Incivility in public discussions has received increasing attention from academic and popular commentators in recent years. In an effort to better understand the nature and determinants of such ...incivility, this study examined a 3‐week census of articles and comments posted to a local newspaper's website—totaling more than 300 articles and 6,400 comments. The results of the content analysis show that incivility occurs frequently and is associated with key contextual factors, such as the topic of the article and the sources quoted within the article. We also find that, contrary to popular perceptions, frequent commenters are more civil than are infrequent commenters, and uncivil commenters are no less likely than civil commenters to use evidence in support of their claims.
In this theoretical article, we introduce the Differential Susceptibility to Media Effects Model (DSMM), a new, integrative model to improve our understanding of media effects. The DSMM organizes, ...integrates, and extends the insights developed in earlier microlevel media‐effects theories. It distinguishes 3 types of susceptibility to media effects: dispositional, developmental, and social susceptibility. Using the analogy of a mixing console, the DSMM proposes 3 media response states that mediate media effects: cognitive, emotional, and excitative. The assumptions on which the DSMM is based together explain (a) why some individuals are more highly susceptible to media effects than others, (b) how and why media influence those individuals, and (c) how media effects can be enhanced or counteracted.
This article introduces the functional model of self‐disclosure on social network sites by integrating a functional theory of self‐disclosure and research on audience representations as situational ...cues for activating interpersonal goals. According to this model, people pursue strategic goals and disclose differently depending on social media affordances, and self‐disclosure goals mediate between media affordances and disclosure intimacy. The results of the empirical study examining self‐disclosure motivations and characteristics in Facebook status updates, wall posts, and private messaging lend support to this model and provide insights into the motivational drivers of self‐disclosure on SNSs, helping to reconcile traditional views on self‐disclosure and self‐disclosing behaviors in new media contexts.
This article relies on U.S. 2‐wave panel data to examine the role of social media as a sphere for political expression and its effects on political participation. Informational uses of social media ...are expected to explain political expression on social media and to promote political participation. This study clarifies the effect of using social media for social interaction in fostering political expression and participation processes. Results indicate that social media news use has direct effects on offline political participation and indirect effects on offline and online political participation mediated via political expression. Furthermore, social media use for social interaction does not have direct influence in people's political engagement, but rather an indirect effect by means of citizens expressing themselves politically.
Based on a survey of participants in Egypt's Tahrir Square protests, we demonstrate that social media in general, and Facebook in particular, provided new sources of information the regime could not ...easily control and were crucial in shaping how citizens made individual decisions about participating in protests, the logistics of protest, and the likelihood of success. We demonstrate that people learned about the protests primarily through interpersonal communication using Facebook, phone contact, or face‐to‐face conversation. Controlling for other factors, social media use greatly increased the odds that a respondent attended protests on the first day. Half of those surveyed produced and disseminated visuals from the demonstrations, mainly through Facebook.
Les médias sociaux et la décision de participer à la protestation politique : observations de la place Tahrir
Zeynep Tufekci, Ph.D.
Christopher Wilson
À partir d’un sondage mené auprès de participants aux manifestations égyptiennes de la place Tahrir, nous démontrons que les médias sociaux en général, et Facebook en particulier, offraient de nouvelles sources d’information que le régime ne pouvait pas facilement contrôler. Ils étaient donc déterminants pour la manière dont les citoyens prenaient des décisions individuelles quant à leur participation aux manifestations, à la logistique des manifestations et aux chances de succès. En tenant compte d’autres facteurs, nous démontrons que les gens entendaient parler des manifestations non par les médias télévisés, mais à travers la communication interpersonnelle par Facebook, les contacts téléphoniques ou les conversations face à face. Entre autres effets statistiquement significatifs, l’utilisation des médias sociaux augmentait grandement les chances qu’un sujet interrogé ait assisté aux manifestations au premier jour, tandis que l’utilisation de la télévision par satellite faisait diminuer ces chances.
