scholarly journals Rapid collaborative knowledge building via Twitter after significant geohazard events

Author(s):  
Robin Lacassin ◽  
Maud Devès ◽  
Stephen P. Hicks ◽  
Jean-Paul Ampuero ◽  
Rémy Bossu ◽  
...  

<p>Twitter is an established social media platform valued by scholars as an open way to disseminate scientific information and to publicly discuss research results. Scientific discussions on Twitter are widely viewed by the media who can then pass on information to the public. Here, we take the example of two 2018 earthquake-related events which were widely commented on Twitter by geoscientists: the Palu Mw7.5 earthquake and tsunami in the Indonesian island of Sulawesi and the long-duration (more than one year) seismo-volcanic crisis Mayotte island in the Comoros archipelago between Africa and Madagascar. We build our analysis on a content and contextual analysis of selected Twitter threads about the geophysical characteristics of these events. Most authors of this paper have participated to these Twitter threads and related discussions, and regularly explain geohazard events via this social media. From the two selected examples, we show that Twitter promotes very rapid building of knowledge – in the minutes to hours and days following an event – via an efficient exchange of information and active discussion between the scientists themselves and with the public. Combining these results with our own experience of communicating geohazard science via Twitter, we discuss the advantages and potential pitfalls of this relatively novel way to make scientific information accessible to scholarly peers and to lay people. We argue that scientific discussion on Twitter breaks down the traditional “ivory towers” of academia. It participates to the growing trends towards open science, making science accessible to any non-academics or citizen scientists who can follow and participate in the discussion. This may help people to understand how science is developed, and, in the case of natural/environmental hazards, to better understand their risks.</p>

2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 129-146 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robin Lacassin ◽  
Maud Devès ◽  
Stephen P. Hicks ◽  
Jean-Paul Ampuero ◽  
Remy Bossu ◽  
...  

Abstract. Twitter is an established social media platform valued by scholars as an open way to disseminate scientific information and to publicly discuss research results. Scientific discussions on Twitter are viewed by the media, who can then pass on information to the wider public. Social media is used widely by geoscientists, but there is little documentation currently available regarding the benefits or limitations of this for the scientist or the public. Here, we use the example of two 2018 earthquake-related events that were widely commented on by geoscientists on Twitter: the Palu Mw 7.5 earthquake and related tsunami in Indonesia and the long-duration Mayotte island seismovolcanic crisis in the Indian Ocean. We built our study on a content and contextual analysis of selected Twitter threads about the geophysical characteristics of these events. From the analysis of these two examples, we show that Twitter promotes a very rapid building of knowledge in the minutes to hours and days following an event via an efficient exchange of information and active discussion between the scientists themselves and the public. We discuss the advantages and potential pitfalls of this relatively novel way of making scientific information accessible to scholarly peers and lay people. We argue that scientific discussion on Twitter breaks down the traditional “ivory tower” of academia, contributes to the growing trend towards open science, and may help people to understand how science is developed and, in turn, to better understand the risks related to natural/environmental hazards.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robin Lacassin ◽  
Maud Devès ◽  
Stephen P. Hicks ◽  
Jean-Paul Ampuero ◽  
Remy Bossu ◽  
...  

Abstract. Twitter is an established social media platform valued by scholars as an open way to disseminate scientific information and to publicly discuss research results. Scientific discussions are widely viewed by the media who can then pass on information to the wider public. Here, we take the example of two 2018 earthquake-related events which were widely commented on Twitter by geoscientists: the Palu Mw 7.5 earthquake and tsunami in Indonesia and the long-duration Mayotte island seismo-volcanic crisis. We build our study on a content and contextual analysis of selected Twitter threads about the geophysical characteristics of these events. From the analysis of these two examples, we show that Twitter promotes very rapid building of knowledge – in the minutes to hours and days following an event – via an efficient exchange of information and active discussion between the scientists themselves and with the public. We discuss the advantages and potential pitfalls of this relatively novel way to make scientific information accessible to scholarly peers and to lay people. We argue that scientific discussion on Twitter breaks down the traditional ivory towers of academia, following growing trends towards open science, and may help people to understand how science is developed, and, in the case of natural/environmental hazards, to better understand their risks.


Author(s):  
Oloo Ong’ong’a

The rise of fake news into the new media platform has raised significant concern in Africa and Kenya in recent years. The new media has embedded itself with fake news, which sometimes has led to the misunderstanding and misinformation of particular events that might be of the public interest. The general public, policymakers, and scholars, as well as the media, have found this as a very challenging issue. The upsurge of the new technologies, mainly social media, has posed challenges as youth immerse themselves in utilizing these social media for their own benefits. This is coupled with the creation and spreading of fake news, which sometimes when it goes viral; they lead to stress, panic and uncertainty to the individuals that come across them. The ability of users’ exceptional capacity to produce, reproduce, and distribute their information to a broad audience makes social media, an essential tool in the information age. The article critically reviews the literature on fake news and recommends for media literacy, strengthening the legal structures and use of sophisticated technologies as a strategy to fight fake news in the social media in Kenya.


