Complex Media Environment Research Articles

Issue agenda-setting in the voice to parliament referendum: using big data to explain voice discourse on traditional and social media

ABSTRACT This article explores issue agenda-setting in Australia's 2023 Voice to Parliament referendum, analysing the dynamics of Yes and No campaigns in a diverse media ecosystem. We identify influential messages across this complex media environment using soft clustering of sentence embeddings from large language models (LLMs). Drawing on 3.3 million documents and over 10 million Voice specific sentences from mainstream and social media sources, we identify the narrative configurations of the campaigns, their audience size and engagement. Overall, the Yes campaign dominated with more diverse messaging and greater audience size and engagement than No. Yet, the No case prevailed. We find the narrower, mostly negative No campaign helped sustain the issue agenda both online and offline, forcing Yes to respond to it. The findings also challenge echo chamber theory, revealing most unique topics contained content from both #Yes and #No perspectives, indicating robust public engagement rather than isolated filter bubbles.

More than news! Mapping the deliberative potential of a political online ecosystem with digital trace data

Does the internet facilitate everyday public deliberation? Previous research on this question has largely focused on specific aspects, such as online news media diets or political discussions on social media. However, increasingly complex media environments are composed of different arenas with different respective potential for democracy. While previous work extensively dealt with the quality of political discussion online, it is a necessary but overlooked step, to consider the upstream features of digital infrastructure and usage. Using digital trace data from Germany, this study maps out which websites are relevant for online public discourse, introduces a measure of deliberative potential along six dimensions (information, communication, participation, connectivity, inclusivity and heterogeneity), and explores different types of websites alongside high level usage patterns. Besides a class of mainstream informational hubs, a class of quality information providers that includes most established public broadcasting sites was found. A third class of niche online forums hosts political discussions among more tightly-knit online communities, supporting previous findings of incidental exposure to political content online. While the mainstream information hubs in the sample attract a much larger volume of clicks, users spend relatively more time consuming political information on quality information sites as well as on niche online forums to engage with politics online. This project takes a more holistic perspective of the diverse ecosystem of online deliberation, while presenting a first quantitative exploration of a deliberative system.

Modeling a Novel Approach for Emotion Recognition Using Learning and Natural Language Processing

Various facts, including politics, entertainment, industry, and research fields, are connected to analyzing the audience's emotions. Sentiment Analysis (SA) is a Natural Language Processing (NLP) concept that uses statistical and lexical forms as well as learning techniques to forecast how different types of content in social media will express the audience's neutral, positive, and negative emotions. There is lack of an adequate tool to quantify the characteristics and independent text for assessing the primary audience emotion from the available online social media dataset. The focus of this research is on modeling a cutting-edge method for decoding the connectivity among social media texts and assessing audience emotions. Here, a novel dense layer graph model (DLG-TF) for textual feature analysis is used to analyze the relevant connectedness inside the complex media environment to forecast emotions. The information from the social media dataset is extracted using some popular convolution network models, and the predictions are made by examining the textual properties. The experimental results show that, when compared to different standard emotions, the proposed DLG-TF model accurately predicts a greater number of possible emotions. The macro-average of baseline is 58%, the affective is 55%, the crawl is 55%, and the ultra-dense is 59%, respectively. The feature analysis comparison of baseline, affective, crawl, ultra-dense and DLG-TF using the unsupervised model based on EmoTweet gives the precision, recall, and F1-score of the anticipated model are explained. The micro- and macro-average based on these parameters are compared and analyzed. The macro-average of baseline is 47%, the affective is 46%, the crawl is 50%, and the ultra-dense is 85%, respectively. It makes precise predictions using the social media dataset that is readily available. A few criteria, including accuracy, recall, precision, and F-measure, are assessed and contrasted with alternative methods.

Using Exogenous Social Media Exposure Measures to Assess the Effects of Smokeless Tobacco-Related Social Media Content on Smokeless Tobacco Sales in the United States.

