We Should Not Get Rid of Incivility Online

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.Incivility and toxicity have become concepts du jour in research about social media. The clear normative implication in much of this research is that incivility is bad and should be eliminated. Extensive research—including some that we’ve authored—has been dedicated to finding ways to reduce or eliminate incivility from online discussion spaces. In our work as part of the Civic Signals Initiative, we’ve been thinking carefully about what metrics should be adopted by social media platforms eager to create better spaces for their users. When we tell people about this project, removing incivility from the platforms frequently comes up as a suggested metric. In thinking about incivility, however, we’ve become less convinced that it is desirable, or even possible, for social media platforms to remove all uncivil content. In this short essay, we discuss research on incivility, our rationale for a more complicated normative stance regarding incivility, and what other orientations may be more useful. We conclude with a post mortem arguing that we should not abandon research on incivility altogether, but we should recognize the limitations of a concept that is difficult to universalize

Algorithms, Automation, and News

This special issue examines the growing importance of algorithms and automation in the gathering, composition, and distribution of news. It connects a long line of research on journalism and computation with scholarly and professional terrain yet to be explored. Taken as a whole, these articles share some of the noble ambitions of the pioneering publications on ‘reporting algorithms’, such as a desire to see computing help journalists in their watchdog role by holding power to account. However, they also go further, firstly by addressing the fuller range of technologies that computational journalism now consists of: from chatbots and recommender systems, to artificial intelligence and atomised journalism. Secondly, they advance the literature by demonstrating the increased variety of uses for these technologies, including engaging underserved audiences, selling subscriptions, and recombining and re-using content. Thirdly, they problematize computational journalism by, for example, pointing out some of the challenges inherent in applying AI to investigative journalism and in trying to preserve public service values. Fourthly, they offer suggestions for future research and practice, including by presenting a framework for developing democratic news recommenders and another that may help us think about computational journalism in a more integrated, structured manner

My friends, editors, algorithms, and I: Examining audience attitudes to news selection

Prompted by the ongoing development of content personalization by social networks and mainstream news brands, and recent debates about balancing algorithmic and editorial selection, this study explores what audiences think about news selection mechanisms and why. Analysing data from a 26-country survey (N=53,314), we report the extent to which audiences believe story selection by editors and story selection by algorithms are good ways to get news online and, using multi-level models, explore the relationships that exist between individuals’ characteristics and those beliefs. The results show that, collectively, audiences believe algorithmic selection guided by a user’s past consumption behaviour is a better way to get news than editorial curation. There are, however, significant variations in these beliefs at the individual level. Age, trust in news, concerns about privacy, mobile news access, paying for news, and six other variables had effects. Our results are partly in line with current general theory on algorithmic appreciation, but diverge in our findings on the relative appreciation of algorithms and experts, and in how the appreciation of algorithms can differ according to the data that drive them. We believe this divergence is partly due to our study’s focus on news, showing algorithmic appreciation has context-specific characteristics

Star Architects, Urban Spectacles and Global Brands: Exploring the Case of the Tokyo Olympics 2020

Olympic stadia are often regarded as a political showcase involving a range of influences: the host nation’s international politics, the interests of transnational capitalism along with site-specific meanings and the power of iconic architecture. By examining the 2020 Tokyo Olympic main stadium as a case study, the paper analyzes the controversial Zaha Hadid’ stadium plan in relation to the Japanese nation branding initiative. In doing so, the paper argues that ‘branding’ should be seen as part of an economic and cultural system which seems to enhance the global value of iconic architects and their buildings. Yet, the power of brands can be understood as a contingent entity. This is because its ambivalenct nature entails a tension between exclusiveness and banality; additionally, it could be difficult for branded architects to work across the different regimes of global and local politics; and they are of course also constrained by the logic of neoliberal transnational capitalism. By investigating a major global branded architect, Zaha Hadid and her architecture plan, the paper considers why a new image of Japan could not be adequately created by Hadid’s aesthetics and narratives of the Olympic stadium which should be regarded as a national cultural legacy. The paper then discusses the contested processes of image-making and narrative creation in relation to the representation of Japan in contemporary Olympic culture. The paper concludes with an examination of Kengo Kuma’s architecture language in his 2020 Tokyo Olympics stadium design

User experiences with editorial control in online newspaper comment fields

This article investigates user experiences with editorial control in online newspaper comment fields following the public backlash against online comments after the 2011 terror attacks in Norway. We analyze data from a survey of online news consumers focusing on experiences and attitudes towards editorial control set against a spectrum between “interventionist” and “noninterventionist” positions. Results indicate that interventionist respondents rate the quality of online comments as poor, whereas noninterventionist respondents have most often experienced being the target of editorial control measures and feel that editorial control has intensified after the terror attacks. We conclude that newspapers should pay attention to the different needs of participants when devising strategies for editorial control. Media professionals should also consider changes to increase the transparency of moderation practices

Erich Fromm and the Critical Theory of Communication

Erich Fromm (1900-1980) was a Marxist psychoanalyst, philosopher and socialist humanist. This paper asks: How can Fromm’s critical theory of communication be used and updated to provide a critical perspective in the age of digital and communicative capitalism? In order to provide an answer, the article discusses elements from Fromm’s work that allow us to better understand the human communication process. The focus is on communication (section 2), ideology (section 3), and technology (section 4). Fromm’s approach can inform a critical theory of communication in multiple respects: His notion of the social character allows to underpin such a theory with foundations from critical psychology. Fromm’s distinction between the authoritarian and the humanistic character can be used for discerning among authoritarian and humanistic communication. Fromm’s work can also inform ideology critique: The ideology of having shapes life, thought, language and social action in capitalism. In capitalism, technology (including computing) is fetishized and the logic of quantification shapes social relations. Fromm’s quest for humanist technology and participatory computing can inform contemporary debates about digital capitalism and its alternatives

Personalization Paradox in Behavior Change Apps:Lessons from a Social Comparison-Based Personalized App for Physical Activity

Social comparison-based features are widely used in social computing apps. However, most existing apps are not grounded in social comparison theories and do not consider individual differences in social comparison preferences and reactions. This paper is among the first to automatically personalize social comparison targets. In the context of an m-health app for physical activity, we use artificial intelligence (AI) techniques of multi-armed bandits. Results from our user study (n=53) indicate that there is some evidence that motivation can be increased using the AI-based personalization of social comparison. The detected effects achieved small-to-moderate effect sizes, illustrating the real-world implications of the intervention for enhancing motivation and physical activity. In addition to design implications for social comparison features in social apps, this paper identified the personalization paradox, the conflict between user modeling and adaptation, as a key design challenge of personalized applications for behavior change. Additionally, we propose research directions to mitigate this Personalization Paradox

“Public Service” and the Journalism Crisis: Is the BBC the Answer?

Professional journalism is under extraordinary pressure: not only are its traditional business models under enormous strain but it is also regularly accused by the Right of peddling ‘fake news’ and criticized by the Left for failing to play a robust monitorial role. In this situation, there is a temptation to see public service media, and the BBC in particular, as beacons of light in an otherwise gloomy picture. This article attempts to provide a note of caution to those who see the public service model as the most effective means of holding power to account and as the most desirable alternative to the flawed news cultures of both commercial and authoritarian landscapes. It considers some of the structural and institutional factors that constrain the BBC’s journalism and suggests that its intimate relationship with elite power has long undermined its ability to act as a reliable and independent check on power