31,879 research outputs found
Everyday the Same Picture: Popularity and Content Diversity
Facebook is flooded by diverse and heterogeneous content, from kittens up to
music and news, passing through satirical and funny stories. Each piece of that
corpus reflects the heterogeneity of the underlying social background. In the
Italian Facebook we have found an interesting case: a page having more than
followers that every day posts the same picture of a popular Italian
singer. In this work, we use such a page as a control to study and model the
relationship between content heterogeneity on popularity. In particular, we use
that page for a comparative analysis of information consumption patterns with
respect to pages posting science and conspiracy news. In total, we analyze
about likes and comments, made by approximately and
users, respectively. We conclude the paper by introducing a model mimicking
users selection preferences accounting for the heterogeneity of contents
Influence of the 'News Finds Me' Perception on News Sharing and News Consumption on Social Media
The study focuses on âNews Finds Meâ perception, i.e. the belief that users can stay informed enough without actively following traditional news media while relying on social media and personal contacts. The text analyses the influence between this perception and news consumption (ânews internalisingâ) and sharing (ânews externalisingâ). Uses & Gratifications sought (âinformation seekingâ, âsocial interactionâ and âimpression managementâ) were considered as moderating variables. Survey based results (n = 96) show that
âNews Finds Meâ perception is positively correlated with news internalising but not with news externalising. It is thus concluded that the mere presence of the âNews Finds Meâ perception does not encourage news sharing attitudes. The study also brings evidence to support a relationship between news internalising and news externalising habits, which influence each other mutually and can moderate other factors in news consumption and dissemination on social media. It is concluded that the presence of the âNews Finds Meâ perception does not encourage news sharing attitudes
Black Lives Matter and the Effects of a Social Media User\u27s Connection to Differing Ethnic and Racial Backgrounds
Millions of citizens, including a large number of whites, joined the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement in the summer of 2020. An important factor that mobilized them toward BLM was the rise of social media. Recognizing the critical importance of social media, the present research explores the link between social media use and citizensâ behavior on the BLM movement in the United States. The focus of the analysis is on the issue of diversity. Because diversity on social networks can expose individuals to more diverse views, one can hypothesize that a higher number of oneâs friends and followers being from different racial and ethnic backgrounds can lead to higher levels of activism in the BLM movement. In order to test the hypotheses, we conducted a survey in the United States specifically tailored for this study. A statistical analysis on the survey data reveals that diversity in one\u27s social networks on social media significantly enhances his or her likelihood of participation in the BLM protest. Yet, the significant effect disappears when the samples are limited to white respondents; it is clearly non-white respondents who are driving the significant result of diversity of social networks. This study makes an important contribution to the literature of social movements by dissecting the mechanism through which social media shapes citizensâ relations with BLM. Findings from this study generate critical implications that are essential in understanding dynamics of social movements in modern society
News Sharing in Social Media: A Review of Current Research on News Sharing Users, Content, and Networks
This article provides a review of scientific, peer-reviewed articles that examine the relationship between news sharing and social media in the period from 2004 to 2014. A total of 461 articles were obtained following a literature search in two databases (Communication & Mass Media Complete [CMMC] and ACM), out of which 109 were deemed relevant based on the studyâs inclusion criteria. In order to identify general tendencies and to uncover nuanced findings, news sharing research was analyzed both quantitatively and qualitatively. Three central areas of researchânews sharing users, content, and networksâwere identified and systematically reviewed. In the central concluding section, the results of the review are used to provide a critical diagnosis of current research and suggestions on how to move forward in news sharing research
Online Popularity and Topical Interests through the Lens of Instagram
Online socio-technical systems can be studied as proxy of the real world to
investigate human behavior and social interactions at scale. Here we focus on
Instagram, a media-sharing online platform whose popularity has been rising up
to gathering hundred millions users. Instagram exhibits a mixture of features
including social structure, social tagging and media sharing. The network of
social interactions among users models various dynamics including
follower/followee relations and users' communication by means of
posts/comments. Users can upload and tag media such as photos and pictures, and
they can "like" and comment each piece of information on the platform. In this
work we investigate three major aspects on our Instagram dataset: (i) the
structural characteristics of its network of heterogeneous interactions, to
unveil the emergence of self organization and topically-induced community
structure; (ii) the dynamics of content production and consumption, to
understand how global trends and popular users emerge; (iii) the behavior of
users labeling media with tags, to determine how they devote their attention
and to explore the variety of their topical interests. Our analysis provides
clues to understand human behavior dynamics on socio-technical systems,
specifically users and content popularity, the mechanisms of users'
interactions in online environments and how collective trends emerge from
individuals' topical interests.Comment: 11 pages, 11 figures, Proceedings of ACM Hypertext 201
Effectiveness of Corporate Social Media Activities to Increase Relational Outcomes
This study applies social media analytics to investigate the impact of different corporate social media activities on user word of mouth and attitudinal loyalty. We conduct a multilevel analysis of approximately 5 million tweets regarding the main Twitter accounts of 28 large global companies. We empirically identify different social media activities in terms of social media management strategies (using social media management tools or the web-frontend client), account types (broadcasting or receiving information), and communicative approaches (conversational or disseminative). We find positive effects of social media management tools, broadcasting accounts, and conversational communication on public perception
Managing Diverse Online Networks in the Context of Polarization:Understanding how we grow apart on and through social media
Social media enable their users to be connected with a diverse group of people increasing their chances of coming across divergent viewpoints. Thus, network diversity is a key issue for understanding the potentials of social media for creating a cross-cutting communication space that is one of the premises of a functioning democracy. This article analyzes the strategies social media users adopt to manage their network diversity in the context of increasing polarization. The study is based on 29 semi-structured interviews with diverse social media users from Turkey and qualitative network maps. Furthermore, the study adopts a cross-platform approach comparing Facebook, Twitter, and WhatsApp in relation to the diversity of their usersâ networks. The study shows that social media users adopt different strategies interchangeably in specific contexts. These strategies include visible (unfriending, blocking) and invisible (muting, unfollowing, and ignoring) forms of disconnection, debating, observing divergent opinions, and self-censorship. Political interest of social media users, political climate, issue sensitivity, and âimagined affordancesâ of social media platforms play a role in usersâ choices about which strategy to choose when they are confronted with divergent viewpoints through their diverse online networks. Building on the unfriending literature that points out to rather partisan users, who unfriend, unfollow or block others, this article demonstrates that in peak moments of polarization, also the politically disengaged or moderate users disconnect from diverse others
Does Campaigning on Social Media Make a Difference? Evidence from candidate use of Twitter during the 2015 and 2017 UK Elections
Social media are now a routine part of political campaigns all over the
world. However, studies of the impact of campaigning on social platform have
thus far been limited to cross-sectional datasets from one election period
which are vulnerable to unobserved variable bias. Hence empirical evidence on
the effectiveness of political social media activity is thin. We address this
deficit by analysing a novel panel dataset of political Twitter activity in the
2015 and 2017 elections in the United Kingdom. We find that Twitter based
campaigning does seem to help win votes, a finding which is consistent across a
variety of different model specifications including a first difference
regression. The impact of Twitter use is small in absolute terms, though
comparable with that of campaign spending. Our data also support the idea that
effects are mediated through other communication channels, hence challenging
the relevance of engaging in an interactive fashion
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