A sociosemiotic approach to consumer engagement in user-generated advertising

User-generated advertising (UGA) has been booming over the past few years as marketers have been actively seeking to enhance consumer engagement. Yet, our understanding of the implications, the importance and the potential of UGA from a cultural branding point of view remains limited. This study furnishes the conceptual model of consumer cultural engagement in order to appreciate in a more nuanced manner than afforded by consumer sentiment analyses how UGA contributes to fleshing out co-creatively a brand vision. To this end, a sociosemiotic approach is pursued by dimensionalizing the cultural resources employed in UGA along the interlocking layers of text/register/domain in a cline of instantiation. The conceptual model is exemplified by recourse to a UGA corpus from the 10th and final wave of Doritos’ Crash the Super Bowl promo mechanism, undergirded by a mixed methods research design that features a grounded theoretical procedure, facilitated by quantitative analyses.     

Using yoshikono and war to save rakugo in Osaka

Abstract

In April 1936, the magazine Kamigata hanashi (Kamigata Story) was launched in Osaka. This was a rakugo (traditional comic storytelling) magazine published monthly out of a local storyteller's home. One mission of the magazine as laid out by the editor in the inaugural issue was to preserve a local narrative tradition that was losing a popularity battle with manzai (two-person stand-up comedy) and other modern performing arts and media. Interestingly, in the second year of the magazine's run, the editor issued a call for yoshikono, which, like dodoitsu, are songs conventionally written in lines of 7-7-7-5. This too was a tradition that, it was written, needed a champion. Yoshikono submissions increased with each issue until they filled multiple pages, reaching into the hundreds. Prizes were given for the best entries, and public yoshikono gatherings were advertised – singers and shamisen players were even enlisted in what appears to be an attempt to revive a community performance tradition with historic links to storytelling in Osaka. This article shines light on the largely forgotten art of yoshikono, discusses its role in an Osaka rakugo magazine from 1937 to 1940, offers forty verses in translation, and considers why yoshikono was unable to make a comeback after the Second World War.     

The impact of anti-democratic actions on a country’s international image,as projected in the foreign press and on social media: The case of Israel

The notion of soft power suggests that actions that contradict international standards will harm a country’s international image. The current study focuses on the impact of anti-democratic action taken by Israel during 2015 on its international image, as projected in the foreign press (N = 4,425 articles) and on social media (N = 23,797 tweets). The findings indicate that anti-democratic actions did not have an immediate or long-term effect on the tone of coverage toward Israel, while other factors, such as the circumstances and the topics discussed, did influence the tone of coverage.     

Ten “Rs” of Social Reaction: Using Social Media to Analyse the “Post-Event” Impacts of the Murder of Lee Rigby

This article provides a case study analysis of social reactions to the murder of Fusilier Lee Rigby in 2013. Informed by empirical data collected by systematic monitoring of social media platforms, the analysis identifies a number of online behaviours with offline effects—labeled the ten “Rs”—that collectively constitute the process of social reaction to the crime. These are defined as: reporting; requesting; responding; recruiting; “risking”; retaliating; rumouring; remembering; reheating; and “resiliencing”. It is argued that the ability to observe these behaviours through the application of qualitative social media analysis has considerable potential. Conceptually, the analysis provides new insight into the complex and chaotic processes of sense-making and meaning attribution that arise in the aftermath of terrorist attacks. It illuminates how patterns of social reaction on social media are nuanced and complicated, with different segments of the public interpreting the same developments very differently. In addition, the findings and the conceptual framework outlined have implications for policy and practice development in terms of establishing a more effective and evidence-based approach to the consequence management of “post-event” conflict dynamics and social reactions.     

The Backbone Structure of Audience Networks: A New Approach to Comparing Online News Consumption Across Countries

Measures of audience overlap between news sources give us information on the diversity of people’s media diets and the similarity of news outlets in terms of the audiences they share. This provides a way of addressing key questions like whether audiences are increasingly fragmented. In this article, we use audience overlap estimates to build networks that we then analyze to extract the backbone—that is, the overlapping ties that are statistically significant. We argue that the analysis of this backbone structure offers metrics that can be used to compare news consumption patterns across countries, between groups, and over time. Our analytical approach offers a new way of understanding audience structures that can enable more comparative research and, thus, more empirically grounded theoretical understandings of audience behavior in an increasingly digital media environment.     

浅议影响供述动机的因素

在侦查讯问中,最核心的是促使犯罪嫌疑人在其心理活动中形成供述动机。只有供述动机产生后,犯罪嫌疑人才有可能做出如实供述。笔者在综合比较国内外专家学者研究的基础上,借鉴内外因关系的原理,认为促使犯罪嫌疑人产生供述动机的因素分为两类:一是犯罪嫌疑人自身的因素 (内因);二是犯罪嫌疑人之外的因素(外因)。因此,侦查讯问的方式、程度及结果以两种因素之间的互动为前提。     

对刑法中行为的新界定

行为论在刑法理论上有着重要的地位,研究行为论的目的应当是为了科学地建构犯罪构成(成立)体系,完善刑法的基础理论,为司法实务提供观念上的指导。行为论研究必须始终兼顾一个国家固有的文化传统和刑法理论的总体特征。依此标准分析,我国刑法中行为的界定应着眼于危害行为,并且应当去除意思要素,保留刑事违法性及危害性要素。因此,我国刑法中的行为概念即为客观上违反刑法规范的危害社会的身体动静。     

西北内陆河流域历史生态问题述要

西北内陆河流域生态环境历史变迁经历了自然因子为主和社会因子为主的不同时期。现在面临生态恶化、生态危机等问题主要是人为因子 ,特别是农耕过度发展造成的。所以 ,我们必须重新认识和定位内陆河流域的开发问题 ,实现人类与自然的和谐发展。     

城市融入之推手:新生代农民工的网络媒介素养

新生代农民工的网络媒介素养是其城市融人的推手之一.以河北省石家庄市为例,考察新生代农民工的网络生活景观,从中可以发现问题,提出针对这一群体的网络媒介素养提升对策,以引导其有效利用网络,推动新生代农民工的城市融人力度.     

修辞学观照中的视听传播

电视已成为信息社会中最有力的传播工具之一,但电视人有意无意地割裂声画关系、很少考虑有效地运用修辞手法来提高传播效果,同时,传统语言学、修辞学也忽视对电视语言进行研究。这制约了电视这个复合符号系统在传播信息和理解知识上的前进。电视工作者和语言研究者应该努力揭示出电视语言的运用规律。