"Un total de 22,5 millones de conexiones móviles celulares estaban activas en Venezuela a principios de 2025, siendo esta cifra equivalente al 79,1 por ciento de la población total. Sin embargo, hay que tener en cuenta que algunas de estas conexiones sólo incluyen servicios como voz y SMS, y otra
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s no incluyen acceso a Internet. A principios de 2025, 17,5 millones de personas utilizaban Internet en Venezuela, con una penetración del 61,6%. Venezuela contaba con 15,1 millones de usuarios de redes sociales en enero de 2025, lo que equivale al 53,1% de la población total." (https://guayoyomarketing.com)
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"This article examines the public response to mandatory location disclosure (MLD), a new surveillance technology implemented on China’s Sina Weibo. Initially introduced to geo-tag posts related to the Ukraine War, the MLD eventually expanded to encompass all posts and comments on the platform. Dra
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wing on a large-scale dataset comprising over 0.6 million posts and 24 million comments, this study uncovers political asymmetry observed during the initial implementation of MLD. Users with different political orientations were subjected to different levels of geo-tagging. Pro-Ukraine users were most frequently geo-tagged, followed by Pro-Russia and liberal-leaning users, while conservative-leaning users are least likely to be tagged. This selective surveillance approach, however, backfired among Pro-Ukraine and Pro-Russia users, pushing them to publish more war-related content, while its impact on liberal- and conservative-leaning users appeared to be minimal. When selective surveillance was replaced by universal surveillance, the backfire effects ceased to exist and people’s interest in war-related topics declined. Furthermore, privacy cynicism prevails among commenters across opinion groups. Neither the introduction nor the expansion of MLD deterred audiences from engaging with the geo-tagged posts. These findings suggest that prolonged surveillance makes people less sensitive to privacy threats and more experienced in neutralizing surveillance’s influence on themselves. Privacy cynicism, though widely considered toxic to democracy, can function as a source of resilience that shields people from the fear of coercion and undercuts the marginal utility of state surveillance in an authoritarian context." (Abstract)
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"News is increasingly consumed via search engines. Yet, there is little research on foreign news consumption through search engines. This study thus focuses on the presence of foreign news in political search results in a peripheral country that is at the focal point of the international conflict be
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tween Russia and the West. For that, I conducted an algorithm audit of Google’s Web search results in Belarus to queries on the 2020 Belarusian presidential election. An analysis of 50,400 search results collected daily over 4 months surrounding the election from google.by revealed that Google in Belarus overwhelmingly favored foreign news outlets (mostly Western and Russian; 63%) over domestic Belarusian ones (37%). While the presence of Western news outlets (28.5%) may be argued to contribute to the democratization of the Belarusian public sphere, websites affiliated with Russia’s ruling elites (23%) most likely linked in favor of the ruling dictator Lukashenko. These findings advance the classic news flow research by demonstrating that international news flows are unbalanced toward a hierarchical core-periphery structure also when mediated through search engines." (Abstract)
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"The antivaccine hesitancy movement represents a challenge to public policy and platform regulations. During COVID-19, various Latin American antivaccine groups clashed with official sanitary initiatives. Despite many responses, little progress has been made in reaching these groups to transform the
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ir perceptions about the benefits of the COVID-19 vaccine. During the pandemic in Latin America, the antivaccine network Médicos por la Verdad (Doctors for the Truth) gained prominence in various countries. Finding itself limited by legal and technical restrictions, this network used alternative media such as Telegram to disseminate messages. This study argues that such groups may be considered an antivaccination culture that opposes government measures. This focus emphasizes narrative construction and allows us to understand the phenomenon from the collective meaning-making perspective. This study analyzed 232,638 Telegram messages from 14 public channels associated with the Médicos por la Verdad network. Our findings indicate that this antivaccine network builds an oppositional culture expressed and reinforced through multimodal, trans-media, fragmented narratives and suspends disbelief that constructs a world where the community enacts a truth pact. These narrative methods foster building a resilient network of oppositional cultures, decreasing the effectiveness of policies. We conclude that research beyond the framework of misinformation and the analysis of conventional platforms is needed to understand the antivaccine oppositional cultures." (Abstract)
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"As a tool of political communication and information diffusion, social media has transformed the process of securitization, allowing (in)security messages to spread and scale up rapidly. Focusing on the case of the Amazon rainforest fires in 2019, this article seeks to answer two questions: How doe
