The ecology of social interactions in online and offline environments

The rise in online social networking has brought about a revolution in social relations. However, its effects on offline interactions and its implications for collective well-being are still not clear and are under-investigated. We study the ecology of online and offline interaction in an evolutionary game framework where individuals can adopt different strategies of socialization. Our main result is that the spreading of self-protective behaviors to cope with hostile social environments can lead the economy to non-socially optimal stationary states

Cyberbullying Incidents Among African American Female Middle School Students

Recent research has shown an increase in cyber bullying acts against middle and high school students. The National Center of Education Statistics (2010) reported that cyberbullying incidents increased 73% between the years of 2007 and 2009. In 2011, 75% of cyberbullying victims were adolescents (National Center of Education Statistics, 2013). Using data collected from the Pew Research and American Life Project, the study examined the prevalence of cyber bullying acts against African American female adolescents compared to Caucasian male and female adolescents and African American male adolescents. Additionally, the study reported the cyber bullying incident that occurred most frequently as either directly using texting or indirectly using social media websites. Past research studies have shown a prevalence of cyber bullying acts against Caucasian females. The participants in this study were 737 adolescents 12-17 years old. The results suggested that a prevalence of cyber bullying acts against African American female students occurred at a significantly lower rate than Caucasian female and male students but a significantly higher rate than African American male students and Hispanic male and female students. Additionally, indirect cyberbullying incidents occurred significantly more frequently than direct cyberbullying incidents

“Who is really British anyway?” A thematic analysis of responses to online hate materials

This article aims to add to the relatively small body of literature on online hatred. In particular, it focuses on the role social networking sites may play in the development of polarisation, by exploring how online users respond to explicit online hate materials. Specifically, this article discusses the ways in which a self-selected sample of YouTube users responded, via posting online comments, to a video clip in which a White female train passenger (called Emma) could be seen to racially to abuse other passengers. Thematic analysis of the YouTube comments identified four main themes: (1) Making Sense of Emma, which encapsulated posters' attempts to find explanations for Emma’s behaviour; (2) Meeting Hatred with Hatred, which described posters’ attempts to oppose Emma’s racism by means of resorting to aggressive, hateful language; (3) Us versus Them, which encapsulated posters' tendencies to categorise themselves and other posters into in- and outgroups, based on their particular stance on racism; (4) Contesting Britishness, which expressed posters' attempts to articulate (and contest) what it means to be British. Whilst the current analysis provides some evidence that hateful web content can fuel aggressive and hateful responses, many of the comments analysed here emphasised common group membership, alongside people’s right to claim membership in a particular social category (i.e. Britishness). The current evidence, therefore, suggests that, at least in the specific context of this study, hateful web content may not necessarily lead to an automatic endorsement or escalation of hatred

Civility vs. incivility in online social interactions: an evolutionary approach

Evidence is growing that forms of incivility–e.g. aggressive and disrespectful behaviors, harassment, hate speech and outrageous claims–are spreading in the population of social networking sites’ (SNS) users. Online social networks such as Facebook allow users to regularly interact with known and unknown others, who can behave either politely or rudely. This leads individuals not only to learn and adopt successful strategies for using the site, but also to condition their own behavior on that of others. Using a mean field approach, we define anevolutionary game framework to analyse the dynamics of civil and uncivil ways of interaction in online social networks and their consequences for collective welfare. Agents can choose to interact with others–politely or rudely–in SNS, or to opt out from online social networks to protect themselves from incivility. We find that, when the initial share of the population of polite users reaches a critical level, civility becomes generalized if its payoff increases more than that of incivility with the spreading of politeness in online interactions. Otherwise, the spreading of self-protective behaviors to cope with online incivility can lead the economyto non-socially optimal stationary state

Online Comment Moderation Policies for Deliberative Discussion–Seed Comments and Identifiability

