Pub Date : 2024-01-02DOI: 10.1177/08944393231224535
J. Phillips
In 2017, Facebook’s news feed algorithm began weighting emoji reactions (e.g., love and angry) as five times more valuable than the like button. Such a change is theoretically intriguing because existing research largely suggests that women tend to use emojis more than men on social media. Within the context of political campaigns, prior work has revealed a host of other “gender gaps,” from documenting men’s and women’s differing tolerance for negative campaigns, to examining variations in online political participation and—more broadly—charting gendered imbalances in party demographic support. To date, however, no study has looked to investigate this potential gender emoji gap within the online political environment. This paper explores just such a gap, combining data across three US election cycles (2016–2020), over thirty million individual observations, and thousands of (federal and state) candidates. The data shows that women exhibited a greater preference for emoji reactions than men in response to posts from the 2016 presidential election candidates. Party, and candidate negativity, also appeared to moderate this effect. Likely due to this (moderated) gender gap, Democratic candidates continued to see a much higher proportion of emoji reactions to their posts, than Republicans in 2018, and 2020. In turn, the results offer clear evidence of a persistent emoji gender gap in US political campaigns on Facebook. Such findings strengthen our theoretical understanding of political communication and behavior online, and prompt important questions going forward for future research.
{"title":"Likes vs. Loves (and Other Emoji Reactions): Facebook, Women, and the Gender Emoji Gap in US Election Campaigns","authors":"J. Phillips","doi":"10.1177/08944393231224535","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/08944393231224535","url":null,"abstract":"In 2017, Facebook’s news feed algorithm began weighting emoji reactions (e.g., love and angry) as five times more valuable than the like button. Such a change is theoretically intriguing because existing research largely suggests that women tend to use emojis more than men on social media. Within the context of political campaigns, prior work has revealed a host of other “gender gaps,” from documenting men’s and women’s differing tolerance for negative campaigns, to examining variations in online political participation and—more broadly—charting gendered imbalances in party demographic support. To date, however, no study has looked to investigate this potential gender emoji gap within the online political environment. This paper explores just such a gap, combining data across three US election cycles (2016–2020), over thirty million individual observations, and thousands of (federal and state) candidates. The data shows that women exhibited a greater preference for emoji reactions than men in response to posts from the 2016 presidential election candidates. Party, and candidate negativity, also appeared to moderate this effect. Likely due to this (moderated) gender gap, Democratic candidates continued to see a much higher proportion of emoji reactions to their posts, than Republicans in 2018, and 2020. In turn, the results offer clear evidence of a persistent emoji gender gap in US political campaigns on Facebook. Such findings strengthen our theoretical understanding of political communication and behavior online, and prompt important questions going forward for future research.","PeriodicalId":506768,"journal":{"name":"Social Science Computer Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139390770","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-12-27DOI: 10.1177/08944393231214027
Chingching Chang, Yu-Chuan Hung, Morris Hsieh
Party identification is an important predictor of voting preference, but because a growing percentage of voters do not express any party identification, alternative ways to anticipate voting preferences are required. Partisan slants in voters’ media consumption might offer a relevant proxy. With method triangulation, the current study explores whether media consumption prior to elections can predict voting preferences among independents. Depending on the media outlets adopted by voters and their partisan skew, as detected by Bert machine learning models, the authors calculate an overall partisan slant for each voter’s political information consumption. Data from a nationwide panel survey conducted in Taiwan affirm that their media diet “color” in 2019 can predict independent voters' choices in 2020.
