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Social media platforms play a critical civic role during times of conflict, war, and crises as spaces for people to document and share content that publicises instances of human rights violations, graphic violence, and material destruction. Such content not only function as primary materials in the narration of social and political realities, but also operate as intense sites of control when platforms, state, and non-state actors seek to censor them for various political and opaque reasons. This article argues the gradually increasing intertwinement of corporate-government power, and the asymmetrical application of power to govern our lives in platform spaces, constitutes the necropolitical governance of digital populations. I delineate how the contours of platform necropolitics manifest through asymmetrical content moderation processes, platform policies, and alternative enforcement systems, and describe its operational registers: acts of commission (overenforcement), omission (underenforcement), and exceptionalism (extraordinary exceptions). The article's theoretical resourcefulness and analytical significance is demonstrated through three qualitative case studies: 2021 Israeli–Palestinian conflict, 'rest of the world' counties, and 2022-ongoing Russian–Ukrainian War. The article problematises conventional understandings of necropolitics while providing nuanced conceptualisation into the narrative and curatorial power of corporate-government assemblages of control for digital subjects – especially those most at-risk. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The myriad opportunities social media provide for amplifying individual expression are counterbalanced by the countless opportunities they afford employers to monitor and regulate employees' off-duty speech. The embedding of social media platforms into peoples' daily routines has blurred the boundaries between work and non-work domains. This presents a host of ethical, legal, and moral challenges pitting the rights and interests of employees against the authority and power of employers. In seeking to investigate whether, and the extent to which, employees' off-duty expression is becoming subject to increasing employer control we conducted a systematic content analysis of Canadian judicial opinions from some 50 arbitration and court decisions involving the porous boundary between employees' off-duty and work lives. The findings offer insights into the governance trajectory being charted by jurisdictional expressions in Canada that deal with reconciling employees' right to freedom of expression with their contractual obligation to avoid harming employers' public reputation. The analysis shows that employers are seeking to impose strong disciplinary measures for employee off-duty social media postings they deem contrary to their interests, and that adjudicators are upholding the imposing of such discipline while mitigating employer disciplinary excesses. These observations suggest the classic dichotomy between owners' time and own time is being reconfigured into a distinction between owners' time/space and one's own tethered time/space. The recent introduction of 'right to disconnect' legislation offers labour unions a unique opportunity to develop collective bargaining proposals aimed at eliminating the tethering of employees' time/space and better protecting their off-duty expression. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lockdowns and preventative measures during the COVID-19 pandemic led to the closure of nightlife venues that have long served as outlets for queer sociality. This article examines queer people's response to such measures through a study of Club Quarantine (Club Q), a series of online queer club nights established during the early days of Canada's lockdown in March 2020. It draws on mixed methods to explore Club Q's negotiation of Zoom videoconferencing software for hosting and animating club nights, combining participant observation with examination of Club Q's promotion and media coverage as well as applying the walkthrough method to Zoom. Findings show that Club Q appropriated Zoom through redefinition, adaptation, and reinvention of the platform, reorienting its purpose from business solutions to queer representation, connection, and solidarity. We conclude that Club Q merges off-label use, as technological appropriation that negotiates hurdles specific to platform technology, governance, and economic interests, with queer use-–activity that establishes queer space. We conceptualize this queer appropriation as 'off-label queer use': practices of platform appropriation that release a queer potentiality for challenging heteronormative and marginalizing technosocial structures. Club Q challenged platform features and policies that constrained sexual expression and posed safety risks for queer users while providing a queer space for fostering resilience and solidarity during crisis. This article's theoretical contribution enables the identification of off-label queer use in other arrangements of users and technology, allowing for an understanding of when platforms facilitate or inhibit queer survival strategies. [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]

A proliferation of a variety of health misinformation is present online, particularly during times of public health crisis. To combat online health misinformation, numerous studies have been conducted to taxonomize health misinformation or examine debunking strategies for various types of health misinformation. However, one of the root causes – strategies in such misinformation that may persuade the readers – is rarely studied. This systematic review aimed to fill this gap. We searched Web of Science, Scopus, PsycINFO, and Communication and Mass Media Complete for studies published between 2011 and 2021 on 29 May 2021. Peer-reviewed studies that discussed persuasive strategies in online misinformation messages were included. Of 1,700 articles identified, 58 were eligible and 258 persuasive strategies were extracted. Following the affinity diagraming process, 225 persuasive strategies in online health misinformation were categorized into 12 thematic groups, including: fabricating narrative with details, using anecdotes and personal experience as evidence, distrusting government or pharmaceutical companies, politicizing health issues, highlighting uncertainty and risk, inappropriate use of scientific evidence, rhetorical tricks, biased reasoning to make a conclusion, emotional appeals, distinctive linguistic features, and establishing legitimacy. Possible antecedents for why and how these persuasive strategies in online health misinformation may influence individuals were discussed. The findings suggest that media literacy education is essential for the public to combat health misinformation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In theory, the gig economy facilitates flexible, digitally mediated employment arrangements. Why do some people wind up doing gig work while others do not? We focus on how online participation inequalities, and Internet use experiences and skills, shape the composition of online gig workers. Specifically, we analyze a unique survey data set from a national sample of 1512 U.S. adults that includes information about background attributes and behaviors, detailed measures of Internet experiences and skills, as well as questions about whether study participants had completed specific steps necessary to becoming a task worker on two prominent gig economy platforms: Amazon Mechanical Turk and TaskRabbit. We use Bayesian regression to compare four stages of gig economy participation. Workers who participate in the gig economy tend to be younger, more highly educated, and more skilled Internet users. This implies that the gig economy increases labor market stratification and that digital participation inequalities compound labor inequalities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to the Great Replacement conspiracy theory, nonwhites, globalists and elites are plotting to eliminate the white race and its dominance through anti-white policies and increased immigration. In that context, abortion among white women is perceived by white nationalists (WN) as a betrayal of their 'biological' and 'traditional' gender role – procreation of white babies. While WN condemn abortion among white women as a murderous sin, at times they encourage the practice among nonwhites to solve