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Social Media Filtering and Democracy: Effects of Social Media News Use and Uncivil Political Discussions on Social Media Unfriending
Abstract
In todays’ progressively polarized society, social media users are increasingly exposed to blatant uncivil comments, dissonant views, and controversial news contents, both from their peers and the media organizations they follow. Recent scholarship on selective avoidance suggests that citizens when exposed to contentious stimuli tend to either neglect, avoid, or by-pass such content, a practice scholarly known as users’ filtration tactics or unfriending. Drawing upon a nationally representative panel survey from the United States (W1 = 1,338/W2 = 511) fielded in 2019/2020, this study seeks to a) examine whether social media news use is associated to exposure to uncivil political discussions, and 2) explore the ways in which both constructs causally affect users’ unfriending behavior. Finally, the study investigates the contingent moderating role of uncivil political discussion in energizing the relationship between social media use for news and unfriending. Our findings first find support for the idea that social media news use directly activates citizens’ uncivil discussions and unfriending, while uncivil political discussion directly triggers unfriending behavior and significantly contributes to intensify the effect of social media news use over citizens’ unfriending levels. These findings add to current conversations about the potential motivations and deleterious effects of social media filtering in contemporary democracies.
... When social media users are exposed to different political views and disagreements, they can avoid and filter these by engaging in unfriending behavior. An increasing amount of research on unfriending has mainly focused on the factors of unfriending behaviors (Goyanes et al., 2021;Sibona, 2014;Zhu & Skoric, 2021), but little attention has been paid to the consequences of social media filtering and avoidance. ...
... In addition, some scholars have raised concerns that unfriending may lead individuals into echo chambers or promote political polarization (Goyanes et al., 2021;John & Dvir-Gvirsman, 2015). However, only a limited number of studies have tested the role of unfriending in promoting homogenous community formation (e.g., Sasahara et al., 2021). ...
... Exposure to severe political disagreement (i.e., conflicting views that threaten personal values or beliefs) has also been identified as a significant predictor of unfriending (Bode, 2016;Neubaum et al., 2021;Sibona, 2014), especially in times of political turmoil (Zhu et al., 2017). Some evidence also suggests that engaging in political discussions on social media can directly or indirectly increase the likelihood that individuals will adopt unfriending behaviors (Goyanes et al., 2021;Zhu & Skoric, 2021, 2022, especially when they perceive themselves to be a minority in public opinion (Zhu & Skoric, 2022) and when they engage in political discussions with distant others (Zhu & Skoric, 2021). Goyanes et al. (2021) examined the relationship between social media news use, uncivil political discussion, and social media unfriending. ...
Cross-cutting discussion is the foundation of deliberative democracy. However, previous research has reported inconsistent results regarding the effects of exposure to dissimilar perspectives on political polarization. This study aims to extend the literature by exploring how cross-cutting discussion influences affective polarization through unfriending and how this indirect effect is contingent upon exposure to incivility. The study analyzes panel data from a two-wave online survey conducted in South Korea (N = 890). The results show a significantly positive indirect effect of unfriending, suggesting that cross-cutting discussion further reinforces affective polarization via unfriending. Furthermore, the study identifies the boundary conditions for this mediating mechanism, showing that the mediated relationship of cross-cutting discussion on affective polarization via unfriending is stronger for those who are more exposed to incivility on social media.
... The frequency of social media news is positively associated with incidental exposure to counter-attitudinal information (Diehl, Weeks, and Gil de Zúñiga 2016), which can prompt avoidance behaviours. Goyanes, Borah, and de Zúñiga (2021) found that social media news use can increase unfriending behaviours on social media platforms. During the electoral period, partisan news exposure can further strengthen intergroup animus and weaken the tolerance of conflicting viewpoints (Levendusky 2013;Zhu, Skoric, and Shen 2017). ...
... Also, those who frequently consume news on social media are more likely to perform selective avoidance. While previous research found mixed evidence on the role of general social media use (Neely 2021;Yang, Barnidge, and Rojas 2017), this study dives into a more nuanced analysis of social media use: news use (Goyanes, Borah, and de Zúñiga 2021). During elections, political news becomes especially prominent. ...
... Moreover, while scholars found selective avoidance conscious and deliberate (Goyanes, Borah, and de Zúñiga 2021;Zhu and Skoric 2021), our findings suggest that selective avoidance may serve as a cognitive response to networking and information on social media platforms. We discover that cognitive ability is negatively associated with selective avoidance (H4). ...
As the 2020 United State Presidential election presented tense partisan conflicts, we sought to explore whether and how such a social and ideological fissure can lead to large-scale politically motivated avoidance behaviours. Building on prior literature, we examine how social media behaviours (i.e. expressive social media news use and political discussion with weak ties) and social psychological attitudes (i.e. surveillance anxiety) are associated with selective avoidance on social media. Further, we explore cognitive ability's direct and indirect roles in influencing avoidance behaviours. We used online panel survey data collected during the 2020 election to test our assumptions. The findings suggest that those with high levels of expressive social media news use, political discussions with weak ties, and surveillance anxiety engage in more frequent selective avoidance. On the contrary, those with high cognitive ability are less likely to engage in selective avoidance. Furthermore, moderation effects suggest that low cognitive users with greater surveillance anxiety and frequent discussions with weak ties are most accustomed to selective avoidance. Finally, we discuss the theoretical and policy implications of these findings.
... Researchers point out that social media users challenge each other's viewpoints and break up with or punish those who post offensive content (Goyanes et al., 2021;Schaeffer, 2021). Social media companies offer the technical features of post-hoc user filtration for unfriending in response to particular social media users and content (Yang et al., 2017). ...
... Hate speech, which refers to individuals' expressions with discriminatory and hateful remarks against specific groups or objects, is spreading widely in social media and has become a serious problem Walker, 1994). Social media users can hide some users, ignore updates of other users, and remove their contacts in social media when they encounter political disagreement and hate speech (Bode, 2016;Goyanes et al., 2021;Peña & Brody, 2014). Existing research emphasizes that social media platforms notoriously offer venues in which individuals speak their opinions hatefully against specific groups and relevant issues such as race/ethnicity, gender identity, religion, nationality, and disability Walker, 1994). ...
... Many studies on unfriending have mainly focused on its antecedents, including social media news use, political discussion, and exposure to political disagreement (Goyanes et al., 2021;D. Kim, Jones-Jang, & Kenski, 2021;Skoric et al., 2018;Yang et al., 2017). ...
This study explores the antecedents and consequences of unfriending in social media settings. Employing an online panel survey (N = 990), this study investigates how exposure to hate speech is associated with political talk through social media unfriending. Findings suggest that social media users who are often exposed to hate speech towards specific groups and relevant issues are more likely to unfriend others (i.e., blocking and unfollowing) in social media. Those who unfriend others are less likely to talk about public and political agendas with those with cross-cutting views but tend to often engage in like-minded political talk. In addition, this study found indirect-effects associations, indicating that social media users who are exposed to hate speech are less likely to engage in cross-cutting talk but more likely to participate in like-minded talk because they unfriend other users in social media.
... Social media news filtering uses algorithmic filtering to display only such particular information to the users which are needed by the users (Goyanes et al., 2021b). These algorithms present the information for the users after its classification, association, and filtration of the information (Rader and Gray, 2015). ...
... Moreover, social media companies use algorithms by an automated process, and the users are unable to control these algorithms. According to Goyanes et al. (2021b), the users who dislike an overload of information on social media require tools to filter out irrelevant information from their feed. Kapoor et al. (2017) stated that the users tend to rely on news articles shared by their friends on social media rather than from the news companies. ...
... Moreover, the users need reliable and credible information; hence, they either avoid news on social media or filter it (Ahmadi et al., 2021). A study undertaken by Goyanes et al. (2021b) found that news overload increases news exposure which develops the need for news among the users, but too much news exposure creates frustration, anxiety, tiredness, and loss of control. Such reactions damage the mental health of the users; hence, they prefer to avoid social media news or filter the news. ...
In the present era of information technology, people tend to seek out news to enhance their current knowledge and awareness and to gain literacy. The reliance on seeking out news and relevant information has become very necessary to accomplish personal and organizational objectives. The present study has undertaken an inquiry to investigate the impact of social media news overload on news avoidance and news filtering with the mediating and moderating mechanisms of the need for news and media literacy, respectively. For this purpose, data were obtained from 358 Chinese social media users through the aid of survey forms. The data obtained were then analyzed through Smart-PLS software. The statistical technique used for analysis is structural equation modeling (SEM) to determine the validity of the proposed hypotheses. The results of the study indicated that social media news overload has a significant effect on news avoidance, the need for news, and news filtering behavior. It was also observed that the need for news had a significant impact on news avoidance. In addition to this, it was also revealed that the need for news significantly mediated the relationship between social media news overload and news avoidance; however, it did not mediate the relationship between social media news overload and news filtering. Lastly, it was identified that media literacy significantly moderated the relationship between the need for news and news avoidance and it did not moderate the relationship between the need for news and news filtering behavior. This study has made important theoretical contributions by advancing the current literature in terms of the empirical evidence that indicates a significant relationship between social media news overload, news avoidance, and news filtering. Practically, this study contributed by emphasizing the need to encourage and train people to use strategies to seek relevant news in a vast repository of information available through information technology.
... McLaughlin and Vitak, 2012;Marwick and boyd, 2011). Failing to adhere to these norms can lead to negative outcomes for social relationships, including the termination of social media connections (Goyanes et al., 2021;McLaughlin and Vitak, 2012). Compared to other forms of social behavior, corrections are particularly risky. ...
... Thus, the breakdown of personal networks may lead to polarization along critical social and political issues. Studies suggest that incivility can provoke negative emotions, attitude polarization, and unfriending (Goyanes et al., 2021;Kim and Kim, 2019). Negative emotions, in particular, can increase resistance to corrective efforts and damage the relationship between the sender and the recipient of the correction. ...
Misinformation often involves sensitive topics, and individuals may attempt to correct their peers using uncivil tones. We examined the effect of civil versus uncivil corrections on the perceived success of the correction and the reported relationship consequences. We used three-wave panel data consisting of 1513 participants in the first wave, and followed 686 individuals who participated in all three waves. Our results indicate that demographic variables were important predictors of the frequency and tone of correction. Furthermore, individuals reported an equal number of successful and unsuccessful correction experiences. Importantly, we found that more frequent civil correction was associated with a higher likelihood of success, and a successful correction experience was associated with positive relationship outcomes. In contrast, uncivil correction was associated with negative relationship consequences. In addition, individuals with higher appraisal literacy and those correcting close ties were more likely to report successful correction experiences.
... Online discussions tend to be negative, uncivil, and offensive. Hostility is often used as a reaction to counter-attitudinal opinions (Vochocová, 2020) and can consequently lead to selective behavior (Goyanes, Borah, & Gil De Zúñiga, 2021). Many users find such interactions and exposure to disagreement to be stressful, and they get angry (Macková, Novotná, Procházková, Macek, & Hrbková, 2021). ...
