scholarly journals Marginalizing the Mainstream: How Social Media Privilege Political Information

2021 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Rogers
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Web Search ◽  
User Engagement ◽  
Mainstream Media ◽  
Online Platforms ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
Cross Platform ◽  
Data Journalism ◽  
Run Up ◽  
Official Sources

The following reports on research undertaken concerning the “misinformation problem” on social media during the run-up to the U.S. presidential elections in 2020. Employing techniques borrowed from data journalism, it develops a form of cross-platform analysis that is attuned to both commensurability as well as platform specificity. It analyses the most engaged-with or top-ranked political content on seven online platforms: TikTok, 4chan, Reddit, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Google Web Search. Discussing the extent to which social media platforms marginalize mainstream media and mainstream the fringe, the analyses found that TikTok parodies mainstream media, 4chan and Reddit dismiss it and direct users to alternative influencer networks and extreme YouTube content. Twitter prefers the hyperpartisan over it. Facebook’s “fake news” problem also concerns declining amounts of mainstream media referenced. Instagram has influencers (rather than, say, experts) dominating user engagement. By comparison, Google Web Search buoys the liberal mainstream (and sinks conservative sites), but generally gives special interest sources, as they were termed in the study, the privilege to provide information rather than official sources. The piece concludes with a discussion of source and “platform criticism”, concerning how online platforms are seeking to filter the content that is posted or found there through increasing editorial intervention. These “editorial epistemologies”, applied especially around COVID-19 keywords, are part of an expansion of so-called content moderation to what I call “serious queries”, or keywords that return official information. Other epistemological strategies for editorially moderating the misinformation problem are also treated.

Social media bots as active disseminators of COVID-19 news (Preprint)

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ahmed Al-Rawi ◽  
Vishal Shukla
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Financial Incentives ◽  
Total Sample ◽  
Breaking News ◽  
Mainstream Media ◽  
Social Nature ◽  
Credible Information ◽  
Mixed Approach ◽  
Standard Terms ◽  
Official Sources

BACKGROUND In this study, we examined the activities of automated social media accounts or bots that tweet or retweet referencing #COVID-19 and #COVID19. OBJECTIVE The purpose of this study is to identify bot accounts to understand the nature of messages sent by them on COVID-19. Social media bots have been widely discussed in academic literature as some kind of moral panic mostly in relation to spreading controversial and politically polarized messages or in connection to problematic health bots (Broniatowski et al., 2018; Allem & Ferrara, 2018). The findings of this study, however, show that bots that reference COVID-19 mostly mention mainstream media and credible health sources while spreading breaking news on the pandemic or urging people to stay at home. These results align with previous research on the possible benefits, advantages, or possibilities afforded by the use of health chatbots (Brandtzaeg & Følstad, 2018; Skjuve & Brandtzæg, 2018; Kretzschmar et al., 2019; Greer et al., 2019). METHODS We used a mixed approach mostly comprised of several digital methods in this study. First, we collected 50,811,299 tweets and retweets referencing #COVID-19 and #COVID19 for a period of over two months from February 12 until April 18, 2020. We focused on these two hashtags because they are standard terms used by WHO and other official sources. From a total sample of over 50 million tweets, we used a mixed method to extract more than 185,000 messages posted by 127 bots. RESULTS Unlike the literature on health bots that associate them with anti-social activities, our findings show that the majority of these bots tweet, retweet and mention mainstream media outlets and credible official sources, promote health protection and telemedicine, and disseminate breaking news on the number of casualties and deaths caused by COVID-19. CONCLUSIONS Despite that some literature on social media bots highlight the controversial and anti-social nature of automated accounts, the findings of this study show that the majority of bots spread news on and awareness of COVID-19 risks while citing and referencing mainstream media outlets and credible health sources. We argue that there might be financial incentives behind designing some of these bots. However and if monitored and updated with credible information by health agencies themselves, we believe that bots can be useful during health crises due to their efficiency and speed in spreading valuable information, some of which is crucial for public health. CLINICALTRIAL N/A

scholarly journals How Popular Culture Prompts Youth Collective Political Expression and Cross-Cutting Political Talk on Social Media: A Cross-Platform Analysis

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 205630512110088
Author(s):  
Ioana Literat ◽  
Neta Kligler-Vilenchik
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Popular Culture ◽  
Qualitative Content Analysis ◽  
Political Expression ◽  
Political Views ◽  
Political Talk ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
Cross Platform ◽  
Symbolic Resource ◽  
Political Differences

