utilized to build relationships with followers and grow successful businesses.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-04-17T10:15:51Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448231162064
       
  • Sensemaking and public intimacy on TikTok: How viral videos influence
           interpersonal relationships offline

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      Authors: Emily A Mendelson
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      Digital communication technologies transform social relationships by networking strangers into mediated intimate publics. Guided by the question of what happens when displays of public intimacy go viral, I analyze communicative methods within intimate publics on TikTok through an exploratory, qualitative case study of the viral “couch guy” meme. Results indicate that users on TikTok participate in intimate publics through the uploading of original content, duplication and replication of content, commenting, and lurking. Utilizing sensemaking as an analytic, first, I demonstrate how TikTok’s platform affordances transform displays of public intimacy into public extimacy, transforming TikTok into a space where social scripts and relationship expectations are negotiated. Second, I offer a preliminary organizational structure of communicative actions within the “couch guy” public on TikTok. Overall, this article concludes that participation in mediated publics has the potential to influence interpersonal relationships offline.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-04-17T08:44:35Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448231163231
       
  • Debating (in) echo chambers: How culture shapes communication in
           conspiracy theory networks on YouTube

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      Authors: Kamile Grusauskaite, Luca Carbone, Jaron Harambam, Stef Aupers
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      The ubiquity of social media platforms fuels heated discussions about algorithms and selection biases leading people into online “echo chambers.” Scholars argue that social media deepen societal polarization and fuel political extremism. However, studies often focus on media effects, disregarding individual agency and (sub)cultural values that shape communication. As a strategic case study, this article, based on a mixed-methods analysis, including a social network and qualitative analysis of 1199 comments under four conspiracy theory comment sections on YouTube, questions how insular these spaces are' And how people in these networks communicate' We find that the discussions in our strategically sampled comments sections lie between homogeneous closed debates and open debates. In other words, the networks in our sample vary in their “echo chamberness.” Based on our findings, we contend that variations in the echo chamberness of the various comment sections can be explained via the lens of conspiratorial (sub)cultures.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-04-17T08:41:46Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448231162585
       
  • Environmental activism in the platform society: Spatial agency in digital
           maps

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      Authors: Jing Meng, Yu-Peng Lin, Hui-Ju Tsai
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      Digital maps structure how we understand and interact with space while simultaneously affording agency and the potential for an alternative use of space. This article investigates how digital maps exercise data and spatial agency. Our empirical object is the environmental mobile mapping application water refill map (WRM, Hong-Te/Fengcha Action奉茶行動) in Taiwan. Drawing on the walk-through method and semi-structured interviews with WRM’s founders, we examine how the app leverages the power of digital mapping to encourage participation in environmental activities. We argue that by facilitating data and spatial agency, digital maps enable placemaking at the cognitive and hermeneutic levels. They also turn closed spaces into public ones, thus aiding place-shaping. Meanwhile, this digital environmental activism takes place in a field of contestation and negotiation between agency and structure, apps and infrastructural platforms, collective action and individual power, and environmentalism and (adjusted) commercialism.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-04-17T08:39:36Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448231162581
       
  • Cryptogames: The promises of blockchain for the future of the videogame
           industry

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      Authors: Ben Egliston, Marcus Carter
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      Videogames are an increasingly prominent use case for blockchain technology (what has been termed ‘cryptogaming’). Drawing on documents, such as industry presentations, social media posts, interviews and white papers, this article analyses discourses surrounding cryptogames, focusing on the claims made by cryptogame developers and investors. We ask two related research questions: What are the dominant visions of a cryptogaming future, imagined by and for various constituencies' And what sorts of values get realised in such an imagined future of game development and use' We argue that cryptogames imagine players and developers as financialised subjects, adopting attitudes and practices of risk and investment as salves to both microeconomic problems in the games industry as well as broader macroeconomic issues.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-04-13T09:39:19Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448231158614
       
  • Corrigendum to “Shielding citizens' Understanding the impact of
           political advertisement transparency information”

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      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.

      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-04-13T06:54:29Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448231170748
       
  • A review and provocation: On polarization and platforms

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      Authors: Daniel Kreiss, Shannon C McGregor
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      Scholars increasingly point to polarization as a central threat to democracy—and identify technology platforms as key contributors to polarization. In contrast, we argue that polarization can only be seen as a central threat to democracy if inequality is ignored. The central theoretical claim of this piece is that political identities map more or less onto social groups, and groups are, in turn, located in social structures. As such, scholars must analyze groups as they are embedded in relations of power to meaningfully evaluate the democratic consequences of polarization. Groups struggling for equality, such as the Black Lives Matter movement, often cause polarization because they threaten the extant power and status of dominant groups. To develop a shared theoretical lens around polarization and its relationship with inequality, we take up the case of research on the role of platforms in polarization, showing how scholarship routinely lacks analysis of inequality.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-04-12T06:55:55Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448231161880
       
  • The emotional effects of multimodal disinformation: How multimodality,
           issue relevance, and anxiety affect misperceptions about the flu vaccine

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      Authors: Jiyoung Lee, Michael Hameleers, Soo Yun Shin
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      Disinformation presented in multiple modalities (textual, visual, and auditory modes; multimodal disinformation) has become a serious concern. This study examines how disinformation, portrayed using an image or video format, may be more powerful than text-only disinformation. In particular, we examined the impact on affective mechanisms, as well as the moderating role of perceived issue relevance. Through an online experiment with modality conditions and a control group (text-only disinformation vs image-plus-text disinformation vs video-plus-text disinformation vs control; N = 413), results indicate that while anxiety is a critical mechanism that explains the overall effects of disinformation on misperceptions, video-plus-text disinformation turns out to increase misperceptions directly or indirectly through anxiety. Video-plus-text disinformation (vs control) showed a significant interaction with perceived issue relevance; that said, the difference in anxiety decreased between those with low and high perceived issue relevance in the video-plus-text disinformation. Implications are discussed in light of the realism heuristic, affect heuristic, and modality-biased processing in explaining the emotional impact of multimodal disinformation.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-04-12T06:54:12Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448231153959
       
  • Sex tech entrepreneurs: Governing intimate data in start-up culture

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      Authors: Zahra Stardust, Kath Albury, Jenny Kennedy
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      Sextech is currently experiencing a golden age, promising technological innovation to improve sexual health and well-being. However, the privacy and security vulnerabilities of smart sex toys have been the subject of media attention. Dating apps, menstrual trackers and sex toy companies have paid millions in compensation for non-consensually collecting or sharing intimate data. In this article, we share findings from a research workshop with prospective sextech industry professionals about how they approach data governance. The conversations reveal disconnections between the emancipatory, collective and rights-based possibilities offered by feminist and queer tech cultures, broader public interest in data commons and the technosolutionist narratives of start-up cultures. We conclude that there is a need for collaborations between industry, community and researchers to develop approaches to governance that reorganise, redistribute and decentralise the data economy of sex tech.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-04-07T04:52:12Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448231164408
       
