Social Technologies Research Articles

Reconceptualizing socio-tech entrepreneurship: A systematic literature review and research agenda

Socio-Tech Entrepreneurship is a growing observable phenomenon, often referred to as tech4good, and highly valued in society due to the major benefits it provides in meeting the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals. However, academic research specifically dedicated to socio-tech entrepreneurial ventures is still incipient. To address this research gap, the paper develops a systematic literature review of 238 peer-reviewed studies on social, technology and socio-tech entrepreneurship published from 1988 to 31 December 2023. Through descriptive and content analysis methods, the paper develops the first framework conceptualizing Socio-Tech Entrepreneurship as an autonomous topic within the entrepreneurship research domain. Drawing on the literature, the conceptual framework shows that Socio-Tech Entrepreneurship is distinct from Social Entrepreneurship or Technology Entrepreneurship, which legitimates it as a conceptually relevant group of organizations/practices and as an autonomous research topic within the business sciences field. The paper's comprehensive assessment of the literature and the proposed conceptual framework also unveil topics that are specific to Technology or Social Entrepreneurship but have not been addressed yet for Socio-Tech Entrepreneurship, offering potential future research opportunities and contributing to a research agenda. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.

Government and Commercial Interests in Genomics: Improving Data Security and Regulation

The relationship between new technologies and security is well established in the fields of defence, law enforcement, communications and public health. This has been highlighted by recent public debate about the security implications of data held by companies operating in social media and information technology (such as TikTok and Huawei). While genomic technology had been less high profile in the context of security, this changed following the COVID-19 pandemic, which focused attention on the significant implications of this form of data. This article discusses commercial genomic technology, related government interests and the growing implications for data security and regulation, such as through the example of the Beijing Genomics Institute, a large company providing genomic testing services to consumers worldwide. We suggest that commercial genomic data has growing implications for countries such as the United States and Australia and argue for greater attention to be directed to this form of technology and associated data security and regulation, including security assessment to address the risks associated with international transfer via corporate entities.

Detection of Cyberbullying using BiLSTM

Abstract: Cyberbullying is becoming more common in the digital sphere and is a serious threat to mental health. People, across the world, are subjected to a variety of cyberbullying tactics as the use of social media and technology increases, including insults, false rumors, and online abuse. The severity of cyberbullying cannot be understated, despite its widespread occurrence, as it can result in depressing feelings and even suicidal thoughts. As people depend more and more on social media, cyberbullying has emerged as a major drawback. Victims may go through mental distress and frequently find it difficult to stop textual harassment. Intelligent systems must be put in place to address these problems on social media.

Strategy formulation to support automation and digitalization initiative: A case study of an aerospace component manufacturer in Indonesia

Purpose: Strategy formulation is part of organization design study to evaluate decision thoroughly, then enable organization to achieve company goal. This study aims to formulate strategy of automation and digitalization for PT XYZ, to be ready for welcoming future growth of demand by maintain competitive cost within the same industry. Method: The study collects primary data from focus group discussion with selected participant of PT XYZ, located in Bandung, Indonesia, with participant selection based on information rich person reference. Data collection and analysis utilize qualitative and quantitative approach, and utilize three steps of strategy formulation (input stage, matching stage and decision stage). Results: Strategy formulation steps as per theory, applicable to finalize strategy to support industry 4.0 transformation at PT XYZ. Focus Group Discussion able to collect organization aspiration, to ensure strategy will align to company objective. Combine steps with latest internal and external factor analysis method, such as PESTLE (Political Economy Social Technological Environment), VRIO (Value Rarity InImitable Organize), Porter Value Chain analysis and QSPM (Quantitative Strategic Planning Matrix) help broaden the perspective of the participant during discussion. The study resulted eight strategies, which then simplified by data reduction approach to be four. A decision of sequence implementation also agreed during focus group discussion with participants. Contributions: By conducting this study, author expect it will prove the practical implementation of strategy formulation in industry 4.0 transformation for aerospace industry in Indonesia and Asia.

