Social Media Commons^™

Using Social Media In Kenya To Quantify Road Safety: An Analysis Of Novel Data, J. Austin Lee, Lyndsey Armes, Benjamin Wachira

Emergency Medicine, East Africa

Background: Road trafc injuries are a large and growing cause of morbidity and mortality in low- and middleincome countries, especially in Africa. Systematic data collection for trafc incidents in Kenya is lacking and in many low- and middle-income countries available data sources are disparate or missing altogether. Many Kenyans use social media platforms, including Twitter; many road trafc incidents are publicly reported on the microblog platform. This study is a prospective cohort analysis of all tweets related to road trafc incidents in Kenya over a 24-month period (February 2019 to January 2021).

Results: A substantial number of unique …

Why, New York City? Gauging The Quality Of Life Through The Thoughts Of Tweeters, Sheryl Williams

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

As a resource for social data, Twitter’s platform has been used to measure the quality of life through sentiment analysis. This capstone project explores another methodological technique—querying Twitter data around specific keyword terms to determine dominant topics, word patterns, and sentiment leanings in a geographical area. Focusing on New York City and Los Angeles for comparative analysis, the keyword term “why” will be used to build a Python analysis around topic modeling and sentiment analysis. Using this approach, the analysis reveals social and cultural differences, the overall sentiment of tweets, and subjects of interest to tweeters.

GitHub Repository for all …

Storm The Capitol: Linking Offline Political Speech And Online Twitter Extra-Representational Participation On Qanon And The January 6 Insurrection, Claire Seungeun Lee, Juan Merizalde, John D. Colautti, Jisun An, Haewoon Kwak

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

The transfer of power stemming from the 2020 presidential election occurred during an unprecedented period in United States history. Uncertainty from the COVID-19 pandemic, ongoing societal tensions, and a fragile economy increased societal polarization, exacerbated by the outgoing president's offline rhetoric. As a result, online groups such as QAnon engaged in extra political participation beyond the traditional platforms. This research explores the link between offline political speech and online extra-representational participation by examining Twitter within the context of the January 6 insurrection. Using a mixed-methods approach of quantitative and qualitative thematic analyses, the study combines offline speech information with Twitter …

A Social Networks Approach To Interaction Patterns Of Bts Compared To Justin Bieber On Twitter, Soohyun Park, Taisik Hwang

Far West Popular Culture Association Annual Conference

A Korean-pop boy band, BTS, has broken the cultural barrier to make changes in the nature of the global pop industry. This study examined the unique approach BTS has taken through social media to building its fan base and interacting with its fans. Twitter datasets were analyzed to explore the nature of BTS’s interaction with its fans on social media, as compared to another pop star, Justin Bieber. Findings and implications are discussed.

Framing Of The Texas Snowstorm On Twitter, Colton S. Kovach

Honors College Theses

This study investigates Framing Theory as it pertains to Twitter as the modern social sphere for communication and acquisition of news. There isn’t much work examining how the news frames the cause of global climate change on Twitter. This paper aims to study how five notable news publishers of different media political biases communicate through Twitter about the Texas Snowstorm that occurred in February, 2021. Through a content analysis of 119 tweets regarding a climate change induced storm of record-breaking, freezing temperatures; this study reveals the news’s fixation on the effects of the issue instead of the causes.

Twitter Demonstrates Why Poison Pills Are Bad For Shareholders, Mark Humphery-Jenner

Perspectives@SMU

Twitter’s poison pill appears to be an attempt to entrench the board rather than delivering shareholder value, writes UNSW Business School's Mark Humphery-Jenner

Ukraine-Russia War: Nevada Twitter And Disinformation Trends, Mary Blankenship, Caitlin J. Saladino, William E. Brown Jr.

Elections & Governance

This fact sheet analyzes responses to the ongoing Ukraine-Russia War posted on Twitter by users located in Nevada and identifies the most circulated narratives and disinformation topics.

Did They Really Tweet That?, Caleb Bradford, Michael L. Nelson (Mentor)

Computer & Information Science: Research Experiences for Undergraduates in Disinformation Detection and Analytics

No abstract provided.

Networks Of Disinformation: The Proliferation Of Hate Speech In Chile And Colombia During The Venezuelan Migration Crisis, Isabelle Valdes, Erika Frydenlund (Mentor)

Computer & Information Science: Research Experiences for Undergraduates in Disinformation Detection and Analytics

No abstract provided.