  • “We hate her . . . and you too”: Polarized intersectionality in Italy
           throughout changing political scenarios

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      Authors: Antonio Martella, Elena Pavan
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      This article proposes a joint application of online network analysis and NLP techniques to explore dynamics of “polarized intersectionality”—that is, how (mis)representations of women that develop online and at the intersection of different axes of discrimination entwine with ideological and affective polarization. We look in particular at whether and how digital (mis)representations change together with political scenarios in which political parties, leaders, and partisan communities more in general swing from collaboration to hostility. Our analysis of two Twitter conversations that put women at the center of attention show that changing political scenarios generate different digital conversations which, in turn, reflect patterns of alliances and rivalry. Regardless of these changes, women are invariantly (mis)represented in narratives that are often weaponized against political enemies in ways that foster both ideological and affective political polarization.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-04-03T05:36:37Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448231160706
       
  • Anticipated affordances: Understanding early reactions to new technologies

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      Authors: Lars EF Johannessen
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      This article proposes the concept of anticipated affordances as an analytical supplement to affordance theory. ‘Anticipated affordances’ refers to how actors anticipate or speculate on a technology’s affordances before they have any direct use experience with it. To demonstrate the consequences of such speculation on the social life of new technologies, the article analyses why teachers in Norwegian schools have expressed scepticism towards AV1: a telepresence robot meant to reconnect ‘homebound’ children with their school. Drawing on qualitative interviews, the article finds that teachers anticipated three undesirable affordances from having AV1 in their classrooms: peeping, broadcasting, and parental auditing. The article also discusses how these anticipations intersected with issues of domestication, gatekeeping and experiences of AV1’s actual affordances. In sum, the article advances anticipated affordances as a central topic of inquiry for new media studies, which can complement existing analytical foci and shed new light on the (non)adoption of technology.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-04-01T09:35:06Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448231161512
       
  • Making up the predictable border: How bureaucracies legitimate data
           science techniques

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      Authors: Burcu Baykurt, Alphoncina Lyamuya
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      This article examines how claims to predictable borders via data science techniques are crafted in bureaucratic institutions. Through a case study of testing algorithmic systems at a transnational agency, we examine how humanitarian organizations reconcile the risks of predictive technologies with the benefits they claim to receive. Drawing on a content analysis of policy documents and interviews with humanitarian technologists, we identify three organizational strategies to justify working toward predictability: constantly seeking novel variables and data, maintaining ambiguity, and shifting models to adapt to changing circumstances. These strategies, we argue, sustain the claim that a predictable border is possible even when the technical reality of machine learning models does not live up to bureaucratic imaginaries. The so-called success of a predictable border does not solely derive from its technical capacity to estimate human mobility accurately but from creating a semblance of a predictable border inside an organization.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-04-01T09:33:37Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448231161276
       
  • Conceptualizing platformed conspiracism: Analytical framework and
           empirical case study of BitChute and Gab

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      Authors: Daniela Mahl, Jing Zeng, Mike S Schäfer
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      This article introduces the notion of platformed conspiracism to conceptualize reconfigured forms of conspiracy theory communication as a result of the mutual shaping between platform specificities and emergent user practices. To investigate this relational socio-technological shaping, we propose a conceptual platform-sensitive framework that systematically guides the study of platformed conspiracism. To illustrate the application of the framework, we examine how platformed conspiracism unfolds on BitChute and Gab during the COVID-19 pandemic. Our findings show that both platforms have positioned themselves as technological equivalents to their “mainstream” counterparts, YouTube and Twitter, by offering similar interfaces and features. However, given their specific services, community-based and politically marketed business models, and minimalist approaches to content moderation, both platforms provide conspiracy propagators a fertile refuge through which they can diversify their presence and profit monetarily from their supply of conspiracy theories and active connection with their followers.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-03-31T08:29:17Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448231160457
       
  • The semiotics of digital cartography at the Geoguessr interface: A
           practice-oriented case study

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      Authors: Ben Berners-Lee
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      In digital cartography, Google Maps and Google Street View (GSV) are often used side-by-side at the computer interface. This study consists of an analysis of recordings of Geoguessr, an online game that presents players with GSV imagery and challenges them to guess the location of the images on a digital map. Gameplay requires semiotic moves that put the diagrammatic signs of the GSV images and the map into a dynamic interplay. By specifying these practices, the present analysis offers a processual, practice-oriented perspective on theoretical debates in the study of digital mapping. Rather than existing a priori, the constructed or transparent nature of the map, as well as the kind of cartographical subject involved in manipulations of the map both emerge and change through the practical use of the two representations. Furthermore, the abductive inferences that characterize particular moments of gameplay constitute an intersection of reasoning and play.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-03-31T08:27:18Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448231160132
       
  • Connection Brokers: How educators work within and between social networks
           to cultivate community digital resilience to support children with
           disabilities using the Internet

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      Authors: Simon P Hammond, Jeanette D’Arcy, Gianfranco Polizzi
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      For children with disabilities, being online can have great benefits, and being part of a well-connected community pays dividends. Research has focused on the development of digital resilience at an individual level, but the ways in which surrounding networks of community support impact this is underexplored. Drawing on digital resilience as a socio-ecological concept and undertaking a thematic analysis of semi-structured interviews with educators, this article addresses this gap by exploring how educators work within and between community networks to support children with disabilities online. Findings suggest that educators are key connection brokers who activate and provide access to a variety of assets and manage pools of resources to build digital resilience at a community level as well as for the individual. We note, however, that addressing structural holes to allow information to flow beyond the community level is challenging and requires continued investment to cultivate greater capacity.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-03-24T12:00:04Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448231157330
       
  • The potential impact of emerging technologies on democratic
           representation: Evidence from a field experiment

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      Authors: Sarah Kreps, Douglas L. Kriner
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      Advances in machine learning have led to the creation natural language models that can mimic human writing style and substance. Here we investigate the challenge that machine-generated content, such as that produced by the model GPT-3, presents to democratic representation by assessing the extent to which machine-generated content can pass as constituent sentiment. We conduct a field experiment in which we send both handwritten and machine-generated letters (a total of 32,398 emails) to 7132 state legislators. We compare legislative response rates for the human versus machine-generated constituency letters to gauge whether language models can approximate inauthentic constituency voices at scale. Legislators were only slightly less likely to respond to artificial intelligence (AI)-generated content than to human-written emails; the 2% difference in response rate was statistically significant but substantively small. Qualitative evidence sheds light on the potential perils that this technology presents for democratic representation, but also suggests potential techniques that legislators might employ to guard against misuses of language models.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-03-21T06:43:10Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448231160526
       
  • Shielding citizens' Understanding the impact of political
           advertisement transparency information

