{"title":"An Examination of Verbal Aggression in Politically-Motivated Digital Discourse","authors":"Jean Mathieu Tsoumou","doi":"10.4018/ijsmoc.2021070102","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4018/ijsmoc.2021070102","url":null,"abstract":"Verbal aggression in digital discourse has emerged as a substantial focus of interest for scholars wishing to examine how conflicts begin, unfold and end on Twitter, YouTube, blogs, and WhatsApp. However, despite all the scholarly attention that Facebook has received since its origin, verbal aggression on Facebook is still relatively under-researched. This paper examines verbal aggression online in the political discourse of Congo-Brazzaville Facebook users. More specifically, quantitative along with qualitative analyses of a dataset of 9,330 Facebook comments were jointly carried out. One critical finding is that explicit aggressive comments are overwhelmingly pervasive and on the increase, pointing to the conclusion that historical, social, sociolinguistic, and political factors are to a larger extent instigators of verbal aggression on Facebook. Furthermore, users employ different strategies to express or intensify verbal aggression, favoring explicit expressions of aggression such as insult and abuse over others like teasing.","PeriodicalId":422935,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Social Media and Online Communities","volume":"51 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"130388214","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Social Media Bots, Trolls, and the Democratic Mandates in Sub-Saharan Africa","authors":"Gregory Gondwe, E. Some","doi":"10.4018/ijsmoc.2021070105","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4018/ijsmoc.2021070105","url":null,"abstract":"This exploratory study investigates the role that bots and trolls played on social media in widening the gaps of political partisanship in sub-Saharan Africa. Taking the case of the 2018 Zambian by-elections, the authors examined the relationship between online social media content that propagates hate and organized trolling efforts in Zambia. The study used machine learning tools to identify the origin of the bots on Facebook and Twitter accounts (trolls) of the two major political parties in Zambia (PF and UPND). Online posts that accounted for the election campaigns and the aftermath in the year 2018 were considered for the study. Findings suggest that social-mediated conversations were divided along political lines and that the examined trolling accounts systematically took advantage of the existing echo chambers to create hate messages on Zambian social networks. In other words, the findings indicated that the online hate messages that accounted for violence were neither created by the PF or UPND political parties as earlier studies suggest but by bots and trolls.","PeriodicalId":422935,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Social Media and Online Communities","volume":"10 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"128507204","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"An Empirical Study of Virtual Social Networks","authors":"Liguo Yu, Yingmei Li","doi":"10.4018/ijsmoc.2021070101","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4018/ijsmoc.2021070101","url":null,"abstract":"Virtual social network is a kind of social network established through indirect interactions between individuals, especially through online interactions. Virtual social network has significant implications on business operations, governing, scientific research, and social relations. This paper describes several virtual social networks and studies their properties and effects using empirical approach and computer simulations. Furthermore, the authors find that these virtual social networks have similar distributions with respect to the frequency of nodes and different edges. These distributions are similar between directed networks and undirected networks. In addition, through simulations they demonstrate that the roles played by different nodes in a virtual social network are unequal. Limitations of this study and future research directions are also presented.","PeriodicalId":422935,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Social Media and Online Communities","volume":"547 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"131847338","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Social Media and Networks for Sharing Scholarly Information Among Social Science Research Scholars in the State Universities of Tamil Nadu","authors":"C. Baskaran, Pitchaipandi P.","doi":"10.4018/ijsmoc.2021070104","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4018/ijsmoc.2021070104","url":null,"abstract":"The study examines the impact and utilization of social networks and media for disseminating scholarly information among social science research scholars in south universities of Tamil Nadu, India. The study analyzed the respondent coverage from the universities: University of Madras, Bharathiar University, Bharathidasan University, Madurai Kamaraj University, Alagappa University, Manonmaniam Sundaranar University, and Periyar University. An aggregate of 520 polls appropriated to the respondents out of eight universities in Tamil Nadu and 501 (96.34%) of the filled survey got from the respondents in the social science departments of the universities for the examination. The task of research has taken effort to collect the data to find out usefulness and impact of the social media and networks among the respondents in the selected state universities of Tamil Nadu.","PeriodicalId":422935,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Social Media and Online Communities","volume":"abs/2207.07393 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125153801","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Mediating Effect of Bridging Social Capital Between Social Media Usage and Affective Attitude","authors":"A. Bajaj, Adrien Bouchet, Li Sun","doi":"10.4018/IJSMOC.2021010104","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4018/IJSMOC.2021010104","url":null,"abstract":"In this work, the authors develop and test a theoretical model that investigates the mediating effect of bridging social capital between usage of a brand specific social network site and consumer attitude towards the brand. Specifically, they see how usage of online social network sites drives consumer purchase intent, using university football as a domain to test the model. They find that bridging social capital