Analyzing gender inequality through large-scale Facebook advertising data

Online social media are information resources that can have a transformative power in society. While the Web was envisioned as an equalizing force that allows everyone to access information, the digital divide prevents large amounts of people from being present online. Online social media in particular are prone to gender inequality, an important issue given the link between social media use and employment. Understanding gender inequality in social media is a challenging task due to the necessity of data sources that can provide large-scale measurements across multiple countries. Here we show how the Facebook Gender Divide (FGD), a metric based on aggregated statistics of more than 1.4 Billion users in 217 countries, explains various aspects of worldwide gender inequality. Our analysis shows that the FGD encodes gender equality indices in education, health, and economic opportunity. We find gender differences in network externalities that suggest that using social media has an added value for women. Furthermore, we find that low values of the FGD are associated with increases in economic gender equality. Our results suggest that online social networks, while suffering evident gender imbalance, may lower the barriers that women have to access informational resources and help to narrow the economic gender gap

Broadcasting to the masses or building communities: Polish political parties online communication during the 2011 election

The professionalisation of political communication is an evolutionary process (Lilleker & Negrine, 2002), a process that adapts to trends in communication in order to better engage and persuade the public. One of the most dramatic developments in communication has been the move towards social communication via the Internet. It is argued to affect every area of public communication, from commercial advertising and public relations to education (Macnamara, 2010). It is no longer sufficient to have an online presence; we are now in an age of i-branding; with the ‘i’ standing for interactive. Yet, trends in online political electoral campaigning over recent years indicate a shallow adoption of Web 2.0 tools, features and platforms; limited interactivity; and managed co-production. The Internet is now embedded as a campaigning tool however, largely, the technologies are adapted to the norms of political communication rather than technologies impacting upon internal organizational structures, party relationships to members and supporters, or the content and style of their communication. We examine these themes, and develop them through a focus on the targeting and networking strategies of political parties, in more detail in the context of the Polish parliamentary election of 2011. Through a sophisticated content analysis and coding scheme our paper examines the extent to which parties use features that are designed to inform, engage, mobilise or allow interaction, which audiences they seek to communicate with and how these fit communication strategies. Comparing these findings with maps built from webcrawler analysis we build a picture of the strategies of the parties and the extent to which this links to short and long term political goals. This paper firstly develops our rationale for studying party and candidate use of the Internet during elections within the Polish context. Secondly we develop a conceptual framework which contrasts the politics as usual thesis (Margolis & Resnick, 2000) with arguments surrounding the social shaping of technologies (Lievrouw, 2006) and the impact on organisational adoption of communication technologies and post-Obama trends in Internet usage (Lilleker & Jackson, 2011) and posit that, despite the threats from an interactive strategy (Stromer-Galley, 2000) one would be expected within the context of a networked society (Van Dyjk, 2006). Following an overview of our methodology and innovative analysis strategy, we present our data which focuses on three key elements. Firstly we focus on the extent to which party and candidate websites inform, engage, mobilise or permit interaction (Lilleker et al, 2011). Secondly we assess the extent to which websites attract different visitor groups (Lilleker & Jackson, 2011) and build communities (Lilleker & Koc-Michalska, 2012). Thirdly we assess the reach strategies of the websites using Webcrawler technology which analyses the use of hyperlinks and whether parties lock themselves within cyberghettoes (Sunstein, 2007) or attempt to harness the power of the network (Benkler, 2006)

How Privacy Concerns and Social Media Platform Use Affect Online Political Participation in Germany

Digital inequalities research has investigated who engages in online political participation, finding gaps along socioeconomic variables such as gender and education. Recent research has also highlighted how online platforms may facilitate political participation. Especially for multi-purpose platforms such as Facebook, where users are supposed to use their real names, issues of adequate self-presentation arise. The diversity of multiple audiences engenders privacy concerns, particularly when controversial political issues are discussed. We add to existing research on digital inequalities by focusing on privacy concerns as a critical construct. Using a survey of German Internet users, we test the effect of privacy concerns on online political participation. Unexpectedly, privacy concerns increase political participation. As privacy concerns are spread evenly throughout the population, they contribute little to the socioeconomic stratification of online political participation. Social media use, however, exerts a strong positive effect on political participation, and differs significantly among socioeconomic groups

Brave new world? Political participation and new media

This paper intends to highlight the role played by new social media upon citizens’ political participation, their challenges and inequalities, like what has been thoroughly studied for traditional media. New media, also called social networks, like Twitter or Facebook, have been glorified as the universal public sphere, a promising new "café". This paper intends to discuss, in a more realistic and reflexive way, the use of some internet platforms, contradicting the excessive optimism that always arises whenever a new ICT (information and communication technology) emerges. We intend to reposition the social conditions that impact on digital political participations, namely the historical context, the social inequalities and the role of traditional media on political participation. Acknowledging the theoretical proposition stating that political participation (both in real or digital worlds) is stratified, this paper states that there is also a stratification of social media, regarding different levels of uses and goals, and that participation skills needed before social media ever existed are still necessary to participate via new media, an undervalued issue in new media studies. Similarly to other tools, Facebook and Twitter do not change the political situation by themselves. Although this transformation can be enabled by those tools, it all depends on the social, political and historical contexts. Finally, it is recognized that traditional media are also important to make political participation through social networks relevant in the real world

