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Broadcast Versus Interaction: Environmental Groups’ Use of Twitter
Abstract
This study examines the extent to which interest groups utilize Twitter to engage in interactive communication and the potential of such communication to serve organizational goals such as mobilization, fundraising, and expanding support for groups’ causes. Based on a content analysis of 5,000 tweets by environmental organizations in the context of the 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, I show that interactive communication was relatively uncommon and, further, that interactivity did not yield a significant payoff in terms of expanding groups’ reach and influence within the medium. These findings suggest that the benefits of interactivity may be overstated, and that other communicative strategies may better serve groups’ goals during times of crisis.
... In the societal engagement category, we considered posts that explicitly replied to citizens' complaints or explicitly @mentioned non-EPB users, 7 a practice that social media users adopt to engage with and show connections with other users (Merry 2014). We also considered posts that forwarded societal information (NGOs or scientific studies and environmental activities). ...
... In the second stage of our analysis of social media data, we returned to the full dataset of 35,700 posts to investigate the origins and flows of the information posted by Shandong EPBs using quantitative analysis of the hierarchal and geographic source and dissemination of environmental information. Inspired by studies which have used similar techniques to study social media ecosystems around environmental issues (Merry 2014;Kay, Zhao, and Sui 2015;Comfort and Hester 2019), this analysis helps to address several points. First, information originating with grassroots EPBs and then disseminated laterally and by higher level EPBs would support e-governance objectives, as it is EPBs at the district and county level that are responsible for the bulk of environmental enforcement and information disclosure. ...
... Most interactions occurred between EPBs, and the remainder generally involved individuals with obvious, but often undisclosed, relationships to EPBs. At first sight, these practices resemble those of political actors and large environmental NGOs in the west, who have been found to use social media to broadcast their message unilaterally and to reinforce their internal connections, rather than to interact with the public and risk losing control of their communication (Hutchins 2016;Merry 2014;Comfort and Hester 2019). Such an interpretation can plausibly explain the behaviour of EPBs, to the extent that editors serve political goals and may also worry about losing control over their communication (Zheng 2013). ...
Since 2011, Chinese environmental authorities have undertaken a project of “occupying” online spaces, with a particular focus on social media like Weibo. These activities have been analysed alternatively as a promising attempt to improve environmental governance by increasing citizen engagement and transparency, or as a new tool of control over online environmental discourses. However, empirical research into the practices of state microblogs is rare, and the implications of their emergence for local environmental governance remain poorly understood. Using a combination of online and offline investigation methods, this paper analyses the use of microblogs by 172 local environmental authorities in Shandong Province, whose multi-level EPB microblogging system is seen as a model for other provinces, testing whether this system improves environmental governance, and whether this objective is impeded by practices aimed at controlling online environmental discourse. We find limited evidence of improved environmental governance that would be attested by enhanced information disclosure and active citizen engagement. Instead, EPB communication appears mostly insular, and obstructed by floods of diversionary content and propaganda. We suggest that while these behaviours are likely driven by misaligned state incentive structures and fears of triggering social unrest, they also support the goal of discursive control by occupation.
... Although ENGOs need to employ environmental communication as part of their common advocacy aim to protect the environment, there are also a variety of communicative aims and strategies that they need to consider, ensuring that they have the resources required to continue to function as an organisation. Merry (2014) identifies key organisational purposes as "mobilisation, fundraising, and membership recruitment, and broadening of public awareness and sympathy for groups' causes" (339). In Merry's research of 5000 tweets from ENGOs, following the 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, she references that the opportunities to further these aims are amplified in a time of crisis event, or focusing event (339). ...
... Four of Greenpeace's 64 tweets collated for this data were repliesand all four of them referred to Trump whilst thanking the user for their donation or support for the organisation. This interactivity with donators, establishing a relationship with gratitude for their involvement, could suggest that interacting with stakeholders is especially prevalent during "focusing events" such as the 2010 Oil Spill that Merry's (2014) research focuses on and the election of Trump to the presidency discussed in this dissertation. The fact that many of these interactions were based on Greenpeace's publicity event of dropping a resist banner within sight of the White House suggests that they may be more comfortable limiting interactions within the framing of these focusing events, supporting Greenberg and MacAulay's (2009) concerns that generally increasing interactivity with the audience may result in a loss of "steering control" from the organisation. ...
... e platform more as an opportunity to engage with journalists and promote environmental journalism than to engage with audiences, especially those who aren't already sympathetic to their causes. Studies have shown that the largest group of "Verified" accounts (i.e. accounts that have been authenticated by Twitter staff) are journalists(Kamps, 2015).Merry's (2014) study concludes in a similar way, stating that "information diffusion… might be the more critical function of social media than interactivity, at least in the context of political advocacy during policy windows of opportunity" (340). This might be especially relevant for large organisations like the ones covered in this study: dissemina ...
... There was much criticism of academics for the overemphasis of Twitter's role in the Arab Spring (Carley et al., 2016), but the largely successful use of Twitter and other social media in protests around Standing Rock (Di Ronco et al., 2019), and the persistent use of the platform by movements such as #BlackLivesMatter (Taylor, 2016) suggests that the platform may still play a significant role to play in protests. Researchers have long noted the potential of the internet to strengthen democratic governance (Grossman, 1995), through its ability to promote and shape collective action (Merry, 2014), while collective action has long been the mainstay of environmental movements, where environmental issues are not fought for alone but are defined through collective processes (Taylor, 2000). Twitter lends itself to the loose but connected nature of environmental movements, allowing them to frame arguments (Doğu, 2019), build online connections (Merry, 2014), provide a base for knowledge sharing (Costie et al., 2018), and give a sense that one can change and shape the world around them (Drury & Reicher, 2009). ...
... Researchers have long noted the potential of the internet to strengthen democratic governance (Grossman, 1995), through its ability to promote and shape collective action (Merry, 2014), while collective action has long been the mainstay of environmental movements, where environmental issues are not fought for alone but are defined through collective processes (Taylor, 2000). Twitter lends itself to the loose but connected nature of environmental movements, allowing them to frame arguments (Doğu, 2019), build online connections (Merry, 2014), provide a base for knowledge sharing (Costie et al., 2018), and give a sense that one can change and shape the world around them (Drury & Reicher, 2009). Although many environmental struggles remain local, retaining their own identity and narratives, the digital age has allowed some to tackle large-scale political-economic processes on a global scale (Serafini, 2018). ...
This article explores how the anti-fracking movements in the province of Mendoza, Argentina, have used Twitter to shape narratives around anti-fracking. Adopting a dynamic view of collective action frames, the article shows that the anti-fracking movements have developed multiple frames to articulate their struggle and justify their grievances, and how procedural injustice and environmental values have been motivational factors for local citizens. The article also demonstrates that Twitter is principally being used as a broadcast platform rather than being used to create online collective action, but that the strong framing means that disparate groups have been united behind the common cause.
... The author also suggests that nonprofit advocacy organisations use different social platforms for different purposes, such as thanking on Twitter, engaging in two-way communication on Facebook, and communicating messages by using authority figures on YouTube (Auger, 2013). Exploring environmental groups' use of Twitter during the 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, Merry (2014) argues that the community function-in other words, interactivity-was rarely used. ...
