Pub Date : 2024-07-27DOI: 10.1177/14614448241266984
Z. Zhou
In recent years, Chinese media have tightened regulations on LGBTQ-related content, yet queer people remain highly visible on short-video platforms. Many of them have become influencers with millions of followers. This paper examines queer people’s digital tactics of negotiating visibility and establishing queer connections. Based on extensive research from 2020 to 2023 on Douyin, this paper unpacks how rather than relying on bounded LGBT identities to construct selfhood, Chinese queer influencers resort to the tactic of performing lowbrowness to build online personas and to achieve queer visibility. The performed lowbrowness ostensibly signifies a cultural taste, but queer influencers imbue these classed signs with queer meanings, using them to re-signify unconventional genders and/or sexualities. This project brings to light Chinese queer people’s digital agency to navigate today’s media regulations. It also shows how Chinese digital queer politics may not be intelligible to, and contest the discourses of, queer liberalism.
{"title":"Performing lowbrowness: How Chinese queer people negotiate visibility on short-video platforms","authors":"Z. Zhou","doi":"10.1177/14614448241266984","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448241266984","url":null,"abstract":"In recent years, Chinese media have tightened regulations on LGBTQ-related content, yet queer people remain highly visible on short-video platforms. Many of them have become influencers with millions of followers. This paper examines queer people’s digital tactics of negotiating visibility and establishing queer connections. Based on extensive research from 2020 to 2023 on Douyin, this paper unpacks how rather than relying on bounded LGBT identities to construct selfhood, Chinese queer influencers resort to the tactic of performing lowbrowness to build online personas and to achieve queer visibility. The performed lowbrowness ostensibly signifies a cultural taste, but queer influencers imbue these classed signs with queer meanings, using them to re-signify unconventional genders and/or sexualities. This project brings to light Chinese queer people’s digital agency to navigate today’s media regulations. It also shows how Chinese digital queer politics may not be intelligible to, and contest the discourses of, queer liberalism.","PeriodicalId":443328,"journal":{"name":"New Media & Society","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-07-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141798266","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 : 2024-07-26DOI: 10.1177/14614448241263933
Luzhou Li, Kui Zhou
Content moderation has become an essential part of the business of social media platforms, yet how it works remains largely a mystery in some important cases, particularly with regard to platforms run by Chinese companies. This research examines the latest automated moderation approaches adopted by Chinese short video platforms. Drawing on expert interviews and documentary research, we argue that Chinese platforms are moving away from a semantic approach, one that aims to grasp the meaning of content, and toward regulating the ambient element, which we define as the pervasive information that immediately surrounds content and enacts its overall character and impact. Applying a consequentialist ethics lens to investigate this turn, we argue that the ambient shift represents a more proactive approach to moderation, one intended to create a generally beneficial informational environment for platform users. This contrasts with reactive, individualistic moderation regimes grounded in the principle of informational neutrality.
{"title":"When content moderation is not about content: How Chinese social media platforms moderate content and why it matters","authors":"Luzhou Li, Kui Zhou","doi":"10.1177/14614448241263933","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448241263933","url":null,"abstract":"Content moderation has become an essential part of the business of social media platforms, yet how it works remains largely a mystery in some important cases, particularly with regard to platforms run by Chinese companies. This research examines the latest automated moderation approaches adopted by Chinese short video platforms. Drawing on expert interviews and documentary research, we argue that Chinese platforms are moving away from a semantic approach, one that aims to grasp the meaning of content, and toward regulating the ambient element, which we define as the pervasive information that immediately surrounds content and enacts its overall character and impact. Applying a consequentialist ethics lens to investigate this turn, we argue that the ambient shift represents a more proactive approach to moderation, one intended to create a generally beneficial informational environment for platform users. This contrasts with reactive, individualistic moderation regimes grounded in the principle of informational neutrality.","PeriodicalId":443328,"journal":{"name":"New Media & Society","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-07-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141798807","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 : 2024-07-26DOI: 10.1177/14614448241264450
Yan Tan, Shih-Diing Liu
To date, insufficient attention has been given to the role of social media in navigating romantic relationships in China. This article analyzes the Douban Breakup Advice Group (豆瓣劝分小组), a popular digital platform, particularly among young women, for sharing failed love stories and seeking relationship guidance. Based on netnography and interviews, this study investigates how the group navigates the intricacies of romantic relationships and fosters distinct feminist sensibilities. The findings reveal that this group creates an intimate public, offering solace for love experiences in a therapeutic manner. It also functions as a feminist pedagogic space, promoting the reconstruction of gender relations based on egalitarian norms. These practices nurture a girlfriend culture where participants cultivate a commonality toward heterosexual romance within a feminist framework. This article contributes to the scholarship of mediated intimacy by examining the mutual influence of digital practices and popular feminism.