{"title":"We are What We Consume: Predicting Independent Voters’ Voting Preference From Their Media Diet Color","authors":"Chingching Chang, Yu-Chuan Hung, Morris Hsieh","doi":"10.1177/08944393231214027","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/08944393231214027","url":null,"abstract":"Party identification is an important predictor of voting preference, but because a growing percentage of voters do not express any party identification, alternative ways to anticipate voting preferences are required. Partisan slants in voters’ media consumption might offer a relevant proxy. With method triangulation, the current study explores whether media consumption prior to elections can predict voting preferences among independents. Depending on the media outlets adopted by voters and their partisan skew, as detected by Bert machine learning models, the authors calculate an overall partisan slant for each voter’s political information consumption. Data from a nationwide panel survey conducted in Taiwan affirm that their media diet “color” in 2019 can predict independent voters' choices in 2020.","PeriodicalId":506768,"journal":{"name":"Social Science Computer Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-12-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139154739","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-12-18DOI: 10.1177/08944393231222675
Sunwoong Kim, M. Couper
The most important national surveys of the general population for creating official statistics or public policymaking in many countries, including South Korea, are still conducted using face-to-face interviews with household members. Recently face-to-face surveys have faced threats to data quality from decreasing response rates and rising costs of in-person visits. The COVID-19 pandemic and associated lockdown exacerbated the situation for face-to-face surveys. Survey organizations suspended fieldwork or began to explore alternate means of collecting data. One alternative was a shift to telephone surveys; however, telephone interviews have encountered similar difficulties with declining response rates and increasing costs. Could a self-administered web survey be a viable alternative to interviewer-administered modes such as telephone interviews (CATI) or face-to-face interviews (CAPI)? Smartphones may offer opportunities not offered by other modes. We conducted a smartphone web survey using SMS invitations where a sample of cell phone numbers was selected by random digit dialing (RDD) and compared it with a large-scale national face-to-face survey (CAPI) where a sample of households was selected by stratified cluster sampling. The two surveys were conducted during the COVID pandemic in the second half of 2020. The coverage and sample representation of the smartphone web survey were comparable to that of the face-to-face survey. Despite the relatively small number of respondents, the quality of the smartphone web survey was sufficient to provide accurate data and compared favorably with the CAPI survey. The smartphone web survey yielded more reports of socially undesirable attitudes and behavior than the CAPI survey. The findings will guide researchers to explore new opportunities in establishing a web survey methodology that obtains data more conveniently, efficiently, accurately, and with less cost.
{"title":"A National RDD Smartphone Web Survey: Comparison With a Large-Scale CAPI Survey","authors":"Sunwoong Kim, M. Couper","doi":"10.1177/08944393231222675","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/08944393231222675","url":null,"abstract":"The most important national surveys of the general population for creating official statistics or public policymaking in many countries, including South Korea, are still conducted using face-to-face interviews with household members. Recently face-to-face surveys have faced threats to data quality from decreasing response rates and rising costs of in-person visits. The COVID-19 pandemic and associated lockdown exacerbated the situation for face-to-face surveys. Survey organizations suspended fieldwork or began to explore alternate means of collecting data. One alternative was a shift to telephone surveys; however, telephone interviews have encountered similar difficulties with declining response rates and increasing costs. Could a self-administered web survey be a viable alternative to interviewer-administered modes such as telephone interviews (CATI) or face-to-face interviews (CAPI)? Smartphones may offer opportunities not offered by other modes. We conducted a smartphone web survey using SMS invitations where a sample of cell phone numbers was selected by random digit dialing (RDD) and compared it with a large-scale national face-to-face survey (CAPI) where a sample of households was selected by stratified cluster sampling. The two surveys were conducted during the COVID pandemic in the second half of 2020. The coverage and sample representation of the smartphone web survey were comparable to that of the face-to-face survey. Despite the relatively small number of respondents, the quality of the smartphone web survey was sufficient to provide accurate data and compared favorably with the CAPI survey. The smartphone web survey yielded more reports of socially undesirable attitudes and behavior than the CAPI survey. The findings will guide researchers to explore new opportunities in establishing a web survey methodology that obtains data more conveniently, efficiently, accurately, and with less cost.","PeriodicalId":506768,"journal":{"name":"Social Science Computer Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-12-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139173381","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-11-29DOI: 10.1177/08944393231219192
B. Bouchillon
As racial and ethnic diversity have increased in America, prejudice too has expanded. Citizens are more wary of immigrants, with attitudes toward Asian immigrants in particular worsening during COVID-19. Yet less is known about the prejudice directed at other immigrant groups during this period, with research suggesting that feeling capable of interacting with new people could reduce misgivings about diversity. A web survey was conducted in April of 2020 to test the potential for digital and physical social competence to improve attitudes toward Mexican immigrants, as the largest immigrant group in the United States ( N = 665). Interpersonal competence was inversely associated with prejudice toward Mexican immigrants, with interpersonal skills such as attentiveness, expressiveness, and mindfulness being especially valuable for prejudice reduction. Computer-mediated communication competence was indirectly associated with feeling less prejudiced, through interpersonal competence, and social presence also moderated the conversion of CMC competence into interpersonal competence, diminishing prejudice even further. Digital social capabilities encourage admiration and sympathy for immigrants by making users feel more capable of interacting with them locally. Networked settings now have the potential to train dissimilar users to interact together in person, as a way of reducing prejudice.