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      Authors: Tom Dobber, Sanne Kruikemeier, Natali Helberger, Ellen Goodman
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      Online targeted advertising leverages an information asymmetry between the advertiser and the recipient. Policymakers in the European Union and the United States aim to decrease this asymmetry by requiring information transparency information alongside political advertisements, in the hope of activating citizens’ persuasion knowledge. However, the proposed regulations all present different directions with regard to the required content of transparency information. Consequently, not all proposed interventions will be (equally) effective. Moreover, there is a chance that transparent information has additional consequences, such as increasing privacy concerns or decreasing advertising effectiveness. Using an online experiment (N = 1331), this study addresses these challenges and finds that two regulatory interventions (DSA and HAA) increase persuasion knowledge, while the chance of raising privacy concerns or lowering advertisement effectiveness is present but slim. Results suggest transparency information interventions have some promise, but at the same time underline the limitations of user-facing transparency interventions.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-03-21T06:41:30Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448231157640
       
  • A board of one’s own: Interviewing the anonymous female imageboard
           community

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      Authors: Wilma Ewerhart
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      This article examines the experiences of female users of imageboards – online anonymous-by-default bulletin boards. Using thematic analysis on 12 Instant Messaging (IM)–based interviews with female-identifying imageboard users, this study gathers and presents their experiences and perceptions of benefits and drawbacks of use. Major findings include negative perception of mainstream imageboards and a contrastingly positive sentiment towards the platforms investigated as part of this study. Using imageboards represented a unique, entertaining and social experience. Interviewees predominantly used imageboards to be hyperbolic, ‘vent’, discuss sexuality or explore thoughts they otherwise would not. The study’s findings question previous narratives of women on imageboards which position them either as mostly unaffected members of the space or as out-of-place minorities ‘getting by’ – by virtue of using masculinist strategies. Rather, participants describe ambivalent experiences around navigating these spaces, including benefits of entertainment, sense of belonging and the affinity towards gendered self-experimentation.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-03-21T06:40:24Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448231154825
       
  • The telephone answering machine: Mediated presence and the participatory
           condition

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      Authors: Josh Lauer
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      During the 1970s and 1980s, telephone answering machines became widely available in the United States. Their use immediately disrupted long-established patterns of interpersonal communication and self-presentation. While solving the temporal limitations and lopsided power of telephone calls, answering machines introduced a range of new techno-social problems. Significantly, they required callers to interact with a machine instead of a human being. The history of the household answering machine provides insight into how telephone users were habituated to changing communication norms during the closing decades of the 20th century. This study examines cultural responses to the answering machine during the 1970s and 1980s, drawing attention to the following three key themes: the perils of perpetual contact, mediated performances, and social surveillance. These themes would shape understandings of digital mediation and become defining characteristics of an emergent “participatory condition.”
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-03-21T06:38:11Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448231159350
       
  • Growing out of overconnection: The process of dis/connecting among
           Norwegian and Portuguese teenagers

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      Authors: Ana Jorge, Mehri Agai, Patrícia Dias, Leonor Cunha-Vaz Martinho
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      Young people struggle with permanent online connection that is associated with their generation. This article looks at teenagers’ affective relationship to connectivity and disconnectivity, and how it is socioculturally influenced by the media, family, and peers. It reports on an interview study with 36 teenagers between 15 and 19 years of age from Norway and Portugal. Our findings evidenced how disconnection may arise out of a latent feeling of “disaffect” generated in the experience of the ambience of connected and platform culture as well as the media; or of the unavailability created by how teenagers spend their leisure time, which is influenced by families’ moral economies. Teenagers have to perform affective labor in managing the different, sometimes contradictory, forces that converge in the experience of connectivity. Managing digital disconnection appears as an individual—but socially produced—moral obligation to self-govern, to which teenagers have unequal conditions.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-03-18T06:34:27Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448231159308
       
  • Verified play, precarious work: GamerGate and platformed authenticity in
           the cultural industries

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      Authors: Nelanthi Hewa, Christine H. Tran
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      This article argues that GamerGate, a critical hashtag event in the history of digital harassment, is key to understanding contemporary identity verification systems and digital labour. We build our argument from a comparative analysis of two case studies: (1) digital journalistic responses to GamerGate and (2) Twitter’s account verification ‘checkmark’ system from 2021 to 2022. These phenomena showcase the linkages between the gendered and raced policing of journalists and users during GamerGate and the rise of ‘authenticity’ as a key resource for journalists and other platformed creators in the present. We draw on digital games, journalism and critical media studies to analyse the work of ‘authenticity’. We argue that platform affordances such as identity verification badges are fundamentally implicated in the work of users to appear ‘real’, even as the visibility requisite for realness brings uneven risks for marginalised cultural workers.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-03-11T07:04:31Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448231158387
       
  • The power of digital activism for transnational advocacy: Leadership,
           engagement, and affordance

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      Authors: Edmund W Cheng, Elizabeth Lui, King-wa Fu
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      Recent literature has underscored the power of digital activism, but few studies have symmetrically examined its impact beyond domestic audiences and among illiberal regimes. The co-occurrence of mass protests in East and Southeast Asia in 2019–2021, when protesters called for help from international communities, offers a valuable opportunity to test the power of digital media. This study uses a data set of 154 million Twitter posts and a time-series model to contrast sets of collective action metrics and connective action metrics with a novel dependent variable—foreign politicians’ responses. We then analyze the directional, intensity, and time-lagged effects of the relevant cue-taking processes. We find that the new metrics are more potent in predicting responses from foreign politicians. Agency- and network-centered metrics also outperform number- and intensity-oriented metrics across the three cases. These findings have implications for the roles of opinion leadership and engagement networks in digital activism.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-03-08T06:31:05Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448231155376
       
  • Governing principles: Articulating values in social media platform
           policies

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      Authors: Rebecca Scharlach, Blake Hallinan, Limor Shifman
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      As sites where social media corporations profess their commitment to principles like community and free speech, policy documents function as boundary objects that navigate diverse audiences, purposes, and interests. This article compares the discourse of values in the Privacy Policies, Terms of Service, and Community Guidelines of five major platforms (Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, and TikTok). Through a mixed-methods analysis, we identified frequently mentioned value terms and five overarching principles consistent across platforms: expression, community, safety, choice, and improvement. However, platforms limit their burden to execute these values by selectively assigning responsibility for their enactment, often unloading such responsibility onto users. Moreover, while each of the core values may potentially serve the public good, they can also promote narrow corporate goals. This dual framing allows platforms to strategically reinterpret values to suit their own interests.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-03-08T06:26:58Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448231156580
       
  • Translocal networked public spheres: Spatial arrangements of metropolitan
           Twitter