{"title":"“Our advice is to break up”: Douban’s intimate public and the rise of girlfriend culture","authors":"Yan Tan, Shih-Diing Liu","doi":"10.1177/14614448241264450","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448241264450","url":null,"abstract":"To date, insufficient attention has been given to the role of social media in navigating romantic relationships in China. This article analyzes the Douban Breakup Advice Group (豆瓣劝分小组), a popular digital platform, particularly among young women, for sharing failed love stories and seeking relationship guidance. Based on netnography and interviews, this study investigates how the group navigates the intricacies of romantic relationships and fosters distinct feminist sensibilities. The findings reveal that this group creates an intimate public, offering solace for love experiences in a therapeutic manner. It also functions as a feminist pedagogic space, promoting the reconstruction of gender relations based on egalitarian norms. These practices nurture a girlfriend culture where participants cultivate a commonality toward heterosexual romance within a feminist framework. This article contributes to the scholarship of mediated intimacy by examining the mutual influence of digital practices and popular feminism.","PeriodicalId":443328,"journal":{"name":"New Media & Society","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-07-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141799459","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 : 2024-06-13DOI: 10.1177/14614448241259715
Sergio Arce-García, E. Said-Hung, Julio Montero-Díaz
This study examines the characteristics and behaviours of accounts that propagate hate speech through their responses to articles posted on five leading digital news media in Spain on Platform X (previously Twitter). Using non-experimental quantitative research, we analysed 1345 hate-expressing messages from 173,449 user comments on content shared in five leading digital news media during January 2021. Network analysis, the Homophilic Exposure Index (HEI), regression analysis and the k-means algorithm were used to identify features that characterize accounts that disseminate low-intensity hate expressions in a coordinated manner, undermining the moderation efforts of digital news media. As a result, digital news media must develop strategies to reduce the presence of this type of expression and confront accounts that operate covertly in a coordinated manner, using Astroturfing to manipulate debates around the content published on X.
本研究探讨了通过回复西班牙五家主要数字新闻媒体在 X 平台（之前的 Twitter）上发布的文章来传播仇恨言论的账户的特征和行为。通过非实验性定量研究，我们分析了 2021 年 1 月期间 173,449 条用户评论中的 1345 条仇恨言论信息，这些评论是针对五家主要数字新闻媒体分享的内容。我们使用网络分析、嗜同暴露指数（HEI）、回归分析和 k-means 算法来识别那些以协调方式传播低强度仇恨表达的账户的特征，从而破坏数字新闻媒体的审核工作。因此，数字新闻媒体必须制定战略，减少这类表达的出现，并对抗以协调方式暗中运作的账户，利用 Astroturfing 操纵围绕 X 上发布的内容的辩论。
{"title":"Unmasking coordinated hate: Analysing hate speech on Spanish digital news media","authors":"Sergio Arce-García, E. Said-Hung, Julio Montero-Díaz","doi":"10.1177/14614448241259715","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448241259715","url":null,"abstract":"This study examines the characteristics and behaviours of accounts that propagate hate speech through their responses to articles posted on five leading digital news media in Spain on Platform X (previously Twitter). Using non-experimental quantitative research, we analysed 1345 hate-expressing messages from 173,449 user comments on content shared in five leading digital news media during January 2021. Network analysis, the Homophilic Exposure Index (HEI), regression analysis and the k-means algorithm were used to identify features that characterize accounts that disseminate low-intensity hate expressions in a coordinated manner, undermining the moderation efforts of digital news media. As a result, digital news media must develop strategies to reduce the presence of this type of expression and confront accounts that operate covertly in a coordinated manner, using Astroturfing to manipulate debates around the content published on X.","PeriodicalId":443328,"journal":{"name":"New Media & Society","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-06-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141348188","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 : 2024-06-12DOI: 10.1177/14614448241259149
Wenjing Pan, Diyi Liu, Jingbo Meng, Hailong Liu
Artificial intelligence (AI) agency plays an important role in shaping humans’ perceptions and evaluations of AI. This study seeks to conceptually differentiate AI agency from human agency and examine how AI’s agency manifested on source and language dimensions may be associated with humans’ perceptions of AI. A 2 (AI’s source autonomy: autonomous vs human-assisted) × 2 (AI’s language subjectivity: subjective vs objective) × 2 (topics: traveling vs reading) factorial design was adopted ( N = 376). The results showed autonomous AI was rated as more trustworthy, and AI using subjective language was rated as more trustworthy and likable. Autonomous AI using subjective language was rated as the most trustworthy, likable, and of the best quality. Participants’ AI literacy moderated the interaction effect of source autonomy and language subjectivity on human trust and chat quality evaluation. Results were discussed in terms of human–AI communication theories and the design and development of AI chatbots.
