Facebook Discussions Research Articles

Pharmacists' Professional Satisfaction and Challenges: A Netnographic Analysis of Reddit and Facebook Discussions.

Pharmacists, essential healthcare providers, face significant challenges in professional satisfaction and well-being. This study investigates the factors influencing pharmacists' professional satisfaction, mainly focusing on workload, organizational support, job autonomy, work-life balance, and resilience against burnout. Data were collected from relevant online forums on Facebook and Reddit using a netnographic methodology. The data were anonymized and thematically coded to identify key themes from 23 conversation threads, primarily involving or concerning Romanian pharmacists. The analysis revealed several critical issues: widespread dissatisfaction with salaries, challenges in professional recognition, and the demanding nature of university education. Additional themes included economic and financial insights, global trends and technological impacts, personal experiences and satisfaction, professional growth and education, regulatory and market environment, and workplace dynamics. Findings indicate these factors significantly impact pharmacists' job satisfaction and overall well-being. The study concludes that addressing these issues through targeted interventions, such as policy reforms, educational updates, and enhanced organizational support, can improve the professional lives of pharmacists, thereby enhancing their contributions to healthcare outcomes.

Changes in the immigrant Russian-speaking family language policy during the war in Ukraine.

The Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine had a significant impact on the Russian-speaking identity, reformulating existing linguistic and cultural boundaries and shaping Russian speakers' self-perception and vision of the world. We focus on families with children who are trying to balance their inner and outer life in order to stabilize the positive environment of the upbringing process and analyze how adults explain to the children the need to learn the Russian, Ukrainian and other languages. This can shed light on the challenges and strategies employed in alleviating prejudiced attitudes against immigrants' languages and cultures which can cause alienation from the roots in the one-and-a-half and second generation. The research questions were: How has the war altered language policies in families with different ethnic backgrounds? What changes in home language use strategies do parents propose? Material drawn from numerous posts of Facebook discussions have been analyzed with the help of thematic analysis. We observe that in many multilingual families with Ukrainian roots the war has led to a greater emphasis on the Ukrainian language use as an attempt to reinforce ties to their cultural heritage and express support for the country. Russian is increasingly viewed as the language of the aggressor; moreover, Russian culture is devalued and rejected. Some families have become more open to new language learning, especially the languages of their new environment, and try to identify themselves as multicultural and multiethnic personalities. On the other hand, in those families where parents work or study in the fields in which Russian is widely used, adults prioritize the development of Russian language skills in their children in order to improve their future educational and professional opportunities. We explore attitudes and challenges faced by parents in Russian-speaking families, as they demonstrate the complexities of identity formation and language transmission while making salient the interplay between parents' personal experiences, their aspirations for their children's cultural identity, and the pressures of integration into the local society.

A Grounded Theory of Indonesian English Teacher Educators’ Professional and Identity Development in a Blended Professional Development Community

This study aims to explore engagement that shows evidence of the professional development of Indonesian English language teacher educators converging in a blended learning community pseudonymously called the PL community. Further, the study seeks to explore how professional identities, which are also part of the professional development of teachers and teacher educators, are negotiated and claimed. The data was collected through (1) participant observation (participation in Facebook discussions), (2) interviews, and (3) documents (e.g., Facebook interactions/dialogs, workshop materials, or published papers). Grounded theory was used to analyze the data and to theorize emerging themes. Here, three layers of coding (open, axial, and selective) were done. Data analysis suggests that, by actively interacting in the PL community, members experience professional development activities, particularly in teaching, research, and publication. How professional identities were negotiated and claimed was also discussed.

DISP-04. EXPLORING ENGAGEMENT IN LOW GRADE GLIOMA GENOMIC RESEARCH: A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF THREE APPROACHES

