scholarly journals A review of Facebook research in the social sciences

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Edmund Wilson ◽  
Samuel D. Gosling

With over 800 million active users, Facebook is changing the way hundreds of millions of people relate to one another and share information. A rapidly growing body of research has accompanied the meteoric rise of Facebook as social scientists assess the impact of Facebook on social life. In addition, researchers have recognized the utility of Facebook as a novel tool to observe behavior in a naturalistic setting, test hypotheses, and recruit participants. However, research on Facebook emanates from a wide variety of disciplines, with results being published in a broad range of journals and conference proceedings, making it difficult to keep track of various findings. And because Facebook is a relatively recent phenomenon, uncertainty still exists about the most effective ways to do Facebook research. To address these issues, the authors conducted a comprehensive literature search, identifying 412 relevant articles, which were sorted into 5 categories: descriptive analysisof users, motivations for using Facebook, identity presentation, the role of Facebook in social interactions, and privacy and information disclosure. The literature review serves as the foundation from which to assess current findings and offer recommendations to the field for future research on Facebook and online social networks more broadly.

2021 ◽  
Vol 42 (3) ◽  
pp. 184-196
Author(s):  
Maja Dorota Wojciechowska

PurposeSocial capital, understood as intangible community values available through a network of connections, is a factor in the development of societies and improving quality of life. It helps to remove economic inequalities and prevent poverty and social exclusion, stimulate social and regional development, civic attitudes and social engagement and build a civic society as well as local and regional identity. Many of these tasks may be implemented by libraries, which, apart from providing access to information, may also offer a number of services associated with social needs. The purpose of this paper is to present the roles and functions that libraries may serve in local communities in terms of assistance, integration and development based on classical social capital theories.Design/methodology/approachThe paper reviews the classical concepts of social capital in the context of libraries. It analyses the findings of Pierre-Félix Bourdieu, James Coleman, Francis Fukuyama, Robert Putnam, Nan Lin, Ronald Stuart Burt, Wayne Baker and Alejandro Portes. Based on their respective concepts, the paper analyses the role of the contemporary library in the social life of local communities. In particular, it focuses on the possible new functions that public libraries may serve.FindingsA critical review of the concept of social capital revealed certain dependencies between libraries and their neighbourhoods. With new services that respond to the actual social needs, libraries may serve as a keystone, namely they may integrate, animate and engage local communities. This, however, requires a certain approach to be adopted by the personnel and governing authorities as well as infrastructure and tangible resources.Originality/valueThe social engagement of libraries is usually described from the practical perspective (reports on the services provided) or in the context of research on the impact of respective projects on specific groups of users (research reports). A broader approach, based on original social theories, is rarely encountered. The paper draws on classical concepts of social capital and is a contribution to the discussion on possible uses of those concepts based on an analysis of the role of libraries in social life and in strengthening the social capital of local communities.


2016 ◽  
Vol 50 (9/10) ◽  
pp. 1773-1788 ◽  
Author(s):  
Weng Marc Lim

Purpose This paper aims to define the conceptual boundary of the selfie and to discuss the role of the selfie in the social media marketplace. Design/methodology/approach This paper extensively reviews and draws themes from the extant literature on consumer identities in the social media marketplace to explain the selfie phenomenon and to identify potentially fruitful directions for further research. Findings Current insights into the selfie phenomenon can be understood from socio-historical, technological, social media, marketing and ethical perspectives. Research limitations/implications Despite the limitations of a general review (e.g. absence of empirical data and analysis), this paper identifies multiple avenues to extend existing lines of inquiry on the selfie phenomenon. Thus, this paper should encourage further research on the topic in the academic and scientific community. Practical implications The selfie can be used as a marketing tool to improve marketing performance and accomplish marketing-related goals. Originality/value This paper sheds light on how marketing academics and practitioners can better understand the impact of the selfie in the social media marketplace.


