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Social Media and the ‘Spiral of Silence’

 

Summary of Findings

A major insight into human behavior from pre-internet era studies of communication is the tendency of people not to speak up about policy issues in public—or among their family, friends, and work colleagues—when they believe their own point of view is not widely shared. This tendency is called the “spiral of silence.”
Some social media creators and supporters have hoped that social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter might produce different enough discussion venues that those with minority views might feel freer to express their opinions, thus broadening public discourse and adding new perspectives to everyday discussion of political issues.
We set out to study this by conducting a survey of 1,801 adults.² It focused on one important public issue: Edward Snowden’s 2013 revelations of widespread government surveillance of Americans’ phone and email records. We selected this issue because other surveys by the Pew Research Center at the time we were fielding this poll showed that Americans were divided over whether the NSA contractor’s leaks about surveillance were justified and whether the surveillance policy itself was a good or bad idea. For instance, Pew Research found in one survey that 44% say the release of classified information harms the public interest while 49% said it serves the public interest.
The survey reported in this report sought people’s opinions about the Snowden leaks, their willingness to talk about the revelations in various in-person and online settings, and their perceptions of the views of those around them in a variety of online and off-line contexts.
This survey’s findings produced several major insights:

• People were less willing to discuss the Snowden-NSA story in social media than they were in person. 86% of Americans were willing to have an in-person conversation about the surveillance program, but just 42% of Facebook and Twitter users were willing to post about it on those platforms.
• Social media did not provide an alternative discussion platform for those who were not willing to discuss the Snowden-NSA story. Of the 14% of Americans unwilling to discuss the Snowden-NSA story in person with others, only 0.3% were willing to post about it on social media.
• In both personal settings and online settings, people were more willing to share their views if they thought their audience agreed with them. For instance, at work, those who felt their coworkers agreed with their opinion were about three times more likely to say they would join a workplace conversation about the Snowden-NSA situation.
• Previous ‘spiral of silence’ findings as to people’s willingness to speak up in various settings also apply to social media users. Those who use Facebook were more willing to share their views if they thought their followers agreed with them. If a person felt that people in their Facebook network agreed with their opinion about the Snowden-NSA issue, they were about twice as likely to join a discussion on Facebook about this issue.
• Facebook and Twitter users were also less likely to share their opinions in many face-to-face settings. This was especially true if they did not feel that their Facebook friends or Twitter followers agreed with their point of view. For instance, the average Facebook user (someone who uses the site a few times per day) was half as likely as other people to say they would be willing to voice their opinion with friends at a restaurant. If they felt that their online Facebook network agreed with their views on this issue, their willingness to speak out in a face-to-face discussion with friends was higher, although they were still only 0.74 times as likely to voice their opinion as other people.

Overall, the findings indicate that in the Snowden case, social media did not provide new forums for those who might otherwise remain silent to express their opinions and debate issues. Further, if people thought their friends and followers in social media disagreed with them, they were less likely to say they would state their views on the Snowden-NSA story online and in other contexts, such as gatherings of friends, neighbors, or co-workers. This suggests a spiral of silence might spill over from online contexts to in-person contexts, though our data cannot definitively demonstrate this causation. It also might mean that the broad awareness social media users have of their networks might make them more hesitant to speak up because they are especially tuned into the opinions of those around them.
A rundown of the key survey findings:

People reported being less willing to discuss the Snowden-NSA story in social media than they were in person—and social media did not provide an alternative outlet for those reluctant to discuss the issues in person.

Fully 86% of Americans reported in the Pew Research survey they were “very” or “somewhat” willing to have a conversation about the government’s surveillance program in at least one of the physical settings we queried —at a public meeting, at a family dinner, at a restaurant with friends, or at work. Yet, only 42% of those who use Facebook or Twitter were willing to discuss these same issues through social media.

Of the 14% of Americans who were not willing to discuss this issue in person, almost none (0.3%) said they were willing to have a conversation about this issue through social media. This challenges the notion that social media spaces might be considered useful venues for people sharing views they would not otherwise express when they are in the physical presence of others.

Not only were social media sites not an alternative forum for discussion, social media users were less willing to share their opinions in face-to-face settings.

We also did statistical modeling allowing us to more fully understand the findings by controlling for such things as gender, age, education levels, race, and marital status—all of which are related to whether people use social media and how they use it. That modeling allowed us to calculate how likely people were to be willing to express their views in these differing settings holding other things constant.
The results of our analyses show that, even holding other factors such as age constant, social media users are less likely than others to say they would join a discussion about the Snowden-NSA revelations.

• The typical Facebook user—someone who logs onto the site a few times per day—is half as likely to be willing to have a discussion about the Snowden-NSA issues at a physical public meeting as a non-Facebook user.
• Similarly, the typical Twitter user—someone who uses the site a few times per day—is 0.24 times less likely to be willing to share their opinions in the workplace as an internet user who does not use Twitter.

In both offline and online settings, people said they were more willing to share their views on the Snowden-NSA revelations if they thought their audience agreed with them.

