Showing papers in "Information, Communication & Society in 2015"
TL;DR: In this article, the authors present the results of a meta-analysis of research on social media use and participation, concluding that more than 80% of the metadata demonstrate a positive relationship between social media usage and participation.
Abstract: Social media has skyrocketed to popularity in the past few years. The Arab Spring in 2011 as well as the 2008 and 2012 Obama campaigns have fueled interest in how social media might affect citizens’ participation in civic and political life. In response, researchers have produced 36 studies assessing the relationship between social media use and participation in civic and political life. This manuscript presents the results of a meta-analysis of research on social media use and participation. Overall, the metadata demonstrate a positive relationship between social media use and participation. More than 80% of coefficients are positive. However, questions remain about whether the relationship is causal and transformative. Only half of the coefficients were statistically significant. Studies using panel data are less likely to report positive and statistically significant coefficients between social media use and participation, compared to cross-sectional surveys. The metadata also suggest that social media...
722 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present current research on multiple aspects of digital inequality, defined expansively in terms of access, usage, skills, and self-perceptions, as well as future lines of research.
Abstract: While the field of digital inequality continues to expand in many directions, the relationship between digital inequalities and other forms of inequality has yet to be fully appreciated. This article invites social scientists in and outside the field of digital media studies to attend to digital inequality, both as a substantive problem and as a methodological concern. The authors present current research on multiple aspects of digital inequality, defined expansively in terms of access, usage, skills, and self-perceptions, as well as future lines of research. Each of the contributions makes the case that digital inequality deserves a place alongside more traditional forms of inequality in the twenty-first century pantheon of inequalities. Digital inequality should not be only the preserve of specialists but should make its way into the work of social scientists concerned with a broad range of outcomes connected to life chances and life trajectories. As we argue, the significance of digital inequalities is...
575 citations
TL;DR: Fuchs's approach is critical from the ground up, and in th... as mentioned in this paper ] is an important contribution to the introductory literature available on the topic of social media, and it is worth noting that Fuchs' approach is, as the title suggests, critical from a ground up.
Abstract: Christian Fuchs's Social Media is an important contribution to the introductory literature available on the topic. Fuchs's approach is, as the title suggests, critical from the ground up, and in th...
397 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, a comparative content analysis of tweets sent during the heydays of each of the three protest campaigns is conducted, showing that, although Twitter was used significantly for political discussion and to communicate protest information, calls for participation were not predominant.
Abstract: The extensive use of social media for protest purposes was a distinctive feature of the recent protest events in Spain, Greece, and the United States. Like the Occupy Wall Street protesters in the United States, the indignant activists of Spain and Greece protested against unjust, unequal, and corrupt political and economic institutions marked by the arrogance of those in power. Social media can potentially change or contribute to the political communication, mobilization, and organization of social movements. To what extent did these three movements use social media in such ways? To answer this question a comparative content analysis of tweets sent during the heydays of each of the campaigns is conducted. The results indicate that, although Twitter was used significantly for political discussion and to communicate protest information, calls for participation were not predominant. Only a very small minority of tweets referred to protest organization and coordination issues. Furthermore, comparing the actual content of the Twitter information exchanges reveals similarities as well as differences among the three movements, which can be explained by the different national contexts.
329 citations
TL;DR: For instance, the authors found that the majority of images uploaded with the hashtag #funeral often communicated a person's emotional circumstances and affective context, and allowed them to reposition their funeral experience amongst wider networks of acquaintances, friends, and family.
Abstract: This paper presents findings from a study of Instagram use and funerary practices that analysed photographs shared on public profiles tagged with ‘#funeral’. We found that the majority of images uploaded with the hashtag #funeral often communicated a person's emotional circumstances and affective context, and allowed them to reposition their funeral experience amongst wider networks of acquaintances, friends, and family. We argue that photo-sharing through Instagram echoes broader shifts in commemorative and memorialization practices, moving away from formal and institutionalized rituals to informal and personalized, vernacular practices. Finally, we consider how Instagram's ‘platform vernacular’ unfolds in relation to traditions and contexts of death, mourning, and memorialization. This research contributes to a broader understanding of how platform vernaculars are shaped through the logics of architecture and use. This research also directly contributes to the understanding of death and digital media by...
316 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors examine the process through which Occupy activists came to constitute themselves as a collective actor and the role of social media in this process, and discuss the communication processes through which the movement was drawing the boundaries with its environment, creating codes and foundational documents, as well as speaking in a collective voice.
