Communication Technology and New Media Commons^™

Virtual Brand Communities And Brand Loyalty: A Case Study Of Mindbody Inc.'S Virtual Brand Community, Dillon Katz

Communication Studies

This case study explores how the fast-growing software company MINDBODY, Inc. utilizes their virtual brand community on Facebook in order to build brand loyalty. My research primarily explores how Communication Studies researchers have come to understand the effects of virtual communities on brand loyalty from the perspective of Social Capital, Attribution, and Social Identity theories. It discusses what virtual brand communities are, how they are formed, and how marketers and consumers utilize them. Furthermore, I discuss how virtual brand communities facilitate the growth of social capital among users and why this is a key step in their sustainability. I divulge …

Where Does It Hurt? A Cultivation Theory’S Perspective On Domestic Violence, Kendra Grace White

Communication Studies

This study investigated Cultivation Theory and its role in the issue of domestic violence. I hypothesized that people who are exposed to larger quantities of pop culture mediums will have less negative attitudes towards the issue of domestic violence. My study also posed research questions about the relationship between the attitudes towards domestic violence with both basic domestic violence knowledge and personal experience with the issue. I gathered my data through a thirty-question survey and distributed it online, using convenience and snowball samples. My results did not support my hypothesis; however, I did find statistical significance for a negative correlation …

Seeking Information About Climate Change: Effects Of Media Use In An Extended Prism, Shirley S. Ho, Benjamin H. Detenber, Sonny Rosenthal, Edmund W. J. Lee

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

This study replicates and extends the planned risk information seeking model (PRISM) in the context of impersonal risk by incorporating media use as an antecedent of risk information seeking intention. Results indicate that the model applies equally well to Singaporeans’ climate change information seeking intention as it does in the context of personal health information, suggesting that the model is generalizable across different risk and cultural contexts. Findings suggest that media use is an important source of perceived knowledge and, indirectly, sufficiency threshold, which clarifies the role of actual information seeking in risk perceptions and future information seeking.

Reporting Risk, Producing Prejudice How News Reporting On Obesity Shapes Attitudes About Health Risk, Policy, And Prejudice, Abigail C. Saguy, David Frederick, Kjerstin Gruys

Psychology Faculty Articles and Research

News reporting on research studies may influence attitudes about health risk, support for public health policies, or attitudes towards people labeled as unhealthy or at risk for disease. Across five experiments (N = 2123) we examined how different news framings of obesity research influence these attitudes. We exposed participants to either a control condition, a news report on a study portraying obesity as a public health crisis, a news report on a study suggesting that obesity may not be as much of a problem as previously thought, or an article discussing weight-based discrimination. Compared to controls, exposure to the public …

Blogging In The Fashion Industry: A Descriptive Study Of The Use Of The Two-Step Flow Communications Theory By Professional And Citizen Bloggers To Become Opinion Leaders, Mia Alexandra Mendola

Journalism

This study analyzes the differences between professional and citizen bloggers in the fashion industry, and their use of the two-step flow communications theory and certain tactics to become opinion leaders in the industry. With the rise of blogging as a popular medium for consumption of fashion news, thousands of bloggers have begun blogs hoping to become part of the fashion industry. With this rise comes bloggers with different levels of expertise and experience. With this comes a blurring of lines between a professional blogger with credible knowledge of the fashion industry, and a citizen blogger with no formal training or …

How Not To Get Lost In The Shuffle: Producing The Most Effective And Eye-Catching Press Release, Erica Derrico

Journalism

The following study investigates how to produce the most effective and eye-catching press release on a national level for Summit Outdoor Supply (S.O.S). Winter quarter of 2014, my partner and I worked on a local campaign for S.O.S., using traditional text-based press releases to get media coverage. Although we did see some success with the traditional press release, there were often times our releases would get lost in the shuffle of the many releases that media outlets received each day. My goal with this project is to learn how to produce a press release that will get noticed out of …

Manufacturing News: Exploring How Public Relations Content Is Presented As News From An Agenda-Setting Perspective, Katharine R. Gore

Journalism

This study, conducted in San Luis Obispo, California, analyzes and investigates the relationship between public relations professionals and journalists, the role of public relations in news and how often content developed by the public relations industry is later portrayed as news.

Public relations-developed content has a growing presence in news. This is due, in part to the fact that more people work in the public relations industry than do in journalism fields. There is also a symbiotic relationship between the two industries, which is confirmed by existing studies and scholarly texts.

