The recent news that a  Guatemalan man was arrested for a 96-word tweet and faces five years in prison (I shudder to think what would have happened if he used his full allotment of 140 characters) made me stop to pause: Many of us use social network sites like Facebook and Twitter as our personal soapbox (As my Facebook friends can attest concerning my often-inane status updates) but that, depending on your privacy settings, all of your words and images can potentially be broadcast to anyone with a computer.  Studies show that a quarter of employers check Facebook and MySpace accounts in making hiring decisions and half of those made hiring decisions based on what they found.  A study in the most recent issue of Cyberpsychology and Behavior  indicates that young people  are more likely to post personal information and seem less concerned about the consequences of posting personal information than older individuals. On the other hand, young people are more likely to have set privacy controls on their social network site than older members.  

Before posting information online it might be wise to ask WWMS:  What Would Mom Say? I personally am careful about what images are posted and what I say politically on my page.   For many this is not a hypothetical question as increasingly parents are getting Facebook pages and friending their kids (There is a hilarious website:  Oh crap. My Parents joined Facebook.).  JoAnna and I are friends with our kids and son-in-laws (as well as assorted other relatives) and they LOVE IT! This is because 1) their parents are way cool and 2) we look at status reports and family photos, but not photos with friends or with work  colleagues  (a social network version of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell). If your parents aren’t on Facebook, BUILD them a page.  They will thank you and you will become closer than ever!

To what degree do you worry about what you say and what images you post on your Facebook (or other social media) page?  Have you set privacy controls? Are your parents online and if so does that influence what you say or do you simply set your settings to keep your parents out?

Neda Agha Sultan, as CNN noted, was an unlikely person to become a martyr. Her friends described her as a happy, positive and serene person who loved music and had a quirky sense of humor. Neda is one of 17 confirmed deaths in the protests that erupted after the disputed election of Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. But Neda, a bystander at one of the protests, became the symbol of the Iranian resistance movement when a crudely shot cellphone video of her lying helplessly on the pavement, her body limp, her eyes rolled to her right and blood streaming from her mouth then her nose, was posted to YouTube, Facebook and Twitter. She has literally become the face of Iran’s struggle. Protesters throughout the world hold pictures of her and display signs that proclaim “I am Neda.” She has been hailed as a martyr, The Angel of Iran. Her image has appeared on posters throughout Tehran. Time magazine, in an excellent article that appeared just after her death, speculated that her death changes everything in regard to the protest movement. Indeed, world pressure against Iran is mounting, and President Obama has escalated his criticism against Iran and called the death of Neda “heartbreaking.” In the short run, the death of Neda has not changed the government’s position and indeed they have prohibited any public mourning of her death. According to the London Guardian, the government has prohibited the family from keeping Persian tradition and publicly mourn their daughter’s death and have forced them to move out of their homes. The government has accused the protesters of staging the shooting themselves to win support for their cause.

The long-term effects of Neda’s death are not known. A few days ago on this blog I argued that claims that Twitter has played a major role in the Iranian protests have been overstated, a position I stand by. Clearly, though, the case of Nadia demonstrates the power of images. The intense public reaction to the video of Neda–#Neda has become one of the most popular discussion topic on Twitter–supports earlier studies by David Perlmutter that suggest that iconic images can greatly influence public opinion, particularly when they interact with individuals’ predispositions, experiences and values to help mold their judgments.

Also, the YouTube video raised questions about the propriety of showing graphic images in the mainstream media. The decision to run graphic images is a balancing act between the public’s right to know and standards of taste. Typically photo editors have erred on the side of not running graphic images based on the belief they will not be tolerated by the public, a belief born out by surveys. For instance studies of examining images of the Iraq War show American newspapers and television rarely shown images of dead or injured soldiers or civilians. Studies that I have conducted with Shahira Fahmy, however, show that foreign news media, particularly those in the Middle East, are more likely to show graphic images. Furthermore, audiences support the media showing graphic images because they believe they present a fuller, more accurate picture of events such as war. They argue that not showing graphic images presents a sanitized image of events such as war and shields the audience from the realities of war.  For instance, a Huffington Post article on the video of Neda, for instance, criticized the media for blurring this image of reality, while showing fictional violence in graphic detail.

