Digital Commons Network^™

Putting The Social In Social Media: How Human Connection Triggers Engagement, Stephanie Adomavicius

Proceedings of the New York State Communication Association

Social media has become the preferred channel of information and has altered patterns of interaction and connection. As a result, society now revolves around a two-way form of communication with constant dialogue and instant responses. Public relations practitioners have had to adapt and change their strategy in order to keep up with the times, and because of this, engagement is now considered to be a measurement of success.

In terms of social media, engagement is how users interact with content and participate in online conversations. This study will uncover what causes people to engage on social media and identify the …

All Social Media Is Not Created Equal: Instagram, Finsta, And Loneliness, Rebecca Schoenfeld, Katherine L. Fiori

Journal of Social, Behavioral, and Health Sciences

Research on the relationships between social media use and loneliness has produced mixed findings, in part because people use social media in different ways. Finsta is a private Instagram account followed only by a small group of the user’s friends and is considered to be a more authentic form of social media. The purpose of the present study was to examine the differential associations of Instagram and Finsta use with social and emotional loneliness and to investigate off-line engagement as a potential mediator of these associations. With data from an online survey given to N = 330 emerging adults, a …

Can Marketing Content Strategies Help Promote Sustainability On Social Media?: Comparing The Effectiveness Of Owned Versus Earned Endorsement, Eilleen R. Plante

Honors College Theses

The importance of sustainability is rising as consumers make more environmentally conscious purchases (Neilson, 2018). Despite the growing demand for sustainable products, there is still a consumer attitude-behavior gap concerning sustainability. Social media has proven to be an effective way to promote sustainability (Saeed, Farooq, & Kersten, 2019), and social media influencers are more effective advertising agents compared to traditional advertising (Araujo, Neijens, & Vliegenthart, 2016). However, the best way to advertise sustainable products through social media-based advertising has not yet been studied. This study examines the different content marketing strategies on social media - owned social media posts and …

The Kardashian Index Of Cardiologists: Do More Social Media Followers Mean More Citations Or Merely Celebrity Status In Academia?, Talal Almas, Maheera Farooqi, Vikneswaran Raj Nagarajan, Muhammad Ali Niaz, Absam Akbar, Yohan Porus Irani, Jung Hur, Josef Finsterer

Medical College Documents

No abstract provided.

Leatherby Libraries From Home: Online And Social Media Response To The Covid-19 Pandemic, Rachel Karas, Essraa Nawar

Library Articles and Research

Starting March 11, 2020, the day that Chapman University announced that classes would transition immediately to remote in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Leatherby Libraries dramatically shifted its marketing strategy and the use of social media to communicate with the student body, faculty, staff, and other community member followers. The Leatherby Libraries used social media during the COVID-19 crisis as both a means of communicating urgent messages to its patrons and also as a tool for engaging community members in the absence of traditional
library tours, events, and exhibits.

Does Active Service Intervention Drive More Complaints On Social Media? The Roles Of Service Quality And Awareness, Shujing Sun, Yang Gao, Huaxia Rui

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Despite many advantages of social media as a customer service channel, there is a concern that active service intervention encourages excessive service complaints. Our paper casts doubt on this misconception by examining the dynamics between social media customer complaints and brand service interventions. We find service interventions indeed cause more complaints, yet this increase is driven by service awareness rather than chronic complaining. Due to the publicity and connectivity of social media, customers learn about the new service channel by observing customer service delivery to others – a mechanism that is unique to social media customer service and does not …

Reforming The Visual Artists Rights Act To Protect #Streetart In The Digital Age, Ellen Matthews

William & Mary Law Review

Consider the following: Building Owner commissions Artist to paint a mural on the wall of his building. A decade later, Business buys that building from Building Owner and, unaware of details relative to Artist’s wall mural, develops plans to renovate the building for a new use. Upon hearing of Business’s attempt to alter its newly acquired property, Artist seeks an injunction to prevent Business from restoring its building in a way that would change or destroy her mural. Would a court prevent Business from altering its building due to Artist’s moral rights to her work? If the court follows the …

