Online Sphere Research Articles

How can state regulations over the online sphere continue to respect the freedom of expression? A case study of contemporary ‘fake news’ regulations in Thailand

ABSTRACT The fake news crisis has raised questions about the role of state regulation in curbing misinformation, as well as the responsibilities tech companies should shoulder. In engaging with debates on digital governance, this article has two key focuses: first, what are the problems associated with the lack of state regulations in the digital sphere – where technology companies have unprecedented control over online public discourses? Next, how can states ensure that online regulations are measured, and continue to respect important liberties? This essay argues that the lack of regulation over tech firms has led to arbitrary censorship, conflict of interest issues and a legitimacy gap, with adverse societal consequences. Next, through a case study of contemporary fake news responses advanced by the Thai government, it empirically examines concerns associated with state-led initiatives to regulate misinformation on social media. Overall, while advocating for increased regulation over the online sphere, this article argues that regulations which equate the concept of fake news to illegality are not optimal as they are likely to undercut societal liberties. Implementing robust transparency mechanisms over tech companies represents a valuable first step that should be undertaken before further attempts to advance coercive legislation establishing the state as the sole arbiter of truth are made.

Аналізування маркетингових інструментаріїв ЗВО в online-сфері: порівняльний аналіз досвіду українських і польських університетів

The purpose of the article is to study and analyze the use of marketing tools by Ukrainian and Polish higher education institutions in the online sphere and compare the activity of higher education institutions of Ukraine and Poland in the social networks Facebook and Instagram by the number of user preferences of active accounts. This will serve as the basis for the development of a marketing strategy for higher education institutions to increase their competitiveness and popularize them in the educational services market. The article reviews the professional literature on the issues under study, which allows to distinguish the interpretation of the term of «marketing of educational services». The relevance of reorientation of higher education institutions in terms of the use of marketing tools from offline to online sphere is substantiated. The activity of higher education institutions of Ukraine and Poland in social networks is analyzed. The rating of the top 10 pages of higher education institutions of Ukraine and Poland on Facebook and Instagram is studied by the number of user preferences of active accounts. It is determined that higher education institutions actively share information on their Facebook and Instagram pages, where they also post information on education, educational process, various activities in higher education institutions. It is concluded that at the present stage of functioning, marketing tools in the online sphere are a key communicator between higher education institutions and consumers of educational services. In view of this, higher education institutions need to focus the main vector of attention on the maximum use of Internet marketing. For higher education institutions, it is proposed to develop social media promotion strategies that will cover both the content plan and the target audience.

«Третье пространство», «эхо-камеры» и онлайн-сообщества: воспроизводство политических идеологий в социальных сетях

The study of the features of the reproduction of political ideologies in social networks and the formation of user communities united by adherence to some political ideas is an urgent problem of contemporary political science. Social media has become an agent for the development of new forms of political activity, providing unprecedented opportunities for transferring and exchanging information, broadcasting political ideas, and involving people in virtual and real communities. Today, social media have become not just a means of transmitting information and a form of entertainment, but a special global form of social political interaction, increasingly penetrating into the most diverse aspects of society. In political interactions, the online services of new media can be described as a “third space”, a development of Ray Oldenburg's concept, in which he singles out a part of the social space not related to housing (“first place”) and work (“second place”). Online communities on social networks have become a mixed form of institutionalized political and informal non-political interactions, as exemplified by ideologically based social media groups. The transformations caused by the rapid development of the Internet and “new social media” are giving rise to a fundamentally new reality of social interaction, which combines two contradictory trends. On the one hand, the Internet and social media have expanded people's access to information and significantly increased the field of social interaction and communication, thereby creating the basis for uniting users on various grounds, including political and ideological views. On the other hand, such changes led to a crisis of trust between the participants. Users belonging to different political ideologies form stable “echo chambers” in their Internet environment, rigidly filtering the information they receive, locking themselves in and reproducing the attributes of only their political ideology and not allowing outsiders there. In our opinion, this requires a study that provides for a close study of ideological “echo chambers”, which seems necessary for understanding the processes of political communication and ways of reproducing political and ideological views in the online sphere.

