scholarly journals Pragmatics to Reveal Intent in Social Media Peer Interactions: Mixed Methods Study (Preprint)

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tavleen Singh ◽  
Sofia Olivares ◽  
Trevor Cohen ◽  
Nathan Cobb ◽  
Jing Wang ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Support ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Mixed Methods ◽  
Behavior Change ◽  
Speech Acts ◽  
Peer Interactions ◽  
Health Technologies ◽  
The Social ◽  
And Behavior ◽  
Behavior Profiles

BACKGROUND Online health communities (OHCs) have emerged as the leading venues for behavior change and health-related information seeking. The soul and success of these digital platforms lie in their ability to foster social togetherness and a sense of community by providing personalized support. However, we have a minimal understanding of how conversational posts in these settings lead to collaborative societies and ultimately result in positive health changes through social influence. OBJECTIVE Our objective is to develop a content-specific and intent-sensitive methodological framework for analyzing peer interactions in OHCs. METHODS We developed and applied a mixed-methods approach to understand the manifestation of expressions in peer interactions in OHCs. We applied our approach to describe online social dialogue in the context of two online communities, QuitNet (QN) and the American Diabetes Association (ADA) support community. A total of 3011 randomly selected peer interactions (n=2005 from QN, n=1006 from ADA) were analyzed. Specifically, we conducted thematic analysis to characterize communication content and linguistic expressions (speech acts) embedded within the two data sets. We also developed an empirical user persona based on their engagement levels and behavior profiles. Further, we examined the association between speech acts and communication themes across observed tiers of user engagement and self-reported behavior profiles using the chi-square test or the Fisher test. RESULTS Although social support, the most prevalent communication theme in both communities, was expressed in several subtle manners, the prevalence of emotions was higher in the tobacco cessation community and assertions were higher in the diabetes self-management (DSM) community. Specific communication theme-speech act relationships were revealed, such as the social support theme was significantly associated (<i>P</i>&lt;.05) with 9 speech acts from a total of 10 speech acts (ie, assertion, commissive, declarative, desire, directive, expressive, question, stance, and statement) within the QN community. Only four speech acts (ie, commissive, emotion, expressive, and stance) were significantly associated (<i>P</i>&lt;.05) with the social support theme in the ADA community. The speech acts were also significantly associated with the users’ abstinence status within the QN community and with the users’ lifestyle status within the ADA community (<i>P</i>&lt;.05). CONCLUSIONS Such an overlay of communication intent implicit in online peer interactions alongside content-specific theory-linked characterizations of social media discourse can inform the development of effective digital health technologies in the field of health promotion and behavior change. Our analysis revealed a rich gradient of expressions across a standardized thematic vocabulary, with a distinct variation in emotional and informational needs, depending on the behavioral and disease management profiles within and across the communities. This signifies the need and opportunities for coupling pragmatic messaging in digital therapeutics and care management pathways for personalized support.

Empathy not quarantined: Association between people’s empathy to others and the COVID-19 pandemic situations based on a national survey study (Preprint)

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhibin Jiang ◽  
Fan Yang ◽  
Bu Zhong ◽  
Xuebing Qin
Keyword(s):  
Social Support ◽  
Social Media ◽  
National Survey ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Rural Areas ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
Affective Response ◽  
Survey Study ◽  
Income Levels ◽  
The Social

BACKGROUND The Covid-19 pandemic had turned the world upside down, but not much is known about how people’s empathy might be affected by the pandemic. OBJECTIVE This study examined 1) how empathy towards others might be influenced by the social support people obtained by using social media; and 2) how the individual demographics (e.g., age, income) may affect empathy. METHODS A national survey (N = 943) was conducted in China in February 2020, in which the participants read three real scenarios about low-income urban workers (Scenario I), small business owners in cities (Scenario II), and farmers in rural areas (Scenario III) who underwent hardship due to COVID-19. After exposure to others’ difficulties in the scenarios, the participants’ empathy and anxiety levels were measured. We also measured the social support they had by using social media. RESULTS Results show that social support not only positively impacted empathy, β = .30, P < .001 for Scenario I, β = .30, P < .001 for Scenario II, and β = .29, P < .001 for Scenario III, but also interacted with anxiety in influencing the degree to which participants could maintain empathy towards others, β = .08, P = .010 for Scenario I, and β = .07, P = .033 for scenario II. Age negatively predicted empathy for Scenario I, β = -.08, P = .018 and Scenario III, β = -.08, P = .009, but not for Scenario II, β = -.03, P = .40. Income levels – low, medium, high – positively predicted empathy for Scenario III, F (2, 940) = 8.10, P < .001, but not for Scenario I, F (2, 940) = 2.14, P = .12, or Scenario II, F (2, 940) = 2.93, P = .06. Participants living in big cities expressed greater empathy towards others for Scenario III, F (2, 940) = 4.03, P =.018, but not for Scenario I, F (2, 940) = .81, P = .45, or Scenario II, F (2, 940) = 1.46, P =.23. CONCLUSIONS This study contributes to the literature by discovering the critical role empathy plays in people’s affective response to others during the pandemic. Anxiety did not decrease empathy. However, those gaining more social support on social media showed more empathy for others. Those who resided in cities with higher income levels were more empathetic during the COVID-19 outbreak. This study reveals that the social support people obtained helped maintain empathy to others, making them resilient in challenging times.

