Digital Conservation Can Fill Data Gaps in Data‐Poor Regions: Case of Elasmobranchs in India

Using Digital Media to Promote Kidney Disease Education

This chapter analyzes what happens to media use when everyday life is suddenly disrupted, focusing on how the COVID-19 pandemic transformed work, socializing, communication and everyday living. The empirical case is changing media use in Norway during the pandemic, building on a qualitative questionnaire survey conducted in early lockdown, and follow-up interviews eight months later. Expanding on the ideas of destabilization of media repertoires developed in the former chapter, this analysis discusses transforming media repertoires as more digital, as less mobile (but still smartphone-centric) and as essentially social. The chapter further explains new concepts for pandemic media use practices, such as doomscrolling and Zoom fatigue. Can you remember when you first heard of COVID-19, and did you think it would change your life? 'They started talking about it on the news', said Inger, a Norwegian woman nearing 70, whom we interviewed in late 2020. She continued: 'I still found people were quite relaxed. Who would have thought such a thing could happen to the whole world? It is like science fiction'. 'We talked about it when they speed-built that hospital in China', said Einar, a man in his 40s working in the cultural sector, 'but no one thought it would come here. Former epidemics happened elsewhere'. He added: 'It is like that with a lot of things'. School employee Karla remembered a conversation at work about the need for kids to stay home at the smallest sign of cold symptoms: 'Parents would never get to work! We laughed about it, thinking it was impossible. And then it took three weeks, and the country shut down'.

Early detection and rapid response are essential to deal effectively with new introductions of invasive alien species (IAS). Citizen science platforms for opportunistic recording of species are increasingly popular, and there is potential to harvest their data for early detection of IAS, but this has not been tested. We evaluated the potential of data from existing citizen science platforms for early detection of IAS by obtaining 687 first records of species from 30 European countries where there was both an official first record (i.e. published in scientific literature or by a government agency) and a record in a citizen science platform. We tested how the difference between the two (time lag) was related to species traits, popularity in citizen science platforms, public and research attention and regulatory status. We found that for 50% of the time lag records, citizen science platforms reported IAS earlier than or in the same year as the official databases. Although we cannot determine causality (the first official record could have been from a citizen science platform, or contemporaneous with it), this demonstrates that citizen science platforms are effective for IAS early detection. Time lags were largely affected by species traits. Compared with official records, vertebrates were more likely to have earlier records on citizen science platforms, than plants or invertebrates. Greater popularity of the IAS in citizen science platforms and its observation in neighbouring countries resulted in earlier citizen science reporting. In contrast, inclusion in the EU priority list resulted in earlier official recording, reflecting the efficacy of targeted surveillance programmes. However, time lags were not affected by the overall activity of citizen platforms per country. Synthesis and applications. Multi‐species citizen science platforms for reporting nature sightings are a valuable source of information on early detection of IAS even though they are not specifically designed for this purpose. We recommend that IAS surveillance programmes should be better connected with citizen science platforms, including greater acknowledgement of the role of citizen scientists and better data flow from smaller citizen science initiatives into global databases, to support efficient early detection. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.

Reflections on the potential of virtual citizen science platforms to address collective action challenges: Lessons and implications for future research

Government Surveillance and Counter-Surveillance on Social and Mobile Media: The Case of Iran (2009)

This chapter discusses how media use changes when everyday life undergoes change, focusing on major life transitions. I briefly introduce different perspectives on evolving media repertoires across the life course, and argue for the relevance of studying periods of destabilization and reorientation, when elements of media repertoires and modes of public connection are temporarily or more permanently transformed. I argue that easily adaptable media technologies such as smartphones tend to become more important in unsettled circumstances, as easy-to-reach for tools for new forms of self-expression, information-seeking or social contact, in accordance with shifting social roles and everyday circumstances. The primary empirical material analyzed in the chapter is a small qualitative interview study with mothers, about their media use the first year with a new-born.

