Bargaining with the State: The Empowerment of Chinese Sexual Minorities/LGBT in the Social Media Era

Importance: Social media is widely used by various segments of society. Its role as a tool of communication by the Public Health Departments in the U.S. remains unknown. Objective: To determine the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on social media following of the Public Health Departments of the 50 States of the U.S. Design, Setting, and Participants: Data were collected by visiting the Public Health Department web page for each social media platform. State-level demographics were collected from the U.S. Census Bureau. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention was utilized to collect information regarding the Governance of each State’s Public Health Department. Health rankings were collected from “America’s Health Rankings” 2019 Annual report from the United Health Foundation. The U.S. News and World Report Education Rankings were utilized to provide information regarding the public education of each State. Exposure: Data were pulled on 3 separate dates: first on March 5th (baseline and pre-national emergency declaration (NED) for COVID-19), March 18th (week following NED), and March 25th (2 weeks after NED). In addition, a variable identifying the total change across platforms was also created. All data were collected at the State level. Main Outcome: Overall, the social media following of the state Public Health Departments was very low. There was a significant increase in the public interest in following the Public Health Departments during the early phase of the COVID-19 pandemic. Results: With the declaration of National Emergency, there was a 150% increase in overall public following of the State Public Health Departments in the U.S. The increase was most noted in the Midwest and South regions of the U.S. The overall following in the pandemic “hotspots,” such as New York, California, and Florida, was significantly lower. Interesting correlations were noted between various demographic variables, health, and education ranking of the States and the social media following of their Health Departments. Conclusion and Relevance: Social media following of Public Health Departments across all States of the U.S. was very low. Though, the social media following significantly increased during the early course of the COVID-19 pandemic, but it still remains low. Significant opportunity exists for Public Health Departments to improve social media use to engage the public better.

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الشعب‎ يريد‎ اسقاط‎ النظام‎ “The People Want to Overthrow the Regime”

Coups and Revolutions ◽

10.1093/oso/9780190071455.003.0003 ◽

2019 ◽

pp. 46-73

Author(s):

Amy Austin Holmes

Keyword(s):

Social Media ◽

State Violence ◽

The State ◽

Breaking Point ◽

Mass Mobilization ◽

The People ◽

The Social ◽

Key Features ◽

Security Organizations

This chapter analyzes the first wave of the revolution against Hosni Mubarak. Refuting arguments that focus on the role of the social media, or divisions among the elite, and the alleged neutrality of the Egyptian military, the chapter illustrates that it was a revolutionary coalition of the middle and lower classes that created a breaking point for the regime. Key features of this mass mobilization included the refusal of protesters to be cowed by state violence, the creation of “liberated zones” occupied by the people, “popular security” organizations that replaced the repressive security apparatus of the state, and strikes that crippled the economy in the final days of the Mubarak era. Key moments during the 18 days are described with ethnographic detail, including the unfiltered reactions of protesters to the deployment of soldiers on January 28. The revolutionary nature of the uprising is that people demanded more than just the ouster of Mubarak—they wanted to topple “the regime” by naming the names of a slew of Mubarak’s cronies to remove them from power.

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Editorial: Freedom of Expression and the Online Abyss

Media and Communication ◽

10.17645/mac.v8i4.3693 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 8 (4) ◽

pp. 107-109

Author(s):

Maria Elliot ◽

Kristoffer Holt

Keyword(s):

Social Media ◽

Freedom Of Expression ◽

Freedom Of Speech ◽

The State ◽

Thematic Issue ◽

Communication Studies ◽

The Social ◽

Contemporary Media ◽

Democratic Discourse

This introduction to the thematic issue <em>Freedom of Expression, Democratic Discourse and the Social Media</em> discusses the state of the debate surrounding freedom of expression in the field of communication studies and presents four original articles dealing with freedom of speech in contemporary media from different perspectives.

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SOCIAL MEDIA, PUBLIC SPHERE AND THE POLITICAL TRAGEDIES OF CONTEMPORARY ETHIOPIA

Skhid ◽

10.21847/1728-9343.2021.1(3).243268 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 1 (3) ◽

pp. 5-12

Author(s):

Binyam Mekonnen ADERA

Keyword(s):

Social Media ◽

Public Sphere ◽

The State ◽

The Social ◽

Basic Source ◽

Democratic Rights ◽

The Media ◽

The Public Sphere ◽

The One ◽

Social Turmoil

Ethiopia since 1991 G.C has been adopting democracy and federalism as constitutional frameworks of the state. The core objective to maintain the two political cultures is the presence of multiple cultural identities within the state and the actual need for an intersubjective discussion on the public sphere. And one of the major areas of public sphere is the social media. As per the Constitution of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia citizens of Ethiopia have the democratic rights of Thoughts, Opinion and Expression (Art. 29), so in social media it is natural to expect that individuals talk on the different affairs of the state ‘freely’. Basically the social media is serving as an instrument in maintaining discursive talk among individuals. However, it has been also producing considerable social turmoil across the world. The same is what is encountering in Ethiopia today; on the one hand, social media as a communication platform allows people to communicate effectively with sharing alternative views, attitudes and forming democratic consensus on the social anomalies and responses, and on the other hand, the media is the sphere of communicative maladjustment where misunderstanding, extremism and miscommunication is producing. In the present Ethiopian context the basic source of communication and miscommunication in the social media is the ‘pluriversal identities’ of the cultural horizon. Taking this as a crucial object, this article will discuss the connection between democracy, federalism and social media in the current Ethiopia. On the top of this, the study aims at exploring the following issues: the social media sphere in Ethiopia, the modern and postmodern challenges of social media in Ethiopia and alternatives for the social media reconstruction.

