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INVESTIGATING THE ROLE OF TWITTER IN MANIPULATION OF PUBLIC OPINION

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The Study aimed to explore the role of twitter in manipulation of public opinion. The main purpose of this study is to find out the impact of twitter in changing or transforming or creating the mind-set of the public. The data was collected through “N capture extension powered by Nvivo”. The finding of this study demonstrates that on a remarkable level, politically exciting dissertation on Pakistani digital space was definitely observed in the months of April and May 2022. This study also revealed that using the popular hashtag derived by political parties, seems to have impact on public related to their choice to favour their liked one among political parties. Keywords: Social media, Twitter, Public Opinion, Political communication
Pakistan Journal of Social Research
ISSN 2710-3129 (P) 2710-3137 (O)
Vol. 5, No. 2, June 2023, pp. 197-206.
https://doi.org/10.52567/pjsr.v5i02.1182
www.pjsr.com.pk
197
INVESTIGATING THE ROLE OF TWITTER IN MANIPULATION OF PUBLIC
OPINION
Muhammad Huzaifa
*
Research Scholar, University of Narowal, Pakistan
Iammuhammadhuzaifa1@gmail.com
Aqeel Jaffar Bajwa
Visiting Lecturer, University of Narowal, Pakistan
aqeeljaffarbajwa@gmail.com
Muhammad Raza Majid
Lecturer, Department of Media and Communication, The Islamia University Bahawalpur, Pakistan
raza.majid@iub.edu.pk
ABSTRACT
The Study aimed to explore the role of twitter in manipulation of public opinion. The main purpose of
this study is to find out the impact of twitter in changing or transforming or creating the mind-set of the
public. The data was collected through “N capture extension powered by Nvivo”. The finding of this
study demonstrates that on a remarkable level, politically exciting dissertation on Pakistani digital
space was definitely observed in the months of April and May 2022. This study also revealed that using
the popular hashtag derived by political parties, seems to have impact on public related to their choice
to favour their liked one among political parties.
Keywords: Social media, Twitter, Public Opinion, Political communication
INTRODUCTION
Carr and Hayes (2015) deliver an outstanding social media discussion and analysis by stating that social
media are Internet-based platforms that allow users to engage in opportunistic collaborations and
selective self-presentation with both large and specialized audiences who value user-generated content
and the appearance of social commitment. (Carr, 2015). Social media platforms provide a forum for the
public to share information related to individual experiences, views, and stories. (Chew, 2010).Twitter
is a social media network that has gained popularity among users for personal usage. Early study
revealed that users shared information about current events as well as posts about their daily lives.(Java,
2007). Twitter may also be used to maintain social relationships, which can encourage people to adopt
healthier habits(Smailhodzic, 2016).Social media has lately developed into a forum for political,
informational, and social interchange, making it a powerful instrument for effectively influencing a
variety of societal sectors. It is not surprising that politicians use these platforms for marketing and mass
communication to define agendas, sway public opinion, and even affect the results of campaigns
(Viewpoints, 2010). The appropriate platform for this sort of self-promotion is Twitter, a recently
developed "micro-blogging" social media platform that enables politicians to virtually instantly tell
large audiences about their political actions (Aharony, 2012).
The growing usage of social media platforms has raised high hopes for their ability to
revolutionize political communication and interactions between political leaders and citizens. However,
the impact of technologies like Facebook and Twitter on various types of political involvement is still
being researched. Scholars have studied how social media affects the emergence of mass protests and
revolutions, how they allow minority voices to be heard, how they increase citizens' access to a greater
diversity of political views, and even whether it is possible to predict political events such as elections
or demonstrations using social media data representation. This is not the case, as we show in a recent
research that makes use of Twitter data. Contrarily, political figures who are more prominent in offline
*
Corresponding Author
Huzaifa, Bajwa, & Majid
198
public discourse continue to dominate social media platforms, which exacerbates biases in political
engagement. This result raises doubts about the validity of social media data as a source of knowledge
about public opinion.Speaking about the discussion about estimate manipulation on Twitter is not
unacceptable public opinion on social media. however, as (Anstead, N., & O'Loughlin, B., 2015),
“Given that data of socio-political relevance can be quickly accessed on this platform's microblogging
format on a large scale and right away, Twitter is an extremely intriguing instrument for assessing public
opinion.” (Anstead, N., & O'Loughlin, B., 2015).Ultimately, suggested, “Political leaders are able to
communicate their own distinct agendas without being restricted or filtered because they utilize a
platform like Twitter that is not vetted by regional or national media. Aharony in 2012 suggested,
“Political leaders are able to communicate their own distinct agendas without being restricted or filtered
because they utilize a platform like Twitter that is not vetted by regional or national media.” (Aharony,
2012)
Objectives
To find out the impact of twitter trends on the public.
