Popular Media Sources Research Articles

Working in precarity: examining mainstream discourses about street hawking in Ghana

Abstract This study sought to analyze how the media and the general public position street hawking in an economic environment typically constrained by neoliberal orthodoxy. We conducted a critical textual analysis of news articles, op-eds, and video clips from some of the most popular news media sources in Ghana and found that while informal work is often done in turbulent material conditions, marginality and precarity of street hawking are exacerbated by media and popular discourses that are anchored by neoliberalism. We also found that such discourses are resisted by counter-discourses. The study challenges neoliberal analyses of work and labor by explicating the tensions between the attraction to neoliberalism and the reality of its failures for informal work.

The Resilience of the Built Environment to Flooding: The Case of Alappuzha District in the South Indian State of Kerala

In recent years, floods and climate-induced cataclysms have caused significant annual damage to livelihoods worldwide, with limited research on their vulnerability, impact, resilience, and long-term adaptation strategies in developing countries. In the South Indian State of Kerala, the major flood in 2018 caused immense economic losses in the low-lying and densely populated Alappuzha District. While the region has a heightened risk of periodic flooding, the considerable destruction of buildings and infrastructure highlights the need for effective solutions for flood resilience in the existing housing stock and new construction. In this context, this study examines flood resilience in the built environment of Alappuzha, focusing on flood vulnerability, building practices, and potential approaches suitable for the region that the current literature does not address. This study employs a qualitative research approach to understand current trends in adaptation strategies and the influencing socioeconomic and cultural factors. The study employs various data collection methods, including interviews, site observations, and content analyses of existing government reports, journal articles, and popular media sources. The findings indicate that although there are three types of established flood resilience techniques (static elevated, floating, and amphibious structures), their suitability for the low-lying areas of Alappuzha depends on the geographic, climatic, socioeconomic, and cultural contexts. Stilted houses have become the most common construction method, in response to climatic and socioeconomic conditions. In addition, the findings highlight the bounce-forth resilience quality of amphibious building techniques and suggest further exploration by integrating them with local technologies and materials. The study concludes that a comprehensive approach is needed that integrates traditional and modern knowledge and practices in disaster risk reduction and management to enhance the resilience of the built environment to flooding.

Portals to the past and bridges to the future: exploring the impact of doulas on the birthing experiences of black and Latinx women

IntroductionIn the USA, maternal morbidity and mortality is markedly higher for women of colour than for white women. The presence of a doula has been associated with positive birthing outcomes...

Why is Mother Earth on Life Support? Metaphors in Environmental Discourse.

From mother nature and carbon footprints to greenhouse gasses and the race against global warming, popular discourse on environmental issues is saturated with metaphor. Some people view these metaphors as obfuscating or ineffective, while others believe they are crucial for improving climate communications and environmental attitudes. In this paper, we provide a systematic overview and evaluation of the use of English metaphors in Anglo environmental discourse, drawing on a range of empirical and popular media sources. We begin by discussing the role of metaphor in language in thought. Next, we introduce a range of metaphors used to frame discussions of (1) our relationship to nature (e.g., the earth is our common home), (2) our impact on the environment (e.g., we are knocking the climate off balance), and (3) how we should address this impact (e.g., reduce our ecological footprint). We classify these metaphors along several dimensions, including how conventional they are, how systemic they are, how emotionally impactful they are, and how aptly they capture the topics they are used to describe. From this analysis, we derive several promising candidate metaphors that may help increase public understanding and engagement with environmental issues. However, we note that such claims must be tested empirically in future research; currently, there are few large, systematic, replicable experiments in the literature assessing the impact of environmental metaphors. We conclude by offering general recommendations for using metaphors in communications about climate change and sustainability.

The Clothes Maketh the Cult

The Clothes Maketh the Cult

Social Representations and Symbolic Coping: A Cross-Cultural Discourse Analysis of the COVID-19 Pandemic in Newspapers

ABSTRACT This study used a framework grounded in social representations theory to investigate cross-cultural variation and consistency in the discursive construction of the COVID-19 pandemic by the mass media, in the week following WHO’s declaration of a global pandemic in March 2020. News reports from media outlets in the United Kingdom and China were sourced, with articles from the most popular media sources selected for analysis. Four discourses were identified to be the most prominent representations present throughout these accounts: war; other illnesses; a general emergency; an unknown situation. The findings demonstrated consistency with past research, highlighting how the sociogenesis of social representations in the case of the COVID-19 pandemic followed a similar pattern to other novel infectious disease outbreaks. Consistency between UK and Chinese media accounts was identifiable throughout the construction of these discourses; however, variation was detectable regarding use of culturally relevant anchors for existing illness representations, along with Chinese media accounts constructing images of a comparatively optimistic local situation, whilst depicting the rest of the world as in the midst of a global emergency. Future research has the potential to build on these findings by going beyond media representations to explore actual lay population beliefs, attitudes, and opinions, considering how they compare to the representations portrayed in mass-mediated news reports.

