Social Media Policies Research Articles

A social media strategy for academic libraries

This study was carried out to analyse strategies regarding the use of social media for academic library services in Ghana. The research design was quantitative and adopted the survey approach. Questionnaires served as the main data collection instrument. The study population comprised of one hundred and ten library staff from public and private universities in Ghana. As indicated by the study results, the library staff agreed that there was a need for a well-formulated social media strategy to help academic libraries identify the most appropriate social media tools, establish contact with targeted audience, and increase engagement rates to enable an effective and efficient distribution of its resources and services. The results also indicated that the academic libraries, however, seem to neglect these strategies which could drive patrons' use of such platforms. Recommendations therefore suggest the need to implement social media plans and policies, user engagement, social media update, and dedicated staff with the requisite skills in the use of social media platforms for library services delivery.

Employee Sensitivity to the Risk of Whistleblowing via Social Media: The Role of Social Media Strategy and Policy

Employee Sensitivity to the Risk of Whistleblowing via Social Media: The Role of Social Media Strategy and Policy

From Disruption to Dialog: Days of Judaism on Polish Twitter

While social media platforms afford visibility to marginalized voices and enable dissemination of alternative narratives, their own “power laws” can make few users responsible for most of the attention. New power users can redirect discussion away from those who initiate a conversation. The aim of this study is to examine relations between the network “gatekeepers” and “gatewatchers” following the announcement of the Days of Judaism celebrated by the Polish Episcopate every January. Two methodological approaches were taken over two consecutive years: social network analysis (SNA), and linguistic analysis of social media discourse. The linguistic analysis confirmed importance of classical rhetoric effects on Twitter. The social network analysis revealed that a balanced, personal statement given by users with high network standing outside of the Twittersphere can ignite constructive dialogue in the spirit of the inter-religious exchange that the idea behind Days of Judaism stands for. Our conclusion is that a careful social media policy of the Church, a controlled engagement in the public conversation, possibly by lay sympathizers of high standing in the real public life, have the potential for dispensing with the infamous toxicity of Twitter, and for turning conversation on any topic, even the most controversial, into positive exchange within the community of believers.

Commentary: Does Twitter have a role in improving Family Planning messages and services in Low-and-Middle-Income Countries (LMICs)?

Stakeholders are coming together to develop a vision for increasing access to family planning (FP) by 2030. Of the 923 million women in the developing world who wish to avoid a pregnancy, 218 million women are not using a modern contraceptive (Guttmacher Institute, 2020). In 2016, over 3.4 billion people were using the internet (https://ourworldindata.org/internet 2016). Moreover, internet users in the developing world use social media more frequently than Internet users in the U.S. and Europe. Of the many proposed actions to accelerate progress in family planning, the use of Twitter should be a key component. In this commentary, we describe the use of Twitter in a select group of low-and-middle-income countries that have made commitments to the family planning 2020 initiative (FP2020 countries and have the potential to leverage Twitter with current and potential family planning users. We examine Twitter feeds in eight key FP2020 countries, and we look at the content of Tweets issued by the ministries of health in most of these same countries. Our view is that it is feasible and easy to access Twitter feeds in low-and -middle income countries. We base our view on the types of reproductive health and family planning terms discussed in a public forum such as Twitter by current and potential users and their partners and ministries of health. We highlight two broad considerations that merit discussion among interested stakeholders, including policy makers, program designers, and health advocates. The first relates to the use of Twitter within family planning programs, and the second relates to themes that require more significant research. Data coupled with analytical capacity will help policy makers and program designers to effectively leverage Twitter for expanding the reach of family planning services and influencing social media policy. Our aim is to not only to contribute to the body of knowledge but also to spur greater engagement by program personnel, researchers, health advocates and contraceptive users.

Surfing the Waves of Infodemics: Building a Cohesive Philippine Framework against Misinformation

The sudden exponential increase in information accompanying COVID-19 has presented significant barriers to effective health communication. In a country where 76 million active social media accounts originate, this infodemic due to the pandemic has exposed inadequacies in Philippine information systems. As such, this paper aims to present the infodemic in the Philippine context, analyze existing frameworks countering minsinformation, identify problems, and propose solutions for misinformation. A comprehensive review of existing policies was conducted by inputting keywords in known databases, and analyzing literature, laws, and social media policies in the Philippines. The analysis has showed that (1) the current uncentralized system presents difficulties in mobilizing experts; (2) the older demographic is a neglected population amid high risk for misinformation; (3) individual passivity in searching for legitimate sources puts people at higher risk; (4) current legal frameworks insufficiently characterize and delineate misinformation and disinformation, leading to concerns on implementation and human rights. To address this, evidence recommends (1) creating a centralized government institution, representative of various sectors, to serve as the source of understandable and reliable scientific information; (2) strengthening current legal frameworks, with an emphasis on education, due process, and human rights; (3) ingraining a culture of fact-checking within the Filipino psyche via stakeholder engagement. Clear roles and responsibilities, along with active stakeholder engagement, are needed to build individual resilience against misinformation and strengthen veritable institutions that aid the country in responding to future health crises.