... Topsy (http://www.topsy.com) were used to collect tweets (see Guo & Saxton, 2014;Merry, 2014). For our purposes, we preferred to use the Export Tweet (http://www.exporttweet.com) ...
This paper examines social media use by cause and sectional interest groups in the European Union. The literature suggests that cause groups should focus on building a constituency more than sectional groups, because they do not offer exclusive benefits to their members. Cause groups face collective action problems more than sectional groups, so they have to take a proactive approach to community building. The nature of the causes cause groups lobby for is also more suitable for protest and thus calls to action. An in-depth analysis of a random sample of 1,000 tweets by cause and sectional groups reveals differences with respect to social media use. Cause groups use social media to pursue two-way communication with the public slightly-albeit not significantly-more than sectional groups. Cause groups mobilise the public to take action significantly and substantively more than specific interests.
... Scholars have also pointed out some benefits of noninteractivity and the strategic significance of one-way communication on Twitter. Getting involved in conversations with the public is not only time-consuming for political leaders but it also detracts from broadcasting information more widely (Merry, 2014). Politicians involved in interactive communication, including responses to user questions and comments, will inevitably be at the receiving end of some unexpected, even unpleasant reactions, thereby weakening the impact of the original message sought to be broadcasted (Waters & Williams, 2011). ...
Does interactivity on Twitter initiated by political elites yield dividends in terms of indirect outcomes such as online political mobilization? Twitter has traditionally been utilized by political elites mainly as broadcasting media, characterized by its limited interactions with the wider public. In doing so, political elites may be overlooking Twitter's utility as an interactive media for mobilizing their supporters, which we seek evidence for in this paper. We adopt a naturalistic quasi-experimental design utilizing a unique dataset comprising tweets of users who were mentioned (36.62 million tweets) and not mentioned (29.73 million tweets) by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on 16th March, 2019 during his general election campaign. A controlled intervention analysis using Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA) models was carried out, which suggests that, on average, the total tweets count increased more for users mentioned by Modi (treatment group) as compared to those not mentioned by Modi (control group). However, no substantive lasting effect could be detected, indicating therefore that a mention by political elites helps generate immediate engagement which is not necessarily self-sustaining. To determine if this activation behavior is more prominent for less or more active users, we categorized the users based on their Twitter activity and assessed the significance of any movement between categories; no evidence could be found in support of this claim. Our findings thus provide important insights to understand how Twitter can be used as an effective platform for political campaigns by exploiting some of its interactive features such as replies and mentions to mobilize supporters.
... Scholars have also pointed out some benefits of noninteractivity and the strategic significance of one-way communication on Twitter. Getting involved in conversations with the public is not only time-consuming for political leaders but it also detracts from broadcasting information more widely (Merry, 2014). Politicians involved in interactive communication, including responses to user questions and comments, will inevitably be at the receiving end of some unexpected, even unpleasant reactions, thereby weakening the impact of the original message sought to be broadcasted (Waters & Williams, 2011). ...
Does interactivity on Twitter initiated by political elites yield dividends in terms of indirect outcomes such as online political mobilization? Twitter has traditionally been utilized by political elites mainly as broadcasting media, characterized by its limited interactions with the wider public. In doing so, political elites may be overlooking Twitter's utility as an interactive media for mobilizing their supporters, which we seek evidence for in this paper. We adopt a naturalistic quasi-experimental design utilizing a unique dataset comprising tweets of users who were mentioned (36.62 million tweets) and not mentioned (29.73 million tweets) by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on 16th March, 2019 during his general election campaign. A controlled intervention analysis using Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA) models was carried out, which suggests that, on average, the total tweets count increased more for users mentioned by Modi (treatment group) as compared to those not mentioned by Modi (control group). However, no substantive lasting effect could be detected, indicating therefore that a mention by political elites helps generate immediate engagement which is not necessarily self-sustaining. To determine if this activation behavior is more prominent for less or more active users, we categorized the users based on their Twitter activity and assessed the significance of any movement between categories; no evidence could be found in support of this claim. Our findings thus provide important insights to understand how Twitter can be used as an effective platform for political campaigns by exploiting some of its interactive features such as replies and mentions to mobilize supporters.
... Scholars have also pointed out some benefits of noninteractivity and the strategic significance of one-way communication on Twitter. Getting involved in conversations with the public is not only time-consuming for political leaders but it also detracts from broadcasting information more widely (Merry, 2014). Politicians involved in interactive communication, including responses to user questions and comments, will inevitably be at the receiving end of some unexpected, even unpleasant reactions, thereby weakening the impact of the original message sought to be broadcasted (Waters & Williams, 2011). ...
Does interactivity on Twitter by political elites yield dividends either in terms of a direct outcome (winning elections) or an indirect outcome (political mobilizations)? We answer this question using a unique dataset of Twitter users (N=27,640) who were among those thanked for their support by the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his tweets on 16thMarch, 2019 during his campaigning for the general election. We extracted tweets (tweets, retweets and replies) from these users from 10thJanuary (beginning of the campaign) to 19th May 2019 (the day the election ended), which yielded a total of 36.62 million tweets, and proceeded to classify these users based on their activeness on Twitter, for a comprehensive analysis of their Twitter activity over a period of 18 weeks to understand the impact of Modi’s intervention. A controlled intervention analysis using Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA) models was carried out with a control group comprising a similar set of Twitter users (N=27,610) supporting Modi's campaign, but were not mentioned by Modi. Our results suggest that, on average, the aggregate number of tweets shared by users had increased after mentions by Modi. However, our findings do not provide any evidence for the prominence of the activation behavior among less active Twitter users. We discuss the implications of our findings for the use of Twitter by political elites during electoral campaigns. Inferences about political activity on Twitter may also offer important insights into overall political activeness outside Twitter, as evidenced by the use of Twitter activity to capture social trends validated by other studies.
... The development of new media technology has brought about subversive changes in the media ecological environment, and the changes that have taken place in the media ecology of new media have given way to a new landscape for EC. In more recent years, scholars have begun to study EC on the Internet and social media, communication mediums that have exceeded the scope of the mainstream mass media, and they considered the contribution of non-media actors' activities to EC (Alexander, 2013;Autry and Kelly, 2012;Merry, 2014). In addition, with the development of new media technology, the increase in communication channels has led to a gradual reduction in the cost of public access and participation in EC, and to more public participation. ...
Environmental communication (EC) is of great significance to the practice of environmental protection by human society, as it involves disseminating ecological and environmental information, communicating environmental risks, and increasing environmental awareness among the audience. In this study, knowledge mapping analysis was used to systematically review research in the field of EC. A scientometric analysis (1900–2020) was carried out on 2219 journal articles obtained from the Web of Science database to explore the basic characteristics, research hotspots, and research frontiers of EC research. The results revealed that: (1) Research on EC received widespread attention since the beginning of the 21st century, and 2010 was an important turning point in the study of EC. EC research shows the trend of interdisciplinary development. (2) Well-known universities in western countries and from around the world constitute the main body of current EC research. However, there is still a lack of international cooperation in the field of EC research. (3) Climate change, as a complex scientific issue, is not only a global environmental issue, but also the most concerned and hot issue in the field of EC. It has a strong political attribute and has become a major issue that cannot be ignored in politics. (4) According to the timeline analysis of research hotspots, EC research was innovatively divided into an initial stage, a development stage, and a rising stage. Combined the keyword bursts result with the research hotspots analysis, the research frontier of EC was divided into four periods. Finally, the shortcomings of this study are summarized and directions for future research of EC are proposed by considering the following four aspects: research perspective, research content, research paradigm and method, and research context.
