Social Media Spaces Research Articles

Make/share: Textile making alone together in private and social media spaces

This work draws on two sister projects which explored the subjective perceptions of wellbeing in women amateur makers who hand crafted in knit and crochet when alone rather than in physical group settings. In the first, participants engaged in a Ph.D. research project where they contributed experiences of sharing their making in a closed group on Facebook, ‘stitching together’ in digital space. In the second, a small, self-selected number from the Facebook research group also took part in a journal-writing project; here, they recorded their experiences of knit, crochet and its impact on wellbeing over several months and shared journals directly back to the researcher rather than the wider Facebook group. Participants from these complementary projects provided insight into the ways that working with yarn helped them feel connected, calm and creative whilst also revealing that their experiences in knit and crochet were not always the soothing panacea one might expect. The approaches in these two projects illustrate how a rich understanding of the ways hand crafting together may be beneficial for wellbeing can be developed even where participants and the researcher are physically remote from one another. Several distinctive methodological contributions can be claimed in these related works: First, the approaches taken in both the journal writing and Facebook-based projects opened up space to question and explore the ethics of care for researcher wellbeing in having participant stories to ‘hold’; secondly, the reflective distance provided by online commentaries and the writing of a journal over time allowed more complex craft experience stories to emerge than would normally be facilitated through a shorter workshop setting.

SOCIAL RELATIONS AND SELF-PRESENTATION OF THE YOUTH POLITICAL LEADERS OF ALTAI KRAI AND NOVOSIBIRSK OBLAST IN VKONTAKTE SOCIAL MEDIA

The article is dedicated to the research of self-presentation and social relations of the youth political leaders in VKontakte (VK) social media in Siberian Federal District by example of Altai krai and Novosibirsk oblast. This includes the analysis of social and political capital of the youth political organisations’ leaders in online environment. The goal of this research is to distinguish the forms and contents of self-presentation, the image of the youth political leaders, basing on their social relations and communications in VK. For this purpose, the author uses the TargetHunter parcer, as well as the R programming language for the open data harvesting, and Gephi program to create the social media graph. Conclusion. Basing on the research results, the author concludes that the youth political leaders actively use social media resources, particularly VK, to shape their image and promote it in public affairs. Meanwhile, the process of self-presentation of such leaders is impacted by numerous variables. It also tends to change its forms. VK is especially effective for political activity of the leaders who strive to gain their personal social capital, to create unique and high quality content, and to create channels for steady communication with their primary audience. As for the youth political organisations’ heads, their social media space is more miscellaneous and is usually subjected to clasterization, creating groups. The youth leaders also represent similar social environment. Therefore, the environment creates the leaders, as much as the leaders create the environment.

Traces of mobility: Examining location disclosure on social networks with mobile location tagging

The prevailing adoption of mobile devices has facilitated individuals’ engagement with location tagging; thus, location-based information sharing, which allows geolocation specificity and interaction on the Internet platforms, has become a popular activity in the space of social media. This spatiotemporal information provides a great potential opportunity for marketers as photos or videos shared among friends on social networking sites can be viewed as a type of word-of-mouth that may increase brand awareness and attract more users. Thus, understanding the underlying factors driving location tagging intentions provides significant value for practitioners. However, despite its importance, our understanding of this topic is limited. This research draws from social exchange theory and the theory of impression management to exemplify the underlying factors driving individuals to engage in photo or video sharing with location tagging on social media. Using an online survey, we recruited 402 users. We find that location tagging intention is driven by a facilitating route involving social benefits and functional benefits and an impeding route involving perceived risk related to privacy concerns. Our findings provide important academic and managerial implications.

Theorizing vernacular discourse in Sinophone transnational space: on Namewee’s YouTube music videos

ABSTRACT This article expands Ono and Sloop’s conceptualization of vernacular discourse in a transnational social media space; namely, YouTube. This article showcases how the YouTube music videos of Namewee, a Malaysian Sinophone musician, construct various identities through working with other oppressed voices in the Sinophone transnational space. Two of Namewee’s musical works featuring Taiwanese YouTubers are particularly examined to explore the concepts of “linguistic minorities,” “place-basedness,” and “vernacular collaboration.” By analyzing the horizontal relationships among minority groups across national borders, this case study elicits further conceptualization of what “vernacular discourses” entail beyond the American English-speaking context.

