Digital Commons Network^™

Shopping For A Cause: Social Influencers, Performative Allyship, And The Commodification Of Activism, Emily Mckellar

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

Since the early 2010s, social media has been a powerful tool for protestors and activists throughout the world. In times of crisis and political uprisings, users have pulled out their phones and taken to platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and, more recently, Instagram, to capture “the revolution” in real time. Although originally intended for networking purposes, social media has provided people with a digital space to share their stories, disseminate resources, and broadcast live, allowing them to share their efforts with millions.

While social media has helped assemble protests, amplify marginalized voices, and educate the public, it has also become a …

Great Awakening 2020: The Neoliberal Wellness Journey Down The Rabbit Hole, Melissa Ann Mclaughlin

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

2020 was a good year for conspiracy theory. From COVID denialism to QAnon, the usual cast of conspiracy influencers was joined by mommy bloggers, yoga teachers, and social media opportunists to spread disinformation and sow doubt in the American psyche across the vast network of the internet. While the news media and popular entertainment often portrays the conspiracy theorist as a paranoid quack, the reality is far more conventional. We are all conspiracy theorists, in one way or another. Each of us arrive at a conspiracy theory with unique worldviews which include our political and spiritual belief systems. We are …

The Curious Cases Of Cancel Culture, Loydie Solange Burmah

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

Cancel culture is a complex phenomenon that challenges our notions of civic practices, perpetuates surveillance practices amongst individuals who encourage digital public shaming and obscures communal ideas regarding accountability. Hence, it is imperative to complicate and nuance “cancel culture” to understand the different meanings derived from its diverse mechanizations. Other matrices such as power, platform governance, decoloniality, and more bolster ideas about the phenomenon’s extensive sociocultural reach. Using a critical digital ethnographic approach, I exemplify with the analysis two cancel culture cases uncovering themes such as selective cancelations, cancelation effectiveness, performative activism, performative wokeness, hypocrisy, victimization, and empathy. This study …

How Social Media Can Contribute To Health Promotion In The Context Of A Breastfeeding Campaign In Ghana, Crystal Karen Montejo

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

Background: Globally, people are active on social networking sites (SNS). Utilizing social networking sites for public health purposes is a potential avenue to provide health promotion campaigns to large audiences. Even so, little evidence is available that provides the extent of this possibility and more importantly, the practices needed to create a successful health promotion campaign on social networking sites.

Objective: The purpose of this study was to determine if engagement on Facebook differed by type of engagement during a post acquisition period and to understand which post type (i.e., quote posts, resource posts, video posts, and blog posts) material …