To explore that which type of content shared by the influencers.
To identify the role of twitter hashtags in changing public opinion.
To evaluate the usage of twitter by political parties.
REVIEW OF LITERATURE
The rise of social media has had a profound impact on the way people communicate and interact with
one another. Twitter, in particular, has become a major platform for political discourse and has played
a significant role in shaping public opinion. However, with its immense reach and influence, Twitter
has also become a breeding ground for misinformation and manipulation.
Several studies have examined the role of Twitter in the devising of public opinion. (Arif, 2022)
Investigated the influence of Twitter in devising public opinion during political crises. The study found
that Twitter played a critical role in diffusing false information and information during political crises
that leads public opinion.
Similarly, (Shah, 2022)conducted a systematic review of the literature on the influence of
public opinion through Twitter. The review identified several strategies employed by actors to influence
public opinion on Twitter, including the use of bots, fake accounts, and hashtags.
Althaus and Tewksbury (2021) conducted an updated review of the literature on social media,
information processing, and political persuasion. The study found that social media platforms, including
Twitter, have significant effects on public opinion and outcomes (Althaus, 2021).Dubois and Blank
(2021) examined the impact of political interest and diverse media use on partisan selective exposure
on Twitter. The study found that political interest and diverse media use can moderate the effect of
partisan selective exposure, challenging the notion of the echo chamber on Twitter (Dubois,
2021).Gonzalez-Bailon et al. (2021) studied the dynamics of protest recruitment through an online
network and found that Twitter played a crucial role in facilitating the organization of protests and
shaping public opinion (Gonzalez-Bailon, 2021).
Wu and Jiang (2022) conducted a systematic review of the literature on the role of Twitter in
political polarization and opinion manipulation. The review found that Twitter can be used to promote
political polarization and manipulate public opinion through the use of bots and other strategies (Wu,
2022). Bessi and Ferrara (2021) investigated the role of social bots in political influence and found that
bots can be used to manipulate public opinion and spread false information on Twitter (Bessi, 2021).
Lin and Chen (2021) conducted a systematic review of the literature on social media, political
participation, and political polarization. The review found that Twitter can be used to increase political
participation but can also lead to political polarization and the manipulation of public opinion (Lin,
2021).Tumasjan et al. (2021) conducted a review of the literature on social media and political
communication and found that Twitter can be used to mobilize political actors and shape public opinion
(Tumasjan, 2021).
Bhatt and Oinam (2020) conducted a systematic review of the literature on social media and
the politics of manipulation. The review found that Twitter can be used to spread fake news and
manipulate public opinion for political gain (Bhatt, 2020).
Investigating the Role of Twitter in Manipulation of Public Opinion
199
Anstead, N., & O'Loughlin, B. (2015) piloted a study on the 2010 UK general election's social media
and popular opinion analyses. The goal of this study was to assess how social media data were being
utilised to assess the public opinion conversation in political coverage. This study comes to the
conclusion that using social media as a tool to display and comprehend public opinion is a prerequisite
for entering traditional media discourse. (Anstead, N., & O'Loughlin, B., 2015). Ahmad and Skoric
(2015) Studied the online movement on Twitter throughout Pakistan’s groundbreaking general election
in 2013. This study concentrated on the Twitter movements of the political parties of Pakistan to
examine how the moderate was using by political parties for interaction, information dissemination,
mobilization, and commitment of voters. This study determines that Twitter can play a important role
even in a delicate societal and prospective situation like Pakistan (Ahmed & Skoric, 2015).
