Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Roles Played By Nigerian Youtube Micro-Celebrities During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Aje-Ori Agbese

Communication Faculty Publications and Presentations

In 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, Nigerian social media micro-celebrities were prominent players in the dissemination of information. This study examines the roles that one group of Nigerian micro-celebrities, YouTube video bloggers (vloggers)—also known as “YouTubers”—played during the pandemic. The research analysed the contents of COVID-19-themed videos that 15 popular Nigerian YouTubers posted on their channels between 29 February and 5 August 2020. The study was guided by the two-step flow of communication theory, in terms of which information first flows from mass media to opinion leaders, who then, in the second step, share the information with their audiences. The …

What’S Sparking The Madness? Exploration Of Social Media Possibly Influencing Aggression Amongst Online Users, Tia Porterfield

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this dissertation is to address the research gap regarding social media platforms having a possible influence when provoking experiences of internal (i.e., emotions/feelings and cognitions) and/or external (i.e., behaviors) forms of aggression and problematic internet use in their online community members. A brief examination of the aggression-frustration hypothesis will construct a foundational theoretical framework of the emotional and behavioral processes that may occur in users while utilizing their preferred social media platform. Recent peer- reviewed literature will be examined to highlight the existing research gap. The present study will attempt to explore possible explanations behind users’ motives …

An Intersectional Approach To Evaluating The Effectiveness Of Women’S Sexualized Body-Positive Imagery On Instagram, Megan A. Vendemia, Kyla N. Brathwaite, David C. Deandrea

Communication Faculty Articles and Research

Our work adopted an intersectional approach to investigate how women’s racial identity may influence how they evaluate and are impacted by body-positive imagery of women on social media. In a 2 × 2 × 2 experiment (N = 975), we examined how source race (Black vs White) and sexualization (non-sexualized vs sexualized) in body-positive images affect Black and White viewers’ impressions of self-interest, moral appropriateness, and body positivity. Results indicated that viewers generally responded more favorably to non-sexualized (vs sexualized) images: Participants reported less self-interested motivations for sharing, found the images more morally appropriate, and believed they were more …

Chinese Celebrities’ Political Signaling On Weibo, Dan Chen, Gengsong Gao

Political Science Faculty Publications

In China, celebrities can dominate public discourse and shape popular culture, but they are under the state’s close gaze. Recent studies have revealed how the state disciplines and co-opts celebrities to promote patriotism, foster traditional values, and spread political propaganda. However, how do celebrities adapt to the changing political environment? Focusing on political signaling on Weibo, we analyze a novel dataset and find that the vast majority of top celebrities repost from official accounts of government agencies and state media outlets, though there are variations. Younger celebrities with more followers tend to repost from official accounts more. Celebrities from Taiwan …

A Four-Level Meta-Analytic Review Of The Relationship Between Social Media And Well-Being: A Fresh Perspective In The Context Of Covid-19, Joax Wong, Xin Yi Poh, Frosch Quek, Verity Lua, Nadyannam M. Majeed, Andree Hartanto

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Social media, one of the most pervasive forms of technology, has been widely studied in relation to the mental health and well-being of individuals. However, the current literature on social media and well-being has provided mixed and inconclusive findings, thus creating a polarizing view of social media. These mixed findings continue to extend into the pandemic, with researchers debating over the effects of social media in the new norms of social isolation. In light of these inconclusive findings, the aim of our meta-analysis was to synthesize previous research data in order to have a holistic understanding of the association between …

To Be Not So Lonely: Support And Community Through Twitter Fan Accounts In The Harry Styles Fandom, Abigail Garrett

Honors College Theses

This study aims to examine the ways that fan accounts on social media foster community and fill the void of emotional engagement when the artist is not as active. It also looks at how fans’ parasocial relationships change when the subject of their emotional connection disappears. This study adds to previous research done on fandom, parasocial relationships, and social media. To perform this study, a close content analysis was done, focusing on one specific Harry Styles fan account on Twitter, @hsdaily. Two time periods were defined, one being a time of low activity from Harry Styles and one being high …

