Social Media Commons^™

Author Topic Model-Based Collaborative Filtering For Personalized Poi Recommendations, Shuhui Jiang, Xueming Qian, Jialie Shen, Yun Fu, Tao Mei

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

From social media has emerged continuous needs for automatic travel recommendations. Collaborative filtering (CF) is the most well-known approach. However, existing approaches generally suffer from various weaknesses. For example, sparsity can significantly degrade the performance of traditional CF. If a user only visits very few locations, accurate similar user identification becomes very challenging due to lack of sufficient information for effective inference. Moreover, existing recommendation approaches often ignore rich user information like textual descriptions of photos which can reflect users' travel preferences. The topic model (TM) method is an effective way to solve the "sparsity problem," but is still far …

The Effects Of Humorous Facebook Posts On Messenger Credibility And Social Attractiveness, Brett A. Stoll

The Hilltop Review

The purpose of this study was to determine the effect that humorous Facebook messages have on perceived source credibility and social attractiveness. Social networking sites (SNS) such as Facebook continue to rise in popularity, solidifying their ongoing presence and influence for the foreseeable future. As users continue to look for ways to manage interpersonal impressions online, many turn to humor in public wall posts and message feeds. With humor proliferating the content of nearly 20% of Facebook posts, it begs the question of what effect its use has on impression management. To address this question, the researcher asked 283 participants …

Media Use And International Engagement, Brenna Parish

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

The internet’s interactive composition and fluid interface has changed the way in which individuals acquire information, and has given consumers of news media a means to access a large amount of information regarding political content and international issues. Furthermore, the internet provides users the choice of the information that they consume, which contrasts the rigid, predetermined nature of televised news media. Because of this, this research project will compare the effects of both television and internet media on engagement in international affairs in order to examine the difference between old and new forms of media. Through a statistical analysis of …

"Debate: Millennials Don't Stand A Chance" Devised, Documentary And Immersive Theatre: The Story Of Everymillennial, Sean R. Byrne

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

This thesis aims to discover how communitas can be created through theatrical performances by blurring the line between audience and performer as well as performer and character. The topic of the Millennial generation is used as a thematic element in performance to emphasize the creation of community. A theatrical form will be introduced, called the “Living Biography:” a method of devising based on devising, documentary, and immersive theatre. This form will be shown as one possible option in creating communitas in a performance. While other forms of audience inclusion are frequently used, it will be argued that the “Living Biography” …

"All The World's A Stage:" A Social Media Project For The American Shakespeare Center, Lauren D. Ambrose

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

As the nation’s only original re-creation of Shakespeare’s indoor theater, The American Shakespeare Center plays a lead role in its local area of Staunton, Virginia. The organization boasts a prominent following in the theatre and on Facebook; however, its remaining social media accounts have been stuck in the Renaissance. In November 2014, the ASC got an update in the form of a new cast member—the “What’s Your Shakespeare Personality?” quiz and web based application. Using extensive research into local demographics, audience and arts trends and social media usage, this project sought to assist the organization in the application’s launch and …

Organizational Use Of Social Media: The Shift In Communication, Collaboration And Decision-Making, Dhruvi A. Naik

Masters Theses, 2010-2019

Organizational use of social media: The shift in communication, collaboration and decision-making

Social media has driven organizational communication, collaboration and decision-making in recent times. This thesis focuses first on the popularity and widespread usage of social media like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn and how it has provided businesses with platforms to collaborate and communicate virtually. It then explores how organizations can implement social media for the purpose of external marketing and advertising, to connect to consumers and for the purpose of internal communications. For example, how can organizations tap the potential of social media and connect with consumers? Social media …

The Sentence Continues: Breaking Silences And Becoming Authors Through The Semicolon Project, Brooke E. Covington

Masters Theses, 2010-2019

Through its many digital platforms, The Semicolon Project, a suicide and self-harm prevention initiative, offers its users a creative means of using writing to heal. As its name suggests, the semicolon is an essential mark for this group—grammatically a semicolon represents a place in the sentence that an author could have ended and for the members of this prevention initiative, the semicolon acts in a similar way. By tattooing or drawing a semicolon on the body, the semicolon bearer embody a sense of authorial agency, positioning herself as author and using the semicolon as a representation of her dedication to …

7 Tips To Grow Your Rural Business With Purpose And Meaning, Connie I. Reimers-Hild, Alyssa Dye

Community Vitality Initiative

No one can predict the future; however, rural entrepreneurs and business owners can use a future-focused leadership approach, which includes examining megatrends, to shape the future of their businesses. Megatrends are global shifts that influence society, the economy and the environment. The purpose of this article is to help rural entrepreneurs discover ways to grow their businesses with Living with Purpose and Meaning Megatrend.

