Media Visibility Research Articles

Automatic Logo Detection with Deep Region-based Convolutional Networks

Abstract: Deep learning is an important element of data science, which includes statistics and predictive modeling. It is extremely beneficial to data scientists who are tasked with collecting, analyzing and interpreting large amounts of data. It makes this process faster and easier. We present a deep learning system for automatic logo detection in real world images. We base our detector on the popular framework of Faster R-CNNand compare its performance to other models such as Mask R-CNN or RetinaNet. We perform a detailed empirical analysis of various design and architecture choices and show how these can have much higher influence than algorithmic tweaks or popular techniques such as data augmentation. We also provide a systematic detection performance comparison of various models on multiple popular datasets including FlickrLogos-32, TopLogo-10 and recently introduced QMUL-OpenLogo benchmark, which allows for a direct comparison between recently proposed extensions. By careful optimization of the training procedure we were able to achieve significant improvements of the state of the art on all mentioned datasets. We apply our observations to build a detector to detect logos of the Red Bull brand in online media and images. Automatic logo detection and recognition is a challenging computer vision task with many applications. One of the typical purposes of such systems is measurement of brand visibility and prominence in online media or television broadcasts.

Effects of greenwashing on financial performance: Moderation through local environmental regulation and media coverage

AbstractRecent research suggests that the effect of greenwashing and corporate financial performance (CFP) is ambiguous. This call for study the contextual factors that create contingencies in the greenwashing–CFP relationship. Using a sample of 2816 observations covering 735 Chinese‐listed firms in 21 different industries from 2013 to 2017, this research examines the effect of greenwashing on CFP and explores the moderating effects of local environmental regulation, media visibility and media favourability. Results show that greenwashing positively affects CFP and effect weakened with stringent environmental regulations and reversed with low media favourability. Our finding implies that stakeholders could hardly identify greenwashing in the context of an emerging economy with high‐level information asymmetry. However, local environmental regulation and negative media coverage could reduce this information asymmetry, making greenwashing easier to be identified. It is the first study to investigate greenwashing–CFP relationship from institutional environment perspective.

The Rise of VIEs in China: Balancing State Control and Access to Foreign Capital

ABSTRACTWe investigate Chinese firms' use of variable interest entities (VIEs) to list in the U.S. Since VIEs are explicitly designed to circumvent Chinese restrictions on foreign investments, they potentially increase the risk of government intervention and agency conflicts within the firm. The use of VIEs among Chinese firms listed in the U.S. is widespread, growing, and associated with valuation discounts of approximately 25 percent relative to Chinese non-VIE firms listed in the U.S. The discount varies predictably with events that change VIE risks and is tempered by better oversight (large auditor and institutional investment) and factors that lower regulatory risk (political connection and high media visibility). To remediate investor concerns, VIE firms are more likely to have these characteristics. Finally, we find that the risk of intervention disciplines VIE managers who curry government favor by contributing to disaster relief and hiring excess employees.Data Availability: Data are available from public sources cited in the text.JEL Classifications: G30; G34; M41; K22.

Vote for Visibility: Talent Hunts, Networked Infrastructures, and the Emergence of Northeast India’s First Reality TV Star

This article explores the relationship between the arrival of early mobile communication technologies and the emergence of reality television (TV) contestants from the Northeast region, particularly Assam. It argues that such networked communication infrastructures enabled marginalised and aspirational publics to mobilise and assert their identities in an evolving mediascape; specifically, how these publics deploy telecommunication and media infrastructures to acquire media visibility. This correlation is examined via the success story of Debojit Saha—the first reality TV star from the Northeast. Significantly, his win was credited to a rigorous, coordinated SMS voting campaign conducted by local student and socio-political unions. Hitherto marginalised regional identities emerged as key players in development of the digital television culture in a neoliberal economy.

Expert voices in South African mass media during the COVID-19 pandemic

Scientists increasingly recognise that media visibility allows them to gain influence in public and policy spheres. However, some scientists shy away from publicity and journalists are purposefully selective when they seek out experts to interview. This may result in a skewed representation of scientists in the mass media. In this study, we explored which South African scientific experts at the academic rank of ‘professor’ were quoted in the local mass media during the initial 6 months of the COVID-19 pandemic. Our analysis of 1164 media articles related to COVID-19 showed that, as far as gender is concerned, men dominated as expert sources, with women accounting for only 30% of quoted professors. In terms of research field, most experts were from the broad field of health and medicine, with an under-representation of social scientists. We reflect on the implications and consequences of a skewed media representation of scientific expertise, as well as some of the options to remedy these imbalances. Significance: This is the first study to identify the most visible science experts in the mass media in South Africa during the COVID-19 pandemic. We recommend options for institutions, researchers, media editors and journalists to help diversify expert sources that are featured or quoted in the mass media.

