While older adults' social media use has been widely studied for its instrumental benefits, such as accessing health information or maintaining family ties, research has largely focused on identity-based platforms that mirror offline social networks, leaving pseudonymous, interest-driven environments such as Reddit underexplored. Although older adults actively participate in these spaces to share personal narratives and engage beyond their existing social roles, the literature has yet to center their own voices, with most existing work focusing on caregivers or younger users discussing older adults rather than older adults speaking for themselves. Integrating a life course perspective with the concept of subjective age cohort, this study examines how Reddit users who explicitly self-identify as being in their 50s, 60s, or 70s engage in self-expression and personal experience sharing within pseudonymous online spaces. Using data collected via the Reddit application programming interface, this study analyzed posts and comments from 848 self-identified older Reddit users, including 488 future older adults in their 50s (57.5%) and 360 current older adults in their 60s and 70s (42.5%) identified through age-based flairs in the subreddit r/AskOldPeople. A fine-tuned large language model (BLOOM-560m; F1-score=0.96) classified 4,055,275 sentences into three personal experience domains: (1) health and wellness, (2) personal relationships and identity, and (3) professional and financial life. Chi-square analysis compared domain distributions across age groups. BERTopic topic modeling identified thematic patterns within each domain. Of 569,107 personal experience sentences identified, personal relationships and identity comprised the largest share (n=268,212, 47.1%), followed by professional and financial (n=186,768, 32.8%) and health and wellness (n=114,127, 20.1%). Chi-square analysis revealed significant between-group differences (χ22=34.7; P<.001): current older adults shared proportionally more about health and wellness, whereas future older adults shared more about relationships and identity. Topic modeling further revealed qualitatively distinct emphases within each domain. Future older adults' posts frequently discussed menopause, depression, and friendships, while current older adults more frequently addressed chronic illness, aging, and financial security. Both groups used pseudonymity to disclose sensitive or stigmatized topics. This study demonstrates that older adults' personal experience sharing on pseudonymous platforms is shaped by the simultaneous interplay of life course stage, age cohort background, and platform affordances, rather than by any single factor. Pseudonymous environments such as Reddit enable disclosures of health vulnerabilities, contested social identities, and emotional experiences that are structurally discouraged on identity-based networks, and this has direct implications for how digital inclusion is conceptualized and practiced. Beyond operational literacy, supporting older adults' expressive inclusion in interest-based, pseudonymous online communities represents a meaningful yet underaddressed dimension of digital participation policy.

Introduction Against the backdrop of population aging and rapid digitalization in China, the new generation of older adults faces a growing paradox of digital inclusion. While digital participation can generate important benefits, it may also produce physical discomfort, health risks, psychological strain, and behavioral dependence. Methods To achieve healthy and sustainable digital participation, this study develops an integrated framework drawing on dramaturgical, Motivation-Opportunity-Ability (MOA), and optimal distinctiveness theories and proposes a pathway linking digital inclusion, identity reconstruction, and digital addiction. Identity reconstruction is conceptualized as a five-stage process comprising identity formulation, identification, dissemination, co-construction, and maintenance. Then algorithmic perception, platform pressure, and digital reflection are further introduced as moderating variables. Using a mixed-methods design that combines structural equation modeling and fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis, this study validates the proposed framework and identifies three patterns of digital addiction: identity operation, identity reinforcement, and norm-guided. Results The findings indicate that digital inclusion does not directly trigger digital addiction but indirectly influences sustained use through multiple stages of identity reconstruction. Moreover, algorithmic perception, platform pressure, and digital reflection exert differentiated moderating effects on the relationship between identity reconstruction and digital addiction. The three identified patterns move beyond conventional explanations based on limited digital skills, cognitive decline, or insufficient self-control, and instead reveal the central role of differentiated identity mechanisms in the formation of digital addiction. Discussion These findings advance our understanding of the unintended consequences of digital inclusion and point to the need for multilevel interventions that better align identity needs, platform structures, and social support.

