U.S. Religious Landscape on Twitter

Religiosity is a powerful force shaping human societies, affecting domains as diverse as economic growth or the ability to cope with illness. As more religious leaders and organizations as well as believers start using social networking sites (e.g., Twitter, Facebook), online activities become important extensions to traditional religious rituals and practices. However, there has been lack of research on religiosity in online social networks. This paper takes a step toward the understanding of several important aspects of religiosity on Twitter, based on the analysis of more than 250k U.S. users who self-declared their religions/belief, including Atheism, Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, and Judaism. Specifically, (i) we examine the correlation of geographic distribution of religious people between Twitter and offline surveys. (ii) We analyze users' tweets and networks to identify discriminative features of each religious group, and explore supervised methods to identify believers of different religions. (iii) We study the linkage preference of different religious groups, and observe a strong preference of Twitter users connecting to others sharing the same religion.Comment: 10 page

Spartan Daily, January 30, 2018

Volume 150, Issue 2https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/spartan_daily_2018/1001/thumbnail.jp

The Business and Culture of Social Media: In Search of the People Formerly Known As the Audience

This presentation addresses three transformations: the transformation of the audience; of advertising models; and of media businesses. The talk describes how they were transformed first by digital technology, and how they are now being transformed by social media. It goes on to describe what we call the "three economies" which govern the era of social media and proposes some research needed in order to understand and to monetize the audiences of this era

Public Fora Purpose: Analyzing Viewpoint Discrimination on the President’s Twitter Account

Today, protectable speech takes many forms in many spaces. This Note is about the spaces. This Note discusses whether President Donald J. Trump’s personal Twitter account functions as a public forum, and if so, whether blocking constituents from said account amounts to viewpoint discrimination—a First Amendment freedom of speech violation. Part I introduces the core legal devices and doctrines that have developed in freedom of speech jurisprudence relating to issues of public fora. Part II analyzes whether social media generally serves as public fora, whether the President’s personal Twitter account is a public forum, and whether his recent habit of blocking constituents from that account amounts to viewpoint discrimination. In doing so, Part II also addresses the applicability of the recent decision from the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Davison v. Loudoun County Board of Supervisors—wherein a local county government official was held to have engaged in viewpoint discrimination for banning a constituent from her personal social media account—to the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University’s pending case against the President for the same. Part III then suggests multiple approaches for courts to analyze these claims, while taking account of an analytical mismatch that occurs when trying to apply the Davison case to the case brought against the President

Building the Global Sisterhood: Measurement, Evaluation and Learning Report for the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation's Catholic Sisters Initiative Strategy

The Conrad N. Hilton Foundation Catholic Sisters Initiative launched a five-year strategy in February 2013 to enhance the vitality of Catholic sisters, who in turn advance human development around the globe. The Sisters Initiative aims to support efforts to attract, form and retain members, develop their leadership skills and help them take advantage of the financial and social resources available to them.The Foundation awarded the USC Center for Religion and Civic Culture (CRCC) a grant in April 2014 to evaluate the Catholic Sisters Initiative strategy over four years. As the Sisters Initiative's Measurement, Evaluation and Learning (MEL) partner, CRCC seeks to answer the question, Does the strategy effectively increase the vitality of women religious across the globe as they advance human development?In order to answer this question, CRCC has developed an understanding of the landscape of Catholic sisters, where the Sisters Initiative's strategy fits into this landscape and how it can evolve. The evaluation also includes examining how the Sisters Initiative implements its strategy and how closely aligned the grants are to the goals of the strategy

The roles of “old” and “new” media tools and technologies in the facilitation of violent extremism and terrorism

This chapter describes and discusses the roles of media tools and technologies in the facilitation of violent extremism and terrorism. Rather than focusing on how media report on terrorism, we investigate how extremist and terrorist groups and movements themselves have exploited various “traditional” and “new” media tools, from print to digital, outlining the significance that they have had on extremists’ ability to mark territory, intimidate some audiences, connect with other (sympathetic) audiences, radicalize, and even recruit. Underlined is that violent extremists and terrorists of all stripes have, over time, used every means at their disposal to forward their communicative goals. Also worth noting is that ‘old’ media tools are not extinct and while ‘new’ media play a prominent role in contemporary violent extremism and terrorism, ‘old’ tools—everything from murals to magazines—continue to be utilized in tandem with the former

Demographics and Cardiovascular Risk Factors in a Bi-ethnic Church-based Intervention: Baseline Results of the Stroke Health and Risk Education (SHARE) project

