bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
PRIVACY, FACE, AND SOCIAL RESPECTABILITY IN A DIGITAL CHINA
Authors: Ollier-Malaterre Ariane
Published: September 2021

This study attempts to delineate $2 when they use social media, shop
online, and make electronic payments using WeChat Pay and Alipay. It is part of a book I am
writing on perceptions of privacy and surveillance in China and is grounded in an inductive
content analysis of 58 semi-structured in-depth interviews I conducted late 2019 in Beijing,
Shanghai, and Chengdu. Privacy is written with two different words in Mandarin: $2 (a
personal thing you do not wish to disclose in public akin to Western definitions) and $2
(hiding a shameful secret). Most of my interviewees used the latter meaning: $2 . Privacy,
thus, was $2 , understood as $2 (moral face - e.g., purchases of personal medicine,
underwear and sex-related products, or weapons) and $2 (social face - eg., financial
information). Moreover, they perceived the need to hide shameful information $2 : parents
and supervisors, or hackers who would disclose personal information, but less so an abstract
entity such as the government. For instance, several interviewees felt they could “hide on
Weibo” using a pseudonym, despite the real-name registration policy. These findings on
privacy may shed slight on how Chinese citizens view the digitalization of surveillance
through facial recognition monitoring and the building of the social credit system, and
contribute to culture-sensitive surveillance research.
MEMEING AGAINST MAINSTREAM. AN ANALYSIS OF DANK MEMES AND THE PICTORIAL
(COUNTER-)PRACTICES OF MEME CULTURE
Authors: Pauliks Kevin
Published: September 2021

Internet memes are now part of mainstream media culture. On social
media, each day memes are created, consumed, and shared by millions of people. Advertising
agencies create their own memes to promote brands and products. However, memes are also
integral to subcultures on 4chan, Reddit, and Tumblr, where most memes originate from. These
subcultures battle the mainstreamization of memes to protect the independent media making
practice of memeing from outsiders, who they call ‘normies.’ Their weapon of choice are
so-called ‘dank memes,’ which are self-reflexive internet memes that criticize mainstream
memes and memeing. This critique is a form of visual vernacular criticism, which is highly
understudied, especially in regard to digital metapictures such as dank memes. The question
this paper wants to answer is: how are dank memes made and employed to reclaim the
independent media making practice of memeing from mainstream and marketing culture? The
focus lies on specific pictorial practices that counteract the popularization and
commercialization of internet memes. To explore these counter-practices, the paper proposes
a methodology that combines media philosophy with practice theory to stress that digital
metapictures themselves such as dank memes hold knowledge about the media practices that
mainstream memes are made of, and about how to counteract them. To explore this media
knowledge, examples of the meta-meme $2 are closely examined in the context of the subreddit
r/dankmemes. The conducted picture practice analysis suggests that dank memes oppose image
macros, while being criticized themselves as mere shibboleths to meme culture.
FRAMING COVID-19: HOW FACT-CHECKING CIRCULATES ON POLITICAL
FACEBOOK
Authors: Recuero Raquel
Published: September 2021

This abstract compiles the results of a research on how the political
framing of fact-checking posts about Covid-19 may influence their circulation on Facebook.
Our research is based on a dataset of 460 fact-checking posts published on politically
aligned Brazilian Facebook pages/groups. We used frame analysis to discuss how these posts
share fact-checking links. Our results point to the right-wing affiliated groups/pages
sharing more fact-checking than left-aligned ones, but using framing strategies to subvert
fact-checking content to support their beliefs.These results show that fact-checking does
circulate on political Facebook groups/pages that share disinformation (and they circulate
on right-wing and conservative ones), but it is used to reinforce their discourse, rather
than debunk it.
DECOUPLING AS RHETORICAL STRATEGY IN GOOGLE’S GREEN DISCOURSE
Authors: Riemens Rianne
Published: September 2021

This paper examines Google’s green discourse in relation to the
ecomodernist movement and $2 . In recent years, tech companies such as Google have taken a
more explicit position as actors in the ‘fight’ against the climate crisis. Tech companies
often suggest technological innovation as a necessity to deal with the climate crisis,
thereby attempting to develop a form of ‘green platform capitalism’ that presents us with a
better, greener version of its business model. This paper presents a rhetorical analysis of
a selection of the corporate discourse (2019-now) in which Google presents its environmental
efforts, in order to understand how the company frames the relation between technology and
nature. It argues that technology-nature relations are framed through ‘decoupling’, a term
derived from the ecomodernist movement that functions as a rhetorical strategy to highlight
positive connections between technology and nature and obscure uneasy connections. Through
decoupling, Google is able to present its wish to save ‘nature’ without discussing its use
of nature, thus legitimating green platform capitalism. Decoupling, the paper concludes,
thus allows Google to create a narrative of green growth as the only logical way for
humanity to move forward. While this narrative might be attractive, it does not question the
feasibility of decoupling and conflicts with resolutions that centralize degrowth as answer
to the climate crisis.
"IT LOOKS BETTER ON INSTAGRAM": NETWORKED PHOTOGRAPHY AND PUBLIC ART IN MUMBAI
Authors: Savnal Ketaki
Published: September 2021