Women’s empowerment has become a pivotal concern in the digital era, with social media emerging as a significant platform for expression, participation, and visibility. This study examines how social media environments contribute tothe enhancement of women’s confidence, agency,andsocio-culturalrepresentation.It investigates the ways in which digital interactions enable women to challenge traditional barriers, assesses opportunities for leadership, and evaluates the transformative role of online communities. Thestudyalsoscrutinizesthelimitationsof social media, including online harassment, algorithmic biases, and privacy concerns, which can restrict women’s digital participation. By providing a critical overview of empowerment factors and constraints, this research analyzes the extent to which social media acts as a remarkable yet complex tool for empowerment. Consequently, the findings highlight the need for safer, inclusive, and supportive digital ecosystems that strengthen women’s voices and ensure equitable engagement across online platforms.

This phenomenological study investigated how Department of Education (DepEd) teachers in the Philippines experience and interpret their engagement in social media content creation alongside formal teaching responsibilities. In a context characterized by high digital participation and expanding creator economies, the study specifically analyzed motivations, identity construction, boundary-setting practices, monetization decisions, and instructional adaptations shaped by sustained online engagement. Five purposively selected public-school teachers from the elementary and secondary levels, each with a minimum of six months of active content creation experience, participated in in-depth, semi-structured interviews. Data were transcribed verbatim and analyzed using a systematic phenomenological procedure guided by Creswell’s six-step framework. Trustworthiness was established through credibility checks, audit trails, reflexive bracketing, and thematic validation. The study identifies eight main themes: (1) Passion Meets Platform: The Spark Behind the Screen; (2) Balancing Acts: Navigating Dual Roles with Grit; (3) Beyond the Classroom: Growth, Gains, and Gratitude; (4) Redefining the Teacher Identity: Empowerment Through Expression; (5) Ethics and Boundaries: Navigating Professionalism in the Digital Space; (6) From Stress to Self-Care: Content Creation as Emotional Outlet; (7) Monetization as Motivation: The Financial Frontier of Teaching; and (8) Inspiring by Example: Teachers as Digital Role Models. Results indicate that participants deliberately engineered their digital identities, applied platform analytics to refine communication strategies, and constructed public personas aligned with institutional expectations and audience demands. The most significant realization was that teachers can and should systematically study how content creators navigate digital infrastructures, shape public identities, and strategically deploy online tools for the benefit of their students. The study demonstrates that teacher influencers function as pedagogical practices beyond the classroom, a strategy for income generation, and an intentional redefinition of professional roles under conditions of constant online visibility and audience feedback.

This paper examines the Gen Z September 2025 movement in Nepal to explain how endemic corruption, deep socioeconomic disenchantment, and digitally native activism converged to generate an unprecedented wave of political change. It aims to analyze the movement’s rapid escalation, the constitutional “fault line” it exposed between revolutionary digital legitimacy and established constitutional legality, and the broader implications of this crisis in terms of regional contagion and governance instability. The study employs a mixed-methods approach combining qualitative textual analysis of geopolitical reporting with quantitative analysis of digital mobilization metrics. Empirical evidence includes data on digital participation, such as a Discord poll used to select a new Prime Minister, indicating that political authority was, in part, derived through digital channels. The findings suggest that the uprising was structurally shaped by the breakdown of neoliberal policies, entrenched high-level corruption, and the influence of external actors, including the United States through the MCC, India’s geopolitical influence, and the role of INGOs and EDPs, which collectively contributed to domestic instability through weak institutional ownership. The paper concludes that the movement precipitated the downfall of the government and triggered a constitutional crisis. Its contribution lies in highlighting how digital political legitimacy can destabilize conventional constitutional frameworks when combined with systemic corruption, external geopolitical pressures, and severe social inequality, thereby underscoring the need to move beyond revolution-era accountability toward deeper structural reforms addressing governance failures and the contradictions underlying violent instability.

