Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Small Historically Black Colleges And Universities Bridging Social Capital: The Use Of Language, Tone And Content To Share Information On Instagram, Pamela Peters

Journal of Research Initiatives

The COVID-19 pandemic has strained higher education institutions, especially small Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). As campuses closed and reopened, Black communities' digital divide grew, adding to the need to stay connected. This study uses social capital to examine how institutions use language, tone, content, and information to bridge social capital. An analysis of 35 small liberal arts HBCUs’ Instagram posts was undertaken to compare post frequency, types of information, engagement, tone, language, and content in 2019 before the COVID-19 pandemic and during the pandemic, 2020 and 2021. This study indicates that post-oversaturation in 2020 and 2021 and information …

Ideological Boundaries Of Status Advantages: Legislative Effectiveness In The House Of Representatives In The United States Congress, Francois Collet, Gianluca Carnabuci, Gokhan Ertug, Tengjian Zou

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Prior research assumes that high-status actors have greater organizational influence than lower-status ones, that is, it is easier for the former to get their ideas and initiatives adopted by the organization than it is for the latter. Drawing from the literature on ideology, we posit that the status-influence link is contingent on actors’ ideological position. Specifically, status confers organizational influence to the degree that the focal actor is ideologically mainstream. The more an actor’s ideology deviates from the mainstream the less will her status translate into increased organizational influence. We find support for this hypothesis using data on the work …

Community Stakeholders’ Perspectives Of Craft Breweries In Their Communities In Oklahoma, Cara Jolly, Quisto Settle, Laura Greenhaw, Ruth Inman, Dwayne Cartmell

Journal of Applied Communications

Craft breweries are a growing industry in the United States, including Oklahoma. Craft breweries have unique characteristics that affect their brands. One of those characteristics is craft breweries’ tie to their local communities through place branding and serving as a third space (i.e., not home or work) for community members. Interviews were conducted with community stakeholders in Oklahoma to understand how the stakeholders perceived the brands of breweries in their communities. Results of the interviews indicated that craft breweries were positively received by communities. Participants believed the breweries were valuable to the local community by contributing to existing culture and …

Untapped Potential Of Local Brewery Brands In Their Communities, Cara Jolly, Quisto Settle, Laura Greenhaw, Ruth Inman, Dwayne Cartmell

Journal of Applied Communications

The craft brewery industry is growing in the United States. Due to changes in state law over the past 10 years, craft breweries are a relatively new industry in Oklahoma. A unique aspect of craft breweries compared to larger breweries is that craft breweries tend to be grounded in their local communities. The purpose of this research was to understand how craft breweries in Oklahoma establish their brand with respect to their communities. Interviews were conducted with brewery personnel across Oklahoma, including participants from both more established and newer breweries. The breweries in this study were purposefully engaging in their …

Investigating The Role Of Social Capital And Everyday Communication In Campus Community Resilience During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Kaleb A. Turner

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis investigated the role of social capital and everyday communication in campus community resilience capacities during the COVID-19 pandemic. This study conceptualized the university community as a micro-community that experienced sharp disruption as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. In the same way that traditionally conceptualized communities harness communication to build resilience, this study provides evidence that micro-communities, such as the university campus, have the same potential. Focus groups with students, faculty, and staff, as well as one-on-one semi-structured interviews with students, resulted in 557 pages of single-spaced transcripts that provided rich data to understand this community resilience context. …

Dis/Organizing Social Capital: Tension In A U.S. National Park, Blake Allen Harms

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

The National Park System in the United States is a unique work environment filled with tension, organizational complexity and challenges. Scholars often argue that these types of organizational complexities should be addressed by increasing social capital. Social capital scholars direct practitioner attention toward relational connection as a means of increasing social capital, however without delving into the communicative processes of connecting with others. In this thesis, I embrace a communication as constitutive of organization (CCO) perspective with a focus on dis/organization to investigate “messiness” of employee expressions of social capital in a large western national park. Engaging in qualitative analysis …

Extending The Theory Of Planned Behavior With Ego-Network Social Capital To Examine Chinese Women's Tampon Use Intentions, Yin Yang

Master's Theses (2009 -)

Building on the theory of planned behavior and ego-network social capital, this study tested how different levels of network closure and brokerage influenced Chinese women’s tampon use intentions. Results from an online survey (N = 766) showed that network density was associated with positive attitudes, and high levels of injunctive norms and descriptive norms of tampon usage. Furthermore, results of a path analysis demonstrated that network density had indirect impacts on tampon use intentions through attitudes, descriptive norms, and perceived behavior control. This study extends the theory of planned behavior by incorporating ego-network social capital. Practically, the findings shed light …

Coauthor Network Analysis Of Journal Of Applied Communications Articles From 2008-2017, Audrey E. H. King, Quisto Settle

