Pub Date : 2021-03-01DOI: 10.1177/20570473211048029
F. Schneider
When the COVID-19 virus broke out in China, foreign observers speculated whether the Chinese leadership was facing its ‘Chernobyl Moment’. China’s leadership, however, defied foreign expectations about its ostensibly floundering legitimacy and instead turned the crisis into a national success story. This article explores the role that digital media played in cementing this success, specifically how various actors mobilized nationalist sentiments and discourses on the online video-sharing platform Bilibili. By focusing on visual discourses, online commentaries, and the affordances of the digital platform, the article analyses the role that ‘hip’ and youthful content played in the authorities’ attempts to guiding online audiences to rally around the flag. The results of these efforts were viral villages of community sentiment that created strong incentives for conformity, and in which the official party line was able to reverberate with pop-culture memes and popular nationalism.
{"title":"China’s viral villages: Digital nationalism and the COVID-19 crisis on online video-sharing platform Bilibili","authors":"F. Schneider","doi":"10.1177/20570473211048029","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/20570473211048029","url":null,"abstract":"When the COVID-19 virus broke out in China, foreign observers speculated whether the Chinese leadership was facing its ‘Chernobyl Moment’. China’s leadership, however, defied foreign expectations about its ostensibly floundering legitimacy and instead turned the crisis into a national success story. This article explores the role that digital media played in cementing this success, specifically how various actors mobilized nationalist sentiments and discourses on the online video-sharing platform Bilibili. By focusing on visual discourses, online commentaries, and the affordances of the digital platform, the article analyses the role that ‘hip’ and youthful content played in the authorities’ attempts to guiding online audiences to rally around the flag. The results of these efforts were viral villages of community sentiment that created strong incentives for conformity, and in which the official party line was able to reverberate with pop-culture memes and popular nationalism.","PeriodicalId":44233,"journal":{"name":"Communication and the Public","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2021-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47442160","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-03-01DOI: 10.1177/20570473211006481
David Deacon, J. Stanyer
Diversity is recognised as a significant criterion for appraising the democratic performance of media systems. This article begins by considering key conceptual debates that help differentiate types and levels of diversity. It then addresses a core methodological challenge in measuring diversity: how do we model statistical variation and difference when many measures of source and content diversity only attain the nominal level of measurement? We identify a range of obscure statistical indices developed in other fields that measure the strength of ‘qualitative variation’. Using original data, we compare the performance of five diversity indices and, on this basis, propose the creation of a more effective diversity average measure. The article concludes by outlining innovative strategies for drawing statistical inferences from these measures, using bootstrapping and permutation testing resampling. All statistical procedures are supported by a unique online resource developed for this article.
{"title":"Media diversity and the analysis of qualitative variation","authors":"David Deacon, J. Stanyer","doi":"10.1177/20570473211006481","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/20570473211006481","url":null,"abstract":"Diversity is recognised as a significant criterion for appraising the democratic performance of media systems. This article begins by considering key conceptual debates that help differentiate types and levels of diversity. It then addresses a core methodological challenge in measuring diversity: how do we model statistical variation and difference when many measures of source and content diversity only attain the nominal level of measurement? We identify a range of obscure statistical indices developed in other fields that measure the strength of ‘qualitative variation’. Using original data, we compare the performance of five diversity indices and, on this basis, propose the creation of a more effective diversity average measure. The article concludes by outlining innovative strategies for drawing statistical inferences from these measures, using bootstrapping and permutation testing resampling. All statistical procedures are supported by a unique online resource developed for this article.","PeriodicalId":44233,"journal":{"name":"Communication and the Public","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2021-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/20570473211006481","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47016196","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-03-01DOI: 10.1177/20570473211046733
D. Jin
BTS fandom has been one of the strongest, and many Adorable Representative M.C. for Youth members have dedicated themselves to protect BTS from numerous controversies, while promoting the group’s messages, which can be identified as cyber-nationalism. By employing a critical discourse analysis on BTS fans’ social media posts and their online activities surrounding a few incidents, this article attempts to develop cyber-nationalism in the context of the BTS fandom. It investigates the formation of transnational cyber-nationalism, and then discusses how Adorable Representative M.C. for Youth members as citizens in the BTS nation utilize cyberspace, in particular, social media, not only to form alliances but also to protect BTS from any critical points of view. Finally, it articulates how transnational cyber-nationalism in tandem with BTS has shifted the notion of cyber-nationalism, which can be identified as negative, even patriotic parochialism, into constructive and socio-culturally corrected cyber-movements.
