Spatial patterns of Facebook social network service: the case of Poland, Ukraine and Belarus
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.12775/bgss-2023-0012Keywords
ocial network service, Facebook, SNS penetration rate, spatial pattern, Poland, Ukraine, BelarusAbstract
Th e phenomenon of social network services (SNSs), investigated by numerous scientifi c disciplines, can hardly be overestimated in today's globalised world. However, there is a lack of studies focused on the spatial aspects of SNS development and operation. Th is article deals with peculiarities of the current distribution and main spatial tendencies of the SNS Facebook’s development in Central and Eastern Europe on the examples of Poland, Ukraine and Belarus. The spatial distribution of Facebook has the following patterns in the studied area: a relationship between the type of development of the country and the level of Facebook penetration (i.e., the “Facebook Divide”); an increase in number of users and penetration rate in developed areas (capital regions, major socio-economic
centres); a progressive increase in the share of users from east to west; a large concentration of users in capitals and regional centres; the fi lter function of the state border
References
Alexa (2019a). The top 500 sites on the web. Available at: https://www.alexa.com/topsites (Accessed: 15 April 2019).
Alexa (2019b). Top Sites in Belarus. Available at: https://www.alexa.com/topsites/countries/BY (Accessed: 10 March 2019).
Alexa (2019c). Top Sites in Poland. Available at: https://www.alexa.com/topsites/countries/PL (Accessed: 10 march 2019).
Alexa (2019d). Top Sites in Ukraine. Available at: https://www.alexa.com/topsites/countries/UA (Accessed: 10 March 2019).
Andris, C. (2016). Integrating social network data into GISystems. International Journal of Geographical Information Science, 30(10): 2009–2031. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/13658816.2016.1153103.
Bailey, M., Cao, R., Kuchler, T., Stroebel, J. & Wong, A. (2018). Social Connectedness: Measurement, Determinants, and Effects. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 32(3): 259-280. DOI: 10.1257/jep.32.3.259.
BBC (2018). Facebook scandal 'hit 87 million users'. BBC, April 4. Available at: https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-43649018 (Accessed: 12 May 2019).
Boyd, D.M. & Ellison, N.B. (2007). Social Network Sites: Definition, History and Scholarship. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 13(1): 210–230. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1083-6101.2007.00393.x.
Castells, M. (2001). The Internet galaxy: reflections on the Internet, business, and society. New York: Oxford University Press.
Digital (2018). Belarus. DataReportal. Available at: https://datareportal.com/reports/digital-2018-belarus?rq=belarus (Accessed: 10 May 2019).
Dobysh, M. (2019). Euromaidan and conflict in Eastern Ukraine in social networking sites: Territorial differences of pro-Russian subscriptions in Ukraine. Hungarian Geographical Bulletin, 68(1): 51-64. DOI: https://doi.org/10.15201/hungeobull.68.1.4.
Elwood, S. & Leszczynski, A. (2013). New spatial media, new knowledge politics. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 38: 544–559. DOI: 10.1111/j.1475-5661.2012.00543.x.
Facebook (2021). Available at: https://www.facebook.com (Accessed: 24 May 2021).
Glückler, J. & Doreian, P. (2016). Editorial: social network analysis and economic geography – positional, evolutionary and multi-level approaches. Journal of Economic Geography, 16(6): 1123–1134. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/jeg/lbw041.
Grove, T. (2017). Russian Social Media Seen as Threat to Ukraine and to Cybersecurity. The Wall Street Journal, May 29. Available at: https://www.wsj.com/articles/russian-social-media-seen-as-threat-to-ukraine-and-to-cybersecurity-1496055606 (Accessed: 13 May 2019).
Kellerman, A. (2016). Geographic interpretations of the Internet. Dordrecht: Springer.
Kitchin, R., Lauriault, T. & Wilson, M. (2017). Understanding spatial media. In R. Kitchin, T. Lauriault, M. Wilson (Eds.). Understanding Spatial Media, 1-22. SAGE. DOI: 10.4135/9781526425850.n1.
Kolosov, V. & Mironenko, N. (2001). Geopolitics and political geography (in Russian). Moscow: Aspekt Press.
Laniado, D., Volkovich, Y., Scellato, S., Mascolo, C. & Kaltenbrunner, A. (2017). The impact of geographic distance on online social interactions. Information Systems Frontiers, 20(6): 1203-1218. DOI: http://doi.org/10.1007/s10796-017-9784-9.
