Modeling of legislative networks on Twitter: Digital leadership and connectivity factors in the 117th U.S. Congress

This paper deals with new forms of political mobilisation and participation in social media. The main focus is on the importance of social networks in providing a "media filter", functioning as a kind of collective gatekeeper to spread news and information perceived as important, in contrast to the image of the single individual media consumer faced with an insurmountable mass of information. I argue that by investing one's personal ethos in spreading information and encourage peers in the personal social network to political participation, vital news and calls for action spread quickly. A form of viral politics ensues that, in concordance with traditional types of mediation and formation of political opinion, might provide a basis for a new type of political elite in competitive democracy. Drawing on earlier research concerning the effect of social capital created by weak ties on political participation, I argue that social networks organised online provide a new type of post-organisational weak ties, functioning as maintained social capital building institutions, encouraging to and organising actions of civic engagement. More specifically, a case is made for the need for more thorough conceptualisation of new modes of participation: spontaneous, individualised, "unorganised" forms of action. Two concepts, "temporal elites" and "viral politics" are developed for describing how social network membership and density determine how people are recruited to political campaigns. The theoretical assumptions are further illustrated by the preliminary empirical findings of an ongoing study of Swedish Facebook users and their attitudes and behaviour concerning political participation in social media.

Young people’s political (non-)participation in social media: Rather offline?In the Swedish general election in 2018, social media is expected to play a major role for young people, since social media is their most important source for news and communication. This qualitative interview and focus group study analyses attitudes to political participation in social media of 110 Swedish young persons. Using an explorative perspective, this study offers empirical results, based on the attitudes of politically active as well as inactive participants, that partially contradict the existing body of research in the field. Results indicate that the participation divide, described in previous studies, is not as clear cut. It has been assumed that the politically confident young persons are more active in social media whereas the unconfident remain passive. However, our results indicate that such divides cut through the most confident and unconfident groups. Even some of the most active young people in the study state that they refrain from participating in social media. The study also shows that politically active individuals experience social pressure to participate in social media.

This paper deals with new forms of political mobilisation and participation in social media, such as blogs, social network sites and the likes. The main focus is on the impor-tance of social networks in providing a “media filter”, functioning as a kind of collective gatekeeper to spread news and information perceived as important, in contrast to the image of the single individual media consumer faced with an in-surmount¬able mass of information. I argue that by investing one’s personal ethos in spreading information and encourage one’s peers in the personal social network to civic engagement and direct action, vital news and calls for action spread quickly across nations and cultures. A form of viral politics ensues that, in con¬cordance with traditional types of mediation and formation of political opinion, pro¬vides an important civic power that might help balancing the biases and failures of ethnocentrism and localism. Drawing on earlier research concerning the effect of social capital created by weak ties on civic engagement, I argue that social networks organised online provide a new type of post-organisational weak ties, functioning as maintained social capital building institutions, encouraging to and organising actions of civic engagement. I also argue that in a cosmopolitan civic culture, it is not important that each and every individual must act with the same amount of time and work effort on each and every worthy social and poli¬tical cause brought to one’ attention, and I point to the necessity of temporal elites based on voluntarism, taking responsibility for different cases of cosmopolitan acti¬vism. The aim is not only to describe an existing media situation, but also to point out some possible developments that, if nurtured in a proper way, could spur a common cosmopolitan identity and, in coordination with efforts made by exi-sting formal political structures, enable global political problem solving. More specifically, a case is made for the need for more thorough conceptualisation of new modes of participation: spontaneous, individualised, “unorganised” forms of action. Two concepts, “temporal elites” and “viral politics” are developed for describing how social network membership and density determine how people are recruited to political campaigns. The theoretical assumptions are further illustrated by the preliminary empirical findings of an ongoing study of Swedish Facebook users and their attitudes and behaviour concerning political participation in social media. (Less)

The growth of social media in Indonesia has contributed to the increasing number of online political participation by the public. This phenomenon has brought forward the discussion regarding the pros and cons of online political participation, related to the participants’ identity. The lack of traceability regarding the participants’ identity has posed some questions, some of which are the accountability and legitimacy of opinions that are found on online political discussions.This research seeks to achieve comprehensive understanding on anonymity in political participation. By applying the theory of online disinhibition effect, this research attempts to explain the dynamic of anonymity, its implication towards political participation in social media, and to examine the consequences of anonymity towards the quality of digital democracy. Through survey, focus group discussions, and in depth interviews, this research address to achieve a comprehensive understanding towards the issues. The research findings show that the varied degrees of anonymity employed by citizens affect their social media usage and political participation. In addition, anonymity can be understood as the citizens’ coping mechanism from various possible consequences, such as legal and social retribution for both personal and professional context.

