Why Do News Sharers Choose Not to Share News? A Self-Presentation Model of Deliberate News Withholding on Social Media

Addictive use of social media may engender negative outcomes. This study investigated modifiable factors associated with social media addiction (SMA). These factors were gratifications sought with social media use, perceived social media realism, and social media network characteristics. Data were from a survey of U.S. adults. The linkage between socialization gratification and social media addiction was weaker when people perceived social media content as being less real. Surveillance and socialization gratifications sought predicted social media addiction indirectly through people’s social network structures on social media. Implications for future interventions addressing social media addiction are discussed.

Social media, especially social network sites (SNS) such as Facebook have grown rapidly in popularity in the last ten years. [...]

The collective group of resources that are accessible to an individual because of people within his/her social network is known as social capital. Social capital becomes more valuable when an individual sees that it can help with goal achievement. This is especially true with college-aged students who are deciding on academic major, career path and if should persist or dropout. The purpose of this study was to determine the influence of social network characteristics on the perceived social capital value (SCV) and career decision-making self-efficacy (CDMSE) among freshman college students enrolled at a research university. This present study examined how a student’s social network characteristics are related to their perceived SCV and CDMSE. The researcher measured bonding network size, bridging network size, overall network size, multiplex network size, network density and network homophily as the social network characteristics of interest. The Name Generator and the short-form of the Career Decision-Making Self-Efficacy scale (CDMSE-SF) were administered to 122 freshman students who resided in three different on-campus living communities (traditional, career exploration residential college and agriculture residential college) to measure their perceived social network characteristics, perceived SCV and CDMSE. ANOVA tests were performed to compare the three on-campus communities’ student’s perceived social network characteristics, SCV and CDMSE. Multiple regression analysis was used to determine if SCV mediates perceived social network characteristics prediction of CDMSE. Results indicated that there are no differences in on-campus communities’ student’s perception of social network characteristics, SCV and CDMSE. Also, results show that there is little to no relationship between SCV or social network characteristics and CDMSE. However, the researcher did find that freshman college students derive their perceptions of their social capital value from networks that are more hemophilic (r = 0. 186, p < 0.05) and smaller, more emotionally supportive social bonding networks (r = 0.216, p < 0.05). The researcher concludes that social network training and coaching should be delivered to freshman college students from their first semester through their graduation to properly develop a well-rounded social network that can provide emotional/social support as well as having access to new information to provide career advantage.

Government Surveillance and Counter-Surveillance on Social and Mobile Media: The Case of Iran (2009)

#trial: clinical research in the age of social media

This article focuses on the study of the linguistic and stylistic features of social media communication in Kazakhstan. The research examines the functional styles used in social networks and their influence on the development of the Kazakh language. The rapid expansion of social media has significantly impacted information and cultural processes in society, leading to the emergence of new linguistic and stylistic forms and tools. Social networks provide new opportunities for both verbal and non-verbal communication. Moreover, the article analyzes the functional styles used in social networks, as well as linguistic features such as slang, abbreviations, emojis, stickers, and other linguistic tools. Social media has become an important platform for developing the use of the Kazakh language. This research helps identify the direction of the Kazakh language’s development in new communication environments by describing the linguistic characteristics of social networks. The study also explores the role of social media communication in modern society, its impact on spoken culture, and the formation of social values. The main objective of the research is to identify the stylistic, lexical, and grammatical features of Kazakh-language social media discourse and analyze their influence on the communication process. Furthermore, the article discusses the unique communicative culture and characteristics of Kazakh-language social networks, as well as how linguistic abbreviations and transformations affect general language usage in society. Social networks are shaping new linguistic and stylistic structures that influence changes in language norms. The frequency of using new linguistic tools among young people and their cultural impact are particularly significant areas of study. This research aims to demonstrate the dynamics of language and style used in social media while analyzing their influence on the development of the Kazakh language. The findings of this study allow researchers to determine how contemporary linguistic changes and new lexical tools affect the linguistic community in Kazakhstan and their contribution to the development of social and cultural norms.