Student-Athletes’ Attitudes And Beliefs Towards Social Media, Emily Boissonneault

Graduate Theses

The purpose of this study was to identify the attitudes and beliefs of student athletes towards social media. To address this question, student athletes completed a survey focused specifically on: the image they present on social media profiles, content included, and their thoughts on the social media education provided by their athletic department. Student athlete (SA) responses were also compared to non-athletes (NA) for a better understanding of social media profiles. Frequencies showed strong similarities in a number of content shared or not shared, like humorous photos (SA 74.1% and NA 73.3%) and sexy photos (SA 82.4% and NA 82.6%). …

Approaching Ideals Through Innovation: Twentieth And Twenty-First Century Mass Media Technology And American Democracy, Elizabeth Brand Cermak

Senior Theses

From the moment our First Amendment was adopted, America’s ideal of democracy has been firmly intertwined with media communications between the President and the citizenry. Over time, technological advancements have altered the way this communication is facilitated, increasing the public’s access to the Office of the Presidency, and visa versa, via new forms of media. Through an examination of Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s use of the radio, the first televised debate between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon in 1960, and Barack Obama’s use of Social Media and the Internet, this thesis will seek to answer the question of whether the …

Social Media Marketing In Midterm Political Campaigns & Its Effect On Political Activity, Samantha M. Beaupre

Honors Projects in Marketing

No abstract provided.

Organizational Use Of Social Networking In Employment Actions, Cameron R. Lile

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

This study examined federal court cases related to the use of social media websites (e.g., Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, LinkedIn) in various employment practices (e.g., selection, promotion, employee monitoring, layoffs). Court cases were identified using various online databases in an attempt to create an exhaustive list of cases to be used to better understand the role that social media has played in organizational settings and the legal implications of its use. The results of this study show that there were a significant number of cases involving termination and Facebook, and organizations prevailed in court significantly more than the defendant did. The …

External Organizational Identification, Parasocial Relationships, And Social Media Use, Lindsey Webb Dancy

Dissertations

The pervasive use of the Internet for social purposes has led to organizational and social change, as well as social movements online throughout the world. Of particular interest in this study is commitment to organizations by patrons and stakeholders showcased via social media outlets. This research includes a review of organizational identification, parasocial relationships and social media research followed by a detailed description of the method, which included the creation and testing of a questionnaire examining the organizational identification and parasocial relationships of external publics, and their social media use. A hypothesis is put forth suggesting that there is a …

Facing Technology : Creative Solutions To Real-World Problems., Taylor Juanita Beisler

College of Arts & Sciences Senior Theses

We are shaped by technology. This simple idea has become more familiar to social scientists, technical engineers, and some tech users. The first section of this thesis finds unfavorable consequences of constant social media usage, such as unawareness, behavioral and cogitative modifications, and disconnection as societal ills. The second part of this thesis explains how these social side effects can be best ameliorated by “serious” designers, or those whose work is conceptual with real world applications (McLuhan, 8). The final section proposes a creative expression as it relates to bringing awareness to the social side effects of tech usage, linking …

Media And Self Representative Perceptions: Deception In Online Dating, Lindsay Hildebrandt

Honors College Theses

Even with the increasing popularity of online dating, stigmas surrounding this form of internet connection persist. Since society is inundated with images of deception in online dating, those who have never experienced online dating may believe that mass media accurately represents this type of communication. This study’s main research question asks if perceptions about online dating differ between users and non-users; furthermore, these differences will be taken into account when regarding the prominence of mass media in shaping these impressions.

