• Journal of the Korea Society of Computer and Information
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• v.27 no.3
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• pp.53-61
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• 2022

Recent years have drawn a great attention to generation MZ and Metaverse, due to 4th industrial revolution and the development of digital environment that blurs the boundary between reality and virtual reality. Generation MZ approaches the information very differently from the existing generations and uses distinguished communication methods. In terms of learning, they have different motivations, types, skills and build relationships differently. Meanwhile, Metaverse is drawing a great attention as a teaching method that fits traits of gen MZ. Thus, the current research aimed to investigate how to increase the use of Metaverse in Educational Technology. Specifically, this research examined the antecedents of popularity of Gather Town, a platform of Metaverse. Big data of news articles have been collected and analyzed using the Bigkinds system provided by Korea Press Foundation. The analysis revealed, first, a rapid increasing trend of media exposure of Gather Town since July 2021. This suggests a greater utilization of Gather Town in the field of education after the COVID-19 pandemic. Second, Word Association Analysis and Word Cloud Analysis showed high weights on education related words such as 'remote', 'university', and 'freshman', while words like 'Metaverse', 'Metaverse platform', 'Covid19', and 'Avatar' were also emphasized. Third, Network Analysis extracted 'COVID19', 'Avatar', 'University student', 'career', 'YouTube' as keywords. The findings also suggest potential value of Gather Town as an educational tool under COVID19 pandemic. Therefore, this research will contribute to the application and utilization of Gather Town in the field of education.

• Journal of Convergence for Information Technology
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• v.12 no.5
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• pp.237-245
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• 2022

This study examines the social discourse on the characteristics of the learning community in the untact era, and discusses the directions that learning communities for children could explore and consider in the pandemic situation and beyond. For this purpose, big data for one year, from January 20, 2020 to January 20, 2021, were collected through internet portal sites (includingincluding Google News, Daum, Naver and other News surfaces), using two keywords "untact" and "learning community", and analyzed by employing a word frequency and network analysis method. The analysis results show that several important terms, such as 'village education community', 'operation', 'activity', 'corona 19', 'support', and 'online' are closely related to the learning community in the untact era. The findings from this study also have implications for developing the learning community as an alternative model to fill the existing gaps in public care and education for children during the prolonged pandemic and afterwards. In conclusion, the study findings highlight that it is meaningful to identify key terms and concepts through word frequency analysis in order to examine social trends and issues related to the learning community.

• Informatization Policy
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.66-90
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• 2022

The radical digital transformation and development of the contactless digital economy in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic are increasing the need to solve various problems such as conflicts of interest among market participants and delays in related laws and regulations. This study investigates the concept and characteristics of the contactless digital economy and identifies the related regulatory issues and resolutions through literature review, news article analysis, and expert interviews. From the literature review, it is identified that the contactless digital economy has eight hyper-innovation characteristics: hyper-intelligence, hyper-connectivity, hyper-convergence, hyper-personalization, hyper-automation, hyper-precision, hyper-diversity, and hyper-trust. From news article analyses and expert interviews, this study identifies various regulatory issues, such as competition between incumbents and new entrants, the collision of constitutional rights, collision of social values, conflict between market participants, absence of laws and regulations, and existence of excessive market power, and then proposes a series of resolutions.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.29 no.3
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• pp.287-316
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• 2023

