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This paper introduces the 'Decolonising the Internet' themed special issue which includes research presented at the 23rd annual Association of Internet Researchers (AoIR) conference (2022). The conference theme centred on decolonisation, highlighting the persistence of colonial practices but also the resistance they generate. Focusing on the internet as entailing colonial appropriations, reproducing inequalities, and foreclosing alternative ways of being, the conference theme asked participants to consider not only the ways in which the internet walks on the path forged by colonialism, but also how research practices are implicated in reinforcing the same exploitative patterns. This special issue includes seven papers that cover new and innovative approaches to studying decolonising the internet, including contexts related to LGBTQIA + digital spaces, neighbourhood and local surveillance, data colonialism, misinformation and conspiracies, and inclusion and access problems for Indigenous peoples. The papers in this issue also focus on various geographic locations in the Global South, including Africa, South America, and the Asia Pacific. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The emergence of social network sites and online communities has offered new possibilities for older adults to stay socially connected and older adults comprise a growing user group of social media. This paper examines the relationship between older adults' online social engagement and social capital based on a national survey of adults aged 60 and over. Findings show that older adults who engage more often in specific online social activities (i.e., asking questions on social media, looking at photos of family members/others) enjoy greater bridging social capital (both in offline and online contexts) than those who do so less often. Furthermore, Internet skills moderate the relationship between online social engagement and social capital. Specifically, older adults with greater Internet skills benefit relatively more from engaging in specific online social activities more often with respect to online bridging. The paper discusses the implications for digital inequality scholarship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper combines clinical-psychological and digital literacy frameworks to shed new light on explanations for excessive Internet use (EIU). The combination of these opposing approaches leads to a more comprehensive explanation of intense use with negative outcomes. A survey with a random sample of 18,709 Internet-using children between 11 and 16 years old was carried out in 25 European countries. The study shows that there are interactional and indirect relationships between psychological and digital literacy variables and EIU. Psychologically vulnerable children with higher levels of digital engagement have the most negative outcomes while the least at risk are non-vulnerable children with high levels of literacy (interactional relationship). In reality, psychologically vulnerable children's risk of negative outcomes is exacerbated by their tendency to spend more time online but countered by their lower literacy levels (contradicting direct and indirect relationships). Among those who are not vulnerable, digital literacy is weakly related to negative outcomes. The implications of these results for future research are that explanations for EIU should incorporate psychological and digital literacy indicators. Practical implications are that clinical psychologists working with EIU should consider digital literacy in developing interventions and that digital inclusion interventions should consider the potential negative impact of increased Internet use on vulnerable young people. This paper's original contribution lies in showing that whether intense Internet use is related to negative outcomes depends on the psychological characteristics of the child. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aimed to study the Internet's impacts on moral intolerance and social intolerance. Taking the perspective of media ecology, this paper viewed the Internet as a context and explored how it affects social context in which intolerance is formed. Using the data from the World Values Survey 2010–2014, this paper carried out multilevel analyses with 48,841 respondents in 33 countries. The results show a couple of antithetical effects. First, intolerance is enhanced by the Internet penetration as a context but is reduced by the individual use of the Internet as a medium. Second, the effects of the Internet penetration are counteracted by the Internet participation, which builds up a robust democracy that functions to buffer the informational impacts of the Internet. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on data gathered during ethnographic fieldwork in a south-western Chinese town, this paper examines a detailed case study of a single family, and how their internet use transformed over an 18-month period following the introduction of home broadband to their house. Despite initial intentions that the connection would resolve the problem of errant offspring accessing the internet outside the home, the subsequent effects that home internet brought upon domestic life were largely unforeseen. The detailed narrative presented herein highlights how different family members' perceptions and actual use of the internet generated multiple contradictions over the fieldwork period. This paper argues that Silverstone, R., Hirsch, E., & Morley, D.’s (1992). Information and communication technologies and the moral economy of the household. In R. Silverstone & E. Hirsch (Eds.), Consuming technologies: Media and information in domestic spaces (pp. 15–31). London: Routledge] theory of domestication provides the most suitable model for understanding the introduction of information and communication technologies into the home, owing to its capacity to take into account how attitudes towards the internet are renegotiated over time. The paper proposes further refinements be made to the theory by challenging the assumption that users aspire to ‘incorporate’ the technology into the household. Instead, the ethnographic data indicate that the main drivers of the domestication process are family members' desires to use the internet as a way to transform relationships within the household. More broadly, by foregrounding participants' concerns regarding internet use as focusing chiefly on family life and education, this paper also provides an important alternative to prevailing scholarly trends that generally understand the Chinese internet through themes of politics, censorship and democracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While there is a large literature on the determinants of generalized trust, few studies have explored the impact of internal migration and attempted to tackle potential endogeneity issues. Using nationally representative data from the latest five rounds of the China General Society Survey, this paper estimates the impact of internal migration on generalized trust by exploiting arguably exogenous, historical changes in the GDP growth target set by the government and the share of migrants at the county level. We find evidence of a significant negative impact of internal migration on generalized trust. We also investigate the moderating role of Internet use, and find that whilst Internet use significantly attenuates the negative impact on generalized trust of internal migration, this moderating effect is much stronger for urban-to-urban migrants than it is for rural-to-urban migrants. The results further indicate that internal migration in China has led to the deterioration of subjective well-being, changing perceptions of fairness, increased likelihood of downward social mobility, and deterioration in social relations, which we interpret as potential mechanisms behind our findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Living alone has been indicated as a key variable to explain loneliness in older adults. In contemporary society, where technology has become one of the main means of communication and personal interaction, has the internet influenced the relationship between living alone and loneliness? This paper aims to answer this research question by using a sample of 64,297 individuals who were surveyed in SHARE project wave 6 – in European countries with different welfare regimes (Portugal, Greece, Italy and Spain, Denmark, Sweden, Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Switzerland, Luxemburg, Poland, Czech Republic; Slovenia, Estonia, and Croatia). The results of the regression analysis evidence the moderating role of the internet on the relationship between living alone and feelings of loneliness in individuals aged 50 and over, so that the impact of living alone on loneliness is diminished for internet users as compared to their peers who do not use the internet. The results therefore reinforce the importance of policies aimed at fostering e-inclusion as a way of reducing the loneliness of older adults. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the relevance of Georg Lukács' 1923 book History and Class Consciousness in the context of digital capitalism. It does so by analysing how Lukács' concepts of the dialectic of subject and object, ideology, reification, reified consciousness matter today in the context of big data and digital capitalism. The essay shows that History and Class Consciousness' critique of reification, ideology, and reified consciousness remains highly topical in the age of digital capitalism and big data. Lukács' analysis allows us to critically analyse how social media, big data, and various other Internet technologies are used as tools of reification. At the same time, Lukács reminds us that only human praxis can establish alternatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Researchers on digital divides have identified demographic and attitudinal factors associated with inequalities in access, skills, and patterns of Internet use, primarily around age, income, and education. While the attitudes and values of Internet users and non-users have been studied over the years, they have rarely been used to identify broader ‘cultures of the Internet’ and their role in shaping digital divides. This paper builds on research in Britain, which focused on patterns of attitudes underpinning Internet cultures, to explore the degree that similar or distinctive cultures have developed in the USA, and whether and how they are useful in explaining digital divides. This study utilizes original data drawn from a telephone survey of residents across the State of Michigan that adapted survey items and methods from the Oxford Internet Survey of Britain. Based on these survey responses, the paper identifies and describes the cultures of the Internet among Michigan residents, as an exploratory case of the US as a whole, and shows how these cultures shape digital divides in Internet access and social media use. The robustness and explanatory power of these explorations of Internet cultures argue for further research on the United States and for comparative research with other nations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The importance of considering the family context in the adoption and use of the Internet are well recognised. Supporters of the digital inclusion agenda often see children as a way to increase the digital skills and use of the Internet by parents and older adults. However, there is a limited amount of research that has explored whether this is really the case. Using two nationally representative survey data sets from Britain, this paper aims to better understand the links between children and adults' use of the Internet within the same household. In this paper, we ask what influence children have on adults' Internet use, skills and engagement. The paper concludes that while children might influence uptake, characteristics of the adult (for example. education, age and social capital) are more important in relation to their skills and engagement with the Internet. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The socio-technological context of health care wherein patient-consumer involvement is central increases the importance of examining the impact of Internet information on health-related attitudes and behavior. This paper examined the extent to which deployment of e-health information is associated with patient distrust and non-adherence. We examined the hypothesized associations in gender-stratified subsamples to uncover whether any differential patterns of associations exist among women and men. Our analyses allowed for estimation of significant covariate effects at the composite index and item level for both men and women while controlling for the moderation effect of race/ethnicity. Results indicate differential outcomes for patient distrust and non-adherence depending on socio-demographic characteristics. Findings suggest that it is not just health-related information that influences health-related behavior, but also mechanisms through which socio-demographic characteristics shape whether Internet use is associated with distrust and patient non-adherence. e-Health information consumers are overall less trustful and more likely to deviate from health care provider treatment. Non-adherence among those who consume e-health information is more pronounced for non-white women. Highly educated non-white men were more likely to diverge from their medical care provider's treatment recommendations than White men. Given the increasing diversification of the demographic profile of the U.S. population, understanding the dynamics though which health-related Internet use becomes racialized and gendered represents a critical contribution to the literature on Internet and health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Given the accelerated aging of the global population, countries must prepare to assure their older adults’ welfare. The Internet appears to be a means of ensuring that everybody, regardless of age, has access to information and can stay in touch. Data so far show the existence of a digital divide, so the question becomes: Is there a way to accelerate the digital inclusion of older adults? Using microdata from Buenos Aires (Argentina), Lima (Peru) and Guatemala City (Guatemala), this paper focuses on the role of younger people in the household in the process of Internet adoption by older adults. Regression analysis confirms that younger people play a pivotal role in the adoption process, but not in intensity of use, in which living with a spouse or partner is important for increasing the number of hours spent using the Internet. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Researchers on digital divides have identified demographic and attitudinal factors associated with inequalities in access, skills, and patterns of Internet use, primarily around age, income, and education. While the attitudes and values of Internet users and non-users have been studied over the years, they have rarely been used to identify broader ‘cultures of the Internet’ and their role in shaping digital divides. This paper builds on research in Britain, which focused on patterns of attitudes underpinning Internet cultures, to explore the degree that similar or distinctive cultures have developed in the USA, and whether and how they are useful in explaining digital divides. This study utilizes original data drawn from a telephone survey of residents across the State of Michigan that adapted survey items and methods from the Oxford Internet Survey of Britain. Based on these survey responses, the paper identifies and describes the cultures of the Internet among Michigan residents, as an exploratory case of the US as a whole, and shows how these cultures shape digital divides in Internet access and social media use. The robustness and explanatory power of these explorations of Internet cultures argue for further research on the United States and for comparative research with other nations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the process through which Occupy activists came to constitute themselves as a collective actor and the role of social media in this process. The theoretical framework combines Melucci's (1996) theory of collective identity with insights from the field of organizational communication and particularly from the ‘CCO’ strand – short for ‘Communication is Constitutive of Organizing’. This allows us to conceptualize collective identity as an open-ended and dynamic process that is constructed in conversations and codified in texts. Based on interviews with Occupy activists in New York, London and other cities, I then discuss the communication processes through which the movement was drawing the boundaries with its environment, creating codes and foundational documents, as well as speaking in a collective voice. The findings show that social media tended to blur the boundaries between the inside and the outside of the movement in a way that suited its values of inclusiveness and direct participation. Social media users could also follow remotely the meetings of the general assembly where the foundational documents were ratified, but their voices were not included in the process. The presence of the movement on social media also led to conflicts and negotiations around Occupy's collective voice as constructed on these platforms. Thus, viewing the movement as a phenomenon emerging in communication allows us an insight into the efforts of Occupy activists to create a collective that was both inclusive of the 99% and a distinctive actor with its own identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper contributes to the reworking of the traditional concepts and methods of Science and Technology Studies that is necessary in order to analyse the development and use of social media and other emerging information infrastructures (IIs). Through long-term studies of the development of two contrasting IIs, the paper examines theprosumer-management strategiesby which vendors manage their relationships with their diverse users. Despite the sharp differences between our cases – an online-game with social network features and traditional enterprise systems – we find striking homologies in the ways vendors manage the tensions underpinning the design and development of mass-market products. Thus theirknowledge infrastructures –the set of tools and instruments through which vendors maintain an adequate understanding of their multiple users – change in the face of competing exigencies. Market expansion may favour ‘efficient’ quantitative user assessment methods and the construction of abstractuser categoriesfor designing new generic solutions and services around market segments. However where a productextendsinto new and unfamiliar user markets the growingsocial distancebetween developer and user may call for ‘richer’ direct ways of knowing the user. We note the emergence of collective fora, which can provide a space for independent action and innovation by users. However, these were managed communities. Certain user relations functions were pushed out to the community or third-party organizations and at other times pulled back in-house – for example, to increase vendor direct control. This picture is far removed from the visions of seamless integration of producers and users encouraged by notions such as prosumer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Internet is causing major changes in the field of political activism. One particularly significant case is the 15M movement, which emerged from a popular initiative organized in several Spanish cities in 2011. Based on the analysis of these protests as a case study, this paper has two aims: first, to examine the role of digital technology – websites and social networks – in the online organization of political activism; second, to analyse the relationships established between the conventional media on the one hand and activists on the other. The methodology combines the technique of in-depth interviews and qualitative analysis of reports, working papers and file data about 15M. The findings show an intensive use of digital technology by activists, both of their own social networks (for example, N-1) and commercial ones (Facebook or Twitter). These digital tools enabled them to disseminate their own information and optimize their internal organization. Theindignadosestablished an interplay between online activism and offline actions. Digital technology facilitated the organization of the mass gatherings in the streets. The possession of communicative and technical skills played an important part in organizing 15M. On the other hand, the relationship between journalists and activists was a difficult one. Theindignadosdid not follow the established patterns of the journalists’ work routines. The latter had to resort to the demonstrators’ websites and social networks to obtain information. The activists recognize that the conventional media were crucial to the protests achieving a widespread impact in the news. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While internet connectivity is a key promise of progress and the rule of law, criminal contestation of state control over territory is considered one of the main obstacles for development. This article provides the first known quantitative approach to the link between urban lawlessness and internet provision. Taking the Santiago Metropolitan Region (SMR) – the capital of Chile – as a case study, the authors discuss the origins of Red Zones (areas where telecommunication companies do not provide fixed broadband). A first hypothesis is based on the corporate excuse given by telcos for Red Zones: criminal activities – and not just socioeconomic discrimination – are a force majeure that impede internet connectivity in specific neighbourhoods. An alternative hypothesis acknowledges criminal governance in Latin American cities, admitting the possibility of criminal redistribution being favourable to internet connectivity where state control is contested. Employing a random effects regression model with panel data from 52 boroughs during the 2012–2020 period, the two hypotheses are tested. Contestation of the territorial control by the state is significantly and positively correlated to fixed broadband connectivity in the SMA. In contrast, lower connectivity is linked to higher presence of poor households, favouring a profit-based explanation for the Red Zones. The results hold when replacing the percentage of contested territory per borough with the murder rates. This research contributes to heterodox views within institutional economics and highlights the need of state-led redistribution in order to retake control of contested territories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous research has examined the impact of computing interventions to reduce digital inequity. However, few studies focus on factors such as inequalities to material access, Internet use patterns, and affective or emotional anxiety. This paper investigates the potential role of emotional costs and computer self-efficacy in the connection between computer use at home and students’ computer use patterns. Data for this research come from pretest and posttest surveys administered to fourth- and fifth-grade African-American students. The results reveal that students’ home computer use is a significant predictor of the change in their information and entertainment usage over the course of the intervention. Students’ emotional costs partially mediate the relationship between home computer use and information-oriented usage over the intervention period. The findings suggest that providing students access to digital devices is not enough to close the digital divide. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the transnational interconnected nature of the internet, cross-national comparisons in internet usage and their effects are still relatively scarce. Moreover, one of the core intrinsic properties that internet theorists have distinguished, the ability to increase democracy and ‘global understanding’ through its connectivity, has hardly been empirically studied. This paper examines how internet usage affects individuals’ openness to other cultures: cosmopolitanism. I analyze two manifestations of such openness: first, the cosmopolitan orientation toward other cultures in the broad sense; second, the interest in foreign cultural expressions. Using Eurobarometer data on 29 European countries, the results show that interactive internet practices are positively associated with openness to foreign culture. Buying culture online is positively related to interest in concrete expressions, but negatively to cosmopolitan orientation. Importantly, individual effects on cosmopolitan orientation are often moderated by the country people live in, whereas effects on interest in foreign expressions are more stable across Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article studies recoding practices on the Chinese internet that reframe controversial contents in a socialist discourse to circumvent censorship. Drawing on three cases of 'socialist recoding' for critical discourse analysis (CDA), this article finds different patterns of recoding strategies and power relations manifested in these practices, depicting the nuances of censorship-evading practices in different responses to censorship including but not limited to resistance, negotiation, and problematisation. This article argues that these recodings negotiate terms of censorship and mediate power relations through meaning-making, indicating a permanent instability of authority in internet governance in China. By showing the potentialities of nuanced and pluralised meaning-(re)making practices in contesting and negotiating internet governance and established norms and values more widely, this study advances existing understandings about nuances in China's contested internet and contributes to the broader debate about the decentring and destabilising of authority in contested cyberspace worldwide. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The discourse of ‘rights defence’ (weiquan), referring to the grassroots’ struggle for legal redress after their lawful interests are encroached upon, has gained increasing popularity in China in the last two decades. Given the ubiquity of the Internet nowadays, rights defence activities also take place online; in a small number of cases, they develop into a form of online activism. But what determines or contributes to the online visibility of some rights defence cases and the invisibility of others? In this paper, we investigate this by examining three highly visible workers’ rights defence campaigns in comparison with three similar cases that received almost no attention. Analysing the variousactorsinvolved, we argue that online rights defence tends to become visible and develop into online activism when one key actor, thestate,which ought to be an impartial source of justice, is perceived to be collusive or to be playing an active role in the encroachment of people's rights and interests. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper examines the differential impact of Chinese citizens’ use of traditional media and Internet sources on their political views about the country’s territorial dispute with Japan over the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands. Chinese citizens can utilize a variety of conduits of information that allow varying degrees of government control over the way foreign affairs and other controversies are presented. Those who rely on mainstream, state-controlled television, radio, and printed media for information on the disputes, and those who turn to less-prescriptive sources on the Internet, can be expected to have distinctive political attitudes. We use original 2013 Chinese survey data to explore patterns of media consumption and citizens’ attention levels towards the Sino-Japanese island dispute, and views regarding the government’s performance in handling the issue and appropriate policy responses. Those who derive their information from traditional media tend to view the government’s performance more positively, and are more likely both to favour compromise and to oppose the use of military force. By comparison, information from Internet sources, which is more user selfselective, sustains a wider range of attitudes about the Sino-Japanese island dispute and the appropriate policies for dealing with it, including both militaristic and moderate stances. All told, we find that Chinese citizens bring distinctive predispositions to their consumption of media information on this issue, but our results also clearly reflect an ongoing, pervasive influence for China’s state-run traditional media. These findings have important implications for considering the resilience of authoritarian systems in the Internet era. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper investigates whether or not the proposition that the second digital generation (or so-called digital natives) is more engaged in social use of the Internet than older generations is tenable. By analysing nationally representative questionnaire-based survey data collected from Finland in 2011 (N = 612), the study shows that rather than social use of the Internet in general, it is the synchronicity of online communication that distinguishes user generations. Results show that, in contrast to asynchronous modes of online communication (e.g. social networking sites, blogs and online discussion forums), synchronous modes (e.g. instant messaging and Internet calls) are clearly generationally differentiated practices. They are more frequently used by the second digital generation than the first digital generation and digital immigrants. Furthermore, the study shows that asynchronous uses of the Internet are clearly gendered in nature. Women are more typically users of social networking sites and blogs than men, whereas men are more often engaged with discussion forums than women. These results are discussed in light of two concepts: privacy and communicative efficacy. The studied forms of synchronous online communication provide more privacy as well as an instant and abundant channel for effective communication, which are all features especially appreciated by the youngest user generation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Arguably the world's most secretive government, North Korea remains largely isolated from the global information economy. However, despite stereotypes that the country lacks internet access entirely, it has recently shown signs of an emerging cyberstructure and population of netizens. This paper examines its internet in three stages. It opens with a contrast between the enormous differences between cyberspace in North and South Korea. Second, it explores the details of the internet structure and users in the North, including the growth of users of mobile phones, satellite contacts, government programs to facilitate the growth of information technology, an intranet, cybercafés, websites, and censorship. Third, it addresses the North's role in cyberattacks on South Korea and the United States, and conversely its position as a victim of similar assaults. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines, with ethnographic lenses, the emergence of shared networks in the Tseltal and Zapoteco communities in Chiapas and Oaxaca (Mexico). 'Shared networks' are first-mile signal-sharing practices that articulate interconnection infrastructure and values of coexistence to, in the cases studied, extend the internet to areas where the services of existing larger internet service providers are unsatisfactory or unavailable. It argues that by infrastructuring their own local networks and interconnecting to the global internet, Tseltal and Zapoteco people are effectively internet codesigners, building Latin-Centric Indigenous networks and shaping internet governance from below. When comunalidad values, supported by unlicensed frequencies of the electromagnetic spectrum, towers, radio antennas, houses' rooftops, routers, and cables, intersect with the values of the internet service providers and their policies, hybrids emerge. Shared networks are a result of what these hybrids enact and constrain, as well as evidence of the vivid struggles for a more inclusive and pluriversal internet. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

