Impact Of Digital Communication Research Articles

The Impact of Digital Communications on Consumer Perceptions of Sport Celebrity Transgressions

ABSTRACTWhilst the use of sport celebrities in marketing strategies is growing in popularity it is not without risk. The increasing reliance on scandal by the news media to capture audience attention, has accelerated the interest in sport-celebrity transgressions. This research adopts an netnographic method to analyze over seven thousand comments from online forums about sport celebrity transgressions. We found that consumers were more likely to express negative comments in relation to transgressions that violated moral, ethical and/or legal norms and that this in turn was most likely to effect the perceived role model ability of a sport celebrity. We provide evidence that the communication behavior of sport fans in a digital communication medium extends the life of a transgression in the public domain. Finally, we noted sport fans exhibited higher levels of engagement and willingness to participate in debate in these mediums than observed in other types of online communities.

Harmful Digital Communications in New Zealand: Annual Population Survey 2017

While new technologies offer a number of benefits and opportunities, their use is accompanied by challenges and potential risks. This includes the different forms of abuse and intimidation that the Act seeks to address. As part of its functions as the Approved Agency, Netsafe has conducted the first in a series of Annual Population Surveys (APS). The objective of the APS is to gauge attitudes and behaviours and to start monitoring national trends regarding potentially harmful digital communications in Aotearoa-New Zealand. This report presents the main findings of the 2017 APS. The APS is the first nationally representative study that looks at adult New Zealanders and digital communications in the context of the Act. Key aspects of the Act - such as the communication principles - and key internet safety concepts have informed the development of the research instrument and the analysis of its findings. The study was planned and administered by Netsafe between February and September 2017. An online survey was conducted with a representative sample of 1,018 adult New Zealanders (aged 18 ) between 30 May and 30 June 2017. Data collection was conducted by Colmar Brunton. The maximum margin of error for the whole population is ±3.1% at the 95% confidence level. The study provides insights regarding New Zealanders’ access to and use of digital technologies. It also explores people’s level of awareness of the Act. A key focus of the study is to measure participants’ experiences of digital communications, including perceptions and experiences of harm and distress in the last 12 months. Finally, the study presents relevant insights regarding New Zealanders’ personal responses, and access to services and resources to deal with unwanted digital communications as well as potential harm and distress. As research on adult New Zealanders and their experiences with digital communications is limited, the APS provides first-hand research evidence on this subject to government agencies, online content and service providers, law enforcement, the research community, and the general public. However, considering the evolving nature of new technologies and how people engage with digital tools, new online challenges and risks are likely to emerge. Thus, the study of the nature and impact of digital communications, including potential harm and distress, will remain a relevant but challenging area of research, analysis, and policy intervention.

Literature in the Undergraduate Spanish Curriculum: Visionary Brainstorming

This essay, drawing from Design Thinking, challenges college faculty to reconsider the reading and teaching of literature in the undergraduate Spanish curriculum and initiates a visionary brainstorming process to be continued by readers in their own institutions. It suggests considering new research in cognitive literary studies, the impact of digital communications, and students' personal reading experiences and future goals as individuals and departments imagine new places for literature in and across the curriculum and innovative ways to teach it.

The Brave New World of (Swiss) Law: Contours of a Framework and Call for a Strategy to Shape Law's Digital Revolution

The emergence of computer networks in tandem with digitization — the rise of digital communication — has had a fundamental impact on the world we live in. Over the past few years, we have witnessed how digital communication has shaped how we communicate with each other, build and maintain friendships, work together, and engage in our communities and society. But digital technology not only affects our lives as individuals; it also has system level impact. The deep transformations in the economic system — consider the tectonic shifts in the entertainment or publishing industries, and more recently the advent of the so-called industrial Internet — are well-documented and demonstrate the disruptive potential of digital communication. However, many other systems are also deeply affected by digital technology: whether culture and arts, health care, transportation, or energy, virtually all sectors of society are currently undergoing changes fueled by digital communication. In some areas, the impact and the implications of digital communication are well studied and understood; in other systems, the effects have only become visible more recently and the transformation processes are still unfolding. In this essay, we look at one such system where the impact of digital communication — despite a long research history dating back to the 1950s — is still unfolding and is perhaps underestimated, particularly among policy- and decision-makers: the impact of digital communication on the legal system as an information processing system. We argue that a growing body of evidence suggests that law is profoundly affected by the digital revolution, at various levels and with manifold implications not only for the legal profession, but society at large. Given these deep transformation processes, we call for a pro-active, systematic, and strategic approach when dealing with these transformation processes in order to address associated challenges and manage risks, but perhaps most importantly, also to make use of the tremendous opportunities digital communication offers for the law and, more broadly, social justice. This essay is divided into three parts. In the first part, based on general patterns of change in the information ecosystem, we identify four areas with examples of structural transformations enabled by digital communication: the creation of law, the dissemination of law, access to law, and the use of law. For each category, we highlight recent manifestations and developments—mostly (but not exclusive) from the US — with the goal of illustrating the types of shifts we anticipate.In the second part of the essay, we argue that there is a need to map and evaluate the different moving elements identified in the first part more systematically. Towards this end, we develop an analytical framework on which the various moving elements discussed in the first section of the essay can be mapped, analyzed, and evaluated. Such a framework is an intermediate step when working towards a strategy dealing with the law’s digital revolution. Consequently, the third part builds upon this analytical framework and sketches the contours of a strategy for Swiss Law, which consists of a methodological and a substantive component. Methodologically, we call for a new strategic literacy enabling the analysis and management of the relationship between law, digital communication, and society in the digital age. The second component — again in form of a sketch — identifies a series of opportunities and possible next steps in the Swiss context.

Measuring Internet Activity: A (Selective) Review of Methods and Metrics

Two Decades after the birth of the World Wide Web, more than two billion people around the world are Internet users. The digital landscape is littered with hints that the affordances of digital communications are being leveraged to transform life in profound and important ways. The reach and influence of digitally mediated activity grow by the day and touch upon all aspects of life, from health, education, and commerce to religion and governance. This trend demands that we seek answers to the biggest questions about how digitally mediated communication changes society and the role of different policies in helping or hindering the beneficial aspects of these changes. Yet despite the profusion of data the digital age has brought upon us — we now have access to a flood of information about the movements, relationships, purchasing decisions, interests, and intimate thoughts of people around the world — the distance between the great questions of the digital age and our understanding of the impact of digital communications on society remains large. A number of ongoing policy questions have emerged that beg for better empirical data and analyses upon which to base wider and more insightful perspectives on the mechanics of social, economic, and political life online. This paper seeks to describe the conceptual and practical impediments to measuring and understanding digital activity and highlights a sample of the many efforts to fill the gap between our incomplete understanding of digital life and the formidable policy questions related to developing a vibrant and healthy Internet that serves the public interest and contributes to human wellbeing. Our primary focus is on efforts to measure Internet activity, as we believe obtaining robust, accurate data is a necessary and valuable first step that will lead us closer to answering the vitally important questions of the digital realm. Even this step is challenging: the Internet is difficult to measure and monitor, and there is no simple aggregate measure of Internet activity — no GDP, no HDI. In the following section we present a framework for assessing efforts to document digital activity. The next three sections offer a summary and description of many of the ongoing projects that document digital activity, with two final sections devoted to discussion and conclusions.