Post-lineage yoga

The positionality of the researcher has long been of debate. Within ethnographic research into cultural practices, a world of nuance arises in the possible relationships of researcher and researched. We are engaged in complex processes of reconciliation between the under-represented communities whose stories we aim to tell (Shaw 1999: 108; Orsi 2013: 5), and the power an academic position confers to “define reality for others” (Hufford 1999: 298). The resulting implications for the researcher are further complicated and enriched when public interest in our work is mediated in online environments. As scholars we are often ill-equipped to ride fast-moving flows of misinformation and meme, rumour and trolling.
 Towards the end of my doctoral research, an academic term from my thesis became caught up in the increasingly heated spaces of yoga-related social media. In this article, I step back from the situation to share a snapshot of what happens when academics go viral, and to deconstruct the little-understood processes of subcultural evolution at work. I ask: what can we learn from these encounters about the nature of boundaries between scholar and practitioner, researcher and researched, professional and personal? And how might academic discourse and engagement evolve to meet the challenges of an online economy of knowledge?

You can’t block me: When social media spaces are public forums

ABSTRACT Since their inception, social media spaces such as Facebook and Twitter have been legally considered private spaces that are not subject to the protections of the First Amendment. Rightly so, for (as many forget) the First Amendment applies to government actors, action, and public spaces, and the Internet is not one of those. However, in 2018, the Knight v. Trump ruling in favor of plaintiffs extended First Amendment protections via the public forum doctrine to those seeking access to (but who have been blocked from) participating in discussions on President Trump’s Twitter account. Numerous other similar cases across the country have found that public officials who use social media to communicate with constituents have established a designated public forum. They therefore cannot choose who is allowed into that space and who is not by blocking (disallowing access for) some members of the public, because this constitutes viewpoint discrimination. This decision is important in bringing forum doctrine into the technological age, and it opens important spaces for democratic deliberation. This article explains the specific requirements for a social media space to be considered a public forum from Knight v. Trump, describes related cases that are using it as a precedent, and explores the implications and unresolved issues related to this case.

Adolescents and the ‘Instagramability’ of Places – An Explorative Study on Spatial Practices in Social Media

Social media are everyday companions for adolescents, enabling them to communicate and share their experience of the world. With the rise of social media, location has gained importance as an organizing principle of online content. In addition, actions like taking, geotagging and uploading pictures on the go mediate space in a new way. In this article, we explore the production of space through social media, and the emerging receptive processes among young people against the background of a changed allocation of spatial meaning through digitization processes. The ubiquity of software leads to a production of ‘coded spaces’ and ‘code/spaces’. We give an overview of contemporary research within geography that examines the production of space in social media and identify possible ways of thinking about space in social media. In order to analyse young people’s spatial practices in social media, we conducted interviews with adolescents regarding their social media habits. Our first analysis reveals several spatial practices that occur on Instagram: youngsters select locations specifically for Instagram, geotag places that they deem exceptional, and edit their photos with filters. Our analysis confirms that software leads to the emergence of new spatial practices. The production and reception of space in the context of digitization raise a series of questions regarding the theoretical conception of space on social media.

Social Media Use and Its Effect on Knowledge Sharing: Evidence from Public Organisations in Delta State, Nigeria

