Social Media Commons^™

Creating Social Contagion Through Viral Product Design: A Randomized Trial Of Peer Influence In Networks, Sinan Aral, Dylan Walker

Business Faculty Articles and Research

We examine how firms can create word-of-mouth peer influence and social contagion by designing viral features into their products and marketing campaigns. To econometrically identify the effectiveness of different viral features in creating social contagion, we designed and conducted a randomized field experiment involving the 1.4 million friends of 9,687 experimental users on Facebook.com. We find that viral features generate econometrically identifiable peer influence and social contagion effects. More surprisingly, we find that passive-broadcast viral features generate a 246% increase in peer influence and social contagion, whereas adding active-personalized viral features generate only an additional 98% increase. Although active-personalized viral …

Community Affair: Social Inclusion And Swapping, Jowanza Joseph

Student Works

Swapping has become primitive economic behavior with the advent of currency. However, with the increase in concern about the environment swapping has emerged in many forums including swap meets, free cycle and online swapping forums. We perform an exploratory investigation of this behavior through an imperial investigation of Twitter. We test the connectedness, and the popularity of people who are involved in swap meets and farmers markets. Finally, we discuss the implications and future directions for swapping.

Media Landscape In Twitter: A World Of New Conventions And Political Diversity, Jisun An, Meeyoung Cha, Krishna Gummadi, Jon Crowcroft

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

We present a preliminary but groundbreaking study of the media landscape of Twitter. We use public data on whom follows who to uncover common behaviour in media consumption, the relationship between various classes of media, and the diversity of media content which social links may bring. Our analysis shows that there is a non-negligible amount of indirect media exposure, either through friends who follow particular media sources, or via retweeted messages. We show that the indirect media exposure expands the political diversity of news to which users are exposed to a surprising extent, increasing the range by between 60-98%. These …

Topical Keyphrase Extraction From Twitter, Xin Zhao, Jing Jiang, Jing He, Yang Song, Palakorn Achananuparp, Ee Peng Lim, Xiaoming Li

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Summarizing and analyzing Twitter content is an important and challenging task. In this paper, we propose to extract topical keyphrases as one way to summarize Twitter. We propose a context-sensitive topical PageRank method for keyword ranking and a probabilistic scoring function that considers both relevance and interestingness of keyphrases for keyphrase ranking. We evaluate our proposed methods on a large Twitter data set. Experiments show that these methods are very effective for topical keyphrase extraction.

Comparing Twitter And Traditional Media Using Topic Models, Wayne Xin Zhao, Jing Jiang, Jianshu Weng, Jing He, Ee Peng Lim, Hongfei Yan, Xiaoming Li

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Twitter as a new form of social media can potentially contain much useful information, but content analysis on Twitter has not been well studied. In particular, it is not clear whether as an information source Twitter can be simply regarded as a faster news feed that covers mostly the same information as traditional news media. In This paper we empirically compare the content of Twitter with a traditional news medium, New York Times, using unsupervised topic modeling. We use a Twitter-LDA model to discover topics from a representative sample of the entire Twitter. We then use text mining techniques to …

Utility-Oriented K-Anonymization On Social Networks, Yazhe Wang, Long Xie, Baihua Zheng, Ken C. K. Lee

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

"Identity disclosure" problem on publishing social network data has gained intensive focus from academia. Existing k-anonymization algorithms on social network may result in nontrivial utility loss. The reason is that the number of the edges modified when anonymizing the social network is the only metric to evaluate utility loss, not considering the fact that different edge modifications have different impact on the network structure. To tackle this issue, we propose a novel utility-oriented social network anonymization scheme to achieve privacy protection with relatively low utility loss. First, a proper utility evaluation model is proposed. It focuses on the changes on …

Manipulation In Digital Word-Of-Mouth: A Reality Check For Book Reviews, Nan Hu, Indranil Bose, Yunjun Gao, Ling Liu

