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The paper intends to explore the role and function of citizen-led social media forums in the marketing of political discourse. Using the entrepreneurial marketing (EM) perspective of “co-creation of value”, this paper aims to explore the manner in which consumers of political communications in a specific region have created user generated value via setting up Facebook forums to manage the risk created by fake news and the trust deficit between citizens and mainstream media (MSM).

The paper adopts a “netnographic” approach to investigation and the data is analysed manual coding (Kozinets, 2015). Facebook groups form the virtual research field in in the context of this study. This approach is adopted because in a social media environment, netnography capitalises over a growing virtual and online communities and allows researchers to study the richness of these online communities (Mkono and Markwell, 2014).

The study provides insights on how administrators and moderators of Facebook groups create value for other users by identifying and communicating the risks emerging from social media-based political communication. The study finds that such citizen-led initiatives act as online social aggregators. The value that such groups offer its users/members resides within a well-bound, controlled and moderated online medium that encourages users to counter fake news and misinformation – thereby solving a key problem within the user market i.e. citizen-media trust deficit.

The study uses a qualitative, netnographic approach and the emerging insights cannot be generalised. The emergent findings are specific to the context of this study and researchers are encouraged to further test the propositions emerging from this research in varied contexts.

The study extends the application of EM in political contexts using the seven dimensions of EM, which will provide impetus for future political campaigns in terms of unique value creation for publics. The paper also emerges with the role citizen-initiated forums can play in the effective dissemination of digital political communication as user generated content is aiding political debate.

The study helps highlight the role Facebook forums can play in informing the political discourse within a region. The general distrust amongst the citizens over information produced by MSM has meant vocal critics have taken to Facebook to provide their subjective opinions. Although the findings of this study show that such forums can help identify “fake news” and help citizens discuss and debate the truth, it can also become an avenue to manage propaganda amongst the “unaware” citizens. This paper flags up the issues and benefits of using Facebook forums and in conclusion relates them to similar occurrences of the past to make society aware of the pitfalls of managed propaganda.

The paper takes initiative in investigating the use of social media in politics from the citizens’ perspective, which is comparatively marginalised against the number of studies taking place, which investigate the political party end use of social media for political marketing.

The purpose of this study is to fill the gap by researching the direct effects of media and personal characteristics on online participation in climate change, indirect effects when mediated by interpersonal communication and personal characteristics as predictors of media communications as sources of information about climate change.

A structured questionnaire is distributed to collect data about the uses of communication sources and online responses toward climate change by using a quota sampling technique. The structural equation modeling by using Smart PLS 4 is used to explore the effects’ size.

Small levels of direct and indirect effects are found. Direct effects are found in online newspapers, YouTube, television news, personal relevance toward climate change and political interest in online participation in climate change. Indirect effects are found of WhatsApp on online climate participation through interpersonal communication. Personal relevance toward climate change has motivated respondents to take information about climate change from Facebook. Climate skepticism is found among respondents who have received information from television news/talk shows, printed newspapers and WhatsApp.

University teachers in Pakistan will have to work on educational strategies to increase the knowledge of university students about energy generation through carbon and renewable energy sources.

The results of this study highlight the communicative-cultural dimensions of online discourse about climate change in the context of the less-researched country of Pakistan. This is the first study of researchers’ knowledge that comprehensively defines the digital media ecology in the context of climate change considering Pakistan.

Grounded in Media System Dependency theory, this work investigates the impact of new media on political efficacy. It suggests that dependence on online resources affects people’s perceptions about the democratic potential of the Internet. Using structural equation modeling, the study tests the relationship between political attitudes and the perceived utility of the Web. The analysis employs measures that take into consideration the facilitating role of communication technologies. Results indicate that online political efficacy is associated with individual views about the comprehensiveness and credibility of new media. Efficacy is also linked to the perceived ability of online tools to aid the maintenance of ideologically homogenous social networks. The intensity of Internet dependency relations is found to be predicted by the perceived comprehensiveness – but not credibility – of online news.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the role of interest groups in the formation of online echo chambers and to determine whether interest groups’ use of social media contributes to political polarization.

This study used a content analysis of nearly 10,000 tweets (from 2009 to 2014) by the Brady campaign to Prevent Gun Violence and the National Rifle Association to examine how groups engage with their political allies and opponents.

The results indicated that both groups engaged primarily with their supporters on Twitter while avoiding confrontation with their opponents. In particular, both groups used hashtags designed to reach their supporters, retweeted messages almost exclusively from other users with whom they agreed, and disproportionately used Twitter handles of their allies, while avoiding the use of Twitter handles of their opponents.

The findings suggest that interest groups’ use of social media accelerates the formation of online echo chambers, but does not lead to an increase in polarization beyond existing levels, given practices that maintain civility between opposing sides.

This is one of few studies to examine the role of interest groups in the formation of online echo chambers. It also uses a novel approach – the examination of both the interactions that occur among social media users and those that are explicitly avoided.

The impact of ideological polarization has been a serious concern, given its damages to society. In addition, Schadenfreude is increasingly common in the era of ideological polarization. Previous literature may have discussed the cause and outcomes of schadenfreude in general but not specifically related to ideological polarization. This study aims to serve to establish a more informed understanding of online schadenfreude as an outcome of ideological polarization and help society recover from the damages.

