Social participation of the elderly in China: The roles of conventional media,digital access and social media engagement

China is the most rapidly aging country and has the largest aging population in the world. However, social participation is an important intervention to boost the active and healthy aging. The present study investigated the effects of media usage, together with social-demographics and health variables, on Chinese older adults. Drawing upon a national research project with a representative sample (N = 1,399) of older adults (55+) from 58 cities in China, the research findings revealed that conventional media, digital access and social media usage had positive effects on older adults’ informal social participation, while age moderated the relationship between informal social participation and digital access, particularly regarding access to tablet PCs and smartphones. Moreover, conventional media, digital access and social media engagement largely explained seniors’ formal social participation regardless of their social-demographic backgrounds. Finally, the roles of conventional media and digital media in older adults’ social participation are discussed.     

Social media,public discourse and civic engagement in modern China

Drawing on the theoretical view of cyberspace’s role in engagement in public discourse and civic activities, the current study investigates how social media use is related to public discourse and civic engagement in mainland China. Moreover, we examine how political interest, general trust in people, and life satisfaction modify the interdependence of social media use and public discourse and civic engagement. Data analyses based on a survey of 1, 202 online Chinese show that social media use is significantly related to both public discourse and civic engagement. In addition, political interest has a consistent, strong modification on the role of social media use in public discourse and civic engagement. Both general trust in people and life satisfaction moderate some of the relationships examined but not all of them. Theoretical and empirical implications of the results are discussed.     

Social media,social integration and subjective well-being among new urban migrants in China

The current generation of migrants in Chinese cities, named “new urban migrants,” is closely related with social changes in today’s China. As these urban migrants are increasingly dependent on new media, particularly social media for news, entertainment, and social interaction, it is important to know how social media use contributes to their social integration and subjective well-being. Based on an online survey, this study identified positive relationship between new urban migrants’ social media use and their subjective well-being, as well as the possible indirect relationship through social integration. The overall positive socio-psychological effects of social media use within Chinese urban migrants were found. Specifically, this study revealed that social media use can contribute to their social integration, including their building of social identity and social network as well as real-world social participation. New urban migrants’ social integration, particularly their level of social identity, is significantly associated with their subjective well-being.     

Social media and expressive citizenship: Understanding the relationships between social and entertainment expression on Facebook and political participation

Substantial research has explored the political significance of social media use in the context of collective actions. Yet much remains unknown about whether common, day-to-day, nonpolitically oriented activities on social media relate to political engagement. Focusing on Facebook, the primary social media platform for most Americans, this study investigates whether and how social and entertainment expression on the site are associated with political participation among a diverse online sample of American adults. Results show that social and entertainment expressive Facebook use are indirectly associated with political participation through political communication in the form of interactive political expression on the site. In addition, findings demonstrate that social expressive use is also conducive to political participation via offline political talk, but entertainment expressive use is not significantly related to political talk in offline settings. Further analysis shows that the interactions between political interest and each of the expressive uses are largely insignificantly related to political communication and participation. Overall, the study’s findings help to clarify the distinctions between the two types of nonpolitical Facebook use and the underlying process by which these uses contribute to political participation.     

The use of Facebook for political commentary in South Africa

The use of the Internet, and especially social media networks, is becoming increasingly relevant for 21st century politics, not only for political campaigning purposes, but also as a platform to encourage the public to engage in political discourse. This study considers comments posted on two South African political party Facebook sites: the African National Congress’ (ANC); and the Democratic Alliance’s (DA). It examines how both the South African public and the political parties are using the site for discussion, debate and opinion formation. The study also investigates the perceived benefits and challenges that are offered to members of the Facebook groups. According to the findings, the public are using the Facebook site(s) to engage in discussion of a political nature as well as using the platform to connect with each other and share political information in new ways. However, it is this article’s contention that the two political parties are not fully capitalising on the potential offered by Facebook.     

The influence of online forum and SNS use on online political discussion in China: Assessing “Spirals of Trust”

Echoing the significance of mobile online networks in fueling the Arab Spring, the present study seeks to better understand social media influences in China by studying political activity among Chinese netizens. A survey of Chinese college students examines the influence of online social networks in the context of political attitudes and political participation. Study results reveal a moderate but positive impact of online forum and social networking site use on online political discussion. Implications for political change in the social networking era, particularly in regimes that practice Internet censorship like China’s, are discussed.     

