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Social Networking Sites (SNS) have seen exponential growth in recent years. The high utilisation of SNS by tertiary students makes them an attractive tool for educational institutions. This study aims to identify health professional students' use and behaviours with SNS, including students' perspectives on potential applications within health professional curricula. Students enrolled in an undergraduate physiotherapy program were invited to take part in an anonymous, online questionnaire at the end of 2012. The survey consisted of 20 items, gathering demographic data, information on current use of SNS, and opinions regarding the application of SNS into education. Both quantitative and qualitative data were gathered. A total of 142 students, from all years of study, completed the online questionnaire. Only two participants were not current users of social media. Facebook and YouTube had been utilised for educational purposes by 97 and 60 % of participants respectively; 85 % believed that SNS could benefit their learning experience. Only five respondents were not interested in following peers, academic staff, clinicians or professional associations on Facebook. Four key themes emerged: peer collaboration, need for separation between personal and professional realms, complimentary learning and enhanced communication. Students wish to make educational connections via SNS, yet expressed a strong desire to maintain privacy, and a distinction between personal and professional lives. Educational utilisation of SNS may improve communication speed and accessibility. Any educator involvement should be viewed with caution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social media are growing in popularity and will play a key role in future sexual health promotion initiatives. We asked 620 survey participants aged 16 to 29 years about their time spent using social media and their comfort in receiving information about sexual health via different channels. Median hours per day spent using social network sites was two; 36% spent more than 2 hours per day using social network sites. In multivariable logistic regression, being aged less than 20 years and living in a major city (compared to rural/regional Australia) were associated with use of social media more than 2 hours per day. Most participants reported being comfortable or very comfortable accessing sexual health information from websites (85%), followed by a doctor (81%), school (73%), and the mainstream media (67%). Fewer reported being comfortable getting information from social media; Facebook (52%), apps (51%), SMS (44%), and Twitter (36%). Several health promotion programmes via social media have demonstrated efficacy; however, we have shown that many young people are not comfortable with accessing sexual health information through these channels. Further research is needed to determine how to best take advantage of these novel opportunities for health promotion. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The concept of electronic word of mouth (eWOM) has been diversified by the advent of social networking websites. Because of this innovation, individuals are now able to share their ideas and notions regarding brands, products, or services with their friends through the Internet. For this reason, companies interested in attracting more attention from consumers create their official accounts on social networking websites such as Facebook and Twitter. This strategy provides instant communication between companies and their current and potential customers. These social networking sites, however, are not totally the same; they create different customer engagement opportunities for companies. To define and discuss the difference, this paper compares posts at Vine, Facebook, and Twitter in terms of customer engagement. Results not only confirm that these three websites have different customer engagement ratios, but also reveal that the ratio of Vine is higher than the ratios of both Facebook and Twitter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The articles in this special issue focus social network services in digital environments. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Many types of social media metadata come in forms of temporal networks, networks where we have information about not only who is in contact with whom but also when contacts happen. In this paper, we review methods to analyze temporal networks developed in the last few years applied to social media data. These methods seek to identify important spreaders and, in more generality, how the temporal and topological structure of interaction affects spreading processes. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Accessibility of positioning technologies such as GPS offer the opportunity to store one's travel experience and publish it on the web. Using this feature in web-based social networks and considering location information shared by users as a bridge connecting the users' network to location information layer leads to the formation of Geo-Social Networks. The availability of large amounts of geographical and social data on these networks provides rich sources of information that can be utilized for studying human behavior through data analysis in a spatial-temporal-social context. This paper attempts to investigate the behavior of around 1150 users of Foursquare network by making use of their check-ins. The authors analyzed the metadata associated with the whereabouts of the users, with an emphasis on the type of places, to uncover patterns across different temporal and geographical scales for venue category usage. The authors found five groups of meaningful patterns that can explore region characteristics and recognize a number of major crowd behaviors that recur over time and space. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the last decade, scientific digital libraries were traditionally used for publishing research results and for enabling wide open access to them. Functional capabilities of digital libraries can be extended by offering users the opportunity of linking information objects of the library and providing for created linkages explicitly defined semantics based on a given ontology. Such an activity of users, which is peculiar to social networks, motivated by different reasons, and carried out on their own initiative, results in the dynamic semantic structure of the digital library content. In the environment of such a kind of a social network, certain new forms of scientific activities become possible and data sources can be created that provide more information for scientometric researches as compared to presently available ones. In this paper, we propose an approach for creating such networks and discuss results of its implementation in the Socionet environment; the Socionet is a large-scale online information space that covers information resources of a number of scientific, educational, etc. organizations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper first explores the factors that affect the use of social networks to enhance teaching and learning experiences among students and lecturers, using structured questionnaires prepared based on the Push–Pull–Mooring framework. A total of 455 students and lecturers from higher learning institutions in Malaysia participated in this study. Multiple linear regressions revealed five factors: E-Learning Perception, Academic Reasons, Ease of Use, Convenience and Social Networking to be positively associated with Teaching and Learning Benefits obtained from the use of social networks. These factors were then used to develop Book2U – a social e-learning tool which integrates the popular features of social networks. User testing revealed Book2U was well received by the majority of the respondents. It is believed that teaching and learning activities in educational sectors can be improved by using social network and e-learning-integrated tools, such as Book2U. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently, the number of social networking sites is rapidly increasing, and the number of users joining these sites is dramatically increasing as well. This paper aims at comprehensively comparing three social networking sites, and provides an in-depth analysis. We compare three of the most popular social networking sites, i.e., Facebook, Twitter and MySpace. Specifically, we evaluate those social networking sites based on four criteria (i.e., navigation, interactivity, source credibility and intelligence). For each criterion, we propose a list of measures for the comparison. The comparison essentially explores the differences and commonalities among those social networking sites. Based on the analysis of the comparison, a user study is conducted to evaluate the three websites. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to provide a network analysis of Twitter discussions about Myung-Bak Lee, a former president of South Korea, to gain a better understanding of the dynamics of the public opinion exchange on Twitter. Design/methodology/approach - Opinion leaders in the discussion network were identified by considering the longitudinal distribution of tweets containing the former president's name, and three types of messages ("followings," "mentions," and "retweets") were analyzed using data collected from November 1, 2011, to April 20, 2012. The sample included 26,150 Twitter users and 892,034 relationships reflecting three types of messages. Findings - The results indicate that the discussion about President Myung-Bak Lee was dominated by liberal Twitter users who already had considerable influence both online and offline. In addition, Twitter users were unlikely to interact with other users with opposing political views. Research limitations/implications - Almost all of the opinion leaders identified in the study held liberal political views, and liberal Twitter users dominated the discussion network. In addition, the Korean Twitter network showed the presence of the homophily phenomenon, implying that opinion leaders' influence within the Twitter network was limited to other users sharing the same political views. Further, political views of opinion leaders were skewed toward a particular political stance without necessarily representing the opinion of the general public, possibly hindering the democratic process. Originality/value - This study tests the homophily thesis in the context of Twitter users in Korea and contributes to the literature on Twitter-based political discourse by identifying opinion leaders in Korean Twitter networks and examining the phenomenon of homophily within those networks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background and Purpose: The term 'social media' refers to a cluster of applications and online services that support human interaction and content broadcasting and sharing. Current services are isolated islands or 'walled gardens', and are based on a business model that is highly exploitative of individuals and their data. Design/Methodology/Approach: Surveys of the refereed literature have been undertaken on several occasions during the period 2012-13. Reviews were conducted of social media services that are reasonably described as 'consumer-oriented'. Media reports on those services were uncovered. The available information was then subjected to analysis, including reflection based on prior research conducted by the author. Results: Required characteristics of consumer-oriented social media, and barriers to emergence and adoption of such services were identified. That provided a basis for proposing means to overcome those barriers. Key impediments to the emergence of such services were identified, and means of overcoming the impediments outlined. Conclusion: An alternative, consumer-oriented approach is feasible, involving open architecture, inter-operability and portability features, fair terms and privacy-sensitivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Psychology, Society & Education is the property of Psychology, Society & Education and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Purpose -- It is the aim of this article to reflect on possible ways to optimize current ways to deliver information provision in order to make it more transparent to users In particular, we will refer to the benefits (and challenges) of employing more user-centred approaches to inform users in a more transparent way. Design/methodology/approach -- In this paper we analyse individual as well as contextual factors (e.g. cognitive differences, time constraints, specific features of SNS platforms) which may have an impact on the way users deal with Terms of Use, privacy policies and other types of information provision typically made available on SNS platforms. In addition, we discuss possible ways of improving current practices in the field. In particular, we refer to the benefits (and challenges) of a user-centred approach when it comes to informing users in a way that is more meaningful to them. Finally, we discuss how user-centred approaches can act as mechanisms to increase transparency in SNS environments and how (alternative) forms of regulation could benefit from such an approach. Findings -- We believe that