scholarly journals Social Media Based EFL Learning: Opportunities and Challenges

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 11-21
Author(s):  
Hisyam Nur Ahmad Latif

The growth of communication medium from traditional oral, as in face to face interaction, or written communication, as in letters, to the era of social media where people can communicate wirelessly without having to meet in person change the way people communicate with each other. Social media has become personal necessities for almost every person in order to communicate with their peers, acquaintance, friends, and families. It becomes unseparated part of human life. Thus, social media not only has affected people’s personal life, such as interacting with families, friends, and spouses for personal purposes but also their professional life. Mainstream social media platforms provide unlimited amount of information to language learning that change how human acquire information around them. This paper discusses the paradigm shift in education, the positive and negative effects of using social media as a language learning tool, and the conceptual framework in social media based teaching.

2021 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 36-49
Author(s):  
Lu An ◽  
Junyang Hu ◽  
Manting Xu ◽  
Gang Li ◽  
Chuanming Yu

The highly influential users on social media platforms may lead the public opinion about public events and have positive or negative effects on the later evolution of events. Identifying highly influential users on social media is of great significance for the management of public opinion in the context of public events. In this study, the highly influential users of social media are divided into three types (i.e., topic initiator, opinion leader, and opinion reverser). A method of profiling highly influential users is proposed based on topic consistency and emotional support. The event of “Jiankui He Editing the Infants' Genes” was investigated. The three types of users were identified, and their opinion differences and dynamic evolution were revealed. The comprehensive profiles of highly influential users were constructed. The findings can help emergency management departments master the focus of attention and emotional attitudes of the key users and provide the method and data support for opinion management and decision-making of public events.


Author(s):  
Hanan MOHAMMED ALSHEHAB

The effect of Social Media (SM) technology on human life in the 21St century cannot be denied; the use of SM platforms can be seen in various fields, such as education, medicine, politics, social life, communication methods, and daily life. The research aimed to investigate SM’s impact on Female Saudi International Students’ (FSIS) English language learning and creation of identities. This study utilized a qualitative method to obtain in-depth knowledge of FSIS’ practices on SM and the effects on their learning and identity. The semi-structured interview was used to collect the data from eight FSIS. Thematic analysis was used to analyze the data. Three main themes were generated: FSIS’ daily practices, FSIS’ digital identity, and FSIS’languages on SM. The findings show that FSIS is active on SM, having accounts on different SM platforms. They communicate with people from Saudi Arabia and of different nationalities. Also, the findings assert that FSIS has a strong digital identity on SM. Moreover, the findings emphasized that using SM helps some of the FSIS to improve their English language proficiency. They use SM as a learning tool for English language acquisition. The limitations and the implications of the study are stated in the Conclusion. For further research, suggestions are made to investigate more phenomena regarding Saudis’ using of SM.


2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 419-440
Author(s):  
Adieli Waruwu ◽  
Samuel Purdaryanto

At the end of 2019, the whole world and Indonesia were shocked by the emergence of the new coronavirus disease 2019. It has been more than a year since this disaster struck. The number of victims around the world has reached more than one hundred million with the death toll of more than two million people. Various efforts have been made to prevent the spread of this virus, one of which is social restrictions so that it has an impact in various areas of human life. One of the impacts is the missionary service which usually carries out social and face-to-face interactions. By using qualitative research methods with a literature review approach, observation, and interviews and then describing, this study will provide answers and solutions for mission service strategies during the Covid19 pandemic. The results of this study found answers to mission services online or online. By utilizing internet networks and social media, the gospel can still be preached despite social restrictions. Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, and Tiktok are some social media applications that can be used for mission services during the Covid-19 pandemic, through these applications this news can be presented in the form of writing, audio, and video which are shared via social media. This strategy, with its strengths and weaknesses, provides a great opportunity to continue working on the Great Commission of the Lord Jesus during the Covid-19 pandemic.


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.


Through case studies of incidents around the world where the social media platforms have been used and abused for ulterior purposes, Chapter 6 highlights the lessons that can be learned. For good or for ill, the author elaborates on the way social media has been used as an arbiter to inflict various forms of political influence and how we may have become desensitized due to the popularity of the social media platforms themselves. A searching view is provided that there is now a propensity by foreign states to use social media to influence the user base of sovereign countries during key political events. This type of activity now justifies a paradigm shift in relation to our perception and utilization of computerized devices for the future.


