Communication Technology and New Media Commons^™

The Geopolitics Of Infrastructuralized Platforms: The Case Of Alibaba, Hong Shen, Yujia He

Patterson School of Diplomacy and International Commerce Faculty Publications

Contemporary digital platforms have become increasingly infrastructuralized, and started to raise geopolitical tensions with their global expansion. Amidst the heightened geopolitical competition between the US and China, the growing power of Chinese infrastructuralized platforms has made them the center of recent geopolitical dynamics. Drawing from an exploratory case study, this paper discusses Alibaba, one of the most prominent Chinese Internet giants, as an infrastructuralized platform, and highlights its geopolitical struggles. Often perceived as an e-commerce company, Alibaba has become ‘infrastructuralized’: its now-massive digital empire has moved beyond e-commerce, expanding into almost every aspect of China’s and global digital economy such …

Rise Of Social Media Influencers As A New Marketing Channel: Focusing On The Roles Of Psychological Well-Being And Perceived Social Responsibility Among Consumers, Jihye Kim, Minseong Kim

Integrated Strategic Communication Faculty Publications

This empirical research investigated the structural relationships between social media influencer attributes, perceived friendship, psychological well-being, loyalty, and perceived social responsibility of influencers, focusing on the perspective of social media users. More specifically, this study conceptually identified social media influencer attributes such as language similarity, interest similarity, interaction frequency, and self-disclosure and examined the respective effects of each dimension on perceived friendship and psychological well-being, consequently resulting in loyalty toward social media influencers. The authors collected and analyzed data from 388 social media users in the United States via Amazon’s Mechanical Turk with multivariate analyses to test the hypothesized associations …

Social Media Usages In Small Not-For-Profit Organizations, Sarah Nolan

MPA/MPP/MPFM Capstone Projects

Effective social media management takes time, effort, and intentionality. Small not-for-profit organizations would benefit from doing this, but often have difficulty with being able to do so. In order to find out how small not-for-profit organizations use their social media and how social media could best be used to accomplish their mission, the following research questions were asked: What communications policies and procedures are followed by small not-for-profits organizations? Are the current social media practices of these organizations effective? What are the primary needs of these organizations in terms of social media and how can they be addressed?

In order …

Budweiser In The 2017 Super Bowl: Dialectic Values Advocacy And The Rhetorical Stakeholder, Benjamin P. Windholz

Theses and Dissertations--Communication

Organizational-public relations discourse is changing given the advent of social media, and corporate statements are evaluated under different criteria in the digital age. Grounding Budweiser’s response to controversy over their 2017 Super Bowl advertisement in terms of consumer expectations for corporate social responsibility provides a new perspective for approaching Bostdorff and Vibbert’s (1994) conceptualization of values advocacy. This study recognizes the power of the rhetorical stakeholder, a discursively created public, and demands re-evaluation of the values common to society from a co-creational OPR perspective. Conceptualizing dialectic values advocacy outlines the changing values among contemporary, common stakeholders as well as the …

Wet Grain Delivery Advice: A Previously Impossible Extension Challenge Solved Through App Technology, Joseph S. Dvorak, Sam Mcneill, Clint Hardy

Biosystems and Agricultural Engineering Faculty Publications

The delivery of wet grain during harvest is a complex and constantly changing problem about which Extension professionals have been unable to offer more than general advice. By capitalizing on important characteristics of mobile devices, a new app enables producers to fully benefit from detailed information universities have generated on grain drying and costs associated with delivery of grain to different locales. Development of such an app demonstrates the power of apps and mobile devices in allowing Extension to deliver previously unattainable services to its clientele.

From Grapes To Wine To Brands To Culture: A Qualitative Study Of Kentucky Wineries And Kentucky Wine Producers, Benjamin J. Triana

Theses and Dissertations--Communication

The Kentucky wine industry has grown from six wineries in 1999 to more than sixty wineries as of 2013. However, the industry has reached a crucial point in its development as funds allotted from the Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement ended in 2014. As a result, Kentucky wine producers must navigate the demands of local, regional, national, and international wine markets without the same amount of economic support provided in the early stages of the industry’s development.

The purpose of this study was to investigate (1) how Kentucky wine producers use cultural associations to manage their brands, (2) communicate with multiple …

Web 2.0 Use And Knowledge Transfer: How Social Media Technologies Can Lead To Organizational Innovation, Namjoo Choi, Kuang-Yuan Huang, Aaron Palmer, Lenore Horowitz

Information Science Faculty Publications

The concept of Web 2.0 has gained widespread prominence in recent years. The use of Web 2.0 applications on an individual level is currently extensive, and such applications have begun to be implemented by organizations in hopes of boosting collaboration and driving innovation. Despite this growing trend, only a small number of theoretical perspectives are available in the literature that discuss how such applications could be utilized to assist in innovation. In this paper, we propose a theoretical model explicating this phenomenon. We argue that organizational Web 2.0 use fosters the emergence and enhancement of informal networks, weak ties, boundary …

Commentary: Changing The Channel: Public Health Communication In The 21st Century, Anna Goodman Hoover

Frontiers in Public Health Services and Systems Research

This commentary asserts the need for research examining the use and efficacy of social media as a tool for meeting public health stakeholders’ information needs. The author points to several potential research questions for the field, situates studies addressing these questions within the PHSSR Research Agenda, and introduces the work of Harris et al. that is included in this issue of Frontiers. The commentary closes with a call for horizontal stakeholder communication that supports evidence-based decision-making.

"Apps"—An Innovative Way To Share Extension Knowledge, Joseph S. Dvorak, Tanya C. Franke-Dvorak, Randy R. Price

Biosystems and Agricultural Engineering Faculty Publications

Extension professionals across the country are continuously seeking innovative ways to reach clientele and to disseminate timely, educational information. A new avenue to reach clientele includes the use of smartphone "apps." The "Machinery Sizing" app, which was developed to ease the estimation of tractor horsepower to implement sizing for Extension clientele anytime, anywhere, is explained as a key example for Extension professionals to utilize apps in disseminating information to clientele. There are many benefits to using apps, including information availability wherever Internet service is available on the smartphone, ease of computations of equations, and automatic updates being sent to users.