Pub Date : 2024-04-04DOI: 10.1177/1329878x241244919
Timothy Graham, Katherine M. FitzGerald
This study investigates post-truth messaging and participatory disinformation on Twitter, focusing on the activities of Craig Kelly, a former Australian member of parliament and a key figure previously accused of spreading health misinformation in Australia during the COVID-19 pandemic. We draw on Harsin's conceptualisation of post truth communication to analyse 4317 tweets and 5.2 million interactions with Kelly's account and his network of followers over a six-month period. Our novel empirical approach, combining coordination network analysis with a forensic qualitative approach, explores the participatory nature of online interaction, where fringe actors mobilise around Kelly's tweets. The findings demonstrate how political figures have a privileged and outsized role in public discourse, undermining scientific institutions and promoting anti-deliberative politics. This research underscores the role of participatory disinformation in the post-truth era and suggests that regulators, governments, and social media platforms work collaboratively to develop a whole-of-society framework to tackle misinformation.
{"title":"Exploring the role of political elites in post-truth communication on social media","authors":"Timothy Graham, Katherine M. FitzGerald","doi":"10.1177/1329878x241244919","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/1329878x241244919","url":null,"abstract":"This study investigates post-truth messaging and participatory disinformation on Twitter, focusing on the activities of Craig Kelly, a former Australian member of parliament and a key figure previously accused of spreading health misinformation in Australia during the COVID-19 pandemic. We draw on Harsin's conceptualisation of post truth communication to analyse 4317 tweets and 5.2 million interactions with Kelly's account and his network of followers over a six-month period. Our novel empirical approach, combining coordination network analysis with a forensic qualitative approach, explores the participatory nature of online interaction, where fringe actors mobilise around Kelly's tweets. The findings demonstrate how political figures have a privileged and outsized role in public discourse, undermining scientific institutions and promoting anti-deliberative politics. This research underscores the role of participatory disinformation in the post-truth era and suggests that regulators, governments, and social media platforms work collaboratively to develop a whole-of-society framework to tackle misinformation.","PeriodicalId":46880,"journal":{"name":"Media International Australia","volume":"66 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.4,"publicationDate":"2024-04-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140595117","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-04-02DOI: 10.1177/1329878x241243093
Jim Macnamara
The ways in which the COVID-19 pandemic has changed society are the source of widespread discussion. But references to a ‘new normal’ are mostly confined to hybrid working and a possible four-day working week. Should future-scoping remain so narrow, a major opportunity for fundamental rethinking will be lost. This commentary seeks to take up and expand the argument of a 2021 article on the effects of COVID-19 by exploring the wider social implications and the opportunity presented by this existential crisis. Specifically, this critical analysis explores whether COVID-19 and its impacts have created a moment of liminality – a time of “transition during which the normal limits to thought are relaxed, opening the way to novelty and imagination, construction, and destruction” potentially leading to what Victor Turner refers to as communitas in which we can rethink the issues of our time and in which new social structures and understandings can form.
{"title":"The long now and liminality: Will we create communitas? A macro-social perspective of COVID-19","authors":"Jim Macnamara","doi":"10.1177/1329878x241243093","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/1329878x241243093","url":null,"abstract":"The ways in which the COVID-19 pandemic has changed society are the source of widespread discussion. But references to a ‘new normal’ are mostly confined to hybrid working and a possible four-day working week. Should future-scoping remain so narrow, a major opportunity for fundamental rethinking will be lost. This commentary seeks to take up and expand the argument of a 2021 article on the effects of COVID-19 by exploring the wider social implications and the opportunity presented by this existential crisis. Specifically, this critical analysis explores whether COVID-19 and its impacts have created a moment of liminality – a time of “transition during which the normal limits to thought are relaxed, opening the way to novelty and imagination, construction, and destruction” potentially leading to what Victor Turner refers to as communitas in which we can rethink the issues of our time and in which new social structures and understandings can form.","PeriodicalId":46880,"journal":{"name":"Media International Australia","volume":"59 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.4,"publicationDate":"2024-04-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140594989","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-03-13DOI: 10.1177/1329878x241236984
Amelia Johns, Francesco Bailo, Emily Booth, Marian-Andrei Rizoiu
In this paper, we ask how effective Meta's content moderation strategy was on its flagship platform, Facebook, during the COVID-19 pandemic. We analyse the performance of 18 Australian right-wing/anti-vaccination pages, posts and commenting sections collected between January 2019 and July 2021, and use engagement metrics and time series analysis to analyse the data, mapping key policy announcements against page performance. We combine this with content analysis of comments parsed from two public pages that overperformed in the time period. The results show that Meta's content moderation systems were partially effective, with previously high-performing pages showing steady decline. Nonetheless, some pages not only slipped through the net but overperformed, proving this strategy to be piecemeal and inconsistent. The analysis identifies trends that content labelling and ‘shadow banning’ accounts was resisted by these communities, who employed tactics to stay engaged on Facebook, while migrating some conversations to less moderated platforms.
