Media Ecology Research Articles (Page 1)

This article examines a hybrid communication ecosystem in a rural setting vulnerable to climate change and questions how face-to-face conversations, television, and WhatsApp interact to transform climate information into action. Drawing on a qualitative case study in Sukadamai Village, Bogor, we combine semi-structured interviews, participant observation, and WhatsApp conversation analysis, then conduct a reflexive thematic analysis with triangulation. Findings indicate that television provides weather cues, while recurring field conversations serve as verification hubs that contextualize risks, negotiate time, and allocate tasks; WhatsApp complements these routines with rapid coordination alerts. We theorize that adaptation is a cycle of signal-verification actions distributed across interpersonal, mass, and digital channels, structured by organizational norms, trust, role cues, gatekeeping, and soft accountability, that mitigates unequal access and reduces decision latency in the face of rainfall variability. We recommend strengthening offline briefings and forums while incubating the targeted use of WhatsApp within working groups to accelerate alerts and coordinate work without displacing established practices. This study contributes to media ecology and environmental communication by determining the mechanisms by which hybrid networks translate climate signals into appropriate decisions and organizational and interpersonal communication by outlining design implications for information services, facilitation roles, and group chat governance.

This study focuses on the analysis of invective means increasingly used in the language of contemporary newspapers and magazines within the media space. The transformations taking place in the language of mass media are closely linked to the broader changes in the world and culture under the influence of digital culture and globalization. These transformations primarily concern communicative processes in the media sphere, which have evolved from mere acts of transmitting and receiving information into mechanisms that determine the nature of social interaction, ranging from manipulative to benevolent. An examination of media discourse reveals a growing prevalence of negative linguistic phenomena associated with verbal aggression directed at the audience. The aim of the study is therefore to identify and describe the essence of invective linguistic means, to classify them into distinct groups, to distinguish them from non-normative vocabulary, and to consider the role of juridical linguistics and media ecology in preventing linguistic violence in interpersonal and virtual communication. The research employs empirical methods (associative and sociolinguistic experiments) and theoretical methods (lexico-stylistic, lexico-semantic, communicative-pragmatic, and corrective analyses). The study produced several key results: the notion of invective linguistic means is defined; their classification is outlined; distinguishing features separating invective from non-normative vocabulary are identified; the legal foundations of uncontrolled use of invective means are analyzed; and attention is drawn to the necessity, from a media-ecolinguistic perspective, of protecting the communicative space of mass media from the use of invective expressions that cause harm to the addressee.

ABSTRACT In this critical commentary, we map out some of the key priorities for researchers interested in mitigating the rise of ‘misogyny influencers’. We conceptualize this through the lens of three research paradigms – post-Tate, post-truth and post-digital. First, while Andrew Tate's celebrity might be waning–hence ‘post-Tate’–we highlight how his influence spawned and lives on, in an ever–expanding social media ecosystem of influencers who peddle misogyny and anti-LGBT sentiment for financial gain, which urgently needs further research. Second, we argue that these influencer economies operate through post-truth flows of disinformation, which are affectively sticky, meaning young people can be caught in echo chambers that deepen gendered polarisation, a dynamic which we need to better understand. Third, we document real-life impacts of digital misogyny in contexts like schooling environments and argue that we need to better understand how these dynamics are post-digital, in the way that these experiences become part of young people's lives, on and offline. To conclude, we make recommendations for better media literacy strategies to address digital misogyny's evolving trends.

The development of digital technology has fundamentally changed political communication patterns, especially among Generation Z who grew up in a social media ecosystem. This study aims to analyze the influence of political campaigns through Instagram on changes in political attitudes of students at the Faculty of Social and Political Sciences at Bina Bangsa University. This study uses an explanatory quantitative approach. Data collection techniques were carried out through a survey using a closed questionnaire, which was distributed to 100 respondents. Data were analyzed using a simple linear regression test with the help of SPSS software version 25. The results of the study indicate that political campaigns on Instagram have a significant influence on changes in students' political attitudes. The dimensions of attitudes influenced include attention to issues, understanding of political messages, and acceptance of certain ideas or figures. Based on these findings, it can be concluded that credible, relevant, and communicative digital campaigns have great potential in shaping the political orientation of Generation Z. Therefore, adaptive communication strategies are needed as well as strengthening political and digital literacy among students to encourage more critical and responsible political engagement.

