“If you didn’t take a selfie, did you even vote?”: Embodied mass communication and citizenship models in “I voted” selfies

After participating in US elections, voters have begun to share “I voted” selfies, or networked self-portraits that display their political participation. “I voted” selfies exist at the intersection of competing ideals of citizenship, including dutiful citizenship, which centers civic duty and voting, and self-actualizing citizenship, which focuses on individualized and expressive forms of political participation. I argue that these images can be understood through historically resonant communication practices, namely, as a mediated manifestation of 19th-century political congregations that I term embodied mass communication. To trace how voters perform embodied visions of citizenship through shared practices of digital self-representation, I conducted a content analysis of “I voted” selfies posted to Twitter on US Election Day 2016. In these selfies, voters present their bodies as civic evidence, frame individual representations to signify visual collectives, and creatively contextualize their political participation. Their selfies suggest how representational rituals can reflect and reconstitute citizenship models.

Scientometric engineering: Exploring citation dynamics via arXiv eprints

Scholarly communications have been rapidly integrated into digitised and networked open ecosystems, where preprint servers have played a pivotal role in accelerating the knowledge transfer processes. However, quantitative evidence is scarce regarding how this paradigm shift beyond the traditional journal publication system has affected the dynamics of collective attention on science. To address this issue, we investigate the citation data of more than 1.5 million eprints on arXiv (https://arxiv.org) and analyse the long-term citation trend for each discipline involved. We find that the typical growth and obsolescence patterns vary across disciplines, reflecting different publication and communication practices. The results provide unique evidence on the attention dynamics shaped by the research community today, including the dramatic growth and fast obsolescence of Computer Science eprints, which has not been captured in previous studies relying on the citation data of journal papers. Subsequently, we develop a quantitatively-and-temporally normalised citation index with an approximately normal distribution, which is useful for comparing citational attention across disciplines and time periods. Further, we derive a stochastic model consistent with the observed quantitative and temporal characteristics of citation growth and obsolescence. The findings and the developed framework open a new avenue for understanding the nature of citation dynamics. Peer Review https://publons.com/publon/10.1162/qss_a_00174

Digital Entrepreneurship via Sustainable Online Communication of Dentistry Profession, Oradea, Romania: A Longitudinal Analysis

Dentistry is an entrepreneurially oriented public interest profession that must maintain a balance between professional specificity and business sustainability. Communicating with patients is vital in a competitive system, and the dentist needs to use handy resources such as websites and social media. The aim of this research is (a) to examine whether websites and social networks are a digital entrepreneurship tool used in the dentistry profession in Oradea, a city in full economic development in Romania, to promote the profession nationally and internationally, (b) to compare the changes made using digital tools in the period between 2018–2021 for all licensed dentists in the mentioned city (between 430–450 people, depending on the stage of analysis) using the content analysis method and (c) to identify how the lockdown period imposed by the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic influenced not only the sustainability of the medical services provided to the population but also the communication practices of the dental offices. The results of examining the dentist’s online presence reveal that there is an interest among practitioners to grow their business sustainably through a digital presence that is increasingly relevant to them and their clients, but the potential remains under-exploited.

Internal communication management

Purpose This paper aims to review the latest management developments across the globe and pinpoint practical implications from cutting-edge research and case studies. Design/methodology/approach This briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds their own impartial comments and places the articles in context. Findings Research based on Latvian firms shows that internal communication is managed in a fragmented way. The internal communication concept is not understood well and its role in the firm’s strategic management process is underestimated. It is recommended that internal communication is designated to a specialized manager or unit and that operates under the direction of top management. Interdisciplinary participation could enhance the value of internal communication practices. Originality/value The briefing saves busy executives, strategists, and researchers’ hours of reading time by selecting only the very best, most pertinent information and presenting it in a condensed and easy-to-digest format

The Nature of Chinese and Russian Subcultures in Urban Discourse

The paper seeks to examine the communicative aspect of modern Chinese and Russian urban subcultures. The nominations of urban social groups representing young people in Russia and China and their connection to modern communication practices are viewed from the perspective of urban communication studies, which provides an opportunity for a new comprehension of issues connected with verbal and nonverbal constituents of urban discourse. The indicates that the subcultures in the Russian urban landscape are reflected in such nominations as фрики (freaki), мажоры (majory), хипстеры (hipstery), брейк-дансеры (break-dancery), байкеры (bikery), etc. The Chinese subcultures are known under such names as shamate, xiaoqingxin, tuyayawenhua, erciyuanyawenhua, egaoyawenhua and many others. We argue that in both countries the unity of social subgroups is based not so much on ideological preferences, but rather on lifestyles, hobbies and interests, many of them formed under the Western influence. The subcultures discussed in the research represent a broad panorama of Chinese and Russian social life. They reflect the sociocultural dynamics of attitudes, values and lifestyles influenced by globalization but acquiring nationally specific features, which transform them into unique sociocultural phenomena.

Radiophobia - useful concept or ostracising term?

