Partisan Selective Sharing: The Biased Diffusion of Fact-Checking Messages on Social Media

Using large Twitter datasets collected during the 2012 U.S. presidential election, we examined how partisanship shapes patterns of sharing and commenting on candidate fact-check rulings. Our results indicate that partisans selectively share fact-checking messages that cheerlead their own candidate and denigrate the opposing party's candidate, resulting in an ideologically narrow flow of fact checks to their followers. We also find evidence of hostile media perception in users' public accusations of bias on the part of fact-checking organizations. Additionally, Republicans showed stronger outgroup negativity and hostility toward fact checkers than Democrats. These findings help us understand “selective sharing” as a complementary process to selective exposure, as well as identifying asymmetries between partisans in their sharing practices.     

Implicit and Explicit Attitudes as Predictors of Gatekeeping,Selective Exposure,and News Sharing: Testing a General Model of Media‐Related Selection

Media‐related selection (MRS) is an umbrella concept for selection processes such as gatekeeping by journalists, selective exposure by audience members, and news sharing by social network site (SNS) users. Importantly, individual attitudes can influence MRS. Previous research on attitude‐based MRS has relied almost exclusively on overtly expressed evaluations (i.e., explicit attitudes) as predictors of selection outcomes. We tested whether automatic affective evaluations (i.e., implicit attitudes) can predict MRS as well. In three studies (gatekeeping, selective exposure, and news sharing), we found that journalists', audience members', and SNS users' implicit and explicit attitudes predicted selection. Thus, attitudes may exert their influence even “under the radar” of conscious awareness.     

Emergence of News Waves: A Social Simulation Approach

The study investigates fundamental mechanisms generating issue‐attention cycles in news coverage with a social simulation approach. An agent‐based computer model is developed, which integrates the main drivers of news waves as identified by empirical research. By simulating the model many times under varying conditions, the interaction of the factors to generate the typical issue‐attention cycle can be observed. Results suggest that the momentum of news waves is mainly driven by the adaptive reporting behavior of journalists. Sponsors actively supporting issues by initiating events are not necessary to generate issue‐attention cycles, but change their typical dynamics. Comparing simulated time series to two empirical cases yields that the model produces more realistic patterns of media attention when issue sponsors are introduced.     

Protest Paradigm in Multimedia: Social Media Sharing of Coverage About the Crime of Ayotzinapa,Mexico

In 2014 protests erupted around the world after 43 college students from Ayotzinapa, Mexico, were kidnapped and massacred. This bilingual, cross-national content analysis explores the relationship between multimedia features in stories about the Ayotzinapa protests and how social media users liked, shared, and commented on that coverage. This study furthers our understanding of the protest paradigm in a digital context, and sheds light on differences in mainstream, alternative, and online media outlets' coverage of protesters. Additionally, this study suggests social media users might prefer more legitimizing coverage of protesters than mainstream media typically offer.     

Behavioral Effects of Framing on Social Media Users: How Conflict,Economic, Human Interest,and Morality Frames Drive News Sharing

We hypothesize that generic frames influence what news people share on Facebook and Twitter through three different routes: emotions, motivations, and psychological engagement. Using a mixed-methods design, a content analysis of a representative sample of articles published in six Chilean outlets was combined with in-depth interviews with digital journalists. After controlling for issue, newsworthiness, informational utility, valence, and other confounds, results show that—across platforms—a morality frame increases news sharing, whereas a conflict frame decreases it. Emphasizing economic consequences also decreases sharing, but only on Facebook. Surprisingly, the human interest angle has no noticeable effects. These results show that news frames can have behavioral consequences, and confirm the existence of a gap between preferred frames of journalists and users.     

Attracting Views and Going Viral: How Message Features and News‐Sharing Channels Affect Health News Diffusion

This study examined how intrinsic as well as perceived message features affect the extent to which online health news stories prompt audience selections and social retransmissions, and how news‐sharing channels (e‐mail vs. social media) shape what goes viral. The study analyzed actual behavioral data on audience viewing and sharing of New York Times health news articles, and associated article content and context data. News articles with high informational utility and positive sentiment invited more frequent selections and retransmissions. Articles were also more frequently selected when they presented controversial, emotionally evocative, and familiar content. Informational utility and novelty had stronger positive associations with e‐mail‐specific virality, whereas emotional evocativeness, content familiarity, and exemplification played a larger role in triggering social media‐based retransmissions.     

How Modifying Third‐Party Information Affects Interpersonal Impressions and the Evaluation of Collaborative Online Media

Previous research has drawn upon warranting theory to help explain how viewers evaluate people and entities online. Extending previous research, this study assesses how the ability of a target to modify third‐party information affects perceptions of warranting value, and in turn, interpersonal impressions and the perceived legitimacy of online media that host evaluations. Additionally, this work explores how the perceived objectivity of a third‐party evaluator affects impressions in online settings. The results provide support for warranting theory and help clarify how impressions are formed in online environments when people have the ability to generate and modify content collectively. The theoretical implications this study has for warranting theory and future research directions are discussed.     