Journal of Applied Communications

Coauthorship networks offer a glimpse of collaborations within a discipline, illustrating the social networks that enable users to leverage more resources than they could on their own. This study used relational bibliometric data from the last 10 years of the Journal of Applied Communications (JAC) to create a social network analysis. The following research objectives guided this study: 1) Describe authorship, category (i.e., research article, commentary, book review), and number of JAC papers published from 2008 to 2017, 2) Describe the coauthor network characteristics of JAC papers, and 3) Describe the relationship between publication frequency and social …

Corporate Social Responsibility And Minor League Baseball: The Pacific Association And Community Engagement, Rachel Blackman

Honors Theses

Attendance at all levels of baseball is the lowest it has been in 15 years (Kessler, 2018). And with decreasing levels of and social capital, communities are losing trust and civic engagement (Putnam, 2000). Sports teams foster higher levels of trust within their communities (Walker & Kent, 2009). Corporate Social Responsibility provides a way to foster this trust through activities led by sports teams in a community. This includes players visiting schools, libraries, or hosting camps and clinics. This makes Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) much more effective with the inclusion of sports teams (Walker & Kent, 2009). Previous studies addressed …

The Legitimation & Networked Unification Of #Nodapl: Diverse Discourses Of Value Validate A Collective Identity, Jacqueline Marie Ouellette

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

NoDAPL was, first and foremost, an Indigenous-led resistance against the construction of a pipeline in North Dakota. It was also a movement that built solidarity, bridging networks between international Indigenous peoples, Black Lives Matter activists, veterans, and feminists. This discourse analysis of social media and digital texts addresses the networked publics, collective identities, social capital, and intersectionality in applying Van Leeuwen’s (2007) understanding of legitimation. In doing so, the practice of reproducing and extending the values, themes, and images of various algorithmic imaginaries will be explored, as they relate to network homophily, identity construction, and mobilization. This study will argue …

Nonprofit Public Relationships On Social Media: The Public's Perspective, Brooke Lauren Smith

Theses and Dissertations

This work explores the effect of social media on expectations held by nonprofit publics as they seek to build and maintain relationships with nonprofit organizations (NPOs) in the context of expectancy violation theory, social capital, and the situational theory of publics. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 14 individuals who follow a nonprofit on social media to understand the public perspective on nonprofit organizations' relationship building and maintaining behaviors on social media. The study found that nonprofit publics do have specific expectations for how NPOs should build and maintain relationships on social media (i.e., high-quality posts, level of interaction being limited …

A Place To Stand: Community Media Centers, James Joseph Knightwright

Theses and Dissertations

With the experience of 30+ years in community media, I envision providing a resource for scholars as well as community media practitioners and stakeholders. I am investigating the processes of training at community media centers (CMC) to determine potential impacts and effects. Functioning as a participant observer, I will prepare a documentary film focusing on the practices and processes utilized by CMCs to serve their communities.

Concentrating on Columbia Access Television (CAT TV), Columbia, Missouri and the Sun Prairie Media Center (SPMC), Sun Prairie, Wisconsin, I plan to visit each location to interview station staff, volunteers, and community members. These …

Does Stakeholder Engagement Pay Off On Social Media? A Social Capital Perspective, Weiai Xu, Gregory D. Saxton

Communication Department Faculty Publication Series

Nonprofits use social media to pursue a broad range of mission-related outcomes. Given the centrality of user connections and social networks on these sites, attaining these outcomes is contingent on first generating a stock of online social capital through investing in online relationships. Yet, little is known empirically about this process. To better understand the return on social media, this study develops empirical measures of four key dimensions of social media–based social capital centering on the nature of nonprofits’ network positions and stakeholder ties. The study then tests a series of hypotheses relating the increase in social capital to different …

Timelines And Trade Chat: Comparing Contextual Self-Disclosure And Perceived Social Capital On Social Networking Sites And Massively Multiplayer Online Games, Ryan P. Castillo

Masters Theses

This study examines the associations between usage intensity, user motivations, and contextual self-disclosure, and social capital on two popular online mediums, Facebook and World of Warcraft. Contributing to the efforts of previous research, which has found both online gaming communities and social networking sites to positively affect access to informational and social support, this analysis shows that intimate self-disclosure in each online medium differs not only in context, but in its impact on dimensions of social capital, and that the various effects of self-disclosure on social capital can be attributed to differences in communicative affordances and community held standards of …

Conceptualizing Social Wealth In The Digital Age: A Mixed Methods Approach, Kristina Oliva

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

As society continues to shift into the digital age, the relationship between social exchange and economic activity is becoming increasingly homogenous. The success of digital products are largely sustained upon the leverage of social relationships and the quasi-sharing of material items, services, and digital media. Emergence of the sharing and on-demand economies is evidence of the necessity to understand social exchange as a form of economic transaction. As such, this study attempts to conceptualize and define the concept of social wealth to understand the basis of an economic synthesis. In attempt to theoretically integrate the concept, a mixed methods design …

