Search Results (51)

University Dual Training is constructed at the intersection of academic and professional spheres, shaping a complex and multifaceted educational model. The aim of this study is to analyze the media representation of University Dual Training within the Spanish higher education landscape. The analysis focused on news articles published in the digital press of Spanish universities between 2021 and 2025. Following the methodological principles of a systematic review, a total of 81 news items (comprising 747 lexical segments) were identified and categorized 60 from 25 public universities and 21 from 7 private institutions. Data analysis, supported by the MAXQDA 24 software, enabled the identification of trends in the use of keywords, temporal evolution, and prevailing themes, along with the degree of relevance attributed to this training modality. The findings reveal an institutional tendency in media dissemination centred on promoting University Dual Training as a pathway for educational innovation, highlighting experiences and collaborations with companies, and projecting a discourse in which universities present themselves as committed to this modality. The study concludes that digital university newspapers convey the relevance and impact of University Dual Training as a modality that brings together diverse stakeholders, creating a space of collaboration and shared responsibility that strengthens student training and employability. Full article

This study examines the evolving use of social software to combat online disinformation by investigating Weibo users’ attitudes toward IP location disclosure as a measure of transparency and trustworthiness. We analyzed 49,579 posts (April 2022 to May 2023) from Weibo users about IP location disclosure, categorized the topics using LDA topic modeling within the frameworks of communication privacy management, the networked public sphere, and digital democracy, and conducted sentiment analysis. We constructed separate semantic networks for positive and negative terms to examine co-occurrence patterns. The results show that Weibo users are generally negative about this policy, as IP location may reveal personally identifiable information about individuals involved in discussions of online social/political events. Mandatory transparency, while intended to enhance accountability, functions as a mandatory visibility regime that reshapes privacy boundaries and undermines inclusive deliberation. The findings contribute to the exploration of the impact of government-mandatory information privacy disclosure policies on the implementation of platform functionality, as well as changes in user sentiment, information behavior, and components of social media discourse. Full article

Street art increasingly reshapes aesthetic hierarchies by introducing previously marginalised media into the public sphere. A compelling example is the artistic practice of the Polish artist NeSpoon (Elżbieta Dymna), whose work merges the visual language of traditional lace with the communicative strategies of contemporary urban art. Active since the late 2000s, NeSpoon combines stencils, ceramic lace imprints, and large-scale murals to translate the intimacy of handcraft into the visibility of public space. Her works function as both aesthetic interventions and acts of civic pedagogy. This study employs a qualitative visual research design combining multi-site digital inquiry, iconological and semiotic analysis, and mini focus group (N = 22). Three purposefully selected cases: Łódź, Belorado, and Fundão, were examined to capture the site-specific and cultural variability of lace murals across Europe. The analysis demonstrates that lace functions as an agent of cultural negotiation and a medium of heritage literacy, understood here as embodied and place-based learning. In Łódź, it monumentalises textile memory and women’s labour embedded in the city’s industrial palimpsest. In Belorado, micro-scale responsiveness operates, strengthening the local semiosphere. In Fundão, lace enters an intermedial dialogue with azulejos, negotiating the boundary between craft and art while expanding local visual grammars. The study introduces the conceptualisation of the monumentalisation of intimacy in public art and frames heritage literacy as an embodied, dialogic, and community-oriented educational practice. Its implications extend to feminist art history, place-based pedagogy, urban cultural policy, and the preventive conservation of murals. The research elucidates how domestic craft once confined to the private interior operates in public space as a medium of memory, care, and inclusive aesthetics. Full article

This paper examines the political discourse of South Korean conservative Christianity, focusing on its alignment with far-right ideologies that undermine both democratic norms and the theological integrity of faith. Triggered by recent constitutional crises involving former President Suk-yeol Yoon, far-right Protestant groups have engaged in mobilisations marked by hate speech, disinformation, and theological politicisation. Drawing upon Heinrich Bedford-Strohm’s model of public theology, the study critiques this trend and argues for a reconfiguration of Christian public engagement toward justice, inclusion, and rational dialogue. It further explores the blurred boundaries between conservative and far-right Christian movements, the distortion of the public sphere, and the impact of digital misinformation. Ultimately, the paper proposes a theological and ethical roadmap for restoring the credibility of Christianity in South Korea’s pluralistic democracy. Full article