scholarly journals Steganographic visual story with mutual-perceived joint attention

2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Yanyang Guo ◽  
Hanzhou Wu ◽  
Xinpeng Zhang
Keyword(s):  
Social Support ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Deep Learning ◽  
Joint Attention ◽  
Online Social Networks ◽  
Generation Model ◽  
High Quality ◽  
Visual Storytelling ◽  
The Social ◽  
User Intervention

AbstractSocial media plays an increasingly important role in providing information and social support to users. Due to the easy dissemination of content, as well as difficulty to track on the social network, we are motivated to study the way of concealing sensitive messages in this channel with high confidentiality. In this paper, we design a steganographic visual stories generation model that enables users to automatically post stego status on social media without any direct user intervention and use the mutual-perceived joint attention (MPJA) to maintain the imperceptibility of stego text. We demonstrate our approach on the visual storytelling (VIST) dataset and show that it yields high-quality steganographic texts. Since the proposed work realizes steganography by auto-generating visual story using deep learning, it enables us to move steganography to the real-world online social networks with intelligent steganographic bots.

scholarly journals Speech Acts in the Facebook Status Updates Posted by an Apostate

2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 226 ◽  
Author(s):  
Azweed Mohamad ◽  
Radzuwan Ab Rashid ◽  
Kamariah Yunus ◽  
Shireena Basree Abdul Rahman ◽  
Saadiyah Darus ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Data Collection ◽  
Speech Acts ◽  
Speech Act ◽  
Expressive Speech ◽  
Social Actions ◽  
The Social ◽  
Data Collection Period ◽  
Collection Period ◽  
Made In

This paper discusses the speech acts in Facebook Status Updates posted by an apostate of Islam. The Facebook Timeline was observed for a duration of two years (January 2015 to December 2016). More than 4000 postings were made in the data collection period. However, only 648 postings are related to apostasy. The data were classified according to the types of speech acts. Expressive speech act is the most frequent speech act (33%, n=215), followed by the directive (27%, n=177), assertive (22%, n=141), and commissive (18%, n=115), respectively. Based on the speech acts used, it is discernible that the apostate attempts to engage other Facebook users and persuade them into accepting her ideology while gaining their support. This paper is novel in the sense that it puts forth the social actions of an apostate which is very scarce in literature. It is also methodologically innovative as it uses social media postings as a tool to explore the apostate’s social actions in an online space.

scholarly journals Going Forward with #MeToo Movement: Towards a Safer Work Environment

2019 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 174-179 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rajiv Gupta ◽  
Arunima Gupta ◽  
Dharmender Nehra
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Sexual Harassment ◽  
Work Environment ◽  
Volcanic Eruption ◽  
Print Media ◽  
Human Psychology ◽  
Psychological Mechanisms ◽  
The Social ◽  
Scientific Attention ◽  
And Behavior

Introduction: The volcanic eruption of the #MeToo movement shows that the problem was there for long and was simmering on. The movement was initiated with the aim of knowing the magnitude of the problem and has now spread worldwide. The cases of the Me Too sexual wave are recent and have not yet attracted much scientific attention, though literature on sexual harassment is widely available and the psychological mechanisms implicated in this movement can be understood and examined through it. Objectives: This article aims to attract attention of the medical fraternity to update themselves of this issue which is essential for better understanding of the movement which has potentially good, bad, and ugly undercurrents. We will call attention to these aspects perusing the literature both at national and international levels. This would also be subjected to an analysis of the established concepts and principles of human psychology and behavior. Conclusion: It is amply clear that the time for sweeping things under the carpet is over and the catharsis that flooded the social media, print media, and TV just show how important it is to make the future workplace fair to both genders.

scholarly journals The Effect of Social Media Use on Depressive Symptoms in Older Adults with Self-Reported Hearing Impairment: An Empirical Study

