Social Media Commons^™

Use Of Twitter Among College Students For Academics: A Mixed-Methods Approach, Stefanie Amiruzzaman, Md Amiruzzaman

Languages & Cultures Faculty Publications

For almost a decade, Twitter use and its impact on students' academic performance have been explored by many researchers. Despite growing scholarly interest, studies have been mostly quantitative in nature. The findings of previous studies are conflicting; thus, an in-depth study is needed to determine how and what impacts college students' academic performance (i.e., GPA) when they spend time on Twitter. The purpose of this study was to understand the effects of Twitter use on college students' academic performance. The present study shows that individual analysis techniques, such as quantitative or qualitative tools, are not enough to understand the underlying …

Problematic Social Media Use, Social Comparison, And Defeat: An Intensive Longitudinal Investigation, Natalia Macrynikola

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Self-injurious thoughts and behaviors (SITBs) have steadily risen over the past two decades. The simultaneous dramatic increase in social media use has fueled concerns that using social media may be contributing to suicide risk. Although an emerging body of evidence reveals associations between certain patterns of social media use and SITBs, most research studies have not been designed to assess the temporal order of these variables and have neglected to investigate mechanisms underlying such associations. As a result, whether and how social media use may be conferring suicide risk remains unclear. To address this gap, the present study examined a …

Does Social Media Accelerate Product Recalls? Evidence From The Pharmaceutical Industry, Yang Gao, Wenjing Duan, Huaxia Rui

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Social media has become a vital platform for voicing product-related experiences that may not only reveal product defects but also impose pressure on firms to act more promptly than before. This study scrutinizes the rarely-studied relationship between these voices and the speed of product recalls in the context of the pharmaceutical industry where social media pharmacovigilance is becoming increasingly important for the detection of drug safety signals. Using Federal Drug Administration (FDA) drug enforcement reports and social media data crawled from online forums and Twitter, we investigate whether social media can accelerate the product recall process in the context of …

Analyzing Fluctuation Of Topics And Public Sentiment Through Social Media Data, Haoyue Liu

Dissertations

Over the past decade years, Internet users were expending rapidly in the world. They form various online social networks through such Internet platforms as Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. These platforms provide a fast way that helps their users receive and disseminate information and express personal opinions in virtual space. When dealing with massive and chaotic social media data, how to accurately determine what events or concepts users are discussing is an interesting and important problem.

This dissertation work mainly consists of two parts. First, this research pays attention to mining the hidden topics and user interest trend by analyzing real-world …

Tag Your Friends For A Chance To Read This Paper: Self-Monitoring And Renumeration Posts On Social Media, Andrea Weng

Honors Program Theses and Projects

Brands frequently offer consumers the opportunity to win prizes or be entered into a sweepstakes by asking for likes, shares, tags and even content creation. However, many consumers are not interested in interacting with their social media audience for the sole purpose of remuneration. This study explores the willingness of Gen Z to participate in remuneration posts and the likelihood of liking, sharing, tagging and more. Findings reveal that most Gen Z consumers are willing to like a post in order to be entered to win something, but further engagement is less likely. When using more popular platforms like Instagram, …

Higher Education Social Media: Student Perceptions Of University’S Covid-19 Crisis Communication, Bailey Cormier

Honors Program Theses and Projects

This study, as stated, is aimed to explore the perceptions and experiences of full-time undergraduate students of the university’s social media crisis communication. These students, the stakeholders of BSU, have followed Instagram accounts and have both accessed and been the audience of during the COVID-19 pandemic. Since the COVID-19 pandemic is a novel health crisis, the findings of this study have significance and can provide insights into effective crisis communication strategies that organizations and crisis communicators can implement in the current pandemic and future health crises. Experiences with different aspects during the pandemic such as participating in education online during …

Mitigating Covid-19 Infection Rates And Increasing Vaccination Rates For Children Ages 5-11: A Content Analysis Of How Two Hospitals’ Use Of Effective Social Media Engagement Helped To Influence A Healthier Public, Jacqueline Delorey

Honors Program Theses and Projects

The Covid-19 outbreak initiated an international public health crisis, altering our publics dependency on health organizations communication strategies and tactics. Immediate crisis communication and public health efforts were needed to mitigate panic and infectious disease across the globe. The digital marketing strategies utilized for social media began to reflect the value of accurate and timely information spread in correlation to a healthier targeted public for large health organizations. The significance of this thesis in the field of communications directly correlates to the health belief model, which is used to observe the motivation and decision-making processes that influence an individual’s choice …