When CNN showed images of Neda they blurred her face because of the perception that the image of her death is too graphic. YouTube requires that individuals sign in to view the videotape of Neda and confirm that they are indeed 18. However, the video is widely available on the Internet. Even someone visiting the official memorial Facebook site for Neda (Angel of Iran) can download the video. Mainstream media sites such as USAToday have links to the video, with warnings that the images are graphic.

Do you support CNN’s decision to blur the image of Neda’s face or should television show such images with warnings that the images are graphic and may offend some members of the audience? More generally, do you think decisions by the mainstream media not to air graphic images are justified because such images violate general standards of taste and may upset many members of the audience, particularly the young? Or are decisions by mainstreamn media not to run graphic images shielding citizens from the reality of events?

When massive protests broke out in the wake of the election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Iran, many in the mainstream media,blogosphere and Twittersphere were quick to credit Twitter and other social media such as Facebook, Flickr and YouTube for helping mobilize the protesters as well as for presenting the reality of the protests to the world. Even the Obama administration, believing in the power of Twitter, asked the company to delay some maintenance that would have shut the microblog down.  I must admit that I was one of those caught up in the Twitter touting.  But with a few additional days of perspective as well as some Twittering data, some analysts are beginning to question whether the revolution was indeed Twittered. Before I continue, I want to give a shout out to danah boyd, social media guru, who posted articles a few days ago about those who began to question the common wisdom that Twitter played a major role in the Iranian protests.

I should note that no one I have read believes that Twitter had NO influence.  It has raised awareness of the Iranian election protests among tech-savvy users outside the country.  Indeed, Twitter has caused a multiplier effect because you not only get stories about the protests, but also stories on the role of social network site in those protests.  Also, because the Iranian government has banned international reporters from covering the protests, social media act as their ears and eyes.

But critics claim that the influence of Twitter has been overestimated as both an organizational tool and as a reporting one.  In terms of organization,  some analysts note that there are about 8,600 registered Twitter users in Iran and  less than 100 of them seem active. Most of the tweets, then, are from those outside of Iran commenting on the events there or retweeting messages from those witnessing the event firsthand.  The relatively small number of Twitterers, then, is not large enough to effectively organize hundreds of thousands of protesters.  Rather the leaders have had to rely on more mudane means such as text messaging, phones, knocking on doors and word of  mouth.

Others note than even as a reporting tool Twitter fell short.  Reporting involves more than recounting what one has seen or heard, but verifying those observations as well.   Several of the “facts” circulated on the Twittersphere turned out to be inaccurate such as the claim that 3 million people demonstrated against the regime, that opposition leader Hossein Mousavi was put under house arrest and that the results of the election had been annulled.  Relying on Twitter and other social media may also serve to exaggerate the support for Mousavi and under represent the support for Ahmadinejad.  Ahmadinejad’s supporters tend to be poorer, more rural, less educated and more likely to speak Farsi than Mousavi supporters.  Mousavi’s supporters, then, are better positioned to take advantage of Twitter, which doesn’t even support the Farsi language.  

What do you think?  Have you been following the events in Iran through social media?  Do you think the role of Twitter and other social media in organizing and reporting the Iranian demonstrations has been overhyped?  Or do you think powerful images coming out of Iran, such as the video of the woman “Neda” being shot in the heart  and who is being hailed as a martyr, could lead to the fall of the Iranian leadership?

Vacaying with fam.  Amazed at Twitter revolution

In Iran: News, images, videos, strategy discussions

Are you watching?  Thoughts? Please share them.

(138 spaces–You CAN say something meaningful in

less than 140 spaces).

