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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

Transgender Youtubers And The Power Of Coming Out: Existentialism, Gender Performance, And Self-Actualization, Meghan Miller Oct 2018

Transgender Youtubers And The Power Of Coming Out: Existentialism, Gender Performance, And Self-Actualization, Meghan Miller

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The transgender community has historically faced discrimination and oppression. However, the internet has emerged as a preeminent resource for transgender people to seek community and visibility, with YouTube acting as an especially valuable visual repository of self-representation. The present research is concerned with examining how transgender YouTube creators use the platform for self-actualization through the lens of existentialist and gender performance theory. Employing a qualitative content analysis of gender disclosure videos to explore this problem, this study shows how transgender YouTubers seek personal authenticity and self-disclosure, especially with the help of and in relation to their audiences. Further, having come …


Exploring The Association Between How Social Media Affects Attitudes Toward Marijuana Legalization, Troy Adam Aubut Ii Jul 2018

Exploring The Association Between How Social Media Affects Attitudes Toward Marijuana Legalization, Troy Adam Aubut Ii

Sociology & Criminal Justice Theses & Dissertations

As support for marijuana legalization continues to rise, it’s important to explore how the use of social media may be affecting the attitudes of Americans around this controversial topic. Social media has become a part of everyday life for most as it allows easy communication to anyone anywhere and allows the exchanging of influential ideas over a broad range of topics, especially marijuana legalization. As such, this study utilized data from the 2016 General Social Survey to examine the relationship between how the general use of social media affects attitudes toward marijuana legalization. The findings of this study suggest that …


My Choice Greens, Alina Zulfikarova, Amelia Mohr, Hesi Zhang, Ruiqi Huang, Sean Tatar, Yuhao Zhou, Zijun Zhou May 2018

My Choice Greens, Alina Zulfikarova, Amelia Mohr, Hesi Zhang, Ruiqi Huang, Sean Tatar, Yuhao Zhou, Zijun Zhou

School of Professional Studies

My Choice Programs for Independent Living is a nonprofit in Worcester, Massachusetts that helps individuals with special needs. In 2016, My Choice Programs added a branch to their organization called My Choice Greens. My Choice Greens is committed to growing fresh produce in their hydroponic farm. The profit generated from selling their vegetables is put back into direct programming for My Choice Programs. My Choice Greens is the first hydroponic farm in Worcester, but unfortunately not many people are aware of their program. Also, since they are a small nonprofit, they do not have sufficient funding or resources to market …


A Social Media Plan For The Changemakers’ Playground, Meng Cong, Ciara Kilian, Xinling Wang, Sumanth Wilson, Chenyu Yan May 2018

A Social Media Plan For The Changemakers’ Playground, Meng Cong, Ciara Kilian, Xinling Wang, Sumanth Wilson, Chenyu Yan

School of Professional Studies

The purpose of this project was to create a social media plan for the Changemakers’ Playground campaign. The Changemakers’ Playground is a website thought up by our client, Sarah Lange, whereby ordinary individuals doing extraordinary things in their community can be celebrated for the work they are doing. Each person featured on the website, also known as a Changemaker, was interviewed by Sarah and that interview was split into three videos to be posted on the Changemakers’ Playground website throughout the week they are being featured. In short, our task was to create the Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram content to …


Networks Of Isolation: The Case Of Donald J. Trump, Facebook, And The Limits Of Social Movement Theory, Carol L. Stimmel May 2018

Networks Of Isolation: The Case Of Donald J. Trump, Facebook, And The Limits Of Social Movement Theory, Carol L. Stimmel

International Development, Community and Environment (IDCE)

The 2016 election that catapulted Donald J. Trump to the U.S. presidency has raised questions for how Facebook may have enabled the emergence and coalescence of a social movement among traditionally improbable voters. The research in this paper engages with contemporary social movement theory, assessing its adequacy for explaining the role of Facebook as a primary method for facilitating a social movement among the civically-alienated, who are the most unlikely of all Americans to join an organized collective for change. From a methodological perspective, the exploration takes up the case as a strategy of inquiry to explore social movement theory …


Online Socialization And Delinquency: Expanding The Study Of Peer Influence In Criminology, Timothy Mccuddy Apr 2018

Online Socialization And Delinquency: Expanding The Study Of Peer Influence In Criminology, Timothy Mccuddy

Dissertations

Criminologists typically study peer influence within traditional contexts such as schools and neighborhoods. Spurred by the ubiquitous use of electronic devices, recent research finds that online peer delinquency can also have deleterious effects on adolescent behavior. This has important implications for the study of delinquency since youth today are digital natives, meaning their developmental years are spent in a world reliant on technology and Internet-connected devices. Through the use of computer-mediated communication (CMC), adolescents can forge friendships with those found within the cyber context, a virtual environment unrestricted by the confines of space and time. This context not only provides …


The Effects Of Smartphones On Social Lives: How They Affect Our Social Interactions And Attitudes, D'Juan Gladden Apr 2018