Abstract: This paper examines the process through which Occupy activists came to constitute themselves as a collective actor and the role of social media in this process. The theoretical framework combines Melucci's (1996) theory of collective identity with insights from the field of organizational communication and particularly from the ‘CCO’ strand – short for ‘Communication is Constitutive of Organizing’. This allows us to conceptualize collective identity as an open-ended and dynamic process that is constructed in conversations and codified in texts. Based on interviews with Occupy activists in New York, London and other cities, I then discuss the communication processes through which the movement was drawing the boundaries with its environment, creating codes and foundational documents, as well as speaking in a collective voice. The findings show that social media tended to blur the boundaries between the inside and the outside of the movement in a way that suited its values of inclusiveness and direct participation. Social media users could also follow remotely the meetings of the general assembly where the foundational documents were ratified, but their voices were not included in the process. The presence of the movement on social media also led to conflicts and negotiations around Occupy's collective voice as constructed on these platforms. Thus, viewing the movement as a phenomenon emerging in communication allows us an insight into the efforts of Occupy activists to create a collective that was both inclusive of the 99% and a distinctive actor with its own identity.
253 citations
TL;DR: This article analyzed the content of discussion as it occurs in response to political news content on the Washington Post Facebook, and comparing it to that which occurs on The Washington Post website where users are afforded a relatively high level of anonymity.
Abstract: In an effort to clean up user comment sections, news organizations have turned to Facebook, the world's largest social network site, as a way to make users more identifiable and accountable for the content they produce. It is hypothesized that users leaving comments via their Facebook profile will be less likely to engage in uncivil and impolite discussion, even when it comes to discussing politically sensitive and potentially divisive issues. By analysing the content of discussion as it occurs in response to political news content on the Washington Post Facebook, and comparing it to that which occurs on the Washington Post website where users are afforded a relatively high level of anonymity, the present study determines the extent to which Facebook increases the level of civility and impoliteness in an area of political discussion renowned for uncivil and impolite communicative behaviour. In line with earlier theories of social interaction, the paper finds that political discussion on The Washington Pos...
244 citations
TL;DR: An internet meme using the Anonymous' Guy Fawkes mask "going viral" on Facebook; the hashtag #wearethe99percent launched by the Occupy Wall Street movement being adopted by thousands of internet us...
Abstract: An internet meme using the Anonymous’ Guy Fawkes mask ‘going viral’ on Facebook; the hashtag #wearethe99percent launched by the Occupy Wall Street movement being adopted by thousands of internet us...
229 citations
TL;DR: The results show that commenters are driven by social-interactive motives to participate in journalism, and to discuss with other users, however, the data suggest that commenters do not obtain cognitive gratifications to the desired extent.
Abstract: User comments allow ‘annotative reporting’ by embedding users’ viewpoints within an article's context, providing readers with additional information to form opinions, which can potentially enhance deliberative processes. But are these the only reasons why people comment on online news and read these comments? This study examines factors that motivate, or demotivate and constrict, such participation by surveying nearly 650 commenters, lurkers, and non-users in Germany. From a normative perspective, the results are ambivalent. The results show that commenters are driven by social-interactive motives to participate in journalism, and to discuss with other users. However, the data suggest that commenters do not obtain cognitive gratifications to the desired extent. Presumably, their exchange is socially and not deliberatively motivated. Reading comments is fuelled by both cognitive and entertainment motives, but regression analyses show that the entertainment dimension − a dimension that is not usually consid...
166 citations
TL;DR: Melucci et al. as mentioned in this paper developed a conceptual framework for understanding collective action in the age of social media, focusing on the role of collective identity and the process of its making, grounded on an interactionist approach that considers organized collective action as a social construct with communicative action at its core.
Abstract: This article develops a conceptual framework for understanding collective action in the age of social media, focusing on the role of collective identity and the process of its making. It is grounded on an interactionist approach that considers organized collective action as a social construct with communicative action at its core [Melucci, A. 1996. Challenging codes: Collective action in the information age. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press]. It explains how micromobilization is mediated by social media, and argues that social media play a novel broker role in the activists' meaning construction processes. Social media impose precise material constraints on their social affordances, which have profound implications in both the symbolic production and organizational dynamics of social action. The materiality of social media deeply affects identity building, in two ways: firstly, it amplifies the ‘interactive and shared’ elements of collective identity (Melucci, 1996), and secondly, it sets in moti...