This study examines the relationship between social media use for political information, digital citizen participation, and media credibility in Arequipa, Peru's second-largest city. The sample consisted of 4,769 adults residing in urban areas of four provinces. A quantitative, non-experimental, cross-sectional design with a correlational-explanatory scope was used. Data were collected using a structured questionnaire administered in person between November and December 2024. The analysis was performed using structural equation modeling with Partial Least Squares (PLS-SEM) using SmartPLS 4.0. The main findings are: (1) the use of social media for political information is positively associated with digital citizen participation (β = 0.614, p &lt; 0.001); (2) the use of social media is negatively associated with media credibility (β = -0.312, p &lt; 0.001); (3) digital citizen participation is negatively associated with media credibility (β = -0.418, p &lt; 0.001); (4) digital citizen participation partially mediates the relationship between social media use and media credibility (VAF = 45.2%); (5) age moderates platform preference, with young users adopting TikTok and Instagram more intensely; and (6) socioeconomic status moderates the relationship between social media use and media credibility, being more negative in lower socioeconomic strata. Facebook dominates with 75.1% among social media and 42% among all information sources, while 66% of respondents report a negative image of journalists. The results show changes in information consumption patterns, with digital platforms replacing traditional media and eroding media credibility.

To investigate the experiences of individuals attending an online hearing voices peer support group (HVG) conducted within the UK's National Health Service (NHS). The purpose of the study was to assess acceptability of the HVG in an NHS context and to understand relational dynamics within the group. A nested qualitative study was conducted within a non-randomised feasibility trial of an online HVG. All participants (N = 9) completed baseline and end-of-study qualitative interviews about their voice hearing and group experiences. Interviews were analysed using framework analysis. Data were organised into four themes. Participants described two orientation tendencies within the group, both with associated subthemes: (1) seeking connection (shame and isolation spurred interest in the group, active digital participation and engagement facilitated a sense of connection, value of an alternative); and (2) seeking to learn (searching for solutions, cameras enabled the modulation of engagement but inhibited group ownership, a useful addition to care). Participants likewise described (3) voices' experiences in the group; and (4) the impact of the group (impact on voices, impact on sense of self and hope for the future). Despite their differing expectations for the group, experiences in the group and relationship with the online medium of the group, both the participants seeking connection and those seeking to learn reported benefits from group attendance in terms of self-acceptance and hope for the future. Further research is needed to understand how to incorporate this survivor-led approach into the NHS.

ABSTRACT This study contributes to the growing literature on inclusivity and underrepresentation in co-creation by employing a conjoint experiment with Belgian citizens (N = 1,119) on four design characteristics: participation channel, level, impact, and phase. The channel appeared to be the most influential characteristic, and highlights the positive effect of hybrid participation channels, local governance levels, and the co-deciding phase for the general population. The subgroup analysis exhibited that those with low political interest and low motivation expressed stronger preferences for digital participation compared to their counterparts. Individuals with lower levels of education demonstrated a stronger preference for analogue participation than their counterparts.

The Meetings, Events, Exhibitions, and Conventions (MEEC) industry has undergone a transformative shift toward hybrid event formats, integrating physical and digital participation post pandemic. This evolution has accelerated the adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) across event planning, execution, and evaluation, necessitating a reconceptualization of leadership in hybrid contexts. This research note introduces AI-Enhanced Experiential Leadership (AIEL), a conceptual framework that positions AI as a co-creative partner while emphasizing leadership mediation to generate cognitive, emotional, and social participant outcomes. Grounded in experiential, servant, and transformational leadership theories, AIEL delineates AI-enabled mechanisms including personalization, immersive infrastructures, accessibility, and sustainability analytics and explains how leadership translates these technological inputs into ethically responsible, inclusive, and engaging hybrid experiences. The framework also identifies risks such as algorithmic bias, data governance challenges, and over-automation, highlighting the critical role of human judgment, ethical oversight, and organizational readiness. The research proposes empirical pathways for validating AIEL and provides practical implications for MEEC practitioners, emphasizing the orchestration of AI-human collaboration, participant-centric design, and sustainability-conscious operations. AIEL thus offers a theoretically grounded and actionable model for advancing hybrid event leadership in the digital era.

