Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Social Media As Fragile State, Caroline A. Haythornthwaite, Philip Mai, Anatoliy Gruzd

School of Information Studies - Faculty Scholarship

Social media platforms are grappling with how to respond to hate speech, misinformation, and political manipulation in ways that address human rights, free speech, and equality. As independent ‘states’, they are enacting their own rules of conduct, deriving their own ‘laws’, convening their own extrajudicial self regulatory institutions, and making their own interpretations and enactments of human rights. With the rise of social states such as Facebook, TikTok, X (formerly Twitter) and Reddit, how fragile are they in their ability to achieve outcomes of fair, equitable and consistent application of their own laws? Could an assessment of the fragility of …

Emotional Distress During Covid-19 By Mental Health Conditions And Economic Vulnerability: Retrospective Analysis Of Survey-Linked Twitter Data With A Semisupervised Machine Learning Algorithm, Michiko Ueda-Ballmer, Kohei Watanabe, Hajime Sueki, Davor Mondom

Center for Policy Design and Governance

The brief provides a summary of "Emotional Distress During COVID-19 by Mental Health Conditions and Economic Vulnerability: Retrospective Analysis of Survey-Linked Twitter Data With a Semisupervised Machine Learning Algorithm," co-authored by Michiko Ueda-Ballmer, Kohei Watanabe, and Hajime Sueki and published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research.

Digital Literacy In The Age Of Social Media, Caroline A. Haythornthwaite

School of Information Studies - Faculty Scholarship

For many years media literacy has addressed ways of verifying information, and information literacy has addressed finding information and understanding its production. But today’s social media takes us out of the realm of standard information sources to open, online discussion. The volatility of these environments suggests the need for social media literacy that complements both media and information literacy. This talk takes up the topic of social media literacy, highlighting what is different in these environments, and what will help make literate social media participants. The presentation reviews contemporary ideas about literacy and discusses the contemporary trends in understanding literacy: …

Generation Z And Media Literacy: Young People’S Perceptions Of Media Literacy Education, Alanna Eavan Powers

Theses - ALL

No abstract provided.

Sexual Consent On Social Media: How College Students' Exposure To Sexualized And Party-Related Content On Social Media Relates To Their Sexual Consent Beliefs, Attitudes, And Intentions, Andrea Marie Smith

Dissertations - ALL

Sexual assault remains a prevalent issue on college campuses across the United States. Significant research has argued that to reduce the sexual assault rates on college campuses, it is vital to understand the cultural and contextual factors that may affect sexual consent communication between college students. One of these important contextual factors is social media. Social media are a persuasive and influential part of a college student's daily life, especially when it comes to creating and sustaining relationships with others. The purpose of this dissertation was to understand how college students may use social media to interpret a person's willingness …

How Does Social Media Enhance Access To Information And Criticism In Vietnam?, Linh Vu

English Language Institute

Social media appeared in Vietnam in the 90s when people had less free space to access diverse information. By presenting compelling interactive platforms, social media has become a game-changer to create profound impacts.

How Student-Athletes’ Self-Esteem And Performance Are Influenced By Social Media Sports Fandom, Brooke Alexander

Theses - ALL

This study evaluates the role of positive and negative messages on social media from sports fans and its effect on student-athletes’ self-esteem and performance. Through a qualitative research process, this study examined what drives student-athletes to seek validation of their identities through messages in social media and how the messages they read online affect their self-esteem and performance in their sport. Public relations has become an integral part in college athletics in reputation management, brand attributes and social issues. It is essential that public relations specialists involved in athletics are aware of how their student-athletes are feeling regarding social media …

Screen Media Use Is Higher Among Preschool Children From More Chaotic Homes, Jennifer A. Emon, Sara E. Benjamin-Neelon

Population Health Research Brief Series

Early childhood is a critical time for children’s growth and development. One factor that may impair healthy development during the preschool years is excessive screen media use. U.S children under the age of 5 average twice the amount of recommended screen time. This research brief shows that screen media use is higher among children from households with more chaos.

