Pub Date : 2024-12-25DOI: 10.1177/14614448241307931
Roland Verwiebe, Claudia Buder, Sarah Weissmann, Chiara Osorio-Krauter, Aaron Philipp
Algorithmic systems wield substantial influence in contemporary society. Since it is mostly unknown how algorithms specifically work, content creators (CCs) on YouTube who rely on them for economic reasons are in a constant state of sensemaking regarding the characteristics and perceived preferences of the algorithm. To understand these perceptions, we draw from previous research on technological agency and examine the ways in which CCs view the algorithm as an independent entity with agentic features. We do this by conducting a thematic analysis of 30 interviews with German CCs on YouTube. We find that CCs do perceive agentic qualities of the algorithm and that their assessment depends on their experience and exposure to it. Four key themes were identified: The algorithm is perceived as (1) non-transparent and largely unpredictable; (2) intentional, autonomous, and human-like; (3) number-based and communicating through metrics; and (4) exerting a great deal of power while constantly reinforcing hierarchies.
{"title":"“The algorithm is like a mercurial god”: Exploring content creators’ perception of algorithmic agency on YouTube","authors":"Roland Verwiebe, Claudia Buder, Sarah Weissmann, Chiara Osorio-Krauter, Aaron Philipp","doi":"10.1177/14614448241307931","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448241307931","url":null,"abstract":"Algorithmic systems wield substantial influence in contemporary society. Since it is mostly unknown how algorithms specifically work, content creators (CCs) on YouTube who rely on them for economic reasons are in a constant state of sensemaking regarding the characteristics and perceived preferences of the algorithm. To understand these perceptions, we draw from previous research on technological agency and examine the ways in which CCs view the algorithm as an independent entity with agentic features. We do this by conducting a thematic analysis of 30 interviews with German CCs on YouTube. We find that CCs do perceive agentic qualities of the algorithm and that their assessment depends on their experience and exposure to it. Four key themes were identified: The algorithm is perceived as (1) non-transparent and largely unpredictable; (2) intentional, autonomous, and human-like; (3) number-based and communicating through metrics; and (4) exerting a great deal of power while constantly reinforcing hierarchies.","PeriodicalId":19149,"journal":{"name":"New Media & Society","volume":"41 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.0,"publicationDate":"2024-12-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142886904","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-12-23DOI: 10.1177/14614448241302319
Yirgalem A Haile
This study explores the theoretical fusion of computational propaganda and information operations in the Tigray war, centering on algorithmic manipulation techniques. Utilizing theoretical frameworks of agenda-setting theory, framing, and information ecology, the study formulates three hypotheses. Employing a multidisciplinary approach, it integrates qualitative and quantitative methods, leveraging tools such as Twitter API (X), twerc, NVivo, Botometer, and Rstat within the Netnographic method. The analysis reveals temporal dynamics of new account infiltrations on Twitter during war, emphasizing their engagement in hashtag campaigns for information/influence operations. A surge in new account creation coinciding with the war’s onset is identified, along with the strategic deployment of political bots within these accounts for algorithmic manipulation. The findings affirm that the theoretical intertwining of computational propaganda and information operations manifests through social media’s agenda-setting and framing effects. The study significantly contributes to the discourse on information warfare in contemporary conflicts by unraveling the intricate web of digital manipulation during the Tigray war.