Beyond Anonymity: Network Affordances, under Deindividuation, Improve Social Media Discussion Quality

The online sphere allows people to be personally anonymous while simultaneously signaling social identity, e.g., through political network visibility. Twitter users can use a pseudonym but signal fealty to a political party in their profile (e.g., \#MAGA). We explore the interplay of these two dimensions of anonymity on a custom-built social media platform, that allowed us to examine the causal effects of personal and social anonymity on discussion quality. In discussions on gun rights, we find no support for the hypothesis that personal anonymity breeds incivility or lower discussion quality. On the other hand, when personal anonymity is combined with social identity (operationalized as political network visibility), it improves several features linked to discussion quality, i.e., higher rationality and lower incivility. We discuss the mechanisms that might explain the results, and offer recommendations for future experiments about the design of social media platforms.

Logistical Aspects of Different Online Teaching- learning Methods among Medical Students during COVID-19 in a Tertiary Care Teaching Hospital, Thrissur, Southern India

Introduction: Due to the Coronavirus Disease-2019 (COVID-19) lockdown implemented by the government, we had to transform our classes into the online sphere. The most commonly used methods of online teaching in Government Medical College, Thrissur were, live online lectures, PowerPoint presentations with narrations, prerecorded videos and assignments. Aim: To assess the logistical aspects, merit and demerits of different online teaching-learning methods among phase-1 medical student in a tertiary care teaching hospital during COVID-19 lockdown Materials and Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted from July 2020 to September 2020, among phase-1 MBBS students of Government Medical College, Thrissur, Kerala, India. Data was collected from 161 students through a questionnaire consisting of two parts. The first part dealt with logistical aspects, like net connectivity, gadget, expenditure, financial burden, residence and eye strain with online teaching learning methods. The second part dealt with the merits and demerits of each type of teaching learning methods, according to the students. All statistical data was analysed using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) software version 16. Qualitative data was expressed as a percentage. Results: A total of 97.5% population of students was able to frequently access the online classes. Online learning strained the eyes of 47.8% of students. Mobile phones were used by 92.5% of students for attending online classes internet connectivity was mainly through 4G (71.4%) followed by Wi-Fi (19.9%) connections. Their most preferred method of online learning was online live lectures (35.4%) followed by PowerPoint presentations with narrations (33.5%). Blended learning (online and traditional together) was best preferred method of learning (46.6%). Conclusion: Live online lectures and blended learning were preferred by the majority of students. Thus, the online classes can be continued along with the traditional teaching in future.

Digitalni tragovi u eri novih medija

New media is essential part of everyday practices of individuals. Research shows that 80% respondents on the territory of Serbia checks their social media accounts several times a day. For average consumer this means that they are in constant contact with friends and that they have easy access to information and news. For companies continuous presence is a source of significant data about habits and opinions of consumers. Question remains: How can users create their own digital footprints in various ways? How big companies can abuse data? If data became oil of 21st century, does that mean users have become commodities? The aim of this paper is to show what is happening with users' privacy when engaging with new media, through mapping characteristics of new media, current centers of power in digital world, defining the concepts of digital footprints and privacy in online sphere and through case study of privacy violations.

CRISIS NEWS AND ONLINE PUBLIC SPHERE: A DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF FACEBOOK COMMENTS ON NEWS STORIES ABOUT AYLAN KURDI

