Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

A Christian Mega Church Strives For Relevance: Examining Social Media And Religiosity, Kenthea Albert-Leigh Joan Fogenay

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the relationship between Facebook and Twitter uses and gratifications and religiosity. Non-denominational Christian mega churches focus their outreach programs on a "come-as-you-are" attitude with the hopes of making people feel comfortable. The interactive technology in our daily lives also infiltrates our experience at church. The congregation now has the ability to worship through technologies endorsed by leadership (Watson & Scalen, 2008; Bogomilova, 2004; Thomas, 2009). In order for churches to engage in effective communication, they must understand how people use social networking. Through survey methodology, the researcher takes an account of how …

Performing And Interpreting Identity, Lee Farquhar

Scholarship and Professional Work - Communication

This one-year cyber-ethnography examines identity presentations and interpretations of 346 Facebook users. The social–psychological theoretical framework used drew specifically from symbolic interaction, Goffman’s performance of self, and schema theory. Generally, Facebookers sought social acceptance with their presentations. Primary findings indicate that the Facebookers present over-simplified imagery to reduce ambiguity and align with specific social groups. This study asked Facebookers to respond to strangers’ Facebook profiles, and the responses showed that due to the glut of identity-related information on the site, interpretations are heavily reliant on schemas. Online interview participants indicated several basic categories of identity performance that were used to …

Performing And Interpreting Identity, Lee Farquhar

Lee Farquhar

Political Twittoric : The Rhetorical Use Of Twitter By The Obama 2012 Presidential Campaign, Kainat Najmi Abidi

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

With the entrance of the digital age, the Presidential campaign has begun accommodating the growing trend of new technologies. A campaign can reach an audience in person, on the radio, through the newspaper, on television, and on the Internet. In 2008, President Barack Obama broke the limitations of campaigning by going social, which he continued in his run for reelection in 2012. Obama tapped into the popular social network of Twitter to run a portion his 2012 campaign. By utilizing this new network, Obama’s campaign accessed the multimodal quality of Twitter to benefit their goal of winning the 2012 election …

Social Media And The Transformation Of The Humanitarian Narrative: A Comparative Analysis Of Humanitarian Discourse In Libya 2011 And Bosnia 1994, Ellen Noble

Political Science Honors Projects

Within humanitarian discourse, there is a prevailing narrative: the powerful liberal heroes are saving the helpless, weak victims. However, the beginning of the 21^st century marks the expansion of the digital revolution throughout lesser-developed states. Growing access to the Internet has enabled aid recipients to communicate with the outside world, giving them an unprecedented opportunity to reshape discourses surrounding humanitarianism. Through a comparative discourse analysis of Libyan Tweets, 1994 newspaper reports on Bosnia, and 2011 newspaper reports on Libya, this paper analyzes whether aid recipient discourse can resist the dominant humanitarian narrative and if that resistance can influence dominant …

Why Don't I Look Like Her? The Impact Of Social Media On Female Body Image, Kendyl M. Klein

CMC Senior Theses

The purpose of this paper is to understand and criticize the role of social media in the development and/or encouragement of eating disorders, disordered eating, and body dissatisfaction in college-aged women. College women are exceptionally vulnerable to the impact that social media can have on their body image as they develop an outlook on their bodies and accept the developmental changes that occurred during puberty. This paper provides evidence that there is a relationship between the recent surge in disordered eating and high consumption of social media. I examine the ways in which traditional advertising has portrayed women throughout history, …

Write For Your Life: Developing Digital Literacies And Writing Pedagogy In Teacher Education, Shartriya Collier, Brian Foley, David Moguel, Ian Barnard

English Faculty Articles and Research

The need for the effective development of digital literacies pervades every aspect of instruction in contemporary classrooms. As a result, teacher candidates must be equipped to draw upon a variety of literacies in order to tap into the complex social worlds of their future pupils. The Write for Your Life Project was designed to strengthen teacher candidates’ skills in both traditional and digital writing literacies through the use of social networks, blogging, texting, online modules and other social media. The project, to a large degree, was structured according to Calkins’ (1994) Writing Workshop Approach. This process encourages teacher candidates to …

When Celebrity Women Tweet: Examining Authenticity, Empowerment, And Responsibility In The Surveillance Of Celebrity Twitter, Megan M. Wood

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis is a textual analysis of stories in online celebrity news articles about celebrity women and their use of Twitter. It adds to the burgeoning discussion about gendered and racialized bodies online using scholarship from critical feminist, surveillance, and digital media studies. Throughout, my work attends to notions of authenticity and surveillance, examining how what I term a "call to authenticity"--the use of technologies of self-surveillance to verify "authentic" displays of the self--serves to animate contradictory post-feminist paradigms of femininity which function together to discipline and subjugate femininity. I ask: How do post-feminist questions of empowerment and responsibility become …

The Virtual Watercooler: Influences Of Political Comedy On Social Media Discussion, Andrew Abad

Senior Honors Theses and Projects

With the emergence of social media activity as a daily phenomenon for most Americans, online users are becoming greater consumers of political information, and are choosing to share that information through social media outlets. A virtual "watercooler effect" is created, in the form of online political debates and arguments. This study examines the connection between viewers of political comedy programmings (television shows like The Daily Show With Jon Stewart and The Colbert Report) and political discussion on social media websites such as Facebook and Twitter. Using a survey of EMU undergraduate students that measures political efficacy and media habits, …

Blogging Chronic Illness And Negotiating Patient-Hood: Online Narratives Of Women With Ms, Collette Sosnowy

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Personal narratives about women's everyday lives with chronic illness are mapped onto the landscape of social media through blogging. Social media is facilitating an already-existing shift in patients' roles as they are increasingly enabled and expected to self-educate themselves about their illness, collaborate with providers, self-manage their care, and engage in health activism. The health care industry has seized on the widespread use of social media to bolster rhetoric that the accelerated knowledge development made possible through social media has the potential to revolutionize the practice of medicine. Critics, however, argue that responsibility and activism via digital technologies has become …