Digital Commons Network^™

Student Protests And Academic Freedom In An Age Of #Blacklivesmatter, Philip Lee

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

Student activism has been part of the fabric of American higher education since the eighteenth century. Indeed, some scholars have called it "as American as apple pie." From Harvard's "Great Butter Rebellion" in 1766 when students pushed for better food to the multicultural movement of today when students have demanded increased diversity in student, staff, faculty, and curriculum, students have long pressed to have their voices heard. Continuing in this tradition, we now live in an age of student activists who, by organizing through social media, are getting more people involved in political conversations and causes than would otherwise …

When The Far-Right Attacks Faculty Online, They Are Attacking Public Higher Education, Jessie Daniels

Publications and Research

The far-right attacks on individual faculty are part of a systematic effort to destroy public higher education. This is an account of when they came for me.

Scraping The Bottom Of The Barrel: Why It Is No Surprise That Data Scrapers Can Have Access To Public Profiles On Linkedin, Marissa Boulanger

SMU Science and Technology Law Review

No abstract provided.

Does What You Do Before Class Matter?, Elayne Zhou

Honors Papers

The current study builds upon earlier work exploring task switching, learning, and interruption by expanding the timeline to discuss more complex tasks over longer periods. For a student to learn successfully, they must pay attention to the right information. The current study explores how pre-learning conditions affect academic performance by directing attention toward or away from the task. Methods: College undergraduates (N = 62) completed two sessions over two consecutive days. The goal of Session 1 was to both observe baseline distraction and learning. Notes for Session 2 were also pulled from Session 1. The goal of Session 2 was …

Social Media Strategy For With Purpose, Kelly Lauck

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

The intent of my Honors Research Project is to prepare, execute, and analyze a social media strategy as part of an education campaign for the childhood cancer organization With Purpose. The social media campaign that I created was part of a greater public relations campaign for With Purpose. I worked on a four-person team to develop the campaign for the Public Relations Student Society of America’s 2018 Bateman Case Study Competition.

In order to properly prepare and execute the strategy, I conducted a situation analysis to learn more about With Purpose, set social media goals and objectives to provide direction …

Conversation Station Digital Media Style Guide, Ciara Davis

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

This style guide serves as training material for online communication strategies at the Conversation Station, an afterschool nonprofit organization for students in rural Ashtabula County (Orwell). By utilizing this guide, board members of the Conversation Station will be able to understand the importance of online engagement with the community to accomplish goals, hire communication liaisons based on the skills and knowledge necessary to perform tasks in the guide, and hold the liaison accountable by the fulfillment of tasks detailed. The style guide will also insure that despite communication liaisons coming and going, the Conversation Station’s online character remains consistent. By …

Public Perception Of Campus Security Issues At Institutions Of Higher Education In United States, Ray Arasteh

Theses and Dissertations

Campus safety issues have become a growing epidemic in United States. Several factors for instance active shooter incidents across United States may have created a negative correlation between parental/public perception and campus safety. Social amplification or attenuation of risk (SAAR), the theoretical framework for this research study, may play an influential role in swaying public opinion about campus safety and institutional selection process. This dissertation utilized the SPELIT Power Matrix needs assessment model, SAAR theoretical framework, and servant leadership model to determine which sources of information and what factors are influential in the decision-making process for selecting an IHE. This …

Adolescent Perceptions Of Addiction: A Mixed-Methods Exploration Of Instagram Hashtags And Adolescent Interviews, Colleen Marie Brazill-Murray

Theses and Dissertations

Addictive disorders are a public health crisis that affects our society by draining our workforce, health care, judicial, education, and law enforcement, resources. Adolescents are particularly susceptible to social influence - for better and for worse - and addiction. Through social media, today’s youth experience a whole new way of communicating. Not enough is known about adolescent perceptions of addiction, and messages of addiction they are exposed to on social media. Social Learning Theory and the Learning Theory of Addiction provided the framework for understanding how adolescents are at risk for developing unhealthy practices that create numerous psychological, social and …

Social Media & Teacher Professional Development, Tonia A. Dousay, Tutaleni I. Asino, Tian Luo, Dan G. Krutka, Spencer P. Greenhalgh, Luke Rodesiler, Dan E. Walster, Elizabeth Langran (Ed.), Jered Borup (Ed.)

