Media and journalism research this week: community radio reporting on protests in South Africa.
📊 This week at a glance
🌍 African-led research
Community radio journalists covering service delivery protests in a Limpopo municipality negotiate safety, ethics and community expectations on the ground.
The study documents how these journalists practically manage the tensions of frontline reporting in a specific local context, rather than treating protest coverage as a generic professional challenge. It shows that community radio reporters face distinct pressures because they are embedded in the communities they serve, which shapes how they verify information and protect themselves. For African journalism scholarship, this grounds debates about safety and ethics in municipal realities, offering evidence for newsroom policy and funder support tailored to community media.
Accounting professionals in Morocco often adopt ISSB sustainability reporting standards as symbolic compliance rather than substantive engagement.
The paper uses self-determination theory (which explains motivation based on autonomy, competence and relatedness) to argue that meaningful adoption depends on professionals’ internal motivation, not just external pressure. This shifts the focus from firm-level or regulatory drivers to the micro-foundations of why individuals within organisations comply superficially. For African emerging economies, it implies that capacity-building and professional incentives matter as much as mandating standards if sustainability reporting is to be genuine.
National financial sector governance shapes whether countries adopt supranational sustainability reporting standards, with regulators playing a distinct role beyond firm-level drivers.
The study draws on neo-institutional theory and institutional substitution to show that financial regulators can either drive or substitute for broader governance quality in promoting adoption. This changes the conversation from aggregated institutional quality to the specific role of financial authorities in standard uptake. For African policymakers, it suggests that strengthening financial regulators could accelerate transparent accountability and alignment with global sustainability goals.
An explainable framework combining semantic NLP and PLS-SEM assesses organisational AI illiteracy to support strategic decisions.
The study develops a Management Information Systems (MIS) framework that integrates natural language processing (NLP) with partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) to examine why employees struggle to evaluate AI-generated information. This matters because it offers a way to diagnose AI illiteracy in organisations and design targeted interventions, rather than treating AI adoption as purely technical. For African institutions building AI capacity, such explainable tools can guide training and decision support in resource-constrained settings.
Institutional pressures and technological factors jointly shape SMEs’ social media marketing use in developing economies, a configurational analysis finds.
The study integrates institutional theory with the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT) to show that these perspectives, often examined in isolation, combine to influence social media adoption. This implies that SME support policies should address both regulatory/normative pressures and technological readiness, not one or the other. For African SMEs, it highlights that social media marketing success depends on aligning external institutional signals with internal technology acceptance.
The French version of the Physical Literacy Self-Description questionnaire shows a two-factor structure among children aged 5–12.
The study validates scores on the French PLSD, finding factors for perceived confidence and value, and perceived skills competence, in a sample of 191 French-speaking Canadian and French children. This provides a psychometric tool for assessing physical literacy in French-speaking contexts, which can support research and interventions. For African scholars, it offers a validated instrument that could be adapted for French-speaking African children, though further testing in African settings is needed.
🔬 Global breakthroughs
ChatGPT can forecast stock price movements, with return predictability linked to large language models.
The paper examines whether ChatGPT’s predictions have predictive power for stock returns, contributing to the growing literature on AI in finance. It suggests that large language models may capture information relevant to market movements, challenging the view that such models are only useful for text generation. For African financial markets, this raises questions about the potential for AI-driven tools to improve market efficiency, though the abstract is empty and details are limited.
Floods persistently worsen European manufacturing firms’ performance, with total assets falling about 2% in the year after and up to 5% seven years later.
The study combines natural hazard data, flood maps and firm geolocation to show that water damage can endanger firm survival, not just cause temporary disruption. This changes the understanding of disaster impacts from short-term shocks to long-term drags on firm assets and viability. For African policymakers, it underscores the need for resilience-building and disaster risk financing, as similar vulnerabilities likely affect firms in flood-prone regions.
Virtual influencers’ impact is shaped by whether they appear in photos with humans, affecting consumer engagement.
The research examines social tie presence—appearing with humans in social interactions—as a driver of engagement with computer-generated influencers. This matters because it shows that perceived social connections, even for virtual entities, can influence consumer behaviour, offering a lever for marketers. For African marketing scholarship, it suggests that virtual influencer strategies may need to consider local social norms and contexts, though the abstract is truncated.
The Shapley value is characterised for airport and irrigation games, with airport games shown to be a subclass of irrigation games.
The paper formalises cost-sharing problems on rooted trees as irrigation games and provides a characterisation, linking them to the well-known airport games. This advances cooperative game theory by clarifying the relationships between these classes and offering a solution concept for cost allocation. For African operations research, it provides theoretical tools that could be applied to infrastructure cost-sharing, such as water irrigation systems, though direct applications are not discussed.
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