Abstract
This study investigated citizen participation in live blogs in the changing media ecosystem from the public sphere perspective. The live blog is a web-native, participatory-oriented journalistic genre comprised of brief updates of an event in motion and designed to deliver real-time information from multiple sources about breaking news and scheduled events. To examine participation in this contemporary news format, the current, exploratory study, collected survey responses from 339 volunteers and found that participation was not a motivating factor for readers to engage in live blogging on a deeper level. Other study findings pertaining to participation were also pessimistic, showing that the majority of participants were not personally interested in participating in live blogging. This is an important finding for digital journalism as it implies that the capacity of online platforms to accommodate participation does not necessarily translate into citizens’ willingness to participate.
Keywords
The internet has broken ground for citizens to share their perspectives on a vast array of issues with millions around the globe. It armed the public with tools to disseminate information, initiate debates, voice opinions, and react to news stories by liking or rating them. As an increasing number of internet users are participating in producing content online, scholars directed their attention to citizen participation, acknowledging that this phenomenon has taken a new form in the emerging media ecosystem. To this day, a large body of research has examined citizen participation online, focusing on different types of participation—from citizen engagement in debates on internet forums to user contributions to storytelling on news websites.
Participation is a requisite of democracy, and as such, it attracts researchers in different disciplines and is being studied from multiple approaches. Among the perspectives that have been utilized to explain the dynamics of participation online is the public sphere. The public sphere refers to a space in which people are equally entitled to participate in opinion exchange (Habermas, 1989). Due to diverse opportunities for citizens to participate and form the public sphere online, academic studies have focused on multiple aspects of participation—from the one that occurs on independent platforms and social media to the participation that is accommodated by professionally controlled platforms on the internet, such as the websites of news organizations. The current study investigates the latter, stressing the need to understand the phenomenon of participation that takes place in a unique journalistic genre designed for publishing information about events in real time—a live blog. The live blog is a news format that delivers updates about unfolding events, deriving information from multiple sources, including other news websites, readers, and social media (Pantic, 2017; Pantic, Whiteside, & Cvetkovic et al., 2017; Thurman & Walters, 2013). Recognized as a participatory-oriented journalistic genre, the live blog provides multiple accounts of events (Pantic et al., 2017; Thurman & Walters, 2013).
This study focuses on news media as they have authority and structure that independent websites are lacking (Scott et al., 2015) and present an important player in providing citizens with the knowledge and information they need to participate in the societal and political processes (Dahlgren, 2011). Another reason for focusing on media is because of their “role in representing the public in political matters: they are crucial in making the voice of the public heard” (Peters & Witschge, 2015, p. 22). In a new media ecosystem, the live blog encourages readers to engage by sharing information about different topics and delivering their accounts of events, which makes this format suitable for investigating participation online. Acknowledging that the live blog provides space for the public to participate, the current study investigated if the participatory component of live blogs motivates readers to consume this form of storytelling and to what extent users participate in live blogging. Furthermore, as live blogs cover different topics (e.g., social issues, sports, entertainment), the study examined differences among readers in their motivation to participate in live blogging based on a type of live blog they read most often.
Literature Review
The public sphere can be defined as a forum that “allows citizens to inform themselves about societal developments and to observe and control political, economic and other elites” (Gerhards & Schäfer, 2010, p. 144). Throughout history, the public sphere has taken different forms. It was reflected in the agora in ancient Greece and it took the form of modern parliaments with the development of nation-states in Europe (Habermas, 1989). In today’s society, the public sphere could be divided into three forums: The first forum presents nonorganized communication which takes place in the parks and streets, the second is reflected in public events such as conferences and protests, and the third, which is the focus of the current study, represents mass media (Gerhards & Schäfer, 2010).
According to Papacharissi (2002), the public sphere is “tied to democratic ideals that call for citizen participation in public affairs” (p. 10). In the predigital era, the public sphere was in decline. As the internet was spreading and becoming accessible to a greater number of users, those in favor of new technologies were expressing optimism about the potential of the public sphere to revitalize (Papacharissi, 2002). Growing communication networks, greater access to information, an increased number of internet users and globalized civil society are some of the requisites of the 21st century that contributed to such a notion. As Dahlgren (2011) stressed, the internet has “dramatically altered the premises and infrastructure of the public sphere in a variety of ways” as it has provided a wide spectrum of information, facilitated interactivity, and created space for everyone to participate if they want to (p. 16).