Lengyel, B., Varga, A., Ságvári, B., Jakobi, Á., Kertész, J. & Lengyel, B. (2015). Geographies of an Online Social Network. PLoS ONE, 10(9): e0137248. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0137248.
Main Department of Statistics in Volyn region (2019). The population (estimated) on January 1, 2019 and the average population in 2018. (in Ukrainian). Available at: http://lutsk.ukrstat.gov.ua (Accessed: 1 March 2019).
Main statistical department of Brest regions (2019). Population size by regions and cities. (in Russian). Available at: http://brest.belstat.gov.by/ofitsialnaya-statistika/demograficheskaya-i-sotsialnaya-statistika/naselenie-i-migratsiya/naselenie/godovye-dannye/chislennost-naseleniya-po-gorodam-i-rayonam (Accessed: 1 March 2019).
Markowski, K. & Rogalińska, D. (eds.) (2018). Atlas statystyczny województwa lubelskiego (Statistical Atlas of the Lubelskie Voivodeship). Lublin: Urząd Statystyczny w Lublinie.
McLuhan, M. (1964). Understanding media: the extensions of man. New York: McGraw Hill.
National Statistical Committee of the Republic of Belarus (2019). Population size by regions and Minsk City. Available at: http://www.belstat.gov.by/en/ofitsialnaya-statistika/social-sector/demografiya_2/population-size-by-regions-and-minsk-city (Accessed: 1 March 2019).
Parry, C., Grant, J. & Barker J. (Eds.). (2009). Encyclopaedic Dictionary of International Law. Oxford University Press.
Perroux, F. (1967). Note sur la ville consideree comme pole de developpement et comme foyer du progress. Revue Tiers-Monde, 8(32): 1147-1158.
Pick, J.B., Sarkar, A. & Johnson, J. (2015). United States digital divide: State level analysis of spatial clustering and multivariate determinants of ICT utilization. Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, 49: 16–32. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.seps.2014.09.001.
Pick, J., Sarkar, A. & Rosales, J. (2019). Social Media Use in American Counties: Geography and Determinants. ISPRS International Journal of Geo-Information, 8(9): 424. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3390/ijgi8090424.
PlusOne (2019). Facebook in Ukraine. Available at: https://plusone.com.ua/fb/Facebook_in_Ukraine_PlusOne.pdf (Accessed: 13 May 2019).
President of Ukraine (2017). Decree of the President of Ukraine No133/2017 "“On the Application of Personal Special Economic and Other Restrictive Measures (Sanctions)"”. Official online representation of the President of Ukraine. (in Ukrainian) Available at: http://www.president.gov.ua/documents/1332017-21850 (Accessed: 17 May 2019).
Puhach, S. (2020). Spatial peculiarities of Facebook and Instagram social networking services distribution in Chernivetska oblast. (In Ukrainian) Odesa National University Herald. Geography and Geology, 25, 2(37): 173-186. DOI: 10.18524/2303-9914.2020.2(37).216569.
Puhach, S. & Maister, A. (2020). Spatial features of the distribution of social network services in Volyn region of Ukraine. Acta Geographica Silesiana, 14/2(38): 21–27. Available at: http://www.ags.wnoz.us.edu.pl/download/wydawnictwa/ags/tom_38_3.pdf (Accessed: 23 September 2020).
Puhach, S. & Mezentsev, K. (2021). The unevenly absorbed and induced intra-regional Facebook adoption in Western Ukraine. Acta Universitatis Carolinae Geographica, 56(2): 157–167. DOI: https://doi.org/10.14712/23361980.2021.10.
Puhach, S. & Mytchyk, Yu. (2018). Spatial analysis of social networking services in the Volyn region (In Ukrainian). Economic and social geography, 79: 14–21. DOI: https://doi.org/10.17721/2413-7154/2018.79.14-21.
Sanders, J. & Patterson, D. (2019). Facebook data privacy scandal: A cheat sheet. TechRepublic, May 14. Available at: https://www.techrepublic.com/article/facebook-data-privacy-scandal-a-cheat-sheet (Accessed: 21 May 2019).
Schmidt, E. & Cohen J. (2013). The new digital age: reshaping the future of people, nations, and business. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.
