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Explaining machine learning practice: findings from an engaged science and technology studies project Information, Communication & Society (IF 4.2) Pub Date : 2024-09-09 Marisela Gutierrez Lopez, Susan Halford
The widespread use of machine learning (ML) models for decision-making raises critical concerns about transparency and accountability – to which an increasingly popular solution is ‘Explainable AI’...
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The trustworthiness of peers and public discourse: exploring how people navigate numerical dis/misinformation on personal messaging platforms Information, Communication & Society (IF 4.2) Pub Date : 2024-09-08 Brendan T. Lawson, Andrew Chadwick, Natalie-Anne Hall, Cristian Vaccari
Numbers are essential to how citizens understand the world, but also have distinctive power to confuse or manipulate. Numerical claims permeate online dis/misinformation, yet relatively little is k...
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‘Dysfunctional’ appeals and failures of algorithmic justice in Instagram and TikTok content moderation Information, Communication & Society (IF 4.2) Pub Date : 2024-08-30 Carolina Are
This article explores users’ perceptions of justice when using appeals on Instagram and TikTok, focusing on the barriers de-platformed users across fields like activism, sex work, sex education and...
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To know is to compare Information, Communication & Society (IF 4.2) Pub Date : 2024-08-23 Konstantinos Kerasovitis
Published in Information, Communication & Society (Ahead of Print, 2024)
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Experientially simulated others: finding social support for mental health in digital games Information, Communication & Society (IF 4.2) Pub Date : 2024-08-27 Jeff Nicklas
People with mental illness struggle to find connection and community due to a combination of stigma, social isolation, and adverse social experiences. Digital games, as an immersive and interactive...
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Room with a viewership: visibility work & Twitch.tv in the domestic context Information, Communication & Society (IF 4.2) Pub Date : 2024-08-25 Christine H. Tran
This paper argues for the domestic worksites of marginalized game streamers as a crucial site for understanding the politics of visibility work on platforms. Twitch.tv stands out as Amazon’s world-...
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Personal but not private: queer women, sexuality, and identity modulation on digital platforms Information, Communication & Society (IF 4.2) Pub Date : 2024-08-25 Wei-Ping Chen
Published in Information, Communication & Society (Ahead of Print, 2024)
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The roles of collapsing contexts and TikTok’s features in reciprocal trolling Information, Communication & Society (IF 4.2) Pub Date : 2024-08-17 Pnina Fichman, Gordon Amidu
The collapsing of social contexts online and its impact on identify, privacy, and self-presentation have been widely documented. However, the increased levels of conflict and misunderstanding that ...
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The promises and pitfalls of cryptocurrencies and blockchain for marginalized communities Information, Communication & Society (IF 4.2) Pub Date : 2024-08-21 Densua Mumford, Michael Sampson, James Shires
Cryptocurrencies, and the blockchain technology that underlies them, have attracted much attention over the last decade from scholars, tech communities, financial institutions, states and more. The...
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Collective victimhood narratives in far-right communities on Telegram Information, Communication & Society (IF 4.2) Pub Date : 2024-08-18 Constantine Boussalis, Callum Craig, Aaron F. Rudkin
Feelings of collective victimhood have been demonstrated to have a strong effect on ingroup bias, outgroup hostility and support for violence. The use of narratives stirring these feelings in far-r...
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Decoding the gendered imaginary of cybersecurity careers: a social shaping of technology perspective Information, Communication & Society (IF 4.2) Pub Date : 2024-08-17 Meraiah Foley, Sulagna Basu
Women account for less than one quarter of the global cybersecurity workforce. Encouraging more women into cybersecurity careers has been identified as one way to address persistent skills shortage...
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How persuasive are political cheapfakes disseminated via social media? The effects of out-of-context visual disinformation on message credibility and issue agreement Information, Communication & Society (IF 4.2) Pub Date : 2024-08-14 Michael Hameleers, Toni van der Meer, Rens Vliegenthart
Although extant research offered first insights into the effects of visual disinformation, we know markedly little about the effects of cheapfakes that rely on the deceptive re-contextualization of...
