bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
THE QUALITY OF SURVEY SCALES FOR MEASURING INFORMATION PRIVACY CONCERNS ON SOCIAL NETWORK SITES: A SYSTEMATIC REVIEW
Authors: Bartol Jošt , Petrovčič Andraž , Vehovar Vasja
Published: September 2021

Information privacy concerns (IPCs) play an important role in user behavior on social network sites (SNSs). They are associated with self-disclosure behavior, enjoyment, and, perhaps most importantly, a user’s intention and ability to form and sustain social ties on SNSs. While conceptual integration of different approaches to studying IPCs has already been pursued, prior research has pointed to potential problems with respect to the survey measurements of IPCs. More specifically, a plethora of self-assessment scales have been developed but the differences among them have not yet been systematically elaborated, and this is further complicated by many methodologically questionable adaptations of existing IPC survey scales to ever-emerging online contexts and SNS platforms. Accordingly, this study comprises a systematic literature review based on the COSMIN methodology to comprehensively examine the quality of survey scales used for measuring IPCs among SNS users. The results have unveiled significant variety with 35 uni- or multidimensional survey scales used in 71 articles published since 2009. Many of the scales are of questionable quality in terms of structural validity, and only a few of the studies tested them for measurement invariance. Nevertheless, we identified some scales that are promising candidates for future use, although further testing and potential improvements are needed. Our findings could also act as the foundation for a unified measurement approach to IPCs that could be used across different SNSs platforms.
DEVELOPING A MOBILE GAMES DATABASE: TRACING INTERDEPENDENCIES AMONG EARLY MOBILE GAMES
Authors: De Souza e Silva Adriana , Glover-Rijkse Ragan
Published: September 2021

Mobile games have been around since at least the 1970s, serving as an important foundation to today’s ludic and digital cultures. Understanding the history of mobile games is relevant because mobile games link digital culture and urban mobility, and they promote sociability. However, reclaiming the history of mobile games poses a challenge to researchers. Many early mobile games are no longer on the market or are expensive to acquire. Others were ephemeral in nature, leaving behind few traces of their existence. To respond to these challenges, we have developed an online, publicly searchable database of mobile games, developed between 1975 and 2008. This database offers a centralized repository where researchers can search for games by using a wide range of criteria, such as title, time frame, genre, type of connectivity, number of players, place of development, authors, and hardware. This paper discusses the process for developing this database, emphasizing the interdependent relationship between theory and practice. It also discusses interdependence as a value for research, more broadly. The database was developed in collaboration with scholars/practitioners across disciplines, and its future robustness depends on the ability to crowd-source information that is scattered across the web and in archives. We argue that the pursuit of interdependence, rather than independence, helps to fuel research, widen perspectives, and disrupt normative frameworks guiding research. It is our hope that the database will improve the process of researching mobile games and serve as a historical record for an increasingly meaningful aspect of culture and social life.
VERTICAL OR HORIZONTAL? AN EMPIRICAL INVESTIGATION OF THE ROLE OF PRIVACY LITERACY AND PRIVACY SELF-EFFICACY ON THE DIMENSIONALITY OF PRIVACY
Authors: Epstein Dmitry , Quinn Kelly
Published: September 2021

The goals of this study are two-fold. We extend established models linking attitudes related to privacy concerns and privacy protecting behavior (PPB) by (a) differentiating between horizontal (social) and vertical (institutional) orientations of PPB as capturing an aspect of privacy multidimensionality, and (b) introducing additional explanatory factors such as privacy literacy and privacy self-efficacy into the modeling of PPB. We survey a representative sample of 686 US social media users to test relationships between privacy concern, trust, privacy self-efficacy, privacy literacy, and vertical and horizontal PPB. We find privacy concerns contribute to horizontal and vertical PPB at different levels, reinforcing the dimensionality of privacy. We also find that privacy literacy and privacy self-efficacy are important factors in explaining dimensional privacy behaviors and moderate the established relationships between privacy concerns and PPB.
NARRATIVES IN AMERICA: THE CONNECTION BETWEEN AFFECTIVE POLARIZATION AND
VICTIMHOOD IN THE 2020 US ELECTION
Authors: Gharib Hoda , Boler Megan
Published: September 2021

