Digital Commons Network^™

Classroom Activity For Critical Analysis Of News Propagation Online, Christina Pollalis, Catherine Grevet, Lauren Westendorf, Samantha T. Finn, Orit Shaer, Panagiotis Metaxas

Faculty Research and Scholarship

We present an educational activity for college students to think critically about the truthfulness of news propagated in social media. This activity utilizes TwitterTrails, a visual tool to analyze Twitter claims, events, and memes. This tool provides views such as a propagation graph of a story’s bursting activity, and the co-ReTweeted network of the more prominent members of the audience. Using a response and reflection form, students are guided through these different facets of a story. The classroom activity was iteratively designed over the course of three semesters. Here, we present the learning outcomes from our final semester’s evaluation with …

The Effect Of Social Media On The Physical, Social Emotional, And Cognitive Development Of Adolescents, Aaron Bryant

Honors Senior Capstone Projects

This paper explores the possible problems that the usage of social media can have on the physical, social emotional, and cognitive development of adolescents. Adolescence is such a crucial and vulnerable stage in development, where teenagers begin to form their own identity and create meaningful relationships, but social media can have a profound effect on areas of their development. Social media offers new opportunities and challenges for adolescents more today as a generation than ever before. Issues regarding body image, academic achievement, and self-esteem and the connection to social media usage is reported. The issue of cyberbullying and its connection …

17 Days: Cross-Country With Social Media, Zachary Alvarado

Senior Theses

"Austin Prescott and Zach Alvarado travel from South Carolina to California using social media to find and communicate with hosts throughout the country..."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V8k6EQnW5D4

Costs of investment were weighed against capital contributions throughout our campaign. While the film serves to inspire, entertain, and inform, the paper dives deeper into the brand-building, cost-savings, and logistics of the trip. In the end, we more than doubled our initial investment and had an awesome time while doing it.

A Survey Of Food Blogs And Videos: An Explorative Study, Lynn Schutte

Senior Theses

This study aimed to explore what types of food blogs and videos exist, what their common practices are and their popularity levels. Through a content analysis of four videos or posts from 25 different producers or blogs, respectively, a total of 200 pieces of content were coded and analyzed. The coding focused on main ingredients, sponsorship, type of video or post and number of views or comments. It was found that blogs were written for a specific audience, in terms of blog types, while video producers were more multi‐purpose. This could be because of sampling method or because blogs are …

Nutrition Campaign, Brittany Taylor-Whitmer

All Student-Created Educational Resources

This infographic outlines the need for a campaign to educate the public (primarily 25-35 year old) on nutrition fear mongering and how to recognize it.

An Analysis Of The Impact Of Social Media Marketing On Individuals’ Attitudes And Perceptions At Nova Community College, Nya Gibson

OTS Master's Level Projects & Papers

Social media has become prominent in the 21st century. Companies are persistently looking for ways to utilize this new platform within their marketing strategies to increase business growth. Since social media is a networking and communication platform, it is important for companies to create a voice to humanize the business and maintain foot traffic. Although there are studies on how to use social media marketing within a business, there is minimal corroboration available of how social media marketing activities influence a consumer’s buying behavior. This study investigated the effects of social media on consumer attitudes of social media marketing and …

The Effects Of Smartphones On Social Lives: How They Affect Our Social Interactions And Attitudes, D'Juan Gladden

OTS Master's Level Projects & Papers

New technologies available with cellular devices and the introduction of smartphones have become a large part of individual’s lives in the past few decades. Smartphones have the ability to perform almost every operation necessary for individuals at any time or place. Smartphones are means for individuals to communicate quickly while interacting on other websites and social networking platforms at the same time. Each day the capabilities of smartphones continue to grow and allow users to establish more information through these mediums, without the extra work of using other devices and programs. The study investigated the daily usage of smartphones by …

Effectiveness Of Social Media Analytics On Detecting Service Quality Metrics In The U.S. Airline Industry, Xin Tian

Information Technology & Decision Sciences Theses & Dissertations

During the past few decades, social media has provided a number of online tools that allow people to discuss anything freely, with an increase in mobile connectivity. More and more consumers are sharing their opinions online with others. Electronic Word of Mouth (eWOM) is the virtual communication in use; it plays an important role in customers’ buying decisions. Customers can choose to complain or to compliment services or products on their social media platforms, rather than to complete the survey offered by the providers of those services. Compared with the traditional survey, or with the air travel customer report published …

Online Social Capital: Social Networking Sites' Influence On Civic And Political Engagement, Charles L. Bush

