A new algorithm has been found to identify images of alcohol in electronic media with a high degree of accuracy. Possible applications for this algorithm include public health research to quantify exposure to images of alcohol and mobile or web applications to allow individuals to filter unwanted exposure to online alcohol advertising or alcohol-related content. The development and testing of the algorithm are described in a paper published in the October issue of Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research. The algorithm has been made publicly available at no charge.
Research from the University of New Hampshire’s Crimes against Children Research Center shows 16% of young adults in the U.S. have experienced at least one type of sexual abuse online before the age of 18. The first comprehensive study to look at multiple forms of child sexual abuse online found that 62% of the perpetrators of online sexual abuse were acquaintances from their offline life.
A study of U.S. middle and high school students shows that about 17 percent were cyberbullied in 2016 and 2019, but that proportion rose to 23 percent in 2021. Notably, 19 percent of Asian American youth said they had been cyberbullied, and about 1 in 4 (23.5 percent) indicated they were victimized online because of their race/color. Asian American youth were the only racial group where the majority (59 percent) reported more cyberbullying since the start of the COVID‐19 pandemic. In 2019, Asian American youth were the least likely to have experienced cyberbullying.
Researchers from Goethe University Frankfurt, Frankfurt School of Finance and Management, and KU Leuven published a new article in the Journal of Marketing that examines which social media influencers are most effective at turning advertising budgets into greater engagement.
Social media are polarizing not because they isolate us with likeminded others, as often thought, but because they provide spaces where we create social identities that increasingly align with our political preferences.
While towns across Florida and the Carolinas are cleaning up in the aftermath of Hurricane Ian and the death toll climbs, several high profile climate change skeptics are questioning the connection between the hurricane and human-caused climate change.
Authoritarian regimes worldwide have embraced the digital age. And they have been generally effective at limiting the online presence of perceived adversaries within their borders — from intellectual dissidents to transnational activists.
While social media platforms are the primary source of political information for a growing number of people, a majority of Twitter users do not follow either members of Congress, their president or news media, a new study suggests.
A new George Washington University study shows who talks to who, and who listens to who, as a global crisis emerges. Tthe study shows how large numbers of mainstream Facebook users became entangled with online communities opposed to best-science guidance early on in the COVID-19 pandemic.
A study analysing millions of Tweets has revealed that Republican members of the US Congress are increasingly circulating news from dubious sources, compared to their European counterparts.
Adolescents from deprived backgrounds are more likely to report an addiction to Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and other social media, according to research published in the peer-reviewed journal Information, Communication and Society.
On 9/11, lawmakers from both parties unified in their response. Just over 20 years later, Congress is distinctly partisan, clashing on everything from the January 6 insurrection to COVID to climate change. Why? Many blame widespread and widely believed misinformation and disinformation. Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute’s Boleslaw Szymanski, Claire and Roland Schmitt Distinguished Professor of Computer Science, is part of an interdisciplinary team of researchers examining the flow of (mis)information in social media.
Public messages should show respect for individual freedoms and personal choice and leave the politics at the door, if communicators expect compliance, according to researchers at West Virginia University’s John Chambers College of Business and Economics.
This September, as part of Baby Safety Month, the American Cleaning Institute (ACI) and Safe Kids Worldwide are raising awareness of popular but unsafe cleaning product storage trends seen on social media.
A survey from the American Academy of Sleep Medicine reveals that 93% of Gen Z have lost sleep because they stayed up “past their bedtime” to view or participate in social media.
A Cornell-led group of researchers has developed a search method that employs natural language processing and network analysis to identify terms that are semantically similar to those for cancer screening tests, but in colloquial language.
Sharing news articles with friends and followers on social media can prompt people to think they know more about the articles’ topics than they actually do, according to a new study from researchers at The University of Texas at Austin.
Teens engaged in digital self-harm (online posting, sending or sharing of hurtful content about oneself anonymously) were between five and seven times more likely to have considered suicide and between nine and 15 times more likely to have attempted to end their life. Approximately 9 percent reported that they had anonymously posted something online about themselves that was mean, while about 5 percent said they had anonymously cyberbullied themselves.
