News and Radio: Social Media Adoption and Integration by @RadioProducers and its Impact on Their #MediaWork

This research analyses how news talk radio program producers are using social media in their daily work practices and routines, and how doing so has impacted on their media work. Currently, the majority of scholarly attention has focused on the apparent crisis facing print media in light of continuous technological innovations in newsrooms, as a condition of media convergence. However, there has been significantly less scholarship considering how the introduction of various Internet and new media technologies has impacted on radio broadcasting. Structural transformations of the radio industry have triggered workplace shifts in news talk production that has altered the media work of radio program producers. It is therefore the aim of this thesis to explore the changing nature of radio work, and the way in which news talk radio producers adopt and integrate Internet and new media technologies into their daily work practices and routines. This research examines the use of Internet and new media technologies by three news talk program production teams within the community, commercial, and public service broadcasting sectors in order to explore how each have taken to social media in their daily workflows. Based on participant observation and semi-structured interviews with each of the radio producers, the research uses an inductive ethnographic research methodology to understand the technology access and workload challenges they are facing in developing social media skills, particularly concerning program pre-promotion and audience interaction. The research indicates that access to reliable computing technologies is a contentious issue amongst the commercial and community radio stations observed and which ultimately impacts upon the radio producers’ ability to effectively complete their daily media work. Further, the research indicates that the workload of each of the producers has increased significantly with their incorporation and adoption of social media in their daily workflows. The study suggests that further research is necessary in order to provide a more comprehensive analysis of the changing nature of media work within radio production

News and Radio: Social Media Adoption and Integration by @RadioProducers and its Impact on Their #MediaWork

This research analyses how news talk radio program producers are using social media in their daily work practices and routines, and how doing so has impacted on their media work. Currently, the majority of scholarly attention has focused on the apparent crisis facing print media in light of continuous technological innovations in newsrooms, as a condition of media convergence. However, there has been significantly less scholarship considering how the introduction of various Internet and new media technologies has impacted on radio broadcasting. Structural transformations of the radio industry have triggered workplace shifts in news talk production that has altered the media work of radio program producers. It is therefore the aim of this thesis to explore the changing nature of radio work, and the way in which news talk radio producers adopt and integrate Internet and new media technologies into their daily work practices and routines. This research examines the use of Internet and new media technologies by three news talk program production teams within the community, commercial, and public service broadcasting sectors in order to explore how each have taken to social media in their daily workflows. Based on participant observation and semi-structured interviews with each of the radio producers, the research uses an inductive ethnographic research methodology to understand the technology access and workload challenges they are facing in developing social media skills, particularly concerning program pre-promotion and audience interaction. The research indicates that access to reliable computing technologies is a contentious issue amongst the commercial and community radio stations observed and which ultimately impacts upon the radio producers’ ability to effectively complete their daily media work. Further, the research indicates that the workload of each of the producers has increased significantly with their incorporation and adoption of social media in their daily workflows. The study suggests that further research is necessary in order to provide a more comprehensive analysis of the changing nature of media work within radio production

Social Media and the Decline of Truth

In media history, there exists a perpetual cycle in which humanity’s innovation of communication technology shapes world culture and political climate, eventually resulting in humanity’s delayed response to these changes. Using this framework, this paper addresses the recent innovations of the social media era and the spread of online communication in regards to their impact on behavioral conditioning, democracy, and generally how people process information. The discussion takes a nuanced stance between two popular ways of imagining social media’s effect on the world: arguing for both an oppressive, authoritarian reality, likened to Orwell’s 1984, and a senseless, over-stimulated one, likened to Huxley’s Brave New World. First, the paper addresses themes in human reasoning that have contributed to the success of social media as well as the ways social media exploits and reinforces certain aspects of human behavior. The discussion then turns to the politicization of social media and the ways society has used current media technology to shape political climates and additionally frame news, both internationally and domestically. Lastly, the paper addresses the deviance of social media platforms into problematic uses, including the empowerment of authoritarian regimes and the incitement of polarizing, extremist sentiments.Plan II Honors Progra

Media Literacy Education in the Age of Machine Learning

The media environment has radically changed over the past few decades. Transition and transformation of media platforms has enabled algorithms and automation to take over media processes such as production, content generation, curation, delivery, recommendation, and filtering of information. It has also enabled tracking of users’ actions, data mining, profiling, and the use of computational and machine learning techniques for purposes like behavior engineering, targeted advertisement, spread of mis- and disinformation, swaying political moods, and many others. In the field of media literacy education, the need to understand algorithm-driven media requires educators to re-think the connections between media literacy education and computing education. This article provides an overview of some computational mechanisms of new media, and it provides new perspectives for media literacy education. The article suggests ways of intertwining media literacy education with computing education in order to improve students’ readiness to cope with modern media and to become critical and skilled actors to navigate in the new media landscape

Reassessing competition concerns in electronic communications markets

Central features of today’s electronic communications markets are complementarities between the different layers of the value chain, substitutability between some applications, network effects in the provision of content and services, two-sided business models that partly involve indirect revenue generation (such as advertising and data profiling), and a patchwork of regulated and unregulated segments of the market. This complexity requires a fresh look at the market forces shaping the industry and a rethinking of market definitions and of the assessment of market power. This article presents the state of play in European electronic communication markets, with a particular emphasis on the recent development of “over the tops”. We also use a stylised model of an electronic communications market to draw some central lessons from economic theory and to elaborate on market definition and market power

Optimising Emotions, Incubating Falsehoods: How to Protect the Global Civic Body from Disinformation and Misinformation

This open access book deconstructs the core features of online misinformation and disinformation. It finds that the optimisation of emotions for commercial and political gain is a primary cause of false information online. The chapters distil societal harms, evaluate solutions, and consider what must be done to strengthen societies as new biometric forms of emotion profiling emerge. Based on a rich, empirical, and interdisciplinary literature that examines multiple countries, the book will be of interest to scholars and students of Communications, Journalism, Politics, Sociology, Science and Technology Studies, and Information Science, as well as global and local policymakers and ordinary citizens interested in how to prevent the spread of false information worldwide, both now and in the future

Disinformation and propaganda – impact on the functioning of the rule of law in the EU and its Member States. Study Requested by the LIBE committee. CEPS Special Report, February 2019

This study, commissioned by the European Parliament’s Policy Department for Citizens’ Rights and Constitutional Affairs and requested by the European Parliament’s Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs, assesses the impact of disinformation and strategic political propaganda disseminated through online social media sites. It examines effects on the functioning of the rule of law, democracy and fundamental rights in the EU and its Member States. The study formulates recommendations on how to tackle this threat to human rights, democracy and the rule of law. It specifically addresses the role of social media platform providers in this regard