Countering Anti-Vaccination Rumors On Twitter, Ji Won Kim

Dissertations - ALL

This study examined the effects of the counter-rumor on changes in the belief about the anti-vaccination claim, anxiety associated with the rumor, intentions to vaccinate a child and share the rumor. Particularly, we tested whether argument strength, source expertise, as well as the recipient’s previously held attitude toward vaccination, could affect these outcomes. First, the pilot tests were conducted to check source expertise (N = 161) and argument strength (N = 74; N = 73) and select sources and messages used in the experiment. A 2 (argument strength: strong vs. weak) x 2 (expertise source: high vs. low) between-subjects factor …

Correcting Fear-Arousing Disinformation On Social Media In The Spread Of A Health Virus: A Focus On Situational Fear, Situational Threat Appraisal, Belief In Disinformation, And Intention To Spread Disinformation On Social Media, Jiyoung Lee

Dissertations - ALL

Disinformation is prevalent in the current social media environment and circulated just as quickly as truthful information. Research has investigated what motivates the spread of disinformation and how to combat it. However, limited research focuses on how fear-arousing disinformation during crises affects individuals’ belief in disinformation and to what extent corrective information can subdue the persuasive effects of fear-arousing disinformation. To address this gap, this research tests the effects of fear-arousing disinformation and different types of corrective information (i.e., no corrective information, simple corrective information, or narrative corrective information) on belief in disinformation and intentions to spread disinformation on social …

Making Health Social: Effects Of Health Psa Videos On Social Media, Adriana Mucedola

Theses - ALL

In the digital age, social networking sites are an essential tool for health educators to promote and spread awareness about health issues that may be plaguing society. Internet communications, such as social media, offer tremendous opportunities for modifying health because it allows people of all demographics to access health information. The present study examined the effectiveness of health public service announcement (PSAs) videos on social media and examined how the heuristics of social media “likes” may play a role in how social media users perceive these health messages. To assess how health messages on social media are perceived, this thesis …

Queering Virtual Groups: Exploring Facebook Groups As A Space For Identity Construction And Social Justice Among The Lgbtq Community In India, Sreyoshi Dey

Dissertations - ALL

India has emerged as one of the top users of the Internet. However, the question is how the rise of the Internet influences a society like India, which is still struggling with issues like poverty, literacy, employment, religion, and gender. This research endeavors to explore one aspect of that question by studying the role of the social media platform – Facebook Groups, for the LGBTQ community in India against the backdrop of the societal taboos and lack of legal support for the queer community, coupled with the existing infrastructural loopholes like education and technology. Over the past couple of decades, …

Users' Knowkedge And Social Media Sharing Behaviors, Jianan Hu

Theses - ALL

The success of social media marketing tactics is highly dependent on the understanding of social media users' information sharing behaviors. Social media user’s likelihood to share is related to various factors, such as knowledge, belief and personality traits. Survey data from 504 American social media users reveals that users' perceived knowledge about social media marketing tactics positively related to their perceived benefits, which further associated with their likelihood of sharing information on social media. Findings also indicate that users' desire for control partially mediates relationship between users’ knowledge of social media tactics and their likelihood to share information. However, the …

Learning In The Wild: Coding For Learning And Practice On Reddit, Caroline A. Haythornthwaite, Priya Kumar, Anatoliy Gruzd, Sarah Gilbert, Marc Esteve Del Valle, Drew Paulin

School of Information Studies - Faculty Scholarship

Learning on and through social media is becoming a cornerstone of lifelong learning, creating places not only for accessing information, but also for finding other self-motivated learners. Such is the case for Reddit, the online news sharing site that is also a forum for asking and answering questions. We studied learning practices found in ‘Ask’ subreddits AskScience, Ask_Politics, AskAcademia, and AskHistorians to develop a coding schema for informal learning. This paper describes the process of evaluating and defining a workable coding schema, one that started with attention to learning processes associated with discourse, exploratory talk, and conversational dialogue, and ended …

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 …

“Texts From Hillary:” Political Meta-Meming, Likeability, And Social Presence, Hanna Katharina Birkhead

