Social Media Research Research Articles

Analysis of social metrics on scientific production in the field of emotion-aware education through artificial intelligence.

Research in the field of Artificial Intelligence applied to emotions in the educational context has experienced significant growth in recent years. However, despite the field's profound implications for the educational community, the social impact of this scientific production on digital social media remains unclear. To address this question, the present research has been proposed, aiming to analyze the social impact of scientific production on the use of Artificial Intelligence for emotions in the educational context. For this purpose, a sample of 243 scientific publications indexed in Scopus and Web of Science has been selected, from which a second sample of 6,094 social impact records has been extracted from Altmetric, Crossref, and PlumX databases. A dual analysis has been conducted using specially designed software: on one hand, the scientific sample has been analyzed from a bibliometric perspective, and on the other hand, the social impact records have been studied. Comparative analysis based on the two dimensions, scientific and social, has focused on the evolution of scientific production with its corresponding social impact, sources, impact, and content analysis. The results indicate that scientific publications have had a high social impact (with an average of 25.08 social impact records per publication), with a significant increase in research interest starting from 2019, likely driven by the emotional implications of measures taken to curb the COVID-19 pandemic. Furthermore, a lack of alignment has been identified between articles with the highest scientific impact and those with the highest social impact, as well as a lack of alignment in the most commonly used terms from both scientific and social perspectives, a significant variability in the lag in months for scientific research to make an impact on social media, and the fact that the social impact of the research did not emerge from the interest of Twitter users unaffiliated with the research, but rather from the authors, publishers, or scientific institutions. The proposed comparative methodology can be applied to any field of study, making it a useful tool given that current trends in accreditation agencies propose the analysis of the repercussion of scientific research in social media.

Role of “Likes” and “Dislikes” in Influencing User Behaviors on Social Media

ABSTRACT Two recent changes on social media platforms include (1) allowing users to mask the number of “likes” on others’ posts, aimed at reducing social comparisons and consequent technology-mediated dangerous behaviors (TMDBs), such as disclosing private information, and (2) adding a “dislike” reaction, aimed at increasing engagement. Nevertheless, the effects of these changes on user behaviors are unclear. In this paper, we seek to address this gap by integrating risk-sensitivity theory (RST) and prospect theory. First, we explain that while masking others’ “likes” may reduce social comparison, based on the “homeostatic violation” concept, people also make internal comparisons to expectations. Undesirable deviations from users’ expectations of “likes” and “dislikes” (e.g., too few “likes” or too many “dislikes”) can motivate TMDBs that users believe can alleviate the undesirable deviations. Thus, we argue that, in addition to social comparison mechanisms, there is an internal comparison mechanism that can motivate TMDBs. We test these claims via five randomized controlled experiments (total n = 1,594). Results show that, beyond social comparison mechanisms, receiving too few “likes” or too many “dislikes,” compared to internal expectations, can motivate TMDBs. Moreover, we found that losses loom larger than gains as users are more likely to engage in TMDBs to avoid excess “dislikes” than to avoid deprivation of “likes.” These findings make novel contributions to social media research and practice by pointing to an internal comparison mechanism as a potent motivator of TMDBs beyond social comparison processes and to the higher “toxicity” of “dislikes” than “likes” in terms of inciting TMDBs on social media.

Contemporary quantitative and qualitative public relations research methods in Arab scholarly studies: A meta-research

Communication scholars in the Arab countries have started to address new fields of scholarly literature in the public relations discipline over the last decade. The crucial change induced by the Arab Spring in many Arab countries has propelled public relations scholars to investigate the type of changes that affect scholarly research methods in the genre of communication at large, and public relations in particular. In the current study, the meta-analysis method was utilised to examine a total of 61 scholarly work (2012 to 2022), from seven Arab countries (Egypt, Iraq, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, Yemen, Jordan and Sudan). The sample included 23 master’s theses and 38 PhD dissertations. The criteria for evaluation mainly addressed methods, interdisciplinary approaches, topics and contextual variables. The results reveal that first, the majority of the sample studies depended on quantitative methods. Second, interdisciplinary approaches were evident and included fields of marketing, political communication and social media research. Third, the topics studied in the seven Arab countries varied, as explained in detail in the paper. Fourth, the contextual variables included socio-political and cultural variables. Lastly, future research is needed to investigate the new impacts of social media on research methods in the field of public relations.

