Seeing and Believing
Asynchronous Session
Featured Analysis of Political Trolls’ Underground Black Propaganda Campaign to Influence Opinion Online
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Roselle Espina
Results from previous studies showed that political trolling was used as a strategy in the 2016 Philippine general elections. Online activities of political trolls are primarily hidden in the mainstream media to continuously thrive in victimizing the public with black propaganda campaigns. The creation of democratized content has created a new underground industry dedicated to shielding politicians’ reputations, fabricating and manipulating content, and provoking the online political realm. After six years, the practice was reportedly observed in the 2022 Philippine general elections once again. This research provides recent findings after analyzing underground political troll activities on social media to influence public opinion during the 2022 Philippine elections and identify social media users' level of awareness. Guided by Harold Lasswell’s Theory of Political Propaganda, the study's framework explains how various political trolling activities can corrupt public opinion in a digital space. Using a mixed method with an exploratory sequential design, the study utilizes two research approaches: (1) content analysis of identified political troll campaigns before the 2022 election day and (2) survey questionnaires among one hundred social media users. The research results explain the end-to-end relationship between black propaganda campaigns executed by political trolls and public awareness about underground trolling practices.
Measuring and Visualizing Audience Impact in Screen Media: Leveraging Qualitative Reception Data, Longitudinal Analysis, and Recognition Benchmarks for Holistic Insights
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Chris Kim, Sara Diamond
Screen industry interest in the success of media products has focused on quantitative metrics such as audience numbers, retention, and earnings. However, there is growing recognition among producers, public funding agencies, and investors that qualitative impacts are important. These include how and why media content resonates with diverse audiences and influences their behaviours, as well as how recognition functions across digital platforms. Despite a vibrant and ongoing history of academic reception studies, and advancements in fields like ethnography, behavioural economics, and health studies, media industries lack effective automated reception analysis tools and a consolidated database for comparative analysis. This paper explores the application of interdisciplinary theories and methods to describe and measure screen media reception, alongside a series of algorithmic data analytics tools that support synthesized data visualizations and summaries via natural language processing. The toolset encourages the analysis of content created for audience segments, niche genres, as well as mass audiences. We report on user and usability trials for short form series, long-form series, and one-off products. Our toolset supports understanding audience viewing contexts and perceptions of the impacts of the media they consume and the reasons for these impacts. These insights help producers amplify audience engagement and influence over the course of production and distribution. We provide producers with recognition benchmarks based on festival screenings, awards, and genre relevance, while integrating earned media scores. The toolkit affords funders and distributors a deeper understanding of the return on their investment.
Hybrid Realities in Creative Advertising
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Alina Buzatu
The study examines systemic transformations in contemporary commercial campaigns, as represented by creative work officially acknowledged at prestigious international advertising competitions. The analysis explores innovative techniques that intertwine commercial realities with fictional presences, imaginary worlds, and digitally mastered content, employing intertextual and hypertextual strategies. Available specialised research predominantly addresses virtual realities within gaming and the traditional separation between digital and offline advertising, leaving a gap regarding the deliberate blending of ontological layers in brands’ communication. Drawing on Jean Baudrillard’s concept of hyperreality, the research analyses how distinct worlds alternate within brand story, leading to hybrid products and influencing the commercial narrative. The dataset comprises award-winning advertising case studies from 2024–2025, highlighting mainstream trends, the relation between reality and fiction, and contemporary creative techniques utilised in the advertising rhetoric. In their endeavour to create and promote methodologies, brands operate with established categories of realities, recycling, overlapping, or even juxtaposing socio-cultural references, while also challenging notions of credibility and authenticity. Conclusions discuss the growing preference for inserting alternative worlds in advertising campaigns and encourage further exploration into how these intersections elicit behavioural responses. Highly inclusive and fluid, the contemporary advertising language welcomes the blend of eclectic realities, opening new interrogations on brand storytelling criteria and communication platforms’ selection.
Participatory Media and Information Brokers in the Republic of Benin (West Africa) View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Tilo Grätz
The paper examines the role of new media actors in the West African Republic of Benin, commonly referred to as 'grogneurs' or 'faiseurs d'opinion'. These are frequent callers to interactive radio shows that openly discuss politics and society in contemporary Benin. I argue that it is too simplistic to define them as "citizen journalists". Instead, we need to adopt a more complex analysis of the actors, the politics and the new configurations of the public sphere(s) shaped by a wide range of actors, interests, practices and technologies. The research focuses mainly on a series of call-in shows, commonly called grogne in Benin, where listeners can express themselves freely on topical issues or denounce abuses. It is evident that these programs have become the primary platform through which these grogneurs express themselves. Their success is being significantly boosted by the increasing ease of access to mobile phones and social media, and their enduring reputation for truthfulness. My paper argues that the grogneurs can be seen as information brokers. They capitalise on the enabling potential of new media technologies and social media, which unfold their full potential in Benin when closely intertwined with more 'traditional' media such as radio and press. From a performative approach, the analysis of grogne shows and grogneurs' interventions should be conceptualised as a media ritual and a drama, which follows specific scripts and includes typical rhetoric, interaction rituals, verbal as well as indirect means of communication.
