Information Communication & Society最新文献

{"title":"The interactive field of open government data: inter-administrative dynamics, trans-local networks, and local geopolitics of environmental data activism in China","authors":"Vincent Huang, Yuexin Lyu","doi":"10.1080/1369118X.2022.2128848","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2022.2128848","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Using an example of China’s environmental data activism, this study explores the state–society interactive mode of socialization in the politics of open government data. Drawing on an interactionist approach, this study argues that in this intermediate situation, NGOs are relatively autonomous, organizing their campaigns and initiatives independently instead of partnering with the state. However, these two sides both spur and exploit each other, shaping an ‘interactive field.’ Data actors use the state’s open data agenda as an opportunity to initiate spin-off data activism to counteract the deficiencies of data disclosure by the government. In response, state agencies adjust and enhance their data disclosure practices, thus performing reactive data governance. We identified several dynamics of this interactive field: (1) It involves multiple grassroots data actors in the form of NGOs that attempt to expand the autonomy of their data advocacy by forming activist networks to bargain with state bureaucracy. (2) The interactive strategies mainly involve tactics of ‘rightful resistance’ but are hybridized with other boundary-spanning strategies that straddle the demarcation of confrontation and non-confrontation. (3) Although the state and nonstate actors are not partnered, they exert mutual influence over each other’s actions and strategies. The shrinking of institutional space has caused NGOs to reorganize interactive strategies. Our study also highlights the local geopolitical dynamics that condition such interactions: besides the inter-administrative dynamics that afford political opportunities, the trans-local advocacy network coordinates actors and resources to exercise data counterpower. Also, the selection of advocacy strategies is varied with targeted government agencies.","PeriodicalId":48335,"journal":{"name":"Information Communication & Society","volume":"25 1","pages":"2427 - 2446"},"PeriodicalIF":4.2,"publicationDate":"2022-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47238794","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 challenge of the cloud: between transnational capitalism and data sovereignty","authors":"Min Tang","doi":"10.1080/1369118X.2022.2128598","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2022.2128598","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT The rise of transnational cloud platforms poses challenges to cross-border data governance, an understudied area in mainstream global Internet governance studies. Another gap is a critical political economy approach that contributes to a more historical, contextual and dialectical understanding of policy frameworks and their enacting actors, the state. Filling these gaps, this article uses the cloud computing development in China as an example to unpack the geopolitics of the cloud and tensions in data governance models. It argues that the state, neither obsolete nor irrelevant, is the core architect of the varying approaches that reflect the changing dynamics in information geopolitics.","PeriodicalId":48335,"journal":{"name":"Information Communication & Society","volume":"25 1","pages":"2397 - 2411"},"PeriodicalIF":4.2,"publicationDate":"2022-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47773242","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":"Zoom in and zoom out the glocalized network: when transnationalism meets geopolitics and technopolitics","authors":"Wenhong Chen","doi":"10.1080/1369118X.2022.2118545","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2022.2118545","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Drawing on theories on transnationalism and organizational crisis communication, this research uses the lens of glocalized networks with both global and local connections to examine how Zoom, as a transnational tech firm, responds to geopolitics and technopolitics during the volatile times of a global pandemic. Based on digital, text, and video data, corporate documents, media interviews, and coverage, the research traces Zoom's trajectory before and during the pandemic. I first describe how glocalized networks enabled Zoom's birth and growth, especially taking advantage of cross-border talent flow and fundraising. Second, I assess how the same glocalized networks become a liability, forcing the firm to zoom in and out along the hardening physical and digital borders, due to shifting geopolitics and technopolitics in and between the United States and China. Results shed light on the transnational logics shaping Zoom's network reconfiguration to defend and restore its image that has been threatened by national security accusations.","PeriodicalId":48335,"journal":{"name":"Information Communication & Society","volume":"25 1","pages":"2381 - 2396"},"PeriodicalIF":4.2,"publicationDate":"2022-09-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46092812","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":"Persuasive strategies in online health misinformation: a systematic review","authors":"Wei Peng, Sue Lim, Jingbo Meng","doi":"10.1080/1369118X.2022.2085615","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2022.2085615","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT A proliferation of a variety of health misinformation is present online, particularly during times of public health crisis. To combat online health misinformation, numerous studies have been conducted to taxonomize health misinformation or examine debunking strategies for various types of health misinformation. However, one of the root causes – strategies in such misinformation that may persuade the readers – is rarely studied. This systematic review aimed to fill this gap. We searched Web of Science, Scopus, PsycINFO, and Communication and Mass Media Complete for studies published between 2011 and 2021 on 29 May 2021. Peer-reviewed studies that discussed persuasive strategies in online misinformation messages were included. Of 1,700 articles identified, 58 were eligible and 258 persuasive strategies were extracted. Following the affinity diagraming process, 225 persuasive strategies in online health misinformation were categorized into 12 thematic groups, including: fabricating narrative with details, using anecdotes and personal experience as evidence, distrusting government or pharmaceutical companies, politicizing health