scholarly journals The Effects of Dyadic Conversations on Coronavirus-Related Belief Change

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Madalina Vlasceanu ◽  
Alin Coman
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
High Risk ◽  
News Media ◽  
Belief Change ◽  
Political Orientation ◽  
The Political ◽  
Risk Environment ◽  
Epistemic Condition ◽  
Media Usage ◽  
Post Test

In a high-risk environment, such as during an epidemic, people are exposed to a large amount of information, both accurate and inaccurate. Following exposure, they typically discuss the information with each other in conversations. Here, we assessed the effects of such conversations on their beliefs. A sample of 126 M-Turk participants first rated the accuracy of a set of COVID-19 statements (pre-test). They were then paired and asked to discuss either any of these statements (low epistemic condition) or only the statements they thought were accurate (high epistemic condition). Finally, they rated the accuracy of the initial statements again (post-test). We did not find a difference of epistemic condition on belief change. However, we found that individuals were sensitive to their conversational partners, and changed their beliefs according to their partners’ conveyed beliefs. This influence was strongest for initially moderately held beliefs. In exploratory analyses, we found that pre-test COVID-19 knowledge was predicted by trusting Fauci, not trusting Trump, and feeling threatened by COVID-19. Conversely, pre-test COVID-19 conspiracy endorsement was predicted by trusting Trump, not trusting Fauci, news media consumption, social media usage, and political orientation. In further exploration of the political orientation predictor, we found that Democrats were more knowledgeable than Republicans, and Republicans believed more conspiracies than Democrats.

scholarly journals Out-group animosity drives engagement on social media

2021 ◽  
Vol 118 (26) ◽  
pp. e2024292118
Author(s):  
Steve Rathje ◽  
Jay J. Van Bavel ◽  
Sander van der Linden
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
News Media ◽  
Strong Predictor ◽  
Political Orientation ◽  
Political Polarization ◽  
The Political ◽  
Group Language ◽  
Social Media Engagement ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
Media Platform

There has been growing concern about the role social media plays in political polarization. We investigated whether out-group animosity was particularly successful at generating engagement on two of the largest social media platforms: Facebook and Twitter. Analyzing posts from news media accounts and US congressional members (n = 2,730,215), we found that posts about the political out-group were shared or retweeted about twice as often as posts about the in-group. Each individual term referring to the political out-group increased the odds of a social media post being shared by 67%. Out-group language consistently emerged as the strongest predictor of shares and retweets: the average effect size of out-group language was about 4.8 times as strong as that of negative affect language and about 6.7 times as strong as that of moral-emotional language—both established predictors of social media engagement. Language about the out-group was a very strong predictor of “angry” reactions (the most popular reactions across all datasets), and language about the in-group was a strong predictor of “love” reactions, reflecting in-group favoritism and out-group derogation. This out-group effect was not moderated by political orientation or social media platform, but stronger effects were found among political leaders than among news media accounts. In sum, out-group language is the strongest predictor of social media engagement across all relevant predictors measured, suggesting that social media may be creating perverse incentives for content expressing out-group animosity.

Political Knowledge and Misinformation in the Era of Social Media: Evidence From the 2015 UK Election

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-21
Author(s):  
Kevin Munger ◽  
Patrick J. Egan ◽  
Jonathan Nagler ◽  
Jonathan Ronen ◽  
Joshua Tucker
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
News Media ◽  
Political Knowledge ◽  
Public Affairs ◽  
Political Information ◽  
The Political ◽  
Election Campaign ◽  
Social Media Platform ◽  
Media Platform

Abstract Does social media educate voters, or mislead them? This study measures changes in political knowledge among a panel of voters surveyed during the 2015 UK general election campaign while monitoring the political information to which they were exposed on the Twitter social media platform. The study's panel design permits identification of the effect of information exposure on changes in political knowledge. Twitter use led to higher levels of knowledge about politics and public affairs, as information from news media improved knowledge of politically relevant facts, and messages sent by political parties increased knowledge of party platforms. But in a troubling demonstration of campaigns' ability to manipulate knowledge, messages from the parties also shifted voters' assessments of the economy and immigration in directions favorable to the parties' platforms, leaving some voters with beliefs further from the truth at the end of the campaign than they were at its beginning.

scholarly journals Meta-Cognition of Efficacy and Social Media Usage among Japanese Civil Society Organizations

Information ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 118
Author(s):  
Tomoya Sagara ◽  
Muneo Kaigo ◽  
Yutaka Tsujinaka
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Civil Society ◽  
Political Participation ◽  
Interest Group ◽  
Political Efficacy ◽  
Civil Society Organizations ◽  
The Political ◽  
Media Usage ◽  
Using Data ◽  
Flow Of Information