Currently, digital communication is a societal norm; more and more of our lives are documented and facilitated by the internet. …

Characterizing Silent Users In Social Media Communities, Wei Gong, Ee-Peng Lim, Feida Zhu

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Silent users often constitute a significant proportion of an online user-generated content system. In the context of social media such as Twitter, users can opt to be silent all or most of the time. They are often called the invisible participants or lurkers. As lurkers contribute little to the online content, existing analysis often overlooks their presence and voices. However, we argue that understanding lurkers is important in many applications such as recommender systems, targeted advertising, and social sensing. This research therefore seeks to characterize lurkers in social media and propose methods to profile them. We examine 18 weeks of …

Breaking The News: First Impressions Matter On Online News, Julio Reis, Fabr´Icio Benevenuto, Pedro Olmo, Raquel Prates, Haewoon Kwak, Jisun An

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

A growing number of people are changing the way they consume news, replacing the traditional physical newspapers and magazines by their virtual online versions or/and weblogs. The interactivity and immediacy present in online news are changing the way news are being produced and exposed by media corporations. News websites have to create effective strategies to catch people’s attention and attract their clicks. In this paper we investigate possible strategies used by online news corporations in the design of their news headlines. We analyze the content of 69,907 headlines produced by four major global media corporations during a minimum of eight …

Narrative Advertising, Meng Li

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Brand meaning, which is often used in narrative advertising, is an important value that companies try to build around their loyal consumers. This exploratory research aims to explore brand meanings from consumers’ narratives. This study analyzed 2,382 consumer submitted narratives for a real brand in the food service marketplace. Brand narratives were analyzed using a mixed method content analysis approach by applying Leximancer software to generate key themes and their related concepts. The results indicate brand meaning with some thematic similarities as well as differences when comparing narratives submitted by females and males. This exploratory study introduces analyzing narrative as …

Gender, Personality, And Self Esteem As Predictors Of Social Media Presentation, Heng Zhang

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In an age when people make and maintain relationships in online environments, creating and sustaining impressions online becomes equally important. For a better understanding of social networking sites usage, the present study examines the influence of gender, personality, and selfesteem on social media presentation. The goal of this study is to investigate individuals‘ expressions through social media in order to determine if they reflect the author‘s gender, personality, and levels of self-esteem. Quantitative analysis was used in this study through survey and SPSS content analysis. The researcher found that neuroticism was related to selfpresentation, and agreeableness is related to Facebook …

Media Literacy For The 21st Century. A Response To "The Need For Media Education In Democratic Education", Peter Levine

Democracy & Education

We cannot pretend to educate young people for citizenship and political participation without teaching them to understand and use the new media, which are essential means of expressing ideas, forming public opinions, and building institutions and movements. But the challenge of media literacy education is serious. Students need advanced and constantly changing skills to be effective online. They must understand the relationship between the new media and social and political institutions, a topic that is little understood by even the most advanced social theorists. And they must develop motivations to use digital media for civic purposes, when no major institutions …

Use Of Social Media To Promote Continuous Learning: A Phased Strategy For Graduate Medical Education Fellowship Implementation, Jaswant Singh Basraon, Deborah Simpson, Anjan Gupta

Journal of Patient-Centered Research and Reviews

Purpose

Clinical developments continue to grow at an accelerated rate, challenging the existing paradigm of information access, dissemination and learning by trainees. The aim of this study was to deliver relevant, concise and newly emerging information on cardiovascular disease using Twitter, and assess its impact.

Methods

A Twitter account for our institution’s cardiovascular disease fellowship program was established. All fellows and faculty were encouraged to follow tweets for clinical developments. To assess Twitter use, participation rates and the number of tweets by topics and followers were tracked longitudinally. Impact on fellows was assessed through a brief evaluation survey and an …

Become A Future-Focused Leader: Use Three Megatrends To Grow Your Rural Business, Connie Reimers-Hild, Alyssa Dye

Community Vitality Initiative

No one can predict the future; however, rural entrepreneurs and business owners can use a future-focused leadership approach, which includes examining megatrends, to shape the future of their businesses. Megatrends are global shifts that influence society, the economy and the environment. This article discusses three megatrends shaping the future of rural businesses:

1) The Rise of the #GigEconomy

2) Living with Purpose and Meaning

3) The Decentralized Marketplace

The article also provides coaching tips for rural entrepreneurs on how to use megatrends to grow their businesses.