The Spring 2009 issue of Newspaper Research Journal had two articles on blogging that seemed to send very different messages.  The first, by former SIUC student Brad Schultz and former Texas Tech and SIU colleague Mary Lou Sheffer, examined how newspaper managers viewed blogs.  The managers had a generally positive  attitude toward blogs, saying they had increased audience size, made an important contribution to  coverage and that they had made journalism better.  Managers were, of course, talking about their own blogs, not independent ones.  When I first began studying blogging in 2004 I was amazed by how much contempt that traditional media had for bloggers.  Bloggers were described as “angry ankle biters” and ” a guy sitting in his living room in his pajamas writing” (Sarah Palin took the analogy one further, calling them ”kids in pajamas sitting in the basement of their parents’ homes”).  Probably my favorite quote comes from Randall Rothenberg, currently president & CEO of the Interactive Advertising Bureau, who argued, “Blogging is little more than hype dished out largely by the unemployable to the aimless“.   It is amazing how attitudes toward bloggers change when they start working for you.  Now Rothenberg is on Twitter. The newspaper managers did not talk very much in terms of what blogs add to the newspaper such as allowing the papers to develop more of a connection with their readers or providing more content that appeals to the readers’ day-to-day lives.  The managers saw blogs largely in terms of economics:  Blogs gave them extra content for no additional cost as bloggers often are expected to work on them in their own time.  They also said that blogs helped drive readers to their news site.  However, when it came to communicating with journalists about their expectations toward blogging, they admitted they weren’t likely to give journalists feedback regarding their blogs, give them instructions on how to maintain the blogs and certainly didn’t give them any extra time or money.

Given that  the editors in the Schultz and Sheffer study generally gave a rosy assessment of the role of blogs on their news sites, one would assume blogs would receive adequate care and attention.  Not so. John Russial found in his study of how much editing is done to online stories that two-thirds (yes, two-thirds) of blogs were not edited.  The major reason given was that it was the writer’s responsibility to edit the blogs.  I had an opportunity back in 1999 to work on the sports copy desk for the Philadelphia Daily News.  I had a lot of respect for the copy editors because they took copy riddled with factual errors, grammatical mistakes and punctuation that seemed to be inserted randomly and made the copy sparkle.  I can’t imagine that most newspaper blog entries wouldn’t benefit from a fairly good scrubbing for factual, grammar and punctuation errors (Lord knows mine would certainly benefit), although with cutbacks in the industry I am not sure who would preform that scrubbing.

What do you think?  Do you read many journalists’ blogs and if so how do you see them benefitting journalism?  How would you judge the quality of journalists’ blogs in comparison to print stories that presumably went through a rigorous editing process?

During the 1984 election I had the great fortune to be at Iowa State and be a part of the first-in-the-nation caucus. I was working actively for one of the minor candidates (the first of three straight elections where my candidate was eliminated by Super Tuesday). I attended regular organizational meetings (most of the workers were about 50 years older than me. One, a former member of the Industrial Workers of the World, usually ended up getting drunk and singing old Wobblie protest songs), handed out flyers and buttons and once took Ed Begley Jr (Ed Begley Jr.!!) around Ames to campaign. (For those too young to remember, he was Dr. Victor Ehrlich on the great hospital drama St. Elsewhere for six years and played the invisible man in Amazon Women on the Moon. Now he is the Cable Corp CEO for those DIRECTV ads).  It was on the campaign I met JoAnna. She worked for another candidate trying to steal our delegates.

In the 2008 election I was more digitally active. I kept up with election news on my favorite blogs, made several online donations for my candidate, forwarded videos to friends on my mailing lists, signed online petitions and religiously went to Digg to bury stories negative to my candidate and promote the positive ones.  I joined several Facebook groups and donated my status on election day to get people out to vote.

