Social Media Commons^™

A Predictive Study Of Students Social Presence And Their Interconnectivities In The Social Network Interaction Of Online Discussion Board, Cherng-Jyh Yen, Chih-Hsiung Tu, Moussa Tankari, Emrah Emre Ozkeskin, Hoda Harati, Alexandra Miller

STEMPS Faculty Publications

Effective online interaction is beyond interacting with whomever. The quality of social interconnectivity matters. Social presence plays a vital role in building an effective online learning community. This study empirically examined: how online social presence will predict various aspects of students’ social interconnectivities (i.e., in-degree, out-degree, betweenness centrality, closeness centrality, eigenvector centrality, reciprocated vertex pair ratio, & PageRank) in the social network of discussion board within an online course? The predictive utility of social presence for all social network interconnectivity was supported, but reciprocated vertex pair ratio, so-called two-way interconnectivity was not. Social presence serves as a strong predictor for …

Source Credibility And Persuasive Communication: Effects On Social Media Influencers, Influencer Marketing, And Consumer Attitude Change, Isabelle Jia

CMC Senior Theses

Social psychology has long been researching how source credibility influences persuasive communication. With the world transitioning into a society interested in digital consumption, communication, and connection, this paper serves as a literature review of how different characteristics of source credibility can aid influencer credibility through various modes of social media messaging. The examination of three source credibility characteristics: 1) expertise, 2) trustworthiness, and 3) likability showcase how social media influencers can establish credibility with their consumers and build further connections with them. The results underline the importance of source credibility in influencing consumer attitude change and behavior over continued exposure …

Not All Influence Is Born Equal: On The Effects Of Various Types Of Behavioral Influence Relationships On Social Media, Chathurani Senevirathna

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

Typically, online social influence is analyzed using a single metric approach. However, social influence is not monolithic; different users exercise different influences in different ways, and influence is correlated with the user and content-specific attributes. One such attribute could be whether the action is an initiation of a new post, a contribution to a post, or a sharing of an existing post. Thus, this dissertation uses this platform-independent action classification and models the influence as multiple entities and examines social networks through the perspective of behavioral influence propagation. Two empirical studies are present in this dissertation. The first study presents …

Role Of Celebrities In Creating Brand Advocacy: An Analysis Of Social Media Users In Pakistan, Syeda Batool Abbas, Usamah Iyyaz Billah

Business Review

The purpose of this research study is to investigate the role of celebrities in creating brand advocacy for mobile phones amongst social media users of Pakistan. The role of celebrities has been tested through the constructs of celebrity attractiveness, trustworthiness and expertise while brand trust has been added as a mediator. The study variables of the research have been empirically tested for the first time for the mobile phone industry and from social media users. The theoretical framework was developed based on relevant research on the study topic. Research design of the study is Quantitative, one-shot, cross-sectional in nature. Data …

The Influence Of Institutional Social Media And College Students' Choice, Anna Fishbein

Masters Theses

Social media has become a way of personal communication as well as a way for brands and businesses to connect with consumers. In the past twenty years, the expansion of technology into everyday life has impacted the way we interact and communication. There is a lack of information surrounding how social media is influencing prospective students’ college choice. There are studies focused on student college choice, and studies focused on how social media impacts consumers, but there is limited research focused on bridging the two concepts. This quantitative study utilized a causal-comparative survey to explore the influence of institutional social …

Media And Peer Culture: Young People Sharing Norms And Collective Identities With And Through Media, Sun Sun Lim

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

When young people interact, they absorb the peer culture that underpins and sustains their relationships with each other. Peer culture encompasses norms and conventions, shared interests and activities, and the unique modes of communication deployed in the afore-mentioned elements. The ways in which young people integrate their media consumption into their peer culture is the focus of this chapter. Specifically, it examines how young people incorporate media content into their peer interactions and appropriate a variety of communication platforms to socialize with their peers, thus generating distinctive traits, norms, practices, codes and shared identities that make up their unique peer …

Digital News Literacy And Social Work: Core Competencies, Cynthia H. Nover

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Digital news refers to online news, television news, and other electronic sources where individuals can gather information about the world around them. As college students increasingly get their news from online sources and comedy television, it is important for students to have appropriate media literacy skills to evaluate content. The relationship between news literacy skills and core competencies of social work education is discussed in this paper, with recommendations for incorporating news literacy in the classroom.

