Social Media Engagement

Generation Y is at the forefront of the rise in consumer engagement with brands due to the participatory nature of social media. Social media is largely user generated and is instrumental in the information uprising facilitated by the internet (Kamel & Hussein, 2014). The platform of social media has changed how people interact with each other and even with brands as well as how they make consumption decisions. This transformation has led to research to determine the parameters of said influence on the consumer-decision process within the developed world. This chapter reviews this research and gives directions on future research to include developing nations within Latin America and the Caribbean. Research in this area is important due to the fact that there are limited studies addressing the developing world's use of social media to inform consumption decisions even though consumers within these markets are using these platforms similarly to their developed world counterparts.

The Neuroscience of Social Television

In a short few years, social media has become the dominant way in which we communicate with the outside world. It has become prevalent in almost every aspect of our daily lives, but one of the most significant changes social media has had, has been on the way we watch television. This phenomenon, known as dual screening, has caused some concern amongst marketers and advertisers, who believed that this behaviour was having an overall negative impact on consumer engagement with television. This chapter attempts to address some of these concerns by providing evidence obtained from the neurosciences and from a case study. The evidence we present in this chapter demonstrates the opposite effect, whereby social media can actually be used to enhance viewer engagement.

A Discourse on Mass Media and Society

Mass media and society, a popular concept in media studies, has constituted much discourse due to roles media play in society and perceived effects that can result thereof. This chapter is inspired by the term ‘medicalization of the society' whereby ailments are regarded as medical issues and subjected to medical diagnosis and treatment, regardless of their true causes. Similarly, the violence, moral decadence and ethno-religious crises witnessed in the society are largely ascribed to the media. This chapter examined the said effects of mass media with society's social systems, cultures and values, with a view to finding a relationship. It argues that these societal makeups especially ones as formidable as Africa's also affect largely members' conducts and reactions to media contents. However, it advocates children's news segment, adherence to media ethics, and use of media programmes to enhance learning, proper socialization, abolishment of negative cultures, media literacy among others.

Attitudes of University Students Voters Towards Political Messages in Social Media

In recent years, social media has become one of the most important political marketing tools. The aim of the research is to determine how university students voting have attitudes towards political messages run across several different social media channels. Undergraduate students in Tekirdağ Central Campus of Namik Kemal University are generating the population of the study. In this research, sample was not taken. Questionnaire form was used as data collecting tool. Data obtained through questionnaire forms were presented as descriptive statistics (frequency, percentage, mean, standard deviation). For differences between group means, T-test and One-way ANOVA were implemented. It was concluded that messages with political content in social media had intensifier effects on present preferences of university student voters and had directive effects on indecisive students. Twitter users had more negative attitudes towards messages with political content in social media.

Occupy Rhetoric

By examining three major digital activist events—the Arab Spring, the indignados movement, and Occupy Wall Street—the authors illustrate that digital activism motivates and facilitates real offline behaviors beyond slacktivism by reviewing successful strategies and outcomes that were part of each movement. Moreover, in examining the issue of slacktivism, the authors demonstrate that slacktivism is not always digital, and that the power of weak ties has demonstrable effects in protester behavior and coordination. Finally, the rhetorical situations and exigencies of these major digital activist events are examined; this is an area ripe for more direct analysis and commentary. Understanding the rhetorical situations and exigencies involved in successful digital activist events allows researchers and practitioners a better understanding of integrated approaches to public involvement using social media.

Presidential Rhetoric and News Rhetoric

This study examines the role of U.S. presidents as a news source in the media agenda shaping process. DICTION text-analysis software was used to analyze transcripts of U.S. presidents' state of the union addresses and related news coverage from 1981 to 2007. DICTION software calculated scores for five major dimensions of content in the addresses and related news stories. Results revealed that the addresses and related news coverage contained dissimilar rhetoric, suggesting that, overall, the presidents had little influence on independent media outlets in that regard.

Referencing in the Virtual World

The fact that ‘Man is a social being' is seen and felt in real as well as in virtual world. The paper discusses the advent of concept of social customer. All customers who use social media to share their experience through their positive or negative comments related with goods and services used as well as those who browse social media for getting reference to arrive at a decision to buy or choose are social customers. In the above backdrop the researchers have tried to highlight following issues: (i) definition of Social Customers, (ii) impact of Social media as a reference group on social customer. The researchers have conducted an empirical study and analyzed the data through Structural equation modeling and provided guidelines to marketers on the impact of social media in general and e-WOM in particular on buying behavior of social customers.

Evaluating Social Media

Despite the widespread adoption and popularity of social media, research on measuring the quantifiable impact of popular social media platforms remains scarce. To this end, this study attempts to investigate how the influence of social media can be assessed in quantitative terms. The main objective is to develop a new assessment model able to integrate a broad range of criteria such as likes, subscribers, comments, posts, shares, and links. The authors extend previous assessment models focused on individual platforms such as blogs and propose a Social Media Influence Assessment model (SMIA). The process of model development—criteria, dimensions, and formula—and its validation are discussed. The results indicate that social media's influence can be measured in a structured, quantifiable manner by utilising a set of nine criteria grouped into three dimensions: recognition, activity generation, and credibility.

Grassroots Political Campaign in Russia

This chapter analyzes the transmedia strategies of opposition candidate Alexey Navalny's campaign during the 2013 Moscow mayoral election. The goal is to highlight how the use of information and communication technology contributed to the development of democratic practices in Russia. His westernized, grassroots political campaign was a novelty in the country, involving online fundraising, door-to-door canvassing, engagement of volunteers, digital projects, and meetings with voters, for instance. The argument is that, although Navalny lost the election, his candidacy represented advancement in terms of both the use of new media and the promotion of democratic development in the midst of autocratic Russia. If the progress will be maintained, it remains to be seen. The theoretical framework includes the reality of the Russian political scenario and the conceptualization of transmedia storytelling strategies in the context of participatory politics. The methodological approach is based on the transmedia analytical model by Gambarato (2013).

Social Media

Internet usage has shown drastic growth in the initial half of the year 2015 in India. The user base has increased over 354 million and with this India has become the top second country after China in terms of internet usage. Facebook is the prime social networking site which is used by 96% of urban users, followed by Google Plus (61%), Twitter (43%) and LinkedIn (24%). This extensive use of social media by the public had attracted the attention of the politicians to use it for election campaigns and has given researchers a reason to find out how politicians are engaging the public through this platform. Influence of Social media on the electorate has been proved from its successful use in the US presidential election in 2008 and by political parties in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections in India. This paper intends to explore the use of social media and its effectiveness in political elections through an extensive literature review. Social media has become an effective tool for political engagement and political participation as it is a low cost media as compared to traditional media. The low cost of this media has made it one of the main source to get information for advanced analysis and in-depth understanding of the electoral process. This paper will provide an insight to politicians, political analysts, journalists and electoral candidates regarding social media usage. The paper will also present a future research agenda to study how political parties can benefit from use of social media and change their strategies to engage workers and the voters.