Content quality assessment related frameworks for social media

The assessment of content quality (CQ) in social media adds a layer of complexity over traditional information quality assessment frameworks. Challenges arise in accurately evaluating the quality of content that has been created by users from different backgrounds, for different domains and consumed by users with different requirements. This paper presents a comprehensive review of 19 existing CQ assessment related frameworks for social media in addition to proposing directions for framework improvements

Social media use in Kenya: an impetus or a deterrent to socio-economic development?

Conference paper to be presented in SCECSAL Conference, Malawi 2014.Social media is conceived as a tool for interaction within the information society. With many social media platforms globally, the importance of social media in today’s socio-economic development cannot be disputed. It offers unique opportunities that are advantageous to socio-economic development, but it also presents real dangers. Nevertheless, social media is growing explosively. Many developing countries are now embracing Web 2.0 tools, among them social media for the provision of information services. This has been considered as a strategy for developing countries for critical high improved network communications, leading to better, efficient and effective socio-economic development. With proper and effective social media, there would be high and improved economic productivity, better governance, education and quality social life. This paper, seeks to address and discuss social media and the opportunities it presents as well as challenges encountered. The paper also provides recommendations.Social media is conceived as a tool for interaction within the information society. With many social media platforms globally, the importance of social media in today’s socio-economic development cannot be disputed. It offers unique opportunities that are advantageous to socio-economic development, but it also presents real dangers. Nevertheless, social media is growing explosively. Many developing countries are now embracing Web 2.0 tools, among them social media for the provision of information services. This has been considered as a strategy for developing countries for critical high improved network communications, leading to better, efficient and effective socio-economic development. With proper and effective social media, there would be high and improved economic productivity, better governance, education and quality social life. This paper, seeks to address and discuss social media and the opportunities it presents as well as challenges encountered. The paper also provides recommendations

SOCIAL MEDIA AND UTILIZATION OF INFORMATION ON CONTAGIOUS DISEASES: THE CASE OF MEDICAL STUDENTS OF ABIA STATE UNIVERSITY TEACHING HOSPITAL ABA

This research examines social media and utilization of information on contagious diseases by medical students of Abia State University Teaching Hospital Aba. The research adopts survey design to investigate a sample of 321 medical students of ABSU Teaching Hospital who were registered undergraduates in the 2017/2018 academic session. Because the number of the students was adequate and manageable, the research adopted the census sampling technique. Structured and validated questionnaire with a reliability coefficient value of 0.81 was used to gather data for the study. Results reveal that the medical students received and made use of information on contagious diseases from six social media platforms covering causes, pattern of spread, type of people affected, effects, drug administration and strategy to avoid infection. Economic, social, infrastructural and environmental challenges impeded receipt and use of information by the students. Provision of functional computer sets with adequate cyber network in the hospital library is one of the recommendations that could ameliorate the challenges. The paper concludes that since receipt and utilization of information on contagious diseases is quick and accurate through social media platforms, quality internet services should be sustained in the medical library

Promoting engagement with quality communication in social media

The COVID-19 pandemic made explicit the issues of communicating science in an information ecosystem dominated by social media platforms. One of the fundamental communication challenges of our time is to provide the public with reliable content and contrast misinformation. This paper investigates how social media can become an effective channel to promote engagement and (re)build trust. To measure the social response to quality communication, we conducted an experimental study to test a set of science communication recommendations on Facebook and Twitter. The experiment involved communication practitioners and social media managers from select countries in Europe, applying and testing such recommendations for five months. Here we analyse their feedback in terms of adoption and show that some differences emerge across platforms, topics, and recommendation categories. To evaluate these recommendations’ effect on users, we measure their response to quality content, finding that the median engagement is generally higher, especially on Twitter. The results indicate that quality communication strategies may elicit positive feedback on social media. A data-driven and co-designed approach in developing counter-strategies is thus promising in tackling misinformation

