Listening at the local level: the role of radio in building community and trust

2019 ◽  
Vol 172 (1) ◽  
pp. 74-88
Author(s):  
Jocelyn Ellen Nettlefold

This article examines the role of local radio in the contemporary media environment, specifically as a site for community engagement. Previous research finds journalistic organisations, at the local level, are critical to the functioning of society and more needs to be understood about their contemporary role amid destabilised and fragmented public discourse. In contrast to unrestrained and untrustworthy social media platforms, the mediation of local radio can assist in encouraging more inclusive, constructive, and respectful views from people from diverse sectors of society. Empirical research from a case study of a locally produced ABC Radio Community Conversation event exploring community tensions about built, heritage and environmental development in the Australian island state of Tasmania provides new insights into how the facilitation of local radio discussion can help build trust, public knowledge and enable greater participation. Listening and transparency from journalists about their practices is important, creating a space where people can connect in a civil and empathetic way not easily afforded by social media.

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 76-90
Author(s):  
Madhura Manish Bedarkar ◽  
Mahima Mishra ◽  
Ritesh Ashok Khatwani

This article explores the role of social media in facilitating women entrepreneurs in India. It adopts a case study approach to explore the effectiveness of social media platforms in supporting women entrepreneurs. PULA (Pune Ladies), a closed Facebook Group, set up in 2015 for women in Pune, was selected as a case study. Fifteen in-depth interviews were conducted among 15 active women entrepreneurs of this group to explore the benefits received in terms of visibility, marketing opportunities, revenue generation, psychological benefits (sense of belongingness, self-confidence, motivation), and counselling to name a few. Their responses were analyzed for commonalities and divergences. The article finds that PULA not only offers a cost-effective platform for women entrepreneurs to showcase their products/services but also helps them in enhancing the visibility and financial performance of their businesses. The findings of this study will guide women entrepreneurs in leveraging social media platforms through greater visibility, networking and marketing their products/ services more efficiently.


2021 ◽  
Vol 119 ◽  
pp. 07007
Author(s):  
Nezha Mejjad ◽  
Hanane Yaagoubi ◽  
Mourad Gourmaj ◽  
Aniss Moumen ◽  
Nabil Chakhchaoui ◽  
...  

The study aims to assess the Moroccan community’s using rate of social media, especially during the imposed lockdown, and analyze how the community is using and exploring the news published on Facebook. In this order, we prepared and shared a survey questionnaire among Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp users. The obtained responses exhibit that only 5% of respondents share the news immediately without verifying the source, while 54 % share news only after verifying the source; the rest did not prefer to share COVID-19 related news. This may reflect the awareness level of the sampled population about the importance of verifying the source of information before sharing it, especially during such conditions. However, 64% of participants think that Social Media platforms are not sufficient and appropriate to warn and inform the population about this sanitary crisis as not all Moroccan citizens have access to the internet and do not use social media. Besides, the COVID-19 period has known a rapid spread of misinformation and fake news through these platforms, impacting community mental health. Although, it is recommended to consider warning people about the best practices and use of shared information through these platforms


2020 ◽  
Vol 338 ◽  
pp. 431-442
Author(s):  
Assem Kalkamanova

This paper focuses on the role of social media in the rise of the protest movements and political mobilization in Kazakhstan. The country has been seeing an increase in the social networks based civil activists since recently. I argue that the emergence of the Democratic Choice of Kazakhstan that operates only within the realm of social media platforms promoted political activism and civil protests in the country. Most importantly, I argue that in contrast to the conclusions of the Kazakhstani court’s decision in March 2018, the movement leader’s Facebook blog reveals no violence either towards the government or some specific political elite. Using text mining methods, I analyzed the texts of his Facebook posts from the announcement date in 2017 till the end of 2019: the rhetoric of the position of the Democratic Choice is informational, first, and protest calling, second. Also, the analysis of seven most popular political Youtube bloggers shows that the people’s discontent with injustices and undemocratic polity manifested in the poignant interest towards the creator of this system, Mr. Nazarbayev and his closest circle. The SMM software allowed to find out the areas of Kazakhstani politics that are of most interest to the audience of Kazakhstani political activists.