SimilarWeb (2019). Top sites ranking for all categories in Poland. Available at: https://www.similarweb.com/top-websites/poland (Accessed: 10 March 2019).
StatCounter (2019). Social Media Stats Poland Feb 2018 – Feb 2019. Available at: http://gs.statcounter.com/social-media-stats/all/poland (Accessed: 7 March 2019).
State Statistics Service of Ukraine (2019). The population on January 1, 2019 and the average population in 2018. (In Ukrainian). Available at: http://www.ukrstat.gov.ua (Accessed: 1 March 2019).
Statista (2018). Penetration of leading social networks in Poland as of 3rd and 4th quarter 2017. Available at: https://www.statista.com/statistics/284441/poland-social-network-penetration (Accessed: 7 March 2019).
Statista (2022). Most popular social networks worldwide as of January 2022, ranked by number of monthly active users. Available at: https://www.statista.com/statistics/272014/global-social-networks-ranked-by-number-of-users (Accessed: 25 July 2022).
Statistics Poland (2019). Area and Population in the territorial Profile in 2018. Available at: https://stat.gov.pl/en/topics/population/population/area-and-population-in-the-territorial-profile-in-2018,4,12.html (Accessed: 1 March 2019).
Steckman, L. & Andrews, M. (2017). Online around the world: a geographic encyclopedia of the internet, social media, and mobile apps. California: ABC-CLIO.
Stepanov, V. (2013). Landscape of social networks in Belarus (in Russian). Mediakritika.by. Available at: http://mediakritika.by/article/1327/landshaft-socialnyh-setey-belarusi (Accessed: 10 March 2019).
Sui, D. & Goodchild, M. (2011). The convergence of GIS and social media: challenges for GIScience. International Journal of Geographical Information Science, 25(11): 1737–1748. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/13658816.2011.604636.
Takhteyev, Y., Gruzd, A. & Wellman, B. (2012). Geography of Twitter networks. Social Networks, 34(1): 73–81. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socnet.2011.05.006.
Targeting.by (2017). Social networks in Belarus: statistics on the Belarusian segment of social networks in 2017 (in Russian). Available at: https://targeting.by/sotsialnye-seti-belarusi-statistik (Accessed: 10 March 2019).
Taylor, P. (1989). Political geography. World-economy, nation-state and locality. London: Longman.
Ter Wal, A. & Boschma, R. (2009). Applying social network analysis in economic geography: framing some key analytic issues. The Annals of Regional Science, 43(3): 739–756. DOI: 10.1007/s00168-008-0258-3.
Tranos, E. (2013). The Geography of the Internet. Cities, Regions and Internet Infrastructure in Europe (New Horizons in Regional Science Series). Edward Elgar: Cheltenham.
Wikipedia (2019). Nk.pl (in Polish). Wikipedia. The Free encyclopedia. Available at: https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nk.pl (Accessed: 8 May 2019).
Wong, J. & Morris, S. (2018). It's complicated. Facebook's terrible 2018. The Guardian, December 24. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/ng-interactive/2018/dec/24/facebook-2018-timeline-year-in-review-privacy-scandals (Accessed: 11 May 2019).
Yandex (2014). Review of Social Networking Services and Twitter in Ukraine according to Yandex Blog Search, 2013–2014 (in Ukrainian). Available at: https://cache-man01i.cdn.yandex.net/download.yandex.ru/company/Yandex_on_UkrainianSMM_Summer_2014.pdf (Accessed: 7 March 2021).
Yung, A. (2017). From Digital Divide to Facebook Divide, Reconstruct our Target Market Segments with Facebook Native and Facebook Immigrant. Jaipuria International Journal of Management Research, 3(1): 08–18. DOI: https://doi.org/10.22552/jijmr%2F2017%2Fv3%2Fi1%2F146083.
Zephoria (2019). The Top 20 Valuable Facebook Statistics – Updated April 2019. Zephoria Digital Marketing. Available at: https://zephoria.com/top-15-valuable-facebook-statistics/ (Accessed: 20 April 2019).
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2023 Bulletin of Geography. Socio-economic Series
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Title, logo and layout of journal Bulletin of Geography. Socio-economic Series are reserved trademarks of Bulletin of Geography. Socio-economic Series.Stats
Number of views and downloads: 933
Number of citations: 0