scholarly journals State management of social media in Vietnam

2021 ◽  
pp. 23-33
Author(s):  
Thi Thanh Phuong Nguyên-Pochan
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Political Stability ◽  
Control Measures ◽  
Public Spheres ◽  
State Management ◽  
The Social ◽  
Inherent Vulnerability ◽  
Digital Governance ◽  
And Control ◽  
News Services

The development of Internet in Vietnam since late 2000s represents an unprecedented opportunity for economic growth; it also poses a major challenge to political stability insofar as its development has coincided with the emergence of civil society and the rise of the social media. Vietnamese social media has been studied by many scholars from different point of views. Yet, the organisational side of Internet gouvernance and its inherent vulnerability remain obscure in the literature. Our paper will scrutinize the state management dilemma of social media. We will overview the two-pronged strategy which alternates development with control vis--vis social media; then we will examine how several management and control measures are combined and how the boundaries may blur between the political and online public spheres, making the states digital governance vulnerable and uncertain. Our analysis is based on the states regulations and information published online by official and social media, and foreign news services.

scholarly journals Social media and the spread of COVID-19 conspiracy theories in Nigeria

2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 432-437
Author(s):  
Sarah Gambo ◽  
Woyopwa Shem
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Subject Matter ◽  
Research Interest ◽  
Conspiracy Theories ◽  
The Social ◽  
Recent Outbreak ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
The Subject ◽  
National Orientation ◽  
And Control

Background: Amidst the recent outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, there seems to be an avalanche of conspiracy theories that abound on social media platforms, and this subject attracted a lot of research interest. This study aimed to examine the "social media and the spread Covid-19 conspiracy theories in Nigeria" in light of the above.  Methods: The study adopted a qualitative design in order to explore the subject matter thoroughly. Thirty-five participants were conveniently sampled, and interviews were conducted to retrieved data from the participants. Results: Findings of this study revealed that there is a prevalence of conspiracy theories that have saturated social media ever since the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic. It was also found that ignorance, religious fanaticism, lack of censorship, and insufficient counter information on social media platforms are some of the possible factors that aided the spread of Covid-19 conspiracy theories among Nigerian social media users. Conclusion: This study recommends, among other things, that there is a swift need to curtail the spread of conspiracy theories through consistent dissemination of counter-information by both individuals and agencies like the National Orientation Agency (NOA) and the Nigerian Centre for Disease and Control (NCDC).

scholarly journals Internet Hospitals Help Prevent and Control the Epidemic of COVID-19 in China: Multicenter User Profiling Study (Preprint)

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kai Gong ◽  
Zhong Xu ◽  
Zhefeng Cai ◽  
Yuxiu Chen ◽  
Zhanxiang Wang
Keyword(s):  
Prevention And Control ◽  
Control Measures ◽  
User Profiling ◽  
Kappa Score ◽  
Factors Affecting ◽  
Logistic Regression Models ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Social ◽  
Novel Coronavirus ◽  
And Control