2021 ◽  
Vol 14 ◽  
pp. 194008292110080
Author(s):  
Gugulethu Tarakini ◽  
Tongayi Mwedzi ◽  
Tatenda Manyuchi ◽  
Tawanda Tarakini

The COVID-19 pandemic is fast driving the ways of life and economies. In this study, we used Zimbabwe as a case study to assess how different forms of media are being utilised to access information of the COVID-19 disease (across age, educational level, and employment status). We investigated people’s perceptions of the origins of COVID-19, its implication on the continued consumption of meat from wildlife species by humans, and management strategies of wildlife species that harbour the coronavirus. We gathered 139 responses using an online structured questionnaire survey. Social media platforms were used to acquire information on the COVID-19 pandemic when compared to traditional sources (television, radio, and newspapers). Most respondents thought that the COVID-19 virus was created by humans (n = 55, mostly the young and middle-aged) while others believed that it originated from animals (n = 54, mostly middle-aged with postgraduate qualifications). The majority (73%) of respondents who cited COVID-19 origin as animals also supported a ban on consumption of meat from the species. The middle-aged respondents (in comparison to the young and older respondents) and those who were employed (compared to the unemployed) were more likely to support the ban in wildlife trade. The likelihood of visiting wildlife centres given the consequences of COVID-19 was significantly lower in the old-aged respondents when compared to the young and the middle-aged respondents. Our results emphasize the need for science to penetrate social media circles to provide appropriate information. The observed perceptions about visiting wildlife centres could negatively impact conservation funding.


Author(s):  
Eran Fisher

Abstract: The notion of audience labour has been an important contribution to Marxist political economy of the media. It revised the traditional political economy analysis, which focused on media ownership, by suggesting that media was also a site of production, constituting particular relations of production. Such analysis highlighted the active role of audience in the creation of media value as both commodities and workers, thus pointing to audience exploitation. Recently, in light of paradigmatic transformations in the media environment – particularly the emergence of Web 2.0 and social network sites – there has been a renewed interest in such analysis, and a reexamination of audience exploitation. Focusing on Facebook as a case-study, this article examines audience labour on social network sites along two Marxist themes – exploitation and alienation. It argues for a historical shift in the link between exploitation and alienation of audience labour, concurrent with the shift from mass media to social media. In the mass media, the capacity for exploitation of audience labour was quite limited while the alienation that such work created was high. In contrast, social media allows for the expansion and intensification of exploitation. Simultaneously, audience labour on social media – because it involves communication and sociability – also ameliorates alienation by allowing self-expression, authenticity, and relations with others. Moreover, the article argues that the political economy of social network sites is founded on a dialectical link between exploitation and alienation: in order to be de-alienated, Facebook users must communicate and socialize, thus exacerbating their exploitation. And vice-versa, in order for Facebook to exploit the work of its users, it must contribute to their de-alienation.


2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 222-233 ◽  
Author(s):  
Florian Saurwein ◽  
Charlotte Spencer-Smith

