Although politeness contributes to the effectiveness and sustainable development of online learning communities, it remains unclear how Chinese teachers of English as a second language (ESL), with differing social statuses, use varying levels of poli...
Background/Objectives: In China, discussing sexual and reproductive health remains taboo, often preventing patients from seeking care or advice on sensitive topics. Online medical consultations (OMCs) offer a unique platform for patients to discuss t...
Through online political communications, fragmented groups appear around ideological lines, which might form echo chambers if the communications within like-minded groups are dominant over the communications among different-minded groups, potentially...
This study explores how the structure of social networks (homogeneous/heterogeneous) and the quality of connections (strong/weak ties) are perceived to shape motivations and barriers to civic and political participation. Contrary to the prevailing vi...
In public discourse, and in the governance of online communities, young people are often denied agency. Children are frequently considered objects to protect, safeguard, and manage. Yet as children go online from very early ages, they develop emergen...
In contemporary democracies, social media platforms are widely used for political campaigning, with political figures seeking to connect with diverse segments of the public. This study aims to illuminate the implementation of online political campaig...
We analyze information diffusion using empirical data that tracks online communication around two instances of mass political mobilization that took place in Spain in 2011 and 2012. We also analyze protest-related communications during the year that...
Bots have become increasingly prevalent in the digital sphere and have taken up a proactive role in shaping democratic processes. While previous studies have focused on their influence at the individual level, their potential macro-level impact on co...
The concept of biocultural diversity is confronted with contemporary changes that impact on local communities, such as globalization and digital transformations. Engaging the conceptual flexibility of ‘biocultural diversity’, we studied n...
In recent years, Latin Americans marched the streets in a wave of protests that swept almost every country in the region. Yet few studies have assessed how Latin Americans support various forms of protest, and how new technologies affect attitudes to...
Identifying and ranking influential nodes is central to tasks such as targeted immunization, misinformation containment, and resilient design. Structural entropy (SE) offers a principled, community-aware scoring rule, yet the one-shot (static) use of...
Participation in the political process is the fundamental right and responsibility of a citizen. Online political participation has gained popularity as it is convenient and effective. Political crowdfunding helps political candidates and parties ple...
Although there are many studies discussing the effect of Internet use on political participation, the literature has rarely focused on the relationship between the use of online-network groups and the political-participation intention in contemporary...
Online social media platforms play an important role in political communication where users can freely express and exchange their political opinion. Political entities have leveraged social media platforms as essential channels to disseminate informa...
In an attempt to address the debate among social science scholars regarding whether or not online political engagement is a legitimate form of political participation, this study investigates the conditions under which migrants engage politically wit...
This paper argues that Black women are represented in online political advertisements during South African election campaigns. Through the qualitative online research approach, this paper deploys a purposive sample of 30 online political advertisemen...
Political participation in Pakistan was expected to rise because of the enormous democratic potential of social media; nevertheless, a drop has been observed following an initial increase. This scenario encourages investigation of the decisive factor...
We exploit internet censorship intensity changes due to political events to study the impact of internet censorship on online laboor work in China. With a unique dataset from the Ingress (video game) community platform, a difference-in-differences de...
This study analyzes the relationships between ethical perceptions, perceived sincerity of politicians, and the influences of political marketing on electoral behavior in Romania. Relevant connections were identified using an online questionnaire, res...
An attempt is made to study the social network site, Vahid Online, pseudonym of a leading Iranian activist who has the largest social media followership online. Vahid Online is Iran’s leading distributor of information about social and political news...
This paper contributes to the Special Issue on Communication for the Digital Media Age by investigating the factors that influence the management of political information on online news media platforms, specifically Twitter and Weibo. Using the recen...
The emergence of the Internet and social media provides a new platform for information diffusion, promoting the interaction among relatively independent participants in the opinion market and changing the balance of the intrinsic mechanism and extern...
6 July 2021
Open innovations combine the interaction of the authorities and the population in regions of Russia. Social and political interaction of Russian network users demonstrates new open forms of political participation, mobilization practices (initiative...
Populist figures were anything but a new phenomenon in Indonesian politics albeit in its short history as a modern state. However, in accordance with the recent development of news dissemination technology, the pattern of populist figure emergence wa...
This study aims to evaluate the complex relationship between online media consumption, the quality of the digital landscape, and participatory democracy in EU member states. The research is focused on a long-term statistical series from 2000 to 2024....