Mots clés : Égypte, printemps arabe, manifestation, Twitter, Facebook, action collective, Internet, communication par ordinateur
Soziale Medien und die Entscheidung zur Beteiligung am politischen Protest: Beobachtungen vom Tahrir Platz
Basierend auf einer Umfrage mit Teilnehmern des Protestes auf dem Tahrir Platz in Ägypten, zeigen wir, dass soziale Medien im Allgemeinen und Facebook im Speziellen neue Informationsquellen geboten haben, die die Regierung nicht so einfach kontrollieren konnte. Diese waren dahingehend bedeutend, da sie die persönliche Entscheidung der Bürger beeinflussten, sich an den Protesten zu beteiligen sowie die Logistik der Proteste und deren Erfolgswahrscheinlichkeit bestimmten. Nachdem andere Faktoren kontrolliert wurden, konnten wir nachweisen, dass Menschen von den Protesten nicht über die Rundfunkmedien erfahren haben, sondern durch interpersonale Kommunikation per Facebook, Telefonkontakte oder Face‐to‐Face Kommunikation. Unter anderem erhöhten soziale Medien signifikant die Wahrscheinlichkeit, dass der Empfänger am ersten Tag an den Protesten teilnahm, während die Nutzung von Satellitenfernsehen diese Wahrscheinlichkeit verringerte.
Schlüsselbegriffe: Ägypten, Arabischer Frühling, Protest, Twitter, Facebook, kollektives Handeln, Internet, computervermittelte Kommunikation
Los Medios Sociales y la Decisión de Participar en la Protesta Política: Las Observaciones de la Plaza Tahrir
Dr. Zeynep Tufekci, University of North Carolina‐Chapel Hill
Christopher Wilson, United Nations Development Program
Resumen
Basado en una encuesta de participantes de las protestas de la plaza Tahrir en Egipto, demostramos que los medios sociales en general, y el Facebook en particular, proveyeron de nuevas fuentes de información que el régimen no pudo controlar fácilmente y que fueron cruciales para dar forma a cómo los ciudadanos tomaron decisiones individuales sobre su participación o no en las protestas, las logísticas de la protesta, y la probabilidad de éxito. Controlando otros factores, demostraron que la gente aprendió sobre las protestas a través de la comunicación interpersonal usando Facebook, los contactos telefónicos o la comunicación cara a cara y no a través de las transmisiones de los medios. Entre los efectos significativos estadísticamente, el uso de los medios sociales social incrementó fuertemente las probabilidades de que los encuestados atendieran las protestas el primer día, mientras que el uso de la TV satelital decreció esas probabilidades.
Palabras claves: Egipto, Primavera Árabe, Protesta, Twitter, Facebook, Acción Colectiva, Internet, Comunicación mediada por la Computadora
This study relies on state‐of‐the‐art meta‐analytical techniques to assess overall effects of the Risk Information Seeking and Processing (RISP) model. The results support the utility of the RISP ...model in predicting risk information seeking and systematic processing. However, the model demonstrated limited explanatory power for heuristic processing. A reduced model composed of only 2 variables—current knowledge and informational subjective norms—accounted for a substantial proportion of variance in the outcome variables. This more parsimonious explanation of information seeking and systematic processing might extend the utility of the RISP model to other communication settings not related to risk. Theoretical boundaries of the RISP model and implications for future research are discussed.
Audience fragmentation is often taken as evidence of social polarization. Yet the tools we use to study fragmentation provide limited information about how people allocate their attention across ...digital media. We offer a theoretical framework for understanding fragmentation and advocate for more audience‐centric studies. This approach is operationalized by applying network analysis metrics to Nielsen data on television and Internet use. We find extremely high levels of audience duplication across 236 media outlets, suggesting overlapping patterns of public attention rather than isolated groups of audience loyalists.