I know that I was much more physically involved in the 1984 campaign than the 2008 one, but I rationalized that the online world allowed me to be as active as before, just in a more digital mode.  Now I find out, according to NPR, that I am a slacktivist.  Slacktivists engage in activities such as signing online petitions, wearing Livestrong bracelets, joining Facebook groups or participating in short-term events such as Buy Nothing Day that may make someone feel good for taking a social action but does little “real-world” good and doesn’t require the person to even get out of his or her chair. The NPR article contrasted slacktivism with proven protest activities such as demonstrations, police confrontations and sit ins (sit ins? People still have sit ins? I thought they went out in the 70s along with macrame and shag carpeting) which can change the political order.

Michigan State graduate students Jessica Vitak, Paul Zube  and four other colleagues (including Nicole Ellison) addressed the issue of slacktivism in their ICA paper “Poking people to participate:Facebook and political participation in the 2008 election” (available on the ICA site).  They looked at 14 possible political activities college students might have engaged in on Faebookduring October 2008.  Few had engaged in any of the activities with posting a wall comment about politics (20.4%) and posting a status update that mentions politics (18.4%) being the most popular.  Fewer than five percent had added or deleted a political application, posted a Facebook note about politics or taken a political quiz. These results would suggest young voters, who are not normally terribly politically active, may not even be political slacktivists but political slackers. Other results, though, were much more encouraging.  Political activity on Facebook and exposure to political activity on Facebook  led to engaging in other political activities both offline and online. Just as important, many positive political variables such as interest, knowledge and political participation predicted political activity on Facebook.  These results are encouraging as they not only suggest that those who are politically interested to begin with see Facebook as another outlet of political expression, but also that students who are less engaged in politics may become interested in politics as they see their friends participate in political activities on Facebook and their Facebook political activity then boosts their interest, knowledge and participation in the offline world.

I assumed many of you political junkies also participated in the election on Facebook.  Do you think engaging in politics by signing online petitions, sticking magnetic ribbons on your car or posting political messages on Facebook is indeed political slacktivism that takes away from more valuable offline political activity?  Or is Facebook a way that the politically unengaged can become more interested and involved in politics? I would like to hear your opinions as well as your political experiences online in this last election.

I had the privilege of speaking at the Networked Self conference on Wednesday at University of Chicago.  The conference was organized by Zizi Paparcharissi and Kelly Quinn who really deserve kudos for doing such a nice job.  I have never been treated so well.  I also enjoyed meeting the other contributors of the book, many who are the top researchers in social media.

There were several interesting papers, but my favorite was one by Andy Mendelsohn and Ziz that analyzed Facebook photos of first and second-year college students.  Andy noted that the main purpose of  college students’ Facebook photos is to document college life.  And by “documenting  college life” that means documenting their social life (no pictures of people studying, oddly):  life at the dorms,  parties, trips with friends.  Most of the pictures are close ups of faces, often with alcohol-induced  goofy expressions, or people showing affection to their friends.  If you went on a road trip, the location is pretty much irrelevant.  The important thing is the students having  FUN at these places.   Oddly, this is not the place where people tend to post photos of themselves with significant others.  Students have moved into a new stage of their lives by leaving home and living on their own for the first time and their photos document these life changes.

I was amazed at how differently students use Facebook photos than my friends and I use it.  For me, Facebook is like any photo album with pictures of family and photos of trips which document  the trip by showing me or family members next to stuff I would like to remember (but if I waited too long to post them I have already forgotten).  My wife, on the  other hand, is a photographer and uses her site to share her work.

I am curious:  How do you use Facebook photos?  Have you noticed differences between how you and students use Facebook?  Or are you like me and would rather NOT know about what is going on in your students’ lives and thus never visit student photos?

I dig Digg. Where else can you read an article on “Panetta’s Pelosi Smackdown” alongside “Strangest Sights in Google Street Views” and “One of the Craziest Tiger attacks caught on tape (video)”? (If you think you’re safe from Tiger attacks on top of a 12-foot high elephant, think again). Digg appears to be the epitome of meritocracy. People submit articles, videos, graphics etc. to Digg and members vote them up or down. They can also make comments, and the comments themselves can be rated. Articles with the greatest number of Diggs appear on the homepage. What could be more democratic than that?

