Social Media

Question 1

Why study social and new media in their functional contexts?

Answer 1

• Digitalisation > digital culture offers new opportunities and sets new requirements for how we communicate
• Scientific research into the impact of social and new media on communication by individuals and
  organisations
• ‘Behind the scenes’ of scientific research into the influence of digital media on communication in various functional contexts

Question 2

What are the two contexts in which social media is used

Answer 2

• social and new media in personal contexts
• social and new media in professional and organisational contexts

Question 3

Describe different media characteristics

Answer 3

Social presence:
- degree of mediation
- degree of immediacy
Media richness:
- amount of information
Social characteristics
- self-presentation

Question 4

Three medium factors

Answer 4

• synchronicity
• message transmission (One-to-one, one-to-many)
• Persistence of the transcript (ephemeral or archived)
• Size of messages

Question 5

Elements of a definition of social media

Answer 5

Interaction between people
- two-way communication
- collaborative potential
- social integration with mainstream media: Netflix, reality tv (hashtags, tweets)
- social media interactions focus on information exch

Question 6

What is the extended self?

Answer 6

Extended self (Belk, 1988): we see external objects that we own as part of ourselves
- they act as memory markers: photos, souvenirs, gifts
- we use them as cues to show others who we are/want to be

Question 7

Five significant changes as a result of digitalization?

Answer 7

1. Dematerialization (of possessions)
2. Reembodiment
3. Sharing (of private life & possessions can lead to disinhibition)
4. Co-construction of self
5. Distributed memory

Question 8

Choi, Williams, & Kim (2020)

Answer 8

A snap of your true self: how self-presentation and temporal affordance influence self-concept on social media:

The findings support the self symbolizing perspective: internalization of presented self was facilitated by ephemeral social media

Question 9

Public commitment

Answer 9

Once individuals make a commitment, they feel pressured to be consistent with it.
When presenting their self on permanent social media, people will evaluate themselves as more congruent with the presented self, compared to ephemeral social media

Question 10

Self-symbolizing

Answer 10

Individuals strive to acquire symbols of a self-concept they wish to attain and want them to be noticed by an audience
When presenting their self on ephemeral social media, people will evaluate themselves as more congruent with the presented self, compared to permanent social media

Question 11

Why’s everyone on TikTok now? The algorithmized
self and the future of self-making on social media

Answer 11

“On TikTok, unlike on other platforms, the user experience is
obviously, unambiguously, and explicitly driven by the “For
You” algorithm (Xu et al., 2019)”

Question 12

Ellison et. al…: Profile as Promise…

Answer 12

how do online daters assess and justify differences between someone’s self-
presentation on a dating profile and their offline presentation?

Question 13

Factors that make misrepresentations on dating sites acceptable

Answer 13

-Asynchronicity
-Reduced cues
-Shared contextual expectations

Question 14

Timmermans & De Caluwé, (2017)

Answer 14

To Tinder or not to Tinder, that’s
the question: An individual differences perspective to Tinder use and motives.
-Tinder users more extraverted and open to new experiences than non-users,
-Non-users more conscientiousness than single Tinder users.
-No significant differences between agreeableness and neuroticism

Question 15

Sharabi & Caughlin (2019)

Answer 15

Deception in online dating: Significance
and implications for the first offline date.
Deception in online dating may be the norm, but also has negative consequences

Question 16

Amichai-Hamburger, Kingsbury, & Schneider

Answer 16

Friendship: An old concept with a new
meaning?

Question 17

Two hypotheses of CMC on friendship:

Answer 17

Two hypotheses:
-displacement hypothesis = substitute for real
-stimulation hypothesis = improve real
Article 4: Amichai-Hamburger et al.: Friendship concept & meaning

Question 18

What is friendship? And how does it arise?

Answer 18

Characteristics of friendship vs. acquitances:
* co-constructed
* reciprocity
* closeness
* intimacy

Question 19

Consequences of new media for +ve features of friendship

Answer 19

-Intimacy / closeness: Fewer signals via CMC
-Companionship: Shared activities are richer offline; CMC is mostly ‘talking’
-Social support: More support possible via online channels
-Tangible support & protection: No material support online
-Exclusiveness: Making time for each other is more difficult on social media

Question 20

Shanahan, Tran, & Taylor (2019)

Answer 20

What are the effects of ad personalization on brand attitudes? Conclusion: online marketing and advertising can benefit from ad
personalization especially social commerce

Question 21

Appel, G., Grewal, L., Hadi, R. et al. (2020)

Answer 21

Present-Immediate future: The rise of influencers.

Question 22

De Veirman, Cauberghe & Hudders (2017

Answer 22

De Veirman, Cauberghe & Hudders (2017) Marketing through
Instagram influencers: The impact of number of followers and product divergence on brand attitude.
Does the number of followees (accounts followed by the influencer
themselves) affect the relationship between the influencer’s number of
followers and their likeability?
+ve effect of number of followers on popularity

very popular influencers activate theory of popularity, which is undesirable
for exclusive products

Question 23

Darics & Gatti (2019)

Answer 23

Talking a team into being
in online workplace
collaborations: The discourse of virtual work.

How do virtual team members develop a sense of
belonging, a shared team identity, and a shared sense of
purpose? How do they create collegiality and trust?

Question 24

Hogan (2010): Self-presentation as exhibitions

Answer 24

-Data = artefacts
-Online exhibition spaces are asynchronous
-Little control over who views the exhibition

Question 25

Name some characteristics of online self-presentation

Answer 25

-Online, people can deliberate on how they present themselves to others.
-Self-presentation is “malleable and audience-driven
-The online environment presents affordances for optimal self-presentation
-There is variability across people in how much their online self deviates from their offline self

Question 26

What characteristics of social media could affect
communication?

Answer 26

Degree of mediation (high-low)
Degree of immediacy (high-low)
Media richness
Self-disclosure
Synchronicity
Message transmission
Persistence of transcript
Purpose of use
Audience
Technological features