While digital religion and digital protest can ideally serve the common good, religious nationalist and fundamentalist movements have exploited these tools to disrupt the social fabric and create dangerous political outcomes. This paper examines how religious communicators within Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) and Alternative for Germany (AfD) perceive and enact their responsibility within digital spaces, leveraging the power of “networked communities” and the collective identity of the digital “crowd” to advance their agendas of religious fundamentalism and political conservatism. Bypassing traditional media, groups like the AfD and TLP exploit digital religion to build communities, spread propaganda that merges religion with national identity, frame political issues as religious mandates, and mobilize collective action. Campbell’s concept of the “networked community” demonstrates how digital technologies form decentralized, fluid, and global religious communities, distinct from traditional, geographically bound ones. Both the TLP and AfD have tapped into this new digital religious space, shaping and mobilizing political and religious identities across virtual borders. Gerbaudo’s idea of the “digital crowd” complements this by examining how collective action in the digital age reshapes mass mobilization, with social media transforming how political movements operate in the 21st century. Although the AfD’s platform is not overtly religious, the party strategically invokes ethno-Christian identity, framing opposition to Islam and Muslim immigration as a defense of German cultural and Christian values. Similarly, the TLP promotes religious nationalism by advocating for Pakistan’s Islamic identity against secularism and liberalism and calling for strict enforcement of blasphemy laws. Recognizing digital spaces as tools co-opted by religious nationalist movements, this paper explores how communicators in these movements understand their responsibility for the social and long term consequences of their messages. Using Luhmann’s systems theory—where communication is central to social systems—this paper analyzes how the TLP and AfD leverage individuals’ need for purpose and belonging to mobilize them digitally. By crafting emotionally charged experiences, these movements extend their influence beyond virtual spaces and into the broader public sphere. Finally, this paper will reflect on the theological implications of these dynamics both on and offline. How do religious communicators in digital spaces reconcile their theological frameworks with the social impact of their communication? Can digital religious communities be harnessed to foster social cohesion and inclusivity instead of exacerbating social divisions? Through this lens, the paper seeks to deepen our understanding of the intersection between digital religion, political mobilization, and theological responsibility in the digital age. Full article

Journalists have incorporated social networks into their work as a standard tool, enhancing their ability to produce and disseminate information and making it easier for them to connect more directly with their audiences. However, this greater presence in the digital public sphere has also increased their exposure to harassment and hate speech, particularly in the case of women journalists. This study analyzes the presence of harassment and hate speech in responses (n = 60,684) to messages that 200 journalists and media outlets posted on X (formerly Twitter) accounts during the days immediately preceding and following the July 23 (23-J) general elections held in Spain in 2023. The results indicate that the most common forms of harassment were insults and political hate, which were more frequently aimed at personal accounts than institutional ones, highlighting the significant role of political polarization—particularly during election periods—in shaping the hostility that journalists face. Moreover, although, generally speaking, the total number of harassing messages was similar for men and women, it was found that a greater number of sexist messages were aimed at women journalists, and an ideological dimension was identified in the hate speech that extremists or right-wing populists directed at them. This study corroborates that this is a minor but systemic issue, particularly from a political and gender perspective. To counteract this, the media must develop proactive policies and protective actions extending even to the individual level, where this issue usually applies. Full article

Face recognition and identification is a method that is well established in traffic monitoring, security, human biodata analysis, etc. Regarding the current development and implementation of digitalization in all spheres of public life, new approaches are being sought to use the opportunities of high technology advancements in animal husbandry to enhance the sector’s sustainability. Using machine learning the present study aims to investigate the possibilities for the creation of a model for visual face recognition of farm animals (cows) that could be used in future applications to manage health, welfare, and productivity of the animals at the herd and individual levels in real-time. This study provides preliminary results from an ongoing research project, which employs attribution methods to identify which parts of a facial image contribute most to cow identification using a triplet loss network. A new dataset for identifying cows in farm environments was therefore created by taking digital images of cows at animal holdings with intensive breeding systems. After normalizing the images, they were subsequently segmented into cow and background regions. Several methods were then explored for analyzing attributions and examine whether the cow or background regions have a greater influence on the network’s performance and identifying the animal. Full article

