ABSTRACT This paper assesses the influence of racial outreach on Black political participation in the context of United States electoral politics. We argue that racial appeals should inspire higher levels of Black voter enthusiasm because they, in part, improve perceptions of empathy from politicians. However, we expect that racial outreach will matter more when it comes from non-descriptive representatives

Abstract: Although the intersection of social media usage and journalism practice enjoys a prominent place in many scholarly inquiries throughout the field of journalism studies, a comprehensive understanding of this body of literature is lacking. This study attempts to alleviate this problem. Through a systematic analysis of more than 150 studies primarily focusing on how journalists utilize social

ABSTRACT The interorganizational relationship communication literature has identified homophily – the tendency for actors to form ties with similar others – as a mechanism predictive of tie formation among organizations in civil society networks. This study examined the connection between homophily and network structures equated with different types of social capital and perceptions of influence. Using

Research has suggested that social media usage increases during times of social isolation. However, rather than making users feel more connected to others, social media may cause negative mental health and relational outcomes, including a fear of missing out (FoMO). Against the backdrop of the global coronavirus disease-19 (COVID-19) pandemic, this health communication study sought to understand the

This study examines how travel influencers Jessica Nabongo and Oneika Raymond use Instagram in a process I call “digital culture bearing,” employing the platform to nurture wisdom about Africa. They combine images, captions, hashtags, and geotags to share information about nations within the African continent with principally Black populations. Employing critical technocultural discourse analysis (CTDA)

Most online media consumption is not driven by a desire to seek out news and politics. However, the public may still encounter politics because it arises organically in communities devoted to non-political subjects. This study examines the potential of popular reality television online discussion forums to serve as online third spaces and stimulate political discussion due to the natural connections

This article reorients research on agentic engagements with algorithms from the perspective of autonomy. We separate two horizons of algorithmic relations – the instrumental and the intimate – and analyse how they shape different dimensions of autonomous agency. Against the instrumental horizon, algorithmic systems are technical procedures ordering social life at a distance and using rules that can

Scholarship on #MeToo has examined the feminist underpinnings of the movement and affordances of digital platforms to create space for telling stories of sexual harassment and violence. This essay makes a different contribution, in that we seek to understand the impact of the viral version of #MeToo on the established primarily Black community developed by Tarana Burke. In this essay, we use the framework

Although collective efforts are essential to fight COVID-19, public opinion in the United States is sharply divided by partisan attitudes and health beliefs. Addressing the concern that media use facilitates polarization, this study investigated whether social and traditional media use for COVID-19 information attenuates or reinforces existing disparities. This article focuses on two important areas

This study explores the effect of unprecedented mass isolation during COVID-19 lockdowns through the lens of self-disclosure of loneliness on Twitter. Using a dataset of 30 million public tweets, we use machine learning to identify tweets that contain self-disclosure of loneliness. We find that thousands more people turned to Twitter to express their loneliness during the lockdowns; however, this effect

This study investigated the impact of cyberbullying victimization at work on well-being and strain in the workplace. This is the first study to use a longitudinal approach to research cyberbullying at work. A nationally representative sample of Finnish workers (n = 768) took part in a five-wave survey study. Both within-person and between-person effects were analyzed using hybrid regression models

Various literature has examined how affordances of online media such as openness and connectivity have constituted digital counterpublics, that is, discursive arenas where members of subordinate social groups invent and circulate oppositional interpretations of their identities. At the same time, and in sharp contrast to the bilateral nature of online media, most of this literature has focused on content

Digitally created online celebrities (so-called virtual influencers) have appeared on various social media and video streaming platforms. While the scientific community has recently started to take an interest in this new phenomenon, it still remains mostly unclear how online audiences engage with—and relate to—these artificial digital creations. To address the identified research gap, we conducted

Through an analysis of 4chan’s /adv/ or ‘advice’ board – in which predominately male users seek advice on life matters – here we examine masculine ontological insecurity and its implications for understanding how ‘toxic’ masculine identities emerge, and how young men more generally struggle to make sense of their lives. Advancing extant scholarship, our findings uncover an ‘on the cusp’ masculine identity

In robotics, a field of research still populated by prototypes, much of the research is made through videos and pictures of robots. We study how the highly human-like robot Sophia is perceived through a YouTube video. Often researchers take for granted in their experiments that people perceive humanoids as such. With this study we wanted to understand to what extent a convenience sample of university

