Ruling party will win Myanmar poll but emerge weaker

Significance Voters will be electing lawmakers for regional and state legislatures as well as parliament’s upper and lower houses. State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD), which is defending majorities in both houses, faces a tough challenge from several ethnically based parties. Impacts As the polls draw closer, some populist parties may try to use social media to stoke ultra-nationalist, anti-Muslim sentiment. Doubts among external critics about the fairness of the elections will do further harm to Myanmar’s already damaged reputation. Ethnic parties will try harder to push their agendas in parliament, having lost confidence in the NLD’s ability to advance their interests.

Subject Situation regarding Myanmar's ethnic armed organisations. Significance The government and military in Myanmar and leaders of ten ethnically based guerrilla groups that have signed the Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement (NCA) last week pledged to step up their commitment to the peace process, to transform the NCA into a lasting settlement. Several other armed groups are still in conflict with the state, notwithstanding occasional ceasefires. State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) will very likely retain control over the civilian part of government following this year’s general election, but ethnic parties will probably make parliamentary gains at its expense. Impacts Suu Kyi is very unlikely to face pressure to step down even if the NLD’s parliamentary majority is heavily reduced. Even with increased seat share in parliament, ethnic parties will struggle to influence policy. China and India will double down on their support for the Myanmar military.


Subject Myanmar's political landscape ahead of next year's elections. Significance As the next general election appears on the horizon, parliament last month began debating possible amendments to the constitution. State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD), which controls the civilian portion of government, wants to reduce the military’s reserved parliamentary quota. Meanwhile, the NLD faces increased criticism from parties representing the country’s ethnic minorities. Impacts There is unlikely to be any progress in the country's peace process, aimed at ending conflicts between the military and ethnic armed groups. The military-aligned Union Solidarity and Development Party will aim to enhance its internal organisation. As attention turns to the polls, the government will devote even fewer resources than currently to resolving the Rohingya refugee crisis.


Subject Student protests in Bangladesh. Significance A Dhaka court today denied bail for a second time to photojournalist Shahidul Alam, who was detained on August 5 after sharing videos on social media critical of the government's crackdown on street protests. The ruling Awami League (AL) last month suppressed a multi-day student protest demanding better road safety, after initially offering some concessions to demonstrators’ demands. In July, it cracked down on a similar protest over civil service quota reform after earlier in the year promising to rethink policy. The general election is due by end-December. Impacts Garment workers may take to the streets to demand a higher minimum wage. As the election draws closer, surveillance of social media will increase. Bangladesh will come under growing international pressure to ensure free and fair elections.


Significance It is illegal for an employer to allow sexual harassment in the workplace, and federal and state legislatures face rising pressure to curb it in workplaces, colleges and their own chambers. Social media platforms, the main location of sexual harassment, are failing to stop it. Impacts The 'metaverse' of virtual and augmented reality will have potential to escalate online sexual harassment to new levels. Addressing online sexual harassment under the same criminal laws as physical sexual assault, or as a hate crime, is a remote prospect. Courts will expand the definition of where intent to threaten someone encroaches on online free speech.


2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Caitlyn Johnston ◽  
William E. Davis

In the present study, we examined how the influence of exercise-related social media content on exercise motivation might differ across content type (with images vs. without images) and account type (individual vs. corporate). Using a 2 × 2 within-subjects experimental design, 229 participants viewed a series of 40 actual social media posts across the four conditions (individual posts with images, corporate posts with images, individual posts without images, and corporate posts without images) in a randomized order. Participants rated the extent to which they felt each social media post motivated them to exercise, would motivate others to exercise, and was posted for extrinsic reasons. Participants also completed other measures of individual differences including their own exercise motivation. Posts with images from individuals were more motivating than posts with images from corporations; however, corporate posts without images were more motivating than posts without images from individuals. Participants expected others to be similarly motivated by the stimuli, and perceived corporate posts as having been posted for more extrinsic reasons than individuals’ posts. These findings enhance our understanding of how social media may be used to promote positive health behaviors.


2020 ◽  
Vol 34 (6) ◽  
pp. 833-845 ◽  
Author(s):  
Youngsu Lee ◽  
Joonhwan In ◽  
Seung Jun Lee

Purpose As social media platforms become increasingly popular among service firms, many US hospitals have been using social media as a means to improve their patients’ experiences. However, little research has explored the implications of social media use within a hospital context. The purpose of this paper is to investigate a hospital’s customer engagement through social media and its association with customers’ experiential quality. Also, this study examines the role of a hospital’s service characteristics, which could shape the nature of the interactions between patients and the hospital. Design/methodology/approach Data from 669 hospitals with complete experiential quality and demographic data were collected from multiple sources of secondary data, including the rankings of social media friendly hospitals, the Hospital Compare database, the Center for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) cost report, the CMS impact file, the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society Analytics database and the Dartmouth Atlas of Health Care. Specifically, the authors designed the instrumental variable estimate to address the endogeneity issue. Findings The empirical results suggest a positive association between a hospital’s social media engagement and experiential quality. For hospitals with a high level of service sophistication, the association between online engagement and experiential quality becomes more salient. For hospitals offering various services, offline engagement is a critical predictor of experiential quality. Research limitations/implications A hospital with more complex services should make efforts to engage customers through social media for better patient experiences. The sample is selected from databases in the US, and the databases are cross-sectional in nature. Practical implications Not all hospitals may be better off improving the patient experience by engaging customers through social media. Therefore, practitioners should exercise caution in applying the study’s results to other contexts and in making causal inferences. Originality/value The current study delineates customer engagement through social media into online and offline customer engagement. This study is based on the theory of customer engagement and reflects the development of mobile technology. Moreover, this research may be considered as pioneering in that it considers the key characteristics of a hospital’s service operations (i.e., service complexity) when discovering the link between customers’ engagement through a hospital’s social media and experiential quality.


