Social Media Commons^™

Scroll In Color: Examining How Colors In Instagram Pictures Illicit Emotions In Users, Chelsi Crockett, Susan Waters

Undergraduate Honors Theses

This study aims to understand if colors in Instagram pictures causes emotions in users. The methods involved in this study included a survey where respondents were presented with questions asking them how certain colors made them feel and users were also presented with pictures with varying color undertones and asked which picture made them feel a specific emotion. This study may provide indications for further research and advertising and public relations techniques using social media, specifically Instagram and utilizing colors within Instagram pictures.

“Friendship With A Brand”: Parasocial Interaction With Burger Brands On Social Media, Alexander E. Carter

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The present study represents a content analysis of the efforts of real-world brands to facilitate parasocial interaction with their followers. The researcher examined these social media exchanges through the scope of parasocial interaction theory, uncertainty reduction theory, and social response theory. The researcher examined posts in mid to late August 2017 and utilized a code sheet to find confirmed parasocial interaction triggers by brands, and examples of parasocial interaction in the posts of those brands’ followers. The researcher looked to see if the utilization of previous research in controlled environments could provide the framework for studying the non-controlled conditions of …

Advertisements On Facebook: Identifying The Persuasive Elements In The Development Of Positive Attitudes In Consumers, Mahmud Akhter Shareef, Bhasker Mukerji, Mohammad Abdallah Ali Alryalat, Angela Wright, Yogesh K. Dwivedi

Dept. of Organisation & Professional Development Publications

The main objective of this study is to develop the scale items of consumers’ attitudes toward Facebook advertisements and to theorize consumers’ attitudinal behaviour. To undertake this study, a research assistant was appointed, who is also an active member of Facebook, to introduce a message about the product Samsung Tab S, and to pass it to other members of their network. From this experiment, different members of their network participated in generating, passing, and receiving messages to develop a preliminary structured perception which was converted to generate scale items to measure attitude. Then an independent empirical study was conducted among …

What’S Next In Communications? Panel Discussion, Wendy S. Perez, Jessica Green, Rachel Schaefer

Media Literacy: How the Era of Fake News Affects Public Service

Moderator: Staci M. Zavattaro, Ph.D

Panel Participants:

• Tom Hope, Assistant VP for Communications and Marketing, UCF
• Jamie Floer, Public Relations/Outreach Specialist, Orange County Utilities Dept
• Brian Schulte, Marketing Manager, Edyth Bush Institute for Philanthropy & Nonprofit Leadership

Abstract:

As society has evolved, so have preferred communications, people today prefer to send a text message versus making a call or talking in person. Everywhere we go technology has a great impact on today’s society. These technological advances have affected everything we do, including how we read, interpret, and disseminate information. More than ever, media literacy has become an important part of …

17 Days: Cross-Country With Social Media, Zachary Alvarado

Senior Theses

"Austin Prescott and Zach Alvarado travel from South Carolina to California using social media to find and communicate with hosts throughout the country..."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V8k6EQnW5D4

Costs of investment were weighed against capital contributions throughout our campaign. While the film serves to inspire, entertain, and inform, the paper dives deeper into the brand-building, cost-savings, and logistics of the trip. In the end, we more than doubled our initial investment and had an awesome time while doing it.

Malene Wines: The Beginning Of A Brand, Tyler Menane

Agricultural Education and Communication

Malene Wines is the most recently developing brand under the Crimson Wine Group. Currently, the brand is being produced and managed under Chamisal Vineyards. Malene Wines started off with one brand of rosé wine, that has only been available for purchase in the Chamisal tasting room or wholesale. This has caused confusion for the consumer in differentiating the two brands. To help begin the separation of the two brands, Malene Wines has recently received a modified Airstream trailer to serve as a mobile tasting room.

