Social Media & Internet Psychology

The Mum effect is the natural human reluctance to share bad news with others, due to a desire to avoid a range of negative consequences, consequences affecting both self and the recipient of the bad news. Although the gospel is good news to those who believe, it may be viewed negatively by those who do not believe. Thus, Christians may be hesitant to share the gospel because of the negative consequences associated with the Mum effect. Because of the anonymity of the internet, social media is often filled with unre-strained criticism of Christianity. This may amplify the perceived negative consequences of sharing the gospel with unbelievers. In light of this cultural evolution, found now in the global north and increasingly present in the global south, Christian leaders can lead more effective ministries by distinguishing between outreach (building relationships in a way that makes the gospel attractive), witnessing (explaining how one has experienced God), and evangelism (sharing all that is necessary to make a decision for Christ), and by ensuring that all three occur in culturally relevant ways, carried out by individuals best equipped to do each, in a way consistent with the New Testament teaching on spiritual gifts. Specifically, outreach and witnessing can be done by all Christians who interact with non-Christians, whereas evangelism may be carried out, both on the individual level and in large groups, by those who are appropriately gifted. By addressing large groups in a more impersonal way, those gifted in evangelism may reduce the negative consequences of the Mum effect and build upon the outreach and witnessing done by others.

Social media is increasingly important in daily life and is an especially important social interaction mechanism for young people. Although research has been conducted evaluating user types based on motives for using social media, no such framework has been extended to social media websites. We extend previous research by evaluating the underlying structure of social media website usage motivations using a 13 item survey and evaluations from 19 different social media websites administered to 1686 young Americans. Using a multidimensional scaling approach, we uncover 2 major motive dimensions underlying social media website use: fun-related and content-specific. Based on the derived dimensions, we generate a graphical “quadrant” system for classifying social media websites and depict all 19 social media sites based on their quadrant. We propose that our quadrant system can be used by other researchers to further refine understanding of social media website usage motives.

Avvertenza: la tesi qui riportata è stata sottoposta a una lieve revisione formale rispetto alla versione sottoposta alla commissione di laurea.

Condurre una vita associata significa oggi, in buona parte, condurre una vita connessa. Molti degli aspetti della nostra esistenza passano ormai attraverso la rete e i dispositivi che consentono di accedervi: ciò riguarda non solo gli interessi, le relazioni personali o il tempo libero, ma anche la vita lavorativa e la possibilità di usufruire di servizi pubblici.

La versatilità della rete e delle tecnologie informatiche si pone alla radice del loro successo e contribuisce a spiegare la loro diffusione capillare. Questa stessa ramificazione, che ha messo in collegamento tra loro miliardi di utenti in tutto il mondo, ha visto ugualmente l’imporsi nella vita pubblica e nell’economia dei cosiddetti new media. Ciò ha avuto tra i suoi effetti una sostanziale alterazione delle modalità di produzione, diffusione e fruizione degli oggetti culturali, oltre ad imprimere una trasformazione radicale a quel che si è soliti chiamare cultura. A maggior ragione, quindi, chi si occupa di studi umanistici è chiamato a interrogarsi sulle problematiche che emergono da tali rivolgimenti e sui loro esiti possibili.

Abbiamo iniziato tracciando per sommi capi una storia delle origini di internet, inframezzandola con alcuni momenti decisivi che hanno riguardato il diffondersi dell’informatica nella cultura di massa. Ciò ci ha consentito di esaminare sia l’avverarsi di una rete oligopolistica e trasversalmente commerciale, sia quelle aspirazioni e possibilità che non hanno avuto modo di realizzarsi o hanno finito per assumere posizioni marginali. Successivamente, ci siamo concentrati sulle dinamiche economiche sottese allo stato attuale del web, che coinvolgono gli utenti attraverso vari espedienti tecnici finalizzati alla raccolta dati e alla personalizzazione di contenuti e annunci pubblicitari. Inoltre, abbiamo tentato di comprendere, su basi sociologiche e psicologiche, come un’organizzazione degli apparati tecnologici a fini prettamente economici contribuisca a precisare una corrispondente strutturazione delle identità personali, della circolazione d’informazioni, delle esperienze culturali e delle relazioni. Da tali osservazioni empiriche emerge come gli attuali assetti tecnico-economici favoriscano l’ulteriore radicamento di una cultura incentrata su un individualismo egoistico e narcisistico, su relazioni interpersonali strumentali e su un’esperienza estetica compromessa dalle logiche del consumo.

