Social Meida

This research work was carried out to assess UNIUYO students' use of social media. For an empirical study of this type, four objectives which translated into four research questions were formulated. A sample size of 370 comprising 6 faculties from the 13 faculties in the University of Uyo was chosen using Philip Meyer's guide for sample selection. Data were collected through the administration of questionnaire on respondents in the six faculties-Arts, Business Administration, Social Science, Law, Environmental Studies, and Sciences. The study reveals UNIUYO students use social media to get informed on news events and issues happening in the society, to interact with friends, find educational documents, etc and they use it daily to a greater extent. The research, however recommends students to be, not just receivers, but gatherers and presenters of information through citizen journalism as well as urging heavy users to moderate their use of these sites to avoid addiction through creating balance between their offline and online lives.

Social media tools permeate the college student experience including for those students who hold leadership positions on campus. The purpose of this study was to document the experiences and online behaviors of 40 junior and senior
student leaders on digital communication tools. The study was conducted at two institutions in the western United States. Three research questions guided the sequential
exploratory mixed methods study connecting student leadership, the presentation of identity, and decision-making with social media use. The study involved a three phase
mixed methods analysis of focus group interviews and 2,220 social media posts.

Five major findings surfaced, including (a) social media impact starting in K-12 (b) college student leaders’ navigation of social media (c) presentation of digital identity (d) the beginning of leadership presence and possibilities and (e) significance of social media guidance in college. These findings suggest college student educators should implement holistic digital leadership education. Initiatives should begin early, prior to
student enrollment in higher education, focusing on identity expression, positivepossibilities-based perspectives, with a focus on social media’s potential impact on student groups, social communities, and social change. Findings from this study can mobilize higher education professionals, student peers, and parents to become digital educators, providing tools for students to implement in their digital practices.

Boko Haram insurgency in Nigeria has shown a flaw in the security system of the country. This has to the country clamoring for a system that works in curbing the insurgency. CCTV is recognized globally as a device that provides visibility in the society. This visibility is assumed to caution people in the society which leads to a disciplined society devoid of crime. CCTV is present in Abuja city; the capital territory of Nigeria, yet the activities of Boko Haram still thrive in the city. The use of CCTV in Nigeria, focusing on Abuja has been put to question as the attacks has taken place despite the presence of CCTV.
The mainstay of this research seeks to explore the effectiveness of CCTV as defined by its functions which is identification and deterrence in tackling Boko Harm insurgency. It explores the influence of CCTV on the behavior of Nigerians. The study uses discourse analysis in interpreting Boko Haram events and occurrences in Nigeria to investigate and get meanings which constructs social reality.

This textual analysis examined the framing of Ferguson, Missouri, that emerged following Michael Brown’s death in 2014. The analysis indicates tweets focused on the protests that followed and the racial nature of the incident. The most salient themes characterized Ferguson within the context of “bigger picture” issues, “otherness” narratives and “protest” frames. Many tweets transmitted a racialized tone, characterizing Ferguson as a “less than desirable town with mostly Black residents and low-life thugs.” This study provides support for the use of textual analysis in studies of social media platforms and indicates it is imperative to look at representations of race, power and cultural narratives in popular mass media messages.

Since the election of Donald Trump as president of the United States, an intense debate has developed around the connection between social media and populist movements. In this article, I put forward some theses about the reasons for the apparent ‘elective affinity’ between social media and populism. I argue that the match between social media and populist politics derives from the way in which the mass networking capabilities of social media, at the time of a ‘mass web’ involving billions of people worldwide, provide a suitable channel for the mass politics and the appeals to the people typical of populism. But this affinity also needs to be understood in light of the rebellious narrative that has come to be associated with social media at times in which rapid technological development has coincided with a profound economic crisis, shaking the legitimacy of the neoliberal order. This question is explored by examining the role acquired by social media in populist movements as the people’s voice and the people’s rally, providing, on the one hand, with a means for disaffected individuals to express themselves and, on the other hand, with a space in which disgruntled Internet users could gather and form partisan online crowds.