Previous research has shown that when people decide whether to speak out about an issue, they rely on reference groups—friendships and community ties—to weigh their opinion relative to their peers. In the survey, we asked respondents about their sense of whether different groups of people in their lives agreed or disagreed with their positions on the Snowden leaks. There was some notable variance between those who feel they know the views of their peers and those who do not know what others think. Generally, the more socially close people were—e.g. spouses or family members—the more likely it was that the respondents felt their views matched.

We again calculated how likely it was that someone would be willing to share their views in different settings, depending on their sense of whether their audience agreed with them. We found that, in the case of Snowden’s revelations about the NSA, it was clear that if people felt their audience supported them, they were more likely to say they would join a conversation:

• At work, those who felt their coworkers agreed with their opinion on the government’s surveillance program were 2.92 times more likely to say they would join a conversation on the topic of Snowden-NSA.
• At a family dinner, those who felt that family members agreed with their opinion were 1.90 times more likely to be willing to discuss the Snowden-NSA issue.
• At a restaurant with friends, if their close friends agreed with their opinion people were 1.42 times more likely to be willing to discuss the Snowden-NSA matter.
• On Facebook, if a person felt that people in their Facebook network agreed with their position on that issue, they were 1.91 times more likely to be willing to join a conversation on the topic of Snowden-NSA.

Those who do not feel that their Facebook friends or Twitter followers agree with their opinion are more likely to self-censor their views on the Snowden-NSA story in many circumstances—in social media and in face-to-face encounters.
In this survey on the Snowden-NSA matter, we found that when social media users felt their opinions were not supported online, they were less likely to say they would speak their minds . This was true not only in social media spaces, but also in the physical presence of others.

• The average Facebook user (someone who uses the site a few times per day) was half as likely as other people to say they would be willing to voice their opinion with friends at a restaurant. If they felt that their online Facebook network agreed with their views on this issue, their willingness to speak out in a face-to-face discussion with friends was higher, although they were still only 0.74 times as likely to voice their opinion.
• The typical Twitter user (who uses the site a few times per day) is 0.24 times as likely to share their opinions with colleagues at work as an internet user who does not use Twitter. However, Twitter users who felt that their online Twitter followers shared their opinion were less reserved: They were only 0.66 times less likely to speak up than other internet users.

The survey did not directly explore why people might remain silent if they felt that their opinions were in the minority. The traditional view of the spiral of silence is that people choose not to speak out for fear of isolation. Other Pew Research studies have found that it is common for social media users to be mistaken about their friends’ beliefs and to be surprised once they discover their friends’ actual views via social media. Thus, it might be the case that people do not want to disclose their minority views for fear of disappointing their friends, getting into fruitless arguments, or losing them entirely. Some people may prefer not to share their views on social media because their posts persist and can be found later—perhaps by prospective employers or others with high status. As to why the absence of agreement on social media platforms spills over into a spiral of silence in physical settings, we speculate that social media users may have witnessed those with minority opinions experiencing ostracism, ridicule or bullying online, and that this might increase the perceived risk of opinion sharing in other settings.

People also say they would speak up, or stay silent, under specific conditions.

In addition to exploring the impact of agreement/disagreement on whether people were willing to discuss the Snowden-NSA revelations, we asked about other factors that might shape whether people would speak out, even if they suspected they held minority views. This survey shows how the social and political climate in which people share opinions depends on several other things:

• Their confidence in how much they know. Those who felt they knew a lot about the issues were more likely than others to say they would join conversations.
• The intensity of their opinions. Those who said they had strong feelings about the Snowden-NSA matter were more willing than those with less intense feelings to talk about the subject.
• Their level of interest. Those who said they were very interested in the Snowden-NSA story were more likely than those who were not as interested to express their opinions.

People’s use of social media did little to increase their access to information about the Snowden-NSA revelations.

We asked respondents where they were getting information about the debates swirling around the Snowden revelations, and found that social media was not a common source of news for most Americans. Traditional broadcast news sources were by far the most common sources. In contrast, social media sources like Facebook and Twitter were the least commonly identified sources for news on this issue.

• 58% of all adults got at least some information on the topic of Snowden-NSA from TV or radio.
• 34% got at least some information from online sources other than social media.
• 31% got at least some information from friends and family.
• 19% got at least some information from a print newspaper.
• 15% got at least some information while on Facebook.
• 3% got at least some information from Twitter.

There are limits to what this snapshot can tell us about how social media use is related to the ways Americans discuss important political issues. This study focuses on one specific public affairs issue that was of interest to most Americans: the Snowden-NSA revelations. It is not an exhaustive review of all public policy issues and the way they are discussed in social media.
The context of the Snowden-NSA story may also have made it somewhat different from other kinds of public debates. At the time of this study, the material leaked by Edward Snowden related to NSA monitoring of communications dealt specifically with “meta-data” collected on people’s phone and internet communications. For a phone call, the meta-data collected by the NSA was described as including the duration of the call, when it happened, the numbers the call was between, but not a recording of the call. For email, meta-data would have included the sender and recipient’s email addresses and when it was sent, but not the subject or text of the email.
Additional information leaked by Snowden after our study was completed suggests that Western intelligence agencies monitored and manipulated the content of online discussions and the NSA recorded the content of foreign phone calls. In reaction to these additional revelations, people may have adjusted their use of social media and their willingness to discuss a range of topics, including public issues such as government surveillance. However, given the limited extent of the information leaked by Snowden at the time the survey was fielded, it seems unlikely that the average American had extensively altered their willingness to discuss political issues. Future research may provide insight into whether Americans have become more or less willing to discuss specific issues on-and offline as a result of government surveillance programs.  While this study focused on the Snowden-NSA revelations, we suspect that Americans use social media in similar ways to discuss and get news about other political issues.