From Fitspiration Posts To Food Shaming: Social Media’S Impact On Adolescent Girls’ Body Image, Madison Jones

Honors Program Theses and Projects

Social media is marketed as a way to connect and share with others all over the world—a fast way to connect to grandma down in Florida, do research from a university on the other side of the world, or even spark environmental change across the globe. So how, at the same time, can this be a harmful tool, one that has been identified as a cause of depression and even, in some cases, suicide in young girls? Social media sites like Instagram, FaceBook, and TikTok encourage users to post pictures and videos that show your “best self” alongside a rating …

Spectral Analysis Of Multiscale Cultural Traits On Twitter, Chandler Squires, Nikhil Kunapuli, Yaneer Bar-Yam, Alfredo Morales

Northeast Journal of Complex Systems (NEJCS)

Understanding and mapping the emergence and boundaries of cultural areas is a challenge for social sciences. In this paper, we present a method for analyzing the cultural composition of regions via Twitter hashtags. Cultures can be described as distinct combination of traits which we capture via principal component analysis (PCA). We investigate the top 8 PCA components of an area including France, Spain, and Portugal, in terms of the geographic distribution of their hashtag composition. We also discuss relationships between components and the insights those relationships can provide into the structure of a cultural space. Finally, we compare the spatial …

A Thematic Review On Digital Storytelling (Dst) In Social Media, Ameer Fathima Musfira, Nurulhuda Ibrahim, Harryizman Harun

The Qualitative Report

Digital Storytelling (DST) is defined as telling stories using digital means. It has been initially applied for diverse purposes, including in community development, therapeutic benefits, and as an aid in teaching and learning. DST has recently been broadly used on social media platforms for marketing, running campaigns, journalism, and much more. However, no comprehensive systematic or thematic review of DST in social media has been conducted. Accordingly, this paper aims to provide a thematic review of DST in social media. The thematic review was carried out on 50 articles published from 2016 to 2021. These 50 discrete studies were selected …

Harnessing Your Feminist Rage: A Multimedia Assignment For Upper-Level Courses, Caitlin E. Lawson

Feminist Pedagogy

"Harnessing Your Feminist Rage" introduces a three-part multimedia assignment that encourages students to think critically about feminist anger, particularly as refracted through social media. First, students introduce and analyze a media text or phenomenon that made them angry and reflect upon that anger. Then, using whichever online medium they choose, students call out the offender and express their anger to the audience of their choice in order to meet a specific goal. Finally, students reflect on their expression of anger and their experience creating their response. Overall, the goal is for students to combine their knowledge of feminist theories and …

We're All Friends Here: Examining Transparasocial Interaction On Twitch And Its Effects On Strategic Communications, Alexander Edward Carter

Doctoral Dissertations

In this paper, the author examines advertising on the video game live streaming platform, Twitch. Using a 2 (presence/absence of Transparasocial Interaction) x 2 (presence/absence of self-disclosure by the streamer), this study seeks to gain a better understanding of community perceptions of influencers, and advertising on the Twitch platform, a subject that is only recently becoming a topic of interest for advertising scholars.

Sharing Of Covid-19 Related Messages On Facebook By Bangladeshi Government Agencies And Non-Profit Organizations/Ngos: A Study On User Engagement, Nabila Mushtarin

Theses and Dissertations

During the COVID-19 pandemic, health information was shared by the government agencies and non-profit organizations in Bangladesh. This study explored user engagement with the COVID-19 related health messages/contents shared by Bangladeshi government agencies and non-profit organizations/NGOs on social media. With this goal, this study examined social media posts by government and non-profit organizations' Facebook pages and their user interactions to understand engagement with distinct types of messages shared on these pages. The findings indicated that photos, videos, and links with Covid-19 related messages get more interactions from the Bangladeshi Facebook users, and further suggested that the users’ sentiment to the …

Tiktok As Art: Visual Culture Art Education In An Afterschool Art Program, Chloe C. Morrell