Due to the development of media information technologies and the proliferation of mobile devices, the Internet has rapidly moved to the center of news readership. In contrast to traditional media, Internet news is often coupled with commenting platforms that can accommodate readers’ immediate feedback to news stories. However, a side-effect of this feature—malicious comments—is becoming an increasingly serious social problem. To alleviate this problem and increase the likelihood of comments functioning as deliberative discussion, we suggest two moderation policies—a policy of providing high-quality seed comments and a policy of increased identifiability through social networking service accounts—and examine their effects through a longitudinal online experiment. We designed experimental groups according to a 2 x 2 between-subjects factorial design. For our experiment, a total of 137 subjects read news stories and commented on them over 15 days by using a mobile Android application developed specifically for the experiment. We found the following relationships. First, both seed quality and identifiability improve the quality of user comments in terms of deliberative discussion. Second, these effects are comparable in magnitude. Third, there are no significant interaction effects between seeds and identifiability. Fourth, the effects of high-quality seeds disappear early with anonymous users but persist when users are identified by social media accounts. Fifth, the negative effects of low-quality seeds are present and persistent only when combined with anonymity. Otherwise, the negative effects of low-quality seed comments are canceled out by the positive effects of identifiability. Finally, anonymous males are easily provoked to respond to low-quality seed comments, but most females do not respond to such comments even in anonymous situations

Online abuse of women : an interdisciplinary scoping review of the literature

This paper outlines the interdisciplinary scoping review undertaken into the online abuse of women. The review assesses literature published between 2000 and 2020, using a scoping review methodology, to discover how online abuse is defined, and recommendations proposed to ameliorate it. Using five databases and a selection of keywords generated 61 studies meeting the criteria. The majority defined online abuse as a structural issue (52/61). This paper determines that contemporary literature describes online abuse as a manifestation of gender-based violence, also evidencing the role of misogyny. The paper concludes that tackling online abuse requires action at three levels—the personal, the organisational, and the societal. Furthermore, utilising the scoping review method to assess the literature identifies innovative multi- disciplinary solutions to a complex issue

Digital mentoring of young people for responsible citizenship: a case study of an organisation using Twitter

This research aims to assess qualitatively a social media strategy employed by a UK-based civil society organisation to mobilise young people to political actions, in particular, voting. Conceptualising democracy as full participation in a decision-making process by members of a society, the project chose the organisation, Bite the Ballot (BtB), which aims to encourage young people to vote. While this research focuses on BtB’s Twitter strategy, it is also concerned with how followers learn the importance of voting through their interaction with BtB. To achieve this, an analytical framework was employed to analyse interactions on Twitter. To triangulate the tweet analysis, the research collected two additional data sources: interviews with key informants and document analysis of BtB’s output including its website. In addition, network analysis was used to contextualise BtB’s strategy within the wider network of youth-led organisations which legitimises the selection of the case for this study. The research revealed some evidence that BtB has employed an effective approach in developing democratic skills for responsible citizenship among young people on Twitter. As the BtB strategy appears to be based on young people’s preference fora horizontal relationship rather than a hierarchical relationship, BtB has adopted a mentoring approach to encourage them to vote after discussion on Twitter. Furthermore, I also found that BtB has developed an unthreatening online environment on Twitter where young people can freely explore and discuss issues with their peers, while BtB acts as their mentor. The analysis of tweets underlines BtB’s approach by suggesting that it allows young people potentially to practise their democratic skills on the BtB Twitter account by posting relevant comments to a discussion topic. Drawing on the above, I conclude that BtB’s strategy constitutes a promising pedagogic approach in guiding young people to develop their democratic skills through interaction on Twitter

Doctor of Philosophy

dissertationThis project is an activity-based study of American teens (13-17 years of age) and their material engagement with new media. This study documents the participants' engagement with new media in networked spaces and the everyday practices that surround their participation. Study participants were asked to orally report what they are experiencing as they experience it. Reports and on-screen activities are recorded by a laptop computer. Theoretical findings emerged from the axial coding across four code categories and suggested a leitmotiv pattern of a complex but stable relationship between interpersonal communication channels, the relative immediacy and intimacy of the channel, and the social relationship between participants. This pattern appeared to have a structuring influence on communication practices of youth in networked publics, and led to some tensions, concerns, and strategies relating to controlling the flow of information in those spaces. Overall, 10 code patterns and themes emerged to provide insight into the everyday practices of young people as they negotiate and construct meaning and identity in networked publics. The implications of the findings are discussed in the context; of the research questions. To my wife, Esther, for her love and unwavering support. To my children, who have never known a father who was not in working on a PhD. To my mother and father, who never lost confidence. My family was and is my inspiration