scholarly journals Memetic Moments

2021 ◽  
pp. 23-48
Author(s):  
Naomi Smith ◽  
Simon Copland
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
News Media ◽  
Social Issues ◽  
Temporal Patterns ◽  
Internet Culture ◽  
Over Time ◽  
Do So

This paper examines how speed shapes internet culture. To do so, it analyses ‘memetic moments’ on Twitter, short-lived and rapidly circulated memes that quickly reach saturation. The paper examines two ‘memetic moments’ on Twitter in 2018 and 2019 to assess how they develop over time. Each case study comprises a week’s worth of relevant tweets that were analysed for temporal patterns. We analyse these ‘memetic moments’ through Lefebvre’s (2004) work on rhythmanalysis, arguing that the temporal patterns of memes on Twitter can be understood through his concepts of repetition, presence and dialogue. While seemingly trivial, memetic moments underscore the didactic relationship between social media and news media while also providing a way to approach complex social issues.

scholarly journals Analyzing temporal patterns of topic diversity using graph clustering

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Takako Hashimoto ◽  
David Lawrence Shepard ◽  
Tetsuji Kuboyama ◽  
Kilho Shin ◽  
Ryota Kobayashi ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Data Processing ◽  
Temporal Patterns ◽  
Graph Clustering ◽  
Disaster Mitigation ◽  
Great Earthquake ◽  
Using Data ◽  
Text Content ◽  
Do So

Abstract During a disaster, social media can be both a source of help and of danger: Social media has a potential to diffuse rumors, and officials involved in disaster mitigation must react quickly to the spread of rumor on social media. In this paper, we investigate how topic diversity (i.e., homogeneity of opinions in a topic) depends on the truthfulness of a topic (whether it is a rumor or a non-rumor) and how the topic diversity changes in time after a disaster. To do so, we develop a method for quantifying the topic diversity of the tweet data based on text content. The proposed method is based on clustering a tweet graph using Data polishing that automatically determines the number of subtopics. We perform a case study of tweets posted after the East Japan Great Earthquake on March 11, 2011. We find that rumor topics exhibit more homogeneity of opinions in a topic during diffusion than non-rumor topics. Furthermore, we evaluate the performance of our method and demonstrate its improvement on the runtime for data processing over existing methods.

Strange Frame Fellows: The Evolution of Discursive Framing in the Opt-Out Testing Movement

2021 ◽  
Vol 123 (5) ◽  
pp. 1-32 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Paquin Morel
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Public Schools ◽  
Social Issues ◽  
Qualitative Content Analysis ◽  
Research Question ◽  
The Public ◽  
Local Schools ◽  
Opt Out ◽  
Open Coding ◽  
Over Time

Background/context In recent years, opposition to accountability policies and associated testing has manifested in widespread boycotts of annual tests—mobilized as the “opt-out movement.” A central challenge facing any movement is the need to recruit and mobilize participants. Key to this process is framing—a discursive tactic in which activists present social issues as problems that require collective action to solve. Such framing often relies on compatible political and ideological commitments among activists and potential recruits. Yet the opt-out movement has successfully mobilized widespread boycotts in diverse communities. How have participants in the movement framed issues relating to testing and accountability? Purpose/objective/research question/focus of study I explore the discursive tactics of participants in the opt-out movement by analyzing how they frame issues related to testing and accountability over time. I ask two research questions: (1) What frames did participants in opt-out-aligned social media groups use to convince others that standardized accountability tests are a problem and build support for the movement? (2) To what extent and how did the deployment of frames change over time? Research design I conducted a mixed-methods study combining qualitative content analysis to identify frames and computational analysis to describe their co-deployment over time. Data collection and analysis I compiled a text corpus of posts to opt-out-aligned social media pages from 2010–2014. I analyzed posts using open coding to identify frames used by participants in online communities. Frames were categorized by their orientation—the general way in which they framed the problem of testing and accountability. I then analyzed the co-deployment of frames using network analysis and hierarchical clustering. Conclusions/recommendations The longitudinal analysis of frames reveals key differences in the frames used by participants. While more politically oriented frames—those characterizing testing as a social issue affecting the public schools at large—were common in early stages of the movement, less overtly political frames—those characterizing testing as an individual issue affecting children and local schools or a technical issue—became more prominent over time. Over time, socially oriented frames became decoupled from other frames, showing independent patterns of deployment. This suggests that the movement may have benefited from de-emphasizing politically oriented frames, but that it lacked an overarching shared narrative, which has the potential to limit how it might affect accountability policies and testing.

