The Radical Statistics Group: using statistics for progressive social change

2019 ◽  
pp. 307-318
Author(s):  
Jeff Evans ◽  
Ludi Simpson
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Social Change ◽  
Statistical Models ◽  
Official Statistics ◽  
Statistical Literacy ◽  
Labour Government ◽  
Media Campaigns ◽  
Current Time ◽  
Dominant Discourses ◽  
The Uk

The UK-based Radical Statistics Group has a long-standing role in shaping statistics to support progressive social change. It has worked to demystify and critique official statistics, and to trace the consequences of using statistical models and their assumptions The Group has used its energies to encourage statistical literacy and campaigning effectiveness among progressive groups that seek its help. Its early days from the 1970s were characterised by a range of ‘progressive’ publications and well-received interventions in crucial debates and official consultations. In the 1990s it contributed to the wave of reforms of statistical outputs and procedures brought to fruition by the incoming Labour government. At the current time it provides ongoing resources of annual conferences, regular journal and email, a website and social media. Campaigns are often developed outside Radical Statistics structures, but with the key support of RadStats contacts, resources and ideas. At a time when it is archiving its first forty years of papers in the Welcome Library, Radical Statistics envisages a future enhanced by the activity of a range of allies, and the resources they provide, so as to formulate effective alternatives to the dominant discourses of our time.

scholarly journals Harnessing Twitter data to survey public attention and attitudes towards COVID-19 vaccines in the UK

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Seena Fazel ◽  
Le Zhang ◽  
Babak Javid ◽  
Isabell Brikell ◽  
Zheng Chang
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Vaccine Development ◽  
Vaccine Hesitancy ◽  
Potential Contribution ◽  
Public Attention ◽  
Media Campaigns ◽  
News Announcements ◽  
News Announcement ◽  
Socio Demographic Factors ◽  
The Uk

AbstractAttitudes to COVID-19 vaccination vary considerably within and between countries. Although the contribution of socio-demographic factors to these attitudes has been studied, the role of social media and how it interacts with news about vaccine development and efficacy is uncertain. We examined around 2 million tweets from 522,893 persons in the UK from November 2020 to January 2021 to evaluate links between Twitter content about vaccines and major scientific news announcements about vaccines. The proportion of tweets with negative vaccine content varied, with reductions of 20–24% on the same day as major news announcement. However, the proportion of negative tweets reverted back to an average of around 40% within a few days. Engagement rates were higher for negative tweets. Public health messaging could consider the dynamics of Twitter-related traffic and the potential contribution of more targeted social media campaigns to address vaccine hesitancy.

scholarly journals Rainbow Direction and fan-based citizenship performance

2018 ◽  
Vol 28 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bri Mattia
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Social Change ◽  
Dominant Ideology ◽  
Activist Group ◽  
Citizenship Performance ◽  
The Uk

The success of the activist group Rainbow Direction, created by fans of the UK boy band One Direction, helped change the dominant ideology of One Direction's concerts and chip away at the long-held assertions of who fangirls are. Social media can be used to enact social change, combating the erasure of LGBT+ fans from the fangirl narrative.

The Micro-demise of Authoritarianism in the Middle East: Working around the State in Comparative Perspective

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Deborah L. Wheeler
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Social Change ◽  
Middle East ◽  
New Media ◽  
The State ◽  
Comparative Perspective ◽  
Ordinary People ◽  
Media Campaigns ◽  
The Core ◽  
Public Media

Chapter 5 illustrates the core argument of this book, that ordinary people can create change in small ways by networking around the state. In the service of this argument, the chapter highlights everyday forms of digital resistance in authoritarian political contexts in the Middle East. The three forms of new media empowerment analysed in the chapter include: 1. Digital disclosure to confront bad governance. 2. People to people diplomacy. 3. Social media for social change. These examples of “digital resistance” are based upon public media campaigns against the Egyptian, Turkish, Israeli, Iranian and Saudi states.