2019 ◽  
Vol 34 (7) ◽  
pp. 1459-1467 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sherese Y. Duncan ◽  
Raeesah Chohan ◽  
João José Ferreira

Purpose This paper aims to explore, using the employee lens of business-to-business firms, word use through brand engagement and social media interaction to understand the difference between employees who rate their employer brands highly on social media and those who don't. Design/methodology/approach We conducted a textual content analysis of posts published on the social media job evaluation site glassdoor.com. LIWC software package was used to analyze 30 of the top 200 business-to-business brands listed on Brandwatch using four variables, namely, analytical thinking, clout, authenticity and emotional tone. Findings The results show that employees who rate their employer’s brand low use significantly more words, are significantly less analytic and write with significantly more clout because they focus more on others than themselves. Employees who rate their employer’s brand highly, write with significantly more authenticity, exhibit a significantly higher tone and display far more positive emotions in their reviews. Practical implications Brand managers should treat social media data disseminated by individual stakeholders, like the variables used in this study (tone, word count, frequency), as a valuable tool for brand insight on their industry, competition and their own brand equity, now and especially over time. Originality/value This study provides acknowledgement that social media is a significant source of marketing intelligence that may improve brand equity by better understanding and managing brand engagement.


2020 ◽  
Vol 31 (3) ◽  
pp. 313-343
Author(s):  
Aurora Garrido-Moreno ◽  
Víctor García-Morales ◽  
Stephen King ◽  
Nigel Lockett

PurposeAlthough Social Media use has become all-pervasive, previous research has failed to explain how to use Social Media tools strategically to create business value in today's increasingly digital landscapes. Adopting a dynamic capabilities perspective, this paper empirically examines the specific process through which Social Media use translates into better performance and the capabilities involved in this process.Design/methodology/approachA research model is proposed that includes both antecedents and consequences of Social Media use. Existing research was examined to derive the research hypotheses, which were tested using SEM methodology on a sample of 212 hotels.FindingsThe results show that Social Media use does not exert significant direct impact on organizational performance. Rather, the findings confirm the mediating role played by Social CRM and Customer Engagement capabilities in the value creation process.Practical implicationsThe results demonstrate how Social Media tools should be implemented and managed to generate business value in hotels. Implications yield interesting insights for hotel managersOriginality/valueThis study is a first attempt to analyze empirically the real impact of digital media technologies, particularly Social Media use, drawing on the dynamic capabilities perspective and focusing on service firms (hotels). Including the variable “Organizational Readiness” as a basic prerequisite to benefit from Social Media use enhances the study's novelty and contribution.


2019 ◽  
Vol 42 (6) ◽  
pp. 721-739 ◽  
Author(s):  
Faiz Ahamad

Purpose Job information through word-of-mouth (WOM) has a crucial impact on employer attractiveness. The phenomenal rise of social media offers alternate WOM platforms for sharing job information, which is quite different from traditional face-to-face WOM. The purpose of this paper is to examine the differential impact of traditional word-of-mouth (t-WOM) and social media word-of-mouth (s-WOM) on employer attractiveness along with the difference in the job attributes and relationship strength with the information source. Design/methodology/approach A 2 × 2 × 2 experiment was conducted to examine the impact of information source (t-WOM and s-WOM), job attributes (tangible and intangible) and relationship strength (strong and weak), on employer attractiveness. Source expertise and source trust were treated as the control variable. Findings The result shows the differential impact of t-WOM and s-WOM on employer attractiveness. Moreover, t-WOM from strong relation source found to have a high impact on employer attractiveness than s-WOM. No significant difference due to job attributes was found. Research limitations/implications Use of only positive WOM and not the negative one, student as the subjects, etc. Practical implications The present study suggests using t-WOM and s-WOM to attract talented job seekers. Originality/value This is the first study to analyze the differential impact of t-WOM and s-WOM on employer attractiveness.


2020 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Aqdas Malik ◽  
Amandeep Dhir ◽  
Puneet Kaur ◽  
Aditya Johri

PurposeThe current study aims to investigate if different measures related to online psychosocial well-being and online behavior correlate with social media fatigue.Design/methodology/approachTo understand the antecedents and consequences of social media fatigue, the stressor-strain-outcome (SSO) framework is applied. The study consists of two cross-sectional surveys that were organized with young-adult students. Study A was conducted with 1,398 WhatsApp users (aged 19 to 27 years), while Study B was organized with 472 WhatsApp users (aged 18 to 23 years).FindingsIntensity of social media use was the strongest predictor of social media fatigue. Online social comparison and self-disclosure were also significant predictors of social media fatigue. The findings also suggest that social media fatigue further contributes to a decrease in academic performance.Originality/valueThis study builds upon the limited yet growing body of literature on a theme highly relevant for scholars, practitioners as well as social media users. The current study focuses on examining different causes of social media fatigue induced through the use of a highly popular mobile instant messaging app, WhatsApp. The SSO framework is applied to explore and establish empirical links between stressors and social media fatigue.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document