Information, Communication & Society
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icsjournal.bsky.social
Information, Communication & Society
@icsjournal.bsky.social
Social Media; Communication Studies; Cyberculture; Sociology; Political Communication; Internet Studies. Published by Routledge. https://www.tandfonline.com/journals/rics20
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#Now in #iCS
Marking the first year of a new editorial team,
@danmercea.bsky.social reflects on iCS’s evolving role in the field. The journal looks back to move forward, reaffirming our commitment to rigour and to the well-being of the academic community.
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Editorial comment: looking back to go forward
Published in Information, Communication & Society (Ahead of Print, 2025)
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#OutNow in #iCS
Based on fieldwork in China, this article shows how the Tour Yunnan platform centralises governance in messy, negotiated ways. It introduces the infrastructural key to explain how data lock-in only sometimes activates central power.
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Clicking to activate the key: unlocking the infrastructural potential of digital platforms through improvised relationships
This article introduces the concept of the infrastructural key to examine the contingent and negotiated processes through which digital platforms enact centralized power and activate infrastructura...
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November 14, 2025 at 12:27 PM
#OutNow in #iCS
This article examines how Freedom Convoy supporters on X have evolved their messaging over time. Early posts focused on mobilisation and logistics, while later ones leaned on anger and fear to hold a shrinking protest community together. www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
Episodes of sustained protest: temporal patterns of online mobilization on X
The rise of social media has allowed the rapid manifestation of collective actions that are both large in scale and persist over extended periods of time. Yet, little is known about how the mobiliz...
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November 14, 2025 at 12:23 PM
#OutNow in #iCS
This article argues that brelfies, or breastfeeding selfies, help UK mothers mark pride in feeding, find support, and push to normalise breastfeeding online.
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Experiences of brelfie-taking and sharing by UK breastfeeding mothers
Breastfeeding selfies, otherwise known as ‘brelfies’, are popular in parenting communities. However, such content has been shown to elicit both positive and negative comments when shared more broad...
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November 14, 2025 at 12:17 PM
#OutNow in #iCS
This paper analyses how mom vlogs mix platform, care, and cultural values into two motherhood ideals, entrepreneurial and traditional, encouraging personal coping rather than calls for structural change.
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Broadcasting the good mom: a cross-national analysis of mom vloggers and their audiences
With the rise of social media, mothers around the world publicly share their experiences with raising children, shaping broader notions of what motherhood is and should be. While scholars have docu...
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November 14, 2025 at 12:12 PM
#OutNow in #iCS
This article scrutinises how self-interest and public-interest nudges shape news engagement on social media. It argues that nudges prompt small shifts in who people follow, while also explaining why these effects vary across settings.
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Promoting news and political information consumption on social media with self-interest and public-interest nudges
Most citizens do not consume news and politics, which weakens democratic resilience. This project employs theoretical nudges highlighting the benefits of following news and politics to oneself and ...
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November 14, 2025 at 12:01 PM
Reposted by Information, Communication & Society
How do users of emerging technologies make sense of their realness?

My OA paper in @icsjournal.bsky.social, “Holographic authenticities: Constructing the real in the encounter with Holocaust survivors”, explores discourses of historical and technological authenticity.

doi.org/10.1080/1369...
Holographic authenticities: constructing the real in the encounter with virtual Holocaust survivors
While Holocaust memory presents the moral and political imperative to reckon with historical truths, digital projects of commemoration are immersed in a ‘post-truth’ landscape of suspicion over the...
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November 4, 2025 at 8:55 PM
#OutNow in #iCS
This article follows #MeToo conversations on Twitter/X to show how activism gradually gave way to polarisation. As political identities took over, partisan debates reshaped the movement’s online visibility and momentum.
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From activism to polarization: temporal dynamics of #MeToo politicization on Twitter/X
This study is focused on how social media activism is politicized over time, attending to diverse groups of users and their response to real-world events on social media. Extending the scholarship ...