La concretezza di queste stesse osservazioni ha gettato le fondamenta per la costruzione di un percorso filosofico che, a partire dalla teoria dell’individuazione concepita da Gilbert Simondon, approda alle riflessioni sulla tecnica di Bernard Stiegler. Secondo quest’ultimo, l’implementazione diffusa delle tecnologie computazionali a sostegno del consumo corrisponde a una de-individuazione dei singoli e dei gruppi, ossia a un’incapacità di differenziazione che comporta un crollo del desiderio e un irrigidimento mortifero. Tale irrigidimento si attua anche nella sovrabbondanza di esteriorizzazione tecnica che colpisce i saperi, cosicché gli esseri umani finiscono per perdere il loro saper vivere. In conclusione, abbiamo passato al setaccio il pensiero di Maurice Merleau-Ponty, cercando nel linguaggio dei segnali che alludessero a possibilità alternative e alle potenzialità taumaturgiche del linguaggio stesso. Come si vedrà, tali segnali assumono una luminescenza eccezionalmente vivida nella parola letteraria.

Social network data mining has a disparate impact through its reliance on predictive analytics, its reproduction of patterns of unfairness, and evasion of privacy protections.  First, this paper will discuss data mining’s disparate impact.  Second, the dangers to consumer privacy when Big Data is used by the private sector and to constitutional norms when used by the government will be identified.  Third, the asymmetric relationship between Big Data and those whom data collection targets will be analyzed through an evaluation of Social Media Data Mining.  The final section of this paper offers recommendations towards a policy framework that ensures all consumers are included in the promise of first class citizenship in the digital age.

The Internet may be free, but service provider’s indispensable to access services are not, to the extent that while the complexity and burden of the sites increases, it is becoming more and more expensive to surf the net. Blocking access under the guise of protecting us from offensive or sexually explicit content, to pages, chat rooms, newsgroups and other Web options is not anymore an excuse, but a lie. Government surveillance in the Internet, uncontrolled practices of data harvesting and restriction of free speech, open discussion of issues and even political activism has spread in the last 20 years to include countries that are considered democracies such as the U.S. Internet has become a battleground of power and therefore become increasingly militarized.

It is observed that the relationship between the use of the social media by people and the loneliness and depression increases day by day. The main aim of this study is to examine the loneliness, depression and use of the social media by university students with different variables. The study group of the research consists of a total of 530 students during the spring term of the academic year 2014-2015. There was a significant difference among the faculties in terms of using the social media between the Faculties of Education and Theology and the average use of social media by the Faculty of Education was determined to be significantly higher. A significant difference emerged when the relationship between the use of the social media and the levels of depression is studied.

Аннотация. В исследовании рассматривались психологические характеристики киберспортсменов: свойства нервной системы, мотивы киберспортивной деятельности, волевые качества личности, направленность личности в игровом процессе (коллективизм-индивидуализм) и особенности принятия решений. Выбор этих характеристик был сделан на основании пилотажного исследования, в котором изучались мнения экспертов (профессиональных киберспортсменов) о психологических факторах успешности в данном виде спортивной деятельности. Выборка исследования включала 56 респондентов в возрасте от 17 до 29 лет (средний возраст-22 года). Основную группу исследования составили 42 человека-участника киберспортивных игр, объединенные в 3 подгруппы по 14 человек в соответствии с дисциплинами компьютерного спорта, в которых соревнуются данные игроки (класс «Шутеры», класс «MOBA», класс «Файтинги»). Критерием для отбора респондентов являлось участие в киберспортивных турнирах, проходящих в off-line режиме. В число участников исследования вошли: экс-чемпионка России по дисциплине «Tekken Tag Tournament», рейтинговые участники международных соревнований, участники профессиональных киберспортивных команд, а также призёры соревнований различного уровня. В зависимости от вида компьютерной игры киберспортсмены различаются по частным свойствам нервной системы («сила тормозного процесса» и «инертность нервных процессов»), выраженности мотива «коллективистская направленность», по общему показателю воли и волевым качествам инициативность, энергичность, смелость и деловитость; на уровне тенденции представлены различия по частному свойству нервной системы «сила возбудительного процесса». Влияние игрового стажа проявляется в различиях по парным факторам темперамента S и N (снижается склонность к поведению типа S и увеличивается, к поведению типа N); влияние времени, уделяемого киберспорту, проявляется в различиях по волевым качествам ответственность, инициативность, энергичность; влияние успешности в киберспорте влияет на мотивацию и волевые качества киберспортсменов. На основе анализа эмпирических данных были составлены типологические портреты представителей трёх классов киберспортивных дисциплин («Шутеры», «MOBA» и «Файтинги»). Ключевые слова: киберспорт, киберспортсмен, психологические характеристики 1. Исследования психологических характеристик участников киберспортивных игр Психологические особенности-это особенности проявления психических и психофизиологических свойств человека, выступающие с одной стороны критериями его

