Digital Commons Network^™

Cyberbullying During Covid-19 Pandemic: Relation To Perceived Social Isolation Among College And University Students, Nadya Stefani Neuhaeusler

International Journal of Cybersecurity Intelligence & Cybercrime

One tell-tale sign of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic is the heavy reliance on electronic devices. Young adults in particular have indicated a greater presence on social media and high levels of loneliness during the pandemic. This trend has raised concerns about increased feelings of social isolation and reliance on technology, which could lead to more internet or computer crimes—including cyberbullying. Despite a growing body of literature, little is known about the association between cyberbullying victimization and social isolation among young adults— with even less known about this phenomenon in the context of the ongoing pandemic. Drawing on survey …

Communication Strategy Evaluation Of The Empowerment Program For Women Ex-Migrant Workers In Indonesia, Moh Faidol Juddi

Journal of International Women's Studies

Domestic migrant workers living with their employers is one of the major causes of cases of high inequality globally. To ease this problem, the Indonesian government has attempted to empower women ex-migrant workers by prohibiting them from returning to work in the domestic sector abroad. This empowerment program was implemented through the sustainability training program of the Community of Migrant Worker’s Families (KKBM) from 2017 to 2019. The government hoped that by focusing on entrepreneurship, former migrant laborers would be able to achieve financial independence. Most of them, however, decided to return to their previous jobs or to work overseas …

My Name Is Barbra Public Relations Campaign, Thomas Scalese

Honors Program Theses and Projects

Barbra Joan Streisand was born on April 24, 1942, in Brooklyn, New York. She is an award winning actress, singer, director, and producer. Barbra began her career by performing at nightclubs and different theaters in the early 1960s. She soon signed to Columbia Records in 1963 and produced her debut album, “The Barbra Streisand Album." At that year’s Grammys she won her first of many Grammy awards for Album of the Year. She is extremely well-known for her singing ability and has released multiple albums, including “The Barbra Streisand Album,” “Je m’apelle Barbra,” “Streisand Superman,” and“Love is the Answer." In …

Olivia Rodrigo And The Twenty-First Century Personal Brand, Edina Alix

Honors Program Theses and Projects

Olivia Rodrigo’s overnight rise to mega fame astounded the entertainment industry. When Olivia released her debut single “Drivers License” on January 8, 2021, it skyrocketed to number one on the Billboard Hot 100, as well as reaching number one on twenty-eight other charts (Trust, 2021). As of October 2022, Drivers License has 1.5 billion streams on Spotify, which ranks it among the 100 most streamed songs on the platform (Spotify, 2022). When this occurred, entertainment industry professionals remarked at how different Rodrigo’s rise to global success felt from other artists in the past. Rodrigo’s chart-topping hit song and overall rise …

Letting The Narrative Unfold: Black Female Storytellers Of The 21st Century, Jalila Waller

Honors Program Theses and Projects

The important aspects of film and television are the stories that are portrayed. Everyone has a story to tell. However, who tells the story is equally important as who portrays the story. This thesis analyzes three Black female auteurs and the work they have created with Black women at the center of those narratives. Shonda Rhimes, Ava DuVernay, and Issa Rae are Black female auteurs because they are Black female storytellers each with their own story to tell. They each have created and produced content that portrays Black women in a three-dimensional light.

Assessing Corporate Social Responsibility And Sustainability In The Small Businesses Of Bridgewater, Ma, Ryan Mannett

Honors Program Theses and Projects

This thesis examines the extent to which small, local businesses in Bridgewater, MA generate social value for their community by engaging in socially responsible and sustainable corporate practices. After conducting an examination of local businesses to determine those that utilize such strategies, members of the selected organizations were contacted via email and asked to participate in a survey intended to generate qualitative data relating to corporate sustainability. Factors such as community impacts, internal benefits, motivations, and communication strategies pertaining to sustainability were all evaluated. Results indicate that Bridgewater businesses practicing sustainability not only generate internal value for the organization by …

Higher Education Social Media: Student Perceptions Of University’S Covid-19 Crisis Communication, Bailey Cormier

Honors Program Theses and Projects

This study, as stated, is aimed to explore the perceptions and experiences of full-time undergraduate students of the university’s social media crisis communication. These students, the stakeholders of BSU, have followed Instagram accounts and have both accessed and been the audience of during the COVID-19 pandemic. Since the COVID-19 pandemic is a novel health crisis, the findings of this study have significance and can provide insights into effective crisis communication strategies that organizations and crisis communicators can implement in the current pandemic and future health crises. Experiences with different aspects during the pandemic such as participating in education online during …