Voices in the digital storm: Unraveling online polarization with ChatGPT

ChatGPT, an esteemed natural language processing model, has demonstrated remarkable capabilities in intelligent text generation, interactive conversation, and myriad additional tasks. The utilization of ChatGPT has generated a wide debate among users with different attitudes on social media platforms, culminating in the phenomenon of polarization. Based on confirmation bias theory, this paper presented a theoretical framework that elucidates the process of online polarization. Subsequently, we develop the sentiment classification (BERTSentiment) and topic identification (BERTopic) model leveraging the pre-trained BERT (Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers) model. To empirically investigate the public sentiment regarding ChatGPT, an in-depth study was conducted on the X platform. The results indicate that although a small portion of users (approximately 10%) express negative sentiments regarding ChatGPT's ethical considerations, functionality, and accuracy, the majority of users exhibit either positive or neutral views. Among the public concerns, AI and bot functions, response quality, instant messaging, enterprise applications, and technological aspects emerge as the most prominent topics. This study sheds light on public perceptions regarding the progress and integration of emerging technologies. Moreover, it introduces a fresh data mining perspective that enhances our understanding of polarization in the context of social media research.

A systematic review of social media research in Ghana: gaps and future research avenues

ABSTRACT The emergence of internet-based communities, popularly known as social media, has transformed communication drastically. Due to its importance, scholars have written on the subject within the Ghanaian context. However, the literature remains fragmented without knowledge of its current state, gaps, and opportunities for future research. To address this, we synthesised 29 peer-reviewed articles in academic databases from 2013 to 2023. Through a systematic literature review, we observed that social media research in Ghana had been underpinned by the quantitative approach at the expense of the others. Likewise, the most explored theme is Social Media and Politics, whereas the least is Health Communication and Social Media. Based on the gaps identified, we made recommendations for future research.

Understanding scholar-trajectories across scientific periodicals

Despite the rapid growth in the number of scientific publications, our understanding of author publication trajectories remains limited. Here we propose an embedding-based framework for tracking author trajectories in a geometric space that leverages the information encoded in the publication sequences, namely the list of the consecutive publication venues for each scholar. Using the publication histories of approximately 30,000 social media researchers, we obtain a knowledge space that broadly captures essential information about periodicals as well as complex (inter-)disciplinary structures of science. Based on this space, we study academic success through the prism of movement across scientific periodicals. We use a measure from human mobility, the radius of gyration, to characterize individual scholars' trajectories. Results show that author mobility across periodicals negatively correlates with citations, suggesting that successful scholars tend to publish in a relatively proximal range of periodicals. Overall, our framework discovers intricate structures in large-scale sequential data and provides new ways to explore mobility and trajectory patterns.

Machine Learning in Sport Social Media Research: Practical Uses and Opportunities

In tandem with the burgeoning popularity of social media research in the field of sport communication and marketing, we are witnessing a concomitant rise in its epistemological sophistication. Despite this growth, the field has given less attention to methodological issues and implications. In light of the development of machine learning, the overarching goal of the current research was to answer the call for innovative methodological approaches to advance knowledge in the area of social media research. Specifically, we (a) assess the current state of sport social media research from a methodological perspective, with a particular focus on machine learning; (b) present an empirical illustration to demonstrate how sport scholars can benefit from the advancement in natural language processing and the derivative topic modeling techniques; (c) discuss how machine learning could enhance the rigor of social media research and improve theory development; and (d) offer potential opportunities and directions for the future sport social media research that utilizes machine learning.

Social Media and Sport Research: Empirical Examinations Showcasing Diversity in Methods and Topics

This commentary introduces the second of two special issues in the International Journal of Sport Communication centered on social media and sport. The empirical studies presented in this issue illustrate both the diversity of topics and methodological approaches utilized by researchers working at the intersection of social media and sport. Research articles in this issue analyze topics ranging from sport consumer behavior to online fan communities to coaches’ perceptions of activism-related content posted on team social media accounts. The research presented here also employs a variety of methodological approaches including experimental design, critical discourse analysis, rhetorical analysis, and applications of artificial intelligence and machine learning. Collectively, these studies offer a foundation on which future research in social media and sport can build to continue to enhance our understanding of social media’s impact on the sport world.

