The Effects of Social Anxiety Moderating Social Factors for Influencing Social Commerce

Social commerce has become an important emerging issue on the Internet. Researchers have studied not only online factors but also offline factors. Hence, this study investigated the effect of social anxiety, an offline psychological characteristic, on online users’ behavior. Online social interactions are hypothesized to influence social commerce intention directly or indirectly through online social support. Online social support is divided into two forms, informational and emotional. Social commerce intention is also decomposed into receiving and giving resulting in eight causal relationships. 427 effective samples are collected from Facebook users, and the results confirmed most of the causal effects of the research model. The Study also tested the moderating effect of social anxiety on all of the causal effects. Out of the eight relationships, social anxiety significantly moderates four of them. Findings of the results lead to significant theoretical contributions and managerial implications. Limitation and future research directions are also discussed

Social, Casual and Mobile Games

This book is available as open access through the Bloomsbury Open Access programme and is available on www.bloomsburycollections.com. Social, casual and mobile games, played on devices such as smartphones, tablets, or PCs and accessed through online social networks, have become extremely popular, and are changing the ways in which games are designed, understood, and played. These games have sparked a revolution as more people from a broader demographic than ever play games, shifting the stereotype of gaming away from that of hardcore, dedicated play to that of activities that fit into everyday life. Social, Casual and Mobile Games explores the rapidly changing gaming landscape and discusses the ludic, methodological, theoretical, economic, social and cultural challenges that these changes invoke. With chapters discussing locative games, the new freemium economic model, and gamer demographics, as well as close studies of specific games (including Candy Crush Saga, Angry Birds, and Ingress), this collection offers an insight into the changing nature of games and the impact that mobile media is having upon individuals and societies around the world

DGS em crise: Comunicação da DGS em tempos de pandemia

No dia 11 de março de 2020 foi declarada pandemia em relação ao novo coronavírus pela Organização Mundial da Saúde. Desde então, autoridades de saúde nacionais viram-se na urgência de adotar medidas de segurança para a contenção da doença de modo a evitar o agravamento da situação. Em Portugal não foi diferente, a Direção Geral da Saúde esteve presente para colocar em prática planos estratégicos de gestão de crise em conjunto com o Ministério da Saúde. Uma destas ações foi a realização de conferências de imprensa periódicas para manter atualizados os cidadãos. O propósito deste trabalho é precisamente perceber como as conferências de imprensa veiculadas pelo Ministério da Saúde e pela Direção Geral da Saúde, veiculavam mensagens de cariz político e técnico durante a pandemia, essenciais à gestão da reputação do governo e à proteção da população. As mensagens principais dessas conferências de imprensa foram analisadas à luz do modelo Comunicação de Crise no Setor Público de Olsson (2014). Constatou-se uma prevalência de mensagens de interesse público sobre o interesse político, da parte DGS, ou seja, uma comunicação operacional e com foco na resiliência social.On March 11, 2020, a pandemic was declared in relation to the new coronavirus by the World Health Organization. Since then, national health authorities found themselves in the urgent need to adopt safety measures to contain the disease to prevent the situation from worsening. In Portugal it was no different, the Directorate General of Health was present to put into practice strategic crisis management plans in with help of the Ministry of Health. One of these actions was to hold periodic press conferences to keep citizens updated. The purpose of this paper is precisely to understand how the press conferences conveyed by the Ministry of Health, highly interconnected to the Portuguese government, and the Directorate General of Health, an operational body for health management, since each entity has a differentiated communication. The information transmitted during the press conferences was analyzed in the light of the Crisis Communication in the Public Sector model of Olsson (2014) and it was found a prevalence of the values expected to be handled by the DGS, an operational communication and focused on social resilience

Students' and teachers' perspectives towards the use of social media technologies as a supportive learning tool in English language classes: A case study from a university in Saudi Arabia