it is necessary to start focusing on users/consumers' needs, expectations and values in order to develop visualisation tools that can help make law (more) meaningful to users/consumers by giving them a better insight into their rights and obligations and by guiding them in making truly informed decisions regarding their online choices and behaviour Originality/value -By looking at different techniques such as visual design and the timing of information, the article contributes to the discussion on how we can make people more aware of legal documents and actually read them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The emergence of social media tools and technologies to facilitate daily information and communication needs has called into question the relationship between these new spaces and traditional formulations of engagement in daily life. Recent scholarship has exposed both the newfound connectivity that social networks provide, and at the same time questioned the value of these spaces for meaningful participation in social and civic life. This study attempts to provide an insight into the perceptions of young adults toward their social media habits and dispositions. In the 2010/2011 academic year, a survey was administered to over 800 university students, asking about their social media habits across six categories: news, politics, privacy, leisure, education, and relationships. Additionally, focus groups conducted with 71 study participants explored how students saw the role of social media in their personal and civic lives. The results show a population that increasingly uses social media spaces and for all information and communication needs, but that conceptualizes these platforms as primarily social outlets. The emerging disconnects located in the survey and focus group exploration recommends further inquiry into how social media can be positioned as an inclusive tool for engagement in daily life. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Questioning the transparent construction of emerging Web 2.0 discourse communities, this article asks in what ways structural options and restrictions of the software service ‘Facebook’ offer new semiotic resources and set up (novel) conditions for participation. More specifically, it holds that the medium in use and the particular software service acts as a kind of third author : The electronic environment and its functional properties facilitate and delimit a variety of discourse patterns and thus intervene in the communication between profile owner and profile recipients. To assess the impact of the electronic environment on user participation within Facebook, the present article will first introduce the notion of (technological) affordances and discuss characteristic ‘action possibilities’ that are typically offered by Social Network Sites. It will then give background information on general features of participation in online environments and identify key functions of the Facebook environment. On the basis of these findings, the article will discuss how Facebook's communicative properties enable and constrain textual practices and social interaction (functional affordances). Data from actual Facebook members give weight to how individuals adapt in different ways to software-biased action possibilities (relational affordances). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Effective organizational leadership and human resource management depend upon efficient communication. However, online social networking is revolutionizing the way this occurs. Contrary to traditional forms of media where communication flows in a linear manner, online social networking ( OSN) platforms enable individuals to interact with each other, thereby making communication a two-way process. Networking platforms are dramatically changing the way in which people communicate especially in global organizations that operate in different time zones and countries. This paper explores how OSN influences the internal communication effectiveness of today's leaders and their reports. A significant stream of research states that communication effectiveness is the foundation of modern organizations.Given that a number of these modern organizations have started to use OSN platforms internally as another channel of communication, it is crucial to identify ways in which today's leaders can communicate effectively in an online setting and what organizational features can facilitate use of new technology. The study shows the importance of leader adjustment to an online setting. However it also cautions that a supportive culture is needed, and there are instances where OSN cannot replace direct face-to-face communication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the advent of online social networks, recommender systems have became crucial for the success of many online applications/services due to their significance role in tailoring these applications to user-specific needs or preferences. Despite their increasing popularity, in general, recommender systems suffer from data sparsity and cold-start problems. To alleviate these issues, in recent years, there has been an upsurge of interest in exploiting social information such as trust relations among users along with the rating data to improve the performance of recommender systems. The main motivation for exploiting trust information in the recommendation process stems from the observation that the ideas we are exposed to and the choices we make are significantly influenced by our social context. However, in large user communities, in addition to trust relations, distrust relations also exist between users. For instance, in Epinions, the concepts of personal "web of trust" and personal "block list" allow users to categorize their friends based on the quality of reviews into trusted and distrusted friends, respectively. Hence, it will be interesting to incorporate this new source of information in recommendation as well. In contrast to the incorporation of trust information in recommendation which is thriving, the potential of explicitly incorporating distrust relations is almost unexplored. In this article, we propose a matrix factorization-based model for recommendation in social rating networks that properly incorporates both trust and distrust relationships aiming to improve the quality of recommendations and mitigate the data sparsity and cold-start users issues. Through experiments on the Epinions dataset, we show that our new algorithm outperforms its standard trust-enhanced or distrust enhanced counterparts with respect to accuracy, thereby demonstrating the positive effect that