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      Authors: Annie Waldherr, Daniela Stoltenberg, Daniel Maier, Alexa Keinert, Barbara Pfetsch
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      In this study, we theoretically conceptualize and empirically investigate translocal spatial arrangements of networked public spheres on social media. In digital communication networks, actors easily connect with others globally, crossing the borders of cities, nations and languages. However, the spatial notions evoked in public sphere research to date remain largely territorial. We propose a theoretical framework drawing on Löw’s sociology of space, which highlights the relational and translocal nature of spatial arrangements. In a case study of the translocal interaction network of Berlin Twitter users, we demonstrate how this framework can be leveraged empirically using network analysis. Despite the overall network of Berlin’s Twittersphere spanning the whole world, we find territorialized as well as deterritorialized translocal communities. This points to the simultaneity of territorial and networked spatial logics in digital public spheres.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-03-08T06:22:26Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448231156579
       
  • Search engine effects on news consumption: Ranking and representativeness
           outweigh familiarity in news selection

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      Authors: Roberto Ulloa, Celina Sylwia Kacperski
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      While individuals’ trust in search engine results is well-supported, little is known about their preferences when selecting news. We use web-tracked behavioral data across a 2-month period (280 participants) and we analyze three competing factors, two algorithmic (ranking and representativeness) and one psychological (familiarity), that could influence the selection of search results. We use news engagement as a proxy for familiarity and investigate news articles presented on Google search pages (n = 1221). We find a significant effect of algorithmic factors but not of familiarity. We find that ranking plays a lesser role for news compared to non-news, suggesting a more careful decision-making process. We confirm that Google Search drives individuals to unfamiliar sources, and find that it increases the diversity of the political audience of news sources. We tackle the challenge of measuring social science theories in contexts shaped by algorithms, demonstrating their leverage over the behaviors of individuals.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-03-06T10:37:24Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448231154926
       
  • The moral license of a click: How social observability and impression
           management tendencies moderate the effects of online clicktivism on
           donation behavior

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      Authors: Nuri Kim, Hye Kyung Kim, Si Jin Tan, Wen Hsing Kelvin Wang, Kheng Hian Ong
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      Token acts of online support, also known as clicktivism, have received much criticism in recent years for suppressing subsequent prosocial behavior. However, whether, when, and why individuals perform less prosocial behavior following these acts remains relatively unknown. To address these questions, we designed a lab experiment in which participants (N = 193) were randomly assigned to engage in public, private, or no act of clicktivism. Consistent with moral self-licensing theory, those who signed an online petition were less likely to donate than those who did not sign any petition. Public clicktivism (compared to private clicktivism) increased donation intentions among those with high impression management tendencies (i.e. high self-monitors). Concerns about one’s moral self-image partially mediated these effects. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-03-06T09:28:36Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448231153971
       
  • Redefining immobility with mediated mobilities: Reflections from South
           Korean quarantine vlogs

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      Authors: Jiwon Yun
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      This article challenges the notion that mediated mobilities are mere substitutes to physical mobilities. It proposes that practising mediated mobilities, especially in the form of vlogging, is a generative process by which individuals can redefine their experience of immobility during quarantine. To support this argument, the article analyses quarantine vlogs uploaded by individuals who were quarantined in South Korean quarantine facilities in 2020. The vlogs reveal that individuals turn to mediated mobilities as an adaptive strategy, but also shows that the practice of vlogging itself emerges as a means to redefine quarantine in vloggers’ own terms. Ultimately, the article demonstrates how some vloggers turn the quarantine experience as a resource to be mobilized and how the practice of vlogging itself becomes a strategy to capitalize on the immobility.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-03-04T06:15:14Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448231156992
       
  • Unpacking news engagement through the perceived affordances of social
           media: A cross-platform, cross-country approach

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      Authors: Shira Dvir-Gvirsman, Daniel Sude, Guy Raisman
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      In the extant ample research on news engagement on social media, a majority of studies thus far have centered mainly on users’ motivations, gratifications, and characteristics and less on platforms in which they operate. Yet, it is well recognized that users’ behavior is shaped by technological interfaces, and that users differentiate between platforms and switch to suit their specific needs. The current study, therefore, adopts a cross-platform (Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Twitter, and instant messaging apps) approach to explore how users’ engagement with news varies, with a focus on users’ perceptions of platforms’ affordances as a main predictor. Based on an online survey in eight countries (the United States, United Kingdom, France, Israel, Sweden, Germany, Hong Kong, and Japan), the study identifies as key affordances, which determine both receiving and dissemination of news, users’ perceptions regarding a platform’s personalization, network association, anonymity, and content persistence. The findings also highlight the differences between countries and between platforms.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-03-04T06:02:06Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448231154432
       
  • Hashtag activism found in translation: Unpacking the reformulation of
           #MeToo in Japan

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      Authors: Saki Mizoroki, Limor Shifman, Kaori Hayashi
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      In 2017, the MeToo hashtag spread across the globe. However, it showed limited success in the Japanese Twittersphere and instead inspired local initiatives such as #WeToo and #Furawādemo (“flower demo”). To understand this reformulation, we analyzed 15 interviews with Japanese social media users and 119 Japanese newspaper articles. The results corroborate the framework we label VTM (values, topics, media), suggesting that an intersection between perceived Japanese values, the topic’s gendered and sexual nature, and media affordances explain the movement’s local development. While perceived Japanese values clash against those associated with #MeToo, new formulations “soften” the protest by blending in values such as reserve and harmony. Overall, we show how perceptions of popular values rather than values as essential orientations shape activism. Finally, we discuss the study’s implications for understanding cultural variance in cyberactivism, highlighting how divergent notions of “safe space” shape such movements.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-03-04T05:57:37Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448231153571
       
  • Classified children: A critical analysis of the digital interfaces and
           representations that mediate adoption in the United States

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      Authors: Isabelle Higgins
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      In this article I analyse websites in the public domain which represent children deemed eligible for adoption into families in the United States. These websites consist of photographs of children accompanied by details about their lives, health and personalities. Using critical technocultural discourse analysis, I outline three different ways in which children are classified in these digital spaces. I argue that it is through a combination of textual and photographic representation, as well as platform and interface design, that ideologies related to racial identity and nationality intersect to create a hierarchical system, which differentially classifies these children. I explain the significance of these classificatory schemes by drawing on decolonial thought and critical race theory. Ultimately, I argue that discourses and interfaces work together to reproduce, intensify and reify an intersectionally oppressive system of structural inequality.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-03-03T09:12:58Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448231156852
       
  • The “greenfluence”: Following environmental influencers, parasocial
           relationships, and youth’s participation behavior

