Search results

President Obama embraced social media and remains one of the most followed persons on Twitter. The focus of this study is twofold: to assess how the President’s use of Twitter affected (a) Millennials’ perception of Obama and (b) Millennials’ interest and likelihood to participate in the political process. Study findings provide support for a model derived from information processing theory. Results also suggest that message orientation (or perceived favorability) predicted source credibility, which stems from message content as well as the Twitter medium by which the message was delivered. Implications for study findings – including optimal strategies for cultivating a social media presence – are discussed.

This chapter explores “politic talks” (also known as political information) on the websites of academic libraries in land-grant state universities of the South in the context of a global retreat of democracy that emerged during former President Trump’s regime as the 45th President of the United States. The exploratory qualitative evaluation applies website content analysis of seven information offerings in three categories that include: (1) information sources (collections, resources), information policy and planning (assigned role, strategic representation), and connections (internal, external, news and events). Promising practices and illustrative examples of “politic talks” representation on academic library websites show how they are serving as significant providers of political information during current politically turbulent times. The discussion of these findings in relation to each state’s voting likelihood based on trends since 2000 has significant political implications in enhancing the role of academic libraries moving forward.

While LIS scholarship emphasizes the need to be multi-literate by equipping people with critical information literacy, digital literacy, and media literacy skills to combat the phenomenon of fake news in the contemporary information society, the concept of political information literacy is still in its infancy. This chapter addresses this gap by developing an understanding of political information literacy and challenges the premise that information professionals and information organizations should remain neutral in the face of phenomena like censorship through noise and disinformation. In this endeavor, it reviews contemporary information environments vis-à-vis the growth of fake news and misinformation, and current information literacy approaches utilized by information organizations. Thereafter, it explores several cognitive barriers, such as the role of confirmation bias, information avoidance, information groupishness, and information overload, which affects people’s ability to process information. Finally, it encourages information professionals to hold regular information sessions on politically charged topics, tackle the cognitive factors increasing misinformation, and cultivate multidisciplinary approaches to confront fake news.

Netroots organizations are re-defining political struggle by providing the resources and environment necessary for political mobilizing, and are affecting the ways that parties and traditional groups now campaign, recruit, and fundraise. While there is no clear consensus in the social movement literature regarding information communication technology's (ICT's) influence on participation on political participation, campaigns, and parties, or on social movement participation more broadly, there is substantial agreement that the Net has increased information available for citizens and has changed the capacity for mobilization. The key question is if (and if so how) the increasing availability of information and more efficient mobilizing tactics enabled by the Internet translates into motivation, interest, and participation. As an electronic social movement organization (SMO), MoveOn has become one of the most successful advocacy operations in the digital era. This paper examines ways in which MoveOn has used the Internet and alternative forms of grassroots mobilization to fuse contentious politics with institutional means of reform via the electoral process. A case study of MoveOn is relevant to broader arguments regarding how the Internet is re-defining our understanding of mobilization and participatory politics, and demonstrates a shift in contentious politics and protest. The findings support the arguments in the literature that information sharing electronically can lead to a more informed citizenry, yet goes beyond previous research by suggesting that this refers not only to those that are initially politically aware, but also to otherwise uninformed or disengaged citizens (who have access to the Internet). This analysis also challenges previous research that asserts that there is little or no relationship between Internet use to obtain political information and political participation.

Two extreme positions set the tone in learned literature on the feasibility of democracies in the information society. In the opinion of a number of authors, the widely proclaimed “electronic revolution” will inevitably take us to “direct democracy”. The only question these computopeans hold different views on is to what extent active steering of the further introduction of technology is necessary to reach direct democracy. Some of them (like De Sola Pool, 1983) are of the opinion that technologies of freedom are involved, which will almost automatically result in a more democratic society, provided that the free market is left to its own devices. Other authors believe that the new technology enables a drastic renewal of political culture and structure, provided that it is used deliberately in a practical and sensible way (Etzioni, Laudon, & Lipson, 1975; Becker, 1981; Hollander, 1985; Barber, 1988; Abramson, Arterton, and Orren, 1988).

