We are happy to announce that our COVID-19 and Media project has received funding from TÜBİTAK ARDEB 1001 program. The project will last until December 31, 2020.
The project will entail 5 waves of data collection and will have three main components: 1) Application of machine learning techniques for analysis of content about COVID-19 on social media (Twitter), 2) A content analysis of news about COVID-19 published by national newspapers, and 3) An online survey, along with modules containing survey-experiments. For further information about the project, please click here.
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Simlab made two presentations during the yearly conference of the International Communication Association, in Prague (24-28 May, 2018).
The first presentation came from our ongoing work on modality (Facebook vs. face-to-face) differences in person-perception mechanisms.
Our second presentation summarized two experiments we conducted to study how amount and intimacy of self-disclosure on SNSs influence interpersonal attraction.
COncORDE project, a three-year EU FP7 project is now complete. The aim of the project was to develop a Decision Support System (DSS) to improve preparedness and interoperability of medical services during an emergency which affects the health of the population at local, regional or cross-border level. We thank all our partners and contributors. Below is a short clip we prepared at Simlab to illustrate what COncORDE does. Needless to say, we are not professional filmmakers! In a new article published in Journal of Communication, we meta-analytically investigate the frequently debated concept of "privacy paradox". Our study focuses on whether users' reported privacy concerns and literacy influence the extent to which they utilize online services (including but not limited to SNSs), disclose personal information and adopt measures to protect their privacy. Privacy concerns did not predict SNS use; however, it was associated with lower disclosure of information, lower use of other types of online services (e.g., e-commerce), and higher tendency to engage in privacy protective measures.
Click here for access to the article. Click here for access to additional information about the meta-analysis. In a new article published in the Online Self-disclosure and Privacy special issue of Cyberpsychology: Journal of Psychosocial Research on Cyberspace, SIMLAB researchers Murat Kezer, Barış Sevi, Zeynep Cemalcılar, and Lemi Baruh discuss age differences concerning Facebook users' privacy attitudes and privacy management. The article compares three age groups (18-40, 41-65, 65+) in terms of their tendency to self-disclose on Facebook, their privacy attitudes, privacy literacy and use of privacy protective measures.
The study reports that young adults are more likely than other age groups to self-disclose on Facebook; yet, they are also the age group that is most likely to utilize privacy protective measures on Facebook. Furthermore, using a multidimensional approach to privacy attitude measurement, the study reports that while young adults are more likely to be concerned about their own privacy, mature adults tend to be more concerned about others’ privacy. Finally, the findings of the study suggest that the impact of privacy attitudes on privacy-protective behaviors is strongest among mature adults. Here is the link to the full article. We thank the editors of the special issue Michel Walrave, Sonja Utz, Alexander P. Schouten, Wannes Heirman for the opportunity. Articles in the special issue are accessible from this link. SIMLAB is looking for candidates for PhD studentships interested in working in the following topics:
Candidates should have a background, and preferably graduate training, in social psychology, media studies, or other related fields. Candidates who have applied experience in quantitative research methods, statistical analysis, field management, and/or programming languages are particularly welcome. Information regarding application procedures for PhD studentships are provided in the Design, Technology, & Society (DTS) PhD program webpage. Further inquiries about the application procedures should be sent to [email protected] Candidates who are accepted as PhD students will receive scholarships as described in the webpage of the Graduate School of Social Sciences and Humanities at Koç University In a new article published in Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, SIMLAB researchers Lemi Baruh and Zeynep Cemalcılar discuss the effects of sharing sensitive information in social media platform Twitter.
