Social Media as a Setting for Accounting Research

Navigating Social Media in #Ophthalmology

Driven by the need to enhance user traffic on social media (SM) platforms for increasing their advertising revenues, SM platforms are experimenting with new content creation features. However, it is unclear if such initiatives are also beneficial for SM profile owners such as influencers, who are the prime content creators on the SM platforms who use SM posts to build their influence within their network of followers. Our study investigates the effect of introducing one such new SM feature: the “story” on the creation and consumption of SM posts. Leveraging social penetration theory, we hypothesize the influence of introducing story feature on (1) the frequency of SM post creation by profile owners and (2) the extent of follower engagement with SM posts. Employing a quasi-experimental design, we find that the introduction of the story feature reduces the frequency of SM post creation, but the enhanced self-disclosure through the story feature increases follower engagement with the SM posts. However, these effects are moderated by the situating culture of the SM communities: while low-power-distance cultures value profile owners’ self-disclosure, high-power-distance cultures exhibit a mixed influence. Advancing literature on social penetration theory and SM user engagement, our study demonstrates that new self-disclosive SM content creation features do not necessarily benefit all the concerned stakeholders and that the effectiveness of such features might vary from one community to another. Hence, the intended impact of introducing new SM features needs to be carefully evaluated by SM platforms in a holistic manner.

This chapter examines the phenomenon of internet users attempting to report and prevent online child sexual exploitation (CSE) and child sexual abuse material (CSAM) in the absence of adequate intervention by internet service providers, social media platforms, and government. The chapter discusses the history of online CSE, focusing on regulatory stances over time in which online risks to children have been cast as natural and inevitable by the hegemony of a “cyberlibertarian” ideology. We illustrate the success of this ideology, as well as its profound contradictions and ethical failures, by presenting key examples in which internet users have taken decisive action to prevent online CSE and promote the removal of CSAM. Rejecting simplistic characterizations of “vigilante justice,” we argue instead that the fact that often young internet users report feeling forced to act against online CSE and CSAM undercuts libertarian claims that internet regulation is impossible, unworkable, and unwanted. Recent shifts toward a more progressive ethos of online harm minimization are promising; however, this ethos risks offering a new legitimizing ideology for online business models that will continue to put children at risk of abuse and exploitation. In conclusion, we suggest ways forward toward an internet built in the interests of children, rather than profit.

While hospitals’ health promotion via social media has the potential to be a critical source of health information, research shows racial and ethnic disparities exist in health-related knowledge that may be, in part, related to media representation. The purpose of this study is to examine the racial and ethnic representation of people featured in Washington, D.C. hospitals’ social media platforms to understand how hospitals embed cultural competency into their health communication. By comparing the diversity of images on hospitals’ social media platforms with the demographics of hospitals’ neighboring communities, the researchers intend to highlight opportunities to improve targeted health messaging to underserved communities, particularly Black and Hispanic communities. By analyzing the images and videos posted on the three most popular social media platforms – Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube – for a one-month period, the researchers found that Whites and Asians were over-represented while Hispanics were severely under-represented in hospitals’ social media representation as compared to the community demographics. Increasing the diversity of minority representation on hospitals’ social media-based health promotion may contribute to addressing the social disparities in healthcare.

The paper sets out to evaluate the effects that social media marketing (SMM) can have on the success and eventual sustainability of the small businesses sampled. Other specific objectives were to assess the level at which businesses adopt the usage of social media and identify the most prominent of all available social media platforms that the companies utilise. The quantitative survey method was employed to collect data from 200 employees of small-sized businesses in Oshogbo, Osun State, Nigeria. The collected data was analysed using both descriptive (percentages, mean, standard deviation etc.) and inferential (ANOVA and regression analysis) statistics with the assistance of SPSS v22. With regards to the take up of social media for marketing purposes, almost all the questionnaire items indicated a high level of SMM adoption for the businesses, to the extent that it was actively used, resources were allocated, contents were frequently posted, metrics were tracked, and they reportedly had dedicated teams to engage with the social media platforms. In terms of the types of Social Media (SM) platforms, the businesses have prominence for marketing; Instagram recorded the highest, and in descending order, followed by YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, WhatsApp, and LinkedIn. The results on the effects of SMM on the sustainability of the businesses indicated a strong correlation between the two variables. Firstly, the model was well fitted to the data, significant at F, 28.075; p ≤ .01; and Adjusted R2 = .611, implying that the predictor variable explained 61.1% of the variance in the dependent variable, even after the model was adjusted for errors. When some of the items representing the Independent Variables were disaggregated, the following constructs were very important in explaining the businesses' success with SMM adoption in descending order of importance: allocation of resources, tracking of social media metrics, having a team dedicated to monitoring the platforms, and making social media a priority for their businesses. The remaining factors were insignificant. The study concluded that Social Media Marketing (SMM) significantly impact the sustenance of small businesses if adequately managed and resourced, and for 21st-century businesses, digital marketing and online presence afford the businesses the opportunity to interact with the consumers of their products and services for future lasting engagement and potential benefits that could eventually impact the bottom line positively.

