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PurposeThis study aims to understand how three political leaders – the Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu; the Prime Minister of Britain, David Cameron; and the President of the United States of America, Barack Obama – communicate through Twitter.Design/methodology/approachThis paper presents an analysis of tweets produced between August and October 2010 by three political leaders, using statistical descriptive analysis and content analysis.FindingsThe research shows that the US President tweets more than the other leaders, with the British Prime Minister tweeting the least, and that all three leaders use Twitter for both transparency and outreach.Originality/valueAs Twitter has become widespread over the last few years, and several studies have focused on Twitter and its impact on different sectors in our society, it is interesting to focus on political leaders' use of Twitter.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine participation in online social platforms consisting of information exchange, social network interactions, and political deliberation. Despite the proven benefits of online participation, the majority of internet users read social media data but do not directly contribute, a phenomenon called lurking. Design/methodology/approach A survey was administered electronically to 507 participants and consisted of ten sections in a questionnaire to gather data on the relationship between online participation and the following variables: anonymity, social value orientation, motivations, and participation in offline activities, as well as the internet’s political influence and personality traits. Findings Findings show that users with high levels of participation also identify themselves, report higher levels of extroversion, openness, and activity outside the internet, the motivations being an intermediary variable in the relationship between the variables value. Originality/value The study shows that participation in online social platforms is not only related to personality traits, but they are impacted by the nature of the motivations that drive them to participate in the particular social platform, as well as by the interest toward the specific topic, or the type or nature of the social group with whom they are communicating.

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Purpose -The current study aims to present an exploratory analysis of the use of Facebook in American public and academic libraries, with the purpose of understanding patterns of Facebook use in libraries. Design/methodology/approach -This study presents both a statistical descriptive analysis and a content analysis. Findings -The research findings show that both kinds of libraries use the information section and the wall and that there is a difference in the use of other Facebook sections, which was surprisingly limited in both kinds of libraries. In addition, public libraries use the wall and the photos section as major channels of information more than academic libraries. Concentrating on the content of the Facebook wall posts, it appears that there are some differences between the two sections (categories and sub-categories). However, it seems that both kinds of libraries use Facebook simply as a way to deliver information to users, rather than as a venue for discussion. Originality/value -Research findings enable librarians and information scientists to better understand the Facebook phenomenon in different kinds of libraries.