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Article
Publication date: 17 June 2020

Xiwei Wang, Yunfei Xing, Yanan Wei, QingXiao Zheng and Guochun Xing

Social media, especially microblog, has become one of the most popular platforms for public opinion dissemination. However, so far few studies have been conducted to explore…

Abstract

Purpose

Social media, especially microblog, has become one of the most popular platforms for public opinion dissemination. However, so far few studies have been conducted to explore information dissemination under the mobile environment. This paper aims to introduce the approach to analyze the public opinion information dissemination in mobile social networks.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper chooses “network attack” as the research topic and extracts 23,567 relevant messages from Sina Microblogs to study the structure of nodes for public opinion dissemination and the characteristics of propagation paths on mobile internet. Public opinion dissemination is compared on both mobile and non-mobile terminals.

Findings

The results reveal the characteristics of public opinion dissemination in mobile environment and identify three patterns of information propagation path. This study concludes that public opinion on mobile internet propagates more widely and efficiently and generates more impact than that on the non-mobile internet.

Social implications

The methods used in this study can be useful for the government and other organizations to analyze and identify problems in online information dissemination.

Originality/value

This paper explores the mechanism of public opinion dissemination on mobile internet in China and further investigates how to improve public opinion management through a case study related to “network attack.”

Details

Information Discovery and Delivery, vol. 48 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2398-6247

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 12 September 2023

Yunfei Xing, Yuming He and Justin Z. Zhang

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic caused significant disruption to the global labor market, resulting in a rapid transition toward remote work, e-commerce and…

Abstract

Purpose

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic caused significant disruption to the global labor market, resulting in a rapid transition toward remote work, e-commerce and workforce automation. This shift has sparked a considerable amount of public discussion. This study aims to explore the online public's sentiment toward remote work amid the pandemic.

Design/methodology/approach

Based on justice theory, this paper examines user-generated content on social media platforms, particularly Twitter, to gain insight into public opinion and discourse surrounding remote work during the COVID-19 pandemic. Employing content analysis techniques such as sentiment analysis, text clustering and evolutionary analysis, this study aims to identify prevalent topics, temporal patterns and instances of sentiment polarization in tweets.

Findings

Results show that people with positive opinions focus mainly on personal interests, while others focus on the interests of the company and society; people's subjectivities are higher when they express extremely negative or extremely positive emotions. Distributive justice and interactional justice are distinguishable with a high degree of differentiation in the cluster map.

Originality/value

Previous research has inadequately addressed public apprehensions about remote work during emergencies, particularly from a justice-based perspective. This study seeks to fill this gap by examining how justice theory can shed light on the public's views regarding corporate policy-making during emergencies. The results of this study provide valuable insights and guidance for managing public opinion during such events.

Details

Library Hi Tech, vol. ahead-of-print no. ahead-of-print
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0737-8831

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 25 November 2021

Yunfei Xing, Wu He, Gaohui Cao and Yuhai Li

COVID-19, a causative agent of the potentially fatal disease, has raised great global public health concern. Information spreading on the COVID-19 outbreak can strongly influence…

572

Abstract

Purpose

COVID-19, a causative agent of the potentially fatal disease, has raised great global public health concern. Information spreading on the COVID-19 outbreak can strongly influence people behaviour in social media. This paper aims to question of information spreading on COVID-19 outbreak are addressed with a massive data analysis on Twitter from a multidimensional perspective.

Design/methodology/approach

The evolutionary trend of user interaction and the network structure is analysed by social network analysis. A differential assessment on the topics evolving is provided by the method of text clustering. Visualization is further used to show different characteristics of user interaction networks and public opinion in different periods.

Findings

Information spreading in social media emerges from different characteristics during various periods. User interaction demonstrates multidimensional cross relations. The results interpret how people express their thoughts and detect topics people are most discussing in social media.

Research limitations/implications

This study is mainly limited by the size of the data sets and the unicity of the social media. It is challenging to expand the data sets and choose multiple social media to cross-validate the findings of this study.

Originality/value

This paper aims to find the evolutionary trend of information spreading on the COVID-19 outbreak in social media, including user interaction and topical issues. The findings are of great importance to help government and related regulatory units to manage the dissemination of information on emergencies, in terms of early detection and prevention.

Details

The Electronic Library , vol. 40 no. 1/2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0264-0473

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 24 January 2024

Yunfei Xing, Justin Zuopeng Zhang, Veda C. Storey and Alex Koohang

The global prevalence of social media and its potential to cause polarization are highly debated and impactful. The previous literature often assumes that the ideological bias of…

Abstract

Purpose

The global prevalence of social media and its potential to cause polarization are highly debated and impactful. The previous literature often assumes that the ideological bias of any media outlet remains static and exogenous to the polarization process. By studying polarization as a whole from an ecosystem approach, the authors aim to identify policies and strategies that can help mitigate the adverse effects of polarization and promote healthier online discourse.