Focused on the mathematical foundations of social media analysis, Graph-Based Social Media Analysis provides a comprehensive introduction to the use of graph analysis in the study of social and digital media. It addresses an important scientific and technological challenge, namely the confluence of graph analysis and network theory with linear algebra, digital media, machine learning, big data analysis, and signal processing. Supplying an overview of graph-based social media analysis, the book provides readers with a clear understanding of social media structure. It uses graph theory, particularly the algebraic description and analysis of graphs, in social media studies. The book emphasizes the big data aspects of social and digital media. It presents various approaches to storing vast amounts of data online and retrieving that data in real-time. It demystifies complex social media phenomena, such as information diffusion, marketing and recommendation systems in social media, and evolving systems. It also covers emerging trends, such as big data analysis and social media evolution. Describing how to conduct proper analysis of the social and digital media markets, the book provides insights into processing, storing, and visualizing big social media data and social graphs. It includes coverage of graphs in social and digital media, graph and hyper-graph fundamentals, mathematical foundations coming from linear algebra, algebraic graph analysis, graph clustering, community detection, graph matching, web search based on ranking, label propagation and diffusion in social media, graph-based pattern recognition and machine learning, graph-based pattern classification and dimensionality reduction, and much more. This book is an ideal reference for scientists and engineers working in social media and digital media production and distribution. It is also suitable for use as a textbook in undergraduate or graduate courses on digital media, social media, or social networks.