BACKGROUND During the spread of the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19), internet hospitals in China were engaged with epidemic prevention and control, offering epidemic-related online services and medical support to the public. OBJECTIVE The aim of this study is to explore the role of internet hospitals during the prevention and control of the COVID-19 outbreak in China. METHODS Online epidemic-related consultations from multicenter internet hospitals in China during the COVID-19 epidemic were collected. The counselees were described and classified into seven type groups. Symptoms were recorded and compared with reported patients with COVID-19. Hypochondriacal suspicion and offline visit motivation were detected within each counselees’ group to evaluate the social panic of the epidemic along with the consequent medical-seeking behaviors. The counselees’ motivation and the doctors’ recommendation for an offline visit were compared. Risk factors affecting the counselees’ tendency of hypochondriacal suspicion and offline visit motivation were explored by logistic regression models. The epidemic prevention and control measures based on internet hospitals were listed, and the corresponding effects were discussed. RESULTS A total of 4913 consultations were enrolled for analysis with the median age of the counselees at 28 years (IQR 22-33 years). There were 104 (2.12%) healthy counselees, 147 (2.99%) hypochondriacal counselees, 34 (0.69%) exposed counselees, 853 (17.36%) mildly suspicious counselees, 42 (0.85%) moderately suspicious counselees, 3550 (72.26%) highly suspicious counselees, and 183 (3.72%) severely suspicious counselees. A total of 94.20% (n=4628) of counselees had epidemic-related symptoms with a distribution similar to those of COVID-19. The hypochondriacal suspicion (n=2167, 44.11%) was common. The counselees’ motivation and the doctors’ recommendation for offline visits were inconsistent (<i>P</i>&lt;.001) with a Cohen kappa score of 0.039, indicating improper medical-seeking behaviors. Adult counselees (odds ratio [OR]=1.816, <i>P</i>&lt;.001) with epidemiological exposure (OR 7.568, <i>P</i>&lt;.001), shortness of breath (OR 1.440, <i>P</i>=.001), diarrhea (OR 1.272, <i>P</i>=.04), and unrelated symptoms (OR 1.509, <i>P</i>&lt;.001) were more likely to have hypochondriacal suspicion. Counselees with severe illnesses (OR 2.303, <i>P</i>&lt;.001), fever (OR 1.660, <i>P</i>&lt;.001), epidemiological exposure history (OR 1.440, <i>P</i>=.01), and hypochondriacal suspicion (OR 4.826, <i>P</i>&lt;.001) were more likely to attempt an offline visit. Reattending counselees (OR 0.545, <i>P</i>=.002) were less motivated to go to the offline clinic. CONCLUSIONS Internet hospitals can serve different types of epidemic counselees, offer essential medical supports to the public during the COVID-19 outbreak, reduce the social panic, promote social distancing, enhance the public’s ability of self-protection, correct improper medical-seeking behaviors, reduce the chance of nosocomial cross-infection, and facilitate epidemiological screening, thus, playing an important role on preventing and controlling COVID-19.

scholarly journals Limited Early Warnings and Public Attention to Coronavirus Disease 2019 in China, January–February, 2020: A Longitudinal Cohort of Randomly Sampled Weibo Users

2020 ◽  
Vol 14 (5) ◽  
pp. e24-e27 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yuner Zhu ◽  
King-Wa Fu ◽  
Karen A. Grépin ◽  
Hai Liang ◽  
Isaac Chun-Hai Fung
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Control Measures ◽  
Red Cross ◽  
Public Attention ◽  
Missed Opportunities ◽  
Longitudinal Cohort ◽  
Nationally Representative ◽  
Prevention And Control Measures ◽  
And Control ◽  
Early Warnings

ABSTRACTObjective:Awareness and attentiveness have implications for the acceptance and adoption of disease prevention and control measures. Social media posts provide a record of the public’s attention to an outbreak. To measure the attention of Chinese netizens to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), a pre-established nationally representative cohort of Weibo users was searched for COVID-19-related key words in their posts.Methods:COVID-19-related posts (N = 1101) were retrieved from a longitudinal cohort of 52 268 randomly sampled Weibo accounts (December 31, 2019–February 12, 2020).Results:Attention to COVID-19 was limited prior to China openly acknowledging human-to-human transmission on January 20. Following this date, attention quickly increased and has remained high over time. Particularly high levels of social media traffic appeared around when Wuhan was first placed in quarantine (January 23–24, 8–9% of the overall posts), when a scandal associated with the Red Cross Society of China occurred (February 1, 8%), and, following the death of Dr Li Wenliang (February 6–7, 11%), one of the whistleblowers who was reprimanded by the Chinese police in early January for discussing this outbreak online.Conclusion:Limited early warnings represent missed opportunities to engage citizens earlier in the outbreak. Governments should more proactively communicate early warnings to the public in a transparent manner.