ABSTRACT This paper assesses the performance of three commonly used type of questions – open-ended, check-all and forced choice – for capturing retrospective online news exposure, combining both survey and web-tracking data. It examines the performance of these different survey questions considering both systematic and random error in two unexplored non-US contexts: Spain and the UK. Results show that

Abstract Due to digitization, traditional media brands are facing hypercompetition. For one thing, media outlets offering journalistic content no longer compete just with each other but also with all sorts of content from various sources, such as corporate publishers. This particularly applies to the information space provided by Google and other search engines. This leads to the question of how traditional

Abstract Assessments of the trustworthiness of news outlets necessarily implicate visual design. The design of the newspaper has been a hallmark of its credibility; a newspaper looks trustworthy. But the relationship between design and trust is more complicated in a digital era. Agents of mis- and dis-information produce “fake” news outlets that look trustworthy, appropriating the design qualities

Abstract This research explores consumers’ responses to sexual appeals in advertisements in the context of access-based consumption. The results indicate that male consumers’ responses toward sexual appeals are more negative when the advertised products are access based (versus ownership based). For female consumers, sexual appeals lead to equally negative responses in the two consumption modes (Study

Abstract As journalism has grappled with the potentials and boundaries of AI within the industry, journalists have produced plentiful articles detailing experimentation and potential consequences of AI-driven journalism (see, Peiser, 2019 Peiser, J. 2019, February 5. “The Rise of the Robot Reporter.” The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/05/business/media/artificial-intelligence-journalism-robots

Abstract A recent wave of enthusiasm surrounding artificial intelligence (AI) has seen many observers focus on its potential to transform journalism, as with other forms of knowledge work. This conceptual essay, however, attempts to steer the conversation away from a technocentric emphasis on applications and instead pivot to the fundamental but overlooked issue of normativity: in this case, what should

Abstract Design is a discipline that gives form to alternative futures. Through a process of material exploration, it explores novel configurations of technology, people and values, and in doing so, seeks to understand the implications of new designs. It is this practice of making and creating that is valuable to journalism as it grapples with how to respond to communication technologies that are increasingly

Abstract This article proposes a conceptual framework for the concept audience agency, which plays a vital role in the current audience turn in journalism (research). It presents two types of audience agency, deliberate and incidental, and three levels at which they can manifest: the micro level of the individual, the meso level of organised groups and the macro level of collective audiences. While

Abstract The fight against rampant disinformation has triggered two major answers: fact-checking and news literacy. These affect the established fields of journalism and of Media and Information Literacy (MIL). They create opportunities for new entrants from the margins to enter professional fields in need of revamping. Using information and communication sciences research on policy and organizations

Abstract Many advertising constructs vary considerably in how they are defined and operationalized—variations which result from changes in definitions and operationalizations over time and between studies. These changes undermine the comparability of empirical insights, challenge the integration of insights into an existing body of knowledge, and thereby impede knowledge development in advertising

Abstract Storytelling is a common tactic used by marketers to connect with consumers and persuade through narrative transportation. While researchers have explored how narrative transportation can be generated through many different mediums, little research has investigated how narrative transportation can be achieved through a single image, such as those used for print ads and billboards. This research

This study explores how disinformation can dampen general users’ expressions of opinion online. In the context of a proven disinformation case in South Korea, this study analyzes externally validated click-logs of 1389 fake accounts and more than a million logs of 45,769 general users in a highly popular web portal. Findings show that the inflated visibility of anti-governmental opinions in the manipulated

Surveillance of human subjects is how data-intensive companies obtain much of their data, yet surveillance increasingly meets with social and regulatory resistance. Data-intensive companies are thus seeking other ways to meet their data needs. This article explores one of these: the creation of synthetic data, or data produced artificially as an alternative to real-world data. I show that capital is

This article establishes a theoretical link between the business model of social media and the resurgence of antiliberal populism. Through a novel set of tactics I term “identity biopolitics,” political campaigns and foreign governments alike can identify voters as members of socioculturally differentiated populations, then target them with political messages aimed at cultivating voters’ awareness

