In: International journal of cyber warfare and terrorism: IJCWT ; an official publication of the Information Resources Management Association, Band 6, Heft 4, S. 13-27
What characterises social media radicals? And why some people become attracted to radicalisation? To explore answers to these questions, a number of tweets posted by a group of suspected radicals tweeting in Arabic were analysed using social network analysis and machine learning. The study revealed that these suspected radicals' networks showed significant interaction with others; but this interactivity is only significant quantitatively as the interaction is not reciprocated. With regards to why these suspected radicals became attracted to radicalisation, Topic Modelling revealed these suspected radicals' tweets underpinned a perceived injustice that they believed the Secret Police and the Government inflicted upon them. Overall, the study has shown that data science tools have the potential to inform our understanding of online radicalisation. It is hoped this exploratory study will be the basis for a future study in which the research questions will be answered using a larger sample.
AbstractExisting research on phubbing has focused mainly on one relationship group (i.e., partner phubbing). How does phubbing differ across different relationship groups (i.e., family vss people at work)? How does phubbing differ within the same relationship group (i.e., in the case of family relations: parents vs. children)? In which situations (i.e., in bed or at the dinner table) are people more likely to phub others? An online survey of 387 participants, predominantly Australians, revealed that participants were more likely to phub family, friends and strangers than people at work, and they were more likely to phub family and friends than strangers. With regard to family relations, participants were more likely to phub parents, partners and children than grandparents. They were more likely to phub partners and children than parents. The reason certain people are phubbed more frequently than others and in specific situations more than others is due to which social norms matter the most: injunctive norms or smartphone-related internalised norms. Considering that phubbing impacts those with whom the phubber has a closer relationship and those with whom the phubber has a distant relationship, comparing how phubbing differs across different relationship groups contributes to understanding the impact of phubbing on social relationships.
Większość badań w ramach współczesnej literatury skupia się na użytej przez badacza metodzie, ale nie na filozofii, która za nią stoi. W artykule tym opisujemy badanie etnograficzne, prowadzone w duchu paradygmatu konstruktywistycznego, którego celem było eksplorowanie zjawiska uczestnictwa w wirtualnych społecznościach w Arabii Saudyjskiej. Przedstawiamy, jak zostały wykorzystane określone techniki etnografii – obserwacja niejawna i uczestnictwo. Dowodzimy, że ten sposób prowadzenia etnografii pozwolił na umiejscowienie rezultatów badania w ramach społecznego i kulturowego kontekstu społeczeństwa saudyjskiego. W artykule, zilustrowanym wstępnymi wynikami, konkludujemy, że roczna obserwacja ukryta i ośmiomiesięczne uczestniczenie w dwóch różnych, lecz podobnych wirtualnych społecznościach dostarczyły wniosków, które można uznać za głębokie, znaczące i bogate w opisie.
Most of the studies in the recent literature focus on the method used but not the philosophy behind it. This article focuses on doing ethnography, from within a constructivist paradigm, to explore individuals' participation in virtual communities in Saudi Arabia. An aim of this article is to highlight how particular ethnographic techniques, viz unobtrusive observation and participation, were used in that study. The article argues that doing ethnography in this way allowed for placing the results within the social and cultural context of Saudi society. The article, which includes a sample of the findings from the two techniques involved for illustration, concludes that the one-year unobtrusive observation and the eight months' participation in two different but similar virtual communities, during the period 2001-2002, have produced findings that are deep, meaningful and rich in description.
In dem Beitrag sollen Erfahrungen aus der Durchführung teilstrukturierter Online-Interviews im Rahmen einer ethnografischen Studie vermittelt werden, die zwischen 2000 und 2001 in Saudi-Arabien durchgeführt wurde. Ziel der Untersuchung war es, sowohl die individuelle Beteiligung in Online-Gemeinschaften als auch die Auswirkungen dieser Gemeinschaften auf das Offline-Leben in Saudi-Arabien zu rekonstruieren. Die Wahrnehmungen der jeweiligen Online-Gemeinschaften durch die Teilnehmer und Teilnehmerinnen wurde mittels teilstrukturierter Interviews erhoben. Insgesamt beteiligten sich an der Untersuchung 15 Personen (8 Frauen und 7 Männer). Nach einer kurzen Einführung in die saudiarabische Kultur wird die theoretische und methodologische Konzeption der Studie vorgestellt. Es folgt eine Diskussion des teilstrukturierten Interviews und der Gründe, die dafür ausschlaggebend waren, die Interviews online durchzuführen. Anschließend werden zunächst die Kriterien für die Auswahl der Interviewten und die mit dieser Auswahl verbundenen Probleme skizziert, dann werden Einzelheiten der Interviewdurchführung und Datenauswertung erläutert. Der Artikel endet mit einem Diskussionsangebot über die Erfahrungen, die im Verlauf dieses Forschungsvorgehens gewonnen wurden.
