Online Ideology: A Comparison of Website Communication and Media Use

This study examined and compared the websites of ideological groups from a communications and media use perspective. Thirty‐six websites with message boards categorized as either violent ideological, nonviolent ideological, or nonviolent nonideological were content coded for several distinguishing characteristics. The results indicated that group type was predicted by the type of information presented, the difficulty of becoming a member, and the amount of freedom members had on discussion boards. These findings suggest that characteristics of violent ideological group websites can be used to distinguish them from websites of both nonviolent ideological and nonideological groups. This study also provides a demonstration of a research methodology that can be used to naturally observe ideological groups via an online setting.     

Organizational balancing of website interactivity and control: An examination of ideological groups and the duality of goals

Researchers have overwhelmingly concluded that substantial benefits can be achieved by organizations increasing the level of interactivity on their websites. However, interactivity, with its emphasis on facilitating visitors’ unconstrained exchanges and control over website content, may undermine the communicative purpose of an organization’s website. Taking a perspective based on the duality of goals, we argue that interactivity may not be desirable for some supporting organizations. We tested these ideas by examining the features of interactivity on 105 websites that are supported by national and international groups. Some of the websites are supported by ideological groups that have a strong interest in controlling their messages and clearly articulating their ideology to the public. A subset of the ideological groups also sanctions acts of violence in support of their ideology. As predicted, we found substantial differences in the level of interactivity between the violent groups and other ideological and non-ideological groups, with the greatest disparity occurring in social media. We conclude that for violent groups the need for control over website content and representation outweighs the benefits of interactivity. Surprisingly, we found little difference between nonviolent ideological and non-ideological groups. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.     

A Comparative Study and Automated Detection of Illegal Weapon Procurement over Dark Web

Abstract

Terrorist groups have reconnoitered smarter ways to use online discussion forums for their violent plans. They have been using their privately owned discussion forums for various illegal purposes. A comparative study of work done on various dark web forums of terroristic organizations is done in this paper. This paper proposes a novel approach to identify procurement of modern weapons over the social media forum by terrorist groups. We used data from four dark web forum websites named “Ansar Aljihad Network”, “IslamicAwakening”, “Gawaher”, and “IslamicNetwork”. Multiple experts independently annotated 313 randomly selected posts as procurement (YES) or non- procurement (NO) to label the forum threads. Mutual agreement between experts is computed to find the level of significance. Furthermore, we used machine learning classification techniques (MLCT) in order to classify labeled posts. To our knowledge, our procurement model presents a first of its kind model to automatically detect procurement of modern weapons over dark web. The work done presents application of social media analytics and text mining to counter terrorism.     

Teaching genetics with multimedia results in better acquisition of knowledge and improvement in comprehension

The main goal of this study was to explore whether the use of multimedia in genetics instruction contributes more to students' knowledge and comprehension than other instructional modes. We were also concerned with the influence of different instructional modes on the retention of knowledge and comprehension. In a quasi‐experimental design, four comparable groups of 3rd and 4th grade high school students were taught the process of protein synthesis: group 1 was taught in the traditional lecture format (n = 112 students), group 2 only by reading text (n = 124 students), group 3 through multimedia that integrated two short computer animations (n = 115 students) and group 4 by text supplemented with illustrations (n = 117 students). All students received one pre‐test in order to estimate their prior knowledge, and two post‐tests in order to assess knowledge and comprehension immediately after learning and again after 5 weeks. Results showed that students comprising groups 3 and 4 acquired better knowledge and improved comprehension skills than the other two groups. Similar results were observed for retention of acquired knowledge and improved comprehension. These findings lead to the conclusion that better learning outcomes can be obtained by the use of animations or at least illustrations when learning genetics.     

Understanding web activity patterns among teachers,students and teacher candidates

This study sought to understand generational and role differences in web usage of teachers, teacher candidates and K–12 students in a state in the USA (n = 2261). The researchers employed unique methods, which included using a custom‐built persistent web browser to track user behaviours free of self‐report, self‐selection and perception bias. Results revealed that all three groups utilized a variety of resources daily, but with some noticeable differences. For instance, (1) teachers and teacher candidates used the Internet on school devices much more than students; (2) they accessed general, multimedia, search, entertainment, shopping and social resources at a higher rate than students; (3) students visited a higher proportion of educational websites than their teachers; and (4) teachers visited a higher proportion of search pages than teacher candidates. Results may be useful for researchers (1) to better understand generational differences between groups; (2) to expand educational technology research to better include non‐pedagogical support tools for educators; and (3) to serve as a counterpoint for self‐report data on web resource frequency of use, which may provide different results.     