Religious Violence And Twitter: Networks Of Knowledge, Empathy And Fascination, Samah Senbel, Carly Seigel, Emily Bryan

School of Computer Science & Engineering Faculty Publications

Twitter analysis through data mining, text analysis, and visualization, coupled with the application of actor-network-theory, reveals a coalition of heterogenous religious affiliations around grief and fascination. While religious violence has always existed, the prevalence of social media has led to an increase in the magnitude of discussions around the topic. This paper examines the different reactions on Twitter to violence targeting three religious communities: the 2015 Charleston Church shooting, the 2018 Pittsburgh Synagogue shooting, and the 2019 Christchurch Mosque shootings. The attacks were all perpetrated by white nationalists with firearms. By analyzing large Twitter datasets in response to the attacks, …

Reconsidering The Nomos In Today’S Media Environment, Kimberlianne Podlas

Touro Law Review

Today’s media landscape is wholly unlike that which existed when Cover first discussed narrative and the nomos; specifically, the status of television as both a cultural messenger and object of scholarly study has changed significantly. Accordingly, this article contemplates narrative in the contemporary media environment, specifically, television as an essential source of narratives. To enhance understandings of the roles television narratives play and which narratives play a role, this article employs an empirical perspective. Surveying Media Theory, it outlines research on television effects, including when and why television’s representations of law can impact audience attitudes, behaviors, perceptions, knowledge, and judgements. …

Canceling Vs. #Cancel Culture: An Analysis On The Surveillance And Discipline Of Social Media Behavior Through Competing Discourses Of Power, Julia G. Bezio

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Canceling and #cancelculture have become the topic of many debates over free speech and accountability for oppressive behaviors in social media discourse. This thesis examines Twitter discourse from two recent racism-based cancel cases. Using Foss and Gill’s (1987) adapted epistemic rhetoric framework and emphasizing elements of Foucauldian surveillance and discipline in the discourse, I conduct a comparative qualitative examination of Gina Rodriguez’s and Chris Harrison’s cancel discourse. I contend that in the cancel process, Twitter users engage in surveillance to discipline one another on multiple levels: first, as cancelers use the practice to discipline oppressive behaviors on social media, and …

Digital Pulpit: A Thematic Analysis Of Evangelical Leaders’ Statements On Twitter In The Two Weeks Following The January 6 Capitol Riot, Everett Belle Kirkman

Honors Theses

White evangelicals overwhelmingly supported Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election. According to the Pew Research Center, 81% voted for him. That support baffled pundits at first but held up throughout his presidency. By the time the 2020 election season was ramping up, White evangelicals who supported Trump held more tightly to their beliefs, many taking to social media to convey their opinions. Since the U.S. Capitol riot on January 6, 2021, over 600 outspoken Trump supporters have been arrested and charged for inciting violence in dispute of election results. This research is a thematic content analysis of the statements …

Executive Tweets, Richard M.Crowley, Wenli Huang, Hai Lu

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

We explore the tweeting behavior of S&P 1500 firms’ executives (CEOs and CFOs) and its market consequences during the period of 2011 to 2018. We document that executives tweet financial information related to their firms and time these tweets to firms’ major events, and that investors respond to executive tweets in addition to firm tweets. Using the latest machine learning techniques, we develop an innovative construct measuring the content similarity between executive tweets and firm tweets. We use this measure to disentangle whether the market reaction comes from new information or trust. We show evidence consistent with the view that …

Does Active Service Intervention Drive More Complaints On Social Media? The Roles Of Service Quality And Awareness, Shujing Sun, Yang Gao, Huaxia Rui

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Despite many advantages of social media as a customer service channel, there is a concern that active service intervention encourages excessive service complaints. Our paper casts doubt on this misconception by examining the dynamics between social media customer complaints and brand service interventions. We find service interventions indeed cause more complaints, yet this increase is driven by service awareness rather than chronic complaining. Due to the publicity and connectivity of social media, customers learn about the new service channel by observing customer service delivery to others – a mechanism that is unique to social media customer service and does not …

The Impact Of #365papers: A Daily Scientific Twitter Campaign To Disseminate Exercise Oncology Literature, Kendra Zadravec, Sarah Weller, Logan Meyers, Kirstin Lane, Jeffrey Kong, Kristin L. Campbell

Internet Journal of Allied Health Sciences and Practice

Purpose: Many health researchers and practitioners use Twitter to stimulate scientific dialogue and collaboration among peers, as well as the general public. In 2018, the Clinical Exercise Physiology Lab (CEPL) undertook a year-long scientific Twitter campaign (#365Papers) where one peer-reviewed publication related to cancer and exercise/physical activity was tweeted per day. Features of this campaign included Throwback Thursdays (selected article published before 2018) and guest tweeters (article chosen by other exercise oncology researchers). We report on the impact of the #365Papers campaign based on Twitter Analytics data (i.e., engagement rate). We also explore how engagement rate differed depending on publication …

