Media Professionals Research Articles

No(r)way? Language Learning, Stereotypes, and Social Inclusion Among Poles in Norway

This study recognizes the diversity and heterogeneous nature of a migrant group that long has been portrayed and perceived in a limited way, for instance in Norwegian media, without considering the multifaceted nature of the group in question. Drawing on data from focus group interviews, we apply narrative analysis to shed light on the impact stereotypes surrounding Poles have on Polish adult migrants’ striving for social inclusion and professional success in Norway. Being the largest migrant group in Norway, speaking a first language (L1) structurally different from Norwegian, and representing a former Eastern Bloc country, Poles constitute an important case to gain better knowledge of the interplay between language, labour, and social inclusion. Through our study, we aim to gain emic insights into parts of the process of settling in Norway. Our analysis centres on a case study of two focus group participants’ reactions to stereotypical portrayals of Polish (professionals) in Norwegian media, experiences with language learning, and the advice they would give to newcomers, as well as the importance of a sense of community for gaining the “small talk” competence necessary to ease social inclusion. The analysis draws on the key concepts of agency, investment, and well‐being. We show how the tension that occurs when second language (L2) participants are confronted with stereotypes may create a discursive space for empowerment and agency through the opportunity to contest and re‐create (professional) expectancies. The study also demonstrates that there most likely are ways forward to more inclusive practices for Polish migrants in Norway.

O082 A Survey to explore the Knowledge and Education needs of Perinatal Health Professionals to support the Provision of Inclusive Care to Transgender people in Aotearoa New Zealand

Abstract Background International literature shows that transgender teens and young adults are more likely to report insomnia compared to cis-gendered individuals of the same age – often linked with discrimination or minority stress. Trans people often encounter health providers with limited knowledge of gender diversity. Objective to understand the education needs, knowledge, and attitudes of the perinatal health workforce in New Zealand when providing care for trans people. Methods Interviews with trans people who had engaged with perinatal services, informed the development of a workforce survey, alongside extensive consultation with Māori, health professionals and trans community groups. The survey was shared with perinatal care providers via their professional organisations and social media. It included questions about strategies utilised in their clinical practice towards trans inclusion, previous education opportunities and current needs, as well as attitudes towards gender diversity. Results Survey participants (n=476) reported using multiple strategies when providing inclusive practice for trans people. Gaps in knowledge to support inclusive practice were identified, along with support needs to ensure perinatal care providers are resourced to provide culturally safe and affirming care for trans people and whānau/families. Most respondents had not received education on gender-inclusive care but three quarters of them reported they would access this if available. Conclusions Survey results identified strategies for inclusive care as well as knowledge gaps, in relation to meeting trans people’s perinatal care needs. Findings led to recommendations for education, practice and policy which could readily apply to those supporting trans people to improve their sleep health.

Drone journalism and professional media ethics imperative discourse

The emergence of drones in journalism has raised questions concerning use and implications, all against the backdrop of local and global professional media interpretation of ethics. Drone_journalism is fraught with dialectics around privacy, intrusion and professional ethics; due to drones' pervasiveness in newsgathering and ethical challenges for stakeholders. This study relies on PRISMA_framework and discourse_analysis to propose a new concept for the redefinition of media ethics for integration into drone journalism. This paper thus presents the relevance of rethinking media interpretation of ethics through a transformed understanding of privacy in the face of drone technology; in the interest of the human person's sanctity. Include at least one finding of the paper, then what the paper concludes.

