scholarly journals Evaluating Two Common Strategies for Research Participant Recruitment Into Autism Studies: Observational Study

10.2196/16752 ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (9) ◽  
pp. e16752
Author(s):  
Kelli L Ahmed ◽  
Andrea R Simon ◽  
Jack R Dempsey ◽  
Rodney C Samaco ◽  
Robin P Goin-Kochel
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Research Participant ◽  
Autism Spectrum ◽  
Radio Station ◽  
Medical Provider ◽  
Ongoing Research ◽  
Fm Radio ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
The Cost ◽  
Radio Campaign

Background Ongoing research is necessary to better understand the causes of autism spectrum disorder (ASD), the developmental outcomes for individuals diagnosed with ASD, and the efficacy of the interventions. However, it is often difficult to recruit sufficient numbers of participants for studies, and despite the prevalence of ASD (currently estimated to affect 1 in 54 children), little research has focused on how to efficiently recruit participants with ASD. Objective The aim of this study was to determine the efficacy of two different paid advertisements—social media and radio advertising—in recruiting participants for a study enrolling people with ASD and their family members by examining the number of participants enrolled, the cost per participant, and the geographic reach of each type of advertising. Methods We examined participant enrollment in a study following nonoverlapping paid advertisements on a popular FM radio station (aired in three cities across two states) and Facebook (six advertisements that ran in five cities across two states). The total paid investment in the radio campaign was $12,030 and that in the Facebook campaign was $2950. Following the advertising campaigns, 1391 participants in the study who were affiliated with the Houston, Texas, site received email invitations to participate in a brief survey about the ways in which they learned about the study (eg, social media, medical provider, website) and which of these were most influential in their decisions to participate; 374 (26.8%) of the participants completed this survey. Results Social media advertising outperformed radio in all three parameters examined by enrolling more participants (338 vs 149), with a lower average cost per participant ($8.73 vs $80.74) and a wider geographic reach, based on a comparison of the number of zip codes within and outside of Texas for questionnaire respondents who rated social media as the most influential method of contact (n=367, χ21=5.85, P=.02). Of the 374 survey participants, 139 (37.2%) reported that they had seen the study on social media prior to enrollment, while only 9 (2.4%) said they heard about it via radio. Conclusions Our findings suggest that advertising on social media can efficiently reach a large pool of potential participants with ASD, increasing the likelihood of meeting study enrollment goals. Researchers should consider allocating at least some portion of recruitment dollars to social media platforms as a means of quickly and inexpensively reaching out to their target populations, including for studies with in-person procedures.

scholarly journals Evaluating Two Common Strategies for Research Participant Recruitment Into Autism Studies: Observational Study (Preprint)

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kelli L Ahmed ◽  
Andrea R Simon ◽  
Jack R Dempsey ◽  
Rodney C Samaco ◽  
Robin P Goin-Kochel
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Research Participant ◽  
Autism Spectrum ◽  
Radio Station ◽  
Medical Provider ◽  
Ongoing Research ◽  
Fm Radio ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
The Cost ◽  
Radio Campaign

BACKGROUND Ongoing research is necessary to better understand the causes of autism spectrum disorder (ASD), the developmental outcomes for individuals diagnosed with ASD, and the efficacy of the interventions. However, it is often difficult to recruit sufficient numbers of participants for studies, and despite the prevalence of ASD (currently estimated to affect 1 in 54 children), little research has focused on how to efficiently recruit participants with ASD. OBJECTIVE The aim of this study was to determine the efficacy of two different paid advertisements—social media and radio advertising—in recruiting participants for a study enrolling people with ASD and their family members by examining the number of participants enrolled, the cost per participant, and the geographic reach of each type of advertising. METHODS We examined participant enrollment in a study following nonoverlapping paid advertisements on a popular FM radio station (aired in three cities across two states) and Facebook (six advertisements that ran in five cities across two states). The total paid investment in the radio campaign was $12,030 and that in the Facebook campaign was $2950. Following the advertising campaigns, 1391 participants in the study who were affiliated with the Houston, Texas, site received email invitations to participate in a brief survey about the ways in which they learned about the study (eg, social media, medical provider, website) and which of these were most influential in their decisions to participate; 374 (26.8%) of the participants completed this survey. RESULTS Social media advertising outperformed radio in all three parameters examined by enrolling more participants (338 vs 149), with a lower average cost per participant ($8.73 vs $80.74) and a wider geographic reach, based on a comparison of the number of zip codes within and outside of Texas for questionnaire respondents who rated social media as the most influential method of contact (n=367, χ<sup>2</sup><sub>1</sub>=5.85, <i>P</i>=.02). Of the 374 survey participants, 139 (37.2%) reported that they had seen the study on social media prior to enrollment, while only 9 (2.4%) said they heard about it via radio. CONCLUSIONS Our findings suggest that advertising on social media can efficiently reach a large pool of potential participants with ASD, increasing the likelihood of meeting study enrollment goals. Researchers should consider allocating at least some portion of recruitment dollars to social media platforms as a means of quickly and inexpensively reaching out to their target populations, including for studies with in-person procedures.