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Transgressive play or playful transgressions? Dynamic interpretations of toxic behaviour in multiplayer online games Information, Communication & Society (IF 4.2) Pub Date : 2024-08-13 Valerie Yu, V. H. H. Chen
Toxic behaviour in the gaming sphere is variably and inconsistently defined even though it is frequently used in gaming-related literature. It also tends to be used interchangeably with tangential ...
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Teachable moments: TikTok social drama as a site of Black feminist intellectual production Information, Communication & Society (IF 4.2) Pub Date : 2024-08-09 Chelsea Peterson-Salahuddin
This paper mobilizes Turner’s concept of ‘social drama’ – dramatic social events marked by conflict, antagonism, and competition through which communities articulate social norms – to examine how u...
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Algorithms of resistance: the everyday fight against platform power Information, Communication & Society (IF 4.2) Pub Date : 2024-08-06 Riccardo Pronzato
Published in Information, Communication & Society (Ahead of Print, 2024)
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Understanding algorithmic recommendations. A qualitative study on children’s algorithm literacy in Switzerland Information, Communication & Society (IF 4.2) Pub Date : 2024-07-25 Julian Ernst
Algorithmic recommendations are a central phenomenon in children’s media use, having the potential to shape their everyday lives. Therefore, the ability to consciously and critically interact with ...
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Muslims and social media: A scoping review Information, Communication & Society (IF 4.2) Pub Date : 2024-07-25 Göran Larsson, Erika Willander
As Muslim individuals, communities, and institutions have been transformed by the digital revolution, a literature has developed that seeks to contribute knowledge about these changes. Pioneering s...
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Second-level agenda-setting effects of news media and public policy on social media discourse across platforms: immigration during the COVID-19 pandemic in the U.S. Information, Communication & Society (IF 4.2) Pub Date : 2024-07-23 Jisoo Kim, Yini Zhang, Porismita Borah
Integrating intermedia, second-level agenda-setting, and cross-platform research, this study examines the role of news media attention and public policy decisions in driving the salience of issue a...
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Desiloization and its discontents: the politics of data storage in the age of platformization Information, Communication & Society (IF 4.2) Pub Date : 2024-07-12 Nanna Bonde Thylstrup, Matthew Archer, Henriette Steiner
This essay explores how desiloization strategies facilitate the emergence and increasing centralization of private platform power, rather than flattening and democratizing access to and control ove...
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Polarized social media networks: a novel approach to quantify the polarization level of individual users Information, Communication & Society (IF 4.2) Pub Date : 2024-07-09 Golshan Madraki, Jacqueline Otala, Bahareh Vahidpour, Matthew Lukaszewski, Miles Compani, Jeanna Matthews
This paper presents a novel methodology to quantify users’ polarization within social media networks, focusing on network structure instead of content. We model polarized networks as directed graph...
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Dis//assemblages of AI: repair labor and resistance in the automated workplace Information, Communication & Society (IF 4.2) Pub Date : 2024-07-11 Dominique A. Montiel Valle, Samantha Shorey
Breakdowns and repairs are seldom present in dominant narratives about Artificial Intelligence that depict these technologies as a seamless source of optimization. Yet, AI systems are replete with ...
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Perceptions of misinformation salience: a cross-country comparison of estimations of misinformation prevalence and third-person perceptions Information, Communication & Society (IF 4.2) Pub Date : 2024-07-09 Toni G. L. A. van der Meer, Michael Hameleers
Against the backdrop of mounting concerns about misinformation's destabilizing impact paired with growing distrust in established news, this study explores how people estimate misinformation salien...
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Contesting personalized recommender systems: a cross-country analysis of user preferences Information, Communication & Society (IF 4.2) Pub Date : 2024-07-03 Christopher Starke, Ljubiša Metikoš, Natali Helberger, Claes de Vreese
Very Large Online Platforms (VLOPs) such as Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube wield substantial influence over digital information flows using sophisticated algorithmic recommender systems (RS). As th...
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Riding the yellow wave: the online populist communication of Rassemblement National (RN) leaders in response to the Gilets Jaunes protests and the 2019 European elections Information, Communication & Society (IF 4.2) Pub Date : 2024-07-02 Lucia Posteraro, Timothy Peace, Marius Nyquist Pedersen
Radical-right populist parties will often try to exploit and ride a wave of popular discontent for their own electoral gain. This paper studies the online populist communication of the leaders of t...
