scholarly journals Scientists on Twitter: Preaching to the choir or singing from the rooftops?

FACETS ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 682-694 ◽  
Author(s):  
Isabelle M. Côté ◽  
Emily S. Darling
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Evolutionary Biology ◽  
Scientific Information ◽  
Faculty Members ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Educational Organizations ◽  
The Public ◽  
Exponential Increase ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Media Platforms

There have been strong calls for scientists to share their discoveries with society. Some scientists have heeded these calls through social media platforms such as Twitter. Here, we ask whether Twitter allows scientists to promote their findings primarily to other scientists (“inreach”), or whether it can help them reach broader, non-scientific audiences (“outreach”). We analyzed the Twitter followers of more than 100 faculty members in ecology and evolutionary biology and found that their followers are, on average, predominantly (∼55%) other scientists. However, beyond a threshold of ∼1000 followers, the range of follower types became more diverse and included research and educational organizations, media, members of the public with no stated association with science, and a small number of decision-makers. This varied audience was, in turn, followed by more people, resulting in an exponential increase in the social media reach of tweeting academic scientists. Tweeting, therefore, has the potential to disseminate scientific information widely after initial efforts to gain followers. These results should encourage scientists to invest in building a social media presence for scientific outreach.

scholarly journals Post-Truth: Hegemony on Social Media and Implications for Sustainability Communication

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (7) ◽  
pp. 2120 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cecilia Jaques ◽  
Mine Islar ◽  
Gavin Lord
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Critical Discourse Analysis ◽  
Scientific Information ◽  
The United States ◽  
Marxian Theory ◽  
The Public ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
The One ◽  
Science In Society

Contrary to what practice suggests, social media platforms may not be an appropriate forum for communicating with civil society about sustainability issues such as climate change. Misinformation campaigns are distorting the line between fact and falsity on social media platforms, and there has been a profound shift in the way that social media users consume and interact with information. These conditions have been popularly labeled as the post-truth era. Drawing from Neo-Marxian theory, we argue that post-truth can be explained as a new iteration of ideological struggle under capitalist hegemony. We substantiate this claim through a mixed methods investigation synthesizing corpus-assisted lexical analysis and critical discourse analysis to evaluate 900 user-generated comments taken from three articles on socioenvironmental topics published on Facebook by news organizations in the United States. The results showed that the nature of this struggle is tied explicitly to the role of science in society, where the legitimacy of science is caught in a tug-of-war of values between elitism on the one hand and a rejection of the establishment on the other. It follows that presenting truthful information in place of false information is an insufficient means of coping with post-truth. We conclude by problematizing the notion that Facebook is an adequate forum for public dialogue and advocate for a change in strategy from those wishing to communicate scientific information in the public sphere.

Mediatization of conflict in the social media era: A case study of Sino-Indian border crisis in 2017

Journalism ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 146488491987032 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shixin Ivy Zhang
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Actor Network Theory ◽  
Social Media Platform ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
Media Platform ◽  
Central Argument ◽  
Actor Networks

Inspired by the concepts of Arrested War and actor–network theory, this study has traced and analyzed four main actors in the wars and conflicts in the social media age: social media platform, the mainstream news organizations, online users, and social media content. These four human and nonhuman actors associate, interact, and negotiate with each other in the social media network surrounding specific issues. Based on the case study of Sino-Indian border crisis in 2017, the central argument is that social media is playing an enabling role in contemporary wars and conflicts. Both professional media outlets and web users employ the functionalities of social media platforms to set, counter-set, or expand the public agenda. Social media platform embodies a web of technological and human complexities with different actors, factors, interests, and relations. These actor-networks and the macro social-political context are influential in the mediatization of conflict in the social media era.

How to strengthen the social media interactivity of e-government

2016 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 79-96 ◽  
Author(s):  
xiaoling Hao ◽  
Daqing Zheng ◽  
Qingfeng Zeng ◽  
Weiguo Fan
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Local Governments ◽  
Structural Features ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The Public ◽  
Positive Effects ◽  
Popular Government ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
The Government

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore how to use social media in e-government to strengthen interactivity between government and the general public. Design/methodology/approach – Categorizing the determinants to interactivity covering depth and breadth into two aspects that are the structural features and the content features, this study employs general linear model and ANOVA method to analyse 14,910 posts belonged to the top list of the 96 most popular government accounts of Sina, one of the largest social media platforms in China. Findings – The main findings of the research are that both variables of the ratio of multimedia elements, and the ratio of external links have positive effects on the breadth of interactivity, while the ratio of multimedia features, and the ratio of originality have significant effects on the depth of interactivity. Originality/value – The contributions are as follows. First, the authors analyse the properties and the topics of government posts to draw a rich picture of how local governments use the micro-blog as a communications channel to interact with the public. Second, the authors conceptualize the government online interactivity in terms of the breadth and depth. Third, the authors identify factors that will enhance the interactivity from two aspects: structural features and content features. Lastly, the authors offer suggestions to local governments on how to strengthen the e-government interactivity in social media.

scholarly journals The Presence of the Ministry of National Defense in the Social Media Space. Analysis of the Official Communication Effort Between the Years 2012-2017

2018 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 261-268
Author(s):  
Răduţ Bîlbîie
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Public Relations ◽  
Qualitative Analysis ◽  
National Defense ◽  
The Public ◽  
Space Analysis ◽  
Implementation Team ◽  
The Social ◽  
Media Space ◽  
Social Media Platforms

Abstract The study presents the emergence and evolution of the Public Relations accounts and products associated with social media platforms, at the official level in the Romanian army. We present the main regulations, the planning and execution structures, the significant moments in the development of the platforms, the successes and errors of the implementation team, the main results obtained by the quantitative and qualitative analysis of the products between the year 2012, the year of implementation. and the present time

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.”

