Hashtag Diplomacy and Its Use in Africa

2020 ◽  
Vol 65 (2) ◽  
pp. 133-156
Author(s):  
Suzanne Graham
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Public Diplomacy ◽  
International Policy ◽  
Policy Actors ◽  
The World ◽  
Media Platform ◽  
Internet Penetration ◽  
Twitter Users ◽  
Heads Of State ◽  
Foreign Ministries

"Hashtag diplomacy or ‘Twitter’ diplomacy, sometimes referred to as twiplomacy, is an emerging tool used by international policy actors, such as heads of state and diplomats, to conduct public diplomacy and to reach out to worldwide audiences. In a 2018 study of government Twitter users around the world, 951 Twitter accounts were identified as belonging to state leaders and foreign ministries in 187 countries. Therefore, close to 100% of United Nations members states (193 members) consider Twitter to be a valid enough tool to employ on a frequent basis. These users have a combined audience of close to 490 million followers. But what of Twitter’s value for individual diplomats, foreign ministries and heads of state and government in Africa? Can this tool be of use in the management and implementation of public diplomacy in a continent where internet penetration is 40% of the combined population and if so, what are these foreign policymakers using it for? This chapter intends to address these questions by exploring the use of hashtag diplomacy in Africa, and other regions, in reference to select examples. It will begin by situating this type of diplomacy under the umbrella of public diplomacy and it will then move on to consider feasibility and reach of this social media platform in Africa. Keywords: hashtag/Twitter diplomacy; Africa; social media "

scholarly journals Making sense of “superbugs” on YouTube: A storytelling approach

2021 ◽  
pp. 096366252198925
Author(s):  
Monika Djerf-Pierre ◽  
Mia Lindgren
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Antimicrobial Resistance ◽  
Health Knowledge ◽  
Social Media Platform ◽  
Making Sense ◽  
New Knowledge ◽  
The World ◽  
Media Platform ◽  
Youtube Videos ◽  
Health Experts

Antimicrobial resistance is one of the greatest challenges facing the world. With the rapid growth of social media, YouTube has become an influential social media platform providing publics with expert health knowledge. This article explores how antimicrobial resistance is communicated on YouTube. Drawing on qualitative media analyses of the most viewed YouTube videos 2016–2020, we identify seven different genres and two main storytelling approaches, personalized and fictionalized storytelling, used to make sense of antimicrobial resistance and its complexities. The study contributes new knowledge about YouTube as a platform for health communication and the types of videos about antimicrobial resistance that gets most traffic. This is useful, not the least for public health experts working to improve communication strategies that target hard-to-reach media publics.

scholarly journals Linguistic drivers of misinformation diffusion on social media during the COVID-19 pandemic

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Giandomenico Di Domenico ◽  
Annamaria Tuan ◽  
Marco Visentin
Keyword(s):  
Machine Learning ◽  
Social Media ◽  
New Technologies ◽  
Fake News ◽  
Conspiracy Theories ◽  
Social Media Platform ◽  
The Social ◽  
Media Platform ◽  
Textual Cues ◽  
Twitter Users

AbstractIn the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, unprecedent amounts of fake news and hoax spread on social media. In particular, conspiracy theories argued on the effect of specific new technologies like 5G and misinformation tarnished the reputation of brands like Huawei. Language plays a crucial role in understanding the motivational determinants of social media users in sharing misinformation, as people extract meaning from information based on their discursive resources and their skillset. In this paper, we analyze textual and non-textual cues from a panel of 4923 tweets containing the hashtags #5G and #Huawei during the first week of May 2020, when several countries were still adopting lockdown measures, to determine whether or not a tweet is retweeted and, if so, how much it is retweeted. Overall, through traditional logistic regression and machine learning, we found different effects of the textual and non-textual cues on the retweeting of a tweet and on its ability to accumulate retweets. In particular, the presence of misinformation plays an interesting role in spreading the tweet on the network. More importantly, the relative influence of the cues suggests that Twitter users actually read a tweet but not necessarily they understand or critically evaluate it before deciding to share it on the social media platform.

Platform Politics: The Emergence of Alternative Social Media in India

2021 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 269-276
Author(s):  
Prashanth Bhat
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Hate Speech ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Bharatiya Janata Party ◽  
The World ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
Media Platform ◽  
Corporate Social ◽  
Widespread Dissemination

Widespread dissemination of hate speech on corporate social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube has necessitated technological companies to moderate content on their platforms. At the receiving end of these content moderation efforts are supporters of right-wing populist parties, who have gained notoriety for harassing journalists, spreading disinformation, and vilifying liberal activists. In recent months, several prominent right-wing figures across the world were removed from social media - a phenomenon also known as ‘deplatforming’- for violating platform policies. Prominent among such right-wing groups are online supporters of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in India, who have begun accusing corporate social media of pursuing a ‘liberal agenda’ and ‘curtailing free speech.’ In response to deplatforming, the BJP-led Government of India has aggressively promoted and embraced Koo, an indigenously developed social media platform. This commentary examines the implications of this alternative social platform for the online communicative environment in the Indian public sphere.

