Social Media Commons^™

Leicester Public Schools Information And Data Portal: Research And Recommendations, Yue Cen, Natalie Bonetti, Rashida Buchanan, Sathark Jain, Yuwei Wong

School of Professional Studies

The purpose of this project is to develop a strategy for the creation of a multifaceted portal to help with the organization and dissemination of information about the Leicester public school district. The functionality of this portal is to provide comparative financial, demographic, and academic data to other relative school districts in the area, both for the parents’ and for the city’s reference. It will be an examination into the best practices for creating a portal, both technological and aesthetic recommendations, as well as research into the value the publication of this data would provide for the parents of current …

Water In Worcester A Campaign For Public Fluoridation, Ryan Early, Xiao Gu, Yajing Huang, Lauren Meininger, Emma Phillips, Yao Su

School of Professional Studies

Water in Worcester: A Campaign for Public Fluoridation arose as a project from our sponsors, Chris Philbin, Vice President of Government Relations at UMass Memorial Health Care, and Joe O’Brien, former Worcester Mayor, Executive Director of the Environmental League of Massachusetts, and Clark University Adjunct Professor. Our goal has been to produce resources that will support the fight for fluoridation in the City of Worcester. Fluoridation has failed to pass in Worcester on four separate occasions, but Mr. Philbin and Mr. O’Brien believe that the time has come to try again.

In order to fluoridate Worcester’s water supply, the municipal …

Canine For Disabled Kids Awareness Campaign Research And Implementation Plan, Jiamin Gu, Kendall Harcourt, Chang Liu, Kiamu Liu, Jemmie Tejada

School of Professional Studies

According to the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) service animals are: “dogs that are individually trained to do work or perform tasks for people with disabilities” ( ADA, 2015). On the other hand, emotional support animals are: “dogs that provide comfort and support in forms of affection and companionship for an individual suffering from various mental and emotional conditions.” In addition, an emotional support animal is not required to perform any specific tasks for a disability like service dogs are (Ibid).

The ADA limits the number of questions that can be asked to protect the privacy of utilizers. In fact, …

Life Can Change In The Blink Of An Eye Capstone, Christopher Rutigliano, Jillian Elalaoui, Kristin Humphrey, Phillip Gates, Mohamed Ndjikam, Highness Meena, Adam Menard, Spencer Pickney

School of Professional Studies

Texting and driving is one of the most widespread and uncontrollable of epidemics that have arose to prominence in the 21st century. Texting and driving is now a global issue, that has left nations across the road scrambling to implement new laws and preventative measures to stunt the increasing rates of accidents and fatalities caused by texting and driving. The severity of the issue has lead to a multitude of different entities ranging from domestic and foreign governments, cell phone and car manufacturers, cell phone carriers, and insurance agencies to seek new methods to prevent texting and driving. Determining the …

A Social Media Plan For The Changemakers’ Playground, Meng Cong, Ciara Kilian, Xinling Wang, Sumanth Wilson, Chenyu Yan

School of Professional Studies

The purpose of this project was to create a social media plan for the Changemakers’ Playground campaign. The Changemakers’ Playground is a website thought up by our client, Sarah Lange, whereby ordinary individuals doing extraordinary things in their community can be celebrated for the work they are doing. Each person featured on the website, also known as a Changemaker, was interviewed by Sarah and that interview was split into three videos to be posted on the Changemakers’ Playground website throughout the week they are being featured. In short, our task was to create the Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram content to …

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.