Jitim Front Cover Vol 31 1 2022

Journal of International Technology and Information Management

Table of Content JITIM Vol 31. issue 1, 2022

Andrews University’S Thought Leadership Communication On Linkedin: A Textual Analysis, Nana Ama O. Akoto-Boateng

Master's Theses

Thought leadership is fast becoming a powerful communication tool for most industries and sectors including higher education institutions (HEIs). This study employed textual analysis to determine how Andrews University's thought leadership on LinkedIn compares with four other top-ranking Adventist universities, namely Loma Linda University, Pacific Union College, Southern Adventist University and Walla Walla University. The text elements that were analyzed during the study were image posts and video posts on the respective LinkedIn pages of these institutions, spanning from January 2021 to June 2021. Among other findings, the results of the study revealed that Andrews University compares as the least …

Exploring How Online Responses Change In Response To Debunking Messages About Covid-19 On Whatsapp, Xingyu Ken Chen, Jin-Cheon Na, Luke Kien-Weng Tan, Mark Chong, Murphy Choy

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Purpose: The COVID-19 pandemic has spurred a concurrent outbreak of false information online. Debunking false information about a health crisis is critical as misinformation can trigger protests or panic, which necessitates a better understanding of it. This exploratory study examined the effects of debunking messages on a COVID-19-related public chat on WhatsApp in Singapore. Design/methodology/approach: To understand the effects of debunking messages about COVID-19 on WhatsApp conversations, the following was studied. The relationship between source credibility (i.e. characteristics of a communicator that affect the receiver's acceptance of the message) of different debunking message types and their effects on the length …

Dark Social Influencer Engagement In Brand Communication, Jason Shi-Yang Lim, Claresta Si Ya Yeo, Weihui Leow, Xian Hui Ng, Augustine Pang

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Increasingly, consumers are seeking immediate and personalized communication with businesses (Facebook, 2018) and organizations are expected to engage customers in a two-way dialogue. Engagement encapsulates “high relevance of brands to consumers and the development of an emotional connection between consumers and brands” (Rappaport, 2007, p. 138). Online engagement connotes commitment to a relationship, “personified by the website or other computer-mediated entities designed to communicate brand value” (Mollen & Wilson, 2010, p. 923). To engage consumers, businesses are turning to social media influencers (SMIs), who have their own social networks online (Khamis et al., 2016). Growing concerns over privacy and control …

Trending Tubes: A Social Media Analysis Of Tympanostomy Tubes In Children, Nicholas A Rossi, Katherine R French, Chad L Evans, Jason F Ohlstein, Luis D Neve, Shiva Daram, Dayton L Young, Brian J Mckinnon, Harold S Pine

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the popular social media platforms Instagram and Facebook for public posts related to tympanostomy tubes in children, to discern attitudes and perceptions surrounding tympanostomy tubes, and to evaluate the content of social media posts related to tympanostomy tubes.

STUDY DESIGN: Qualitative study.

SETTING: Instagram and Facebook social media platforms.

METHODS: Instagram and Facebook were searched for public posts from 2018 and 2019 including the search terms "ear tubes,""ear tube surgery,""tympanostomy," and "myringotomy." Posts were excluded if they were unrelated to pediatric tympanostomy tubes or written in a non-English language. Relevant posts underwent subgroup analysis based on 6 …

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 …

Positive Family Relationships In A Digital Age: Hearing The Voice Of Young People, Nicola F. Johnson, Zoe Francis

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

This study focused on young people's perspectives about family relationships and how they can be strengthened or weakened through digital media practices. Located in Melbourne, Australia, 20 participants aged between 13 and 17 years were interviewed about how digital devices and practices shaped the way they interacted with family. The thematic analysis points to the young people's commitment to family cohesion. This was demonstrated through responsible use of social media, admitting the need for device-free time, acknowledging the challenges of being online, and their sense of responsibility as a family member, which informed and shaped the way they individually acted.

