19,831 research outputs found
Modeling the formation of attentive publics in social media: the case of Donald Trump
Previous research has shown the importance of Donald Trumpâs Twitter activity, and that of his Twitter following, in spreading his message during the primary and general election campaigns of 2015â2016. However, we know little about how the publics who followed Trump and amplified his messages took shape. We take this case as an opportunity to theorize and test questions about the assembly of what we call âattentive publicsâ in social media. We situate our study in the context of current discussions of audience formation, attention flow, and hybridity in the United Statesâ political media system. From this we derive propositions concerning how attentive publics aggregate around a particular object, in this case Trump himself, which we test using time series modeling. We also present an exploration of the possible role of automated accounts in these processes. Our results reiterate the media hybridity described by others, while emphasizing the importance of news media coverage in building social media attentive publics.Accepted manuscrip
Trump, Twitter, and news media responsiveness: a media systems approach
How populists engage with media of various types, and are treated by those media, are questions of international interest. In the United States, Donald Trump stands out for both his populism-inflected campaign style and his success at attracting media attention. This article examines how interactions between candidate communications, social media, partisan media, and news media combined to shape attention to Trump, Clinton, Cruz, and Sanders during the 2015â2016 American presidential primary elections. We identify six major components of the American media system and measure candidatesâ efforts to gain attention from them. Our results demonstrate that social media activity, in the form of retweets of candidate posts, provided a significant boost to news media coverage of Trump, but no comparable boost for other candidates. Furthermore, Trump tweeted more at times when he had recently garnered less of a relative advantage in news attention, suggesting he strategically used Twitter to trigger coverage.Accepted manuscrip
Democratic Replay: Enhancing TV Election Debates with Interactive Visualisations
This paper presents an online platform for enhancing televised election debates with interactive visualisations. Election debates are one of the highlights of election campaigns worldwide. They are also often criticised as appearing scripted, rehearsed, detached from much of the electorate, and at times too complex. Democratic Replay enhances videos of election debates with a collection of interactive tools aimed at providing a replay experience centred around citizens' needs. We present the system requirements, design and implementation, and report on an evaluation based on the ITV Leaders' Debate from the 2015 UK General Election campaign
Live Blogging and Social Media Curation: Challenges and Opportunities for Journalism
Blogging and social mediaâs contribution to a realignment of the relationship between journalists and their audiences is discussed by Einar Thorsen in Live Blogging and Social Media Curation. Journalists are facing challenges to preserve traditional standards, such as verification of information and sources, whilst also capitalising on the opportunities afforded by the immediacy, transparency and interactive nature of online communication. Thorsen analyses these issues through two case studies: one focuses on âliveâ blogging and elections, and a second looks at the role of social media in the Arab Spring. He demonstrates how journalists face new challenges in relation to social media curation, whilst the emergent forms and practices also present a wealth of opportunities
Is Twitter a Public Sphere for Online Conflicts? A Cross-Ideological and Cross-Hierarchical Look
The rise in popularity of Twitter has led to a debate on its impact on public
opinions. The optimists foresee an increase in online participation and
democratization due to social media's personal and interactive nature.
Cyber-pessimists, on the other hand, explain how social media can lead to
selective exposure and can be used as a disguise for those in power to
disseminate biased information. To investigate this debate empirically, we
evaluate Twitter as a public sphere using four metrics: equality, diversity,
reciprocity and quality. Using these measurements, we analyze the communication
patterns between individuals of different hierarchical levels and ideologies.
We do this within the context of three diverse conflicts: Israel-Palestine, US
Democrats-Republicans, and FC Barcelona-Real Madrid. In all cases, we collect
data around a central pair of Twitter accounts representing the two main
parties. Our results show in a quantitative manner that Twitter is not an ideal
public sphere for democratic conversations and that hierarchical effects are
part of the reason why it is not.Comment: To appear in the 6th International Conference on Social Informatics
(SocInfo 2014), Barcelon
Political Magazines on Twitter during Election 2012: Framing, Uniting, Dividing
This study offers a content analysis of Twitter activity from 16 American political opinion magazines during the month before the 2012 presidential election. The study is an exploratory attempt to operationalize aspects of tweets that may contribute to frame alignment processes and mobilization among Twitter users. The analysis identifies these components and examines how political magazinesâ Twitter activity may demonstrate aspects of this process. These magazines must consider both the normative goal of achieving specific political gains by mobilizing readers and the pragmatic goal of remaining sustainable as publishing enterprises. The degree to which their Twitter usage reflects frame alignment processes may not only reinforce political mobilization, but also affect the longevity of their publications. This analysis offers practical and theoretical insights into the changing role of political magazines in an increasingly digital era of political engagement
Oblique strategies for ambient journalism
Alfred Hermida recently posited âambient journalismâ as a new framework for para- and professional journalists, who use social networks like Twitter for story sources, and as a news delivery platform. Beginning with this framework, this article explores the following questions: How does Hermida define âambient journalismâ and what is its significance? Are there alternative definitions? What lessons do current platforms provide for the design of future, real-time platforms that âambient journalistsâ might use? What lessons does the work of Brian Eno provideâthe musician and producer who coined the term âambient musicâ over three decades ago?
My aim here is to formulate an alternative definition of ambient journalism that emphasises craft, skills acquisition, and the mental models of professional journalists, which are the foundations more generally for journalism practices. Rather than Hermidaâs participatory media context I emphasise âinstitutional adaptivenessâ: how journalists and newsrooms in media institutions rely on craft and skills, and how emerging platforms can augment these foundations, rather than replace them
- âŠ