This study explores the emotions, beliefs, and deep stories about the
self and other that are held by individuals on the political right and left in America in
order to understand the manifestation of affective polarization during divisive historical
moments. It also documents expressions of victimhood, villainhood, and privilege to
determine how they intersect with narratives about the ingroup and outgroup. Horwitz (2018)
argues that victimhood has become a desirable status in American politics and is thus a site
of contestation. Therefore, we ask: what beliefs and emotions do individuals hold about the
ingroup and outgroup and how do these contribute to exacerbating affective polarization? We
conducted a four-month digital ethnography before, during and after the 2020 US election and
developed an innovative approach to affective discourse analysis through an iterative,
grounded study in order to analyse Facebook, Twitter, and Gab content. We coded 2500
cross-partisan posts/comments that focused on the January 6 Capitol events and election
outcome/fraud and were underscored by themes of race and partisanship. Individuals on the
political right and left expressed deep distrust towards the outgroup but thankfulness to
those speaking their own narrative. Findings also indicate that affective polarization has
deeper roots in feelings of bitterness and resentment of the other. These are linked to the
ingroup’s narrative of victimhood/blame and serve to strengthen the boundaries of ingroup
and outgroup identities as membership in the group becomes defined in part by the
recognition (or lack thereof) of that group’s pain and oppression.
NOT FAR ENOUGH: HOW WORKPLACE HARASSMENT POLICIES FAIL TO PROTECT SCHOLARS FROM ONLINE ABUSE
Authors: Gosse Chandell Enid , Hodson Jaigris , Veletsianos George
Published: September 2021

Over the last decade online spaces and digital tools have become a central part of scholarly work and research mobilization (Carrigan, 2016). However, the integration and reliance on these technologies into scholars’ work lives have heightened their online visibility, which has opened the door to new experiences of online abuse. Previous research shows that online abuse has negative impacts on scholars’ work, and that they are left to deal with the consequences of online abuse primarily on their own, with little support from their institution (Authors, 2018a; 2018b). Given the importance of online spaces/tools in scholars' lives and the detrimental impacts of harassment, colleges and universities must recognize the risks associated with online visibility and have policies in place that address those risks. In this paper we analyze 41 workplace policies that deal with harassment and discrimination from Canadian Universities and Colleges to understand what these institutions propose to do about online abuse. We use Bacchi’s (2012) ‘What’s the problem represented to be?’ (WPR) approach. This approach encourages examination of the assumptions and conceptual logics within the framing of a problem in order to understand implicit problem representations. Early analysis identified two problems common across the 41 policies that limit their ability to offer protection and/or support in many cases of online abuse: the first limitation focuses on who the policies apply to, and the second on where the policies apply.
LIZIQI AND CHINESE RURAL YOUTUBE VIDEOS: SCOPING A GENRE
Authors: Guo Chen , Abidin Crystal
Published: September 2021

With Chinese rural village videos and their followers proliferating exponentially on YouTube, these influencers have been empowered by digital technologies. Hence, it is important to scope the genre of Chinese rural YouTubers and analyze rural Chinese videos because the genre has aroused cultural, economic, and societal influence. At present, the most popular and globally prolific Chinese rural influencer on YouTube is Liziqi (李子柒). The Chinese government has sought various collaborations to leverage on the global scale of her internet celebrity. This article aims to map out the emergent genre of Chinese rural influencers on YouTube and consider how they empower themselves with internet technologies and use the internet to gain independence on YouTube. While independence is frequently assumed to be about progressive politics, in the context of China, it can also reveal an attachment to individualization. This study relied on YouTube’s algorithmic recommendation of videos to understand how the platform ‘categorizes’ and ‘promotes’ related content to viewers.We manually amassed a corpus of 3480 video links from 205 channels in February 2021.Guided by grounded theory (Glaser & Strauss 2017), we closely surveyed various elements of 5 videos from the top 5 subscribed channels. We present three preliminary findings in this abstract. First, the genre of Chinese rural YouTube videos is constituted by some necessary elements in the video content.Second, we found these YouTubers engaged with themes of rurality, nostalgia, orientalism, exoticism, and commodification in the videos.Third, we found that Chinese rural YouTubers use digital technologies to empower themselves.
STAYING IN THEIR LANES: ISSUE OWNERSHIP IN THE 2016 AND 2020 U.S. PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGNS ON FACEBOOK AND TWITTER
Authors: Hemsley Jeff , Stromer-Galley Jennifer , Rossini Patrícia , Smith Alexander
Published: September 2021

Prior research has identified issue-ownership across partisan lines, with Republicans seen to focus on issues such as taxes and national defense, and Democrats more likely to focus on social issues and welfare. Given the complexities of the primary race, with candidates aiming to differentiate themselves within their own party, we ask whether the candidates in both parties engage in creating “lanes” by owning specific policy topics. Use supervised machine-learning and a lexicon approach to classify candidate posts on twelve different political topics, we analyze Facebook and Twitter messages from 17 Republicans and 19 Democrats during the 2016 and 2020 U.S. Presidential Elections. We find that Democrats are more likely to post about the issues on social media, and Republicans and Democrats talk about significantly different topics. We also find that candidates of both parties tended to advocate for the issues they cared about, rather than attack opponents on issues.
ROOM FOR IMPROVEMENT IN THE VIDEO CONFERENCING ‘SPACE'
Authors: Jacobs Naomi Jane , Lindley Joseph
Published: September 2021

