{"title":"Seeing into the air: Media practices of blind vloggers and the visual paradox of mediated visibility","authors":"Sijing Song","doi":"10.1177/14614448261437810","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448261437810","url":null,"abstract":"Although discussions of visibility often presuppose that it transcends the visual dimension, within short-video platforms, the realization of visibility is in fact highly dependent on a visually dominant communication environment. Through in-depth interviews with Douyin blind vloggers, this study reveals three layers of invisibility they encounter: operational, presentational, and algorithmic. To share their unique sensory experiences, blind vloggers have to adapt to the ocularcentric structure of the platform through strategies such as repetition, imitation, and compensation, reflecting the ableist pre-assumptions in today’s digital media landscape. Drawing from this “visibility paradox,” the study proposes a perceptual model of mediated visibility for future theoretical analysis and practical applications.","PeriodicalId":19149,"journal":{"name":"New Media & Society","volume":"48 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.0,"publicationDate":"2026-04-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147682141","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Mapping the relationship between journalistic discourse, tech industry layoffs, and artificial intelligence","authors":"Anne Herfurth, Jessica Maddox","doi":"10.1177/14614448261437808","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448261437808","url":null,"abstract":"The tech industry’s 2023–2024 mass layoffs represented a critical moment in which an infallible industry seemed to suddenly lay bare its weak spots. Historically, Big Tech and the American press have had a complementary relationship, journalism often reinforcing an industry long viewed as too big to fail. Through textual analysis of long-form coverage of the tech layoff crisis, we identify three themes. First, even amid layoffs, Big Tech is presented as too complex and important to regulate, with layoffs framed as necessary for long-term health—and as justification for subsequent layoffs by other firms. Second, AI is presented as both a positive and a negative factor in layoffs, yet remains largely unchallenged. Finally, coverage paid minimal attention to disproportionate impacts on women and racial minorities, upholding gender and racial imbalances in Big Tech. Taken together, the press did not simply explain layoffs—it acted as an active stakeholder.","PeriodicalId":19149,"journal":{"name":"New Media & Society","volume":"52 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.0,"publicationDate":"2026-04-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147682108","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Race, ethnicity, and technology-facilitated violence: The experience of activists in Chocó, Colombia","authors":"Miyerlandy Cabanzo Valencia, Laura Gianna Guntrum","doi":"10.1177/14614448251344286","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448251344286","url":null,"abstract":"Racism extends into the digital realm, manifesting in various forms of technology-facilitated violence (TFV). Although much research centers on the Global North, it is essential to investigate this issue in other settings, such as Colombia, where activists are particularly vulnerable to TFV. This study enriches the debate with a qualitative approach, conducting 18 interviews with activists from Chocó and Bogotá. The literature on race and TFV reveals that technology can exacerbate racism through social media, like anonymity, and introduce new forms of racist violence, including deepfakes and algorithmic bias. However, these forms were not prevalent in our interviews. For activists, structural racism, especially limited Internet, and electricity access emerged as a primary factor in their experiences with racist TFV. Overt TFV escalates to offline threats, silencing dissenting voices. This research emphasizes the need to understand TFV within non-Western regions, advocating for nuanced approaches to addressing digital racism in diverse contexts.","PeriodicalId":19149,"journal":{"name":"New Media & Society","volume":"18 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.0,"publicationDate":"2026-04-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147649167","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Witnessing carnage: Self-documented terrorism and the moral challenges of decentralized digital platforms","authors":"Tal Morse, Doron Altaratz","doi":"10.1177/14614448251370967","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448251370967","url":null,"abstract":"On October 7, 2023, Hamas launched a coordinated attack on Israel, documenting atrocities through wearable cameras and disseminating footage on platforms like Telegram. This article investigates how these self-documented acts exemplify the erosion of traditional distinctions between perpetrators and mediators of representations of violence. Using point-of-view (POV) aesthetics and leveraging decentralized digital platforms, Hamas transformed violence into a mediated spectacle, dehumanizing victims and gamifying terrorism. The study critically unpacks these strategies, highlighting their role in bypassing journalistic filters to spread fear and achieve ideological objectives. The article further examines the ethical and societal challenges posed by this new ecology of media, where platforms act as sites of violence, and witnessing becomes intertwined with participation. By analyzing the events of October 7, this work contributes to understanding the complexities of mediated violence, exploring how end-users recontextualize and circulate graphic content, shaping new forms of media witnessing and engagement with political violence.","PeriodicalId":19149,"journal":{"name":"New Media & Society","volume":"48 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.0,"publicationDate":"2026-04-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147649157","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Normative dislocation: When platforms moderate without memory","authors":"Emillie de Keulenaar, Marcelo Alves dos Santos","doi":"10.1177/14614448251364814","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448251364814","url":null,"abstract":"This article introduces the concept of normative dislocation to explain how platform moderation during Brazil’s 2022 presidential elections failed to account for local histories of political violence. Drawing on a digital methods analysis of militaristic discourse across Telegram, YouTube, X, Facebook, Instagram, and Gettr, we show how moderation standards—rooted in US electoral experiences—prioritized electoral “misinformation” over calls for a military coup. As these circulated, especially on Telegram, platforms operated outside local moderation frameworks developed through processes of reconciliation, dialogue, and democratic reconstruction. In doing so, they risked dislodging institutional processes by reigniting historical conflicts without adequate measures for public dialogue. We conclude by proposing moderation models that integrate various forms of consensus-building and locally embedded understandings of historical violence","PeriodicalId":19149,"journal":{"name":"New Media & Society","volume":"33 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.0,"publicationDate":"2026-04-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147648858","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Memeing the moniker: The stickiness of gang