(How) are Chinese actors contributing to increased state influence in Internet standard-making? In its open and private-based dimension, the Internet is possibly the twenty-first century's epitome of the liberal international order in its global spatial dimension. Therefore, many see deep normative challenges deriving from the rise of powerful, non-liberal actors such as China. In particular, China and Chinese stakeholders are often portrayed as supporters and promoters of a multilateral Internet governance model based on digital sovereignty aimed at completely replacing the existing multistakeholder, private-based model. Academic views on this topic have become less dichotomous throughout the years, especially as China's position on it has become more nuanced. However, this academic and policy debate is still open. This article analyses Chinese stakeholder actions in the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), the key venue for Internet standard-making. Through network analysis, this article maps the engagement of Chinese stakeholders in selected working groups of the IETF over time. Through expert interviews, this article interprets the drivers, evolution, and impact of such engagement. This research yields two main findings: first, it shows that the Chinese government does not have full control of its domestic private actors, among which there is both collaboration and conflict. Second, it concludes that Chinese stakeholders have increasingly accepted the existing functioning of IETF standard-making as they grew influential within it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the areas that the advent of the Internet has changed most profoundly is the relationship that human beings have with their past. Sources that would once have been barely accessible after a difficult and taxing search are now available to one and all, and can be compared to more traditional texts. The article sets out to show how knowledge of Mao's China and the Cultural Revolution in particular will benefit significantly from the immense pool of recordings and video clips available on the Internet. With the resources afforded by the Web, a brand–new way of linking up words and images, text and visual sources, has become possible, providing the study of history and memory with unexplored tracts of promising terrain. But the importance of this emerging material is not just to do with historical knowledge and methodology. Its main contribution is political: the persecutors and the victims of those years have spoken out, they have deposited their memories online, exercising a faculty that the Cultural Revolution and post–Maoist political institutions had denied them for decades. Through the bottom–up perspective that the Internet provides, the historical protagonists have been able to bear witness in potential perpetuity without needing the researcher's mediation. By speaking directly to the public, the witnesses cease to be merely pieces of the past. They are not just victims or perpetrators who condemn past deeds, but, as the actors who made and endured history, they can turn themselves from passive historical figures into active political agents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines how the nationalist imagination structures cyberspace from the bottom up, or what I call user-generated nationalism. It also looks at the interplay between nationalism and other, non-spatial modes of social identification. My analysis of a month of tweets indicates that religious, racialized, and partisan identities are quite pronounced online, but they also tend to be conflated with nationalism. I argue that nationalism is not simply banal itself: because of its fixity in place and political correctness, it is used to lend legitimacy to and 'banalize' other identities. This dynamic is key to understanding the explosion of right-wing populism around the 'world of nations' – especially the success of populist leaders in normalizing religious, racialized, and partisan identifications – and the central role being played by digital media in this process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies about the link between income and Internet access tend to focus exclusively on the demand side, or, when considering the supply side, to neglect any possible role of local and informal institutions. This research pays attention to the relationship between income distribution and Internet access within metropolitan areas of the Global South, with a special emphasis on local and informal institutions that could shape the ways by which this relationship works. Using a mixed-methods approach, two Latin American metropolitan areas are analysed: Santiago (Chile) and Medellín (Colombia). Although income is clearly linked to household Internet access in both cases, there are supply-side differences that can influence the income-connectivity nexus. The author proposes to introduce the concept of 'institutionally generated network disadvantage'. Examples of formal and informal institutional factors are redlining, informal housing, socio-spatial segregation, tax exemptions and local public provision of services. The urban poor seem to be the most affected by institutionally generated digital exclusion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The digital transformation has had a profound impact on political communication. It has lowered the access barrier for actors to become publicly visible and reconfigured predominantly vertical flows of information into horizontal communication networks. Media-centric studies hold that these 'hybrid media systems' do not subvert the analogue order tout court, as the media still occupy a central role in selection and distribution processes. In contrast to this, social movement scholars interested in digital forms of mobilization show that civil society actors can directly engage their base and the wider public. Because of this focus, the status and role of the media in these connective efforts has remained largely neglected. This study extends the view of both media-centric and social movement research by asking how the media are included in civil society mobilization efforts online and what status and role they have. Analysing the online communication around the UK climate change debate over a 30-month period, we show that while the media account for a substantial amount of the actors in the networks generated by civil society actors and bloggers, they become more marginal with respect to the authority they command. Not only are they replaced by bloggers as focal points in these digital political communication ecologies, they become next to irrelevant in allocating visibility and attention to other actors. This has ambivalent consequences for democratic discourse, as online debates become more inclusive but also more fragmented, lacking common points of reference. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A key debate in an increasingly digital environment is the tension between individuals and institutions with online engagement. An area that exemplifies this opposition is the study of digital unionizing. Labor studies scholarship tends to focus on institutions while communication research often privileges the individual. This article extends these two approaches by outlining three key considerations in what shapes online collective action within working-class and worker struggles: context, class and community. I also conceptualize this methodological framework to study digital unionizing and labor organizing more broadly, which I refer to as the 3C Method. The empirical foundation for this methodological argument derives from existing literature, as well as select findings from a three-year digital organizing research project. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines Internet restrictions and how they influence journalism in Uganda. The article analyses cyber laws and interrogates journalists' opinions of methods employed to suppress Internet freedom. Drawing on extant research on Internet suppression, the article found traces of digital authoritarianism in Uganda as government deploys an arsenal of restrictions that target media organisations, journalists and its critics. Using secondary and primary sources of data, the article found a plethora of cyber laws, which the government uses to intimidate, arrest, prosecute and instil fear among journalists and their sources, something that inhibits independent journalism. The article argues that Internet suppression deters the medium's ability to serve as alternative platforms for citizen participation and for journalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The question of who controls meta-information online has become a hot-button issue with profound political implications. The present article explores how state-led online censorship in the People's Republic of China can create information bubbles, and how it is possible to analyze them. The article is based on a systematic comparison between 3,000 Google.com and Baidu.com image search results on a series of selected, potentially sensitive, keywords. This allows us to discern how censorship and information bubbles are connected, and how it is possible to detect and analyze them. To facilitate this, we offer a typology for conceptualizing the different dimensions of internet censorship. Our analysis points to the importance of censorship on meta-information and suggests that generally censored internet contents can also spill over to a liberal context through the Sinophone internet. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The platform economy is rapidly transforming the dynamics of the labor market. Optimists argue platform work functions as a social equalizer, opening opportunities for additional earnings for those who need it most. Pessimists suggest that the platform economy widens earning disparities by providing additional income to people who already have good jobs. We contribute to this debate by examining who participates in the platform economy and their motivation for participation, using a US nationally representative sample. Our findings offer support for both perspectives. Those who participated in labor-exchange platforms were more likely to come from disadvantaged backgrounds. By contrast, those who participated in online selling platforms were more likely to come from more affluent backgrounds. When we further examined different types of platform work, we found that different types of platform work were performed by different demographic and social groups. In addition, participation in some platform work, such as rideshare driving and house/laundry cleaning, is motivated out of necessity, while other platform work, such as selling used goods and performing online tasks, is generally used to supplement incomes. Distinct occupations tend to benefit different social groups in different ways and, taken together, disadvantaged groups are less likely to perform types of platform work that would improve their economic position and reduce income disparities. This tends to offer more support for the pessimist's perspective. We conclude that the platform economy is strongly segregated by occupation and it should be examined as a set of distinct occupations rather than a homogenous industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article considers the comments sections of three controversial articles by commentators of colour in order to analyse the discursive strategies through which whiteness is defended and reproduced online. While the 'racelessness' of the Internet has, in some quarters, been upheld and celebrated, more recent Internet scholarship recognises the importance of the impact of race in delimiting and constituting online spaces. A discourse analysis, informed by Critical Race and Whiteness Studies, finds that, just as 'offline,' whiteness mobilises discursive strategies to protect its interests online. Specifically, discourses of vulnerability, simplicity, 'colour-blindness' and neutrality affirm whiteness in its central and privileged racial position. This article argues that these strategies are arranged around a central organising principle of white innocence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

User comments have become an essential part of news websites. In this article, we examine this mode of public expression via the theory of the spiral of silence. This is done while adopting alternative measures, with regard to three major issues on the Israeli agenda, and in comparison to expression in public, as in the traditional theory. Based on an Internet survey (n = 712), the present study results support the relevancy of the spiral of silence to the online comment sphere. Perceived support for one’s opinion by the majority was found to have a positive and significant effect on the willingness to express opinion in the online sphere. The explanatory role of fear of isolation was more significant in the online sphere than in face-to-face context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Informed by research on the uses and gratifications of the Internet for political activity, this study examines predictors of online political efficacy among Internet users in five Arab countries (N = 4029): Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, Lebanon, Qatar, and the U.A.E. As predicted, variables presumed to be associated with political dissidence in Arab countries – unemployment, distrust of mainstream media, young age, and feeling country is on the wrong track – were not positively associated with online political efficacy. Counter to what was hypothesized, however, Internet reliance and social media use were not strongly or consistently associated with online political efficacy in the five countries. Rather, the strongest predictors of efficacy were a belief in news media credibility, print media use (newspapers, magazines, and books), belief in the reliability of online information, and tolerance of free speech online. Findings align with some prior research on predictors of online political efficacy, but not with common presumptions of the role the Internet plays among Arab publics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates the dominant messages Internet memes communicate about religion. Internet memes about religion are defined as, ‘memes circulated on the Internet whose images and texts focus on a variety of religious themes and/or religious traditions’ (Bellar et al., 2013). By drawing on meme genres identified by Shifman (2012) and analyzing techniques used to frame ideas concerning religion in memes, this study identifies common genres found amongst religious Internet meme and core frames used to present messages and assumptions about religion online. This article further draws attention to the importance of studying religion in digital contexts, as it highlights trends, recognized by scholars toward ‘Lived Religion’ within digital culture (Campbell, 2012). Lived Religion argues that contemporary media and digital culture provide important resources for presenting popular beliefs about religion. This study also suggests that studying Internet memes about religion provides a useful lens for