Retail Firms’ Use of Social Media – Insights from Analysis of Large-Scale Twitter Data

While social media platforms have been used by retailers for a variety of purposes, there is limited research on how traditional retailers compete on social media platforms and what the effects of such competition are on related outcomes. Our paper seeks to fill this gap by examining whether retailers that are close competitors in the traditional context adopt similar content strategies on Twitter. We find that dissimilar firms have higher online engagement and acquire new followers faster. In examining the underlying mechanism, we find that this is attributable to their ability to leverage higher-level affordances of Twitter (i.e., relationship formation, meta-voicing, interactivity, collaboration, and competition). We find that it is the use of these higher-level affordances that leads to greater online engagement compared to the use of lower-level affordances, such as self-presentation and communication. Our findings have important implications for firms’ competitive strategies in online social media platforms

Social media and political communication in the 2014 elections to the European Parliament

Social media play an increasingly important part in the communication strategies of political campaigns by reflecting information about the policy preferences and opinions of political actors and their public followers. In addition, the content of the messages provides rich information about the political issues and the framing of those issues during elections, such as whether contested issues concern Europe or rather extend pre-existing national debates. In this study, we survey the European landscape of social media using tweets originating from and referring to political actors during the 2014 European Parliament election campaign. We describe the language and national distribution of the messages, the relative volume of different types of communications, and the factors that determine the adoption and use of social media by the candidates. We also analyze the dynamics of the volume and content of the communications over the duration of the campaign with reference to both the EU integration dimension of the debate and the prominence of the most visible list-leading candidates. Our findings indicate that the lead candidates and their televised debate had a prominent influence on the volume and content of communications, and that the content and emotional tone of communications more reflects preferences along the EU dimension of political contestation rather than classic national issues relating to left-right differences

Anatomie eines Trending Topics: methodische Ansätze zur Visualisierung von Retweet-Ketten

Social Media dienen immer häufiger als Disseminationsmechanismen für Medieninhalte. Auf Twitter ermöglicht besonders die Retweet-Funktion den schnellen und weitläufigen Transfer von Nachrichten. In diesem Beitrag etablieren neue methodische Ansätze zur Erfassung, Visualisierung und Analyse von Retweet-Ketten. Insbesondere heben wir hervor, wie bestehende Netzwerkanalysemethoden ergänzt werden können, um den Ablauf der Weiterleitung sowohl temporal als auch spatial zu erfassen. Unsere Fallstudie demonstriert die Verbreitung des Videoclips einer am 9. Oktober 2012 spontan gehaltenen Wutrede der australischen Premierministerin Julia Gillard, in der sie Oppositionsführer Tony Abbott als Frauenhasser brandmarkte. Durch die Erfassung von Hintergrunddaten zu den jeweiligen NutzerInnen, die sich an der Weiterleitung des Videoclips beteiligten, erstellen wir ein detailliertes Bild des Disseminationsablaufs im vorliegenden Fall. So lassen sich die wichtigsten AkteurInnen und der Ablauf der Weiterleitung darstellen und analysieren. Daraus entstehen Einblicke in die allgemeinen Verbreitungsmuster von Nachrichten auf Twitter.While all social media are used increasingly to disseminate media content, the microblogging platform Twitter has become especially pertinent as a network for spreading news in real-time. The retweet function makes it possible for information to spread quickly and widely through “meso-level follower-networks” (Bruns & Moe, 2014, p. 22). In this paper we use a case study to establish new methods for capturing, visualising and analysing retweet chains. We highlight how a simple additional step in the data collection and analysis process makes it possible to visualise and analyse the temporal and spatial evolution of a given viral topic. Our case study explores how the video of an impassioned speech by then Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard on 9 October 2012, in which she accuses the opposition leader Tony Abbott of sexism, was taken up and disseminated through the Australian and international Twittersphere. By accounting for background information on the users who retweeted the link to the video, and considering the timestamp of each tweet, we generate a dynamic visualisation which reveals when which user retweeted the link to whom and thus provides a detailed picture of the path of the link and the network it traversed. In this way, it is possible to determine the most important actors and the spread of any given event through time and place. The application of these methods to other events will bear insights into communicative processes and the dissemination of information on Twitter

Leading the conversation the use of Twitter by school leaders for professional development as their careers progress

A purposeful sample of 21 school leaders from the UK and abroad were interviewed about their use of Twitter. The Twitter timelines of these respondents were also analysed. The study was framed around four research questions designed to interrogate the issues surrounding senior leaders' use of Twitter. The data collected pointed towards the growing importance of Twitter as a forum for discussion about a whole gamut of issues related to education and leadership. The research uncovered important ways in which Twitter is being used to supplement, or in some cases replace, traditional modes of professional development. This is seen to have implications for the way leaders' careers evolve over time. A revised model of leadership career progression is proposed. The revised model provides a conceptual framework for charting social media engagement amongst leaders as their careers progress. By systematising social media engagement in this way, the study makes an important contribution to the corpus of knowledge that already exists in relation to social media use in educational settings. Practical implications include, amongst other things, suggested changes to the professional development of leaders and a call to greater awareness of social media amongst leaders themselves

