Online Communities Research Articles

Local news as political institution and the repercussions of ‘news deserts’: A qualitative study of seven UK local areas

A transformation in the political economy of local news provision has led to claims that an increasing number of local areas have become ‘news deserts’ – areas that are poorly served or not served at all by professional and dedicated news services (Abernathy, 2022). Such developments have raised widespread concerns about the future health of local democracy. One aspect of local news’ declining capacity that has received little attention to date is the impact on its role as political institution. This paper first examines the impact of changes on those most closely affected by the reduction or closure of UK local news media outlets – the consumers and sources of local news. Through empirical research in 2021-22, the authors explore Cook’s theory of the news media as political institution (2005), by examining local citizens’ experience of – and attitudes towards – their local news outlets, and the extent to which they believe these continue to perform an institutional role. Second, the paper seeks to explore the extent to which other information services – most notably social media and online communities - substitute for the institutional roles of local news outlets. The paper argues that the diminishing role of local news media as political institution has significant political and democratic implications which are not being addressed by policymakers, who are more concerned with the economic interests of corporate media owners than the broader democratic and societal interests of local communities.

Negative Sentiments Study of Buton Kraton Fortress: How Environmental Factors Play Role in Maintaining the Historical and Cultural Site

Baubau City has the Buton Kraton Fortress, which is the largest fort in the world and an iconic tourist attraction in the city. Studies regarding tourists' bad experiences related to tourism at the Buton Kraton Fortress have not yet been explored. Bad experiences in cultural tourism activities can give rise to negative sentiments that influence visits to a destination. We used three approaches to explore this negative sentiment, namely interviews with five tourists who had come to enjoy the fort as well as a key person, autoethnography, and netnography. This study aims to explore negative sentiment in the Buton Kraton Fortress. The results show that negative sentiment by tourists, the local community, and online communities most often highlight the problems of waste, spatial and green planning, and city infrastructure. Talking about Buton Kraton Fortress cannot be limited to just the area surrounded by the fort structure but also the surrounding environment. It is very important to note that in planning and managing Buton Kraton Fortress, the approach used must be in line with history and culture itself. The aspects of authenticity, originality, uniqueness, variety, beauty, and integrity are the basis that must always be used because negative sentiment arises when these six aspects are not considered in the planning and management of the Buton Palace Fortress and its surrounding environment.

Mechanism of Quantified-Self Consciousness in Customer Participation Behavior: Based on Self Concept Theory

The era of big data has driven quantified-self activity to become a common mass-life practice, yet there is a necessity of research on how to navigate through this problem now that quantified-self activity often produces results that are contrary to the original intent and creates data anxiety. Therefore, understanding the psychological dimension of the quantified-self would give new perspectives on individual and organization oriented positive outcomes. This study proposed the concept of quantified-self consciousness (QSC) based on the psychological dimension and investigated how customers' QSC influences their participation behavior in online contexts. Utilizing self-concept theory, this study incorporate extroversion and tie strength as moderating variables to refine the framework from both individual and organization perspectives. The results informed that QSC positively influences customers' information, task, and personal interactive behavior and is mediated by the variable arousal. At the individual level, customers with extroversion were more inclined to join in participation behavior, whereas at organization level, tie strength in the online community only moderated the path of QSC acting on task interactive behavior. These findings provide positive implications for how customers should act in the face of quantitative information to alleviate the anxiety and aversion associated with information overload, and provides companies with concrete strategies for managing online marketing.

Connect to Crowd

Crowdsourcing (CS) involves gathering needed services, ideas, or content by soliciting contributions from a broad audience, particularly from online communities. In our proposed system, we aim to implement a budget-constrained online crowdsourcing framework by introducing a two-tiered social crowdsourcing architecture. To improve these models, we create incentive mechanisms that enhance computational efficiency, individual rationality, budget feasibility, cost accuracy, and time accuracy. Crowdsourcing platforms are vital for promoting transparency and collaboration among participants, all while reducing resource use and costs. To support this, these platforms include mechanisms for monitoring and evaluating worker performance. Our project introduces a secure multi-tiered worker quality evaluation framework utilizing blockchain technology. Our Proof of Concept (PoC) analysis demonstrates that blockchain effectively addresses security concerns such as trust, privacy, and accountability in current worker performance evaluation systems

Information System for Managing Village-Owned Enterprises (BUMDes) in Bogoharjo Village with DevOps Method