In recent years, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has intensified its propaganda efforts beyond the Great Firewall, aiming to ‘tell China’s story well’ to global audiences. Meanwhile, many YouTube influencers have emerged to tell the opposite kind of stories – anti-CCP conspiracy theories – which have attracted millions of Chinese-speaking viewers both inside and outside China. Drawing on Habermas’s theory of communicative action, this study combines social network analysis and critical discourse analysis to examine the networks and narratives of these conspiratorial actors. We identified a strategically coordinated Falun Gong group, a tightly knitted Whistle-blower Movement block, and a loosely connected residual of political dissidents. Through critical discourse analysis of seven central channels, we illustrate how anti-CCP conspiracy theorists legitimize their extraordinary claims by (1) leaping from basic facts to morally embellished informative fictions and (2) making reassuring doomsday predictions that dissipate revolutionary potential. We show how anti-CCP conspiracy theorists exploit progressive ideals for strategic purposes, complicating the notion of dissent while demonstrating that the dichotomy of ‘authoritarianism versus anti-authoritarianism’ is inadequate for capturing the complexities of the transnational Chinese-language media ecology today.

In the current era where visual media dominate audiences' daily entertainment and other activities, the "fragmented" pattern of information consumption seems to have become the mainstream. However, long-form narrative programs in online audio, represented by podcasts and audio dramas, have emerged as a non-negligible communication force. This paper analyzes this form from three aspects: content construction, value dimensions, and cultural significance. In terms of content, it explores the diversity of narrative subjects, the cross-border integration of themes, and the innovation of narrative structures; in terms of value, it elaborates on its role in knowledge dissemination, emotional connection, and preservation of cultural memory; in terms of significance, it reveals its impact on the balance of media ecology, the expansion of public discourse space, and the revival of auditory culture. Long-form narrative content in online audio holds significant contemporary significance that deserves attention.

The interdisciplinary project EcoMind covers the fields of research into contemporary art, communication of ecosystemic knowledge in new media art, and a technological capacity building in A-Frame. The particular focus is on European new media artworks classified under the theoretical umbrella of social ecology, media ecology, and eco-aesthetics. Born from biology, referring to the interrelationship of organisms and their environments, the term has acquired a range of applied meanings in other contexts. In his work The Three Ecologies (1989), Félix Guattari expanded the concept of ecology, introducing the concepts of social, environmental, and mental ecology. It led to a new dimension of understanding the simultaneous crises confronting the environment, society, and the human psyche. The VR environment EcoMind (2025-2028) is being designed as a contemporary art gallery cooperatively by three research institutions (RISEBA, Vidzeme University of Applied Sciences in Latvia, and École Supérieure d’Art et de Design d’Orléans in France). It aims to revise societal values regarding ecology, as well as demonstrate new media arts’ reflections on our experience of beauty and the sublime.

ABSTRACT Based on Family Media Ecology Theory, this study explores core nodes in family media ecology and their relation to preschoolers’ screen time. The results using network analysis of 13,596 Chinese families showed that the structure of the family media ecology network was stable, forming a relatively tight cluster, with ‘Parents’ screen time on weekends’, ‘Promote children’s critical thinking abilities’, ‘Parental knowledge about the content’ and ‘Parental knowledge about the time’ as central nodes. Moreover, ‘Autonomy support’ and ‘Helps parents participate in education’ emerged as the bridge nodes in the family media ecology. Finally, in the flow network, preschoolers’ screen time showed the strongest positive association with ‘parents’ screen time on weekdays for leisure’, and the strongest negative association with ‘Communication frequency’. The findings reveal the family media ecology’s network structure in relation to preschoolers’ screen time and suggest pathways for improving the family media environment.