STEMPS Faculty Publications

The idea of social media’s existing application and future potential for professional development drives a growing subset of academic research. As we encourage preservice and inservice teachers to engage in these platforms to hone or refine their classroom practice, a number of questions emerge: How do we assess participation in these spaces? What uses in particular should we recommend? Further, the very notion of conducting research in these spaces also poses interesting questions. From methodologies to frameworks, commonly accepted practices help shape the future of the field. Lastly, the issue of privacy and policy poses perhaps the most significant area …

Canid Vs. Canid: Insights Into Coyote-Dog Encounters From Social Media, Erin E. Boydston, Eric S. Abelson, Ari Kazanjian, Daniel T. Blumstein

Human–Wildlife Interactions

While the relationship between coyotes (Canis latrans) and house cats (Felis catus) may be characterized as one between predators and their prey, coyote interactions with domestic dogs (C. lupus familiaris) appear to be more varied and may include behaviors associated with canid sociality. While encounters between coyotes and dogs are difficult to observe, we capitalized on publically available video recordings of coyote-dog encounters to observe canid behaviors and examined 35 video clips downloaded from YouTube during fall 2014. We identified coyote-dog interactions that were playful, agonistic, or predatory; those that we could not clearly …

Understanding The Role Of Social Media In Breastfeeding: A Mixed Methods Study, Kara Skelton

All ETDs from UAB

Background: Breastfeeding is well known as the optimal source of nutrition for the first year of life. However, suboptimal exclusively breastfeeding rates in the US are still prevalent despite numerous calls to action at the national level. A mixed-methods study was conducted to explore social media group’ impact on breastfeeding related knowledge, attitudes and behaviors. Participants were recruited from one online social media pro-breastfeeding group. Online Focus Group Discussions (FGDs) were conducted with 21 women; Key Informant Interviews were conducted with 12 mothers. Qualitative data were aggregated for thematic analysis. A survey was developed based on findings from the qualitative …

Seeking Health Information In The Diabetes Online Community (Doc); The Role Of Health Literacy, Social Support And Community Interaction On Treatment Adherence, Allyson Hughes

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Social support, being valued and cared for by others (Wills, 1991), is a critical construct for disease management and often includes providing advice and information to peers online. Approximately 83% of individuals with chronic disease search for health information online and there are more than 500,000 active social media users in the Diabetes Online Community (DOC) who have varying levels of disease management expertise. Due to the strenuous nature of Type 1 Diabetes (T1D), members of the DOC are continuously asking for and receiving anecdotal health information, yet very few studies have evaluated the impact of the DOC on treatment …

Estimating The Optimal Cutoff Point For Logistic Regression, Zheng Zhang

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Binary classification is one of the main themes of supervised learning. This research is concerned about determining the optimal cutoff point for the continuous-scaled outcomes (e.g., predicted probabilities) resulting from a classifier such as logistic regression. We make note of the fact that the cutoff point obtained from various methods is a statistic, which can be unstable with substantial variation. Nevertheless, due partly to complexity involved in estimating the cutpoint, there has been no formal study on the variance or standard error of the estimated cutoff point.

In this Thesis, a bootstrap aggregation method is put forward to estimate the …

Corporate Social Media: A Typology Of Consumers, Beverly Wright, Scott Nadler, Aberdeen L. Borders, Paul H. Schwager, Ashley Sasnett

Atlantic Marketing Journal

Abstract - This consumer segmentation schema is developed using 1) number of businesses followed and 2) companies’ social posts as direct influence toward purchase decisions, as defining behaviors. The use of a theoretical progression prospective, which tracks the development of the customer engagement construct, is central to our development. A combination of qualitative and quantitative research methods reveals types of consumer groups and their interactions, perceptions, and involvement with Corporate Social Media (CSM). Cluster analysis produces five distinct consumer segments, and a process to help managers more effectively achieve marketing goals. The use of additional consumer metrics are recommended for …

The Demise Of The Traditional Jury And Jury Impartiality With Particular Focus On Media Intrusion, Jessica Clarke

The Plymouth Law and Criminal Justice Review

In a world where 24 hour news and social media are ingrained into people's everyday lives it can be difficult to uphold traditional values and practice. This is particularly pertinent in respect of the impact of such factors on the fundamental system of trial by jury and its impartiality. This article examines the issue of mass media and its influence and impact on jury decisions.