About this Report

An informed citizenry depends on people’s exposure to information on important political issues and on their willingness to discuss these issues with those around them. The rise of social media, such as Facebook and Twitter, has introduced new spaces where political discussion and debate can take place. This report explores the degree to which social media affects a long-established human attribute—that those who think they hold minority opinions often self-censor, failing to speak out for fear of ostracism or ridicule. It is called the “spiral of silence.”
All the information we are collect from internet.

Social Media News About Social Media Campagian 2014

Cell Phones, Social Media and Campaign 2014

Cell phones and social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter are playing an increasingly prominent role in how voters get political information and follow election news, according to a new national survey by the Pew Research Center.
The proportion of Americans who use their cell phones to track political news or campaign coverage has doubled compared with the most recent midterm election: 28% of registered voters have used their cell phone in this way during the 2014 campaign, up from 13% in 2010. Further, the number of Americans who follow candidates or other political figures on social media has also risen sharply: 16% of registered voters now do this, up from 6% in 2010.
Voters of all ages are more likely to take part in these behaviors than in the previous midterm race, but that growth has been especially pronounced among 30-49 year olds. Some 40% of voters ages 30-49 have used their cell phone to follow this year’s election campaign (up from 15% in 2010) and 21% follow political figures on social media (up from just 6% in 2010). Voters in this age group now take part in each of these behaviors at rates nearly identical to 18-29 year olds.
Participation in the digital campaign does not have a clear partisan slant. Republicans and Democrats engage in each of these behaviors at similar rates. At the same time, when asked about some reasons why they might follow political figures on social media, Republicans and Republican-leaning independents express a greater desire to be the first to find out about breaking political news, and to say that they use social media to get political information that has not passed through the traditional media “filter.” Voters from both parties place a similar emphasis on the deeper connections that social media allows them to form with the candidates they support.
Digital politics also goes hand in hand with other types of campaign engagement. In particular, the 16% of registered voters who follow political figures on social media participate in various traditional campaign activities at high rates—from volunteering and donating money, to encouraging others to get out and support their preferred candidates and causes.
This report is based on a national survey conducted October 15-20 among 2,003 adults (including 1,494 registered voters). Among the main findings: 

One quarter of registered voters now get political news on their cell phones

As smartphone ownership has increased dramatically in recent years, more and more Americans are using their mobile devices to keep tabs on political events. Some 28% of registered voters have used their cell phone this year to keep up with news relating to the election or political events, which represents a two-fold increase compared with the most recent midterm election cycle. In a survey conducted at the end of the 2010 election campaign, just 13% of registered voters said that they had used their cell phones to keep up with election coverage.
Registered voters of both parties are equally likely to use their phones to keep up with election news, as 25% of Republicans and 29% of Democrats report doing so this campaign season. And while voters of all ages are more likely to use their cell phones for political and election news than was the case during the 2010 midterms, this increase has been especially pronounced among voters in their 30s and 40s. Some 40% of registered voters ages 30-49 have used their cell phones to track election coverage this year, up from just 15% who did so during the previous midterm campaign.
These “mobile election news consumers” are more active than other Americans when it comes to certain campaign activities, although in other ways they are similar to the voter pool as a whole. They are more likely to have encouraged people they know to vote or support a particular candidate (58% have done this, compared with 37% of registered voters who do not get campaign news on their cell phone) and to have attended a campaign event (11% vs. 6%). On the other hand, they are no more likely than other voters to make campaign contributions, or to volunteer their time to help a candidate or campaign.

More than twice as many Americans are following political candidates on social media as was the case during the 2010 midterms

A substantial majority of Americans use social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, and 16% of registered voters now use these sites to follow candidates for office, political parties, or elected officials. This represents a more than two-fold increase from the previous midterm election in 2010, when just 6% of registered voters followed political candidates or groups on social media.
Supporters of both parties are equally likely to follow political figures on social media, with 18% of Republicans and 15% of Democrats doing so. And as was the case with mobile political activity, voters in their 30s and 40s have experienced a particularly substantial increase in this behavior. Some 21% of voters ages 30-49 follow political figures on social media, a more than three-fold increase from the previous midterm cycle.
Americans who follow political figures on social media also tend to be highly engaged with various aspects of the election campaign. Among other things, they are more likely than voters who do not follow political figures via social media to volunteer their time to a candidate or campaign (11% vs. 4%); to make a campaign contribution (21% vs. 11%); to attend a campaign event (13% vs. 6%); and to encourage their friends to support a candidate or issue at the polls (62% vs. 39%). They are also more likely to say that they regularly follow government and public affairs, and to say that they have given quite a lot of thought to this year’s elections.

