Propagation Phenomena in Social Media

2019 ◽  
pp. 43-66
Author(s):  
Meeyoung Cha ◽  
Fabrício Benevenuto ◽  
Saptarshi Ghosh ◽  
Krishna Gummadi
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Social Issues ◽  
Modern Society ◽  
Tie Strength ◽  
Information Propagation ◽  
Traditional Media ◽  
Social Conventions ◽  
User Influence ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Different Types

Social media and blogging services have become extremely popular. Every day hundreds of millions of users share random thoughts, gossip, news, and thoughts on notable social issues. Users interact by following each other’s updates and passing along interesting pieces of information to their friends. Information therefore can diffuse widely and quickly through social links. Information propagation in networks such as Twitter and Facebook is unique, in that traditional media sources and word-of-mouth propagation coexist. The availability of digitally logged propagation events in social media helps one better understand how a wide range of factors that are essential in communication, such as user influence, tie strength, repeated exposures, mass media, and agenda setting, come into play in the way people generate and consume information in modern society. This chapter reviews the roles different types of users of social media play in information propagation as well as the resulting propagation patterns. It also discusses specific examples, including the spread of social conventions and identifying topic experts in social media, in an effort to bring about better understanding of the characteristics of propagation phenomena in large social networks.

scholarly journals Why People Who Know Less Think They Know about COVID-19: Evidence from US and Singapore

2021 ◽  
pp. 107769902110494
Author(s):  
Sangwon Lee ◽  
Masahiro Yamamoto ◽  
Edson C. Tandoc
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
The United States ◽  
Factual Knowledge ◽  
Interaction Patterns ◽  
Traditional Media ◽  
Subjective Knowledge ◽  
Types Of Knowledge ◽  
Knowledge Based ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Main Effects

This study explores the effects of traditional media and social media on different types of knowledge about COVID-19. We also explore how surveillance motivation moderates the relationship between media use and different types of knowledge. Based on cross-national data from Singapore and the United States, we find that news seeking via social media is negatively related to factual knowledge and positively related to subjective knowledge and knowledge miscalibration. News seeking via traditional media is not significantly related to factual knowledge. Although the main effects are highly consistent across the two countries, we find some different interaction patterns across these countries.

Women’s March Minnesota on Facebook: Effects of social connection on different types of collective action

2019 ◽  
Vol 22 (10) ◽  
pp. 1785-1807 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simin Michelle Chen
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Collective Action ◽  
Practical Implication ◽  
Low Cost ◽  
Theoretical Implication ◽  
Tie Strength ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Intention To Participate ◽  
Political Actions

Scholars have long debated the efficacy of social media in facilitating offline collective action. This research seeks to fill a gap in that literature by examining the role of social ties in determining intention to participate in different types of collective action. Survey findings show that aspects of tie strength—reciprocity, duration, and affect—have different impact on intention to participate in high- and low-cost political actions. Findings from this study have theoretical implication for the field as well as practical implication for social movement organizers seeking to mobilize supporters using social media.

scholarly journals The use made of video in the social media by candidates in the 2019 Valencian Autonomous Government elections

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
pp. 111-124
Author(s):  
Carlos López Olano ◽  
Sebastián Sánchez Castillo ◽  
Benjamín Marín Pérez
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Ad Hoc ◽  
Communication Strategy ◽  
Traditional Media ◽  
Video Information ◽  
The Social ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Political Choices ◽  
Left And Right ◽  
Political Spectrum

Videos are increasingly being used in social networks for a wide range of purposes, including political campaigning. Here, social media seem to be gaining an edge over the mainstream variety when it comes to making political choices, especially during election campaigns. This paper examines the extent to which social media is used in Valencian Autonomous Government elections and looks at each of the candidate's experiences in this regard in the April 2019 elections. We pay particular attention to the differences between the three networks analysed — Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, and consider what kind of video information is shared. For these purposes, we create nine formal categories, some of which draw on traditional media while others are created ad hoc for our study. Based on these categories, we identify which media are most used, and give guidelines on best practices. We also consider differences in usage between politicians from the left and right ends of the political spectrum. The results point to a general lack of communication strategy in candidates’ use of discretionary video materials.

scholarly journals A Generational War Is Launched with The Birth of Ok Boomer in The Digital Age

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 1 ◽  
Author(s):  
Young Joon Lim ◽  
Jennifer Lemanski
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Diffusion Of Innovation ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
Social Issues ◽  
Data Gathering ◽  
The United States ◽  
Public Attention ◽  
Traditional Media ◽  
Race And Gender ◽  
And Gender

This study examined recent virality of “Ok Boomer” in the United States. The term of Ok Boomer gained overnight momentum in the public sphere as the symbol of a generational war. While previous research has primarily examined racial and gender tensions, this study introduced a new phenomenon of the generational conflict between “Ok Boomers” and “Baby Boomers,” in which social media originated the term of Ok Boomer and traditional media diffused it with framed meaning. Diffusion of Innovation theory was used to better understand the path of how “Ok Boomer” as a catchphrase, hashtag, noun cluster or trend resulted in attracting a massive amount of media and public attention. Relying on Node XL, Google Trends, and Nexus Nexis for data gathering and analyses, this study categorized four themes for a word, or an idea as an innovation to be publicly acknowledged: collaboration of social media and traditional media, public figures’ involvement for debate; confrontational social issues, and media-framed agenda. In sum, this study argues the term of Ok Boomer symbolizes the advent of a generational war in society in line with the long-standing race and gender wars in the media coverage.