This article substantiates and tests a comprehensive methodology for teaching English to university students through an animation-based approach that integrates principles from multimedia learning, dual coding, and cognitive load theory. The study addresses a practical and theoretical gap: while short form animations are ubiquitous in students’ media ecologies, their systematic use as core instructional artefacts in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) courses remains under-theorized and weakly operationalized. We therefore designed an intervention composed of micro-animations (60–120 seconds) aligned to explicit communicative functions, lexical sets, and pronunciation targets, embedding signaling, segmenting, and modality principles to optimize cognitive processing. A quasi-experimental mixed-methods design was implemented with first-year non-English majors (N=118) at a large public university. Over twelve weeks, an experimental cohort received animation-centric instruction in vocabulary, speaking, and listening; a comparison cohort followed the same syllabus without animations but with static visuals and text-based explanations. Pre/post testing covered receptive and productive vocabulary, holistic speaking performance, and listening comprehension; motivation and cognitive-affect indicators were collected through validated questionnaires and reflective journals, and classroom discourse was sampled to examine interactional effects. Quantitative analyses indicate medium-to-large improvements for the animation cohort in vocabulary breadth and depth, as well as statistically significant gains in speaking fluency, prosodic control, and comprehensibility. Listening scores improved modestly but consistently, especially for fast connected speech. Qualitative evidence shows higher task engagement, more self-initiated repair, and richer discourse markers. Pedagogically, the study articulates a reusable pipeline for scripting and producing pedagogical animations with low-cost tools, a lesson architecture that phases input–noticing–practice–performance around the animations, and an assessment framework that ties micro-objectives to observable language use. Limitations include instructor learning curves and the need to balance novelty with load. The article closes with implementation guidelines and a research agenda for scaling animation-based EFL instruction in resource-diverse settings.

Abstrasct: The media play a crucial role in shaping public agenda, particularly in the context of geopolitical conflicts. The ongoing hybrid war between Russia and Ukraine, which began before 2022, underscores the significant influence of the media in shaping public opinion. This study hypothesizes that the portrayal of aggression by one or the other side is a powerful mechanism for influencing public perceptions and garnering support. The focus of this research is on media publications from diverse countries, including members of the European Union, Russia and Ukraine, regarding the war. The central research question is to examine how mediatization manifests differently across these countries. The hypothesis posits that variations in media ecosystems, societal traditions, and cultural factors play a pivotal role in shaping the manifestation of mediatization in these contexts. Furthermore, the study explores how media outlets and journalists emphasize the potential for catastrophic consequences, thereby influencing public opinion and policy discussions. The central problem addressed in this research is that media outlets and journalists often highlight the potential for catastrophic outcomes, thereby shaping public opinion and influencing policy discourse. To investigate this, the study employs situational analysis as its methodology, aiming to capture the complexity and variability of media representations across different national contexts. Keywords: media, mediatization, situational analysis, hybrid war, context, factors, manifestations.

The rapid growth of social media in the digital era has created both opportunities and challenges for Generation Z, particularly regarding mental health and religious literacy. As active digital users, youth are vulnerable to identity crises, social pressure, and exposure to unverified religious content. This community service program aimed to strengthen religious literacy and promote creative da’wah skills among youth to foster positive engagement in digital spaces. The activity employed a participatory-based learning approach consisting of educational webinars, creative da’wah workshops, digital religious literacy training, mentoring, and content publication. The program involved 35 youth participants from school-based Islamic communities in Lampung. The results showed an improvement in participants’ understanding of digital religious literacy, creative content-making skills, and awareness of mental health through spiritual perspectives. The program also succeeded in forming a sustainable digital da’wah youth community and producing a replicable training module. These findings indicate that creative da’wah training effectively empowers Gen Z to become digital change agents capable of promoting healthy, religious, and inspiring social media ecosystems.

Artificial Intelligence is closely tied to the internet, having been the most discussed technology in recent years. Digital media has undergone significant changes as a result. As AI is being utilized more frequently and people are becoming increasingly dependent on it, its role in our daily lives is expanding and deepening every day. It has enabled the creation of various types of digital media in seconds, including files, movies, photos, and text. Despite some issues with the foundation of communication, this technology has brought up great opportunities for creativity, innovation, accessibility, and personalization. As almost completely non-existent, people have learned to accept that human-generated content and machine-generated content are indistinguishable, and this has weakened the concepts of accountability and reliability in the media. In light of these advancements, the variables that will be assessed and examined in greater detail in this study about the individual effects of AI-generated content are the decline in trust and the deterioration of information integrity, as well as the psychological and social ramifications of these latter effects. The study will specifically examine the primary synthesized materials created by AI, including the issue of trust in primary sources and the emergence of silos and information disorder. To demonstrate how such content, resulting from the application of AI technology, operates maliciously within the digital media ecosystem and influences how people and societies engage with the media and interpret the news, the paper will present real-world examples and current trends. The positive impact of Artificial Intelligence has demonstrated remarkable possibilities in various aspects, including innovation, productivity, creativity, accessibility, and personalization. It allows people to be more productive and experiment with multiple types of online expression. As a result, it enables more opportunities for learning, productivity, and interpersonal relationships. The negative aspect of this is that AI has raised concerns about the premise of communication and how it may erode people's trust in and reliance on information, particularly online.