Aim/Purpose: This study investigates social media use and its effect on knowledge sharing. Based on the review of related literature, we hypothesised that social media use has a significant effect on outward and inward knowledge sharing. Background: While the notion of social media use in work organisations has been progressively developed, empirical studies linking social media to the context of knowledge sharing have only begun to emerge. Even so, literature on social media use and its impact on public organisation is still tentative and remains a developing area. Methodology: The partial least square method was utilised in testing of hypotheses with data collected from 103 employees, who by virtue of their position and job function(s) interface with the public for the purpose of sharing knowledge via the social media space. Contribution: The study made contributions to the social knowledge management literature in two ways. First, the study developed a research model that links social media use to the two distinct dimensions of knowledge sharing. Second, the study provides a quantitative approach, where statistical techniques were applied to validate the social media use and knowledge sharing link. Findings: Statistically, the public organisations utilise social media partly for knowledge sharing, with its effect being significant on outward knowledge sharing and insignificant on inward knowledge sharing. This indicates that social media were deployed mainly for information dissemination “outward knowledge sharing” and not for stakeholders’ feedback and interaction “inward knowledge sharing”. Recommendations for Practitioners: Public organisations should develop a policy framework and guidelines for social media use to encourage the full use of this technology to inform and interact with stakeholders. It is important for this policy document to adopt best practices regarding interactive spaces so that both knowledge sharing dimensions manifest themselves in social media communications. Second, it is necessary to carry out staff training for the professional use of this technology for knowledge sharing. Recommendation for Researchers: Future studies should extend to more populations in different contexts to validate findings Impact on Society: This paper intends to influence practices adopted by organisations in the public sector to improve the knowledge sharing dimensions via the social media space. Future Research: Future studies may extend to public organisations in other geographical locations around Nigeria. It will be useful for studies to provide an international perspective by sampling public organisations from different countries or by comparing and contrasting the findings of other studies, specifically those from other countries. A longitudinal study should be encouraged to detect advancement or development with regards to the subject matter over a period of time.

Child of the Revolution: Finding a Voice in Activism and Academia

Child of the Revolution:Finding a Voice in Activism and Academia Rita Faire (bio) In November 2016, the young students of St. Scholastica's College in the Philippines gathered outside their Manila campus grounds to protest the order allowing the burial of former dictator Ferdinand Marcos in the Libingan ng mga Bayani (Heroes' Cemetery). Clad in their instantly recognizable navy blue and white pinafore uniforms, carrying handmade posters and placards, the children raised their fists to the air, and chanted in perfect unison: "MARCOS IS NO HERO!" (Occeñola). During the presidential elections of 2016, Rodrigo Duterte declared his support for the burial, citing that there was no legally sound argument to oppose it—Marcos was, after all, both a former member of the military and a former president. Thus, upon being elected to the country's highest political office, he announced approval of the order and sparked numerous protests from Filipinos all around the world. A burial in the Libingan ng mga Bayani has been an honor for deceased military personnel and national figures in the Philippines since its establishment in 1947. The order to provide Marcos with that honor was particularly controversial due to the brutal nature of Marcos' fourteen-year period of authoritarian rule, known as Batas Militar, or Martial Law. Those who supported the burial cited it as an important and symbolic step toward national healing (Reformina). But those who opposed the move—a camp led by survivors of the era's definitive human rights abuses—argued that the Marcos burial would only serve to further the rampant efforts toward historical revisionism that bolstered the continuing, if not thriving, political and public careers of various members of the Marcos family (Obordo; Torres-Tupas). In Edinburgh, I stood across from the Balmoral Hotel with a small contingent of local Filipinos and protested the Marcos burial in solidarity with our countrymen half a world away. Our demonstration went largely [End Page 191] unnoticed. We carried placards, chanted familiar lines, and sang old protest songs, but it mostly felt like we were speaking to a public who neither knew, nor wanted to know, about what was happening in a small, far-off Asian country. The only people who took photos were the protest organizers and the only people who rallied to our cause were our fellow Filipinos who 'liked' these photos through social media platforms. The same could not be said of the St. Scholastica protests. Theirs were demonstrations that demanded attention, not just because of their cause but also primarily because of how young they were1—for despite how strongly young people associate themselves with sociopolitical movements and participate in protest,2 adults often perceive young people as apolitical (Rodgers 239). Their most high-profile criticism was from the Mocha Uson Blog, a collectively run self-identified pro-Duterte Facebook page fronted by the eponymous celebrity blogger turned political pundit and government official. The page posted numerous denunciations of the 2016 St. Scholastica protests. Some were in the form of reposted photos of the girls in action, captioned with hashtags like "#galawangDILAW" (#YELLOWmovement)3 (Mocha Uson Blog, "Pinlit") or accusatory statements implying that the children were just serving the opposition party's agendas (Mocha Uson Blog, "We"). One of the platform's opinion pieces claimed that its own views on the issue were devoid of political motivation, and that their main concern was St. Scholastica College betraying its responsibility as an educational institution by allowing students to take part in an activity that would put them in harm's way; patriotism, the piece argued, was better demonstrated and taught by studying history in the classroom, not by protesting in the streets (Mocha Uson Blog, "Ito"). Like-minded critics rallied to the blog's comments section and their own social media spaces, and even labelled the school's and parents' alleged "complacency" in the matter as child abuse. Others cited the fact that these protesting children were not even born during martial law and thus couldn't possibly understand what they were fighting for. Some even said that the children were brainwashed by the Catholic Bishop's Conference of the Philippines (CBCP), who at the time vehemently opposed...