34394 Skin of color dermatology on TikTok: An analysis of popular social media content and sources

Background: Social media is a powerful tool for information dissemination. Platforms such as TikTok are used by board-certified dermatologists to educate users globally. However, studies demonstrate a strong presence of nondermatologist influencers among dermatology-focused content, posing a potential risk for misinformation. Here, we investigate the sources of the most popular skin of color (SOC) dermatology posts on TikTok. Methods: 61 SOC-related TikTok hashtags derived from multiple sources (Skin of Color Society, common SOC disorders, and SOC-focused social media research) were searched in September 2021. Popularity of each hashtag by total views was examined, along with source, content (educational, promotional, or personal), and level of engagement (likes and comments) of the top-viewed post for each hashtag. Results: The most popular SOC hashtags by total related post views were #IngrownHair (2B views), #HairLoss (1.2B), #Dandruff (875M), #Vitiligo (483M), and #Hyperpigmentation (251M). Least popular hashtags included #Skinofcolordermatology, #BrownSkinMatters, and #PseudofolliculitisBarbae, with no related posts for 17 hashtags. For available top-viewed posts, #HidradenitisSuppurativa was most-viewed (75M, esthetician, personal) while #Folliculitis (722M likes, esthetician, educational) and #Dandruff (76K comments, blogger, personal) had highest engagement. Overall, only 28% (12/43) of top-viewed posts were Board-certified dermatologists, 9% (4/45) were other healthcare providers, and all of these were educational. Conclusion: The most popular hashtags were regarding hair or pigmentary disorders. Many of the posts were not strictly SOC-related. Estheticians and bloggers are the source of most SOC dermatology-related content on TikTok. Herein lies opportunity for more Board-certified dermatologists to share evidence-based information with online communities.

PELAKSANAAN BRAHMA VIHĀRA SEBAGAI SARANA MEWUJUDKAN TOLERANSI ANTAR UMAT BERAGAMA DI INDONESIA

The Brahma Vihara are the four sublime states of mind. It contains noble, noble, and perfect qualities that all living beings should live by. The four noble qualities are mettā (loving-kindness), karunā (compassion, compassion), muditā (rejoicing), and upekkhā (equanimity). Tolerance is attitudes and actions that respect differences in religion, ethnicity, ethnicity, opinions, attitudes, and actions of other people who are different from themselves. On the basis of this, this study was made to find out the Implementation of the brahma vihāra as a means of realizing inter-religious tolerance in Indonesia. This type of research is library research. Therefore, this research was conducted using content analysis techniques, namely by analyzing the contents of various library sources that are relevant to the existing theory. Sources of data used in this study consisted of primary and secondary sources. In this study, primary data was obtained through the text of the Tipitaka Scriptures, while secondary data was obtained from popular books, journals, and online media sources. The results of this study found a correlation in the implementation of the Brahma Vihāra as a means of realizing tolerance between religious communities in Indonesia. This can be seen from the right effort in the implication of the brahma vihara that the activity always instills various noble qualities in its practitioners such as preventing the emergence of evil thoughts and qualities, greed and selfishness, maintaining and developing good qualities in oneself, and instill shame and fear of doing evil. In addition, training yourself to always have love for others even with different characters and backgrounds and even different religions (beliefs) will greatly impact and increase tolerance in humans to other humans. Differences will not make one ignore others because love is always above all. Someone full of love tends to be very tolerant and accepts the existence of others with grace, even though they are full of differences. 
 Keywords: Brahma Vihāra, Tolerance, Religious People.