Purpose: The purpose of this research is to build a Bogoharjo Village-Owned Enterprises (BUMDes) Business Unit Management Information System to facilitate BUMDes managers in managing business units and providing available services to the community online. Methods: The method used in this research is the DevOps method with the stages of plan, code, build, test, release, deploy, operate, and monitor. System design uses UML (Unifed Modeling Language), namely flowchart, use case diagram, activity diagram, class diagram, and sequence diagram. System development using the Laravel framework. Results: The results showed that expert validation with an average percentage by content expert validation of 89% and media expert validation of 84% so that the BUMDes Management Information System (Village-Owned Enterprises) in Bogoharjo Village with the DevOps Method was very feasible to use. While the results of the practicality trial using 25 respondents produced an average percentage of 89% with a very practical category. Thus, the BUMDes Management Information System (Village-Owned Enterprises) in Bogoharjo Village with the DevOps Method is very practical to use. Novelty: The novelty of this research is used to assist BUMDes managers in managing data or providing information related to the BUMDes itself. In addition, BUMDes management becomes more organized and structured so that services to the community become more effective and well managed.

Insights from cross-cultural memes: An empirical study on instagram and Douban

As one of the most prevalent types of memes, visual memes often transcend individual cultures and languages and reach broad online communities of disparate actors. However, how the intrinsic factors of visual memes shape cross-cultural diffusion and whether visual memes can positively promote digital cultural globalization remains unclear. To answer these questions we identified 1147 visual memes with 11,729 instances from four online communities on Instagram and Douban and manually annotated the memes in three dimensions, i.e., form, content, and emotion. Then, regression and structural causal models were designed to investigate the intrinsic factors affecting cross-cultural diffusion. Empirical results reveal that memes expressing focused and positive emotions, conveying universal topics, sourcing from films, using short captions, and featuring African or Caucasian roles are more likely to attain cross-cultural diffusion. In contrast, the memes featuring female or Asian roles are just the opposite. Moreover, the structural analysis of emotions, topics, and social identities suggests that although the dominance of Western culture and male groups persists in cross-cultural memes, visual memes have the potential to challenge the hegemonic power structures. From the prism of cross-cultural diffusion, the connotation of memes is enriched—expressive repertoires using multimodal discourses that can act as bridges between different cultures and languages. In summary, this research uncovered the effects of the intrinsic factors of visual memes on cross-cultural diffusion using regression and causal models for the first time and can help perform effective memetic engagement across different communities and cultures.

The effects of social network relationships and social media influencer characteristics on consumer purchase intention in Chinese online community

The effects of social network relationships and social media influencer characteristics on consumer purchase intention in Chinese online community

Connected and supported: a scoping review of how online communities provide social support for breast cancer survivors.

To (i) assess how and to what extent online communities are used among breast cancer survivors (BCS) as a source of social support, (ii) describe the kind of support BCS access through online communities, and (iii) explore how these communities foster social support for BCS that promotes well-being and reduces the challenges of survivorship. We conducted a scoping review. A professional librarian performed a comprehensive search in multiple databases from January 2010 to May 2023. The review process adhered to the Johana Briggs Institute's method guidelines and the PRISMA-ScR reporting system. Fifteen studies were included. Participants used social media, cancer support communities, message boards, or websites for information and emotional support. Qualitative findings resulted in four themes: to reassure; to empower; to promote equity, diversity, and inclusion; and to demonstrate for BCS the drawbacks of online support. We underscore that a variety of internet websites and social media platforms are valuable for and appreciated by BCS, especially as a source of social support and human connectedness. Our study raises the existing gap in cultural/ethnic representation in this field and shows that institutional and organizational efforts are needed to address gaps in information regarding access to social support for multiethnic BCS women. This data synthesis will empower the BCS community by sharing how they can strengthen and support their peers and community via their participation in online communities that connect and support cancer survivors in healthcare spaces.

Dr. Casey Fiesler: Making tech ethics go viral

MIT Science Policy Review spoke with Dr. Casey Fiesler about her work to bring technology ethics to the general public through social media. Dr. Fiesler is an Associate Professor of Information Science (and Computer Science by courtesy) at the University of Colorado Boulder, specializing in the areas of technology ethics, internet law and policy, and online communities. Dr. Fiesler’s work on research ethics for data science, ethics education in computing, and broadening participation in computing has been supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF), and she is the recipient of an NSF CAREER Award. As a public scholar, she frequently speaks on topics of technology ethics and policy, and her research has been covered in a wide variety of media outlets, from The New York Times to Teen Vogue (though she’s particularly proud of her TikToks). Dr. Fiesler holds a PhD in Human-Centered Computing and a JD from Vanderbilt Law School. We had a conversation with Dr. Fiesler about her widely followed social media channels, where she addresses technology ethics with the general public. You can follow her on Instagram and TikTok @professorcasey.