Increasing numbers of Americans are following political figures on social media in order to be first to hear about the political news of the day

As political behavior on social media has grown more prevalent, the reasons voters give for following political figures in these spaces have also shifted somewhat compared with the previous midterm election. When presented with a list of reasons why they might choose to follow political candidates or groups on social media:

• 41% say that finding out about political news before other people do is a “major reason” why they follow political figures on social media. In 2010, just 22% said that this was a major reason.
• 35% say that feeling more personally connected to political candidates or groups is a “major reason” why they follow political figures on social media. This is unchanged from the 36% who cited this as a major factor in 2010.
• 26% say that getting more reliable information than what is available from traditional news organizations is a “major reason” why they follow political figures on social media. This is also statistically indistinguishable from the 21% who cited this as a major factor in 2010.

When it comes to political affiliation, Republican and Republican-leaning independents tend to place a greater emphasis on finding out about news quickly and on getting what they perceive as being more reliable information than is available from traditional news organizations. Some 50% of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents who follow political figures on social media say that getting news quickly is a “major reason” for doing so (compared with 35% of Democratic and Democratic-leaning independents), while 33% say that getting more reliable information than what is available from the traditional news media is a “major reason” (compared with 20% of Democrats). Republicans and Democrats are equally likely to say that feeling more personally connected to the candidates and groups that they support is a “major reason” for following those figures on social media.
Along with these shifts in the reasons people cite for following political figures on social media, there has also been a slight change in the way they think about the relevance of political content. Some 78% of Americans who follow political figures on social media say that the content posted by those figures is mostly interesting and relevant, while 20% say that the content is mostly uninteresting and not relevant to them. When we asked this question during the 2010 campaign, 67% said that this information was interesting and relevant, while 32% said that it was not interesting or relevant.

Social Media Entertainment News

The Illuminations Project showcases feminism

“THEY WERE FEMINIST AS F---” reads the very last line of The Illuminations Project, an exceptionally wordy words-and-pictures collaboration between Shary Boyle and Emily Vey Duke currently at Oakville Galleries, and it could just as well be the alternate title of the whole darn thing.

That should come as no surprise, given the collaborators: Boyle (pictures), with her frank, fantastical and occasionally grisly drawings and sculpture and Vey Duke (words), through her decidedly more conceptual frame, have always viewed the world in a women-first kind of way.

Even less surprising, despite their different ways of making art, is their close kinship here. The Illuminations Project is the product of a decade long back-and-forth that has produced works alarming, potent, wry and wholly engaging.

Here’s how it came to be: A dozen or so years ago, Vey Duke sent Boyle a snippet of poetic fiction. Boyle recast it as a drawing, but kept it secret; she then made another drawing and sent it back to Vey Duke for her written interpretation. In turn, Vey Duke wrote a text to accompany the image, stowed it away, and wrote a new one.

On it went, over the years, until 31 matched pairs emerged as a fully-formed body of work. Oakville Galleries is showing it for the first time, but not the last: A cross-country tour is in the works, with possible dates south of the border as well.

The Illuminations Project will also be produced as a book, which is as wise as it is necessary: There’s a ton of reading to be done here, some of it oblique, much of it crisp with dry wit, and all of it loosely pinned to a narrative thread that runs through its 31 episodes.

Loosely is the key word: Boyle and Vey Duke explore dark corners of the psyche partially through a storyline involving Bloodie, a girl in the bloom of young womanhood (I’ll leave you to connect the dots on that one) and her occasional encounters with Peg Leg and his band of wild boys.

While it’s not wrong to see The Illuminations Project as an allegorical epic in the age-old tradition of such things (Spenser’s The Faerie Queene, with the symbolic purity of Una and her travels through perilous lands accompanied by the Red Cross Knight comes to mind) it’s not quite so explicitly instructive.

Bloodie’s various misadventures are punctuated with departures into darker realms, where the perils of modern life more generally come into viscerally sharp focus. In one pairing titled “I want to be afraid of nature,” Vey Duke posits that “Today we see nature as a precious chamois-rag with the capacity to mop up a limited amount of the toxic filth produced by culture.”

She, of course, lets us know what she thinks about the essential purity of nature in her title, and Boyle follows suit: Hanging next to it, a pack of lions, wolves and rats feast on the naked corpse of a young girl under a steel-blue sky in a denuded forest.

It’s all of a very Boyle-ish piece, and the kind of thing the Toronto-based artist has ridden to a very prominent career, which landed her at the Venice Biennale 18 months ago as Canada’s very official artist-emissary. Dark fantasy, viscerality, and a certain carnal, consumptive sensibility unafraid of the darker side of human nature are all elements of her work, and Vey Duke, with her gleefully macabre and pithy texts, makes an able foil.

The installation, meanwhile, is pitch-perfect. The gallery space is darkened, the pieces spot-lit, either on the walls or in vitrines, bestowing upon them an otherworldly, quasi-religious or mythical quality.

