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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences
Planeswalking: Magic: The Gathering Across Analog And Digital Platforms, Jack Murray
Planeswalking: Magic: The Gathering Across Analog And Digital Platforms, Jack Murray
Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-
This dissertation analyzes the relationship between Wizards of the Coast's trading card game Magic: The Gathering and its digital adaptations. I used critical technocultural, ludic discourse analysis, and ludic textual analysis to examine the analog trading card game and digital adaptations. I examined an archive of paratextual media including trade magazines, developer blogs, game reviews, and player guides. I chose Magic for its long history, impact on the analog game industry, and the sheer number of adaptations that have been produced. This analysis begins by introducing a method for describing analog to digital adaptations called Adaptation Mapping. Adaptation mapping describes …
"It Is In Our Dna": Athlete Activism And Social Media Discourse During The 2020 Wnba Season, Kendra Gilbertson
"It Is In Our Dna": Athlete Activism And Social Media Discourse During The 2020 Wnba Season, Kendra Gilbertson
Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-
This dissertation analyzes the athlete activism in the WNBA, the use of social media for activism, and the social media discourse during the 2020 basketball season. I applied Critical Discourse Analysis to a defined set of texts including social media posts from Instagram and Twitter, user comments on social media, news articles from sports and non-sports publications, and a documentary, all related to the activism of the WNBA athletes. I chose the 2020 season because it is an exceptional case study of athlete activism and the use of social media for activism because the season was played in a single …
Gatsby Revived Through Memes, Sabrina Alvarez
Gatsby Revived Through Memes, Sabrina Alvarez
Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-
This thesis investigates what memes of the 2013 film The Great Gatsby do to F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel within the digital landscape. Meme images of The Great Gatsby began becoming popular on Tumblr.com. Typically they consist of often humorous text that incorporates an image from the 2013 movie in order to elevate the text into a communally shared in-joke. For example, the use of the "Jay Gatsby raising a glass" meme is commonly used on platforms such as Twitter, Instagram, and Tumblr even ten years after the fandom's creation. In the film, the imagery is used to introduce Jay Gatsby …
It's In The Design: Student Perceptions Of Intercultural Interactions In Online Communication Classrooms, Darius Lana
It's In The Design: Student Perceptions Of Intercultural Interactions In Online Communication Classrooms, Darius Lana
Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-
This study identifies how intercultural interaction takes place in online communication courses within higher education. Radically politicized efforts to remove discussion around identity and difference from education and increased enrollment in online courses has raised a concern regarding the degree to which diversity, equity, and inclusion goals are being met in college classrooms generally and online sections specifically. This study identified how current pedagogical content, structure, and delivery of online communication courses may impact intercultural interaction and interaction. Findings indicate a need to address the design of online communication courses to better meet the desired intercultural interaction of the students …
A Pilot Study Of An Immersive Folktale User Experience, Iulia Popescu
A Pilot Study Of An Immersive Folktale User Experience, Iulia Popescu
Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-
Immersive media provides new avenues for preserving and sharing traditional folktales. To keep up with modern generations and continue to cultivate an interest in the arts as well as different cultures, this researcher argues that storytellers need to keep on adapting by conveying stories in new ways. Virtual Reality (VR) offers an interesting medium to present and preserve folktales. The goal of this study is to evaluate the user and learner experience of an immersive digital media application design using a think aloud protocol, surveys, and tests to document what worked and what did not in the design, including if …
A Puerto Rican Diasporic Study In Central Florida, Chelsea Vélez
A Puerto Rican Diasporic Study In Central Florida, Chelsea Vélez
Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-
This study seeks to explicate the intercultural experiences of Puerto Ricans within the diaspora of Central Florida. Specifically, the navigation of communication behaviors among intergroup and outgroup behaviors as Puerto Rican individuals acculturate into the area. This study utilizes communication accommodation theory as its basis to understand integration into a host culture and the impacts on socio-cultural communication behaviors. Findings show the importance of studying diasporic communities as they develop such as that of the Puerto Rican community in Central Florida because it situates the reality of an individual and groups sense of identity in a new cultural context. This …
A Transdisciplinary Emergent Approach For Systems And Interventions (Easi), Chaithanya Renduchintala
A Transdisciplinary Emergent Approach For Systems And Interventions (Easi), Chaithanya Renduchintala
Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-
