social media

Given the immense shifts the social networking sites and applications have brought about, a considerable number of researchers in the field of communication studies have turned to study different aspects of social media usage and factors influencing it. This study gathered data from 33318 US non-institutionalized citizens over 18 including 17079 females and 16239 males; they were members of web panelists of Pew, and their answers revealed that a majority of this online participants used a kind of social media. The results of this study revealed women use social media more than men, and religious people more than non-religious people. In addition, the results indicated that married people are the least users of social media in comparison with other marital groups. Our results showed that all demographics are significantly related to social media usage. But this significance can be somehow misleading because of weak practical effect sizes. Except for marital status and age Cramer’s V values are too small and their significance may have nothing to say but sensitivity to the degree of freedom.

The People Vs Tech: How the Internet is Killing Democracy (and How We Save It) by Jamie Bartlett. New York: Dutton, 2018. 256 pp., £8.99 (p/b), ISBN 978-1785039065.

Internet Addiction Among Cyberkids in China: Risk Factors and Intervention Strategies by Qiaolei Jiang, 2019, Singapore: Springer, 199 pp., €84.99(h/c), ISBN 978-981-13-3791-8

Purpose: Technologies in general and media in particular influence their audience through their form and content. There are many studies about the role and effect of classic media on values change; however, few studies have explored new emergent media such as social networks. The aim of this descriptive-survey research is to investigate how time spent on social network and social network addiction is related to value system of students. Methodology: Statistical population consisted of all students studying at higher education institutes in Bojnord during 2015-16 academic years. A sample of 229 students was selected using cluster-random sampling. Data was analyzed using SPSS 19 software. Findings: Findings revealed a negative significant relationship between the use of social network and social network addiction on the one hand, and the value system of students on the other hand. This finding held true for religious, cultural, political and social components of the value system, except for economic component. Discussion: According to these findings, higher education should pay greater attention to promoting media literacy of students.

Nowadays, the tourism industry accounts for approximately 10% of the global GDP, while it only contributes 3% of the economy in Iran. Since the pressure of US sanctions increases day after day on the Iranian economy, the necessity of paying attention to this industry as a source of foreign currency is felt more than ever. The purpose of this research is to analyze the reviews of users of social commerce websites by using a combination of text mining and data mining techniques. For this purpose, the database of TripAdvisor website (TripAdvisor.com) was evaluated, and all profile information of users who commented on hotels in Iran was collected. These comments on all the content of the website, such as hotels, restaurants, and attractions, were then extracted and analyzed. The optimal number of clusters was considered four clusters by calculating the Davies-Bouldin index, namingly water therapy tourists, boutique hotels style and Iran urban tourists, travelholics and food tourists, business and health tourists. Every single cluster possesses unique attributes and features. Afterward, the association rules were further identified for each cluster according to the characteristics of each cluster and the information in the users' profiles. Finally, a solution is proposed to increase the participation of the users on the website, and targeted promotional plans are expressed in accordance with the well-known features of each cluster.

The article is devoted to a comprehensive analysis of peculiarities of the content types, which can be placed in social media and Ukrainian Internet media, its differences, types of manipulation, and methods of prevention, perception, and distribution of unreliable information, determination of difference between fact and judgment. The article also analyzes the statistics of social media usage in Ukraine and around the world, using Facebook as an example. Various kinds and types of media existing on the Internet and traditional, conducted a survey of the most popular content using the Starch method, it was possible to identify how a person perceives one content that is placed on different media. The relationship between content type and media type is established. The phenomenon of information restriction, arising as a result of modern algorithms embedded in the Internet companies and social media, their positive and negative aspects and why, therefore, we are deprived of a choice among a wide range of other topics, and learning some other points of view was considered. Examining the origin and meaning of the "Information Bubble" term, the authors propose to use a different term, "Membrane of Relevance", which, in their opinion, is more relevant to the essence of the said concept. The authors propose to use a taxonomy method to determine the impact of content on a particular type of media, which will greatly simplify the content analysis process.