What about WhatsApp? A systematic review of WhatsApp and its role in civic and political engagement

First Monday ◽  
2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Natalie Pang ◽  
Yue Ting Woo
Keyword(s):  
Systematic Review ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Civic Engagement ◽  
Instant Messaging ◽  
Empirical Studies ◽  
Political Engagement ◽  
Communication Tool ◽  
Ongoing Research ◽  
Social Media Platforms

The use of instant messaging platforms such as WhatsApp for civic and political purposes has been observed and reported to be growing faster than other social media platforms especially in recent years. Using empirical research on WhatsApp studies published from 2009 to 2019 as its corpus of data, this article systematically reviews them to provide more robust conclusions about WhatsApp and its relationship with political and/or civic engagement. This paper seeks to answer three central questions related to WhatsApp and engagement: 1) What are the motivations in using WhatsApp and how do they manifest in the use of WhatsApp as a communication tool? 2) What is the role of WhatsApp in civic and political engagement? 3) How do researchers study the use of WhatsApp in civic and political engagement? The review finds that across empirical studies, while WhatsApp is used by activists and organisational networks for mobilisation and coordinating actions, it is also used by users who draw on the affordances of the medium for informal and ‘de-politicised’ conversations. The findings contribute to the theorising of social media-mediated movements and activism and highlight methodological gaps of ongoing research on WhatsApp.

scholarly journals Harnessing Social Media to Explore Youth Social Withdrawal in Three Major Cities in China: Cross-Sectional Web Survey

2018 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. e34 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lucia Lin Liu ◽  
Tim MH Li ◽  
Alan R Teo ◽  
Takahiro A Kato ◽  
Paul WC Wong
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Social Networking ◽  
Social Withdrawal ◽  
Web Survey ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Metropolitan Cities ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
Employment Education ◽  
Use Of The Internet ◽  
The Cost

Background Socially withdrawn youth belong to an emerging subgroup of youth who are not in employment, education, or training and who have limited social interaction intention and opportunities. The use of the internet and social media is expected to be an alternative and feasible way to reach this group of young people because of their reclusive nature. Objective The aim of this study was to explore the possibility of using various social media platforms to investigate the existence of the phenomenon of youth social withdrawal in 3 major cities in China. Methods A cross-sectional open Web survey was conducted from October 2015 to May 2016 to identify and reach socially withdrawn youth in 3 metropolitan cities in China: Beijing, Shanghai, and Shenzhen. To advertise the survey, 3 social media platforms were used: Weibo, WeChat, and Wandianba, a social networking gaming website. Results In total, 137 participants completed the survey, among whom 13 (9.5%) were identified as belonging to the withdrawal group, 7 (5.1%) to the asocial group, and 9 (6.6%) to the hikikomori group (both withdrawn and asocial for more than 3 months). The cost of recruitment via Weibo was US $7.27 per participant. Conclusions Several social media platforms in China are viable and inexpensive tools to reach socially withdrawn youth, and internet platforms that specialize in a certain culture or type of entertainment appeared to be more effective in reaching socially withdrawn youth.

scholarly journals THE IMPACTS OF FIRM CHARACTERISTICS ON SOCIAL MEDIA USAGE OF SMEs: EVIDENCE FROM THE CZECH REPUBLIC

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 102-113
Author(s):  
Jan Žufan ◽  
Mehmet Civelek ◽  
Iveta Hamarneh ◽  
Ľubomír Kmeco
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Lower Amount ◽  
Firm Characteristics ◽  
Online Questionnaire ◽  
The Czech Republic ◽  
Media Usage ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
Statistical Program ◽  
Media Channels ◽  
The Cost

Comparing to larger businesses, SMEs face more barriers in their marketing operations since they have a lower amount of financial resources and assets. But the emergence of social media platforms has provided many chances for them to overcome these barriers by enabling them to do marketing and promotion activities. Although these social media channels are easy to access by each of their users, awareness, perceptions, capabilities of SMEs might differ when using these platforms. In this regard, this research aims to analyze and find out whether social media usage differs among SMEs regarding their age and size.  In parallel with this purpose, the researchers used an online questionnaire to collect data from 454 Czech SMEs. These SMEs were selected by applying a random sampling method and then an online questionnaire was directed to the respondents who were owners and managers of these enterprises. To analyze the data, the researchers performed an Independent T-test in SPSS statistical program. According to the results, social media usage does not differ between smaller-larger and younger-older SMEs. The reasons for these similarities among SMEs might stem from the industry that they operate, the cost of social media usage, and the age of younger firms’ executives. Nonexistence of the differences among analyzed Czech SMEs makes this paper differ from other studies. Some policy implementations are also offered by the researchers to increase awareness, skills, and usage of social media platforms by SMEs.