Promising directions for human-robot interactions defined by older adults

Introduction: Older adults are engaging more and more with voice-based agent and social robot technologies, and roboticists are increasingly designing interactions for these systems with older adults in mind. Older adults are often not included in these design processes, yet there are many opportunities for older adults to collaborate with design teams to design future robot interactions and help guide directions for robot development.Methods: Through a year-long co-design project, we collaborated with 28 older adults to understand the key focus areas that older adults see promise in for older adult-robot interaction in their everyday lives and how they would like these interactions to be designed. This paper describes and explores the robot-interaction guidelines and future directions identified by older adults, specifically investigating the change and trajectory of these guidelines through the course of the co-design process from the initial interview to the design guideline generation session to the final interview. Results were analyzed through an adapted ethnographic decision tree modeling approach to understand older adults’ decision making surrounding the various focus areas and guidelines for social robots.Results: Overall, over the course of the co-design process between the beginning and end, older adults developed a better understanding of the robot that translated to them being more certain of their attitudes of how they would like a robot to engage with them in their lives. Older adults were more accepting of transactional functions such as reminders and scheduling and less open to functions that would involve sharing sensitive information and tracking and/or monitoring of them, expressing concerns around surveillance. There was some promise in robot interactions for connecting with others, body signal monitoring, and emotional wellness, though older adults brought up concerns around autonomy, privacy, and naturalness of the interaction with a robot that need to be further explored.Discussion: This work provides guidance for future interaction development for robots that are being designed to interact with older adults and highlights areas that need to be further investigated with older adults to understand how best to design for user concerns.

Understanding the Role of Technology in Older Adults' Changing Social Support Networks

Technologies that facilitate communication between older adults and those around them have the potential to strengthen older adults' connections with their support network. In this paper, we present findings from interviews with 16 older adult participants in the United States about their social network composition and related technology use during a challenging life event, the COVID-19 pandemic, which saw a decrease of in-person meetings and increase in communication technology adoption. Using the convoy model of social relations, we sought to better understand the roles different technologies play in older adults' social connections. Participants chose what communication tools to use depending on social and situational contexts and overcame accessibility issues to adopt new technologies that supported continued engagement with their support networks. However, when others positioned technologies as ways for the older adults to receive social support, they resisted. A more comprehensive view of older adults' evolving social convoys can help designers and researchers better create technologies that help expand and maintain older adults' social support networks. Further, to facilitate older adults' social connectivity, the design of technology should encourage older adults' support networks to see those older adults as support providers, not just potential support recipients.

Considering the importance of transport to the wellbeing of Māori social housing residents

BackgroundIndigenous Māori conceptualisations of home extend beyond the house and encompass the ways in which people move in and around their environments. This movement is enabled by appropriate and accessible transport systems. For Māori living in social housing, who may already be disconnected from their whānau (family group, extended family), friends and places of belonging, access to the wider urban environment is essential for supporting health and wellbeing. Despite literature depicting Māori inequities in both transport access and in transport-related health outcomes such as access to a general practitioner, there is little research that explores transport as an enabler of wellbeing for Māori living in social housing. This is the gap that this research fills. MethodsThis qualitative research took a Kaupapa Māori approach and privileged Indigenous Māori worldviews and concepts throughout. Interviews were conducted with twelve Māori residents living in social housing complexes in Christchurch New Zealand. Interviews explored how Māori experienced their housing complex and the travel they did between their complex and the wider urban environment. Interviews were transcribed verbatim, coded and analysed by the lead Māori researcher. ResultsResults describe how residents use different forms of transport to access the environment around their social housing complexes. Despite utilising a wide range of transport modes, participants discussed the barriers they face when using both private and public forms of transport. The research also looks at how Māori living in social housing perceive novel transport technologies and poses questions surrounding the suitability of these schemes for reducing transport inequities. ConclusionsThese localised experiences provide insight into the role transport plays in creating a home and in establishing and maintaining social connections for Māori living in social housing. In doing so, the research explains the link between transport access and Indigenous wellbeing while also exploring some of the concerns those living in social housing have surrounding their inclusion in transport solutions. Findings reinforce the notion that successful transport systems for Indigenous populations come from a place of co-design where Indigenous peoples are equal partners in decision-making.

