1,720,959 research outputs found
Malaysian Mainstream And Alternative Online Newspaper Representations Of Risks From Lynas Rare Earth Project In Pahang, Malaysia
Get PDFThis study purposively explores representations of risks from Lynas
Advanced Materials Plant (LAMP) in six Malaysian online newspapers (The Star,
New Straits Times, The Edge Markets, Malaysiakini, The Malaysian Insider and Free
Malaysia Today). Discourse on the LAMP’s risks was pervasive in online news after
report in the New York Times highlighted that, an Australian company was granted
licence in 2012 to import and process rare earth in Kuantan. The aim of this study is
to explain the role of the media in the amplification and attenuation of risks from the
LAMP. A total of 1,167 news articles were content analysed and two journalists were
interviewed. Coding of data was guided by two frameworks – the Social
Amplification of Risks Framework and the Social Semiotic Theory of Multimodality
using thematic analyses and van Dijk’s discursive strategies. The research found
seven types of risks (environmental, financial, health, occupational, property,
radioactive, technological); and connections between environmental, financial,
radioactive and health risks. Radioactive risk was repeatedly intertwined with other
risks and was a key ingredient and major agent of amplification to direct public
attention toward radioactive risk from the LAMP. Three categories of news sources –
known, known/unknown and unknown emerged against the two categories in
existing literature, but known sources predominated. A handful of news sources
(NGOs, professional and trade organisations, residents, opposition and Malaysian
government) defined risks from the LAMP in terms of health, though residents’definition also covered environmental and financial risks. Furthermore, alternative
online newspapers amplified all seven risk types against mainstream’s five. Thus, the
alternative online newspapers provided diverse coverage than the mainstream.
Likewise, journalists’ roles in amplifying or attenuating risks included: using
multiple sources, (non)fact-checking, (non)filtering risk information, decoding risk
information and (non)application of journalism ethics. Modes used to amplify, or
attenuate risks were: colour, illustration, image, writing; and these occurred within
cultural, social, financial, hazardous, historical and political contexts. Discursive
devices used to convey meaning were history as a lesson, situation description,
number game, dramatisation, irony, counter-factual and repetition. The information
and transmission mechanisms used included: politicisation, advocacy campaigns,
allegations/brickbats and discursive devices. Overall, this study revealed that risk
representation from rare earth in a digital news environment is multidimensional and
intensified or weakened in a multi-layered discourse. The stakeholders are engaged
in a contestation by positioning their narratives to oppose or support their interests,
which are amplified or attenuated by the online newspapers as social amplification
stations
NEWS SOURCING OF THE 2011 SOMALI FAMINE: A COMPARISON BETWEEN PANAPRESS AND REUTERS
Get PDFThis article uses online news of the 2011 Somali famine, a humanitarian disaster, to investigate
the role of alternative transnational news agencies and Western mainstream news agencies in
attributing news to sources. The study concludes that Panapress, an African news agency,
originally positioned to challenge Western mainstream media narratives, is doing the opposite by
supplementing Reuters’ narrative, hence entrenching homogenization of news flow. The study
finds that advocacy/ humanitarian groups were the dominant news sources used by both news
agencies, indicating resources are at their disposal and that they have the capacity to pool them to
mitigate the consequences of the famine. The results also show the use of news sources by
Panapress was limited to advocacy/ humanitarian organizations and foreign dignitaries/ leaders
only, and failed to cover victims and other groups affected by the famine
STUDENTS’ BEHAVIOURAL INTENTION TOWARDS ADOPTING WHATSAPP AS A SOURCE OF NEWS
Get PDFSharing news on social media has socio-economic importance but theoretical knowledge of the factors that influence the adoption of WhatsApp as a source of news is lacking in the literature, while past studies have concentrated on learning and socialisation. Relying on research evidence that students are active users of WhatsApp for different purposes; this study used the Technology Adoption Model (TAM) to focus on user acceptance of WhatsApp to explain the relationships between perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, and behavioural intention of students towards adopting WhatsApp as a source of news. Data was collected from 364 respondents in one of Malaysia’s five research universities using a self-administered and online survey questionnaire. Over half of the respondents accessed WhatsApp for about an hour daily, thus forming a significant part of their lives. Spearman rho correlation analyses confirmed theoretical assumptions in the TAM with evidence of the moderate