{"title":"Interpersonal and Computer-Mediated Competence for Prejudice Reduction: Learning to Interact Digitally and Physically During the Pandemic","authors":"B. Bouchillon","doi":"10.1177/08944393231219192","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/08944393231219192","url":null,"abstract":"As racial and ethnic diversity have increased in America, prejudice too has expanded. Citizens are more wary of immigrants, with attitudes toward Asian immigrants in particular worsening during COVID-19. Yet less is known about the prejudice directed at other immigrant groups during this period, with research suggesting that feeling capable of interacting with new people could reduce misgivings about diversity. A web survey was conducted in April of 2020 to test the potential for digital and physical social competence to improve attitudes toward Mexican immigrants, as the largest immigrant group in the United States ( N = 665). Interpersonal competence was inversely associated with prejudice toward Mexican immigrants, with interpersonal skills such as attentiveness, expressiveness, and mindfulness being especially valuable for prejudice reduction. Computer-mediated communication competence was indirectly associated with feeling less prejudiced, through interpersonal competence, and social presence also moderated the conversion of CMC competence into interpersonal competence, diminishing prejudice even further. Digital social capabilities encourage admiration and sympathy for immigrants by making users feel more capable of interacting with them locally. Networked settings now have the potential to train dissimilar users to interact together in person, as a way of reducing prejudice.","PeriodicalId":506768,"journal":{"name":"Social Science Computer Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139214515","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-11-29DOI: 10.1177/08944393231218214
Ross Dahlke, Deepak Kumar, Z. Durumeric, Jeffrey T. Hancock
Social scientists and computer scientists are increasingly using observational digital trace data and analyzing these data post hoc to understand the content people are exposed to online. However, these content collection efforts may be systematically biased when the entirety of the data cannot be captured retroactively. We call this often unstated assumption the problematic assumption of accessibility. To examine the extent to which this assumption may be problematic, we identify 107k hard news and misinformation web pages visited by a representative panel of 1,238 American adults and record the degree to which the web pages individuals visited were accessible via successful web scrapes or inaccessible via unsuccessful scrapes. While we find that the URLs collected are largely accessible and with unrestricted content, we find there are systematic biases in which URLs are restricted, return an error, or are inaccessible. For example, conservative misinformation URLs are more likely to be inaccessible than other types of misinformation. We suggest how social scientists should capture and report digital trace and web scraping data.
