Global trolling: The case of “America First”

This study examines a global trolling event, “America First,” with the intention to identify whether non-state-sponsored global trolling exists, and if so, what trolling behaviors and tactics characterize global trolling. Through an analysis of sixty videos from different countries, that featured “America First”as their common theme, we were able to focus on the specific cultural manifestations of global trolling. Back in 2017, the videos were posted over a three-week period and they all exhibit repetitive, provocative, pseudo sincere, and satirical trolling behaviors. While trolling behaviors crossed national boundaries, at times they were correlated with Hofstede’s dimensions of cultural diversity. Future research may examine the extent to which these relationships exist in other global trolling events

Going Beyond the Dominant Paradigm for Information Technology Innovation Research: Emerging Concepts and Methods

Research on information technology (IT) innovation is concerned with identifying the factors that facilitate or hinder the adoption and diffusion of new IT-based processes or products. Most of this research has been conducted within the confines of a dominant paradigm wherein innovations are assumed to be beneficial, and organizations that have greater innovation-related needs and abilities are expected to exhibit a greater amount of innovative activity. This essay suggests that the dominant paradigm may be reaching the point of diminishing returns as a framework for supporting ground-breaking research, and urges researchers to adopt a more innovative approach to the study of IT innovation itself. Toward this end, I present seven opportunities for conducting new kinds of research that go beyond the dominant paradigm

Algorithmic accountability and digital justice: A critical assessment of technical and sociotechnical approaches.

The concept of digital justice is intended to open up discourse about strategies for bringing relief to those who believe they have been discriminated against or harmed by algorithmic decision making. Digital justice has depended on algorithmic accountability, a means by which entities can be held accountable for the consequences of algorithmic decision making. This paper critically examines the concept of algorithmic accountability to assess its utility as a ground for digital justice and argues that it is fraught with difficulties. After discussing digital justice and algorithmic discrimination, algorithmic accountability is decomposed into two types, technical and sociotechnical. These approaches are critically assessed and a cautionary note is struck about the difficulty of enacting algorithmic accountability. If this argument is persuasive, it implies that the concept of digital justice also has difficulties. The paper concludes with suggestions for moving forward that do not use either version of algorithmic accountability

Chinese collective trolling

The vast majority of research on online trolling focused on Western cultures. Given the role context plays in shaping online interactions, it is important to take into account its socio‐cultural context and investigate the role of national culture, by conducting research into trolling in Eastern cultures. In this paper, we attempt to begin addressing this gap by focusing on Chinese collective trolling, looking at Sina Weibo's PG One case. Specifically, we aim to identify who are the major players, what are the metaphors they use, and what are the major trolling tactics employed in Chinese collective trolling event. Using a mixed‐method approach, we analyzed 2,004 posts and 9,967 comments on Sina Weibo's PG One case, of which 480 were sampled for thematic content analysis. Major contributions of this study include an account of collective trolling in Chinese cultural context that is characterized by role switching between trolls, bystanders, and victims during the various stages of the event. We conclude with suggestion for future research directions

Adoption of Web-Based Transactional Banking: Efficiency-Choice and Neo-Institutional Perspectives

This study is about the adoption of Web-based transactional banking (WBTB). A theoretical model integrating the efficiency-choice and neo-institutional perspectives was developed and tested using data from the population of all banks and thrifts in the United States. Does the Internet level the competitive landscape for small firms? Our results show that larger banking and thrift institutions have a greater propensity to adopt WBTB. In addition, adoption is also influenced by prior adopters who are incorporated within the same state, are of the same firm size, but not those of the same institution type. This study has important implications for theory and practice. It empirically validates the importance of including both a neo-institutional and efficiency- choice perspective in any theory of IT innovation adoption. It also provides empirical evidence on the diffusion and adoption of Internet-based innovation that will be helpful to the practice of Internet managers and policy makers

Boundary Crossing through Text and Image on Instagram in an Online Community of Practice

