Confessional Radio Stations and Social Communication for Political Change in Africa

The role of religious groups in the political field has arised in Africa in 1990s and despite being less visible it is still active. In fact, this is the climax of a very old process in Africa. Religion always participates in politics and vice versa. It is therefore not surprising that religious groups take into account political preoccupations in their communication processes. Sometimes they get involved in political debates, particularly when the questions reveal very important choices for the Nation, as it was the case in 1960s and 1990s. But mostly, they get involved in the social field which is, for them, the key to have one foot in political field. However, beyond these considerations, this paper intends to show how the use of media by religious institutions is closely related to their understanding of the relationship between the religion as an institution, and the society.

Social Science Communication Through Dialogic Interactions

The study in this paper that draws on dialogic interaction is a focus of investigation as the way to communicate social sciences to the public. In science communication people, for example, experts or scientists attempt to persuade lay people about the validity of their assessments. Currently dialogue in science communication might be seen as an important way to deliver information about sciences to the public as previously communicating science was conducted through top-down approaches. In addition, currently there is a tendency that people prefer to deliver and to receive information about sciences through two-way communication models between two or more parties, face-to-face or mediated by any means of communication as this way of communication is seen as more interactive. In the context of Indonesia, in terms of social science communication, this is an important phenomenon to investigate as two-way communication models might bridge the gap between expert opinion and lay opinion, where lay opinion is often seen as irrational or emotional. However, there are still a small number of studies with regard to how social sciences are communicated to the public and in what ways people preferred to deliver, moreover to discuss information within social sciences. One of the potential reasons is that research on science communication is mainly focused on natural and physical sciences. Since the study in this paper focuses on dialogic interactions in social science communication, this study will contribute to the current discussions of mass communication, in terms of science communication, and to related fields.

Interpersonal Climate Change Communication in Florida Using Quantile Regression

Climate change is described as a potentially catastrophic phenomenon with the capacity to disrupt agricultural production, economies, health systems, education, and infrastructure, among other systems. In Florida, climate change is a concern because of the state’s extensive coastline and its influence on the economy, as well as residents’ safety and well-being. As early as 2007, researchers forecasted that vulnerable wetlands, mangroves, fisheries, and coastal infrastructure in Florida may be significantly damaged or destroyed by 2060. Climate change communication (CCC) is described as a complex problem that requires several layers of attention, especially in achieving the desired outcome of behavior change. Previous research suggested that climate change communicators would be more effective if they understood their audiences and their communication capacities. The purpose of the study was to determine the impact of demographic factors on social communication for residents of Florida. A survey was used to collect the data through an address-based sampling (ABS) method, where a total of 318 usable responses were received from Florida residence 18 years or older. A latent construct for describing social communication (Social Communication Index [SCI]) was created as the dependent variable and was tested against eight variables using a quantile regression approach. Using quantiles in 0.1 intervals, the results showed that knowledge, age, income, newspaper use, urbanicity, and race affected the SCI in one or more quantiles. Social media, sex, and religiosity were insignificant throughout all quantiles. While most of the results align with previous research, there is the need for further probing into social communication on climate change to ensure that audience segments are provided with climate change information through the channels they primarily use.

Modern Social Communications as a Bifurcation Point of Traditional Social Institutes

Impact of Internet Technologies increases importance of changes in the system of social communication creating a stressful situation for the functioning of traditionally established social institutions. New phenomena such as priest＇s and saints＇ online pages, represent significant deviation from historical practice, bring certain dissonance to the activities of the church. On one hand, church has to use modern communication channel, on the other hand, effects of online translation of confessional relations are not predictable. Open global socieW requires certain universalization of education, but professional communications are faced not only with a problem of language barrier, but also with national culture. School of thought, formed in traditions of particular cultural outlook, risks losing its face to the loss of national characteristics of the education system. Institute of Administration is also experiencing certain amount of stress.

