Somalia combines rapid growth in internet use with fragile institutions and a clan-based social structure in which rumour carries real consequences, yet almost nothing is known about how Somali students evaluate the information they consume. This study examined self-reported media literacy, misinformation-fighting competency, and demonstrated verification performance among students at three universities in Mogadishu, Hargeisa, and Garowe. A cross-sectional, convergent mixed-methods design with an embedded behavioural component combined a non-probability (purposive) online survey (N = 393) with semi-structured interviews and a five-item performance task administered to 15 purposively selected interviewees. Self-report measured media literacy and misinformation-fighting competency; the task measured demonstrated resistance on specific items. Resilience is used here as the higher-order outcome these components feed into, and is not itself measured directly. Students reported moderately high media literacy (M = 3.82, α =.84) and strong awareness that unverified information harms society (M = 4.15), but markedly weaker verification behaviour (M = 3.08) and source-identification skill (M = 2.91). Within the study sample, media literacy was positively associated with misinformation-fighting competency (r =.62, p <.001); given the cross-sectional design and non-probability sampling, this is a statistical association within the sample rather than a causal or population-level relationship. In the performance task, participants correctly classified only 35% of misinformation items against a mean self-rated confidence equivalent to 72%. In the interviews students attributed these gaps to a forwarding culture that rewards speed over scrutiny, to clan affiliation operating as an informal credibility filter, and to a functional differentiation of platforms in which Facebook serves as the default news infrastructure. These patterns suggest that awareness-oriented media literacy programming may not be sufficient on its own to change behaviour, and that curricula in Somali universities could usefully prioritise habitual verification practice, source evaluation, and resistance to identity-based manipulation. The quantitative findings are descriptive and exploratory: the three universities were purposively selected and the Garowe sub-sample comprised only 12 students, so the results are not statistically representative of, and should not be generalised to, all universities or university students in Somalia.
Luis Miguel Viñan-Carrasco, Wilson Xavier Castro-Ortiz, Pablo Xavier Rosas-Chávez, Raúl Guillermo Zambrano-Pontón, Shawnny Daniela Dillon-Abarca
Emotional design integrates sensory, functional, social, and symbolic elements to elicit affective responses that may influence consumer perception, attitudes, and behavior. This study aimed to analyze the relationship between emotional design, advertising, and consumer behavior based on recent scientific literature. A systematic literature review was conducted following the PRISMA guidelines. Searches were performed in Scopus and Web of Science, and 66 primary studies published during the last ten years were included. The reviewed evidence shows that emotional design strategies incorporate perceptual stimuli, user experiences, and meaning-making processes. Color, shape, texture, packaging, and multisensory stimuli contribute to attraction, attention, and perceived quality, while usability, ergonomics, interactivity, and demonstrations enhance the user experience. Storytelling, cultural identity, sustainability, and personalization contribute to meaning construction and strengthen consumer-brand connections. The literature also identifies positive, negative, and complex emotions, including pleasure, trust, fear, guilt, nostalgia, attachment, and identification, which are associated with purchase intention, satisfaction, loyalty, repurchase, and other consumer responses. The findings indicate that emotional design operates across sensory, experiential, social, and symbolic dimensions, extending its influence beyond immediate purchase decisions toward longer-term consumer-brand relationships. However, the methodological diversity of the reviewed studies highlights the need for more integrated approaches combining subjective, physiological, and digital measures to evaluate emotional and behavioral responses. https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/QR9YN
In decentralized systems, declaring a national disaster marks a contested threshold: the point at which subnational capacity is deemed exhausted and central authority must assume control. Because Indonesia's disaster law names criteria without numerical triggers, that judgment is argued in public, and news media are one place where it is argued. This study examines how three Indonesian online outlets, Detik.com, Kompas.com, and Waspada.id, framed the government's response to the 2025 Sumatra floods and the question of national-disaster status. Using qualitative framing analysis, it examines forty articles published between 27 November 2025 and 2 January 2026, coded by two authors independently against Entman's four framing functions and an additional case-specific code recording each article's stance toward the capacity threshold. All forty articles are analyzed and reported: 29 news items form the comparison across the three outlets, and the remaining 11 (six from the Kompas.com environment desk and five analysis and opinion items) are reported separately because they are not comparable across outlets. All three outlets raised the threshold question in part of their coverage, so they differed less in agenda than in verdict and remedy. Detik.com presents state conduct as capable and carries no moral censure; the other two predominantly present delay as a failure of obligation. Remedies also differ: operational measures predominate in Detik.com and a national-disaster declaration in Waspada.id, while the general news of Kompas.com is dispersed across remedies and ecological reform is concentrated in its environment desk. The study argues that outlets can share a problem agenda while offering incompatible remedies. In decentralized systems, the question of who should act is therefore contested through remedy selection more than through agenda exclusion. The analysis concerns media texts only; audience reception was not studied.
Carolina Ulate-Vindas, José Pablo Salazar-Aguilar, Nazira Castillo-Alfaro, Marco Andrés Carbonell-Parés
Digital transformation has reshaped recruitment and job-search processes, positioning social media as communication environments through which employment opportunities are disseminated, interpreted, and acted upon. This study analyzes the use and perceived effectiveness of Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn in job-search practices among digitally active adults aged 20 to 49 in Costa Rica during 2024. A quantitative, descriptive, non-experimental, and cross-sectional design was employed. Data were collected through an online self-administered survey of 220 participants selected through non-probability convenience sampling. The questionnaire examined social media use for job search, perceived effectiveness compared with traditional methods, platform use, demographic and professional factors, and employment-related content preferences. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, including frequencies and percentages. Social media was widely used for job search, with 77.7% of participants reporting having used a social platform for this purpose. Half of the sample perceived social media as effective or very effective compared with traditional job-search methods. Platform use showed differentiated patterns, with Facebook associated with broad access and employment-related groups, Instagram with visual and dynamic content, and LinkedIn with specialized professional searches and networking. Access to updated information emerged as the most frequently identified benefit (51.36%), while message clarity was the main factor motivating interaction with employment-related content (72.27%). The findings indicate that social media functions as an important communication environment for job search among digitally active users in Costa Rica, but its perceived effectiveness varies according to platform characteristics, content, and users' digital competencies. The results support differentiated recruitment-marketing and employer-branding strategies rather than uniform cross-platform communication. Given the non-probability sample and descriptive design, the findings should be interpreted as patterns within the analyzed sample rather than generalized to the Costa Rican population.