Meetings As Persistent Conversations That Use Icts And Face-To-Face To Build Social Capital, Keri Stephens, Ignacio Cruz, Eric D. Waters, Yaguang Zhu

College of Communication Faculty Research and Publications

Attending meetings is a common activity where people accomplish tasks and extend their relationships. But what happens when a meeting is over? Is that the end of the meeting conversation? This study empirically demonstrates that meetings are not discrete events; rather they are a form of persistent conversation processes, involving combinations of ICTs and face-to-face communication. Conversations between meetings contribute to a meeting process-perspective and link to the development of bonding and bridging social capital. The findings suggest that the frequency of face-to-face conversations and text messaging between meetings, positively impact bonding social capital. Peoples’ attitudes toward continuing conversations between …

Sport, Twitter Hashtags And The Public Sphere, Brendan O'Hallarn

Human Movement Sciences & Special Education Theses & Dissertations

Sport and social media researchers have been challenged to go beyond simply analyzing the content of public social media posts, and to incorporate different critical frameworks to seek more meaningful findings about these relatively new online phenomena. This three-paper format dissertation attempts to frame interactions through sport-themed Twitter hashtags sociologically by incorporating a critical theory rarely deployed in the study of sport—the public sphere. In paper one, the study introduces a theoretical model which suggests sport consumption patterns and the unique architecture of Twitter can promote public sphere-like discourse in hashtags connected to sport. The model suggests amplifiers and barriers …

Conceptualizing Communication Capital For A Changing Environment, Leo Jeffres, Guowei Jian, Sukki Yoon

Guowei Jian

With rapidly evolving technologies, boundaries between traditional modes of communication have blurred, creating an environment that scholars still describe from viewpoints as researchers in interpersonal, organizational or mass communication. This manuscript looks at the social capital literature and argues for conceptualizing “communication capital” to help understand the impact of communication phenomena in a changing environment. The literature has treated interpersonal communication variables as components of social capital and mass communication variables as factors affecting social capital, but scholars long ago recognized their reinforcing nature, leading us to develop a concept of communication capital merging symbolic activity across domains in its …

Strong-Tie Social Connections Versus Weak-Tie Social Connections, Mark A. Rademacher, Kevin Y. Wang

Kevin Wang

Discussions regarding the strength of social ties relate to social capital theory. As Robert Putnam describes it, social capital theory suggests that social networks have value at the micro (individual), meso (community), and macro (societal) levels. An individual's social network is comprised of multiple, multiplex social ties of varying strengths. Strong ties exist among individuals connected within densely knit, homogenous networks such as those involving kin and close friends. Weak ties exist among individuals connected within sparse, heterogeneous networks such as those involving acquaintances.

Strong-Tie Social Connections Versus Weak-Tie Social Connections, Mark A. Rademacher, Kevin Y. Wang

Mark A. Rademacher

Discussions regarding the strength of social ties relate to social capital theory. As Robert Putnam describes it, social capital theory suggests that social networks have value at the micro (individual), meso (community), and macro (societal) levels. An individual's social network is comprised of multiple, multiplex social ties of varying strengths. Strong ties exist among individuals connected within densely knit, homogenous networks such as those involving kin and close friends. Weak ties exist among individuals connected within sparse, heterogeneous networks such as those involving acquaintances.

The Impact Of External Contexts On Alliance Governance In Biotech–Pharmaceutical Firm Alliances, Joanne L. Scillitoe, Shanthi Gopalakrishnan, Michael D. Santaro

Organization Management Journal

The interest in strategic alliances has increased over the years, especially in high tech global industries such as biotechnology, as firms seek to gain access to needed resources, expertise, and knowledge for developing and commercializing new products and technologies. The governance structure of these alliances, which is an important consideration in understanding alliance formation and performance, is influenced by both external and internal contexts of the alliance partners. However, evidence from prior research has been inconclusive regarding the impact of external contexts on alliance governance selection. To better understand this impact, we simultaneously examine three key partner external contexts - …

Navigating The Social Landscape: An Exploration Of Social Networking Site Usage Among Emerging Adults, Kristen Colbeck

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This study explores how emerging adults (Arnett, 2000) in their first- and second-year of undergraduate study make use of social networking sites (SNSs) for their day-to-day sociality. This study compares emerging adults’ use of Facebook, which is the most popular and widely used SNS among this particular demographic, to increasingly popular SNSs Twitter and Instagram. This project seeks to discover how the use of different SNSs supplements, changes, or replaces the use of Facebook, considering social capital exists on each platform, and if and how each sites’ uses and gratifications differ. This study employs face-to-face semi-structured interviews to pursue the …