The impact of employees’ social media advocacy on attitudes toward the brand: the mediating role of parasocial relationships

PurposeThis study aims to examine how employee advocacy, via the value and credibility of their professional social media content, affects their followers’ attitudes toward the brand through the mediating role of parasocial relationships.Design/methodology/approachA quantitative research was used, and questionnaires were answered by LinkedIn users who follow at least one person they consider to be an employee advocate. A total of 390 responses were analyzed using structural equation modeling.FindingsThe results suggest that the credibility of an employee advocate positively impacts the parasocial relationship between the user and the employee, which, in turn, impacts the user’s attitude toward the brand represented by the employee advocate.Practical implicationsThe results of this study suggest that employee advocacy on LinkedIn can shape positive attitudes toward the advocate’s brand. These findings suggest that organizations should consider employee content and credibility as strategic tools in marketing communications.Originality/valueThis study delineates the linkages between the credibility and content value of the employee advocate, the parasocial relationship they have with followers and their attitude toward the brand. This research contributes to the literature on employee advocacy and studies on the concepts of parasocial interactions and relationships.

Exploration of digital media art professional design talent class training based on K-mode algorithm

Abstract This paper combines big data technology to analyze the training mode of digital media professionals in universities in various regions and explores the knowledge system, enrollment target, learning content, textbook construction, and employment direction of digital media professional training, respectively. The real data in the faculty management system is selected as the evaluation data, and the K-modes clustering algorithm is used to optimize the evaluation data in three problems, such as the number of clusters K, the initial clustering center, and the calculation of distance similarity. According to the research content, the evaluation index system of teachers’ teaching conditions in Y school was established, and the system was applied to evaluate the teaching operation of Y school comprehensively. The results showed that only 6.89% of the teachers were evaluated as “excellent”, 46.89% were evaluated as “good”, and 46.89% were evaluated as “medium”. The percentage of those who rated “medium” or below was 45.89%. This indicates that the university still needs to do a lot of work in improving teachers’ ability to meet the needs of college students in the new era. The application of the K-modes algorithm in the evaluation of digital media art professionals’ training is of great significance to the development of the digital media industry.

Perinatal depression screening in community pharmacy: Exploring pharmacists' roles, training and resource needs using content analysis.

Perinatal depression (PND) screening is often recommended in primary care settings, which includes the community pharmacy setting. However, there is limited research exploring pharmacists' perspectives on their roles in screening for perinatal mental illness. This study aimed to explore pharmacists' views of pharmacists' roles in PND screening, as well as training and resource needs for PND screening in community pharmacy settings. A questionnaire including three open-ended questions focusing on pharmacists' perspectives of their role in PND screening, their training, and resource needs in this area, was disseminated to pharmacists across Australia via professional organisations and social media. Each open-ended question was separately analysed by inductive content analysis. Subcategories were deductively mapped to the Theoretical Framework of Acceptability. Responses (N = 149) from the first open-ended question about pharmacists' roles in PND screening resulted in three categories (PND screening in primary care settings will support the community, community pharmacy environment, and system and policy changes) and ten subcategories. Responses to question two on training needs (n = 148) were categorised as: training content, training length, and training delivery while responses about resource needs (n = 147) fell into three categories: adapting community pharmacy operating structures, pharmacist-specific resources, and consumer-specific resources. While some pharmacists were accepting of a role in PND screening due to pharmacists' accessibility and positive relationships with consumers, others had concerns regarding whether PND screening was within pharmacists' scope of practice. Further training and resources are needed to facilitate pharmacists' roles in PND screening, referral and care.

Being an expert in pandemic times: negotiating epistemic authority in a media interaction