Objectives: Hispanics have a higher incidence of cardiovascular disease (CVD) than non-Hispanic whites (NHWs). Despite proven benefits in other minority populations, few interventions have been conducted in partnership with Churches with substantial Hispanic membership. In this context, we describe the baseline demographics and CVD risk factors among participants of a bi-ethnic Catholic Church-based CVD prevention trial. Methods: The Stroke Health and Risk Education (SHARE) project was a cluster-randomized, multi-component, faith-based, behavioral intervention that enrolled Mexican Americans (MAs) and NHWs from Catholic Churches in Corpus Christi, Texas. Strategies to ensure MA recruitment included bilingual staff and materials and partnership with Catholic Churches and prominent parishioners for assistance in recruiting. Primary outcomes were health behaviors: sodium intake, fruit and vegetable intake, and physical activity. The proportion of participants whose intake of sodium, fruits, vegetables, and physical activity met all guideline recommendations at baseline was calculated. Results: A total of 755 baseline interviews were conducted in MAs (84%) and NHWs (16%) from 10 Churches. The median age was 52 (IQR 43-64) years and 64% of participants were female. Few participants met dietary guideline recommendations for fruit (7.7%), vegetable (16.7%) or sodium intake (33.3%) while the majority (74%) met guideline recommendations for physical activity. Only 0.4% of participants met all four recommendations for diet and physical activity. There were no ethnic differences in sodium or fruit intake or physical activity. MAs consumed fewer cups of vegetables than NHWs (1.36 vs. 1.75, p Conclusions: Partnering with bi-ethnic Catholic Churches is an opportunity to enroll MAs and participants with vascular risk factors. Both MAs and NHWs rarely met all four recommendations for diet and physical activity, substantiating the need for CVD prevention interventions in similar populations

Situating Food Insecurity in a Historic Albuquerque Community: The Whorled Relationship between Food Insecurity and Place

This article examines conceptualizations of the relationship between food insecurity and place. We use an ethnographically inspired and community-engaged approach to situate our analysis of fluid dynamics at work in a community with high levels of food insecurity. We propose that the relationship between place and people’s experience of food insecurity is recursive, dialectical, and “whorled.” This relationship reflects complex, interconnected, and multidimensional processes with consequences for the health of residents. Our research demonstrates the key nature of the health-place nexus by exploring how food insecurity articulates with place in unexpected ways that go beyond discussions of food, food environments, food access, food practices or food systems that have become common in the literature

Survival of the Black Church in difficult economic times : a case study

textMore U.S. adults are members of Historically Black Churches than the combined total of those connected to Jewish, Muslim, Mormon, Buddhist, Orthodox, Jehovah's Witness, and Hindu religious centers (Pew 2008). In addition to its considerable reach, Historically Black Churches have long been a pillar of the Black community. The impact of the Black Church is evident, not just in areas of religiosity, but firmly embedded in issues of economics and politics (Ellison and Sherkat 1995; Frazer 1964; Lincoln and Mamiya 1990; Morris 1984). Given their prominent engagement in spiritual and secular matters, and vital positionality as cultural symbols of blackness, effective implementation and delivery of marketing communication is an imperative for African American Churches. The purpose of this case study is to examine the ways in which the tools of marketing communication can be utilized within the context of a down economy by Historically Black Churches as a means of promoting their symbolic value and advancing their spiritually and secularly-based agendas. (Thomas, 2012) The average African American Church, regardless of denomination, has financial difficulty even during good economic conditions. However, during this recent recession, the African-American Church is facing huge challenges to survive. African-American houses of worship will need effective marketing and advertising plans to remain culturally relevant and compete for stable congregations. This case study explores the importance of culture, tradition, ethnic foundations, and importance of Historically Black Churches in diverse communities. These elements, in conjunction with results from observations of a local community , and a input from a minister , used in the development of a marketing and advertising framework that can be employed by Historically Black Churches. The framework also incorporates successful and transferable marketing communication methodologies used by other non-profit organizations. However, the framework can be altered to accommodate warranted contextual factors.Advertisin

The Digital Architectures of Social Media: Comparing Political Campaigning on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat in the 2016 U.S. Election

The present study argues that political communication on social media is mediated by a platform's digital architecture, defined as the technical protocols that enable, constrain, and shape user behavior in a virtual space. A framework for understanding digital architectures is introduced, and four platforms (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat) are compared along the typology. Using the 2016 US election as a case, interviews with three Republican digital strategists are combined with social media data to qualify the studyies theoretical claim that a platform's network structure, functionality, algorithmic filtering, and datafication model affect political campaign strategy on social media