Cognition, Stigma, and Inclusivity Roundtable

For this Roundtable, we asked several leading scholars working on issues of social justice and cognition in film and media studies for a brief response to the prompt: “Explain one current theory, approach, or research finding that you think is particularly important in addressing stigma and inclusivity in screen media.” Participants drew from their own current work and insights, and they pointed to new strands of inquiry that they found exciting. Their responses represent a range of interests across diverse specialisms, and comprise an interdisciplinary showcase for the state of current research in social justice, cognition, and media, including ideas on how the fields could grow from here.

Language and Persuasion: An Exploratory Analysis of Rhetorical Elements in Celebrities’ Social Media Posts

This paper adapted the framework of rhetorical devices developed by Michalik-Suchanek to examine the language used in social media posts of Ghanaian celebrities, focusing specifically on the use of rhetorical elements. Instagram and Twitter were chosen as the primary platforms for analysis due to their popularity among Ghanaians. The dataset consisted of posts from 15 Ghanaian celebrities, sourced from either one or both platforms. The study adopted the embedded mixed-methods approach. A total of 130 celebrity posts from Instagram and 70 from Twitter, all from April 2022, were collected using mobile phones and laptops through an observational guide. Through a critical analysis of the sampled data, 22 rhetorical devices were identified, with syntactic devices being the most commonly used. The study revealed that most Ghanaian celebrities prefer to use Standard English in their posts. It was also revealed that these rhetorical devices were employed by celebrities to establish unique relationships with their followers, persuade them to take action, express intentions, caption videos and pictures, and enhance the overall meaning of their posts. The research showed that the use of rhetorical devices was effective in enriching the language of the posts. Based on these findings, it was recommended that further studies be conducted to explore the use of rhetorical elements in social media posts of politicians, businesspeople, entertainers, and other public figures in Ghana. Such studies would contribute to a deeper understanding of how rhetorical strategies are employed in the digital communication landscape. This study contributes to existing knowledge on social media research conducted in Ghana. Keywords: Rhetorical Elements, Language, Persuasion, Celebrities, Social Media, Ghana

The rise of virtual yarning: An Indigenist research method

Social media is of growing interest as a platform for post-COVID research, providing ungated platforms for minority groups and activists that may struggle to have their messages and voices heard in other media. In First Nations communities around Australia there is a higher-than-average uptake of social media platforms, particularly Facebook. Based on a qualitative research project with a First Nations group in Southeast Queensland targeting knowledges, experiences and perspectives to decolonise disability and caring knowledges this case study explores the use of social media, specifically Facebook, as a platform for virtual yarning focusing on the experiences of First Nations peoples with disability. The study acknowledges the limitations and challenges associated with social media platforms, such as the potential for over-sharing, privacy concerns and the risk of bullying. It emphasises the need for researchers, especially those considered outsiders, to carefully consider the ethical implications and potential exposure to lateral violence. The research highlights the advantages of virtual yarning on Facebook, including increased access to culture and belonging, reduced participant burden and cost-effectiveness. It recognises the value of multimedia platforms in promoting culturally appropriate and accessible communication, particularly for communities with diverse literacy levels. However, the study acknowledges the trade-off between breadth and depth of data quality inherent in social media research and recommends virtual yarning as a supplementary method alongside focus groups and yarning interviews or as a platform to recruit participants for research. Ethical considerations are crucial in this context, particularly regarding privacy, data sovereignty and intellectual property.

Brands as drivers of social media fatigue and its effects on users’ disengagement: the perspective of young consumers

PurposeSocial media has become an inescapable part of our lives. However, recent research suggests that excessive use of social media may lead to fatigue and users’ disengagement. This study aims to examine which brand-related factors contribute to social media fatigue (SMF) and its subsequent role on driving lurking behaviors, particularly among young consumers.Design/methodology/approachBased on survey data from 282 young users of social media, a holistic model of brand-related drivers and outcomes of SMF was tested, emphasizing the contribution of brands’ social media presence to users’ disengagement.FindingsResearch shows that branded content overload and irrelevance, as well as branded ads intrusiveness significantly impact SMF, which in turn plays a mediating role between brand-related drivers and lurking behaviors. The authors further conclude that the impact of SMF on lurking is stronger for users who follow a larger set of brands.Originality/valueThe study contributes to social media research by addressing its “dark side” and empirically validating the role of brands’ social media presence in developing young users’ fatigue and disengagement. The study further adds to the scant literature on SMF, which was mostly developed outside the branding field. Research also provides valuable insights to brands on how to improve their social media performance.