ABSTRACT This study employs Pierre Bourdieu’s theories of cultural capital, habitus, and field to dissect the symbolic exclusionary dynamics between Z-generation internet slang and older generations’ linguistic competence in social media ecosystems. Through a cross-linguistic discourse analysis of youth neologisms (e.g. Chinese ‘yyds’, English ‘stan’, Japanese ‘tsundere’) and their intergenerational misinterpretation patterns, this research constructs a three-dimensional Linguistic Distinction-Generational Habitus framework, revealing how slang functions as a form of embodied digital capital and theorising the mechanisms of symbolic violence in algorithmic cultural fields.. The framework illuminates: (1) how digital-native youth deploy slang as embodied cultural capital to establish symbolic boundaries within online fields; (2) the habitus clash between pre-digital linguistic norms (prioritising standard language) and digital-native norms (valuing fluid, ironic expression); and (3) the mechanisms of symbolic violence through which youth assert decoding hegemony via slang’s rapid semantic turnover. By situating these dynamics within Bourdieu’s concept of ‘symbolic power’, the study reveals that internet slang functions as both a marker of digital literacy and a site for reproducing generational cultural hierarchies. Cross-cultural case comparisons demonstrate how linguistic practices in digital spaces become arenas for negotiating generational legitimacy, with implications for understanding intergenerational divides in tech-driven societies.

In the context of the increasing digital integration into daily life, this paper examines the emergence of the ‘New Homo Sapiens’, an individual shaped by continuous media engagement and evolving communication practices.It further explores how this shift influences identity, cognition, and social behavior, alongside examining the role of media literacy in facilitating individuals’ adaptation to the challenges of contemporary digital life. Accordingly, the research adopts a conceptual approach grounded in interdisciplinary perspectives, drawing from media ecology and digital literacy studies. A qualitative review of existing findings, supported by evidence from the Western Balkans’ educational context (North Macedonia, Kosovo and Albania), leads to the conclusion that the readily accessible information and new forms of expression have introduced both benefits and challenges into the learning domain. Therefore, the region’s educational models should integrate media literacy as a central element to cultivate critical thinking skills, ensure ethical media engagement, and foster digital citizenship among the digitally shaped, New Homo Sapien. Keywords: New Homo Sapiens, Media Interaction, Identity, Social Behavior, Educational Models, Critical Thinking, Digital Citizenship.

Abstract How do populist publics visually represent themselves, and how have shifts in visual technologies altered this process? While research on the visual politics of populism has largely focused on ‘top-down’ uses of imagery by populist leaders and parties, less attention has been paid to how ‘the people’ depict themselves from the ‘bottom up’. This article addresses this gap by theorising the concept of the visual self-mediation of ‘the people’ and tracing its evolution across two emblematic episodes in which contested claims to popular sovereignty were visually enacted: the 2002 Venezuelan coup attempt against Hugo Chávez and the 2021 US Capitol riots. Through a structured, diachronic comparison, the article identifies a broader historical shift – from televisual mediation of ‘the people’, dependent on elite controlled platforms, to digitally enabled self-mediation, wherein publics broadcast themselves as ‘the people’ in real time via smartphones and social media. It analyses how populist publics visually presented themselves, as well as the intended and unintended audiences for these visuals. In foregrounding this transformation, the article contributes to ongoing debates in visual politics, media ecologies, and populism by illustrating how digital infrastructures have reconfigured the visibility, performativity, and legitimacy of populist publics in the twenty-first century.

