Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Building Trust And Community With Sex Workers On Instagram, Madeline Faber

Capstones

This Engagement Journalism project examines how sex workers communicate on social media after the 2018 passage of SESTA/FOSTA laws (Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act and Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act). Through building a sex worker-positive Instagram profile, I learned from sex workers how they share information with each other under the radar of Instagram. This bears relevance for journalists who seek to understand the limits of content moderation machines, which imprecisely censor vulnerable groups.

(Engagement J/Will share link later)

Walking Into A News Desert: How Arkansas College Newspapers Are Coping With The Decline In Print Journalism, David Keith

Dissertations

News deserts is a reference to geographic areas — most commonly counties — where no newspaper is published. The number of these areas continues to grow as more newspapers shut their doors because of financial difficulties brought on by a lack of advertising, a lack of readers, and the shift to online news consumption. College students studying journalism find themselves on the cusp of entering a profession where the number of workplaces and jobs is shrinking. They know it and the advisers of their college newspapers know it. Even with this arid prospect before them, the students are reporting news …

Nonprofit Narratives: How Two Organizations Use Social Media And Rhetorical Appeals To Address Issues Of Sexual And Domestic Violence, Samuel Hiester

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Though often seen as a panacea for organizational objectives, nonprofits must be judicious in deploying social media, particularly due to resource limitations. Nonprofits deploy many types and styles of digital texts, including social media. Classical rhetorical appeals can be effective means for achieving positive impact in that context. When used correctly, these ‘digital texts’ can be leveraged for maximum engagement with audiences. This study examines both a large, national organization – the National Sexual Violence Resource Center – and a small, regional one – Branch House Family Justice Center – for not only what sort of digital texts are utilized, …

Cultivation 2.0: The Mediated Environment As Message In The 21st Century, Chelsea Slack

All Dissertations

It is hard to deny social media and its omnipresence is affecting users. What’s more, the online mediated environment is becoming increasingly diverse, with more social media platforms being created and used each year. What is social media doing to us? How do different platforms affect views of users? To answer these questions, this study applied cultivation theory to the mediated environment, which included the social media platforms of Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, Snapchat, and TikTok. With 413 respondents, the results of this study indicated that Facebook consumption is related to first order cultivation effects, and non-Facebook platforms contribute to …

The Impacts Of Social Media On Social Movements, Gabriela Aguilar

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

As time passes by there is more representation of social movements due to their high exposure on social media. Technology has become a major part of our everyday lives and on average we spend many hours on social platforms. We are exposed to the injustices that occur every minute of every day through social media. Before, when technology was not accessible for everyone the news people received were from television, newspapers, or even magazines. Now, we have platforms such as Twitter and TikTok among others that provide us with news on any malpractice that occurs in our communities and society. …

Examining Public Health Risk Communication Via Social Media By Provincial And Local Health Authorities In Ontario During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Marc Resendes

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Risk communication campaigns are essential during public health crises to inform the public about ways to mitigate, alleviate and manage potential risks. The purpose of this study was to describe risk communication on social media by Ontarian health authorities amid COVID-19, in addition to examining the strategies that guided their social media use. This was completed through (a) a narrative review of risk communication literature; (b) a qualitative content analysis of select health authority Twitter messaging following three major COVID-19 milestones; and (c) key informant interviews with those coordinating social media responses to COVID-19. Information giving and news updates were …

Put Yourself First (In A Sexy Way): Postfeminist Beauty Messaging And Resistant Media Texts, Margarita Artoglou

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The makeover montage trope is one of the most recognizable in media content aimed at young women, sending the message that social status and acceptance are only a new outfit and face of makeup away. While this trope and its message have been heavily critiqued by scholars, the message that beauty—and all its social benefits—can be achieved through consumerism has not disappeared, though the means by which this message is conveyed has changed. As a result of companies co-opting feminist rhetoric, conforming to standards of beauty has been recast as a “choice” one makes for herself, often wrapped in the …

Space Science And Social Media: Automating Science Communication On Twitter, Maia Williams