Agovernmentshouldusesocialmediaforcommunicatingwithitscitizen.Theengagement index score is one of the methods for assessing the rate of governmental success in using social media as a tool in establishing interactive relationships with its citizen. In general, the engagement index score is obtained by calculating the number of posts, number of likes and comments, and so forth on a single social media account. Therefore, we propose an integrated engagement index score for three social media: Facebook, Youtube and Twitter. In this work, we carry out a study for local governments in Indonesia. The engagement index score was adopted from the previous research. However, we modified the formula to get a better distribution score.Our modified formula generates the same ranking sequences with previous research.Also, Facebook and Youtubes’ reaction are considered in this work to analyzes the quality of sentiments to a Facebook fan page and Youtube channel of localgovernments.

The purpose of this research is to explore the social media trend in communication in Kuwait by utilizing the technology acceptance model. Social media has been gaining extraordinary adoption in past years that requires further investigation into user’s adoption habits, the various kinds of social media, and its effect on their perceived usefulness and ease of use of social media. The study consists of a total of 250 participants that were asked to complete a questionnaire in a random sample. Important findings indicate that the highest number of participants uses Facebook, and the second highest number of participants use Twitter. In terms of usage habits, the highest number of participants uses social media for chatting and connecting with family and friends. The second highest number of participants uses social media for reading posts. In terms of perceived usefulness, the highest numbers of participants perceive social media as ‘usefulness’, and the second highest numbers of participants feel that ‘social media is faster’. In terms of perceived ease of use the highest numbers of participants feel that social media is an easy way to communicate, and the second highest numbers of participants feel that social media does not require a lot of effort. In terms of gender it has been evident that females feel higher perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use of social media than males. The study bears theoretical and practical implications that show TAM can be successfully applied to examine social media in the context of Kuwait population. Furthermore, results of this study can be further generalized to neighboring GCC countries as they share similar geographic, economic, cultural, and financial factors.

Nowadays with the ever-increasing growth in social media platforms and the creation of different forms of online activism, the word known as “Campaign” has become a familiar and useful term in people’s everyday lives. Campaigns with all kinds of social aims especially using Hashtags are run on social media platforms by individuals, charities, NGOs, governments, municipalities and brand companies and with peoples' participation and value co-creation, appropriate results are achieved and the desired changes are made in people’s attitudes and the behavior of individuals, businesses, or governments. Therefore, there seems to be a new form of a virtual public sphere where there is action, dialog and social mobilization, which leads to the formation of public opinion and social change in the digital era. In this paper, using a critical review method, we are going to investigate a public sphere's literature and study its core features (1. access, 2. dialog, 3. action, and 4. public opinion) in digital campaigns and online platforms. Then, in the last part, we are going to map those in a real case study in order to further clarify the arguments and show how social campaigns on online platforms contribute to the formation of a public sphere in the digital era.

Considering the organizations’ increasing use of social media, many studies are being conducted in this area. Researchers are faced with a variety of research strategies depending on the nature of the research problem and data. If the right research strategy is not employed, the researcher will lose focus, and the time and effort spent will not necessarily serve the research objectives. When choosing a research strategy, the organization’s characteristics should be taken into consideration; otherwise, it may lead to confounding interpretations of the findings. In this regard, the present study aims to introduce an appropriate research strategy for each maturity stage of the organization under study. To this end, using systematic mapping methodology, about 256 articles published within 2011- 2021 were investigated, and the relationship between the types of research strategy used and the different stages of an organization’s maturity in using social media was reported. Specifically, by synthesizing the social sciences research methodology framework and the social media stage of the growth model, a mapping was developed between the research strategies and maturity stages. Based on this mapping, it is expected that the appropriate strategy for research at the first maturity stage is exploratory, and for the second and third stages are observational and descriptive, respectively. When the organization moves to the fourth and fifth levels, archival and causal strategies are recommended for research. Using the results of this research, researchers will be able to identify the right research strategy for the maturity stage of the organization under study and develop the appropriate research design accordingly.