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Sphere transgressions in the Dutch digital welfare state: causing harm to citizens when legal rules, ethical norms and quality procedures are lacking Information, Communication & Society (IF 4.2) Pub Date : 2024-07-01 Lieke Oldenhof, Margot Kersing, Liesbet van Zoonen
Welfare states across the world increasingly experiment with the use of big data and algorithms in the name of efficiency gains and fair decision-making. However, recent public scandals in various ...
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Correction Information, Communication & Society (IF 4.2) Pub Date : 2024-06-28
Published in Information, Communication & Society (Ahead of Print, 2024)
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‘It's really hard to be a jerk when you’re sitting on someone's couch’: preferences for discussing science and religion online versus offline Information, Communication & Society (IF 4.2) Pub Date : 2024-06-28 Becca Smith, Eszter Hargittai
Science and religion are important topics that people have opportunities to discuss in both online and offline contexts. Why do people prefer one communication mode over the other? Analyzing interv...
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A ‘design justice’ approach to developing digital tools for addressing gender-based violence: exploring the possibilities and limits of feminist chatbots Information, Communication & Society (IF 4.2) Pub Date : 2024-06-28 Nicola Henry, Alice Witt, Stefani Vasil
Digital tools, such as safety apps, reporting portals, and chatbots, are increasingly being used by victim-survivors of gender-based violence to report unlawful activity and access specialized supp...
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Making sense of ambivalence: audience perceptions and uses of Ben Shapiro as an alternative political commentator Information, Communication & Society (IF 4.2) Pub Date : 2024-06-17 Daniël Jurg, Sarah Vis, Ike Picone
Alternative Political Commentators (APCs) have gained prominence on digital platforms as new opinion leaders to politically engaged young adults. This study responds to a growing demand for an audi...
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Data localization as contested and narrated security in the age of digital sovereignty: the case of Switzerland Information, Communication & Society (IF 4.2) Pub Date : 2024-06-17 Samuele Fratini, Francesca Musiani
The construction and effects on national boundaries have become central topics in public and academic debates on digital sovereignty. Both state and non-state actors increasingly consider jurisdict...
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Platform frictions, platform power, and the politics of platformization Information, Communication & Society (IF 4.2) Pub Date : 2024-06-13 Pawel Popiel, Krishnan Vasudevan
Since the 1990s, friction has pervaded Silicon Valley discourses as a metaphor for obstacles to the flow of capital, and its eradication has become a mission statement of platform capitalists. Howe...
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The Palantir Files: public interest archives for platform accountability Information, Communication & Society (IF 4.2) Pub Date : 2024-06-10 Andrew Iliadis, Amelia Acker
Platforms designed for data integration and analysis introduce unique challenges for understanding the social implications of data management in public services. Researchers who study such platform...
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Cracking the Bro Code Information, Communication & Society (IF 4.2) Pub Date : 2024-06-07 Elaine Kong
Published in Information, Communication & Society (Ahead of Print, 2024)
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The two revolutions: a history of the transgender Internet Information, Communication & Society (IF 4.2) Pub Date : 2024-06-07 Sophie Argyle
Published in Information, Communication & Society (Ahead of Print, 2024)
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Disentangling the role of algorithm awareness and knowledge in digital inequalities: an empirical validation of an explanatory model Information, Communication & Society (IF 4.2) Pub Date : 2024-06-10 Andraž Petrovčič, Bianca C. Reisdorf, Vasja Vehovar, Jošt Bartol
Algorithms have become almost ubiquitous on the internet. They shape the way internet users engage with internet services across diverse online domains and what outcomes they obtain from their inte...
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This is how we .win! Capital-building and media manipulation practices on The_Donald Information, Communication & Society (IF 4.2) Pub Date : 2024-06-09 Stephen R. Barnard
Scholars have grown increasingly interested in the ways media and communication technologies facilitate the spread of problematic information as well as how their affordances manifest in practice. ...
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A question of truth: accusations of untruthfulness by populist and non-populist politicians on Facebook during the COVID-19 crisis Information, Communication & Society (IF 4.2) Pub Date : 2024-06-07 Alena Kluknavská, Olga Eisele, Monika Bartkowska, Nina Kriegler
Online environments can foster opportunities for political engagement but can also hinder democratic deliberation by promoting hostile and polarizing communication. A prominent concern revolves aro...