The 21st century opened the door for the videogame industry to become a 100-billion-dollar industry according to Super Data’s 2017 . A lot of scholars have been studying why video games generates so much monetary and social interactions between populations around the world. Among the reasons why this industry boomed, some regard the evolution of digital technologies as a major source of democratization, others help to discuss the various qualities of gaming experiences whether online or offline and many always put forward the people who helped the industry, community and culture to progress.
Our focus will not be aimed at the people responsible for the creation of games but rather at the ones who entertain people by playing video games. Although we will still discuss about how both have been stimulating interactions between game studios and their communities. We will mainly be describing the role of influencers as driving forces of content within the videogame community.
We will try to give an overall picture of what is a gaming influencer and the various digital or physical platforms that they interact with, to hopefully become famous and live from their activity. We will build our analysis upon a quick historical summary, my personal experience, the recent stories of current major influencers and writings about influencer social, cultural and marketing practices. Keep in mind that we will also try to interpret the reasons behind the influencers’ decision-making as well as why his or her community reacted in such ways. Finally, we will conclude our arguments by regarding how online communities thrive through social media practices allowed by a sharing system of user and influencer generated contents.

The Social Media have changed the power structures in the marketplace; evidence points to a major power migration taking
place and to emergence of a new breed of powerful and sophisticated customer, difficult to influence, persuade and retain.
The paper outlines the nature, effects and present status of the Social Media, underlying their role as customer empowerment
agents. It explains their aptitude and possible roles as part of the corporate Marketing strategy and identifies different ways of
engaging them as marketing tools. The paper proposes two possible Social Media marketing strategies: a. The passive
approach focusing on utilizing the Social Media domain as source of customer voice and market intelligence. b. The active
approach i.e. engaging the Social Media as direct marketing and PR channels, as channels of customer influence, as tools of
personalizing products and last but not least develop them as platforms of co-operation and customer-generated innovation.
Finally the paper identifies future research directions around this new element of the marketing landscape

With the introduction of the Internet, digital cameras, and smartphones, the selfie has emerged as an important trend. To date, research has focussed predominantly on homogenous groups of participants, examining if and why they portray themselves online; these investigations have been exclusively concerned with analysing identity construction on the platforms Facebook and Twitter. This investigation aims to obtain a deeper, more personalised understanding of how women aged between 20 and 25 attending UK universities portray themselves through selfies on Instagram. Through semi-structured interviews, selfie activities have been analysed within the framework of Erving Goffman’s (1956) theory of dramaturgy from his book ‘The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life’, as well as those of other studies. Results revealed all women to strive for a curated online portrayal in which a beautiful, attractive self was balanced with certain affirmations of authenticity. This hyper-idealistic persona was achieved by highlighting certain aspects of appearance with the aid of makeup, image manipulation tools and virtual beauty applications. Interestingly, some individuals also utilised selfies for activist purposes. The selective enhancement of some features and concealment of others in the front stage confirms that impression management is habitually monitored - a key premise in Goffman’s work. Furthermore, front stage images were found to be deliberately constructed in order to attract likes and comments, with the use of such communicatory utilities interpreted as a validation of the attractiveness of selfies. The study overall reveals the manipulation, complexity and insecurity behind selfies on Instagram, and concludes that Goffman’s principal frameworks are applicable in the online world.

