Social Media Commons^™

Georgia Southern University's Communication During Covid-19 Analyzed Using The Discourse Of Renewal Theory, Jessica Hickman

Honors College Theses

This research aims to analyze how Georgia Southern University handled COVID-19 through a public relations perspective using the discourse of renewal theory. In order to do this, this research looks at the communication sent from the University to the faculty, staff, and students during the time periods of March to April of 2020 and July to August of 2020. The three research questions this research will examine are: how did the University apply the discourse of renewal theory to speak to the students, faculty, and staff regarding COVID-19, how did the University use its email system to communicate with the …

Which Police Departments Make Black Lives Matter, Which Don’T, And Why Don’T Most Social Scientists Care?, Robert Anthony Maranto, Wilfred Reilly, Patrick Wolf, Mattie Harris

Education Reform Faculty and Graduate Students Publications

In part via skillful use of social media, Black Lives Matter (BLM) has become among the most influential social movements of the past half century, with support across racial lines, and considerable financial backing (Fisher, 2019). Will this translate into public policy reforms which save Black lives? After all, higher education is a key institutional backer of BLM, and a considerable literature dating back decades (e.g., Lindblom & Cohen, 1979) casts doubt on the effectiveness of social science in solving social problems, for numerous reasons. Often, the best social science is simple counting. This paper makes two unique contributions. First, …

A General History And Theory Of Mind Control. Information Design, Commercial Truth And The Disinformation Crisis, Gabriel Isaiah Samandi

Senior Theses

The phrase “mind control” typically sparks the imagination to think of implausible and delusional hysteria; the paranoid schizophrenic who argues the existence of instantaneous and affirmative instructions against one’s own will that can subvert the autonomy of an individual. Since the early 1950s, associations such as the above have provided an illusion of separability between established epistemic concepts and the realm of amateur conspiracy theory “research.” With the invention of the internet, however, and especially after the concerted effort of international disinformation campaigns via social media, such lines have begun to blur. Questions about the interplay between implicit psychological associations …

Jeopardy! In Crisis: What Is Corporate Culture Issues Affecting The Entertainment Industry?, Evan Nemeroff

Student Theses and Dissertations

Cultural issues like sexism, racism, and social movements have impacted the entertainment industry, specifically the game show sector. This research identified how these prevalent matters in our society have affected celebrities by looking into the type of people who lead game shows, revealing if certain demographics such as race and gender influenced whether particular individuals were chosen to host a program. Included within this research are studies that portray how the game show industry has been biased explicitly towards one gender for several decades. Further research looks into a scandal that Sony faced when it had to name a successor …

A Content Analysis Of Queer Slang On Tik Tok, Kuri Benitez

Departmental Honors & Graduate Capstone Projects

Social media platforms’ concentration of diversity and interactions has accelerated the rate of cultural change on the Internet. With the rise of Tik Tok, a video-sharing social media platform, language used by marginalized groups is being incorporated into the platform’s slang due to the rapid rotation of trends. This study aims to provide data to a new field related to Tik Tok culture and the effects of trends on marginalized groups.

Using qualitative content analysis, this article studies an LGBTQ+-inspired Tik Tok trend to determine if the portmanteau of “-ussy”’s meaning has changed from its original use and if trends …

A Communications Audit Of Selected Equine Assisted Activities And Therapies (Eaat) In Northwest Arkansas, Laykyn Rainbolt

Agricultural Education, Communications and Technology Undergraduate Honors Theses

Digital media, including websites and social media platforms, are becoming a staple in the marketing and communication field to reach consumers. Although digital media can offer high dissemination rates to a broad audience, it can also be time consuming without current training or resources to allocate to it. Nonprofits struggle to maximize their reach and effectiveness through social media due to limited staff, time, resources, and training (Bernritter et al., 2016; Bjork et al., 2016; Lovejoy & Saxton, 2012; Tao et al., 2021). Equine Assisted Activities and Therapies organizations in Northwest Arkansas selected for this study showed high use of …

