Social Media Commons^™

Data Security In The Apple Ecosystem: An Evaluation, Kayrene Woods

Cybersecurity Undergraduate Research Showcase

This study provides a comprehensive evaluation of data security within the Apple ecosystem, focusing on the company’s privacy policies, user perceptions, and the effectiveness of its App Store review processes. Employing an interdisciplinary methodology, the research examines Apple’s commitment to data protection, emphasizing transparency and user trust. A survey of user experiences revealed varying levels of engagement and understanding of Apple’s privacy practices, with only 32.8% of respondents having read the Privacy Policy and mixed opinions on its clarity. Additionally, concerns persist about third-party app security, with 39.7% of users expressing apprehension and skepticism about Apple’s App Store review process. …

Using News To Start Class: How Small Daily Interactions Affect Larger Classroom Interactions, Laura M. Dumin

Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy

In 2013, I added an extra credit assignment to my freshmen composition classes encouraging students to bring in news stories each class period; this assignment was designed to encourage students to be more willing to participate in classroom discussions. We then spent the first few minutes of each class discussing the stories they brought. After using this assignment for a few years, I had anecdotal evidence to suggest that my students were generally more talkative in class after the first week or two of sharing news. These experiences made me want to see if I could measure some change or …

Introducing The Transcendent Media Experience Model (Tmem), Sophie H. Janicke-Bowles

Communication Faculty Articles and Research

Eudaimonic media experiences are vast. A comprehensive theoretical model of inward- and outward-focused eudaimonic media outcomes, that can explain how they come about and how they can be discriminated, is still missing. The current manuscript introduces the Transcendent Media Experiences Model (TMEM) to categorize eudaimonic content and experiences as they pertain to healthy self-focus or outward-focused (transcendent) responses and outcomes using self-construal theory as a backbone. This model allows for a more cohesive understanding of when, how, and for whom inward- or outward focused eudaimonic media experiences develop and the mechanisms for why they do so. As such, the model …

Youtube Influencers In Bangladesh: Analyzing Message Strategies Of Sponsored Ads In Vlogs, Monira Begum

Master's Theses

Social media influencers, particularly YouTube influencers marketing emerged as a growing industry in Bangladesh. However, research on this topic is limited. This study effectively addresses this gap and following quantitative methods and content analysis, this study mainly examines Influencers and brand categories, the narration of sponsored brands in advertising, influencers’ interactivities, and engagement with the followers, and message strategies in ads employing Taylor’s six-segment message strategy wheel, advertising appeals, and message formats. Results indicate that influencers' dominant vlog content is entertainment, as well as technology as prevalent brand characteristics in the study.

Regarding the narration of the sponsored ads, this …

Empowering Change To Shape Tomorrow: An Integrated Marketing Communications Plan For The Building Wealth Initiative, Ramtin Ranjpour

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

We are witnessing a renaissance — one where organizations are expected to be a community with a valued culture. With the rise of this wave, incorporating integrated marketing communications (IMC) into organizations is more vital than ever. This project uses the public relations theory of relationship management, and the marketing model of AIDAR (attention, interest, desire, action, retention) to craft a professional IMC plan for the Building Wealth Initiative (BWI), an Inland Empire nonprofit organization specializing in financial literacy and services. The project uses focus groups and secondary research through informal online observations to gain the essential understanding for creating …

Constructing Fame: A Phenomenological Study Of Online Impression Management Among Indonesian Tiktok Celebrities, Vidi Sukmayadi, Dante Darmawangsa, Suffian Hadi Ayub, Sarah Annisa Fadhila

The Qualitative Report

The relevance of social media platforms in our daily lives is intensifying. Social media have become a "showcase" for our life experiences. In addition, they represent a range of dimensions of our status in the virtual and actual social world. These two factors trigger people to construct particular identities to thrive in dual social ecosystems. Subsequently, Tiktok's prominence as a current trending social media platform with a total of 500 million users globally transforms its function from a communication medium to a medium for gaining social capital. This phenomenon notably influences Indonesian society, with people being heavily invested in that …

Emotional Diplomacy From Tel Aviv To Baghdad: Analyzing The Impact Of Emotional Appeals On Social Media Engagement, Soheil Kafiliveyjuyeh

