Communication Commons^™

Government Responses To Disinformation On Social Media Platforms: Argentina, Australia, Canada, China, Denmark, Egypt, European Union, France, Germany, India, Israel, Mexico, Russian Federation, Sweden, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, Ruth Levush

Copyright, Fair Use, Scholarly Communication, etc.

Comparative Summary by Ruth Levush, Senior Foreign Law Specialist, Law Library of Congress, Global Legal Research Directorate

Concerns regarding the impact of viral dissemination of disinformation on democratic systems of government, on political discourse, on public trust in state institutions, and on social harmony have been expressed by many around the world. These concerns are shared by countries with advanced economies as well as those with emerging and developing economies.

The term “disinformation” as used in this report refers to “false information deliberately and often covertly spread . . . in order to influence public opinion or obscure the truth.” …

Open Textbook Project [Poster], Sue Ann Gardner

University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries: Presentations

Details of a porject undertaken to collaboratively write and produce an open access parasitology textbook for undergraduate and graduate students. The book will be published by Zea Books at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in 2020 and be available in English and Spanish both online and print-on-demand through lulu.com.

Co-Executive Editors: Scott L. Gardner and Sue Ann Gardner, University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Publisher: Paul Royster/Zea Books, University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Spanish Translator: Yoanna Esquivel Greenwood, University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Project Coordinator: Sue Ann Gardner.

Project website: Concepts in Animal Parasitology.

Coalition S: Accelerating The Transition To Full And Immediate Open Access To Scientific Publications, Science Europe

Copyright, Fair Use, Scholarly Communication, etc.

Part I: The Plan S Principles: “With effect from 2021, all scholarly publications on the results from research funded by public or private grants provided by national, regional and international research councils and funding bodies, must be published in Open Access Journals, on Open Access Platforms, or made immediately available through Open Access Repositories without embargo.”

Part II: Guidance on the Implementation of Plan S 1. Aim and Scope Plan S aims for full and immediate Open Access to peer-reviewed scholarly publications from research funded by public and private grants. cOAlition S, the coalition of research funders that have committed …

Contextualizing Transgender Individuals' Discourses About Health Insurance, Jonathan Troy Baker

Department of Communication Studies: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Transgender individuals face a variety of disparate health outcomes compared to cisgender individuals within the United States. Additionally, 23% to 52% of transgender individuals do not have health insurance, meaning transgender individuals are two to five times more likely than the general population to lack access to health insurance coverage. Extant research typically treats health insurance as a quantitative (yes/no) variable; thus, we do not know what (not) having insurance contextually means for transgender individuals. The current study addresses this gap by privileging the voices of 17 transgender individuals through in-depth, semi-structured interviews. Using the Culture-Centered Approach (CCA), I conducted …

Journalistic Ethics And The Right-Wing Media, Jason Mccoy

College of Journalism and Mass Communications: Professional Projects

This paper will examine the development of modern media ethics and will show that this set of guidelines can and perhaps should be revised and improved to match the challenges of an economic and political system that has taken advantage of guidelines such as “objective reporting” by creating too many false equivalencies. This paper will end by providing a few reforms that can create a better media environment and keep the public better informed. As it was important for journalism to improve from partisan media to objective reporting in the past, it is important today that journalism improves its practices …

Bat Meets Girl: Adapting The Dark Knight’S Love Life To The Big Screen, Brandon Bosch

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

It is no secret that Hollywood loves a good romance. What is perhaps sometimes overlooked however is how important romance and female characters are to male-dominated action films. Esma Kartal argues women and romance are deliberately placed into action films to create “romantic relief” and attract female viewers for greater crossover appeal.¹ In addition to romance, Yvonne Tasker observes how women in action films serve as a witness for “the hero’s suffering” and humanity in action films.² Finally, a classic use of women and romance in action films is that of the damsel-indistress, which continues to this day …

Initiatives To Counter Fake News In Selected Countries: Argentina, Brazil, Canada, China, Egypt, France, Germany, Israel, Japan, Kenya, Malaysia, Nicaragua, Russia, Sweden, United Kingdom, Peter Roudik, Graciela Rodriguez-Ferrand, Edouardo Soares, Tariq Ahmad, Laney Zhang, George Sadek, Nicolas Boring, Jenny Gesley, Ruth Levush, Sayuri Umeda, Hanibal Goitom, Kelly Buchanan, Norma C. Gutiérrez, Astghik Grigoryan, Elin Hofverberg, Clare Feikert-Ahalt

Copyright, Fair Use, Scholarly Communication, etc.

