Explain how informational and normative social influences work to create mass contagion through social media.

Books and Resources for this WeekBartholomew, R., Wessely, S., & Rubin, G. (2012). Mass psychogenic illness and the social network: Is it changing the pattern of outbreaks? …Johnson, D. M. (1945). The phantom anesthetist of Mattoon: A field study of mass hysteria. The Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 40(2). …Simon, T., Goldberg, A., & Adini, B. (2015). Socializing in emergencies: A review of the use of social media in emergency situations. …Sung, M., & Hwang, J. (2014). Who drives a crisis? The diffusion of an issue through social networks. Computers in Human Behavior, 36, 246-257.Towers, S., Afzal, S., Bernal, G., Bliss, N., Brown, S., Espinoza, B., & Castillo-Chavez, C. (2015). Mass Media and the contagion of fear: The …Towers, S., Gomez-Lievano, A., Khan, M., Mubayi, A., & Castillo-Chavez, C. (2015). Contagion in mass killings and school shootings. PLoS ONE, …Week 5 – Assignment: Prepare a Blog PostDue May 24 at 11:59 PMFor this task, prepare content suitable for a blog post that is read by a broad public audience in which you explain the concept of mass contagion and how social media can influence this phenomenon. Specifically, address the following in your blog post content•Use your own words to define mass contagion, and then support your definition with scholarly research.•Illustrate your points by using at least two examples from the past 5 years where at least two different types of social media (e.g., Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, news, etc.) have gone ‘viral’ and led to mass contagion.•Explain how informational and normative social influences work to create mass contagion through social media.•Identify at least three ways individuals can avoid being susceptible to mass contagion when using social media.Length: 3-5 pagesYour assignment should demonstrate thoughtful consideration of the ideas and concepts presented in the course by providing new thoughts and insights relating directly to this topic. Your response should reflect scholarly writing and use current APA standards for citations and references.PLoS One. 2015; 10(7): e0117259.Published online 2015 Jul 2. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0117259PMCID: PMC4489652PMID: 26135941Contagion in Mass Killings and School ShootingsSherry Towers, 1 ,* Andres Gomez-Lievano, 1 Maryam Khan, 2 Anuj Mubayi, 1 , 2 and Carlos Castillo-Chavez 1Joshua Yukich, Academic EditorAuthor information Article notes Copyright and License information DisclaimerThis article has been cited by other articles in PMC.Associated DataSupplementary MaterialsData Availability StatementGo to:AbstractBackgroundSeveral past studies have found that media reports of suicides and homicides appear to subsequently increase the incidence of similar events in the community, apparently due to the coverage planting the seeds of ideation in at-risk individuals to commit similar acts.MethodsHere we explore whether or not contagion is evident in more high-profile incidents, such as school shootings and mass killings (incidents with four or more people killed). We fit a contagion model to recent data sets related to such incidents in the US, with terms that take into account the fact that a school shooting or mass murder may temporarily increase the probability of a similar event in the immediate future, by assuming an exponential decay in contagiousness after an event.ConclusionsWe find significant evidence that mass killings involving firearms are incented by similar events in the immediate past. On average, this temporary increase in probability lasts 13 days, and each incident incites at least 0.30 new incidents (p = 0.0015). We also find significant evidence of contagion in school shootings, for which an incident is contagious for an average of 13 days, and incites an average of at least 0.22 new incidents (p = 0.0001). All p-values are assessed based on a likelihood ratio test comparing the likelihood of a contagion model to that of a null model with no contagion. On average, mass killings involving firearms occur approximately every two weeks in the US, while school shootings occur on average monthly. We find that state prevalence of firearm ownership is significantly associated with the state incidence of mass killings with firearms, school shootings, and mass shootings.Go to:IntroductionIn recent years, tragedies involving mass killings in the US, such as the Aurora, CO movie theater shooting in July 2012, and the Newtown, CT school shooting in December 2012, have intensified societal focus on trying to understand the dynamics and contributing factors that underlie such events, particularly since the per capita incidence of such events and other firearm related mortality is significantly higher in the US than in any other industrialized country [1–4].Statistics are not readily available on the incidence of mass killings and school shootings in other industrialized countries, however studies have shown that the firearm homicide