Twitter

TOC:
Preface (by Professor Jim Martin)
1. Introduction: Social Media and the Cultural Movement Toward 'Searchable Talk'
2. Social Media as Corpora
3. Evaluative Language Online
4. Internet Slang
5. Internet Memes
6. Internet Humour and Fail: "The world is full of #fail tonight"
7. Online Political Discourse
8. Ambient Affiliation
9. Conclusion: Social Media and Internet Linguistics

The primary purpose of this research is to examine the process of adoption of social media in small businesses and investigate the impact it has on the business network of the owner/entrepreneur.
The intended output of the investigation is to construct a robust social media adoption model specifically designed for small business.
The model will be designed in a manner which will be helpful for practitioners and academics alike.

Social media are gaining prominence as an element of destination marketing organisation
(DMO) marketing strategy at a time when public sector cuts in their funding are requiring
them to seek greater value in the way marketing budgets are spent. Social media offers
DMOs with a tool to reach a global audience with limited resources. The aim of this
study is to explore the usage of social media among the DMOs of the top 10 most
visited countries by international tourists. The study uses content analysis and semistructured
interviews to examine the usage and impact of social media marketing
strategies and identifies a framework of best practice for other national tourism
organizations (NTOs) to learn from. The study argues that social media usage among
top DMOs is still largely experimental and that strategies vary significantly.

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

We examine the widely popular social phenomenon of "selfies" (self-portraits uploaded and shared in social media) in terms of the observed positive relationship between this individualistic form of social media usage and narcissism. We conducted a cross-lagged analysis of a two-wave, representative panel survey to understand whether narcissists take selfies as an outlet for maintaining their positive self-views (the self-selection hypothesis), or if by taking selfies' users would increase their level of narcissism (the media effect hypothesis). The findings , however, are consistent with both hypotheses, suggesting a self-reinforcement effect: whereas narcissist individuals take selfies more frequently over time, this increase in selfie production raises subsequent levels of narcissism.

Massive datasets of communication are challenging traditional, human-driven approaches to content analysis. Computational methods present enticing solutions to these problems but in many cases are insufficient on their own. We argue that an approach blending computational and manual methods throughout the content analysis process may yield more fruitful results, and draw on a case study of news sourcing on Twitter to illustrate this hybrid approach in action. Careful combinations of computational and manual techniques can preserve the strengths of traditional content analysis, with its systematic rigor and contextual sensitivity, while also maximizing the large-scale capacity of Big Data and the algorithmic accuracy of computational methods.

Twitter is an Internet social-network and micro-blogging platform with both mass and interpersonal communication features for sharing 140-character messages, called tweets, with other people, called followers. Hierarchical OLS regression of survey results from 317 Twitter users found that the more months a person is active on Twitter and the more hours per week the person spends on Twitter, the more the person gratifies a need for an informal sense of camaraderie, called connection, with other users. Controlling for demographic variables does not diminish this positive relationship. Additionally, frequency of tweeting and number of @replies, public messages between Twitter users, mediate the relationship between active Twitter use and gratifying a need for connection. Results are discussed in light of uses and gratifications theory.

Background: Students in the modern world are busy using social media for different purposes along with other activities. Research studies revealed that excessive use of social media influence the mental health of students. This study was design to measure the relationship of social media and depression among university students. Objectives: The main objectives of the study were, to investigate the perception of university students regarding the usage of social media networks, to find out gender-wise differences of university students in using social media networks and depression level and to measure the relationship of social media and depression among university students. Subjects and Methods: Following quantitative correlational research design, the sample which was consists of 200 Facebook and Twitter users comprising of 123 male and 77 female students from university of Swat and Peshawar were surveyed through two research instruments i.e. a questionnaire and Beck Depression Inventory (BDI). Results: The main findings of the study were; most of the male social media users were more depressed than female. The students who spent more time on social media were found depressed. The students who spent more time on social media for searching health information and playing games were more depressed than those who used social media for chat with friends and family. Conclusion: It was concluded that male students who spent more time on social media were found more depressed than female and students who used social media for searching health information and playing games were more depressed than those who used social media for chat with friends and family.