The article focuses on how viewers of a Twitter account react to sensitive information they see on a Twitter profile. The findings indicate that while viewers of a Twitter account may initially stick around longer to look at a profile containing more sensitive information, they find profiles sharing sensitive information less attractive. Baruh and Cemalcılar link this reaction to satisfaction of a voyeuristic curiosity. Just like the rubbernecking behaviour of "a driver passing by a car accident, the satisfaction of voyeuristic curiosity through profile browsing on Twitter is temporarily enjoyed at the moment when the opportunity is available". Below is the abstract: Social networking sites offer individuals an opportunity to document and share information about themselves, as well as engaging in social browsing to learn about others. As a micro-blogging site within which users often share information publicly, Twitter may be a particularly suitable venue that can help satisfy both of these motivations. This study investigates how viewers react to disclosure of intimate information on Twitter. Specifically, the impact of disclosure intimacy is studied on attention that viewers pay to a Twitter page, reduction in their uncertainty about the attributes of the page owner, and their interpersonal attraction to the owner of the page. A total of 618 adult online panel members viewed one of six Twitter pages that contained either low-intimacy or high-intimacy tweets. Analyses indicated that viewers exposed to the Twitter pages containing high-intimate information paid more attention to the pages, were more confident about the attributions they could make about the page owner, yet were less willing to pursue further socialization with the page owner. Furthermore, attributional confidence mediated and perceived similarity moderated the relationship between disclosure intimacy and interpersonal attraction. This interaction between disclosure intimacy and perceived similarity was such that viewers who considered the page owner to be similar (dissimilar) to themselves were more (less) socially attracted to page owners who disclosed intimate information. These findings suggest that while intimate information shared on a Twitter page draws attention, this does not necessarily result in further socialization with the page owner—an effect we named as the “rubbernecking effect” of intimate information. We are happy to announce the publication of the "Social media, emergencies, and citizen engagement" special issue of 'Interactions: Studies in Communication and Culture' (Volume 6, Issue 2, July 2015) by Intellect.
The issue is an outcome of the international workshop held in Istanbul in September 2014 in the context of the FP7-funded project COSMIC (COntribution of Social Media In Crisis Management). The COSMIC project was an EU-funded project from the European Commission's Seventh Framework Programme FP7-SEC-2012 under grant agreement no. 312737. Table of Contents Editorial: Social media and citizen engagement in crises Lemi Baruh (Koc University) An engaged public: Considerations for the use of social media in managing crises Hayley Watson and Kim Hagen (Trilateral Research & Consulting) Crowdsourcing and the folksonomy of emergency response: The construction of a mediated subject Gregory Asmolov (London School of Economics and Political Science) Citizens’ involvement in emergency preparedness and response: A comparative analysis of media strategies and online presence in Turkey, Italy and Germany Salvatore Scifo (Maltepe University) and Yusuf Salman (Koc University) Riding the (seismic) wave: The building of a media discourse following a disaster Caglar Akgungor (AKUT / Search and Rescue Association) Citizen involvement in emergency reporting: A study on witnessing and citizen journalism Haluk Mert Bal and Lemi Baruh (Koc University) Hurricanes and hashtags: How the media and NGOs treat citizens’ voices online in humanitarian emergencies Glenda Cooper (City University London) Transformation of collective action space: A study on the relationship between organizational attributes and ICT use Zeynep Gunel and Gokce Karaoglu (Koc University) The COntribution of Social Media In Crisis Management (COSMIC ), funded by the European Commission under the Seventh Framework Programme (FP7, Grant agreement no: 312737) has now been completed.
The conclusion to our project comes with a set of guidelines for use of new media in emergencies. The guidelines adopt “AID” principles to use of media technologies:
Using these principles the guidelines provide a set of tools as well as “Tips and Tricks” for utilisation of new media by members of the public authorities, volunteer organisations, and citizens. As one of our first research project in SIMLab, we (Lemi Baruh & Zeynep Cemalcılar) had been working on developing a multidimensional privacy orientation scale. The scale is summarised in an article to be published in November 2014 in Personality and Individual Differences.
A free copy of the article is available until September 14, 2014. Abstract This study summarizes the development and validation of a multidimensional privacy orientation scale designed for measuring privacy attitudes of Social Network Site (SNS) users. Findings confirm the existence of four dimensions: (1) belief in the value of “privacy as a right”; (2) “other-contingent privacy”; (3) “concern about own informational privacy” and (4) “concern about privacy of others.” Moreover, a segmentation of SNS users based on these attitude scores reveals three types of users: (1) privacy advocates, who are concerned about both their own and other people’s privacy; (2) privacy individualists, who are concerned mostly about their own privacy, and (3) privacy indifferents, whose score on all dimensions are lower than other segments.The results indicate that the four privacy orientation dimensions and three user segments predict key differences in terms of privacy protective behavior, information disclosure, and viewing personal information of others. |