Digital Commons Network^™

Instagram And The Human (Mis)Connection, Johanna Chisholm

Capstones

Instagram has made strides to try and improve their platform for these mentally unstable teens; most recently by installing a tool that allows users to report people they think might be “going through a difficult time.” This update, while a step in the right direction, seems to still be missing a very important element to actually helping these users: a human connection.

https://jochisholm.github.io/Instagram_Teens/

Islamophobia In The United States How American News Coverage And Social Media Perpetuate Fear & Hate Against Islam, Rida Kazmi

Master's Theses

In recent years, Islamophobia in the United States has risen to levels never seen before. While 2016 marks the 15-year anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, hatred and fear of Muslims and Islam has reached an all-time high instead of steadily decreasing. The rise in Islamophobia is due in large part to the news coverage that people are exposed to, with media stories on terrorist attacks often conflating Islam and violence in both subtle and other ways. Furthermore, we see that similar coverage of acts of violence committed by non-Muslims is often markedly different, both in tone and language. Through American …

The Paradox Of Social Media Security: A Study Of It Students’ Perceptions Versus Behavior On Using Facebook, Zahra Y. Alqubaiti

Master of Science in Information Technology Theses

Social media plays an essential role in the modern society, enabling people to be better connected to each other and creating new opportunities for businesses. At the same time, social networking sites have become major targets for cyber-security attacks due to their massive user base. Many studies investigated the security vulnerabilities and privacy issues of social networking sites and made recommendations on how to mitigate security risks. Users are an integral part of any security mix. In this thesis, we explore the relationship between users’ security perceptions and their actual behavior on social networking sites. Protection motivation theory (PMT), initially …

The Effects Of Message Virality And Message Source On Facebook Users’ Perceptions Of Source Credibility, Norms, Attitudes, Emotional Responses, And Behavioral Intentions, Anne M. Borsai

Doctoral Dissertations

The present study explored the effectiveness of an anti-alcohol PSA in the context of Facebook. The study analyzed the effects of message source and message virality (i.e., high shares and likes vs. low shares and likes) on user’s perceived trustworthiness of the post, depth of processing, social norms, attitudes, emotional responses, and behavioral intentions regarding alcohol consumption. Participants viewed an anti-binge drinking PSA developed by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) posted on a mock Facebook profile page in a 2 (message source: CDC post vs. peer-repost) x 2 (virality: high likes and shares vs. low likes and …

Examining Pre-Kindergarten-Grade 8 Teacher Practices And Perceptions Regarding Using Facebook And Twitter For Parent-Teacher Communication, Heidi L. Gruber

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this quantitative, descriptive, survey research was to examine pre-Kindergarten–Grade 8 teacher’s perceptions regarding their preparedness, propensity, and felt value of using Facebook and Twitter for parent–teacher communication. The 38 participants completed the Teacher Presurvey, followed by an online instructional intervention, which was proven effective in showing teachers how to use Facebook and Twitter for parent–teacher communication, through Teacher Postsurvey data. Data from the Teacher Presurvey and Postsurvey were used to examine three research questions. In the study, the researcher also investigated teacher perceptions of the benefits of using social media, and solicited what they perceived to be …

Visual Analytics Of Location-Based Social Networks For Decision Support, Junghoon Chae

Open Access Dissertations

Recent advances in technology have enabled people to add location information to social networks called Location-Based Social Networks (LBSNs) where people share their communication and whereabouts not only in their daily lives, but also during abnormal situations, such as crisis events. However, since the volume of the data exceeds the boundaries of human analytical capabilities, it is almost impossible to perform a straightforward qualitative analysis of the data. The emerging field of visual analytics has been introduced to tackle such challenges by integrating the approaches from statistical data analysis and human computer interaction into highly interactive visual environments. Based on …

Big Data And Organizational Impacts: A Study Of Big Data Ventures, Taha Havakhor

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

New information technology (IT) ventures are at the forefront of developing IT innovations. In spite of their importance in the advancement of IT and the unique risks of survival that distinguishes them from established firms, the organizational literature on IT has mostly overlooked new IT ventures. Specifically, Big Data industry is a context where new IT ventures actively change the landscape of IT innovations. However, less is known about the factors influencing the economic success of Big Data ventures (BDVs), as well as the established firms that invest in them. To shed light on these factors, three essays are designed …

"I Can Haz Applicants": An Analysis Of Police Recruitment And Marketing Through Social Media, Kelly Lee Helldorfer

Master's Theses

In recent decades, the Internet has flourished with the advancement of social media: apps, blogs, social networking, multimedia sources, podcasts, and more. Consequently, the Millennial Generation has grown up immersed in both the Internet and social media networks differently than previous generations. Due to the rapid expansion of social media outlets and their effects on future employees, police departments must consider their agency “brand” and how effectively they market their departments to this generation for the purpose of recruitment both on the Internet and with social media platforms.