Ponte Academic JournalDec 2021, Volume 77, Issue 12 CRISIS NEWS AND ONLINE PUBLIC SPHERE: A DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF FACEBOOK COMMENTS ON NEWS STORIES ABOUT AYLAN KURDIAuthor(s): Nadira Khanum ,Hina ShahidJ. Ponte - Dec 2021 - Volume 77 - Issue 12 doi: 10.21506/j.ponte.2021.12.6 Abstract:Internet specially the social media covers the most fashionable public sphere, as it gives a shared place to people to share data, information, and communication similar and different visions, possibly engaging those otherwise missed out in the leading discussions. The aim is to look for the trends of online public sphere related to the case of Aylan Kurdi – the Syrian Boy who drowned, on news stories shared by Facebook fan pages of CNN and Al Jazeera English. The study analyses around 250 user comments posted online on news stories of the fb pages. Findings revealed peace-oriented responses in the comments and online community. Al Jazeera and CNN commenters responded differently as both lamed different political actors for the crisis, although CNN commenters responded as outsiders and Al Jazeera commenters found more interested in the reasoning and logic of the incident. The online sphere is not only strengthening the social media, ornamenting, and improving the world public opinion about the different socio-economic and political crises but also compelling the world political leaders and governments, the decision-makers, to act and react for a better peaceful society. Download full text:Check if you have access through your login credentials or your institution Username Password

Alati na društvenim mrežama kao sredstvo savremenog političkog angažmana - stavovi studenata u Srbiji

In this paper, the authors present the research results about the attitudes of the student population in Serbia regarding the use of social media tools as instruments of political engagement. The text presents a segment of a broader study of political communication of young people in Serbia, conducted within the benefit concept. The research results show that social media tools do not contribute to the political engagement of young people in online sphere. The authors interpret the results in the context of political communication and power, indicating the absence of efforts by young people in Serbia to acquire political subjectivity and persuasive action in the environment.

Specifičnosti digitalnog nasilja i digitalnog kriminala

Migration of many aspects of human life and work into the online sphere has become an integral part of everyday life and it is difficult to imagine the functioning of any aspect of life without the Internet and the space in which most human interactions take place. One such large and significant new form has created a large number of smaller ones, and conditioned the transformation of things and phenomena from the physical world into completely new digital forms. The same happened with violence, as a phenomenon, a pattern of behavior and a part of human nature from the very beginnings of civilization, which took its new form being called a digital violence. It does not necessarily have to be online, but it is necessarily related to digital devices. To the problem of digital crime there should be added a digital violence as a contemporary problem, especially when we talk about legal regulatory mechanisms, although these two phenomena, with frequent overlaps, do not necessarily have to be contained in each other, but they are equally important. Online and offline digital spaces represent just a new field in which violence and crimes are committed, but the virtual characteristic of these spaces is only an additional specific feature, because their consequences are felt in the physical, real world, and in that sense, the border between virtual and real is invisible. This paper aims to explore the ontological determinants of violence and digital violence, to identify specific forms of digital violence and digital crime, as well as to analyze existing regulations aimed at combating digital violence and digital crime.

Formation of principal language competencies in the German language in the process of distance learning at higher educational establishments

This article presents the topical issue of possibilities to implement the competence approach into the process of teaching foreign languages while shifting to distant learning. Applying empiric methods of investigation (interview of the participants of the teaching process; direct observation of implementation of distance learning at a higher educational establishment; analysis of lecturers’ reports), and being guided by their own empiric experience, the authors are searching for the optimal methods to implement the competence approach in the online sphere. The authors’ viewpoint on the organization of distance work on the subject “A Second Foreign Language (German)” is based on the practical experience of using the Office 365 online learning platform. They have described the teaching tools offered by the platform and found them optimally satisfying the needs of teaching the above-mentioned subject for most indicators. There is the necessity to employ a single teaching environment, which is determined by the need to observe a strict learning schedule, establish the interaction of the participants of the teaching process, and organize the independent work as well as the assessment of the learning activity. By comparing the possibilities of the traditional live lesson with those of the online class, it has been found out, that both forms of lessons allow implementing the concept of competence approach to linguistic education at the same efficiency level. While describing the main features of this approach, the authors have shown the possibilities to interpret traditional didactic tools in a new way and pointed out several advantages of online studies, brought out in the process of teaching a foreign language (German), i.e. an increase of motivation for learning activities due to the interactive mode; activation of communicative interaction of the learning process participants; autonomy and actualization of self-study. A promising direction of the research within the theoretical field is the methodology of forming digital competencies for the participants of the learning process and, in the practical aspect, it is necessary to develop a system of IT tools aimed at the needs of foreign language teaching, where the interdisciplinary connections are of great importance.

