{"title":"Toxic positivity on social media: The drawbacks and benefits of sharing positive (but potentially platitudinous) messages online","authors":"Z. Lew, Andrew J. Flanagin","doi":"10.1177/14614448231213944","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448231213944","url":null,"abstract":"Sharing positive messages on social media can produce positive outcomes for message senders due to self-effects—the effect of sending messages on message senders themselves. In this domain, one question is whether the performative display of positivity can engender positivity. By examining the sharing of personal experiences in a positive manner on social media, several boundary conditions to self-effects were found: displaying positivity is beneficial to message senders only if message senders have higher (vs. lower) self-esteem or if they experience less (vs. more) toxicity—defined as the suppression of the negative aspects of one’s perceived reality due to engagement with or sending a positive message. Otherwise, displaying positivity can dampen enjoyment or make message senders reluctant to commit to their public self-presentations. However, after people receive feedback from friends, perceived social approval is a better predictor of enjoyment and commitment than displaying positivity.","PeriodicalId":443328,"journal":{"name":"New Media & Society","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-12-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138598490","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Enrico Gandolfi, R. Ferdig, Karlie Krause, Ilker Soyturk, Grace Morris, Sarah Delahanty
{"title":"An exploration of why gaming communities may make younger and non-normative gamers vulnerable to Internet Gaming Disorder","authors":"Enrico Gandolfi, R. Ferdig, Karlie Krause, Ilker Soyturk, Grace Morris, Sarah Delahanty","doi":"10.1177/14614448231215348","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448231215348","url":null,"abstract":"Existing literature has primarily evaluated how exposure to video game content impacts social and behavioral functioning. However, the parameters of video game engagement have expanded with multiplayer online gaming, live streaming, and community discussion on social media platforms. This study sought to examine how participation in online gaming communities is associated with problematic gaming behaviors and symptoms of Internet gaming disorder (IGD). A sample of 1176 gamers completed an online survey investigating game habits, community involvement, and gaming preferences as measured by both the Game Community of Inquiry Scale (GCoIS) and the Internet Gaming Disorder Scale-Short form (IGDS9-SF). Results from a multiple hierarchical regression indicated several predictors of problematic gaming, including both community attractiveness and community receptiveness. Moreover, data showed that younger gamers and non-normative gamers were more vulnerable to problematic gaming and more severe symptoms of IGD.","PeriodicalId":443328,"journal":{"name":"New Media & Society","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-12-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138602564","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
M. Bock, Christopher T. Assaf, Robert J Richardson, D. Tsyrenzhapova
{"title":"Narrative authority in online video: Legacy media and digital native production styles","authors":"M. Bock, Christopher T. Assaf, Robert J Richardson, D. Tsyrenzhapova","doi":"10.1177/14614448231215483","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448231215483","url":null,"abstract":"This project examines the way journalists establish narrative authority in online video news through their strategic uses of epistemological production elements. Journalists have historically constructed video news stories with a combination of linguistic and photographic epistemic components to assert their role as authoritative arbiters of factual reality. Online news makes extensive use of video, but production formats and their associated epistemic strategies vary, largely in accordance with the traditions and values of different organizations. This study represents one part of a larger content analysis of video news narrative. It examines the epistemological choices in online video news narratives as produced by legacy print organizations (LP), TV stations (TV), or digital natives (DN). The results show that legacy traditions still divide print and TV organizations, while authority in DN video is constructed in a more diffuse and participatory style reflective of online culture.","PeriodicalId":443328,"journal":{"name":"New Media & Society","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-12-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138602411","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Anniek Schlette, Jan‐Willem van Prooijen, A. Blokland, F. Thijs
{"title":"Information, identity, and action: The messages of the Dutch anti-vaccination community on Telegram","authors":"Anniek Schlette, Jan‐Willem van Prooijen, A. Blokland, F. Thijs","doi":"10.1177/14614448231215735","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448231215735","url":null,"abstract":"The anti-vaccination movement has successfully spread its views on social media. This study examined how community building emerges in the messages of Dutch anti-vaccination Telegram groups. Particularly, we investigated the extent to which these groups provide a platform for sharing information, perpetuating a shared identity, and promoting action. As negative emotions are considered a prime driver of collective action, we examined to what extent the messages had a negative valence. We used a mixed-method approach through a quantitative content analysis of 4654 text messages from five Telegram groups, while also examining the nature of the content through a qualitative analysis. The results suggest that most messages contained a form of shared identity (ingroup favoritism and outgroup hostility) or (mis)information, and, to a lesser extent, encouragements for (online) action. Moreover, most content had a negative valence. These findings illustrate how online groups might be sources of (mis)information, polarization, and intergroup hostility.","PeriodicalId":443328,"journal":{"name":"New Media & Society","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-12-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138602983","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Book review: Hyperculture: Culture and globalization","authors":"Mark Brewin","doi":"10.1177/14614448231216084","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448231216084","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":443328,"journal":{"name":"New Media & Society","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-12-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138607215","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Good night versus goodbye? Comparing the mourning remarks of virtual and human uploaders through a data-mining approach","authors":"Yi Mou, Jianfeng Lan, Yingjia Huang","doi":"10.1177/14614448231212822","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448231212822","url":null,"abstract":"In response to the rapid growth in the popularity of virtual humans, this study investigates the attitudes and perceptions of young viewers, from