The Covid-19 pandemic led to a dramatic shift in the nature of work and collaboration for our design-led research group. In this paper, we describe the experimental use of the Gather Town platform for a variety of communication and collaboration activities. This alternative to standard video conferencing software uses spatial metaphors and attempts to regain some of the affordances of physical co-location such as serendipity and a sense of presence. In creating custom Gather spaces for our team, we found that it brought positive benefits to informal collaboration in work environment. For teaching and workshop facilitation, it created additional opportunities for flexible small-group working with affordances not available with traditional break-out rooms. We also report initial results of Gather being used in a conference setting not just to recreate the liminal, informal social spaces, but as a novel form of interactive paper presentation. While each of these experimental contexts showed benefits of a spatial digital context, we also highlight some of the challenges identified. Through this work, we question future implications for workplaces, knowledge sharing and the post-pandemic world. We ask whether digital tools and technologies should be used not only to attempt replication of physical spaces and practices, but also to explore new opportunities to work in profoundly different ways, that offer independent ways of being.
‘WHEN YOU REALISE YOUR DAD IS CRISTIANO RONALDO’: CELEBRITY SHARENTING
AND CHILDREN'S DIGITAL IDENTITY
Authors: Jorge Ana , Marôpo Lidia , Neto Filipa Fernandes
Published: September 2021

Sharing of parenthood experiences can be performed by ordinary users,
to influencers and celebrities. This paper seeks to understand the digital identity of a
child of a global celebrity through their presentation on social media, and to analyse
qualitatively the visual formats of children’s representation in a platformised digital
environment. It focuses on the representation of Cristiano Ronaldo’s children, especially
his oldest son (Junior), through his Instagram account, his wife’s and his mother’s, in a
two-year period. After identifying the main forms of representation of the children, we
searched for images of Cristiano Junior across image search engines, social media platforms,
sites and repositories; then, we used reverse image search for the identified memes.
Ronaldo’s children are represented at home and family moments, playing and amidst luxury;
10-year-old Junior is presented as the ‘natural successor’ to Ronaldo’s talent for football,
and also takes part in social or business events in public places. Visual representations
created by Ronaldo’s sharenting are specially appropriated into memes that mock the football
celebrity’s narcissism; or the fact that the child doesn’t know how to pose for selfies.
Cristiano’s children’s digital identity and Junior’s, in particular, is populated with
images as shared by parents and wider family, as well as constructed through participatory
culture. An archaeological approach to visual social media content is not without
difficulties, but proved to be fruitful to unpack the tensions of this wide visibility and
the meanings it creates for the (digital) identity of the child.
PROMOTING SELF-HELP—HOW INTERNET USERS PROTECT THEMSELVES AGAINST ALGORITHMIC RISKS
Authors: Kappeler Kiran Juliana , Festic Noemi , Latzer Michael , Rüedy Tanja
Published: September 2021

In today’s digitized society, internet users increasingly rely on online services that apply algorithmic selection, like for instance Google Search or the Facebook News Feed. The algorithms that are implemented in these services automatically select information sets and assign relevance to them. This entails societal risks such as privacy breaches, surveillance, manipulation, or overuse. One way for internet users to cope with these risks, is the use of self-help strategies such as deleting cookies or using an adblocker. Therefore, this article wants to answer the following question: What are the factors that promote internet users’ self-help against algorithmic risks? To do so, we analyze nationally representative survey data for three types of algorithmic risks: surveillance, manipulation, and internet overuse. The structural equation models show that being aware of algorithmic risks (H1), having had negative experiences that are related to these risks (H2) and possessing a higher level of internet skills (H3) are positively associated with the use of self-help strategies against algorithmic risks. Therefore, we conclude that awareness of algorithmic risks and internet skills should be promoted to increase internet users’ self-help. Nevertheless, self-help can only complement—but not substitute—statutory regulation to attenuate algorithmic risks.
ROCKETING SHEEP: AFFECTIVE DISCIPLINE IN ANONYMOUS MOBILE SOCIAL MEDIA
JODEL DURING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC
Authors: Laaksonen Salla-Maaria , Rantasila Anna
Published: September 2021

The Covid-19 pandemic has sparked online discussion in unprecedented
volumes, as citizens use social media to share their opinions and concerns regarding the
prevention measures, for instance. Much of such activity takes place under real names on
popular platforms such as Facebook and Twitter. However, parallel to these platforms more
anonymous spaces remain and flourish, including completely anonymous services such as
Secret.ly and Ask.fm, or pseudonymized services such as Reddit. This study focuses on
Covid-19 related discussion on mobile social media platform Jodel, an anonymous-by-design
social media application that allows messaging users who are geographically close. In this
paper, we explore discussions about the Covid-19 pandemic on Jodel in Helsinki, Finland,
through the theoretical notion of affective discipline. Our data is collected during a
virtual, mobile ethnography that followed the discussions on the #corona channel in Jodel in
Helsinki during 2020-21. We argue that the anonymity of Jodel provided its users a space to
discuss the restrictive measures in a more relaxed manner than real-name-based social media.
This also endows the conversations with deeper and different affective attunement than what
public discussion would. While the discussions contain moral judgments, they were also rife
with humor, irony and distanced spectatorship of the ongoing pandemic, resonating with the
carnivalistic discussion cultures of other anonymous and pseudonymous platforms. We argue
that anonymous and ephemeral platforms like Jodel, where identities and histories are
nonexistent, bring out the affective dynamics of online discussions, and the related forces
that assemble and disassemble communities.
MISINFORMATION OR ACTIVISM: MAPPING NETWORKED MORAL PANIC THROUGH AN
ANALYSIS OF #SAVETHECHILDREN
Authors: Moran Rachel Elizabeth , Prochaska Stephen , Schlegel Isabelle , Hughes Emelia May , Prout Owen
Published: September 2021

