scholarly journals The Rite of Passage and Digital Mourning in Fang Fang’s Wuhan Diary

2021 ◽  
pp. 205943642110416
Author(s):  
Thomas William Whyke ◽  
Joaquin Lopez-Mugica ◽  
Zhen T. Chen
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Chinese Culture ◽  
Traumatic Experiences ◽  
Chinese Government ◽  
Rite Of Passage ◽  
Media Platform ◽  
Three Stages ◽  
Personal Accounts ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Chinese Social Media

Using Van Gennep’s theory of Rite of Passage as its framework, this article examines the impact of Coronavirus (COVID-19) on Chinese culture as depicted through death and mourning in Wang Fang’s (penname Fang Fang) recently published Wuhan Diary: Dispatches from a Quarantined City. As part of the efforts to control the outbreak, the Chinese government took over the managing of the deceased, which triggered heated discussions on Chinese social media. Fang Fang’s diary, originally written as daily entries on Chinese social media platform Weibo, serves as a voice for those suffering during the pandemic, mediating between personal accounts, accounts of friends, family and those living in Wuhan during the pandemic. These flesh out how the virus has not only been disturbing for Chinese people’s lives but also disrupted the death rites and mourning rituals for those who have passed. Our article infuses a digital ontological reading with an anthropological twist that helps to understand how the diary mitigates the disturbances to mourning rituals inside and outside the confines of digital metaphysics. We argue that the digital diary mitigates these disruptions by allowing Chinese people to nourish their sorrow by identifying with the symbolic rites of passage and mourning rituals online at the heart of the COVID-19 pandemic in Wuhan. In doing so, this article examines three stages of rite of passage, including separation, liminality and integration as they unfold in the diary, through which discourses and subjectivities based on collective and individual traumatic experiences are built, as a form of digital mourning that could reconcile both the official and the alternative voices of anonymous narratives about the handling of this crisis.

scholarly journals Blurred reputations: Managing professional and private information online

2018 ◽  
Vol 52 (1) ◽  
pp. 16-26 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frances V.C. Ryan ◽  
Peter Cruickshank ◽  
Hazel Hall ◽  
Alistair Lawson
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Private Information ◽  
Information Seeking ◽  
Information Science ◽  
Private Lives ◽  
Professional Reputation ◽  
Media Platform ◽  
Everyday Life Information Seeking ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Reputation Building

Results are reported from a study that investigated patterns of information behaviour and use as related to personal reputation building and management in online environments. An everyday life information seeking (ELIS) perspective was adopted. Data were collected by diary and interview from 45 social media users who hold professional and managerial work roles, and who are users of Twitter, Facebook and/or LinkedIn. These data were first transcribed, then coded with NVivo10 according to themes identified from a preliminary literature review, with further codes added as they emerged from the content of the participant diaries and interviews. The main findings reveal that the portrayal of different personas online contributes to the presentation (but not the creation) of identity, that information-sharing practices for reputation building and management vary according to social media platform, and that the management of online connections and censorship are important to the protection of reputation. The maintenance of professional reputation is more important than private reputation to these users. They are aware of the ‘blur’ between professional and private lives in online contexts, and the influence that it bears on efforts to manage an environment where LinkedIn is most the useful of the three sites considered, and Facebook the most risky. With its novel focus on the ‘whole self’, this work extends understandings of the impact of information on the building and management of reputation from an information science perspective.

scholarly journals Pregnancy-Related Information Seeking and Sharing in the Social Media Era Among Expectant Mothers: Qualitative Study (Preprint)

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chengyan Zhu ◽  
Runxi Zeng ◽  
Wei Zhang ◽  
Richard Evans ◽  
Rongrong He
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Pregnant Women ◽  
Information Seeking ◽  
Chinese Culture ◽  
Instant Messaging ◽  
Media Usage ◽  
Related Information ◽  
Expectant Mothers ◽  
Media Channels ◽  
The Impact