2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 41-67 ◽  
Author(s):  
Farid Anvari ◽  
Michael Wenzel ◽  
Lydia Woodyatt ◽  
S. Alexander Haslam

Whistleblowing is the disclosure of ingroup wrongdoing to an external agency and can have important functions for the regulation of moral and legal conduct. Organizational research has focused largely on the impact of individual and organizational factors, while overlooking the role of group memberships and associated social identities. Further, social psychologists have so far paid little attention to this phenomenon, or else have tended to subsume it within analysis of dissent. To address these lacunae, we present a psychological model of whistleblowing that draws on social identity theorizing (after Tajfel & Turner, 1979). This model describes when and how social identities and different forms of power motivate group members to respond to ingroup wrongdoing by engaging in whistleblowing. Our review of the literature points to the model’s ability to integrate existing evidence while providing direction for future research. We also discuss the model’s capacity to inform whistleblowing policy and procedures.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Farid Anvari ◽  
Michael Wenzel ◽  
Lydia Woodyatt ◽  
S. Alex Haslam

Whistleblowing is the disclosure of ingroup wrongdoing to an external agency and can have important functions for the regulation of moral and legal conduct. Organizational research has focused largely on the impact of individual and organizational factors, while overlooking the role of group memberships and associated social identities. Further, social psychologists have so far paid little attention to this phenomenon, or else have tended to subsume it within analysis of dissent. To address these lacunae, we present a psychological model of whistleblowing that draws on social identity theorizing (after Tajfel & Turner, 1979). This model describes when and how social identities and different forms of power motivate group members to respond to ingroup wrongdoing by engaging in whistleblowing. Our review of the literature points to the model’s ability to integrate existing evidence while providing direction for future research. We also discuss the model’s capacity to inform whistleblowing policy and procedures.


Author(s):  
Mohammed Mahbubur Rahman ◽  
Sharif Shams Imon

Liveability of a city is related to the quality of life (QOL) assessed by the impact of the quality of physical environment on liveability and the role of recreation in psychological wellbeing of individuals. Like in major Asian cities, the historic waterfront and architectural heritage of Dhaka are important components of the fabric. Despite diminution, it continues to affect the social life of Old Dhaka residents. In recent years, protection of the waterfront from illegal encroachment and pollution has become a major concern, amidst a lack of understanding of the river’s role in improving the QOL of the waterfront residents and the role of community involvement. By comparing waterfronts in similar contexts and through literature review and observations, the authors investigate how the conservation of the historic waterfront can contribute to the improvement of quality of life in Old Dhaka, and suggest ways to protect the riverfront with this objective. Seeing waterfronts as products of human intervention into nature, this paper discusses the socio-political forces that shape this, and investigates how conservation of the historic landscape can improve the QOL of the nearby residents. It uses a case study approach based on documentary research, unstructured and nonparticipant observations, and interviews with community leaders, environmental activists and local bodies.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Terence Daniel Dores Cruz ◽  
Annika Nieper ◽  
Martina Testori ◽  
Elena Martinescu ◽  
Bianca Beersma

The omnipresence of workplace gossip makes understanding gossip processes imperative to grasp social life in organizations. Although gossip research has recently experienced an upsurge across the social sciences, findings regarding the consequences of gossip are conflicting. A potential reason is that gossip is conceptualized in myriad different manners in the scientific literature, causing conceptual confusion and rendering theoretical integration impossible. In order to resolve this, we systematically reviewed 6114 scientific articles on gossip and identified 324 papers that define gossip. From the definitions we extracted two essential characteristics of gossip on which there seems to be good agreement within the literature, namely (1) that gossip is communication between humans involving a sender, receiver, and target, and (2) that the target is absent or unaware of the communicated content. These formed the basis of a broad, integrative definition of gossip: a sender communicating to a receiver about a target who is absent or unaware of the content. Furthermore, our review revealed that some definitions discuss characteristics on which there is less agreement: gossip valence (from negative to neutral to positive) and formality (from informal to intermediate to formal). We propose incorporating these characteristics in a multidimensional scaling framework that can guide future research. Our broad, integrative definition of gossip and the multidimensional scaling framework provide the building blocks for a systematic, integrated knowledge base on the role of gossip in human social life, which can foster future theory development and hypothesis testing, and thereby ultimately help organizations to manage gossip.


Author(s):  
Hamzeh Adel Al Amosh

The importance of information disclosure is increasing for stakeholders, mainly the non-financial disclosure, and the primary objective of the current study is to investigate the impact of a set of governance attributes on the level of corporate social responsibility disclosure in the Jordanian context. The study sample consisted of 51 industrial companies listed during 2012 to 2017; a set of statistical analyzes were used, such as descriptive statistics and multiple regression. Empirical evidence shows that the board size and audit committee play a crucial role in the social responsibility disclosure, while other factors (board activity, board compensation, non-executive directors, and audit company type) have no effect on disclosure. The findings are expected to have potential effects on the capital market in Jordan in terms of focusing on the strengths that support the social responsibility disclosure and the development of guidelines that contribute to promoting a disclosure culture between the listed companies, which support government plans in achieving sustainability.


