scholarly journals Social Media Platform: Measuring Readability and Socio-Economic Status

Author(s):  
Samara Ahmed ◽  
Adil E. Rajput ◽  
Akila Sarirete ◽  
Tauseef J. Chawdhery

Social media gives researchers an invaluable opportunity to gain insight into different facets of human life.Researchers put a great emphasis on categorizing the socioeconomic status (SES) of individuals to help predict various findings of interest. Forum uses, hashtags and so on are common tools of conversations grouping. On the other hand, crowdsourcing is a concept that involves gathering intelligence to group online user community based on common interest. This paper provides a mechanism to look at writings on social media and group them based on their academic background. We build upon earlier work where we analyzed online forum posts from various geographical regions in the USA and Canada and characterized the readability scores of such users. Specifically, we collected 1000 tweets from the members of the US Senate and computed the Flesch-Kincaid readability score for the Senators. Comparing the Senators’ tweets to the ones from average citizens, we note the following. 1) US Senators’ readability based on their tweets rate is much higher affirming the gap between the academic performance of US Senators and their average citizen, and 2) the immense difference among average citizen’s score compared to those of US Senators is attributed to the wide spectrum of academic attainment.

Author(s):  
Blooma John ◽  
Bob Baulch ◽  
Nilmini Wickramasinghe

The negative and unbalanced nature of media and social media coverage has amplified anxieties and fears about the Ebola outbreak. The authors analyse news articles on the Ebola outbreak from two leading news outlets, together with comments on the articles from a well-known social media platform, from March 2014 to July 2015. The volume of news articles was greatest between August 2014 and January 2015, with a spike in October 2014, and was driven by the few cases of transmission in Europe and the USA. Sentiment analysis reveals coverage and commentary on the small number of Ebola cases in Europe and the USA were much more extensive than coverage and commentary on the outbreak in West Africa. Articles expressing negative sentiments were more common in the USA and also received more comments than those expressing positive sentiments. The negative sentiments expressed in the media and social media amplified fears about an Ebola outbreak outside West Africa, which increased pressure for unwarranted and wasteful precautionary measures.


2016 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 182-199 ◽  
Author(s):  
HyeRyeon Lee ◽  
Tun-Min (Catherine) Jai ◽  
Xu Li

Purpose The purposes of this study are to identify how hotel guests perceive green practices and to explore how hotels effectively inform customers of their green practices through social media such as TripAdvisor. Design/methodology/approach To examine hotel guests’ awareness of green practices through social media, this research investigated guests’ comments about green practices and management responses on TripAdvisor using content analysis. Findings The results indicated that most guests respond positively toward green practices when they can recognize them, e.g. reducing energy usage or water saving. However, lack of awareness about hotels’ green practices can cause guests to feel inconvenienced during their stays. Moreover, the study found that only a few hotel managements provide feedback on guests’ negative comments on TripAdvisor to inform them about the hotels’ green practices. Research limitations/implications This research is limited to analyzing only the top ten green hotels in the USA ranked by TripAdvisor. A study of more hotel cases with green practice standards, which could be adjusted to involve the use of different service levels such as luxury, upscale or economy hotels, may provide more insights into this discussion. Originality/value This research presents an exploratory intent to probe guests’ comments and management responses about green practices in the US lodging industry. The results provide empirical evidence of hotel guests’ perceptions of green practices as posted on social media. Moreover, management can use social media feedback as an educational tool and as effective advertisement, which in turn may reduce the negative perception of hotel green programs.


Subject Deepfake technology. Significance The US Senate on October 24 passed an act that requires the Department of Homeland Security to publish a yearly report on how ‘deepfake’ technology may be used to harm national security. Deepfakes are believable digital videos, audios or photos created using artificial intelligence (AI) to portray a person saying or doing something that the person never said or did, or portraying an event as real that never took place. The level of sophistication of this technology has leapfrogged over the past two years, raising a wide spectrum of concerns. Impacts A market for anti-deepfake verification technologies will emerge. Lawmakers will need to define the lines between art/entertainment and malicious deepfakes. Upcoming elections will be impacted by the existence of this technology.