Stier et al., (2018) directed a study on election demonstration on social media, as the Audiences,
politicians, and the mediation uses Facebook and Twitter for political communication. This article
scrutinizes whether election applicants talk about the topic most significant to the mass spectators and
to which amount their message is designed by the characteristic of Twitter and Facebook. This study
concentrated on an election campaign featuring a number of activities that generated a lot of discussion
on social media. This study's findings suggest that social media forums' intervention effects and their
socio-technical contexts are effectively influenced in political communication. This study demonstrates
that social media is not the ideal source of information for users seeking concisely structured
information on plans or researchers using textual data to track parties in philosophical space. (Stier,
2018). Ahmad et al. (2019) conducted a study on how university students use social media to participate
in politics. In order to determine how online political events affect political effectiveness and real
political engagement among university students in rural Pakistan, this study analyses survey results
from that region. The link between political awareness and political activity is also discussed in this
study. According to the study's findings, the majority of students use social media to be informed about
and conscious of politics. (Ahmad, 2019)
Rahmanian, (2021) conduct a study on the enemy narrative using Twitter to oppress public
opinion after the flight PS752 incident. This study discovers Understanding how the internet and social
media are used as a weapon against civil society is made easier by the Iranian state narrative that was
published on Twitter following the event with aircraft PS752. The study's findings suggest that social
media may be exploited to convey the desired reality-propaganda narrative. (Rahmanian, 2021).
Overall, these studies highlight the significant impact of Twitter on public opinion and the
potential for manipulation through the use of bots, fake accounts, and other strategies. As such, it is
crucial for users to critically evaluate the information they encounter on social media and for
policymakers to develop strategies to combat the spread of misinformation and manipulation on Twitter.
Theoretical Framework
According to the spiral-of-silence theory, individuals who believe their beliefs do not align with the
mainstream view tend to keep their opinions to themselves out of a fear of social exclusion from the
society (Neumann, 1993). These viewpoints typically relate to morally significant topics, such as
politics, public health, abortion, or minority rights (Dietram, Scheufle & Patricia 2000). When a
contentious and morally important issue receives a lot of media attention, the spiral-of-silence effect is
more likely to be maximized (Newman. 2018). The theory contends that individuals use their media
environment to inform themselves as to whether they believe it is proper to openly voice their opinions.
According to Nekmat and Gonzenbach. (2013), people are able to both overtly (by posting
comments on websites, social media, and forums) and covertly (by reposting, liking, or joining another
person's opinion) communicate their stance in the online environment. Due to the fact that our research
makes use of Twitter, a social media platform that allows users to express their opinions through
retweeting, liking, and following a tweet or account, we considered both forms of online opinion
expression. A study of public sentiment for and opposition to nuclear power stations indicated that users'
tweeting activity increased when they realized their perspective was shared by the majority (Lee & Kim,
2014). This finding is consistent with the spiral-of-silence effect observed on Twitter. The Facebook
platform was the primary focus of the previous research into the spiral-of-silence impact on social
media. We chose Twitter as our primary social media tool to fill the gap. Twitter was chosen because
it is the primary forum for discussing vaccines online, making it an ideal venue for investigating whether
or not malware has contributed to widespread misunderstandings about the effectiveness of this
discussion. A more nuanced test of the effect of the malware in engineering the spiral-of-silence effect
Huzaifa, Bajwa, & Majid
200
on social media is possible thanks to the Twitter interface, which has a unique set of affordances for
one to both explicitly and implicitly. Moreover in this research study we are going to analyze the twitter
trends and their role in influencing the of public option.
Hypothesis
HA1. There is impact of hashtags related to twitter
HA2. There is significant role of twitter hashtag in making political opinions of public
HA3. Type of content shared on twitter has (positive) significant role on public
HA4. Twitter as social platform has significant role on public
HA5. Political Parties use twitter for their significant effect on public
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
The methodology of this study uses mixed approaches to analyse tweets from Pakistani prominent
political parties and their well-liked leaders during the Regime transition. The researcher will be
exploring the ideas and themes behind the content of the tweets, as well as the nature of the users with
quantitative content analysis. Through quantitative data the researcher will analyse the behaviour and
affiliation of public and popularity of social media influence.
In this Study twitter tweets are selected as universe. Twitter is most reliable source of getting
information especially the information about the political affairs. The study going to observed tweets
or twitter trends from April to May 2022.
The twitter archive of Hashtags are selected from April to May 2022. On 10th April 2022 the
regime change were occurred. Purposive sampling technique is used to select the tweets as this study
selected the political content based tweets of the selected country (Pakistan) and the twitter archives of
these tweets is available on twitter API academics. There are total tweets of the selected hashtag
(#) from 10 April to 06 May is 126,607,905 tweets (Binder, 2022).
DATA ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATIONS
According to Table 1, there are 106433419 Pakistan Tehreek e Insaaf supporters, with 74716260
(70.2%) of participants responding in favor and 31717159 (29.7%) responding against. Of these
supporters, 76142468 (71.5%) were national followers, while 30257951(28.4%) were international
followers. In contrast, Pakistan Muslim League N has 50498500 supporters, of which 33682499
(66.7%) voted in favor, while 16816001 (33.3%) voted against it. Of these supporters, 47862478
(94.7%) were national, while 2636022 (5.2%) were from abroad. Additionally, there are 50200 Pakistan
People's Party supporters. Participants responded with 31074 (61.9%) in favor and 19126 (38.1%)
against the Pakistan People's Party, which had 48443 (96.5%) national and 1757 (3.5%) overseas
supporters.