Even though new digital platforms wrapped in optimism those who advocate participation, their sole presence has not evolved into the establishment of a vigorous public sphere. In that regard, Papacharissi (2002) remarked that the extent to which a certain platform can serve as a space for constructive discourse does not depend solely on the platform itself but also leans on the citizens’ readiness to engage in the discourse. Accordingly, Dahlgren (2011) addressed that, “robust civic cultures are necessary prerequisites for participation and for the vitality of public spheres—and, thus, for the functioning of democracy” (p. 19). Therefore, empowering citizens by providing opportunities for their participation does not necessarily increase overall engagement in public issues (Papacharissi, 2002; Peters & Witschge, 2015), even when such an opportunity exists.
Another issue concerning the public sphere in the digital environment is that it is far from the egalitarian ideal. Forums, comment threads, blogs, social media, and other platforms for opinion exchange could create a false impression of high participation rates, while in reality, only a small number participate. The reason for this is that participation does not only depend on the participants’ willingness to share their ideas but also leans on the possibility of accessing the internet without difficulties. Specifically, a citizen needs to have the technology that is necessary to engage in participation (Muthukumaraswamy, 2010, p. 60).
Digital Journalism and Public Sphere
There are diverse ways and platforms for internet users to address viewpoints, distribute information, and be confronted with the opinions of others. Among the most popular ones that keep recording an increase in the number of users is social media. The nature of these networking platforms allows people to obtain information and share their thoughts on diverse topics with other users without difficulties (Gil de Zúñiga et al., 2012). However, the issue concerning the public sphere is that social media, like other open internet platforms, might create room for participation that is in disorder rather than democratic. Even though information and news-related activities performed by social media users can positively affect their engagement in civic issues and increase social capital (Gil de Zúñiga et al., 2012), participation that happens on such internet platforms might not follow specific rules that are necessary for a structured debate (Iosifidis, 2011). A more structured form of participation occurs in the mass media-controlled spaces, such as websites of news organizations and their social media accounts. Mass media represent the third forum of the public sphere (Gerhards & Schäfer, 2010) that some scholars consider to be critical for managing quality debates due to professional journalism practices they employ in producing, publishing, and disseminating information. Hujanen (2016), for instance, argues that citizens’ debates are important as “they bring people’s voices into the public sphere, and strengthen freedom of expression,” but they “cannot proceed without journalistic control” considering that “journalists’ ethical code of practice is represented as a requirement for debate” (p. 875).
Journalism has a prominent place in democracy as it monitors those in power, provides knowledge, social connection, and presents a forum for public criticism (Kovach & Rosenstiel, 2014). Multiple news organizations today openly invite citizens to engage with news products at higher levels, by providing content for news stories and analyzing events (Muthukumaraswamy, 2010). Audiences and journalists are becoming mutually dependent. Just as people need a journalistic product for their orientation in everyday life, journalists need audiences and their feedback to guide them in the process of story selection that will best serve the audiences’ needs (Heise et al., 2014). Furthermore, not only do citizens have the right to be informed about what is happening around them, but they also have responsibilities as they became producers in today’s media ecosystem (Kovach & Rosenstiel, 2014).
The research in the area of citizen participation shows that “some news outlets are very open to reader participation and approach the ideal of multi-perspectival news, while others involve the audience in a superficial way while retaining overall control over the process” (Scott et al., 2015, p. 738). The former contributes to the argument that news media could serve as vibrant platforms for debates and deeper reader engagement. An illustration is a project “Off The Bus” launched by The Huffington Post and NewsAssignment.Net, that encouraged readers to share opinions, analyze reports, and produce investigative stories (Muthukumaraswamy, 2010). Another example is the UK based newspaper The Guardian, which has a website that attracts diverse users and puts a strong emphasis on reader participation (Muthukumaraswamy, 2010; Pantic et al., 2017; Thurman & Walters, 2013).
Aside from investigating what media organizations provide space for participation and what types of participation could be detected online, scholars also have focused on users and their motivations to participate. For instance, Heise et al. (2014), who investigated citizen participation on the online platform tagesschau.de, which is affiliated with the German television newscast Tagesschau, learned that users, among all, participate in news because they want to express their opinions, to expand their knowledge through the debates with others, to raise questions, initiate topics that are important to them, to be part of a community, and fulfill their civic obligation. In line with this, Muthukumaraswamy (2010) pointed out that citizens need to be personally interested in a topic in question in order to participate.