India accommodates a huge diversity of plant and animal life across a variety of biomes. However, the degree of research, funding, and attention is asymmetric, largely focused on its charismatic vertebrates. Invertebrates, despite their megadiversity, are generally overlooked with some exceptions (for example, lepidoterans). One species-rich group, spiders, exemplifies this knowledge gap. More than 1,800 species from 63 families have been reported in the country (Mondal et al. 2020), even though the true number may be much higher, in part, owing to the need for taxonomic revisions. Several spider systematics and biogeographic studies have pointed out that spatial distribution, seasonality, and natural history data are lacking from India. The lack of foundational biodiversity information has led to poor opportunities to share knowledge between researchers and community scientists. Mining occurrences through scientific publications or databases (in some cases behind paywalls) may require specialized training. This restricted access inhibits more people from using the abundance of information. The prevalence of social media posts showcasing photographs of species in biodiversity contexts has experienced a significant increase, with a multitude of users sharing wildlife photographs on social media sites such as Instagram®, Facebook®, and Flickr®. These observations on social media are a potential source of primary biodiversity data when curated and validated (Barman and Barve 2022, Barman et al. 2022a). Such data can enhance biodiversity monitoring by expanding spatial and temporal coverage and involving a global network of citizen scientists in conservation research (Barve et al. 2023, Roy 2022, Kulkarni 2023). The India Biodiversity Portal (IBP, Vattakaven et al. 2016) has been cataloguing species diversity and spider data through citizen science. Meanwhile, major social media sites report many more species sightings than citizen science platforms. SpiderIndia, a popular Facebook group, has collected over 20,000 observations from 8,500 spider enthusiasts. However, these data remain unorganised and inaccessible to academic researchers and the public. In order to tackle these problems, we implemented a methodical process to enhance the occurrence data on spiders from well-known social media platforms, such as the SpiderIndia project. The procedure involved retrieving the relevant data, and ingesting it through a custom pipeline to parse and extract, scientific names, spatial and temporal data to generate occurrence records on the IBP. The data was then presented on a curation interface, enabling taxonomic experts to verify the records, and finally publishing the verified records on the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) (Global Biodiversity Information Facility 2022, Barman et al. 2022b) to improve the records of spider species occurrence in India. This project showcases the capacity of citizen science via social media to involve citizen scientists in generating extensive datasets that make a significant contribution to scientific knowledge and improve our comprehension of invertebrate biodiversity. The final dataset encompasses over 15,000 observations, providing valuable insights into spider diversity and distribution across India (Fig. 1). This data is publicly available on GBIF, facilitating further research on Indian spider populations.

Justice on the Digitized Field: Analyzing Online Responses to Technology-Facilitated Informal Justice through Social Network Analysis

Simple SummaryCombining scientific data with knowledge held by fishers may be a good way to help people make decisions about marine ecosystem conservation. The goal of this study was to assess how much fishers in the Azores know about the biology and ecology of six commercially important marine species. This knowledge was then compared to the scientific information already out there to understand its value and complementarity. In the nine islands that make up the archipelago, 105 fishers were interviewed. Findings revealed a reasonable level of agreement between the information provided by fishers and the scientific literature. This reinforced how useful fishers’ experiential knowledge is, especially when scientific information is limited. However, more research should be conducted to ensure the results are more reliable and consistent.Combining scientific information with fishers’ perceptions may be a robust approach for directing decision-makers working with marine ecosystems. This is particularly the case when baseline data on a vulnerable stock are poor, as the integration of fishers’ experiential knowledge can help fill data gaps, as well as inform legitimate management actions, and empower fishing communities in resource management. This study aimed to analyze fishers’ knowledge regarding the biology (reproduction, growth, and maximum size) and temporal changes in the abundance and size of six commercially important marine species (red porgy Pagrus pagrus, veined squid Loligo forbesii, blue jack mackerel Trachurus picturatus, blackspot seabream Pagellus bogaraveo, blackbelly rosefish Helicolenus dactylopterus, and European conger Conger conger) in the Azores small-scale communities. Additionally, a comparison between fishers’ knowledge and available scientific information was performed to determine the former’s value and its possible complementarity with the latter. A total of 105 fishers were surveyed in the nine islands of the archipelago. The results demonstrated a reasonable level of agreement between the information from fishers and scientific literature on the species-specific spawning seasons and growth rates. The median values of size at maturity and maximum length were not statistically different between data sources. Most participants indicated size and abundance trends that were consistent with the literature. This study highlights the usefulness of fishers’ perceptions in improving knowledge about species characteristics and temporal changes in commercially exploited stocks, especially when scientific research is limited, but further research should be encouraged to improve the reliability and consistency of these results.