Coming Together Around Hashtags: Exploring The Formation Of Digital Emergent Citizen Groups, Andrew S. Pyle, Brandon Boatwright

Publications

It has been well established that during and after crisis or emergency events, groups of citizens come together to help one another, solve problems, and manage recovery or cleanup. These groups are called emergent citizen groups. They form organically and often disband when the emergency is managed. This study proposes that similar types of groups now form in digital spaces during and after crises. The authors studied conversation on Twitter that used the hashtag “#PrayforUSC” after the murder-suicide that took place at the University of South Carolina in 2015. Initial results indicate that hashtags can function as focal points or …

Horsey Magazine An Online News Source For Dedicated High School Equestrians, Kathryn Krawczyk

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

Horsey is an online news source and community for high school equestrians. The project began with planning and building a Wordpress-based website, as well as building a visual identity for the brand. Since then, Horsey has posted more than two dozen features, lifestyle content, opinions, horse show coverage, and photo galleries. Beyond create robust, high-quality content, Horsey is also focused on building a brand and audience. Social media strategizing and search engine optimization techniques were utilized to build, retain and engage an audience in Horsey’s target demographic.

Reactions To Fda E-Cigarette Regulation : How Vape Shops In Different Socioeconomic Areas Of Kentucky Use Facebook., Brooke A. Moody

College of Arts & Sciences Senior Theses

In May 2016 the FDA deemed e-cigarettes a tobacco product. The “deeming rule” gave regulation to e-cigarettes where none had existed prior. Some of the regulations included: prohibiting the sale of e-cigarettes to minors, prohibiting giving away free e-cigarette products, requiring FDA-approved warning labels on e-cigarette packaging, and requiring pre-market authorization of all new e-cigarette products. The consequences of these regulations primarily affected e-cigarette manufacturers and vape shops, where most e-cigarette sales take place. In July 2017 the FDA announced an extended timeline for some e-cigarette regulations, citing the reason as having limited research on if, and how, e-cigarettes can …

Tweets From The Bully Pulpit: President Trump’S Twitter Habits And His Popularity, Josh Pavek

Political Science Theses and Capstones

One way that a President can use their position to indirectly effect legislation is through the messaging they present to the public. This idea has been termed the Bully Pulpit by political scholars and we have seen multiple different strategies for using this power. President Trump has shown a disdain for traditional media environments, opting instead to use Twitter as his primary means of communicating with the public in combination with some traditional methods as well. Is Twitter an effective use of the presidential office and the Bully Pulpit? I examine the effectiveness of Trump's communication methods by comparing his …

The Curated Chronicles Of The American Family: An Ideological Analysis Of The Love Taza Blog, Elizabeth Radley

Master's Theses

Named one of the top ten influencers of parenting by Forbes, Naomi Davis of the family-lifestyle Blog, Love Taza has transformed her family chronicles into a successful Internet business with an extensive following ("Top Influencers of 2017: Parenting"). This thesis examines the content of Love Taza to understand what messages Naomi communicates to her readers and how her readers may be receiving those messages. Using a sample of 600 posts from 2012-2017, a quantitative analysis was conducted to determine the type of content being presented. According to the findings, the majority of the posts included sponsored content and the most …

Sports Fan Interaction: A Comparison Of Teams To Determine The Common Thread Between Fan Engagement Across Social Media, Emma L. Ishee

Honors Theses

This study focused on the utilization of social media by collegiate athletic teams and how it relates to their interaction with their fan base. The aim of this study was to determine if a particular platform or post type gained the most fan interaction. The study also examined whether the men’s or women’s teams receive more interaction from fans. A random number generator selected three collegiate athletic teams from three different school in three conferences. Data was collected in the week leading up to the opening game. Ultimately, the results were not able to prove one type of post more …

Explaining Animosity Towards The Roma: A Case Study Of Twitter Communication In Italy During The Refugee Crisis, Mayuko Nakatsuka

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Italy is known for hostile treatment of the Roma, one of the largest ethnic minority groups in Europe. This paper seeks to understand what is causing Italians to talk negatively about the Roma on Twitter. Statistical analysis is performed utilizing the data mined from Twitter along with other variables. The study finds that Roma population, foreign population, and number of refugees all have significant effects on the total number of tweets or the average negative sentiment of tweets. The results indicate that native Italians may group minority groups all together and regard them as “others”. Although the research design has …