Communication Assessment of the Most Frequented Breast Cancer Websites: Evaluation of Design and Theoretical Criteria

The internet is a prominent source of health information for the public. This research evaluated both basic use and design tenets and the presence of theoretical components to motivate healthy breast cancer behavior for users of the most frequented breast cancer websites. Methodology : Each website was evaluated with 2 sets of questions. The first attends to the basic use and design tenets of the website. The second coding form assessed the websites use of 3 behavior change theories. Results : The majority of the websites fared well with regards to their use of basic tenet and design principles. Theoretical components were used sparingly on the majority of websites. Discussion : The most frequented breast cancer websites are currently well equipped with basic use and design tenets. However, their lack of behavioral change components is likely to impede users’ motivations to protect themselves against breast cancer.     

Power of the Swipe: Why Mobile Websites Should Add Horizontal Swiping to Tapping,Clicking, and Scrolling Interaction Techniques

Horizontal swiping has become a common interaction technique on smartphones, yet many mobile websites do not incorporate this functionality, instead requiring users to scroll down or click on buttons, arrow keys, and other hotspots. This is perhaps because user studies comparing swiping with other interaction techniques are scarce. An experiment was conducted (N = 252) to inform this issue by investigating whether and how adding the swiping functionality to a tap-only mobile website influences users’ intentions to use the website. The data revealed that the addition of swiping technique positively affected behavioral intentions to use the website. Perceived enjoyment was a key variable that explained this effect. These findings have design implications for mobile websites.     

Assessing the effect of persuasive robots interactive social cues on users’ psychological reactance,liking, trusting beliefs and compliance

ABSTRACT

Research in the field of social robotics suggests that enhancing social cues in robots can elicit more social responses in users. It is however not clear how users respond socially to persuasive social robots and whether such reactions will be more pronounced when the robots feature more interactive social cues. In the current research, we examine social responses towards persuasive attempts provided by a robot featuring different numbers of interactive social cues. A laboratory experiment assessed participants’ psychological reactance, liking, trusting beliefs and compliance toward a persuasive robot that either presented users with: no interactive social cues (random head movements and random social praises), low number of interactive social cues (head mimicry), or high number of interactive social cues (head mimicry and proper timing for social praise). Results show that a persuasive robot with the highest number of interactive social cues invoked lower reactance and was liked more than the robots in the other two conditions. Furthermore, results suggest that trusting beliefs towards persuasive robots can be enhanced by utilizing praise as presented by social robots in no interactive social cues and high number of interactive social cues conditions. However, interactive social cues did not contribute to higher compliance.     

Birds of a Feather Tweet Together: Integrating Network and Content Analyses to Examine Cross‐Ideology Exposure on Twitter

This study integrates network and content analyses to examine exposure to cross‐ideological political views on Twitter. We mapped the Twitter networks of 10 controversial political topics, discovered clusters – subgroups of highly self‐connected users – and coded messages and links in them for political orientation. We found that Twitter users are unlikely to be exposed to cross‐ideological content from the clusters of users they followed, as these were usually politically homogeneous. Links pointed at grassroots web pages (e.g.: blogs) more frequently than traditional media websites. Liberal messages, however, were more likely to link to traditional media. Last, we found that more specific topics of controversy had both conservative and liberal clusters, while in broader topics, dominant clusters reflected conservative sentiment.     

How persuasive is phishing email? The role of authentic design,influence and current events in email judgements

Fraudulent emails, otherwise known as phishing emails, use a range of influence techniques to persuade individuals to respond, such as promising a monetary reward or invoking a sense of urgency. The current study explored a number of factors that may impact the persuasiveness and trustworthiness of emails by examining participant judgements of 20 pre-designed emails that varied according to (a) whether they used loss or reward-based influence techniques, (b) whether they contained particular authentic design cues, (c) whether they referenced a salient current event (the Rio Olympics), and (d) whether participants had been previously exposed to information regarding online scams in general. Results suggest that the presence of authentic design cues and the type of influence technique used significantly impacted participant judgements. Findings are discussed in relation to theoretical models of phishing susceptibility.     

