IntroductionMale loneliness has emerged as a significant public health concern, yet men's experiences of disconnection remain underexplored in naturalistic digital settings. This study examines how male loneliness is described and publicly negotiated in a large YouTube comment corpus.MethodsData were drawn from the comment section of The Male Loneliness Epidemic, which had generated 57,359 comments and more than five million views at extraction. Following cleaning, 45,807 comments were analysed using computational methods to examine sentiment, emotion-related language, recurring concerns, and differences between parent comments and replies. Reflexive thematic analysis was conducted on a purposive subsample of 654 comments.ResultsThe comments contained expressions of distress alongside encouragement, care, and solidarity. Five qualitative themes showed that commenters frequently described loneliness not simply as a lack of social contact, but as feeling unseen, unheard, or emotionally unsupported. They discussed difficulties expressing vulnerability, the dismissal or misunderstanding of men's emotional needs, pressures associated with masculine and provider expectations, and the importance of being acknowledged by others. Replies were less negative and contained more trust-related language than parent comments. Some replies offered validation, encouragement, and recognition to those describing loneliness.DiscussionThe findings suggest that male loneliness in this YouTube corpus was often framed as relational deprivation, involving a perceived absence of recognition, emotional reciprocity, and being valued. Drawing on precarious manhood theory, recognition theory, and affective publics, the study shows how YouTube comment threads can provide opportunities for public acknowledgement and recognition-oriented peer interaction, although the findings do not establish that loneliness was reduced.
IntroductionThe accelerating production and circulation of digital news have transformed the continuity of public interest. Constant updates, algorithmic visibility, and information abundance shorten the period during which news stories remain prominent. This study examines declining public attention in digital news ecosystems from the perspective of media professionals and explores the educational implications for sustainable media literacy.MethodsA convergent mixed-methods design combined semi-structured interviews with eight senior media professionals and managers and a structured survey of 40 professionals representing 23 news organizations (76.9% response rate). Qualitative data were analyzed thematically, while the survey assessed news-cycle acceleration, algorithmic gatekeeping, audience-attention decline, editorial adaptation, and the need for sustainable media literacy education. Construct reliability was acceptable (Cronbach's α = .76–.88).ResultsInterviewees described faster news cycles, algorithmically shaped visibility, shorter attention spans, and increasing reliance on continuous updates, serialized content, and bite-sized formats. Survey findings supported these accounts: respondents reported accelerated news cycles (M = 4.35, SD = 0.61; 90.0% agreement), algorithmic gatekeeping (M = 4.05, SD = 0.74; 80.0%), declining audience attention (M = 4.28, SD = 0.66; 87.5%), and an urgent need for media literacy education (M = 4.48, SD = 0.55; 92.5%). Integration revealed broad convergence between qualitative and quantitative findings, although digital coordinators perceived stronger algorithmic pressures than editors-in-chief.DiscussionThe findings indicate that attention fragility affects both editorial practices and the depth of public debate. The study proposes sustainable media literacy as an educational framework integrating critical evaluation, conscious selectivity, and attention management. This framework may inform educators, curriculum designers, and newsroom trainers across professional roles and diverse educational contexts.
The Fukushima radioactive water discharge became a major international controversy in East Asia, where scientific risk, evaluations of government and institutional actors, and diplomatic conflict intersected. While the Japanese government promoted the discharge policy by emphasizing its scientific safety, the South Korean government adopted a relatively cooperative stance toward Japan, whereas the Chinese government strongly criticized the discharge. This study comparatively examines how social media users in Japan, South Korea, and China interpreted and circulated discourse surrounding the Fukushima radioactive water discharge within these differing political and social contexts. To this end, X data from Japan and South Korea and Weibo data from China were collected and analyzed using repost network analysis and political orientation analysis. The findings show that pro-discharge discourse was relatively dominant in Japan and was closely associated with government-supportive and conservative users. In contrast, anti-discharge discourse overwhelmingly dominated in South Korea and was primarily linked to anti-government users. On Chinese Weibo, the high-engagement posts examined were predominantly critical of the discharge and included political, diplomatic, and anti-Japanese narratives, with state-affiliated media accounts visible among highly circulated content. These findings suggest that public responses to the Fukushima discharge were shaped not only by perceptions of scientific risk, but also by political identity, evaluations of government and institutional actors, and international relations. The study demonstrates how science communication in East Asian social media environments becomes politicized and embedded within broader political and nationalistic discourse structures.
If memes are a type of communication produced by the environment—a composition of human and non-human elements, that environment influences and is influenced by climate or atmosphere that facilitates the body politic's in/action. This article, thus, explores the symbolic interactions within and surrounding political memes, focusing on intertextualities and paratexts in the visual (re)presentation of U.S. President Donald Trump’s 2023 indictments. The critique suggests that memeification of politics presents possibilities for community, but may also pollute the media environment with distorted rhetorical patterns. It recognizes similarities between movements and memetics, both of which are part of a media ecological system and share characteristics of imitation and identity formation.
