Social Media Commons^™

Like, Retweet, Repeat: Social Media's Impact On Real Estate Marketing, Emily Kendall

Masters Theses

With the advent of Facebook and Twitter, people from all walks of life in all parts of the world have the ability to connect electronically, impersonally, and constantly. Small businesses are just beginning to unlock the power of social media marketing, specifically real estate professionals. Shelly Chaiken created the Heuristic Systematic Model of persuasion, the descendant of the Elaboration Likelihood Model. This study applies the tenets of Chaiken's HSM to the methods of persuasion employed by real estate agents via Facebook and Twitter. Fifty participants were surveyed by the researcher in order to gauge their activity, interest level, and motivation …

Online Privacy Issues: Awareness, Attitudes, And Perceptions Amongst Internet Users In Egypt, Dalia Nagy Khalil Alfred

Theses and Dissertations

This study gauges the level of awareness, attitudes towards, and perceptions of online privacy policies for Internet users in Egypt. It examines how demographics as in age, gender, and education may affect the level of Internet users’awareness, attitudes, and perceptions of online privacy issues. Further, it surveys what personal information Internet users in Egypt perceive as private and accept to share with web providers, search engines or third parties. The theory of Communication Privacy Management (CPM), which was developed by Sandra Petronio, poised that Internet users choose and manage the usage of privacy policies and rules based on their cultural …

Social Media In Sports: A Phenomenological Study Of Athletes And Online Communication, Garrett Bireline

Masters Theses

This study investigates the intersection where the shared experience of sports meets the shared experience of social media. Empirically quantitative literature and data regarding social media has been well-documented from the perspective of understanding macro-level trends (Duggan & Brenner, 2012; Lenhart, et al., 2010). However, few to no studies have sought to learn the views, feelings, and experiences of unique populations from the micro, individual level. This method of research threatens to silence the voice of the individuals of select populations, and offers no hope of their ever being heard. Specifically, this study seeks to understand how collegiate athletes at …

Understanding Blogging And Copyright Infringement Within A Pinterest Generation, Ashley Mcalpin

Masters Theses

Copyright infringement within a Pinterest generation is growing at an alarming rate. This study sought to explain the phenomenon of stealing on Pinterest through a study of social interaction and perception thereof. The author found that the overall concept of interaction was widely misunderstood, along with the current copyright laws, leading to a broken sense of ethicality among the Pinterest generation. Through this study the impact of peer interaction, in compliance with the standards of Bandura's Social Learning theory (1977), was reviewed and found applicable to the Pinterest generation today. This study proved it relevant to further research the ethical …

On Modeling Community Behaviors And Sentiments In Microblogging, Tuan Anh Hoang, William Cohen, Ee Peng Lim

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

In this paper, we propose the CBS topic model, a probabilistic graphical model, to derive the user communities in microblogging networks based on the sentiments they express on their generated content and behaviors they adopt. As a topic model, CBS can uncover hidden topics and derive user topic distribution. In addition, our model associates topic-specific sentiments and behaviors with each user community. Notably, CBS has a general framework that accommodates multiple types of behaviors simultaneously. Our experiments on two Twitter datasets show that the CBS model can effectively mine the representative behaviors and emotional topics for each community. We also …

Recurrent Chinese Restaurant Process With A Duration-Based Discount For Event Identification From Twitter, Qiming Diao, Jing Jiang

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Due to the fast development of social media on the Web, Twitter has become one of the major platforms for people to express themselves. Because of the wide adoption of Twitter, events like breaking news and release of popular videos can easily catch people’s attention and spread rapidly on Twitter, and the number of relevant tweets approximately reflects the impact of an event. Event identification and analysis on Twitter has thus become an important task. Recently the Recurrent Chinese Restaurant Process (RCRP) has been successfully used for event identification from news streams and news-centric social media streams. However, these models …

Digital Identity Formation: How Social Networking Sites Affect Real World Authenticity, Matthew Joseph Montoya

Institute for the Humanities Theses

The purpose of this paper is to explore the application of Heidegger's authenticity to online identity formation. This paper will attempt to determine if there is any way in which an authentic identity can be created, either online or offline, by using social networking sites. It will examine the positive and negative consequences of social networking sites to determine if these sites can help to contribute to our overall being, or determine if these sites serve only as a dangerous distraction to an authentic personal identity.