Author(s):  
Leila Mahmoudi Farahani ◽  
Mirjana Lozanovska

Sense of community and social life are two key concepts related to social cohesion, which have been the subject of extensive studies in several disciplines including sociology, psychology and built environment. Social life studies have been mostly conducted in the built environment discipline focusing on city centres; while sense of community studies were mostly the target of sociologists and psychologists focusing on neighbourhoods. As a result, the role of the built environment on the sense of community and social life of neighbourhoods is considered as a missing gap in the literature. This paper, through defining the concepts of social life and sense of community, aims to develop a conceptual framework for further implementation in future research. Accurate implication and interpretation of the concepts show that neighbourhoods can include the sense of community in the residential environment and the social life in the commercial environment. This is because residential environments are where residents’ requirements can be met through their commitment to the community and commercial environments are the fulcrum of interaction and communication.


Social Media has undoubtedly become a powerful tool among the students. Social Media provides them the freedom to do whatever they want, to find new friends, to interact with people, to share information and knowledge and to create profile or identities. Social networking sites provide students with a new platform for learning but it also has a darker side of which if one is not aware of can bring potential dangers. The youth spent long hours on different social media platforms which has affected their academics, impaired their sleep patterns ,missed out their schools and meals and often produces stress, anxiety and fear about their identities. Students are also entrapped by the ploys of social networking. This happens when it develops an addiction in them that inculcates bad habits. So the students should be educated properly regarding the usage of Social Media and develop the cognitive and intuitive ability to analyze how much they want to spend on the different platforms in Social Media. Most of the studies conducted examine the impact of social networking sites on the academic performance of students. This study focuses on the usage of Social Media and its perceived impact on the social life of students in Kerala.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zainab Rasheed Ahmed

Abstract:In general, the oil topic is one of the topics that requires more attention and research because of being influential in all aspects of economic, social and political life. Therefore, we chose the topic of the effect of the effect of oil on the development of education and the social status of women in Kuwait 1946-1973.The country witnessed many changes during the discovery of oil and its export, then the revenues that contributed to reviving the Kuwaiti economy, which in turn contributed to the emergence of influences on the social reality. After it was exported in 1946 and ended in 1973, the year in which Arab countries used oil as a weapon against Western countries that sympathized with Israel in its war with Arab countries.In addition to the above, oil is an important natural resource for the social structure, including Kuwait. It is also one of the basic foundations of the state. The social development taking place in Kuwait was a result of the increase in oil revenues and its impact on the creation of new organizations, institutions and departments in Kuwait as educational institutions from schools and Kuwait University to sending many students through scholarships to abroad to study. Those components that changed many social perceptions towards Kuwaiti women who were living under the weight of customs and traditions that obscured their roles in society._____________________(⁎) Research extracted from Master's thesisThe importance of studying the topic of oil and social transformations in Kuwait came because oil is one of the most valuable natural resources in the world. That is why some called it “black gold.” It might be better to describe it as the lifeline of most countries, as it is based on a large and diverse activity characterized by its complexity, and the breadth of its political, economic and social effects. The economic factor in most stages and cases is one of the most important factors and even the most dangerous impact on the economic and social conditions of any country in the world. From this standpoint, the study aims to explain the role of oil revenues in improving the economic conditions of Kuwait, which in turn contributed to the establishment of schools in its various stages and for both sexes, boys and girls, that have contributed to changing the thinking of social groups and their perception of the status of women and their roles in building the state and society.In light of the foregoing, a structure was developed for the study consisting of an introduction and three sections in addition to conclusions. We have devoted the introduction to the study of “discovering oil in Kuwait and increasing its revenues from 1946 to 1973,” while the first section is “aspects of social life in Kuwait 1946-1973.” As for the second section that deals with the study of "the role of oil in the emergence of educational institutions in Kuwait," and the third and final section deals with "the impact of oil in changing the reality of Kuwaiti women."


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