scholarly journals A Study on the Influence of Instagram on Business Development of Unorganised Netpreneurs Among Various Popular Social Media Platforms

2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (10) ◽  
pp. 111-114
Author(s):  
Sibichan Thomas ◽  
S. Rajendran
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Social Networking ◽  
Social Networking Sites ◽  
Customer Relations ◽  
Cost Effective ◽  
Business Development ◽  
Social Media Marketing ◽  
Social Media Networks ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
The Cost

Social networking sites have become a new tool in marketing. A large number of companies already use Instagram as a platform for marketing. Myriads of opportunities are waiting for retailers through social media networks. Instagram based platform provides retailers a new arena. Most of the netpreneurs are using Instagram for customer relations, and to introduce new brands to the customers. It has also been proved as one of the cost effective marketing method for retailers. Throughout the study and survey, it has been proved that about 90% of respondents agree that Instagram is one among the top social sites, that supports marketing. Most of the netpreneurs use different tactics in business, by putting offers and promotion. Instagram could be used as a better platform for the collaboration of different netpreneurs to handle the tasks. Though social media marketing is time consuming, by outsourcing netpreneurs can overcome the main hurdle in this marketing strategy.

scholarly journals Threats of Bots and Other Bad Actors to Data Quality Following Research Participant Recruitment Through Social Media: Cross-Sectional Questionnaire (Preprint)

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rachel Pozzar ◽  
Marilyn J Hammer ◽  
Meghan Underhill-Blazey ◽  
Alexi A Wright ◽  
James A Tulsky ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Data Quality ◽  
Health Research ◽  
Data Integrity ◽  
Research Participant ◽  
The United States ◽  
Quality Data ◽  
Participant Recruitment ◽  
Research Participants ◽  
Social Media Platforms

BACKGROUND Recruitment of health research participants through social media is becoming more common. In the United States, 80% of adults use at least one social media platform. Social media platforms may allow researchers to reach potential participants efficiently. However, online research methods may be associated with unique threats to sample validity and data integrity. Limited research has described issues of data quality and authenticity associated with the recruitment of health research participants through social media, and sources of low-quality and fraudulent data in this context are poorly understood. OBJECTIVE The goal of the research was to describe and explain threats to sample validity and data integrity following recruitment of health research participants through social media and summarize recommended strategies to mitigate these threats. Our experience designing and implementing a research study using social media recruitment and online data collection serves as a case study. METHODS Using published strategies to preserve data integrity, we recruited participants to complete an online survey through the social media platforms Twitter and Facebook. Participants were to receive $15 upon survey completion. Prior to manually issuing remuneration, we reviewed completed surveys for indicators of fraudulent or low-quality data. Indicators attributable to respondent error were labeled suspicious, while those suggesting misrepresentation were labeled fraudulent. We planned to remove cases with 1 fraudulent indicator or at least 3 suspicious indicators. RESULTS Within 7 hours of survey activation, we received 271 completed surveys. We classified 94.5% (256/271) of cases as fraudulent and 5.5% (15/271) as suspicious. In total, 86.7% (235/271) provided inconsistent responses to verifiable items and 16.2% (44/271) exhibited evidence of bot automation. Of the fraudulent cases, 53.9% (138/256) provided a duplicate or unusual response to one or more open-ended items and 52.0% (133/256) exhibited evidence of inattention. CONCLUSIONS Research findings from several disciplines suggest studies in which research participants are recruited through social media are susceptible to data quality issues. Opportunistic individuals who use virtual private servers to fraudulently complete research surveys for profit may contribute to low-quality data. Strategies to preserve data integrity following research participant recruitment through social media are limited. Development and testing of novel strategies to prevent and detect fraud is a research priority.

scholarly journals HOW A CONNECTIVE ACTION IS DISRUPTED IN RESTRICTIVE CONTEXTS? THE CASE OF DISMANTLING #RAPE ON PERSIAN TWITTER

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hossein Kermani ◽  
Niloofar Hooman
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Political Activism ◽  
Fake News ◽  
Positive Side ◽  
Marginalized Groups ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
Connective Action ◽  
The Cost ◽  
Scholarly Attention ◽  
Ordinary Citizens

