Cross-National Proximity in Online Social Network and Protest Diffusion: An Event History Analysis of Arab Spring

This study examines the role of online social network proximity in cross-national diffusion of offline protests. Drawn upon Valente’s (1995) network diffusion model, the study operationalizes social network proximity-based protest exposure, using the international Facebook friendship share data. One year-long onsite protests during Arab Spring 2011 are examined using event history modeling. The findings offer evidence of an contemporaneous online network exposure effect on cross-national diffusion of protests. An expected lagged diffusion effect was not found, however. The paper presents an innovative approach to the scholarship of global protest diffusion and collective actions.

Do People Who Identify as Popular Become Popular in a New Network? A 9-Month Longitudinal Network Analysis

Although scholars have argued that people actively shape and reshape their social networks (e.g., Parks, 2016), this aspect of relational development has received little attention. This study sought to determine if people’s self-perceptions of interpersonal communication skills translated into behavior that led to relationship formation in a new network. A 9-month longitudinal social network analysis (N = 94) of the residents of a first-year university residence hall using Facebook tie data was conducted to assess network changes. Results indicate that both self-perceived network centrality in a hypothetical friendship sociogram (Smith & Fink, 2015) and self-reported connector scores (Boster et al., 2011) are good longitudinal predictors of relationship development. Those who began by self-identifying as central, became central

Measuring international relations in social media conversations

This paper examines international relations as perceived by the public in their social media conversations. It examines over 1.8 billion Facebook postings in English and 51 million Chinese posts on Weibo, to reveal the relations among nations as expressed in social media conversations. It argues that social media represent a transnational electronic public sphere, in which public discussions reveal characteristics of international relations as perceived by a foreign public. The findings show that the international relations in social media postings match the core-peripheral structure proposed in the World Systems Theory. Additionally, the relations are associated with the amount of news coverage and public attention a country receives. Overall, the study demonstrates the value of webometric data in revealing how international relations are perceived by average citizens

Do People Who Identify as Popular Become Popular in a New Network? A 9-Month Longitudinal Network Analysis

Although scholars have argued that people actively shape and reshape their social networks (e.g., Parks, 2016), this aspect of relational development has received little attention. This study sought to determine if people’s self-perceptions of interpersonal communication skills translated into behavior that led to relationship formation in a new network. A 9-month longitudinal social network analysis (N = 94) of the residents of a first-year university residence hall using Facebook tie data was conducted to assess network changes. Results indicate that both self-perceived network centrality in a hypothetical friendship sociogram (Smith & Fink, 2015) and self-reported connector scores (Boster et al., 2011) are good longitudinal predictors of relationship development. Those who began by self-identifying as central, became central

Predicting international Facebook ties through cultural homophily and other factors

This study describes the structure of the international Facebook friendship network and its determinants using various predictors, including physical proximity, cultural homophily, and communication. Network analysis resulted in one group of nations, with countries that bridge geographic and linguistic clusters (France, Spain, United Kingdom, and United Arab Emirates) being the most central. Countries with international Facebook friendship ties tended to share borders, language, civilization, and migration. Physical distance, shared hyperlinks, use of common websites, telephone traffic, cultural similarity, and international student exchange were either weakly or not significantly related to international Facebook friendships

Predicting international Facebook ties through cultural homophily and other factors

This study describes the structure of the international Facebook friendship network and its determinants using various predictors, including physical proximity, cultural homophily, and communication. Network analysis resulted in one group of nations, with countries that bridge geographic and linguistic clusters (France, Spain, United Kingdom, and United Arab Emirates) being the most central. Countries with international Facebook friendship ties tended to share borders, language, civilization, and migration. Physical distance, shared hyperlinks, use of common websites, telephone traffic, cultural similarity, and international student exchange were either weakly or not significantly related to international Facebook friendships

Social transformations and labour market entry:an investigation into university systems in emerging economies

Exclusion provokes a waste of talents and incalculable cultural and economic losses. Today, given the increasing number of qualified women and blacks, the lack of representation in top-job positions in knowledge-intensive occupations is hard to explain without considering network mechanisms in the entry process. Entering those occupations comprises training and supervision, collaboration, and mutual evaluation and often those tasks involve the same people. This implies that networks between agents, groups, and institutions form and are at the heart of learning, evaluation and promotion decisions. Thus, my thesis investigates network mechanisms of the entry process in academia with the empirical focus of South Africa and Mexico. First, I examine the tendency to form same-race and same-gender student-advisor relations in the educational phase. Then, I analyse this tendency closer asking whether it affects the doctoral productivity of the couples and whether its effect changes for students with high or low productivity profile. Lastly, I study how universities' prestige and first job-mobility affects scholars' future performance. My work highlights that the inertia of individual and institutional relations explains the lack of transformations in prestigious positions that, in turn, slow down transformations at lower levels. Besides this disheartening result, my work shows that when agents overcome the inertia, creating “uncommon” relations, they perform at the highest levels underlining the gains from inclusion

Testing Matching and Mirroring With Homophily in Onboarding Leadership Socialization

This study was designed to test the relationship between matching and mirroring (MM) and homophilous perceptions (PHM) in leadership socialization. Elevated PHM levels were hypothesized to affect workplace acceptance levels. The need for testing leadership socialization skills was magnified with the current demographic shift known as the leadership succession crisis, creating problems with onboarding strategies. The theoretical foundations of the study were based on the social identity theory, the social presence theory, the leader-member exchange theory, and the similarity-attraction paradigm. The study conducted at Workforce Solutions North Texas in Wichita Falls, Texas was sampled based on the calculated strength of the effect in a pilot study. Test group participants engaged in MM enhanced social conversation with a coached candidate and control group participants conversed with an uncoached participant from the general population engaging in normal conversation. MM processes were differentiated from natural synchronic tendencies using specialized software and Kinect-® sensors. A contrasted group, quasi-experiment was examined with an analysis of covariance. No statistically significant difference was found between groups on PHM levels, correcting for age, gender, ethnicity, height, glasses, hobbies, and professions. However, PHM and coworker acceptance were statistically significant but with no difference between groups. Further research is needed to test PHM as a metric for rapport in socialization strategies. Nevertheless, the homophily lens rather than the rapport lens can help organizational development and human resource professionals quantify and develop more effective socialization strategies aimed at solving problems associated with the leadership succession crisis