Honors Projects

This project analyzes how social media is used to engage general audiences in astronomy and space science, as well as ways to improve engagement through automation. Tweets from five space science organizations were sampled. The engagement rate for each tweet was calculated from the number of interactions it received. Accounts that tweet more per day had more followers, and accounts with more followers received more interactions. This project also investigated how to build a Twitter bot to automate science communication. Using NASA Application Programming Interfaces, a Twitter bot was written in Python to tweet images taken by the NASA Mars …

The Curious Cases Of Cancel Culture, Loydie Solange Burmah

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

Cancel culture is a complex phenomenon that challenges our notions of civic practices, perpetuates surveillance practices amongst individuals who encourage digital public shaming and obscures communal ideas regarding accountability. Hence, it is imperative to complicate and nuance “cancel culture” to understand the different meanings derived from its diverse mechanizations. Other matrices such as power, platform governance, decoloniality, and more bolster ideas about the phenomenon’s extensive sociocultural reach. Using a critical digital ethnographic approach, I exemplify with the analysis two cancel culture cases uncovering themes such as selective cancelations, cancelation effectiveness, performative activism, performative wokeness, hypocrisy, victimization, and empathy. This study …

Alcohol Advertisements On Social Media: A Study Of How Alcohol Advertisements On Social Media Platforms Appeal To Young People, Alexis Campbell

Journalism Undergraduate Honors Theses

Underage drinking is not uncommon and is associated with a number of school, social, legal, emotional, behavioral, health problems, and even death. This research seeks to explore alcohol-related social media advertisements across a variety of alcohol types, alcohol brands, and social media platforms. This was accomplished by a content analysis of the most popular alcohol brands’ advertisements on the Internet that examined the strategies used to appeal to consumers and the overall content patterns and characteristics of online alcohol advertisements. The strategy used differed by brand and alcohol type, but the most common themes included “taste,” “seasonal,” “holiday,” “recipe,” and …

Development And Validation Of A Novel Social Networking Site Use Measure, Alison Tuck

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Examining Messaging Strategies Of Virtual Reality Companies On Instagram, Brian Galloway

Masters Theses

This study examines the messaging strategy and executional strategy utilized in the virtual reality industry on Instagram through the lens of Taylor’s Six-Segment Message Strategy Wheel. Content analysis examined a total of n=942 posts which were coded for high level message strategy, specific message strategy, and executional strategy. Engagement data was also recorded. Ritual-view messaging strategies were found to be utilized most often, with Social and Sensory-segment strategies used most frequently in terms of segments in Taylor’s model. In terms of executional strategies, User Image, Brand Image, and Use Occasion strategies were seen most frequently. Ego and Social segment message …

Building A Leader's Identity On Social Media, Morningstar Dickson

University Honors Theses

How can leaders use social media effectively to shape their identity as a leader? Based on previous scholarship, this paper argues that using an authentic leadership approach to social media usage, would balance a leader’s true identity as well as maintaining their relationship with their followers. Which would allow the leaders’ influence to be more effective. This paper consists of a literature review on authentic leadership, and trust, and then builds a conceptual model that will break down how a leader should build and present their identity on online formats. The model shows how identity on social media is a …

Presidential Rhetoric And Media's Contribution To The Subjective Nature Of Truth In American Democracy, Bianca Miccolis

English Honors Theses

This thesis examines the role of media on the subjectivity of truth in presidential rhetoric and its ethical implications. In my three case studies, I find that there is some form of deception by each president in their chosen form of media. I analyze Roosevelt’s use of the radio, which he uses to hide his disability and gain more executive power to combat the Great Depression. I examine Reagan’s use of television and how he fabricates an intimate relationship with the American people to enact tax reform. Finally, I investigate Trump’s use of Twitter to deflect negative publicity as he …

In Our Very Blood: The Use Of Social Media In The 2018 West Virginia Teachers' Strike, Everette Scott Sikes