For all the reading to be done here, the show has remarkable physical presence; as much sense as a collected volume will make, it makes as much sense as a show. Boyle’s drawings are, as ever, gutsy, exuberant things, exultant in colour and in bizarrely transmogrified figures and forms.

Women rule here, and it comes clear that Shary Boyle and Vey Duke’s feminism is not merely intellectualized, but a powerfully visceral thing: A woman lies splayed, naked on the back of a stag, gorging on a birthday cake, immolating her lover, who is obscured by icing and flame; naked girls mounted on wild dogs and hunting in packs, with their quarry — God, the ultimate patriarch — tied to a rickety tree.

Circling the gallery to the final diptych, we achieve resolution. Bloodie and Peg Leg, embroiled in a love-hate relationship throughout, achieve their Ithaca in a protected glade. Together at last, they care for woodland creatures and live off the land, growing closer and closer to it. Eventually, they die, and their earthy corpses spawn a race of tiny forest-folk who devour their remains as a means to thrive.

It appears as a gently environmentalist version of immaculate conception — birth without sex, without pain, achieved in equal measure by man and woman — and it brings us to that last line: THEY WERE FEMINIST AS F---. It’s not about the artists, but the progenitors of this new race, worshipful of their forbears’ reconciled, gender-equitable ways.

Did we mention that The Illuminations Project reads as epic mythology? Given the events in the news this week, that’s even more sad, and more true. The Illuminations Project, in its macabre, fantastical way, is a genuine stab at enlightenment, even as the darkness seems to gather ever more near.

Social Media News About Facebook And Twitter

Facebook is personal, Twitter is political: Delacourt

Social media sites, particularly Facebook and Twitter, have been labeled “the confirmed water cooler of the modern era” in a report on how Canadians share information.

It’s been a busy two weeks around that water cooler, first with the horrific shootings in Ottawa and then with the stunning fall from grace of CBC celebrity Jian Ghomeshi.

These were two very different events. The only common thread was the massive conversations they generated online. But the differences in how they landed at the cyberspace water cooler may serve as a future guide on when to use Facebook and when to use Twitter.

Everybody has their favourite ways of breaking journalism into categories —tabloid vs. broadsheet, broadcast vs. print, sensational vs. thoughtful and so on.

Here’s mine: there is journalism that takes grey situations and turns them into black and white; and there’s journalism that takes black-and-white stories and shows us where things are grey.

Back when CBC’s nightly newscast was divided into The National and The Journal — news items, followed by longer-form documentaries — it seemed we had a taste of both styles of journalism each night.

It’s occurred to me over the past two weeks that we’re now seeing that distinction again, in online form: Twitter as the best place for black-and-white views of the world; Facebook for the more nuanced, grey-area discussions.

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When the shooting broke out Oct. 22 at the National War Memorial and then the very halls of Parliament, people rushed to Twitter for black-and-white clarity. They wouldn’t get that clarity for many hours, but it was simple, declarative information that people were seeking: How many shooters? Who’s the bad guy? Who are the heroes? Who’s hurt? Who’s safe?

Compare this to last Sunday, when the terse news was issued that CBC had terminated its relationship with Ghomeshi.

Again, people rushed to Twitter, seeking a simple, good-vs.-bad narrative, but there was none to be found (unless you count the knee-jerk conspiracy theories about how the former CBC host had fallen afoul of the Conservative government. Yes, people did suggest this within minutes of hearing the news — another sign of the times, perhaps.)

Within hours, Ghomeshi used Facebook, not Twitter, in a bid to make a black-and-white situation grey. He wrote at great length — not an option in the 140-character universe of Twitter — about how he was being punished for his sexual preferences, admittedly not to all tastes.

In the immediate aftermath of this revelation, many people wanted to have a nuanced conversation. How could such a good broadcaster be such a bad person? How could a gentle, sensitive public persona be so at odds with nasty reports of his private life? When does one’s dating life collide with one’s job?

The Twitter crowd, however, had little tolerance for such grey-area discussions. To praise the show, or Ghomeshi’s broadcasting skills, was tantamount to hatred of women. People were mocked for saying they wanted to know all the facts before rushing to judgment.

The newest report on how Canadians share information, titled “Matters of Opinion,” was released this week by Abacus Data, a polling firm, and FullDuplex.ca, a data-analysis company. Among its findings, the report showed that “engaged” Canadians — those paying attention to the news — are active users of Twitter and Facebook.

In every respect except one, people reported using Facebook and Twitter for the same reasons: to voice their opinions, to share interesting content, etc. While 79 per cent of respondents said they used Twitter to “endorse content,” only 32 per cent said they would use Facebook for that reason.

People are also using Facebook and Twitter to reach different audiences, the report found. More than 80 per cent of Canadians use Facebook primarily to reach family and friends, according to this survey. Only 30 per cent of Twitter users said family and friends were their target audience; nearly 60 per cent said they were reaching out to “acquaintances” or online interest groups.

So maybe that’s another distinction: Facebook is personal, Twitter is political.

In those terms, the social media conversations around these two big events in Canada make sense.

The highly charged, political nature of the Ottawa shootings meant that Canadians needed to rush to Twitter. The Ghomeshi saga, meanwhile, migrated from Facebook to Twitter over the week, as more women came forward with damning revelations and when the personal became the political.