Social media has become a viable platform for political participation in issues related to gender, especially among the youth. Evidence suggests that gender and sexual identities, digital access, and skills foster political participation in social media. This study sought to determine the predictive relationship of gender, digital profile, and social media competence with social media political participation in gender issues (SMPP-GI) among young Filipino netizens through the lenses of social identity theory and resource model of political participation. A total of 1,090 college netizens aged 18–30 years old participated in this cross-sectional study. An online survey was used to collect data. The respondents reported low to moderate levels of SMPP-GI. Females and non-cisheterosexual respondents report higher scores in certain types of SMPP-GI. Respondents using more social media sites have higher levels of latent and counter engagement SMPP-GI. Among the four domains of social media competence, content generation significantly predicted all types of SMPP-GI, while content interpretation and anticipatory reflection were significantly linked with at least one type of engagement.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to explore how the use of social media by citizens has impacted the traditional conceptualization and operationalization of political participation in the society.Design/methodology/approachThis study is based on Teorellet al.’s (2007) classification of political participation which is modified to suit the current context of social media. The authors classified 15,460 tweets along three parameters suggested in the framework with help of supervised text classification algorithms.FindingsThe analysis reveals that Activism is the most prominent form of political participation undertaken by people on Twitter. Other activities that were undertaken include Formal Political participation and Consumer participation. The analysis also reveals that identity of participant does not play a classifying role as expected from the theoretical framework. It was found that the social media as a platform facilitates new forms of participation which are not feasible offline.Research limitations/implicationsThe current work considers only the microblogging platform of Twitter as the data source. For a more comprehensive insight, analysis of other social media platforms is also required.Originality/valueTo the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is one of the few analyses where such a large database covering multiple social media events has been created and analysed using supervised text classification algorithms. A large proportion of previous studies on social media have been based on case study and have limited analysis to only a particular event on social media. Although there exist a few works that have studied a vast and varied collection of social media data (Gaby and Caren, 2012; Shirazi, 2013; Rane and Salem, 2012), such efforts are few in number. This study aims to add to that stream of work where a wider and more generalized set of social media data is studied.

Examining branding co-creation in brand communities on social media: Applying the paradigm of Stimulus-Organism-Response

Residency programs are increasingly using social media for a variety of purposes. The aim of this study was to assess the views of U.S. pediatric dental residency program directors on their programs' participation in social media and use of social media in resident selection and education. This cross-sectional study used an electronic survey sent to all 89 U.S. program directors in 2018 to assess the use of social media and obtain demographic information. Forty-six surveys were completed, for a 52% response rate. Regarding resident selection, 76% of the responding directors said their programs did not conduct any online assessment of residency candidates, although 51% responded that social media postings could influence their decisions. For resident education, 78% said their programs did not provide training in challenges posed to evidence-based dentistry by social media, yet 89% expressed concern about the influence of expert opinions via social media on clinical decision making. Regarding participation in social media, 50% of respondents said their programs used social media to promote the program. These results point to a need for further evaluation of possible knowledge and behavior gaps among residency program directors and for development of formal social media assessment and education models for use in pediatric dentistry and other residency programs.

This article examines the issue of the impact media publicity in a criminal trial context given the unprecedented reach of pre-trial commentary on social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter. The paper considers how courts have responded to these phenomena, with reference to a particular criminal trial in New South Wales in 2014 when a well-known actor was subjected to an extraordinary level media frenzy following his arrest for sexual offences. Relevant to this and other high profile cases is whether jurors can act impartially in the face of relentless pre-trial commentary and publicity and whether courts should simply rely on selected jurors to remove themselves from participation in the trial if their impartiality is compromised. The question is posed as to whether it is timely to consider allowing the prosecution and defence to investigate juror participation in pre-trial social media commentary during the jury selection process.

In recent years, social media technology has transformed the ways that Americans interact with each other. Social media usage is particularly high among young adults and college students (Lenhart et al., 2010), and recent research suggests that there is a relationship between social media usage and participation in civic and political activities (e.g., Fenton, 2011; Hampton et al. 2011). Recently, research has also examined the relationship between the Internet (and social media) and social capital (e.g., Shaw et al 2001; Ellison et al, 2007, Valenzuela et al., 2009). The research presented here assesses the extent to which students at a large, public, Midwestern university utilized social media during the 2010 midterm election year, the types of social media they preferred, their levels of social capital, and any impact these factors had on student political and community participation. With the exception of a weak, marginally significant association between Twitter usage and political participation, social media usage does not appear to be directly associated with traditional forms of student civic participation. However, we did find evidence of an indirect, mediated association between students’ social media usage and their civic participation. The importance of the Internet and social media for students appears to lie in its utility as an information gathering tool. Specifically, we found that students who used social media more frequently were more likely to access information about news online, which had a positive impact on levels of civic participation.

The diverse forms of participation in social media raise many methodological and ethical issues that should be acknowledged in research. In this paper, participation in social media is studied by utilising the framework of explicit and implicit participation. The focus is on the communicative and communal aspects of social media. The aim of the paper is to promote the reconsideration of what constitutes participation when online users create connections rather than content. The underlying argument is that research on social media and the development of methods should concentrate more on implicit forms of participation.