BACKGROUND Social media has become the most popular communication tool used by Chinese citizens, including expectant mothers. An increasing number of women have adopted various forms of social media channels, such as interactive websites, instant messaging, and mobile apps, to solve problems and obtain answers to queries during pregnancy. Although the use of the internet by pregnant women has been studied extensively worldwide, limited research exists that explores the changing social media usage habits in China, where the 1 child policy ended in 2015. OBJECTIVE This study aimed to (1) present the status quo of pregnancy-related information seeking and sharing via social media among Chinese expectant mothers, (2) reveal the impact of social media usage, and (3) shed light on pregnancy-related health services delivered via social media channels. METHODS A qualitative approach was employed to examine social media usage and its consequences on pregnant women. A total of 20 women who had conceived and were at various stages of pregnancy were interviewed from July 20 to August 10, 2017. Thematic analysis was conducted on the collected data to identify patterns in usage. RESULTS Overall, 80% (16/20) of participants were aged in their 20s (mean 28.5 years [SD 4.3]). All had used social media for pregnancy-related purposes. For the seeking behavior, 18 codes were merged into 4 themes, namely, gravida, fetus, delivery, and the postpartum period; whereas for sharing behaviors, 10 codes were merged into 4 themes, namely, gravida, fetus, delivery, and caretaker. Lurking, small group sharing, bad news avoidance, and cross-checking were identified as the preferred patterns for using social media. Overall, 95% (19/20) of participants reported a positive mental impact from using social media during their pregnancy. CONCLUSIONS It is indisputable that social media has played an increasingly important role in supporting expectant mothers in China. The specific seeking and sharing patterns identified in this study indicate that the general quality of pregnancy-related information on social media, as well as Chinese culture toward pregnancy, is improving. The new themes that merge in pregnancy-related social media use represent a shift toward safe pregnancy and the promotion of a more enjoyable pregnancy. Future prenatal care should provide further information on services related to being comfortable during pregnancy and reducing the inequality of social media–based services caused by the digital divide.

Who is Setting Emotions? A Comparative Study on Emotion Diffusion in Social Media among Public, Government and Media during the COVID-19 Pandemic in China (Preprint)

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shuhuan Zhou ◽  
Yi Wang
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Information Exchange ◽  
Positive Emotions ◽  
Negative Emotions ◽  
Chinese Government ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Time Point

BACKGROUND During the COVID-19 outbreak, social media served as the main platform for information exchange, through which the Chinese government, media and public would spread information. At the same time, a variety of emotions interweave, and the public emotions would also be affected by the government and media. OBJECTIVE This study aims to investigate the types, trends and relationships of emotional diffusion in Chinese social media among the public, the government and the media under the pandemic of COVID-19 (December 30,2019, to July 1,2020) . METHODS In this paper, Python 3.7.0 and its data crawling framework Scrapy 1.5.1 are used to write a web crawler program to search for super topics related to COVID-19 on Sina Weibo platform of different keywords . Then, we used emotional lexicon to analyze the types and trends of the public, government and media emotions on social media. Finally cross-lagged regression was applied to build the relationships of different subjects’ emotions. RESULTS The highlights of our study are threefold: (1) The public, the government and the media mainly diffuse positive emotions during the COVID-19 pandemic in China; (2) Emotional diffusion shows a certain change over time, and negative emotions are obvious in the initial phase of the pandemic, with the development of the pandemic, positive emotions surpass negative emotions and remain stable. (3)The impact among the three main emotions with the period as the time point is weak, while the impact of emotion with the day as the time point is relatively obvious. The emotions of the public and the government impact each other, and the media emotions can guide the public emotions. CONCLUSIONS This is the first study of comparing pubic, government and media emotions on the social media during COVID-19 pandemic in China. The pubic, the government and the media mainly diffuse positive emotions during the pandemic. And the government and the media have better effect on short-term emotional guidance. Therefore, when the pandemic suddenly occurs, the government and the media should intervene in time to solve problems and conflicts and diffuse positive and neutral emotions. In this regard, the government and the media can play important roles through social media in the major outbreaks. At the theoretical level, this paper takes China's epidemic environment and social media as the background to provide one of the explanatory perspectives for the spread of emotions on social media. At the some time, because of this special background, it can provide comparison and reference for the research on internet emotions in other countries.