To do this, this paper will analyze Heidegger's philosophy to see if it is …

Death Stares, Tamara Kneese

Media Studies

Reports of a general “death taboo” have been greatly exaggerated. But there remains a disconnect between the shiny and seemingly disembodied memorials on social media platforms and the presence of the corpse.

The Anxiety Of ‘Read It Later’, Nathan Holic

UCF Forum

As a kid, I loved horror movies, and so one year I set out to record every horror movie ever made. My parents had purchased a box of blank VHS tapes from Sam’s Club, and I used Super Long Play to record three movies to a single tape. (The quality was terrible, but this was the 1980s: The TVs were terrible, too.)

La Temporalidad De Lo Breve, Vanina Noejovich

Modern Languages and Literatures Annual Graduate Conference

El artículo se acerca a la caracterización de lo breve a partir de dos temporalidades diversas: lo breve definido desde su duración como elemento de una cadena de acontecimientos y lo breve como irrupción en dicha cadena de contecimientos, que permite pensar otra temporalidad, la de las repercusiones de lo breve. Para definir la temporalidad de las repercusiones de lo breve, el artículo se apoya en la teoría psicoanalítica de Jacques Lacan, particularmente en la definición de la interpretación psi-coanalítica como acto analítco. Para contraponer las repercusiones de lo breve con el tiempo de duración el artículo refle-xiona acerca de …

Adolescents And The Social Media: The Coming Storm, Daniel Houlihan, Meghan Houlihan

Psychology Department Publications

In her book Failure to Connect: How computers affect our Children’s Minds, sounded the alarm to the educational community that computers would not impact the intellectual growth of children in the ways that had been anticipated by the Clinton Administration when they started the push to have the world-wide web integrated into American classrooms by passing the Classroom 2000 education initiative. In a speech in April of 2013, Clinton would follow-up by saying that the modern internet has forced a change in what we consider to be forms of good citizenship. The future will redefine how we should act and …

Use Of Peripheral Route Triggers To Test Buying Habits On Social Curating Sites, Kellie K. Brown

Communication Studies

Ecommerce has become an increasingly visual activity as images of product fill websites, social media, and social curation sites. The Elaboration Likelihood Model has often been used to examine and explain online purchasing behavior; however, this previous research barely touches on the use of peripheral cues. In analyzing the effect of peripheral cues on buying habits when searching social curation sites, statistical results from a survey conducted using women aged 18 to 34 in the San Luis Obispo area showed that these cues made no difference on the activity of a user. Regardless of their awareness to the visual cues, …

Media Portrayal Of Individuals In The Lower Class And Its Effects On Attributions Of Educational Hardships, Krista A. Burke

Communication Studies

This study investigated how media portrayals of individuals in the lower class affect people’s beliefs about educational hardships in lower socioeconomic areas. Specifically, this study looked at the attributions of these hardships to determine if media consumption had an effect on the internality of attributions. It was hypothesized that increased media consumption would be related to an increased tendency toward internal attributions. It was hypothesized that increased media consumption would lead to lower support for policy changes regarding education. A survey was distributed to assess media consumption habits and attitudes toward educational hardships in the lower class. Correlation results yielded …

New Media Business Models, Where Content And Commerce Collide: Strategies And Ethical Considerations For Success In A New Media World, Aryn Bea Sanderson

Journalism

Media practitioners are finding themselves at a crossroads. Due to increasing digitalization and decreasing funding for so-called traditional outlets, “new media” forms have emerged and, with those, new economic models to generate revenue. New media platforms diverge from old media archetypes in the way they utilize the interaction of content and commerce. The collision of content and commerce is both a novel idea for media sustainability and treacherous water for its credibility. This study analyzes a few key new media economic platforms - sponsored content in a digital-first publication, crowd funding stories and a ranked, e-commerce model - in hopes …