In recent years, a number of social events have attracted widespread attention on various different social media platforms. Among them, the public perceptions of the same event are different on different media platforms. Because of the different privacy of different social media platforms, they have different degrees of influence on the self-construction of users, the composition of interpersonal relationships on social media platforms, and the tendency of public opinion on social media platforms. This paper focuses on two different social media, WeChat and Weibo, and examines the reasons for the phenomenon of "WeChat being silent and Weibo being active" from the perspective of their functions and characteristics and investigates the impact of this phenomenon on public opinion tendencies. This paper concludes that people are more neutral and conservative in commenting on socially focused events on social media platforms where privacy is disclosed to easy acquaintances because of the psychology of building a positive self-image, but on social media platforms with fewer acquaintances, people do not need to be responsible for their own statements, so they are less burdened when speaking, and therefore their statements have more obvious tendencies. Under the influence of this tendency, social media platforms with more privacy will have a more conservative opinion tendency and vice versa, a more aggressive opinion tendency.

Neo-Gnosticism and the American Dissident Right

Government Officials and Politicians: How the First Amendment Applies to Elected Officials' Social Media Pages

Spatial Patterns of Purposeful Social Networking and Socioeconomic Influences: Towards a Mature, Inclusive Networked Society in the U.S.

Social media platforms have transformed communication, engagement, and consumer interaction, significantly influencing sustainable consumption behaviour. With the vast array of social networking and media options available, marketing professionals actively leverage these platforms to shape consumer preferences and purchasing decisions. This study investigates the impact of social media platforms on the sustainable consumption decisions of young people. Adopting a quantitative research methodology, the study employed judgemental sampling to select participants. Data were gathered from 450 respondents via an online questionnaire, and the proposed relationships were assessed using structural equation modelling (SEM) with SmartPLS version 4 to provide a thorough statistical evaluation. Research findings indicate that social media marketing has a substantial impact on sustainable purchase intentions, content quality, and behavioural engagement. Furthermore, the quality of content and levels of behavioural engagement significantly affect sustainable purchase intentions. However, the findings suggest that the social media platforms used for information retrieval do not significantly influence intentions to make sustainable purchases. This study contributes to marketing research by developing a model that examines how social media platforms influence young people’s intentions to purchase sustainably, as well as the impact of social media marketing, engagement, and content quality on these intentions.

Customers frequently use social media (SM) platforms to share and seek information about services. Could the content of customer SM interactions be used for new service development (NSD)? This study analyses: (a) Whether social media input is relevant for NSD? (b) What are the preferred social media platforms for NSD? (c) How social media input can be integrated with the current NSD organisational process? The results highlight the importance of social media input in NSD. Facebook leads the social media pack for relevant NSD input. The SMART roadmap for leveraging the power of social media for NSD has also been suggested.

Social media and on-line interaction can be as significant as the offline environment in shaping youth health behaviour, possibly explaining the association between social media and alcohol use by youth. Social media also presents opportunities for new prevention and intervention strategies. Social media are inherently social, and people are inevitably influenced by the interactions therein [5]. Ng Fat et al. propose that the association between heavier social media use and higher likelihood of more frequent drinking by youth could be due to cultural norms of drinking which are transferred through the on-line context [1, 6]. Prior research work on norms concerning addictive behaviours [7-9] provide support to this notion, suggesting that observed norms are a powerful transferer of health behaviours. The challenge of social media is that they are likely to distort the user's perception of reality due to user activity, contacts and various algorithms [10]. Perceptions of alcohol norms or the impression of how much others are drinking are often over-estimated [2, 11]. This poses a risk to young people who are particularly susceptible to social norms and can lead to many unwanted and harmful behaviour patterns, such as increased drinking. Ng Fat et al. did not investigate the effect of social norms as such, although they discussed youths' sociability both on- and off-line as a potential factor influencing greater alcohol use. However, their results highlight where the gaps exist in understanding how social media and on-line relationships could impact the behaviour of developing youths. Emerging research in the field suggests that social media and virtual interaction in general can be as powerful as the off-line environment in terms of shaping youth behaviour [12]. Ng Fat et al. defined social media use as belonging to social media sites, including Facebook, Myspace and Bebo. However, social media are much more diverse and manifold, warranting wider and more nuanced consideration. Research indicates that social media platforms differ greatly when it comes to interface and content [13]. Social media such as Facebook and Instagram are more user-orientated and on these types of platforms, users typically have a visible identity. Interaction in these services is based on people's mutual relationships and content is mainly shared among a certain set of other users (i.e. friends, followers) [13]. It is possible that, on platforms such as these, social interaction is more meaningful and social influence and behavioural diffusion occur more easily. Social media such as YouTube and Twitter are more content-orientated where networks are established around users’ shared interests. Other users or audiences are more far-reaching and often anonymous [14]. Young individuals are likely to turn towards more interactional social media platforms where communication is mutual [15, 16]. This could also partly explain the clearer pattern between social media use and higher likelihood of more frequent drinking among the 10–15 age group. It is noteworthy that Ng Fat et al. conclude that no direct evidence was found indicating that the rise of social media platforms could be contributing to the increase in non-drinking among youth [17]. While social media use has been associated with adverse health behaviours, the opportunities to employ different on-line platforms for prevention and intervention strategies are abundant. However, future longitudinal research is needed, as social media are rapidly expanding and evolving. New forms of social media may present unforeseeable risks for youth alcohol use and other off-line risk behaviours, but also opportunities for prevention. None.

