3,083 research outputs found

    Digital Literacy Circulation: Adolescents and Flows of Knowledge about New Media

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    The aim of this paper is to discuss the output of an empirical research on digital skills in order to develop a typology of skills circulation among young digital users. Relying on research on digital literacy in media studies and on users in STS, in this article we start criticizing the concepts of \u201cdigital divide\u201d, \u201cdigital inequalities\u201d and \u201cdigital competencies\u201d. Then, we present the principal results of a research study involving 50 adolescents in Italy about how they acquired their competences in the use of digital media. This gave us the opportunity to focus on the digital skills of young people and the development of their abilities in using digital media. The research outlines the patterns of circulation in digital competences among young people in relation to family, school and peer group, defining four kinds of \u201cflows\u201d: parental flow (involving fathers and mothers), peer flow (connected to friends and people of the same age), educational flow (referring to formal education) and technological flow (involving technological devices, such as computers, laptops, smartphones, tablets, etc.). The aim is to understand the interactions between digital skills and the social, institutional and technological conditions that influence the youth\u2019s digital literacy for the everyday use of digital media

    Facebook as a public arena for women: infringing on democratic ideals and a cause of worry

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    Facebook allows users to engage in public discourse. However, debates on social network sites are criticised for damaging democracy by adding to polarisation, limiting perspectives, and promoting a derogatory tone driven by emotion and personal conviction rather than facts. Research has thus far mainly focused on visible participation on Facebook, while the experience of this public space remains under-theorised. This study provides insights into women's user experience of Facebook as an arena for public discourse by conducting qualitative interviews with 30 female users of Facebook (aged 19-74) in Norway. The findings revealed interpretive repertoires based on deliberative ideals and negativity toward activities that do not adhere to such ideals. However, the results also indicated that worry was a key factor in negotiating these ideals and sometimes unintentionally replacing them with behaviours that may be harmful to public discussion.publishedVersio

    Communication by the European UnionÂŽs executive: The case of the Brexit campaign on Twitter

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    An unexpected event usually channels our attention to the agents involved, rather than considering the agents that should have taken part. This has happened with the EU Referendum campaign, where the European Union did not play a significant role and the spotlight was only placed on the EU institutions after the results were announced. This thesis proposes to study the communication activity of the European Commission, as the executive of the Union, during the campaign period. The main objective is to respond to a guiding research question of how effective the European Commission was in address the British public sphere during the EU referendum campaign. To do so, the research is focused on the institution’s communication via social network sites, with an emphasis on Twitter. The communication of the European Commission is analysed through its central and national accounts. Activities on these channels will be analysed in the light of the national context of Euroscepticism and a compared analysis of the activity of political national agents

    New gatekeepers in town : How groups in social networking sites influence information flows in Russia’s provinces

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    The study focuses upon “city public groups” (“gorodskie pabliki,” local newsgroups on social networking sites)—the new entrants in the local media space of the Russian province that have recently become important actors of regional public communication. Such groups combine news posting and citizen discussions, report on local affairs and gossip, and entertain. Some groups are based on user-generated content; others create their own content or act as aggregators. Being non-registered and grassroots initiatives, these media enjoy higher freedom in comparison to official local newsrooms. Given the popularity of city public groups among local citizens and local authorities’ interest toward them, owners and moderators of these media are playing an influential role for local mediated discourse. Based on the gatekeeping theory and its extensions for digital space, this article explores the emerging roles of these new gatekeepers in the local communities. Based upon 28 in-depth interviews collected by the author in Russian towns in 2017–2018, the article also analyses the professional norms and values of the owners and moderators of local city groups that they employ to perform their gatekeeping function.Peer reviewe

    People’s Republic of Bolzano or how digital artifacts can be adversarial to misinformation

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    Design scholars have been focusing more of their attention to public controversial “things”, through the focus on “making public things” or on the “formation of publics” in relation to design projects. With this in mind, this paper describes a design case contrasting and challenging the main media narrative through the production of digital artifacts. The design intervention we describe, aimed at counteracting the racist stereotyping which targets the local Chinese community of Bolzano. The project People’s Republic of Bolzano reshapes the identity of the local Chinese community through digital media, in order to restore more transparent and balanced information, allowing a broader audience to inform itself on such a complex and multifaceted issue. This small project is part of an emergent phenomenon to counterbalance misrepresentation, in this case over the issue of migration

    Group privacy management strategies and challenges in Facebook : a focus group study among Flemish youth organizations

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    A large body of research has studied young people’s privacy practices and needs in Facebook. Less is known about group privacy. In this study 12 focus groups were organized with a total of 78 adolescents and young adults of local Flemish youth organizations to discuss their privacy practices. Findings describe how different strategies are used to coordinate the group information flow. The study also shows how online group privacy management can be challenging because ‘implicit’ privacy rules need to be made ‘explicit’, personal boundaries may conflict with those of the group one belongs to and privacy turbulence is difficult to define

    (Social) media isn’t the message, networked people are: calls for protest through social media

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    In recent years, protests took the streets of cities around the world. Among the mobilizing factors were the perceptions of injustice, democratization demands, and, in the case of liberal democracies, waves of discontentment characterized by a mix of demands for better public services and changes in the discredited democratic institutions. This paper discusses social media usage in mobilization for demonstrations around the world, and how such use configures a paradigmatic example of how communication occurs in network societies. In order to frame the discussion, social media appropriation for the purposes of political participation is examined through a survey applied online in 17 countries. The ways in which social media domestication by a myriad of social actors occurred and institutional responses to demonstrations developed, it is argued that, in the network society, networked people, and no longer the media, are the message.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio
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