{"title":"Quantifying the Systematic Bias in the Accessibility and Inaccessibility of Web Scraping Content From URL-Logged Web-Browsing Digital Trace Data","authors":"Ross Dahlke, Deepak Kumar, Z. Durumeric, Jeffrey T. Hancock","doi":"10.1177/08944393231218214","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/08944393231218214","url":null,"abstract":"Social scientists and computer scientists are increasingly using observational digital trace data and analyzing these data post hoc to understand the content people are exposed to online. However, these content collection efforts may be systematically biased when the entirety of the data cannot be captured retroactively. We call this often unstated assumption the problematic assumption of accessibility. To examine the extent to which this assumption may be problematic, we identify 107k hard news and misinformation web pages visited by a representative panel of 1,238 American adults and record the degree to which the web pages individuals visited were accessible via successful web scrapes or inaccessible via unsuccessful scrapes. While we find that the URLs collected are largely accessible and with unrestricted content, we find there are systematic biases in which URLs are restricted, return an error, or are inaccessible. For example, conservative misinformation URLs are more likely to be inaccessible than other types of misinformation. We suggest how social scientists should capture and report digital trace and web scraping data.","PeriodicalId":506768,"journal":{"name":"Social Science Computer Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139211957","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-11-28DOI: 10.1177/08944393231219481
Kun Yang, Shuang Qian
This paper explores whether and in what situation the smiling face emoji will influence the interpretation of an utterance in a virtual context. The researchers drew examples from daily WeChat communication and posted them to participants in the experiment. Experimental studies found that the smiling face emoji decreases the politeness of an utterance but does not mitigate the illocutionary force of an impolite utterance. Further studies demonstrate that the interpretation is related to two features of WeChat: the interactant’s identity (age) and the situation of communication. For one thing, utterances with smiling face emoji may be interpreted as disrespectful by younger Chinese rather than the older. For another, the smiling face emoji is always interpreted as impolite when the utterances are related to the interactants’ feelings. We also infer from the findings that older people might respect the feelings of the addresser more than younger people in WeChat communication. This paper will help avoid miscommunication and contribute to understanding the socio-cultural features of interpersonal interaction in a virtual context.
{"title":"Your Smiling Face is Impolite to Me: A Study of the Smiling Face Emoji in Chinese Computer-Mediated Communication","authors":"Kun Yang, Shuang Qian","doi":"10.1177/08944393231219481","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/08944393231219481","url":null,"abstract":"This paper explores whether and in what situation the smiling face emoji will influence the interpretation of an utterance in a virtual context. The researchers drew examples from daily WeChat communication and posted them to participants in the experiment. Experimental studies found that the smiling face emoji decreases the politeness of an utterance but does not mitigate the illocutionary force of an impolite utterance. Further studies demonstrate that the interpretation is related to two features of WeChat: the interactant’s identity (age) and the situation of communication. For one thing, utterances with smiling face emoji may be interpreted as disrespectful by younger Chinese rather than the older. For another, the smiling face emoji is always interpreted as impolite when the utterances are related to the interactants’ feelings. We also infer from the findings that older people might respect the feelings of the addresser more than younger people in WeChat communication. This paper will help avoid miscommunication and contribute to understanding the socio-cultural features of interpersonal interaction in a virtual context.","PeriodicalId":506768,"journal":{"name":"Social Science Computer Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139226219","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-11-23DOI: 10.1177/08944393231217940
Yuehua Wu, Weijia Cai, Sandra Asantewaa Mensah
Despite the increasing popularity of female-oriented romantic video games (RVGs, also known as otome games) in Asia, research on this topic is scarce. Drawing upon social exchange theory and social cognitive theory, the current study examined the association of RVG involvement and desire for real-life romantic relationships (RLRRs), and tested a SEM path model delineating the possible pathways linking RVG involvement to RLRR desire. A survey method was adopted to collect data from female RVG players on an online otome games forum in China. Results from a valid sample of 353 respondents (aged 18 or older) showed the direct, indirect, and total effects of RVG involvement on players’ interest in real-life dating and marriage relationships were all negatively significant. It was found that gamers’ avatar identification and parasocial relationships with romantic targets significantly mediated the relationship between RVG involvement and RLRR desire. Adding to a comparatively under-explored line of inquiry on the role of computer games in shaping real-life romance, this study contributes to both game effects and romantic media consumption literature.