... While SNS can expose citizens to diverse information and motivate them to engage in discussions with people who hold opposing views, they also allow them to establish a more homogeneous information environment through the practices of filtering and content curation on SNS (Skoric, Zhu, & Lin, 2018). Selective avoidance (e.g., content removal or politically motivated unfriending; Skoric, Zhu, Koc-Michalska, Boulianne, & Bimber, 2021;Zhu & Skoric, 2022) provides opportunities to avoid content shared by those with whom they politically disagree (Bode, 2016), and it can be seen as a reaction to the uncivil online environment of SNS (Goyanes, Borah, & Gil De Zúñiga, 2021). On the other hand, engagement with some degree of selective exposure does not necessarily imply engagement in the practices of selective avoidance (Garrett, 2009;Skoric, Zhu, & Lin, 2018;Yang, Barnidge, & Rojas, 2017;Zhu & Skoric, 2022). ...
This study focuses on social networking sites and their role in partisan-based affective polarization and political antagonism. We examine the relationship by testing variables that indicate selective exposure to counter-attitudinal and pro-attitudinal information. The results from Czech survey data (n = 2,792) collected in 2020 show a positive relationship between both perceived discussion disagreement and attitudinal homogeneity of the network to political antagonism, and a positive relationship between the perceived attitudinal homogeneity of the network and affective polarization. The results thus question the existence of a single universal social media use pattern contributing to polarization.
... This theory assumes that technology can uphold new values and modify human values by its mere existence. A good example would be the creation of social media platforms: while it was never the intention of their creators, these platforms have had a significant impact on how people communicate, conduct a dialogue, engage with politics, and even how people perceive the truth (Goyanes et al., 2021). The disrupting and enabling effects of these platforms were not foreseen, but became a reality, nevertheless. ...
... Increasingly, news or politics is discussed online in an unfriendly manner. Unfriendly remarks provoke even more unfriendly remarks (Goyanes et al., 2021). Besides the effect of social media filters caused by algorithms that amplify the polarisation in online discussions, most of us will find it easier to behave in an uncivil manner online than offline (Nedelec, 2018). ...
... Uncivil discussion measures the frequency individuals engage in uncivil online discussion with others based on a scale from Goyanes et al. (2021). Participants were asked how often (1 = never; 10 = all the time) they talked about politics or public affairs online with the following people: (a) People who do NOT discuss politics in a civil manner, and (b) people who have insulted/intimidated/threatened you (W1 Spear-Brown = .89; ...
... Adapted from Goyanes et al. (2021), offline uncivil discussion measures the frequency individuals engage in uncivil discussion with others offline. Participants were asked how often (1 = never to 10 = all the time) they talked about politics or public affairs offline with the following people: (a) people who do NOT discuss politics in a civil manner, and (b) people who have insulted/intimidated/threatened you (W1 Spearman-Brown = .87‚ ...
In recent years, there has been an increased academic interest revolving around the beneficial or pernicious effects of ideological extremity and (uncivil) political discussion over democracy. For instance, citizens’ ideological predispositions and higher levels of political discussion have been linked with a more active and vibrant political life. In fact, ideological extremity and uncivil discussion foster institutionalized political engagement. However, less explored in the literature remains whether such polarization and uncivil discussions may be related to unlawful political behavior such as illegal protest. This study contends that one of the main drivers of illegal protest behavior lies in online uncivil political discussion, specifically through the normalization and activation of further incivility. We tested this through a two-wave panel data drawn from a diverse US sample and cross-sectional, lagged, and autoregressive regression models. Mediation analysis was also conducted to test whether uncivil online discussion mediated the relationship between frequency of online political discussion and illegal protest engagement. Overall, we found that illegal protest was particularly associated with online uncivil discussion, while ideological extremity and other forms of online and offline discussions seemed to have no effect on unlawful protest over time.
... While some scholars have investigated social media usage with a Goffmanian 1 focus (Hogan, 2010), intrigued by the unparalleled possibilities of controlling online self-presentation, others have highlighted the challenges social media pose in terms of managing one's audience and social context (Papacharissi, 2010). Platforms afford distinct combinations of weak and strong ties (Goyanes et al., 2021), affecting how people perceive and deal with potential audiences (e.g., Lu & Hampton, 2017;Velasquez & Rojas, 2017). The ways in which social media are used are inextricably tied to the techno-economic aspects of platforms (Helmond, 2015;van Dijck, 2009, p. 55). ...
... "Emerson" referred to spaces such as Facebook when describing spaces of "publicness" online. Facebook is one example of a social media that provides a variety of close and weak social ties, shown to contribute to selective avoidance and filtering mechanisms (Goyanes et al., 2021). Interviewees frequently circled back to an uncertainty and a lack of control as given features of such online "open" spaces. ...
This study emphasizes social media natives’ utilization of social media for
maintaining social relationships through an active negotiation and construction of space. A continuous attentiveness to social space is connected to features of Gesellschaft in social media: the utilization of people’s data traces for economic purposes. The social media natives’ online activities are still tied to the market rationales of social media corporations, however, as platforms both facilitate and profit from their practices. This study proposes the concept of “digital Gemeinschaft 2.0,” through examining Rich Ling’s employment of Ferdinand Tönnies’ Gesellschaft (market society) and Gemeinschaft (fellowship), when conceptualizing the “digital Gemeinschaft.” Drawing on 11 in-depth interviews with social media natives in Norway, it identifies three recurring themes, reflecting (1)
a Gesellschaft attentiveness, (2) continued Gemeinschaft, with occasional public orientations, and (3) information gathering and learning without direct public partaking. The digital Gemeinschaft 2.0 concept hence highlights a continued
tension between Gesellschaft and digital Gemeinschaft in social media as both medium and (social and public) space.
... Incivility is not only seen in political campaigns, such as alleged Incivility against "The Squad" mean-spirited commercials (e.g. Stryker et al., 2016), but is becoming increasingly common in online discussions Johnson, 2018) and on social media sites (Goyanes et al., 2021). Incivility on Twitter is a rising trend even causing some social media users to leave these sites or lessen time spent there (Goyanes et al., 2021;Maity et al., 2018). ...
... Stryker et al., 2016), but is becoming increasingly common in online discussions Johnson, 2018) and on social media sites (Goyanes et al., 2021). Incivility on Twitter is a rising trend even causing some social media users to leave these sites or lessen time spent there (Goyanes et al., 2021;Maity et al., 2018). ...
Purpose
For many, the sole source for news content is social media, where passionate opinions are posted at an alarming speed. These opinions can cross the line from differing opinions shared in a public forum onto uncivil dialogue and even hate speech. Such online discourse threatens democratic values and creates a hostile environment. The purpose of this paper is to examine such incivility using the case of four congresswomen known as “The Squad”.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors conducted a content analysis examining 20,563 replies to tweets sent by the four congresswomen. The social media data analysis and library, Brandwatch, was used to aggregate tweets posted by the four representatives, as well as all the replies posted to these tweets. The replies were coded to understand the types of incivility against each of the four congresswomen, whether the topics of a tweet can predict the types of incivility received in response, and the impact of Trump's tweet against the congresswomen.
Findings
The study findings show that the majority of replies contained uncivil language. The most common types of incivility are related to name-calling, stereotypes, threats to individual rights and vulgarity. Tweets about immigration and the Muslim ban, as well as tweets with negative tones received more replies. Following Donald Trump's Twitter attack on the representatives, replies to the congresswomen's tweets almost doubled. Mainly two types of incivility were observed to have increased significantly – the use of stereotypes and threats to individual rights.
Originality/value
The study examines incivility on Twitter against four black, indigenous and people of color (BIPOC) congresswomen as an exploratory case to observe and understand the growing phenomenon of uncivil language which feeds a polarized society and threatens democratic values. “The Squad” is more than an isosteric case study. It captures key changes in American politics. In the context of democratic discourse, the attack by the former president on these congresswomen and the response on social media address key issues of gender, religion and race in the United States.
... It is noteworthy to mention that the various ways we adopt to live and work are continuously being redefined and revolutionized by information and communication technologies (ICTs). According to Goyanes et al. (2021), the potential significance of ICT in shaping and reshaping individuals' attitudes cannot be ignored or marginalized. Social media platforms, being the most influential representation of ICT, not only dominate a great part of people's lives but also direct their everyday activities. ...
This paper attempts to investigate the extent to which linguistic misinformation via social networking platforms affects an attitudinal shift on the part of Saudis in terms of the social, political, and religious issues propagated by the various social networks. This study delves into the verbal and nonverbal linguistic strategies employed to influence the cognitive background of Saudis as well as their ideological beliefs in a way that targets a shift in their attitudinal behavior, socially, politically, and religiously. The paper analytically covers two linguistic dimensions of using language to influence others, either persuasively or manipulatively: the lexical level, which focuses on the lexical choices of particular words that serve to create a specific attitudinal shift in the recipients’ personalities, and the pragmatic level, which constitutes the intended meaning of speakers or writers that lies beyond the surface propositional meaning of the linguistic expression. To achieve its objective, the paper draws on two analytical strands: critical discourse analysis (CDA) and the social cognitive theory (SCT). The paper has three main findings: first, language is a rhetorical device for influencing the public’s political, social, and religious views, and, therefore, the rhetorical power of the word significantly contributes to attitudes shift; second, misinformation propagated via social networks influences the attitudinal behavior of recipients, particularly at the social level; and, third, social platforms are ideology conduits via which various meanings targeting attitudes shift are communicated.
... On the one hand, people who use social media for news are known to engage in uncivil discussions, unfriend users, or hide content due to political differences (Goyanes, Borah, & Gil de Zúñiga, 2021). On the other hand, a key motivation for social media use is to maintain interpersonal ties, and the importance of keeping in touch with others may be greater than the willingness to avoid disagreeable information they may post. ...
Drawing on theoretical explanations of political information consumption, political self-expression, and social media affordances, this article examines the engagement of social media users from Latvia with political content in the context of parliamentary elections. According to the results of semi-structured interviews (N = 49), social media can facilitate following politics and expose users to information they have not been actively seeking out. While users are able to curate their newsfeeds, not all of the interviewees did so actively to disengage from political content even though they were not interested in it and displayed signs of information overload. This kind of incidental exposure did not substantially contribute to their willingness to engage with politics. Although many interviewees were politically active in some way, their hesitation to express their opinions about political matters persisted. This is explained by a perception of political participation as activities that should be undertaken in private, rather than publicly communicated. Furthermore, social media affordances that allow users to be visible and identifiable are shown to exacerbate the obstacles to expressing political views.
... Political participation, although less often researched (n =2), is also a consistently positive predictor. In contrast, political interest (n = 13) shows a mixed pattern-46.15% of the effects are positive, whereas 53.85% are negative.The negative effects were mostly identified in Western democracies including the United States, the United Kingdom, and France during elections or political downtimes(Barnidge et al., 2022;Goyanes, Borah, & Gil de Zúñiga, 2021;Hayes, Smock, & Carr, 2015;Kim et al., 2021;Skoric et al., 2022;Zhang & Shoenberger, 2021), and none of them are statistically significant. In comparison, the positive effects-mostly statistically significant-were observed primarily in contexts of drastic political shifts and conflicts such as Hong Kong during and after the Umbrella Movement(Skoric, Zhu, & Lin, 2018;Zhu & Skoric, 2021;Zhu et al., 2017), with one exception from Germany(Neubaum, Cargnino, Winter, & Dvir-Gvirsman, 2021).Regarding factors related to social media use, both use intensity (n = 10) and political use of social media (n = 13) are frequently researched and consistent predictors. ...