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Exit/Entry, Voice/Noise, and Loyalty/Apathy in the era of social media

Central and Eastern European eDem and eGov Days ◽

10.24989/ocg.338.33 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 338 ◽

pp. 417-429

Author(s):

Hiroko Kudo

Keyword(s):

Social Media ◽

Public Sector ◽

Public Life ◽

The State ◽

Virtual Network ◽

Communication Tools ◽

Entry Cost ◽

The Social ◽

Use Of Social Media ◽

The Cost

Use of Social Media in public life has changed the way how citizens relate to public sector. Modern communication tools, in particular Social Media, have made citizens easier to use their “voice” to mobilize. When citizens can easily mobilize, the cost of mobilization is low for them, while its impact can lead to a larger cost for the State. As the exit/entry cost of Social Media is very low or almost nothing, a virtual network has been substituting institutions, causing new issues to the State. This leads to the issue of loyalty: citizens now feel that they do not need institution like the State to belong to, as many networks substitute its function. This paper analyses the Social Media use by citizens and its impact on public sector through Albert Hirschman’s classis “Exit, Voice, and Loyalty” and tries to address new aspects.

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Rumour prevention in social networks with layer 2 blockchains

Social Network Analysis and Mining ◽

10.1007/s13278-021-00819-y ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 11 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Subhasis Thakur ◽

John G. Breslin

Keyword(s):

Social Networks ◽

Social Media ◽

Social Network ◽

State Of The Art ◽

Privacy Preserving ◽

The State ◽

Media Content ◽

The Social ◽

Layer 2 ◽

Art Methods

AbstractSocial bots can cause social, political, and economical disruptions by spreading rumours. The state-of-the-art methods to prevent social bots from spreading rumours are centralised and such solutions may not be accepted by users who may not trust a centralised solution being biased. In this paper, we developed a decentralised method to prevent social bots. In this solution, the users of a social network create a secure and privacy-preserving decentralised social network and may accept social media content if it is sent by its neighbour in the decentralised social network. As users only choose their trustworthy neighbours from the social network to be part of its neighbourhood in the decentralised social network, it prevents the social bots to influence a user to accept and share a rumour. We prove that the proposed solution can significantly reduce the number of users who are share rumour.

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Social media dissidence and activist resistance in Zimbabwe

Media Culture & Society ◽

10.1177/0163443720957886 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 016344372095788

Author(s):

Trust Matsilele ◽

Pedzisai Ruhanya

Keyword(s):

Social Media ◽

Digital Media ◽

Qualitative Data ◽

The State ◽

The Other ◽

Other Hand ◽

The Social

Dissidents exist in every nation, always have, and perhaps always will – existing in that risky space between being patriots and being enemies of the state. Social media, on the other hand, is a fairly recent tool of communication defined by its heightened ductility in the hands of users. The admixture of social media and political dissidence has thrown many governments in a ceaseless panic, reflected in the raft of legislation enacted to control and constrain cyber activities. This paper studied the ‘social media dissidence’ phenomenon in Zimbabwe in the period 2016 within the context of digital media and the publics in Africa. The periodization understudy is noticeable because it bore witness to a variety of unsettling acts by individuals that provoked panicked responses from the state. Using qualitative data drawn from Facebook and Twitter and deploying Mamdani’s citizen and subject, the study examines the nature of the born-digital dissidence in a sample of two cases, #ThisFlag and #Tajamuka. The paper establishes the possibilities and limitations of deploying social media as a tool for expressing protest and dissidence. The study found that social media dissidence is marked by constant fluidity, transmogrification, crests, and troughs.

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Knowledge Contribution in Organizations via Social Media

Journal of Personnel Psychology ◽

10.1027/1866-5888/a000169 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 16 (1) ◽

pp. 12-24 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Nicole Behringer ◽

Kai Sassenberg ◽

Annika Scholl

Keyword(s):

Social Media ◽

Social Identity ◽

Social Identity Theory ◽

Knowledge Exchange ◽

Expectancy Theory ◽

Perceived Usefulness ◽

Abstract Knowledge ◽

The Social ◽

Willingness To Contribute ◽

Social Media Tool

Abstract. Knowledge exchange via social media is crucial for organizational success. Yet, many employees only read others’ contributions without actively contributing their knowledge. We thus examined predictors of the willingness to contribute knowledge. Applying social identity theory and expectancy theory to knowledge exchange, we investigated the interplay of users’ identification with their organization and perceived usefulness of a social media tool. In two studies, identification facilitated users’ willingness to contribute knowledge – provided that the social media tool seemed useful (vs. not-useful). Interestingly, identification also raised the importance of acquiring knowledge collectively, which could in turn compensate for low usefulness of the tool. Hence, considering both social and media factors is crucial to enhance employees’ willingness to share knowledge via social media.

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