Communication Technology and New Media Commons^™

Lindenwood Digest, January 5, 2018, Lindenwood University

Lindenwood Digest

The Lindenwood Digest has been an employee newsletter since 2009.

The Alt-Right's Use Of President Donald Trump's Twitter Account As A Propaganda Device, Erin Nicole Jorden

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

The long campaign to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act situated President Donald J. Trump in a context where attacks on President Barack Obama’s signature legislation symbolized a broader repudiation of his legacy. Even more than mainstream Republican partisans, the altright blogosphere celebrated the demise of the law to symbolically cleanse the nation of Obama’s influence. Trump attempted to honor his pledge to end Obamacare in his first year of office with his support of the American Health Care Act (March 2017), Better Care Reconciliation Act (July 2017), and the Graham-Cassidy Bill (September 2017). Members of the alt-right reframed …

Curriculum Change In Undergraduate Strategic Communications Programs: How Strategic Communications Programs Are Adapting To 21st Century Media, Allyson B. Goodman

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

The year 2014 has been described by scholars as transformative in how consumers interact with technology and media. Pointing to such digital milestones as the explosion of social media and mobile technology and the decline of traditional television ratings, these scholars have described the evolution as a move from a broadcast era to a postbroadcast era of media. This mass media evolution has opened a digital talent gap between the skills needed by the industry and the abilities of current and potential employees.

Focusing on undergraduate strategic communications programs, this research discusses the current status of new and social media …

Reputational Threats Online: Social Media As A Simultaneous Agent Of Crisis And Tool For Response And Resolution In The Case Study Of An American Academic Library, Margaret C. Stewart, Maria Atilano

International Crisis and Risk Communication Conference

This paper details a reputational threat to an American academic library where a viral social media post and associated negative comments misrepresented the institution and brand’s values. Immediately, the marketing librarian responsible for social media responded to the threat by engaging directly with the library consumers, sharing content and information with the broader online community, and reinforcing the library’s values and commitment to consumers. While the resolution to the crisis was mostly favourable, the event was unanticipated and invited a keen learning opportunity that is documented in this case study. Reflections and takeaways from this incident are discussed in the …

Iot-Enhanced Human Experience, Amit P. Sheth, Biplav Srivastava, Florian Michahelles

Kno.e.sis Publications

The two articles in this special section represent ongoing Internet of Things applications in the context of Europe trying to make solutions usable to people in daily times.

To Thrive In Today’S Marketing Landscape, Embrace Schizophrenia!, Rishad Tobaccowala, Valerie Jones

College of Journalism and Mass Communications: Faculty Publications

We are entering the third connected age, powered by deep connectionsamong data, interconnected and Internet-connected objects, and engag-ing, immersive communication. Communication and media are undergoingradical transformations–influenced by artificial intelligence, the Internet ofThings, virtual and augmented reality, and voice-powered devices–and asa result, the advertising landscape is transforming as well. Brands connectdirectly with consumers, built on rich, data-driven relationships. As theway brands are built changes, so must the skill sets and approachesneeded for building and advertising brands. We outline a new model forsuccess and discuss future challenges and opportunities for academics, stu-dents, and professionals, to thrive.

Learning In The Wild: Coding For Learning And Practice On Reddit, Caroline A. Haythornthwaite, Priya Kumar, Anatoliy Gruzd, Sarah Gilbert, Marc Esteve Del Valle, Drew Paulin

School of Information Studies - Faculty Scholarship

Learning on and through social media is becoming a cornerstone of lifelong learning, creating places not only for accessing information, but also for finding other self-motivated learners. Such is the case for Reddit, the online news sharing site that is also a forum for asking and answering questions. We studied learning practices found in ‘Ask’ subreddits AskScience, Ask_Politics, AskAcademia, and AskHistorians to develop a coding schema for informal learning. This paper describes the process of evaluating and defining a workable coding schema, one that started with attention to learning processes associated with discourse, exploratory talk, and conversational dialogue, and ended …

The Smartphone Paradox: Our Ruinous Dependency In The Device Age, Alan J. Reid

CCU Faculty Books

The Smartphone Paradox is a critical examination of our everyday mobile technologies and the effects that they have on our thoughts and behaviors. Alan J. Reid presents a comprehensive view of smartphones: the research behind the uses and gratifications of smartphones, the obstacles they present, the opportunities they afford, and how everyone can achieve a healthy, technological balance. It includes interviews with smartphone users from a variety of backgrounds, and translates scholarly research into a conversational tone, making it easy to understand a synthesis of key findings and conclusions from a heavily-researched domain. All in all, through the lens of …

Knowledge-Enabled Personalized Dashboard For Asthma Management In Children, Vaikunth Sridharan, Revathy Venkataramanan, Dipesh Kadariya, Krishnaprasad Thirunarayan, Amit Sheth, Maninder Kalra

Kno.e.sis Publications

Introduction: Childhood Asthma is a significant public health concern worldwide. Effective management of childhood asthma requires close monitoring of disease triggers, medication compliance and symptom control. The recent growth of the Internet of Things (IoT) based devices has enabled continuous monitoring of patients. kHealth-Asthma is a knowledge-enabled semantic framework consisting of IoT enabled sensors to record patient symptoms, medication usage and their environment. For each patient, 29 diverse parameters with 1852 data points are collected daily. kHealthDash platform enables real-time visual analysis at an individual and cohort level over such high volume, high variety data.

