Muhammad Imran, Carlos Castillo, Fernando Diaz
et al.
Social media platforms provide active communication channels during mass convergence and emergency events such as disasters caused by natural hazards. As a result, first responders, decision makers, and the public can use this information to gain insight into the situation as it unfolds. In particular, many social media messages communicated during emergencies convey timely, actionable information. Processing social media messages to obtain such information, however, involves solving multiple challenges including: parsing brief and informal messages, handling information overload, and prioritizing different types of information found in messages. These challenges can be mapped to classical information processing operations such as filtering, classifying, ranking, aggregating, extracting, and summarizing. We survey the state of the art regarding computational methods to process social media messages and highlight both their contributions and shortcomings. In addition, we examine their particularities, and methodically examine a series of key subproblems ranging from the detection of events to the creation of actionable and useful summaries. Research thus far has, to a large extent, produced methods to extract situational awareness information from social media. In this survey, we cover these various approaches, and highlight their benefits and shortcomings. We conclude with research challenges that go beyond situational awareness, and begin to look at supporting decision making and coordinating emergency-response actions.
Background The aging of the population is an inexorable change that challenges governments and societies in every developed country. Based on clinical and empirical data, social isolation is found to be prevalent among elderly people, and it has negative consequences on the elderly’s psychological and physical health. Targeting social isolation has become a focus area for policy and practice. Evidence indicates that contemporary information and communication technologies (ICT) have the potential to prevent or reduce the social isolation of elderly people via various mechanisms. Objective This systematic review explored the effects of ICT interventions on reducing social isolation of the elderly. Methods Relevant electronic databases (PsycINFO, PubMed, MEDLINE, EBSCO, SSCI, Communication Studies: a SAGE Full-Text Collection, Communication & Mass Media Complete, Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Digital Library, and IEEE Xplore) were systematically searched using a unified strategy to identify quantitative and qualitative studies on the effectiveness of ICT-mediated social isolation interventions for elderly people published in English between 2002 and 2015. Narrative synthesis was performed to interpret the results of the identified studies, and their quality was also appraised. Results Twenty-five publications were included in the review. Four of them were evaluated as rigorous research. Most studies measured the effectiveness of ICT by measuring specific dimensions rather than social isolation in general. ICT use was consistently found to affect social support, social connectedness, and social isolation in general positively. The results for loneliness were inconclusive. Even though most were positive, some studies found a nonsignificant or negative impact. More importantly, the positive effect of ICT use on social connectedness and social support seemed to be short-term and did not last for more than six months after the intervention. The results for self-esteem and control over one’s life were consistent but generally nonsignificant. ICT was found to alleviate the elderly’s social isolation through four mechanisms: connecting to the outside world, gaining social support, engaging in activities of interests, and boosting self-confidence. Conclusions More well-designed studies that contain a minimum risk of research bias are needed to draw conclusions on the effectiveness of ICT interventions for elderly people in reducing their perceived social isolation as a multidimensional concept. The results of this review suggest that ICT could be an effective tool to tackle social isolation among the elderly. However, it is not suitable for every senior alike. Future research should identify who among elderly people can most benefit from ICT use in reducing social isolation. Research on other types of ICT (eg, mobile phone–based instant messaging apps) should be conducted to promote understanding and practice of ICT-based social-isolation interventions for elderly people.
Abstract Afforded by new digital technologies, consumer interactions are breaking the boundaries of basic assumptions about interpersonal communication, mass communication, and the concepts arising from the two. By looking into social media influencer–follower relations, this study suggests that the long-held conventional concept of parasocial relation no longer fully encompasses the evolving contemporary human interactions and related relations. The current analysis recommends an updated notion and theorization—a trans-parasocial relation—to capture a collectively reciprocal, (a)synchronously interactive, and co-created relation between influencers and their captive followers. This trans-parasocial relation concept offers a foundation on which new communicative and advertising theories can be developed to explicate new forms of social interactions and consumer behavior. More importantly, in view of this trans-parasocial relation, assumptions of the existing persuasion theory—that is, the persuasion knowledge model—need to be reassessed. The current findings demonstrate that persuasion knowledge does not always negatively affect advertising outcomes. Instead, followers indicate mostly benign attitudes toward influencer-sponsored posts, interpret influencers’ sponsorship disclosures as genuine and transparent, and internalize disclosure actions as inspiring and admirable. This study further identifies and elucidates several psychological mechanisms that account for followers’ overall appreciation of influencer-sponsored posts: positive bias, verification by cross-validation, and inspirational internalization.
