RESEARCH ARTICLEOnline Work Force Analyzes Social Media to.docx

RESEARCH ARTICLE
Online Work Force Analyzes Social Media to
Identify Consequencesof an Unplanned
School Closure – Using Technology to
Prepare for the Next Pandemic
Jeanette J. Rainey
1*, Jasmine Kenney1, Ben Wilburn2, Ami Putman1, Yenlik
Zheteyeva1,
Megan O’Sullivan
1
1 Division of Global Migration and Quarantine, Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, GA,
United States of America, 2 Oak Ridge Institute for Science and
Education (ORISE), Oak Ridge, TN, United
States of America
* [email protected]
Abstract
Background
During an influenza pandemic, the United States Centers for
Disease Control and Preven-
tion (CDC) may recommend school closures. These closures
could have unintended con-

sequences for students and their families. Publicly available
social media could be
analyzed to identify the consequences of an unplanned school
closure.
Methods
As a proxy for an unplanned, pandemic-related school closure,
we used the district-wide
school closure due to the September 10–18, 2012 teachers’
strike in Chicago, Illinois. We
captured social media posts about the school closure using the
Radian6 social media-mon-
itoring platform. An online workforce from Amazon Mechanical
Turk categorized each post
into one of two groups. The first group included relevant posts
that described the impact of
the closure on students and their families. The second group
included irrelevant posts that
described the political aspects of the strike or topics unrelated
to the school closure. All rele-
vant posts were further categorized as expressing a positive,
negative, or neutral senti-
ment. We analyzed patterns of relevant posts and sentiment over
time and compared our

findings to household surveys conducted after other unplanned
school closures.
Results
We captured 4,546 social media posts about the district-wide
school closure using our
search criteria. Of these, 930 (20%) were categorized as
relevant by the online workforce.
Of the relevant posts, 619 (67%) expressed a negative
sentiment, 51 (5%) expressed a
positive sentiment, and 260 (28%) were neutral. The number of
relevant posts, and espe-
cially those with a negative sentiment, peaked on day 1 of the
strike. Negative sentiment
PLOS ONE | DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0163207 September 21,
2016 1 / 12
a11111
OPEN ACCESS
Citation: Rainey JJ, Kenney J, Wilburn B, Putman
A, Zheteyeva Y, O’Sullivan M (2016) Online Work
Force Analyzes Social Media to Identify
Consequences of an Unplanned School Closure –
Using Technology to Prepare for the Next

Pandemic. PLoS ONE 11(9): e0163207.
doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0163207
Editor: David L. Swerdlow, Pfizer Inc, UNITED
STATES
Received: August 19, 2015
Accepted: September 6, 2016
Published: September 21, 2016
Copyright: This is an open access article, free of all
copyright, and may be freely reproduced,
distributed, transmitted, modified, built upon, or
otherwise used by anyone for any lawful purpose.
The work is made available under the Creative
Commons CC0 public domain dedication.
Data Availability Statement: The social media
posts analyzed for this project are available at
https://figshare.com (DOI: 10.6084/m9.figshare.
3463448).
Funding: The authors received no specific funding

for this work.
Competing Interests: The authors have declared
that no competing interests exist.
http://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.1371/journal.pone.
0163207&domain=pdf
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http://dx.doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.3463448
expressed concerns about childcare, missed school lunches, and
the lack of class time for
students. This was consistent with findings from previously
conducted household surveys.
Conclusion
Social media are publicly available and can readily provide
information on the impact of an
unplanned school closure on students and their families. Using
social media to assess the
impact of an unplanned school closure due to a public health
event would be informative.
An online workforce can effectively assist with the review
process.

Introduction
Closing schools can help slow influenza transmission among a
school-aged population and is
an important mitigation measure during the early stages of an
influenza pandemic [1–4]. How-
ever, unplanned school closures can also cause economic and
social costs and consequences for
students and their families [1], especially if the closure lasts for
several weeks or more. Public
health officials must therefore carefully evaluate the balance
between the benefits and the con-
sequences of these closures to mitigate the spread pandemic
influenza [1, 5]. Being aware of
these costs and consequences during the course of a pandemic
could assist public officials to
better evaluate this balance.
Since influenza pandemics are infrequent in the United States,
public health officials have
relied on investigating the costs and consequences of unplanned
school closures due to non-
pandemic related causes. Although many of these investigations
have been informative, some
were implemented several months after schools reopened [6–8],
possibly resulting in recall
bias. Others were conducted during infectious disease outbreaks
or immediately after, but the
investigations still required time and resources for planning,
implementation, and analysis
before results became available [9–11]. During the 2009
Influenza A (H1N1) pandemic, tele-
phone polls were conducted to identify challenges to families
associated with recent school clo-
sures. These polls were substantially more time-efficientbut
only captured information for a

single point in time [12]. All types of household surveys and
telephone polls create some level
of burden on household respondents.
The accessibility and popularity of social media such as
Twitter, Facebook, and blogs pro-
vide a new opportunity to assess public perception and the
impact of community-wide events
[13–21]. In a 2014 study, 74% of online adults used social
media [22], suggesting that a high
volume of potentially relevant information is available in the
public domain. These sources
could capture nearly real-time information (in relation to the
community event) in uncon-
strained formats while minimizing common biases (e.g., recall
bias) and the burden associated
with traditional survey methods [13–18, 23–24]. During a
pandemic, monitoring public per-
ception and sentiment over time could help determine when
modifications or different strate-
gies may be needed for mitigating disease transmission.
We analyzed social media related to the district-wideunplanned
school closure due to the
September 2012 Chicago teacher’s strike, which affected more
than 400,000 students attending
the 600 elementary, middle, and high schools in the district
[25]. Our objectives included: 1)
evaluating whether social media could be used to identify costs
and consequences as effectively
as traditional household surveys and telephone polls; 2)
determining if the costs and conse-
quences identified varied over the duration of an unplanned
school closure; and 3) exploring
the use of an online workforce as a way to efficiently review
and interpret relevant social media

Online Work Force Analyzes Social Media about Unplanned
School Closure
2016 2 / 12
posts. This type of workforce could be easily leveraged if
needed during a future pandemic or
other public health emergency.
Methods
Data collection
We used the Radian6 (San Francisco, CA) social media-
monitoring platform to retrospectively
capture social media posts about the Chicago City School
District closure occurringfrom Sep-
tember 10–18, 2016. Since the strike was anticipated prior to
the first day of the closure, we
captured social media posts from Twitter, Facebook, blogs,
forums, and comments between
September 8 and September 21, (two days before the strike
started to three days after the strike
ended). We used the following combination of exact search
terms: “strike Chicago” AND
“breakfast” OR “childcare” OR “daycare” OR “lunch” OR
“parent”. A proximity score of “5”
was applied to the terms “strike” and “Chicago” (on a scale of
1–20, with 1 being exact [i.e.,
strike and Chicago together]). We included childcare and
missed free or reduced-pricedschool
lunches since these issues were identified in previous unplanned

school closure investigations.
Several different combinations of search terms were tested to
capture relevant information
while limiting unnecessarynoise (e.g., posts related to political
aspects of the strike). With the
above Boolean logic, only “strike Chicago” and one of the other
terms were required in any of
the identified posts.
We downloaded the content, platform, date, and time of all
social media posts meeting the
search criteria. Social media not written in English, in non-
ASCII script, or sent by a client
identified as an application program interface (API) (usually
automatically generated and
therefore considered to be “spam”) were excluded. We included
re-postings of social media
since they reflect the sharing of similar information and
sentiment. Our unit of analysis was a
single post (or re-post) from the types of social media included
in the initial search. Radian6
captures social media-specificsites by using a combination of
RSS feeds, proprietary crawlers,
and API access for certain sources such as Twitter and
Facebook. Radian6 adheres to the terms
of use for each social media source
(http://www.exacttarget.com/blog/dear-radian6-howd-you-
get-that-data/).
Social media posts were categorized as “relevant” (related to
how the school closure affected
students or their families) or “irrelevant” (related to political
aspects of the strike, status of the
education and welfare system in Chicago, or an unrelated event
in Chicago or elsewhere).
Each post was reviewed and categorized by five different

workers recruited through Amazon
Mechanical Turk, an online marketplace of workers to perform
various Human Intelligence
Tasks (https://www.mturk.com/mturk/welcome). Within
Mechanical Turk, we developed an
online customized categorization project that included
instructions, definitions, and examples
using a few lines of JavaScript. For data-management purposes,
we uploaded social media
posts in batches of 200 each and only included the post content
and unique identification num-
ber (username, date, and social media source were excluded).
We limited eligible Turk workers
to those residing in the United States with a master rating
(scoring >99% on previous categori-
zation tasks). Workers were able to review as many or as few
posts as possible but could review
each individual post only once, as verified through a worker’s
unique identification number.
Individual posts could therefore be reviewed and categorized by
different sets of five Turk
workers. The categorization of each post as relevant or
irrelevant was based on agreement
among four of five workers (�80%).
Posts with poor agreement among the Turk workers (< 80%)
were subsequently reviewed
by four subject matter experts (SMEs) comprising public health
staff with training in reviewing
social media posts and investigating unplanned school closures.
The final categorization of
School Closure

