Sharing the small moments: ephemeral social interaction on Snapchat

Ephemeral social media, platforms that display shared content for a limited period of time, have become a prominent component of the social ecosystem. We draw on experience sampling data collected over two weeks (Study 1; N?=?154) and in-depth interview data from a subsample of participants (Study 2; N?=?28) to understand college students’ social and emotional experiences on Snapchat, a popular ephemeral mobile platform. Our quantitative data demonstrated that Snapchat interactions were perceived as more enjoyable – and associated with more positive mood – than other communication technologies. However, Snapchat interactions were also associated with lower social support than other channels. Our qualitative data highlighted aspects of Snapchat use that may facilitate positive affect (but not social support), including sharing mundane experiences with close ties and reduced self-presentational concerns. In addition, users compared Snapchat to face-to-face interaction and reported attending to Snapchat content more closely than archived content, which may contribute to increased emotional rewards. Overall, participants did not see the application as a platform for sharing or viewing photos; rather, Snapchat was viewed as a lightweight channel for sharing spontaneous experiences with trusted ties. Together, these studies contribute to our evolving understanding of ephemeral social media and their role in social relationships.     

Pursuing Political Persuasion: War and Peace Frames in the United States after September 11th

Despite the prominence of framing analysis in social movement research, the ways that power-holders and challengers attempt to persuade the general public remain under-theorized. We develop a multidimensional typology of what content producers frequently anticipate will make their frames potent. Moreover, we argue that several contextual factors influence which of these dimensions are emphasized in frames. To assess these propositions, we conducted an analysis of statements issued by President Bush and 10 US peace movement organizations following the September 11th attacks. Both sides touched upon all dimensions. President Bush's statements took advantage of discursive and emotional opportunities in crafting messages supportive of war and repression. Illustrating their strategic nature, PMO statements either appropriated or rejected dominant discourses for any single dimension. While peace groups took advantage of emotional opportunities, oppositional cultures curtailed their use of discursive opportunities. Lacking democratic legitimacy and rational legal authority, peace groups devoted a higher proportion of text to establishing the empirical credibility and the moral authority of their claims. The study advances social movement theory by highlighting the interplay of culture, power, and agency in the production of public collective action frames.     

Effects of Social Anxiety on Emotional Mimicry and Contagion: Feeling Negative,but Smiling Politely

Socially anxiety may be related to a different pattern of facial mimicry and contagion of others’ emotions. We report two studies in which participants with different levels of social anxiety reacted to others’ emotional displays, either shown on a computer screen (Study 1) or in an actual social interaction (Study 2). Study 1 examined facial mimicry and emotional contagion in response to displays of happiness, anger, fear, and contempt. Participants mimicked negative and positive emotions to some extent, but we found no relation between mimicry and the social anxiety level of the participants. Furthermore, socially anxious individuals were more prone to experience negative emotions and felt more irritated in response to negative emotion displays. In Study 2, we found that social anxiety was related to enhanced mimicry of smiling, but this was only the case for polite smiles and not for enjoyment smiles. These results suggest that socially anxious individuals tend to catch negative emotions from others, but suppress their expression by mimicking positive displays. This may be explained by the tendency of socially anxious individuals to avoid conflict or rejection.     

“It is just SICKENING”: Emotions and discourse in an anti-immigrant discussion forum

ABSTRACT

Following 9/11, organizations advocating for stricter immigration policy grew across the United States. This study examines the Web site and online discussion forum of Americans for Legal Immigration Political Action Committee (ALIPAC), a group identified by the Southern Poverty Law Center as nativist extremist. While forum participants are geographically dispersed, social media provide them a space to interact with like-minded people. Results show that ALIPAC members provide shared accounts that construct positive moral identities. Forum participants promise positive emotions of pride and power for joining the group, despite the perception that outsiders perceive them as racists. Drawing from tenets of patriotism, participants construct virtual identities and reject the racist stigma by turning them on immigrants, civil rights organizations, and politicians. Participants claim their emotional responses are rational and morally superior to those of the perceived opposition. Failing to share their anger, sense of injustice, and disgust is framed as irrational.     

Spectacles of intimacy? Mapping the moral landscape of teenage social media

This paper explores young people's expressed concerns about privacy in the context of a highly mediated cultural environment, mapping social media practices against axes of visibility and participation. Drawing on interdisciplinary conceptual resources from both the humanities and social sciences, we use ‘spectacles of intimacy’ to conceptualise breaches of privacy, mapping an emergent moral landscape for young people that moves beyond concerns with e-safety to engage with the production and circulation of audiences and value. The paper draws on data from a methodological innovation project using multi-media and mixed methods to capture lived temporalities for children and young people. We present a model that captures a moral landscape shaped by emotional concerns about social media, the affordances of those media and affective discourses emerging from young people's use of the media.     