The impact of digital readiness and human resource on the green development of traditional manufacturing industry

ABSTRACT Using data from the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2022, this study examines the impact of digital capital on middle school students’ creative thinking. The sample includes 12,333 15-year-old students from Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan in China. Digital capital is measured across three dimensions: usage frequency, usage ability, and usage interest. The results show that digital capital has an overall positive effect on creative thinking. Further analysis reveals clear dimensional heterogeneity: usage frequency shows a negative or non-linear association, whereas usage ability and usage interest have significant positive effects. These findings suggest that creative development depends not simply on more digital participation, but on the quality and motivational orientation of digital engagement. Further analyses show that the positive effect varies by gender, parental education, and school location. Mechanism analysis indicates that digital capital promotes creative thinking through self-efficacy, assertiveness, empathy, and curiosity. These findings deepen understanding of how digital capital shapes creative development and provide implications for fostering creative thinking in the digital era.

The article provides a political science analysis of the transformation of war legitimacy mechanisms in the context of a platformized public sphere, with a particular focus on the role of influencers and networked actors. Drawing on classical theories of political legitimacy and contemporary approaches to digital political communication, the study argues that sources of societal support for war are increasingly shifting from institutional actors to non-institutional, personalized, and network-based forms of political legitimation. The article introduces and conceptualizes the concept of warwashing as an analytical category describing a structural effect of influencer-driven political action within platformized environments. Warwashing is not treated as a form of propaganda or manipulation, but rather as a set of recurring influencer and networked communicative practices through which war is symbolically converted into a resource of political legitimacy. Within this process, war comes to be perceived as socially intelligible, morally justified, and politically self-evident, often outside formal procedures of democratic accountability. Methodologically, the study employs a qualitative political science approach based on comparative case study analysis. The empirical section examines three types of cases representing different configurations of influencer-based war legitimacy: personalized influencer practices, decentralized networked communities, and pseudo-journalistic formats of conflict normalization. The analysis demonstrates that influencers function as autonomous political actors capable of producing alternative regimes of war legitimacy independently of formal political institutions. Special attention is devoted to the implications of influencer-based legitimacy for the political socialization of Generation Z. The findings indicate that for younger audiences war is increasingly experienced as a platform-mediated political phenomenon shaped by personalized narratives, low-threshold digital participation, and affective engagement. These dynamics carry long-term consequences for democratic accountability, institutional trust, and patterns of political participation in the post-war period. The article contributes to broader political science debates on legitimacy, digital power, and the role of influencers in contemporary public politics during wartime. Keywords: political legitimacy, war policy, warwashing, influencers, platformized public sphere, digital political communication, political socialization, Generation Z.

The article examines theoretical approaches toevaluating online citizen engagement within thesystem of public governance. Based on a systematic review of academic publications, the fragmentationof existing evaluation models of digital participation is identified. Key groups of indicators characterizingtechnical, organizational, and societal dimensions of efficiency are determined. It is established that thereduction of transaction costs in digital interaction creates conditions for improving administrativeperformance and generating public value. Amultidimensional conceptual model integratingtechnological, institutional, and socio-economic parameters of online citizen engagement evaluation isdeveloped. The proposed structure enables digital participation mechanisms to be interpreted asinstruments for enhancing the economic and institutional efficiency of the public sector and may serve asa basis for further operationalization of indicators and empirical verification.

