scholarly journals Rebel reviewers: Social media review pages as sites of Confederate memorial discourses

First Monday ◽  
2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura March

Online review platforms — such as Facebook Pages, Yelp, and Google Reviews — host millions of user-generated posts. Some reviewers choose to use these platforms to share political opinions and calls for activism. One example of this phenomenon, UNC–Chapel Hill’s “Silent Sam” Confederate statue review page on Facebook, provides an opportunity to examine comments from users asserting their pro-statue and anti-statue opinions. While protestors removed the statue in August 2018, its unofficial page (and its posts) remains visible online and continues to garner new “reviews” after the monument’s physical removal. This study analyzes the engagement publicly visible on Silent Sam’s Facebook reviews. Despite the large volume of research on social network sites, the author is unaware of any studies of activist posts on online review spaces. Discovering the most prevalent claims made in pro-Confederate posts will help educators, activists, online moderators, and creators of Terms of Service agreements determine where they can (and should) respond to racist rhetoric.

Author(s):  
Alessandro Lovari ◽  
Lorenza Parisi

The aim of this chapter is to describe how the use of social media, especially the use of social network sites, is influencing public communication strategies and online users’ interactions. We conducted an exploratory analysis of the prevalent use of Facebook pages by Italian municipalities examining the characteristics of the online interactions emerging in the communication strategies of four Italian provincial capitals: Rimini, Reggio Emilia, Modena, and Venezia. We compared the four municipality pages on Facebook looking at the number of users, age composition, and gender. Then we carried out a content analysis to describe the prevalent kinds of posts published in the municipality Walls on Facebook. We concluded that Italian municipalities are now adopting different communication strategies on Facebook: each municipality proposes a particular content mix that creates a specific communication flow addressed toward citizens.


Author(s):  
Efi A. Nisiforou ◽  
Andrew Laghos

The rapid growth and the popularity of Social Network Sites (SNSs) are increasingly attracting the attention of millions of students for many different purposes. The chapter reviews the background of the current social media research in relation to the international literature and tackles the most important findings. The practical part of the chapter outlines the results of a survey on social media services. The findings provide real research evidence on online social technology use amongst university students. The chapter has educational and theoretical significance and shapes future directions for research on this issue. A compendium of terms, definitions, and explanations of concepts is clearly explained.


Author(s):  
Ashok Kumar ◽  
S. Thanuskodi

Social Network sites are one of the innovative technologies contributing libraries the opportunity to reach out to its patrons. Keeping library users up to date is the primary aim of every library, online library services taken the role successfully, and among them Social Network Sites plays the unique role to keep the patrons informative. In this chapter, we provide a study of an attempt to use social media to engage with public libraries. Also this chapter has come out with a testimony on library services and the challenges through FaceBook, Twitter and Weblogs.


Journalism ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 21 (8) ◽  
pp. 1083-1098 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Sophie Kümpel

Social network sites such as Facebook and Twitter have become a key part of online users’ news diets. On social network sites, even individuals who are not motivated to seek out news are believed to be exposed to news posts due to the sharing activities of friends or inadvertently witnessing discussions about current events. Research on this incidental news exposure (INE) has largely focused on its potential for positive effects on information gain or political participation, while simultaneously turning a blind eye to the inequalities in news exposure and engagement. This article aims to address this issue by proposing and explicating the existence of a ‘Matthew Effect’ in social media news use. It is argued that INE research needs to consider the unequal chances to both be exposed to news on social network sites and to actually engage (i.e. read and interact) with ‘accidentally’ encountered news content.


Author(s):  
Nouf Khashman

Social network sites have been viewed as viable tools for communication during the political unrest in the Arab world since it started in December 2010. This study employs content analysis method to explore the characteristics of public political Facebook pages in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Syria during their recent political events.Les sites de réseautage social ont été perçus comme des outils de communication viables lors de la crise politique dans les pays arabes depuis leur commencement en décembre 2010. Cette étude utilise l’analyse de contenu pour explorer les caractéristiques des pages Facebook politiques publiques en Tunisie, en Égypte, en Libye et en Syrie lors des récents événements politiques.


