Online Spheres Research Articles

Thumbs up, thumbs down? Likes and dislikes as popularity drivers of political YouTube videos

While early ideas surrounding the influence of the Internet on political participation and communication were often overtly optimistic, comparably recent years have seen the rise of online hate speech and similar issues gaining influence in a variety of online spheres. The study presented here seeks to detail the impact of positive (‘thumbs-up’) and negative (‘thumbs-down’) feedback on the popularity of politically themed YouTube videos, uploaded during the 2017 Norwegian parliamentary election. Given the apparent dearth of studies on YouTube in this regard, the insights provided here furthers our understanding regarding the drivers of online popularity during election campaigns. Specifically, results indicate that while commenting on uploaded videos appear as related to the ‘thumbs-up’ variety, video view count appear as more clearly related to the dismissive ‘thumbs-down’ feedback option. Discussing these results, the final section of the paper also provides a few suggestions for future research efforts in this vein.

Examining the performance of brand-extended thematic-content: The divergent impact of avid- and skim-reader groups

Today, the reading online content is a daily habit for many users. In an online environment, users encounter brands, who hope to attract visitors to their online spheres of influence through brand-extended thematic-content. The purpose of this study is to investigate this phenomenon and assess its impact on both the readers of the content and the brands. To do this, we use structural equation modeling to analyze data from two groups, skim readers and avid readers, who vary in terms of the behaviors they invest in the reading of brand-extended thematic-content. The findings reveal that brand-extended thematic-content affects divergently on the brand attitude formation of these two groups. Specifically, this study reveals that, for skim readers on social networking sites, brand-extended thematic-content affects brand attitude primarily through an affect transfer effect, whereas, for avid readers, brand attitude is shaped primarily by brand familiarity following reading frequency.

“Laf wan kill me die” (I almost died laughing): An analysis of Akpos jokes and the readers’ responses

Studies on humour have acknowledged that responses to jokes are important aspects of a joking exchange; however, investigation of joke recipients’ responses has received little attention from humour scholars. Moreover, the linguistic investigations of jokes have been limited to native speakers’ contexts, leaving ESL contexts out. Therefore, this study examines readers’ responses to a genre of jokes in Nigerian online spheres, Akpos jokes, with a view to characterising their forms and functions. Akpos jokes are humorous narratives created around an imaginary character called Akpos. Jokes are randomly collected from a blog and readers’ responses were derived from a Facebook page in which Akpos jokes are published. Using computer paralanguage and language mixing in writing the jokes and the responses, the jokes and the reactions to them mirror the online and the Nigerian ESL contexts in which they are situated. Readers use their responses to indicate affiliation, disaffiliation with the joke, or to introduce something that has nothing to do with the subject of the joke or humour. Readers also use their responses to argue for and/or against the humorousness the jokes.

Anti-Islamic PEGIDA Beyond Germany: Explaining Differences in Mobilisation

ABSTRACTThe rise of anti-Islamic PEGIDA (Patriotische Europäer gegen die Islamisierung des Abendlandes) is one of the latest sustained episodes of radical right mobilisation in Western Europe outside the electoral arena. This study provides a first comparative analysis of PEGIDA beyond Germany and its core region of Saxony. Combining protest event analysis with online data and network analysis, we identify why PEGIDA mustered low-scale support in some countries and failed in others. Focusing on Austria, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland the study reveals the pivotal importance of the organisers’ agency and their relations to other radical right players. Unlike the sui generis case in Dresden, the PEGIDA label has become a rallying point appropriated by pre-established radical right activists using it for their own mobilisation efforts. Furthermore, the analysis reveals the significance of protest policing, in the form of state bans, for the fate of PEGIDA beyond Germany. Finally, it demonstrates the importance of online spheres as channels for dissemination of radical right world-views and the interplay of offline and online mobilisation.