This paper compares offline friendships of preadolescents and adolescents with and without a social network site (SNS) account, and for those who reported having an SNS account, it compares their offline and online friendships. The sample consisted of 1,890 preadolescents and adolescents aged 10 to 18 years, 72.1% of them with an SNS account. All participants had to describe a good friend whom they meet predominantly offline. The participants with an SNS account additionally had to describe a good SNS friend whom they meet predominantly online. Questionnaires were used to assess perceived friendship quality and the topics primarily discussed with friends. The results showed that participating at an SNS was not connected to friendship quality. However, participants without an SNS account discussed personal problems less often with their offline friends. Participants who reported having an SNS account perceived higher offline compared to online friendship quality. Additionally, female sex, initial offline contact, and frequency of contact had a positive effect on online and offline friendship quality.

This paper aims to explore all the misinformation outspread regarding COVID-19 via Social Media platforms. The purpose of this paper is to find out that how these misinformation has increased the discourse of fear and panic among Pakistani society. The data were also collected from different social media sites which are Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp by using some specific hashtags. The paper observed the Content Analysis methodology to determine the propagation of misconception regarding COVID-19, and to find out how social media is the biggest source for fake or false information in Pakistan. This paper used different Hashtags like #COVID19, #coronavirus #pandemic, #Coronaviruspakistan and many more. The study reveals that social media is the biggest source of misinformation regarding coronavirus, and along with that different propagated conspiracies have also been discovered. However, there are still some platforms that are a source of authentic information. Hence, I would like to recommend social media companies control the fake/false information regarding any crisis while before disseminating any sort of information research to make sure it's real information.

Background: As the use of electronic cigarettes (e-cigarettes) rises, social media likely influences public awareness and perception of this emerging tobacco product.
Objective: This study examined the public conversation on Twitter to determine overarching themes and insights for trending topics from commercial and consumer users.
Methods: Text mining uncovered key patterns and important topics for e-cigarettes on Twitter. SAS Text Miner 12.1 software (SAS Institute Inc) was used for descriptive text mining to reveal the primary topics from tweets collected from March 24, 2015, to July 3, 2015, using a Python script in conjunction with Twitter’s streaming application programming interface. A total of 18 keywords related to e-cigarettes were used and resulted in a total of 872,544 tweets that were sorted into overarching themes through a text topic node for tweets (126,127) and retweets (114,451) that represented more than 1% of the conversation.
Results: While some of the final themes were marketing-focused, many topics represented diverse proponent and user conversations that included discussion of policies, personal experiences, and the differentiation of e-cigarettes from traditional tobacco, often by pointing to the lack of evidence for the harm or risks of e-cigarettes or taking the position that e-cigarettes should be promoted as smoking cessation devices.
Conclusions: These findings reveal that unique, large-scale public conversations are occurring on Twitter alongside e-cigarette advertising and promotion. Proponents and users are turning to social media to share knowledge, experience, and questions about e-cigarette use. Future research should focus on these unique conversations to understand how they influence attitudes towards and use of e-cigarettes.

O presente relatório resulta de uma análise do impacto geracional na relação dos portugueses com os media e com uma série de actividades comunicacionais caracterizam o quotidiano mediático da sociedade portuguesa. Este é um estudo pioneiro entre a investigação realizada no contexto do OberCom – Observatório da Comunicação.
O conceito de “geração” é um tema de intenso debate no campo das ciências sociais e a discussão do mesmo implica a aceitação de que determinados grupos de indivíduos, em grupos etários homogéneos, terão porventura nascido e sido socializados em contextos semelhantes, que permitem a definição de padrões e características comuns.
Na esfera dos media e comunicação, é comum o emprego do termo geração para definir conjuntos de pessoas com comportamentos semelhantes, a agir em bloco e em massa – termos como a “geração MTV”, “geração youtube” ou “geração Facebook” tornaram-se comuns ao longo dos últimos anos, mas este esforço de agregação e homogeneização das práticas tende a procurar uma definição daquilo que torna os indivíduos semelhantes, e a ignorar discrepâncias dentro de cada “geração”, relativamente às suas práticas.
Por essa razão, o campo dos media é particularmente vulnerável a estudos insuficientemente consolidados sobre estudos geracionais, na medida em que é um campo muito dinâmico, onde a mudança ocorre a uma grande velocidade. No entanto, certas alterações ao nível da evolução da comunicação podem motivar alterações profundas nos comportamentos dos indivíduos, mesmo a nível físico. Um caso paradigmático é o do conceito de “thumb generation” ou “thumb tribe”, isto é, a “geração” nascida a partir de 1985, cujos adolescentes comunicaram em larga escala através do uso de aparelhos móveis. Sendo esses aparelhos de pequena dimensão, operados com apenas uma mão, estamos perante uma geração que interagiu comunicacionalmente usando o polegar nestes pequenos aparelhos. Vários estudos demonstraram que esta é, efectivamente, uma marca geracional.