2020 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 119-136
Author(s):  
Arunima Krishna ◽  
Soojin Kim

PurposeThis study seeks to understand Trump supporters’ behaviors on social media in the wake of a political controversy: US President Trump’s continued support for Judge Roy Moore’s candidacy for the US Senate representing the state of Alabama despite several allegations of sexual assault against him.Design/methodology/approachFew days before the special election was held in Alabama, an online survey was conducted among 325 supporters of President Trump to explore Trump supporters’ social media behaviors, including the unfriending/unfollowing contacts and speaking out about the controversy.FindingsWe found a negative presidential image to influence individuals’ loss of face, and such loss of face to impact unfriending/unfollowing behaviors on social media, as well as outspokenness. Furthermore, the differences between strong issue supporters and weak issue supporters’ opinions of climate perceptions and outspokenness were investigated.Originality/valueRather than using fear of isolation as the mediator between opinion climate and willingness to speak out, as is generally the case in the spiral of silence model (Moy et al., 2001), this study investigated the role of another affective indicator, loss of face on two social media behaviors, outspokenness, and unfollowing/unfriending contacts on social media.


2021 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mariel Rivera

In response to COVID-19, many doulas, including community-based doulas (CBDs), have shifted to virtual doula work, placing aspects of doula care online. CBDs typically center Black and Brown mothers and come from the same community as their clients, granting access to doula care for many individuals who would traditionally not have access. Two partner CBD organizations in Central New York—Village Birth International and Doula 4 a Queen—transitioned to virtual doula work, continuing to center Black and Afro-Latinx people. As CBDs began to transition their work online, they had to create new ways to include both the community and doula aspects of their work. My research has captured these doulas’ experiences since mid-2019 and has documented their transition from in-person doula work to virtual work. This also included their experiences of hosting doula trainings that were originally designed to be held in person. To understand this turn to virtual doula work, in this article I draw on social media engagement, online interviews, Zoom discussions, and personal experience to capture how CBD work shifted to virtual platforms can still center Black and Afro-Latinx folks in their communities and beyond.


2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 737-748 ◽  
Author(s):  
Smita C Banerjee ◽  
Vivian M Rodríguez ◽  
Kathryn Greene ◽  
Jennifer L Hay

Abstract Rates of melanoma and nonmelanoma skin cancers are on the rise in the USA with data revealing disproportionate increase in female young adults. The popularity of intentional skin tanning among U.S. adolescents is attributed to several factors, including prioritization of physical appearance, media images of tanned celebrities, ease of availability of artificial tanning facilities, and more recently, the prevalence and celebration of tanned skin on social media. Pinterest, as the third most popular social media platform, was searched for “pins” about skin tanning. The resultant “pins” were examined to understand the extent and characteristics of skin tanning portrayed on Pinterest. We analyzed pins on Pinterest about skin tanning (n = 501) through a quantitative content analysis. Overall, results indicated an overwhelmingly protanning characteristic of pins about skin tanning on Pinterest, with over 85% of pins promoting tanning behavior. The pins were generally characterized by the portrayal of a female subject (61%) and provided positive reinforcement for tanning (49%). Use of tanning for enhancing appearance was the main positive outcome expectancy portrayed in the pins (35%), and nudity or exposure of skin on arms (32%) and legs (31%) was evident in about a third of pins. With overwhelmingly positive pins promoting tanning, use of female subjects, exhibiting nudity, and appearance enhancement, there seems be to a consistent targeting of female users to accept tanning as a socially acceptable and popular behavior. The findings indicate a need for developing sun protection messages and the leveraging of social media for dissemination of skin cancer prevention and detection messages.


2018 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 723-738 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jyotirmoyee Bhattacharjya ◽  
Adrian Bachman Ellison ◽  
Vincent Pang ◽  
Arda Gezdur

Purpose Customer service provision is a growing phenomenon on social media and parcel shipping companies have been among the most prominent adopters. This has coincided with greater interest in the development of analysis techniques for unstructured big data from social media platforms, such as the micro-blogging platform, Twitter. Given the growing use of dedicated customer service accounts on Twitter, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the effectiveness with which parcel shipping companies use the platform. Design/methodology/approach This paper demonstrates the use of a combination of tools for retrieving, processing and analysing large volumes of customer service-related conversations generated between parcel shipping companies and their customers in Australia, UK and the USA. Extant studies using data from Twitter tend to focus on the contributions of individual entities and are unable to capture the insights provided by a holistic examination of the interactions. Findings This study identifies the key issues that trigger customer contact with parcel shipping companies on Twitter. It identifies similarities and differences in the approaches that these companies bring to customer engagement and identifies the opportunities for using the medium more effectively. Originality/value The development of consumer-centric supply chains and relevant theories require researchers and practitioners to have the ability to include insights from growing quantities of unstructured data gathered from consumer engagement. This study makes a methodological contribution by demonstrating the use of a set of tools to gather insight from a large volume of conversations on a social media platform.