In modeling human behavior and social structures several factors can emerge over time this can be attributed to the availability of new data, increased complexity, changes to the organizational structure, interventions, introduction of innovative technology or services and due to improved knowledge and treatments. We hypothesize a new class of emergent decision support systems that continually evolve to account for this "Causal Drift". In this work, we illustrate the application of the Emergent Approach to Systems and Intervention (EASI™) methodology with the example of Community Intervention Activity Model (CIAM) to reduce the rate of diabetic hospitalization at the local/ county …
Modeling The Effects Of Diversity And Corporations On Participation Dynamics In Floss Ecosystems, Olivia Newton
Modeling The Effects Of Diversity And Corporations On Participation Dynamics In Floss Ecosystems, Olivia Newton
Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-
A multitude of societal issues associated with the development of technology have emerged over the years including, but not limited to: insufficient personnel for maintenance; a lack of accessibility; the spread of harmful tools; and bias and discrimination against marginalized groups. I propose that a systems perspective is necessary to identify potential leverage points in technology production systems to influence them towards increased social good and evaluate their effectiveness for intervention. Toward this end, I conducted a mixed-methods study of a widely-adopted approach in tech production, free/libre and open source software (FLOSS) development. A survey was distributed to elicit responses …
Postpartum Depression Symptoms In New Mothers And The Disclosure Process, Kelsey Lunsford
Postpartum Depression Symptoms In New Mothers And The Disclosure Process, Kelsey Lunsford
Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-
Using a qualitative approach, this study examined disclosure patterns of women who have experienced symptoms of postpartum depression (PPD). Postpartum depression is a mental illness that new parents are at risk of developing. If left unresolved, PPD can have severe, negative impacts on the development of the baby and the well-being of the parent. Unfortunately, due to the stigmatized nature of the illness, parents are sometimes reluctant to bring up their struggles with this illness and seek help. Eighteen women who had experienced PPD within the past five years were recruited and participated in an interview where they were asked …
Learning And Decision Making In Social Media Networks, Zhecheng Qiang
Learning And Decision Making In Social Media Networks, Zhecheng Qiang
Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-
Social media is a virtual community where users share news, ideas, interests, and information. Learning the information diffusion dynamics and making decisions correspondingly, e.g., selecting the seed nodes to maximize the influence, have been widely applied to the areas of viral marketing and cyber security. In this dissertation, we study the problem of learning diffusion process, i.e., infection prediction, in social media networks utilizing both feature-based machine learning methods and mathematical model-based methods. For feature-based machine learning methods, the neighborhood information is treated as an important feature together with user profile and content similarity features. For model-based methods, two distinctive …
Circulating Suburbia: Locating A Transnational Suburban Imagination In Post-War Periodicals, 1945-1970, Tyler Dick
Circulating Suburbia: Locating A Transnational Suburban Imagination In Post-War Periodicals, 1945-1970, Tyler Dick
Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-
In this thesis I argue that a suburban cultural imagination developed transnationally during the post-war period (roughly 1945-1970) rather than as a cultural phenomenon largely associated with the 1950s United States. I situate the suburbs—in both their physical and cultural constructions—as my primary focus and discuss the suburb's influence on hegemonic culture by performing an in-depth comparison of the U.S. with another country with a long history of suburbanization—Australia. Given that the suburbs structure several social, cultural, economic, political, and historical vectors—which all in turn inform issues of gender, race, class, sexuality, and nationality—I focus on how the suburbs inform …
Post-Crisis Organizational Learning Thresholds, Pitfalls And The Risk Of Repeated Crises: Clarifying The Discourse Of Renewal Theory, Rodrigo Soares
Post-Crisis Organizational Learning Thresholds, Pitfalls And The Risk Of Repeated Crises: Clarifying The Discourse Of Renewal Theory, Rodrigo Soares
Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-
Through a case study analysis of repeated crises that impacted the same organization in Brazil, this dissertation aimed to solve an applied problem: the potential for unresolved or amplified risk for organizations and their stakeholders facing repeated crises due to incomplete post-crisis learning. This research expands and clarifies the understanding of organizational learning, particularly in the Discourse of Renewal theory, by exploring the potential for organizations to ascertain vital lessons for a crisis but fail to communicatively constitute them as central features of a renewed organization. The study investigated an organization's failure to avoid repeating a crisis within a relatively …
Investigating The Effects Of Negative Influence Gradients And Emotion Contagion On The Information Processing Capacity Of Social Media Users: Information Diffusion Modeling Approach, Nisha Baral
Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-
With the growing use of Online social media (OSM), users are observing a substantial amount of information in their social feeds. Moreover, people often use multiple OSM platforms because of each platform's unique features. Because of the huge volume of information present in social feeds, it restricts a user's ability to process the relevant information since the most important information may be overwhelmed by unimportant information. For information to diffuse in OSM, the receiver's attention is the most important condition. Cognition plays an important role in determining a user's attention/responsiveness. If OSM users receive the information above their cognition limits …
A Human-Centered Approach To Improving Adolescent Online Sexual Risk Detection Algorithms, Afsaneh Razi
A Human-Centered Approach To Improving Adolescent Online Sexual Risk Detection Algorithms, Afsaneh Razi
Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-
Computational risk detection has the potential to protect especially vulnerable populations from online victimization. Conducting a comprehensive literature review on computational approaches for online sexual risk detection led to the identification that the majority of this work has focused on identifying sexual predators after-the-fact. Also, many studies rely on public datasets and third-party annotators to establish ground truth and train their algorithms, which do not accurately represent young social media users and their perspectives to prevent victimization. To address these gaps, this dissertation integrated human-centered approaches to both creating representative datasets and developing sexual risk detection machine learning models to …
Not All Influence Is Born Equal: On The Effects Of Various Types Of Behavioral Influence Relationships On Social Media, Chathurani Senevirathna
Not All Influence Is Born Equal: On The Effects Of Various Types Of Behavioral Influence Relationships On Social Media, Chathurani Senevirathna
Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-
Typically, online social influence is analyzed using a single metric approach. However, social influence is not monolithic; different users exercise different influences in different ways, and influence is correlated with the user and content-specific attributes. One such attribute could be whether the action is an initiation of a new post, a contribution to a post, or a sharing of an existing post. Thus, this dissertation uses this platform-independent action classification and models the influence as multiple entities and examines social networks through the perspective of behavioral influence propagation. Two empirical studies are present in this dissertation. The first study presents …
Igniting Interest?: Female Perceptions Of Communication Effectiveness In Public Safety Recruitment Campaigns, Ashley Papagni
Igniting Interest?: Female Perceptions Of Communication Effectiveness In Public Safety Recruitment Campaigns, Ashley Papagni
Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-
Despite the potential for positive impacts resulting from a diverse workforce, fire departments across the country have struggled with the recruitment and hiring of minorities for decades, with women accounting for only 4.7% of its workforce (NFPA, 2020). Due in part to the limited diversity, the fire service tends to perpetuate the stereotypes of masculinity. There are three identified issues that are leading to the lack of female applicants in public safety positions, including the lack of diversity and inclusivity in Public Safety Organizations (PSOs), the absence of women in the role as firefighters, and the absence of recruitment strategies …
D&D&U&G: Uses And Gratifications Theory And Dungeons & Dragons, Ariana Ferrante
D&D&U&G: Uses And Gratifications Theory And Dungeons & Dragons, Ariana Ferrante
Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-
Given the growing popularity of the tabletop role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons, or D&D, this thesis study applied the Uses and Gratifications theory to determine what players of the game get from engagement with this particular, previously overlooked form of entertainment media. Additionally, this research sought to determine whether these discovered gratifications overlapped at all with perceived similar media, specifically massive multiplayer online roleplaying games, MMORPGs, and social media. A series of in-depth, semi-structured interviews designed to elicit relevant responses were conducted with 14 respondents, followed by a thematic analysis to determine gratifications. The qualitative analysis determined a set of …
When Doubt Comes In: Framing Of Sexual Trauma Experiences In R/Sexualassault, Alison Kubala
When Doubt Comes In: Framing Of Sexual Trauma Experiences In R/Sexualassault, Alison Kubala
Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-
At age 23 I began acknowledging and healing from my experiences with sexual trauma. Although my trauma occurred from ages twelve to eighteen, my doubt and preconceived notions about what abuse was kept me from believing that I deserved help. Due to an incessant belief that abuse looked one particular way, I found ways to minimize and frame my experiences as "not abuse". Fueled by encouragement from my therapist and my interest in Communication research, I began to wonder how others who experience shame and doubt surrounding sexual abuse frame their experiences. To better understand, I conducted a critical discourse …