Whereas Chamisal Vineyards is a brand focused on Chardonnay and Pinot Noir with small production …

Implementing Stremii: A Practical Guide For Crisis Communication On Social Media During Hurricanes And Natural Disasters, Margaret Stewart, Cory Young

International Crisis and Risk Communication Conference

This paper details a practical series of recommendations to implement the two ongoing stages of the STREMII model – Social Listening and Responsive Engagement – during a crisis event. First, we outline the original STREMII model, then detail and discuss a revised and updated version of the model. Then, we describe steps for getting started using the STREMII model for social media crisis communication, and, finally, present suggestions for uses of best practice for the model.

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 …

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 …

Marketing Practices Of Socially Responsible And Sustainable Businesses, Brooke A. Bivins

Honors Undergraduate Theses

The topic of this research is marketing practices of socially responsible and sustainable businesses. It examines the strategies companies and brands use to represent themselves to the public through products, advertising, and philanthropy. This includes an evaluation of existing frameworks and case studies, as well as in-depth interviews. The question that this research will answer is as follows: How can new or existing companies embrace and integrate social responsibility or sustainability in a way that is authentic and contributes to a positive public reputation?

Younger generations are increasingly willing to switch to and, in some cases, pay more for products …

"The 100" And The Social Contract Of Social Tv, Myles Mcnutt

Communication & Theatre Arts Faculty Publications

I explore how the controversy surrounding an LGBT storyline on The 100 (2014–) points to the shifting social contracts of social media engagement between fans and the TV industry, as well as the challenges faced by fans and critics who attempted to solidify that contract in the wake of said controversy.

Social Tv Fandom And The Media Industries, Myles Mcnutt

Communication & Theatre Arts Faculty Publications

Editorial for special issue, "Social TV Fandom and the Media Industries," Transformative Works and Cultures, no. 26 (March 15, 2018).

Building A Blog/Building A Brand: Public Relations Campaign For "Goodwill Hunting" Fashion Blog, Yanik Gene Flowers

Masters Theses

The ability to consistently and cohesively communicate a brand's identity is the central focus of a public relations campaign. This project chronicled the creative and promotional efforts put forward to effectively communicate the brand of Goodwill Hunting - a fashion blog based on the thrift adventures of a 21-year-old college student. Exploring concepts embedded in branding, authenticity, blogging and social media; this campaign was able to establish and maintain a brand identity for Goodwill Hunting through the intentionality of content creation and promotional activity. Goodwill Hunting's blog site and Instagram account was ran for four months and the efforts of …

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 …

Conversation Station Digital Media Style Guide, Ciara Davis

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

This style guide serves as training material for online communication strategies at the Conversation Station, an afterschool nonprofit organization for students in rural Ashtabula County (Orwell). By utilizing this guide, board members of the Conversation Station will be able to understand the importance of online engagement with the community to accomplish goals, hire communication liaisons based on the skills and knowledge necessary to perform tasks in the guide, and hold the liaison accountable by the fulfillment of tasks detailed. The style guide will also insure that despite communication liaisons coming and going, the Conversation Station’s online character remains consistent. By …

Reinforcing The Narrative To Benefit The Brand: An Instragram Case Study Of Seattle Seahawks Quarterback Russell Wilson, John W. Collett

EWU Masters Thesis Collection

This research is a case study of Seattle Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson that focuses on how he uses the social media platform Instagram to reinforce the narrative surrounding his life. A total of four methods are used in this study. A Content Analysis categorized all of Russell Wilson’s Instagram posts for 2017 based on a framework developed by Smith & Sanderson (2015). The combination of the Rhetorical Criticism methods Close Textual Analysis and Narrative Criticism took a more in-depth look into one specific video post from Wilson’s Instagram account. Lastly, an interview was conducted with Wilson’s branding company, West2East Empire, …

Getting Girls In Stem & The Dangers Of Forgetting That Science Is Art - Someone Made It Up, Heidi Therese Dangelmaier, Camilla Hermann

The Transdisciplinary STEAM+ Journal

Encouraging girls to participate in STEM is a hot topic that has captured the concern of the world’s academic, business and scientific communities. The intention is noble, however the strategies being deployed are reinforcing the very bias society seeks to eliminate. If we wish to advance our evolutionary journey as a species, a shift from “feeling sorry for disadvantaged girls” to “fearing STEM without girls’ reformation” is imperative. This piece discusses the rise to an initiative to redesign culture: Girlapproved.