Sociology & Criminal Justice Theses & Dissertations

This thesis examines how using social networking sites (SNS) is correlated with levels of civic and political engagement of college students at Old Dominion University. Past research has yielded mixed results on the link between online social capital and civic and political engagement. Major limitations of past research include grouping together social networking sites that are substantially different and not considering these sites’ impact on the different forms of social capital. This thesis first examines how social networking site preference, intensity of use, and motives for use factor into an individual’s online social capital. Secondly, this thesis looks at how …

Detect Rumor And Stance Jointly By Neural Multi-Task Learning, Jing Ma, Wei Gao, Kam-Fai Wong

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

In recent years, an unhealthy phenomenon characterized as the massive spread of fake news or unverified information (i.e., rumors) has become increasingly a daunting issue in human society. The rumors commonly originate from social media outlets, primarily microblogging platforms, being viral afterwards by the wild, willful propagation via a large number of participants. It is observed that rumorous posts often trigger versatile, mostly controversial stances among participating users. Thus, determining the stances on the posts in question can be pertinent to the successful detection of rumors, and vice versa. Existing studies, however, mainly regard rumor detection and stance classification as …

The Impacts Of Social Networking Service On The Sense Of Place Among International Students At The University Of Richmond, Joora Baek

Geography and the Environment Capstone Projects

Mass media are known for distracting people from their works; however, they are also crucial methods to practice sense of place and sense of belonging in the modern society. The use of smartphones and internet has dramatically changed the way of building relationship and self-identification, especially among young generation. This research is focusing on Social Networking Services (SNSs), which has been the most popular and efficient networking system since late 20th century, to study young generation’s behavior patterns. This study will demonstrate how international students at the University of Richmond experience the presence of home in spite of the absence …

Stremii Model Application, Cory Young, Margaret C. Stewart

Communication Faculty Research and Scholarship

This original pedagogical research describes an assignment integrated in an undergraduate crisis communication course and shares its findings. Stewart and Wilson (2016) introduced a model, STREMII (pronounced STREAM-ee), as a way to assist organizations with crisis communication via social media during a crisis event. STREMII represents a cyclical process of six interconnected elements that organizations engage in when communicating with publics: (1) social listening, (2) target audience, (3) response, (4) monitoring and evaluating, (5) interacting, and (6) implementing changes. The authors developed this model by analyzing the social media activity surrounding Hurricane Sandy in conjunction with the Situational Crisis Communication …

Understanding Infrastructure Resiliency In Chennai, India Using Twitter's Geotags And Texts: A Preliminary Study, Wai K. Chong, Hariharan Naganathan, Huan Liu, Samuel Ariaratnam, Joonhoon Kim

College of Business

Geotagging is the process of labeling data and information with geographical identification metadata, and text mining refers to the process of deriving information from text through data analytics. Geotagging and text mining are used to mine rich sources of social media data, such as video, website, text, and Quick Response (QR) code. They have been frequently used to model consumer behaviors and market trends. This study uses both techniques to understand the resilience of infrastructure in Chennai, India using data mined from the 2015 flood. This paper presents a conceptual study on the potential use of social media (Twitter in …

The Effects Of Selection System Characteristics And Privacy Needs On Procedural Justice Perceptions: An Investigation Of Social Networking Data In Employee Selection, Rachel C. Callan

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

Privacy violations have been suggested as an important variable in procedural justice perceptions, but the nature of this relationship is not well understood. Privacy has been investigated as a precursor to overall justice perceptions, but to date no published research investigates the role of privacy in the Gilliland procedural justice model (1993), one of the most influential procedural justice models in the literature. This dissertation explored this relationship by applying the Gilliland model to a situation rife with potential privacy issues: the use of social networking site information in employee selection. As in Gilliland’s model, selection system characteristics altered procedural …

Leisure In The “Land Of The Walking Dead”: Western Mortuary Tourism, The Internet, And Zombie Pop Culture In Toraja, Indonesia, Kathleen M. Adams

Anthropology: Faculty Publications and Other Works

This chapter offers a critical analysis of the burgeoning cottage industry of cyber- and actual Toraja zombie tourism. Various studies have chronicled tourists’ fascination with cadavers, and with touring the purported haunts of the undead (c.f. Light 2009; Linke 2005; Stone 2011a), yet the ways in which new death-oriented leisure zones not only arise but become fetishized remain understudied. This chapter responds to the recent call for new research on the relationship between the media and dark tourism sites (Stone 2011b:327). Data derived from fieldwork in the Toraja highlands of Indonesia and web-based sources demonstrate the role of both the …

Impact Of An Extension Social Media Tool Kit On Audience Engagement, Aileen S. Garcia, Dipti Dev, Colin M. Mcginnis, Tyler Thomas

