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As the inclusion of youths in decision-making around their media use is increasingly normalized in the family context in the Global North, one could ask how media literacy support can be adjusted for youths in vulnerable situations, situations where their family cannot be involved in regulating their media use, such as gaming. Drawing on interviews conducted in 2021 with 13 unaccompanied refugee youths (16–25 years old) and 10 social actors working in eight organizations, this study investigates the gaming habits of such youths in Norway and the ways in which relevant social actors are involved in guiding their gaming practices. This study shows that social actors' views on gaming vary according to their level of involvement in the youths' housing arrangements. Whilst those working directly with such arrangements are involved in direct or indirect rule-setting for gaming practices, others struggle to find their role within this context. The youths, however, emphasize the importance of gaming in building relationships with other unaccompanied refugees, learning about the culture of socialization, and mitigating trauma. Moreover, there is a lack of a dialogical approach to welfare services' regulation of these youths' gaming practices. Employing such an approach could not only give these youths a voice but also expand gaming's democratization ability beyond the family context.

This study assesses the relationship between two well-established sets of frames to better understand the news coverage of massive political protests. By relying on Semetko and Valkenburg's generic frames and McLeod and Hertog's protest frames, this study aims to identify whether certain generic frames emphasized in news stories increase the tendency to delegitimize protest movements. To this end, we analyzed the news coverage of Chile's Estallido Social, a series of massive political demonstrations that developed across the country from October to December 2019. Data for this study come from stories published by Radio Bío Bío, the most trusted news outlet in the country, according to Reuters Institute. By analyzing a sample of 417 stories, we found the coverage replicated patterns that usually delegitimize protest movements, as many of the stories focused on violent acts and depicted demonstrators as deviant from the status quo. We also found a direct relationship between generic frames and protest frames, in which the presence of the former determines that of the latter. Generic frames provide information about how the news media interpret and package the news, which in turn affects demonstration-related features that the news media pay attention to. As such, we argue that combining both generic and issue-specific frames is a helpful approach to understanding the complexities of protest news coverage.

This article explores the role of peripheral actors in the production and circulation of journalism through the case study of a North American not-for-profit digital-born journalism organization, The Conversation Canada. Much of the research on peripheral actors has examined individual actors, focusing on questions of identity such as who is a journalist as opposed to emergent and complex institutions with multiple interventions in a time of field transition. Our study explores the role of what we term a 'complex peripheral actor,' a journalism actor that may operate across individual, organizational, and network levels, and is active across multiple domains of the journalistic process, including production, publication, and dissemination. This lens is relevant to the North American journalism landscape as digitalization has seen increasing interest in and growth of complex and contested peripheral actors, such as Google, Facebook, and Apple News. Results of this case study point to increasing recognition of The Conversation Canada as a legitimate journalism actor indicated by growing demand for its content from legacy journalism organizations experiencing increasing market pressures in Canada, in addition to demand from a growing number of peripheral journalism actors. We argue that complex peripheral actors are benefitting from changes occurring across the media landscape from economic decline to demand for free journalism content, as well as the proliferation of multiple journalisms.

Social media campaigning is increasingly linked with anti-democratic outcomes, with concerns to date centring on paid adverts, rather than organic content produced by a new set of online political influencers. This study systematically compares voter exposure to these new campaign actors with candidate-sponsored ads, as well as established and alternative news sources during the US 2020 presidential election. Specifically, we examine how far higher exposure to these sources is linked with key trends identified in the democratic deconsolidation thesis. We use data from a national YouGov survey designed to measure digital campaign exposure to test our hypotheses. Findings show that while higher exposure to online political influencers is linked to more extremist opinions, followers are not disengaging from conventional politics. Exposure to paid political ads, however, is confirmed as a potential source of growing distrust in political institutions.

In recent years, we have witnessed an increasing consolidation of different realms where citizens can deliberate and discuss a variety of topics of general interest, including politics. The comments on news posts in online media are a good example. The first theoretical contributions called attention to the potential of those spaces to build a healthy (civic and participatory) public sphere, going much deeper in the process of political dialogue and deliberation (Fung, Gilman & Shkabatur, 2013; Lilleker & Jackson, 2008; O'Reilly, 2005; Stromer-Galley & Wichowski, 2011). Polarization has been configured as a constant feature of the quality of the mentioned dialogues, particularly in Mediterranean countries (polarized pluralists' cases). One of the research challenges at the moment has to do with the scrutiny of polarization within the political deliberation provoked by news stories. The goal of this article is the analysis of political dialogue from the perspective of the polarization in the increasingly popular network YouTube, which is presenting very particular characteristics. Using a sample of almost 400,000 posted comments about diverse topics (climate change, the Catalonian crisis, and Political parties' electoral ads) we propose an automated method in order to measure polarization. Our hypothesis is that the number of comments (quantitative variable) is positively related to their polarization (qualitative variable). We will also include in the examination information about the ideological editorial line of newspapers, the type of topic under discussion, the amount of traceable dialogue, etc. We propose an index to (1) measure the polarization of each comment and use it to show how this value has behaved over time; and (2) verify the hypothesis using the average polarization of comments for each video.