... Despite the myriad ways in which social media platforms allow for stakeholder engagement, few organizations are taking full advantage of these tools. In contrast to the dialogic interaction envisioned by early scholars, one-way broadcasting of information remains the dominant form of communication Merry, 2014). Moreover, though social media platforms greatly reduce the costs associated with advertising, fundraising, organizing and mobilizing, it is not the case that these technologies are free. ...
Increasingly, advocacy organizations are routing their communications through social media platforms. One notable difference from traditional communication outlets is the easy inclusion of visual elements within social media messaging. One such example of the turn toward the visual in online communication is the fight over the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL), during which environmental groups livestreamed protests and posted images of demonstrators staring down police. This study examines the use and consequences of visual-based ‘new media’ platforms by applying the Narrative Policy Framework (NPF) to the case of DAPL. The NPF focuses our attention on the role of policy stories, acknowledging that narratives have impacts on policy beliefs and actions. I compare social media messaging that includes imagery to that which does not, exploring creation of policy narratives as defined through the NPF. I do so by drawing on a dataset of more than 580 Twitter posts by five environmental advocacy groups from July 2016 through October 2017. My findings speak to the ways in which images and accompanying text interact to form more robust narratives. Visual tweets are also more likely to stimulate greater sharing behavior. These results have implications for interest group communications strategy.
... Bruns ja Highfield 2013;Bruns ja Stieglitz 2014;Jungherr 2014;Marttila ym. 2016;Merry 2014;Trilling 2014), tai tehty mittavaa manuaalista työtä aiheiden tunnistamisek- si (esim. Ausserhofer ja Maireder 2013;Graham ym. ...
In this article we use the perspectives of agenda-building and issue ownership to study the public agenda preceding elections. By using computational topic modeling we investigate, how the public agenda and the topics covered in candidates' social media messages are connected. Our data consists of candidates' social media messages and political news of 20 major Finnish newspapers one month prior to the Finnish parliamentary elections 2015. The analysis shows that social media was used more for campaigning than policy-related messaging. Instead of clear issue ownership patterns the candidates and the media focus on same main issues: economic situation, security politics, and work and entrepreneurship. To a large extent the public agenda online followed the main topics of news media. Exceptions are the topic of immigration raised by conservative parties, and conversations related to education and youth wellbeing raised by NGO campaigns. Our analysis implies that the candidates react to the themes present on online arenas, which suggests that citizens or NGOs can use social media to exhibit agenda-building power over the public, political agenda. In addition, our analysis demonstrates the ability of computational methods to explore issue coverage across media arenas.
... This single-case analysis is of course limited by its lack of generalizability. Following previous research, we conceived of the People's Climate March as a "focusing event," in which attention is drawn to an issue and opportunities are opened up for organization building (Merry, 2014). As such, the next steps in this research will be to explore how the shape and content of the conversations around this event might have impacted online conversations on climate change going forward. ...
The September 2014 “People’s Climate March” was reportedly the largest climate
change mobilization in history. The coalition of organizations behind the march chose a
strategy of inclusion: They sought to create a “big tent” for a climate movement.
Building on theoretical developments in the literature on digital media and social
movements, we used Twitter as a window to observe how march organizers and
participants attempted to (a) create a digital space of shared attention intersecting with
the on-the-ground event, and also (b) thread together diverse orientations to the
climate issue.
... While much has been written about online environmental content (e.g. [22]) and media tactics environmental activists and NGOs use [18], very little is known about the "average" green consumer's media habits on the Internet. Various motives for sustainable behaviors (responsibility, involvement, internalization) have been examined among Facebook and Twitter users [31]. ...
... A comunicação no Twitter vem sendo investigada nos últimos anos com análises do retweet como uma prática conversacional (Boyd et al., 2010), do uso da rede como uma forma de comunicação em situações de desastres (Takahashi et al., 2015), de mobilização para ações nas ruas (Theocharis et al., 2014), e da atuação de organizações não-governamentais e associações (Merry, 2014), entre outros aspectos. ...
A 21ª Conferência das Partes (COP21) da Convenção-Quadro das Nações Unidas sobre Mudanças no Clima foi apontada como a mais promissora reunião para um acordo global de combate aos efeitos das mudanças climáticas e redução da emissão de gases de efeito estufa. Este artigo analisa a comunicação sobre as mudanças climáticas no ambiente online durante o período da Conferência. Os temas debatidos nas redes sociais são suscetíveis a afetar o debate de forma ampla e trazem importantes informações a respeito da opinião pública e de percepções sobre as mudanças climáticas (Williams et al., 2015). Para este fim, o trabalho foca-se na popular rede social Twitter, que tem sido apontada como um termômetro da percepção pública (Brown & Wake, 2015). O Twitter tem mais de 310 milhões de utilizadores ativos por mês, dos quais 79% estão fora dos Estados Unidos da América, o que possibilita analisar outros contextos e fomentar a investigação em idiomas sub investigados, como o espanhol e o português. Lança-se um primeiro olhar sobre os usos e conteúdos publicados no Twitter nas línguas mencionadas visando responder às seguintes questões: Que tipo de conteúdos são mais populares no Twitter sobre mudanças climáticas? Qual a linguagem (palavras, nomes) utilizada para se debater o tema? Até que ponto é que a mídia tradicional é referência relevante no contexto da comunicação sobre as mudanças climáticas na rede social? Quem são os atores que formam esta rede e quais são os mais influentes? Conclui-se, entre outros aspectos, que entre os atores da rede se destacam diversos políticos e que a mídia é referência importante de informação nesta rede social. Nos dados em língua portuguesa, constatou-se um nível de atividade muito elevado dos cidadãos, que dominaram a produção de conteúdos sobre a COP 21.
... Higgins and Walker (2012) suggests that strategies of persuasion facilitate the process of social influence. In the recent years, several studies have begun to explore non-profit organizations' use of social media to interact and persuade their stakeholders (Merry, 2014;Nah & Saxton, 2012). A current study has explored the use of rhetorical content of three non-profit organizations on Twitter and found that ethos is the most prominent element of persuasive pattern and more than 90% of the tweets showed the presence of one of the persuasive elements (Smitko, 2012, p. 633). ...
Much work has been done on the role and impacts of social media in social movements, but less attention has been paid to the use of content features such as hashtags and URLs, and visual rhetoric used in persuading and mobilizing in social movements. We address this gap by analyzing a sample of 1271 tweets during World Environment Day, a yearly and global movement to commemorate and promote awareness about the environment. We examine the impacts of content features and the use of three types of visual rhetoric (ethos, pathos and logos) on retweeting, as retweeting is a measure of retransmission and expressive participation in the movement. The use of URLs was positively associated with retweeting, but the relationship is reverse for hashtags and retweeting. Ethos was the dominant persuasion strategy present in the visual rhetoric, and the use of both Ethos and Pathos were significantly associated with retweeting.