Healthcare ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (11) ◽  
pp. 1403
Author(s):  
Yiming Ma ◽  
Changyong Liang ◽  
Xuejie Yang ◽  
Haitao Zhang ◽  
Shuping Zhao ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Social Support ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Depressive Symptoms ◽  
Older People ◽  
Hearing Impairment ◽  
Social Isolation ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
The Social ◽  
Subjective Aging

Older people with hearing impairment are more likely to develop depressive symptoms due to physical disability and loss of social communication. This study investigated the effects of social media on social relations, subjective aging, and depressive symptoms in these older adults based on the stimulus-organism-response (S-O-R) framework. It provides new empirical evidence to support improving the mental health and rebuilding the social relations of older people. A formal questionnaire was designed using the Wenjuanxing platform and distributed online through WeChat; 643 valid questionnaires were received from older people with self-reported hearing impairments, and SmartPLS 3.28 was used to analyze the data. The results show that (1) social media significantly impacts the social relations of older people with hearing impairment (social networks, β = 0.132, T = 3.444; social support, β = 0.129, T = 2.95; social isolation, β = 0.107, T = 2.505). (2) For these older people, social isolation has the biggest impact on their psychosocial loss (β = 0.456, T = 10.458), followed by the impact of social support (β = 0.103, T = 2.014); a hypothesis about social network size was not confirmed (β = 0.007, T = 0.182). Both social media (β = 0.096, T = 2.249) and social support (β = 0.174, T = 4.434) significantly affect the self-efficacy of hearing-impaired older people. (3) Both subjective aging (psychosocial loss, β = 0.260, T = 6.036; self-efficacy, β = 0.106, T = 3.15) and social isolation (β = 0.268, T = 6.307) significantly affect depressive symptoms in older people with hearing impairment. This study expands the theories of social media aging cognition, social support, and social networks and can provide practical contributions to the social media use and mental health of special persons 60 years and older.

scholarly journals Motivations for Virtual Community Participation in Social Commerce: Customers and Sellers in the Malay Lifestyle Blogging Community

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Syahida Hassan
Keyword(s):  
Social Support ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Virtual Communities ◽  
Virtual Community ◽  
Structured Interview ◽  
Ease Of Use ◽  
Social Commerce ◽  
Commercial Activities ◽  
The Social

<p>Although the field of social commerce has gained a lot of attention recently, there are many areas that still remain unexplored. A new phenomenon emerging within virtual communities is a blurring between social and commercial activities. To date, scholars in the social commerce literature have either focused on customers in the community or on medium to large scale businesses. There has been little research on social commerce communities which include micro-businesses despite their rapid growth in South East Asian countries.  This study explores a social commerce community of Malay lifestyle bloggers, who are a subset of the Malaysian blogosphere community. Bloggers begin by using the personal genre, some then move on to set up online businesses using their personal blogs as a platform. The characteristic of blogging’s ease of use means there are low barriers to starting a small business, merging blogging and commerce. This changes the nature of the community by bringing in a new relationship, as well as relationships between bloggers and readers, there are now also relationships between sellers and customers.  This study aims to understand the motivations for both sellers and customers, and how their relationships as bloggers and readers influence their participation in social commerce within the same community. To address the research objective, 20 sellers and 21 customers who also play a role as bloggers or readers were interviewed. In-depth interviews using laddering and semi-structured interview techniques were carried out to explore social commerce behaviour, the perceived consequences, and goals or values of participation. In addition, observation was also conducted on the platform used by the sellers. Data was coded using NVivo whilst the themes arising from the coding process were transformed into an implication matrix and hierarchical value map using Ladderux software.  This study found that strong ties within the community, influenced by homophily and the sense of virtual community, motivated the customers to participate in commercial activities in order to obtain their goals which included a sense of obligation, loyalty, satisfaction and self-esteem. The relationships influenced customers to trust each other, provide social support and made purchasing products more convenient. Sellers were influenced by the convenience of using social media and the social support provided by the customers which helped them to achieve their goals which are profit and business sustainability.  This study contributes to social commerce theory by highlighting an underexplored type of social commerce setting and addressing how trust can be transferred from social to commercial activities. The findings provide a useful insight for businesses, regardless of their size, to build an understanding of the need to create a good relationship with their customers. For macro-businesses, this model can be used to identify what is lacking in their social media marketing strategy.</p>

scholarly journals Pengaruh Media Sosial Twitter Terhadap Wawasan Kebangsaan Remaja Indonesia dari Perspektif Psikologi Sosial

