Communication Technology and New Media Commons^™

Application Of Lean Startup Methodology By Legacy Media Organisations In New Product Development: A Case Of Nation Media Group-Kenya, Ogolo Akoth Dorine

Master of Arts in Digital Journalism

Ries (2011) and Blank (2013) documented various aspects of the Lean Startup Methodology and the principles thereof. The literature reviewed point to the need to bridge existing research gaps in the application of the principles, especially in the media industry. The main objective of this research was to establish if and how Nation Media Group - Kenya has applied the Lean Startup Methodology in product development and the effects on the company’s performance. The research was qualitative in nature, with data being collected through interviewing key informers, as well as document analysis. The study established that Nation Media Group preferred …

Membership As A Business Model: Exploring Reader Revenue Stream For Media Organizations In Kenya, Joseph Kariuki Mwangi

Master of Arts in Digital Journalism

The media landscape is facing an unprecedented crisis characterised by dwindling revenue, technological disruption, audience retention challenge, and competition from other forms of media and technology firms, with growth in digital media unable to cover the shortfall. In Kenya, the revenue crisis has morphed into the shrinking of newsrooms through massive sacking and loss of jobs, profit warnings by leading media houses and delayed payment of staff salaries. One of the main drivers of shrinking newsrooms is because of audience fragmentation and segmentation that has led to the rise of niche platforms fighting for the same revenue with mainstream media. …

Assessing The Viability Of Online Content Monetisation Models Through An Evaluation Of Willingness To Pay For Metropol Tv’S News Content, Stephen Kimani Gitau

Master of Arts in Digital Journalism

Since the advent of digital media platforms, players in the mainstream media have grappled with the challenge of increased fragmentation of platforms and audiences coupled with dwindling advertising revenues. Given the need to diversify their revenue sources in the face of shrinking advertising revenue, media houses are pushing readers towards subscription to e-papers and commercializing the content on their websites through paywalls to help generate more revenues. While there has been a shift towards subscription-based revenue models to attract new audiences and supplement advertising revenue, it is not clear whether the pay-for-content model can attract and retain audiences that are …

The Evolving Role Of The Media In Elections: Royal Media Services Use Of Technology In The Tallying Process Of The 2022 Elections, Jamila Mohamed

Master of Arts in Digital Journalism

Previous elections in Kenya have raised questions about the credibility of the polls with disputes arising after results are announced. The 2017 nullification of the presidential election results by the Supreme Court pointed fingers at the electoral body, IEBC for illegalities and irregularities in the way the body conducted the elections and the tallying process. However, despite the nullification of the 2017 elections, issues of integrity of the elections rose again towards the 2022 general elections, with the citizenry turning to the media for clarity. At media industry level, editors made the decision to tally and transmit results direct from …

Challenges Faced By Journalists In Digital Media Enterprises And How To Overcome Them, Robert Ndungu

Master of Arts in Digital Journalism

This study aims to identify the challenges faced in successfully transitioning to becoming a digital journalist and the solutions to these problems in a way that creates a template or blueprint to replicate for other journalists. In chapter 1, there is the introduction and background which highlight these challenges including difficulties in having regular training about new tools and technologies. It highlights the struggle digital journalists face to understand their roles and responsibilities, especially in the context of the DME's own interpretation, the advocacy for good mental health and stress management support in the workplace and the complexities of flexible …

Human Resource Management In The Digital Era: Leading A Multi-Generational Workforce In Kenyan Newsrooms, Caroline Wambui Mwangi

Master of Arts in Digital Journalism

Human resources are a key pillar for driving media leadership and innovation. These resources are, however, very diverse in terms of skills, expertise, gender, areas of specialization and age among other factors. This study set out to critically examine and understand the dynamics of multi-generational digital newsrooms in Kenya and provide recommendations and strategies for how they can be managed better to ensure productivity and sustainability. Chapter one of this document provided an introduction and background to the study. This chapter also outlined the rationale of the study, the literature review, the problem statement, research objectives and questions, the research …

Convergence Newsroom Culture In Legacy News Media: An Ethnographic Study Of The Standard Group Plc, Caroline Jerotich Kimutai

