This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Information, Communication and Society on 07 Aug 2017, available online: https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2017.1350730 ; Mobile instant messaging services (MIMS) are emerging as important digital environments in citizens' everyday lives. We explore the use of MIMS for talking about politics with unique survey data on samples representative of Internet users in Germany, Italy, and the UK. First, we show that robust percentages of our respondents who use MIMS employ them for posting political messages and discussing politics. Second, we demonstrate that political talk on MIMS is positively associated with users' tendency to censor themselves politically on social networking sites (SNS) and, to a lesser extent, with ideological extremism. Third, we find that the association between self-censorship on SNS and the likelihood of publishing political contents on MIMS is stronger for individuals living in former East Germany where, due to historical reasons, large segments of the population are reluctant to talk about politics in public. Our findings suggest that MIMS make a distinctive contribution to contemporary repertoires of political talk, with important implications for the quality and inclusiveness of interpersonal political discussion.
We propose the Pandora Messaging, an enhanced secure instant messaging architecture which is equipped with a self-message-destructing feature for sensitive personal information applications in a mobile environment along with Multi Key Security Management using Shamirs algorithm. The proposed system will be beneficial for Government officers for communicating very sensitive and confidential messages. We design the Pandora Message Encryption and Exchange Scheme and the format of a self-destructible message to show how to exchange these messages atop the existing instant messaging service architecture. The Pandora Messaging-based system enables senders to set time, frequency, and location constraints. These conditions determine when the transmitted messages should be destructed and thus become unreadable for receivers. https://www.ijiert.org/paper-details?paper_id=140081
Over the last decade, text messages have become one of most popular forms of communication. A diverse array of software to enable the exchange of text messages has been developed and deployed on computers and smart phones which is one of reasons for the increased use of text messages for communication purposes. However, there are several disadvantages for communicators when using text messages. For example, in the text-chat environment, there is a lack of trust between communicators (Bos et al., 2002) and communicators may face a high cognitive load (Thirunarayanan et al., 2002). Therefore, we conducted several studies to improve communication between people in the text-chat environment where important elements for communication, such as facial expressions, do not exist. We examined various data collected from people with different levels of interpersonal trust and cognitive load, including chat contents (e.g., the number of assent words used), mouse movements (e.g., distance travelled by the mouse) and physiological signals (skin response). These data proved to be useful indicators for measuring the level of trust of the communicators and the cognitive load to which the communicators were exposed. These findings have implications for enhancing the communication and relationships between communicators in a text-chat environment and will assist system developers to design applications to measure the conditions the communicators are under when they use the text-chat environment to complete tasks in a business or government context and provide them with suitable assistance.In addition to using the previously mentioned data to measure trust and cognitive load, we further examined the text-chat environment by allowing communicators to see the actions of their partners in real time when they were trying to solve tasks. Our results show that when communicators are able to see the behaviors of their partners when they chat in the text-chat environment while completing tasks, it improves the level of interpersonal trust between them. Finally, in this thesis, we examined the effects of cooperation and cognitive load on interpersonal trust. The findings show that trust is significantly improved between communicators in the text-chat environment when the communicators act in a cooperative way and when they are under a low cognitive load.
The Network of Networks i.e. the internet is now a leading global system. This is the interconnected systems and machines and consists of the millions of computers and similar devices, tools, and machines. Millions of computers normally connected in this system from the wider and diverse field which includes the private, public, academic, business and also governmental and healthcare segment. Initially, internet was mainly used for the communicating each and sharing of files, documents and for email. Gradually with the advancement of the internet service providers and healthy innovations, many new internet services have emerged. This is a conceptual paper which is talks about the internet; its foundation, its characteristics and mainly about the emerging services. Among these services, few important are VoIP, Internet TV, Internet Fax, Instant Messaging and so on.