Argument-inconsistency in charity appeals: Statistical information about the scope of the problem decrease helping toward a single identified victim but not helping toward many non-identified victims in a refugee crisis context

It is known that both the characteristics of the victims one can help and the existence of victims one cannot help influence economic helping decisions in suboptimal ways. The aim of this study was to systematically test if these two aspects interact with each other. In Studies 1 and 2, we created hypothetical charity appeals related to the Syrian refugee crisis and factorially manipulated characteristics of victims possible to help (one identified child/nine non-identified children) and presence of statistical information about the scope and nature of the problem (information-box absent/present). We found a significant interaction effect both when using self-rated helping intention (Study 1), and when using actual donation behavior as the dependent variable (Study 2). Statistical information decreased helping intentions toward a single identified child but had no, or even a small positive effect on helping nine non-identified children. In Study 3, non-student participants reading a charity appeal with both a story about one identified child and statistical information donated less often than participants reading appeals with either only a story about one identified child or only statistical information. We suggest that both emotional arguments (e.g., a story and picture of an identified child in need) and analytical arguments (e.g., detailed statistical information about the scope and nature of the problem) can make us more motivated to help refugees, but that mixing different argument-types can make charity appeals internally inconsistent and decrease donations.     

In the name of love: A narrative analysis of a Chinese single mother's rational and emotional pathways into and out of crime

Adopting rational choice theory, this study assesses both rational and emotional aspects in understanding pathways into and out of crime through the narrative analysis of a Chinese female offender living in Hong Kong, China. We found that poverty enmeshed this divorced, single mother in a commitment problem with a moral dilemma entwined with rational and emotional considerations. We argue that emotional themes, including sadness, hope, love, satisfaction, frustration, and faith should be taken into consideration to fully understand women's choices in committing or desisting from crimes. Understanding this single mother's gendered and reasonable emotional expression and incorporating moral considerations into her rationale are pivotal in extending rational choice theory to successful prevention of female crime and the correction and desistance of female offenders.     

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.     

Emotional Experience as a Function of Social Context: The Role of the Other

Inconsistencies in previous findings concerning the relationship between emotion and social context are likely to reflect the multi-dimensionality of the sociality construct. In the present study we focused on the role of the other person by manipulating two aspects of this role: co-experience of the event and expression of emotion. We predicted that another's co-experience and expression would affect emotional responses and that the direction of these effects would depend upon the manipulated emotion and how the role of the other person is appraised. Participants read vignettes eliciting four different emotions: happiness, sadness, anxiety, and anger. As well as an alone condition, there were four conditions in which a friend was present, either co-experiencing the event or merely observing it, and either expressing emotions consistent with the event or not showing any emotion. There were significant effects of co-experience in the case of anger situations, and of expression in the case of happiness and sadness situations. Social appraisal also appeared to influence emotional response. We discuss different processes that might be responsible for these results.     

Fear of the "Alien Other": Cultural Anxiety and Opinions about Japan

American public opinion toward Japan grew more negative coincident with 1980s "Japan-bashing" media messages. Two theories of opinion formation provide explanations for this. Democratic representation theory understands opinions as rational responses to new information. Cultural interpretation theory holds that public opinion is based on one's receptiveness to media discourse. Opinion is neither a rational response to information nor the passive acceptance of elite dictates. People differentially interpret media messages and form opinions in a process that is shaped by media attentiveness and their subjective cultural anxieties. Survey data permit an indirect test of the two theories applied to anti-Japan opinion. OLS regression analysis performed on GSS for four time periods reveals that anti-Japan opinion is rooted less in "rational" responses to personal economic insecurity or fear of increased global competition than in racial attitudes and domestic social-cultural concerns. America's negative opinion toward Japan in the 1990s is better understood as domestic anxieties that are redirected toward a symbolic target that the mass media has highlighted.     

Coverage of Veterans of the Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in the U.S. Media

To evaluate how the media frames veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, this study systematically assesses the discourse on Iraq and Afghanistan veterans in the New York Times and Washington Post from 2003 to 2011. Our analysis of a stratified sample of 151 articles featuring veterans from either the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan finds that the media frames veterans as damaged by their service but deserving of government benefits and social assistance. When the media frames veterans as actively engaging in society, their social engagement is often because of or despite their injuries or mistreatment. We find interplay between victimization and deservingness such that depictions of the cohort as physically and mentally damaged complement and justify arguments for a sustained high level of benefits to accommodate the needs of veterans. We thus argue that generous benefits for veterans partly stem from their depiction as having suffered from their service.     

Welfare for profit: moral, empirical and theoretical perspectives

Since the 1960s there has been an increasing number of proprietary agencies engaged in the delivery of social services in the United States. This development has generally been greeted with disfavour by welfare state advocates. Various arguments have been put forward against welfare for profit on moral, empirical and theoretical grounds. This paper analyzes these arguments and proposes several basic conditions that would seem to have significant bearing on the choice between profit and nonprofit providers for a given service.     