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s securitization spread in online networks? And who are the actors that contribute to the diffusion of security messages? To explore this puzzle, the study develops a dictionary of query terms and performs a full-archive search to collect tweets posted between June and October 2019 and reconstruct the communication network of more than 3 million users. Drawing from theories of online activism and research on information diffusion in networks, the study uses both the structure of the Twitter network and the dynamics of activity in message exchange to identify four types of users and explore their roles in the spread of the message. The findings shed new light on the ways in which social media facilitates the definition of security problems and provide empirical evidence of the prominent position of influence taken by lay actors in the process of securitization." (Abstract)
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"This report compares two large random samples of Twitter accounts that tweet in English: one taken just before Elon Musk acquired Twitter in October 2022, and one taken three months later, in January 2023. It also examines several related datasets collected during the period following the acquisiti
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on, a period in which, the study found, new accounts were created at a record-breaking pace. Some extremist and conspiracy networks created accounts faster than the baseline rate, probably because changes to Twitter’s trust and safety policies had been announced. In the context of these policy announcements, the study examines some reinstated accounts, with mixed results. Despite the loosening of several content policies, accounts that automated the sending of tweets (‘bots’) saw activity drop sharply during the period of the study, with many bot accounts being suspended or deactivated, while others voluntarily curtailed their activity in light of the API changes announced. Deactivated accounts were dominated by sex-related content and apparent financial spam or scams, often coupled with automated tweeting." (Abstract)
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"Over the past twelve months, the world’s digital behaviours have shown some of the most profound changes we’ve seen in years, even compared with “the pandemic years”. And in fact, our top story in this year’s report doesn’t relate to digital growth, but to an overall decline in the amou
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nt of time that each individual spends using the internet. It’s important to stress that this decline doesn’t indicate that the internet is becoming less important in our lives, however. Rather, it suggests that people are becoming more purposeful in their use of digital technologies, and are prioritising the quality of their connected experiences over the quantity. Despite the decline in overall time spent, however, people are actually spending more time than ever using social media, and in stark contradiction to the endless click-bait foretelling an imminent “demise” of social media, global user numbers continue to grow." (Page 3)
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"Overall digital growth has slowed over recent years, but this is to be expected as internet users reach “supermajority” status. However, while almost two thirds of the world’s total population is now online, 2.7 billion people remain “unconnected” at the start of 2024, and adoption rates
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across Sub-Saharan Africa remain well below 50 percent. But user growth isn’t the only indicator of digital progress, and our extensive collection of behavioural data also reveals important findings. In particular, it’s interesting to see that the amount of time that people spend online has increased again this year, following the declines that we reported in 2023. It’s a different story for TV though, with the latest data suggesting that global viewing times have been declining steadily over recent months. We’re also seeing some intriguing changes in the world’s social media behaviours. TikTok continues its rapid ascent, with the platform’s reach and average time per user seeing impressive gains over the past year. Meanwhile, Instagram has overtaken WhatsApp to become the world’s “favourite” social platform, and Facebook continues to grow, in stark contrast to click-bait
headlines. The top platforms aren’t the only ones enjoying strong growth though, and our newly expanded social media dataset reveals some valuable insights into LinkedIn, Snapchat, Weibo, Kuaishou, and Discord. Similarly, an exploration of the use of hashtags across platforms reveals some fascinating insights into the interests and motivations of the world’s social media users." (Page 3)
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"Guided by the relational prayer theory (Baesler, 2002), this paper analyzed how Catholics flipped their homes as church to be saved from COVID-19 uncertainties by attending online masses at the Manila Cathedral (MC). Through Facebook Analytics, the study determined the number of attendees to online
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masses from March 2020 to March 2021. Implications of mass attendance to spirituality were validated by a survey of 104 MC online mass subscribers through snowball sampling. As triangulate measure, two key informants were interviewed. More than 200,000 tuned in to online masses monthly with an average of 69,863 with the highest frequencies on Sundays. Survey results revealed that one out of three respondents attended the 8:00 AM Sunday mass without fail and who prayed together as a family using smart television. They prayed not to get sick and were thankful for answered prayers and blessings received despite the crisis. As a form of mission and indulgence, they help others and donate to the church or pray fervently to ask for forgiveness. Given the choice, an overwhelming majority wants to physically attend the mass to confess and receive the Holy Communion. It can be surmised that flipping church services from offline to online became a regular Sunday ritual which implies that spirituality can occur anytime, anywhere, especially during a pandemic." (Abstract)