This, then, is what we have learned at the modern water cooler over these past, tumultuous weeks. Twitter and Facebook are not competitors, but complements to each other. If you’re looking for the personal and the nuanced, head to Facebook. If it’s short, political and opinionated content you’re seeking, head to Twitter.

Social Media News

Gangs using social media to recruit and intimidate

ATLANTA (WXIA) -- There was a time when gangs did their advertising the old-fashioned way: through graffiti on walls; spreading their message slowly, one block at a time.
But that was before the internet could spread their influence virally, like a pandemic of violence, traveling at the speed of light.
"With the gangs utilizing social media, they realize that's a platform or tool to better put out what they do for other people to see," said Art Powell, a former gang member, He is now an advocate against them. "Whether that's imposing fear on their enemies by posting videos of beating somebody down or shooting or showing guns."
Last week, gunfire broke out at a high school football game in Atlanta. Police shot one suspect. But three guns were found at the scene, leading to speculation that it may have been gang-related.
A quick check of local social media overwhelmingly indicates that a gang connection cannot be ruled out. But even if so-called "net-bangers" aren't actually in a gang, they're still broadcasting the gang lifestyle.
"It's going to do two things," said Powell. "It's going to draw people in or it's going to repel people, push them away. And they know that. That's why they're using it so much and pushing it so hard."
What is particularly alarming is just how popular gang-related web content can be, with some posts on YouTube getting millions of hits.
But not everyone watching is a fan. Many are the police.
"People are ignorant to think that because they've got a password, it will stop people from finding out what they're doing," said Powell. But once you put something on social media, that's public information."
According to one database, there are 120 gangs in Atlanta alone. It's a good bet that all or most of them are lighting up social media right now.
And that's why police follow their cyber footprints so closely. With so much success.

Social Media Worlwide News

Social media use says what resume can't to recruiters

Imagine this: you have not applied for a single job, yet someone is ready to hire you, sight unseen.

How can this be? Actually, this scenario is entirely possible nowadays, and the reason is social media. Employers and recruiters are checking you out more than you probably realize. Depending upon what they learn, they decide whether or not to get in touch with you.

Maybe they heard about you from a network contact and decided to Google you, which led to your blog. Maybe they did a LinkedIn keyword search to find someone with your skills. Maybe they've noticed your tweets on Twitter.

If you are active on social media, recruiters can learn a lot about you — plenty more than they would learn from your resume. On social media, they can learn all about your job and how you do it. They can learn about your personality, your friends, your network connections, your likes and dislikes, your values, and how you spend your time.

Of course, employers can also learn things about you that you would rather keep private. So, periodically Google yourself to make sure nothing that could be harmful to your career shows up. That could include inappropriate pictures or words, or being found on an inappropriate site. By now, you'd think most people would know these things, but trust me, some don't. Just last week I heard from a woman in her 60s who was dismayed because she had posted a negative comment about her former employer on a LinkedIn group. She was panicked until she learned how to erase her words.

Getting a feel for who you really are enables employers to zero in on precisely the kind of person they want to hire. Then, when they are convinced you are a strong possibility, they can invite you to come talk with them.

Employers who understand the power of deploying social media for recruiting are way ahead of those who don't. Knowing the tactics allows them to poach passive candidates, which in the world of recruiting is tremendously significant. According to “A World Gone Social” by Ted Coiné and Mark Babbit (Amacom, 2014), many large employers have invested heavily in social networking for recruiting purposes, with the players having an average of 6.2 posts per week on Facebook and 23 tweets per week on Twitter. Further, the authors say that recruitment professionals from large companies such as Ford and Google regularly participate in recruiting-related Twitter chats. This enables them to source passive as well as active candidates.

Out of curiosity about how active these large-employer recruiters are, I sent the Google recruiter mentioned in “A World Gone Social” a nicely worded invitation to connect on LinkedIn. Within two hours, he accepted my invitation with these words: “Let's chat!”

Social recruiting is not a fad that is leaving us soon, but at this stage, many employers and job applicants are ignoring it or, worse yet, blissfully unaware of it. The truth is, if you are looking to get hired at a family-owned business, at a small business, or at any organization that is not known for being active on social media, the odds are good you can still rely on traditional job search methods such as networking and sending your resume to posted jobs and to employers you are targeting. But make no mistake, large employers (and certainly recruiters) are on the prowl on social media. Further, this is a trend that will increase and, over time, be deployed to some degree by most employers, so why not get active now?

Social Media News New

Social media is isolating us from the real world

If used correct, it is an excellent tool to spread awareness and keep in touch with people, but most of the time, it is just a waste of time.

Although social media has a very broad definition. as websites and applications that enable users to create and share content or to participate in social networking, the first thing that comes to our mind when thinking of it is either Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or some other online forum.

Without having to think twice, we can agree that yes, we do spend most of our time browsing on social media. Howoever, the downfall of it is that it is limiting our human interaction more and more. But, these sites can also be an advantage depending on how it is used. It is beneficial in many ways in the sense that any information can be communicated from one person to the entire world within a minute.