Methods: The kHealth kit was …

Khealth: A Personalized Healthcare Approach For Pediatric Asthma, Utkarshani Jaimini, Hong Y. Yip, Revathy Venkataramanan, Dipesh Kadariya, Vaikunth Sridharan, Tanvi Banerjee, Krishnaprasad Thirunarayan, Maninder Kalra, Amit Sheth

Kno.e.sis Publications

Can we assess the asthma control level, determine vulnerability, and medication compliance for a patient? Can we understand the causal relationship between the asthma symptom and possible factors responsible for it? Can we reduce the number of asthma attacks through continuous monitoring of the patient’s health condition?

Poster: Image Disguising For Privacy-Preserving Deep Learning, Sagar Sharma, Keke Chen

Kno.e.sis Publications

No abstract provided.

Apps And Autonomy: Perceived Interactivity And Autonomous Regulation In Mhealth Applications, Saraswathi Bellur, Christina Devoss

2018 Faculty Bibliography

Thousands of smartphone apps geared toward monitoring health behaviors are released regularly. Even as developers flood the market with mHealth apps, consumers seem overwhelmed with choices and report lack of sustained use, which raises questions about their efficacy. An online survey (N = 513) found that perceived interactivity not only has a direct effect but also exerts an indirect effect via greater autonomous regulation on users’ attitudes and behavioral intentions toward mHealth apps. Frequency of tracking and updating personal data showed significant effects on behavioral intentions. Theoretical and practical suggestions for the design and evaluation of mHealth apps are discussed.

“How Is My Child’S Asthma?” Digital Phenotype And Actionable Insights For Pediatric Asthma, Utkarshani Jaimini, Krishnaprasad Thirunarayan, Maninder Kalra, Revathy Venkataramanan, Dipesh Kadariya, Amit Sheth

Kno.e.sis Publications

Background: In the traditional asthma management protocol, a child meets with a clinician infrequently, once in 3 to 6 months, and is assessed using the Asthma Control Test questionnaire. This information is inadequate for timely determination of asthma control, compliance, precise diagnosis of the cause, and assessing the effectiveness of the treatment plan. The continuous monitoring and improved tracking of the child’s symptoms, activities, sleep, and treatment adherence can allow precise determination of asthma triggers and a reliable assessment of medication compliance and effectiveness. Digital phenotyping refers to moment-by-moment quantification of the individual-level human phenotype in situ using data from …

Media Criticism And Morality Policing On Twitter: Fan Responses To 'How To Get Away With Murder', Melissa Ames

Faculty Research & Creative Activity

In an alarmist age when tirades about society's eroding ethics areabundant, the media is often a scapegoat for those who fear that cultural valuesare disintegrating. For decades, from reality television's debauchery to celebrityprogramming's narcissism to fictional drama's excessive violence, television hasbeen blamed for contributing to society's so-called moral decline. Recently, concernhas expanded from content to include twenty-first century television viewingpractices. Studies argue that binge watching television leads to antisocial dispositions,depression, and immorality. Likewise, social media is credited forcreating a generation of narcissists and prompting increased levels of depression,jealousy, and apathy. Television viewing today often entails double screening - whereinviewers are …

Smartphone-Based Self Rescue System For Disaster Rescue, Xitong Zhou

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

Recent ubiquitous earthquakes have been leading to mass destruction of electrical power and cellular infrastructures, and deprive the innocent lives across the world. Due to the wide-area earthquake disaster, unavailable power and communication infrastructure, limited man-power and resources, traditional rescue operations and equipment are inefficient and time-consuming, leading to the golden hours missed. With the increasing proliferation of powerful wireless devices, like smartphones, they can be assumed to be abundantly available among the disaster victims and can act as valuable resources to coordinate disaster rescue operations. In this paper, we propose a smartphone-based self-rescue system, also referred to as RescueMe, …

Where Do Facts Matter? The Digital Paradox In Magazines' Fact-Checking Practices, Susan Currie Sivek, Sharon Bloyd-Peshkin