少年儿童新媒体使用情况解析

“网络新生代”的少年儿童在新媒体使用中呈现出对新媒体适应性、依赖性强,使用新媒体仍以娱乐为主要目的,以及在虚拟世界参与积极性较高等特点。针对不断变化的新媒体对少年儿童的影响,建议家庭、学校、社会各方需理性面对新媒体利弊,积极探索引导儿童健康使用网络的方法,进一步反思新媒体的不利因素;全面警惕儿童上网安全,整合各方力量保护儿童身心健康;关注新媒体环境下“知识沟”现象,思考信息公平对于儿童成长的影响。     

Neutral faces in context: Their emotional meaning and their function

We report two studies which attempt to explain why some researchers found that neutral faces determine judgments of recognition as strongly as expressions of basic emotion, even through discrepant contextual information. In the first study we discarded the possibility that neutral faces could have an intense but undetected emotional content: 60 students' dimensional ratings showed that 10 neutral faces were perceived as less emotional than 10 emotional expressions. In Study 2 we tested whether neutral faces can convey strong emotional messages in some contexts: 128 students' dimensional ratings on 36 discrepant combinations of neutral faces or expressions with contextual information were more predictable from expressions when the contextual information consisted of common, everyday situations, but were more predictable from neutral faces when the context was an uncommon, extreme situation. In line with our hypothesis, we discuss these paradoxical findings as being caused by the salience of neutral faces in some particular contexts.This research was conducted as a part of the first author's doctoral dissertation, and was supported by a grant (PS89-022) of the Spanish DGICyT. We thank David Weston for his help in preparing the text. We also thank two anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments on a previous draft of this article.     

“You Always Remain Slightly an Outsider”: Workplace Experiences of Academics from Working‐Class or Impoverished Backgrounds

Debates surrounding class inequality and social mobility often highlight the role of higher education in reducing income inequality and promoting equity through upward social mobility. We explore the lived experience of social mobility through an analysis of 11 semistructured interviews with Canadian academics who self‐identified as having working‐class or impoverished family origins. While economic capital increased substantially, cultural capital and habitus left many feeling like cultural outsiders. Isolation—both chosen and imposed—reduced professional networks, diminishing social capital. Caught between social worlds, participants mobilized symbolic capital in moral boundary marking, aligning themselves strategically with either their current class status or their working‐class roots. While upward social mobility is a path toward reducing economic inequality, the lived experience of social mobility suggests it may exact a high emotional cost.     

(Potential) patients like me: testing the effects of user-generated health content on social media

As media technology becomes increasingly participatory, individuals may use social media to share health information and connect with those who have similar health concerns. While prior research has focused on evaluating the feasibility, usability, and effectiveness of traditional health messages, this study investigates the effects of user-generated health content on individuals’ cognitive and emotional responses, as well as their behavioral intentions. An experimental study with a two (story source: personal story vs news story) by two (story ending: happy ending vs sad ending) factorial design was conducted. The results confirmed the positive effects of identification with the narrative character on the experience of being transported, which further led to the behavioral intentions to take countermeasures and viral communication on social media. The sad ending of a narrative was found to elicit emotions that were sufficiently strong to increase perceptions of susceptibility to dengue fever, which, however, failed to result in behavioral intentions.     

Pushing the Boundaries: Responses to Ethnic Conformity Pressure in Two Turkish Communities in Belgium

Previous research has demonstrated that ethnic communities try to maintain ethnic boundaries through group pressure to conform to premigration cultural patterns, which mainly happens indirectly through social control. So far however, little attention has been given to how group members respond to this indirect ethnic conformity pressure, as well as to the factors that shape these responses. Drawing on in-depth interviews with second- and third-generation Turkish Belgians, we examine and explain different responses to ethnic conformity pressure and link these to ethno-cultural change and boundary change. We distinguish three negotiation strategies, namely conformity, creativity and disregard, and find that the choice for a particular strategy is first and foremost shaped by the agent’s gender, their embeddedness in the Turkish community, and the availability of an alternative support network, both of which are shaped by exclusion in the larger society. In addition, also the severity of the norm violation, the social structure of the community and parental expectations play a role. Findings are interpreted in terms of ethnic boundary dynamics, and implications for ethno-cultural change are discussed.     

Social media and elections in Singapore: comparing 2011 and 2015

This article applies a theoretical approach that focuses on the interaction between media, politicians, activists, and citizens to investigate the influence of social media during two recent general elections in Singapore. Taking into account the combination of authoritarian governance and popular elections in this city-state, this article utilizes a mixed methods approach (i.e., a combination of statistics and virtual ethnography) to analyze four aspects of this influence. First, social media are used by the opposition parties because they are the only alternative to use in disseminating information and fostering dialogue. However, the ruling authorities use the same social media to counter the opposition. Second, social media empower the opposition by serving as efficient tools to mobilize, organize, and engage active citizens. However, compared to the traditional grassroots approach, online mobilization is not as effective as expected. Third, social media are able to change the perceptions of ordinary citizens regarding the opinion climate, which could be to either the advantage or the disadvantage of the opposition. Finally, the youngest age group (i.e., 21–30 years) was surveyed in both 2011 and 2015 to investigate their responses to these changes. Because of the complex influence of social media in Singapore, the citizens in this age group are particularly prone to being swing voters.