News Feeds Research Articles

The Impact of Use Social Media in Communication Flow from State House to Traditional Media in Tanzania

The media has historically obtained and disseminated government information to the public through newspapers, radio, and television. Before the advent of social media, Journalists obtained information from the State House through telegraph, telephone, fax, and in-person encounters between the President's communication officers and journalists. Over twenty years, the State House Communications Department has enhanced its communication methods and effectively utilized social media platforms to engage with journalists and the public. However, little focus on scientific research has been done to assess the impact of social media on communication flow from Tanzania’s state house to traditional media. Therefore, the study evaluated the application of new media in the Presidential Communication Directorate in disseminating news to the mainstream media. The study used a descriptive design and mixed-methods approach, combining qualitative and quantitative methodologies. The qualitative delved into individual viewpoints on news collection using new media, while the quantitative evaluated respondents' perspectives. The State House Communication Unit has shifted its use of social media platforms enhancing networking among journalists, providing quick information access, and being cost-effective. However, the shift has led to decreased personal communication, a decline in exclusive news, an increase in false information propagation, and the emergence of citizen journalism. Journalists should improve their social media skills to maintain high-quality media reporting. The Statehouse should enhance its 24/7 media unit operations. The study highlighted the challenges and significance of using social media for news dissemination and gathering. The study involved media professional practitioner’s and President's communication officers who identified significance and challenges and suggested how to improve media production and contents.

Seasonal changes in the feeding aggregation structure of male sperm whales (Physeter macrocephalus) in Northern Norway

AbstractThe sperm whale (Physeter macrocephalus) is one of the most widely distributed cetaceans. Adult males commonly occupy high latitudes, whereas females and juveniles occupy lower latitudes. In Northern Norway, previous studies focused on the summer period limiting our understanding of the seasonal dynamics of male foraging aggregations. We used year‐round capture–mark–recapture data based on photo identification between 2009 and 2023 to examine seasonal patterns within a male aggregation off Andøya, Northern Norway. Our analysis encompassed 426 days of data, 111 days in winter (October–April) and 315 days in summer (May–September). Among 365 identified individuals, 29% were encountered across multiple years. A higher number of individuals could be identified in winter compared to summer. The mean estimated residency time was shorter in winter (13 days) than in summer (18 days). We identified four groups with distinct seasonal preferences in occurrence and residency, suggesting seasonal and individual foraging and social patterns. Despite the marked seasonal patterns, the relatively short residency times imply this area constitutes only a fraction of the broader foraging range of sperm whales in the Northeast Atlantic. This study highlights the year‐round presence of sperm whales in the area, emphasizing their individual seasonal preferences.

Uncovering latent profiles of political news consumers and their associations with political views and their extremity

Abstract In today's high-choice media environment, the relations between news consumption and (extreme) political views receive extensive attention. While social media and news aggregators are often blamed for political polarization, theories from media psychology highlight the importance of additional aspects of news consumption, aside from the media types used, in impacting the formation of political views and thereby, for instance, polarization. However, these aspects are typically studied in isolation, neglecting the heterogeneity in where and how news can be consumed. Based on this observation, the present work investigated the conjoint relations of various aspects of news consumption across media types with political views and their extremity. Study 1 included two samples of N = 714 (sample 1) and N = 721 (sample 2) participants completing an online survey assessing political news consumption habits and general political views, namely, ideology and affective polarization. Study 2 included two samples of N = 725 (sample 3) and N = 713 (sample 4) participants completing scales on issue-specific political views, namely, attitudes on war and the war against Ukraine. Latent Profile Analyses revealed four mostly media type-specific news consumer profiles replicated across samples, indicating that individuals choose one media type, like social media, aggregators, or print media, and devote considerable time to consuming political news from various sources, including attitude-incongruent news and diverse perspectives, from the same selected media type. While these profiles differed on sociodemographic and personality variables, few significant relations were found between these profiles and political views. These findings highlight the complexity of these relations and challenge the assumption that only certain media types, and news consumption via them, drive political extremity.