2016 3 / 12
http://www.exacttarget.com/blog/dear-radian6-�howd-you-get-
that-data/
http://www.exacttarget.com/blog/dear-radian6-�howd-you-get-
that-data/
https://www.mturk.com/mturk/welcome
these posts was determined by a majority of these experts. In
the SME review, we included a
5% random sample of posts (n = 180) previously categorized as
irrelevant by the Turk workers
to assess the agreement between the SMEs and recruited Turk
workers. All posts categorized as
relevant by Turk workers were also reviewed and verified by the
SMEs.
Sentiment analysis
Using a combination of context (e.g., school lunches) and
semantics (e.g., wonderful/terrible),
each relevant post was categorized into one of three sentiment
groups [16, 19]: positive, nega-
tive, or neutral. These groups were defined as follows:
1. Positive: The author expressed a good or favorable
experience as a result of the closure.
Example of positive post: “Another day without school, a day to
play.”
2. Negative: The author expressed inconveniences or an
undesirable effect as a result of the
closure. Example of negative post: “I can’t find childcare.”
3. Neutral: The author did not express any particular sentiment.

Example of neutral post:
“Schools will be open at 8:00 to serve breakfast to students.”
We tested and modifiedproject definitions before initiating the
sentiment analysis to maxi-
mize clarity and understanding. Posts stating “school will be
closed today” or describing the
availability of serviceswere considered statements of fact and
were categorized as neutral.
When both positive and negative sentiments were expressed, the
post was categorized as nega-
tive since our overall objective was to describe the costs and
consequences of an unplanned
school closure.
We describedthe temporal trends of relevant posts and their
sentiments to assess whether
perceptions and sentiments changed during the 10-day closure.
We also abstracted up to three
consequences from each post categorized as having a negative
sentiment. We qualitatively
compared these findings with results from recent household
surveys and a telephone poll fol-
lowing other unplanned school closures. The similarities and
differences were used to assess
the validity of our approach. Additionally, we calculated overall
and daily sentiment scores as
the difference between the number of positive and negative
sentiment posts divided by the sum
of all relevant posts ((positive—negative)/(positive + negative +
neutral)) [16]. A score less
than zero suggested negative sentiment, while a score greater
than zero suggested positive sen-
timent [16]. Data were analyzed using SAS (version 9.3, Cary,
NC).

When an author’s privacy settings are turned off, opinions
expressed through social media
are considered public information. Certain forms of social
media are tagged with personal
identifiers (e.g., profile name on Twitter and Facebook), which
are publicly available but were
not included in the analysis. Access to the information captured
for this project using Radian6
adhered to the terms of use for each source of social media. The
project protocol was reviewed
and approved by the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention’s Human Subjects Research
Office (HSRO). Since we relied on publicly available data and
there was no contact with social
media users, the HSRO determined that the project was exempt
from review by the Institu-
tional Review Board.
Results
We retrospectively captured 4,546 social media posts for the
dates of September 8, 2012 to Sep-
tember 21, 2012 using our search criteria. Of these, 930 (20%)
were categorized as relevant in
describing the impact of the strike-related closure on students
and their families (Table 1). The
remaining 3,616 (80%) social media posts were excluded as
irrelevant. The 4,546 posts were
School Closure
2016 4 / 12

reviewed by 301 different Turk workers (each categorizing 1 to
1,532 posts such that every post
was reviewed by five different workers). The median number of
posts categorized per worker
was 17 (IQR: 3 to 71), and the median time for categorizing
each post was 1.7 minutes (IQR: 13
seconds to 5 minutes). On average, Turk workers completed the
review of each batch of 200
posts within 2–3 hours. The agreement between Turk workers
and SMEs was 99% for irrele-
vant posts (two of the subset of 180 posts were re-categorized
as relevant by experts) and 98%
for relevant posts (16 of 944 posts were re-categorized as
irrelevant). Almost 90% of the 930 rel-
evant posts were from Twitter, blogs and comments, Facebook
discussions, and mainstream
media comments (Table 1).
Of the relevant posts, 619 (67%) were further categorized as
expressing negative sentiment,
51 (5%) were positive, and 260 (28%) were neutral. We
abstracted 1,007 costs and conse-
quences from the 619 negative posts. The most frequently
expressed negative sentiment
involved concerns about finding childcare or the cost of
childcare (n = 377), missing school or
class time (n = 210), and missing free or reduced-pricedschool
meals (n = 185) (Table 2). One
parent posted, “both of us are working, I have no relatives,
nobody I can turn to in town,”
while another expressed, “besides the daycare issue, they just
need to be in school.” These costs
and consequences were consistent with findings from other
unplanned school closure investi-
gations (Table 3). Additional consequences were captured for

the unplanned school closure in
Chicago, including concerns with child safety and city violence
(n = 45). Social media provided
information for parents on locating childcare and alternative
meal servicesfor students (e.g.,
“CTU has announced their strike. Visit http://t.co/TVptuuTm or
call 311 if you have no alter-
native childcare tomorrow.”).
The number of all relevant posts and those expressing negative
sentiment was greatest on
day 1 of the strike (September 10, 2012) and decreased
dramatically by day 3 (September 13,
2012 [Fig 1]). The sentiment score was estimated to assess the
relative change in negative ver-
sus positive sentiment over time. During the Chicago teachers’
strike, the mean sentiment
score was -0.61 (daily range: -0.20 to -1.0 [Fig 2]).
Discussion
Reviewingand analyzing social media posts at the time of the
Chicago teachers’ strike gener-
ated information on the consequences and community sentiment
of this unplanned district-
wide school closure. The types of identified consequences were
similar to findings from previ-
ous unplanned school closure investigations and included
missing work, childcare costs, and
lack of access to free and reduced-pricedschool lunches [6–9].
We also captured social media
Table 1. Distribution of relevant and irrelevant posts by social
media type. Relevant posts further categorized according
negative, positive, and neutral

sentiment. Posts captured from social media referencing
Chicago teachers’ strike from September 8–21, 2012 (two days
before to three days after strike).
Social Media Type Irrelevant (%) Relevant (%) Negative (%)
Positive (%) Neutral (%)
Twitter 273 (7) 266 (29) 138 (22) 8 (16) 120 (46)
Blogs and Comments 938 (26) 232 (24) 158 (25) 8 (16) 66 (25)
Facebook Discussions 528 (15) 165 (18) 117 (19) 5 (10) 43 (17)
Mainstream Media Comments 1068 (30) 147 (16) 116 (19) 17
(33) 14 (5)
Forum Posts and Replies 736 (20) 114 (12) 84 (14) 13 (25) 17
(7)
YouTube and Comments 47 (1) 2 (<1) 2 (<1) 0 (0) 0 (0)
Other
a
26 (1) 4 (<1) 4 (<1) 0 (0) 0 (0)
Total 3,616 930 619 51 260
a
Other includes Google, LiveJournal, WSJ, fc2.com,
multiply.com, tumblr.com, typepad.com, livedoor.jp.blogs, and
Sina Blog.
doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0163207.t001
School Closure

2016 5 / 12
http://t.co/TVptuuTm
voicing concerns about child safety and street violence, neither
of which had been previously
identified as possible consequences of unplanned school
closures. These newly identified con-
cerns and consequences may highlight the importance of
capturing local information when
assessing the impact of unplanned school closures on students
and their families. The unstruc-
tured format of social media posts can elicit information not
previously anticipated [13–17,
23], and is likely an added benefit of social media when
compared to traditional surveys and
telephone polls.
We were also able to capture information on the costs and
consequences as well as senti-
ment in near real time throughout the strike. Relevant posts and
negative posts were most fre-
quent during the first day of the strike and decreased
dramatically by day 3 (September 12),
suggesting that concerns and challenges can vary over the
duration of an unplanned school clo-
sure. This variability could reflect that parents were initially
unprepared for the closure but
were able to adapt rapidly to the unanticipated disruption
(including help from information
shared on social media about access to services).The decrease
could also indicate that the

Table 2. Costs and consequences abstracted from 619 social
media posts expressing negative sen-
timent. Each post could express up to three costs and
consequences. Posts captured from social media
referencing Chicago teachers’ strike from September 8–21, 2012
(two days before to three days after strike).
Primary consequence and sub-category Frequency
General
Disrupted routines (e.g., scrambling, in turmoil) 123
Stressed/frustrated parents 33
General burden 26
Uncertainty about length of closure 8
Total 190
Childcare
Problems finding childcare/places for children to go 164
General childcare concerns—single/working parents 108
Cost of childcare 50
Loss of work time/pay to stay home with children 35
Concern for job, benefits, or other work issues 15
Adjusting work schedule due to childcare 5