Social media in marketing: A review and analysis of the existing literature

People worldwide are largely engaged and attached with the web 2.0 technology and Social media platforms. By the same token, businesses start looking at such technologies as effective mechanisms to interact more with their customers. Equally, the related issues of social media marketing have been also the focus of attention for academics and researchers to expand the current understanding about such phenomena over the marketing area. Accordingly, the main aim of this study is to systematically examine and review the current studies that have conducted over the related area of social media and marketing. By reviewing approximately 144 articles, the researchers were able to provide an overview of the main themes and trends covered by the relevant literature such as the role of social media on advertising, the electronic word of mouth, customers’ relationship management, and firms’ brands and performance. In this review, it has also studied the most common research approaches adopted to examine the related issues of social media marketing. Further discussion is also introduced followed by an explanation of the current review limitations and recommended directions to be examined by future studies.     

In Related News,That Was Wrong: The Correction of Misinformation Through Related Stories Functionality in Social Media

Research on social media and research on correcting misinformation are both growing areas in communication, but for the most part they have not found common ground. This study seeks to bridge these two areas, considering the role that social media may play in correcting misinformation. To do so, we test a new function of Facebook, which provides related links when people click on a link within Facebook. We show users a post containing misinformation, and then manipulate the related stories to either confirm, correct, or both confirm and correct the misinformation. Findings suggest that when related stories correct a post that includes misinformation, misperceptions are significantly reduced.     

Queer Identity Management and Political Self‐Expression on Social Networking Sites: A Co‐Cultural Approach to the Spiral of Silence

Social networking sites can facilitate self‐expression, but for some, that freedom is constrained. This study investigated factors that influence LGBT+ individuals' identity management and political expression on social media. We interviewed 52 participants aged 18 to 53 around the 2012 U.S. election. Using co‐cultural theory, we investigated communicative practices employed by queer‐identified individuals on Facebook. Participants whose LGBT+ identity was not known by the social network (i.e., those who were still in the closet) revealed a spiral of silence, wherein they were silenced by the perceived heteronormative majority. Participants whose identity was known (i.e., those who were out) revealed a spiral of silencing as they used the site's affordances to empower their vocal minority and silence the dominant group.     

“How Negative Becomes Less Negative”: Understanding the Effects of Comment Valence and Response Sidedness in Social Media

This study explores the influence of the public's negative comments regarding a corporate social responsibility (CSR) campaign in social media and how to best respond to them. It examined the interaction effects of comment valence and the company's response sidedness on the public's attitudes as mediated by the perceived negativity and perceived altruism. Results revealed that 2‐sided CSR responses are more effective than 1‐sided responses in enhancing altruistic motives for CSR, reducing perceived negativity in the public's comments, and eliciting favorable attitudes, especially when comments were negative. The effects of message sidedness disappeared when the public's comments were positive. Results also showed that perceived altruism and negativity mediate the effects of message strategies on the public's attitudes toward the company.     

Effects of Cultural Tailoring on Persuasion in Cancer Communication: A Meta‐Analysis

This meta‐analysis examined the persuasive impact of culturally tailored messages in cancer communication. The study sample includes 36 articles with 58 experimental pairs (N = 30,006). Results showed that culturally tailored cancer messages had an overall small and significant influence on persuasion (r = .120, p < .001). Deep tailoring, which integrates the cultural values, norms, and religious beliefs of the target ethnic group, had a significantly stronger effect compared to surface tailoring, which only incorporates surface cultural features such as language, diet, and risk statistics. Moreover, the moderating effects of cancer types, ethnicity, message format, media channels, message design approach, gender, and study design factors were explored. The theoretical and practical implications of the study were discussed.     

Response to Comment on “Prediction of Novel p‐Type Transparent Conductors in Layered Double Perovskites: A First‐Principles Study”

The search for high‐performance p‐type transparent conductors is crucial to many emerging optoelectronic applications. Motivated by the pioneer predictions of the existence of intrinsic p‐type conductivity in several wide‐gap layered halide double perovskites, Hu et al. synthesize the Cs₄CdSb₂Cl₁₂ compound, but fail to observe the p‐type conductivity. They argue that the different conclusion is mostly due to the chemical potential boundary overestimation and bandgap underestimation in the initial calculations. In this study, based on the additional calculations, it is demonstrated that these two factors raised by Hu et al. will not affect the major conclusions, although the pinned Fermi level (E_F‐pin) can slightly be changed. Importantly, it is found that the different conclusion obtains by Xu et al. and Hu et al. is mostly due to the different crystal phases adopted, which can have a big impact on the calculated E_F‐pin positions and the resulting p‐type performance. Finally, besides the careful control of growth conditions for reaching the ideal p‐type chemical potential regions, it is suggested that a moderate strain/pressure or fast quenching may be further adopted to enhance the p‐type conductivity in Cs₄CdSb₂Cl₁₂ and other similar compounds for better experimental observations.     

The role of openness in open collaboration: A focus on open‐source software development projects

Open‐source software development projects are well suited for exploring new ideas and acquiring knowledge from developers outside of the project. In this paper, we examine the impact of external developers on innovation in open‐source software development from the perspective of organizational learning theory. We examine the roles of external and internal developers, who “explore” and “exploit,” respectively, on the innovation performance of 17 691 open‐source software development projects whose data is stored in the GitHub platform. The results indicate that a multi‐faceted strategy, in which the exploitation successfully supports the exploration, is most effective for their success. The results also indicate that the role of exploration decreases after the release of the software.