This study examines the overlooked protests at the 1968 Venice Biennale to reassess the role of the media in Italy’s sessantotto . While mainstream newspapers largely dismissed the student and cultural demonstrations, illustrated magazines and television news offered more varied and sometimes sympathetic coverage, reaching millions. First-hand accounts of police violence in the work of photojournalist Gianni Berengo Gardin and in Pier Paolo Pasolini’s evolving commentary for Tempo magazine show that protest could come from within the media itself. The analysis highlights the significance of television’s innovative current affairs programming, which, despite censorship, brought global and Italian unrest into homes. By exploring the media ecosystem beyond newspapers – magazines, photojournalism, and television – this research shows how these platforms played a crucial role in shaping public understanding of 1968’s cultural and political conflicts, offering a fresh interpretation of Italy’s ‘1968’ and the complex relationship between protest and the media.

This research explores the impact of the elimination of defamation and fake news articles in the revised Indonesian Criminal Code (KUHP) on press freedom and government accountability. The study employs a qualitative descriptive approach to examine the perspectives of journalists, government officials, and civil society activists concerning how legal reform influences the dynamics between media and the state. Data were collected through in-depth interviews, document analysis, and non-participatory observation, then analyzed using Miles and Huberman's interactive model, consisting of data reduction, data display, and conclusion drawing. The findings reveal that the removal of defamation and fake news articles has expanded press freedom and reduced the risk of criminalization against journalists in Indonesia. It signifies a progressive step toward strengthening democratic governance and legal protection of human rights, particularly the right to express and access information. However, the reform also presents new ethical challenges, as the absence of penal provisions may increase the spread of misinformation if not accompanied by strong media ethics and accountability mechanisms. In conclusion, the legal reform marks a significant transition from a restrictive legal culture to one that promotes freedom with responsibility. The study recommends the enhancement of journalistic ethics training, public media literacy, and stronger institutional collaboration between the Press Council, government, and civil society to sustain a balanced and accountable media ecosystem.

ABSTRACT To understand differences among digital platforms, examining the communication modes used on distinct platforms may be informative. This article illustrates how modes of communication on different platforms can relate to the serious risk of online toxicity. With a comparative approach, the authors examine how toxicity production relates to moral rhetoric on both political talk shows shared on YouTube and articles on news websites in Taiwan. With longitudinal survey data, they also clarify how exposure to toxic content on different platforms generates downstream consequences for social trust. The results show significant differences in toxic content across platforms. Not only do talk shows exhibit more toxic content than news articles, but this toxic content is more strongly associated with a rhetoric that prioritizes the moral foundations of loyalty and authority over other moral foundations, such as fairness. Furthermore, the associations appear stronger in talk shows than in news articles. Survey data further reveal that, compared with reading news articles, viewing talk shows increases people’s exposure to toxic content, which undermines social trust. These insights have notable implications for both media ecologies and multiplatform research.

This study explores the use of Instagram as a promotional and portfolio medium by Buka Project Studios through the lens of media ecology theory. The objective of this research is to analyze the content strategies implemented by the Social Media Officer and identify challenges in maintaining visual identity consistency. This study employs a qualitative descriptive approach, with data collected through in-depth interviews with the Social Media Officer and Creative Lead. The findings reveal that Instagram serves as a dynamic digital ecosystem that integrates soft-selling content and portfolio displays to enhance audience engagement and expand professional networks. The research also highlights key challenges in striking a balance between trend adaptation and brand consistency. These findings contribute to the development of media ecology theory in the context of social media marketing, offering practical recommendations for creative industry practitioners to optimize their digital branding strategies.

As K-pops global influence expands, its presence in China has grown significantly, especially among teenagers. While existing studies have explored K-pops digital media mechanisms and cross-cultural communication, most focus on single platforms or fan groups, overlooking the broader ecosystem of Chinese digital media and its challenges. This paper examines the roles of short video, long video, music, and social media platforms in the dissemination of K-pop in China, analyzing how each contributes to public engagement, content depth, commercialization, and cultural integration. Using case analysis and literature review, the study investigates platform-specific strategies, such as viral challenges on short videos, secondary creation on long videos, copyright-driven consumption on music platforms, and fan-driven topic fermentation on social media. Digital media platforms significantly enhance K-pops reach and influence in China. However, challenges such as policy restrictions, cultural misalignment, content homogeneity, and local competition hinder sustainable growth. Future development relies on customized content and technological innovation, such as VR and virtual idols, to deepen market resonance.