Digital Commons Network^™

Developing Digital Literacy And Online Safety Skills For Middle Schoolers, Alana Rose Rowley

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

The increasing use of technology and social media among adolescents has introduced a range of risks, including cyberbullying, mental health challenges, and physical health concerns related to excessive screen time. Many young students lack the digital literacy skills necessary to navigate online environments safely and responsibly, and remain unaware of the risks. This project addresses this issue by developing a one-day educational lesson for students in grades five through eight at the YMCA of the Central Coast in Monterey, California. The lesson focuses on building digital literacy, promoting mental health, and educating students about the physical effects of excessive technology …

Scrolling Critically: Momfluencers As Sites Of Composition, Rhetoric, And Pedagogical Insight, Sarah A. O'Neill

All NMU Master's Theses

This thesis critically examines the practices of Momfluencers–social media influencers who blend maternal identity with lifestyle branding–to inform pedagogy for aspiring digital professionals, particularly college students preparing for careers in social media.

Chapter 1 establishes a theoretical framework, drawing on multimodal literacy and Mikhail Bahktin’s concept of heteroglossia to analyze how meaning is constructed across platforms. Chapter 2 investigates the rhetorical and compositional strategies Momfluencers use on platforms such as Instagram and TikTok, highlighting how authenticity, professional obligations, and audience expectations intersect with platform-specific features and algorithmic mediation. Chapter 3 presents findings from a classroom study, emphasizing the literacies required …

The Effects Of Excessive Smartphone Use On Interpersonal Relationships, Lisa M. Whitesell

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

Smartphones are integral to daily life, generating a propensity for overuse that raises concerns about the potentially adverse effects on social connections and communication. Previous research is primarily quantitative, focused on male subjects outside the United States, and has not explored the impact of smartphone use on relationships from the perspective of close friends and family. This study addresses the gap by applying qualitative methodologies using a more balanced gender sample in the United States. Semi-structured interviews will capture participants’ experiences and perceptions of how excessive smartphone use affects their interpersonal relationships. Open-ended questions will explore smartphone use patterns, the …

Quantifying Macrophyte Ecosystem Services And Improving Environmental Nonprofit Messaging, Peyton R. Hughey

All Theses

Environmental nonprofits are essential to the management and restoration of our natural spaces. They are also tasked with engaging the public via outreach, education, and advocacy. As natural spaces are degraded, the ability of environmental nonprofits to deliver on their missions will become increasingly important. This study aimed to improve two approaches to environmental nonprofits’ missions: ecological restoration and social media communication.

Environmental nonprofits operate with limited resources, and ecological restoration can be an exhaustive task; therefore, we explore functional restoration as a tool. In this study, we focus on the use of functional, trait-based restoration to restore ecological function …

Romanticizing 'Monsters': Sexualized Digital Fandom Of The Menendez Brothers, Kimberly M. Brooks

All Theses

This study was conducted to explore the expressions of sexualized fandom and parasocial relationships within the context of true crime. The Menendez Brothers were chosen as the case to focus on due to the Netflix dramatization ‘Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story’ release and online popularity. Reddit was the platform chosen for data collection because of the longstanding presence of true crime followers participating in dialogue on the platform. The r/MenendezBrothers thread was chosen to collect data from because of its large following and large number of weekly contributions. Sprinklr, the social media analytics platform, was employed to gather …

Scrolling For Support: Social Media Use, Health Information Seeking, And Social Support In Individuals With Type 1 Diabetes, Loren Myers

All Theses

Type 1 diabetes (T1D) is a lifelong chronic illness that is rapidly increasing in prevalence. Continuous treatment is necessary for proper management, but barriers to care can cause some to turn to other sources for health-related information, like social media. Given the limited research on social media use and health information seeking behaviors in people with T1D, this study aims to gain an understanding of how people with T1D use social media, where they get their health information, and how social support is related to social media behaviors among people with T1D. Adult T1D participants completed an online survey that …

Volunteer Spotlighting: Costly Signaling To Promote Volunteerism, Clyde A. Raible V

