Outline of a multilevel approach of the network society

Social and media networks, the Internet in particular, increasingly link interpersonal, organizational and mass communication. It is argued that this gives a cause for an interdisciplinary and multilevel approach of the network society. This will have to link traditional micro- and meso-level research of social and communication ties (Rogers, Granovetter a.o.) to the macro-level research of the network society at large (Castells a.o.).\ud Systems theory linked to a theory of communicative action establishes a potential basis for a multilevel theory. The systems theory described uses elements of a biologically inspired analysis of networks as complex adaptive systems and the mathematically inspired theory of random and scale-free networks recently elaborated by Barabási, Strogatz and Watts. The outline of the multilevel theory is summarized in ten statements about changing relationships in the network society: an information society with structures and modes of organization primarily shaped by social and media networks. \ud In the last section an inventory is made of the theoretical and methodological changes communication science will have to make to develop a general theory of the information and the network society in the perspective of communication

The role of social networking sites in career management skills

The influential work of Rainie and Wellman (2012) posits that use of social networking sites as tools to harness resources of social relations are transformational in context of equality of opportunity in career attainment. This conceptualisation is rooted within social capital theory, whereby personal connections are viewed as potential resources (Lin, 1999) with important benefits for accessing new opportunities and knowledge (Granovetter, 1973, Burt, 1995). Social networking sites offer opportunities for people to network and expand their social capital networks (Rainie and Wellman, 2012), an important career management skill (SDS, 2012). Whilst many consider social networking site usage to be ubiquitous, skill levels required to use the internet productively are unevenly distributed amongst the online population, and closely reflect traditional forms of social and economic inequality (Hargittai, 2008a). This study investigates utility of SNS as a career management tool as envisaged by Rainie and Wellman (2012), whilst accounting for the second-level digital divide. Enquiry incorporates examination of the relationship between SNS use and career-related outcomes across these key themes. Secondary survey data are utilised exploring the general population, with primary data gathered on mothers of small child, students in further education, and people who have recently been made redundant. These groupings represent people at different career stages, with differing age profiles and different relationships with social media and the internet more generally. Findings show no consistent benefit to career outcomes associated with SNS use, suggesting that potential benefits are not realised. Although analyses related to the second-level digital divide hint at existence of systematic online inequality, precise identification is not achieved. There is no compelling evidence found that people’s social networking site usage is associated with career-based outcomes

International student mobility : the role of social networks

Building upon recent work on higher education mobility, this paper contends that social networks of friendship and kinship are critical determinants for students deciding to study overseas, not just, as has hitherto been suggested, a complementary factor. It uses original data collected through interviews and focus groups with thirty-eight higher education international students studying at three UK universities and argues that students who choose to study overseas do not operate within a vacuum but rather draw upon extended networks of individuals who have chosen to do so themselves or advocate studying abroad. While this encouragement may be of an explicit and unequivocal nature – telling students that they ought to study overseas – for the majority it is rather more implicit. The students interviewed invariably related that higher education overseas or mobility more generally was an accepted practice amongst their peers, thereby leading to a normalisation of the mobility process. The paper concludes that international students come to accept mobility as a taken for granted stage within the lifecourse, and, whether intentionally or not, this is often the driving force behind their decision to study overseas

Facebook usage and academic achievement of high school students: a quantitative analysis

Online social networking has become an integral part of the lives of America\u27s teenagers with 73% of teens reporting that they use a social networking site such as Facebook daily (Lenhart, Purcell, Smith, & Zickuhr, 2010). Some recent studies have shown a negative relationship between Facebook use and academic achievement (Karpinski & Duberstein, 2009), while other studies have shown no relationship between Facebook use and academic achievement (Pasek, More, & Hargittaai, 2009). Thus, parents, teachers, and administrators remain uncertain of the effects, if any, of students using Facebook. This study examined Facebook usage and academic achievement of high school students at Dollarway High School. 72 students completed two surveys-the Facebook Intensity Scale (FBI) and ENGAGE for grades 10 to 12. The FBI measures the amount of time a student spends on Facebook, the extent of a student\u27s participation on Facebook, a student\u27s emotional connection to Facebook, and a student\u27s integration of Facebook into his/her daily life. ENGAGE measures 10 psychosocial behaviors that affect academic achievement of students including academic discipline, academic self-confidence, commitment to college, communication skills, general determination, goal striving, social activity, social connection, steadiness, and study skills. Students\u27 GPA information was also collected. Results of the study showed a negative relationship between intensity of Facebook use and GPA, a negative relationship between intensity of Facebook use and goal striving, and a negative relationship between intensity of Facebook use and steadiness. These findings indicate that a negative relationship does exist among Facebook use and academic achievement for some populations. More research is needed to determine why these negative relationships exist in some populations and not in others