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This research and the objective were to investigate the firsthand experience of

visual culture art education in an after-school art program. The after-school

program was focused mainly on an underserved population. We focused our

concentration on the social media app TikTok. The author investigated visual

culture theorists and discovered ideas from Terry Barrett and his use of

denotations and connotations and their relationship to art. The participants were

members of the Boys and Girls Club of Nacogdoches who analyzed TikTok

videos using annotations and denotations, then in return created their own

individual videos inspired by an original TikTok video. The …

The Pandemic Is Not Killing Us, The Police Are Killing Us: How The Change In The Subjective Reality Of Nigerian Citizens Brought About The #Endsars Protests, Olabode Adefemi Lawal

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

Using the theory of the social construction of reality, I researched the multiple roles of social media in the Nigerian #EndSARS protests. I interviewed 16 Nigerian protesters from the #EndSARS movement for this study: eight participated in-person while eight protested in-person and digitally (hybrid). Participants were asked a series of scripted questions regarding the #EndSARS protests to understand the roles social media played in shaping the subjective reality of Nigerians during that time. Using thematic analysis, this thesis proposes that the change in the subjective reality of some Nigerians contributed to the October 2020 #EndSARS protests. This thesis also compares …

Instructional Designers Conducting Professional Learning Using Social Media: A Phenomenological Study Of Their Experiences Through A Self-Regulated Learning Lens, Pauline S. Muljana

STEMPS Theses & Dissertations

Because the instructional design and technology field is dynamic (Sharif & Cho, 2015; Wang et al., 2021), instructional designers need to pursue continuous, just-in-time professional learning (Carliner, 2018) to improve knowledge, skills, and abilities (Sharif & Cho, 2015; Ritzhaupt & Martin, 2015), without being constrained by location, budget, and time (Muljana et al., 2020; Muljana et al., 2021). On the one hand, the omnipresent social media technologies offer affordances for facilitating this type of professional learning. Such technologies allow instructional designers to reach out to colleagues, search for ready-to-implement strategies, and find relevant, timely information. On the other hand, conducting …

The Buzz Behind Alcohol Advertising: A Study Of How Alcohol Advertisements On Social Media Impact Behavior, Alexis Morgan Campbell

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Alcohol advertisements are known to be appealing and memorable, and several researchers have investigated what makes these advertisements so attractive. Several trends have emerged regarding the content within alcohol advertisements: themes of parties, celebration, and social success within television, magazines, and social media since the 1970s. Recently, several studies found that new themes in alcohol ads have been found to be popular, especially in social media advertisements (Campbell & Chung, 2022). The elaboration likelihood model (ELM) provides insight into why a person’s attitude could be more susceptible or why their behavior could be more easily influenced by certain types of …

Local Broadcast Reporters Maintaining Social Responsibility And Mental Health While Serving A Community Under Lockdown, Mary-Morgan Ellis

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study looks at local broadcast news reporters working in Northwest Arkansas before, at the start, and during the COVID-19 global pandemic. Research for this study includes a content study of the tweets and Twitter accounts of eleven local reporters. This study considers the social responsibility theory and examines how these eleven local reporters use the theory in their everyday work. Research found, though these reporters don’t credit the theory by name, they are still putting its guidelines into effect as a sort of moral compass when creating objective and representative news for their communities. The research also found that …

A Discourse Analysis Of Online Readers’ Comments On Political Discourse In Nigeria, Abubakar Jibril, Sabiu Idris, Adamu Mohammed

Journal of Strategic and Global Studies

The internet has liberalized political discussion in Nigeria, and enhanced public debates on trending social, economic, religious, and political issues on the various platforms it harbours, such as the social media, online news sites and blogs among others. Online comments sections of news sites enable readers for instance, to discuss issues raised in the news from their individual points of view. This development facilitates interaction among news producers and consumers, and serves as effective feedback mechanism. However, previous researches have established disturbing trends on the platforms, bordering on a seaming inclination of discourse to ethnic, religious and regional schmaltziness. This …

The Impact Of Media And Information Literacy On Students’ Acquisition Of The Skills Needed To Detect Fake News, Reem M. Al Zou'bi Dr.

Journal of Media Literacy Education

This research investigated the impact of media and information literacy (MIL) on education faculty students’ acquisition of the skills needed to detect fake news. A one-group experimental design was employed with a randomly selected sample of 100 Jordanian undergraduate students. The participants completed one pre-test and two post-tests, each of which consisted of 10 closed-ended questions and one open-ended question on how to detect fake news. The results indicated that studying MIL has an impact on students’ acquisition of the skills needed to detect fake news. The findings also suggested that the methods students employed to identify and detect fake …