Adopting a comparative cross-platform approach, we examine youth political expression and conversation on social media, as prompted by popular culture. Tracking a common case study—the practice of building Donald Trump’s border wall within the videogame Fortnite—across three social media platforms popular with youth (YouTube, TikTok, Instagram), we ask: How do popular culture artifacts prompt youth political expression, as well as cross-cutting political talk with those holding different political views, across social media platforms? A mixed methods approach, combining quantitative and qualitative content analysis of around 6,400 comments posted on relevant artifacts, illuminates youth popular culture as a shared symbolic resource that stimulates communication within and across political differences—although, as our findings show, it is often deployed in a disparaging manner. This cross-platform analysis, grounded in contemporary youth culture and sociopolitical dynamics, enables a deeper understanding of the interplay between popular culture, cross-cutting political talk, and the role that different social media platforms play in shaping these expressive practices.

scholarly journals Prevalence and source analysis of COVID-19 misinformation of 138 countries

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Md. Sayeed Al-Zaman
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Positive Association ◽  
The Philippines ◽  
Source Analysis ◽  
Mainstream Media ◽  
Content Analysis Method ◽  
The Us ◽  
Political Conservatism ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
Internet Literacy

This study analyzed 9,657 pieces of misinformation that originated in 138 countries and fact-checked by 94 organizations. Collected from Poynter Institute's official website and following a quantitative content analysis method along with descriptive statistical analysis, this research produces some novel insights regarding COVID-19 misinformation. The findings show that India (15.94%), the US (9.74%), Brazil (8.57%), and Spain (8.03%) are the four most misinformation-affected countries. Based on the results, it is presumed that the prevalence of COVID-19 misinformation can have a positive association with the COVID-19 situation. Social media (84.94%) produces the highest amount of misinformation, and the internet (90.5%) as a whole is responsible for most of the COVID-19 misinformation. Moreover, Facebook alone produces 66.87% misinformation among all social media platforms. Of all countries, India (18.07%) produced the highest amount of social media misinformation, perhaps thanks to the country's higher internet penetration rate, increasing social media consumption, and users' lack of internet literacy. On the other hand, countries like Turkey, the US, Brazil, and the Philippines where either political control over media is intense or political conservatism is apparent, experienced a higher amount of misinformation from mainstream media, political figures, and celebrities. Although the prevalence of misinformation was the highest in March 2020, given the present trends, it may likely to increase slightly in 2021.

scholarly journals Fake and Real News detection Using Python

2020 ◽  
pp. 423-428
Author(s):  
Fakhra Akhtar ◽  
Faizan Ahmed Khan
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Fake News ◽  
False Information ◽  
False Negatives ◽  
Mainstream Media ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
The Masses ◽  
Negative Attributes ◽  
Entire Dataset ◽  
F Measure

<p>In the digital age, fake news has become a well-known phenomenon. The spread of false evidence is often used to confuse mainstream media and political opponents, and can lead to social media wars, hatred arguments and debates.Fake news is blurring the distinction between real and false information, and is often spread on social media resulting in negative views and opinions. Earlier Research describe the fact that false propaganda is used to create false stories on mainstream media in order to cause a revolt and tension among the masses The digital rights foundation DRF report, which builds on the experiences of 152 journalists and activists in Pakistan, presents that more than 88 % of the participants find social media platforms as the worst source for information, with Facebook being the absolute worst. The dataset used in this paper relates to Real and fake news detection. The objective of this paper is to determine the Accuracy , precision , of the entire dataset .The results are visualized in the form of graphs and the analysis was done using python. The results showed the fact that the dataset holds 95% of the accuracy. The number of actual predicted cases were 296. Results of this paper reveals that The accuracy of the model dataset is 95.26 % the precision results 95.79 % whereas recall and F-Measure shows 94.56% and 95.17% accuracy respectively.Whereas in predicted models there are 296 positive attributes , 308 negative attributes 17 false positives and 13 false negatives. This research recommends that authenticity of news should be analysed first instead of drafting an opinion, sharing fake news or false information is considered unethical journalists and news consumers both should act responsibly while sharing any news.</p>

A Scoping Review of Social Media Sites as a Tool for Clinical Trial Recruitment and Retention (Preprint)