myths in Swedish news legacy media and TikTok","authors":"Moa Eriksson Krutrök, Jeffrey Mitchell","doi":"10.1177/14614448251338507","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448251338507","url":null,"abstract":"With the rise of explosive violence in urban Sweden, gang-related crime has become a dominant theme in Swedish media and political discourse. As individual members of prominent criminal networks gain increasing media attention, the construction of the gang myth—how gangs and their members are represented, circulated, and re-imagined—becomes a crucial area of inquiry. This article investigates the ways in which crime content moves through the hybrid news cycle, shaping public perceptions of gangs and their leaders. Using topic modeling of news articles (n = 521) and multimodal critical discourse analysis of TikTok posts (n = 73) referencing one of the most well-known gang leader in contemporary Sweden, the Kurdish Fox, we examine how myth-building operates across different media contexts. Our findings reveal a stark contrast in narrative strategies: while news media frame gangs through urgency, fear, and political crisis, TikTok users engage in playful, dissident humor—employing memes, emojis, and remix culture to subvert dominant crime discourses.","PeriodicalId":19149,"journal":{"name":"New Media & Society","volume":"21 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.0,"publicationDate":"2026-04-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147649155","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The violence of online conspiracy theories","authors":"Line Nybro Petersen, Mikkel Bækby Johansen","doi":"10.1177/14614448251336431","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448251336431","url":null,"abstract":"This article investigates the relationship between online conspiracy theory communities and platformed violence through a case study of a conspiratorial harassment campaign against a Danish children’s TV show, Uncle Shrimp (DR, 2012–), and its main actor. Based on theories of violent extremism, conspiracism, and the participatory practices in online spaces of hybridized extremism, we aim to understand how the QAnon-adjacent Uncle Shrimp conspiracy theory is appropriated to fit a Danish context. We analyze 370 user comments and six posts from Facebook ( <jats:italic toggle=\"yes\">N</jats:italic> = 376), drawing on Berger’s four steps of group extremism: crisis narratives, in-group negotiations, out-group threats, and (violent) solutions. We found that users engage in conspiracy theory worldbuilding through a range of participatory practices and that the harassment campaign against the Uncle Shrimp actor emerged from the community shaped by mutual appreciation and forensic play alongside expressions of hate and platformed violence.","PeriodicalId":19149,"journal":{"name":"New Media & Society","volume":"20 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.0,"publicationDate":"2026-04-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147648859","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"(De)constructing research ‘expertise’ in transnational participatory warfare","authors":"Peter Chonka","doi":"10.1177/14614448251357269","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448251357269","url":null,"abstract":"Focusing on a case study of offline and online violence in Somalia/Somaliland and the disputed city of Las Anod, this article presents an (auto)netnographic analysis of transnational digital hostility and participatory warfare. It argues that academic ‘expertise’ is an under-theorised but significant aspect of complex conflict dynamics as they play out on social media. The affordances of digital platforms can compel researchers to engage in new ways with conflicts, further blurring long-contested boundaries between scholarship and activism. In the article’s reflexive case study, debates about ‘expertise’ have a racialised aspect linked to historical inequalities in knowledge production in/on the Horn of Africa. These legacies intersect with newer dynamics of social media mis/disinformation, adding another layer of contextual complexity to online and offline participation in armed conflict that can both challenge and reinforce power imbalances in the politics of expertise.","PeriodicalId":19149,"journal":{"name":"New Media & Society","volume":"33 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.0,"publicationDate":"2026-04-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147649153","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"“Doing gender”: A digital ethnography of image-based abuse perpetration","authors":"Nicola Henry, Courtney Vowles, Gemma Beard","doi":"10.1177/14614448251356604","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448251356604","url":null,"abstract":"Image-based sexual abuse (IBSA) refers to the non-consensual taking, creating, or sharing of intimate images, as well as threats to share intimate images. While considerable research has examined the nature, scope, and impacts of IBSA, comparatively little is known about perpetration. Drawing on a digital ethnography of 47 different websites, this article explores how users “do gender” through the online sharing of non-consensual intimate images. Using thematic analysis, we examine interactional dynamics that produce, reinforce, or reinvent gender norms within online digital spaces. We argue that IBSA is a homosocial practice that is embedded in ritualistic objectification and othering. These relational gender practices not only bestow social capital and sustain group cohesion, but they also normalize intimate image abuse and foster the emergence of other forms of gendered violence. This study highlights the need for more nuanced accounts of IBSA perpetration that attend to the social interactions among online users.","PeriodicalId":19149,"journal":{"name":"New Media & Society","volume":"20 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.0,"publicationDate":"2026-04-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147649158","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Affordance folklore: Truth, community and visibility during Sri Lanka’s Internet shutdowns","authors":"Craig Ryder","doi":"10.1177/14614448251357264","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448251357264","url":null,"abstract":"To governments worldwide, Internet shutdowns are the trip-switch solution to civic unrest, and they occur with surprising regularity. In Sri Lanka, Internet shutdowns have been tactically deployed to geo-specific regions and specific platforms on three occasions during episodes of extraordinary violence and resistance. The concept of ‘algorithmic folklore’ has been used to describe the speculative ideas and tactics that users of digital technology exhibit in order to make sense of their relationship with opaque computational systems. Using this conceptual approach, I consider the modes through which Sri Lankans experience Internet shutdowns and offer the novel term ‘affordance folklore’ to illustrate the discursive constructions and practical strategies that help people make sense of complex sociotechnical events, such as Internet shutdowns. The article examines three core practices of affordance folklore relating to truth, community, and visibility that emerge to theorise the intrinsic values of social media.","PeriodicalId":19149,"journal":{"name":"New Media & Society","volume":"115 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.0,"publicationDate":"2026-04-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147649170","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}