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Toponym recognition, or the challenge of detecting place names that have a similar referent, is involved in a number of activities connected to geographical information retrieval and geographical information sciences. This research focuses on recognizing Chinese toponyms from social media communications. While broad named entity recognition methods are frequently used to locate places, their accuracy is hampered by the many linguistic abnormalities seen in social media posts, such as informal sentence constructions, name abbreviations, and misspellings. In this study, we describe a Chinese toponym identification model based on a hybrid neural network that was created with these linguistic inconsistencies in mind. Our method adds a number of improvements to a standard bidirectional recurrent neural network model to help with location detection in social media messages. We demonstrate the results of a wide-ranging evaluation of the performance of different supervised machine learning methods, which have the natural advantage of avoiding human design features. A set of controlled experiments with four test datasets (one constructed and three public datasets) demonstrates the performance of supervised machine learning that can achieve good results on the task, significantly outperforming seven baseline models.

Background Nigeria has the highest population in sub-Saharan Africa with high birth and growth rates. There is therefore need for family planning to regulate and stabilize this population. This study examined the relationship between access to mass media messages on family planning and use of family planning in Nigeria. It also investigated the impacts of spatio-demographic variables on the relationship between access to mass media messages and use of family planning. Methods Data from the 2013 demographic and health survey of Nigeria which was conducted in all the 36 states of Nigeria, and Abuja were used for the study. The sample was weighted to ensure representativeness. Univariate, bivariate and binary logistic regressions were conducted. The relationship between each of the access to mass media messages, and the family planning variables were determined with Pearson correlation analysis. Results The correlation results showed significant but weak direct relationships between the access to mass media messages and use of family planning at p  < 0.0001 with access to television messages (r = 0.239) being associated with highest use of family planning. Some of the results of the adjusted regression analysis showed that access to television messages (OR = 1.2.225; p  < 0.0001), and radio messages (OR = 1.945; p  < 0.0001) increase the likelihood of the use of family planning. The adjusted regression model also indicated increased likelihood in the use of family planning by respondents with secondary education (OR = 2.709; p  < 0.0001), the married (OR = 1.274; p  < 0.001), and respondents within the highest wealth quintiles (OR = 3.442; p  < 0.0001). Conclusions There exist significant variations within spatio-demographic groups with regards to having access to mass media messages on family planning, and on the use of family planning. The results showed that access to mass media messages increases the likelihood of the use of family planning. Also people with higher socioeconomic status and those from the Southern part of the country make more use of family planning. There is need to improve the socioeconomic status of the populations. Also, the quality and regularity of mass media messages should be improved, while other communication avenues such as traditional institutions, blogs, and seminars for youths should be used to make family planning messages more acceptable.

The growing importance of the influence of the media on the Catholic faithful calls for an answer to the question of to what extent the church’s activity in initiating messages of faith is subordinated to the logic and pragmatics of the media, which change the forms of the presence of religion in the lives of Catholics and the contexts in which it is positioned? As a result, it should force reflection: how to form and distribute religious messages using the tools of the media and, more generally, to manage the process of building relationships with the faithful. In this process, it is crucial to identify the factors influencing the faithful and especially the validity of existing values in their lives. The authors of this article focus on the concept of authority, identifying it in the research process conducted in Generation Z, aiming to form a conclusion as to whether it can constitute a value in the initiated media messages. The conducted study and its conclusions are considered from a Catholic perspective, referencing the importance of authority as one of the Church’s fundamental values. This value strengthens the building of a community of believers, as religious authorities, their behaviors, and views reinforce the transmitted ideas. The authority, which serves to enhance the conveyed messages, frequently appears in media transmissions. The concept of authority is explored in the theoretical section of the article.

Public communication campaigns are among the tools for promoting electricity saving. A crucial task in the process of creating a campaign is to design a simple message to effectively reach the average consumer. It is a beneficial practice to create alternative messages and pretest them to find the most effective. The research methodology during pretesting includes both quantitative and qualitative methods. However, it is believed that the outcomes obtained with the use of conventional techniques are not fully reliable. Therefore, the following question arises: What additional research methods should be applied at the stage of testing the message of a communication campaign so that its effectiveness can be assessed more reliably and/or improved even before its broadcast? In this study, we aim to present the possibility of applying cognitive neuroscience methods in conjunction with a questionnaire to experimentally check the effectiveness of the message using the example of selected electricity-saving communication campaigns. The key results of this study indicate that merging conscious and subconscious reactions to media messages allows us to gain new knowledge that can be used in the future to improve the communication campaign effectiveness. Our investigation showed the benefits that can be obtained by synergizing traditional research methods with neuroscientific approaches.

This study was conducted to investigate individuals' perceptions of media messages about the COVID-19 pandemic and the effect of these messages on their fear and uncertainty. Data for this descriptive correlational study were collected between October and November 2020. A total of 653 individuals living in Turkey provided online survey data by completing a Personal Information Form, the Pandemic Uncertainty Scale, and the COVID-19 Pandemic Fear Scale. The mean age of the participants was 52.1 ± 12.6, and 79.9% were female. It was found that 27.9% of participants \"always\" followed COVID-19 news in the media, and 41.3% \"often\" followed COVID-19-related news. Participants' COVID-19 fear (24.46 ± 8.07) and uncertainty (55.35 ± 8.63) scores were moderate and correlated. Level of trust in mass media was found to affect uncertainty about the pandemic. As level of trust in mass media increased, uncertainty about the pandemic decreased. Appropriate measures must be identified and adopted for effective and safe media use in situations posing massive and significant health threats such as COVID-19.