158 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors analyse the pre-eminent Chinese social media platform Sina Weibo and present a typology of different kinds of public spheres that exist on this platform in which open and critical debates can occur under specific circumstances.
Abstract: The advent of online media, and particularly social media, has led to scholarly debates about their implications. Authoritarian countries are interesting in this respect because social media might facilitate open and critical debates that are not possible in traditional media. China is arguably the most relevant and interesting case in this respect, because it limits the influx of non-domestic social media communication, has established its own microcosm of social media and tries to closely monitor and control it and censor problematic content. While such censorship is very effective in some instances, however, it fails to shut down all open debates completely. We analyse the pre-eminent Chinese social media platform – Sina Weibo – and present a typology of different kinds of public spheres that exist on this platform in which open and critical debates can occur under specific circumstances: Thematic public spheres include phenomena of common concern, such as environmental pollution or food safety; short-...
TL;DR: This article examined the role of people's background attributes and Internet skills in participation on Wikipedia and found that the gender gap in editing is exacerbated by a similarly significant Internet skills gap, and that the most likely contributors are high-skilled males.
Abstract: Despite the egalitarian rhetoric surrounding online cultural production, profound gender inequalities remain in who contributes to one of the most visited Web sites worldwide, Wikipedia. In analyzing this persistent disparity, previous research has focused on aspects of current contributors and the existing Wikipedia community. We draw on unique panel survey data of young adults with information about both Wikipedia contributors and non-contributors. We examine the role of people's background attributes and Internet skills in participation on the site. We find that the gender gap in editing is exacerbated by a similarly significant Internet skills gap. Our results show that the most likely contributors are high-skilled males and that among low-skilled Internet users no gender gap in Wikipedia contributions exists. Our findings suggest that efforts to understand the gender gap must also take Internet skills into account.
TL;DR: Bennett and Segerberg as discussed by the authors argue that even the most detailed and rigorous accounts of digital networks' contributions to political action fail to show that those networks also facilitate longer term political action that builds.
Abstract: This article examines critically the claims that digital networks (digital media infrastructures, especially social media platforms) fundamentally change the conditions of politics over the longer term. Without doubt digital networks enable faster political mobilization, accelerated cycles of action, and some new forms of collectivity, but how consequential is this in the longer term when set alongside other longer term consequences of a digitally saturated environment? The author argues that some leading accounts of digital media's contributions to political change operate with a thin account of the social, the sort of thin account that historically has been supplemented by media's mythical accounts over the past century of their role in supplying social knowledge. In the digital age, even the most detailed and rigorous accounts of digital networks' contributions to political action (Bennett & Segerberg, 2012, 2013) fail to show that those networks also facilitate longer term political action that builds...
TL;DR: This paper applied network and qualitative textual analyses to a unique data set of over 1.9 million tweets from the first and third presidential debates and found that non-traditional political actors were prominent network hubs in both debates and that humour was widespread in the first debate and among anti-Romney users.
Abstract: The 2012 US Presidential debates were hybrid media events. Millions of viewers ‘dual-screened’ them, simultaneously watching their televisions and commenting on their social media feeds. In doing so, they helped transform verbal gaffes and zingers into debate-defining moments that may have influenced public opinion and media coverage. To examine this phenomenon, we apply network and qualitative textual analyses to a unique data set of over 1.9 million tweets from the first and third presidential debates. We address two questions of networked information flow within the debate-relevant Twittersphere: who was most responsible for spreading the ‘Big Bird’ and ‘horses and bayonets’ memes, and how did they use humour to discuss it? Our results reveal that non-traditional political actors were prominent network hubs in both debates and that humour was widespread in the first debate and among anti-Romney users.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors investigated how the levels of operational, formal, information, and strategic internet skills changed between 2010 and 2013, and how the observed skill patterns differ across gender, age, and education.
Abstract: In the current contribution, we investigated how (1) the levels of operational, formal, information, and strategic internet skills changed between 2010 and 2013, and how (2) the observed skill patterns differ across gender, age, and education. All internet skills are measured among representative samples of the Dutch population in 2010, 2011, 2012, and 2013. Cross-sectional data are repeated to consider patterns of change at the aggregate level. The levels of operational and formal internet skills increased most. Information internet skill remained more or less consistent, and strategic internet skills only revealed a very small increase. Policies related to internet skills are largely aimed at improving basic skills among specific target groups. Future policies should shift towards improving information and strategic skills, which will be a more difficult challenge. Gender, age, and educational background are all important variables related to skill inequalities. As age increases, internet skill levels decrease. Information internet skills only increased for people aged over 65 years between 2010 and 2013. It seems that the gain in operational and formal internet skills among older people results in a better performance on information internet skills. The higher educated, the higher the levels of all four internet skills. The skills gap between the higher educated, on the one hand, and lower and middle educated, on the other hand, increased, while the gap between low and middle educated decreased. We expect that a particular share of inequality concerning information and strategic internet skills will remain and that these inequalities are long lasting
TL;DR: It is the business of the future to be dangerous as mentioned in this paper, and it is a dangerous business to be in the future, it is dangerous to be a leader in this business.
