Television Networks Research Articles

Exploring how a YouTube channel’s political stance is associated with early COVID-19 communication on YouTube

ABSTRACT The unexpected chaos of the COVID-19 pandemic brought about a host of political discussions in the US, including conversations about the Trump administration’s COVID-related policies. During these conversations, major news outlets represented each political group’s stance using social media in addition to their traditional channels. This study explores how those news outlets’ political stances relate to early COVID-19 social media discourse with three distinct methods. We selected two YouTube videos about the World Health Organization (WHO)’s declaration of a pandemic from two news outlets with contrasting political stances, Fox News and MSNBC. Three types of analyses were conducted to compare those videos on different observation levels: (1) a video network analysis based on the YouTube recommendation algorithm, (2) a framing analysis exploring how differently the two news outlets delivered the news, and (3) a content analysis of viewer comments. Our results demonstrate that the videos were not directly connected to each other in the YouTube recommendation network, that they delivered the same news with contrasting frames, and that characteristics of the viewers’ comments – commenters’ political positions, roles in knowledge sharing, and social cues – significantly or partially significantly related to the YouTube channel’s political position. Based on these findings, we argue that while news outlets’ political stances were associated with the behaviors of all three types of agents on YouTube – news outlets, their viewers, and the platform – to some extent, the viewer groups’ knowledge-sharing behaviors did not significantly differ as the news outlets’ contrasting frames did.

Increasing access to pathology services in low- and middle-income countries through innovative use of telepathology.

In low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), surgical care can be limited by access to pathology services. In Uganda, the pathologist-to-population ratio is less than 1 to 1 million people. The Kyabirwa Surgical Center in Jinja, Uganda, created a telepathology service in collaboration with an academic institution in New York City. This study demonstrated the feasibility and considerations of implementing a telepathology model to supplement the critical pathology needs of a low-income country. This was a retrospective, single-center study of an ambulatory surgery center with pathology capability using virtual microscopy. The remote pathologist (also known as a telepathologist) controlled the microscope and reviewed histology images transmitted across the network in real time. In addition, this study collected demographics, clinical histories, the surgeon's preliminary diagnoses, and the pathology reports from the center's electronic medical record. Nikon's NIS Element Software was used as a dynamic, robotic microscopy model with a video conferencing platform for communication. An underground fiber optic cable established Internet connectivity. After a two-hour tutorial session, the lab technician and pathologist were able to proficiently use the software. The remote pathologist read (1) pathology slides with inconclusive reports from external pathology labs, and (2) tissues labeled by the surgeon as suspicious for malignancy, which belonged to patients who lacked financial means for pathology services. Between April 2021 and July 2022, tissue samples of 110 patients were examined by a telepathologist. The most common malignancies on histology were squamous cell carcinoma of the esophagus, ductal carcinoma of the breast, and colorectal adenocarcinoma. With the increasing availability of video conference platforms and network connections, telepathology is an emerging field that can be used by surgeons in LMICs to improve access to pathology services, confirming histological diagnosis of malignancies to ensure appropriate treatment.

A Comprehensive Study of Malaria Awareness among College & University Students in the Jammu Region

Background: Malaria is a highly infectious disease responsible for the significant mortality and is caused by Plasmodium, a protozoan parasite of the genus Plasmodium. Different developed and developing nations have launched various initiatives to prevent diseases and eradicate them from society and for this understanding the disease and its various manifestations is crucial to achieving the goal of prevention and eradication. Aim: As a result, the current study was designed to investigate malaria knowledge or understanding among college/university students in the Jammu region in terms of their attitudes and practices toward malaria and its various dimensions. Method: For the current study, 400 students (undergraduate and graduate) were recruited, with an equal number of males and females in the age range of 18- 23 years. Result: According to the study's findings, young students' general awareness of malaria is below average, and no significant difference in knowledge of the diseases was observed between males and females. As a consequence, it was concluded that health education should be made mandatory in all educational institutions to promote student awareness, which may be enhanced through media such as television, newspapers, and social networks. Conclusion: The current study revealed that effective tactics and new methods are required for people to maintain proper awareness.