Recent years have seen a surging scholarly interest in disconnective political behaviors on social media, commonly termed "politically motivated unfriending." This study presents a systematic review of 28 articles (34 studies) on this topic. Through content analysis, it provides a robust synthesis of the trend, contexts, and focuses of the research, the scale and prevalence of politically motivated unfriending, and its antecedents and consequences. Through inductive thematic coding, it identifies 3 recurring themes with regard to the conceptualizations of politically motivated unfriending-it is understood as selective avoidance under the normative framework of the public sphere, self-care following the logic of personal spaces, and a means to create safe spaces within unequal social structures. This systematic review highlights the importance of understanding the political implications of social media through the lens of disconnectivity, demonstrates the democratic paradox of disconnection, and offers recommendations for future research.
... Penggunaan media sosial semakin masif (Abdurohim, 2021c), ini terlihat dari berbagai laporan yang telah disampaikan oleh bebrapa perusahaan peneliti, Indonesia merupakan negara ke-4 terbesar setelah negara Cina, India dan Amerika pada tahun 2021, dimana masyarakat indonesia telah menggunakan berbagai platform media sosial sebanyak 193 juta untuk melakukan komunikasi baik dengan rekan bisnis, sahabat, dan keluarga (Goyanes et al., 2021). Potensi ini sangat mendukung untuk dipergunakan dalam memasarkan produk perusahaan, meskipun dalam data pengguna sebanyak tersebut belum dilakukan perincian antara laku-laki dan wanita, umur yang menggunakan serta lokasi pengguna berada di provinsi mana. ...
Sistematika buku Pemasaran Era Kini: Pendekatan Berbasis Digital ini mengacu pada pendekatan konsep teoritis dan contoh penerapan. Buku ini terdiri atas 16 bab yang dibahas secara rinci, diantaranya: Bab 1 Pengantar dan Konsep Dasar Pemasaran Digital, Bab 2 Perilaku Konsumen Di Era Digital, Bab 3 Digital Marketing Vs Tradisional Marketing, Bab 4 Strategi Pemasaran Digital, Bab 5 Komunikasi Pemasaran Digital, Bab 6 Digital Customer Relationship Management, Bab 7 Social Media Marketing Strategy, Bab 8 Media Sosial dan Keterlibatan Konsumen, Bab 9 Design Bisnis Media Sosial, Bab 10 Sosial Media Endorser dan Sosial Media Platform, Bab 11 Aplikasi Sosial dan Grafik Sosial, Bab 12 Sosial Media dan Sosial Media Channels, Bab 13 e-Consumer dan e-WOM, Bab 14 Online Marketplace, Bab 15 Business to Business (B2B) dan Business to Consumer (B2C), dan Bab 16 Manfaat Pemasaran Digital Bagi UMKM.
... Shils (1991;1997) influentially described civility as "softly spoken, respectful speech" (1991, 13), i.e., an individual, substantive virtue consisting, on one level of interpersonal respect and courtesy, but also on the willingness to restrain one's most divisive, antagonistic, impolite, and polarizing tendencies in the name of the common good. Shils' dualist interpretation of civility is echoed in distinctions between interpersonal politeness and political civility (Papacharissi 2004;Stryker, Conway and Danielson 2016), or personlevel and public-level civility (Muddiman 2017) but, crucially, these conceptualizations focus on the effects of the different kinds of speech on democratic processes, arguing that while individual lack of etiquette is not necessarily harmful or incompatible with valid political arguments, utterances that disregard or disparage others' "democratic identity" threaten democracy (Goyanes, Borah, and Gil de Zúñiga 2021;Papacharissi 2004, 267). ...
Drawing on discussions about the manifestation of incivility in online news comments sections, our research operationalizes the concept of incivility and suggests a methodological approach that relies on manual and automated text analysis and regression analysis to assess its prevalence and identify its predictors. Relying on a data analysis of over two million comments on immigration and unemployment retrieved from twelve newspapers websites from six countries (Brazil, Chile, Portugal, Spain, United Kingdom, and United States), our study confirms the prevalence of incivility in online news comments sections and shows that comments on the topic of immigration, with clear political orientation, particularly right-wing, and displaying populism and false information perception are more prone to include discursive features of incivility. ARTICLE HISTORY
... Social media provides a space for users with a variety of information. Users are often exposed to various contents and views shared or produced by citizens from all walks of life (Goyanes et al., 2021). TRA includes individual intentions to conduct behavior, attitudes toward behavior and subjective norms, where the individual's choice to perform these behaviors is determined by attitudes toward behavior and subjective criteria (Fisbein and Ajzen, 1975). ...
Purpose
This study aims to investigate the role of social media in increasing trust, self-perceived creativity and millennial entrepreneurial satisfaction.
Design/methodology/approach
The empirical analysis was conducted using a sample of 385 millennial entrepreneurs that were recruited for online survey. After conducting reliability and validity tests, the data were analyzed using partial least squares structural equation modeling.
Findings
The results showed that the quality of social media information had a direct and indirect positive and significant effect on trust and satisfaction. Social media marketing activities had a direct and indirect positive and significant effect on trust and self-perceived creativity. System Quality of social media also has a significant direct influence on trust. However, there is no direct relationship to satisfaction. Finally, social media marketing activities have a significant direct effect on trust and satisfaction.
Practical implications
This research can contribute to marketing experts and millennial entrepreneurs in improving the quality of advertising information and the credibility of social media used to support creativity, trust and satisfaction. In addition, marketing experts and millennial entrepreneurs with online-based communities should optimize their marketing activities on social media.
Originality/value
This study has shown a more comprehensive model of the relationship between information quality, system quality, social media marketing activities, self-perceived creativity, trust and satisfaction. This study also reveals a significant direct and indirect effect of social media marketing activities on satisfaction.
... However, reactions to incivility also vary. For some, incivility might fuel negative feelings (see Rösner et al., 2016) and lead to unfriending (Goyanes et al., 2021). Others might find it to be an acceptable way to communicate (Sydnor, 2019). ...
Even though social networking sites create a unique online public space for the exchange of opinions, only a small share of citizens participate in online discussions. Moreover, research has depicted current online discussions as highly uncivil, hostile, and polarized, and the number of heated discussions has escalated in the last two years because of health, social, and security crises. This study investigates the perceived barriers to participation in Facebook discussions, focusing on two topics: the Covid-19 pandemic and the Russo-Ukrainian War. It explores the role that the negativity of these online discussions has on participation. To investigate the perspectives of users and their personal experiences with online discussions in times of crisis, we apply a qualitative research method and interviews with participants. We collected and analyzed 50 semi-structured interviews with Czech Facebook users who participated in discussions during the spring of 2021 (i.e., Covid-19) and the spring of 2022 (i.e., Russo-Ukrainian War). The results show that, after initial mobilization at the beginning of the pandemic, the crisis reinforced several crucial barriers to participation in discussions due to the perceived persistence of polarization (e.g., the spread of disinformation, the bipolar character of discussions, negative perception of opponents), which subsequently spread to other areas and issues. The data also implies that these barriers tend to demobilize less active participants, those who do not have strong opinions, and participants who think the subject matter is not worth the heated exchange of opinions.
... Covariates Following prior research (Nan, 2012a(Nan, , 2012b, other than age, gender (coding: male = 1, female = 2), ethnicity (coding: 1 = Caucasian, 2 = Native American, 3 = Asian, 4 = Hispanic, 5 = African American, 6 = Other) and education (e.g., Goyanes et al., 2021), we also controlled flu vaccination status. Flu vaccination status was measured using a yes-no question asking whether they have received a regular flu vaccine or shot in the past 12 months (1 = yes, 2 = no; Yes = 53.3%). ...
Although there is enough scientific evidence to show the benefits and safety of vaccines, vaccine rates are low, while misperceptions about vaccines are on the rise. The main purposes of the current study are to 1) examine the effects of narrative vs. statistical messages on vaccine intention, 2) test the mediating role of perceived expectancies, and 3) examine the moderating roles of perceived susceptibility and misperceptions on vaccine intention. Data were collected with an online experiment through Amazon Mturk. The online experiment was conducted via Qualtrics once the study was considered exempt by the Institutional Research Board of a large University in the U.S. A total of 300 participants aged 18 and above completed the survey. Findings show that perceived expectancies mediate the relationship between message manipulation and vaccine intention. Our findings also show a three-way interaction which indicates that among individuals with high misperceptions, statistical messages are more persuasive for individuals with high perceived susceptibility, while narrative messages are more influential for individuals with low perceived susceptibility.
... And the algorithms won't help you to become who you want to be. Instead of that, they will preserve who you are at that moment in time, because they are based on who you were and there is a financial incentive to keep you in that 'bubble' (Goyanes et al., 2021;Van Dijck et al., 2018). Our contemporary youth spends a considerable number of hours a day online. ...
... While social media platforms vary in terms of the combinations of strong and weak ties they afford (Goyanes et al., 2021), a distinct feature of the online world is that borders are lacking between what is public and private (Jensen, 2007). Facing a potential collapse of social contexts (boyd, 2014), people may engage in self-censorship practices (Velasquez & Rojas, 2017). ...
People’s perceptions of and experiences within online spaces are central to understanding implications of current online surveillance mechanisms. The aim of this study was to gain insight into how people accustomed to online spaces as part of social life negotiated social media as private and public spaces. This study drew on in-depth interviews with “social media natives” in Norway for this purpose. The interview data especially pinpointed two analytically separable, but currently empirically interchangeable, factors that were pivotal to the interviewees' negotiations of private and public space: the Internet’s lack of temporal and spatial boundaries and social media’s distributive logic. While the interviewees took these features of the online for granted, they explained feeling potentially surveilled by anyone, at any time, and thus acting accordingly. As social media that utilise people’s data for economic profit are increasingly providing spaces for people’s interactions, these feelings of uncertainty and surveillance prompts questions about the future role of prominent social media.
... Among the several reasons why (some) voters fail to hold political actors accountable for their actions is a blind loyalty to their preferred party, an attitude that previous literature has labeled as obstinate partisanship (OP) (Ardèvol-Abreu & Gil de Zúñiga, 2020). Obstinate partisans (OPs) remain loyal to "their" party "no matter what they do," "both when they are doing well and not so well," and "even when they make a mistake" (Ardèvol-Abreu & Gil de Zúñiga, 2020, p. 330; see also Goyanes, Borah, & Gil de Zúñiga, 2021). ...
Scholars have recently sought to explain why some voters remain loyal to “their” parties or candidates “no matter what they do” – an attitude that has been labeled as obstinate partisanship (OP) and limits electoral accountability. We argue that the development of OP may have to do, at least partly, with people’s (in)ability to critically evaluate political information and their tendency to isolate themselves in online bubbles of congenial information and interactions. Building on this framework, we use two-wave panel survey data (NW1 = 1,259; NW2 = 982) to explore direct and indirect associations between information evaluation – a key component of information literacy – and OP. We find that information evaluation is negatively associated with OP in cross-sectional and autoregressive regression models. Analyses also support an indirect relationship between information evaluation and OP through political homophily in social media and online. We discuss possible implications for democracy and information literacy initiatives.
