Digital Activities Research Articles

Analyzing marketing campaign effectiveness: a comparative approach using traditional and online data analysis methods

Advertising campaign analysis reports are considered an essential tool for marketing analytics. They are used to assess the effectiveness of the marketing activities carried out and to improve future activities. It is necessary to verify whether the actions taken - online and in the public space - align with the intentions and budget, whether they lead to achieving the objectives, and, if not, what the campaign errors are. Due to the ease of collecting and accessing data, analyzing online and social media advertising campaigns is a popular topic. With access to data on the number of clicks, the ad's reach, the number of interactions, and so on, one can move on to the next steps of analyzing the campaign to determine its effectiveness. Online marketing tools have a massive advantage over traditional media channels. When analyzing the results of advertising campaigns, it is necessary to approach the examination of the individual channels and then analyze which of them is the most profitable and in which to invest the most. However, traditional campaigns must be addressed in the analyses. Despite the limited data available, collecting relevant information and analyzing the traditional campaign is worth trying. In the case of conventional campaigns, we can mainly measure the amount of sales resulting from the campaigns. When dealing with an online campaign, we gain many additional indicators, such as the number of ad impressions, clicks, and conversions. In both cases, analysis tools may allow us to isolate factors that significantly influence the success or failure of a campaign and predict the effectiveness of a campaign with given characteristics.

“Can you guess what every woman’s worst nightmare is?”: Good for Her Film, and Contextualising Rape-Revolt in post-Weinstein America and Promising Young Woman

The #MeToo moment following Harvey Weinstein's sexual abuse allegations led to a change in the way we make sense of ra;e allegations within popular discourse. In film, changes to the discursive construction of women's rights movements became key to what Barbara Creed calls the Feminist New Wave cinema. The rape-revenge film inserts itself into this new landscape of social and online activism too, as it starts to evolve into a 'rape-revolt' narrative structure, which aims to treat rape within film as a source of political revolt and a way to challenge institutions which uphold rape culture. Promising Young Woman (Emerald Fennell, 2020) interrogates these changes to the public reception of rape culture within a post-Weinstein framework which allows for a nuanced perspective on rape-revenge, taking into account a flawed criminal justice system, corrupt institutions, and enablers' personal failures. This article argues that the Weinstein scandal and its consequence on public discourse have started to influence the ways in which cinema makes sense of rape, and furthermore situates films of the Feminist New Wave within a movement which social media users have called the 'Good for Her' film. 

Challenging and Enhancing Legitimacy Through Humor: A Comparative Study of Candidates’ Use of Humor on Facebook before the 2019 and 2023 Finnish Parliamentary Elections

A prevalent aspect of contemporary digital campaigning is the use of humor to attract attention, elicit amusement, and mark group boundaries. This study investigates the humor in digital campaigns during two recent Finnish parliamentary elections, focusing on how different styles of humor are used to (de)legitimize political ideas and actors. Our original dataset consists of 125,604 posts by 1262 candidates on Facebook six months before the 2019 and 2023 election days. Using Facebook’s haha reactions and manual coding to annotate humor style, we focused on 729 posts with seemingly intentional humor by candidates. We show how different parties and individual candidates used humor to varying degrees and in different styles. Overall, the proportion of humorous posts was not high, but the populist radical right Finns Party candidates used humor by far the most, and their style was primarily aggressive, aimed at delegitimizing the incumbent government, political opponents, and their reference groups. Candidates from other major parties also used some humor, but overall the tone was more positive. Some of these candidates were profiled as “humor specialists” who produced similar combinations of ridicule and anti-elitism as the Finns Party candidates or, alternatively, focused on disseminating self-deprecating and affiliative humor. Affiliative and self-deprecating humor was used to foster closeness, ordinariness, and spontaneity, thus legitimizing oneself as a relatable candidate. The paper discusses how candidates use humor strategically to stand out in a competition for attention between candidates, and elaborates on the implications of using different humor styles in strategic political communication.

HUBUNGAN PARENTAL-PEER ATTACHMENT DENGAN SELF-ESTEEM PADA PEMAIN INTERNET GAMING

There are many internet-based activities, one of which is internet gaming, which, at a certain level of frequency, can lead individuals to internet addiction. This research, conducted with meticulous attention to detail, aims to determine the relationship between parental-peer attachment and self-esteem as two factors that are closely related to internet addiction behavior. The study was meticulously conducted on 38 young adult male and female internet gaming players using the Inventory of Parent and Peer Attachment-Revised (IPPA-R) and the Self-Esteem Scale (SES). Data were rigorously analyzed using one-tailed Spearman statistical analysis. The results show a positive relationship between Parental-Peer Attachment and Self-Esteem in internet gaming players. The alienation dimension in Mother, Father, and Peer Attachment has the most significant relationship. Self-competence and Self-liking dimensions have a negative relationship, so that these two dimensions will decrease or increase if one dimension experiences a decrease or increase. Further studies on the other psychological factors that underly internet gaming behavior potentially support the prevention of addiction.

