57,303 research outputs found
Comparing Community Structure to Characteristics in Online Collegiate Social Networks
We study the structure of social networks of students by examining the graphs
of Facebook "friendships" at five American universities at a single point in
time. We investigate each single-institution network's community structure and
employ graphical and quantitative tools, including standardized pair-counting
methods, to measure the correlations between the network communities and a set
of self-identified user characteristics (residence, class year, major, and high
school). We review the basic properties and statistics of the pair-counting
indices employed and recall, in simplified notation, a useful analytical
formula for the z-score of the Rand coefficient. Our study illustrates how to
examine different instances of social networks constructed in similar
environments, emphasizes the array of social forces that combine to form
"communities," and leads to comparative observations about online social lives
that can be used to infer comparisons about offline social structures. In our
illustration of this methodology, we calculate the relative contributions of
different characteristics to the community structure of individual universities
and subsequently compare these relative contributions at different
universities, measuring for example the importance of common high school
affiliation to large state universities and the varying degrees of influence
common major can have on the social structure at different universities. The
heterogeneity of communities that we observe indicates that these networks
typically have multiple organizing factors rather than a single dominant one.Comment: Version 3 (17 pages, 5 multi-part figures), accepted in SIAM Revie
Corporate Social Responsibility and Social Media Corporations: Incorporating Human Rights Through Rankings, Self-Regulation and Shareholder Resolutions
This article examines the emergence and evolution of selected ranking and reporting frameworks in the expanding realm of business and human rights advocacy. It explores how indicators in the form of rankings and reports evaluating the conduct of transnational corporate actors can serve as regulatory tools with potential to bridge a global governance gap that often places human rights at risk. Specifically, this article examines the relationship of transnational corporations in the Internet communications technology sector (ICT sector) to human rights and the risks presented to the right to freedom of expression and the right to privacy when ICT sector companies comply with government demands to disclose user data or to conceal information users seek. Specifically, it explores the controversial role of transnational ICT corporations in state censorship and surveillance practices. The article explains how conflicts over corporate complicity in alleged abuses served to catalyze change and lead to the creation of the Global Network Initiative, a private multi-stakeholder project, and the Ranking Digital Rights Initiative, an industry independent market-based information effort. Both aim to promote more responsible business practices in the social media industry sector. In conclusion, the article argues that regulating corporate reporting of information relevant to assessing the potential for adverse human rights impacts is necessary
Academic Performance and Behavioral Patterns
Identifying the factors that influence academic performance is an essential
part of educational research. Previous studies have documented the importance
of personality traits, class attendance, and social network structure. Because
most of these analyses were based on a single behavioral aspect and/or small
sample sizes, there is currently no quantification of the interplay of these
factors. Here, we study the academic performance among a cohort of 538
undergraduate students forming a single, densely connected social network. Our
work is based on data collected using smartphones, which the students used as
their primary phones for two years. The availability of multi-channel data from
a single population allows us to directly compare the explanatory power of
individual and social characteristics. We find that the most informative
indicators of performance are based on social ties and that network indicators
result in better model performance than individual characteristics (including
both personality and class attendance). We confirm earlier findings that class
attendance is the most important predictor among individual characteristics.
Finally, our results suggest the presence of strong homophily and/or peer
effects among university students
Online networks and subjective well-being
We argue that the use of online networks may threaten subjective well-being
in several ways, due to the inherent attributes of Internet-mediated
interaction and through its effects on social trust and sociability. We test
our hypotheses on a representative sample of the Italian population. We find a
significantly negative correlation between online networking and well-being.
This result is partially confirmed after accounting for endogeneity. We explore
the direct and indirect effects of the use of social networking sites (SNS) on
well-being in a SEM analysis. We find that online networking plays a positive
role in subjective well-being through its impact on physical interactions,
whereas SNS use is associated with lower social trust. The overall effect of
networking on individual welfare is significantly negative.Comment: 40 page
Governance of Digitalization in Europe A contribution to the Exploration Shaping Digital Policy - Towards a Fair Digital Society? BertelsmannStiftung Study
Digital policy is a unique policy area. As a cross-cutting policy issue, it has an impact not only on individual areas
of regulation but on almost all other policy areas as well. Aspects of digital policy such as data regimes, cybersecurity
and standardization issues are relevant not only to the the future of the internet or 5G mobile communications
infrastructure, but to other areas of our lives to which they are closely linked, which range from automated driving
to digital assistance systems in education and healthcare to the digitalization of sectors such as agriculture and
construction. Nevertheless, regulation efforts have thus far been primarily sector-specific and national in their
scope. With a few exceptions, such as the EU’s controversial General Data Protection Regulation, there are few
digital policy frameworks in place for Europe that defines and integrates basic principles for broad application.