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      Authors: Heleen Dekoninck, Desirée Schmuck
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      Environmental influencers have gained immense popularity on social media, promoting a sustainable lifestyle by interweaving environmental topics with their everyday content. Drawing from the theoretical approach of parasocial opinion leaders, we investigate, for the first time, the implications of environmental influencers for different dimensions of youth’s participation behavior, and whether parasocial relationships (PSRs) with influencers moderate these associations. We used data from a cross-sectional (N = 576) and a two-wave panel survey (NT2 = 496) among German 16- to 25-year-olds. Findings across both studies showed that following influencers who address green topics was related to higher engagement in political sphere-oriented participation (e.g. signing a petition) as well as cause-oriented participation (e.g. politically motivated consumerism). In the long term, low to moderate PSR increased the impact of environmental content on cause-oriented participation, while high PSRs seem to overshadow the environmental content directing more attention to relational rather than informational content aspects.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-03-02T12:00:03Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448231156131
       
  • “Back to the living room era”: Smart speaker usage and family
           democracy from the family dynamic perspective

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      Authors: Bing Wang, Longxiang Luo, Xiuli Wang
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      Based on joint media engagement (JME) and parental mediation theory (PMT), this study conducted a textual and thematic analysis of 360 user-generated content videos to explore, in the family scenario, smart speaker use behavior between Chinese children and parents. The findings reveal the following: (a) smart speakers create a new JME model and new co-use scenarios; (b) the mediation strategy used by parents differs from the mediation strategies in traditional PMT; (c) smart speakers are social actors and play a mediating role in the construction of family relationships; and (d) smart speaker use behavior between parents and children is characterized by a return to the living room era, which creates a new family dynamic and a reshaping of family politics.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-02-25T11:49:54Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448231155624
       
  • Serendipity on radio and streaming: Between musical discovery and
           recognition

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      Authors: Marcelo Kischinhevsky, Gustavo Ferreira, Itala Maduell Vieira
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      This article seeks to discuss, within the scope of radio and audio media studies, how serendipity articulates discovery, memory and recognition, standing at the heart of current Music Streaming Platforms’ rhetoric and musical culture. Fortuitous discovery mobilizes affections and helps to build bonds (either with platforms or radio stations), representing a major role in music innovation and circulation. Combining a range of current Global South references with critical theories on media and memory, we address similarities and differences between music programming and curation on radio and streaming, refuting computer scientists’ ambition to engineer serendipitous experiences and highlighting that serendipity must be correlated with the listeners’ sociocultural background. We conclude that acknowledging the complexity of serendipity opens doors for thinking of critical issues concerning musical consumption, conditions of listening, identity, representation and audio media agency. These are central themes in restructuring of the music industry, in a context of platformization.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-02-17T12:54:28Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448231154568
       
  • People believe misinformation is a threat because they assume others are
           gullible

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      Authors: Sacha Altay, Alberto Acerbi
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      Alarmist narratives about the flow of misinformation and its negative consequences have gained traction in recent years. If these fears are to some extent warranted, the scientific literature suggests that many of them are exaggerated. Why are people so worried about misinformation' In two pre-registered surveys conducted in the United Kingdom (Nstudy_1 = 300, Nstudy_2 = 300) and replicated in the United States (Nstudy_1 = 302, Nstudy_2 = 299), we investigated the psychological factors associated with perceived danger of misinformation and how it contributes to the popularity of alarmist narratives on misinformation. We find that the strongest, and most reliable, predictor of perceived danger of misinformation is the third-person effect (i.e. the perception that others are more vulnerable to misinformation than the self) and, in particular, the belief that “distant” others (as opposed to family and friends) are vulnerable to misinformation. The belief that societal problems have simple solutions and clear causes was consistently, but weakly, associated with perceived danger of online misinformation. Other factors, like negative attitudes toward new technologies and higher sensitivity to threats, were inconsistently, and weakly, associated with perceived danger of online misinformation. Finally, we found that participants who report being more worried about misinformation are more willing to like and share alarmist narratives on misinformation. Our findings suggest that fears about misinformation tap into our tendency to view other people as gullible.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-02-17T12:49:31Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448231153379
       
  • Shaping feminist artificial intelligence

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      Authors: Sophie Toupin
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      This article examines the historical and contemporary shaping of feminist artificial intelligence (FAI). It begins by looking at the microhistory of FAI through the writings of Alison Adam and her graduate students to enrich the plural histories of AI and to write back feminist history into AI. Then, to explore contemporary examples of how FAI is being shaped today and how it deploys a multiplicity of meanings, I provide the following typology: FAI (1) as model, (2) as design, (3) as policy, (4) as culture, (5) as discourse, and (6) as science. This typology sheds light on the following questions: What does the term FAI mean' How has FAI been shaped over time'
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-02-17T12:43:52Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448221150776
       
  • The limits of live fact-checking: Epistemological consequences of
           introducing a breaking news logic to political fact-checking

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      Authors: Steen Steensen, Bente Kalsnes, Oscar Westlund
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      This article analyses the novel form of live political fact-checking, as performed by the Norwegian fact-checking organisation Faktisk.no during the Norwegian parliamentary election campaign in 2021. The aim of the study was to investigate the epistemological consequences of introducing a breaking news logic to political fact-checking. Through methods of participatory observation, interviews and textual analysis, the study finds that Faktisk.no used several strategies to bridge the ‘epistemic gap’ between the logics of breaking news and political fact-checking. Combined, these strategies pushed the live fact-checking towards a confirmative epistemology, implying that the live political fact-checking confirmed (1) knowledge already believed to be true and (2) hegemonic perspectives on what constitutes important and reliable information. The findings thereby point to a potential reorientation of political fact-checking from being a critical corrective of political elites to confirming the perspectives and knowledge base of the same elites.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-02-13T05:19:27Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448231151436
       
  • From Indy to ubiquity: Minecraft as platform and infrastructure

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      Authors: David Murphy
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      This article is about digital games, their evolving connections with platforms and infrastructures, and the influence that a decade of Minecraft’s development is having on this process. It begins with a discussion of previously disparate but increasingly convergent methodologies and literatures, including platform studies, media archeology, game studies, and cultural anthropological approaches to the study of infrastructure. Then, it applies points of convergence within these literatures to a political economic analysis of Minecraft that attributes its decade of growth to the systemic and metaphoric merging of platforms and infrastructures. Finally, it provides an ethnographic analysis of computers, made in Minecraft, which show how the game is not only taking on characteristics of platforms and infrastructures, but also affording a means of programming, visualizing, and experiencing platforms as infrastructure.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-02-10T11:28:37Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448221144989
       
  • Radical infrastructure: Building beyond the failures of past imaginaries
           for networked communication

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      Authors: Britt S Paris, Corinne Cath, Sarah Myers West
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      Ongoing political, environmental, and economic crises require infrastructures that can respond to crises in ways that do not replicate and reinforce inequality. To this end, we use a case study method of analysis that compares the authors’ previous work on Internet infrastructure at the levels of development, governance, and use to explore how these imaginaries promote or impede people-centered change in the development and maintenance of Internet infrastructure. This theoretical work puts the three existing cases in conversation to better understand how Internet infrastructure alternatives presented as radical, new, or non-hierarchical present shortcomings and opportunities, so that it might be more possible to imagine better, more truly radical, people-centered alternatives. From this comparison, we close our discussion with three heuristics for radical infrastructure: the need for pushing for alternative ensembles of support, busting the myth of technosolutionism, re-politicizing Internet infrastructure, and encouraging technical communities to build around cooperativity, not connectivity.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-02-03T11:51:32Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448231152546
       