This paper examines how social media are affecting Japanese civil society organizations, in relation to efficacy and political participation. Using data from the 2017 Japan Interest Group Study survey, we analyzed how the flow of information leads to the political participation of civil society organizations. The total number of respondents (organizations) were 1285 (942 organizations in Tokyo and 343 from Ibaraki). In the analysis of our survey we focused on the data portion related to information behavior and efficacy and investigated the meta-cognition of efficacy in lobbying among civil society organizations in Tokyo and Ibaraki. We found that organizations that use social media were relatively few. However, among the few organizations that use social media, we found that these organizations have a much higher meta-cognition of political efficacy in comparison to those that do not use social media. For instance, social media usage had a higher tendency of having cognition of being able to exert influence upon others. We also found that organizations that interact with citizens have a higher tendency to use social media. The correspondence analysis results point towards a hypothesis of how efficacy and participation are mutually higher among the organizations that use social media in Japan.

scholarly journals SOSYAL MEDYANIN SİYASİ İLETİŞİMDEKİ ROLÜ

2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mutlu UYGUN ◽  
Ayşe Kübra SARIKAYA
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Political Communication ◽  
Quantitative Research ◽  
Pearson Correlation ◽  
Sampling Technique ◽  
The Political ◽  
Communication Behaviors ◽  
Factorial Anova ◽  
Media Usage ◽  
Pearson Correlation Analysis

The main purpose of this study is to examine the political communication behaviors of the participants covering the individuals from all segments by taking into consideration the demographic and internet related usage characteristics, regardless of a special election campaign. In order to meet the main purpose of the study, based on the quantitative research method, data were collected from a total of 531 participants in Aksaray, using a questionnaire formed from appropriate scales and questions according to the convenience sampling technique. Data were analyzed by various statistical techniques such as descriptive statistics, Pearson Correlation Analysis, Factor Analysis, One-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) and multi-way variance analysis (factorial ANOVA). The results revealed that the political communication behavior in social media consists of two sub-dimensions which include active and passive engagement behaviors. In addition, it has been determined that these political communication behaviors in social media do not differ according to demographic characteristics, but they differ according to some personal internet and social media usage characteristics. These results, in addition to their contribution to the conceptual literature, it is thought that political parties include clues about how they can effectively use social media as a tool in their communication efforts and marketing efforts.

scholarly journals Media Intellectualism or Lived Catastrophe? Mediating and Suspending the A/political Act

2018 ◽  
Vol 15 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 166-185
Author(s):  
Bogna M. Konior
Keyword(s):  
News Media ◽  
Political Orientation ◽  
The Political ◽  
Social Sciences And Humanities ◽  
National Trauma ◽  
Standard Manner ◽  
Political Act ◽  
Polish Government ◽  
Self Immolation ◽  
Political Scene

Piotr Szczęsny set himself on fire in protest of the Polish government in October 2017. Charged with political orientation, his selfimmolation posed a challenge to the news media, forcing it deep into the gutter the suicide archive, where commentators debated appropriate aesthetics of protest in a country whose imagery imagery is predominately thanatic; in a nation-state that has been resurrected after its many occupations yet still remains within a sacrificial grave, with death as the cornerstone of community. In this article, I situate Szczęsny’s death within the nightmare-bound post-Soviet political scene through historically contextualizing the debate around his suicide, where the act itself was criticized on the basis of its inappropriate aesthetics of irrational selfharm. I argue that such binding of a/political catastrophe in a bundle of representations corresponds to what François Laruelle calls media intellectualism, a form of engaging suffering that relies on its mediation. Seeking an alternative discourse of engaging the a/political act, I look to Katerina Kolozova’s non-standard politics of pain and to Oxana Timofeeva’s work on “the catastrophe.” These positions, which I call stances of the unsubject, offer us different starting points for creating solidarity in spaces of void, pain and depression. For the unsubject, pain is the prerequisite for forming the political, albeit in a non-standard manner, where politics cannot oscillate around representations, ideologies or identities. Rather than mediate self immolation, I ask whether the way that we define “the political” could benefit from a subtraction of mediation, from a catastrophic thinking in parallel with the brutality of the real, rather than the repetition of (national) trauma. Author(s): Bogna M. Konior: Title (English): Media Intellectualism or Lived Catastrophe? Mediating and Suspending the A/political Act Journal Reference: Identities: Journal for Politics, Gender and Culture, Vol. 15, No. 1-2 (Summer 2018) Publisher: Institute of Social Sciences and Humanities – Skopje  Page Range: 166-185 Page Count: 20 Citation (English): Bogna M. Konior, “Media Intellectualism or Lived Catastrophe? Mediating and Suspending the A/political Act,” Identities: Journal for Politics, Gender and Culture, Vol. 15, No. 1-2 (Summer 2018): 166-185.