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November 6, 2025 at 4:02 PM
#OutNow in #iCS
Analysing posts from Weibo, this article traces how Chinese views of AI mental health care changed over time. What began with optimism turned to caution, as everyday experiences raised questions about trust and effectiveness.
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Why does the public accept or reject AI mental health care in China? A sentiment and dynamic topic analysis based on social media data
Existing research on public attitudes toward the application of AI in mental health care primarily focused on small-sample, cross-sectional analyses, with limited attention to the dynamic evolution...
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November 6, 2025 at 3:59 PM
#OutNow in #iCS
Focusing on the Dimensions in Testimony project, this article examines how visitors experience virtual Holocaust survivors as authentic. It argues that emotion and mediation together shape what feels real in digital memory.
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
Holographic authenticities: constructing the real in the encounter with virtual Holocaust survivors
While Holocaust memory presents the moral and political imperative to reckon with historical truths, digital projects of commemoration are immersed in a ‘post-truth’ landscape of suspicion over the...
www.tandfonline.com
November 6, 2025 at 3:58 PM
#OutNow in #iCS
Reviewing 57 studies, this article maps how digital engagement shapes young people’s learning and wellbeing. It argues that online opportunities and risks depend on socioeconomic resources, not technology alone.
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Digital engagement and youth: a scoping review of opportunities, risks, and the role of socioeconomic resources
The rapid expansion of digital technologies has created both opportunities and risks for young people. Previous research shows that their digital engagement is often driven by educational or inform...
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November 6, 2025 at 3:55 PM
#OutNow in #iCS
Nomophobia, impulsivity, and self-esteem intersect in complex ways. This article shows how fear of disconnection and low self-control combine to fuel compulsive smartphone use among South Korean students.
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Nomophobia and compulsive smartphone use: a moderated mediation effect of impulsivity and self-esteem
This study examined the relationship between nomophobia and compulsive smartphone use (CSU) among South Korean university students, focusing on the mediating role of impulsivity and the moderating ...
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November 6, 2025 at 3:51 PM
#OutNow in #iCS
How can researchers collect mobile data responsibly? This article tests several data donation methods in Switzerland and finds that manual entry encourages more people to share their app use.
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What is the best way of collecting data donations? An experiment assessing the feasibility of different data donation approaches to measure mobile and app usage
Smartphones are now ubiquitous in daily life, requiring the development of accurate methodologies to study their impact on various aspects of human experience. A promising approach to collect mobil...
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November 6, 2025 at 3:50 PM
#OutNow in #iCS
Using data from Chile, this article argues that question wording and framing influence how adolescents engage with web surveys on media and politics, shaping when they respond and when they disengage.
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Understanding adolescent engagement in media web surveys: how question design shapes nonresponse
Adolescent research in the field of communication has grown in prominence, yet methodologies tailored to this population remain underdeveloped. This study examines how adolescents engage with a sel...
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November 6, 2025 at 3:46 PM
#OutNow in #iCS
Gifting, play, and queer connection on Lespark. This article shows how gamification turns intimacy into visibility in digital spaces.
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Gifting, gamification, and queer digital intimacy: understanding live streaming affordances on Lespark
This study employs the walkthrough method and digital ethnography of six streamers over two years to examine streamer – viewer interactions on Lespark, a lesbian dating and live-streaming platform,...
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November 6, 2025 at 3:37 PM
#OutNow in #iCS
Sun and Zhao analyse U.S. data to separate how age, generation, and time each affect online health information seeking. They conclude that digital health gaps persist, driven more by generational habits than by ageing itself.
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Online health information seeking behaviors among U.S. adults: an age-period-cohort analysis
Health Information Technology (HIT) use among U.S. adults has been a widely researched topic in recent years. Previous studies generally focused on HIT use of a specific adult subsample, e.g., olde...
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November 6, 2025 at 3:32 PM
#OutNow in #iCS
Digital inclusion efforts can backfire. Based on fieldwork in the Netherlands, Smit and colleagues show how one program turned citizenship into an obligation for low-literate participants rather than a source of empowerment.