Political reconfiguration in the social space: data analysis and future perspective.

This paper aims to explore the complex and sometimes controversial relationship between social media and politics. The correlation between these two areas of research has always been less linear than a simplistic narrative might suggest, mainly because of the involvement of different scientific disciplines, such as sociology, political science, communication, social psychology and computer science. The decision to explore this topic is motivated by the persistent relevance of social media platforms in the current era. This growing centrality is also due to the accelerated digitization process that occurred during the pandemic phase in the digital ecosystem. In particular, the pandemic has contributed to a significant evolution of the concept of social networks. The methodology used is based on secondary data, and the work seeks to highlight the expansion of digital space resulting from the shift from a simple place of interaction to a digital space that reconfigured the mobilization and political action of Campania's governor Vincenzo De Luca. In conclusion, the study reveals important findings on the president's use of social media. For example, active citizen engagement strategies through direct interaction, timely information sharing, and mobilization of online resources are evident. Therefore, it becomes necessary to ask and understand whether the potential of new social technologies is being used to cultivate critical and massive citizen participation in democratic processes or whether it is being distorted for the sole purpose of increasing or consolidating consent.

Therapist Participation in a Learning Collaborative on Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy: Impact of COVID-related Stressors and Challenges.

The rise in mental health problems during the COVID-19 pandemic amplified the need to improve access to evidence-based treatments (EBT) and necessitated changes in treatment delivery and training of mental health providers (MHPs). There is limited information on how the pandemic may have impacted MHPs' participation in training and treatment delivery. This study included 269 MHPs who participated in a Learning Collaborative (LC) focused on an EBT. Qualitative interviews conducted with 15 MHPs who participated in the LC during the pandemic identified facilitators and barriers to training participation and EBT delivery that included social support, technology challenges, and difficulty completing cases following the transition to telehealth. Quantitative results showed that MHPs in the peri-COVID cohorts completed significantly fewer cases and fewer consultation calls compared to those prior to the pandemic. Findings suggest that providing support to train MHPs and promote EBT delivery may be beneficial during times of heightened stress.

Conflict of Interpretations on Ricoeur’s Contributions to the Philosophy of Technology

Recent literature regarding how Ricoeur’s work relates to the philosophy of technology appears prima facie to be contradictory. In one established interpretation, Ricoeur’s contributions are merely indirect as he did not engage with the empirical turn of the discipline in the 1980s and maintained a suspicious view of technology based on a profound concern with the distinction between persons and things. In this view, Ricoeur’s work does not add anything new to the discipline but is still valuable to the philosophy of technology through other features of his corpus, such as his critical hermeneutics and narrative theory. In another interpretative approach, some argue Ricoeur adds to the field by directly thematizing technology when studying ethics and human capability–he cannot be thought of as merely ignoring the complex relationship between the social sphere and technology. The present paper offers a dialectical analysis of these interpretative approaches and argues that these positions are not mutually exclusive, but rather capture complementary aspects about the nature of Ricoeur’s hermeneutic and political projects. At one level, Ricoeur engages with core themes of philosophy of technology by exploring the ambiguity of specific technologies and techniques and their implications to social, cultural, and political spheres; in doing so, Ricoeur contributes directly to the field by avoiding the reduction of meaning into merely technical questions. On the other hand, it is also true that Ricoeur, particularly in the main thematic areas of his great works since the 1970s, has not been directly involved with specific questions of how different recent technologies are intertwined with social, political, and ethical aspects, and his emphasis against a reductionist type of technical mentality distanced him from a closer engagement with specific technological issues. In this sense, most of his contributions to the philosophy of technology are indirect. Nevertheless, this paper wants to emphasize that this dialectic analysis invites us to recognize the richness and potential of Ricoeur’s thought to understand how technologies are shaping our experiences in the world. The recently published volume Interpreting Technology, edited by Wessel Reijers, Alberto Romele, and Mark Coeckelbergh, is a powerful example of such potential.