Private And Federated Deep Learning: System, Theory, And Applications For Social Good, Han Hu

Dissertations

During the past decade, drug abuse continues to accelerate towards becoming the most severe public health problem in the United States. The ability to detect drug­abuse risk behavior at a population scale, such as among the population of Twitter users, can help to monitor the trend of drug­abuse incidents. However, traditional methods do not effectively detect drug­abuse risk behavior in tweets, mainly due to the sparsity of such tweets and the noisy nature of tweets. In the first part of this dissertation work, the task of classifying tweets as containing drug­abuse risk behavior or not, is studied. Millions of public …

Discovering The Lived Experiences Of Graduate Students In The Virtual Space: Reflections And Lessons From A Phenomenological Inquiry, Ernesto Cordero Collo

Informasi

The COVID-19 pandemic has radically reshaped the academic life of graduate students and revealed the inequities in the traditional education system in the Philippines. This study is a qualitative navigation of the lived accounts of development communication (devcom) graduate students at the University of the Philippines Los Baños. It foregrounds devcom as a field of theory and practice in honor of its pioneer Professor Emeritus Nora C. Quebral and her contribution to the ferment of the field. The credence of phenomenology informed the direction of this research in addressing a paucity of literature that examines the experiences of graduate students …

Online Da'wah As Hijra Commodification Practice In Media By @Indonesiatanpapacaran Movement, Syarifah Nur Aini, Awanis Akalili

Informasi

Dakwah discussing Islamic values are not only obtainable through religious lectures, television broadcasts, or certain book category. Dakwah could also be performed by using social media; a medium that is dominated by milennials. Dakwah performed by @indonesiatanpapacaran, is an example for dakwah movement in social media. This account is favored by individuals who pursue "hijrah" (hegira/hijra). Not only introducing the nurture of Islamic values, this account also has its profitable business going. Some religious narrations could function as commodity materials, both online and offline. In the end of the day, the capitalist could gain great benefit by this account's movement. …

Investigating Vertical Social Media Impact Through Influencer On Risky Sexual Behavior Among Adolescents In Indonesia, Raidah Intizar Yusuf

Informasi

Social media has been identified as a factor in adolescents' adoption of risky sexual behavior. This research is here to answer whether social media has a vertical effect on adopting risky sexual behavior, given the increasing number of influencers on the platform. We sought the connection of whether influencers can influence the dating standards of adolescents, which will end up contributing to the adoption of risky sexual behavior. As risky sexual behavior is becoming more prevalent in Makassar, we picked Makassar adolescents as our study object. We also compared urban and rural by including Maros adolescents. Data were collected data …

The Evolution Of The Internet And Social Media: A Literature Review, Charles Alves De Castro, Isobel O'Reilly Dr, Aiden Carthy

Articles

This article reviews and analyses factors impacting the evolution of the internet, the web, and social media channels, charting historic trends and highlight recent technological developments. The review comprised a deep search using electronic journal databases. Articles were chosen according to specific criteria with a group of 34 papers and books selected for complete reading and deep analysis. The 34 elements were analysed and processed using NVIVO 12 Pro, enabling the creation of dimensions and categories, codes and nodes, identifying the most frequent words, cluster analysis of the terms, and creating a word cloud based on each word's frequency. The …

What Interactive Web Features Are Most Used, Travis Tyler

Experiential Learning Projects

The use of interactive features in websites has become common place on the internet. People use these tools to help navigate and understand the content related to that website. However, due the large variety of websites it can be tricky to understand what features are best to utilize based on the topic of your site. This paper seeks to address this issue by researching how users interact and utilized different features on different websites. Research is gathered via scholarly articles and direct data gathered from volunteers. This data shows users tend to favor more interactive tools to help with navigation, …

Improving Networking Supports For Women In The Workplace, Karen E. Pennesi, Javier Alvarez Vandeputte, Zsofia Agoston, Rawand Amsdr

Anthropology Publications

This report describes findings from research on networking activities and strategies among women in executive and leadership positions in Canadian organizations. The project was carried out by graduate student researchers in collaboration with the Women's Executive Network. Networking is defined as the creation and maintenance of a community of diverse interests, through in-person and online engagements, that can be mobilized for the benefit of oneself or other members of one’s network. We found that the shift to primarily online networking activities due to COVID-19 removed some existing barriers related to age, gender and location, while introducing others related to family …

The Effects Of Deepfakes And Synthetic Media On Communication Professionals, Axel Ebermann

Student Theses and Dissertations

The spread of misinformation and disinformation is regarded as one of the most salient challenges for communication professionals around the world.