Total 377
Missed School
No classwork/learning 99
Students should be in school 56
Hard on students (disruption of school year) 35
Rights to an education 20
Total 210
School services
Missing free/reduced priced meals 185
Total 185
Student Safety
Student public health, safety, and welfare 17
Students in streets 11
Lack of supervision 8
City/gun violence and crime 7
Gang activity 2
Total 45

School Closure
2016 6 / 12
public quickly experiencedinformation saturation with a
subsequent decrease in interest [26].
Similar trends in social media were identified before, during,
and after the March 2011 Japa-
nese earthquake and tsunami [27]. The lack of a perceived
direct benefit from the strike may
have partially contributed to the consistently negative sentiment
score (mean score was -0.61).
In general, households are more likely to support unplanned
school closures when there is a
perceived benefit to the health and wellbeing of the student,
regardless of whether the closure is
implemented pre-emptively (prior to widespread disease
transmission) or reactively (after a
larger percentage of students and teachers are already ill) to an
infectious disease outbreak [8,
28–30]. We also hypothesize that negative sentiment is more
likely to be expressed on social
media than positive or neutral sentiment. Social media could
serve as an outlet for expressing
frustration by a certain but small segment of the population.
Background information on the
impacted population, such as the percentage of students
belonging to single parent households
or eligible for free or reduced priced school meals, therefore,
could be helpful in interpreting
social media findings.

During an influenza pandemic, public health officials will need
to rapidly capture and
respond to perceived challenges in the implementation of
mitigation strategies, including
Table 3. Qualitative comparison of the Chicago teacher’s strike
social media findings with results from traditional household
surveys in Missis-
sippi, Colorado, and Kentucky and a telephone poll about the
costs and consequences of unplanned school closures
a
.
Information captured Chicago,
Illinois, 2012
Harrison County School
District, Mississippi, 2012
d
Suburban Denver School
District, Colorado, 2013
e
Rural School District,
Kentucky, 2013
f
Harvard Poll,

June 2009
g
Cause of unplanned school
closure
Teachers’
Strike
Hurricane Preparation Absenteeism-influenza-like
illness
Absenteeism-
influenza-like illness
Pandemic
Influenza
Duration (school days) 7 4 5 4 1–5
h
Consequences identified
Problems finding child care YES YES YES YES YES
Missed work/pay YES YES YES YES YES
Missed free/reduced priced
school lunches

YES YES YES YES YES
Missed class time YES YES NO NO NO
Student safety/gangs YES NO NO NO NO
Uncertainty about length of
closure
YES YES YES YES YES
Representativeness
b
NO YES YES YES YES
Community response
c
YES NO NO NO NO
Sentiment available in real-
time
YES NO NO NO NO
a
Includes primary consequences only.
b
Data available to estimate the percentage of the target
population experiencing the same or similar costs and
consequences.

c
Use of social media for communicating availability of services
for families impacted by the strike (e.g., school district shared
information about where to find
alternative childcare).
d
Unpublished report from Mississippi unplanned school closure
investigation, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,
2014.
e
Epson EE, Zheteyeva YA, Rainey JJ, Gao H, Shi J, Uzicanin A,
Miller L (2015) Evaluation of an Unplanned School Closure in a
Colorado District:
Implications for Pandemic Influenza Preparedness. Disaster
Med Public Health Prep 9:4–8.
f
Russell ES, Zheteyeva YA, Gao H, Shi J, Rainey JJ,
Thoroughman D, Uzicanin A (2016) Reactive School Closure
during Increased Influenza-like-Illness
(ILI) Activity in Western Kentucky, 2013; A Field Evaluation
of Effect on ILI Incidence and Economic Social Consequences
for Families. Open Forum
Infectious Diseases 3(3):doi: 10.1093/ofid/ofw113.
g
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2010) Parental
attitudes and experiences during school dismissals related to
2009 Influenza A (H1N1)—
United States, 2009. MMWR Morb Mortal Wkl 59:1131–4.
h
Approximately 9% of schools were closed for >5 days.

School Closure
2016 7 / 12
http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/ofid/ofw113
school closures. We explored the use of Amazon Mechanical
Turk’s online workforce as a way
to rapidly and accurately review and categorize social media
posts. To ensure quality results,
we requested “master workers” residing in the United States
who had a previous rating of 99%
or greater on previous projects. This improved the
likelihoodthat Turk workers would be
familiar with school closures and related challenges for families
and students in the United
States, as well as the possible use of American slang and
language nuances. On average, five dif-
ferent Turk workers were able to complete the review of each
batch within 2–3 hours with rela-
tively good accuracy (>95% for both relevant and irrelevant
posts). The number of unique
workers participating in the review supports the scalability of
this approach. Using such a
workforce during a pandemic could compare favorably to
household surveys that typically
require weeks to months for researchers to collect, clean, and
analyze available data. Although
a number of machine learning tools are available for automating
this process [16, 31], a combi-

nation of approaches will likely be needed due to the
complexity of language (e.g., sarcasm), as
well as misspellings and grammatical errors in social media [16,
19].
Fig 1. Number of relevant posts identified from social media by
sentiment
a
and date. Relevant posts mentioned impact of unplanned school
closure due to Chicago teachers’ strike from September 8–21,
2012 (two days before and three days after strike) on students
and their families (n = 930).
a
Sentiment definitions: Positive: The author expressed a good or
favorable experience as a result of the closure. Example of
positive post: “Another day
without school, a day to play.” Negative: The author expressed
inconveniences or undesirable effect as a result of the closure.
Example of negative post:
“I can’t find childcare”. Neutral: The author did not express any
particular sentiment. Example of neutral post: “Schools will be
open at 8:00 to serve
breakfast to students”.
doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0163207.g001
School Closure
2016 8 / 12

We selected the Chicago teachers’ strike for this initial social
media project due to the length
of the unplanned school closure and the size of the impacted
school district (>400,000 stu-
dents). Although social media use is higher among young adults
and in urban and suburban
areas [22], use appears to be independent of education level and
race or ethnicity. Therefore,
we anticipated that this closure would elicit a high volume of
commentary on social media. We
captured over 4,500 social media posts during the project
period. Due to the nature of the clo-
sure, only 20% of the posts were relevant to assessing the
impact of the closure on students and
their families. Although many of these relevant posts included
re-tweets and shares, we did not
have access to the metrics required to estimate the specific
frequency. The majority of posts
were categorized as irrelevant since they addressed the political
nature of the strike, the role of
unions, and general concerns regarding the welfare and
education systems in Chicago. More
posts could be relevant or positive if captured during a public
health-related closure, where
Fig 2. Sentiment score of relevant posts identified from social
media by date. Relevant posts mentioned impact of unplanned
school closure due to
Chicago teachers’ strike from September 8–21 (two days before
to three days after strike) on students and their families (N =
930). Sentiment score was

calculated as: (positive posts—negative posts)/(positive posts +
negative posts + neutral posts)
a-b
.
a
Sentiment score < 0 suggests negative sentiment;
score > 0 suggests positive sentiment. bScore on September 21
reflects only four relevant posts, all expressing negative
sentiment.
doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0163207.g002
School Closure
2016 9 / 12
community comments would likely include the perceived health
benefits in addition to the
costs and consequences of the closure.
We attempted to increase the percentage of posts meeting our
definition of “relevant” by
including the terms “breakfast,” “childcare,” “daycare,”
“lunch,” and “parent” in the Radian6
search criteria. We primarily included these terms to minimize
the amount of “noise” related
to the political nature of the closure [13–15]. We propose that
the any bias resulting from the
inclusion of these terms was limited since only one of the terms
was required using Boolean

logic. Our findings related to child safety and street violence
(which were not search terms)
support the use of this approach. We also used exact matching
for “breakfast,” “childcare,”
“daycare,” “lunch,” or “parent” and proximity for “Strike” and
“Chicago”. Relevant posts
including abbreviations and misspellings could have been
missed (e.g., day care). In a qualita-
tive review of relevant posts, however, a large percentage of
childcare-related posts referenced
childcare as two words. A number of other challenges were
identified in categorizing social
media posts, including complex posts referencing both political
aspects of the strike and the
availability of non-educational servicesto students during the
school closure. Additionally,
the combination of context and semantics to assign sentiment
can involve a level of human
subjectivity. To minimize these challenges, we pilot-tested our
categorization and sentiment
definitions. However, neither the categorization nor sentiment
analysis was likely to be 100%
accurate.
Despite increased access to social media, information from
these sources is likely to be
unrepresentative [13–17]. We could only partially limit the
geographic scope of social media
users with Radian6, and we were unable to determine whether
an author of a post was a student
in or had a child attending a Chicago City District-school.Our
findings could have inadver-
tently included posts from persons not directly impacted by the
Chicago school closure. Cap-
turing IP addresses from social media users when available
could help identify the author’s

