The Parallax: Meet WeChat, the app that’s ‘everything’ in China. “It takes just six characters to spell ‘everything’ in China, and Mandarin fluency isn’t required. The far-more-than-messaging app WeChat dominates the mobile Web here. That’s been very good for WeChat developer Tencent Holdings, which in March revealed that this iOS and Android app, which has made online and real-world commerce vastly easier in China, had attracted more than a billion users. But Tencent still has to play by the Chinese government’s rules, and Western human rights advocates have found little promise in WeChat’s rise.”
social media
Open Science: Sharing Data Do Not Indicate Twitter Significantly Augments Article-Level Citation Impact of Recent Research Results
Open Science: Sharing Data Do Not Indicate Twitter Significantly Augments Article-Level Citation Impact of Recent Research Results. “Guest-authoring a post, published on June 12, 2018, for the Altmetric Blog, Stefanie Haustein, an information science scholar from the University of Ottawa and Université du Québec à Montréal, Canada, has drawn attention to the mixed findings on the connection between Twitter mentions and citation counts of recently published articles. While social media, such as Facebook, can be assumed to contribute to the visibility of scientific research results, the collection of essays on Internet-based indicators for the impact of science edited by Wolfgang Glänzel, Henk Moed, Ulrich Schmoch and Mike Thelwall, to be published later in 2018, incidentally opens the discussion on the degree to which altmetrics can be helpful for the assessment of article-level impact.”
Snopes: Journalists, Activists Criticize Social Media Sites Amid Conflicts Over Content
Snopes: Journalists, Activists Criticize Social Media Sites Amid Conflicts Over Content. “In June 2018, journalists and activists raised concerns over sudden apparent suspensions or sanctions from social media web sites within days of one another amid increased concerns over their policies toward news outlets. In the latest incident, Lucas Waldron — graphics producer for the investigative news site ProPublica — said on 21 June 2018 that the visual platform Instagram had deleted a post on the outlet’s account that identified members of a white supremacist group.”
Mashable: Upholding my online identity gives me so much anxiety
Mashable: Upholding my online identity gives me so much anxiety. “Social media is a sound bite, a snapshot. You get to show neatly manicured moments without the burden of life’s small talk and unflattering angles. Unfortunately, this presents a problem for our real selves. How can we not feel like failures compared to those other versions of ourselves?” I find being just as foolish and goofy on social media as I am in real life helps.
Making the #Personal #Political: Twitter as a Rhetorical Tool for Activist Campaigning (URI Thesis)
A thesis from the University of Rhode Island Digital Commons: Making the #Personal #Political: Twitter as a Rhetorical Tool for Activist Campaigning. “This thesis analyzes a compilation of tweets from a specific digital social movement, #YesAllWomen. This campaign was an instance of hashtag activism and digital feminism that appeared on Twitter following the misogyny-fueled Isla Vista shootings as a means of illuminating the persistent issues of harassment and violence against women. The campaign focused largely on personal experience, and a cluster analysis of a published collection of tweets reveals how the use of the #YesAllWomen hashtag and the communication of personal narrative transformed participants into political rhetors. Thus, I ultimately argue the significance of Twitter as a rhetorical tool for activist communication.”
Pew: Social Media Use Continues to Rise in Developing Countries but Plateaus Across Developed Ones
Pew (PEW PEW PEW PEW PEW PEW PEW!): Social Media Use Continues to Rise in Developing Countries but Plateaus Across Developed Ones . “There has been a steady increase in internet use over the past five years among the 19 emerging and developing economies surveyed. Between 2013 and 2014, a median of 42% across these countries said they accessed the internet at least occasionally or owned a smartphone. By 2017, a median of 64% were online. Meanwhile, internet use among the 17 advanced economies surveyed has remained relatively flat, with a median of 87% across these nations using the internet at least occasionally in 2017, similar to the 86% who said this in 2015 or 2016.”
Reuters: Good social media experiences don’t outweigh bad ones for young adults
Reuters: Good social media experiences don’t outweigh bad ones for young adults. “For young adults, the adverse effect of negative social media experiences on mental health outweigh any potential benefits of positive experiences, a study of university students suggests. Each 10 percent increase in a student’s negative experiences on social media was associated with a 20 percent increase in the odds of depressive symptoms, researchers found.”