Look Who’s Watching: Platform Labels and User Engagement on State-Backed Media Outlets

Recently, social media platforms have introduced several measures to counter misleading information. Among these measures are “state-media labels” which help users identify and evaluate the credibility of state-backed news. YouTube was the first platform to introduce labels that provide information about state-backed news channels. While previous work has examined the efficiency of information labels in controlled lab settings, few studies have examined how state-media labels affect users’ perceptions of content from state-backed outlets. This article proposes new methodological and theoretical approaches to investigate the effect of state-media labels on users’ engagement with content. Drawing on a content analysis of 8,071 YouTube comments posted before and after the labeling of five state-funded channels (Al Jazeera English [AJE], China Global Television Network, Russia Today [RT], TRT World, and Voice of America [VOA] News), this article analyses the effect that YouTube’s labels had on users’ engagement with state-backed media content. We found that the labels had no impact on the amount of likes that the videos received before and after the policy introduction, except for RT which received less likes after it was labeled. However, for RT, comments left by users were associated with 30% decrease in the likelihood of observing a critical comment following the policy implementation, and a 70% decrease in likelihood of observing a critical comment about RT as a media source. While other state-funded broadcasters, like AJE and VOA News, received fewer critical comments after YouTube introduced its policy; this relationship was associated with how political the video was, rather than the policy change. Our study contributes to the ongoing discussion on the efficacy of platform governance in relation to state-backed media, showing that audience preferences impact the effectiveness of labels.

PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS AND DEVELOPMENT OF PATH LOSS MODEL FOR TELEVISION SIGNALS IN IMO STATE, NIGERIA

It is impossible to overstate the importance of propagation models in wireless network planning, frequency assignment, and television parameter evaluation. The fact that no two locations are identical in terms of climatic conditions, building patterns, terrain, etc. makes using path loss predicting models for any area extremely challenging. Therefore, it is impossible to develop a single path loss model that applies to all environmental settings. The main aim of this study is to develop a path loss model for NTA channel 12 Owerri and evaluate its performance based on received signal strength values along five selected routes in Imo State, Nigeria.A suitable path loss model was developed by critically analyzing the measured path loss values of each base station, which were retrieved from the signal strength data received. The values of the developed path loss model were compared to those of other empirical path loss models developed by other researchers as well as the measured path loss values. The results show that the proposed path loss model is well suited for predicting the path loss of NTA channel 12 Owerri signals in the study environment, while the other conventional empirical models taken into consideration in this study overestimated the path loss of NTA channel 12 Owerri signals with Root Mean Square Error and Mean Error of 63.65 and above. Additionally, the findings indicate that NTA Owerri performs poorly at a distance of 18 kilometers from the base transmitting station. The overall findings are helpful for designing prospective television network channels in the study location and other similar environments.

Focus on the Differentiation Strategy of Mango TV from the Perspective of Variety

With the rise of short video, the internal competition of long video in the previous network audition industry has been changed, but the long video platform is still the main force in the network audio-visual industry. From the perspective of effective broadcast data, Mango TV obviously lags behind rivals such as iQiyi and Tencent Video in the whole network of movie and TV plays. In such a competitive environment, based on the consideration of its own internal advantages, Mango TV implements the differentiation strategic decision, which is embodied in the differentiation of products, services and image. Through the analysis of internal and external environment, according to the internal advantages of Mango TV: strong technical support, positive energy values, management system based on user's thinking and flexible management system, this paper analyzes the differentiated development strategy of its variety-based track, and points out that Mango TV's adherence to the differentiated development strategy has certain reference significance for the development of China's online audio-visual industry and other industries.