Prior research on the effects of social media promotion of tobacco products has predominantly relied on survey-based self-report measures of marketing exposure, which potentially introduce endogeneity, recall, and selection biases. New approaches can enhance measurement and help better understand the effects of exposure to tobacco-related messages in a dynamic social media marketing environment. We used geolocation-specific tweet rate as an exogenous indicator of exposure to smokeless tobacco (ST)-related content and employed this measure to examine the influence of social media marketing on ST sales. Autoregressive error models were used to analyze the association between the ST-relevant tweet rate (aggregated by 4-week period from February 12, 2017 to June 26, 2021 and scaled by population density) and logarithmic ST unit sales across time by product type (newer, snus, conventional) in the United States, accounting for autocorrelated errors. Interrupted time series approach was used to control for policy change effects. ST product category-related tweet rates were associated with ST unit sales of newer and conventional products, controlling for price, relevant policy events, and the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. On average, 100-unit increase in the number of newer ST-related tweets was associated with 14% increase in unit sales (RR = 1.14; p = .01); 100-unit increase in conventional ST tweets was associated with ~1% increase in unit sales (p = .04). Average price was negatively associated with the unit sales. Study findings reveal that ST social media tweet rate was related to increased ST consumption and illustrate the utility of exogenous measures in conceptualizing and assessing effects in the complex media environment. Tobacco control initiatives should include efforts to monitor the role of social media in promoting tobacco use. Surveillance of social media platforms is critical to monitor emerging tobacco product-related marketing strategies and promotional content reach. Exogenous measures of potential exposure to social media messages can supplement survey data to study media effects on tobacco consumption.

Interfacing as embodied practice: journeys between print, screen and beyond

ABSTRACT This paper develops a concept of interfacing as a heterogeneous zone of interaction, a relational space created by users as they bring together interact with and draw on a range of digital and analogue materials, sources and technologies. It examines the ways tourists and travellers access, engage, use, transfer and blend multiple media sources drawing across both analogue and digital sources as they plan, execute and reflect on the trips and visits they make. It derives from a series of in depth ‘show and tell’ style interviews with 18 participants recruited in the UK. It contributes to the growing literature on digital geographies by exploring the relational spatiality by which individuals build interfacing activities around specific tasks and experiences as heterogeneous and contingent socio-material spaces. It develops a conception of interfacing around two interrelated and iterative sets of embodied practices. These are firstly, assembling and mobilising and secondly intermediating and sense making. Using this twin conception of interfacing as an active making, the paper discusses how and where a conception of interfacing as embodied practice might contribute to understandings of human digital relationships within complex poly media situations and environments.

The rising business of video streaming in Mena

This study examines how the video streaming business is developing in the Arab region. It delineates the video streaming ecosystem and discusse”s the opportunities for video streamers, local and global, to operate and grow in the Arabian market. Similarly, the study discusses video streamers’ challenges in a complex and changing media environment. Using computer-aided analysis software (QSR NVIVO 12), the research analyzes semi-structured interviews with streaming services’ top executives operating in MENA. It found that video streamers capitalize on the sizeable Arab market to grow, the way broadcasters developed the pan-Arab market in the 1990s. Localizing content, developing talent, investing in marketing and analytics, building partnerships, and diversifying memberships and payment models are essential factors in growing the streaming business. Similarly, infrastructure limitations, political context, and underdeveloped markets in the region hinder the sustainability of the streaming business.

Dual‐Mode Polarization Control with Quasi‐Bound States in the Continuum

AbstractFull control of light polarization is one of the most sought‐after functionalities in nanophotonics since it allows the replacement of bulky optical components like wave retarders. Here, the study reports the theoretical and experimental demonstration of an ultra‐compact dual‐mode frequency selective polarization controller that leverages the topological features of symmetry protected quasi‐bound states in the continuum (q‐BICs) supported by a silicon‐based nanostructure. Thanks to q‐BIC resonances, arbitrarily polarized incoming light can be converted into linearly polarized light without resorting to the local phase tuning mechanisms that characterize optical metasurfaces. Moreover, the dual‐mode operating regime allows to select the transmitted polarization without modifying the device orientation, therefore overtaking the concept of the wire grid polarizer. The experimental findings show that the proposed meta‐polarizer possesses an extinction ratio of ≈40 dB for two linear cross‐polarization excitations. These results pave the way for a novel class of ultra‐compact devices that can be used to compensate unwanted birefringence in optical fibers or to control polarization in complex media environments.

Research on the Application of Interdisciplinary Cooperation and Innovation Ability in the Training Model of New Media Art Major

With the rapid development of information technology and the rise of new media,new media art, as an interdisciplinary field that integrates artistic creation and technological application, has put forward higher requirements for talent cultivation. This article explores the application of interdisciplinary cooperation and innovation capabilities in the talent cultivation model of new media art majors. Research has found that interdisciplinary cooperation can promote the integration of knowledge in different fields, enrich students' perspectives, and enhance the diversity and depth of creativity; At the same time, cultivating innovative abilities can enable students to flexibly respond to complex and ever-changing new media environments and propose unique creative solutions. Based on these findings, this article proposes a comprehensive training model for new media art professionals, emphasizing the importance of interdisciplinary team cooperation and innovative ability cultivation, and elaborates on the application methods and effects of this model. It is hoped that this model can provide some reference and reference for the training of new media art major.