{"title":"Labelling, shadow bans and community resistance: did meta's strategy to suppress rather than remove COVID misinformation and conspiracy theory on Facebook slow the spread?","authors":"Amelia Johns, Francesco Bailo, Emily Booth, Marian-Andrei Rizoiu","doi":"10.1177/1329878x241236984","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/1329878x241236984","url":null,"abstract":"In this paper, we ask how effective Meta's content moderation strategy was on its flagship platform, Facebook, during the COVID-19 pandemic. We analyse the performance of 18 Australian right-wing/anti-vaccination pages, posts and commenting sections collected between January 2019 and July 2021, and use engagement metrics and time series analysis to analyse the data, mapping key policy announcements against page performance. We combine this with content analysis of comments parsed from two public pages that overperformed in the time period. The results show that Meta's content moderation systems were partially effective, with previously high-performing pages showing steady decline. Nonetheless, some pages not only slipped through the net but overperformed, proving this strategy to be piecemeal and inconsistent. The analysis identifies trends that content labelling and ‘shadow banning’ accounts was resisted by these communities, who employed tactics to stay engaged on Facebook, while migrating some conversations to less moderated platforms.","PeriodicalId":46880,"journal":{"name":"Media International Australia","volume":"6 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.4,"publicationDate":"2024-03-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140148327","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-03-06DOI: 10.1177/1329878x241236990
Damien John O’Meara, Whitney Monaghan
Over the past few decades, there has been significant industry and scholarly interest in diversity, equity, and inclusion in television. Alongside this, attention has been paid to the politics of queer representation in screen and media contexts. Providing much-needed data on these issues, this article catalogues the representation of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and nonbinary characters in Australian scripted television since 2000. We highlight the inclusion of more queer characters onscreen and situate this in the context of two significant decades of change in the Australian television industry and the broader socio-political context. In teasing out recent trends around gender and sexually diverse representation, we identify shifts toward representing more complex and inclusive queer story worlds on Australian television. We also note significant tensions in these representations, highlighting how Australian television remains quite conservative in depicting queer sex, intersections between sexualities and gender identities, and bisexual identities.
{"title":"Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and nonbinary representation on Australian scripted television in the 2000s and 2010s","authors":"Damien John O’Meara, Whitney Monaghan","doi":"10.1177/1329878x241236990","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/1329878x241236990","url":null,"abstract":"Over the past few decades, there has been significant industry and scholarly interest in diversity, equity, and inclusion in television. Alongside this, attention has been paid to the politics of queer representation in screen and media contexts. Providing much-needed data on these issues, this article catalogues the representation of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and nonbinary characters in Australian scripted television since 2000. We highlight the inclusion of more queer characters onscreen and situate this in the context of two significant decades of change in the Australian television industry and the broader socio-political context. In teasing out recent trends around gender and sexually diverse representation, we identify shifts toward representing more complex and inclusive queer story worlds on Australian television. We also note significant tensions in these representations, highlighting how Australian television remains quite conservative in depicting queer sex, intersections between sexualities and gender identities, and bisexual identities.","PeriodicalId":46880,"journal":{"name":"Media International Australia","volume":"65 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.4,"publicationDate":"2024-03-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140075173","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-02-29DOI: 10.1177/1329878x241232167
Aneta Podkalicka, Danie Nilsson, Simon Troon
Proliferating media content is key to public understanding and discussions about the environment and climate change. While scholarly interest in mediated environmental communication has been ample and multi-directional, the questions around media's impacts remain pressing and largely under-theorised. This paper uses an example of popular environmental media in Australia – i.e. media aimed at attracting wide audiences – to discuss how impact is perceived and pursued in the distinctive Australian context, and what can be inferred from this study about environmental media and its impact more generally. Drawing on 28 interviews with media-makers and practitioners, conducted between 2022 and 2023, we catalogue common creative/narratives strategies used to engage audiences, noting a diversity of views and approaches for creating and measuring impact. The paper contributes to theoretical debates on media impact and encourages active academic research-media industry collaborations as part of initiatives aimed at meeting the challenges of climate change.
