Social Media Spaces Research Articles

Konfigurasi Ekspresi Keagamaan Artis Di Media Sosial

The religious expressions of the artist in the social media space have the potential to give an ambiguous impression to the public in responding to them. On the one hand, artists as religious people have the right to carry out their religious teachings in the public sphere. But on the other hand, the artist is also a public figure whose popularity is widely used by the industrial world. This study intends to identify the meaning of various religious expressions of some Indonesian artists in various accounts or social media channels. Through a phenomenological approach, the dramaturgical theory that was initiated by Erving Goffman is used as an analytical theory. This research data collection using observation and documentation techniques. Meanwhile, the data analysis technique is through data reduction, data presentation, and drawing conclusions. The results of the study conclude that religious expressions by some Indonesian artists in the social media space can be explained through three patterns. First, religious expression as religiosity. This pattern can be seen from the backstage which is shown as a religious person who carries out his religious teachings. Second, religious expression as a commodification of religion. This pattern can be seen from the appearance of the artists as brand ambassadors for certain business products. Third, religious expression as media capitalization. This pattern can be seen from the artist's religious expression following the media arrangement that emphasizes the elements of business and profit. The theoretical implication of this research shows that understanding and expression of religion can experience developments and changes in form in the dynamics of the construction of socio-cultural life.

Wpływ czasowego zaangażowania w media społecznościowe młodych dorosłych na zachowania związane z wyglądem ciała

Social media have become a part of people’s lives, being not only a place of entertainment and mutual communication but also promotion of pop culture models connected with the human body appearance. For many, these models become guidelines for behaviors regarding body looks and a source for its assessment by comparing their appearance to that of models. The purpose of this article is to present the correlation between the amount of time spent by young adult respondents in the social media space and modelling themselves on other people as regards the appearance, comparing their own bodies to other users’ bodies and patterns of behavior to improve the body look. A diagnostic survey method was applied in the study and the author’s questionnaire in an online form was used. 493 young adults, social networks users, participated in the study. The results show that the more time the respondents spend on social media, the more they model themselves on others as regards their physical appearance, the more often they compare the look of their bodies with those of other people and undertake more behaviors targeted at improving their appearance. The specified correlations refer to a greater extent to the male subjects of the study. These results constitute an important guideline for prevention and educational activities concerning the significance of body looks in modern culture, including consequences of increasing social pressure on the image of the male body.

Mental Models on Philippine English in Online Spaces: Challenges and Opportunities

For the majority of the elite and educated Filipinos, there is no doubt that Philippine English finds its home as an acceptable variety of English. However, the narrative changes once focus is decentralized and democratized to include other speakers of English in the country who do not belong to this exclusive social category. Using online comments to an online news article and to an online quote card about Philippine English, this study investigated the acceptability of Philippine English among the users of a social media space. Comments were gathered and then analyzed using the arrangement of propositions from the prompt (the online article and quote card) to the determination and thematic categorization of mental models deployed by commenters to interpret received information. The analysis revealed that within the online platform where various realizations of English are welcome, Philippine English remains contested. This paper encourages the inclusive education and information dissemination that focus on Philippine English across sociolectal groups to strengthen the knowledge, acceptance, and educational implementation of the principles and concepts related to Philippine English. Keywords: acceptability; Philippine English; online space; mental models

REDEFINE THE CONCEPT OF LONE WOLF IN THE CONTEXT OF GLOBAL JIHAD

The purpose of this article is to conceptualize or redefine the concept of "lone wolf” in the context of global jihad. This article uses a meta-analysis approach by proposing two literature review methods, namely an effort to track a number of literatures that are the basis for defining lone wolf acts of terrorism and tracking a number of literatures that discuss the phenomenon of global jihad. This article finds that there are no acts of global jihad terrorism that operate independently, technological developments have pushed the global jihad agenda by Islamic activism on a local scale through social media as an instrument of mobilization and communication without having to interact directly. Therefore, this article concludes that the concept of global jihad glocalization is more appropriately used to refer to acts of terrorism carried out independently by Islamic-based terrorism groups rather than using the term "lone wolf". For this reason, the glocalization of global jihad in the process of ideological doctrine or the process of becoming radicalized is no longer conventional but runs in virtual spaces of social media.