How cancer patients get fake cancer information: From TV to YouTube, a qualitative study focusing on fenbendazole scandle.

Korean society has faced challenges in communicating with cancer patients about false information related to complementary alternative medicine. As the situation has become severe with the 2020 fenbendazole scandal, the demand for reliable information from health authorities has increased. This study aimed to examine patients' acquisition patterns and perception of false information by presenting empirical evidence to help health authorities enable effective preemptive responses in the cancer communication context. We conducted a focus group interview with 21 lung cancer patients who were informed about fenbendazole based on a semi-structured questionnaire with three categories: 1) acquisition channel of the general cancer information and the false information, 2) quality of obtained information, and 3) perception toward it. The interviewees, comprising 13 men and eight women, were aged 50 or older. Participants' current stages of cancer were stages one, three, and four and there were seven people in each stage. 1) Acquisition channel: Participants had their first encounter with false information through the TV, while the channels to obtain general cancer information were through Internet communities or portal sites. YouTube was a second channel to actively search for information regardless of the information type. 2) Information quality: participants had only fragmented information through media. 3) Perception: Most patients had a negative attitude toward complementary and alternative medicine information such as fenbendazole. They perceive that it needs to be verified by experts and filtered according to their arbitrary criteria. They had vague expectations based on a hope for "what if" at the same time. Despite the complex media environment, traditional or legacy media is an important channel to encounter information. YouTube is independent of other media as an "active" information-seeking channel. Patients required the appropriate intervention of experts and governments because they perceived that they had obtained irrational and unreliable information from the media. Suggestions are made about how health authorities can construct an effective communication system focusing on the user to prevent patients from getting false cancer information.

The Effects of Tobacco Coverage in the Public Communication Environment on Young People’s Decisions to Smoke Combustible Cigarettes

In today’s complex media environment, does media coverage influence youth and young adults’ (YYA) tobacco use and intentions? We conceptualize the “public communication environment” and effect mediators, then ask whether over time variation in exogenously measured tobacco media coverage from mass and social media sources predicts daily YYA cigarette smoking intentions measured in a rolling nationally representative phone survey (N = 11,847 on 1,147 days between May 2014 and June 2017). Past week anti-tobacco and pro-tobacco content from Twitter, newspapers, broadcast news, Associated Press, and web blogs made coherent scales (thetas = 0.77 and 0.79). Opportunities for exposure to anti-tobacco content in the past week predicted lower intentions to smoke (Odds ratio [OR] = 0.95, p < .05, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.91–1.00). The effect was stronger among current smokers than among nonsmokers (interaction OR = 0.88, p < .05, 95% CI = 0.77–1.00). These findings support specific effects of anti-tobacco media coverage and illustrate a productive general approach to conceptualizing and assessing effects in the complex media environment.

Algorithmic branding through platform assemblages: core conceptions and research directions for a new era of marketing and service management

PurposeContemporary branding transpires in a complex technological and media environment whose key contextual characteristics remain largely unexplained. The article provides a conceptual understanding of the elements of contemporary branding as they take place using networked platforms and explains them as an increasingly important practice that affects customer and manager experience.Design/methodology/approachThis article draws on a variety of recent sources to synthesize a model that offers a more contextualized, comprehensive and up-to-date understanding of how branding has become and is being altered because of the use of branded service platforms and algorithms.FindingsCore terminology about technoculture, technocultural fields, platform assemblages, affordances, algorithms and networks of desire set the foundation for a deeper conceptual understanding of the novel elements of algorithmic branding. Algorithmic branding transcended the mere attachment of specific “mythic” qualities to a product or experience and has morphed into the multidimensional process of using media to manage communication. The goal of marketers is now to use engagement practices as well as algorithmic activation, amplification, customization and connectivity to drive consumers deeper into the brand spiral, entangling them in networks of brand-related desire.Practical implicationsThe model has a range of important managerial implications for brand management and managerial relations. It promotes a understanding of platform brands as service brands. It underscores and models the interconnected role that consumers, devices and algorithms, as well as technology companies and their own service brands play in corporate branding efforts. It suggests that consumers might unduly trust these service platforms. It points to the growing importance of platforms' service brands and the consequent surrender of branding power to technology companies. And it also provides a range of important ethical and pragmatic questions that curious marketers, researchers and policy-makers may examine.Originality/valueThis model provides a fresh look at the important topic of branding today, updating prior conceptions with a comprehensive and contextually grounded model of service platforms and algorithmic branding.

