Francis P Barclay | Central University of Tamil Nadu (original) (raw)

Papers by Francis P Barclay

—Do the content and behaviour of one medium of mass communication affect another? Is the effect i... more —Do the content and behaviour of one medium of mass communication affect another? Is the effect immediately felt or delayed? To answer these questions in the context of the 2014 Indian Lok Sabha elections, the top four English newspapers published from India—readership wise—and Twitter were chosen. Their political contents were mined and analysed from Jan 16 till May 12, 2014. Using cross-correlation in time-series analysis, the immediate and long-term effects of political news on Twitter trends or vice-versa were estimated. The analysis also measured the delay. These empirical results were used to theorise on cumulative effects of mass media of communication on each other, besides media interaction and integration.

— To measure the extent of usage of information and communication technologies (ICTs) among rural... more — To measure the extent of usage of information and communication technologies (ICTs) among rural farming communities and analyse its relationship with amount of farm-related information consumed by them, a survey was conducted with 407 farmers from the Thiruvarur district in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. Their usage of mobile phones, television, radio, newspapers and the internet was empirically measured and related to the amount of agricultural information they access. Factor analyses showed that their extent of usage of mobile phones was not related to their usage of other communication technologies such as television, radio and the Internet. Results showed that media usage had a strong and positive correlation with the amount of agricultural information acquired by the farmers and that traditional newspaper were the best medium to feed the farmers with farm-related information.

This study measures political bias exhibited in the top four Indian English newspapers during the... more This study measures political bias exhibited in the top four Indian English newspapers during the 2014 elections in India. It analysed news articles on the top contesting national parties published from April 7–May 12, 2014. A strong-positive correlation was found to exist between the overall press bias and election results. Furthermore, readership was found to have a moderating effect on the positive relationship between bias and votes. While the four newspapers had varying amounts of influence on the voting preference of the masses, their political leniencies were found to be inter-correlated. Finally, a model is built to predict the probable vote share by analysing political bias in the popular press – with an accuracy of 90.2%.

This study analyses the effect of media exposure and perceived bias on performance rating of the ... more This study analyses the effect of media exposure and perceived bias on performance rating of the Modi government that was elected in 2014 in India. A sample of Coimbatoreans (N = 210) was chosen for the survey. Results showed that media exposure had a positive and direct effect on performance rating, while bias had a significant but negative effect. Such perceived media bias also had an ability to alter the political affiliation of the people, which in turn affected the performance rating, positively. Political participation of the people also exerted a direct effect on public perception about media bias towards the ruling Modi government.

Online social media has become an integral part of the mediated-mass communication process. Hence... more Online social media has become an integral part of the mediated-mass communication process. Hence, a new political communication model is developed by integrating traditional mass media and mass opinion with online social media. Based on the model, a set of hypotheses is generated and tested using empirical data gathered during the 2014 Indian parliamentary elections. In an integrated media environment, high levels of interaction (aggregate political opinion exchange) is observed to exist between mass media (leading English newspapers published from India) and the social media
(Twitter and Facebook), augmenting their effect on the masses. Social media was found to mediate the positive effect of the English press on mass political preference. We also find evidence for a reciprocal relationship between the online social media and the masses.

After establishing print media bias and Facebook trend as reliable predictors of election outcome... more After establishing print media bias and Facebook trend as reliable predictors of election outcome, the study analyses the relationship between the two before and during the 2014 Indian Lok Sabha election. Time-lagged correlation is used to study the immediate effect of newspaper reports on the political behaviour of Facebook. Further, a correlation was found to exist between the long-term political trends in the print media and Facebook. That is, the number of positive
and negative news reports published on a party in the newspapers affected the number of ‘likes’ recorded on the Facebook fan page of the party or its candidate.

Can the count of ‘likes’ recorded on the Facebook page of a party predict whether it will win the... more Can the count of ‘likes’ recorded on the Facebook page of a party predict whether it will win the elections or not? To answer this question in the Indian setting in the context of the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, the political trend on Facebook was estimated using the numbers of ‘likes’ recorded on verified Facebook fan pages during the period of study—24 January to 12 May 2014. A strong positive correlation was found to exist between the number of ‘likes’ a party or its leader secured on their official Facebook fan page and their popular vote share. A single latent variable—presumably, the political preferences of the people—explained 91.37% of the total variance in those two variables. Furthermore, the time period during which the ‘likes’ were recorded was found to have a moderating effect on the positive relationship between the ‘likes’ and votes. It was found that the month preceding the voting period was the best to predict the vote share using ‘likes’—with 86.6% accuracy.

Sage Publications, doi: 10.1177/1326365X14539215 , Jun 2014

This article examines the political orientations of The Times of India, Hindustan Times, The Hind... more This article examines the political orientations of The Times of India, Hindustan Times, The Hindu and The Telegraph in the run up to the Indian elections held from 7 April to 12 May 2014. The window of examination is between 10 February and 15 March when all political news items related to the national parties—the Congress, the BJP and the AAP—were analyzed to determine which paper endorsed which party and to what extent. The findings show that in the run up to the polling days, the BJP occupied the most political space across the four papers. It also scored the highest in terms of positivity. The Hindu and The Telegraph were found to be more supportive of the Congress. A time-series analysis shows that political orientation among the papers shifted throughout the period of analysis as India geared up for the longest elections in its history.