When looking at the recent social-political history of America it is
difficult to avoid references to QAnon, a widespread, conservative-leaning conspiracy that
amalgamates numerous conspiracies into a single movement. Central to the movement’s growth
has been a moral panic around child sex trafficking that has served as a gateway for new
adherents to become exposed to broader QAnon rhetoric. QAnon’s co-optation of the
#SaveTheChildren (#STC) movement exemplifies this networked moral panic and has played a
major role in facilitating the spread of misinformation under a banner of moral authority.
This paper explores the proponents of #SaveTheChildren on social media platform
Instagram—paying particular attention to their motivations, tactics and desired outcomes—in
order to explore how networked social movements build knowledge and organize in spaces that
are vulnerable to the spread of misinformation and conspiracy theories. Research is drawn
from an inductive thematic analysis of 1,400 Instagram posts related to the #SaveTheChildren
movement across 2020. Analysis illuminates how the #SaveTheChildren movement is defined more
as an identity based, social-political movement rooted in moral panic— rather than one
focused on truly supporting human rights. Our analysis illuminates how networked moral
panics— facilitated by the affordances and tactics of social media —can bring together
disparate communities to spread misinformation under the guise of activism.
BRINGING THE PANDEMIC HOME: MEMES AS LOCAL POLITICS AT TIMES OF GLOBAL
CRISIS
Authors: Murru Maria Francesca , Vicari Stefania
Published: September 2021

It was late February 2020 when part of Northern Italy entered the
first Covid-19 lockdown of the West. While stories of people fleeing quarantined areas soon
made national headlines, the international news was suddenly reporting of coronavirus
patients connected to Italy all around the world. Against this background, Italian social
media started thriving with Covid-19 humour. On 9 March the lockdown turned nationwide and
became one of the strictest in Europe. By focusing on Covid-19 memes of quarantined Italy,
this article explores the local - and mundane - appropriation of memetic practices, in both
its cultural and political dimensions. We combined digital methods and netnographic
techniques to generate and analyse a dataset of Covid-19 Twitter memes produced by Italian
publics during the first national lockdown. This allowed us to follow the circulation - and
evolution - of memetic practices, explore how cultural fabric contributed to different
dimensions of meme production and categorise the emergence of political expression. Our
findings show that Italian pandemic memes had a primarily affective function fed by past and
present pop culture, local or sub-local stereotypes and popular public debates. Where
political expression did emerge, it was never particularly innovative or new because it was
there to mark previously established communal belonging driven by populist narratives more
than to initiate contentious practices. Ultimately, this work suggests that memetic
practices can highly intertwine with the geographically or linguistically local and point to
the need for contextual approaches able to enhance our understanding of digital practices as
shaped by local publics.
DIGITAL PLATFORMS AND THE DIGITISATION OF GOVERNMENT
SURVEILLANCE
Authors: Ó Fathaigh Ronan , Möller Judith , Bellanova Rocco
Published: September 2021

In Europe today, digital platforms, such as Facebook, Twitter and
YouTube, provide essential means for millions of people to express themselves, engage in
public debate, and organise politically (Poell & van Dijck, 2018). Crucially,
governments are leveraging the power of platforms to impose new forms of restrictions on
free expression, and engage in surveillance of individuals and online activism. This has
profound implications for the rights to freedom of expression, privacy, and data protection.
Further, platforms that once refused to cooperate with governments in identifying users
responsible for disseminating allegedly illegal or harmful content are now expanding
cooperation with authorities, including sharing data about users flagged by law enforcement
and other authorities. As civil society organisations warn, this trend is contributing to
‘invasive and unlawful digital surveillance’ (Amnesty International, 2019, p. 24). This
paper examines how European governments are leveraging the power of digital platforms to
engage in government surveillance online, and assesses the compatibility of these measures
with European human rights law. The paper applies a unique interdisciplinary perspective,
bringing together law, political communication and surveillance studies. First, the paper
examines how platforms’ algorithmic systems shape (and limit) information dissemination. The
paper then critically analyses government-platform initiatives that exist to surveil
citizens and gather information, including new measures under the EU’s proposed Digital
Services Act. Third, it assesses how these measures comply with freedom of expression and
the right to privacy, and concludes with recommendations on remedying problematic elements
of the role platforms play in digitisation of government surveillance.
‘ETHICAL BIOMETRICS’ AND THE FACE OF THE CHILD: THE SURVEILLANCE OF
CHILDREN WITHIN FACIAL RECOGNITION INDUSTRY DISCOURSE
Authors: O'Neill Christopher Allan , Andrejevic Mark , Selwyn Neil , Gu Xin , Smith Gavin
Published: September 2021

