Are Online Social Networks, Leading to a ‘Better World in the Omani Public Sector? A Qualitative Study

Social networks have become one of the most popular tools in promoting the tourism product. This applies to National Tourism Agencies, as well as tourism-related general government bodies (GGBs) and local authorities (LAs). This study examines such organizations alongside selected chief administration officials (CAOs) that are related with the tourism sector and attempts to evaluate their presence in three social networks: Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. In order to do so, this article builds upon and expands on existing social networks' metrics, incorporating them into metrics of online followership. The quantitative analysis results in a ranking of best performers, from which the authors select three good performers in order to follow with a qualitative analysis of semi-structured interviews. By merging the quantitative results with the feedback from the interviews the authors propose a basic normative social networks management toolkit for tourism-related public entities, found to be comprised of six thematic axes.

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An Exploratory Qualitative Study on People’s Attitudes towards Offline and Online Social Networks: A Case Study at a Brazilian University

Journal of Interactive Systems ◽

10.5753/jis.2015.651 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 6 (1) ◽

pp. 1 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Maria Lucia B. Villela ◽

Simone I. R. Xavier ◽

Raquel Oliveira Prates ◽

Marcos O. Prates ◽

Antonio A. P. Prates ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Social Networks ◽

Qualitative Study ◽

Online Social Networks ◽

Physical World ◽

Significant Discrepancy ◽

Design Decisions ◽

Online Networks ◽

People’S Attitudes ◽

Privacy Issues

Social networks have emerged as a new medium for sharing and exchanging information. As such, it brings new possibilities and challenges to people’s interaction. In this work, we have investigated through a qualitative study one of these challenges: how people perceive and deal with privacy in online networks, as opposed to the physical world. Our findings from interviewing Facebook users show that although they perceive the online and offline worlds as connected, there is a significant discrepancy between their attitudes towards privacy in online and offline social networks, as well as strategies developed to deal with some of the experienced issues. Based on these findings, we discuss how design decisions are related to privacy issues identified through the interviews and considerations for the design and evaluation of online social networks.

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EFL Learners’ Pedagogical Views on the Online Social Networks in EFL Classrooms

Journal of Language Teaching and Research ◽

10.17507/jltr.1301.13 ◽

2022 ◽

Vol 13 (1) ◽

pp. 110-118

Author(s):

Heri Mudra ◽

Amirul Mukminin ◽

Fridiyanto ◽

Marzul Hidayat ◽

Lenny Marzulina ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Social Networks ◽

Qualitative Study ◽

Online Social Networks ◽

Qualitative Data ◽

Efl Learners ◽

Online Environments ◽

Efl Classrooms ◽

General Communication ◽

Learning English

This present study aims to explore EFL learners’ pedagogical views towards the utilization of online social networks in EFL classrooms. It specifically elaborates the EFL learners’ preferences of online social networks for learning English. Moreover, the EFL learners’ English skills enhanced by utilizing online social networks were also investigated. Ten EFL learners participated in the qualitative study which employed observations and interviews in collecting qualitative data. The results show that the learners’ preferences include Facebook, blogs, WhatsApp, Twitter, podcasts and Instagram. The learners’ English skills improved include listening, writing, reading, and speaking. In conclusion, online social networks are not only designed for general communication among EFL learners, but also for engaging EFL learners to work collaboratively in learning English via online environments.

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