Applying Theoretical Perspectives to Social Media Influencers

This chapter examines how persuasion manifests in online communications from social media influencers to their followers. As the authors explore ways to manage the unprecedented amounts of information and media, they examine influence and communication from social media influencers the LaBrant family and illustrate why people might believe content on the internet without examining the validity of the information. It will demonstrate how theoretical frameworks of media convergence, the narrative paradigm, and six principles of persuasion can be used to comprehend how influencers disseminate information to their followers and utilize persuasive strategies to amass a large following. Further, it will increase our understanding about social media influencers and the cultural shifts shaping our world, and it will increase our understanding of the digital world that many of our students and children are familiar with.

Treading Poetic Borders in Southwest China and Northeast India

Since the 1980s ethnic minority poets writing in the borderlands of Southwest China and Northeast India emerged on the world stage from within currents of dramatic environmental, political, economic, and demographic change, cresting in momentum by the 2010s. Within these borderlands of the Eastern Himalayas, burgeoning populations, propelled by sociopolitical agendas, ecological disasters, and other factors, stress borders and resources in areas increasingly open to exploitation by regional and international corporations and governments. Minority poetic voices throughout the region often respond to these radical environmental and cultural shifts with imagery of the environment delivered in very personal terms. Poets not only assume individual voices but also take on metonymic personae, speaking for concerns of their own groups via print, live performance, and digital formats. Mutual awareness of these cross-border poetries is slowly emerging, revealing that themes of poems from within these border areas are often parallel, with common concerns, though local characteristics. Cultural shifts and accommodation to new or revised modes of living and reactions to increasingly severe challenges to the local and regional environments surface repeatedly in the poetry. Some poems tread boundaries between the human and nonhuman inhabitants of these border areas, speaking for—or as—plants, animals, and geographic features.

The Dynamics of Public Opinion

A central question in political representation is whether government responds to the people. To understand that, we need to know what the government is doing, and what the people think of it. We seek to understand a key question necessary to answer those bigger questions: How does American public opinion move over time? We posit three patterns of change over time in public opinion, depending on the type of issue. Issues on which the two parties regularly disagree provide clear partisan cues to the public. For these party-cue issues we present a slight variation on the thermostatic theory from (Soroka and Wlezien (2010); Wlezien (1995)); our “implied thermostatic model.” A smaller number of issues divide the public along lines unrelated to partisanship, and so partisan control of government provides no relevant clue. Finally, we note a small but important class of issues which capture response to cultural shifts.

Family Structure, Economic Outcomes and Perceived Change in Economic Well-being in India

As demographic, economic and cultural shifts continue to diversify family structure, researchers need to explore new ways of conceptualizing and measuring family characteristics and economic outcomes. There are hardly any quantitative studies in India to understand the families from a demographic perspective and relate them to economic outcomes. Thus, we explore the plausible association between the family structure and economic outcomes and perceived change in economic well-being in India. This study conceptualized and adopted a demographic approach to derive family typologies that suit a developing country like India and its cultural context. The study uses the latest information based on India Human Development Survey, 2011-12 and applies robust statistical methods. The findings suggest that family structure makes a huge difference in their economic outcomes. Mostly the families with single residents (adult or older) and families with female children or older adults have a huge economic disadvantage compared to their counterparts.

Automatic Methods for Detecting Cultural Bias in Social Media (Based on Telegram’s Dialogs)

In this paper, we described and tested several ways to use machine learning in order to analyze large collections of text data from social networks (namely, public Telegram chat), retrieve relevant social or cultural information from them, and to visualize the results of the research. The proposed approach has an advantage to reveal hidden patterns of social, political or cultural behavior by being able to cover large amounts of data. It can complement the standard social surveys methodology. Automatic detecting cultural bias on the example of social media requires mastering methods for measuring and visualizing its different kinds, such as cultural shifts, specific national or group refractions, mutations, stereotypes. We argue that cultural bias is a result of nonrandom errors in thinking. It is based, firstly, on a person's understanding of himself and the world around him and, secondly, on the translation of this understanding into abstraction in the form of common misconceptions, ideologemes, narrative, slogans. In society the bias inevitably leads to the separation of one social group or subculture from another. Social networks (both classic and new formats, for example, messengers with public chat options) are the most active ground for the representation of this phenomenon. Since the discussion of sociopolitical and cultural contexts in the case of chats takes place in public, the participants of such a communicative act tend to get approval of the social group to which they are ideologically close. It is this phenomenon that allows us to form comparisons of the “friend - foe” type, which lead next to unconscious cultural shifts. Thus, mastering methods to identify properly cultural shifts is not only relevant but crucial for the intra- and intercultural communication, for controlling the level of aggressiveness of the society, understanding its mood. As helpful illustrations, readers will find semantic associations elicited by the words “freedom”, “democracy”, “Internet”; sociocultural analysis of several topical clusters (e.g. Россия, страна, Путин, русский, православный); visualization of semantic associations for the words “freedom”, “democracy”, “Internet”.

Courting Islam: The Evolution of Perceptions of Islam within the British and American governments from the European Colonial period to the War on Terror

Purpose: This article explores the changing attitudes to, and perceptions of Islam that developed over a period in which substantive engagements between Anglo-American strategic interests brought them more and more into contact with Muslim majority governments and cultures. Methodology: Using historical analysis, the article examines selected primary literature to understand how perceptions of Islam within American and British policymaking circles evolved during the European Colonial period. Findings: The key finding is the extent to which perceptions of Islam and Muslims were government not just by the nature of the incidents and issues that politicians and officials were dealing with, but also by the shifting cultural shifts taking place in America and Britain. Originality: The article’s originality lies in the methodological approach of examining US-British policymaker’s perceptions of Islam based upon their experiences. In so doing, the article offers an approach to West-Islam relational debates that avoids critiquing the validity of the observations and instead deepens our understandings of where the perceptions came from as a basis for improved dialogues in the future.

A Resurrection Of Laneways: Toronto's Activation Of Public Space Through Lanes

The intention of this research is to examine the viability in activating Toronto’s neglected laneways. Behind the densely populated streets of Toronto’s downtown core, lie arguably one of its most underutilized assets: its laneways. Dimly lit, and typically filled with rubbish, these are spaces with potential. This research focuses on Toronto’s possibilities in the creation of laneways as a legitimate urban space; forgotten spaces with the potential to stimulate growth and create lively, safe communities. The literature will examine current policies that may hinder the widespread use of, or lead to the neglect of these spaces, as well as draw conclusions about possible policy and cultural shifts with the potential to revive and create an adaptive laneway culture.