Attentional capture helps explain why moral and emotional content go viral

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
William J. Brady ◽  
Ana P. Gantman ◽  
Jay Joseph Van Bavel

Our social media newsfeeds are filled with a variety of content all battling for our limited attention. Across three studies, we investigated whether moral and emotional content captures our attention more than other content and if this may help explain why this content is more likely to go viral online. Using a combination of controlled lab experiments and nearly 50,000 political tweets, we found that moral and emotional content are prioritized in early visual attention more than neutral content, and that such attentional capture is associated with increased retweets during political conversations online. Furthermore, we found that the differences in attentional capture among moral and emotional stimuli could not be fully explained by differences in arousal. These studies suggest that attentional capture is one basic psychological process that helps explain the increased diffusion of moral and emotional content during political discourse on social media, and shed light on ways in which political leaders, disinformation profiteers, marketers, and activist organizations can spread moralized content by capitalizing on natural tendencies of our perceptual systems.

Author(s):  
Cinzia Arruzza

A Wolf in the City is a study of tyranny and of the tyrant’s soul in Plato’s Republic. It argues that Plato’s critique of tyranny is an intervention in an ancient debate concerning the sources of the crisis of Athenian democracy and the relation between political leaders and the demos in the last decades of the fifth century BCE. The book shows that Plato’s critique of tyranny should not be taken as a veiled critique of the Syracusan tyrannical regime but, rather, as an integral part of his critique of Athenian democracy. The book also offers an in-depth and detailed analysis of all three parts of the tyrant’s soul, and contends that this approach is necessary to both fully appraise the complex psychic dynamics taking place in the description of the tyrannical man and shed light on Plato’s moral psychology and its relation with his political theory.


2016 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
pp. 82-103 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mohd Hisham Mohd Sharif ◽  
Indrit Troshani ◽  
Robyn Davidson

Limited attention has been directed towards understanding the impact of social media in the public sector, particularly in local government organisations. Although social media offer substantial benefits and opportunities to local government, research into the impact of social media remains scant. To address this gap, the authors draw on the technology, organisation, and environment (TOE) framework and propose a model of the determinants of social media impact in local government. The model is tested with data collected via a survey with 173 Australian local government organisations using social media. Data were analysed using the partial least squares-structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) technique. The results indicate that TOE factors including perceived benefits, perceived security risks, compatibility, and degree of formalisation are important predictors of social media impact in local government.


2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 100-113
Author(s):  
DMITRY KAZANTSEV ◽  

The article is dedicated to the research of self-presentation and social relations of the youth political leaders in VKontakte (VK) social media in Siberian Federal District by example of Altai krai and Novosibirsk oblast. This includes the analysis of social and political capital of the youth political organisations’ leaders in online environment. The goal of this research is to distinguish the forms and contents of self-presentation, the image of the youth political leaders, basing on their social relations and communications in VK. For this purpose, the author uses the TargetHunter parcer, as well as the R programming language for the open data harvesting, and Gephi program to create the social media graph. Conclusion. Basing on the research results, the author concludes that the youth political leaders actively use social media resources, particularly VK, to shape their image and promote it in public affairs. Meanwhile, the process of self-presentation of such leaders is impacted by numerous variables. It also tends to change its forms. VK is especially effective for political activity of the leaders who strive to gain their personal social capital, to create unique and high quality content, and to create channels for steady communication with their primary audience. As for the youth political organisations’ heads, their social media space is more miscellaneous and is usually subjected to clasterization, creating groups. The youth leaders also represent similar social environment. Therefore, the environment creates the leaders, as much as the leaders create the environment.


Author(s):  
Víctor Hernández-Santaolalla

Social media brings to the forefront two very important factors to today's politics: the prominent role of the internet and the importance of personalisation which is closely tied to a tendency of political candidates to overexpose their private lives. This does not mean that the candidate becomes more relevant than the political party or the ideological platforms thereof, but the interest tends to fall on the candidate's lifestyle; on their personal characteristics and their most intimate surroundings, which blurs the line between the public and private spheres. Online profiles are used as a showcase for the public agenda of the politician at the same time as they gather, on a daily basis, the thoughts, tastes and leisure time activities of the candidates. This chapter offers a reflection of the ways in which political leaders develop their digital narratives, and how they use the social media environment to approach citizens.