In this paper we analyse data gathered through facial recognition
tradeshow ethnographies and interviews with members of the biometrics industry, as we
consider recent shifts in industry discourse towards promoting the ‘ethical’ use of
biometric technology. As the biometrics industry increasingly moves towards a ‘Video
Surveillance as a Service’ (VSaaS) model, the study of facial recognition infrastructures is
becoming a crucial aspect of the interrogation of the Internet of Things. We demonstrate
that the facial recognition industry is acutely aware of critiques of facial recognition
cameras and biometric technologies as enabling social harms related to intrusiveness and
bias (see Stark, 2019), and that members of the industry are keen to promote a more
prosocial public image of the technology. Towards this end we find that biometric monitoring
of children has gained a prominent place in the promotion of facial recognition technologies
as a mode of ‘careful’ surveillance. We identify three key ‘use cases’ in which the face of
the child takes on a prominent role as justifying and legitimating the use of facial
recognition technologies – in the auditing of humanitarian food supply programs, in the
detection of so-called ‘staging’ of family units at the US border, and in the detection of
underage gambling in Australia. We argue that the immanent ‘ethical’ framing of the child’s
face in this context serves to obscure the political ramifications of the extension of
facial recognition and of biometric surveillance tools more broadly.
INTERDEPENDENCE AND INTERVENTION: NEWS ORGANIZATIONS’ CONTRADICTORY
RELATIONSHIP WITH ONLINE COMMENTS
Authors: Rantasila Anna , Väätäjä Heli , Kiskola Joel , Olsson Thomas , Syrjämäki Aleksi , Ilves Mirja , Isokoski Poika , Surakka Veikko
Published: September 2021

Online news comments are intended to cultivate an interdependent
relationship between news organizations and their audiences. However, uncivil online
comments have become a persistent problem that requires constant intervention through
moderation. In this paper, to better understand these interventions, we analyze interviews
of eleven managers of online comments of large Finnish news organizations. By exploring the
views of journalistic managers of moderation, this study contributes new insights to the
discussion about online content moderation, as previous research has focused more on social
media platforms and moderators. Our results suggest that the managers have a complex
relationship with comments. They would like to see more engaging comments but were also
frustrated with the continuous need to moderate the comments. The managers also expressed
concern that uncivil comments keep more constructive commenters from participating, thus
harming the audience relationship. Organizations tend to outsource moderation to third
parties or automated moderation, as moderation is often seen as time-consuming and outside
of the core work of journalists. However, the managers were not satisfied with outsourced or
automated moderation, mainly because of a lack in contextual knowledge, as also noted in
previous research. Reflecting previous literature, our results suggest that some aspects of
uncivil commenting may require alternative approaches to moderation altogether. For example,
some managers suggested replacing comments with other means of interaction. To address the
inherent contradictions in online news comment moderation, we advocate a view that focuses
on cultivating and rewarding civil comments instead of deleting and punishing for uncivil
comments.
CART NARCS AND THE ENGINEERING OF SOCIAL SHAMING AS
ENTERTAINMENT
Authors: Reynolds CJ , John Nicholas
Published: September 2021

With around 160 videos, 160,000 subscribers, and 18 million views,
Cart Narcs is an “elite” YouTube channel. The typical Cart Narcs YouTube video is framed
around the idea of shaming people who do not return their shopping carts. The eponymous
Narc, Agent Sebastian, patrols grocery store parking lots looking for miscreants to confront
and film. When he spots a target, he runs towards them making siren noises. "Cart Narcs!" he
shouts. "That's not where the cart goes!" While seemingly related to established
entertainment genres featuring real people in everyday situations and to prank videos, we
identify significant features in Cart Narcs videos that distinguish them: the lack of a
debrief; the positioning of the Cart Narc as the "nice guy" in the interaction; and the Cart
Narc’s claim to the moral high ground. These features each remove a redemptive moment
present in analogous types of content, resulting in a communicative interaction engineered
to anger people. We ask how Agent Sebastian produces such a powerful emotional response to
his seemingly innocent request that people return their shopping cart and what the logic of
this form of media content might signify. Cart Narcs is a revealing case study in how the
economy-driven logic of participation produces undesirable types of content when it
overwhelms or wholly replaces social and aesthetic logics. Cart Narcs videos are a hybrid
genre concoction that trade people's anger for monetized views, cloaked by the pretense of a
social mission.
REMOTE WORK BETWEEN NARRATIVES OF INDIPENDENCE AND FRACTURED
EXPERIENCES. A QUALITATIVE RESEARCH DURING THE PANDEMIC CRISIS.
Authors: Risi Elisabetta , Pronzato Riccardo
Published: September 2021