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"Presentamos este estudio como una contribución relevante para entender los profundos cambios y las tendencias del periodismo en América Latina, a partir de un análisis riguroso del paisaje mediático, así como del mapeo y caracterización de 1.521 medios nativos digitales verificados en 12 paí
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ses de la región. Se trata de una investigación única que permite conocer quiénes son, dónde se encuentran y en qué se diferencian estos medios digitales de naturaleza muy diversa: hiperlocales, feministas, sobre medio ambiente, de chequeo, narrativos, colaborativos, culturales, de control público, de temas sociales y políticos, entre otras causas y enfoques de agenda. Los hallazgos son a la vez desafiantes y alentadores. Los medios nativos digitales latinoamericanos muestran una gran vitalidad a pesar de condiciones adversas de distinto tipo. Es revelador que en el último año hayan surgido medios en Guatemala, Nicaragua, Bolivia y Venezuela, países donde se han vivido incidentes en relación con la libertad de expresión, con casos de presiones, censura o vigilancia de los gobiernos sobre la labor periodística. Algo que distingue las búsquedas de los medios nativos digitales estudiados es que priorizan la calidad de la información y su foco está en aportar una visión propia, impulsar sociedades más democráticas y libres y construir relaciones firmes con sus audiencias. Son medios que en su mayoría hablan a una comunidad, pero también están dentro de ella." (Presentación, página 7-8)
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"Double-digit annual growth has taken the global social media user figure to 4.62 billion, and current trends indicate that it will equal 60 percent of the world’s total population within the next few months. COVID-19 continues to hamper research into internet adoption though, resulting in reporti
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ng delays that have kept overall growth in internet user figures down for the second year in a row. Despite these challenges, however, the latest data reveal that the number of people who don’t use the internet has now fallen below 3 billion, marking another important milestone on our journey towards equal digital access for all. Meanwhile, at 4.95 billion, we’re also tantalisingly close to reaching a global total of 5 billion internet users, and I’m looking forward to celebrating that particular milestone with you in one of our upcoming Statshot reports. As always, the data in this year’s reports goes well beyond user numbers though, and our latest collection offers some especially interesting insights into the world’s evolving online behaviours. For example, TikTok users spent an average of 48 percent more time using the platform’s mobile app over the past 12 months compared with the previous year, while YouTube users now spend almost a full day each month watching videos in the platform’s app." (Page 3)
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"The mobile industry has been instrumental in extending connectivity to people around the world. In 2021, the number of mobile internet subscribers reached 4.2 billion people globally. Operators’ investments in network infrastructure over the last decade have helped to shrink the coverage gap for
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mobile broadband networks from a third of the global population to just 6%. But although the industry continues to invest in innovative solutions and partnerships to extend connectivity to still underserved and far-flung communities, the adoption of mobile internet services has not kept pace with the expansion of network coverage. This has resulted in a significant usage gap. In 2021, the usage gap stood at 3.2 billion people, or 41% of the global population. The reasons for the usage gap are multifaceted and vary by region, but they generally relate to a lack of affordability, relevance, knowledge and skills, in addition to safety and security concerns. Furthermore, the barriers to mobile internet adoption are particularly acute among certain segments of the population, including women, the elderly, those in rural areas and persons with disabilities – or a combination thereof." (Executive summary)
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"To illustrate the dynamics of the digital information ecosystem and how disinformation is seeded within this environment, Rappler explored cascades around the following themes: war on drugs, attacks against the press, and messaging around Martial Law and authoritarian rule. The themes were selected
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based on prevailing issues that have confronted the Philippines and the Duterte administration over the past 6 years. These are findings of the study specific to the Philippine context: Already addicted to social media, Filipinos became more deeply immersed in the internet due to the pandemic; [...] At least 1 in every 3 Filipino internet users is new to digital, is potentially unfamiliar with how it works, and vulnerable to disinformation and online manipulation techniques [...] News organizations are still among the most followed information sources online. But they are increasingly drowned in social media noise [...] Trustworthiness is the primary consideration in following groups, pages, and channels on social media. But entertainment value and agreeableness are also major considerations, making audiences vulnerable to sources that deceptively use celebrity content to build online following [...] Majority (78%) of survey respondents say they can distinguish between real news and “fake news,” but focus group discussions (FGDs) reveal that some believed previously debunked claims [...] There are similarities between disinformation in the Philippines and the “Firehose of Falsehood” Russian propaganda model ..." (Executive summary, pages 7-12)
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"The following report reflects the results of media content monitoring to analyze conflict coverage by Azerbaijani- and Armenian-language regional platforms. In addition, the report incorporates conflict-related qualitative data acquired from specific Russian- and Georgian-language Facebook accounts