El COVID-19 se convirtió en un suceso global que modificó todas las dimensiones de la vida social, dando lugar a un hecho comunicacional sin precedentes: por primera vez en la historia de las pandemias una enfermedad infecciosa ha logrado convertirse en un fenómeno mediático que totaliza el campo de la comunicación social.

Al interior de éste, la comunicación publicitaria se ha visto afectada por esta problemática mundial a partir del surgimiento de crisis comunicacionales, de identidad de marca y de posicionamiento junto a formas de interpelar a los consumidores que resultaban inadecuadas en tiempos de aislamiento social. Se trata de crisis que demostraron la necesidad urgente de humanizar a las marcas mediante nuevas campañas que permitiesen transmitir mensajes relevantes en los que prime la concientización frente a la pandemia, la solidaridad y el compromiso social.

El objetivo de este artículo será abordar el ámbito local para analizar las campañas publicitarias lanzadas luego de la implementación del Aislamiento Social, Preventivo y Obligatorio (ASPO)1para examinar –a partir de un análisis socio semiótico– los enunciados producidos en tiempos de pandemia y sus efectos de sentido, observando también las condiciones sociales que los hicieron posibles.

Finalmente, se intentará trazar puntos de conexión entre estas campañas para esbozar algunas reflexiones que permitan vislumbrar el escenario futuro de la comunicación publicitaria y la relación entre marcas y consumidores que la post pandemia instaurará

Palabras clave: COVID-19, comunicación publicitaria, marcas, pandemia, compromiso social, nueva normalidad.

Social media tools permeate the college student experience including for those students who hold leadership positions on campus. The purpose of this study was to document the experiences and online behaviors of 40 junior and senior student leaders on digital communication tools. The study was conducted at two institutions in the western United States. Three research questions guided the sequential exploratory mixed methods study connecting student leadership, the presentation of identity, and decision-making with social media use. The study involved a three phase mixed methods analysis of focus group interviews and 2,220 social media posts. Five major findings surfaced, including (a) social media impact starting in K-12 (b) college student leaders’ navigation of social media (c) presentation of digital identity (d) the beginning of leadership presence and possibilities and (e) significance of social media guidance in college. These findings suggest college student educators should implement holistic digital leadership education. Initiatives should begin early, prior to student enrollment in higher education, focusing on identity expression, positivepossibilities-based perspectives, with a focus on social media’s potential impact on student groups, social communities, and social change. Findings from this study can mobilize higher education professionals, student peers, and parents to become digital educators, providing tools for students to implement in their digital practices.

Pakistan’s polio eradication program faces immense challenges, including misinformation on social media that resulted in an increased number of new polio cases in 2019, when viral misleading videos were shared online. In recent years, misinformation has played a critical role in shifting the public’s attitude on polio vaccination acceptance in Pakistan. Vaccine misinformation on social media marked a turning point in information consumption habits of Pakistanis and the content moderation policies of social media platforms, as well as the relationship between the government of Pakistan and tech giants like Facebook, Google, and Twitter. This commentary suggests that instead of relying on national-level information, Pakistan’s provincial and local health departments should engage with local users on social media to correct vaccine misinformation about polio. Further, vaccine communication must acknowledge the existing information gaps, and take into account readers’ and viewers’ concerns. To mitigate the amount and spread of visual content related to vaccine misinformation, monitoring visual misinformation more closely, perhaps using the AI capabilities of Google’s DeepMind, would be helpful.

This textual analysis examined the framing of Ferguson, Missouri, that emerged following Michael Brown’s death in 2014. The analysis indicates tweets focused on the protests that followed and the racial nature of the incident. The most salient themes characterized Ferguson within the context of “bigger picture” issues, “otherness” narratives and “protest” frames. Many tweets transmitted a racialized tone, characterizing Ferguson as a “less than desirable town with mostly Black residents and low-life thugs.” This study provides support for the use of textual analysis in studies of social media platforms and indicates it is imperative to look at representations of race, power and cultural narratives in popular mass media messages.