Social media is an interactive technology, that came into reality out of fun for  interaction,  but it has advanced towards a powerful tool for instruction globally. However, despite its use and relevance, the utilization and  its self-efficacy to learning have not been significantly be aware of. Therefore, this study investigate social media in the context of area of study for learning and its self-efficacy. Descriptive research of cross-sectional survey method and purposive sampling was used to sample 2,458 postgraduate students across the universities in South-west, Nigeria.  Through administering the instrument of study questionnaire. The findings revealed that there were no significant differences between postgraduate students to use social media for learning based on their area of study  t(2,2456)=5.93;p>0.05. Self-Efficacy, t(2,2454)=0.56;p>0.57. The study concluded that postgraduate students’ have positive perception towards social media. It was however recommended that the use of social media should be encouraged in facilitating learning.

With the development of a new stage of the industrial revolution, the importance of digitalization of business development tools is growing. The purpose of this article is to study the applied aspects of digital marketing tools usage for business development in the B2C market. To achieve the purpose and objectives of the study general and special methods are used: comparative analysis of the results of economic and statistical surveys; method of expert assessments by questionnaires using a 5-point Likert scale. The concordance coefficient was used to determine the consistency of the experts' opinions taking into account the related ranks in method of expert assessments. According to the results of the research, it is established that the Ukrainian business of the B2C sector was actively mastering digital marketing tools. The analysis of penetration level of digital technologies in the development of trade business showed the emergence of basic conditions for updating marketing tools to influence the B2C market. There is a rapid coverage rate of multi-purpose use of the Internet among consumers and businesses; gradual growth of digital skills among practitioners; positive dynamics of development of interactive services in the trade sphere. However, the level of use of the retail businesses websites remains low in many spheres of customer service. An important trend of the current development stage of the consumer market is the usage of business Internet platforms designed for mass dissemination of information. Effective marketing channels of interaction with consumers include social media (social networks, blogs or microblogs, websites with multimedia content, knowledge sharing tools), websites, e-shops, and sales via mobile devices. According to the results of expert evaluation, foreground digital technologies, which are able to bring business to a qualitatively new level of interaction with consumers and the provision of trade services have been identified. These are artificial intelligence and cognitive technologies, BigData, Internet of Things (IoT), and cloud computing. The structural and logical scheme of research of digital marketing tools is used for business development which includes two stages is offered. In the first stage, trendwatching, benchmarking and evaluation of internal opportunities for the use of digital marketing tools are performed. In the second stage, three components of digital readiness of business are defined: technological; competence; institutional. The obtained results form the basis of further research to determine the priorities of adaptive digital business behavior for the productive use of existing digital opportunities.

This essay examines the tripartite relationship between social media companies, policy regulators and the public interest. There are many complex issues to consider regarding regulation of social media companies. The author looks at all three areas separately to try and understand the motivations and expectations of each entity.

In the world of big data and social-media-headed governance and policymaking, data analysis is judged based on the speed and accuracy of execution. This study attempts to modify the existing Association Rule Mining (ARM) techniques by improving the space constraints. Although most of the ARM research is primarily focused on computational efficiency, it has not considered the identification of either the optimal support or the confidence value. Selection of ideal support, as well as confidence value, is vital for the ‘ARM’s quality. However, with the large dataset availability, the space vector poses the latest challenge in processing. Identification of the optimal parameters adapted to the space model is non-deterministic in nature. This research will focus on a Grammatical Evolution (GE) Association Rule Miner (GE-ARM) to identify the optimal threshold parameters for mining quality rules. Simulations are done using the FoodMart2000 dataset, and then, the proposed method is compared against the Apriori, the Frequent Pattern (FP) growth, and the Genetic Algorithms (GA). Simulation results exhibit substantial enhancements in space and rules generated together with time complexity. Compared to Apriori and FP-tree methods, the proposed GE-ARM achieves lesser runtime by around 20%. Such an improvisation would categorically change the dynamics of social media analytics by reducing the space constraints and can have more significant ramifications in policymaking. Therefore, such an improvement is undoubtedly an effective nudge in policymaking.

