Oh, no, Pokémon GO! Media panic and fear of mobility in news coverage of an augmented reality phenomenon

Media panics research is concerned with widespread social anxiety formed around a new technology or medium. This study adds to existing research by characterizing a new form of media panic around augmented reality applications, and specifically that which erupted concerning Pokémon GO, a popular augmented reality game. Based on a content analysis of items related to the game published in Israel's major print and online media in the period immediately following the game's launch, we classify the negative media coverage as a media panic and propose an explanation for its emergence. We argue that the negative reactions to the game stem specifically from the game's unique features and its mobile infrastructure, and especially its use of augmented reality that combines users’ virtual experiences and their interactions in actual physical space. We identify a third wave of mobile panic in this current phenomenon, one which takes into account the unique features of mobile technology as infrastructure for augmented reality applications. In contrast to previous incidents of media panic that focused on the harmful effects of increased technology use by young users, and their detachment from their physical environment, this wave represents an essentially opposite phenomenon, in which physical mobility itself, facilitated by the use of augmented reality, is deemed dangerous to players’ health and safety.

Download Full-text

How Do Location-Based Augmented Reality Games Improve Physical and Mental Health? Evaluating the Meanings and Values of Pokémon Go Users’ Experiences through the Means-End Chain Theory

Healthcare ◽

10.3390/healthcare9070794 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 9 (7) ◽

pp. 794

Author(s):

Gordon Chih-Ming Ku ◽

I-Wei Shang ◽

Meng-Fan Li

Keyword(s):

Augmented Reality ◽

Game Design ◽

New Technology ◽

Leisure Activity ◽

Online Games ◽

Physical And Mental Health ◽

Chain Theory ◽

Pokémon Go ◽

Using Data ◽

Childhood Memory

New technology has dramatically changed online games and blurred the boundary between active and passive activities. This study aims to explore the meanings and values of augmented reality online games by examining users’ Pokémon Go experiences through the means-end chain theory. Using data from interviews with 34 Pokémon Go users, this study adopts the soft laddering method to identify Pokémon Go’s potential attributes, consequences, and values, and to construct a hierarchical value map. The results indicated that Pokémon Go users pursue social relationships through play, and these relationships are triggered by the benefits of making new friends, maintaining current relationships with friends and family, and the attributes of prevalence, childhood memory, game design, and augmented reality. Subsequently, this study describes how Pokémon Go can be considered an active leisure activity because of its social, mental, and physical benefits and assesses the implications of its findings.

Download Full-text

Just Another Media Cluster?

MedienWirtschaft ◽

10.15358/1613-0669-2019-2-22 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 16 (2) ◽

pp. 22-31

Author(s):

Christian Zabel ◽

Gernot Heisenberg

Keyword(s):

Virtual Reality ◽

Augmented Reality ◽

Oculus Rift ◽

Pokémon Go

Getrieben durch populäre Produkte und Anwendungen wie Oculus Rift, Pokémon Go oder der Samsung Gear stößt Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality und auch Mixed Reality auf zunehmend großes Interesse. Obwohl die zugrunde liegenden Technologien bereits seit den 1990er Jahren eingesetzt werden, ist eine breitere Adoption erst seit relativ kurzer Zeit zu beobachten. In der Folge ist ein sich schnell entwickelndes Ökosystem für VR und AR entstanden (Berg & Vance, 2017). Aus einer (medien-) politischen Perspektive interessiert dabei, welche Standortfaktoren die Ansiedlung und Agglomeration dieser Firmen begünstigen. Da die Wertschöpfungsaktivitäten sowohl hinsichtlich der Zielmärkte als auch der Leistungserstellung (z. B. starker Einsatz von IT und Hardware in der Produkterstellung) von denen klassischer Medienprodukte deutlich abweichen, kann insbesondere gefragt werden, ob die VR-, MR- und AR-Unternehmen mit Blick auf die Ansiedlungspolitik als Teil der Medienbranche aufzufassen sind und somit auf die für Medienunternehmen besonders relevanten Faktoren in ähnlichem Maße reagieren. Der vorliegende Aufsatz ist das Ergebnis eines Forschungsprojekts im Auftrag des Mediennetzwerks NRW, einer Tochterfirma der Film- und Medienstiftung NRW.

Download Full-text

Welcome to the Party

10.1093/oso/9780190879310.003.0001 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Khadijah Costley White

Keyword(s):

Social Movement ◽

Political Communication ◽

News Media ◽

Media Coverage ◽

News Coverage ◽

Tea Party ◽

Audience Appeal

This chapter lays out the Tea Party’s history as a mass-mediated construction in the context of journalism, political communication, and social movement studies. It argues that the news coverage of the Tea Party primarily chronicled its meaning, appeal, motivations, influence, and circulation—an emphasis on its persona more than its policies. In particular, the news media tracked the Tea Party as a brand, highlighting its profits, marketability, brand leaders, and audience appeal. The Tea Party became a brand through news media coverage; in defining it as a brand, the Tea Party was a story, message, and cognitive shortcut that built a lasting relationship with citizen-consumers through strong emotional connections, self-expression, consumption, and differentiation.

Download Full-text

Media Malaise and the Decline of Legitimacy

10.1093/oso/9780198793717.003.0006 ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

Peter Van Aelst

Keyword(s):

Systematic Review ◽

Empirical Evidence ◽

Media Coverage ◽

News Coverage ◽

Political Support ◽

Level Of Education ◽

Political News ◽

Negative Tone ◽

Election News ◽

Over Time

This chapter analyzes media malaise theories and their consequences for legitimacy. These theories argue that the increasing availability of information through new and old media and increasingly negative tone of media are to blame for declining legitimacy. The chapter examines these claims by providing a systematic review of empirical research on media and political support. It first investigates whether news coverage has become more negative over time, and then examines the micro process that might explain the link between media coverage and political support. Empirical evidence suggests that where coverage has become more negative, this occurred before the 1990s and has levelled off since, and is concentrated primarily in election news. Negative political news does have a modest impact on political support once controlled for level of education, but that effect can be positive and negative, depending on the medium, the receiver, and the indicator of political support.