Live Blogging
Daily news consumption rituals in the era of new technologies consist of both acquiring information and providing feedback to it. An example of a dynamic news practice that engages readers by encouraging them not only to consume journalistic pieces but also to supply news organizations with personal accounts of events is a live blog. This digital-native journalistic format is being utilized by various media organizations across the globe for publishing live updates about running events (Pantic, 2017; Pantic et al., 2017; Thurman & Newman, 2014; Thurman & Walters, 2013). News organizations use the live blogs as a default format for covering breaking news (Thurman & Walters, 2013). Aside from delivering live updates of events, the live blog is recognizable by its capacity to incorporate multiple perspectives of an event and provide information using diverse multimedia elements (Pantic, 2017; Pantic et al., 2017; Thurman & Walters, 2013).
As a format published on news websites, the live blog appears to have a strong democratic potential because it is “more collaborative, distributed, fluid and less author-centric than other forms of journalism” (Hermida, 2012, p. 664). By employing a large amount of user-generated content, live blogs put a high value on news consumers’ opinions and accounts of events. Academic research in this area shows that readers nurture positive attitudes toward the live blog, which scholars describe as a participatory-oriented news format that provides space for diverse viewpoints (Pantic, 2017; Pantic et al., 2017; Thurman & Walters, 2013). It transcends boundaries between information producers and consumers, creating a space in which information can be challenged and debated. Even though no research speaks of the live blog participation rates, some early studies on this journalistic format stressed that the live blog on websites such as The Guardian frequently detects higher engagement among users than traditional articles (Thurman & Walters, 2013).
The discourse that forms around live blogs is nontypical for news media. Unlike other journalistic formats, such as the inverted pyramid, which puts a strong emphasis on fact-based storytelling that engages a limited number of sources and provides definitive information on diverse issues, live blogs tend to be fluid in character (Hermida, 2012). In other words, instead of waiting to collect all the information about an event, a journalist who is live blogging might publish a story with initial and incomplete information and then “fill in the blanks” with new updates as they receive more facts about the event. Furthermore, with its reliance on social media content, the live blog calls citizens to chime-in, share their perspectives, and voice their opinions on major sociopolitical issues and other occurrences (Pantic, 2017; Pantic et al., 2017). This type of interaction is critical for the formation and development of the public sphere as “participation via the news media is but one of a far more dynamic series of interactions that constitute civic engagement” (Peters & Witschge, 2015, p. 25).
An integral part of the public sphere is participation, which is also one of the distinctive features of the live blogs. The live blog is suitable for investigating public sphere formation online because it represents a contemporary format that news technologies gave birth to. It resembles the public sphere to a certain extent, as it allows many voices to be heard by deriving a large amount of information from a vast array of sources. Furthermore, as the information within the live blog story is placed in reverse-chronological order, not based on the importance of the facts, one can get a sense that all sources are equally important.
Taking into consideration both the literature about citizen participation and emerging media phenomena, the current study examines the role of news media websites in expanding the public sphere on the internet by focusing on people’s willingness to engage on a deeper level with media professionals and their products. Opportunities for participation online are diverse, but the central point of this investigation is the third forum of the public sphere—mass media. Even though scholars’ viewpoints about the potential of digital media for strengthening democracy are polarized, there is no doubt, as Dahlgren (2011) argues, that these media have a great impact on participation and democracy. Assuming that the news environment and the live blog, in particular, can serve as a site for information sharing, message posting, and opinion exchange, this study poses the following research questions:
Method
Sample and Procedure
The current study is part of a larger research project that examined various aspects of the live blogging process—from gratifications users seek in live blogs to the potential of live blogs to contribute to the public sphere formation online. The research project in question utilized a self-report instrument comprised of 19 blocks of questions. Two blocks of questions were designed to investigate users’ participation in live blogs and their motivation to participate in live blogging. A survey was suitable for the study as it is a frequently utilized method of measurement in communication science research (Hayes, 2005), which allows collecting data from respondents by asking them questions related to a specific issue (Thayer-Hart et al., 2010).
