Online Networking Platforms Research Articles

Contextual Collapse Perspectives on the Socialisation Practices of Text-Pleasing Syndrome in Online Media Environment

The development of media technology has allowed different social contexts to be integrated into online networking platforms, and users face the breakdown and risk of uncontrolled social management in multiple contexts, which has given rise to a variety of new types of social interaction that are different from traditional offline face-to-face communication. The masses use softened language to maintain pluralistic online social relationships, and use ingratiating texts to achieve their performative purposes. The group power structure and the use of symbolic violence regulate the innovative development of the Internet context, and the self-alienation and the lack of media construct a new round of contextual collapse. Starting from the symbolic representation of text-pleasing syndrome, we explore its metaphorical multi-contextual collapse and the way to alleviate the social dilemma so as to construct a new context, and deeply consider the human-technology-society relationship triggered by media availability.

Unauthentic Information About Celiac Disease on Social Networking Pages: Is It a Matter of Concern in Celiac Disease Management?

Facebook (FB) is the most popular online networking platform. Many celiac disease Facebook (CD-FB) pages spread awareness about celiac disease (CD). To get the latest information, patients with CD frequently follow such pages. However, little is known about whether such pages provide authentic and reliable information. This study aims to investigate whether CD-FB pages spread misleading information to patients with CD. On the Facebook social networking platform, CD-FB pages created in three celiac-prevalent countries (Italy, the USA, and India) were explored using different combinations of keywords. The type/category of the CD-FB page, country of origin, purpose, page web link, and number of followers/members were documented in a Microsoft spreadsheet. All posts distributed on selected CD-FB pages in the last 3 years were thoroughly screened. From August 2022 to March 2023, a total of 200 CD-FB pages from Italy, the USA, and India were explored. Out of these 200 pages, 155 CD-FB (Italy 70; the USA 46; India 39) were found eligible. Of them, 20 (13%) CD-FB pages (Italy 4; the USA 5; India 11) shared misleading information about CD. Surprisingly, 11 (8%) of these 20 pages (Italy 0; the USA 2; India 9) supported alternative treatment options for CD. CD-FB pages are useful for disseminating celiac-disease-related information. While most such pages provide useful information, 13% of CD-FB pages allow misleading information. Patients with CD should consult their treating unit before following any uncertain information posted on CD-FB pages.

The Impact Of Social Media And Online Networking On The Shopping Behavior Of Young Adults In Ho Chi Minh City

This study investigates the multifaceted impact of social media and online networking platforms on the shopping behavior of young adults in Ho Chi Minh City. By utilizing a mixed-method research approach, including both online surveys and in-depth interviews, with a diverse sample of 150 participants aged 18 to 25, the findings reveal a spectrum of influences on young adults’ purchasing decisions. It was observed that the authors’ names often relied on recommendations from friends and acquaintances they connected with through these platforms when making purchasing decisions. Additionally, positive consumer reviews and positive endorsements shared on social media platforms were influential in motivating young adults to consider specific products or services. Conversely, there were instances of negative impacts on shopping behavior. Participants reported experiencing social comparison, whereby they felt compelled to align their purchases with the trends and preferences of their peers on social media. This peer-induced pressure sometimes led to impulsive buying decisions, driven more by the desire to conform rather than genuine personal preferences. The study revealed a complex interplay of both positive and negative influences. While social media and online networking could provide valuable information and foster social interactions related to shopping, they also posed challenges related to impulse buying, overspending, and dissatisfaction with purchases.The research emphasizes the increasing significance of social media as a platform for consumer engagement. Participants actively engaged with brands and businesses through social media channels, seeking product information, discounts, and exclusive promotions.Given the prevalence of impulse buying and overspending observed, educational initiatives to enhance financial literacy among young adults could prove beneficial. Empowering them with the skills to make informed purchasing decisions may mitigate the adverse effects of impulsive shopping behaviors.As businesses increasingly tap into social media influence, ethical considerations emerge. Transparency in advertising and responsible marketing practices should be upheld to maintain consumer trust and credibility.