Propaganda Chimera: Unpacking the Iranian Perception Information Operations in the Arab World

Abstract In the past four years, Iranian Information Operations (IOs) have received a lot of scrutiny by social media companies and policymakers. From 2018 to 2021, several accounts on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram were taken down by tech companies for engaging in coordinated inauthentic behaviour. Despite the heated relationship between Iran and many Arab countries, the Iranian IOs in the Arabic online sphere have received less academic attention over the years. This study fills this gap by being one of the few studies to investigate the Iranian IOs in the Arab world. We analyse more than 9.3 million tweets posted from 2008 to 2020 using the hashed datasets shared by Twitter’s Election Integrity Hub. We found that Iran’s IOs have made the Arab world its primary target—despite the attention the US claims to receive from them. However, these IOs demonstrate very little engagement and reach amongst Arab users, limiting the possibilities of Iran infiltrating the online Arabic sphere, and fostering weak yet unruly Arab counterpublics. This study argues that Iran’s IOs garner their power from being perceived as efficient and dangerous operations that could pollute the public sphere of overseas nations, rather than through actual infiltration through engagement. We understand Iran’s efforts to be preoccupied with old propaganda efforts, through their investment in websites and imitation of news organisations. However, their efforts prove that Iran adopted the tactics of “new propaganda” that depend on creating a perceived atmosphere of distrust and chaos. We contribute to the discussion on information operations by proposing the term “perception IOs”, referring to IOs by governments that aspire to be perceived as effective meddling countries in foreign politics.

The role of content marketing in the promotion of medical goods and services

The main purpose of the research is highlighting the role of quality medical content marketing, the main problems that arise in the implementation of content strategies on the example of modern Sumy medical institutions, providing recommendations for its improvement. Systematization literary sources and approaches for solving the problem indicates that the search for new marketing tools to inform and stimulate the purchase of customers about medical goods and services (passive demand) in the online sphere remains a very relevant topic. This is evidenced by the search for modern trends in the use of marketing in medicine, a comprehensive study of marketing technologies for managing activities in the health care system. At the same time, content marketing is considered as a tool for indirectly persuading the audience to make the decision necessary for the distributor, to choose his service. Investigation of the topic research on the role of marketing content in the promotion of medical goods and services in the paper is carried out in the following logical sequence: description of the benefits of using content marketing, the importance of compliance with legal requirements when advertising and filling sites and pages on social networks, presenting the results of content analysis of selected clinics, development of proposals to improve their content strategies. Methodological tools of the research methods included systematization of information based on the content analysis of official sites, social networks of selected medical institutions. The object of research is the chosen medical companies (public and private medical centers, dental clinics and medical pharmaceutical institutions), because namely they they are the most visited in the city, have a high level of competition, which means they should be interested in online promotion of services (especially during a pandemic). The research theoretically proves that content marketing is today an integral part of the promotion of medical institutions in the network, reveals the problem of insufficient understanding in the correct use of this tool by Sumy clinics.

Political Influence of Online Platforms: YouTube’s Place in European Politics

Social media platforms are today one of the primary means of political expression and campaigning. The growing entanglement of politics with the online sphere raises interest in how these new types of media shape the social and political reality. While previous research tends to focus on Twitter and Facebook, limited works exists on the political influence of YouTube. This is even though YouTube is the second-most visited website and provides unique ways of engaging users and disseminating political messages through the combination of rich communication functionality with immersive audio-visual media content. Unfortunately, the influence of social media platforms such as YouTube on politics is difficult to analyse, due a lack of transparency and qualitative data. Independent researchers and the public have limited ways to access meaningful statistics about the video service. This article derives a taxonomy to classify YouTube’s ways of political influence from a case-study-driven analysis of YouTube in the European political landscape. Our taxonomy aligns with traditional theoretical concepts from media effects theory, particularly framing, priming and agenda-setting. We provide a brief discussion of the current regulatory landscape in the EU, and highlight gaps that might need improvement. We conclude by considering the question of whether YouTube is a political actor.