Social media is being employed to build support for social, economic, and political justice (Selander et al. 2016; Vaast et al. 2014) in movements such as occupy Wall Street, violence against women's movement and global sustainability movement. These movements have used social media in ways that goes beyond simple communications. As social media allows people to produce and share user generated content, they enable a certain set of affordances of these technologies (Bharati et al 2015; Bharati et al 2014). The social media affordances, available to both collective and individual actors, translate into capabilities afforded to social movements (Tufecki 2014). Research on connective action has examined the effects of digital action repertoires on interaction and engagement such as in the Tea Party and Occupy movements (Agarwal et al. 2014; Selander et al. 2016). Social media can also facilitate mobilization of movement and participation by new volunteers and oftentimes provides a transnational character by diffusing actions beyond the virtual (Van Laer and Van Aelst 2010). Conversation, an essential part of social movements, shapes “social life by altering individual and collective understandings, by creating and transforming social ties, by generating cultural materials that are then available for subsequent social interchange, and by establishing, obliterating, or shifting commitments on the part of participants&x201D; (Tilly 2002, p. 122). In a personal interaction that involves repeated organized interactions between individuals, typically, leads to shared values and trust. The role of social media technologies in furthering this conversation has to be studied and its' influence on social movement ascertained. A few scholars have started to investigate social media affordances and capabilities, especially focused on discourse, during contentious collective action. Still the research has been limited to studying mechanisms of participation, development of a sense of collective identity, creation of community, and framing of political discourse (Farrell 2012; Garrett 2006). Social media data on social movements can involve impersonal “like&x201D; and “share&x201D; to more engaged conversations. Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube offer a wide communicative and discourse reach in networks with text, image, audio, and video data. This social media based big data, consisting mostly of unstructured data, comes in the form of social media posts, digital pictures and videos. The symposium will discuss how formal organizational structures and practices might be integrated with social media capabilities to reinforce and enhance social movement organizations as leaders in social change movements. It will explore the characteristics of social media discourse and assess the dynamics of social movements and, subsequent, impact on real-world protests. The symposium will also demonstrate how discourse analysis can be applied visually in order to understand communication patterns. The panel symposium will focus on theoretical and methodological challenges of social media analytics, big data and social movements. Panelists will engage the audience in an interactive discussion on: 1) Theoretical challenges: a. How and why are social movement recruitment and engagement mechanisms being impacted as a result of social media? b. How do we advance theory on social media and social movements when we are overwhelmed with social media based big data? c. What approach should we undertake if big data analysis contradicts most theories on social media and social movements? d. How do we address the issue of generalizability of social media and social movement research when data collection was limited to one social media platform, albeit involving big data? 2) Methodological challenges: a. What methodological approaches have worked in the analysis of social media, big data and social movements? b. How can discourse analysis be applied visually in order to understand communication patterns evident in social media-based big data? c. How can we employ social media analytics to investigate image and video data? d. What combinations of qualitative and quantitative methodologies be employed for big data and social media analytics in the context of social movements? e. What are the limitations of quantitative data analysis techniques, such as structural equation modeling, because of an extremely large sample size? f. What are the limitations of qualitative data analysis techniques as they become extremely labor intensive and, maybe even, impractical because of big data?

From Town Square to Twittersphere: The Public Forum Doctrine Goes Digital

The social media landscape is constantly evolving; new platforms emerge, and existing platforms change their functionality. While a robust body of literature exists on the influences of social media on students’ academic outcomes, most studies have failed to differentiate between specific social media platforms. Further, most research in this field focuses on how one variable (e.g., time spent on social media per day) relates to students’ GPA, giving an incomplete picture of how social media relate to student outcomes. The current study aimed to (a) investigate the intricate relationship between social media usage, time spent on schoolwork, and academic performance in college students; (b) confirm the rise of TikTok use among college students; and (c) understand college students’ perceptions of how their major social media platform influences their academic performance. Data were collected from a sample of undergraduate students in the USA (n=306). While the time spent on social media was negatively correlated with GPA (r=-.16, p<.001); time spent on schoolwork had no effect on GPA (r=.03, p=.580). Further, the time allocated to social media usage positively correlated with the time devoted to schoolwork (r=.14, p=.020), suggesting the pervasiveness of social media multitasking among college students. TikTok was the most commonly used social media platform, particularly by women. However, while TikTok-favoring students were more likely to think their GPA would be higher were they off social media, their GPA was not significantly different from other users who favored Snapchat and Instagram as their primary social media platforms, implying a discrepancy between student perception and reality. This may be because the TikTok videos are very short, thus one may watch a high number of them in a row and assume they have spent a long time on the app, which may have not been the case.