Operation Blue Star in the History of India: 40 Years Later

Development of the Punjab crisis by the early 1980s along with separatist activities aimed at the secession of Punjab and establishment of an independent Khalistan state in the North-West of India prompted the central government headed by Indira Gandhi (1917–1984) to go to the length of sanctioning an army operation codenamed Blue Star in early June 1984. Its aim was to remove the militants headed by charismatic Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale (1947–1984) who had taken cover in the Golden Temple (Harmandir Sahib) complex in Amritsar. Hundreds of civilians, mostly Sikhs, fell victims to the operation Blue Star, parts of the temple complex were severely damaged, and unique manuscripts and books were destroyed in fire. In the collective memory of the Sikhs, this tragedy is sometimes interpreted as teeja ghallughara (‘third massacre/carnage’) or genocide of the followers of Guru Nanak (1469–1539), the founder of Sikhism. With June approaching, every year the tragic events of 1984 become part of India’s news feed representing an important argument in the rhetoric of political parties and communities.

Designing a Prototype Platform for Real-Time Event Extraction: A Scalable Natural Language Processing and Data Mining Approach

In this paper, we present a modular, high-performance prototype platform for real-time event extraction, designed to address key challenges in processing large volumes of unstructured data across applications like crisis management, social media monitoring and news aggregation. The prototype integrates advanced natural language processing (NLP) techniques (Term Frequency–Inverse Document Frequency (TF-IDF), Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI), Named Entity Recognition (NER)) with data mining strategies to improve precision in relevance scoring, clustering and entity extraction. The platform is designed to handle real-time constraints in an efficient manner, by combining TF-IDF, LSI and NER into a hybrid pipeline. Unlike the transformer-based architectures that often struggle with latency, our prototype is scalable and flexible enough to support various domains like disaster management and social media monitoring. The initial quantitative and qualitative evaluations demonstrate the platform’s efficiency, accuracy, scalability, and are validated by metrics like F1-score, response time, and user satisfaction. Its design has a balance between fast computation and precise semantic analysis, and this can make it effective for applications that necessitate rapid processing. This prototype offers a robust foundation for high-frequency data processing, adaptable and scalable for real-time scenarios. In our future work, we will further explore contextual understanding, scalability through microservices and cross-platform data fusion for expanded event coverage.

Work Sync 360

To optimize project and task management in businesses, WorkSync 360 is a stand-alone internet solution that doesn't require any additional tools. It offers a user-friendly interface for keeping track of, arranging, and enhancing work processes. Timely job distribution, deadline control, and real-time progress tracking are critical components that enhance productivity and teamwork. With its news feed, discussion boards, and tools for involving coworkers, WorkSync 360 acts as a safe haven for internal communication, encouraging transparency and information sharing. Task dependencies, connected calendars, file sharing, and other essential technologies are combined by WorkSync 360 to centralize project management operations. Teams are able to improve teamwork, achieve operational efficiency, and effectively manage projects in a single digital environment.

Friends or Foes? Exploring the Framing of Artificial Intelligence Innovations in Africa-Focused Journalism

The rise and widespread use of generative AI technologies, including ChatGPT, Claude, Synthesia, DALL-E, Gemini, Meta AI, and others, have raised fresh concerns in journalism practice. While the development represents a source of hope and optimism for some practitioners, including journalists and editors, others express a cautious outlook given the possibilities of its misuse. By leveraging the Google News aggregator service, this research conducts a content and thematic analysis of Africa-focused journalistic articles that touch on the impacts of artificial intelligence technology in journalism practice. Findings indicate that, while the coverage is predominantly positive, the tone of the articles reflects a news industry cautiously navigating the integration of AI. Ethical concerns regarding AI use in journalism were frequently highlighted, which indicates significant apprehension on the part of the news outlets. A close assessment of views presented in a smaller portion of the reviewed articles revealed a sense of unease around the conversation of power in the hands of tech giants. The impact of AI on the financial stability of media outlets was framed as minimal at present, suggesting a neutral, wait-and-see position of news outlets. Our analysis of predominantly quoted sources in the articles revealed that industry professionals and technology experts emerge as the most vocal voices shaping the narrative around AI’s practical applications and technical capabilities in the continent.