Dissertations - ALL

In the age of viral social sharing, memes have become an increasingly important way for the public to engage in political debate and discussion. Through social media, politicians have an opportunity to participate in meme sharing with their followers, and to gain valuable likeability points with them by doing so. Hillary Clinton is one such politician, who created a meta-meme by participating in a viral meme about her, and was able to have some control over the narrative about her image as a result. The present research examined the uses of and responses to political meta-meming through analysis of both …

Screens And Stereotypes: The Transmission Of Images Of Women Of Color On Twitter And Television, Sherri Marie Williams

Dissertations - ALL

For decades African-American women and Latinas have lamented the abundance of negative and unrealistic images of them reflected on television. Such images appear to be pervasive today on reality television shows, the most popular television show genre, where many historic negative stereotypes of women of color are conveyed. Social television, the practice of watching television and simultaneously commenting on social media, is now common among viewers. The aim of this research is to determine if the same old stereotypes of women of color on television are finding their way to the new medium of Twitter. This study is a textual …

Developing A Framework For Stigmergic Human Collaboration With Technology Tools: Cases In Emergency Response, Janet Hinda Watkins Marsden

Dissertations - ALL

Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs), particularly social media and geographic information systems (GIS), have become a transformational force in emergency response. Social media enables ad hoc collaboration, providing timely, useful information dissemination and sharing, and helping to overcome limitations of time and place. Geographic information systems increase the level of situation awareness, serving geospatial data using interactive maps, animations, and computer generated imagery derived from sophisticated global remote sensing systems. Digital workspaces bring these technologies together and contribute to meeting ad hoc and formal emergency response challenges through their affordances of situation awareness and mass collaboration. Distributed ICTs that enable …

Mistress Or Hero? Corruption Reports On Sina Weibo And The Construction Of Chinese Femininity, Yin Wu

Theses - ALL

This qualitative textual analysis study focuses on two Chinese women who were previously sexually involved with the corrupted officers and later reported these officers to authorities. As a Chinese version of Twitter, Sina Weibo is a powerful social networking and communication tool for their reports. The study analyzes the posts and comments available on Sina Weibo about the identity of these women and how hegemonic Chinese femininity is performed, maintained, and challenged. These discussions may reflect the potential cultural, ideological, and socioeconomic factors that can influence the construction of contemporary Chinese femininity, providing the picture of how social media and …

Toward A Uses And Gratification's Model Of Twitter, Philip Ryan Johnson

Theses - ALL

This study proposed a uses and gratifications model of Twitter, an internet medium and micro-blog--a platform with both mass and interpersonal communication features for sending short messages to others. A survey was conducted among 242 Twitter users to test the model, including a standard investigation of gratifications sought and gratifications obtained of Twitter usage. In addition, expectations and availability of usage behaviors from McLeod and Becker's (1981) uses and gratifications model were examined. In the model, expectations were conceptualized as user expectations of satisfaction and operationalized as the difference between users' gratifications sought and gratifications actually obtained. Usage behavior availability …

India’S Digital Diaspora Diplomacy: Operationalizing Collaborative Public Diplomacy Strategies For Social Media, Bhattiprolu Murti, R.S. Zaharna

Exchange: The Journal of Public Diplomacy

This study examines how India uses digital media to connect with its diaspora as part of its diaspora diplomacy. In order to analyze the strategy and its effectiveness, the study operationalized Cowan and Arsenault’s (2008) theoretical framework of three layers of public diplomacy – monologue, dialogue and collaboration – by identifying corresponding layers of social media components. The study draws a more distinctive line between dialogue and collaboration in digital strategies: dialogic entail relationship-building and knowledge sharing, while collaboration creates ownership, relationship transformation and knowledge creation. This analytical lens was then applied specifically to assess the website of Overseas Indian …

All The Web's A Stage: The Dramaturgy Of Young Adult Social Media Use, Jaime R. Riccio

Theses - ALL

This study presents an in-depth, qualitative examination of dramaturgy in young adult interactions on the social networking sites, Facebook and Twitter. The dramaturgical perspective introduced by Erving Goffman in the study of sociology and symbolic interactionism is applied to a new media setting, wherein the interpersonal interactions of users are influenced by a mass media context. The author ventures into the field of dramaturgy as part of a broader sphere of hyperdramatic acculturation that millennials are growing up in, with constant access to one another through social media and the prevalence of dramatic and attention-seeking behaviors in entertainment media. A …