This research analysis employed a netnography to examine 500 police websites and …

Social Media Marketing In The Film Industry: Using Social Media To Create A Successful Marketing Campaign For The Theatrical Release Of A Film, Katherine Baker

Journalism

This study analyzes the use of social media as a marketing tool within the film industry including its successes in regards to popular social tactics and campaigns as well as where it may fall short within the realm of marketing as a whole. As the world is racing to be the first to implement the “next biggest thing” and beginning to drift away from traditional marketing practices, social media is potentially the next step to ensuring a successful marketing campaign for any product or service. This study takes a look into how social media can best be used and implemented …

Who Is Really Behind The Username? (Re)Affirming Oneself In The Digital Age, Taylor Dixon

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

I am going to study authenticity and see the fluidity of the word over the passing decades and see if the meaning has changed due to societal changes. I am then going to study the digital age and show the progression of the internet. Starting from when at home computers were created to present day. After researching those topics I’m going to see if social media users are about to be authentic and true to their identities while using these online platforms. I want to look at case studies that represent authentic identities as well as inauthentic identities.

Networking And Connecting Creative Minds: Understanding Social Media’S Role In Today’S Visual Arts Instruction, Tonya Rose Kirby

Masters Theses

This study explores the use of social media in K-12 visual arts programs, focusing on why and how art educators choose to implement social media in their instructional practice. This study discusses benefits and disadvantages of social media as a pedagogical and creative tool in art education through analysis of the survey responses of 50 in-service teachers. Finally, specific social media platforms are recommended, with in-class examples provided for art teachers interested in using social media in their program.

“Follow Me So I Can Dm You Back”: An Exploratory Analysis Of A Female Pro- Isis Twitter Network, Joseph A. Varanese

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The purpose of this study is to explore a network of female pro-Islamic State of Syria and Iraq (ISIS) supporters on Twitter. To do so, I identified twenty Twitter accounts (n=20) through snowball sampling, and analyzed their network comprising 5,861 vertices and 12,034 edges. I studied the network using three social network analysis metrics—Freeman’s normalized betweenness centrality, average geodesic distance, and tie strength. Females in the sample were more influential than males, and as a result, had a greater ability to radicalize other females within their network. Further, I observed that it took females longer than expected to …

An E-Government Analysis Of State Legislatures' Social Media Use, Karen Sue Connell

Theses and Dissertations

This study analyzes the use of social media by state legislative bodies, broken down by a combination of legislative body (House, Senate, or general legislature) and by party (Republican or Democrat). I analyzed Twitter and Facebook posts for each of these groups during the week of January 11-15, 2016, specifically looking for four improvements: transparency, policy making, public services, and knowledge management and cross-agency cooperation. The research questions are: RQ1: Which social media platforms are state legislatures using? RQ2: What improvements are the state legislatures using in their social media output? RQ3: Is there a significant difference in the improvements …

Learning To Be Women: A Study Of Adolescent Girls In Rural Ontario, Laura Lockhart

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

In order to explore the forming subjectivities of rural young women, the material and discursive conditions of girls’ lives are examined with a focus on how rural adolescent girls come to understand themselves within their worlds, how their consciousness of limitations and possibilities develops, and how this translates into agency and self-direction. The analysis draws on data collected during five months of ethnographic research with seven grade ten, eleven, and twelve female students in a rural community in Ontario’s near north. It starts from their experiences in order to look at their lives and options from their standpoint.