Exploring the Evidence-Based Practice Process with Social Work Practitioners

ABSTRACT Purpose This study investigates social work practitioners’ feasibility, attitudes, and familiarity with the Evidence Based Practice (EBP) process in their work and their ability to access and integrate research into their practice. Materials and Methods Social work practitioners (N = 256) were recruited through Reddit and Facebook and completed an online survey. Participants completed demographic questions (e.g. time in practice, degree type, practice role), research-seeking behaviors, and completed three subscales of the Rubin & Parish Evidence-Based Practice Process Assessment Scale. Results The three EBP process subscales assessed participants’ familiarity, attitudes, and perceived feasibility of the EBP process. The familiarity subscale could range from zero to 40, and the mean in this sample was 26.75 (SD = 5.55). The attitudes subscale could range from 0 to 56, and the mean in this sample was 37.03 (SD = 5.49). Finally, the feasibility subscale could range from zero to 20, and the mean in this sample was 12.18 (SD = 2.81). A linear regression was run to predict familiarity, feasibility, and attitudes toward the EBP process. Those who reported seeking out research more often found the process more familiar and feasible. Those who were in practice longer found the EBP process less familiar and had more negative attitudes. Discussion Strategies to address research familiarity, feasibility, and attitudes toward the EBP process include continuing experiential learning in education, accessing research in social media, and the use of continuing education. Conclusion Continuing to address the research-practice gaps is an essential step toward delivering EBP to clients.

Action Research in Social Media Marketing to Improve Firm Performance: Conceptual Paper

Action Research in Social Media Marketing to Improve Firm Performance: Conceptual Paper

Advances in Social Media Research to Reduce Tobacco Use.

Advances in Social Media Research to Reduce Tobacco Use.

Social media research: We are publishing more but with weak influence.

The purpose of this paper is to address the chasm between academic research on social media as an expanding academic discipline and at the same time a growing marketing function. A bibliometric analysis indicated the evolution of academic research on social media. The results of a survey of 280 social media practitioners shed the light on the gap between academic social media research and the practice of professionals. A qualitative study also offered novel insights and recommendations for future developments in academic research on social media. The findings of this paper showed that academic research on social media is growing in terms of the number of publications but is struggling in three areas: visibility, relevance, and influence on practitioners. This study contributes to the body of knowledge on social media. The implications of our study are derived from the importance of our findings on the directions to publish more relevant and timely academic research on social media. While extensive studies exist on social media, their influence on practitioners is still limited.

Transitioning (on the) Internet: Shifting Challenges and Contradictions of Ethics of Studying Online Gender Transition Narratives

The use of social media in qualitative research has become extremely popular. YouTube, in particular, has attracted attention from scholars working on (self-)representation of minority groups, including the transgender community (e.g., Dame 2013; Horak 2014). Most academic disciplines, however, have been slow in responding to the increasingly challenging nature of social media in terms of their ethics and methodologies. For example, there is a common misconception that any publicly available YouTube videos can be freely used for research. Many studies openly reference the YouTube channels they discuss (Wotanis and McMillan 2014) or anonymize data, but do not seek informed consent from creators (Raun 2020). What is more, researchers rarely reflect on how their work could impact the communities under study or the way creators use social media (Leonelli et al. 2021). At the same time, researchers wishing to protect vulnerable communities may find themselves falling short of FAIR (findable, accessible, interoperable, and re-usable) research principles required by funders. In this contribution, I discuss these and other challenges using, as a case study, my project, which investigates gender transition narratives on Polish social media. I wish to show that there is no one-fits-all approach to the ethics of social media studies—as the very nature of social media is in constant flux—and call for attentiveness and reflexivity as an inextricable component of qualitative social media research methodology.