In recent debates on offensive language in participatory online spaces, the term 'hate speech' has become especially prominent. Originating from a legal context, the term usually refers to violent threats or expressions of prejudice against particular groups on the basis of race, religion, or sexual orientation. However, due to its explicit reference to the emotion of hate, it is also used more colloquially as a general label for any kind of negative expression. This ambiguity leads to misunderstandings in discussions about hate speech and challenges its identification. To meet this challenge, this article provides a modularized framework to differentiate various forms of hate speech and offensive language. On the basis of this framework, we present a text annotation study of 5,031 user comments on the topic of immigration and refuge posted in March 2019 on three German news sites, four Facebook pages, 13 YouTube channels, and one right-wing blog. An in-depth analysis of these comments identifies various types of hate speech and offensive language targeting immigrants and refugees. By exploring typical combinations of labeled attributes, we empirically map the variety of offensive language in the subject area ranging from insults to calls for hate crimes, going beyond the common 'hate/no-hate' dichotomy found in similar studies. The results are discussed with a focus on the grey area between hate speech and offensive language.

Precarious conditions of care work are contested and deeply gendered issues all over the globe. The Covid-19 pandemic both intensifies the (national) care crises and makes care work more visible as a public issue. In this article, we ask for the opportunities, structural conditions, and limitations of voice and visibility in emerging publics beyond established media organizations. Applying the concept of performative publics and using social network analysis, we reconstruct and compare the constitution of publics around the two German language Twitter hashtags #systemrelevant and #CoronaEltern. In a comparative design, we ask which actor groups and what kind of genders gain visibility, and in which speaker positions women, men, and non-binary people appear. The comparison of the two case studies reveals rather different network structures and asks for more nuanced, issue-based "medium data" analyses in the linkage of gender media studies and computational methods. Whereas the public discourse on professional paid care work resembles gendered power structures, the public discourse on privatized, unpaid care work shows shifted patterns concerning female visibility. These findings are discussed critically as gendered discourse spaces of professional and privatized care work stay rather separated and thus risk reproducing traditional private/public boundaries. Furthermore, findings emphasize the importance of "invisible" relational work which keeps hashtags running. Ratios of paying attention from women to men and vice versa are unequally distributed. Females either invest more communicative effort than males or receive less attention for the equal amount of reaching out to others.

This study explores the potential of cross-publisher bundled offers as a strategy for increasing subscription sales in digital journalism. While innovative forms of bundling are an integral part of media distribution in music (e.g., Spotify) and film (e.g., Netflix), their adoption in digital journalism has been limited, despite research showing that bundled access to products can increase consumers' willingness to pay, especially in younger target groups. Against this background, we conduct a choice-based conjoint analysis using data from a representative survey of the German online population (n = 1,542). Results show that bundling digital journalism has the potential to raise publisher revenues and subscription sales in digital markets. In particular, they highlight that a comprehensive, cross-publisher bundled offer, available at a fixed monthly rate, has the potential to stimulate digital journalism sales among different consumer groups in a relatively balanced way, including those who are typically more reluctant towards journalism. These findings align with the principles of information goods economics, which posit that maximising the size of digital content bundles often tends to be the most profitable distribution strategy. However, it is crucial to examine these findings in the context of the potential negative effects associated with this emerging business model in digital journalism, such as the cannibalisation of print subscriptions, diminished brand identification, and a possible imbalanced distribution of revenues.

Media Systems and Communication Policies in Latin America proposes, tests and analyses the liberal captured model. It explores to what extent to which globalisation, marketization, commercialism, regional bodies and the nation State redefine the media's role in Latin American societies

Motor vehicle crashes are the leading cause of death in adolescents, and drivers aged 16–19 are the most likely to die in distracted driving crashes. This paper provides an overview of the literature on adolescent cellphone use while driving, focusing on the crash risk, incidence, risk factors for engagement, and the effectiveness of current mitigation strategies. We conclude by discussing promising future approaches to prevent crashes related to cellphone use in adolescents.
Handheld manipulation of the phone while driving has been shown to have a 3 to 4-fold increased risk of a near crash or crash, and eye glance duration greater than 2 seconds increases crash risk exponentially. Nearly half of U.S. high school students admit to texting while driving in the last month, but the frequency of use according to vehicle speed and high-risk situations remains unknown. Several risk factors are associated with cell phone use while driving including: parental cellphone use while driving, social norms for quick responses to text messages, and higher levels of temporal discounting. Given the limited effectiveness of current mitigation strategies such as educational campaigns and legal bans, a multi-pronged behavioral and technological approach addressing the above risk factors will be necessary to reduce this dangerous behavior in adolescents. (author's abstract)