This study examined students’ and English language instructors' attitudes towards using social media technologies to support English language learning and teaching at the University of Bisha, Blagran campuses, College of Science and Arts in Saudi Arabia. While this phenomenon has been researched for many years, relatively little is known about the role of social media technologies to support English language learning from both the students' and English instructors' lenses; or, about the factors that may influence the use of these technological tools, and the conditions required for the successful use of these tools. Through a review of the current empirical and theoretical literature, this research aims to provide a clear understanding for the Ministry of Education in Saudi Arabia of some potential roles that social media technologies could play in enhancing the English language learning environment within the kingdom. The participants in this study were English language undergraduate students, along with their English language instructors. Mixed methods were used to gather the data (survey, focus groups, interviews). Two hundred and twenty-two students completed the survey (101 male and 121 female). Forty students (20 male and 20 female) participated in the focus groups. The survey and focus groups were used convergently to provide a rich understanding of the students' attitudes. Semi-structured interviews were used with the English language instructors, a total of eighteen (8 male- 10 female), to examine their attitudes in-depth and allow them to reveal their stances on using such technological tools in supporting English language teaching. The findings from the survey indicated that the students showed positive attitudes to use social media technologies to support English language learning with a mean (M=4.09, SD =.93). There was a significant difference between male and female students' attitudes in using social media technologies to support English language learning. Females mean scores were all higher than males and exhibited less dispersion as illustrated by the standard deviations. The difference in overall mean scores by gender was significant (p<0.05). Also, YouTube was the most social media technologies used by the students to support their English language learning. All the suggested predictors, including Perceived Usefulness, Perceived Ease of Use, Subjective Norms, and Gender were significant determinants of the students' attitudes. Also, overall the students stated that social media technologies could be useful tools in supporting their English language learning. These technological tools could be seen as a reference tool to familiarise the students with new vocabulary and English varieties. Also, the students stated that using these technological tools to support English learning could make the language learning process more comfortable and enjoyable because it can suit different language learning preferences and reduce classroom anxiety. The students also stated that using social media allowed them to socialise and speak English with people around the world. As far as the instructors' responses are concerned, their overall attitudes were positive. They stated that social media are familiar tools to the students, can make learning English more comfortable, and could create an enjoyable learning environment. However, some potential concerns were raised, such as losing control of the classes, cultural norms effect, language complexity, and a possible negative impact on learning motivation. The majority of the instructors agreed that technology competence could be an obstacle facing some instructors in terms of using social media technologies to support their English language teaching. They also agreed that they often lack administrative support and the college's infrastructure administration could be barriers to adopting social media technologies. Future suggestions included using social media technologies as supportive or scaffolding tools in English learning and the integration of some activities from social media into the English curriculum were made by the instructors for successful adoption of social media to support English language teaching. Some tentative implications might be drawn from this study. It provided a rich insight into the use of social media technologies to support English language learning and teaching via student and teacher lenses. These insights have practical benefits for educational administrators and instructors in Saudi Arabia. However, more research on exploring students' and instructors' attitudes is needed with a greater consideration of the impact of gender and age differences

Examining the Relationships Between Distance Education Students’ Self-Efficacy and Their Achievement

This study aimed to examine the relationships between students’ self-efficacy (SSE) and students’ achievement (SA) in distance education. The instruments were administered to 100 undergraduate students in a distance university who work as migrant workers in Taiwan to gather data, while their SA scores were obtained from the university. The semi-structured interviews for 8 participants consisted of questions that showed the specific conditions of SSE and SA. The findings of this study were reported as follows: There was a significantly positive correlation between targeted SSE (overall scales and general self-efficacy) and SA. Targeted students' self-efficacy effectively predicted their achievement; besides, general self- efficacy had the most significant influence. In the qualitative findings, four themes were extracted for those students with lower self-efficacy but higher achievement—physical and emotional condition, teaching and learning strategy, positive social interaction, and intrinsic motivation. Moreover, three themes were extracted for those students with moderate or higher self-efficacy but lower achievement—more time for leisure (not hard-working), less social interaction, and external excuses. Providing effective learning environments, social interactions, and teaching and learning strategies are suggested in distance education