Effect of Advertisement on Consumer’s Behavior of women with Special reference to Deoghar district of Jharkhand

A consumer buys an item so that his needs are fulfilled. If the level of satisfaction remains low after purchasing an item, then the consumer will not purchase that item. Whereas the main objective of a producer is to sell more and more goods and services to get maximum profit. In both the cases, the buyer needs knowledge about the goods and the sellers about the needs of the buyers. Consumers acquire knowledge through various media platforms, while producers reach out to consumers about their goods and services through various media platforms. It is clear from the study that female consumers are more influenced by various popular media sources like Facebook, YouTube, TV etc.

Exploring Public Opinions on Renewable Energy by Using Conventional Methods and Social Media Analysis

Renewable energy is one of the most discussed topics nowadays, more so than traditional combustible energy sources and nuclear energy. There is an apparent need to study its public acceptance and the general public’s knowledge about it, especially in the context of more advanced inventions, such as smart grids, energy storage, or photovoltaic inverters. In this research, the results of a custom survey and those of several types of public social media datasets were processed to gain insights into the acceptance and awareness of these technologies. The second aim was to investigate technologies and related public opinions about manufacturers. One social media dataset was processed by a novel technology based on automatic data collection from popular social media sources, blogs, forums and public news. All the collected and anonymized data were restored in a custom-made data lake (unstructured database) and analyzed by a natural language processing (NLP) engine to extract the required information. The results showed that the Hungarian public’s knowledge differs from the European reference values by a very high percentage. A further goal for new research in the investigated area will be to achieve a business intelligence rated system in order to predict future trends and events. Since different methods provide results from different viewpoints, the conclusion is that combined analyses have to be used for investigating popular topics related to energy, such as various technologies, issues related to energy transition, or even car sharing services for a sustainable future.

Do Longitudinal Trends in Tobacco 21-Related Media Coverage Correlate with Policy Support? an Exploratory Analysis Using Supervised and Unsupervised Machine Learning Methods

ABSTRACT Media coverage can impact support for health policies and, ultimately, compliance with those policies. Prior research found consistent, high support for Tobacco 21 policies, which raise the minimum legal age of tobacco purchase to 21, among adults and nonsmoking youth. However, a recent study found support (i.e., agreement with the statement: “The legal age to buy tobacco cigarettes should be increased from 18 to 21”) among 13–20-year-old smokers increased from 2014 until mid-2016 and then declined steadily through mid-2017. To assess whether media coverage could be related to young smokers’ changing support, we conducted an exploratory content analysis to identify texts about Tobacco 21 in a large corpus of tobacco texts (N = 135,691) published in four popular media sources from 2014 to 2017. For this content analysis, we developed a novel methodological approach that combined supervised and unsupervised machine learning methods and could be useful in other areas of communication research. We found that the prevalence of Tobacco 21 media coverage and Tobacco 21 support among young smokers exhibited similar temporal patterns for much of the study period. These findings highlight the need for continued research into the effects of media coverage on Tobacco 21 support among young smokers, a group that must comply with Tobacco 21 policies in order to ensure maximum effectiveness. This research is of particular utility following the 2019 passage of a federal Tobacco 21 regulation, as the public health impact of this regulation could be limited by low public support, and thus low rates of policy compliance.

Changing Social Learning Theory Through Reliance on the Internet of Things and Artificial Intelligence

This paper examines the trend in the concept of the Internet of Things (IoT), Artificial Intelligence (AI), and related computer-mediated teaching and learning. Implications for social learning theory are examined based on the concept of “cyborg” education through a variety of scholarly and popular media sources with implications for schools and teacher educators. Recommendations for teacher education are posited as the topic of technological mediation between people continues to change in relation to how education will likely need to adapt to provide a prosocial environment through technological mediation, though the social learning itself operates in different ways.

Seismic Risk Perception in Al-Marj, Libya: A Case Study after the 1963 Earthquake