本研究以算法操纵技术为中心，探讨了提格雷战争中计算宣传与信息作战的理论融合。利用议程设置理论、框架理论和信息生态学的理论框架，本研究提出了三个假设。采用多学科方法，它集成了定性和定量方法，利用诸如Twitter API (X), twerc, NVivo， Botometer和Rstat等工具在Netnographic方法中。该分析揭示了战争期间Twitter新账户渗透的时间动态，强调了他们参与信息/影响行动的标签活动。与战争爆发同时出现的新账户数量激增，以及这些账户中用于算法操纵的政治机器人的战略部署。研究结果证实，计算宣传和信息操作的理论交织通过社交媒体的议程设置和框架效应表现出来。该研究通过揭示提格雷战争期间复杂的数字操纵网络，为当代冲突中的信息战话语做出了重大贡献。
{"title":"The theoretical wedding of computational propaganda and information operations: Unraveling digital manipulation in conflict zones","authors":"Yirgalem A Haile","doi":"10.1177/14614448241302319","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448241302319","url":null,"abstract":"This study explores the theoretical fusion of computational propaganda and information operations in the Tigray war, centering on algorithmic manipulation techniques. Utilizing theoretical frameworks of agenda-setting theory, framing, and information ecology, the study formulates three hypotheses. Employing a multidisciplinary approach, it integrates qualitative and quantitative methods, leveraging tools such as Twitter API (X), twerc, NVivo, Botometer, and Rstat within the Netnographic method. The analysis reveals temporal dynamics of new account infiltrations on Twitter during war, emphasizing their engagement in hashtag campaigns for information/influence operations. A surge in new account creation coinciding with the war’s onset is identified, along with the strategic deployment of political bots within these accounts for algorithmic manipulation. The findings affirm that the theoretical intertwining of computational propaganda and information operations manifests through social media’s agenda-setting and framing effects. The study significantly contributes to the discourse on information warfare in contemporary conflicts by unraveling the intricate web of digital manipulation during the Tigray war.","PeriodicalId":19149,"journal":{"name":"New Media & Society","volume":"113 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.0,"publicationDate":"2024-12-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142879634","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-12-19DOI: 10.1177/14614448241304106
Paolo Gerbaudo
The rise of TikTok has sparked a debate on the consequences of algorithmic content curation for social experience. My thesis is that TikTok represents a second generation of social media, which differs from first-generation social media in the way users are exposed to content. While first-generation social media revolved around ‘networked publics’ formed by explicit interpersonal connections, second-generation social media introduces ‘clustered publics’. These are statistically constructed ‘neighbourhoods’ of users, in which people are brought together based on their past online behaviour and their similarity in interest and taste. Clustering users around shared interests has proven very effective in driving online engagement, leading other platforms to mimic TikTok, in what can be described as ‘TikTokification’. However, this transformation of online publics carries a series of problematic implications: the depersonalisation of online experience; a growing opacity of the structures of online communication; and the further subcultural fragmentation of an already divided digital public sphere.
{"title":"TikTok and the algorithmic transformation of social media publics: From social networks to social interest clusters","authors":"Paolo Gerbaudo","doi":"10.1177/14614448241304106","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448241304106","url":null,"abstract":"The rise of TikTok has sparked a debate on the consequences of algorithmic content curation for social experience. My thesis is that TikTok represents a second generation of social media, which differs from first-generation social media in the way users are exposed to content. While first-generation social media revolved around ‘networked publics’ formed by explicit interpersonal connections, second-generation social media introduces ‘clustered publics’. These are statistically constructed ‘neighbourhoods’ of users, in which people are brought together based on their past online behaviour and their similarity in interest and taste. Clustering users around shared interests has proven very effective in driving online engagement, leading other platforms to mimic TikTok, in what can be described as ‘TikTokification’. However, this transformation of online publics carries a series of problematic implications: the depersonalisation of online experience; a growing opacity of the structures of online communication; and the further subcultural fragmentation of an already divided digital public sphere.","PeriodicalId":19149,"journal":{"name":"New Media & Society","volume":"16 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.0,"publicationDate":"2024-12-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142869914","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-12-19DOI: 10.1177/14614448241303114
Toby Hopp, Pat Ferrucci, Hunter Reeves
This study developed and tested a model interrelating Nextdoor use and support for aggressive policing. The results of an online survey ( n=1806) suggested that Nextdoor use is positively associated with crime concern; that crime concern is positively associated with support for aggressive policing; and that Nextdoor use is both indirectly and directly associated with support for aggressive policing. The results also indicated that social trust may play a complex role in the relationship between Nextdoor use and support for aggressive policing.
{"title":"Nextdoor use and support for aggressive policing","authors":"Toby Hopp, Pat Ferrucci, Hunter Reeves","doi":"10.1177/14614448241303114","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448241303114","url":null,"abstract":"This study developed and tested a model interrelating Nextdoor use and support for aggressive policing. The results of an online survey ( n=1806) suggested that Nextdoor use is positively associated with crime concern; that crime concern is positively associated with support for aggressive policing; and that Nextdoor use is both indirectly and directly associated with support for aggressive policing. The results also indicated that social trust may play a complex role in the relationship between Nextdoor use and support for aggressive policing.","PeriodicalId":19149,"journal":{"name":"New Media & Society","volume":"20 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.0,"publicationDate":"2024-12-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142869916","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-12-17DOI: 10.1177/14614448241304658
Maja Nordtug, Marit Haldar
In this article, we explore how a very simple telepresence robot avatar becomes a technology multiple when interacting with humans. Based on Mol’s notion of the body multiple, we explore how AV1 – a social telepresence robot avatar designed to act as a substitute in schools for homebound students – becomes a technology multiple. The analysis is based on 105 interviews, including interviews with homebound students and kindergarteners in Norway using AV1 and/or their guardians, interviews with school workers, and focus group interviews with classmates. In the analysis, we explore AV1 as a plastic bust, a toy, a creep, an avatar, and a reverse cyborg. The different perceptions come into being in interaction with human bodies, and the technology thus arguably emerges and is co-constructed with human bodies, creating a technology that is more than technological.
