Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Media Literacy Education In The Age Of Machine Learning, Teemu Valtonen, Matti Tedre, Kati Mäkitalo, Henriikka Vartiainen

Journal of Media Literacy Education

The media environment has radically changed over the past few decades. Transition and transformation of media platforms has enabled algorithms and automation to take over media processes such as production, content generation, curation, delivery, recommendation, and filtering of information. It has also enabled tracking of users’ actions, data mining, profiling, and the use of computational and machine learning techniques for purposes like behavior engineering, targeted advertisement, spread of mis- and disinformation, swaying political moods, and many others. In the field of media literacy education, the need to understand algorithm-driven media requires educators to re-think the connections between media literacy education …

Revisiting Stremii: Social Media Crisis Communication During Hurricane Matthew, Margaret C. Stewart, Cory Young

Margaret Stewart

Social media platforms influence the flow of information and technologically mediated communication during a storm. In 2015, Stewart and Wilson introduced the STREMII (pronounced STREAM-ee) as a six-phase model for social media crisis communication in an eff ort to assist institutions and organizations during unanticipated events, using the crisis of Hurricane Sandy as an applied example. Since the inception of the model, several advancements in social media strategy have revealed the opportunity for further development. This current work presents a revision of the original model, emphasizing the need for ongoing social listening and engagement with target audiences. These aspects of …

A Study Of The Diffusion Of Innovations And Hurricane Response Communication In The U.S. Coast Guard, Melissa L. Leake

Communication & Theatre Arts Theses

Hurricane Harvey (HH) is considered to be the first natural disaster where social-network applications to request help surpassed already overloaded 911 systems (Seetharaman & Wells, 2017). Increasing interpersonal connectivity via Facebook, Twitter, and other social media sites correspond to an increasing need for researchers and responders to recognize how people use social media platforms to connect, share, and receive information especially during times of crisis such as natural disasters. Heightened public perceptions and expectations of response efforts in the digital era make it especially important for first responders to evaluate, monitor, and adapt to these shifts in communication. Disaster-relief groups …

Mocked And Shamed: Satirical News And Its Effects On Organizational Reputation, Lisbeth Lim, Juliana Chia, Augustine Pang

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

With fake news the rage (Tavernise, 2016), this study examines one form of fake news, satire news (Reilly, 2010). This study examines factors that lead satire news to be created, how they are used to criticize organizations and the impact on reputations. News on five satire news sites – The Onion (US), New Nation (Singapore), The Shovel (Australia), NewsThump (UK), and Der Postillon (Germany) – were analyzed using social media monitoring tools. Findings suggested that crises or paracrises (Coombs & Holladay, 2012) were likely to be exacerbated. While its effects are not immediate, satire news may have impact on organizations’ …

Womenpreneurs In A Digital Environment: Utilizing Instagram To Build A Personal Brand, Michelle N. Nuñez

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Personal branding on social media is a growing and expanding field. The present research works to uncover the processes and practices of womenpreneurs and the ways in which they utilize social media, specifically Instagram, to build and maintain their personal brands. Grounded theory is used to underpin the research and provide a basis of which the study is conducted. The review of literature provides the context necessary to support the methods of a content analysis and semi-structured interviews. There is a gap in research as it pertains to the conceptualization of personal branding practices on Instagram and the present study …

Can Cooler Heads Prevail? New Media Technology And Affective Polarization, Brian Kendall Watson

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Are new media technologies stirring up negative partisan feelings in the American public? Can researchers find ways of using new media tools to reduce affective polarization? Relying on a series of experiments featuring online newsfeeds and social media discussions, this dissertation seeks to answer these questions by testing the influence of partisan news and political discussions in realistic Internet environments. Two custom news “portals” (2016, 2018) expose participants to actual partisan news content. Two Facebook discussion experiments (2017, 2019) randomly assign participants to start real political discussions on their personal social media accounts, using discussion-initiation strategies designed to reduce partisan …

Relationship Management Communications By Nhl Teams On Twitter, Kelsey M. Baker

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The sports industry is massive, bolstered by its relationship with media. A recent development in the sport industry is the advent of social media, which offers the potential for two-way communication between sports organizations and their relevant stakeholders. Relationship management theory helps cultivate an understanding of social media as a vehicle for value creation for an organization and its stakeholders. This thesis is a content analysis of relationship communications strategies on Twitter using the accounts of five National Hockey League teams.