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This study investigates the use of emotional appeals in the diplomatic communication of U.S. ambassadors in the Middle East. In the realm of diplomacy, actors might strategically and deliberately exhibit emotions to shape and control how their nation is perceived internationally. The project's primary objective is to explore the effectiveness of emotional appeals in generating social media interactions with politicians’ and ambassadors’ messages, and in building relationships with their target audience through these engagements. Using three studies, I examine the diplomatic communications of U.S. ambassadors in the Middle East by focusing on their utilization of Twitter/X and emotional diplomacy strategies. …

Same Story, Different Narratives: The Influence Of Refugee Concerned Organizations On Egyptian Media, Shaimaa Gheith

Theses and Dissertations

It has been documented in the literature that media usually portrays refugees negatively, which affects how the public reacts to them. Consequently, organizations catering to refugees, referred to in this thesis as Refugee Concerned Organizations (RCOs), try to influence the media aiming to influence the public. So, they produce prepacked information and employ different communication tools. Using the agenda building theory, this research investigated the influence of communication tools used by RCOs on Egyptian media focusing on Facebook and news websites. Qualitative content analysis was conducted for 615 Facebook posts and 111 News reports and supplemented by semi-structured interviews with …

Framing The Fight: Revolutionary Feelings In Virtual Communities, James Reilly

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This study considers how social media impacts emotional processing, and ultimately social movement development. Through a multidisciplinary lens, I explore how social media fits within larger media ecologies, particularly during times of social upheaval and collective action. Grounded in an examination of organizational efforts in advance of the 2011 Egyptian revolution, I look at how communication patterns create common emotional cues that help form the movement. Considering framing, emotional habitus, and subjective agency within digital spaces, I demonstrate how social media has emerged as an articulating space for social movements to develop and plan before drawing wider, offline populations to …

An Examination Of Missing Person Social Media Engagement Through Data Mining And Experimentation: An Application Of The Crisis And Emergency Risk Communication Model, Cailin M. Kuchenbecker

Communication (PhD) Dissertations

According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), approximately 600,000 individuals are reported missing each year in the United States (2022). When missing person cases do not meet alert (e.g., AMBER) criteria, law enforcement often utilize social media to crowdsource information to ultimately return the missing home. Therefore, guided by the crisis and emergency risk communication model (CERC; Reynolds & Seeger, 2005) and its recently clarified propositions (Miller et al., 2021), the purpose of this dissertation was to (a) identify strategies law enforcement use to crowdsource missing person information and (b) experimentally test message characteristics that facilitate prosocial sharing of …

Sexual Exploitation: The Crisis And Eradicative Solution, Tonnie Adams Bracey

Nonprofit and NGO Studies Student Projects

French writer Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr wrote, “The more things change, the more they stay the same.” I find this to be true in our current era of the digital age. Although technology has gifted a newly improved and vast method of making worldwide connections and broadening our perceptions and views, a change in how we communicate has conveniently presented itself, but the historic pattern of how we handle these new advancements have indeed stayed the same.
Smart phones are a mainstream vessel employing the world with a plethora of information while giving all sorts of people access to individual’s lives …

The Phygital Design Process: Using Emerging Technologies To Create A Phygital Fashion Brand Rooted In Nostalgia, Madeline M. Mcdaniel

Creativity and Change Leadership Graduate Student Master's Projects

This Master's Project is a comprehensive exploration of the intersection of digital fashion design, nostalgia, and sustainable practices. Its primary objective is to create 'project CYBERBAE,' a phygital fashion collection that draws inspiration from early 2000s video game characters, trends, and aesthetics. The project utilizes advanced digital tools like Clo3D to demonstrate a comprehensive digital fashion design process that emphasizes inclusivity and sustainability. It also pioneers the development of a 3D virtual world, providing users with an immersive environment to interact with and experience digital fashion. This virtual space serves as a platform for a community of fashion, technology, and …