人工智能（AI）代理在塑造人类对人工智能的认知和评价方面发挥着重要作用。本研究试图从概念上将人工智能的能动性与人类的能动性区分开来，并研究人工智能在源和语言维度上表现出的能动性如何与人类对人工智能的认知相关联。研究采用了 2（人工智能的来源自主性：自主 VS 人工辅助）×2（人工智能的语言主观性：主观 VS 客观）×2（主题：旅行 VS 阅读）因子设计（N = 376）。结果显示，自主人工智能被评为更值得信赖，而使用主观语言的人工智能被评为更值得信赖和更受欢迎。使用主观语言的自主人工智能被评为最值得信赖、最讨人喜欢和质量最好的人工智能。参与者的人工智能素养调节了源自主性和语言主观性对人类信任度和聊天质量评价的交互影响。研究结果从人类-人工智能交流理论以及人工智能聊天机器人的设计和开发方面进行了讨论。
{"title":"Human–AI communication in initial encounters: How AI agency affects trust, liking, and chat quality evaluation","authors":"Wenjing Pan, Diyi Liu, Jingbo Meng, Hailong Liu","doi":"10.1177/14614448241259149","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448241259149","url":null,"abstract":"Artificial intelligence (AI) agency plays an important role in shaping humans’ perceptions and evaluations of AI. This study seeks to conceptually differentiate AI agency from human agency and examine how AI’s agency manifested on source and language dimensions may be associated with humans’ perceptions of AI. A 2 (AI’s source autonomy: autonomous vs human-assisted) × 2 (AI’s language subjectivity: subjective vs objective) × 2 (topics: traveling vs reading) factorial design was adopted ( N = 376). The results showed autonomous AI was rated as more trustworthy, and AI using subjective language was rated as more trustworthy and likable. Autonomous AI using subjective language was rated as the most trustworthy, likable, and of the best quality. Participants’ AI literacy moderated the interaction effect of source autonomy and language subjectivity on human trust and chat quality evaluation. Results were discussed in terms of human–AI communication theories and the design and development of AI chatbots.","PeriodicalId":443328,"journal":{"name":"New Media & Society","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-06-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141354590","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 : 2024-06-05DOI: 10.1177/14614448241257216
Edanur Yazici
It is widely acknowledged that digital technologies are a part of everyday life. However, the UK Home Office does not consider communication or transport to be ‘essential needs’ for people seeking asylum. One Gigabyte of mobile data can cost up to 10% of weekly asylum support payments and a single bus ticket another 10%. By asking who can move and connect, this article explores the relationship between digital and physical spaces among people seeking asylum. Drawing on an ethnographic study, it argues that access to the Internet can facilitate a sense of belonging in physical and digital space. This, however, is constrained by “real-world” power relations, the consumer orientation of web design and the physical exclusions of the asylum system. The article concludes that digital exclusion, its intersections with physical exclusions as well as race, class and legal status have been brought into even sharper relief by COVID-19.
{"title":"Internet access, place and belonging in the British asylum system","authors":"Edanur Yazici","doi":"10.1177/14614448241257216","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448241257216","url":null,"abstract":"It is widely acknowledged that digital technologies are a part of everyday life. However, the UK Home Office does not consider communication or transport to be ‘essential needs’ for people seeking asylum. One Gigabyte of mobile data can cost up to 10% of weekly asylum support payments and a single bus ticket another 10%. By asking who can move and connect, this article explores the relationship between digital and physical spaces among people seeking asylum. Drawing on an ethnographic study, it argues that access to the Internet can facilitate a sense of belonging in physical and digital space. This, however, is constrained by “real-world” power relations, the consumer orientation of web design and the physical exclusions of the asylum system. The article concludes that digital exclusion, its intersections with physical exclusions as well as race, class and legal status have been brought into even sharper relief by COVID-19.","PeriodicalId":443328,"journal":{"name":"New Media & Society","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-06-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141385340","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 : 2024-06-02DOI: 10.1177/14614448241256899
Kun Xu, Xiaobei Chen, Fanjue Liu, Luling Huang
As social robots begin to assume various social roles in society, the demand for understanding how social robots work and communicate grows rapidly. While literature on explainable artificial intelligence suggests that transparency about a social robot’s working mechanism can evoke users’ positive attitudes, transparency may also have negative outcomes. This study investigates the paradoxical effects of the transparency of facial recognition technology and speech recognition technology in human–robot interactions. Based on a lab experiment and combined analyses of users’ quantitative and qualitative responses, this study suggests that the transparency of facial recognition technology in human–robot interaction increases users’ social presence, reduces privacy concerns, and enhances users’ acceptance of robots. However, exposure to both facial and speech recognition technologies revives users’ privacy worries. This study further parses users’ open-ended evaluation of the prospective application of social robots’ tracking technologies and discusses the theoretical, practical, and ethical value of the findings.