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Sneaking AI through the back door: constructing the identity of Capitol Hill rioters through social media images and facial recognition technologies Information, Communication & Society (IF 4.2) Pub Date : 2024-06-05 Mette Mortensen
Social media images are increasingly appropriated, constructed, and used as evidence. To this end, facial recognition technologies are applied to harness social media images as evidence of people’s...
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Adoption of emerging information and communication technology for sustainability Information, Communication & Society (IF 4.2) Pub Date : 2024-06-05 Moh Efendi
Published in Information, Communication & Society (Ahead of Print, 2024)
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Sphere transgressions: reflecting on the risks of big tech expansionism Information, Communication & Society (IF 4.2) Pub Date : 2024-06-04 Marthe Stevens, Steven R. Kraaijeveld, Tamar Sharon
The rapid expansion of Big Tech companies into various societal domains (e.g., health, education, and agriculture) over the past decade has led to increasing concerns among governments, regulators,...
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Algorithmic dwelling? Digital technologies as intermediaries in housing access and the enactment of home Information, Communication & Society (IF 4.2) Pub Date : 2024-06-03 Roger Burrows, Alison Wallace, David Beer, James Cussens, Alexandra Ciocănel
This brief paper provides an introduction to our special issue of the journal on ‘algorithmic dwelling’. It provides a summary of the seven papers in the special issue and draws out a number of com...
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Selecting, avoiding, disconnecting: a focus group study of people’s strategies for dealing with information abundance in the contexts of news, entertainment, and personal communication Information, Communication & Society (IF 4.2) Pub Date : 2024-06-03 Sophia C. Volk, Anne Schulz, Sina Blassnig, Sarah Marschlich, Minh Hao Nguyen, Nadine Strauß
Information abundance has become a defining characteristic of digital media environments. Today, people have to deal with a vast amount of news, entertainment and personal communication. This study...
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Smooth operator: sleuthing Homo oeconomicus on social media platforms though a close reading of design Information, Communication & Society (IF 4.2) Pub Date : 2024-05-29 Alexander Cho
This article argues for the excavation of a key design logic around which the user interfaces (UIs) of mainstream social media platforms are built but that has not yet received much critical attent...
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Bourdieu revisited: new forms of digital capital – emergence, reproduction, inequality of distribution Information, Communication & Society (IF 4.2) Pub Date : 2024-05-28 Roland Verwiebe, Steffen Hagemann
Based on Bourdieu’s theory of capital, we discuss in this paper the extent to which economically utilizable individual-level data can be seen as the foundation of an independent form of a new digit...
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Platform paradoxes and public service media legitimacy: a cross-national study Information, Communication & Society (IF 4.2) Pub Date : 2024-05-28 Ragnhild Kr. Olsen, Ori Tenenboim, Kristy Hess, Oscar Westlund, Carl-Gustav Lindén, Marcel Broersma
The intricate relationship between public service media (PSM) and social media platforms has emerged as a critical factor significantly impacting the legitimacy of the PSM institution. This study a...
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To share or not to share – understanding individuals’ willingness to share biomarkers, sensor data, and medical records Information, Communication & Society (IF 4.2) Pub Date : 2024-05-27 Ruben L. Bach, Henning Silber, Frederic Gerdon, Florian Keusch, Matthias Schonlau, Jette Schröder
Technological advances in the recent past made it possible for researchers to collect and analyze large amounts of health data at unprecedented scale and speed. For example, fitness trackers and sm...
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Empowering pandemic pivots: the inclusive power of remote work and school Information, Communication & Society (IF 4.2) Pub Date : 2024-05-23 Laura Robinson, Bianca C. Reisdorf
We examine the transitions to remote work and education as unplanned large-scale social experiments in critical institutions that were rapidly digitized in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. As the...
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Image-centrism in Africa’s political communication: a social semiotic analysis of self-presentation practices by women political candidates in Kenya’s social media space Information, Communication & Society (IF 4.2) Pub Date : 2024-05-22 Nancy Gakahu
This study explores self-visual presentation practices by female political candidates on Facebook during Kenya’s political campaigns that culminated in the national elections of 2022. The unit of a...