A Framework for Multi-Task Learning in Dynamic Adaptive Streaming Over HTTP

This paper presents a framework with a taxonomy for multi-task learning in the context of Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTTP (DASH). DASH is a widely used technology for video streaming, and multi-task learning has emerged as a promising approach to enhance the performance and user experience of DASH systems by jointly optimizing multiple related tasks. The framework provides a structured approach to design, train, and evaluate multi-task learning models in DASH, while the taxonomy categorizes the key components and approaches within the framework. The taxonomy includes task types, multitask learning approaches, input features, and training strategies. Task types encompass video quality adaptation, buffer management, bandwidth estimation, content pre-fetching, and resource allocation, representing the specific tasks involved in DASH. Multi-task learning approaches encompass methodologies such as shared representation learning, task-specific layers, multi-head architectures, knowledge distillation, and reinforcement learning, offering flexibility in model design and optimization. Input features cover video characteristics, network conditions, device capabilities, and user preferences, providing the necessary information for informed decision-making across tasks. Training strategies include joint training, alternate training, hierarchical training, task weighting, and task balancing, determining how the multi-task learning model is trained and optimized. By following the presented framework and taxonomy, researchers and practitioners can systematically approach the design, training, and evaluation of multi-task learning models in DASH. The framework enables the development of efficient and adaptive video streaming systems by leveraging the interdependencies among tasks. The taxonomy helps organize the components and approaches within the framework, aiding in a better understanding of the various aspects of multi-task learning in the DASH context. Overall, this framework and taxonomy provide a valuable resource for advancing the field of multitask learning in the dynamic and complex domain of video streaming over HTTP.

Feasibility of Backward Compatible MIMO Broadcasting: Issues in SISO-MIMO Coexistence

This paper introduces the application of backward compatible (B-Comp) MIMO for simultaneously supporting inter-tower communications network (ITCN) and legacy digital television (DTV) service. In B-Comp MIMO systems, SISO and MIMO broadcasting are overlaid on the same frequency, where the SISO transmission is subject to compliance with legacy system protocol. In this work, the several configurations of B-Comp MIMO are proposed in terms of physical layer multiplexing (e.g., layered or time-division multiplexing) and antenna assignment in legacy transmission, and accordingly, system-specific issues on each configuration affecting the performance degradation or practical realization are discovered. Moreover, the spectral efficiency performance of each configuration is derived and analyzed under the system-specific issues in terms of the achievable throughput for ITCN while guaranteeing the legacy service’s requirements. Through such investigations with qualitative inspections, theoretic analysis, and numerical simulations, practical observations are modeled in a theoretic framework, and performance-objected tradeoffs are explicitly revealed to allow insightful decisions to answer which configuration is optimal for each use case. Lastly, the performance penalties from pilot-related limitations are delved into and hence a comprehensive inspection is allowed in a practical view.

A spatiotemporal intelligent framework and experimental platform for urban digital twins

BackgroundsThis work emphasizes the current research status of the urban Digital Twins to establish an intelligent spatiotemporal framework. A Geospatial Artificial Intelligent (GeoAI) system is developed based on the Geographic Information System and Artificial Intelligence. It integrates multi-video technology and Virtual City in urban Digital Twins. MethodsBesides, an improved small object detection model is proposed: YOLOv5-Pyramid, and Siamese network video tracking models, namely MPSiam and FSSiamese, are established. Finally, an experimental platform is built to verify the georeferencing correction scheme of video images. ResultThe Multiply-Accumulate value of MPSiam is 0.5B, and that of ResNet50-Siam is 4.5B. Besides, the model is compressed by 4.8 times. The inference speed has increased by 3.3 times, reaching 83 Frames Per Second. 3% of the Average Expectation Overlap is lost. Therefore, the urban Digital Twins-oriented GeoAI framework established here has excellent performance for video georeferencing and target detection problems.

The Impact of New Communication Technologies in the Social and Journalistic Environment

New Media has evolved as an interconnected network of audio, video and electronic communication that will blur the distinction between interpersonal and Mass communications. In this context, New Media has provided an alternate platform of expression for environmental communication. The adoption of new media has given a level playing field and has democratized the environmental communication and its debate. But on the other hand criticism exists on the spuriousness of the content and opinions given in this media and their objectivity. The following paper deals with the ‘environmental communication in the era of new media technologies’ and its impact. The paper focuses on the advantages and disadvantages of the use of new media for social and environmental communication.

RETRACTED ARTICLE: Simulation of video image detection in leisure sports tourism industry based on convolutional neural network

Due to the continuous development of information technology, emerging technologies such as 5G networks, Turing devices and deep learning are widely used in people's lives. At present, the sports and tourism industry has become a pillar industry supporting the national economy. Sports events have attracted many people's attention, and people are willing to devote themselves to sports activities. Participants and visitors are also increasing day by day. The article also conducts research on the rapid detection of human video behavior, obtains more representative features for this demand. This research is of great help to the development of the industry. This allows the network to manipulate the input video behavior at different scales and extract deeper video information. Therefore, this paper proposes another 3D convolutional neural network model that combines a multi-level pyramid network with an attention mechanism. The visual attributes in the video behavior data set are explicitly learned to refine the classification of similar features. This paper also proposes an integrated neural network based on visual attribute enhancement. It also shows good adaptability, and can complete video data processing based on time series. The extraction of time and space functions is realized by the two-stream neural network method, the two networks learn the corresponding pixel ratios, and it is not easy to lose the clues of the action recognition. This paper also proposes a spatiotemporal convolutional neural network video for human body recognition algorithm, which is applied to the leisure tourism industry according to the specific analysis of the above method, and promotes the development of the industry.