Global Media Journal - Indian edition; Summer Issue/June 2014/Vol. 5/No. 1, Jun 2014

Is Facebok safe and secure? In several cases, it has been evident that users hardly ever give saf... more Is Facebok safe and secure? In several cases, it has been evident that users hardly ever give safety a thought before feeding the social network with sensitive and personal information. That’s exactly why such a question rather rattles an average active user that pays little or no heed to the security concerns
revolving the online network. As Facebook becomes increasingly popular in India, as in the other parts of
the world, a demand for a scientific investigation has risen. Are users aware of the safety risks that Facebook poses? Are they aware of the privacy settings on the site? If yes, how efficiently they manage privacy? Are they proactive when it comes to privacy management on the social network? To find answers
to these critical questions, the researchers adopted a scientific survey method covering parts of North and South India. As many as 406 active Facebook users were chosen for the investigation. While a major chunk of them were unaware of the privacy settings, even part of those who were aware were poor at privacy management on Facebook. Another important revelation of the study was that most users’ personal data
were open to the public, while they were of the belief that their data were not. And, a majority of the users were not aware of the privacy concerns associated with the popular social networking website.

Media Watch Vol 5: Issue 2; Pages 235 - 244, May 2014

The last leg of the Eelam war that ended in May 2009 and its aftermath were widely covered by the... more The last leg of the Eelam war that ended in May 2009 and its aftermath were widely covered by the mainstream media across the globe. As ‘Eelam’ is an issue close to the heart of the Tamils, especially those in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, the researchers ventured to perform a content analysis of editorials and columns published in the Tamil daily ‘Dinamani’ from January 2009 to January 2011 to find out whether the newspaper reflected Tamil sentiments. While investigating how Dinamani handled the end of the LTTE regime, the study revealed that the editorials and columns exposed violations of human rights by the Sri Lankan government and its armed forces. This study also found that the paper was highly critical of the role played by the Indian and Tamil
Nadu governments during and after the war. In its opinion, the two governments were inefficient and unsatisfactory, with regard to dealing with the Sri Lankan Tamil issue.

GSTF International Journal on Media and Communications (JMC) Vol. 1; No. 2, Feb 2014

That media is the mirror of the society is more an indisputable fact than a communication theory.... more That media is the mirror of the society is more an indisputable fact than a communication theory. But do online social media, too, reflect public opinion to an extent which can be called accurate, given the intricacies of the network and complexity of the communication? With an assumption that they do, this research ventured to test the theory by consolidating political opinion expressed on online social media platforms preceding the 2012 US presidential elections and comparing it with the election results. That way, the strength of the correlation between the two variables the political opinion and sentiments expressed on online social media and the election result which is a representative of the general public opinion—can be deduced. Though it could be claimed logical to think that opinions expressed on the social media reflect public sentiments—since the content is generated by the public—there was a need to conduct a scientific study to test the strength of the correlation, that is, how far the consolidated social media opinion tallies with the electoral outcome, which will be the measurement of the general political lineation. The researchers chose Facebook and Twitter—the top two social networking websites—to conduct the research. Barack Obama and Mitt Romney were the leading candidates contesting the US presidential elections. The researchers collected statistical data on the frequencies at which the terms ‘Obama’ and ‘Romney’ were mentioned on Twitter during a month preceding the elections. They also collected “tweets” at regular intervals during the above-said period with the mentions of the two terms and a manual sentiment analysis was performed on them. Based on the examination, the tweets were categorised as positive, negative and neutral for both the terms. On Facebook, the rate at which the number of ‘likes’ increased on the official fan pages of these two candidates was calculated. Sets of comments posted on their Facebook pages were also analysed and categorised as positive, negative and neutral. A consolidated political opinion was formed based on the data collected and compared with the election results, where the mandate was in favour of Obama. The study results pointed to a strong and positive correlation between the two variables, giving credence to the theory that online social media sentiments are a reflection of the prevailing public mood.

Books by Francis P Barclay

As India entered the election season in 2014, the researchers set out to measure political orient... more As India entered the election season in 2014, the researchers set out to measure political orientations of Indian newspapers. A content analytic study was conducted on the top four English broadsheet dailies and political news that they published on the top contesting national parties were investigated to find out which paper endorsed which party and to what extent. News items published in The Times of India, Hindustan Times, The Hindu and The Telegraph were studied. Comparative analyses found the reportage to be highly in favour of the BJP. Besides, the study checked for shift in the endorsement trend over time. Time-series analysis using linear and quadratic regression models was used to show how political orientation shifted from January 21 to May 12, the study period. Both behaviourist and humanist traditions were employed to identify the prevailing political climate and estimate the effect of latent newspaper content.

Purpose Do public opinion and political sentiments expressed on Twitter during election campaign ... more Purpose
Do public opinion and political sentiments expressed on Twitter during election campaign have a meaning and message? Are they inferential, that is, can they be used to estimate the political mood prevailing among the masses? Can they also be used to reliably predict the election outcome? To answer these in the Indian context, the 2014 general election was chosen.

Methodology/approach
Tweets posted on the leading parties during the voting and crucial campaign periods were mined and manual sentiment analysis was performed on them.

Findings
A strong and positive correlation was observed between the political sentiments expressed on Twitter and election results. Further, the Time Periods during which the tweets were mined were found to have a moderating effect on this relationship.

Practical implications
This study showed that the month preceding the voting period was the best to predict the vote share with Twitter data – with 83.9% accuracy.