In the last few years, information and communication technologies (ICTs) and social media have become increasingly relevant to politicians and political parties alike, often used to issue statements or campaigning, among others. At the same time, many citizens have become more involved in politics, partly due to the highly interactive and social environments that the social networking services (SNS) provide. Political events flow through these networks, influencing their users; such events, however, often start offline (outside the online platform) and are, therefore, hard to track. Event studies, a methodology often used in financial and economic studies, can be translated to social networks to help modeling the effect of external events in the network. In the present case, the event study methodology is applied to two sample cases: the tariff war between the United States and China, with multiple responses and retaliations from both sides, and the Brexit referendum. In both cases, the Twitter social networks that arise from users who discuss the respective subjects are analyzed to examine how political events shape and modify the network. Results show how event studies, combined with the possibilities offered by the ICTs both in data retrieval and analysis, can be applied to understand the effect of external political events, allowing researchers to quantitatively track, observe, and analyze the spread of political information over social network platforms. This is a first step toward obtaining a better understanding on how political messages are diffused over social networks and their effects in the network structures and behaviors.

In India, recently on December 11, 2013, the Supreme Court re-established a ban on gay sex following a four-year period of decriminalization that had helped bring homosexuality out of the closet in this communally conservative country. In the light of such prosecution and denial of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) human rights in India, this chapter presents a library manifesto of action for progressive change in support of this marginalized and “invisible” population.

Content analysis of online news articles published during November 14, 2013–January 14, 2014 in The Times of India (http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india), one of India’s most popular English newspaper, identifies proactive economic, educational, legal, political, and social actions libraries can adopt as agents of human rights protection to integrate a social justice agenda on behalf of this subjugated population.

This chapter presents an action-based manifesto consisting of realities experienced by sexual minorities in India and future economic, educational, legal, political, and social actions libraries can take on their behalf.

This research showcases the meaningful role of the library and information science professions in potentially shaping community-wide progressive changes to address the information needs and expectations of underserved populations who are marginalized owing to conservative laws, policies, practices, and politics. It also adopted an innovative strategy in library circles and human rights research of examining online news articles to explore the relevance of the information found in the news covered related to the adoption of an archaic law denying equal rights for sexual minorities in India.

Although employee race has been an actively investigated area of scientific inquiry for decades, a thorough and informed understanding of the role of race in the organizational sciences has eluded us for a number of reasons. The relationship of race and stress in organizations is a prime example of this neglect and deficiency in our knowledge base, as little work has been done in this area. We attempt to address this limitation in the literature by proposing an inductively derived, review-centric framework that attempts to articulate the multiple intermediate linkages that explain the process dynamics taking place in the relationship between employee race and health and well-being in organizations. We argue that socialization processes, social networks, information and resource access, and mentoring contribute to distance and differences between racial minorities and nonminorities concerning control, reputation, performance, and political understanding and skill, which in turn, creates barriers to success, and increased stress and strain for racial minorities. The implications of this framework along with directions for future theory and research are discussed in this chapter.

Purpose – This study aims to determine the roles of technology through digital democracy in younger generation’s political education.

Design/Methodology/Approach – Research data were obtained through observation, interviews on students in Universitas Malikussaleh, and also retrieved from some literature studies that are relevant to the above research problems. Data are then analyzed by using qualitative descriptive analysis technique.

Findings – The research results show that the role of political activity using digital channels as a form of political participation gives positive impacts to the political participation of young generation.

Research Limitations/Implications – This research limits the scope of attention only on young generation’s participation in political activities.

Practical Implications – The necessity of the younger generation is to be given wider opportunities and responsibilities in the public sphere as well as involving as a member of a political party, or other social and political organization.

Originality/Value – Therefore, in order to push towards political democratization, political education agents must be able to utilize social networking media on the internet to convey ideas, actions, and other political activities for the development of political education.

In the last two decades, there has been much research and attention on information and communications technologies (ICTs) as tools that can contribute to the economic and social lives of persons with disabilities (PWDs). However, few studies have sought to explore and document the experiences of PWDs who use these technologies to access the democratic space. Using Democratic Governance as a conceptual framework, this qualitative study seeks to address this gap in the literature by exploring the experiences of several visually impaired Caribbean youth with the use of ICTs to access the democratic space.

This study uses the qualitative research design and is guided by Husserl’s Descriptive phenomenology. The study sought to explore common patterns elicited from the specific experiences of 14 visually impaired citizens in Jamaica and 9 in Barbados through the use of semi-structured interviews.

The findings suggest that ICTs have in some ways contributed to the lives of these visually disabled youth, specifically as it relates to improving their ‘political knowledge’ and encouraging ‘political talk’. In other words, ICTs have played a contributive role in terms of including visually impaired Caribbean youth in the democratic space.

This study contributes to improving our understanding of how and in what ways ICTs can promote the inclusion of visually impaired persons in the democratic space.