Information Diffusion Power of Political Party Twitter Accounts During Japan's 2017 Election

In modern election campaigns, political parties utilize social media to advertise their policies and candidates and to communicate to electorates. In Japan's latest general election in 2017, the 48th general election for the Lower House, social media, especially Twitter, was actively used. In this paper, we perform a detailed analysis of social graphs and users who retweeted tweets of political parties during the election. Our aim is to obtain accurate information regarding the diffusion power for each party rather than just the number of followers. The results indicate that a user following a user who follows a political party account tended to also follow the account. This means that it does not increase diversity because users who follow each other tend to share similar values. We also find that followers of a specific party frequently retweeted the tweets. However, since users following the user who follow a political party account are not diverse, political parties delivered the information only to a few political detachment users.Comment: The 10th International Conference on Social Informatics (SocInfo 2018

SEALDs: A Quantitative Content Analysis of #DontTrashYourVote on Twitter

Public relations research has slowly integrated with the study of advocacy organizations, but little research has integrated this and social movements. Using the pyramid model of mobilization-driven relationship-building social media based advocacy, this study employed a quantitative content analysis to examine the prevalence of previously identified communicative functions in social media messages by SEALDs. Unlike previous research on advocacy and health organizations, action messages were the most common. This study also investigated the influence of message type on audience engagement through retweets. The results indicate that information tweets had the most retweets. This study also analyzed how social movements recruit new participants and deepen engagement within the movement

The Value of Bitcoin: A Closer Look at How Investor Attention Affects the Value of Bitcoin

This paper looks at two measure of the value of Bitcoin (the price and volume traded in the last month of Bitcoin) and sees if investor attention causes any changes in the values of Bitcoin. This paper also adds exchange rates, the S&P 500, and the price of gold as other possible explanations for the value of Bitcoin. This paper examines the variables at a worldwide level and at the countries with the top 10 GDP in the world. The results of this paper find that investor attention has a significant positive relationship with the value of Bitcoin. Specifically at the country level, Russia consistently has a significant relationship with the value of Bitcoin

The effect of new media on candidate independence: a comparison of constituency candidates in the United Kingdom and Japan

This thesis examines how constituency candidates are furthering independence from the national party through new media campaigning, by comparing data from general elections in two countries with different styles of campaigning – party-centred campaigning in the United Kingdom (2015) and candidate-centred campaigning Japan (2014). Data collection and analysis has been conducted in a two-stage process. Firstly, candidates’ website and social media use (Twitter and Facebook) during election campaigns was examined, establishing the degree to which candidates are using new media to pursue the personal vote, and what form this takes. Findings from candidate new media use were also used to formulate the second stage of research – interviews with candidates and members of parliament in both the UK and Japan. A secondary research question has also examines whether personal vote seeking behaviour has a positive impact on candidates’ electoral performance, or whether party performance factors are a key factor of performance at the constituency level. This study confirms that that Japanese candidates use new media to run more candidate centred campaigns, replicating traditional campaign styles, but also finds that other factors, namely candidates’ levels of experience and the strength of the national party, play a role in how candidates utilise new media. This is broadly confirmed through findings from candidate interviews which also provide a greater understanding of different campaign behaviour not just between Japanese and UK candidates, but also those representing political parties of varying strength

Aging Pipeline Infrastructure in the United States: How do a changing policy mix, issues of energy justice, and social media communication impact future risk analysis?

Over two and a half million miles of pipeline cross the United States today, half of which is over fifty years old and thus was designed, located, and debated without today’s modern environmental policies in place. Aging pipeline infrastructure, such as the (infamous in Michigan) Enbridge Line 5 pipeline underwater crossing at Michigan’s Straits of Mackinac, has undergone increased public scrutiny and risk analysis this past decade. This has led to the potential for policy changes in the historically stable energy services institution associated with pipeline infrastructure regulation. While policy process literature generally describes how policy changes over time, it is missing research on how new goals and new technology, such as energy justice and social media, impact agenda setting and decisions when added to the policy mix. This dissertation first investigates the evolving federal pipeline regime policy goals through an advanced policy mix analysis. Next, it argues that energy justice research can be advanced through deterministic approaches and analyses. Last, this dissertation uses a social network analysis to explain why aging pipelines are on today’s policy agenda through social network analysis. By understanding how the pipeline policy mix has changed over time, including through the addition of modern topics such as energy justice and modern technologies such as social media, policy and decision makers can improve prioritization of risk analysis for aging pipeline infrastructure

The perception of university students on the diffusion of fake news on social media : a case of the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN).

Master of Commerce in Information Systems and Technology. University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2019.Fake news is a digital but also ethical issue, and it has been one of the challenges of the media for the past decade. Fake news is defined as news articles that are false by intention and whose goal is to mislead readers. The concept of fake news is not new. For a long time false information has been used by parties to turn the population against other opposing parties. However, since the 2016 American elections, the amount of fake news disseminated has increased significantly. The Internet is playing a huge role in the broadcast of information, but it creates a danger to individuals and societies because it is a perfect platform for propagating fake news and other false information. The fact that the internet provides anonymity has given anyone the ability to launch a website and make it look authentic, including anyone with the intent to cause harm. It is uncertain as to what extent students in South Africa (SA) are aware of the concept of fake news being disguised as real news and diffused on social media. It is also hard to define the dangers that fake news presents to students in SA, in terms of their education, as well as the development of the country since they hold the future of the country in their hands. Hence, this study was aimed to investigate the perceptions of South African students on the propagation of news on social media. The objectives of this study were achieved by using a descriptive design and quantitative methodology to collect and analyze data. Questionnaires were distributed to a total of 370 students, but only 362 questionnaires were valid to be analyzed. The analysis was carried out using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS). The results showed that the students indicated that they trust their social media platforms as news sources. They also indicated that they can recommend them to their friends, but also that they can consider acquiring news from social media if they friends or family recommended them. The results also showed that students indicated that they trust the news they acquire from social media. Some of the respondents indicated that they would share news on social media if they were convinced of the credibility of the news. However, some of the respondents indicated that they would share interesting news on social media even if they are not sure of the credibility of the news. The perspective that students have on the security of social media applications is also presented in this study

Understanding K-Pop Twitter as a site of Transnational Social Media Activism

This project aims to examine social media as a platform for political organization and social change beyond geographical boundaries in the context of K-pop fans and their transnational online communities. Social media, and twitter specifically, have long been a site of activism and popular music has always had a place in social commentary. In this paper, I seek to understand this phenomenon in the context of the large and ever-growing global community of Korean pop fans. In 2020, largely through the Black Lives Matter movement, we have seen, to the shock of many, a rise in political engagement from the K-pop fan community in a number of highly sensationalized events. Using data collected from twitter I will study the expressive sentiments and strategic organization of this population as well as how said action is perceived and engaged with by the media and general public. Additionally, I will study the transnational networks that facilitate this communal activism and the cross-cultural communication required for this level of organizational success and notoriety. My findings expose how, similar to other twitter-based New Social Movements, K-pop community action consists largely of expressive content with consistent efforts by ingroup members to define and monitor the scope of the movement and the rules of engagement. I note the importance of individual accounts with large spheres of influence in creating important community structures for content dissemination. I observe that, in these fan communities, actual transnational mobilization requires very little explicit instruction as these networks were built on shared affinity and thus have built in expectations of mutual aid. In the context of all of my findings, I reaffirm the importance of studying critically social media based community action and the positive as well as negative processes it can represent