Media Connections Research Articles

Family violence homicide in Australia: the effect of victim/offender gender on social media commentary

ABSTRACT The rapid expansion, accessibility and connectivity of social media enables real-time reader engagement and interaction with news regarding crime and criminal behaviour. However, the generally unrestricted nature of social media can lead to problematic discussions which may perpetuate damaging stereotypes and affect responses to victims and perpetrators of certain crimes. This study analysed social media reader commentary in response to news articles reporting 30 incidents of family violence (FV) homicide, published via the Facebook pages of four Australian media organizations. The study examined the nature of the media coverage and the reader comments for each homicide, according to the victim–offender relationship and the underlying tone of the initial article. Notable differences were evident in both the nature of the media coverage and the reader comments for homicides perpetrated by male and female offenders. Differences were also evident according to the type of victim (male, female or child). Male victims received less sympathy than females, whereas male offenders elicited notably more criticism. The findings point to embedded perceptions and expectations mapped to different victim–offender relationships. While the results reflect predominant patterns of FV victim–offender relationships, they also highlight the particular challenges faced by male victims of family violence.

Silent Partners: How Politicians' Facebook Communication with Constituents is Mediated

Theoretical research on political communication between Members of Parliament (MPs) and the public has focused on the role, activities, and perceptions of the MPs themselves without noting the existence of an intermediate layer: Parliamentary Assistants (PAs). This study examines the presence of PAs in the process of MPs' interactions with the public, and their PA's role in this process. The study investigates the perception that social media involves direct contact between the public and parliamentarians, raising questions regarding how communication is conducted between these two actors in political representation. The study found that PAs' social media skills and knowledge are hardly considered in the hiring process, although they play a central role in the MPs' social media connection with the public. Subjective variables generate differences in PA level of involvement operating MP social media channels. Based on these findings, a typology of PA involvement in MP social media operation is offered.Related ArticlesCortés, Juvenal J. 2019. “Process, Theory, and Practice in Direct Democracy: Avenues for New Research.” Politics & Policy 47 (4): 673‐698. https://doi.org/10.1111/polp.12317Stephan, Mark. 2004. “Citizens as Representatives: Bridging the Democratic Theory Divides.” Politics & Policy 32 (1): 118‐135. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1747-1346.2004.tb00178.xWaheduzzaman, Wahed, and Sharif As‐Saber. 2015. “Politics and Policy in Achieving Participatory Governance in a Developing Country Context.” Politics & Policy 43 (4): 474‐501. https://doi.org/10.1111/polp.12121Related MediaIsraeli Knesset website. https://main.knesset.gov.il/EN/Pages/default.aspxKnesset Research and Information Center. https://main.knesset.gov.il/EN/activity/Pages/MMMAbout.aspx

Gender Differences in Fear of Missing out Experiences among Undergraduate Students in Oman

BACKGROUND: Students with fear of missing out (FOMO) are profoundly connected and updated with others via constant social media connections to satisfy their needs and self-recognition. They use social media platforms to build new relationships, belong to some social group, remain fully informed, and fulfill their affiliation needs, which can increase their urge to spend more time visiting other people’s profiles and comparing their life achievements with others. Thus, this study has been conceptualized to investigate gender differences of FOMO experiences among undergraduate students in Oman. METHODS: A descriptive correlational and cross-sectional study design was chosen to achieve the research purpose among Sultan Qaboos University (SQU) undergraduate students. The total sample was 339. The experiences of fear of missing out was measured by using the Fear of Missing Out scale. The items were measured on a 5-point Likert-scale ranging from (“not at all true of me”) (“extremely true of me”). RESULTS: The mean age was approximately 21.56 years. Our study shows a homogeneous gender variation (female 50.15% (n=170), and male 49.85% (n=169)). However, the majority of the participants were single (93.5%), lived out-campus (56%), and in their 5th academic year (33.92%). : Males scored higher fear of missing out than females 24.8693 and 22.829, respectively, the results of this study possess a significant gender differences in the experiences of fear of missing out (p = 0.009). CONCLUSION: The university students surveyed experienced a moderate level of FOMO. However. Males scored a higher level of fear of missing out than females. They focus more on expanding social connections compared to females. Factors such as culture, norms, and self-image may play a role in experiencing FOMO, more studies are required in that claim.