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Built upon the discretionary accrual-based earnings management framework, our paper develops a discretionary manipulation proxy to study the management of online reviews. We reveal that fraudulent review manipulation is a serious problem for 1) non-bestseller books; 2) books whose reviews are classified as not very helpful; 3) books that experience greater variability in the helpfulness of their online reviews; and 4) popular books as well as high-priced books. We also show that review management decreases with the passage of time. Just like fraudulent earnings management, manipulated online reviews reflect inauthentic information from which consumers might derive wrong valuation especially for …

An Analysis Of The Structure And Evolution Of Networks, Guangying Hua

2011

As network research receives more and more attention from both academic researchers and practitioners, network analysis has become a fast growing field attracting many researchers from diverse fields such as physics, computer science, and sociology. This dissertation provides a review of theory and research on different real data sets from the network perspective. The focus is primarily on the structure and dynamics of social networks.

This dissertation is divided into three essays. The first essay examines a professional online community, and to the best of our knowledge, it is the first paper to address the social network of physicians. The …

Social Networking Sites: What They Are And How To Navigate Them (Leader Guide), Maria Deguzman, Deborah J. Weitzenkamp Dr., Anita Hall, Deanna Vansickel-Staudt, Car Mun Kok, Jessica Lake

Kimmel Education and Research Center: Faculty and Staff Publications

The use of social networking sites such as Facebook and LinkedIn has dramatically increased in recent years. Today, over 50 percent of teens and 35 percent of adults in the U.S. are using at least one type of social networking site. If used well, these sites can have many personal and professional benefits. Social networking can be a fun way to communicate with others, and an effective way to expand one’s social and professional connections. It is important to practice good judgment and proper “netiquette” when developing personal profiles and interacting with others through such sites. This community program will …

Social Media At Academia's Periphery: Studying Multilingual Developmental Writers' Facebook Composing Strategies, Kevin Eric Depew

English Faculty Publications

This article focuses on the writing strategies second-language students use to compose on social media sites. These alternative and unconventional sites for learning provide language learners opportunities to acquire language by using multiple modalities to respond to various rhetorical situations. In comparison to these sites, academic writing contexts, particularly the developmental-writing course, impose monolingual norms and deficient identities on students. Where these courses articulate these language learners as possessing inadequate skills to perform well in mainstream writing courses, the students' social-media compositions demonstrate that these students have the potential to respond to communicative situations in rhetorically complex ways. This study …

Social Networking Sites: What They Are And How To Navigate Them (Participant Manual), Maria Deguzman, Deborah J. Weitzenkamp Dr., Anita Hall, Deanna Vansickel-Staudt, Car Mun Kok, Jessica Lake

Kimmel Education and Research Center: Faculty and Staff Publications

The use of social networking sites such as Facebook and LinkedIn has dramatically increased in recent years. Today, over 50 percent of teens and 35 percent of adults in the U.S. are using at least one type of social networking site. If used well, these sites can have many personal and professional benefits. Social networking can be a fun way to communicate with others, and an effective way to expand your social and professional connections. Nonetheless, it is important to practice good judgment and proper “netiquette” when developing personal profiles and interacting with others through such sites. This community program …

Exploring The Impact Of Social Media On Regional Festivals In Ireland: A Public Relations Perspective, Niamh Mccarthy

Theses

This study looks into the area of social media use in Irish festivals from a public relations perspective. The aim of the study is to provide an understanding of the effect social media is having on the regional festival industry in Ireland.

The study also accesses how social media has affected the public relations industry and reveals the predicted future of social media in Ireland. I’he study used a qualitative method of research through use of semi-structured interviews. Interviews were carried out face-to-face, online and on the telephone. All interviewees in the study had relevant experience in the social media …

Fundraising In Changing Times: The Pr And Media Relations Tactics That Non Profit Organisations Use In Their Fundraising Campaigns - A Case Study Analysis, Sharon Louise Noonan

Theses

This study aims to explore the public relations (PR) tactics that non-profit organisations (NPO’s) are using in their fundraising campaigns. The two case studies that were researched were the Cork Simon Community and the Irish Guide Dogs for the Blind. (IGDB) The lack of current research into this topic as well as the changing nature of NPO’s and the PR industry was of great interest to the author, thus prompting the idea for this study.

The literature review defines PR, media relations and fundraising whilst providing the opinions and perspectives of professionals on the topic in question.