is indeed a mediating construct between the university's sports social networking site usage and affective attitude towards the team brand. As social network site usage increases, both injunctive norms (perceptions about the expectations of referent others) and descriptive norms (perceptions of the actual behavior of referent others) increase. They show that these influence emotional reward, in the form of increased bridging social capital, which in turn influences affective attitude towards the brand. The findings contribute to understanding how consumer tribes form on online forums and how subjective norms influence affective consumer attitude.","PeriodicalId":422935,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Social Media and Online Communities","volume":"18 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115082293","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Tipping Point","authors":"Soo-Kwang Oh, Seoyeon Hong, H. Park","doi":"10.4018/ijsmoc.2020010103","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4018/ijsmoc.2020010103","url":null,"abstract":"While previous researchers have addressed motivations to join and continue using social media, this paper focuses on why users quit certain social media and change their favorite platforms, such as the current shift from Facebook to Twitter to Instagram and Snapchat. Furthermore, this exploratory study seeks to build an understanding of social media usage and motivations for switching from a cross-cultural perspective by comparing findings from Korean and U.S. users. Findings from 19 focus group sessions (n = 118) highlight influences regarding modes of usage, user control, commitment, addiction, privacy, perceived relationships, self-construals, and social/cultural trends. Findings are further analyzed and compared in light of relevant theoretical frameworks and cultural differences.","PeriodicalId":422935,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Social Media and Online Communities","volume":"180 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"123082165","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Perceived Quality of Online Encyclopedias","authors":"Corinna Raith, Stefan Koch","doi":"10.4018/ijsmoc.2019010104","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4018/ijsmoc.2019010104","url":null,"abstract":"This study illustrates how different user groups perceive and evaluate the content quality of Wikipedia articles as compared to entries of a traditional encyclopedia. Therefore, an experimental set-up was used with blinded articles of different topic fields from the German Wikipedia and Brockhaus online, evaluated by experts with different backgrounds (university vs. practice) and by students of the field. The findings showed that the quality of both encyclopedias was assessed similarly (intra-group evaluations), although more faults and mistakes were criticized in the Wikipedia sample. However, the inter-group comparison revealed differences in the groups' quality perceptions. This partly applied to the comparison of the expert groups, and especially to the comparison of expert and (non-expert) student evaluations. Students tended to give better ratings, especially within the Wikipedia sample. Most noticeable, they did not detect any content-related faults in both sets, highlighting that further training is needed to improve their information literacy.","PeriodicalId":422935,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Social Media and Online Communities","volume":"66 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126258974","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Dissemination of Family Internet Rules by Libertarian Paternalism","authors":"Nagayuki Saito","doi":"10.4018/ijsmoc.2019070101","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4018/ijsmoc.2019070101","url":null,"abstract":"To examine the future direction of policy making for protecting young people online, this paper discusses the effectiveness of protection policies based on libertarian paternalism from the standpoint of behavioral economics by referring to the efforts of the Kariya authorities, Aichi Prefecture. This paper discusses the effects of setting a default rule as a countermeasure to the human heuristic decision making process with a fear that making irrational decisions causes parents and young people to adopt a passive stance towards policy. The paper specifically analyzes whether the efforts function as libertarian paternalism, and whether the cut-off time of “9 p.m.” was reasonable for parents as a default time. Furthermore, in the case where child protection has been carried out from the perspective of paternalism, this study considers whether young people and parents adjust their behavior.","PeriodicalId":422935,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Social Media and Online Communities","volume":"10 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1900-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"133275325","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"An Examination of Motivation and Media Type","authors":"R. Marjerison, Yinan Lin, Sarmann I. Kennedyd","doi":"10.4018/ijsmoc.2019010102","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4018/ijsmoc.2019010102","url":null,"abstract":"This paper explores the motivations and priorities of Chinese Millennials' use of social media with regard to the sharing of content. A commercially important demographic, this group are highly active on social media. The amount of content that is shared online is immense. Some shared content “goes viral” and can be seen by vast numbers of users. The findings of this study are based on the results of over 650 online surveys and include both theoretical and practical contributions to the body of knowledge regarding the nature of viral propagation of content in Chinese social media. This contribution to the understanding and insight social media activities of this significant and commercially consumer demographic may be of value to online promoters and marketers as well those interested in the use of social media for commercial purposes in the design and management of their online and social media presence, marketing, and advertising strategies.","PeriodicalId":422935,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Social Media and Online Communities","volume":"16 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1900-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127051872","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}