Abstract: It is the business of the future to be dangerous. (Alfred North Whitehead, cited in McLuhan, 1967a, p. 160)In some respects, Marshall McLuhan is a forgotten thinker, a path-breaker in ‘media theory...
TL;DR: In this paper, the disparities regarding older adults' ICT access and use were studied and the digital inequalities older adults experience might have different influences on their social lives when compared to other populations that have been studied in the previous literature.
Abstract: Older adults, comprising a population segment more vulnerable to social isolation during the late life stages, are more likely to be excluded from the benefits of information and communication technologies (ICTs) as well as from the focus of ICT research. Addressing this research gap concerning the currently fastest growing sector of ICT users this study centers on the disparities regarding older adults’ ICT access and use. Because the effects of ICTs cannot be uniform for all users, the digital inequalities older adults experience might have different influences on their social lives when compared to other populations that have been studied in the previous literature. Drawing on surveys from 1780 older adults, ages 60 years and older, residing in six suburbs in the Chicago area, this research links older adults’ digital inequalities to their social well-being. We demonstrate that while socio-economic status remains the major factor affecting their quality of life, social and instrumental ICT uses can als...
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors consider the use of crowdfunding for projects that produce community or quasipublic assets and argue that its emergence demands a fresh set of questions and approaches.
Abstract: The rapid rise of crowdfunding in the past five years, most prominently among US-based platforms such as Kickstarter and IndieGoGo, has begun to attract the attention of a wide range of scholars, policymakers and practitioners. This paper considers civic crowdfunding – the use of crowdfunding for projects that produce community or quasipublic assets – and argues that its emergence demands a fresh set of questions and approaches. The work draws on critical case studies constructed through fieldwork in the United States, the UK and Brazil, and a discourse analysis of civic crowdfunding projects collected from platforms by the author. It offers three provocations to scholars and practitioners considering the practice, questioning the extent to which civic crowdfunding is participatory, the extent to which it addresses or contributes to social inequality, and the extent to which it augments or weakens the role of public institutions. In doing so, it finds that civic crowdfunding is capable of vastly divergent...
TL;DR: In this paper, an expert survey with campaign managers of 68 political parties within 12 European nations, representing both old and new EU member states, investigates the perceived importance of different types of communication platforms in meeting campaign objectives, especially with regard to differences between new and direct modes of campaigning.
Abstract: This paper analyses strategic thinking around election campaign communication in a rapidly evolving media environment, characterized by the rise of digital communication channels and online social networks as new tools of political campaigning. Using an expert survey with campaign managers of 68 political parties within 12 European nations, representing both old and new EU member states, the study investigates the perceived importance of different types of communication platforms in meeting campaign objectives, especially with regard to differences between new and direct modes of campaigning in comparison to traditional campaign channels. The attributed significance to these various channels is then analysed against a range of variables on macro (country) level as well as meso (party) level. The results suggest that while some differences can be observed in regard to the perceptions of particular types of social media between individual strategists working for parties as well as between strategists working in new and old EU member states (e.g. Facebook is seen as more important in younger democracies), overall we can see a relatively high level of homogeneity in the perceived importance of campaign communication in the sample. The data point to the embedding of new communication platforms within election campaign strategies across most nations and parties; this indicates that the move towards ‘hypermedia' campaign style, integrating both old and new campaign tools and communication platforms, is now becoming a standard feature of professional campaigning strategy in Europe.
TL;DR: It is argued that protest avatars can be described as ‘memetic signifiers’ because they are marked by a vagueness and inclusivity that distinguishes them from traditional protest symbols and lend themselves to be used as memes for viral diffusion on social networks.