Author(s):  
Syed Far Abid Hossain ◽  
Xu Shan ◽  
Abdul Qadeer

The purpose of this paper is to ascertain the contemporary role of mobile phones in value co-creation through social media marketing. How mobile phones, in particular, smartphones with the help of numerous social media generate value co-creation, is the key objective of this study. A random sampling method was used to conduct a survey in different universities in China to identify the role of mobile phones in value co-creation. Findings from primary data collection indicated that mobile phones play a vital role in value co-creation because of the extensive use of social media. If value co-creation through social media marketing develops with the help of producers, suppliers and other intermediaries with the necessary technology and trust, the society, as well as customers, may enjoy a unique way of shopping. Future studies with mixed methodology and respondents who use different social media as a tool to generate value co-creation may shed light on the undiscovered phenomenon of social media marketing in the context of the mobile phone.


2022 ◽  
pp. 230-246
Author(s):  
Maria Angeles Garcia-Haro ◽  
Maria Pilar Martinez-Ruiz ◽  
Ricardo Martinez-Cañas ◽  
Pablo Ruiz-Palomino

Social media have become key tools for promoting and spreading the image of a tourist destination. In particular, these communication channels are critical for heritage destinations looking to boost awareness and attract a greater number of visitors. However, the tourism marketing literature has devoted limited attention to how these destinations project their image on social media. In order to cover this gap, this chapter focuses on analyzing the image projected by a specific heritage destination—Cuenca, a World Heritage City—on Facebook and Instagram. To this end, the chapter analyzes the posts, comments, and hashtags that have been published on the different tourism pages about Cuenca. The results of the analysis underscore the growing importance of the image projected by destinations on social networks. That said, there is a need to deepen our knowledge about the communication potential of these channels.


Author(s):  
Yllka Azemi ◽  
Wilson Ozuem

The Internet environment has transformed the concepts of service failure and recovery strategies from a dyadic customer-provider focus into a multidimensional web quality scope. In traditional encounters, the research spectrum of service failure and recovery strategies is very much developed from a customer service approach, and the responsibility of recovery has been traditionally assumed to be something that is assigned to the marketer. Studies pay little or no attention to the multidimensional nature of service failures contingent to recovery strategies in the evolving social media. To date, empirical studies have focused on service failures and recovery strategies in online marketing environments, but pay limited attention to social media platforms. This paper aims to provide some insights on the need for a broader conceptualisation of service failure and recovery strategies, incorporating social media platforms for the development of effective marketing communications programme.


2019 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 20-23 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Thompson

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to use Bates’ paper as a springboard to consider the potential impact of the internet on the personal and intimate lives of people with learning disabilities including opportunities to gain support. Design/methodology/approach Key literature is reviewed alongside the author’s experiences in working with people with learning disabilities on sexual issues. Findings The literature prioritises internet safety for people with learning disabilities. There is limited attention to how people can be supported to use social media to enhance their social and/or sexual lives. Originality/value The commentary challenges the reader to consider how the internet and social media can be used to help people with learning disabilities develop and maintain relationships including sexual relationships.


Author(s):  
V. Sachdev ◽  
S. Nerur ◽  
J. T.C. Teng

With the trend towards social interaction over the Internet and the mushrooming of Web sites such as MySpace, Facebook and YouTube in the social computing space, practitioners and researchers are motivated to explain the sudden surge in user interest. The authors propose that interactivity is an important and appropriate subject of investigation to shed light on this explosion in social media use. Based on a review of the extant literature, they justify the use of interactivity for addressing research questions motivated by this new phenomenon. In particular, they propose a redefinition of interactivity for the social computing domain and term it Social Computing Interactivity (SCI). The authors suggest possible operationalizations of the dimensions of SCI and explore theory bases which would inform a study of their relevance in predicting the continued growth of social computing.


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