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jarett Anderson ◽  
Austin Hamp ◽  
Michelle Militello ◽  
Ryan Geist ◽  
Jaclyn Anderson ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Clinical Trial ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Clinical Trials ◽  
The United States ◽  
User Engagement ◽  
Trial Recruitment ◽  
Recruitment And Retention ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
Clinical Trial Recruitment ◽  
Media Applications

BACKGROUND Clinical trials are an essential process in discovering new biomedical or behavioral outcomes in disease processes. There are several steps involved in creating a clinical trial. One step, patient recruitment, is often touted as the largest contributor to trial delays, which has financial, scientific, and ethical ramifications. Approximately 1.2 billion dollars in the United States is spent each year on this process and as many as 86% of clinical trials do not meet recruitment targets within their perspective timeframes, and 19% of trials had to be terminated early due to insufficient recruitment and/or patient retention1. Social media is a viable, inexpensive tool that can be utilized to improve both recruitment and retention rates2. To date, platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and others have been widely utilized in recruitment for clinical trials, communication among stakeholders, and educational tools. Social media also has the advantage of reaching populations that otherwise would be more difficult to reach3. A list of these platforms and each of their distinct advantages for clinical trial recruitment can be found in Table 1. This review aims to highlight the unique characteristics of several social media platforms and their advantageous properties in increasing recruitment and retention during clinical trials. OBJECTIVE This narrative review analyzes the current use of several social media sites in clinical trial recruitment and retention. It also offers insight concerning potential uses of these sites that are not currently utilized. METHODS A literature search was performed using PubMed, Google Scholar, and ResearchGate to access and review relevant articles published in peer-reviewed journals concerning social media and its use in clinical trials. Two independent researchers with education and experience in dermatology screened publications to select studies featuring quantitative results concerning social media and clinical trial recruitment. RESULTS 13 social media applications were studied and reviewed. 7 of these social media sites or applications have currently been studied, and their use in complementing traditional recruiting methods such as advertisements in newspapers, health fairs, and direct mailing, has been analyzed and reported. 6 additional social media applications have further been studied, and their potential use within clinical trial research has been additionally analyzed. CONCLUSIONS A large number and variety of social media platforms exist to aid in the recruitment and retention process for clinical trials, many of which can utilize niche features and reach a targeted demographic. Although recruitment remains a barrier for researchers involved in clinical trials, the potential to recruit through social media may be underutilized. Many avenues that exist to improve recruitment have not been leveraged. For example, partnering to create collaborative videos with social media influencers on platforms such as Instagram and Youtube may help to broaden the audience and increase clinical trial enrollments. Creating biomedical educational profiles or channels that discuss details of clinical trials with descriptions of these trials could also be employed to increase the scope of the audience. Reddit, Smart Patients, and Patients Like Me can target difficult-to-reach patient populations due to their use of subgroups, allowing researchers to reach their target audience. Additionally, many of these platforms provide user engagement features that allow users to respond directly to videos or posts and could be used to encourage enrollment by allowing users to react directly to clinical trial advertisements.

New Media and Terrorism

2014 ◽  
pp. 184-196
Author(s):  
Pauline Hope Cheong
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
New Media ◽  
Critical Examination ◽  
War On Terrorism ◽  
Mainstream Media ◽  
Social Media Networks ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
Hearts And Minds ◽  
Video Material

Beyond the widespread coverage of terrorism-related stories on international news outlets, we are witnessing the swift spread of alternative interpretations of these stories online. These alternative narratives typically involve digital transmediation or the remix, remediation, and viral dissemination of textual, audio, and video material on multiple new and social media platforms. This chapter discusses the role of new(er) media in facilitating the transmediated spread of extremist narratives, rumors, and political parody. Drawing from recent case studies based upon multi-modal analyses of digital texts on social media networks, including blogs, vlogs, Twitter, and Jihadist sites associated with acts of terror in Asia, Middle East, and North America, the chapter illustrates how digital transmediation significantly works oftentimes to construct counter narratives to government counter insurgency operations and mainstream media presentations. In discussing these examples, the chapter demonstrates how the new media points to varied narratives and reifies notions of national security, global politics, terrorism, and the media's role in framing the “War on Terrorism.” Moreover, a critical examination of remix texts and digital mashups of popular artifacts inform a Web 2.0 understanding of how the creative communication practices of online prosumers (hybrid consumers and producers) contest dominant interests in the online ideological battlefield for hearts and minds.