#Thesistuesday At University Of The Pacific, Michele Gibney

University Libraries Librarian and Staff Presentations

In 2020, the institutional repository manager who also had responsibilities over the social media accounts for the library, decided to attempt a year-long experiment titled #ThesisTuesday, a weekly social media campaign to promote ETDs and connect with campus stakeholders, researchers, and readers. At the time, the library had two social media student assistants who were tasked with sourcing images for the 52 chosen ETDs completed during 2020. The repository manager then used an online graphic creation tool, Canva to create a template for each ETD, plug in an image and swap out titles/authors. She also created short links for …

The Role Of Previous Trauma To Stressful Media Encounters, Billy G. Dromgoole

Student Theses and Dissertations

Previous research has shed light on reexperiencing trauma via news coverage (Moyers, 1996). With the growing age of social media, it seems likely that the risk of such reexperiences via social media outlets could be high. Yet, there is a lack of research examining news coverage on social media and its role, if any. This study examined the role of previous trauma, and then the effect of viewing similar traumatic images provided by social media on vicarious trauma, negative affect, and state anxiety. Participants were randomly assigned to view either traumatizing videos (e.g., military or natural disaster videos) or neutral …

Machine Learning As A Tool For Wildlife Management And Research: The Case Of Wild Pig-Related Content On Twitter, Lauren M. Jaebker, Hailey E. Mclean, Stephanie A. Shwiff, Keith M. Carlisle, Tara L. Teel, Alan D. Bright, Aaron M. Anderson

Human–Wildlife Interactions

Wild pigs (Sus scrofa) are a non-native, invasive species that cause considerable damage and transmit a variety of diseases to livestock, people, and wildlife. We explored Twitter, the most popular social media micro-blogging platform, to demonstrate how social media data can be leveraged to investigate social identity and sentiment toward wild pigs. In doing so, we employed a sophisticated machine learning approach to investigate: (1) the overall sentiment associated with the dataset, (2) online identities via user profile descriptions, and (3) the extent to which sentiment varied by online identity. Results indicated that the largest groups of online …

Presidential Rhetoric And Media's Contribution To The Subjective Nature Of Truth In American Democracy, Bianca Miccolis

English Honors Theses

This thesis examines the role of media on the subjectivity of truth in presidential rhetoric and its ethical implications. In my three case studies, I find that there is some form of deception by each president in their chosen form of media. I analyze Roosevelt’s use of the radio, which he uses to hide his disability and gain more executive power to combat the Great Depression. I examine Reagan’s use of television and how he fabricates an intimate relationship with the American people to enact tax reform. Finally, I investigate Trump’s use of Twitter to deflect negative publicity as he …

Rewriting Web 2.0 Discourses Of The Local For Socio-Spatial Literacy Theory, Erin Daugherty

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation seeks to provide a framework for engaging with two spatial concepts that have been foundational to theorizing literacy across time but have often been taken for granted as passive backdrops to the social action of literacy practice: the notions of “the local” and “the global.” By interrogating the histories, both past and ongoing, of these two spatial concepts as they are interwoven into the sociocultural paradigm of literacy theory, research, and pedagogy, this project identifies new ways that literacy researchers and educators can attend to spatial concepts so as to promote and encourage literacy research and learning that …

You And I: Parasocial Relationships, Social Media, And Fan Labor In The One Direction Fandom, Kathryn Meese

Honors College Theses

This study aims to analyze the ways in which fans of the band One Direction developed parasocial relationships, or one-sided, non-reciprocal relationships with media personae, through social media marketing, and to explore the economic implications of these relationships in terms of fans’ free promotional labor. At the heart of social media marketing is relationship marketing, or attracting and maintaining customer relationships, a strategy we explore here within the context of the music industry. Previous studies have explored the dynamics of online fan communities, or fandoms, and the free labor they carry out on the part of an artist, such as …

Humans Gone Wild: Analysis Of Zoo Controversy Regarding Online Communication And Public Agenda, April Rink

Proceedings of the New York State Communication Association

Modern zoological parks, as community enterprises housing exotic animals with hundreds, sometimes thousands of visitors every day, must prepare for the innate possibility of dangerous situations. When such controversy does arise, clashing viewpoints among media outlets, the zoo’s communications department, and the public’s mediated communication encourages examination with a theoretical eye. This paper utilizes the controversy of the Copenhagen Zoo’s public dissections to illustrate each of the parties’ influence on one another through Bitzer’s Rhetorical Situation. That analysis lays the groundwork justifying the public’s influence on the media’s agenda, also illustrated through the Cincinnati Zoo’s controversy regarding Harambe the gorilla. …

