Why participate in an online social network: an empirical analysis

Despite their enormous success the motivation behind user participation in Online Social Networks is still little understood. This study explores a variety of possible incentives and provides an empirical evaluation of their subjective relevance. The analysis is based on survey data from 129 test subjects. Using Structural Equation Modeling, we identified that the satisfaction of the needs for belongingness and the esteem needs through self-presentation together with peer pressure are the main drivers of participation. The analysis of a sub-sample of active users pointed out the satisfaction of the cognitive needs as an additional participation determinant. Based on these findings, recommendations for online social network providers are made.

Social networks in cultural industries

Although cultural industries can benefit from social networks in many ways, few Spanish studies examine the extent to which firms within this economic sector actually use such networks. This study's objective is to investigate the role of online social networks in Spanish cultural firms. The study begins with a literature review on cultural industries and social networks. Then the study proceeds to a Delphi analysis that draws upon experts' opinions. Results reveal a predominance of utilitarian uses over expressive ones, as well as an overriding use of proactive motivations rather than reactive ones within the context of cultural firms' use of social networks. The study confirms the profitability of these networks and the transfer of influence or power from providers to the consumers of cultural goods and services.

Word of mouth communication within online communities:conceptualizing the online social network

Word of mouth (WOM) communication is a major part of online consumer interactions, particularly within the environment of online communities. Nevertheless, existing (offline) theory may be inappropriate to describe online WOM and its influence on evaluation and purchase.The authors report the results of a two-stage study aimed at investigating online WOM: a set of in-depth qualitative interviews followed by a social network analysis of a single online community. Combined, the results provide strong evidence that individuals behave as if Web sites themselves are primary "actors" in online social networks and that online communities can act as a social proxy for individual identification. The authors offer a conceptualization of online social networks which takes the Web site into account as an actor, an initial exploration of the concept of a consumer-Web site relationship, and a conceptual model of the online interaction and information evaluation process. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. and Direct Marketing Educational Foundation, Inc.

It's the way you check-in:identifying users in location-based social networks

In recent years, the rapid spread of smartphones has led to the increasing popularity of Location-Based Social Networks (LBSNs). Although a number of research studies and articles in the press have shown the dangers of exposing personal location data, the inherent nature of LBSNs encourages users to publish information about their current location (i.e., their check-ins). The same is true for the majority of the most popular social networking websites, which offer the possibility of associating the current location of users to their posts and photos. Moreover, some LBSNs, such as Foursquare, let users tag their friends in their check-ins, thus potentially releasing location information of individuals that have no control over the published data. This raises additional privacy concerns for the management of location information in LBSNs. In this paper we propose and evaluate a series of techniques for the identification of users from their check-in data. More specifically, we first present two strategies according to which users are characterized by the spatio-temporal trajectory emerging from their check-ins over time and the frequency of visit to specific locations, respectively. In addition to these approaches, we also propose a hybrid strategy that is able to exploit both types of information. It is worth noting that these techniques can be applied to a more general class of problems where locations and social links of individuals are available in a given dataset. We evaluate our techniques by means of three real-world LBSNs datasets, demonstrating that a very limited amount of data points is sufficient to identify a user with a high degree of accuracy. For instance, we show that in some datasets we are able to classify more than 80% of the users correctly.

The Online Romance Scam: A Serious Cybercrime

The Online Romance Scam is a relatively new form of fraud that became apparent in about 2008. In this crime, criminals pretend to initiate a relationship through online dating sites then defraud their victims of large sums of money. This paper presents some descriptive statistics about knowledge and victimization of the online dating romance scam in Great Britain. Our study found that despite its newness, an estimated 230,000 British citizens may have fallen victim to this crime. We conclude that there needs to be some rethinking about providing avenues for victims to report the crime or at least making them more comfortable when doing so.

Longitudinal Incidence Study of Clinically-Relevant HPV and Vaccine-Type HPV in Young Online Female Daters

Thesis (Master's)--University of Washington, 2016-08

As redes sociais online na hotelaria

Dissertação de Mestrado, Direção e Gestão Hoteleira, Escola Superior de Gestão, Hotelaria e Turismo, Universidade do Algarve, 2016

The Uses of Digital Literacy

Online social networks, user-created content and participatory media are often still ignored by professionals, denounced in the press and banned in schools. but the potential of digital literacy should not be underestimated. Hartley reassesses the historical and global context, commercial and cultural dynamics and the potential of popular productivity through analysis of the use of digital media in various domains, including creative industries, digital storytelling, YouTube, journalism and mediated fashion.