Personal attacks decrease user activity in social networking platforms

We conduct a large scale data-driven analysis of the effects of online personal attacks on social media user activity. First, we perform a thorough overview of the literature on the influence of social media on user behavior, especially on the impact that negative and aggressive behaviors, such as harassment and cyberbullying, have on users' engagement in online media platforms. The majority of previous research were small-scale self-reported studies, which is their limitation. This motivates our data-driven study. We perform a large-scale analysis of messages from Reddit, a discussion website, for a period of two weeks, involving 182,528 posts or comments to posts by 148,317 users. To efficiently collect and analyze the data we apply a high-precision personal attack detection technology. We analyze the obtained data from three perspectives: (i) classical statistical methods, (ii) Bayesian estimation, and (iii) model-theoretic analysis. The three perspectives agree: personal attacks decrease the victims’ activity. The results can be interpreted as an important signal to social media platforms and policy makers that leaving personal attacks unmoderated is quite likely to disengage the users and in effect depopulate the platform. On the other hand, application of cyberviolence detection technology in combination with various mitigation techniques could improve and strengthen the user community. As more of our lives is taking place online, keeping the virtual space inclusive for all users becomes an important problem which online media platforms need to face.

The effect of Instagram conspicuous consumptive behaviour on the intention to purchase luxury goods: A developing country’s perspective

Background: Social media has grown to such a large extent that it has become a primary source of information amongst consumers online. Consequently, South Africa has seen an exponential growth in the use of Instagram.Objective: The study investigates the effect of Instagram conspicuous consumptive behaviour on the intention to purchase luxury goods.Methodology: Data collected from 364 South African respondents through a quantitative survey demonstrated the extent to which Instagram affected conspicuous consumptive buying behaviours. The survey was distributed via social media and the results were analysed using structured equation modelling.Results: The study revealed that although Instagram usage intensity effects conspicuous consumptive behaviour, electronic-word-of-mouth (eWOM) credibility does not. This is because respondents considered Instagram as a platform where users deliberately display the positive aspects of their lives as opposed to its objective state. Furthermore, the study revealed users on Instagram display high levels of conspicuous behaviour that they intend to transform into luxury purchases.Conclusion: Results from the study contribute to luxury marketers and other stakeholders in creating social media strategies and policies whilst providing valuable insight in understanding online conspicuous behaviours.

Let's talk about risks: a pillar framework for social media risk management in memory institutions

PurposeWhile memory institutions' use of social media has proliferated, research and scholarly literature on risks, resulting from social media use, memory institutions' social media risk-aware culture and, in particular, social media risk management remains scant. This study addresses this knowledge gap and identifies aspects of social media risk management from other sectors that could inform the cultural heritage sector.Design/methodology/approachThis research involves a review of the scholarly and professional literature that contribute to social media risk management discourses. These include those that discuss the different categories of social media risks, social media policies, risk-aware culture and social media risk management strategies and processes. Works discussing social media risk management models and frameworks are also included in the review. Based on the insights gained from these reviews, a pillar framework to guide social media risk management in memory institutions is developed.FindingsThe proposed framework outlines the baseline components relevant for the cultural heritage sector and underlines the evolving and continual nature of these components. Elements particularly important to memory institutions are highlighted. Notably, that social risks as a risk category must be recognised. Also noted is that the conventional apolitical stance still taken by many memory institutions need to be reviewed. The importance of memory institutions to be not overly risk-averse to the point of failing to take advantage of the affordances of social media platforms, thereby stifling potential innovations around services and engagement with their users/audience is discussed.Originality/valueThis research offers an extensive review of the social media risk management literature, both scholarly and professional across different domains. The ensuing insights inform the development of a pillar framework to guide social media risk management in memory institutions. The framework outlines a baseline mapping of the governance, processes and systems components. The expectation is that this framework could be extended to account for contextual and situational requirements at more granular levels to reflect the nuances, variances and complexities that exist among different types of memory institutions and to account for varying attributes, mandates and priorities in the cultural heritage sector.

