Electronic government and civic engagement: Citizen interaction with government via Web portals

This exploratory study examines civic engagement with e-government via Web sites. It provides an analytical framework that integrates both the supply and the demand sides of citizen interaction with e-government. In modeling three dimensions of online civic engagement (government information access, service transactions, and contributing to government policy-making processes), the study framework incorporates a number of variables, including political activism, civic involvement, perceived benefits and difficulties, information channels, and demographic characteristics. Based on a national sample of Internet users, the study highlights the importance of the supply side (availability of e-government) for promoting civic engagement. Furthermore, political activism is found to be related positively to accessing government policy information and contributing to policy-making processes. The study results also confirm the significant impact of perceived benefits in fostering online civic engagement. Future research can benefit from this study by utilizing a more comprehensive model, treating various dimensions of online engagement separately, and conducting an in-depth analysis of the elements of perceived benefits

Exploring the Half-life of Internet Footnotes

Vanishing online references are becoming a problem for scholars. This exploratory study examines use of online citations, focusing on 2003 AEJMC conference papers accepted by the Communication Technology and Policy division. Authors analyze papers using URL reference addresses in bibliographies and document some 40% of online citations being unavailable a year later. Results show that .edu is the most stable domain. Error messages for dead URL addresses also are explored. Finally authors offer much needed recommendations for researchers who use Internet citations

Fact-checking and the 2016 presidential election: News media’s attempts to correct misleading information from the debates

The 2016 presidential race was unprecedented in many ways and brought to the center of public discussion the role the news media must play in correcting information provided by political figures. Unfortunately, the campaign season made Americans too familiar with slanted campaign statements, false claims made by both presidential candidates, and the rise of fake news (Patterson, 2016). The slew of misleading information has highlighted the importance of a specific type of journalism meant to weed out the truth-namely, fact-checking. Looking back at the 2016 presidential campaign, some media critics have questioned how well the media performed, and some even blamed the media for the election outcome (Benton, 2016). In light of these criticisms, the goal of our study is to take a systematic look at the media\u27s attempt to fact-check the presidential candidates during the final stretch of the 2016 race for the Oval Office. We examine how the news media performed their watchdog role by looking at several established criteria for fact-checking in the aftermath of the three presidential debates

Social Media in Political Campaigning Around the World: Theoretical and Methodological Challenges

This is a manuscript of an article published as Dimitrova, Daniela V., and Jörg Matthes. "Social Media in Political Campaigning Around the World: Theoretical and Methodological Challenges." Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly 95, no. 2 (2018): 333-342. DOI: 10.1177/1077699018770437. Posted with permission.</p

Online Journalism and the War in Cyberspace: A Comparison between U.S. and International Newspapers

The 2003 Iraq War was the first military conflict in which online media played a significant role. Traditional news organizations from around the world provided extensive coverage of the conflict on their websites, reaching global audiences and adding new dimensions to traditional war reporting. This study explores how the Internet disseminated news about the war by comparing 26 international newspaper sites (N = 791) and their use of Web-specific features such as hyperlinks, animations, multimedia content, and interactive elements. By proposing a three-stage model of online journalism and applying it to the online war coverage, the analysis suggests that online journalism has not yet reached the state of convergence. The differences in online news coverage between the United States and international websites and their implications are also discussed

Vanishing Act: The Erosion of Online Footnotes and Implications for Scholarship in the Digital Age

A decade ago, most research was done in the library rather than through Web site, and scholars, editors, graduate directors and librarians were meticulous about the integrity of footnotes. They knew that citation was the backbone of research, from agronomy to zoology in the sciences and from art history to Zen studies in the humanities. The footnote upheld standards because it allowed others to test hypotheses or replicate experiments. In sum, the footnote safeguarded scientific method and peer review upon which academe is based, from papers by first-year and transfer students to books by postdoc and professor. Since 2003, authors Michael Bugeja and Daniela Dimitrova (Iowa State University of Science and Technology) have been at the forefront of research on the erosion of online footnotes and its implication for scholarship. Their research has been showcased in The Chronicle of Higher Education and a number of academic journals, including The Serials Librarian, Portals: Libraries and the Academy, New Media and Society and Journalism and Mass Communication Educator, among others. Their book documents the vanishing act in flagship communication journals and provides readers with methods to mitigate the effect.https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/jlmc_books/1001/thumbnail.jp

COVID-19: THE IMPACT OF THE PANDEMIC ON PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES

The COVID-19 pandemic from the beginning of 2020 to the end directly affected the health and general well-being of people with disabilities—the world’s largest minority, constituting approximately 15% of the world’s population. People with disabilities are more severely affected by the institutional barriers during the COVID-19 crisis. In Macedonia, there is no accurate data on the condition of people with disabilities during the COVID-19 pandemic. The aim of this study was to document the impact of COVID-19 on Macedonian persons with disabilities. According to this study, the primary source of support for people with disabilities was their families (72.3%). Friends were less pointed as a source of support (19.6%). From a total of 112 people with disabilities, included in this research, 41.1% answered that they had reduced social interaction due to the pandemic. In general, most people with disabilities stated that they were concerned about the additional cost of food and medicine and that they feared a possible infection with COVID-19

INTERNATIONAL CLASSIFICATION OF FUNCTIONING, DISABILITY AND HEALTH: ADULTS WITH VISUAL IMPAIRMENT

The purpose of this paper is to present an overview of current studies on the general limitations of using the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF), as well as to review the results of its application in adults with visual impairment. The literature search was performed in ERIC, EBSCO-Host, ScienceDirect, PROKUEST, SCOPUS, and Google Scholar. Articles were selected if they reported on any of the strengths and weaknesses of the ICF, also its application to adults with visual impairment. The literature review was performed using the PRISMA criteria. The search of relevant literature revealed 8 articles that met the eligibility criteria. The overall conclusion is that while the ICF is a valuable tool for describing how a person functions, it is not an evaluation instrument in itself

Analysis of the BBC News online coverage of the Iraq War

The BBC and its coverage of the 2003 Iraq War have received much criticism as well as much praise around the world. Some observers have attacked the news coverage of the BBC, claiming it was clearly biased in support of the war, serving as a propaganda tool for the British government. Others have credited the BBC for its in-depth reporting from the war zone, juxtaposing it to the blatantly patriotic U.S. news coverage. This chapter examines the news coverage the BBC provided on its Web site during the 2003 Iraq War and analyzes the themes and Web-specific features used to enhance war reporting

The conditionality of source use: Comparing source use in U.S. and Swedish television news

While there is scholarly consensus regarding the importance of news sources, there are rather few comparative studies on how the media use sources. In addition, most of these focus mostly on the coverage of specific events, and are primarily based on print media. To go beyond these limitations and test the conditionality of source use, this study compares the use of sources in routine news coverage in television news in the United States and Sweden. The results show several differences in source use in Swedish and U.S. television news, but also a more complicated pattern of source use than anticipated. Most importantly, the results point towards the conditionality of source use depending on the type of news story and topic covered. The study warns against tendencies to generalize too far from single country-studies on source use or from comparative studies that are based on the media coverage of specific events or a single medium only