Financing Green Infrastructure in Schools: A Case Study in Austria

Despite the positive effects of green infrastructure on people and the environment, it is still rarely integrated in public facilities such as schools. The main reason for this is a lack of knowledge about financing options. To fill this gap, the research project MehrGrüneSchulen (Engl.: More Green Schools) develops financing scenarios for green infrastructure in Austrian schools. This case study describes these developed scenarios, which use the principles of crowdsourcing and crowdfunding as well as the newly named principle of chain building. The idea of chain building is to motivate schools that have already successfully financed and built a low-cost greening system to present this process to another school in such a way that they are able to do the same themselves and eventually explain the process to a further school to continue this chain reaction. For the proposed funding scenarios to be effective, there is a need for innovation in education, with a focus on inter-school participation and networking. For this reason, the possible synergies of an online networking platform are discussed, which would help to connect schools and thus further improve the impact of the proposed fundraising processes.

Latent Personality Traits Assessment From Social Network Activity Using Contextual Language Embedding

Recognizing author identity from digital footprints without having a large corpus of documents from an individual is of keen interest to security researchers and government agencies. Users reveal aspects of their personality via the content they share with their social media followers and through the patterns in their interactions on online networking platforms. This study examines the potency of emerging natural language processing (NLP) methods in analyzing social network activity. A linguostylistic personality traits assessment (LPTA) system is developed to estimate Twitter users’ personality traits based on their tweets using the Myers-Briggs-type indicator (MBTI) and big-five personality scales. A novel input representation mechanism is proposed to process tweets by converting them into real-valued vectors using frequency, co-occurrence, and context (FCC) measures. Other prevalent text representation schemes, such as one-hot encoding, count-based vectorization, and pretrained language model representations are used as comparators. A genetic algorithm (GA) approach is proposed to reduce the feature set and increase the efficacy of the features extracted. The developed system outperforms the state-of-the-art research by reliably estimating the user’s latent personality traits while using 50 or fewer tweets per user.

Coproducing tobacco control knowledge: Using virtual platforms to strengthen implementation in India.

Tobacco control is complex and multidimensional. In India, 266.8 million adults use tobacco in some form, with local contextual factors shaping its consumption, production, and trade. Actors have a stake in tobacco represent different sectors; with varying priorities, responding to different ideas, and exerting varying levels of influence often make it difficult to work collaboratively on tobacco control-related issues. Through online networking platforms such as webinars, we emphasize how coproduction of tobacco control knowledge enables participation, prioritizes multisectoral strategies, and enhances tobacco control leadership among policymakers and implementers in their settings. Coproduction of knowledge between and across stakeholders with a focus on "how to" implement tobacco control policies can leverage in negotiating and supplementing the policy implementation process.

Approaches to Assess Market Power in the Online Networking Market

Facebook, the world’s largest online networking platform, is the subject of multiple antitrust investigations by various state and federal regulators. Yet scholars and practitioners remain divided on how to measure Facebook’s market power. Some argue that conventional approaches for identifying market power are suitable for the online networking market. This Article argues such conventional approaches are inadequate for assessing market power in online networking markets.This Article begins by introducing the traditional approaches that courts have employed to assess market power: the direct effects approach, the Lerner Index approach, and the market share approach. It next describes Facebook’s business model and shows that, because Facebook is a two-sided market, these traditional approaches should not be applied to Facebook.Instead, the Article proposes that the information gaps, switching costs, and entry barriers approaches are better suited for assessing the market power of online networking platforms. The Article thus concludes by proposing a legal framework for assessing market power in online networking platforms which employs such non-traditional approaches. While this Article uses Facebook as the main case study, this paper’s findings are equally applicable to similar online networking platforms.