During COVID-19 lockdown many social media challenges captured the attention of users all around the world, and many online communities of practice used social media platforms for their daily interactions. On Instagram these communities gather around common interests through the platform’s sociotechnical affordances. We examined the role that these features play in boundary maintenance processes and boundary crossing practices, analyzing posts from four online communities of practice (CoPs), who were bounded by their hashtags and shared an art recreation challenge that was popular on Instagram at the start of COVID-19 lockdown. We found that while some practices are shared across CoPs, boundary maintenance processes sometimes are not, and the boundaries of some of these CoPs are more permeable than others. Cultural differences, language, and script were critical for boundary maintenance regardless of the platform’s visual affordances that served the boundary crossing practices

The Impact of Culture on Online Toxic Disinhibition: Trolling in India and the USA

The pervasiveness of online trolling has been attributed to the effect of online toxic disinhibition, suggesting that perpetrators behave in less socially desirable ways online than they do offline. It is possible that this disinhibition effect allows for everyone to start on a level playing field online, regardless of race, gender, or nationality, but it is likewise possible that the disinhibition effect is context-dependent and sensitive to socio-cultural variations. We aim to explore if toxic online disinhibition effects depend on national culture and gender by examining the extent of trolling towards tweets by Americans and Indians, from both genders. Content analysis of 3,000 Twitter posts reveals that significantly more trolling comments were posted on tweets by Americans than by Indians, and on tweets by women than men. We conclude that the online disinhibition effect may exacerbate, replicate, or mediate existing socio-cultural differences, but it does not eliminate them

Graphicons and Tactics in Satirical Trolling on Tumblr.com

Internet trolling is inherently multimodal, relying on both textual and graphical means of communication (or “graphicons”). We examined how satire and ideological trolls who use graphicons on the microblogging site Tumblr.com, use knowledge of local culture as part of their trolling tactics. Based on a qualitative thematic analysis of 172 trolling posts (that include 284 graphicons), we identified 7 Tumblr satire troll tactics: the lying tactic, the derailment tactic, the parodic exaggeration tactic, the misappropriation of jargon tactic, the straight man (or “comical seriousness”) tactic, the troll reveal tactic, and the politeness tactic. We also found that ideologically extremizing language was the most commonly used outrage tactic and that trolls used graphicons frequently as flame baiting prompts and for tone modification

The Impact of Politeness on Conversational Outcomes in Mobile Dating Apps

Mobile dating applications like Bumble and Tinder have grown in popularity, increasingly attracting scholarly attention. Our study focuses on the impact of politeness strategies and imposition on conversational outcomes on mobile dating apps. Using a 2 by 2 factorial design we examine the impact of degree of directness and imposition impact on perceptions of potential romantic partners and attitudes toward intensifying a relationship. We found that indirectness (a higher-order politeness strategy) and requests for face-to-face dates (high imposition) were positively associated with 1) attitudes toward intensifying a relationship, and 2) the perceived likeability of an interactional partner. Indirect politeness strategies more often resulted in request compliance and rejection strategies varied based on degrees of directness and the nature of the requests. Further exploration of how individuals evaluate imposition as it relates to requests for transitioning conversations from a mobile dating platform to face-to-face, is needed

Scientific Paradigms and Urban Development: Alternative Models

Urban sprawl's negative impacts have been amply demonstrated, starting as long as 30 years ago, and most North American urban plans have, somewhere, reference to sprawl as bad policy (or, perhaps, absence of policy). Yet North Americans continue to tolerate the construction of more and more suburban subdivisions. This paper suggests an answer to this paradox. We argue that sprawl's attractiveness – if one can call it that – is buried deep in North American cultural predispositions, which we trace to quite specific interpretations of the mechanistic worldview that emerged from 17th and 18th century revolutions in natural philosophy. North American culture is a scientific culture as well as a suburban one. If mechanistic science and its peculiar view of nature is so pervasive and if suburban sprawl is both pervasive and dysfunctional, then this particular form of science and its cultural roots need to be carefully examined. We do this from the perspective of the 21st century, when quantum physics and new discoveries in the ecological and biological sciences are suggesting that many commonly accepted assumptions about physical reality inherited from 17th and 18th century science are flawed