Media Reflections
Television Binge-watching Habits in the Interactive Media Environment
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Azza Ahmed
This study investigates binge-watching habits among a sample of Emiratis. It examines the expected outcomes for binge watching and the possibilities of anticipating regret after watching. A constructed questionnaire designed to collect data from a sample of 229 Emiratis living in Abu Dhabi. The results showed that there is a positive significant correlation between expected outcomes, self-regulation deficiency, anticipating regret, and binge watching. The findings also revealed that most respondents tend to binge watch alone more than with others. While gender, marital status, and education do not affect the level of binge watching, age was an important variable in predicting binge-watching levels. It was found that the lower the age the more respondents might be deficient in self-regulating their binge watching.
Political Discourse on Social Media Among Saudi Females: Examining Spiral of Silence Online
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Khulood Miliany
The spiral of silence theory was initially developed within a mass-mediated context, and it has been widely appreciated and critiqued in several forms by scholars of political communication. Therefore, this study examines the spiral of silence theory under conditions of various conditions of online conversations, such as the decreased fear of isolation allowed by anonymity, undermine some of the fundamental components of Noelle-Neumann’s model. It is exploring Saudi females' willingness to express opinions online and offline and tests how the constructs proposed by the spiral of silence theory work in each setting.
Configurations of Spaces, Bodies, and Agency in Online Environments: Analysis of Perceptions and Agency in the Argentine Patagonian Region
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Melina Gaona, Veronica Sofia Ficoseco, Andrea Noelia Lopez, Gonzalo Federico Zubia
This work presents an introductory analysis on the constitution of spaces, corporal experience, and the perceptions of agency in online environments among university students in online careers in the National University of the Southern Patagonia, Argentina. The theoretical and methodological approach combines socio-technical analysis and critical analysis with a gender perspective. We explore different categories in the approach: the ways in which the body is set, online spatial accessibilities, and the possibilities of expression, self-recognition, and participation, that is to say, of agency. We take into account the contexts of uses and consumption of IT among popular sectors in the Patagonian region. A geographically isolated region with a low population density inhabited mainly by seasonal migrants whose affective and community belongings are kept online, and which has connectivity access rates above the country's average. Field data is developed based on a group of students in two online courses. We dig into the interactions in the institutional web environment and a private social network. We infer that it is possible to systematically describe from a gender perspective the interrelated relations between spaces, body and agency in the same group in different kind of environments, which will allow us to deepen into the knowledge of the located current characteristics of participation and habitability.