How Visual Communication Strategies, Brand Familiarity, And Personal Relevance Influence Instagram Users’ Responses To Brand Content, Lijie Zhou

Dissertations

This study comprehensively investigated the effects of visual themes, visual perspective, personal relevance, and brand familiarity on brand constructions (attitude-toward-brand, brand love, brand respect, and three dimensions of brand image) on Instagram. The study consists of two parts. In Study 1, the main and interaction effects of visual design elements on individuals’ visual attentions, brand recognition, and attitude toward brands were examined by using a 4 (visual theme: customer-centric, employee-centric, product-centric, and non-branded) × 2 (view perspective: first-person view vs. third-person view) between-subject eye-tracking test. In Study 2, a 4 (visual theme: customer-centric, employee-centric, non-brand, and product-centric) ×2 (brand familiarity: …

Proving Marketing Roi: A Digital Marketing Framework, Andrew Wiltsie

Master of Arts in Media and Communication Plan II Graduate Projects

The purpose of this study is to analyze emerging literature on the best practices in selecting marketing objectives, web analytics/KPI goals, and marketing mix channels by using digital marketing to provide executives with proof of marketing ROI. Evidence-based research was used to analyze emerging trends in digital marketing by combining literature on setting marketing objectives, web analytic and KPI goals, and selecting marketing mix channels. This study contributes a framework that can be used by both educators and practitioners to showcase the most common practices in digital marketing and how they can be applied to create an effective and efficient …

Social Media Use By Non-Profit Organizations In Kenya, Irene M. Malinga

Masters Essays

Social media is used by individuals, companies, government institutes and organizations to communicate to the public, to market their products, as well as conduct public relations. In Kenya, companies, individuals and the government have mastered the public relations and marketing aspect of social media, yet local organizations are still struggling with finding their voice in the social media spaces. However, local organizations have mastered the act of using social media to reach their audiences. Although research has been done on how many Kenyan users are on various social media platforms, there is less information on how organizations use social media …

Changing Times: An Examination Changing Video Entertainment Sources And Cable Tv Companies Communicating With Customers, Chad Christenson

Master of Arts in Media and Communication Plan II Graduate Projects

The debate of customers canceling their cable TV subscriptions and relying on a mix of free and subscription based streaming video providers for their video entertainment has been ongoing for several years. A combination of low cost alternative video sources, rising programming costs, and changing viewing habits are causing small cable TV companies to review their strategies for attracting new customers. This study focuses on two groups of consumers referred to as the cord-cutters and cord-nevers. The cord-cutters are consumers who had cable TV service and canceled, and the cord-nevers are consumers who have never had cable TV as their …

Innovative Dance Music Productions: Social Media Marketing Campaign, Savannah M. Smith, Julia P. Melmon

Communication Studies

No abstract provided.

Social Media And The Voice Of The Department, Brittany N. Rios

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

More law enforcement agencies are adopting social media as a progressive policing strategy each year. They utilize it for several reasons including, community outreach and engagement, public relations, notifying the public of safety concerns, recruitment, intelligence gathering for investigations, among other uses (IACP, 2017). This study explores Southern California Law Enforcements’ use of social media through a survey and content analysis. First, the survey results suggest that more than 93% of departments surveyed concentrate on community outreach through their social media channels. Second, the content analysis results suggest that when media (pictures/video), links, and hashtags (#), are included in posts …

Tools Of Change: Equipping Nonprofits With The Tools To Inspire Change, Nicole Irons

Masters Theses

Whether I am working for a small nonprofit in Indiana or at an elephant sanctuary in Cambodia I have seen consistent areas of struggle and shortcomings in nonprofit organizations. After years of working in different organizations the struggles nonprofits consistently face are a lack of resources in three main areas. These main areas of struggle are: visibility, funding, and people. The idea then occurred to me of why? And while these resources seem to appear unconnected, what if they all stem from one problem? Could we create a tool (or set of tools) to help alleviate these main struggles? Is …

