Framing and Mis-Framing in Micro-Blogging Sites in China

Author(s):  
Yuanxin Wang

Micro-blogging is a popular, continuously developing form of communication that allows users to update their current life status in short posts around the clock with targeted websites and platforms. A significant blogosphere has developed in China where the prevailing micro-blogging websites comprise Internet coverage of issues not covered by mainstream media. This research will examine heavily shared and discussed blog posts on a popular micro-blogging website in China during an anti-animal cruelty campaign. The comments section of the blog posts will also be analyzed to identify discrepancies between the frames set by the bloggers and the perceptions by their audiences.

Author(s):  
Rebecca Olive

This chapter explores the potential of blogs and blogging for sport historians. Blog posts, using a variety of media but largely focused on written text, are produced by single authors or collectives for a variety of purposes, including to “provide information, as self-representation, to tell a story, to work toward a political goal, or to represent a culture, experience, idea or issue, outside of mainstream media.” As such, blogs can be a research source for understanding the processes of collectively constructing cultural and social memories. Like other social media archives, blog posts contain a wealth of commentary and information that is potentially valuable to historians as they grapple with understanding meanings of particular pasts in the present. Moreover, blogs offer the potential for reflexive historical practice.


Author(s):  
Marlene Kunst

Abstract. Comments sections under news articles have become popular spaces for audience members to oppose the mainstream media’s perspective on political issues by expressing alternative views. This kind of challenge to mainstream discourses is a necessary element of proper deliberation. However, due to heuristic information processing and the public concern about disinformation online, readers of comments sections may be inherently skeptical about user comments that counter the views of mainstream media. Consequently, commenters with alternative views may participate in discussions from a position of disadvantage because their contributions are scrutinized particularly critically. Nevertheless, this effect has hitherto not been empirically established. To address this gap, a multifactorial, between-subjects experimental study ( N = 166) was conducted that investigated how participants assess the credibility and argument quality of media-dissonant user comments relative to media-congruent user comments. The findings revealed that media-dissonant user comments are, indeed, disadvantaged in online discussions, as they are assessed as less credible and more poorly argued than media-congruent user comments. Moreover, the findings showed that the higher the participants’ level of media trust, the worse the assessment of media-dissonant user comments relative to media-congruent user comments. Normative implications and avenues for future research are discussed.


Author(s):  
Maksim Osipov

The article devoted to the study formations the identity of the criminal like. Animal cruelty is considered one of the violent stages of formations, directions personalities. The author analyzes the relationship between the stages of formation of the criminal’s personality in order to for the development of preventive measures.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ahmed Al-Rawi ◽  
Vishal Shukla

BACKGROUND In this study, we examined the activities of automated social media accounts or bots that tweet or retweet referencing #COVID-19 and #COVID19. OBJECTIVE The purpose of this study is to identify bot accounts to understand the nature of messages sent by them on COVID-19. Social media bots have been widely discussed in academic literature as some kind of moral panic mostly in relation to spreading controversial and politically polarized messages or in connection to problematic health bots (Broniatowski et al., 2018; Allem & Ferrara, 2018). The findings of this study, however, show that bots that reference COVID-19 mostly mention mainstream media and credible health sources while spreading breaking news on the pandemic or urging people to stay at home. These results align with previous research on the possible benefits, advantages, or possibilities afforded by the use of health chatbots (Brandtzaeg & Følstad, 2018; Skjuve & Brandtzæg, 2018; Kretzschmar et al., 2019; Greer et al., 2019). METHODS We used a mixed approach mostly comprised of several digital methods in this study. First, we collected 50,811,299 tweets and retweets referencing #COVID-19 and #COVID19 for a period of over two months from February 12 until April 18, 2020. We focused on these two hashtags because they are standard terms used by WHO and other official sources. From a total sample of over 50 million tweets, we used a mixed method to extract more than 185,000 messages posted by 127 bots. RESULTS Unlike the literature on health bots that associate them with anti-social activities, our findings show that the majority of these bots tweet, retweet and mention mainstream media outlets and credible official sources, promote health protection and telemedicine, and disseminate breaking news on the number of casualties and deaths caused by COVID-19. CONCLUSIONS Despite that some literature on social media bots highlight the controversial and anti-social nature of automated accounts, the findings of this study show that the majority of bots spread news on and awareness of COVID-19 risks while citing and referencing mainstream media outlets and credible health sources. We argue that there might be financial incentives behind designing some of these bots. However and if monitored and updated with credible information by health agencies themselves, we believe that bots can be useful during health crises due to their efficiency and speed in spreading valuable information, some of which is crucial for public health. CLINICALTRIAL N/A


Author(s):  
Yochai Benkler ◽  
Robert Faris ◽  
Hal Roberts

This chapter examines the claim that alt-right activists hacked the media ecosystem byinserting various destructive memes into the mainstream media that helped DonaldTrump win the 2016 presidential election. In particular, this chapter considers thepropaganda pipeline—the path from the periphery to the core through a series ofwell-known amplifi cation sites, most prominently Infowars and Drudge. Th e “spiritcooking” stories as seen on Infowars, Washington Times, and Sean Hannity perfectlyencapsulate the propaganda pipeline from the periphery to the core, drawingin the various suspects in producing information disorder. Th e chapter also showshow statements by marginal actors on Reddit and 4chan were collated and preparedfor propagation by more visible sites, and how this technique was exploited by bothalt-right and Russia-related actors successfully to get a story from the periphery toHannity.


Epidemiologia ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 84-94
Author(s):  
Mst. Marium Begum ◽  
Osman Ulvi ◽  
Ajlina Karamehic-Muratovic ◽  
Mallory R. Walsh ◽  
Hasan Tarek ◽  
...  

Background: Chikungunya is a vector-borne disease, mostly present in tropical and subtropical regions. The virus is spread by Ae. aegypti and Ae. albopictus mosquitos and symptoms include high fever to severe joint pain. Dhaka, Bangladesh, suffered an outbreak of chikungunya in 2017 lasting from April to September. With the goal of reducing cases, social media was at the forefront during this outbreak and educated the public about symptoms, prevention, and control of the virus. Popular web-based sources such as the top dailies in Bangladesh, local news outlets, and Facebook spread awareness of the outbreak. Objective: This study sought to investigate the role of social and mainstream media during the chikungunya epidemic. The study objective was to determine if social media can improve awareness of and practice associated with reducing cases of chikungunya. Methods: We collected chikungunya-related information circulated from the top nine television channels in Dhaka, Bangladesh, airing from 1st April–20th August 2017. All the news published in the top six dailies in Bangladesh were also compiled. The 50 most viewed chikungunya-related Bengali videos were manually coded and analyzed. Other social media outlets, such as Facebook, were also analyzed to determine the number of chikungunya-related posts and responses to these posts. Results: Our study showed that media outlets were associated with reducing cases of chikungunya, indicating that media has the potential to impact future outbreaks of these alpha viruses. Each media outlet (e.g., web, television) had an impact on the human response to an individual’s healthcare during this outbreak. Conclusions: To prevent future outbreaks of chikungunya, media outlets and social media can be used to educate the public regarding prevention strategies such as encouraging safe travel, removing stagnant water sources, and assisting with tracking cases globally to determine where future outbreaks may occur.


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