Since the so-called phase one of the Coronavirus pandemic, media professionals have shown great attention to communication about the epidemic, so much so that a “glottology of COVID-19” has even been advocated to reflect on war metaphors referring to the disease. Despite media solicitations, however, reflection on communication at the time of COVID was not immediately the subject of linguistic analysis, at least in the Italian context. However, the issue of the relationship between language and culture, society, and thought has recently been explored in the face of the limitation of only formal analyses on language at the time of COVID. In the first stage, it quickly became apparent that the people in charge of institutional communication were used to talking mostly with experts on public health problems or research results, without the necessary training to modulate their language according to the degree of specialization of the audience. Instead, it is currently possible to detect an improvement in communication skills, and to observe the emergence of opposing factions with respect to the new resources of both preventive and therapeutic medicine, respectively the pro-vax and no-vax movements. These issues have been the focus of many Italian TV talk shows, such as the program “Non è l'Arena.” In the episode of 9/25/21, which is the subject of this article, the positions expressed in favor of one argument or the other would seem to adopt different mechanisms for managing the epistemic mode of certainty/uncertainty, such as semantic-syntactic and rhetorical-pragmatic devices, as well as conversational moves. This paper is aimed at describing the management of certainty/uncertainty in a media context through the qualitative fine-grained analysis of the interactional exchanges between host and representatives of opposite views in the dual theoretical framework of classical rhetoric and conversational analysis (CA), which, although starting from different scientific paths, share the vision of the centrality of speech in human action. The CA analysis indicated that, whilst the interviewer maintained a neutral stance in conducting the interview, he showed a position of affiliation toward the doctor who recommended therapies not in line with the Italian medical guidelines. This was evident through the space provided to him to explain his expertise, as well as through the repetition and emphasis of the evaluative elements expressed. The rhetorical analysis, focusing on the participants' ethos, reveals that the interviewer deliberately intervened in the construction of the epistemic authority of the representatives of the two positions. The rhetorical analysis, focusing on the ethos of the three participants in the interaction, shed light on selected strategies and argumentative chains used to gain credibility and to prevail in the discussion. The linguistic-rhetorical mechanisms used do not pertain to the field of dialectical discussion and aim at a direct attack on the opponent's thesis. Nevertheless, the clash remained balanced without any epistemic authority overpowering the other: both the rhetorical and conversation analyses demonstrate a polarized dialogue, wherein the two sides are portrayed as representatives of two distinct and incompatible perspectives.

Stakeholders’ opinions support the people-process-technology framework for implementing digital transformation in higher education

ABSTRACT This article discusses the digital transformation of higher education in Egypt as distance education was abruptly implemented in early 2020. For eight months after that, 38,784 media items were crowdsourced reflecting spontaneous opinions, expectations, sentiments and experiences with the new digital learning. This random sample was drawn from digitised and online news articles, TV and radio programmes, and social media posts by students, parents, academics, education experts and media professionals who represented the media and public opinion. This article recommends the people-process-technology framework for the digital transformation of higher education based on previous research and digital archival research findings. It highlights its components and integrated approach, and discusses its implementation in Egypt and developing countries. Moreover, the framework will be the foundation for further research in higher education’s digital transformation, operations, human resources and information technology.

An Analysis of the Influence of Pan-Entertainment Trend of Social Development on Mass Media

With the development of society and people's increasing dependence on entertainment methods, mass media has gradually moved towards marketization. Influenced by various factors such as market driving, mass media pan-entertainment has gradually emerged and become increasingly popular and an irresistible trend. This trend is closely related to the era background and reasons for the emergence of mass media pan-entertainment. With its vivid image and great influence, mass media plays a vital role in contemporary society and people's daily lives. Based on available data, this study will comprehensively analyze the various manifestations of pan entertainment on new and traditional media, and explore the positive and negative multi-level interactive effects of mass media pan entertainment on humans, times, and social development. Research has found that in this internet age, some media have a tendency towards excessive entertainment and neglect humanistic sentiments. The negative impact of these media is worth pondering and reflecting on. Finally, the research summarizes and proposes development suggestions and directions to reduce the negative impact of mass media pan-entertainment and effectively play its positive role, hoping to provide an effective reference for relevant professional researchers and media industry workers.