Dynamics of Online Campaign Implementation in Regional Head Elections (Case Study of the 2020 Simultaneous Regional Head Elections in Semarang)

The covid-19 pandemic has caused the implementation of the 2020 Simultaneous Regional Head Elections in Semarang to face a few challenges. All stages must adapt to health protocols. Including the campaign stages which must be online-based. With this new method, many party doubt about the effectiveness. Therefore, the objectives of this study are to examine how the dynamics of the implementation of online campaign stages in the 2020 Simultaneous Regional Head Elections in Semarang, as well as to find out what problems still need to be fixed..

Journalists’ Ethical Responsibility: Tackling Hate Speech Against Women Politicians in Social Media Through Natural Language Processing Techniques

Social media has led to a redefinition of the journalist’s role. Specifically on Twitter, these professionals assume an influential position and their discourse is dominated by personal opinions. Taking into consideration that this platform has proven to be a breeding ground for polarization, digital harassment and hate speech, notably against women politicians, this research aims to analyze journalists’ involvement in this complex scenario. The investigation aims to determine whether, immersed in online and gender defamation campaigns, journalists enhance the quality of public debate or, on the contrary, they reinforce the visibility of this hostile content. To this end, we examined a sample of 63,926 tweets published from 23 to 25 November 2022 related to a campaign of political violence against the Spanish Minister of Equality using Natural Language Processing tools and qualitative content analysis. Results show that during those three days, at least half of the tweets contained hate speech and improper language. In this climate of hostility, journalists participating in the debate not only have an ability to attract likes and retweets but also exhibit polarization and use hate speech. Each ideological position—for and against the Minister—is also reflected in their own uncivil strategies. Under the umbrella of free speech and regardless of argumentative discourses, those journalists who lean towards ideological progressivism tend to insult their opponents, and those on the political right use divisive constructions, stereotyping and irony as attack techniques.

Pengaruh Aktivis Mahasiswa Dalam Perubahan Sosial Politik Di Era Digital 5.0

The study explores how student activists at the Islamic State University of North Sumatra (UINSU) influence the socio-political dynamics of the digital era 5.0. This era is marked by technological advances that integrate the physical, digital, and biological worlds, thus providing a new platform for student activism. Student activists not only act as agents of change through social and political activities, but they also use digital technology to expand their influence. The research uses a survey method with structured questionnaires distributed to UINSU student activists, as well as a qualitative approach to gaining an in-depth understanding of their views, attitudes, and experiences of socio-political change. Research findings indicate that student activists effectively use social media and digital technology for campaigns and mobilization. Through social media and internet platforms, activists can quickly mobilize people and draw attention to key topics such as gender equality, climate change, and human rights on a global scale. In the digital age of 5.0, student activists can also more successfully challenge existing forces by using digital tactics, including online campaigns, digital petitions, and online boycott movements, in addition to conducting physical demonstrations in public spaces. They not only use technology as a tool of struggle, but also as a new space for building critical awareness and solidarity. However, the research also finds challenges faced by student activists, such as the spread of disinformation and hoaxes, digital gaps, and technology access. Nonetheless, student activists continue to adapt quickly and innovate to overcome these barriers. The study provides significant insights into the role of digital technology in student activism and its implications for healthy political participation in the digital age 5.0, as well as solutions to strengthen the integrity of democracy at the local level.

Wo∼Men and Leadership: Re-Thinking the State of Research on Gender and Leadership Through Waves of Feminist Thinking

Feminist thinking has contributed to changing views of women in society and in leadership positions. Yet women are still underrepresented in leadership, especially in key roles and at higher organizational ranks. In this commentary we examine the past, present, and future of leadership theories through a gendered lens, by considering them against the backdrop of feminist theory evolution. We first organize existing leadership theories according to four main feminist waves— gender reform feminism or “fixing the women” which corresponds with liberal feminism; gender resistance feminism or “the female advantage,” reflecting radical feminism; the gender rebellion feminism or “how is a wo(man) defined,” according to postmodern and intersectionality theories, and gender digital feminism or “hashtag and clicktivism revolution” that focuses on social media, cyber activism, sexual violence, and complex intersectionality. We further examine the implications and research findings of these theories for women and men in leadership. Second, we review the publications on gender and leadership in two exemplary journals publishing leadership research in the field between 2019 and 2022 and explore to which feminist wave the published works relate. We show that themes related to the first two waves of feminist thinking continue to be dominant in current leadership research and encourage moving into new terrains, utilizing current feminist thinking, in the study of leadership and gender. Finally, we raise awareness that in a gendered society, leadership theories may reproduce and reconstruct the existing social order and gendered arrangements, as well as map novel directions for future research.

