Media-rich Environment Research Articles

Behavioral Economics

This study explores the complicated phenomenon of decision-making framing bias, shedding light on its cognitive roots, real-world implications, and countermeasures. By investigating the interaction between emotional sensitivity and objective judgment, the study illustrates the influence of framing bias on decisions. The essay demonstrates how shifting the framing can impact how something is valued using principles from Prospect Theory. This prejudice is seen in consumer decisions, public policy discussions, and media coverage. Even with education and awareness, it can be challenging to counteract framing bias in a subjective, unconscious, and media-rich environment. In doing so, it sheds light on the complex web of human decision-making and suggests potential future research routes to better understand neurological processes and design focused therapies.

Understanding the dynamics of broadcast operations driven by a converged digital ecosystem

Broadcast Media Africa’s 2021 conference in Cape Town, South Africa, was dubbed the “Broadcast Media Convention of Southern Africa” and was organised in partnership with the Southern Africa Broadcasting Association. The conference drew attention to several issues, including the technological developments affecting broadcasters and the effect of Covid-19 on broadcasting operations. This article is based on the paper presented there. The article notes that the broadcast industry has evolved drastically over the past few years. However, with rapid technological developments and new trends in the increasingly digital and converged media markets, broadcast managers increasingly must look for new strategies to stay afloat in the competitive and mediarich environment in which broadcast institutions operate. The article posits that the new media ecosystem has essentially brought to the fore one aspect, which was always known but often took for granted – the importance of the audience. The article appraises the developments in the converging environment to improve our understanding of how African broadcasters could continue to innovate successfully.

A new behavioral addiction: NEWS addiction

Addictions are seen with non - psychoactive substances also. Behavioral addictions is a broad terminology used related to this. The essential feature of behavioral addictions is the failure to resist an impulse, drive or temptation to perform an act that is harmful to the person or to others. There are many individual (personal vulnerability) factors that may be involved in the acquisition, development and maintenance of behavioral addictions. Concepts of Internet addiction, Gaming addiction, Facebook addiction, PubG addiction are already in use and seen in clinical practice. There are people who read multiple newspapers and watch news channels all the time. Addiction to NEWS has become more prevalent with the increase in news channels and internet sources. Connecting to the News is becoming more prevalent with the media rich environment we live in. Based on different needs each person gets attracted to certain types of news that feeds these needs. When a person has a goal to know what is happening around, he never really achieves it because there is always something new happening! Persons with News addiction also feel emptiness when they are unable to get the news and can experience cravings when they go through news withdrawal. Identification is the first step in the process of learning about a problem / disorder. There needs to be systematic studies on this topic. 'NEWS addiction' has all the features to be the next major behavioral addiction disorder.

Investigating the Mediation and Moderation Effect of Students’ Addiction to Virtual Reality Games: A Perspective of Structural Equation Modeling

Virtual reality (VR) games construct an immersive context for the youth’s entertainment and learning. VR game addiction (VAD) occurs simultaneously and brings about psychological issues. The current research employed a maximum likelihood estimation method to construct a structural equation model, by which learners’ VR consumption behaviors were examined. The bootstrapping approach was adopted to explore further the mediation of VR realism (VRR) and the moderation of VR affordance on learners’ VAD, which potentially leads to distressing behavioral and psychological circumstances. Data were collected from 575 students recruited in the survey, which was followed by a test of reliability and validity through confirmative factor analysis. Results concluded that VRR and consumers’ cognitive satisfaction played a significant role as mediators while conceptualizing addictive behavior based on VR-perceived experience of consumers, self-efficacy, and interactivity. Moreover, this study conceptualized addictive behavior toward VR games through a structural equation model in a media-rich environment and suggested practical implications to reduce addictive behavior.