Author(s):  
Ruth Grüters ◽  
Knut Ove Eliassen

AbstractTo understand the success of SKAM, the series’ innovative use of “social media” must be taken into consideration. The article follows two lines of argument, one diachronic, the other synchronic. The concept of remediation allows for a historical perspective that places the series in a longer tradition of “real time”-fictions and media practices that span from the epistolary novels of the 18th century by way of radio theatre and television serials to the new media of the 21st century. Framing the series within the current media ecology (marked by the connectivity logic of “social media”), the authors analyze how the choice of the blog as the drama’s media platform has formed the ways the series succeeded in affecting and mobilizing its audience. Given the long tradition of strong pedagogical premises in the teenager serials of publicly financed Norwegian television, the authors note the absence of any explicit media critical perspectives or didacticism. Nevertheless, the claim is that the media-practices of the series, as well as the actions and discourses of its followers (blogposts, facebook-groups, etc.), generate new insights and knowledge with regards to the series’ form, content, and practices.


Media Wisata ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Nuharani K ◽  
Dessy Rahmawati

Natural tourism destinations Watu Amben is tourist destinations which presents a panorama of the natural landscape which is located in the village of Pandeyan, district Piyungan, Bantul. One of the efforts made by the Manager of Watu Amben to introduce these tourist destinations to the public is using social media Instagram. Based on the foregoing, the researchers conducted a study with the title "Tourist Perception of Social Media Account Instagram@watuamben". Research methods used in this research is qualitative research. This research was conducted in nature tourism Watu Amben, with data collection techniques observation, interview, questionnaire and the documentation. The interviews addressed to account manager Instagram @watuamben and also tourists coming to Watu Amben, while questionnaires addressed to tourists visiting the Watu Amben. The purpose of this research is to know the visitor's perception of social media account Instagram @watuamben. The result of this research is that the pictures or videos that uploaded in Instagram by @watuamben could change the tourist perspective about tour destination waktu ambrn when they see the pictures and the videos. Also, the researchers hope that the administrators of Instagram account @watuamben could use the media social to introduce the tour destination watu amben to publiceffectively


2021 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eni Maryani ◽  
Preciosa Alnashava Janitra ◽  
Reksa Anggia Ratmita

The fast-growing social media in Indonesia has opened up opportunities for spreading feminist ideas to a wider and more diverse audience. Various social media accounts especially Instagram that focus on gender advocacy and feminism such as @indonesiafeminis, @lawanpatriarki, and @feminismanis have developed in Indonesia. However, the development of the social media platform also presents groups that oppose feminists. One of the accounts of women’s groups that oppose feminists is @indonesiatanpafeminis.id (@indonesiawithoutfeminist.id). The research objectives are namely to analyze the diversity of issues and reveal the discourse contestation that developed in the @indonesiatanpafeminis.id, and dynamic relationships on the online and offline spaces between groups of feminists and anti-feminists or the other interest. This research employed the digital ethnography method that utilized observation, interview, and literature study as data collection techniques. This study found that the online conversations at @indonesiatanpafeminis.id revealed misconceptions on feminism from a group of women with a religious identity. Furthermore, the conversation also tends to strengthen patriarchal values with religious arguments that are gender-biased. However, the @indonesiatanpafeminis.id serves as a public space for open debates and education on feminist issues. The anti-feminist group behind the @indonesiatanpafeminis.id are women who identify themselves in a certain Muslim circle that has political, cultural, and religious agendas. One of the agendas is to influence the public to reject the Sexual Violence Eradication Bill. This study also noted the Muslim supporters of anti-feminism in Indonesia are less popular compared to progressive religious-based Muslim women organizations such as Aisyiyah (Muhammadiyah), Muslimat NU (Nahdlatul Ulama), and Rahima (Center for Education and Information on Islam and Women’s Rights). The study also evokes discussion on how the feminist and anti-feminist discourses can be utilized to criticize and develop the women’s movement or feminism in a multicultural context.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christian Campbell