An effort was made by the author to track …

Qr Codes For The Dead, Tamara Kneese

Media Studies

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

Public Interest In Climate Change Over The Past Decade And The Effects Of The ‘Climategate’ Media Event, William R. L. Anderegg, Gregory R. Goldsmith

Biology, Chemistry, and Environmental Sciences Faculty Articles and Research

Despite overwhelming scientific consensus concerning anthropogenic climate change, many in the non-expert public perceive climate change as debated and contentious. There is concern that two recent high-profile media events—the hacking of the University of East Anglia emails and the Himalayan glacier melt rate presented in the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change—may have altered public opinion of climate change. While survey data is valuable for tracking public perception and opinion over time, including in response to climate-related media events, emerging methods that facilitate rapid assessment of spatial and temporal patterns in public interest and opinion could …

Tweeting The Boston Marathon Bombings: A Case Study Of Twitter Content In The Immediate Aftermath Of A Major Event, Rebekah Dawn Giordano

College of Journalism and Mass Communications: Professional Projects

The project explored and analyzed the use of the social media tool Twitter in the immediate aftermath of a major event. Tweets and re-tweets from the first hour following the Boston Marathon Bombings on April 15, 2013 were collected and analyzed. The project used the application SIFTER from the company Textifer to identify the related tweets by inputting sixteen previously documented keywords related to the Boston Marathon Bombing. The tweets were then divided into several categories and subcategories to be analyzed. The company Twitter Counter was used to obtain accurate information, such as followers on, for various individual Twitter accounts. …

Entrepreneurial Journalism, Benjamin Bathke

Student Scholarship

This paper attempts to illustrate how entrepreneurial journalism is and has been shaping media. In doing so, I will first give a brief overview of how journalism has been disrupted. In chapter two, I will show how journalism schools teach future journalists to be mediapreneurs. Next, I will focus on what it takes to build a media startup by giving examples of journalistic ventures. The chapter on fundraising focuses on ways how journopreneurs can obtain seed money for their startup. Next, this paper points out why students should adopt an entrepreneurial mindset; finally, it provides a list of successful media …

Beyond Assumptions: How Urban Students View And Practice Digital Literacies In And Out Of School, Storey Mecoli

Current Issues in Emerging eLearning

This qualitative, ethnographic case study investigates digital literacy practices and perceptions of students at an urban public high school in the Boston metropolitan area comprising a racially, ethnically, linguistically, and economically diverse student body, an under-studied demographic. The study compares in-school and out-of-school literacy practices and posits the role schools might play in preparing learners. The study examines digital literacy practices among student based on information gathered through focus groups, survey methods, and interviews. Three controlling questions guided the study:

1. What digital literacy practices are students in Washington High School engaging in outside of school?
2. What purposes do these youth …

Library Portal 2.0: The Social Research Management System, Apostolos Koutropoulos

Current Issues in Emerging eLearning

Library 2.0 (L2) has been discussed in depth in library circles in recent years. This article looks at L2 initiatives and technology implementation with regard to L2 and proposes a reboot, repositioning the library portal as a Social Research Management System (SRMS). This SRMS adheres to the L2 principles of purposeful, user-driven, library services. The SRMS is envisioned as the center of academic research and activity at universities, not as a peripheral tool. Creating a new generation library portal (the SRMS) is a group endeavor, thus by utilizing both on-campus and peer resources, the realization of the faceted, modularized, SRMS …

Logging In To Learning Analytics, Edna J. Pressler

Current Issues in Emerging eLearning

According to the most recent Higher Education Editions of the Horizon Report (Johnson et al., 2013; Johnson, Adams, & Cummins, 2012; Johnson, Smith, Willis, Levine, & Haywood, 2011), learning analytics (LA) is an emerging technology that will be widely adopted within the next few years. In this article, I use the McKinsey 7S Model (Waterman, Peters, & Phillips, 1980) as a way to organize a review of the learning analytics (LA) literature, in order to help organizational leaders assess and increase an organization’s readiness for LA. More specifically, I identify the 7 areas of an organization that need to be …

Dewey, Desi, And Dec: Exploring The Educational Philosophy Of Indian Open, Online, And Distance Education, Dennis Maxey

Current Issues in Emerging eLearning

This paper explores pedagogical underpinnings of current Indian open, online, and distance education. Tracing the history of national and cultural adherence to the precepts of American educational theorist and philosopher, John Dewey, the paper notes the Deweyesk perspective has not translated into constructivist distance educational practices. The work surveys the history of distance education in India, and reviews literature in the field produced by Indian academics, whose recent reports suggest that online education may be transforming Indian educational philosophy, bringing a more constructivist approach to teaching on the sub-continent.