Twitter Chats as an Alternative to Discussion Boards in Graduate Nursing Courses.

Health care is increasingly dependent on technology and social media for communication. Nurse educators are tasked with developing a nursing workforce equipped with digital literacy to deliver safe, quality patient care. Twitter (now X) chats are an alternative social engagement opportunity for online nursing education students that can facilitate digital literacy. The instructor of an 8-week online nursing education course revised three required discussions as Twitter chats. Written instructions for the Twitter chats were provided, as well as a podcast. Self-report data and Twitter analytics were analyzed. Findings identified the benefits of incorporating a social media platform into traditional coursework. Chats helped students view course objectives in a new light and increased understanding of class content. Twitter is a social media technology that can help nursing students educationally and professionally. [J Nurs Educ. 2024;63(X):XXX-XXX.].

Exploring The Power Of Virtual Reality Technology And Image Processing In Tourism: The Architecture Of Quirino Laquatsa

Tourism industry have experienced major income losses and a spike in unemployment due to the pandemic. The need for technology have arisen to be able to help cope with challenges of the tourism industry of both cities and provinces. Technological advancements drive private and public sectors to adapt, with virtual reality gaining rapid popularity in tourist-oriented cities. Quirino province, the smallest in its region, requires recognition on social media and technology to advance its tourism industry. The province has to cope up with what the technology has to offer to its tourism management.
 The study's main goal is to create a virtual tourism architecture as close as possible to a particular place or tourist destination in the province. This may be used in the development of the Quirino Laquatsa and give visitors a taste of what is expected of the place or tourist site has to offer. This study used the Design Thinking Methodology mixed with Feature Driven Development. The data collection was done through the empathy phase.
 The proposed system architecture design promotes the development of a virtual tourism with the aid of virtual reality. It can help address the problems and issues in the tourism management of the province. This can eventually lead into the development of a web-based virtual tourism site to become a medium for sustainable tourism development.

Agroecology in Field Education in Ceará, Brazil

In this article, we analyze Agroecology as a formative matrix for Field Education in the State of Ceará, Brazil. We also observed that agroecology developed in rural schools in Ceará, has a subversive character and, therefore, can be read as a ‘contentious territorial policy’. In addition to the bibliographical survey and the field experience at Escola do Campo Florestan Fernandes, located in Assentamento Santana, in Monsenhor Tabosa (CE), informal conversations and semi-structured interviews were data collection instruments used in this research. The experimental field and agroecological backyards revealed the diversity of crops and livestock. Furthermore, social technologies showed the efficiency of the peasant unit, in the context of scarcity in the semi-arid region. In the school curriculum, together with the common core, the diversified base dynamizes agroecological knowledge and practices materialized in the peasant territory. The 'socio-territorial development project’ involves the students and all the subjects involved in the MST educational process. In this sense, we consider that rural schools in Ceará, based on Movement Pedagogy and Agroecology, have boosted the protagonism of peasant youth who have chosen to study and remain, developing new perspectives and alternatives to the challenges of the struggle for food sovereignty, quality education, with dignity and social justice in the countryside and in the city.