Spiritualism and the Resurgence of Fake News

2020 ◽  
pp. 222-237
Author(s):  
Kristy A. Hesketh
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Mass Media ◽  
Fake News ◽  
News Stories ◽  
News Reports ◽  
The World ◽  
Spirit World ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
Media Platform ◽  
False News

This chapter explores the Spiritualist movement and its rapid growth due to the formation of mass media and compares these events with the current rise of fake news in the mass media. The technology of cheaper publications created a media platform that featured stories about Spiritualist mediums and communications with the spirit world. These articles were published in newspapers next to regular news creating a blurred line between real and hoax news stories. Laws were later created to address instances of fraud that occurred in the medium industry. Today, social media platforms provide a similar vessel for the spread of fake news. Online fake news is published alongside legitimate news reports leaving readers unable to differentiate between real and fake articles. Around the world countries are actioning initiatives to address the proliferation of false news to prevent the spread of misinformation. This chapter compares the parallels between these events, how hoaxes and fake news begin and spread, and examines the measures governments are taking to curb the growth of misinformation.

scholarly journals “The Social Media Blue Bird Creating an Online Sensation”: A Sentimental Analysis with Reference to Coke-studio Hashtags

2019 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 15-33
Author(s):  
Anand Shankar Raja Ram ◽  
Amaravathi M
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Brand Image ◽  
Consumer Preferences ◽  
Media Analysis ◽  
Social Media Analysis ◽  
Differential Approach ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
Huge Impact ◽  
Media Platform

Coke-Studio, an online platform hosted in YouTube has been successful in both countries and has been discussed on another popular social media platform Twitter. However, studies report that Pakistan Coke-studio fares better in terms of its emotive content than its Indian edition. The paper analyses how the ―Hashtag fever‖ which has created a huge impact on brand image and profitability position of firms all around the world leads to the differential approach. Though a detailed Social Media Analysis (SMA), this paper aims to examine how hashtags work on the Twitter platforms and conclude how social-media often offers a glimpse of subconscious consumer preferences and its implications thereof.

scholarly journals The State of Social Media in Canada 2017

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anatoliy Gruzd ◽  
Jenna Jacobson ◽  
Philip Mai ◽  
Elizabeth Dubois
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Online Survey ◽  
Daily Routine ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
P 16 ◽  
Survey Results ◽  
Media Platform

Today, billions of people around the world are turning to social media to socialize, conduct business, keep up with the news, as well as discover, discuss, and share information. The significance of this global adoption of a relatively new communication and information technology cannot be overlooked. As a country, Canada has one of the most connected populations in the world. For many Canadians, social media is now a part of their daily routine. Our survey results show that an overwhelming majority of online Canadian adults (94%) have an account on at least one social media platform. This makes it critical for policy makers, researchers, and others to have a better grasp of what social media platforms Canadians are using to connect and converse with one another. This report provides a snapshot of the social media usage trends and patterns amongst online Canadian adults based on an online survey of 1,500 participants (see Methods on p. 16 for more details).

scholarly journals Predicting Depression From Language-Based Emotion Dynamics: Longitudinal Analysis of Facebook and Twitter Status Updates (Preprint)

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth M Seabrook ◽  
Margaret L Kern ◽  
Ben D Fulcher ◽  
Nikki S Rickard
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Negative Emotion ◽  
Depression Severity ◽  
Emotion Words ◽  
Emotion Word ◽  
The Social ◽  
Average Proportion ◽  
Media Platform ◽  
Twitter Users ◽  
Dynamic Measures

BACKGROUND Frequent expression of negative emotion words on social media has been linked to depression. However, metrics have relied on average values, not dynamic measures of emotional volatility. OBJECTIVE The aim of this study was to report on the associations between depression severity and the variability (time-unstructured) and instability (time-structured) in emotion word expression on Facebook and Twitter across status updates. METHODS Status updates and depression severity ratings of 29 Facebook users and 49 Twitter users were collected through the app MoodPrism. The average proportion of positive and negative emotion words used, within-person variability, and instability were computed. RESULTS Negative emotion word instability was a significant predictor of greater depression severity on Facebook (rs(29)=.44, P=.02, 95% CI 0.09-0.69), even after controlling for the average proportion of negative emotion words used (partial rs(26)=.51, P=.006) and within-person variability (partial rs(26)=.49, P=.009). A different pattern emerged on Twitter where greater negative emotion word variability indicated lower depression severity (rs(49)=−.34, P=.01, 95% CI −0.58 to 0.09). Differences between Facebook and Twitter users in their emotion word patterns and psychological characteristics were also explored. CONCLUSIONS The findings suggest that negative emotion word instability may be a simple yet sensitive measure of time-structured variability, useful when screening for depression through social media, though its usefulness may depend on the social media platform.