In conditions of liquid modernity, marked by accelerated technological change, the virtualization of essential services, and the erosion of stable institutional support, digital participation in later life is less a matter of initial access than of continuously renegotiating engagement within unstable socio-technical environments. While established technology adoption models such as TAM, UTAUT, and STAM have provided robust explanations of cognitive and age-related determinants of adoption, they remain limited in accounting for the relational processes through which technological engagement is learned, stabilized, and sustained over time. This article advances a relational perspective on technology appropriation by foregrounding the role of warm experts—trusted informal supporters who mediate learning, interpretation, and adaptation in everyday contexts. Moving beyond dyadic understandings of assistance, the paper conceptualizes mediation as a distributed ecology of roles embedded within relational networks that both enable and constrain digital inclusion. Building on this perspective, the study proposes the Relational Technology Appropriation Model (RELTAM) as a general multi-level architecture integrating individual determinants, relational mediation processes, and network-level support configurations within a dynamic framework of appropriation. The Relational (Older Adult) Technology Appropriation Model (REL(OA)TAM) is introduced as a context-specific instantiation of this broader framework, calibrated to the distinctive conditions of later life. By incorporating temporal instability and mediation ecologies as structural components, REL(OA)TAM offers a socially grounded account of digital inclusion as an ongoing process of adaptive negotiation within the fluid and uncertain conditions of liquid modernity.

ABSTRACT Blind podcasters in China are reshaping digital participation through sound. Within an ecology structured by visual normativity, they mobilize podcasting not only as an accessible medium but as a site of sonic authorship, infrastructural negotiation, and sensory reconfiguration. Drawing on digital ethnography and interviews with 15 participants, this article examines how blind creators deploy embodied editing, metadata tactics, and para-infrastructural strategies to challenge the underlying logic of platform infrastructure and co-create sonic publics. These practices position podcasting as a form of infrastructural imagination where accessibility is authored through voice, rhythm, and resonance. We theorize blind podcasting through three interwoven frames: dematerialized participation, sensory reconfiguration, and infrastructural resistance, showing how creators transform constraints into creative recoding. Situated at the intersection of media, disability, and platform studies, this article contributes to debates on sensory politics, distributed authorship, and reconfiguring participation. By centring blind podcasting as sonic resistance and innovation, we call for a shift from access-as-consumption to access-as-authorship, and from inclusion to infrastructural transformation.

ABSTRACT This study investigates how Interactive Learning Environments (ILEs) that integrate advanced software tools, collaborative digital platforms, immersive technologies, and AI support learning processes within digital art education contexts. This study investigated the impact of technology on boundaries of possible artistic expression in digital art through a mixed-methods study of 575 survey respondents – comprising 320 digital artists as learners and 255 art technicians, and 47 follow-on interviews that gathered rich qualitative data. Quantitative data were analyzed using Smart-PLS, and qualitative data were analyzed using Nvivo. The study demonstrates that (1) Advanced Software Tools Created an Enhanced Creative Workflow, (2) Collaborative Digital Platforms Enhanced a Range of Artistic Expression, (3) AR Provided a Seemingly Expansive Spatial and Immersive Experience in Digital Installations, and (4) AI allowed for Generative Creativity, creativity that extends or transports imagined forms of art and creativity via non-traditional arts and science based methods. These findings underpin the potential for a transformative digital art world using technology as a creative agent. This study deepens the growing field of human–technology interaction in creative domains, and sets up many research opportunities for the future of digital participation, collaboration, and immersion, and AI-enabled creative applications.