Communication on Road Safety in Cameroon: Representation in the Press and Government Strategy

Road safety is a major concern in Cameroon, due to the multiplicity of road accidents resulting in the loss of human lives and the deterioration of road infrastructures. In 2019, the year marking the end of the United Nations decade of actions for road safety, the number of deaths on Cameroonian roads was 937. In this article, we have selected to examine the theme of road safety in the Cameroonian press and to look at awareness-raising strategies on the same subject. Our objective is to highlight the importance of communication in solving road safety problems. We therefore asked ourselves the following questions: How is the topic of road safety dealt with in the media? In combination with awareness campaigns, are the representations conveyed through the press sufficient to contribute to a change in road users behaviour? The option of studying both the representations of road safety that we have chosen has enabled us to show how the co-production of this public problem can be explained through the interrelations between the media and institutional fields. We initially postulated that communication achieves its objective in road safety campaigns when it integrates mixed strategies including campaigns aimed at road users, information for the general public through the press and social marketing campaigns aimed at changing behaviour. After a content analysis of articles published on road safety in three newspapers and an analysis of the messages disseminated in the posters and flyers produced during awareness campaigns, we found that awareness-raising through the media is not enough on its own. We therefore conclude that it is important to combine marketing techniques, citizen education and awareness raising aimed at changing user behaviour in road safety communication strategies. The target strategy is also important because each road safety message is addressed to a specific target group that plays a specific role

Marketing Research on Hotel Industry using WeChat to Transform Customer Traffic

The hotel industry is trying to use "private traffic" to promote direct channel reservation.From the perspective of social trust, the structural equation model is used to verify the social interactions between hotel and customers on WeChat, the interactions between customers’ WeChat friends, WeChat community interaction, and the relationship between brand communication and hotel direct sales. The results show that the interaction between customers’ WeChat friends and WeChat community interaction can promote customers to order hotel products from the hotel’s direct channel, and brand communication plays two completely opposite moderating roles in this process. Therefore, it is proposed that hotels should use WeChat to carry out marketing work strategically, so as to avoid excessive dependence on distribution channels.

Communicative Social Proximity, a Determinant of Attention to the Message in Organisations

Organisations delude themselves on the fact that the obligation for employees to achieve their goals is the guarantee of a good attention to the managers’message.In order to examine the impact of communicative social proximity on the attention paid to the message in the organizational environment,an experimental study is used in which,through virtual communication,the impact of the affective and cognitive-emotional dimension of the message on the attention paid to the manager’s instructions is explored.It emerges that the closer the employees are to the manager through the non-verbal and verbal dimensions of communication,the more they pay attention to the manager’s message.

Intercultural Interaction and Competence： Challenges Facing South African Children

South Africa is a country of many cultures. Before the first democratic elections in 1994, people of different cultures found it difficult to interact because of legislated racial segregation, which made it difficult for blacks to mix with whites in almost all spheres of life. The only place interaction could take place was in the workplace. As a result, children from different cultural groups had few opportunities to interact. This made it impossible for South African children to learn about the cultures of other racial groups. With the introduction of a democratic government, all segregation laws were relaxed and people mixed freely in all spheres of life. Intercultural communication became commonplace. This new scenario presented a challenge to many South African children, but despite the limits imposed before 1994, children from all racial groups associated successfully. Their ability to cope with this situation with so much more ease than adults was remarkable. This paper seeks to highlight the communication skills used by South African children from all cultural backgrounds to achieve intercultural competence in a relatively short space of time. The paper will further reflect on the impact made on African children by intercultural interaction and competence.