User Interface Design For Online Social Media, Jackie R. Hayes

Graphic Communication

The purpose of this study was to identify implementation techniques of a successful user interface for an online social media application. Interviews were conducted with three employees from three separate social media applications to compare how designers approach user interface design differently. The working professionals were asked a series of user interface design questions about the social media application for which they work and help design. The interview responses were compared to the results of the Voice of the Customer (VOC) survey where 100 online social media (OSM) users were surveyed at random about their user interface design preferences within …

On Predicting User Affiliations Using Social Features In Online Social Networks, Minh Thap Nguyen

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

User profiling such as user affiliation prediction in online social network is a challenging task, with many important applications in targeted marketing and personalized recommendation. The research task here is to predict some user affiliation attributes that suggest user participation in different social groups.

The Art Of Personal Science, Jeff Fajans

The Transdisciplinary STEAM+ Journal

Quantified Self isn’t really about finding answers or solving problems—it’s about asking new questions.

What The Phub?, Kendall T. Wolf

SURGE

“Nobody talks to each other anymore.” When my grandfather said this as we sped down the highway, I wondered what to make of it. Is he simply being a negative elderly man, or is there some truth to the statement? Considering that I had been trying to tune out his questions with my headphones the whole drive, I guess I deserved some type of scolding. As his questions were repeated, my mother pointed out to my grandfather that I could not hear him, to which he shook his head and said, “Nobody talks to each other anymore.” Finally, I put …

Social Correlation In Latent Spaces For Complex Networks, Freddy Chong Tat Chua

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

This dissertation addresses the subject of measuring social correlation among users within a complex social network. Social correlation is closely related to the measurement of social influence in social sciences. While social influence focuses on the existence of causal influence among users, we take a computational approach to measure correlation strength among users based on their shared interactions. We call this social correlation. To formally model social correlation, we propose a framework which contains two major parts. The first part is that of representing users behavior in a computationally efficient and accurate manner. For example, social media users perform many …

The Prevalence Of Gender Communication In Social Media, Alicia Eckman, Kelsey Fisher, Talia Stifter

Concordia Journal of Communication Research

The primary purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between online self-disclosure and perceived appeal and define characteristics that individuals find appealing and unappealing in online self-disclosure. The findings from this study reveal significant differences in gender communication that distinctly affect the perceptions of online social media profiles. Using Deborah Tannen’s Genderlect theory, these gender differences are explained.

The Struggle Of Digital De-Cluttering, Nathan Holic

UCF Forum

To be a teacher is to shove all housekeeping tasks to those tight windows of time when the grading goes away. All semester long, dirty laundry piles up. The lawn grows unchecked. And then, just after my semester ends in December, or May, or August, I schedule long-overdue oil changes and haircuts and dental appointments.

Empowered And Engaged: Exploring Social Media Best Practices For Nonprofits, Tessa Warner, Alexis Abel, Frauke Hachtmann

College of Journalism and Mass Communications: Faculty Publications

Although nonprofits see value and potential in social media, many have not yet mastered social media and harnessed their full potential. This phenomenological study sought to identify the best social media strategies and tactics for effectively engaging existing and potential donors, volunteers and stakeholders, according to social media nonprofit professionals. Six themes emerged: listening to the audience; engaging instead of fundraising; sharing relevant, valuable and actionable content; being honest, accessible and responsive; using social media as part of a multi-channel strategy; and that measuring is mandatory.

Aaron Swartz’S Fbi Files

United States Department of Justice: Publications

Aaron Hillel Swartz (November 8, 1986 – January 11, 2013) was an American computer programmer, writer, political organizer and Internet Hacktivist.