In this paper, I discuss networked photography practices and selfie
cultures at the Kala Ghoda Arts Festival, an annual cultural festival in Mumbai, to
demonstrate how global digital visual cultures are translated in the urban Indian context,
and offer new ways of thinking about the conceptualisation and experience of art, the city
and the resident. I argue that the desire for networked photography that animates the
assemblage of installations, artists, visitors, curators, camera technologies and social
networking sites, alters ideas of space and place, and object production and meaning making.
I approach the selfie and everyday networked photography as a form of self-expression,
labour (Abidin 2016), locative media (Hess 2015), embodied socialisation (Frosh 2015) and a
mode of photography that collapses binaries of subject/object, spectator/operator and
curated image/curator (Frosh 2015, Senft and Baym 2015). I use qualitative digital methods,
interviews, audiovisual documentation and autoethnography. Through visuals recorded in the
exhibition area at the Kala Ghoda Arts Festival in 2020, I demonstrate how the unique sense
of intimacy and limited field of vision offered by the lens and screen of the camera phone,
turn the exhibition space into a space of embodied interdependence and collaboration. At the
same time, as a result of the neoliberal logic of commodification of the algorithms of
social networking sites, postcolonial place is rendered ahistorical and reinterpreted as a
space for creative photography and the visual production of a global digital
identity.
ENTANGLED AUTONOMY ON AUTOMATED AIRWAVES: THE CASE OF RIVENDELL
Authors: Stuhl Andy Kelleher
Published: September 2021

Rivendell, a free and open source software suite for automated radio
broadcasting, has brought several groups with clashing stances on technology, communication,
and cultural politics into cooperation. This paper treats Rivendell as an opening onto the
politics at play when the liberal ethos propelling free and open source software (Coleman,
2013) meets the autonomy-prizing traditions of independent broadcasting within an automation
system. Complicating this already tense juncture, Rivendell has drawn users and code
contributors from drastically opposed political groups within American
broadcastings—right-wing Christian talk radio networks and progressive community
stations—and has sustained a difficult terrain of working compromise that the activist push
for low-power FM broadcasting inaugurated (Dunbar-Hester, 2014). In this paper, analysis of
Rivendell's open source code base sheds light on its development and helps connect it to
longer histories of media automation and its attendant social frictions. Interviews with
lead Rivendell developers complete the picture of the project's trajectory, of its relation
to the religious right context where the project began, and of the negotiations that have
played out among its developers and its community of users in terrestrial and internet
radio. The ongoing compromises and tensions threaded through Rivendell can offer insight
into an issue that becomes larger and more pressing as media become increasingly complex and
networked: how artists, activists, and media technologists who prioritize independence have
reckoned with their reliance on socio-technical infrastructures whose connections may strike
them as far less than savory.
THE ALGORITHM PLAYGROUND: A CONTENT ANALYSIS OF USER-PRODUCED CHILDREN’S
VIDEOS ON YOUTUBE
Authors: Vogelman-Natan Kalia
Published: September 2021

With early-childhood mobile media device use on the rise, online
video content plays an ever-increasing role in children’s lives. Of the wide variety of
content available to children, user-produced videos on YouTube seem to be most popular.
However, due to the platform’s size and the overwhelming number of child-targeted videos
found on YouTube, scholars have been struggling with how to approach and study this topic.
This study aims to address the gap in research by analyzing prevalent user-produced
children’s videos on YouTube, with research questions focusing on video genres, their
features, and content themes. Drawing on YouTube’s popularity-measurements and video
recommendation algorithm, a corpus of 100 user-produced videos targeted to children was
assembled. A content analysis of these videos led to the identification and
conceptualization of 13 distinct genres of user-produced children’s videos: unboxing,
surprise eggs, finger family, play-doh, nursery rhymes, kids songs, learning, pretend play
(enactment), pretend play (toys), storytelling, arts & crafts, entertainer in character,
and process repetition. Furthermore, the findings indicate that there are often unique
interplays between genre type and the content, the production format, and the overall
quality and educational rating. In addition to shedding light on the importance of studying
child-targeted content on YouTube, this study’s main contribution is a typological map of
the user-produced children’s video ecosystem that future studies from various fields can
draw on.
(IN)DEPENDENCY ON THE HEGEMONIC TO BE HEARD: NEWS-FOCUSED WECHAT
OFFICIAL ACCOUNTS IN AUSTRALIA AS A CASE STUDY
Authors: Yang Fan
Published: September 2021