Master's Theses

Prosocial behaviors, because they are initially costly and do not guarantee a direct benefit to the actor, can nonetheless increase social status by signaling a willingness to incur cost on behalf of another. Given this signal value, nonprofit organizations may be able to leverage this knowledge to increase donations, such as through the provisioning of attention to, and recognition of, volunteers through social media. I predicted that the costliness of spotlighted behavior and the target signal clarity (i.e., individual vs. group spotlight) would interact with participants’ dispositional dominance and prestige-based status motives to influence volunteerism interest. To explore these associations, …

Policy Analysis Of Utah's Family Vlogging Bill: Examining The Influence Of The Mormon Church On Utah State Legislation And Its Effects On Child Performer Protections, Jayna J. Moskovitz

Honors College Theses

Following the criminal sentencing of Mormon family vlogger, Ruby Franke, of the 8Passengers YouTube channel, the state of Utah passed House Bill (H.B.) 322 in 2025 with the aim of protecting minors involved in social media content. This thesis investigates the connection between Mormonism and family vlogging to determine whether the Mormon influence in Utah’s state government impacted the effectiveness of H.B. 322’s provisions. My research asked: How does H.B. 322 protect children featured in social media content? (How) did the involvement of the Mormon Church in Utah politics and/or the high profile of the Ruby Franke case lead to …

Moving Beyond Willpower: A New Direction For Media Literacy Instruction, Mandi Goodsett

Michael Schwartz Library Publications

Academic librarians and others often engage with media literacy instruction by promoting fact-checking strategies, such as lateral reading or Mike Caulfield’s SIFT. Evidence shows that these strategies are valuable and can be effective, but they all ultimately rely on individual students to use willpower to overcome cognitive habits, biases, strong parasocial relationships with content creators, the power of algorithms, and other challenges to fact-checking content in the moment. This paper offers an alternative approach that instead encourages librarians to support students in intentionally redesigning their information environments to improve the quality of information that they encounter in the first place.

Exploring The Role Of Online Spaces In Understanding Young Adult Mental Health Attitudes: Internalizes Stigma, Help Seeking Behaviors, And Mental Health Centered Content, Harley Thomas

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

Mental Health is an ever-rising concern in the United States, with many people experiencing some form of mental health concerns. One new tool used to fight the mental health crisis has been online content on social media sites. Few studies have been done to see the actual effect of the rise of mental health content and terminology used online, especially through the lens of those who have lived experience. We conducted an online survey via Prolific to gather quantitative and qualitative data from 287 young adults in the United States, ages 18-25, to examine their exposure to mental health content, …

Click, Share, Believe, And Share Again: The Role Fake News Plays On Social Media, Lillian E. Sage

Journalism Undergraduate Honors Theses

This study examines the prevalence and plight of misinformation referred to as fake news found on social media. The study paid particular attention to, investigating which demographic groups are most likely to believe and disseminate fake news, as well as, understanding the kind of effect such exposure may have on individuals. To investigate these issues, a survey was developed using Qualtrics and distributed to members of the University of Arkansas community via email and group messaging platforms. To broaden the sample, the survey was also shared through the researcher’s social media networks, resulting in a more diverse group of …

Spiritual Gentrification Amid The Rise Of Platform Urbanism: "Wanghong Temples" And Emerging Buddhist Cultural Economies In Tianzhu Road, Hangzhou, China, Han Zhang, Junxi Qian, Lily Kong

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This study scrutinizes how the Tianzhu Road in the Lingyin Community - a peri-urban area in Hangzhou ringed by a cluster of temples that constitutes a distinct spiritual enclave - has been reworked through a two-phase gentrification process driven by the spiritual aesthetics and platform logics. Drawing on a two-month ethnography and media content analysis, this study conceptualizes spiritual gentrification as a spiritual aesthetics and culture-oriented recalibration of urban space in which spiritual elements operate as symbolic capital, attracting culturally motivated entrepreneurs and aligning the spiritual atmosphere with slow-life values as an alternative to urban modernity. In particular, platform urbanism …