understanding popular conceptions about religion within mainstream culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In politics, there is an offline power imbalance between the Educated and the Less Educated caused, in part, by the fact that those individuals with more extensive levels of education are more equipped to influence the political process. This study analyses the impact of Internet use on this imbalance and investigates whether the disparity remains intact in the Digital Age. Accessibility to the Internet is somewhat agnostic to one’s education and may be a quick and cost-effective tool to affect the political process. This study employs the concept of online political efficacy (OPE), which is likely to impact online political participation (OPP), to test whether Internet use provokes a sense of political effectiveness in the less educated to a greater extent than those more educated. Internet Service Types, particularly social media, were found to be positively associated with OPE to a much greater extent among the less educated. These findings indicate that, as a result of an enhanced positive perception of the Internet from using the Internet Service Types, the less educated are likely to feel empowered to affect the political process to a greater degree than the educated. Such use, in turn, is more likely to lead the less educated to OPP. This flow in the context of Internet use and education levels was presented in the framework of the O-S-R-O-R model of communication effects. As such, Internet use has the potential to contribute toward an equalization of the offline power imbalance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examined the relationship between cyberbullying and perceived social support, usage of the internet, and usage of social networking services (SNS). Whereas previous research has generally focused on adolescents, the current study attempted a comparative analysis among groups of adolescents, university students, and working adults. The analysis showed a positive relationship between usage of the internet for information and cyberbullying victimization, as well as a negative relationship between the usage of SNS for reading purposes and cyberbullying perpetration and victimization. Experiences with cyberbullying as perpetrator and victim were found to be more numerous with higher numbers of online friends, while a negative relationship was observed between offline perceived social support and acts of cyberbullying. For the adolescent group, acts of cyberbullying were more common with less reading of SNS. For university students, a positive relationship was found between perceived social support and acts of perpetration and victimization. For working individuals, acts of perpetration and victimization were found to be more common with larger numbers of online and offline friends. In all three groups, a negative relationship was found between acts of cyberbullying and offline perceived support. Theoretical and managerial implications as well as directions for future research are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Populism continues to gain traction in politics but there has been relatively little research on how it plays out on the Internet. The special issue at hand aims at narrowing this gap of research by focusing on the close relation between populism and online communication. This introduction presents an integrative definition of populism, as well as a theoretical analysis of the interplay between populist communication logic and online opportunity structures. The individual contributions discuss how populist actors may benefit from the Internet. They analyze how political leaders and extreme parties use populist online communication. The authors also shed light on how populist movements may relate to various political parties. They finally demonstrate which groups of social media users are more susceptible to populism than others and what effects populist online communication may have on citizens. We hope that this special issue will contribute to the discussion on what is arguably one of the largest political challenges currently faced by a series of nations around the globe. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article develops a theoretical classification of functions of different Internet applications and plattforms in right-wing populism. Its aim is to understand how the Internet is seen and used by populists and how it contributes to populism. Online communication by both populist leaders or organizations and non-organized actors is discussed. Main functions include the representation of the relationship between leaders and ‘the people,’ justifying the exclusion of outgroups, the conceptual elaboration of the right-wing populist ideology, developing a right-wing populist lifestyle and identity, and circumventing the traditional media. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Few studies attempt to demonstrate whether and how systemic racial inequality might form on the web. I use racial formation theory to conceptualize how race is represented, and systematically reproduced on the web, and how both may reveal forms of racial inequality. Using an original dataset and network graph, I document the architecture of web traffic, and the actual traffic patterns among and between race-based websites. Results demonstrate that web producers create hyperlink networks that steer audiences to websites without respect to racial or nonracial content. However, user navigation reflects a racially segregated traffic pattern; users navigate to racialized versus nonracialized websites (and vice versa) more than what would be expected by chance. These results, along with disparities in website traffic rankings, provide evidence of, and demonstrates how a race-based hierarchy might systematically emerge on the web in ways that exemplify disparate forms of value, influence and power that exist within the web environment. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

How does one value something one cannotand often does not want tosee? How do contemporary digital platforms and their infrastructures of connectivity, evaluation, and surveillance affect this relationship between value and visibility, when it is mediated through the problem of labor as at once a commodity and a lived experience? And how can these infrastructures be mobilized in projects that aim to build different kinds of platforms – the kinds that support the revaluation low-income service work? This essay addresses these questions by examining the gendered, racialized, and classed distribution of opportunities and vulnerabilities associated with digitally mediated service work, or what I callplatform labor. The argument will unfold in four parts. First, I briefly situate the ‘on-demand’ economy within the context of neoliberal socio-economic reforms that have, over the past four decades, shaped our present circumstances. Second, I argue that labor platforms should be understood as new players in the temporary staffing industry, whose devices and practices exacerbate the already precarious conditions of contingent workers in today’s low-income service economy. They do so by (1) bolstering theimmunityof platform intermediaries and clients, (2) by expanding managerialcontrolover workers, and (3) by orchestrating a pervasive sense offungibilityandsuperfluitywith respect to this workforce. Third, after a short overview of the gendered and racialized history of service work, I analyze how this history extends into the networked present of our platform economy. Finally, I address the potential of ethnography, on the one hand, and platform cooperativism, on the other, to critically empower low-income service workers operating through platforms. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Studies on the ‘second-level digital divide’ explore the socio-economic antecedents and effects of (a lack of) user participation on the Internet. At the same time, some have criticized a normatively affirmative bias in online participation research as well as a one-sided focus on observable user activity. This contribution addresses the ensuing call for a more nuanced understanding of online participation in general, and online political participation in particular. We differentiate the online participation concept based on a focus group study among 96 Internet users from a broad range of social backgrounds in Germany. We derive a framework of eight types of online (non-)participation along three conceptual axes:activity, agency, andsocial valence. Taking user experiences and terminology into account, we differentiate participation from non-participation, active from passive and positive from negative (non-)participation. The proposed typology allows for a more balanced evaluation and more focused exploration of phenomena such as destructive or involuntary online participation as well as online abstention, boycotts, self-censorship, lurking, or digital exclusion. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Snowden’s initial revelations aimed at establishing a public debate on online surveillance informed through the media. Media should serve the public’s need for information and offer various viewpoints and sources to enhance public debates. This study assesses how online surveillance is justified or countered in British broadcast news since the 2013 Snowden revelations for five selected major events in news coverage ending with the Charlie Hebdo aftermath in Paris in early 2015. The critical discourse analysis shows that UK broadcasts cover justification and delegitimation arguments of online surveillance. Online surveillancelegitimationcombines rationalisation (terror prevention) and moral evaluation (public security) arguments, which are often expressed by governmental actors. The broadcast discourse tends to give governmental, pro-surveillance actors a voice by default. The detailedness of terror threat descriptions increases over time. In 2013, ‘terrorist attacks’ are rather factually mentioned. In 2015, several ways leading to a loss of lives through terror are explicitly stated, which strengthens the instrumental rationality legitimation arguments.Delegitimisingarguments predominantly use moralising and mythopoetic arguments (civil liberties) that are expressed by Snowden himself or politicians, yet rarely by non-governmental organisations, and very rarely by citizens. It is harder for non-governmental actors to continuously interpret the broadcast discourse. Therefore, what exactly is at stake when online mass surveillance increases remains obscure in the news discourse. The surveillance discourse should be richer in order to give the audience a chance to understand the vague and less tangible contra-surveillance arguments better. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This study examines US legislation designed to prohibit employer access to employee and job applicant personal social networking sites (SNSs) between 2012 and 2013. It asks if the legislation addressed how employers could use SNSs in the hiring process by requesting SNS passwords, if there were consequences for violators, if employer retaliation was prohibited, if third-party access was allowed, if employee SNS monitoring was prohibited, if SNS friend requests by employers was allowed and if employer requested changes in privacy settings were prohibited. In addition, the study also examined the interest groups and political party-affiliated sponsors that were active in the creation of the legislation. The results discover important inconsistencies between the states’ legislation, which question the ability to protect worker and applicant online privacy. US policy recommendations and transnational implications follow. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Relying on Jensen and Helles’ model for studying the Internet as a cultural forum, this study aimed to explore the extent to which traditional media are displaced by innovative communication practices within the older audience of new media. The study was based on a cross-European survey of 1039 Internet users aged 60 years and up. Results indicated that older Internet users are significantly more inclined to use traditional mass media than new social media and prefer synchronous to asynchronous mass media. This audience, however, is not homogeneous, as four subsegments were identified. These groups differed in their media repertoires, sociocultural background and leisure preferences. The findings suggest that despite the increasing percentage of older Internet users, this audience tends to adhere to familiar media practices, with only a minority making intense use of new practices. With very few cross-national differences, this tendency appears to be universal, suggesting overall media use traditionalism and a second-level digital divide among the older audience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Internet, a global computer network enabling people to send and receive information anywhere in the world, also functions as a local medium of communication. This study focuses on the role of the Internet in transmitting local news and examines the effects of community population concentrations as socio-ecological environments on the use of local news media consumed online and offline. Data from 1367 respondents across 156 Japanese communities were used to analyze the relationships between type of community and type of news source. The findings suggest that people who live in highly populated communities tend more often to use the Internet to access local news, whereas those in less populated communities tend to use more traditional mass media. However, the results of this study did not show a relationship between population concentrations within communities and the acquisition of international news, nor did the social features of residents adequately explain the effects of population concentration on the acquisition of local news. These results are consistent with theoretical predictions based on network externalities, urbanism, and collective action. The findings indicate that local news consumption is embedded in local social contexts in a way that international news is not, reinforcing the importance of urbanism in the information age. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research explores the relationship between the use of digital media and stress. Based on the findings of a national, probability sample of adults in the United States, the use of digital media was not directly associated with higher levels of psychological stress. Some uses of digital media were associated with lower levels of perceived stress for women but not for men. However, the evidence suggests that, for men and women, digital media provides heightened awareness of network life events (AoNLE) in the lives of both close and more distant acquaintances. An awareness of undesirable, major life events in the lives of others can be a source of psychological stress; this is the cost of caring. Thus, the link between digital media and stress is indirect. We argue that the growth of digital media is related to changes in the structure of peoples’ personal communities that contribute to this trend. There has been a shift toward networks that offer persistent contact and pervasive awareness. Findings suggest that different mobile technologies, Internet technologies, and social media afford AoNLE for men and women, but women tend to report greater psychological stress than men, and they experience psychological stress from a wider range of AoNLE. We discuss explanations for the negative relationship between technology use and stress for women, as well as the implications of our findings for research on the use of digital media and psychological well-being, such as the relationship to social support, narcissism and empathy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]