Brand Manager Sensemaking: Cognitive Frames in the Digital Media Environment

Marketers and advertising agencies must navigate an increasingly complex and ambiguous digital media environment. Advertising agencies have responded by adding new roles and removing barriers to integrating digital media into marketing campaigns. Despite these changes aiming to address clients’ needs, the agency-client relationship has reached an all-time low. The current study seeks to close the knowledge gap by examining how brand managers make sense of the digital media environment. Through phenomenological interviews with 18 North American brand managers at large organizations, this research uncovers three cognitive frames: expertise, efficiency, and consistency. These frames support three capabilities—advertising campaign evaluation, digital expertise, and creative development—that marketing organizations are insourcing from advertising agencies. These insourcing trends have significant ramifications for the advertising agency landscape. This research answers the call to gain deeper insight into the marketing organization, applies sensemaking to the digital media environment, and outlines future research opportunities based on three insourcing trends emerging from brand manager interviews.

How Media Literacy and Science Media Literacy Predicted the Adoption of Protective Behaviors Amidst the COVID-19 Pandemic

Individuals must navigate complex media environments filled with frequently changing and varyingly credible information to acquire and apply health information during times of uncertainty and danger. A process model tested in two U.S. national surveys in spring (N = 1220) and summer (N = 1264) of 2020 tested how three media literacy constructs (about sources, content, and science information) predicted the adoption of behaviors protective for COVID-19. Results showed that the three media literacy constructs were mediated by knowledge of COVID-19 (wave 1 TE = 0.190; wave 2 TE = 0.190) and expectancies (wave 1 TE = 0.496; wave 2 TE = 0.613). The model was confirmed as largely consistent across the two waves of data collection with independent samples. Results show the importance of expectancies for mediating the effects of media literacy, efficacy, and knowledge on behavior. The study suggests that media literacy and science media literacy skills aid health behavior adoption by contributing to knowledge gain and expectancies.

On the ‘grand narrative’ of media and mass communication theory and research: a review

This paper offers a genealogy of the field of mass media and communication theory and research, with the purpose of distilling a grand narrative of media studies and communication science. Such a ‘story of stories’ is articulated with recurring concerns over the categories and taxonomies of the communication process, the rapid development and penetration of new information and communication technologies, and attempts by scholars around the world to respond to our increasingly complex and convergent media environment. In conclusion, an argument is developed for a vital, creative, and public way forward for the field.

Images of Political Leaders in Modern Conditions Through the Prism of Classical Concepts

The article considers the possibilities of combining the classical approach to the typology of political leadership and post-Jungian archetypal typologies that arose in the late ’80s of the XX century and are still addressed to the issues of the practical effectiveness of building images in demand by society. The images chosen by politicians to communicate with audiences in today’s complex and contradictory media environment are viewed as an object of directed construction, on the one hand, and the other — as invariably meeting the current needs of society and responding to public demand. At the end of the article, the author makes a conclusion about which types of politicians will soon prevail.

The Normative Theories of the Press in the Digital Age: A Need for Revision

Digital communication is changing media practice, relationship between individuals, media, government and society. We are of the opinion that in the wake of the increasingly complex media environment, the philosophical assumptions of some normative media theories and the media effects theories require reexamination as new models are needed given the current realities. The Delphi method was used to gather experts’ opinions of practicing mass communication practitioners on the applicability of the normative theories given the current social realities. This work focuses on not only the dominant normative theories but also several other proposals and calls for revisit of normative theories of the media developed over the years by scholars in the united states, united kingdom, continental Europe and minimally, third world scholars with a new chart for the rethinking process.