Web 2.0 and academic debate: Social media challenges traditions in scientific publishing.

Human-nature interactions are ubiquitous and are commonly represented in the digital realm. Here, we aim to harness the rapidly accumulating wealth of new digital data sources and demonstrate that using multiple digital sources can help better understand societal aspects of biodiversity conservation. We explored different digital data platforms, including social media platforms, search engines, online encyclopedias, popular media articles, large online scientific databases, and citizen science platforms. These sources can represent different types of engagement people have with nature by different sectors of society. We assessed and compared the salience of 53 wildflower species in Israel across these digital sources as a test case. We found that different digital platforms highlight different species. Importantly, different platforms focused differently on a) narrow versus wide-ranging species, b) species found in locations that are closer or further away from roads, c) different plant growth forms, d) protected versus non-protected species, and e) endangered versus non-endangered species. These results suggest people have different engagements with nature, in different locations, across different digital data sources. We further show different relationships between salience across the different platforms. For example, the social media platform Flickr highlights unique species not represented in any other platform. Overall, our exploration of digital salience towards wildflowers in Israel demonstrates the importance of analysing multiple digital sources to allow for a more inclusive representation of the public and to better reflect species’ cultural importance online.

Authorship and individualization in the digital public sphere

Unraveling public perceptions of the Sustainable Development Goals for better policy implementation

JACEP open annual report 2022.

Social media has established its place in our daily lives, especially with the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic. It has become the leading source of information for dermatological literacy on various topics, ranging from skin diseases to everyday skincare and cosmetic purposes in the present digital era. Accumulated evidence indicates that accurate medical content constitutes only a tiny fraction of the exponentially growing dermatological information on digital platforms, highlighting an unmet patient need for access to evidence-based information on social media. However, there have been no recent local publications from Turkey analyzing and assessing the key elements in raising dermatological literacy and awareness in digital communication for patients. To the best of our knowledge, this study is the first collaborative work between health care professionals and a social media specialist in the medical literature. Furthermore, it represents the first author-initiated implementation science attempt focusing on the use of social media in addressing dermatological problems, with the primary end point of increasing health literacy and patient benefits. The multidisciplinary expert panel was formed by 4 dermatologists with academic credentials and significant influence in public health and among patients on digital platforms. A social media specialist, who serves as a guest lecturer on "How social media works" at Istanbul Technical University, Turkey, was invited to the panel as an expert on digital communication. The panel members had a kickoff meeting to establish the context for the discussion points. The context of the advisory board meeting was outlined under 5 headlines. Two weeks later, the panel members presented their social media account statistics, defined the main characteristics of dermatology patients on social media, and discussed their experiences with patients on digital platforms. These discussions were organized under the predefined headlines and in line with the current literature. We aimed to collect expert opinions on identifying the main characteristics of individuals interested in dermatological topics and to provide recommendations to help dermatologists increase evidence-based dermatological content on social media. Additionally, experts discussed paradigms for dermatological outreach and the role of dermatologists in reducing misleading information on digital platforms in Turkey. The main concluding remark of this study is that dermatologists should enhance their social media presence to increase evidence-based knowledge by applying the principles of patient-physician communication on digital platforms while maintaining a professional stance. To achieve this goal, dermatologists should share targeted scientific content after increasing their knowledge about the operational rules of digital channels. This includes correctly identifying the needs of those seeking information on social media and preparing a sustainable social media communication plan. This viewpoint reflects Turkish dermatologists' experiences with individuals searching for dermatological information on local digital platforms; therefore, the applicability of recommendations may be limited and should be carefully considered.