Due to the ubiquitous use of social media, our aim was to examine how social media communities are being accessed, created and maintained by D/deaf and hard of hearing users. We examined 133 social media communities of the D/deaf and hard of hearing from three main aspects: relational, substantive and technical aspects. The analysis included the size, strength, organisation and content nature of communities, members’ communication and accessibility of the platform, as well as its availability, attention and response indicators. Firstly, most communities were found to be small, containing less than 500 members, being determined regionally and led mainly by organisations with an aim to create awareness among members. Secondly, members communicate mostly in written language and use sign language to a lesser extent. Thirdly, Facebook provides advantageous opportunities for D/deaf and hard of hearing users in terms of availability of captions/subtitles in videos on demand and live videos. The findings may serve educators, social practitioners and representatives of deaf clubs to get acknowledged with the functioning of social media communities, allowing the D/deaf and hard of hearing to be connected to each other in a more efficient way beyond Facebook as well.

中文翻译：

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听力障碍用户中社交媒体的利用：Facebook社区分析

由于社交媒体的普遍使用，我们的目的是研究D /聋哑人和聋哑人如何访问，创建和维护社交媒体社区。我们从三个主要方面（关系，实质和技术方面）检查了D /聋人和听力障碍的133个社交媒体社区。分析包括社区的规模，实力，组织和内容性质，平台的成员交流和可访问性，以及可用性，关注度和响应指标。首先，发现大多数社区很小，只有不到500名成员，是由地区决定的，主要是由组织领导的组织，目的是在成员之间建立意识。其次，成员主要使用书面语言进行交流，而较少使用手语。第三，就视频点播和实况视频中字幕/字幕的可用性而言，Facebook为D /聋哑人和听力障碍的用户提供了有利的机会。这些发现可能会为教育者，社会工作者和聋人俱乐部的代表提供服务，使其在社交媒体社区的运作中得到认可，从而使D /聋哑人和听力障碍者能够以一种比Facebook更有效的方式彼此联系。