Tweets R Us: Predicting Personality From Language And Emoji Use On Twitter, Maxwell Meckling, Sarah Shoup, D. E. Chan-Tin, Shelia Kennison

Computer Science: Faculty Publications and Other Works

The research investigated the suggestion from prior research that language and emojis use on Twitter and other social media platforms can predict users’ personality and gender (Adali et al., 2014; Golbeck et al., 2011; Li et al., 2019; Moreno et al., 2019; Raess, 2018). Some studies have also analyzed Twitter language to identify individuals with specific health conditions (e.g., alcohol recovery, Golbeck, 2012; sleep problems, Suarez et al., 2018).

If strategies to predict Twitter users’ characteristics prove to be successful, future efforts to direct persuasive messages related to recommended practices in public health and/or cybersecurity will be possible. Commercial applications …

The Role Of Media In Promoting Sexuality Information Among Higher Education Students In Tanzania: The Case Of Dar Es Salaam University College Of Education (Duce), Margareth Joseph Bilinga Dr

Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences

For most students in Tanzania and elsewhere, the use of media is an integral part of their daily life, and as such it has been influencing their studies in various ways. This study explores the role of media in promoting knowledge and skills on sexuality to students in higher learning institutions in Tanzania. A mixed method research design informed the study: a cross-sectional survey design informed quantitative data, while the qualitative data was informed by the phenomenological research design. A sample of 300 students was drawn using simple and stratified random sampling, as well as convenient sampling techniques. The quantitative …

Social Media, Populism, And Covid-19: Weibo Users’ Reactions To Anti-Chinese Discourse, Theresa Catalano, Peiwen Wang

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

US government communication about the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly the ‘Chinese virus’ discourse adopted by Donald Trump and his administration, has led to real-world violence and triggered heated discussions across social media sites, including Sina Weibo (aka Chinese Twitter). The current study explores the relationship between populism and social media by examining how Sina Weibo users respond to Trump’s communication on the virus. Employing multimodal critical discourse analysis, we examine both visual and verbal strategies used to build counter-discourses that challenge the use of terms such as ‘Chinese virus’. Findings demonstrate the potential of Weibo as a platform of resistance and …

Free Speech Has Gotten Very Expensive: Rethinking Political Speech Regulation In A Post-Truth World, John A. Barrett, Jr.

St. John's Law Review

(Excerpt)

Protecting free speech has been a foundational principle of American democracy since the nation’s founding. A core element of free speech has long been a prohibition on regulating political speech. The principle behind this protection holds that citizens are free to make whatever political pronouncements they wish and that their speech shall remain free from government suppression. Even within the limited exceptions to unfettered political speech, like defamation or libel, the speech is not banned but may merely result in liability. A premise underlying this view is that competing viewpoints, by being made available to us all, will allow …

Exposure To Social Media Racial Discrimination And Mental Health Among Adolescents Of Color, Xiangyu Tao, Celia B. Fisher

Covid-19 Digital Research

Offline and online racial discrimination has been associated with mental health problems among adolescents of color. Pandemic shelter-at-home policies and the reignited racial justice movement increased the use of social media among youth of color, potentially exposing them to social media racial discrimination. Yet, it is unclear which aspects of social media significantly contributed to youth exposure to racial discrimination and associated mental health issues during this period. This study assessed the relationships among social media use (hours, racial intergroup contact, and racial justice civic engagement), individual and vicarious social media discrimination (defined as personally directed versus observing discrimination directed …

Unpacking Privilege In Pandemic Pedagogy: Social Media Debates On Power Dynamics Of Online Education, Roy Schwartzman

Journal of Communication Pedagogy

As one of the world’s major social media hubs dedicated to online education during the COVID-19 pandemic, the Facebook mega-group Pandemic Pedagogy provides a panoramic perspective of the key concerns educators and students face amid a public health crisis that forces redefinition of what constitutes effective education. After several months of instruction under pandemic conditions, two central themes emerged as the most extensively discussed and the most intensively contested: (1) rigor versus accommodation in calibrating standards for students, and (2) ways to improve engagement during classes conducted through videoconferencing, especially via Zoom. Both themes reveal deeply embedded systems of privilege …

