Examining the roles of social media and alternative media in social movement participation: A study of Hong Kong’s Umbrella Movement

During the recent wave of pro-democracy movement across the world, new media technologies play a vital role in mobilizing participants. Much scholarly attention has been paid to the role of social media in empowering grassroots movements, but the rise of alternative media was somehow ignored. This study examines the impacts of social media and alternative media on social movement participation. The data came from a survey of 769 students from eight public universities in Hong Kong at the height of the Umbrella Movement. The findings revealed that acquisition of political information from social media and alternative media is associated with social movement participation through different mechanisms. Specifically, social media serve as an echo chamber where people are motivated to participate by perceiving a homogeneous opinion climate and forming a pro-protest attitude. In contrast, alternative media serve as an attitude intensifier to facilitate social movement participation.     

Does social media use really make people politically polarized? Direct and indirect effects of social media use on political polarization in South Korea

To help inform the debate over whether social media is related to political polarization, we investigated the effects of social media use on changes in political view using panel data collected in South Korea (N?=?6411) between 2012 and 2016. We found that, although there were no direct effects of social media use, social media indirectly contributed to polarization through increased political engagement. Those who actively used social network sites were more likely to engage in political processes, which led them to develop more extreme political attitudes over time than those who did not use social network sites. In particular, we observed a clear trend toward a more liberal direction among both politically neutral users and moderately liberal users. In this study, we highlight the role of social media in activating political participation, which eventually pushes the users toward the ideological poles. The implications of these findings are discussed.     

The media use of American youngsters in the age of narcissism : Surviving in a 24/7 media shock and awe – distracted by everything

Digital life in the age of nonstop connection is not easy, especially not for the so-called Millennials, youngsters born after 1980. Research findings, such as the recently released comprehensive reports by the Kaiser Family Foundation and Pew Foundation, highlight that media are among the most powerful forces in young people’s lives today. Eight- to twenty-somethings in the US spend more than 50 h in front of a screen each week. That is more than a regular working week. The TV shows they watch, video games they play, songs they listen to, books they read, text messages they send and websites they visit are an enormous part of their lives, offering a constant stream of messages about families, peers, relationships, gender roles, sex, violence, food, values, clothes, and so on.     

Do social media literacy skills help in combating fake news spread? Modelling the moderating role of social media literacy skills in the relationship between rational choice factors and fake news sharing behaviour

This study modelled the rational factors that predict fake news sharing behaviour. It also tested the moderating role of social media literacy skills. The focus was on social media users in Nigeria. An online survey was conducted to gather the responses from participants across Nigerian geopolitical zones. Structural equation modelling (SEM) Smart PLS 3.6 was used to analyse the data. We found that information sharing, the news finds me perception, trust in social media and status-seeking lead to fake news sharing among social media users in Nigeria. Specifically, trust in social media and status-seeking had a greater effect on fake news sharing behaviour. We also found that social media literacy skills significantly moderate the relationship between information sharing, status-seeking, the news finds me perception, trust in social media and fake news sharing in such a way that the effects/relationships are stronger among those with low social media literacy skills. This outcome contributes to theory and practice which was highlighted in the concluding aspect of this study.     

Participation – In what? Radio,convergence and the corporate logic of audience input through new media in Zambia

Recent literature has pointed to the way in which new media such as the internet and mobile phones have the capacity to enable more participatory and interactive communication, either through user-generated content or through a broader participation of audiences in mainstream media’s content production. This potential is celebrated even more in contexts in which there is deemed to be a lack of political accountability or limited consultation of citizens by government. This article investigates the extent to which new technologies have changed the quality of audience participation in radio content production in Zambia. Engaging with literature on participation in media studies as well as development studies and based on interviews with station managers, producers and presenters of six radio stations in Zambia, the article examines both the opportunities and limits of the use of internet and mobile phones in audience participation. It argues that there is a need to situate these practices within a broader corporate logic in which participation is not merely about adding more voices but also feeds into radio stations’ commercial strategies of increasing revenue and accessing personal data of listeners through SMS and social media.     