Author(s):  
Mehrdad Koohikamali ◽  
Anna Sidorova

Aim/Purpose: In the light of the recent attention to the role of social media in the dissemination of fake news, it is important to understand the relationship between the characteristics of the social media content and re-sharing behavior. This study seeks to examine individual level antecedents of information re-sharing behavior including individual beliefs about the quality of information available on social network sites (SNSs), attitude towards SNS use and risk perceptions and attitudes. Methodology: Testing the research model by data collected through surveys that were adminis-tered to test the research model. Data was collected from undergraduate students in a public university in the US. Contribution: This study contributes to theory in Information Systems by addressing the issue of information quality in the context of information re-sharing on social media. This study has important practical implications for SNS users and providers alike. Ensuring that information available on SNS is of high quality is critical to maintaining a healthy user base. Findings: Results indicate that attitude toward using SNSs and intention to re-share infor-mation on SNSs is influenced by perceived information quality (enjoyment, rele-vance, and reliability). Also, risk-taking propensity and enjoyment influence the intention to re-share information on SNSs in a positive direction. Future Research: In the dynamic context of SNSs, the role played by quality of information is changing. Understanding changes in quality of information by conducting longitudinal studies and experiments and including the role of habits is necessary.


Author(s):  
Henrike Friedrichs-Liesenkötter ◽  
Friederike Von Gross

Der Beitrag stellt zwei qualitative Studien der Autorinnen vor, welche zum einen die Veränderung der (Online-)Mediennutzung im Übergang von später Kindheit zum Jugendalter fokussieren und zum anderen persönliche Deutungen, Umgangsweisen und Reflexionsprozesse des Medienhandelns sichtbar machen. Letztere bleiben in quantitativen Studien in der Regel unberücksichtigt, sodass ein qualitativer Zugang mittels Gruppendiskussionen mit Heranwachsenden gewählt wurde. Die Gruppendiskussionen mit Grundschulkindern (4. Klasse) zeigen, dass sich die im Durchschnitt Neunjährigen bereits Medien und deren Inhalten, die sich an Jugendliche und Erwachsene richten, zuwenden. Ihr Verständnis über das Internet im Allgemeinen und über Social Network Sites im Besonderen ist aber noch ungenau und oberflächlich. Die Nutzung findet zudem oftmals noch eingebunden in den familiären Kontext statt. Dies ändert sich mit dem Erwerb des ersten eigenen Smartphones. Dieses bekommen die Kinder in der Regel nach der vierten Klasse im Übergang zur weiterführenden Schule, wie die Gruppendiskussionen mit den Befragten aus der fünften, sechsten und siebten Klassenstufe zeigen. Im Hinblick auf die Herausforderungen im Umgang mit Internet, Social Media und Smartphones lässt sich resümieren, dass die Medienkompetenz der befragten Kinder im Laufe der Zeit zunimmt; Unsicherheiten bleiben aber bestehen.


2020 ◽  
Vol 84 (S1) ◽  
pp. 195-215 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrick W Kraft ◽  
Yanna Krupnikov ◽  
Kerri Milita ◽  
John Barry Ryan ◽  
Stuart Soroka

Abstract  There is reason to believe that an increasing proportion of the news consumers receive is not from news producers directly but is recirculated through social network sites and email by ordinary citizens. This may produce some fundamental changes in the information environment, but the data to examine this possibility have thus far been relatively limited. In the current paper, we examine the changing information environment by leveraging a body of data on the frequency of (a) views, and recirculations through (b) Twitter, (c) Facebook, and (d) email of New York Times stories. We expect that the distribution of sentiment (positive-negative) in news stories will shift in a positive direction as we move from (a) to (d), based in large part on the literatures on self-presentation and imagined audiences. Our findings support this expectation and have important implications for the information contexts increasingly shaping public opinion.


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