2019 ◽  
Vol 74 (12) ◽  
pp. 3445-3452 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kate E Wardenburg ◽  
Robert F Potter ◽  
Alaric W D’Souza ◽  
Tahir Hussain ◽  
Meghan A Wallace ◽  
...  

Abstract Objectives Linezolid is an important therapeutic option for the treatment of infections caused by VRE. Linezolid is a synthetic antimicrobial and resistance to this antimicrobial agent remains relatively rare. As a result, data on the comparative genomics of linezolid resistance determinants in Enterococcus faecium are relatively sparse. Methods To address this knowledge gap in E. faecium, we deployed phenotypic antibiotic susceptibility testing and Illumina WGS on hospital surface (environmental) and clinical isolates from the USA and Pakistan. Results We found complete concordance between isolate source country and mechanism of linezolid resistance, with all the US isolates possessing a 23S rRNA gene mutation and the Pakistan isolates harbouring two to three acquired antibiotic resistance genes. These resistance genes include the recently elucidated efflux-pump genes optrA and poxtA and a novel cfr-like variant. Although there was no difference in the linezolid MIC between the US and Pakistan isolates, there was a significant difference in the geometric mean of the MIC between the Pakistan isolates that had two versus three of the acquired antibiotic resistance genes. In five of the Pakistan E. faecium that possessed all three of the resistance genes, we found no difference in the local genetic context of poxtA and the cfr-like gene, but we identified different genetic contexts surrounding optrA. Conclusions These results demonstrate that E. faecium from different geographical regions employ alternative strategies to counter selective pressure of increasing clinical linezolid use.


2007 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 278-302 ◽  
Author(s):  
Russell F. Farnen

This article examines recent trends in childhood and youth policy, political socialization, and civic education in the USA and Canada since 2000. It examines some of the current trends (such as political socialization and education research findings on children and youth) as well as policy initiatives (such as the landmark federal legislation called the ‘No Child Left Behind’ law which mandates yearly testing in reading, writing, and mathematics from grade 5 on while totally ignoring other fields critical to democratic political development (such as social studies and civics). In addition, the article broaches the subject of class and socio-economic status (SES) in the US educational system and other trends such as introducing service learning into the elementary grades. Briefly put, all measures used for evaluation to date point to SES as the principal determinant of test performance, along with race, ethnicity, urban residence, and other such background factors. Service learning is also worth discussing both for its philosophical roots (which are firmly middle class) but also for its fit with the US and Canadian volunteeristic capitalistic political cultures which stress self-reliance and individualism. The article also considers some of the counter-effectiveness research that people (such as Gerald Bracey) use to indicate that except for its elitism, the US/Canadian educational systems are not underperforming and that educational critics have a hostile anti-public policy stance because they wish to privatize everything, regardless of the consequences therefrom to a democratic society.


Author(s):  
Annelise Russell

Social media is changing the business of representation and lawmaker reputation building, and this book uses the US Senate to illustrate the constituent-driven nature of political communication. I offer a critical analysis of senators’ communication on Twitter, the forces that shape it, and the agendas that result. Senators strategically communicate a political image that reflects their unique political persona. They have to decide what they want to be known for, crafting communications that prioritize legislation, constituent service, and party politics in ways that meet the interests of their constituencies and foster promising electoral returns. Senators’ communicated, public priorities—what is termed in this book as the rhetorical agenda—offer a necessary tool for understanding how senators link their carefully crafted public image with potential voters. The rhetorical agenda uses more than 180,000 lawmaker tweets to challenge what we know about representation, removing the institutional and political constraints on congressional communication and giving lawmakers a messaging platform where individual discretion is high, the relative costs are low, and someone is always watching.


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