2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 230-235
Author(s):  
Nayla Rizqiyah ◽  
Dinie Anggraeni Dewi
Keyword(s):  
Social Psychology ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Case Study Method ◽  
Public Figures ◽  
The Social ◽  
Psychology Theory ◽  
Twitter Users ◽  
Main Instrument ◽  
And Behavior

The stage of human development in psychology is divided into several phases. In this case, the social psychology theory of development and behavior will be used to explore the patterns of social media influence. By using the case study method, this study aims to determine how the influence of Twitter social media on the national insight of adolescents. According to Erikson, adolescence begins at the age of 15-20 years. The main instrument that influences the national insight of the younger generation today is content from Twitter users themselves, as well as from influencers or public figures who provide knowledge or introduce new mindsets in dealing with national issues. Sometimes it is just to add the national insight that Twitter users have. The purpose of writing this article is to find out how teenage Twitter users are able to accept existing content and how it affects their national insight

scholarly journals THE ROLE OF SOCIAL COMMERCE CONSTRUCTS, SOCIAL SUPPORT, AND TRUST IN COMMUNITY ON SOCIAL COMMERCE ACTIVITIES

2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 74-83
Author(s):  
Amir Hidayatulloh
Keyword(s):  
Social Support ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Emotional Support ◽  
Sampling Technique ◽  
Information Support ◽  
Social Commerce ◽  
The Social ◽  
Convenience Sampling ◽  
The Individual

This study  aims  to  analyze  social  commerce  constructs, social  support,  and  individual  trust in the  community   in   social   commerce   activities.   Social   support   includes   emotional   support  and informational  support.  The population  was  social  media  users, while  the  samples were  social media users who had made purchase at least two transactions through social media. The sampling technique was convenience sampling. Totally, 162 respondents were involved. Hypothesis testing was  done using  Warp PLS. This study  reveals that individual  trust in  the community  can be built directly  through  the social  commerce  constructs. These  constructs affects both  emotional  support and information support, in which they will ultimately affect the individual trust in the community. Furthermore,  social  commerce  intention  is influenced  by  individual  trust in  the community  and emotional  support.  However,  information  support does not  affect  the social commerce  intention.

scholarly journals Linguistic politeness in Polish social media – an overview of the problem

2021 ◽  
Vol 35 ◽  
pp. 171-193
Author(s):  
Danuta Kępa-Figura
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Speech Acts ◽  
Indirect Speech ◽  
Linguistic Politeness ◽  
Indirect Speech Acts ◽  
The Social ◽  
Verbal Messages

The main objective of this article is to formulate the principles of linguistic politeness that are operative in Polish social media (SM). The analysis focuses on the most popular SM in Poland – Facebook. The research has shown that the form of linguistic politeness operative in SM depends on: technical functionality; talking about oneself and using indirect speech acts is a commonly accepted behaviour in SM; verbal and non-verbal messages are considered equivalent acts of linguistic politeness; the most important cultural principles underlying linguistic politeness in SM are an orientation towards sincerity of conversation and a ridiculing attitude towards reality. Although the manifestations of the traditional and the social media model of linguistic politeness differ, both use the same communication script: conforming to the expectations of the recipient.

scholarly journals Social Support of Male Breast Cancer Patients—a Mixed-Methods Analysis

2019 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 155798831987000 ◽  
Author(s):  
Evamarie Midding ◽  
Sarah Maria Halbach ◽  
Christoph Kowalski ◽  
Rainer Weber ◽  
Rachel Würstlein ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Breast Cancer ◽  
Social Support ◽  
Mixed Methods ◽  
Cancer Patients ◽  
Social Environment ◽  
Male Breast Cancer ◽  
Male Breast ◽  
Informational Support ◽  
Breast Cancer Patients ◽  
The Social

The aim of this study is to explore the social support of male breast cancer patients (MBCP) in Germany. In particular, three aspects of social support focus on (a) the used resources within the social environment, (b) the received support, and (c) the differences of used social support between MBCP. A mixed-methods design is applied including data of qualitative interviews ( N = 27 MBCP) and a written questionnaire ( N = 100 MBCP). MBCP use different resources of support from their social environment like partners, family, friends, colleagues, other breast cancer patients, and medical experts. Mostly, MBCP receive emotional and informational support. They often receive emotional support from their partners and informational support from medical experts. Different types of social support usage can be identified dependent on age, occupation, and severity of disease. The older the patients and the less the disease severity, the less social support MBCP use. Within cancer care, partners and the closer social environment should be included more as they are a key resource for MBCP. As health-care professions might also be an important resource of support for MBCP, further research should examine this resource.

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