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The next paper in this session at the IAMCR 2025 conference in Singapore is presented by Yeran Kim, Miran Pyun, and Danbi Kim, who begin by introducing the idea of the platform paradox: digital platforms are configured by contradictory logics of freedom versus control, transparency versus surveillance, and efficiency versus fatigue; these are integrated and entangled in user experience, and mean that platforms are experiences as complex, dynamic assemblages.

This demonstrates how technology and society are always intertwined, and digital society especially is a control society where power is open, mobile, and seductive, and not just repressive; user agency here …

The next session at the IAMCR 2025 conference in Singapore starts with Du Hengyu, whose focus is on the relationships between social media users and platform algorithms. Such algorithms are central to platforms; they influence what content we encounter, and how we can engage with others on these platforms. This has been studied from a user experience perspective, and over the shorter and longer term, but there remains a lack of relationship cycle models.

This study connected some 46 interviews with Chinese users of Weibo, TikTok, Bed Booklet, Bilibili, and Instagram, exploring their perceptions of platform algorithms. It examines their …

The final speaker in this session at the IAMCR 2025 conference in Singapore is Yiming Liu, whose focus is on the role of moralised content in online communication. This is often linked to moral contagion theory, but existing research on this is overreliant on observations from English-language studies, which may not translate well to other languages and cultures with their own cultural norms.

This study, therefore, uses the concept of ‘moral circle’: a boundary delimiting who or what deserves moral concern. This represents a series of expanding circles from the self, intimate relationships, the family, the social group, one’s own …

The final speaker in this session at the IAMCR 2025 conference in Singapore is Melanie Radue, whose interest is in moral panics and polarised discourses in Malaysia and Germany. This is in the context of a turn towards the conservative right in countries around the world, which often uses and fuels polarising discourses through moral panics, leading to democratic backsliding. What is the role of traditional media in such processes?

The concept of moral panics helps us to understand how certain issues become identified and intensified in media discourse: moralised discourses have long been understood as intensifying polarised narratives; they …

The next speaker in this session at the IAMCR 2025 conference in Singapore is Zeyu Zhu, whose interest is in global communication on Twitter between 2012 and 2022. We lack a systematic empirical description of global communication over this decade, which saw a rise of the Global South as documented in politics and economics, but is less well documented communication research.

This project works with a dataset drawn from the 1% real-time Twitter sample as available from the Internet archive; accounts captured in this dataset were geolocated based on their profiles using the Nominatim software; and retweet actions were then …

The next speakers in this session at the IAMCR 2025 conference in Singapore are Guolin Chen and Xialei Zhang, whose focus is on the global media landscape. Increasingly, we have seen the emergence of state-driven English-language networks, including CGTN from China, RT from Russia, TRT International from Turkey, etc. This goes beyond mere propaganda, which is too simplistic and broad a label; it represents a soft power agenda.

But how do such media construct their imagined communities, both at the national and global level – indeed, how do they advance beyond imagination and towards expressing their vision of these communities …

Because of the coffee queue I came in late to the Thursday morning session at the IAMCR 2025 conference in Singapore, where Jan Miessler is already in full flight summarising structural functionalism. His overall aim here is to critique the systemic perspective on media systems that was popularised with the seminar work by Hallin and Mancini, which tends to neglect the social actors within the system, and presents a ‘real’ and ‘holistic’ perspective that is actually conjured by the authors.

But a holistic perspective means that nothing can be known, since there is no way to exhaustively describe a system …

The final speaker in this session at the IAMCR 2025 conference in Singapore is Dorothy Njoroge, whose focus is on youth protests in Africa – these have been occurring around the world over the past decades, although African protests have been less visible in global media coverage than similar events in America, Asia, or Europe.

Africa has a very substantial youth population, but very limited socio-economic perspectives for its youth; they are politically marginalised, in a stage of ‘waithood’ where adulthood is suspended due to a lack of economic opportunities, but also better-educated and more technologically literate than earlier generations …

The next speaker in this session at the IAMCR 2025 conference in Singapore is Mistura Salaudeen, whose focus is on China’s soft power in Africa. Africa has gradually become a key target of Chinese soft power activities, through economic investment, bilateral and multilateral engagement, and other initiatives. Its state media outlets have also established increasingly visible African operations. China also partners with African nations through BRICS, FOCAC, BRI, and the Belt and Road initiative. These initiatives seek to convince Africa that China is a more profitable partner than the west.

This is true for Nigeria, too – a ‘Chinese way …

The second speaker in this session at the IAMCR 2025 conference in Singapore is Kata Horváth, whose focus is on political influencer videos in the 2024 Hungarian elections. Hungary has now backslid into authoritarianism, and its mainstream media system have been captured by political interests aligned with the Fidesz party; the social media environment is also severely affected by hostile narratives from disinformation influencers, however.

Hostile narratives are designed to create an enemy figure that provides a target for social frustrations, reinforce polarisation, and distract from real issues. Social media advertising is also dominated by the Fidesz party, in part …