Flattening the Curve of Fake News in the Epoch of Infodemic

2021 ◽  
pp. 143-161
Author(s):  
Oluwole Olumide Durodolu ◽  
Collence Takaingenhamo Chisita ◽  
Tinyiko Vivian Dube
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Digital Media ◽  
Research Methodology ◽  
Political Stability ◽  
Fake News ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Media Platforms

Globally, no country has been spared by the spectre of the COVID-19 pandemic and infodemic that continues to wreak havoc on the socio-economic and political stability of governments and communities. The oxymoronic nature of fake news raises many questions with regards to the issues of authenticity because the concept of news is underpinned by verifiability. While fake news lacks variability, it is surprising that its digital imprint on the social media platforms continues to leave indelible marks that will undermine democracy, responsible journalism, and the benefits of the digital media. It is against this background that this chapter seeks to find strategies to flatten the curve of fake news in the epoch of the COVID-19 pandemic and infodemic, an epistemic challenge. The chapter is based on a positivist research methodology that sought to gather views from the study respondents on their epistemic experiences with fake news amidst the COVID-19 pandemic and infodemic. It seeks to gather views to counter the upsurge of fake news amidst the COVID-19 pandemic.

The return of the social author

2016 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 117-136 ◽  
Author(s):  
Melanie Ramdarshan Bold
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Folk Culture ◽  
Reading And Writing ◽  
Writing Practices ◽  
Digital World ◽  
The Social ◽  
Authority Figures ◽  
Traditional Publisher ◽  
New Generation ◽  
And Control

The rise in self-publishing, digital folk culture and social media participation, have revolutionized reading and writing practices. Readers can directly contact their favourite authors, and publishers, through social media and become authors, and publishers, themselves. One of the outcomes of digital reading and writing is that writing is now becoming more democratic: traditional publishers are no longer the sole gatekeepers of culture. The popularity of social writing platform Wattpad is a recent example of how a new generation of influential and innovative writers is entering the publishing arena. This also demonstrates that there is a demand for authorship without the intervention from publishers. Despite this, traditional notions of authorship, ownership and control are prevalent in contemporary publishing hindering the true potential of creativity. The disharmony between the rise of the amateur author and the control of the traditional publisher is confronted in the digital public sphere. Consequently, issues such as authority and influence are mediated during the activities and interactions that take place on social media and other online platforms. Established authority figures, such as famous authors or well-known publishers, that exert authority and influence in the traditional sphere, can shift this authority and influence to the digital world; however, this sphere is also occupied by emerging networks of influencers, such as emerging authors or micro-celebrities, who gain popularity as a result of specific trends, in specific domains, at specific times. This article will examine how new and established authors are using social platforms, and social media, to publish their writing, build communities and extend their dialogue with readers and other writers. A netnographic study of Wattpad will identify which authors are the influencers and innovators in social publishing. Consequently, this article will underscore the increasing importance of social networks and social relationships in 21st century publishing.

Differentiated visibilities: RT Arabic’s narration of Russia’s role in the Syrian war

2019 ◽  
pp. 175063521988907 ◽  
Author(s):  
Deena Dajani ◽  
Marie Gillespie ◽  
Rhys Crilley
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
News Media ◽  
Soft Power ◽  
Good Governance ◽  
Military Presence ◽  
Power And Control ◽  
Strategic Narratives ◽  
Russian State ◽  
The Social ◽  
And Control

