Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

The Impact Of #Metoo On Reasons For Sexual Assault Disclosure, Cheryl H. Tien

Doctoral Dissertations

Sexual assault is a long-standing widespread problem. Yet, despite the high prevalence of sexual assault, it is the most underreported crime of all crimes reported to the police (Bureau of Justice, 2018). The #MeToo movement has had a significant impact on the way in which sexual assault survivors disclose their experiences and the reasons they disclose. Disclosure appears to be an important factor in survivors’ healing from their assault, with increasing coping, greater attachment to others, and positive growth cited as effects of disclosure provided that the response to the disclosure is positive to the survivor (Ahrens & Aldana, 2012; …

Art And Internet Infrastructure, Liat Berdugo

Journal of Interdisciplinary Perspectives and Scholarship

In her essay Art and Internet Infrastructure, multimedia artist, curator, and professor Liat Berdugo contemplates and complicates our overreliance and relationship with networks and technology especially during shelter-in-place.

Placing Notes In The Virtual “Western Wall”: Online Memorial Culture In Chinese Social Media, Xiaoyu Zhang

Master's Projects and Capstones

Each society has a unique way of understanding death and coping with mourning. The increasing online mourners in China gradually generated a collective reference to the Weibo account that belongs to the dead, the “Western Wall.” This project searches for answers to two questions: 1) What characterizes Chinese online memorial practice? And how do these practices compare with those in the Western countries? 2) What aspects of Chinese culture and social conditions can explain Chinese online memorial practices? By combining corpus analysis with thematic analysis on 1,606 comments left on the last tweet of two accounts of deceased Weibo users, …

Winter Is Still: An Analysis Of The Chinese Game Industry, Jiahui Sheng

Master's Projects and Capstones

This capstone essay aims to analyze the current situation of the game industry in China. Most of the data has been collected from databases, newspapers, interviews, journals and governments reports. This essay especially addresses China’s current game industry strengths and limitations to position it for the future. This essay clarifies the challenges of game industry in innovation based on the scale of companies. My perspective also considers the continuous development of China’s game industry as well as the conflict between the teenagers and government restriction towards games. Meanwhile, the opportunities of the game industry are based on two unique aspects …

Cda: Glitz & Glam Of Youtube, Haley Enriquez

Creative Activity and Research Day - CARD

My analysis demonstrates a critical discourse analysis by taking a closer look at a textual analysis of two videos of two very different Youtube beauty influencers. My main goal was to find main themes that could potentially correspond with the level of success that these two influencers have reached. My findings connect with my literature review as we know that formulaic expressions and constructing an identity are two very important mechanics that play into the behind the scenes blueprint of how a makeup tutorial usually looks. With my two main themes being presentation of self and self promotion, my themes …

Inside The Virtual Ambazonia: Separatism, Hate Speech , Disinformation And Diaspora In The Cameroonian Anglophone Crisis, Sombaye Eyango Jules Roger

Master's Theses

This study examines the dynamics of the anglophone separatist claims in Cameroon, the so-called “Anglophone Crisis”. I focus on explaining why the separatist claims reemerged in 2016 after being shut down for about 20 years. It explains how the Anglophone separatist revendications have sustained over time despite the extremely centralized power of the Paul Biya government.This paper first argues that the Anglophone Crisis is more than an identity struggle between Anglophone/Francophone Cameroonians, but rather a conflict about historical and institutional grievances, political competition, and regional politics involving the neighboring state of Nigeria.

Second, it verifies the hypothesis that the sustainability …

Do Marketing Strategies Impact Condom Sales In Uganda?, Meyhar Mohammed

Master's Theses

What attracts people to buy condoms? HIV/AIDS remain one of the biggest health dangers of the world, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa. A lot of efforts have been pursued in the past two decades to drastically reduce prevalence of HIV and increase awareness about preventive mechanisms. In order to prevent relapse of success achieved so far, it is important to recognize transformation of consumer behavior due to growth in social networks, education and awareness over time. There are a lot of behavioral triggers captured by social marketing interventions in the field of public health. In an attempt to investigate the role …

Understanding How Intentionally Unplugging From Cell Phones Shapes Interpersonal Relationships And The Undergraduate College Experience, Jadelin P. Felipe

Master's Theses

The purpose of this study was to gain an understanding of what motivated college students—the Unplugged Students—to intentionally use their cell phones less and how they understood the impact that unplugging had on their interpersonal relationships and college experience. Nine undergraduate college students from four private schools were interviewed in one-on-one semi- structured interviews. These students, considered non-users, provided a particularly useful perspective as these students made a conscious choice to counteract social norms and experienced both being plugged in and unplugged. Cell phones and the act of unplugging proved to make up a complex and more nuanced topic than …

From Building Vocabulary To Talking About Family Traditions Together: Discussions On The Facebook Group “Hoisan Phrases 學講台山話”, Melissa Chen, Genevieve Leung

Creative Activity and Research Day - CARD

This poster focuses on online discourses of an online Facebook group - “Hoisan Phrases.” “Hoisan Phrases” is used to construct positive ideologies about Hoisan-wa. Using multicompetence and symbolic competence frameworks, these online interactions are sites where Hoisan-wa speakers engage in the ability “to perform and construct various historicities in dialogue with others” (Kramsch & Whiteside). Humor serves as a way of moving beyond negative ideologies of Hoisan-wa. Data comes from a corpus of three years’ worth of posts. The data demonstrates a re-envisioning of the way we view Hoisan-wa vis-à-vis online communication, and expands the domains of language use.

