Digital Commons Network^™

Investigation Of Malaria-Related Information In Africa On Youtube, Benjamin Ombati Omwando

Theses and Dissertations

Due to the proliferation of the use of social media, the public—especially patients and their family or friends, try to seek answers from resources such as Facebook, Yahoo! Answers, YouTube, MedlinePlus, and other sites. This research study centered on investigating characteristics and the relationship between users’ online patterns while using and posting information on YouTube related to health-care—in this case malaria (a life-threatening mosquito-borne blood disease). This research study applied a mixed-methods approach. Subject analysis, multi-dimensional scaling (MDS) analysis, inferential analysis, and temporal analysis methods were employed to analyze and investigate users’ health information posts on YouTube in Africa. This …

Comics About Organs: Social Support And Graphic Medicine In The Awkward Yeti, Jacob Gibb

Theses and Dissertations

Comic strips have always been a medium for more than humor. Many comic strips published on social media sites address mental health issues. Despite their popularity, the field of graphic medicine, which examines the intersection of health care and comics, has seen little to no examination of how these comics function on social media. Utilizing the popular comic The Awkward Yeti, this research examines how the rhetorical devices of comics make them an ideal medium for communicating about mental health issues and providing social support to social media users. This study conducts a content analysis of 15 Instagram posts from …

Lebanon Needs Food, Water, Medicine And Social Media, Elisabeth Croese

Theses and Dissertations

Lebanon has a history of instability, weak governance, and a strong civil society. The country has been in a state of crisis for decades and currently, the state is experiencing multiple crises at once. Political tensions, an economic crisis, and plummeting of the Lebanese Lira, together with the COVID-19 crisis have amounted to the instability of the state. All these tensions escalated even further when Beirut experienced a huge explosion in the port on 4 August 2020, killing over two hundred people and injuring thousands.

Civil society organizations play a crucial role in the development and survival of Lebanon. In …

The Parasocial Experiences Of Twitch Streamers, Ashley Adamian

Theses and Dissertations

The literature surrounding parasocial relationships (PSRs) has been expansive but lacks the perspective of how parasocial relationships can impact the media figure in certain contexts, specifically in regard to Twitch livestreamers and their communities. Previous research has examined how PSRs fulfill certain roles in the individual’s life, as well as some aspects that affect the relationship, such as the strength and development of the relationship. Previous research has concluded that stronger PSRs can develop from livestreaming platforms such as Twitch. This study investigates the relationship between Twitch livestreamers and PSRs. Through semi-structured interviews with seven participants, this study finds the …

How Political Elite Leverage Twitter To Polarize America, Woodson Morris Hobbs V

Theses and Dissertations

While social media has changed how humans use the internet, Twitter has drastically reformed how individuals worldwide receive their news. As news outlets fail to keep up with the rapid dissemination of information online, Twitter has become a sounding board for the political elite who leverage the platform's immediacy and virality. This study, using Quantitative Ethnography's Epistemic Network Analysis, seeks to determine if the political elite, specifically members of Congress, are leveraging Twitter to spread polarizing information to strengthen their base. In this study, extensive coding of select members of the 118th Congress was completed and compared to Voteview.com's DW-Nominate …

Using Natural Language Processing To Understand The Lived Experiences Of People Identifying With Adhd: What Themes Emerge In Social Media Posts?, Gabby C. Scalzo

Theses and Dissertations

Compared to the amount of research conducted on how to identify and understand children with Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), there has been relatively little work done to understand the lived experiences of adults with ADHD. Increased understanding of how adults with ADHD conceptualize themselves in the context of their diagnosis would help clinical experts tailor research and treatments to better serve these communities. However, there are several barriers towards conducting high-quality qualitative research, including time- and labor-intensity. This study, informed by qualitative research traditions, used innovative data sources (i.e., social media) and analytic techniques (i.e., machine learning) to reduce these …

"Social" Movements: A Trend Analysis Of The Role Of Social Media In Social Movements, Courtney Nelson Stubbs

Theses and Dissertations

The gay rights movement has been very active on social media throughout the years. Using a trend analysis this study aimed to answer how social media is being used during a social movement, how a social movement evolves on social media, and how social media is being used by organizations as a public relations strategy to create change in social movements. Overall, the findings revealed 11 different ways social media is being used during a social movement, which shows how important opinion leaders are in helping a social movement gain traction and create the desired impact.

