Does communication matter in social influence during small group discussion? Five positions

Social influence has been a central area of inquiry since the beginning of research in small group communication. Nonetheless, controversy concerning whether communication matters in group discussion is relevant to the hypothesized impact of communication on social influence during discussion. In this paper, five positions concerning the functions that communication performs in social influence during group discussion are described, each with enough research backing to be considered viable. The question of whether communication matters in social influence during group discussion boils down to the question of which of these functions “count as” communication mattering.     

Personal documentation on a social network site: Facebook,a collection of moments from your life?

Social networking on the Web has become very popular in recent years. Used by more than 950 million people worldwide, Facebook is one of the most popular of these services. One interesting aspect of Facebook is that users can converse through various formats, including wall posts, photographs, Web links, music, and video clips of stories and interests surrounding their daily lives. This phenomenon raises an important question for archivists in regard to personal history on the Web: What are the new ways that contemporary people document their life stories? This study looks at Facebook activities from the perspectives of personal documentation. Using an online survey, this study investigates how Facebook content presents users themselves and their everyday stories, whether they perceive their activities of using Facebook as personal documentation, and what factors influence such activities. The findings of this study show the current status of Facebook usage. Facebook content indeed indicates information of self-presentation and personal documentation of everyday lives of users. Attitudes about and activeness on Facebook are the major factors that influence self-presentation and personal documentation activities on Facebook. Generic external factors, such as personal archiving in general, do not show strong associations with personal documentation activities as factors. Based on this understanding, we discuss the roles of information professionals and cultural heritage institutions in dealing with a new type of personal record on the Web.     

Does ‘Articulation’ matter in sponsorship? The type of articulation and the degree of congruence as determinants of corporate sponsorship effects

The congruence between an event and the sponsor's brand can be created by ‘articulating’ the basis and meaning of their relationship, and this created fit can increase the effectiveness of sponsorship. We considered a sample of 418 high school students in Incheon (Korea) in order to investigate how the type of articulation and the degree of congruence between an event and its sponsor influence the effects of sponsorship, and how the consumer's need for cognition moderates the effects of sponsorship. The results indicate that noncommercial articulation was likely to strengthen the effects of sponsorship, whereas commercial articulation was not likely to influence either the participants' responses to sponsorship or their attitudes toward the sponsor's brand. In addition, the effects of commercial articulation depended on the degree of congruence between the event and the sponsor; the consumer's need for cognition moderated the effects of sponsorship according to the type of articulation.     

The architecture of archives: Whose form, what functions?

This article examines theclaim that, through its overt symbolicmessaging, the Gatineau Preservation Centre,opened by the National Archives of Canada in1997, embodies a perfect transparency betweenfunction and form, with the shape of the placebeing derived seamlessly from the needs of thearchival work done there, and the proof beingin the exposure of all the elements to view. It reveals the undercurrents of contendingoppositions to this claim, both in thesubversive, Mannerist, or impure architectural eccentricities designed into thestructure, and in the embodiment of archivalnarratives whose symbolism is challenged byunacknowledged resistances. While the buildingis clearly inspired by Modernist andEnlightenment orientations, such as theambition to preserve unchanged a universal,transcendent historical authenticity, thesediverse resistances buried in it aremanifested, for example, in the contest of maleversus female structural elements, and inthe authority of the monumental and exposed setagainst the seduction of the varied and secret. Most importantly, the absorption of the bodyboth metaphorically and physically into themany disciplines of the place unconsciouslycalls into question the building's self-imageas the epitome of a liberal-humanist andobjective-scientific activity; it reflectsinstead the destabilizing plays and displays ofpower which are increasingly seen to form theindeterminate field of the archival pursuit.     

The Achievements of Document Database Creation in China

Describes the achievements of document database creation in China after the 1980s in four aspects: quantity, types, media and quality, and then points out the necessary measures China should take to develop its document databases.     

The Establishment of “Rural Bookrooms” in China

In July 2006, the General Administration of Press and Publication of the People’s Public of China hosted a forum entitled “The Support by the National Press and Publishing Industry and the Construction of a New Socialist Country”. Since then, the construction work of Rural Bookrooms has been carried out and thousands of the “Benefit-for-Peasant Libraries”, “Rural Bookrooms” and “New Countryside Libraries”, etc., has been built up in different parts of rural areas and in peasants’ residential sites in urban areas to meet the demand of a large number of the farmers for reading and improve their scientific and cultural quality. Up to now, the building of Rural Bookrooms has become one main part of the cultural construction in China on a countrywide basis. It will be historically significant in improving the peasants’ scientific and cultural development, narrowing the gap between rural and urban areas, maintaining the peasants’ basis right of cultural learning and promoting the modernization of China as a country.     

