Digital Media Landscape Research Articles

The rise, growth, and future of branded content in the digital media landscape

The advertising field has witnessed a dramatic transformation over the past decade. This contribution to the IJA 40th anniversary special issue deals with (digital) branded content; any output fully/partly funded or at least endorsed by the legal owner of the brand which promotes the owner’s brand values, and makes audiences choose to engage with the brand based on a pull logic due to its entertainment, information, and/or education value. We sketch the rise and growth of native advertising and content marketing as two major branded content types in the digital era and describe how the topic has been covered in academic advertising research in the past decade. We conclude with a future outlook for advertising research and practice in hope of encouraging further academic research on the topic and providing insights to practitioners to further develop their digital branded content.

A public value typology for public service broadcasting in the UK

ABSTRACT Rapid changes in audience habits, media technologies and market dynamics have prompted searching questions about the role and relevance of public service broadcasting (PSB) in the modern digital media landscape. In the UK, where cultural policymaking is increasingly politicised, the normative ideals traditionally associated with PSB are being openly contested. This article evaluates how PSB generates varied forms of “public value” of benefit to viewing and listening publics, policy stakeholders and the creative sector. On the basis of its qualitative analysis of policy documents and related research literatures over two decades, a typology of six values – social, cultural, economic, industrial, representational and civic – is identified and critiqued across regulatory and institutional frameworks. In assessing the challenges, risks and opportunities for sustaining these public values, this article offers its typology for informing cultural and media policy debates on the future of PSB in the UK and beyond.

The Relevance of Digital News: Themes, Scales and Temporalities

In news research, news relevance was for long synonymous with how journalists constructed it. But recently, scholars have questioned the assumption that journalists’ preferences correspond with their audiences’. Several studies have approached news relevance from the audience point of view, showing audiences’ news relevance is constructed as an everyday practice, through assessments of topics and brands, and at the backdrop of users’ earlier experiences. News relevance from the audience perspective however still remains undertheorized and builds on traditional understandings of news journalism. This article aims to contribute to this debate with (1) a matrix of four types of news relevance, constructed from an analysis of how young Swedish adults construct news relevance in the contemporary digital media landscape, (2) the identification of three dimensions that distinguish different kinds of news relevance from each other, and (3) a theoretical definition of news relevance from the audience’s perspective grounded in phenomenological theory and empirical analysis. This papers hence provides a deeper theoretical and empirical understanding of the ways news, understood as something broader than news journalism, is considered relevant by young audiences.

News recommender systems: a programmatic research review

ABSTRACT News recommender systems (NRS) are becoming a ubiquitous part of the digital media landscape. Particularly in the realm of political news, the adoption of NRS can significantly impact journalistic distribution, in turn affecting journalistic work practices and news consumption. Thus, NRS touch both the supply and demand of political news. In recent years, there has been a strong increase in research on NRS. Yet, the field remains dispersed across supply and demand research perspectives. Therefore, the contribution of this programmatic research review is threefold. First, we conduct a scoping study to review scholarly work on the journalistic supply and user demand sides. Second, we identify underexplored areas. Finally, we advance five recommendations for future research from a political communication perspective.

Winnowing Fake vs Fact: Media Literacy and Media Message Evaluation Practices of First-Time Voter College Students

This study investigated the level of media literacy and its influence on the most prevalent media message evaluation practices of first-time Filipino college-student voters. It compared the level of media literacy components—using media devices, understanding media, and contributing to media content, and how these influence evaluation of media messages. It is significant in the current learning context as students are immersed in a digital media landscape filled with unverified data, misinformation, and biased, distorted updates. Thus, looking into voters’ capacity to discern and discriminate between facts and fake information is necessary so that interventions may be adopted. Results indicate a self-reported mean of 2.83 in using media devices; 3 in understanding media; and 3 in contributing to media content. Further, the most prevalent media information evaluation practice is to consider message and meaning rather than the author and intended audience, or what media represents and if it reflects reality. Finally, understanding media is the most significant predictor influencing the prevalent media message evaluation practices of participants in the study.