Upotreba društvenih medija u pobunjeničke i protivpobunjeničke svrhe

Traditional media, such as television, radio or newspapers, offer only one-way communication, while social media provide two-way communication. Today, the individuals are the source, creator and user of the content. The scope of social media usage is large, and the forms of social media on the internet are diverse. Currently we can use blogs, forums, virtual worlds, review services, social networks and content sharing sites. While analyzing the theoretical definition, forms and scope of usage the basic characteristics of social media emerged. First of all, social media are relatively cheap, they provide anonymity, large amount of information and easy communication. Social media have distinguished themselves as one of the political instruments, they emphasized and increased the power of the individual, erased borders and enabled modern insurgencies whose goals or motives go beyond the boundaries of the state in which they take place to last longer. Analyzing the needs of the insurgency movements, it can be concluded that insurgents today most often use social media on the Internet to inform others about their activities, finance themselves, coordinate activities, as well as for recruitment and data collection. States also use social media to protect their own interests and achieve their goals. States often have more resources, so it became easier and more effective to support independent groups in fight against insurgency. By analyzing the advantages and disadvantages of social media, depending on the defense system and approach to counterinsurgency, states can use the same social media features as insurgents but to their disadvantage. First, anonymity on the Internet because it is not that easy to stay anonymous, and also for data collection about insurgents and their mobilization of wider support against insurgent movement. Finally, even though the fight in the social media space has begun, the use of social media for offensive purposes is not that beneficial for insurgent movements. In practice, apart from spreading propaganda, insurgents are still failing to exploit the full potential of social media, primarily because of the countermeasures taken by the governments (blocking access, censorship, infiltration, monitoring communications). Currently, the balance is on the states' side, because they can gain information about the goals of the movement, its members and how they operate; also, thanks to the social media, the forces of the states are "closer" to their own population, thus facilitating and expanding the mobilization of the counterinsurgency forces.

Identification strategies and practices in the social media space

Identification strategies and practices in the social media space

Anatomy of a Protest: Spatial Information, Social Media, and Urban Space

Black Lives Matter, like many modern movements in the age of information, makes significant use of social media as well as public space to demand justice. In this article, we study the protests in response to the shooting of Keith Lamont Scott by police in Charlotte, North Carolina, on September 2016. Our goal is to measure the significance of urban space within the virtual and physical network of protesters. Using a mixed-methods approach, we identify and study urban space and social media generated by these protests. We conducted interviews with protesters who were among the first to join the Keith Lamont Scott shooting demonstrations. From the interviews, we identify places that were significant in our interviewees’ narratives. Using a combination of natural language processing and social network analysis, we analyze social media data related to the Charlotte protests retrieved from Twitter. We found that social media, local community, and public space work together to organize and motivate protests and that public events such as protests cause a discernible increase in social media activity. Finally, we find that there are two distinct communities who engage social media in different ways; one group involved with social media, local community and urban space, and a second group connected almost exclusively through social media.