Australian Older Adults' Views On Using Social Media For Reducing Social Isolation And Loneliness In Hearing Impaired Older Adults: A Community Conversation, Dona M. P. Jayakody, Ysraelle M. E. Tan, Isabelle Livings, Leesa Costello, Leon Flicker, Osvaldo P. Almeida

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Objective(s): The objective of this study was to conduct a community conversation to identify the views of the community members when designing an online community using Facebook to support the psychosocial well-being of hearing-impaired older adults. Methods: A community conversation was held with 40 older adults aged more than 60 years. The participants were divided into groups of five and asked to discuss three open-ended questions. The researchers facilitated the discussions. Results: The overwhelming response from this group was that they did not use Facebook or social media as a tool for social connection and did not see the benefits …

Media, Distrust Of Government, And Fear Of Terrorism In The United States, Lauren Rowe

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

The United States is experiencing a growing threat from domestic terrorism, though there is a relative lack of understanding of this threat by the public, and there is a need to understand how public perceptions of risk have been shaped around the fear of terrorism. This paper explores the impact of various forms of media usage and intake on individual perceptions of terrorism, as well as the ways in which public governmental distrust and party identification relate to the fear of terrorism. Using the results obtained by the Chapman University Survey of American Fears in which data was gathered from …

"Why This Post Now?" : Dramaturging Politics And Social Media, Kennedy Kemmerer

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

Political events have always been influenced by the media, but social media has provided a much stronger influence than the typical newspaper or radio. Users of social media accounts (Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, TikTok, etc.) have the opportunity to share whatever they want, to whoever they want, whenever they want. While social media has given immense opportunity for artists and creators alike, it has also given way for creators to participate in uninformed performance, whether intended or not, with their content. Are social media consumers considering whether content, specifically political content, is actually true or are they accepting it at face …

How Prolonged Social Media Use Affects Generation Z And Their New Media Literacy Skills, Ester Meyer Nunes

Global Strategic Communications Student Work

With the creation of the internet and new media platforms emerging at the beginning of the 21^st century, it has never been easier to stay connected; the world is within hand’s reach. Gen Z spends much of their day online, watching videos, chatting with friends, and creating video, text and photo content. This research explores the effects of prolonged exposure to social media, whether positive or negative.

The Implementation Of Social Media Based Library Services At The Federal University Of Technology, Owerri (Futo), Nigeria., Kingsley Egbukole, Marlene A. Holmner

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

Academic libraries are faced with the challenge of meeting the varied demands of users stemming from the ever-increasing different formats of information resources. These libraries around the world have thus adopted the use of social media -to render the required services to library users. FUTO library is experiencing serious challenges in the effort to accommodate the needs of its users - including the increasing number of users small reading spaces compared to the rising student population and the fact that many students live off-campus. This study investigates the possibility of adopting social media-based library services at the Federal University of …

Hate Speech Spikes On Twitter After Elon Musk Acquires The Platform, Bond Benton, Jin-A Choi, Yi Luo, Keith Green

School of Communication and Media Scholarship and Creative Works

Unmoderated social media platforms frequently become a haven for misinformation, extremism, and hate. There are challenges unique to unmoderated social media platforms that make the removal of such content and the users who spread it particularly difficult (Artime et al., 2020). When a platform’s focus is unrestricted expression from users, those looking to share and spread antisocial content will presumably use such spaces to share perspectives that would likely be restricted on other platforms. Historically, examples of such “free speech absolutist” spaces suggest that this threat is very real. Specifically, 4chan serves as a space where online anonymity coupled with …

A Preview Of Post Amnesty Twitter: Analysis Of “Groomer” On Twitter After The Colorado Springs Shooting, Bond Benton, Yi Luo, Jin-A Choi, Keith Strudler, Keith Green