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Facial recognition Information, Communication & Society (IF 4.2) Pub Date : 2024-05-17 Robert Lee
Published in Information, Communication & Society (Ahead of Print, 2024)
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Dreaming of seamless interfaces: media and friction from the feuilleton to personal computing Information, Communication & Society (IF 4.2) Pub Date : 2024-05-17 Simone Natale, Emiliano Treré
In human–computer interaction, the notion of ‘seamless interface’ describes a smooth interactive system that eliminates any possibility of friction between users and digital devices or platforms. A...
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Ecologies of friction in digital platform investment Information, Communication & Society (IF 4.2) Pub Date : 2024-05-17 Mikko Laamanen, Karolina Mikołajewska-Zając
Digital platforms are underpinned by the ideal of a frictionless market, obscuring the simultaneous practices of market monopolisation and the restriction of consumer choice and movement. This conc...
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Finding the criminal within: the use and meaning of digital evidence at trial Information, Communication & Society (IF 4.2) Pub Date : 2024-05-16 Anya Degenshein
How are our digital footprints used and interpreted in the courts? To answer this question, I analyze over 2,500 pages of trial transcripts for a keystone case in the use of digital surveillance at...
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The (un)necessity of child portrayal in momfluencer content: exploring mothers’ perspectives on influencer sharenting through in-depth interviews Information, Communication & Society (IF 4.2) Pub Date : 2024-05-16 Elisabeth Van den Abeele, Liselot Hudders, Ini Vanwesenbeeck
Momfluencers heavily disclose personal information and pictures of their children on their social media as they aim to share parenting experiences with their followers. Including their children in ...
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The specter of global ByteDance: platforms, regulatory arbitrage, and politics Information, Communication & Society (IF 4.2) Pub Date : 2024-05-14 Luzhou Li
Historically, capital has employed varied methods, both discursive and material, to bypass regulatory frictions. Regulatory arbitrage is one such corporate tactic; it leverages more favorable regul...
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Becoming spectacle and performing back: a Black disabled woman’s performance practices on TikTok Information, Communication & Society (IF 4.2) Pub Date : 2024-05-14 Bettine Josties
This paper discusses a young Black disabled woman’s performance practices on TikTok through the lens of critical digital labor studies, disability studies, and Black feminist writings. Starting fro...
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Does algorithmic content moderation promote democratic discourse? Radical democratic critique of toxic language AI Information, Communication & Society (IF 4.2) Pub Date : 2024-05-13 Dayei Oh, John Downey
Algorithmic content moderation is becoming a common practice employed by many social media platforms to regulate ‘toxic’ language and to promote democratic public conversations. This paper provides...
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Frictions and flows in Twitch’s platform economy: viewer spending, platform features and user behaviours Information, Communication & Society (IF 4.2) Pub Date : 2024-05-13 Nathan J. Jackson, Mark R. Johnson
In this article we introduce ‘capital flow’ and ‘capital friction’ as terms that characterize features and user behaviours on internet platforms which encourage and discourage spending, respectivel...
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Representations of motherhood in the media: a systematic literature review Information, Communication & Society (IF 4.2) Pub Date : 2024-05-09 Sophie M. Mary, Robbie Duschinsky, Louise Davis, Susan Dunnett, Barry Coughlan
We undertook a systematic review to understand (i) how motherhood is represented across different media, (ii) how the modalities of media domains influence the motherhood representations that they ...
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The impact of deplatforming the far right: an analysis of YouTube and BitChute Information, Communication & Society (IF 4.2) Pub Date : 2024-05-06 Adrian Rauchfleisch, Jonas Kaiser
The content moderation practice of deplatforming, i.e., the removal of undesired actors, has become common on social media platforms such as YouTube. Our study aims to examine the impact of deplatf...
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Frozen discourse: how screenshots hinder depolarization on social media Information, Communication & Society (IF 4.2) Pub Date : 2024-05-06 Tal Orian Harel
Social media is thought to play a pivotal role in increasing animosity between opposing partisans, i.e., affective polarization. This study focuses on one context that is assumed to reduce polariza...