Anti-Corruption Disclosure, Corporate Social Expenditure and Political Corporate Social Responsibility: Empirical Evidence from Bangladesh

Corruption is a major concern globally, particularly in developing countries, such as Bangladesh, where it is the main obstacle to economic development. Corruption is also mentioned as the major impediment to accomplishing sustainable development. There is a dearth of studies on anti-corruption disclosure (ACD), political corporate social responsibility (PCSR), and cash holding in Bangladesh magnitude of this research. This study investigates different drivers and motivations of ACD practice of a less control of corruption country’s firm-level observations. This study incorporates an institutional and legitimacy theoretical lens to explain anti-corruption disclosure practice. In order to draw the best picture of corruption disclosure, the study uses all financial sector companies listed on the Dhaka Stock Exchange. Therefore, the total firm-year observations are 245 from 2012–2016. The authors developed a diverse set of 97 keywords as content for ACD. The regression results show that CSR expenditures, political corporate social responsibility (PCSR), financial constraint, internationalization of reporting, and media visibility positively and significantly affect firm-level ACD. Furthermore, cash holdings show negative and significant relationships. The study provides new evidence on CSR expenditure, PCSR, cash holdings, and media visibility from a developing country’s perspective. Therefore, the results suggest that policymakers and regulatory authorities can deal with ACD as a legitimization tool for society and stakeholders.

Women on and Behind Chinese Entertainment Television: De/Constructing the Female Authorship of National Treasure

Abstract Women have been enjoying new forms of visibility in post-2010 Chinese entertainment television, not just onscreen, but also in paratextual discourses about women as content producers. By focusing on the promotional and reception materials about a female director/producer, Yu Lei, and her authorship in National Treasure (NT), a current Chinese variety show, this article analyzes how extratextual material operates in relation to female authorship in Chinese television. By examining how gender politics are incorporated in the construction of female authorship, we identify the problematic aspects of how Yu Lei’s authorship is framed, which serve to promote neoliberal postfeminist ideas of women’s empowerment and are bound up with current iterations of official neonationalist ideology. While acknowledging its limitations, we argue that Yu Lei’s position as a woman in a male-dominated industry who has substantial visibility in media and enjoys some authority over a TV production still constitutes noteworthy if only partial agency.

Scientific vs. Social Media Impact in Astronomy: Study of Gemini, Keck, and PRL Publications

This study was carried out to assess whether a correlation exists between the social media visibility (altmetrics) and scientific impact (citations) of published refereed articles in astronomy. We have compiled citations and altmetrics of refereed articles between 2016-2019 at Gemini Observatory/NSF’s NOIRLab (Gemini), W.M. Keck Observatory (Keck) and the Physical Research Laboratory (PRL). The study was aimed to identify the impact of social media, if any, on academic recognition by peers. This collaborative study identifies the existence of a positive correlation between the citations and altmetrics and also explores the characteristics of the correlation for the publications from the three institutions.

Identifying widely disseminated scientific papers on social media

Identifying widely disseminated papers (WDPs) on social media can help to understand dissemination mechanisms of scientific papers from academia to social media and assist in the formulation of public and science policy. This study applies machine learning methods to explore the possibility of identifying WDPs and to investigate the influence mechanisms of literature-related and social media-related features. A pre-task was first conducted to investigate whether the visibility of scientific papers on social media can be predicted, and the role of various features was analyzed. Then, we defined two predictive tasks for identifying WDPs before and after they are visible on social media. The performance of eight state-of-the-art algorithms was compared in three experiments against the dataset of the oncology field, and the contribution of literature-related and social media-related features in the tasks was explained based on the Shapley additional explanations (SHAP) value. The results show that XGBoost performs better than other algorithms, especially with an F1 score of 0.988 and AUC of 0.998 in the trend prediction task. Nearly all of the literature-related features have great effects on identifying long-term disseminated papers, and most social media-related features play more significant roles in identifying broadly mentioned papers. Moreover, journal features contribute more to identifying papers of social media visibility, while paper features, especially research topics, have a greater influence on identifying WDPs. The number and proportion of academic-related Twitter users have great impacts on the scale and duration of papers’ dissemination. The number and duration of first-generation tweets play critical roles in identifying broadly mentioned and long-term disseminated papers, respectively. This study provides profound insights into the influencing factors in the dissemination of papers from the scientific community to and across social media, and helps to understand the difference in knowledge propagation between academia and the public.