How The Financial Services Industry Is Utilizing Social Media To Expand Their Client Base, Kristen Stewart

Marketing Undergraduate Honors Theses

Social media is becoming an increasingly important aspect of all companies’ marketing strategies. It is almost imperative for companies to advertise through social media if they want to have a fair chance of reaching the younger generation. In fact, “the majority (97%) of Gen Z consumers say they now use social media as their top source of shopping inspiration; 65% say they use social media to find entertaining content; and 61% of them are specifically interested in watching more video content” (Kastenholz, 2021). This proves that social media can make a significant and lasting impact on a company’s success. Social …

A Content Analysis Of The Female Tiktok Influencer: How Smis Alter Their Image And Self-Presentation Based On Their Communities., Sydney R Dotson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Influencer marketing is a growing industry on social media platforms, like TikTok. Influencers have the power and authority to control the purchases and habits of their audiences, however, the communities of these followers can be just as influential. According to TikTok For Business (2021), “part of the excitement of [TikTok] is derived from people having the power to choose the spaces they want to be part of, and the content they want to interact with.” The purpose of this study is to determine if social media influencers alter their image and self-presentation based on their community. The study examines the …

A Wellbeing@Ksu Journey: Mapw Portfolio, Meghan Cooper

Master of Arts in Professional Writing Capstones

A process narrative and samples and complete works from my time in MAPW and as a GRA within the health and well-being departments at KSU. The portfolio showcases my journey as a communicator and professional writer and how it has impacted my current career.

Girl-Next-Door To Girlboss: Taylor Swift’S Online Evolution From Puerile Pop Star To Poignant Political Influence, Clare G. Daly

Pell Scholars and Senior Theses

Of all society’s public figures, the social-media-savvy celebrity is arguably the most powerful. Singer-songwriter Taylor Swift has amassed one of the largest followings on the internet. In recent years, she has inspired fans to act upon sociopolitical issues via voter registration, letter-writing campaigns, and music. Her digital footprint is not without contention from a slow arrival to politics to white feminist attributes present in her messaging. Through close reading across four social media platforms, I found a shift in Swift’s social media activity. In her transition from a young pop star to a global influence, I concluded that “Swifties” will …

The Handy Ir Manager: A Toolkit For Recruitment, Intake, And Promotion, Melody Herr, Jessica Kelly, Cedar C. Middleton

University Libraries Teaching and Learning

You seek fresh strategies for recruiting new collections for your institutional repository (IR). You strive to improve intake workflows and expedite metadata creation for hosted collections. You wonder how to attract users to repository content. If you see yourself in any – or all – of these scenarios, come to this session for inspiration and practical tools.

The Scholarly Communications team will present successful strategies that we’ve developed at the University of Arkansas for recruitment, intake, and promotion, using examples from our work with research centers and student journals.

Social Media, Humor, And Crisis Health Communication: Humor Used To Inform Over Social Media During Covid-19, Sally Burkley

Departmental Honors & Graduate Capstone Projects

With the recent events of COVID-19, it is necessary to examine how everyday citizens responded to the public health messages delivered by The Center for Disease Control and Prevention and the U.S. government and how these responses revealed and impacted the effectiveness of the organization’s messages. Furthermore, it is important to consider the potential humor has as an information spreading tool within the collaborative medium of social media. This study analyzes three different digital humor artifacts using a chronological rhetorical analysis in order to understand how we communicate health crisis initiatives over social media. The research findings show the change …

An Exploration Of The Social Networking Site Usage Of Middle-Aged And Older Deaf Adults, Taylor Paglieri

Undergraduate University Honors Capstones

Social networking sites (SNS) have become increasingly popular in modern society; however, there is insufficient research into the impacts of SNS on middle-aged and older Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing (D/HH) individuals. D/HH SNS users belong to the Baby Boomer generation or Generation X (born 1946-1980) were recruited for this study. A mixed-methods approach was utilized, with a survey (n=32) and interviews (n=3), to examine primary reasons for use, perceived accessibility of interactions, the relationship between SNS use and life satisfaction, and noted societal changes. Most participants reported using Facebook and Instagram, which were primarily used for social interaction, information seeking, and …