demographic threats to white dominance. In this study, we use mixed methods, combining unsupervised machine learning with close textual analysis of 30,725 posts including the term 'abortion' published on the WN website Stormfront between 2001 and 2017. We identify three broad themes: White genocide, focused on the conspiracy theory and detailing the active actors in its alleged execution; political, focused on political agendas and laws; and WN reproductive reasoning, articulating and justifying the contradiction between supporting abortion for nonwhites but not for whites via politics of difference that emphasize nonwhites' supposed inferior morality. We discuss WN's unique and explicitly racist discourse around a medical topic like abortion, a staple of the conservative and religious right for decades, and how it is used to alleviate their cognitive dissonance resulting from their dual-stance on abortion. Such discourse could be harnessed to recruit members into the movement and normalize extreme, racist ideologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Libraries and archives have long been rich sites of exploration for LGBTQ+ people in search of self-understanding, identification, shared experience, and community. Yet the information infrastructures that guide every quest for queer and trans information remain silently powerful mediators of our research processes. Through an extended discussion of the Homosaurus, an international LGBTQ linked data vocabulary that the authors helped to develop, this article explores how queer information activism can confront the impoverished tools available for describing queer and trans resources. By focusing on both "corrective" and "analytic" strategies, the authors argue that the Homosaurus must work to expand the queer and trans terminology available for subject description while still challenging the structure and process of classificatory systems as always in tension with our queer aspirations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With recent research emphasizing different leadership roles that characterize networked social movements, brokerage has received renewed attention as one of the key responsibilities of networked movement leadership. However, in limiting the role of brokering to creating horizontal connections among decentralized actors, previous research is missing an account of grassroots movements that were able to make vertical connections with the power structures and grow to have a significant political impact. By comparing two cases of feminist networked social movements from South Korea, I examine brokerage and conditions that enabled brokerage through the lens of leadership. I argue that brokerage is a crucial dimension of movement leadership and propose the concept of meso-level leadership to elaborate how some grassroots leaders could facilitate grassroots representation in mainstream legislative agenda-setting by forming relationships with actors across a broad organizational and institutional spectrum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article advances extant research that has audited search algorithms for misinformation in four respects. Firstly, this is the first misinformation audit not to implement a national but a cross-national research design. Secondly, it retrieves results not in response to the most popular query terms. Instead, it theorizes two semantic dimensions of search terms and illustrates how they impact the number of misinformative results returned. Furthermore, the analysis not only captures the mere presence of misinformative content but in addition whether the source websites are affiliated with a key misinformation actor (Russia's ruling elites) and whom the conspiracy narratives cast as the malicious plotters. Empirically, the audit compares Covid-19 conspiracy theories in Google search results across 5 key target countries of Russia's foreign communication (Belarus, Estonia, Germany, Ukraine, and the US) and Russia as of November 2020 (N = 5280 search results). It finds that, across all countries, primarily content published by mass media organizations rendered conspiracy theories visible in search results. Conspiratorial content published on websites affiliated with Russia's ruling elites was retrieved in the Belarusian, German and Russian contexts. Across all countries, the majority of conspiracy narratives suspected plotters from China. Malicious actors from the US were insinuated exclusively by sources affiliated with Russia's elites. Overall, conspiracy narratives did not primarily deepen divides within but between national communities, since – across all countries – only plotters from beyond the national borders were blamed. To conclude, the article discusses methodological advice and promising paths of research for future cross-national search engine audits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Measures of news exposure are common in research that tries to explain political knowledge, political engagement, opinion formation and, more generally, media effects. Much of that research employs self-reported measures obtained with surveys, known to suffer from accuracy problems. Observational measures, however, also suffer from limitations derived from data collection and instrumentation. Here we offer new comparative evidence on the nature of those problems. We show that commonly used self-report measures of digital news consumption are problematic for three reasons: they only pay attention to a small fraction of all available sources; they underestimate audience share; and they distort the relative position of news sites in visibility rankings. Measurement problems, however, also exist in observational studies, especially when mobile access is excluded from data collection. Our analyses quantify the magnitude of these problems, offering unprecedented comparative evidence of online news consumption that spans nine countries and a period of five years. We discuss the implications of our findings for future research on news exposure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social networks are used by millions of people. These platforms are very popular with young audiences but also raise a growing number of questions: What are young people doing on social networks? What do they read and produce? Do they engage in a variety of activities? Are they media literate in relation to these social networks, and how do they develop these competences? This article focuses on the relationships between young adults' social network practices and the development of their media literacy competences. Based on responses from 350 Belgian young adults, we identify profiles based on frequency and diversity of their practices. These profiles correlate with different levels of media literacy. We observe no relationship between frequency of participants' reception practices (reviewing their newsfeed, reading posts, conducting in-depth research) and the development of their media literacy competences. However, we observe that the more young adults diversify these reception practices, the better their media literacy competences are. Conversely, and surprisingly, the more often they produce media content and the more they diversify these production practices (creating and sharing posts), the less media literate they appear to be. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines imaginaries of platform entrepreneurship in film industries in Ghana. To understand how these imaginaries are spatially shaped and locally defined, we carried out in-depth qualitative research with fifty filmmakers in four regions of Ghana. Digital and platform technologies have long been optimistically celebrated as a way for marginalized creative entrepreneurs, particularly in Africa, to break into global markets and reach unprecedented levels of business success. However, far from being universally adopted by African creative entrepreneurs, these global techno-optimistic imaginaries are continually reworked, contested and subverted in practice. In this article, we show how Ghanaian filmmakers mobilized, deployed and resisted imaginaries of platform entrepreneurship in their efforts to make sense of their situated entrepreneurial practices and to imagine the future of their creative businesses. We found that rather than naïvely adhering to techno-optimist imaginaries, through their practices, Ghanaian filmmaking entrepreneurs challenged the power geometry of the current platform ecosystem dominated by major Silicon Valley players. We contribute empirically rich data on how filmmaking entrepreneurs use and imagine platform technologies, as is necessary when African digital entrepreneurs are surrounded by hype but inadequate data. We also contribute to the literature about how individual platforms and platform types have unique affordances and how these affordances are shaped by the location and socio-economic position of the entrepreneur. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contact-tracing apps have been identified as a promising technology to curb the spread of COVID-19. To be effective, a sufficient number of individuals need to install the app and disclose information like COVID-19 infection to such an app. Yet, usage data demonstrate that a large number of app users does not disclose COVID-19 infection to the app. Hence, in two studies (overall N = 1522), we investigate factors related to individuals' willingness to actively disclose information to such an app. In a preregistered online experiment conducted two months before the app launch onto the German market, we find that disclosure willingness increases when the app's prosocial benefit or a social-life-enabling benefit is emphasized (vs. no benefit emphasized). In a subsequent, quota-representative survey study conducted two months after the app launch onto the German market, we adapted and extended the Technology Acceptance Model 2 (TAM2) to the context of prosocial information sharing in tracing apps. We find that the perceived prosocial benefit of the app, trust in public institutions, and fear of COVID-19 are the relevant predictors. Moreover, we demonstrate that the relation between perceived prosocial benefit and disclosure willingness is moderated by perceived ease of use. Results are discussed with regard to effective implementation and communication strategies for tracing apps, and the general role of prosocial concerns for technology usage to address major societal challenges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Anthropogenic climate change remains a polarizing topic. As most social media users share articles solely relying on the headline, this raises the question of how emerging digital media reporting – especially in the headlines – shapes the perception of climate change issues and engages audiences. Guided by the dual-systems emotion model and discrete-emotions model, this study compared emotion words used in headlines versus full text among climate change articles – and their social media engagement, using computational methods. Findings suggested that climate change support headlines were more likely to use fear words while denial headlines were significantly more likely to contain emotion words, negatively-valenced words, as well as words for anger, anticipation, disgust, sadness, and surprise. Regarding the full text, denial articles were more likely to contain emotion words, negatively-valenced words, and many discrete emotions related words than support articles. A denial article's engagement was predicted by the total number of emotion words contained in its headline, whereas a support article's engagement was predicted by negatively-valenced words and words for fear used in its headline. Emotions contained in the full text did not predict support and -denial articles' engagement. Findings provide practical guidance on how to increase the engagement level of climate change articles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The development of technology has various effects on citizens' daily lives, among which is the growing importance of e-governance. An e-government website is an essential communication platform that supports government-citizen interaction. The current research examines the relationship between e-government website evaluation and the variables indicative of the usage of e-government services (user satisfaction and intention to use) with basic social perceptions toward the government as the mediators using structural equation modelling. According to the stereotype content model (Fiske, 1993; Fiske et al., 2002), people form an impression of others based on two basic social dimensions (warmth and competence), and different levels of these dimensions determine how one forms attitudes and behaves toward the target. Our analysis confirms that both warmth and competence judgment function as crucial mediators for the relationship between e-government website evaluation and the intention to utilize e-government websites. This suggests that the government agency is not simply viewed as a service provider but also as a social entity that encompasses both warmth and competence from the perspective of citizens. By observing the aspects of website evaluation that are associated with the social dimensions, policymakers can strategically enhance citizens' perception toward the government as well as their relationship with the government for the optimal operation of a country in a long-term perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The spread of COVID-19 misinformation on social media has elicited concern amongst scholars, health agencies and governments owing to its potential harms to public health. This article addresses the question of how networks of Australian health professionals engaged with COVID-19 facts and myths on Twitter between August and October 2020. After reviewing selected literature on COVID-19 misinformation, we present our analytical choices and the methodology we used to constitute datasets of COVID-19 factual and mythical hashtags and of verified Australian health professional accounts (N:377). The article distinguishes between the capacities of 'actor-actants' and 'issue-actants,' and between the adoption of 'field' and 'contested' hashtags during a controversy. We identify categories of Australian health professional Twitter accounts such as GPs, nurses, specialists, public health professionals and researchers, and analyse the patterns of connections between these actor-actants and COVID-19 facts and myths. We find that these categories exhibit clearly distinct behaviour when tweeting or retweeting factual and mythical hashtags. Even though the rate of Australian health professionals' connection with myths in comparison to facts on Twitter is low, hashtags such as #hydroxychloroquine attracted significant engagement. We examine these hashtags' context and find that they were mainly being debunked, though a minority of accounts endorsed them. We analyse these adoption patterns, and critically assess the 'echo chamber effect.' We also consider public health and privacy implications for the dissemination of accurate information, for trust in health professionals during a pandemic, and for combatting misinformation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the global market for Internet portal services expands, there is a growing interest in identifying corporate social responsibility considering the social influence and business characteristics of Internet portal operators. This study explores the diverse dimensions of CSR of IPOs, examines how CSR efforts affect CSR authenticity in each dimension, and investigates whether CSR authenticity mediates the effects of CSR efforts on corporate legitimacy. In addition, by setting the respondents' political orientation as the moderator, conditional indirect effect of CSR authenticity was further confirmed. An online survey was conducted on of Korean Naver users who actively use Internet portal services. Among the various CSR efforts of IPOs, strengthening of democratic contributions, universal service delivery, and consumer protection were shown to increase both cognitive and socio-political legitimacy through CSR authenticity. In particular, the effect of CSR efforts on cognitive legitimacy through perception of CSR authenticity was significantly higher in users with progressive political orientation. This study is significant in that it theoretically systematizes the CSR dimensions considering the complex business nature and business characteristics of IPOs and provides empirical results and implications for CSR activities that future IPOs should focus on, which can increase corporate legitimacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Digital technologies facilitate the existence of online spaces where understandings about race and racial inequality are co-created and contested as part of social networks and within the context of existing power relations and social identities. This project qualitatively explores US