Fueling the revolution: social media’s effect on societal revolutions

JEL Classification System: D74 (Conflict resolution), D71 (Social choice) / Classificação Sistema JEL: D74 (Resolução de conflitos), D71 (Escolha social)“When we change the way we communicate, we change society”- Clay Shirky. The rise of social networking sites will play an increasingly important role in the formation of group identity and collective actions such as societal protests and Revolutions. The new use of social networking sites is a significant departure from static, solely profile based online platforms. Networks such as Facebook, Twitter, etc. are being utilized by thousands of individuals in an organized fashion to incite real social change. The topic of this dissertation is social media’s effect on social Revolutions. It focuses more specifically on the Ukrainian Revolution as it has received considerable attention and interest. For this reason this topic will be looked at from a marketing perspective to analyze how social media dispenses information and influences individuals to engage with the movement. Drawing from McLuhan’s media theory, social network and collective action theories, this dissertation argues that social networking sites impact societal revolutions by influencing protest attendance and information perception.“Quando mudamos o modo de comunicar, mudamos a sociedade”- Clay Shirky. O avanço das redes sociais terá um papel cada vez mais importante no desenvolvimento da identidade de grupo e acções colectivas como protestos sociais e revoluções. O novo uso das redes sociais é um avanço significativo em relação às plataformas estáticas baseadas somente no perfil do utilizador. Redes como o Facebook, o Twitter, etc. estão a ser utilizadas por milhares de indivíduos de modo organizado para realmente incitar mudanças sociais. O tema desta dissertação é o efeito que as redes sociais têm nas revoluções sociais. A mesma foca-se na Revolução Ucraniana, que captou considerável atenção e interesse mundial. Por este motivo, este tópico será analisado de uma perspectiva de marketing, para verificar como os meios sociais fornecem informação e influenciam os indivíduos a participar em movimentos. É a partir da teoria mediática de McLuhan’s, da rede social e das teorias de acção colectiva que esta dissertação se propõe a analisar o impacto que as redes sociais têm na revolução social, através da influência no activismo protestante e na divulgação de informação

SOCIAL NETWORKS IN THE TOURISM INDUSTRY: AN INVESTIGATION OF CHARLESTON, SOUTH CAROLINA

Over the past decades, increasing attention has been given to the networking in the tourism industry (Lynch, 2000; Pavlovich, 2003). The existing literature mainly focuses on the interrelationships among tourism stakeholders at sector level and the structure of the interorganizational networks in tourism industry. However, little research has been done to examine the possible antecedents and outcomes of the tourism networks and the interrelationships between the network structures at different subject level (i.e., interpersonal and interorganizational) and in different social contexts (i.e., online and offline). The purpose of this study is to address these research gaps by empirically examining the networks in a tourism destination. Choosing Charleston, South Carolina as the study area, this study included three phases of data collection and analysis. A series of in-depth interviews with the Charleston Area Convention and Visitor Bureau (CACVB) staff were first conducted for the development of the survey instrument. An online self-administrated survey was then conducted with 337 investors of the CACVB Travel Council to examine the scope and strength of the relationships between tourism professionals and tourism organizations. In addition, the Web sites of 745 tourism-related organizations located in Charleston were collected for generating an inter-hyperlink network in the tourism industry. Using network analysis techniques, the relational characteristics of the identified Web sites were measured, and their possible relationships with the organizations\u27 offline characteristics were also examined. The results confirmed the proposed influences of personality in individual\u27s social network structures in tourism business environment, and indicated that different personality traits contributed to different aspects of individual\u27s social networks characteristics (i.e. social network diversity and social network tie strength). At the organizational level, the study suggested that the interorganizational networks between tourism organizations were socially embedded in their boundary-spanning personnel\u27s social networks. In addition, market turbulence was found negatively related to tourism organization\u27s network diversity that had significant influence on their market performance. For the interorganizational network in cyberspace, the study revealed that tourism organization\u27s sector played an important role in their online network structures which were found correlated to tourism organization\u27s offline network structure as well as market performance

Academic Performance and Behavioral Patterns

Identifying the factors that influence academic performance is an essential part of educational research. Previous studies have documented the importance of personality traits, class attendance, and social network structure. Because most of these analyses were based on a single behavioral aspect and/or small sample sizes, there is currently no quantification of the interplay of these factors. Here, we study the academic performance among a cohort of 538 undergraduate students forming a single, densely connected social network. Our work is based on data collected using smartphones, which the students used as their primary phones for two years. The availability of multi-channel data from a single population allows us to directly compare the explanatory power of individual and social characteristics. We find that the most informative indicators of performance are based on social ties and that network indicators result in better model performance than individual characteristics (including both personality and class attendance). We confirm earlier findings that class attendance is the most important predictor among individual characteristics. Finally, our results suggest the presence of strong homophily and/or peer effects among university students

Poverty and social networks evidence review

This is a self-published version of the full report produced for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation for their Anti-Poverty Strategy programme in 2014