СОЦИАЛЬНАЯ СПЛОЧЕННОСТЬ МИГРАНТОВ: ПРОЯВЛЕНИЕ В СОЦИАЛЬНЫХ СЕТЯХ В УСЛОВИЯХ ГЛОБАЛЬНЫХ СОЦИАЛЬНЫХ ИЗМЕНЕНИЙ

Цель исследования – выявление и анализ факторов и тенденций становления и развития социальной сплоченности мигрантов.
 Методологической базой исследования являются системные методы оценки сообщений в мигрантских социальных сетях, становящихся мигрантскими социальными медиа, методы сетевого анализа, методы масс-медийных практик и мигрантской риторики в публичных материалах, посредством выделения, сравнения, оценки и концептуализации тенденций трансформации миграционных процессов под действием глобальных изменений, в том числе и вызванных пандемией COVID-19, а также методы дискурсивного анализа мигрантского дискурса, представленного в аналитических материала.
 Результаты исследования. В данной статье обсуждается социальная сплоченность мигрантов, формирующаяся как дополнение этнической сплоченности в результате понижения уровня доверия у мигрантов к принимающему обществу и государству в условиях глобальных социальных изменений, в том числе и в условиях пандемии COVID-19. Мигранты, оказавшиеся в данной ситуации наименее защищенной социальной стратой, формируют межэтническую социальную сплоченность как форму самоорганизации этнических общин в кризисное время. Социальная сплоченность мигрантов находит свое отражение в масс-медийных практиках, в сетевом информационном взаимодействии и в научных аналитических материалах, в которых оцениваются факторы, выступающие триггерами новых тенденций в миграционном процессе: рост ксенофобных, мигрантофобных и расистских настроений у части населения принимающих стран, ограничение мобильности международных мигрантов, обострение конкуренции мигрантов с коренным населением за рабочие места. К числу новых тенденций миграционного процесса следует отнести усиление транснациональных умонастроений и действий мигрантов, которое выражается в массовых движениях протестной, правозащитной и гуманитарной направленности, а также в массовом перемещении социальных связей и отношений мигрантов из сферы офф-лайн сферу он-лайн, в область социальных сетей, в цифровые эмигрантские диаспоры, в сферу цифровых масс-медийных практик.
 Перспектива исследования. Данные тренды, хотя они имеют неоднозначный характер, в будущем могут стать основой миграционной политики национальных государств и предметом социологических исследований.

Analyze The Legislative Frameworkrelating to Surveillance and Right to Privacy: Issues and Challenges

India is world’s largest democracy of the world and accordingly protects free speech and expression through its laws and constitution, still freedom of speech and expression is not absolute and privacy in online sphere is being restricted for many reasons. There are several reasons for which speech and expression is being curtailed such as-defamation, maintenance of national security and communal harmony are major reasons for which they can be curtailed. Under the Indian Constitution, the scope of Article 21 is multi-dimensional. The laws of torts, criminal laws as well as property law also contain a right to privacy in this paper to examine the adequacy and balance between the privacy of the person and the protection and the safety of the country within the legislative structure relevant to surveillance. It is ironic that the majority of Indians were protected from cyber surveillance PRISM not because they were well shielded from any potential violation of their privacy, but actually because they were not yet able to be online. It also shows that even today, most Indians do not have computer access and do not have access to resources to ensure they are covered of any covert activity by surveillance agencies. But this is definitely not something that the government or the Indian people would stabilize.

