Nili Steinfeld

Local engagement online: Municipal Facebook pages as hubs of interaction

Abstract The article presents the results of a comprehensive study of the scope and character of the activities of the Israeli municipalities on Facebook. 1 The study maps the Facebook presence of Israeli municipalities and checks for correlations between Facebook presence, municipality size, and the geographic and socio-demographic characteristics of the municipalities. We then measure several engagement indices of municipal activities on Facebook (number of fans, average likes, comments, and shares of posts) and check for correlations of these engagement indices with municipality size and geographic and social demographic characteristics of the municipalities. The article concludes with a review of several indices of municipality Facebook page activity, including scope of content uploaded by the page and by fans, content formats (statuses, images, and videos) and their reception.

Track me, track me not: Support and consent to state and private sector surveillance

Abstract The current study examines consent to surveillance and identifies links between support for state surveillance and consent to surveillance by private entities. Contrary to a tendency in academic literature and public debates to consider private and state surveillance as a single phenomenon in terms of methods, magnitude, and practice, findings show that individuals distinguish between these two types of surveillance when it comes to compliance and consent. Support for state surveillance is much more widespread and does not correlate with consent to private sector surveillance. Furthermore, support and consent to surveillance are rather nuanced, with different factors predicting different types of surveillance, according to the justifications and contexts of surveillance methods: Private sector surveillance is predicted by the compensation offered to subjects, factors related to behavior in online social networks and age. With regard to state surveillance- support varies between surveillance as part of the war against terrorism, which is most common and predicted by political trust and support for other types of state surveillance, surveillance for security reasons which is predicted by age, political interest, political orientation and support for anti-terror surveillance, and surveillance in general- which is least common and predicted by religiosity, level of privacy settings in SNS, political trust and anti-terror surveillance.

Well-done, Mr. Mayor!: Linguistic analysis of municipal facebook pages

The increasing use of social networks has given rise to a new kind of relations between residents and authorities at the municipal level, where residents can speak directly to administrators and representatives, can take part in open discussions, and may have more direct involvement and influence on local affairs. The more direct democracy facilitated by social media outlets fascinates communication and political science researchers. But while most of their attention is drawn to national politics, the municipal arena can be even more affected by these new means of direct communication. This paper focuses on municipal administration on Facebook, and analyzes the discourse that has developed between citizens and local administrators on municipal Facebook pages, using automatic digital tools. The formal Facebook pages of all of the cities in Israel were extracted using digital tools, and all posts and comments published on these pages in a period of six months were analyzed using automatic linguistic analysis tools that provided information regarding the use and frequencies of words and terms in the texts. The paper presents the prominent topics, use of language, and basic features of citizens--municipalities interactions in formal Facebook pages. The study discusses the findings, their implications, and the advantages and limitations of using digital tools to analyze texts in a digital research field.

Managers and members in online communities of practice: what are they talking about?

Online communities of practice are becoming important organizational arenas. Much literature about online communities describes them as environments based on user-generated content. This article shifts the focus from community members to the managers, demonstrates their central role in creating content and promoting discussions, and distinguishes between managers and members by asking: Who posts more? What themes do the posts of managers and members focus on? Who is more and who is less critical of the communities and practice? Who shares more of their personal experience? And finally, Who asks questions and who provides answers?

Coalition and opposition MPs on Facebook

Social Media platforms are today the main spheres in which politicians make political and personal statements, confront other public figures and interact with the public. In the current study, the Facebook pages of all Israeli MPs were scraped and analyzed for the entire period of the 19th Israeli parliament service (between 2013-2015), in order to find similarities and differences between the posting behavior and acceptance of coalition and opposition members. We found that popular posts published by members of coalition and opposition differ in terms of scope of publication, scope of user engagement (posts by coalition members were more engaged-with), content and format (posts by members of opposition more varied in format, more mobilizing, critical, opinionative and negative, less formal but also less personal). The implications for the character of Facebook as a key parliamentary discursive arena are discussed.

“Objection, Your Honor”: Use of Social Media by Civilians to Challenge the Criminal Justice System

Social media constitute useful and effective platforms for miscarriage of justice campaigners to challenge state authorities and decisions taken by the criminal justice system. To characterize such endeavors, this study analyzes the activity in such a major group dedicated to the murder case of Tair Rada and the trial of Roman Zadorov, one of the most controversial legal cases in Israel’s history. Using digital data extraction and linguistic analysis tools, we focus on five themes: (1) the central role of group administrators in directing the discourse and setting the group agenda; (2) correspondence of group activity with off-line events and mainstream media coverage; (3) skewed distribution of post publications per user and engagement measures per post; (4) prominent topics in group discussions, revolving around key figures, institutions and officials, making justice, considering alternative theories and examining investigative and forensic materials; and (5) the framing of key figures, institutions, and values in portraying a somewhat dichotomous image of a corrupted justice system, an innocent man wrongly convicted and a Facebook group in the search for the truth.

From FM to FB: radio stations on Facebook

Abstract The article explores Israeli radio stations’ activity on Facebook and analyses the most popular content in terms of various engagement indexes. It finds that the format of a post, its language and content, all affect the level and nature of user engagement with the post. Moreover, it appears that both stations and users turn to Facebook primarily for promotional and PR purposes and less so for promoting mutual interaction and dialogue between stations and their audiences, thus complementing the traditional medium without utilising the full range of opportunities this new platform has to offer radio.

MPs and Audiences on Social Media During Emergencies: Automatic and Manual Content Analyses of Facebook Posts

The social media channels of the members of parliament (MPs) are significant arenas through which communication between the public and national leaders occurs. This is the first paper to explore how these channels function during emergencies. We present findings from a mixed-method study of automatic and manual content analysis of a unique dataset of all posts in Israeli MPs’ Facebook pages during the 19th Israeli parliament. We compare the scope of posting, engagement with posts, and the content in MPs’ Facebook pages during “ordinary” periods and an “emergency” period, focusing on the 2014 Israel/Gaza war. Findings present MPs’ social media pages as key hubs of information and interaction between MPs and audiences in emergencies, even more so than during ordinary periods. MPs’ social media pages involve significantly more posts, and engagement with posts, during emergencies, and the content in them becomes more emotional, less personal and focused on the emergency situation and the national leaders responding to it.

Social Media and the City: Analyzing Conversations in Municipal Facebook Pages

What characterizes the discourse that takes place on social media platforms involving municipal pages and their fans? Does the character of the activities on these social media platforms differ in periods preceding or following municipal elections, compared to non-election periods? The article examines the scope and character of Facebook activities on Israeli municipality pages before and after municipal elections, in comparison to non-election periods. For this purpose, the article surveys municipalities’ Facebook presence and analyzes its correlations with socio-demographic and geographic indicators. The distributions of various engagement indices of municipal pages (number of fans, and average number of likes, comments, and shares of posts) are presented, and the contents uploaded by the page managers and fans are compared. We conclude by reviewing municipalities’ Facebook activity and engagement over time, with the aim of identifying changes in Facebook pages in pre-election and post-election periods.

Online Communities of Practice: Social or Cognitive Arenas?

This study examines whether interactions between members of communities of practice typically have cognitive or social character. Content analysis of more than 7000 posts, automatic words frequencies analyses as well as interviews with community members demonstrate that the interactions between members of the Israeli Ministry of Social Affairs’ communities of practice, the subject of the present study, emphasize the cognitive rather than social aspects. This emphasis is reflected in the content of posts, the avoidance from discussing personal cases or offering emotional support and more. The findings are particularly interesting given the nature of these communities as a space for social workers whose work requires and is characterized by a high degree of social and emotional interactions.