Abstract BACKGROUND Engaging patients and care partners in research planning and conduct improves equity and patient-centeredness of research. Determining the most effective engagement methods remains challenging. This study evaluated participation and experience using three engagement methods with the Low Grade Glioma (LGG) Registry’s OPTIMUM project, part of the Participant Engagement in Cancer Genome Sequencing (PE-CGS) Network. METHODS We evaluated participation and experience among participants in LGG Registry Research Advisory Council (RAC) meetings, Twitter (“tweet chats”), and Facebook discussions across four engagement activities. Participants completed validated engagement experience surveys, including the Public & Patient Engagement Evaluation Tool (PPEET), Research Engagement Survey Tool (REST), Patient Engagement in Research Scale (PEIRS-22), and the Trust in Medical Researchers scale. Researchers recorded discussions and performed qualitative analyses across groups. RESULTS RAC engagements involved 25 unique participants representing diverse backgrounds, while tweet chats and Facebook discussions had 197 and 133 participants, respectively. Post-engagement surveys (n = 52 post-engagement 1; n = 40 post-engagement 4) showed no statistically significant differences between engagement approaches in the overall meaningfulness of engagement on PEIRS-22 or REST scales, nor were there differences in post-engagement 1 trust. RAC members rated PEIRS-22 procedural requirements more positively and reported recalling a wide range of expressed views more than social media participants. Conversely, RAC members gave less positive ratings on PPEET items related to feeling heard. Qualitative findings highlighted differences in the nature of interactions across groups, but agreement around trust and similar recommendations for promoting participation in genomic research across engagement methods.

Barriers to Participation in Polarized Online Discussions About Covid-19 and the Russo-Ukrainian War

Even though social networking sites create a unique online public space for the exchange of opinions, only a small share of citizens participate in online discussions. Moreover, research has depicted current online discussions as highly uncivil, hostile, and polarized, and the number of heated discussions has escalated in the last two years because of health, social, and security crises. This study investigates the perceived barriers to participation in Facebook discussions, focusing on two topics: the Covid-19 pandemic and the Russo-Ukrainian War. It explores the role that the negativity of these online discussions has on participation. To investigate the perspectives of users and their personal experiences with online discussions in times of crisis, we apply a qualitative research method and interviews with participants. We collected and analyzed 50 semi-structured interviews with Czech Facebook users who participated in discussions during the spring of 2021 (i.e., Covid-19) and the spring of 2022 (i.e., Russo-Ukrainian War). The results show that, after initial mobilization at the beginning of the pandemic, the crisis reinforced several crucial barriers to participation in discussions due to the perceived persistence of polarization (e.g., the spread of disinformation, the bipolar character of discussions, negative perception of opponents), which subsequently spread to other areas and issues. The data also implies that these barriers tend to demobilize less active participants, those who do not have strong opinions, and participants who think the subject matter is not worth the heated exchange of opinions.

The “gender affinity effect” behind female politicians' social media support: facebook civil talk during Israel's 2021 elections

PurposeThe study aims to examine the validity of the gender affinity effect on social media throughout election campaigns.Design/methodology/approachThis paper examines the role of gender in political discourse, using citizens' conversations on Facebook in the days leading up to Israel's 2021 elections as its case study. The analysis measured the engagement generated by male and female politicians in citizens' publicly open Facebook discussions (N = 1875) using a trend-tracking software. The analysis uses t-tests to examine differences in engagement between conversations about male versus female politicians and between posts written by male versus female authors. In addition, a two-way ANOVA analysis was conducted in an attempt to understand the shared impact of both the politicians' gender and posts authors' gender on the posts' engagement.FindingsThe study reveals that although more posts discuss male politicians, posts dealing with female politicians expressed significantly more support towards those politicians. The analysis also highlights that women tend to write more supportive posts and that most of their posts deal with female politicians. Furthermore, interaction effect analysis revealed that women's posts about female politicians generate more engagement in terms of likes, comments and number of participants than posts written by women that deal with male politicians.Practical implicationsThe findings should encourage women politicians to run their campaigns via social media.Originality/valueThe study presents the first social media analysis for gender affinity effect and highlights the importance of the effect in online political communication studies.Peer reviewThe peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/OIR-04-2022-0199

Facilitating Taiwanese Elementary School English Student Teachers’ Learning Through Text-Based Protocols

This study used online responses, observation fieldnotes, and interviews to analyze eight student teachers’ learning through text-based protocols on news analysis during their practicum, a core component for beginning teachers’ competence construction, in a language teacher education program in the northwest of Taiwan. This study revealed that student teachers regarded the text-based protocols as useful pedagogical tools, particularly offering a clear focus on reading and analyzing the news. Through face-to-face and Facebook discussions on 33 news reports, student teachers became familiar with the latest policies and trends on English education, constructed their pedagogical competence in English instructional strategies, and examined the gap between policies and practice on the co-teaching model. Suggestions on effective implementation of the text-based protocols on discussing education news are provided in terms of preparation of a variety of news or issues, selection of the appropriate text-based protocols, and integration of theories on news analysis and discussions.