Academic Partnership Building in Indigenous Education Through Social Media and Digital Contents in Bangladesh

Language is, through both utterance and understanding, an inevitable element of human existence. In addition to being substantially endangered, indigenous languages are also digitally endangered. The digital divide that causes this danger infringes most of the indigenous community's linguistic rights. This paper will illustrate, along with this detailed background, the extent to which the indigenous communities can develop academic partnerships by digitising educational content and using Social Media. From the observation and discussion with the community members, some feasible suggestions came up that demonstrated the academic partnership as a way language documentation and teaching in MTB-MLE. The aspects of indigenous language education and connection of social media based content making is another solution tool in present days in which this paper also narrates the possibility.

THE ISSUE OF FORMING MEDIA LITERACY OF FUTURE TRANSLATORS

The globalization of the modern information world has led to the adoption of media culture in virtually all areas of human life – manufacturing, the public sphere, education, communication, and the arts. Media connections are formed between all social structures, countries, different communities. It is through mass communication that the process of rooting values and behaviors that dominate society at a certain time takes place. In the proposed article, the author argues that at the present stage particular importance is gained by the involvement of an individual in the media culture in the context of preparing young people to interact with the complex information world. It is determined that these processes are important for the professional training of translators, because very often they are representatives of contemporary Ukrainian culture in the world. It is proved that the training of modern specialists requires from them mastering of a whole range of competences - from traditional language to modern information ones. This is justified by the fact that future translation specialists must have up-to-date information technologies in order to ensure high-level translation activities. The modern standards of higher professional pedagogical education mark that the graduating students of pedagogical educational establishments must be aware of the methods of search, treatment and use of information; be able her to interpret and adapt addressees in accordance with queries. The marked intercommunications of mediaeducation and professional preparation of future translator are examined as important constituents of his/her professional competence. Analytical activity of a future translator in relation to mediatext provides for : finding out of conformities to law of construction of mediatext on the whole; immersion in logic of the authorial thinking; reconstruction of conception to the author of a mediatext; determination of the own point of view in relation to a concrete work of mediaculture. Theoretical preparation of future translators in the context of tasks of mediaeducation necessarily includes different questions in relation to co-operation of medias of the world in the society, theory and history of mediaculture. An informative supply in industry of theory and history of mediaeducation will form the ground not only for successful communicative practice in industry of medias, but also for creation of the own programs of educational orientation medias in the future process of independent pedagogical work at school. The specificity of professional training of future translators in pedagogical institutions of higher learning predetermines the special attention to the development of professional knowledge and abilities that teachers need for perfecting their own pedagogical culture. Such professional knowledge and abilities can be marked by such indexes: motivational (reasons of mediaeducational activity; aspiring to perfecting one’s own knowledge of media); informative (a level of being informed; pedagogical knowledge of the media industry); methodical (methodical abilities in the sphere of mediaeducation); activity (quality of medias of educational activity); creativity (a level of the creative elements in media educational activity). Translator that received media education in an institution of higher learning will be able: to encourage students, develop a desire to formulate the problem questions concerning media; use in teaching the research methodology aimed at the organization of independent search of information in media by students for substantiating certain questions; help students to develop skills in relation to the use of various sources of mediainformation; organize discussions in the process of students’ learning to listentolerantlyand tactfully to othersand to express their own opinion. Development of pedagogical terms of application of mediaeducation in the process of professional training of future translators at the initial stage requires the study of the real practice of intercommunication of modern student youth and mediaculture.

Green living and the social media connection: The relationship between different media use types and green lifestyle politics among young adults

Today, environmental issues are not only communicated by traditional mass media, but they are also posted, shared and discussed in social media. This raises the question of the extent to which social media use also influences real environmental engagement. Using original survey data collected among young adults in Germany, this study demonstrates that social media use is clearly associated with stronger engagement in green lifestyle politics. Further, regarding different motives and forms of social media use, the findings of the study show that active use of social media for informational purposes predicts green lifestyle politics.