School of Communication and Media Scholarship and Creative Works

On November 24, 2022 Elon Musk stated that “general amnesty” would be given to Twitter accounts previously suspended for violent threats, harassment and misinformation. This appears to reflect Musk’s previously stated intent to run the platform as a “free speech absolutist.” The question in many people’s minds is what such an incarnation of Twitter will look like. The tragic shooting at an LGBTQIA+ nightclub in Colorado Springs, Colorado on Nov. 19-20 and the reaction the event generated on the platform provide a case that demonstrates the tensions that will come with reduced platform moderation. “Groomer,” a previously Twitter restricted slur …

Social Media And Contentious Action: The Use And Users Of Qq Groups In China, Zixue Tai

Journalism and Media Faculty Publications

This article presents an analysis of a netnographic study of QQ groups engaged in contentious activities in China. Informed primarily by semi‐structured in‐depth interviews of 34 participants and field observations through years of grounded research, the findings shed light on the communicative dynamics and mobilization strategies of QQ groups in nurturing contentious action and motivating mass participation in social protest. In‐group communication stays highly focused on the respective mission of the groups, and it cultivates a sense of shared awareness conducive to collective action. There is also a noticeable contagion effect that transfers the spirit of contestation in terms of …

Awareness And Use Of Social Media: A Study Of Ict Students At Kwara State University, Nigeria, Abdrahman Atanda Moustapha

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

The use of social networks among students at higher institutions has become popular and is widely celebrated amid criticism. This is because these social networks are changing the way people communicate, interact, and socialize. The purpose of this paper is to explore students' awareness and use of social media: a study of ICT students at Kwara State University, Nigeria. This study used a survey research method. The respondents were students’ faculty of information and communication technology, and the results reveal that the majority of respondents (91.4%) are familiar with social networks, have access to the Internet, and regularly use mobile …

Gamestop And The Reemergence Of The Retail Investor, Jill E. Fisch

All Faculty Scholarship

The GameStop trading frenzy in January 2021 was perhaps the highest profile example of the reemergence of capital market participation by retail investors, a marked shift from the growing domination of those markets by large institutional investors. Some commentators have greeted retail investing, which has been fueled by app-based brokerage accounts and social media, with alarm and called for regulatory reform. The goals of such reforms are twofold. First, critics argue that retail investors need greater protection from the risks of investing in the stock market. Second, they argue that the stock market, in term, needs protection from retail investors. …

Awareness Of Social Media Privacy & Security: A Study Among Engineering Students In Spsr Nellore Dist., A.P., Nagaraju Kuppugari

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

This paper presents the results of a study conducted on the engineering student’s awareness of social media privacy and security issues. For this purpose, the survey method was adopted and a questionnaire was administered among the engineering students. The results revealed that majority of the respondents (60.8 percent) are reading the privacy policies on social media Majority of the respondents (76.31 percent) are avoiding friend requests from unknown persons. The study recommends that the users of social media should not assume that all privacy policies are identical; they vary from one platform to another; also, they do not provide sufficient …

Professional As A Mother: Empowering Working Mothers Through Social Media, Trinity Marie Hernandez-Lopez

IPS/BAS 495 Undergraduate Capstone Projects

Women in the workforce continue to experience a gendered pay gap, making only around 86% of the salary of their male counterparts (Pew Research, 2022). This is worse still for those women with children, who are less likely to be considered for promotional opportunities and dismissed as not committed to their careers. As a mother, I have been on the receiving end of this discrimination, but I am also lucky enough to understand my rights and value in the workforce. The goal of this capstone project was to improve the outcomes for working mothers by developing an online community to …

Use Of Social Media And Its Perceived Implications On The Social Life Of Students: A Case Study Of The Students Of Joseph Ayo Babalola University Ikeji – Arakeji, Nigeria, Samson Akinola, Francis Opeyemi Opawale

