Popular Communication Research Articles

Pre-Silicon NBTI Delay-Aware Modeling of Network-on-Chip Router Microarchitecture

With enhancement of technology downscaling and packaging allows us to put more and more transistors within the same chip area. The Moore’s law still shows the growth in yield with increasing transistor density in deep sub-micron. This increment in transistor density encourages the computer architects to design Chip Multiprocessor (CMP) systems. In recent times, industry and researchers are focusing to add more cores per chip with increasing integration. The sharp growth in core numbers in System-on-Chip (SoC) raise intense challenges for communication among the cores. The scalability, fault tolerance and higher communication bandwidth features made Network-on-chip (NoC), a popular communication architecture than conventional bus architecture. However, the rapid shrinking of CMOS design margins in deep submicron technology has made aging mechanism such as Negative Bias Temperature Instability (NBTI), a prime concern in NoC design. In this paper, we propose a novel pre-silicon, NBTI stress aware circuit-to-system level solution for a reliable NoC router. To achieve reliability objective, we develop an NBTI aging-aware timing analysis framework based on the real workload stress. Our proposal is based on findings of most stressed path and cells due to NBTI induced effects. We develop an aging-aware cell library and used the multi Vdd technique to mitigate the NBTI induced delay effects. On the basis of volume of experimental analysis, we observed that 66.67% delay increases due to NBTI induced aging effects with real workload stress for a duration of five years. Our proposed NBTI stress mitigation algorithm and technique could able to reduce aging induced delay effects by 36%, hence enhancing the router performance under stress.

Congruency and Users’ Sharing on Social Media Platforms: A Novel Approach for Analyzing Content

With users increasingly spending time on social media platforms, firms are expanding their activities to cover more than one platform. Each has a unique vernacular—its popular communication style—which increases the need for firms to use platform-specific content optimization. This study distinguishes between textual and visual content intentions, depending on the degree of informative and affective appeals used. We examine how congruency between visual content and platform type and textual content affects users’ sharing. We distinguish between hedonic platforms, such as Facebook, primarily used for entertainment and social interaction, and utilitarian platforms, such as Twitter, primarily used for receiving timely information. We develop a new approach to examine how textual and visual content composition affects users’ sharing behavior across platforms. Based on this new approach, we analyze posts by S&P 500 members operating on Facebook and Twitter. Our results show that posts with visual content congruent with the primary user intent of the platforms are more likely to be shared. Furthermore, Facebook users prefer affective textual and visual content, while Twitter users are more inclined toward a combination of informative visual and affective textual content.

Virtual Social Networks Addiction and High-Risk Group among Health Science Students in Iran: A Latent Class Analysis

Background and Purpose: Virtual social networks (VSNs) are among the most popular communication paths that have become an integral part of most people's lives, including students. This study aimed to investigate the prevalence of VSNs addiction and their related factors, and identify the patterns of addictive-related factors among the students in Kerman, Iran in 2019. Materials and Methods:This cross-sectional study was conducted on 400 students from Kerman University of Medical Sciences. The study instrument was a standardized questionnaire. Descriptive analysis, logistic regression models, and latent class analysis were used to analyze the data. The data were analyzed using SPSS26, Stata12 and WinLTA (v. 3.1) software. Results: 50% of the participants were male, staying in dormitory. The number of individuals in the levels of education in the four groups was equal. Around 0.5% of the students were addicted and 36.5% were at the risk of addiction to VSNs. The most commonly used VSNs was the Telegram (76.8%), and most students (28.8%) spent between 2-3 hours a day on VSNs. In the multivariate model, using 1-2 hours (AOR = 3.33, 95% CI: 1.07 - 10.19), 2-3 hours (AOR = 7.33, 95% CI: 2.50 - 21.52) and more than 3 hours a day (AOR = 18.54, 95% CI: 6.05 - 56.8) of VSNs were associated with an increased odds of being at the risk of VSNs addiction. The Latent Class Analysis showed that high-risk addictive factors including using Telegram for entertainment, providing accommodation in the dormitory, and having a graduate degree significantly influenced the classification. Conclusion: More than one-third of Kerman college students were found to be at the risk of VSNs addiction. Providing appropriate interventions including alternative activities as well as raising knowledge especially for undergraduate students is urgently needed.

