Socially distributing public relations: Twitter,Haiti, and interactivity in social media

Social media and communication technology have shifted the power of communication from public relations practitioners to social media users who may not have a recognized role or defined interest in an organization. What results is a social model of public relations in which traditional public relations responsibilities are distributed to social media users, and which depends on interactivity, legitimacy, and a user's social stake. This study explores social public relations through a qualitative analysis of user involvement on Twitter regarding relief efforts to support Haiti following the 7.0 earthquake that hit Port-Au-Prince in January, 2010. This analysis of Twitter posts also expands understanding of interactivity online and demonstrates social media user fulfillment of public relations objectives.     

Watching online videos interactively: the impact of media capabilities in Chinese Danmaku video sites

In China, the implementation of a Danmaku social media system to sustain and raise user interest in online video sites is an increasingly widespread phenomenon. Danmaku technology is used to display users’ messages in written text on the online video stream. Little is known about the effects of this form of interactive enhancement. The aim of this empirical study is to evaluate the evolving media capabilities of the Danmaku system and their effects on users’ perceptions of interactivity and their intentions to continue using Danmaku. We draw on media synchronicity theory and apply it to a stimulus-organism-response model. Using this framework, we hypothesize that the media capabilities of the Danmaku system, namely its transmission velocity, parallelism, symbol sets, rehearsability, and reprocessability, elicit increased interactivity, which influences users’ instantaneous intentions to share and to continue the use of the Danmaku system. The results showed that both users’ instantaneous intention to share and their intention to continue to use were significantly affected by the perceived interactivity. Unlike the results of previous studies, our findings showed that all five media capabilities positively affected the users’ perceptions of interactivity. The potential theoretical and practical implications of our findings are discussed.     

Uncompensated emotional labor,racial battle fatigue,and (in)civility in digital spaces

Emotional labor was originally theorized by Arlie Hochschild in the context of domestic labor. Since her early theorization, popular culture and social scientists have adopted the term to refer to emotion work that is exhibited in a manner of financially compensated social settings. Emotional labor refers to the process by which individuals are expected to conform to a set of societal guidelines, ensuring that their emotions conform to that performance. As the use of social media grows, emotional labor plays an increasing role in the lives of people of color—across media platforms. We frame the ever‐present negotiation involved in racialized interactions online as a type of uncompensated emotional labor that results in racial battle fatigue. Next, we position emotional labor as an intrinsic part of the experience for social media users of color because digital media is by default a White, racialized space. Lastly, we argue that current research on civility does not account for the emotional labor of people of color. We offer an original view of uncompensated emotional labor that is inclusive of cross‐platform, racialized emotional labor that can result in racial battle fatigue.     

Overcoming terms of service: a proposal for ethical distributed research

ABSTRACT

The last two years has marked a turning point in access to large-scale social media data for many researchers, as platforms hobbled their APIs and made recording, archiving, and analyzing social life online far more difficult. Particularly in the context of the United States, where violating the rules put in place by social platforms has the potential to lead to criminal charges, the balance of power between the extremely financially successful social media industry on one side, and the users and researchers of these platforms on the other, has become dangerously skewed. This article argues for a pragmatic partnering with the users to do research, rather than with the platform owners, and suggests some ways in which this might be accomplished.     

Life beyond the screen: embodiment and identity through the internet

This paper explores on-line and off-line identities and how relationship are formed and negotiated within internet environments that offer opportunities to meet people on-line and move into relationship off-line. To do this it draws on an analysis of users experiences of internet dating sites that are designed for those who wish meet others in the hope of forming an intimate relationship. Locating analyses in the context of the individualized sociability of late modernity, it is argued that virtual interactions may be shaped by and grounded in the social, bodily and cultural experiences of users. It is shown that disembodied anonymity that characterizes the internet acts as a foundation for the building of trust and establishing real world relationship rather than the construction of fantasy selves. The paper concludes with a discussion of the wider significance of this for understanding disembodied identities and interactions and the impact of cyberspace on off-line sociability.     

Social europe,social citizenship,and social services

The article begins by considering moves to establish Social Europe, alongside the European Unions single market, and the emphasis within the formulation of Social Europe on an employment-based model of social citizenship. This employment-based model is considered to be too limited for application to the social services. Accordingly, two other models are placed within the context of continuing European debate. These models are termed state clienthood and state-sponsored consumerism. The social democratic model of state cli-enthood is considered to be flawed by its neglect of the power exercised by the state over users of social services and by its lack of concern with individual needs. The potential of state-sponsored consumerism to open up questions concerning the rights of users of social services and responsiveness to their individual needs is explored and the conclusion is reached that, despite its inauspicious beginnings as part of the New Rights reform programme, this model has possibilities for enhancing social citizenship. Procedural rights offered by state-sponsored consumerism not only can extend social citizenship within existing social services provision but also can serve as a precursor to the wider participation of citizens in the social services, as the site of a continuing struggle around their rights.     