A Rhetorical-Sociological Understanding Of Emotion, Amy Boone

All Dissertations

This project presents a rhetorical-sociological understanding of emotion while foregrounding the place and role of language. Born from Sara Ahmed’s work in The Cultural Politics of Emotion, it presents a simplified equation (contact + orientation = emotion) as both a prescriptive and descriptive formula for making sense of human emotional experience. Starting with an exploration of the difficult-to-understand affect system, this dissertation identifies both rhetoric and affect as energies which cannot be understood apart from their traces, the things they move, produce, and become. As a way to get at these often-invisible forces, two trace studies are conducted which explore …

توظيف اللوبي الفلسطيني في أمريكا لمنصة فيسبوك في هندسة الجمهور الأمريكي, Aseel Abu Fardi, Omar Abu Arqoub

Journal of the Association of Arab Universities for Research in Higher Education مجلة اتحاد الجامعات العربية للبحوث في التعليم العالي

هدف المقال تحليل خطاب مؤسسات اللوبي الفلسطيني في أمريكا المستخدم لهندسة الجمهور الأمريكي من خلال صفحات فيسبوك، والتعرف على الأطر التي وظفها لتأطير موضوعاته وقضاياه، بالاستناد إلى نظرية التأطير الإعلامي. تنتمي هذه الدراسة إلى حقل الدراسات الوصفية التحليلية، باستخدام أداة تحليل المضمون لعينة الدراسة المكونة من 247 منشوراً من منشورات صفحات مؤسسات اللوبي الفلسطيني على منصة فيسبوك خلال النصف الثاني من العام 2021. وخلصت الدراسة إلى مجموعة من النتائج أبرزها، تركيز خطاب اللوبي على الموضوعات الإنسانية والسياسية والحقوقية القانونية، يليها الموضوعات الثقافية الأكاديمية، كما أن الأطر الإعلامية الأكثر توظيفاً في خطاب اللوبي هي: إطار المسؤولية، وإطار الصراع، وإطار الاهتمامات الإنسانية. …

The Uses And Gratifications Of Social Audio-Focused Apps: A Case Study Of The Clubhouse Application, Dalia Abdelhamid Younes

Theses and Dissertations

Social audio has recently emerged recently as a new form of social media based on voice. It spread rapidly through the Clubhouse application, which became a significant trend during the COVID-19 pandemic. The study aims to explore Egyptian content creators' motivations to join Clubhouse, study their motivations to produce their content, and identify the gratifications obtained from using this application. It also seeks to investigate the application`s sustainability within the Egyptian context by outlining the challenges faced by the Egyptian content creators. The study employs the uses and gratifications theory, conducting in-depth interviews with 17 Egyptian content creators. The findings …

When And Why Do Arabs Verify? Predicting Online News Verification Intention During The 2023 Gaza War, Menna Elhosary

Theses and Dissertations

Guided by the network gatekeeping and secondary gatekeeping theoretical frameworks, this study employed a 2 (news headlines: pro-Palestine/anti-Palestine) x 2 (news sources: the Times of Israel/Al-Jazeera English) experiment embedded in an online survey on a purposive sample of Arab social media users (N= 452), aiming to understand the antecedents of online news verification during the 2023 Gaza War1. The study investigated the motives that might have encouraged or discouraged Arabs from verifying the war-related news circulated on social media. A model was proposed to examine the role of confirmation bias in shaping perceptions about sources and messages, thereby impacting online …

The Impact Of Loneliness Post-Pandemic And Immersed In The Upcoming Political Election, Regina M. Luttrell Ph.D., Gwen Pratt, Abigail Kludt, Amy Barone, Kwadwo Osei-Poku, Lihan Wang

Real Chemistry Emerging Insights Lab

The Real Chemistry Emerging Insights Lab emerged with a partnership between Real Chemistry and the Public Relations department at the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communication and serves as a multidisciplinary research center focusing on analytics, artificial intelligence, digital and emerging media for a number of organizations regarding communications.