... Much less is known about green consumers' Internet (webpages, social media and mobile devices) usage patterns. While much has been written about online environmental content (Adams and Gynnild, 2013;Schäfer and Schlichting, 2014;Stoddart and MacDonald, 2011) and the media tactics environmental activists and NGOs use (Kim, Chun, Kwak, and Nam, 2014;Merry, 2014;Savolainen, 2007), very little is known about the "average" green consumer's media habits on the Internet. Various motives for sustainable behaviors (responsibility, involvement, internalization) have been examined among Facebook and ...
We have seen an increase in the number of consumers who classify themselves as environmentally-conscious. As the focus on the environment and sustainability increases, advertisers are forced to acknowledge these changes and incorporate them in their overall message and media strategies. And if not done right, these strategies can also run the risk of being labeled as greenwashing. Furthermore, even if advertisers have the right and receptive messages, reaching these consumers is particularly difficult as very little is known about the media consumption patterns of environmentally-conscious consumers. The current study is designed to answer two broad and related questions that could help advertising professionals better target this important and emerging group. More specifically, the study answers the following: (1) What are the general digital media usage habits of green consumers? 2) What are the social media usage habits of green consumers?
Data provided by Mintel Inc. (n=2,000) was analyzed to find patterns of digital and social media usage and habits of green consumers. Broadly speaking, results indicate that the greener the consumer was in terms of purchasing green products, the more likely they were to use all digital media vehicles (ranging from news websites through entertainment sites to shopping sites). Social media stood out as one of the highest frequency digital media vehicles among green consumers, in particular among heavy green purchasers. The following are actionable insights from our findings:
• In general, it pays to use the Internet for green marketing—green consumption is strongly correlated with Internet usage, across all types of digital media vehicles.
• Entertainment-focused vehicles (e.g., Hulu, Youtube, etc.) are just as popular among green consumers as information-focused ones (e.g., current affairs websites such as CNN or MSNBC).
• Encouragingly for green marketers, green consumers can also be readily reached right at the point of sale online—through online shopping sites.
• Social media is one of the most popular Internet vehicles among green consumers.
• Social media also stands out as the best platform to reach the heaviest green consumers.
... On the other, the ability of Twitter to increase interactivity may be overstated and bear other costs. 320 For example, in the case of the 2010 Gulf oil spill, looking across traditional (donation request, action request) and novel forms of group behavior (interaction, self-promotion), Merry (2014) finds little evidence of interactivity between groups and individual users. Moreover, interactivity may not always be a good thing, as groups' reduced control opened the 325 movement to increased fragmentation. ...
Social movements often amalgamate otherwise diffuse public political interests. In recent years, social media use has allowed both groups and individuals to engage with political issues both online and offline. How do organizations use Twitter to mobilize networked publics? To what extent do groups promote both ‘connective action’ online and traditional activism offline? How do their strategies differ according to whether they seek to promote or combat the status quo? And how do they balance encouraging and reinforcing individualized expression through group messaging? The ways pro-Keystone XL pipeline and anti-Keystone XL groups differed in their Keystone-related action on Twitter from January 2010 until October 2014 are analyzed. Boolean searching and Natural Language processing are used to analyze more than three million tweets. The results demonstrate that the frames within Twitter conversations have significant implications for how communities understand, develop, and mobilize around environmental issues.
... Twitter as an alternative news-reporting mechanism offers an outlet to express and consume contending viewpoints and interests from nonauthoritative sources in an otherwise tightly restricted policy environment. Previous studies have highlighted the use of Twitter by activist groups driven by a contentious agenda (Lovejoy, Waters, & Saxton, 2012;Merry, 2014). Often portrayed as deviant by the mainstream media (Poell & Borra, 2012), some of these groups include citizens protesting against an authoritarian government system (Chaudhry, 2014) and groups committed to public accountability (Ettema, 2009;Meraz, 2008). ...
Drawing on the concept of information subsidy, this study explores the network neutrality debate in the context of Twitter. Content analysis of the top 150 most retweeted URLs demonstrates that the composition of information subsidizers on Twitter was more or less evenly divided among stakeholders, including government, industry, nonprofit/advocacy, and experts. Despite the diversity of sources, there was a clear lack of diversity in stance. The majority of sources displayed a favorable attitude toward net neutrality. Our findings highlight the potential of Twitter to represent the position of resource-poor information subsidizers, including advocacy groups, entrepreneurs, and race-based online communities, as they seek to uphold the neutrality of the Internet.
This paper explores the prevalence and correlates of political incivility among Congressional candidates in the 2020 election cycle, focusing specifically on which types of candidates were most likely to use uncivil language in their online communications and the self-reinforcing nature of incivility between candidates. Based on a comprehensive analysis of more than two million tweets sent by major party candidates in the 2020 House and Senate races, we conclude that several individual and electoral factors were influential in driving candidate incivility. Specifically, Republicans, challengers, and candidates in less competitive races were more likely to use uncivil rhetoric. Women, racial minorities, and candidates running in open seat races were less prone to incivility. We also find that incivility begets incivility, with candidates whose opponents used higher rates of incivility also being more likely to use incivility themselves. Uncivil tweets were also found to generate significantly more likes and retweets, suggesting that incivility is a viable means of driving engagement for candidates. These results shed light on the factors behind incivility among political elites, as well as highlight the feedback effects which contribute to a self-reinforcing rise in political incivility.
Although interest group strategies have been studied by a number of authors who compare different types of groups, our knowledge about how these different types of groups differ in the way they use social media as a strategy to realise their goals is limited. In this paper, we use the hierarchy of engagement model and investigate how British public interest groups and sectional groups, which are active at the European Union (EU) level, engage with the public on Facebook. Compared with information and community-type posts, action-type posts can attract more attention on social media. Public interest groups can use action-type messages as a tool for attracting public attention, thus, alleviating their relative disadvantage in attracting and maintaining members. Results show that the use of action-type messages are significantly higher for public interest groups.
Social media can be a hostile environment for women, where threats of sexual assault and violence proliferate (Locke, Lawtom, and Lyons 2018; Jane 2014). Yet, social media sites like Twitter provide a platform for advocacy organizations seeking to influence public opinion and policy outcomes aimed at reducing gender‐based violence (GBV). Using anti‐GBV groups, this study follows research by Merry (2011, 2014) and Guo and Saxton (2018), to examine whether advocacy organizations effectively use Twitter to mobilize support and influence political communication and policy outcomes, where effectiveness is taken to be synonymous with more interactive communication. Interactivity among groups and the reach of their messaging (i.e., amount of attention received) are assessed to consider their effectiveness and potential mechanisms for broadening that reach. While empirical evidence of effectiveness based on the communicative quality of tweets is not advanced in this analysis, the quantity of tweets is affirmed as a mechanism of attention getting.
