News devices : how digital objects participate in news work and research

News work is increasingly taking place in and through a variety of intersecting digital devices, from websites, to search engines, online platforms, apps, bots, web analytics, data analysis and visualisation tools. These devices are also increasingly used as resources in digital research, and their implications are yet to be fully understood. This thesis examines how digital objects participate in news work and research. To this end, I propose an orientation towards the news device as a research topic and approach. The news device approach calls attention to the ways in which practices and relations are co-produced with digital objects involved in news work. It also attends to how such digital devices may afford modes of studying these practices. To make the case for this approach, I examine the participation of three types of devices in three aspects of news work: (1) the role of the network graph in journalistic storytelling, (2) the role of the online platform in journalism coding, and (3) the role of the web tracker in news audience commodification. In all, the thesis contributes to understanding the digital transformations of news in two ways. First, it develops a rich, nuanced, multidisciplinary, collaborative and reflexive approach to news research with digital methods. Secondly, it provides novel insights into how digital devices shape both news processes and relations with the online advertising and marketing industries, commercial online platforms, digital visual culture, and other digital content producers

Journalists should follow the lead of media scholars and look to the Internet as a rich source of data.

Journalists rarely use the web as a source of data about the state of issues, debates and information flows in different societies. Liliana Bounegru looks at how media scholars have leveraged digital data and algorithmic accountability. In times of shrinking news budgets and staff cuts journalists can turn to such readily available sources of data as a way to understand public engagement with major issues. Scholars can support this process by making the datasets, tools and protocols developed during their work available to others

Visual Models for Social Media Image Analysis: Groupings, Engagement, Trends, and Rankings

With social media image analysis, one collects and interprets online images for the study of topical affairs. This analytical undertaking requires formats for displaying collections of images that enable their inspection. First, we discuss features of social media images to make a case for studying them in groups (rather than individually): multiplicity, circulation, modification, networkedness, and platform specificity. In all, these offer reasons and means for an approach to social media image research that privileges the collection of images as its analytical object. Second, taking the 2019 Amazon rainforest fires as a case study, we present four visual models for analyzing collections of social media images. Each visual model matches a distinctive spatial arrangement with a type of analysis: grouping images by theme with clusters, surfacing dominant images and their engagement with treemaps, following image trends with plots, and comparing image rankings across platforms with grids

News devices:how digital objects participate in news and research

News work is increasingly taking place in and through a variety of intersecting digital devices, from websites, to search engines, online platforms, apps, bots, web analytics, data analysis and visualisation tools. These devices are also increasingly used as resources in digital research, and their implications are yet to be fully understood. This thesis examines how digital objects participate in news work and research. To this end, I propose an orientation towards the news device as a research topic and approach. The news device approach calls attention to the ways in which practices and relations are co-produced with digital objects involved in news work. It also attends to how such digital devices may afford modes of studying these practices. To make the case for this approach, I examine the participation of three types of devices in three aspects of news work: (1) the role of the network graph in journalistic storytelling, (2) the role of the online platform in journalism coding, and (3) the role of the web tracker in news audience commodification. In all, the thesis contributes to understanding the digital transformations of news in two ways. First, it develops a rich, nuanced, multidisciplinary, collaborative and reflexive approach to news research with digital methods. Secondly, it provides novel insights into how digital devices shape both news processes and relations with the online advertising and marketing industries, commercial online platforms, digital visual culture, and other digital content producers

Three ways in which digital researchers can shed light on the information politics of the “post-truth” era

Digital media played a prominent role in the recent US presidential election, with social media platforms channelling previously fringe universes of political culture, rooted in populism and post-truth politics, right into the mainstream of US political discourse. Meanwhile, traditional mechanisms, from polling to mainstream media, failed to adequately capture public sentiment around political events. Are new instruments needed to understand the socio-technical fabric of the post-truth political landscape? And what can digital researchers do to contribute? Liliana Bounegru outlines examples of approaches being developed at the Digital Methods Initiative that hope to assist digital researchers, data journalists, civil society groups and others looking to increase public understanding of these phenomena

Children tuberculosis in the presence of primary immunodeficiency criteria

Introduction. Children tuberculosis (TB) is of primary genesis - represents the response of the macroorganism to the first contact with the source of infection. Latent TB Infection (ITBL) develops frequently in children, and under certain conditions progresses to TB disease, the decisive factor being the presence of primary immunodeficiency (PID). Genetic correlations of TB susceptibility derive from the functionality of TB protection mechanisms: innate and acquired immune response. The identification of children at high risk of developing TB is essential and can be achieved by assessing the presence of criteria for PID. Aim of study. Studying the clinical evolution, diagnostic and treatment characteristics of TB in children with PID criteria. Methods and materials. 40 new cases of TB in children were analysed between January 2020 and December 2021, selected based on a result of the IDR score ≥6 (Immunodeficiency disease related score), considered as a significant threshold value for the suspicion of a PID condition. Results. The average age of the analyzed cases was 6.9 years. The TB screening method was active in 20 (50.0%) cases, passive – 17 (42.5%), active with suggestive symptoms - 3 (7.5%). Symptomatic cases - 20 (50.0%) were manifested by the following TB "masks": pneumonia - 15 (75.0%) bronchitis - 2 (10.0%), neurological - 2 (10.0%), influenza-like - 1 (5.0%). Contact with other TB patients was in 30 (75.0%) cases. The frequency of the PID criteria based on the IDR score were: lymphadenopathy in 31 (77,5%) cases, neutropenia - 26 (65,0%), bacterial pneumonia - 24 (60,0%), acute bronchitis - 22 (55,0%), failure to thrive - 20 (50,0%), lymphopenia - 5 (12,5%), acute otitis media -4 (10,0%), malabsorption - 3 (7,5%), septicemia - 2 (5,0%), osteomyelitis - 2 (5,0%), splenomegaly -2 (5,0%), chronic bronchitis - 2 (5,0%), fever of unknown origin - 2 (5,0%), lymphadenitis - 2 (5,0%), abnormal weight loss - 2 (5,0%), other abcecess - 1 (2,5%), giardiasis- 1 (2,5%), gastroenteritis - 1 (2,5%). BCG immunisation was recorded in 39 (97.5%) cases. Identified clinical forms: TB of intrathoracic lymph nodes – 20 (50.0%) cases, Infiltrative pulmonary TB - 8 (20.0%), Primary TB complex - 6 (15.0%), TB pleurisy - 2 (5.0%), Bone TB - 2 (5.0%), TB of peripheral lymph nodes - 1 (2.5%), Generalised TB (with meningitis) - 1 (2.5%). In all the studied cases, the TB process was in evolution phase. Complications had 5 (12.5%) cases, manifested by: pleurisy - 2 (40.0%), atelectasis - 2 (40.0%), respiratory failure - 1 (20.0%). Microbiological confirmation - 12 (30%) cases, and histologically - 3 (7.5%). The result of the Mantoux test was negative in 25 (62.5%) cases. Treatment for sensitive TB received 29 (72.5%) of cases, and for resistant TB - 11 (27.5%). The treatment results were: completed in 28 (70.0%) cases and cured in 12 (30.0%). Conclusion. Tuberculosis in children in the presence of PID criteria is diagnosed more frequently at an early age, with the development of pulmonary forms and complications