Social Technologies And Informal Knowledge Sharing Within And Across Organizations, Jarrahi Mohammad Hosein

School of Information Studies - Dissertations

This doctoral dissertation is focused on both empirical and conceptual contributions relative to the roles social technologies play in informal knowledge sharing practices, both within and across organizations. Social technologies include (a) traditional social technologies (e.g., email, phone and instant messengers), (b) emerging social networking technologies commonly known as social media, such as blogs, wikis, major public social networking sites (e.g., Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn), and (c) enterprise social networking technologies controlled by a host organization ( e.g., SocialText). The rapid uptake of social technologies, combined with growing interest in their broader social implications, raises pertinent questions about uses for …

Social Media And Public Diplomacy: Foreign To China's Environmental Movements, Licheng Zhu

Exchange: The Journal of Public Diplomacy

The looming environmental crisis in China not only brings obstacles and pain to society, but also creates a great opportunity for international cooperation. This paper critically assesses the pitfalls of China’s current environmental protection regime and the difficulties that Chinese environmental NGOs are facing. It argues that social media web sites and international environmental NGOs are able to help Chinese environmental NGOs confront their problems through tactics such as public diplomacy.

Introduction To Altmetrics For Science, Technology, Engineering, And Mathematics (Stem) Librarians, Linda M. Galloway, Janet Pease, Anne E. Rauh

Libraries' and Librarians' Publications

Quantifying scholarly output via citation metrics is the time-honored method to gauge academic success. Altmetrics, or alternative citation metrics, provide researchers and scholars with new ways to track influence across evolving modes of scholarly communication. This article will give librarians an overview of new trends in measuring scholarly influence, introduce them to altmetrics tools, and encourage them to engage with researchers in discussion of these new metrics.

Diplomacy 2.0: The Future Of Social Media In Nation Branding, Britney Harris

Exchange: The Journal of Public Diplomacy

The importance of social media as a tool of public diplomacy has gained traction in U.S. foreign policy initiatives. The Obama administration’s creation of “Diplomacy 2.0” has brought the use of Twitter and other social media sites to the front line of public diplomacy practices. This paper looks at why social media are an effective tool for two-way communication and how it can enhance U.S. public diplomacy initiatives. The author examines case studies of successful implementation of Twitter diplomacy and the use of Twitter for crisis management. Finally, the author concludes and discusses policy prescriptions, including Twitter implementation, relevant to …

How Much Does This Tick You Off? Online Rejection And Criticism Lead To Negative Affect And Retaliatory Aggression, Gina Masullo Chen

Mass Communications - Dissertations

A three-condition (rejection, criticism, control) single-factor experiment (N = 77) on a mock social-networking site similar to Facebook reveals that even a slight rejection - not being allowed to join groups on the site - lead to increases in self-reported negative affect and retaliation against the site and the rejecting groups compared to a control. Subjects who were accepted into the groups but then criticized experienced the same increases in negative affect and retaliatory aggression, as those who were not allowed to join. In addition, men showed heightened retaliatory aggression compared to women and responded differently to criticism than women. …

Foursquare: What And Why?, Anne E. Rauh, Carolyn Rauber

Libraries' and Librarians' Publications

No abstract provided.

Contests As A Tool Of Public Diplomacy: The “India Is…” Global Video Contest, Navdeep Suri

Exchange: The Journal of Public Diplomacy

There is a growing recognition amongst public diplomacy practitioners for the need to reach young people. In large parts of the developing world - in Africa, in South and Southeast Asia, in the Caribbean and elsewhere - persons below the age of thirty-five constitute approximately seventy percent of the population. Among them, the educated, urbanized youth are growing up in an era in which connectivity and information on the go are taken for granted. India or Indonesia, Nigeria or Nicaragua, the phenomenon is rapidly gathering momentum.

How do we engage with this new generation? How do we encourage them to …