Analysing antecedence of an intelligent voice assistant use intention and behaviour

Background: As the use of intelligent voice assistant applications becomes more prevalent, a growing body of studies are examining individuals' interactions with intelligent voice assistants. However, very limited research has focused on comparing the antecedents of both use and non-use behaviour of individuals, based on the technology acceptance models. To fill this gap, the present study investigated antecedents of intelligent voice assistance use and use intention in a cross-sectional setting. Additionally, to go one step beyond the existing literature on technology acceptance models and theories, a new construct termed perceived needs, as well as the moderating role of perceived privacy concerns and perceived awareness, are introduced. Method: A quantitative, cross-sectional research design was utilised using a nonprobability sampling strategy through the online networking platforms. Total of 277 (n = 155 users vs n = 122 non-users) international adults age between 20-74 years (79.6% female, 20.4 % male) contributed to the study. Ordinary least squares (OLS) linear regression and Bivariate logistic regression analyses for non-users and users were conducted, respectively. Results: Both analyses revealed that peer influence and perceived needs related to the intention to use intelligent voice assistants for non-users, which applied to the current intelligent voice assistance users where privacy concerns were considered. Surprisingly, the key determinants of technology acceptance and use theories, such as perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness, did not hold for intelligent voice assistance usage. Conclusion: The current research contributed to the field by validating new constructs of perceived needs and the moderation role of perceived privacy concerns. However, in order to build on an existing body of knowledge, future studies should further examine the moderation role of perceived privacy concerns, perceived ease of use, and perceived usefulness in the same domain.

An early implementation assessment of Ontario\u2019s Healthy Kids Community Challenge: results from a survey of key stakeholders

BackgroundIn Ontario Canada, the Healthy Kids Community Challenge (HKCC) is a program intended to reduce the prevalence and prevent childhood overweight and obesity through community-based initiatives to improve health behaviours. Guided by the RE-AIM framework and Durlak and DuPre’s Ecological Framework for Understanding Effective Implementation, the evaluation focused on two objectives: 1) to describe the organization of the program at the community level; and, 2) to identify opportunities for improvement through an early assessment of factors contributing to implementation.MethodsParticipants (n = 320) – members of the HKCC local steering committee, including the local project manager – completed a cross-sectional survey using SurveyMonkey and descriptive statistics were calculated. A sample (20%) of qualitative open-ended responses was thematically analyzed.ResultsResults indicated strong respondent agreement that the HKCC enhanced individual knowledge of access to health-promoting programs (88.3%) and messaging regarding healthy behaviours for healthy kids, with less for its effectiveness in reducing weight (53.1%). There was a high-level of adherence to HKCC social marketing messages and overall program structure, with few Local Project Manager reports of adaptations to theme one (9.2%) and theme two messages (15.4%). Fewer Local Project Managers (50%) reported the existence of private partnerships. While most respondents agreed they had the appropriate information to complete mandatory reporting, the usefulness of the HKCC online networking platform was in question (only 47% of Local Project Managers agreed that it was useful). Results reveal sufficient funding from the province to support program implementation, with a moderate level of local political commitment (63% of respondents).ConclusionsResults indicate that the HKCC was considered beneficial for enhancing access to health promoting programs, could be feasibly implemented with adherence to centrally-developed social marketing messages, and was amendable to local adaptation. Despite this, few private partnerships were reported. Going forward, there is opportunity to further evaluate factors contributing to HKCC program implementation, particularly as it relates to buy-in from intervention providers, and strategies for forming private sector partnerships to support long-term program sustainability.

Movie collaborative filtering with multiplex implicit feedbacks

Movie recommender systems have been widely used in a variety of online networking platforms to give users reasonable advice from a large number of choices. As a representative method of movie recommendation, collaborative filtering uses explicit and implicit feedbacks to mine users’ preferences. The use of implicit features can help to improve the accuracy of movie collaborative filtering. However, multiplex implicit feedbacks have not been investigated and utilized comprehensively. In this paper, we analyze different kinds of implicit feedbacks in movie recommendation, including user similarities for movie tastes, rated records of each movie and positive attitude of users, and incorporate these feedbacks for collaborative filtering. User relationships are extracted according to user similarities. We propose a recommendation method with multiplex implicit feedbacks (RMIF), which factorizes both the explicit rating matrix and implicit attitude matrix. To demonstrate the effectiveness of our method, we conduct extensive experiments on two real datasets. Experiment results prove that RMIF significantly outperforms state-of-the-art models in terms of accuracy. Among different kinds of implicit feedbacks, positive attitude has the most important role in movie collaborative filtering.

