Visual communication in practice: A texto-material approach to WhatsApp in Mexico City

With more than 2 billion users, WhatsApp is one of the most important mobile technologies in the world. Accordingly, scholarly interest in WhatsApp has grown in recent years. However, studies have tended to separate WhatsApp’s visual and textual elements from the analysis of its technological infrastructure. Alternatively, we argue for a “texto- material” approach that examines the links between both dimensions. We elaborate on the analytical gains that come from this approach by examining the use of WhatsApp in Mexico City. We posit that considering how textual/visual elements and technological features are interwoven is crucial for understanding the cultural specificity of WhatsApp’s development and use in places like Latin America.UCR::Vicerrectoría de Investigación::Unidades de Investigación::Ciencias Sociales::Centro de Investigación en Comunicación (CICOM

Kerro se gifein – Gif-viestinnän tavoitteet Redditin /r/reactiongifs-verkkoyhteisössä

Animoituja gifejä käytetään verkkokeskusteluissa erityisesti kuvaamaan osallistujien reaktioita monenlaisiin tilanteisiin. Tutkielmassani tarkastelen viestinnän tavoitteita reaktio-gifien jakamiseen keskittyvässä /r/reactiongifs-yhteisössä, joka on osa Reddit-sivustoa. Tutkimusmetodina on sisällönanalyysi, jota ohjaa Roman Jakobsonin malli viestinnän tehtävistä. Lisäksi taustalla on teoria /r/reactiongifsistä osallistavan kulttuurin ilmentymänä. Gif-julkaisujen tekeminen on luovaa ja yhteisöön keskittyvää toimintaa, joka samalla osoittaa siirtymää passiivisesta median kuluttajuudesta aktiiviseen osallistujuuteen. Aineistoni koostuu yhteisön viidestäkymmenestä suosituimmasta julkaisusta, jotka muodostuvat jotain tilannetta kuvailevasta otsikosta ja siihen liitetystä gifistä. Jaan gif-viestinnän tavoitteet neljään yläkategoriaan: intertekstuaalisuuteen, tunneilmaisuun, kommentointiin ja yhteisöllisyyteen. Näistä näkökulmista teen tarkempia havaintoja siitä, mitä tavoitteita kuhunkin teemaan liittyy ja miten Jakobsonin tehtävät tukevat näitä tavoitteita. Gif-julkaisuilla käyttäjät ilmaisevat selkeästi henkilökohtaisia tunteitaan, mielipiteitään ja kulttuurintuntemustaan. Näinollen suurimmalla osalla julkaisuista on ilmaisutehtävä, joka paljastaa puhuttelijan asenteet viestiä kohtaan. Lopulta kaikkein korostuneimmaksi tavoitteeksi tulkitsen kuitenkin yhteyden ylläpitämisen eli viestinnän faattisen tehtävän. Julkaisuilla pyritään lähtökohtaisesti luomaan yhteyttä muihin jäseniin samaistuttavuudella ja viittauksilla yhteisön yleisesti tunnistamiin ilmiöihin

Virtual animal characters in future communication : explorative study on character choice and agency

People need efficient means to communicate at a distance, but the available means to message can be inadequate. Any sent message might be perceived too little, fail to convey the intended emotion, or be received in a place, time or fashion that the sender would not prefer. There is room for new types of Computer-mediated communication. The thesis is an exploratory, mixed-methods study on a futuristic concept, where augmented-reality technology is used to send a lively and intelligent virtual animal character to enrich a message. The study goals are to find if the concept is acceptable, recognize common use cases for the messaging-characters, and to recognize if participants can identify different levels of independence to act, i.e. agency, for characters. To accomplish the goals, I conducted 12 interviews where I showed a low-fidelity prototype of the concept and designed animal character animations to the interviewees and had them first invent their own use scenarios and then select which characters they would use in predefined scenarios. To accomplish the agency goal, I had the interviewees order four animal animations by the level of independence to act shown by the animal. Overall, the results suggest the concept is acceptable. Augmented-reality animal messaging-characters could be used to enhance commonly send messages, and their strength is that they could be sent to act in a specific way to support the message. On types of interaction wished for, I found that most of the interviewees wished for more than animated statues, and many wished for the animals to act humanlike. However, they did not seem to wish for futuristic believable artificial intelligence. Concerning agency, the study brought into question the feasibility of defining a character’s level of agency. The results show that determining the level of agency shown in interacting animal character GIFs is either more difficult to do than I expected or outright impossible

Toward A Multi-stakeholder Perspective For Improving Online Content Moderation

Online communities have struggled with malicious behavior, and a major way to combat such abuse is content moderation. While content moderation has been effective in addressing problems in online communities, it also faces various challenges, on the levels of both larger platforms and smaller communities, and these challenges often arise from the varying needs of different stakeholders. For example, global platforms need to consider different values and cultures while dealing with the massive amount of content waiting to be reviewed, and communities with different technological infrastructures also have needs for different rules, moderation strategies, and tools. My dissertation provides a multi-stakeholder perspective of the challenges of online content moderation, provides actionable guidelines to address problems for both volunteer and commercial moderation, and argues that different stakeholders and their associated trade-offs should be a central consideration in online content moderation. In my dissertation, I first describe challenges brought by moderating different technologies by examining the challenges that new platform technology brings to community moderation through a case study of moderating real-time voice on Discord, and argue that community moderators and technology designers should cater to the unique technological infrastructures of individual platforms and communities. My work then investigates the multi-stakeholder tensions in commercial moderation, and reveals varied perceptions of abusive behavior from global social media users, demonstrating the limitations of using a single set of rules to govern global users. Building on my empirical work about the pervasive multi-stakeholder challenges, using a systematic literature review, I propose a framework that centers trade-offs in online content moderation, and show how trade-offs are core to the very definition of content moderation. This dissertation provides deep, empirical understandings of how multiple stakeholders are involved in content moderation, and how ignoring stakeholders&rsquo; needs can lead to serious problems and consequences. By contributing a new way to conceptualize content moderation, my work argues for a future where we start to see different stakeholders, acknowledge their needs, and consciously address the trade-offs between their needs.</p