The dark side of social media connectivity

PurposeThe increasing use of social media after work hours for work purposes, termed social media connectivity (SMC), is an emerging phenomenon in supply chain management. Although SMC can have debilitating effects on supply chain professionals and their organizations, research on its effects on work-related attitudes, especially turnover intentions, remains largely unexplored. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the influence of SMC on voluntary turnover of supply chain professionals and the resulting implications for them and their organizations.Design/methodology/approachThe study draws from the conservation of resources theory and the concept of information overload to explain how SMC leads to emotional exhaustion and impacts turnover intentions of supply chain professionals, contingent on work–life balance. The model is tested using survey data (n=325) collected at multiple times from a large Chinese pharmaceutical manufacturer and distributor with spatially dispersed workforce and distribution facilities.FindingsThe results confirm that emotional exhaustion mediates the association between SMC and turnover intentions and that SMC exacerbates the intentions of supply chain professionals to quit their jobs. However, work–life balance is found to dampen the exhausting effects of SMC on emotional exhaustion thereby reducing its debilitating effects on turnover intentions of supply chain professionals.Originality/valueThe focus on SMC highlights the need for greater understanding of the dark side of social media on supply chain professionals and their organizations and how SMC can be better managed in an age of social media ubiquity.

Features of Media Multitasking in School-Age Children.

The paper addresses the phenomenon of media multitasking that is being widely spread among children and adolescents in the context of digital socialization. The previous research has revealed its strong connection with cognitive control, executive functions, and academic performance, yet the specificity and efficacy of media multitasking performance, especially among children while they carry out usual activities, remains insufficiently studied. A quasi-experimental study, including digital tasks of various types on a computer and smartphone, the dots task for executive functions, and a socio-psychological questionnaire, was conducted with the participants of three age groups: 7–10, 11–13, and 14–16 years old (N = 154). The results indicate that media multitasking is connected not with sex, but age; the older the participants are, the more likely they tend to work in a multitasking mode. Furthermore, preference for multitasking has been found to be positively related to higher user activity. Although the total task performance rate is insignificantly lower in the multitasking group as compared to the non-multitasking one, a significant negative effect of media multitasking on total performance time was revealed. The results of the study that indicate a strong connection of media multitasking with the intensity of Internet usage, cognitive functions, and performance time, suggest its considerable role in social and cognitive functioning of children and adolescents.

Altruistic and selfish communication on social media: the moderating effects of tie strength and interpersonal trust

ABSTRACT Individuals share a diversity of content on social media for a variety of reasons. Research has often described and explained disclosure via the application of a subjective cost–benefit analysis framed around reciprocity, suggesting that people communicate selfishly motivated by the expectation of receiving something in return. This paper investigates the moderating effects of tie strength and interpersonal trust on the relationship between expected reciprocity and intensity of communication between two social media connections. A Facebook application presented participants with a random set of their friends and asked them to rate their friendships in terms of these values. Overall, 90 participants rated 1728 friendships, while the application collected 11 activity variables depicting the actual communication that has taken place in each pair of connections. A principal component analysis was used to distinguish between text- and photograph-related communication, and two moderated multiple regressions were conducted to establish the moderating effects. The results show significant moderating effects of tie strength and trust on the communication around photographs, but not around text. This study contributes to communication research by explicating the ways that tie strength and trust affect patterns of communication on social media. Implications for social media researchers and designers are discussed.

Induction heating simulation of the waveguide assembly elements

The waveguide path systems consisting mainly of aluminum alloys with improved weight, size, and electrical parameters are used to ensure the functioning of the spacecraft and its onboard equipment in accordance with a given program. When assembling the elements of the waveguide paths, in particular a thin-walled pipe of rectangular cross section, coupling and flange, induction brazing is used. Element-by-element assembly of lightweight waveguide paths using the method of induction soldering is connected with a number of technological difficulties such as the uneven distribution of temperature fields, the thickness variation of the soldered products and the design features of the inductors. This paper presents a model describing the process of heating a pipe-inductor system during induction brazing. The presented model describes the process of induction heating of the pipe as a separate structural element of the waveguide path. In the process of simulation in the Comsol software, on the basis of numerical simulation methods with the connection of the necessary media involved in induction heating, the pipe heating graphs are obtained.