The Relationship Between Social Support And Social Negativity On Social Media For Virtual Socializing And College Students’ Anxiety Levels During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Ni Zhang, Hsin Yi Tseng, Yijia Guo, Jasmine Thai, Alida Thao, Tripti Ghanghas

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

Objective During the COVID-19 pandemic, people were forced to socialize virtually. As virtual socializing proliferated during the COVID-19 pandemic, both social support and social negativity for virtual socializing on social media increased. This study examines how social support and social negativity on social media for virtual socializing are related to college students’ anxiety level during the pandemic. Methods Some 772 college students from a university on the west coast of the United States responded to an online Qualtrics survey from December 2020 to May 2021, when students were required to take all classes online. Descriptive analysis and multiple regressions were …

A Constitutional Black Box: Critically Assessing The Constitutional And Algorithmic Implications Of The Netchoice Cases, Sam Merkatz

Bates College Undergraduate Law Review

In 2024, the Supreme Court of the United States jointly heard Moody v. NetChoice, LLC and NetChoice, LLC v. Paxton, cases challenging Florida and Texas statutes that restricted the capacity of social media platforms to moderate content. While remanding the cases, the Court reaffirmed that content moderation and curation qualify as protected expression under the First Amendment. This paper critically assesses the Court's majority opinion and its nonbinding dicta regarding the expressive nature of algorithmic moderation.

Specifically, drawing on Justice Alito’s concurrence in judgement only, this paper argues that the Court fails to account for fundamental differences between traditional …

Is Less More? An Analysis Of Microblogs Vs. Discussion Forums As Tools For Understanding The Public, Marco Castillo

Publications and Research

Social media platforms offer valuable tools for public administrators seeking to assess public sentiment on policy issues, especially in urban areas with diverse stakeholder interests. This study investigates how public administrators can leverage social media by comparing communications on Reddit’s discussion forum platform with X’s microblogging platform. I hypothesize that Reddit fosters more subjective, nuanced discussions, providing richer insights into public sentiment. To test this, sentiment and regression analyses are conducted on communications about urban cycling on both platforms. Results indicate that while Reddit facilitates deeper exploration of public issues, X also effectively assesses public sentiment. The study concludes by …

Age Of First Smartphone Ownership With Social Media Access And Its Impact On Mental Health Outcomes, Derrick W. Swandol

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this quantitative study was to examine the relationship between the age of smartphone ownership with social media access (ASO) and self-esteem and depression symptoms, as well as to determine if the results could be moderated by adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) as an individual transitions from adolescence to adulthood. The study was conducted with n=54 (72% female), of whom 83% first owned a smartphone with social media access ≥ 12 years-of-age. This study was unable to obtain the minimum sample size for a statistically significant study and is considered underpowered due to needing a minimum sample size of …

Distraction Or Tool? Exploring The Relationship Between Social Media And Practice Habits Of Collegiate Music Students With Adhd, Marianne Nicole Mills

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

This qualitative phenomenological study examined the relationship between social media use and the practice habits of collegiate music students with Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). While social media platforms inspire collaboration, creativity, and educational resources, they also introduce potential distractions and barriers to initiating practice sessions, especially for students with executive functioning challenges. Using an Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) framework, five applied music students at a small, private college in Florida participated in semi-structured interviews and kept reflective practice journals for six weeks. Findings indicated that social media served as a dual-purpose influence, supporting learning and community while also increasing procrastination, …

Literacy Nonprofits And Social Media: Advancing An Understanding Of Message Functions And Communication Flows In Online Stakeholder Engagement, Diane M. Goodman

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

Countless nonprofit organizations in the United States have worked diligently to increase adequate access to literature and to improve child literacy rates through supplemental programming. Revenue growth in a nonprofit depends largely on the relationships between the organization and the public, yet nonprofits face additional obstacles to achieving strategic organizational goals in comparison with their for-profit counterparts (McGee & Donoghue, 2009). Although the majority of nonprofit organizations have been addressing societal issues at a grassroots level (Carter et al., 2019), most community-based nonprofits have faced challenges expanding to other communities and difficulties in replicating effective stakeholder engagement strategies (Nardini et …