Master of Arts in Digital Journalism

In the last decade, the media industry has been under immense financial pressure because of declining advertising revenue. News media organisations especially traditional media are moving away from a business model that only relies on traditional commercial advertising, to one that offers multiple streams of revenue like digital subscriptions, native advertising, classifieds, events, sponsorships, affiliate marketing among others. In 2020, the Standard Group converged its newsroom operations into a digital-first news gathering and dissemination operation (Theuri, 2021). There had been previous attempts at convergence, only this time, a changing media environment was threatening the survival of the media house. Over …

A Narrative Review Of Screen Time And Wellbeing Among Adolescents Before And During The Covid-19 Pandemic: Implications For The Future, Verity Yu Qing Lua, Terence B. K. Chua, Michael Y. H. Chia

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted the lives of many. In particular, during the height of the pandemic, many experienced lockdowns, which in turn increased screen time drastically. While the pandemic has been declared an endemic and most activities have been reinstated, there appears to still be elevated screen time among adolescents due to poor habits formed during the pandemic lockdowns. This paper explores the factors by which screen time affects well-being among adolescents and how the pandemic may have influenced some of these factors. For example, beyond having greater screen time, many adolescents have also reduced their physical activities and …

Factors Associated With Technology Adoption By Community-Dwelling Older Adults During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Elizabeth A. Sutton

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The COVID-19 pandemic brought to the forefront the disparity between older and younger Americans in the utilization of information and communication technologies (ICT) when measures such as the COVID vaccine rollout were dependent on technology use. Technology adoption has implications for overall health and the continuation of disparities in technology adoption is associated with poor aging outcomes. The aim of this study was to understand factors associated with technology adoption by community-dwelling older adults during the COVID-19 pandemic. A nationally representative sample of 2,954 community-dwelling older adults who completed the National Health and Aging Trends Study (NHATS) COVID-19 Questionnaire was …

Lindenwood Digest, February 1, 2023, Lindenwood University

Lindenwood Digest

The Lindenwood Digest has been a digital employee newsletter since 2009.

Artificially Intelligent Communication: An Exploratory Study On Replika Mobile Application, Nouran El-Ashry

Theses and Dissertations

This paper aims to address artificial intelligence from a communication perspective by looking at the usage of Replika, an AI-based platform. A quantitative survey was conducted to analyze the frequency of usage, attitude toward the application and the level of attachment to it. Moreover, qualitative questions were developed to get in-depth understanding of the type of relationship users have with their Replika application and reasons behind their usage. Results show no significant relationship between demographics and the application consumption except for age where older users communicate more frequently with the application than younger ones. Moreover, attachment levels were related to …

The Impact Of Gender Differences And Geographic Locations On Social Media Literacy Among Public Universities Students, Heba Tallah Moustafa Helmy

Theses and Dissertations

The objective of this study was to investigate the effect of both gender difference and geographic location on social media literacy levels among undergraduate students in public universities in Egypt. Four aspects related to social media literacy were considered in the Likert-scale survey, including basic technical skills, digital interactions, information evaluation, and privacy and security practices. A total of 520 students participated in this exploratory research, of which 265 males and 255 females enrolled at four public universities in different geographic locations. Cairo University and Ain Shams University represent the urban areas. The other two universities are located in center-periphery …

Tiktok Battlefield: Comparative Analysis Of English And Arabic Language Representations Of The 2022 Russian Ukrainian Conflict On Tiktok, Dina Magdeldin Mahmoud Elhawary

Theses and Dissertations

This study extends the growing political communication research on TikTok platform through studying the representation of a major political conflict in modern history; the 2022 Russian Ukrainian conflict. The study is providing a cross cultural comparison by studying the perspectives of English and Arabic speakers about the conflict. The study is based on the analysis of the 500 most liked TikTok videos - in one month duration that starts with the day of the Russian invasion - with top hashtags about the conflict in order to find the common message themes. The study uses a multi-dimensional analysis approach of connective …

Impact Of Social Media  On Public Perception Of Government Covid-19 Response Efforts, Taher Taher

Theses and Dissertations

This research aims to understand this phenomenon to provide insights into how governments can perform better in times of crisis regarding social media and its impact on public opinion. This research aims to understand how social media impacts public perception of government COVID-19 response efforts by studying Facebook comments, likes, and reactions (emoticons).

