The insider on the outside: a novel system for the detection of information leakers in social networks

Confidential information is all too easily leaked by naive users posting comments. In this paper we introduce DUIL, a system for Detecting Unintentional Information Leakers. The value of DUIL is in its ability to detect those responsible for information leakage that occurs through comments posted on news articles in a public environment, when those articles have withheld material non-public information. DUIL is comprised of several artefacts, each designed to analyse a different aspect of this challenge: the information, the user(s) who posted the information, and the user(s) who may be involved in the dissemination of information. We present a design science analysis of DUIL as an information system artefact comprised of social, information, and technology artefacts. We demonstrate the performance of DUIL on real data crawled from several Facebook news pages spanning two years of news articles

Uses & gratifications theory in online commenter culture

Title from PDF of title page (University of Missouri--Columbia, viewed on September 9, 2013).The entire thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file; a non-technical public abstract appears in the public.pdf file.Thesis advisor: Dr. Esther L. ThorsonIncludes bibliographical references.M.A. University of Missouri--Columbia 2013.Dissertations, Academic -- University of Missouri--Columbia -- Journalism."May 2013"While other research has focused on the effect that online commenting can have on news sites, little has addressed the reasons that online commenters participate, the needs that online commenting behavior meets and the emotions that commenters experience. Understanding online commenters is key to unlocking the reasons for their engagement. As news sites seek deeper connections with their audience, knowledge of those who contribute comments to the site is useful in understanding how to build loyalty. Uses & Gratifications Theory applied to online commenting culture provides key insights into the how, why and who of online news commenters. This qualitative research explores those questions among a selection of online commenters who agreed, anonymously, to answer online questionnaires. The commenters in this study were driven by the need for information/surveillance, with more than half requiring the news every day, as well as a desire for social interaction, exploration of personal identity and a desire for diversion. They have a high need for information. They feel informed and connected, along with powerful and angry, more than any other emotions when commenting. They feel more positive emotions than negative emotions. The act of commenting and engaging on the site feeds their sense of connectedness to the world

“YOU DON’T NEED PEOPLE’S OPINIONS ON A FACT!”: SATIRICAL COMEDY CORRECTS CLIMATE CHANGE DISINFORMATION

Satirical comedy has often been recognized as a corrective to, if not alternative for, commercial news as well as a source of accurate science information (Brewer & McKnight, 2015). In this dissertation, I analyze how satirical comedy debunks climate change myths, delivers accurate information, and promotes scientific expertise. Five interconnected assumptions guide the context and methodology of this interdisciplinary study: 1) that various actors have transformed climate change into a “manufactured scientific controversy” (Ceccarelli, 2011); 2) that satire, as a method, both assails targets and aggregates people (Hutcheon,1994); 3) that celebrity activism is impactful but problematic (Collins, 2007; Boykoff & Goodman, 2009); 4) that the YouTube comment board represents an audience study (Lange, 2008); and 5) that online comment is worthy of analysis (Reagle, 2015). This project analyzes two case studies, each consisting of two examples of satirical climate change comedy from John Oliver (his Statistically Representative Climate Change Debate and his Paris Agreement monologues) and from Jimmy Kimmel (his Scientists on Climate Change and Hey Donald Trump -- Climate Change Affects You Too segments). A three-tiered, mixed-methods approach is adopted to investigate the context, construction, circulation, and online reception of these satirical comedy videos. My project finds that the discursive integration (Baym, 2005) of satirical climate change comedy is potentially persuasive, but also risky and polarizing. Though centrist and left-of-center voices appreciate Oliver’s and Kimmel’s satirical interventions, conservative and right-of-center voices mark strict boundaries between comedy, celebrity, and climate change. It was also discovered that satirical comedy, which is accessible and viral, may intervene on YouTube’s climate change denial problem, correcting climate change falsehoods, and potentially drawing audiences away from their echo chambers and towards meaningful communication about the climate crisis. That is, many commenters use these videos as entry points to debate the causes of American climate change denial, correct climate change disinformation, and offer anecdotal evidence about the effects of climate change. At the same time, YouTube comments from the most resistant skeptics and repeat commenters provide insight into the persistence of circulating climate change myths and conflict frames. This study finally concludes that the analysis of comments on satirical climate change comedy exposes strategies for avoiding confirmation bias and the backfire effect along with techniques for creating more effective climate change communication