This paper contextualizes an alternative perspective to a common
academic discourse that ethnic media in the West provide a voice for the marginalized from
the original bourgeois public sphere. The paper investigates an emergent industry –
news-focused WeChat Official Accounts (hereafter WOAs) in Australia. The WOA is an
information broadcasting feature launched on WeChat in August 2013 and then adopted by
Australian-Chinese media entrepreneurs to produce and circulate the ethno-specific news
stories among the Chinese diaspora in Australia and even beyond. From 2019 to 2020, I
interviewed 24 media professionals to understand the internal working of news-focused WOAs
in Australia. I argue that the anatomy of these Chinese-language digital media organizations
reveals their financial independence from the nation-state in contrast to Australian
hegemonic taxpayer-sponsored media. Contrary to many media scholars have argued,
news-focused WOAs do not completely represent antithetical voices to Australian English
media. The commercial imperative does not translate well into agonistic pluralism.
News-focused WOAs are attached to the hegemonic journalism and internalize interethnic
racism alongside white supremacist discourse against black people in order to be part of the
dominant media structure.
SOCIAL COLLECTIVES AND NETWORKED MOVEMENT: DIFFUSION DYNAMICS IN THE
GERMAN-SPEAKING #FRIDAYSFORFUTURE NETWORK ON TWITTER
Authors: Zhang Xixuan
Published: September 2021

Initiated by Greta Thunberg and carried by students who skip school
every Friday to call for climate justice and the safeguarding of their future,
FridaysForFuture emerged and proliferated along with both recognition and criticism. This
study analyzes diffusion dynamics and connectivity formation in the German-speaking
#FridaysForFuture network from its emergence to its expansion. Based on a diffusion network
and cascade analysis (N = 238,458), it presents how different diffusion dynamics facilitated
the emergence of #FridaysForFuture on Twitter. According to findings, FFF activists and
organizations are the leading intermediaries and activators for movement diffusion. Most of
the tweets in #FridaysForFuture are about activism, introducing the movement, and calling
for action. During the development, news, liberal left, and right-wing actors joined,
bringing discussions about the movement, the youth, and leading activists to the
Twittersphere. While cascades by FFF clusters were more likely to gain attention and spread
farther, faster, and deeper, cascades activated by right-wing actors were greater, but not
broader, faster, or deeper. In contrast to the reciprocal reposting activities between
left-wing and activist groups, right-wing actors are relatively isolated, expressing
criticism of the movement. This study shows that the German-speaking #FridaysForFuture
network serves as a facilitator of offline movements and features a public arena of
political discourses. Through the mobilization endeavors of FFF clusters, engagement of
left-wing hubs, and the counter-public of right-wing actors attacking the movement, it
gained continuity and momentum to flourish.
AOIR ETHICS PANEL 1: PRACTICES AND ROADMAPS
Authors: Vaughan Antonia , Eneman Marie , Hård af Segerstad Ylva , Nilsson Stefan , Olsson Maria , Zheng Tian , Zaugg Isabelle , Reeve Jonathan , Zimmer Michael
Published: September 2021

This panel is one of two sessions organized by the AoIR Ethics Working Committee. It collects four papers exploring a broad (but shared) range of practices that present ethical challenges in internet research, while also providing possible roadmaps towards addressing these concerns. These include: the risks and challenges researchers face when researching far-right communities online; the ethical dilemmas faced when researching online sexual crimes involving children; the ethical grey zones researchers have to navigate when research environments fail to provide appropriate tools and protocols to keep pace with changing regulations; an analysis of data ethics syllabi in order to provide a framework to guide how we teach data and internet ethics. Taken together, the papers in this panel discussion engage with novel domains of internet research and shine a light on the unique ethical questions increasingly confronting researchers, while also striving to provide possible guidance on how to start addressing these dilemmas. These papers are among those under consideration for publication in a special issue of the Journal of Information, Communication and Ethics in Society associated with the AoIR Ethics Working Committee and AoIR2021.
NEOLIBERAL CARTOGRAPHY: A VISUAL-SEMIOTIC ANALYSIS OF THREE NAVIGATION
APPS
Authors: Baum Igal , Ribak Rivka
Published: September 2021

The proposed presentation adopts visual-semiotic tools to analyze the
virtual environment conjured by the apps Waze, Moovit and Gett. Recent work has pointed to
the complicated relationship between maps and the spaces they purportedly depict,
interpreting maps as simulacra that are intimately intertwined in the ideology and design of
gaming. In the presentation, we develop a semiotic walkthrough method that allows us to
identify four representational practices of these widely used navigation apps: the map is
personalized and adopts the perspective of the user – in Waze the arrow represents the user
rather than e.g. the North; the map is commercial in that it is informed by the economic
model of the app, e.g Waze presenting only those gas stations that pay the company; the map
offers a visual depiction of time – arguably, time rather than space is its raison d’être;
and lastly, the map is reflexive, incorporating users’ data both to regulate their behavior
(speed alert) and to seemingly subvert surveillance (police alert). In this cartographic
regime, the map user adopts a “self as business” (Gershon, 2017) logic in which navigation
must constantly create value, as the map becomes less a tool for regulating behavior and
more, a tool for producing it (Zuboff, 2019).
CROWDFUNDING IN REMOTE CONFLICTS: BOUNDING THE HYPERCONNECTED BATTLEFIELDS
Authors: Boichak Olga , Asmolov Gregory
Published: September 2021

