Vol. 4 : No. 1 : 2022

April 2022

About the issue

This issue of JDSR starts off with an article written by Michael Nycyk, who explores the scholarly concerns and conflicts debated by authors in the field of the use of informant internet data in research. Using published articles, he thematically analyses the emerging patterns of concerns and conflicts over internet data use, and contributes insights into a widely debated and evolving area. The second contribution in this issue, by Naomi Smith and Simon Copland, explores the interesting factor of speed in the spread of memes on Twitter. The authors analyse 'memetic moments' to shed light on the didactic relationship between social media and news media, which helps us take on the complex social issues underpinning those moments.

The third contribution comes from Elizabeth Fetterolf, who approaches the algorithms on a major gig economy platform for care work. The author finds that 'visibility is often related to connectivity, response time, and positive reviews, and who is rendered visible mirrors preexisting inequalities'. In the fourth contribution, Raquel Recuero and Felipe Bonow Soares take us through the spread of disinformation about COVID-19 vaccines in Brazil, exploring how pseudo-science and denunciation of the vaccine influence and validate the populist discourse of the president.

In another case-study, this one focusing on Kuwait, Hesham Mesbah brings us a study of tweeted attitudes towards women parliamentary candidates. Using tweets preceding the parliamentary election in Kuwait, Mesbah shows, among other results, how women candidates were 'praised for acting like men, whereas they are mocked for looking like men'. In the final contribution, Tim Glaesener uses a crowdsourced audit to study the content diversity of Apple's Siri voice assistant, focusing on queries about politically controversial issues. Among other findings, the study shows that fragmentation and concentration can coexist when it comes to search results given by Siri's search algorithm, providing a basis for a clearer understanding of content diversity and providing new insights into the frequency distribution of search results.