TRAP: using TaRgeted Ads to unveil Google personal Profiles

In the last decade, the advertisement market spread significantly in the web and mobile app system. Its effectiveness is also due thanks to the possibility to target the advertisement on the specific interests of the actual user, other than on the content of the website hosting the advertisement. In this scenario, became of great value services that collect and hence can provide information about the browsing user, like Facebook and Google. In this paper, we show how to maliciously exploit the Google Targeted Advertising system to infer personal information in Google user profiles. In particular, the attack we consider is external from Google and relies on combining data from Google AdWords with other data collected from a website of the Google Display Network. We validate the effectiveness of our proposed attack, also discussing possible application scenarios. The result of our research shows a significant practical privacy issue behind such type of targeted advertising service, and call for further investigation and the design of more privacy-aware solutions, possibly without impeding ?the current business model involved in online advertisement.

An Open Conversation: Deliberating Perceptions of Power Through New Media

This research aims to investigate aims to critically assess how mediated participants utilize new media spheres deliberate upon perceptions of power through rhetorical criticism and critical discourse analysis. Since the conception of social media, users have utilized the platforms to network, negotiate, and dissent from controversies through mediated public deliberation. The present study aims to nuance how Habermas’ original conception of deliberative rhetoric has transformed through new media deliberation. To exemplify this change in deliberative rhetoric, the present study will also critically evaluate online social movements through the case study of the AOC Tik Tok Challenge, responses to online controversies through YouTube apology videos, and the comment data from YouTube apology videos to understand how responses to controversy are accepted, rejected, and renegotiated through public discourse. Research findings suggest that deliberative rhetoric has shifted from a focus on matters of policy to issues of ideology. Further, social media discourse suggests that new media proposes new methods of argumentation through an emphasis on individualistic messaging contributing to larger public sentiment and the use of parasocial relationships to articulate perceptions of hegemony. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to acknowledge my advisor, Dr. Laurance Paul Strait, for his perpetual interest, guidance, and encouragement through the dissertation and my graduate career. Through my academic career, he has met each idea, question, or interest with enthusiasm and nuance. Dr. Strait’s guidance was integral in instilling confidence in myself. His lessons extend beyond the pages of this dissertation and serve as a foundation for life beyond graduate studies. Further, I would like to thank the members of my committee for their continuous feedback and support. Particularly, I would like to thank Dr. Laura Alberti and Dr. Laura Stengrim for their approaches to workshopping. Ultimately, several chapters of this project would not be possible without their advisement. Finally, I would like to thank Dr. Dave Davies and Dr Simpson for their feedback on inquiring about areas of inquiry that seemed promising and, more importantly, telling me what did not