  • Inequality and discrimination in the online labor market: A scoping review

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      Authors: Floor Fiers
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      Based on a comprehensive set of studies collected via five academic databases, this scoping review examines how inequality and discrimination have been studied in the context of paid online labor. We identify three approaches in the literature that aim to (1) identify participation patterns in (national) survey data, (2) examine background characteristics of online contractors based on survey or digital trace data, and (3) reveal social biases in the hiring process using experimental data. Building on Shaw and Hargittai’s pipeline of participation, we present a multi-stage model of engagement in online labor. When we map the studies across the stages, it becomes clear that the literature focuses on later stages (i.e. having been hired and received payment). Based on this analysis, future research should examine barriers to participation in earlier stages. Furthermore, we advocate for research that examines participation across multiple pipeline stages as well as for analysis of platform-level biases.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-02-01T09:01:51Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448221151200
       
  • See something, say something' The role of online self-disclosure on fear
           of terror among young social media users

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      Authors: Ruta Kaskeleviciute, Helena Knupfer, Jörg Matthes
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      Given that terrorism is omnipresent on social media, it is imperative to study how seeing terror content online is related to individuals’ attitudes, behaviors, and emotions. This study investigates how exposure to terrorism on social media associates with terror-related online self-disclosure and how self-disclosure, in turn, relates to fear of terrorism. A quota-based survey of young social media users (16- to 25-year-olds; N = 864) in Germany revealed that exposure to Islamist and far-right terrorism is related to higher online self-disclosure. Political ideology moderated the relationship between exposure to far-right terrorism and online self-disclosure, but not when exposed to Islamist terrorism. Attitudinal differentiation was negatively associated with self-disclosure. Additionally, we found an interaction effect of exposure to Islamist terrorism and attitudinal differentiation on self-disclosure. Finally, the results showed that online self-disclosure was positively related to fear of terrorism. By and large, our findings highlight the relevance of social media for the levels of fear.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-02-01T08:52:40Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448221148982
       
  • Enhancing social connectedness: How adults with vision impairment perceive
           and use social media in Nigeria

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      Authors: Nnaemeka Chidiebere Meribe, Emmanuel Ita Bassey, Anthony Ekpo Bassey, Caroline Ellison
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      As the number of social media users continues to increase globally, it is important to explore the experiences of different segments of users. While research on social media use by people with vision impairment is growing, lacking is research in this area in Nigeria. This qualitative study describes the lived experiences and perceptions of social media use among Nigerian adults with vision impairment, using a transcendental approach. Findings showed that people with vision impairment experienced a reduction in social connectedness due to their vision impairment, but those who used social media were able to enhance social connectedness, increase social interaction, develop social relationships and expand their social networks. Participants described social media as a good medium for learning and education as it enabled ready access to information. Results indicated that supporting adults with vision impairment experiencing reduced social connectedness to engage with social media could help improve their social well-being.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-02-01T08:47:20Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448221148980
       
  • ‘Just a little hack’: Investigating cultures of content moderation
           circumvention by Facebook users

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      Authors: Rosalie Gillett, Joanne E. Gray, D. Bondy Valdovinos Kaye
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      As social media platforms adapt their rules to limit the presence, spread, and amplification of harmful content on their services, users develop strategies to circumvent content moderation policies. To better understand cultures of content moderation circumvention, including the types of rules that Facebook users seek to circumvent, we analysed a sample of YouTube videos and Reddit threads in which users discuss content moderation circumvention. We show how Facebook users turn to others across platforms to obtain information about circumvention methods. We observe that these users often discuss overcoming Facebook’s content moderation policies in terms that downplay the significance of their intended actions. We suggest that where Facebook’s policies and enforcement measures fail to deter rule violations that may facilitate harm, Facebook should consider new culture-driven approaches to platform governance that foster prosocial environments and engender compliance with platform rules.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-02-01T08:42:01Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448221147661
       
  • It’s not an encyclopedia, it’s a market of agendas: Decentralized
           

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      Authors: Ruqin Ren, Jian Xu
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      Many innovative forms of media entered the online mediascape and can potentially set public agendas. This study drew on peer-produced news content on Wikipedia and theorized its unprecedented agenda building power within a network of diverse media sources. Adopting the network agenda-setting model, this study collected comprehensive global news coverage and Wikipedia coverage of top US political news events from 2015 to 2020. Time series analysis found that none of the media types (Wikipedia, elite media, and non-elite media) exhibited dominant agenda-setting power, while each of them can lead the agenda in certain circumstances. Wikipedia was a critical agenda setter for other media entities, and it also reflected the public’s collective evaluation of existing news agendas from multiple sources. This article proposed a multi-agent and multidirectional network architecture to describe agenda-setting relationships. We also highlighted four unique characteristics of Wikipedia that matter for digital journalism.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-01-28T11:17:43Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448221149641
       
  • Facebook’s platform coloniality: At the nexus of political economy,
           nation-state’s internal colonialism, and the political activism of the
           marginalized

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      Authors: Mohammed A. Salih
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      This article explores Facebook’s censorship of Kurdish political activism at the request of the Turkish government. I argue that Facebook’s censorship of political voices belonging to the marginalized Kurdish community is an articulation of platform coloniality, an outcome constituted by the intersecting of the social media giant’s global political economy imperatives with racialized and hierarchized conceptions of human worth. The effects of platform coloniality are exacerbated due to it being mediated by the Turkish nation-state’s internal colonial politics and militarist regional policies, thus intensifying the marginalization of Kurds inside and outside Turkey. Covered in a typical neoliberal discourse of freedom and human rights, platform coloniality represents a continuation of the age-old patterns of Western power and its flow toward the Global South.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-01-24T08:43:29Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448221144987
       
  • The bumpy paths of online sleuthing: Exploring the interactional
           accomplishment of familiarity, evidence, and authority in online crime
           discussions

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      Authors: David Wästerfors, Veronika Burcar Alm, Erik Hannerz
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      Much of today’s public discourse on crime cases take place on online platforms, as long chains of high-speed posts: speculations, analyses, and laments, as well as ironic, sarcastic, and derogatory comments. These give excellent (and yet risky) possibilities to engage in homemade investigation, with other posters as instant reviewers and audiences. In this article, we explore the interactional origin of case-related familiarity, evidence and authority in crime discussions on the Swedish platform Flashback. Through Internet data and interviews, we show how online sleuths interact digitally with one another so that familiarity with the case is performed, leads and evidence suggested, and investigative authority recognized. We argue that an interactionist and ethnographic approach is needed to uncover such recurring processes in online crime case discussions. The accomplishment of sleuthing is highly dependent on others’ shifting responses, and is, therefore, a “bumpy” path.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-01-23T08:02:10Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448221149909
       
