scholarly journals Social Media Utilization in the Cochlear Implant Community

2015 ◽  
Vol 26 (02) ◽  
pp. 197-204 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rajeev C. Saxena ◽  
Ashton E. Lehmann ◽  
A. Ed Hight ◽  
Keith Darrow ◽  
Aaron Remenschneider ◽  
...  

Background: More than 200,000 individuals worldwide have received a cochlear implant (CI). Social media Websites may provide a paramedical community for those who possess or are interested in a CI. The utilization patterns of social media by the CI community, however, have not been thoroughly investigated. Purpose: The purpose of this study was to investigate participation of the CI community in social media Websites. Research Design: We conducted a systematic survey of online CI-related social media sources. Using standard search engines, the search terms cochlear implant, auditory implant, forum, and blog identified relevant social media platforms and Websites. Social media participation was quantified by indices of membership and posts. Study Sample: Social media sources included Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, blogs, and online forums. Each source was assigned one of six functional categories based on its description. Intervention: No intervention was performed. Data Collection and Analysis: We conducted all online searches in February 2014. Total counts of each CI-related social media source were summed, and descriptive statistics were calculated. Results: More than 350 sources were identified, including 60 Facebook groups, 36 Facebook pages, 48 Twitter accounts, 121 YouTube videos, 13 forums, and 95 blogs. The most active online communities were Twitter accounts, which totaled 35,577 members, and Facebook groups, which totaled 17,971 members. CI users participated in Facebook groups primarily for general information/support (68%). Online forums were the next most active online communities by membership. The largest forum contained approximately 9,500 topics with roughly 127,000 posts. CI users primarily shared personal stories through blogs (92%), Twitter (71%), and YouTube (62%). Conclusions: The CI community engages in the use of a wide range of online social media sources. The CI community uses social media for support, advocacy, rehabilitation information, research endeavors, and sharing of personal experiences. Future studies are needed to investigate how social media Websites may be harnessed to improve patient-provider relationships and potentially used to augment patient education.

2019 ◽  
Vol 36 (3) ◽  
pp. 154-172
Author(s):  
Ellen Yeh ◽  
Nicholas Swinehart

Many learners, even those studying at universities in regions where the target language is spoken, lack opportunities for meaningful language use outside of the classroom. One avenue for learners to increase authentic target-language communication is online affinity spaces within social media platforms, where interactions with other users are formed around shared interests rather than personal connections. International students at an arts and media college in the Midwestern United States were asked to read a discussion thread within a social media platform, summarize what they found useful, and respond to pre- and posttask questionnaires. The platform used, Reddit, features anonymous user-generated content in a wide range of discussion forums based around specific interests and geographic locations. This study used qualitative data to investigate the extent to which international students participate in online communities like these and the factors or barriers that keep them from achieving full participation. The findings are then used to present learner training strategies that can help reduce or remove those barriers, enabling language learners to increase their participation in target-language online communities.      Plusieurs apprenantes et apprenants, même parmi celles et ceux qui étudient dans une université située dans une région où la langue cible est parlée, n’ont pas suffisamment d’occasions de pratiquer avantageusement leur nouvelle langue en dehors de la salle de classe. Une avenue qui s’ouvre à elles et à eux pour augmenter leurs chances de s’adonner à des communications authentiques dans leur langue cible est l’espace d’affinité en ligne sur les réseaux sociaux, endroit où les interactions sont davantage basées sur le partage d’intérêts communs que sur des relations personnelles. Des étudiantes et étudiants internationaux d’un collège des arts et des médias du Midwest des États-Unis ont été invités à lire un fil de discussion sur une plateforme de réseau social, à en résumer les éléments jugés utiles et à répondre à un questionnaire avant et après l’exercice. La plateforme utilisée, Reddit, présente des contenus qui sont générés anonymement par les utilisateurs dans un large éventail de forums de discussion et qui sont regroupés autour d’intérêts et de secteurs géographiques particuliers. Cette étude utilise des données qualitatives permettant d’évaluer dans quelle mesure les étudiantes et étudiants internationaux participent à la vie de communautés en ligne de ce genre et de déterminer quels sont les facteurs ou obstacles qui les empêchent de le faire pleinement. Les constatations sont ensuite utilisées pour présenter des stratégies de formation des apprenantes et apprenants qui sont susceptibles d’aider à réduire ou aplanir ces obstacles et à aider par le fait même les participants à s’impliquer davantage dans la vie de communautés en ligne s’exprimant dans leur langue cible.


Author(s):  
Max Z. Li ◽  
Megan S. Ryerson

Community outreach and engagement efforts are critical to an airport’s role as an ever-evolving transportation infrastructure and regional economic driver. As online social media platforms continue to grow in both popularity and influence, a new engagement channel between airports and the public is emerging. However, the motivations behind and effectiveness of these social media channels remain unclear. In this work, we address this knowledge gap by better understanding the advantages, impact, and best practices of this newly emerging engagement channel available to airports. Focusing specifically on airport YouTube channels, we first document quantitative viewership metrics, and examine common content characteristics within airport YouTube videos. We then conduct interviews and site visits with relevant airport stakeholders to identify the motivations and workflow behind these videos. Finally, we facilitate sample focus groups designed to survey public perceptions of the effectiveness and value of these videos. From our four project phases, to maximize content effectiveness and community engagement potential, we synthesize the following framework of action items, recommendations, and best practices: (C) Consistency and community; (O) Organizational structure; (M) Momentum; (B) Branding and buy-in; (A) Activity; (T) Two-way engagement; (E) Enthusiasm; and (D) Depth, or as a convenient initialism, our COMBATED framework.