This chapter examines the structure and sentiment of the Twitter response to Nathan Broad's naming as the originator of an image-based sexual abuse incident following the 2017 Australian Football League Grand Final. Employing Social Network Analysis to visualize the hierarchy of Twitter users responding to the incident and Applied Thematic Analysis to trace the diffusion of differing streams of sentiment within this hierarchy, we produced a representation of participatory social media engagement in the context of image-based sexual abuse. Following two streams of findings, a model of social media user engagement was established that hierarchized the interplay between institutional and personal Twitter users. In this model, it was observed that the Broad incident generated sympathetic and compassionate discourses among an articulated network of social media users. This sentiment gradually diffused to institutional Twitter users – or Reference accounts – through the process of intermedia agenda-setting, whereby the narrative of terrestrial media accounts was altered by personal Twitter users over time. Keywords Image-based sexual abuse Informal justice Social network analysis Technology facilitated violence Twitter Digital criminology Citation Broadbent, E. and Thompson, C. (2021), "Justice on the Digitized Field: Analyzing Online Responses to Technology-Facilitated Informal Justice through Social Network Analysis", Bailey, J., Flynn, A. and Henry, N. (Ed.) The Emerald International Handbook of Technology-Facilitated Violence and Abuse (Emerald Studies In Digital Crime, Technology and Social Harms), Emerald Publishing Limited, Bingley, pp. 689-709. https://doi.org/10.1108/978-1-83982-848-520211051 Publisher: Emerald Publishing Limited Copyright © 2021 Ella Broadbent and Chrissy Thompson. Published by Emerald Publishing Limited. This chapter is published under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) licence. Anyone may reproduce, distribute, translate and create derivative works of these chapters (for both commercial and non-commercial purposes), subject to full attribution to the original publication and authors. The full terms of this licence may be seen at http://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode. License This chapter is published under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) licence. Anyone may reproduce, distribute, translate and create derivative works of these chapters (for both commercial and non-commercial purposes), subject to full attribution to the original publication and authors. The full terms of this licence may be seen at http://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode. Introduction On the evening of September 30, 2017, the final siren sounded on the Australian Football League (AFL) season, and the Richmond Football Club (RFC) secured their first Premiership cup in 37 years. In the hours following the evening's celebrations, an image of a young woman with a premiership medal around her neck – her face cropped and breasts exposed – began to circulate through social networking platforms and fan forums. This image was quick to disperse through social media channels, becoming a symbol for the victory celebrations of the young men within the team and their army of supporters. It later emerged that the woman photographed had not consented to having the image shared. In the month after this incident, a formal police inquiry was conducted at the request of the victim to protect her anonymity, leading to a gradual reduction of the image's appearance within social and terrestrial media. Following the closure of this investigation, the victim's lawyers issued a statement maintaining that while the image had been taken with her consent, she was under the impression that it had been deleted shortly after – and certainly not distributed via social media (Maurice Blackburn Lawyers, 2017). She sought to drop the charges police laid against the accused both to protect her identity and to prevent further distress (SBS, 2017). On 29 October 2017 – almost a month after the image's release – premiership player Nathan Broad was identified as the person responsible for taking and distributing the original image. A press conference was held with Broad and the president of the RFC, Peggy O'Neal, where Broad issued a statement claiming he would take full responsibility for his actions and confirmed he took and distributed the image without consent (Cherny, 2017). The only formal sanction Broad received from the RFC was a three-week suspension at the beginning of the 2018 AFL season (Cherny, 2017). This incident (henceforth referred to as the “Broad incident”) 1 represents a high-profile case of a certain form of technology-facilitated violence (TFV) – image-based sexual abuse (IBSA). Due to police intervention, attempts were made to remove the original image from circulation on social media. While this image can still be located today, its circulation decreased significantly after police attempted to remove it. As a result of these efforts, the ability to analyze the diffusion of the original incident of nonconsensual sexual imagery was limited. However, the subsequent identification in late October 2017 of Nathan Broad as the individual who took the image generated significant social media interest, and