{"title":"The technology multiple: The robot avatar substituting for the ill body","authors":"Maja Nordtug, Marit Haldar","doi":"10.1177/14614448241304658","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448241304658","url":null,"abstract":"In this article, we explore how a very simple telepresence robot avatar becomes a technology multiple when interacting with humans. Based on Mol’s notion of the body multiple, we explore how AV1 – a social telepresence robot avatar designed to act as a substitute in schools for homebound students – becomes a technology multiple. The analysis is based on 105 interviews, including interviews with homebound students and kindergarteners in Norway using AV1 and/or their guardians, interviews with school workers, and focus group interviews with classmates. In the analysis, we explore AV1 as a plastic bust, a toy, a creep, an avatar, and a reverse cyborg. The different perceptions come into being in interaction with human bodies, and the technology thus arguably emerges and is co-constructed with human bodies, creating a technology that is more than technological.","PeriodicalId":19149,"journal":{"name":"New Media & Society","volume":"38 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.0,"publicationDate":"2024-12-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142831953","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-12-13DOI: 10.1177/14614448241303999
Megan A Brown, Josephine Lukito, Meredith L Pruden, Martin J Riedl
Early career researchers (ECR) in communication and media research face increasing problems and stressors due to systemic challenges in academia, including the precarity of being an ECR and the politicization of research and targeting of researchers. For researchers studying harmful content online (HCO), research-related trauma (RRT) can compound these stressors. In this study, we present results from interviews with 18 ECRs from communication studies and adjacent disciplines studying HCO. We find researchers frequently experience RRT from harmful content, pressure from superiors to conduct research on harmful content, and outside harassment related to their research. In addition, researchers frequently use individualized self-care practices for dealing with RRT or couch their trauma. Drawing from widespread consensus by our participants that their needs are not being institutionally met, we offer a vision of what an ethics of care framework for ECRs should provide.
{"title":"Making academia suck less: Supporting early career researchers studying harmful content online through a feminist ethics of care","authors":"Megan A Brown, Josephine Lukito, Meredith L Pruden, Martin J Riedl","doi":"10.1177/14614448241303999","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448241303999","url":null,"abstract":"Early career researchers (ECR) in communication and media research face increasing problems and stressors due to systemic challenges in academia, including the precarity of being an ECR and the politicization of research and targeting of researchers. For researchers studying harmful content online (HCO), research-related trauma (RRT) can compound these stressors. In this study, we present results from interviews with 18 ECRs from communication studies and adjacent disciplines studying HCO. We find researchers frequently experience RRT from harmful content, pressure from superiors to conduct research on harmful content, and outside harassment related to their research. In addition, researchers frequently use individualized self-care practices for dealing with RRT or couch their trauma. Drawing from widespread consensus by our participants that their needs are not being institutionally met, we offer a vision of what an ethics of care framework for ECRs should provide.","PeriodicalId":19149,"journal":{"name":"New Media & Society","volume":"86 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.0,"publicationDate":"2024-12-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142820671","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-12-12DOI: 10.1177/14614448241303465
Rébecca S Franco
This article examines the role of payment intermediaries in regulating the platformized adult industry and demonstrates how the adult industry responds to their power and the rules they set. Based on 16 expert interviews, fieldwork at 3 industry conferences, and document analysis of rules, content guidelines, terms, and conditions, the author teases out the intricate interplay between credit card networks, payment processors, and adult platforms. Visa and Mastercard’s rules, enforced by payment processors and implemented by platforms, create a selective, private ordering of permissible content that surpasses legal requirements. This process is impelled by the brand safety and commercial interests of global corporations, without accountability to the industry or consideration for sex workers’ needs. The article calls for the need to hold payment intermediaries as de facto regulators of online sexual commerce and key actors in platform governance accountable toward the industry and workers they impact.