2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-31
Author(s):  
Esteban A. Ríssola ◽  
David E. Losada ◽  
Fabio Crestani

Mental state assessment by analysing user-generated content is a field that has recently attracted considerable attention. Today, many people are increasingly utilising online social media platforms to share their feelings and moods. This provides a unique opportunity for researchers and health practitioners to proactively identify linguistic markers or patterns that correlate with mental disorders such as depression, schizophrenia or suicide behaviour. This survey describes and reviews the approaches that have been proposed for mental state assessment and identification of disorders using online digital records. The presented studies are organised according to the assessment technology and the feature extraction process conducted. We also present a series of studies which explore different aspects of the language and behaviour of individuals suffering from mental disorders, and discuss various aspects related to the development of experimental frameworks. Furthermore, ethical considerations regarding the treatment of individuals’ data are outlined. The main contributions of this survey are a comprehensive analysis of the proposed approaches for online mental state assessment on social media, a structured categorisation of the methods according to their design principles, lessons learnt over the years and a discussion on possible avenues for future research.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sakthi Kumar Arul Prakash ◽  
Conrad Tucker

AbstractThis work investigates the ability to classify misinformation in online social media networks in a manner that avoids the need for ground truth labels. Rather than approach the classification problem as a task for humans or machine learning algorithms, this work leverages user–user and user–media (i.e.,media likes) interactions to infer the type of information (fake vs. authentic) being spread, without needing to know the actual details of the information itself. To study the inception and evolution of user–user and user–media interactions over time, we create an experimental platform that mimics the functionality of real-world social media networks. We develop a graphical model that considers the evolution of this network topology to model the uncertainty (entropy) propagation when fake and authentic media disseminates across the network. The creation of a real-world social media network enables a wide range of hypotheses to be tested pertaining to users, their interactions with other users, and with media content. The discovery that the entropy of user–user and user–media interactions approximate fake and authentic media likes, enables us to classify fake media in an unsupervised learning manner.


Author(s):  
Linh Nguyen ◽  
Kim Barbour

This paper explores whether or not our online social media persona is viewed as authentic. The selfie is a fundamental part of the structure of the online identity for young people in today’s digital world. The relationship between an individual’s self-identity in the physical face-to-face environment was analysed and compared to a carefully constructed, modified virtual representation in a selfie posted on social media platforms. Data was obtained through four focus groups at the University of Adelaide. Two key theoretical frameworks provide a basis for this study: Erving Goffman’s concept of the self as a performance, and Charles Horton Cooley’s concept of the looking glass self. In examining the focus group discussions in light of these two frameworks as well as associated literature, we conclude that the authenticity of the selfie as a way of visualising a social media persona is subjective and dependent on the individual posting a selfie. Ultimately, authenticity involves a degree of subjectivity. It was on this basis that focus group participants argued that selfies could be considered authentic expressions of identity.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Victor Suarez-Lledo ◽  
Javier Alvarez-Galvez

BACKGROUND The propagation of health misinformation through social media has become a major public health concern over the last two decades. Although today there is broad agreement among researchers, health professionals, and policy makers on the need to control and combat health misinformation, the magnitude of this problem is still unknown. Consequently, before adopting the necessary measures for the adequate control of health misinformation in social media, it is fundamental to discover both the most prevalent health topics and the social media platforms from which these topics are initially framed and subsequently disseminated. OBJECTIVE This systematic review aims to identify the main health misinformation topics and their prevalence on different social media platforms, focusing on methodological quality and the diverse solutions that are being implemented to address this public health concern. METHODS This systematic review was conducted according to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses guidelines (PRISMA). We searched PubMed, MEDLINE, Scopus and the Web of Science for articles published in English before March 2019 with a particular focus on studying health misinformation in social media. We defined health misinformation as a health-related claim based on anecdotal evidence, false, or misleading due to the lack of existing scientific knowledge. The criteria for inclusion were: 1) articles that focused on health misinformation in social media, including those in which the authors discussed the consequences or purposes of health misinformation; and 2) studies that described empirical findings regarding the measurement of health misinformation in these platforms. RESULTS A total of 69 studies were identified as eligible, covering a wide range of health topics and social media platforms. The topics were articulated around six principal categories: vaccines (32%), drugs or smoking (22%), non-communicable disease (19%), pandemics (10%), eating disorders (9%), and medical treatments (7%). Studies were mainly based on five methodological approaches: Social Network Analysis (28%), Evaluating Content (26%), Evaluating Quality (24%), Content/Text analysis (16%) and Sentiment Analysis (6%). Health misinformation proved to be the most more prevalent in studies related to smoking products and drugs such as opioids or marijuana. Posts with misinformation reached 87% in some studies focused in smoking products. Health misinformation about vaccines was also very common (43%), but studies reported different levels of misinformation depending on the different vaccines, with the Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) vaccine being the most affected. Secondly, health misinformation related to diets or pro eating disorders (pro-ED) arguments were moderate in comparison to the aforementioned topics (36%). Studies focused on diseases (i.e. non-communicable diseases and pandemics) also reported moderate misinformation rates (40%), especially in the case of cancer. Finally, the lowest levels of health misinformation were related to medical treatments (30%). CONCLUSIONS Prevalence of health misinformation was most common on Twitter and on issues related to smoking products and drugs. However, misinformation is also high on major public health issues such as vaccines and diseases. Our study offers a comprehensive characterization of the dominant health misinformation topics and a comprehensive description of their prevalence in different social media platforms, which can guide future studies and help in the development of evidence-based digital policy actions plans. CLINICALTRIAL