Political disagreement and ambivalence in new information environment: Exploring conditional indirect effects of partisan news use and heterogeneous discussion networks on SNSs on political participation

This study investigates the (de)mobilizing influences of political (dis)agreement in the news and in political discussion on political attitudes and participation in new information environments. Results demonstrate the mediating functions of political ambivalence in that exposure to proattitudinal news reduces ambivalence and thereby promotes political participation, whereas exposure to counter-attitudinal news increases ambivalence and thereby discourages participation. Importantly, the effect of exposure to counter-attitudinal news on ambivalence was moderated by heterogeneous discussion networks on social network sites, such that the combination of exposure to counter-attitudinal news and to heterogeneous discussion networks amplifies ambivalence additively, and thereby augments the tendency toward demobilization. These results are interpreted as suggesting that changing media contexts may lead to complex roles of news and political discussion.     

Formation and fragmentation within a networked public sphere: Social media debates on Traditional Chinese Medicine

By analyzing the social media posts published by the scientific community and conventional media organizations, the study explored the recent social media debates on Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). A combination of textual analysis and content analysis revealed two main findings. First, different networks of expertise on Weibo generated conflicting discourses about TCM: while the scientific community contributed the overwhelming majority of posts that criticized TCM, conventional media outlets were much more likely to promote TCM without skepticism. Implications of the finding is discussed. Second, the social media debate did not appear to facilitate problem solving, evidenced by the fact that only a small portion of the posts included rational comments about the controversy. In addition, users typically communicated only with users who shared their viewpoints, resulting in few communications between groups. The trend illustrates the fragmentation of China’s networked public sphere on Weibo.     

Microblogging,friendship maintenance,and life satisfaction among university students: The mediatory role of online self-disclosure

Despite a substantial literature suggests that computer-mediated communication impact individuals’ various psychosocial factors, relatively few studies have elucidated the underlying mechanism behind these associations. Building upon self-disclosure theory and previous studies, the principal purpose of this present research is to systematically explore the relationships among microblog utilization, online self-disclosure, friendship maintenance, and perceived life satisfaction. A web-based survey was implemented using a total of 426 university students in Northwestern China. Structural equation modeling reveals that intensity of microblog use is positively associated with these students’ friendship maintenance and life satisfaction. Additionally, online self-disclosure plays the crucial mediatory role in the relationships between microblog use, quality of relationships, and gratification with life. The results imply that as microbloggers disclosure their inner thoughts or emotional states with other users online, they could foster their friendship maintenance and obtain greater life satisfaction. However, contrary to the expectation, students’ friendship maintenance is not discovered to be a significant predictor of the sense of life satisfaction in the online environment. Overall, these obtained outcomes of the empirical work could offer new insights into the deep comprehending of the social psychological process of microblogging among younger generation in the new media context.     

The aborted Green dam-youth escort censor-ware project in China: A case study of emerging civic participation in China’s internet policy-making process

The educated and affluent Internet users in China have posed great threats to the stability and legitimacy of Chinese communist’s regime where the access of non-government dominated information become a possibility. To restrain Chinese citizens’ access to any Internet contents that are considered to undermine state control, China has developed and implemented one of the most sophisticated multi-layered Internet filtering systems in the world. These projects include the Golden Shield (or Jin Dun) and the Great Fire Walls of China that were implemented in the infrastructure to deter any undesirable or politically sensitive information.     

Association between psychosocial well-being and problematic social media use among Finnish young adults: A cross-sectional study

The aim of the study was to identify associations between problematic social media use (PSMU), type of internet activity, various background factors, psychosocial factors (mood, fear of missing out, need to belong, social relationships) and the COVID-19-pandemic’s impacts on social media use among young adults in Finland. Data were collected from 381 young adults aged 18–35 (M = 26.01; SD = 4.55) in Finland through a web-based survey conducted during the autumn of 2020. PSMU was identified using the Bergen Social Media Addiction Scale. Nine types of social media platform used were considered. Information about health-related factors was assessed using Beck Depression Inventory scale and a further single question. Social factors were measured using the Fear of Missing Out scale, the Single Item Need to Belong scale, and social engagement scale. 9.8 % of participants were found to exhibit PSMU. Younger people and women were more prone to PSMU. Social networking sites were the most used platform and were more strongly related to PSMU. Social media engagement, depression, fear of missing out and the effects of the pandemic on social media use were all positively and significantly associated with PSMU. These results may facilitate the development of guidelines for healthy social media use, and early detection of PSMU.     