Study of Multi media Streams Dynamic Rate Control Based on Fuzzy Adaptive PID

1IntroductionAs for multi media transmitted through Internet ,some congestion control methods can adjust sending rateto reduce the packet loss ratio accordingto networkcon-gestion status , and strive to keep the smoothness ofsending rate so as to avoid video jitter[1 ~3]. Congestioncontrol mechanism based on sending rate can achieve“TCP-friendly”by networkfeedbackindication and dy-namic sending rate adjusting[4].Si mple AI MDi mitates action of TCPcongestion con-trol , which leads to sho…     

Network enforcement as denunciation endorsement? A critical study on legal enforcement in social media

Facing the increasing prevalence of hate speech and other personality rights violations on social media, the legislature tries to improve the law enforcement by involving the social media companies. In 2017, the German Bundestag passed a new law, the Network Enforcement Act (NetzDG), which requires website owners to review the content published on their pages upon it being reported by users and to remove it as soon as possible in the event of a breach of the law. This forces social media operators to establish efficient reporting systems which can create breeding grounds for user denunciation. To get an overview of whether this is really the case, we briefly discuss state surveillance and denunciation and analyse the statistics of content blockings and deletions in five countries (USA, Germany, United Kingdom, Russia and Turkey). In Germany the number of blockings and deletions of content has risen for Facebook, Twitter and YouTube due to the NetzDG, but it has also been found that the majority of reports were unjustified as they did not lead to any restriction or deletion of the content. When comparing the German numbers with those of the other countries investigated, it becomes apparent that after the introduction of the NetzDG in Germany, more content is being blocked and deleted. Also, a comparison of the various laws regulating online content in these countries was conducted. It was found that not only Germany has tightened the regulation of online content and that other countries are also trying to transform the Internet into a more hate free environment.     

Social media and political partisanship – A subaltern public sphere’s role in democracy

Social media, as a subaltern public sphere (Fraser, 1990), have a democratic function in providing an alternative platform for minorities and marginalized to defy mainstream discourses in the public sphere. However, social media have been found to have an echo chamber effect, which may be detrimental to democracy. They may help to accelerate the ascendancy of a “post-truth” era in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief. A study on political polarization, however, showed that selective exposure and avoidance in social media are weak indicators of polarization (Johnson et al., 2017). This study examines the role of social media in democracy and partisan politics. The authors considered that despite the echo chamber effect, social media have a limited part to play in the formation of polarized stances compared with other factors, such as demographics, political orientation, and mass media use. The study tested two main hypotheses: H1: Social media use is associated with political stance that is marginalized in the mainstream media; H2: Political orientation has a stronger relationship than social media use with the stance toward political values and social issues.The results supported both hypotheses. Social media are associated with political stance that is marginalized in the mainstream media. However, when compared with other factors, the relationship between social media and stance becomes less obvious. Although the echo chamber effect may reinforce the original stance, social media do not exhibit a strong relationship with the stance toward political values and social issues. Partisan orientation and use of partisan mass media are found to have stronger links with variations in stance. Social media, however, provide a subaltern public sphere for those excluded from the dominant public sphere, thus extending the public sphere to accommodate multiple opinions and perspectives.     