What Drives Political Participation? Motivations and Mobilization in a Digital Age

This article provides insights into the driving forces that underpin new forms of political participation. Digital technologies offer opportunities for engaging in a wide range of civically oriented activities, each of which can contribute to deeper democratic engagement. Conventional acts of political participation are argued to be driven primarily by intrinsic motivations relating to self-efficacy and empowerment, with participants feeling they can have influence over decision makers. Little research explores whether similar motivations drive participation in less conventional acts, as well as whether mobilization attempts via social media by peers or political organizations mediate those motivations. Drawing on data from a survey among a representative sample of the U.K. electorate, we find the offline and online spheres of agency remain fairly distinct. Intrinsic and extrinsic motivations both matter but extrinsic motivations have the strongest explanatory power independent of the sphere of activity. The mediating effect of mobilization tactics has a minimal effect on extrinsic motivations, online or offline, but online intrinsic motivations lose their explanatory power. As intrinsic factors offer little explanatory power, some forms of online political participation may lack meaning to the individual. Rather, these non-conventional acts result from reward seeking and are more likely to be encouraged by nongovernmental campaigning organizations, suggesting social media users are most likely to perform simple acts in support of non-contentious causes.

Social Media and Social Change

AbstractThe growing impact of new media around the world has been the subject of study by scores of scientists in multidisciplinary fields. Satellite TV and the Internet have been viewed as instruments of social and political change — connecting communities, educating the youth, and creating social networks previously unaccounted for, like virtual groups. However, in the Arab World and the Middle East, such technological developments have been hailed as tools for the empowerment of marginalized communities such as women and the youth, also brought new opportunities that have resulted in the breaking of the communication monopoly by those in power and the creation of a new communication environment. Such environment has — as part of its manifestations — the current social transformations that the region is witnessing. Drawing on examples from social media networks used in Tunisia and Egypt, this article analyzes the extent to which new technologies have changed the rules of the game regarding public opinion construction and the communication flow traditionally monopolized by the hegemonic power structures in Arab society. This study not only reveals the decisiveness of platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube in the Arab Spring countries’ revolutions, but also the extent to which their availability served in a complex manner the democratic transition that Tunisia have been undergoing and the political turmoil that Egypt is witnessing. Furthermore this study argues that such online spheres of communication mark the emergence of the virtual yet vibrant space of political campaigning and social empowerment, especially for the youth and marginalized communities.

Online Social Research in Iran: A Need to Offer a Bigger Picture

AbstractGiven the limits of in-country and survey research in closed societies, the World Wide Web - in particular online forums - offers an alternative field for observing and understanding these societies and their development. However, the praise given to the Internet's role in bringing about political change in Arab uprisings and the 2009 elections post protests has resulted in a tendency in the existing literature to focus on very narrow political discussions and behaviors on partisan online forums. Consequently, various areas of interest to Iranian users have been neglected or ignored. The aim of this review is to identify the major online spheres of the Iranian web, the most important online forums in each sphere, the issues being discussed, and the characteristics of the users of each sphere and forum. By doing so it recognizes the theoretical and methodological drawbacks of existing online research on the Iranian Web. This review concludes with some suggestions for further online social research in Iran.

Constructing and Disseminating Subaltern Public Discourses in China

What is the democratic potential of the Internet? Using subaltern public spheres as the theoretical framework, the Internet is expected to empower the subordinated social groups and extend the inclusiveness of democracy. Rear- Window to Movies is a Chinese online discussion group, which focuses on the topic of movies. I used this case to answer my research question: How does the online discussion group function as a subaltern public sphere? My research found that the online discussion group supported the concept of subaltern public spheres instead of a unitary public sphere. The online subaltern public sphere provided a safe discursive space for the subaltern public, who was movie fans from the underdeveloped middle class in China.The subaltern public used online spheres to exchange their opinions and critically debated on issues that they were interested in.They successfully constructed their own discourse, which is different from the market discourse and counteracts the domination of the state discourse. In addition, the impact of these discursive practices was disseminated into the offline world by various methods. On the one hand, RearWindow users took use of social resources including those from the commercial forces to show movies that could not be reached through the official channels. On the other hand, the interaction with mass media also helped making the subaltern discourses more and more audible. However, both methods have their own limitations, which might harm the subaltern public sphere as well.