Digital Leadership of School Heads and Job Satisfaction of Teachers in the Philippines during the Pandemic

This study examines school heads' digital leadership as a predictor of teachers' job satisfaction in the Philippines during the pandemic. A total of 520 public school teachers across the 16 regions of the country answered the validated online survey questionnaires between March and May 2022. With the descriptive-predictive research design, descriptive statistics, and regression analysis, the study finds that school heads have a satisfactory level of digital leadership as perceived by their teachers. This finding suggests that Filipino school heads can, at least to a satisfactory level, guide their schools and stakeholders toward digital transformation to remain adaptable and competitive in a rapidly changing digital and social media landscape. Furthermore, Filipino teachers experienced satisfactory job satisfaction during the pandemic, which suggests that they continue to cope with and adapt to the new work and educational changes despite the plethora of challenges and transitions. Finally, this study reveals that school heads' digital leadership predicts teachers' job satisfaction. When leaders are competent to lead and model in the digital age, their subordinates become more satisfied with their work. Therefore, training programs for improving school heads' digital leadership are necessary to enhance their teachers' job satisfaction, especially since technology plays a significant part in diverse educational activities.

Social Media, News Media, and the Democratic Deficit. Can the Blockchain Make a Difference?

This paper addresses the following main question: In what respect does the blockchain technology have potentials to alleviate and/or intensify some of the problems of the information and communication sector? Divided into four sections, the paper first explores the democratic deficit within the context of an informed citizenry. This section includes a study of the current public sphere, post-truth politics and populism. Second, it addresses the current information and communication system. The section investigates today’s social media, and an ever-changing digital news media landscape. Third, it explores four prevalent approaches toward reforming the information and communication system. These are fact-checking and debunking, media literacy, regulation and policy reform, and self-regulation. The fourth section addresses the central question of the study concerning blockchain technology. This disruptive database technology has potential to offer solutions to regaining trust in the information ecosystem yet like other approaches, placed within existing socio-economic structures, falls short in reversing the democratic deficit.

The variable use of diacritics in synchronous computer-mediated French discourse: Replication research

AbstractThis study promotes replication research as a methodological approach that is needed in order to compare earlier and more recent analyses of digital discourse. When much of the existing research was conducted, the primary means of communication included the use of a computer keyboard, (presumably) less bandwidth, and fewer devices. However, with an increase of the range of device types, the study of diacritics deserves another look within the Digital Media landscape. The present study examines the variable use of diacritics in synchronous (i.e., real-time) French chat discourse. We have replicated a study with different data sets from the same chat corpus, which is composed of data from a European chat server. We have also compared the data from the 2008 half of the corpus to data from the same chat channels collected in 2016 (just over 60,000 words in each half of the corpus, which included a total of 7,569 tokens that were coded). Our analysis of the 2008 corpus showed that one main finding was not the same as ours (from a different part of the 2008 corpus). Moreover, a diachronic analysis (2008 vs. 2016) revealed reversed trends between the two age-based channels (i.e., 20s vs. 50s).

Bringing digital well-being into the heart of digital media literacies

The complexities of our digital media landscape present challenges that often strain the physical, emotional, and social well-being of learners and educators alike. Given these challenges, this essay makes a case for incorporating digital well-being into digital and media literacy curricula and pedagogy. For the author, a focus on digital well-being, or the capacity to pursue health, safety, and happiness online, has sparked a shift in pedagogical values and goals. Following a discussion of the nature of digital well-being, the author charts this shift through an example lesson about online identity. Bringing digital well-being into the heart of digital media literacies means reconsidering both the ‘what’ and ‘how’ of our teaching.

Introducing Italy’s Intercultural Digital Media: Mapping the Landscape

ABSTRACT The paper focuses on a particular case of alternative media that emerged in Italy from the early 2000s offering alternatives to mainstream media coverage of immigration and cultural diversity. Involving practitioners of diverse immigrant backgrounds as well as of single Italian heritage, Italy’s intercultural digital media represent an under-researched media form with the potential to add complexity to and re-think the boundaries of the widely researched field of ‘ethnic minority media’. Drawing on a detailed mapping of the intercultural digital media landscape, the study critically examines the key dimensions of the platforms including the socio-cultural context of emergence, agenda, and organisational-economic structures. The analysis shows that while these platforms are geared towards more pluralist, inclusive and democratic media practices, the realisation of an inter-cultural media agenda grounded on common civic goals involves a careful cultural politics of negotiation with established discourses and funding resources. Furthermore, the transient nature of public and political debates situated in specific socio-cultural contexts determines the availability of funding opportunities and may limit the financial viability of the platforms. Overall, the study introduces and critically examines Italy’s intercultural digital media as an object of research potential by offering an insight into the possibilities and limitations of interculturalism in practice.