Communication During A Crisis: Keeping Our Patrons Informed During The Covid-19 Pandemic, John P. Delooper, Michelle Ehrenpreis

Urban Library Journal

This article discusses the Leonard Lief Library’s communications strategy to keep its patrons informed during the COVID-19 crisis. The Leonard Lief Library at Lehman College (CUNY) made use of its website, social media, and research guides to effectively convey timely information about service changes, library resources, and to improve outreach activities to our patron community while the library’s physical building was closed to its students, faculty, and staff.

Framing Of And Attention To Covid-19 On Twitter: Thematic Analysis Of Hashtags, Iman Tahamtan, Devendra Potnis, Ehsan Mohammadi, Laura E. Miller, Vandana Singh

Faculty Publications

Background: Although past research has focused on COVID-19–related frames in the news media, such research may not accurately capture and represent the perspectives of people from diverse backgrounds. Additionally, research on the public attention to COVID-19 as reflected through frames on social media is scarce.

Objective: This study identified the frames about the COVID-19 pandemic in the public discourse on Twitter, which voices diverse opinions. This study also investigated the amount of public attention to those frames on Twitter.

Methods: We collected 22 trending hashtags related to COVID-19 in the United States and 694,582 tweets written in English containing these …

Negative Commentary—Negative Consequences: Legal Ethics, Social Media, And The Impact Of Explosive Commentary, Jan L. Jacobowitz Ms.

St. Mary's Journal on Legal Malpractice & Ethics

Connecting and sharing on social media has opened communication channels and provided instantaneous information to billions of people worldwide. Commentary on current events, cases, and negative online reviews may be posted in an instant, often without pause or thought about the potential repercussions. This global phenomenon may not only provide news of the day updates, humor, and support for those in need but also is replete with ethical landmines for the unwary lawyer. Lawyers commenting on current events, their cases, or responding to a client’s negative online review, have suffered damage to their careers. In some instances, they have even …

The Impact Of #365papers: A Daily Scientific Twitter Campaign To Disseminate Exercise Oncology Literature, Kendra Zadravec, Sarah Weller, Logan Meyers, Kirstin Lane, Jeffrey Kong, Kristin L. Campbell

Internet Journal of Allied Health Sciences and Practice

Purpose: Many health researchers and practitioners use Twitter to stimulate scientific dialogue and collaboration among peers, as well as the general public. In 2018, the Clinical Exercise Physiology Lab (CEPL) undertook a year-long scientific Twitter campaign (#365Papers) where one peer-reviewed publication related to cancer and exercise/physical activity was tweeted per day. Features of this campaign included Throwback Thursdays (selected article published before 2018) and guest tweeters (article chosen by other exercise oncology researchers). We report on the impact of the #365Papers campaign based on Twitter Analytics data (i.e., engagement rate). We also explore how engagement rate differed depending on publication …

#Iteachmsu: Centering An Educator Learning Community (Elc), Erik Skogsberg, Makena Neal, Melissa Mcdaniels, Madeline Shellgren, Patricia Stewart

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

Many scholars recommend preparing faculty for educator roles. Faculty Learning Communities, The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL), and teaching centers represent common preparatory approaches. But faculty and teaching assistants report time, disciplinary disconnects, and lack of incentives as ongoing barriers. Inspired by K-12’s professional learning networks and “hashtag activism,” the authors’ university launched #iteachmsu. #iteachmsu combines practices of social networking with a digital and in-person teaching “commons.” Through #iteachmsu, the authors hope to further shift campus cultures in the age of COVID-19, centering teaching and learning as a valuable and ongoing focus for an educator learning community (ELC).