Experimenting with dialogue on Twitter: An examination of the influence of the dialogic principles on engagement,interaction, and attitude

Much of the public relations research on online relationship building has examined social media content for the use of the dialogic principles outlined by Kent and Taylor (1998). These studies, using content analysis as the primary methodology, have found that the dialogic capabilities of social media are under-utilized. However, there is limited research on the effectiveness of these methods. Therefore, the goal of this study is to examine the influence of social media content utilizing these principles on engagement, interactivity, and attitude. Results of this study indicate that usefulness of information can have a significant influence on engagement and attitude.     

Disentangling social media influence in crises: Testing a four-factor model of social media influence with large data

Social media empower publics by providing a platform for their voices during crises. Digital-enabled platforms allow individuals to become influentials by sharing their insights and expertise with others. Confronted with the fast-paced and complex dynamics of crises, we lack a systematic conceptualization and a valid measure of social media influence in the crisis context. By integrating diverse perspectives on influence, we propose a new framework that theorizes different dimensions of social media influence based on publics’ communicative behaviors during crises. This integrated framework offers a refined conceptualization and measurement of social media influence in crises by incorporating the network perspective. We tested the framework with large-scale Twitter data from four crises. Results from multigroup CFA on Twitter influencers suggest that social media influence is composed of four factors: output, reactive outtake, proactive outtake, and network positioning. Each factor is associated with a distinct set of users’ behavioral indicators (e.g., retweet). Implications for crisis communication and public relations are discussed.     

The ‘proper’ way to spread ideas through social media: exploring the affordances and constraints of different social media platforms as perceived by Italian activists

Social media have become a relevant arena for different forms of civic engagement and activism. This article focuses on the affordances and constraints of different social media platforms as they are perceived by Italian activists. Instead of focusing on single protest movements, or on single platforms, we adopt a media ecological approach and consider a variety of environments where people can choose to express protest‐related content. Our main goal is to explore whether, and how, the affordances and constraints of different social media platforms are perceived by users, and how such perceived differences are integrated in everyday social media activities. To this end, we combined in‐depth interviews with an adapted version of the cognitive walkthrough and thinking aloud techniques. Respondents reported that they act on social media platforms according to specific representations of what each platform ‘is’, and how it works. Such perceptions affect users’ protest‐related social media practices. Although they perceive major social media platforms filtering strategies and are aware, to different extents, of their commodified nature, they report continuing to use them for activism‐related communication, often adopting an instrumental approach.     

The Validity of Social Media–Based Career Information

The use of social media expands the availability and sources of career information. However, the authorship of this information has changed from traditional print media and multimedia sources created by experts to social media–based career information created by the users themselves. Although variability in career information validity has been an issue for some time, rapid growth in the use of social media creates some unique challenges. The ease with which social media–based career information can spread creates the potential for rapid widespread dissemination of disinformation and biased perceptions. Potential sources of invalidity include intentional bias (with or without profit motive), unintentional bias, restricted range of experience, out‐of‐date information, popularity bias, similarity bias, and context deficiency. The authors examine potential sources of social media–based career information invalidity and suggest implications for practice to help individuals make the best use of such information.     

Social work: 'The appliance of social science' - a cautionary tale

With the expectation that research be relevant to users and that teaching ensures that graduateness involves teaching people to be fit for a purpose, social sciences in British universities are being encouraged to interact with employers, politicians and policy makers. This paper was presented at an ALSISS/ESRC1 conference on Interactive Social Sciences and argues that social work educators have a great deal to teach their colleague academics about interactivity, but that that very interactivity has led to their place in the academy being placed under threat.     

Theorizing New Media: Reflexivity,Knowledge, and the Web 2.0*

A recent wave of popular and scholarly discourse has hailed the arrival of the Web 2.0, marking a new generation of Internet users who share and collaborate on popular social networking sites such as MySpace and user‐generated communities such as YouTube and Wikipedia. Social and cultural critics have attempted to take stock of the implications of these various technological changes with specific emphasis on the state of knowledge in contemporary society. This article aims to theoretically examine knowledge in the context of new media technologies with particular attention paid to the notion of “reflexivity.” Focusing on the work of Scott Lash, whose theory of reflexivity radically differs from various other interpretations, I suggest that knowledge, in its modern formulation—as reasoned, stable, and linear—must be rethought for the information age, critiquing some of the predominant scholarly and popular media criticisms that suggests media to be mere enhancements of human forms of communication, knowledge, and sense‐making. I conclude by considering some of the ontological dimensions of the transformations in the dynamics of knowledge in new media technologies.     

青年网民网络政治现状调查

网络现已成为公民政治关注和政治参与的重要平台。青年作为网民的主力军和国家的未来,他们在网络中对政治的关注度和参与度一定程度上关系着国家未来的社会政治文明的发展。当今,中国青年网民对网络政治资汛关注度高,信任主流媒介．但他们的政治参与度与政治关注度形成强烈反差,这需要从法规制度的健全、网民政治素养和能力的提升和网络政治参与途径的拓展等方面多管齐下,才能切实解决问题．从而在总体上保障人民当家作主管理国家和社会事务的权利得以实现。     

Reasons for low levels of interactivity: (Non-) interactive CSR communication in twitter

The interactivity levels of online CSR communication are typically low. This study explores the reasons for the low levels of interactivity in the popular social media tool Twitter. An analysis of 41,864 Twitter messages (tweets) from the thirty most central corporate accounts in a CSR Twitter network is conducted. Comparisons (t-test) between CSR tweets and general tweets and between specialized CSR Twitter accounts and general accounts reveal that the low levels of interactivity are due to a reactive interaction approach and a lack of specialization.     