produced a body of historical Twitter data that provided a valuable substrate for us to analyze how social media users sought to contest or condone Nathan Broad's naming and sanction. Incidents such as these hold value for criminological analysis, as they can provide a window into public sentiments on the perpetration of, and institutional responses to, IBSA. Moreover, as criminologists such as Powell, Overington, and Hamilton (2018) have demonstrated, examining responses to high-profile crimes on social media can provide a valuable means of researching the content and diffusion of narratives about crime in the contemporary mediascape. In undertaking such projects, a Social Network Analysis (SNA) methodology provides important insights into the degree of homophily within networks who respond to crimes on social media, and the role of central “nodes” in diffusing narratives about crime and perpetration. 2 Such insights are important given that early work within digital criminology has emphasized the “networked” morphology of contemporary harms – speaking, for example, of “networked misogyny” (Banet-Weiser & Miltner, 2016; Thompson & Wood, 2018, p. 12) – but has yet to examine the structural properties of these networks. To date, criminologists have yet to explore the utility of an SNA approach for examining social media–based responses to IBSA and other criminalized acts. To demonstrate the utility of SNA within this context, this study examined this incident of IBSA in Australia. In addition to answering the questions below, this project was concerned with not only the what of the research process but also the how. Readers are encouraged to consider the results and analysis as they would a pilot study – wherein qualitative Twitter data and a network of user relations were operationalized to generate an initial framework for understanding how structural analysis of incidents of IBSA can better demarcate the spread of sentiment through a network. In examining the Broad incident using this methodology, we sought to address the following questions: What are the structural and intermedia features of Twitter users' responses to IBSA? In what ways do Twitter users contest and/or condone IBSA? These questions enabled us to explore user engagement as a process involving both personal and media accounts, and the interactions they share to contest and/or condone a narrative on an incident of IBSA. Furthermore, our analysis offers a novel approach to analyzing public sentiment toward an incident of IBSA, providing structural and intermedia analysis of the response to the incident. This chapter is divided into four main sections. In section one, we review the relevant literature relating to online engagement, digital platforms, and IBSA. In the next section, we discuss the methodological contributions of this work and reflect on the utility of the methods used in this research for future studies into TFV and IBSA. In section three, we detail the major findings from this research; drawing on an Applied Thematic Analysis (ATA) we outline the narrative promulgated by both journalist and news media accounts, alongside personal Twitter users, and how interactions between these users generated a reverse-flow of sentiment. This is represented within a hierarchized visual framework characteristic of SNA to outline the flow of information and sentiment between different types of users responding to the Broad incident. This process enabled us to identify three “user roles” – Reference, Mediator, and Listener – with each performing distinct functions in the diffusion and reception of sentiment within the network. These user roles demonstrate how responses to crime on social media may be structured by clear hierarchies, with some users occupying dialogically significant positions within these networks. Through an ATA of the tweets responding to Broad's naming in the media, we identified an informal justice-seeking response by users to Broad and his actions, alongside a replication of this sentiment within Reference users over time. The counterhegemonic discourses that appeared in response to Broad disrupted the neutral narrative of the Broad incident within Reference accounts and produced a more favorable and balanced consideration of the harms to the victim. Finally, we conclude by reflecting on the implications of this research for online responses to IBSA. We posit that demarcating the connections between social media actors – Mediators, Listeners, and Reference accounts – may enhance our understanding of their specific role in contesting and altering passive narratives of sexual harm online. Literature Review This chapter is situated amid a burgeoning literature on the spectatorship of, and engagement with, TFV and IBSA (Henry, McGlynn, Flynn, Johnson, Powell, & Scott, 2020; Henry & Powell, 2018). It is important to note that such spectatorship involves not only individual observation of an incident of IBSA but also their response to this observation. Here, the act of spectatorship is not confined simply to the object and viewer, or “the spectator and the spectacle,” but also involves “the association between spectators,” or in this instance structural relations between Twitter users (Wood, 2017, p. 9). This grounds our methodology, in seeking to demarcate the connections that