Towards cyberactivism 2.0? Understanding the use of social media and other information technologies for political activism and social movements

Information technologies are increasingly important for political and social activism. In particular, web 2.0 tools and social media applications have recently played a significant role in influencing government decision making and shaping the relationships between governments, citizens, politicians, and other social actors. After the Arab Spring and the uprisings that have led to significant political changes in Egypt, Tunisia, and Iran, commentators argue that information technologies have the potential to strengthen social movements and ultimately transform society. However, this influence is not new. There were movements in the 90s, using the new technologies of e-mail and websites, which were able to gather significant social attention and generate political pressure. Based on three Mexican social and political movements that span close to 20 years, this article identifies key similarities and differences in the use of information technologies and proposes a framework to understand the evolution of cyberactivism. Initially, activists used information technologies to promote a movement's main ideas and gain global support. More recently, a single tool or application, such as Twitter, has been the technological basis for certain social and political movements. However, there is a trend towards a more integrated use of social media tools and applications, generating what could be called cyberactivism 2.0. In addition, there are some distinguishable stages in the development of social protests using information technologies; this evolutionary model seems to be useful to understand very different social and political movements using very different levels of technological sophistication.     

A regression analysis of researchers’ social network metrics on their citation performance in a college of engineering

Previous research shows that researchers’ social network metrics obtained from a collaborative output network (e.g., joint publications or co-authorship network) impact their performance determined by g-index. We use a richer dataset to show that a scholar's performance should be considered with respect to position in multiple networks. Previous research using only the network of researchers’ joint publications shows that a researcher's distinct connections to other researchers, a researcher's number of repeated collaborative outputs, and a researchers’ redundant connections to a group of researchers who are themselves well-connected has a positive impact on the researchers’ performance, while a researcher's tendency to connect with other researchers who are themselves well-connected (i.e., eigenvector centrality) had a negative impact on the researchers’ performance. Our findings are similar except that we find that eigenvector centrality has a positive impact on the performance of scholars. Moreover, our results demonstrate that a researcher's tendency toward dense local neighborhoods and the researchers’ demographic attributes such as gender should also be considered when investigating the impact of the social network metrics on the performance of researchers.     

Amazon’s Day One in China: The Role of Amazon’s Kindle in China

After the long-standing effort and negotiations, Amazon finally released its two Kindle products in China since it entered China 9 years ago. Some say Kindle as it plays as a Catfish would stir up China’s e-book reading market, while the others say Kindle has missed the best timing to enter the market. The article describes the Kindle’s current status in China digital publishing arena, exploring the consistent Amazon strategies in China e-commerce market, and analyzing its threats and opportunities coming from four aspects in the long run, policy, content, willingness-to-pay and competition.     

Material penalty or psychological penalty? The motherhood penalty in academic libraries in China

Wage differences and career development limitations faced by working mothers are often termed the motherhood penalty. However, little is known about the nature or extent of such penalty in Chinese academic libraries in the wake of rapid economic and social changes. Using a sample of 450 respondents from Chinese academic libraries, this study applies quantitative and qualitative methods to explore the penalties faced by mothers working as librarians. The results showed that mother librarians faced penalties not in terms of salary or professional title, but in terms of work-family balance and overall happiness. This study revealed a “hidden” psychological penalty that should be given more attention in the future.     

Does Age Matter?: The Information-Seeking Behavior of Filipino Aquaculture Researchers

Findings of previous studies revealed that regardless of the objective, age does affect the information-seeking behavior of an individual. Likewise, this study found the same results. Although all of the younger Filipino aquaculture researchers preferred the Internet to begin their search process, it was found that they were more frequent library users, and more reliant on librarians than their older counterparts. Likewise, they preferred the combination of print and electronic formats when reading. Thus, they would print and save the retrieved electronic copy of information at least very often. The study is a valuable addition to the information-seeking behavior studies on Filipinos, and the first to tackle the effects of age on the information-seeking behavior of Filipino aquaculture researchers.     

Comparing social media use,discussion, political trust and political engagement among university students in China and Hong Kong: an application of the O–S–R–O–R model

Adopting the Orientation–Stimuli–Reasoning–Orientation–Response (O–S–R–O–R) model of political communication effects, this study examines the mediating roles of online/offline political discussion and political trust on the relationship between social media information seeking and online/offline political participation in China and Hong Kong. Findings through structural equation modeling showed that the relationship between information seeking and online participation was mediated by online discussion for both samples. Moreover, the relationship between information seeking and offline participation was mediated by offline discussion, and offline discussion mediated the relationship between information seeking and online participation. Political trust did not mediate any of the relationships in China and Hong Kong and all significant paths involving political trust were negative. Implications of the findings for youth political participation in China and Hong Kong are discussed.     