A Systematic Literature Review on University Collaboration in Open Innovation: Trends, Technologies, and Frameworks

Open innovation is a concept of collaboration of ideas, knowledge, and resources that originates from within the organization and involves external organizations. University-industry collaboration is a factor driving innovation and competitiveness. Most research on interactions between universities and industry concentrated on the industrial side meanwhile, universities, as knowledge producers, play a vital role in creating an open innovation ecosystem that encourages realizing innovations that benefit society. Therefore, the problem raised in this research is how university collaboration can support open innovation. This research aims to identify research trends, the latest technologies, and inter-university collaboration frameworks that can support open innovation. The methodology used is Kitchenham's Systematic Literature Review (SLR) and bibliometric. SLR consists of Identification Study, Selection Studies, Quality Assessment, Data Extraction and Study Synthesis. From the SLR stages, 21 papers published between 2019 and 2023 were obtained. Synthesis and additional literature review were carried out to identify trends, technologies, and frameworks related to the topic comprehensively. In terms of trend, based on the application bibliometric, it was found that there was an increase in the number of publications and the top list of open innovation journals. University collaboration in open innovation more frequently takes place in the UK, and the industries mostly involved are small-medium enterprises. Quantitative research methodology and data analyses, comprising of hypothesis test, regression test, and descriptive statistics, are mostly preferred. Meanwhile, descriptive data analysis is the most common means of qualitative data analysis. Numerous suggestions on topics for future research were also identified. In addition, data analysis using machine learning survival data is identified as a novelty among data analysis methods. Technology transfer and the use of digital platforms may support open innovation processes, and the use of blockchain technology may promote digital platforms development. Seven domains form the framework for university collaboration in open innovation, namely Social Behavior, People, Process, Organization, Environment, Technology, and Performance. The findings of trends, technologies, and frameworks in this research may serve as a foundation for research on similar topics, and the identified framework domains could serve as framework components that might be used by universities to collaborate with partners in implementing open innovation processes. The research have contributes to knowledge management theoretically and practically. Theoretically, open innovation can expand the knowledge base by supporting the concept that knowledge and expertise can be found outside organizational boundaries. Practically, it can enrich knowledge management practices by emphasizing the importance of utilizing digital platform technology in supporting knowledge management sourced from external knowledge and collaboration services in the open innovation process.      

“Freedom is not free”: Visual activism and dispersed resistance in Hong Kong’s anti-extradition bill protests

Graffiti is widely used in social movements globally, yet media and communication research disproportionately focus on the role of social and new media technologies in protest movements. In this paper I ask why university students – a tech-savvy generation – resorted to graffiti and why campus graffiti were not widely circulated on social media during the Hong Kong anti-Extradition Law Amendment Bill (ELAB) protests. I argue that graffiti enables dispersed resistance and is one way to mobilize, voice dissent, and preserve memory in an increasingly surveilled and evolving repressive media environment. I pursue this argument by analyzing graffiti photographed on university campuses during the anti-ELAB protests. Situating graffiti within protest culture in Hong Kong, I conclude that graffiti are not always circulated on digital/social media to reach a broader audience. In times of crises, not reaching a wider audience is a manifestation of dispersed resistance in a hybrid media environment.

Students' assessment of the results of social project activities as a factor of its quality and effectiveness

The relevance of the problem under study is confirmed by its practice-oriented nature, the need to use social technologies that are in demand in modern conditions in pedagogical practice and in the management of project activities. The research problem is assessing the quality of the results of social project activities as one of the stages of managing this type of activity in educational institutions. The purpose of the study is to develop and test methodological support for assessing the results of social project activities of students at the university. The research was based on experimental and sociological methods, as well as on the axiological approach of philosophy and pedagogy. It was carried out based on the results of a implemented grant from the Federal Agency for Youth Affairs. Contains a developed and tested technology for assessing a large-scale social grant project, which is quite universal and can be used and adapted to similar projects.