Internet Regulation In Egypt: Outcomes And Policy Recommendations, Sara Eldemerdash

Theses and Dissertations

With the rapid developments the Internet is witnessing, the topic of internet regulation sees itself taking center stage in a rising global debate among many stakeholders. This debate centers around hot topics and fundamentals such as the rights of free speech and access to information, intellectual property, as well as user and data privacy, and security issues. Egypt is no exception; especially after the uprising and mass demonstrations in 2011 and the growing concerns around internet regulation and freedom of expression.

This thesis aims at examining the development process of the current Internet regulation policy in Egypt to study its …

Re-Spatializing Gangs: An Exponential Random Graph Model Of Twitter Data To Analyze The Geospatial Distribution Of Gang Member Connections, Ryan J. Roberts

Political Science & Geography Faculty Publications

Gang studies often use location-based approaches to explain gang members’ interconnectedness. Although this perspective remains consistent with the proximity principle that the smaller the geographic space, the greater the likelihood of observing connections between individuals, location-based studies limit our understanding of gang member connections to narrowly defined geographic spaces at specific points in time. The advent of social media has re-spatialized gang member interconnectedness to unbounded geographic spaces, where the preservation of online activity can extend indefinitely. Despite having an online presence, most research examining the digital footprint of gangs tends to be descriptive. This study collects Twitter data to …

Social Media Self-Regulation And The Rise Of Vaccine Misinformation, Ana Santos Rutschman

All Faculty Scholarship

This essay examines the main characteristics and shortcomings of mainstream social media responses to vaccine misinformation and disinformation. Parts I and II contextualize the recent expansion of vaccine information and disinformation in the online environment. Part III provides a survey and taxonomy of ongoing responses to vaccine misinformation adopted by mainstream social media. It further notes the limitations of current self-regulatory modes and illustrates these limitations by presenting a short case study on Facebook—the largest social media vehicle for vaccine-specific misinformation, currently estimated to harbor approximately half of the social media accounts linked to vaccine misinformation. Part IV examines potential …

The Gay Men Who Play With Their Hiv Status., Matthew I. Euzarraga

Capstones

• Since the 90’s a group of individuals known as Bug Chasers, predominately gay men have been playing a game of cat and mouse actively wanting to be caught and infected with HIV. This is a dive into the world of bug chasing.

How Does How We Learn Influence What We Learn And From Whom We Learn: The Case Of Igen, Twitter, Bts Army, And Learning With Technology, Yuliya Dmitriyevna Goss

Dissertations and Theses

Digital information is omnipresent, and access is almost unavoidable. Technology advances and comes at us in waves that take over and then tend to linger. iGen is the first generation to be born into this advanced technology and the state of constant “plugged-inness” to the Internet. iGen has not experienced a different, predominantly analog, world, but baby boomers, generation X, and millennials – many of whom now use Internet-connected technology heavily – can attest to how they have changed as it integrated into their lives. Along with many other areas of life, learning has also changed with technological progress. From …

Social Media Impact On Urban Awareness In Saudi Arabia: An Empirical Study, Nahar Bahij, Mohammad Alghamdi

Emirates Journal for Engineering Research

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is one of the most active countries in social media, as it is leading the world in the number of active users on Snapchat and on the way to top the number of users on Instagram. Recently, many local and Arab influencers have launched accounts on social media platforms to create urban awareness among the public, which makes it a new phenomenon that needs to be studied.

This research aims to study the impact of social media platforms and applications on urban awareness in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The research used the methodology of …

Misinformation More Likely To Use Non-Specific Authority References: Twitter Analysis Of Two Covid-19 Myths, Joseph Mcglynn, Maxim Baryshevtsev, Zane A. Dayton

Communication Graduate Research

This research examines the content, timing, and spread of COVID-19 misinformation and subsequent debunking efforts for two COVID-19 myths. COVID-19 misinformation tweets included more non-specific authority references (e.g., “Taiwanese experts”, “a doctor friend”), while debunking tweets included more specific and verifiable authority references (e.g., the CDC, the World Health Organization, Snopes). Findings illustrate a delayed debunking response to COVID-19 misinformation, as it took seven days for debunking tweets to match the quantity of misinformation tweets. The use of non-specific authority references in tweets was associated with decreased tweet engagement, suggesting the importance of citing specific sources when refuting health misinformation.