"1. Social Media Users in MEA (Middle East and Africa) spend the most time on social networks, averaging over 3.5 hours per day. Internet users in the MEA have an average of 8.4 social media accounts, research reveals. UAE, with an average of 10.5 accounts, has “the highest number of social media
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accounts per person globally. 2. Top TikTok influencers grew their fanbase by an average of 65%, between February and August 2020, with the highest engagement rates in Bahrain, Oman and Saudi Arabia. Few influencers have successfully crossed over from other platforms. 3. Egypt is the 9th largest national market for Facebook in the world, with 44 million users, by October 2020. Turkey is the only other MENA country in the Top 20, with 37 million users. 4. Four MENA Countries, Saudi Arabia (17.9 million users), Turkey (9.7m), Iraq (9.6m) and Egypt (8.9m) are in the 13 largest national markets for Snapchat worldwide. Audiences are continuing to grow, highlighting the importance of the app. 5. 79% of Arab Youth say they get their news from social media. That’s up from 25% in 2015 [...]" (Executive summary)
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"Se estima que 9.1 millones de peruanos son digitales. Representan el 54% de la población urbana de 18 a 70 años." (Página 1)
"El análisis de la información disponible sobre ocho indicadores de concentración en Internet en Perú muestra que en casi todas ellas unas pocas empresas tienen una posición dominante en el mercado o servicio relevado." (Conclusiones, página 17)
"TikTok (in Chinese: DouYin; formerly known as musical.ly) currently represents one of the most successful Chinese social media applications in the world. Since its founding in September 2016, TikTok has seen widespread distribution, in particular, attracting young users to engage in viewing, creati
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ng, and commenting on “LipSync-Videos” on the app. Despite its success in terms of user numbers, psychological studies aiming at an understanding of TikTok use are scarce. This narrative review provides a comprehensive overview on the small empirical literature available thus far. In particular, insights from uses and gratification theory in the realm of TikTok are highlighted, and we also discuss aspects of the TikTok platform design. Given the many unexplored research questions related to TikTok use, it is high time to strengthen research efforts to better understand TikTok use and whether certain aspects of its use result in detrimental behavioral effects. In light of user characteristics of the TikTok platform, this research is highly relevant because TikTok users are often adolescents and therefore from a group of potentially vulnerable individuals." (Abstract)
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"Before the outbreak of COVID-19 from the city of Wuhan, China in December 2019, many people across the globe, Nigerians inclusive already relied on social media to gather and disseminate information and news. Since the outbreak of the virus on February 27th, 2020 in Nigeria, people have depended on
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social media to obtain information about the virus. No doubt, social media has a lot of potentials to keep the users abreast of many areas such as academic, economic, socials, health, religions etc. Nowadays, social media are often seen as fast and effective platforms for searching, sharing, and distributing health information among the general population. During sudden outbreaks such as the COVID-19 pandemic, the public needs access to timely, objective and reliable information about the disease symptoms, preventions and cure. Regrettably, these same platforms are also being deployed to spread fake news, rumours about the virus and cause fear, panic and death. Certainly, the scenario poses danger to both individual and public health in Nigeria. Based on this, the present article employed conceptual analysis with a receptor-oriented method to examine the extent to which the potential of social media can be beneficial or injurious to public health during the COVID-19 pandemic. It was discovered among others that; social media causes more harm to people’s health during the pandemic. Therefore, social media literacy and media content censorship among others were suggested as the way forward in promoting public health during a pandemic situation." (Abstract)
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"Following months of mass antigovernment demonstrations in Belarus, this report widens the focus beyond the protesters and takes stock of the views and preferences of Belarusian citizens at a critical moment. A new ZOiS survey conducted in December 2020 among Belarusians aged between 16 and 64 revea
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ls rare insights into the political and social mood across the country, trust in its institutions, the dynamics of the recent political mobilisation, and the domestic and foreign policy preferences of Belarusian citizens [...] The survey confirms the extent to which the protests were carried by private citizens, rather than organised civil society, trade unions, or churches, which played only peripheral roles. Social and online media dominate society’s news consumption, with over 70 per cent of respondents using these media as their main source of information. Belarusian state television, Russian media, and international media are used as well but are significantly less prominent as primary information sources. Trust in Belarus’s political institutions in general remains weak. Confidence has not eroded completely, but trust in all institutions is on balance negative, with very similar scores for the executive, the legislative, the judiciary, and the security apparatus. In absolute numbers, the opposition Coordination Council and the Orthodox Church are the most trusted institutions." (Executive summary)
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"All My Friends Live in my Computer combines personal stories, media studies, and interdisciplinary theories to examine case studies from three unique parts of society. From illness narratives among breast cancer patients to political upheaval among Iranian-Americans, this book examines what people
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do when they go online after they have suffered a trauma. It offers in-depth academic analysis alongside deeply personal stories and case studies to take the reader on a journey through rapidly changing digital/social worlds. When people are traumatized, their worlds stop making sense, and All My Friends Live in my Computer explores how everyday people use social media to try and make a new world for themselves and others who are suffering. Through its attention to personal stories and application of media theory to new contexts, this book highlights how, when given the tools, people will make meaning in creative, novel, and healing ways." (Publisher description)
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"This volume explores how, over the past decade, social media platforms have deeply penetrated the fabric of everyday life. The author considers South Africans’ use of wearable tech and use of online health and sports tracking systems via mobile phones within the broader context of the digital dat
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a economy. The author also focuses on the dating app Tinder, to show how people negotiate and redefine intimacy through the practice of online dating via strategic performances in pursuit of love, sex and intimacy. The book concludes with the use of Facebook and Twitter for social activism (e.g. Fees Must Fall), as well as networked community building as in the case of the #imstaying movement." (Publisher description)