As the research was exploratory, with part of it focusing on investigating the potential of live blogs to contribute to a vibrant public sphere online, it utilized a convenience sample. Survey participants were recruited from a university in the southern part of the United States and from an email list that predominantly had graduate students and university professors as subscribers. Data were collected from December 2016 to March 2017. There were 553 respondents who accepted the request to participate in the study. The first question asked respondents how often they read live blogs. About 30% or 164 respondents who answered “never” were automatically screened out. Additional 50 respondents also were removed after the data cleaning determined that they did not complete the survey. Finally, the total number of completed responses for the entire survey was 339. The majority of respondents (88.2%) were millennials or the so-called Generation Y age-group that represents young adults born after 1982 (Drumheller, 2005). About 67.3% or 228 respondents identified as females, 108 or 31.9% were males, while three participants or 0.9% selected “prefer not to answer” response when asked about their biological sex (see Table 1).
Demographics.
Note. N = 339.
About 57.5% of respondents (N = 195) provided a response to an open-ended question that asked them what website they visit most often to read live blogs. The majority of respondents listed prominent news websites, such as the CNN, The New York Times, Huffington Post, The Guardian, the BBC, The Washington Post, and Fox News. Other sources for live blogs included Al Jazeera, Times of India, ESPN, USA Today, Daily Mail, etc.
Measures
There were two sets of questions that assessed participation. One set aimed at obtaining responses about readers’ participatory habits with respect to live blogs (RQ1). Another set of items was designed to investigate motivation to participate in live blogging by asking respondents questions that would suggest whether the participatory component of live blogs drives them to read this news format (RQ2).
Participation
To measure users’ participation in live blogging, the researcher asked two questions: “How often do you post comments on live blogs?” and “How often do you respond to other people’s comments on live blogs?” The following set of answer choices was offered: (1) never, (2) once a month or less, (3) 2–3 times a month, (4) once a week, (5) 2–4 times a week, (6) 5–6 times a week, (7) once a day, and (8) several times a day.
Motivation to participate in live blogging
The author of the study looked at the literature on live blogs and the public sphere (i.e., Papacharissi, 2002; Thurman & Newman, 2014; Thurman & Walters, 2013) to create items that would reflect the motivation to participate in live blogs. Based on the literature, four statements were listed to assess participation as a motive to engage in live blogging. Respondents were asked to state whether they agree with the following statements: (1) I read live blogs because they encourage me to share information about an event with a journalist who is live blogging about that event, (2) I read live blogs because the comments I share on social media about events can become part of the live blogs, (3) I read live blogs because they allow me to post comments below them on news websites, (4) I read live blogs because they allow me to post comments below the live blog links shared on the news websites’ social media accounts. Respondents selected one of the following responses on a Likert-type scale: strongly disagree, disagree, neutral, agree, and strongly agree. The 4 items that assessed motivations to participate in live blogging were highly correlated as Cronbach’s α was .92.
Types of live blogs and frequency of reading live blogs
In terms of types of live blogs they read, participants were asked to select one of the following categories: (1) politics, (2) conflicts, (3) social issues, (4) economics, (5) entertainment, (6) sports, (7) other, (8) no preference. Each category had an explanation in parentheses. For instance, armed clashes and terrorism were listed as some of the examples of stories that fall into the category “conflicts,” while some of the examples in the category “economics” included business, economy, and the stock market. To determine the frequency of reading live blogs, readers were asked to select one answer choice from the following list: (1) never, (2) once a month or less, (3) 2–3 times a month, (4) once a week, (5) 2–4 times a week, (6) 5–6 times a week, (7) once a day, (8) several times a day.
Findings
Readers’ Participation in Live Blogging
RQ1 investigated to what extent readers participate in live blogging. According to the results, the respondents under study were not participatory oriented as 78.2% selected the response “never” when asked about the frequency of posting comments. There were a small number of respondents who would post comments on live blogs frequently, once a month or more. Those respondents were females, belonging to the millennial age cohort (Table 2). With respect to responding to other people’s comments, 82.9% of respondents stated that they “never” engaged in such activity (see Table 3 for more details).
Participation in Live Blogging—Frequency of Posting Comments on Live Blogs.
Participation in Live Blogging—Frequency of Responding to Comments on Live Blogs.
