International Journal of Web Based Communities (4 papers in press)

Regular Issues

• Hybrid Feature Based Approach for Recommending Friends in Social Networking Systems  
  by Abhay Kumar Rai, Rahul Kumar Yadav, Shashi Prakash Tripathi, Rajiv Ranjan Tewari 
  Abstract: Link prediction is an effective technique to be applied on graph-based models due to its wide range of applications. It helps to understand associations between nodes in social communities. The social networking systems use link prediction techniques to recommend new friends to their users. In this paper, we design two time efficient algorithms for finding all paths of length-2 and length-3 between every pair of vertices in a network which are further used in computation of final similarity scores in the proposed method. Further, we define a hybrid feature-based node similarity measure for link prediction that captures both local and global graph features. The designed similarity measure provides friend recommendations by traversing only paths of limited length, which causes more faster and accurate friend recommendations. Experimental results show adequate level of accuracy in friend recommendations within considerable computing time.
  Keywords: social networks; similarity measures; local graph features; global graph features; link prediction; hybrid approach; friend recommendations.
  DOI: 10.1504/IJWBC.2020.10024150
   
  
• International Efforts for Children Online Safety: A Survey  
  by Dittin Andrews, Sreejith Alathur, Naganna Chetty 
  Abstract: Children online safety is a global issue and attaining international attention to address it. Often, children are vulnerable to online threats. Aim of this paper is to review children online safety issues and identify existing international efforts for reducing online risks. In this regard, efforts from available international bodies for providing online safety to children are reviewed and reported. To overcome online risks, understanding the behaviour of online ecosystem and coping after facing risks are most important. The ecosystem involves different stakeholders such as service providers, physical network, online users being connected, social media sites and tools and technology. Elimination of online risks is difficult but the intensity of risks can be reduced.
  Keywords: Online safety;children;online risks; international efforts;problematic content.
  DOI: 10.1504/IJWBC.2020.10024937
   
  
• The artificial fulfilment of need for orientation: agenda-setting and salience of community news in Twitter  
  by Khin Wee Chen, Albaraa Altourah 
  Abstract: Social media is increasingly the dominant news source and the need to understand what drives people's consumption of online news during this era of disinformation is important and urgent. McCombs (2004) identified 'civic duty, emotional arousal, personal interest, peer influence and self-interest' as the factors compelling the information 'need for orientation' (54). However, the ubiquity of online social media makes it is pertinent to investigate the existence of other hidden factors impacting the perception of relevance. This study, sampling Twitter data from France and Kuwait for content analysis, compares two contrasting socio-cultural settings to explore the agenda-setting effects on Twitter to ascertain how the levels of need for orientation (NFO) may be manipulated and finds that the NFO levels have been manipulated by Twitter exposure and agenda-setting effects, which increase the users' uncertainty level and in turn leads to a homogenising effect of the Twitter public agenda as a result of the increased rate of conversations related to the affected topics
  Keywords: Confidence; perception; institution; media source; World Value Survey Report; Tunisia; Egypt; Libya; Yemen; Arab Spring; dictatorship; army rule; democracy.
  DOI: 10.1504/IJWBC.2020.10024944
   
  
• The Examination of Self-Service Replenishing Solutions’ Potential  
  by Zahy Ramadan, Maya Farah, Lama Shatila 
  Abstract: The aim of this paper is to investigate how the introduction of self-service replenishing tech devices affect consumer buying behaviour within their consumption communities. It assesses the potential customers and/or retailers that are likely to adopt such technologies while looking into their overall impact on consumers and shoppers. For that end, this study investigates the perception of such solutions by both consumers and experts in relation to the self-service technologies' (SSTs) disruption of the customer journey. Accordingly, a total sample of 48 respondents (16 experts and 32 consumers) was reached through semi-structured face-to-face interviews. The findings of this study indicate that replenishing solutions based on SSTs will not replace traditional shopping mediums in a typical Middle-Eastern market due to the availability of quick and easy product delivery options. However, the study highlights that the likelihood to utilize such solutions depends on consumer brand loyalty as well as overall consumers' lifestyle.
  Keywords: Amazon; Dash button; Alexa; Communities of consumption; Shopper web-based community.
  DOI: 10.1504/IJWBC.2020.10025419