At a time when news organizations are struggling to grab the attention of audiences in a media-saturated environment, social networking sites (SNS) have created novel opportunities for journalists to connect with followers online—raising questions about how types of social media use might be associated with forging greater connection with users. Just as satire has proven a potent force for attracting audiences to fake news TV programs, it’s reasonable to consider that humor might be an emerging tool for connection in social media spaces where journalists increasingly conduct their work. Through a content analysis of more than 22,000 tweets (or microblog posts), this study examines the extent to which the 430 most-followed journalists on Twitter are using humor—and how such use is associated with other forms of engagement on Twitter. Findings indicate that a journalist’s use of humor is closely associated with sharing opinion and personal life details, and engaging in interpersonal discussion. Moreover, the use of humor is positively related to a journalist’s level of activity on Twitter, suggesting that journalists who become more accustomed to this social space are more apt to adopt its milieu of informality, conversation, and humor. Finally, journalists from less elite news organizations tend to use humor more frequently. These and other findings are discussed in light of challenges facing the journalism field as it negotiates questions of participation and professionalism in digital media spaces.

In this chapter, I will discuss three modes of self-representation in social media: visual, written and quantitative, building upon my book Seeing Ourselves Through Technology: How We Use Selfies, Blogs, and Wearable Devices to See and Shape Ourselves (Rettberg 2014b). Visual self-representation includes selfies, of course, but also other images and icons that we use to express ourselves, such as the photos we choose to share on Facebook or the layout we choose for a Tumblr log. Written self-representations can be blogs or online diaries, but also the many written status updates we share on sites like Facebook, Twitter or in comments on Instagram. The third mode I will discuss is quantified self-representation, which is becoming increasingly common as phones become step-counters and apps give us more and more opportunities to represent our lives through numbers and graphs. Quantified self-representation can mean extensive and deliberate self-tracking, as we see in the quantified self movement, or it can be something as simple as swiping right to add a filter to a Snapchat image showing the temperature where we are or the speed at which we are moving. Often the three modes overlap in social media, as with a Snapchat image that includes numerical information. A selfie with overlaid text uses both the visual and written modes of self-representation, and emoji can be understood both as part of an alphabet and as visual communication. Before discussing visual, written and quantitative kinds of self-representation in social media, we need to think about the term representation. Why are these forms of self-expression representations and not presentations?

To deepen our understanding of the relationship between social media and political change during the Egyptian uprising of early 2011, events in Tahrir Square must be situated in a larger context of media use and recent history of online activism. For several years, the most successful social movements in Egypt, including Kefaya, the April 6th Youth, and We are all Khaled Said, were those using social media to expand networks of disaffected Egyptians, broker relations between activists, and globalize the resources and reach of opposition leaders. Social media afforded these opposition leaders the means to shape repertoires of contention, frame the issues, propagate unifying symbols, and transform online activism into offline protests.

"Emergent Digital Ethnographic Methods for Social Research" aims to equip social researchers in academia and industry with the knowledge to understand five emergent technologies and their methodological applications to digital ethnography. The chapter defines digital ethnography, discusses the benefits and weaknesses of this method, and provides examples of digital ethnographies. The chapter also presents a thorough examination of five digital ethnographic technologies: fieldnotes with blogs/wikis, embedded ethnographic technologies, digital pens, CMS groupware, and Twitter. Despite the vast possibilities presented by emergent technologies, the chapter argues for multiple ethnographic methods (i.e., digital methods combined with traditional, face-to-face ethnography). The chapter also includes a discussion of the costs, benefits, ethical implications, and future directions of digital ethnographies. Ultimately, the chapter sees digital ethnographic methods for social inquiry continuing to expand with developments in ubiquitous computing.

L’idea di scrivere una tesi sulle glottotecnologie nasce sotto la spinta di due diverse ragioni. La prima è legata alla mia passione verso l’informatica e il mondo h itech. La seconda
nasce dal desiderio di far scoprire alle persone, e sopratutto ai docenti, come utilizzare le tecnologie informatiche della comunicazione , le cosidette TIC. Abbinando questi due aspetti alle lingue e alla letteratura, che sono state l’oggetto di studio principale durante gli anni della mia Laurea triennale, ho deciso di investire in un progetto riguardo l’utilizzo delle tecnologie a scopi didattici per insegnare la letteratura straniera a scuola.
La situazione attuale di costante “mummificazione” della scuola irrigidisce a volte il pensiero degli studenti, che lottano contro il ragionamento a senso unico dell’insegnante retrogrado. Per
questo motivo bisogna introdurre le tecnologie educative agli studenti, evitando di cadere nel paradosso di u tilizzarle per trasmettere competenze tradizionali attraverso procedure didattiche conservatrici.