  • Introducing an “invisible enemy”: A case study of knowledge
           construction regarding microplastics in Japanese Wikipedia

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      Authors: Mengyuan Fu, Kunhao Yang, Yuko Fujigaki
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      Microplastics, a novel global environmental problem, has become a fast-developing research field with worldwide investments. With scientific development, social science studies are expected to contribute to developing more effective communication on microplastics. Among various media, this article focused on Wikipedia and discussed one particular situation—when the language of Wikipedia differs from the language of mainstream information sources. Inspired by actor network theory, we analyzed the revision history of the Japanese Wikipedia article on microplastics from 2014 to 2020 and elucidated how knowledge of microplastics was textually constructed. We found editors’ reluctance to disprove and update the latest scientific knowledge in edit actions, as well as problems and flaws existing in the created knowledge that shows limited enforcement of Wikipedia policies. Based on the findings, we urge more attention to improving the public knowledge of fast-developing science, especially when the knowledge construction might encounter a cross-language context.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-01-23T07:15:23Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448221149747
       
  • ‘90 per cent of the time when I have had a drink in my hand I’m on my
           phone as well’: A cross-national analysis of communications technologies
           and drinking practices among young people

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      Authors: Gabriel Caluzzi, Laura Fenton, John Holmes, Sarah MacLean, Amy Pennay, Hannah Fairbrother, Jukka Törrönen
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      Greater use of communication technologies among young people, including mobile phones, social media and communication apps, has coincided with declines in youth alcohol use in many high-income countries. However, little research has unpacked how drinking as a practice within interconnected routines and interactions may be changing alongside these technologies. Drawing on qualitative interviews about drinking with young people aged 16–23 across three similar studies in Australia, the United Kingdom and Sweden, we identify how communication technologies may afford reduced or increased drinking. They may reduce drinking by producing new online contexts, forms of intimacy and competing activities. They may increase drinking by re-organising drinking occasions, rituals and contexts. And they may increase or reduce drinking by enabling greater fluidity and interaction between diverse practices. These countervailing dynamics have likely contributed to shifting drinking patterns and practices for young people that may be obscured beneath the population-level decline in youth drinking.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-01-23T06:02:50Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448221150775
       
  • The epistemologies of data journalism

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      Authors: Amanda Ramsälv, Mats Ekström, Oscar Westlund
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      Amid digital developments, data journalism has gained a strong foothold among news publishers and in public discourse. With its authoritative claims and informative visualizations, it can play a significant role in the actions of citizens and people in power. This mixed-method case study explores a distinct epistemology developed in an independent form of data journalism in public service media in Scandinavia, not subordinate to traditional news values or investigative journalism. The study investigates its knowledge and truth claims, approach to data, transparency practices, and resources invested to claim reliable knowledge. The epistemology is characterized by innovative practices in the visualizing of essentially prejustified datasets. It claims public value offering general information and audience-friendly explorations of individual perspectives on topics on the public agenda. The approach to data views reality as measurable facts yet indicates epistemic ambiguity regarding figures’ reliability, guided by a principle of reasonableness in the justifications of truth claims.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-01-23T05:56:09Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448221150439
       
  • Aging differently: How socioemotional reactions to perceived remaining
           time in life influence older adults’ satisfaction in virtual communities
           

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      Authors: Junjie Zhou, Ruochen Liao, Rajiv Kishore
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      This study aims to understand how older adults’ socioemotional reactions to perceived remaining time in life influence their satisfaction from their knowledge contribution and seeking in virtual communities (VCs). Rooted in socioemotional selectivity theory, we choose a positive attitude toward aging and meaning in life to describe older adults’ reactions to aging, and test the proposed hypotheses based on 204 valid survey responses. Results confirm that while both knowledge contribution and knowledge-seeking activities promote older adults’ satisfaction, the impact of knowledge contribution is stronger on satisfaction. Furthermore, as hypothesized, the positive attitude toward aging amplifies the impact of knowledge-seeking while meaning in life weakens the impact of knowledge contribution on older adults’ satisfaction. This study contributes to the literature on how older adults derive satisfaction from their knowledge contribution and knowledge-seeking activities in VCs and offers insights into using VCs to build a digitally inclusive society.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-01-23T05:53:51Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448221149906
       
  • “TikTok ≠ therapy”: Mediating mental health and
           algorithmic mood disorders

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      Authors: Holly Avella
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      Popular and professional psychology merge to produce novel forms on TikTok—a platform on which therapeutic content grew enormously during the pandemic, rendering it a productive site to examine mediated mental health subjectivities, including ways people come to understand themselves in terms of mental health pathologies. Examining the dynamic interplay of capacities and constraints of therapeutic and algorithmic frameworks reveals ways in which therapeutic roles and rituals are re-negotiated in this space. Therapists utilize memetic tropes of the platform to position themselves within its affective flows, while leveraging beliefs about the algorithm to connect with users. The affective engagement of users’ works to curate a stream of content against which mental health and therapeutic frameworks are evaluated, ultimately designating a diagnostic gaze to a charismatic algorithm—a potentially emergent social media case of automated forms becoming paradigmatic in the ways we conceive of mental health and therapy.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-01-13T05:42:04Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448221147284
       
  • Digital–environmental habitus of families in England in times of
           pandemic

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      Authors: Maria Laura Ruiu, Gabriele Ruiu, Massimo Ragnedda
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      This article uses adopts a revised version of the concept of techno-environmental habitus to investigate and make sense of the differentiation among digital technology users’ attitudes towards the environment in England. Digital–environmental habitus refers to the combination of structural determinants (existing background) and the metabolised increased use of digital technologies in people’s everyday life that also interacts with individual environmental attitudes. The results of a national survey among English parents between 20 and 55 years suggest that parents’ education levels, gender, age and income play a role in increasing their awareness about the environmental-friendly use of digital technologies. This study shows that the digital–environmental habitus of parents in England is layered according to the combination of existing socioeconomic traits and individual capacity and willingness to adapt to a drastic increase in both the use of digital technologies (due to the social distancing imposed by the pandemic) and environmental degradation.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-01-13T05:41:31Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448221146716
       
  • How online advertising targets consumers: The uses of categories and
           algorithmic tools by audience planners