This paper focuses on how remote workers experienced their job and
everyday life during the Italian lockdown imposed by the national government to contain the
spread of COVID-19. Specifically, this contribution focuses on the interdependence of work
and everyday life, and the role of digital devices and online platforms during the
home-confinement period, and it explores the consequences of social distancing measures on
remote workers and on their working and personal conditions. The study draws from 20
in-depth semi-structured interviews with remote workers, i.e., individuals which could work
from home through digital technologies during the national lockdown. Results highlight that
during the lockdown, some participants attempted to cope with the unprecedented triumph of
technologically mediated work, others described remote work as liberating and attractive, as
it avoids commuting and allow people to organize their activities autonomously, without
constraints of space and time. However, their initial enthusiasm decreased after a few weeks
of domestic confinement. The experience of remote workers that emerges is a “fractured” one,
which appears as a characteristic feature of forced and continuous remote work. Indeed, the
coronavirus crisis has accentuated the infrastructural role of digital platforms and
intensified the ‘deep mediatization’ of social life and labour, thereby normalizing
transmedia work and the ‘extension of already media saturated working
conditions’.
THE CHESHIRE CAT OF SOCIAL MEDIA: VALUES IN PLATFORM POLICIES
Authors: Scharlach Rebecca , Hallinan Blake , Shifman Limor
Published: September 2021

Value is fundamental for social media platforms, not only in the
economic sense but also in the sense of normative principles like community and free speech.
Policy documents are pivotal sites for the expression of values and present a public-facing
account of the roles and responsibilities assigned to various actors, including individual
users, third parties, governments and social media corporations. While prior research has
examined the construction of individual values such as privacy and transparency in platform
policies, there has been no holistic account of the values invoked in these documents.
Combining a dictionary-based analysis with a qualitative content analysis, we present the
first comprehensive study of the values presented in the policy documents of five major
social media platforms: Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, and TikTok. Our analysis
reveals that policy documents invoke a large number of values that seemingly point to
conflicting priorities and commitments. However, these values can be organized in four
overarching principles that were consistent across platforms: community, expression,
privacy, and improvement. Each principle assigns responsibility for the enactment of these
values and by that allows platforms to limit their ethical responsibility for executing the
values they publicly promote. Values can thus be described as the “Cheshire cat” of social
media platform policies – they look magical, but once touched, may assume a different shape,
pop up in an alternative location, or even disappear.
INTERNET USE AND MENTAL HEALTH IN AFRICA AND INDIA
Authors: Shrum Wesley Monroe , Yevuyibor Jonathan Teye , Thakkar Shriya
Published: September 2021

Prior research has shown that mental health in urban slums is
associated with the a share number of older individuals in personal networks. This
presentation will examine the extent to which that association is mediated through Internet
and social media use. We conducted face to face interviews with residents (minimum 18 years)
in two high density, low income areas of Accra (West Africa) and Trivandrum (Kerala, India),
where local teams have conducted repeated studies of personal networks since 1994. Our
preliminary results show that mobile phones are primary way in which respondents communicate
with members of their core networks. Further preliminary results show that while research in
high income areas has generally shown the importance of larger networks for positive mental
health, our analysis of urban slums reveals a different pattern. First, there is no general
association of larger networks with reduced symptoms of anxiety and depression. Second, one
particular group of relationships is strongly associated with depression and anxiety: ties
with older individuals. The questions we explore are: (1) To what extent are indicators of
mental health related to indicators of Internet and social media usage? (2) To what extent
are indicators of mental health related to indicators of social network size and
composition? (3) To what extent are indicators of Internet and social media usage related to
indicators of indicators of social network size and composition?
PERFORMATIVE MEDIA POLICY: SECTION 230’S EVOLUTION FROM FOOTNOTE TO
LOYALTY OATH
Authors: Sinnreich Aram , Aufderheide Patricia , Perry Neil W.
Published: September 2021

This study examines the legislative evolution of Section 230 of the
Communications Act of 1934, a widely discussed and frequently misunderstood dimension of
American telecommunications policy that provides a “safe harbor” provisionally shielding
internet companies from liability for law-breaking content published by third parties who
use their platforms and networks. Though this provision originated in the mid-1990s as an
effort to minimize the legal and economic risks facing fledgling internet startups, we argue
that efforts to reform it during the Trump era reflected an unprecedented transformation of
an arcane policy point into a highly public subject for “messaging bills” intended
principally to signal political loyalty to the president.
PUBLIC POLICY MEETS PUBLIC SURVEILLANCE
Authors: Strover Sharon , Esteva Maria , Cao Tiancheng , Park Soyoung
Published: September 2021