“Resistance!”: Collective Action Cues in Conspiracy Theory-Endorsing Facebook Groups

Conspiracy theories on social media have been suspected of contributing to mobilization and radicalization. Yet, few studies have examined the prevalence of psychological variables that may serve to motivate normative and non-normative collective action in this material. Drawing from the “social identity model of collective action,” the current study uses a mixed-methods approach to examine the prevalence of collective action cues in conspiracy theory-endorsing social media spaces. Towards this end, I examined four German Facebook groups (Covid-19-Skeptic, Far-Right, Chemtrail, and Political Affairs) during the first months of the Covid-19 pandemic<em>. </em>The results of qualitative content analysis (<em>N</em> = 828 posts), a hierarchical cluster analysis, and the examination of popularity cues showed that: (a) collective action cues were frequent; (b) most posts transmitted alternative views (Cluster 1) or<em> </em>absolutist ideologies (Cluster 2) with few collective action cues—yet, more than one-third of the posts were either mobilizing (Cluster 3) or wrathful (Cluster 4), entailing multiple collective action cues including cues theoretically linked to non-normative action; (c) mobilizing and wrathful posts were more engaging than alternative views and absolutist ideologies; (d) the types of posts and levels of engagement varied between the examined groups such that the Chemtrail and the Far-Right group disseminated more content with a higher mobilizing potential. The Far-Right group was also the most active in responding to its members. The results of this study are novel in that they demonstrate the prevalence of cues that have been linked to non-normative collective action in psychological research within conspiracy theory-endorsing Facebook groups.

Construction of Socio-situational Identity in Social Media Platforms: A Critical Appraisal of the Use of Digital Write-ups and Photographs

The forms of identity exploration tools and trends have been changed enormously with the rapid expansion of internet media and communication technology for the last decades. Modern dwellers are enthusiastically found to be exposed themselves in online social media through different types of digital contents for establishing their socio-situational identity every day. The random practice of sharing digital contents in online social media is not only a matter of technological instigation, but also a stimulation of late modern socio-situational condition in the process of forming identity for its’ users. Undoubtedly, the digital contents have reasonable grounds to be accepted and celebrated by the social media users in terms of their aptness in purpose. Guided by the spirit of modern technological advancement, the digital contents like digital compositions and photographs seem to occupy a huge amount of social media space today. Although the increasing endorsement and adoration of digital contents in the construction of socio-situational identity in online social platforms is alleged to manufacture a generation having less competence and compassion in the use of language in proper order, many scholars find the initiation however facilitating multidimensional avenues in the narration and construction of socio-situational self for the users. In this circumstance, with the help of recognized works and materials related to the fields, the study intends to investigate, interpret, and review the possible opportunities and challenges in the use of digital write-ups and photographs on the construction of socio-situational identity in online social media platforms.

Let Dr Ai’s story flee: a minor practice against China’s internet censorship during the COVID-19 pandemic

This visual essay adopts Deleuze and Guattari’s conceptual constellation revolving around the notion of minor language to analyze the minor texts that Chinese netizens created to bypass China’s Internet censorship and continuously circulated Chinese Dr Fen Ai’s interview about the early outbreak of coronavirus in Wuhan. The essay argues that the netizen’s minor texts deterritorialise the major or standard use of the Chinese language online and enable Dr Ai’s story to flee the realm of representation. The anti-censorship relay campaign spontaneously launched by China’s Internet users has become a noticeable visual event in China’s social media space.