In the contemporary postsecular context, where the influence of religion has become increasingly significant, this study explores the substantial influence of New Religious Movements (NRMs) in India. Focusing on Brahma Kumaris (BKs), a prominent NRM, this study examines their role as proponents of social change across various public spheres in modern society. The BKs’ deviation from traditional religious doctrines, their emphasis on self-transformation, and their capacity to adapt to contemporary challenges render them particularly relevant in the postsecular context. This study analyzes the pragmatic approach that BKs employ to engage with and assert their influence in contemporary public life. Specifically, it delineates five critical processes that underpin the organization’s pragmatic pursuits: detraditionalization, synergism, gender sensitization, agro-spiritualism, and digitalization. By subverting varied normativities and contesting the religious/secular dyad through their pragmatic pursuits, the BKs illuminate the shapeshifting edges and fluid integration of religion and secularity within the contemporary postsecular milieu. Full article

Communicative misunderstandings, cultural misinterpretations, and tribal hatreds are not phenomena that emerge and develop only in the digital world. Within platforms, conflicts explode and circulate mainly in crisis situations, but the relationship (constructive or destructive) with the similar and the different, as well as the narration of the symbolic meanings of specific cultural events, originate first and foremost in interpersonal relationships, institutional political contexts, and the representations (and consumption) of traditional media, such as the television space. Italian television is still one of the reference means of communication for the majority of the population, a figure that has been recorded especially during the recent pandemic emergency despite the significant collapse in advertising investments. Hatred, especially anti-Semitic hatred, is increasingly present in the information ecology, linked to nationalist narratives or aimed at restoring traditional values and fuelling an already highly polarised political debate in a now “dense” public sphere. In particular, during the health crisis, television journalists found it very difficult to report in depth on cases of discrimination or COVID-19. Full article

This research aims to conceptualise the use of the digital twins (DT) tool in tourism to address smart tourist destinations’ future challenges to enhance tourists’ experiences and residents’ quality of life through better services developed by DTs. This paper investigated the use of DT technology to tackle the new challenges facing smart tourist destinations (STDs) in terms of urban planning, sustainability, security, marketing, and tourism activities by using data on this topic from expert researchers and public and private organisations. Also, this research adopted a systematic review approach to analyse and illustrate the existing literature on the topic of DTs and their use for STDs, which helped us develop the DT concept in a STD context. The findings of this research reveal that DT technology is emerging as a disruptive technology tool that is being used to improve the management of STDs in terms of their efficiency, safety, sustainability, environmental protection, productivity, and energy consumption. Moreover, DT technology is a nascent tool in the tourism and marketing industries, but its versatility in relation to its capacity to analyse data and predict the behaviour of tourism and business ecosystems to address relevant issues at STDs gives it a key role in the tourism industry. Finally, a new definition of DT technology has been included in this study within a tourism and STDs context, filling the gap in this topic in the tourism industry according to some researchers’ suggestions. There are limited scientific publications about DT technology that jointly tackle the DT technology and STDs sphere. Accordingly, this manuscript defines DT technology and provides a new viewpoint of this technology that will help to initiate academic discussions on DT tourism within the context of STDs. Full article

This paper focuses on the problem of how Buddhism was reinstitutionalized in Russia in the frame of the meta process of mediatization. The empirical part of this study included two stages and was conducted during 2020–2024. In this paper, the authors focused mainly on the peculiarities of constructing strategies in the Internet and new media via traditional Gelug ethnic offline organizations, the Russian branches of the International Karma Kagyu Community, International Dzogchen Community and Russian-speaking community of Theravada converts. The methodological framework of the research included the institutional perspective developed by the Danish media scholar Stig Hjarvard for studying the mediatization of religion and the concept of “mediatized public religion” by Mia Lövheim and Marta Axner, as well as the concept of “digital religious innovators” by Heidi Campbell. The authors revealed that the processes of digitalization and mediatization have resulted in the emergence of Russian mediatized Buddhism. Various trends in modern Russian Buddhism are disproportionally represented in the public sphere of media; representation directly correlates with the strategies that Digital Buddhist creatives of different streams—Gelugpa traditional, Dzogchen, Theravada or Karma Kagyu—have chosen in relation to the Internet and new media. Full article

