Thursday, May 16

SOCIAL MEDIA

A Geographer Explains Geospatial Intelligence — The Powerful Melding Of Maps And Data
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SOCIAL MEDIA, VIDEO REELS

A Geographer Explains Geospatial Intelligence — The Powerful Melding Of Maps And Data

What is geospatial intelligence? A geographer explains the powerful melding of maps and data. With record-breaking temperatures across the South, smoke from Canadian wildfires across the North, historic flooding in the Northeast and a powerful hurricane in the Southeast, the summer of 2023 has presented a range of threats to the safety of the majority of Americans. The good news, through all of this: Geospatial intelligence has offered valuable insights to help governments and organizations protect communities. Geospatial intelligence is the collection and integration of data from a network of technologies, including satellites, mobile sensors, ground-control stations and aerial images. The data is used to produce real-time maps and simulations to help identify when, where and to what ext...
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Will Fighting Online Abuse Ever Be A Priority For Social Media Companies?
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SOCIAL MEDIA

Will Fighting Online Abuse Ever Be A Priority For Social Media Companies?

Will Social Media Companies Ever Make Fighting Online Abuse a Priority? Is it just me who believes we’ve lost our ability to have civil discourse? Every day, we rely on social media platforms to engage with like-minded people, promote ourselves, our work, and/or business. Unfortunately, the downside of increasing your visibility, especially when you wade into an online discussion with an unpopular opinion, is you become a lightning rod for online abuse. Online abuse can be especially relentless if you are a woman, identified as a member of a race, religion, ethnicity, or part of the LGBTQ+ community. I believe social media companies can reduce, even come close to, eliminating, online abuse. The first step: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, et al. becoming more serious and urgent a...
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Twitter, Elon Musk ‘Everything App’ — A Social Media And Marketing Scholar Explains What An ‘Everything App’ Is And Why It’s Not So Easy To Do
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FOR BUSINESS, IN OTHER NEWS, SOCIAL MEDIA, TECHNOLOGY

Twitter, Elon Musk ‘Everything App’ — A Social Media And Marketing Scholar Explains What An ‘Everything App’ Is And Why It’s Not So Easy To Do

Elon Musk aims to turn Twitter into an ‘everything app’ – a social media and marketing scholar explains what that is and why it’s not so easy to do. Elon Musk’s recent rebranding of Twitter as X is a step toward the CEO’s goal of developing an “everything app.” Musk’s vision is for X to mark the spot for all your digital needs – to chat with your friends, order groceries, watch videos and manage your finances, all on one platform. His recent announcement might have left you wondering what an everything app is and whether you need really one. If everything apps are so great, why isn’t there one that’s widely used in the U.S. already? As someone who studies how consumers use social media and what that means for digital marketing, I find the idea of an everything app intriguing. I think tha...
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New Research Says Yes Human Moderators Can Really Rein In Harmful Online Content
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SOCIAL MEDIA

New Research Says Yes Human Moderators Can Really Rein In Harmful Online Content

Can human moderators ever really rein in harmful online content? New research says yes. Social media platforms have become the “digital town squares” of our time, enabling communication and the exchange of ideas on a global scale. However, the unregulated nature of these platforms has allowed the proliferation of harmful content such as misinformation, disinformation and hate speech. Regulating the online world has proven difficult, but one promising avenue is suggested by the European Union’s Digital Services Act, passed in November 2022. This legislation mandates “trusted flaggers” to identify certain kinds of problematic content to platforms, who must then remove it within 24 hours. Will it work, given the fast pace and complex viral dynamics of social media environments? To find out,...
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Is It Possible To Make Social Media Better By Rewarding Users For Sharing Accurate Information Instead Of Misinformation
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SOCIAL MEDIA

Is It Possible To Make Social Media Better By Rewarding Users For Sharing Accurate Information Instead Of Misinformation

Social media can in fact be made better: Research shows it is possible to reward users for sharing accurate information instead of misinformation. Is social media designed to reward people for acting badly? The answer is clearly yes, given that the reward structure on social media platforms relies on popularity, as indicated by the number of responses – likes and comments – a post receives from other users. Black-box algorithms then further amplify the spread of posts that have attracted attention. Sharing widely read content, by itself, isn’t a problem. But it becomes a problem when attention-getting, controversial content is prioritized by design. Given the design of social media sites, users form habits to automatically share the most engaging information regardless of its accuracy ...
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Are Guys Who Post A Lot On Social Media Seen As Less Manly?
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SOCIAL MEDIA

Are Guys Who Post A Lot On Social Media Seen As Less Manly?