What advertisers need to know about the iYGeneration : An Australian perspective

A great challenge exists today: how to reach youth (a.k.a. the iYGeneration) who consume multiple media concurrently, who can access information on demand, and who have intertwined virtual social media networks in their lives. Our research finds that Australian youth multi-task and rarely use traditional media, although significant differences between males and females, as well as late tweens and 20-somethings, exist. Technology convergence facilitates two-way dialogue, allowing growing social interactions to occur in their technological environments. Our findings show that in order for marketing communication professionals to effectively communicate with this market, it is crucial to know exactly how the iYGeneration use media, which media they use, and when they use it.

Remediating vernacular creativity : photography and cultural citizenship in the Flickr photosharing network

Read through a focus on the remediation of personal photography in the Flickr photosharing website, in this essay I treat vernacular creativity as a field of cultural practice; one that that does not operate inside the institutions or cultural value systems of high culture or the commercial popular media, and yet draws on and is periodically appropriated by these other systems in dynamic and productive ways. Because of its porosity to commercial culture and art practice, this conceptual model of ‘vernacular creativity’ implies a historicised account of ‘ordinary’ or everyday creative practice that accounts for both continuity and change and avoids creating a nostalgic desire for the recuperation of an authentic folk culture. Moving beyond individual creative practice, the essay concludes by considering the unintended consequences of vernacular creativity practiced in online social networks: in particular, the idea of cultural citizenship.

The cultural economy moment?

This paper explores the rise of cultural economy as a key organising concept over the 2000s. While it has intellectual precursors in political economy, sociology and postmodernism, it has been work undertaken in the fields of cultural economic geography, creative industries, the culture of service industries and cultural policy where it has come to the forefront, particularly around whether we are now in a ‘creative economy’. While work undertaken in cultural studies has contributed to these developments, the development of neo-liberalism as a meta-concept in critical theory constitutes a substantive barrier to more sustained engagement between cultural studies and economics, as it rests upon a caricature of economic discourse. The paper draws upon Michel Foucault’s lectures on neo-liberalism to indicate that there are significant problems with the neo-Marxist account hat became hegemonic over the 2000s. The paper concludes by identifying areas such as the value of information, the value of networks, motivations for participation in online social networks, and the impact of business cycles on cultural sectors as areas of potentially fruitful inter-disciplinary engagement around the nature of cultural economy.

Silly Citizenship

This paper traces historical changes in the concept of citizenship, in order to show how it has shifted from a state enterprise to a form of self-organising, user-created, ludic association, modelled by online social networks in which children - formally non-citizens but crucial to the continuing and changing discursive practices of citizenship-formation - are active agents. The implications of this 'silly' citizenship for communication scholarship are considered.

Virtual communities as tools to support teaching practicum

The impact of Web 2.0 and social networking tools such as virtual communities, on education has been much commented on. The challenge for teachers is to embrace these new social networking tools and apply them to new educational contexts. The increasingly digitally-abled student cohorts and the need for educational applications of Web 2.0 are challenges that overwhelm many educators. This chapter will make three important contributions. Firstly it will explore the characteristics and behaviours of digitally-abled students enrolled in higher education. An innovation of this chapter will be the appli- cation of Bourdieu’s notions of capital, particularly social, cultural and digital capital to understand these characteristics. Secondly, it will present a possible use of a commonly used virtual community, Facebook©. Finally it will offer some advice for educators who are interested in using popular social networking communities, similar to Facebook©, in their teaching and learning.

(Not) the Twitter election: The dynamics of the #ausvotes conversation in relation to the Australian media ecology

This paper draws on a larger study of the uses of Australian user-created content and online social networks to examine the relationships between professional journalists and highly engaged Australian users of political media within the wider media ecology, with a particular focus on Twitter. It uses an analysis of topic based conversation networks using the #ausvotes hashtag on Twitter around the 2010 federal election to explore the key themes and issues addressed by this Twitter community during the campaign, and finds that Twitter users were largely commenting on the performance of mainstream media and politicians rather than engaging in direct political discussion. The often critical attitude of Twitter users towards the political establishment mirrors the approach of news and political bloggers to political actors, nearly a decade earlier, but the increasing adoption of Twitter as a communication tool by politicians, journalists, and everyday users alike makes a repetition of the polarisation experienced at that time appear unlikely.