Having reduced the cost of political activism, social media has provided room for ordinary citizens to engage in politics, build networks, spread information, and resist oppressive regulation (Howard & Hussain, 2013; Margetts et al., 2016). The ideas of connective action (Bennett & Segerberg, 2012) and hashtag activism (Jackson et al., 2020) are recent endeavors to theorize such transitions. However, the existing literature has overemphasized the positive side of social media platforms, in particular Twitter, in challenging inequalities, as well as in giving voice to marginalized groups (Lindgren, 2019; Wonneberger et al., 2020). While scholars, to a lesser extent, investigated how social media are used to suppress online protest from a normative and more general standpoint (Gunitsky, 2015), the ways that a connective action could be disrupted, e.g., by state actors has not received much scholarly attention yet. This has become particularly important in recent years, as several governments across the globe have adopted new tactics to dismantle connective actions, such as the coordinated dissemination of fake news. This study sheds light on such disruptive processes by investigating how a connective action in the Iranian Twittersphere (revolving around #rape , i.e., Iranian #MeToo) was derailed.

scholarly journals Threats of Bots and Other Bad Actors to Data Quality Following Research Participant Recruitment Through Social Media: Cross-Sectional Questionnaire

10.2196/23021 ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (10) ◽  
pp. e23021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rachel Pozzar ◽  
Marilyn J Hammer ◽  
Meghan Underhill-Blazey ◽  
Alexi A Wright ◽  
James A Tulsky ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Data Quality ◽  
Health Research ◽  
Data Integrity ◽  
Research Participant ◽  
The United States ◽  
Quality Data ◽  
Participant Recruitment ◽  
Research Participants ◽  
Social Media Platforms

Background Recruitment of health research participants through social media is becoming more common. In the United States, 80% of adults use at least one social media platform. Social media platforms may allow researchers to reach potential participants efficiently. However, online research methods may be associated with unique threats to sample validity and data integrity. Limited research has described issues of data quality and authenticity associated with the recruitment of health research participants through social media, and sources of low-quality and fraudulent data in this context are poorly understood. Objective The goal of the research was to describe and explain threats to sample validity and data integrity following recruitment of health research participants through social media and summarize recommended strategies to mitigate these threats. Our experience designing and implementing a research study using social media recruitment and online data collection serves as a case study. Methods Using published strategies to preserve data integrity, we recruited participants to complete an online survey through the social media platforms Twitter and Facebook. Participants were to receive $15 upon survey completion. Prior to manually issuing remuneration, we reviewed completed surveys for indicators of fraudulent or low-quality data. Indicators attributable to respondent error were labeled suspicious, while those suggesting misrepresentation were labeled fraudulent. We planned to remove cases with 1 fraudulent indicator or at least 3 suspicious indicators. Results Within 7 hours of survey activation, we received 271 completed surveys. We classified 94.5% (256/271) of cases as fraudulent and 5.5% (15/271) as suspicious. In total, 86.7% (235/271) provided inconsistent responses to verifiable items and 16.2% (44/271) exhibited evidence of bot automation. Of the fraudulent cases, 53.9% (138/256) provided a duplicate or unusual response to one or more open-ended items and 52.0% (133/256) exhibited evidence of inattention. Conclusions Research findings from several disciplines suggest studies in which research participants are recruited through social media are susceptible to data quality issues. Opportunistic individuals who use virtual private servers to fraudulently complete research surveys for profit may contribute to low-quality data. Strategies to preserve data integrity following research participant recruitment through social media are limited. Development and testing of novel strategies to prevent and detect fraud is a research priority.

scholarly journals INTO THE BELLY OF THE BEAST: THE RESEARCH ON SOCIAL MEDIA AND COVID-19 MISINFORMATION IN 2020

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicola Righetti ◽  
Luca Rossi ◽  
Giada Marino
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Online Survey ◽  
Interdisciplinary Studies ◽  
Media Communication ◽  
Ongoing Research ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
Ease Of Access ◽  
Access To Data

In this paper we present some preliminary findings from an ongoing research on a comprehensive corpus of 378 interdisciplinary studies about misinformation and COVID-19 published in 2020, focusing on the role of social media platforms in spreading and countering mis- and disinformation. We followed the PRISMA guidelines for systematic reviews to collect and screen results, and a coding scheme based on methodological and substantive questions to analyze them. The preliminary results show, among others, that research on COVID-19 misinformation reproduces a well-known trend of differentiated attention to social media platforms based on both popularity among users and ease of access to data by scholars, that online survey distributed via social media has been a very popular approach, and the presence of a wide range of perspectives, and sometimes diverging point of views, on problematic information, in terms of prevalence of misinformation, countermeasures, and the role of social media communication. During the conference presentation, comprehensive results from the research will be presented.

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