Informal Learning In An Online Book Club: A Qualitative Case Study, Toni E. Pilcher

Theses and Dissertations

This article examines the online book club called Victober, which is held every October on Youtube and other social media apps. As a qualitive case study, the research uses interviews, observations, and digital documents to explore the interactions and informal learning experiences of four women who participated in Victober 2022. The author identifies five overarching themes that emerged from the data: content creation, community identity, individual identity, rewards, and anticipation. These themes highlight the significance of content creation for YouTube and social media platforms, the sense of community fostered by Victober, the balance between individuality and belonging, the rewards of …

Information Needs Of Korean Immigrants In The United States: Selection And Use Of Social Media, Tae Hee Lee

Theses and Dissertations

This mixed-method study investigates the information needs of Korean immigrants on social media and their selection and use of social media for finding information in the United States. The study was designed to answer six research questions: 1) What are the top types of information needs on social media that Korean immigrants fulfill during their everyday lives in the United States?; 2) What types of social media do Korean immigrants most frequently use during their everyday lives in the United States for different types of information needs?; 3) Are there any relationships between the types of social media Korean immigrants …

Platform Of Growth: An Analysis Of Earnings And Social Media Engagement Among Esports Athletes, Colleen Marie Dibble

Theses and Dissertations

Esports consists of online gaming, cyber sport, and virtual sport in a highly competitive environment. The industry has grown tremendously over the last 30 years (Leroux-Parra, 2020). Professional esports competitions are often now contested with a large scale, global audience, and millions of dollars potentially at stake in some competitions. Hundreds of esports athletes earn a living from the multi-billion-dollar esports industry. In addition to players earning salaries and prize pool money in a professional setting, many colleges have offered scholarships to enrolled students and have begun to offer esports-related curriculums (Dominguez, 2022). Networks such as ABC, ESPN, and TBS …

Social Media's Impact On The Puerto Rican Diaspora After Hurricane Maria, Heidi Lynn Steidel Ii Camacho

Theses and Dissertations

Puerto Rico has belonged to the United States for more than a century. In 1898, more than two decades after the Spanish American War, Spain formally ceded the island to the United States. Just over 20 years later, islanders officially became American citizens. Since then, the 100-mile-long by 35-mile-wide island has experienced economic and political crises, the COVID-19 pandemic, and life-threatening natural disasters. These events provoked a vast fluctuation in its population. After Hurricane Maria unfolded in September 2017, more than 200,000 Puerto Ricans moved to the continental United States to start new lives (Schwartz, 2018). This qualitative study sheds …

Sticks And Stones May Break My Bones, But Will Comments Ever Hurt Me? : A Burkean Analysis Of Cancel Culture In Social Media Spaces, Kaylin Lane

Theses and Dissertations

In the modern social media era, “cancel culture” is a growing phenomenon used to hold public figures accountable for perceived wrongdoings. But who gets to cancel these celebrities? And how does someone get canceled? The concept of “cancel culture” has often been discussed in the past in the sense that the United States is a culture that is prone to want to cancel others. In my study, I am looking at the fact that there is a desire to cancel a perceived wrongdoer from an online space that is functioning as its own individual culture. The terms used to describe …

How Can The Government Utilize Elites & Celebrities To Manage Global Public Opinion On Egypt? An Exploratory Study Of Mo Salah & Egypt, Sara S. Ibrahim

Theses and Dissertations

With Egypt’s latest global reputation index, nation brand, and soft power indices scoring low, such rankings have left room for finding new ways of enhancing Egypt’s global public opinion and reputation. This study showcases an untapped potential for enhancing a nation’s reputation and public opinion. This untapped potential lies in the power of elite commentary and celebrity activity. Such commentary and activity influence public opinion of the celebrity but also subsequently affect the public opinion of their country-of-origin nations.

With a global phenomenon such as football player Mo Salah, it has always been suggested that his performance positively affected Egypt's …

Artificially Intelligent Communication: An Exploratory Study On Replika Mobile Application, Nouran El-Ashry

Theses and Dissertations

This paper aims to address artificial intelligence from a communication perspective by looking at the usage of Replika, an AI-based platform. A quantitative survey was conducted to analyze the frequency of usage, attitude toward the application and the level of attachment to it. Moreover, qualitative questions were developed to get in-depth understanding of the type of relationship users have with their Replika application and reasons behind their usage. Results show no significant relationship between demographics and the application consumption except for age where older users communicate more frequently with the application than younger ones. Moreover, attachment levels were related to …

The Impact Of Gender Differences And Geographic Locations On Social Media Literacy Among Public Universities Students, Heba Tallah Moustafa Helmy