Smartphone-free summer camp: adolescent perspectives of a leisure context for social and emotional learning

ABSTRACTIn today’s society, nearly all adolescents have access to a smartphone with internet and social media connectivity, and almost half report “almost constant” online use. Studies on smartphone usage have observed associations with increased levels of anxiety, depression, and stress. In recent years, adolescents shifted from spending leisure time with peers in-person to online interactions and communication, which has been linked with feelings of loneliness. As young people now spend much of their leisure time online, there is increasing importance placed on experiences in which they are able to interact face-to-face with peers and develop social awareness, relationship skills, and interpersonal relationships offline. One such leisure context is summer camp, where technology is often not permitted. The purpose of this study was to explore adolescent perspectives of a smartphone-free residential camp experience. Results indicated that youth felt positively about the smartphone-free camp experience, they were presented with opportunities to interact socially and form deeper connections with peers offline. Findings from this study have implications for recreation and leisure practitioners, parents, and adolescents themselves.

Media Network and Excess Return Comovement

Media news may cover multiple firms in one article, which establishes a media connection across firms. We propose a media connection strength (MCS) measure, which is defined as the number of news articles co-mentioning two firms. We find that the MCS measure can capture soft information about the correlated fundamentals between two media-connected firms. Furthermore, we show that the MCS measure can significantly explain and forecast return comovement for media-connected firm pairs. The MCS measure may be considered as a new soft information based explanation for return comovement, beyond the existing hard information based and behavioral based explanations.

Rethinking mediated political engagement: social media ambivalence and disconnective practices of politically active youths in Hong Kong

Social media have been widely credited for facilitating young people’s political engagement, most notably by providing a conducive platform for political expression. There has been comparatively little attention, however, to the possible pitfalls for young people when they engage in politics on social media. In this study, we seek to redress the overemphasis on the strengths and connectivity of social media by attending to how young people negotiate their drawbacks and disconnectivity. Through in-depth interviews with young participants of Hong Kong’s Umbrella Movement, we examine the choices and motives regarding mediated (non-)participation among a group of politically active youths. Our findings revealed that these young people’s social media ambivalence emerged from the major participatory experience. Despite their active and open informational sharing and political expression on social media alongside their in-person participation during the eventful protest, many young participants became wary of such expressive use owing to their perceptions of de-energization, disconnectedness, and disembodiment. Instead of completely withdrawing from political activities on social media, these politically inclined and technologically savvy youths embraced “disconnective practices” – passive engagement (lurking), selective expression (moderation and exposure-limitation), and offline participation (embodied collective action) – to avoid the overwhelming, fractious, and inauthentic conditions of mediated participation.

Spatially exploring the intersection of socioeconomic status and Canadian cancer-related medical crowdfunding campaigns

ObjectivesMedical crowdfunding is a rapidly growing practice where individuals leverage social networks to raise money for health-related needs. This practice has allowed many to access healthcare and avoid medical debt...

Asocial Media: When Lawyers and Judges Must Disconnect

There are many valuable references that provide general guidance on social media usage for lawyers and judges, but they fail to address yet another delicate component involved in social media ties -- breaking them. Several years ago, some states began to ban certain social media connections between lawyers and judges, thereby requiring them to retroactively sever ties, but no advice was given as to how to do so. This article addresses the mechanics of severing ties on three currently popular sites (Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter), the professional implications of severing social media connections, relevant rules governing judicial and attorney conduct, and a discussion of best practices for lawyers and judges to follow when social media ties must be broken.

The Local and the Global in Networks of Lebanese and Algerian Rappers

This article discusses border-crossing interconnections and processes of glocalization in Arab(ic) hip hop culture. It is based on an analysis of collaborative networks among Lebanese and Algerian rappers, and their Twitter networks. This approach is grounded in relational sociology, which assumes that culture is the product of interactions between individuals. Here, two interactions are modeled and analyzed as networks. At first, featurings as a form of artistic collaboration are examined. Secondly, Twitter followings, as an important form of online communication, are focused on. By analyzing network-structures like clusters and node properties like the number of connections to other nodes (degree), this article takes a quantitative viewpoint on a subject matter usually analyzed by qualitative tools. The article’s findings indicate the parallel existence of an Algerian and an Eastern Arab(ic) hip hop community excluding the Maghreb region. Both communities have social media connections to the US-American hip hop scene, while French hip hop seems to only play a bigger role in Algeria.