Recent political conflicts in Eastern Europe, including the armed conflicts in Ukraine, Nagorno-Karabakh, and Belarus have demonstrated that the scope of digitally mediated participation in war-related activities goes far beyond the information domain. In this context, a rapidly emerging sociomaterial practice is the use of crowdfunding platforms to provide aid to the conflict-affected military and civilian populations. Situating the inquiry in this empirical context, we ask: how do crowdfunding platforms constitute relationships between spectators and the hyperconnected battlefield, and what is the role of remote human suffering therein? Drawing on data craft, a theory/method package for critical internet studies, we investigate two sets of boundary objects that mediate the connection between zones of conflict and their remote participants. We find that conflict-related crowdfunding is a new form of identity proclamation with regard to the users’ positionality, which creates the conditions of possibility for post-conflict reconstruction and a future after the military conflict. This suggests that representations of distant human suffering are not the only mediators between spectators and the hyperconnected battlefield, adding a new research direction to our understanding of values that drive remote humanitarianism in the digital age.
DATA CITIZENSHIP: DATA LITERACIES TO CHALLENGE POWER IMBALANCE
Authors: Carmi Elinor , Yates Simeon
Published: September 2021

In this paper we present the findings from the third phase of our
(redacted) project on citizens data literacies. The data literacies framework we developed -
Data Citizenship - stemmed from an analysis of recent literature on data and digital
literacy combined with ideas from democratic education. In particular, we focus on the power
imbalance between citizens and ‘big-tech’ and government entities who access, process and
use data about citizens and their networks. We argue that due to its collective, socially
contextualised, and people-centred qualities, democratic education provides a useful
foundation for future data literacy education and research interventions. Following an
extensive literature review (first phase), and then a UK nationally representative survey
(phase 2), we have conducted focus groups during Autumn 2020 and Winter 2021 with
citizens.
ALGORITHMIC IMAGINARIES IN THE MAKING: BRAZILIAN UBERTUBERS ENCOUNTERS
WITH SURGE PRICING ALGORITHMS
Authors: Guerra Ana , De Brito d'Andréa Carlos Frederico
Published: September 2021

This paper explores the algorithmic imaginaries associated with
Uber's surge pricing, a central mediator of Uber drivers' labor experience. Surge pricing
can be described as an algorithmically driven mechanism that uses price adjustments as
financial incentives to redistribute the workforce on a territory. Inspired by Critical
Algorithm Studies, we argue that this mechanism of governance is not passively incorporated
by drivers and that their everyday encounters with surge pricing algorithms are productive
of imaginaries and valid forms of knowledge that orient their practices. We approach this by
mapping and analyzing how popular Brazilian Uber drivers on YouTube (the “UberTubers”, as we
propose) discuss surge pricing in their channels. Based on 59 videos about surge pricing
posted at the seven most popular Brazilian Ubertuber’s channels, we outline three main
topics approached: (a) What is surge pricing and what does it do?; (b) Tactics to benefit
from surge pricing; (c) Algorithmic Labor as a laboratory. Among our findings, we identified
that some Ubertubers produce and share their own visual inscriptions to explain how surge
pricing works. Through the engagement with their audience, Ubertubers collectivize their
experiences and imaginations potentially transforming how various other drivers incorporate
surge pricing into their own tactics and daily routines. These channels provide us with
something similar to an “archive” of surge pricing’s many versions and facets and offer us
the opportunity to learn how algorithms are perceived and how they shape labor on a
micropolitical level.
THE GOVERNANCE OF FACEBOOK PLATFORM
Authors: Helmond Anne , Van der Vlist Fernando , Burkhardt Marcus , Seitz Tatjana
Published: September 2021

Competition authorities and regulators worldwide recognise application programming interfaces (APIs) for powering the digital economy and driving processes of datafication and platformisation. However, it is unclear how APIs tie into the power of, and governance by, large digital platforms. This paper traces the relationality between Facebook’s APIs, platform governance, and data strategy based on an empirical and evolutionary analysis. It examines a large corpus of (archived) developer pages and API reference documentation to determine the technicity of platform governance – the technical dimension and dynamics of how and what platforms like Facebook seek to govern. It traces how Facebook Platform evolved into a complex layered and interconnected governance arrangement, wherein technical API specifications serve to enforce (changes to) platform policy and (data) strategy. Finally, the paper discusses the significance of this technicity in specifying the material conditions for app and business development on top of platforms and for maintaining infrastructural and evolutive power over their ecosystems.
INDEPENDENCE THROUGH DATA JOURNALISM
Authors: Kantor Avner , Rafaeli Sheizaf
Published: September 2021