incorporation of explicit distrust information can have on recommender systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies indicate that Latino immigrant youths engage in a wide range of sophisticated literacy practices outside of school that are often transnational, crossing various linguistic, cultural, and social spaces. However, Latino immigrant youths drop out of U.S. schools at disproportional rates, suggesting that their literacy practices are not recognized or valued by the educational system. This collective case study investigated the range, form, and purpose of the Out-of-School literacies of four Latina/o adolescent English learners who are new arrivals. Findings demonstrated that the most prevalent out-of-School literacies that the participants practice take place on the social networking site Facebook, in their workplaces, and through entertainment media sources. A cross-case analysis suggests that the literacy practices in these spaces have unique and purposeful roles for the individuals that allow them to connect to their home countries and maintain their Latina/o identities. Additionally, the participants use their out-of-school literacy practices to acquire English, support themselves, and establish a place to succeed. The five aforementioned spaces that their Facebook, workplace, and entertainment literacy practices fill are virtually absent from their in-school literacies. This study suggests that literacy pedagogy must not continue to impose a narrow monolingual, monocultural, monoliterate, and monomodal view of Latina/o immigrant students that essentially divests them of their greatest resources. Their literacy practices demonstrate that they are emerging as multilingual, multiliterate, and multicultural transnationals who competently engage in multimodal means of communication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Web applications for social networks with similar objectives are now being used on the web by thousands of people. Concepts such as 'scraps', 'virtual friends', 'communities' and 'groups' are increasingly common among users of these applications. Nowadays, people use social networks as a medium to replicate on the web the kind of social activities they would carry out in the real world. However, in real life, people do not just interact with people, they also interact with refrigerators, microwaves, TVs, cars, cell phones, and the like. But in spite of it all, applications for social networks on the web have yet to successfully reproduce this kind of relationship. And so, this article will present an architecture and prototype for the integration of physical devices through the web of things in a social network, where users and devices interact in a similar fashion to how users interact in social networks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study the researchers aim to assess and investigate the risks and opportunities of using social-networking sites (SNS) in workplace/communities, especially in Australia and Portugal. An online survey was conducted of 80 employees from both large organisations and SMEs in Australia and Portugal to determine these risks and opportunities. The study outcomes indicated that SNS usage in businesses is very useful, convenient, and fast and provides a real-time environment for marketing, communication and collaboration, enhancing employees' knowledge and skills and improving communication between customers and stakeholders. However, SNS usage in businesses can lead to legal issues or loss of reputation, security, privacy, hacking to identify theft, and virus attacks. The current study ascertains new practical significance, as a set of recommendations were generated to minimise and reduce the risks of using SNS in the workplace and to meet employees' needs and expectations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the last decade there has been great discussion around how social networking sites can be used in academic settings. Social networking sites have attracted a wide range of researchers who have been interested in exploring the use of Facebook to benefit university students during their transition to academic life. This article will discuss a pilot project that started in July 2013 using Facebook as a new way of supporting students and creating a sense of community amongst them. The project aims to reach students across programs, connect with them and provide a community for students to support and talk to each other. This article will present a literature review on the use of Facebook in an academic setting. The pilot project will be described, main trends will be identified and students' feedback will be presented. The article will end with a discussion about this pilot project in the light of the literature and it will provide some steps to help student services professionals integrate social media to support tertiary students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Digital humanities (DH) have adopted various institutional forms in academia (centres, networks, projects, etc.). This study addresses the current state of the discipline through an analysis of DH centres, as reported by CenterNet. We analysed websites, missions, and the social media presence of the centres in order to provide an overall picture. Results show a remarkable heterogeneity in DH organisation. Finally, some of the most debated issues are discussed, such as the borders of the field, inclusion and exclusion issues, or a new cultural colonialism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, the authors synthesize 3 years of social technologies research, including studies of Facebook, Twitter, and GitHub, to present a theory driven framework to guide future social scientific research using “Big Data.” They connect levels of analysis derived from empirical study of influence to the electronic trace data generated by social technologies. Specifically, the authors outline a relationship between social media technology platforms, individual goals for participation, and emergent small groups to inform future research on influence in social technologies. They incorporate theory from small group literature, communities and networks of practice, and media theory to explicate a contextual framework for measuring influence. In their discussion, the authors build on the contrast between influence indicators in Facebook, Twitter, and GitHub to argue for a greater focus on the influence abstractions of articulation and affiliation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Social media communication is characterized by reduced anonymity and off-to-online social