scholarly journals Trend of Social Media News: A Viewpoint of COVID-19 Tweets Using Natural Language Processing

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
AISDL
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Natural Language Processing ◽  
Natural Language ◽  
Language Processing ◽  
Developed Countries ◽  
World Health ◽  
The World ◽  
Twitter Users ◽  
The Developed Countries ◽  
Health Organization

The meteoric rise of social media news during the ongoing COVID-19 is worthy of advanced research. Freedom of speech in many parts of the world, especially the developed countries and liberty of socialization, calls for noteworthy information sharing during the panic pandemic. However, as a communication intervention during crises in the past, social media use is remarkable; the Tweets generated via Twitter during the ongoing COVID-19 is incomparable with the former records. This study examines social media news trends and compares the Tweets on COVID-19 as a corpus from Twitter. By deploying Natural Language Processing (NLP) methods on tweets, we were able to extract and quantify the similarities between some tweets over time, which means that some people say the same thing about the pandemic while other Twitter users view it differently. The tools we used are Spacy, Networkx, WordCloud, and Re. This study contributes to the social media literature by understanding the similarity and divergence of COVID-19 tweets of the public and health agencies such as the World Health Organization (WHO). The study also sheds more light on the COVID-19 sparse and densely text network and their implications for the policymakers. The study explained the limitations and proposed future studies.

#Cleftlip/Palate: What Is the World Talking About?

2020 ◽  
Vol 57 (9) ◽  
pp. 1093-1099
Author(s):  
Alexandra S. Hudson ◽  
Alexander D. Morzycki ◽  
Regan Guilfoyle
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Cleft Lip ◽  
Cleft Lip And Palate ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
Cleft Lip Palate ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
Media Platform ◽  
Published Research

Objective: Studies have begun analyzing how the world converses on social media platforms about medical/surgical topics. This study’s objective was to examine how cleft lip and palate, two of the most common birth defects in the world, are discussed on the social media platform Twitter. No study to date has analyzed this topic. Methods: Tweets were identified using any of the following: cleft, cleft lip, cleft palate, #cleft, #cleftlip, #cleftpalate. Eight months between 2017 and 2018 were analyzed. Main Outcome Measures: The primary outcome was the tweet subject matter. Secondary outcomes were author characteristics, tweet engagement, multimedia, and tweet accuracy Results: A total of 1222 tweets were included. #Cleft was the most common hashtag (71%), and it was significantly associated with more retweets ( P = .03). Twenty-seven countries tweeted, with the United States (34%) and India (27%) producing the most. Charities (36%), hospitals (14%), and physicians (13%) were the most common authors. Over three-quarters of tweets were self-promotional. The top content included charity information (22%) and patients’ cleft stories (14%). Tweets about patient safety/care and surgical service trips generated the most engagement. The accuracy of educational tweets was 38% low accuracy and 1% inaccurate. One hundred forty-nine tweets (12%) discussed a published research article, but 41 tweets did not share a link. Conclusions: Charities dominate the cleft lip/palate “Twitterverse.” Most tweets were self-promotional, and over a third of educational tweets were low accuracy. As the cleft social media community continues to grow, we recommend using the hashtag #cleft to reach a wider audience.

Mediated Public Diplomacy Redefined: Foreign Stakeholder Engagement via Paid, Earned, Shared, and Owned Media

2019 ◽  
Vol 63 (12) ◽  
pp. 1665-1683 ◽  
Author(s):  
Guy J. Golan ◽  
Ilan Manor ◽  
Phillip Arceneaux
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
News Media ◽  
Stakeholder Engagement ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
Public Diplomacy ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
Media Platform ◽  
Definition Of

Mediated public diplomacy literature examines the engagement of foreign audiences by governments via mediated channels. To date, scholars have examined the competitive contest between global rivals in promoting and contesting one another’s frames as reflected in global news media coverage. Recognizing the meaningful impact of social media platforms, along with the global rise of government-sponsored media organizations, the current study builds on previous mediated public diplomacy scholarship by expanding the scope of the literature beyond the earned media perspective to also include paid, shared, and owned media. The article presents a revised definition of the term mediated public diplomacy along with a case study of government to foreign stakeholder engagement via the social media platform, Twitter.

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