Going Offline : How Online Initiatives Revive Offline Civic Engagement

Departing from the concept of the new identity and acknowledging a growing concern about disengaged citizenry, soundly expressed in the accounts of eroding social capital and the crisis of public communication thesis, this paper will develop two assumptions. First, it will argue that online interactions in virtual communities have the potential to create group identity hence providing a source of content that has the capacity to transform virtual into physical communities. Second, it will assume that these virtually created and physical consumed communities have the capacity to induce public action and positively contribute to civic engagement. In order to explore aspects of virtual communities as local e-engagement spaces, this paper will present two case studies – the MoveOn and the Meetup Initiatives

Viral journalism: The rise of a new form

Current technological and communicational changes introduced with the rise of social media have changed the way the news is created. By using interesting, creative and shareable content in news reporting, such as infographics, polls, videos and memes, the primary goal in news reporting has become the attracting of the user’s attention, and then informing the user. The trend in journalism has become the initiation of the user toward sharing the content – this is why we have introduced a new form of news called viral news. The best example of this kind of journalism is BuzzFeed, a website that has gained huge audience attention and is one of the most popular news sites in the world. In viral news the focus is not on the news narrative, but in the news presentation and distribution. The aim of this paper is to give an insight into this new form of journalism: one that is created to attract attention, that is spreadable via social media and that requires user interaction to fulfi l the news distribution process. This new form of news embraces the dynamics and popularisation of the social media and user’s role in sharing and distributing the content (making it viral), but also creates the interactive, interconnected, emotional, interesting, and immediate content that can gain viral effect. In order to explain and distinguish this form of journalism, the purpose of this paper is to examine “a four quadrant map,” introduced by Boczkowski and Siles, as a life cycle of media technologies. Through four relatively distinct quadrants: production/content, consumption/content, production/ materiality, consumption/materiality, the changes brought by social media and new technologies called ‘viral journalism’ are explained in this article

From Who and What to How and Why – The Future of Online Encyclopaedias

This paper discusses changes in the structure of knowledge, the increasing demand for abilities of search and retrieval, assessment and evaluation, organization and creative use of relevant information. It is a review of the topic intended to serve as a basis for further research aimed at answering the many questions that arise from this paper. Today, users are finding content through search engines. This requires a different approach to the organization of encyclopaedias and other lexicographical issues. All can be found, but it is also important to know where and how to look for it. The conducted research centered around the quality of "coverage" of some, in Croatia well known, lexical units, in different Wikipedias: four regional languages and editions (Croatian, Bosnian, Serbian, Serbo-Croatian), and four world languages (English, French, German and Spanish). We observed the presence of writers and athletes in those languages. None of the selected writers had an article in every language/edition. For instance our writers are almost non-existent in Spanish and French editions, and the situation is only slightly better when it comes to German. The representation of athletes was much better, almost all of them occurring in the selected world languages. At the end we come to a few questions, such as whether it is more important to write "for yourself", i.e. to work on creating the best possible encyclopaedia intended for audiences in Croatia, and all those who use the Croatian language, or should we systematically work on the presentation of "our" issues in the publications in other languages; whether it be persons or texts from the sphere of politics, history, or (most widely understood) culture and art. If we agree that we will get relatively successful answers to questions starting with who, what, where, when, and much less successful to those beginning with how or why, then this answers the question on the role of the online encyclopaedia in the transfer of knowledge. The value of the knowledge contained in the answer to the question posed with how or why is "value added" to the encyclopaedia; it is what distinguishes it from a dictionary or a search engine