Utilizing Blockchain Technology in Social Media Bot Identification

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shreya Reddy ◽  
Lisa Ewen ◽  
Pankti Patel ◽  
Prerak Patel ◽  
Ankit Kundal ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Machine Learning ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Gold Standard ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Learning Models ◽  
Current Time ◽  
Machine Learning Methods ◽  
Blockchain Technology ◽  
Modern Age ◽  
Machine Learning Models

<p>As bots become more prevalent and smarter in the modern age of the internet, it becomes ever more important that they be identified and removed. Recent research has dictated that machine learning methods are accurate and the gold standard of bot identification on social media. Unfortunately, machine learning models do not come without their negative aspects such as lengthy training times, difficult feature selection, and overwhelming pre-processing tasks. To overcome these difficulties, we are proposing a blockchain framework for bot identification. At the current time, it is unknown how this method will perform, but it serves to prove the existence of an overwhelming gap of research under this area.<i></i></p>

Lawyers as Activists

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael C. Dorf ◽  
Michael S. Chu
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Social Change ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Rule Of Law ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
Court Action ◽  
The Government ◽  
Trump Administration

Lawyers played a key role in challenging the Trump administration’s Travel Ban on entry into the United States of nationals from various majority-Muslim nations. Responding to calls from nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), which were amplified by social media, lawyers responded to the Travel Ban’s chaotic rollout by providing assistance to foreign travelers at airports. Their efforts led to initial court victories, which in turn led the government to soften the Ban somewhat in two superseding executive actions. The lawyers’ work also contributed to the broader resistance to the Trump administration by dramatizing its bigotry, callousness, cruelty, and lawlessness. The efficacy of the lawyers’ resistance to the Travel Ban shows that, contrary to strong claims about the limits of court action, litigation can promote social change. General lessons about lawyer activism in ordinary times are difficult to draw, however, because of the extraordinary threat Trump poses to civil rights and the rule of law.

scholarly journals Survey of young people in one region of the UK on accessing COVID-19 information (SOCIAL)

2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. e000942
Author(s):  
Oliver G P Lawton ◽  
Sarah A Lawton ◽  
Lisa Dikomitis ◽  
Joanne Protheroe ◽  
Joanne Smith ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Young People ◽  
Significant Role ◽  
Online Survey ◽  
Descriptive Statistics ◽  
Sources Of Information ◽  
Cross Sectional Survey ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Education Gaps ◽  
The Uk

COVID-19 has significantly impacted young people’s lives yet little is known about the COVID-19 related sources of information they access. We performed a cross-sectional survey of pupils (11–16 years) in North Staffordshire, UK. 408 (23%) pupils responded to an online survey emailed to them by their school. Descriptive statistics were used to summarise the data. Social media, accessed by 68%, played a significant role in the provision of information, despite it not being considered trustworthy. 89% felt that COVID-19 had negatively affected their education. Gaps in the provision of information on COVID-19 have been identified.

scholarly journals Mixed-methods process evaluation of SafeTea: a multimedia campaign to prevent hot drink scalds in young children and promote burn first aid

2020 ◽  
pp. injuryprev-2020-043909
Author(s):  
Laura Elizabeth Cowley ◽  
C Verity Bennett ◽  
Isabelle Brown ◽  
Alan Emond ◽  
Alison Mary Kemp
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Mixed Methods ◽  
Young Children ◽  
Process Evaluation ◽  
Behavioural Change ◽  
First Aid ◽  
Multifaceted Intervention ◽  
Media Content ◽  
Educational Videos ◽  
The Uk