Now, a new technology called "DeepFakes" or “Synthetic Media” has the potential to further uproot the infosphere. Artificial Intelligence (AI) will enable the mass creation of synthetic audio-visual content that resembles real videos, in which people will appear to say or do things they never actually said or did.

The existing literature predominantly focuses on three aspects of DeepFakes and Synthetic Media: the technical background, coverage of preexisting DeepFakes and possible solutions to combat the malicious use of the …

The Devotees To Disconnection, Keith Paul Medelis

Capstones

The richest and most connected people are paying to log offline, leaving the rest of us tethered to our devices. We want in on their secret. But at what cost?

Building Trust And Community With Sex Workers On Instagram, Madeline Faber

Capstones

This Engagement Journalism project examines how sex workers communicate on social media after the 2018 passage of SESTA/FOSTA laws (Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act and Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act). Through building a sex worker-positive Instagram profile, I learned from sex workers how they share information with each other under the radar of Instagram. This bears relevance for journalists who seek to understand the limits of content moderation machines, which imprecisely censor vulnerable groups.

(Engagement J/Will share link later)

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 …

Engaged Social Media In Higher Education While Avoiding The Label Of "Striving", Jessica Nerren

Journal of Critical Issues in Educational Practice

Striving has become a word laden with problematic meanings in the world of higher education. For instance, if a university is too aligned with business, or becomes overly selective, or deviates from original purpose or mission, then, at times, those actions are seen as striving (O’Meara, 2007). O’Meara (2007) defines striving as participation in efforts to improve status and prestige in line with the hierarchy. Allen (2021) echoes the problematic nature of this practice witnessed abroad, equating striving educational practices with neoliberalism, potentially overshadowing primary purposes of the institution, such as learning and teaching, or drowning out important parts of …

Small Farmers’ Use Of Social Media And Other Channels For Marketing Their Agricultural Products, Carlos Alberto Moreno-Ortiz, Donna J. Peterson Dr., Alba J. Collart, Laura Downey, Susan Seal, Roberto Gallardo

Journal of Extension

We examined small farmers’ use of and preference for different channels for marketing agricultural products and explored differences by gender, age group, and education level. Farmers markets and social media were preferred channels, with participants under age 55 being more likely than those 55 and over to prefer and use social media and agree that social media would be useful for promoting products and increasing sales. While selling via social media could provide a larger market, one challenge is that the average age of Mississippi farm operators is 59. Therefore, Extension must consider multiple approaches for delivering training on marketing.

Walking Into A News Desert: How Arkansas College Newspapers Are Coping With The Decline In Print Journalism, David Keith

Dissertations

News deserts is a reference to geographic areas — most commonly counties — where no newspaper is published. The number of these areas continues to grow as more newspapers shut their doors because of financial difficulties brought on by a lack of advertising, a lack of readers, and the shift to online news consumption. College students studying journalism find themselves on the cusp of entering a profession where the number of workplaces and jobs is shrinking. They know it and the advisers of their college newspapers know it. Even with this arid prospect before them, the students are reporting news …

Covid-19'S Impact On Communication Practices In The Animal Welfare Nonprofit Sector, Tiffany M. Davis

Master of Arts in Professional Writing Capstones

Historically, writing and communication practices have been vital components in the nonprofit sector. With the rise of the COVID-19 pandemic, the writing and communication practices within the nonprofit sector have been forced to adapt and change for organizations to continue disseminating their missions and continuing fundraising. Specifically, animal welfare nonprofit organizations have had to shift their communication practices in the wake of the virus. This capstone aims to answer questions about the value of writing and communication practices, and also answer research questions about the effects of COVID-19 on the animal welfare nonprofit sector. Through secondary and primary research, in …

Bringing Instagram Posts Into Being: A Study Of Fyc Students' Self-Sponsored Posting Practices And Transfer Opportunities, Jessica Kester

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

Social media platforms have offered students—and all of us—more opportunities for self-sponsored writing. In response to calls from researchers to explore students' 21st-century writing practices and their relevance to college writing instruction, this dissertation articulated and applied a feminist teacher research methodology and a mixed-methods research design to explore first-year composition (FYC) students' self-sponsored writing practices, attitudes, and transfer opportunities on a popular, albeit under-examined, social media application: Instagram. This study found that students have developed elaborate, rhetorical, multimodal composing processes that include planning, drafting, evaluating, selecting, and styling images as well as planning, drafting/revising, and styling captions. Additionally, though …