Fun, Taste and Games is part of MIT’s “Playful Thinking” series, which comprised short argumentative books that can fit into a coat pocket. While this book adopts a casual, alacritous tone throughout, it also set out to go beyond setting forth mere provocations that may destabilize our conventional sense of “fun”: the authors ambitiously attempt to advance, among other things, a theoretical account

Scholars have long argued that incidental news exposure (INE) is a potentially valuable way citizens gain political information and learn about current affairs. Yet growing scholarship on news avoidance suggests many people still manage to consume little news, and algorithmic curation may decrease the likelihood that they will be exposed to it incidentally. In this article, we put the literatures on

ABSTRACT Although media and communication scholars have suggested various analytical methods for measuring and comparing news audience polarization across countries, we lack a systematic assessment of the metrics produced by these techniques. Using survey data from the 2016 Reuters Institute Digital News Report on news use in 26 countries, we address this gap through a resampling simulation experiment

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to an increase in the digitalisation of services that poses the risk of digital exclusion, especially among older adults. We examined the predictors of Internet use for services and its increase or decrease among a longitudinal population-based sample of 1426 older adults from Finland aged between 70 and 100 years, gathered in 2017 and 2020. High education and high income

As video game production is becoming increasingly data-driven, player surveillance shapes the everyday realities of users and developers. Remote online tracking and the resulting optimization and governance of in-game activity subscribe to the Big Data methodology as a way of accounting for entire player populations. By design, player surveillance serves the interests of developers and publishers,

This study analyzes the self-representations of Russian-speaking women with anorexia on YouTube. Using multimodal interaction analysis, the research focuses on how the explanatory model of anorexia and the representation platform influence the narratives produced by vloggers who have experienced or are experiencing anorexia. It is concluded that anorexia is mainly represented in these videos as a weight-related

Political actors play an increasingly important role in the dissemination of political information on social media. However, relatively little is known about the mechanisms why specific news items are shared with the support base instead of others. For a timespan between December 2017 and the end of 2018, we combine the analysis of Facebook content from 1,022 politicians associated with 20 political

Using data from The Irish Longitudinal Study on Ageing (TILDA), linked to administrative data on high-speed broadband availability from infrastructure maps, this study examines patterns of Internet uses and psychosocial outcomes for over 3500 people aged 50 plus across Ireland. High-speed broadband availability is associated with higher reported levels of home Internet access, greater frequency of

Media exists as the primary route through which the public learns about new technologies and thus plays an important role in shaping public sentiments. This article examines the influence of news media partisanship on the coverage of the controversial artificial intelligence (AI) technology facial recognition. A mixed-methods content analysis of news articles (N = 451) from 23 US-based news outlets

This article asks what impact temporality and timing have on the ways in which memories are felt and made to matter on social media. Drawing on Taina Bucher’s theorisation of the ‘kairologic’ of algorithmic media, I explore how digital memories are resurfaced or made visible to people at the ‘right time’ in the present. The article proposes the notion of ‘right-time memories’ to examine the ways in

Abstract Given growing concerns regarding the spread of medical misinformation, the current research set out to assess the message effects of social media news on reader veracity assessments. A 2 (news report with hedging vs. without hedging) by 3 (uncivil vs. civil vs. no comments) between-subject experiment on Facebook users was conducted (valid N = 824). Results reveal that news hedging was more

Abstract Using an experimental tool that tracks viewers’ real-time ad-skipping behavior, the current research tested when and why a highly arousing emotional appeal ad that induces a set of complex discrete emotions can reduce the ad-skipping rate on social media platforms such as YouTube. Across three experiments, we showed the following results. First, the ad-skipping rate of emotional appeal ads

ABSTRACT Prior research suggests that Twitter users in the United States are more politically engaged and more partisan than the American citizenry, who are generally characterized by low levels of political knowledge and disinterest in political affairs. This study seeks to understand this disconnect by conducting an observational analysis of the most popular accounts on American Twitter. We identify

This article introduces the concept of carceral communication to focus attention on the role of communication in mass incarceration’s racialized, criminal justice process. To argue that a communication perspective helps explain how individuals, neighborhoods, and prisons are linked together, the article uses publicly available indictments that charged three New York City youth gangs with violent crimes

Abstract This article develops the concept of engaged journalism outside a US context, comparing how engaged journalists in Brazil and Egypt discursively negotiate their professional positions in the face of far-right governments’ constraints. Engaged journalists are professional journalists working in alternative media and strongly committed to a political position. Inspired by Bourdieu’s field theory