The Chosen One: A Q-Method Analysis Of The “€œHarry Potter”€ Phenomenon, Cindy Phippen

Theses and Dissertations

This study examines how pop culture fandoms are formed, based on five communications theories: Escapism, Mood Management, Parasocial Relationships, Identification, and Social Capital. The researcher examined the Harry Potter fandom specifically because of its global pervasiveness. Using Q Methodology, 47 respondents fell into one of four categories: Relationship Experts, Happy Introverts, Identifying Isolationists, and Isolated Self-regulators. Relationship Experts like Harry Potter because of parasocial relationships with the characters as well as the story's capacity for escapism, and Happy Introverts focus on liking Harry Potter for their own enjoyment (not that of others) and mood management. Identifying Isolationists like Harry Potter …

Meetup And Social Capital: Building Community In The Digital Age, Danielle Vaughn

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In order to understand the complex relationship between new media and social capital, this thesis explores the lived experiences of individuals who are actively seeking some form of connection through MeetUp.com. Through participant observation, critical discourse analysis, and semi-structured interviews, the findings of this research illuminate the myriad ways in which participation with new media platforms intersects with individuals’ psychosocial well-being through the formation of social capital. While social capital has traditionally been thought about in terms of its different forms, and different benefits, this research furthers the literature by demonstrating that the values of social capital are not limited …

Web 2.0 Use And Knowledge Transfer: How Social Media Technologies Can Lead To Organizational Innovation, Namjoo Choi, Kuang-Yuan Huang, Aaron Palmer, Lenore Horowitz

Information Science Faculty Publications

The concept of Web 2.0 has gained widespread prominence in recent years. The use of Web 2.0 applications on an individual level is currently extensive, and such applications have begun to be implemented by organizations in hopes of boosting collaboration and driving innovation. Despite this growing trend, only a small number of theoretical perspectives are available in the literature that discuss how such applications could be utilized to assist in innovation. In this paper, we propose a theoretical model explicating this phenomenon. We argue that organizational Web 2.0 use fosters the emergence and enhancement of informal networks, weak ties, boundary …

Strong-Tie Social Connections Versus Weak-Tie Social Connections, Mark A. Rademacher, Kevin Y. Wang

Scholarship and Professional Work - Communication

Discussions regarding the strength of social ties relate to social capital theory. As Robert Putnam describes it, social capital theory suggests that social networks have value at the micro (individual), meso (community), and macro (societal) levels. An individual's social network is comprised of multiple, multiplex social ties of varying strengths. Strong ties exist among individuals connected within densely knit, homogenous networks such as those involving kin and close friends. Weak ties exist among individuals connected within sparse, heterogeneous networks such as those involving acquaintances.

Conceptualizing Communication Capital For A Changing Environment, Leo Wayne Jeffres, Guowei Jian, Sukki Yoon

Communication Faculty Publications

With rapidly evolving technologies, boundaries between traditional modes of communication have blurred, creating an environment that scholars still describe from viewpoints as researchers in interpersonal, organizational or mass communication. This manuscript looks at the social capital literature and argues for conceptualizing “communication capital” to help understand the impact of communication phenomena in a changing environment. The literature has treated interpersonal communication variables as components of social capital and mass communication variables as factors affecting social capital, but scholars long ago recognized their reinforcing nature, leading us to develop a concept of communication capital merging symbolic activity across domains in its …

The Importance Of Connected Communities To Flood Resilience, Neil Dufty

Neil Dufty

No abstract provided.

Multitude Of Needs Met By An Online Mom Community, Shannon Alexis Snell

LSU Master's Theses

Online communities for expectant mothers have existed for many years, but newer social media sites are allowing these groups to exist in different formats. This study features an online community of 94 women that originated from TheBump.com’s forums who then formed their own community, a Facebook group for February 2012 moms. The women exist in many different social media spheres including the group, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and a separate Buy/Sell/Trade Facebook group. This study used a survey questionnaire to determine whether these different social media sites and platforms met different needs for this specific group of women. The study also …

The Dynamics Of Social Capital And Conflict Management In Multiple Resource Regimes: A Case Of The Southwestern Highlands Of Uganda, Pascal C. Sanginga, Rick N. Kamugisha, Andrienne M. Martin

All UNF Research

Increasingly, social capital, defined as shared norms, trust, and the horizontal and vertical social networks that facilitate coordination and cooperation for mutually beneficial collective action, is seen as an important asset upon which people rely to manage natural resources and resolve conflicts. This paper uses empirical data from households and community surveys and case studies, to examine the role, strengths, and limits of social capital in managing conflicts over the use and management of natural resources. We inventoried over 700 cases ranging from conflicts between multiple resource users to supra-community conflicts between local communities concerns for better livelihoods and national/international …