If you are late, you are Beyond help: Disinformation and Authorities in Social Media

Fast paced, seemingly vast and ever-growing social media is a challenging environment for public authorities to communicate optimally. One challenge is malicious disinformation, which is intentionally disseminated to deceive and cause harm to citizens and authorities. It is known that exceptional circumstances create opportunities for malicious actors to negatively influence democratic societies. Disinformation is often designed to cause uncertainty towards information that public authorities offer and to decrease the overall trust in public authorities. The aim of disinformation is often to cause polarisation in society and to weaken national security. Furthermore, in a crisis, it is essential that authorities are able to deliver official information quickly, clearly and accurately to citizens. Communication between authorities and citizens in time-sensitive situations is typically online. One challenge to public authorities is how they can mitigate and repair the effects of disinformation and information influencing in complex and time-sensitive circumstances. In this article, our aim is to describe the challenges that public authorities face when communicating in social media spaces where disinformation is present. The empirical data, including 16 government official interviews, was collected in September 2021. The main theme of the interviews was related to how situational awareness about disinformation is formed in their organisations. Our research questions focus on how public authorities detect and counter disinformation in social media and what kind of problems and pressures they have when communicating in such environments. This study follows a qualitative design and the data was analysed using inductive content analysis. This study is part of larger project related to counterforces and the detection of disinformation. The results will provide a broader understanding of how different types of public authorities, from health to security organisations, and from agencies to ministries, communicate in complex environments such as social media. 

The Use of Discord Servers to Buy and Sell Drugs

The focus of current research on social media drug markets is the use of mainstream platforms such as Facebook, Snapchat and Instagram. No research currently exists examining how lesser-known social media platforms may facilitate online drug supply. This paper presents the first analysis of the use of the social media platform Discord to buy and sell illegal drugs. The study utilizes observational data and qualitative interviews with Discord drug market participants in New Zealand, including sellers and a drug server administrator ( n = 12). Our findings demonstrate that the Discord platform, which was initially established for gaming, is also being used to facilitate drug transactions. Discord is used to establish local drug selling groups called “servers,” which can be joined by accessing an “invite-link.” The advantages of Discord drug servers cited by interviewees included competitive prices and the ability to greatly expand local seller and customer bases beyond pre-existing personal networks. However, accessibility, server size and management varied considerably between drug servers, giving rise to a range of issues and concerns. We use drug market typologies based on theory of “open” and “closed” markets to understand how “lower tier” and “higher tier” Discord drug servers provided different buying and selling environments. “Lower tier” drug servers were generally characterized by greater ease of entry, larger size, higher rates of opportunism among participants and variable server management. Conversely, “higher tier” drug servers typically involved tighter market entry controls, more active server management and were generally smaller in size. The emergence of Discord drug servers illustrates how the evolution of social media platforms presents their users with new spaces that can be adapted to function as drug markets and the tensions that may emerge during the process of learning to buy and sell in a new social media space.

Rethinking civic education in the digital era: How media, school, and youth negotiate the meaning of citizenship

This study clarifies the evolving notion of civic education that resulted from technological advancement. We investigated Singaporean young people's views on civic education by contrasting the roles of schools, families and friends, and social media in shaping their understanding. Through focus groups, we found that there are contentions on the definitions, approaches, and meanings of civic education. We conclude that in view of the inevitable diversity digital technologies tend to present, young people's civic learning might be limited by the pressure and confusion coming along with the exposure to diverse views, the tendency to retreat from formal politics, and the lack of effective school intervention into the social media space.

Employee influencer management: evidence from state-owned enterprises in Indonesia

