‘Gender Activists Will Kidnap Your Kids’: The Construction of Feminist and LGBT+ Rights Activists as Modern Folk Devils in Czech Anti-Gender Campaigns

This chapter examines how internet forums such as Facebook can be used in creating and spreading misleading stories and stimulating fear and panic. With the example of the Czech society, the author analyses various web forums that are based on anti-LGBT rights and anti-feminist ideologies, promoting these as threats to nuclear families and traditional gender norms. The text shows the paradoxical portrayal of LGBT activists as, on the one hand, freaks living on the fringe of society, not much more than a laughing stock, and, on the other hand, as a threat with the potential power to destroy traditional values in Czech society.

The Impact of Parental Bereavement on Young People: A Thematic Analysis of Using Online Web Forums as a Method of Coping

A qualitative approach was used to explore how online web forums might facilitate recovery and the process of coping. Ten online web forums written by young people who have personally experienced the death of a parent formed the data of this study. Previous research suggests forum users do not receive the supportive reactions from face-to-face interactions that they desire. Thematic analysis found that forums created an environment where young people can process the bereavement of a parent. Forums allowed young people to use their experience of bereavement to positively support others with similar experiences. The findings imply that the process of using forums can positively impact individuals who have experienced the loss of a parent. This supports recommendations by professionals, to consider online forums as a coping strategy. This study presents one of the few analyses of web forums written by young people who have experienced parental bereavement.

Involuntary Celibates’ Experiences of and Grievance over Sexual Exclusion and the Potential Threat of Violence Among Those Active in an Online Incel Forum

This article represents the largest ever primary data-based study of involuntary celibates (incels), previously studied nearly exclusively through analysis of online postings. The incel movement has been characterized by some as a radical ideology, with mass murderers such as Elliot Rodger, Alek Minassian, and Chris Harper Mercer being portrayed as prototypical of the movement. However, there is a dearth of research through direct questioning of incels and therefore very little nuanced understanding of the community, its shared grievances, and its opinions regarding violence in its name. The present study of over 250 self-identified incels demonstrates that although the majority of incels are non-violent and do not approve of violence, those who consider themselves to be staunch misogynists are likely to endorse a desire to commit violence and are also likely to become more misogynistic through participation on incel web forums, which validate their views. The study also finds that while many incels report experiencing a variety of psychological symptoms, they are loath to seek help from mental health professionals. This implies that the threat of violence from a subset of incels should not be ignored, but promotion of compassionate and understanding psychological may be more broadly beneficial to the community.

Bad Strategy and Dark Matter. Reframing Italian Architectural Debate on the Post-Pandemic

The paper investigates into the inability of Italian architectural debate to produce sensible effects on the society – architects have not been involved in any task forces, nor their proposals have been taken in account for the norms for the post-pandemic. Our hypothesis is that the suggestions emerging from the debate are much vision-oriented, but are so weak from a strategic point of view that they could even be seen as an example of bad strategy – as defined by Richard Rumelt.In the first part, through an extensive survey on various sources (e.g., interviews and video-messages on leading newspapers, social media and TV broadcasts; debates on architectural journals and web forums; official proposals and manifestoes by professional associations), the article analyses and reframes the Italian architectural debate, for highlighting and defining its strategic weakness. The second part explains the main reasons for this weakness, showing that such inefficacy comes from the inability to deal with what Dan Hill called dark matter, i.e. the network of organisations, culture, bureaucracy and norms. The final part hints at a different perspective on architectural design for better dealing with the dark matter, thus giving the possibility of changing the generic proposals into strategic ones.

Spammer Group Detection Using Machine Learning Technology for Observation of New Spammer Behavioral Features

Recently, the rapid growth in the number of customer reviews on e-commence platforms and in the amount of user-generated content has begun to have a profound impact on customer purchasing decisions. To counter the negative impact of social media marketing, some firms have begun hiring people to generate fake reviews which either promote their own products or damage their competitor's reputation. This study proposes a framework, which takes advantage of both supervised and unsupervised learning techniques, for the observation of behaviors among spammers. Then, based on the behavior of participants on web forums, the authors build up a post-reply network. The main focus is on the behavior-related features of the reviews, their propagation, and their popularity. The primary objective of this study is to build an effective online spammer detection model and the method detailed in this work can be used to improve the performance of spammer detection models. An experiment is carried out with a real dataset, the results of which indicate that these new features are important for identifying spammers. Finally, random walk clustering is applied to investigate the post-reply network. Some interesting and important features are observed in the interactions between a group of spammers which could be subjected to further research.

Deep Analytics in Sport Community Forums

In recent years, some sport clubs have adopted web forums for online discussions about planning training sessions, races, club problems, sponsors and supporters, equipment and so on. Mostly, these forums are closed, because some discussions about critical information must be permitted only to registered club members. Indeed, various members are connected into a network representing a forum community that participates in forming the internal structure of a club and has taken an increasingly important role in solving the club affairs. This has influenced the classic way of doing business with meetings or calls and has allowed the community to participate in forming plans. This article deals with the deep analytics of data acquired from a web forum of a small cycling club located in Slovenia for a period of five years. The purpose of these analyses is to identify various members of the forum's community, track the dynamics of events as found in this forum, and search for hidden relationships.