A new study has found that teenagers have a hard time discerning between fake and true health messages. Only 48% of the participants trusted accurate health messages (without editorial elements) more than fake ones.
Calls for a boycott of Goya Foods products in 2020 actually caused the company’s nationwide sales to rise for a few weeks before subsiding to previous levels, according to new Cornell University research.
People with an obsessive urge to constantly check the news are more likely to suffer from stress, anxiety, as well as physical ill health, finds a new study published in the peer-reviewed journal Health Communication.
Researchers analyze over 2 billion posts and comments from cross-community Redditors to assess how toxicity changes depending on the community in which they participate
A new book co-authored by a University of South Australia academic gives an insight into how text messaging – celebrating its 30th birthday this year – has been driven by technology and young people.
The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) was passed in 1996 to protect sensitive protected health information (PHI) from being disclosed without patient consent.
Photographs shared by members of the public, via Facebook and nature-watching network iNaturalist, helped scientists assess how the species is faring around the Aotearoa New Zealand mainland.
Mathematician in collaboration with scientists from Korea, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, created a neural network that can detect fakes in news reports on social media. Unlike analogues, the new model takes into account more characteristics, such as post readability and user popularity.
A new study in Annals of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology showed misleading content regarding hay fever on YouTube generated a higher amount of user interaction in terms of likes and comments than videos with useful content.
Little is known about cyberbullying and empathy, especially as it relates harming or abusing others because of race or religion. A study is the first to examine general cyberbullying, race-based cyberbullying, and religion-based cyberbullying in young adolescents. Results show that the higher a youth scored on empathy, the lower the likelihood that they cyberbullied others. When it came to bias-based cyberbullying, higher levels of total empathy were associated with lower odds of cyberbullying others based on their race or religion.
Ahead of the U.S. midterm elections, projected to draw some $1.2 billion in digital political spending, NYU Cybersecurity for Democracy (C4D) at the NYU Tandon School of Engineering today launched a new, enhanced version of Ad Observatory — AdObservatory.org — available in both English and Spanish, with increased search functionality.
More than 225,000 tweets with the hashtags #scamdemic and #plandemic led to an “infodemic” of misinformation and disinformation on Twitter during the first year of the pandemic, according to a study by UT Southwestern researchers published in PLOS ONE.
Citing the urgent need for more effective and equitable health communication, three universities are collaborating on a unique research endeavor that will quickly identify developing public health issues, address conflicting messages and counter misinformation, funded with a newly announced $5 million grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
JMIR Publications recently published "COVID-19 and Vitamin D Misinformation on YouTube: Content Analysis" in JMIR Infodemiology, which reported that although social media platforms, such as YouTube, can be an inexpensive and effective method of sharing accurate health information, inaccurate and misleading information shared on YouTube can be dangerous for viewers.
JMIR Publications recently published "Using Twitter to Examine Stigma Against People With Dementia During COVID-19: Infodemiology Study" in JMIR Aging which reported that during the pandemic, there has been significant social media attention focused on the increased COVID-19 risks and impacts for people with dementia and their care partners.
Executives who regularly promote themselves on social media may have a leg up when it comes to landing high-paying job offers that help to advance their careers.
The Observatory on Social Media has released new or updated versions of three no-cost tools to offer insights into social media, including how posts go viral and what accounts are sharing them.
Chula alumni team in cooperation with the CU Innovation Hub has come up with the idea of “Kollective” a new start-up that provides the tools and services for full-scale marketing of influencers. With the analysis using big data, the best influencers are chosen to increase sales volumes in your business.
More salad and apples, less McDonalds and KFC.
Those are just a couple of the dietary changes that people appeared to make during the first year of the pandemic, according to a new study led by School of Public Health researchers.
Unhealthy food and beverage brands are encouraging TikTok users to market their products for them—effectively turning them into ‘brand ambassadors’—as well as using their own accounts for promotional activity, finds an assessment of video content posted on the social media platform and published in the open access journal BMJ Global Health.