Impact and Accountability
Asynchronous Session
The Artificial Intelligence vs. The Artificially Intelligent ?: Net Impact of Suggestive Algorithms View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Khushi Sahani, Shweta Kushal
The research crisply expresses the modern dilemma of the roles of master and slave when it comes to human interaction with technology. We may infer that in today’s world, automatons perhaps play both roles. As the title suggests, it also argues whether such technology imprisons or frees its users. We are becoming more and more trapped but the invisibility of our high-tech noose gives us the illusion of freedom. In this study, we delve deep into understanding the functionality and types of suggestive algorithms, the extensive real world applications and contentions. While they are credited to enhance personalization and convenience, the invasion of privacy and manipulation of mind cannot be ignored. We conclude that in the short term, the negative effects outweigh the positives, but as we integrate the proposed recommendations the balance will eventually turn positive. Ultimately, we need algorithms that humans can tweak depending on context to create an IA (intelligent assistant) environment instead of an AI (artificial intelligence) environment. Hence, conscious usage and intervention along with increased role of regulators can definitely propel a more transparent, accountable and controlled system.
Featured Subtitling Climate Change: An Analysis of Key Structural Differences in Climate Documentaries on Netflix - A Multimodal Discourse View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Maha Ashraf
The issue of climate change is a crisis that threatens humanity as a whole. That is the reason it has come to the fore and became the focus of several studies. Awareness needs to be raised about the matter, and it needs to be highlighted in academic studies of all disciplines. The present study focuses on analyzing the subtitles of documentaries addressing the climate crisis. It attempts to investigate how syntactic differences can be a challenge in the process of subtitling between Arabic and English, due to the different nature of the structure of both languages. It is based on Stöckl’s (2004) categorization of core modes, submodes, and medial variants. It also employs Kress and Van Leeuwen’s Multimodal Discourse Analysis approach (2006, investigating how they come to be translated and the impact of that rendering on raising awareness about the issue of climate change. The study categorizes the strategies used by subtitlers in dealing with the multimodal incoherence from syntactic differences between English and Arabic. The study investigates the subtitles of twelve climate documentaries aired on Netflix as case studies. The analysis seeks to form a link between academic theorizing and the practical practices employed by subtitlers in the professional realm of subtitling climate-related productions by exploring the techniques they employ to maintain the balance between the modes of the audiovisual product when dealing with different syntactic structures. The findings can be utilized in shedding light on the importance of properly awareness-raising messages about the issue of climate change.
A “Necessary” Act”: Celebrity Fans’ Social Media Flame Wars View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Qiuyan Guo
Celebrity fans’ common engagement in flame wars on social media often leads fandoms to be considered brainless or toxic. However, such judgments appear to oversimplify fans’ fighting practices that often feature nuanced argument levels, emotional developments, and “necessary/righteous” perceptions. Investigating these unexplored aspects may provide insights into explaining not only fan media participation but also how humans in general, propelled by their passions in various domains (e.g., movies, sports, politics, etc.), interact actively and assuredly in the digital age. Based on unobtrusive observation and semi-structured interviews among fans of Chinese musical actors Ayanga and Yunlong, this paper foregrounds fans’ own perspectives to analyze their justifications for frequent flame wars. Findings show that as fans initiate arguments by pointing out ‘unacceptable’ social media posts, they consider their behaviors to legitimately fulfill celebrity-support fan obligation and defend personal/collective beliefs. This sense of necessity inherently drives fans to first debate rationally about each other’s ‘wrongdoings’ before initiating fierce criticism and curses. After the attacking period, fans evaluate their ‘honorably’ fought conflicts while openly declaring both their own victory and the other side(s)’ ‘viciousness’, which further reinforces their self-righteousness. Driven by these positive emotions, fans ultimately consider their constant fighting not a deliberate ‘anti-’ act to spread hatred but a necessary practice to defend fundamental aspects of their celebrity fandom. Neither condemning nor supporting fans’ fierce online conflicts, this study also provides further discussions on how the media industry may have increasingly realized and manipulated these fan flame wars.
Whether an Enhancement of Trust or a Potential Threat: Examining Data Transparency in Chinese Data Journalism View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Boli Dai
The impact of transparency and data journalism has been widely discussed in the Western academic world. Transparency is seen as an effective way to address the crisis in traditional media journalism. However, the dark side of transparency may also bring new threats, for example, to journalism's autonomy. Moreover, the demand for greater transparency may not only jeopardise journalism but may also lead to privacy violations and legal impediments. Therefore, transparency is not an absolutely positive concept, and the demand for transparency may lead to new threats that have not been investigated and studied in the Chinese context. Foucault's concept of the Panopticon explains why transparency is not necessarily a positive concept, and that trust between the regulator and the regulated does not necessarily increase when there is more transparency. This study aims to understand whether Chinese readers' trust in journalism is positively correlated with increased transparency or whether increased transparency has created new threats to journalism. Methodologically, the qualitative descriptive approach (QD) will be applied to understand the impacts of data journalism based on the data transparency. Furthermore, as a qualitative research method, semi-structured interviews will be used to investigate the perceptions of data journalism practitioners and readers on data transparency in China. This study is based on 10 industry insiders engaged in data journalism-related practices and 10 laypeople interested in data journalism participating in the interviews. The interviews were communicated in Chinese Mandarin, and then translated into English for research.