Abstract: Protest avatars, digital images that act as collective symbols for protest movements, have been widely used by supporters of the 2011 protest wave, from Egypt to Spain and the United States. From photos of Egyptian martyr Khaled Said, to protest posters and multiple variations of Anonymous' mask, a great variety of images have been adopted as profile pictures by Internet users to express their support for various causes and protest movements and communicate it to all their Internet peers. In this article, I explore protest avatars as forms of identification of protest movements in a digital era. I argue that protest avatars can be described as ‘memetic signifiers’ because (a) they are marked by a vagueness and inclusivity that distinguishes them from traditional protest symbols and (b) lend themselves to be used as memes for viral diffusion on social networks. In adopting these icons, participants experience a collective fusion in an online crowd, whose gathering is manifested in the very ‘masking’ of par...
TL;DR: Wang et al. as mentioned in this paper investigated how online political expression among Chinese Internet users relates to their nationalistic attitudes and support of the status quo, and found that partial inclusion of the public in the online deliberation process serves to bolster system stability and legitimacy, as the Chinese Communist Party intends.
Abstract: As populist nationalism and criticism of government emerge from the Chinese online sphere, the potential influence of public engagement in online communication on Chinese politics has drawn much scholarly and media attention. To illuminate the role of user-generated online communication for political change, this study investigates how online political expression among Chinese Internet users relates to their nationalistic attitudes and support of the status quo. An analysis of survey data demonstrates that online political expression, facilitated by news consumption, enhances support for the existing sociopolitical system both directly and indirectly through nationalism. The results suggest that partial inclusion of the public in the online deliberation process serves to bolster system stability and legitimacy, as the Chinese Communist Party intends.
TL;DR: In this article, a two-year multimodal ethnographic study of the Mexican #YoSoy132 movement is presented, showing that the concept of collective identity is still able to yield relevant insights into the study of current movements, especially in connection with the use of social media platforms.
Abstract: This article starts from the recognition that digital social movements studies have progressively disregarded collective identity and the importance of internal communicative dynamics in contemporary social movements, in favour of the study of the technological affordances and the organizational capabilities of social media. Based on a two-year multimodal ethnography of the Mexican #YoSoy132 movement, the article demonstrates that the concept of collective identity is still able to yield relevant insights into the study of current movements, especially in connection with the use of social media platforms. Through the appropriations of social media, Mexican students were able to oppose the negative identification fabricated by the PRI party, reclaim their agency and their role as heirs of a long tradition of rebellion, generate collective identification processes, and find ‘comfort zones’ to lower the costs of activism, reinforcing their internal cohesion and solidarity. The article stresses the importance of the internal communicative dynamics that develop in the backstage of social media (Facebook chats and groups) and through instant messaging services (WhatsApp), thus rediscovering the pivotal linkage between collective identity and internal communication that characterized the first wave of research on digital social movements. The findings point out how that internal cohesion and collective identity are fundamentally shaped and reinforced in the social media backstage by practices of ‘ludic activism’, which indicates that social media represent not only the organizational backbone of contemporary social movements, but also multifaceted ecologies where a new, expressive and humorous ‘communicative resistance grammar’ emerges.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examined parents' use of four widely used ICTs (text message, email, social networking sites, and Skype) to communicate with family including differences in use by child's age.
Abstract: Despite widespread adoption of information and communications technologies (ICTs) by families in the United States, little is known about parents' use of ICTs specifically for family communication. Using a national sample of parents (N = 1322), this study examined parents' use of four widely used ICTs (text message, email, social networking sites, and Skype) to communicate with family including differences in use by child's age. Results show parents' use of various ICTs is dynamic, reflecting developmental differences in the child and relational differences in the family system. Findings revealed that the use of ICTs for parent–child communication increased with child's age, communication with co-parent via text message was more likely among parents of school-aged children, and parents of adolescent children were less likely to use text or email to communicate with non-resident family than parents of school-aged children. Examining how parents are using specific ICTs to communicate with particular family ...
TL;DR: In this article, the authors describe the key characteristics of war, the form and nature of the prevailing media ecology, and how power was exercised by and distributed within government, military, and media elites.
Abstract: After Broadcast War and Diffused War comes Arrested War, the latest paradigm of war and media. Each paradigm coincides with a discrete phase of mediatization. This article explains how war and media operated during each phase, describing the key characteristics of war, the form and nature of the prevailing media ecology, and how power was exercised by and distributed within government, military, and media elites. Following the sense of flux and uncertainty during the second phase of mediatization, when digital content and non-linear communication dynamics generated Diffused War, Arrested War is characterized by the appropriation and control of previously chaotic dynamics by mainstream media and, at a slower pace, government and military policy-makers. We use the ongoing Ukraine crisis to examine Arrested War in operation. In setting out a new paradigm of war and media, we also reflect on the difficulties of periodizing and historicizing these themes and ask what theoretical and conceptual tools are likely...