The Lived Experiences Of Generation X With Social Media Use And Body Image Perception: A Phenomenological Study, Consuela Coburn

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

Social media use grows worldwide daily with several available applications having both positive and negative values. Several studies found negative effects on mental health and body dissatisfaction in adolescents and young adults. Existing literature predominantly focuses on young female participants, resulting in a gap in understanding the effects of social media use across other age cohorts. This phenomenological qualitative study explored the lived experiences of Generation X adults regarding social media use and the perceived effects on body image. Additionally, this study identified themes that emerged based on the semi-structured interviews of Generation X adults. NVivo 15, a computer assistance …

The Role Of Social Media In Shaping Romantic Relationships, Chelsea A. Fiszbajn

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

This quantitative study’s purpose was to examine the role social media has in adult romantic relationships. This study focused on the impact social media has on trust, communication, and the quality of the relationship. Social media platforms have become a very integral part of today’s relationships, which in turn has added room in the relationship for more jealousy, temptation, and validation from others. This study used a survey-based methodology to collect data on individuals' personal experiences and perceptions of how social media impacts their current romantic relationships. Using quantitative measures, the research evaluated how often a partner uses social media, …

How Digital News Impacts Health Knowledge And Decisions, Ellya Asatryan

Pepperdine Journal of Communication Research

This literature review examines how digital news and online health information (OHI) influence health knowledge and decision-making. This review focuses specifically on young adults, who increasingly rely on digital platforms for health information. Evidence indicates that OHI can support informed health decisions, such as lifestyle changes and self-care, particularly when individuals possess higher digital health literacy. However, the rise of social media, influencer marketing, and misinformation complicates these effects, making critical evaluation skills essential. Trust in digital health news is mediated by source credibility, exposure to misinformation, and individuals’ media and health literacy levels. Lower health literacy is associated with …

Expanding The Pantheon Of “Place-Myth”: Media-Induced Travel In College Students Who Study Abroad, Isabella M. Shevetz

Honors College Theses

Media-induced tourism refers to any travel that is in some part motivated by the consumption of mass media related to that location. Media-induced tourism and mass-tourism have led to nation branding and destination marketing across the globe, two industry phenomena that have worked to skyrocket tourism in places where it was not previously a large driver of the local economy. The expansion of mass media availability and the birth of social media mean the media roles of producer and audience member have blurred. Ordinary people now have the influential power of large media corporations. In destination marketing, the user-generated content …

Perilaku Informasi Seniman Digital Terhadap Karya Artificial Intelligence Di Media Sosial, Anindita Ferrensya, Indira Irawati

Jurnal Ilmu Informasi, Perpustakaan, dan Kearsipan

The rapid development of AI has introduced new capabilities, including generating artwork without direct human intervention. However, this advancement has also raised concerns in the art world, such as unauthorized use of artists’ works and the potential decline of human creative labor. This study examines the information behavior of digital artists who are students at the University of Indonesia toward AI-generated artwork, using Wilson’s Model of Information Behavior (1996). A descriptive qualitative method was employed, with data collected through structured interviews with five informants and literature review, and analyzed using thematic analysis. The findings show that participants generally held an …

Smartphone Use, Social Media, And Academic Procrastination In Secondary Education: A Multi Method Approach Investigation With Implications For School-Based Interventions, Haslee Sharil Lim Abdullah, Riza Amalia, Henny Indreswari, Im Hambali, Ronal Surya Aditya, Rusnila Rusnila

Buletin Konseling Inovatif

Academic procrastination has become a significant challenge in digital learning environments, particularly among adolescents with high smartphone and social media usage. This study examines the relationship between mobile phone use and academic procrastination among 262 high school students in Indonesia using a cross-sectional survey, narrative review, and network analysis. Results show 75.6% of students exhibit medium and 20.2% high procrastination levels, with "alternative activities" like digital distractions as the main form (M = 15.87, SD = 2.92). No significant differences were found by gender (p = .067) or age (p = .412), but strong positive correlations emerged between gadget use …

How Social Media Provides Access For Human Traffickers To Victimize Children: A Literature Review With Combative Measures., Ashton Lamb