PRO-ANOREXIA/BULIMIA INTERACTIONS ONLINE: PROBLEMATIZING COMPLEX CULTURAL PHENOMENA

In the West, and increasingly globally, individuals, particularly women, are fixated on weight loss, driven by the goal of achieving a culturally-desired, and aggressively marketed, skinny female physique. There are online forums where individuals refer to themselves or their eating disorders as pro-ana and pro-mia . Individuals who post on these sites both align with, and challenge, what medical and mental health professionals define as serious mental health problems that result in severe, sometimes fatal, medical complications. This thesis specifically focuses on interactions with, and within, the pro-ana/mia culture on the social media websites Tumblr and YouTube. Over sixteen months, and guided by a feminist postmodern perspective, I immersed myself within a grounded virtual liquid ethnography that draws on contemporary methodologies that are suitable for the transitory and destabilized characteristics of blurred online and offline interactions. Through embracing ethnographic sensibilities and being open to marginalized perspectives, I present analyses that are attentive to nuanced meanings produced by others. These critical, sociological analyses alternatively theorize the motivations behind responses to pro-ana/mia communities. Through challenging the dominant responses of the medical model and similar societal discourses that pathologize pro-ana/mia supporters, I uncover serious implications for the socio-cultural, economic, physical and mental health of women and their communities. My analyses do not place blame on pro-ana/mia individual women. Instead of supporting the eradication of pro-ana/mia from online spaces, my findings support the importance of learning about how online environments develop and extend critical consciousness about eating-disordered ideologies, practices and solutions to these

Racism in contemporary American institutions: a critical, color-blind discourse analysis of sport

This research examines the prevalence of the “new” or contemporary form of racism that exists in post-Civil Rights American society. Since the 1960s, racial ideologies and racism have shifted from “traditional” or overt to a “new” form that is covert and dialectical in nature. This study explores the ways in which the “new” form of racism manifests in discussions about sports and race in an internet environment that is very public yet seemingly private for commenters because of the ability to make comments anonymously. A thematic analysis of 545 comments in relation to two race-related sports articles that appeared on ESPN.com was performed using a critical race theory perspective and Bonilla-Silva’s color-blind framework. The discussions surrounding these race-related incidents and subsequent articles included the racialized frames of (a) abstract liberalism, (b) naturalization, (c) cultural racism, and (d) minimization of racism as means of explaining racial injustice and maintaining the racial hierarchy in modern society. This analysis revealed that not all individuals conform to the predominant ideology of racism in sports and society, these individuals are known as racial progressives. The findings revealed that racism is cultural, socially constructed and present within contemporary society and sports even though individuals and groups would like to believe otherwise. Moreover, the results indicated that sports and the internet are important domains to examine how racism is continually endorsed and reproduced in contemporary American society

Counterpublic Discourses in Facebook Comment Sections — A Comparative Analysis of Norwegian, Swedish, and Danish (Social) Media Discourse on Islam