... Further, there is a link between the application of social media and a lower level of political participation which is not surprising. Rather news access from social media is related to uncivil discourses and unfriending, which is shutting down opposing ideas and views and contributes to polarization (Goyanes et al. 2021). ...
Online media of digital methodology has transformed human behaviors from sociocultural and political backing, interest, and participation to sharing supposition or resistance and has transfigured the approach of interaction and thinking—a serious issue for digital anthropology that centeres on internet-related changes of social marvels, a configuration of chaotic pluralism. With the prime argument that digital social media platforms implant feebleness, insecurity, and instability into social and political life, this paper investigates the risks that online media impose on democracy. Based on auxiliary secondary data, the methodology incorporates qualitative verifiable, and analytical methods. The paper's findings contend that the politico-techno-driven political economy of digital innovation has chopped social and democratic institutions and has destabilized worldwide social relations and politics, democracy has been fumed, stormed, and hacked. Social media has created a modern world order of amazing befuddling filter bubble impact where cyber-violence is misogynistic--social media is just like a redirection of Chinese whispers. Subsequently, with, private on-screen characters, governments' data dispersal, and so-called security and safeguarding of citizens' democratic rights, allegorically, George Orwell’s nightmare of 'Animal Farm' unfurling. In a bourgeois populist science of the 'digital panopticon' of technological colonialism, state surveillance, and bourgeois information, humankind is becoming more divided and unsecured and in the future citizens' will be deprived of numerous sociopolitical rights. Future people may fade under the pressure of high-tech colonialism which concurs with the normalization approach that 'offline field' powerful people are powerful 'online' too. Upcoming democracy is probable to be a discreetly 'high-hat' elitist endeavor. Current endeavors and legislations are romanticized as a glass half empty with very few tools to control cyberspace. It is pivotal to invigorate and fortify citizens’ digital agency and self-determination in society, politics, well-being, and economy, otherwise, societies/countries are probable to be more totalitarian.
... Penggunaan media sosial semakin masif (Abdurohim, 2021c), ini terlihat dari berbagai laporan yang telah disampaikan oleh bebrapa perusahaan peneliti, Indonesia merupakan negara ke-4 terbesar setelah negara Cina, India dan Amerika pada tahun 2021, dimana masyarakat indonesia telah menggunakan berbagai platform media sosial sebanyak 193 juta untuk melakukan komunikasi baik dengan rekan bisnis, sahabat, dan keluarga (Goyanes et al., 2021). Potensi ini sangat mendukung untuk dipergunakan dalam memasarkan produk perusahaan, meskipun dalam data pengguna sebanyak tersebut belum dilakukan perincian antara laku-laki dan wanita, umur yang menggunakan serta lokasi pengguna berada di provinsi mana. ...
Sistematika buku Pemasaran Era Kini: Pendekatan Berbasis Digital ini mengacu pada pendekatan konsep teoritis dan contoh penerapan. Buku ini terdiri atas 16 bab yang dibahas secara rinci, diantaranya: Bab 1 Pengantar dan Konsep Dasar Pemasaran Digital, Bab 2 Perilaku Konsumen Di Era Digital, Bab 3 Digital Marketing Vs Tradisional Marketing, Bab 4 Strategi Pemasaran Digital, Bab 5 Komunikasi Pemasaran Digital, Bab 6 Digital Customer Relationship Management, Bab 7 Social Media Marketing Strategy, Bab 8 Media Sosial dan Keterlibatan Konsumen, Bab 9 Design Bisnis Media Sosial, Bab 10 Sosial Media Endorser dan Sosial Media Platform, Bab 11 Aplikasi Sosial dan Grafik Sosial, Bab 12 Sosial Media dan Sosial Media Channels, Bab 13 e-Consumer dan e-WOM, Bab 14 Online Marketplace, Bab 15 Business to Business (B2B) dan Business to Consumer (B2C), dan Bab 16 Manfaat Pemasaran Digital Bagi UMKM.
... However, platforms -and in particular social media platforms -are increasingly used to spread and gather news amongst their users (Hågvar, 2019). As a result, the algorithmic chains that were designed to stimulate successful advertising have strong societal side effects that include a polarised -and mostly an unfriendly -discourse regarding political issues (Goyanes et al., 2021). Furthermore, it provokes media outlets to present their content in such a way that it successfully triggers the platform's algorithms, which leads to a change in media practice (Bucher, 2018). ...
... Therefore, students feel overloaded and overwhelmed when it comes to information evaluation and analysis. As reported by Swar et al [22], Karr-Wisniewski & Lu [23] and Goyanes et al [24], the excessive amount of information on social media creates disturbing behaviors and psychological issues such as: depression, productivity loss, anxiety, frustration, tiredness, control loss and anger etc. ...
Technological advancements have dramatically impacted the educational environment; in this context social media brings many educational benefits, but at the same time presents several challenges. One of these challenges is social media content overload; this, therefore, leads to the investigation on this issue to identify EFL students' opinions about this phenomenon and to know the consequences they experienced and solutions they use to reduce its impact. Data comes from 325 EFL students from Moulay Ismail University in Morocco who successfully completed an online questionnaire. The results from the study indicate that almost all EFL students suffer from social media content overload that exceeds their mental capacities. Also participants added that it is time consuming for them to analyze everything presented on social media. The results showed that EFL students experienced several consequences such as: mental fatigue, low productivity, stress and anxiety etc. These consequences, therefore, negatively impacted their academic achievements. In this regard, participants suggested some applicable strategies to mitigate the impact of content overload for instance: time management strategy, advance planning strategy, one platform use strategy and withdrawal strategy. All in all, the issue of content overload remains everlasting because social media platforms are evolving almost every month thanks to technological advancements and this will make this issue hard to vanish. Therefore, EFL students should accept the reality and take this issue seriously by sticking to strategies that can keep the impact at bay.
... What is more, "Scholars have always been interested in political interactions [1][2][3], face-to-face and online." [4]. Politics is, after all, an issue that affects to some extent our everyday lives, and political decisions can impact us negatively or positively. ...
The purpose of this chapter is to analyze the implications of freedom of speech regarding political discussions on social media platforms, such as Facebook. The paper will look at the following aspects: the occasion when social media users have to discuss politics as a hobby and as a means to keep their ideas out of the view of face-to-face social circles, to engage in social issues and even be part of protests, to discuss politicians’ public image, and attempt to change some users’ perception about it. Within social media, we witness debates or simple displays of emotions, allowing users to speak their minds and interact with other users, showing empathy toward them. The benefits of this are related to the therapeutic effects of speaking about what upsets them or angers them and finding like-minded users.
... Minority concerns and topics frequently discussed or shared by underprivileged socioeconomic groups may be less well-known to many people due to these filtering processes. Unfriending strategies and algorithmic screening might also lead to the formation of isolated groups based on opinion-reinforcing arguments and extreme discourses, which may lead to the creation of hate speech (Barberá, 2014;Joan, 2015;Zúñiga, 2015;Bakshy et al., 2015;Skoric et al., 2018;Goyanes et al., 2021). ...
Probably a decade ago, social media became nothing to
boom in the Indian subcontinent. However, the population
of this country helped many social media networking sites to
spread and popularize. It is used not only for making new
friends but also covers a wide range of news, information,
communication, advertisement, sharing ideas, blogging,
education, employment, and many more. This chapter brings many things including brief history of social media, educational sites, research, e- library etc. It will understand the deeper meaning of the social media and how it helps utilize in the field of Education.
... Social media mining, an area of computer science concerned with identifying patterns of social behavior from user-generated data, originated as a result of the proliferation of social networking tools and platforms. The relevant applications harness social network users' behaviors, ideas, and emotions to create intelligent models that facilitate decision-making processes such as predicting stock prices [19,20], promoting personalized items or advertisements [21], extracting users' opinions to improve product development processes [22], and analyzing political information [23]. Furthermore, the real-time analysis of Twitter data has been used to model earthquake warning detection systems [24], detect emerging drugs from social network discussions [25], and identify clinical topics discussed in Twitter [26]. ...
In many countries, mental health issues are among the most serious public health concerns. National mental health statistics are frequently collected from reported patient cases or government-sponsored surveys, which have restricted coverage, frequency, and timeliness. Many domains of study, including public healthcare and biomedical informatics, have recently adopted social media data as a feasible real-time alternative to traditional methods of gathering representative information at the population level in a variety of contexts. However, because of the limits of fundamental natural language processing tools and labeled corpora in countries with limited natural language resources, such as Thailand, implementing social media systems to monitor mental health signals could be challenging. This paper presents LAPoMM, a novel framework for monitoring real-time mental health indicators from social media data without using labeled datasets in low-resource languages. Specifically, we use cross-lingual methods to train language-agnostic models and validate our framework by examining cross-correlations between the aggregate predicted mental signals and real-world administrative data from Thailand’s Department of Mental Health, which includes monthly depression patients and reported cases of suicidal attempts. A combination of a language-agnostic representation and a deep learning classification model outperforms all other cross-lingual techniques for recognizing various mental signals in Tweets, such as emotions, sentiments, and suicidal tendencies. The correlation analyses discover a strong positive relationship between actual depression cases and the predicted negative sentiment signals as well as suicide attempts and negative signals (e.g., fear, sadness, and disgust) and suicidal tendency. These findings establish the effectiveness of our proposed framework and its potential applications in monitoring population-level mental health using large-scale social media data. Furthermore, because the language-agnostic model utilized in the methodology is capable of supporting a wide range of languages, the proposed LAPoMM framework can be easily generalized for analogous applications in other countries with limited language resources.
... 2. Theoretical framework and empirical model 2.1 Theory of reasoned action Social media users are frequently exposed to various contents and insights which are shared and created by people from all society levels (Goyanes et al., 2021). In some cases, people will follow the opinion of a leader who publishes original and unique contents through the social media and which will potentially influence further attitudes (Casal o et al., 2020). ...
Purpose
This study aims to examine the relationship of information quality of social media, social media reputation, social media political marketing activities, trust and political involvement of millennials.
Methodology
The empirical analysis was conducted using a sample of 309 millennials. This study used online survey for the data collection. After passing reliability and validity tests, the data were analyzed with partial least squares structural equation modeling.
Findings
The results show that information quality of social media has positive and significant direct influence on reputation and trust. Information quality of social media also has a significant indirect influence on trust through social media reputation. However, there is no significant relationship between information quality and political involvement. Social media political marketing activities also have a direct and indirect significant effect on political involvement through trust. Finally, trust also has a positive and significant impact on political involvement.
Practical implications
This research may contribute to the political marketing experts and politicians in increasing the quality and credibility of advertisements on social media, which will affect trust and political involvement of millennial generation. Moreover, politicians and political marketing experts who have an online-based community should optimize their marketing activities in social media to encourage positive behavior and trust from social media users.
Value
This study has shown a more comprehensive model of the relationship between information quality of social media and political involvement. This study also reveals the significant indirect effect of the trust on the relationship between information quality on social media, social media political marketing activities and political involvement.