The study was based on data gathered from Facebook comments on the daily infographic COVID-19 statistics from the official site of the Ministry of Health and Population. The sampling frame is the 52 weeks of 2020, January to December, through random sampling resulting in 546 comments. The …

“For The Moment, I Am Not F*Cking,” I Am Tweeting: Platforms Of / As Sexuality, Jacob Johanssen

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

This article develops the argument that digital platforms are significantly infused with originary (and unconscious) residues of the sexual. Drawing on Laplancheian conceptualizations of sexuality, I argue that the digital has always been sexual(ised) in itself – a process that precedes and exceeds the erotic or pornographic. For Laplanche, sexuality is constitutive of the human subject as such. Infantile sexuality is shaped and transformed in an enigmatic relation with the caregiver. Drawing on this model as an analogy, I claim that users are drawn to platforms because they (unconsciously) desire to return to infantile sexuality and a holding environment but …

Lindenwood Digest, January 25, 2023, Lindenwood University

Lindenwood Digest

The Lindenwood Digest has been a digital employee newsletter since 2009.

Image Of China Science On International Social Media Platform—Based On Data From Twitter, Zheng Yang, Hepeng Jia, Yanli Wang, Ting Wang

Bulletin of Chinese Academy of Sciences (Chinese Version)

With the increasingly intensified international competition in science and technology and rapidly development of science and technology in China, the national science image has increasingly become an important part of the whole national image that cannot be ignored. Through the analysis of discussions on Chinese science-related topics on Twitter, the international social media platform, it is found that the Western public's current attention to Chinese science-related topics is not high, while it continues to grow. The discussions around Chinese science-related topics are dominated by a small number of major scientific events, and are obviously guided and controlled by the power …

Lindenwood Digest, January 18, 2023, Lindenwood University

Lindenwood Digest

The Lindenwood Digest has been a digital employee newsletter since 2009.

Lindenwood Digest, November 15, 2023, Lindenwood University

Lindenwood Digest

The Lindenwood Digest has been a digital employee newsletter since 2009.

Metamorphis, Luca Lee Sobarzo Faust

Theses and Dissertations

Web3D interactive experience that explores time, communication, and transformation, from a personal storytelling perspective. Hosted on a web platform, the experience displays three environments: Metamorphis, Cuir AI, and Hain. These spaces propose a fragmented narrative that seeks to interrogate both the characters and the viewer’s perception on the linearity of time

Lindenwood Digest, January 11, 2023, Lindenwood University

Lindenwood Digest

The Lindenwood Digest has been a digital employee newsletter since 2009.

Zoom Affordances And Identity: A Case Study, Angela Cirucci

College of Communication & Creative Arts Departmental Research

While how to engage students in online settings is a popular topic of study, largely left out are the ways in which virtual learning environments (VLEs) have implications for identity performance (and subsequently learning quality). This case study pairs a walkthrough analysis of Zoom with an open-ended survey (n = 250, M = 21.5) to investigate how VLE affordances impact student identifications. Findings indicate that students prefer Zoom because it is “user-friendly,” forgoing wordy options and instead presenting a more “appified” user interface. Students were concerned about their classmates and professors seeing their physical backgrounds, particularly those who reported family …

The Communication Strategies In Arab Digital Diplomacy... Adoption And Relevancy, Najm Abed Alhatimi Aleessawi

Journal of the Association of Arab Universities for Research in Higher Education مجلة اتحاد الجامعات العربية للبحوث في التعليم العالي

The article aimed to identify the level of Arab public diplomacy's employment of its communication strategies via the Twitter platform in presenting its political and diplomatic topics and activities. It adopted the descriptive analytical method and the content analysis tool for (1271) tweets from the accounts of Arab foreign ministries on the digital communication platform “Twitter”, for the period from December 1, 2019, to January 31, 2020, using the method of a comprehensive survey of tweets from four Arab countries (Morocco, Saudi Arabia). Jordan, Iraq). The article concluded that security issues ranked first in the tweets of the Jordanian Ministry …

Revisiting Cybersecurity Awareness In The Midst Of Disruptions, Avideh Sadaghiani-Tabrizi