Compassionate Canadians and conflictual Americans? Portrayals of ageism in liberal and conservative media

2016 ◽  
Vol 37 (8) ◽  
pp. 1632-1653 ◽  
Author(s):  
PATRIK MARIER ◽  
MARINA REVELLI
Keyword(s):  
News Media ◽  
Political Orientation ◽  
Comparative Case Study ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Media ◽  
Conservative Media

ABSTRACTBuilding upon earlier studies on ageism in the media and the polarised ageism framework, this contribution compares the prevalence of three forms of ageism – intergenerational, compassionate and new ageism – in four Canadian and American newspapers. The analysis has three objectives. First, it adapts the polarised ageism framework to a comparative case study to assess its usefulness beyond Canada. Second, it analyses which form of ageism occurs more frequently in the coverage of ageing-related stories in Canadian or American newspapers. Third, it studies the importance of the political orientation of news media across both countries by comparing the portrayal of ageing-related stories in conservative and liberal newspapers. Core findings include the presence of a stronger focus on intergenerational ageism in American and conservative newspapers and more frequent prevalence of compassionate ageism in Canada and liberal newspapers. American newspapers also typically employ more pejorative and sensational language.

Introduction

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-10
Author(s):  
Victor Pickard
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Information Systems ◽  
News Media ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
The Political ◽  
Quality Information ◽  
Departure Point ◽  
Structural Problems ◽  
Political Economic

This introductory chapter sets the broader context of the book by drawing attention to core pathologies in US news and information systems. In particular, it draws attention to the run-amok commercialism that lies at the heart of these structural problems. Using President Donald Trump’s election as a departure point, it covers a wide array of symptoms, ranging from low-quality information, sensationalism, and other problems in mainstream news media to misinformation proliferating through social media. The chapter gives an overview of the entire book and lays out the major arguments. It also describes the political economic theoretical framework that guides the book’s analysis.

scholarly journals Scandal mining: political nobodies and remediated visibility

2017 ◽  
Vol 40 (6) ◽  
pp. 893-908 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Trottier
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Digital Media ◽  
News Media ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Accountability ◽  
Federal Election ◽  
First Pass ◽  
Media Channels

This article considers the 2015 federal election in Canada as the emergence of seemingly citizen-led practices whereby candidates’ past missteps are unearthed and distributed through social and news media channels. On first pass, these resemble citizen-led engagements through digital media for potentially unmappable political goals, given the dispersed and either non-partisan or multi-partisan nature of these engagements. By bringing together journalistic accounts and social media coverage alongside current scholarship on citizenship and visibility, this case study traces the possibility of political accountability and the political weaponisation of mediated visibility through the targeted extraction of candidate details from dispersed profiles, communities and databases.

scholarly journals Left- and Right-Leaning News Organizations' Negative Tweets are More Likely to be Shared

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrea Bellovary ◽  
Nathaniel A. Young ◽  
Amit Goldenberg
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Negative Affect ◽  
Positive Affect ◽  
Political Orientation ◽  
The Political ◽  
News Content ◽  
News Organizations ◽  
Political Orientations ◽  
Left And Right

Negativity has historically dominated news content; however, little research has examined how news organizations use affect on social media, where content is generally positive. In the current project we ask a few questions: Do news organizations on Twitter use negative or positive language and which type of affect garners more engagement on social media? Does the political orientation of new organizations impact the affect expressed and engagement tweets receive on social media? The goal of this project is to examine these questions by investigating tweets of 24 left- and 20 right-leaning news organizations (140,358 tweets). Results indicated that negative affect was expressed more than positive affect. Additionally, negativity predicted engagement with news organizations’ tweets, but positivity did not. Finally, there were no differences in affect between left- and right-leaning political orientations. Overall, it appears that for news organizations, negativity is more frequent and more impactful than positivity.

scholarly journals Prediction of Election by Twitter

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 847-850
Keyword(s):  
Machine Learning ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
Context Awareness ◽  
Political Orientation ◽  
Classification Model ◽  
The Political ◽  
Key Players

Nowadays social media like Twitter and Facebook etc. is one of the key players. Twitters are micro blogging sites by which users sent their opinions and views in brief. The information generated by one user can be seen by everyone. Therefore to analyze twitter sentiment can be a crucial task. For this task, we have used various approaches like novel based approach and machine learning and many other rules like context awareness are used for the detection of public opinion and prediction of results. We are studying the user tweets during elections. Meaningful tweets are collected on a definite period.The feasibility of the developed classification model is identified by our proposed work to identify the political orientation on the tweets and other user-based features. The technique for the collection of tweets in time has played an important role. When the outcome of applied technique competes with survey agencies result was published before elections result.

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