In situ micro-emulsification during surfactant enhanced oil recovery: A microfluidic study

HypothesisIt is generally believed that the improved efficiency of surfactant enhanced oil recovery (EOR) comes from ultra-low interfacial tension (IFT) between oil and surfactant solution owing to the formation of middle-phase microemulsion. However, hindered visibility in underground porous media prevents direct observation of in situ generation of middle-phase microemulsion during surfactant flooding. Thus, direct visualization of the process is vital, and could clarify its contribution to EOR. ExperimentsMicro-emulsification of a displacing fluid containing sodium 4-dodecylbenzenesulfonate and alcohol propoxy sulfate with model oil was investigated. Phase diagrams were drawn using salinity scans, and the influence of polymer on emulsification was analyzed. Micro-emulsification was monitored through in situ fluorescent tagging via 2D-microfluidics and ex situ visualization via cryo-electron microscopy and small angle X-ray scattering. Its contribution to the oil recovery factor was quantified by measuring the volume of each phase in the eluates. FindingsOn-chip experiments indicated that in situ micro-emulsification occurred when the prescreened surfactant solution flowed in contact with trapped oil. The aqueous phase initially invaded the residual oil, forming a low mobility microemulsion. This microemulsion was then diluted by subsequent displacing fluid, forming a new driving fluid that caused ultra-low IFT in the trapped oil downstream. Under the synergistic effect of micellar solubilization and trapped-oil mobilization, the recovery factor could be increased by up to 40% over waterflooding and 43% on polymer inclusion in the formulation.

Hyperlinks and media visibility on Twitter in political events in Spain: new patterns in the digital information ecology

ABSTRACT Digital environment involves numerous transformations for the media system. One of them is the process that is reconfiguring the traditional media visibility parameters from mass communication era. To study it, we use, taking an innovative approach, hyperlinks as proxy to the media visibility. Our goal is to find out the destination of the hyperlinks aimed at the media in the context of the political conversation on Twitter generated around an event of public relevance: the negotiations on the formation of the Spanish Government. The methodology is based on machine learning in a big data sample of 127.3 million tweets. This will allow us to make new contributions to how media is restructuring its social visibility as a result of integrating into the digital. The results indicate the prominence of pure players and social media platforms in the linking practices of users. By contrast, legacy media places in a secondary position. Also, geopolitical context plays a key role in conditioning the use of hyperlinks by Twitter users. Finally, our data reveal that the media have a limited capacity to determine the hyperlink network.

Media Coverage of Earnings Announcements: How Newsworthiness Shapes Media Volume and Tone

Media coverage of earnings is consequential for firms. As such, firms work hard to ensure their performance beats analyst estimates to avoid negative coverage. However, the relationship between performance and coverage might not be as straightforward as firms assume because media coverage is a socially constructed process that reflects journalists’ social and cognitive biases while producing newsworthy content. With this in mind, we unpack the concept of newsworthiness and develop theory regarding how the media targets, in the earnings context, deviance that is socially significant for stakeholders or attaches a deviance frame to news of social significance. In doing so, we examine how the media’s pursuit of newsworthiness shapes the relationship between critical characteristics of earnings announcements—including the firm’s earnings performance, its press releases surrounding earnings, its prior reputation, and its prior media visibility—and media volume and tone. The results of our empirical tests are broadly consistent with our theorizing. Our theory and findings contribute to research on earnings, media coverage, and social evaluations.