Entman, criticizing hegemony and indexing models presents an important model in media policy relation, relating to foreign news, especially emphasizing what has changed after Cold War paradigm and policy uncertainty. It can be considered that there might be transformations even more effective than Cold War phenomenon some of which seems to be missing in Entman’s model. With the emergence of the internet and social media it would seem hard for any top-down model to survive considering we witness the decline of the mediating effect of media and individual form their own frames. It would be exaggerated to claim that mainstream media would disappear but as already witnessed there is a convergent media environment which is not only dominated by the Western based news organization but also various ones like a Middle East-based news organization, Al Jazeera. It is an environment which also gives audience the chance to be exposed to foreign news sites and other perspectives throughout the world. In this complex media environment we can hardly claim that Entman’s concept cultural congruence, schemas and journalistic motivations or American government would have the same effect for an American based news organization as there had in the past.Entman, criticizing hegemony and indexing models presents an important model in media policy relation, relating to foreign news, especially emphasizing what has changed after Cold War paradigm and policy uncertainty. It can be considered that there might be transformations even more effective than Cold War phenomenon some of which seems to be missing in Entman’s model. With the emergence of the internet and social media it would seem hard for any top-down model to survive considering we witness the decline of the mediating effect of media and individual form their own frames. It would be exaggerated to claim that mainstream media would disappear but as already witnessed there is a convergent media environment which is not only dominated by the Western based news organization but also various ones like a Middle East-based news organization, Al Jazeera. It is an environment which also gives audience the chance to be exposed to foreign news sites and other perspectives throughout the world. In this complex media environment we can hardly claim that Entman’s concept cultural congruence, schemas and journalistic motivations or American government would have the same effect for an American based news organization as there had in the past.

Since the emergence of new media, it has been widely accepted by the scholars that new media strengthens democracy, freedom of speech and social movements; however, they have mostly ignored new media's potential for narcotizing. This study examines social media from a critical perspective and applies Lazarsfeld and Merton's " Narcotising Dysfunction Approach " to social media to see whether or not social media helps people's active participation to the social movements. In this study, it is argued that although new media can be a useful tool for helping users to get organized, generate contents and spread these contents out to their peers, increasing dosages of mass communication, during the times of unrest, may transform the energies of citizens from active participation to passive knowledge and this may lead people to become passive protesters. This study, for the first time in the literature, will apply the " Narcotising Dysfunction Approach " to social media and will discuss the concepts of " clicktivism " and " slacktivism " to put forth 'the dark sides' of social media.

Over the last decade, the way people communicate with each other has been changing astonishingly. The extensive new plethora of media has given to customers more options to gather and provide information about products and services. This study attempted to identify and measure the degree to which Social Networking Sites influence people's professional lives, their social skills and work productivity and ultimately boost effectiveness. Quantitative and qualitative methodologies were used for this research. The results reveal that Social Networking Sites play an essential role in employees " relations with customers, that Instant Messaging (IM) services offered by Social Networking Sites can be a crucial element for organizations in disseminating information, enabling knowledge sharing, increasing productivity and promoting teamwork. It seems that customer engagement and Customer Relationship Management (CRM) are vital tools for organizational effectiveness, not only to maintain loyal clients but also to survive and keep maintaining profitability.

Public debate over fake news has become ubiquitous in the aftermath of the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Yet, up until now, there has been a dearth of scholarly attempts at defining the term ‘fake news’. This has led to the paradoxical situation that populist leaders who dominate the news cycle regularly use the label ‘fake news’ as a negative epithet to discredit any critical reporting. The present paper seeks to fill this conceptual void by reviewing existing characterizations of fake news and by proposing a stipulative definition of the term ‘fake news’. Fake news, it is argued, is the deliberate presentation of (typically) false or misleading claims as news, where the claims are misleading by design. The validity of this definition is tested in two ways: first, by contrasting fake news with other forms of public disinformation; second, by considering whether the proposed definition can help identify conditions for the emergence of fake news. The recent resurgence of fake news, it is argued, is in part due to design features of online social media, which enable the targeting of specific audiences and the exploitation of cognitive biases and heuristics on the part of consumers, in an attempt to ensure the production and reproduction of fake news.