In: International journal of cyber warfare and terrorism: IJCWT ; an official publication of the Information Resources Management Association, Band 11, Heft 4, S. 74-92
In this study, a data mining technique, specifically a decision tree, was applied to look at the similarities and differences between Islamists and Far Right extremists in the Profiles of Individual Radicalisation in the United States (PIRUS) dataset. The aim was to identify differences and similarities across various groups that may highlight overlaps and variations across both Islamists and Far Right extremists. The data mining technique analysed data in the PIRUS dataset according to the PIRUS codebook's grouping of variables. The decision tree technique generated a number of rules that provided insights about previously unknown similarities and differences between Islamists and Far Right extremists. This study demonstrates that data mining is a valuable approach for shedding light on factors and patterns related to different forms of violent extremism.
Few studies have analyzed how women in Iranian communities use the internet. Our study investigates the effect of marital status and the presence of family dependents at home on their extent of internet use. Our analysis found that while higher incomes, having internet at home, being a student, and having higher qualifications can all increase Iranian women's chances of using the internet more regularly, looking after a husband or having family dependants at home can have a significant and negative effect on their ability to use the internet on a regular basis. The findings from our small study suggest that less time to access the internet may mean less opportunities for Iranian women to contribute to their communities such as by voicing their opinions and concerns about societal issues that matter to them and by petitioning for change. It may mean less opportunities for participating in political events such as elections.
In: International journal of sociotechnology and knowledge development: IJSKD ; an official publication of the Information Resources Management Association, Band 8, Heft 1, S. 56-69
Social networking users are presented with a plethora of profile and privacy settings; most of which are left defaulted. As a result, there is little understanding of the fields that make up the user profile, the privacy settings available to safeguard the user, and the ramifications of not changing the same. Concerns relating to the unprecedented quantities of Personally Identifiable Information being stored need to be addressed. By employing a risk matrix to a social media profile, a user could be alerted to the potential dangers of the information being contained within the profile. By adapting this tool, the risks to the individual user of a social media profile will be minimised.
In: International journal of sociotechnology and knowledge development: IJSKD ; an official publication of the Information Resources Management Association, Band 8, Heft 1, S. 44-55
Do people who express negative feelings (loneliness, sadness) on Twitter gain or lose online contacts? To answer this question, the authors tracked the number of followers and followees of people who tweeted about loneliness or sadness twice; once when they expressed the negative feeling and a second time five months later. The authors compared the networks of those users with the networks of others who either simply retweeted tweets about loneliness/sadness or (re)tweeted about the corresponding positive feelings. People expressing loneliness in their tweets, as well as people expressing sadness in their tweets had smaller networks than people expressing feeling loved or happy. This effect held only for the original tweets, not retweets, and was – in case of sad/happy – stronger for the followees than the followers. Moreover, the authors found that people expressing loneliness also had smaller friends' networks five months later than the people expressing feeling loved, and that the networks of the people expressing sadness became even smaller during the following five months.
In: International journal of cyber warfare and terrorism: IJCWT ; an official publication of the Information Resources Management Association, Band 5, Heft 1, S. 19-29
Good governance from an ethical perspective in cyberdefence policy has been seen in terms of duty and consequentialism. Yet the negotiated view of virtue ethics can also address how nation states mitigate the risks of a cyber attack to their national interests and to prepare for a cyber offence in response to an attack. A discourse analysis of the "0x Omar"-Israeli conflict of 2012, as reported in the Arabic and English media and on the Internet, is used to explore ethical issues that this case raises and to examine how the risks posed could be mitigated in relation to relevant elements of the South African cybersecurity policy framework. Questions raised include: At what point does the policy require a nation state to prepare for a cyber offence in response to a cyber attack? Ethically, how are such actions consistent with the principle of good governance?