{"title":"Popular Environmental Media in Australia: Reflections on Audience Engagement and Impact","authors":"Aneta Podkalicka, Danie Nilsson, Simon Troon","doi":"10.1177/1329878x241232167","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/1329878x241232167","url":null,"abstract":"Proliferating media content is key to public understanding and discussions about the environment and climate change. While scholarly interest in mediated environmental communication has been ample and multi-directional, the questions around media's impacts remain pressing and largely under-theorised. This paper uses an example of popular environmental media in Australia – i.e. media aimed at attracting wide audiences – to discuss how impact is perceived and pursued in the distinctive Australian context, and what can be inferred from this study about environmental media and its impact more generally. Drawing on 28 interviews with media-makers and practitioners, conducted between 2022 and 2023, we catalogue common creative/narratives strategies used to engage audiences, noting a diversity of views and approaches for creating and measuring impact. The paper contributes to theoretical debates on media impact and encourages active academic research-media industry collaborations as part of initiatives aimed at meeting the challenges of climate change.","PeriodicalId":46880,"journal":{"name":"Media International Australia","volume":"64 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.4,"publicationDate":"2024-02-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140044260","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-02-27DOI: 10.1177/1329878x241234983
Jane B Singer
{"title":"Book Review: Journalism, Technology and Cultural Practice: A History by Martin Conboy","authors":"Jane B Singer","doi":"10.1177/1329878x241234983","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/1329878x241234983","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":46880,"journal":{"name":"Media International Australia","volume":"265 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.4,"publicationDate":"2024-02-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140025257","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-01-31DOI: 10.1177/1329878x231226355
Angela Ross
There is increasing evidence fewer people are willing to discuss and debate issues of common concern on social media with their feeds becoming more conflict-laden and toxic. A more nuanced understanding is needed of the motivations and deterrents for individual participation, in different contexts. This article provides a unique perspective from regional Australia by considering the conditions under which a group of social media users in Launceston, Tasmania were more likely to participate in discussion on Facebook and the factors that encouraged participants to present a constructed version of themselves. In doing so, this digital ethnographic case study contributes to evidence about the limitations of Facebook as a place for democratic public debate and may have practical application by helping identify spaces on social media that are more likely to prompt open and honest discussion.
{"title":"Thinking about the ‘silent readers’: a regional digital ethnographic case study exploring motivations and barriers to participation in public debate on Facebook","authors":"Angela Ross","doi":"10.1177/1329878x231226355","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/1329878x231226355","url":null,"abstract":"There is increasing evidence fewer people are willing to discuss and debate issues of common concern on social media with their feeds becoming more conflict-laden and toxic. A more nuanced understanding is needed of the motivations and deterrents for individual participation, in different contexts. This article provides a unique perspective from regional Australia by considering the conditions under which a group of social media users in Launceston, Tasmania were more likely to participate in discussion on Facebook and the factors that encouraged participants to present a constructed version of themselves. In doing so, this digital ethnographic case study contributes to evidence about the limitations of Facebook as a place for democratic public debate and may have practical application by helping identify spaces on social media that are more likely to prompt open and honest discussion.","PeriodicalId":46880,"journal":{"name":"Media International Australia","volume":"14 151 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.4,"publicationDate":"2024-01-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139953591","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-01-09DOI: 10.1177/1329878x231225745
Rob Cover, Nicola Henry, Joscelyn Gleave, Sharon Greenfield, Viktor Grechyn, Thuc Bao Huynh
Public figures are subject to higher rates of online abuse than other users in part because many digital platforms have significantly higher thresholds for intervening in cases of public figure abuse. Internationally, this higher rate of abuse has led to substantial impacts on public figures’ wellbeing and withdrawal from public life. This article presents findings from a study of platform policies to understand how platforms and policy stakeholders define public figures. Key findings included (a) public figures are ill-defined in platform policies, (b) policies often collapse distinctions between traditional public figures such as politicians and entertainers, emerging public figures such as influencers, and involuntary public figures such as a celebrity's family members; and (c) policies fail to acknowledge the diverse resources and institutional support enjoyed by different types of public figure. The article draws on applied cultural theory to unpack the challenges and consequences of inadequately defining public figures.