Calm the farm or incite a riot? Animal activists and the news media: A public relations case study in agenda-setting and framing

2021 ◽  
pp. 2046147X2110551
Author(s):  
Deborah K Williams ◽  
Catherine J Archer ◽  
Lauren O’Mahony
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Public Relations ◽  
News Media ◽  
Direct Action ◽  
Strategic Communication ◽  
Front Page ◽  
Primary Producers ◽  
News Reporting ◽  
Study Approach

The ideological differences between animal activists and primary producers are long-standing, existing long before the advent of social media with its widespread communicative capabilities. Primary producers have continued to rely on traditional media channels to promote their products. In contrast, animal activists have increasingly adopted livestreaming on social media platforms and ‘direct action’ protest tactics to garner widespread public and media attention while promoting vegetarianism/veganism, highlighting issues in animal agriculture and disrupting the notion of the ‘happy farm animal’. This paper uses a case study approach to discuss the events that unfolded when direct action animal activists came into conflict with Western Australian farmers and businesses in 2019. The conflict resulted in increased news reporting, front-page coverage from mainstream press, arrests and parliamentary law changes. This case study explores how the activists’ strategic communication activities, which included livestreaming their direct actions and other social media tactics, were portrayed by one major Australian media outlet and the farmers’ interest groups’ reactions to them.

Amplification and Virtual Back-Patting

2018 ◽  
pp. 1527-1542
Author(s):  
Jakob Svensson
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
News Media ◽  
Instrumental Rationality ◽  
Communicative Rationality ◽  
Liberal Party ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
Party Members ◽  
Media Texts

This chapter explores the rationalities of politicians' social media uses in Web-campaigning in a party-based democracy. This is done from an in-depth case study of a Swedish politician, Nina Larsson, who with the help of a PR agency utilized several social media platforms in her campaign to become re-elected to the parliament in 2010. By analyzing how and for what purposes Larsson used social media in her Web-campaign, this chapter concludes that even though discourses of instrumental rationality and of communicative rationality were common to make her practices relevant, Nina primarily used social media to amplify certain offline news media texts as well as to commend and support other liberal party members. Hence, from this case, the authors conclude that Web-campaigning on social media is used for expressive purposes, to negotiate and maintain an attractive political image within the party hierarchy.

Political communication Modi style: A case study of the demonetization campaign on Twitter

2019 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 361-379 ◽  
Author(s):  
Usha M. Rodrigues ◽  
Michael Niemann
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Political Communication ◽  
News Media ◽  
Mass Communication ◽  
Communication Strategy ◽  
Direct Communication ◽  
Mainstream Media ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
Government Websites

Abstract Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) is one of the world's most followed political leaders on Twitter. During the 2014 and 2019 election campaigns, he and his party used various social media networking and the Internet services to engage with young, educated, middle-class voters in India. Since his first sweeping win in the 2014 elections, Modi's political communication strategy has been to neglect the mainstream news media, and instead use social media and government websites to keep followers informed of his day-to-day engagements and government policies. This strategy of direct communication was followed even during a critical policy change, when in a politically risky move half-way through his five-year prime ministership, Modi's government scrapped more than 85 per cent of Indian currency notes in November 2016. He continued to largely shun the mainstream media and use his social media accounts and public rallies to communicate with the nation. As a case study of this direct communication strategy, this article presents the results of a study of Modi's Twitter articulations during the three months following the demonetization announcement. We use mediatization of politics discourse to consider the implications of this shift from mass communication via the mainstream news media, to the Indian prime minister's reliance on direct communication on social media platforms.

Media use, fear of terrorism, and attitudes towards immigrants and refugees: Young people and adults compared

2019 ◽  
pp. 174804851986947 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marlies Debrael ◽  
Leen d’Haenens ◽  
Rozane De Cock ◽  
David De Coninck
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Young People ◽  
News Media ◽  
Online Questionnaire ◽  
Traditional Media ◽  
Negative Attitudes ◽  
Immigrants And Refugees ◽  
News Consumption ◽  
Socio Demographic Factors ◽  
Do So

In Flanders, citizens hold rather negative attitudes towards immigrants and refugees. This could be due to the news media, which depict newcomers in a rather negative way. The purpose of this study is to analyze whether there are separate media worlds at work in Flemish young people and adults and whether this results in different attitudes towards immigrants and refugees. To do so, we questioned 1,759 people aged 13 to 65 by means of an online questionnaire. Results indicate that overall news consumption increases with age, and that young people mainly use social media for their news consumption while adults still rely on traditional media. Interestingly, young adults are the most welcoming group towards immigrants and refugees. Although news media consumption seems to be related to fear of terrorism and attitudes towards newcomers to some extent, socio-demographic factors play an important role in the development of fear and negative attitudes towards newcomers.

scholarly journals Negative e-WOM Resulting from Political Posts on Social Media: A Case Study of a Small Retailer’s Struggle over Time