Tag Your Friends For A Chance To Read This Paper: Self-Monitoring And Renumeration Posts On Social Media, Andrea Weng

Honors Program Theses and Projects

Brands frequently offer consumers the opportunity to win prizes or be entered into a sweepstakes by asking for likes, shares, tags and even content creation. However, many consumers are not interested in interacting with their social media audience for the sole purpose of remuneration. This study explores the willingness of Gen Z to participate in remuneration posts and the likelihood of liking, sharing, tagging and more. Findings reveal that most Gen Z consumers are willing to like a post in order to be entered to win something, but further engagement is less likely. When using more popular platforms like Instagram, …

Mitigating Covid-19 Infection Rates And Increasing Vaccination Rates For Children Ages 5-11: A Content Analysis Of How Two Hospitals’ Use Of Effective Social Media Engagement Helped To Influence A Healthier Public, Jacqueline Delorey

Honors Program Theses and Projects

The Covid-19 outbreak initiated an international public health crisis, altering our publics dependency on health organizations communication strategies and tactics. Immediate crisis communication and public health efforts were needed to mitigate panic and infectious disease across the globe. The digital marketing strategies utilized for social media began to reflect the value of accurate and timely information spread in correlation to a healthier targeted public for large health organizations. The significance of this thesis in the field of communications directly correlates to the health belief model, which is used to observe the motivation and decision-making processes that influence an individual’s choice …

The Magazine Industry: How The Internet Has Changed It All, Marissa Bradstreet

Honors Program Theses and Projects

The goal of this thesis is to understand the changes the magazine industry has seen through the emergence of digital technology. This project can help us further understand the role of online magazines, and how their reading experience differs from reading the traditional print magazines. This project can help consumers and producers understand what magazine readers are looking for in their magazine experience and what factors make them choose to read magazines from one platform to another. This is important for producers and publishers because it helps decide what content is worth creating based on the wants of consumers.

From Fitspiration Posts To Food Shaming: Social Media’S Impact On Adolescent Girls’ Body Image, Madison Jones

Honors Program Theses and Projects

Social media is marketed as a way to connect and share with others all over the world—a fast way to connect to grandma down in Florida, do research from a university on the other side of the world, or even spark environmental change across the globe. So how, at the same time, can this be a harmful tool, one that has been identified as a cause of depression and even, in some cases, suicide in young girls? Social media sites like Instagram, FaceBook, and TikTok encourage users to post pictures and videos that show your “best self” alongside a rating …

From Bridgerton To Love Is Blind: Romantic Relationship Expectations Based On Consumption Of Original Streaming Television, Elena Bartolomey

Honors Program Theses and Projects

This study examines how relationship expectations differ when a user consumes traditional television in comparison to original streaming TV. The findings of this study are consistent with previous studies that found that those with lower perceptions of trust and commitment in relationships tend to watch more romantic television. In addition, those who watch more original streaming television of all kinds, tend to have a more romanticized view of relationships. In addition to replicating previous studies, this study found that while young people may be reticent to define their relationships, those who do have higher levels of trust and commitment than …

Marvel-Ous Women: Black Widow, Scarlet Witch, And The Representation Of Female Superheroes, Alexis Lee Tavares

Honors Program Theses and Projects

The goal of this project is to determine the manner in which female superheroes Natasha Romanoff and Wanda Maximoff are portrayed by Marvel Studios’ depictions. These portrayals will help us understand if Marvel reinforces or challenges sexism placed upon female superheroes, given that their role as leaders in the industry influences other media. The following questions guided my research process: What does the physical appearance of this superhero say about her character? How does her appearance speak to how she is viewed as a woman? What is in the significance of the relationships this hero has with others? How does …

Art As Politics? How Fox News Manufactures Its Hosts’ Performances To Acquire Cable Prestige, Matthew Mcguirk

The Graduate Review

Fox News is the most popular cable news network in the United States, drawing millions of conservative viewers who trust it more than any other outlet. Although many of the network’s claims are subject to controversy or rooted in falsities, these viewers continue watching, offering a never-before-seen devotion to the network. Using Fox’s coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as insight from Karl Marx and Walter Benjamin, this paper demonstrates how Fox manufactures its hosts’ performances to advance its fetishizing of the commodity of cable prestige.

