Taking Food Fights Online: Analysis of Chipotle’s Attempt to Cultivate Conversation with \u3cem\u3eThe Scarecrow\u3c/em\u3e Video

This study examines Chipotle’s use of The Scarecrow, an animated YouTube video, to initiate conversation about food sustainability issues. Results illustrate publics were highly engaged in conversation with one another, even though the organization did not directly engage with publics or employ principles of dialogic communication. We highlight the importance of network approaches to studying online interaction between stakeholder groups for public relations scholars interested in dialogical theory frameworks

Cyberbullying through intellect - related insults

Unrestricted utilisation of digital devices and online platforms promulgates cyberbullying, which has been typically identified with the presence of potentially profane or offensive words that can cause aggravation to others. Previous studies have clarified that certain challenges arise in detecting abusive language in social media, especially on Twitter. The apparent reason for such encounters is typically triggered by the informal language used in various tweets. This study discusses the issues of abusive language that are used in Malaysian’s online communication by highlighting the linguistic features of aggressive insulting words used by social media users in nit-picking an individual’s intelligence. Data collection and analysis are conducted in two stages. Firstly, a self-constructed questionnaire is conducted to elicit imperative keywords or phrases used in assisting subsequent analysis of the content-based approach. Secondly, Twitter data, which have been streamed using the Twitter API and R statistical software, are explored. Thematic analysis is also used in the second phase to analyse the keywords that are subjected to qualitative explanations. Initial results indicate ‘bodoh’ as the most common online insult used to degrade an individual’s intelligence. Twitter users also make use of more abusive words (insults) in Malay than in English for degrading purposes through a variety of intelligence-related insults such as ‘bebal’, ‘sengal’, ‘gila’, ‘bodoh’, ‘bangang’, ‘bengap’, ‘semak’ and ‘bongok’. Likewise, linguistics realisations such as spelling alteration, word repetition, laughing remarks, punctuations, animal imagery, dialect interference, code-mixing, and Malaysian English markers are observed through the features of those highlighted insults

Events and Controversies: Influences of a Shocking News Event on Information Seeking

It has been suggested that online search and retrieval contributes to the intellectual isolation of users within their preexisting ideologies, where people's prior views are strengthened and alternative viewpoints are infrequently encountered. This so-called "filter bubble" phenomenon has been called out as especially detrimental when it comes to dialog among people on controversial, emotionally charged topics, such as the labeling of genetically modified food, the right to bear arms, the death penalty, and online privacy. We seek to identify and study information-seeking behavior and access to alternative versus reinforcing viewpoints following shocking, emotional, and large-scale news events. We choose for a case study to analyze search and browsing on gun control/rights, a strongly polarizing topic for both citizens and leaders of the United States. We study the period of time preceding and following a mass shooting to understand how its occurrence, follow-on discussions, and debate may have been linked to changes in the patterns of searching and browsing. We employ information-theoretic measures to quantify the diversity of Web domains of interest to users and understand the browsing patterns of users. We use these measures to characterize the influence of news events on these web search and browsing patterns