Identifying Challenges And Opportunities For Designing Social Media Nudges For Adolescents, Oluwatomisin Obajemu
Identifying Challenges And Opportunities For Designing Social Media Nudges For Adolescents, Oluwatomisin Obajemu
Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-
With the prevalence of online risks encountered by youth online, strength-based approaches such as nudges have been recommended as a potential solution to subtly guide teens toward safer decisions. However, most nudging interventions to date have not been designed to cater to teens’ unique needs and online safety concerns. To address this gap, this study aimed to better understand adolescents’ perceptions and feedback on online safety nudges to inform the design of more effective online safety interventions. We conducted 12 semi-structured interviews and 3 focus group sessions with 21 teens (13 – 17 years old) to get their feedback on …
Studying Users Interactions And Behavior In Social Media Using Natural Language Processing, Sultan Alshamrani
Studying Users Interactions And Behavior In Social Media Using Natural Language Processing, Sultan Alshamrani
Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-
Social media platforms have been growing at a rapid pace, attracting users' engagement with the online content due to their convenience facilitated by many useful features. Such platforms provide users with interactive options such as likes, dislikes as well as a way of expressing their opinions in the form of text (i.e., comments). As more people engage in different social media platforms, such platforms will increase in both size and importance. This growth in social media data is becoming a vital new area for scholars and researchers to explore this new form of communication. The huge data from social media …
Bringing Instagram Posts Into Being: A Study Of Fyc Students' Self-Sponsored Posting Practices And Transfer Opportunities, Jessica Kester
Bringing Instagram Posts Into Being: A Study Of Fyc Students' Self-Sponsored Posting Practices And Transfer Opportunities, Jessica Kester
Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-
Social media platforms have offered students—and all of us—more opportunities for self-sponsored writing. In response to calls from researchers to explore students' 21st-century writing practices and their relevance to college writing instruction, this dissertation articulated and applied a feminist teacher research methodology and a mixed-methods research design to explore first-year composition (FYC) students' self-sponsored writing practices, attitudes, and transfer opportunities on a popular, albeit under-examined, social media application: Instagram. This study found that students have developed elaborate, rhetorical, multimodal composing processes that include planning, drafting, evaluating, selecting, and styling images as well as planning, drafting/revising, and styling captions. Additionally, though …
Using Expectation Violation Theory To Evaluate Dialectal Bias In Courtroom Contexts, Christina Joseph
Using Expectation Violation Theory To Evaluate Dialectal Bias In Courtroom Contexts, Christina Joseph
Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-
There is much evidence to indicate the role of speaker accent expectations and its impacts on the subsequent rating of the speaker. Additionally, examples including the Central Park Five as well as Rachel Jeantel of the Trayvon Martin case indicate the impacts of this speaker rating particularly in the context of the courtroom. This necessitates the further evaluation of the impact of dialectal bias on speaker ratings especially in the context of a courtroom due to the severity of the impacts. Utilizing a 4x2 between subjects experimental design manipulating on the basis of both dialect and speaker expectation, this study …
Communities Of Play And Practice: Collaborating With Audiences And Coworkers In Performative Online Spaces, Paul Oppold
Communities Of Play And Practice: Collaborating With Audiences And Coworkers In Performative Online Spaces, Paul Oppold
Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-
This study describes an ethnographic investigation of Communities of Play within Communities of Practice. As professional 'content creators', whose 'work' is 'play', are increasingly interacting with non-professional content consumers, whose 'play' is a kind of 'work', the barriers between 'work' and 'play' are increasingly dissolving. The purpose of this study was to examine the nature and frequency of the professionals' interactions with coworkers in an office and with the content consumers while working from home. Data were collected in the form of gameplay videos uploaded by the professional streamers from January of 2017 to March of 2018, downloaded by the …
Corporate Social Advocacy: Addressing Social Justice In The Age Of Black Lives Matter, Asianna Elston
Corporate Social Advocacy: Addressing Social Justice In The Age Of Black Lives Matter, Asianna Elston
Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-
This research explores corporate advocacy and support for the Black Lives Matter movement. Using organizational legitimacy theory as a theoretical framework, this research employed thematic analyses in order to study statements issued by Fortune's 50 most admired companies in response to the re-energized Black Lives Matter movement. These statements were studied using thematic content analysis in order to gauge corporate engagement with the movement, as well as indicate themes of authenticity or hypocrisy apparent in the statements. The study revealed major themes of support and authentic engagement, as well as highlighted the missing components that may indicate hypocritical stances to …