This article maps and prioritises the foundational developmental needs of children and adolescents: social development, cognitive growth, emotional regulation, identity formation, and moral reasoning. Early and excessive digital engagement is then examined for its potential to impact these milestones, with consequences that reverberate through wellbeing, relationships, and lifelong resilience. Arguments which frame digital engagement as an individual right with potential benefits, downplay developmental risks. Drawing on developmental rights and agency frameworks, the current review disputes the prevailing assumption that digital participation should take precedence over healthy developmental trajectories. Instead, the debate is reframed around children's evolving capacities. It is proposed that digital entitlements are nested within age-appropriate limits and supports. Protecting the best interests of the child requires recognising the risk of addictive technology use. The rights of the child must also ensure cultivation of emotional competence and self-reliance. Overemphasis on digital expression risks elevating performative self-presentation before moral reasoning, critical thinking, and offline social skills have matured, particularly within environments shaped by algorithmic amplification, transient relationships, peer harassment, and the desire for validation. To address these risks, we advocate for a multi-layered public health response: consistent, developmentally attuned messaging; empowered parents and educators; whole-school strategies; and policy reforms that prioritise safety, accountability, and developmental alignment. By situating digital engagement within a developmental framework, this article proposes key principles on which to base the discussion of safeguarding youth wellbeing in the digital era.

ABSTRACT This study investigates the motivations driving armchair football fandom, a form of remote engagement that has often been overlooked in favour of stadium-based perspectives. Using a qualitative approach, semi-structured interviews with 25 fans were conducted who primarily consume football from home. The data were analysed through grounded theory coding procedures. Findings reveal five interrelated motivations: psychological comfort, social practices, technological convenience, personal circumstances, and cultural expectations. Rather than being passive spectators, armchair fans construct meaning and identity through mediated and individualized practices that substitute physical co-presence with digital participation and domestic ritual. These insights highlight the entanglement of individual motives with broader media and cultural structures. The study contributes to football scholarship by expanding understandings of fan engagement beyond consumption and stadium attendance, offering a more nuanced account of how identity, culture, and technology shape contemporary fandom.

Against the backdrop of the continuous integration of the platform economy and the digital entertainment industry, virtual idols have emerged as a crucial media form connecting cultural participation, digital labor, and capital operation. Drawing on theoretical frameworks such as participatory culture, playbour, and platform capitalism, this paper takes Hatsune Miku as a case study to analyze how its platform structure, intellectual property arrangements, and commercialization mechanisms organize the digital participation practices of fans and creators. The research finds that through layered governance and peer production mechanisms, Hatsune Miku has buffered the common risk of labor precarity in platformized production to a certain extent, preventing cultural participation from being fully transformed into exploited digital labor. This paper thus argues that the structural differences in institutional design among different virtual idol platforms are key factors shaping participation forms and labor relations.

The rapid development of the digital age has transformed education, governance, economics, and social interaction by making online participation a key agent of development. However, the digital age has also witnessed a parallel surge in cybercrimes, specifically targeting women—manifesting as online harassment, cyberstalking, identity theft, financial fraud, sextortion, gendered disinformation and sexual exploitation. These cybercrimes cause psychological, financial, and social harm and act as substantial barriers to women’s participation and empowerment in digital domains, thus impeding their holistic development in society. It intersects with patriarchy, economic inequality, and the digital divide, producing cumulative disadvantages for women. Studies like (Sarma, 2024), (Ahlawat &amp;amp; Sharma, 2024) &amp;amp; (Vaishnav &amp;amp; Dewan, 2024) have shown that the prominent presence of gender-based cybercrime limits women’s access to educational, economic, and other official opportunities online. This withdrawal weakens inclusive growth, slows innovation, and reinforces patriarchal exclusion. According to UN Women (2022), one in three women worldwide has experienced some form of online violence, with younger women and women in public life facing the highest risk. The objectives of the study are to identify the most prevalent forms of cybercrime targeting women in the digital age and evaluate the impact of such cybercrimes on women’s personal, professional, and social development. This study shall be conducted through an online survey targeting 60-80 participants in Kolkata on types of cybercrime experienced, frequency, reporting behaviour, psychological impact, awareness and the impact on their digital participation. Convenience random sampling shall ensure the representativeness of the population’s probability of being a victim of cybercrime. The quantitative data shall be analysed through descriptive graphs. The data shall also be thematically analysed to uncover recurring patterns and socio-cultural factors. This research will contribute to the sociological understanding of how gendered online violence functions as a barrier to inclusive development in the digital age.