Data journalism (DJ) fosters audience independence. It encourages
content exploration through visualizations, storytelling, and direct access to data sources.
DJ assists the audience to be well informed, cognitively active, and contribute to the
public sphere. Achieving this objective indicates the audience's independence. How
independent is the audience of DJ? This question is answered based on the level of
engagement of the audience. A low level of engagement prevents the audience from helping
each other to interpret the dominant meaning and to identify its deficiencies. When the
audience is engaged, they are able to reframe the message from a new perspective,
challenging their understanding of the message. By analyzing the audience engagement levels
and comparing different types of journalism we gain insight into audience behavior. We found
a significant correlation between DJ audience engagement and time. This trend may be
explained by the steep learning curve of DJ, which requires a special set of skills, in
addition to the willingness to analyze and discuss interpretations with others. On the basis
of the trend, we can conclude that over time, the audience became familiar with DJ and
adopted it. Results could contribute to the realization of the internet's original promise
to make the general public independent by providing free access to information.
MAPPING HEALTH: HOW DANES EXPERIENCE THEIR DIGITAL HEALTH DATA
Authors: Mahnke Martina Skrubbeltrang , Nielsen Mikka
Published: September 2021

This paper explores how Danish citizens experience digital health
data and how these in turn affect their understanding of digital health data and their
self-understanding as a patient. Previous research on digital health data examines primarily
opportunities and challenges as well as structural effects concluding that having access to
one's medical data is generally beneficial for patients but also comes with literacy
challenges. The aim of this research is to look deeper into personal experiences with
digital health data in order to understand what is at stake when people become digitally
mapped patients and how experiences of empowerment, independence, perplexity, and doubt
intermingle when reading one’s own health data. Taking a user’s view, the paper draws
theoretically on the concept of ‘assemblage’ understanding digital health data as a complex
nexus of user-data relationships. The empirical analysis draws on 16 in-depth purposefully
sampled interviews that have been coded thematically. The primary analysis shows that
digital health data creates unique, deeply emotional experiences that lead towards a variety
of existential questions. Combining the theoretical lens with the empirical analysis this
paper contributes with what we call ‘health assemblages’ that highlight the emerging
relationships and personal emotional attachments users make with their digital health data.
In conclusion, it can be stated that seeing oneself mapped in data creates unique
experiences, often challenging the self-understanding of the patient.
RURAL DATA DIVIDES: CRITICAL FACTORS OF DIGITAL AGTECH ADOPTION ON
AUSTRALIAN FARMS
Authors: Marshall Amber , Turner Krystle , Richards Carol , Foth Marcus , Dezuanni Michael
Published: September 2021

This paper details a qualitative investigation of human factors
relating to adoption of digital agricultural technologies on Australian farms. We employed
an ‘ecosystems’ approach to undertake a case study of a cotton farm’s transition to digital
farming. Interviews and participant observation were conducted across the farm’s supply
chain to understand how the experiences, perceptions, and activities of different
stakeholders constituted a community-level orientation to digital agriculture, which enabled
and constrained on-farm adoption. Technology providers installed a variety of
data-generating technologies – remote sensors, automation, satellite crop imagery, WiFi/4G
connectivity, and a customised data dashboard on the farm. However, the farmers lacked
digital and data literacy skills to access, manage and use data effectively and
independently. Specialist expertise for data translation was required, and support and
resourcing for the farmers to acquire data capabilities was limited. This ‘data divide’
between the generation and application of farm data was complicated by broader issues raised
by participants about data ownership, portability, privacy, trust, liability, and
sovereignty, which have been observed internationally. The paper raises questions about the
level of expertise farmers should be expected to attain in the transition to digital
farming, who in the ecosystem is best placed to fill this ‘data divide’, and what
interventions are necessary to address significant barriers to adoption in rural
communities. It also highlights a tension between farmers’ $2 as decision-makers on their
own properties and their $2 on digital technologies – and the ecosystems that support uptake
of digital AgTech – to inform on-farm decisions.
“YES, I WILL WORK ON MY FREE TIME” – DIGITAL WORK ON AMAZON MECHANICAL
TURK AS THE HISTORICAL CONTINUATION OF THE EXPLOITATION OF WOMEN'S LABOR
Authors: Moreschi Bruno , Jurno Amanda , Lemos Monique
Published: September 2021

In this proposal, we pursue an approximation to Amazon Mechanical
Turk (AMT) women workers to understand their specificities and their layers of dependence in
this environment so pertinent to the “late capitalism” (Crary 2016). AMT is an online
platform where workers perform low-paid services that cannot be efficiently automated. Since
2019, in the Group [Anonymized excerpt], at the University [Anonymized excerpt], we have
carried out projects where we approach these workers in an attempt to understand their
routines, desires and the future of work itself. In our experiences, it has become evident
that women turkers tend to be even more precarious due to gender issues passed to AMT. Also
we concluded that AMT help keeping the women labor power available for unpaid domestic
services and, at the same time, make it profitable for several companies. To understand more
about them, we conducted a survey with 53 women turkers and systematized their responses. We
approached some of them to understand the relationship between Artificial Intelligence and
gender issues, and also ways of better working conditions and more autonomy for these women
workers.
STITCHING THE CURVE: PANDEMIC CRAFT AND FEMINIST DATA
VISUALIZATION
Authors: Moreshead Abigail , Rouse Lauren , Salter Anastasia
Published: September 2021