college students' exposure to and experiences with content on social media that they consider to be related to race and racial discrimination. Based on analysis of focus groups, we highlight the role of digital documentation, mediated spillover, and platform collapse as key processes in propagation and communication visibility of racial discourses. We begin by delineating first level-digital documentation that digitally captures local campus and national events from second-level digital documentation – the copying of already digitized content (e.g., via screenshotting). We then introduce the concept of 'platform collapse' – second-level digital documentation that enables mediated spillover of content in ways that disrupt discourse architectures, affordances, and audience contexts. Platform collapse emerged in student discussions of how content was documented and moved from relatively private to more public spaces to call attention to racist events, messages, and behavior, and to spur conversations and action. This extended reach and frequency, and also changed the context of racial discourses. Conversely, there was also evidence of platform collapse where content was moved from public to more private spaces to address social groundlessness and avoid masspersonal engagement on social media. We conclude by discussing implications of digital documentation and platform collapse for communication theory and methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the reception and dissemination of 'malign information influence' (MII) in a liberal democracy; information sponsored by authoritarian regimes or other hostile actors and projected through international broadcasting outlets across borders. The study contributes to the scarce research on the reception of narratives transmitted by the Russian state-supported media platforms RT and Sputnik, exposing characteristics, political attitudes, and sharing behaviors of RT/Sputnik consumers. A nationwide, representative survey (n: 3033) from November 2020 revealed a surprisingly high number of Swedish RT/Sputnik consumers (7%), with an overrepresentation of young, men and supports of non-parliamentarian parties and the right wing, nationalist Sweden Democratic Party. These consumers are somewhat more willing than non-consumers to disseminate news on social media and in real life despite being distrustful of the sources. The findings strengthen previous research in demonstrating the attractiveness of identity grievance narratives among alternative media consumers, yet the results show that RT/Sputnik consumers also aligned with narratives that contrasts with national security policy. They state less trust in politicians, institutions, the media, news, and journalism, yet are comparatively prone to share unreliable or untrue news content on social media and in real life. The analysis thus identified a section of media consumers who can function as vehicles for the dissemination of MII. The article contributes to the under-researched problem of the potential of MII to take root and provides a basis for future qualitative research that can refine and provide nuance to the knowledge of reception of MII. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research has demonstrated that new mothers are among the most active users of Facebook. There has been only limited empirical investigation of parents' Facebook practices in the years following babyhood. This article examines patterns of Facebook use among parents of children aged between two and eight based on interviews and observations. In contrast to earlier phases of parenting, many users had adopted selective modes of engagement or were seeking to step back from the platform. Parents' accounts highlight the affective dimensions of their enactments of Facebook for information and support. Situated in the literature on connective and disconnective strategies on Facebook, I argue that the affective forces users experience in relation to Facebook extend beyond what we would traditionally think of as the boundaries of the Facebook user assemblage, with experiences of anxiety and judgment continuing after the choice to disconnect. Parents who remained active users had developed strategies to know with the technology, and to manage its affective forces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Responding to widespread concerns about misinformation's impact on democracy, we conducted an experiment in which we exposed German participants to different degrees of misinformation on COVID-19 connected to politicized (immigration) and apolitical (runners) issues (N = 1,490). Our key findings show that partially false information is more credible and persuasive than completely false information, and also more difficult to correct. People with congruent prior attitudes are more likely to perceive misinformation as credible and agree with its positions than people with incongruent prior attitudes. We further show that although fact-checkers can lower the perceived credibility of misinformation on both runners and migrants, corrective messages do not affect attitudes toward migrants. As a key contribution, we show that different degrees of misinformation can have different impacts: more nuanced deviations from facticity may be more harmful as they are difficult to detect and correct while being more credible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article we examine the proliferation of anti-vaccine content on social media during the COVID-19 pandemic. We employ a case study approach to analyse the techniques used by 13 anti-vaccine influencers to promote vaccine refusal on Instagram for 19 months from January 2020 to July 2021. Our findings reveal that the maternal is strategically invoked in anti-vaccine content by appealing to three interrelated ideal types: the protective mother; the intuitive mother and the doting mother. These portrayals of the maternal are used to encourage vaccine refusal by presenting hegemonic ideals of the 'good mother' as one who is natural, holistic and authentic; depicting anti-vaccination as a feminine ideal to which mothers ought to aspire. Authenticity is framed here as a form of embodied expertise, uncorrupted by culture, politics and the medical establishment. Our findings question the pejorative portrayal of suburban mothers in popular media as critical actors in the anti-vaccine movement by revealing the ways anti-vaccine influencers strategically target mothers on social media to achieve visibility, attention and to support their cause. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept of hegemonic masculinity has been used in Chinese sociology since the early-2020s to explain Chinese wealthy men's power over women in the market reform era. Scholars have also paid attention to the ways in which rural, working-class men achieve a sense of manhood, but the links between digital media and gender theory have often not been explored. To fill in this gap, this article examines the ways in which Chinese rural migrant heterosexual men sophisticatedly employ digital technology and gain advantages in the highly competitive field of marriage, translating savvy digital media usage into cultural capital. Research findings drawing upon our long-term ethnography offer substantial evidence of a relationship between men's active use of digital technology, caring practices, and the desirability of rural migrant men. As such, we develop the concept of caring capital in relation to men's ability to: master romantic online courting manners, display caring behaviors during follow-up offline courtship, and please their (future) parents-in-law. Research limitations are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Satirical news and its effects on outcomes such as appreciation and persuasion have gained considerable currency as a topic of research in mass communication studies. Through the framework of construal level theory, we investigated whether different levels of spatial distance influence these effects. In a between-subjects experiment, participants in the United Kingdom (UK; n = 282) and New Zealand (NZ; n = 370) read a satirical or non-satirical news text summarizing a study reporting on the negative impact of increased digital device screen time on young children. Depending on condition, the texts referred to entities and locations in either the participant's own country (spatially close) or a foreign country (spatially distant). Results showed significant main effects of satirical news on audience perceptions, emotions, and attitudes. While there were no significant interactions between article type (satirical vs. regular news) and spatial distance (close vs. distant), our results indicated that satirical news was associated with higher perceptions of spatial distance for both the UK and NZ participants as well as higher perceptions of social distance for the NZ participants. Exploratory indirect-effects analyses found several indirect effects of satirical news through increased perceptions of spatial and social psychological distance on audience emotions, text perceptions, and attitudes. We take these results as initial evidence suggesting spatial and social distance are potential variables to consider in future investigations of satirical news. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Filters and apps purporting to analyze the face and provide insight into a person's personality, heritage, or future have become a popular part of social media interactivity. This article examines the marketing and design of such products in relation to historical systems of racial, ethnic, moral, and psychological differentiation based on the face, such as physiognomy and eugenics. In particular, it explores user-generated 'Which Are You?' filters and apps such as FaceApp, Fantastic Face, and Gradient, which provide visual forecasting, horoscopes, and beauty and ethnic analysis based primarily on face scans. It argues that affinities of these automated optical tools to racist and discriminatory historical systems of face analysis – especially within the context of the representation or performance of identity on social media – can have important implications for the adoption of more extensive systems of facial detection and recognition. Packaging diagnostic and predictive face analysis in these ways can generate acceptance of, and support for, government and corporate applications of these technologies to identify or categorize individuals and predict their behavior, despite widespread social justice concerns over the design, accuracy, administration, and ethics of such systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Marginalized people often incur risk when interacting with information providers and institutions; they must weigh the risk of those interactions against the possible benefits of the knowledge or services gained. In this study, we analyze Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) teens and tweens' articulation of their information practices and their risk management through information seeking. Using data from group interviews with 58 Black, Latinx, Indigenous, and Asian American youth ages 12–18 in North Carolina we describe a model of socially co-constructed information geography focused around identifying, avoiding, and managing risks, costs, and benefits in information-related 'danger zones.' Participants described and demonstrated an ongoing conflict between the desire to seek and share information and the desire to avoid social, economic, political, and personal costs of information seeking. When participants observed a possible danger zone, they frequently engaged in a process of cost–benefit analysis that ultimately resulted in a series of defensive information behaviors, including avoidance, confrontation and open resistance, feigned compliance and subversion, and progressive disclosure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The advent of online technologies has been triggering a wave of empirical examinations of online political participation (OPP) over the past twenty years. It also stimulated scholarly debate on how to conceptualize political participation in a digital age. Scholars differ on whether to consider passive and expressive online behaviors part of or a mere precursor to political participation. This study argues that due to its rapid evolution as well as its dependence on platform affordances, quantitative empirical studies on OPP may be prone to deviations between established, much-cited definitions and measurements applied in the field. Based on a systematic literature review of 289 international peer-reviewed survey-based and experimental studies, we analyze both definitions and measurements of OPP. We find a series of disconnections: Measures preponderantly address online activities, yet merely a small share of definitions focuses on the online sphere. While only few definitions account for passive activities (e.g., reading news about politics), many operationalizations include measures capturing such passive behaviors. Expressive activities are most popular in measures of OPP, but definitions rarely reflect this focus. Finally, while measures of OPP are prone to be platform-specific, definitions tend to neglect this characteristic. We conclude by reflecting the conceptual implications of common measurement practices for the study of OPP. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Even as attempts are being made to curtail the mass deployment of automated facial recognition systems in many countries, there are efforts to harvest new kinds of personal information from faces. Facial emotion recognition is a particularly ambitious form of facial analysis – an automated process in which faces are sorted amongst sets of categories – which has recently drawn criticism. The ways in which basic attributes of facial expression and emotion contradict the foundational assumptions of automated emotion recognition highlight larger conceptual problems with attempts to subject complex human phenomena to automated analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Receiving Facebook post engagement – such as likes, comments and shares – is crucial in order to succeed online, perhaps especially for political actors. However, online engagement can also be hazardous, as it potentially strips the original poster of control over their messages. Previous work has shown that political actors have been rather unwilling to encourage interaction from their online supporters. However, research has also indicated a need to assess the influence of Facebook in this regard. Building on the theory of controlled interactivity, the study presented here details what is referred to as Facebook engagement strategies among Norwegian political parties on Facebook between 2009 and 2019. Combining quantitative and qualitative approaches in order to compare party and follower activity in relation to the aforementioned engagement varieties, the main findings indicate that parties and followers do not necessarily seek to interact at the same time. Furthermore, tendencies towards gamification, where parties direct user attention towards online quizzes and raffles instead of towards deliberation and political discussion, can be discerned. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Facebook Ad Library promises to improve transparency and accountability in online advertising by rendering personalised campaigns visible to the public. This article investigates whether and how journalists have made use of this tool in their reporting. Our content analysis of print journalism reveals several different use cases, from high-level reporting on political campaigns to uncovering specific wrongdoings such as disinformation, hate speech, and astroturfing. However, our interviews with journalists who use the Ad Library show that they remain highly critical of this tool and its manifold limitations. We argue that these findings offer empirical grounding for the public regulation of ad archives, since they underscore both the public interest in advertising disclosures as well as the growing reliance of journalists on voluntary and incomplete access frameworks controlled by the very platforms they aim to scrutinise. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many authors have argued that digital technologies enable collaboration without central oversight or authority, obviating the need for the hierarchical bureaucracies that characterize industrial capitalism. In this context, Wikipedia is often mentioned as a paradigmatic example. We draw on the classical accounts of Robert Michels and Max Weber to study mechanisms pushing towards or away from power concentration and bureaucratization. Our historical analysis of bureaucratization and power concentration in Wikipedia is based on 118 conversations and interviews as well as extensive archival research. While most studies on Wikipedia only consider the online encyclopedia itself, we also scrutinize the Wikimedia Foundation. Our analysis uncovers alternating processes of power concentration and power diffusion. While we observe power concentration for reasons anticipated by Michels, we also find strong counter-tendencies. Consequently, power concentration does not follow an 'iron law' but is the contingent outcome of struggles among stakeholders. In line with Weber, we identify a process of progressive bureaucratization. This does not only result from the pursuit of organizational manageability, but from a quest for democratic equality and minimization of domination as well. We introduce the concept of self-organizing bureaucratization to highlight how bureaucratization is the unintended and emergent outcome of efforts to increase democratic accountability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Patterns of news consumption are changing drastically. Citizens increasingly rely on social media such as Facebook to read and share political news. With the power of these platforms to expose citizens to political information, the implications for democracy are profound, making understanding what is shared during elections a priority on the research agenda. Nevertheless, to the best of our knowledge, no study has yet explicitly explored how elections transform news sharing behaviour on Facebook. This study begins to remedy this by (a) investigating changes in news coverage and news sharing behaviour on Facebook by comparing election and routine periods, and by (b) addressing the 'news gap' between preferences of journalists and news consumers on social media. Employing a novel data set of news articles (N = 83,054) in Mexico, findings show that during periods of heightened political activity, both the publication and dissemination of political news increases, the gap between the news choices of journalists and consumers narrows, and that news sharing resembles a zero-sum game, with increased political news sharing leading to a decrease in the sharing of other news. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Informed by two case studies of de-platforming interventions performed by Facebook against two high profile conspiracy theorists who had been messaging about Covid-19, this article investigates how de-platforming functions as an instrument of social control, illuminating the intended and unintended effects it induces. To help interpret the patterns in the data, two novel conceptual innovations are introduced. The concept of 'minion accounts' captures how following a de-platforming intervention, a series of secondary accounts are set up to continue the mission. Such accounts are part of a wider retinue of 're-platforming' behaviours. Overall, the empirical evidence reviewed suggests that whilst de-platforming can constrain transmission of conspiratorial disinformation, it does not eradicate it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In China, the live-streaming industry boasts 587 million users worth 961 billion yuan in 2020 [Yimei Zixun (2021, 16 March). 2020–2021 Zhongguo zaixian zhibo hangye niandu yanjiu baogao. ]. With so many live-streamers clamoring for fame and fortune, the sheer competition catalyzes the rise of 'live-streaming guilds' (zhibo gonghui) that help members elevate themselves in the performance charts of the various live-streaming apps. In this article, we conducted ethnographic research in one such guild that contracted its business from the live-streaming platform Zhubei. By conceptualizing these guilds as collectives of manipulating 'algorithmic experts' [Bishop, S. (2020). Algorithmic experts: Selling algorithmic lore on YouTube. Social Media + Society, 6(1), 1–11. https://doi.org/10.1177/2056305119897323], we argue that they optimize their live-streamers' performance according to algorithmic parameters that the platforms themselves reveal. However, guilds manipulate audience affects more, going so far as to use heterosexual male workers to masquerade as female live-streamers to entice straight male audience members to tip generously. As such, we challenge the still-prevalent epistemological assumption that live-streamers work alone, and the received wisdom that platform algorithms are unknown and unknowable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Asian American women's beauty practices have been doubly pathologized – not only being stereotyped as passive, dull, unattractive, and foreign, but also stigmatized as non-normative, uneducated, self-harming, and complicit to White beauty ideals. This study examines how this unique positionality of Asian American women is entangled with influencer practices conceptualized as a place of postfeminist subject-making. I conducted a qualitative textual analysis of YouTube videos (n = 45) from a sample of Asian American YouTubers, along with a semantic network analysis and qualitative analysis of the video comments (n = 1708). Drawing upon this data, this study argues that influencer practices and postfeminist strategies for 'branding the self' have fostered a space to create alternative beauty practices and connect to viewers who have been through similar body insecurities. Considering that Asian American women have been historically marginalized by US mainstream media and have consistently been objectified, I found the beauty videos and associated community building of Asian American women YouTubers have the potential to be counter-hegemonic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As young people increasingly rely on the internet to learn and socialise, the support they require becomes more complex. Some young people are more vulnerable online than others, such as young people in care or with Special Educational Needs. There is evidence that professionals working with vulnerable young people are ill-equipped to enhance children's safety online and support them through recovery if required. This research aims to explore the understanding, experience and processes among a range of senior children's services professionals and external specialists in England; identify the challenges faced in practice; and highlight recommendations for improvement. Twenty-nine participants, seven males and twenty two females, were interviewed using semi-structured interviews. Transcripts were analysed using thematic analysis. Findings suggested that participants have limited and fragmented awareness of young people's risk and vulnerability online. Digital Life was not found to be fully integrated into practice. The focus was on identifying risk and less on understanding motivation or supporting recovery. Participants lacked up-to-date and specialised training, as well as assessment tools integrating digital lives, resulting in poor cross-agency working. Recommendations for practice and policy are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We discuss how a capability approach to information technology in neighbourhoods with low social capital can create embedded and sustainable Community Technology Partnerships (CTPs) that connect residents and institutions together, reducing barriers to social participation and collaborative action. Current research indicates older people in deprived neighbourhoods have chronic problems with the effective sharing of community information, a key factor in the 'digital divide' [Niehaves and Plattfaut (2014). Internet adoption by the elderly: Employing IS technology acceptance theories for understanding the age-related digital divide. European Journal of Information Systems, 23(6), 708–726. ]. Manchester Age Friendly Neighbourhoods had 4,000 conversations in four 'age-friendly' resident-led neighbourhood partnerships in Manchester. This fieldwork demonstrated that the inability to create and share information within and across residents, communities and service providers is a key contributor to social isolation and barrier to local collaboration. MAFN developed a CTP to correlate perceptions that it was difficult to find out what was going on in the neighbourhood, with an exhaustive audit of actual activity. The result was collective surprise at finding out about dozens of events in each area that were previously either poorly communicated or which were not normally published at all, relying entirely on word of mouth. The CTP was developed using a capability model [Kleine (2013). Technologies of choice? ICTs, development, and the capabilities approach. MIT Press] to discover and overcome both the social and technical barriers preventing the hosts of neighbourhood activities collaboratively and sustainably