Becoming augmented: The latent possibilities of ethnography in a pandemic

For all its wretched ways, COVID:19 has installed new possibilities to the way we do ethnographic research. Due to pandemic restrictions, my research on how digital activists in Sri Lanka acquire influence on social media fell into three distinct phases: (i) digital ethnography from London, (ii) datafied approaches in Helsinki and (iii) traditional fieldwork in Colombo. The article’s objective is not to provincialise the three cases, but to demonstrate how each phase is tightly bound together and serve to imagine new possibilities in research design. Vlad Glăveanu contents that ‘human beings live “amphibious” lives – at once in the realm of the actual and the possible’ to emphasis the misty line between what is real and what can be manifested by innovation and action. Not dissimilar to this amphibiousness, I argue that human beings also live ‘augmented’ lives, at once in the realm of in real life (IRL) and online spaces and experiences mediated by digital technologies. My fingers, ears and eyes, while in London, Helsinki or Colombo, were always partly submerged in digital worlds, and it was this augmentation that enabled the long-term engagement that good ethnography demands.

Motherhood rights and digital activism: An interview with Francesca Fiore and Sarah Malnerich, content creators of the account @mammadimerda

The work of content creators and digital activists Francesca Fiore and Sarah Malnerich actively engages their followers to criticize both the outdated model of Italian maternalism and the current neoliberal discourse of intensive motherhood. Through their blog and Facebook and Instagram accounts, @mammadimerda, Fiore and Malnerich actively rebuke and critique the proliferation of media images of intensive motherhood as normative and successful. In particular, Fiore and Malnerich take issue with both the sacrificial mother model and the new momism neoliberal idea of the super-mom. They use the self-branding non-farcela (we can’t make it) motto as a feminist critique of gendered parental roles and systemic inequality in the workplace. In their stories and posts, they invite followers to share their experiences as ‘imperfect’ mothers, and they start and promote calls for action on better governmental policies for working mothers. For instance, during the COVID-19 pandemic, Fiore and Malnerich actively mobilized their followers, creating petitions and social media campaigns aimed at pushing the government to re-open schools or provide financial aid in support of women’s employment. In this article, I interview Fiore and Malnerich about their digital activism on mothers and women’s rights in Italy, focusing on their campaigns on gender equality during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Hashtag feminism: identity politics and the politicization of social change in Iran

ABSTRACT Hashtag feminism has launched a critical dialogue about women’s identity politics, domestic and social power structures, and the intersectional nature of discriminatory gender policies. Despite the fact that Twitter is officially blocked in Iran, hashtag activism has remained a vital venue for fourth-wave feminists to participate in networks and become more politically active. This study focused on the most popular hashtags, posted by 10 well-known feminist accounts (2021–2022) along with 1200 disseminated re-tweets. With the employment of reflexive thematic analysis, it explored the activists’ transformative social demands and their tactics of political coalition-building. Four extracted themes, along with nine subthemes, suggested that digital activists gave precedence to recognition and respect for their identity exempt from gender roles and feminine socialization constraints. The quest for moral plurality and tolerance for women’s modern liberties and rights stood out over the sampled tweets. Holding Islam in contempt for allegedly “discriminatory” laws and practices as well as petitioning the Islamic Republic to obtain legislative power and equal positions was an indication of their incentives for political re-structuring. Using various techniques of civil disobedience and resistance, Iranian fourth wavers took the leadership of a civil movement for the western agenda of “regime change.”

Celebrification through Media Spectacles: Emerging Forms of Performativity in Indian Politics

We live at a time when new forms of mediatisation are conditioning the political landscape of India, especially in the context of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections in the country. As heat wave conditions prevailed in many parts of the country, the quantity of time spent by politicians for on-ground campaigning was lesser in comparison with earlier elections. The hostile climatic conditions together with the intensity of digital empowerment, access to smartphones and availability of cheap data facilitated the formation of a thriving ecosystem of digital campaigning. The country witnessed political parties using digital spaces to an unprecedented level to inform, influence and even mislead the prospective voters. The focus of the paper will be on the strategic use of social media networks for the current elections in India to transform politicians into celebrities and the acts of performativity choreographed to entice the citizens with media spectacles.