ФЛЕШМОБ КАК СОВРЕМЕННАЯ ФОРМА ОБЩЕСТВЕННОГО И ПОЛИТИЧЕСКОГО УЧАСТИЯ: АНАЛИЗ ТЕХНОЛОГИЧЕСКОГО, МОТИВАЦИОННОГО И ИДЕНТИФИКАЦИОННОГО ФАКТОРОВ

Modern digital technologies contribute to the emergence of new forms of social and political activity. One of these forms of participation is flash mob. Flash mobs are able to activate society for mass participation in various political events, which indicates the relevance and necessity of studying flash mobs as a modern form of citizen participation in social and political processes. The purpose of this study is to conduct a comprehensive analysis of the flash mob from the standpoint of the intersection of several factors: technological, identification and motivational. The research methodology at the theoretical level is made up of the theory of the information society and the concept of “network identity”, on the empirical level - the method of sociological survey with the subsequent compilation of contingency tables. As a result of the study, it is established how widespread the practice of participation of active users of social media in various flash mobs is. Based on the data on the most significant opportunities for using social media, an interim conclusion is made about the existing motivational attitudes of the participants in flash mobs. Through the use of several determinants of network identity, a number of its properties are identified and considered, which are manifested in the communicative space of social media. It is established that the factor of participation / non-participation in the flash mob is not decisive in the manifestation of the properties of network identity.

Towards a research agenda for examining online gender-based violence against women academics

ABSTRACT Gender-based violence in virtual environments is commonly experienced by women and girls, and online abuse has become a significant social problem. High profile women in a variety of professions often become victims of online violence. The topic of online gender-based violence has to date received scant academic attention. Little is known about how female academics are represented and treated in online and social media spaces. Academics are increasingly exhorted to disseminate their work and to engage with an audience outside academia but the online violence against female academics compromises their ability to fulfil this agenda. This paper provides insight into the literature surrounding the experiences of women academics negotiating virtual spaces and further presents a research agenda in order to explore the phenomenon more closely. In doing so, we highlight the need for greater protection and regulation of virtual environments in order to support those who use them.

The Social Side of Educational Policy: How Social Media is Changing the Politics of Education

Social media are online technology platforms that focus on synchronous and asynchronous human interactions with a local and global reach unprecedented in human history. The Internet and its architecture have enabled the development and use of these platforms, which are designed to support social interactions and give rise to a complex interplay between communication, social practices, and technology infrastructure, challenging existing “traditional” media sources. Social media are adding a new ingredient to and level of impact on the educational political and policy-making process that is still in its infancy in terms of research and relevance. In this chapter, we examine the high-level social side of social media (Twitter) in an effort to analyze, visualize, and make sense of the often hidden world of online interactions around educational policy. In addition, we look deeply into the ways in which messages and meaning are crafted in social media space around the Common Core State Standards, with special attention to the role of bots and how influence is wielded. This work offers insights into the what, who, how, and impact of transactions among “socially influential” individuals over time in this new social media/educational policy space and potential impact on educational policy-making and practice.

Redefining #YourAverageMuslim woman: Muslim female digital activism on social media

Orientalist discourses have largely shaped how Muslim women have come to be represented in western visual media as oppressed, subjugated or foreign. However, with the advent of social media platforms, Muslim women are utilizing social media spaces to rearticulate the controlling images promulgated through orientalist narratives. This article examines the complex relationship visual media shares with Muslim women and demonstrates that the lens of orientalism continues to structure the imaginaries that shape visual representations of Muslim women in art, news and film. This article addresses how visual platforms and social media spaces such as YouTube are being utilized by Muslim women to undertake digital activism that seeks to subvert essentialist narratives. At the centre of this discussion is YouTuber Dina Tokio’s (2017) documentary, titled ‘#YourAverageMuslim’, which tackles western preconceived notions, and instead offers a redefined version of the ‘Muslim woman’ predicated on resisting three narratives: (1) Muslim-Woman-As-Oppressed, (2) Muslim-Woman-As-Subjugated and (3) Muslim-Woman-As-Foreign-Other. This documentary clearly demonstrates how Muslim women are using social media platforms in specific ways to shape the discourses around Muslim women. In doing so they are demonstrating their agentic capabilities, taking control of their representations, and speaking for themselves instead of being spoken for by others.

