Influence of Controlled and Uncontrolled Interventions on Twitter in Different Target Groups

Abstract—In this paper the influence of interventions on Twitter users is studied. We define influence in a) number of participants, b) size of the audience, c) amount of activity, and d) reach. Influence is studied for four different target groups: a) politicians, b) journalists, c) employees and d) the general public. Furthermore, two types of interventions are studied: a) by all Twitter users (i.e., uncontrolled interventions), and b) those tweeted by an organization that benefits from any resulting influence (i.e., controlled interventions). As a case study, tweets about a large Dutch governmental organization are used. Results show a clear relation between the number of uncontrolled interventions and influence in all four target groups, for each of the defined types of influence. Controlled interventions show less influence: Significant influence was found for the general public, but influence for politicians and employees was only mildly significant, and no influence was found for journalists. The effect found for uncontrolled interventions however suggests that this influence is indeed reachable for some target groups, even when the number of interventions is small, and very well reachable for all target groups, provided the number of interventions is large enough. In addition to this we found that interventions influence groups to a different extent. Own employees were influenced strongest, differing significantly from the other groups

Online Social Behavior in Twitter: A Literature Review

Abstract—This literature review is aimed at examining state of the art research in the field of online social networks. The goal is to identify the current challenges within this area of research, given the questions raised in society. In this review we pay attention to three aspects of social networks: actor, message, and network characteristics. We further limit our review to research based on Twitter data, because this online social network is the most widely used by researchers in the field. Keywords-Twitter; Social network services; I

Does believing accompany belonging? Correlations and trends in Western Europe and North America between 1981 and 2000.

Using the European and World Value Surveys from 1981, 1990, and 2000, this paper examines trends in Christian beliefs, church attendance, and the relationship between believing and belonging. It further looks at the influence of religious pluralism on this relationship in Western Europe and North America. The main finding of this study is that in most countries there is no growing gap between Christian believing and Christian belonging. Indeed, the relationship between believing and belonging at the individual level has remained practically unchanged in the Western world over the past two decades. The slight weakening in the relation between believing and belonging measured for some countries stems from the fact that in those countries both believing and belonging declined, but the decline in belonging was stronger. Moreover, a higher degree of religious pluralism does not result in a stronger association between believing and belonging, as would be expected from supply-side theory.

Does duration of deregulated religious markets affect Church attendance? Evidence from twenty-six religious markets in Europe and North America between 1981 and 2006

This study tests the deregulation hypothesis of religious market theory in 26 European and Northern American countries by examining differences in religious involvement between and within countries. The deregulation hypothesis, which is assumed to be universally valid, predicts that religious involvement is higher in deregulated religious markets. Moreover, countries having deregulated religious markets for a longer period of time are supposed to have higher levels of involvement. Therefore, we test the duration hypothesis. This test is important, as it also has been argued that it may take time for deregulation to have an effect on religious involvement. Multilevel analysis on the stacked European and World Value Surveys of 1981, 1990, 2000, and 2006 show that deregulation fosters church attendance, but duration of deregulation does not increase church attendance. Although the deregulation hypothesis cannot be rejected, we find that modernization corrodes church attendance to a larger extent than deregulation can stimulate church attendance.