Abstract In this article, we will discuss what is known about a surprisingly popular phenomenon in the Middle East—the use of social media to communicate. We will begin with a discussion of what "social media" sites are (sites such as Facebook, Your Middle East, YouTube, Flickr, Muslima.com, chat rooms, and instant messaging) and point out how common they are in the Middle East. Next, we will discuss the reasons why men and women are currently using Internet and social media. Finally, we will discuss what impact social media have had on politics, political dissent, education, and men's and women's relationships—and the impact they might be expected to have in future years. Finally, we will focus on the impact of such media on men's and women's relationships—including cross-gender friendships, romantic relationships, and sexual relationships.
The unprecedented growth of mobile application market is the evidence of twofold technological advancement in the wireless world: first, the enormous increase in the capacity of mobile networks and second, the rapid increase in the computing powers of mobile devices. The former has enabled the network operators to ensure quality of service on their network by inducing more capacity for seamless data transmissions. Whereas, the latter has contributed in the novel space of mobile server paradigm, where the mobile devices are assumed to have sufficient computing power of hosting and distributing small and medium-sized data services among the peers on the network. Nevertheless, considering the mobile server paradigm or peer-to-peer mobile applications, the availability of such applications are mostly limited to WiFi and Wireless Local Area Networks (WLAN) only and, hence, not available for cellular data networks. There are various technical and political reasons behind this phenomena. The dissertation deals with the standardized provisioning of mobile applications on cellular data networks and addresses the issues related to it. A novel concept of Mobile-to-Mobile service networks is presented in this regard and a prototypical implementation of an IMS (IP Multimedia Subsystem) interfaced Mobile Server Platform (MSP) is provided to enable multimedia communication among the peers. The IMS was originally introduced by 3GPP to support heavy multimedia communication over 3G cellular network, which has now become an application layer standard for 4G / LTE-Evolved Packet Core network. From the architectural point of view, the MSP is mainly categorized into three different logical frameworks. First, the Multimedia Messaging Framework is introduced in order to realize the mobile-to-mobile text messaging and multimedia file sharing features in a service oriented fashion over the operator IMS network. The proposed framework conforms to the functional and non-functional requirements of the Instant Messaging (IM) service ...
Network neutrality is a growing policy controversy. Traffic management techniques affect not only high-speed, high-money content, but by extension all other content too. Internet regulators and users may tolerate much more discrimination in the interests of innovation. For instance, in the absence of regulatory oversight, ISPs could use Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) to block some content altogether, if they decide it is not to the benefit of ISPs, copyright holders, parents or the government. ISP blocking is currently widespread in controlling spam email, and in some countries in blocking sexually graphic illegal images. In 1999 this led to scrutiny of foreclosure of Instant Messaging and video and cable-telephony horizontal merger. Fourteen years later, there were in 2013 net neutrality laws implemented in Slovenia, the Netherlands, Chile and Finland, regulation in the United States and Canada , co-regulation in Norway, and self-regulation in Japan, the United Kingdom and many other European countries. Both Germany and France in mid-2013 debated new net neutrality legislation, and the European Commission announced on 11 September 2013 that it would aim to introduce legislation in early 2014. This paper analyses these legal developments, and in particular the difficulty in assessing reasonable traffic management and 'specialized' (i.e. unregulated) faster services in both EU and US law. It also assesses net neutrality law against the international legal norms for user privacy and freedom of expression.
The research on social networks has advanced significantly, which can be attributed to the prevalence of the online social websites and instant messaging systems as well as the popularity of mobile apps that support easy access to online social networks. These social networks are usually characterized by the complex network structures and rich contextual information. They now become the key platforms for, among others, content dissemination, professional networking, recommendation, alerting, and political campaigns. As online social network users perform activities on the social networks, they leave data traces of human behavior which allow the latter to be studied at scale. There are however a wide range of challenges in analyzing human behavior in social networks. Behavior analysis in online social networks spans a number of disciplines, across numerous fields in and beyond computer science. For example, one would have to involve social network analysis, an area in social science, to analyze social relationships, how they evolve and mature over time. The results of behavior analysis have important implications on community discovery, anomaly detection, and trend prediction, and they can enhance applications in multiple domains such as information retrieval, recommendation systems, and trust and security. Research in behavior analysis is a fertile ground also for businesses and IT industry, as they develop innovative ideas fostering the design of the new generation of social network platforms and their services.