National memory institutions' social media policies and risk management: a content analysis

PurposeAmong the current discourses around social media risk management (SMRM) is whether institutions perceive social media (SM) as more of an opportunity to be embraced and regulated, or a risk to be avoided or mitigated, how this is reflected in their policies and how institutional stance reflects their regulation and management of SM use and practices. There is currently no scholarly literature that addresses these for the memory sector where SM use has proliferated. This research aims to address this gap by putting a focus on national memory institutions (MIs), whose strategies and operations are often governed by a public/civic mandate.Design/methodology/approachThis research involves a comprehensive literature review and a content analysis. The review includes studies that have analysed institutional SM policies in other sectors. The review informs our content analysis both in terms of approaches and in terms of identifying areas for comparisons. Following an initial scoping review and a close inspection, a sample of eight policies of national MIs were included in the content analysis.FindingsThe content analysis led to the identification of 8 core themes and 36 sub-themes. The main themes are concerned with account management, audience management, rules for use, protecting institutional interests, legal considerations, the purpose of the policy, nature of postings and referencing information. Also emerged from the findings are a few gaps that we expect will provide a platform for further discourses with regard to the potentially complex role SM policies have in MIs and the broader cultural heritage sector in relation to their public/civic mandates.Originality/valueThis is the first close SM policy analysis for the memory sector focusing on national MIs. This research contributes insights into how national-level MIs tend to frame the opportunities and the risk of SM use, the ways in which they govern SM usage and their different approaches to SMRM. The findings have implications for SM policy development and implementations, and further iterations of SM policies in the memory sector.Peer reviewThe peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/OIR-09-2020-0421

Interventions to Optimise Mental Health Outcomes During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Scoping Review

Adverse mental health has been a major consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic. This review examines interventions to enhance mental health outcomes and well-being of populations during COVID-19. Four electronic databases (MEDLINE, PsycINFO, Embase, and CINAHL) were searched following Arskey and O’Malley’s six-staged scoping review process. Twenty studies were included in the review. Various study populations were included to ensure greater generalisability of results. Interventions informing treatment of mental health concerns during COVID-19 were included and classified into (a) prevention of poor mental health, (b) therapeutic interventions, and (c) other interventions. Preventative strategies (n = 16) included public health education, modified social media use, technology-based interventions, physical activity, policy adaptations, and therapeutic interventions. Treatment strategies (n = 7) included adapting existing treatment and the creation new treatment programmes and platforms. While current evidence is promising, future research should focus on novel effective interventions to address mental health issues during the pandemic.

The Bright Side of Social Media: Social Media Platforms Adoption and Start-Up Sustainability.

This study aims to explicate the contribution of social media platforms adoption on start-up sustainability. Since most economies of the world start-up failure rate are relatively high, there is always a desire or a need to investigate the success recipe. As a result, the primary objective of this study is to understand the social media environment and how start-ups can best utilize social media platforms throughout their life cycle. Based on the qualitative case study approach, five in-depth interviews of social media marketers and individuals working in start-ups were conducted. The finding demonstrates that social media is a crucial virtual platform for striving resource start-ups. Therefore, if a platform gets utilized correctly, it can play an essential role in the sustainable progression of a start-up. Thus, there is a need for start-ups to articulate a comprehensive social media policy for each life cycle stage.

Archival Communication in the Age of Social Media. The Italian Case and the Main Strategies in the International Context

The widespread use of social media in people ’ s everyday life has set the basis for big changes in the relationships between individuals, public and private bodies on a global scale. With public administrations willing to adjust their identities to new tools for communication, archival organizations approached to social networks to connect with new users and enhance their heritage. This paper aims to define methods, specificities and limits of the Italian archival institutions ’ social media policies, opening up to a first comparison with other national strategies, especially with the French one. A special focus has been put on the role of social networks in March and April 2020, when Italian archives faced a two-month lockdown following the health emergency caused by the spread of COVID-19: moved away from the ordinary work, archivists and archival institutes were encouraged to start alternative forms of communication with their users, including a more effective social campaign.

Social Media and Medical Education in the Context of the COVID-19 Pandemic: Scoping Review.