Digital Intimacy in Real Time: Live Streaming Gender and Sexuality

This article serves as the guest editors’ introduction to the Television and New Media special issue dedicated to gender and sexuality in live streaming. Live streaming is a key part of the contemporary digital media landscape; it sits at the center of wide-reaching shifts in how culture, entertainment, and labor are expressed and experienced online today. Gender and sexuality are crucial elements of live streaming. Across live streaming’s many forms, these elements manifest in myriad ways: from gendered performances to gender-based harassment, from LGBTQ community building to real-time sex work. This special issue models an interdisciplinary approach to studying gender and sexuality in live streaming, featuring scholarship from the humanities, social sciences, and human-computer interaction. It also serves as an impassioned call to those who study technological tools and platforms like live streaming to pay attention to the crucial roles that identity, power, embodiment, and intimacy play in these technologies. There can be no full cultural understanding of live streaming that does not address its entanglements with sexuality and gender.

Educators as Content Creators in a Diverse Digital Media Landscape

Educators as Content Creators in a Diverse Digital Media Landscape

Challenges in the collaboration between researchers and in-house communication professionals in the digital media landscape

In the changing science communication landscape, researchers may govern their public science-society relations through the social media connections at their fingertips. However, digital media outreach may create challenges for researchers and cause changes in the communication professionals' role. The aim of this qualitative interview study was to enhance understanding of the challenges in the rarely explored organizational collaboration between researchers and communication professionals. The results identify ambiguous duties and responsibilities, as well as blurring boundaries of occupational roles and coordination challenges in content production.

Conceptualizing science communication in flux — a framework for analyzing science communication in a digital media environment

The pace and scope of digital transformation has brought about fundamental changes to science communication. These changes have so far hardly been reflected in the underlying concepts of science communication as field of research and practice. Against this backdrop, this paper asks how science communication can be conceptualized in response to fundamental societal changes brought about by digital transformation. In response to this question, this paper builds on the results of a Delphi study with 31 outstanding international science communication scholars. It presents a shared approach that conceptualizes online science communication broadly and tackles different points of view by identifying specific characteristics that enable the distinction of different settings of science communication. It is argued that such an approach should be more appropriate for a contemporary analysis of science communication and also helpful for professional communicators and policymakers to understand the interactions of science and society in the context of the digital media landscape.

Digital Media Landscape in Brazil: Political (Mis)Information and Participation on Facebook and WhatsApp

WhatsApp is one of the most used messaging platforms across the globe and is particularly prominent in the Global South. Despite being a private messaging app, WhatsApp is becoming an important platform for political information and political talk, which raises concerns about the spread of misinformation on the platform. This paper presents comprehensive descriptive results of a national survey of internet users in Brazil, focusing on political information on social media. Our data shows that Brazilians are very active social media users, particularly on Facebook and WhatsApp, and consider these platforms very important to fulfill a myriad of political and informational aims. However, they also demonstrate great concern about the quality and accuracy of information circulating online. Despite finding significant differences in how these two platforms are used, the data suggests that WhatsApp is becoming central to how Brazilians have access to and engage with politics.

News as They Know It: Young Adults’ Information Repertoires in the Digital Media Landscape

Despite an “audience turn” in journalism studies, confusion persists about the experiences driving audience engagement. Young adults are especially intriguing in this regard, as they have grown up in digital environments, are less willing to pay for journalism, and lack key historical catalysts for the formation of news habits. Accordingly, this article investigates the information repertoires of this group, using a mixed-method approach to focus upon the preferences and experiences of Danish youth, aged 18–24. Crafting an innovative research design integrating individual interviews, Q-sort methodology, and think aloud protocols, the article explores five repertoires: the online traditionalist, depth-seeking audiophile, digital news seeker, interpersonal networker, and non-news information seeker. In these repertoires, “traditional” journalistic media is often eschewed, while “new” media come to the fore. The paper also examines two analytical themes cutting across repertoires: a tension between the seamlessness of where news is (“platform newsiness”) versus how it is conceptualized (“traditional journalism”); and the guiding role of face-to-face communication and social networks when engaging with news. In sum, by exploring the formation of information repertoires at this crucial life stage, the article provides insights into a key demographic, whose practices and preferences shape the news industry’s ongoing sustainability.