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

The uses of social media have developed into a universal and virtually inevitable phenomenon that has transformed the method by which students communicate, interrelate, mingle and socialize, and have become an integral portion of students’ social and cultural lifestyle. Subsequently, students use a considerable measure of their time on social media. University students and adolescence are viewed as the prevalent users of this contemporary technology. Notwithstanding the mounting quantity of literature on the uses of social media around the globe, there is a drought of investigation on how the uses of social media affect students’ social life. This evocative, investigative …

International Migrants And Coronavirus Disease 2019 Vaccinations: Social Media, Motivated Information Management, And Vaccination Willingness, Hyunjin Seo, Yuchen Liu, Muhammad Ittefaq, Fatemeh Shayesteh, Ursula Kamanga, Annalise Baines

School of Communication Studies - Faculty Scholarship

Objective

This study examines how those who were born outside the United States and migrated to the country in the past decade used social media and other online sites to deal with uncertainties around the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic. In particular, we examine how they used digital communication technologies to tap into online resources and social connections both in the United States and their origin country and how various aspects of online information management were associated with their willingness to get vaccinated against the virus.

Method

We conducted an online survey and in-depth interviews with international migrants aged 18–64 years …

Generation Onlyfans: Examining The Effects Of "Raunch Culture" On Depression Via Social Media Use And Social Comparisons, Grace Sinclair, Duncan Jordan

Faculty & Staff Research and Creative Activity

"Raunch culture" is a term describing the promotion of overtly sexual representations of women. This concept may provide people opportunities to engage in positive social comparisons, but also negative social comparisons. As such, this concept could also relate to the phenomenology of depression in women. In an attempt to further investigate the effects of raunch culture, this study examined relationships between raunch culture, depression, and social media use in undergraduate students. Participants (N = 199) from a moderately-sized university in the Midwest completed measures of raunch culture, depression, social comparison, and social media use via an online platform. Primary hypotheses …

Use Of Twitter Among College Students For Academics: A Mixed-Methods Approach, Stefanie Amiruzzaman, Md Amiruzzaman

Languages & Cultures Faculty Publications

For almost a decade, Twitter use and its impact on students' academic performance have been explored by many researchers. Despite growing scholarly interest, studies have been mostly quantitative in nature. The findings of previous studies are conflicting; thus, an in-depth study is needed to determine how and what impacts college students' academic performance (i.e., GPA) when they spend time on Twitter. The purpose of this study was to understand the effects of Twitter use on college students' academic performance. The present study shows that individual analysis techniques, such as quantitative or qualitative tools, are not enough to understand the underlying …

Does Social Media Accelerate Product Recalls? Evidence From The Pharmaceutical Industry, Yang Gao, Wenjing Duan, Huaxia Rui

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Social media has become a vital platform for voicing product-related experiences that may not only reveal product defects but also impose pressure on firms to act more promptly than before. This study scrutinizes the rarely-studied relationship between these voices and the speed of product recalls in the context of the pharmaceutical industry where social media pharmacovigilance is becoming increasingly important for the detection of drug safety signals. Using Federal Drug Administration (FDA) drug enforcement reports and social media data crawled from online forums and Twitter, we investigate whether social media can accelerate the product recall process in the context of …

Ethical Behaviour And The Use Of Social Media By Undergraduates, University Of Ibadan., Tolulope Elizabeth Adenekan Phd, Ayomide Joy Lala

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

The attraction of social media tools in higher education has been attributed to the affordances and participatory nature that the tools offer. For undergraduates in this generation, social networking has become an “addiction”. Ordinarily, a student who has a Facebook account opens the account daily to check new updates and spends hours studying new updates until he/she realizes that there are more important things to do like school work that has been missed because of logging in to a social platform. The research design adopted for the study is a descriptive survey. A multistage random sampling technique was used for …

The Effectiveness Of Facebook As A Social Network Intervention To Increase Physical Activity In Chinese Young Adults, Patrick W.C. Lau, J. J. Wang, Lynda B. Ransdell, Lei Shi

Kinesiology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Introduction: Facebook, one of the worlds' most popular online social networks, is easy to access and cost-effective. Its use to enhance individual's physical activity (PA) participation should be examined. This research reviews the effectiveness and successful features of Facebook for influencing PA behaviors in young adults (Study 1), and empirically examines the efficacy of the features purported in increase PA via a Facebook intervention (Study 2).