Assessing the use of remote underwater video (RUV) to identify fish and their feeding behaviour in New Zealand's Greenshell™ mussel (Perna canaliculus) farms

Fish predation poses a significant and escalating challenge for the global mussel aquaculture industry. In New Zealand, Greenshell™ mussel farms experience crop losses of up to 100 % that are anecdotally attributed to fish predation, although the fish species responsible have not been confirmed. In this study, remote underwater video (RUV) was used to observe fish activity within four mussel farms at different stages of production in the Firth of Thames, New Zealand. The RUV enabled the identification of the fish species inhabiting mussel farms, including those responsible for predating cultured mussels. Four fish species were identified as frequent inhabitants of the mussel farms, with Australasian snapper (Chrysophrys auratus) and parore (Girella tricuspidata) the most abundant at three out of four mussel farm sites. Australasian snapper was the most common predator, taking as many as 2880 bites of the dropper lines holding mussels in a single 11 min 47 s video recording. Snapper formed feeding aggregations around dropper lines holding juvenile mussels (> 20 mm SL), indicating their potential to remove mussels from nursery farms in a short amount of time. Observations of the feeding behaviour of parore indicated their potential to contribute to the losses of mussels on recently seeded spat farms with these fish recorded tearing apart seeded lines, possibly targeting the macroalgae that is seeded out with the mussel spat. Besides confirming the identity and the predatory behaviour of fish species that are contributing to crop losses from mussel farms in New Zealand, this study also confirms the effectiveness of RUV methods for this purpose. This knowledge can be used to begin to develop mitigation strategies aimed at reducing crop losses in mussel aquaculture.

Teufelsspuk und Feuerflammen: Pfarrer Josua Finsler (1525-1602) über Unglaubliches aus Biel und Umgebung

The chorherr (canon), Johann Jakob Wick of Zurich drew the material for his voluminous collection of news (Wickiana) from a dense network of intelligence. The information from Bern and Biel was provided here and there by the lesser known citizen of Zurich, deacon Josua Finsler, who lived in Biel. The article spotlights the "Miraculous Sign" of February 1572 in Biel and the diverse interpretations of the event by these two contemporaries. The "Reformed" eschatological understanding of Wick is compared to Finsler’s more rationalist worldview coloured by science.

Blogging in the field of higher education: theoretical and practical experience of leading HEIs of Europe

Methods. The results were obtained through the use of empirical research methods (description of the components of blogging and activities of higher educational institutions in the blogosphere), theoretical methods (analysis, synthesis, abstraction, generalization, explanation, classification of blogging in the field of education). The study covers socio-communication, system and functional approaches, content analysis, elements of SWOT analysis. Results. It is substantiated that the main parameters of an educational blog are the topic, structure and format of content, criteria for publication, dynamics of publications, rules of participation, confidentiality, protection of intellectual property. The principles on the basis of which an educational blog should be created and developed are highlighted, namely: purposefulness, informativeness, systematicity, coherence and safety. It was determined that the blog performs a number of functions, which include interpersonal communication, organization of learning, social adaptation, self-expression and creativity. It has been demonstrated that the organizational, personnel, technical, information and legal support of the blog in the field of higher education is gaining importance. It has been established that modern higher education institutions keep blogs both in the classical understanding of this phenomenon and in other forms, often calling a blog a corporate feed of news, which is provided at the level of structural units of the educational institution. To some extent, this indicates a change in these concepts, since the news feed does not support the function of comments, which is a mandatory requirement for a blog. Novelty. A conceptual scheme of the blogging components of higher educational institutions, containing an institutional, functional and effective component, is proposed. The topics of the educational blogs of the leading HEIs in Europe have been determined. Based on the research of practical education of the leading higher education institutions of Europe, it was determined that modern effective tools for the promotion of educational services and academic activity, which complement communication and assimilation of material, are also: storytelling, comics, interactive books, virtual corporate characters (mascots) of an educational brand. Practical value. The results of the study may be useful for Ukrainian HEIs promoting their brand in the market of educational services through blogging.