To Share Or Not To Share? Branded Content Sharing In Twitter, Adriana M. Boveda-Lambie, Tracy Tuten, Victor Perotti

Atlantic Marketing Journal

Marketers have long recognized the power of word-of-mouth communication to influence consumer brand perceptions. Social media channels such as Facebook and Twitter make possible an efficient spread of communication to potentially large audiences with the added value of the credibility afforded to earned media. Consequently, marketers seek to encourage social media users to share brand-related messages. But how? To answer this question, we must first understand the decision to share or not to share in a social media context. This paper reports on an investigation as to the source and content of a brand’s tweets as antecedents of an individual’s …

Copyrighting Tiktok Dances: Choreography In The Internet Age, Ali Johnson

Washington Law Review

TikTok is a video-sharing social media application that launched in 2018 and has grown wildly since its inception. Many users are drawn to the platform by “dance challenges”—short dance routines of varying complexity set to popular songs that are recreated by other users, eventually going “viral” (i.e., recreated on a massive scale by other users) on the app. Going viral can provide young dancers and choreographers an opportunity to break into the highly competitive entertainment industry. However, there is a problem: due to TikTok’s interface and community practices, the original creators of a dance (who, significantly, are often young women …

The Engagement Of Digital Technology And Social Media At Promise Land Church Following Covid-19, Rowevina G. Herring

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

This research project aims to explore the full integration of digital technology and social media at a local church following the COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic formed a global perspective, consisting of so-called "new rules" of churchgoing resulting from different social engagement expectations, cleanliness, and protecting vulnerable populations. During and following the pandemic, the world awaited sheltering-in-place and social distancing to return to some semblance of normalcy. Considering these changes, most churches struggled to understand how to maintain and proliferate the gospel. The focus of this study is based on a local non-denominational church that failed to predict expository preaching and …

Re-Evaluating Standards Of Human Subjects Protection For Sensitive Health Data In Social Media Networks, Kar-Hai Chu, Jason Colditz, Jaime Sidani, Michael Zimmer, Brian Primack

Computer Science Faculty Research and Publications

This study addresses ethical questions about conducting health science research using network data from social media platforms. We provide examples of ethically problematic areas related to participant consent, expectation of privacy, and social media networks. Further, to illustrate how researchers can maintain ethical integrity while leveraging social media networks, we describe a study that demonstrates the ability to use social media to identify individuals affected by cancer. We discuss best practices and ethical guidelines for studying social media network data, including data collection, analysis, and reporting.

The Impact Of The Covid-19 Pandemic On People With Rheumatic And Musculoskeletal Diseases: Insights From Patient-Generated Data On Social Media, Katja Reuter, Atul Deodhar, Souzi Makri, Michael Zimmer, Francis Berenbaum, Elena Nikiphorou

Computer Science Faculty Research and Publications

Objectives

During the COVID-19 pandemic, much communication occurred online, through social media. This study aimed to provide patient perspective data on how the COVID-19 pandemic impacted people with rheumatic and musculoskeletal diseases (RMDs), using Twitter-based patient-generated health data (PGHD).

Methods

A convenience sample of Twitter messages in English posted by people with RMDs was extracted between 1 March and 12 July 2020 and examined using thematic analysis. Included were Twitter messages that mentioned keywords and hashtags related to both COVID-19 (or SARS-CoV-2) and select RMDs. The RMDs monitored included inflammatory-driven (joint) conditions (ankylosing spondylitis, RA, PsA, lupus/SLE and gout).