In Europe alone, more than 120,000 children and 150,000 adolescents are diagnosed with cancer every year. Thanks to treatment innovations the survival rates of young patients' cancer increase substantially every year, but improved prognoses are in many cases linked to longer treatments. To cope with the social, emotional, and developmental challenges associated with cancer, play and playful activities are widely recognized as fundamental for adolescents and children. This article presents the results of an exploratory study conducted to better understand the role of free digital play for young cancer patients (0-17 years). Methodology: 15 semi-structured qualitative interviews were conducted, divided into two groups. The first group consisted of four experts and the second group consisted of 11 parents of young cancer patients. Conversations with the participants revolved around children's use of digital platforms during cancer treatment, emphasizing their motivations to play digitally, methods and patterns of use, perceived benefits, and impact on children's social interactions, identity development, and personal narrative. The results show that digital play becomes a valuable activity for young cancer patients during three phases of the treatment: (1) inpatient care; (2) outpatient care; and (3) remission. We also identified three types of digital play patients engage with: (1) playing with digital games; (2) playfully interacting with digital technologies; and (3) the overlap between digital and non-digital play. Finally, the results also show that digital play has an impact on at least three aspects of young patients' lives: (1) social interactions; (2) identity development; and (3) communication.

Oriented around efficiency, civic technology primarily aims to remove barriers by automating and streamlining processes of government. While removing barriers is vital in many matters of governance, should it always be the aim of civic technology? In our ongoing ethnographic research to understand the work of community engagement performed by public officials in local government, we have observed how this orientation around efficiency in civic technology can inadvertently create distance in the relationships between citizens and governments. In this article, we discuss how an orientation around trust could open a space for civic technology that primarily aims to close distance in the relationships between citizens and public officials. We do so by first providing an account of how trust functions in the work of public officials performing community engagement, calling attention to where and when efficiency is at odds with the importance of relationship building between public officials and citizens. We build on ethnographic findings and a series of co-design activities with public officials to develop three strategies that operate under the logic of trust: historicizing engagement, focusing on experience, and mediating expectations. In all, by focusing on trust and the relational work of closing distance, civic technology can move towards addressing the growing crisis in confidence being faced in democracies.

Publishers have to reconsider their revenue model. Facing a massive decline in the circulation of newspapers and magazines over the past years, publishers have lost not only readers but also many advertisers. Thus, publishers are faced with both changed customer expectations as well as difficulty in generating profit. Users are increasingly less willing to pay for digital products and their expectations of digital content have changed: They would like to contribute their own content as well as to comment or share with others. Furthermore, advertisers can choose from a greater variety of options for placing adverts, particularly on social media and other online platforms. Therefore, many publishers struggle with the questions: How to earn money? What is the revenue model of the new business model? In order to determine the implications for publishers' revenue models, we assume that advertising companies are going to play a prominent role in the new business model. Hence, this paper focuses on publishers' services for advertising companies and therefore the expectations of advertisers towards publishers' services. In particular, this preliminary qualitative study explores advertisers' marketing interests in communities of readers who simultaneously contribute to discussions. Therefore, (1) a pre-study was conducted followed by (2) qualitative interviews with managers from advertising companies in Germany. Our initial findings confirm that advertisers could play an important role in the revenue model of publishers if they meet the expectations of advertisers who expressed their interest in both, using communities for customer research as well as interacting with users directly. The results also identify other possible services that publishers could offer advertisers in conjunction with addressing communities of contributing readers.

In this article, I discuss camera drones as mobile media that help access, collect, and shape physical, digital, and social spaces. As such, consumer drones afford "communication on the fly" in their medium-specific configuration of aerial navigation, visual production, and networked communication. Drawing on in-depth interviews with drone users and auto-ethnographic drone practices, I first highlight what physical-material conditions the flying camera mediates. An analysis of what digital-intangible formations the sensor medium collects and creates follows, before I turn to the sociospatial relations the buzzing mobile interface can establish and disrupt. I show how these conditions of communication on the fly shape user practices of place-sensing and place-making. Through the lenses of mobile communication research, media ecology, and mobilities studies, I ultimately illuminate how the ambiguous aerial system helps expand our thinking of and with notions of communication on the move.