Journal of Extension

Extension professionals can improve their use of social media as channels for extending programmatic efforts by maximizing target audience reach and engagement. We describe how implementation of a tool kit highlighting best practices for using social media improved Extension professionals' efforts to engage target audience members via social media. Specifically, we found that after having access to the tool kit, Extension professionals were able to prompt greater participation and engagement from the applicable target audience across three online platforms—Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest. Our findings indicate that Extension professionals can benefit from learning how to use social media more purposefully and …

A Tweetstorm: Examining Tweets For Fake News Following The Comey Hearings, Elizabeth Smith, Mason Folse

Seaver College Research And Scholarly Achievement Symposium

This study examined the use of the term fake news on Twitter, as well as how the term was used in relation to political party and news source. The following study examined the first 1,500 chronological tweets (N = 1,500) related to fake news in the day after the testimony of former FBI Director James Comey in May 2017. The tweets were coded for 100 different key words, hashtags, references and atmospheric references related to fake news. The codes were used to determine the origin of tweets about fake news, the context of the tweets about fake news, and …

An Open Source Approach To Social Media Data Gathering, Anthony J. Kallhoff

Theses and Dissertations

Modern usage of social media affords the military intelligence and analytic communities novel approaches to gather information. However, the tools and resources to develop these methodologies are still maturing. Furthermore, current data acquisition tools are not available to the DoD for all social media platforms. This thesis addresses a small subset of this problem by developing an open source methodological approach to collect and manage data from a popular social media site that has previously been inaccessible to defense intelligence organizations. This approach was operationalized via the R package called instaExtract, and an exemplar analysis was performed to demonstrate its …

Identifying Culture And Cooperative Behavior Pattern In Belt And Road Area: Psychological Analysis Of Big Data On Twitter, Wu Michel Shengtao, Zhou Yang, Fu Xiaolan, Liu Xiaoqian, Liu Tianli, Zhu Tingshao

Bulletin of Chinese Academy of Sciences (Chinese Version)

It has been highly stressed that national characters play a critical role in regional cooperation across "Belt and Road" countries or areas. However, the traditional method is often unworkable, because of the vast territory, multiple nations, and the complexity of geopolitics, economics, and cultural traditions along "Belt and Road". From the perspective of cultural psychology and big data analytics, the present research was an attempt to explore cultural and cooperative patterns along "Belt and Road", using the individualism index (independent vs.interdependent self construal) based on the Twitter dataset and the prediction model of social trust (generalized vs. particularized). The results …

The New Media, Globalization, And The Public Interest: A Conversation With Newton N. Minow (2003), Marcy Murninghan

New England Journal of Public Policy

This article provides a summary of a weekend-long convocation held in April 2002 that was sponsored by the Coudert Institute in West Palm Beach, Florida. The motto of the nonprofit group, which was founded by Dale Coudert in 2001, is, “Subjects That Matter, with People Who Make a Difference.” Each mid-winter through early-spring season, the nonpartisan and nonideological Coudert Institute organizes conversations and seminars on an eclectic array of topics featuring prominent academics, artists, musicians, and practitioners. The institute’s goal is to spark open and inclusive dialogue directed to critical reflection and enlightenment. This selection contains the fruits of a …

Exploring Screen Time Habits And The Life Empowerment Divide At An Hbcu, Kim Smith, Tobin Walton, Alvin Keyes

Faculty Publications

College students at a historically black university used their social media accounts to recruit 1,232 of their peers to take an online survey that explored digital screen time and social media habits at this HBCU. The study revealed that 51% devoted daily screen time to academic empowerment, 31% devoted it to leisure, and 11% devoted it to life empowerment. Sixty-six percent said they spent too much screen time on leisure and not enough on life empowerment, i.e., using resources in the digital world to improve their lives. The paper explored the divide, its implications, and how to narrow it.

Rock The Vine, Emily Elizabeth Rosa, Alexandria Broedlow

Agricultural Education and Communication

In conclusion, Rock the Vine, created a profit of $1, 245.16, as well as a platform for the local community members taste and discover new boutique winemakers and cideries in the central coast region. This event could benefit with a larger target audience and add aspects to the event ie. food, more music, beer, games. Future events will acquire different themes in order to keep the event fresh and evolving just as the wine industry seasons do. Spring and summer seasons will focus on lighter wines like whites and rosé themed events. The research discovered a need for this style …

Extremism, Fake News And Hate: Effects Of Social Media In The Post-Truth Era, Alex Schackmuth

College of Liberal Arts & Social Sciences Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the utilization of social media platforms (particularly Facebook & Twitter) by political actors, contemporary media, and ordinary people to disseminate false or misleading information. Furthermore, it examines how social media have aided in the mobilization of previously unpopular extremist social/political movements in the US. This research provides a rich historical account of news media and its dissemination technology. Additionally, the thesis looks to several theories to show that these events are best understood as examples of larger processes endemic to modern capitalist societies. Utilizing news media and archival records to create event catalogs, this research illustrates how …