Eggplants And Peaches: Understanding Emoji Usage On Grindr, Emeka E. Moses

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study focuses on how gay men communicate on the Grindr dating app. Prior research has been conducted on how gay men construct their online identities, however, few studies explore how gay men experience interactions online, negotiate their relationships with other men online, and perceive other users. The researcher conducted in-depth interviews with 20 men who use the Grinder app, a location-based dating app used by men who have sex with men. Additional data were collected by observing user profiles on the app, which is free and public. This comprehensive, qualitative study of gay men who use Grindr provides insights …

The Motivations And Uses Of Instagram, Rehab Althobaiti

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Instagram is revolutionary in social media and networking, but little is known about the factors, social or psychological, that motivate users to become constant users on this app. A comprehensive survey was created, 277 college-aged Instagram users responded about their motivation, attitude, purpose, and primary activities regarding Instagram. The results show that Instagram users have five fundamental social and psychological motives: social interaction, archiving, self-expression, escapism, and peeking. Results showed that males were different from females in the following areas of using Instagram: create a personal space, interact with a number of people, keep in touch with friends far away, …

Learning Latent Characteristics Of Locations Using Location-Based Social Networking Data, Thanh Nam Doan

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

This dissertation addresses the modeling of latent characteristics of locations to describe the mobility of users of location-based social networking platforms. With many users signing up location-based social networking platforms to share their daily activities, these platforms become a gold mine for researchers to study human visitation behavior and location characteristics. Modeling such visitation behavior and location characteristics can benefit many use- ful applications such as urban planning and location-aware recommender sys- tems. In this dissertation, we focus on modeling two latent characteristics of locations, namely area attraction and neighborhood competition effects using location-based social network data. Our literature survey …

The Challenge Of Anonymous And Ephemeral Social Media: Reflective Research Methodologies & Student-User Composing Practices, Sara Elyse West

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This project seeks to provide a framework for navigating anonymous and ephemeral research spaces to theorize student-user composing practices on these social media platforms. This project reflects on and builds from the difficulties that arose during a previous project for which I collected data from a space that was both ephemeral and anonymous. That experience led me to the questions of use and research methods that I consider in this project, wherein I rely on critical reflective research practices to provide an effective methodology for examining the type of data in question. In this work, I consider how past and …

How College Campuses Are Using Social Media During Severe Weather Events, Emmale Davis

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study explores how college campuses are using social media during severe weather events. This topic surfaced after a tornado devastated Moore, Oklahoma in May 2013 and those displaced flocked to the University of Oklahoma campus after a post made on Twitter went viral prior to an official message being sent out by the university. In order to further explore this topic, a qualitative phenomenological case study was conducted at the following sites: University of Alabama, Missouri Southern State University, University of Oklahoma, and Florida State University. This study included observations of social media posts on Facebook and Twitter on …

Discovering Hidden Topical Hubs And Authorities In Online Social Networks, Roy Ka-Wei Lee, Tuan-Anh Hoang, Ee-Peng Lim

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Finding influential users in online social networks is an important problem with many possible useful applications. HITS and other link analysis methods, in particular, have been often used to identify hub and authority users in web graphs and online social networks. These works, however, have not considered topical aspect of links in their analysis. A straightforward approach to overcome this limitation is to first apply topic models to learn the user topics before applying the HITS algorithm. In this paper, we instead propose a novel topic model known as Hub and Authority Topic (HAT) model to combines the two process …

Political Journalists Tweet About The Final 2016 Presidential Debate, Hannah Hopper

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Past research shows that journalists are gatekeepers to information the public seeks. Using the gatekeeping and agenda-setting theory, this study used a content analysis of tweets from political journalists during the final 2016 presidential debate to examine social media usage in efforts to convey information to followers and whether social media has allowed for journalists to present a more transparent view of candidates to the public. This study used feminist political theory to further analyze whether the tweets from political journalists portrayed Hillary Clinton, the female candidate, with stereotypical “female” traits, such as more emotional and more trustworthy. Applying these …

“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 …

How To Be The Perfect Asian Wife!, Sophia Hill

Art and Art History Honors Projects

“How to be the Perfect Asian Wife” critiques exploitative power systems that assault female bodies of color in intersectional ways. This work explores strategies of healing and resistance through inserting one’s own narrative of flourishing rather than surviving, while reflecting violent realities. Three large drawings mimic pervasive advertisement language and presentation reflecting the oppressive strategies used to contain women of color. Created with charcoal, watercolor, and ink, these 'advertisements' contrast with an interactive rice bag filled with comics of my everyday experiences. These documentations compel viewers to reflect on their own participation in systems of power.