The term ‘radiophobia’ has been a cornerstone in much of the nuclear discourse over the past 70 years and has been used extensively by proponents of nuclear technologies to dismiss fears of radiation as being emotional overreactions to a risk that is actuarially very low, and that this stems from public ignorance. Despite its longevity in nuclear discourse, little attention has been afforded to the term, its history, and the factors that underpin the extreme divergence in risk perception that the term de facto refers to, threatening to severely hamper any efforts to redress said divergence. This article will explore these factors, mostly sociopsychological in nature, and conclude that the powerful affective imagery associated with radiation, compounded by various heuristics and biases, renders public discomfort with ionising radiation from nuclear power plants rational – despite the fact nuclear energy is actuarially the safest energy source available. The article will note that whilst its often ostracising usage towards the public should render the term obsolete, radiophobia can still be regarded as a useful concept to try and explain the extreme risk perception divergence that exists between nuclear experts and the public. This would, however, require a paradigm shift that acknowledges the complex historical and sociopsychological factors that have shaped radiation into becoming a uniquely feared process. Such an acknowledgement will likely be a prerequisite for any efforts towards normalising humanity’s relationship with radiation, and would require considerable changes in communication practices.

Subjectness of Digital Communication in the Context of the Technological Evolution of the Contemporary Society: Threats, Challenges, and Risks

The purpose of this article is to identify the risks, threats, and challenges associated with possible social changes in the processes of digitalization of society and transformations of traditional communication practices, which is associated with the emergence of new digital subjects of mass public communication that form the pseudo structure of digital interaction of people. The primary tasks of the work were to identify the potential of artificial intelligence technologies and neural networks in the field of social and political communications, as well as to analyze the features of “smart” communications in terms of their subjectness. As a methodological optics, the work used the method of discourse analysis of scientific research devoted to the implementation and application of artificial intelligence technologies and self-learning neural networks in the processes of social and political digitalization, as well as the method of critical analysis of current communication practices in the socio-political sphere. At the same time, when analyzing the current digitalization practices, the case study method was used. The authors substantiate the thesis that introducing technological solutions based on artificial intelligence algorithms and self-learning neural networks into contemporary processes of socio-political communication creates the potential for a wide range of challenges, threats, and risks, the key of which is the problem of identifying the actual subjects of digital communication acts. The article also discusses the problem of increasing the manipulative potential of “smart” communications, for which the authors used the concepts of cyber simulacrum and information capsule developed by them. The paper shows that artificial intelligence and self-learning neural network algorithms, being increasingly widely introduced into the current practice of contemporary digital communications, form a high potential for information and communication impact on the mass consciousness from technological solutions that no longer require control by operators – humans. As a result, conditions arise to form a hybrid socio-technical reality – a communication reality of a new type with mixed subjectness. The paper also concludes that in the current practices of social interactions in the digital space, a person faces a new phenomenon – interfaceization, within which self-communication stimulates the universalization and standardization of digital behavior, creating, disseminating, strengthening, and imposing special digital rituals. In the article, the authors suggest that digital rituals blur the line between the activity of digital avatars based on artificial intelligence and the activity of actual people, resulting in the potential for a person to lose his own subjectness in the digital communications space.

Pay Transparency: Conceptualization and Implications for Employees, Employers, and Society as a Whole

Pay transparency refers to the degree to which pay communication policies and practices governing employee pay knowledge facilitate or restrict the sharing of pay-related information. While relatively few enterprises have adopted transparent pay-communication practices, a variety of institutional factors, such as government regulations and social norms, are driving employers to provide their employees with greater pay knowledge. Consensus has emerged around the existence of three main dimensions or forms of pay transparency, namely pay-outcome transparency, pay-process transparency, and pay-communication transparency. Research findings indicate that pay-outcome transparency, which relates to the degree to which pay rate information is disclosed by the employer, has both beneficial and problematic consequences, depending on the outcome. For example, while pay-outcome transparency has been consistently found to be associated with enhanced individual task performance and reduced gender-based pay discrepancies, it has also been associated with higher levels of envy, diminished helping, heightened levels of counterproductive work behavior, and pay compression (which could elicit negative sorting effects). In contrast, pay-process transparency, which relates to the degree to which employees are informed about the parameters underlying reward-related decisions, has been found to have largely beneficial consequences and few unintended negative consequences. Finally, while it is least studied, pay-communication transparency, capturing the degree to which restrictions are placed on employees’ ability to share pay knowledge with others, is positively associated with employee perceptions of employer fairness and trustworthiness and can have significant implications for employee retention.

Manifestation in the English Grammar of Cultural Context as One of the Dimensions of Intercultural Communication

The current trends of globalization and active intercultural contacts reveal practical importance of developing awareness in the issue of correlation of language and culture. The article studies the linguistic side thereof, namely, manifestation of cultural dimensions (cultural context) in the language structure, which can contribute to more conscious study of the language, on the one hand, and to implementation of intercultural communication practices on the other, as correlation between structural (grammar) phenomena and cultural dimensions could make it possible to create a cultural portrait of a nation basing on the linguistic data.