The Houston Astros' Cheating Scandal: A Case Study On Crisis Communication In Sports, Wendy Edouard

Honors Program Theses and Projects

In January 2020, the Houston Astros organization was accused of cheating during the 2017 and 2018 baseball seasons. In 2017, the Astros had also won the World Series, thereby offsetting a sports scandal which dominated media coverage for several months. Owner of the Houston Astros, Jim Crane and his players released a statement to the press, a month after the investigation was concluded by the Major League Baseball organization. The investigation concluded that the Astros, in fact, had been stealing pitching signs from opposing teams and using technology to communicate signs to their pitcher. Crane’s response (relying primarily on shift …

Law Enforcement’S Use Of Facial Recognition Software In United States Cities, Samantha Jean Wunschel

Honors Program Theses and Projects

Facial recognition software is something we use every day, whether it’s a suggested tag on our Facebook post or a faster way to unlock our phones. As technology becomes increasingly pervasive in our lives, law enforcement has adapted to utilize the new tools available in accessory to their investigations and the legal process.

The Cape Verde Jews: An Identity Puzzle, Marco Piazza

Journal of Cape Verdean Studies

The American historian and epistemologist Hayden White said that «there can be no ‘proper history’ which is not at the same time ‘philosophy of history’» (1973, p. XI). But it could also be argued that one cannot make history of philosophy or history of ideas without working on historical data. The data on which I would like to draw attention in this contribution are seemingly reducible to a small thing: they refer to a micro-history that has left few traces, some tombs, surnames, oral memories, and a couple of toponyms. In these pages I will try to show how emblematic …

Editor’S Note, Joao J. Rosa

Journal of Cape Verdean Studies

No abstract provided.

Negotiating Afro-Jewish Identity In The Cabo Verdean Diaspora, Alma Gottlieb

Journal of Cape Verdean Studies

In this paper, I explore how diasporic Cabo Verdean-Americans with Jewish ancestry (especially those living in the New England region of the U.S.) experience their racially and spiritually mixed (and doubly or even triply stigmatized) identity. Being African in (racist) North America presents enormous challenges. Being Jewish in (increasingly anti-Semitic) North America presents different but somewhat parallel challenges. To account for unexpected identity crossings, I combine critical race theory with a Geertzian approach to understanding social worlds. In chronicling the experiences of Cape Verdeans who embrace divergent components of their multi-layered racial and spiritual heritage, I consider whether Cabo Verdeans …

Whose Independence? Cabo Verdean-Americans And The Politics Of National Independence Of Cabo Verde (1972-1976), Abel Djassi Amado

Journal of Cape Verdean Studies

In this paper, I argue that anti-colonial politics in the late colonial period of Cape Verde had an important diasporic content. During the 1960s, Cabo Verde began a long, increasingly violent effort to attain independence from Portugal (finally achieved in 1975). Diasporic Cabo Verdeans in the US responded in surprisingly variable ways to the political resistance claiming their national homeland. In this paper, I focus on responses by two political groups that emerged as central in the Cabo Verdean diaspora: the PAIGC-USA Support Committee and the Juridical Congress of World Cape Verdean Communities. I argue that these two groups constituted …

Journal Of Cape Verdean Studies, Vol. 5 Special Edition On Migration

Journal of Cape Verdean Studies

No abstract provided.

Incidences Of Return Migration: International Students From Cape Verde, David Almeida, Joao Rosa

Journal of Cape Verdean Studies

No abstract provided.

Where Blackness And Cape Verdeanness Intersect: Reflections On A Monoracial And Multiethnic Reality In The United States, Callie Watkins Liu

Journal of Cape Verdean Studies

As a Black American and fourth generation Cape Verdean American growing up in the United States, I’ve found that race and ethnicity are frequently conflated in ways that obscure my social reality and identity or put two integrated parts of myself into opposition with each other. In examining my own ethno-racial experience, I use critical race studies and identity construction to disentangle the structural concepts of race and ethnicity and build a frame work for understanding my own integrated existence within the United States. My personal trajectory is situated within the current and historical sociostructural context of Diaspora, White Supremacy …

