While criminality is digitizing, a theory-based understanding of the impact of cybercrime on victims is lacking. Therefore, this study addresses the psychological and financial impact of cybercrime on victims, applying the shattered assumptions theory (SAT) to predict that impact. A secondary analysis was performed on a representative data set of Dutch citizens (N = 33,702), exploring the psychological

Online discussions are performed in the gaze of fellow users. To increase engagement, platforms typically let these users evaluate the comments made by others through rating systems (e.g., via Likes or Down/Up votes). Understanding how such ratings shape, and are shaped by, features of the underlying discussion is important for our understanding of online behavior. In this study, we focus on an increasingly

With the rapid development of artificial intelligence (AI), countries are increasingly adopting AI-guided chatbots to improve service on government portals. The reduction in face-to-face services under COVID-19 pandemic will further accelerate this trend. However, the adoption and performance of the existing chatbots differ. Based on the literature on e-government adoption and innovative policy innovation

The spatial pattern of geotagged tweets reflects the dynamic distribution of the ambient population during day and night as a result of people’s routine activities. A few studies have assessed the impact of tweets-derived ambient population on crime and the spillover effect of such impact at different spatial and temporal scales. However, none has revealed the intraday variation of such spillover effect

Computational artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms are increasingly used to support decision making by governments. Yet algorithms often remain opaque to the decision makers and devoid of clear explanations for the decisions made. In this study, we used an experimental approach to compare decision making in three situations: humans making decisions (1) without any support of algorithms, (2) supported

While there is growing consensus that the analytical and cognitive tools of artificial intelligence (AI) have the potential to transform government in positive ways, it is also clear that AI challenges traditional government decision-making processes and threatens the democratic values within which they are framed. These conditions argue for conservative approaches to AI that focus on cultivating and

The increasing volume of “Big Data” produced by sensors and smart devices can transform the social and behavioral sciences. Several successful studies used digital data to provide new insights into social reality. This special issue argues that the true power of these data for the social sciences lies in connecting new data sources with surveys. While new digital data are rich in volume, they seldomly

Despite the current popularity of artificial intelligence (AI) and a steady increase in publications over time, few studies have investigated AI in public contexts. As a result, assumptions about the drivers, challenges, and impacts of AI in government are far from conclusive. By using a case study that involves a large research university in England and two different county councils in a multiyear

Analyzing issue cycles usually begins with observing selected events and then tracking the course of media coverage. This approach collapses when the events of interest are hidden, overlain, or even distorted by extensive coverage of other events. One such complicated case is news about terrorism in Africa. While previous studies have started from single media hypes, we propose modeling the general

The introduction of robotic process automation (RPA) into the public sector has changed civil servants’ daily life and practices. One of these central practices in the public sector is discretion. The shift to a digital mode of discretion calls for an understanding of the new situation. This article presents an empirical case where automated decision making driven by RPA has been implemented in social

There is great interest to use artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to improve government processes and public services. However, the adoption of technologies has often been challenging for public administrations. In this article, the adoption of AI in governmental organizations has been researched as a form of information and communication technologies (ICT)–enabled governance innovation in the

This study utilizes acceleration data from smartphone sensors to predict motion conditions of smartphone respondents. Specifically, we predict whether respondents are moving or nonmoving on a survey page level to learn about distractions and the situational conditions under which respondents complete smartphone surveys. The predicted motion conditions allow us to (1) estimate the proportion of smartphone

Organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) is vital for continuous organizational growth and development. OCB also plays an evident role in advancing the quality of health care services and practicing OCB in hospitals can be useful. Although OCBs’ contributing factors have been studied in Jordan in earlier researches, the utilization of OCB in health sector is still a new topic. Therefore, this article

Internet-enabled smartphones and wireless communication technologies are opening new ways to conduct web-based self-administered data collection for academic or nonacademic research. Considering the relative advantages of self-administration such as the low cost, overall convenience, and collection of better data about sensitive topics, survey researchers are eager to explore conducting national web

Public opinion literature on conspiracy theories mainly focuses on individual and contextual factors predicting people’s beliefs in conspiratorial news. However, little research to date has considered the role of the source of the news, and its interaction with the news content, in explaining people’s receptivity to those narratives. By employing a survey experiment on a sample of U.S. citizens, we