Comparative Summary by Peter Roudik, Director of Legal Research

This report examines the legal approaches of fifteen countries, representing all regions of the world, to the emerging problem of manipulation with “fake news” using mass and social media, especially the impact of fake news on ongoing political processes and elections, and the legislative measures undertaken to counteract the dissemination of false information. Fake news as a phenomenon is not new and has been known since ancient times, but the present-day proliferation of digital and social media platforms, which allow for much broader distribution of information to a global audience, makes …

The Influence Of Female Creative Directors On Women Entering Advertising, Rachel Long

Honors Program: Senior Projects (Public)

In 2012, only 3 percent of creative directors in advertising were women. Today that ratio has reached more than 11 percent and is on the rise in hopes to reach 50 percent. This ascent has been encouraging for me personally; I would love to take part in a movement for greater diversity in the industry, and I feel fortunate and thankful for the women who got it started half a century ago. But beyond the women leading the ad industry, how is this rise helping young women preparing to become creatives and project managers? How does this movement translate beyond …

Trendjacking: A Social Justice Analysis, Rachel Finnegan

Honors Program: Senior Projects (Public)

The purpose of this paper is to look at the intersection of trendjacking and social justice within five specific advertisements targeted at an American audience from well-known brands. A variety of success in utilizing this intersection is presented and explained through an analysis of the advertisement, people highlighted, the brand’s financial giving and history, social media response, etc. The five brands examined are Pepsi, Dove, Nike, Airbnb, and Levi’s.

To successfully utilize social justice trendjacking, brands must be genuine and specific with their message, be prepared to explain their reasoning for their decisions, have the advertisements checked by many people …

Missing The (Turning) Point: The Erosion Of Democracy At An American University, Anthony Fucci, Theresa Catalano

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

On August 25, 2017, student members of Turning Point USA (TPUSA), a right-wing conservative organization who advocates for smaller government and free market enterprise, recruited on the University of Nebraska–Lincoln (UNL) campus. Members of the UNL community protested nearby. Part of the protest was recorded on video and released to social media leading to harsh public criticism that accused the university of restricting free speech and being an unsafe environment for conservative students. Drawing on cognitive linguistics (e.g. metonymy, framing) and multimodal critical discourse analysis (MCDA), this paper explores how the TPUSA incident at UNL was recontextualized in local and …

Small Places, Big Successes: Rural Towns Revitalizing Themselves, Milan Wall

Heartland Center for Leadership Development Materials

Key Indicators of Transformative Change

Income Taxes 2000-2016

- Federal Adjusted Gross Income 20%

- State Adjusted Gross Income 56%

Property Tax Valuations 2000 2018

- Ord 131%

- Valley County 280%

Community Strengths And Opportunities, Heartland Center For Leadership Development

Heartland Center for Leadership Development Materials

Community Strengths and Opportunities

The following is a list of twenty characteristics found among thriving communities, based on research conducted by the Heartland Center for Leadership Development. The Heartland Center found that thriving communities will tend to possess a variety of these characteristics, but not all twenty characteristics. Review these characteristics. Based on your community, rate each characteristic as a (1) agree, (2) neutral or (3), disagree.

Wind River Reservation, Wyoming, Heartland Center For Leadership Development

Heartland Center for Leadership Development Materials

The people of the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming view entrepreneurship as the key to future survival. Entrepreneurship, they say, will encourage more people to shop locally, while attracting more outside dollars into the community. Locally owned businesses are important for a community that faces such challenges as a 54% unemployment rate, 28% living on per-capita payments to tribal members, and 62% living below the poverty level. While there are many opportunities for economic development, the twist is finding the right strategy and maintaining traditional cultural and tribal values that are important to the two tribes that share this reservation.

Zea Books Policies And Procedures, Sue Ann Gardner, Paul Royster

About Zea E-Books

About

Zea Books is the digital imprint of the University of Nebraska–Lincoln Libraries. Its mission is to publish academic works (books, journals, multimedia) by scholars who are either affiliated with the University of Nebraska–Lincoln or are working in research areas of significant interest at UNL.

Zea Books was founded in 2008. It is a natural outgrowth of the successful UNL DigitalCommons institutional repository (http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/), an enterprise that has been publishing electronic books since its inception in 2005. The imprint helps foster the University of Nebraska–Lincoln's commitment to the future of scholarly communications.

Benefits of Publishing with Zea Books

Zea Books …

High School Scholastic Journalism: An Empowering Force In Our Polarized Democracy And Democratic Empowerment: Scholastic Journalism Curriculum, Shelby Schmidt

Department of English: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Consisting of two parts, this thesis explores the way a journalism classroom can create a democratic space for students that allows them to practice social life while developing more skills in tolerance and more confidence in their agency. The second portion consists of a sample curriculum to allow more democratic empowerment in our classrooms.