The Effects Of Smartphones On Social Lives: How They Affect Our Social Interactions And Attitudes, D'Juan Gladden

OTS Master's Level Projects & Papers

New technologies available with cellular devices and the introduction of smartphones have become a large part of individual’s lives in the past few decades. Smartphones have the ability to perform almost every operation necessary for individuals at any time or place. Smartphones are means for individuals to communicate quickly while interacting on other websites and social networking platforms at the same time. Each day the capabilities of smartphones continue to grow and allow users to establish more information through these mediums, without the extra work of using other devices and programs. The study investigated the daily usage of smartphones by …


Online Social Capital: Social Networking Sites' Influence On Civic And Political Engagement, Charles L. Bush Apr 2018

Online Social Capital: Social Networking Sites' Influence On Civic And Political Engagement, Charles L. Bush

Sociology & Criminal Justice Theses & Dissertations

This thesis examines how using social networking sites (SNS) is correlated with levels of civic and political engagement of college students at Old Dominion University. Past research has yielded mixed results on the link between online social capital and civic and political engagement. Major limitations of past research include grouping together social networking sites that are substantially different and not considering these sites’ impact on the different forms of social capital. This thesis first examines how social networking site preference, intensity of use, and motives for use factor into an individual’s online social capital. Secondly, this thesis looks at how …


Self Presentation Of Select Female Athletes On Instagram And Public Responses, Erin Ratelle Feb 2018

Self Presentation Of Select Female Athletes On Instagram And Public Responses, Erin Ratelle

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Social media sites vastly have changed the ways in which athletes can interact with their fans. Positioned within the area of feminist cultural studies, this thesis employs a mixed-methods approach to examine how 8 selected female athletes display their bodies on Instagram via posted photos; how the public responds to this content via photo comments; and how these interactive postings fit with wider socio-cultural and historical contexts of women’s bodies in sport and physical activity. Using Erving Goffman’s theory on self-presentation and Jurgen Habermas’ theory on the public sphere, I conceive Instagram as both stage and space for public deliberation. …


Screen Time Versus Face Time: How Social Media Usage Affects Time Spent Face To Face, Kristen Donlevie Jan 2018

Screen Time Versus Face Time: How Social Media Usage Affects Time Spent Face To Face, Kristen Donlevie

Sociology Senior Seminar Papers

How has the recent surge in social media network usage affected in-person social interaction? As the Internet continues to become more integrated in everyday forms of communication and interaction, sociologists disagree about the implications it will have on in-person socialization. Some argue that social media will revolutionize social interactions, while others believe that it will lead to a loss of privacy and an increase in isolation. I propose that the more social media networks an individual is a regular user of, the fewer days they will interact face-to-face with other people. Using 685 responses garnered from computer-assisted interviews in the …


Life, Liberty And The Pursuit Of Social Media: Understanding The Relationship Between Facebook, Twitter, And Political Understanding, Ruby Siegel Jan 2018

Life, Liberty And The Pursuit Of Social Media: Understanding The Relationship Between Facebook, Twitter, And Political Understanding, Ruby Siegel

Sociology Senior Seminar Papers

Social media is ubiquitous and holds a significant place in modern society. Social media feeds are inundated with political content and are used by politicians and citizens alike to post political commentary. Neither mass media nor politics are new areas of study in sociology, but the entanglement of the two is proving to be of interest, as some scholarship argues that social media is driving changes in how politics works in the United States. We must consider how the citizenry consumes and processes political information in the modern era in view of the interplay between social media and current events. …


Social Media Usage: The Impact On Feelings Of Depression Or Loneliness, Sarah Jensen Jan 2018

Social Media Usage: The Impact On Feelings Of Depression Or Loneliness, Sarah Jensen

Sociology Senior Seminar Papers

Over the past decade, there has been a rapid growth of social media. Much of the problem lies with the new potential for constant social comparisons. Social media also adds a new layer of interaction that can occur anywhere, at any time, with anyone. This allows for a higher quantity of relationships, but strips the depth of these relationships. Does increased social media use affect quality of life? I hypothesize that the more social media sites a respondent is a member or regular user of, the more time he or she reports feeling depressed or lonely. I used a sample …


Graduate Admissions Recruitment Project, Kevin Anderson, Chiemela Dike, Yixin Du, Arvinder Kaur, Amanda Popp, Huizhong Yang Jan 2018

Graduate Admissions Recruitment Project, Kevin Anderson, Chiemela Dike, Yixin Du, Arvinder Kaur, Amanda Popp, Huizhong Yang

School of Professional Studies

In this project, several comparison schools were interviewed and disclosed to have used search lists to find candidates. The organizations that have valuable search lists which may be of good use for the School of Professional Studies include Educational Testing Service (ETS) and the Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC). By choosing criteria such as demographics, location, academic performance, educational history provided by search lists, we believe there are many quality candidates for SPS programs. However, as we further investigated the functionality and cost-efficiency or return of investment of GRE search list, we spotted many uncertainties and few solid and successful …