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"This year's report reveals new insights about digital news consumption based on a YouGov survey of over 92,000 online news consumers in 46 markets including India, Indonesia, Thailand, Nigeria, Colombia and Peru for the first time. The report looks at the impact of coronavirus on news consumption a
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nd on the economic prospects for publishers. It looks at progress on new paid online business models, trust and misinformation, local news, impartiality and fairness in news coverage." (Overview)
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"Siguiendo con la conexión entre tradición e innovación, la estructura del libro parte de una aproximación teórica al concepto de audiencia y su evolución histórica para, a continuación, explicar las principales metodologías de investigación en audiencias, tanto cuantitativas como cualitat
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ivas, y analizar los sistemas de medición de la audiencia en los diferentes medios: televisión, radio, prensa e Internet. La obra ofrece una reflexión sobre los retos de futuro, con abundantes enlaces y recursos audiovisuales extra que permitan ampliar cada uno de los capítulos." (Editorial)
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"Syrians greatly desire news that is free from political partisanship and interference; are reflective and capable of making conscious and informed decisions; are resourceful, reflective and desire the full picture of news and events; value variety in terms of sources, and are therefore often drawn
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to digital platforms that facilitate a diversity of choice as a way to check news and besides valuing pluralism; afe flexible and partial to changing their consumption habits if they begin to notice too much perceived bias in the outlets they use; feel that the majority of content in the Syrian media landscape is not objective or credible enough; believe that media, if and when truly independent, has an important role to play in society as a watchdog and a unifier; prefer breaking news, accurate and exclusive news." (Key findings, page 4)
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"Many people connected to the internet for the first time as they adapted to the challenges of COVID-19, while existing users embraced new digital tools and rediscovered old favourites. As a result, many of the indicators in our Global Digital Reports have seen remarkable levels of growth over the p
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ast 12 months. Social media delivered some of the most impressive numbers, with users increasing by more than 13 percent since our 2020 reports. Almost half a billion users joined social media in the past year, taking the global total to 4.2 billion in early 2021. Growth hasn’t just been about user numbers, though. The world’s mobile users now spend more time on their phones than they do watching television, clearly positioning the smartphone as today’s ‘first screen’. Ecommerce is another area that saw rapid growth in 2020, with many people moving their shopping online to mitigate the health risks associated with COVID-19. However, research suggests that the new ecommerce habits people adopted during lockdown will last well beyond the pandemic." (Page 3)
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"Digital Anthropology 2nd Edition explores how human and digital can be defined in relation to one another within issues as diverse as social media use, virtual worlds, hacking, quantified self, blockchain, digital environmentalism and digital representation. The book challenges the moral universal
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of the digital by exploring emergent anxieties about the global spread of new technological forms as well as highlighting the productive contribution of the digital to new concepts and practices. In this fully revised edition, Digital Anthropology reveals how the intense scrutiny of ethnography can overturn assumptions about the impact of digital culture and reveal its profound consequences for everyday life around the world. Combining the clarity of case studies with an engaging style that conveys a passion for new frontiers of enquiry within anthropological study, this will be essential reading for students and scholars interested in theory of anthropology, media and information studies, communication studies and sociology. With a brand new introduction from editors Haidy Geismar and Hannah Knox, as well as the original introduction by Heather Horst and Daniel Miller, in conjunction with new chapters on hacking, and digitizing environments, amongst others, and fully revised chapters throughout, this will bring the field-defining overview of digital anthropology fully up to date." (Publisher description)
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"In the mid-20th century, when media research came into its own, this task was more straightforward. There were only a few different ways to get news, and all were clearly distinct – print publications, radio or television. But over the past decades, in addition to a plethora of new forms of news
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(from 24-hour news channels to news websites), many news outlets no longer stay confined to producing content on only one platform. For instance, to meet the growing digital audience, newspapers like The New York Times also produce audio podcasts, which can be heard on radio stations through a smart speaker, and video series, which can be seen on a cable TV network through a streaming device (such as a Roku or Fire Stick). And cable news outlets and other news providers have an active presence on Facebook, YouTube and other social media sites, further blurring the line between platforms. Finally, there is an industry-wide concern that news consumption habits are overestimated in surveys where respondents self-report their behavior. Given the increasing complexity and interconnectedness of this news landscape and concerns around overreporting of news consumption, Pew Research Center wanted to explore how best to measure news consumption: Where do currently used survey practices still work and where might changes be in order? This report is the culmination of this effort and is organized into three sections: Chapter 1 looks at the U.S. public’s familiarity with newer concepts related to news; Chapter 2 examines possible ways to improve survey-based measures of news consumption; and Chapter 3 compares survey results to the use of passive data that comes straight from tracking software news consumers downloaded to their digital devices." (Pages 5-6)
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"On average across 34 countries, one in five adults (20%) have access to both a smartphone and a computer, while 43% only have access to a basic cell phone. In 15 out of 34 countries, at least half of adults have access to a smartphone or a computer or both. About three in 10 respondents (31%) use t
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heir cell phones and the Internet at least several times a week. This form of basic digital literacy is widespread (at least 50% of adults) in Mauritius, Gabon, Tunisia, Sudan, South Africa, and Morocco but rare (10% or less) in Mali, Niger, and Madagascar. One-fifth of adults (20%) are well prepared to participate in or assist members of their household with a transition to an online learning environment. In contrast, 55% are likely to be ill prepared for remote learning, while 25% of respondents form a middle category representing those who could participate in e-learning given sufficient resources such as devices and/or training. Citizens’ readiness to engage in remote learning is primarily shaped by their level of formal education and access to electricity, rather than by their overall level of wealth or geographic location." (Key findings, page 3)
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