issues, highlighting uncertainty and risk, inappropriate use of scientific evidence, rhetorical tricks, biased reasoning to make a conclusion, emotional appeals, distinctive linguistic features, and establishing legitimacy. Possible antecedents for why and how these persuasive strategies in online health misinformation may influence individuals were discussed. The findings suggest that media literacy education is essential for the public to combat health misinformation.","PeriodicalId":48335,"journal":{"name":"Information Communication & Society","volume":"26 1","pages":"2131 - 2148"},"PeriodicalIF":4.2,"publicationDate":"2022-07-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46834341","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 Narrative Subject: Storytelling in the Age of the Internet","authors":"Renzhong Peng, Chen-Tzu Wu","doi":"10.1080/1369118X.2022.2096475","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2022.2096475","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":48335,"journal":{"name":"Information Communication & Society","volume":"26 1","pages":"2363 - 2365"},"PeriodicalIF":4.2,"publicationDate":"2022-07-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43300434","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 promise of access: Technology, inequality, and the political economy of hope","authors":"Rohan Grover","doi":"10.1080/1369118X.2022.2096476","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2022.2096476","url":null,"abstract":"complex narrations of today’s young adults and adolescents. On the one hand, it presents a direct analysis and categories based on the contents of each participant. On the other hand, it makes an integrated analysis according to the theoretical framework proposed by the author. However, it would be better to include more quantitative data in this study. For example, corpus-assisted discourse analysis of their narrations and interviews might provide more convincing and solid evidence for the analysis of the narrative subjects. In a nutshell, this book does explore the uncharted academic territory of online narrations and the subjects, as it finds a new perspective to study narrations of online communication through specific subjects’ personal true feelings, self-portraits, and the sociocultural contexts. Without hesitation, the book is a must-read for different groups of people. It is a good resource for researchers in linguistics, sociology, and psychology who would benefit from updated knowledge and theory about intercultural communication and discourse analysis in the context of the Internet. In addition, it is also a valuable book for all young adults and adolescents as it provides practical ways they can use to harmoniously and safely communicate online and adequately deal with the conflicts they face. Furthermore, it offers valuable practical implications for intercultural professionals based on the participants’ experience. It could help psychologists understand the inner feelings of online users, help public policy workers make regulations to avoid possible misunderstandings, or help business managers take advantage of the function of the network to operate effective online business activities.","PeriodicalId":48335,"journal":{"name":"Information Communication & Society","volume":"26 1","pages":"2365 - 2368"},"PeriodicalIF":4.2,"publicationDate":"2022-07-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48963731","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 hottest new queer club: investigating Club Quarantine’s off-label queer use of Zoom during the COVID-19 pandemic","authors":"Stefanie Duguay, Anne Trépanier, Alex Chartrand","doi":"10.1080/1369118X.2022.2077655","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2022.2077655","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Lockdowns and preventative measures during the COVID-19 pandemic led to the closure of nightlife venues that have long served as outlets for queer sociality. This article examines queer people’s response to such measures through a study of Club Quarantine (Club Q), a series of online queer club nights established during the early days of Canada’s lockdown in March 2020. It draws on mixed methods to explore Club Q’s negotiation of Zoom videoconferencing software for hosting and animating club nights, combining participant observation with examination of Club Q’s promotion and media coverage as well as applying the walkthrough method to Zoom. Findings show that Club Q appropriated Zoom through redefinition, adaptation, and reinvention of the platform, reorienting its purpose from business solutions to queer representation, connection, and solidarity. We conclude that Club Q merges off-label use, as technological appropriation that negotiates hurdles specific to platform technology, governance, and economic interests, with queer use–activity that establishes queer space. We conceptualize this queer appropriation as ‘off-label queer use’: practices of platform appropriation that release a queer potentiality for challenging heteronormative and marginalizing technosocial structures. Club Q challenged platform features and policies that constrained sexual expression and posed safety risks for queer users while providing a queer space for fostering resilience and solidarity during crisis. This article’s theoretical contribution enables the identification of off-label queer use in other arrangements of users and technology, allowing for an understanding of when platforms facilitate or inhibit queer survival strategies.","PeriodicalId":48335,"journal":{"name":"Information Communication & Society","volume":"26 1","pages":"2212 - 2228"},"PeriodicalIF":4.2,"publicationDate":"2022-06-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48671222","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":"Weaponizing reproductive rights: a mixed-method analysis of White nationalists’ discussion of abortions online","authors":"Y. Ophir, Meredith L. Pruden, Dror Walter, A. Lokmanoglu, Catherine Tebaldi, Rui Wang","doi":"10.1080/1369118X.2022.2077654","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2022.2077654","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT According to the Great Replacement conspiracy theory, nonwhites, globalists and elites are plotting to eliminate the white race and its dominance through anti-white policies and increased immigration. In that context, abortion among white women is perceived by white nationalists (WN) as a betrayal of their ‘biological’ and ‘traditional’ gender role – procreation of white babies. While WN condemn abortion among white women as a murderous sin, at times they encourage the practice among nonwhites to solve demographic threats to white