Good Game, Greyory Blake

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis and its corresponding art installation, Lessons from Ziggy, attempts to deconstruct the variables prevalent within several complex systems, analyze their transformations, and propose a methodology for reasserting the soap box within the display pedestal. In this text, there are several key and specific examples of the transformation of various signifiers (i.e. media-bred fear’s transformation into a political tactic of surveillance, contemporary freneticism’s transformation into complacency, and community’s transformation into nationalism as a state weapon). In this essay, all of these concepts are contextualized within the exponential growth of new technologies. That is to say, all of these semiotic …

Everybody Else, Patricia Gaglia

Master's Theses

Everybody Else is a novel that follows the story of the Promise Scholars, a group of math whizzes thrust into the media spotlight after a tech billionaire launches an engineering program at their low-income, predominantly black, high school. The purpose of this novel is to explore contemporary racism in America, the complex relationship between philanthropy and poverty, and the role of technology in instigating social change. Each chapter is a complete story, representing a unique first person perspective as the students navigate the closure of their school, the dissolution of their benefactor’s interest, and their enrollment in an affluent neighboring …

Significant News Detection, Diwas Sharma

Theses

Social media platforms nowadays have a large number of fake or false news which have been misleading and negatively impacting viewers. In order to combat the problem, being able to differentiate important news stories which need to be verified from unimportant news stories which need not, would be a decent starting point. In this thesis, we introduce “significant news” and define it as news that affects a large number of people, changes the routines of daily life, and needs verification on the information presented. This thesis then explores if it is possible to construct a classifier for detecting the significant …

User-Generated Evidence, Rebecca Hamilton

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

Around the world, people are using their smartphones to document atrocities. This Article is the first to address the implications of this important development for international criminal law. While acknowledging the potential benefits such user-generated evidence could have for international criminal investigations, the Article identifies three categories of concern related to its use: (i) user security; (ii) evidentiary bias; and (iii) fair trial rights. In the absence of safeguards, user-generated evidence may address current problems in international criminal justice at the cost of creating new ones and shifting existing problems from traditional actors, who have institutional backing, to individual users …

Understanding A Mechanism To Enhance Perceived Quality And Brand Loyalty In Social Media: The Role Of Personalizatio, Tyler Shanahan, Trang P. Tran

AMTP Proceedings 2018

A growing number of researchers have examined the effects of personalized advertising in traditional media, but little has been developed to examine the effects of a personalized ad of a brand on social media (i.e., Facebook). The primary objectives of this research are (1) to develop a comprehensive model detailing the role personalization plays in the development of consumer perception about a specific brand; (2) test the hypothesized relationships via online survey and (3) understand the effects of personalized messages as it relates to consumer purchasing behaviours related to a particular brand. The model is tested using data collected from …

Midterm 2018 And Targeting Latino Community Through Misinformation And Disinformation Online, Manjul Shrestha

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

How has the Latino community been targeted by digital propaganda during the 2018 midterm elections in the US? How might this affect their involvement in and around the election? This thesis starts to answer these questions through a data analysis on two of the most prominent and popular social media platforms for political discussion: Twitter and Reddit. This study analyzed people’s posting patterns over time, the digital traces of the individuals pushing the majority and most popular content, and Latino candidates’ interaction on Twitter. This research provides evidence that on Twitter there are two main actors discussing Latinos and politics: …

The Future Of Freedom Of Expression Online, Evelyn Aswad

Faculty Articles

Should social media companies ban Holocaust denial from their platforms? What about conspiracy theorists that spew hate? Does good corporate citizenship mean platforms should remove offensive speech or tolerate it? The content moderation rules that companies develop to govern speech on their platforms will have significant implications for the future of freedom of expression. Given that the prospects for compelling platforms to respect users’ free speech rights are bleak within the U.S. system, what can be done to protect this important right? In June 2018, the United Nations’ top expert for freedom of expression called on companies to align their …

Understanding Multi-Social Media Platform Use In An Earthquake, Tonmona Tonny Roy

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

No abstract provided.