Métodos efectivos de enseñanza en el pensamiento mediático y el modelo de lección por alfabetización en la búsqueda de soluciones prácticas desde la perspectiva de los docentes

La alfabetización mediática es un conjunto de habilidades de aprendizaje referentes a la capacidad de acceder, analizar y crear una variedad de mensajes mediáticos. También la alfabetización mediática es una habilidad esencial en el mundo de hoy. Para avanzar al complejo entorno de medios de hoy, deberíamos poder comprender mejores mensajes de medios. Las personas con conocimientos mediáticos podrán descubrir los mensajes complejos que se encuentran en televisión, radio, periódicos, revistas, libros, vallas publicitarias, Internet y otros medios independientes. También pueden crear sus propios medios y participar activamente en la configuración de la cultura de los medios. En este sentido, el presente estudio ha identificado un nuevo libro sobre “Pensamiento mediático y alfabetización” en las escuelas secundarias, desde la perspectiva de los maestros, desde los aspectos de los métodos de enseñanza, incluidos los contextos, procesos, aportes y resultados. En esta investigación, el tipo de investigación es una aplicada, que se realiza por método descriptivo y encuesta. La población estadística estaba compuesta por todos los maestros del décimo nivel de la escuela en el distrito 18 de Teherán y el tamaño de la muestra se determinó usando la tabla Morgan. Después de una encuesta de docentes, análisis de datos. Los resultados con el uso de One Sample T-Test indicaron que los métodos de enseñanza de este libro fueron de medio a alto, en términos de contextos, entradas, procesos y salidas. Además, los resultados de la prueba de Friedman muestran que la prioridad más importante de los métodos de enseñanza de este libro fueron los factores contextuales, y el factor menos importante son las entradas.

It Only Works if it All Works: An Analysis of Integrated Marketing Communications and its Application for Enrollment Management Marketers

With the challenges presented by a constricting marketplace and shifting demographics, enrollment marketers are under increased pressure to improve recruitment outcomes. To recruit, enrollment marketers must navigate an increasingly complex media environment effected by, media fragmentation, cluttered media experiences, multitasking and evolving media-related consumption behaviors, disjointed customer journeys and shorter paths to purchase. Outside of the industry, this has sparked a renewed interest in integrated marketing communications and cross-channel synergies. Drawing on a review of relevant academic research and guided by enrollment marketing needs, the author offers insight and cross-media applications to strengthen integrated marketing efforts across consumer touchpoints. With an enhanced understanding of integrated marketing communications (IMC) and cross-channel effects, practitioners can develop more effective recruitment campaigns and produce better marketing outcomes.

A 350 °C piezoresistive n-type 4H-SiC pressure sensor for hydraulic and pneumatic pressure tests

It has been a challenge to develop pressure sensors that can work in harsh environments. In this work, a piezoresistive n-type 4H-SiC pressure sensor is demonstrated, capable of working at 350 °C under hydraulic and pneumatic pressure. The pressure measuring range of this sensor is 7 MPa and the chip dimension is 2.5 mm × 2.5 mm × 0.23 mm. A reliable Ti/TaSi2/Pt metal ohmic contact is used in the sensor and experimental results show that the metal combination can withstand a wide temperature range of 30 °C–350 °C. In order to avoid thermal stress induced by the mismatch of thermal expansion coefficients of different packaging materials when increasing temperature, a double-layer bonding scheme of cement glue and epoxy is proposed. The inner layer of the chip and the kovar alloy base are directly bonded with the epoxy, while the outer layer is wrapped with the high-temperature cement glue. Experiments confirm that this method can achieve reliable packaging with temperatures up to 350 °C for 5 h. Based on the above key technologies, the sensitivity of this sensor can reach 13.2 mV V−1 kPa−1 and the test data exhibit high linearity and repeatability. Static tests prove that the sensor has good media compatibility which can operate under a hydraulic pressure load at 220 °C and a barometric pressure load under 350 °C. The sensor in this work can provide a reference for pressure measurements at high temperature and in complex media environments.

Buying media-savviness? Interest groups as clients of public affairs consultants

Public relations agencies are on the rise, and studies have shown that also membership-based interest groups use their services. These agencies employ public affairs consultants who help their clients influence public policy, and their use may have important consequences for interest group systems. As we know little about why interest groups use public affairs consultants and what kind of groups use them the most, we surveyed nationwide interest groups in Finland. We argue that groups use consultants especially when they face challenges with their advocacy strategies. The results show that the more important media strategies are in their advocacy work, the more groups use public affairs consultants. Business groups are more likely to use public affairs consultants than other kinds of groups. When groups’ resources are held constant, more recently established groups use more money on consultants than older groups. We conclude that consultant use may deepen existing biases in interest group politics by strengthening the business groups’ position. The results also imply that media strategies have become especially challenging for groups in the current complex media environment.