Journal of Creative Communications

In 2015, YouTube was the first online platform to enable the option of uploading and playing 360-degree videos on the Internet. In 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, the consumption of these videos rebounded. To conclude this, we performed a quantitative analysis with the data from searches for ‘360 video’ on YouTube from the four countries most affected by COVID-19 during the first months of the pandemic: the USA, the UK, Spain and Italy. Even though the analysis of variance (ANOVA), according to Fisher’s F (0.48 < 2.62), shows there is a correlation between searches in the USA, the UK, Spain and Italy for the past 10 years, the tendency changes when the first months of the pandemic are analysed. We conclude that each country’s restrictions, by which citizens were forced to stay at home during different dates, depending on the country, may have influenced the consumption of 360-degree videos on YouTube.

This article describes how ‘imagined’ constraints of the social media platform by its users stand crucial while actualising platform affordances and exercising individual agency. I use the term ‘imagined constraints’ to explain how constraints of the media platform are speculated by my participants while they negotiate between the materiality of the platform and social environment to formulate their restricted agency. Here, I use a recent example of feminist hashtag movement ‘#MeToo’ as a case in point. Previous literature addressing feminist hashtag activism and other social movements influenced by social media platforms mainly discuss the participatory potential of these platforms. However, empirical investigation into the factors leading to non-participation in movements like #MeToo has hardly captured any scholarly attention. To address this existing gap in the literature, this article analyses embodied experiences shared through in-depth interviews by 11 Indian women who made a conscious decision of not participating in the #MeToo movement. I discuss my results taking into consideration theories of ‘imagined platform affordances’ and shaping of individual agency in terms of activist participation. I discuss that ‘Imagined constraints’ of the social media platform are chiefly shaped by an individual’s analysis of their sociocultural environment in which media platforms exist. These imagined constraints of a platform lead to constitute a ‘constrained agency’ of an individual. I argue that, while we theorise the potential of social media platforms in facilitating hashtag feminist movements like #MeToo, we must take into consideration the formulation of ‘imagined constraints of the platform’ by its users, as it stands crucial in guiding their participatory action.

The study aims to determine the impact of vlogger’s reputation on viewers’ trust on vlogger’s recommendations (TVR) and perceived usefulness of vlogger’s recommendations (PUVR). Moreover, the study examines the impact of TVR and PUVR on attitude and intention to shop online. A sample of 250 responses was collected from social media users and structural equation analysis technique was employed. The findings indicate that vlogger’s reputation has a significant role in building TVR, and PUVR and TVR and PUVR significantly influence the attitude and intention to shop online. The study also identified a positive impact of attitude towards online shopping on online shopping intention. The research provides insights to the marketers and practitioners as the findings guides on crafting promotional strategies using vloggers.

This study provides an overview of the media’s role in shaping public discourse and belief through framing news stories in a biased perspective and setting an agenda that is in keeping with the interests of the corporate and institutional funders of the media apparatus. Support for such an analysis is provided by a literature review that covers many critical aspects of news framing, agenda setting and cultivation theory, especially with respect to the emergence of a new ‘network society’. The ‘content analysis’ approach is utilised to search for biased content via the use of coders and decoders in some 140 randomly selected sampled links of the ‘Glenn Beck’ show during the two periods of time from 1 January 2010 to 30 June 2010, and from 1 January 2011 to 30 June 2011, each of these periods consisting of 70 samples. The results ultimately show that the programme almost unilaterally provides supportive views of moral conservative values, and slight negative portrayals of Muslims. The programme presents critical views of President Obama and his policies, although the finding in opposing Obama’s policies is not statistically significant. The significance of these findings is discussed within the larger context of media bias and its influence on political reality, as well as public discourse and belief; although the study and hence, the findings suggesting ‘bias’ do not represent the entire media industry representing conservative values.

This study examined research centre Biosphere 2 (B2) coverage by US newspapers between 1984 (as stories of conception before construction emerged) and 2019 (at the time this research was conducted) in order to uncover news diffusion relative to B2 in public media across historic eras and amid shifts in stakeholders over time. The analysis focussed on how a scientific institution and its innovative activities implied values, impacted the meaning-making of its project, as well as influenced the amount of information shared across sources (i.e., regional, metropole or elite) and media scale (i.e., local, regional, national outlets). This analysis identified nine eras delimited by scientific or organisational events. The findings emerging from this study can inform understandings of media behaviour around other scientific institutions and experiments.

The purpose of this study is to determine the meaning of coffee for Barista in specialty coffee shop. The concept used in this study is the concept of self-image or an individual image. The concept of self-image also explains the feelings and thoughts of individuals. The research method used is qualitative method with a phenomenological approach. Whereas data collection is done by conducting observations, interviews and literature studies. The results of this study show that the meaning of coffee for Barista in specialty coffee shop is the deeper their understanding of knowledge about coffee, the stronger the meaning conveyed to their customers and also to increase the sense of self respect as Barista. Besides that, the interaction built between the Barista and the customers can also strengthen the characteristic of the coffee shops, which is to be the specialty coffee shop in the third wave era.