Individual beliefs, knowledge, and perception play a vital role in understanding and coping with the consequences of earthquakes. These perceptions then mold the broader perceptions of risk and danger held by communities, which ultimately create public policy. This survey study was designed and conducted to assess the perceptions of seismic hazard and risk of earthquake survivors and residents in Al-Marj, Libya—a city razed in a 1963 tremor. In 2019, 364 earthquake survivors and residents were surveyed for their knowledge and perception of earthquakes. Surveys were conducted in Arabic and included demographic and narrative questions in addition to Likert-scaled responses. A number of predictable, surprising, and valuable correlations were found. It was found that during earthquakes most respondents prayed to Allah, or did nothing, in comparison to escape, seeking shelter, or running for help. The majority believed their neighborhoods were unsafe while questions illiciting some aspect of quake recurrence caused a complete refusal to answer; they commented “I do not know” or “only God knows”. Most respondents did not consider preparation to be important, but younger respondents were relatively more prepared. Surprisingly, highly educated respondents were less prepared, however, they also attributed earthquakes to tectonic slipping and not divine retaliation or retribution. However, less-educated respondents stated “I do not know”, “Allah punishes”, or “Allah tests the believers”. Most participants considered themselves well-informed about earthquakes from popular media sources (internet, TV, magazines). These findings were vital in gaining an insight into hazard perception and high-risk behavior in a seismically active region like Libya. When natural hazard recurrence (i.e. earthquakes) are better understood, then the potential consequences of injury, damages, and deaths may be assessed, and an overall plan to produce sustainable disaster management strategies and decrease risk can be created and implemented.

Modeling, Quantifying and Visualizing Media Bias on Twitter

News media garner a lot of attention regarding the subjectivity of their reporting. News media bias is of immense interest to various individuals, as the systematic preference of an entity can invoke its support and public actions. These inclinations, although apparent, hinder the true facts. The identification and quantification of media bias is one of the most important metrics in reference to bias assessment in media and general public. In this paper, we present a principled approach to quantify media bias along with insightful visualizations for popular media sources using their tweets. We use the concept of a mini-world of N <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\times $ </tex-math></inline-formula> M matrix to model the sources and entities of interest, where the tweet counts and respective polarities over a specified time period are the values. Direct comparisons between these two are not as meaningful due to the neglection of inherent characteristics of sources and entities. Thus, we define coverage and statement scores as properly normalized measures of tweet counts and polarity rates. Furthermore, we present a statistically consistent model of neutral tweet counts and polarity rates, using which we define the absolute coverage and statement bias of each source-entity pair. We illustrate our approach on two data sets capturing tweets on 1) Prime minister candidates of top political parties of Pakistan in the 2018 general election 2) Paris and Beirut bombings in 2015 by different news sources. The results indicate that our model is generalizable i.e. it can be applied to different entities/sources and in consistent with previous studies.

Burnt by the sun: the Koreans of the Russian Far East, by Jon K. Chang, Honolulu, University of Hawai'i Press, 2016, 273 pp., $68 (hardback), ISBN 9780824856786

In 2017, many engaged in marking the centennial of the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution. In universities, scores of invited lectures and presentations were planned, popular media sources ran special serie...

Popular media records reveal multi-decadal trends in recreational fishing catch rates.

Despite threats to human wellbeing from ecological degradation, public engagement with this issue remains at low levels. However, studies have shown that crafting messages to resonate with people’s personal experiences can enhance engagement. Recreational fishing is one of the principal ways in which people interact with aquatic environments, but long-term data from this perspective are considered rare. We uncovered 852 popular media records of recreational fishing for an Australian estuary across a 140-year period. Using information contained in these articles we analysed the species composition of recreational catches over time and constructed two distinct time series of catch and effort (n fish fisher-1 trip-1; kg fish fisher-1 trip-1) for recreational fishing trips and fishing club competitions (mean n and kg fish caught across all competitors, and n and kg fish caught by the competition winner). Reported species composition remained similar over time. Catch rates reported from recreational fishing trips (1900–1998) displayed a significant decline, averaging 32.5 fish fisher-1 trip-1 prior to 1960, and 18.8 fish fisher-1 trip-1 post-1960. Mean n fish fisher-1 competition-1 (1913–1983) also significantly declined, but best n fish fisher-1 competition-1 (1925–1980) displayed no significant change, averaging 31.2 fish fisher-1 competition-1 over the time series. Mean and best kg fish fisher-1 competition-1 trends also displayed no significant change, averaging 4.2 and 9.9 kg fisher-1 competition-1, respectively. These variable trends suggest that while some fishers experienced diminishing returns in this region over the last few decades, the most skilled inshore fishers were able to maintain their catch rates, highlighting the difficulties inherent in crafting conservation messages that will resonate with all sections of a community. Despite these challenges, this research demonstrates that popular media sources can provide multiple long-term trends at spatial scales, in units and via a recreational experience that many people can relate to.