It is a platform where you do not need to know how to write in a flowery language nor do you need to be a writer to express yourself and share your views on social media. It has also proved to be very beneficial when raising issues in the community, and an example of this is the flood victims of Srinagar in which people from all around India united using social media to raise awareness and help the victims.

Similarly, it is helping job seekers in their quest of finding a job as well as companies looking for new employees via sites such as Linkedin or different online HR forums. It is more effective than traiditional ways of looking for jobs in the sense that you can directly apply for the job and in return, companies can directly source the candidates by looking at their profiles. These sites can also be used for referral check, so it is important that you are careful about what you say and share online.

Let’s look at the other side of the coin. The first and foremost being the fact that people waste a lot of time on these social networking sites. While I do agree that these sites help people keep in touch with each other, it is also isolating us from the outer world, and decreasing our face-to-face interactions.

- The readers is an Indian administrator based in Dubai

Social Media News#1

What Bitcoin Can Learn from Social Media's Success

Facebook, MySpace and Twitter took the web by storm in the 2000s, enabling a wave of communication never before possible on the Internet.
The appeal of social media didn't transition from tech-savvy high schoolers to the mass market overnight, however. It took time for the industry to build the necessary infrastructure to properly scale for mainstream use.
Because of its status as new and disruptive technology, there are some who see the parallels between the social media industry and the bitcoin industry.
Sean Percival, who was involved in the early stages of social media as the vice president of MySpace and now focuses on digital currencies as an investor, has observed what he considers striking similarities.
He told CoinDesk:

“This rise of bitcoin is almost identical to what I saw during the early days of social media.”

As a partner at 500 Startups, Percival has invested in a number of bitcoin companies, and he feels that bitcoin is on the cusp of crossing the chasm to becoming more mainstream, he said.
“In terms of the social media timeline this would be 2007 right now. Twitter was just starting to take off and MySpace was still king,” he added.

The water mark

While the price of bitcoin has not risen at a dramatic pace as some might have expected, there are other metrics to look at as evidence the digital currency is growing.
The number of investments in bitcoin-related startups continues to rise, and has well surpassed the amount of investment in 2013. Data on bitcoin venture investments shows there has been more than $280m in investments so far in 2014, a figure that towers over 2013's $91m figure.
Exchange volume is also increasing despite a sagging price, which suggests investors continue to look at bitcoin as a new global asset class with real value. It's creating business opportunity for exchanges and over time improving liquidity in the markets.

Bitcoin exchange volume has been spiking as of late. Source: BitcoinAverage

As someone that invests in bitcoin startups, Percival clearly sees this particular part of the sector as catalyst for growth in the technology.
He doesn't think bitcoin may necessarily be at the forefront of people’s minds should it become popular. No one really understands the cloud computing and data storage technologies behind social media's infrastructure, but it has been crucial to its overall rise.
He said:

“The technology itself is more likely to succeed when it fades into the background. When you’re using bitcoin and you don’t even know it, that’s when bitcoin wins.” 

Identity, not anonymity 

There was a time during bitcoin’s Silk Road era when many people believed that block chain-based cryptocurrencies were anonymous. Not so.
The industry has seen a number of notable mishaps, and scammers are having block chain-based forensics performed on their transactions, proving that basic bitcoin transactions are more pseudonymous than anonymous.
It's possible that bitcoin will need to embrace identity to become popular – something Facebook succeeded at, removing anonymity and forcing people to use real identities on the Internet.

Facebook's growth over the past few years – to over 1bn monthly active identifiable users. Source: Business Insider

"The main value of bitcoin isn't anonymity,” said Nathan Lands, the CEO of Facebook-connected bitcoin wallet QuickCoin. “Our launch did show us that people will use bitcoin with identity attached and in a social nature."
Lands' thinking is that social media will be required in order for bitcoin to grow. This is why he and his team started QuickCoin in the first place – to initiate that viral spread in digital currencies.
The key is realizing people are used to thinking about utility, and not in theoretical terms about what bitcoin could or should be. If QuickCoin or some other bitcoin startup can build from that and succeed, it could mean massive growth more broadly.
Lands said:

“You can build unique social applications with bitcoin that give people a reason to use bitcoin and at the same time actually help it spread as well.”

Bitcoin needs social media 

Bitcoin’s current market capitalization is over $5bn, but its growth is still small in the context of the social media industry. As a public company, Facebook has a $208bn market cap with more than 1 billion people actively using it.
But the industries aren't competing with each other. As social media is now a critical component of the Internet, it could prove integral to the spread of bitcoin.
Some bitcoin entrepreneurs are already looking to harness social media to do just that, with QuickCoin and another startup called ZapChain being the most notable examples. The intention of ZapChain is to educate and thus grow bitcoin awareness, according to its CEO Matt Schlicht.
He said:

“Social media is the best way for information to spread across the Internet and the world. Period. If used correctly, social media has the ability to drastically increase bitcoin's rate of adoption.” 

With social media, even though there was some resistance from some who believed there were privacy issues, it was able to overcome these obstacles by focusing on user experience and utility.
The bitcoin industry would do well to keep this in mind, should it want to achieve similar results.

