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Following Politicians on Social Media: Effects for Political Information, Peer Communication, and Youth Engagement
Get PDFYoung citizens increasingly turn to social media platforms for political information. These platforms enable direct communication between politicians and citizens, circumventing the influence of traditional news outlets. We still know little about the consequences of direct contact with politicians on such platforms for citizens’ political participation. Here, we argue that the interplay of different actors in the political news diet of citizens should be investigated from a networked communication perspective. Relying on a cross-sectional survey of young Danes (15–25 years old, n = 567), we investigate the relationship between following politicians on social media and: (a) the composition of young citizens’ political media diet; and (b) their civic messaging and campaign participation. Following political actors on social media relates to increased campaign engagement and can be a catalyst for young people’s exposure to campaign news, but their friends and followers function as the main node of their political online networks. We document a process of the de-mediation of politics on social media: Established news media lose influence as primary information sources for young citizens. We discuss these results in the context of users’ active curation and passive selection of their political social media diet
Pro-Science, Anti-Science and Neutral Science in Online Videos on Climate Change, Vaccines and Nanotechnology
Get PDFOnline video has become a relevant tool to disseminate scientific information to the public. However, in this arena, science coexists with non-scientific or pseudoscientific beliefs that can influence people’s knowledge, attitudes, and behavior. Our research sets out to find empirical evidence of the representation of pro-science, anti-science and neutral stances in online videos. From a search on Google videos, we conducted content analysis of a sample of videos about climate change, vaccines and nanotechnology (n = 826). Results indicate that a search through Google videos provides a relatively small representation of videos with an anti-science stance, which can be regarded as positive, given the high potential influence of this search engine in spreading scientific information among the public. Our research also provides empirical evidence of the fact that an anti-science stance is more frequent in user-generated content than in videos disseminated by other types of producers
Beyond Moral Coupling: Analysing Politics of Privacy in the Era of Surveillance
Get PDFThe article calls into question the prevailing discursive construction in contemporary debate on privacy and surveillance. At the core of this discourse is a moral coupling wherein surveillance is perceived as enemy and privacy as friend. Even if this binary approach renders arguments for democratising data more persuasive, a political cost accompanies it. As this discourse situates political struggle at the level of digital infrastructure and political structures, the moral coupling largely overlooks the ambiguities of how people in their various activities in a digital environment experience surveillance and privacy. Such a framing may discourage users at large from engagement with politics of privacy. Edward Snowden’s autobiography is taken as a prominent example of the prevailing discourse. While analysing Snowden’s descriptions of privacy and surveillance critically, the author points out the specific value of life stories in describing what privacy means and why it matters. While we cannot assume all people to be equally capable of considering how their own life intersects with the history of their society, we can presume that varying life stories should contribute to the public knowledge of privacy. To provide the framework necessary for appropriately contextualising empirical evidence, the author presents a model wherein privacy is composed of five dimensions: solitude, anonymity, secrecy, intimacy, and dignity
Health and Scientific Frames in Online Communication of Tick-Borne Encephalitis: Antecedents of Frame Recognition
Get PDFIn a period characterized by vaccine hesitancy and even vaccine refusal, the way online information on vaccination is presented might affect the recipients’ opinions and attitudes. While research has focused more on vaccinations against measles or influenza, and described how the framing approach can be applied to vaccination, this is not the case with tick-borne encephalitis, a potentially fatal infection induced by tick bites. This study takes one step back and seeks to investigate whether health and scientific frames in online communication are even recognized by the public. Moreover, the influence of selected health- and vaccine-related constructs on the recognition of frames is examined. Study results indicate that health frames are the most easily identified and that their use might be a fruitful strategy when raising awareness of health topics such as vaccination
“Improving Our Way of Life Is Largely in Our Own Hands”: Inclusion according to the Romani Newspaper of Interwar Yugoslavia
Get PDFThe only Romani newspaper of interwar Yugoslavia, Romano lil/Ciganske novine (the latter meaning ‘Gypsy newspaper’ in Serbian), was published in Belgrade in 1935 comprising only three monthly issues. The most prominent Yugoslav Romani activist of the time, Svetozar Simić, was the editor of the newspaper, giving tribute to his visions of what Roma should do for the prosperity of their own community. In terms of content, the newspaper articles seem to be strategically thought-out with the aim of creating a narrative about the Roma, as people united by common culture and historical memory, equal to the other people of the Yugoslav Kingdom, who needed to be included in all processes of the social and public sphere. This article looks into the essence of some messages that the newspaper conveys regarding Roma’s social inclusion, such as (1) education and professional training as a key for a better future, (2) the need for Roma to be more engaged and to self-organise as a community and (3) the fight against majority misconceptions about the Gypsies. The article presents and analyses these three elements of Svetozar Simić’s visions for Romani social inclusion as presented in his editorial pieces. The analysis also pays attention to the resemblances between some of the main messages of the Romani activism in the interwar period and the activism for Roma inclusion in later periods, including parallels during the time of Yugoslav Socialism and the period of democratic transition up until today
Images of Roma through the Language of Bulgarian State Archives