The authors adopted a case research method with netnography for our study, given that the authors are exploring the phenomena of online schadenfreude, which involves multiple dimensions.

The authors identified a three-level model that illustrates how schadenfreude is driven as an outcome of ideological polarization, i.e. macro-environment, camp/partisan and target. These factors of different levels involve political viewpoint differences, perceived appearance, personal conduct, aggressive norms and polarized environment with a lack of conventional opinion expression channel. Moreover, attackers may demonstrate a belief in Karma, creativity and a sense of humor and may call for actions.

While previous literature focused on the relationship between fake news, echo chambers and ideological polarization, this study is a relatively earlier one on studying schadenfreude as an outcome of ideological polarization, which would facilitate to formulate the solution to repair the damages created to ideological polarization. The authors also discussed the enablers as well as the self-reinforcing nature of ideological polarization, and provided some practical implications for politicians and government officials.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the construction of virtual community identities among Chinese internet users and their motivation for lurking, posting or flaming.

Taking Qiangguo Luntan as an online study site the authors apply an ethnographic approach for the research, a method that is becoming more and more favourable by scholars in study virtual communities. The data gathered are mainly through participant observation and in‐depth interviews.

The findings suggest that internet bulletin boards enable ordinary Chinese to have their identities as politically activated citizens constructed in cyberspace. A consistent enthusiasm for political participation can be found in user's pennames, signature files, political clusters, and online behaviours.

This is an original case study.

With the prevailing use of online communication platforms, this study revisits the definitions of trust in an online context. By exploring organizational online communications from a practitioners' perspective, a conceptual framework that illustrates the nature of trust and its relationship with dialogic communication between organizations and organizations' stakeholders in the digital era is proposed.

A total of 27 in-depth interviews were conducted with public relations and marketing practitioners involved in coordinating organizational online communications in Hong Kong.

From the practitioners' perspective, stakeholders' online trust toward an organization, which is a hybridity of initial and rapidly evolving trust, begins with stakeholders swift and initial judgment of the organization according to category-based cues (including knowledge-based attributes of the organization, institutional cues, and particular attributes of online dialogic communication) available on online platforms and further develops over time. Practitioners regard the integration of online and offline communication platforms to be the most effective way to build trust in organization–stakeholder relationships in the digital era, while dialectical tensions can hinder trust formed in online communication.

Along with the proposed conceptual framework, this study advances the discussion of online trust in public relations practices from the practitioners' perspective. A qualitative approach provides rich descriptions that may help to enrich theories in public relations and communication management regarding the interplay of trust and dialogic communication in organizational practices in the digital era.

This study examined how likeminded Facebook comments with incivility and without supporting evidence influence readers' evaluations of the commenter and online political participation intention. This study also investigated whether the indirect effect of exposure to uncivil comments and comments without evidence on online political participation through evaluations of the commenters is contingent on the strength of partisanship.

The study used a 2 (uncivil comments vs civil comments) × 2 (comments without supporting evidence vs comments with supporting evidence) factorial design with a scenario about reading similar viewpoints about the gun control issue in Facebook comments.

The results showed that compared to exposure to civil agreeing comments, exposure to uncivil likeminded comments resulted in higher levels of negative evaluations of the commenters, which in turn decreased willingness to participate in political activities online. Exposure to comments without evidence led to more negative evaluations of the commenters, but it did not significantly influence online political participation. In addition, the strength of partisanship did not significantly moderate the indirect effect of exposure to uncivil comments and comments without evidence on online political participation through evaluations of the commenters.

Although previous studies have demonstrated the significant effects of incivility and reasoned argument, little is known about whether and how people evaluate ingroup members' comments that are uncivil and lacking reasoned arguments. Most of these studies have examined incivility in political contexts, but few have extended the context to the effect of likeminded comments, especially when the comments are uncivil and lack supporting evidence. The current study aims to fill this gap in the literature.

This chapter theorizes the outrageous consumer response that may follow the communication of political corporate social responsibility (CSR). We consider two recent cases (Starbucks’s offer to hire refugees and Pepsi’s appropriation of protest movements in an ad) and how consumers-citizens reacted when these corporations communicated political issues. By drawing from psychoanalytic concepts, we illustrate how consumers’ outrage, expressed in angry social media comments, and in the creation and sharing of memes, is cathartic of unconscious repressed matter: the realization of their own powerless and the domination of corporations. We further note how these expressions of outrage may be understood to result from defense mechanisms such as denial, displacement, or more complex sublimation that help consumers maintain a position of passive domination by corporations. Like all psychoanalytic applications, our interpretation represents only a plausible metaphor that can explain the “irrational” behavior of consumers. Positivist traditions of CSR theorization may demand further causal studies to confirm the ideas we express. Our study is an original exploration of what underlies consumer responses to political CSR. These cases could inform academics and practitioners working in the business and society arena asking them to re-evaluate whether and how political CSR should be communicated, and the implications of the rapid diffusion of messages in social media that include mocking parody and offensive brand comments.