scholarly journals SOCIAL MEDIA AND KOSOVO’S POLITICAL ACTORS

2021 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 193-196
Author(s):  
Ilire Zajmi
Keyword(s):  
Social Networks ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Mass Communication ◽  
Information Dissemination ◽  
Prime Minister ◽  
Political Competition ◽  
Modern Society ◽  
Traditional Media ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
The Social

Social media are changing the nature of mass communication, demediating traditional media. They are being used as powerful platforms for the distribution and dissemination of information, activities, promotion of institutions, certain groups of interest of individuals, but also political actors for different purposes.Placing and disseminating information through the opportunities offered by social media enables the mobilization of a wider audience in new ways and ways. Politicians are exploiting these opportunities provided by social networks, without having to put information through journalists or traditional media. There are two theories in the literature regarding the use of social networks, optimistic and pessimistic theory. According to optimistic theory, social networks provide opportunities to compete for power. Theorists of this theory of using social media think that in the digital age, we are witnessing the transformation of information and the audience that uses them. According to them, the global success of social media has made it possible for everyone to connect directly to his audience through the platforms offered. With the use of these platforms, politicians gain attention and at the same time build a symmetrical or asymmetric relationship with their followers.Pessimistic theory, however, blames the social media for the use of false promise, and a pseudo-modernization of modern society. Studies believe that involvement in social networks and political actors at the same time implies a greater engagement of the audience that absorbs the information disclosed and affects the democratization of political competition. This paper aims to analyze the use of social networks as a means of information dissemination by Kosovar political actors and the content of the information being disclosed.The paper analyzes the posts of three key Kosovar politicians, Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj, President Hashim Thaçi and Kosovo Assembly Speaker Kadri Veseli in their profiles on Facebook and Twitter social networks during a one-month monitoring period during May 2019

scholarly journals Interaction and Transformation on Social Media: The Case of Twitter Campaigns

2018 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 205630511775072 ◽  
Author(s):  
William Housley ◽  
Helena Webb ◽  
Meredydd Williams ◽  
Rob Procter ◽  
Adam Edwards ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Modern Society ◽  
Media Analysis ◽  
Social Media Analysis ◽  
Media Campaigns ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Social ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
Insight Into

The increasing popularity of social media platforms creates new digital social networks in which individuals can interact and share information, news, and opinion. The use of these technologies appears to have the capacity to transform current social configurations and relations, not least within the public and civic spheres. Within the social sciences, much emphasis has been placed on conceptualizing social media’s role in modern society and the interrelationships between online and offline actors and events. In contrast, little attention has been paid to exploring user practices on social media and how individual posts respond to each other. To demonstrate the value of an interactional approach toward social media analysis, we performed a detailed analysis of Twitter-based online campaigns. After categorizing social media posts based on action(s), we developed a typology of user exchanges. We found these social media campaigns to be highly heterogeneous in content, with a wide range of actions performed and substantial numbers of tweets not engaged with the substance of the campaign. We argue that this interactional approach can form the basis for further work conceptualizing the broader impact of activist campaigns and the treatment of social media as “data” more generally. In this way, analytic focus on interactional practices on social media can provide empirical insight into the micro-transformational characteristics within “campaign communication.”

scholarly journals A Comparative Study of the Role of Interpersonal Communication, Traditional Media and Social Media in Pro-Environmental Behavior: A China-Based Study

2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (6) ◽  
pp. 1883 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ruixia Han ◽  
Jian Xu
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Risk Perception ◽  
Interpersonal Communication ◽  
Environmental Risk ◽  
Environmental Behavior ◽  
Traditional Media ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Information Exposure ◽  
Environmental Risk Perception ◽  
Types Of Information

Previous studies have confirmed that information exposure affects pro-environmental behavior. With the rise of social media, new questions emerge in terms of whether different types of information exposure affect pro-environmental behavior differently. Based on a survey of 550 people that was carried out in China, this study aims to compare the different roles of interpersonal communication, traditional media, and social media in affecting the relationships between people’s environmental risk perception, willingness to contribute to the environment, environmental knowledge, environmental concerns, and pro-environmental behavior. Our research discovered that: (1) traditional media has almost no effect on pro-environmental behavior; (2) interpersonal communication can affect pro-environmental behavior through significantly affecting environmental risk perception; (3) social media affects pro-environmental behavior mainly by strengthening the effects of interpersonal communication. The research reveals that while different types of information exposure affect pro-environmental behavior differently, interpersonal communication plays a central role. Concerning the mutual influence between social media and interpersonal communication, we propose that we could promote pro-environmental behavior by activating social media communication.