Introduction: epistemic contestations in the hybrid media environment

ABSTRACT “Post-truth era” and “fake news” have been the talk of the day for around 10 years now. In our understanding, these terms are used to refer to the contestations of epistemic hierarchies in Western liberal democracies experiencing political shifts toward populist political style and polarization. The contestation takes many forms but is mainly expressed through digital media technologies and related social practices that contribute to the epistemic instability. In this introductory article for the special issue of Epistemic contestations in the hybrid media environment, we argue that the experienced “epistemic crisis” is not only a crisis of epistemic hierarchies and worldviews but also a crisis of knowledge production within epistemic institutions, including the academia. The aim of the special issue is to explore how a multiplicity of competing epistemologies interact and compete in the “post-truth” marketplace of ideas in online popular communication.

Book review: Spotification of Popular Culture in the Field of Popular Communication by Patrick Burkart

Book review: <i>Spotification of Popular Culture in the Field of Popular Communication</i> by Patrick Burkart

Veracity assessment by single and multi-source identification algorithms during the crisis

Social networks have become a popular communication tool for information sharing. Twitter offers access to data and provides a significant opportunity to analyze data. During pandemics, Twitter becomes a big source for the dispersal of unverified information. In social media, it is difficult to find the sources of rumors. To tackle this problem the authors have developed a hybrid rumor centrality algorithm for rumor source detection in social networks. The authors propose an S-RSI algorithm for identifying a single rumor centre and an M-RSI algorithm for identifying the propagations of multiple rumor centres in the thread of conversation. The proposed rumor centrality algorithm efficiently predicts the rumor disseminating possibilities in a conversation tree with the aid of graph theoretical approach. The authors have evaluated the performance of the algorithms on the PHEME dataset containing seven real-time event conversational trees based on the tweet messages. The results show that the proposed is best suitable in finding the rumor source centre with a high probability in social media during a crisis.

Proverbs in Yorùbá Contemporary Songs

The Proverb is the wisdom of the wise; a terse statement of few words. Proverbs are allegorical as the expressed statement is meant to have by analogy or by extended reference, a general or specific connotation. This study serves as a discursive strategy in the knowledge of proverbial lore and language development as exemplified in the works of the two Yorùbá Contemporary song artists to be considered. This study attempts to explain how proverb usage in the hands of these two song artists serves as critical trajectories as it refracts and reforms the debased social constrictions that have engulfed society. Its usage by these song artists is wrapped up in the communal language to puncture the social constrictions and to x-ray the lived experiences of people in the society. This study reveals that the use of proverbs as indigenous tattoos has elevated both the language of the song artists to the status of living art of popular communication and their personalities to that of a mystic ‘massieur’ as there is the need to localize the global issues and globalized the local ones. Doing so would enhance and ensure continuity of the salient aspects of our culture especially the language, which now seems to have lost its potency and rhythm via the social constrictions.

Territórios rurais contra a Covid-19: saberes, fazeres e reflexões por meio da Educação Popular em Saúde

This article is founded on the systematization of Oscar Jara’s experiences to rebuild the paths of Participatory Action Research in Health in rural communities based on experiences of prevention and health care in coping with Covid-19. Since June 2020, we have been developing popular education experiences in rural health guided by Paulo Freire’s pedagogy in northern territories and in the coastal lowlands of the state of Rio de Janeiro, specifically in areas of agrarian reform linked to the Landless Workers Movemen (MST); a quilombola territory; and a women’s collective connected to the Working Group of Women of the Serramar Articulation of Agroecology (GT Mulheres Serramar). The analysis of these experiences points towards pedagogical alternatives produced from academic and popular knowledge, seeking support in popular communication, in the protagonism of rural communities, especially with regard to women as producers of knowledge, care practices and resistance.