As global energy crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic have emerged as social issues, there is a growing demand for companies to move away from profit-centric business models and embrace sustainable management that balances environmental, social, and governance (ESG) factors. ESG activities of companies vary across industries, and industry-specific weights are applied in ESG evaluations. Therefore, it is important to develop strategic management approaches that reflect the characteristics of each industry and the importance of each ESG factor. Additionally, with the stance of strengthened focus on ESG disclosures, specific guidelines are needed to identify and report on sustainable management activities of domestic companies. To understand corporate sustainability strategies, analyzing ESG reports and news articles by industry can help identify strategic characteristics in specific industries. However, each company has its own unique strategies and report structures, making it difficult to grasp detailed trends or action items. In our study, we analyzed ESG reports (2019-2021) and news articles (2019-2022) of six companies in the 'Finance,' 'Manufacturing,' and 'IT' sectors to examine the sustainability strategies of leading domestic ESG companies. Text mining techniques such as keyword frequency analysis and topic modeling were applied to identify industry-specific, ESG element-specific management strategies and issues. The analysis revealed that in the 'Finance' sector, customer-centric management strategies and efforts to promote an inclusive culture within and outside the company were prominent. Strategies addressing climate change, such as carbon neutrality and expanding green finance, were also emphasized. In the 'Manufacturing' sector, the focus was on creating sustainable communities through occupational health and safety issues, sustainable supply chain management, low-carbon technology development, and eco-friendly investments to achieve carbon neutrality. In the 'IT' sector, there was a tendency to focus on technological innovation and digital responsibility to enhance social value through technology. Furthermore, the key issues identified in the ESG factors were as follows: under the 'Environmental' element, issues such as greenhouse gas and carbon emission management, industry-specific eco-friendly activities, and green partnerships were identified. Under the 'Social' element, key issues included social contribution activities through stakeholder engagement, supporting the growth and coexistence of members and partner companies, and enhancing customer value through stable service provision. Under the 'Governance' element, key issues were identified as strengthening board independence through the appointment of outside directors, risk management and communication for sustainable growth, and establishing transparent governance structures. The exploration of the relationship between ESG disclosures in reports and ESG issues in news articles revealed that the sustainability strategies disclosed in reports were aligned with the issues related to ESG disclosed in news articles. However, there was a tendency to strengthen ESG activities for prevention and improvement after negative media coverage that could have a negative impact on corporate image. Additionally, environmental issues were mentioned more frequently in news articles compared to ESG reports, with environmental-related keywords being emphasized in the 'Finance' sector in the reports. Thus, ESG reports and news articles shared some similarities in content due to the sharing of information sources. However, the impact of media coverage influenced the emphasis on specific sustainability strategies, and the extent of mentioning environmental issues varied across documents. Based on our study, the following contributions were derived. From a practical perspective, companies need to consider their characteristics and establish sustainability strategies that align with their capabilities and situations. From an academic perspective, unlike previous studies on ESG strategies, we present a subdivided methodology through analysis considering the industry-specific characteristics of companies.

• Asian Journal for Public Opinion Research
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.246-264
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• 2020

As netizens increasingly utilize social media to obtain and engage with information, this study aims to determine the extent to which the follower-influencer interaction is manifested and strengthened. To analyze information related to the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19), a total of 62,119 online posts from 11 Internet forums were examined to find a relationship between followers and influencers in Taiwan. These forums are PTT, SOGO, Ck101, Plurk, Mobile01, TalkFetnet, Gamez, PlaySport, Dcard, Eyny, and PCDVD. The variables that were the best predictors of influencer classification were strong influences, engagements, and hot values across 11 Internet forums. Learning the response to the COVID-19 pandemic is vital because public actions could have been fueled by stigmatizing terms that may harm public health and well-being. The results questioned the conventional diffusion of traditional news sources because the influencers brought widespread attention to the health threat issues in the early outbreak stages. This study enhances the understanding of forum types, follower engagement, and influencers' impact maximization in social networks. The conclusion provides insight into the relationships and information diffusion mechanisms to ensure accurate health information dissemination.

• Journal of Information Science Theory and Practice
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.42-53
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• 2013

Timely access to quality healthcare information during an outbreak plays an important role in curtailing its spread. The aim of this study was to investigate the information needs and seeking behavior of the general public in Singapore during the H1N1 pandemic. A pre-tested questionnaire was used for data collection. The convenience snowball sampling method was used and 260 working adults and tertiary-level students participated in this study. The most crucial information needs of a majority of the participants were: symptoms of H1N1, causes of the infection, preventive measures, and possible treatments. Data analysis also revealed that mass media such as television, newspapers, and radio were most frequently used for seeking the needed information. The use of human information sources was also quite high while only a small number of the respondents accessed online news and healthcare websites. About three-quarters of the participants indicated that the gathered information helped them to stay vigilant and take necessary precautionary measures. A major problem identified by the participants in using H1N1 information was the lack of understanding of certain terms used in public communications. This paper suggests certain measures for strengthening health information communication during future outbreaks.