Modernizing A Podcast Media Organization Via Social And New Media Rebranding Methods, Randi A. Hair

Journalism

The following study and subsequent public relations campaign is intended to explore the difficulties, opportunities, caveats and all facets of transitioning a traditional travel media organization to new media. It unearths the pitfalls/barriers that naturally occur and aggregate over time when an organization or journalist (specifically “Journeys of Discovery with Tom Wilmer” in this scenario) has not adapted nor altered their practices for changing common practices in the media industries. In this campaign, journalist Thomas Wilmer is seeking to increase his podcast audience and digital presence.

The research conducted for this study is two-fold. Firstly, the research demonstrates best practices …

Clicks, Likes, And Shares: Using The Theory Of Planned Behavior, Self-Efficacy, And Impression Management To Predict Digital Activism Activities, Aaron Noland

Dissertations, 2014-2019

Social media has evolved as a space for connection, advocacy, and commerce in recent years. Nonprofit organizations have been called to engage stakeholders on the Internet generally, and social media specifically as the pervasiveness of online presence has increased. In addition, nonprofit organizations have struggled to sustain engagement with the millennial population over the same time. Millennials have been termed digital natives and use social media proficiently. The convergence of these two mandates for nonprofit organizations – to engage via social media and to engage millennials – represents the importance of this study. To begin to help nonprofit organizations develop …

Examining Snapchat: Narcissistic Tendencies Of Core Users, Austin Philpott, Susan Waters

Undergraduate Honors Theses

This study aims to establish current levels of narcissistic tendencies among the major Snapchat demographic, 18 to 34-year-olds in the United States. Like the Raskin and Terry 40-item Narcissistic Personality Inventory, commonly referred to as NPI-40, the present survey utilized a smaller variant with 16 items, known as NPI-16, for participants. This study may provide indications for further research and advertising techniques using social media, specifically Snapchat.

Dialogic Communication And Public Relations Websites: A Content Analysis Of The Global Top 250 Pr Agencies, Charles C. Akwari

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Past research has shown that dialogic communication has essential characteristics that foster two-way communication between organizations and their stakeholders. This study investigates how public relations firms incorporate the principles of dialogic communication on their websites. The top and bottom 50 websites from the Holmes report on Top 250 Global PR agency rankings were content analyzed. Kent and Taylor’s (1998, 2003) five principles of dialogic communication were applied to find out if public relations firms incorporate the principle of dialogic communication effectively on their websites, provide relevant information for stakeholders and prospective clients, and if there are differences between PR rankings …

"To Share Or Not To Share:" A Study Of An Individual's Self-Representation On Instagram In Accordance With Impression Management Theory, Breyanna Marie Blackwell

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This research study examined what the motivations and consequences of self-disclosure on Instagram were as well as its correlation with Impression Management Theory. The research used a 37 question survey which was distributed on social media, through the Department of Media and Communication at ETSU as well as a public speaking class. There were 232 participants in this study who were 18 or older and used Instagram. Research found that individuals’ self disclose using levels of relationship management, showing off, information sharing and habitual behavior. Future research includes the opportunity to incorporate a sample of participants across different cultures to …

Pharma Goes Social: Exploring Social Media Guidelines For Pharmaceutical Direct To Consumer Advertising, Lisa Ferian

Masters Essays

Direct to consumer advertising of pharmaceutical increased in the United States between 2015 and 2016 by 9% to $5.6 billion (McCaffrey, 2017). The only two countries which allow detailed product claim advertisements are the United Sates and New Zealand. While traditional advertising channels have been successful to pharmaceutical companies, many are looking to turn to digital options such as social media to better reach their audiences and work around increased strictness of advertising to physicians. To date, minimal guidance has been provided by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Federal Trade Commission (FTC) when it comes to social media, …