While many companies are struggling to keep up with the rapid rate of change, …

Just Text Me, Allyson Hight

Symposium of Student Scholars

The changes that language, discourse, and media undergo on a daily basis directly affect how people relate and communicate. In my project, I researched how communication is changing and the ways that those changes affect how able and willing people are to connect with one another on a meaningful level. With recent changes in technology and discourse, people have smaller attention spans and less willingness to really get to know people. As many rely more and more on technology for information, they rely less and less on other people and “real” communication. People have smaller attention spans in most areas, …

Mathematical Modeling Of Trending Topics On Twitter, Jonathan S. Skaza

Honors Projects in Mathematics

Created in 2006, Twitter is an online social networking service in which users share and read 140-character messages called Tweets. The site has approximately 288 million monthly active users who produce about 500 million Tweets per day. This study applies dynamical and statistical modeling strategies to quantify the spread of information on Twitter. Parameter estimates for the rates of infection and recovery are obtained using Bayesian Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) methods. The methodological strategy employed is an extension of techniques traditionally used in an epidemiological and biomedical context (particularly in the spread of infectious disease). This study, which addresses …

Social Marketing: Delivering On Passion, Singapore Management University

Perspectives@SMU

Focus on your audience’s desire and motivations, and deliver your product’s unique proposition with every interaction on social media

The Digital Gap: An Investigation Into The Access And Use Of Internet In Matagalpa, Nicaragua, Kayla Steinberg

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Although still less than 20 percent of the Nicaraguan population has access to the internet, in the years preceding 2012, internet in Nicaragua grew by 113 percent. This rapid development of internet in the country generates several questions, including: “Who has access to the internet in Nicaragua?,” Where are they using the internet?,” and “How are they using it?” This paper answers these three questions and investigates how the answers differ between different demographic groups, especially between young and older people and women and men, through the results of a survey distributed primarily in a public park with free wifi …

Effects Of Online Sponsored Advertising On Consumer Attitudes, Cassidy Maksy

Honors Projects in Marketing

Effectively utilizing persuasion techniques in advertising is essential for businesses to master in order to stay ahead of its competitors. This research project investigates the ways in which marketers advertise brands and products in the online environment, specifically on the social networking sites Twitter and Facebook. More specifically, the implementation of different techniques and credibility of sources will be examined to help gauge the effectiveness of advertisements. By utilizing the constructs of the Persuasion Knowledge Model and source credibility, the attitudes toward brands and advertisements within the online environment was tested. The goal of this research is to evaluate the …

Logged In And Engaged: Examining How Social Media Can Develop, Maintain, And Increase College Student Engagement, Matthew Moquin

Higher Education Student Work

The purpose of this study was to examine how student affairs professionals, primarily those working in student involvement, utilized various social media technologies to increase their engagement with undergraduate college students. This study utilized Astin’s (1984) theory of student involvement, as well as a collection of literature surrounding the impact of social media on college students and their engagement in order to understand the influence social media can have when engaging with students. Since there is a limited amount of literature and research surrounding the subject of social media and its role in student engagement, a study was done that …

Using Support Vector Machine Ensembles For Target Audience Classification On Twitter, Siaw Ling Lo, Raymond Chiong, David Cornforth

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

The vast amount and diversity of the content shared on social media can pose a challenge for any business wanting to use it to identify potential customers. In this paper, our aim is to investigate the use of both unsupervised and supervised learning methods for target audience classification on Twitter with minimal annotation efforts. Topic domains were automatically discovered from contents shared by followers of an account owner using Twitter Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA). A Support Vector Machine (SVM) ensemble was then trained using contents from different account owners of the various topic domains identified by Twitter LDA. Experimental results …

A Critical Analysis: Infusion Of Social Media And Traditional Media Strategies And Tactics In The Recipe For Success For Local, Main Street Usa Restaurants, Tori Partykevich

Senior Honors Projects

Restaurants can benefit greatly from carefully constructed public relations efforts. A strong plan and a dedicated use of both traditional and new media can help restaurants grow their business. It can be much more difficult for local, mom & pop restaurants to gain the attention that will boost their business than for large corporate chain companies who already have a well-known name. A positive public image of a restaurant is vital to its success and public relations strategies can help this to be achieved.

A solid social media presence, community involvement, local newspaper advertisements, special offers and public events can …