Social media platforms like Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter have become major objects of criticism for reasons such as privacy violations, anticompetitive practices, and interference in public elections. Some of these problems have been associated with algorithms, but the roles that algorithms play in the emergence of different harms have not yet been systematically explored. This article contributes to closing this research gap with an investigation of the link between algorithms and harms on social media platforms. Evidence of harms involving social media algorithms was collected from media reports and academic papers within a two-year timeframe from 2018 to 2019, covering Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, and Twitter. Harms with similar casual mechanisms were grouped together to inductively develop a typology of algorithmic harm based on the mechanisms involved in their emergence: (1) algorithmic errors, undesirable, or disturbing selections; (2) manipulation by users to achieve algorithmic outputs to harass other users or disrupt public discourse; (3) algorithmic reinforcement of pre-existing harms and inequalities in society; (4) enablement of harmful practices that are opaque and discriminatory; and (5) strengthening of platform power over users, markets, and society. Although the analysis emphasizes the role of algorithms as a cause of online harms, it also demonstrates that harms do not arise from the application of algorithms alone. Instead, harms can be best conceived of as socio-technical assemblages, composed of the use and design of algorithms, platform design, commercial interests, social practices, and context. The article concludes with reflections on possible governance interventions in response to identified socio-technical mechanisms of harm. Notably, while algorithmic errors may be fixed by platforms themselves, growing platform power calls for external oversight.


2020 ◽  
Vol 23 (6) ◽  
pp. 968-983
Author(s):  
Paul Dawson

This article investigates the role that narrative plays in the emergence of cultural movements from the networked interactions of users with the algorithmic structures of social media platforms. It identifies and anatomizes a new narrative phenomenon created by the technological affordances of Twitter, a phenomenon dubbed ‘emergent storytelling’. In doing so, it seeks to explain: (a) the multiple concepts of narrative that operate at different levels of hashtag movements emerging from the dynamic forces that circulate in and through Twitter; (b) the interplay of narrative cognition with stochastic viral activity and the invisible design of social media algorithms; and (c) the varying rhetorical purposes that narrative is put to in public discourse about viral movements. Using #MeToo as a case study in the generation and reception of ‘affective publics’, it clarifies how iterative appeals to the experiential truth of individual stories manifest as narratable social movements in the networked public sphere.


Author(s):  
Tatjana Pivac ◽  
◽  
Mirjana Maksimović ◽  
Ivana Blešić ◽  
◽  
...  

The wineries recognized the increasingly important role of digital marketing as a valuable and appropriate tool to reach consumers. Wineries owners need to learn to use and apply social media in their marketing activities, as well as which activities are most effective for their needs. This paper intends to provide a brief analysis of digital wine marketing and social media marketing contributions for the wineries to increase brand awareness, sales, and development. The purpose of this research is to investigate social media adoption and engagement amongst wineries and more importantly to understand the activities they use to interact with consumers on social media platforms. For the purpose of this paper, a structured questionnaire was created. The authors wanted to examine to what extent the wineries are familiar with digital marketing and how much they use it in their own business. The study included 50 wineries across Serbia. Serbian wineries need to be more competitive on the tourist market and understand better the mode of functioning of different systems. The results show that Facebook and Instagram are the main platforms that wineries use to engage with consumers.


Author(s):  
Eran Fisher

Abstract: The notion of audience labour has been an important contribution to Marxist political economy of the media. It revised the traditional political economy analysis, which focused on media ownership, by suggesting that media was also a site of production, constituting particular relations of production. Such analysis highlighted the active role of audience in the creation of media value as both commodities and workers, thus pointing to audience exploitation. Recently, in light of paradigmatic transformations in the media environment – particularly the emergence of Web 2.0 and social network sites – there has been a renewed interest in such analysis, and a reexamination of audience exploitation. Focusing on Facebook as a case-study, this article examines audience labour on social network sites along two Marxist themes – exploitation and alienation. It argues for a historical shift in the link between exploitation and alienation of audience labour, concurrent with the shift from mass media to social media. In the mass media, the capacity for exploitation of audience labour was quite limited while the alienation that such work created was high. In contrast, social media allows for the expansion and intensification of exploitation. Simultaneously, audience labour on social media – because it involves communication and sociability – also ameliorates alienation by allowing self-expression, authenticity, and relations with others. Moreover, the article argues that the political economy of social network sites is founded on a dialectical link between exploitation and alienation: in order to be de-alienated, Facebook users must communicate and socialize, thus exacerbating their exploitation. And vice-versa, in order for Facebook to exploit the work of its users, it must contribute to their de-alienation.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document