Faculty Publications

Print magazines are unique among nonfiction media in their dedication of staff and resources to in-depth, word-by-word verification of stories. Over time, this practice has established magazines’ reputation for reliability, helped them retain loyal readers amid a glut of information sources, and protected them from litigation. But during the past decade, websites, mobile platforms, and social media have expanded the types of stories and other content that magazines provide readers. Doing so has shortened the time between the creation and dissemination of content, challenging and in some cases squeezing out fact-checkers’ participation. This study examines the procedures applied to stories …

Duplicity In Alternative Marketing Communications, Cristina Nistor, Taylan Yalcin, Ekin Pehlivan

Business Faculty Articles and Research

In the past couple of decades, following the advancements in communication technologies, alternative marketing communications such as consumer generated content, influencer marketing and native advertising, have emerged as a viable and gainful tactic. These alternative marketing communications blur the boundaries between the roles of consumer and marketer. The possibility of duplicity and deception in marketing relationships is fueled by the ambiguity of these roles and the lack of clarity in persuasion knowledge when alternative marketing communications are utilized. In this paper, we illustrate the various types of duplicity in marketing relationships that use alternative marketing communications. We adopt a conceptual …

Revamping An Academic Library’S Social Media Presence: An In-Process Transformation, Jennifer Maddox

Collier Library and Information Services

No abstract provided.

A Content Analysis Of Jihadist Magazines: Theoretical Perspectives, Catalina M. Udani

Honors Undergraduate Theses

During its violent spread across the Middle East, the Islamic State of Iraq and Sham (ISIS) amassed both a local and international following in large part due to its usage of emergent media distribution. Beginning in 2014, ISIS’s Ministry of Media published an English-language magazine, Dabiq, disseminating its issues through online platforms. Dabiq and its successor Rumiyah both serve as propagandistic recruitment material for ISIS’s international community as well as broadcasting the message of the jihadist movement to ISIS’s enemies. This study analyzed ISIS’s publications using a qualitative content analysis in order to identify jihadist recruitment strategies through the perspectives …

Emergent Narrative: Stories Of Play, Playing With Stories, Eric Murnane

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Emergent narrative, a phenomenon of unexpected contextual stories arising through play, has been researched in the field of game studies since 1999. However, that discussion largely lies in the realm of theoretical stories which are generated by either the system or the player. The purpose of this dissertation is to deepen our understanding of emergent narrative by examining real-world examples of the phenomenon. Four hundred player posts were gathered from forums relating to the video game Skyrim (a large, open world fantasy roleplaying game) and analyzed using a mixed-method framework which is informed by digital ethnography, fan studies, and game …

Creative Writing In Digital Spaces: Digital Story Book, Christian Tipton

Oswald Research and Creativity Competition

Christian Tipton has been working with Dr. DaMaris Hill for multiple semesters now, and a majority of their projects emphasize making literature accessible for the digital generation. The Digital Storybook is a personal favorite of the two of them. This project combines the visual techniques of a traditional comic book with the contextual elements of free verse poetry. The aim for this particular project was to present poetry in a way that would capture non-traditional poetry readers and present the comic book genre in a way that would capture non-traditional comic readers.

Metrics For Evaluating Quality Of Embeddings For Ontological Concepts, Faisal Alshargi, Saeedeh Shekarpour, Tommaso Soru, Amit P. Sheth

Kno.e.sis Publications

Although there is an emerging trend towards generating embeddings for primarily unstructured data and, recently, for structured data, no systematic suite for measuring the quality of embeddings has been proposed yet. This deficiency is further sensed with respect to embeddings generated for structured data because there are no concrete evaluation metrics measuring the quality of the encoded structure as well as semantic patterns in the embedding space. In this paper, we introduce a framework containing three distinct tasks concerned with the individual aspects of ontological concepts: (i) the categorization aspect, (ii) the hierarchical aspect, and (iii) the relational aspect. Then, …

Hashmoney: Exploring Twitter Hashtag Use As A Secondary Ticket Market Price Determinant, Brendan O'Hallarn, Stephen L. Shapiro, Ann Pegoraro

Communication & Theatre Arts Faculty Publications

The growth and prevalence of sport event ticket transactions on secondary ticket market platforms such as StubHub has led to the creation of a body of academic research studying this new phenomenon. Factors such as team performance and perceptions of fairness have been explored for their relationship with the price of secondary market tickets. This exploratory study introduces a new potential price determinant – social media activity – itself a popular online phenomenon that has inspired considerable academic research. This exploratory study of prices for eight National Football League games adds use of official team hashtags on Twitter to a …

Budweiser In The 2017 Super Bowl: Dialectic Values Advocacy And The Rhetorical Stakeholder, Benjamin P. Windholz