physical location and further assist public health officials in
addressing identified negative
impacts where and when they occur [13–18, 23, 26–27].
Conclusion
Social media can provide information about the costs and
consequences of an unplanned
school closure on students and their families. Social media
posts are publicly available and can
be captured in near real-time to monitor changes in sentiment
over time. Social media can also
capture the costs and consequences not identified through
traditional approaches. The political
nature of the teachers’ strike likely influenced the topics and
sentiment expressed in this proj-
ect. Future projects using social media to assess the impact of a
public health-related school clo-
sure and to capture information on authors’ physical location
would be informative. An online
workforce possibly combined with new machine learning tools
could further improve the
capacity to rapidly identify and interpret relevant social media
posts. This approach could help
public health officials more effectively monitor and balance the
anticipated health benefits with
possible costs and consequences of unplanned school closures
during a future pandemic.
Acknowledgments
We thank Dr. Noreen Qualls for her support and guidance
during the conceptualization and
implementation of this project. We also greatly appreciate Mr.
Ronnie Henry’s critical feedback
in editing this manuscript.

Disclaimer:The findings and conclusions in this report are those
of the authors and do not
necessarily represent the official position of CDC.
School Closure
2016 10 / 12
Author Contributions
Conceptualization:JR JK MO.
Data curation: JR JK BW MO.
Formalanalysis: JR JK BW AP YZ MO.
Funding acquisition: JR.
Investigation: JR JK BW AP MO.
Methodology:JR JK AP BW YZ MO.
Projectadministration: JR MO.
Resources: JR YZ BW MO.
Software: JR JK BW AP YZ MO.
Supervision:JR BW.
Validation: JR JK BW AP YZ MO.

Visualization: JR JK MO.
Writing – originaldraft: JR JK MO.
Writing – review& editing: JR JK BW AP YZ MO.
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individual use.

www.eddigest.com58
Personal technology has
evolved from luxury to life ne-
cessity in Western society. The
U.S. government is commoditiz-
ing access to the internet, indi-
viduals are cultivating strong
connections with strangers
across the globe, and facility
with technology has become a
cornerstone of workforce com-
petitiveness, much like language
fluency. With nearly one in 10
children receiving a mobile de-
vice, such as a smart phone, by
age five, today’s youth are the
new digital natives. Ensuring
Fostering
Digital Citizenship
in the Classroom
BY GEORGE DOTTERER, ANDREW HEDGES
and HARRISON PARKER
From NetRef
George Dotterer is CEO and co-founder, Andrew Hedges is
program
manager, and Harrison Parker is director of K-12 education, all
at
Verite Educational Systems Inc. Condensed from an April 4,
2016,

white paper prepared by NetRef, creator of technology for
teachers
to help students focus on online activities at school, and for
parents
to protect internet browsing and app use outside the classroom.
Read
the paper in its entirety at www.net-ref.com/white-paper-
digital-
natives-citizens-of-a-changing-world.
that they understand the im-
plications, consequences, and
best practices for engaging with
technology and social media is
critical to safeguarding their
well-being and to their develop-
ing workplace skills.
Digital native refers to young
people who have grown up
around digital technologies and
seem to instinctively under-
stand them. By contrast, older
generations are considered digi-
tal immigrants, new to technol-
ogy, possibly fascinated by the
new technology, and adopters
Fostering Digital Citizenship in the Classroom
November 2016 59
of many aspects but lacking
an instinctive aptitude. Digital

citizenship is the practice of
defining the norms of appropri-
ate, responsible behavior with
regard to technology use. The
generational technology divide
is widening at a quickening
pace as young people become
more knowledgeable than many
adults about the latest online
trends and technological ad-
vances.
The indelibility of a digital
footprint has implications un-
precedented in society, par-
ticularly for youth. Giving young
people the tools and ethical
code to make good choices is
vital. Online postings can affect
their college acceptance and
future jobs—not to mention
more anonymous apps that
allow persistent, untraceable
bullying. Teaching digital citi-
zenship keeps young people and
their futures safer and allows
positive communications and
relationships to grow out of
social media connections. It also
helps cultivate an appreciation
of power over others and an
ethos of “do no harm.”
Anchoring Digital Literacy

in a Moral Construct
An overwhelming number of
teachers and parents believe
that schools’ integration of
technology in teaching and
learning is important, but mak-
ing technology effective in the
classroom requires much more
than merely equipping students
with internet access and devic-
es. Students must understand
how to use personal technol-
ogy in ways that enhance their
learning experience and lead to
self-empowerment and aware-
ness, and schools must ensure
that they protect students while
guiding their exploration of the
digital landscape.
Teaching basic digital lit-
eracy is a start. New York City’s
Department of Education de-
fines digital literacy as “having
the knowledge and ability to
use a range of technology tools
for varied purposes.” Students
who are digitally literate know
how to effectively use tech-
nology to collaborate, create
original content, and conduct
in-depth research for academic
purposes. Digital literacy will be
required for the job market of

the future. Providing students
with basic skills early in their
education will help them be
proficient and comfortable in
the digital world.
While digital literacy is re-
quired for engaging with tech-
nology and provides the basic
building block for responsible
digital citizenship, schools must
www.eddigest.com
THE EDUCATION DIGEST
60
also provide guidance. Looking
to the future, today’s youth will
encounter technologies and face
choices that will seem unimagi-
nable even today. Anchoring
their digital literacy in a moral
construct is critical for provid-
ing context and helping them
develop safe and responsible
decision-making abilities.
In most schools, guidance
around personal technology
comes in the form of acceptable
use policies, which detail what

is disallowed on school devices
or internet connections. Such
policies protect the school and
the student from potential legal
problems. By emphasizing the
positive aspects of technology
use in schools with broad, easy-
to-understand language, admin-
istrators can show students
that they encourage the use of
the internet and trust them to
use it maturely. Empowering
students with their digital rights
and responsibilities—conse-
quences and all—helps shape
them into the digital citizens
tomorrow’s world will need.
While the consequences of
violating a school district’s ac-
ceptable use policy are clearly
defined and understood, con-
sequences of other actions are
less clear cut. Students may not
feel the consequences of their
actions online as the anonym-
ity and the physical remove af-
forded by social media provides
a buffer between them and their
subject.
The instantaneousness and
wide reach of viral communi-
cations escalates impact. Cy-
berbullying is on the rise and

can take many forms including
mean text messages or emails,
rumors sent by email or posted
on social networking sites, and
embarrassing pictures and vid-
eos, or fake profiles. Teaching
students that something as
simple as a Facebook post or
email is out of their control once
it has been sent may help stu-
dents grasp the impacts of their
actions on both themselves and
on others. Anonymous apps
such as YikYak, or seemingly
private apps such as Snapchat,
can be manipulated and used to
harm others.
Digital citizens must also
know their rights to privacy. Stu-
dents may not be aware of the
risks they take sharing personal
information on the internet, or
Giving young people
the tools and ethical
code to make good
choices is vital.
November 2016 61

they may not know the proper
steps to take to ensure their in-
formation remains private. They
should be taught to always stop
and consider before posting,
searching, or doing any activ-
ity online.
Protecting oneself and others
before clicking must become a
reflex. By middle school, stu-
dents should know how to gen-
erate safe user names, under-
stand that stealing information
and other people’s creations is
the same as stealing tangible
items, and appreciate the dif-
ference between personal and
private information. This will
help them to be responsible,
thoughtful digital citizens, so
that by the time they reach high
school when social media and
technology usage are even more
prolific, they will be inclined to
behave responsibly. Pairing a
rigorous education in appropri-
ate internet usage with software
that helps teachers manage
students’ online presence and
activity creates a rounded ap-
proach that benefits all.
Helping Students Step
Consciously into the