For the past three decades India's banking system has several outstanding achievements to its credit. The most striking is its extensive reach. It is no longer confined to only metropolitans or cosmopolitans in India. In fact, Indian banking system has reached even to the remote corners of the country. This is one of the main reasons of India's growth process. The government's regular policy for Indian bank since 1969 has paid rich dividends with the nationalization of 14 major private banks of India. Long time ago; an account holder had to wait for hours at the bank counters for getting a draft or for withdrawing his own money. Today, he has a choice. Gone are days when the most efficient bank transferred money from one branch to other in two days. Now it is simple as instant messaging or dials a pizza. Money has become the order of the day. The need to become highly customer focused has forced the slow-moving public sector banks to adopt a fast track approach. The unleashing of products and services through the net has galvanized players at all levels of the banking and financial institutions market grid to look anew at their existing portfolio offering. These suggestions may contradict to the development policy of the banks. But, these are presented here only after a high voltage SWOT Analysis.
This paper explores activism enacted through Silk Road, a now defunct cryptomarket where illicit drugs were sold in the dark web. Drawing on a digital ethnography of Silk Road, we develop the notion of constructive activism to extend the lexicon of concepts available to discuss forms of online activism. Monitoring of the cryptomarket took place between June 2011 and its closure in October 2013. Just before and after the closure of the marketplace we conducted anonymous online interviews with 17 people who reported buying drugs on Silk Road (1.0). These interviews were conducted synchronously and interactively through encrypted instant messaging. Participants discussed harnessing and developing the technological tools needed to access Silk Road and engage within the Silk Road community. For participants Silk Road was not just a market for trading drugs: it facilitated a shared experience of personal freedom within a libertarian philosophical framework, where open discussions about stigmatized behaviours were encouraged and supported. Tensions between public activism against drug prohibition and the need to hide one's identity as a drug user from public scrutiny were partially resolved through community actions that internalized these politics, rather than engaging in forms of online activism that are intended to have real-world political effects. Most aptly described through van de Sande's (2015) concept of prefigurative politics, they sought to transform their values into built environments that were designed to socially engineer a more permissive digital reality, which we refer to as constructive activism.
En: Doxa Comunicación: revista interdisciplinar de estudios de comunicación y ciencias sociales. e-ISSN 2386-3978 n. XXV, 2017, pp 63-84 ; It is evident that users are permanently and ubiquitously connected to the network through their mobile devices. As a consequence, they can access to an extraordinary quantity of information. Journalism has tools that, by using artificial intelligence and instant messaging systems, send filtered and personalized information to users. These systems are the so called chat bots or conversational applications. While the big media companies are developing their own applications via Messenger or Telegram, there also exist other companies that provide this type of services. That is the case of Politibot, a service that was launched during the June 2016 election campaign in Spain and which had gained 8,400 subscribers a month later. This paper analyzes this case in order to determine the way audiences perceive and consider bots news. To do so, we apply, among other techniques, observation of Politibots publications via Telegram, survey of users and analysis of social media feedback. We aim to answer questions such as how users differentiate and value bots news, how conversation in these platforms is produced, and how to collect more reliable data from them. Results show that information quality (73.1% of answers) and the emotional connection they establish with the tool (26, 8%) are the main potential of these formulas, which are becoming in an opportunity for journalism. ; Es perceptible que los usuarios se hallan conectados de forma permanente y ubicua a la red a través de sus dispositivos móviles. El periodismo cuenta con herramientas que, usando inteligencia artificial y a través de sistemas de mensajería instantánea, permiten remitirles información filtrada y personalizada. Son los llamados bots o aplicaciones conversacionales. Mientras los grandes medios están desarrollando sus propias aplicaciones vía Messenger o Telegram, vienen surgiendo empresas que ofrecen servicios de ...