2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 205630512094818 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ysabel Gerrard

At the time of writing (mid-May 2020), mental health charities around the world have experienced an unprecedented surge in demand. At the same time, record-high numbers of people are turning to social media to maintain personal connections due to restrictions on physical movement. But organizations like the mental health charity Mind and even the UK Government have expressed concerns about the possible strain on mental health that may come from spending more time online during COVID-19. These concerns are unsurprising, as debates about the link between heavy social media use and mental illness raged long before the pandemic. But our newly heightened reliance on platforms to replace face-to-face communication has created even more pressure for social media companies to heighten their safety measures and protect their most vulnerable users. To develop and enact these changes, social media companies are reliant on their content moderation workforces, but the COVID-19 pandemic has presented them with two related conundrums: (1) recent changes to content moderation workforces means platforms are likely to be less safe than they were before the pandemic and (2) some of the policies designed to make social media platforms safer for people’s mental health are no longer possible to enforce. This Social Media + Society: 2K essay will address these two challenges in depth.


2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sadie Saltzman

Does the number of social media platforms that an adolescent uses have an effect on the quality of their social relationships? As social media continues to grow and evolve, sociologists have begun to explore its effect on an individual’s everyday life. I propose that the more social media platforms that an adolescent uses, the more they will experience negative effects on their social relationships. Using survey data from 786 respondents living in the United States, ages 13 to 17 and collected by the Pew Research Center in 2014 and 2015, regression analyses were conducted to determine the relationship between social media usage and its effect on quality of adolescent social relationships, controlling for sex and age. The bivariate results show a statistically significant, positive but weak association between number of social media platforms used and the social relationship experience scale. In the multivariate results, this association was still statistically significant. Additionally, the multivariate results show that the control variables, sex and age, have no significant effect on one’s social relationship experience. Therefore, these results show that the more social media platforms used, the more negative a social relationship experience an adolescent will have. The results support the hypothesis and indicate that adolescents who interact with a higher number of social media platforms will experience an increased negative effect on their social relationships. In future studies, researchers should investigate how specific social media platforms influence social relationships. Additionally, this type of research should not only continue, but should refine its methods as social media continues to quickly grow and evolve.


Author(s):  
Alberto Ardèvol-Abreu ◽  
Patricia Delponti ◽  
Carmen Rodríguez-Wangüemert

The main social media platforms have been implementing strategies to minimize fake news dissemination. These include identifying, labeling, and penalizing –via news feed ranking algorithms– fake publications. Part of the rationale behind this approach is that the negative effects of fake content arise only when social media users are deceived. Once debunked, fake posts and news stories should therefore become harmless. Unfortunately, the literature shows that the effects of misinformation are more complex and tend to persist and even backfire after correction. Furthermore, we still do not know much about how social media users evaluate content that has been fact-checked and flagged as false. More worryingly, previous findings suggest that some people may intentionally share made up news on social media, although their motivations are not fully explained. To better understand users’ interaction with social media content identified or recognized as false, we analyze qualitative and quantitative data from five focus groups and a sub-national online survey (N = 350). Findings suggest that the label of ‘false news’ plays a role –although not necessarily central– in social media users’ evaluation of the content and their decision (not) to share it. Some participants showed distrust in fact-checkers and lack of knowledge about the fact-checking process. We also found that fake news sharing is a two-dimensional phenomenon that includes intentional and unintentional behaviors. We discuss some of the reasons why some of social media users may choose to distribute fake news content intentionally.


2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-35
Author(s):  
Alia Khan ◽  
Prof. Mohammad Rizwan Khan

Social media is a term with which most of the people around the world are well acquainted. The advancement of technology has provided a new medium through which we can propose, deliver, swap, and share our ideas without moving a single inch. It is a new avenue for conveying information and a trend which is now-a-days in vogue. From infants to adults, everyone is somehow in contact with the social media. Similarly, education system too has a profound influence of social media. From placement institutes, school authority, teachers, learners, to parents in fact every stakeholder of education system is somehow tied to social media. Jeff Bezos, CEO at Amazon.com once described the power of social media by asserting that “If you make customers unhappy in the physical world, they might each tell 6 friends. If you make customers unhappy on the Internet, they can each tell 6,000 friends” (Pencak 2019). Thus, we can assume the potency and status of social media in our life. Though social media is affecting many significant areas of human life, but the area which itself is considered as a ‘systematic means of communication’ (that is ‘Language’) is too being swayed by this virtual medium. Social media has exceedingly affected English language skills. The paper explores how the social media has influenced linguistics habits of millennial, whether it has affected upcoming academicians in a positive or negative way, and what should be done in order to protect their linguistic habits from the negative influence of social media.


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