Adapting, Overcoming, And Connecting: How College Sports Social Media Responded To Covid-19, Jackson Sepko

Honors Theses

This project, inspired by the researcher’s own experience as a digital media marketing assistant for Ole Miss Athletics, investigates how certain NCAA team accounts grew their social media engagement in the 2020-21 seasons despite the challenges and interruptions of COVID-19. First, metrics from data analytics firm SkullSparks were analyzed to determine which accounts increased their engagement metrics the most or performed strongly compared to their peers. Then, those accounts’ posts were analyzed using CrowdTangle, a Facebook-owned data analytics tool, and using Twitter’s advanced search features to see which posts overperformed compared to each account’s average posts.

From there, with an …

Building And Expanding Avestor’S Social Media Presence: A Capstone Review, Hope Foley

University Honors Theses

The Business capstone project involves a small team working directly with a local business to provide assistance in achieving a specific goal the company may have for their future. Through research, informational visuals, and presentations to the client, the team presents a final recommendation as to the best option to achieve the company's goal and the most effective way to implement it.

J Mich Dent Assoc April 2022

The Journal of the Michigan Dental Association

Monthly, The Journal of the Michigan Dental Association brings news, information, and feature articles to our state's oral health community and the MDA's 6,200+ members. No publication reaches more Michigan dentists!

In this April 2022 issue, the reader will find the following original content:

• A cover feature “Protect Your Patients and Yourself: The Complete and Honest Medical History”
• A feature article “The Foundation for Dental Care: The Patient Interview and Dental/Medical Health History”
• A 10-Minute EBD “The Preferred Analgesia for Orthodontic Tooth Movement: Acetaminophen or NSAIDs?”
• News you need: an Editorial, a "Reminder about Antitrust Law", and regular department articles, …

Hajj Pilgrims’ Perceptions Of Trust And Internet Use For (Emergency) Information, Sudha Arlikatti, Hassan A. Taibah, Praveen Maghelal, Simon A. Andrew, Saad A. Alkhurayyif

International Journal of Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage

This empirical study examines the patterns of internet use during Hajj, with the broader aim of providing suggestions on how organisations can improve risk communication at crowded religious venues using traditional and new media. The research team adopted a convenience sampling strategy to conduct in-person surveys of 348 Hajj pilgrims in the vicinity of the Grand Mosque in Madinah, Saudi Arabia during the October 2013 season. Of these, 150 pilgrims used the internet and their responses were analysed using simple descriptive statistics and binary regression analyses. The findings of this study suggest that Hajj pilgrims prefer accessing the internet through …

Correlation Between Social Media Use And Eating Disorder Symptoms: A Literature Review, Makenna Rose Burger

Kinesiology and Public Health

Importance: Social media is a pervasive influence in modern society presenting many potential public health implications.

Objective: The purpose of this literature review is to synthesize current research regarding social media and eating disorders.

Methods: Primary research was gathered from Google Scholar and OneSearch database resulting in 7 articles. Articles were examined for common themes.

Results: Common themes found in the resulting research is the prevalence of ‘thinspiration’, gamified content, and overlap of eating disorders with other mental illnesses. Several articles found a significant correlation between social media use and the severity of eating disorder symptoms. …

Rise Of Social Media Influencers As A New Marketing Channel: Focusing On The Roles Of Psychological Well-Being And Perceived Social Responsibility Among Consumers, Jihye Kim, Minseong Kim