The role of artificial intelligence in media content creation

Digitalizacija i razvoj alata umjetne inteligencije (AI) doveli su do revolucije u brojnim sferama, a posebice u komunikaciji. I dok su medijske sadržaje prije isključivo stvarali pojedinci, danas postoje različiti jezični, slikovni, glasovni i videoalati koji s lakoćom formiraju sadržaj spreman za distribuciju i konzumaciju. AI, kao takav, već sada znatno transformira medije i komunikaciju, a razvojem tehnologije doći će i do novih promjena u stvaranju medijskog sadržaja. Iako je tema umjetne inteligencije sve više u središtu znanstvenih istraživanja, utvrđen je nedostatak literature na hrvatskom jeziku koja sažima glavne odrednice o ulozi umjetne inteligencije u stvaranju medijskog sadržaja. Ovaj rad stoga na hrvatskom jeziku donosi pregled stanja u području te nudi perspektive za buduću implementaciju umjetne inteligencije u kontekstu kreiranja sadržaja i komuniciranja na društvenim medijima.Digitization and the development of artificial intelligence tools have revolutionized numerous spheres, particularly in communication. While media content was previously exclusively created by individuals, today there are various linguistic, visual, voice, and video tools that effortlessly generate content ready for distribution and consumption. AI, as such, is already significantly transforming media and communication, and with the advancement of technology, further changes in media content creation will arise. Although the topic of artificial intelligence is increasingly the focus of scientific research, there is a lack of literature in Croatian that summarizes the main aspects of the role of artificial intelligence in media content creation. This paper, therefore, provides an overview of the field and offers perspectives for future implementation of artificial intelligence in the context of content creation and communication on social media

E-Government and e-Participation : City Web Sites – the Case of Croatia

Relying on the Kang and Gearhart study about the content-specific relationship between citizens' use of city web sites and civic engagement, this study examines the relationship between specific content categories on city Web sites and civic engagement in Croatia. Building upon Kang and Gearhart’s theoretical arguments about motivational communication theories, web site functions, and civic engagement in a new technology context (e.g., Coleman, Lieber, Mendelson, 2008; Jeffres and Lin, 2006; Norris, 2003), this study examined the role of the city web sites in e-participation by surveying citizen users of city web sites. A web based volunteer survey was conducted in 33 Croatian cities, with more than 600 citizens participating. Furthermore, building on Norris’s concept of democratic divide we have content analyzed the web sites of cities that participated in the online survey. The results of content analysis of the city web sites indicate that there is democratic divide (Norris, 2001) in Croatian local government. Secondly, the comparison of the findings obtained by the public opinion web based survey with the results of the content analysis study supports Scott’s (2006) findings about city web sites’ potential for citizens’ civic engagement. Thirdly, the results support Kang and Gearhart’s findings which exhibit a clear indication that city web sites can actively promote civic engagement among citizens. In other words, this study demonstrates that citizens are willing to engage online if the government provides them with an adequate platform

The Role of the Internet in Political Communication and Encouraging Political Civic Engagement in Croatia: The 2007 Election Campaign on the Internet

Koristeći metodu analize sadržaja te oslanjajući se na literaturu o ulozi interneta u suvremenim izbornim kampanjama (cyber campaigning) i literaturu o krizi javnog komuniciranja te demokratskom potencijalu interneta, ovaj rad istražuje a) u kojoj su mjeri i na koji način hrvatske stranke na parlamentarnim izborima 2007. koristile marketinški potencijal interneta te b) u kojoj su mjeri i na koji način koristile internet kako bi potaknule građane na (online ili offline) sudjelovanje u politici. Rezultati istraživanja pokazali su da su stranke u Hrvatskoj na parlamentarnim izborima 2007. samo djelomično iskoristile marketinški potencijal interneta. Analiza elemenata interaktivnosti pokazala je da stranke u predizborno vrijeme u načelu nisu koristile internet kako bi se upustile u raspravu s biračima. Rezultati dobiveni ovim istraživanjem međutim samo potvrđuju trendove u drugim zemljama koji govore da upotreba interneta u svrhu rasprave sa strankama i kandidatima, a koja ima za cilj povećanje opće uključenosti građana i širenje kruga politički aktivnih građana, nije ispunila prijašnja optimistična predviđanja.Undertaking a content analysis and analyzing the literature corresponding both to the role of the Internet in modern election campaigns (cyber campaigning), as well as that which assesses the crisis of public communication and the democratic potential of the Internet, this article explores: a) how and to what extent did Croatian political parties utilize the marketing potential of the Internet during the 2007 parliamentary elections; and b) how and to what extent did they use the Internet to encourage citizens (on or offline) to participate in the political sphere. The results indicate that during the 2007 Croatian Parliamentary elections, political parties only partially utilized the potential advantages of Internet marketing. An analysis of the elements of interactivity revealed that campaigning parties generally did not use the Internet as a means to engage voters. The results in this study, however, confirm a number of trends found in other countries. The use of the Internet as an instrument to engage citizens online and increase political participation has not confirmed the optimistic predictions surrounding this issue