Healthcare professionals and organizations are interested in identifying how mental health impacts different U.S. generational groups after the COVID-19 pandemic and the intersectionality of U.S. Politics. Our team focused on two generational cohorts – Generation X (1965-1980) and Generation Z (1997-2012) – as an entry point into navigating the impact of …

Identifying Youth Appeals In Alcohol Alternative Social Media Content Through Framing, Melina Oneal

West Chester University Master’s Theses

Proposed regulations for alcohol advertising prevent beverage companies from targeting people under the legal drinking age. However, similar regulations for alcohol alternative beverages are less explored, which could allow alcohol alternative products to create awareness for alcoholic beverages among youth. Alcohol alternatives beverages, including no-alcohol and low-alcohol products, are increasing in popularity and can function as compliments to alcoholic products to decrease the total alcohol volume consumed or as substitutes for alcoholic products. Framing theory can be operationalized through the Content Appealing to Youth Index, an index of content elements found in research literature to be appealing to youth, to …

The Study Of Baby Boomers And Generation Z’S Attitudes Towards Generational Mental Health Dynamics, Regina M. Luttrell Ph.D., Hunter Harpin, Emma Grace Reville, Yunxiang Yu, Abagail Sweeney

Real Chemistry Emerging Insights Lab

The purpose of this research is to compare and contrast how different historical events have impacted Generation Z members’ and the Baby Boomers’ attitudes towards mental health and how those attitudes have guided members of these generations to feel about medical experts and the technology that they use to deliver their services in the post-COVID era. Studying these topics allows our group to make recommendations as to how medical experts should go about interacting with members of the Generation Z and Baby Boomer generations respectively, based on how historical events have influenced their attitudes towards mental health topics, their perceived …

Examining Connectivity And Mental Health Amongst Generation Z And Millennials, Regina M. Luttrell Ph.D., Alexandra Hosilyk, Nyah Jones, Grace Kos-Dondlinger, Runchu Lang, Katerina Miller

Real Chemistry Emerging Insights Lab

The Real Chemistry Emerging Insights Lab tasked our research team to develop findings based on two generational cohorts and mental health. Our team decided to research Millennials and Generation Z in relation to their mental health and connectivity habits. In addition to these general topics, we analyzed how remote work, the COVID-19 pandemic and U.S. political turmoil have played a role in the mental health status of these two generational cohorts.

The Millennial generational cohort is defined as individuals born from 1981 to 1996. The Generation Z generational cohort is defined as individuals born from 1997 to 2012. In order …

Effects Of Dehumanization And Disgust-Eliciting Language On Attitudes Toward Immigration: A Sentiment Analysis Of Twitter Data, Katherine S. Wahrer, Cynthia J. Najdowski, John V. Passarelli

Psychology Faculty Scholarship

Attitudes towards immigration have been shown to be driven by dehumanization and disgust. The more people dehumanize immigrants and the more disgusted they feel, the more negative attitudes they tend to have toward immigrants. However, little is known about how exposure to social media content that links dehumanization, disgust, and immigration influences users’ attitudes on this issue. This is important to consider because the majority of adults in the United States are on social media. We used Twitter data, machine learning, and sentiment analysis to investigate whether exposure to dehumanizing or disgust-eliciting tweets about immigration impacts users’ own sentiment toward …

Influencers Endorsement Advertising Methods On Different Social Media Platforms, Sophia R. Annaloro

Honors Undergraduate Theses

Social media marketing has opened a unique spot for Social Media Influencers. With their fame comes a lot of power over their follower's actions. Many things are at play when an influencer works with a brand to create promotional content for a product. Flow theory suggests that an abrupt advertisement does not match the pace or aesthetic of the content they are currently consuming. When one's viewing is abruptly interrupted by an advertisement, the consumers are now aggravated by the product. Distinctive characteristics of different platforms are likely to develop flow differently. This study analyzed how passive versus active product …

Identifying Accessibility Improvement Opportunities For Global Environmental Communication Websites, Alicia Mason, Josh Compton, Sakshi Bhati

Faculty Submissions

Digital environmental information presented with low web accessibility reduces parti-cipation in environmental advocacy and information seeking behaviors for many people with disabilities, creating a consequential digital divide. We use WEB AIM computer automated analysis of web accessibility to assess the general accessibility of online environmental communication messages. Results show 95.3% of the popular websites in our sample had indicators of potentially critical accessibility errors. Our findings highlight the importance of addressing digital environmental information accessibility shortcomings so that educational, informational and persuasive environ-mental messages can increase environmental literacy of vulnerable populations and help to bridge the digital divide.