Vaccine events raising public concern and associated immunization program policy and practice changes, China, 2005–2021

IntroductionSeveral vaccine events causing public concern have occurred in China that were investigated and responded to by the central government. We describe causes, influences, and policy or practice changes associated with vaccine events that occurred between 2005 and 2021. We make recommendations to foster resilience in China’s Expanded Program of Immunization (EPI) system and vaccination enterprises and to sustain vaccine and program confidence. MethodsOur study included all vaccine events since 2005 that were investigated and responded to by the central government of China. We verified mainstream and social media visibility of the events through Internet search. We extracted event times, causes, investigation processes, results, actions, and policy or practice regulation changes from official reports of government meetings and from official websites with media briefings. ResultsSeven vaccine events were identified, each of which caused more than 100,000 mainstream or social media reports nationally or nationally and internationally. The events ranged in magnitude from 145 children receiving out-of-date oral poliovirus vaccine to a measles supplementary immunization activity involving 103 million children. Few, if any, children were directly harmed by vaccines in the events. Government responded to each event with program or policy changes, and in one case, with legislation. Responses affected the conduct of campaigns and supplementary immunization activities, use of schools as vaccination venues, financial incentives for vaccinating with non-program vaccines, vaccine procurement and distribution, and program policy making. The most fundamental response was enacting the country’s first vaccine law, the 2019 Vaccine Administration Law, which guides virtually all aspects of vaccination work, from vaccine development through regulation, program implementation, and safety and impact monitoring. ConclusionsAll seven events generated substantial national and international mainstream and social media criticism and discussion, most commonly expressed through concerns of vaccine safety or vaccine effectiveness. Most had temporally associated temporary declines in vaccine confidence and coverage, jeopardizing decades of vaccination effort. The central government responded to each event by attempting to address root causes. Faithful implementation of the Vaccine Administration Law is fundamental to program strengthening and sustaining confidence of families, stakeholders, and government in vaccines and immunization in China.

Platformed intimacies: Professional belonging on social media

This article explores how social media presence and platform engagements inform and affect creative workers’ sense of professional agency and craft. Focusing on Finnish theatre, film and TV actors’ perceptions of their social media interactions, the article proposes the concept of platformed intimacy to capture the simultaneous importance and ambivalence of mobile attachments that characterise actors’ platformed lives. The research participants consisted of 15 freelancers and theatre employees, aged between 29 and 64 years. The analysis was based on the diary-interview method and close reading. In this article, we suggest that to understand the complexities involved in creative workers’ presence on social media platforms, it is important to broaden the investigation from self-promotion to questions of professional identities and communities. The concept of platformed intimacy captures how actors experience social network sites and apps, such as Instagram and Facebook, as ‘grey areas’ in which they deal with the frequent uncertainty about the meaning of social media visibility for their employability and future collaborations. For actors in our study, social media presence is intimately entangled with their sense of professionalism and desire of to belong to a professional community of peers. As such it articulates senses of proximity and reciprocity as well as feelings of discomfort and anxiety.

ІНСТРУМЕНТИ ПРОСУВАННЯ ІНТЕРНЕТ-ЗМІ (РЕГІОНАЛЬНІ ПРАКТИКИ)

<p><strong><em>The purpose</em></strong><em> of the study is to identify modern trends in the promotion of Internet media (on the example of regional media).</em></p><p><strong><em>Research methodology</em></strong><em>. The methods of analysis and synthesis were used for studying the theoretical and methodological base on the promotion of Internet periodicals. In the research comprehension of modern ways for promoting online media was made with the help of such methods as reception and generalization. To cover the promotion of Internet periodicals, descriptive method was used. This article suggests the results of conducted survey that has become a source of empirical information in identifying dominant instruments for content promotion in regional Internet media.</em></p><p><strong><em>Results. </em></strong><em>The article shows the phenomenon of promotion as a marketing factor in improving the functional efficiency of Internet media and also the research comprehensively describes the trends of applying variety of promotion tools. The main positions of regional media specialists in the application of various methods of promoting an information product are reproduced. It was revealed that the dominant trends in the promotion of regional (Zaporizhzhya) online media are news aggregators Ukrnet , Google News and social networks. The advantages and disadvantages of using certain tools in positioning online publications are revealed. The basic directions of active presence visibility of the online media in the information market are formulated. Potential threats to reduce the number of visitors to the online media site have been revealed. New ways of attracting the audience's attention are indicated: new formats of text presentation, use of multimedia, creation of interactive forms of interaction with readers, hypertext, attraction of other electronic resources.</em></p><p><em>The scientific </em><strong><em>novelty </em></strong><em>of obtained results</em><em> is to identify the most up-to-date and often used ways of promoting regional information product and to generalize dominant trends in their use.</em></p><p><strong><em>Practical meaning</em></strong><em>. The given study can be useful to people in media in the process of planning and implementing media and content promotion.</em></p><p><strong><em>Key words:</em></strong><em> media promotion, Internet media, SEO-optimization, mass media, social networks, search engine optimization, news aggregators.</em></p>