#Advocatingforchange: The Strategic Use Of Hashtags In Social Media Advocacy, Gregory D. Saxton, Jerome N. Niyirora, Chao Guo, Richard D. Waters

Public and Nonprofit Administration

Social media continues to change how advocacy organizations mobilize, educate, and connect with their constituents. One of the most unique yet understudied tools available on social media platforms is the hashtag. Little research exists on how social work and advocacy organizations use hashtags, much less on how such use can be effective. This study examines the hashtag use by 105 constituent members of the National Health Council, a national US-based patient/health advocacy coalition. The study presents an inductive coding scheme of the types of hashtags employed, analyzes inter-sectoral differences in hashtag usage, and examines the relationship between hashtag use and …

Participatory Democracy In The Chinese Cyber World: Case Studies From Weibo, Duyi Li

Master's Theses

This thesis discusses features of citizen communication on Weibo, the Chinese social media platform, and its relationship to participatory democracy in China. Weibo is a complex social space due to the interplay of different forces and social actors. On the one hand, Weibo provides the space for bottom-up political participation: it expands the horizontal discursive space where plural discourses coexist and interact; provides a social sphere where counter-discourses are created; a space where the culture of resistance is formed; and serves as an alternative source for information. On the other hand, the vertical political control of the state, and the …

Understanding Fair Labor Practices In A Networked Age, Tamara Kneese

Media Studies

Unionization emerged as a way of protecting labor rights when society shifted from an agricultural ecosystem to one shaped by manufacturing and industrial labor. New networked work complicates the organizing mechanisms that are inherent to unionization. How then do we protect laborers from abuse, poor work conditions, and discrimination?

Technologically Mediated Artisanal Production, Tamara Kneese

Media Studies

From 3D printing to maker culture, there’s a rise of technical practices that resist large industrial and corporate modes of production, similar to what is occurring in artisanal food and agriculture. While DIY practices are not new, the widespread availability and cheap cost of such tools has the potential to disrupt certain aspects of manufacturing. How do we better understand what is unfolding?

Qr Codes For The Dead, Tamara Kneese

Media Studies

Graveyards are becoming smart spaces, but will today's technology last for eternity?

Inferences & Connections, Tamara Kneese

Media Studies

Data-oriented systems are inferring relationships between people based on genetic material, behavioral patterns (e.g., shared geography imputed by phone carriers), and performed associations (e.g., "friends" online or shared photographs). What responsibilities do entities who collect data that imputes connections have to those who are implicated by association? For example, as DNA and other biological materials are collected outside of medicine (e.g., at point of arrest, by informatics services like 23andme, for scientific inquiry), what rights do relatives (living, dead, and not-yet-born) have? In what contexts is it acceptable to act based on inferred associations and in which contexts is it …

The Role Of Information And Communication Technology In The Acculturation Of Vietnamese Refugees, Khanh A. Tran

Master's Theses

One of the most significant refugee populations in the United States is the Vietnamese. This group initially fled their native country to escape political oppression at the conclusion of the Vietnam War in 1975 and continued to flee in a series of separate waves that continued for more than three decades. As a relatively new immigrant group in the U.S., the Vietnamese still face a variety of challenges as they try to reestablish their lives and adapt in a new cultural environment. Acculturation is a complex process that is influenced by a number of factors. Throughout history, U.S. immigration policy …

Iran In U.S. Corporate And Regional Media: A Content Analysis Of The New York Times, The Washington Post, Rooz Online, Al Jazeera And Iran Review, Justin Hyde

Master's Theses

There has been an increase in tension between the United States government and the Islamic Republic of Iran over the past decade. A number of events including the US- led invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan and the expansion of Iran’s nuclear program have strained this fragile relationship. The U.S. and its allies contend that Iran’s nuclear program is intended for arms proliferation while the Islamic Republic of Iran states it is for domestic power and research. Much of this conflict has played out in news media, which have a vital role to provide information, analysis and opportunities for dialogue as …

Disclosing Personal Information On Social Networking Sites And Social Support, An Mai

Creative Activity and Research Day - CARD

With the Internet growing faster than ever, online social networking sites (SNS) such as Facebook are becoming more popular. At last count, there were over 845 million active Facebook users who are interacting online. The continued influx of computer technology allows for newer means of communication in order to foster interpersonal relationships and promote self-disclosure (Ledbetter, Mazer, Degroot et al., 2011); they are necessary in order for online interactions to occur and friendships to be maintained. These modern tools, however, can also be a factor in hindering interpersonal relationships. The current study aimed to understand how the frequency of making …

Digital Natives On A Media Fast, David Silver

Media Studies

No abstract provided.