Cyber Activism in Iran: A Case Study

One of the most obvious characteristics of Iran’s protests in September 2022 is the emergence of a type of cyber activism that, unlike mass activism, is formed first in cyberspace. Networks have redefined social action and structure in our societies and have important consequences on production processes, power, and culture, challenging political systems, and creating legitimacy crises. The subject of the present research is important because cyber activism has an external aspect and has changed the shape of Iran’s social movements. This article is based on the Twitter data analysis method and using MAXQDA. Referring to Castells’ network society theory, it addresses this question: What role did the Twitter play in September 2022 in Mahsa Amini’s social movement? This article shows that the Twitter, in the context of existing dissatisfactions and in the absence of active organizations and parties, has led to an increase in cyberactivism in Iran. This cyberactivism encompasses mass self-communication, occupation of urban space, horizontal leadership, globalization of messages, mobilization and guidance of public opinion, nationalism, the subjectivity of women, and their identification has been its external manifestation.

Mental Health Crisis in the Digital Era: The Role of Mass Media in Increasing Awareness and Access to Services

The development of technology and mass media has had an impact on people's mental well-being. One of them is the increasing prevalence of mental health disorders, such as depression and anxiety, which are directly related to social media use, work pressure, and the social isolation that results from digital life. The aim of this research is to examine the role of mass media in increasing awareness and access to mental health services. The research method used is descriptive analysis with a qualitative approach, involving surveys and interviews with respondents representing various age groups and social backgrounds. Data were collected to evaluate the extent to which mass media provide accurate and educational information about mental health and facilitate access to appropriate support services. The research results show that mass media has an important role in increasing public awareness about mental health issues. Articles, television programs and online campaigns have succeeded in turning negative stigma into a broader understanding of mental health. In addition, the media also plays a role in promoting available mental health services, such as counseling and therapy, thereby increasing accessibility for individuals who need them. The conclusion of this research confirms that mass media has great potential to be an effective tool in overcoming the mental health crisis in the digital era. By providing appropriate and educational information and facilitating access to mental health services, mass media can act as an agent of positive change in an effort to improve people's mental well-being. Therefore, cooperation between the government, health institutions and mass media is very important to create a supportive environment for individuals who experience mental health problems in this digital era.

Digital activism and authoritarian legitimation in post-Soviet Central Asia

Scholarly research on the role of digital activism in authoritarian settings has largely centered around debates on “liberation technology” versus “networked authoritarianism”. In this article we aim to extend existing research by linking authoritarian legitimation theories with emerging scholarship on digital activism. We examine Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, two autocracies in post-Soviet Central Asia, and show how non-democratic regimes use digital activism for legitimation purposes. Our study draws on 33 qualitative in-depth interviews with digital activists and state officials in both countries to generate critical comparative insights into how modern autocracies function in the digital age. Our analysis suggests that autocracies use four mutually inclusive and escalating legitimation mechanisms (limited participation, outputs legitimation, regime discourse, and targeted repression) in their interactions with digital activists to become more resilient.

A Consistent Picture? Issue‐Based Campaigning on Facebook During the 2021 German Federal Election Campaign

In times of declining party identification, political parties need to persuade and mobilize their voters from election to election. Setting topics in such a way that voters are convinced to cast their vote has become an essential prerequisite for success in modern election campaigns. Social media are suitable for this, as parties can set their own topics or highlight the topics most important to the voters and communicate them to a large audience in organic posts or target specific voter groups with ads. While tendencies of issue ownership in posts on Facebook are repeatedly shown empirically, there is a lack of studies investigating which strategies parties follow in their investment decisions on Facebook ads. Based on theoretical expectations derived from the literature about digital political marketing and issue prioritization in election campaigns, this article investigates whether parties communicated consistently on Facebook with regard to the issues they set in organic posts, sponsored posts, and ads during the 2021 German federal election campaign. The results of a manual quantitative content analysis (n = 1,029 posts, n = 1,197 sponsored posts, n = 2,643 ads) show that parties focused on issue ownership in their posts. Still, their investments in sponsored posts and ads followed different strategies. Here, most parties highlighted social policy, contradicting issue ownership for some parties. The article provides novel insights into digital campaigning and discusses the extent to which parties can engage audiences beyond their organic reach within party-affiliated audiences.