In the past decade, even the most casual observer would agree that there has been a continual stream of corporate crises: product defects and recalls, insider trading, corporate malfeasance, mortgage fraud, and other wrong-doing that has led to global financial crises. There is a corresponding need for corporate crisis managers to develop a set of communication tools that will ensure consumers that a corporation is taking appropriate action in response to crises with the consumers’ best interest in mind. The purpose of this study was to investigate the role of post-crisis communication strategies delivered via both “traditional” online news sites and online social media in rebuilding lost brand trust as a result of a corporate product crisis. This research compared the effectiveness of post-crisis communication via traditional online news sources versus online social media sites. This study ultimately aimed to provide practical guidance for crisis managers about which  online media channel is most effective at communicating post-crisis messages, and what type of post-crisis strategies most effectively recover lost or damaged consumer brand trust following a corporate product crisis to affect positive social change in the form of increased/recovered trust. To achieve this aim, this study examined the psychological impact of messages developed in the wake of a corporate product crisis delivered through two types of online media. This research measured and described the relationship between, and the positive impact of, post-crisis communication media (both online traditional and online social), and consumer behavior as manifested in levels of trust regained. This study investigated the brand trust levels of 458 consumers  in response to a variety of crisis response communications following a hypothetical product crisis presented through two simulated media channels: (a) traditional online media (e.g., CNN.com website) and (b) online social media (e.g., a post about the crisis viewed on a friend’s Facebook News Feed).
The results of this study are that two of the four hypotheses tested were rejected. The main findings of this study include (a) product crises have a negative impact on consumer brand trust; (b) there is a significant relationship between accommodative and blended crisis response strategies and increased levels of post-crisis recovered brand trust, and (c) there was no significant effect of media channel, age, education, nor gender on the amount of brand trust damaged nor recovered through the current research scenario.

Keywords: social media, traditional media, trust, crisis communication, media psychology, attention, attitude change, persuasion, brand trust, order effects, message sequencing, action, rebuilding trust, corporate crisis management, corporate reputation management, decision making, corporate crisis response strategy, trust response, recovering brand trust

The Predictive Casino is a casino that utilizes the latest technological developments to connect with its customers to deliver an exceptional personalized experience to each and every one of its patrons. Today, technology such as AI, Machine Learning, Augmented Reality, IoT, Real-time stream processing, social media, and wearables are altering the Customer Experience (CX) landscape and casino operators need to jump aboard this fast moving technology or run the risk of being left out in the cold.
The Predictive Casino reveals how these and other technologies can help shape the customer journey. The book details how the five types of analytics—descriptive, diagnostic, predictive, prescriptive, and edge analytics—affect not only the customer journey, but also just about every operating function of the casino.
Facial recognition technology can spot a customer stepping onto a casino bus at the Macau/China border and that set off alerts that can notify a host on the floor, a restaurant manager, a dealer, or even the hotel’s GM should the player be a high-end VIP. A whole other sequence of events gets triggered as the player’s favorite table is prepared, his favorite, and his or her Theo gets added to a real-time table games revenue management model that takes into account his personal play. Labor needs are also considered and alerts can be sent to the required or unneeded staff.
An IoT connected casino can make its operations smart. Connected devices can help with inventory optimization, supply chain management, labor management, waste management, as well as keep its data centers green and its energy use smart. 
Social media is no longer a vanity platform, but rather a place to both connect with current customers as well as court new ones. It is also a powerful branding channel that can be utilized to both understand a casino's position in the market, as well as a place to benchmark its position against its competitors.
Today, technology moves at break-neck speed and it can offer the potential of anticipatory capabilities, but it also comes with a confusing variety of technology and technological terms--Big Data, Cognitive Computing, CX, Data Lakes, Hadoop, Kafka, Personalization, Spark, etc., etc. The Predictive Casino will help make sense of it all, so that a casino executive can cut through the confusing technological jargon and understand why a Spark-based real-time stream processing data stream might be preferable over a TIBCO one, or an IBM one. This book will help casino executives break through the technological clutter so that they can deliver an unrivaled customer experience to each and every patron coming through their doors.