{"title":"“Controlling the keys to the Golden City”: The payment ecosystem and the regulation of adult webcamming and subscription-based fan platforms","authors":"Rébecca S Franco","doi":"10.1177/14614448241303465","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448241303465","url":null,"abstract":"This article examines the role of payment intermediaries in regulating the platformized adult industry and demonstrates how the adult industry responds to their power and the rules they set. Based on 16 expert interviews, fieldwork at 3 industry conferences, and document analysis of rules, content guidelines, terms, and conditions, the author teases out the intricate interplay between credit card networks, payment processors, and adult platforms. Visa and Mastercard’s rules, enforced by payment processors and implemented by platforms, create a selective, private ordering of permissible content that surpasses legal requirements. This process is impelled by the brand safety and commercial interests of global corporations, without accountability to the industry or consideration for sex workers’ needs. The article calls for the need to hold payment intermediaries as de facto regulators of online sexual commerce and key actors in platform governance accountable toward the industry and workers they impact.","PeriodicalId":19149,"journal":{"name":"New Media & Society","volume":"41 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.0,"publicationDate":"2024-12-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142815673","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-12-11DOI: 10.1177/14614448241304660
Yngvar Kjus
Recent decades have seen the proliferation of digital music production technologies, led by digital audio workstations (DAWs) such as Pro Tools and Live. The companies behind them, including Avid and Ableton, resemble music distributors in their ongoing process of platformization—that is, in making themselves the foundation of an increasing range of interactions and transactions. The article discusses economic, social, and cultural aspects of platformization before zooming in on key DAW enterprises and the ways in which they have extended their presence across adjacent markets, including record production, live performance, audiovisual media, instrument manufacturing, sample sales, and music education. These companies have gone beyond selling tools to reorganizing the music industry and rearticulating what is needed to prevail in it, thereby intervening in labor market relations in ways that should not remain hidden “backstage.”
{"title":"The platformization of music production: How digital audio workstations are turned into platforms of labor market relations","authors":"Yngvar Kjus","doi":"10.1177/14614448241304660","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448241304660","url":null,"abstract":"Recent decades have seen the proliferation of digital music production technologies, led by digital audio workstations (DAWs) such as Pro Tools and Live. The companies behind them, including Avid and Ableton, resemble music distributors in their ongoing process of platformization—that is, in making themselves the foundation of an increasing range of interactions and transactions. The article discusses economic, social, and cultural aspects of platformization before zooming in on key DAW enterprises and the ways in which they have extended their presence across adjacent markets, including record production, live performance, audiovisual media, instrument manufacturing, sample sales, and music education. These companies have gone beyond selling tools to reorganizing the music industry and rearticulating what is needed to prevail in it, thereby intervening in labor market relations in ways that should not remain hidden “backstage.”","PeriodicalId":19149,"journal":{"name":"New Media & Society","volume":"11 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.0,"publicationDate":"2024-12-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142810094","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-12-11DOI: 10.1177/14614448241303776
Yu-Leung Ng, Zhihuai Lin
People use social media to gratify various needs, one of which is the need to affiliate with mediated nature. By combining the uses and gratifications approach and the biophilia hypothesis, this study coins this gratification as biophilia gratification. We computationally analyzed three million Facebook posts to test whether user reactions (likes, shares, loves, and cares) reflect biophilia gratification derived from human-created nature on social media, that is, mediated nature. Ten percent of posts that are image-based (approximately 170,000) were also randomly selected and analyzed. The results showed that social media users were more likely to react to most posts (particularly image-based posts) of mediated nature compared with nonmediated nature posts. These findings may imply that user reactions on social media may serve as indicators of biophilia gratification fulfilled through engagement with mediated nature.
{"title":"Biophilia gratification: Evidence from nature-related posts and images on social media","authors":"Yu-Leung Ng, Zhihuai Lin","doi":"10.1177/14614448241303776","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448241303776","url":null,"abstract":"People use social media to gratify various needs, one of which is the need to affiliate with mediated nature. By combining the uses and gratifications approach and the biophilia hypothesis, this study coins this gratification as biophilia gratification. We computationally analyzed three million Facebook posts to test whether user reactions (likes, shares, loves, and cares) reflect biophilia gratification derived from human-created nature on social media, that is, mediated nature. Ten percent of posts that are image-based (approximately 170,000) were also randomly selected and analyzed. The results showed that social media users were more likely to react to most posts (particularly image-based posts) of mediated nature compared with nonmediated nature posts. These findings may imply that user reactions on social media may serve as indicators of biophilia gratification fulfilled through engagement with mediated nature.","PeriodicalId":19149,"journal":{"name":"New Media & Society","volume":"29 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.0,"publicationDate":"2024-12-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142810093","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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