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to explore how Indonesian state-owned enterprises (SOEs) select and “manage” employee influencers in order to engage more effectively with younger generations.Design/methodology/approachThe study applies a mixed-methods approach. Quantitative data were obtained by analyzing Instagram content with samples for analysis being taken from company-related posts from June 2018 to June 2020. Qualitative data collection was by two focus group discussions (FGD). The FGDs comprised in total, 22 employee influencers representing the 11 sectors of SOEs in Indonesia.FindingsThe article examines how employee influencers engage with others; how they are chosen by their organizations; how they are managed and the support they need from their employers. It was discovered that a careful triangulation is required between employees as influencers, their followers and SOE communication hubs. A key factor is maintaining the authentic relationship between employee influencers and their followers. A conceptual model of employee influencer management for Indonesia is proposed.Research limitations/implicationsThe research provides useful insights for communication management, marketing, and human resources in developing and supporting the role of employee influencers.Practical implicationsThe research provides useful insights for communication management, marketing and human resources in developing and supporting the role of employee influencers. The suggested model is of practical utility for SOEs for managing employee influencers in Indonesia and provides valuable indicators for other countries.Originality/valueThe study of SOEs’ employee influencers has not been explored previously in the literature. This, combined with the Indonesian perspective, brings new insights to the field. Social media use is especially high in Indonesia, so it acts as a good exemplar for the field. It also builds on the growing literature about the importance of employees as influencer, especially in the social media space. The model also make a theoretical contribution.

Chinese digital platforms in Australia: From market and politics to governance

Through the lens of platform governance, this paper examines the market, politics, and governance of made-in-China digital platforms in Australia, with a focus on WeChat and TikTok. It investigates how formal and informal arrangements are intertwined in the governance regimes and market strategies of these Chinese digital platforms when trying to navigate the turbulent waters of intensified Sino-Australia relations and a global trend towards increased government intervention in platform governance. The two made-in-China platforms represent two different models in platform governance adopted by Tencent and ByteDance: one conditioned by the Chinese ‘strict liability’ model and the other leaning toward the Western ‘broad immunity’ model. The Australian case illustrates the strife, success and politics of outbound Chinese digital platforms in a Western liberal democracy. It also highlights the dilemma, conundrum, and possible breakthrough in platform governance on a splintered and yet increasingly interconnected social media space.

Physical education podcasts: a thriving community of practice or a one-way mode of communication?

ABSTRACT Background Educational podcasts are a new medium that provides content and profession-specific knowledge. Although educational podcasts are widely distributed and listened to within professional fields, little is known about the communities of learners or communities of practices (CoPs) that surround them. Within the field of physical education, effective CoPs have been documented within social media spaces, such as Twitter and Facebook, whereby physical educators engage to strengthen each other’s teaching practices and knowledge. Although scholars have suggested that CoP exist around these podcasts, no research to date has examined these communities. Thus, the purpose of this study was to examine what motivates podcast creators and listeners within the field of physical education and how CoPs are cultivated using podcasts. Methods A purposive sample of 15 participants (7 = podcast creators, 8 = podcast listeners) were interviewed for this study. This investigation was guided by an interpretative phenomenological analysis approach (IPA). Separate interview guides were developed for the PE podcast creators and PE podcast listeners, being developed using the CoP and research questions, with each guide having similar and overlapping questions. In addition, an inductive category development method was used to analyze the data. Results Three themes were constructed: (a) enhancing and replacing professional development experiences, (b) degrees of community around physical education podcasts, and (c) attractive features of podcasts and areas of improvement. Conclusions The findings support that an emerging CoP centered around physical education podcasts is being used as a means of knowledge-sharing. However, issues were raised that can negate the benefits of CoPs. These findings inform how physical education practitioners are engaged in informal professional development and the growing literature around CoPs that exist around educational podcasts in general.

Theater of Public Punishment in Pakistan: A Discourse Analysis of Demand for Public Hanging

This paper investigates the discourse of public hanging of rapists on the social media space, that is, Twitter in Pakistan. It also examines how this discourse is interdiscursively related to the power relations particularly implicated in the discourses on religion and gender and the possible effects of this discursive struggle on society. By employing Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) for analysis, this research uses Laclau and Mouffe’s Discourse Theory as theoretical framework. We conclude that the discourse approving death by hanging for the rapists is a device to propagate the power and the fear of the State. It has a “repetition induced effect” and implies sovereign’s exception; and women are silenced in their demands for justice against the patriarchal social structures which are responsible for crime against women’s body. It also reifies the patriarchal structures and controls societies through vengeance rather than reformative justice.