Writing between the ‘red lines’: Morocco’s digital media landscape

This article presents an overview of the emergence of online news sites, which has radically altered news provision and media consumption patterns in Morocco. This sector has rapidly become a strategic site. Firstly, its precedence over print media and national television networks does not only stem from the high traffic figures of news websites. Along with certain social platforms, these websites are the only vehicules for 24/7 news in a country which currently has just one such news channel and where, in spite of the ‘liberalisation’ of media, national networks provide very institutionalised news programs based on the activities of the state official institutions and of the monarchy. Secondly, certain domestic Arabic-language news websites have become the main platform for the voicing of political dissent. Based on 31 interviews, the article briefly describes the historical development of the online press, since the ‘February 20th Movement’ of 2011. This case study provides a good example of the new challenges surrounding the control of information: an issue long shaped by the limitation of news provision to duly authorised political and journalistic organisations and by limited ‘demand’ resulting from widespread illiteracy. This article describes how the Moroccan establishment react to the explosive growth of online news media by creating new mechanisms to control it.

Let’s Get Ready to Unbundle! It’s Time for the UFC to Offer Individual Fights For Purchase

Author(s): Cornor, Nick | Abstract: A bedrock principle of U.S. Copyright law normally dictates that when a person steals your original work of authorship, a court should issue an injunction and require the violator to pay damages. For centuries this principle has sufficed; however, a lack of deep-pocket defendants and continued lobbying efforts by internet service providers have made this principle untenable when applied to illegal online streaming. This is especially true for the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), a mixed martial arts promoter that has seen its live broadcasts pirated over the internet at an alarming rate, thereby threatening the bulk of its revenue.This Comment advocates that the UFC unbundle its current pay-per-view business model in favor of charging market-based prices for each individual fight. The primary benefit of this approach includes increased revenue for the UFC by enticing consumers away from illegal online streaming with lower prices. Potential adjacent benefits include reforming fighter compensation schemes, incentivizing fighters to promote their own individual fights, easing controversies regarding unionization efforts by the fighters, and providing the UFC with greater marketing data. Therefore, by unbundling its business model, the UFC will ultimately be able to bypass the shortcomings of U.S. Copyright law and take the lead in a digital media landscape already changing at lightning speeds.

From Rivers to Confetti: Reconfigurations of Time through New Media Narratives

From Rivers to Confetti: Reconfigurations of Time through New Media Narratives

Social media engagement behavior

Purpose Organizations are investing heavily in social media yet have little understanding of the effects of social media content on user engagement. This study aims to determine the distinct effects of informational, entertaining, remunerative and relational content on the passive and active engagement behavior of social media users. Design/methodology/approach Facebook Insights and NCapture are used to extract data from the Facebook pages of 12 wine brands over a 12-month period. A multivariate linear regression analysis investigates the effects of content on consuming, contributing and creating engagement behavior. Findings Results reveal distinct effects of rational and emotional appeals on social media engagement behavior. Rational appeals in social media have a superior effect in terms of facilitating active and passive engagement among social media users, whereas emotional appeals facilitate passive rather than highly active engagement behavior, despite the social and interactive nature of the digital media landscape. Research limitations/implications Results contribute directly to understanding engagement and customer experience with social media. Further theoretical and empirical examination in this area will aid in understanding the dynamic nature of the levels of engagement within social media. Practical implications Findings provide managers and practitioners with guidelines and opportunities for strategic development of social media content to enhance engagement among consumers in a social media forum. Originality/value This study is one of the first to empirically examine the construct of social media engagement behavior. It extends the utility of dual processing theory to demonstrate how rational and emotional message appeals result in online engagement.