publishedVersio

Online Deliberation: Design, Research, and Practice

Can new technology enhance purpose-driven, democratic dialogue in groups, governments, and societies? Online Deliberation: Design, Research, and Practice is the first book that attempts to sample the full range of work on online deliberation, forging new connections between academic research, technology designers, and practitioners. Since some of the most exciting innovations have occurred outside of traditional institutions, and those involved have often worked in relative isolation from each other, work in this growing field has often failed to reflect the full set of perspectives on online deliberation. This volume is aimed at those working at the crossroads of information/communication technology and social science, and documents early findings in, and perspectives on, this new field by many of its pioneers. CONTENTS: Introduction: The Blossoming Field of Online Deliberation (Todd Davies, pp. 1-19) Part I - Prospects for Online Civic Engagement Chapter 1: Virtual Public Consultation: Prospects for Internet Deliberative Democracy (James S. Fishkin, pp. 23-35) Chapter 2: Citizens Deliberating Online: Theory and Some Evidence (Vincent Price, pp. 37-58) Chapter 3: Can Online Deliberation Improve Politics? Scientific Foundations for Success (Arthur Lupia, pp. 59-69) Chapter 4: Deliberative Democracy, Online Discussion, and Project PICOLA (Public Informed Citizen Online Assembly) (Robert Cavalier with Miso Kim and Zachary Sam Zaiss, pp. 71-79) Part II - Online Dialogue in the Wild Chapter 5: Friends, Foes, and Fringe: Norms and Structure in Political Discussion Networks (John Kelly, Danyel Fisher, and Marc Smith, pp. 83-93) Chapter 6: Searching the Net for Differences of Opinion (Warren Sack, John Kelly, and Michael Dale, pp. 95-104) Chapter 7: Happy Accidents: Deliberation and Online Exposure to Opposing Views (Azi Lev-On and Bernard Manin, pp. 105-122) Chapter 8: Rethinking Local Conversations on the Web (Sameer Ahuja, Manuel Pérez-Quiñones, and Andrea Kavanaugh, pp. 123-129) Part III - Online Public Consultation Chapter 9: Deliberation in E-Rulemaking? The Problem of Mass Participation (David Schlosberg, Steve Zavestoski, and Stuart Shulman, pp. 133-148) Chapter 10: Turning GOLD into EPG: Lessons from Low-Tech Democratic Experimentalism for Electronic Rulemaking and Other Ventures in Cyberdemocracy (Peter M. Shane, pp. 149-162) Chapter 11: Baudrillard and the Virtual Cow: Simulation Games and Citizen Participation (Hélène Michel and Dominique Kreziak, pp. 163-166) Chapter 12: Using Web-Based Group Support Systems to Enhance Procedural Fairness in Administrative Decision Making in South Africa (Hossana Twinomurinzi and Jackie Phahlamohlaka, pp. 167-169) Chapter 13: Citizen Participation Is Critical: An Example from Sweden (Tomas Ohlin, pp. 171-173) Part IV - Online Deliberation in Organizations Chapter 14: Online Deliberation in the Government of Canada: Organizing the Back Office (Elisabeth Richard, pp. 177-191) Chapter 15: Political Action and Organization Building: An Internet-Based Engagement Model (Mark Cooper, pp. 193-202) Chapter 16: Wiki Collaboration Within Political Parties: Benefits and Challenges (Kate Raynes-Goldie and David Fono, pp. 203-205) Chapter 17: Debian’s Democracy (Gunnar Ristroph, pp. 207-211) Chapter 18: Software Support for Face-to-Face Parliamentary Procedure (Dana Dahlstrom and Bayle Shanks, pp. 213-220) Part V - Online Facilitation Chapter 19: Deliberation on the Net: Lessons from a Field Experiment (June Woong Rhee and Eun-mee Kim, pp. 223-232) Chapter 20: The Role of the Moderator: Problems and Possibilities for Government-Run Online Discussion Forums (Scott Wright, pp. 233-242) Chapter 21: Silencing the Clatter: Removing Anonymity from a Corporate Online Community (Gilly Leshed, pp. 243-251) Chapter 22: Facilitation and Inclusive Deliberation (Matthias Trénel, pp. 253-257) Chapter 23: Rethinking the ‘Informed’ Participant: Precautions and Recommendations for the Design of Online Deliberation (Kevin S. Ramsey and Matthew W. Wilson, pp. 259-267) Chapter 24: PerlNomic: Rule Making and Enforcement in Digital Shared Spaces (Mark E. Phair and Adam Bliss, pp. 269-271) Part VI - Design of Deliberation Tools Chapter 25: An Online Environment for Democratic Deliberation: Motivations, Principles, and Design (Todd Davies, Brendan O’Connor, Alex Cochran, Jonathan J. Effrat, Andrew Parker, Benjamin Newman, and Aaron Tam, pp. 275-292) Chapter 26: Online Civic Deliberation with E-Liberate (Douglas Schuler, pp. 293-302) Chapter 27: Parliament: A Module for Parliamentary Procedure Software (Bayle Shanks and Dana Dahlstrom, pp. 303-307) Chapter 28: Decision Structure: A New Approach to Three Problems in Deliberation (Raymond J. Pingree, pp. 309-316) Chapter 29: Design Requirements of Argument Mapping Software for Teaching Deliberation (Matthew W. Easterday, Jordan S. Kanarek, and Maralee Harrell, pp. 317-323) Chapter 30: Email-Embedded Voting with eVote/Clerk (Marilyn Davis, pp. 325-327) Epilogue: Understanding Diversity in the Field of Online Deliberation (Seeta Peña Gangadharan, pp. 329-358). For individual chapter downloads, go to odbook.stanford.edu