shape engagement on social media platforms, a process which is mediated not only by social forces but also the technological (infra)structure of social networking platforms. Twitter has been described as a “personal public” (Schmidt, 2014, p. 4) – a communicative space framed by the dimensions of software, relations, and rules. The concept of personal publics is not limited to Twitter and operates as a foundation for understanding the mechanics of Web 2.0 and user-generated content and interactions. Within a personal public, information is selected and displayed according to personal relevance criteria such as the social network a user situates themselves within. This is then mediated through ties made explicit by the platform – such as following, retweeting, and liking. Twitter itself can be distinguished from other social networks by the specific articulation of these user relations which are utilized to structure communicative flow – “the nexus of social ties and textual references, based on code-enabled connections” (Schmidt, 2014, p. 6). The foundational concept guiding these Twitter relations is that of “following” users – a unilateral relationship used to subscribe to other users' tweets and calculate user visibility metrics. Replies, retweets, and mentions, function as communicative references that allow for navigation to user profiles. These factors produce a stable and dynamic social networking service consisting of networked and distributed conversations (Schmidt, 2014), which enables potentially exponential public distribution and engagement with nonconsensual sexual imagery such as the image released by Broad. Researchers have noted that social media platforms such as Twitter have allowed for a redemocratization of the public sphere (Papacharissi, 2002). The assembly of counterpublics (Fraser, 1990) by girls and women on social media to contest social exclusion and subordination has been documented within criminological literature (Khoja-Moolji, 2015). Technology has, for example, allowed victims and their supporters to engage in “name and shame” tactics to ensure that behavior of abusers is not excused, and to contest the inadequacy of institutional responses to sexual violence such as TFV (Powell, 2015; Salter, 2013; Wood, Rose, & Thompson, 2019, p. 3). Considering the inadequacy of existing institutional responses to rape and violence against women in the form of state-sanctioned justice (Powell, 2015), social media–enabled informal justice-seeking plays an important role in the way victims of sexual violence and their supporters can create counterhegemonic discourses online. Informal justice and contemporary digital activism movements have been conceptualized as an asymmetrical and nonhierarchical endeavor within Powell, Stratton, and Cameron's (2018) theory of rhizomatic justice. Drawing on Deleuze and Guattari's (1988) figuration of the rhizome, Powell, Stratton et al.’s (2018) theory accounts for the diversity of activist behaviors in a digital context, where organizations, groups, and individuals are linked loosely and embody significant diversity (Funke, 2014). The resulting spread of motivations and agendas can lead these forms of activism to both enhance democracy and new forms of bigotry, which may outweigh the original infraction (Powell, Stratton et al., 2018). This is a constructive explanation for the consequences of informal justice-seeking. The utilization of a rhizomatic analogy, however, implies a flattening of hierarchies within these communities, which minimizes the “algorithmically-curated information environment” (Wood, 2019, p. 573) of social media, the in-built architecture that structures social media use. Identifying key nodes and influencers residing within a network who occupy a more significant role in information diffusion (Wood et al., 2019) holds the potential to identify information flow to institutional social media accounts. This chapter compliments the rhizomatic model of informal justice-seeking through an identification of the structural relations that underpinned online users' informal justice response to the Broad incident. Methodology Our study utilized a parallel mixed methods research design that combined a quantitative SNA and qualitative ATA (Borgatti, Everett, & Johnson, 2018) to establish a structural understanding of the social media response to the 2017 Broad incident. These methods enabled the assessment of differing components of the phenomenon, enhancing its interpretability. We collected and analyzed these quantitative and qualitative data sources separately before integrating them in the second phase of the project (Creswell & Clark, 2007). To begin this process, an SNA was conducted to develop a quantitative representation of different user types with a corpus of data relating to an incident of IBSA. SNA enabled the visualization of relational ties between social actors – in this case individual Twitter users, such as journalists, institutional news media accounts, and personal Twitter users. This included interactions such as liking or retweeting user content, and follower/followee relationships. These ties could be typologized through user type differentiation established by Beguerisse-Díaz, Garduno-Hernández, Vangelov, Yaliraki, and Barahona (2014) in their SNA of the London riots:

Social Media is the new avenue for creating connections and sharing of information. Through social media, one can reach a global community. In recent years, we have seen how social media has changed the way we do things. Social Media has been extensively utilized for health education and promotion, proving itself to be an invaluable tool for public health, professional networking and patient care benefit.&#x0D; &#x0D; The challenge has been to use the power afforded by social media responsibly, and to define the line between use and abuse. While there may be laws, implementation proves to be a challenge in the digital age. Therefore, self-regulation and institutional policy remain a critical part. It is therefore urged that hospitals and health care facilities adopt their own social media use policy appropriate for the institution.&#x0D; &#x0D; Below are proposed rules that could guide institutions in developing their own policy for social media use:&#x0D; &#x0D; Sec. 1. Declaration of Policy. The health facility recognizes that the exercise of the freedom of expression comes with a responsibility and a duty to respect the rights of others. The health facility likewise acknowledges the fundamental right to privacy of every individual. This policy shall provide rules for responsible social media use.&#x0D; &#x0D; Sec. 2. Definition. For purposes of this policy, the following definitions shall be used:&#x0D; &#x0D; Social Media refers to electronic communication, websites or applications through which users connect, interact or share information or other content with other individuals, collectively part of an online community. This includes Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Blogs, Social Networking sites.&#x0D; Health facility shall refer to the hospital or other health care facilities, including training and educational institutions.&#x0D; Individual shall refer to physicians, employees, other health facility staff, residents, or students to which this policy would apply&#x0D; &#x0D; &#x0D; Sec. 3. Applicability. This policy shall apply to all physicians, health professionals, employees and other health facility staff, including students or residents in training, practicing their profession, working, or fulfilling academic and clinical requirements within the health facility, whether temporary or permanent.&#x0D; &#x0D; Sec. 4. General Principles. Social media use shall be guided by the following principles:&#x0D; &#x0D; In using social media, an individual should always be mindful of his or her duties to the patient and community, his profession and his colleagues.&#x0D; The individual should always be conscious of his or her online image and how it impacts his or her profession, or the institution where he or she is professionally employed, affiliated or otherwise connected.&#x0D; Responsible social media use also requires the individual to ensure that in his or her social media activity, there is no law violated, including copyright, libel and cybercrime laws. At all times, the individual shall respect the right of privacy of others.&#x0D; Use of social media requires a personal commitment to uphold the ethical standards required of those providing health services, upon which patient trust is built.&#x0D; &#x0D; &#x0D; Sec. 5. Social Media for Health Education or Promotion&#x0D; a.The individual using social media for health education or promotion must be well-informed of the matter subject of the social media post, comment or other activity. The individual shall refrain from any activity which spreads or tends to spread misinformation.&#x0D; &#x0D; An article written by an individual and posted in social media must be evidence-based and disclose connections with pharmaceutical or health product companies or other sources of possible conflict of interest.&#x0D; &#x0D; c.Social media shall not be used to dispense specific medical diagnosis, advice, treatment or projection but shall consist of general opinions only. Use of social media should include statements that a person should not rely on the advice given online, and that medical concerns are best addressed in the appropriate setting.&#x0D; &#x0D; The individual shall be careful in posting or publishing his or her opinion and shall ensure that such opinion will not propagate misinformation or constitute a misrepresentation. The individual shall not make any misrepresentations in his or her social media activity relating to content, his or her employment or credentials, and any other information that may be misconstrued or taken out of context.&#x0D; &#x0D; &#x0D; &#x0D; Sec. 6. Professionalism in Social Media Use&#x0D; &#x0D; Individuals are discouraged from using a single account for both professional and private use. Be mindful that an electronic mail address used professionally may readily be linked to a social media site used privately.&#x0D; The individual shall conduct himself or herself in social media or online the same way that he would in the public, mindful of acting in a manner befitting his profession, or that would inspire trust in the service he or she provides, especially if the individual has not separated his or her professional and personal accounts in social media.&#x0D; The individual shall likewise refrain from using the name, logo or other symbol of an institution without prior authority in his or her social media activity. An individual shall not identify himself or herself as a representative of an institution in social media without being authorized to do so.&#x0D; Individuals shall not accept former or current patients as friends or contacts in their personal accounts, unless there is justification to do so, such as a pre-existing relationship or when unavoidable for patient care. In case of online interaction with patients, this should be limited to matters related to the patient’s treatment and management, and which could be properly disclosed.&#x0D; Informal and personal information concerning a patient, colleague or the health facility shall not be posted, shared or otherwise used in social media.&#x0D; Social media shall not be used to establish inappropriate relationships with patients or colleagues, and shall not be used to obtain information that would negatively impact on the provision of services and professional management of the patient.&#x0D; An individual shall refrain from posting, sharing or otherwise using photos or videos taken within the health facility, which would give the impression of unprofessionalism, show parts of the health facility where there is an expectation of privacy, or those which includes colleagues, employees, other health facility staff, or patients without their express consent. The consent requirement shall apply even if the other individuals included are not readily identifiable.&#x0D; &#x0D; &#x0D; Sec. 7. Responsible Social Media Activity&#x0D; &#x0D; In using social media, the individual shall respect the dignity, personality, privacy and peace of mind of another.&#x0D; The individual shall not post, share or otherwise use social media with the intent of damaging the reputation of any other individual or institution, especially if the subject is identified or identifiable.&#x0D; &#x0D; c.Derogatory comments about patients, colleagues, employers and institutions or companies should be avoided. An individual may “like” a defamatory post but he or she must use caution when sharing, retweeting or contributing anything that might be construed as a new defamatory statement. A post, comment or other social media activity is considered defamatory if:&#x0D; 1) The activity imputes a discreditable act or condition to another;&#x0D; &#x0D; 2) The activity is viewed or seen by any other person;&#x0D; 3) The person or institution defamed is identified or readily identifiable;&#x0D; 4) There is malice or intent to damage the reputation of another.&#x0D; &#x0D; He or she shall be careful of sharing posts or other contents that are unverified, particularly if it discredits another person or institution, or imputes the commission of a crime or violation of law even before trial and judgment, and violates the privacy of another. Fair and true reporting on matters of public concern shall be allowed provided that the content was obtained lawfully and with due respect for the right of privacy.&#x0D; An individual shall not use copyrighted materials other than for fair use where there is proper citation of source and author. Use of copyrighted material for purpose of criticism, comment, news, reporting, teaching, scholarship, research, and similar purposes is compatible with fair use.&#x0D; An individual is prohibited from:&#x0D; &#x0D; 1) Social media activities that defame, harass, stalk, or bully another person or institution.&#x0D; 2) The use or access of personal social media accounts of others without authority.&#x0D; 3) Posting, sharing or otherwise using any information intended to be private or obtained through access to electronic data messages or documents.&#x0D; 4) Posting, sharing or otherwise using recorded conversations between doctors, individuals or patients, when such recording, whether audio or video, was obtained without consent of all the parties to the conversation&#x0D; &#x0D; Individuals should use conservative privacy settings in their social media account used professionally. The individual should also practice due diligence in keeping their social media accounts safe such as through regular password change and logging out after social media use.&#x0D; &#x0D; &#x0D; Sec. 8. Health Information Privacy&#x0D; &#x0D; The individual shall respect the right to privacy of others and shall not collect, use, access or disclose information, pictures and other personal or sensitive information without obtaining consent from the individual concerned. Physicians,