Advertisement Blindness in Mobile Social Media Apps

Advertisement blindness is a general term that refers to people’s tendency to automatically and unconsciously ignore advertisements. The phenomenon was originally identified in banner ads, then later in text and native ads on websites. Today, social media is an effective tool for advertisers, yet research investigating users’ interaction habits with social media ads in mobile applications is unexplored. This study expands the ad blindness concept to mobile social media apps, examining its presence and whether target position has an influence. To test these questions, we used a search task where participants browsed a mock scrollable Facebook news feed and identified posts that fit certain semantic categories. The study found that participants had higher accuracy in content posts than in ad posts, also ad avoidance was prevalent in the last third of the news feed. Overall, these results revealed the first evidence of ad blindness on social media mobile applications.

Genetic monitoring uncovers long-distance marine feeding coupled with strong spatial segregation in sea trout (Salmo trutta L.) consistent at annual and decadal time scales

Abstract Genetic data have greatly increased means to understand fish marine migration behaviours at large spatial scale within a quantitative framework. The anadromous sea trout is a prized target of recreational fishery and an important ecosystem component in freshwater and marine coastal habitats in large parts of temperate northern Europe. Nonetheless, little is known about population distributions while feeding at sea. To reconcile notions about feeding migrations being predominantly locally restricted or not, we used SNP data for 3465 trout representing >100 rivers to identify population origins of 903 coastally feeding fish captured throughout the North Sea-Baltic Sea transition area. Across areas, coastal collections generally showed marked stock-mixing and overall 70:30% native:non-native fish with seasonal variation corresponding with spawning run timing. Data revealed strong spatial feeding segregation between trout from the Scandinavian Peninsula and the European continent. This is surprising given the short distances between areas, but is in alignment with strong genetic differentiation between populations in these areas. Estimation of stock complexity of coastal feeding aggregations showed no spatial trend through the North Sea-Baltic Sea transition area otherwise characterized by strong environmental clines. Analyses of scale samples collected in the 1950s indicate that stock-mixing was consistent over almost 70 years.

User Perceptions of News Recommender Systems and Trust in Media Outlets: A Five-Country Study

ABSTRACT The study investigates user perceptions of news media’s employment of news recommender systems (NRS) and their relation to trust in media outlets. A cross-sectional survey (n = 5079) in the United Kingdom, United States, Poland, the Netherlands, and Switzerland shows that higher algorithmic knowledge, users’ perceived skills, and news aggregator use correspond to increased perceptions that news media use NRS. Moreover, higher perceived NRS use of specific news outlets is associated with lower trust in those outlets but perceived benefits and concerns related to NRS moderate this relationship. Our findings highlight the need for media organizations to ensure a responsible and transparent use of such systems, highlight benefits for users, and address concerns to avoid misperceptions of their NRS use and maintain user trust.

Generation Z media consumption practices in social media

The subject of the work is the media consumption of generation Z in social media. Within the framework of the subject of the study, the author presents a brief theoretical and methodological justification, paying special attention to the aspects of research in the field of media consumption by Russian authors A.V. Sharikov, I.A. Poluekhtova, V.P. Kolomiets, M.M. Nazarova, T.E. Grinberg, and also focuses on how large companies study media consumption of the audience (Analytical Center "Video International", TNS Russia). The focus of the research object is on generation Z. The author examines the boundaries of the generation and outlines the basic values inherent in it, in particular, the value of content consumption in social media, which the author emphasizes, referring to previous research. The study used the in-depth interview method, since it is important to obtain qualitative, rather than quantitative, information to identify the media consumption practices of generation Z in social networks. As a result of the study, the following aspects of media consumption of generation Z were revealed: specific sources of consumption of entertainment, news, educational, humorous content, situations when representatives of generation Z turn to social networks on weekdays and weekends, conditions for abandoning social networks, the problem of choosing content, listing significant bloggers, the need for microinfluencers, openness of new information and boundaries the news feed. The main significant conclusion of the work is that the media consumption of generation Z transforms their usual daily practices: waking up and preparing for bed, cooking and eating, walking and exercise. We can say about the transformation of social networks from platforms for communication into platforms that informatively accompany centenials throughout the day.