Recent research of interest groups’ use of Twitter focuses on its use for intra-group member mobilization. Less has been said about social media’s effects on the discourse within an issue community. Do interest groups that are part of a larger community, but whose positions divert from each other, use Twitter to engage each other? Our research explores whether groups within a defined issue community – American-Jewish organizations advocating on U.S.-Israel relations – use Twitter for dialog, or whether their Twitter networks represent echo chambers. Based on the results of our social network analysis we find the use of Twitter is more complex than the black-and-white narrative of echo chamber vs. public sphere. We find groups interact with both supporters and detractors, using Twitter’s communication tools (we focus here on @mentions) strategically – but on balance the results of our analysis support a “sphericules” interpretation of social media.
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Changes in U.K. government coastal and flooding policies in the last twenty five years, have resulted in a reappraisal of all coastal defence schemes with a focus on a strategic analysis to ensure that the all schemes provided the greatest net benefit. This strategy and the emphasis on adaptive management, particularly in the second wave of shoreline management plans (SMPs), provoked a reaction from local communities who felt their voice was largely being ignored as they became aware of SMP policies that increased their perceived risks but did not offer appropriate compensation. The formation of Coastal Action Groups (CAGs), has been a key community response and enabled diverse communities to feel that they can collectively participate in the ongoing planning process. Using a combination of questionnaire surveys and semi-structured interviews, this paper analyses the nature and effectiveness of CAGs. Although initially formed as opposition groups, the shared ideology of CAG members has resulted in the character of these groups evolving to units that embrace a broader range of social justice issues. It is argued that well led, well-supported, well-resourced and tactically astute CAGs have tended to be the most effective pressure groups. In reality however, CAGs have had relatively limited effects in changing the decisions of local SMPs, but have had great impacts in challenging the concept of meaningful public engagement in the coastal planning process, ultimately leading to more participatory approaches. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0308597X18304445
1. INTRODUCCIÓN; 2. EVOLUCIÓN DE LA REGULACIÓN EUROPEA;
3. EVALUACIÓN Y COMUNICACIÓN DEL VALOR PÚBLICO;
4. EL RETO DE LA INNOVACIÓN; 5. ESTADO DE LA FINANCIACIÓN;
6. PROMESAS ELECTORALES GENERALES; 7. PROGRAMAS
AUTONÓMICOS; 8. LA GOBERNANZA ESTATAL Y AUTONÓMICA;
9. BALANCE Y CONCLUSIONES.
Los medios de comunicación públicos viven tiempos de un profundo cuestionamiento de sus funciones
sociales y dinámicas profesionales. La crisis económica ha obligado a reducir los presupuestos de las
radiotelevisiones públicas, lo que está repercutiendo en la calidad de su servicio. Además, factores
como la instrumentalización política o la corrupción en su gestión económica, han generado fuertes
críticas hacia el papel de estos medios de titularidad pública en nuestra sociedad. En concreto, en el
contexto europeo encontramos un intenso debate sobre los problemas y sobre todo, el futuro de Servicio
Público de Comunicación (SPC o Public Service Media —PSM—) que este libro pretende abordar
de forma detallada y panorámica. Desde una óptica novedosa, centrada en los medios de proximidad,
el presente trabajo aborda tres grandes cuestiones: un repaso a la necesidad actual de los SPC en el
contexto europeo; la urgente redefi nición de los medios públicos en la era digital en torno a conceptos
como gobernanza, calidad informativa e innovación; y fi nalmente, se profundiza en el intenso debate
generado por el cierre de Radiotelevisió Valenciana (RTVV). En este sentido, esta obra colectiva, con
reconocidos autores del ámbito académico y profesional, pretende aportar conocimiento y argumentos
de futuro para comprender la importancia de lo público en el complejo entorno mediático en el que
vivimos y contextualizar la necesaria recuperación del servicio público de radio y televisión en la Comunidad
Valenciana.
This article offers a review of the Chinese-language literature on environmental communication in mainland China. In particular, it discusses the main features, promises, and limitations of the relevant literature. All academic papers matching particular keywords for environmental communication in seven top-ranking Chinese-language media and communication journals (four in mainland China, one in Hong Kong, and two in Taiwan) were collected and analysed quantitatively. The first section of the article presents the findings of the quantitative analysis based on several aspects, including the journals’ main interests, distribution of publications over time, types of topics, research methods, leading authors in the field, their choices of research methods and topics, and the inclusion of English-language literature. The article turns to qualitatively examining the wider available Chinese-language literature on environmental communication. It then evaluates the current status of and challenges to Chinese-language research in this field and suggests some directions for future research.
Social media has become an important stage for environmental politics where different actors seek to shape and contest meanings. Meaning making on social media is studied through an empirical study of a controversial coal seam gas project in Australia. Key Facebook pages associated with opposing viewpoints on this controversy are analyzed using the dramaturgical concepts of scripting and staging. The analysis reveals that the Facebook performances are multisensory, staged to appear personal, and tightly scripted. It is argued that although these characteristics serve an important solidarity function among like-minded individuals and groups, they leave limited space or tolerance for counter-scripts. This in-depth empirical analysis suggests that social media platforms are transforming the way publics form and meet, but their capacity to bridge opposing viewpoints on divisive issues remains limited.
An Internet connection is all that is needed to launch an online petition and create a social-network profile. The Internet offers unprecedented communication opportunities. Before the emergence of digital media, enormous resources were required to start up a newspaper, television channel, or radio station; however, today everyone has the means to spread their individual message to an audience of potentially millions of people. But if everyone has access to the same Internet opportunities, why do some succeed and others fail? Why are some campaigns met with such enthusiasm, able to raise money and boost participation, while others use the very same digital tools only to be passed over practically unnoticed? The first obstacle has to do with an awareness of the tools’ capabilities: The Internet can open up a staggering array of opportunities, but we must know how to take full advantage of them. So how can we best use digital media? First and foremost, it is important to understand that the logic of digital media is actually quite different from traditional media, as well as to shed many preconceived notions about the web. For example, unlike with traditional media, on the Internet negative comments are actually positive.
This study examines interest groups' framing of gun policy issues via an analysis of nearly 10,000 tweets by the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence and the National Rifle Association spanning from 2009 to 2014. Utilizing the Narrative Policy Framework (NPF), I investigate the extent to which interest groups use social media to construct policy narratives. This research shows that much can be conveyed in 140 characters; both gun control and gun rights organizations used Twitter to identify victims, blame "villains," commend "heroes," and offer policy solutions. This research sheds light on the politics of gun control by revealing trends over time in groups' framing and suggests refinements for hypotheses of the NPF. Finally, this work underscores the importance of social media for public policy scholarship.
This article seeks to open dialogue about the utility of resource mobilization theory in explaining social movements and their impact by exploring the use of social media in the 2011 Egyptian revolution through a limited case study analysis. It argues that social media played an instrumental role in the success of the anti-government protests that led to the resignation of the country's dictatorial leader, and calls for further examination of the proposed incorporation of social media as an important resource for collective action and the organization of contemporary social movements.
This study focuses on journalists Paul Lewis (The Guardian) and Ravi Somaiya (The New York Times), the most frequently mentioned national and international journalists on Twitter during the 2011 UK summer riots. Both actively tweeted throughout the four-day riot period and this article highlights how they used Twitter as a reporting tool. It discusses a series of Twitter conventions in detail, including the use of links, the taking and sharing of images, the sharing of mainstream media content and the use of hashtags. The article offers an in-depth overview of methods for studying Twitter, reflecting critically on commonly used data collection strategies, offering possible alternatives as well as highlighting the possibilities for combining different methodological approaches. Finally, the article makes a series of suggestions for further research into the use of Twitter by professional journalists.