Design/methodology/approach

To investigate online polarization, the authors perform a systematic review and analysis of approximately 400 research articles to explore the connection between cognitive bias and polarization, examining both causal and correlational evidence. The authors extensively evaluate and integrate existing research related to the correlation between online polarization and crucial factors such as public engagement, selective exposure and political democracy. From doing so, the authors then develop a PolarSphere ecosystem that captures and illustrates the process of online polarization formation.

Findings

The authors' review uncovers a wide range of associations, including ideological cognition, bias, public participation, misinformation and miscommunication, political democracy, echo chambers and selective exposure, heterogeneity and trust. Although the impact of bias on social media polarization depends on specific environments and internal/external conditions, certain variables exhibit strong associations across multiple contexts. The authors use these observations as a basis from which to construct PolarSphere, an ecosystem of bias-based polarization on social media, to theorize the process of polarization formation.

Originality/value

Based on the PolarSphere ecosystem, the authors argue that it is crucial for governments and civil societies to maintain vigilance and invest in further research to gain a deep comprehension of how cognitive bias affects online polarization, which could lead to ways to eliminate polarization.

Details

Journal of Enterprise Information Management, vol. 37 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1741-0398

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 2 June 2021

Yunfei Xing, Yuhai Li and Feng-Kwei Wang

COVID-19, an infectious disease first identified in China, has resulted in an ongoing pandemic all over the world. Most of the countries have been experiencing a difficult period…

8201

Abstract

Purpose

COVID-19, an infectious disease first identified in China, has resulted in an ongoing pandemic all over the world. Most of the countries have been experiencing a difficult period during the fighting of this pandemic. The purpose of this study is to explore the effect of privacy concerns and cultural differences on public opinion related to the pandemic. The authors conducted a comparative analysis of public opinion in the US and in China as a case study, in order to determine the results.

Design/methodology/approach

National policies on important issues faced during the COVID-19 pandemic in the US and in China were examined through a comparative analysis. The authors used text clustering and visualization to mine public opinion on two popular social media platforms, Twitter and Weibo. From the perspectives of concern for privacy and of national culture, this study combines qualitative and quantitative analysis to discover the acceptance level of national policies by the public in the two countries.

Findings

The anti-pandemic policies and measures of the US and China reflect the different characteristics of their respective political systems and national cultures. When considering the culture of the US, it is hard to establish and enforce a rigorous regulation on either mask wearing in public or home quarantine on the national level. The opinions of US people are diverse, regarding national COVID-19 policies, but they are rather unified on privacy issues. On the other hand, Chinese people show a high acceptance of national policies based on their mask-wearing customs and their culture of collectivism.

Originality/value

Prior studies have paid insufficient attention to the ways in which user privacy and cultural difference affect public opinion on national policies between the US and China. This case study that compares public opinion on current and topical issues which are closely bound up with public life shows originality, as it innovatively provides a cross-cultural perspective on the research of public opinion dissemination during emergencies by considering the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

Details

Aslib Journal of Information Management, vol. 73 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2050-3806

Keywords

Content available
Article
Publication date: 13 September 2021

Xin Tian, Wu He and Yunfei Xing

Abstract

Details

Information Discovery and Delivery, vol. 49 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2398-6247

Article
Publication date: 20 March 2017

Fangjie Yu, Yunfei Liu, Longqing Fan, Linhua Li, Yong Han and Ge Chen

In this paper, a light-weight, low-power atmospheric multi-parameter sensor (AMPS), which could be mounted on small flying platforms such as a tethered balloon, a quad-rotor…

Abstract

Purpose

In this paper, a light-weight, low-power atmospheric multi-parameter sensor (AMPS), which could be mounted on small flying platforms such as a tethered balloon, a quad-rotor unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), a UAV helicopter, etc., is implemented and integrated to sample vertical distribution of aerosols with integrated parameters of aerosol particle concentration, temperature, relative humidity and atmospheric pressure.

Design/methodology/approach

The AMPS integrates three kinds of probes in an embedded system. A synchronous method based on GPS is proposed to drive the laser aerosol particle sensor, the temperature and humidity probe and the pressure probe to sample four channels approximately simultaneously. Different kinds of housing are designed to accommodate various flying platforms, and the weight is controlled to adapt the payload of each platform.

Findings

A series of validation tests show that while the AMPS achieves high precision, its power consumption is less than 1.3 W, which is essential for light flying platforms. The AMPS was mounted on different flying platforms and the difference was evaluated. For three times every five days, vertical profiles of PM2.5 and PM10 concentrations were observed by the AMPS mounted on a quad-rotor UAV, which revealed the significant correlation between the aerosol particle concentration and atmospheric parameters.

Originality/value

A new light-weight and low-power AMPS for small flying platforms is designed and tested, which provides an effective way to explore the properties of aerosol vertical distribution, and to monitor pollutants flexibly.

Details

Sensor Review, vol. 37 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0260-2288

Keywords

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