A Systematic Review of Online Teaching Methods in Higher Education

Since the pandemic began, online teaching methods have received increased interest and review. Educators rapidly developed delivery techniques to meet the needs of students forced to become remote learners. Some of these methods were successful; others did not meet program objectives, especially in educator preparation programs (EPPs). The speed of changing to an online environment limited the ability of educators to research and adapt known evidenced-based practices. This systematic literature review provides research and insight into student-focused outcomes related to effective online teaching practices. Over 600 articles, across multiple disciplines were reviewed based on research and results using different techniques, pedagogy, and design in the online environment. The five main strategies, methods, or philosophies that most affected student outcomes in the online community were engagement, collaboration, beliefs, knowledge, and enactment of knowledge/practice. Each topic is discussed in depth and recommendations are made for effective online teaching and also specific applications to EPPs.

Attributes of multiple concurrent functional gastrointestinal disorders in female university students in South Korea

ABSTRACT Functional gastrointestinal disorders (FGIDs) are common in young adults, particularly women, who tend to develop multiple FGIDs over time. This study aimed to investigate the prevalence of multiple concurrent FGIDs among female university students and identify differences in dietary habits, academic stress, and quality of life (QOL) based on the number of concurrent FGIDs. This secondary analysis included data from 406 female participants, originally collected through an online survey from two universities in one city in Korea. The online survey was accessible only after participants were verified as students through their online community. Concurrent FGID was present in 25.8 percent (n = 16) of the participants with FGIDs (n = 62), with the most common being irritable bowel syndrome + functional dyspepsia overlap (43.8 percent, 7/16). Participants with multiple concurrent FGIDs consumed fewer grains and vegetables, while significantly more of them consumed instant food, fast food, milk, and tea/coffee. They experienced significantly higher academic stress and lower QOL than those without the disease. Female university students with concurrent FGIDs tend to have unhealthy dietary habits, and concurrent FGIDs negatively affect academic stress and QOL. Therefore, female university students should undergo early-stage screening for FGIDs, and a comprehensive program should address their dietary habits and stress-coping skills.

Morocco's Webinars Ignite Global Academic Resilience in Doctoral Research

General Background: The COVID-19 pandemic triggered significant disruptions in education worldwide, compelling a shift to online learning across various contexts, including in Morocco. Specific Background: In response to this challenge, the Faculty of Letters and Human Sciences at Mohammed V University in Rabat initiated the "Language, Culture, and Society" (LCS) webinar series. This program provided a virtual platform for doctoral students, aiming to sustain academic progress and emotional well-being during the crisis. Knowledge Gap: Despite the proliferation of online educational initiatives during the pandemic, there is limited research on how such programs specifically impact doctoral students' academic and psychological resilience. Aims: This article aims to explore the transformative role of the LCS webinar series in enhancing the academic journey and personal growth of doctoral students, particularly in alleviating challenges such as despair and reader's block. Results: The LCS webinars emerged as a crucial support mechanism, facilitating academic discourse, skill development, and psychological reinforcement. The program significantly contributed to restoring confidence, refining research trajectories, and fostering a culture of collaboration among an international online community. Novelty: This study provides a unique narrative reflection on the impact of a specific online educational program during a global crisis, emphasizing the dual academic and psychological support offered to doctoral students. Implications: The findings underscore the importance of online platforms in higher education, particularly in crisis contexts. The success of the LCS webinars suggests that similar initiatives could be replicated to support doctoral students globally, offering sustained academic and emotional support through accessible, high-quality online resources. Highlights: Webinar Impact: Enhanced academic progress and growth. Psychological Support: Overcame despair with emotional reinforcement. Global Collaboration: Fostered international scholarly connections. Keywords: COVID-19, online learning, doctoral students, webinars, academic resilience

THEORY OF RECEPTION AND CRITICISM OF FILMS BASED ON THE RECEPTION AND CRITICISM OF THE FILM “ANNA KARENINA” (1997)