Citation impact and social media visibility of Great Barrington and John Snow signatories for COVID-19 strategy

ObjectiveThe Great Barrington Declaration (GBD) and the John Snow Memorandum (JSM), each signed by numerous scientists, have proposed hotly debated strategies for handling the COVID-19 pandemic. The current analysis aimed...

Functions of Hybrid Media: How Parties and Their Leaders Use Traditional Media in Their Social Media Campaign Communication

Political campaign communication has become increasingly hybrid and the ability to create synergies between older and newer media is now a prerequisite for running a successful campaign. Nevertheless, beyond establishing that parties and individual politicians use social media to gain visibility in traditional media, not much is known about how political actors use the hybrid media system in their campaign communication. At the same time, the personalization of politics, shown to have increased in the media coverage of politics, has gained little attention in the context of today’s hybrid media environment. In this research we analyze one aspect of hybrid media campaign communication, political actors’ use of traditional media in their social media campaign communication. Through a quantitative content analysis of the Facebook, Twitter and Instagram posts of Finnish parties and their leaders published during the 2019 Finnish parliamentary elections, we find that much of this hybridized campaign communication was personalized. In addition, we show that parties and their leaders used traditional media for multiple purposes, the most common of which was gaining positive visibility, pointing to strategic considerations. The results have implications for both the scholarship on hybrid media systems and personalization of politics.

Learning Social Media Content Optimization: How Can SMEs Draw the Users' Attention on Official WeChat Accounts?

Application of artificial intelligence is accelerating the digital transformation of enterprises, and digital content optimization is crucial to take the users' attention in social media usage. The purpose of this work is to demonstrate how social media content reaches and impresses more users. Using a sample of 345 articles released by Chinese small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) on their official WeChat accounts, we employ the self-determination theory to analyze the effects of content optimization strategies on social media visibility. It is found that articles with enterprise-related information optimized for content related to users' psychological needs (heart-based content optimization, mind-based content optimization, and knowledge-based content optimization) achieved higher visibility than that of sheer enterprise-related information, whereas the enterprise-related information embedded with material incentive (benefits-based content optimization) brings lower visibility. The results confirm the positive effect of psychological needs on the diffusion of enterprise-related information, and provide guidance for SMEs to apply artificial intelligence technology to social media practice.

Online construction of romantic relationships on social media

This study draws on Knapp’s offline relationship development model to examine how people construct romantic relationships on social media, with particular attention to the role of affordances in this process. Based on in-depth, semi-structured interviews with 30 relational partners, we show that Knapp’s five traditional stages of relationship construction merge online into three because of social media affordances, including searchability, visibility, anonymity, persistence, storage, and editability. These affordances allow users to search and obtain information about potential partners quickly, conveniently, and anonymously before, during, and after the first interaction. They also enable users to initiate or avoid romantic interactions relatively easily, present shared memories, build a sense of togetherness, and edit or erase online content about previous partners. The findings suggest that most participants perceived Facebook, more than Instagram, as a platform of choice for relationship construction. Addressing the interplay between social media affordances, online relational practices, and offline relationship dynamics, the study shows that offline and online spaces are highly interrelated in terms of interinfluence. Therefore, we argue that the merger of stages is not merely a technical rearrangement but an indication of the fundamental role that online practices play in people’s offline realities, including romantic relationships.

The Sound of Silence

One way for economists to influence society is to shape what Robert Shiller has called “economic stories”. This, in turn, puts the media in their role as professional storytellers in a central position. In this paper, I investigate how economists have been covered by print media since the 1960s: How has the quantitative visibility of economists developed over time? And how can news stories covering economists be characterized in terms of their content and framing? To answer the first question, I provide a comparison of economists’ quantitative media visibility in international newspapers. Exploring the second question, I build on a corpus of more than 12,000 German newspaper articles to conduct a case study on the German Council of Economic Experts, Germany’s most prominent group of economic experts.