Theses and Dissertations

The objective of this study was to investigate the effect of both gender difference and geographic location on social media literacy levels among undergraduate students in public universities in Egypt. Four aspects related to social media literacy were considered in the Likert-scale survey, including basic technical skills, digital interactions, information evaluation, and privacy and security practices. A total of 520 students participated in this exploratory research, of which 265 males and 255 females enrolled at four public universities in different geographic locations. Cairo University and Ain Shams University represent the urban areas. The other two universities are located in center-periphery …

Impact Of Social Media On The Mental Health Of College Student Athletes, Maria Blasco Maurici

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores the influence of social media on the mental health of college student-athletes. With the adoption of social media platforms and the challenges faced by college student-athletes, understanding the implications of social media usage becomes a priority. This study examines the potential positive and negative effects of social media on the mental health of collegiate student-athletes and considers the role of social media in shaping their self-perception and identity. By comparing with existing research and conducting qualitative and quantitative analysis, this thesis aims to find answers on the relationship between social media and the mental health of college …

A Mixed-Method Study On Social Media’S Role In The Health Decision-Making Practices Of Black Millennial Women In South Florida, Sashah Damier

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this research study was to examine health care decision-making practices of Black millennial women in South Florida, based on their social media use. The study contributed to understanding of how cultural components contribute to health care disparities for people of color because health care providers lacked information on how to reach Black millennial women with accurate and helpful information through social media.

The design for the study included a convergent parallel mixed-methods design using a web-based quantitative cross-sectional survey along with embedded qualitative telephone interviews and NVivo software. This mixed-methods methodology provided rich data and new understandings …

How Universities Use Twitter To Communicate About Mental Health, Sarah Elizabeth Polhill

Theses and Dissertations

From a sample of over three million tweets from universities in the US, we described the characteristics of universities' communication about mental health on Twitter, including common keywords, bigrams, linked resources, and hashtags, as well as the frequency of dialogic communication and mental health tweets over time, especially in the context of the COVID-19 Pandemic. This study uses data mining to collect tweets from official university Twitter accounts and selected accounts of university wellness and counseling programs. Relevant tweets were collected from a large sample using keywords and bigrams relevant to mental health from the Twitter accounts of IACS accredited …

Exploring Perceptions Of New Media Among The Lakota Nation, Isabelle C. Kramer

Theses and Dissertations

Since its inception, the worldwide web has fundamentally altered our understanding of communications. With the rapid adoption of new media around the globe, individuals are increasingly able to communicate with people on the other side of the planet in real-time--traditional boundaries like time and space are no longer relevant barriers to intercultural communication. As such, scholars are scrambling to recognize and understand the broader implications of social media, videoconferencing, blogging, etc on more traditional definitions of culture. Additionally, researchers are beginning to study the ways in which minority cultures are utilizing new media, and the way that new media impacts …

The Effects Of Social Media On Psychological Distress: Contributions Of Loneliness, Fear Of Missing Out, And Need Satisfaction, Garett R. Hawkinson

Theses and Dissertations

Social media use is a major part of everyday American life and has continued to increase in the last decade particularly due to increased access of social media capable devices. The most frequent users of social media appear to be adolescent youth and college aged adults. Being as pervasive as it is, the effects of social media use as worth exploring. Research has established associations between social media use and negative mental and physical health outcomes. A key area of study has explored loneliness and found social media use predicts increased feelings of loneliness. Other research contests these findings suggesting …

How Scholars Are Using Social Media To Support Their Scholarship, Olga Maria Belikov

Theses and Dissertations

This article-format dissertation focuses on how scholars use social media to support their scholarship. The first article is a scoping literature review that outlines current research. While overviewing an emergent field of literature, the article highlights motivations for using social media use, discusses benefits and drawbacks of this use for scholarship, explains how this discourse has evolved over time, and shares implications of what further topics can be investigated as well as implications for post-secondary institutions and scholars integrating social media use into their professional roles. In article two, I built a classifier and used it to analyze the Twitter …

Plugging Into A New Age: The Impact Of Social Media Use On Undergraduate Students’ Perceptions Of Production Agriculture And Consumer Decisions, Shannon K. Allen

Theses and Dissertations

Today, 84% of young adults between the ages of 18-29 use at least one social media site (Pew Research Center, 2020) and are in the stages of emerging adulthood where they are making independent decisions for the first time (Arnett, 2000). As society becomes more technologically advanced, we become further removed from agriculture (Powell & Agnew, 2011; Dale et al., 2017). Thus, resulting in a separation between consumer and producer (Wilson & Lusk, 2020; Holt & Cartmell, 2013). This leaves the opportunity for society to turn to social media for agriculture information leading to negative perceptions of agriculture (Eyck, 2000; …

Teachers’ Perceptions Of Using Social Media For Classroom Instruction In Secondary Schools, Beverlee Jackson

