scholarly journals Social network analysis of climate change discussion on Twitter during COP21

Author(s):  
Brittany E. Harris

The public is increasingly relying on Twitter for climate change information; however, to date, this social media platform is poorly understood in terms of how climate change information is shared. This study evaluates discussions on Twitter during the 2015 United Nations Conference on Climate Change (COP21) to elucidate the social media platform’s role in communicating climate change information. For a five-day period, links embedded in a sample of tweets containing “#climatechange” were characterized, Twitter users were classified by the types of links they typically shared, and their degree centralities (the number of connections for each user) were measured. There was little skeptical content across all user categories; however, news links were more likely than non-news to contain content that is skeptical of climate change. Users who typically shared skeptical news links and users who typically shared non-skeptical non-news links exhibited a relatively high number of connections with other users.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brittany E. Harris

The public is increasingly relying on Twitter for climate change information; however, to date, this social media platform is poorly understood in terms of how climate change information is shared. This study evaluates discussions on Twitter during the 2015 United Nations Conference on Climate Change (COP21) to elucidate the social media platform’s role in communicating climate change information. For a five-day period, links embedded in a sample of tweets containing “#climatechange” were characterized, Twitter users were classified by the types of links they typically shared, and their degree centralities (the number of connections for each user) were measured. There was little skeptical content across all user categories; however, news links were more likely than non-news to contain content that is skeptical of climate change. Users who typically shared skeptical news links and users who typically shared non-skeptical non-news links exhibited a relatively high number of connections with other users.


Author(s):  
Giandomenico Di Domenico ◽  
Annamaria Tuan ◽  
Marco Visentin

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.


2020 ◽  
pp. 146144482093354
Author(s):  
Tero Karppi ◽  
David B Nieborg

This article investigates the public confessions of a small group of ex-Facebook employees, investors, and founders who express regret helping to build the social media platform. Prompted by Facebook’s role in the 2016 United States elections and pointing to the platform’s unintended consequences, the confessions are more than formal admissions of sins. They speak of Facebook’s capacity to damage democratic decision-making and “exploit human psychology,” suggesting that individual users, children in particular, should disconnect. Rather than expressions of truth, this emerging form of corporate abdication constructs dystopian narratives that have the power shape our future visions of social platforms and give rise to new utopias. As such, and marking a stark break with decades of technological utopianism, the confessions are an emergent form of Silicon Valley dystopianism.


Journalism ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 146488491987032 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shixin Ivy Zhang

Inspired by the concepts of Arrested War and actor–network theory, this study has traced and analyzed four main actors in the wars and conflicts in the social media age: social media platform, the mainstream news organizations, online users, and social media content. These four human and nonhuman actors associate, interact, and negotiate with each other in the social media network surrounding specific issues. Based on the case study of Sino-Indian border crisis in 2017, the central argument is that social media is playing an enabling role in contemporary wars and conflicts. Both professional media outlets and web users employ the functionalities of social media platforms to set, counter-set, or expand the public agenda. Social media platform embodies a web of technological and human complexities with different actors, factors, interests, and relations. These actor-networks and the macro social-political context are influential in the mediatization of conflict in the social media era.


2013 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 28-58 ◽  
Author(s):  
Saifuddin Ahmed ◽  
Kokil Jaidka

This study offers a comprehensive approach towards analyzing and explaining the role of Twitter in shaping and facilitating social movements especially during protests. It presents automatic and manual analyses of the tweet themes, usage characteristics and major Twitter users during a public outcry against a gangrape incident in Delhi, the capital city of India. Our results identified Twitter as an important channel for the diffusion of ideas and news among a vast set of adopters in defiance of geographical boundaries. Results of the content analyses highlight the prominent use of social media resources in disseminating information on Twitter, and the remarkable role of Twitter users as citizen journalists during the days of the protest. Results of the social network analysis suggest that major role players on Twitter were the offline protest leaders.