O GIF Animado como facilitador das narrativas visuais do jornalismo digital e da cultura participativa

A ubiquidade do GIF animado no vocabulário da comunicação digital originou práticas de criação, partilha e consumo de conteúdos que espelham a essência do mundo virtual. O GIF animado oferece ao jornalismo a versatilidade de uma fotografia ou de um vídeo na ilustração da notícia, mas existe a expectativa, entre jornalistas e criadores de conteúdo para os novos média, de que possa oferecer mais, inclusive num contexto de jornalismo cívico e de cultura participativa. Esta investigação experimenta a integração das narrativas GIF na linguagem jornalística, procurando contribuir para um modelo de inovação capaz de enfrentar as disrupçõestecnológicas, sociais e políticas que nas últimas décadas contribuíram para enfraquecer o seu papel de gatekeeper (Newman, 2020). Este cenário é manifestamente visível junto das audiências mais jovens onde a fragmentação da atenção e a desconfiança sobre as instituições desgastaram a relação com as notícias tradicionais (Nielsen, 2022). Avaliámos o GIF animado como ferramenta de criação e divulgação de conteúdo capaz de integrar os propósitos do jornalismo cívico quer na acomodação formal de conteúdo informativo quer na capacidade de atrair audiências mais jovens. Explorámos o formato como texto visual autónomo - capaz de servir de corpo à notícia e potenciar-se como género jornalístico apto para competir com o storytelling digital viral - propondo uma nova tipologia de GIFs Notícia e apresentando dados sobre a reação das audiências a essa tipologia, recolhidos junto de uma amostra de estudantes universitários nacionais (N=87) num contexto de experiência de visualização aplicado às temáticas da Conservação do Planeta e da sua Biodiversidade e da Política Nacional e Internacional. Descobrimos que o uso do GIF Notícia sobre Conservação cria maior interesse e intenção de partilha sobre o tema do que o GIF Notícia sobre Política e que os géneros tradicionais, como o género Reação e Humor, ou o género popularizado pela infografia como visualização de Dados, são os que apresentam melhor desempenho. A amostra revelou abertura e interesse para novos géneros aplicados à informação como o Imersivo ou o Storie (da plataforma Giphy) e menos aceitação para os géneros que exploram a repetição simples, sincopada e manipulada, afastada da linearidade da linguagem do vídeo (como o GIF 4NewsWall experimentado pelo Channel4 britânico), ou os géneros que reproduzem de forma simplificada as fórmulas narrativas tradicionais (como o GIF Reportagem). A associação do GIF ao humor e à estética como objeto-arte que oferece o prazer da visualização, revelaram-se essenciais para o seu bom desempenho como suporte de conteúdo noticioso, no entanto confirmamos um cenário de hesitação na sua adoção por parte do jornalismo. Se para alguns jornalistas e audiências o GIF animado é ainda encarado com cautela e desconfiança, apontado como um possível agente de descrédito do jornalismo tradicional, para outros ele é apontado como um conveniente elo de ligação entre a marca de informação e as esferas públicas digitais onde as novas audiências circulam.The ubiquity of animated GIF in the digital communication vocabulary gave rise to content creation, sharing and consumption practices that mirror the essence of the virtual world. To journalism animated GIFs offer the versatility of a photograph or a video in news illustration, but among journalists and content creators for the new media there is an expectation that it can offer more, even in a context of civic journalism and participatory culture. This investigation tries to integrate GIF narratives into journalistic language, seeking to contribute to a model of innovation capable of facing the technological, social and political disruptions which in recent decades have contributed to weakening journalism role as gatekeeper (Newman, 2020). This scenario is clearly visible among younger audiences where the fragmentation of attention and distrust of institutions has eroded the relationship with traditional news (Nielsen, 2022). We evaluated the animated GIF as a content creation and dissemination tool capable of integrating the purposes of civic journalism, both in the formal ccommodation of informative content and in the ability to attract younger audiences. We explored the format as an autonomous visual text - able to serve as news body and to compete with viral digital storytelling as a journalistic gender - proposing a new typology of News GIFs and presenting data on the audience's reaction to this typology, collected from a sample of national university students (N=87) in a context of a visual experience applied to themes such as Biodiversity and planet conservation and Domestic and international politics. We found that the use of Conservation News GIF creates greater interest and sharing intent than the Politics News GIF and that traditional genres, such as Reaction and Humor, or the genre popularized by infographics such as Data visualization, are the ones with the best performance. The sample revealed openness and interest to new genres applied to information such as the Immersive or the Storie gender (from the Giphy platform) and less acceptance for genres that explore simple, syncopated and manipulated repetition, away from the linearity of video language (such as 4NewsWall GIF tried out by British Channel4), or genres that reproduce traditional narrative formulas in a simplified way (such as GIF Reportagem). The association between GIF and humour or between GIF and the aesthetics of an art object that generates pleasure in viewing revealed themselves essential for its good performance as a support for news content, however we confirm a scenario of hesitation in its adoption by journalism. If for some journalists and audiences the animated GIF is still viewed with caution and suspicion, pointed out as a possible agent of discredit for traditional journalism, for others it is seen as a convenient link between the information brand and the digital public spheres, where new audiences circulate