As Alexander Halavais points out in his article Do Dugg Diggers Digg Diligently? (I am a sucker for alliterative titles) in the June 2009 Issue of Information, Communication and Society, the voting for articles on Digg is about as meritorious as a student body presidential election between the head of the cheerleader squad and the president of the chess club. Halavais notes that Digg is a community, much like a bulletin board site, where there are rules and norms. Halavais’ study only looks at comments to pieces on Digg. Like most sites, a few posters dominated the site (one person had made an amazing 6,598 comments to articles. Can you say, “Get a job?”). Those who received positive comments were encouraged to comment again. More experienced posters tended to have the highest favorable scores, which suggests that they learned how to write comments to garner favorable diggs. The list of words that got the most positive Diggs included University, United, Watch, Wollerstein (who won a case against Scientology) and Scientology (really, Digg members had positive things to say about Scientology?). The list of positive terms, by the way, included two profanities that cannot appear in a family friendly blog (but apparently CAN appear in a mass communication journal). Obama and Ron Paul appeared on the most negatively related term list, which doesn’t indicate they were unpopular, but that their supporters attacked negative comments on the candidates. Vista also made the list because, well, Vista sucks. Halavais didn’t have a magic formula for how to write successful comments, but notes that ones that employ humor, particularly inside humor related to that site, got the most positive comments. (Like this joke from the convergence of convergences contest: I always thought that the brain was the most impressive organ in the body. But then I said to myself, ‘Wait a minute—look who’s telling me that?’” ) Feel free to give me a positive Digg.

This was an interesting study, but alas it left me asking a lot of other questions such as: What are the most popular topics on Digg? (Another study indicated that technology and science articles, most coming from sites devoted to the topic, were the most popular), What motivates people to post and comment articles on Digg? And perhaps more importantly: How high up DO you have to be to avoid being attacked by a crazed tiger?

How many of you Digg? What kinds of articles do you generally Digg? What do you generally bury? What motivates you to either Digg an article or comment on an article? Finally, what do you think it would take to get THIS article to appear on the homepage of Digg (besides having people who actually read my blog?)?

The Battle between Blue State and Red State ideals is being played out on the lawns on Lubbock in advance of today’s election deciding whether or not packaged liquor can be sold in convenience stores throughout the city or remain restricted to the Las Vegas style strip (minus the gambling, prostitutes, and entertainment) located on the edge of town. One side argues financial benefits of packaged liquor sales, the other the social costs of allowing liquor to be sold throughout the city. But it really comes down to the morality of alcohol. Appropriately, lawn signs that blurt out “For” packaged liquor sales are blue and the ones that pronounce “Against” are in red.

Election maps in the last few elections have been awash in red and blue states with observers warning of a real political and social divide between the two colors of states. The rise of partisan media from radio talk shows, 24-hour news stations, political websites to blogs have received considerable blame for the political polarization in this country.

While the division between red and blue states has been noted by some scholars as an overly broad characterization of the ideological mood in this country (even if a conservative city like Lubbock there are areas that are neither “red” nor “blue” but purple), there is a debate among mass communication scholars about the degree to which partisan media can be blamed for increased political polarization in society.

A recent study by Shanto Iyengar and Kyu S. Hahn in Journal of Communication (Red Media, Blue Media) provides fairly strong support for the notion that we have moved from a situation in which most we received most of our news from the network who presented a balanced point/counterpoint approach to news to an environment where we have more partisan sources of news and people have more control over the sources we visit. Consequetly, most people will seek out news sources that support their point of view. Conservatives in their experiment sought out Fox news more and liberals sought out NPR/CNN even on soft news topics. Survey work that my colleagues Weiwu Zhang, Shannon Bichard and I as well as Natalie Stroud have conducted demonstrate that people will be more likely to practice selective exposure for more partisan media such as blogs, cable TV news, and talk radio.