The paper is organized into the following sections:

• A brief history …

Development Of A New Mindset For Elearning Pedagogy: For The Teacher And The Learner, Tara Devi S. Ashok

Current Issues in Emerging eLearning

Teaching, like learning, involves a personal journey. This researched narrative records the role of technology integration in one instructor’s teaching practice, and examines how literature in the field accounts for ways eLearning technologies have kept the author and her students engaged in the process of learning. Dr. Tara Ashok of the University of Massachusetts Boston chronicles the personal eLearning tool kit she has selected for effective delivery of contents in different teaching formats. She posits the importance of developing a new mindset to adapt to emerging technologies and examines the literature and her own experiences suggesting how and why, eLearning …

Discovering Behavioral Intervention: A Parent’S Interactive Guide To Aba, Richard Fleming, Carol Curtin, Cheryl A. Gray, Charles D. Hamad

Current Issues in Emerging eLearning

Autism spectrum disorders (ASD) affect one in 110 children in the U.S. Parents of children with ASD need clear and accurate information to communicate with professionals as they seek appropriate services, including applied behavior analysis (ABA) based intervention. Behavioral professionals can assist parents in this endeavor by recommending resources, including online courses. This paper describes the development and evaluation of an online course on ABA for parents of children with ASD. Parents completing a summative field test (N=21) made significant gains in knowledge and reported high levels of satisfaction. Implications include the potential for enhanced parent-professional collaboration in treatment decision-making.

Foreword, Apostolos Koutropoulos, Alan Girelli

Current Issues in Emerging eLearning

This first publication of Current Issues in Emerging eLearning (CIEE) opens and closes with research studies on eLearning practice. The studies frame three theoretical discussions regarding the judicious adoption of eLearning technologies and one extended narrative regarding the various factors behind innovative best practices.

Current Issues In Emerging Elearning, Volume 1, Issue 1

Current Issues in Emerging eLearning

This first publication of Current Issues in Emerging eLearning (CIEE) opens and closes with research studies on eLearning practice. The studies frame three theoretical discussions regarding the judicious adoption of eLearning technologies and one extended narrative regarding the various factors behind innovative best practices.

Wikiproject Agriculture: Be An Agricultural Wikipedian, Dana W.R. Boden

University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries: Presentations

Wikipedia will be 13 years old in 2014. It is ranked the 6thmost visited site on the World Wide Web. Many librarians and information specialists have a love hate relationship with this open access, free internet encyclopedia. Searching for agricultural information sometimes exposes a lack of information or existence of entries on specific topics, inaccurate information, or results in the frustration of a research dead end from unreferenced articles. Wikipedia is, of course, a collaboratively edited resource. A Wikipedia WikiProjectis a group of contributors working together to improve the Wikipedia information and the pages on a particular topic or subject …

Challenges And Opportunity Of Online Learning In Developing Countries With Specific Focus On Liberia., Andrew Paygar

Political Science Theses and Capstones

To explore online learning in developing countries with a particular focus on Liberia is 2 the focus of this paper. As it is being explored, the following questions will be addressed: How did online learning originate? What would be the advantages and disadvantages of online learning in developing countries? What are some of the unique circumstances faced by Liberia in online education?

Perfect Timing: The Rise Of Women’S Political Leadership During Cultural Shifts, Christie E. Pearce

Oglethorpe Journal of Undergraduate Research

America has fallen behind in women's leadership, especially in politics. In the approaching era, there will be more viable female political candidates than ever in the past, but will the public be prepared to elect a woman to high office? Studies suggest that mentalities toward female leadership have taken a shift in a positive direction. The idea of what an 'ideal' politician must offer is more feminine in the modern era than ever before. In the age of social media, female politicians have opportunities to reach more constituents through social media in a more effective way than has been offered …

Facebook: A Marketing Tool For Small Business, Michaela Willer

Honors Capstones

Capstone submitted as a graduation requirement for the BSU Honors Program.