Русофобия и способы ее нейтрализации в средствах массовой информации (материалы круглого стола)

As part of the research of modern media discourse, a round table “Russophobia and ways to neutralize it in the mass media” was held at the research laboratory “Linguistic Security and Psychology of Information Impact” of the Institute of Law and National Security of the Russian Academy of National Economy and Public Administration under the President of the Russian Federation. Laboratory specialists and invited experts discussed the problem of Russophobia as part of the current media discourse in the mass media, as well as in new media (social networks, blogosphere, messengers, network video hosting channels, etc.), as well as, in general, destructive information flows aimed at destroying the cultural and social integrity of the Russian Federation (“cancel Russian culture”). The emphasis
 in the discussion of the laboratory experts is on the relevance of training specialists in working with media communication tools. During the discussion, such concepts as “linguistic security”, “Russophobia” and their impact on the media culture of Russian society were analyzed. As a result of the round table, measures were proposed to enhance linguistic security, train journalists and specialists in working with mass media, prepared
 to analyze destructive information flows using the entire arsenal of linguistic expertise in countering Russophobia.

COVID-19 Infodemic and Impacts on the Mental Health of Older People: Cross-sectional Multicenter Survey Study

Background The COVID-19 pandemic received widespread media coverage due to its novelty, an early lack of data, and the rapid rise in deaths and cases. This excessive coverage created a secondary “infodemic” that was considered to be a serious public and mental health problem by the World Health Organization and the international scientific community. The infodemic particularly affected older individuals, specifically those who are vulnerable to misinformation due to political positions, low interpretive and critical analysis capacity, and limited technical-scientific knowledge. Thus, it is important to understand older people’s reaction to COVID-19 information disseminated by the media and the effect on their lives and mental health. Objective We aimed to describe the profile of exposure to COVID-19 information among older Brazilian individuals and the impact on their mental health, perceived stress, and the presence of generalized anxiety disorder (GAD). Methods This cross-sectional, exploratory study surveyed 3307 older Brazilians via the web, social networks, and email between July 2020 and March 2021. Descriptive analysis and bivariate analysis were performed to estimate associations of interest. Results Major proportions of the 3307 participants were aged 60 to 64 years (n=1285, 38.9%), female (n=2250, 68.4%), and married (n=1835, 55.5%) and self-identified as White (n=2364, 71.5%). Only 295 (8.9%) had never started or completed a basic education. COVID-19 information was mainly accessed on television (n=2680, 81.1%) and social networks (n=1943, 58.8%). Television exposure was ≥3 hours in 1301 (39.3%) participants, social network use was 2 to 5 hours in 1084 (32.8%) participants, and radio exposure was ≥1 hour in 1223 (37%) participants. Frequency of exposure to social networks was significantly associated with perceived stress (P=.04) and GAD (P=.01). A Bonferroni post hoc test revealed significantly different perceived stress in participants who were exposed to social networks for 1 hour (P=.04) and those who had no exposure (P=.04). A crude linear regression showed that “some” social media use (P=.02) and 1 hour of exposure to social media (P<.001) were associated with perceived stress. Adjusting for sociodemographic variables revealed no associations with this outcome variable. In a crude logistic regression, some social media use (P<.001) and 2 to 5 hours of exposure to social media (P=.03) were associated with GAD. Adjusting for the indicated variables showed that some social network use (P<.001) and 1 hour (P=.04) and 2 to 5 hours (P=.03) of exposure to social media were associated with GAD. Conclusions Older people, especially women, were often exposed to COVID-19–related information through television and social networks; this affected their mental health, specifically GAD and stress. Thus, the impact of the infodemic should be considered during anamnesis for older people, so that they can share their feelings about it and receive appropriate psychosocial care.