Table No. 1: Description of content for the period April 2022 - May 2022
Political Party
Frequency tweets
Percentages
Pakistan Tahreeq -e- Insaf
106433419
Favor
74716260
70.2%
Against
31717159
29.8%
National
76142468
71.5%
International
30257951
28.4%
Pakistan Muslim League N
50498500
Favor
33682499
66.7%
Against
16816001
33.3%
National
47862478
94.7%
International
2636022
5.2%
Pakistan People’s Party
50200
Favor
31074
61.9%
Against
19126
38.1%
National
48443
96.5%
International
1757
3.5%
Investigating the Role of Twitter in Manipulation of Public Opinion
201
# Number of references by user name.
The above mention graphs shows that the reference of username name added in this Hashtags
trends. This graphs shows that Asad Qaiser PTI this user name is mostly use in this trend. In this graphs
it clearly shows that the maximum number of references are related to Pakistan Tahreeq-e-Insaf. So in
conclusion it is clearly shown that the #  is generated by the Pakistan tahreeq-e-
insaf official team.
Graphical Representation of political Impact on making Public Opinion
Twitter has significant impact on making public opinion, as we have different options available in
current scenario, Names of such parties as Pakistan Tehreeq-e-Insaf, Pakistan Muslim League N,
Pakistan People’s Party having following representations in terms of being favorite on twitter trends, in
terms of popularity on twitters in form of a huge numbers.
Pie Chart 1 Pakistan Tehreeq-e-Insaf
This chart represent the popularity of the trends by the Pakistan Tehreeq-e-Insaf Which shows 70%
popularity of the Pakistan Tehreeq-e-Insaf.
Huzaifa, Bajwa, & Majid
202
Pie Chart 2 Pakistan Muslim League N
This Chart shows the popularity of the twitter trends by the Pakistan Muslim League N. This
charts shows that the Trends of Pakistan Muslim League N is 66.7% Popular. Its lower than the Pakistan
Tahreeq-e-Insaf but much higer than the Pakistan peoples party.
Pie Chart 3 Pakistan People’s Party Pie Chart 4 Tweets by Type
This pie chart shows the popularity of the trends by the Pakistan people’s party. This Charts
shows that the Pakistan people’s party have 61.9% popular trend and its 38.1% unpopularity of trends.
This Pie chart is shown that the types of tweets in my data. The selected data about the hashtag
on twitter is divided into three categories in which Tweets are 8.2%, Retweets are 42.0% and Replies
are 49.8%. This will clearly showed that the number of content generator, social media influencer are
only 8.2% but when we check that how many peoples gives their feedback on that topic. So, it clearly
shown the participation of the public.
Pie Chart 5 SENTIMENT ANALYSIS Pie Chart 5 SENTIMENT ANALYSIS
The above Pie Chart is in the result of the sentiment analysis of the data. The data of tweets
shows that there are maximum number of neutral tweets in data. This analysis is done on the content of
the tweets. The above Pie chart shows that the number of tweets which have great and positive content
is only 0.4% and on the other hand when we see the most terrible tweets is 3.7% which much higher
Investigating the Role of Twitter in Manipulation of Public Opinion
203
than the number of great tweets. Moreover, when we look a tweet which have good content is only
4.5% and in comparison, with the bad tweets which have 12.3%.
This chart gives insight about the source of people, using affiliation towards twitter, as which
mode they are using and also about the segments of people in terms of their economic class for the
reason, that whichever class they belong, their vote will eventually count in the political election
(counting).
The Gallup report for 2022, also shows the political transformation of people of Pakistan in term of
political transformation.
Huzaifa, Bajwa, & Majid
204
Hypothesis Testing
H01. There is no impact of hashtags related to twitter.
HA1. There is impact of hashtags related to twitter.
Level of significance=0.05
Test Statistic: Pearson’s Chi square =1.912, p-value=0.032
Conclusion: Based on the data of retweet, which seems that people have impact of the hash tag at
current time related to their interest, Pearson’s Chi square has value equal to 1.912 with p-value=0.032
shows interest or impact of people towards twitter. Which goes in favor of our proposed alternate
hypothesis that people have an impact of hashtag related to twitter.