{"title":"The BTS sphere: Adorable Representative M.C. for Youth’s transnational cyber-nationalism on social media","authors":"D. Jin","doi":"10.1177/20570473211046733","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/20570473211046733","url":null,"abstract":"BTS fandom has been one of the strongest, and many Adorable Representative M.C. for Youth members have dedicated themselves to protect BTS from numerous controversies, while promoting the group’s messages, which can be identified as cyber-nationalism. By employing a critical discourse analysis on BTS fans’ social media posts and their online activities surrounding a few incidents, this article attempts to develop cyber-nationalism in the context of the BTS fandom. It investigates the formation of transnational cyber-nationalism, and then discusses how Adorable Representative M.C. for Youth members as citizens in the BTS nation utilize cyberspace, in particular, social media, not only to form alliances but also to protect BTS from any critical points of view. Finally, it articulates how transnational cyber-nationalism in tandem with BTS has shifted the notion of cyber-nationalism, which can be identified as negative, even patriotic parochialism, into constructive and socio-culturally corrected cyber-movements.","PeriodicalId":44233,"journal":{"name":"Communication and the Public","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2021-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49057910","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-03-01DOI: 10.1177/20570473211046730
Martín Becerra, S. Waisbord
In this article, we are interested in examining the factors that drive cybernationalism and digital governance in media policies. As scholars with a long-standing interest in media industries and policies in Latin America, we start with a simple empirical observation: the curious absence of debates and strong efforts to regulate digital media in the region grounded on nationalistic arguments. It is not exaggerated to affirm that for the past two decades, the region has largely adopted a laissez-faire, deregulatory approach on fundamental issues about the structure and functioning of the Internet, including the performance of global digital platforms, content traffic, data ownership and access, and speech. We believe that understanding the decades-long transition from nationalistic media regulations to pragmatism in digital policies in Latin America yields valuable insights for theorizing the conditions that foster (and discourage) nationalism and sovereignty in digital policies.
{"title":"The curious absence of cybernationalism in Latin America: Lessons for the study of digital sovereignty and governance","authors":"Martín Becerra, S. Waisbord","doi":"10.1177/20570473211046730","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/20570473211046730","url":null,"abstract":"In this article, we are interested in examining the factors that drive cybernationalism and digital governance in media policies. As scholars with a long-standing interest in media industries and policies in Latin America, we start with a simple empirical observation: the curious absence of debates and strong efforts to regulate digital media in the region grounded on nationalistic arguments. It is not exaggerated to affirm that for the past two decades, the region has largely adopted a laissez-faire, deregulatory approach on fundamental issues about the structure and functioning of the Internet, including the performance of global digital platforms, content traffic, data ownership and access, and speech. We believe that understanding the decades-long transition from nationalistic media regulations to pragmatism in digital policies in Latin America yields valuable insights for theorizing the conditions that foster (and discourage) nationalism and sovereignty in digital policies.","PeriodicalId":44233,"journal":{"name":"Communication and the Public","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2021-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47116461","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-09-01DOI: 10.1177/2057047320969433
J. Schradie
Dismissing conservative participants in protests as duped fools or ranting ideologues who have fallen prey to fake news is a dangerous reaction that fails to recognize the essential and grassroots role they play in profoundly effective conservative messaging that continues to outfox progressive information campaigns. This article uses the collective action against Covid-19 stay-at-home orders and mask requirements as an example of the broader arguments in the book, The Revolution That Wasn’t: How Digital Activism Favors Conservatives (Harvard University Press, 2019).