... Social media mining, an area of computer science concerned with identifying patterns of social behavior from user-generated data, originated as a result of the proliferation of social networking tools and platforms. The relevant applications harness social network users' behaviors, ideas, and emotions to create intelligent models that facilitate decision-making processes such as predicting stock prices [19,20], promoting personalized items or advertisements [21], extracting users' opinions to improve product development processes [22], and analyzing political information [23]. Furthermore, the real-time analysis of Twitter data has been used to model earthquake warning detection systems [24], detect emerging drugs from social network discussions [25], and identify clinical topics discussed in Twitter [26]. ...
Mental health is one of the pressing issues during the COVID-19 pandemic. Psychological distress can be caused directly by the pandemic itself, such as fear of contracting the disease, or by stress from losing jobs due to the disruption of economic activities. In addition, many government measures such as lockdown, unemployment aids, subsidies, or vaccination policy also affect population mood, sentiments, and mental health. This paper utilizes deep-learning-based techniques to extract sentiment, mood, and psychological signals from social media messages and use such aggregate signals to trace population-level mental health. To validate the accuracy of our proposed methods, we cross-check our results with the actual mental illness cases reported by Thailand’s Department of Mental Health and found a high correlation between the predicted mental health signals and the actual mental illness cases. Finally, we discuss potential applications that could be implemented using our proposed methods as building blocks.
... Adapted from and modified prior research (Goyanes et al., 2021), three items were used to assess SMIS. The respondents were asked to indicate the frequencies with which they use Weibo, WeChat, and Zhihu, three popular social media platforms in China, to seek news information about COVID-19, via a 5-point Likert scale (1 = never, 5 = several times a day) (M = 1.96, ...
Misinformation circulation has arguably reached a peak during the COVID-19 pandemic, creating an “infodemic” that severely endangers public health and well-being. Using a moderated mediation model, a survey of 712 respondents from China reveals that social media information seeking is positively associated with COVID-19 misperceptions, while need for cognition (NFC) is negatively associated with it. Both relationships became more significant while mediating through individuals' general misperceptions. Moreover, it is found that among those with greater locus of control over media, the association between social media information seeking and COVID-19 misperceptions became more positive, while the association between NFC and COVID-19 misperceptions became more negative among those with greater media locus of control. Findings provide insights into the misperception research and have practical implications regarding infodemic management.
... Beyond the explanatory power of the novel information individuals acquire to promote political attitude change, the persuasive process may also hinge on a myriad of mechanisms, including news trust, peers' news suggestions, algorithms curation process, or/and individual filtration tactics (Fletcher & Nielsen, 2018;Goyanes et al., 2021;Hermida et al., 2012;Messing & Westwood, 2014). All these agents may also be responsible for activating a cognitive process that prompts users to reconsider their political attitudes in time. ...
There is a vast research tradition examining the antecedents that lead people to be politically persuaded. However, political opinion and attitude change in social media has received comparatively scarce attention. This study seeks to shed light on this strand of the literature by theoretically advancing and empirically testing a structural equation model linking online social media, and fake news exposure, with political discussion and political persuasion in social media. Drawing on autoregressive causal tests from two waves of US survey panel data collected in 2019 and 2020, our results indicate that online, social media fake news, and political discussion are all positive predictors of individual political attitude change. Furthermore, structural equation tests reveal that online and social media news lead individuals to be exposed to fake news, which, in turn, predict higher levels of political discussion, ultimately facilitating political persuasion in the social media realm. Limitations and further suggestions for future research are also included in the study.
... This role is more extensive in the era of widespread social media today. So it must be noted that there is a "mediating" or even a "filtering" effect between the formation of personal perception and real events (Feezell, 2018;Goyanes et al., 2021). In the end, this perception will become the basis of judging ability of people in face of future public health emergencies. ...
Different nations responded to the global spread of COVID-19 differently. How do people view the governance practices and effects of various countries? What factors affect their views? Starting from the three-dimensional model of cognitive-affective-media, this study examines how pandemic perception, the national feeling, which is the emotional preference of public for different countries, and media use affect the Chinese public views on the performance of other countries in controlling COVID-19. After performing regression analysis on the data of 619 Chinese public samples collected by an online survey, it reveals the following: (1) pandemic perception is negatively correlated with the evaluation of controlling-pandemic performance in different countries by Chinese residents, whereas national feeling is positively correlated with the evaluation of controlling-pandemic performance. (2) The use of media has different characteristics in the evaluation of controlling-pandemic performance in different countries by Chinese residents. Television has a significant influence on the evaluation of controlling-pandemic performance in the United States, China, and Germany by Chinese residents. (3) Collectivist cultural orientation has no significant impact on the evaluation of the anti-pandemic performance of different countries by Chinese residents, whereas virus perception only has a significant impact on the evaluation of the controlling-pandemic performance of the United States and Italy. Research has confirmed the existence of the cognitive-affective-media model in the evaluations by public on the governance of other countries, and prospects for the superimposed role of media in the cognitive-affective model.
... Having not been designed to inform or educate, and in the absence of a regulatory framework or any other mechanism of checking the role of digital media as information providers or asking them to be accountable for their actions (Cave, 2019), findings showing a link between social media use and lower levels of political knowledge (Cacciatore et al., 2018) are not surprising. Getting news from social media was found to be related with uncivil discussions and unfriending, that is shutting down disagreeing voices, contributing to polarization (Goyanes et al., 2021). ...
The potency and potential of digital media to contribute to democracy has recently come under intense scrutiny. In the context of rising populism, extremism, digital surveillance and manipulation of data, there has been a shift towards more critical approaches to digital media including its producers and consumers. This shift, concomitant with calls for a path toward digital well-being, warrants a closer investigation into the study of the ethical issues arising from AI and Big Data. The use of Big Data and AI in digital media are often incongruent with fundamental democratic principles and human rights. The dominant paradigm is one of covert exploitation, erosion of individual agency and autonomy, and a sheer lack of transparency and accountability, reminiscent of authoritarian dynamics rather than of a digital well-being with equal and active participation of informed citizens. Our paper contributes to the promising research landscape that seeks to address these ethical issues by providing an in-depth analysis of the challenges that stakeholders are faced with when attempts are made to mitigate the negative implications of Big Data and AI. Rich empirical evidence collected from six focus groups, across Europe, with key stakeholders in the area of shaping ethical dimensions of technology, provide useful insights into elucidating the multifaceted dilemmas, tensions and obstacles that stakeholders are confronted with when being tasked to address ethical issues of digital media, with a focus on AI and Big Data. Identifying, discussing and explicating these challenges is a crucial and necessary step if researchers and policymakers are to envisage and design ways and policies to overcome them. Our findings enrich the academic discourse and are useful for practitioners engaging in the pursuit of responsible innovation that protects the well-being of its users while defending the democratic foundations which are at stake.
The fundamental role of political discussions in democracy has been frequently highlighted by quantitative and qualitative literature at the intersection of political communication and media effects. Most research has revolved around whether, and if so under what conditions, social media platforms constitute public spaces where democracy can be nurtured and promoted. Building on this literature and underscoring the importance of individuals’ self-effects theories, this qualitative study, based on 42 in-depth interviews, clarifies how social media users navigate political discussions and their ulterior affective and cognitive processes, introducing the notion of political discussion regret. Specifically, this concept fundamentally emphasizes the sterility of partaking in political discussions as the main motivation for users’ cognitive lamentation, which indirectly cancels the presumed muscle of social media as the sphere of public and private political discussion and deliberations. Implications of the study’s findings and main theoretical consequences for the political discussion literature are also provided.
Two-year colleges provide the opportunity for students of all ages to try new subjects, change careers, upskill, or begin exploring higher education, at affordable rates. Many might begin their exploration by taking a course at a local two-year college. Currently, not many of these institutions in the U.S. offer data science courses. This article introduces the perspective lens of students who have gone through the Montgomery College Data Science Certificate Program. We found that, contrary to many other educational fields at the College, data science students tend to come from diverse backgrounds and career paths. A common theme emerged that all students learned valuable skills and applications such as coding in various programming languages and approaches to machine learning. Other meaningful themes included an appreciation of course accessibility, especially catered towards busy professionals who might only be able to take evening courses. Students appreciated learning that data science and ethics are intertwined. Finally, it was evident that going through the data science program positively impacted the lives and careers of these students. The implications of the themes of these student experiences are discussed as they relate to data science education.
While most research has examined incivility in political contexts, few studies have explored the role of online incivility in contexts where partisan cues are lacking. Integrating insights from selective exposure, media salience, and serial position effects, we proposed the concept of “incivility salience” and examined how its two manifestations—position and proportion of uncivil messages in a comment thread—affected news engagement behavior. Through two conjoint experiments in the United States, we found that people avoided engaging with comment threads starting with uncivil content and the ones with a higher proportion of uncivil content. Furthermore, we identified that the salience of uncivil content could influence the extent to which people perceive such content as uncivil, which in turn impacts engagement behavior. Overall, this study offers a novel framework that considers incivility salience as a core element for understanding the perceptual and behavioral effects of online incivility.
One of today’s most controversial and consequential issues is whether the global uptake of digital media is causally related to a decline in democracy. We conducted a systematic review of causal and correlational evidence (N = 496 articles) on the link between digital media use and different political variables. Some associations, such as increasing political participation and information consumption, are likely to be beneficial for democracy and were often observed in autocracies and emerging democracies. Other associations, such as declining political trust, increasing populism and growing polarization, are likely to be detrimental to democracy and were more pronounced in established democracies. While the impact of digital media on political systems depends on the specific variable and system in question, several variables show clear directions of associations. The evidence calls for research efforts and vigilance by governments and civil societies to better understand, design and regulate the interplay of digital media and democracy.
The main motive of this research is to understand the reasons how social media takes the control of our day-today life. There are many ways social media can do this, but for this research we take how unfollow someone or mute someone or reduce the time on social media can take control of our life and for this purpose we chose the social media platform Instagram. We collect 200 survey data for our research and then cluster the data into different categories (negative posts, social factor, unimportant posts, psychological factors, etc.). For clustering into different categories, we follow separate codebooks for all three variables. The result of our study shows that posts related categories like negative posts or unimportant posts play a major role to taking control of social media. 36.7% people thought that unimportant post is the reason why they unfollow someone and 41.3% participant believe that unimportant post is the reasons why they mute someone on Instagram. The outcome of this study provides that posts, social factors, and psychological factors are main reasons to unfollow or mute someone but some other factors like disagreement, and inactivity makes the outcome more interesting even some participate not sure which factor influence them to unfollow or mute someone on Instagram.
Social media facilitates the exposure of individuals to a wide range of political discussions and opinions. Extant research investigated how citizens participate in these deliberative behaviors and their implications for democratic citizenship, paying scant attention to users' avoidance tactics. In this study, we further investigate individuals' perceptions and attitudes toward the political discussions they encounter on social media, and toward their influence on their political opinion (i.e., persuasion). Based on in-depth interviews with 30 Spanish social media users, we show how online political discussions trigger what we conceptualize as the rear window effect, a metaphor drawn from Alfred Hitchcock's film Rear Window that encapsulates the exceptional circumstances under which users take a stand and express their political views online. We also show that users manage to effectively persuade by posting about their experiences and personal narratives. This study contributes to extant literature by theorizing about users' common reluctance to be politically active on social media, the rationales that shape their sporadic participation, and the mechanisms by which they are persuaded.