La dynamique de la fragmentation de l’auditoire : l’attention du public à l’ère des médias numériques
James G. Webster & Thomas B. Ksiazek
La fragmentation des auditoires est souvent considérée comme une preuve de la polarisation sociale. Pourtant, les outils que nous employons pour étudier la fragmentation n’offrent qu’une information limitée sur les manières par lesquelles les gens accordent leur attention aux divers médias numériques. Nous proposons un cadre théorique pour comprendre la fragmentation et recommandons plus d’études centrées sur l’auditoire. Cette approche est opérationnalisée par l’application de mesures d’analyse de réseaux à des données Nielsen portant sur l’utilisation de la télévision et de l’Internet. Nous détectons des degrés extrêmement élevés de chevauchement d’auditoires à travers 236 médias, ce qui suggère une distribution superposée de l’attention du public plutôt que des groupes isolés d’auditoires loyalistes.
Mots clés : fragmentation de l’auditoire, polarisation, attention du public, longue traîne, chevauchement des auditoires, analyse de réseaux
Die Dynamiken der Publikumsfragmentierung: Öffentliche Aufmerksamkeit im Zeitalter digitaler Medien
Publikumsfragmentierung wird oft als ein Hinweis auf soziale Polarisierung gedeutet. Allerdings bieten die Methoden, mit denen wir Fragmentierung bislang untersucht haben nur begrenzte Informationen darüber, wie Menschen ihre Aufmerksamkeit über verschiedene digitale Medien aufteilen. Wir bieten einen theoretischen Rahmen, um Fragmentierung zu verstehen und propagieren stärker publikumszentrierte Studien. Der unserem Ansatz dient die Metrik der Netzwerkanalyse in ihrer Anwendung auf Nielsen‐Daten zu Fernseh‐ und Internetnutzung die Basis für die Operationalisierung. Wir finden ein extrem ausgeprägten Grad an Publikumsduplizierung über die 236 Medienoutlets, was eher auf überlappende Muster von öffentlicher Aufmerksamkeit hindeutet eher als auf isolierte Gruppen von Publikumsloyalisten.
Schlüsselbegriffe: Publikumsfragmentierung, Polarisierung, Öffentliche Aufmerksamkeit, Long Tail, Publikumsverdopplung, Netzwerkanalyse
This paper offers a critique of sustainability reporting and, in particular, a critique of the modern disconnect between the practice of sustainability reporting and what we consider to be the urgent ...issue of our era: sustaining the life-supporting ecological systems on which humanity and other species depend. Tracing the history of such reporting developments, we identify and isolate the concept of the 'triple bottom line' (TBL) as a core and dominant idea that continues to pervade business reporting, and business engagement with sustainability. Incorporating an entity's economic, environmental and social performance indicators into its management and reporting processes, we argue, has become synonymous with corporate sustainability; in the process, concern for ecology has become sidelined. Moreover, this process has become reinforced and institutionalised through SustainAbility's biennial benchmarking reports, KPMG's triennial surveys of practice, initiatives by the accountancy profession and, particularly, the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI)'s sustainability reporting guidelines. We argue that the TBL and the GRI are insufficient conditions for organizations contributing to the sustaining of the Earth's ecology. Paradoxically, they may reinforce business-as-usual and greater levels of un-sustainability.
•Large-scale analysis of climate change media coverage in countries from all continents.•Climate change receives considerable media attention in all countries under study.•Issue attention rose ...significantly between 1996 and 2010.•It is particularly high in countries with tough Kyoto emission targets.
Climate change is a global phenomenon, and its outcomes affect societies around the world. So far, however, studies on media representations of climate change have mostly concentrated on Western societies. This paper goes beyond this limited geographical scope by presenting a comparative analysis of issue attention in 27 countries. The sample includes, among others, countries that have committed themselves to greenhouse gas emission reductions under the Kyoto Protocol such as Germany as well as countries that are strongly affected by the consequences of climate change like India. In a first step, it describes the development of media attention for climate change in these countries from 1996 to 2010. Second, it compares the amount of media attention and explores whether it corresponds with indicators measuring the relevance of climate change and climate policies for a country. The analyses show that climate change coverage has increased in all countries. Still, overall media attention levels, as well as the extent of growth over time, differ strongly between countries. Media attention is especially high in carbon dependent countries with commitments under the Kyoto Protocol.