Online business networking experience research on ecommerce entrepreneurs

Abstract In a globalized economy, marketing performance is needed in order to be competitive and also for being successful on the market. Currently entrepreneurs have access to a big variety of tools and also the increase of networking platforms can help ecommerce entrepreneurs to gather a lot of useful information and know-how for improving their businesses. Our main objective is to identify which are the most important needs of ecommerce entrepreneurs in order to communicate with other business owners activating in the ecommerce industry. The secondary objective is to identify what features an online networking platform should have, so it can become an important tool for growing the marketing performance of each member using the networking platform. The research was made using a focus group composed of 15 participants. All participants are business owners who manage at least one online store, selling goods in the local or international market for at least 3 years. The results of the qualitative research made, were that entrepreneurs who are trying to establish a new business partnership, use classical forms of communication, such as email, phone calls, meetings but they believe that online communication would be beneficial for their business because it can be less time consuming and more efficient for finding new business partners or relevant know-how. We discovered that entrepreneurs wish to learn from the practical experience of other business owners to improve the marketing performance through innovation and creativity. The research conducted has identified the key elements of a business networking platform for entrepreneurs. The main elements required include privacy, security, sharing relevant know-how and elements that can create an efficient collaborative environment. We also discovered that local entrepreneurs do not use or know a business networking platform that meets their demands and expectations for sustaining an effective business development.

Comparing Online Social Networks Ties as Tool for Entrepreneurial Learning Readiness in Small Economies

Online social networks such as Facebook and LinkedIn create the opportunity to expand online and face-to-face ties. Diverse online social network composed by weak and strong ties is essential for the young student entrepreneurs. Online networks off diverse learning and online ex-pertize opportunities to the young student entrepreneur. This paper explores the entrepreneurial learning leverage that young students enrolled in higher education system can get from online ties in small economies through comparing Western Balkan region and more precisely a small developing country such as Albania with a small-developed county such as Estonia. The paper explores how online ties support young student readiness to use online networking platforms for online entrepreneurial learning and entrepreneurial opportunity recognition focusing in online ties established in Facebook and LinkedIn. Further online learning strategies are explored through focus group analysis, blog analysis and interviews with young experienced entrepreneurs. Young students use online ties for entrepreneurial knowledge sharing but there a difference between the Facebook tie and the LinkedIn tie. The study concludes with the suggestion of development of entrepreneurial learning orientation strategies and tools that facilitate the online learning process in both online networks focusing in specific online tie that is the group tie.

Online networking and employee engagement: what current leaders do?

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is twofold: to examine the role of online networks in employee engagement and to analyze the factors influencing leaders’ involvement in online social networking.Design/methodology/approach– The study’s participants included team leaders, managers and directors working in Fortune 500 companies in the USA. Data were collected through structured surveys delivered through LinkedIn, professional online networking platform to randomly selected users with leadership roles. Totally, 194 matched questionnaires were returned.Findings– The results indicate that employee engagement is positively associated with the time leaders spend on internal online networking platforms, the code of online networking conduct, and the presence of an open-organizational culture. Furthermore, the study shows that organizations can influence leaders’ use of online social networking platforms through an open culture and training. Finally, the findings also indicate that leaders, who communicate with a higher percentages of employees through internal and external platforms, also spend more time on online social networking platforms than those who do not. Surprisingly, a hierarchical structure and the code of conduct are not an indicator of the number of hours that leaders spend on online networking platforms.Research limitations/implications– The study has three main limitations. First, it was conducted among leaders working in companies from the Fortune 500 list, because the majority of these companies have already implemented internal networking platforms, which are not yet popular in small and medium enterprises (SME). In the future, companies from the SME sector are also worth studying. Second, the study was undertaken among leaders from the USA, because most of the online networking platforms were developed there and then adopted in other countries. Online networking trends in other countries are also very interesting topics for study in future research projects. Third, the quality of the time leaders spend on online platforms should also be examined in future studies.Practical implications– The next generation of leaders should pay increasing attention to online social networking platforms so as to be more effective in fostering employees’ social and emotional well-being. Organizations that seek ways to facilitate involvement among their leaders in internal online networking, need to organize training and support leaders and employees in the use of online networking platforms.Social implications– The use of online social networking platforms change the way people communicate with others and how companies can use online social networking for the social well-being of their employees.Originality/value– This research provides a new look at employee engagement in the current working environment as well as organizational features fostering leaders’ involvement in online networking.