Instead, we face a situation in which a variety of approaches stand side by side, at times complementing each other
but also – all too often – competing with each other in ways that foster inconsistencies. The development of Europe’s
5G infrastructure is illustrative of this state of affairs. Despite the presence of what were originally uniform
objectives across Europe, 28 nationally distinct tendering procedures with different requirements have since
emerged. As a result, we must now find ways to manage the problems associated with having three or more networks
per country, high costs, a difficult debate over security and the threat of dependency on non-EU providers
On the discovery of social roles in large scale social systems
The social role of a participant in a social system is a label
conceptualizing the circumstances under which she interacts within it. They may
be used as a theoretical tool that explains why and how users participate in an
online social system. Social role analysis also serves practical purposes, such
as reducing the structure of complex systems to rela- tionships among roles
rather than alters, and enabling a comparison of social systems that emerge in
similar contexts. This article presents a data-driven approach for the
discovery of social roles in large scale social systems. Motivated by an
analysis of the present art, the method discovers roles by the conditional
triad censuses of user ego-networks, which is a promising tool because they
capture the degree to which basic social forces push upon a user to interact
with others. Clusters of censuses, inferred from samples of large scale network
carefully chosen to preserve local structural prop- erties, define the social
roles. The promise of the method is demonstrated by discussing and discovering
the roles that emerge in both Facebook and Wikipedia. The article con- cludes
with a discussion of the challenges and future opportunities in the discovery
of social roles in large social systems
Genesis of Altmetrics or Article-level Metrics for Measuring Efficacy of Scholarly Communications: Current Perspectives
The article-level metrics (ALMs) or altmetrics becomes a new trendsetter in
recent times for measuring the impact of scientific publications and their
social outreach to intended audiences. The popular social networks such as
Facebook, Twitter, and Linkedin and social bookmarks such as Mendeley and
CiteULike are nowadays widely used for communicating research to larger
transnational audiences. In 2012, the San Francisco Declaration on Research
Assessment got signed by the scientific and researchers communities across the
world. This declaration has given preference to the ALM or altmetrics over
traditional but faulty journal impact factor (JIF)-based assessment of career
scientists. JIF does not consider impact or influence beyond citations count as
this count reflected only through Thomson Reuters' Web of Science database.
Furthermore, JIF provides indicator related to the journal, but not related to
a published paper. Thus, altmetrics now becomes an alternative metrics for
performance assessment of individual scientists and their contributed scholarly
publications. This paper provides a glimpse of genesis of altmetrics in
measuring efficacy of scholarly communications and highlights available
altmetric tools and social platforms linking altmetric tools, which are widely
used in deriving altmetric scores of scholarly publications. The paper thus
argues for institutions and policy makers to pay more attention to altmetrics
based indicators for evaluation purpose but cautions that proper safeguards and
validations are needed before their adoption
Analysis and study of hospital communication via social media from the patient perspective
Currently, the online interaction between citizens and hospitals is poor, as
users believe that there are shortcomings that could be improved. This study
analyzes patients’ opinions of the online communication strategies of hospitals in
Spain. Therefore, a mixed-method is proposed. Firstly, a qualitative analysis through
a focus-group was carried out, so around twenty representatives of national,
regional and local patients’ associations were brought together. Secondly, the
research is supplemented with a content assessment of the Twitter activity of the
most influential hospitals in Spain. The results reveal that the general public
appreciate hospitals’ communication potential through social media, although they
are generally unaware of how it works. The group says that, apart from the lack of
interaction, they find it hard to understand certain messages, and some publications
give a biased picture. In order to improve communication, patients and
relatives are demanding that their perspective be taken into consideration in the
messages issued to enhance the quality of life and well-being of society
The use of Twitter on fashion brands. A comparison between luxury and low-cost brands
En este artÃculo se analizó comparativamente la capacidad dialógica de las marcas de moda de lujo frente a las denominadas low-cost en la red social Twitter. Para ello, se recurrió a la metodologÃa cuantitativa y se realizó un análisis de contenido de 1135 tuits publicados por H&M, Zara, Ralph Lauren y Hugo Boss. Se observó que no existe consenso entre las organizaciones para dirigirse a sus públicos, y si bien las marcas low-cost son las que hacen un mayor esfuerzo por mantener un diálogo, las firmas de lujo reciben más interacciones.In this paper, we made a comparative analysis about the dialogical capacity of luxury fashion brands and low-cost brands in the social network Twitter. For this, we used a quantitative methodology and conducted a content analysis of 1,135 tweets published by H&M, Zara, Ralph Lauren and Hugo Boss. We observed that there is no consensus among brands to address their audiences, and while low-cost brands make the greatest effort to maintain a dialogue, luxury brands receive more interactions.Ciencias de la Comunicació
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