dominance. In this study, we use mixed methods, combining unsupervised machine learning with close textual analysis of 30,725 posts including the term ‘abortion’ published on the WN website Stormfront between 2001 and 2017. We identify three broad themes: White genocide, focused on the conspiracy theory and detailing the active actors in its alleged execution; political, focused on political agendas and laws; and WN reproductive reasoning, articulating and justifying the contradiction between supporting abortion for nonwhites but not for whites via politics of difference that emphasize nonwhites’ supposed inferior morality. We discuss WN’s unique and explicitly racist discourse around a medical topic like abortion, a staple of the conservative and religious right for decades, and how it is used to alleviate their cognitive dissonance resulting from their dual-stance on abortion. Such discourse could be harnessed to recruit members into the movement and normalize extreme, racist ideologies.","PeriodicalId":48335,"journal":{"name":"Information Communication & Society","volume":"26 1","pages":"2186 - 2211"},"PeriodicalIF":4.2,"publicationDate":"2022-06-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46952056","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":"Towards conceptualization and quantification of the digital divide","authors":"Vladimir Korovkin, Albert L. Park, Evgeny A. Kaganer","doi":"10.1080/1369118X.2022.2085612","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2022.2085612","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT The digital divide gained new importance since the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemics. However, the phenomenon is far from being fully conceptualized or effectively measured. The key question, whether digital divide is a mere extension of other social inequalities, or it has significant new meaning, remains largely unanswered; a reason is the lack of effective instruments of quantitative study of the phenomenon that would capture its complex nature. The present paper addresses both conceptualizing and measurement issues, suggesting that separation of supply- and demand-side considerations is crucial in understanding the digital divide and introducing a composite Digital Life Index, measures separately the digital supply and demand across seven independent dimensions. The Index is based on Internet-borne data, a distinction from traditional research approaches that rely on official statistics or surveys. Though the empiric part of the paper is focused on the sub-national digital divide in Russia we argue that its methodology can be applied on many other levels and its conceptual findings are relevant to understanding the phenomenon globally. The hierarchical regression analysis is used to determine the relative importance of factors like income, human capital, and policy in shaping the digital divide. The result of the analysis suggests that the digital divide is driven more by the differences in demand than in supply; the role of income is insignificant, and the quality of policy and human capital is the key determinant of the divide. The paper advances the existing conceptual and methodological literature on the issue and can also inform practical decision-making regarding the strategies of national and regional digital development.","PeriodicalId":48335,"journal":{"name":"Information Communication & Society","volume":"26 1","pages":"2268 - 2303"},"PeriodicalIF":4.2,"publicationDate":"2022-06-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43883864","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":"Big Data—A new medium?","authors":"Michael Hegarty","doi":"10.1080/1369118X.2022.2091467","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2022.2091467","url":null,"abstract":"This edited volume of essays explores questions arising from the contemporary phenomenon of Big Data. As data structures and algorithms become more and more dominant in determining the form and direction of our lives, the contributors to this work interrogate the problems posed by the increasing influence data have over modern life. Indeed, the book’s parts are structured around the concept of ‘patterning’; knowledge, time, culture, people all proceed in one sense or another according to patterns—we might say, with Heidegger, patterns of the unfolding of Being. But how is that unfolding, the collection of patterns by which we live our lives and the concepts by which we live them, altered in a world increasingly governed according to the abstract schemata of data structures? Do big data represent a fundamental change in the modalities of human existence? How should these data structures be characterized? What will be the contemporary relationship between the individual and the collective under data-driven regimes of surveillance and categorisation? Such questions motivate, in different ways, the authors of this volume. As Natasha Lushetich (ed.), channelling Derrida, represents the issue in her introduction, problems of big data can be thought in terms of the reduction of l’avenir (the unfolding future) to le futur (that which is programmed, patterned, by the present) (2021:, p. 2). And, without attempting to define and constrain in definite terms that which is still evolving, the book seeks to assay ‘big data as a constellation and a multifaceted process of transformation that... occurs largely beyond the realm of human consciousness.’ (8) This work, indeed, could be viewed as an exploratory ingress into territory new, fecund, and as yet barely trodden; for while much has been written already, the phenomenon remains hard to grasp in full, and so much more will be needed before all the implications of modern technical paradigms can be understood. The scope of the volume is, nevertheless, broad, and covers a wide range of questions arising from modern data-driven methodologies from how these affect the unfolding of knowledge and time to biometric security to creative AI’s. The volume is divided into four parts consisting of three essays, each connected with the overall theme of patterning. Part I considers the relationship between big data and knowledge and time; part II relates to use and extraction; part III interrogates the effects of modern datadriven paradigms on cultural heritage and memory; and part IV informs the scope of debate around people and the ineluctable effects of big data on their lives and how they live.","PeriodicalId":48335,"journal":{"name":"Information Communication & Society","volume":"26 1","pages":"2126 - 2129"},"PeriodicalIF":4.2,"publicationDate":"2022-06-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45168497","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}