Download Full-text

Just Like Leaves in the Wind? Exploring the Effect of the Interplay of Media Coverage and Personal Characteristics on Issue Salience

10.1093/oso/9780198792130.003.0003 ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

Agatha Kratz ◽

Harald Schoen

Keyword(s):

Individual Differences ◽

Panel Data ◽

Financial Crisis ◽

Media Coverage ◽

News Coverage ◽

Personal Characteristics ◽

Election Campaign ◽

Issue Salience ◽

Cross Sectional ◽

The Impact

This chapter explores the effect of the interplay of personal characteristics and news coverage on issue salience during the 2009 to 2015 period and during the election campaign in 2013. We selected four topics that played a considerable role during this period: the labor market, pensions and healthcare, immigration, and the financial crisis. The evidence from pooled cross-sectional data and panel data supports the notion that news coverage affects citizens’ issue salience. For obtrusive issues, news coverage does not play as large a role as for rather remote topics like the financial crisis and immigration. The results also lend credence to the idea that political predilections and other individual differences are related to issue salience and constrain the impact of news coverage on voters’ issue salience. However, the evidence for the interplay of individual differences and media coverage proved mild at best.

Download Full-text

Technological Change and the International System

World Politics ◽

10.1017/s0043887121000010 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 73 (3) ◽

pp. 545-589 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Helen V. Milner ◽

Sondre Ulvund Solstad

Keyword(s):

Technology Adoption ◽

Technological Change ◽

Technology Use ◽

New Technologies ◽

Causal Effect ◽

International System ◽

New Technology ◽

World Politics ◽

Adoption Of Technology ◽

Adoption Of New Technology

ABSTRACTDo world politics affect the adoption of new technology? States overwhelmingly rely on technology invented abroad, and their differential intensity of technology use accounts for many of their differences in economic development. Much of the literature on technology adoption focuses on domestic conditions. The authors argue instead that the structure of the international system is critical because it affects the level of competition among states, which in turn affects leaders’ willingness to enact policies that speed technology adoption. Countries adopt new technology as they seek to avoid being vulnerable to attack or coercion by other countries. By systematically examining states’ adoption of technology over the past two hundred years, the authors find that countries adopt new technologies faster when the international system is less concentrated, that changes in systemic concentration have a temporally causal effect on technology adoption, and that government policies to promote technology adoption are related to concerns about rising international competition. A competitive international system is an important incentive for technological change and may underlie global technology waves.

Download Full-text

Understanding Fatal Crash Reporting Patterns in Bangladeshi Online Media using Text Mining

Transportation Research Record Journal of the Transportation Research Board ◽

10.1177/03611981211014200 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 036119812110142

Author(s):

Subasish Das

Keyword(s):

Media Coverage ◽

News Coverage ◽

Strong Support ◽

Online News ◽

World Health ◽

Health Concern ◽

Traffic Fatalities ◽

Traffic Crashes ◽

News Agency ◽

Fatal Crash

Traffic crashes are a major public health concern. In 2016, traffic crashes resulted in over 1.35 million deaths worldwide. In Bangladesh alone, the number of reported traffic fatalities was 2,376 in 2016. However, the World Health Organization estimated that the true number of traffic fatalities in Bangladesh ranges between 20,730 and 29,177. Editorial traffic crash reports in Bangladesh, and the number of crashes that are reported, vary widely among different media outlets. This study employed a Google News Alert to collect fatal crash reports from online English daily newspapers. The current study compiled a database of 419 fatal crash-related reports over a six-month period (November 2018–April 2019). The reports contain a total of 81,019 words. The results of this study reveal that online news coverage of traffic fatalities tends to vary from news agency to news agency. Furthermore, these reports do not usually cover key contributing factors of crash occurrences; the geometric features of crash occurrence sites are rarely reported. The findings demonstrate the importance of deciphering media coverage to develop potential safety risk measures in Bangladesh. The current findings provide strong support for the need for guidelines to help media outlets adequately document fatal crash reports.

Download Full-text

Media coverage of the unfolding crisis of domestic terrorism in the United States, 1990–2020

Public Relations Inquiry ◽

10.1177/2046147x21996015 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 2046147X2199601

Author(s):

Diana Zulli ◽

Kevin Coe ◽

Zachary Isaacs ◽

Ian Summers

Keyword(s):

United States ◽

Public Relations ◽

Crisis Management ◽

Media Coverage ◽

Television News ◽

News Coverage ◽

The United States ◽

Theory And Practice ◽

Domestic Terrorism ◽

Definitional Uncertainty

Public relations research has paid considerable attention to foreign terrorist crises but relatively little attention to domestic ones—despite the growing salience of domestic terrorism in the United States. This study content analyzes 30 years of network television news coverage of domestic terrorism to gain insight into four theoretical issues of enduring interest within the literature on news framing and crisis management: sourcing, contextualization, ideological labeling, and definitional uncertainty. Results indicate that the sources called upon to contextualize domestic terrorism have shifted over time, that ideological labels are more often applied on the right than the left, and that definitional uncertainty has increased markedly in recent years. Implications for the theory and practice of public relations and crisis management are discussed.

Download Full-text