Public relations,media coverage,and public opinion in contemporary China: Testing agenda building theory in a social mediated crisis

This study investigates a social mediated crisis triggered by the Guo Meimei incident that negatively affected the Red Cross Society of China (RCSC). RCSC’s public relations efforts, media coverage, and public opinion on micro-blogs are examined through the theoretical grounding of agenda building. Evidence shows that organizational public relations activities strongly influence media coverage at the first level, but exert no influence upon online public opinion. RCSC’s agenda neither forms issue salience of online public opinion, nor effectively influences public’s attitude on the issue. This study extends the theorization of the effects of agenda building by adding contextual factors about social media, political, and cultural characteristics in China.     

Language,modality, and mobile media use experiences: Social responses to smartphone cues in a task-oriented context

With people’s growing use of virtual agents and voice assistants on smartphones, researchers have pointed out that mobile phones are not only acting as intermediaries that connect users from different places, but also communication terminals that present different combinations of social cues. This study applies the Computers are Social Actors paradigm in human-phone interaction and postulates that compared to non-anthropomorphic language and text cues, anthropomorphic language and vocal cues will have more effects on users’ social responses to smartphones. This study also explores the role of individual differences in users’ social responses to smartphones. Based on a lab experiment using a between-subjects factorial design, the study suggests that although anthropomorphic language and voice-based information did not have main effects on users’ social responses, people’s mobile media usage and intensive phone use interacted with these cues in their social responses to the smartphones. In addition, this study implies that it is the combination of social cues, individual differences, and communication contexts that contributes to people’s social reactions to the smartphones. The findings of the study can inform user interface design and precipitate further discussion about the ethical issues in human-phone interaction.     

Social Media Addiction and Empathy: Moderating impact of personality traits among high school students

Potential addiction to social media is one of the problems that some people, especially adolescents, are facing. For this reason, many studies have been conducted in this field in recent years. There is no research investigating how empathy is associated with excessive and problematic online social media use, whilst some studies have associated social media use with empathy as the main component of social development. Hence, the purpose of this study is to examine the influences of Empathic Concern (EC) and Perspective Taking (PT) on social media addiction (SMA). Moreover, prior studies revealed that Internet addiction behavior of individuals varies according to differences in personality traits. Accordingly, we further intend to understand how the impacts of EC and PT on SMA are intensified by considering individuals’ traits differences, and thus, personality traits were included in the research model as the moderators. To assess the research model, the data collected through the distributed printed questionnaire among 592 high-school 15–18 years old students (42.1% male) were analyzed utilizing the partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) approach. The results revealed that both EC and PT significantly and negatively predict SMA. Furthermore, the moderating analysis showed that Extraversion negatively moderated the relationships between EC and SMA and PT and SMA. Further analysis revealed that while there were no differences across genders, behaviors associated with SMA were more common among students of high-income schools in contrast to low-income schools. Implications of the study are further discussed.     

Turkish diasporic responses to the Taksim Square protests: Legacy media and social media uses in Belgium,the Netherlands and Germany

Based on an offline and online survey of 967 people of Turkish origin living in these countries, we test how legacy and social media have influenced the participation of the members of the Turkish diaspora in Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands in the mid-2013 protests in Turkey’s social movement referred to as Gezi Park. This study also investigates how living in Europe can influence the behavior and attitudes of the sampled individuals from the Turkish Diaspora of Germany, Belgium and Netherlands during the period when the Gezi Park demonstration took place. Our results make it clear that social media were used by those who supported the protest movement, while those who opposed the protest movement primarily used or followed traditional sources of media, including Turkish and European television. Furthermore, supporters amongst the diaspora for the Gezi-protests were primarily active in accruing social capital through bonding and social networking among those who belong to the Turkish diaspora under the guise of the Gezi Park protests. Finally, a significant number of the supporters of the protests in the three countries took part in several different means of supporting the movement, including: disseminating awareness about the Gezi protests through social media, engaging in meetings, and in some cases, even severing contact with friends and acquaintances who did not share their support for the protest movement.     