Facebook As A Contemporary Public Sphere: Political Consciousness And Agency, Catherine Drake

College of Liberal Arts & Social Sciences Theses and Dissertations

This thesis argues that Facebook can create the conditions of possibility for a dynamic, deliberative space for human engagement which can potentially lead to the formation of globally networked, active, empowered political subjects. This thesis examines Facebook as a contemporary version of the Habermasian public sphere while tracing the development of political consciousness in a particular person at a particular moment through engagement with Facebook. By using this self-reflective approach, I critically examine my own experiences alongside public sphere and social media literature which both suggest that Facebook may offer a new way to engage politically in ways that are …

But First, Let Me Take A Selfie: A Content Analysis Of Female And Male Celebrity Selfies On Instagram, Maureen Grace Elinzano

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this research is to analyze the differences between women and men and their selfies on the popular social media application Instagram. Past research and notions in popular culture show that women take more selfies than men do, and that they place more time and effort into their selfies than men do. The goal is to show that women may not solely do the action of taking and posting selfies and that the stereotype of taking and posting selfies being a feminine action should not be prevalent. We conducted a thorough visual content analysis of selfies on Instagram …

Consumers As Legitimating Agents: How Consumer-Citizens Challenge Marketer Legitimacy On Social Media, Ella Lillqvist, Johanna K. Moisander, A. Fuat Firat

Marketing Faculty Publications

Previous research has shown that consumers increasingly challenge the legitimacy of marketers and unsolicited marketing communication in online contexts. Based on a qualitative study, this article examines how and for what reasons consumers challenge marketer legitimacy—the perceived appropriateness of marketers and their activities—in the empirical context of Reddit, a popular social news and community website. The study suggests that consumers challenge or accept marketer legitimacy in online communities based on particular, community and situation specific, legitimacy criteria that reflect and reproduce the values and norms of the community. In doing so, it is argued, consumers play a role as …

Academic Libraries On Social Media: Finding The Students And The Information They Want, Heather A. Howard, Sarah E. Huber, Elizabeth A. Moore, Lisa Carter

Libraries Faculty and Staff Scholarship and Research

Librarians from Purdue University wanted to determine which social media platforms students use, which platforms they would like the library to use, and what content they would like to see from the library on each of these platforms. We conducted a survey at four of the nine campus libraries to determine student social media habits and preferences. Results show that students currently use Facebook, YouTube, and Snapchat more than other social media types; however, students responded that they would like to see the library on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Students wanted nearly all types of content from the libraries on …

How Are U.S. Startups Using Instagram? An Application Of Taylor's Six-Segment Message Strategy Wheel And Analysis Of Image Features, Functions, And Appeals, Robert David Jenkins

Theses and Dissertations

Social media and their accompanying smartphone apps have opened brands to consumers in unprecedented ways. Of these sites, none, with the exception of Facebook, are more popular than Instagram, a social networking app that is image-centric and image-driven. As a free platform for potentially reaching, attracting, and engaging with millions of consumers, Instagram offers brands an unprecedented avenue for free advertising—all on a relatively level playing field. This means that brands, even startups, have the same access to potential followers as larger, more established brands. This advertising is more fluid, more frequent, and more inconspicuous than traditional advertisements; e.g., magazine …

Business Students' Personal Branding: An Empirical Investigation, Lee Allison, Philip J. Boutin, Kevin J. Cumiskey

EKU Faculty and Staff Scholarship

Personal branding is the process by which an individual actively tries to manage others’ impression of their skills, abilities and experiences (Johnson, 2017). It is the marketing of oneself to society (Lair, Sullivan, & Cheney, 2005; Peters, 1997; Shepherd, 2005). While the current job market is touted as being the best in years, employment opportunities for business aspirants in the U.S. economy changed little from 2017 to 2016 when comparing a United States Department of Labor annual report (“United States Department of Labor,” 2018). This suggests that new business graduates continue to face the harsh reality of a challenging environment …

Recruiting The Digital-Age Applicant: The Impact Of Ophthalmology Residency Program Web Presence On Residency Recruitment, Mark Goerlitz-Jessen, Nicholas Behunin, Maria Montijo, Michael Wilkinson

Journal of Academic Ophthalmology

Background The phenomenon of internet dependence has changed the way the rising generation seeks information. This mentality has caused medical students to turn to online resources as they seek information about potential residency training programs. Residency program web presence (PWP) is increasingly important, and may even impact recruitment efforts. Improvement of PWP could enhance programs' recruitment of ideal candidates.

Objectives The purpose of this study is to assess how ophthalmology residency PWP is impacting the residency recruitment process by understanding how it influences applicants' application and rank list choices as well as to identify the contributing factors.

Methods Applicants applying …