Man-Eating Teddy Bears of the Scrub: Exploring the Australian Drop Bear Urban Legend

Urban legends are contemporary forms of folklore that are often used to provide lessons in morality or explicate local beliefs, dangers, or customs. In Australia, one such tale describes fiendish, carnivorous, blood-sucking koala-like animals that launch themselves from trees at unsuspecting tourists in the Australian scrub. The drop bear (also known as Thylarctos plummetus or Thylarctos plummetus vampirus) is an urban legend common to tropical Australian scrub regions that serves as a cautionary tale intended to warn against the dangers associated with traversing the Australian bush. As such, the figure of the drop bear represents a uniquely Australian manifestation of the vampire motif. This article examines representations of the drop bear urban legend as provided in contemporary pseudo-scientific, satirical, and popular media sources by means of critical discourse analysis, in addition to exploring how archaeological evidence has been mobilised in support of drop bear narratives. Through a critical review of drop bear tales in accordance with established folklore typologies the paper posits a categorisation of drop bear narratives as urban legend, while also explicating the impacts of social media and the internet on the perpetuation and dissemination of the drop bear legend.

The Artist as Agent: Noria Mabasa and the Book

ABSTRACTThis article traces the multiple ways in which Noria Mabasa reaffirmed her creative agency after the publication on her in 2003 of a Taxi Art Book monograph without her knowledge. In support of the artist’s efforts to reclaim control over the ways in which her works have circulated in the urban art world, it pays careful attention to Mabasa’s own voice, effectively challenging the widespread tendency to ignore the idiosyncratic interpretative strategies commonly developed by marginalised rural artists. While exploring various intersections between Mabasa’s artistic production and aspects of her own gendered history, the article raises a number of issues related to the ways in which, and why, interpretations of her sculptures have either underestimated, or in some cases completely overlooked, the primary inspiration for her work in lived experience. Keenly attentive to events in her immediate environment, and in the public spectacle of media images, Mabasa has repeatedly turned to newspaper photographs and other popular sources for inspiration. For Mabasa, these visual “texts” have acted as mnemonic devices, encouraging her to “read” events in a variety of ways, sometimes as movements flowing through time, in other cases as isolated moments divorced from a larger sense of place and space. But regardless of whether she witnesses events first-hand in rural Limpopo, or draws them from popular media sources, importantly, her interpretative strategies often also include the practice of mapping personally constructed symbols onto her generally very complex, and often very emotive, narratives.

Impact of Media on Major Choice: Survey of Communication Undergraduates

Popular and news media sources may play a key role in influencing undergraduate choice of major, yet their unique impact has not been investigated. Most research has focused on the influence of unmediated salient referents, such as parents, on students' major choices. Therefore, we developed a scale to examine the role of media professionals and celebrities (mediated salient referents) and unmediated salient referents on career selection. Overall, we investigated the ways media exposure, technology use, mediated salient referents, and unmediated salient referents influenced variations in the likelihood students choose the media-related major of journalism through a survey of communication undergraduates (N = 2,401). Results showed mediated referents and news consumption positively predicted the choice of journalism as a major, while unmediated referents influenced students' selection of other communication-related majors.

Effect of Peer Influence on Exercise Behavior and Enjoyment in Recreational Runners.

Fitness professionals and popular media sources often recommend exercising with a partner to increase exercise motivation, adherence, intensity, and/or duration. Although competition with peers has been shown to enhance maximal athletic performance, experimental research examining the impact of peer influence on submaximal exercise behavior in adults is limited. The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of the presence of familiar and unfamiliar peers, vs. running alone, on recreational runners' voluntary running duration, distance, intensity, liking (i.e., enjoyment), and ratings of perceived exertion (RPEs). Recreational runners (n = 12 males, n = 12 females) completed 3 experimental trials, each under a different social condition, in a randomized order. Each trial consisted of self-paced running for a duration voluntarily determined by the participant. The 3 social conditions were running alone, with a sex- and fitness-matched familiar peer, or with a sex- and fitness-matched unfamiliar peer. A wrist-worn global positioning system was used to record running duration, distance, and average speed. Liking and RPE were assessed at the end of each trial. Mixed model regression analysis showed no significant effects of social condition (p ≥ 0.40) for any of the dependent variables. The presence of a familiar or unfamiliar peer did not alter recreational runners' running behavior, liking, or perceived exertion during submaximal exercise. However, exercising with others may have other benefits (e.g., reduced attrition) not examined herein.