Effective communication is pivotal for addressing complex collaborative tasks in multi-agent reinforcement learning (MARL). Yet, limited communication bandwidth and dynamic, intricate environmental topologies present significant challenges in identifying high-value communication partners. Agents must consequently select collaborators under uncertainty, lacking a priori knowledge of which partners can deliver task-critical information. To this end, we propose Interference-Aware K-Step Reachable Communication (IA-KRC), a novel framework that enhances cooperation via two core components: (1) a K-Step reachability protocol that confines message passing to physically accessible neighbors, and (2) an interference-prediction module that optimizes partner choice by minimizing interference while maximizing utility. Compared to existing methods, IA-KRC enables substantially more persistent and efficient cooperation despite environmental interference. Comprehensive evaluations confirm that IA-KRC achieves superior performance compared to state-of-the-art baselines, while demonstrating enhanced robustness and scalability in complex topological and highly dynamic multi-agent scenarios.
This study examines the impact of cultural awareness on intimate relationships, highlighting the dynamics of intercultural communication and its challenges in the context of global migration and diversity. A theoretical approach is employed, synthesizing literature on cultural differences, intercultural communication, and the evolution of intercultural relationships. Historical examples are analyzed alongside existing frameworks such as Social Penetration Theory. The study underscores how cultural sensitivity, communication competence, and adaptability foster understanding and satisfaction in intercultural relationships, despite barriers like cultural shock and language differences. The study concludes that intercultural intimate relationships represent not only a rich opportunity for personal growth but also a unique avenue for fostering deeper connections across cultural lines. Success in such relationships is contingent upon the willingness of partners to embrace cultural diversity and invest in effective communication strategies. By prioritizing empathy, adaptability, and respect, individuals in intercultural relationships can transcend cultural divides, creating meaningful and lasting connections in an increasingly interconnected world.
El cine ha incorporado en sus historias el oficio del periodismo ya que, por la naturaleza de la profesión, permite introducir narraciones con un alto grado de interés. En el imaginario colectivo los periodistas se posicionan como el cuarto poder y tienen una responsabilidad social. En los comienzos del cine y hasta los años 90, aproximadamente, las mujeres -frente a sus compañeros masculinos- ocupaban un rol secundario, en papeles estereotipados que las mostraban como profesionales frías, implacables, dispuestas a todo para conseguir la noticia en detrimento de su vida personal. Aparecen masculinizadas y sexualizadas. Empleando una triangulación metodológica que aplica las técnicas del análisis descriptivo, el análisis fílmico y la entrevista en profundidad se estudia el largometraje El reino, de Rodrigo Sorogoyen, para determinar cómo se representa la figura de la periodista en él. Tras el estudio de los resultados se observa que las periodistas en activo, en la actualidad, no se ven representadas por la visión de su profesión que ofrece El reino ni el cine en general. Esto se debe a que se siguen perpetuando ciertos estereotipos con los que se muestra en la gran pantalla el rol de la mujer periodista.
Communication. Mass media, Journalism. The periodical press, etc.
The article questions the notions of virality and interdisciplinarity through the semiodiscursive analysis of memes of #ChatonsMignons threads in the context of the pre-campaign of the 2022 French presidential elections. The analysis underlines how mobilized interdisciplinary references serve an argumentative dimension.
Language. Linguistic theory. Comparative grammar, Communication. Mass media
Mikail Batu, Mustafa Oz, İlknur Aydoğdu Karaaslan
et al.
This study explores the most effective educational methods for conveying information about natural disasters in large institutions like universities. Focusing on a sample of 405 students from Ege University (Turkey), it examines whether knowledge levels about natural disasters vary based on demographic factors such as gender, faculty, and class year. The findings reveal significant differences in knowledge based on these demographics. The study also shows that disaster education enhances overall knowledge and reduces these demographic disparities. Additionally, it compares the effectiveness of different communication tools—face-to-face, brochures, and videos—demonstrating that face-to-face and video-based methods are more effective than brochures in delivering disaster-related information.