The increasingly digital nature of modern societies necessitates continually examining how individuals interact in the public sphere. This systematic literature review comprehensively analyzes emerging research on public interaction across diverse contexts. By employing an innovative method of applying artificial intelligence on a large-scale academic corpus, we systematically identified and categorized eight major research clusters: social media and public discourse; public Governance in health and education; urban environments and data systems; group interaction dynamics; complex systems modeling; human-display interfaces; political processes; and public service design. Sub-topic mapping revealed key themes such as digital civic engagement, transport sustainability, behavioral dynamics, and socio-environmental impacts. Our interdisciplinary synthesis highlights public interaction as a multifaceted phenomenon intertwined with technological change, policy decisions, environmental factors, and social constructs. These insights underscore the need for holistic, cross-disciplinary approaches to navigate the challenges and opportunities of public interaction in our rapidly evolving digital age. This review provides a unified knowledge base to guide future research while informing decision-makers on cultivating participatory, adaptive, and sustainable public spheres. Full article

Currently, much attention is paid to digital transformation in all areas, including the public sphere. The latest studies show that it is necessary for the public sector to monitor the efficiency and satisfaction with the services provided. However, there are significant gaps in research in this area, including in Slovakia. This research proposes and applies the measurement of efficiency using the DEA method in the context of e-Government, provides a comparison of the roles of states in the use of public electronic services in the EU, and applies the method of measuring satisfaction using the American Customer Satisfaction Index, focused on the central state portal in Slovakia. The main methods that were used to fulfil the objectives of the work were data envelopment analysis, “DEA”, and the American Customer Satisfaction Index, “ACSI”. Other methods used include the Mann–Whitney U test, the chi-squared test, and Sperm correlation analysis. From the results of the work, it is possible to conclude that ACSI can be applied within Slovakia. Furthermore, the results show a strong correlation between perceived quality and satisfaction, which is 0.855. Overall satisfaction with the central state portal of public electronic services reached 61.7%. We conclude that it would be appropriate and possible to use ACSI as part of DEA measurement. Full article

This article seeks to examine a new trend in Arabic women’s literature that not only aims to forge women’s communities but also creates resistance. Digital media is the mechanism that some Arab women authors employ to implement and foster a self-authority that acknowledges flexible identities in an age of revolutions and search for freedom. As a case study, I examine Ahlam Mosteghanemi’s Nessayne com and Rajaa Alsanea’s novel Girls of Riyadh, which originally appearing as compendiums, and Ibrahim Alsaqir’s novel Girls of Riyadh: The Complete Picture that comes as a literary response to the resistance of cultural and gender establishments. I suggest that the digital realm provides an arena for women to resist oppressing social establishments and that literary works and digital practices like Alsanea’s create spaces of and for resistance. Moreover, Alsanea’s and Mosteghanemi’s works are committed to promoting change in Arab societies, bridging the public and the private sphere by means of digital content. Arab women writers’ sites and blogs address subjects that challenge prevalent gendered structures in the Arab world, deconstruct cultural norms, give visibility and focus on the implications of gender on memory, love, masculinity and femininity, and sexuality. They do so by employing chats as a narrative technique that engages readers and women’s communities in the characters’ experiences and thereby inviting them to participate in making their work a site of challenge to gender and cultural establishments. As Alsanea’s representations of women subjectivities are uncommon and her characters defy the notion of the universality of woman as a shared gender, they are prohibited, criticized, and challenged. Those who defy gender performativity, such as Alsanea and Mosteghanemi, enact feminist resistance. The study engages with MENA gender and masculinity literature. It is also informed by Judith Butler’s notion of performativity, the construction of gender, and the demystification of the universalistic notion of “woman”. Full article

Today’s public sphere is increasingly shaped by a dynamic, global, cross-cutting digital landscape, mostly ruled by social media and algorithms. Individuals are the raw material, the product, in this digital scenario, insofar as they generate and create information that coexists and is consumed alongside the information generated by the media outlets. In this context, this study focusses on an international sample from three countries (Spain, Colombia, and Costa Rica) to study the youngest information consumption, the trust they relay in media used to get informed, and their perceptions. The research was articulated from a quantitative methodological approach, focusing on a descriptive and correlational perspective. The results show interesting and innovative outcomes that point out that country origin does not constitute a significative factor when describing consumption patterns related to social media. It was confirmed in the study that these scenarios seem to become the new gatekeepers for young people, who barely consume traditional media such as press or radio broadcast. The lack of trust in the media that they consume to get informed is a matter of awareness, and digital literacy is described to be the most appropriated solution in a transformative normality in which young people do not consume information from traditional media. Full article