This research examines cases of several ‘smart cities’ deploying
camera technologies, particularly those augmented by AI and video data capture. Constituent
groups including technology companies, city government employees, and a variety of citizen
groups both directly and indirectly shape the policies for using these systems and the data
they produce, presaging how society might deal with the escalating presence of the Internet
of Things. The social shaping of technology approach contributes to the research's
conceptual foundations while a political economy perspective frames a consideration of the
ethical dynamics in play. The study investigates how seven urban communities frame and
articulate the values and dangers of such systems operating in networked environments. Using
archival data from official documents, the press, local and State ordinances, the study
concludes that police interests have been significant drivers of these systems, alongside
new environmental and management promises for improved cost savings. Public engagement
practices vary, but in general are either nonexistent or anemic. Oversight practices
likewise are under-developed. provides a descriptive picture of how cities view and
experience this surveillance infrastructure and highlights of the policy problems associated
with the city surveillance systems.
BEWARE ASIAN SERVERS: RACIALIZED PERCEPTIONS OF CHEATING AND SKILL AMONG
VIDEO GAME PLAYERS
Authors: Tomlinson Christine , Srauy Sam
Published: September 2021

The resurgent interest in cyberpunk in video game cultures centers
the genre's historical and racially problematic themes. Moreover, competitive/online play
and the attending toxicity, along with recent Covid-19 based anti-Asian sentiments center
the need to theorize the discursive patterns in which these phenomena appear. Taking the
recurring talk on various video game forums of isolating Asian servers because "Asians
cheat" as a site of inquiry, this project argues that the sentiment of isolating Asian
players to region locked servers relies on three entangled discourses: the on-again,
off-again collapsing of various Asian identities to a monolithic Pan-Asia (Duara, 2001),
Korean and Japanese "expertise" through acquired skill viz. their assumed video game
"obsessiveness" (Groen, 2013), and the cheating technological Other seeking to supplant
Whiteness at the privileged center of video games (see Nakamura, 2002, 2009). By
highlighting these discourses and how they function, this project hopes to lend theoretical
nuance to understanding racism in contemporary video game cultures.
DISCOURSES OF VICTIMHOOD AND IDENTITY POLITICS ON SOCIAL MEDIA:
UNDERSTANDING AFFECTIVE POLARIZATION DURING THE US ELECTION
Authors: Trigiani Amanda , Boler Megan
Published: September 2021

This cross-platform digital ethnography examines the nuances of how
emotions are expressed and who they are directed towards within social media in order to
better understand the phenomenon of affective polarization and the increased emotionality
online. As part of a larger three-year SSHRC-funded comparative study between the US and
Canadian elections, the focused dataset for this project draws on grounded theory (Charmaz,
2006) and our exploration of 1800 social media posts from the political left and right
across social media platforms: Twitter, Facebook, and Gab. By examining how social media
users discursively construct representations of self and other through expressions of
us/them dichotomies, this project seeks to better understand polarized political identities
and how social media users emphasize that their morals and values are similar or distinct
from others. How do people on the left and the right feel victimized by the other? What are
the moral and emotional injuries as well as the identity politics upon which they base their
claims to victimhood and simultaneously place blame on the other? How do social media users
rhetorically express their indignation through us/them dichotomizing, to justify their
negative affect as well as enactments of revenge as moral duty? In addition to presenting
key findings, this talk highlights our innovative approach to affective discourse analysis
developed over the past two years of iterative, grounded theoretical qualitative
study.
“DEAR CONGRESS, JUST PLAY DEAD”: TIKTOK’S ABSURD GUIDE TO SURVIVING
#LOCKDOWN
Authors: Vickery Jacqueline , Cardenas Jen
Published: September 2021

This paper examines how young TikTok creators enact strategies of
playfulness and absurdity in response to gun violence and trauma. Through a
ludic-carnivalesque reading of young people’s irreverent engagement with school shootings,
we demonstrate how youth use TikTok to reclaim emotional control of uncontrollable
situations. We situate our analysis of playful #schoolshooting videos as part of an
imitation public that is constituted through practices of mimesis, replication, and
imitation. However, we broaden our focus to consider the latent political potential of the
publics that memetic practices create. Within this framework we ask: What discourses and
shared practices emerge through playful #schoolshooting memes on TikTok and what are the
implications for the everyday politics of youth citizenship? Our methodology consists of two
phases conducted over an 18-month period. The first phase of analysis, performed
August–December 2019, relies on collated systemic searches for specific hashtags and sounds
that young people use to memeify school shootings. In the second phase, we identified two
seemingly unrelated events that young people discursively and memetically linked to school
shootings: COVID-19 lockdowns from March-May 2020 and the storming of the U.S. Capitol
building by radicalized Trump supporters on January 6, 2021. By analyzing these practices
through the lens of the ludic-carnivalesque, patterns reveal the ways young people enact
strategies to demarcate boundaries, articulate cogent critiques of policies and policymakers
that do not prevent school shootings, and to turn painful and traumatic realities into a fun
and harmless Bakhtinian carnival.
WHAT PERSONALISATION CAN DO FOR YOU! OR, HOW TO DO RACIAL DISCRIMINATION
WITHOUT RACE
Authors: Wark Scott , Phan Thao
Published: September 2021

