Are you Charlie or Ahmed? Cultural pluralism in Charlie Hebdo response on Twitter

We study the response to the Charlie Hebdo shootings of January 7, 2015 on Twitter across the globe. We ask whether the stances on the issue of freedom of speech can be modeled using established sociological theories, including Huntington's culturalist Clash of Civilizations, and those taking into consideration social context, including Density and Interdependence theories. We find support for Huntington's culturalist explanation, in that the established traditions and norms of one's "civilization" predetermine some of one's opinion. However, at an individual level, we also find social context to play a significant role, with non-Arabs living in Arab countries using #JeSuisAhmed ("I am Ahmed") five times more often when they are embedded in a mixed Arab/non-Arab (mention) network. Among Arabs living in the West, we find a great variety of responses, not altogether associated with the size of their expatriate community, suggesting other variables to be at play.Comment: International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media (ICWSM), 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

Social media, political polarization, and political disinformation: a review of the scientific literature

The following report is intended to provide an overview of the current state of the literature on the relationship between social media; political polarization; and political “disinformation,” a term used to encompass a wide range of types of information about politics found online, including “fake news,” rumors, deliberately factually incorrect information, inadvertently factually incorrect information, politically slanted information, and “hyperpartisan” news. The review of the literature is provided in six separate sections, each of which can be read individually but that cumulatively are intended to provide an overview of what is known — and unknown — about the relationship between social media, political polarization, and disinformation. The report concludes by identifying key gaps in our understanding of these phenomena and the data that are needed to address them

Social media, political polarization, and political disinformation: a review of the scientific literature

The following report is intended to provide an overview of the current state of the literature on the relationship between social media; political polarization; and political “disinformation,” a term used to encompass a wide range of types of information about politics found online, including “fake news,” rumors, deliberately factually incorrect information, inadvertently factually incorrect information, politically slanted information, and “hyperpartisan” news. The review of the literature is provided in six separate sections, each of which can be read individually but that cumulatively are intended to provide an overview of what is known — and unknown — about the relationship between social media, political polarization, and disinformation. The report concludes by identifying key gaps in our understanding of these phenomena and the data that are needed to address them

A Neural Network-Based Situational Awareness Approach for Emergency Response

publishedVersio

Geo-Information Harvesting from Social Media Data

As unconventional sources of geo-information, massive imagery and text messages from open platforms and social media form a temporally quasi-seamless, spatially multi-perspective stream, but with unknown and diverse quality. Due to its complementarity to remote sensing data, geo-information from these sources offers promising perspectives, but harvesting is not trivial due to its data characteristics. In this article, we address key aspects in the field, including data availability, analysis-ready data preparation and data management, geo-information extraction from social media text messages and images, and the fusion of social media and remote sensing data. We then showcase some exemplary geographic applications. In addition, we present the first extensive discussion of ethical considerations of social media data in the context of geo-information harvesting and geographic applications. With this effort, we wish to stimulate curiosity and lay the groundwork for researchers who intend to explore social media data for geo-applications. We encourage the community to join forces by sharing their code and data.Comment: Accepted for publication IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Magazin

The Shapes of Cultures: A Case Study of Social Network Sites/Services Design in the U.S. and China

With growing popularity of the use of social network sites/services (SNSs) throughout the world, the global dominance of SNSs designed in the western industrialized countries, especially in the United Sates, seems to have become an inevitable trend. As internationalization has become a common practice in designing SNSs in the United States, is localization still a viable practice? Does culture still matter in designing SNSs? This dissertation aims to answer these questions by comparing the user interface (UI) designs of a U.S.-based SNS, Twitter, and a China-based SNS, Sina Weibo, both of which have assumed an identity of a “microblogging” service, a sub category of SNSs. This study employs the theoretical lens of the theory of technical identity, user-centered website cultural usability studies, and communication and media studies. By comparing the UI designs, or the “form,” of the two microblogging sites/services, I illustrate how the social functions of a technological object as embedded and expressed in the interface designs are preserved or changed as the technological object that has developed a relatively stable identity (as a microblogging site/service) in one culture is transferred between the “home” culture and another. The analysis in this study focuses on design elements relevant to users as members of networks, members of audience, and publishers/broadcasters. The results suggest that the designs carry disparate biases towards modes of communication and social affordances, which indicate a shift of the identity of microblogging service/site across cultures

Social media mental health analysis framework through applied computational approaches

Studies have shown that mental illness burdens not only public health and productivity but also established market economies throughout the world. However, mental disorders are difficult to diagnose and monitor through traditional methods, which heavily rely on interviews, questionnaires and surveys, resulting in high under-diagnosis and under-treatment rates. The increasing use of online social media, such as Facebook and Twitter, is now a common part of people’s everyday life. The continuous and real-time user-generated content often reflects feelings, opinions, social status and behaviours of individuals, creating an unprecedented wealth of person-specific information. With advances in data science, social media has already been increasingly employed in population health monitoring and more recently mental health applications to understand mental disorders as well as to develop online screening and intervention tools. However, existing research efforts are still in their infancy, primarily aimed at highlighting the potential of employing social media in mental health research. The majority of work is developed on ad hoc datasets and lacks a systematic research pipeline. [Continues.]</div