{"title":"Protecting Public Figures Online: How Do Platforms and Regulators Define Public Figures?","authors":"Rob Cover, Nicola Henry, Joscelyn Gleave, Sharon Greenfield, Viktor Grechyn, Thuc Bao Huynh","doi":"10.1177/1329878x231225745","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/1329878x231225745","url":null,"abstract":"Public figures are subject to higher rates of online abuse than other users in part because many digital platforms have significantly higher thresholds for intervening in cases of public figure abuse. Internationally, this higher rate of abuse has led to substantial impacts on public figures’ wellbeing and withdrawal from public life. This article presents findings from a study of platform policies to understand how platforms and policy stakeholders define public figures. Key findings included (a) public figures are ill-defined in platform policies, (b) policies often collapse distinctions between traditional public figures such as politicians and entertainers, emerging public figures such as influencers, and involuntary public figures such as a celebrity's family members; and (c) policies fail to acknowledge the diverse resources and institutional support enjoyed by different types of public figure. The article draws on applied cultural theory to unpack the challenges and consequences of inadequately defining public figures.","PeriodicalId":46880,"journal":{"name":"Media International Australia","volume":"9 14","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.4,"publicationDate":"2024-01-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139443680","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-12-21DOI: 10.1177/1329878x231221347
Daniella Ekstein, Amy Posel, Sarina Rain, Angela Nicholas, J. Pirkis, T. Niederkrotenthaler, A. Schaffer, M. Sinyor
Objective: Coverage and public communication about suicide represent a major public health concern given the potential for identification and imitation. Yet when celebrities survive a suicidal crisis, it presents an opportunity to model adaptive coping. Tennis star Jelena Dokic's June 2022 Instagram post recounting her experience overcoming suicidal thoughts represents a unique natural experiment to characterize media coverage of a celebrity survival event. Methods: We searched Google News and the entire University of Toronto library catalogue for articles about Dokic's post. We divided articles according to world region of publication: (a) Australia & New Zealand, (b) United States & Canada, and (c) United Kingdom & Ireland. We coded articles for content and used Chi-squared analyses to identify differences including adherence to responsible media reporting guidelines. Results: We identified 73 articles of which 71 were available for coding. Almost all articles positioned Dokic's story as one of survival and conveyed alternatives to suicide (94%). However, 56 (79%) highlighted a suicide method that Dokic mentioned in her post and 18 (25%) inaccurately described Dokic as disclosing that she had attempted suicide when her post only conveyed suicidal thoughts. In general, adherence to responsible reporting guidelines appeared stronger in articles published in Australia & New Zealand. Conclusions: We found that the international media extensively covered Dokic's story of survival including substantial helpful information but also some misinformation and content that violates responsible reporting guidelines. Greater adherence by media in Australia & New Zealand may be due to more robust implementation of responsible media guidelines in the region.
{"title":"Jelena Dokic's suicide-related social media post and the worldwide media's portrayal of a story of survival: a natural experiment","authors":"Daniella Ekstein, Amy Posel, Sarina Rain, Angela Nicholas, J. Pirkis, T. Niederkrotenthaler, A. Schaffer, M. Sinyor","doi":"10.1177/1329878x231221347","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/1329878x231221347","url":null,"abstract":"Objective: Coverage and public communication about suicide represent a major public health concern given the potential for identification and imitation. Yet when celebrities survive a suicidal crisis, it presents an opportunity to model adaptive coping. Tennis star Jelena Dokic's June 2022 Instagram post recounting her experience overcoming suicidal thoughts represents a unique natural experiment to characterize media coverage of a celebrity survival event. Methods: We searched Google News and the entire University of Toronto library catalogue for articles about Dokic's post. We divided articles according to world region of publication: (a) Australia & New Zealand, (b) United States & Canada, and (c) United Kingdom & Ireland. We coded articles for content and used Chi-squared analyses to identify differences including adherence to responsible media reporting guidelines. Results: We identified 73 articles of which 71 were available for coding. Almost all articles positioned Dokic's story as one of survival and conveyed alternatives to suicide (94%). However, 56 (79%) highlighted a suicide method that Dokic mentioned in her post and 18 (25%) inaccurately described Dokic as disclosing that she had attempted suicide when her post only conveyed suicidal thoughts. In general, adherence to responsible reporting guidelines appeared stronger in articles published in Australia & New Zealand. Conclusions: We found that the international media extensively covered Dokic's story of survival including substantial helpful information but also some misinformation and content that violates responsible reporting guidelines. Greater adherence by media in Australia & New Zealand may be due to more robust implementation of responsible media guidelines in the region.","PeriodicalId":46880,"journal":{"name":"Media International Australia","volume":"4 3","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.4,"publicationDate":"2023-12-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138952693","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-11-15DOI: 10.1177/1329878x231214352
Ayesha Jehangir
{"title":"Book Review: Middle Eastern Diasporas and Political Communication: New Approaches by Ehab Galal, Mostafa Shehata and Claus Valling Pedersen","authors":"Ayesha Jehangir","doi":"10.1177/1329878x231214352","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/1329878x231214352","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":46880,"journal":{"name":"Media International Australia","volume":"C-20 8","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.4,"publicationDate":"2023-11-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139275377","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
京公网安备 11010802042870号
京ICP备2023020795号-1
扫码关注我们
求助内容：
应助结果提醒方式：