Visual complexity of websites: Effects on users’ experience, physiology, performance, and memory

Visual complexity is an apparent feature in website design yet its effects on cognitive and emotional processing are not well understood. The current study examined website complexity within the framework of aesthetic theory and psychophysiological research on cognition and emotion. We hypothesized that increasing the complexity of websites would have a detrimental cognitive and emotional impact on users. In a passive viewing task (PVT) 36 website screenshots differing in their degree of complexity (operationalized by JPEG file size; correlation with complexity ratings in a preliminary study r=.80) were presented to 48 participants in randomized order. Additionally, a standardized visual search task (VST) assessing reaction times, and a one-week-delayed recognition task on these websites were conducted and participants rated all websites for arousal and valence. Psychophysiological responses were assessed during the PVT and VST. Visual complexity was related to increased experienced arousal, more negative valence appraisal, decreased heart rate, and increased facial muscle tension (musculus corrugator). Visual complexity resulted in increased reaction times in the VST and decreased recognition rates. Reaction times in the VST were related to increases in heart rate and electrodermal activity. These findings demonstrate that visual complexity of websites has multiple effects on human cognition and emotion, including experienced pleasure and arousal, facial expression, autonomic nervous system activation, task performance, and memory. It should thus be considered an important factor in website design.     

A comparison of temporal speech and text cueing in educational multimedia

This research focused on the prediction that children in their school setting would learn more from educational multimedia when critical information was presented as spoken instead of textual cues. Analyses of a study (n= 42) showed that 12‐year‐olds did not learn any more from temporal speech cueing than from temporal text cueing. The findings suggest that multimedia learning for children is a different kind of learning experience than for adults or older adolescents. The results indicate underdeveloped executive control of the referential connections in the children's working memory between reading screen text while listening to spoken cues, and between watching on‐screen animations play while listening to spoken cues. Further study is warranted. Implications may be derived for educational multimedia research in school settings.     

Navigating the Online World: Gaze,Fixations, and Performance Differences between Younger and Older Users

ABSTRACT

The world’s populations and workforces are aging and older adults are now the fastest growing group of internet users. Unfortunately, age-related declines may prevent older adults from performing web-based tasks with the same ease as their younger counterparts. Recent studies have suggested that peripheral navigation may exacerbate age-related online performance gaps as older adults fail to adequately search peripheral elements. Such studies have however relied on the use of preexisting websites with no control for layout, complexity, or prior familiarity. This study tested whether age-related differences in online performance and search behavior exist across various navigational layouts. Participants (N = 47) completed four online tasks with purpose-built websites of equivalent difficulty, length, and content type, yet with varying navigational layouts (center; left-periphery; top-periphery; inconsistent). Participants’ performance (i.e., accuracy/efficiency), search behavior (i.e., eye gaze/fixation), and satisfaction were examined. Identifiable differences between age-groups and navigational layouts were found, with top-peripheral navigation proving most detrimental to the online performance and satisfaction of both younger and older adults. The results inform design principles that aim to increase older adults’ online functionality, and provide an extensive platform for further research.     

Information,Community, and Action: How Nonprofit Organizations Use Social Media*

The rapid diffusion of “microblogging” services such as Twitter is ushering in a new era of possibilities for organizations to communicate with and engage their core stakeholders and the general public. To enhance understanding of the communicative functions microblogging serves for organizations, this study examines the Twitter utilization practices of the 100 largest nonprofit organizations in the United States. The analysis reveals there are three key functions of microblogging updates—“information,”“community,” and “action.” Though the informational use of microblogging is extensive, nonprofit organizations are better at using Twitter to strategically engage their stakeholders via dialogic and community‐building practices than they have been with traditional websites. The adoption of social media appears to have engendered new paradigms of public engagement.     

Online Journalism and the War in Cyberspace: A Comparison Between U.S. and International Newspapers

The 2003 Iraq War was the first military conflict in which online media played a significant role. Traditional news organizations from around the world provided extensive coverage of the conflict on their websites, reaching global audiences and adding new dimensions to traditional war reporting. This study explores how the Internet disseminated news about the war by comparing 26 international newspaper sites (N = 791) and their use of Web‐specific features such as hyperlinks, animations, multimedia content, and interactive elements. By proposing a three‐stage model of online journalism and applying it to the online war coverage, the analysis suggests that online journalism has not yet reached the state of convergence. The differences in online news coverage between the United States and international websites and their implications are also discussed.     