New Leaders, New Thoughts: Perspectives on Leadership in the 21st Century

Winona State University\u27s Change Leadership graduate course is comprised of seventeen individuals from different generations, with a broad range of skills, backgrounds, and professional expertise. Despite differences, all share a common goal; the desire to become more effective leaders in today’s evolving world. These 21st Century Leaders study, apply basic theory, and develop skills for management and leadership within organizations. Emerging leaders hope to impact the growth, sustainability, and integrity within those organizations. These New Leaders have studied problems and issues influencing individuals and group behavior within organizations to develop collaborative practices, strategies and to empower and advocate for others. New Leaders, New Thoughts is a collection of theory and perspectives on leadership. “There are many issues facing leadership that make studying leadership a must. For example, being able to relay a task, a process, a vision, a mission, or simply transfer daily events all require what many leaders have a difficult time achieving: effective communication.” -Alex Howell This book was created for the fall 2018 Change Leadership course taught by Dr. Barbara Holmes for the WSU Leadership Education Department.https://openriver.winona.edu/leadershipeducationbooks/1002/thumbnail.jp

Slava Ukraini: a psychobiographical case study of Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s public diplomacy discourse

Volodymyr Zelenskyy\u27s public diplomacy during the Russo-Ukrainian conflict was examined in this dissertation. Zelenskyy’s discourse emphasized his action-oriented traits, Ukrainian identity, and nationalism. The study employed LTA, and LIWC-22, for natural language processing analyses of Zelenskyy\u27s public speeches and diplomatic discourse. Zelenskyy demonstrated agency, adaptability, collaboration, and positive language patterns, suggesting confidence and optimism, according to the data. In addition, the research emphasizes how domestic and international factors influence state behavior, as well as how political demands, cultural, historical, and political factors influence Zelenskyy\u27s decision-making. This dissertation sheds light on a global leader\u27s psychobiographical characteristics, beliefs, and motivations during a crisis, thereby advancing leadership and conflict resolution. By incorporating transformational leadership theory into LTA, researchers can gain a better understanding of effective leadership and how it develops strong connections with followers. LTA, LIWC-22, and qualitative coding were used to identify themes and trends in Zelenskyy\u27s speeches. The findings show Zelenskyy\u27s linguistic and leadership traits in public diplomacy, emphasizing the importance of understanding leaders\u27 traits in foreign policy decision-making. Psychobiographical profiles aid scholars in understanding a leader\u27s political views on conflict, their ability to influence events, and how they accomplish their objectives. As a result, perceptions of the state as an actor, as well as foreign policy decisions, must consider the effect of individual leaders. Conclusions include the Brittain-Hale Foreign Policy Analysis Model, based on a heuristic qualitative coding framework; HISTORICAL

The Use of Social Media by PR Practitioners and Organizations in Saudi Arabia

This study examines and analyses how social media are being used for PR practice in Saudi Arabia, and how organizations integrate social media into their PR communication. Three research methods were consequently adopted: a survey to gather data from 117 PR practitioners, an online questionnaire conducted with 20 PR practitioners, and one-on-one interviews with senior PR managers from four organizations, and five Saudi academics. This research compares the use of social media with traditional methods of PR communication, finding that PR practitioners and organizations mainly use social media for their low cost, and prompt and wide dissemination of information. The findings also indicate Twitter as the most important and most frequently used platform across the entire study sample, followed by YouTube, and Facebook. Additionally, the findings show that the main purpose for using social media in PR in Saudi Arabia is to collect information about customers and products, but PR practitioners and organizations rarely use social media to build new relationships or to communicate with clients and stakeholders. Likewise, it was found that the use of social media did not differ across organizations of different sizes and sectors. Furthermore, the findings revealed that traditional media are valuable for PR practitioners and organizations in Saudi Arabia, with TV, radio and newspapers representing essential tools of PR communication, while social media form part of the same media pie, sharing the budget and adopting the same strategies as traditional media. Moreover, the main challenge encountered by the PR practitioners and organizations was the management of online interaction and exchange with the public. Here, the practitioners generally avoided engaging with online communities, partly due to their limited ability to develop suitable content, and partly because of their inability to use the proper Arabic dialogue or dialect as a means of engaging with the public to build and maintain relationships

Title: Irregular Trade Policy: Reversals, Uncertainty And Diversion

Recent economic, political, and geostrategic developments are upending the global trade framework, weakening global multilateralism and international coordination. The stability and predictability that characterized a slow-moving and consensus-based global system of rules is ceding ground to increasingly more common deviations and irregularities. This invites new questions about the properties of international trade policy. Using a variety of econometric tools and data collection and construction tools, this dissertation empirically investigates three such irregularities that are becoming more prevalent or likely. I find that the economic costs and implications of such irregularities are rather contained in scope and limited in size. This suggests that a transition out of the existing international trade model and into a new framework might be conducted at reduced cost to the continuity and stability of overall economic activity