Generation Z in particular, toward virtual uploaders (VTubers). We qualitatively and quantitatively compared the online mourning directed at the “demised” virtual uploaders and deceased human uploaders, and human celebrities through a data-mining approach. Two salient patterns emerge. The mourning remarks for virtual uploaders are considerably different from those concerning human celebrities. And the mourning remarks for the disembodied human uploaders are more consistent with those for virtual uploaders, but the remarks for embodied human uploaders are more in line with those for offline celebrities. Our findings suggest that young viewers are becoming accustomed to virtual beings in online environments and are beginning to treat humans like machines based on their similarities (the degree of embodiment in this case). Young generations immersed in virtual spaces may develop different concepts of life, demise, and even humanity.","PeriodicalId":443328,"journal":{"name":"New Media & Society","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-12-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138606175","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Mengqi Liao, Jinping Wang, Cheng Chen, S. S. Sundar
{"title":"Less vigilant in the mobile era? A comparison of information processing on mobile phones and personal computers","authors":"Mengqi Liao, Jinping Wang, Cheng Chen, S. S. Sundar","doi":"10.1177/14614448231209475","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448231209475","url":null,"abstract":"Do people process information differently on mobile phones compared to computers? We investigate this question by conducting two online field experiments. We randomly assigned participants to use their mobile phones or personal computers (PCs) to process different kinds of information. Study 1 ( N = 116) discovered that participants using mobile phones process emails more efficiently (i.e., spend less time) than those using PCs. Study 2 ( N = 241) extended this to online deceptive content and found that individuals using mobile phones, especially habitual users, are more efficient, but engage in less information processing, are less attentive and less vigilant about misinformation, compared to those using PCs. However, the latter are more likely to succumb to phishing emails by clicking on malicious links. We discuss theoretical implications for information processing across media devices and practical implications for combating misinformation and cybersecurity attacks.","PeriodicalId":443328,"journal":{"name":"New Media & Society","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139207358","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Happiest streaming platform on earth: The role of presumed influence in the parental control decision process","authors":"Chelsea E. Moss, T. F. Waddell","doi":"10.1177/14614448231215486","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448231215486","url":null,"abstract":"In accordance with the influence of presumed influence (IPI) model, parents’ views toward utilizing parental controls on video streaming platforms should be related to perceptions of content’s negative influence on children. Perceptions of child-friendliness of streaming platforms and family cohesion levels should also be expected to mediate and moderate, respectively, this relationship such that perceiving a platform as child-friendly would be negatively related to judgments of content’s negative effects on children as well as views toward using parental controls. The present survey of parents ( N = 806) generally revealed that parents believing content of specific ratings would negatively affect their child expressed greater likelihood of using parental controls on Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, and Disney+. In addition, this relationship was mediated by perceptions of platform child-friendliness but was not moderated at the second stage by family cohesion. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.","PeriodicalId":443328,"journal":{"name":"New Media & Society","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139210360","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Paško Bilić, David Dukić, Lucija Arambašić, Matej Gjurković, Jan Šnajder, Ivo Furman
{"title":"Digital news media as a social resilience proxy: A computational political economy perspective","authors":"Paško Bilić, David Dukić, Lucija Arambašić, Matej Gjurković, Jan Šnajder, Ivo Furman","doi":"10.1177/14614448231214149","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448231214149","url":null,"abstract":"This article investigates how the COVID-19 pandemic was framed in public, private and non-profit media production. It conceptualises digital news as an indicator of social resilience and the interaction between social and biological/natural systems. We analysed news articles published in 2020/2021 on 21 Croatian websites using natural language processing. We collected 985,850 articles and manually coded samples to train different classifiers. The first classifier was developed to determine which articles relate to COVID-19. The second classifier was used for articles’ topic classification; the third classifier was used to classify articles into resilience classes. A limited discussion of transformative (long-term) resilience, especially in private media, contributed to the most significant content share. The debate focused on keeping the status quo through coping or returning to pre-pandemic conditions through adaptive mechanisms. The news media contributed to how public issues were framed and how science and scientific research were discussed.","PeriodicalId":443328,"journal":{"name":"New Media & Society","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139213360","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Fabian Ferrari, José van Dijck, Antal van den Bosch
{"title":"Observe, inspect, modify: Three conditions for generative AI governance","authors":"Fabian Ferrari, José van Dijck, Antal van den Bosch","doi":"10.1177/14614448231214811","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448231214811","url":null,"abstract":"In a world increasingly shaped by generative AI systems like ChatGPT, the absence of benchmarks to examine the efficacy of oversight mechanisms is a problem for research and policy. What are the structural conditions for governing generative AI systems? To answer this question, it is crucial to situate generative AI systems as regulatory objects: material items that can be governed. On this conceptual basis, we introduce three high-level conditions to structure research and policy agendas on generative AI governance: industrial observability, public inspectability, and technical modifiability. Empirically, we explicate those conditions with a focus on the EU’s AI Act, grounding the analysis of oversight mechanisms for generative AI systems in their granular material properties as observable, inspectable, and modifiable objects. Those three conditions represent an action plan to help us perceive generative AI systems as negotiable objects, rather than seeing them as mysterious forces that pose existential risks for humanity.","PeriodicalId":443328,"journal":{"name":"New Media & Society","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139212827","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}