Advisor: Stacey Waite

Discrete And Looking (To Profit): Homoconnectivity On Grindr, Chase Aunspach

Department of Communication Studies: Faculty Publications

The queer dating and hookup app Grindr evidences a technological and economic intensification in queer spaces online. The dominant modality of capitalist power is no longer consumerist norms but the collection and analysis of data. Grindr’s participation in datafication distributes increased risks upon its queer users and necessitates a renewed politics of queer privacy beyond homonormativity. I name this arrangement of power homoconnectivity and detail four techniques that capitalism deploys to capture and monetize queer social production. Ultimately, this article unpacks how Grindr designs experiences that move users to log into the app while hiding its engagement with multi-sided markets. …

Infertility Patient-Provider Communication And (Dis)Continuity Of Care: An Exploration Of Illness Identity Transitions, Angela L. Palmer-Wackerly, Heather L Voorhees, Sarah D’Souza, Edward Weeks

Department of Communication Studies: Faculty Publications

Objective: To identify how and why infertility patients’ communication with health care providers relates to their continuity of care within infertility treatment.

Method: A grounded theory analysis was conducted for 25 in-depth interviews across three coding phases, where we remained open to all themes present in the data, narrowed to most prominent themes, and found the connections between the themes.

Results: Based on our identified themes, we created a conceptual model that explains why infertility patients (dis)continued care with one or more clinician. Through this model, we describe two infertility identity transitions for patients: Transition 1: “Infertility as Temporary” to …

Von Star City Sports Bis #Gbr: Reflektion Von Qualität Und Leistung Der Lokalen Sportberichterstattung Im Mittleren Westen Amerikas, Frauke Hachtmann

College of Journalism and Mass Communications: Faculty Publications

Good local sports journalism reflects the community it serves and thereby develops society. This essay discusses local sports journalism in the context of collegiate athletics in Nebraska in the Midwest. It is particularly important to produce good, solid journalism in the context of sport. This reflection of local sports journalism of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln uses the following themes for analysis: context, critical media work, diversity, representation in the newsroom, and the role of owned media and branding. The essay also describes the American collegiate athletic system and a new, innovative undergraduate major in „Sports Media and Communication“ at the …

The Global Disinformation Order: 2019 Global Inventory Of Organised Social Media Manipulation, Samantha Bradshaw, Philip N. Howard

Copyright, Fair Use, Scholarly Communication, etc.

Executive Summary

Over the past three years, we have monitored the global organization of social media manipulation by governments and political parties. Our 2019 report analyses the trends of computational propaganda and the evolving tools, capacities, strategies, and resources.

1. Evidence of organized social media manipulation campaigns which have taken place in 70 countries, up from 48 countries in 2018 and 28 countries in 2017. In each country, there is at least one political party or government agency using social media to shape public attitudes domestically.

2.Social media has become co-opted by many authoritarian regimes. In 26 countries, computational propaganda …

Journalists’ Level Of Knowledge On Empirical Research And Opinion Polling: A Study Of Kenyan Journalists, Dane M. Kiambi

College of Journalism and Mass Communications: Faculty Publications

This study examines the level of knowledge of Kenyan political reporters on a few key concepts of empirical research and opinion polling. Although data from this study are from a nonrepresentative sample, it offers important insights into levels of knowledge on an important topic in journalism. Results indicate that 63. 4 percent of the reporters did not know that survey findings from a nonrandom or nonprobability sample cannot be generalized to the population. Another 63. 4 percent did not know that sampling error cannot be computed from data that were collected using a nonrandom sample, while 49. 3 percent did …

Batman's Animated Brain(S), Lisa Kort-Butler

Department of Sociology: Presentations

Much of the analysis of Batman’s brain – whether by scholars, writers, or other comic characters – focuses on his psychological make‐up. That is, what makes Bruce Wayne psychologically motivated to be The Batman? His childhood trauma is often poised as the answer, the tireless pursuit of “justice” in an attempt to regain control from the trauma of his parents’ murders (Sanna 2015). The same could be said for his nemeses. Madness, psychopathy, and insanity are centered in the corrupted minds of Gotham’s ghastliest, some of whom have also had psychological or physical traumas (Langley 2012; Lytle 2008). A psychological …

Constructing Lumbersexuality: Marketing An Emergent Masculine Taste Regime, Mark A. Rademacher, Casey R. Kelly