But the news is not all bleak. Iyengar and Hahn’s work supported what others have found: Selective exposure is strongest among those who are politically interested, active and knowledgeable (as well as ideological). These people know where they stand on issues and candidates; they don’t necessarily need to study the “other side.” These results also suggest that selective exposure may be a product of polarization rather than the cause.

Two recent studies , one in Journal of Communication and the other in Communication Research, lend further optimism. In the first study by Knobloch-Westerwick and Meng, they found that while most people did indeed practice selective exposure, many also paid attention to information that challenged their beliefs. Conservatives with strong partisanship and interest in politics were the most likely to view counterattitudinal information, perhaps because they were confident enough in their views to read other perspectives. The second study, by Wojcieszak and Mutz, found that those who visited political message boards and chat rooms did choose groups of likeminded individuals. However, hobby and interest groups, though not overtly political, often also had political discussions and such discussions seemed to involve a wide variety of positions. The Internet, then, is not simple a series of enclaves where everyone expresses the same viewpoint.

When you visit political sites online do you tend to visit ones that support your point of view or challenge it? Do you believe the political polarization that exists in society is caused by the rise of partisan source, are partisan sources a product of our increasingly polarized society or both?

Have you ever received a box of Christmas presents after New Years Day?  All the Christmas decorations have been put away (well, not necessarily in our house–that is what Groundhog’s Day is for) and you are thinking more about the national championship game rather than whether Aunt Edna will send you yet another reindeer sweatshirt  that would fit an elf not a full-grown person (too full grown after holiday goodies).

I had that feeling of Christmas after New Years when Pew Internet released its The Internet’s Role in Campaign 2008 this April, more than three months after President Obama was elected.  Two things stood out for me in the report.  First, how the Internet has become a major source  for political information and that the online environment is no longer dominated by campaign websites and traditional news media sources.

This was the first election where more than half of American adults (not just Internet users) got campaign information online.  Furthermore, the Internet now approaches newspapers as a major source of information for voters.

This is also the first election in which the press didn’t dominate the election environment.  Consider:

1.  As many people said they used e-mail, instant messaging, text messages or Twitter to get campaign information than they did searching for campaign news in general.

2.  The plurality of people no longer say that they want news without a political viewpoint.  Rather the plurality say they want news that shares their point of view.  Furthermore, the more they rely on the Internet and the more interested and active they are politically, the more they will seek out information congruent with their political outlook.

3.  More than 60 percent of online political users viewed political videos in the campaign.  While 50 percent were official videos from the candidates or the media, 43 percent said they watched “unofficial” videos (most of which is user-generated content).

4.  Online political users are more conduits of information than hunters and gatherers.  Fully  44 percent said they had forwarded political writing and commentary, political audio, political video or political photos to others. 

5.  Social network sites formed an important hub for sharing political information.  More than half of online social network users employed these sites for political information.  Citizens used social network sites for social rather than informational reasons.  For instance, 41 percent said they discovered who their friends were voting for on these sites while only 23 percent said they used them to get candidate news and information.

There was clearly an upside to the “Facebook election“.  This election brought in young voters in unprecedented numbers, voters who have not typically not been engaged in political campaigns.  The Obama campaign got away from the traditional top-down campaigning approach where most of a candidate’s volunteers and funds come from special interests to a more grassroots campaign where he relied on social media to attract volunteers and campaign funds.  However, a clear downside is that more and more people are getting information that simply supports their point of view which may increase levels of polarization.  The chances of receiving misinformation also increases.  How many people went to the voting booth convinced Obama was a Muslim based posts on conservative blogs and online discussion groups?

What do you think?  Is the rise of Internet in general and nonmedia sites in particular a positive or negative development?