Business and Social Media

During the 21st century, businesses benefit from two key components of effective innovation: social media and collaboration. This chapter provides an in-depth analysis to study the interrelatedness of these components. Featured in this chapter are classroom exercises to deepen the learning of students. By providing multiple recent social media examples, the reality of the integral ways in which social media permeates our lives is delivered. Introduced in the chapter is a sixth discipline, an extension of Senge's five disciplines of collaboration. Through the presentation of a new leadership model based upon the six disciplines, the impact of social media is examined. The conclusion of the chapter contains definitions of the concepts introduced. The use of social media has been and still remains a strategically keen tool in business effectiveness.*

Large-Scale Disaster Response Management

This chapter provides readers with an overview of how social media has enhanced large-scale natural disaster response at the Department of Homeland Security and its partners. The authors of this chapter present the history of the Federal Emergency Management Agency and how its successes and failures have shaped how the Department of Homeland Security has managed trends in increased community participation and information technology. Concepts from Systems Engineering frame the discussion around resilience engineering, network analysis, information systems, and human systems integration as they pertain to how social media can be integrated more effectively in large-scale disaster response. Examples of social media in disaster response are presented including a more in-depth case study on the use of social media during the 2012 Hurricane Sandy response. The chapter concludes with a proposed framework of a decision support system which integrates the benefits of social media while mitigating its risks.

Augmenting User Interaction Experience through Embedded Multimodal Media Agents in Social Networks

The current chapter proposes media agent and multi-agent models aiming at improving mediated communication and information exchange in social networking. Great progress has been conducted during the last decades in Information and Communication Technologies, which is also reflected in social media. The proposed models exploit the latest media technologies for the augmentation of user-interaction and contribution experience in multiple levels. Features of the suggested agent and multi-agent approaches are discussed and elaborated through the prism of social computing, social media analytics and intelligence, resulting to a sophisticated communication mediator between users and social groups. In addition, enhanced user engagement and collaboration are considered in terms of rich media experience and augmented reality, semantic interaction services, intelligent content processing and management automation over interoperable multiplatform environments. Social media cooperation and integration is envisioned towards the realization of Web 3.0 and beyond, as the main chapter contribution.

Cyberbullying Prevention

The Internet is a really wide, intriguing world, difficult to penetrate in depth, rich with dissimulations, full of useful and also evil things, that are continuously changing. Cyberbullying represents an actual risk, especially for the online generation which is often unable to distinguish between virtual and real-reality. The first step for cyberbullying prevention is the knowledge acquisition of what cyberbullying is and how it occurs within a specific context. This is not an easy task, since cyberbullying is a complex and quite new phenomenon, so much that researchers' opinion is often divided on its definition and there isn't agreement on the extent of its diffusion. This article presents and comments some cyberbullying preventing tips, inspired by the “top ten tips” that Hinduja and Patchin suggested to educators engaged in cyberbullying prevention.

Social Bootstrapping

Just as the three most important aspects of real estate are: Location, Location, Location, it can be said that the three most important aspects of seeking funds for major projects are Access, Access, Access. The advent of social media has opened a new avenue for artists and non-profits to fund their programs: social bootstrapping. This chapter will address the use of social media platforms to raise funds for major arts and nonprofit projects. This chapter will also consider the implications of social media to fund niche programs that may be considered “too risky” to fund under the traditional rules or those that simply don't have the access to major contributors. Pioneers in the arts and nonprofit industries have successfully adopted the best practices of the technology industry and used social media platforms to secure funding that would not traditionally be available.

Digital Paranoia

Participation in social networks, forums, and other discussion groups is a growing trend in the United States. Aside from the benefits of online social media, there is a growing concern about privacy and safety from the devolvement of personal information online. As a result of this unfriendly social media climate, Americans are taking measures to protect personal identity and to avoid surveillance by others. The purpose of this chapter is to analyze factors predicting which groups are most concerned about Internet privacy. In addition, this chapter explores how concerns regarding Information privacy are impacting usage of social network sites. We explore these questions using multivariate regression analysis and individual level data from the Pew Internet and American Life Project. Our findings suggest that those with the greatest fears regarding online privacy are not staying offline but are taking necessary precautions to address concerns.

The Social Media “Information Explosion” Spectacle

The semantic web, social media and the amount of user-generated content continues to grow at a staggering rate. Social Media significantly contributed to the information flow during the Arab Spring, the Occupy and Wall Street movement continue to maintain a global online presence using social media technology. But is the social media information explosion really a unique event in media history? How did story telling evolve into social media? In order to place social media in its historical context and anticipate digital native expectations, we explore the origins of narrative and storytelling from the perspective of a documentary producer. How did past media technologies prepare the way for social media? How do digital natives perceive the world via social media and what do they expect from today's documentary producer? What are the viewing habits of digital natives? What do previous ‘information explosions' have in common with social and digital media? These are essential questions for media and documentary producers navigating their way through the vast maze of social media technology and the semantic web, in addition to traditional media.

Seeking an Online Social Media Radar

In this paper we identify a method, which rapidly analyzes vast amounts of data present in social media in order to forecast crowd sizes. Based upon comparative analysis of related literature, a conceptual model is proposed and research conducted to develop capabilities to forecast mass collective action behavior such as crowd formation using Social Network Analysis (SNA) tools applied to online social media. We demonstrate that a simple model of online social network parameters can produce situation awareness of crowd sizes in much the same way that radar sensors can produce situation awareness of air traffic density. A prototype online social media ‘radar' sensor system is developed and tested in a pilot study with a dataset of tweets gathered regarding the Occupy Wall Street movement. Further work is suggested which could provide anticipated crowd location, movement and intent in addition to size.

Globalisation, the Internet, and the Nation-State

Our world today is in the midst of an historical change. Globalisation and spectacular advances in technology have given us an unprecedented peek into the future: a glimpse into a highly interconnected world governed by new paradigms, where the cost of transmitting and accessing an infinite amount of information is virtually nothing, where physical boundaries no longer limit human action – in short, a world characterised by the breakdown of conventional political, social, and economic institutions and systems previously considered rock-solid; spearheaded by the rise of the Internet and its associated technologies, platforms, and applications. This book chapter attempts a critical analysis of the relationship between Globalisation, the Internet, and the State. In evaluating the arguments that present the Internet as a threat to nation-state sovereignty, the work attempts to challenge accepted wisdom; purporting instead to demonstrate that, in many cases, the Internet, far from posing any threat to the attenuation of political power, actually strengthens the hand of the nation-state.

A Study of Two Microfinance Models and Their Suitability for Egypt

Developing countries around the world strive to implement one of the several current models of microfinance. This study focuses on two models: Grameen Bank, which is considered the change factor for the microfinance field, and Kiva.org, an organization that understood the importance of the Internet and crowdfunding to create a different model of microfinance. The purpose of the study is to analyze these two models and determine which would be more suitable for application in Egypt. This study provides a strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT analysis), a financial analysis, and a structural analysis, as well as historical background for both organizations along with a scan for the political, economic, social, and technological infrastructure in Egypt to determine the most suitable microfinance model.