self-publishing their event information. This resulted in the production of PlaceCal, an holistic social and technical toolkit that ensures groups and individuals have the technology, skills, infrastructure and support to publish information, creating a distributed network of community information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In April 2021, The Walt Disney Company (Disney) announced the Ultimate Princess Celebration, 'a year-long event spotlighting the courage and kindness these Disney heroines inspire in fans all around the world' (Deitchman, 2021). Princesses have remained an important element of Disney's identity and the movies they create. Broadening research beyond these characters and examining a larger sample demonstrated distinctions in the characteristics present in Official Disney Princess (ODP) movies, Actual Princess (AP) movies, and the 45 in the full catalog (All-Movies) that are or share characteristics with Disney Princess Movies. This article compares the race, class, and gender of the protagonist and antagonist as well as other story elements of 45 animated or partially animated movies that typify Disney's 'Classics Period' between 1937 and 2017 across those three groups. This work examines the ways in which the ODP and AP are different from the overall catalog and violate some of the Disney norms to which we are accustomed while fully embracing others. The research found that while the Official Princess movies had more racial diversity in the main characters than the overall catalog, for example, they also had more stereotypical female villains, more magic, and more romance. Acknowledging these divisions can lead to more robust research where a research sample can be critically collected based on the topic of interest. This article provides a foundation for those examinations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Widespread use of the Internet means that online privacy, or how to protect one's private information while engaging in online activity, has become a concern for many individuals. Research has investigated people's online privacy experience, including online privacy attitudes, confidence, and behaviors. However, not much attention has been paid to how online privacy confidence could be misperceived and how educational tools can correct such overconfidence. Guided by the protection motivation theory, this research examines online privacy confidence and is composed of two studies: Study 1 reveals that online users misrepresent their online knowledge and may have overconfidence as a result. Inspired by this finding and previous research, Study 2 avoids self-reported measures of online knowledge and instead directly evaluates online privacy knowledge (using OPLIS) and its impact on online privacy confidence. Using a survey experiment, we find playing an online privacy educational game increases confidence overall and, importantly, corrects overconfidence. Despite this, we do not find any evidence that correction leads to increased information-seeking. The findings shed light on what online users themselves and organizations, such as universities, industry, and government agencies, can do to better educate individuals about online privacy while calling attention to the need for continued research regarding the underlying mechanisms and downstream behavioral consequences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the wide use of social media and other online services, people are getting more concerned about online privacy. Social media platforms and other online companies are collecting users' information for various purposes, including targeted advertising. While these data are anonymous, it is possible to identify people through publicly available information and machine learning algorithms. Members of some groups are more vulnerable to such privacy attacks and more likely to be identified. This raises a concern regarding the fair or equitable protection of online privacy, or the protection of all online users' instead of most users' private information. This research addresses this relatively new topic from the sociological perspective and focuses on fair privacy protection in online datasets. Questionnaire data show that college students rate the current privacy protection in online datasets low, but they have great support for general privacy protection and greater support for fair privacy protection. Factors that affect their support for general and fair privacy protection include prior cautious online behavior and how essential they rate company practice and government policies that ensure fair privacy. When they perceive a lack of fair privacy in online datasets, most of them would reduce or stop using certain online services. Factors affecting such reactions include prior cautious online behavior, hours on social media, the perception of being included in online datasets, and perceived importance of fair privacy policies. The findings highlight the pivotal role of institutional privacy measures, namely fair privacy company practice and government policies, especially the latter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Smartphones are a key part of life for university and college students, and indeed for many people [Pew Research Center. (2021, April 7). Mobile fact sheet. ]. A growing body of research suggests that these technological devices, when used in a classroom, lead to various issues and problems for students from distraction/loss of focus to procrastination, and ultimately impact performance and grades. Media coverage has pointed to smartphones as a scourge responsible for the decline of an entire generation of university and college students. Much of the research, while important and timely, tends to study what technological devices 'do to' people. There has been less focus on how students temper their use of smartphones in a classroom and while doing schoolwork – in other words, what they 'do with' their technological devices, such as smartphones. This research was completed in Winter 2021 via online survey with 632 undergraduate students at a large Canadian University. It found that students employ a variety of strategies that help mitigate the risks of smartphone use. These include installing apps that manage time on various platforms, turning off notifications, or placing their phone in a coat or bag. Some students turn off their phone or leave it in another room when taking online classes. This study positioned the students themselves as 'experts' in the use of their smartphones. The findings suggest that many students feel they limit their smartphone use in class or while studying far better than professors and the media suggest. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Buy now, pay later (BNPL) is a new, increasingly popular form of short-term credit used for everyday items. While critics are concerned that these typically unregulated products pose risks for financially vulnerable people, many BNPL companies argue their app-based products are more responsible than other forms of credit. In this study, I use Davis' (2020) mechanisms and conditions framework of affordances and Light et al.'s (2018) walkthrough method to analyse how three popular BNPL products (Afterpay, Klarna and Zip) define responsible lending and spending. I argue these BNPL companies claim they are more responsible than credit cards because they are more inclusive and have fairer loan terms, and that these claims are made possible by the platformed nature of BNPL products. At the same time, these BNPL companies define responsible consumers as those who make their repayments on time. This redefinition of responsible consumption encourages increased spending and normalises the use of BNPL credit for that consumption. These products, which challenge traditional regulatory responses to consumer credit, are disproportionately used by lower-income families, who are increasingly reliant on credit for everyday purchases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the COVID-19 pandemic information about the transmission of the virus came out slowly and recommended practices changed over time. This made communication media, like the Internet, especially important. Few prior studies have considered how digital inequalities influence information flows. Building on three research streams – vaccine hesitancy, information-seeking, and digital inequalities – we examine how digital inequalities, health media, and mass media affect COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy. Using representative survey data of US Internet users, our structural equation model demonstrates the importance of digital inequalities and media use for vaccine hesitancy. Digital inclusion plays an important role in public health. It leads to increased health information-seeking, which reduces vaccine hesitancy. Our model presents evidence supporting a comprehensive policy approach to vaccine hesitancy beyond factors like socio-demographics and prior health beliefs to include broader factors like digital equity measures and sources of health information. Where and how people find information on public health issues seems to be as important as demographics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