How to be heard on microblogs? Nonprofit organizations' follower networks and post features for information diffusion in China

This study tackles the gap in public relations research on what drives users of microblogs in China to follow nonprofit organization (NPO) accounts and share (retweet) their posts, from a multidimensional perspective of the NPO, the microblog audience, and the post features. Using a content analysis of Sina Weibo data of 95 NPO accounts, results suggested that an NPO's status on Weibo is a significant predictor of its follower number. Follower numbers and activeness directly affected the NPO's number of retweets. Informative posts and posts that fulfill multiple gratifications were found to be more sharable than other post types. In addition, a post's originality, media richness, inclusion of opinion leaders, and endorsement by influential users all contributed to its level of circulation. This knowledge is essential for NPOs to spread information and build online communities that facilitate dialogic engagement and quality organization–public relationships with their stakeholders on social media in China's context.     

Social Media Adoption Among University Communicators

Long interviews were conducted with university communicators at 2 distant universities with distinct social systems. Participants were drawn to adopt social media mainly by relative advantage, compatibility, and trialability attributes of the innovation. Inductive themes that emerged from the interviews included an emphasis on publics, information sharing, cost, and convenience. A believer–nonbeliever distinction among adopters is introduced. Believers are driven by the same characteristics of social media that public relations researchers have found to be essential to the practice of public relations itself: 2-way communication, interactivity, dialogue, and engagement.     

Negotiating personal engagement and professional accountability: professional wisdom and ethics work

This article examines the relationship between personal engagement and professional accountability in social work—considering whether the increasing focus on professional accountability in the context of the new public management, public austerity and market-based systems of welfare is incompatible with the personal engagement of social workers with service users and with their work. After undertaking a conceptual analysis of the terms, it is argued that both personal engagement and professional accountability are essential features of social work. Indeed, it is this negotiation of the creative tension between them that constitutes the subject matter and work of professional ethics. This requires a capacity and disposition for good judgement based in professional wisdom and a process of practical reasoning or ‘ethics work’ to find the right balance between closeness and distance, passion and rationality, empathic relationships and measurable social outcomes. It also requires a space for the exercise of professional wisdom.     

Relationship-based social work and electronic communication technologies: anticipation,adaptation and achievement

ABSTRACT

While social workers continue to recognise the centrality of relationship in social work practice they are now trying to build and mediate relationships with service users in a context fundamentally changed by technology. The paper suggests that different modes of electronic communication are not simply add-ons to society but are altering the social texture of society including the ways that people relate and interact with others. The relationship base of social work is not immune or dislocated from the explosion of social media and electronic communication which is occurring in the wider society and, therefore, attention needs to be paid to the impact of these new technologies on the way in which social work is practised. Using qualitative research with early career stage social workers in Ireland this paper aims to contribute to knowledge on this emerging dimension of social work practice.     

#Funeral and Instagram: death,social media,and platform vernacular

This paper presents findings from a study of Instagram use and funerary practices that analysed photographs shared on public profiles tagged with ‘#funeral’. We found that the majority of images uploaded with the hashtag #funeral often communicated a person's emotional circumstances and affective context, and allowed them to reposition their funeral experience amongst wider networks of acquaintances, friends, and family. We argue that photo-sharing through Instagram echoes broader shifts in commemorative and memorialization practices, moving away from formal and institutionalized rituals to informal and personalized, vernacular practices. Finally, we consider how Instagram's ‘platform vernacular’ unfolds in relation to traditions and contexts of death, mourning, and memorialization. This research contributes to a broader understanding of how platform vernaculars are shaped through the logics of architecture and use. This research also directly contributes to the understanding of death and digital media by examining how social media is being mobilized in relation to death, the differences that different media platforms make, and the ways social media are increasingly entwined with the places, events, and rituals of mourning.     

Affective networks: how WeChat enhances Tencent’s digital business governance

An emerging body of literature has revealed that social media enhance digital business governance to facilitate Internet companies in generating profit throughout regulating the everyday lives of users. However, although existing debates are often contextualized in the West, little attention has been paid to China, where social media are widely used. To fill this knowledge gap, this article investigates the digital business governance practiced by Chinese Internet companies such as Tencent. Specifically, I employ an affective lens to analyze how WeChat, the most popular social media application launched by Tencent, allows this Internet company to influence users for its own business purposes. Chinese college students, which constitute a representative group of young people, were early adopters of WeChat, and they have led the trend of social media use in China. Based on a yearlong netnographic study of Chinese college students, the results reveal that the affective design of WeChat captured their attention and influenced their everyday practices. These results provide insight into how digital business governance operates in the Chinese context, in which authoritarianism and capitalism work closely together.