Digital Space
Students may be the new
digital natives, but they still
require guidance, especially
since they are often unaware of
the threats that lurk online and
the full consequences of their
actions. Teens and preteens
alike often lack an awareness
of privacy issues. They often
post inappropriate messages,
pictures, and videos without
understanding that “what goes
online stays online.”
This is not to say that social
media is bad—it allows young
people to stay connected with
friends and family, make new
friends, share pictures, and
exchange ideas. Social media
par ticipation can also offer
deeper benefits that extend into
adolescents’ view of self, com-
munity, and the world.
Educators should look for
ways to engage critical think-
ing around students’ everyday
media uses, whether through
planned projects and lessons
or informal engagement. Few
students understand the pri-
vacy risks posed by the simple

installation of an app. Infor-
mation may be gathered from
a user’s actions online using
cookies, which can be used to
create targeted advertising.
Social networks do not neces-
sarily guarantee the security
of the information that has
been uploaded to a profile—
even when posts are set to
private.
The internet bears record of
www.eddigest.com
THE EDUCATION DIGEST
62
everything a user posts, even
after it is deleted. Social media
postings can affect students’ fu-
tures, impacting anything from
jobs to colleges to friendships.
Teachers may want to dissuade
social media use in class, which
is understandable. It can be-
come a distraction for students
as well as a platform for bully-
ing. However, teachers can use
social media and technology to
teach self-regulation by invit-
ing children to recognize when

they’re getting upset or starting
to lose focus.
Social media allows students
to connect classrooms to home
and to connect to notable fig-
ures in the subjects they are
studying. Social media can also
foster cross-cultural exchange
s ince i t reduc es miles and
oceans to a few simple clicks.
Incorporating social media can
also help students learn to think
critically about the media they
consume.
Teaching students digital
etiquette and safety can shield
them from potential harm and
preser ve their online integ-
rity. Students should be taught
things such as choosing a re-
spectable screen name and
double checking any commu-
nications they’re sending out
to make sure nothing could be
misconstrued. Additionally, text
and photography can be easily
manipulated, so if a student
thinks it could be embarrassing
or damaging to others, it should
be deleted.
Parents, Technology,
and Raising Responsible

Digital Natives
Beyond teaching digital citi-
zenship concepts, schools must
include parents in conversa-
tions around digital health and
wellness. Parents are often the
last to know about new social
media and online trends. A good
digital citizenship curriculum
encourages parents to become
active participants in teaching
and understanding how digital
citizenship can help their chil-
dren engage safely.
S i m i l a r t o s t r u c t u r i n g
schools’ responsible use poli-
cy, parents should outline the
positive aspects of internet use
while clearly defining inappro-
priate behaviors. Schools can
help parents and students by
providing tools to supplement
the digital citizenship content
being taught in schools.
Recommendations for
Schools and Parents
Teachers, administrators,
and parents must work togeth-
er to ensure students receive
comprehensive instruction in

November 2016 63
digital citizenship. When school
districts work on developing a
technology program in schools,
a digital citizenship curriculum
must be a core part of the pro-
gram. Giving students access to
devices without context does
more harm than good. Creating
a more empowering acceptable
use policy, which emphasizes
the positive aspects of internet
use, not just consequences,
empowers students. They are
entrusted with responsibility
for their own learning and held
accountable while navigating
the online landscape for aca-
demic and for extracurricular
activities.
Schools should invite parents
to participate in the develop-
ment of curriculum, encourag-
ing their input and offering edu-
cation and discussion forums.
Lessons must be consistent at
home and in school, centering in
basic societal values of decency,
responsibility, compassion, and
doing no harm.

Schools can offer seminars
to update parents on the lat-
est social media trends and
the current classroom topics.
Parents shouldn’t be the last
to know—they are another line
of defense and education for
students online.
Schools can train students
to be safe and well-informed,
responsible digital citizens with
simple steps:
● Design a robust digital citi-
zenship curriculum.
● C o u n s e l s t u d e n t s t h a t
“what goes online stays on-
line.”
● Craft an empowering ac-
ceptable use policy for stu-
dents.
● Teach students their digital
rights.
● Advise parents of new so-
cial media and online trends.
● Provide an easy-to-under-
stand guide for online behav-
ior.

● Equip teachers and parents
with education technology pro-
grams and practices to manage
students’ internet use. ■
“No, Robert, you cannot phone
a friend during the test!”
Copyright of Education Digest is the property of Prakken
Publications and its content may not
be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv
without the copyright holder's
express written permission. However, users may print,
download, or email articles for
individual use.
SYSTEMATIC REVIEW Open Access
Social media and digital technology use
among Indigenous young people in
Australia: a literature review
Emma S. Rice1,2*, Emma Haynes2, Paul Royce2 and Sandra C.
Thompson2
Abstract
Introduction: The use of social media and digital technologies
has grown rapidly in Australia and around the
world, including among Indigenous young people who face
social disadvantage. Given the potential to use social

media for communication, providing information and as part of
creating and responding to social change, this
paper explores published literature to understand how
Indigenous Australian youth use digital technologies and
social media, and its positive and negative impacts.
Methods: Online literature searches were conducted in three
databases: PubMed, Google Scholar and Informit in
August 2014; with further searches of additional relevant
databases (Engineering Village; Communication & mass
media complete; Computers & applied sciences complete; Web
of Science) undertaken in May 2015. In addition,
relevant literature was gathered using citation snowballing so
that additional peer-reviewed and grey literature was
included. Articles were deemed relevant if they discussed social
media and/or digital technologies and Indigenous
Australians. After reading and reviewing all relevant articles, a
thematic analysis was used to identify overall themes
and identify specific examples.
Results: A total of 22 papers were included in the review.
Several major themes were identified about how and
why Indigenous young people use social media: identity, power
and control, cultural compatibility and community
and family connections. Examples of marketing for health and
health promotion approaches that utilize social
media and digital technologies were identified. Negative uses of
social media such as cyber bullying, cyber racism
and the exchange of sexually explicit content between minors
are common with limited approaches to dealing
with this at the community level.
Discussion: Strong cultural identity and community and family
connections, which can be enhanced through
social media, are linked to improved educational and health
outcomes. The confidence that Indigenous young

people demonstrate when approaching the use of social media
invites its further use, including in arenas where
this group may not usually participate, such as in research.
Conclusions: Future research could examine ways to minimise
the misuse of social media while maximising its
positive potential in the lives of Indigenous young people.
Future research should also focus on the positive
application of social media and showing evidence in health
promotion interventions in order to reduce health
inequities between Indigenous and non-Indigenous young
people.
Keywords: Social media, Digital technology, Indigenous,
Aboriginal, Youth, Young people, Australia
* Correspondence: [email protected]
1Georgetown University, 3700, O St NW, Washington, DC
20057, USA
2Western Australian Centre for Rural Health (WACRH),
University of Western
Australia, 167 Fitzgerald St, Geraldton, WA 6530, Australia
© 2016 Rice et al. Open Access This article is distributed under
the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0
International License
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits
unrestricted use, distribution, and
reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate
credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to
the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were
made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver
(http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to
the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
Rice et al. International Journal for Equity in Health (2016)

15:81
DOI 10.1186/s12939-016-0366-0
http://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.1186/s12939-016-
0366-0&domain=pdf
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Introduction
The world is changing rapidly as a result of new digital
technologies which have revolutionised opportunities for
and the nature of networking and communication. It is
essential to understand how different populations use
digital technologies and social media in order to explore
their potential to improve social and health outcomes.
Social media refers to social interaction among people
in which they create and share information and ideas in
virtual communities and networks. Utilising digital
media and web-based platforms enables “users to ac-
tively share information, generate content, collaborate
and interact with each other…[and] can be accessed
from computer and mobile technologies” [1]. An import-
ant component of social media is the role of the audi-
ence as a user who engages actively with the content
rather than simply viewing it [2]. The term social media
covers a range of different platforms with overlaps be-
tween the different types which include: Social Network-
ing such as Facebook and Linked In (which enable
connections with other people of similar interests and
backgrounds and allow creation of a profile, various
ways to interact with other users and ability to setup
groups); Media Sharing (such as YouTube and Flickr
that enable uploading and sharing of media such as pic-

tures and video); Microblogging (such as Twitter which
provides short updates pushed out to anyone subscribed
to receive the updates); and Blogs (which are online for-
ums where members hold conversations by posting mes-
sages, with discussion around the topic of the blog post).
This paper includes a discussion of social media and
digital technologies that are used to access social media
and uses the terminology “social media” when discussing
the topic broadly.
Digital technologies, such as mobile smartphones and
laptop computers, allow users to access social media eas-
ily and frequently and have substantially increased the
uptake of social media. Social media is a relatively recent
phenomenon as ownership and access to computers,
smart phones, tablets and the Internet has rapidly in-
creased in Australia. Facebook reported 13.6 million
Australian users in September 2014 compared to only
12 million in September 2013 [3, 4]. Adolescents and
young adults are more likely to use social media than
older sectors of the population [2], with social media
usage increasing from the younger to the older teenage
years [5] and Facebook usage among the Aboriginal and
Torres Strait Islander (hereafter termed Indigenous)
population higher than in the Australian population
overall (Table 1) [6] and personal communication Matt
Balogh). These statistics demonstrate a changing world
in which communication and engagement with the
world via social media channels has become common,
particularly in young people and including in Indigenous
Australians. Youth or young people refers to people in
that period between childhood and maturity, often called
youth and is considered to be those between puberty
and 25 years; however, it is often used as a term without
being explicitly defined. The Indigenous population dis-