{"title":"“Give me Liberty or Give me Covid-19”: Anti-lockdown protesters were never Trump puppets","authors":"J. Schradie","doi":"10.1177/2057047320969433","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/2057047320969433","url":null,"abstract":"Dismissing conservative participants in protests as duped fools or ranting ideologues who have fallen prey to fake news is a dangerous reaction that fails to recognize the essential and grassroots role they play in profoundly effective conservative messaging that continues to outfox progressive information campaigns. This article uses the collective action against Covid-19 stay-at-home orders and mask requirements as an example of the broader arguments in the book, The Revolution That Wasn’t: How Digital Activism Favors Conservatives (Harvard University Press, 2019).","PeriodicalId":44233,"journal":{"name":"Communication and the Public","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2020-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/2057047320969433","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48432462","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-09-01DOI: 10.1177/2057047320961562
Meredith D. Clark
The term “cancel culture” has significant implications for defining discourses of digital and social media activism. In this essay, I briefly interrogate the evolution of digital accountability praxis as performed by Black Twitter, a meta-network of culturally linked communities online. I trace the practice of the social media callout from its roots in Black vernacular tradition to its misappropriation in the digital age by social elites, arguing that the application of useful anger by minoritized people and groups has been effectively harnessed in social media spaces as a strategy for networked framing of extant social problems. This strategy is challenged, however, by the dominant culture’s ability to narrativize the process of being “canceled” as a moral panic with the potential to upset the concept of a limited public sphere.
{"title":"DRAG THEM: A brief etymology of so-called “cancel culture”","authors":"Meredith D. Clark","doi":"10.1177/2057047320961562","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/2057047320961562","url":null,"abstract":"The term “cancel culture” has significant implications for defining discourses of digital and social media activism. In this essay, I briefly interrogate the evolution of digital accountability praxis as performed by Black Twitter, a meta-network of culturally linked communities online. I trace the practice of the social media callout from its roots in Black vernacular tradition to its misappropriation in the digital age by social elites, arguing that the application of useful anger by minoritized people and groups has been effectively harnessed in social media spaces as a strategy for networked framing of extant social problems. This strategy is challenged, however, by the dominant culture’s ability to narrativize the process of being “canceled” as a moral panic with the potential to upset the concept of a limited public sphere.","PeriodicalId":44233,"journal":{"name":"Communication and the Public","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2020-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/2057047320961562","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46765413","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-09-01DOI: 10.1177/2057047320959852
Fatih Demir, Mehmet F. Bastug, Aziz Douai
Over the last decade, social media platforms have become the leading communication tools for activists and protesters all over the world. Understanding protesters’ motivations and reasons for using social media is a challenging issue for researchers. In this article, we analyzed the use of Twitter during the anti-governmental protests in Istanbul that was launched in May 2013. We examined 13,794 tweets posted to the #direngeziparki hashtag over a 6-day period. Based on the results of a qualitative content coding of the tweets, we found that the Twitter platform was widely used to mobilize protesters, share information about the events, and express opinions about the policing of the protests. We argue that social media can help keep protests peaceful by preventing vandalism, informing the protesters about extremist or violent groups participating in the protests, and can help them to avoid engaging in violent acts against police forces.
{"title":"Keeping it peaceful: Twitter and the Gezi Park movement","authors":"Fatih Demir, Mehmet F. Bastug, Aziz Douai","doi":"10.1177/2057047320959852","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/2057047320959852","url":null,"abstract":"Over the last decade, social media platforms have become the leading communication tools for activists and protesters all over the world. Understanding protesters’ motivations and reasons for using social media is a challenging issue for researchers. In this article, we analyzed the use of Twitter during the anti-governmental protests in Istanbul that was launched in May 2013. We examined 13,794 tweets posted to the #direngeziparki hashtag over a 6-day period. Based on the results of a qualitative content coding of the tweets, we found that the Twitter platform was widely used to mobilize protesters, share information about the events, and express opinions about the policing of the protests. We argue that social media can help keep protests peaceful by preventing vandalism, informing the protesters about extremist or violent groups participating in the protests, and can help them to avoid engaging in violent acts against police forces.","PeriodicalId":44233,"journal":{"name":"Communication and the Public","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2020-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/2057047320959852","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46688969","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-09-01DOI: 10.1177/2057047320969435
Brieuc Lits
Astroturf lobbying refers to the simulation of grassroots support for or against a public policy. The objective of this tactic is for private interests to pretend they have public support for their cause. However, omitting to disclose the real sponsor of a message renders the communication unauthentic and undermines democratic and pluralist values. This article seeks to develop a method to detect astroturf movements based on emphasis framing analysis. The hypothesis is that astroturf groups employ different frames than genuine grassroots movements to comply with the private interests they truly represent. The results of the case study on the shale gas exploration debate in the United States show that astroturf groups used frames that differed significantly from authentic non-governmental organizations, which allowed their detection.