Motivation to Participate in Live Blogging
RQ2 examined if the participatory component of live blogs motivated readers to engage with live blogging. According to the results, participation did not drive readers toward live blogs. The score detected for participation in live blogging as a motivating factor to engage in live blogs was below the neutral point (M = 2.74, SD = .95). The highest score (M = 2.90, SD = 1.04) was detected for the statement “I read live blogs because they encourage me to share information about an event with a journalist who is live blogging about that event.” The statement “I read live blogs because they allow me to post comments below the live blog links shared on the news websites’ social media accounts” had the lowest score on the list (M = 2.62, SD = 1.05).
Differences in Motivation for Participating in Live Blogging Based on Types of Live Blogs
RQ3 explored the differences among readers in their motivation to participate in live blogging based on a type of live blog they read most often. A one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) showed that there was a statistically significant difference between the respondents based on a type of live blog they were likely to read, F(6, 332) = 3.31, p = .004. Three variables contributed to these results. Specifically, the participants who read live blogs about entertainment (M = 3.14, SD = .83) were statistically different from those who read live blogs about politics (M = 2.54, SD = 1.00) in terms of participation as a motivation to read live blogs. The difference was statistically significant at p = .001. Furthermore, the mean score for the respondents who are likely to read live blogs on entertainment was significantly different from those who read live blogs about social issues (M = 2.61, SD = .98) at p = .008.
Discussion and Conclusions
As some of the distinctive features of live blogs are reflected in their informal tone, participatory nature, and high reliance on user-generated content, one of the key aspects of the current study was to examine readers’ participation in live blogging. This component of reader engagement was assessed 2-fold. First, participation was assessed as a potential motivation for live blog consumption. Second, the study investigated readers’ participation in live blogs by asking them about the frequency of posting comments on live blogs and responding to others’ comments. These forms of participation had low scores, indicating that the tendency of live blogs to contribute to the public sphere formation online did not seem to be appealing to the majority of respondents under study.
The study also investigated if the respondents differ in their motivation to read live blogs based on a type of live blog they read most often. Statistically significant differences were found between three groups of respondents: those who read live blogs about entertainment, politics, and social issues. While readers who engage in live blogs about entertainment were likely to read live blogs because they wanted to participate in them, the respondents who engage in live blogs on politics and social issues did not agree that participation would drive them toward live blogs. This is an important finding, considering that the public sphere should feed on participation enriched with arguments related to politics and societal issues, but that appears not to be important to the respondents under study.
Examining participation was critical for this study as allowing audiences to contribute with their content to the news websites can result in their engagement in public issues (Nip, 2007). In the digital media ecosystem, users’ participation “is part of media professionals’ every day work—whether they like it or not” (Banks & Deuze, 2009, p. 422). However, as this study suggests, the wide capacity of live blogs to accommodate participation is not itself a sufficient motivator for users to take advantage of this opportunity and voice their opinions about a variety of issues in the society. This conclusion is in congruence with previous research that found that only a small number of people are active participants on news websites. For instance, the BBC as a prominent news organization attracts many visitors; still, only 0.5% of the unique visitors would engage in participation reflected in providing feedback in the section that is reserved for user content (Thurman, 2008). Other studies about audience engagement in storytelling also stressed that the majority of users would still rather consume media than participate in content creation (Hermida & Thurman, 2008). Furthermore, the finding of this study that about 80% of respondents were not interested in participation aligns with Papacharissi’s (2002) argument that a platform for debates is not sufficient for the discourse if people are not willing to engage in it. Such a trend also implies that news organizations might consider being more proactive in attracting readers to their websites. For instance, Batsell (2015) learned that news organizations in the United States established a new practice in the digital age that involves organizing in-person gatherings to build connections with their audiences or collect funds that will help them survive economically. In particular, many news outlets in the United States that organize these live events ascribe audiences’ loyalty to them. This type of connection between news outlets and their audiences/readers could have a positive impact on the participation rates.
Previous research about the public sphere on the internet encountered several limitations concerning participation. Papacharissi (2002), for instance, addressed that one of the factors that affect participation in debates online is internet access. The extent to which diverse social categories might have access to participatory digital media spaces could differ (Peters & Witschge, 2015). Hence, even conversations in open forums could be biased, considering that not everyone is able to participate in them. Such arguments can also help explain participation boundaries in the live blogging process, as the consumption of the format requires access to the internet. Besides, the fact that not everyone is willing to participate in discussions online even when they have access to this platform, contributes to biased debates, as not everybody shares their points of view on a topic.