Managing News Overload (MNO): The COVID-19 Infodemic

A crucial area in which information overload is experienced is news consumption. Ever increasing sources and formats are becoming available through a combination of traditional and new (digital) media, including social media. In such an information and media rich environment, understanding how people access and manage news during a global health epidemic like COVID-19 becomes even more important. The designation of the current situation as an infodemic has raised concerns about the quality, accuracy and impact of information. Instances of misinformation are commonplace due, in part, to the speed and pervasive nature of social media and messaging applications in particular. This paper reports on data collected using media diaries from 15 university students in the United Arab Emirates documenting their news consumption in April 2020. Faced with a potentially infinite amount of information and news, participants demonstrate how they are managing news overload (MNO) using a number of complementary strategies. Results show that while consumption patterns vary, all diaries indicate that users’ ability to navigate the news landscape in a way that fulfils their needs is influenced by news sources; platform reliability and verification; sharing activity; and engagement with news.

COMICS AS AN EDUCATIONAL TOOLFOR CHILDREN UNDERGOING SURGERY: LITERATURE REVIEW

Children undergoing surgery become more vulnerable to their needs; particularlythe psychological needs, becoming more susceptible to an emotional imbalance, anguish,fear, which often translates into anxiety and depression. Anxiety needs to be overcome byproviding appropriate intervention, one of these is by providing education. Being informedand having an accurate expectation through preparatory information produce cognitivecontrol that decreases the deleterious impact of the imminent stressors.This literatureaimed to present an overview summary of comics as a promising educational tool throughstudy the impact of preoperative education using comics on surgery-related children'sinformation and their preoperative anxiety level. Comics and graphic novels as educationallearning tools is still a fairly new field of research. Comicalstorytelling narrative may bean innovative and interactive educational tool in today’s media-rich environment.

Advertising Placement in Digital Game Design Influences Children’s Choices of Advertised Snacks: A Randomized Trial

BackgroundChildren are inhabitants of a media-rich environment rife in extensive, sophisticated, and persistent techniques that are used to market unhealthy food. Exposure is known to influence children’s attitudes, choices, and consumption, yet further research is required to explore the influence of contemporary techniques within online games. ObjectiveTo explore the influence of modern advertising on children’s attitudes, choices, and consumption, techniques (ie, banner advertising, advergame, and rewarded video advertising) were used to promote an unfamiliar confectionery brand within an online game. DesignA between-subjects randomized experimental study. Participants/settingChildren (aged 7 to 12 years [n=156]) were recruited in New South Wales, Australia, between September and November 2017. InterventionChildren were required to play a 4-minute online game, complete some questionnaires, and choose one snack to consume afterward. Children were randomly assigned to one of four conditions: a control group with no advertising, and three experimental conditions that promoted an unfamiliar confectionery brand via a banner advertisement, advergame, or rewarded video advertisement. Main outcome measuresQuestionnaires included the assessment of attitudes to the test brand before and after the game, enjoyment of the game, and children’s awareness of advertising. Food choice was recorded and food consumption was measured by weighing the snack in grams, which was translated into kilocalories. Statistical analyses performedStatistical tests included analyses of variance, Kruskal-Wallis test, and χ2 test. ResultsAttitudes toward the perception of fun (P=0.06) and taste (P=0.21) of the test brand were not influenced by condition. Children who were exposed to the rewarded video advertising chose the test brand significantly more than children in the other three conditions (P<0.002). Condition did not influence overall energy intake measured in grams (P=0.78) or kilocalories (P=0.46). ConclusionsChildren’s choice of the test brand was significantly influenced by the rewarded video advertising condition (compared with control, banner advertising, and advergame conditions). This technique is prevalent across online and application games that children play yet the effects of using rewarded video advertising to promote food brands have not been explored from a public health perspective. This study contributes to the understanding of modern strategies used to market unhealthy foods to children.

Tobacco Marketing and Subsequent Use of Cigarettes, E-Cigarettes, and Hookah in Adolescents.