Prior literature on political filter bubbles suggests an overall positive association between social media use and political networks diversification. Sometimes, this might not be the case. This study argues that the News Finds Me perception (NFM) or the belief that “one” can be well-informed about public affairs without actively seeking information as news will find “me” through “my” networks, tend to nurture a positive attitude toward algorithmic news gatekeeping. Likewise, NFM’s news over-reliance on one’s social network support the development of homogeneous information and discussion political networks in social media (political homophily). Results based on a variety of ordinary least squares regression models (cross-sectional, lagged, and autoregressive) from a U.S. representative panel survey, as we all as autoregressive structural equation model tests, indicate that this is indeed the case. This study serves to specifically clarify when and how social media and the NFM facilitate politically homogeneous filter bubbles.
Social networking sites have been a space for fiercely contested topics such as politics. When political beliefs are challenged, scrutinized, and disagreed with among and between friends, a dissolution of friendship may follow. This study aims to examine these dynamics and attempt to offer an answer on whether these lost friendships are redeemable or not. Findings were drawn from the narrative data provided by 15 participants purposively selected online. Results yield three major themes from the thematic analysis; morals precede friendship, unfriending is liberating, and only time can tell
whether these friendships can be redeemed. There is hope that these friendships are redeemable. But the possibility can be realistically difficult.
The incorporation of social media as spaces for political participation performances—especially among youth—has brought various issues into debate, including the formats of these practices and, at the same time, the significances of these repertoires for public conversation. In order to address this topic, this chapter explores the digital practices of political participation among young people in Argentina. Based on a qualitative approach in which 30 in-depth interviews to people from 18 to 24 years old were carried out, the findings of this research note that these segments of the population join the discussion of issues on the public agenda using emojis and hashtags and prefer reduced digital spaces to talk with their close contacts about polarized issues in order to avoid the aggression and violence that they say they observe in the digital space.
Artykuł prezentuje wartości konstytucyjne narażone na pogwałcenie ze strony rozwiązań wykorzystujących AI. W oparciu o metodę dogmatyczno-prawną poddano analizie poglądy polskiego prawa konstytucyjnego od przemian z 1989 r. W badaniu wpływu AI na przyjęte wartości wykorzystano literaturę przedmiotu, głównie z lat 2017–2020. Celem opracowania jest identyfikacja istotnych wartości konstytucyjnych narażonych na zagrożenia wynikające z rozwoju AI. Spośród wielu wartości konstytucyjnych wykazano, że kluczowe są godność człowieka oraz rządy prawa i demokracja jako najbardziej narażone na ingerencję ze strony AI. Przedstawiono przykłady ingerencji AI w wartości przynależne człowiekowi oraz powiązane z ideą demokratycznego państwa prawa. W konkluzji przyjęto, że nieuregulowane wykorzystywanie AI stwarza ryzyko naruszenia wartości konstytucyjnych.
Abstract
Constitutional values at the dawn of the AI era
The article presents constitutional values exposed to violation by solutions using AI. Based on the dogmatic-legal method, the views of Polish constitutional law since the 1989 changes were analysed. In the study of the impact of AI on the accepted values, the literature on the subject, mainly from 2017–2020, was used. The aim of the study is to identify significant constitutional values exposed to threats from the development of AI. Of the many constitutional values, it is shown that the key ones are human dignity and the rule of law and democracy as the most vulnerable to interference from AI. Examples of AI interference with human values and those related to the idea of a democratic state under the rule of law are presented. It concludes that unregulated use of AI poses a risk of violating constitutional values.
Filtering strategies enable social media users to remove undesired content from their feeds, potentially creating homophilic environments. Although previous studies have addressed the individual-level factors and content features that influence these decisions, few have solely focused on users’ perceptions. Accordingly, this study applies social exchange theory to understand how users socially construct the process of unfriending. Based on 30 in-depth interviews with young Spaniards, we identify a widespread pattern of rejection over repetitive, opinion-challenging, and offensive posts, which we conceptualize as out-of-place content, a type of social media stimulus that hinders substantive online exchanges and challenges users’ understanding of social reality and individual values. This study contributes to current literature on unfriending by suggesting that filtering strategies are implemented gradually when posts overwhelm users’ tolerance threshold. Our findings also suggest that their deployment hinges on the closeness of the relationship between peers and social commitments formed in specific platforms. Future research is needed to assess to what extent the patterns identified in our interviews are present in the overall population.
The article is devoted to assessing the degree of influence of virtual network communications on the level of ideological polarization of society. The theoretical basis of the research was the works of foreign authors devoted to the problems of the network society and network communication, and the empirical basis was the results of observation of the information and communication processes that accompanied the US presidential campaign in 2020. The use of communication and network approaches allowed to trace the correlation between the mass use of popular Internet services and the political radicalization of citizens. The authors conclude that virtual network communication has a high potential for conflict. It ensures cooperation between groups of like-minded political activists, but exacerbates the political polarization of the society. The algorithms of new media are designed to stimulate ideological confrontation. The principle of maximum personalization of content immerses ordinary users in «information cocoons» (echo chambers), where they are isolated from alternative views of the surrounding reality. By constantly provoking the audience of social networks to emotional reactions, political actors and the media deliberately exacerbate the contradictions existing in society. They fill the virtual environment with resonant statements, mutual insults and fake news.
The sense of permissiveness experienced by individuals using social networks contributes to the radicalization of the new media discourse. The key problem is that this state of affairs satisfies IT-corporations and meets the particular interests of the subjects of political struggle. From the point of view of the authors of the article, it is objectively necessary to introduce strict political and managerial mechanisms that can ensure the ordering of communication processes in the virtual environment. There are prerequisites for the ideological polarization of society in modern Russia, as in the United States. There is a great danger that during the fateful election campaigns at the federal level the ideological confrontation in social networks may develop into the violent struggle. To prevent the implementation of this negative scenario, a qualitative modernization of the existing regulatory framework in the field of regulation of network communications is required.
The rapid acceleration of social processes in society under the influence of digitalization affects the key areas of social life, including medicine. The author examines the impact of digital technologies on the provision of health care services and analyzes the nature of doctor-patient communication and its growing complexity. The use of high-tech software in medicine causes the need to create relevant educational programs for specialists either in medicine or information technology. Moreover, the digitalization of health care system makes the need in new professions more urgent. For instance, the appearance of IT-doctors, who specialize in creating digital medical programs using artificial intelligence algorithms based on medical sciences. The study reveals the emergence of a three-way communication «patient – physician – IT manager». The research dwells on the ambivalent impact of digitalization on the provision of health care services and the social stratification of individuals in society.
This study examines citizen’s use of social media during the political crisis triggered by the Catalan Referendum. More specifically, we seek to shed more light on Catalan citizens’ (dis)engagement on social media, examining what citizens did and did not do on social media, who they avoided and/or unfriended, and the implications of such behaviours for democratic citizenship in Spain. Our findings, based on 50 interviews with Catalan citizens, show that despite strong political partisanship, Catalans show little inclination to discuss political issues online and consequently develop what we term a teflonic social media behaviour (TSMB). By implementing these avoidance tactics, they refrain from commenting and sharing political information about the Catalan conflict on social media. Furthermore, when they happen, political discussions are mainly triggered by blatant lies or fabricated content that citizens from both sides of the political spectrum want to confront based on their own real-world experiences. We find that despite the fact that the independence movement has undeniably fuelled social and political conflict, the unfriend button on social media was only used when specific norms of uncivility were breached rather than as a reaction to the mere exposure to dissonant views and opinions.
There is a vast research tradition examining the antecedents that lead people to be politically persuaded. However, political opinion and attitude change in social media has received comparatively scarce attention. This study seeks to shed light on this strand of the literature by theoretically advancing and empirically testing a structural equation model linking online social media, and fake news exposure, with political discussion and political persuasion in social media. Drawing on autoregressive causal tests from two waves of US survey panel data collected in 2019 and 2020, our results indicate that online, social media fake news, and political discussion are all positive predictors of individual political attitude change. Furthermore, structural equation tests reveal that online and social media news lead individuals to be exposed to fake news, which, in turn, predict higher levels of political discussion, ultimately facilitating political persuasion in the social media realm. Limitations and further suggestions for future research are also included in the study.
This study examines citizen’s use of social media during the political crisis triggered by the Catalan Referendum. More specifically, we seek to shed more light on Catalan citizens’ (dis)engagement on social media, examining what citizens did and did not do on social media, who they avoided and/or unfriended, and the implications of such behaviours for democratic citizenship in Spain. Our findings, based on 50 interviews with Catalan citizens, show that despite strong political partisanship, Catalans show little inclination to discuss political issues online and consequently develop what we term a teflonic social media behaviour (TSMB). By implementing these avoidance tactics, they refrain from commenting and sharing political information about the Catalan conflict on social media. Furthermore, when they happen, political discussions are mainly triggered by blatant lies or fabricated content that citizens from both sides of the political spectrum want to confront based on their own real-world experiences. We find that despite the fact that the independence movement has undeniably fuelled social and political conflict, the unfriend button on social media was only used when specific norms of uncivility were breached rather than as a reaction to the mere exposure to dissonant views and opinions.
Political disagreements in social media can result in removing (i.e., “unfriending”) a person from one’s online network. Given that such actions could lead to the (ideological) homogenization of networks, it is pivotal to understand the psychological processes intertwined in unfriending decisions. This requires not only addressing different types of disagreements but also analyzing them in the relational context they occur. This article proposes that political disagreements leading to drastic measures such as unfriending are attributable to more deeply rooted moral dissents. Based on moral foundations theory and relationship regulation research, this work presents empirical evidence from two experiments. In both studies, subjects rated political statements (that violated different moral foundations) with regard to perceived reprehensibility and the likelihood of unfriending the source. Study 1 ( N = 721) revealed that moral judgments of a political statement are moderately related to the unfriending decision. Study 2 ( N = 822) replicated this finding but indicated that unfriending is less likely when the source of the morally reprehensible statement is relationally close to the unfriender and provides emotional support. This research extends unfriending literature by pointing to morality as a new dimension of analysis and offers initial evidence uncovering the psychological trade-off behind the decision of terminating digital ties. Drawing on this, our findings inform research on the homogenization of online networks by indicating that selective avoidance (in the form of politically motivated unfriending) is conditional upon the relational context and the interpersonal benefits individuals receive therein.