The Process of Adapting Content of the Online Newspaper Lenta.ru Towards the Social Media Space

Currently, online newspapers whose activities meet journalistic standards are forced to adapt quite quickly to the rapidly developing digital environment. This is primarily due to the transition of the majority of the readership to the space of social networks and messengers, acting today as news providers. In the current situation, media editors have to master new, unusual strategies and technologies for presenting news content. The purpose of the study is to identify the features of the process of transformation of the communication structure of the mass media to the space of social networks and messengers in a changing information environment, using the example of an online newspaper Lenta.ru . This article describes the characteristics of a social network and messenger as platforms for the activities of the online publication. The article examines the ways of presenting the material and the strategies used by the editorial staff on these Internet resources, taking into account the process of merging journalism and marketing, which is characteristic of the media activities in social networks.

Thresholds Revisited: Disentangling Public Space: Social Media and Internet Activism

April 01 2022 Thresholds Revisited: Disentangling Public Space: Social Media and Internet Activism T.F. Tierney, T.F. Tierney T.F. Tierney is founding director of URL: Urban Research Lab and Emerita Professor at the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign. She is a 2021 recipient of a Graham Foundation research grant that focuses on critical urbanism and the impact of policy-making on socioeconomic inclusion. Recent publications include “Intelligent Infrastructure: Zipcars, Invisible Networks and Urban Transformation” and “The Public Space of Social Media: Connected Cultures of Network Society,” which was a finalist for the Jane Jacobs Award. Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Scholar Mariam Elnozahy Mariam Elnozahy Mariam Elnozahy is a curator, writer, and researcher based between Cairo, Egypt and Cambridge, Massachusetts, where she is currently completing her Masters degree in the Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She has curated exhibitions in Cairo, Jeddah, London, Basel, and Amsterdam. Her project titled “Whose Open Society? Understanding Neoliberalism and the Economics of Artistic Production in the Middle East and former Eastern bloc” was presented at the Kunsthalle Wien, the Warsaw Biennale, UJazdowski, the Matter of Art Biennale, and Tranzit in Prague. Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Scholar Author and Article Information T.F. Tierney T.F. Tierney is founding director of URL: Urban Research Lab and Emerita Professor at the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign. She is a 2021 recipient of a Graham Foundation research grant that focuses on critical urbanism and the impact of policy-making on socioeconomic inclusion. Recent publications include “Intelligent Infrastructure: Zipcars, Invisible Networks and Urban Transformation” and “The Public Space of Social Media: Connected Cultures of Network Society,” which was a finalist for the Jane Jacobs Award. Mariam Elnozahy Mariam Elnozahy is a curator, writer, and researcher based between Cairo, Egypt and Cambridge, Massachusetts, where she is currently completing her Masters degree in the Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She has curated exhibitions in Cairo, Jeddah, London, Basel, and Amsterdam. Her project titled “Whose Open Society? Understanding Neoliberalism and the Economics of Artistic Production in the Middle East and former Eastern bloc” was presented at the Kunsthalle Wien, the Warsaw Biennale, UJazdowski, the Matter of Art Biennale, and Tranzit in Prague. Online Issn: 2572-7338 Print Issn: 1091-711X © 2022 T.F. Tierney and Mariam Elnozahy2022T.F. Tierney and Mariam Elnozahy Thresholds (2022) (50): 67–80. https://doi.org/10.1162/thld_a_00755 Cite Icon Cite Permissions Share Icon Share MailTo Twitter LinkedIn Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Search Site Citation T.F. Tierney, Mariam Elnozahy; Thresholds Revisited: Disentangling Public Space: Social Media and Internet Activism. Thresholds 2022; (50): 67–80. doi: https://doi.org/10.1162/thld_a_00755 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentAll JournalsThresholds Search Advanced Search This content is only available as a PDF. © 2022 T.F. Tierney and Mariam Elnozahy2022T.F. Tierney and Mariam Elnozahy Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

Binge Watching and the Role of Social Media Virality towards promoting Netflix’s Squid Game