BackgroundThe COVID-19 pandemic has brought virtual web-based learning to the forefront of medical education as training programs adapt to physical distancing challenges while maintaining the rigorous standards of medical training. Social media has unique and partially untapped potential to supplement formal medical education.ObjectiveThe aim of this review is to provide a summary of the incentives, applications, challenges, and pitfalls of social media–based medical education for both trainees and educators.MethodsWe performed a literature review via PubMed of medical research involving social media platforms, including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, WhatsApp, and podcasts. Papers were reviewed for inclusion based on the integrity and power of the study.ResultsThe unique characteristics of social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, WhatsApp, and podcasts endow them with unique communication capabilities that serve different educational purposes in both formal and informal education settings. However, contemporary medical education curricula lack widespread guidance on meaningful use, application, and deployment of social media in medical education.ConclusionsClinicians and institutions must evolve to embrace the use of social media platforms for medical education. Health care professionals can approach social media engagement in the same ethical manner that they would with patients in person; however, health care institutions ultimately must enable their health care professionals to achieve this by enacting realistic social media policies. Institutions should appoint clinicians with strong social media experience to leadership roles to spearhead these generational and cultural changes. Further studies are needed to better understand how health care professionals can most effectively use social media platforms as educational tools. Ultimately, social media is here to stay, influencing lay public knowledge and trainee knowledge. Clinicians and institutions must embrace this complementary modality of trainee education and champion social media as a novel distribution platform that can also help propagate truth in a time of misinformation, such as the COVID-19 pandemic.

Sticks and Stones May Break Bones, But Words Can Get You Fired: An Inequitable Distinction and The Need for Updated Constitutional Interpretation

Although the ways that citizens communicate and exercise their freedom of speech have changed, constitutional interpretations surrounding that communication and speech remain the same. In 1883, in the decision of the Civil Rights Cases: United States v. Stanley, the Supreme Court held that the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause restrains government actors only. So, if a citizen who expresses an unpopular opinion on social media is a private employee, as opposed to a government (public) employee, the private employee can be terminated with virtually no redress. Cases involving public employers and employees dominant Supreme Court rulings, while cases involving private employers and employees go unnoticed. Although the latter types of cases may be found, they do not reach the level of being binding on all because the interpretation of the Constitution and legislation does not allow it. This Article examines case law, the history of the interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment, and the reasoning of the Court when ruling on cases that have solidified the distinction between public and private employees’ free speech. The author examines laws, legislation, and social media policies that also allow for this distinction. The author concludes that, despite the historical interpretation, as communication media change, so should the laws that surround them to allow private employees the same protection and redress as public employees.

The impact of social media marketing strategies on promoting sustainability of tourism with fuzzy cognitive mapping: a case of Kalanggaman Island (Philippines)

The current literature has espoused the role of social media platforms in promoting tourism destinations. Despite such advances, limited works are reported on how social media foster the sustainability of tourist destinations. This work builds upon the argument that sustainable tourism (ST) agenda and initiatives can be integrated alongside the traditional competitive mission of social media marketing as a communications strategy of tourism stakeholders. With such an argument and the scarce literature on the topic, this paper analyzes the impact of social media strategies on marketing indicators contextualized within ST. In addressing this objective, a fuzzy cognitive mapping technique is adopted to examine the changes in marketing performance indicators given an initial set of activation values of social media marketing strategies. A case study in Kalanggaman Island (Philippines), an emerging tourist destination, is carried out to demonstrate the evaluation process. Three policy scenarios with interrelated social media marketing strategies are examined: minimal effort, moving visuals, and collaborative strategies. The minimal effort scenario increases counting metrics, comments, and Web traffic, while the moving visuals scenario yields increases in reach, counting metrics, comments, and Web traffic. Finally, the collaborative strategies scenario enhances indicators on awareness, the share of voice, counting metrics, comments, and lead. The findings generated from the proposed framework provide policy- and decision-makers a platform for analyzing possible social media policies in disseminating the ST agenda.

#IamMetiria: A qualitative case study of agonistic welfare policy debates on Twitter

#IAmMetiria began on Twitter in July 2017, after a speech by New Zealand Green Party co-leader, Metiria Turei, challenging political consensus on welfare policy. Turei confessed she lied to authorities in the 1990s, prompting a flood of supportive posts. Soon after, right-wing oppositional tweets were posted ( n = 288) contesting the arguments of Turei and her supporters, and left-wing responses to those arguments ( n = 214). Drawing on Mouffe’s dissensual model, this article undertakes a close, qualitative analysis of those 502 tweets, in order to move towards a method for empirically distinguishing between antagonistic and agonistic tweets, identifying the latter as putting forward arguments which can be identified by the researcher and potentially engaged with by ideologically opposed adversaries. The results show a majority of the tweets were agonistic, with implications for the future study of social media policy debates and for the online practices of scholars.