Methods: In Study 1, PubMed, Medline, SPORT Discus, ERIC, and Embase were searched for articles that identified successful features and effectiveness of Facebook PA interventions published between January 2005 and February 2022. In Study …

The Impact Of Hpv Vaccine Narratives On Social Media: Testing Narrative Engagement Theory With A Diverse Sample Of Young Adults, Amy E. Leader, Michelle Miller-Day, Rikishi T. Rey, Preethi Selvan, Anne E. Pezalla, Michael L. Hecht

Communication Faculty Articles and Research

Rates of human papillomavirus (HPV) infection are highest in young adults, who can be vaccinated against HPV if they were not vaccinated as adolescents. Since young adults increasingly access health information on social media, we tested the impact of a social media campaign with narrative-based health information on intentions related to HPV vaccination. We also aimed to understand which ads resonated most with young adults and led to higher survey completion rates. We created social media posts featuring videos promoting HPV vaccination. We launched a sponsored ad campaign on Facebook to reach young women, ages 18–26, across the country. Participants …

Understanding The Impact Of Emotional Support On Mental Health Resilience Of The Community In The Social Media In Covid-19 Pandemic, Xuan Hu, Yanqing Song, Ruilin Zhu, Shuang He, Bowen Zhou, Xuelian Li, Han Bao, Shan Shen, Bingsheng Liu

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Background: Emotional support in social media can act as a buffer against the negative impact of affective disorders. However, empirical evidence relating to emotional support in social media and how it influences the wider public remains scanty. The objective of this study is therefore to conduct a prototype investigation into the translation mechanism of emotional support in social media, providing empirical evidence for practitioners to use to tackle mental health issues for the wider public. Methods: A regression model is proposed to examine the relationship between perceived and received emotional support. Received emotional support is set as the dependent variable …

How Do Information Specialists Keep Up To Date?, Aaron Tay

Research Collection Library

The working environment of information specialists is undergoing profound changes. This is primarily due to rapid advances in digitalization and automation. New databases are being set up or new functions added to established databases. At the same time, data processing and analysis have reached a new level (e.g. through machine learning). In addition, many new software tools to support daily work are being developed. But how do information specialists find out about new developments and assess the practical suitability of new tools?

Nowadays, an abundance of information on new developments in information retrieval can be found on the Internet. In …

Using Social Media In Kenya To Quantify Road Safety: An Analysis Of Novel Data, J. Austin Lee, Lyndsey Armes, Benjamin Wachira

Emergency Medicine, East Africa

Background: Road trafc injuries are a large and growing cause of morbidity and mortality in low- and middleincome countries, especially in Africa. Systematic data collection for trafc incidents in Kenya is lacking and in many low- and middle-income countries available data sources are disparate or missing altogether. Many Kenyans use social media platforms, including Twitter; many road trafc incidents are publicly reported on the microblog platform. This study is a prospective cohort analysis of all tweets related to road trafc incidents in Kenya over a 24-month period (February 2019 to January 2021).

Results: A substantial number of unique …

Social Media: Access To Reference Services By Students In A University Library In South-East, Nigeria, Nancy Chinenyenwa Akagha Mrs, Samuel Kelechukwu Ibenne Dr, Ifeyinwa Blessing Okoye Dr, Ogechi Iheanacho-Kelechi Mrs

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

The general purpose of the study was to ascertain the use of social media by students to access reference services at the Federal University of Technology Library, Owerri. The survey research design was used for the study using questionnaire as the instrument for data collection. The research adopted both the proportionate/stratified and simple random sampling techniques to investigate a sample of 288 students in Federal University of Technology Library, Owerri. Self-constructed and validated questionnaire with a reliability coefficient of 0.87 was used to collect data for the study. Four research questions and one hypothesis were framed for the study. The …