The management literature has extensively studied viral marketing in the last decade; however, there is a lack of research in understanding network structures and the role of influencers within popular cultural consumption, such as on-demand digital media and binge-watching. In this article, we investigate the role of social media in popularising the East Asian dystopian cultural drama Squid Game. We studied this phenomenon by analysing social network structures, dynamics and influencer characteristics that transformed Squid Game into a popular global digital cultural consumption sensation. Stemming from the foundational theories of popular culture binge-watching, network theory and the social media echo chamber effect, we demonstrate how careful ‘seeding’ and ‘broadcasting’ behaviour adopted by Netflix and key influencers helped the ‘reciprocal merging’ of creative media content within the broader social media space. Our study found that 13,727 Twitter users were tweeting or mentioned on the day show was released. Our research findings further present the characteristic of individual group-based echo chambers and their role in value co-creation towards expanding the network boundary through e-WOM. This phenomenon led to the show’s unprecedented popularity amongst a global audience within a short period. Contributions of our work expand viral marketing and echo-chamber concepts into the binge-watching and popular digital culture realm, where the interplay between dramatized Asian and Western dystopian social norms provided the very fabric of user-led promotion and value co-creation.

#FreeBritney and the Pleasures of Conspiracy

#FreeBritney and the Pleasures of Conspiracy

Bibliometric analysis of fake news indexed in Web of Science and Scopus (2001-2020)

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to investigate the scholarly contribution of literature published on the much-hyped term fake news and associated terms such as misinformation, disinformation and post-truth in various disciplines, which contributes heavily to information disorder.Design/methodology/approachThe study conducted a bibliometric inquiry of literature published in Scopus and Web of Science (WoS) databases (2001-2020) and steered in-depth quantitative content analysis of top-cited publications. The data mining covers 1,776 and 1,056 publications from WoS and Scopus databases, respectively. Bibliometrix R-package, VOSviewer Software tool and Microsoft Excel were used for analysis.FindingsThe study concluded that the past seven years (2014–2020) are the most productive period in studying fake news and its associated terms due to the unprecedented rise of social media and digital media. The prominent themes of the study were conducted in political, health, technology, media and social media space, whereas the output is minor in the pure science field. It is also inferred that both databases are contributing consistently in the domain of fake news literature.Practical implicationsThe study helps in expansion of knowledge based on the research topic as well as in understanding the evolution of fake news in support of further research in this area.Originality/valueMapping scholarly contributions of scientific research provides a guiding approach and helps counter the information chaos stimulated by fake news phenomena in the digital era.

Catholic Media in the Hands of Laics: Case Study of Vatican Communication Chiefs’ Twitter Activities

The shape of religious media communication changed dramatically because of the opportunities given by digital media and by the process of the secularization, structural changes in religious organizations, and the challenge enabled by the huge loss of credibility in the eyes of the world. We can observe certain dynamics in the professional approach of official Catholic media, especially those based in the Vatican. Its on-line project Vatican News has provided news service since 2017, now in almost forty languages. In the spirit of continuing the reform of the Roman curia, for which the founding of Secretary for Communication (now dicastery) was the “pilot” area, Pope Francis appointed the first layperson to lead any office of curia in 2018, and journalist Paolo Ruffini became the prefect. A few months later, one of most famous experts on the Vatican, also a lay person, journalist Andrea Tornielli, became editorial chief of the Dicastery for Communication. Other personal changes continued soon. The goal of this article is to analyse the initiative that Ruffini and Tornielli took in their office during six months after their appointment. The quantitative content analysis of both their Twitter accounts, closely connected with the newscast produced by Vatican News, is the scientific method used in this paper. There were detected new journalistic genres in the social media space (e.g., short video, editorial, story), vast popularity of Pope Francis, and success of his own Twitter activity (he obtained even tens of thousands of followers) or, contrarily, the omission and inconsistency when introducing uneasy themes (abuse crisis in the Catholic Church, ecology or economy) to the public. There was also the surprising realization that Ruffini is more popular in the Twitter milieu than Tornielli.