Feminist scholars are increasingly drawing attention to the ways “big
data” and data representations reinscribe gender and racial inequality, an issue made even
more pressing by the role data has taken in our daily lives since the start of the COVID-19
pandemic. "Stitching the Curve," a knitted pandemic data visualization project by librarians
at the University of Alberta, offers an intersection between digital activism and
craftivism, enabling a material, feminist response to an erasure and minimization of
collective loss. We examine the media coverage around the project, which includes the online
blogs of the project’s participants. Using critical technocultural discourse analysis (CTDA)
as a guiding methodology, we consider simultaneously the feminist, activist framing and the
influence of material and digital platforms on the cultural influence of the work (Brock
2018). Blogging and knitting are frequently associated with craft and writing as an
expression of the domestic and personal, relegated to a feminine and, consequently,
minimized space of care and labor. Through a critical technocultural discourse analysis of
Stitching the Curve, we understand how the project makes a powerful statement in
representing not only the oft-dismissed human cost of the COVID-19 pandemic, but also uses
mediums of representation that challenge patriarchal “big data” collection and
representational practices. Stitching the Curve makes data visualization a rhetoric of
care.
MELODRAMATIC PLATFORMS: THE AFFECTIVE THEATRE OF POLARIZED POLITICAL
STORYTELLING ON SOCIAL MEDIA
Authors: Ní Threasaigh Míchílín , Boler Megan
Published: September 2021

Once a site of promise for democratizing mass communication, the
internet has also become a site of problematic information and polarized affect. Contrary to
claims that polarization is not necessarily encouraged by social media platforms; our
two-year, mixed-methods study of affect and narratives of race and national belonging in
social media discourses of the 2019 Canadian and 2020 U.S. federal elections reveals clearly
polarized collective political storytelling constructing conflicting meta-narratives marked
by a highly affective moralizing tone and clear binaries of us versus them and good versus
evil. Surprisingly, there is very little research that has drawn on either narrative
emotions analysis or melodrama to understand the kinds of polarization that take place
within social media platforms. This talk shares our finding; achieved through our innovative
approach to affective discourse analysis developed through iterative, grounded theoretical
qualitative study; that discourse communities formed according to social as well as
political identities construct these polarized meta-narratives in the genre of melodrama,
readily ensuring the emotional engagement of social media users through “sensationalism and
predictable plot lines of good battling evil, plots and characters that do not encourage
reflection, and refusal of nuance” (Loseke, 2018, p. 517).
STREAMING SMALL SHARED SPACES: EXPLORING THE CONNECTEDNESS OF THE
PHYSICAL SPACES OF MICROSTREAMERS AND THEIR AUDIENCE
Authors: Phelps Andrew , Consalvo Mia , Bowman Nicholas , Smyth Samuel
Published: September 2021

This paper examines how microstreamers either intentionally or
unintentionally share their intimate physical spaces with audiences. While most streaming
research focuses on larger and/or monetized professional streamers, there is emerging
research on ‘microstreaming’—streams whose audiences are often as low as single digits—and
their importance as smaller, more intimate spaces. Given their casual nature, microstreamers
are much less likely to have invested in professional level equipment, or to have dedicated
streaming-specific areas of their homes. Some scholars have argued that streaming from
intimate spaces such as bedrooms can be considered performative, yet our current research
questions the broad applicability of such findings, especially with respect to
microstreamers. One way to understand these shared spaces is through the lens of place.
Streaming represents an event in which the barriers around the “first place” are
intentionally removed, and spectatorship invited. Professional streamers navigate this
knowingly and intentionally whereas microstreamers may not – the shared spaces of
microstreamers can be understood as an unintentional “leaking” of one’s privately held
backstage, made available for consumption by unknown others. In our observations of
microstreamers, we note that 1) their environments are multi-purpose, unstaged, and shared
with others, 2) these others often interrupt or modify the content of the stream in ways
that leverage the space in generating increased authenticity, and 3) these streamers mimic
more professionalized streams in amateur ways that again produce a sense of realism and
endearment. These elements coalesce to provide a unique sense of authenticity and charm to
microstreamer content.
INTO THE BELLY OF THE BEAST: THE RESEARCH ON SOCIAL MEDIA AND COVID-19
MISINFORMATION IN 2020
Authors: Righetti Nicola , Rossi Luca , Marino Giada
Published: September 2021