H02. There is no role of twitter hashtag in making political opinions of public
HA2. There is significant role of twitter hashtag in making political opinions of public
Level of significance=0.05
Test Statistic: Pearson’s Chi square =7.39, p-value=0.002
Conclusion: Based on the data of retweet, which seems that people have impact of the hashtag
related to their choice among political parties, at current time. Pearson’s Chi square statistical tool out
of multiple available, for political opinion choices, assuming multivariate category, has value equal to
7.39 with p-value=0.002, which is quite low, shows interest or impact of politics towards people through
twitter, favour in alternate hypothesis that people have an impact of political parties hashtag on twitter.
H03. Type of content shared on twitter has no role on public
HA3. Type of content shared on twitter has (positive) significant role on public
Level of significance=0.05
Test Statistic: Pearson’s Chi square =0.51, p-value=0.042
Conclusion: Based on the data of retweet, which seems that people have shared and liked have
somehow significant effect as the value for Pearson’s Chi square is 0.51 with p-value=0.042 shows
interest in content shared on twitter, resulted in favour of alternate hypothesis that content have
(positive) significant role on people.
H04. Twitter as social platform has no role on public
HA4. Twitter as social platform has significant role on public
Level of significance=0.05
Test Statistic: Pearson’s Chi square =0.378, p-value=0.000
Conclusion: Based on the data of following each other, as people seem to spend more time on
twitter will gradually increase in a number of followers. Pearson’s Chi square value for socially using
twitter as the platform is 0.51 with p-value=0.00 shows significant role on public and also resulted in
favour of alternate hypothesis that twitter seem to have significant roles on people.
H05. Political Parties do not use twitter for their effect on public
HA5. Political Parties use twitter for their significant effect on public
Level of significance=0.05
Pearson’s Chi square =2.7, p-value=0.002
Conclusion: Based on the data of retweet of political parties, using the popular hashtag derived
by political parties, seems to have impact on public related to their choice to favour their liked one
among political parties, at current time. Pearson’s Chi square for the multiple available political choices,
assuming multivariate category, has value equal to 2.7 with p-value=0.002 shows interest or impact of
political parties among people through twitter. And also, the p-value is lesser than significance level,
favour in alternate hypothesis that people have an impact of political party’s hashtag on twitter.
CONCLUSION
Rationale of this to find out the role of twitter in the manipulation of the public opinion. Since few
researchers’ studied impact and effect of the twitter on different events, but this is the first study in
Pakistan in which we find out the role of twitter on creating public opinion. This study is important with
regards to perspective of audience about trending impact on their minds.
In this study the researcher looked at the impact of the twitter hashtag on the opinion of public
on political affair. The researcher studies the content of top trends in the month of April May 2022
that presented some results on the basis of retweets which shows the impact of the hashtag at current
time related to people’s interest. The findings also demonstrate that twitter is used to change the public
Investigating the Role of Twitter in Manipulation of Public Opinion
205
opinion towards a political party. In this study the Researcher use the theory of gratification for creating
the thematic analysis of the data. Moreover for getting the impact of the twitter on public opinion the
researcher use theme of social media impact theory.
On the Entire, this analysis demonstrates that on a remarkable level, politically exciting
dissertation on Pakistani digital space was definitely observed in the months of April and May
2022.After the regime change in Pakistan PTI (Pakistan Tahreeq-e-Insaf) conquered this space through
tweets volumes in million.
The results of this study also addressed the research questions as online community is
associated with various political parties as well as political opinion of public build through twitter
trends. The current research supports all generated Researcher’s hypotheses, that are accepted after
analysis and gives favorable outcomes in terms of the statement that twitters have a significant role in
making opinion of people. Such as the content shared by influencer has significant effect on public,
influencers play an important role in changing opinion of public.
The hypothesis under consideration were related to the role of political parites in making
opinion among people using their popular twitter handles as well as twitter hashtags on politics have a
significant impact on public’s opinion. As previous study concludes that the use of social media as a
tool to understand and illustrate public opinion is starting to enter mainstream media discourse
(Anstead, 2015).
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... The number of users on Twitter in this period was 330 million, occupying ninth position among the most used social networks (Ortiz-Ospina and Roser 2023), but was the second platform on which we found the most publications. However, this can be explained by Twitter being a social network that users tend to share personal content, such as experiences, points of view, opinions, and daily life events or current events (Java et al. 2007;Chew et al. 2010;Huzaifa et al. 2023). ...