{"title":"“We Found Love”: Romantic Video Game Involvement and Desire for Real-Life Romantic Relationships Among Female Gamers","authors":"Yuehua Wu, Weijia Cai, Sandra Asantewaa Mensah","doi":"10.1177/08944393231217940","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/08944393231217940","url":null,"abstract":"Despite the increasing popularity of female-oriented romantic video games (RVGs, also known as otome games) in Asia, research on this topic is scarce. Drawing upon social exchange theory and social cognitive theory, the current study examined the association of RVG involvement and desire for real-life romantic relationships (RLRRs), and tested a SEM path model delineating the possible pathways linking RVG involvement to RLRR desire. A survey method was adopted to collect data from female RVG players on an online otome games forum in China. Results from a valid sample of 353 respondents (aged 18 or older) showed the direct, indirect, and total effects of RVG involvement on players’ interest in real-life dating and marriage relationships were all negatively significant. It was found that gamers’ avatar identification and parasocial relationships with romantic targets significantly mediated the relationship between RVG involvement and RLRR desire. Adding to a comparatively under-explored line of inquiry on the role of computer games in shaping real-life romance, this study contributes to both game effects and romantic media consumption literature.","PeriodicalId":506768,"journal":{"name":"Social Science Computer Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139244242","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-11-20DOI: 10.1177/08944393231213315
Pablo Cabrera-Álvarez, Peter Lynn
This article reports research exploring the benefits of adding text messages to the contact strategy in the context of a sequential mixed-mode design where telephone interviewer administration follows a web phase. In a web-first mixed-mode survey, supplementing the contact strategy with text messages can help increase the response rate at the web phase and, consequently, reduce fieldwork efforts at the interviewer-administered phase. We present results from a survey experiment embedded in wave 11 of Understanding Society in which the usual contact strategy of emails and letters was supplemented with text messages. Effects of the text messages on survey response and fieldwork efforts were assessed. In addition, we also investigated the impact of SMS on the device selected to complete the survey, time to response, and sample balance. The results show a weak effect of the SMS reminders on response during the web fieldwork. However, this positive effect did not significantly reduce fieldwork effort.
{"title":"Text Messages to Incentivise Response in a Web-First Sequential Mixed-Mode Survey","authors":"Pablo Cabrera-Álvarez, Peter Lynn","doi":"10.1177/08944393231213315","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/08944393231213315","url":null,"abstract":"This article reports research exploring the benefits of adding text messages to the contact strategy in the context of a sequential mixed-mode design where telephone interviewer administration follows a web phase. In a web-first mixed-mode survey, supplementing the contact strategy with text messages can help increase the response rate at the web phase and, consequently, reduce fieldwork efforts at the interviewer-administered phase. We present results from a survey experiment embedded in wave 11 of Understanding Society in which the usual contact strategy of emails and letters was supplemented with text messages. Effects of the text messages on survey response and fieldwork efforts were assessed. In addition, we also investigated the impact of SMS on the device selected to complete the survey, time to response, and sample balance. The results show a weak effect of the SMS reminders on response during the web fieldwork. However, this positive effect did not significantly reduce fieldwork effort.","PeriodicalId":506768,"journal":{"name":"Social Science Computer Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139256263","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-11-20DOI: 10.1177/08944393231184533
I. Steenhout, L. Volinz, K. Beyens, Lucas Melgaço
In recent decades, the public sector has been looking for ways to accommodate increasingly critical citizens by striving towards a less bureaucratic and more efficient organization, as well as more direct forms of communication. Government institutions try to respond more quickly to citizens’ concerns and want to ensure that citizens can contact them more easily and find relevant and accurate information promptly. To achieve this, they often turn to technological aids. This article focuses on how municipalities analyze and follow up minor violations and street nuisances. We used semi-structured interviews with key informants from the relevant services of the municipality of Schaerbeek, a district of Brussels (Belgium), to examine how the technological innovations implemented within the municipality transform the relations between local authorities and their citizens, as well as the internal relations between the different municipal services. Although the respondents were unanimous about the added value of these technological solutions, our analysis shows four clearly recurrent issues : (1) the “functional reduction” associated with technological innovations leaves little room for the complex context of social nuisance; (2) government services are currently flooded by a “tsunami” of communication flows; (3) so-called “innovative” technological solutions often mimic old bureaucratic processes; (4) new communication tools are not equally integrated into all levels of local administration.