Why guys who post a lot on social media are seen as less manly. For better or worse, much of life is categorized along gendered lines: Clothing stores have sections for men and women, certain foods are considered more manly or more feminine, and even drinks can take on a gendered sheen (“manmosa,” anyone?). Our newly published research finds that even social media is a canvas for rigid gender stereotyping. Specifically, we show that men who post often on social media are seen as feminine, a phenomenon we refer to as the “frequent-posting femininity stereotype.” We observed this bias in four experiments featuring over 1,300 respondents from the U.S. and U.K. To post is to be seen as unmanly As consumer behavior researchers, we have long been interested in the contradictions, peculiariti...
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Almost Nobody Can Log Off Social Media Long Enough To Find Out The Long-Term Effects Of Quitting
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IN OTHER NEWS, SOCIAL MEDIA

Almost Nobody Can Log Off Social Media Long Enough To Find Out The Long-Term Effects Of Quitting

What are the long-term effects of quitting social media? Almost nobody can log off long enough to find out. Being on social media has become synonymous with living in the 21st century. Year after year, we see new platforms and smarter algorithms roping us into highly addictive online worlds. Now, a growing number of people have noticed this trend and are actively making an effort to resist it. Anecdotally, a case can be made for quitting social media, and there are myriad reasons why someone might want to. But is there evidence that doing so is good for you in the long term? Drivers for quitting Although there are too many social media platforms to name, most people tend to think of the “big five”: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube and TikTok. Research has found people have variou...
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Facebook Or Other Social Media For Professionals
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IN OTHER NEWS, SOCIAL MEDIA

Facebook Or Other Social Media For Professionals

How Should Professionals Use Facebook or Other Social Media? Professionals can go the extra mile decorating their Facebook page without being productive. Some aspects matter to make their page enticing and boost up the purchases of their products. Read on. Here are a few tips: 1) Promote your products right Explain in short how your products are going to help and come to use. Follow up with images of these products. 2) Use larger images of your products The bigger the images of your products, the better their visibility. Take care to see all parts of the large images are easy to grasp and understand. 3) Inscribe your blog site or website inside every image. This helps to give extra traffic to your original blog site or website. 4) Announce related and relevant events on your pa...
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Comics Can Either Depress Turnout Or Activate Voters In 2024 — Not All Political Comedy Is Equal
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SOCIAL MEDIA, VIDEO REELS

Comics Can Either Depress Turnout Or Activate Voters In 2024 — Not All Political Comedy Is Equal

Not all political comedy is equal – how comics can either depress turnout or activate voters in 2024. Biden is old. Trump has weird hair. Biden mangles the English language. Trump barely seems to understand it. There’s no question that it is easy to make fun of the two top presidential candidates for 2024. But as I explain in my new book, “Trump Was a Joke: How Satire Made Sense of a President Who Didn’t,” not all political comedy is equal. Jokes that focus on physical traits – fat bellies, bald heads, bumbling speech – foster negative candidate views that can exhaust voters, as does mocking scandals, whether it’s the mishandling of classified documents, sexual misconduct or family drama. In contrast, satire – which centers on faulty logic, abuses of power and flawed thinking – can com...
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Here’s How Parents Can Get Their Kids To Think Twice About Popular Social Media Challenges
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IN OTHER NEWS, SOCIAL MEDIA

Here’s How Parents Can Get Their Kids To Think Twice About Popular Social Media Challenges

Teenage brains are drawn to popular social media challenges – here’s how parents can get their kids to think twice. Viral social media trends started innocently enough. In the early 2010s there was planking, the “Harlem Shake” dance and lip syncing to Carly Rae Jepsen’s summer anthem “Call Me Maybe.” Then came the ice bucket challenge, which raised an estimated US$115 million for ALS research. In recent years, social media challenges have grown more popular – and more dangerous, leading to serious injuries and even deaths. It’s not hard to see why. The milk crate challenge dares people to walk or run across a loosely stacked pyramid of milk crates, the Tide pod challenge involves eating laundry detergent pods, and the Benadryl challenge encourages taking six or more doses of over-the-co...
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