A qualitative research …

Librarianship Presence In Virtual Worlds, Jenny M. Baum, Kate Lyons

Publications and Research

Librarianship has stereotypically been about books, communities, and the connection between the two. With the emergence of new media and technology, the concept of books has expanded to include information of all types and in multiple formats: eBooks, DVDs, videogames, electronic databases, et cetera. Meanwhile, the idea of community has stayed the same. For example, public libraries primarily serve communities defined by geographic lines; academic libraries serve their campus communities. In non-profit, medical or corporate libraries, communities are defined by their organization’s particular mission. However, now that virtual worlds are becoming mainstream, librarians are redefining community, just as they redefined …

Cacophony Or Empowerment? : Analyzing The Impact Of New Information Communication Technologies And New Social Media In Southeast Asia., Jason P. Abbott

Faculty and Staff Scholarship

The capabilities, tools and websites we associate with new information communication technologies and social media are now ubiquitous. Moreover tools that were designed to facilitate innocuous conversation and social interaction have had unforeseen political impacts. Nowhere was this more visible than during the 2011 uprisings across the Arab World. From Tunis to Cairo, and Tripoli to Damascus protest movements against authoritarian rule openly utilized social networking and file sharing tools to publicize and organize demonstrations and to catalogue human rights abuses. The Arab Spring, or Jasmine Revolution, was an event that was both witnessed and played out in real time …

A Comparative Study Of How Social Media And Web 2.0 Tools, Such As Facebook, Twitter And Viral Marketing, Can Be Used By Small Businesses, To Integrate A Business Strategy Of Augmenting The Company Profile And Awareness With Their Publics, Robyn Foley

Theses

The object of this dissertation was to explore the public relations techniques implemented by small businesses located in Cork.

The Impact Of Social Media On Software Engineering Practices And Tools, Margaret-Anne Storey, Christoph Treude, Arie Van Deursen, Li-Te Cheng

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Today's generation of software developers frequently make use of social media, either as an adjunct or integrated into a wide range of tools ranging from code editors and issue trackers, to IDEs and web-based portals. The role of social media usage in software engineering is not well understood, and yet the use of these mechanisms influences software development practices. In this position paper, we advocate for research that strives to understand the benefits, risks and limitations of using social media in software development at the team, project and community levels. Guided by the implications of current tools and social media …

How Does Facebook Browsing Affect Self-Awareness And Social Well-Being: The Role Of Narcissism, Lin Qiu, Han Lin, Angela K. Y. Leung

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Social networking sites such as Facebook have become extremely popular recently. In this research, we studied how Facebook browsing affects self-awareness and social well-being. Our results show that after Facebook browsing, individuals high in narcissism raised their public self-awareness while those low in narcissism reduced their public self-awareness. We also found that individuals low in narcissism perceived their friends' lives to be better than their own and consequently experienced negative social well-being and emotion. However, this effect did not occur for individuals high in narcissism.

Wsm'10: Second Acm Workshop On Social Media, Susanne Boll, Steven C. H. Hoi, Roelof Van Zwol, Jiebo Luo

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

The ACM SIGMM International Workshop on Social Media (WSM'10) is the second workshop held in conjunction with the ACM International Multimedia Conference (MM'10) at Firenze, Italy, 2010. This workshop provides a forum for researchers and practitioners from all over the world to share information on their latest investigations on social media analysis, exploration, search, mining, and emerging new social media applications.

Mining Interesting Link Formation Rules In Social Networks, Cane Wing-Ki Leung, Ee Peng Lim, David Lo, Jianshu Weng

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Link structures are important patterns one looks out for when modeling and analyzing social networks. In this paper, we propose the task of mining interesting Link Formation rules (LF-rules) containing link structures known as Link Formation patterns (LF-patterns). LF-patterns capture various dyadic and/or triadic structures among groups of nodes, while LF-rules capture the formation of a new link from a focal node to another node as a postcondition of existing connections between the two nodes. We devise a novel LF-rule mining algorithm, known as LFR-Miner, based on frequent subgraph mining for our task. In addition to using a support-confidence framework …