Style over substance: A psychologically informed approach to feature selection and generalisability for author classification

Data availability: Data will be made available on request.Copyright © 2023 The Authors. Author profiling, or classifying user generated content based on demographic or other personal attributes, is a key task in social media-based research. Whilst high-accuracy has been achieved on many attributes, most studies tend to train and test models on a single domain only, ignoring cross-domain performance and research shows that models often transfer poorly into new domains as they tend to depend heavily on topic-specific (i.e., lexical) features. Knowledge specific to the field (e.g., Psychology, Political Science) is often ignored, with a reliance on data driven algorithms for feature development and selection. Focusing on political affiliation, we evaluate an approach that selects stylistic features according to known psychological correlates (personality traits) of this attribute. Training data was collected from Reddit posts made by regular users of the political subreddits of r/republican and r/democrat. A second, non-political dataset, was created by collecting posts by the same users but in different subreddits. Our results show that introducing domain specific knowledge in the form of psychologically informed stylistic features resulted in better out of training domain performance than lexical or more commonly used stylistic features

‘Let us teach our children’: Online racism and everyday far-right ideologies on TikTok

Copyright © 2023 The Author(s). This paper identifies perceptions of injustice, grievance, and alienation as online drivers of radicalisation by concentrating on contemporary visual radicalisation patterns. It focuses on far-right agents of radicalisation in the UK with a particular analysis of visual and ephemeral drivers of radicalisation on social media platforms. We analysed widespread TikTok hashtags which embody mainstream right-wing ideologies. Using these hashtags, we selected four popular videos (> 30k views) for visual thematic analysis of their compositional content and comment-sphere to explore everyday representations and discourses of far-right ideologies. Our findings highlight mundane online expressions on TikTok that collectively reinforce notions of a shared idealised identity built on nostalgic reinterpretations of an imperial past, which contribute to the mainstreaming of far-right ideas and ideologies.This research was part of the project entitled “De-Radicalisation in Europe and Beyond: Detect, Resolve, Re-integrate”, funded by Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Framework Programme [grant number 959198]

Are sex differences in antisocial and prosocial Facebook use explained by narcissism and relational self-construal?

© 2017 The Authors. Previous research has found that some people use Facebook for antisocial purposes, such as for “trolling” or attention-seeking. Conversely, others use Facebook in prosocial, relationship-enhancing ways, such as to increase belonging or to connect with friends. Few studies, however, have investigated differences between men and women in their antisocial and prosocial use of Facebook. The present study sought to address this research gap by examining whether these sex differences might be explained by narcissism and relational self-construal (i.e., the extent to which an individual defines their self in terms of close relationships). To this end, 573 participants living in the United States completed measures of narcissism, relational self-construal, and motives for using Facebook. Results revealed that men reported more antisocial motives for using Facebook than did women, which was explained by their greater narcissism. Conversely, women reported stronger prosocial motives for using Facebook, which was explained by their more relational self-construal. We discuss ways that these findings can contribute to the development of interventions to promote prosocial online behaviour

Linking Recent Discrimination-Related Experiences and Wellbeing via Social Cohesion and Resilience

The current study examined the relationship between recent experiences of discrimination and wellbeing and the mediating effects that social cohesion and resilience had on this relationship. Using online sampling, participants (N =255) from a South London community rated the levels of discrimination related experiences in the past 6 months, alongside measures of social cohesion, resilience, and wellbeing (happiness and depressive symptoms). Results revealed a negative relationship between recent experiences of discrimination and wellbeing which was explained by a serial mediation relationship between social cohesion and resilience, and singly by resilience alone. The study highlights how recent experiences of discrimination can lead to a depletion of personal resources and social resources (which in turn also lead to reduced personal resources) and in turn, to lower levels of wellbeing

Misinformation and Trusted Voices

Dr Ozge Ozduzen (Lecturer in Digital Media & Society at University of Sheffield), Dr Billur Aslan Ozgul (Lecturer in Political Communication at Brunel University London), and Dr Nelli Ferenczi (Senior Lecturer in Psychology at Brunel University London) (MTV0044) Inquiry Misinformation and trusted voices (Inquiry) available online at https://committees.parliament.uk/committee/438/culture-media-and-sport-subcommittee-on-online-harms-and-disinformation/publications/written-evidence/?SearchTerm=Ozduzen&DateFrom=&DateTo=&SessionId= .This submission focuses on misinformation and trusted voices. Our answers are based on a research project on community mistrust and vaccine hesitancy, funded by the British Academy, the Social Science Research Council (SSRC) and the Science and Innovation Network in the USA (SIN USA) between 2021 and 2022. The project investigates the impact of historical marginalisation, social exclusion, official communication, and community mistrust on the discursive and social production of vaccine hesitancy on both social media platforms and in physical spaces in the United Kingdom and United States of America (see Ozduzen et al. 2022). We conducted in-depth interviews, focus groups, and systematic social media data analysis to uncover the experiences, beliefs and opinions of our research participants. Although our focus was on vaccine engagement of minoritised communities, we also investigated the ways that vaccine hesitant individuals in the UK consume information and misinformation content and engage with their respective sources. We finally analysed their reaction to official governmental information on vaccines and other health information, scientific advice, and health initiativesBritish Academy; the Social Science Research Council (SSRC); the Science and Innovation Network in the USA (SIN USA)

Linking recent discrimination-related experiences and wellbeing via social cohesion and resilience

United Kingdom The current study examined the relationship between recent experiences of discrimination and wellbeing and the mediating effects that social cohesion and resilience had on this relationship. Using online sampling, participants (N= 255) from a South London community rated the levels of discrimination related experiences in the past 6 months, alongside measures of social cohesion, resilience, and wellbeing (happiness and depressive symptoms). Results revealed a negative relationship between recent experiences of discrimination and wellbeing which was explained by a serial mediation relationship between social cohesion and resilience, and singly by resilience alone. The study highlights how recent experiences of discrimination can lead to a depletion of personal resources and social resources (which in turn also lead to reduced personal resources) and in turn, to lower levels of wellbeing

"Medicine is still against Black people": Mapping and visualising intersections of social inequalities, community mistrust, and vaccine hesitancy in online and physical spaces in the UK and US

Funded by the British Academy, this report is part of a research project entitled “Mapping and visualising intersections of social inequalities, community mistrust, and vaccine hesitancy in online and physical spaces in the UK and US”. The report investigates social, cultural, and political factors underlying vaccine hesitant beliefs and ideas among minoritised communities in the United Kingdom (UK) and the United States of America (US). The data is collected through interviews and focus groups with vaccine-hesitant individuals within various religiously, ethnically, and racially minoritised communities, interviews with medical practitioners, and through thematic analysis of vaccine communication in Twitter and Telegram during the COVID-19 pandemic