En: Doxa Comunicación: revista interdisciplinar de estudios de comunicación y ciencias sociales. e-ISSN 2386-3978 n. XXV, 2017, pp 63-84 ; It is evident that users are permanently and ubiquitously connected to the network through their mobile devices. As a consequence, they can access to an extraordinary quantity of information. Journalism has tools that, by using artificial intelligence and instant messaging systems, send filtered and personalized information to users. These systems are the so called chat bots or conversational applications. While the big media companies are developing their own applications via Messenger or Telegram, there also exist other companies that provide this type of services. That is the case of Politibot, a service that was launched during the June 2016 election campaign in Spain and which had gained 8,400 subscribers a month later. This paper analyzes this case in order to determine the way audiences perceive and consider bots news. To do so, we apply, among other techniques, observation of Politibots publications via Telegram, survey of users and analysis of social media feedback. We aim to answer questions such as how users differentiate and value bots news, how conversation in these platforms is produced, and how to collect more reliable data from them. Results show that information quality (73.1% of answers) and the emotional connection they establish with the tool (26, 8%) are the main potential of these formulas, which are becoming in an opportunity for journalism. ; Es perceptible que los usuarios se hallan conectados de forma permanente y ubicua a la red a través de sus dispositivos móviles. El periodismo cuenta con herramientas que, usando inteligencia artificial y a través de sistemas de mensajería instantánea, permiten remitirles información filtrada y personalizada. Son los llamados bots o aplicaciones conversacionales. Mientras los grandes medios están desarrollando sus propias aplicaciones vía Messenger o Telegram, vienen surgiendo empresas que ofrecen servicios de ...
It is evident that users are permanently and pervasively connected to the network through their mobile devices. Journalism has tools that use artificial intelligence and instant messaging systems to send filtered and personalized information to users. These systems are known as chatbots, or conversational applications. While the big media companies are developing their own applications via Messenger or Telegram, there are other companies that provide this type of service as well. This is the case of Politibot, a service that was launched during the election campaign in Spain in June 2016, which gained 8,400 subscribers just a month later. The purpose of this research paper is to analyse this case in order to determine the way in which audiences perceive and value bot news. To do so, we have applied, among other techniques, documented analysis, direct observation, surveys, and an analysis report. Results show that the quality of information (73.1% of answers) and the emotional connection with the information received (26.8%) are the main strengths of these formulas, and due to this fact, they will soon create an opportunity for journalism ; Es perceptible que los usuarios se hallan conectados de forma permanente y ubicua a la red a través de sus dispositivos móviles. El periodismo cuenta con herramientas que, usando inteligencia artificial y a través de sistemas de mensajería instantánea, permiten remitirles información filtrada y personalizada. Son los llamados bots o aplicaciones conversacionales. Mientras los grandes medios están desarrollando sus propias aplicaciones vía Messenger o Telegram, vienen surgiendo empresas que ofrecen serviciosde este tipo, como Politibot, lanzada durante la campaña electoral de junio de 2016 en España y que, un mes después, aglutinaba 8.400 suscriptores. La presente investigación analiza desde la perspectiva de las audiencias hasta qué punto los usuarios diferencian y valoran las noticias de los bots. Se aplican, entre otras técnicas, el análisis documental, observación directa, entrevista y ficha de análisis. Los resultados constatan que la calidad informativa (73,1% de las respuestas) y la conexión emocional con la informaciónrecibida (26,8%) son las principales fortalezas de estas fórmulas que se erigen, así, en una oportunidad para el periodismo.