New Year's resolutions are acts of valuation where people express ideas about what is important and worthwhile in life. Although resolutions have a long history, the twenty-first century has transformed the practice into a social media ritual with greater visibility, interactivity, and reach. Using this unique event to explore the globalization of values, we analyze tweets about New Year's resolutions in English, German, Italian, Japanese, and Korean. Combining network analysis (n = 160,592) and content analysis (n = 2000), we compare discursive topics, modes of ritual participation, and the values expressed in resolutions. Our findings indicate both that the ritual crosses cultures and that there are language-specific dynamics that do not map neatly onto established divisions between 'Eastern' and 'Western' value orientations. Instead, we identify three underlying tensions organizing the articulation of values: self-acceptance vs. self-improvement, public vs. private, and conformity vs. oppositionality. We discuss these in relation to an overarching tension between local contexts and global platform cultures. Finally, we explore the study's broader implications for understanding the interaction between values, norms, and global communicative practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Algorithmic profiling has become increasingly prevalent in many social fields and practices, including finance, marketing, law, cultural consumption and production, and social engagement. Although researchers have begun to investigate algorithmic profiling from various perspectives, socio-technical studies of algorithmic profiling that consider users' everyday perceptions are still scarce. In this article, we expand upon existing user-centered research and focus on people's awareness and imaginaries of algorithmic profiling, specifically in the context of social media and targeted advertising. We conducted an online survey geared toward understanding how Facebook users react to and make sense of algorithmic profiling when it is made visible. The methodology relied on qualitative accounts as well as quantitative data from 292 Facebook users in the United States and their reactions to their algorithmically inferred 'Your Interests' and 'Your Categories' sections on Facebook. The results illustrate a broad set of reactions and rationales to Facebook's (public-facing) algorithmic profiling, ranging from shock and surprise, to accounts of how superficial – and in some cases, inaccurate – the profiles were. Taken together with the increasing reliance on Facebook as critical social infrastructure, our study highlights a sense of algorithmic disillusionment requiring further research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article traces the emergence of a 'decolonial turn' in critical technology and data studies that analyzes the transformation of society through data extraction for profit. First, we offer a genealogy of concepts over the last decade from different fields related to this decolonial turn, including work that explores the connection between racism and data. Second, we discuss the commonalities and differences between these approaches and our own proposal, the data colonialism thesis (Couldry & Mejias, 2018, 2019) to clarify how, together, they provide a distinctive take on data and technology. Third, we summarize the most important advantages of the decolonial turn as a transhistorical tool to understand the continuities between colonialism and capitalism. Finally, some wider implications of a decolonial approach to data are explored, and broad theoretical and practical opportunities for resistance are identified. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While it is increasingly recognised that commercial social media platforms are not neutral tools for online activism, our knowledge of how such platforms concretely intervene in user activities and shape the dynamics of online activism remains limited. This article focuses on analysing the strategies and mechanisms that have been used by Sina Weibo to manage online contention. Based on interviews with Weibo operators and opinion leaders, and analysis of relevant cases and documents, this article finds that in its early days Weibo actively facilitated the production and spread of online contention to establish itself as a key avenue for users to discuss and follow the development of unfolding incidents. Meanwhile, subtle strategies were applied to mitigate the tension between engaging users and conducting censorship. By showing how Weibo managed online contention in order to advance its own commercial interests, this article contributes to a deeper understanding of the role social media platforms play in online activism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Media use among early adolescents is nearly ubiquitous and has been associated with important health outcomes such as physical activity, sleep and problematic internet use (PIU). Parent involvement has been recommended as a prevention strategy; it remains unclear how it is associated with media use and health outcomes. The purpose of this study was to develop profiles of media use, parent involvement and health outcomes among adolescents. Early adolescents were recruited to a cross-sectional online survey using the Qualtrics platform and panels. Media use measures included ownership and bedroom use of devices, social media platforms and video games. Parent media involvement assessed media rules and role-modeling. Health measures included physical activity, sleep and PIU. We used latent class analysis (LCA) to identify distinct profile groups across these three areas. The 1155 participants had a mean age of 13.6 years (SD = 1.1), of whom 49.7% were female, 73.7% were White and 61.1% had parent education with a college degree. We found that most participants owned personal media devices, including smartphones (81.4%), computers (64.6%) and video game systems (58.9%). The LCA identified three distinct profile groups: (1) Active Autonomous Media Users, (2) Young Low-Tech Sleepers and (3) Risky Regulated Media Users. Findings support that media use patterns vary across adolescents, suggesting different education and prevention approaches may be needed. Targeting educational messages to different media profiles may be an effective strategy to optimize productive media use and health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Little is known about the information parents of children with cancer find when searching for clinical trials information on YouTube. Thus, this study aimed to analyse the content, quality and reliability of YouTube videos focused on clinical trials for paediatric cancer. A descriptive cross-sectional design was used, and YouTube was searched using the phrases 'clinical trials for children with cancer' and 'paediatric cancer clinical trials'. Videos that met inclusion criteria were assessed using the instruments Global Quality Scale and DISCERN. About half of the examined videos were in the GQS excellent-quality group and exhibited a total of 84,804 views. The mean time for videos was 5.7 minutes, they originated from the US or UK, were uploaded after 2016, and had a cancer centre/foundation or children hospital as video source. Half of them were focusing on early experimental trials and had a positive tone. Twenty percent were classified as useful without serious shortcomings, almost 50% as misleading with serious shortcomings, and 30% as inappropriate sources of information. In conclusion, most YouTube videos on paediatric cancer trials are not very informative and fall short of what could ethically be required regarding their facilitation of informed decision-making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]