‘Deteriorating Our Relationship for no Good Reason’: Collegiate Beat Writers’ Perceptions of Their PR Counterparts

This study examines the contemporary nature of the relationship between sport journalists and media relations personnel, particularly within the context of collegiate athletics. Despite years of sharing a “symbiotic relationship” wherein both sides benefited from the success of the other, sports media professionals have cited a strained rapport, as sports information directors (SIDs) and media relations personnel have taken internal positions aimed at producing content comparable to what sports media have traditionally developed. Through in-depth interviews with 16 beat writers, the current project identified three salient themes related to beat writers’ perceived relationships with SIDs and media relations professionals representing athletic programs they cover: (1) frustration over the control of information, (2) misperceptions about the media’s value to the organization, and (3) growing uncertainty about the future of the relationship between beat writers and media relations professionals. These findings contribute theory and practice within the context of the Strategic Sport Communication Model (SSCM).

Role of Artificial Intelligence Across Various Media Platforms: A Quantitative Investigation of Media Expert's Opinion

Objective: The main purpose of the study is to know factors that determine the role of Artificial Intelligence and its impact across various media platforms.
 
 Method: The study had considered 213 media experts (respondents) among which the survey was conducted to know the role and impact of Artificial Intelligence across various media platforms.
 
 Results: Results showing that all the factors namely Customer management, Data management and Marketing having significant impact on “Overall impact of Artificial Intelligence across various media platforms” except the factor “Control information” showing insignificant but positive impact across various media platforms.
 
 Conclusion: This research endeavors to contribute to the burgeoning discourse on AI's role across various media platforms. The study concludes that there is a significant impact of Artificial Intelligence across various media platforms. The findings of this study can inform media professionals, researchers, and policymakers about the tangible impacts of AI, facilitating informed decision-making and fostering continued innovation within the media industry.

Working with Passion: Digital Media Specialist as Precarious Worker in the Digital Age

This paper addresses issues the global concern of uncertainties of digital creative workers, emphasizing Indonesian case. This paper argues creative digital workers in digital media industry deal with uncertainty in "atypical," "contingent," "temporary," "informal," and, in particular, "precarious" settings. This research will provide arguments about new forms of labour exploitation in the era of “user-generated content” and “prosumption”. This paper's primary theoretical contribution is to clarify the precarious nature of labor for digital labor in communication and media organizations, with a focus on creative workers in Yogyakarta and Jakarta. Additionally, this study will demonstrate how staff members in various communication and media companies routinely work under deadline pressure, work remotely, have short-term contracts, and participate in hustle cult practices. This study used qualitative and in-depth interview studies to look ten people at the lives of digital content officers in a social media specialist (as new media professionals) who produce digital content in social media, managing content for influencers, internet celebrities, and corporations. This research took place between January and June 2022, and it raised fundamental concerns regarding how these industries develop the rhetoric of flexibility, autonomy, and informality.

The concept of ‘new media’ among Jordanian news producers

The aim of this study is to understand how Jordanian journalists view social media networks as being related to the news industry in Jordan and the extent of their dependence on these networks in producing news. It also explores the opinions of Jordanian journalists on the pros and cons of these networks through the lens of the relationship between these networks and professional journalism. This study uses the qualitative approach by conducting interviews with a number of professional journalists. The findings indicate that Jordanian journalists perceive social networks as an essential and beneficial development. There is optimism among journalists about the relationship between professional journalism and social media. Also, social networks have brought several benefits to professional journalism. The results also show that journalists firmly believe that social networks cannot be considered a substitute for traditional media.

Digital Baggage: Influences On New Student Affairs Professionals’ Social Media Use And Digital Identity

Abstract: This exploratory embedded case study examined the personal and professional social media use of entry-level student affairs professionals at four campuses from a state university system. Bounded by the profession of student affairs, this study focused on how entry-level student affairs professionals used social media platforms. Findings suggest that most entry-level professionals do not enter student affairs ready or willing to engage university communities on social media platforms and their respective campuses and graduate programs are not preparing them to do so. Study participants largely lacked a professional digital identity and were somewhat reticent about developing a robust professional digital identity. Contributing to their hesitancy, participants described their digital baggage – a collection of social media or social media-connected experiences that consciously or unconsciously influence personal or professional social media use.

