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The purpose of the study was to investigate the relative importance of previous web-based course familiarity, computer ownership, computer use (years), amount of time spent on a computer (hours/day), social media use (Facebook), e-mail checking frequency, and smartphone use on online readiness of students. These are often provided as selective demographic characteristics in online learning readiness literature, yet their relative importance on online readiness has not been studied. The study was conducted on 633 male military vocational college students, involved in an online teaching environment. Online Learning Readiness Scale and a detailed information sheet were used for data collection purposes. The data were analyzed through a hierarchical linear regression analysis in four steps. According to results, nearly 17% of the variation in students' online learning readiness levels was explained by the predictor variables. First, as pre-entry characteristics, previous web-based course familiarity, computer ownership, texting and Internet use by a mobile phone explained 8%. In the second order, variables referring further engagement behaviors with technology, computer use in years and the amount of time spent on a computer (hours/day) explained an extra 4.5%. Third, the variables, corresponding to regular/habitual use, Facebook use and e-mail checking frequency, explained another 4.5%. The results indicated that previous web-based course familiarity, the computer use (years) and e-mail checking frequency were the significant variables, predicting students' readiness to online learning. Article visualizations:

Objectives: To compare the performance of a range of search facilities; and to illustrate the execution of a comprehensive literature search for qualitative evidence in social work. Context: Developments in literature search methods and comparisons of search facilities help facilitate access to the best available evidence for social workers. Method: The performance of 14 databases and web search engines was appraised, by applying a search formula for articles relating to perpetrators of intimate partner violence and the process of change. Results: Seventy-two out of seventy-eight relevant articles were found on just six of the search facilities used. Social Services Abstracts performed the best. Web search engines did not contribute any unique hits. Conclusion: The need to use a range of databases was confirmed. Databases have performed inconsistently across case studies to date. New approaches to pilot-testing facilities and search terms proved useful. Accessing qualitative evidence to inform practice must become more straightforward.

"In Politik und Wirtschaft werden die neuen Kommunikationsmedien zunehmend zur Gestaltung diskursiver Auseinandersetzungen genutzt. Internetbasierte Programmsysteme stehen zur Verfügung, die den Austausch von Argumenten und das Finden von Entscheidungen in moderierten/ mediierten Gruppen erleichtern sollen. Eines dieser Programme (ZENO) haben wir in einem dreimonatigen Rollenspiel (Sprottenborn) erprobt. Mit der Verwendung eines Rollenspiels zu Forschungszwecken betreten wir methodisch wenig sondiertes Terrain. Die im Internet niedergelegten schriftlichen Interaktionen und Kommunikationserfahrungen der Beteiligten Versuchspartner wurden systematisch erfasst und ausgewertet. Das Ziel der Untersuchung bestand darin, einen Beitrag zur Weiterentwicklung der Software und zum besseren Verständnis onlinetypischer psychosozialer Prozesse zu liefern. Hierbei konnte an gut bekannte Befunde der sozialpsychologischen Diskursforschung vergleichend angeknüpft werden. Das Projekt wurde in Kooperation mit dem Institut für Autonome intelligente Systeme (AiS, St. Augustin) und der AG-Online-Mediation (Berlin, WZB) durchgeführt." (Autorenreferat)

While often treated as distinct, both politics and journalism share in their histories a need for a public that is not naturally assembled and needs instead to be 'constructed'. In earlier times the role of mediating politics to publics often fell to news media, which were also dependent on constructing a 'public' for their own viability. It is hardly notable to say this has changed in a digital age, and in the way social media have allowed politicians and political movements to speak to their own publics bypassing news voices is a clear example of this. We show how both established politics and emerging political movements now activate and intensify certain publics through their media messages, and how this differs in the UK, Spain and the Netherlands. When considering journalism and social media, emphasis on their prominence can mask more complex shifts they ushered in, including cross-national differences, where they have pushed journalism towards social media to communicate news, and where political actors now use these spaces for their own communicative ends. Building upon this research, this article revisits conceptualizations of the ways political actors construct publics and argues that we see processes of disintermediation taking place in political actors' social networks on Twitter.