Understanding publics’ post-crisis social media engagement behaviors: An examination of antecedents and mediators

This study examines the psychological mechanisms underlying the process that enables publics’ individual differences (e.g., the levels of uncertainty avoidance and social media usage) to give rise to varying post-crisis social media engagement intentions (e.g., information seeking, support seeking, and negative word-of-mouth). The study confirms that this process is serially mediated by perceived threat severity, perceived susceptibility, and negative emotions. These psychological mediators, however, function differently between uncertainty avoidance and social media usage. For uncertainty avoidance, a high arousal negative emotion (e.g., anger, fear) is a more essential step to influence engagement intentions than a low arousal emotion (e.g., shame, guilt). For social media usage, however, the type of aroused negative emotions does not matter. Rather, the relationship social media usage has with information seeking is different from that with support seeking and negative word-of-mouth intentions. Social media usage induces information seeking intentions only through publics’ cognitive appraisals of the situation without the activation of negative emotions, while it induces supporting seeking and negative word-of-mouth intentions through both cognitive appraisals and negative emotion arousals.     

How does social media change Chinese political culture? The formation of fragmentized public sphere

Social media promotes a broad discussion about the contemporary public sphere in China. Analyzing the relationship between social media and democratic politics in the unique context of China helps us to rethink a metamorphosis of Habermas’s public sphere model. The study supports the idea that the online public sphere more often than not transforms into a fragmentized formation of the multiple tensions between participatory democracy, journalism transformation and governmental authority. It may be difficult, under a single theoretical framework of civil society, to map out the complexities in Chinese social media. The key point is how a fragmentized structure of the public sphere has been integrated in the power game process of achieving consensus. Based on the special Internet policies and political environment in China, the implication of public sphere theory in Chinese social media is reconsidered.     

Characteristics and social impact of the use of social media by Chinese Dama

Against the backdrop of broader social changes, social media has developed rapidly in China, which has pushed the transition of the media environment from a traditional authority-dominated one to a modern media society. In particular, the use of social media by Chinese Dama can be perceived as an exemplar of media-driven social change. ‘Chinese Dama’ is a buzzword coined in tandem with the development of social media since 2013. This term represents a particular group of middle-aged Chinese women who reflect a distinctive social phenomenon in China. It is noteworthy that a growing number of Chinese Dama are learning to use social media and have established thousands of social media communities, exerting significant influence on the wider media and social environment. This study focuses on the major changes undergone by Dama, transitioning from being passively covered by media to becoming active users of social media, and this research analyzes the motivations and hallmarks of their social media activity. Although the use of social media by Chinese Dama, the traditional nucleus of Chinese society, has contributed to narrowing the digital divide and resulted in the Dama’s gaining more discourse power and ushered in new diverse lifestyles, we argue that the Dama also exert a far-reaching positive and negative influence on society, pushing for the modernization transformation of the Chinese society.     

Social media and internet public events

Contemporary China is experiencing deeper reform and social transformation. The newly born social media have participated in the historical process of China’s reform and social change. Based on the existing literature of social media and internet public events, this article aims to study China’s internet public events through the perspective of social transformation theory, especially theories of the civic society and public sphere. This study has used case study to explore the role that social media play in social change in China through in-depth analysis of 57 typical cases. We found that social media are not only an important information source and means for online civil mobilization, but also provide citizens an open and free space for discussion of internet public events. The impact of social media in promoting social change was reflected in the supervision of governmental, judiciary and other public power; maintenance of justice and protection of disadvantaged groups; attracting the government’s attention, urging governmental information publicity and investigation of the events, and promoting social management innovation and institutional change. Social media are a helpful force in the construction of internet public sphere and civil society of contemporary China. Meanwhile, it is necessary to be cautious that social media is also likely to be a breeding ground for nationalist and populist discourses.     

Protest Paradigm in Multimedia: Social Media Sharing of Coverage About the Crime of Ayotzinapa,Mexico

In 2014 protests erupted around the world after 43 college students from Ayotzinapa, Mexico, were kidnapped and massacred. This bilingual, cross-national content analysis explores the relationship between multimedia features in stories about the Ayotzinapa protests and how social media users liked, shared, and commented on that coverage. This study furthers our understanding of the protest paradigm in a digital context, and sheds light on differences in mainstream, alternative, and online media outlets' coverage of protesters. Additionally, this study suggests social media users might prefer more legitimizing coverage of protesters than mainstream media typically offer.     