Hoaxy: A Platform for Tracking Online Misinformation

Massive amounts of misinformation have been observed to spread in uncontrolled fashion across social media. Examples include rumors, hoaxes, fake news, and conspiracy theories. At the same time, several journalistic organizations devote significant efforts to high-quality fact checking of online claims. The resulting information cascades contain instances of both accurate and inaccurate information, unfold over multiple time scales, and often reach audiences of considerable size. All these factors pose challenges for the study of the social dynamics of online news sharing. Here we introduce Hoaxy, a platform for the collection, detection, and analysis of online misinformation and its related fact-checking efforts. We discuss the design of the platform and present a preliminary analysis of a sample of public tweets containing both fake news and fact checking. We find that, in the aggregate, the sharing of fact-checking content typically lags that of misinformation by 10--20 hours. Moreover, fake news are dominated by very active users, while fact checking is a more grass-roots activity. With the increasing risks connected to massive online misinformation, social news observatories have the potential to help researchers, journalists, and the general public understand the dynamics of real and fake news sharing.Comment: 6 pages, 6 figures, submitted to Third Workshop on Social News On the We

Use of social media by academic librarians in Iraq

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to identify the nature and extent of the “information gap” in Iraq and explore perspectives on international academic library collaboration using social media that may assist in reducing this gap. The study investigates the information gap in Iraq in the context of the country's recent history of political and social upheaval. Design/methodology/approach – The study uses qualitative data collected through interviews with academic library managers, librarians and researchers in both Australia and Iraq. Findings – The findings demonstrate that currently academic librarians in Iraq and Australia use social media differently. The degradation of critical research infrastructure and reliable communication means that Iraqi librarians rely heavily on informal communication channels. The study finds that use of social media offers will enhance collaboration by Iraqi academic librarians and reduce the information gap. Research limitations/implications – There are some limitations in terms of selection sampling, approaching Iraqi participants and average quality of connections. It is suggested that snowballing and chain sampling should be used. Social implications – The ethical challenges that are faced by the Iraqi community with social cultural systems are in the early stages of valuing higher education and a scholarly communication system based on unfamiliar models. Originality/value – This study represents the first attempt to assess the information gap that exists in the wake of recent political and social upheaval, and to explore ways in which Iraqi librarians use social media to redress this gap

COMBATING INFODEMIC COVID-19: GOVERNMENT RESPONSE AGAINST FAKE NEWS ON SOCIAL MEDIA

The global commitment to fighting the pandemic is not only about medical and epidemiological work, but also about how information about the disease is disseminated. The threat of the Covid-19 infodemic is no less dangerous than the pandemic itself. The phenomenon of infodemic has distorted the work of science and reduced public trust in state authorities. This research has identified, mapped, and analyzed official government responses to fake news attacks on social media. This study uses an interpretive-phenomenological approach, related to the spread and belief of fake news about Covid-19 in Indonesia. Data analysis uses the Nvivo-12 Pro application, as an artificial intelligence tool to support data exploration from various sources. The results show that the quality of media literacy, public communication performance, and the effectiveness of government regulations have become part of the challenges in mitigating infodemic. The level of public trust in information from social media contributes to the decline in trust in fake news about Covid-19. Stimulation from the social media news that does not control the belief in myths and false information about Covid-19. Content creators who have produced, posted, and shared on social media channels that are less critical, have an impact on the infodemic situation. The solution is to increase media literacy education and the effectiveness of law enforcement in mitigating the infodemic in Indonesia

How social shopping retains customers? Capturing the essence of website quality and relationship quality

Social shopping as a result of the advancement of social media applications is increasing considerably in e-commerce. As a consequence of the multi-faceted phenomenon of social shopping, website managers encounter a lot of challenges in providing their quality website experience to satisfy their customers’ needs and in developing relationships among participants, and community. In short, providing excellent quality website experience is crucial to support online customers. Therefore, it is necessary to offer further theoretical conceptualizations as well as detailed empirical evidence for such phenomena in which social shopping are supported and enabled. Thus, this paper attempts to investigate the factors affecting purchase intention of social shopping including two constructs: website quality (i.e., system, information, and service quality) and relationship quality (i.e., satisfaction, commitment, and trust). Additionally we aim to identify the mediating roles of commitment and trust. The empirical results show that the perceived system and service quality are important antecedents of customer satisfaction, but not for the effect of perceived information quality on customer satisfaction. Furthermore, it shows that customer satisfaction significantly influences commitment, trust, and purchase intention, and trust in turn significantly affect commitment. Our empirical results confirm that commitment and trust partially mediate the relationship between satisfaction and purchase intention in social shopping context