The word reception means the acceptance of foreign ideas, norms and values or behaviors. Reception history elaborates the reception that a literary text, a film, or in this case an adaptation of a novel, has found in its audience over time. This paper delves into the core concepts of film reception theory, shedding light on how audiences interpret and actively engage with cinematic narratives. The theoretical part includes different perspectives, recognizing that audience responses are shaped by individual experiences, cultural contexts, and societal influences. This study also delves into the concept of criticism, whether that from the audience or from theorists and critics. This study after the theoretical part of the reception elaborates the reception and criticism of the film Anna Karenina (1997) directed by Bernard Rose. As an adaptation of the novel Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy (1887), criticism and reception in this case focuses, among other things, on the stallings and deviations of the adapted story. Additionally this paper addresses the evolving landscape of film reception in the digital age, considering the impact of online communities, social media and interactive platforms on audience engagement. This study aims to contribute to the ongoing discourse on film reception theory by providing insights into the multifaceted nature of audience engagement and its implications for the wider field of film studies. During this study, I came to the conclusion that coded messages and pre-existing expectations also influence the audience’s reception of a film. The coded message is deciphered by the audience based on the knowledge they possess and not the way the producer thought. In this case, the producer too should not convey messages that are not easily decoded by the audience.

Enhancing taxonomy-based extraction: Leveraging information from online community platforms for digital skills demand identification in job ads

The rapid technological changes have revolutionised how we function, including how we search for work and what skills we need to be equipped with to perform the tasks at the workplace. As employers more often recruit using online job advertisements, their content becomes a natural source of information for analytical purposes on the skills demanded in the labour market, especially for analysing emerging skills like digital. There are still some challenges with the extraction of information from online content. However, the extraction improvements go hand in hand with new technological developments like natural language processing techniques. This article presents the experimental method of updating the classification of digital skills to keep it up to date for information extraction applied to online job advertisements. The evaluation proved this method successfully identified terms related to programming skills but failed to identify terms associated with artificial intelligence sufficiently. The latter is related to the fact that the AI field is among the fastest developing areas of technology advancement, and new terms (e.g. Chatgpt) always appear.

A Gateway API-Based Data Fusion Architecture for Automated User Interaction with Historical Handwritten Manuscripts

To preserve handwritten historical documents, libraries are choosing to digitize them, ensuring their longevity and accessibility. However, the true value of these digitized images lies in their transcription into a textual format. In recent years, various tools have been developed utilizing both traditional and AI-based models to address the challenges of deciphering handwritten texts. Despite their importance, there are still several obstacles to overcome, such as the need for scalable and modular solutions, as well as the ability to cater to a continuously growing user community autonomously. This study focuses on introducing a new information fusion architecture, specifically highlighting the Gateway API. Developed as part of the μDoc.tS research program, this architecture aims to convert digital images of manuscripts into electronic text, ensuring secure and efficient routing of requests from front-end applications to the back end of the information system. The validation of this architecture demonstrates its efficiency in handling a large volume of requests and effectively distributing the workload. One significant advantage of this proposed method is its compatibility with everyday devices, eliminating the need for extensive computational infrastructures. It is believed that the scalability and modularity of this architecture can pave the way for a unified multi-platform solution, connecting diverse user environments and databases.

Importance of powder diffraction raw data archival in a curated database for materials science applications.

In recent years, there is a significant interest from the crystallographic and materials science communities to have access to raw diffraction data. The effort in archiving raw data for access by the user community is spearheaded by the International Union of Crystallography (IUCr) Committee on Data. In materials science, where powder diffraction is extensively used, the challenge in archiving raw data is different to that from single crystal data, owing to the very nature of the contributions involved. Powder diffraction (X-ray or neutron) data consist of contributions from the material under study as well as instrument specific parameters. Having raw powder diffraction data can be essential in cases of analysing materials with poor crystallinity, disorder, micro structure (size/strain) etc. Here, the initiative and progress made by the International Centre for Diffraction Data (ICDDR) in archiving powder X-ray diffraction raw data in the Powder Diffraction FileTM (PDFR) database is outlined. The upcoming 2025 release of the PDF-5+ database will have more than 20 800 raw powder diffraction patterns that are available for reference.