Hating The Haters: Media, Polarisation And Class Conflict’ Media, Emotion, Society And Security Lightning Talks In Response To Dublin Riots, Edward Brennan

Conference Papers

This 5-minute ‘lightning talk’ considered public and media responses to the Dublin riots of 2023, highlighting how hatred towards far-right agitators and rioters permeated not only social media discourse but also broadsheet journalism and government statements. Using Fintan O’Toole’s commentary as a key example, Brennan critiques the moral framing that legitimises hatred against “the haters,” suggesting it mirrors a pre-democratic cultural logic wherein ideas are seen as autonomous, malevolent forces shaping society. This ‘secular superstition’ constitutes an anti-sociology that erases economic and class contexts, replacing them with aesthetic politics rooted in identity, branding and lifestyle logics. The paper warns that …

The Contribution Of Mass Media In The Life Of The Nation And State, Benni Setiawan

Informasi

No abstract provided.

College Athletes As Endorsers: A Study Of Nil Advertising, Zach Johnson

Master's Theses

The objective of this study is to determine how effective the newly enforced NIL deals among college athletes are in terms of social media advertising. With the rise of social media and the amount of people using social media daily, it is imperative for advertisers to understand various ways of promoting brands on social media. A 2x2x2 mixed experimental design was used to investigate the effects of college athletes-sponsored Instagram posts among college students, specifically source relevance, product relevance, and message authenticity. Findings suggested positive effects of using college athletes as sponsors. Source relevance, product relevance, and message authenticity played …

An Imc Plan For The Blue Dolphin Company, A Local Nonprofit, Allison Evelyn Campbell

Journalism

Alan Godley's journey into marine preservation began as a dock boy, a role that brought him face-to-face with the environmental impact of boat cleaning practices. Witnessing the washing of harsh chemicals into the ocean and waterways fueled his environmental consciousness. Years later, he founded the Blue Dolphin Company in 1989, an “organization focused on furthering the awareness of whales and dolphins, and all marine life … [supporting] the rehabilitation and release of marine mammals and other wildlife”. Over the three decades, Mr. Godley has operated this nonprofit and small business, leveraging educational initiatives to inform people of all ages about …

The Needs That Instagram Satisfies For People Seeking News & How This Displaces Time Spent With Traditional Media, Madeleine Dunn

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This paper examines how the current climate of mainstream media is changing, and how this may affect journalistic norms and practices. There are many outlets for consumers to receive news, including traditional media, such as television news, newspapers, magazines, etc. There is also social media. The future of mainstream media outlets, like television stations, newspapers, magazines and radio stations, seems to depend on the growing use of social media sites for the use of getting news. This research will focus on Instagram as an alternative to traditional media, and why people prefer to use this outlet to get their news. …

Argumentation For Critical Heterogenous Political Discussions: Constructing A Rebuttal, Rebecca Oliver

Discourse: The Journal of the SCASD

This activity seeks to explain to undergraduate students how to craft a proper attack and defense in argumentation and debate, persuasion, or political communication courses. The activity teaches students 1) the parts of a basic argument structure and 2) how to construct a rebuttal using a basic argument structure. Students will argue against their true political typology by selecting an opposing typology from the Pew Research Typology Quiz. Broadly, this exercise is designed to encourage students to engage in dialogues with people who disagree with their political positionality. Specifically, the activity accomplishes this by teaching students the value of basic …

Encoding & Decoding: Artfully Modeling Communication, Daniel L. Foster, Ashley D. Garcia

Discourse: The Journal of the SCASD

Drawing objects and concepts, such as cats, trees, love, democracy, and family, is probably the last activity students expect to do in a communication course. Although this sounds like an introductory art activity, creating visual representations provides a nuanced understanding of the encoding and decoding processes. Encoding and decoding are the most hidden and often the most unfamiliar and complex fundamental components of communication for students to comprehend. By engaging in this activity, students translate their decoding process into drawings, which serve as personal artifacts representative of their encoding and decoding. Students come to better conceptualize this cognitive process with …