The conclusion that can be driven from the current study and early research on live blogs is that two major factors pose boundaries to participation: professional and personal. First, participation on news websites and their social media accounts is mediated by media professionals. As Peters and Witschge (2015) noticed, “participatory tools are employed in a selective fashion, and journalism is a long way from allowing audiences to share information jointly, co-monitor those in power, represent themselves in public affairs, and get into contact with political actors directly” (p. 28). Therefore, not only readers’ content that appears in news stories but also the comments to stories readers post undergo professional scrutiny before publication (Thurman, 2008). That could discourage users from participating in live blogging and push them to turn to other platforms instead, such as Facebook and Twitter. Second, participation in storytelling depends on readers’ personal willingness to engage in discussions and provide newsworthy information. The results of this study show that the majority does not have a strong will to participate.
Furthermore, participation in the live blogging calls for caution because of certain limitations that both the media and consumers face. First, to provide credible information to a wider population and preserve professional standards, journalists need to carefully select sources and accounts of events they publish. In doing so, they are likely to press the red button for information that lacks verifiability and choose only insights that come from well-known sources on the internet. Such practice limits the live blog capacity to enable all-inclusive participation. However, this caution in sorting out information is critical for live bloggers to provide accounts of events that are trustworthy. Second, openness to participation does not necessarily indicate that the scope of contributions will be wide. Enthusiasm to supply a wide population with personal accounts of events and viewpoints about societal, political, economic, and other issues is not widespread among consumers. Rather, the readiness to participate in storytelling by providing information about occurrences in society or feedback to stories is limited to those who are interested to embrace the role of a reader that exceeds passive consumption of news.
Limitations
A major limitation of the study is that it utilized a convenience sample comprised predominantly of undergraduate students who belong to the millennial cohort. This sampling method often is utilized when a researcher faces constraints in terms of time and resources and is much less desirable than a random sample that allows us to make generalizations from the data (Treadwell, 2017). The issue that the author of the current study faced was a large number of respondents who were screened out from the survey because they said they never read live blogs. This resulted in a skewed population distribution as two thirds of the sample was comprised of females. Despite these limitations, employing a convenience sample still helps in increasing understanding of the willingness of young individuals to participate in debates online. This is critical as young people present the future of society but seem to be disconnected from the public sphere (Dahlgren, 2011). Furthermore, it should be noted that this is an exploratory study that examined the public sphere that forms around live blogs, which makes convenience sample acceptable.
Another limitation is that the data were collected at the end of 2016 and the beginning of 2017. Considering that journalism is changing rapidly, the data should be considered within the scope of this limitation. Hence, it will be beneficial for future studies to examine current participation trends and employ a more generalizable sample to investigate the willingness of a wider population to engage in live blogging. In addition, this article examined participation in live blogs which are moderated as they are being published by professional journalists. Future studies should investigate whether the participation rates tend to be higher when user content and comments are not moderated by professional journalists.
Suggestions for Further Research
As this study focused solely on audiences and did not investigate the content of live blogs, it would be valuable for future research to examine to what extent the live blog serves as a platform for debates to its consumers. Such investigation would be enabled by looking into the main requirements of the public sphere, such as exchange of ideas and opinions that are based on valid information, critical examination of one’s own values when confronted with strong opposite arguments, equality in raising arguments, and openness in providing all the necessary information in the dialogue (Dahlberg, 2001). Furthermore, future studies could also explore the differences between users’ readiness to participate on the independent internet platforms and those that are mediated by news organizations. Readers might feel comfortable participating solely on the platforms such as social media that enable them to directly publish their posts without moderation. Bypassing the media and producing the material themselves (Nanabhay & Farmanfarmaian, 2011) could give them a sense of freedom in expressing their viewpoints, even though such form of idea sharing might appear disorganized and diverge from the public sphere ideals (Iosifidis, 2011). As Banks and Deuze (2009) addressed, users’ overall engagement in the creation and distribution of media content online can be perceived as a form of labor that is under the control of companies and organizations. The readers could be reluctant to engage in providing content to the news organizations as they do not see the benefits of volunteering for those organizations. Additional research is necessary to investigate this assumption.
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.