Theses and Dissertations

Much research has been done to explore social media on students and instructors and their perceptions of social media use in higher education, but little research has been done on teachers in secondary education and their perceptions of social media use in the classroom. Due to the lack of research, the purpose of the study was to examine teachers’ perceptions of social media use to improve students’ learning and students’ engagement and if their perceptions varied by selected demographic variables. The study was conducted in three northeast Mississippi secondary schools, a 6th and 7th grade school, 8th and 9th grade …

The Screen To Desire, Joseph Parra

Theses and Dissertations

Joseph Parra reflects on our often embellished online personas and their effect on our desires. Through luscious 3-dimensional painting Parra translates the seductive desire of the hypermasculine male-presenting figure through glorification and criticality. The tactile painting also acts as a rebellion to accurately represent “real” life on the digital screen.

Paralinguistic And Rhetorical Capabilities Of Emojis In Marketing Communication, Jacob Christopher Almaguer

Theses and Dissertations

Consumers and social media marketers have over 3,000 emojis at their fingertips. Despite the popularity of emojis on social media, marketing research on emojis remains limited. Extant marketing research on emojis that does exist primarily focuses on the emotional and reinforcement capabilities, a remnant of the limitations of the emoticon ancestor, and largely ignores the additional paralinguistic and rhetorical potential of emojis. In this dissertation, emojis as a paralanguage are explored with a particular focus on the creation of meaning on social media (Essay 1), and emojis as a full (Essay 2) and partial (Essay 3) substitute for text in …

How Brazilians Used Media To Cope With The Issues Brought By The Covid-19 Pandemic, Vivian De Melo Campos

Theses and Dissertations

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the world faced lockdown and quarantine restrictions that encouraged or forced people to stay home. Along with the rest of the world, Brazil faced many difficulties during this period and it became one of the countries that lost more lives due to the Coronavirus infection worldwide. This study focuses on showing how people in Brazil coped with the challenges brought by the pandemic. It also focuses on showing if and how participants used media as a coping mechanism. The research was done through qualitative methods with semi-structured interviews with 25 adults who were living in …

Efficacy Of Social Media Analysis As A Service (Smas) For Crisis Events, Rohit Kumar Khattar

Theses and Dissertations

Social media data can be collected and analyzed during and after crisis events to aid in disaster relief efforts. Setting up a system to perform this analysis is associated with various technical challenges. This thesis presents the design and implementation of a social media analysis as a service system. This system is hosted on cloud infrastructure and allows for on demand collection, processing, and delivery of social media data via an intuitive web interface. The service model and cloud infrastructure allow the system to be highly scalable and produce near real time analysis data. A cost evaluation of the system …

Examining The Perceptions Of Fake News, Verification, And Notices On Twitter, Brendan Patrick Gwynn

Theses and Dissertations

The rise of social media platforms has had a significant impact on the conventional model of gatekeeping. With increased access to information--as well as the ability to contribute to the public discourse--individuals no longer need to rely on the mass media for news. These realities have led to increased conversations surrounding credibility in the digital age. Although not a new concept, fake news has become increasingly common in recent years. The web--particularly social media outlets, like Twitter--have enhanced the spread of misinformation. To combat this, social media platforms have introduced gatekeeping features like verification marks and warning labels. However, questions …

Understanding Logistics Airmen’S Risk Information Seeking And Processing During The Covid-19 Pandemic: The Role Of Organizational Meetings In An Extended Prism Framework, Christopher T. Price

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this survey-based research was to understand how organizational workplace meetings surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic impacted logistics Airmen across the United States Air Force and subsequently played a role into their risk seeking behavior on social media. Specifically, this research tested an expanded Planned Information Risk Seeking Model with organizational meetings as an antecedent to determine if current meetings influenced an Airman's perceived behavioral control, attitude toward seeking, subjective norms, knowledge sufficiency an intentions to seek information regarding COVID-19.

Bystander Or Ally? : Predictors Of Adolescent Behavior In Response To Microaggressions On Social Media, Keeley Hynes

Theses and Dissertations

Microaggressions are a form of racism that Solórzano and Huber (2020) argue are understood and evaluated using the basic tenets of Critical Race Theory. Research suggests that high school students experience race- and sexuality-based microaggressions, although little is known about how microaggressive encounters that occur online impact adolescents. Research also suggests that college-age individuals are unlikely to intervene in response to microaggressive situations, but there do not exist any studies that highlight high schoolers’ responses to these transgressions. Although, there is evidence that adolescents experience online victimization based on their race (Tynes et al., 2008). Feelings of school connectedness, offensiveness …