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1 – 10 of over 3000This study explores the evolving dynamics of participatory accountability within humanitarian contexts, where digitally connected crisis-affected populations demand better…
Abstract
Purpose
This study explores the evolving dynamics of participatory accountability within humanitarian contexts, where digitally connected crisis-affected populations demand better accountability from aid organisations, and as a result, shift traditional hierarchies and relationships between humanitarian agencies and beneficiaries.
Design/methodology/approach
This study employs a case study approach, focussing on the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), to investigate how participatory accountability manifests outside formal practices and re-emerges in social media spaces. The study analyses internal organisational challenges and explores the implications of digital platforms on humanitarian practices. The authors employ Chouliaraki and Georgiou's (2015, 2019, 2022) networks of mediation, particularly intermediation and transmediation, to understand how digital expressions translate to offline contexts and reshape meanings and actions.
Findings
The study reveals that social media platforms enable beneficiaries to demand participatory accountability beyond traditional practices, democratising humanitarian response and challenging power structures. These effects are multifaceted, introducing enhanced democratic and inclusive humanitarian aid as well as new vulnerabilities. Digital intermediaries and gatekeepers play pivotal roles in curating and disseminating crisis-affected voices, which, when transmediated, result in nuanced meanings and understandings. Positive effects include capturing the potential of digital networks for democratic aid, while negative effects give rise to moral responsibilities, necessitating proactive measures from the ICRC.
Originality/value
This study contributes to the literature by highlighting the impact of digital technology, particularly social media, on participatory accountability. It expands the understanding of the evolving landscape of accountability within the humanitarian sector and offers critical insights into the complexities and dual purposes of participatory accountability in contexts of resistance. Employing Chouliaraki and Georgiou's networks of mediation adds depth to the understanding of digital technology's role in shaping participatory practices and introduces the concept of transmediation as a bridge between digital expressions and tangible actions.
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Mark Badham, Vilma Luoma-aho and Chiara Valentini
This paper refines the Digital Media–Arena (DMA) framework to address the diversity of stakeholders contributing to the production, (re)appropriation and (re)distribution of…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper refines the Digital Media–Arena (DMA) framework to address the diversity of stakeholders contributing to the production, (re)appropriation and (re)distribution of organisational messages in digital environments. It also presents a case analysis for the purpose of demonstrating the applicability of the revised conceptual framework to a critical situation.
Design/methodology/approach
Grounded in key public relations, corporate communication and strategic communication research, this study first extends the DMA framework by introducing six new forms of media-arenas. Next, the study takes a public sector perspective to analyse the revised framework against a critical situation involving the Finnish prime minister in summer 2022.
Findings
The application of the revised DMA framework to analyse the critical situation shows the importance of mapping and understanding diverse discourses across multi-arenas and their communication role in a rapidly unfolding scandal surrounding the prime minister of Finland. Findings also reveal the diversity of stakeholder voices forming their own versions of organisational messages and sometimes converging organisational messages within and across DMAs.
Practical implications
The DMA framework can offer practical suggestions to guide communicators to make strategic choices in what, where, how and with whom they can communicate.
Originality/value
The revised DMA framework contributes expanding the field's knowledge of the strategic communicative use of the digital environment in typically highly volatile and multi-vocal situations by offering instrumental understanding of the conflicting challenge between subjugating and liberating organisational messages across the digital spectrum.
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Deepika Pandita and Fatima Vapiwala
The purpose of this study is to understand the factors responsible for social media fan engagement and experience. The research study also attempts to analyze the significance of…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to understand the factors responsible for social media fan engagement and experience. The research study also attempts to analyze the significance of adopting digital strategies with a fan-centric approach for sports organizations.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors conducted 18 semi-structured interviews with managers in different sports organizations and fans of various popular sports leagues and clubs in India. The authors used a qualitative exploratory approach by applying coding and thematic analysis to arrive at findings and conclusions.
Findings
The responses led to the emergence of three major themes comprising effective planning, harnessing fan participation and boosting the quality of experience. Building on these themes, the authors recommended the “PRIME” model for sports organizations.
Research limitations/implications
As this study explores the growing importance of fan engagement from the top three sports leagues in India, future researchers can focus on obtaining data from multiple countries and multiple leagues to enhance fan engagement's generalizability. Also with the growing popularity of eSports, the scope of the present study may be expanded based on eSports.