{"title":"Detecting astroturf lobbying movements","authors":"Brieuc Lits","doi":"10.1177/2057047320969435","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/2057047320969435","url":null,"abstract":"Astroturf lobbying refers to the simulation of grassroots support for or against a public policy. The objective of this tactic is for private interests to pretend they have public support for their cause. However, omitting to disclose the real sponsor of a message renders the communication unauthentic and undermines democratic and pluralist values. This article seeks to develop a method to detect astroturf movements based on emphasis framing analysis. The hypothesis is that astroturf groups employ different frames than genuine grassroots movements to comply with the private interests they truly represent. The results of the case study on the shale gas exploration debate in the United States show that astroturf groups used frames that differed significantly from authentic non-governmental organizations, which allowed their detection.","PeriodicalId":44233,"journal":{"name":"Communication and the Public","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2020-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/2057047320969435","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47822643","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-09-01DOI: 10.1177/2057047320959855
B. Duffy
While work in the media and cultural industries has long been considered precarious, the processes and logics of platformization have injected new sources of instability into the creative labor economy. Among the sources of such insecurity are platforms’ algorithms, which structure the production, circulation, and consumption of cultural content in capricious, enigmatic, even biased ways. Accordingly, cultural producers’ conditions and experiences are increasingly wrought by their understandings—and moreover their anticipation—of platforms’ ever-evolving algorithmic systems. Against this backdrop, I urge fellow researchers of digital culture and society to consider how this mode of “algorithmic precarity” exacerbates the instability of cultural work in the platform era. Considering the volatility of algorithms and the wider cross-platform ecology can help us to develop critical interventions into a creative economy marked by a profoundly uneven allocation of power between platforms and the laborers who populate—and increasingly—power them.
{"title":"Algorithmic precarity in cultural work","authors":"B. Duffy","doi":"10.1177/2057047320959855","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/2057047320959855","url":null,"abstract":"While work in the media and cultural industries has long been considered precarious, the processes and logics of platformization have injected new sources of instability into the creative labor economy. Among the sources of such insecurity are platforms’ algorithms, which structure the production, circulation, and consumption of cultural content in capricious, enigmatic, even biased ways. Accordingly, cultural producers’ conditions and experiences are increasingly wrought by their understandings—and moreover their anticipation—of platforms’ ever-evolving algorithmic systems. Against this backdrop, I urge fellow researchers of digital culture and society to consider how this mode of “algorithmic precarity” exacerbates the instability of cultural work in the platform era. Considering the volatility of algorithms and the wider cross-platform ecology can help us to develop critical interventions into a creative economy marked by a profoundly uneven allocation of power between platforms and the laborers who populate—and increasingly—power them.","PeriodicalId":44233,"journal":{"name":"Communication and the Public","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2020-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/2057047320959855","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44274254","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-09-01DOI: 10.1177/2057047320969434
Guobin Yang
The 10 essays in this special forum were based on presentations at two recent conferences. The essays by Min Jiang and Francis Lee were their keynote speeches delivered at the preconference on “Social Media, Algorithms, News, and Public Engagements in the Asia-Pacific and Beyond” of the 2020 annual conference of International Communication Association. The other essays were presented at the “Symposium on Social Justice and the Remaking of Technological Cultures” organized by the Center on Digital Culture and Society at University of Pennsylvania.
{"title":"Introduction to Special Forum on Digital Culture and Society","authors":"Guobin Yang","doi":"10.1177/2057047320969434","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/2057047320969434","url":null,"abstract":"The 10 essays in this special forum were based on presentations at two recent conferences. The essays by Min Jiang and Francis Lee were their keynote speeches delivered at the preconference on “Social Media, Algorithms, News, and Public Engagements in the Asia-Pacific and Beyond” of the 2020 annual conference of International Communication Association. The other essays were presented at the “Symposium on Social Justice and the Remaking of Technological Cultures” organized by the Center on Digital Culture and Society at University of Pennsylvania.","PeriodicalId":44233,"journal":{"name":"Communication and the Public","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2020-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/2057047320969434","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"65506439","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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