Abstrak Perkembangan Internet di Indonesia cukup pesat, hal ini ditandai dengan meningkatnya penggunaan jejaring sosial, khususnya Twitter. Untuk mengetahui pandangan masyarakat terhadap suatu pemerintahan dapat digunakan analisis sentimen menggunakan data Twitter. Penelitian ini melakukan analisis sentimen terhadap pemerintahan Jokowi dalam bidang politik, ekonomi dan hukum. Metode untuk mengklasifikasikan sentimen pada tweet berdasarkan kamus leksikon. Data twitter dikumpulkan selama satu bulan dari tanggal 1 sampai 31 Oktober 2015 berjumlah 6489, 3967 dan 8018 untuk bidang politik, ekonomi dan hukum. Pengklasifikasian twitter menjadi tiga kelompok, positif, negatif dan netral. Secara umum hasil uji coba menunjukkan bahwa sebagian besar data twitter diklasifikasikan sebagai netral. Jika dilihat hanya sentimen positif dan sentimen negatif maka untuk bidang politik dan ekonomi sentimen positif lebih tinggi, sedangkan untuk bidang hukum sentimen negatif lebih tinggi.

Citizen Sentiment Analysis To Indonesian Government Using Data Twitter Abstract The development of the Internet in Indonesia is quite rapid, it is marked by the increasing use of social networks, especially Twitter. To find out the public's view of a government may use sentiment analysis using Twitter data. This research analyzes citizen sentiment to Indonesian government in the fields of politics, economics and law. The method to classify sentiment in a tweet based on lexicon of those fields. We collect data Twitter during one month in October 2015, the number of data are 6489, 3967 and 8018 for the fields of politics, economics and law, respectively. We classify the data into three groups: positive, negative and neutral. In general, results of experiments showed that most of the data twitter classified as neutral. When only include positive and negative sentiment, there is higher positive sentiment on politics and economic fields, while negative sentiment higher for the laws field.

Due to its rapid speed of information spread, wide user bases, and extreme mobility, Twitter is drawing attention as a potential emergency reporting tool under extreme events. However, at the same time, Twitter is sometimes despised as a citizen based non-professional social medium for propagating misinformation, rumors, and, in extreme case, propaganda. This study explores the working dynamics of rumor mill by analyzing Twitter data of Haiti Earthquake 2010. For this analysis, two key variables of anxiety and informational certainty are employed from rumor theory, and their interactive dynamics are measured by both quantitative and qualitative methods. Our research finds that certain information with credible sources contribute to suppress the level of anxiety in Twitter community, which leads to rumor controlling and high information quality.

This paper focuses on the micro-blogging service Twitter, looking at source credibility for information shared in relation to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant disaster in Japan. We look at the sources, credibility, and between-language differences in information shared in the month following the disaster. Messages were categorized by user, location, language, type, and credibility of information source. Tweets with reference to third-party information made up the bulk of messages sent, and it was also found that a majority of those sources were highly credible, including established institutions, traditional media outlets, and highly credible individuals. In general, profile anonymity proved to be correlated with a higher propensity to share information from low credibility sources. However, Japanese-language tweeters, while more likely to have anonymous profiles, referenced low-credibility sources less often than non-Japanese tweeters, suggesting proximity to the disaster mediating the degree of credibility of shared content.

Arab World English Journal (AWEJ) Special Issue on CALL No.2 July, 2015     
                                                                                                                                                                  Pp. 134 –149






The Effect of Twitter on Developing Writing Skill in English as a Foreign Language



Mervat Abd Elfatah Ali Said Ahmed
Oklt Alsqoor College of Science and Arts
Qassim University
Saudi Arabia




Abstract
This study aimed at investigating the effect of twitter on EFL writing and whether twitter has an effect on: ideas and content, organization, voice and style. This study followed a pretest-posttest experimental-control group design. Two intact classes were chosen to be the sample of the study from level four: one class to be an experimental group and the other class to be the control group. Instrument of the study was an EFL writing test. Students in both the experimental and control groups were pre-tested on their writing skills using the EFL writing test. Students in the experimental group were taught using Twitter and students in the control group were taught using the traditional method of teaching writing. Finally, students in both groups were post-tested using the EFL writing test. The study showed that the experimental group outperformed the control group on post-testing of writing. This difference can be attributed to using Twitter in teaching writing.