Medical and social support for children with disabilities in hospitals

Children constitute a special category among the disabled and people with disabilities. Restoration or compensation of impaired functions cannot be achieved in full, but thanks to medical and social support and technical means of rehabilitation, adaptation to existing living conditions, it is possible to achieve a higher level of quality of life. Medical and social support for children with disabilities is considered from the perspective of the available resource potential of the hospital system itself - the competent application of medical and social technologies and the functional capabilities of inpatient or semi-stationary type institutions. The leading criterion for evaluating the effectiveness of medical and social support for children with disabilities in hospital and semi-stationary care was the criterion of satisfaction of the medical and social needs of rehabilitators and their family members (parents/legal representatives). The author used analysis of documents, questioning of children with disabilities and parents (legal representatives) to identify needs, assessment of satisfaction of medical and social needs of children with disabilities and their parents (legal representatives) using comprehensive medical and social support (interviewing). In the course of the work, the purpose of the study was achieved – a sociological analysis of medical and social support for children with disabilities was carried out. Based on the research data, it can be concluded that the most relevant in meeting the needs of children with disabilities in hospital and semi-hospital settings are the socio-pedagogical and socio-psychological components of medical and social support, while the medical and social components fade into the background. The explicit needs must be met not through a ready-made solution, but by teaching the child himself to accept and work with them until an optimal level of compensation is achieved, the use of medical and social support technology as a system in hospital and semi-stationary conditions, on the one hand, has stable invariance properties, on the other, has variability.

Desulfovibrio desulfuricans and its derived metabolites confer resistance to FOLFOX through METTL3

Chemoresistance is a critical factor contributing to poor prognosis in clinical patients with cancer undergoing postoperative adjuvant chemotherapy. The role of gut microbiota in mediating resistance to tumour chemotherapy remains to be investigated. Patients with CRC were categorised into clinical benefit responders (CBR) and no clinical benefit responders (NCB) based on chemotherapy efficacy. Differential bacterial analysis using 16S rRNA sequencing revealed Desulfovibrio as a distinct microbe between the two groups. Employing a syngeneic transplantation model, we assessed the effect of Desulfovibrio on chemotherapy by measuring tumour burden, weight, and Ki-67 expression. We further explored the mechanisms underlying the compromised chemotherapeutic efficacy of Desulfovibrio using metabolomics, western blotting, colony formation, and cell apoptosis assays. In comparison, Desulfovibrio was more abundant in the NCB group. Invivo experiments revealed that Desulfovibrio colonisation in the gut weakened the efficacy of FOLFOX. Treatment with Desulfovibrio desulfuricans elevates serum S-adenosylmethionine (SAM) levels. Interestingly, SAM reduced the sensitivity of CRC cells to FOLFOX, thereby promoting the growth of CRC tumours. These experiments suggest that SAM promotes the growth and metastasis of CRC by driving the expression of methyltransferase-like 3 (METTL3). A high abundance of Desulfovibrio in the intestines indicates poor therapeutic outcomes for postoperative neoadjuvant FOLFOX chemotherapy in CRC. Desulfovibrio drives the manifestation of METTL3 in CRC, promoting resistance to FOLFOX chemotherapy by increasing the concentration of SAM. This study is supported by Wuxi City Social Development Science and Technology Demonstration Project (N20201005).

Divergent Approaches to Disseminating Pop Culture in China and Korea

China and South Korea, two of the most influential countries in Asia, boast highly popular pop cultures that resonate both across Asia and globally. While Chinese and Korean pop culture shares similarities, there are also notable differences in their modes of dissemination. Previous studies have analyzed the dissemination of pop culture within individual countries, but there is still a research gap on the differences between these two countries. Therefore, this paper seeks to explore the variations in how pop culture spreads in China and Korea, as well as their implications. The paper adopts the methods of literature review and comparative analysis to compare the ways of popular culture dissemination in China and South Korea in terms of media platforms, marketing strategies, cultural exchanges and integration, and the roles of their respective states. The paper argues that the differences in popular culture dissemination between China and Korea mainly manifest in the following aspects: different channels and modes of dissemination, distinct definitions and scopes of popular culture, as well as variations in audiences and influences. Many factors can influence the spread of popular culture, such as social environment, technology level, and political system.

Introduction to topical collection: social science and sustainability technology

Introduction to topical collection: social science and sustainability technology