Using Bourdieu’s …

Buy Nathan Sharratt: A Requirement Of The Masters Of Fine Arts Degree Of Georgia State University, Nathan Sharratt

Art and Design Theses

Buy Nathan Sharratt: A Requirement of the Masters of Fine Arts degree of Georgia State University, is a multidiscipline and multiplatform exhibition of post-institutional critique that uses my lived experience of being an academic artist pursuing a terminal art degree at a public university as its point of departure. It evaluates how societal expectations influence the formation of individual and group identity in mediated culture. Buy Nathan Sharratt challenges the hierarchy of economic and social value systems by simulating an institutional museum retrospective of super-famous and super-commoditized artist “Nathan Sharratt.” The exhibition is divided into a gallery space, a …

"Support For Sisters Please": Comparing The Online Roles Of Al-Qaeda Women And Their Islamic State Counterparts, Hillary Peladeau

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This study evaluates female roles in pro-jihadist terrorism by examining online content. Data was collected from 36 Twitter accounts of women associated with al-Qaeda (AQ) affiliated groups for a period of six months. The purpose for collecting this data was to: 1) compare how traditional female roles, as constructed within a jihadi-Salafist ideology, are reproduced and challenged on social media; 2) and determine the extent that AQ-affiliated women conform to roles outlined in Huey’s classification of females in pro-Islamic State (IS) Twitter networks. The results of this study reveal that women’s traditional roles in pro-jihadist activities are reproduced on Twitter. …

Terror On Twitter: A Comparative Analysis Of Gender And The Involvement In Pro-Jihadist Communities On Twitter, Eric W. Witmer

MA Research Paper

Social media has become the milieu of choice to radicalize young impressionable minds by terrorist organizations such as al Qaeda and the Islamic State. While a plethora of research exists on the recruitment and propaganda efforts by terrorist organizations there is limited number of quantitative studies that observe the relationship of gender and the involvement in online radical milieus. This current research will build upon prior studies through the comparative analysis of 750 unique Twitter accounts supporting the IS and the affiliates of al-Qaeda that were non-randomly sampled between January and September of 2015. The research aimed to address the …

Data Mining Twitter For Cancer, Diabetes, And Asthma Insights, Kimberly Chulis

Open Access Dissertations

Twitter may be a data resource to support healthcare research. Literature is still limited related to the potential of Twitter data as it relates to healthcare. The purpose of this study was to contrast the processes by which a large collection of unstructured disease-related tweets could be converted into structured data to be further analyzed. This was done with the objective of gaining insights into the content and behavioral patterns associated with disease-specific communications on Twitter. Twelve months of Twitter data related to cancer, diabetes, and asthma were collected to form a baseline dataset containing over 34 million tweets. As …

Facebook Engagement On College Students' Interpersonal And Intrapersonal Functioning, Scott S. Deatherage

Open Access Dissertations

In recent years college students have incorporated social-networking sites, and more specifically Facebook, into their daily lives. Facebook has received empirical attention; attention focused on what students are doing on Facebook, who its users are, and, more recently, why students access Facebook. However, researchers who have assessed motivations for accessing Facebook have emphasized how motivations are associated with certain activities, and have not simultaneously and directly examined how activities and motivations are associated with both maladaptive and adaptive factors of students’ interpersonal and intrapersonal functioning. The purpose of the present study was to examine how Facebook engagement is associated with …

Building Affective Trust Among Client-Organization Relationships On Social Media Accounts, Branden D. Birmingham

Dissertations - ALL

The purpose of this thesis is to determine how consumers relay trust to their favorite brands on social media sites, define affective trust, and how consumers interact with their favorite brands on social media. In-depth interviews were conducted with 22 individuals living across the United States who were in different career fields and stages of life. The findings from this study revealed that not too many of the participants followed Starbucks on mainstream social media sites, but followed them on their propriety application. This application was talked about in multiple interviews where participants talked about the features of the application …

The On-Screen Water Cooler: Effects Of Televised User-Generated Comments On Cognitive Processing, Social Presence, And Viewing Experience., Jaclyn Ann Cameron

Doctoral Dissertations

Social television combines traditional television viewing and interactions with social media to create a phenomenon that connects otherwise autonomous viewers through a shared viewing experience. This dissertation explores one type of social television: on-screen user-generated comments. Although the practice spans multiple television genres, little is known about its effect on viewers’ cognitive processing of the media, perceptions of the social presence of other viewers, or the viewers’ experience of the media. Two experimental studies explored the effects of on-screen user-generated comments on cognitive processing of the media message, the effect of manipulating the content of on-screen user-generated comments and individual …

Incorporating A New Class Of Uncertainty In Disaster Relief Logistics Planning, Emre Kirac

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In recent years, there has been a growing interest among emergency managers in using Social data in disaster response planning. However, the trustworthiness and reliability of posted information are two of the most significant concerns, because much of the user-generated data is initially not verified. Therefore, a key tradeoff exists for emergency managers when considering whether to incorporate Social data in disaster planning efforts. By considering Social data, a larger number of needs can be identified in a shorter amount of time, potentially enabling a faster response and satisfying a class of demand that might not otherwise be discovered. However, …