Online aggression and abusive language on social media pose a growing threat to democratic discourse, as they contribute to polarization, delegitimization of political actors, and the erosion of civil debate. While much of the current research relies...
Traditional news outlets, such as newspapers and television, are no longer major sources of news. These media channels have been replaced by social platforms, which have increased in value as information distributors. This change in communication is...
18 January 2020
This research examines the mediating role of the tendency for Internet addiction, fear of missing out (FOMO), and psychological well-being in the relationship between online exposure to movement-related information and support for radical actions. A...
This article examines how the role of digital platforms is reshaping political communication and consensus-building in contemporary societies. It questions how algorithmic architectures are transforming the relationship between leadership, audiences,...
The spread of hate speech challenges the health of democracy and media systems in contemporary societies. This study aims to contribute to a better understanding of user-generated online hate speech reported by Internet users to national monitoring o...
Youth media consumption and disordered eating practices have historically been subjects of moral panics, often resulting in protective, deficit-based interventions like content removal. We argue for interventions which instead equip youth to evaluate...
This article presents an in-depth analysis of the intertwining of religious and protest expression on digital social networks in Morocco. By exploring the mechanisms by which religious discourse is used to mobilize, articulate claims, and catalyze co...
In response to the current social–political landscape, consumers’ expectations are changing. There is an increased need for companies to communicate about social issues such as climate change. This study is among the first to examine the...
The management of transboundary water resources presents a complex challenge involving multiple stakeholders and countries. Negotiating a single rule for managing these resources can take years due to various factors, including political, socioeconom...
This empirical exploratory study examines a number of insulting hashtags used against Islam and Christianity on Twitter and Instagram. Using a mixed method, the findings of the study show that Islam is more aggressively attacked than Christianity by...
Sex workers’ humor has received comparatively little attention in the literature to date, and work that does consider this phenomenon focuses on humor in face-to-face contexts. Increasingly, elements of sex workers’ labor and community bu...
16 June 2021
The COVID-19 pandemic has created a global health crisis that has affected economies and societies worldwide. During these times of uncertainty and crisis, people have turned to social media platforms as communication tools and primary information so...
Based on data publicly available on various online platforms and in academic literature, this article analyzes the prominent role that the Christian Right has taken in the government of Jair Messias Bolsonaro (2019–2022), including the pandemic...
This study is situated within the ongoing scholarly discourse surrounding the role of social media in the evolving communication landscape. The main aim of this research is to examine the extent to which the Greek traditional media and journalists ha...
The article aims to examine the characteristics of mediatized political communication in a hybrid media system, in which the social media accounts of political leaders play an increasingly important role. Firstly, the phenomenon of mediatization and...
The Capitol Hill riots on 6 January 2021 were an event of great importance not only because of their political and legal impact, but also because they allowed everyone to observe the symbols, images, masks, and other signs that were displayed in fron...
This study aimed to find out if there is a relationship between social media and political polarization in Türkiye from the perspective of Turkish students. To reach this aim, the needed data were collected through qualitative and quantitative a...
The Internet and social media afford individuals the opportunity to post their thoughts instantaneously and largely without filters. While this has tremendous democratic potential, it also raises questions about the quality of the discourse these tec...
The main objective of this paper is to determine the religious attitudes of Muslims living in Poland during the COVID-19 pandemic and their reaction to restrictions on free access to religious practices introduced by the Government of Poland. The art...
This study explores the relationship between politics and religion, resistance and community, on social media through the case study of #EmptyThePews. #EmptyThePews was created in August 2017 after the events in Charlottesville, calling users who att...
This article examines how social media and digital channels are related to information behavior and voting among young voters (aged 18–30) during the 2025 German federal election. Based on an online survey (n = 673) conducted after the election...
Social media provides a vital arena for rare disease (RD) communities, fostering support, advocacy, and knowledge sharing. Rare Disease Day generates a large-scale online conversation, yet previous research has relied mainly on static, cross-sectiona...
The ubiquity of social and online media networks, the credulousness of online communities, coupled with limited accountability pose a risk of mis-, dis-, mal-, information (mis-dis-mal-information)—the intentional or unintentional spread of fal...
4 February 2020
Infertility is a major public health issue and increasingly, the internet is used as a source of information and advice. The aim of this study is to understand the eHealth literacy of individuals and couples in relation to infertility. A non-probabil...
This paper discusses political discourses as a resource for climate change education and the extent to which they can be used to promote critical thinking. To illustrate this, we present here an activity developed in the online course, Freirean Commu...
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