Lynnette Hui Xian Ng, Dawn C. Robertson, Kathleen M. Carley
Social media platforms are a key ground of information consumption and dissemination. Key figures like politicians, celebrities and activists have leveraged on its wide user base for strategic communication. Strategic communications, or StratCom, is the deliberate act of information creation and distribution. Its techniques are used by these key figures for establishing their brand and amplifying their messages. Automated scripts are used on top of personal touches to quickly and effectively perform these tasks. The combination of automation and manual online posting creates a Cyborg social media profile, which is a hybrid between bot and human. In this study, we establish a quantitative definition for a Cyborg account, which is an account that are detected as bots in one time window, and identified as humans in another. This definition makes use of frequent changes of bot classification labels and large differences in bot likelihood scores to identify Cyborgs. We perform a large-scale analysis across over 3.1 million users from Twitter collected from two key events, the 2020 Coronavirus pandemic and 2020 US Elections. We extract Cyborgs from two datasets and employ tools from network science, natural language processing and manual annotation to characterize Cyborg accounts. Our analyses identify Cyborg accounts are mostly constructed for strategic communication uses, have a strong duality in their bot/human classification and are tactically positioned in the social media network, aiding these accounts to promote their desired content. Cyborgs are also discovered to have long online lives, indicating their ability to evade bot detectors, or the graciousness of platforms to allow their operations.
Optical beam propagation in random media is characterized by familiar speckle patterns generated by intricate interference effects. Such patterns may be modified and possibly attenuated for partially coherent incident beam profiles. In the weak-coupling regime of the Itô-Schrödinger paraxial model of wave propagation, we show how the spatio-temporal statistics of the partially coherent beams interact with the statistics of the random medium to enhance or suppress scintillation effects.
Online radio is the distribution of audio broadcasts over the internet, meaning that the radio signal is not transmitted through the conventional terrestrial AM or FM, but streamed via the internet. The broadcast can be a pre-recorded MP3 file or live, via a microphone broadcast streamed over the internet. Just like any terrestrial radio, online radio broadcasts news, plays music of all genres and presents a number of programmes in diverse areas, including educational, cultural, religious, political, informational, entertainment shows, etc. Art music is seen as school music, a product of inspiration structured by intellectual prowess with varied content. In recent times, there has been an increase in the use of online radio for the popularization and sustenance of art music broadcast, which is now the focus of this research. It looks at an art music radio show titled Let Music Reign, anchored by Ayokunmi OlaOluwa on Stride Radio, which is an online/internet radio broadcasting station located in Ibadan, Oyo State, Southwest Nigeria. It looks at the concept and medium of online radio broadcasting which is digital based, how it helps in the promotion of art music, and checks the content of the music show. The study is an etic research which applies library, netography and participant-observation methods for its data collection and interpretations. The paper concludes that online radio as an offspring of digital development is a viable medium of promoting art music across the globe.
This paper proposes new framework of communication system leveraging promising generation capabilities of multi-modal generative models. Regarding nowadays smart applications, successful communication can be made by conveying the perceptual meaning, which we set as text prompt. Text serves as a suitable semantic representation of image data as it has evolved to instruct an image or generate image through multi-modal techniques, by being interpreted in a manner similar to human cognition. Utilizing text can also reduce the overload compared to transmitting the intact data itself. The transmitter converts objective image to text through multi-model generation process and the receiver reconstructs the image using reverse process. Each word in the text sentence has each syntactic role, responsible for particular piece of information the text contains. For further efficiency in communication load, the transmitter sequentially sends words in priority of carrying the most information until reaches successful communication. Therefore, our primary focus is on the promising design of a communication system based on image-to-text transformation and the proposed schemes for sequentially transmitting word tokens. Our work is expected to pave a new road of utilizing state-of-the-art generative models to real communication systems
According to a report by the Nigerian Meteorological Agency (NIMET), Osun State was identified as one of the flood-prone areas and the residents believe that the government should have been proactive to avert this occurrence. It is expected that relevant government agencies and policy makers would be well prepared to respond adequately to the incidence of flood in their area following the release of the outlook. To achieve this, media campaign and environmental education are suggested to be veritable tools to combat incessant flooding in Nigeria, Osun State in particular. The aim of this paper is to evaluate the effect of media campaign and environmental education on flood control and sustainable development in Osun State. Hence, to achieve this, quantitative survey research method was employed for this study and the data used were collected through administered questionnaires in Osogbo, Ife, Ede and Ilesha. Data collected were described and analysed using statistical tools of frequency, percentage and Inferential statistics of Optimal Scaling Regression analysis (ORS) for categorical data. The study discovered that media campaign and environmental education are among the steps that aid flood control and sustainable development in Osun State. It is recommended that policies should be made and implemented on teaching environmental studies in basic schools to start the sensitization process regarding flood management and prevention. Also, the media industry in Nigeria should step up their surveillance role.