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October 24, 2025 at 1:07 PM
#OutNow in #iCS
Using national data from China, Fu and Peng find that internet use promotes productive ageing by strengthening friendships that encourage work, caregiving, and volunteering. Online connection becomes a pathway to social participation.
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October 24, 2025 at 1:03 PM
#OutNow in #iCS
Reviewing over 1,300 studies, Fam maps TikTok as an academic field. The review outlines its main research areas and emerging debates, calling for a clearer agenda to guide future scholarship.
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TikTok as an academic tool: a bibliometric review of TikTok research
TikTok has garnered a massive global audience. While concerns about youth safety, data privacy, and misinformation have led to platform bans in several countries, TikTok has significantly contribut...
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October 24, 2025 at 1:01 PM
#OutNow in #iCS
Cohen and Toch examine how conservative users on X reframe the idea of “algorithmic bias” to accuse ChatGPT of anti-conservative bias. They reveal how political actors hijack liberal tech discourses to advance new ideological agendas.
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Hijacking algorithmic bias: analyzing the political discourse around ChatGPT on social media
Following the introduction of ChatGPT 3.5, the first widely available general-purpose large language model, users were able to experiment and interact with this new AI technology at scale for the f...
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October 24, 2025 at 12:59 PM
#OutNow in #iCS
Zhuang and Goggin call for disability to be central in governing generative AI. They show how rapid innovation risks reproducing exclusion and argue for inclusive policies that treat accessibility as core to AI ethics.
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October 24, 2025 at 12:57 PM
#OutNow in #iCS
Cools analyses how the ideals of responsible AI are implemented in practice. This article reveals how competing demands and institutional gaps make turning ethical principles into concrete action a persistent challenge.
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Navigating the responsible AI landscape: unraveling the principles-to-practices gap of transparency and explainability at the BBC
Transparency and explainability are often considered critical to the development and implementation of responsible AI. In an era increasingly dominated by algorithmic decision-making, this study wa...
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October 24, 2025 at 12:55 PM
#OutNow in #iCS
Based on interviews with scientists active on social media, Zhang shows how credibility is not only claimed but performed. The study reveals how online visibility reshapes trust and authority in public science.
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Performing ‘the scientist,’ credibly and authentically: understanding how scientists manage their self-presentation on social media
This study examines how scientists construct and manage their self-presentation on social media amid diverse audience expectations by analyzing data collected via semi-structured interviews (N = 24...
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October 24, 2025 at 10:45 AM
#OutNow in #iCS
Using machine learning, this study tracks how gambling firms adapted to COVID-19 by reshaping their online marketing, exposing how crises accelerate strategic and regulatory change in digital industries.
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Adapting in times of crisis: how social media marketing of gambling changed in response to major shifts in the gambling landscape
Gambling marketing on social media in countries like Great Britain (GB) is relatively well understood. Little is known, however, about how such marketing is impacted by major changes to the gamblin...
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October 24, 2025 at 10:43 AM
#OutNow in #iCS
This article examines generative AI through the lens of the information commons. Authors argue that while commons management offers insights for governance, it cannot, by itself, address AI’s challenges to knowledge and control.
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Generative AI and the information commons: controversy, copyright, and closure
Knowledge or information commons is a critical concept in communication and information policy necessary to understand generative AI (genAI) governance. We introduce the concept of the commons as a...
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October 24, 2025 at 10:39 AM
#OutNow in #iCS
Tracking #StopAsianHate on Twitter across 2021–2022, Wang and colleagues show how the movement lost momentum as networks fragmented. Their study reveals that serial participants are vital for sustaining online anti-racism activism.
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Mapping the evolving networks of the #StopAsianHate movement on Twitter: the role of serial participants in digital activism
This study applies a network perspective to examine how serial participants in the #StopAsianHate movement formed mention networks to sustain the movement. With data collected from Twitter at two w...
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October 24, 2025 at 10:37 AM