Social Networking Sites and Civic Participation: Analyzing the Mediating Role of Online Bridging Social Capital

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ashmeet Kaur ◽  
H.K. Dangi
Keyword(s):  
Social Capital ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Social Networking ◽  
Social Networking Sites ◽  
Civic Participation ◽  
Social Issues ◽  
Bridging Social Capital ◽  
Mediating Role ◽  
Wide Range

Technological advancements have introduced creative communication media with social media being one of its kind. Since its introduction, the use of social media is rising in India providing people a better penetrating medium to share their views and ideas. These networking sites have given people a wide range of options to share views about social issues as well. Civic participation is a personal or group effort to resolve a social issue. With the onset of social media, offline civic participatory activities have made a transition to the online space as well. With the soaring influence of social media, this study aims to determine the extent to which Social Networking Sites (SNS) usage influences social capital and civic participatory behaviour. It aims to examine whether SNS use aids in the development of behavior that fosters civic participation. Further, the mediating role of online bridging social capital is analyzed in the relationship between SNS use intensity and civic participation of users. The results show the role of SNS in positively influencing online and offline civic participatory behaviour of the users with online bridging social capital acting as a mediating variable. However, the cross-sectional nature of this study constrained the ability to infer causal associations. The study concludes with recommendations and directions for future research. The different SNS can be compared to learn about their respective influence on civic participatory behavior and infer this phenomenon in an enhanced manner.

Activism in Women’s Sports Blogs: Fandom and Feminist Potential

2012 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 305-322 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dunja Antunovic ◽  
Marie Hardin
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Textual Analysis ◽  
Social Issues ◽  
Women's Sports ◽  
Critical Perspective ◽  
Traditional Media ◽  
Women’S Sports ◽  
Dominant Ideologies ◽  
Do So ◽  
Blog Posts

The emergence of social media has provided a space for discourse and activism about sports that traditional media outlets tend to ignore. Using a feminist theoretical lens, a textual analysis of selected blogs on the Women Talk Sports blog network was conducted to determine how fandom and advocacy for women’s sports were expressed in blog posts. The analysis indicated that bloggers enhance the visibility of women’s sports, but their engagement with social issues varies. Some bloggers may reproduce hegemonic norms around sports and gendered sporting bodies, while others may offer a more critical, decidedly feminist view and challenge dominant ideologies. While the blogosphere, and particularly networks such as Women Talk Sports, can serve as a venue for activism around women’s sports and the representation of athletic bodies, its potential to do so may be unmet without a more critical perspective by participants.

Vaccine-Related Content, Dynamics, and Conspiracy Theories in External Links Shared in Twitter COVID-19 Conversations: A Computational Analysis (Preprint)

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Iain Cruickshank ◽  
Tamar Ginossar ◽  
Jason Sulskis ◽  
Elena Zheleva ◽  
Tanya Berger-Wolf
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Latent Dirichlet Allocation ◽  
Topic Model ◽  
Communication Strategy ◽  
Vaccine Hesitancy ◽  
Traditional Media ◽  
Conspiracy Theories ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
Youtube Videos

BACKGROUND The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and the consequent “infodemic” that ensued highlighted the role that social media play in increasing vaccine hesitancy. Despite the efforts to curtail the spread of misinformation, the anti-vaccination movement continues to use Twitter and other social media platforms to advance its messages. Although users typically engage with different social media platforms, research on vaccination discourse typically focused on single platforms. Understanding the content and dynamics of external content shared on vaccine-related conversations on Twitter during the COVID-19 pandemic can shed light on the use of different sources, including traditional media and social media by the anti-vaccination movement. In particular, examining how YouTube videos are shared within vaccination-related tweets is important in understanding the spread of anti-vaccination narratives. OBJECTIVE informed by agenda-setting theory, this study aimed to use machine-learning to understand the content and dynamics of external websites shared in vaccines-related tweets posted in COVID-19 conversations on Twitter. METHODS We screened around 5 million tweets posted to COVID-19 related conversations to include tweets that discussed vaccination. We then identified external content, including the most tweeted web domains and URLs within these tweets and the number of days they were shared. The topics and dynamics of tweeted YouTube videos were further analyzed by using Latent Dirichlet Allocation to topic-model the transcripts of the YouTube videos, and by independent coders. RESULTS of 841,896 vaccination-related tweets identified, 128,408 (22.1%) included external content. A wide range of external websites were shared. The 20 most tweeted websites constituted 10.9% of the shared websites and were typically shared for only 2-3 days within a one-month period. Traditional media constituted the majority of these 20 most tweeted URLs. Content of YouTube links shared had both the greatest number of unique URLs for any given URL domain and was the most tweeted domain over time. The majority (n=15) of the 20 most tweeted videos opposed vaccinations and featured conspiracy theories. Analysis of the transcripts of 1,280 YouTube videos shared indicated high frequency of conspiracy theories. CONCLUSIONS Our study reveals that sharing URLs over Twitter is a common communication strategy. Whereas shared URLs overall demonstrated a strong presence of legacy media organizations, YouTube videos were used to spread anti-vaccination messages. Produced by individuals or by foreign governments, these videos emerged as a major driver for sharing vaccine-related conspiracy theories. Future interventions should take into account cross-platform use to counteract this misinformation.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document