In the current communicational scenario, transformed by technological and digital advances, media literacy is considered a crucial competence for active and informed participation in society. In this context, the main objective of this study was to assess the media literacy competences of 416 students of the 4th, 6th, and 9th grades in Portugal, identifying training needs and presenting suggestions for intervention. A non-experimental quantitative methodology was used, and the participants completed a self-response questionnaire. The results indicate that the three grades studied have a transversal need regarding the use of media, the production of media content, and participation in society through the media, and also regarding the analysis, understanding, and assessment of media content. We confirm the importance of media education in the development of media literacy and present some intervention suggestions for the promotion of these competences in the school context, namely the reinforcement of some curricular content, the use of guiding documents, and the development of critical thinking. We emphasize the importance of training teachers and parents on the subject, and finally, we also emphasize the importance of deconstructing the belief that digital natives have natural competences in this regard and therefore do not need training in this area.

Social media is a crucial tool for health communication as it provides an immediate, wide-reaching platform to share information, correct misinformation, and promote health behaviors. The Health Belief Model (HBM) offers a structured approach for designing more effective social media messages by employing unique constructs predicting health behaviors, such as severity, susceptibility, benefits, barriers, and self-efficacy. While prior research has explored HBM constructs in health messages, most studies have collected the survey data with items lacking robust psychometric evidence, particularly in evaluating social media posts. This study addresses this gap by using Rasch Measurement Theory (RMT) to analyze the psychometric properties of HBM items evaluating social media posts promoting COVID-19 vaccination. The findings indicate that severity, benefits, and barriers are the most reliable HBM constructs in social media posts, while susceptibility and self-efficacy are underutilized in health messaging for social media. Also, dimensionality analysis confirms distinct patterns, but unexplained variance suggests that additional factors influence vaccine messaging, raising validity concerns. These results underscore the need to refine HBM-based message strategies by emphasizing overlooked constructs and improving item effectiveness. This study provides guidelines for using HBM-related measures in social media by establishing comprehensive psychometric properties, especially when applied in social media contexts. It also presents practical guidelines for designing and evaluating social media health messages, ensuring they effectively utilize HBM constructs to promote positive health behaviors. Future research should explore measurement invariance and content creators’ emphasis on HBM constructs, leveraging high-engagement tweets while expanding to diverse perspectives for broader applicability.

Korean adolescents at high risk for smoking are less exposed to anti-tobacco media messages. This study examines whether school-based smoking prevention education is related to media exposure and whether it can contribute to reducing the gap in exposure to anti-tobacco media messages between smoking vulnerable and non-vulnerable groups. A nationally representative dataset, the 2018 Korea youth risk behavior web-based survey, comprising 59,410 students from grades 7–12, was analyzed. Logistic regression models were designed to evaluate the association between school-based smoking prevention education and media messages exposure. Within-group differences in exposure levels based on sociodemographic characteristics were compared depending on participation or nonparticipation in school-based smoking prevention education. Experience of smoking prevention education within a year was significantly associated with exposure to anti-tobacco media messages. Among Korean adolescents who participated in smoking prevention education compared to those who did not, the media messages exposure rate was more than 20% higher, and the exposure gap within the subgroups by sociodemographic characteristics was narrower. Participation in school-based smoking prevention education was significantly related to media messages exposure. This relationship can be used to improve the overall media messages exposure rate and to reduce the differences in exposure rate based on sociodemographic traits.

The study focuses on compliance with road safety media messages by mass transit drivers in South Eastern Nigeria. Based on available literatures that were surveyed, there may not be studies conducted on mass transit operators in Nigeria. This study examines the obstacles around mass transit drivers’ compliance with road safety media messages. A survey of 364 mass transit drivers in Nigeria probed their compliance with road safety messages from the perspective of means of communication, level of compliance, and obstacles to compliance. The multistage sampling technique was adopted in this study. The study used the real limit mean and cutoff mean to analyse data from objectives one and two respectively. Data from objective three were analysed using frequencies and percentage. Factor analysis was used to analyse data from the hypotheses. Findings revealed that the mass transit drivers comply with road safety media messages. However, bad roads (potholes) and overloading to make more money are adduced as obstacles to compliance with road safety media messages. The study recommended that the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC) should sustain its dissemination of media messages on road safety; mass transit companies should have phone numbers inscribed on their vehicles to help commuters report the issue of overloading to the appropriate channel(s) and the FRSC should help in calling the attention of the Federal and State governments to bad roads in order to get them fixed.

This study examined college students’ responses to emotional anti–alcohol abuse media messages (i.e., fear vs. humor appeal) aimed at discouraging heavy/binge drinking. An experiment was conducted with 94 college students. As expected, college students generally expressed higher levels of interest in anti–alcohol abuse media messages when watching fear appeal than those watching humor appeal. However, college binge drinkers who watched the fear appeal reported lower levels of readiness to change their drinking behavior than those who watched the humor appeal. This pattern was the opposite among college nonbinge drinkers, in that college nonbinge drinkers were more likely to say they would change their drinking behaviors when exposed to fear appeal than those who were exposed to humor appeal or those who did not watch any media messages. Conventional fear appeal to scare college binge drinkers seems ineffective and even counterproductive while humor appeal, if well designed, could offer alternative ways to communicate with college binge drinkers.