Tobacco marketing has expanded from cigarettes to other tobacco products through many promotional channels. Marketing exposure is associated with use of that tobacco product. However, it is unclear if marketing for one product leads to subsequent use of other tobacco products. This prospective cohort study assessed self-reported marketing exposure for six tobacco products across five marketing channels in 11th and 12th grade students in 2014. Approximately 16 months later, a follow-up survey was conducted online (N = 1553) to assess initiation of cigarettes, electronic cigarettes (e-cigarettes), and hookah. Adolescent never-smokers with frequent exposure to cigarette marketing on the Internet and in stores are more than two times as likely to begin smoking as young adults (Internet OR = 2.98 [95% CI = 1.56 to 5.66]; stores OR = 2.83 [95% CI = 1.23 to 6.50]). Never users of e-cigarettes were significantly more likely to initiate use, if exposed to Internet, store, and outdoor e-cigarette marketing. Never users of hookah were more likely to use hookah after seeing it marketed in stores. Youth exposed to marketing of e-cigarettes, hookah, cigars, smokeless tobacco, and pipe tobacco in stores were two to three times more likely to begin smoking cigarettes even though the marketed products were not cigarettes. Adolescent exposure to marketing of tobacco products is associated with initiation of those products as young adults. Exposure to marketing for non-cigarette tobacco products is associated with subsequent cigarette smoking, even when the promoted products are not cigarettes. Future research and interventions should consider the influence of marketing from multiple tobacco products on adolescent tobacco use. Adolescents grow up in a rich media environment with exposure to tobacco marketing in both their homes (eg, through the Internet and television) and their communities (eg, stores and billboards). This prospective study provides evidence that adolescents exposed to tobacco marketing for multiple tobacco products are more likely to subsequently begin using those products and to begin smoking cigarettes even when the marketing they recall is for different tobacco products. Adolescent exposure to tobacco marketing can increase likelihood of cigarette smoking, e-cigarette, and hookah use with potential lifelong health effects.

Copyright, Fair Use, and Free Use for US K-12 Educators: A Legal Perspective

ABSTRACTIn today's media-rich educational environment, many teachers are unsure how to uphold applicable copyright laws and avoid potential penalties. The boundaries between acceptable and unacceptable use of copyrighted materials are murky at best. This article offers a clear explanation of common copyright terms and some suggestions for practicing educators.

An Overview of Comic Books as an Educational Tool and Implications for Pharmacy

Objective: To present an overview of comic books as an educational tool and discuss the use of comic books in pharmacy education.&#x0D; Literature Identification: This research is comprised of a narrative literature review and critical analysis of the information retrieved. Key words included: comic(s), graphic novels, and pharmacy education. News articles, dissertations, theses, books, and scholarly articles from peer reviewed journals were selected and reviewed for inclusion in this article.&#x0D; Results: Comics have been used as a pedagogical tool to motivate students to read, help them remember the content, and make the whole learning process fun. They have been used as supplemental readings in biochemistry, physics, and business ethics. Comic books have been used in educating patients about the challenges of dialysis, promoting health, and informing consumers about diseases such as AIDS and cancer.&#x0D; Conclusion: In today’s media rich environment, comic books could be a visually interactive and innovative educational tool. Pharmacy faculty could use comic books or graphic novels as stand-alone texts or as part of a larger curriculum. Comic books could help students learn pharmacy-relevant content while enjoying the reading.&#x0D; Conflict of Interest&#x0D; The author declares no conflicts of interest or financial interests that the authors or members of their immediate families have in any product or service discussed in the manuscript, including grants (pending or received), employment, gifts, stock holdings or options, honoraria, consultancies, expert testimony, patents and royalties&#x0D; &#x0D; Type: Review

Documenting and Assessing Learning in Media-Rich Informal Environments

Bibl iography: Mustain, Paige: Documenting and Assessing Learning in Media-Rich Informal Environments, IJREE, Vol. 4, Issue 1-2016, pp. 153-155. https://doi.org/10.3224/ijree.v4i1.24781

Moving Past Curricula and Strategies: Language and the Development of Adaptive Pedagogy for Immersive Learning Environments

Given current concerns internationally about student performance in science and the need to shift how science is being learnt in schools, as a community, we need to shift how we approach the issue of learning and teaching in science. In the future, we are going to have to close the gap between how students construct and engage with knowledge in a media-rich environment, and how school classroom environments engage them. This is going to require a shift to immersive environments where attention is paid to the knowledge bases and resources students bring into the classroom. Teachers will have to adopt adaptive pedagogical approaches that are framed around a more nuanced understanding of epistemological orientation, language and the nature of prosocial environments.