The phrase citizen science is certainly appealing, especially for many of us who have championed the notion of increasing public engagement in science. Citizen science refers most often to projects in which non-scientists provide some of the labor needed for the collection of scientific data, often in environmental research contexts. This involvement provides volunteer workers in support of science while in turn, ideally, offering rewarding and educational participation opportunities for the volunteers. An early U.S. model for citizen participation has been the Cornell University ornithology laboratory, where the recruitment of a widely dispersed army of bird watchers and other non-scientist citizens continues to assist with bird population research and related studies.
But the specific phrase citizen science also conjures up the idea of a sort of participatory democracy operating in the service of science, allowing fresh ideas to bubble up and their policy implications to receive thoughtful attention and popular feedback early on (or, as we later learned to say, «upstream»). It might also suggest science that operates more clearly in the service of society, taking research direction from what its citizens (as community members) actually have to say. This train of thought brings citizen science closer to the idea of community-based participatory research, in which scientific goals are defined in part by communities outside of science itself. The emergence of university-based «science shops», more a European than an American phenomenon, is another close cousin in which scientists allow communities to suggest research problems that reflect community needs.
This issue of Metode presents a series of cases that illustrate both the concept and its divergent objectives: facilitating communication between scientists and non-scientists, raising public interest in science and levels of science literacy, empowering the pursuit of public policy goals, and even pushing the boundaries of social science theory. Younger participants in particular might be motivated to consider alternative career paths, potentially increasing diversity among scientific professionals. Collectively, these goals represent an ambitious agenda for the future through the advancement of frontiers in communication, education, and politics – as well as science itself. And these intriguing cases are still only a handful among many.
Who is a «citizen» and in what sense can they actually «do science»? In the early days of scientific journals, most authors were gentlemen of status. Must a citizen scientist of our own time likewise be a gentleman of status? That certainly does not seem right or fair. Yet, at the same time, the idea that «just anyone» can do science is just not quite right either. Both scientific expertise and scientific authority still matter, especially in the era of climate and COVID where misinformation is often said to be rampant – and is potentially deadly. Given that, what exactly is the role of «citizen scientists»? How do we balance the need for scientific rigor with the need for community involvement (in both directions)? This is a question with no obvious answer.
The idea of citizen science (or amateur science before it) brings with it tensions about the social nature of scientific truth, both the «citizen» part and the «science» part. As Bryan Wynne’s well-known 1989 paper on post-Chernobyl sheep farming argued, radiation scientists had one form of expertise but others (the farmers) had other forms, such as their knowledge of sheep lifecycles, seasons, pastures, and markets. Solutions to managing radiation pollution on sheep farms required both forms.
And yet scientific truth is still established by scientific consensus, not by public opinion or even public participation. In this era of «alternative facts», where it almost seems as though everyone gets to make up their own reality, assisted in no small measure by the dynamics of social media, we are regularly pushed to defend the authority of science. To do that, we need allies. I believe that one productive way of thinking about «citizen scientists» is that they are, or can become, exactly those needed allies, linking communities and societies to the fruits of scientific expertise in the form of knowledge. We should think of the role of citizen scientists not only as gathering data for the «actual» scientists to make use of, but also serving as community opinion leaders on science-related topics.
Communication. Mass media, Information resources (General)
Fighting the ongoing COVID-19 infodemic has been declared as one of the most important focus areas by the World Health Organization since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. While the information that is consumed and disseminated consists of promoting fake cures, rumors, and conspiracy theories to spreading xenophobia and panic, at the same time there is information (e.g., containing advice, promoting cure) that can help different stakeholders such as policy-makers. Social media platforms enable the infodemic and there has been an effort to curate the content on such platforms, analyze and debunk them. While a majority of the research efforts consider one or two aspects (e.g., detecting factuality) of such information, in this study we focus on a multifaceted approach, including an API,\url{https://app.swaggerhub.com/apis/yifan2019/Tanbih/0.8.0/} and a demo system,\url{https://covid19.tanbih.org}, which we made freely and publicly available. We believe that this will facilitate researchers and different stakeholders. A screencast of the API services and demo is available.\url{https://youtu.be/zhbcSvxEKMk}