Glossary

Account: User account, e.g. with a social network. Access is via login with user name and password.

Algorithm: Complex accounting operations, which for instance are used on social networks to control which contents are preferably shown to the users and which are not.

App: (Abbreviation for „Application Software“), Application software or computer program which can perform different functions.

Blog: Online journal in chronological order of entries. The design of blogs is comparable with a homepage. In addition to blogs with personal content or on specific topics, companies also use blogs to communicate with customers and interested parties.

Community: Community of people who meet on the Internet to exchange information.

Corporate Identity: in short CI, refers to the totality of characteristics that individually identify a company and set it apart from other companies.

Fake News: Incorrect information that is purposefully spread, mainly via social networks, as apparently real news.

Fan/Follower: Users who subscribe to the pages of companies or well-known personalities (fan pages). Contributions on these pages are shown to the fans in form of news freed. To become a fan or follower requires clicking on “follow” or subscribe”.

Forum: Internet platform that allows the dialogue and discussion between internet users. For this purpose, topics can be introduced that all forum users can comment on.

Hashtag: Hashtags are a simple way to mark the topic of a contribution on social networks and make it easily searchable for users with similar interests. For this purpose, the “#” symbol is placed in front of the keyword. On most platforms, all public messages on this topic are shown by clicking on the hashtag.

Comment: Answer of an internet user to a contribution published on the internet, like for instance in a blog or forum. The comment function allows the interaction between author and reader.

Like: Indication for liking something on a social network. Users express their liking of a contribution by selecting “like”.

News feed: A news stream in a social network that shows current messages.

Privacy: In most social networks, the user can specify his own privacy settings, e.g. what data should be accessible to whom.

Post: User entries in a social network or blog, often also referred to as “posting”.

SEO: Search Engine Optimization. Measures to improve website visibility in search engine ranking.

Shitstorm: Massive negative criticism of a person or company on social media. In most cases, an abundance of public outrage leads to a mixture of objective criticism with unobjective and offensive contributions, thus preventing a meaningful discussion.

Share: A social network function to distribute a random contribution (text, picture, video, link) to other users. Thus, interesting contents can be shared with own contacts and spread by means of the “share” function.

Troll: Typically a person acting anonymously, limiting communication on social networks to contributions aimed to provoke other participants, thus not contributing to the discussion in a relevant and constructive way.

User: Usually means a real person, i.e. the user of a terminal, an internet user or a member of a community.

User Generated Content: Online media content that is created by the users themselves, not by a website provider or by companies. User generated content signifies a reversal of the single-line sender-receiver communication to a fair exchange with the users.

Web 2.0: Keyword for the changed internet usage, in which the internet user no longer simply consumes information (Web 1.0) but also generates and shares contents.