Despite the proliferation and accessibility of online news, gaps in news use between women and men have endured. We interrogate the unequal relationship between gender and news consumption by closely examining several sociological indicators of inequality that adversely impact women. Combining survey data with passive tracking of web browser and mobile app use in the UK and Brazil, we analyze how digital literacy, issues with technology, personal economic insecurity, and time spent caring for dependents (each unequally distributed across genders) shape patterns of news use differently among men and women. We find that, in our sample, women spend significantly less time with news and selectively avoid news more, and that these relationships are partially mediated by our social inequality indicators, providing some explanation as to why women consume less news. Our findings have implications for the scholarly understandings of gendered social inequalities and for the wider news community, as they highlight how structural issues play a role in gender imbalanced news consumption and avoidance.
This study investigates the motivations and political correlates of large-scale platform migration in a transnational context. While prior research has emphasized social and technological drivers, the political significance of migration remains underexplored. Building on theories of alternative political expression, political and media trust, and political efficacy, this study conceptualizes platform migration as an alternative political expression. Using an online survey of a group of users with sustained adoption of RedNote, we analyze the case of "TikTok refugees," examining five motivational mechanisms - social influence, platform-use orientation, political expression, cultural openness, and collective identity frames - and a series of political characteristics with migration. The results show that lower political and media trust, lower external efficacy, and higher internal efficacy are significantly associated with affective and perceptual dimensions of migration. In addition, political expression and cultural openness emerge as the strongest motivators, while well-recognized motivations of social influence and platform-use orientation do not show statistically significant correlation. Taken together, the findings highlight platform migration as a complex, multidimensional behavior situated at the intersection of technological change and (geo)political dynamics.
Prior research suggests that -political differences shape perceptions of technology, yet limited attention has been given to how these differences affect trust in emerging technologies and how they interact with users' behavioral and psychological responses. Addressing this gap, we investigated the roles of ChatGPT use, perceived threat of large language models (LLMs), nd political ideology in shaping trust in ChatGPT for political information consumption. Thresults show that frequent use of ChatGPT was positively associated with trust, whereas perceived threat was negatively associated with trust. Significant two-way interactions emerged between ChatGPT use and threat perception, and between threat perception and political ideology. ChatGPT use was associated with higher trust, with a stronger association observed among individuals with higher threat perception. The negative effect of threat perception on trust was also stronger among liberals than among conservatives. However, a significant three-way interaction further showed that although higher threat perception was generally associated with lower trust, it strengthened the positive relationship between ChatGPT use and trust among liberals and moderates, but not among conservatives, whose trust remained relatively stable across threat levels. These findings highlight the importance of considering socio-political identity when examining trust formation in emerging AI technologies.
This paper investigates why the Philippines and Vietnam delayed the establishment of their cyber commands until 2024 and 2017, respectively, despite both countries experiencing foreign cyberattacks linked to the South China Sea disputes since the early 2010s and explains the seven-year disparity between them. Findings reveal that the Philippines initially focused on combating cybercrimes, whereas Vietnam prioritized addressing regime-threatening cyber activities. When the two countries eventually recognized cyberspace as a domain of warfare, different alignment choices, strategic cultures, and domestic institutions led to divergent pathways in creating their cyber commands.
While social media plays a prominent role in global journalism, its influence on media diversity is under debate. This paper aims to examine the relationship between social media and online media diversity. The research framework posits that online media diversity is shaped between social media empowerment and the existing power structure. Social media empowerment is specified by the degree to which social media allows audience participation, consisting of two levels of participatory intensity - social media adoption (low) and organization (high). We explore how adoption and organization are associated with online media diversity in three country groups with varied levels of press freedom (low, middle, and high), which specifies the degree to which the existing power structure controls online media outlets by shaping their functions, norms, and practices. Using country-level data from Varieties of Democracy and other sources, we analyze a panel sample of 150 countries from 2014 to 2022. We find that social media adoption and organization are associated with online media diversity in different ways within and between country groups. From a comparative perspective, the findings enhance our understanding of the theories of normalization and power shift, which account for power relations between social media and media organizations.
Existing scholarship on social media polarization has predominantly focused on political polarization in developed countries. However, the interplay between social media and other forms of polarization, such as ethnic polarization, which is equally harmful and arguably more prevalent in developing nations, has not received sufficient attention. Drawing on cross-sectional survey data (N = 549) from Afghanistan, this study examines the relationship between Facebook network heterogeneity and ethnic polarization. Results from two serial mediation analyses showed no significant direct association between network heterogeneity and ethnic polarization. However, network heterogeneity is positively associated with diverse content exposure, perceived knowledge acquisition, intergroup contact quality, and trust, thereby indirectly attenuating ethnic polarization. By extending the scope of polarization research beyond the political divide in the Western context, this study contributes to the emerging literature on ethnic polarization in social media.
This article examines how Facebook reaction metrics structure party leaders' communication incentives during COVID-19. Using 7,264 posts from twelve Norwegian leaders, it codes nine crisis-message strategies and models Angry, Sad, Love, and Care counts with negative binomial regressions. Two visibility-oriented affective profiles emerge. Heat (Angry, Sad) aligns most with criticism and crisis framing, while affiliation (Love, Care) aligns most with accommodative and promotional messaging. These associations vary across crisis phases and between government and opposition. Disaggregating engagement into emotion-specific signals clarifies incentive patterns that aggregate engagement can obscure.