Integrated Strategic Communication Faculty Publications

This empirical research investigated the structural relationships between social media influencer attributes, perceived friendship, psychological well-being, loyalty, and perceived social responsibility of influencers, focusing on the perspective of social media users. More specifically, this study conceptually identified social media influencer attributes such as language similarity, interest similarity, interaction frequency, and self-disclosure and examined the respective effects of each dimension on perceived friendship and psychological well-being, consequently resulting in loyalty toward social media influencers. The authors collected and analyzed data from 388 social media users in the United States via Amazon’s Mechanical Turk with multivariate analyses to test the hypothesized associations …

In A Digitally Connected World Through Likes, Hashtags And Followers - Advancing Surgical Research Through A Social Media: A Narrative Review, Sabah Uddin Saqib, Qamar` Riaz, Russell Seth Martins, Amna Riaz, Hasnain Zafar

Department for Educational Development

In this era of modern information technology, the world is now digitally connected through various platforms on social media, which has changed the way medical professionals work, communicate and learn. The use of social media in surgery is expanding, and it is now becoming an essential tool for surgical training, research and networking. Articles, journal clubs and surgical conferences are within reach of everyone regardless of geographical location worldwide. Electronic publications have now resoundingly replaced printed editions of journals. Collaborative research through social media platforms helps collect diverse data, enhancing the research's global generalisability. The current narrative review was planned …

What Really Matters?: Characterising And Predicting User Engagement Of News Postings Using Multiple Platforms, Sentiments And Topics, Kholoud K. Aldous, Jisun An, Bernard J. Jansen

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

This research characterises user engagement of approximately 3,000,000 news postings of 53 news outlets and 50,000,000 associated user comments during 8 months on 5 social media platforms (i.e. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, and Reddit). We investigate the effect of sentiments and topics on user engagement across four levels of user engagement expressions (i.e. views, likes, comments, cross-platform posting). We find that sentiments and topics differ by both news outlets and social media platforms, and both sentiments and topics by the four levels of user engagement expression. Finally, we predict a volume of four user engagement levels for given news content, …

The Impact Of Social Media Platforms On Societal Security “A Study On A Sample Of Facebook Users In The Emirati Society”, Adnan Aldhmour

Journal of Police and Legal Sciences

This study aims at identifying the impact of social networking websites on societal security. The study adopts the descriptive analytical approach, whereas the study population consisted of 280 Facebook users in UAE community , intentionally selected to serve the purpose of the study.

The most important results showed that the most basic motives for using social networking websites are to communicate and to keep in touch with family and friends, and to make sure that they are safe and sound. The most important risks involved include the individual’s isolation and introversion and rebellion against societal values, which may eventually lead …

A Framework Of Social Media Messages For Crisis And Risk Communication: A Study Of The Covid-19 Pandemic, Nic Depaula, Loni Hagen, Stiven Roytman, Deaundre Dyson, Dana Alnahass, Mihir Patel, Alex B. Hill

Urban Studies and Planning Faculty Research Publications

Social media are important channels for crisis and risk communication by government agencies. However, existing frameworks for studying these messages use loose and inconsistent terminology, making it difficult to build on this research and understand how message features impact message diffusion. In this study, we provide a framework based on textual and media dimensions of messages for improved analysis of social media crisis and risk communication. We apply the framework to a sample of Twitter posts from United States local, state and federal public health agencies during a year of the Covid-19 pandemic. Results show reasonable reliability levels for coding …

Digital Media Use And Social Inclusion: A Case Study Of East York Older Adults, Anabel Quan-Haase, Molly-Gloria Harper, Alice Hwang

FIMS Publications

Digital media is essential to sustaining communication with various types of social ties. However, older adults (aged 65+) are reported to be the least likely to use digital media. While statistics show that older adults are increasingly using more digital media, evidence shows this is predominately aging long-term users of digital media rather than older adults adopting new digital media. To investigate this “grey divide” and adoption of digital media by older adults, this study qualitatively analyses semi-structured interviews of 41 individuals aged 65 and older from the East York region of Toronto, Canada. Our findings suggest that satisfaction with …