This article focuses on the social media content of RT Arabic – formerly Russia Today – the Russian state-funded international news media organization. It presents results of a qualitative analysis of social media posts in order to assess whether and how RT Arabic constructs a strategic narrative of its involvement in the war in Syria. It also contributes to conceptualizations of how state-sponsored strategic narratives operate in practice and can be mobilized as a soft power resource. Our key finding is that, while Russia’s military presence is rendered almost invisible on RT Arabic, its role as a political and diplomatic actor is highly visible. Although Syrian civilians feature as the most prominent actors, they do so mostly as helpless victims and passive witnesses. Syria is represented as a non-sovereign, dysfunctional state, vulnerable to incursion by foreign forces that are vying for power and control in the region. In RT’s representation of the conflict, Russia is portrayed as coming to the aid of Syrians and Syria, as a benign presence promoting the establishment of good governance and skilfully managing the complex diplomatic relations surrounding the conflict. Rather than using straightforward propagandistic or hard-line ideological narratives, RT Arabic creates its own style of persuasive soft power on social media. This style is characterized by the differentiated visibilities afforded to Russia’s military, diplomatic and political roles. Deftly balancing exposure and concealment, RT Arabic performs a legitimating function – rendering Russia’s presence and power in a positive light.

scholarly journals The pandemic of social media panic travels faster than the COVID-19 outbreak

2020 ◽  
Vol 27 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Anneliese Depoux ◽  
Sam Martin ◽  
Emilie Karafillakis ◽  
Raman Preet ◽  
Annelies Wilder-Smith ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Real Time ◽  
Control Measures ◽  
Public Health Officials ◽  
The Creation ◽  
And Control

We need to rapidly detect and respond to public rumours, perceptions, attitudes and behaviours around COVID-19 and control measures. The creation of an interactive platform and dashboard to provide real-time alerts of rumours and concerns about coronavirus spreading globally would enable public health officials and relevant stakeholders to respond rapidly with a proactive and engaging narrative that can mitigate misinformation.

scholarly journals Shaken and stirred: Social representations, social media, and community empowerment in emergency contexts

Semiotica ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 2018 (222) ◽  
pp. 321-346 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mauro Sarrica ◽  
Manuela Farinosi ◽  
Francesca Comunello ◽  
Sonia Brondi ◽  
Lorenza Parisi ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
Social Representations ◽  
Community Empowerment ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Sharing ◽  
Use Of Social Media ◽  
And Control ◽  
Social Sharing Of Emotions

AbstractIn this paper we examine the use of Twitter and Facebook in two dramatic earthquakes that hit Italy: L’Aquila (in 2009) and Emilia (in 2012). Indeed, disasters disrupt everyday life and engage people in meaning-making processes aimed at recovering meaning and control of their world. In these cases, we argue that the use of social media may contribute to social representations processes and functions: cognitive coping, social sharing of emotions, preserving self-efficacy, boosting identity, and community empowerment. Different methods were adopted to examine the use of social media in the immediate aftermath, a few days after, and in the medium-long term. Differences between the events, combined with the differences between Twitter and Facebook, entailed a multiplicity of uses. Nevertheless, the analyses point to the same conclusions: by fostering new forms of communication and encounters, social media played an increasingly important role during and after the earthquakes. First, they were used for providing information and material coping, then they favored the social sharing of emotions and joint remembering, and finally they contributed to claiming voice and control. Results thus suggest that the use of social media favored different representational functions, which progressively contributed to community empowerment.

scholarly journals Chinese Public Attention to COVID-19 Epidemic: Based on Social Media

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yuxin Zhao ◽  
Huilan Xu
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Positive Emotions ◽  
Control Measures ◽  
Public Concern ◽  
Public Attention ◽  
Mining System ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Government ◽  
And Control