Utilizing Social Media for Preventing Substance Abuse

Drug addiction not only poses serious and dangerous physical and mental health hazards but also leads to numerous social and economic challenges. These challenges include an increase in drug-related crimes such as theft and robbery, unemployment, poverty, and the squandering of significant national resources. Today, addiction has emerged as a widespread phenomenon, severely threatening our societies. To confront this grave issue effectively and mitigate its adverse effects and consequences, it is imperative to resort to innovative tools. Among the most crucial tools that can be effectively utilized in prevention and combating drug abuse is the intelligent and efficient use of mass media, especially ubiquitous social and internet-based platforms.
 Without proper planning to establish an appropriate connection through media, prevention and anti-drug messages will not reach the viewers, listeners, and readers. Media professionals will also be unable to induce significant changes in the perspectives and beliefs of their audience. The functions of awareness, education, entertainment, advertising, participation, and social mobilization through media and virtual platforms illuminate the necessity of these tools in achieving preventive and responsive goals against substance abuse.
 Therefore, the objective of this meticulously conducted research is to study the preventive role and functionality of traditional, new, and social media in the context of substance abuse.

Access Amplified

This article focuses on a 1968 documentary radio series titled Seeds of Discontent and a recently established archival collection that centers on it. Created by Hartford Smith Jr., a Black social worker and professor in Detroit, and distributed by the National Educational Radio Network, Seeds of Discontent started with his concern over mass media’s coverage of riots and the social problems that caused them. Through interviews with college student activists, families living in poverty, teachers frustrated by the failings of the education system, middle-class workers, incarcerated youth, and many others, Smith used the series to explore the roots of social problems facing the United States, with frequent attention to the challenges and experiences of Black people living in Detroit, as well as possible solutions. By speaking to the people affected by social problems instead of the experts usually consulted in mass media, Smith’s ethos of access emphasizes the idea that the distance between media organizations and media professionals and the public whose circumstances and histories are being mediated is limiting, exacerbating the impact of the already-sown seeds of discontent at the core of societal structural issues. More than 50 years later, this commitment to access continued as Smith requested that the Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research (WCFTR) make his collection broadly accessible. This article outlines Smith’s approach in Seeds of Discontent and the story of the collection as a case study on the possibilities and challenges of access in contemporary archives.

Critiquing the Social Media Scholarship in Sport Studies: Looking Beyond Content and Adopting Critical Approaches

Social media and sport research has produced a significant corpus of academic literature. This work has enhanced our understanding of the influence of social media in various areas of the sport industry. This work, however, has often glamorized social media and its benefits, leading to a normalization about social media that obscures its negative effects and impacts in sport. This commentary reflects on how social media and sport research has evolved over time and calls for more consideration to be given to critical approaches to social media research that look beyond analysis of social media content. The commentary specifically addresses areas of inquiry around athlete welfare and social media, social media and young athletes, and social media professionals and their work environment. The commentary aims to encourage more critical perspectives related to social media that will enhance the inclusivity of the social media and sport literature.

Communication Breakdown: Sports Federations and Media Politics in the Weimar Republic

Abstract Organized sport in the Weimar Republic was dominated by three strands—so-called bourgeois sport, the gymnastics movement (Turnen) and the workers’ sports movement (Arbeitersport). While scholarship has rightly pointed out the differences between their federations, it has neglected a significant feature they had in common: the struggle to communicate key messages to their members. For the first time, this article examines debates about and developments in the communications of Weimar’s leading sports organizations. It shows that through the 1920s producing journals, running news services and lobbying the press became as important as competing in or watching sport itself, as the organizations sought to raise their profile, gain new members and retain the members they already had. Each of them, while envying the others, failed to meet its goals for similar reasons: inadequate internal structures, poor decision-making and the allure of commercialized sport and the papers and magazines it fed and produced. While scholarship has often noted the high level of sports coverage in the mainstream press, it has not explored the dynamic pull of such reporting on readers. By examining the effects of the professional media on the active members of the three main federations, this article therefore also sheds light on the power of new forms of writing and entertainment to influence individuals as the shift to consumer habits increased in all social classes throughout the Weimar Republic. In doing so, it bridges between empirically orientated forms of sports history and cultural histories of the press.