In the early days of the Internet, many political communication theorists held the utopian belief that political actors would use online tools to communicate directly with members of the public, and thereby bolster political engagement and enrich democracy. Unfortunately, studies over the past two decades found that political websites were not usually used to interact directly with the public, but instead were used to simply disseminate information in a one-way information-sharing model. However, the emergence of social media sites presents political actors with the opportunity to interact with the public far more easily than websites had previously allowed. Given the widespread adoption and high usage rates of social media sites, these online resources could potentially open up a space for public discussion about politics and allow political actors to interact directly with members of the public. Literature indicates that this type of shared space is conducive to the kind of civic mindset that leads to higher rates of political engagement. Research on political uses of social media tends to focus on the use of social media engagement. Research on political uses of social media tends to focus on the use of social media within elections, such as the 2008 U.S presidential election, and on the use of social media by national governments. I have chosen instead to examine how a group of municipal councilors in Toronto, Ontario uses social media. These politicians have the greatest need to interact directly with individuals throughout their term of service because municipal councilors are expected to know the members of their ward far more intimately than federal, or even provincial, politicians. My study focuses on the use of Facebook because literature indicates that it is the most political social media platform and that it presents politicians with the greatest opportunity to foster political engagement online. Through analysis of the Facebook pages of Toronto city councilors this study examines the degree to which councilors use Facebook to engage their followers, whether certain citizens are consistently engaged in ongoing political discussions, and whether small communities of politically engaged citizens develop around the Facebook profiles of councilors.


2018 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 89-108 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mi Rosie Jahng ◽  
Namyeon Lee

Guided by the literature in social media and science activism, this exploratory study examined how scientists from Virginia Tech, known as the Flint Water Study team, utilized Twitter to communicate and mobilize the public in response to the contamination of water with lead in Flint, Michigan. Results from the content analysis indicated that the scientists utilized Twitter mainly to provide scientific information to the public and that public education was their main advocacy tactic. This study offers insights into how this particular group of science activists utilized social media for collective actions and suggests future directions for science communication on social media.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shuhuan Zhou ◽  
Yi Wang

BACKGROUND During the COVID-19 outbreak, social media served as the main platform for information exchange, through which the Chinese government, media and public would spread information. At the same time, a variety of emotions interweave, and the public emotions would also be affected by the government and media. OBJECTIVE This study aims to investigate the types, trends and relationships of emotional diffusion in Chinese social media among the public, the government and the media under the pandemic of COVID-19 (December 30,2019, to July 1,2020) . METHODS In this paper, Python 3.7.0 and its data crawling framework Scrapy 1.5.1 are used to write a web crawler program to search for super topics related to COVID-19 on Sina Weibo platform of different keywords . Then, we used emotional lexicon to analyze the types and trends of the public, government and media emotions on social media. Finally cross-lagged regression was applied to build the relationships of different subjects’ emotions. RESULTS The highlights of our study are threefold: (1) The public, the government and the media mainly diffuse positive emotions during the COVID-19 pandemic in China; (2) Emotional diffusion shows a certain change over time, and negative emotions are obvious in the initial phase of the pandemic, with the development of the pandemic, positive emotions surpass negative emotions and remain stable. (3)The impact among the three main emotions with the period as the time point is weak, while the impact of emotion with the day as the time point is relatively obvious. The emotions of the public and the government impact each other, and the media emotions can guide the public emotions. CONCLUSIONS This is the first study of comparing pubic, government and media emotions on the social media during COVID-19 pandemic in China. The pubic, the government and the media mainly diffuse positive emotions during the pandemic. And the government and the media have better effect on short-term emotional guidance. Therefore, when the pandemic suddenly occurs, the government and the media should intervene in time to solve problems and conflicts and diffuse positive and neutral emotions. In this regard, the government and the media can play important roles through social media in the major outbreaks. At the theoretical level, this paper takes China's epidemic environment and social media as the background to provide one of the explanatory perspectives for the spread of emotions on social media. At the some time, because of this special background, it can provide comparison and reference for the research on internet emotions in other countries.


Author(s):  
Abbigail J. Tumpey ◽  
David Daigle ◽  
Glen Nowak

Effective communication during an outbreak or public health investigation is crucial for fostering adoption of public health recommendations and minimizing or preventing harm. During outbreaks, a comprehensive communication strategy integrating news media, social media, and partner engagement is essential for reaching affected persons and for keeping everyone informed about public health actions and recommendations. The strategies outlined in this chapter are the foundation for rapidly and effectively conveying information and public health recommendations to the persons at risk, the media, and the different entities involved in the response. Regardless of the public health event’s cause, core communication actions and steps will be similar; however, in every outbreak or public health investigation, perceptions and needs will vary among target audiences, partners (i.e., persons or organizations that can play a role in the crisis response), and persons or organizations with a connection or interest in the outbreak (stakeholders).


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document