Scholarly work has placed political discussion at the center of a healthier democracy. However, this might not always be the case considering the vast amount of different discussion attributes and their effects. This study extends existing research on the influence of different discussion attributes (cognitive elaboration, network size, exposure to disagreement, and online/offline discussion) on political attitude change. To do so, we introduce the concept of obstinate partisanship and explore different discussion attributes as its antecedents. Obstinate partisans remain loyal to their political party irrespective of its performance, just as staunch sports fans do with their team. Results from a survey conducted in three democracies show that discussion network size, discussion disagreement, and offline discussion are all negative predictors of obstinate partisanship. Conversely, online discussion fosters this negative orientation. We finally examine the moderating role of discussion disagreement and network size on some of these relationships. The idea that political discussion can help transcend ideological, religious, or cultural cleavages by shaping attitudes has been the scope of great academic debate. Thus, the past decades have seen a plethora of studies exploring the effects of political talk on a wide range of prodemocratic dispositions. These have proven to be largely positive. For example, political talk has been found to increase discussants' sense of Alberto Ardèvol-Abreu: aardevol@ull.es Homero
Ordinary citizens are increasingly using mobile instant messaging apps such as WhatsApp for politically-related activities. Compared to other ‘semi-public’ online platforms, WhatsApp provides a more intimate and controlled environment in which users can almost simultaneously gather and share news, discuss politics, and mobilize others. Relying on two-wave panel data collected in Spain, USA, and New Zealand, this study examines the mediating role of WhatsApp political discussion in the relationships between different types of news use and various forms of political participation. First, our findings reveal WhatsApp discussion has a positive influence on activism, and a more nuanced effect on conventional participation. Second, results are partially supportive of a fully mediated set of influences between news media and social media news uses and both types of participation via WhatsApp. Finally, the study examines age differential effects between younger (Gen Xers and Millennials) and older (Boomers) age groups.
Since introduced by Professor McLeod and the Wisconsin School at the turn of the century, a large body of research has employed the communication mediation model. Yet, most of these studies rely on cross-sectional and individual-level survey data collected in the United States. This paper seeks to address these shortcomings by testing a specification of the model—the citizen communication mediation model—across cultures. Relying on panel survey data from 19 countries, this study advances a multilevel citizen communication mediation model. Our findings indicate that discussion remains a strong mediating predictor of political participation across countries and political contexts, though the relationship is moderated by macro-level repressive democratic expressive norms.
Social trust has long attracted the interest of researchers across different disciplines. Most of previous studies rely on single-country data and consider only one dimension of social trust at a time (e.g., trust in science, the media or political institutions). This research extends a framework developed by the Global Trust Inventory (GTI) by discussing several dimensions of social trust, while simultaneously analyzing how trust in institutions varies across societies. Drawing on an online panel survey collected in 22 countries (N = 22,033), we examine cross-country differences in social trust—including government trust, trust in governing bodies, security, and knowledge producers. Additionally, this paper fills a gap in current literature by including a measure of trust in the media. Findings are discussed in the context of comparing emerging and developed countries based on the Human Development Index.
Scholars have for some time shed light on the effects incidental news exposure have for the democratic process. However, limited work has explored how the ease and openness of discussion online interplay with unintentional encounters with news in explaining citizens’ political engagement. Using a U.S. national survey, this study seeks to contribute to the literature by testing the mediating role of heterogeneous and homogeneous political discussion in predicting the relationship between incidental news exposure and political participation. Findings show that heterogeneous discussion fully mediates the relationship with offline participation. The relationship with online participation was partially mediated. Mediation of homogeneous discussion to political participation did not occur. Moreover, a moderated mediation analysis finds that the mediation of heterogeneous discussion is more likely to occur among partisans than nonpartisans. Limitations and further suggestions to advance this line of research are provided in this study.
Social media and news use arguably contribute to the prevalence of contentious politics because individuals may express dissent through their social networks as they consume news. This study seeks to test whether individuals might be more open to political persuasion in this context, especially if they are exposed to political disagreement or discuss politics in a civil manner. Relying on survey data from the UK, results based on a moderated moderation model show that (a) social media news use predicts political persuasion on social media (direct effects) and, (b) discussion disagreement and civil reasoning moderate this relationship in two-way and three-way interactions.
The claim that elite political incivility can rouse partisan, anti-deliberative attitudes has many adherents, but the empirical record demonstrating a relationship is surprisingly limited. Yet the extant research suggests that incivility can stimulate aversive feelings, of the sort that discrete and dimensional theories of emotion predict should induce a partisan, anti-deliberative mode of citizenship among those exposed. Leveraging two online experiments, I address the questions of whether elite incivility provokes anger, rather than enthusiasm and anxiety, and whether the affective reactions induced by incivility yield the changes in deliberative attitudes that theories of emotion predict. I find that elite incivility, when counter-attitudinal, rouses anger, which in turn can provoke an active and combative form of partisan citizenship. Despite claims to the contrary, the link between pro-attitudinal incivility, anger, and anti-deliberative attitudes is less clear. The results provide insight into the dynamics of discourse in the digital age, when affective polarization is the norm and elites commonly employ uncivil rhetoric.
One of the democratic promises of social media relies on the expectation that citizens will be exposed to more diverse sources of information and will consequently be more likely to encounter views that challenge their beliefs and opinions. Still, recent evidence suggests that although social media may increase exposure to difference, citizen also take active steps to reduce the dissonance they encounter by engaging in selective avoidance tactics such as political unfriending and unfollowing. We report the findings from the first comparative study of political unfriending conducted in Asia, which analyzes survey data from two Chinese societies, Hong Kong and Taiwan. We find that political interest, political discussion network size, and political discussion with distant others all predict the likelihood of engaging in selective avoidance on social media. The results also suggest that political interest is a stronger predictor of unfriending in Hong Kong, while social and psychological factors play a more important role in Taiwan.
In a high-choice media environment, there are fears that individuals will select media and content that reinforce their existing beliefs and lead to segregation based on interest and/or partisanship. This could lead to partisan echo chambers among those who are politically interested and could contribute to a growing gap in knowledge between those who are politically interested and those who are not. However, the high-choice environment also allows individuals, including those who are politically interested, to consume a wide variety of media, which could lead them to more diverse content and perspectives. This study examines the relationship between political interest as well as media diversity and being caught in an echo chamber (measured by five different variables). Using a nationally representative survey of adult internet users in the United Kingdom (N = 2000), we find that those who are interested in politics and those with diverse media diets tend to avoid echo chambers. This work challenges the impact of echo chambers and tempers fears of partisan segregation since only a small segment of the population are likely to find themselves in an echo chamber. We argue that single media studies and studies which use narrow definitions and measurements of being in an echo chamber are flawed because they do not test the theory in the realistic context of a multiple media environment.
During the 2014 Gaza war Facebook became a central arena for moral/political boundary work for Israeli users, resulting in unusually high rates of politically motivated tie dissolution. Cultural criteria were thus applied to restructure and symbolically cleanse social networks. We analyze Facebook’s visibility-structures, interview data and public posts to explore this phenomenon. Studying Facebook interaction reveals cultural mechanisms used offline to sustain heterogeneous social networks and facilitate interaction despite differences—group style differentiation between circles, differential self-presentation, and constructing imagined homogeneity—whose employment is impeded by Facebook’s material design. This case of materiality-informed value homophily introduces materiality to the sociological understanding of the interrelations between culture and network structure. Interviewees reported dissolving ties following their shock and surprise at the political views and sacrilegious expression styles of their Facebook friends. We demonstrate that their shock and surprise derived from Facebook’s design, which converges life spheres and social circles and thwarts segregation of interactions, group styles and information. Rather than disembedding individuals from groups within the ‘networked-individualism,’ it makes individuals accountable for their statements towards all their social circles. In dramatic times, this collapse of segregation between life-spheres, affiliation circles and group styles conjures Durkheimian sociability and symbolic cleansing despite commitment to pluralism.
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Social media allow users some degree of control over the content to which they are exposed, through blocking, unfriending, or hiding feeds from other users. This article considers the extent to which they do so for political reasons. Survey data from Pew Research suggests that political unfriending is relatively rare, with fewer than 10% of respondents engaging in the practice. Analysis finds support for the idea that political unfriending is most common among those who talk about politics, those strongest in ideology, those that see the most politics in social media, and those that perceive the greatest political disagreement in their social networks. This suggests that social media are not exacerbating the political information gap as political information on social media is likely still reaching the least politically engaged, whereas the most politically engaged may opt out of political information within social media but still receive it elsewhere.
Public opinion scholars contend that mass discourse tends to mirror elite discourse owing to the cognitive accessibility of
recently encountered messages. I argue that elite incivility can generate anger and that this affective reaction in part drives
use of incivility in political expressions. To test this, I conduct an online experiment in which subjects were exposed to
statements said to be made by party elites, with the partisan tie and the presence of incivility both manipulated. In both
this study and a smaller replication experiment, incivility targeting one’s in-group generated anger but like-minded incivility
did not. Moreover, exposure to disagreeable incivility increased incivility use among subjects in open-ended comments, with
anger playing a mediating role between reception and uncivil response.
This article first surveys current research within the context of the public sphere, particularly in Europe. Then, the article seeks to examine theoretical and empirical mechanisms by which information and communication technologies (ICTs) may contribute to seeding that public sphere. Finally, and more specifically, it establishes a conciliatory argument between the proliferation and sustainability of a public sphere by means of citizens’ use of digital and social media. The study concludes by advocating for a more contemporaneous understanding of what a public sphere is, and how digital and social media, under certain circumstances, may elicit an inclusive, discursive, and deliberative path to political participation.
Concerns about selective exposure to partisan information have become a mainstay for scholars of political communication in the changing media environment. This study draws on a survey of a unique population—readers of political blogs—to explore the relationship between perceptions of mainstream media bias (as hostile media perception) and selective exposure to media sources that provide like-minded information as well as social support. We find that hostile media perception is an important motivator for partisan selective exposure among this audience, and also that such perceptions can lead indirectly to expressive political participation by encouraging visits to politically homogeneous online spaces.
Exposure to news, opinion and civic information increasingly occurs through social media. How do these online networks influence exposure to perspectives that cut across ideological lines? Using de-identified data, we examined how 10.1 million U.S. Facebook users interact with socially shared news. We directly measured ideological homophily in friend networks, and examine the extent to which heterogeneous friends could potentially expose individuals to cross-cutting content. We then quantified the extent to which individuals encounter comparatively more or less diverse content while interacting via Facebook's algorithmically ranked News Feed, and further studied users' choices to click through to ideologically discordant content. Compared to algorithmic ranking, individuals' choices about what to consume had a stronger effect limiting exposure to cross-cutting content.
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The question of whether the conventional approaches of media effects research still prove valid in online environments has increasingly stimulated the interest of scholars. This article adds to this discussion, exploring whether Noelle-Neumann's Theory of Public Opinion can explain public opinion formation when applied to computer-mediated communication environments. By focusing primarily on the perception of the climate of opinion, our theoretical considerations indicate that individuals most likely tend to select information online following a subjective-pluralistic pattern. Due to projection effects, this might lead to the perception of a consonant climate of opinion in one's Internet environment, which in turn reduces the individual's fear of isolation. However, there is no evidence yet that this affects the willingness to speak out in offline environments. The Author 2012. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The World Association for Public Opinion Research. All rights reserved.2012 © The Author 2012. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The World Association for Public Opinion Research. All rights reserved.