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      Authors: Thomas Beauvisage, Jean-Samuel Beuscart, Samuel Coavoux, Kevin Mellet
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      Recent innovations in online advertising facilitate the use of a wide variety of data sources to build micro-segments of consumers, and delegate the manufacture of audience segments to machine learning algorithms. Both techniques promise to replace demographic targeting, as part of a post-demographic turn driven by big data technologies. This article empirically investigates this transformation in online advertising. We show that targeting categories are assessed along three criteria: efficiency, communicability, and explainability. The relative importance of these objectives helps explain the lasting role of demographic categories, the development of audience segments specific to each advertiser, and the difficulty in generalizing interest categories associated with big data. These results underline the importance of studying the impact of advanced big data and AI technologies in their organizational and professional contexts of appropriation, and of paying attention to the permanence of the categorizations that make the social world intelligible.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-01-13T05:40:34Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448221146174
       
  • Alternative health groups on social media, misinformation, and the
           (de)stabilization of ontological security

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      Authors: Melissa Zimdars, Megan E. Cullinan, Kilhoe Na
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      Through 19 semistructured interviews, we explore why people join and participate in “alternative health” Facebook groups and Reddit subs. Participation in these groups creates an ontological circle where people’s feelings of fear, desperation, and distrust in the systems and actors that comprise our government, health, and news systems inspire alternative information and support-seeking in these groups and subs. While participation assuages those feelings and stabilizes people’s sense of ontological security, it also destabilizes it, reinforcing and legitimizing feelings of fear, desperation, and distrust. This circle contributes to favorable receptive conditions for spreading unproven and dangerous health misinformation. We argue that it will be difficult to address misinformation (1) without considering and rectifying people’s often valid reasons for feelings of fear, desperation, distrust, and their desires for information and (2) without considering the relationships between alternative health social media groups and subs and the (de)stabilization of ontological security.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-01-13T05:39:56Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448221146171
       
  • The shape of the cloud: Contesting date centre construction in North
           Holland

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      Authors: Julia Rone
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      The article analyses local contestation of data centres in the Dutch province of North Holland. I explore why and how local councillors and citizen groups mobilized against data centres and demanded democratization of decision-making processes about digital infrastructure. This analysis is used as a vantage point to problematize existing policy and academic narratives on digital sovereignty in Europe. I show, first, that most debates on digital sovereignty so far have overlooked the sub-national level, which is especially relevant for decision making on digital infrastructure. Second, I insist that what matters is not only where digital sovereignty lies, that is, who has the power to decide over digital infrastructural projects: for example, corporations, states, regions, or municipalities. What matters is also how power is exercised. Emphasizing the popular democratic dimension of sovereignty, I argue for a comprehensive democratization of digital sovereignty policies. Democratization in this context is conceived as a multimodal multi-level process, including parliaments, civil society and citizens at the national, regional and local levels alike. The shape of the cloud should be citizens’ to decide.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-01-05T12:24:08Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448221145928
       
  • Contextualizing the ethics of algorithms: A socio-professional approach

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      Authors: Netta Avnoon, Dan M Kotliar, Shira Rivnai-Bahir
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      Research on AI ethics tends to examine the subject through philosophical, legal, or technical perspectives, largely neglecting the sociocultural one. This literature also predominantly focuses on Europe and the United States. Addressing these gaps, this article explores how data scientists justify and explain the ethics of their algorithmic work. Based on a pragmatist social analysis, and of 60 semi-structured interviews with Israeli data scientists, we ask: how do data scientists understand, interpret, and depict algorithmic ethics' And what ideologies, discourses, and worldviews shape algorithmic ethics' Our findings point to three dominant moral logics: (1) ethics as a personal endeavor; (2) ethics as hindering progress; and (3) ethics as a commodity. We show that while data science is a nascent profession, these moral logics originate from the techno-libertarian culture of its parent profession—engineering. Finally, we discuss the potential of these moral logics to mature into a more formal, agreed-upon moral regime.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-01-05T12:22:17Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448221145728
       
  • A longitudinal examination of Internet users’ privacy protection
           behaviors in relation to their perceived collective value of privacy and
           individual privacy concerns

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      Authors: Yannic Meier, Nicole C Krämer
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      People’s perception of privacy can primarily be directed to themselves or to the value of privacy for society. Likewise, privacy protection can repel both individual and collective privacy threats. Focusing on this distinction, the present article examines Internet users’ privacy protection behaviors in relation to individual privacy concerns and their perceived collective value of privacy over time. We conducted a longitudinal panel study with three measurement points (N = 1790) to investigate relations between and within persons. The results of a random-intercept cross-lagged panel model revealed positive relations between the perceived value of privacy, privacy concerns, and privacy protection between persons. At the within-person level, only a temporal increase in the perceived value of privacy was related to increased protection behaviors. This suggests that individual privacy concerns are not as important for temporal protection as assumed, but that a recognition of collective privacy may temporarily change people’s privacy behavior.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-01-05T11:54:17Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448221142799
       
  • Desirable work: Creative autonomy and the everyday turn in game production

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      Authors: Chris J Young
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      Based on an ethnography of gamemaking in the Toronto game development scene, I introduce the concept of the everyday gamemaker to reveal how the everyday turn of game production work has transformed the identities of gameworkers. Whereas, previous research has documented the extensive self-exploitation and willingness of creative workers to accept difficult and precarious working conditions, I uncover how everyday gamemakers “make-do” with these modes of cultural production by their desires to going it alone as independent gamemakers, establish second careers through employment and craft work, and find professional development opportunities to make games. I argue these desires shape the nuanced work and leisure identities of everyday gamemakers and evoke their widespread struggle to achieve creative autonomy in the circuits of game production.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-01-04T08:52:27Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448221146480
       
  • What do 5G networks, Bill Gates, Agenda 21, and QAnon have in common'
           Sources, distribution, and characteristics

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      Authors: Itai Himelboim, Porismita Borah, Danielle Ka Lai Lee, Jeonghyun (Janice) Lee, Yan Su, Anastasia Vishnevskaya, Xizhu Xiao
      Abstract: New Media & Society, Ahead of Print.
      Mounting uncertainties regarding the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic and the popularity of social media created fertile grounds for conspiracy theories to flourish, leading to a global “infodemic.” We examine information sources used to support five popular COVID-19-related conspiracy theories on Twitter to identify (1) their primary building blocks, (2) similarities and dissimilarities across COVID-19 conspiracy theories, and (3) the relationship between type of message content and content distribution. Findings show that statements of belief and of malicious purpose were most popular, followed by conspirators, authentication, and secretive actions. However, only malicious purposes and secretive actions messages successfully predicted higher distribution of content, while, for instance, content authentication showed a negative relation. Furthermore, the type of conspiracy theories matters. Mega-theories, such as Agenda 21 and QAnon, incorporated less statements of Belief. COVID-19 vaccine–related theories focused more on authentication, while QAnon highlighted the conspirators behind the pandemic. Conceptual and practical implications are discussed.
      Citation: New Media & Society
      PubDate: 2023-01-04T08:49:48Z
      DOI: 10.1177/14614448221142800
       
 
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