{"title":"What did you hear and what did you see? Understanding the transparency of facial recognition and speech recognition systems during human–robot interaction","authors":"Kun Xu, Xiaobei Chen, Fanjue Liu, Luling Huang","doi":"10.1177/14614448241256899","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448241256899","url":null,"abstract":"As social robots begin to assume various social roles in society, the demand for understanding how social robots work and communicate grows rapidly. While literature on explainable artificial intelligence suggests that transparency about a social robot’s working mechanism can evoke users’ positive attitudes, transparency may also have negative outcomes. This study investigates the paradoxical effects of the transparency of facial recognition technology and speech recognition technology in human–robot interactions. Based on a lab experiment and combined analyses of users’ quantitative and qualitative responses, this study suggests that the transparency of facial recognition technology in human–robot interaction increases users’ social presence, reduces privacy concerns, and enhances users’ acceptance of robots. However, exposure to both facial and speech recognition technologies revives users’ privacy worries. This study further parses users’ open-ended evaluation of the prospective application of social robots’ tracking technologies and discusses the theoretical, practical, and ethical value of the findings.","PeriodicalId":443328,"journal":{"name":"New Media & Society","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-06-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141273629","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 : 2024-06-02DOI: 10.1177/14614448241254126
Aytalina Kulichkina, Nicola Righetti, A. Waldherr
In this study, we examine connective protest mobilization and suppression during the 2021 protests in Russia. We use time series analysis to study the dynamic interplay between the pro-Navalny movement and pro-government countermovement on Twitter, complemented by network analyses of co-retweeting networks to assess the movements’ coordination patterns. Findings show that pro-Navalny accounts were more active and coordinated within more centralized Twitter networks than pro-government accounts. Contrarily, the pro-government camp employed preventive communication tactics and coordinated in more clustered networks. Granger causality tests reveal that pro-Navalny tweeting activity triggered increased pro-regime reaction during the largest protests on 23 January and 21 April, whereas pro-government tweeting activity caused the escalation of pro-Navalny reaction during the 14 February protests. Both sides’ tweeting activity decreased after the February protests, presumably due to external repression. These findings contribute to a deeper understanding of online mobilization and coordination strategies via social media in authoritarian contexts.
{"title":"Protest and repression on social media: Pro-Navalny and pro-government mobilization dynamics and coordination patterns on Russian Twitter","authors":"Aytalina Kulichkina, Nicola Righetti, A. Waldherr","doi":"10.1177/14614448241254126","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448241254126","url":null,"abstract":"In this study, we examine connective protest mobilization and suppression during the 2021 protests in Russia. We use time series analysis to study the dynamic interplay between the pro-Navalny movement and pro-government countermovement on Twitter, complemented by network analyses of co-retweeting networks to assess the movements’ coordination patterns. Findings show that pro-Navalny accounts were more active and coordinated within more centralized Twitter networks than pro-government accounts. Contrarily, the pro-government camp employed preventive communication tactics and coordinated in more clustered networks. Granger causality tests reveal that pro-Navalny tweeting activity triggered increased pro-regime reaction during the largest protests on 23 January and 21 April, whereas pro-government tweeting activity caused the escalation of pro-Navalny reaction during the 14 February protests. Both sides’ tweeting activity decreased after the February protests, presumably due to external repression. These findings contribute to a deeper understanding of online mobilization and coordination strategies via social media in authoritarian contexts.","PeriodicalId":443328,"journal":{"name":"New Media & Society","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-06-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141273220","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 : 2024-06-02DOI: 10.1177/14614448241255562
Karen Handley, Shelley Beck
How do the affordances of microblogging platforms, such as visibility to imagined audiences, shape the nature of ‘everyday talk’? Drawing on a qualitative study of tweets posted during the COVID-19 pandemic and containing the acronym WFH (working-from-home), we draw on Habermasian theorisation of deliberative democratic systems to show how Twitter (X) can act as a third space in which everyday talk about socio-political issues emerges alongside relational talk seeking ambient affiliation. Our analysis shows that tweets expressing already-established political positions that are amenable to reductive symbolism—using memes, images and shorthand stories—gain ‘likes’ and are amplified on Twitter. However, we argue that the desire for ambient affiliation combined with the imperative of reductive symbolism has a constraining effect on public debate, by encouraging the reproduction of established political tropes at the expense of ideas that are novel, controversial or require more complex exposition.