Using Machine Learning Technology (Early Artificial Intelligence-Supported Response With Social Listening Platform) to Enhance Digital Social Understanding for the COVID-19 Infodemic: Development and Implementation Study.

Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been a need for rapid social understanding to inform infodemic management and response. Although social media analysis platforms have traditionally been designed for commercial brands for marketing and sales purposes, they have been underused and adapted for a comprehensive understanding of social dynamics in areas such as public health. Traditional systems have challenges for public health use, and new tools and innovative methods are required. The World Health Organization Early Artificial Intelligence-Supported Response with Social Listening (EARS) platform was developed to overcome some of these challenges. This paper describes the development of the EARS platform, including data sourcing, development, and validation of a machine learning categorization approach, as well as the results from the pilot study. Data for EARS are collected daily from web-based conversations in publicly available sources in 9 languages. Public health and social media experts developed a taxonomy to categorize COVID-19 narratives into 5 relevant main categories and 41 subcategories. We developed a semisupervised machine learning algorithm to categorize social media posts into categories and various filters. To validate the results obtained by the machine learning-based approach, we compared it to a search-filter approach, applying Boolean queries with the same amount of information and measured the recall and precision. Hotelling T2 was used to determine the effect of the classification method on the combined variables. The EARS platform was developed, validated, and applied to characterize conversations regarding COVID-19 since December 2020. A total of 215,469,045 social posts were collected for processing from December 2020 to February 2022. The machine learning algorithm outperformed the Boolean search filters method for precision and recall in both English and Spanish languages (P<.001). Demographic and other filters provided useful insights on data, and the gender split of users in the platform was largely consistent with population-level data on social media use. The EARS platform was developed to address the changing needs of public health analysts during the COVID-19 pandemic. The application of public health taxonomy and artificial intelligence technology to a user-friendly social listening platform, accessible directly by analysts, is a significant step in better enabling understanding of global narratives. The platform was designed for scalability; iterations and new countries and languages have been added. This research has shown that a machine learning approach is more accurate than using only keywords and has the benefit of categorizing and understanding large amounts of digital social data during an infodemic. Further technical developments are needed and planned for continuous improvements, to meet the challenges in the generation of infodemic insights from social media for infodemic managers and public health professionals.

Natural language requirements boilerplates: an integrative literature review

In the field of Requirements Engineering, natural language is the most widely used form of documenting systems requirements, mainly for its expressiveness power, freedom of words, and easiness of use. On the other hand, written requirements are frequently ambiguous, incomplete, and incorrect, among other defects, impacting into the system lifecycle. To mitigate this issue, researchers have, since 1998, developed dozens of sets of boilerplates, aiding to guide natural language requirements composition. In this integrative literature review, authors searched for these sets in traditional academic databases, grey literature, and professional media, leading to a list of 54 relevant documents. Analysis of these primary works revealed that, even when boilerplate creators wish their artifacts to be used on all kinds of systems, they are generally cataloged under the Computer Science umbrella. It turned out to be evident that ambiguity is the main issue of quality of requirements addressed by boilerplates, followed by completeness and consistency. Authors mapped the requirements boilerplates definition modes, concluding that plain sentences are the foremost choice to describe these creations. It is claimed that systematization on the construction and evaluation of requirements boilerplates is still a problem to render these activities repeatable and reproducible, as the largest part of documents does not report it. Finally, the reported evaluation methods were hierarchically clustered, leading to three typical approaches for this activity.