Although numerous media literacy interventions have been developed and delivered over the past 3 decades, a comprehensive meta‐analytic assessment of their effects has not been available. This study ...investigates the average effect size and moderators of 51 media literacy interventions. Media literacy interventions had positive effects (d = .37) on outcomes including media knowledge, criticism, perceived realism, influence, behavioral beliefs, attitudes, self‐efficacy, and behavior. Moderator analyses indicated that interventions with more sessions were more effective, but those with more components were less effective. Intervention effects did not vary by the agent, target age, the setting, audience involvement, the topic, the country, or publication status.
Interventions en éducation aux médias : un examen méta‐analytique
Se‐Hoon Jeong, Hyunyi Cho & Yoori Hwang
Bien que de nombreuses interventions en éducation aux médias aient été développées et produites au cours des trois dernières décennies, une évaluations méta‐analytique complète de leurs effets n’a pas été rendue disponible. Cette étude explore l’importance moyenne de l’effet et les modérateurs de 51 interventions en littératie médiatique. Les interventions en éducation aux médias avaient des effets positifs (d=0,37) sur des résultats comprenant les connaissances médiatiques, la critique, la perception de réalisme, l’influence, les croyances comportementales, les attitudes, l’auto‐efficacité et le comportement. Des analyses des modérateurs ont indiqué que les interventions comprenant plus de sessions étaient plus efficaces, mais que celles comprenant plus d’éléments étaient moins efficaces. Les effets d’intervention ne variaient pas selon l’agent, l’âge cible, le contexte, la participation de l’auditoire, le sujet, le pays ou l’état de publication (publié ou non).
Mots clés : éducation aux médias, intervention, méta‐analyse, persuasion, résistance, critique, connaissances
Eine meta‐analytische Untersuchung von Medienkompetenz‐Interventionen
Auch wenn in den letzten 3 Jahrzehnten zahlreiche Interventionen zur Förderung von Medienkompetenz entwickelt und durchgeführt wurden, liegt bislang keine meta‐analytische Beurteilung der Wirksamkeit dieser Interventionen vor. Diese Studie betrachtet die durchschnittliche Effektstärke und Moderatoren von 51 Medienkompetenz‐Interventionen. Medienkompetenz‐Interventionen hatten positive Wirkungen (d=.37) bezüglich der Variablen Medienwissen, Kritikfähigkeit, wahrgenommener Realismus, Einfluss, Verhaltensüberzeugungen, Einstellungen, Selbstwirksamkeit und Verhalten. Moderatoranalysen zeigen, dass Interventionen mit mehreren Sitzungen effektiver waren, hingegen solche mit mehreren Komponenten weniger effektiv. Effekte variierten nicht nach Interventionsleiter, Zielalter, Umfeld, Involvement der Rezipienten, Thema, Land oder Publikationsstatus.
Schlüsselbegriffe: Medienkompetenz, Intervention, Meta‐Analyse, Persuasion, Widerstand, kritisch, Wissen
Las Intervenciones de Alfabetización de los Medios: Una Revisión Meta‐Analítica
Resumen
Aunque numerosas intervenciones de alfabetización de los medios de comunicación han sido desarrolladas y hechas en las 3 décadas pasadas, una evaluación comprensiva meta‐analítica de sus efectos no ha estado disponible. Este estudio investiga el efecto del tamaño promedio y los moderadores de 51 intervenciones de alfabetización de los medios. Las intervenciones de alfabetización de los medios tuvo efectos positivos (d=.37) sobre los resultados incluyendo el conocimiento sobre los medios, la crítica, el realismo percibido, la influencia, las creencias del comportamiento, las actitudes, auto‐eficacia, y el comportamiento. Los análisis de los moderadores indicaron que las intervenciones con más sesiones fueron más efectivas, pero aquellas con más componentes fueron menos efectivas. Los efectos de la intervención no variaron por el agente, la edad meta, el escenario, el involucramiento de la audiencia, el tema, el país, o el estado de la publicación.
Palabras Claves: Alfabetización de los medios, Intervención, Meta‐análisis, Persuasión, Resistencia, Crítica, Conocimiento
PDF