Solace in Social Media: Women Unite Under COVID-19

The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted physical activity, particularly among women. Limited research has explored how social network support may explain gender-based variations in physical activity during COVID-19. The purpose of this study was to examine the mediating role of social networks in the association between gender and physical activity during a pandemic. This cross-sectional survey assessed whether social network characteristics (i.e., in-person social network size, frequency of in-person social network interactions, and online friend network size) mediate the relationship between gender and either past-week or past-year physical activity. Multiple mediation analyses were conducted to determine the indirect effect of gender on physical activity through social networks. Among 205 participants, women (n = 129) were significantly less physically active (β = −73.82; p = 0.02) than men (n = 76) and reported significantly more Facebook friends (β = 0.30; p < 0.001) than men, which was inversely associated with past-week physical activity (β = −64.49; p = 0.03). Additionally, the indirect effect of gender on past-week physical activity through Facebook friends was significant (β = −19.13; 95% CI [−40.45, −2.09]). Findings suggest that social media sites such as Facebook could be used to encourage physical activity among women during a pandemic.

Using social media effectively in a surgical practice

Incidental news exposure on social media and political participation gaps: Unraveling the role of education and social networks

The Big Question: Have social media and/or smartphones disrupted life in your part of the world?

PurposeThe purpose of this study is three fold: to provide a preliminary exploration of meeting planners' use and perceived usefulness of the different types of social media; to examine why meeting planners use social media and; to investigate the perception of adopting the social media, especially as perceived critical mass impacts the adoption of social networking media.Design/methodology/approachData were collected from the members of a professional association for meeting professionals in the Southwest US using an online self‐administered questionnaire. A total of 510 members received an invitation to take the survey and 120 responses were received, representing a 23.5 percent response rate. Descriptive analysis, discriminant validity, reliability and path analysis were used to estimate the relationships between the five constructs: perceived critical mass, usefulness, ease of use, attitudes and intention to use social network media in the future.FindingsThe most commonly preferred social network sites were Facebook (29 percent), LinkedIn (15 percent), YouTube (13 percent), Twitters (11 percent) and My Space (11 percent) and the social networking media rated most useful were Facebook (mean=3.7), LinkedIn (mean=3.1), YouTube (mean=3.0), Blogs (mean=2.7), Webinars (mean=2.6) and Twitter (mean=2.5), The top three reasons for using social media were: to communicate with other planners easily and quickly through chat or discussion boards (80.4 percent), to share queries, problems, solutions and opinions with other meeting planners (70.1 percent) and to get feedback from attendees after meeting/event/convention (69.9 percent). Additionally, the path model used in the analysis indicated that perceived critical mass not only directly influences intention to use social network media but also indirectly affects attitude toward using social media and intention to use social media simultaneously through perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness.Originality/valueEven though the social networking media has previously been used by many meeting planners to find information, few research studies have explored the meeting planners' perception of social networking media and what factors may have an effect on meeting planners' adoption of using social network media. This study provides a preliminary empirical analysis of meeting planners' perception of these tools and the factors that influence their utilization.