Social media platforms have become significant media for participating in society. This, and society’s digitalization overall, has resulted in concerns regarding access and inclusion. By combining theories of social media participation and digital inequality, we explore issues regarding the prerequisites of participating through social media platforms, focusing especially on education. Through an analysis of data from a representative survey study in Finland (N = 3724), we illuminate the ambiguity of the perceived obstacles to both digital skills and political participation. We further build on the concept of digital capital to show the significant mediating effect of digital skills on education and participation. By utilizing the ISS (Internet Skills Scale), we break down digital skills into operational, information navigation, social, creative and mobile skills, and show how the operational skills have most significant mediator between education and political participation in social media. In studying digital inequality, we claim that the concept of digital capital is a valuable tool to illuminate the mechanisms for overcoming digital divides through the transaction of other forms of capital into digital capital, and digital capital to other forms of capital, in this case political capital.

Social media have become the source of choice for many users to search for health information on COVID-19 despite possible detrimental consequences. Several studies have analyzed the association between health information-searching behavior and mental health. Some of these studies examined users' intentions in searching health information on social media and the impact of social media use on mental health in Indonesia. This study investigates both active and passive participation in social media, shedding light on cofounding effects from these different forms of engagement. In addition, this study analyses the role of trust in social media platforms and its effect on public health outcomes. Thus, the purpose of this study is to analyze the impact of social media usage on COVID-19 protective behavior in Indonesia. The most commonly used social media platforms are Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, TikTok, and Twitter. We used primary data from an online survey. We processed 414 answers to a structured questionnaire to evaluate the relationship between these users' active and passive participation in social media, trust in social media, anxiety, self-efficacy, and protective behavior to COVID-19. We modeled the data using partial least square structural equation modeling. This study reveals that social media trust is a crucial antecedent, where trust in social media is positively associated with active contribution and passive consumption of COVID-19 content in social media, users' anxiety, self-efficacy, and protective behavior. This study found that active contribution of content related to COVID-19 on social media is positively correlated with anxiety, while passive participation increases self-efficacy and, in turn, protective behavior. This study also found that active participation is associated with negative health outcomes, while passive participation has the opposite effects. The results of this study can potentially be used for other infectious diseases, for example, dengue fever and diseases that can be transmitted through the air and have handling protocols similar to that of COVID-19. Public health campaigns can use social media for health promotion. Public health campaigns should post positive messages and distil the received information parsimoniously to avoid unnecessary and possibly counterproductive increased anxiety of the users.

Over the past decades, significant changes have occurred in the daily life of people due to the emergence of social media. The use of social networks has become an everyday practice of Russian citizens, which has also affected the sociopolitical sphere. The use of social networks has become a daily practice of Russian citizens, which has also affected the socio-political sphere, which has caused increasing attention from domestic authors to this problem. The article is devoted to a review of Russian studies of this one of the most pressing problems. In domestic literature, the use of social media in conflicts caused by various problems is actively studied. Russian authors analyze new forms of political participation, new types of social movements, and the transformation of collective action. Some researchers believe that social media is being formed as a social institution. In this regard, we can talk about the process of institutionalization of new forms of political participation. At the same time, there are gaps in domestic studies: the influence of social media on political participation; organizations of social movements; transformation of collective action. In domestic literature, a critical look at social media is not visible, for example, the influence of the commercial and political component of social media. The growth of social media research provides confidence that new work will provide answers to a variety of still poorly understood aspects of political participation in social media.

Purpose–This paper aims to discuss the individual participation and involvement affecting the user engagement in social media and to answer the following research questions: Is it possible to measure the individual participation and involvement of social media within organizations? Which factors should be analysed in order to increase the individual participation in social media? Which KPIs should be selected in order to increase the user ' s engagement and increase individual participation in social media? Can social media in a company be measured in terms of their impact on KM?Design/methodology/approach–This paper presents a case study that describes how Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are used to monitor and manage the applications of social technologies, which include many tools facilitating the participation and collaboration on the web. The case study was applied to the information and communication technology area of Eni S.p.A., which is an integrated energy company active in over 70 countries in the world.Findings–Based on the indications obtained from the case study, a methodology is proposed to select and develop the appropriate KPIs in order to manage and monitor the application of social technologies. The methodology turned out to be able to monitor collaboration and knowledge sharing activities among employees and to incentivize participation and involvement of employees who use the company ' s social media.Practical implications–Organizations can use the suggested methodology as a guideline for managing and monitoring social media inside a company. The possibility of continuously modifying the adopted social media tool by means of corrective actions together with the possibility of adapting the KPIs to new situations make the present methodology an efficient management approach to take on the multifaceted activities of a social media environment.Originality/value–Few case studies dealing with the applications regarding the implementation and management of social technologies within organizations have been carried out. Similarly, even if some empirical studies have been proposed to analyse what motivates and prevents employees from sharing their knowledge through social media, there appears to be a lack of studies which have taken into consideration the evaluation of the actual benefits in terms of individual involvement and participation, knowledge sharing and increase in performance.