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Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons

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Articles 1 - 11 of 11

Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

We Will Rise No Matter What': Community Perspectives Of Disaster Resilience Following Hurricanes Irma And Maria In Puerto Rico, Elizabeth L. Petrun Sayers, Kathryn E. Anthony, Ashlyn Tom, Alice Y. Kim, Courtney Armstrong May 2022

We Will Rise No Matter What': Community Perspectives Of Disaster Resilience Following Hurricanes Irma And Maria In Puerto Rico, Elizabeth L. Petrun Sayers, Kathryn E. Anthony, Ashlyn Tom, Alice Y. Kim, Courtney Armstrong

Faculty Publications

Category 4 Hurricane Maria made landfall in Puerto Rico on 20 September 2017 and ploughed across the territory with sustained winds of 155 mph. Just two weeks earlier, category 5 Hurricane Irma had struck the island already damaging critical infrastructure making Hurricane Maria even more devasting. The hurricanes caused catastrophic damage, resulting in the largest and longest response to a domestic disaster in the history of the United States. This paper explores the recovery process in Puerto Rico using a community resilience lens. The study examines narratives, the media environment, trusted sources, and information preferences following the crisis. Community workshops, …


Reddit As A Source Of Covid-19 Information: A Content Analysis Of R/Coronavirus During The Early Pandemic, Brent Hale, Mark Alberta, Seung Woo Chae Jan 2022

Reddit As A Source Of Covid-19 Information: A Content Analysis Of R/Coronavirus During The Early Pandemic, Brent Hale, Mark Alberta, Seung Woo Chae

Faculty Publications

Emerging research has begun examining the utility of social media platforms for information dissemination during the COVID-19 pandemic. Following this developing thread, this work examines discourse within r/coronavirus, a Reddit forum (i.e., subreddit) developed to curate COVID-19 information that burgeoned during the early months of the pandemic. Through a content analysis of 226 posts and 2260 corresponding comments generated between February and May, 2020, this study investigated early-pandemic communication patterns in this platform, including what information was deemed important and how users framed causes and solutions. Overall, findings indicate that users of r/coronavirus prioritized information about COVID-19 spread, public health …


Assessing The Reliability Of Relevant Tweets And Validation Using Manual And Automatic Approaches For Flood Risk Communication, Xiaohui Liu, Bandana Kar, Francisco Alejandro Montiel Ishino, Chaoyang Zhang, Faustine Williams Sep 2020

Assessing The Reliability Of Relevant Tweets And Validation Using Manual And Automatic Approaches For Flood Risk Communication, Xiaohui Liu, Bandana Kar, Francisco Alejandro Montiel Ishino, Chaoyang Zhang, Faustine Williams

Faculty Publications

© 2020 by the authors. While Twitter has been touted as a preeminent source of up-to-date information on hazard events, the reliability of tweets is still a concern. Our previous publication extracted relevant tweets containing information about the 2013 Colorado flood event and its impacts. Using the relevant tweets, this research further examined the reliability (accuracy and trueness) of the tweets by examining the text and image content and comparing them to other publicly available data sources. Both manual identification of text information and automated (Google Cloud Vision, application programming interface (API)) extraction of images were implemented to balance accurate …


Social Media Goes To The Movies: Fear Of Missing Out, Social Capital, And Social Motivations Of Cinema Attendance, Alec C. Tefertiller, Lindsey Conlin Maxwell, David L. Morris Ii Aug 2019

Social Media Goes To The Movies: Fear Of Missing Out, Social Capital, And Social Motivations Of Cinema Attendance, Alec C. Tefertiller, Lindsey Conlin Maxwell, David L. Morris Ii

Faculty Publications

The purpose of this study was to examine the influence of participation in social media networks on theatrical movie attendance, with particular attention paid to the fear-of-missing-out (FoMO) and social media social capital. Using an online survey (N = 472), it was determined that the direct social utility of the theatrical experience was a better predictor of theatrical attendance than social media FoMO or social capital. However, both bridging social capital and FoMO were predictors of the post-viewing social media sharing of the film experience, with bridging social capital best predicting social media sharing. Furthermore, FoMO did not moderate …


In-Feed Native Advertisement On News Websites: Effects Of Advertising Format, Website Reputation, And Product Involvement, Lijie Zhou, Fei Xue Mar 2019

In-Feed Native Advertisement On News Websites: Effects Of Advertising Format, Website Reputation, And Product Involvement, Lijie Zhou, Fei Xue

Faculty Publications

Focusing on two popular types of native advertising, endemic in-feed advertisements and linked in-feed advertisements, the current study examined the effects of advertising format, website reputation, and product involvement on perceived advertising credibility (trustworthiness and expertise), attitude toward the advertisement, brand interest, and purchase intention. In general, endemic in-feed advertisements were rated more favorably on source expertise and brand interest, while linked in-feed advertisements scored higher on attitude toward the advertisement. Three-way interaction effects were found for source trustworthiness, attitude toward the advertisement, brand interest, and purchase intention. Endemic in-feed advertisements showed stronger impact for the high-involvement product on a …


Peta, Rhetorical Fracture, And The Power Of Digital Activism, Ashli Q. Stokes, Wendy Atkins-Sayre May 2018

