Keepers of the comments: How comment moderators handle audience contributions

Wolfgang, J. David; Blackburn, Hayley; McConnell, Stephen

doi:10.1177/0739532920968338

Cited by 5 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 38 publications

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“…The rise of social media has provided people with unprecedented opportunities to share their personal experiences and create new cultural narratives (Xu et al, 2016;Chang, 2021). However, it has also made the decoding process more intricate and challenging, as audiences play an increasingly active role in the cultural construction (Janicke-Bowles et al, 2021;Wolfgang, Blackburn & McConnell, 2020). As a result, this study extends some of the key principles and assumptions of Hall's theoretical model to social media and emphasises the importance of audience interactivity in cultural practices and engagement activities.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 77%

Exploring Cultural Meaning Construction in Social Media: An Analysis of Liziqi's YouTube Channel

Li,

Adnan,

Gong

2023

JICC

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Hall's encoding/decoding model has been widely used in mass media, but its potential in social media studies has not been explored thoroughly. To this end, this paper aims to broaden the fundamental principles and assumptions of the model and apply them to audience engagement and interaction in constructing cultural meaning through social media. By analysing the YouTube channel of Liziqi (Vlogger), this study adopts a two-stage content analysis to investigate the possibility of textual coding frameworks and audience engagement processes in the construction of cultural narratives. The study reveals that Liziqi represents Chinese culture through various symbols and constructs a micro-narrative coding framework that influences audience perceptions. The audience interprets the content in proactive and diverse ways, resulting in four types of decoding: pleasuring, reflective, empathic, and questioning. This research expands Hall's encoding/decoding model by exploring the production and reception processes in a multicultural context, revealing a shared cultural framework between sender and receiver. This paper provides a tool for scholars to use new conceptual tools for encoding/decoding to explore the meaning dimensions of social media interaction.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 77%

Exploring Cultural Meaning Construction in Social Media: An Analysis of Liziqi's YouTube Channel

Li,

Adnan,

Gong

2023

JICC

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“…This development is a testament to the potential of social media and technology to bring people together and facilitate the exchange of ideas and perspectives. Wolfgang, Blackburn and McConnell (2020) and Janicke-Bowles et al ( 2021) argue that social media technologies have turned viewers into valuable producers. They are proactive, they generate new meanings through the consumption of cultural symbols, and some viewers may even participate in the dissemination of texts, profoundly enhancing the 'meaning making operation' (Conner, 2013, p. 79).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…They are portrayed as skilled cultural readers and meaning-makers who transcend ideological manipulation (Harms & Dickens, 1996) and also participants in the dynamics of social and institutional structures (Webster, 1998). But the development of social media technologies has shifted our understanding of audiences to more positive concepts such as 'contributors' or 'producers' (Janicke-Bowles et al, 2021;Wolfgang, Blackburn & McConnell, 2020). Audiences create positive content in a variety of ways (Ji et al, 2019;Raney et al, 2018), demonstrating the audience is not simply a passive group of people who consume content, but rather an active group that can generate and share ideas, information, and creativity.…”

Section: The Interaction and Engagement Of A Productive Audiencementioning

confidence: 99%

Exploring the Role of Productive Audiences in Promoting Intercultural Understanding: A Study of Chinese YouTube Influencer Liziqi's Channel

Li¹,

Adnan²

2023

SMC

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This exploratory study on YouTube videos investigates the role of Chinese YouTube channels created by influential individuals in facilitating intercultural communication and understanding. Specifically, it explores how YouTube viewers respond, interact, and express their views on Chinese culture. The nature of audience engagement with intercultural communication was explored through the lens of creative textual engagement using a qualitative research approach and textual analysis of five hundred video comments on one of the most subscribed Chinese YouTube channel (i.e., Liziqi). Audience's interpretation goes through a logic of consumption from cognition to emotion to attitudinal change and behavioural intention; the process by an audience promotes intercultural understanding and acquires an identity. Additionally, the interactive relationship between the text and the audience is reciprocal and democratic. Audiences can incorporate and form interpretive communities, regardless of their cultural composition, and cooperate to produce a common meaning regardless of varying interpretations. This study contributes to extending the concept of Fiske's productive audience to intercultural communication and broadens the path for an audience to negotiate and understand Chinese culture.

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“…An inquiry into why and how the far-right geek masculine members of the digital gaming culture use sociotechnical platforms for coordination and harassment of individuals both within and outside digital gaming culture is essential. Existing research primarily focuses on online newspapers or newspapers' social media channels and moderators' everyday activities (Kalsnes, Ihlebaek 2020;Wolfgang et al 2020) or editors' attempts to maintain the same standards in their online channels as in print media (Ihlebaek, Krumsvik 2014). Alternatively, it considers social media controversies and what caused them, as well as the role that sociotechnical platforms played in their prominence, such as in GG (e.g., Blodgett 2019;Braithwaite 2016;Massanari 2015Massanari , 2018Mortensen 2016).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Participatory Cultures of Digital Games: The Double-Edged Sword of Being a Reddit Community Moderator

Nielsen

2022

Baltic Screen Media Review

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Volunteer community moderators are at the centre of a multitude of conflicting views in the media and society, while being continually exposed to inappropriate content and risking their mental wellbeing. On Reddit.com, their specific interest in a topic drives them to volunteer for moderation responsibilities to nurture the participa-tory community; however, this puts them in the uncertain position of being neither a member of the community nor a representative of the social media platform tied to the community. By adopting Nico Carpentier’s concept of participation as a site of political–ideological negotiation, this article explores the precarious conditions and expectations of community moderators around digital games after the 2020 COVID-19 struggles, with more people turning to social media, which increases demand for platform moderation. The study is based on semi-structured interviews with community moderators associated with online media communities (subreddits) of different games on the social media platform Reddit. It draws two conclusions: Firstly, the field of subreddit moderation involves multiple actors, such as content creators, content generators, moderators, and game studios. Here, moderators hold an assumed absolute power in two processes of decision-making: (1) ensure that content abides by the sitewide rules and subreddit specific rules; and (2) promote content that is sensitive to the subreddit’s cultural context. In decision-making moments, the tools that are afforded to moderators from the Reddit platform put moderators at a disadvantage, as they are forced to implement their decisions using negative reinforcement as opposed to achieving change in the subreddit through positive reinforcement. Secondly, community moderators exist within a participatory process of checks and balances, making any moderation actions a double-edged sword where any intervention by moderators can result in backlash or disagreement from content creators and content generators, and material advantages largely determine actors’ involvement in these participatory processes.

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Keepers of the comments: How comment moderators handle audience contributions

Cited by 5 publications

References 38 publications

Exploring Cultural Meaning Construction in Social Media: An Analysis of Liziqi's YouTube Channel

Exploring Cultural Meaning Construction in Social Media: An Analysis of Liziqi's YouTube Channel

Exploring the Role of Productive Audiences in Promoting Intercultural Understanding: A Study of Chinese YouTube Influencer Liziqi's Channel

Participatory Cultures of Digital Games: The Double-Edged Sword of Being a Reddit Community Moderator

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