This study builds upon existing literature by identifying stakeholder groups targeted on Twitter by NHL teams, defining subcategories in …

User's Ability To Detect Fake News In Online Environments., Aleeza N. Gardner

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Technology has drastically changed the way people consume news. Due to the rise of online spaces built for users to share content, there has been a rise in the spread of false information. Social media platforms, Facebook specifically, provide their users with personalized content based on their interests. The ease of spreading information online coupled with the anonymity of the Internet, creates a breeding ground for potential misuse of information. This study sought to examine how users view themselves and others were influenced by fake news on social media if the post is denoted as fake, or if the post …

Effectiveness Of A Brand’S Paid, Owned, And Earned Media In A Social Media Environment, Anan Wan

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation explored how a brand’s paid, owned, and earned media (POEM) influence and engage its audience in the social media environment where consumer engagement is stressed. This dissertation used an online experiment (N = 250) to explore the effectiveness of applying earned media within an advertising context, The findings indicated that positive earned media was more effective on people’s consumer engagement intention and download intention than paid media, but it did not work on perceived credibility of the post or product attitude. Positive earned media was found to be less credible than owned media. Among all the five …

Who Posted That Story? Processing Layered Sources In Facebook News Posts, Anne Oeldorf-Hirsch, Christina Devoss

2019 Faculty Bibliography

With social media platforms becoming primary news sources, concerns about credibility judgments and knowledge grow. This study (N = 233) experimentally tests the effects of multiple source cues on Facebook news posts on credibility and knowledge. Judgments of story credibility were directly influenced by media source cues, but not friend source cues. Involvement in the source topic moderated the effects of these source cues, such that particular combinations influenced credibility differently, and also influenced cognitive elaboration about the topic. Theoretical implications for cognitive mediation model of learning from the news and the heuristic-systematic model of information processing are presented.

The Global Disinformation Order: 2019 Global Inventory Of Organised Social Media Manipulation, Samantha Bradshaw, Philip N. Howard

Copyright, Fair Use, Scholarly Communication, etc.

Executive Summary

Over the past three years, we have monitored the global organization of social media manipulation by governments and political parties. Our 2019 report analyses the trends of computational propaganda and the evolving tools, capacities, strategies, and resources.

1. Evidence of organized social media manipulation campaigns which have taken place in 70 countries, up from 48 countries in 2018 and 28 countries in 2017. In each country, there is at least one political party or government agency using social media to shape public attitudes domestically.

2.Social media has become co-opted by many authoritarian regimes. In 26 countries, computational propaganda …

Influencer Marketing: Consumer Responses To Instagram Influencers, Gloriann Schaefer

Senior Honors Theses

Influencer marketing is the promotion of services and products through individuals with a large social media following. The research contained within this thesis will discuss the topic of influencer marketing and the responses of the consumers targeted. This study observed the different types of responses and comments that followers of Instagram influencers left on their posted content.

The themes and characteristics of responses of Instagram influencer followers will be found through a qualitative content analysis. The study is supported by self-presentation theory, which suggests that individuals, in this case social media influencers, present themselves in a way that results in …

Exploring The Effectiveness Of Social And Digital Media Communications On Organization-Public Relationship Building With Employees, Iris Cumberbatch

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

More than a decade after the emergence of social and digital media, professional communicators increasingly use these channels to interact with a wide array of stakeholders. Simultaneously, public relations (PR) and communications leaders seek to understand whether their efforts to communicate and engage with stakeholders through these channels are effective in establishing and building relationships, as well as to measure “effectiveness” in the new technology-driven communications landscape. With this study, I addressed a gap in the academic research with regard to understanding the effectiveness of social and digital media as a communications tool by assessing employees’ perceptions of their organization …