Institutions, feminist mobilizations, and political economy: Debating equal inheritance in Tunisia

ABSTRACT Scholars have long established that institutions, both formal and informal, are gendered. But how does institutional change come about, and what prevents it? This article focuses on the debate in Tunisia around equal inheritance for women. Tunisia’s 1956 family law had emancipatory features, but equal inheritance for daughters was not among them, and the issue came to be advocated by feminist groups. The Committee on Individual Liberties and Equality (COLIBE), formed in 2017 by then President Essebsi, produced a report the following year that recommended equal inheritance, among other legal and policy reforms. The Tunisian experience shows how feminist groups seek to realize institutional change by working with (and within) state bureaucracies and political parties, appealing to other elite allies, securing support from legal and technical experts, and aligning ‘framing’ strategies for wider religio-cultural resonance. However, feminist goals may be undermined by an untoward political economy and low popular support, as occurred in Tunisia. Sources of data and information include detailed press accounts and relevant secondary sources, a close reading of the COLIBE report, Facebook discussions, Tunisian feminist publications, a June 2019 seminar on the COLIBE process by one of its members, and public opinion data.

Intolerant versus uncivil: Examining types, directions and deliberative attributes of incivility on Facebook versus Twitter

This study was an attempt to understand incivility, intolerance, and deliberative attributes on social media. Instead of solely focusing on incivility, this study distinguished incivility from intolerance and examined these two concepts in the context of public comments on two social media platforms. More specifically, in the study, we conducted content analyses to examine whether uncivil and intolerant comments vary based on platforms and topic sensitivity, as well as the relationship between uncivil and intolerant discourse and deliberative attributes. The results revealed that incivility occurred on both platforms but that a significant difference existed between Facebook and Twitter in terms of intolerant comments. The results also showed a positive relationship between topic sensitivity and intolerance. Finally, we found that Facebook discussions were 46 percent more likely than Twitter discussions to contain deliberative comments.

Ableism versus free speech in Australia: challenging online hate speech toward people with Down syndrome

Negative, ableist discourse challenging the rights of people with Down syndrome to receive support services and even to be born regularly arise on social media. This disability community has retaliated against such hate speech with resistance narratives that promote the value of people with Down syndrome, with few other recourses available. This article explores online free speech versus ableism in Australia through a major case study of 60 Minutes Australia Facebook discussions. Analysis identifies types of ableism expressed, types of harm caused and dimensions of grassroots responses. Using Timothy Garton Ash’s 2016 work Free Speech as a basis for contemporary analysis, we discuss: to what extent should harmful and offensive comments directed at vulnerable populations be tolerated in the name of free speech; might negative, ableist discourse contribute to any social good; and what mechanisms beyond grassroots resistance narratives might effectively respond to harmful, online ableist discourses. Points of interest The article looks at whether the right to free speech is more important than the harmful effects of online hate speech towards people with Down syndrome. We use the ideas in a book on Free Speech by Timothy Garton Ash to think about whether online hate speech should be allowed or silenced. Our analysis is based on a case study of Facebook discussion threads from a 60 Minutes Australia television segment. People in the disability community speaking up to create resistance narratives is the main way that online disability hate speech is challenged. Other ways that could help are laws, government agencies providing support materials, and social media rules.

Approaching the Use of Facebook to Improve Academic Writing and to Acquire Social Competences in English in Higher Education

This article offers a proposal for integrating the social network Facebook into an English as a Foreign Language (EFL) classroom in tertiary education. The main objectives of this article are the following: 1. To offer a pedagogical proposal so that students can develop written skills and grammar at the same time that they acquire social competences using Facebook and 2. To know students’ opinions about the use of Facebook and the main social competences that they have acquired while using this social network in the teaching-learning process. The methodology is mainly qualitative-descriptive although some quantitative data is offered with the results of a questionnaire students completed. The data were collected through students’ posts in the Facebook discussions and a questionnaire. The findings reveal the main grammar mistakes observed in students in the Facebook discussions and how Facebook is an appropriate social network for the participation of students in cooperative discussions on social topics and for the acquisition of social competences such as cooperation or communication. The results of the questionnaire show that students have a positive opinion about practicing the written skill in Facebook and they are aware that, apart from learning English, they also acquire social competences.