Learning in the e-environment

We live in times of rapid change in all areas of science, technology, communication and social life. Every day we are asked to what extent school prepares us for these changes and for life in a new, multimedia environment. Children and adolescents spend less time at school or in other settings of learning than they do outdoors or within other social communities (family, clubs, societies, religious institutions and the like). Experts must constantly inquire about what exactly influences learning and development in our rich media environment. The list of the most important life competences has significantly changed and expanded since the last century. Educational experts are attempting to predict changes in the content and methodology of learning at the beginning of the 21st century. Answers are sought to key questions such as: what should one learn; how should one learn; where should one learn; why should one learn; and how do these answers relate to the new learning environment? In his examination of the way children and young people learn and grow up, the author places special attention on the relationship between personal and non-personal communication (e.g. the internet, mobile phones and different types of e-learning). He deals with today's questions by looking back to some of the more prominent authors and studies of the past fifty years that tackled identical or similar questions (Alvin Toffler, Ivan Illich, George Orwell, and the members of the Club of Rome). The conclusion reached is that in today's world of rapid and continuous change, it is much more crucial than in the last century, both, to be able to learn, and to adapt to learning with the help of new media.

Foreword by the guest editor

This issue of Libellarium includes papers from the invited speakers who gave lectures at the Summer School in User Studies (SSUS) organized by the Department of Information Sciences and held at the University of Zadar, 11. - 14. April, 2012. The SSUS is associated with the Knowledge Society and Information Transfer PhD programme at the Department of Information Sciences at the University of Zadar. This programme is designed for Croatian and international doctoral students in the field of theories and studies of information needs and use, as well as the field of reading and learning concepts and strategies in digital environment. The main goal of the Summer School 2012 was to introduce the participants to the most recent research, the latest developments and the newly emerged concepts in the fields of users’ information behaviour, learning and education in the digital age, information literacy theories and concepts, as well as the reading paradigms. In the recent times the information society changes rapidly which influences processing and the approaches to information while it changes the existing paradigms of learning and education. New literacies emerge and reading, as the key competency necessary to access the information, changes its forms and practices. The SUSS organized the above mentioned issues in three segments: Users’ information behaviour, Literacy and reading in the digital environment, and Learning and education in the digital age. In the Users’ information behaviour segment this issue of Libellarium contains articles from two invited speakers and two doctoral students who discuss the subject from different viewpoints. Paul Sturges starts with the assumption that people are much more dependent than they realise on information and ideas that are acquired and processed by areas of the brain, not always immediately accessible to the conscious mind. Polona Vilar discusses information behaviour of scholars and scholarly practice influenced by increased accessibility of digital resources and tools. Doctoral students Dora Rubinic and Darko Lacovic base their literature reviews on the specific context of university students’ information behaviour. The former review deals with information behavior of university students in general, while the latter one deals with university students’ information behaviour in relation to the role of academic libraries. Four invited speakers discuss literacy and reading in the digital environment. Livija Knaflic presents literacy as a complex phenomenon and focuses her work toward psychological aspects of literacy. Sonja Spiranec investigates information literacy in the context of Web 2.0 which transformed information environments into complex and unstructured places so the contexts of information literacy are being re-examined and reshaped respectively. Ivanka Kuic writes about the postmodern theoretical approaches to the reader and the validity of these approaches in the digital environment while emphasizing that existing concepts of the reader and reading adapt to electronic environment, because the electronic text deconstructs the printed one and it changes the way of reading. Vita Mozuraite discusses these rapid changes in the reading paradigm in the age of e-book to which the young readers are especially susceptible considering their frequent use of the internet. The changes in information environment influence learning. This fact demands careful consideration from education experts in order to achieve the maximal degree of the rich media environment contribution to the quality of education. Hence, Milan Matijevic writes about the influence the e-environment has on the new curriculum paradigms. These papers are the starting point for the new directions of thought about the changes in the digital environment that reflect on information behaviour, learning and the related practices. The papers were received in 2012/2013 and were peer reviewed in 2013/2014. * Department of Information Sciences, University of Zadar, Croatia e-mail: istricev@unizd.hr

Promoting health in virtual worlds: lessons from second life.

