Centrality of Youth Engagement in Media Involvement

Contextualized within the popularity of new media, youth engagement is a very important concept in the practice of public involvement. Guided by the current literature on youth engagement and media studies, this chapter examines the key engagement-related notions involving youth and media usage. Being informed by a variety of case studies on youth engagement through the use of media within various contexts globally, the chapter discusses the opportunities and challenges of engaging youth through media involvement. The specific notions covered in this chapter include (1) the role of “hybrid” media in youth engagement, (2) “intersectionality” illustrating the diversity of youth populations and their media usage, (3) meaning-making through media involvement among youth, and (4) building global social relationships and social and cultural capital through youth’s media usage. Importantly, the use of new media can be seen as a means of reclaiming and reshaping the ways in which youth are engaged, as key meaning-making processes, to address personal, social, and cultural issues

The adoption and usage of smartphone media technologies as a source of news by Egyptian university students

Copyright © 2019, IGI Global. This study examines the adoption and use of smartphones as a source of news by Egyptian university students. The study was applied on a random sample of 400 university students, whom already have smartphones. This study was guided by the uses and gratification theory to explore the use of smartphones among university students as a news resource. The study used quantitative research methodology in the form of a survey. Information was collected using a self-administrated questionnaire between March 2018 and April 2018. Findings showed that although Egypt is not one of the oil-rich countries, most of the university students are heavy smartphone users and the vast majority (87.5%) of them are accessing news via their smartphones. More importantly, the findings revealed that university students mainly used smartphones to get general information (47.5%), Egypt’s news (37.5%), entertainment (29.25%) and follow world’s news (27.75%). Finally, findings showed that (70%) of students use their smartphones to follow current affairs, while 67.5% said that smartphones helpe them to communicate with their friends

A Systems Dynamics Simulation Study of Network Public Opinion Evolution Mechanism

The factors that affect formation and dissemination of public opinion have been studied for a long time. However, the findings are disparate and fragmented, given the characteristics of netizens and new media in the Big Data era. To this end, this article introduces eight mechanisms working on formation and dissemination of public opinion on network. Based on system dynamics, this article further proposes a comprehensive causal relationship model to explore the factors affecting the consequence of public opinion on network. Particularly, the role of government is taken into consideration in this model. A simulation with Vensim PLE is conducted. The results of the simulation indicate that group polarization among netizens, opinion leaders, the quantity of media audience, the frequency of media report, government attention, and warning mechanism for public opinion crisis affect the consequence of public opinion on network significantly. Implications of the findings are discussed

The impact of mobile phone uses in the developing world: giving voice to the rural poor in the Congo

In recent years, the rise of information and communication technologies (ICTs) contrasted with the dire living conditions of the world’s poorest has been the subject of debate among industry and academia. However, despite the amount of writings produced on mobile phones, Western bias is surprisingly unbridledly prevailing alongside the fêted dissemination of mobile phones. Expansive literature tends to present the rapid adoption of mobile phones among rural individuals, with little to no indication of how local values and voices are respected or promoted. We undertook semi-structured interviews with 16 rural chiefs to inquire into ways in which mobile phones enabled socio-economic development in the rural Congo. Rather than using quantitative, large-scale, or top-down data, we sought to give voice to chiefs themselves about the role of mobile phones. We found that Western bias dominates the literature and deployment of mobile phones more than usually acknowledged. We suggested some paths forward, while bringing the African communal Utu or Ubuntu culture to the center stage