MEDIATIZATION OF COMMUNICATIONS AS A FACTOR OF TRANSFORMATION OF VALUE ORIENTATIONS OF RUSSIAN YOUTH: TRENDS AND RISKS (PART 2)

The article continues the empirical analysis of the influence of mediatization on the formation of value orientations of modern Russian youth. In the first part of the article, the search for theoretical grounds for studying the virtual projection of politics was problematized, the portrait of "digital aborigines" or "generation of 3C millennials" was conceptualized in political-axiological optics. The study reveals the basic value characteristics and potentially conflicting contradictions as a result of the influence of the rapid spread of new media on the audience of modern Russian youth. In the course of the analysis, a fundamentally new knowledge was obtained, based on a holistic vision of the cultural and historical reality of the formation of a "digital society" in Russia, about the axiological features of the modern Russian social order, including a complexly structured set of moral values of youth. The study included two trajectories of empirical analysis: conducting focus groups to identify and scientifically interpret trends in the formation of content preferences of the younger generation in the discourse of the use of new media, as well as monitoring social networks in order to mark popular communication platforms among young people, evaluating the most effective methods of information impact, broadcasting axiological discourses and articulation generated in them risks. To achieve the set scientific objectives, the authors of the study conceptualized the theoretical constructions of the specifics of new media in modern conditions, presented popular axiological trends identified as a result of qualitative content analysis of blogs in social networks. The results obtained are correlated with other fundamental studies of Russian scientists studying the problems of youth values in various academic planes, in order to search for correlations and assess the complementarity of conclusions for the subsequent increment of political science knowledge. As a result of the analysis, not only trends in the transformation of values of modern Russian youth are articulated, but also strategic risks determined by the mediatization of communications of the studied age cohort. In this regard, the article develops a model for measuring and preventing the risks of political and axiological transformations among Russian youth based on the development of complementary methods of their assessment for the construction and implementation of effective state strategies in terms of their change and improvement.

Implementation of a LoRa Mesh Library

LoRa is a popular communication technology in the Internet of Things (IoT) domain, providing low-power and long-range communications. Most LoRa IoT applications use the LoRaWAN architecture, which builds a star topology between LoRa end nodes and the gateway they connect to. However, LoRa can also be used for the communication between end nodes themselves, forming a mesh network topology. In this paper, we present a library that allows to integrate LoRa end nodes into a LoRa mesh network, in which a routing protocol is used. Thus, an IoT application running on these nodes can use the library to send and receive data packets to and from other nodes in the LoRa mesh network. The designed routing protocol is proactive, and maintains the routing table at each node updated by sending routing messages between neighboring nodes. The implemented library has been tested on embedded boards featuring an ESP32 microcontroller and a LoRa single-channel radio. By using our LoRa mesh library, nodes do not need to connect to a LoRaWAN gateway, but among themselves. This opens the possibility for new, distributed applications solely built upon tiny IoT nodes.

A New Adaptive Power Control Based on LEACH Clustering Protocol for Interference Management in Cooperative D2D Systems

The cooperative device-to-device (D2D) system is becoming one of the most popular communication models in wireless 5G technology that combines the D2D system with cooperative communication to extend coverage and increase system performance. However, interference is one of the factors of decreasing service quality in cooperative D2D systems because of adjacent users/clusters and excessive power usage, which also causes interference to the receiver. Interference management, such as power control, can overcome interference problems in the cooperative D2D communication system. Therefore, this paper proposes a new form of adaptive power control (APC) based on the low-energy adaptive clustering hierarchy (LEACH) protocol for interference management systems in cooperative D2D systems that other studies have not considered. For a fair comparison, this paper also modifies the conventional fixed power control (FPC) method using the LEACH protocol and the modified fixed power control (MFPC) used in the previous study and then considers the system without power control. The simulation results show that the proposed APC can significantly reduce interference in cooperative D2D communication compared to the MFPC and without power control. Moreover, the simulation results also show that concerning the signal-to-interference and noise ratio (SINR) to the outage probability and throughput, the proposed APC performs better than the MFPC and without power control. Thus, the proposed APC can effectively reduce interference in cooperative D2D systems.