In: Al Lily , A E , Foland , J , Stoloff , D , Gogus , A , Erguvan , I D , Awshar , M T , Tondeur , J , Hammond , M , Venter , I M , Jerry , P , Vlachopoulos , D , Oni , A , Liu , Y , Badosek , R , Cristina Lopez de la Madrid , M , Mazzoni , E , Lee , H , Kinley , K , Kalz , M , Sambuu , U , Bushnaq , T , Pinkwart , N , Adedokun-Shittu , N A , Zander , M , Oliver , K , Teixeira Pombo , L M , Sali , J B , Gregory , S , Tobgay , S , Joy , M , Elen , J , Jwaifell , M O H , Said , M N H M , Al-Saggaf , Y , Naaji , A , White , J , Jordan , K , Gerstein , J , Yapici , I U , Sanga , C , Nleya , P T , Sbihi , B , Lucas , M R , Mbarika , V , Reiners , T , Schoen , S , Sujo-Montes , L , Santally , M , Hakkinen , P , Al Saif , A , Gegenfurtner , A , Schatz , S , Vigil , V P , Tannahill , C , Partida , S P , Zhang , Z , Charalambous , K , Moreira , A , Coto , M , Laxman , K , Farley , H S , Gumbo , M T , Simsek , A , Ramganesh , E , Birzina , R , Player-Koro , C , Dumbraveanu , R , Ziphorah , M , Mohamudally , N , Thomas , S , Romero , M , Nirmala , M , Cifuentes , L , Osaily , R Z K , Omoogun , A C , Seferoglu , S , Elci , A , Edyburn , D , Moudgalya , K , Ebner , M , Bottino , R , Khoo , E , Pedro , L , Buarki , H , Roman-Odio , C , Qureshi , I A , Khan , M A , Thornthwaite , C , Kerimkulova , S , Downes , T , Malmi , L , Bardakci , S , Itmazi , J , Rogers , J , Rughooputh , S D D V , Akour , M A , Henderson , J B , de Freitas , S & Schrader , P G 2017 , ' Academic domains as political battlegrounds : A global enquiry by 99 academics in the fields of education and technology ' , Information Development , vol. 33 , no. 3 , pp. 270-288 . https://doi.org/10.1177/0266666916646415
This article theorizes the functional relationship between the human components (i.e., scholars) and non-human components (i.e., structural configurations) of academic domains. It is organized around the following question: in what ways have scholars formed and been formed by the structural configurations of their academic domain? The article uses as a case study the academic domain of education and technology to examine this question. Its authorship approach is innovative, with a worldwide collection of academics (99 authors) collaborating to address the proposed question based on their reflections on daily social and academic practices. This collaboration followed a three-round process of contributions via email. Analysis of these scholars' reflective accounts was carried out, and a theoretical proposition was established from this analysis. The proposition is of a mutual (yet not necessarily balanced) power (and therefore political) relationship between the human and non-human constituents of an academic realm, with the two shaping one another. One implication of this proposition is that these non-human elements exist as political actors', just like their human counterparts, having agency' - which they exercise over humans. This turns academic domains into political (functional or dysfunctional) battlefields' wherein both humans and non-humans engage in political activities and actions that form the identity of the academic domain. For more information about the authorship approach, please see Al Lily AEA (2015) A crowd-authoring project on the scholarship of educational technology. Information Development. doi:10.1177/0266666915622044.
Academic cognition and intelligence are 'socially distributed'; instead of dwelling inside the single mind of an individual academic or a few academics, they are spread throughout the different minds of all academics. In this article, some mechanisms have been developed that systematically bring together these fragmented pieces of cognition and intelligence. These mechanisms jointly form a new authoring method called 'crowd-authoring', enabling an international crowd of academics to co-author a manuscript in an organized way. The article discusses this method, addressing the following question: What are the main mechanisms needed for a large collection of academics to collaborate on the authorship of an article? This question is addressed through a developmental endeavour wherein 101 academics of educational technology from around the world worked together in three rounds by email to compose a short article. Based on this endeavour, four mechanisms have been developed: a) a mechanism for finding a crowd of scholars; b) a mechanism for managing this crowd; c) a mechanism for analyzing the input of this crowd; and d) a scenario for software that helps automate the process of crowd-authoring. The recommendation is that crowd-authoring ought to win the attention of academic communities and funding agencies, because, given the well-connected nature of the contemporary age, the widely and commonly distributed status of academic intelligence and the increasing value of collective and democratic participation, large-scale multi-authored publications are the way forward for academic fields and wider academia in the 21st century. ; peerReviewed
This article theorizes the functional relationship between the human components (i.e., scholars) and non-human components (i.e., structural configurations) of academic domains. It is organized around the following question: in what ways have scholars formed and been formed by the structural configurations of their academic domain? The article uses as a case study the academic domain of education and technology to examine this question. Its authorship approach is innovative, with a worldwide collection of academics (99 authors) collaborating to address the proposed question based on their reflections on daily social and academic practices. This collaboration followed a three-round process of contributions via email. Analysis of these scholars' reflective accounts was carried out, and a theoretical proposition was established from this analysis. The proposition is of a mutual (yet not necessarily balanced) power (and therefore political) relationship between the human and non-human constituents of an academic realm, with the two shaping one another. One implication of this proposition is that these non-human elements exist as political actors', just like their human counterparts, having agency' - which they exercise over humans. This turns academic domains into political (functional or dysfunctional) battlefields' wherein both humans and non-humans engage in political activities and actions that form the identity of the academic domain. For more information about the authorship approach, please see Al Lily AEA (2015) A crowd-authoring project on the scholarship of educational technology. Information Development. doi:10.1177/0266666915622044.