Keywords: EFL-Twitter- writing skill

Currently, the world as we know it is going through a lot of progress on the development of information and communication technology. People are getting away from old habits like reading news on a piece of paper such as magazines or newspapers. Now we are getting used to access social networks on the internet, along with the presence of modern gadgetry like Laptops, Smartphones, PC Tablets, or any other sophisticated gadgets. These technology developments have allowed us to access any information anywhere, anytime, and communicate with anyone. The netizens (internet citizens) can also directly contribute our personal opinion regarding the issues we are talking about on our social networks, and participate in the creation process of public opinion. The emergence of these social networks has been eradicating the barriers between countries around the world, and brings international netizens closer to understand each other’s issues. The influence of social networks is very effective, because people usually use them every day and everywhere on their gadgets. One of the most influential social networks around is Twitter.
Twitter is considered as the one of the most popular social network around. People prefer Twitter rather than other social networks like Facebook because of its efficacy and efficiency. We can only write 140 words for each Tweet in Twitter. At the beginning, nobody realized how 140 words could change the way people see things. But at last, it’s becoming a huge phenomenon since US president Barack Obama joined the Twitter in 2007, and followed by other world leaders and government representatives around the world.
Twitter has also been proven as an effective media for the government as a state actor to interact with their citizens, or even citizens from other countries. Twitter is also an effective media for the other non-state actors such as NGOs and private citizens to contribute their aspirations regarding the government’s policies. International public opinions from the government and the people is completing each other, sometimes molded or even backlashes through Twitter.
This paper will give further analysis on how Twitter affects contemporary public diplomacy in general, and how the international actors (both non-state and state actors) have tried to utilize Twitter in order to do a more effective and modern form of public diplomacy.

We propose a framework through which the aims, strategies, tactics and actors participating in information operations can be understood.

We begin by defining information operations, stressing the breadth of tactics and strategies we must contend with and building a taxonomy of information operations. We expand this with three case studies of Russian information operations in Germany, France and Italy examining the patterns and themes in tweets definitively attributed to Russian information operations. Finally, we set out some lessons, and reflect on the ramifications of our conclusions for EU policymakers in advance of the upcoming EU elections.

In languages like French with only two noun classes, masculine and feminine, human beings must fit into one of these two categories in order to be expressed by language. When gender accord is grammatically required but only masculine and feminine forms of inflection are available to speakers, those whose gender identity falls outside of the male/female binary are forced to claim an identity through language that is in conflict with their own, which makes linguistic representation nearly impossible and can contribute to feelings of dysphoria. Given these constraints, do gender nonconforming French speakers tend towards using masculine gender accord, feminine gender accord, or create innovative neutral forms of gender agreement? To begin to answer these questions, this paper explores the online language practices of 20 nonbinary and agender French users on Twitter by extracting all gender-inflected forms from the first 30 pages of each user’s most recent tweets. Significant variation is found for each user, with half of all users employing a combination of both masculine and nonbinary forms and only 4 users found to use a single form of gender accord. The most common forms of nonbinary language emerging from the data are inclusive punctuated affixes (étudiant.e, obligé.e), nonbinary 3rd-person pronoun iel, and nonbinary demonstrative pronouns celleux and elleux. The stylistic variability of gender agreement found across users is interpreted as both a consequence of the nonstandard and subversive nature of nonbinary language, and as a reflection of the diversity of nonbinary identities and their individuality in linguistic expression. The need for nonbinary language is clearly supported, but the future of specific nonbinary forms remains uncertain.

This article will demonstrate how the notion of 'phatic communion' has become an increasingly significant part of digital media culture alongside the rise of online networking practices. Through a consideration of the new media objects of blogs, social networking profiles and microblogs, along with their associated practices, I will argue, that the social contexts of 'individualization' and 'network sociality', alongside the technological developments associated with pervasive communication and 'connected presence' has led to an online media culture increasingly dominated by phatic communications. That is, communications which have purely social (networking) and not informational or dialogic intents. I conclude with a discussion of the potential nihilistic consequences of such a culture.