tribution is much younger than the Australian popula-
tion generally, with a median age of 20 years compared
with 35 years, and Indigenous Australians are more
likely than other Australians to live in small, remote
communities, with relatively few services, facilities, and
opportunities [7]. Those people that live more remotely
were generally colonised later and show less accultur-
ation to western ways and greater adherence to cultural
traditions and speaking native languages other than
English.
Many Indigenous young people in Australia face social
disadvantage, particularly in the areas of education, child
safety and criminal justice system involvement. It is
common for Indigenous young people to drop out of
school, with only 25 % of Indigenous people aged
15 years and over reporting their highest educational
level achieved as Year 12 or equivalent compared to
52 % of the non-Indigenous population [8]. Disparities
are evident from the first year of schooling and remain
apparent throughout the schooling years. Contributing
to the less developed literacy and numeracy skills of In-
digenous students is their lower attendance at school so
working collaboratively with Indigenous communities to
develop practical and relevant strategies is necessary to
improve the educational status of Indigenous people [9].
Indigenous young people are more likely to experience
abuse, with the rate of assault among Indigenous chil-
dren around 5 times higher than among non-Indigenous
children [10] and rates of juvenile incarceration are 31
times that of non-Indigenous youth [11]. This combin-
ation of educational disengagement, child safety issues
and criminal justice system involvement are part of the
complex web of social disadvantages that many Indigen-
ous young people face and important social determi-
nants of health inequities, “the unfair and avoidable

differences in health status seen within and between
countries” [12]. Addressing social disadvantage is there-
fore essential to reduce health inequities in the Austra-
lian Indigenous population.
Many Indigenous Australians have utilised the Internet
from its early days [13, 14], despite the economic, social,
cultural and geographic factors that can affect their ac-
cess. With increasing access and use of social media, un-
derstanding its use and impacts among Indigenous
young people could contribute to both interventions and
to monitoring and evaluation of programs. Media and
social marketing have long been part of health promo-
tion related interventions and there is evidence that such
interventions can work with a range of target groups, in
15:81 Page 2 of 16
different settings, and can work upstream as well as with
individuals [15]. In the same way, social media is now
commonly proposed as part of interventions. However,
it is essential to understand how a target group uses and
responds to a technology in order to use if effectively,
and to ensure that any proposed use is appropriate and
does not lead to adverse effects. This paper explores
published literature on the ways in which social media is
used by and for young Indigenous Australians, acknow-
ledging their diversity, and with a view to positive and
negative impacts and how this potentially impacts health
and health promotion approaches.
Methods
Initially, online literature searches were conducted in the

following three databases: PubMed, Google Scholar and
Informit. Informit provides access to specialist content
through over 80 databases with subject-based databases
featuring coverage of Australian and international infor-
mation resources covering a wide range of subjects, in-
cluding health, engineering, business, education, law,
humanities and social sciences. During August 2014,
searches of these three databases were progressively
undertaken using the following search terms: (indigen-
ous [mesh] OR oceanic Ancestry Group [mesh] OR
aborigin* OR indigeno* OR indigene*) AND (social
media [mesh] OR Facebook OR social networking OR
virtual communications OR online networks OR cyber-
bull* OR DivaChat OR Twitter OR YouTube) (Fig. 1).
The initial search was screened for relevance by reading
the titles and abstracts with the full article then obtained
for further full-text assessment. A number of papers that
referred to use of internet and social media only related
to Indigenous student learning in higher education were
excluded. Citation snowballing was used to identify add-
itional relevant sources. Grey literature, which refers to
academic literature that is not formally published such
as monographs and technical reports from government
agencies or scientific research groups, working papers
from research groups or committees, was also included.
Articles were deemed relevant if they discussed social
media and/or digital technologies and the Australian In-
digenous population. Only articles that referred to
humans and Indigenous populations from Australia were
included.
The PubMed search for articles published in the last
10 years produced 2 relevant articles with a further four
sources identified through citation snowballing. The
Google Scholar search for articles since 2010 produced

4,620 results sorted by relevance, of which three relevant
articles were identified in the first 50 of the 100 results
reviewed, with two additional sources identified through
citation snowballing. The Informit search produced 940
results sorted by relevance, of which four articles were
included from the first 50 results identified and two add-
itional sources included as a result of citation snowbal-
ling. In May 2015 a further search of additional
databases (Engineering Village (journal articles only);
Communication & mass media complete; Computers &
applied sciences complete; Web of Science) resulted in
identification of 201 potential references which after
screening and elimination of already included duplicates
resulted in an additional 6 articles, two published since
the previous 2014 search. Several articles were elimi-
nated based upon their content being restricted to on-
line learning of Indigenous tertiary students.
After reading and complete review of all of the rele-
vant articles, the issues explored by the papers were re-
fined and grouped, forming an emergent thematic
framework which was used to identify the overall
themes; specific examples were identified. The papers/
sources were reviewed by at least two reviewers to en-
sure agreement upon the main themes identified in this
paper.
Findings
The familiarity that many Indigenous young people have
over modern technology is reported as giving them a
sense of fearlessness and control when approaching the
use of new platforms [1, 16–18]. Uptake and access to
mobile devices and the Internet has led to widespread
use of social media among many Indigenous youth,
Table 1 Social media use in Australia

Population group Year Type of usage % of population that are
users Source of Data
12–13 year old Australians 2013 Use of a social networking site
in the last four weeks
67 % ACMA Research Report [43]
85 % ACMA Research Report
92 % ACMA Research Report
All Australians 2014 Facebook 42 % McNair Ingenuity
Research Institute
reported in [6]
Aboriginal and Torres Strait
Islander Australians
2014 Facebook 60 % McNair Ingenuity Research Institute
15:81 Page 3 of 16
providing an opportunity for them to participate and
communicate in new ways. The availability of satellite
rather than the previous and rudimentary dial-up con-

nections has allowed Internet and mobile phone services
to reach even remote areas in Australia. Although the
living situations and other factors of Indigenous youth
differ widely across Australia, even those who lack food
and clothing may still have their own Smartphone [19].
The widespread use of and familiarity with social
media even among socially disadvantaged Indigenous
young people and the priority young people place on
a Smartphone highlights its importance, although
there is little information on how usage differs by age
and geographic location [19].
The 22 publications identified came from both aca-
demic (n = 14) and grey (n = 8) literature, as non-peer
reviewed material was drawn upon in the academic re-
search on social media usage among young Indigenous
Australians. Several themes were identified within the
literature: identity; power and control; cultural compati-
bility; and community and family connections. Although
these have been identified as separate themes, it is import-
ant to note that many of them overlap and are interre-
lated. A summary for each article is provided in Table 2
with information according to the type of source: aca-
demic literature (journals, reports, academic articles) or
grey literature (website documents). Within these two cat-
egories, the sources are listed in the chronological order.
In general, academic sources discussed social media in
terms of the identified themes and/or policy discussions,
while the grey literature was more likely to refer to specific
programs using social media.
Identity
The use of content-sharing platforms and user-
generated content online, such as on Facebook and You-
Tube, provides opportunities for Indigenous young

people to ‘perform’ their Indigenous identities online [1,
13, 16, 17, 20, 21]. Sharing stories or videos online or be-
ing part of Indigenous Facebook groups provide ways for
Indigenous young people to connect with, affirm and
give voice to their Indigenous identities. Social media
Fig. 1 Search methods and processes used in the literature
review
15:81 Page 4 of 16
Table 2 Literature review article summary: peer-reviewed and
grey literature
Peer-reviewed Literature (including articles identified through
database searching and citation snowballing)
Author/Year Study Population/Topic Details Type of Media
Methods/Limitations Positive Impacts of Social Media Negative
Impacts of Social Media
Kral I (2010) [16] Indigenous youth participating in
non-formal community-based
media projects in remote
communities
Radio, television Ethnographic case study data -availability of
satellite rather than
dial-up connections has allowed the
Internet and mobile phones to reach
remote areas
-access to internet and media
available at communal spaces such

as youth programs or media centres
-communication via social
networking or SMS text messaging
using text and symbols in inventive
ways that reflect local culture and
dialects of speech
-sense of familiarity and control over
modern technology
-increased sense of belongingness to
globalized youth culture
Not discussed
Lumby B (2010) [17] 26 current Indigenous university
students or graduates who
maintain Facebook profiles
Facebook Methods:
Interviews
-allows Indigenous people to identify
and share their Indigenous identity
online
-“Facebook acts as a modern site for
kinship and connectivity”
-pressure to prove indigeneity
and point out those who are
‘faking’ it due to the surveillance
aspect of Facebook
-“Facebook…acts as a restraining
force that regulates who can
and who cannot ‘be’ Indigenous”
Limitations:
-limited due to small sample