BackgroundSocial media services can help empower people to take greater responsibility for their health. For example, virtual worlds are media-rich environments that have many technically advantageous characteristics that can be used for Health 2.0 purposes. Second Life has been used to build environments where people can obtain information and interact with other users for peer support and advice from health care professionals.ObjectiveThe intent of the study was to find out whether Second Life is a working and functional platform supporting the empowerment of people in health-related issues.MethodsWe conducted a review of the current health-related activity in Second Life, coupled with an extensive series of observations and interactions with the respective resources inside Second Life.ResultsA total of 24 operative health resources were found in Second Life, indicating that health-related activity is rather limited in Second Life, though at first glance it appears to contain very rich health-related content. The other main shortcomings of Second Life relate to a lack of activity, a low number of resource users, problems with Second Life’s search features, and the difficulty of finding trustworthy information.ConclusionsFor the average user, Second Life offers very little unique value compared to other online health resources.

Media Richness, Team Behaviors, and Task Complexity on Team Performance

Student groups worked a maze problem in a high or low media rich environment, with distributed or shared materials, with or without training on effective communication. Training did not affect performance, but groups with shared information had greater levels of performance. The media rich environment was debilitating, contrary to expectation. A training and materials interaction suggests that teamwork behaviors can decrease group performance when the task is easy, but increase performance on a more difficult task. Best predictors of performance suggest different types of behaviors have greater impact in different settings, and giving and seeking situation awareness might suggest a group is experiencing problems with the task.

Online journalism: A case study of interactivity of mainstream online news websites of the Maldives

Internet has emerged as a hybrid-publishing platform. Thus, communication technologies are challenging the linear print journalism format with interactive devices turning online journalism into a rich media environment. While communication technologies have enabled publishers and media producers to use numerous interactive features in the constructed presentation of online news, few news websites in the Maldives are maximizing such features. This study, based on a content analysis of three mainstream news websites, develops an interactivity index and examines the interactive features of the news websites and analyses how news is presented and to what extent the various publications differ in their application of interactive devices in online journalism. The findings show that the news websites did not fully utilize and enhance interactive features in online journalism.

Taking care of bodies ~ tracing gestures betwixt and between live-digital dancing

This paper discusses some findings from practice-as-research into digital dance performance making. In an attempt to re-conceptualize the art of making movement, particularly as new technologies become more and more pervasive in art practice generally, this paper presents a personal perspective of the potential for ‘live’ and ‘digital bodies’ to interact. Key to this interaction has been a philosophical appreciation of Erin Manning’s concepts of a ‘sensing body in movement’ and ‘relation’ (2007, 2011). Using Manning’s ideas as a methodology for rethinking the relationship between live and digital dancing, this paper explores how the integration of digital media into choreographic practices can begin to shift our understanding of how best to compose movement simultaneously in live and digital contexts. Furthermore, this paper aims to explore and further understand what it means to move within media-rich environments, moving towards a situation where the idea of ‘taking care of bodies’ extends to how such performance paradigms can begin to re-engage with performer/audience perception.

Storytelling

In the era of e-learning, student-centered approaches and constructivists learning environments are critical success factors. The inherent interactivity of the Internet and the emotional engagement of story can lead to transformative learning experiences in media rich environments. This paper focuses on Web-Based Transmedia Storytelling Edutainment as critical-creative pedagogy in higher e-education.

Incorporating Online Tools In Tertiary Education

Students currently studying at tertiary institutions have developed a set of attitudes and aptitudes as a result of growing up in an IT and media-rich environment. These attitudes and aptitudes influence how they learn and in order to be effective, lecturers must adapt to address their learning preferences and use the online teaching tools that these students are familiar with. In a South African context it was found that students spend a significant amount of time in interactive online image-rich environments and are accustomed to this environment. A number of suggestions are made on how to incorporate this in tertiary education.