Key Words: blogging • database culture • microblogging • network sociality • phatic • post-social • social networking

Despite the widespread use of social media by students and its increased use by instructors,very little empirical evidence is available concerning the impact of social media use on student learning and engagement. This paper describes our semester-long experimental study to determine if using Twitter – the microblogging and social networking platform most amenable to ongoing, public dialogue – for educationally relevant purposes can impact college student engagement and grades. A total of 125 students taking a first year seminar course for pre-health professional majors participated in this study (70 in the experimental group and 55 in the control group). With the experimental group, Twitter was used for various types of academic and co-curricular discussions. Engagement was quantified by using a 19-item scale based on the National Survey of Student Engagement. To assess differences in engagement and grades, we used mixed effects analysis of variance (ANOVA) models, with class sections nested within treatment groups. We also conducted content analyses of samples of Twitter exchanges. The ANOVA results showed that the experimental group had a significantly greater increase in engagement than the control group, as well as higher semester grade point averages. Analyses of Twitter communications showed that students and faculty were both highly engaged in the learning process in ways that transcended traditional classroom activities. This study provides experimental evidence that Twitter can be used as an educational tool to help engage students and to mobilize faculty into a more active and participatory role.

Over the past decade, there has been a growing public fascination with the phenomenon of connectedness. One of the most important ways in which society is now connected is through social media –such as social networking sites. While both students and higher education institutions seem to be utilizing social media more and more, there still are enormous challenges in trying to understand the new dynamics generated by social media in higher education, particularly for the context of community colleges.

This research report has several purposes. The first is to document and to describe the various ways in which social media is used specifically by community colleges across the United States. Second, this report explores community college leaders’ perspectives on the value, purpose, and challenges of social media to better understand:

1. The types of social media used by community colleges.
2. Community college leaders’ perspectives, knowledge, and opinions regarding the value of social media, the various uses of social media, the barriers to using social media, and the role social media should play in the specific context of community colleges.

This chapter covers the steps you must consider when crafting a strategy for exposing corruption and
mismanagement through social media. Along with practical advice and thought-provoking questions, it
examines several case studies which throw light upon how social media has been and is being used to
expose corruption around the world.

We live in a dense social network of interactions that connect us to people, information, events and places facilitating or
constraining the flow of information, ideas, perceptions, etc., into an instant and massive network communication system.
We create cognitive artefacts that integrate data visualization and cognitive processes in order to increase our ability to understand
the complexity of the external world, made even more complex with the Internet and rise of social media. In this
paper, we combine Twitter, as a type of fieldwork site, and Social Networks Analysis (SNA), as both an analytic framework
and set of methods, to capture, analyze, and visualize empirical data, both statically (figure representing point in time) and
dynamically (video reflecting longitudinal data). We present Flocker, a tool designed for real-time visualization and representation
of network activity using Twitter as an illustrative case.

This research paper examines thoroughly and critically all the causes and facilitators of the Arab Spring - from twitter and facebook to the relative deprivation of the numerous youth in the Arab World.  In addition, this research paper for the first time outlines the necessary and sufficient conditions under which regime change was effectuated and, thus, explains the resilience of certain regimes and the vulnerability of others.

Twitter is a common tool in the hacktivism of Anonymous operatives seeking to reduce the amount of evil in the world. This chapter examines two Anonymous operations to elucidate the uncertain terrain of Twitter ethics: "OpAntiBully," a concerted effort to harass and shame alleged online bullies, and "OpPedoFear," an operation to identify (through civilian online sting operations) and publicly shame putative pedophiles. These two cases are interesting for those studying communication ethics because they take advantage of Twitter’s incredibly responsive and interconnected forms of communication. Furthermore, both cases employ “ doxing ” (d0xing), the revealing of private identifying information of online selves that are accused of nefarious online and offline conduct, as a means for pursuing offline revenge.

In the age of digital world, social media are said to have an impact on the public sphere and communication in the society. Especially social media have been extensively using in political context.

Popular social network sites like Facebook and Twitter are believed to have the potential for increasing political participation. While, microblogging site Twitter is an ideal platform for political institutions to spread not only information in general but also political opinions publicly. Political institutions, politicians, political parties, etc. have also begun to use social media or community groups for the purpose of entering into direct dialogs with citizens and encouraging more political discussions.

The study aims to examine the extent use of social media by the political parties to promote their image and political messages, among their supporters and peoples in social media. The study intends to examine the efforts of social media use pattern in the virtual environment.