19 pages, Audience-facilitated information flow has become the new norm created by a public divergence from traditional media sources. Mobile device advancements and partnerships have changed how audiences view news media and the sources relied upon to obtain information. With these advancements, social media users have become primary information providers and information gatekeepers. Twitter specifically has become a news media platform for some based on its effectiveness in facilitating information flow and triggering reorganization as it provides a platform for collaboration and coordination. Despite widespread acceptance of the threat climate change poses by the scientific community, it is still a topic of contention on social media. Climate conversations are typically approached with an us versus them mindset with us being used as representation of the communities to which audiences belong. The communities one belongs to typically follows social media users social, political and environmental ideologies. Walton’s theory of argument or inference schemes served as the theoretical framework for this study. Argument schemes represent common arguments and special context arguments, in this case scientific argumentation. Walton’s argument from ignorance was used as a framework for the study. The argument states that if there has been a thorough search through the knowledge base then concrete proof of a fact would exist. The findings indicated social media may be a useful tool when exploring climate change conversations through a sociopolitical lens and additional research is needed to closely examine how political ideologies, global location, and different environmental topics impact issue awareness and beliefs.
28 pages., This study investigates how the emotional tone of food safety risk communication messages predicts message virality on social media. Through a professional Internet content tracking service, we gathered news articles written about the 2018 romaine lettuce recall published online between October 30th and November 29th, 2018. We retrieved the number of times each article was shared on Twitter and Pinterest, and the number of engagements (shares, likes, and comments) for each article on Facebook and Reddit. We randomly selected 10% of the articles (n = 377) and characterized the emotional tone of each article using machine learning, including emotional characteristics such as discrete emotions, emotional valence, arousal, and dominance. Conveying negative valence, low arousal, and high dominance, as well as anger and sadness emotions were associated with greater virality of articles on social media. Implications of these findings for risk communication in the age of social media are discussed.
Online from publication. 4 pages., Suggestions from a New York City-based exotic fruit influencer and leadership developer Angela Scarfia in leading an online workshop about marketing produce brands and companies on social media.
International: Zimmcomm New Media, Cantonment, Florida.
Location:
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 202 Document Number: D12106
Notes:
Online from ZimmComm News Media. 2 pages., A pioneer in agricultural uses of new social media expresses concern about FaceBook, Twitter, and YouTube having become political weapons. "Since the election, the level of censorship on all of the major social media platforms has just skyrocketed. Never in our wildest dreams did we ever think that freedom of speech and the press might be endangered in this country, but we do believe it is right now." FaceBook and Twitter platforms "are both essentially business platforms. Author reports a decision to put a temporary hold on ZimmComm business FaceBook accounts.