Is The First Amendment Obsolete?, Tim Wu

Michigan Law Review

The First Amendment was brought to life in a period, the twentieth century, when the political speech environment was markedly different than today’s. With respect to any given issue, speech was scarce and limited to a few newspapers, pamphlets or magazines. The law was embedded, therefore, with the presumption that the greatest threat to free speech was direct punishment of speakers by government.

Today, in the internet and social media age, it is no longer speech that is scarce—rather, it is the attention of listeners. And those who seek to control speech use new methods that rely on the weaponization …

Online Communication Settings And The Qualitative Research Process: Acclimating Students And Novice Researchers, Katherine Gregory

Publications and Research

In the last 20 years, qualitative research scholars have begun to interrogate methodological and analytic issues concerning online research settings as both data sources and instruments for digital methods. This article examines the adaptation of parts of a qualitative research curriculum for understanding online communication settings. I propose methodological best practices for researchers and educators that I developed while teaching research methods to undergraduate and graduate students across disciplinary departments and discuss obstacles faced during my own research while gathering data from online sources. This article confronts issues concerning the disembodied aspects of applying what in practice should be rooted …

Going Public: How And Why To Develop A Digital Scholarly Identity, Katina Rogers, Lisa M. Rhody, Danica Savonick, Lisa Tagliaferri

Publications and Research

Establishing a meaningful digital identity is essential to managing one’s scholarly and professional reputation. This workshop addresses ways to cultivate an online identity and offers guidance on “going public” using tools and strategies for building a community around your work. Topics include social media, writing for different audiences, personal websites, digital dissertations, and more.

Strategies To Improve Business Performance With Information From Social Media, Taylor Chan

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

In the past 3 decades, China has experienced rapid economic growth. The China retail market reached renminbi (RMB) 29,651 billion in 2016, up by 10.4% from 2015. Using traditional ways that developed before the Internet era to acquire information regarding customers' changing preferences for products and services in a fast-moving business world is insufficient to support management in the retail industry to make informed strategic decisions. The purpose of this multiple case study was to explore successful customer-centric strategies that business leaders used to improve business performance with marketing information acquired from social media. The population comprised business leaders from …

Digital Fundraising Strategies For Nonprofit Marketing Leaders In International Markets, John Basco

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Leaders of North American nonprofit healthcare organizations require funding from international markets but lack the resources to reach these markets through traditional marketing or the skills to reach them through digital marketing, a cost-effective alternative. The purpose of this multiple case study was to document digital fundraising strategies successfully used to reach international markets by the marketing leaders of 5 North American nonprofit healthcare organizations. Participants in the study were involved in implementing digital fundraising strategies. Marketing systems theory was the framework for the study. Data were collected through semistructured interviews and analysis of documents that illustrated the digital marketing …

Media Marketing Strategies University Leaders Use To Increase Alumni Financial Support, Wesley Carter

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Colleges and universities in the United States could end operations in record numbers largely from financial shortfalls. The Urban Institute reported that nonprofit organizations lost $3.4 billion in reneged pledges from 2013 to 2014 from donor dissatisfaction, creating a problem because financial losses can occur from a lack of understanding on how media marketing efforts affect fundraising. The purpose of this qualitative multiple case study was to identify traditional and social media marketing strategies that some nonprofit college and university leaders use to increase alumni financial support. Interviews took place with 7 college or university leaders at 3 private, nonprofit …

Music Artists' Strategies To Generate Revenue Through Technology, Kalilu Kamara Ii

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Music streaming services are increasing, compact discs (CDs) and digital download sales are declining, and many music artists are becoming affected by this positive shift in music technology. Music streaming revenue does not compensate for the decrease in revenue from CDs and paid downloads. Based on organizational configuration theory (OCT), the purpose of this multiple case study was to explore the technology and marketing strategies that small business music artists used to generate sales revenue from the Internet. Six small business music artists who were 18 years or older with different music revenue streams participated in semistructured interviews. These small …