It's All About Me: How Self-Brand Connection And Social Media Interactivity Influence Purchase Intent, Shannon Taylor Mccarthy

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Social media is ubiquitous and allows consumers to display identity by through possessions through posts, images, and interactions. The self is all the individual calls their own and is expressed outwardly through everything visible, including possessions, relationships, and interactions. They tell their story through the display of envy-inducing artifacts, and create a perfect, photoshopped life. Consumers seek a connection to positively viewed brands they feel are self-representative through interaction. This dissertation seeks to better understand consumer rationale for and gratification from online brand engagement and how that, in turn, impacts the brand. Three studies examined the effects of self-brand connection, …

Using Social Media For Parental Support In Raising A Child With A Disability: A Critical Analysis Of Facebook Postings, Lynn Margaret Fostervold Wells

Culminating Projects in Child and Family Studies

Using Social Media for Parental Support in Raising a Child with a Disability: A Critical Analysis of Facebook Postings

A Social Marketing Plan For The Lester C. Howick Animal Shelter, Joseph Michael Spiegelhoff

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The Lester C. Howick Animal Shelter (Howick) is a non-profit organization serving Washington County, Arkansas and the Northwest Arkansas community. This thesis offers Howick a comprehensive Social marketing plan. The goal of the animal shelter is to increase the total number of cats and dogs adopted, increase the total amount of donations, and increase the number of volunteers helping at the facility and various events. In order to accomplish these goals for 2016, a Social marketing plan was developed through research on other non-profit organizations, other animal shelters, communication with the shelter employees, crafting a public service announcement (PSA), and …

Exploring Engagement With Social Media Content, Holly Atwood Syrdal

Marketing Dissertations

Engagement in the realm of social media is thought to be related to a number of positive brand and organizational outcomes and has emerged as a hot topic among marketing academics and practitioners alike. However, there is currently no consensus on exactly what constitutes this type of engagement. This lack of agreement and, hence, lack of a “social media engagement” measure, have made it difficult for academics to advance theory in this area and for researchers to test hypotheses concerning positive brand and organizational outcomes that may be related to this form of engagement. This dissertation directly addresses this gap …

Connecting For Better Health: Discovering Differences In Self-­‐Reported Preference In The Environment Of Social Media In Healthcare Communications, Ashley Zeh

Theses

Though working as a vital service to the community, health care companies have the same

challenges as other businesses needing to remain competitive in the marketplace. Health care providers, however, have the additional challenge of providing healthcare communications that are valuable to society. Social media presents a new environment for healthcare providers to communicate and form a relationship with their patient community. Better insights into this new environment are necessary in order to establish how patients self-report differences in preference for the different types of technology-mediated communications. Through survey methods, this study looks into the differences in self-reported claims of …

Location Inference Of Social Media Posts At Hyper-Local Scale, Brian D. Mcclanahan

Master's Theses

This paper describes an approach to infer the location of a social media post at a hyper-local scale based on its content, conditional to the knowledge that the post originates from a larger area such as a city or even a state. The approach comprises three components: (i) a discriminative classifier, namely, Logistic Regression (LR) which selects from a set of most probable sub-regions from where 1 a post might have originated; (ii) a clustering technique, namely, k-means, that adaptively partitions the larger geographic region into sub-regions based on the density of the posts; and (iii) a range of techniques …

The Applicability Of Criminology To Terrorism Studies: An Exploratory Study Of Isis Supporters In The United States, Amanda Marie Sharp Parker

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In the years following the 11 September 2001 attacks, research in the area of terrorism expanded exponentially. However, the changing nature of terrorism and lack of available data make it a difficult topic for criminologists to study; as academics we do not have access to the governmental data and data that is publicly available is often restricted due to the sensitive nature of national security issues. As first hand data is not available, an alternate data source, court records, may provide insight to the profile of current terrorists/terrorist supporters in the United States. Using court data from 71 cases of …

User Experiences Of Regret While Engaging With Social Media, Kimberly Oostman

Communication ETDs

Social media offers users the ability to participate with a social network of others in a process of sharing and fellowship, presenting an impression of self and the ability to monitor constructed expressions. Recent studies examining the ritual view of communication, impression management, self-regulation, and self-reflective capabilities show each of these plays a role when using certain social media sites. However, a research gap exists regarding the use of any social media and the perspectives of young adult users during the scenario of experiencing regret as the result of engaging with social media. The study is a mixed-methods exploratory study …