Coping with diabetes: Provider attributes that influence type 2 diabetes adherence.

Diabetes, a chronic disease affecting over 29 million people in the United States, requires the integration of complex medical tasks into a person’s daily life. Patient-centered care and compassion are recognized as essential dimensions of the quality care experience. This research examined provider attributes that influence adherence to type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) regimens and sought to understand the phenomena of provider attributes, treatment adherence, and their relationship to coping ability and treatment outcomes. This quantitative study sampled 474 people with T2DM using a 62-item online survey administered to three different groups. The sample population included people over age 18 diagnosed with T2DM. The first group included 91 persons with T2DM identified through a Facebook group and personal social media connections, the second group included 120 Amazon Mechanical Turk participants with T2DM, and the third group included 263 respondents from a Qualtrics panel who had T2DM. Results indicated that perceived provider compassion (β = .41, ρ < .001) and optimism (β = .48, ρ < .001) positively affected coping ability. Additionally, full mediation effects for self-management were revealed, with coping ability positively mediating the effect of compassion on self-management and the effects of optimism on self-management. Furthermore, full mediation effects were found for treatment satisfaction, with coping ability positively mediating the effect of compassion on treatment satisfaction and the effects of optimism on treatment satisfaction. This research has implications for patients, healthcare professionals, and leaders suggesting that providers who communicate with optimism and compassion positively affect coping ability. As a result, healthcare providers and professionals have an opportunity to enhance self-management adherence by helping their patients cope with the burdens of diabetes. In addition, this study has implications for developing provider communication tools aimed at assessing patients’ coping capacity and increasing compassionate communication.

Identification of Channeling in Pore‐Scale Flows

AbstractWe quantify flow channeling at the microscale in three‐dimensional porous media. The study is motivated by the recognition that heterogeneity and connectivity of porous media are key drivers of channeling. While efforts in the characterization of this phenomenon mostly address processes at the continuum scale, it is recognized that pore‐scale preferential flow may affect the behavior at larger scales. We consider synthetically generated pore structures and rely on geometrical/topological features of subregions of the pore space where clusters of velocity outliers are found. We relate quantitatively the size of such fast channels, formed by pore bodies and pore throats, to key indicators of preferential flow and anomalous transport. Pore‐space spatial correlation provides information beyond just pore size distribution and drives the occurrence of these velocity structures. The latter occupy a larger fraction of the pore‐space volume in pore throats than in pore bodies and shrink with increasing flow Reynolds number.

Responding to Sensitive Disclosures on Social Media

When people disclose information on social media that is sensitive or potentially stigmatized (e.g., mental illness, pregnancy loss), how do others decide to respond? We use interviews and vignettes to provide a response decision-making framework (RDM) that explains factors informing whether and how individuals respond to sensitive disclosures from their social media connections. The RDM framework includes factors related to the self, poster, and disclosure context (i.e., relational, temporal, social). Our findings include how people's decisions are complicated by balancing their own needs (e.g., privacy, wellbeing) as well as the posters’ (e.g., support) when seeing what they consider sensitive posts on social media. We identify empirically grounded insights and information that social media designs could surface to support both potential disclosers and responders. We argue that social media sites should provide privacy controls for both disclosers and responders, and facilitate the visibility of network-level support.

Characterizing User Connections in Social Media through User-Shared Images

Billions of user images, which are shared on social media, can be widely accessible by others due to their sharing nature. Using machine-generated labels to annotate those images is a reliable for user connections discovery on social networks. The machine-generated labels are obtained from encoded vectors using up-to-date image processing and computer vision techniques, such as convolution neural network. By analyzing 2 million user-shared images from 8 online social networks, a phenomenon is observed that the distribution of user similarity based on their shared images follows exponential functions. Users who share visually similar images are likely having follower/followee relationships, regardless of the origins and the content sharing mechanisms of a social network. This phenomenon is nicely formulated for a multimedia big data recommendation engine as an alternative to social graphs for recommendation. By utilizing the formulation of the distribution, it is proven the proposed engine can be 46 percent better than previous approaches in $F1$ score and achieves a comparable performance of friends-of-friends approach. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first attempt in related fields to characterize such phenomenon by massive user-shared images collected from real-world SNs, and then formulate into practical analytics engine for connection discovery.