A Conceptual Framework of Teacher Motivation for Social Media Use

Teachers are increasingly turning to social media to facilitate informal opportunities for professional learning, yet we know little about the motivational factors that prompt teachers’ social media use. In this chapter, we propose a conceptual framework that researchers can use to unpack the varied motivational factors that lead teachers to engage with social media for professional learning. We argue that the extant literature on teachers’ social media use lacks cohesion in terms of identifying the full range of motivational factors that inform teacher practice and that can lead teachers to engage with social media spaces with different functionalities (e.g., curating content, building community, monetizing teacher resources). We draw on utility-based theory from economics to understand how teachers negotiate between different motivational preferences when deciding to engage with different social media platforms, foregrounding both individual and social preferences and how the context of districts, schools, grade levels, classrooms, and teachers’ backgrounds might influence teacher preferences and social media use. We conclude with a discussion of how this conceptual framework can inform future research.

The Empire Tweets Back? #HumanitarianStarWars and Memetic Self-Critique in the Aid Industry

In 2015, a series of memes appeared on Twitter under the hashtag #HumanitarianStarWars. Combining still images from the original Star Wars movies with ironic references to humanitarian/development jargon and institutions, the memes presented a humorous reflection on the modern aid industry. While memetic content has become an increasingly scrutinized area in digital culture studies—particularly with regard to unbounded and anonymous online communities, and popular discursive contestation—this article examines #HumanitarianStarWars to shed light on the possibilities and problematics of social media auto-critique undertaken by “insiders” in a particular professional realm. Keeping in mind critiques of the racial and imperial connotations of the (Western) pop-culture mythology itself, the article explores the use of the Star Wars franchise as a vehicle for commentary on an industry at work in the “Global South.” It highlights an ambiguous process of meaning-making that can be traced through the memes’ generation, circulation, and re-mediation. Although the memes provide a satirical self-reflection on practitioners’ experiences and perspectives of power relations in the global development industry, certain tendencies emerge in their remixing of this Hollywood universe that may reinforce some of the dynamics that they ostensibly critique. The article argues that examination of the ideological ambivalence of an institutional micro-meme can yield valuable insights into tensions playing out in professional social media spaces where public/private boundaries are increasingly and irrevocably blurred.

Participatory asymmetry: Theorizing media objects and media flows in a framework of participatory production

Social media develops a common asymmetry: few contribute much, the majority little. By “participatory asymmetry” we understand this long tail of participatory production as an interactive dynamic among two types of social media users, regular and sporadic, that shapes the curation of social media spaces. Examining online discussions surrounding massive, open, online courses (MOOCs), we observe interactive differences between regular and sporadic users that shape patterns of social media curation across the networked discussion forums of a major, online newspaper. Whereas regular users reply directly to other users to durably articulate discussions as “media objects;” sporadic users post one-to-many messages which aggregate in platform-reconfigurable cascades of social media or “media flows.” By mapping the relationship between regular and sporadic participation, one-to-one and one-to-many interaction, and the curation of social media spaces in patterns of media objects and flows, we propose a four-part typology of participatory asymmetry: broadcast, feedback, moderated, and dialogic.

E-cigarettes and social media: attitudes and perceptions of young adults to social media messages

Electronic devices that deliver nicotine, e-cigarettes (e-cigs), pose significant risks and can be addictive. Young adults have the highest prevalence of e-cig usage and are among the most frequent users of social media. Although the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has recently imposed restrictions on the promotion of flavors and messages that claim e-cigs are healthier than cigarettes, there are no regulations in the social media space. Our objective was to understand how exposure to e-cigs on social media might influence attitudes and perceptions towards e-cigs among young adults. Thirty-one 18–24 year olds participated in four focus groups in which they responded to examples of social media posts about e-cigs. A thematic analysis was conducted, which revealed three primary themes: (1) social media normalizes e-cigs, in which young adults stated that they are frequently exposed to e-cig content on social media through news organizations and interpersonal relationships; (2) visual appeals are influential, including how depictions of aspirational lifestyles and appealing flavor associations enticed participants; (3) constantly seeing e-cig related messages on social media may encourage trial. The promotion of e-cigs within social media platforms should be closely monitored, to prevent the current epidemic from reaching even larger proportions.