Young men who have sex with men's use of social and sexual media and sex-risk associations: cross-sectional, online survey across four countries

Objective There has been an increase in new HIV diagnoses among young men who have sex with men (YMSM) over the past decade in both UK and US contexts, with online sex-seeking implicated in driving this development. This study sought to examine YMSM's use of a variety of social and sexual networking websites and € apps', and assess sexual risk behaviours. Design YMSM were recruited from across four countries in Britain and Ireland, via an online survey using convenience sampling. Data were collected from 2668 men, of whom 702 were aged 18-25 €..years. Results Facebook use was almost ubiquitous and for largely social reasons; sexual media use was common with 52% using gay sexual networking (GSN) websites frequently and 44% using similar apps frequently. We found increased odds of high-risk condomless anal intercourse associated with the length of time users had been using GSN websites and lower levels of education. We found no significant differences across the four countries in sexual risk behaviours. Conclusions YMSM are a heterogeneous population with varied sexual health needs. For young men with digital literacy, individual-level online interventions, targeted and tailored, could be directed towards frequent users with lower levels of education. Variation in demographic characteristics of GSN websites and app users may affect who interventions are likely to reach, depending on where they are targeted. However, interventions, which may catch young men earlier, also provide a major opportunity for reducing sexual health inequalities

Housing Search in the Age of Big Data: Smarter Cities or the Same Old Blind Spots?

Housing scholars stress the importance of the information environment in shaping housing search behavior and outcomes. Rental listings have increasingly moved online over the past two decades and, in turn, online platforms like Craigslist are now central to the search process. Do these technology platforms serve as information equalizers or do they reflect traditional information inequalities that correlate with neighborhood sociodemographics? We synthesize and extend analyses of millions of US Craigslist rental listings and find they supply significantly different volumes, quality, and types of information in different communities. Technology platforms have the potential to broaden, diversify, and equalize housing search information, but they rely on landlord behavior and, in turn, likely will not reach this potential without a significant redesign or policy intervention. Smart cities advocates hoping to build better cities through technology must critically interrogate technology platforms and big data for systematic biases

Broadcasting to the masses or building communities: Polish political parties’ online performance during 2011 elections in international perspective

This paper analyses within the context of election contests the extent to which parties use the range of Web 2.0 tools, in particular social networking sites, weblogs and microblogs, in order to build communities online; we contrast this with the more traditional political use of the online environment for broadcasting. Using the 2011 Polish general election as a case study, we analyse the use of the online environment by all political parties, categorising features as offering a range of functions to serve visitors, from informing to allowing interaction. We also assess how different groups of visitors are targeted through different features or platforms. The data from the content analysis thus provides a rich picture of the online strategy of each party and the extent to which the Internet was used in the campaign. These data are supplemented by web cartography analysis which identifies the interlinkages between the websites of political parties, official information sources and the media. The cartography allows us to analyse the direction of traffic flow within the electoral websphere, the extent to which parties create open platforms with high levels of linkage to one another or if they maintain enclosed communities linking only to supportive sites. Overall our paper will provide an understanding of party election strategies during elections allowing discussion regarding the impact this might have on parties, media actors and voters. In particular we demonstrate how parties can use the range of web features to build communities of specific groups of visitors, in particular those with issue specific interests, those leaning towards supporting a party, and existing partisan campaigners. The use of these tools, we argue, can increase loyalty and lead to the conversion of supporters to activists. The paper leads into a discussion of how social networking tools have the potential to enhance the link between parties, members and supporters but that this depends on how the party utilises the online environment. Finally we aim to fit the Polish case study within a larger picture of political parties’ online performance during elections. Here we will compare our data on Poland with similar data which analysed the performance of parties in German 2009 general elections, parliamentary elections in Great Britain 2010 and French parliamentary election in 2012

Sources of Cardiovascular Health Information and Channels of Health Communication Among Urban Population in Nigeria

This study employed mixed methods to investigate the preferred sources of health information and later explored the views of community healthcare workers on the enablers, barriers and ways of overcoming barriers to health communication. The study found that majority of the participants preferred their source of CV (cardiovascular) health information from the healthcare workers including the medical doctors, nurses, and pharmacists. On the other hand, the least preferred source of health information was from friends, family members, and community leaders. Some of the identified enablers to community health communication include awareness programme via Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs), community-based organisations such as faith-based organisations and healthcare facilities. Others are traditional media and social media. The identified barriers to community-based health communication include lack of knowledge and poverty, language barriers, and other miscellaneous issues including misuse of internet, lack of basic amenities and religious beliefs. The community-based healthcare providers articulated ways to overcome the identified barriers, including enlightenment programmes, using the language of the target audience, funding health awareness programmes, and monitoring of health education interventions. This study concludes that dissemination of health information using numerous channels is essential in ensuring population-wide primary prevention of diseases