Exploring Public Perceptions of Native-Born American Emigration Abroad and Renunciation of American Citizenship through Social Media

2019 ◽  
pp. 60-101
Author(s):  
Shalin Hai-Jew
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Research Literature ◽  
Social Phenomena ◽  
Social Media Data ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Social ◽  
American Citizenship ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
Work Done ◽  
Media Data

There has been little work done on American emigration abroad and even less done on the formal renunciation of American citizenship. This chapter provides an overview of both phenomena in the research literature and then provides some methods for using the extraction of social media data and their visualization as a way of tapping into the public mindsets about these social phenomena. The software tools used include the following: Network Overview, Discovery and Exploration for Excel (NodeXL Basic), NVivo, and Maltego Carbon; the social media platforms used include the following: Wikipedia, YouTube, Twitter, and Flickr.

Illusions of Empowerment

2012 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 36-51 ◽  
Author(s):  
Corinne Weisgerber
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
New Media ◽  
The Public ◽  
Media Technologies ◽  
Digital Democracy ◽  
Internet Users ◽  
Attention Economy ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
Media Systems

This article calls into question the social media empowerment narrative and the underlying idea that social media platforms are empowering everyday netizens to have their voices heard. The author argues that social media technologies may simply privilege only those Internet users who are new media savvy and have leisure time to participate in the so-called digital democracy. While social media systems might have lowered the entrance threshold for civic engagement, hurdles such as the growing competition in an attention economy, the odds of standing out amidst millions of other individual voices, knowledge of new media technologies required to achieve visibility, and time demands make the social media empowerment vision more difficult to attain than the architects of the empowerment ideology have made the public to believe.

Fixing the SIC

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-16
Author(s):  
Andrew S. Pyle
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Organizational Conflict ◽  
The Public ◽  
Crisis Events ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
Communication Practices ◽  
Media Message ◽  
Public Views ◽  
Successes And Failures

Social media platforms provide channels for both individuals and organizations to engage with global audiences. A successful social media message can reach millions and shape the way the public views a particular person, group, or cause. As organizations become more engaged with the public through social media platforms, a new area of organizational risk has also developed. It is possible for an organization to create a self-inflicted crisis through the unintentional transmission of a poorly worded or ill-conceived social media message. This type of self-induced crisis event creates organizational conflict that must be managed quickly. This chapter explores three cases of organizational conflict resulting from self-inflicted crisis events. All three events caused major conversations to erupt on social media platforms. The author examines the social media-based communication practices of three organizations and draws lessons from both successes and failures for how organizations should respond to self-inflicted crises.

Exploring Public Perceptions of Native-Born American Emigration Abroad and Renunciation of American Citizenship through Social Media

2017 ◽  
pp. 338-382 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shalin Hai-Jew
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Research Literature ◽  
Social Phenomena ◽  
Social Media Data ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Social ◽  
American Citizenship ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
Work Done ◽  
Media Data

There has been little work done on American emigration abroad and even less done on the formal renunciation of American citizenship. This chapter provides an overview of both phenomena in the research literature and then provides some methods for using the extraction of social media data and their visualization as a way of tapping into the public mindsets about these social phenomena. The software tools used include the following: Network Overview, Discovery and Exploration for Excel (NodeXL Basic), NVivo, and Maltego Carbon; the social media platforms used include the following: Wikipedia, YouTube, Twitter, and Flickr.

scholarly journals Comparison of topics and concerns discussed on Chinese and French social media during the COVID-19 lockdown (Preprint)

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stéphane Schück ◽  
Pierre Foulquié ◽  
Adel Mebarki ◽  
Carole Faviez ◽  
Mickaïl Khadhar ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Everyday Life ◽  
Data Privacy ◽  
Topic Model ◽  
Scientific Information ◽  
Privacy Concerns ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Country Specific

BACKGROUND During the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, numerous countries, including China and France, have implemented lockdown measures that have been shown to be effective in controlling the epidemic. However, little is known about the impact of these measures on the population as expressed on social media from different cultural contexts. OBJECTIVE To assess and compare the evolution of the topics discussed on Chinese and French social media during the COVID-19 lockdown. METHODS We extracted posts containing “COVID-19”- or “lockdown”-related keywords in the most commonly used micro-blogging social media platforms, i.e., Weibo (China) and Twitter (France), from one week before to the lifting of the lockdown. A topic model was applied independently for three periods: pre-lockdown, early lockdown and mid-to-late lockdown, to assess the evolution of the topics discussed on Chinese and French social media. RESULTS 6 395, 23 422 and 141 643 Chinese Weibo messages, and 34 327, 119 919, and 282 965 French tweets were extracted in the pre-lockdown, early lockdown and mid-to-late lockdown periods in China and France, respectively. Four categories of topics were discussed in a continuously evolving way in all three periods: epidemic news and everyday life, scientific information, public measures and solidarity & encouragement. The most represented category over all periods in both countries was epidemic news and everyday life. Scientific information was far more discussed on Weibo than in French tweets. Misinformation circulated through social media in both countries; however, it was more concerned with the virus and epidemic in China, whereas it was more concerned with the lockdown measures in France. Regarding public measures, more criticisms were identified in French tweets than on Weibo. Advantages and data privacy concerns regarding tracing apps were also addressed in French tweets. CONCLUSIONS This study is the first to compare the social media content in Eastern and Western countries during the unprecedented COVID-19 lockdown. Our results describe common and different public reactions behaviors and concerns, and can help characterize country-specific public needs and appropriately address them during an outbreak.

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