positive correlation between perceived usefulness and behaviour intention; a weak positive correlation between perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use; and a moderate positive correlation between perceived ease of use and behavioural intention to adopt WhatsApp as a source of news. Hence, the study highlights that perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use have more significant and positive relationships with behavioural intention in determining the use of WhatsApp as a source of news within the theoretical assumptions of the TAM. Additionally, despite the spread of fake news through WhatsApp and other social media, students still find news on WhatsApp reliable and were willing to trust and use it as a source of news in the future. These findings can inspire further studies on ‘fake news’ to investigate the extent to which people believe the news received through WhatsApp, and how such news is fact-checked and consumed
Implications of Issue Salience in the Online News of the 2011 Somali Famine
Get PDFThis article explores how major news media and news agencies assigned importance to aspects of the 2011 humanitarian disaster in Somalia. What were the sources that dominated their coverage, and what was the relationship between the sources and the assignment of salience? These issues were investigated through content analyses of online news from Al Jazeera English, Cable News Network International, Pan African News Agency and Reuters. The researchers found different levels of emphasis on news framing functions. The two news agencies, Panapress and Reuters, used similar news framing functions. This suggests that Reuters extended its function of being a news purveyor for news media to a definer of news content for an alternative news agency in a developing nation. Furthermore, the pattern of assigning salience to functions in news framing revealed that because the 2011 famine in Somalia was a humanitarian disaster with catastrophic consequences, the assignment of greater salience to suggestions and to consequences may have been intended to mitigate the disaster itself and prompt urgent action. The distinctions and similarities in assigning functions to news frames may not be unconnected to the functions of ideological structures, editorial policies and in-house style. The study also found a significant relationship between news framing functions and news sources suggesting that news sources played a significant role in assigning salience to the reportage of the humanitarian crisis of the 2011 famine in Somalia
Diatribes in the Gender Communication of Muslim Youth TikTok Influencers in Parts of Northern Nigeria
No full textThis study explored the use of TikTok by Muslim youth influencers in Northern Nigeria and the diatribes it is generating. The study categorized the discursive strategies used in the diatribes and identified the types, targets, and motives of the diatribes. It also explained the gender roles in the diatribes from an Islamic perspective. Discursive psychology was applied to analyse 12 purposively selected TikTok videos. The key findings showed that loud, confrontational, and highly emotive diatribes, including personal attacks on anonymous social media users, institutions, and women, were used to express binary oppositions. The discursive strategies used included denying prejudice, honest phrases, scapegoating, authority, emotional appeal, and polarization. A variety of emotional and social motives were traced through the clips, viz: personal defence, revenge, identity construction, and moral performance. Gender recurred as a conflicting theme across the diatribes and reinforced patriarchal gender norms, except in a few cases. The study concluded that TikTok diatribes among Northern Nigerian Muslim youth influencers are a complex mix of gendered, moral, and social anxieties. These are projected through performance outrage, satire, and reflection, which portray social media as a public morality theatre where individuals navigate identity, shame, and power using highly emotional and symbolic language
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Get PDF“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Get PDFWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Roles of Malaysian online newspapers in the construction of public opinion on rare earth risks
Get PDFThis study explored the representation of risks from the controversial Lynas rare earth refining as a risk event by five Malaysian online mainstream and alternative newspapers using qualitative content analysis. The aim is to uncover the role of the news media in the social amplification and attenuation of risks within the literature evidence as those roles are still uncertain. Content analysis is used to explore the online newspapers’ roles guided by the Social Amplification of Risk Framework (SARF). The representations typified environmental, financial, health, occupational, property, radioactive, and technological risks and established connections between four risk types (environmental, financial, radioactive, and health risks)
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