Effects of content characteristics on stages of customer engagement in social media: investigating European wine brands

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Aspasia Vlachvei ◽  
Ourania Notta ◽  
Eirini Koronaki
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Data Analysis ◽  
Panel Data ◽  
Panel Data Analysis ◽  
Customer Engagement ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Interactive Engagement ◽  
Long Run ◽  
Three Stages ◽  
The Impact

PurposeThis study advances knowledge of interactive marketing strategies by examining the effect of different content types on the three stages of customer engagement (CE) in social media, namely, relationship formation, engagement creation and engagement contribution, for European wine brands.Design/methodology/approachBoth quantitative and qualitative content analyses are conducted; a panel data analysis validates the impact of content type on the three stages of CE in social media.FindingsThe results indicate that remunerative content is the most consistent and promising strategy for enhancing all three stages of CE in social media. Social content motivates consumers to interact with wine brands by commenting, which is the most demanding and time-consuming form of engagement.Practical implicationsThe empirical results offer valuable directions for managers and marketers of European wine brands on creating and maintaining optimal interactive engagement in all three stages with their Facebook communities over the long run.Originality/valueThis study is one of the first to empirically examine, through objective measurement, how content type affects the three stages of CE in social media. The case of European wine brands is examined, over time, through a panel data analysis.

Do Social Media Matter? Initial Empirical Evidence

2014 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 51-70 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hui Du ◽  
Wei Jiang
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Firm Performance ◽  
Positive Impact ◽  
Data Availability ◽  
Social Media Platform ◽  
Media Technologies ◽  
The Social ◽  
Media Platform ◽  
Social Media Presence ◽  
The Impact

ABSTRACT This paper examines the association between firm performance and social media. Based on a sample of S&P 1500 firms, the study finds that firms with a social media presence are more highly valued by the market and have higher future financial performance. Further analysis indicates that the impact of social media on firm performance varies depending on the social media platform involved. Finally, using a restricted sample of Global 100 firms, the study finds some evidence that a higher level of social media engagement is associated with higher firm performance. Overall, these findings provide consistent evidence of the positive impact of social media technologies on firm performance. Data Availability: All data are available from public sources.

A Comparative View of Censored and Uncensored Political Discussion

2017 ◽  
pp. 269-282
Author(s):  
Qihao Ji
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Content Analysis ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Chinese Government ◽  
Political Discussion ◽  
Time Period ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
Internet Censorship ◽  
Media Discourses ◽  
The Impact

Through a content analysis on Chinese online dissidents' social media discourses, this study examines the impact of Internet censorship on Chinese dissidents' political discourse in two social media platforms: Weibo and Twitter. Data was collected during a time period when China's Internet censorship was tightened. Results revealed that Chinese online dissidents are more likely to post critical opinions and direct criticism towards the Chinese government on Twitter. In addition, dissidents on Twitter are more likely to engage in discussing with others, while Weibo dissidents tend to adopt linguistic skills more often to bypass censorship. No difference was found in terms of dissidents' civility and rationality across the two platforms. Implications and future research are discussed in detail.

The Impact of Social Media Platforms “Instagram” and “Snapchat” on the Purchasing Decision - Structural Equation Modelling Approach

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 72-94
Author(s):  
Eman Ali Alghamdi ◽  
Naima Bogari
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Structural Equation ◽  
Positive Impact ◽  
Young Female ◽  
Equation Modeling ◽  
Purchasing Decision ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
Media Platform ◽  
Use Of Social Media ◽  
The Impact

Social media (SM) tools have an immense potential in e-marketing and online shopping. However, there is a lack of researches on the use of social media platform as effective marketing tools. This study has aimed to investigate the revolution of social media in Saudi Arabia through understanding the impact of two popular SM platforms (Instagram and Snapchat) on the purchasing decision of Saudi customers through advertisements and blogger recommendations. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to develop a model, which was tested using Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). The results indicated a positive impact of social media platforms on the purchasing decision of young female users. Moreover, the effectiveness of these platforms in generating electronic-word of mouth (eWOM) among consumers was highlighted. However, further research is needed to promote marketeers and consumers' awareness in the digital marketplace.

