Hal Roberts

Blogs as an Alternative Public Sphere: The Role of Blogs, Mainstream Media, and TV in Russia's Media Ecology

Applying a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods, we investigate whether Russian blogs represent an alternative public sphere distinct from web-based Russian government information sources and the mainstream media. Based on data collected over a one-year period (December 2010 through December 2011) from thousands of Russian political blogs and other media sources, we compare the cosine similarity of the text from blogs, mainstream media, major TV channels, and official government websites. We find that, when discussing a selected set of major political and news topics popular during the year, blogs are consistently the least similar to government sources compared to TV and the mainstream media. We also find that the text of mainstream media outlets in Russia (primarily traditional and web-native newspapers) are more similar to government sources than one would expect given the greater editorial and financial independence of those media outlets, at least compared to largely state-controlled national TV stations. We conclude that blogs provide an alternative public sphere: a space for civic discussion and organization that differs significantly from that provided by the mainstream media, TV, and government.

Digital Health Communication and Global Public Influence: A Study of the Ebola Epidemic

Scientists and health communication professionals expressed frustration over the relationship between misinformation circulating on the Internet and global public perceptions of and responses to the Ebola epidemic originating in West Africa. Using the big data platform Media Cloud, we analyzed all English-language stories about keyword “Ebola” published from 1 July 2014 to 17 November 2014 from the media sets U.S. Mainstream Media, U.S. Regional Media, U.S. Political Blogs, U.S. Popular Blogs, Europe Media Monitor, and Global Voices to understand how social network theory and models of the networked global public may have contributed to health communication efforts. 109,400 stories met our inclusion criteria. The CDC and WHO were the two media sources with the most inlinks (hyperlinks directed to their sites). Twitter was fourth Significantly more public engagement on social media globally was directed toward stories about risks of U.S. domestic Ebola infections than toward stories focused on Ebola infections in West Africa or on science-based information. Corresponding public sentiments about Ebola were reflected in the policy responses of the international community, including violations of the International Health Regulations and the treatment of potentially exposed individuals. The digitally networked global public may have influenced the discourse, sentiment, and response to the Ebola epidemic.

Internet Censorship and Control [Guest editors' introduction]

The Internet is a battleground where fights for technical, social, and political control are waged, including between governments and their citizens, between separate governments, and between competing commercial interests. This issue examines the challenges of Internet governance, current practices, and limitations in the existing structures of control. In particular, it shows how the practice of censorship has become more widespread, but authorities being more transparent in their actions and policies, combined with independent verification that authorities are being honest, can reduce the risks. However, there are challenges in monitoring censorship, and this issue examines how technical, political, legal, and economic analysis can be combined to hold governments to account for their actions.

Vaccine Hesitancy and Online Information: The Influence of Digital Networks:

Aims. This article analyzes the digital childhood vaccination information network for vaccine-hesitant parents. The goal of this study was to explore the structure and influence of vaccine-hesitant content online by generating a database and network analysis of vaccine-relevant content. Method. We used Media Cloud, a searchable big-data platform of over 550 million stories from 50,000 media sources, for quantitative and qualitative study of an online media sample based on keyword selection. We generated a hyperlink network map and measured indegree centrality of the sources and vaccine sentiment for a random sample of 450 stories. Results. 28,122 publications from 4,817 sources met inclusion criteria. Clustered communities formed based on shared hyperlinks; communities tended to link within, not among, each other. The plurality of information was provaccine (46.44%, 95% confidence interval [39.86%, 53.20%]). The most influential sources were in the health community (National Institutes of Health, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) or mainstream media (New York Times); some user-generated sources also had strong influence and were provaccine (Wikipedia). The vaccine-hesitant community rarely interacted with provaccine content and simultaneously used primary provaccine content within vaccine-hesitant narratives. Conclusion. The sentiment of the overall conversation was consistent with scientific evidence. These findings demonstrate an online environment where scientific evidence online drives vaccine information outside of the vaccine-hesitant community but is also prominently used and misused within the robust vaccine-hesitant community. Future communication efforts should take current context into account; more information may not prevent vaccine hesitancy.