In this paper we present some preliminary findings from an ongoing
research on a comprehensive corpus of 378 interdisciplinary studies about misinformation and
COVID-19 published in 2020, focusing on the role of social media platforms in spreading and
countering mis- and disinformation. We followed the PRISMA guidelines for systematic reviews
to collect and screen results, and a coding scheme based on methodological and substantive
questions to analyze them. The preliminary results show, among others, that research on
COVID-19 misinformation reproduces a well-known trend of differentiated attention to social
media platforms based on both popularity among users and ease of access to data by scholars,
that online survey distributed via social media has been a very popular approach, and the
presence of a wide range of perspectives, and sometimes diverging point of views, on
problematic information, in terms of prevalence of misinformation, countermeasures, and the
role of social media communication. During the conference presentation, comprehensive
results from the research will be presented.
LOCALIZING CONTENT MODERATION: APPROACHING THE ORIENTATIONAL SPACES OF
FACEBOOK GROUP ADMINS AND MODS
Authors: Rodgers Scott , McLoughlin Liam , Ballatore Andrea , Moore Susan
Published: September 2021

This paper contributes to the burgeoning literature on content
moderation by focusing on its practice in relation to localized social media contexts, an
area which remains under-researched. It makes two key contributions. Firstly, it presents
the results of a study on moderation practices in relation to place-named Facebook groups
across Greater London. Drawing on in-depth interviews with administrators and moderators
from 16 Facebook groups, we focus on exploring how such administrators and moderators
negotiate an apparent ‘orientational’ tension between ‘translocality’ and ‘locality’. On the
one hand, we explore how administrators and moderators oriented partly to what might be
understood as the 'translocal' space of Facebook as a platform. On the other hand, we also
sought to understand how such administrators and moderators orient to the localised
situation surrounding the place-named Facebook group. Our second key contribution aligns
with the conference theme on co-dependence and social media, outlining a conceptual approach
for researching the geographical contexts or ‘place’ of content moderation more broadly. We
emphasize the inherent, practical locality of content moderation. Drawing on a long
tradition of relational approaches in human geography, cultural anthropology and philosophy,
we conceptualize ‘locality’ as something produced through practical action, rather being
pre-given, specific geographical locations. Approaching the place or context of content
moderation relationally, rather than via geographical scales such as local or global, might
not only provide a more context sensitive approach, but also, underline the limits of
large-scale moderation, whether by platforms or governments, or through human or algorithmic
interventions.
ENVIRONMENTAL INFLUENCERS ON INSTAGRAM: CONNECTIONS AND FRICTIONS
BETWEEN ACTIVISM, LIFESTYLES AND CONSUMPTION.
Authors: San Cornelio Gemma , Ardèvol Elisenda , Martorell Sandra
Published: September 2021

Environmental crisis is one of the main issues on the current social,
political and media agenda that has spread to citizens engaging environmental activism in
many ways. This paper focuses on the emergence of a very specific type of environmental
activism in social media that we named as “eco-influencers”. Drawing on our findings of an
ongoing digital ethnography (Pink et al. 2016; Hjorth, Horst, Galloway, Bell, 2017) among
Instagram profiles devoted to disseminate contents related to sustainability and climate
change, our aim here is to explore some controversial issues regarding how they understand
independence in relation to activism, lifestyle, consumption and work. We named these
environmental activist eco-influencers as these profiles develop similar strategies as those
that, according to Leaver, Hihghfield and Abidin as influencers are characterized by: 1)
applying positive self-branding strategies, 2) managing their visibility 3) cultivating
their community of followers adopting storytelling techniques consistent with their
lifestyles (Leaver, Hihghfield, Abidin, 2020: 106). The fieldwork consists in participant
observation in Instagram since July 2020 following the profiles through a collective
research account to maintain interaction and expand our field site until we have an
intentional sample of 60 profiles that allowed us to create a first typology and beginning
in-depth interviews. In this paper we highlight some features that have been raised
regarding their activity as activists and the very notion of “eco-influencer”.
CONTENT MATTERS, FAKE OR NOT: MEDIA CONTENT INFLUENCE ON PERCEIVED
INTERGROUP THREAT
Authors: Steinfeld Nili , Lissitsa Sabina
Published: September 2021

We investigate how consumption of media content leads to change in
perception of an outgroup, and how is such change affected when the content is presented as
false. 403 Israeli participants filled out a questionnaire measuring realistic and symbolic
threat towards EU asylum seekers (EUAS). after 10-14 days, participants read an article
about EUAS. Group 1 read a positive article, group 2 read a negative article and group 3
read the same negative article, followed by a disclaimer notifying that fact-check websites
found the facts in the article misleading and false. Group 4 read a neutral report and a
control group did not read an article. A follow-up questionnaire measured perceived threat
towards EUAS again, as well as participant’s evaluation of the articles. The finding show
that media content has an immediate effect on perceived threat towards EUAS, and the
relevant perceived threat emphasized in each article was significantly changed in the
direction of the article (positively/negatively). The change was similar in the case of the
negative article presented as a fake article. Further analysis shows that participants
evaluated the fake article similarly to the negative article which was not presented as
fake. Apparently, in each group the evaluation of the article (reliability, professionalism,
convincingness, or objectivity) significantly correlated with participant prior perceived
threat towards EUAS. It seems that prior attitude serves as a lens through which media
consumers evaluate content, and the question of whether the facts are true becomes
negligible compared to one’s own inclination and beliefs.
STRATEGIC VISIBILITIES: DIGITIZING THE LATINA INFORMATION WORKER
Authors: Sweeney Miriam E. , Villa-Nicholas Melissa
Published: September 2021