Swartz was involved in the development of the web feed format RSS, the organization Creative Commons, the website framework web.py and the social news site, Reddit, in which he became a partner after its merger with his company, Infogami. Swartz's later work focused on sociology, civic awareness and activism.

He helped launch the Progressive Change Campaign Committee in 2009 to learn more about effective online activism. In 2010 he became a research fellow at Harvard University's Safra Research Lab …

Aaron Swartz’S Secret Service Files

United States Department of Justice: Publications

These documents concern the indictment in Massachusetts for downloading JSTOR content from MIT library network.

Parts 1 & 2 are included in the main document.

Additional files are linked below, as follows:

Part 3 (3 files) -- 379 pages, 4067 pages (spreadsheet), & 190 pages (photos)

Part 4 -- 1 page

Part 5 -- 1 page

Part 6 -- 1 page

Part 7 -- 7 pages

Part 8 -- 237,397 pages (yes)

Part 9 -- 90 pages

Part 10 -- 259 pages

Part 11 -- 17 pages

Part 12 -- (not released as of 9/29/2014)

Part 13 -- 254 pages …

A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words: Chinese College Students’ Self-Presentation On Social Networking Sites, Qinghua Yang, Zongchao Li

Faculty Publications

Social media have provided new means of self-presentation. Because individuals are able to post notes, pictures, and videos, social media users can construct their personal images on social networking sites (SNSs) and build links with their various communities. This study aims to find out how Chinese college students perceive other users' online self-presentations and how they conduct their own self-presentations through posting pictures on SNSs. Using photo-elicitation as the primary methodology, the authors conducted two.focus groups with male and female participants respectively. With grounded theory as the framework, the qualitative data show gender differences in the attitudes towards extreme self-presentation, …

Cyberbook: An Introduction To Topics In Cyberculture, Western Kentucky Univeristy Department Of Communication

Communication Student Publications

No abstract provided.

The Lone Flower: A Collaborative Cybernovel, Western Kentucky University Department Of Communication

Communication Student Publications

No abstract provided.

The Public Sphere As Site Of Emancipation And Enlightenment: A Discourse Theoretic Critique Of Digital Communication, David Ingram, Asaf Bar-Tura

Philosophy: Faculty Publications and Other Works

Habermas claims that an inclusive public sphere is the only deliberative forum for generating public opinion that satisfies the epistemic and normative conditions underlying legitimate decision-making. He adds that digital technologies and other mass media need not undermine – but can extend – rational deliberation when properly instituted. This paper draws from social epistemology and technology studies to demonstrate the epistemic and normative limitations of this extension. We argue that current online communication structures fall short of satisfying the required epistemic and normative conditions. Furthermore, the extent to which Internet-based communications contribute to legitimate democratic opinion and will formation depends …

Freedom Of The Press In Cuba From 2002-2013: Voices Of Post-Revolutionary Exiled Cuban Journalists, Writers And Dissidents In The U.S., Karen E. Anaya

Departmental Honors Projects

The role of media in any society is determined by the level of press freedom in that society. Freedom of the press can be best seen in the relationship between the government and mass media institutions. Since the end of the Cuban Revolution in 1959, the Cuban regime has been criticized by organizations all over the world for allegedly limiting press freedom in the island. Despite the wide controversy, little is known about the state of freedom of the press in Cuban media in the last few years. This study set out to investigate the level of press freedom enjoyed …

Knowledge Sharing And Social Media: Altruism, Perceived Online Attachment Motivation, And Perceived Online Relationship Commitment, Will W.K. Ma, Albert Chan

Support & Other Units (THEi)

Social media, such as Facebook and Twitter, have become extremely popular. Facebook, for example, has more than a billion registered users and thousands of millions of units of information are shared every day, including short phrases, articles, photos, and audio and video clips. However, only a tiny proportion of these sharing units trigger any type of knowledge exchange that is ultimately beneficial to the users. This study draws on the theory of belonging and the intrinsic motivation of altruism to explore the factors contributing to knowledge sharing behavior. Using a survey of 299 high school students applying for university after …