Get PDFThis research has been carried out as part of the RomaInterbellum Project which studies the Roma civic emancipation between World War I and World War II. Trawling through the Bulgarian archival documents on Roma in this time period, a reader cannot help but begin to form a certain image about the Tsigani, the term with which Roma have been popularly referred to in the archives. Unsurprisingly, this image does not seem to differ much from the one of today—that of the uneducated, dirty, foreign, and that pose a threat not only to the prosperity and well-being of the Bulgarian population and culture at large but also to the state and the economy. The research is based on archived files, letters of complaints from Bulgarian citizens and other documents sourced from Bulgarian state archives. The article analyses the words and language employed in the archived documents, the connotations they bear and the images they build. It also tries to show how, in the interwar period, this dominant language was utilised by Roma individuals and leaders in order to react, counter and protect their image and future. More importantly, they sought ways to build a better integrated Roma society through the establishment of own organisations and associations. Understanding this historical narrative from the interwar period is essential in advancing knowledge of many major issues surrounding the Roma today, such as housing, health and their social inclusion
Fostering Digital Participation for People with Intellectual Disabilities and Their Caregivers: Towards a Guideline for Designing Education Programs
Get PDFIn Germany, libraries or public training centers offer education programs for different target groups to foster digital participation. Yet, those programs often do not meet the requirements of people with intellectual disabilities, their formal caregivers or social institutions. A high degree of personal and organizational effort, lack of caregivers’ knowledge and expenditure of time materialize as barriers for caregivers in social institutions to support their clients to achieve digital literacy. However, the desires of people with intellectual disabilities to improve their digital skills have risen steadily in the last years. This article addresses the question of how education programs should be designed to meet the needs of people with intellectual disabilities, their formal caregivers, and social institutions. Therefore, requirements were derived from a secondary analysis of 24 semi-structured interviews with formal caregivers in social organizations, focus groups containing 50 people with intellectual disabilities, and an additional interview study with five experts form research and practice. As a result, a guideline with ten main points for designing education programs for people with disabilities, caregivers and social institutions is presented in this article
Technological Socialization and Digital Inclusion: Understanding Digital Literacy Biographies among Young People in Madrid
Get PDFThe main goal of this article is to analyze young people’s technological socialization experiences to build a comprehensive model of the distinctive digital literacies interwoven with their biographies. Considering that digital accessibility is a necessary but not sufficient condition for inclusion, we identify which types of digital literacies are linked to the acquisition of digital competencies, confidence, and dispositions towards the incorporation of ICTs into daily activities; on the other hand, we also identify digital literacies that might engender motivated processes of self-exclusion from the digital realm, therefore reinforcing subjects’ digital exclusion. Methodologically, this article is based on 30 in-depth biographically-oriented qualitative interviews with young people living in the region of Madrid, Spain. Regarding results, four techno-social dimensions are proposed—motivation, degree of formality, degree of sociality, and type of technological domestication—to construct a typology of four ideal forms of digital literacy: unconscious literacy, self-motivated literacy, professional literacy, and social support. To achieve digital inclusion, self-motivation towards using digital technologies is mandatory, but social practices, academic and professional literacy might work as a secondary socialization process that enhance subjects’ affinity with ICTs. Nevertheless, the effect of social support is ambivalent: It could promote digital inclusion among people already interested in digital technologies, but it could also lead to dynamics of self-exclusion among people who are not confident regarding their digital competencies or disinterested in ICTs
Digital Visualisation as a New Driver of Urban Change in Africa
Get PDFCities in Sub-Saharan Africa are growing faster than in any other part of the world, driven by expanding informal settlement (usually on the urban periphery) and the real-estate sector aiming for up-market property development. The continent currently has the highest real-estate value growth potential in the world. Much up-market property development is currently taking the form of new ‘cities’—sometimes a redevelopment of an entire city (e.g., Kigali), sometimes a new city on an urban edge (e.g., Eko-Atlantic, Lagos) and sometimes a new satellite city (e.g., Tatu City, Nairobi). These projects are driven by international property development companies often in collaboration with governments and sometimes with local planning and property partners. All manifest as plans in a new way: as graphics on the websites of international consultants. Most involve no public participation and attempt to by-pass planning laws and processes. Producing these new plans (as computer generated images) are a new set of professionals: architects, planners, visualisers, advertising executives and project managers, working together in offices in global capitals of the world. Their aim is commercial. Planning in these projects is no longer shaped by the materiality of the city and attempts to achieve socio-spatial justice and sustainability. Rather planning is shaped by the circulation of graphics through a network of software programmes and marketing professionals. This article will situate Africa’s new cities in theorisation of urban development and the role of urban planning through digital visualization
“Live Like a Lifelong Tourist”? The Contradicting Realities of Finnish Offshore Service Workers in Athens
Get PDFContrasting the mass out-migration of the younger populace following the economic crisis in Greece and the simultaneous large inflow of refugees, the city of Athens has lately become an attractive place for tourists and lifestyle migrants. This article provides a better understanding of the marginal, yet unexplored in-migration of relatively affluent Europeans moving to Athens to work in the growing offshore service sector. Athens is an attractive place for offshore service work companies, as low salaries can be compensated for by “the sun,” “Greek culture,” and “low cost and high standard of living” (Bellos, 2019). Based on interviews with Finnish offshore workers, this article argues that the local context might not render all lifestyle migrants from wealthier countries similarly privileged. Due to their low salaries and recent changes in the local housing market fuelled by touristification, offshore service workers face a lack of affordable housing. The article further argues that affluent transnational migration is a multidimensional phenomenon, which needs to be contextualized, and which has nuanced, widespread effects on local housing markets and neighbourhood life