2017 ◽  
Vol 27 (5) ◽  
pp. 622-651 ◽  
Author(s):  
F. Chris Curran ◽  
Ann T. Kellogg

Grounded in the sense-making literature, this study explores the discourse around and sentiment toward the newly passed Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) as discussed on the social media platform Twitter. The study explores the characteristics of and connections between users, the content of posts, and the sentiment toward ESSA. Data consisted of 12,544 tweets posted by 8,063 users analyzed through discourse analysis and social network analysis. Findings suggest that the discourse appears generally nonnegative with a clear pattern of clustering around sentiment. This suggests that users are in discourse with other users who share their view of the law. Discussion of policy issues such as local implementation and equity were common as were discussions of teacher preparation and comparisons to NCLB. Implications for the ongoing implementation of ESSA are discussed.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Regina Navickiene ◽  
◽  
Ruta Meiste ◽  
Egle Zaleckaite

This paper deals with dark tourism, as fast-developing phenomenon and a form of alternative tourism, which is defined as visiting real and artificial places of disaster, exile, poverty and death. Dark tourism does not come into existence without social media, which is commonly understood as a set of web applications that allow users to publish and share content online and is associated with international brands. One of the most popular social networks is YouTube, which captures millions of viewers. Therefore, the scientific problem arises that thanks to YouTube social media platform travellers can gather information and experience from others to widen their knowledge, but it’s not clear how dark tourism is rated and assessed on YouTube. The research aim is to assess dark tourism in the social media platform YouTube. The research object is dark tourism in the social media platform YouTube. An empirical study has shown that in order to attract more tourists to visit dark tourism sites through social networks, the technical elements of video production, their content and image quality have to be carefully considered as it is important for the viewers. Respondents were interested not only in the videos about dark tourism, but also in written or spoken information, with particular emphasis on completeness, not just the musical background. Good quality and informative footage on YouTube encourage more interest in the object being seen and lead to a desire to read comments and ratings from other active social network members. The YouTube network is well-suited to promoting a variety of tourist attractions, as it is easily accessible and at no cost. Some respondents emphasized and did not change their opinion even after the discussions that the term ‘dark tourism’ itself is macabre and unattractive and only referred to it as a new trendy word.


Author(s):  
Farahana Binti Nadzri

In this era of information or also known as Computer Age, Digital Age, or New Media Age, the public is not only able to access information with a stroke of their fingers but also create vast information for others. The newer generations of smartphones, computers, and tablets have made information omnipresent and easily accessible through the social media platform. But are the authorities and experts using this platform effectively to reach out to the public and dispel misinformation and pseudoscience? With citizen journalists in the rise, there is a greater demand for experts to make their voice heard. Social media has become an “official” source of information on science for many. These include Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Tick Tock, LinkedIn, YouTube and many more. According to a survey done by Global Web Index, internet users are spending an average of 2 hours and 22 minutes per day on social media. It influences public opinion and decision making process. Organic food, alternative treatment for cancer and other diseases, genetically modified foods, slimming products and vaccination are some of the trending science news in social media. It is time health and medical experts step up and use the social media platform to provide science-based information to the public and dispel fake news, misinformation and fear mongering. This talk will present the different types of social media platforms, their demographics and distinct characters of each platform. The different strategies to maximize the media impression will also be discussed.International Journal of Human and Health Sciences Supplementary Issue: 2019 Page: 27


Modern Italy ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 20 (4) ◽  
pp. 335-349 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pierluigi Erbaggio

Based on Roberto Saviano's book Gomorra (2006), production of the TV series Gomorra – La serie (2014) was met with scepticism as many feared it would glamorise organised crime and, consequently, attract young people toward Camorra affiliation. The series' bleak portrayal of criminals and criminality was offered as a response to such concerns. Despite the preoccupations, Gomorra – La serie was hugely successful and, because of its quality, was sold to other countries. In Italy, the series' success can be measured by the popularity of its Twitter hashtag #GomorraLaSerie. Engaged with Henry Jenkins' theories of media convergence and based on a corpus of tweets bearing this official hashtag, this article proposes a quantitative analysis and advances conclusions regarding the Italian TV audience and second-screen viewing practices. Additionally, through a qualitative study of Saviano's tweets about the series, it examines the writer's use of the social media platform as a tool of narrative continuity. Finally, the article highlights a few examples of fan-generated media and concludes with remarks regarding Saviano's problematic position at the centre of a transmedia object.


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