scholarly journals The impact of social media on the performance of microfinance institutions in developing countries: a quantitative approach

2020 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ahmad Daowd ◽  
Muhammad Mustafa Kamal ◽  
Tillal Eldabi ◽  
Ruaa Hasan ◽  
Farouk Missi ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Developing Countries ◽  
Performance Indicators ◽  
Financial Services ◽  
Microfinance Institutions ◽  
Poverty Level ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Media Platform ◽  
Media Applications ◽  
The Impact

PurposeOver the last few decades, microfinance industry is argued to have played a constructive role in alleviating poverty level and providing the underprivileged with access to financial services. Statistics from the World Bank reveal that, currently, only 4% of the underprivileged have been served out of the 3 billion+ potential clients. Such results are due to several claims, particularly the operational and financial challenges faced by microfinance institutions (MFIs) in the constant flux inviting more attentions towards its performance. While explicit attention is given by many researchers towards mobile banking and information and communication technology (ICT) in improving the MFIs’ performance, the study on how social media, as a rapidly growing online phenomenon, can impact on the MFIs’ performance remains scarce. As such, this study aims to investigate this impact based on four dimensional performance indicators: efficiency, financial sustainability, portfolio quality and outreach.Design/methodology/approachA model is proposed and tested to ascertain the relationship between social media applications and organisational performance. In so doing, web-based questionnaires have been used to collect data from MFI employees in developing countries. Results reveal a significant influence of the social media over the MFIs’ performance, offering valuable insights into both researchers and practitioners in the domain of microfinance, as well as social media—conforming that the adoption of social media as marketing, advertising and communication tools may significantly improve the MFIs’ performance.FindingsThe results demonstrate that there is a positive and significant impact of social media use within microfinance on the key indicators of MFIs. They also show that the highest impact of social media usage within the microfinance is on the portfolio quality. In addition, it was found that marketing and advertising; communication and sales and distribution are the main areas where social media is able to support while social networking websites are the most popular platforms employed in MFIs.Originality/valueThis study adds to the existing literature few theoretical and practical aspects. First, this study developed a model for assessing the value of social media as a new phenomenon within this type of organisation. Second, it offers microfinance sponsors, managers and policy makers with a frame of reference to understand what social media platform can be deployed for each purpose. Third, with the identification of the main MFIs’ performance indicators, this research provided a reference of performance measurement guide for microfinance industry when assessing different technological employment.

scholarly journals Innovate or Execute: Spurring the Discussion on a More Controlled and a Regulatory Framework in Social Media Platform

Paradigm ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 56-72
Author(s):  
Sakshi Kathuria ◽  
Raiswa Saha ◽  
Harbhajan Bansal
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Regulatory Framework ◽  
Social Media Marketing ◽  
Organizational Level ◽  
Indian Government ◽  
Social Media Platform ◽  
Media Platform ◽  
Personal Accounts ◽  
Media Channels ◽  
Strong Control

Social media marketing has garnered a lot of attention in recent times. Regulators, however, do not have any established frameworks to exert a level of control on social media marketing activities. Furthermore, some research studies have shown that control at an organizational level does not appear to be either formal or particularly strong. There are other areas that require investigation as well, such as confusion on the use of personal accounts for marketing the organizations’ products and services, the pressure of releasing media content at speed and the possibility of misuse of any information that is disseminated. There is no doubt social media is an attractive channel for marketing purposes given its free usage and scale of adoption by consumers; however, there is a considerable risk it can be misused as well. Hence, it can be argued that strong control systems should be in place. The case of multiple fatalities in a mob-lynching in India, allegedly as a result of the so-called ‘fake news’ being disseminated via the social media platform Whatsapp, has caught the attention of the Indian government, which is seeking to exert more control over social media channels. Thus, this article critically examines the issue of control over social media marketing in India, and makes suggestions for the creation of a robust control and regulatory framework for the same. This study broadens our understanding of the roles of regulatory framework in social media marketing context.

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