• Journal of Information Science Theory and Practice
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.77-90
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• 2020

This study analyzes N=181 social media rumors from Bangladesh to find out the most popular themes, sources, and aims. The result shows that social media rumors have seven popular themes: political, health & education, crime & human rights, religious, religiopolitical, entertainment, and other. Also, online media and mainstream media are the two main sources of social media rumors, along with three tentative aims: positive, negative, and unknown. A few major findings of this research are: Political rumors dominate social media, but its percentage is decreasing, while religion-related rumors are increasing; most of the social media rumors are negative and emerge from online media, and social media itself is the dominant online source of social media rumors; and, most of the health-related rumors are negative and surge during a crisis period, such as the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper identifies some of its limitations with the data collection period, data source, and data analysis. Providing a few research directions, this study also elucidates the contributions of its results in academia and policymaking.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.19 no.11
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• pp.27-36
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• 2021

Purpose: COVID-19, government regulation and social media have changed many aspects of life including consumption behavior. The influence of social media by spreading massive news about COVID-19 also have the impact toward emotions threat, perceived risk, and perceived value of consumption behavior in Bengkulu Province, Indonesia. This research aims to analyze the extent to which changes in the consumption behavior, mainly for purchasing of corona prevention products through indirect distribution channels. Research design, data and methodology: This research was descriptive quantitative using the IPA method with sample of people in Bengkulu Province. This study obtained 208 respondent data from questionnaires and tested the validity and reliability with corrected-item total correlation method. Results: The study found that COVID-19 pandemic and government regulation variable were in quadrant II, in quadrant III there were social media variable, emotions threat and perceived risk. Meanwhile, in quadrant IV there were perceived value variable. Conclusions: The findings indicated that COVID-19 and government regulation are the most variable that influence people to buy corona prevention product, meanwhile perceived value is the less influence variable. Therefore, government and marketers have to prepare strategic plan in order to raise people awareness to avoid corona by buying corona prevention product.

• Journal of Public Diplomacy
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.80-110
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• 2021

Public diplomacy (PD) scholars tend to consider two main principals: the country or agent that conducts PD (Actor A), and target groups in the host country in which PD is conducted (Actor B). The field currently lacks theories of how communications between Actors A and B can be disrupted by a third party, such as a group of motivated trolls, an organised advocacy group, or a hostile country and its agents. The purpose of this article is to outline some theoretical considerations for how the PD research field might move away from a two-actor model of PD to one in which disruption is part of the discussion. The case study explores the activities of an interest group called Media Watchdogs of Sweden (MEWAS). MEWAS was a group of around 200 members who met in a hidden Facebook group to coordinate off-platform activities aimed at influencing perceptions of how the Swedish government handled the COVID-19 pandemic in the eyes of foreign governments, researchers, decision-makers, and media. Much critical news coverage in the international press has been linked to this group. Unpacking some of MEWAS' activities, which can be considered a quite typical mixture of legitimate and illegitimate communication techniques used by activist groups, can help to shed light on some difficult questions regarding disruption in PD.

• Journal of the Semiconductor & Display Technology
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.127-132
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• 2022

In the era of COVID-19 pandemic, COVID related keywords, news and SNS data are pouring out. With the help of the data and LDA topic modeling, we can check out what media reports about COVID-19 and vaccines. Also, we can be clear how the public reacts to the vaccine on social media and how this is related with the increasing number of COVID-19 patients. By using sentimental analysis methodology, we can get to know about the different kinds of reports that Korea media send out and get to know what kind of emotions that each media company uses in majority. Through this procedure, we can know the difference between the Korean media and the foreign ones. Ultimately, we can find and analyze the keyword that suddenly rose during the COVID-19 period throughout this research.