Mode, Method, And Medium: The Affordance Of Online Tutorials In The Writing Center, Erik V. Holtz

Honors Scholar Theses

While the body of literature regarding online tutorials in the writing center is growing, researchers seem hesitant to fully endorse, or even commend, online writing tutorials. This seems appropriate for work in communication theory and human-computer interaction; working across a medium may be different, but this could create new and interesting ways of tutoring. This research reports on a comparative analysis of online and in-person tutoring at three different universities, focusing on tutor self-perceptions and on affordances, a concept drawn from systems engineering, human-computer interaction and ecological psychology. Unstructured interviewing is used to create a set of preliminary affordances of …

Designing Emotion Awareness Interface For Group Recommender Systems, Yu Chen, Pearl Pu

Faculty Publications, Information Systems & Technology

Group recommender systems help users to find items of interest collaboratively. Support for such collaboration has been mainly provided by interfaces that visualize membership awareness, preference awareness and decision awareness. In this paper, we are interested in investigating the roles of emotion awareness interfaces and how they may enable positive group influence. We first describe the design process behind an emotion annotation tool, which we call CoFeel. We then show that it allows users to annotate and visualize group members' emotions in GroupFun, a group music recommender.

With Whom To Coordinate, Why And How In Ad-Hoc Social Media Communications During Crisis Response, Hemant Purohit, Shreyansh Bhatt, Andrew Hampton, Valerie L. Shalin, Amit P. Sheth, John M. Flach

Kno.e.sis Publications

During crises affected people, well-wishers, and observers join social media communities to discuss the event. They often share useful information relevant to response coordination, for example, specific resource needs. However, responders face the challenge of massive data overload and lack the time to monitor social media traffic for important information. Analysis shows that only a small number of event related conversations are actionable. Moreover, responders do not know which sources are trustworthy. To address these challenges, response teams may apply manual filtering methods, resulting in limited coverage and quality. We propose a framework and interface for extracting specific resource-related information …

Relational Development, Self-Disclosure, And Invasion Of Privacy: College Students And Teachers As Facebook Friends, Ryan Dearbone

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

This research examined how college students feel about their professors requesting them to be a Facebook friend. Recognizing the ways in which professors and students communicating through social networking could produce additional educational opportunities for collaboration and instruction, while also causing tension or awkwardness as the process develops. Semistructured interviews were utilized by the researcher to obtain information from the selected participants, and the data were analyzed by comparative methods. Through this study, it was revealed that students are split on the appropriateness of professors as Facebook friends. They prefer little to no self-disclosure from their professors. They do not …

Using Statistical Methods To Determine Geolocation Via Twitter, Christopher M. Wright

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

With the ever expanding usage of social media websites such as Twitter, it is possible to use statistical inquires to form a geographic location of a person using solely the content of their tweets. According to a study done in 2010, Zhiyuan Cheng, was able to detect a location of a Twitter user within 100 miles of their actual location 51% of the time. While this may seem like an already significant find, this study was done while Twitter was still finding its ground to stand on. In 2010, Twitter had 75 million unique users registered, as of March 2013, …

Mining Contrast Subspaces, Lei Duan, Guanting Tang, Jian Pei, James Bailey, Guozhu Dong, Akiko Campbell, Changjie Tang

Kno.e.sis Publications

In this paper, we tackle a novel problem of mining contrast subspaces. Given a set of multidimensional objects in two classes C₊  and C₋ and a query object o, we want to find top-k subspaces S that maximize the ratio of likelihood of o in C₊  against that in C₋. We demonstrate that this problem has important applications, and at the same time, is very challenging. It even does not allow polynomial time approximation. We present CSMiner, a mining method with various pruning techniques. CSMiner is substantially faster than the baseline method. Our …

“Parallel Poleis”: Towards A Theoretical Framework Of The Modern Public Sphere, Civic Engagement And The Structural Advantages Of The Internet To Foster And Maintain Parallel Socio-Political Institutions, Taso Logos, Ted Coopman, Jonathan Tomhave

Faculty Publications

The role of the internet in large-scale demonstrations, as witnessed in the Arab Spring, has been debated and reflects continued interest in the intermingling of social movements and digital technology. Yet behind these large photogenic events stand other less obvious social activities that may be equally profound, particularly in the form of alternative institutional frameworks that better meet the social needs of individuals than current models. We categorize these “dissident” frameworks as “parallel poleis” as developed by Czech philosopher and activist Vaclav Benda and offer two case studies to support this contention. At the heart of parallel poleis lies the …