Modeling predictors of COVID-19 health behaviour adoption,sustenance and discontinuation among social media users in Nigeria

The aim of this study was to suggest a model that explains the predictors of COVID-19 health behaviour adoption, sustenance and discontinuation among social media users in Nigeria. Survey research design was used for the study. The sample size was made of 600 social media users with questionnaire as the instrument for data collection. The structural equation modeling (SEM) was utilized to analyse the result for the study. It was found that six variables-risk vulnerability, risk severity, barriers to action, benefits of action, self-efficacy, and cue to behaviour-predict COVID-19 health behaviour adoption. Also, two variables-risk vulnerability and risk severity-predict COVID-19 health behaviour sustenance. Finally, two variables-behaviour fatigue and behaviour discomfort-predict COVID-19 health behaviour discontinuation. The result of the current study has provided information that could guide health experts in dealing with the issue of behaviour fatigue and behaviour discomfort, which have been identified as responsible for health behaviour discontinuation. In addition, a model for predicting health behaviour adoption, sustenance and discontinuation has been suggested.     

Wild Public Networks and Affective Movements in China: Environmental Activism,Social Media,and Protest in Maoming

In the following essay, I offer and explain the concept of wild public networks as a tool for social movement scholars interested in taking a network approach to contemporary protests via poststructuralism. Wild public networks offer scholars a means of approaching social movements that moves past binaries to productively incorporate affect. In so doing, the concept of wild public networks advances an ontological shift for social movement scholars that also alters what we examine and how. Wild public networks consider how the movement of the social can be witnessed in changes to relationships between actants and the configurations of networks. To explicate this new concept, I turn to contemporary environmental protests in Maoming, China.     

Exploring public perceptions of the COVID-19 vaccine online from a cultural perspective: Semantic network analysis of two social media platforms in the United States and China

The development and uptake of the COVID-19 (coronavirus disease 2019) vaccine is a top priority in stifling the COVID-19 pandemic. How the public perceives the COVID-19 vaccine is directly associated with vaccine compliance and vaccination coverage. This study takes a cultural sensitivity perspective and adopts two well-known social media platforms in the United States (Twitter) and China (Weibo) to conduct a public perception comparison around the COVID-19 vaccine. By implementing semantic network analysis, results demonstrate that the two countries' social media users overlapped in themes concerning domestic vaccination policies, priority groups, challenges from COVID-19 variants, and the global pandemic situation. However, Twitter users were prone to disclose individual vaccination experiences, express anti-vaccine attitudes. In comparison, Weibo users manifested evident deference to authorities and exhibited more positive feelings toward the COVID-19 vaccine. Those disparities were explained by the cultural characteristics' differences between the two countries. The findings provide insights into comprehending public health issues in cross-cultural contexts and illustrate the potential of utilizing social media to conduct health informatics studies and investigate public perceptions during public health crisis time.     

Social networking site usage and participation in protest activities in 17 Latin American countries

Recent studies have reported a significant relationship between the use of social media and political engagement. However, there appear to be few comparative studies that explore the association between social networking site use and participation in different types of protest activities for the case of Latin America. The present study employs supervised and unsupervised data analysis techniques to explore this association for 9 different social networking sites and 5 types of protest using disaggregated data on 17 Latin American countries. Multiple correspondence analysis is applied to create proxy measures of the two phenomena, followed by a cluster analysis using these measures to classify individuals into different clusters in each country studied. These clusters indicated that there exists an interplay between the use of these sites and participation in protests. Decision rules were then induced to generate interpretable information on the clusters identified for each country. The results suggest that there is a high degree of heterogeneity in social networking site use and protest participation.     

Negative Stereotypical Portrayals of Muslims in Right-Wing Populist Campaigns: Perceived Discrimination,Social Identity Threats,and Hostility Among Young Muslim Adults

Anti-Islamic sentiments have become central to right-wing populist mobilization in Western societies, which often results in negative portrayals of Muslims in political campaigns. Although these portrayals may have detrimental effects on minority members' identity formation and attitudes toward majority members, little is known about their effects on members of the depicted group. A lab experiment with 145 young Muslims reveals that right-wing populist ad exposure increases perceived discrimination, which in turn decreases individuals' self-esteem and national identification, and encourages hostility toward majority members. Religious identification, in contrast, is not affected by ad exposure. Implications of these findings for intergroup relations and democratic processes are discussed.