The present research has been done with a view to designing content marketing model at social media for boosting green marketing. As regards purpose, it is an applied research,and in terms of approach an exploratory survey, and typically, it can be subsumed under a qualitative research. The analysis approach of this research is meta-synthesis. The statistical community consists of academic and scholarly articles published between 2016-2021/1395-1401 on the pertinent area of this study at Iran`s and foreign trustworthy databases. According to our findings, 1740 articles were retrieved, 324 abstracts were sieved and 186 abstracts were investigated. It was established that the titles of 1416 articles were irrelevant, and consequently they were omitted. 138 articles were deleted once their abstracts had been reviewed and found irrelevant and 95 articles were left out after a survey of their contents. The criteria used were size of the statistical sample, theoretical sufficiency (theoretical saturation), and finally 56 articles were accepted. The outcome of this process was 49 codes, 23 concepts and 10 categories. The Kappa index was used to guarantee the quality of our research. The amount of the index was calculated using the SPSS software at the significant level of 0/000 number 0/806. According to the evaluation and the extracted concepts and categories in the present research, the content marketing model of social media (Instagram) for boosting green marketing was designed based on three groups of factors: causal, mediating and consequential. The results of the findings show that in the process of content marketing of social media for boosting green marketing, a set of variables play a causal role, and can act as stimulants or propelling agents, and if the causal and mediating factors come properly about, this can culminate in the boosting of the service or product`s brand and an appropriate competitive advantage regarding green marketing in the organizations will also emerge.

INTRODUCTION: Improving the social capital of the Red Crescent Society can play an effective role in crisis management also control and increase productivity in responding to incidents. This research aimed to explain the role of mass and social media in the development of the social capital of the Iranian Red Crescent Society. METHODS: This practical research was conducted using a mixture of qualitative and quantitative research methods. The statistical population of the research in the qualitative part included 21 executive managers and pundits, who were selected using a purposeful and snowball sampling method. In the quantitative part, a total of 2,815 volunteer members of the Red Crescent Society formed the population, who were chosen by stratified random sampling method. The statistical data of the qualitative part were collected by holding semi-structured interviews, while those of the quantitative part were gathered using a questionnaire having content validity as well as the study of organizational documents. Data analysis in the qualitative part was performed through the thematic analysis method and in the quantitative part through the frequency and comparison of statistical data. FINDINGS: The findings showed that the effective role of the media should not be neglected. It was revealed that mass and social media played a role in the development of the social capital of the Red Crescent Society through three important components, namely news and information, mass education, and accreditation. CONCLUSION: According to the results of the current research, the Red Crescent Society can boost the productivity and effectiveness of humanitarian and public benefits programs and activities by understanding the very effective role of communication media and improving the level of cooperation and altruism culture in society with the help of mass media members, activists, and celebrities of social networks.

The main drivers of value creation in a ‘brand community’ are social networking, community engagement, impression management, and brand use. Marketers are therefore interested in determining which factors affect the value creation practices. This study examines the impact of the Interactivity of Electronic Word of Mouth (EWOM) systems on value creation practices in a brand community, which in turn influences the loyalty of the customers. In this regard, a conceptual model was developed and tested by the researchers of the current study. The results indicate that perceptions of the users regarding the interactivity of EWOM systems, highly impact only three of the four value creation practices including community engagement practices, impression management practices, and brand use practices. Furthermore, the researchers found that collective value creation practices could significantly and directly enhance brand loyalty. Several theoretical contributions and managerial implications were also discussed

This study aimed to examine the challenges and opportunities of sports stakeholders in social media use. This study uses thematic analysis to analyze the literature on the research topic. Furthermore, semi-structured interviews were conducted with three groups of sports stakeholders, including players (N=15), teams managers (N=14), and fans (N=26) that were chosen from three professional football teams. The phenomenological method was used to explore the research questions. The study addressed seven categories of sport stakeholders' challenges and opportunities in social media: informing sports stakeholders, sharing information, advertising, shopping, dialogue, and facilitation of communication, which are offering opportunities. Moreover, two challenges, including unpleasant feelings and time consumption, are recognized as dilemmas. The findings showed common challenges and opportunities of all three sports stakeholders in using social media.