interactions. These characteristics require scholars to revisit social influence mechanisms online. The current study builds on social influence literature to explore social network and gender effects on online behavior. Findings from a quasi-experiment suggest that both network-related variables and gender are significantly associated with online behavior. Perceived social environment, measured by personal network exposure rate, is more significant than objective reality, measured by frequency of received social messages, in determining behavior. We discuss the implications of social contagion effects on web-based strategic communication—including advertising, political campaigns, and social mobilization. Data limitations and the difficulty of measuring social network influence via social media are also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Prior studies in other specialties have shown that social networking and Internet usage has become an increasingly important means of patient communication and referral. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the prevalence of Internet or social media usage in new patients referred to a major academic orthopedics center and to identify new avenues to optimize patient recruitment and communication. New patients were surveyed (n=752) between December 2012 to January 2013 in a major academic orthopaedic center to complete a 15-item questionnaire including social media and Internet usage information. Data was collected for all orthopaedic sub-specialties and statistical analysis was performed. Fifty percent of patients use social networking sites, such as Facebook. Sports medicine patients tend to be higher social networking users (35.9%) relative to other services (9.8-17.9%) and was statistically higher when compared to the joints/tumor service (P<0.0001). Younger age was the biggest indicator predicting the use of social media. Patients that travelled between 120 to 180 miles from the hospital for their visits were significantly more likely to be social media users, as were patients that did research on their condition prior to their new patient appointment. We conclude that orthopedic patients who use social media/Internet are more likely to be younger, researched their condition prior to their appointment and undergo a longer average day's travel (120-180 miles) to see a physician. In an increasingly competitive market, surgeons with younger patient populations will need to utilize social networking and the Internet to capture new patient referrals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study expanded the definition of reading practices to include both print- and Internet-based reading, and examined the relationship of reading profiles to Taiwanese college students' performance on various practices. The results showed that more time was spent on Internet-than print-based extracurricular reading, and that the three most-popular reading practices were: visiting social networking sites, reading online news, and browsing electronic Bulletin Board Systems. When we compared four reading profiles, a consistent pattern emerged: More diversified the readers self-estimated faster reading speed, reading more complex materials, better reading comprehension, and higher overall language proficiencies. Also, more diversified readers self-reported engaging in a wider variety of conversation topics with other people. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this study is to ascertain the differences in online reading habits between genders and investigate the relationship between socio-economic status and online reading habits. Using a questionnaire, a quantitative approach was administered to 240 Form-Four students from four secondary schools in Penang Island, Malaysia. Findings revealed that the respondents were active Internet users preferring the use of English when they were involved in online activities. All respondents, regardless of gender and socio-economic status, had similar online reading habits and yet they were more inclined toward social networking activities rather than reading as an academic activity. A discussion of the reason follows. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, it was aimed to examine the use of learning management systems supported by social networking sites in distance education and to determine the views of learners regarding these platforms. The study group of this study, which uses a qualitative research approach, consists of 15 undergraduate students who resumed their education in Turkey. The data were gathered via a semi-structured interview form which consists of open-ended questions. Content analysis was used in the analysis of the data. According to the results of the study, it has been revealed within the scope of the course that the students have positive attitudes towards the use of social networking sites and distance education applications and these applications have positively affected the quality of communication between instructors and students. Furthermore, it was seen that the students made comments relating to the interesting aspects of the applications and the difference between distance education and face-to-face learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Media, Culture & Public Relations is the property of Croatian Communication Association / Hrvatsko Komunikolosko Drustvo and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Employees' use of online social networking (OSN) is dramatically increasing the risk exposure of companies. This study extends previous information security policy compliance research to include factors influencing employees to play OSN games on company-owned computers. An online factorial survey method experiment collected data from a sample of white-collar workers for testing hypotheses based upon accountability and boundary theories. The likelihood to play OSN games is tested with and without a policy related to this behavior. Results indicate that the presence of a social networking policy, logging awareness, and monitoring practices reduced participants' likelihood of playing OSN games on company-owned computers. After splitting the sample on the presence/absence of an OSN policy, results show that in the presence of a policy, monitoring practices and age significantly reduced the participants' likelihood of playing. In the absence of a policy, logging and monitoring reduced the likelihood of playing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Global Media Journal: Turkish Edition is the property of Global Media Journal, Turkish Edition and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)