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. The study aims to identify the degree of media's adherence to professional standards of conflict reporting and the potential spread of disinformation and hate speech. The study applied a mixed methodology - namely, Internews' conflict coverage assessment methodology, which relies on quantitative and qualitative methods and was adapted for use in the context of Georgia. The study has also utilized the Facebook analytics tool CrowdTangle for social media monitoring. The report reflects the results of monitoring conducted between May 1, 2021 and January 31, 2022." (Introduction)
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"Während im Jahr 2015 rund zwei Drittel der (Erz-)Bistümer und die Hälfte der Landeskirchen im Social Web präsent waren, sind es in 2020 mit einzelnen Ausnahmen alle. In den letzten fünf Jahren ist die Zahl der Abonnenten und Follower auf den einzelnen Kanälen gestiegen. Auch wenn Abonnentenza
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hlen und Engagement bei allen (Erz-)Bistümern und Landeskirchen insgesamt gestiegen sind, gibt es regional große Unterschiede, wie stark dieser Anstieg ausgefallen ist. Es ist deutlich zu sehen, dass die Etablierung eines Social-Media-Kanals und der Aufbau einer Community Zeit benötigen: Die (Erz-)Bistümer und Landeskirchen, die bereits 2014/15 aktiv waren und hohe Abonnentenzahlen erzielten, verfügen auch 2020 im Vergleich über höhere Abonnentenzahlen." (Seite 3)
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"In April 2020, as cases of the novel COVID-19 spread across the globe, MTV Staying Alive Foundation created the educational entertainment miniseries MTV Shuga: Alone Together. In 70 short episodes released daily on YouTube, Alone Together aimed to disseminate timely and accurate information to incr
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ease young people’s knowledge, motivation, and actions to prevent COVID-19. We sought to identify Alone Together viewer’s perspectives on the global COVID-19 pandemic and national lockdowns by examining the words, conversations, experiences, and emotions expressed on social media in response to the Alone Together episodes. We also assessed how viewers used the series and its online community as a source of support during the global pandemic. Method: A total of 3982 comments and 70 live chat conversations were extracted from YouTube between April and October 2020 and analyzed through a data-led inductive thematic approach. Aggregated demographic and geographical data were collected using YouTube Analytics." (Abstract)
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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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"Studies have shown that many irregular migrants embark on journeys without accurate or complete information about migration. In response, IOM and other organizations run information campaigns intended to inform potential migrants of the dangers associated with irregular migration and to facilitate
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informed decisions. The use of online and social media platforms for these campaigns has become increasingly popular in recent years, due to their potential for quickly reaching millions of people at low cost. While the evidence base for offline information campaigns has been gradually improving, it remains unclear how online communication campaigns affect potential migrants, and methodologies to do this remain underdeveloped. This report therefore presents results from a pilot impact assessment of an online campaign based on Facebook posts in Guinea, Nigeria and Senegal during September 2019 and February 2020 [.] Conclusion: Facebook ad campaigns can reach many people quickly. However, large audience sizes and relatively cheap costs come with a trade-off. The impact of an information campaign on potential migrants’ perceptions, attitudes, knowledge and behaviour remains largely unknown because many Facebook users that engage with the campaign do not fit the intended target group. The advantage of offline over online campaigns is that implementers have more control and information about who attends activities or who is exposed to campaign content. The engagement of users with campaign posts varies largely by audience and post characteristics. Campaign and social media teams are well advised to conduct pilot tests before scaling up activities. Pilot tests can inform a customized approach for each online activity on Facebook, and thereby maximize impact. In addition to A/B tests, lift tests may offer a useful opportunity to test the impact of Facebook posts. Compared to impact assessments of offline information campaigns, measuring the impact of Facebook ads on potential migrants presents several unique challenges, including: Many potential migrants are not on Facebook or do not use ad content to seek information about migration. Internet connectivity is also limited in many West African countries. While Facebook allows users to narrow down target groups, it is not clear whether those Facebook users that are exposed to the content fit the profile of potential migrants. Whether the intended target group is reached can be affirmed only through surveys, which have a low response rate; It is not possible to interview the same Facebook users several times to track changes in their perceptions. Engagement metrics like post reactions, link clicks or video plays can be useful indicators. However, these low-engagement metrics do not offer clear evidence of the short- or long-term effects on Facebook users." (Executive summary)
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"This report presents our main findings from eleven months of social media monitoring. We identify the main narratives of online discourse and their key drivers, as well as the weaknesses of Libya’s social media landscape — and how to address them." (Summary)