How Artificial Intelligence and Virtual Reality Benefit the Elderly and Individuals with Disabilities

The growing and evolving use of emerging technology including Artificial Intelligence(AI)and Virtual Reality(VR),has significantly impacted the lives of two specific groups-the elderly and the disabled.This paper investigates potential reasons for this phenomenon.Clearly,AI and VR Technology alters the everyday lives of people with disabilities and how they navigate the world.Technological developments increasingly work to address the isolation that people with disabilities as well as the elderly experience for they are often unable or limited in how they engage with their communities.This research paper outlines the way technology has improved social communication,information distribution,and day-to-day living for those with disabilities and the elderly.Undoubtedly,the internet has transformed social communication and interaction for most people.Socially isolated individuals with disabilities have gained exposure to social environments through social media.Moreover,the broad range of information available on the internet has increased access to resources such as government services,health services,and social services support.On a related point,assistive devices have enabled disabled people including many seniors to overcome motor,sensory,or cognitive difficulties that may have previously hindered them from performing daily tasks.However,although AI and VR technology has been effectively integrated in the lives of those with disabilities,many such individuals lack access to commonplace technologies,like a personal computer.This paper examines how AI and VR technology has enhanced communication,information access,and everyday activities for the disabled and aging communities despite such socio-economic limitations.

UGC-Driven Social Influence Study in Online Micro- Blogging Sites

In Web 2.0 era,the content on a web page is increasingly generated by end users,rather than limited number of administrators.Hence,large number of User Generated Content(UGC) has driven the explosion of content in the web.Thanks to UGC,the pattern of web usage has evolved from download dominated way to a hybrid one with both information download and upload.Large number of UGC has unveiled great capacity of information that is unavailable for researchers before,such as individual preferences,social connections,and etc.In this paper,we propose a novel model which studies the UGC in micro-blogging web sites,the largest and fastest information diffusion media online,and evaluate the social influence for an arbitrary individual.Experimental results show that our model outperforms state-of-the-art techniques in social influence evaluation in both the running time and accuracy.

Epidemic-Like Proximity-Based Traffic Offloading

Cellular networks are overloaded due to the mobile traffic surge,and mobile social networks(MSNets) can be leveraged for traffic offloading.In this paper,we study the issue of choosing seed users for maximizing the mobile traffic offloaded from cellular networks.We introduce a gossip-style social cascade(GSC) model to model the epidemic-like information diffusion process in MSNets.For static-case and mobile-case networks,we establish an equivalent view and a temporal mapping of the information diffusion process,respectively.We further prove the submodularity in the information diffusion and propose a greedy algorithm to choose the seed users for traffic offloading,yielding a sub-optimal solution to the NP-hard traffic offloading maximization(TOM) problem.Experiments are carried out to study the offloading performance,illustrating that the greedy algorithm significantly outperforms the heuristic and random algorithms,and user mobility can help further reduce cellular load.

Reducing Social Media Attention Inequality in Disasters:The Role of Official Media During Rainstorm Disasters in China

Unequal social media attention can lead to potentially uneven distribution of disaster-relief funds,resulting in long-term inequality among regions after disasters.This study aimed to measure inequalities in social media attention to regions during disasters and explore the role of official media in reducing such inequality.This is performed by employing social media,official media,and official aggregated statistics regarding China's rainstorm disasters.Through a set of panel-data regressions and robustness tests,three main conclusions were drawn:(1)There were inequalities among regions regarding social media attention they received during rainstorm disasters.For disasters of the same magnitude,regions with low economic outcome per capita received less attention on social media.(2)Official media can reduce inequality in social media attention during disasters.Official media statements can encourage netizens to pay attention to disaster-stricken areas,and especially the overlooked underdeveloped areas.(3)Of all the measures taken by official media,timely,accurate,and open disclosure of disaster occurrences proved to be the most potent means of leveling the playing field in terms of social media attention;contrarily,promotional or booster-type messages proved futile in this regard.These findings revealed the vulnerabilities within social media landscapes that aff ect disaster relief response,shedding light on the role of official guidance in mitigating inequalities in social media attention during such crises.Our study advises social media stakeholders and policymakers on formulating more equitable crisis communication strategies to bridge the gap in social media attention and foster a more balanced and just relief process.