Political Communication Strategy in the 2024 Indonesia’s Presidential Election

In every election, candidates employ various techniques to communicate their mission and vision to their respective voters. Winning an election depends on how good the candidate employs the various tools of communication, using both traditional mass media and social media. This research examines the political communication strategy used by Anies Baswedan during the Indonesian Presidential Election 2024. The objective of this research is to study the political communication style used by Anies Baswedan as a non-party political leader in garnering public support and winning the Presidential Elections. All the other presidential candidates contesting in the election are representing various political parties. All the feeds that were published in his Instagram account during the election were analysed. The analysed data is later triangulated with data from key informants to get an insight on Anies Baswedan’s political thoughts. Data from the Instagram account indicates that his team of communicators employs hashtags, news feed, political ads and visual styles to increase awareness among his voters, in the hope of influencing his voters. The various content published is found to be relevant and significant with the voters but is insufficient to win an election. Although he run initially as a non-political party candidate before gaining endorsement from a political party to run for President, he lost could be due to the lack of political infrastructure support that is needed to ensure his words spread throughout vast Indonesia archipelago. Keywords: Strategy, communication, politics, new media, Presidential Election 2024.

Algorithmic Bias and Political Polarization: Analyzing the Role of News Aggregators and Social Media in Pakistan

Algorithmic Bias and Political Polarization: Analyzing the Role of News Aggregators and Social Media in Pakistan

DEVELOPING A COMPREHENSIVE LIVE NEWS AGGREGATOR: INTEGRATING REAL-TIME DATA SOURCES FOR ENHANCED INFORMATION ACCESSIBILITY

Abstract—News Aggregator is simply an online software which collects new stories and events around the world from various sources all in one place. News aggregator plays a very important role in reducing time consumption, as all of the news that would be explored through more than one website will be placed only in a single location. Also, summarizing this aggregated content absolutely will save reader’s time. A proposed technique used called the TextRank algorithm that showed promising results for summarization. This paper presents the main goal of this project which is developing a news aggregator able to aggregate relevant articles of a certain input keyword or key-phrase. Summarizing the relevant articles after enhancing the text to give the reader understandable and efficient summary. Index Term : News aggregator; text summarization; text enhancement; TextRank algorithm

Makemates – Social Media Web Application

"Makemates" is a cutting-edge social media application designed to cater to the diverse needs and desires of modern-day social networking. This all-in-one platform offers a comprehensive suite of basic features that make connecting, sharing, and engaging with others a seamless and enjoyable experience. Users can create and personalize their profiles, connect with friends, family, and likeminded individuals, and effortlessly share their life moments through text, photos, and videos. "Makemates" prioritizes user privacy and data security, providing a safe environment for users to express themselves freely. With features like status updates, messaging, and a news feed, the application enables real-time communication and interaction with an extensive user base. "Makemates" not only fosters connections but also encourages the discovery of new ideas, trends, and experiences. Join the Makemates community and unlock a world of possibilities for social networking, all within one intuitive and user-friendly application.

Summarization and Translation Using NLP

Abstract: Text summarization and translation are two critical tasks in natural language processing with significant applications in various domains such as news aggregation, document summarization, machine translation, and information retrieval. In recent years, there has been remarkable progress in the development of techniques and models for both tasks, leveraging advancements in deep learning and neural network architectures. This paper presents a comprehensive review and comparative analysis of state-of-the-art methods in text summarization and translation. First, we provide an overview of the different approaches to text summarization, including extractive, abstractive, and hybrid methods, highlighting their strengths and weaknesses. We discuss various evaluation metrics and datasets commonly used for benchmarking summarization systems, shedding light on the challenges and opportunities in this field.

Automatic News Summarization using Web Scraping

In an era of information overload, accessing relevant news content efficiently is crucial. However, language barriers often hinder users from accessing news articles in languages they understand. To address this challenge, we propose an automatic news summarization and translation system. This system aggregates news articles from multiple URLs, summarizes them into concise summaries, and translates the summaries into the user's preferred language. By leveraging web scraping, natural language processing, and translation integration techniques, our system aims to provide users with access to relevant news content in their preferred language, thereby overcoming language barriers and fostering global connectivity. Keywords— automatic news summarization, translation integration, web scraping, natural language processing, language barriers, information accessibility, global connectivity, user preferences, multilingual content, web-based news aggregation