The Cognition And Enjoyment Of Transmedia Journalism Vs Print Journalism, Lea Crittenden
The Cognition And Enjoyment Of Transmedia Journalism Vs Print Journalism, Lea Crittenden
Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-
Transmedia journalism is a growing way to get news stories to readers with the new technology of social media platforms. This study, through surveys and a blog, measured information retention/cognition and preference of the interactive platform(s) and the print platform to see which type of transmedia journalism is preferred more to readers and easier for readers to retain more information. The sample was 31 Digital media undergraduate and graduate students concurrently enrolled in the University of Central Florida's Nicholson School of Communication and Media in the Games & Interactive Media program. All participants received at least one story platform consisting …
Help In The Time Of Covid: Informational, Emotional, And Instrumental Support Among Graduate Students During A Pandemic, Teanna Staser
Help In The Time Of Covid: Informational, Emotional, And Instrumental Support Among Graduate Students During A Pandemic, Teanna Staser
Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-
This study examined graduate students' experiences with social support in relation to stress and uncertainty during the COVID-19 global pandemic. Graduate students as a population have significant levels of stress and uncertainty which may have negative effects on their lives and academic experiences. Graduate students often utilize social support as a way to cope with or mitigate the effects of stress and uncertainty. This qualitative study consisted of six focus groups, ranging from three to six participants, total of 22 participants, who were found using a purposeful snowball sampling method. The participants were masters and doctoral level students in communication …
Social Media Use And Safe Sex Practices Among Chinese Gay Men, Hang Zheng
Social Media Use And Safe Sex Practices Among Chinese Gay Men, Hang Zheng
Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-
With the number of Chinese gay men affected by HIV rising annually and social media serving as popular information sources, this study aims to examine the information channels used by Chinese gay men to acquire safer sex knowledge and to test the effect of safer sex knowledge, information channel use, safe-sex communication with sexual partners on Chinese gay men's safer sex practices. Due to the sensitive topic and hard-to-reach population, a snowball sampling method was used to recruit eligible participants. Specifically, an online survey was designed and distributed to three LGBT-NGO-related WeChat groups. A total of 191 valid data points …
From Screen To Shining Screen: Representations Of Youtube As A Democratic Platform For A Community Of Authentic Creators, Emily Tarvin
From Screen To Shining Screen: Representations Of Youtube As A Democratic Platform For A Community Of Authentic Creators, Emily Tarvin
Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-
This dissertation analyzes representations of the social media platform YouTube, as described by its community and the company, in order to understand how the platform fits within American narratives of democratic technology. I argue that throughout different descriptions of YouTube, such as the corporate branding of the platform as democratic and the communal understanding of YouTube as outside of mainstream media, the language of democracy functions as a balancing act. The YouTube company, content creators, and regular viewers use democratic rhetoric to negotiate the ideals of community on the platform and capitalist endeavors, such as advertising and brand deals. I …
Pixelated Domes: Cinematic Code Changes Through A Frank Lloyd Wright Lens, William Allen
Pixelated Domes: Cinematic Code Changes Through A Frank Lloyd Wright Lens, William Allen
Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-
Panoramic 360-degree documentary videos continue to saturate the visual landscape. As practitioners' experiment with a new genre, understanding meaning and making awaits the academic and marketplace landscape. The new media journey of 360-degree documentary storytelling is ripe for media archaeologist to explore. New media scholar Lev Manovich (2016) believes "we are witnessing the new emergence of a cultural metalanguage, something that will be at least as significant as the printed word and cinema before it" (p. 49) Considering the meta- development of this new media genre, my dissertation seeks to discuss the historical roots of the panoramic image, define 360-degree …
How Twitter Exposes Daily Whiteness Practices In Mexico And Argentina, Erika Maribel Heredia
How Twitter Exposes Daily Whiteness Practices In Mexico And Argentina, Erika Maribel Heredia
Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-
This dissertation questions: How is the social imaginary about the meaning of being white in Mexico produced, reproduced, and problematized in Twitter Discourse? How is the social imaginary about the meaning of being white in Argentina produced, reproduced, and problematized in Twitter Discourse? How are the social imaginaries in Twitter Discourse in Mexico and Argentina related to the cultural and symbolic power exercised by the United States, and does US power influence the structure of privileges built around Whiteness? For doing that, I collected up to 10K tweets using two keywords to identify discourses surrounding Whiteness in tweets from users …