Department of Communication Studies: Faculty Publications

This article examines the online retailer Huckberry.com as a singular, centralized authority responsible for marketing “lumbersexuality” as an emergent, gender-normative taste regime. As an evolution of the devalued hipster marketplace myth, analysis reveals Huckberry promotes an adaptable taste regime to its young, educated, urban, White male clientele that unites goods, meanings, and practices across multiple fields of consumption that reconnect indie consumption and taste with a fantasy of “authentic” masculinity. We argue that Huckberry offers men semiotic resources that merge the urban with the outdoors in a way that enables the enactment of a fraught though seemingly durable masculine identity …

Applied Tensional Analysis: Engaging Practitioners And The Constitutive Shift, Jennifer Mease (Also Peeksmease)

Department of Communication Studies: Faculty Publications

This article introduces applied tensional analysis as a methodological framework that integrates constitutive ontologies (that depict organizations as processes in constant states of emerging or becoming) with the applied need for practitioners to understand and navigate the everyday exigencies of their organizational experiences. Applied tensional analysis centers analysis on tensions as the key to understanding organizational becoming in contrast to approaches that assume organizations are stable entities and consequently focus on patterns, themes, or laws. The applied tensional analysis framework offers four analytical foci (context, tensions, enacted responses, and repertoires) organized into two loops (analytical and change) as guides for …

A Grand Challenges-Based Research Agenda For Scholarly Communication And Information Science [Mit Grand Challenge Pubpub Participation Platform], Micah Altman, Chris Bourg

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Identifying Grand Challenges

A global and multidisciplinary community of stakeholders came together in March 2018 to identify, scope, and prioritize a common vision for specific grand research challenges related to the fields of information science and scholarly communications. The participants included domain researchers in academia, practitioners, and those who are aiming to democratize scholarship. An explicit goal of the summit was to identify research needs related to barriers in the development of scalable, interoperable, socially beneficial, and equitable systems for scholarly information; and to explore the development of non-market approaches to governing the scholarly knowledge ecosystem.

To spur discussion and …

Social Media Flooded With Rescue Requests During Hurricane Harvey, Alison Greenhalgh

College of Journalism and Mass Communications: Professional Projects

When Hurricane Harvey hit Houston, social media was used in a new way during a natural disaster. Emergency phone lines were jammed, and people were in desperate need of rescuing. These people turned to social media, such as Facebook, to ask for help. At the same time, civilian rescuers turned to social media to find locations of people in need of rescuing. News articles published stories about the desperate cries for help on social media; however, these articles left some questions unanswered. How exactly did social media connect rescuers and victims, and how could it be more efficient? How did …

Open Textbook Project, Sue Ann Gardner

University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries: Presentations

An overview of an open educational resource textbook project administered from the University Libraries, University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Images of some of the textbook authors are included.

Remembrance Of Things Past, Sue Ann Gardner

University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries: Presentations

An overview of faculty development leave taken January 2018 through June 2018, University Libraries, University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

Comparing Virtual Reality Tourism To Real-Life Experience: Effects Of Presence And Engagement On Attitude And Enjoyment, Adam Wagler, Michael D. Hanus

College of Journalism and Mass Communications: Faculty Publications

With the advent of 360-degree video technology, Virtual reality (VR) headsets can take users to locations in the real world. Despite the increasing number of virtual tourism opportunities using digital VR technology, little research has assessed the effective realism of 360-degree video tourism. This study took users on a guided audio tour of a state Capitol building. Users either took the tour via two-dimensional (2-D) video, immersive 360-degree video using a VR headset, or physically went to the location and walked around the grounds. Users were measured on spatial presence, emotional engagement with the tour, sponsor liking, and tour outreach …

Searching Images And The Meaning Of Alarm Calls, Alan B. Bond

Alan Bond Publications

The snake alarm call of Japanese tits prompts nesting adults to search for and mob the reptile until it is driven away. From playback experiments, Suzuki (2018) has inferred that the call provides an associative cue, evoking a searching image of the salient visual features of the predator—a novel approach to exploring visual attention and vocal communication in the wild.

Qualitative Research On Youths’ Social Media Use: A Review Of The Literature, Mardi Schmeichel, Hilary E. Hughes, Mel Kutner

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

In this article we explore how educational researchers report empirical qualitative research about young people’s social media use. We frame the overall study with an understanding that social media sites contribute to the production of neoliberal subjects, and we draw on Foucauldian discourse theories and the understanding that how researchers explain topics and concepts produces particular ways of thinking about the world while excluding others. Findings include that: (1) there is an absence of attention to the structure and function of social media platforms; (2) adolescents are positioned in problematic, developmental ways; and (3) the over-representation of girls and young …