Steven Sams

Networked Politics on Cyworld: The Text and Sentiment of Korean Political Profiles

Cyworld, a Korean social networking site (SNS), enables politicians to establish and maintain their online presence and allows them to communicate with constituents through their personal profile. This article identifies the most visible politicians on Cyworld in terms of comments posted on their profiles between April 1, 2008 and June 14, 2009 and examines the text and sentiments reflected in those profiles. A content analysis combining semantic network analysis and sentiment analysis illustrates the meaning and collective sentiment of the comments. The results suggest that progressivism dominated political discourse and that the members of the ruling party received more negative comments than those of the opposition party. Furthermore, group-oriented terms indicated the existence of collectivism, which is representative of Eastern culture. The results suggest a significant relationship among gender, comment types, and SNS activities.

Citizen–government collaboration on social media: The case of Twitter in the 2011 riots in England

Abstract How social media can enable opportunities for collaboration between citizens and governments is an evolving issue in theory and practice. This paper examines the dynamic aspects of collaboration in the context of the 2011 riots in England. In August 2011, parts of London and other cities in England suffered from extensive disorder and even loss of human lives. Based on a dataset of 1746 posts by 81 local government Twitter accounts during or shortly after the riots, we explore how local authorities attempted to reduce the effects of the riots and support community recovery. Using Twitters conversational and rapid update features, they produced a variety of informational and actionable messages with clear calls for offline or online action. In some cases, collective against the riots evolved in a mutual way: not only citizens were mobilized by local authorities, but also local authorities actively promoted actions initiated by citizens.

Do social networking groups support online petitions

Purpose – EPetitioning has been emerging as arguably the most important eParticipation institutional activity. This paper aims to provide some insights into how ePetitions are perceived and supported by social networking sites.Design/methodology/approach – The paper investigated the connection between the UK Governments ePetitioning system and social networking groups linking to governmental petitions. Online data from Facebook were collected and analysed with respect to numbers of supporters compared to official signatures.Findings – The results indicate that although the process of signing an official petition is not more complex than joining a Facebook group, the membership of respective Facebook groups can be much higher. In particular, certain topics experienced very high support on Facebook which did not convert to signatures.Originality/value – The papers added value lies in the questions raised about the potential uptake of citizen‐government interactions in policy‐making mechanisms.

e-Research applications for tracking online socio-political capital in the Asia-Pacific region

Online content offers with it the potential to provide a rich source of data for academic researchers. To capture this data an e-Research tool was developed to utilise results from prominent Korean search engine Naver in the analysis of online political presence, thereby bridging a lack of coverage for this approach in the Asia-Pacific region. This paper will outline the development of this specific tool as well as highlight e-Research tool development in general. Whilst e-Research tools offer greater access to large datasets from online sources than more established data collection methods, they also present challenges to implementation and a lack of consensus exists on the responsibilities when collecting and handling public data. The practice of online data collection and how this can inform an analysis of social capital will be discussed, as well as addressing some of the challenges involved in the development and analysis stages. Suggestions for researchers from a social science background planning to embark on e-Research tool development in an Asian context are offered.

5 Days in August – How London Local Authorities used Twitter during the 2011 riots

This study examines effects of microblogging communications during emergency events based on the case of the summer 2011 riots in London. During five days in August 2011, parts of London and other major cities in England suffered from extensive public disorders, violence and even loss of human lives. We collected and analysed the tweets posted by the official accounts maintained by 28 London local government authorities. Those authorities used Twitter for a variety of purposes such as preventing rumours, providing official information, promoting legal actions against offenders and organising post-riot community engagement activities. The study shows how the immediacy and communicative power of microblogging can have a significant effect at the response and recovery stages of emergency events.

The Presence of Hyperlinks on Social Network Sites: A Case Study of Cyworld in Korea

A study was conducted to determine the extent to which hyperlinks appear within user-submitted comments on Korean social network service Cyworld. Links to social movements were common as was news stories regarding the bleak economic forecast. Males were found to post hyperlinks more frequently than females, and those politicians in the ruling party received more links than those in opposition parties. The purpose of posting a link was evaluated and tasks such as performing Message Amplification and Network Building were prominent. Natural-language processing revealed primarily negative sentiment towards the governing president. The findings go some way to indicate how the presence of hyperlinks and short messages within online dialogs can provide an insight into public perception as a whole.