Cartels, memes, and digital platforms: the digital myths of ‘El Chapo’ Guzmán

ABSTRACT Since the late 1970s, the Mexican government has been embroiled in an armed conflict with the drug cartels, and criminal organisations have engaged in violent confrontations with each other. Violence escalated in 2006 under the presidency of Felipe Calderón Hinojosa, and since then killings have become spectacular and highly mediatised. An often-overlooked front of the cartel wars is the use of non-official networked media that generates and sustains popular narratives about cartel leaders. In this paper, we focus on the media assemblages that sustain the myths associated with the now captured ‘El Chapo’ Guzmán, perhaps the most celebrated narco in Mexican history. In particular, we focus on the phenomenon of the El Chapo memes as these have moved into a new phase via digital platforms such as Whatapps. We argue the El Chapo memes play an important role in popular communication revolving around narco culture, functioning as artefacts of and even opportunities for political contestation, as well as everyday humour and survival.

Analisis Pro Kontra Vaksin Covid 19 Menggunakan Sentiment Analysis Sumber Media Sosial Twitter

The development of information technology today has experienced very rapid growth. One of the developments in information technology, namely social media such as Twitter, Facebook, and Youtube, are some of the most popular communication media in today's society. Twitter is often used to express emotions about something, either praising or criticizing in the form of emotion. Human emotions can be categorized into five basic emotions, namely love, joy, sadness, anger, and fear. Twitter users' emotional tweets can be known as opinion or sentiment analysis (opinion analysis or sentiment analysis). Sentiment analysis is also carried out to see opinions or tendencies towards a problem or policy, whether they tend to have negative or positive opinions. The COVID-19 vaccine has become one of the discussions with a fairly high intensity on social media. Vaccine-related tweets have increased as government policies evolve. The responses of netizens also varied, ranging from clinical trials of vaccines, free vaccines, vaccine effectiveness, halal vaccines, to the implementation of vaccinations. This research produces a system that can analyze tweet sentiment related to the covid 19 vaccine in Indonesia where the tweet is obtained using the Twitter API. This system uses the Multinominal Naive Bayes method for the classification process.

Exploring the spectrum of urban area key figures using data from Finland and proposing guidelines for delineation of urban areas

Urban area definitions are commonly used worldwide to reflect countries’ urban population percentages. The measurements are based on local factors and differ widely across countries, making them non-comparable. This is well acknowledged among specialists; however, they are commonly used in everyday practice as universal measurements, and even compared with each other. The problem is that we do not know the degree of error in such comparisons. For this purpose, in the study presented here we analysed and categorised different European national urban area definitions, testing them in the case of Finland. Definitions from 27 European countries were divided into two main categories according to the end result areal unit of the definition and further into seven subcategories based on the criteria used. Thirteen different definitions in the case of Finland were tested using spatial analyses with GIS. The results indicate that urban population percentage varies widely according to different definitions, making their comparability infeasible. The difference is even greater in the case of urban area ratio and population densities of urban areas between the two main categories. The results prove that definitions based on LAU areas cannot illustrate urban areas and their densities coherently. In light of a literature review on certain relational urban area delineation methods and the case study, desirable characteristics for the delineation of urban areas were highlighted. Consequently, a constant, structured evaluation of urbanity measurements and their underlying logic is necessary to enable unambiguous discourse on urban area in urban sciences. The results could help in formulating the applicability of the concept of urban area in scientific and popular communication and media.

