Communication Technology and New Media Commons^™

Uses And Gratifications Of Sensationalised Content On The Digital Native News Websites In Kenya, Lynet Igadwah

Master of Arts in Digital Journalism

The changing media landscape in a digital era has led to increased competition between legacy and new media as the clamour for audience attention takes centre stage. As more people move to access their news online, online-only journalistic brands, otherwise known as digital native news websites, are giving mainstream media a run for their money. These sites are tapping more on internet penetration and digital technologies to drive traffic to their sites particularly using social media as a window. These digital native sites are typically big on photos, bear flashy and bold headlines and are more entertainment-focused, emphasising attracting eyeballs …

An Analysis Of Staff Turnover On The Practice Of Journalism In Uganda, Arthur Arnold Wadero

Master of Arts in Digital Journalism

Newsrooms in Uganda are not immune to staff turnovers as many of the seasoned journalists have been lost to other fields of work and this impacts newsrooms activities. This study analyses the implications of staff turnover and the strategies newsrooms in Uganda have instituted to retain newsroom staff. This is a case of the Nation Media Group -Uganda (NMG-U) and Vision Group. This study was guided by the Resource Based Theory of Human Resource and the Gatekeeping Theory. The study adopted a Qualitative Study Approach and employed in-depth interviews to collect data from 21 journalists that were purposively selected. The …

What About Love? Does The Over- Commercialization Of Valentine’S Day On Social Media Leave Us Living In A Sadder, Material World?, Jin-A Choi, Bond Benton, Yi Luo, Keith Green

College of Communication and Media Scholarship and Creative Works

No abstract provided.

Smartphone Use And Daily Cognitive Failures: A Critical Examination Using A Daily Diary Approach With Objective Smartphone Measures, Andree Hartanto, Kristine Y. X. Lee, Yi Jing Chua, Frosch Y. X. Quek, Nadyannam M. Majeed

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

While smartphones have brought many benefits and conveniences to users, there is continuing debate regarding their potential negative consequences on everyday cognition such as daily cognitive failures. A few cross-sectional studies have found positive associations between smartphone use and cognitive failures. However, several research gaps remain, such as the use of cross-sectional designs, confounds related to stable individual differences, the lack of validity in self-report measures of smartphone use, memory biases in retrospective self-reports, and the lack of differentiation between smartphone checking and smartphone screen time. To simultaneously address the aforementioned shortcomings, the current study examined the within-person associations between …

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 …

Lindenwood Digest, February 1, 2023, Lindenwood University

Lindenwood Digest

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

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 …

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 …

Gamesmanship In Modern Discovery Tech, Neel Guha, Peter Henderson, Diego A. Zambrano

Faculty Scholarship

This chapter explores the potential for gamesmanship in technology-assisted discovery. Attorneys have long embraced gamesmanship strategies in analog discovery, producing reams of irrelevant documents, delaying depositions, or interpreting requests in a hyper-technical manner. The new question, however, is whether machine learning technologies can transform gaming strategies. By now it is well known that technologies have reinvented the practice of civil litigation and, specifically, the extensive search for relevant documents in complex cases. Many sophisticated litigants use machine learning algorithms – under the umbrella of “Technology Assisted Review” (TAR) – to simplify the identification and production of relevant documents in discovery. …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …

“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 …