Published in Journal of Advertising (Vol. 51, No. 2, 2022)

How do populists visually represent “the people”? While the literature on populism has tended to focus on text- and language-based documents, such as speeches, policies, and party documents to consider how populists characterize “the people,” in this article I undertake a systematic visual content analysis to consider how populist leaders on either side of the ideological spectrum visually represent

This study extends framing theory by identifying two causal mechanisms and one contingent condition for a new type of frame to be used with issues where people dispute scientific claims. This new “adaptive frame” focuses on adapting to climate change impacts without cueing deeply held beliefs by discussing causes. An experiment shows this frame works by reducing persuasion knowledge and increasing

The article revisits the theory of hybrid space and looks more closely at the process of integration of physical and virtual spaces. It argues that the formation of hybrid space is not unidirectional but cross-directional. It also aims to address some of the concerns raised by Humphreys about how studies on mobile social networks have mainly been location-based, while increasingly, the use of socializing

The objective of this article is to conceptualize affective polarization beyond partisan politics to instead analyze the ways in which women’s affective political participation is subject to toxic discipline. While a lot of focus has been placed on affective politics as mechanisms for governance, little has been done regarding affective polarization after feminist protest. In this article, we bridge

Despite substantial interest in developing theoretical models and technology for creativity enhancement, existing creativity research across various fields lacks a user-centered definition of creativity that can be operationalized in today’s digital spaces. To address this, we conducted a mixed-methods longitudinal research on a study website mirroring content from Bēhance, a popular online platform

The emergence of disinformation challenges today’s democracies. Selective exposure research assumes that psychological biases cause people to turn to attitude-reinforcing disinformation, though studies indicate that this only holds true for small niches of online audiences. However, when online, unbiased users as well may encounter disinformation, which for them appear to be attitude-challenging. How

During the COVID-19 pandemic in 2021, British social media influencers posted pictures and stories from Dubai. As a result, the emirate faced an intense backlash from the British media. This study considers the British media’s motivations for constituting Dubai as Orientalist ‘other’ while uncovering earlier imagined geographies of the Orient. The study develops the novel concept of ‘intermedia geographies’

How do leaders communicate during domestic crises? We provide the first global analysis of world leader communication on social media during social unrest. We develop a theory of leaders’ digital communication strategies, building on the diversionary theory of foreign policy, as well as research on the role of democratic institutions in explaining elite responsiveness. To test our theory, we construct

Research indicates that when mainstream news media report about demonstrations, protesters often face delegitimizing coverage. This phenomenon, known as the “(journalistic) protest paradigm,” is thought to be a default mindset that leads journalists to emphasize the method of protesters over their message. However, empirical work has so far limited itself to specific protest movements or events and

Abstract Eudaimonic narratives, which past work identifies as stories featuring themes related to virtue and life’s higher purpose, are increasingly prevalent in advertisements and marketing communications. The current research examines whether this type of narrative achieves advertiser-desired outcomes. If these outcomes are achieved, how? The results from five studies demonstrate that eudaimonic

Abstract Platform companies play an important role in the production and distribution of news. This article analyses this role and questions of control, dependence and autonomy in the light of the ‘AI goldrush’ in the news. I argue that the introduction of AI in the news risks shifting even more control to and increasing the news industry’s dependence on platform companies. While platform companies’

Abstract Building on the field theory, this study examined how disclosure of native advertising at popular U.S. news websites may relate to their organizations’ positions in the journalistic field. The study found divergent disclosure practices across websites, between language and visual disclosures, and between native ad links on the homepage and native ad posts on story pages within a website. Overall

Abstract This study surveyed data journalists from 71 countries to compare how public transparency infrastructure influences data journalism practices around the world. Emphasizing cross-national differences in data access, results suggest that technical and economic inequalities that affect the implementation of the open data infrastructures can produce unequal data access and widen the gap in data

Abstract This article introduces the Generative Dialogue Framework (GDF) and explores its potential as a pedagogical intervention, one that could help reimagine the future of engaged journalism by bringing design-thinking practices, creativity, and deep-listening modalities into play. The framework is developed through design thinking and builds around principles from the field of design. It uses virtual

(2022). Journalism: Mirror on a “Decaying” Arab World. Digital Journalism. Ahead of Print.