size
-does not report the study in
full
Kral I (2011) [18] Indigenous youth uptake of new
media technologies and
implications for cultural practice
“new media technologies” Ethnographic case study data - youth
increasingly in control of
production and distribution of media
content
- youth increasingly comfortable to
have their images/names in public
space (less “shamed”)
- new kinds of agency in learning
enabled
- increased social mobility due to
changed agency/disposition and
opportunities available through the
internet
-increased capacity to collaborate
with researchers, increased reflexivity
as a result
Not discussed
Petray T (2011) [23] Focus on the use of social media
as tool for protest and activism
amongst Aboriginal people in
Townsville
Listserv, Facebook, Does not stray too far from
the key theme that social
media is an effective tool for
activism… focus is on the

general use of social media by
older Aboriginal people
Digital democracy - de-centres the
role of the expert and places
emphasis on the conversation –
people can exercise their right to
communicate, and in their own
language, to an outside audience.
Not discussed
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grey literature (Continued)
Online networks enable people to

create and present their identity to
others.
Share information across a wide
audience to motivate others to
participate in action
Healy JDL (2013) [13] Young Aboriginal men from
Arnhem Land and wide
discussion of Aboriginal media in
general
YouTube, video, radio,
television, Internet, Facebook,
Diva Chat
Anthropological -early involvement of Indigenous
people in the Internet, partially due
to multimedia visual and oral nature
-ability to use Internet without
control from non-Indigenous people
-content-sharing platforms online
provide opportunities for Indigenous
people to transmit intergenerational
knowledge and explore and express
their modern selves
Not discussed
Time Period: Video clip filmed in
September 2007
Sweet M, et al.
(2013) [24]
@IndigenousX Twitter account Twitter Case study -provides an

opportunity for
Indigenous people to participate in
the public forum, share stories, and
challenge stereotypes
Not discussed
Sweet MA (2013) [28] Not discussed Not discussed Social
media based health
promotion campaigns
-cited examples of successful
programs that use social media,
including the No Smokes Campaign,
@IndigenousX Twitter account, the
Rewrite Your Story initiative, HITnet,
Young and Well Cooperative
Research Centre virtual mental
health resources
Not discussed
Rae K, et al. (2013) [32] Participants in the ArtsHealth
program focused on pregnant
mothers
Facebook Complex recruitment methods
with heavy involvement from
local community
-participants were more responsive
in communications via a Facebook
inbox compared to a phone call or
text message
-integrating social media into the
research approach was very

successful for the “rural” setting
-Internet access becomes
increasingly difficult as remoteness
increases
Time period: Implemented in
2009
Herborn D (2013) [34] Cyber racism and policy Twitter,
Facebook, newspaper
article user comments
Policy discussion Not discussed -cyber racism as a negative
impact of social media
-policy is difficult to enforce →
the Australian government has
done little to try and take down
user-generated content that is
in violation of the Racial
Discrimination Act
Petray, T (2013) [25] Social media and activism by
Aboriginal people in Australia
Twitter Social activism using social
media
-Social media is inexpensive,
immediate and broad reaching
Not discussed
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-Promotes individual and collective
identities - collective identity
promotes collective agency
-Social media can counter
essentialised understandings of
Aboriginal people initiate collective
action against a perceived inequality
-Social media contests stereotypical
identifications, creates identity and is
self-forming enabling anyone to
write to a broad audience
Brusse K et al.
(2014) [26]
Review article examining peer-

reviewed evidence of benefit for
social media and mobile
technologies used in health
promotion, intervention, self-
management, and health service
delivery
Social media, smart phones
and text messaging
Systematic review of peer-
reviewed literature, focused on
health promotion
Noted the unique capacity of social
media to reach Indigenous Australians
as well as other underserved
populations because of their wide
and instant disseminability
Evidence of social media
strategies being effective in
health promotion for Indigenous
populations is limited.
Kral I (2013) [44] Indigenous youth uptake of new
media technologies and changes
in social interaction and
communication
“new media technologies” Ethnographic case study data -
technologically assisted
communication becoming
normalized, even when literacy is
low
- changes in social interaction,

communication and ways of being –
increasingly comfortable in a more
‘public’ online world
- youth create as well as consume –
appropriating technology for own
sociocultural purposes
Technology has disturbed
traditional communication –
increasingly only peer-to-peer,
less intergenerational
communication
Radoll P (2014) [14] Not discussed All ICTs Not discussed -use
of Smartphones and mobile
devices even in communities where
there is no mobile phone service →
people use it as a multi-media
device and then connect to the
internet when it’s available
-potential for sex-texting and
cyber bullying, which is hard to
monitor → best way to address
these issues is through educational
programs such as Be Deadly Online
Vaarzon-Morel P
(2014) [20]
Lander Warlpiri settlement from
Willowra
Radio-television, video,
television, radio, mobile
phones, other portable digital

devices, Diva Chat
Anthropological -use of mobile phones to “intensify
family intimacy” and stay connected
to kin who may live far away
-continuities between technology
and Warlpiri culture, such as mobile
phones being viewed as extensions
of person and often shared by family
members
- difficult for elders to regulate
relationships along skin groups
as per traditional way
-increased connectivity means
that conflicts that previously
remained local have the ability
to spread through inform kin in
other places about conflicts
-use of Diva Chat for illegal sex-
texting among teenagers, cyber
bullying, and posts that are
meant to incite violence between
feuding families
Time Period: 1970s-present
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Grey Literature
Author/Year Study Population/Topic Details Type of Media
Methods/Limitations Positive Impacts of Social Media Negative
Impacts of Social Media
Edmonds F, et al.
(2012) [1]
Young Aboriginal people in
Victoria
Mobile phones, technology,
and social media
-Lit review
-formed an Aboriginal
reference group
-small group discussion
-thematic analysis of
transcripts

-Mobile technologies allow
opportunities for alternative forms of
learning and literacy, such as digital
storytelling
-mobile phones and social media
used to stay connected to people
-discussion of identity and media
literacy
-e-learning in schools needs to
be culturally sensitive to
Indigenous students who may
not have computers or internet
at home and therefore may be
less familiar with technology
than other students
Time period: March 2012
Age: 12–24 years
Gender: 8 males, 3 females
Limitations:
-Very small sample size
No Smokes (2012)
[27]
No Smokes Campaign Interactive website linked with
social media platforms such as
Facebook and YouTube
Health promotion campaign -developed using input from
Indigenous young people → youth
more drawn to multimedia, video,
social networking, animation, music

and mobile phones than traditional
anti-smoking marketing campaigns
→ more widely accessible media
forms because they help minimize
language and literacy barriers
Not discussed
Target population: Indigenous
young people
Joint Select
Committee on
Cyber-Safety
(2013) [19]
Cyber safety for Indigenous
Australians
Internet, mobile phones,
Facebook
Report Not discussed -factors such as socioeconomic
status, family structure, education
level, and employment status can
serve as barriers to ICT use
-generational gap in knowledge
and use of mobile technology
and social media between
Indigenous youth and their
parents and elders so cyber
bullying can go on unaddressed
→ need for educational
programs
Hitnet (2014) [29] Interactive kiosks in remote areas

to address issues such as smoking,
STIs, teenage pregnancy,
depression, and suicide
-kiosks that use audio-visual
touch interfaces
- kiosks include connections to
Facebook, Twitter, and
YouTube that can update local
community content and
applications that can be
down-loaded to personal
mobile devices
Health promotion -utilizes multimedia nature of
technology and social media
-ability to connect with remote areas
-ability to distribute and download
content and incorporate local
content uploaded by users
Not discussed
Rewrite Your Story
(2014) [30]
Anti-smoking initiative focusing
on 16 local community
ambassadors who share their
stories via video about how and
why they quit smoking
Online videos, Facebook,
Twitter
Health promotion campaign -utilizes the idea of rewriting your

story by communicating and sharing
via other social media channels such
as Twitter and Facebook
Not discussed
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Cairnduff S (2011) [31] It’s Your Choice! Have A Voice!
campaign
Facebook Health promotion campaign -active engagement,
information
sharing and activity on Facebook
page to improve choices about

sexual and reproductive health
Not discussed
Cherbourg Mojo
Project (2013) [33]
Indigenous Youth job seekers
with low levels of literacy and
numeracy
iPhones (digital storytelling) 10-week mobile journalism
training pilot program
-incorporating media into education
through mobile journalism and
digital storytelling
-youth participants gained job skills
and improved their reading, writing,
and math abilities
Not discussed
Time Period: May-July 22013
Age: 15–24 years
Kral (2013) [44] Indigenous youth uptake of new
media technologies and
implications for cultural practice
“new media technologies” Ethnographic case study data -
History of use of technology
- Extended social connections
- Increased reflexivity
- Learning beyond school