The Role Of Social Media In Small Museums In Michigan, Kaitlin Mcgrath

Honors Theses

Social media is now firmly ingrained in the daily life of many people. In order for museums to remain relevant in society, institutions like museums need to learn how to integrate this new technology into their practices. Small museums especially may have the most to gain from utilizing this technology in their institutions. These museums usually do not have access to as many resources as their larger counterparts. The challenge for museums is knowing how to use social media effectively. The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of social media in museums with a focus on small …

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 …

Social Media: On Tech-Caves, Virtual Panopticism, And The Science Fiction-Like State In Which We Unwittingly Find Ourselves, Michael Major

Theses

Making use of three historic philosophical thought experiments, this paper blends psychological perspectives with philosophical reasoning to show how social media is corrupting our perception of reality, the result of which is ultimately detrimental to society as a whole. This is accomplished by first using Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” to analyze and discuss the ways in which social media is limiting humanity’s access to real knowledge. Next, Michel Foucault’s analysis of punishment in its social context, Discipline and Punish, is used to discuss the ways in which social media is adversely affecting our behavior. Finally, Robert Nozick’s “Experience …

The Reification Of Hegemonic Masculinity Via Heteronormativity, Sexual Objectification, And Masculine Performances In Tau Kappa Epsilon Recruitment Videos, Viki Tomanov

Butler Journal of Undergraduate Research

Fraternity members constitute a large percentage of men who hold highly influential jobs in politics, large corporations, and the like. Since fraternities are limited to men-only, it is important to examine how masculinity is both rhetorically constructed and subsequently performed. Tau Kappa Epsilon (TKE), the fraternity with the largest amount of chapters nationwide, is the focus of my analysis. Its popularity among college campuses signifies that its recruitment is successful and that, regardless of initiation into the fraternity, many men (and women) view TKE as an example of masculinity. In my analysis, I examine TKE recruitment videos from various universities …

Causes For Editing On Instagram And Its Relation To Perfection And Peer Comparison, Alexandra Wiegand, Katie Kirkland, Latoya Tisdale

Research Horizons Day Posters

No abstract provided.

Donald J. Trump's Twitter Engagement During The 2016 Presidential Election Campaign: A Content Analysis Of Popularity Indicators, Amy Jones

Research Horizons Day Posters

No abstract provided.

Broadcasting The Search For Understanding: The Essay's Relationship With The Podcast, Miriam Bay Sweeney

Undergraduate Honors Theses

In this creative thesis project, I explore the relationship between the modern essay and the podcast. I do so by producing the first three episodes of my own essayistic podcast, called Peer-Refined Health. In this foundational exploration, I consider the value of the podcast as a new medium of communication for the essay. I begin this project report with a background on both the podcast and the essay as well as a discussion of my project development. The transcripts of three episodes of Peer-Refined Health follow. Finally, I analyze the relationship between the essay and the podcast and suggest additional …

Social Media Choices And Uses: Comparing Turkish And American Young-Adults' Social Media Activism, Barbara R. Burke, Ayşe Fulya Şen

Communication, Media, and Rhetoric Publications

Advocates of new media—especially social networks, blogs, and photo/content sharing sites—argue that these tools create transformative impacts on society. Recently, around the world younger activists in popular democracy movements, uprisings, and protests, feeling disengaged by traditional forms of political discourse, have debated their positions on new media, and have used digital media to communicate, organize, and coordinate protest activities. While some media scholars suggest this is an indication that young people are active in creating a public sphere constructed by social media, there is still little real-world evidence that the technological potentials are widely realized. To address this gap, this …