融媒体时代,记者如何做出“好新闻”

互联网信息技术日趋成熟,催生融媒体的同时,也加速了传统媒体的转型。融媒体时代下,对传统的媒体而言,既是机遇也是挑战。如何能够抓住机遇,迎接挑战,是广大新闻人值得思考的问题。融媒体时代对新闻行业提出了更高的要求,新闻记者作为新闻行业的关键构成部分,记者的能力与素质将直接关系到新闻企业的长足发展。     

智能网联汽车信息安全关键技术探讨

随着我国网络通信技术的飞速发展,以"智能化+网联化"为代表的智能网联汽车正成为汽车产业发展的重要组成部分。无论是传统汽车企业,还是新兴科技企业,都在加快相关产业布局,推进商业化进程。发展智能网联汽车是中国汽车产业的一次重大机遇,但同时也面临着一系列挑战。本文将就智能联网汽车的信息安全关键技术进行分析和探究。     

Research on Chinese social media users’ communication behaviors during public emergency events

In recent years, China has been in a period of social transition. Public emergency events have occurred frequently, and social media have developed rapidly. Social media users in China not only represent traditional audiences but also play an increasingly important role in crisis communication during public emergency events by expressing their views, discussing events with others and sharing information both online and offline. According to national telephone survey data from China, nearly two-thirds of the respondents engaged in communication behaviors during public emergency events, and more than forty percent of those users communicated by social media. Hundreds of millions of Chinese social media users are becoming the driving force of the public opinion field. To better understand social media users’ online information dissemination behaviors and influencing factors, we developed the hierarchical logistic regression model and observed that demographic variables (gender and age), social media use, people’s concerns regarding public emergencies and people’s need to monitor the government’s performance during public emergencies significantly influence online information dissemination behaviors. Our study has practical significance and academic value for understanding the online public opinion field and online political participation in China.     

When attention-grabbing tactics backfire during media multitasking: The detrimental effect of atypical advertising slogans on brand attitude

Emerging technologies have transformed traditional single-screen viewing into a new form of audience behavior called media multitasking (e.g. surfing the internet while watching TV). This shared attention in media-multitasking situations poses a challenge to media planers when attracting the audience’s attention. However, attention-grabbing tactics might backfire on companies as they make manipulative intent salient and, therefore, decrease levels of brand attitude. This study advances the extant research by challenging the suitability of silence as an attention-grabbing practice in advertising during media multitasking. More specifically, we test if atypical (i.e. silent) slogans in TV commercials impact on consumers’ evaluation of brand-related information when media multitasking. Utilizing a one-factor (two-level) between-subject laboratory experiment (N = 66), this study examined participants’ feelings of manipulation and brand attitude when exposed to typical versus atypical TV advertising slogans in a media-multitasking situation. The results demonstrate that a typical TV advertising slogan (i.e. audio in addition to vision) during media multitasking results in lower salience of manipulative intent compared to an atypical slogan (i.e. silent) and positively impacts on brand attitude.     

5G时代新闻编辑的思维模式创新

当前社会是信息化时代,5G通信技术的应用、普及,已经为人们的生活、工作和学习带来了巨大地变化。人们获取信息的方式和媒介更加丰富。新闻编辑应该立足于传统媒体,发挥传统媒体的优势,运用创新性思维的方式,融合新媒体的特点,从而为新闻编辑的工作注入新的活力。     

社会化媒体发展现状及其趋势分析

近年来,以Web 2.0为代表的新一代互联网技术迅猛发展,改变了传统的信息传播方式,使得基于互联网的社会化媒体从虚拟走向现实,正深刻影响和改变着我们的生活。文章对社会化媒体的发展现状进行了梳理,并从社会化媒体的特征、基础、分类以及与传统媒体的区别等方面深入分析其内涵,最后结合国内外实际,展望社会化媒体发展的新趋势。