Search

We explore the meaning of privacy from the perspective of Qatari nationals as it manifests in digital environments. Although privacy is an essential and widely respected value in many cultures, the way in which it is understood and enacted depends on context. It is especially vital to understand user behaviors regarding privacy in the digital sphere, where individuals increasingly publish personal information. Our mixed-methods analysis of 18K Twitter posts that mention privacy focuses on the face to face and digital contexts in which privacy is mentioned, and how those contexts lead to varied ideologies regarding privacy. We find that in the Arab Gulf, the need for privacy is often supported by Quranic text, advice on how to protect privacy is frequently discussed, and the use of paternalistic language by men when discussing women related privacy is common. Above all, privacy is framed as a communal attribute, including not only the individual, but the behavior of those around them; it even extends beyond the individual lifespan. We contribute an analysis and description of these previously unexplored interpretations of privacy, which play a role in how users navigate social media., Comment: 10 pages, Conference paper published at WebSci

Theories of privacy and how it relates to the use of Information Communication Technology (ICT) have been a topic of research for decades. However, little attention has been paid to the perception of privacy from the perspective of technology users in the Middle East. In this paper, we delve into interpretations of privacy from the approach of Arab Gulf citizens. We consider how privacy is practiced and understood in technology-mediated environments among this population, paying particular attention to the role of Islam and cultural traditions in constructing norms around privacy. We then offer culturally sensitive design principles and suggestions for future research that incorporates previously unexplored characteristics of privacy, which play a role in how users navigate social media., Comment: 12 pages, 1 figure

Musicologists and sociologists have long been interested in patterns of music consumption and their relation to socioeconomic status. In particular, the Omnivore Thesis examines the relationship between these variables and the diversity of music a person consumes. Using data from social media users of Last.fm and Twitter, we design and evaluate a measure that reasonably captures diversity of musical tastes. We use that measure to explore associations between musical diversity and variables that capture socioeconomic status, demographics, and personal traits such as openness and degree of interest in music (into-ness). Our musical diversity measure can provide a useful means for studies of musical preferences and consumption. Also, our study of the Omnivore Thesis provides insights that extend previous survey and interview-based studies., Comment: 10 pages, 1 figure, 2 tables, Accepted to the 10th International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media, ICWSM'16

Social media platforms provide active communication channels during mass convergence and emergency events such as disasters caused by natural hazards. As a result, first responders, decision makers, and the public can use this information to gain insight into the situation as it unfolds. In particular, many social media messages communicated during emergencies convey timely, actionable information. Processing social media messages to obtain such information, however, involves solving multiple challenges including: handling information overload, filtering credible information, and prioritizing different classes of messages. These challenges can be mapped to classical information processing operations such as filtering, classifying, ranking, aggregating, extracting, and summarizing. We survey the state of the art regarding computational methods to process social media messages, focusing on their application in emergency response scenarios. We examine the particularities of this setting, and then methodically examine a series of key sub-problems ranging from the detection of events to the creation of actionable and useful summaries.