Practical implications
The authors' study acts as an eye-opener for managers revealing that to get active participation from fans, sports organizations will have to be active in social media initiatives. In addition to this, the authors also propose the PRIME model, which elaborates on the aspects of Planning social media programs, Regularization of content creation, increased Interaction with the fan base, Motivation through rewards and Enriching fan experience for effectively harnessing fan engagement and experience.
Originality/value
In the pandemic era, engaging with fans on social media can enable sports organizations to thrive. The authors suggest a “PRIME” model which can aid sports managers in effectively harnessing fan engagement and experience for the managers of sports organizations. The model can also be applied beyond the sports context in anchoring customer engagement and experience through the social media of other business organizations.
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Lilian Anthonysamy and Pravina Sivakumar
This study aims to examine how digital literacy competency can mitigate misinformation in social media among young adults. In recent years, concerns over misinformation have…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to examine how digital literacy competency can mitigate misinformation in social media among young adults. In recent years, concerns over misinformation have triggered a renewed interest in the aspect of digital literacy. Many young adults in Malaysia are not able to differentiate between real news and fake news. Although there are plenty of studies examining fake news, studies examining the mitigation of misinformation through the lens of digital literacy are still rudimentary.
Design/methodology/approach
This research adopted a quantitative approach by conducting a cross-sectional survey among university students in Malaysia to examine how their digital literacy competency influences misinformation. The sample size was estimated GPower software. A total of 134 respondents between the age of 19 and 25 were sampled because young adults in this age group tend to show little difference in their digital literacy level. Structural equation modelling (SEM) was used to examine the proposed model.
Findings
The study results reveal that two of the three domains of digital literacy competence, technical literacy and cognitive literacy, have a positive association in reducing misinformation among university students; however, socio-emotional literacy has the opposite effect. Additionally, the survey also explicates that hedonic motivation helps in misinformation mitigation, whereas habit does not.
Originality/value
Theoretically, this study contributes to the literature by revealing how digital literacy can help in identifying misinformation masquerading as valid information through proper verification and analysis, especially in the digital age where everyone is susceptible to misinformation. The results of the study also contribute to the development of a new digital literacy framework that can cultivate a digitally literate generation who can navigate the informational landscape smartly and therefore distinguish between facts and fake news.
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Khurram Shahzad and Shakeel Ahmad Khan
This study aims to investigate the current practices being implemented against the dissemination of fake online news, identify the relationship of new media literacy (NML) with…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to investigate the current practices being implemented against the dissemination of fake online news, identify the relationship of new media literacy (NML) with fake news epidemic control and find out the challenges in identifying valid sources of information.
Design/methodology/approach
To accomplish constructed objectives of this study, a systematic literature review (SLR) was conducted. The authors carried out the “Preferred Reporting Items for the Systematic Review and Meta-analysis” guidelines as a research methodology. The data were retrieved from ten world’s leading digital databases and online tools. A total of 25 key studies published in impact factor (IF) journals were included for systematic review vis-à-vis standard approaches.
Findings
This study revealed trending practices to control fake news consisted of critical information literacy, civic education, new thinking patterns, fact-checkers, automatic fake news detection tools, employment of ethical norms and deep learning via neural networks. Results of the synthesized studies revealed that media literacy, web literacy, digital literation, social media literacy skills and NML assisted acted as frontline soldiers in combating the fake news war. The findings of this research also exhibited different challenges to control fake news perils.
Research limitations/implications
This study provides pertinent theoretical contributions in the body of existing knowledge through the addition of valuable literature by conducting in-depth systematic review of 25 IF articles on a need-based topic.
Practical implications
This scholarly contribution is fruitful and practically productive for the policymakers belonging to different spectrums to effectively control web-based fake news epidemic.
Social implications
This intellectual piece is a benchmark to address fake news calamities to save the social system and to educate citizens from harms of false online stories on social networking websites.
Originality/value
This study vivifies new vistas via a reinvigorated outlook to address fake news perils embedded in dynamic, rigorous and heuristic strategies for redefining a predetermined set of social values.