From Civil Society Organisations to Pirate Parties to Digital Democracy

Reshaping our political and social systems for a sustainable future requires a multifaceted approach that addresses several key areas, such as: political reform, social change, economic development, environmental preservation, or technological innovation. In order to achieve a sustainable future, we need to implement its ideals in every societal sector. When dealing with the political system, we cannot ignore the antidemocratic tendencies arising or taking over our everyday life even in the Western World. Under these circumstances, political reform is a must and we have to admit that one of its most important tasks is strengthening democracy. The actual political discourse is full of ideas like proportional representation, direct democracy, sustainability-focused governance, transparency, accountability, and equity. Among the many actors that try to solve these problems there is a group that proposes some new solutions, based on the means of Information Society, Pirate Parties. Emerging from the digital world, they are a fresh wave of political movements with deep roots in online activism. These parties, some born from anti-establishment protests, have rapidly spread across the globe in just two decades. Their journey is one of transformation, from grassroots movements to established political players. Pirate Parties have a clear digital agenda, focusing on issues like copyright reform, open access to information, and online privacy. They champion net neutrality and the free flow of knowledge. However, most of them have recognized the importance of broader democratic values for political success. Beyond their digital focus, Pirate Parties also advocate for traditional democratic ideals, including civil rights, transparency, and combating corruption. They promote free speech, direct democracy, and exploring alternative forms of citizen participation in government, often leveraging technology (e-democracy). The future impact of Pirate Parties remains uncertain, but their influence is undeniable. They’ve challenged traditional political norms and brought issues of the digital age to the forefront. Pirate Parties have reshaped the European political landscape and inspired similar movements around the world. My paper aims to briefly present these political formations, with special regard to their origins in and their relations with civil society. After outlining the broad framework, I present some of the most notorious of these formations.

REGULATION OF FINANCING OF ONLINE ELECTION CAMPAIGNS: INTERNATIONAL PRACTICE AND ELECTIONS IN KAZAKHSTAN

This study attempts to identify the extent to which current legislation on electoral campaigning is effective in addressing digital forms of campaigning. Ensuring that all forms of campaigning by political parties and candidates adheres to principles of transparency and equality is instrumental in preserving the integrity of elections. The data used for this research includes the analysis of legislation from the European Union, the United Kingdom, the United States and Canada. Research also uses data on campaign advertising regulation introduced in the run-up to the 2023 parliamentary elections in Kazakhstan. Evidence suggests that legislation has been slow to respond to ever evolving forms of digital campaigning. In the context of Kazakhstan, while certain improvements have been introduced in legislation, it mostly relates to extending existing norms aimed at traditional campaign tools (TV and print media). As such, it is insufficient in addressing some of the bigger concerns related to financial accountability during elections. Given the latest developments in technology as it is used in political context, more measures are required for proper regulation.

Digital Communication and the Rise of Online Activism

Digital Communication and the Rise of Online Activism

Let us play something else: Thoughts on ‘games are different’ and game scholarship in the Trump era

This piece takes its cue from a pair of incidents – a not unfamiliar theme in game studies – relating to game scholarship and its engagement with right-wing politics. In the first case, well-known game scholar Bonnie ‘Bo’ Ruberg called on editors and reviewers to stop insisting that scholars include a reference to a certain online campaign of harassment, doxing and threats of physical violence. In the second case, I had a reviewer insist that I had to include a reference to the ‘Fortnite to alt-right pipeline’ because clearly games were causing alt-right lunacy. To be sure, these both constitute genre criticism – among others – at its most reductive and cynical, deciding what the institutional and audience expectations entail based on an assumption of the industrial ones. Then, biographical criticism and assertions about authorial intent or the necessary ‘touchstones’ began to appear. There seems to be a consistent and persistent insistence that somehow even the best and most accomplished scholars should forget decades of scholarship because ‘games are different’ and this tendency has been conditioned and shaped by reading games through the ‘lens’ of the Trump presidency. This is important because it confirms that essays about games still tend to fit into one of the two boxes Ruberg ticks: game scholars who are not necessarily adept at the specific content area or specialists in a given field who are not really game scholars. It is telling and symptomatic of the centripetal and centrifugal movements in game studies; that is, from within and without. Admittedly, games are different, but not so different that we should forget or ignore decades of scholarship or worse, do not bother to find out if it exists at all. Not only are many of these positions ahistorical – ignoring the fact that, as some much maligned games quite cleverly point out repeatedly within, the same things have been said about the corrupting power of soap operas, romance novels, comic books, wrestling, rap and hip hop, backwards masking in heavy metal and plain old rock ‘n’ roll – the positions are also tacitly or unwittingly ageist, classist and/or occasionally racist, homophobic and transphobic even as the author purports to be concerned with inequitable representations. Moreover, there are peculiarly US American concerns that are transposed onto ostensibly universal ones. These reveal that even the most ‘woke’ of the American left can be a cultural imperialist and that American exceptionalism is inescapable if not ineluctable.