Doctoral Dissertations

The 2018 West Virginia teachers’ strike exemplifies the changing shape of social movements and events of dissent and protest in the digital age. The use of information communication technologies (ICT) and social media have changed the ways such events develop and unfold. These technologies offer new tools for organizing and strategizing, for generating large numbers of participants, and for communicating crucial information while reducing temporal and spatial barriers. The teachers’ strike presents an opportunity to increase our understandings of these issues and to widen the scope of research in the field of information sciences to include the impact of ICTs …

College Students’ Use Of Social Media And Its Effects On Well-Being During Covid-19, Virginia Pressly

Honors Theses

Beginning in the late 2000s, social media began its ascent into mainstream media. Today, it has become a part of our daily routines. Due to its prevalence and nature, social media has been directly linked to deteriorating mental health in teens and young adults for some time. Many of the studies previously conducted studied Millennials. However, today’s generation of young people, Gen-Z, has a very different relationship with social media and the internet. In 2020, when the world was hit with the COVID-19 pandemic and most work and school went virtual, social media became that much more prevalent in our …

Nonprofit Social Media Internships: A Handbook, Allison Laroy

College of Arts & Sciences Senior Honors Theses

This thesis examines how nonprofits can best prepare their interns and how interns can best prepare themselves for a role in engaging audiences through social media. Through a literature review on nonprofit social media and internships, a series of qualitative interviews with interns and supervisors, and my own lived experiences as a social media intern, I develop a handbook for nonprofit social media internships. This guide is relevant to the specific experiences of nonprofit social media internships, includes advice on training, mentorship, and best practices, and finally, it incorporates further resources on nonprofit social media that interns and supervisors can …

Best Practices For Voter Engagement Within Higher Education, Alyssa Tomins

Honors Projects

It is imperative that higher education institutions learn more about how to recruit members of younger generations to participate in future elections. Young people have historically voted at low rates, but that trend has started to change in recent years as more resources are being devoted to voter engagement among young people. This leads to the interest of understanding what best practices and strategies have academic institutions utilized to advance voter engagement on their campuses. This qualitative study analyzes these best practices and strategies at 84 colleges and universities, all of whom are members of The Andrew Goodman Foundation Vote …

The Impact Of Social Media On Teenage Females Self-Esteem, Amanda C. Perkovich

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

Social media has become the way we connect with the world. Social networking sites, including Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter and TikTok, allow users to share intimate details of their lives, upload photographs, initiate and maintain relationships, plan social gatherings, observe the lives of others and express beliefs, values and emotions. In the last ten years, numerous articles have focused on the relationship between social media use and mental health however, very few studies have concentrated on self-esteem, especially in teenage females. The purpose of this literature review is to explore the associations between increased social media activity (greater than 2 …

From Swiffers To Swastikas: How The #Tradwife Movement Of Conventional Gender Roles Became Synonymous With White Supremacy, Frankie Hope Sitler-Elbel

Senior Projects Spring 2021

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Social Studies of Bard College.

Teaching College Athletes Social Media Appropriateness, Christina Murray

University of the Pacific Theses and Dissertations

It may come as no surprise that Twitter is the most popular social media platform where student athletes, particularly men, post inappropriate content. Male student athletes’ inappropriate tweets have become such a problem for universities, athletic departments, and the NCAA that coaches are forced to place a ban on their players’ social media usage or hire third party monitoring systems. Unfortunately, these reactive responses have not alleviated the problem of athletes differentiating what content is appropriate or inappropriate to tweet on their Twitter accounts. Analysis of the data collected from scholarly journal articles, textbooks, and popular press articles revealed that …

Social Media's Link With Individualism And The Dangers That Follow, Veronica Prytko

Honors Theses

No abstract provided.

The Dangers Of Free Speech In The Modern World, Katie Yoak

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

In our modern day individuals often feel safe being able to say whatever they want from behind a computer. The ability to say whatever we want online has both positive and negative effects. This digital form of communication can bring out both the best and worst in us. Many people in our modern age take this technology and use it to engage in aggressive behavior that may not normally occur or be seen by as many people. In this modern day of internet aggression I wish to explore how the ability to speak freely online and through social media services …