What Job Seekers Really Do on On-Line Networking Platforms?

This study examined the impact of professional on-line social networking (OSN) platforms on the process of getting a job. Based on an international sample of experienced professionals working in different-sized organizations (including Fortune 500 companies) the number of job offers received on a professional OSN platform was not associated with the number of connections on the platform and degree of search activities on LinkedIn. However, it was positively related to the amount of information available about the candidate and visible to recruiters. These findings confirm that on- line networking platforms have a meaningful effect on the likelihood of getting a job by being visible to employers, but have a fairly small effect on the likelihood of finding a job through an active search.

Employee motivation in new working environment

Pawel Korzynski Akademia Leona Koźminskiego, Harvard University (POLAND) p.korzynski@fas.harvard.edu DOI: 10.7813/2075-4124.2013/5-5/B.28 ABSTRACT Social context has always played an important role in employee motivation. Currently, organizations are experiencing technological change in working environment where online networking tools enable to share knowledge, develop ideas, solve problems, and manage a variety of projects. More often than not, individuals use internal and external online networking platforms at work. However, little is known if the new generation of leaders should try to embrace these new methods of communication and in this way engage employees. This paper analyzes how technological, generational and organizational changes impact employee motivation and which component of motivation is crucial in the new workplace. Key words: communication, employee motivation, leadership, online networking, technology, workplace 1. INTRODUCTION In the 20

Facebook Feeding Frenzy: Resistance-through-Distance and Resistance-through-Persistence in the Societied Network

This article presents a case study into the massive online demonstrations that occurred on Facebook (an online networking platform much like MySpace or Bebo) during Autumn/Winter of 2006 as a vibrant and contemporary example of resistance in action in the online domain. The demonstrations were carried out in response to the introduction of Facebook’s ‘News Feed’ and ‘Mini-Feed’ pages which greeted users upon signing in and presented a wealth of information about their friends and their online activities, seemingly without any form of privacy control. The pages even listed details of personal relationships and sexual orientations; both highly contentious issues. The response to this perceived intrusion on users’ privacy was staggering. Groups were set up overnight to pillory the Facebook News Feed, massive petitions that numbered hundreds of thousands were set up across international boundaries, online blogs and message boards became filled with incandescent comments.Eventually, Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook’s founder and himself a former Harvard student) was forced to issue a public apology and then amend the News Feed to allow users the opportunity to edit their privacy settings. No longer would such information be so publicly accessible. No longer would privacy be taken so lightly. The student body used the very means by which they were being surveilled (that is, the cyber-synoptic infrastructure of the Facebook network) to organize an internationally resistant movement to support their right to privacy. This confrontation provides an engrossing example of the World Wide Web being used as a powerful tool to mobilize many bodies against a perceived force of oppression and subjugation. This was a clear demonstration that the politics of surveillance (Haggerty 2006) and the politics of the self matter greatly in present climes; where issues of privacy and the sanctity of the virtual realm are never far from the headlines. As such, it provides an excellent empirical backdrop to a conceptual analysis of resistance-through-distance and resistance-through-persistence (Collinson 1994) in the virtual realm.