Social Media News About Facebook News Get a chance to talk with Mark Zuckerberg

This is your chance to ask Mark Zuckerberg anything

Mark Zuckerberg is prepared to take your questions.
The massively wealthy, Mandarin-speaking Facebook founder will be hosting the social network's first public Q&A next Thursday on Nov. 6 at 2 p.m. PT (5 p.m. ET)
You can already submit questions to Zuck by commenting on his announcement post. If you're too shy to ask something yourself, there's the option to "vote" for what questions get answered by liking comments.
The Q&A will last an hour, but considering there are already almost 5,000 comments on the post, there's no way he'll get to them all.
The most-liked question so far comes from Facebook user HaLe MeRom: "Why [did] you force us to install Facebook Messenger?"
Facebook fielded a good deal of criticism when it forced users to install its mobile messaging app to accompany flagship Facebook app.

Other commenters have asked about the much-requested Dislike button

Other commenters have asked about the much-requested Dislike button. That question has already been answered, though not by Zuckerberg: The creator of the Facebook's Like button told TechRadar that the concept for a Dislike button was shelved because there was too much potential for it to encourage negativity and cyberbullying. Don't expect to see one any time soon.
Other popular topics involve privacy and the reach brands have on Facebook — those that don't put money behind (or "sponsor") their posts have seen a decline in the amount of attention they're getting.
"Don't destroy our hard work and efforts, we want organic reach back," one commenter said.
Plus, Mashable's own Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai asked two questions that are gaining a good amount of attention:
 Stay tuned for Thursday to see what Zuckerberg answers — and avoids.

Social Media News About Top Campaigns

5 top social media campaigns of 2014

When was the last time a social media campaign made you really feel something, whether it was happiness, hope or fear?
Below are five of the most successful social media campaigns of 2014, each of which was able to tap into genuine emotion to make a lasting impact on consumers.
Each of the below will be featured at this year’s Mashies Award Ceremony, where we’ll be revealing the year’s most outstanding examples of digital media from categories including Best Real-Time Marketing, Best Branded App and many more.
The Mashies will be held at Gotham Hall in New York City on Nov. 4, so make sure to get your tickets before they sell out.
The ceremony will be hosted by comedians Jake Hurwitz and Amir Blumenfeld, and will feature special guests, surprise entertainment and more. It’s also a fantastic chance to meet our finalists, winners and judges, as well as mingle with the Mashable team and digital media professionals from across the globe. 

1. Burger King’s “Motel King” campaign by Colenso BBDO

When Burger King came out with its new Chicken Tendercrisp burger, it had to convince people to “cheat” on the Whopper.
The solution? It created the official Burger King Motel, complete with Burger King-branded toiletries, robes and towels. Consumers could check into the hotel through social media, and were encouraged to share their experience using the hashtag #motelBK. The result was a massively viral campaign that included a flood of user-generated content across nearly all major social media platforms.

2. AT&T’s “@SummerBreak” campaign by BBDO New York

If there are three things that teenagers love, it’s reality TV, social media and their cellphones. AT&T combined the three in its social media reality series @SummerBreak, which followed eight friends during their last summer together before college.
Fans were able to interact with the cast through their mobile devices over social channels like Instagram and YouTube, and racked up millions of YouTube views across the 51-episode series. The show was so successful that AT&T decided to launch a second season, which aired its final episode in September 2014.

3. Tombstone’s “Bites of Fright” campaign by Deep Focus

When you think of Halloween, what comes to mind? In 2014, Tombstone began a campaign to associate itself with the holiday by creating a series of spooky yet funny Vines named “Bites of Fright.”
The Vines, which were posted every day during the month of October, were also housed on Tombstone’s Twitter and Facebook profiles in order to increase their reach. And it worked –- the campaign went viral and helped consumers cement the association between Tombstone and Halloween.

4. Chevy and the American Cancer Society “Paint Social Media Purple” campaign by iProspect

Chevy’s emotional “Purple Your Profile” campaign paid homage to cancer survivors, kicking off with a moving 60-second spot during the 2014 Super Bowl entitled “Life.” The brand gave people the opportunity to “purple” their Facebook profile, and pledged to donate $1 to the American Cancer Society for each person that participated.
The program was massively popular, with leading consumer brands like Energizer and Lowe’s joining the movement and the story being covered across major networks like Fox and ABC. Most importantly, it raised $1 million for cancer charities and gave survivors the chance to come together to deliver a message of hope.

5. Nestle Coffee-mate’s “Stirring up Love ‘Outside the Cup’” campaign by Zocalo Group

Sometimes expressing how you feel — especially on Valentine's Day — can be a little daunting. Nestle's Coffee-mate stepped in, tasking a team of professional artists to turn users’ declarations of love into shareable, one-of-a-kind valentines. Using the hashtag #CMValentine, users submitted love notes on Twitter and Facebook, which were turned into handcrafted Valentines for their loved ones.
By thinking “outside the cup,” Nestle turned everyday expressions of love into miniature works of art, increasing their channel engagement and adding new consumers to its social media communities.

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