Internal and external antecedents of open innovation adoption in IT organisations: insights from an emerging market

PurposeThis study aims to propose and test a theoretical model exploring the impact of internal and external factors of social media use by IT organisations on open innovation (OI) adoption with the mediating effect of knowledge management capabilities.Design/methodology/approachData were collected from 200 IT firms and partial least squares structural equation modelling was used to analyse the data of this study and to test the research hypotheses.FindingsThe results revealed that both customer involvement in social media and top management support (TMS) for social media had a significant impact on OI adoption. However, only the relationship between TMS for social media usage and OI link was mediated by knowledge management capability.Practical implicationsThis study stresses the importance of social media policy development for business managers to create an interactive platform for their customers to participate in the activities of the firm. Moreover, the results suggest that for developing open knowledge management capabilities, leaders must focus on and support the use of social media technologies by the firms.Originality/valueSocial media technologies have taken the world by storm. Organisations and individuals are influenced by the knowledge available on Web 2.0 platforms. Most of the current research has focussed on the impact of social media use on OI in developed countries, but developing nations on the Asian continent have been left out of this discussion. Moreover, while most studies have focussed on the OI outcomes, less efforts have been directed towards understanding and exploring the OI antecedents.

Stop Fighting The Unknown! Managing Fake NewsThough Media Literacy

The quandary of fake news continues to scare governments, media, journalists, nongovernmental organizations and audiences across the world. Various institutions and individuals have developed mechanisms to spot and counteract fake news that range from anti-fake news laws, social media policies, facts checking applications and reverse search technologies. However, fake news remains an enigma to the world of communication and information management [1]. One management strategy that has been overlooked over the years is media and information literacy as proposed by Grunwald Declaration on Media Education in 1982 by 19 nations during the UNESCO’s International Symposium on Media Education. This theoretical review paper focuses on the role of media literacy in managing fake news [2]. Since most of the fake news spotting and counteracting practices have focused on the place of journalists, media houses, governments and social media owners without definitive success, this study focuses on empowerment of the consumer of fake news though media literacy [3]. The review concludes that, if audiences of fake news are empowered through media literacy, then they can source, process, consume and archive information only after verification. This study recommends a paradigm shift from focusing all the attention on spotting and counteracting fake news from media, journalists, legal systems and social media owners to empowerment of news consumers though media literacy [4].

Regulatory Warnings and Endorsement Disclosures on Social Media

Social media platforms such as Instagram have become an important channel for influencer marketing. Regulatory bodies such as FTC(U.S.) and ASA(U.K.) require influencers on these platforms to clearly declare an advertised social media post as an ad using hashtags such as #ad, #sponsored. However, many a times influencers fail to disclose the endorsements. In light of these malpractices, FTC sent notices to 90 influencers in March 2017. In this paper, I estimate the impact of such disclosure notices on a) disclosure levels b) follower engagement. I create a novel dataset which consists of nearly 150,000 posts across 60 influencers. I use difference-in-difference method to find out that after the notice was sent out disclosure increases. I find that follower engagement (likes and comments) for the influencers which received warnings from the FTC got reduced substantially. Interestingly, I find substantial spillover effects of these notices on influencers which are in FTC jurisdiction but didn’t received the notice. Specifically, disclosure percent of these influencers increased and engagement rate reduced, however, as expected these influencers are relatively less impacted by these notices as compared to the influencers which did receive the FTC notice. I find these results consistent across different categories of influencers. This research is relevant for both social media influencers and policy makers, in that, influencers should preemptively disclose because if the regulator sends out notice, then customers may punish the influencer through less engagement. For policymakers, notices turn out to be a substantive policing instrument, in that, it not only effects the influencers who get the notice but also the influencers who are within the jurisdiction but didn’t get the notice.

Online Shopping Behavior during COVID-19 Pandemic: An Indian Perspective

This study was focused to inspect the main components to determine the behavior of customer towards online shopping from various ecommerce company during COVID-19 pandemics. The study explores about the rapid use of internet, mobile, etc.in lockdown that imposed in the country. Online shopping is now a days considered to be the most convenient way of shopping to get away free from the spreading virus and keep ourselves in safe and secure environment. The study involves quantitative research in the form of linear regression to evaluate the effects online shopping attributes on customer purchase behavior. The findings indicated that the main components like Social Media, Product Quality, Return and Exchange Policy, Product Descriptions and Seller Information significantly influence the customer purchase intention during the lockdown due to COVID-19 pandemic. Some suggestions were also made to study further and predict the customer online buying preferences or behaviors in future post pandemic.