Drawing hearts in the air within new African diaspora spaces: selling Nollywood and consuming nostalgia in London

ABSTRACT Nigerian video films circulate transnationally across various African diaspora communities, including London, England. This article explores conversations concerning the experience of both real and faux nostalgia regarding Blackness and the African diaspora as expressed through Nollywood cinema in London. Within these diaspora communities, Nigerian venders sell Nollywood DVDs as physical commodities from their homeland, triggering sensations of nostalgia and transporting audiences to experience pleasurable and painful emotions. By consuming these cultural products, Nollywood audiences may yearn for an actual African home or experience longing for a village life they have never truly experienced (Krings and Okome 2013, pp. 5–6). Nollywood DVDs serve as modern cultural artefacts containing a ‘record’, both literally and figuratively, transmitting a ‘‘communication’ of black nostalgia’ (Edwards 2009, p. 145) to consumers by providing imaginative sensory spatial representations of Nigeria and Africa. This article explores research from the liminal temporal space of 2013 London, where Nigerian consumption patterns shifted from a thriving market of Nollywood video-film consumers renting or purchasing DVDs – in ‘brick and mortar’ shops – to streaming these cultural commodities online. Viewer responses reveal the importance of physical and online movie distribution platforms as pan-African content providers, connecting virtual homeland spaces of nostalgia to the African diaspora. Thus, from the comfort of their homes, audiences conveniently accessed Black African representations of Nigeria. This investigation captures transnational socio-cultural exchanges in survey research, through questionnaires, and online social media research. Black venders and consumers reveal their experiences with Nollywood as a means to sustain nostalgic homeland bonds, cultural norms, customs, language, religion, and tradition (Krings and Okome, pp. 5–6). The findings elucidate the psychological importance of maintaining homeland connections through buying, selling, and consuming Nollywood experientially. Therefore, a social mechanism of nostalgia allows consumers and venders to retain and sustain Black African cultural identity abroad.

Strategies and challenges for constructing and collecting visual corpora from image-based social media platforms

Visual elements play an important role within the multimodal nature of social media (Pearce et al., 2020). A growing body of research has focused on the analysis of still and moving images from different social media platforms from various perspectives of communication and media studies (Hautea, Parks, Takahashi, & Zeng, 2021; Li & Xie, 2020; Veum & Undrum, 2018). Although the aforementioned studies describe visual data collection, their principal focus does not rely on this collection, but on data analysis. Little attention has been paid to the challenges of collecting visual datasets (Highfield & Leaver, 2016). In this paper, I propose a methodological overview of several strategies for collecting large corpora of visual data from image-based social media platforms. Provided with exemplary publications, I review five strategies for collecting visual corpora: hashtag-based, account-based, metadata-based, random sampling, and mixed approach. Lastly, I present a case study with my own mixed approach to the collection of visual data from Instagram. Considering the usage, advantages and limitations of each strategy, the article will contribute to the developing science of social media research. I believe that a literature analysis of visual data collection strategies and a provided case study can help researchers optimize visual data collection from image-based social media.

Ethical Considerations at the Intersection of Social Media and Dementia Prevention Research.

Ethical social media use underpins effective online engagement for dementia prevention research. Existing social media guidelines are broad and lack empirical justification reflecting the values and priorities of the dementia community and the challenges specific to prevention research. By engaging professional and community experts, we sought to identify the ethical issues, motivators, and barriers pertaining to social media engagement for dementia prevention research. Semi-structured, qualitative interviews conducted online. We recruited participants using a combination of accessible online databases, advertisements/posters through organizational newsletters and websites, social media, registries, and from our network of colleagues. Professional experts working in dementia research (n=15; e.g., researchers, coordinators) and experts with lived experience (n=14). Experts were from Canada, the USA, the UK, and Chile. Discussions were analyzed using thematic qualitative analysis methods. Professional experts revealed a dearth of social media guidelines for prevention research, relying on informal sources to supplement ethics board approval. They sought methods of strategic communication for public dialogue (e.g., misinformation, criticism). Experts by experience appreciated the educational benefits of social media but raised risks such as diminished online privacy, dementia-related stigma, being targeted for predatory practices, and misinformation. Various digital inequities (e.g., age, socioeconomic status) dampen social media's reach to diverse publics. Participants acknowledged that younger aging populations have more digital fluency and may benefit more from social media research engagement. Research professionals and community members identified ethical and contextual factors surrounding the use of social media for dementia prevention, and a need for more guidance. The next project phase will use these data to inform the co-creation of ethical guidelines for brain health research.