Latin American perceptions of fear and exaggeration transmitted by the media with regard to COVID-19: frequency and association with severe mental pathologies.

The COVID-19 pandemic contributed to the spread of abundant misinformation by the media, which caused fear and concern. To determine the association between the pathologies of the mental sphere and the perceptions of fear and exaggeration transmitted by the media with respect to COVID-19 in Latin America. The present study has an analytical cross-sectional design that is based on a validated survey to measure fear and exaggeration transmitted by the media and other sources (Cronbach's α: 0.90). We surveyed more than 6,000 people, originally from 12 Latin American countries, who associated this perceived exaggeration with stress, depression, and anxiety (measured through DASS-21, Cronbach's α: 0.96). Social networks (40%) or television (34%) were perceived as the sources that exaggerate the magnitude of the events. In addition, television (35%) and social networks (28%) were perceived as the sources that generate much fear. On the contrary, physicians and health personnel are the sources that exaggerated less (10%) or provoked less fear (14%). Through a multivariate model, we found a higher level of global perception that was associated with whether the participant was older (p = 0.002), had severe or more serious anxiety (p = 0.033), or had stress (p = 0,037). However, in comparison with Peru (the most affected country), there was a lower level of perception in Chile (p < 0.001), Paraguay (p = 0.001), Mexico (p < 0.001), Ecuador (p = 0.001), and Costa Rica (p = 0.042). All of them were adjusted for gender and for those having severe or major depression. There exists an association between some mental pathologies and the perception that the media does not provide moderate information.

“In Other News”: China’s International Media Strategy on Xinjiang—CGTN and New China TV on YouTube

In the Western world China stands accused of severe human rights violations regarding its treatment of the Uyghurs and other predominantly Muslim minorities in its northwestern Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. This is the first article to systematically analyze the response of China’s international state media to these allegations. By studying the YouTube channels of two leading Chinese state media, China Global Television Network (CGTN) and New China TV (operated by Xinhua News Agency), it presents an in-depth understanding of how China’s foreign-facing propaganda works in a crucial case. The quantitative content analysis highlights how China reacted to increasing international (mostly United States) pressure regarding its Xinjiang policies by producing higher volumes of videos and putting out new counternarratives. The qualitative analysis that follows provides in-depth treatment of the most important discourses that Chinese media engage in to salvage the nation’s international image, namely those on development, culture, nature, and terrorism. It finds several ways of countering criticism, ranging from presenting a positive image of China, in line with traditional propaganda guidelines and President Xi Jinping’s assignment to state media to “tell the China story well,” to more innovative approaches. Thus the development narrative becomes more personalized, the discourse on culture supports the “heritagization process” to incorporate minority cultures into a harmonized “Chinese civilization,” representations of nature firmly tie Xinjiang into the discourse of “beautiful China,” the “terror narrative” strategically employs shocking footage in an attempt to gain international “discourse power,” etc. The article provides an up-to-date picture of China’s state media strategy on a highly contentious international issue.

News Coverage of the Nile Dam Crisis in Chinese, Qatari and British Media: Exploring Proximity to Egypt and Ethiopia as a Framing Influence on CGTN, AJE and BBC's Reporting

Academic literature points to proximity, including geographic, political, economic, and cultural, as a key news value that influences media attention, sourcing, and visual framing across conflicts. Focusing on the prolonged Nile Dam crisis that has put Egypt and Ethiopia on the verge of military conflict, the study uses quantitative and qualitative content analyses to explore how China, Qatar and the UK's proximity to Egypt and Ethiopia relates to the framing of the conflict in China Global Television Network (CGTN), Al Jazeera English (AJE), and British Broadcasting Corporation's (BBC) English-language news articles and photographs online in 2019-2021. While proximity factored in AJE's more frequent coverage of the dispute, the study reveals how media systems and dependency on news agencies can mitigate proximity's impact on coverage and how temporary political tensions and economic aspirations can prompt more favorable reporting of the least culturally, linguistically, geographically, economically, and/or politically proximate country.