{"title":"The Long Road to Municipality 2.0: Mobile City Apps as Catalyst for Change?","authors":"I. Steenhout, L. Volinz, K. Beyens, Lucas Melgaço","doi":"10.1177/08944393231184533","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/08944393231184533","url":null,"abstract":"In recent decades, the public sector has been looking for ways to accommodate increasingly critical citizens by striving towards a less bureaucratic and more efficient organization, as well as more direct forms of communication. Government institutions try to respond more quickly to citizens’ concerns and want to ensure that citizens can contact them more easily and find relevant and accurate information promptly. To achieve this, they often turn to technological aids. This article focuses on how municipalities analyze and follow up minor violations and street nuisances. We used semi-structured interviews with key informants from the relevant services of the municipality of Schaerbeek, a district of Brussels (Belgium), to examine how the technological innovations implemented within the municipality transform the relations between local authorities and their citizens, as well as the internal relations between the different municipal services. Although the respondents were unanimous about the added value of these technological solutions, our analysis shows four clearly recurrent issues : (1) the “functional reduction” associated with technological innovations leaves little room for the complex context of social nuisance; (2) government services are currently flooded by a “tsunami” of communication flows; (3) so-called “innovative” technological solutions often mimic old bureaucratic processes; (4) new communication tools are not equally integrated into all levels of local administration.","PeriodicalId":506768,"journal":{"name":"Social Science Computer Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139257645","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-11-18DOI: 10.1177/08944393231215457
Sarah Geber, M. Nguyen, Moritz Büchi
Digital disconnection has emerged as a response to constant connectivity and the perceived harms to well-being that technology overuse may cause in a digital society. Despite the apparent conflict with expectations of constant availability, there has been limited research on the role of social norms in individuals’ regulation of their digital media use. The present study applied a nuanced conceptualization of social norms—by differentiating referent groups (i.e., family, friends, and everyday contacts) as well as injunctive and descriptive norms—and examined the associations of disconnection and availability norms with disconnection behavior across two generations of digital media users. Drawing on an online survey based on a stratified population sample ( N = 1163), we found perceptions of injunctive disconnection norms to differ across generations, with younger digital media users perceiving digital disconnection but also availability to be more important to their social environment. This conflict of contradictory norms was also reflected in an interactional effect on own disconnection behavior in this group, where positive correlations between disconnections norms and behavior were countered by availability norms. Overall, our findings demonstrate the social complexity of the individual decision to (dis)connect and, on the societal level, that social norms of disconnection are in transition with disconnection behavior becoming and being perceived as more and more important.
{"title":"Conflicting Norms—How Norms of Disconnection and Availability Correlate With Digital Media Use Across Generations","authors":"Sarah Geber, M. Nguyen, Moritz Büchi","doi":"10.1177/08944393231215457","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/08944393231215457","url":null,"abstract":"Digital disconnection has emerged as a response to constant connectivity and the perceived harms to well-being that technology overuse may cause in a digital society. Despite the apparent conflict with expectations of constant availability, there has been limited research on the role of social norms in individuals’ regulation of their digital media use. The present study applied a nuanced conceptualization of social norms—by differentiating referent groups (i.e., family, friends, and everyday contacts) as well as injunctive and descriptive norms—and examined the associations of disconnection and availability norms with disconnection behavior across two generations of digital media users. Drawing on an online survey based on a stratified population sample ( N = 1163), we found perceptions of injunctive disconnection norms to differ across generations, with younger digital media users perceiving digital disconnection but also availability to be more important to their social environment. This conflict of contradictory norms was also reflected in an interactional effect on own disconnection behavior in this group, where positive correlations between disconnections norms and behavior were countered by availability norms. Overall, our findings demonstrate the social complexity of the individual decision to (dis)connect and, on the societal level, that social norms of disconnection are in transition with disconnection behavior becoming and being perceived as more and more important.","PeriodicalId":506768,"journal":{"name":"Social Science Computer Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139261693","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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