Between 2016 and 2020, Facebook allowed advertisers in the United
States to target their advertisements using three broad “ethnic affinity” categories:
“African American,” “U.S.-Hispanic,” and “Asian American.” This paper uses the life and
death of these “ethnic affinity” categories to argue that they exemplify a novel mode of
racialisation made possible by machine learning techniques. These categories worked by
analysing users’ preferences and behaviour: they were supposed to capture an “affinity” for
a broad demographic group, rather than registering membership of that group. That is, they
were supposed to allow advertisers to “personalise” content for users depending on
behaviourally determined affinities. We argue that, in effect, Facebook’s ethnic affinity
categories were supposed to operationalise a “post-racial” mode of categorising users. But
the paradox of personalisation is that in order to apprehend users as individuals, platforms
must first assemble them into groups based on their likenesses with other individuals. This
article uses an analysis of these categories to argue that even in the absence of data on a
user’s race—even after the demise of the categories themselves—users can still be subject to
techniques of inclusion or exclusion for discriminatory ends. The inductive machine learning
techniques that platforms like Facebook employ to classify users generate “proxies,” like
racialised preferences or language use, as racialising substitutes. This article concludes
by arguing that Facebook’s ethnic affinity categories in fact typify novel modes of
racialisation today.
EFFECTS OF PHYSICAL DISTANCE AND SOCIAL CLOSENESS IN VR AND TEXT ON SPATIAL DISTANCE ESTIMATION
Authors: Won Andrea Stevenson , Kim Byungdoo
Published: September 2021

How do mediated social interactions affect your perceptions of the
world around you? We extend previous research that examines how mediated interactions affect
spatial distance perception by comparing two explanatory theories: motivated perception and
construal theory. In two studies, we contrast the effects of talking to a remote versus a
co-located partner on perceptions of physical distance, comparing virtual reality (VR) and
texting conditions. We demonstrate an interaction across media: participants who report
feeling socially close to a conversational partner located in a distant city estimate that
city to be closer. However, participants who report feeling more socially close to a
co-located conversational partner estimate a larger distance to the city their partner is
describing. We discuss the implications for media use in a period of increased virtual
interactions.
MATCHING DIGITAL INTERVENTION AFFORDANCES WITH TASKS: THE CASE OF ZOOM AND WHATSAPP MENTAL HEALTH INTERVENTION FOR SENIORS DURING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC
Authors: Yeshua-Katz Daphna , Shapira Stav , Aharonson-Daniel Limor , Clarfield A. Mark , Sarid Orly
Published: September 2021

During the first COVID-19 wave, we conducted a Zoom and WhatsApp digital group intervention that promoted community-dwelling older individuals’ mental health. Based on the media richness theory (MRT) and affordances approach, in this study we used netnography to explore how Zoom and WhatsApp technological affordances/constraints matched intervention tasks and increased intervention performance. We identified four Zoom and WhatsApp affordances: temporality, interactivity, multimediality, and portability. Empirically, our findings indicate how an information-rich media (i.e., high levels of multimediality) can be helpful in conducting complicated intervention tasks, whereas information-lean media (i.e., ongoing communication through text messages) can support simple tasks such as remote intervention management. Theoretically, our study expands on previous MRT media characteristics with the affordances approach and examines how the match between media affordances and task characteristics contributes to intervention performance. We offer recommendations for the research and design of future digital interventions.
Pharmacological and Neuroprotective Natural Products in the Treatment of Alzheimer’s Disease
Authors: Prashanthi A.Mary , Lakshmi Vissarapu Naga
Published: September 2021

Alzheimer's illness (AD) is a progressive, neurodegenerative issue and has become an incredible medical condition especially among the old individuals, for the most part happens after the age of 55 years and expansion in frequency with propelling age, however its therapy alternatives are generally not many and inadequate. The reason for AD isn't actually known, yet is thought to incorporate both hereditary and natural elements (multifactorial). There is no known remedy for Alzheimer's sickness, since it is beyond the realm of imagination to expect to invert the demise of synapses however the indications can be overseen by some pharmacological specialists and Neuroprotective Natural Products. In spite of the improvement of various pharmacological methodologies throughout the years pointed toward treating Alzheimer's Disease (AD) without a doubt, not many have been supported for clinical use in patients. To date there still exists no illness adjusting treatment that could forestall or protect the intellectual debilitation, especially of memory aquisition, that is normal for AD. One of the opportunities for this situation may be that most of medication disclosure endeavors centers around result proportions of diminished neuropathological biomarkers normal for AD, without taking into acount neuronal cycles fundamental for the age and support of memory measures. In endeavors to find new methodologies for AD treatment, regular items have stirred interest in the examination local area and in the drug business for their neuroprotective movement, focusing on various obsessive instruments related with AD. A wide assortment of normal items from various beginnings have been assessed preclinically and clinically for their neuroprotective instruments in forestalling and lessening the multifactorial pathologies of AD. It is accepted that normal item blends or concentrates containing different bioactive mixtures that can work additively or synergistically to display various neuroprotective systems may be a compelling methodology in AD drug discovery.

Keywords: Alzheimer’s disease (AD); neurodegenerative disease, natural products, pharmacological agents.