{"title":"‘Everyday talk’ about working-from-home: How the affordances of Twitter enable ambient affiliation but constrain political talk","authors":"Karen Handley, Shelley Beck","doi":"10.1177/14614448241255562","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448241255562","url":null,"abstract":"How do the affordances of microblogging platforms, such as visibility to imagined audiences, shape the nature of ‘everyday talk’? Drawing on a qualitative study of tweets posted during the COVID-19 pandemic and containing the acronym WFH (working-from-home), we draw on Habermasian theorisation of deliberative democratic systems to show how Twitter (X) can act as a third space in which everyday talk about socio-political issues emerges alongside relational talk seeking ambient affiliation. Our analysis shows that tweets expressing already-established political positions that are amenable to reductive symbolism—using memes, images and shorthand stories—gain ‘likes’ and are amplified on Twitter. However, we argue that the desire for ambient affiliation combined with the imperative of reductive symbolism has a constraining effect on public debate, by encouraging the reproduction of established political tropes at the expense of ideas that are novel, controversial or require more complex exposition.","PeriodicalId":443328,"journal":{"name":"New Media & Society","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-06-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141389215","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 : 2024-05-17DOI: 10.1177/14614448241250302
W. Ejaz, Sacha Altay, Richard Fletcher, Rasmus Kleis Nielsen
Science has established the human-caused nature of climate change, yet the prevalence of climate-related misinformation persists, undermining public understanding and impeding collective action. Strikingly, existing research on belief in misinformation about climate change has disproportionately focused on WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic) countries. To move beyond this, our online survey (N = 8541) includes high-income countries in North America (US), Western Europe (France, Germany, UK) and East Asia (Japan), as well as an upper-middle income country in South America (Brazil) and lower-middle income countries in South Asia (India and Pakistan). By examining the interplay of news media usage, information sources, and trust in these sources, we advance our understanding of how these factors influence belief in climate change-related misinformation in diverse socio-cultural contexts. Across countries, we found that the strongest determinants of belief in misinformation about climate change were identifying as right-wing (compared with left-wing), consuming less offline news, having less trust in scientists, environmental activists, as well as international organizations, and having more trust in politicians, celebrities, and energy companies. Overall, trust in sources of information about climate change and demographic variables were much stronger predictors of belief in misinformation about climate change than reported news consumption (online, offline or on social media). These findings suggest that trust is key to understanding belief in false information about climate change.
{"title":"Trust is key: Determinants of false beliefs about climate change in eight countries","authors":"W. Ejaz, Sacha Altay, Richard Fletcher, Rasmus Kleis Nielsen","doi":"10.1177/14614448241250302","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448241250302","url":null,"abstract":"Science has established the human-caused nature of climate change, yet the prevalence of climate-related misinformation persists, undermining public understanding and impeding collective action. Strikingly, existing research on belief in misinformation about climate change has disproportionately focused on WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic) countries. To move beyond this, our online survey (N = 8541) includes high-income countries in North America (US), Western Europe (France, Germany, UK) and East Asia (Japan), as well as an upper-middle income country in South America (Brazil) and lower-middle income countries in South Asia (India and Pakistan). By examining the interplay of news media usage, information sources, and trust in these sources, we advance our understanding of how these factors influence belief in climate change-related misinformation in diverse socio-cultural contexts. Across countries, we found that the strongest determinants of belief in misinformation about climate change were identifying as right-wing (compared with left-wing), consuming less offline news, having less trust in scientists, environmental activists, as well as international organizations, and having more trust in politicians, celebrities, and energy companies. Overall, trust in sources of information about climate change and demographic variables were much stronger predictors of belief in misinformation about climate change than reported news consumption (online, offline or on social media). These findings suggest that trust is key to understanding belief in false information about climate change.","PeriodicalId":443328,"journal":{"name":"New Media & Society","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-05-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140965752","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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