The similarity between pairs of people is often measured on relatively static traits and at a given point in time. Moving beyond this approach, a burgeoning line of research is investigating temporal dyadic similarity on traits and behaviors, such as health activities. Our study contributes to this line of inquiry by using fine-grained longitudinal data obtained from sensors, mobile devices, and surveys

With nearly all political candidates, officeholders, and organizations using the platform, Twitter has become an important venue for political communication and engagement. In particular, Twitter lowers the cost of entry for political activity, with the result that millions of people follow and interact with political elites online. However, most studies of the political uses of twitter focus on the

This study was aimed to contribute to understanding how networked yet fragmented online actors create meaning in digital media–enabled movements like #MeToo. By drawing upon a multidimensional framing analysis, this study investigated how personal action frames, collective action frames, and issue-specific frames were adopted in #MeToo movement in China, and it also shed light on how different groups

Studies examining the similarity of online self-report survey responses using different item formats have yielded inconclusive results. Additionally, no studies have used appropriate methods for thoroughly and correctly examining equivalence across conditions. We examined the comparability of survey responses across four item formats—horizontal radio button, text box, drop-down menu, and vertical radio

With the increasing use of smartphones in web surveys, considerable efforts have been devoted to reduce the amount of screen space taken up by questions. An emerging stream of research in this area is aimed at optimizing the design elements of rating scales. One suggestion that has been made is to completely abandon verbal labels and use only numeric labels instead. This approach deliberately shifts

As smartphones become increasingly prevalent, social scientists are recognizing the ubiquitous data generated by the sensors built into these devices as an innovative data source. Passively collected data from sensors that measure geolocation or movement provide an unobtrusive way to observe participants in everyday situations and are free from reactivity biases. Information on day-to-day geolocation

Past research suggests the ability to adapt to technological change by learning new technologies is a core feature of technological competence and consequential for inequality. Yet there exists no definition or measure of what people do to learn technologies that are new to them and empirically link this to inequality. To address this gap, I conducted studies involving over 2,000 adolescents to develop

Social media recruitment is no longer an uncharted avenue for survey research. The results thus far provide evidence of an engaging means of recruiting hard-to-reach populations. Questions remain, however, regarding whether the data collected using this method of recruitment produce quality data. This article assesses one aspect that may influence the quality of data gathered through nonprobability

We analyze recruitment, access, and longitudinal response paradata from a yearlong intensive longitudinal study (mDiary) that used a mobile-optimized web app to administer 25 biweekly diaries to youth recruited from a birth cohort study. Analyses investigate which aspects of teen recruitment experiences are associated with enrollment and longitudinal response patterns; whether compliance behavior of

Cybercriminals operate in obscurity to avoid detection of their illegal deeds. This fact makes studying them more difficult. Many cybercriminals meet in illicit online market places such as carding forums. The forums are often visible, but the actual transactions are carried out in private messages beyond view. However, there is no honor among thieves, and sometimes a carding forum server database

Increasing nonresponse rates is a pressing issue for many longitudinal panel studies. Respondents frequently either refuse participation in single survey waves (temporary dropout) or discontinue participation altogether (permanent dropout). Contemporary statistical methods that are used to elucidate predictors of survey nonresponse are typically limited to small variable sets and ignore complex interaction

This study examines how two distinct patterns of online political information exposure—pro-attitudinal selective exposure and counter-attitudinal incidental exposure—can work together to influence engagement in online cross-cutting political discussion. Using panel data from a two-wave national survey conducted in 2012, we test two competing theoretical accounts. Findings suggest that incidental exposure

Recent advances in computing technologies have enabled the development of low-cost, compact weather and air quality monitors. The U.S. federally funded Array of Things (AoT) project has deployed more than 140 such sensor nodes throughout the City of Chicago. This article combines a year’s worth of AoT sensor data with household data collected from 450 elderly Chicagoans in order to explore the feasibility