Exploring the Landscape: The Societal Impact of Social Media Marketing

In the digital age, social media marketing has drastically altered social connections and customer behavior. With an emphasis on how social media marketing influences consumer attitudes, cultural norms, and mental health, this study explores the numerous ways that social media marketing impacts society. As businesses utilize Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter more and more to communicate with big audiences, understanding these consequences is critical. The study aims to determine how social media marketing affects, among other aspects of society, social interactions, cultural perspectives, consumer behavior, and mental health. The study makes use of secondary data collection methods, including a comprehensive survey of the literature. Thematic analysis is used to find patterns and gather data. Significant research demonstrates that social media marketing significantly increases consumer involvement through customized campaigns and user-generated content, which fortifies brand loyalty and influences consumer behavior. It does, however, also reinforce cultural norms and prejudices while offering the possibility of societal transformation. Virtual communities are known to be altering social interactions, but using them excessively might lead to social isolation. Negative pressure to maintain idealized online personas and constructive criticism are both hazardous to mental health. The growing importance of influencer marketing is emphasized, but so are privacy and ethical issues around data collection and targeted advertising. With cutting-edge technologies like augmented reality, virtual reality, and artificial intelligence, social media marketing is set to undergo yet another revolution. The study offers several recommendations, such as enhancing the personalization of marketing campaigns, utilizing user-generated content, balancing cultural representation, lessening the detrimental effects of social interactions, prioritizing mental health, addressing ethical and privacy issues, ensuring that influencer marketing is genuine, and embracing emerging technologies. Future research on these processes is warranted, focusing on the moral implications and challenges of developing technologies. This in-depth investigation highlights how important it is to act ethically and continuously adapt to the ever-changing world of social media marketing.

Robust image classification system via cloud computing, aligned multimodal embeddings, centroids and neighbours

We propose a framework for a cloud-based application of an image classification system that is highly accessible, maintains data confidentiality, and robust to incorrect training labels. The end-to-end system is implemented using Amazon Web Services (AWS), with a detailed guide provided for replication, enhancing the ways which researchers can collaborate with a community of users for mutual benefits. A front-end web application allows users across the world to securely log in, contribute labelled training images conveniently via a drag-and-drop approach, and use that same application to query an up-to-date model that has knowledge of images from the community of users. This resulting system demonstrates that theory can be effectively interlaced with practice, with various considerations addressed by our architecture. Users will have access to an image classification model that can be updated and automatically deployed within minutes, gaining benefits from and at the same time providing benefits to the community of users. At the same time, researchers, who will act as administrators, will be able to conveniently and securely engage a large number of users with their respective machine learning models and build up a labelled database over time, paying only variable costs that is proportional to utilization.

Exploring the Role of Social Media in Promoting Healthy Consumption

This research seeks to investigate how interactions on social media influence the collaborative creation of value in promoting healthy consumption. To gain a more profound understanding of the process of social media communication and its impact on generating shared value, we employed the Stimuli-Organism-Response (SOR) model to formulate our hypotheses. Our study drew upon a survey conducted across five countries and regions (Canada, Malaysia, Taiwan, the United Kingdom, and the United States). By utilising Structural Equation Modelling (SEM), we tested these hypotheses. The results of our research indicate that social media communication significantly enhances the quality of relationships within online communities, subsequently influencing the creation of value in the context of healthy consumption. The findings show individuals who maintain good relationships within their social media networks and believe they can obtain not only important information but also are more likely to share information about their own experiences regarding healthy consumption. We conclude the paper by discussing the theoretical and practical implications of our findings.

Exploring Sentiment Analysis and Visitor Satisfaction along Urban Liner Trails: A Case of the Seoul Trail, South Korea

Increasing public health awareness has stressed the significance of the mental and physical benefits of outdoor activities. Government involvement and support for urban redevelopment projects in Korea, such as Seoul Dulle-gil, connected previously disconnected green spaces. Despite the ecological and cultural importance of urban spaces, their impact on residents and tourists and their role in exploring the city’s dynamic remains limited. This study aims to evaluate how green space activities engage in sustainable land management and offer insights into surrounding communities. A quantitative big data research method was employed, analyzing 3995 online blog post reviews using Python code, and sentiment analysis conducted with pandas and KoNLPy’s Okt library. The results indicated that sentiment scores were generally higher in sections located south of the Han River. Among the eight trail courses, courses 6, 3, 4, and 5, located south of the Han River, exhibited higher sentiment scores compared to courses 7, 8, 2, and 1, located north of the Han River, which showed lower satisfaction levels. Among the 16 characteristics influencing visitor satisfaction, the study emphasized the importance of potential space maintenance to enhance trail user safety and community well-being, contributing to sustainable land management.