Memes, Emojis, and Text: The Semiotics of Differentiation in Sri Lankan Tamil Digital Publics

This article draws on Judith T. Irvine’s theorizing of the semiotic processes of differentiation to investigate how Sri Lankan Tamils and Muslims configure similarity and difference in multimodal social media interactions. I analyze Facebook discussions around memes of Tamil‐language blunders in trilingual public signs, which are widely taken to represent the incomplete implementation of Tamil as a co‐official language. Insider status in groups is not contingent on code use, but on expressing particular alignments toward the memes as tokens of a type. By virtue of their metapragmatic ambiguity, emojis are powerful in enabling participants to create shared affective stances around the memes, but they are also useful in demarcating difference between Tamil speakers and Sinhalas. I contribute to studies of social media communication by examining how different linguistic and non‐linguistic forms of expression are used to delineate transnational Tamil digital publics.

Practicing mundane consumer resistance in the REKO local food system

PurposeThis study aims to answer two research questions, namely, what kinds of mundane resistance practices emerge in the local food system and which spatial, material and social elements catalyse the resistance practices.Design/methodology/approachThe study adopts a post-humanist practice approach and focusses on exploring the agentic capacity of socio-material elements to generate resistance practices. The data were generated through a multi-method approach of interviews, field observations and Facebook discussions collected between 2014 and 2017.FindingsThe empirical context is the rejäl konsumtion local food network in Finland. The analysis presents two types of resisting practices – resisting facelessness and resisting carelessness – which are connected to spatial, material and social elements.Research limitations/implicationsThe study focusses on one local food system, highlighting the socio-material structuring of resistance in this specific cultural setting.Practical implicationsThe practical implications highlight that recognising the socio-material elements provides tools for better engagement of consumer actors with local food systems.Originality/valueThe study adds to the extant research by interweaving the consumer resistance literature and local food systems discussions with the neo-material approach. The findings present a more nuanced understanding of the ways in which consumer resistance is actualised in a non-recreational, mundane context of consumption. Consequently, the study offers new insights into the agentic socio-material actors structuring the local food system.

Spreading language ideologies through social media: Enregistering the ‘fake ABC’ variety in Hong Kong

AbstractThis paper explores how language ideologies are disseminated on social media through examining the enregisterment of a pseudo‐variety of language attributed to people in Hong Kong who are supposedly trying to act ‘Western’. Comments from Facebook discussions about ‘fake American‐born Chinese’ (fake ABC) are analyzed to identify the linguistic features people attribute to these speakers and how their attitudes towards these features reflect larger assumptions about language. The analysis shows how this pseudo‐variety is enregistered through collaborative stylization and metalinguistic commentary by online commenters and how this enregisterment reinforces a range of language ideologies dominant in contemporary Hong Kong, including ideologies of ‘standardness’, linguistic purity and authenticity. The analysis not only traces these beliefs to long‐standing conflicts within the society around such issues as race, gender, politics and national identity but also argues that language mocking practices on social media have become an important means through which ideologies are circulated and maintained.

Managing unpleasant moods: Affective discipline in Facebook discussions

The article explores how affect is circulated and managed in comment discussions on networked online platforms, such as Facebook. A mixed-methods analysis is conducted of comments on news about the triple disaster of an earthquake, a tsunami and a meltdown of three reactors at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in March 2011 on public Facebook pages of seven Finnish mainstream news media. The article examines how affect sticks and circulates in these discussions, and how the commenters direct and sustain the mode and mood of Facebook discussions. The main findings of the article concern how online discussions are structured by what the author calls affective discipline, in which participants the discussion manage the mood of the discussion through various means. The results open up an important way to study the internal, affective dynamics of contemporary online discussions. In particular, the study helps us understand how flows of affect are shaped and steered in online discussions, and how the same discussions may simultaneously sustain multiple affective dynamics. These dynamics may, in turn contribute to how publics respond to news and official information in crises.

Patterns of Critical Thinking Processing in Online Reciprocal Peer Tutoring Through Facebook Discussion

Reciprocal Peer tutoring (RPT) can support students in enhancing their critical thinking during learning process. The evolution of internet technology has shifted face-to-face peer tutoring to an online environment such as use of a social networking site, Facebook. In addition, Facebook Group provides a space for students and instructor to discuss academic related matters. However, depending solely on the Facebook medium without proper design learning activities do not guarantee active learning among students. In addition, educators might face multiple challenges by using social networking site such as Facebook for teaching and learning purpose. Thus, this study integrated online reciprocal peer tutoring arrangements in Facebook to stimulate students’ critical thinking. A total of 29 students involved in the online discussions through Facebook with 14 Facebook Group pages were created. During discussion, tutor will used guided peer questioning strategy initiate tutee to think to the higher levels. This study employed lag sequential analysis to empirically explore patterns of critical thinking processing in Facebook discussions among High and Low critical thinking groups. The results showed that, apparently, High critical thinking group emerged thinking pattern which progressing from lower to higher order thinking processes which are very crucial in shaping their thinking to the higher levels. Additionally, by asking students’ prior knowledge and understanding frequently can help students to gain greater understanding of the topic and further initiate their higher level of critical thinking.

