Stop Words Are Not “Nothing”: German Modal Particles and Public Engagement in Social Media

Public engagement is a gendered experience, whether offline or online, something which is reflected in women’s experiences of social media. In this article, we seek to systematically explore the experiences from politically engaged women twitter users in New Zealand in order to draw some lessons, through a thematic and interpretative analytical approach, at four different strategic levels on how to deflect intimidating and aggressive behaviour. We conclude that understanding strategically how structural social locations like gender effect the ability to contribute to political participation and engagement, if addressed, can produce more inclusive and productive online political and policy spaces. Further, this strategic approach involves connecting together different levels of response to online negativity such as platform tools, space-curation, and monitoring, having these made coherent with each other, as well as with this strategic understanding of how structural social location plays into access and use of online political and policy spaces.

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From Organizational-Centric Engagement to Network-Centric Engagement: The Role of Autonomous Public Communities in a Mediated Public Policy Advocacy Network

Social Media + Society ◽

10.1177/20563051211038262 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 7 (3) ◽

pp. 205630512110382

Author(s):

Aimei Yang ◽

Maureen Taylor

Keyword(s):

Public Policy ◽

Social Media ◽

New Deal ◽

Public Engagement ◽

Policy Advocacy ◽

Social Movement Organization ◽

Advocacy Network ◽

Movement Organization ◽

Nuanced Understanding

In this study, we explore how a social movement organization ( Sunrise.org ) and its autonomous public community advocated for the Green New Deal on social media. An autonomous public community is a group of publics that initially connect with each other through their engagement with a focal organization. Then, they go on to develop ties among themselves that go beyond simply responding to organizations’ messages. Autonomous public communities are ubiquitous on social media. Our research identifies unique patterns of interactions in an autonomous public community and finds that the Tertius Iungens orientation brings the network together. We also find that while the focal organization is not centralized in an autonomous public community, it still significantly affects tie formation and discourse as the networks evolve. Our study reveals a nuanced understanding of networked organization–public engagement where network structure and discourse are co-created by the organizations and the communities that they engage.

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Exploring public engagement with missing person appeals on Twitter

10.31235/osf.io/wugxs ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Reka Solymosi ◽

Oana Petcu ◽

Jack Wilkinson

Keyword(s):

Social Media ◽

Public Engagement ◽

Evidence Base ◽

Evidence Based ◽

The Public ◽

Missing Persons ◽

Early Return ◽

Police Agencies ◽

Key Factor ◽

Twitter Account

Police agencies globally are seeing an increase in reports of people going missing. These people are often vulnerable, and their safe and early return is a key factor in preventing them from coming to serious harm. One approach to quickly find missing people is to disseminate appeals for information using social media. Yet despite the popularity of twitter-based missing person appeals, presently little is known about how to best construct these messages to ensure they are shared far and wide. This paper aims to build an evidence-base for understanding how police accounts tweet appeals for information about missing persons, and how the public engage with these tweets by sharing them. We analyse 1,008 Tweets made by Greater Manchester Police between the period of 2011 and 2018 in order to investigate what features of the tweet, the twitter account, and the missing person are associated with levels of retweeting. We find that tweets with different choice of image, wording, sentiment, and hashtags vary in how much they are retweeted. Tweets that use custody images have lower retweets than Tweets with regular photos, while tweets asking the question “have you seen...?” and asking explicitly to be retweeted have more engagement in the form of retweets. These results highlight the need for conscientious, evidence-based crafting of missing appeals, and pave the way for further research into the causal mechanisms behind what affects engagement, to develop guidance for police forces worldwide.

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Public engagement and dialogic accounting through social media during COVID-19 crisis: a missed opportunity?