AbstractBackgroundSince the new coronavirus epidemic in China in December 2019, information and discussions about COVID-19 have spread rapidly on the Internet and have quickly become the focus of worldwide attention, especially on social media.ObjectiveThis study aims to investigate and analyze the public’s attention to COVID-19-related events in China at the beginning of the COVID-19 epidemic in China (December 31, 2019, to February 20, 2020) through the Sina Microblog hot search list.MethodsWe collected topics related to the COVID-19 epidemic on the Sina Microblog hot search list from December 31, 2019, to February 20, 2020 and described the trend of public attention on COVID-19 epidemic-related topics. ROST CM6.0 (ROST Content Mining System Version 6.0) was used to analyze the collected text for word segmentation, word frequency, and sentiment analysis. We further described the hot topic keywords and sentiment trends of public attention. We used VOSviewer to implement a visual cluster analysis of hot keywords and build a social network of public opinion content.ResultsThe study has four main findings. First, we analyzed the changing trend of the public’s attention to the COVID-19 epidemic, which can be divided into three stages. Second, the hot topic keywords of public attention at each stage are slightly different. In addition, the emotional tendency of the public toward the COVID-19 epidemic-related hot topics has changed from negative to neutral, with negative emotions weakening and positive emotions increasing as a whole. Finally, we divided the COVID-19 topics with the most public concern into five categories: new COVID-19 epidemics and their impact; (2) frontline reporting of the epidemic and prevention and control measures; (3) expert interpretation and discussion on the source of infection; (4) medical services on the frontline of the epidemic; and (5) focus on the global epidemic and the search for suspected cases.ConclusionsThis is the first study of public attention on the COVID-19 epidemic using a Chinese social media platform (i.e., Sina Microblog). Our study found that social media (e.g., Sina Microblog) can be used to measure public attention to public health emergencies. During the epidemic of the novel coronavirus, a large amount of information about the COVID-19 epidemic was disseminated on Sina Microblog and received widespread public attention. We have learned about the hotspots of public concern regarding the COVID-19 epidemic. These findings can help the government and health departments better communicate with the public on health and translate public health needs into practice to create targeted measures to prevent and control the spread of COVID-19.

scholarly journals Fenomena Phubbing: Suatu Degradasi Relasi Sosial Sebagai Dampak Media Sosial

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 8-14
Author(s):  
Rafinita Aditia
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Qualitative Data ◽  
Social Relation ◽  
Qualitative Approach ◽  
Primary Data ◽  
The Social ◽  
Use Of Social Media ◽  
And Control ◽  
The Impact

Abstract—This study aims to find out about the phubbing phenomenon as a degradation of social relations as a result of social media. The term phubbing is an abbreviation of the words phone and snubbing, which are used to show the attitude of hurting the other person by using an excessive smartphone. This type of research used a qualitative approach with descriptive methods. The data needed in this study are qualitative data as primary data in the form of images, words and not numbers in a discourse regarding the phubbing phenomenon as a degradation of social relations as a result of social media. Based on the results of the research, it is found that phubbing behavior can threaten the disruption of ongoing communication relationships, causing social degradation. The social degradation that occurs is due to the impact of phubbing perpetrators' indifference to their environment because they are too busy using smartphones, especially in the use of social media. Therefore it is necessary to limit and control the use of social media properly so that the phubbing phenomenon can be resolved immediately and the degradation of social relations does not occur. Keywords: phubbing, degradation, social relation, social media   Abstrak—Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mengetahui tentang tentang fenomena phubbing sebagai suatu degradasi relasi sosial sebagai dampak dari media sosial. Jenis penelitian yang digunakan menggunakan pendekatan kualitatif dengan metode deskriptif. Data yang dibutuhkan dalam penelitian ini merupakan data kualitatif sebagai data primer berupa gambar, kata-kata dan bukan angka-angka dalam sebuah wacana mengenai fenomena phubbing sebagai suatu degradasi relasi sosial sebagai dampak dari media sosial. Berdasarkan hasil penelitian diperoleh hasil bahwa perilaku phubbing mampu mengancam terganggunya hubungan komunikasi yang sedang berlangsung, sehingga menyebabkan degradasi sosial. Degradasi sosial yang terjadi ialah karena dampak dari keacuhan pelaku phubbing terhadap lingkungannya karena terlalu sibuk menggunakan smartphone, terlebih dalam penggunaan media sosial. Oleh karena itu penggunaan media sosial perlu dibatasi dan dikontrol dengan baik agar fenomena phubbing dapat segera teratasi dan degradasi relasi sosial tidak terjadi. Kata kunci : phubbing, degradasi, hubungan sosial, sosial media

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