The political blogosphere is replete with uncivil discussions and is apt to examine the influence of incivility on news frames. The present study brings in literature from incivility and framing effects and uses two experiments to examine the influence of incivility on news frames for democratic outcomes such as willingness to participate, online participation, openmindedness, and attitude certainty. Primary findings indicate the detrimental effects of incivility causing less openmindedness and more attitude certainty. At the same time, incivility causes more willingness to participate and online participation. More importantly, the findings demonstrate how incivility interacts with news frames. Implications for news framing effects in the social media landscape are discussed.
With the advances in interpersonal communication of the “Web 2.0” era, questions about the importance of civility are perhaps more important than ever. Mass digital interaction between strangers has become an everyday occurrence, bound by few behavioral norms. I argue that the widespread presence of incivility in online political communication limits the deliberative potential of online interactions. To test this hypothesis, I manipulate exposure to uncivil political discourse in an online discussion forum. I find that exposure to disagreeable uncivil political talk induces feelings of anger and aversion, which in turn reduces satisfaction with the message board discourse. On the other hand, exposure to like-minded incivility increases the use of uncivil behavior in political comments by message board posters. Notably, these effects mainly occur when histrionic, emotional incivility is present. I discuss why like-minded and disagreeable incivility have different effects, why and reflect on what the presence of incivility means for online political discourse.
Using original national survey data, we examine how social media use affects individuals' discussion network heterogeneity and their level of civic engagement. We also investigate the moderating role of personality traits (i.e., extraversion and openness to experiences) in this association. Results support the notion that use of social media contributes to heterogeneity of discussion networks and activities in civic life. More importantly, personality traits such as extraversion and openness to experiences were found to moderate the influence of social media on discussion network heterogeneity and civic participation, indicating that the contributing role of social media in increasing network heterogeneity and civic engagement is greater for introverted and less open individuals.
Social network sites (SNS) like Facebook allow users to add friends from a variety of contexts to a single general-purpose social network. The variety of friend types that gather on the site can lead to context collapse where connections from a variety of context are grouped in a single collection. This research examines the friend types who are commonly unfriended and examines two particular friend types in detail to determine differences between these types of friends and the general population. The most common type of friend who is unfriended is the high school friend (18.6%), followed by other (uncategorized), friend of a friend, and work friend. These four friend types account for the majority (53.7%) of unfriending decisions. High school friends are unfriended for making online posts that are polarizing and for posting too frequently about unimportant topics. Work-related friends are commonly unfriended for engaging in disliked offline behavior and are not typically unfriended for their posting behavior.
This paper examines diversity in online news reporting and explanatory factors that shape news production. The analysis is based on online news from six countries (the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom, Switzerland, France, and Italy), comparing online-only news sites and legacy media. The analysis shows that most online media reported in a diverse way, comprising multiple topics and actors. Furthermore, event-driven news journalism explains the occurrence of high diversity in news reporting. Available resources and the intensiveness of online reporting (the extent as well as the editing style) also account for diversity. We draw from these findings to make a contribution to research on diversity in online news and to comparative communication studies. Qualitative comparative analysis is used to reflect on the direction and meaning of changes in journalistic practices in the current media environment.
This article takes up the popular argument that much online discussion is toxic and hence harmful to democracy, and argues that the pervasiveness of incivility is not incompatible with democratically relevant political talk. Instead of focusing on the tone of political talk, scholars interested in understanding the extent to which digital platforms threaten democratic values should focus on expressions of intolerance. I demonstrate the validity of this conceptual model by investigating the discursive and contextual features associated with incivility and intolerance online in the context of public comments in two different platforms—news websites and Facebook. Results show that incivility and intolerance occur in meaningfully different discussion settings. Whereas incivility is associated with features that reveal meaningful discursive engagement, such as justified opinion expression and engagement with disagreement, intolerance is likely to occur in homogeneous discussions about minorities and civil society—exactly when it can hurt democracy the most.
Concerns are raised repeatedly about the uncivil and simplistic way in which politicians often express their ideas. This political communication style runs counter to deliberative democratic virtues such as respectful interactions and well-justified arguments. Its use is therefore problematic from a normative point of view, yet there are indications that it is an effective communication style to persuade citizens. Two survey experiments – text and audio – were developed to investigate the effects of uncivil communication and simplistic argumentation on political trust and on persuasive power in political election debates. The results show that 1) uncivil communication lowers political trust and is slightly less convincing than civil communication, 2) simplistic argumentation, i.e. political arguments presented in ill- or non-justified ways, does not affect political trust and is not more persuasive than well-justified argumentation, and 3) the strongest violation of social norms, i.e. a combined use of uncivil communication and simplistic argumentation, decreases both trust in the political candidate and persuasive power. Interestingly, politically cynical citizens and citizens who do not value inclusionary debates react differently to uncivil communication and simplistic argumentation: their level of trust does not decline and they are persuaded slightly more by simplistic arguments expressed in uncivil ways.
This article explores the Facebook unfriending of users from a majority group by members of a minority group, focusing on Palestinian and Jewish citizens of Israel. Indeed, this is the first study to focus on power differentials among Facebook users in the context of unfriending. The article thus adds depth to our understanding of unfriending, while also shedding light on the experience of social media use from the perspective of an oppressed minority. Based on semi-structured in-depth interviews with twenty ’48 Palestinians (Palestinian citizens of Israel), we present various triggers for unfriending (mainly, encounters with racism and surveillance), and show that Palestinians’ stories of unfriending Jewish Israelis are sometimes about punching up and sometimes about stepping away. However, while unfriending is broadly considered an apt response to abuse, it also distances Palestinians from centers of power in Israel. This suggests an important way in which social media reproduce inequality.
Journalists, scholars, and citizens have raised concerns regarding the high share of incivility in comment sections of news outlets. The current study surveyed members of the social movement #ichbinhier, which aims at collectively countering uncivil comments to cultivate a civil discussion atmosphere in comment sections. We root the activities of #ichbinhier as corrective action and identify the determinants of the members’ engagement by integrating research on bystander behavior and collective action. The findings of our survey show that factors pertaining to individual skills, perceived responsibility, and expected benefits relate to the members’ likelihood to engage against uncivil online comments. Regarding factors derived from collective action research, group efficacy and knowledge of the rules and structures of the movement account for higher levels of engagement. These results shed light on the factors that motivate and inhibit #ichbinhier members—and, potentially, Facebook users in general—to engage against uncivil comments.
Meta-theoretical focus is given to how communication researchers are approaching and hypothesizing moderation. A moderation typology is offered and an evaluation of the field’s common practices for positing moderation reveals an inability to discern between three overarching classifications (Contributory, Contingent, Cleaved). A content analysis of eight communication journals reveals moderation hypotheses lacking a level of precision that can best aid the field’s knowledge generation. In addition, vague hypothesizing is leaving communication researchers vulnerable to the commitment of Type III error (i.e., correctly rejecting a null hypothesis for the wrong reason). Recommendations are provided in an effort to improve the field’s conceptualization and presentation of moderation.
This article examines exposure to political disagreement on social media and user filtration in response to it. Popular arguments suggest that social media sites prevent exposure to political disagreement either through algorithmic filtration or selective affiliation. Another popular argument says that when users are exposed to political disagreement on social media, they filter it from their feeds by “unfriending”/ “unfollowing” or “hiding” the author. We put these narratives to the test by examining (a) the relationship between social media use and exposure to political disagreement and (b) the factors that predict user filtration in response to political disagreement. Results from analysis based on a nationally representative sample of Colombian adults in urban areas show that (a) engagement with news and public affairs content on social media is positively associated with exposure to political disagreement and (b) the amount of disagreement users are exposed to is not related to user filtration in response.
Using the 2012 presidential election as a case study, this work set out to understand the relationship between negative political advertising and political incivility on Twitter. Drawing on the stimulation hypothesis and the notion that communication with dissimilar others can encourage incivility, it was predicted that (1) heightened levels of negative campaign advertising would be associated with increased citizen activity on Twitter, (2) increased citizen activity would predict online incivility, and (3) that increases in citizen activity would facilitate a positive indirect relationship between negative advertising volume and citizen incivility. This theoretical model was tested using data collected from over 140,000 individual Twitter users located in 206 Designated Market Areas. The results supported the proposed model. Additional analyses further suggested that the relationship between negative political advertising and citizen incivility was conditioned by contextual levels of economic status. These results are discussed in the context of political advertising and democratic deliberation.
The emergence of social media has changed individuals' information consumption patterns. The purpose of this study is to explore the role of information overload, similarity, and redundancy in unsubscribing information sources from users' information repertoires. In doing so, we randomly selected nearly 7,500 ego networks on Twitter and tracked their activities in 2 waves. A multilevel logistic regression model was deployed to test our hypotheses. Results revealed that individuals (egos) obtain information by following a group of stable users (alters). An ego's likelihood of unfollowing alters is negatively associated with their information similarity, but is positively associated with both information overload and redundancy. Furthermore, relational factors can modify the impact of information redundancy on unfollowing.
Past research has demonstrated that everyday disrespect on the job (i.e., incivility) is a stressor that undermines personal and professional wellbeing. However, it remains unclear how incivility interferes with target wellbeing, and for whom. To shed light on this process, we investigate how emotional response (both global negative affect and facet-based discrete emotions—namely, anger and guilt) and organizational commitment mediate and moderate (respectively) incivility outcomes. Social Identity Theory and Affective Events Theory frame this work. We tested hypotheses using 2 samples: women working in the Midwest of the United States (N = 419) and women and men working across the United States (N = 479), including coworkers of those women and men (N = 160). We found incivility-driven emotion to mediate personal and professional outcomes, including reduced empowerment and self-esteem and greater job and work withdrawal. Feelings of guilt, but not anger, predicted decreased performance (as rated by coworkers). Significant interactive effects between incivility and commitment also emerged, such that individuals high in commitment reported more negative emotional response—especially guilt—compared to their less committed counterparts. These moderated-mediation results expose a dilemma when it comes to commitment: the people whom organizations value the most, those who are highly committed, are most harmed when interpersonal stressors arise.
Using 23 novel indicators and a 1,000+ sample representative of a full undergraduate population we examined: how much consensus there was about perceptions of the incivility/civility of various categories of speech/behavior; and whether political incivility is a unidimensional or multidimensional latent construct. Confirmatory factor analyses suggest perceived political incivility is a multidimensional construct. Insulting utterances, deception, and behaviors tending to shut down inclusive ongoing discussion can be treated as distinct, underlying aspects of incivility. More than 75% of respondents viewed all 23 indicators, except issue-oriented attacks, as very, mostly, or somewhat uncivil. If replicated on a representative national sample, standardized indicators of political incivility should be constructed and routinely employed in national surveys of political attitudes and behavior.
Abstract
Despite the potential of online commenting spaces for public deliberation, they are often full of destructive or uncivil and aggressive comments. Based on research on social learning and social influence, we conducted an online experiment to investigate the effects of uncivil comments on readers' cognitive, emotional, and behavioral reactions. The experiment was built on a one-factorial between-subjects design including four experimental conditions and a control group: Participants were exposed to a news article and six user comments of which zero, one, three, or six were uncivil. Results suggest that exposure to uncivil comments can lead to an increase in readers' hostile cognitions. The effect, however, does not rise with exposure to a higher proportion of incivility. No significant effects were found on hostile emotions or the use of incivility in readers' own comments.