India is facing a transition period in the field of Information and Communication Technology, being the second largest populated country in the world, it is enforced to confront many diverse problems. The scope for accomplishing the complicity of the delinquent situations should be the priority in order to gain the highest benefit, out of any new innovations, and computer age is one of such type of feature, which gives us more productive out comes and also the negative out comes. Now a days, the student community is forced to use internet facilities to enhance their knowledge but many a times they get deviated and indulge in destructive activities, so, in order to find out the negative effects of social media, this study is conducted among higher secondary schools students using descriptive research methodology and purposive sampling method with the questionnaire for data collection and the research revealed that the age, gender, time spent in internet and the type of device used for internet were the predominate factors towards the negative impact of social media among higher secondary students.

In the age of social media the nature of records and social memory is fundamentally changed. The archive is a tool used in the process of transforming social experience, memories and history into collective remembering. The increased prevalence of cultural archives and collections generated on social media present challenges to traditional concepts of what constitutes an archival record and disrupt standard archival protocols and procedures set by international guidelines. Contending that archival appraisal frameworks and protocols codify what is kept and what is left out of the archives and thus societal memory, this thesis will be a diagnostic exploration looking at the opportunities and challenges these types of archival collections present to contemporary professional practice. Exploring specifically the Instagram based community archive veteranas_and_rucas, it will argue for an expanded professional approach to appraisal and preservation to integrate the affective, epistemological, ontological and social valences of such an archival project. Borrowing from arts and archaeological conservation practices it draws upon real life examples to speculatively reconcile these challenges and provide examples to attend to the preservation requirements demanded by these projects.

Social Media networks have vast acceptance in current circumstances. Almost everyone who has access with internet is connected with some kind of social interaction using available social medias. Social Medias are now providing lots of services to its users. This paper studies how the services provided by the Social media are helpful for students in Education. This paper also tries to explain the effectiveness of Social Media in young people.

The present paper investigated the role of social media in youth participatory politics. A survey of university students was conducted in March, 2013. The findings of the present study indicated that a large number of the respondents participated in political activities through social media. Facebook provided the respondents with common platform to discuss issues confronting Pakistani society. Respondents’ engagement with discussion on national issues was significantly related with their participation in political campaigns and persuasion to vote in upcoming elections 2013. A small proportion of the respondents participated in traditional political activities. This finding underscored the need to enhance youth participation in institutional politics to cultivate civic minds.

Considering two major social justice issues in 2014, one dealing with police brutality and the other dealing with online gendered harassment, the need to have a faith based response to digitized shortcomings of humanity became blatant. Inspired by a womanist ethic, techno-womanism is nascently explored through the lens of the #Gamergate and #BlackLivesMatter hashtags among others.

Gina Miller shot to fame after taking the British government to court for attempting to force through Article 50, the mechanism, which started the Brexit process. It was a case that, like the 2016 Referendum itself, polarised Britain. While Leavers were outraged that their vote to exit the EU was not the final word, Remainers watched with bated breath in hope that their disaster could turn to triumph.
In the middle was the previously unknown financier Gina Miller. Articulate, photogenic and unafraid to comment on a controversial issue, she might have been made for the media. Widespread coverage led to her becoming a hate figure online, with two men arrested for making threats to kill her.
This study analyses 180,360 tweets, which include the username @thatginamiller, from October 1, 2016 to February 27, 2017, from just before the opening of her High Court case to beyond the Supreme Court ruling on January 26 .

Political discourse on social media is seen by many as polarized, vitriolic and permeated by falsehoods and misinformation. Political operators have exploited all of these aspects of the discourse for strategic purposes, most famously during the Russian social media influence campaign during the 2016 Presidential election in the United States and current, similar efforts targeting the U.S. elections in 2018 and 2020. The results of the social media study presented in this paper presents evidence that political influence through manipulation of social media discussions is no longer exclusive to political debate but can now also be found in pop culture. Specifically, this study examines a collection of tweets relating to a much-publicized fan dispute over the Star Wars franchise film Episode VII: The Last Jedi. The study finds evidence of deliberate, organized political influence measures disguised as fan arguments. The likely objective of these measures is increasing media coverage of the fandom conflict, thereby adding to and further propagating a narrative of widespread discord and dysfunction in American society. Persuading voters of this narrative remains a strategic goal for the U.S. alt-right movement, as well as the Russian Federation. The results of the study show that among those who address The Last Jedi director Rian Johnson directly on Twitter to express their dissatisfaction, more than half are bots, trolls/sock puppets or political activists using the debate to propagate political messages supporting extreme right-wing causes and the discrimination of gender, race or sexuality. A number of these users appear to be Russian trolls. The paper concludes that while it is only a minority of Twitter accounts that tweet negatively about The Last Jedi, organized attempts at politicizing the pop culture discourse on social media for strategic purposes are significant enough that users should be made aware of these measures, so they can act accordingly.