Recent examples of virtual assistant technologies designed as Latina
information service workers are noteworthy objects of study for their potential to bridge
analyses of Latinas’ labor history and information technology. Latinas in the United States
have traditionally worked in blue-collar information technology sectors characterized by
repetitive labor and low-wages, such as electronics manufacturing and customer service.
Latinas information service workers, though fundamental to technoscience, have been largely
invisible in histories of computing. Latina virtual assistants mark a shift in this labor
history by relying on the strategic visibility of Latina identity in/as the technology
interface. Our research explores Latina virtual assistants designed by Airus Media, and
installed as airport workers in airports along the southwestern border of the United States.
We situate the technocultural narratives present in the design and marketing of these
technologies within the broader histories of invisible Latina information labor in the
United States. We find continuities between the ways Latinas have historically been
positioned as “ideal” information workers, and the use of Latina identity in the design of
virtual assistants. We argue that the strategic visibility of Latina virtual assistants is
linked to the oppressive structures of invisibility that have traditionally organized Latina
information service workers.
THE LIMITS OF FACT CHECKING: EIGHT NOTES ON CONSENSUS REALITY
Authors: Vinhas Otávio , Bastos Marco
Published: September 2021

In this study, we review the literature on fact-checking and the
empirical evidence contending that it can correct prior knowledge and false information. We
posit that the growing fact-checking industry is detached from the mis – disinformation
landscape and outline eight fundamental problems with fact-checking revolving around
epistemology, implementation, bias, efficacy, ambiguity, objectivity, ephemerality, and
criticism. We discuss these shortcomings in relation to the establishment of fact-checking
agencies across the world and their role in national elections in the United Kingdom, United
States, Malaysia, and Brazil. The article concludes with a discussion on the extent to which
fact-checking may be effective against false information in a context where consensus
reality has been super-imposed by individual reality.
COVID-19 ACROSS PLATFORM SOCIETIES: EXPLORING THE PANDEMIC THROUGH WEIBO
AND TWITTER
Authors: Yang Zheng , Vicari Stefania
Published: September 2021

Information and communication technologies occupy a central position
in the Covid-19 pandemic. Public response has been deemed extremely important, with social
media platforms playing a key role in both institutional and bottom-up information sharing
processes. The emerging field of platform studies has shown that platforms increasingly
influence how society works; however, such studies often adopt a highly Western-centric
approach. By developing an exploration of Twitter and Weibo use in the early stages of the
pandemic, this study provides a comparative investigation of the role of platforms in
societies. Our findings indicate that during the Covid-19 outbreak, Weibo worked as a
propaganda tool to unite the Chinese people and promote public policies under the control of
the government and the guidance of the mainstream media. Twitter functioned more like a
public discourse platform open to personal expression, often showing the influence of
defined partisan political discourses. We argue that the participatory dynamics
characterising Weibo and Twitter conversations at the outbreak of the pandemic at least
partially mirrored the different ‘platforms societies’ currently developing in China and the
West.
DECLARATIONS OF INTERDEPENDENCE: HOW MEDIA LITERACY PRACTICES ARE DEVELOPED, NEGOTIATED, REJECTED, AND EXPLOITED ACROSS SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS
Authors: Lim Elisha , Sipley Gina Marie , Mohamed Ladan Siad , Tripodi Francesca Bolla Tripodi , Perez Vincente
Published: September 2021

The primary goals of media literacy are laudable: active and critical thinking about the messages we receive and the messages we create. In practice, media literacy standardizes limited ways of knowing and normalizes built-in biases. Subsequently, its narrow emphasis on skill development, particularly the role of fact-checking, content creation, and independent research are all practices that can be exploited, oftentimes leading to the amplification of misinformation. Homogeneous media literacy also assumes that platforms are neutral – codifying a dominant, neoliberal, racist lens as a competency. Social media literacy in particular assumes the norms of proprietary algorithms, arming users with the skills determined by Silicon Valley’s corporate, individualist, white supremacist values. Contemporary high school curricula teaches students to ably brand and promote themselves; adept meme creators are rewarded for racial appropriation and fungible performances of Blackness; vanity metrics foster reputation anxiety in social media’s ‘success theatre’; personal data protection is an arguably futile lesson in privacy that preaches paranoid gated communities; fascist media pundits easily exploit conservative media literacy practice of “doing your own research” to naturalize misinformation. What are the implicitly raced, classed norms of reading "correctly"? What are mundane emancipatory reading practices? What alternative literacy practices do users deploy to reject these individualistic, racist standards? What does interpretive media literacy look like? This panel offers a portrait of what’s missing in media literacy and explores visions of interdependent practices that offer alternative methods of active and critical thinking about the messages we receive and the messages we create.