Catálogo de publicaciones - revistas

<jats:p> In recent years, mobile media applications have become a significant resource for crisis communication and communal coping during natural disasters and wars. Drawing on communal coping and media affordance research, we examined the roles that a WhatsApp group plays for mothers living in an ongoing conflict area. We examined, through in-depth interviews, a local WhatsApp group operating in a community adjacent to the Israel–Gaza border. Findings revealed the unique emotion-focused and problem-focused coping strategies people use when facing ongoing threats. Four affordances—immediacy, reachability, mobility, and multimediality—contributed to WhatsApp’s role as a shared and ubiquitous coping resource. This study demonstrates the ways in which instant messaging communication affordances contribute to communal coping strategies in ongoing conflict areas. </jats:p>

<jats:p> This article examines how people utilize WeChat, the most popular multi-purpose mobile app in China, to manage their everyday communication with different social ties. Since Granovetter popularized the idea of social ties by noting the strength of weak ties, a long list of studies has extended social ties theory by following the quantification tradition, for instance, quantitatively examining the different functionalities of strong and weak ties. However, many aspects of social ties cannot be easily quantified. In this vein, this study, being a qualitative network analysis, offers a communicative conception and categorization of social ties. It is based on data from 39 distinctive Chinese respondents, collected through an interview-diary-interview method. WeChat, being more than a social media app, affords new technologies (e.g., mobile payment and virtual red packets), enabling users to manage and maintain their social networks in new and alternative ways. The empirical findings suggest that Chinese respondents differentiate between strong, weak, and latent ties, and they articulate three communication strategies: managing availability, managing visibility, and managing reciprocal engagement. Based on the empirical evidence, this article discusses further implications with reference to the concepts of imagined audiences and commercialization of social relations. Moreover, this study contributes to social ties theory by providing empirical insights into its cultural specifications in the context of China, such as the emphasis on the principle of reciprocity in guanxi culture. </jats:p>

<jats:p> This study initiates a line of research on how the fifth generation of wireless infrastructure (“5G”) is being imagined through media portrayals—in this case through advertising. At the time of this writing, 5G is not yet widely available, however the media is saturated with narratives about how it will revolutionize everyday life. Drawing from the social imaginaries and media infrastructures traditions, this textual analysis examines the social shaping of 5G through advertisements from leading telecoms in leading markets, including China and the United States. Findings reveal an overarching trend with ads from both societies imagining 5G in futuristic and utopian ways, suggesting new possibilities for people, objects, and places to be connected through smart homes, vehicles, factories, and cities—not just through smart phones. The findings also reveal distinctions in how 5G is envisioned at the societal level. For example, ads from China imagine 5G as a source of national pride that will elevate its global standing, while the US telecoms have a more inward focus on domestic competition. The discussion offers interpretations of these and other findings, along with directions for future research. </jats:p>