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Quang Evansluong, Lena Grip and Eva Karayianni
This paper aims to understand how immigrant entrepreneurs use digital opportunities to overcome the liability of newness and foreignness and how an immigrant's ethnicity can be…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to understand how immigrant entrepreneurs use digital opportunities to overcome the liability of newness and foreignness and how an immigrant's ethnicity can be digitally performed as an asset in business.
Design/methodology/approach
The study adopts an inductive multiple case study approach using social media content. The data consist of over 3,500 posts, images and screenshots from Facebook, Instagram and the webpages of seven successful Vietnamese restaurants in Sweden. Grounded content analysis was conducted using NVivo.
Findings
The findings suggest that digitalising ethnic artifacts can mediate and facilitate three digital performances that together can turn ethnicity from a liability to an asset: (i) preserving performance through digital ethnicising, (ii) embracing performance through digital generativitising and (iii) appropriating performance through digital fusionising. The results support the introduction of a conceptual framework depicting the interwoven duality of horizontal and vertical boundary blurring, in which the former takes place between the offline and online spaces of immigrant businesses, and the latter occurs between the home and host country attachment of the immigrant businesses.
Originality/value
This study responds to calls for understanding how immigrant entrepreneurs can overcome the liability of foreignness. It offers a fresh look at ethnicity, which has been seen in a negative light in the field of immigrant entrepreneurship. This study illuminates that ethnicity can be used as a resource in immigrant entrepreneurship, specifically through the use of digital artifacts and digital platforms.
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Mücahit Yıldırım and Aysel Kaya
To understand the experiences, expectations and suggestions of digital nomads towards intangible cultural heritage in the places they travel.
Abstract
Purpose
To understand the experiences, expectations and suggestions of digital nomads towards intangible cultural heritage in the places they travel.
Design/methodology/approach
The qualitative research method was used and the research design is a phenomenological design. Multiple qualitative research design steps were followed in obtaining the research data. In this context, online interviews were conducted with a semi-structured interview form developed by the researchers, and the social media accounts of digital nomads were monitored. The sample consists of nine digital nomads who were interviewed online and five digital nomads whose videos and comments shared on social media were monitored. The inductive thematic analysis method was used to analyse the data.
Findings
It was found that digital nomads experience intangible cultural heritage elements, especially religious rituals and food culture, and actively participate in activities and rituals related to these elements as well as sharing them on their social media accounts. It was also concluded that the participants expected to work towards the protection of intangible cultural heritage elements through a number of activities such as awareness-raising and education, and that it is difficult to experience cultural heritage in societies that are not foreign-friendly.
Research limitations/implications
The data were obtained from volunteer participants consisting of digital nomads and digital nomads who shared their experiences on social media. It is suggested that traditional food and religious rituals as intangible cultural heritage should be promoted and transferred by sharing the experiences these digital nomads on digital platforms.
Practical implications
Religious rituals and food cultures are prominent in the ICH experiences of digital nomads. Digital nomads who stay longer in their destination than tourists can play an intermediary role in promoting and transmitting this heritage. The social media and other digital platforms enable digital nomads to share their experiences of cultural heritage and create a global dialogue and understanding through these experiences.
Social implications
The experiences and expectations of digital nomads towards ICH require a reassessment of traditional approaches to the preservation and transmission of cultural heritage. By experiencing different cultural heritages and sharing these experiences through digital platforms, digital nomads contribute to the reinterpretation and reproduction of cultural heritage. This process reveals that cultural heritage is not limited to a particular community or geography, but is rather a global phenomenon, and therefore needs to be addressed from a global perspective.
Originality/value
It is one of the pioneering studies on the experiences of digital nomads towards intangible cultural heritage.
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Emerson Rodrigues da Cunha Palmieri
There is a growing worry about people possibly isolating themselves in online bubbles and avoiding contact with ideas that differ from their beliefs, creating a scenario of…
Abstract
Purpose
There is a growing worry about people possibly isolating themselves in online bubbles and avoiding contact with ideas that differ from their beliefs, creating a scenario of ideological polarization. To investigate into this matter, this work aims for a reflection about the contingency of communication in social media. Does social media make the experience of communication in the digital space more contingent (providing it with more possibilities, with people accessing different contents and ideas) or less contingent (reducing the available possibilities, making people isolate themselves)?