Peta, Rhetorical Fracture, And The Power Of Digital Activism, Ashli Q. Stokes, Wendy Atkins-Sayre

Faculty Publications

Starting in 2013, SeaWorld faced a public relations disaster with the release of the documentary titled Blackfish that accused the company of mistreatment of its orcas. SeaWorld attempted to respond and rebuild its credibility, but activist group ‘People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals’ (PETA) doubled down on the corporation through its rhetorical shock tactics, deepening the organization’s woes. The PETA/SeaWorld controversy does more than provide another example of poor corporate public relations decision-making made in light of an activist group’s savvy use of digital technology. We argue that the case helps explain how digital technologies fundamentally change activism, whereby …


Exploring Perspectives Of Students Studying Communication Toward Media Access And Use: A Q Methodological Study, Angel Riggs, Diane Montgomery, Cindy Blackwell Jan 2017

Exploring Perspectives Of Students Studying Communication Toward Media Access And Use: A Q Methodological Study, Angel Riggs, Diane Montgomery, Cindy Blackwell

Faculty Publications

This study sought to help communication educators better understand young news consumers who have grown up among a plethora of media options. To better reach and educate today’s up-and-coming media professionals, those in the industry need a better understanding of modern media students’ perspectives of news. This study used Q methodology and relies on Stephenson’s Play and Dutta-Bergman’s Media Complementarity theories. Students on a large, comprehensive university campus pursuing undergraduate studies via a communications-related major were asked to complete a Q sort and demographic instrument. Thirty-four participants resulted in 33 usable sorts. The following labels were applied to the three …


Time-Shifting Vs. Appointment Viewing: The Role Of Fear Of Missing Out Within Tv Consumption Behaviors, Lindsey Conlin, Andrew C. Billings, Lauren Averset Jan 2016

Time-Shifting Vs. Appointment Viewing: The Role Of Fear Of Missing Out Within Tv Consumption Behaviors, Lindsey Conlin, Andrew C. Billings, Lauren Averset

Faculty Publications

The current study employed a national sample in order to investigate the phenomenon of fear-of-missing-out (FoMO), the apprehension associated with the fear that other people are having a pleasurable experience that one is not a part of. The current study investigated the role that FoMO plays in TV viewing habits, particularly binge-watching and the consumption of one-time megaevents. Results indicated that FoMO predicts the pace at which people choose to watch TV, social media use as it relates to TV, and whether they are likely to watch some one-time TV programs—such as sporting events like the Super Bowl.


Don't Call Me That: A Techno-Feminist Critique Of The Term Mommy Blogger, Gina Masullo Chen Jul 2013

Don't Call Me That: A Techno-Feminist Critique Of The Term Mommy Blogger, Gina Masullo Chen

Faculty Publications

This article argues that although the act of mommy blogging may be empowering, the term itself reinforces women's hegemonic normative roles as nurturers, thrusting women who blog about their children into a form of digital domesticity in the blogosphere. Drawing on 29 blogs posts women wrote debating the term mommy blogger and 649 comments posted on these blogs, the author uses Judith Butler's concept of performativity to rhetorically analyze the term, using a techno-feminist lens and cyber-ethnographic approach. The author asserts that the use of the term mommy blogger continues the culturally ingrained performance of motherhood women learned since childhood, …


African American Ethnic And Class-Based Identities On The World Wide Web: Moderating The Effects Of Self-Perceived Information Seeking/Finding And Web Self-Efficacy, Jennifer R. Warren, Michael L. Hecht, Eura Jung, Lynette Kvasny, Mark G. Henderson Oct 2010

African American Ethnic And Class-Based Identities On The World Wide Web: Moderating The Effects Of Self-Perceived Information Seeking/Finding And Web Self-Efficacy, Jennifer R. Warren, Michael L. Hecht, Eura Jung, Lynette Kvasny, Mark G. Henderson

Faculty Publications

The web is a potentially powerful tool for communicating information to diverse audiences. Unfortunately, all groups are not equally represented on the web, and this may have implications for online information seeking. This study investigated the role of class- and ethnic-based identity in self-perceived web-based information seeking/finding and self-efficacy. A questionnaire is administered, asking African Americans about their class and ethnic identities and web use to test a conceptual model predicting that these identities are positively related to web-based information seeking and web self-efficacy, which are then positively related to web-based information finding. Gender and previous web experience are expected …


Examining The Cdcynergy Event Assessment Tool: An Investigation Of The Anthrax Crisis In Boca Raton, Florida, J. J. Mcintyre, Steven J. Venette Sep 2006

Examining The Cdcynergy Event Assessment Tool: An Investigation Of The Anthrax Crisis In Boca Raton, Florida, J. J. Mcintyre, Steven J. Venette

Faculty Publications

This paper examines the dependability of the Event Assessment Tool over time. The latter is part of a CD-ROM-Emergency Risk Communication CDCynergy-distributed primarily to public information officers in the United States by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The Event Assessment Tool is designed to aid emergency professionals in identifying the magnitude of a crisis event and to suggest appropriate actions to confront such a situation. Applied twice during the 2001 anthrax bioterrorism crisis in Boca Raton, Florida, the tool functioned in a binary manner by first indicating a moderate crisis level (on 4 October) and then four days …