Smartphones and tablets are spread all over the globe; their users are from ifferent age groups and are found at different sectors within society (employees, business men, politicians, students, and soldiers). Mobile devices offer their users a variety of functionalities: communication, instant messaging, social networking, video gaming, and browsing online. There is a possibility that another person other than the owner of the mobile device helps the owner to manage his device. In a group, the mobile device could be used as a tool for informing other members about the user's current context. The application of those functionalities requires trust between group members. Families and companies are examples of groups where members can assist each other within regards to mobile device usage. In this thesis, previous studies are extended where mobile devices management (MDM) has been applied within companies. Families were chosen as the first 'informal' group of people where MDM could be applied. In companies, employees are forced to follow the rules but in an informal group, people need to be motivated to adopt the concept. A mobile solution was designed and implemented to demonstrate the functionalities of MDM that could be applied within a family. During the study, ideas were developed and designed for the usage of MDM in an informal group of people. A mobile application was implemented to demonstrate the concept within a group. Windows phone 8.1 is the platform of development, SQLite is used to store information on the mobile device and Windows Azure (Cloud) allows the exchange of information between many mobile devices. The main functionalities on the mobile application are: exchanging information about the physical context between users, changing mobile device information between family members, and allowing family members to regulate their activities on mobile devices. The concept of virtual coin (vCoin) was developed to motivate children to assist their parents with daily chores and software configurations. The software implemented is as an experimental tool for testing the application of MDM in an informal group of people such as a family. During the study, five families were interviewed. It resulted that the concept of MDM was accepted by family members. They find it as a way to regulate the activities of their group on mobile devices. During the demonstrations of the application, the team covered the main ideas developed in the design phase. The studies made were targeted on families, but they could be extended to other informal groups of people such as students.
Bullying is defined as repeated aggressive behavior (Kowalski & Limber, 2007; Olweus, 1993, and as such has been recognized as a significant social issue. Furthermore, we know that the incidence of bullying behaviors increases with the students' age (Cassidy, Jackson & Brown, 2009; Green-Forde, 2014; Kowalski & Limber, 2007). Cyber bullying, electronic/ online bullying, or online social cruelty is, according to Kowalski & Limber (2007), a relatively new kind of bullying through email, instant messaging, chat room exchanges, digital messages etc. (Kowalski et al, 2012). The goal of this paper is to give an overview of epidemiological studies and effective cyberbullying prevention aimed at children and adolescents. Some authors state that a student is cyberbullied if it happens two or three times a month, while others suggest that a frequency of once or twice a month is sufficient for the existence of the phenomenon (Olweus, 2012a; Hinduja & Patchin, 2012; Menesini, 2012; Kowalski & Limber, 2007). This difference between these threshold is what accounts for the discrepancies found in the data and results of various studies. Thus, we may talk about 4,5% to 24% of cyberbullied children, as in various international studies. Croatian data are similar, with 4,9 % to 29% of cyberbullied students, depending of the definition (Child Protection Center Zagreb, 2013; Zadravec et al., 2014.; Pregrad et al., 2011). The physical and psychological health, and academic performance in the context of bullying and cyberbullying are sometimes similar (Kowalski & Limber, 2013). Social cognitive theory and media effects model are a theoretical framework used to identify main categories which could explain cyberbullying, noting the following: individual factors, family, school, peers and media (Felson, 1996). Cyberbullying behaviors are connected to perception problems, hyperactivity, anger, aggression, problems of behavior control, low sociability, feeling of revenge and feeling unsecure at school (Sourander et al., 2010; Nixon, 2014). School-based intervention/ prevention programs for traditional bullying are often successful and could be used in modified forms for cyberbullying prevention programs (Ttofi & Farrington, 2011 in Slonje, Smith & Frisen, 2013). In Croatia, several preventive programs are being implemented, aimed at bullying in schools, designed for implementation in local communities and financed by local governments or the national administration (Zadravec et al., 2014). These cyberbullying programs are still not, though they should be, part of some broader anti-bullying programs. The aim of conducting effective preventive programs, including cyberbullying interventions, is to decrease bullying and cyberbullying in schools and improve the school climate. The goal is also to reduce students' hyperactivity, anger, aggression and problems of behavior control and initiate better self-efficacy.