International Journal for Business Education

The awareness of cybersecurity and knowledge about risks from a variety of threats, which present harm or steal private information in internetworking could help in mitigation of vulnerabilities to risks of threats in safeguarding information from malware and bots. Revisiting cybersecurity awareness of every member and evaluation of organization’s posture might help to protect sensitive or private information from a network of computers, working together and forming into botnets. The purpose of the qualitative case study narrative was to explore prospects for integrating cybersecurity education into elementary school children’s curriculum through interviews of elementary schoolteachers, IT experts, and parents to …

A Systematic Literature Review Of Research From 2010 To 2020 Addressing User-Generated Online Comments Related To Health Issues And Recommendations For Future Research, Muhammad Ittefaq, Mauryne Abwao, Ioana A. Coman, Waqas Ejaz

School of Communication Studies - Faculty Scholarship

This systematic literature review was conducted to provide insights into how online readers’ comments have been studied in the context of health over a 10-year span. About 593 studies published between 2010 and 2020; of these, 34 met the research criteria for inclusion. Our findings reveal that 60% of the studies focused on the United States, and a qualitative method was used in 74.3% of these studies. About 23.5% of the studies explored vaccine-related issues. Our results reveal that among the selected studies, 76.5% and 20.6% had female and male first authors, respectively. Textual analysis of abstracts shows that the …

The "Othering" Of America: How The Strategic Use Of Crisis And Ressentiment Succeeded In The Trump Era, Laura J. Franklin

Dissertations

The establishment of a crisis theme through public rhetoric often triggers widespread attention, resulting in public concern and media coverage of an issue that could potentially be overblown or deceptive. In right-wing political discourse, this crisis warning is typically delivered by a White male leader with ready access to the powerful news media. An “us versus them” theme often occurs. Within this mode of a hegemonic exclusion, a culture of immigrants or an American minority are often depicted, perhaps aggressively, as a threat: A threat used to motivate, enrage and create the frustrations inherent in ressentiment. This dissertation explores the …

The Nashville Predators Social Media Audit, Sam Baranek, Connor Clouthier, Toniya Johnson, Mary Kate Reid, Micaela Trimble

[Archive] Belmont University Research Symposium (BURS)

This report and presentation will deliver a comprehensive social media audit completed on the Nashville Predators, a national hockey team. In the end, it will show results of our group’s analysis of the communication strategies on the various platforms that the Nashville Predators use for their business and brand. While we already have prior knowledge and experience in social media, we plan to use the theories and principles to come to even better conclusions about the success of the Nashville Predators’ online presence.

The Nashville Predators are known for being a professional hockey team in the NHL. The Predator’s brand …

Theory-Building And Tool-Building For A Science Of Dysfunctional Political Discourse, Eric Hamilton, Marguerite Williamson, Andrew Hurford

Education Division Scholarship

This paper extends a developing analytic framework for political discourse that takes place over digital social media. Earlier presentations of the framework have furnished a rationale for applying the conceptual framework of epistemic frame theory and the tools of quantitative ethnography for political discourse analysis. They have provided early existence proofs of the viability of epistemic network analysis (ENA) for rudimentary models of social media threads that involve political content. The current theoretical paper moves significantly beyond this foundation. It summarizes and deepens the explanation of the constructs of discursive transactions, response grammars, and epistemic frames in political discourse. It …

Social Media Use And Awareness Of Privacy Concerns, Lola Baldwin, Jared Gores, Jp Kilbride

Concordia Journal of Communication Research

The usage of social media in our society is prevalent in our daily lives. Although social media usage is at an all time high, the tools and technologies that provide security and protection can be compromised. Users of social media platforms should be made aware of the risks and pitfalls of these applications. Our study identified that users of social media platforms are generally aware of insecurities within the platforms. The researchers determined that the frequency of posting does not cause risks for privacy concerns. Although the users had general awareness and concern, they were heightened after additional information was …

Mental Health In Sports Media, Samuel Ridgley

Communication & Media Studies | Senior Theses

This paper looks at the increasingly popular conversation surrounding mental health in sports. It provides a glimpse into how common the struggle of mental health can be for many high-level athletes while also examining the narrative and expectations that society and the media have created. The paper also provides examples of prominent athletes from a variety of different sports and delves into their personal mental health experiences in the eyes of the media. The goal of this paper is to show the progression and change of how the media portrays mental health amongst athletes in today’s ever-changing world.