Wechat, Jinman Zhang, Anabel Quan-Haase

FIMS Publications

WeChat is a popular Chinese social media platform that emphasizes mobile internet services rather than PC internet services. What further distinguishes WeChat from other social media sites is its multipurpose platform, which integrates a range of applications and features. With its large and diverse user base, vast amounts of user-generated content, and increasing global reach, WeChat provides unique opportunities for researchers to examine Chinese society relying on new data sources that can enhance or even substitute traditional data collection methods such as surveys. WeChat can also provide insights into new digital phenomena including social movements, online groups, propaganda, and e-governance. …

Social Media Use And The Effects On Wellbeing In Young Adults, Tyler Dietz

Honors Undergraduate Theses

Social media has found its way into almost everyone’s cellphone. Being a primary source for news, connection, and inspiration, it only continues to gain popularity. Social media, however, is not good 100% of the time. The dominant explanation for the effect of social media on wellbeing varies from digital stress, compromised sleep, and body image disturbances. This paper explores the correlation between daily time spent on social media, number of platforms used, and overall sense of wellbeing. Sleepiness is also assessed, and a correlation is explored using the previous variables. Previous research primarily focuses on the amount of time spent …

A New Form Of Catfishing: An Analysis Of The Inauthentic Racial And Ethnic Self-Presentation On Social Media, Britney R. Raymond

Honors Undergraduate Theses

Trends in self-presentation in social media (i.e., Twitter and Instagram) constantly fluctuate as fads come and go, especially when one’s image is being commodified. Specifically, numerous instances of celebrities and social media influencers altering their images to fit popular online trends and “aesthetics” contribute to increased blackfishing, Asianfishing, and Hispanicfishing. Some celebrities and influencers accused of “-fishing” in the presentation of ethnicity include the Kardashians, Ariana Grande, Addison Rae, Iggy Azalea, Selena Gomez, and Gigi Hadid. The present study (N = 685) investigated gender, personality, fame appeal, self-esteem, and need to belong in relation to attitudes towards the “-fishing” culture. …

Tinder Research And The Social Sphere Of Online Dating, Bryanna Bylies-Binger

OUR Journal: ODU Undergraduate Research Journal

With the emergence of new technology, communication is now easier than ever. With popular dating apps such as the infamous social interactive platform, Tinder, forming romantic relationships online now offers individuals a new way to personalize their dating experiences beyond measures ever imagined. In October 2019, Tinder released their debut “Swipe Night” series which gave users fully functional interactive video episodes that allowed them to create and choose their own “apocalyptic adventure.” While there have been many findings on how these platforms have impacted society on a larger scale, there have been very few addressing the implications of interactive technology …

Social Media And Journalism: How Twitter Impacts News Coverage In Kenya, Philip Mwaniki Njung’E

Master of Arts in Digital Journalism

Twitter had been extensively adopted by the public, journalists, and news organizations as a new digital tool for disseminating information. Therefore, if Twitter is considered a new and effective way of gathering information that makes up news content, an investigation on how it impacts news coverage, journalists, and newsroom practices is significant. The present study conducted said investigation and came up with findings that significantly contributed to the available information about the relationship between Twitter and news dissemination. It particularly investigated how Twitter impacts news content and coverage, journalistic routines, and newsroom practices in Kenya. This study draws its data …

Reddit As A Source Of Covid-19 Information: A Content Analysis Of R/Coronavirus During The Early Pandemic, Brent Hale, Mark Alberta, Seung Woo Chae

Faculty Publications

Emerging research has begun examining the utility of social media platforms for information dissemination during the COVID-19 pandemic. Following this developing thread, this work examines discourse within r/coronavirus, a Reddit forum (i.e., subreddit) developed to curate COVID-19 information that burgeoned during the early months of the pandemic. Through a content analysis of 226 posts and 2260 corresponding comments generated between February and May, 2020, this study investigated early-pandemic communication patterns in this platform, including what information was deemed important and how users framed causes and solutions. Overall, findings indicate that users of r/coronavirus prioritized information about COVID-19 spread, public health …