"O Candeeiro”:: The popular communication tool in the strengthening of agroecological family agriculture in the “sertão of Pajeú”, a semi-arid region of Brazil.

Este trabalho objetiva analisar como o boletim “O Candeeiro”, instrumento de comunicação da Articulação no Semiárido Brasileiro (ASA Brasil), fortalece a agricultura familiar e a agroecologia noSertão do Pajeú. Trata-se de uma pesquisa bibliográfica e documental na qual se fez o levantamento e análise dos temas e experiências exitosas sistematizadas e publicadas no “site” da ASA Brasil entre os anos 2012 e 2020. Também foi realizada uma entrevista com 17 pessoas que leem e utilizam as informações contidas no periódico analisado. Observou-se que essas práticas e iniciativas envolvem dimensões importantes para o fortalecimento da agricultura familiar no semiárido, com destaque para o acesso à terra e à água, conservação de sementes crioulas e o protagonismo da mulher que demandam ações de políticas públicas de convivência com o semiárido. Conclui-se que “O Candeeiro” promove a troca de saberes e experiências exitosas no Sertão do Pajeú inspirando mudanças

Light gradient boosting machine-based phishing webpage detection model using phisher website features of mimic URLs

With the advent of the 20th century, the popularity of digital service usages is increasing every day. The internet has always been a popular communication method, and phishing webpages have been a challenging issue for more than two decades. Especially, E-commerce and other global companies face enormous challenges due to phishing of websites. Many developed countries have reported substantial economic loss due to unwanted phishing activities. With the exponential increase of digital communications, these phishing activities are going to be increased. There is a need for an effective intrinsic phishing detection technique. Phishing websites have some unique features by which they can be identified. In this research, a Light gradient boosting machine-based phishing email detection model using phisher websites' features of mimic URLs has been proposed. The primary objective is to develop a highly secured and accurate model for successful identification of security breach through websites phishing. With the performance comparison of other ensemble as well as state-of-the-art machine learning models, the proposed model resulted high performance accuracy and proved to a robust approach for phishing activity.

Rift Valley fever knowledge, mitigation strategies and communication preferences among male and female livestock farmers in Eastern Province, Rwanda.

The Government of Rwanda reported an outbreak of Rift Valley fever (RVF) in the Eastern Province in 2018. To respond to the outbreak, vaccination and education campaigns about the disease were carried out. Because RVF cases continue to be detected in Rwanda and the disease impacts livelihoods and health, accurate knowledge and communication are imperative. The objectives of this study were to evaluate knowledge and risk perceptions of RVF transmission among livestock farmers in Nyagatare District, Eastern Province, Rwanda, and to compare RVF knowledge, risk perceptions, and farming practices between male and female livestock farmers. This cross-sectional, quantitative study was conducted in selected sectors of Nyagatare District in the Eastern Province of Rwanda in June 2019. A 34-question survey was used to ask about demographics, livestock ownership, risk perceptions about zoonotic diseases and livestock management, RVF knowledge, preferred communication sources and information sharing strategies, and protective strategies for RVF mitigation while working with livestock. Livestock farmers were interviewed at three milk collection centers, two village meeting points, a farm cooperative meeting, and during door-to-door visits in villages. In total, 123 livestock farmers were interviewed. The survey found that most livestock farmers lacked knowledge about epizootic and zoonotic transmission of RVF, more male livestock farmers were familiar with RVF and risk mitigation strategies, and female livestock farmers are not viewed as reliable sources of information. Additionally, most livestock farmers had not vaccinated their animals against RVF despite past vaccination campaigns. Radio was the most popular communication channel. These findings show that RVF knowledge and information sharing are inadequate among livestock farmers in Eastern Province. Therefore, vaccination and education campaigns may need to be reevaluated within the context of these trends in order to prepare for future RVF outbreaks.

