Communication Technology and New Media Commons^™

Medical Tourism & Communication, Alicia Mason

Faculty Submissions

Medical tourism (MT), sometimes referred to as health tourism or medical travel, involves both the treatment of illness and the facilitation of wellness, with travel. Medical tourism is a multifaceted and multiphase process involving many agents and actors that requires careful planning and execution. The coordinated process involves the biomedical, transportation, tourism, and leisure industries. From the communication perspective, the process can be viewed as a 5-stage model consisting of the: (a) orientation, (b) preparation, (c) experiential and treatment, (d) convalescence, and (e) reflection phases. Medical tourism is uniquely situated in a nexus of academic literature related to communication, business …

Halloween 2023: It’S A Barbie World!, Jin-A Choi, Yi Luo, Bond Benton

School of Communication and Media Scholarship and Creative Works

Encapsulated in pink, Barbie epitomizes a dreamland that stimulates feelings of nostalgia, joy, and imagination, fulfilling individuals’ desire to escape. Mattel, the parent company of Barbie, and Warner Bros. through 100 or more brand collaborations (del Barco, 2023), has relentlessly swept the world with a blitz of Barbie-themed merchandises, such as Barbie dreamhouse rentals, Barbie gaming consoles, Barbie pasta, Barbie pink suitcases, Barbie apparels, bright fuchsia Xbox, Barbie boat cruise, pink burger, etc. Staggering surge for online sales of Barbie-themed products affirms the impressive upswing of online consumers’ interest in Barbie.

With the significance of Halloween, the popularity of Barbie, …

Curating A Consumption Ideology: Platformization And Gun Influencers On Instagram, Jenna M. Drenten Ph.D., Lauren Gurrieri, Aimee Dinnín Huff, Michelle Barnhart

School of Business: Faculty Publications and Other Works

This study explores how a platform enables social media influencers to promulgate a consumption ideology. We show how gun influencers, or “gunfluencers,” use Instagram to link products, activities, and meanings to Second Amendment ideology – a gun-centric belief system in the United States colloquially known as “2A ideology.” Through a qualitative study of 25 Instagram gunfluencers, we identify a process of curating a consumption ideology wherein social media influencers employ four curatorial tactics: glamourizing, demystifying, victimizing, and tribalizing. Findings suggest gunfluencers extend audiences and leverage algorithms to prescribe and model how supporters of 2A ideology should look, act, speak, feel, …

Examining The Impact Of Sports Influencer Advertising On Consumer Behavior In The Us And Saudi Arabia On Instagram., Mohammed Samer Alassaf

Masters Theses

This paper discusses the influence of sports influencers on the buying pattern of fans in the United States and Saudi Arabia. Sports are a crucial part of life in both countries, with numerous athletes being considered celebrities. Sports influencers have a tremendous impact on the audience, who often imitate their behavior and buy the products they advertise. The sports market is huge in both countries, with businesses utilizing sports influencers to promote their brands. Instagram is a popular platform for businesses to gain young fans and customers. The research and development of the sports industry have enabled considerable growth of …

Canadians Redefining R&B: The Online Marketing Of Drake, Justin Bieber, And Jessie Reyez, Amara Pope Ms.

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

In a country that long failed to accept, include, and institutionalize R&B music as part of Canadian culture, musical artists Justin Bieber, Drake, and Jessie Reyez have successfully broken-down barriers by having successful careers as racially diverse Canadian R&B artists. This qualitative study surveys the literature on classifications of the R&B genre and of Canadian identities in popular media. The theoretical framework of discourse analysis is used to conduct a brief episodic history of Canadian R&B and to evaluate how the music genre “R&B,” is traditionally associated with people who have "Black" and "American" identities, and how a “Canadian” identity …

Social Media: Enabling Touchpoints Beyond Advertising, Kapil R. Tuli, Sheetal Bhardwaj

Asian Management Insights

An effective customer service platform and a strategic communication channel.

The Challenge Of Measuring Traditional And Digital Audiences In A Global Market, Jorge Gallardo-Camacho, César García, Belén Puebla-Martínez

All Faculty Scholarship for the College of Arts and Humanities

This monograph titled Audiences and new forms of broadcast: linear, on-demand, streaming and/or social has five articles that represent the complexity of the phenomenon of audiences across fields and from different perspectives: Traditional television consumption, viewing of Netflix, the social audience of video platforms, the new tastes of viewers for vertical formats driven by mobile phones, and the relationship of influencers with their audiences. This number raises the problem of audience measurement, quantification, and comparison in the new digital age. The measurement of audiovisual audiences faces the problem of the lack of a measurement system accepted in all regions and …