Accounting Auditing & Accountability Journal ◽

10.1108/aaaj-08-2020-4884 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽

Author(s):

Stefano Landi ◽

Antonio Costantini ◽

Marco Fasan ◽

Michele Bonazzi

Keyword(s):

Public Health ◽

Social Media ◽

New Zealand ◽

Public Engagement ◽

Fake News ◽

Public Agencies ◽

Content Type ◽

Public Health Agencies ◽

The Public ◽

Health Agencies

PurposeThe purpose of this exploratory study is to investigate why and how public health agencies employed social media during coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak to foster public engagement and dialogic accounting.Design/methodology/approachThe authors analysed the official Facebook pages of the leading public agencies for health crisis in Italy, United Kingdom and New Zealand and they collected data on the number of posts, popularity, commitment and followers before and during the outbreak. The authors also performed a content analysis to identify the topics covered by the posts.FindingsEmpirical results suggest that social media has been extensively used as a public engagement tool in all three countries under analysis but – because of legitimacy threats and resource scarcity – it has also been used as a dialogic accounting tool only in New Zealand. Findings suggest that fake news developed more extensively in contexts where the public body did not foster dialogic accounting.Practical implicationsPublic agencies may be interested in knowing the pros and cons of using social media as a public engagement and dialogic accounting tool. They may also leverage on dialogic accounting to limit fake news.Originality/valueThis study is one of the first to look at the nature and role of social media as an accountability tool during public health crises. In many contexts, COVID-19 forced for the first time public health agencies to heavily engage with the public and to develop new skills, so this study paves the way for numerous future research ideas.

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Promoting Public Engagement of Natural History Collections through Science Communication

Biodiversity Information Science and Standards ◽

10.3897/biss.2.28479 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 2 ◽

pp. e28479

Author(s):

Bryan Lessard

Keyword(s):

Social Media ◽

Natural History ◽

Public Relations ◽

Public Engagement ◽

Science Communication ◽

Public Speaking ◽

Wide Audience ◽

The Public ◽

Natural History Collections ◽

New Students

Natural history collections are essential for understanding the world’s biodiversity and drive research in taxonomy, systematics, ecology and biosecurity. One of the biggest challenges faced is the decline of new taxonomists and public interest in collections-based research, which is alarming considering that an estimated 70% of the world’s species are yet to be formally described. Science communication combines public relations with the dissemination of scientific knowledge and offers many benefits to promoting natural history collections to a wide audience. For example, social media has revolutionised the way collections and their staff communicate with the public in real time, and can attract more visitors to collection exhibits and new students interested in natural history. Although not everyone is born a natural science communicator, institutions can encourage and provide training for their staff to become engaging spokespeople skilled in social media and public speaking, including television, radio and/or print media. By embracing science communication, natural history collections can influence their target audiences in a positive and meaningful way, raise the profile of their institution, encourage respect for biodiversity, promote their events and research outputs, seek philanthropic donations, connect with other researchers or industry leaders, and most importantly, inspire the next generation of natural historians.

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Experts in Self-Isolation? Monastic Outreach during Lockdown

Religions ◽

10.3390/rel12100814 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 12 (10) ◽

pp. 814

Author(s):

Richard D.G. Irvine

Keyword(s):

Social Media ◽

Public Engagement ◽

Max Weber ◽

Social Withdrawal ◽

Digital Ethnography ◽

The World

This paper draws on digital ethnography to examine the experience of a Catholic English Benedictine monastery in the context of restrictions on religious gatherings during the global COVID-19 pandemic. As the monks expand their digital presence and social media involvement, it is their experience of social withdrawal and apparent expertise in self-isolation that provides the grounding for their public engagement. While Max Weber depicts the monk as a world-transcending “virtuoso”, in a time of lockdown, this separation from the world provides a point of connection with the experience of wider society.

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How Do Young Adults Engage With Science and Research on Social Media? Some Preliminary Findings and an Agenda for Future Research

Social Media + Society ◽

10.1177/2056305118797720 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 4 (3) ◽

pp. 205630511879772 ◽

Cited By ~ 14

Author(s):

Eszter Hargittai ◽

Tobias Füchslin ◽

Mike S. Schäfer

Keyword(s):

Social Media ◽

Young Adults ◽

Public Engagement ◽

Science Communication ◽

Future Research ◽

Research Material ◽

Considerable Research ◽

Public Engagement With Science ◽

Celebrity News ◽

Science And Research

While considerable research has looked at how people use the Internet for sharing and engaging with various types of content from celebrity news to politics, very little of this work has considered how non-specialists interact with science and research material on social media. This article reviews literature on public engagement with science to note that this area is ripe for research on social-media-based engagement in particular. Drawing on a survey of American young adults’ online experiences, we show that using social media for science and research is at least as likely if not more so as engagement with other topics from similarly serious to lighter domains. We also find that platform matters with young adults much more likely to engage with such content on Facebook rather than on Twitter. We end by proposing more focus on this domain in the area of science communication and work on social media.