Theses and Dissertations--Communication

Organizational-public relations discourse is changing given the advent of social media, and corporate statements are evaluated under different criteria in the digital age. Grounding Budweiser’s response to controversy over their 2017 Super Bowl advertisement in terms of consumer expectations for corporate social responsibility provides a new perspective for approaching Bostdorff and Vibbert’s (1994) conceptualization of values advocacy. This study recognizes the power of the rhetorical stakeholder, a discursively created public, and demands re-evaluation of the values common to society from a co-creational OPR perspective. Conceptualizing dialectic values advocacy outlines the changing values among contemporary, common stakeholders as well as the …

#Rest In Digital Peace: Examining Attachment Dimensions' Relationship To Grief Messages On Facebook, Kendall Uhrich

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Grief is a natural reaction to loss that can include behaviors and thoughts that are emotional, physical, and spiritual (DeSpelder & Strickland, 2015). With the rise of social media, grief is now performed in a different and more public manner. The current literature has established the connection between how one grieves and their attachment dimension of either attachment anxiety or attachment avoidance (Bowlby, 1980; Schenck, Eberle, & Rings, 2016; Waskowic & Chartier, 2003; Worden, 1983). Attachment dimensions have also been correlated with social media usage, primarily the use of Facebook (Hart, Nalling, Bizer, & Collins, 2015; Lin, 2015). Findings from …

Technological Innovation: A Case Study Of Mobile Internet Information Technology Applications In Community Management, Wan Su, Xiaobo Xu, Yangchun Li, Francisco J. Martinez-Lopez, Ling Li

Information Technology & Decision Sciences Faculty Publications

The Mobile Internet Information Technology MIIT has been widely accepted as one of the most promising technologies in the next decades, having various applications and different value positions. However, few published studies explore and examine the effects of MIIT on community management. Based on the Dramaturgical Theory, this article uses a case study method to get an insightful understanding of MIIT. This article found that the MIIT was used by grid organizations to realize technological innovation and change organizational routines and structures, but eventually it was shaped by them, so this new technology was only able to embed itself into …

News Literacy, Sissel W. Mccarthy

Open Educational Resources

"The digital age has created the need for a new kind of literacy-a literacy that empowers news consumers to determine whether information is credible, reliable and truthful. This is not just a skill; it is a new core competency for the 21st century. So-called “fake news” is hard to spot and spreads easily, leading to disagreements over basic facts. The antidote to the growing challenges posed by this digital revolution is news literacy. This mini news literacy course includes two three-hour sessions that will teach anyone to become a more critical consumer of news. "

The News Literacy course package …

There’S Nowhere To Hide: Artificial Intelligence And Privacy In The Fourth Industrial Revolution, Sarah Denton, Eleonore Pauwels, Yujia He, Walter G. Johnson

Patterson School of Diplomacy and International Commerce Faculty Publications

At its core, artificial intelligence (AI) optimizes data. Machine-learning algorithms, one component of AI, are trained using massive datasets curated by humans to predict various aspects of our daily lives. Such predictive intelligence could be a positive force amplified by continued decentralization of the technology. Or, ubiquitous cognition and surveillance could be a disruptive force amplified by the unregulated proliferation of AI technologies. Yet, though we will certainly see more and more AI systems being integrated into every facet of our infrastructures, homes, and bodies, the proliferation of AI technology isn’t the problem. A privacy-security quagmire arises from the interconnectivity …

"What's Ur Type?" Contextualized Classification Of User Types In Marijuana-Related Communications Using Compositional Multiview Embedding, Ugur Kursuncu, Manas Gaur, Usha Lokala, Anurag Illendula, Krishnaprasad Thirunarayan, Raminta Daniulaityte, Amit P. Sheth, Budak Arpinar

Kno.e.sis Publications

With 93% of pro-marijuana population in US favoring legalization of medical marijuana, high expectations of a greater return for Marijuana stocks, and public actively sharing information about medical, recreational and business aspects related to marijuana, it is no surprise that marijuana culture is thriving on Twitter. After the legalization of marijuana for recreational and medical purposes in 29 states, there has been a dramatic increase in the volume of drug-related communication on Twitter. Specifically, Twitter accounts have been established for promotional and informational purposes, some prominent among them being American Ganja, Medical Marijuana Exchange, and Cannabis Now. Identification and characterization …

Personalized Prediction Of Suicide Risk For Web-Based Intervention, Amanuel Alambo, Manas Gaur, Ugur Kursuncu, Krishnaprasad Thirunarayan, Jeremiah Schumm, Jyotishman Pathak, Amit P. Sheth

Kno.e.sis Publications

Across the United States, suicide is the second leading cause of death for people aged between 15 and 34, and younger people are more prone to mental health problems, suicidal thoughts, and behaviors. For instance, 80% of patients with Borderline Personality Disorder have suicide-related behaviors, and between 4-9% of them commit suicide. Moreover, the social stigma associated with mental health issues and suicide deter patients from sharing their experiences directly with others. In such a situation, social media that provides a free and open forum for voluntary expression can provide insights into suicide ideation and self-destructive behavior.

Reddit is a …