Corpus-assisted analysis of the collocational profiles of the terms denoting elderly care workers

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to explore the terms used in the Macmillan Dictionary and the Oxford English Dictionary to identify the people who are paid to provide care to the elderly and check their presence in a corpus – professional home care (PHC) – of three UK-based specialised websites.Design/methodology/approachThis study is based on the frameworks and methods of corpus-assisted Discourse Analysis (Baker, 2006). The terms were extracted from a corpus of British websites of companies providing PHC services.FindingsThis study highlights that in the PHC corpus, the words “caregiver” and “carer” are used as synonyms at the level of popular communication, whereas “care assistant” and “care worker” are used for intra-specialistic communication. The analysis also points out the variations in terminology observed in the corpora that are intended for different communication contexts, e.g. how professionals define themselves compared to how external actors identify them.Originality/valueThis paper provides insight into the terminological aspects of caregiving in the professional field through a corpus-based study on specialised terminology integrating lexicographic considerations. This methodological framework can capture the sociolinguistic attitudes of speakers.

The Role of Emoticons in the Comprehension of Emotional and Non-emotional Messages in Dyslexic Youth - A Preliminary Study.

The study explored how well-dyslexic youth deals with written messages in an environment simulating popular social network communication system. The messaging systems, present more and more in pandemic and post-pandemic online world, are rich in nonverbal aspects of communicating, namely, the emoticons. The pertinent question was whether the presence of emoticons in written messages of emotional and non-emotional content changes the comprehension of the messages. Thirty-two pupils aged 11–15 took part in the study, 16 had a school-approved diagnosis of dyslexia and were included in the experimental group. Sixteen controls had no diagnosed disabilities. Both groups viewed short messages of four types (each including seven communicates): verbal-informative (without emoticons and emotional verbal content), verbal-emotive (without emoticons, with emotional verbal content), emoticon-informative (including emoticon-like small pictures, but without emotional content either verbal or nonverbal), and emoticon-emotive (with standard emoticons and including verbal-emotional content). The participants had to answer short questions after quick presentation of each message that tested their comprehension of the content. RTs and accuracy of the answers were analyzed. Students without dyslexia had shorter response times to the questions regarding all types of messages than the dyslexic participants. The answers of the experimental group to the questions about the emoticon-informative messages were less correct. The study pointed tentatively to the beneficial role of emoticons (especially the nonstandard, i.e., of non-emotional kind) in reading short messages with understanding.

Study on the Feasibility of Vehicle-to-Infrastructure Applications Supported through Advanced Wireless Communications

Connected and automated vehicle (CAV) technology has the potential to improve transportation systems. CAV technology has been shown to bring benefits in transportation mobility, safety, and the environment. The signal phase and timing (SPaT) message is a fundamental and critical CAV message, as it enables connectivity between vehicles and infrastructure. Because SPaT messages can be transmitted using different wireless communication technologies, it is necessary to study the latency and coverage of SPaT messages in such cases. This study investigates performances of SPaT messages transmitted using two popular communication technologies in CAVs: dedicated short-range communications (DSRC) and cellular 3rd generation partnership project (3GPP)/4th generation long-term evolution (4G/LTE). To provide a robust evaluation, SPaT data transmitted by DSRC and cellular networks were collected in the field at various intersections in Northern Virginia and used to compare performance in terms of latency and distance coverage. The results showed that the latency experienced by SPaT messages over cellular networks is well below the 100 ms required by most infrastructure applications, implying that cellular communications may be used for many vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) safety and mobility applications. The feasibility of several CAV applications was investigated based on the network performance observed in this study. Specifically, several safety, mobility, and environmental applications were tested to determine whether DSRC and cellular networks could satisfy their requirements for network performance. The study also provides conclusive remarks on whether the wireless communication technologies are capable of supporting safety, mobility, and environmental applications.