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Public engagement with clinical research on social media; which visual medium works best? A 5-year retrospective analysis

Journal of Visual Communication in Medicine ◽

10.1080/17453054.2021.1950525 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 1-9

Author(s):

Ciléin Kearns ◽

Allie Eathorne ◽

Alex Semprini ◽

Irene Braithwaite ◽

Richard Beasley

Keyword(s):

Social Media ◽

Clinical Research ◽

Retrospective Analysis ◽

Public Engagement ◽

Visual Medium

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CROWDTHERMAL – A vision for citizens’ empowerment in geothermal projects

10.5194/egusphere-egu21-9442 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Gauthier Quinonez ◽

Isabel Fernandez ◽

Jan Hildebrand ◽

Georgie Friederichs ◽

Christina Baisch ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Social Media ◽

Renewable Energy ◽

Public Engagement ◽

Geothermal Energy ◽

Risk Mitigation ◽

Third Parties ◽

Mitigation Measures ◽

European Federation ◽

Energy Projects ◽

Alternative Finance

CROWDTHERMAL is an EU Horizon 2020 project, developing alternative funding schemes for geothermal energy. CROWDTHERMAL supports the European Green Deal aiming at reaching carbon neutrality by 2050. To reach this goal the involvement of society is needed. In 2017, renewable energy accounted for 17.5% of the European gross energy consumption, of which only 3% were geothermal energy &#8211; despite its upsides and positive impact regarding decarbonization and heating and cooling in Europe. Geothermal is green, available 24 hours a day. CROWTHERMAL contributes to decrease dependency on fossil fuels in Europe by empowering local communities to directly participate in the development of geothermal projects via alternative financing schemes and engaging communication strategies.&#160;To support the participation in geothermal projects, CROWDTHERMAL is analysing the perception of geothermal energy and will develop a public engagement approach making extensive use of social media. Since our project started in September 2019, the CROWDTHERMAL team has developed a set of reports, addressing social, environmental and financial aspects of community financed geothermal projects.&#160;With regards to finance, CROWDTHERMAL formulates new financing models for community funding at national and international levels covering Member States and the EU alike. Community funding will enable citizens to collectively finance geothermal projects that will not only benefit them but also the society as a whole. The positive effect of citizens&#8217; participation in energy projects was showcased by a report on renewable energy projects in Europe using alternative financing methods at different stages of their development published in 2020. Furthermore, an alternative finance&#160;risk inventory&#160;and potential&#160;mitigation tools&#160;have been developed. The deliverables compile the advantages, potential risks and possible risk mitigation measures for different alternative finance methods, each from a project developer&#8217;s and from a community investor&#8217;s perspective. The financial models are currently being developed and will be validated with the help of three geothermal Case Studies in Iceland, Hungary and Spain and through an European survey conducted by European Federation of Geologists&#8217; (EFG) Third Parties.&#160;For the remaining 1.5 years of its funded period, CROWDTHERMAL will create Core Services and a social media powered platform that will support the deployment of integrated development schemes for geothermal energy utilising alternative finance and community engagement tools. It is targeted at project developers and citizens with an interest in energy empowerment. The aim is to connect the new approaches brought forwardhighlighted by CROWDTHERMAL with conventional financing, public engagement and risk mitigation schemes. It is also planned to launch a European mobilisation campaign via social media and conferences and workshops and by mobilising EFG Third Parties and the Altfinator Network. The CROWDTHERMAL&#160;Core Services&#160;will be designed to be operated after the EC-funded period helping geothermal projects tapping into alternative finance during the years to come.&#160;&#160;Finally, CROWDTHERMAL started to strengthen ties with the&#160;Cost Action Geothermal-DHC&#160;and lately organised two joint meetings to identify synergies and potential opportunities for cooperation.&#160;The goal is to further expand the CROWTHERMAL network to provide opportunities to test CROWDTHERMAL concepts in a growing European geothermal energy market.&#160;&#160;

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