Elad Segev

Social Media and the Arab Spring Politics Comes First

The goal of this article is to place the role that social media plays in collective action within a more general theoretical structure, using the events of the Arab Spring as a case study. The article presents two broad theoretical principles. The first is that one cannot understand the role of social media in collective action without first taking into account the political environment in which they operate. The second principle states that a significant increase in the use of the new media is much more likely to follow a significant amount of protest activity than to precede it. The study examines these two principles using political, media, and protest data from twenty Arab countries and the Palestinian Authority. The findings provide strong support for the validity of the claims.

Seeking science information online: Data mining Google to better understand the roles of the media and the education system

Which extrinsic cues motivate people to search for science-related information? For many science-related search queries, media attention and time during the academic year are highly correlated with changes in information seeking behavior (expressed by changes in the proportion of Google science-related searches). The data mining analysis presented here shows that changes in the volume of searches for general and well-established science terms are strongly linked to the education system. By contrast, ad-hoc events and current concerns were better aligned with media coverage. The interest and ability to independently seek science knowledge in response to current events or concerns is one of the fundamental goals of the science literacy movement. This method provides a mirror of extrapolated behavior and as such can assist researchers in assessing the role of the media in shaping science interests, and inform the ways in which lifelong interests in science are manifested in real world situations.

Visible and invisible countries: News flow theory revised

In this paper the validity and limits of the news flow theory are examined, utilizing a large digital corpus of 35 popular news sites in 10 different languages over a three-year period. Three key variables were identified: GDP, foreign population and conflict intensity, collectively accounting for more than 70% of the variance of country prominence in the news. After offering a robust model, over-represented and under-represented countries are listed and divided based on their different characteristics and news trends. Findings show that conflicts tend to be visible only if they are in the Middle East. Over-represented regional centers in West Europe and Asia overshadow the under-represented regional peripheries in East Europe and the Middle East. Finally, the US and Africa serve as a global center and a periphery respectively. The implications of these findings are discussed in order to invite scholars to further expand the theory and the explanatory model accordingly.

The Conditional Nature of Value-Based Proximity Between Countries Strategic Implications for Mediated Public Diplomacy

Media attention accorded to foreign countries constitutes a crucial facet of public diplomacy. Studies have shown that proximity in values is a key factor that determines such media attention. Models of media interest generally assume that the impact of value proximity is universal across countries with different societal value orientations. Yet this study shows that the effect of societal value orientation on media attention to foreign countries is more complex. It is argued here that the societal value orientation in different countries primes different sets of values, which are then applied as a criterion for assessing the importance of foreign states. Our empirical examination is based on the visibility of foreign countries gauged by searching web portals in 57 countries. It shows that in line with our theoretical argument, countries systematically differ in recognizing proximity, such that democracies base their judgment on similarity in shared democratic principles, whereas authoritarian countries focus on the affinity in religious culture. We discuss the strategic implications of this finding for the study of mediated public diplomacy.

The half-life of a "teachable moment": The case of Nobel laureates.

Some science-related events stimulate public interest, and create a teachable moment in which the underlying science temporarily becomes more interesting. Here, media attention, expressed by Google News reference volume, and changes in information seeking behavior, expressed by Google Trends, were used to estimate the length of a teachable moment for 2004–2011 Nobel Prize announcements. On average, Nobel Prize announcements attracted the attention of online users for no longer than a week. News coverage declined slower and occasionally displayed seasonal trends. There was a 50% drop in searches between the day of the announcement and the following day, and an analogous pattern for news coverage of all laureates varying for different disciplines. The affordances of using publicly available online data to identify the most effective teachable moments relating to science are discussed.

When news and memory come apart : a cross-national comparison of countries' mentions

Prominent communication theories find a strong association between the news and our perception of the world. In this article, we compare the country names mentioned in the news with those recalled from the memory of individuals from four different nationalities: the United States, Israel, China, and Switzerland. Our findings suggest a more nuanced relationship between the news and memory. Larger and stronger countries are prominent in both news and memory. Countries engaged in conflicts or major events are more prominent in the news but less so in memory, while countries with social and geographical proximities are more prominent in our memory but less so in the news. These findings call for revision of the theory accordingly.

Is the world getting flatter? A new method for examining structural trends in the news

In this article, we propose a new method to analyze structural changes in networks over time and examine how the representation of the world in two leading newspapers, the New York Times and Der Spiegel, has changed during the past 50 years. We construct international networks based on the co‐occurrences of country names in news items and trace changes in their distribution of centrality over time. Supporting previous studies, our findings indicate a consistent gap between the most central and the least central countries over the years, with the United States remaining at the center of the network and African countries at its peripheries. Surprisingly, the most dynamic changes in the past 50 years occurred in what we call the “middle range”. In both outlets, we identified a trend of convergence, in other words, a more equal centrality of European, Middle Eastern, and Asian countries in the news. The implications of these findings are discussed.

ONLINE NEWS ABOUT ISRAEL AND PALESTINE

This article measures the relative attention given to Israel and Palestine in 37 leading news sites in 10 languages over two years. Findings clearly show that the Palestinian entities and Israel are the world’s most prominent polities after the United States in top news stories of international online coverage. Most news attention is given by Middle Eastern news sites, and only then by European and American news sites. During periods that attention to Israel decreases, attention to China increases. After presenting these rather surprising findings, the study considers a number of directions for interpreting them.

Temporal patterns of scientific information-seeking on Google and Wikipedia.

In response to the news coverage of scientific events and to science education, people increasingly go online to get more information. This study investigates how patterns of science and technology information-seeking on Google and Wikipedia change over time, in ways that differ between “ad hoc” terms that correspond to news coverage and “cyclic” terms that correspond to the academic period. Findings show that the science and technology activity in Google and Wikipedia was significantly associated with ad hoc and cyclic patterns. While the peak activity in Google and Wikipedia largely overlapped for ad hoc terms, it mismatched for cyclic terms. The findings indicate the importance of external cues such as news media and education, and also of the online engagement process, and particularly the crucial but different role played by Google and Wikipedia in gaining science and technology knowledge. Educators and policy makers could benefit from taking into account those different patterns.

The group-sphere model of international news flow: A cross-national comparison of news sites

Why are some countries mentioned very frequently in international news while others are not? Seeking to improve previous explanations in the literature, this study employs a large corpus of news sites in 11 countries and 10 languages over a 3-year period. A systematic computer-driven analysis revealed a similar pattern common to international news in all countries. The best explanation for the prominence of a foreign country in the news included variables from three groups (national traits, relatedness, and events), each representing different spheres (economic, social, and political), respectively. The conceptual contribution and empirical implications for future studies are discussed.