Hostile Emotions in News Comments: A Cross-National Analysis of Facebook Discussions

Recent work demonstrates that hostile emotions can contribute to a strong polarization of political discussion on social media. However, little is known regarding the extent to which media organizations and media systems trigger hostile emotions. We content-analyzed comments on Facebook pages from six news organizations ( N = 1,800) based in the United States and Germany. Our results indicate that German news organizations’ Facebook comments are more balanced, containing lower levels of hostile emotions. Such emotions are particularly prevalent in the polarized information environment of the United States—in both news posts and comments. Moreover, alternative right-wing media outlets in both countries provoke significantly higher levels of hostile emotions, thus limiting deliberative discussions. Our results demonstrate that the application of technology—such as the use of comment sections—has different implications depending on cultural and social contexts.

Do anticipated Facebook discussions diminish the importance of argument quality? An experimental investigation of attitude formation in social media

ABSTRACTGiven the rising importance of Facebook as a news source, this study investigated how the social media environment and expectations of future interactions alter processes of attitude formation. Based on the heuristic-systematic model (HSM), it was expected that impression-motivated users of social networking sites (SNS) strive for widely acceptable attitudes when no majority opinion is visible and pay less attention to the quality of information. An experiment (N= 348) varied the media context in which an article was displayed (Facebook vs. news site vs. newspaper), argument quality, and the expectation of future discussions. Results showed higher impression motivation and a reduced influence of argument quality when participants expected to write a Facebook post on the topic. However, merely being connected to Facebook did not affect the direction of their information processing. Those who regard themselves as SNS opinion leaders were more easily persuaded by weak arguments in news articles. Concerning the potential risks for an informed citizenry, these findings highlight situations and groups in which SNS usage is connected to a less thoughtful information processing. Furthermore, the study demonstrates the applicability of the multiple-motive approach of the HSM to capture the specifics of attitude formation in different media contexts.

Dehumanizing political others: a discursive-material perspective

ABSTRACT In his recent book The Discursive-Material Knot, [Carpentier, N. (2017). The discursive-material Knot: Cyprus in conflict and community media participation. New York: Peter Lang]. Nico Carpentier identifies three nodal points of antagonistic discourse: the need for destruction of the enemy, homogenization of the self as opposed to the enemy, and the radical difference of the enemy. The latter appears when the self and the other are thought to be irreconcilably at odds, and the enemy is presented as inferior. In the more extreme cases, this radical othering leads to a dehumanization and demonization of the other, which makes the destruction of the enemy easier. Using post-Maidan social confrontation within Ukraine and its Facebook discussions as a case study, this paper analyzes how exactly the radical othering and subsequent dehumanization of the enemy is discursively structured, and describe the conditions under which such extreme manifestations of conflict could be eliminated with the ultimate goal of transforming antagonistic into agonistic discourse.

Exploring Lived Experiences of Chronic Pain Through Photo-Elicitation and Social Networking.

To understand how patients' use of photo-elicitation and online social networks (Facebook) enhances their understanding of what it means to live with pain. Qualitative substudy of the intervention arm of a randomized trial. Primary care patients living with pain drawn from nine family practices with at least two pain visits in the last six months. The private Facebook group was co-facilitated by a moderator and a patient-investigator who lives with chronic pain. Patients were asked to share photos that elicit their lived experience with chronic pain, and facilitators guided participants in ongoing discussion about these photos, and thus the life with pain. Facebook discussions were analyzed via Dedoose (a qualitative analysis software) using thematic analysis. Discussions of photos elicited three overarching themes regarding patients' lived experience with chronic pain: 1) patients' redefined pain identity; 2) pain interference with enjoyment of life and activities; and 3) patients' diminished ability to function. Photo-elicitation is an innovative way to shed light on patients' lived experience with chronic pain. Despite some technical challenges, Facebook support groups utilizing photo-elicitation can provide a readily available platform that can facilitate interchange of patient experiences and might help patients communicate with their providers.