The “invisible hand” of peer review: The implications of author-referee networks on peer review in a scholarly journal

Peer review is not only a quality screening mechanism for scholarly journals. It also connects authors and referees either directly or indirectly. This means that their positions in the network structure of the community could influence the process, while peer review could in turn influence subsequent networking and collaboration. This paper aims to map these complex network implications by looking at 2232 author/referee couples in an interdisciplinary journal that uses double blind peer review. By reconstructing temporal co-authorship networks, we found that referees tended to recommend more positively submissions by authors who were within three steps in their collaboration network. We also found that co-authorship network positions changed after peer review, with the distances between network neighbours decreasing more rapidly than could have been expected had the changes been random. This suggests that peer review could not only reflect but also create and accelerate scientific collaboration.     

The Educational Strategy of Library and Information Science in China in the 21st Century

The author states that the requirements for the professional personnel of library and information science in the future information society are to have wide knowledge and to be versatile. The knowledge required may include the knowledge of administration, documentary information, technical method and research method, etc.“Versatile”here means the ability of self-teaching, practical operation, social investigation,administration and organization, creation and scientific research. Finally, by analysis of the existing situation of library and information science education in China, and the needs of the Chinese economic vitalization in the 21st century, the author proposes to take a lot of measures at present for the improvement of thee ducation.     

The declaration of war in World War I: An instrument for socio‐political enactment

The declaration marking the transition from peace to war gives individuals new roles by redefining correct behavior during a period of hostilities. Five specific naming strategies identified in the declarations of war in World War I are investigated in this essay     

Does an image facilitate the sharing of negative news on social media? An experimental investigation

Negative news on social media is always disseminated promptly and widely which leads to negative economic and social outcomes that render a practical research agenda necessary to understand user sharing decisions. Moreover, news posted on social media usually includes images, but little is known about the role of such images in shaping user decisions to share negative news. To fill this gap, the humans' affective–cognitive model of information processing (HACIP) was developed to explore the effects of images on the sharing of negative news and to investigate the contingent role of images in the sharing decision. To test the model and hypotheses, a scenario-based online experiment was conducted, which yielded 285 valid responses. Analysis results indicate that images in negative news induce users' negative emotion and arousal, which influence their sharing decision. Further, the presence of images strengthens the effect of negative emotion and weakens the effect of information uniqueness. Thus, this study contributes to the literature by identifying the distinct role of images in information processing and by proposing a brand-new framework to explore user sharing of negative news.     

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

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 Twitter's 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.     

Does political extremity harm the ability to identify online information validity? Testing the impact of polarisation through online experiments

Ideological polarisation has drawn wide attention from both the general public and researchers. It is frequently argued that under the proliferation of ideological polarisation, echo chambers may be formed while people inside the echo chambers may be less willing to accept alternative political viewpoints and more likely to fall into fake news and online misinformation. To obtain more empirical evidence, we conducted an online experiment that explored the relationship between one's position in the political spectrum and his/her capabilities of identifying political misinformation, as well as the information consumption habits that may help identify online misinformation. While we statistically validated some information consumption habits that can help to identify political misinformation, it was unexpected that political extremists may be indeed more capable of identifying the validity of news and online information. Based on our findings, we also provided a range of theoretical and practical implications.     

Does “birds of a feather flock together” matter—Evidence from a longitudinal study on US–China scientific collaboration

China's status as a scientific power, particularly in the emerging area of nanotechnology, has become widely accepted in the global scientific community. The role of knowledge spillover in China's nanotechnology development is generally assumed, albeit without much convincing evidence. Very little has been investigated on the different mechanisms of knowledge spillover. Utilizing both cross-sectional data and longitudinal data of 77 Chinese nanoscientists’ publications, this study aims to differentiate individual effects from the effect of international collaboration on the research performance of Chinese researchers. The study finds evidence in support of the “birds of a feather flock together” argument – that China's best scientists collaborate at international level. It also finds that collaboration across national boundaries has a consistently positive effect on China's nano research quality with a time-decaying pattern. Language turns out to be the most influential factor impacting the quality or visibility of Chinese nano research. Policy implications on research evaluation, human capital management, and public research and development allocation are also discussed in the end.