Traditional disease surveillance is a very time consuming reporting process. Cases of notifiable diseases are reported to the different levels in the national health care system before actions can be taken. But, early detection of disease activity followed by a rapid response is crucial to reduce the impact of epidemics. To address this challenge, alternative sources of information are investigated for disease surveillance. In this paper, the relevance of twitter messages outbreak detection is investigated from two directions. First, Twitter messages potentially related to disease outbreaks are retrospectively searched and analyzed. Second, incoming twitter messages are assessed with respect to their relevance for outbreak detection. The studies show that twitter messages can be – to a certain extent – highly relevant for early detecting hints to public health threats.
The objective of this article is to ground the debate about the connection between socialmedia and popular uprisings in the specific context of recent social and political trends inEgypt. This is crucial when attempting to draw conclusions about the factors andmechanisms that produced Egypt’s January 25, 2011, revolution and, more importantly,whether social media can contribute to building a new political culture to support therevolution. Although it took just 18 days of protests to force the resignation of PresidentMubarak, constructing a new political culture will be a slower and more challengingprocess. If social media are to provide a real channel for political debate and activism,they must connect with traditional forms of media and civil society. This will ensure thatthe dialogue about Egypt’s future remains national rather than retreating to the virtual
The past decade has witnessed an emergent form of activism increasingly defined by its reliance on internet strategies, network social structures and participatory practices. Internet strategies employed by many contemporary activists include websites, listservs and hyperlinked networks used for exchanging information, mobilizing both old and new constituencies, and coordinating collective action. Networks of organizations and individuals are formed both on and offline and decision-making within these groups is often made by consensus. Perhaps best characterizing this activism is its lack of hierarchy, epitomized by democratic communications, both within and between networked organizations. This article focuses on Indymedia, a prime institutional exemplar for the indicators mentioned above internet-based activism, network formation and participatory politics. Specifically, it addresses issues related to sustainability and political efficacy in radical democratic activist networks that are increasingly enabled by internet technologies.
From the Arab Spring and los indignados in Spain, to Occupy Wall Street (and beyond), large-scale, sustained protests are using digital media in ways that go beyond sending and receiving messages. Some of these action formations contain relatively small roles for formal brick and mortar organizations. Others involve well-established advocacy organizations, in hybrid relations with other organizations, using technologies that enable personalized public engagement. Both stand in contrast to the more familiar organizationally managed and brokered action conventionally associated with social movement and issue advocacy. This article examines the organizational dynamics that emerge when communication becomes a prominent part of organizational structure. It argues that understanding such variations in large-scale action networks requires distinguishing between at least two logics that may be in play: The familiar logic of collective action associated with high levels of organizational resources and the formation of collective identities, and the less familiar logic of connective action based on personalized content sharing across media networks. In the former, introducing digital media do not change the core dynamics of the action. In the case of the latter, they do. Building on these distinctions, the article presents three ideal types of large-scale action networks that are becoming prominent in the contentious politics of the contemporary era.
Many observers doubt the capacity of digital media to change the political game. The rise of a transnational activism that is aimed beyond states and directly at corporations, trade and development regimes offers a fruitful area for understanding how communication practices can help create a new politics. The Internet is implicated in the new global activism far beyond merely reducing the costs of communication, or transcending the geographical and temporal barriers associated with other communication media. Various uses of the Internet and digital media facilitate the loosely structured networks, the weak identity ties, and the patterns of issue and demonstration organizing that define a new global protest politics. Analysis of various cases shows how digital network configurations can facilitate: permanent campaigns, the growth of broad networks despite relatively weak social identity and ideology ties, transformation of individual member organizations and whole networks, and the capacity to communicate messages from desktops to television screens. The same qualities that make these communication-based politics durable also make them vulnerable to problems of control, decision-making and collective identity.
Building on McMillan's two-way model of interactivity, this study presents a three-way model of interactive communication, which is used to assess political Web sites' progress toward the ideals of cyberdemocracy and the fostering of public deliberation. Results of a 3-year study of state legislature Web sites, an analysis of the community networks, and a review of purely political sites such as MoveOn.org, RNC.org, and DNC.org are reported. Little deliberation was found on the legislature sites, but opportunities for such were greater on the other types of sites.
This article examines the differences between Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 and how these Web strategies are used within a political communication context. The data focus on how political parties (and their leaders) in Britain use Web 2.0 applications. We consider whether the content political elites published in their Web 2.0 applications is shovelware and more appropriate for Web 1.0, or if a genuinely Web 2.0 style of political communication is emerging. We investigate the extent to which there has been a shift in the way British politicians communicate or if caution over co-production, coupled with the demands of electioneering, is restricting the development of interactivity. Our analysis suggests that British political parties have sought to create a “Web 1.5” that offers the advantages of both Web 1.0 and Web 2.0.
Crisis managers benefit from understanding how crisis communication can be used to protect reputational assets during a crisis. Situational Crisis Communication Theory (SCCT) offers a framework for understanding this dynamic. SCCT provides a mechanism for anticipating how stakeholders will react to a crisis in terms of the reputational threat posed by the crisis. Moreover, SCCT projects how people will react to the crisis response strategies used to manage the crisis. From its empirical research emerges a set of evidence-based crisis communication guidelines. The development of SCCT is discussed along with the presentation of its guidelines for crisis communication.
Existing communication models and definitions of interactivity provide both background and structure for a new model of cyber-interactivity that is introduced and explored in this article. Two primary dimensions, direction of communication and level of receiver control over the communication process, provide the primary framework for this new model of computer-mediated cyber-interactivity. A study designed to explore the applicability of this model analyzed 108 health-related websites using both perception-based and feature-based measures of these two dimensions. No significant correlation was found between the perception-based and feature-based models. The perception-based model was a better predictor of attitude toward the website and perceived relevance of the subject of the website than the feature-based model. However, the feature-based model may hold greater promise as a tool for website developers who seek to incorporate appropriate levels of interactivity in their websites.
As Twitter becomes a more common means for officials to communicate with their constituents, it becomes more important that we understand how officials use these communication tools. Using data from 380 members of Congress' Twitter activity during the winter of 2012, we find that officials frequently use Twitter to advertise their political positions and to provide information but rarely to request political action from their constituents or to recognize the good work of others. We highlight a number of differences in communication frequency between men and women, Senators and Representatives, Republicans and Democrats. We provide groundwork for future research examining the behavior of public officials online and testing the predictive power of officials' social media behavior.
How are nonprofit organizations utilizing social media to engage in advocacy work? We address this question by investigating the social media use of 188 501(c)(3) advocacy organizations. After briefly examining the types of social media technologies employed, we turn to an in-depth examination of the organizations’ use of Twitter. This in-depth message-level analysis is twofold: a content analysis that examines the prevalence of previously identified communicative and advocacy constructs in nonprofits’ social media messages; and an inductive analysis that explores the unique features and dynamics of social media-based advocacy and identifies new organizational practices and forms of communication heretofore unseen in the literature.