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gives Indigenous young people the opportunity to
present their Indigenous identity to others, which helps
them further define and affirm that identity [13, 16, 17].
Facebook in particular can serve as a way to confirm
and enact Indigenous identity through use of particular
language, iconography or images, membership in certain
groups or organizations and by being Facebook ‘friends’
with other Indigenous people [17]. On the other hand, it
has resulted in a pressure to ‘prove’ one’s indigeneity, es-
pecially for individuals who do not ‘look’ Indigenous,
which Lumby argues is an example of how Facebook can
act “as a restraining force that regulates who can and
who cannot ‘be’ Indigenous, and indeed what it means
to be Indigenous” [17]. Ginsberg highlights the way in
which control may be asserted in film-making to ensure

that real rather than fictional stories are told so that film
tells real stories using real voices [22]. Kral, reporting on
long term ethnographic research, identifies a transform-
ation in Indigenous youth who are less ‘shamed’ then
previous generations and more comfortable with having
their names or images in the public sphere [18].
Power and control
Social media provides opportunities for Indigenous
young people to feel a sense of power and control over
their own identities and communities [18] . They can do
this even in some communities where there is no mobile
phone service through using Smartphones and mobile de-
vices as multi-media devices and then connecting to the
Internet when in areas where it is available [14]. Mobile
phones with cameras and web browsers have expanded
opportunities for Indigenous people to create media re-
cordings and to share information via social networking
sites such as Facebook or AirG Diva Chat [13, 20].
One reason why many Indigenous young people have
embraced social media is its self-directed nature where
users can produce their own unregulated content. Indi-
genous young people can participate and use social
media without any control or input from adults or from
the non-Indigenous community that controls the larger,
more conventional media forms [13, 14, 17]. This self-
directed nature also means that Indigenous young
people can seek out information for themselves, enabling
new forms of agency [18, 21] . Some health programs
aim to harness this self-driven ability to access resources,
as is discussed in the section on social marketing and
health promotion. Indigenous activists have extended
their efforts beyond listserves and blogs to utilise social
networking sites to make their struggle known to a wide
audience as part of their social movement [23].

Earlier media forms such as production equipment
often required special resources, permission and over-
sight for young people to use. However, with the advent
of affordable digital technologies such as mobile phones
and laptops, the power of media is now in the hands of
people themselves. The control that this gives Indigen-
ous young people over social media provides the oppor-
tunity for them to represent themselves rather than
having “the other” record and represent them [1, 13, 16,
17, 22]. The nature of media itself allows people with
low literacy to grasp an intuitive understanding of the
technology because many digital processes can be re-
membered spatially and incorporate a creative icon-
based approach which layers images, sounds, texts and
symbols. This is especially important in Indigenous pop-
ulations where young people may be below the national
standards for literacy [13, 16].
Cultural compatibility of multimedia
The involvement of many Indigenous young people in
social media is partially due to the multimedia nature of
the medium which lends itself to the orally and visually
focused cultures of Indigenous communities rather than
Western-based literacy and numerics [13, 16]. Social
media also has the potential to support Indigenous pri-
orities of community and communication, with some In-
digenous leaders identifying the mesh of interactions
present in social networks as similar to ancient imagery
and ancient communication channels [20, 24]. The shar-
ing of information online related to Indigenous identity
and culture also provides opportunities for transmitting
intergenerational knowledge within and between Indi-
genous communities, an important aspect of Indigenous
culture. For example, a film that features Elders discuss-

ing Indigenous stories, traditions, etc. can be shown to
younger Indigenous people and potentially to future
generations; this is a modern, social media-based
form of oral tradition. Social media is seen to “allow
for the continuation, expansion, and transformation of
various ‘traditions’, from traditional language to trad-
itional activism” [25].
Indigenous young people have also been reported
communicating via social networking or SMS text mes-
saging using text and symbols in inventive ways that re-
flect their local culture and dialects of speech [1, 16].
For example, short cut messaging lends itself well to
‘Roper River Kriol,’ an English-based creole found in the
Katherine region [16]. Similarly, as noted by Petray, Indi-
genous activists can embrace the ambiguity offered by
social media to challenge mainstream imagery and self-
write alternative understandings about what it means to
be Indigenous [25].
Community and family connections
Social media can help form communities that people
may not otherwise have the opportunity to connect with.
Alternatively, community can be exemplified and
strengthened through social media for groups that are
15:81 Page 10 of 16
already connected. This two-way relationship between
social media and community is especially evident among
Indigenous young people. Groups on social media can
be collections of individuals to form a community, such
as a Facebook Group, or group accounts that portray an

Indigenous identity [1, 17].
One example of a group approach that aims to provide
a media space for Indigenous people to share their stor-
ies is the @IndigenousX Twitter account, which is a ro-
tating account with a different Indigenous person
tweeting every week. Sharing through public social
media forums such as the @IndigenousX Twitter ac-
count can provide opportunities for Indigenous people
to participate in the public forum. The account was
nominated for a Shorty Award, which recognizes
achievement in social media. The main reasons identi-
fied for the nomination were “that the account shares
Indigenous knowledge and stories, challenges stereo-
types and reflects the diversity of Indigenous peoples”
[24]. This suggests that while the individual users of the
@IndigenousX Twitter account may not know each
other in real life, they form an online community
through their group participation on social media.
Social media also helps connect distant family and
friends, even those who have never met in person or
who lost touch at some point in the past. Given the mo-
bility of Indigenous people, Facebook in particular serves
as a platform for Indigenous young people who have
moved to reconnect with their Indigenous identities
through groups and pages where people can share their
ideas, thoughts, events, music and photos and through
connecting with friends and family. According to
Lumby, “Facebook acts as a modern site for kinship con-
nectivity and continuity” and as noted by many re-
searchers, digital technologies may act to strengthen
kinship connectivity [13, 17, 20]. Many Indigenous
young people use Facebook to keep up with family and
friends. This sense of support, connection, and commu-
nity may help “reinforce young people’s mental health

and wellbeing” [17].
Real life communities can work together and strengthen
their bonds through social media. Social networking sites
are being increasingly used among Indigenous young
people for communication and for uploading content, ra-
ther than more traditional text-based interactions such as
emails [13, 14, 16]. In remote areas, this production of
user-generated content among Indigenous young people
is largely due to the strong presence of youth-oriented
programs in non-school hours that provide spaces and op-
portunities to use media (termed communal ‘digital bed-
rooms’) and to the widespread availability of mobile
phones [16]. Access to computers and the Internet may
not be available in homes in remote communities, but
they may be available at communal spaces such as
programs for young people or media centres [16]. How-
ever, some Indigenous families do not have computers or
Internet access in the home so mobile phones are the pre-
ferred online platform for most Indigenous people to ac-
cess the Internet and use social media [19].
Although the significance and cultural adaptability of
social media and digital technologies varies between dif-
ferent communities, an anthropological study of the
Warlpiri population illustrated how mobile phones to
access social media can be seen in culturally significant
ways. Warlpiri tend to use mobile phones to “intensify
family intimacy” and stay connected to kin who may live
far away [20]. Mobile phones are viewed as extensions of
person and may be shared by family members. Cultural
gender norms are also reflected in mobile phone prac-
tices; when people of the same age share a mobile
phone, they tend to be of the same gender. This demon-
strates how the Warlpiri population has incorporated

mobile phones into their lives in ways that fit their com-
munity’s cultural practices [20].
Use of social media for social marketing and health
promotion programs
There were several reports describing use of social
media for the marketing of health and the reader is re-
ferred to a recent review of peer-reviewed literature
which specifically looked at the evidence for social media
and mobile technologies used in health promotion,
intervention, self-management and health service deliv-
ery with regard to smoking cessation, sexual health, and
otitis media [26]. The No Smokes campaign utilizes
multimedia and involves an interactive anti-smoking
website targeting Indigenous young people. It was de-
veloped using input from Indigenous young people
about what attracts them to a message and to ensure
that the information was delivered in culturally access-
ible ways [27]. This research shaped the media focused
nature of No Smokes because Indigenous young people
expressed that they are more drawn to multimedia,
video, social networking, animation, music and mobile
phones than traditional anti-smoking marketing cam-
paigns. These multimedia forms are more widely ac-
cessible because they minimize language and literacy
barriers [13, 14, 27].
Hitnet kiosks are another example of health promo-
tion efforts that take advantage of the multimedia nature
of digital technology and social media to engage the
young Indigenous population. The Heuristic Interactive
Technology network (Hitnet) developed kiosks that use
audio-visual touch interfaces to address issues such as
smoking, sexually transmitted infections (STI), teenage
pregnancy, depression and suicide through culturally
based digital storytelling [28, 29]. Hitnet has placed these

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