TL;DR: This paper found that social influence variables explain a significant portion of variance in online political participation independently from the antecedents identified by prior literature, while social identity and group norms were significantly related with political expressive participation in Twitter, subjective norms had no significant effect.
Abstract: The aim of this research is to contribute to the growing literature on online political participation by seeking a better understanding of the social determinants of action that drive expressive political participation in Twitter. Our results revealed that social influence variables explain a significant portion of variance in online political participation independently from the antecedents identified by prior literature. While social identity and group norms were significantly related with political expressive participation in Twitter, subjective norms had no significant effect. Findings are discussed within the scope of Gezi Park protests and future research directions are suggested.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors review the literature on social movements and collective identity and show the tension between different positions stressing either organization or culture, the personal or the collective, aggregative or networking logics.
Abstract: The emergence of network-movements since 2011 has opened the debate around the way in which social media and networked practices make possible innovative forms of collective identity. We briefly review the literature on social movements and ‘collective identity’, and show the tension between different positions stressing either organization or culture, the personal or the collective, aggregative or networking logics. We argue that the 15M (indignados) network-movement in Spain demands conceptual and methodological innovations. Its rapid emergence, endurance, diversity, multifaceted development and adaptive capacity, posit numerous theoretical and methodological challenges. We show how the use of structural and dynamic analysis of interaction networks (in combination with qualitative data) is a valuable tool to track the shape and change of what we term the ‘systemic dimension’ of collective identities in network-movements. In particular, we introduce a novel method for synchrony detection in Facebook acti...
TL;DR: In this article, the mediating effect of two cognitive constructs, self-efficacy and privacy concerns, on different types of online content creation was analyzed based on Social Cognitive Theory (SCT).
Abstract: Sociodemographic variables are held to impact Internet users’ willingness and ability to productively use online media. This effect can create a ‘participation divide’ between distinct user groups. Recently, studies have enhanced our understanding of the participation divide by differentiating types of online content creation. They found that sociodemographics may only affect specific forms of online participation. We suggest that social cognitive theory (SCT) helps explain why and how sociodemographic variables influence different forms of online participation. Based on SCT, we analyze the mediating effect of two cognitive constructs, self-efficacy and privacy concerns, on different types of online content creation. We conduct a survey among German Internet users and apply structural equation modeling to compare three distinct theoretical models. We find that considering the mediating effects of cognitive constructs, based on SCT, improves our understanding of which sociodemographic variables affect whic...
TL;DR: This article investigated the role of tweets in the 2012 US Republican presidential primary election and found that tweets were more reactive rather than predictive, while the sentiment and frequency of candidate-related tweets was related to campaign success and offline success at the ballot box.
Abstract: The popular microblogging social media platform Twitter has been prominently covered in the press for its perceived role in activism, disaster recovery, and elections amongst other things. In the case of elections, Twitter has been used actively by candidates and voters alike in a diverse range of elections around the world including the 2010 UK elections, the 2012 US presidential elections, and the 2013 Italian elections. However, Twitter has often been found to be a poor predictor of electoral success. This article investigates what role tweets play during elections and whether they are more reactive than predictive. Using the specific case of the 2012 US Republican presidential primary elections, this article explores how candidate's Twitter presence affects electoral outcomes and whether the sentiment and frequency of candidate-related tweets is related to campaign success and offline success at the ballot box. This study finds that tweets were more reactive rather than predictive. Additionally, senti...
TL;DR: The authors examines how a traditional tool of authoritarian social control, harassment of the opposition, has evolved with the need for more subtle harassment in the twenty-first-century transnational activism and social media era.
Abstract: This study examines how a traditional tool of authoritarian social control – harassment of the opposition – has evolved with the need for more subtle harassment in the twenty-first-century transnational activism and social media era. Social media affords cheap and easy opportunities for authoritarian regimes, in this case, Azerbaijan, to subtly harass opposition to a large domestic audience, while eschewing direct attribution of the harassment. In this way, despite the challenges that information and communication technologies present authoritarian regimes, they also provide opportunities to increase control.
TL;DR: The role of the internet for civic engagement has been studied in the context of concerns about the decline of traditional forms of political participation and fears about a crisis of democratic participation as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: Much scholarship on the role of the internet for civic engagement has been motivated by concerns about the decline of traditional forms of political participation and fears about a crisis of democr...