Plaridel ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 285-295
Author(s):  
Yvonne Chua ◽  
Jake Soriano

Elections are fertile ground for disinformation. The 2019 midterm elections, like the 2016 presidential election, buttress this observation. This ugly side of electoral contests is documented by Tsek.ph, a pioneering collaborative fact-checking initiative launched by three universities and eleven newsrooms specifically for the midterms. Its repository of fact checks provides valuable insights into the nature of electoral disinformation before, during and after the elections. Clearly, electoral disinformation emanates from candidates and supporters alike, on conventional (e.g., speeches and sorties) and digital (e.g., social media) platforms. Its wide range of victims includes the media no less.


Author(s):  
Sudipta Kiran Sarkar ◽  
Norman Au ◽  
Rob Law

This study, which is based on social exchange theory (SET), focuses on the capacities of social media to provide such means by examining the effect of value in online communities (VOC) in social media platforms on satisfying ecotourists' online socialisation and knowledge sharing. Based on the data obtained from 543 ecotourists and analysed by structural equation modelling (SEM), the results of this study confirmed that VOC, which embeds the SET factors of cooperation, reputation, trust and altruism, significantly influenced ecotourists' satisfaction in socialisation and knowledge-sharing intentions through social media. Furthermore, VOC served as a higher-/second-order factor reflected by the indicators of cooperation, reputation, trust and altruism. Finally, ecotourists' satisfaction in socialisation exerted a significant mediating effect between VOC and knowledge sharing.


2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (167) ◽  
pp. 20200020
Author(s):  
Michele Coscia ◽  
Luca Rossi

Many people view news on social media, yet the production of news items online has come under fire because of the common spreading of misinformation. Social media platforms police their content in various ways. Primarily they rely on crowdsourced ‘flags’: users signal to the platform that a specific news item might be misleading and, if they raise enough of them, the item will be fact-checked. However, real-world data show that the most flagged news sources are also the most popular and—supposedly—reliable ones. In this paper, we show that this phenomenon can be explained by the unreasonable assumptions that current content policing strategies make about how the online social media environment is shaped. The most realistic assumption is that confirmation bias will prevent a user from flagging a news item if they share the same political bias as the news source producing it. We show, via agent-based simulations, that a model reproducing our current understanding of the social media environment will necessarily result in the most neutral and accurate sources receiving most flags.


2019 ◽  
Vol 36 (1) ◽  
pp. 58-72
Author(s):  
Saeed Rouhani ◽  
Ehsan Abedin

Purpose Crypto-currencies, decentralized electronic currencies systems, denote a radical change in financial exchange and economy environment. Consequently, it would be attractive for designers and policy-makers in this area to make out what social media users think about them on Twitter. The purpose of this study is to investigate the social opinions about different kinds of crypto-currencies and tune the best-customized classification technique to categorize the tweets based on sentiments. Design/methodology/approach This paper utilized a lexicon-based approach for analyzing the reviews on a wide range of crypto-currencies over Twitter data to measure positive, negative or neutral sentiments; in addition, the end result of sentiments played a training role to train a supervised technique, which can predict the sentiment loading of tweets about the main crypto-currencies. Findings The findings further prove that more than 50 per cent of people have positive beliefs about crypto-currencies. Furthermore, this paper confirms that marketers can predict the sentiment of tweets about these crypto-currencies with high accuracy if they use appropriate classification techniques like support vector machine (SVM). Practical implications Considering the growing interest in crypto-currencies (Bitcoin, Cardano, Ethereum, Litcoin and Ripple), the findings of this paper have a remarkable value for enterprises in the financial area to obtain the promised benefits of social media analysis at work. In addition, this paper helps crypto-currencies vendors analyze public opinion in social media platforms. In this sense, the current paper strengthens our understanding of what happens in social media for crypto-currencies. Originality/value For managers and decision-makers, this paper suggests that the news and campaign for their crypto in Twitter would affect people’s perspectives in a good manner. Because of this fact, the firms, investing in these crypto-currencies, could apply the social media as a magnifier for their promotional activities. The findings steer the market managers to see social media as a predictor tool, which can analyze the market through understanding the opinions of users of Twitter.


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