Analysis of short video and city image communication in the new media environment

City image is the social impression of the city, which affects the public's evaluation of the city. With the development of new media technology, city image communication has separated from the previous way of official media and entered the stage of mobile terminal short video, and improved the sense of acceptance of publicity with the help of network video. With the help of short videos, cities can shape their urban image, build urban recognition, and attract public attention. This paper focuses on the analysis of the fragmentation of the city image in the short video communication, matching the characteristics of the city and creating the network meme characteristics. And when facing the dilemma of homogenization and mimicry in communication, cities adopt conventional methods in four aspects: communication subject, communication content, communication perspective, and distribution.

Super-resolution network with dynamic cleanup and temporal–spatial attention for compressed videos

Video super-resolution methods focus on restoring high-resolution video frames from low-resolution videos with pre-defined degradations, and few consider compression. However, the videos on the Internet are compressed to reduce the massive size of video data. Thus, they also contain visual noises and artifacts due to the lossy compression. In this paper, we propose a video super-resolution model specific for compressed videos to suppress artifacts and restore high-resolution contents. We propose a two-stage super-resolution network for compressed videos that contains three new modules: cleanup and local alignment in the first stage, 3D-convolution temporal–spatial attention in the second stage. Specifically, the cleanup module is designed in stage-1 to suppress the artifacts and noises of low-quality inputs. The subsequent local alignment is designed to aggregate adjacent frames to maintain high-frequency details. The 3D-convolution attention is used in stage-2 to refine the weights of the feature maps. In addition, we propose the new CrfVideos dataset to facilitate fair comparisons, containing HEVC/H.265 compressed videos of different compression levels. Extensive experiments substantiate that our method outperforms state-of-the-art methods on the HEVC/H.265 compressed benchmark with medium to high compression rates by 0.3–0.7 dB in terms of PSNR and exceeds state-of-the-art methods on benchmark Vid4 by 0.2–0.8 dB. The code will be released at https://github.com/cvygkhv/decompression.

Examining the Effects of Environmental Knowledge and Health Insurance Coverage on Health Status

Rural women in developing nations are especially vulnerable to higher health risks due to environmental pollution exposure and are more likely to experience poorer health outcomes. Using data from the 2013 China General Social Survey CGSS2013, this study empirically examined the relationship among environmental knowledge (EK), pollution, health investment (i.e., holding and purchasing a public health insurance policy, engaging in frequent physical activity, and acquiring commercial insurance), and health status. The sample was composed of 1930 women residing in rural regions in China. Three main research questions are investigated: whether environmental knowledge affects health investment and health status, whether health investments impact health status, and whether the relationship between environmental knowledge and health status is mediated by health investment. Our results showed that the level of EK for women in rural China significantly impacted their self-reported physical and mental health. To account for potential endogeneity due to mutual causality, this study employed television usage and network usage as two instrumental variables (IVs) of EK and used an IV-probit method. Additionally, we estimated a model that replaced health status with the variable Body Mass Index (BMI) to assess the reliability and robustness of our results. The results were consistent, providing evidence of robustness. Additionally, we examined the relationship between health investment (holding and purchasing a public health insurance policy, engaging in frequent physical activity, and acquiring commercial insurance) and health status. Our results indicated that the level of EK had no significant impact on participating in the new rural cooperative medical system. However, the preference for purchasing commercial insurance was positively impacted by EK, though it did not directly affect health status. Conversely, an increase in EK and pollution was associated with a greater likelihood of engaging in physical exercise, which, in turn, improved overall mental health.

Multicultural education for pre-service teachers in Korea using educational television docudramas

ABSTRACT This paper examines the level of multicultural education awareness among Korean pre-service teachers (PSTs) and suggests a teaching and learning approach to enhance their multicultural competencies. This research utilized a South Korean educational television and radio network, Educational Broadcasting System (EBS), particularly, its programme called Multicultural biographies of a mother-in-law and a daughter-in-law [다문화고부열전] as a diagnostic tool to assess PSTs’ recognition of multicultural education. The programme focuses on the challenges faced by married migrant women in Korea. The study used survey materials based on the EBS docudrama to investigate PSTs’ perceptions of multicultural education. The results showed that most PSTs understood the significance of teaching and learning about cultural diversity but had limited understanding beyond the dichotomies of the mainstream and minorities or Korean and immigrant students. The study recommends the use of docudramas as an effective tool for promoting multicultural education among PSTs in Korea