Design/methodology/approach
This is a theoretical work, constructed through bibliographical reviews. To reflect about the question that are posed, the author selected Niklas Luhmann's social systems theory to approach the concept of contingency. In addition to that, the author presented the main arguments of the debates about echo chambers and online bubbles. In the end, the author combined the two reviews together using elements of the Luhmannian theory and drew some conclusions about the initial question.
Findings
The study concluded that social media have an ambivalent potential regarding contingency in the digital space: it can both expand or reduce the available possibilities of communication, depending on criteria like topic, potential of diffusion and focus of attention. There is no one-side effect.
Research limitations/implications
The approach at echo chambers does not reflect “the” form of contingency in social media, but “a” form. Therefore, the study cannot provide any general conclusions about the relation between contingency and social media. The digital space is a large one, and more studies are required to achieve more substantial propositions.
Originality/value
The research has an originality value both for systems theory and social media studies. First, because, as far as the author knows, no other system-theoretical argument has taken the connection between contingency and social media as a primary analysis object. Second, because of a theoretical interpretation effort, the studies of echo chambers indicate mixed results about the phenomenon of online isolation, but no attempt was made to make sense of these mixed results from a specific sociological theory. The author did that by using Luhmann's theoretical framework, which proved to be a good tool for explaining and unifying these different results on a more abstract level.
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Barış Armutcu, Rasim Zuferi and Ahmet Tan
The purpose of the current study is to help remove the obstacles to sustainable production and consumption by revealing the determinants of green consumption behaviour, which is…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of the current study is to help remove the obstacles to sustainable production and consumption by revealing the determinants of green consumption behaviour, which is one of the precursors of sustainable economic growth. This study aims to expand the theory of planned behaviour (TPB) model and contribute to the relevant literature by investigating the factors of social media usage, social media marketing and digital marketing interactions that have not been investigated before in relation to green product purchasing behaviour.
Design/methodology/approach
This study examines the effect of the extended TPB model on consumers’ intention to buy green products in Turkey, which has a Middle Eastern culture and is a developing economy. In the study, data collected from 409 participants with the questionnaire method were analysed using SmartPLS 4.0 and IBM SPSS 26 statistical programs.
Findings
The study findings revealed that all the structural elements of TPB (attitude, subjective norms, personal behaviour controls) and social media marketing and digital marketing interactions contribute to consumers’ green product purchasing behaviour. The study findings also demonstrated that the use of social media is not effective in the purchasing of green products.
Originality/value
Understanding consumers’ perspective on purchasing green products is crucial for policymakers, businesses and marketers, as it helps formulate appropriate strategies to support sustainable economic growth. In this respect, this study has important implications for sustainable consumption and production. In addition, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, the study is the first to examine consumers’ green product purchasing behaviour in the context of sustainable economy.
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Annette Markham and Riccardo Pronzato
This paper aims to explore how critical digital and data literacies are facilitated by testing different methods in the classroom, with the ambition to find a pedagogical…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to explore how critical digital and data literacies are facilitated by testing different methods in the classroom, with the ambition to find a pedagogical framework for prompting sustained critical literacies.
Design/methodology/approach
This contribution draws on a 10-year set of critical pedagogy experiments conducted in Denmark, USA and Italy, and engaging more than 1,500 young adults. Multi-method pedagogical design trains students to conduct self-oriented guided autoethnography, situational analysis, allegorical mapping, and critical infrastructure analysis.
Findings
The techniques of guided autoethnography for facilitating sustained data literacy rely on inviting multiple iterations of self-analysis through sequential prompts, whereby students move through stages of observation, critical thinking, critical theory-informed critique around the lived experience of hegemonic data and artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructures.
Research limitations/implications
Critical digital/data literacy researchers should continue to test models for building sustained critique that not only facilitate changes in behavior over time but also facilitate citizen social science, whereby participants use these autoethnographic techniques with friends and families to build locally relevant critique of the hegemonic power of data/AI infrastructures.
Originality/value
The proposed literacy model adopts a critical theory stance and shows the value of using multiple modes of intervention at micro and macro levels to prompt self-analysis and meta-level reflexivity for learners. This framework places critical theory at the center of the pedagogy to spark more radical stances, which is contended to be an essential step in moving students from attitudinal change to behavioral change.
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