Honors Theses

This literature review focuses on how human sex traffickers utilize social media to groom children. Social media is utilized by a great number of people around the world, including many children. While social media is intended to be fun and interactive, it does provide new access for dangerous people to reach victims. There is a very real, growing issue online that is not widely known to the public. This hidden danger is known as human trafficking. Human trafficking is defined as the involvement of any force, fraud, or coercion to obtain some labor or commercial sex act (Department of Homeland …

College Students, Immigration, And The News: Navigating What Is Reliable News, Alexis Pineda-Bautista

Departmental Honors & Graduate Capstone Projects

People treat mainstream media as a trustworthy source, but mainstream media has recently come into question. Mainstream media’s ability to quickly deliver accurate information has been called into doubt and there has been an increase in partisan reporting (Bennett and Livingston, 2018 as cited in Besalú and Pont-Sorribes, 2021; Besalú and Pont-Sorribes 2021). This research aims to demonstrate how the public views the mainstream media’s ability to deliver reliable information, why some participants are turning towards social media as a news source, and how people use their personal experience to verify the validity of media claims.

In semi-structured interviews, 13 …

Leveraging Critical Social Media Literacy To Safeguard Youth Against Violent Radicalization And Extremism, Muhammad Akram, Adeela Arshad-Ayaz, Muhammad Ayaz Naseem

Journal of Media Literacy Education

Social media is inundated with radical and extreme propaganda. Such information is often left unfiltered due to platform algorithms that are economically driven and socially unethical in design. It puts social media users, mostly youth, in danger of becoming radicalized and vulnerable to supporting and engaging with extremist beliefs. When young people lack sufficient critical social media literacy (CSML), radical and extremist information impacts their perspectives, affecting behavior in the real world. A PRISMA-guided systematic review of the Web of Science core collections and the Scopus database was used to find peer-reviewed articles about how CSML skills can be used …

Productive Disruptions: An Equityoriented Framework For Civic Media Literacy In The Digital Era, Carlos Jimenez, Lynn Schofield Clark, Johnny Ramirez

Journal of Media Literacy Education

This article introduces Productive Disruptions as a framework for civic media literacy that centers equity and social justice. Past scholarship has emphasized understanding media content and gaining competence in media production. To center equity as a structural concern beyond individual behaviors, we argue for media literacy interventions that support disrupting racism in content, production, and digital media distribution systems themselves. Drawing on an ethnographic case study with young people experiencing marginalization, we examine how youth productively disrupted instances of systemic racism via TikTok and Instagram. We identify three distinct modes of intervention: creating counter-narratives that disrupt racist discourses, subverting adult-led …

Pilattes; A Campaign With Prickly Pear Coffee Co., Grace Elizabeth Lappenga, Karis Grace Joe, Abigail Brooke Encalade

SPARK Symposium Presentations

The Prickly Pear Coffee Co. campaign sought to build awareness and community engagement around the brand’s new mobile camper location in Franklin, Tennessee. Founded by Annika Baylis, Prickly Pear Coffee Co. is a Christ-centered brand that began as a mobile espresso cart during the COVID-19 pandemic and grew into a Nashville staple with multiple storefronts.

With the new Franklin location facing limited awareness and a reduced marketing budget following complications from the January 2026 ice storm, three students in Belmont University’s PR Campaigns class conducted a situation analysis that included audience research, social media audits, and influencer identification. These insights …

Parents Under Pressure: Social Media’S Impact On Parents’ Mental Well-Being, Ali E. Shull

Dissertations and Doctoral Documents, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2023–

The rapid growth of social media has transformed how parents access information, evaluate their practices, and compare themselves to others. Although parenting content is widely consumed, limited research has examined its immediate psychological and physiological effects. The present mixed-methods study investigated how exposure to parenting-related social media content influences parental stress responses, affect, and parenting self-efficacy. Participants (N = 83) were randomly assigned to view either parenting-related videos (experimental condition) or non-parenting crafting videos (control condition). Physiological stress responses were assessed using heart rate variability (HRV) during baseline and video exposure. Participants also completed measures of negative affect and …