ObjectivesSafeTea is a multifaceted intervention delivered by community practitioners to prevent hot drink scalds to young children and improve parents’ knowledge of appropriate burn first aid. We adapted SafeTea for a national multimedia campaign, and present a mixed-methods process evaluation of the campaign.MethodsWe used social media, a website hosting downloadable materials and media publicity to disseminate key messages to parents/caregivers of young children and professionals working with these families across the UK. The SafeTea campaign was launched on National Burns Awareness Day (NBAD), October 2019, and ran for 3 months. Process evaluation measurements included social media metrics, Google Analytics, and quantitative and qualitative results from a survey of professionals who requested hard copies of the materials via the website.ResultsFindings were summarised under four themes: ‘reach’, ‘engagement’, ‘acceptability’ and ‘impact/behavioural change’. The launch on NBAD generated widespread publicity. The campaign reached a greater number of the target audience than anticipated, with over 400 000 views of the SafeTea educational videos. Parents and professionals engaged with SafeTea and expressed positive opinions of the campaign and materials. SafeTea encouraged parents to consider how to change their behaviours to minimise the risks associated with hot drinks. Reach and engagement steadily declined after the first month due to reduced publicity and social media promotion.ConclusionThe SafeTea campaign was successful in terms of reach and engagement. The launch on NBAD was essential for generating media interest. Future campaigns could be shorter, with more funding for additional social media content and promotion.

scholarly journals Understanding the Emotional Impact of GIFs on Instagram through Consumer Neuroscience

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (8) ◽  
pp. 108
Author(s):  
Idoia Rúa Hidalgo ◽  
Maria Galmes-Cerezo ◽  
Carmen Cristofol-Rodríguez ◽  
Irene Aliagas
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Emotional Valence ◽  
Marketing Strategies ◽  
Emotional Impact ◽  
Media Campaigns ◽  
Biometric Analysis ◽  
Neuroscience Research ◽  
Explicit Measure ◽  
Two Phases ◽  
Emotional Level

The ability of GIFs to generate emotionality in social media marketing strategies is analyzed. The aim of this work is to show how neuroscience research techniques can be integrated into the analysis of emotions, improving the results and helping to guide actions in social networks. This research is structured in two phases: an experimental study using automated biometric analysis (facial coding, GSR and eye tracking) and an analysis of declared feelings in the comments of Instagram users. Explicit valence, type of emotion, length of comment and proportion of emojis are extracted. The results indicate that the explicit measure of emotional valence shows a higher and more positive emotional level than the implicit one. This difference is influenced differently by the engagement and the proportion of emojis in the comment. A further step has been taken in the measurement of user emotionality in social media campaigns, including not only content analysis, but also providing new insights thanks to neuromarketing.

scholarly journals Mental Health, Information and Being Connected: Qualitative Experiences of Social Media Use during the COVID-19 Pandemic from a Trans-National Sample

Healthcare ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (6) ◽  
pp. 735
Author(s):  
Schoultz Mariyana ◽  
Leung Janni ◽  
Bonsaksen Tore ◽  
Ruffolo Mary ◽  
Thygesen Hilde ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Health Information ◽  
Online Survey ◽  
Negative Impact ◽  
National Study ◽  
Free Text ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Mental Health Information ◽  
The Uk

Background: Due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the strict national policies regarding social distancing behavior in Europe, America and Australia, people became reliant on social media as a means for gathering information and as a tool for staying connected to family, friends and work. This is the first trans-national study exploring the qualitative experiences and challenges of using social media while in lockdown or shelter-in-place during the current pandemic. Methods: This study was part of a wider cross-sectional online survey conducted in Norway, the UK, USA and Australia during April/May 2020. The manuscript reports on the qualitative free-text component of the study asking about the challenges of social media users during the COVID-19 pandemic in the UK, USA and Australia. A total of 1991 responses were included in the analysis. Thematic analysis was conducted independently by two researchers. Results: Three overarching themes identified were: Emotional/Mental Health, Information and Being Connected. Participants experienced that using social media during the pandemic amplified anxiety, depression, fear, panic, anger, frustration and loneliness. They felt that there was information overload and social media was full of misleading or polarized opinions which were difficult to switch off. Nonetheless, participants also thought that there was an urge for connection and learning, which was positive and stressful at the same time. Conclusion: Using social media while in a shelter-in-place or lockdown could have a negative impact on the emotional and mental health of some of the population. To support policy and practice in strengthening mental health care in the community, social media could be used to deliver practical advice on coping and stress management. Communication with the public should be strengthened by unambiguous and clear messages and clear communication pathways. We should be looking at alternative ways of staying connected.

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