Managing Impressions in a Virtual Environment: Is Ethnic Diversity a Self‐Presentation Strategy for Colleges and Universities?

This study examines how institutions of higher education use their websites to present diversity to build relationships and recruit prospective students. It involves a content analysis of the homepages of the 163 institutions that U.S. News named to the 2006 list of the country’s best comprehensive colleges and universities. The results showed that institutions in the West published more religious references and fewer photographs of women than institutions in other regions, and references to international programs were most prevalent in the Midwest. Overall, few institutions mention racial or ethnic diversity on their campuses, although visual representations of diversity in photographs are more common than textual references.     

Do we trust the crowd or information system? Effects of personalization and bandwagon cues on users' attitudes and behavioral intentions toward a restaurant recommendation website

Visual interface cues on many websites can influence Internet users' psychology, especially their perceptions about the site as well as its content (Sundar, 2008). Specifically, presence of commonly used interface cues (e.g., personalization, bandwagon cues) can substantially influence users' attitudes and their behavioral intentions toward websites and their content. This study examined the effect of personalization feature and bandwagon cues (i.e., star ratings, reviews) in a restaurant recommendation website, measuring (a) to what extent users positively perceive and plan on revisiting or sharing the site, and (b) to what degree users favored the recommended restaurant and plan to visit them. A 2 (personalization feature: present vs. absent) × 2 (bandwagon cues: high vs. low) between-subjects experiment showed that personalization feature and bandwagon cues increased positive perceptions and their behavioral intentions toward both the website and the recommended restaurant. Moreover, results revealed that users' perceived relevance as well as perceived novelty mediated the effects of interface cues on their attitudinal and behavioral consequences. Further, the impact of the interface cues on user psychology significantly differed as a function of the other cues. Theoretical and practical implications for future research on the effect of interface cues on user psychology are discussed.     

A Multimodal Framework for Analyzing Websites as Cultural Expressions

Departing from a broad conceptualization of culture and the need for a more adapted and sophisticated tool to disclose the internet as a rich cultural data source, this article provides the foundations of a multimodal framework for analyzing websites from both a medium specific and socio‐cultural perspective. The 6‐phased framework of website signifiers contains both a structured repository of potential cultural signifiers and a methodology for moving from salient aspects to more implicit meanings. While the framework may help researchers to make more and better use of the many layers of potential meaning that reside in the rich multimodal nature of websites it does not provide a shortcut to determine the cultural meaning of these signifiers and their interrelated effects.     

Evaluating websites for older adults: adherence to ‘senior-friendly’ guidelines and end-user performance

Older adults in the US are the fastest-growing demographic, and also the largest-growing group of internet users. The aim of this research was to evaluate websites designed for older adults in terms of (i) how well they adhere to ‘senior-friendly’ guidelines and (ii) overall ease of use and satisfaction. In Experiment I, 40 websites designed for older adults were heuristically evaluated based on their adherence to usability guidelines derived by the National Institute on Aging and the National Library of Medicine. In Experiment II, three websites with varying levels of guideline compliance were evaluated by older adults in a usability test. Results from this study indicate that the website most compliant with the ‘senior-friendly’ guidelines resulted in higher task success, but did not result in significantly better efficiency, satisfaction, or preference. These findings demonstrate the importance of using both guidelines and usability testing when designing websites for older adults.     

Using 3D sound as a navigational aid in virtual environments

As current virtual environments are less visually rich than real-world environments, careful consideration must be given to their design to ameliorate the lack of visual cues. One important design criterion in this respect is to make certain that adequate navigational cues are incorporated into complex virtual worlds. In this paper we show that adding 3D spatialized sound to a virtual environment can help people navigate through it. We conducted an experiment to determine if the incorporation of 3D sound (a) helps people find specific locations in the environment, and (b) influences the extent to which people acquire spatial knowledge about their environment. Our results show that the addition of 3D sound did reduce time taken to locate objects in a complex environment. However, the addition of sound did not increase the amount of spatial knowledge users were able to acquire. In fact, the addition of 3D auditory sound cues appears to suppress the development of overall spatial knowledge of the virtual environment.