AbstractTo gain substantial benefits, corporate social responsibility (CSR) needs to be embedded within an organization. Through a social network analysis, this study analyzes to what extent an Italian multiutility company, strategically committed to sustainability, integrates social and environmental issues in its strategy, operations, and routines. The paper aims to answer the following two questions: (a) How can an investigation of the level of information exchange help in identifying whether CSR is embedded or peripheral in a company?; (b) how can an investigation of the role of the CSR department help in identifying whether CSR is embedded or peripheral in a company? The study reveals the frequency and density of information exchange regarding social and environmental issues among 67 business units as well as highlighting the real role played by the CSR department. This research contributes to the current debate on CSR embeddedness by showing how an exploration of internal social networks reveals the extent to which CSR is integrated within strategy, operations, and routines. It also provides useful suggestions for managers on ways to improve the level of integration.

This research aims to bridge the gaps in the relationship of entrepreneurial orientation to marketing performance, as some research yielded contradictory results. This research used a survey method distributing questionnaires with open and closed-ended statements to small and medium industries. Also, convenience sampling was applied with a sample size of 100 respondents from representatives of small and medium industries in the city of Ternate. The analytical method was aided with Smart PLS. The results show that the quality of social networks has no significant effect on the performance of SMEs and that the marketing network collaboration capability has no significant effect on the performance of SMEs. This implies that business operators of conventional businesses in certain areas have not reached the markets outside Ternate City by using social media, which is a remarkably effective medium.

The research objectives of the paper are to look into the viral phenomenon emerging from online platforms for sharing video, pictures, tweets, GIFs, Facebook posts, and to discuss the emotional element as well as the key categories of the most popular content. The methodology includes reviewing, presenting and categorizing a selection of worldwide viral stories and some that have become popular in the UK and Bulgaria. The main focus is on features and content from YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram that has become viral during 2017. Our findings indicate that there are 9 main categories – Media, Entertainment, Celebrity, Domestic, Empathy, Jokes, Everyday life, Cause, and Politics – that could be distinguished in the explored selection. Another aspect we consider is the emotional effect the viral content has over the online users. We observe three dominant emotional states - positive, negative and ambivalent. The main outcome is that in almost 2/3 of the researched cases the emotion is positive. Future scope of research is to explore further what effect the viral content has over individuals, how fake content will affect the true viral content and the media agenda and whether media will focus on fake viral content and the consequences of it. Article DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.20319/pijss.2018.42.177199 This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Non-commercial 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, PO Box 1866, Mountain View, CA 94042, USA.

Objective: This article investigates the role of social connections - kin proximity, premigration friends, and exposure to intra- and interethnic contacts in the host country - in the division of routine housework in refugee couples in Germany. Background: Although social connections are established as an influential factor in the economic and societal integration of newcomers, the role of such connections for the household division of labor among immigrant couples is less understood. Method: Pooled OLS and fixed-effect models were applied to four waves of the longitudinal IAB-BAMF-SOEP Survey of Refugees (2016-2019) to study coupled refugees of working age (1,045 couples, 2,699 couple-years). Results: We find that social connections are significant to the gendered division of routine housework among refugee couples. In particular, networks consisting of new inter- and intraethnic contacts are more influential than those consisting of kins and premigration friends. Moreover, it appears that the kin and new coethnic contacts of the husband are negatively related to their involvement in housework in absolute hours and relative to their wives. Husbands' new contacts with Germans are positively related to their involvement in routine housework. In turn, wives' contacts with Germans are not associated with a more egalitarian division of housework. Conclusion: Social networks may provide useful explanations for immigrants' domestic behavior, and they should be considered in setting up new policies that guide their integration.

Master's thesis in Computer science ; The disinformation news in media channels such as social media websites or online newspapers has become a big challenge for many organizations, governments, and scientific researchers. In connection to fake news, the political bias (left-wing or right-wing) of the news articles are recently receiving more attention. In this thesis, we leverage the Adversarially Regularized AutoEncoder (ARAE) model, which enhances the adversarial autoencoder (AAE) by learning a parameterized prior as a Generative Adversarial Networks (GAN) to generate bias-flipped headlines. We perform the experiments with multiple datasets then discuss how these approaches contribute to the bias flipping and detecting problems.