Results …

Networks Of Threats: Interconnection, Interaction, Intermediation, Julien Theron

Journal of Strategic Security

The rapidly changing global security environment requires to constantly adapt our understanding of threats. The findings of this paper confirm that threats interact with each other on three levels. Security, conflict, war, and strategic studies converge to build a new qualitative theoretical framework for threat analysis. Shaping the global security environment, threats communicate on three levels. Firstly, the interconnection of agents with similar ideological and/or strategic motivations connects threats. Secondly, interaction exacerbates incidental threats through cooperation, competition, and convergence. Thirdly, intermediation occurs between antagonistic threats trying to achieve common intermediary objectives. These networks are driven by agents maximizing their impact …

Taking Exception To Assessments Of American Exceptionalism: Why The United States Isn’T Such An Outlier On Free Speech, Evelyn Mary Aswad

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

One of the most significant challenges to human freedom in the digital age involves the sheer power of private companies over speech and the fact that power is untethered to existing free speech principles. Heated debates are ongoing about what standards social media companies should adopt to regulate speech on their platforms. Some have argued that global social media companies, such as Facebook and Twitter, should align their speech codes with the international human rights law standards of the United Nations (“U.N.”). Others have countered that U.S.-based companies should apply First Amendment standards. Much of this debate is premised on …

The Impact Of Vicarious Racial Discrimination On African Americans Via Social Media, Asia Wardlaw

Dissertations

Much psychological research has examined the impact of racial discrimination upon those who have personally experienced it. Such research emphasizes personal encounters with racial bias and ethnic discrimination can cause victims considerable mental and emotional injury, manifested as race-based traumatic stress. Far less research has examined the effects of vicarious racism on those who witness it, including those who witness it via online media. Given the growing and significant amount of social media coverage in the United States of America containing images of unarmed African Americans who have been killed in perceived racially motivated encounters, this is a valuable area …

Feasibility Of Utilizing Social Media To Promote Hpv Self‐Collected Sampling Among Medically Underserved Women In A Rural Southern City In The United States (U.S.), Matthew Asare, Beth A. Lanning, Sher Isada, Tiffany Rose, Hadii M. Mamudu

ETSU Faculty Works

Background: Social media (Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, Twitter) as communication channels have great potential to deliver Human papillomavirus self‐test (HPVST) intervention to medically underserved women (MUW) such as women of low income. However, little is known about MUW’s willingness to participate in HPVST intervention delivered through social media. We evaluated factors that contribute to MUW’s intention to participate in the social media‐related intervention for HPVST. Methods: A 21‐item survey was administered among women receiving food from a local food pantry in a U.S. southern state. Independent variables were social media usage facilitators (including confidentiality, social support, cost, and convenience), and barriers …

Themes, Communities And Influencers Of Online Probiotics Chatter: A Retrospective Analysis From 2009-2017, Santosh Vijaykumar, Aravind Sesagiri Raamkumar, Kristofor Mccarty, Cuthbert Mutumbwa, Jawwad Mustafa, Cyndy Au

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

We build on recent examinations questioning the quality of online information about probiotic products by studying the themes of content, detecting virtual communities and identifying key influencers in social media using data science techniques. We conducted topic modelling (n = 36,715 tweets) and longitudinal social network analysis (n = 17,834 tweets) of probiotic chatter on Twitter from 2009–17. We used Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) to build the topic models and network analysis tool Gephi for building yearly graphs. We identified the top 10 topics of probiotics-related communication on Twitter and a constant rise in communication activity. However the number of …

Crowdsourced Archiving Of The January 6th Us Capitol Insurrection: An R/Datahoarders Case Study, Edward Miezio Chapman

Master's Theses (2009 -)

The crowdsourced archiving that occurred in the wake of the January 6th US Capitol insurrection exemplifies the potential for agile, collaborative evidence gathering during a crisis situation. This paper studies the r/DataHoarders subcommunity of Reddit and the collective and spontaneous archiving project that users initiated. Users were drawn to the thread out of a desire to contribute to law enforcement efforts, enact punitive justice upon the rioters, engage in public discourse, and preserve information for posterity. They did this by gathering and preserving social media evidence that may have otherwise been lost. I discovered that this constituted a crowdsourced archive …

Distressing For People’S Lives When Lights Go Off During Facebook Outage, Ramaswami, S.

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

The rise of the super app has changed our lives – and livelihoods – as many of us depend on these social media sites to make a living. Are there alternatives or are we always going to be held hostage? SMU’s Seshan Ramaswami gives his take.