Kriola Culture Of Mobility: Towards A New Research Paradigm, Janine De Novais

Journal of Cape Verdean Studies

Inspired by the display of ingenuity and resilience at the 2018 Poderoza Conference for Cabo Verdean women, this theoretical essay calls for research that takes up a Kriola culture of mobility (KCM). Neckerman, Carter and Lee (1999) define a minority culture of mobility as “a set of cultural elements that is associated with a minority group, and that provides strategies for managing economic mobility in the context of discrimination and group disadvantage.” After Neckerman and colleagues, I argue that KCM research can explore and clarify the intersectional and multicultural dynamics that attend the sociocultural mobility that Cabo Verdean women in …

A Note From Guest Editor, Terza A. Silva Lima-Neves

Journal of Cape Verdean Studies

Our time is now. It is the time to redefine our identities in our own voices, reflecting our stories, creating legacies that we are all proud of leaving behind for future generations.

The valuable contributions made by Cabo Verdean women to their communities across the globe have been vast and diverse. However, if one does a search of the words or subject “Cabo Verdean women” or “Kriola”, the yielded results are of hypersexual, tightly dressed, and sensual beings. Similarly in music videos, social media and film, the Kriola is more often than not featured for her physical attributes and not …

Family History And Genealogy: The Benefits For The Listener, The Storyteller And The Community, Anna Lima

Journal of Cape Verdean Studies

Thanks to the internet, discovering one’s ancestry is just a few clicks sway. Family histories and genealogies with intricate family trees filled with dates of birth, marriage dates, and death dates are meticulously documented for posterity. This process entails hours of research through census, immigration, baptism, and obituary records if you’re able to access them. There’s nothing greater for a genealogist to discover another generation of previously unknown ancestors and to tell the rest of your family. One would think that genealogy is a very new area of research since our ancestors obviously didn’t bother to pass this information on …

Youth And Politics: Is There Space For Youth In Cabo-Verdean Politics?, Aleida Mendes Borges

Journal of Cape Verdean Studies

All over Africa young people face serious economic, social and emotional challenges in their everyday lives as the generation hardest hit by the failures of neoliberalism (Honwana 2012). In the absence of political role models, this so-called ‘waithood generation’, has rejected traditionally understood notions of political participation associated with representative democracy and are taking the role of active citizens moving away from the ‘myopic obsession’ over voting and party systems.

In Cabo Verde in particular, where politics are characterised by vertical relations of everyday political life and citizen-state interactions, this paper analyses young people as a window to understanding broader …

Cape Verdean Theatre: Enacting Political Theory And Reclaiming Roots For Crioulo Performance, Eunice S. Ferreira

Journal of Cape Verdean Studies

Shining a spotlight on the Cape Verde Islands illuminates the rich diversity of theatre of the African diaspora and places its unique crioulo identity and creole identities in general, center stage. This article focuses on the post-independence theatre movement in Cape Verde where the re-Africanization theories of Amílcar Cabral (assassinated PAIGC leader in Cape Verde’s liberation struggle) shaped national identity and guided the pioneering work of theatre troupe Korda Kaoberdi (Wake up, Cape Verde). Under the dynamic leadership of Francisco Gomes Fragoso, a medical doctor who adopted the artistic name of Kwame Kondé, the troupe Korda Kaoberdi sought to create …

Importance Of Cultural Awareness In Speech Language Pathology Education, Aurora Barailo

Honors Program Theses and Projects

Cultural awareness is a necessity when providing services to a culturally and linguistically diverse population. Culture influences a family’s’ values, religion, language preference, kin structure, child-rearing practices, roles and responsibilities of family members, and perception of health and behavior; specifically, the perception of disability (McLeod, Verdon et. al 2017). Cultural beliefs can also influence which therapy assessments are used and whether a parent chooses to access services (McLeod et. al, 2017). Cultural awareness includes knowledge and understanding of the values and norms of different cultural groups, recognition of culturally based assumptions and biases and demonstrating skills that meet the need …

Middle East Media Landscapes: Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Syria, And Yemen, Cody J. Baker

Honors Program Theses and Projects

Following the youth-led reformative wave that swept the Middle East in 2011 during what came to be known as the Arab Spring, the media landscape in the region has continued to diversify and change alongside technology and social media. However, in order to deal with a large youth demographic that is seeking increased civil liberties and equality, and to prevent another series of protests, many governments are placing restrictions and limitations on the press, internet access, and censoring individuals who are critical of government or politically active. Through a critical analysis of the current media landscapes of five nations; Egypt, …