How the World Changed Social Media

How the World Changed Social Media is the first book in Why We Post, a book series that investigates the findings of nine anthropologists who each spent 15 months living in communities across the world. This book offers a comparative analysis summarising the results of the research and exploring the impact of social media on politics and gender, education and commerce. What is the result of the increased emphasis on visual communication? Are we becoming more individual or more social? Why is public social media so conservative? Why does equality online fail to shift inequality offline? How did memes become the moral police of the internet? Supported by an introduction to the project’s academic framework and theoretical terms that help to account for the findings, the book argues that the only way to appreciate and understand something as intimate and ubiquitous as social media is to be immersed in the lives of the people who post. Only then can we discover how people all around the world have already transformed social media in such unexpected ways and assess the consequences.published_or_final_versio

Digital media and a new society: a look at human interactions and organizational relations

EDUFTIt is at least essential for discussions in the field of communication, organizations and social relations in general this work I had the honor to preface. However, despite being indis- pensable, it goes beyond this single adjective. I will indicate just a few to give the reader a taste of what they will find along the pages, which I have delighted in less than a day. That’s right, less than a day. Not for the lack of time, but for the pleasure that time has given me. Instigating. Bold. Interesting. Amazing. I will stop here the adjectives and leave the others for the reader to choose their own, after all, the Portuguese language is rich and this work deserves many others adjectives that I am leaving between the lines

Identity Performance on the MTV India Facebook Fan Page Articulating Youngistan, Performing Indian-ness

This thesis examines the everyday activities of Indian youth on the MTV India Facebook fan page. The two- phase research design included a period of participant observation, combined with conducting online interviews, and a visit to New Delhi, India to conduct offline interviews. The thesis analyzes several aspects of identity performance (e.g. online identity performance, relation between online and offline identity, ideal presentation of an online identity) in relation to Goffman’s (1959) presentation of self in everyday life, and argues that the MTV India Facebook fan page has become a site for identity performance. Since such identity performance is bounded by participants’ everyday activities, the fan page can also be identified as a particular ‘place’. I use Tuan’s (1977) idea of ‘place-making’ and illustrate how the MTV India Facebook fan page has become a meaningful and familiar ‘place’ overtime through performance of routine activities and everyday practices (Seamon, 1979). These activities can be identified as articulating ‘Youngistan’ (voice of Indian youth) and performing Indian-ness, suggesting that fans have appropriated the fan page for performing specific activities that are particular to them. In addition, the thesis takes the local-global character into consideration and argues that local-global combine together to form separate, unique cultures such as MTV India, which safeguard ‘locality’ within the global product and help in ‘place-making’ activities.

THE INTERNET AS PLAYGROUND AND FACTORY

Hochschule der Kunste, Zurich, Switzerlan

Analysing acculturation to sustainable food consumption behaviour in the social media through the lens of information diffusion

Drawing on theories of acculturation and information diffusion, this paper examines whether social media usage, intergroup contacts and information dissemination influence the cultural adaptation of three ethnic groups, and its implications on sustainable consumption behaviour. Twenty-four semi-structured interviews containing multiple dimensions of social media uses, acculturation, food consumption behaviour, and information diffusion were administered to a sample of Indians (living in the home country), British Indians (living in the host country for more than 10 years) and White British (natives of Britain) users of social media. Our findings suggest that there is a clear link between the integrated strategy of acculturation and information diffusion on social media, which influences acculturation to sustainable food consumption behaviour among social media users. Managerial implications of this research finding are that intervention in information diffusion aids acculturation through the social media, which serves to infuse social media and sustainability strategist with knowledge to best influence the consumers in developing sustainable food consumption behaviour. This research also identifies opportunities to expand this academic research and contribute further to the theories of remote acculturation on which limited research has been done

Contemporary Culture

Are the humanities still relevant in the twenty-first century? In the context of pervasive economic liberalism and shrinking budgets due to a deep and prolonged recession, the exigency of humanities research for society is increasingly put into question. This volume claims that the humanities do indeed matter by offering empirically-grounded critical reflections on contemporary cultural practices, thereby opening up new ways of understanding social life and new directions in humanities scholarship

Online Mobilization and Offline Participation in European Elections

Die Möglichkeit von Online-Appellen zur Wählermobilisierung hat im Verlauf der letzten 10 Jahre exponentielle Nutzung erfahren. Alle großen Wahlkampagnen auf lokaler, nationaler und europäischer Ebene wurden sowohl offline als auch online betrieben. Trotz dessen, fangen Wissenschaftler gerade erst an zu verstehen ob und in welchem Ausmaß Online-Appelle tatsächlich ihre intendierte Wirkung erbringen. Diese Arbeit untersucht die Auswirkung von Online-Apellen auf die Wahlbeteiligung auf der Basis von Wahlinformationen der Wahlen zum Europäischen Parlament 2009 aus 15 EU-Ländern. Eine Innovation ist dabei die Möglichkeit zur Kontrolle von Offline-Mobilisierungsappellen, die die Wähler während der Kampagne erhalten haben. Anhand der Verwendung eines “Kausalitätstrichters” und einer Reihe von Strukturgleichungsmodellen kann aufgezeigt werden, dass Online-Appelle, wenn überhaupt, einen sehr begrenzten Effekt (auf die Wahlbeteiligung) haben. Unter Berücksichtigung der Politikinteressen der Befragten, sowie der Anzahl ihrer individuellen Kontaktierungen durch Parteimitglieder über Telefon, Mail, oder auch an der Türschwelle, kann kaum ein zusätzlicher Effekt von Online-Appellen festgestellt werden. Dies unterstreicht die Bedeutung der Kommunikationsform wie auch die Nutzung von Online-Nachrichten in Kampagnen, nämlich hauptsächlich zur Kontakthaltung mit dem jeweiligen eigenen Kern an Unterstützern. Die Analyse schließt mit der Herausstellung des Bedarfs weiterer Untersuchungen zu dem Thema, besonders im Zuge einer zunehmenden Weiterentwicklung von Möglichkeiten der Online-Kontaktierung. Zudem wird festgehalten, dass für den Wahlzyklus 2009 traditionelle Mobilisierungsmethoden effektiver waren als die Methode der Online-Mobilisierung.The use of online mobilization appeals has grown exponentially in the past decade, with all major campaigns at the local, national and European levels being fought both online and offline. For all their use, scholars are just in the incipient phases of truly understanding whether and to what extent these appeals have their intended effect. This analysis puts to the test the ability of online campaign appeals to increase a voter’s involvement in the election, by relying on information collected during the 2009 European Parliament elections in 15 EU countries. The novel aspect of the study represents the ability to control for offline mobilization attempts which voters might have received during the campaign. By making use of a “funnel of causality” design, and a series of structural equation models, the results presented here suggest that online mobilization messages have a very limited, if any, effect. When taking into account a respondent’s interest in politics, as well as the extent to which they have been personally contacted by a party worker through the phone, mail, or even at the doorstep, there is little added effect which online messages bring. This highlights both a characteristic of the medium of communication, as well as the use of online messages by the campaigns: primarily to maintain contact with their core supporters. The analysis concludes by pointing toward the need for further investigations, needed as online messages become more sophisticated, and by noting that for the 2009 election cycle traditional channels of mobilization proved more effective than online ones