Dābiq is an electronic magazine (e-zine) utilising strategic utopianism and savagery messages supported by exemplary leadership, eschatology, and current events reports. This project analyses narrative themes present within Dābiq and how relevant and prevalent these themes are across issues. The project applies Thematic Network Analysis of the first six issues of Dābiq, laying foundations for understanding ISIL’s culture and counter-narrative development. It argues present terminology and first generation research constrain understanding of ISIL’s cultural specifics. This project establishes that rhetoric within Dābiq contains both political and religious narratives. Finally, this project establishes that ‘Exemplary Leadership’ theme dominates ISIL’s Dābiq rhetoric.

A version of this paper was presented at the First West Asian Studies National Convention, Centre for West Asian Studies, JNU on 14 November 2014.
The goal of this paper is to place the role that new social media has played in achieving collective action using the early events of the Arab uprisings and the experiences of Egypt and Tunisia as particular references. Almost four years since the uprisings began, their disrupted momentum has challenged the oft hypothesized and heavily mediatized season of unified Arab awakening. The political economy of communications differed across the affected region making it evident that these countries were in different stages of social, economic, political and digital development. This informs why different regimes were more or less vulnerable to opposition (including cyberactivism) and why the structure of opposition, in turn, varied.  Though resisting techno-optimist narratives, the paper seeks to explain the communicative and connective power of social media in the Arab context as well as its disruptive potential in discourse-shaping. In setting up the stage for street protests, the use of ICT’s by Arab activists most crucially aimed at revealing an accurate picture of their respective societies, not just within but also to a broader international audience. Rather than support the cohesive neoliberal success stories quoted in the international media, the respective online Arab publics cast film onto the reality of everyday economic and political repression. Moreover, Arab cyberactivists created virtual forums for citizen journalism through enabling ordinary citizens to question regime legitimacy and record instances of governmental brutality, corruption and violations of human rights. This allowed for the continued exchange of civic discourse, deliberation and articulation, enhancing the region’s social capital and contributing to the growth of a tentative virtual civil society.
The liberating role of cyberspace in overcoming gender, class and geographical barriers is, however, tempered in the final analysis by the contradictory impact of networked technologies –  in terms of the quality of content generated and by whom as well as the capacity of regimes and traditional political actors to monitor, control and manipulate online communication (“Tyrants can tweet too”). Further, in the persisting debate between those on the optimist and pessimist sides of networked technology communication, an underlying tension is that while leaderless network structures can mobilize and even unite a disparate coalition of protestors around issue- specific demands such as “The people want the fall of the regime”, they are ineffective at articulating nuanced demands in the subsequent negotiation processes. Cyberactors are also reluctant to participate in the political processes of party building and institutional organization. In other words, digital storytelling supersedes the political communiqué and expressive protest- politics tends to depoliticize the impact of cyberactivism.

Nobel laureate Niko Tinbergen coined the term ‘supernormal stimulus’ after discovering that birds who lay small, pale blue eggs speckled with grey prefer to sit on larger, bright blue eggs with black polka-dots. He found that he could exaggerate the key qualities of any natural stimulus to produce a stronger reaction yet--be it nurturance, courtship, fear or aggression.
    Animals encounter supernormal stimuli mostly when experimenters build them.  Humans can generate their own and media are awash with them: friendly smiling faces more consistently welcoming than ones own friends, animated cartoon characters with wider eyes than any real child’s, seductive bodies exceeding any proportions found in nature, and a huge array of supernatural menaces.
    This chapter examines film, television, spectator sports, video games, and social websites as well as more traditional media such as print and musical performance in terms of the concept of supernormal stimuli.

When you see it coming... but nobody listens: this paper was given at a conference in in 1995 and published in 1996. Twenty years later, unfortunately I was right.
Luciano Floridi, (1996) "Brave.Net.World: the Internet as a disinformation superhighway?", The Electronic Library, Vol. 14 Issue: 6, pp.509-514, https://doi.org/10.1108/eb045517