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (9) ◽  
pp. 318
Author(s):  
Jennifer Johnson Jorgensen ◽  
Katelyn Sorensen
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Content Analysis ◽  
Single Case ◽  
Retail Store ◽  
The Political ◽  
Customer Reviews ◽  
Political Opinion ◽  
Political Opinions ◽  
Over Time

Consumers have been advocating for a variety of causes, and in turn, retailers are expressing their political opinions through social-media posts in hopes of aligning with their customers’ views. This study looks at a single case in which customers reacted to a retailer’s political opinion posted on a social media account. Data was collected at the time of the retailer’s political post and up to three years afterward. Content analysis was employed to identify themes from the customer reviews posted, and four themes were identified. Of significance, this study found that customers of a retail store typically merge feelings on the retailer’s product and political post or the retailer’s service and the political post within their social media responses. Thus, a majority of customers in this case were not exclusively focused on battling the political post on social media. Also, a shift in customers’ opinions of the retailer shifted positively over time.

scholarly journals Engagement Analysis of Canadian Public Health and News Media Facebook Posts and Sentiment Analysis of Corresponding Comments during COVID-19

Psych ◽  
2022 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 60-70
Author(s):  
Melissa MacKay ◽  
Taylor Colangeli ◽  
Sydney Gosselin ◽  
Sophie Neumann ◽  
Andrew Papadopoulos
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
News Media ◽  
Crisis Communication ◽  
Protective Measures ◽  
Essential Information ◽  
The Public ◽  
Key Stakeholders ◽  
Negative Comments ◽  
Health Related ◽  
Over Time

During the COVID-19 pandemic, key stakeholders have used social media to rapidly disseminate essential information to the public to help them make informed health-related decisions. Our research examined how the public responded to official actors’ Facebook posts during COVID-19 and examined the comment sentiment and post engagement rates. CBC News and CTV News received a greater proportion of negative comments and a lower average post engagement rate compared with Healthy Canadians. Additionally, the proportion of negative and positive comments varied over time for all sources; however, over 30% of the comments for all three actors were consistently negative. Key stakeholders should monitor the public’s response to their social media posts and adapt their messages to increase the effectiveness of their crisis communication efforts to encourage the adoption of protective measures.

scholarly journals Topic Jerk Detector: Detection of Tweet Bursts Related to the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Disaster

Information ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (7) ◽  
pp. 368 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hiroshi Nagaya ◽  
Teruaki Hayashi ◽  
Hiroyuki A. Torii ◽  
Yukio Ohsawa
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Information Sharing ◽  
Social Issues ◽  
Research Problem ◽  
Nuclear Disaster ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
Efficient Information ◽  
Fukushima Disaster ◽  
Important Research Problem

In recent disaster situations, social media platforms, such as Twitter, played a major role in information sharing and widespread communication. These situations require efficient information sharing; therefore, it is important to understand the trends in popular topics and the underlying dynamics of information flow on social media better. Developing new methods to help us in these situations, and testing their effectiveness so that they can be used in future disasters is an important research problem. In this study, we proposed a new model, “topic jerk detector.” This model is ideal for identifying topic bursts. The main advantage of this method is that it is better fitted to sudden bursts, and accurately detects the timing of the bursts of topics compared to the existing method, topic dynamics. Our model helps capture important topics that have rapidly risen to the top of the agenda in respect of time in the study of specific social issues. It is also useful to track the transition of topics more effectively and to monitor tweets related to specific events, such as disasters. We attempted three experiments that verified its effectiveness. First, we presented a case study applied to the tweet dataset related to the Fukushima disaster to show the outcomes of the proposed method. Next, we performed a comparison experiment with the existing method. We showed that the proposed method is better fitted to sudden burst accurately detects the timing of the bursts of the topic. Finally, we received expert feedback on the validity of the results and the practicality of the methodology.

Social Media and Disasters

2016 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 41-55 ◽  
Author(s):  
Briony J. Gray ◽  
Mark J Weal ◽  
David Martin
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Thematic Analysis ◽  
Recent Literature ◽  
Management Strategies ◽  
Snowball Sampling ◽  
Conceptual Frameworks ◽  
Risk Zones ◽  
Information Reliability ◽  
Over Time

Conceptual frameworks which seek to integrate social media uses into disaster management strategies are employed in a range of events. With continued variations to online practices, developments in technology, and changes in online behaviours, it is imperative to provide conceptual frameworks which are relevant, current and insightful. This paper firstly conceptualizes a range of recent literature through inductive coding and proposes a new conceptual framework of current social media uses. Secondly, the framework is applied to a case study of a multi-hazard disaster: which are predicted to grow in severity and frequency due to climate change, alongside increased habitation of at-risk zones. Storm Desmond 2015 has been selected. Snowball sampling is used to identify networks of interest, and thematic analysis used to track changes in Twitter content over time. Web accessibility and information reliability issues are presented and discussed.

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