Social Media Analytics

2022 ◽  
pp. 385-410
Author(s):  
Časlav Kalinić ◽  
Miroslav D. Vujičić
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Big Data ◽  
Cultural Tourism ◽  
Social Media Analytics ◽  
Online Platforms ◽  
New Information ◽  
People Participation ◽  
Management And Development ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
Tourism Destinations

The rise of social media allowed greater people participation online. Platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or TikTok enable visitors to share their thoughts, opinions, photos, locations. All those interactions create a vast amount of data. Social media analytics, as a way of application of big data, can provide excellent insights and create new information for stakeholders involved in the management and development of cultural tourism destinations. This chapter advocates for the employment of the big data concept through social media analytics that can contribute to the management of visitors in cultural tourism destinations. In this chapter, the authors highlight the principles of big data and review the most influential social media platforms – Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok. On that basis, they disclose opportunities for the management and marketing of cultural tourism destinations.

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.

scholarly journals The role of emotional marketing and UTAUT on donation intention through social media

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 38-46
Author(s):  
Desi Tri Kurniawati ◽  
Nadiyah Hirfiyana Rosita ◽  
Rila Anggraeni
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Structural Equation ◽  
Real Condition ◽  
Structural Equation Analysis ◽  
Online Platforms ◽  
Equation Analysis ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
Donation Intention ◽  
Willingness To Use

Donations through social media or any online platforms are becoming a new trend these days, thanks to the use of emotional marketing through narrations and visual depictions showing the real condition of people who need supports. Organizations are led to raise people’s emotions to increase their intention to make donations. This study aims to examine the effect of emotional marketing on donation intention through social media platforms and people’s willingness to use technology (UTAUT). This is explanatory research was conducted through a survey on 365 respondents of Malang city who had seen a crowdfunding commercial of Kitabisa.com. The structural equation analysis has led to findings that emotional marketing significantly influences people’s donation intention, implying that the commercial is able to affect people’s emotion into empathy and willingness to make donations through the charity campaign. Furthermore, this study also finds that UTAUT has a significant effect on the intention. The findings are useful for Kitabisa.com in their effort to increase people’s donation intention through the use of emotional marketing.

scholarly journals Social media usage by President Donald Trump before and after the 2016 elections

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roy Glueckstern ◽  
Alexi Benyacar ◽  
Sacha Grigri
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Presidential Elections ◽  
Media Use ◽  
User Engagement ◽  
Fake News ◽  
Donald Trump ◽  
Media Usage ◽  
Mainstream Media ◽  
Before And After ◽  
The Media

According to Gill (2017), the present era of electronic revolution is one in which social media has become a means to an end in political sphere communication. Today, political marketing and advertising for persons seeking elective posts analyze, develop, execute and manage campaigns as a way of driving public opinion (Laing &amp; Khattab, 2016). Social media provides a platform on which one can engage with the so-called connected generation. If the November 2016 elections are anything to go by, Twitter proved to be the medium of choice for citizens to engage and consume political content (Le et al., 2017). Ideally, tweets formed the basis of facilitating user engagement through the provision of content and newsbreaks. By extension, the mentioned discussions would influence the political discourse while establishing the capacity to determine the events of mainstream media. This study seeks to establish social media usage by President Donald Trump before and after his election. An understanding of such trend is essential in inferring as to whether Social media, in this case Twitter, plays a role in the current political spheres by promoting influence of a given aspirant. This stems from various studies that have stated that there is an association between social media use and an aspirant’s influence of the connected generation who are especially the youths. For instance, a thesis by Hwang (2016) observed that President Trump’s Twitter usage contributes to his political poll success which he associates with a reflection of his personality in the media use. This was also observed by Lilleker, Jackson, Thorsen and Veneti (2016) who stated that President Trump’s media use contributed to his election. It would hence be essential to understand President Trump’s nature of usage of Twitter. Allcott and Gentzkow (2017) conducted a study in which they observed use of fake news to influence people into certain political alignments. Twitter was also observed as one of the channels through which fake news was distributed. This study might help to create a foundation under which more studies can be done to determine the association of social media with other issues facing the society such as fake news and environment issues and their role on presidential elections. It would also be worth noting that there has been high politicization of President Trump’s use of Twitter especially during his Campaigns. This study would hence help to infer whether there is a change in this factor after his election.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document