This article details the networked production and dissemination of news on Twitter during snapshots of the 2011 Tunisian and Egyptian Revolutions as seen through information flows—sets of near-duplicate tweets—across activists, bloggers, journalists, mainstream media outlets, and other engaged participants. We differentiate between these user types and analyze patterns of sourcing and routing information among them. We describe the symbiotic relationship between media outlets and individuals and the distinct roles particular user types appear to play. Using this analysis, we discuss how Twitter plays a key role in amplifying and spreading timely information across the globe.
With the rise of new media, interactivity has become a central focus of research on information technology and politics. To better position the concept for systematic investigation, this study locates interactivity in the relationship between interface features and user perceptions and tests a mediation model of online information processing. The mediation model is based on the idea that objective (or technological) aspects of interactivity are not directly responsible for outcomes, whether cognitive, affective, or attitudinal, but instead are mediated by perceptions during Internet use. The results from an experiment conducted during the 2004 general election involving a political Web site support the mediation model for predicting the effects of interactivity on political attitude formation. Perceived interactivity was found to mediate the effect of objective interactivity on attitudes toward the Web site and politician for whom the site was designed. However, for policy issues promoted on the site, mediation could not be established. In the relationship between objective and perceived interactivity, Internet self-efficacy was also found to be a significant moderator, influencing evaluative outcomes and the degree of perceived interactivity during Web use.
Many observers doubt the capacity of digital media to change the political game. The rise of a transnational activism that is aimed beyond states and directly at corporations, trade and development regimes offers a fruitful area for understanding how communication practices can help create a new politics. The Internet is implicated in the new global activism far beyond merely reducing the costs of communication, or transcending the geographical and temporal barriers associated with other communication media. Various uses of the Internet and digital media facilitate the loosely structured networks, the weak identity ties, and the patterns of issue and demonstration organizing that define a new global protest politics. Analysis of various cases shows how digital network configurations can facilitate: permanent campaigns; the growth of broad networks despite relatively weak social identity and ideology ties; transformation of individual member organizations and whole networks; and the capacity to communicate messages from desktops to television screens. The same qualities that make these communication-based politics durable also make them vulnerable to problems of control, decision-making and collective identity.
Based on an analysis of the Red River Valley flood of 1997, this study seeks to explicate the expansive and intricate nature of crisis communication research. Specifically, the crisis is examined from four perspectives: (a) chaos theory, (b) retrospective sensemaking, (c) crisis communication logistics, and (a) apologia. This case serves as evidence that multiple methods are necessary for building a complete understanding of complex crisis events. Furthermore, the authors argue that it is essential for crisis managers to adapt interpretive frameworks during crises in order to ascertain the unique nature of each crisis, regardless of previous experiences with similar aises.
This pilot study examined the role citizen generated content plays in the coverage of crisis situations and discusses implications for public relations practitioners who must respond to this type of coverage. A content analysis of newspapers and the websites of cable and broadcast news networks revealed reporters were more likely to use citizen generated content during the first stage of the crisis and were more likely to use non-official technology sources, or citizen generated content, than official technology sources such as web-based news releases and official statements.
Having established the significance of young voters in the election of President Obama, this paper focuses on how they using micro-blogging social network site Twitter have affected the political discourse of the Obama administration centering on two of the most controversial political agendas of the Obama administration’s first 100 days – the legislation battle on health care reform and the nomination and confirmation of the first Hispanic female Supreme Court Justice, Sonia Sotomayor. This paper attempts to measure how this Obama followers react to these two politically important agendas as evidenced by their tweeting, replying, re-tweeting, and searching for further information. Despite a big difference between the total number of tweets and the amount of followers on both health care and Sotomayor nomination issues, an average of more than 1.5 million followers of President Obama’s account and around 450,000 followers of the White House account clearly shows a strong sign of engagement in the Twitter network.ed by author.
The incredible diffusion of the Internet is ushering in a new era of possibilities for nonprofit organizations to engage with and be responsive to their core stakeholders, yet little is known of the range and extent of such practices. To enhance our understanding of these increasingly important yet understudied phenomena, we conduct a comprehensive study of 117 community foundations’ Web-based stakeholder responsiveness practices. Our examination of four key dimensions of online responsiveness revealed a number of best practices and areas of untapped potential. We argue that online stakeholder responsiveness is increasingly a strategic concern; to successfully fulfill their mission, organizations thus need to seriously consider the amount and interactivity of the content they target at each of their core constituents.
The relative virtues of quantitative and qualitative research have been vigorously debated. Several researchers recommend combining methodologies but there is little evidence in the literature to suggest how different research methods might be integrated (Bryman, 1988). The current study addresses this deficiency in the research by examining the use of latent variables in quantitative and qualitative research as a means of blending the two approaches. A study of entrepreneurial Locus of Control where quantitative and qualitative data were available illustrates the methodological issues. Analysis of quantitative data was conducted using LISREL (7.20) and qualitative data were categorised using NUD.IST (Non-numerical Unstructured Data Indexing Searching and Theorising computer software). Detailed comparisons are made between the methods described in this paper and other approaches to content analysis.
Twitter - a microblogging service that enables users to post messages ("tweets") of up to 140 characters - supports a variety of communicative practices; participants use Twitter to converse with individuals, groups, and the public at large, so when conversations emerge, they are often experienced by broader audiences than just the interlocutors. This paper examines the practice of retweeting as a way by which participants can be "in a conversation." While retweeting has become a convention inside Twitter, participants retweet using different styles and for diverse reasons. We highlight how authorship, attribution, and communicative fidelity are negotiated in diverse ways. Using a series of case studies and empirical data, this paper maps out retweeting as a conversational practice.
How are nonprofit organizations utilizing social media to engage in advocacy work? We address this question by investigating the social media use of 188 501(c)(3) advocacy organizations. After briefly examining the types of social media technologies employed, we turn to an in-depth examination of the organizations’ use of Twitter. This in-depth message-level analysis is twofold: A content analysis that examines the prevalence of previously identified communicative and advocacy constructs in nonprofits’ social media messages; and an inductive analysis that explores the unique features and dynamics of social media-based advocacy and identifies new organizational practices and forms of communication heretofore unseen in the literature.
The Tahrir Data Project gathers empirical data on media use during the Egyptian revolution of January and February 2011. The Project consists of three data sets documenting media use by protesters, by coordinators, and by transnational audiences. Preliminary descriptive analysis of the data suggests that social media use was not dominant in demonstrations, but may have played an important role in connecting and motivating protesters. Metrics for media use by protesters indicate a strong presence of activities and characteristics commonly associated with communication in protests to social media and social media users. These metrics, along with preliminary data on coordinator strategies and preliminary analysis of the #jan25 tweet set, suggest an important but complex role played by social media in the Egyptian revolution of 2011. The data and preliminary analysis are presented here, together with a number of research questions for further study.