ВЛИЯНИЕ ПАНДЕМИИ COVID-19 НА РЫНОК ТРУДА: СОЦИАЛЬНО-ЭКОНОМИЧЕСКИЕ ИЗМЕНЕНИЯ, ЦИФРОВИЗАЦИЯ

The development of the labor market and its expansion are very important components for a prosperous socio-economic life of any state and its population. The article examines changes in the labor market under the influence of the rapid spread of coronavirus infection, reveals their consequences for the standard of living of people and further ways out of this situation. The issue of the need to adapt to the digital economy of most spheres of economic activity and employees in or- der to avoid a repeated situation and to increase profits by providing services and goods not only offline, through direct communication with the consumer, but also with the use of new digital technologies, including remote work, the online sphere ... COVID-19 has become a catalyst for the transition of all areas to the online environment during the pandemic, but many companies did not want to return to their usual way of life after the lifting of restrictive measures. A large number of firms continued to develop their range of online services and were able to transfer some of their employees to remote work. It is quite simple to justify what is happening, employers no longer need to pay rent for premises for work. For this rea- son, there have been changes in the structure of labor demand in the labor market. Living conditions have changed dra- matically, so the requirements for employees have changed, some had to retrain, while most had to master online servers in order not to lose their income. The development of the digital economy leads to the need for people to possess new com- petencies in this area, which leads to the development of human resources. Modern workers must be ready for continuous learning and mastering new technologies - this has become a key factor for a successful career in the digital world.

Insurance, Small Business, Online Business and Surviving the Post COVID-19 Era

The small business owners have been hit hard during the Covid-19 pandemic. Their lack of presence in the online sphere is also a drawback. An insurance cover for the small business owners, both online and offline will help them feed their families during these crisis periods.

A Transparent Digital Election Campaign? The Insights and Significance of Political Advertising Archives for Debates on Electoral Regulation

Throughout the last decade, digital technology has become increasingly important in election campaigns. Each new election has seen growing coverage of the role played by websites, social media pages and online advertising in securing electoral victory. At the UK's 2019 general election, this narrative recurred, but while in the past digital technology has been a supplement to offline campaigning, digital was now an integral component of electoral activity. Whether measured in terms of spending on digital campaigning, activity on online platforms or media coverage of digital content, the online sphere was prominent as never before. While recognising the new status of digital campaigning it is, however, important to note that this activity is by no means uncontentious. Indeed, this election raised numerous questions about what is and is not permissible online and how problematic practices should be curtailed. We explore what we know about digital campaigning at the UK's 2019 general election, presenting the first academic analysis of newly available transparency data from the Facebook and Google advertising archives. Reviewing this data, we diagnose the need to revisit existing systems of electoral regulation and oversight with a view to questions of transparency.

Setting the Expectations Right: Reassessing the Power of GDPR in Protecting Online Users’ Privacy

Privacy violations against online users in the digital sphere are becoming increasingly salient and concerning. In a bid to protect its citizens, the European Union (EU) has implemented what has been called a ground-breaking public data protection measure – the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). In this article, we aim to analyze the GDPR through the lens of the social contracts theory perspective of privacy to analyze its potential and limitations in protecting online users from four major privacy controversies – namely ubiquitous data collection, misuses of data, as well as the lack of transparency and accountability of data collecting and processing entities. Furthermore, we discuss the role that the social contracts theory can play in encouraging a more dynamic, rather than static, understanding of privacy in the online sphere as well as its implications for the discussion on data ownership.

Sectarianization and Memory in the post-Saddam Middle East: the ‘Alāqima

ABSTRACT The literature on sectarianism, its causes and intricate workings, has increased considerably since the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. This article focuses on the discursive strategies employed by a set of actors seeking to persuade their audiences of a permanent and insoluble rift between Sunnis and Shi’a, stigmatized as the ‘Alāqima. It offers a case study of a particular historical episode: the fall of Baghdad and the Abbasid Caliphate during the Mongol invasion of 1258. It argues that, since 2003, this event has been recast in a narrative emphasizing Shi’i betrayal and Sunni victimhood by different groups of actors (political figures, religious clerics, jihadist groups, etc.) who manipulate this grand narrative to fulfil specific socio-political goals (mobilization, recruitment, etc.) and rely on mechanisms of diffusion strongly based on social media. Methodologically, it demonstrates the critical relevance of sociologist Margaret Somers’ ‘narrative identity approach.’ According to this approach, ‘people construct identities (…) by locating themselves or being located within a repertoire of emplotted stories.’ It calls for de-sectarianization strategies that address these discourses and narratives, particularly in the online sphere.