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This research explores the Iranian state narrative through Twitter after the flight PS752 incident. The IRGC downed an airliner jet amid the tension with America creating a narrative battle on social media and social media users tried to counter this weaponization of social media. Understanding this weaponization might help the civil society in the future. Information dominance in social media leads to creatin of a state fabricated truth. To this end, 13517 tweets were scraped using the R program 14 days after the incident. After refining the tweet pool, 4947 tweets were used to identify the state narratives. Thematic analysis and narrative analysis are integrated to obtain a multidimensional understanding. Four narratives are identified, the enemy narrative, the intimidation narrative, the threat narrative, and the fake news narrative. Narratives’ functions and structures are also discussed to present a better understanding of these state narratives and how the Internet and social media Are used as a weapon against civil society. The findings reveal how social media might be used to portray a desired propaganda narrative of reality
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Over the last decade, extensive literature has been published regarding social media effects on real-life political participation. Many argue that social media stimulates online and offline political participation. This study investigates how online political activities impact political efficacy and real-life political participation among university students in rural Pakistan. In addition, this study also sheds light on the relationship between political activities and political awareness. We conducted an online survey of (N = 200) male and female undergraduate and graduate students from the University of Narowal, Pakistan. We used Qualtrics software to distribute our survey among students for data-collection purposes. The results reveal that the majority of the students use social media for political awareness and information. Political efficacy is significantly based on online political participation. In addition to that, social media is a vital platform for netizens to participate in real-life political activities. In conclusion, the findings of the study suggest that online political activities strongly correlate to political awareness and offline political participation. In rural areas of Pakistan, the younger generations are very active on social media to participate in online and offline political happenings.
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Background Since the emergence of social media in 2004, a growing percentage of patients use this technology for health related reasons. To reflect on the alleged beneficial and potentially harmful effects of social media use by patients, the aim of this paper is to provide an overview of the extant literature on the effects of social media use for health related reasons on patients and their relationship with healthcare professionals. Methods We conducted a systematic literature review on empirical research regarding the effects of social media use by patients for health related reasons. The papers we included met the following selection criteria: (1) published in a peer-reviewed journal, (2) written in English, (3) full text available to the researcher, (4) contain primary empirical data, (5) the users of social media are patients, (6) the effects of patients using social media are clearly stated, (7) satisfy established quality criteria. ResultsInitially, a total of 1,743 articles were identified from which 22 were included in the study. From these articles six categories of patients’ use of social media were identified, namely: emotional, information, esteem, network support, social comparison and emotional expression. The types of use were found to lead to seven identified types of effects on patients, namely improved self-management and control, enhanced psychological well-being, and enhanced subjective well-being, diminished subjective well-being, addiction to social media, loss of privacy, and being targeted for promotion. Social media use by patients was found to affect the healthcare professional and patient relationship, by leading to more equal communication between the patient and healthcare professional, increased switching of doctors, harmonious relationships, and suboptimal interaction between the patient and healthcare professional. Conclusions Our review provides insights into the emerging utilization of social media in healthcare. In particular, it identifies types of use by patients as well as the effects of such use, which may differ between patients and doctors. Accordingly, our results framework and propositions can serve to guide future research, and they also have practical implications for healthcare providers and policy makers.
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The recent wave of mobilizations in the Arab world and across Western countries has generated much discussion on how digital media is connected to the diffusion of protests. We examine that connection using data from the surge of mobilizations that took place in Spain in May 2011. We study recruitment patterns in the Twitter network and find evidence of social influence and complex contagion. We identify the network position of early participants (i.e. the leaders of the recruitment process) and of the users who acted as seeds of message cascades (i.e. the spreaders of information). We find that early participants cannot be characterized by a typical topological position but spreaders tend to be more central in the network. These findings shed light on the connection between online networks, social contagion, and collective dynamics, and offer an empirical test to the recruitment mechanisms theorized in formal models of collective action.
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In this groundbreaking work, Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann examines public opinion as a form of social control in which individuals, almost instinctively sensing the opinions of those around them, shape their behavior to prevailing attitudes about what is acceptable. For this second edition, Noelle-Neumann has added three new chapters: the first discusses new discoveries in the history of public opinion; the second continues the author's efforts to construct a comprehensive theory of public opinion, addressing criticisms and defenses of her "spiral of silence" theory that have appeared since 1980; the third offers a concise and updated summary of the book's arguments.
Twitter use by three political leaders: an exploratory analysis. Online information review
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