Social networking sites (SNSs) might be important tools to contrast social exclusion in old age. However, the so-called gray digital divide (GDD) may undermine the potentialities of SNSs. Despite its relevance, there is very little research, which documented the characteristics of the digital divide in SNS use among the old-age population in Europe. Drawing on the “material access in resources and

Traditional survey research faces declining response rates due to changing cultural habits and technological developments. Researchers have developed novel approaches to increase respondents’ likelihood of participating in web surveys. However, we lack information about whether these methods indeed increase response rates and, if so, whether they bias the resulting data. This article focuses on the

Flags are important national symbols that have transcended into the digital world with inclusion in the Unicode character set. Despite their significance, there is little information about their role in online communication. This article examines the role of flag emoji in political communication online by analyzing 640,676 tweets by the most important political parties and Members of Parliament in

The recent rise of disinformation and propaganda on social media has attracted strong interest from social scientists. Research on the topic has repeatedly observed ideological asymmetries in disinformation content and reception, wherein conservatives are more likely to view, redistribute, and believe such content. However, preliminary evidence has suggested that race may also play a substantial role

Anxiety is a pervasive emotional state that tends to arise in situations involving uncertainty due partly to social and contextual issues including competition, economic disparity, and social insecurity. Thus, distribution of aggregate emotions, such as in anxiety, may reveal an important picture of otherwise invisible social processes in which individuals interact with local and global opportunities

Offering participants in mobile app studies personalized feedback on the data they report seems an obvious thing to do: Participants might expect an app to provide feedback given their experiences with commercial apps, feedback might motivate more people to participate in the study, and participants might be more motivated to provide accurate data so that the feedback is more useful to them. However

The growing influence of social bots in political discussion networks has raised significant concerns, particularly given their potential to adversely impact democratic outcomes. In this study, we report the results of a case study analysis of bot activity in a recent, high-profile political discussion network. Specifically, we examine the prevalence and impact of bots in a Twitter network discussing

This study examines the relationship between mode of Internet access, variety of online activities, and the potential for the Internet to contribute to local social capital in distressed, urban communities. Based on a sample of 525 telephone surveys in Detroit, findings show that breadth of access predicts participation in a larger variety of online activities, which is associated with higher levels

Online and offline interactions are thought to draw from separate but complementary skill sets. This explains why individuals who are competent interpersonally tend to get more out of social networking. At least part of what they already know about interacting applies online. But whether computer-based competence has some bearing on real-world interactional capability is still open to debate. The present

This article discusses the dangers of the Moral Machine (MM) experiment, alerting against both its uses for normative ends and the whole approach it is built upon to address ethical issues. It explores additional methodological limits of the experiment on top of those already identified by its authors; exhibits the dangers of computational moral systems for modern democracies, such as the “voting-based

The aim of this study was to analyze the effect of an online affect management intervention on relationship conflict through the rate of growth of team resilience in virtual teams with diversity faultlines. Fifty-two 4-person teams participated in a randomized controlled trial design with repeated measures (i.e., three measurement occasions). Teams were randomly assigned to either an intervention designed

Do social media platforms help or hinder democracy? Internet enthusiasts posit that social media could have a democratizing effect by lowering the costs of promotion, while skeptics argue that these platforms replicate or even exacerbate preexisting inequalities. We inform this debate by combining campaign finance and electoral outcome data from the Federal Election Commission with Twitter metrics

Forced answering (FA) is a frequent answer format in online surveys that forces respondents to answer each question in order to proceed through the questionnaire. The underlying rationale is to decrease the amount of missing data. Despite its popularity, empirical research on the impact of FA on respondents’ answering behavior is scarce and has generated mixed findings. In fact, some quasi-experimental

As an interdisciplinary field, data-driven journalism integrates the intellectual origins of investigative journalism, computer-assisted reporting, and the emerging paradigm of computational social science. Studies of news production have revealed, however, that news professionals are reinforcing existing power structures via an interpretive community, where homophily-evoked social interactions—even

Mixed-mode surveys need to determine a number of design parameters that may have a strong influence on costs and errors. In a sequential mixed-mode design with web followed by telephone, one of these decisions is when to switch modes. The web mode is relatively inexpensive but produces lower response rates. The telephone mode complements the web mode in that it is relatively expensive but produces