Corporate executives struggle to harness the power of social technologies. Twitter, Facebook, blogs, YouTube are where customers discuss products and companies, write their own news, and find their own deals but how do you integrate these activities into your broader marketing efforts? It's an unstoppable groundswell that affects every industry yet it's still utterly foreign to most companies running things now. When consumers you've never met are rating your company's products in public forums with which you have no experience or influence, your company is vulnerable. In "Groundswell", Josh Bernoff and Charlene Li explain how to turn this threat into an opportunity. In this updated and expanded edition of "Groundswell", featuring an all new introduction and chapters on Twitter and social media integration, you'll learn to: Evaluate new social technologies as they emerge; Determine how different groups of consumers are participating in social technology arenas; Apply a four-step process for formulating your future strategy; and, Build social technologies into your business. "Groundswell" is required reading for executives seeking to protect and strengthen their company's public image.
Existing communication models and definitions of interactivity provide both background and structure for a new model of cyber-interactivity that is introduced and explored in this article. Two primary dimensions, direction of communication and level of receiver control over the communication process, provide the primary framework for this new model of computer-mediated cyber-interactivity. A study designed to explore the applicability of this model analyzed 108 health-related websites using both perception-based and feature-based measures of these two dimensions. No significant correlation was found between the perception-based and feature-based models. The perception-based model was a better predictor of attitude toward the website and perceived relevance of the subject of the website than the feature-based model. However, the feature-based model may hold greater promise as a tool for website developers who seek to incorporate appropriate levels of interactivity in their websites.
Previous studies of advocacy groups’ Web sites suggest that the use of dialogic strategies could lead to greater dialogic communication. This study examined whether dialogic strategies utilized by environmental advocacy groups via their social networking profiles lead to greater dialogic engagement between organizations and visitors. This study offers the first examination of the relationship between the creation of an online space for dialogue and actual dialogic engagement by identifying and measuring six dialogic outcomes.
A gap exists between the relationship-building potential of traditional Web sites, the objectives of public relations practitioners, and the actual design of organizational Web sites. This study extends the investigation of online relationship building through a content analysis of 50 environmental weblogs. A comparison of weblogs to traditional Web sites suggests that weblogs incorporate dialogic communication principles to a greater degree than traditional Web sites, potentially making them better suited for online relationship building.
From the Publisher:Can our system adapt to the new form of democracy forming via the electronic age? Will the new communication age usher in a nation governed not by professional politicians but by citizens themselves? Grossman answers these questions and many others clearly and provocatively as he brings the features of our rapidly changing political environment into focus.
This study evaluates interest group activity on the Internet, addressing two sets of questions. First, has the Internet allowed small or poorly funded groups to compete equally with well-resourced organizations? Second, to what extent do group characteristics explain their online activities? Using a sample of 200 environmental groups, I evaluate which Web sites receive the most exposure and identify features facilitating information dissemination and public participation. The results indicate that well-resourced groups receive greater Web site traffic and inbound links and are more likely to use all Web site features. Additionally, membership organizations are more likely than nonmembership organizations to fundraise and issue action alerts.
The purpose of this article is to examine the relationship between Web characteristics and perceptions toward relational components. A 2 (low interactivity and high interactivity) x 2 (text-oriented and multimedia-oriented) between-group experiment was designed with 197 participants to investigate this question. The outcomes showed that interactivity has significant effects on relationship building. However, the interaction effects between interactivity and medium arrangement suggest that nonessential arrangement of interactivity and multimedia did not enhance positive perceptions of relationships with the organizations. Interactivity, however, showed that the main effect, multimedia orientation, did not. The application of interactivity on the Web was discussed for better relationship building.
Twitter is now well established as the world's second most important social media platform, after Facebook. Its 140-character updates are designed for brief messaging, and its network structures are kept relatively flat and simple: messages from users are either public and visible to all (even to unregistered visitors using the Twitter website), or private and visible only to approved ‘followers’ of the sender; there are no more complex definitions of degrees of connection (family, friends, friends of friends) as they are available in other social networks. Over time, Twitter users have developed simple, but effective mechanisms for working around these limitations: ‘#hashtags’, which enable the manual or automatic collation of all tweets containing the same #hashtag, as well allowing users to subscribe to content feeds that contain only those tweets which feature specific #hashtags; and ‘@replies’, which allow senders to direct public messages even to users whom they do not already follow. This paper documents a methodology for extracting public Twitter activity data around specific #hashtags, and for processing these data in order to analyse and visualize the @reply networks existing between participating users – both overall, as a static network, and over time, to highlight the dynamic structure of @reply conversations. Such visualizations enable us to highlight the shifting roles played by individual participants, as well as the response of the overall #hashtag community to new stimuli – such as the entry of new participants or the availability of new information. Over longer timeframes, it is also possible to identify different phases in the overall discussion, or the formation of distinct clusters of preferentially interacting participants.
Twitter is rapidly gaining attention from strategic communicators for its ability to enhance communication campaigns. Whether using the site to augment word-of-mouth marketing campaigns or engage in conversations with stakeholders, Twitter has become the leading online social media outlet for marketing and public relations efforts. However, despite the service's ability to provide a forum for interacting with stakeholders, the site primarily began as a way for its users to provide one-way updates and disseminate information. By using the models of public relations as its framework, this study examines how government agencies are using Twitter to communicate with their audiences through content analysis of 1800 updates from 60 government agencies. Contrary to public affairs practitioners' claims of interactivity on Twitter, government agencies primarily relied on one-way communication that sought to inform and educate rather than two-way symmetrical conversations. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
The federal government's adoption of the Oil Pollution Act of 1990 represented a radical statutory departure from past policy. Coastal oil spill control provisions that had languished for decades within the industry-friendly confines of a few select congressional subcommittees suddenly became law. Much popular belief credits the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill crisis for bringing about this radical policy change. Closer examination reveals that postcrisis policy change is much more complex. Crisis events intermingle with other short- and long-term factors that either inhibit or support dramatic change. This study analyzes change within the coastal spill arena over several decades. Particular attention is given to crisis episodes, periods identified with a major catastrophe or a successive series of attention-getting spills over a brief time. Analysis finds that crises can play an instrumental role in eliciting change.
The rapid growth and popularity of the microblogging service Twitter has been one of the most recent phenomena of the Internet,
which opens up opportunities for businesses in general and publishers in particular to do marketing in a dialogue- and consumer-oriented
way. This survey analysed UK trade publishers’ use of Twitter with the specific objective of finding out what influence a
publisher’s size has on its Twitter adoption, patterns of use and the content of its Tweets. Overall, the results suggest
that a publisher’s size primarily affects its general Twitter use, while being less influential regarding its patterns of
use and the tweeted content.
KeywordsTwitter–Book publishing–Marketing strategy–Customer relations–Publicity–Online marketing–Internet marketing–Social media–Networking–Blogging–Microblogging–Online activity–Trade publishers–Size–United Kingdom
Since social networking sites, such as MySpace and Facebook, began allowing organizations to create profiles and become active members, organizations have started incorporating these strategies into their public relations programming. For-profit organizations have used these sites to help launch products and strengthen their existing brands; however, little is known about how nonprofit organizations are taking advantage of the social networking popularity. Through a content analysis of 275 nonprofit organization profiles on Facebook, this study examines how these new social networking sites are being used by the organizations to advance their organization's mission and programs. Solely having a profile will not in itself increase awareness or trigger an influx of participation. Instead careful planning and research will greatly benefit nonprofits as they attempt to develop social networking relationships with their stakeholders.