Social Media Commons^™

Social Networking And The Perception Of Privacy Within The Millennial Generation, Andra Gumbus, Frances S. Grodzinsky, Stephen J. Lilley

WCBT Faculty Publications

Has technology caused a generational divide between current college age users (Millennial Generation) who have no problems posting intimate details of their personal life on the Web and more traditional older users who seem to value privacy? This paper presents the results of a survey of 251 university students and follow-up focus groups on the topic of the perceptions of social networking and privacy. We will use Facebook as an example of social networking, and review attitudes about privacy and control over personal information among traditional and non-traditional college age users and light and heavy users of social networking sites.

The Role Of Guanxi Network In The Corruption-Efficiency Relationship, Shaomin Li

Management Faculty Publications

Why do some countries like China thrive economically despite of corruption? The effect of corruption on economic efficiency is moderated by whether a society has an extensive informal social network such as the guanxi network in China. In societies with a thick, extensive informal social network, bribery- corruption relationship can be easily established and the risk of being reported is low. This relation-based trust makes the dissemination of corruption goods--the sale of government goods for private gains--more market-based. The competition among potential bribers increases the efficiency of corruption (or making corruption less wasteful). In societies that lack such strong informal …

A Study Of How Social Media Is Being Integrated Into The Irish Pr Industry And The Effects Of This On The Profession., Denise Haran

Theses

This thesis explores the effects that social media is having on the Public Relations (PR) profession in Ireland it also looks at the characteristics of PR 2.0. In this it aims to look at particular aspects of the industry to see how they are being affected by social media including monitoring, reputation management, communication models and traditional media usage as well as looking at which social media platforms are used. The study will also look at PR professionals opinions on social media in Ireland.

A qualitative research design was chosen for this study and the primary method of data collection …

How Independent Irish Music Artists Are Practising Online Pr Techniques By Utilising Social Media Tools., Áine Cullen

Theses

This Dissertation explores how the evolution of social media is enabling Irish Independent music artists to publicise their music. It aims to explore the online public relations techniques that Independent Irish music artists are using and determine whether they are embracing it.

A qualitative research design was chosen and the primary method used to gather the data were in-depth interviews with PR professionals in the music industry, PR directors, major record labels. Independent record labels and Irish music artists that practice social media.

The research findings reveal how beneficial social media are for Independent music artists and show how social …

Assessing The Impact Of Social Media On The Celebrity Industry: A Public Relations Perspective, Jessica O'Sullivan

Theses

There has been an increased interest from academics, public relations professionals and industry professionals in the importance of social media in the role of public relations. This study aims to contribute to the understanding of the effect social media has on the celebrity industry, from a public relations perspective.

A qualitative research design was chosen, and the primary methods used to gather the data were semi-structured interviews with online communication professionals from the public relations industry and an online music producer who uses various forms of social media to distribute and promote his music. All interviewees were chosen due to …

The Administration Of Community College Blogs: Considering Control And Adaptability In Loosely Coupled Systems, Troy A. Swanson

Educational Leadership & Workforce Development Theses & Dissertations

The purpose of this study using a multiple case study method is (1) to further the understanding of how community college administrators and blog authors strike a balance between organizational control and adaptability when implementing and using blog technologies and (2) to create a model that will help administrators better strike this balance within a loosely coupled system of college units and individuals. The rise of Web 2.0 technologies, which allows for direct publication to the Internet, presents two conundrums for community colleges: the conundrum of control and the conundrum of adaptability. As the oldest implementation of Web 2.0 technologies, …

The 2008 United States Senate Elections: A Typology Of Negative Themes On Candidate-Sponsored Websites, Erin Brining Hammond

Dissertations

The following study is an examination of the negativity on candidate-sponsored websites for the 2008 United States Senate candidates. Results of a content analysis indicated that negative themes identified were more likely to be oppositional than comparative (Johnson-Cartee & Copeland, 1991) and were more likely to be characterbased than policy-based (Benoit, 1999, 2007). The majority of negative themes were identified as focusing on issue stands rather than political record, job experience, criminal activities, religion, marriage/sex life, family members, medical history, or personal life (Johnson-Cartee & Copeland's, 1989).

Results of the content analysis go against the assumption of functional theory (Benoit, …

Citizens’ Local Political Knowledge And The Role Of Media Access, Lee Shaker

Communication Faculty Publications and Presentations

Locally based media institutions that have been at the core of citizens' media environments for generations are facing an onslaught of new competition from new media. The twin goals of this article are to expand our understanding of the distribution of local political knowledge in general and to specifically examine the relevance of media access. The article suggests that media access does bear upon levels of local political knowledge and confirms that citizens who are knowledgeable about local politics do not mirror the profile of those who are knowledgeable about national politics.

Using Facebook To Connect With Students, Jared L. Howland

Faculty Publications

This poster was presented at the Library Information and Technology Association's 2009 National Forum in Salt Lake City, Utah.

First Acm Sigmm International Workshop On Social Media (Wsm'09), Suzanne Boll, Steven C. H. Hoi, Jiebo Luo, Rong Jin, Dong Xu, Irwin King

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

No abstract provided.

First Acm Sigmm International Workshop On Social Media (Wsm'09), Suzanne Boll, Steven C. H. Hoi, Jiebo Luo, Rong Jin, Dong Xu, Irwin King

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

The ACM SIGMM International Workshop on Social Media(WSM’09) is the first workshop held in conjunction withthe ACM International Multimedia Conference (MM’09) atBejing, P.R. China, 2009. This workshop provides a forumfor researchers and practitioners from all over the world toshare information on their latest investigations on social mediaanalysis, exploration, search, mining, and emerging newsocial media applications.

Anas, Mias And Wannas: Authenticity And Embodiment In Pro-Anorexia Discussion Groups, Natalie Boero, C. Pascoe

Faculty Publications, Sociology

This paper details the making of community and bodies in online environments, specifically the online pro-anorexia community. Building community among members of these groups is particularly fraught because tensions over claims to authenticity permeate these groups. Because these are embodied practices and online spaces are presumably disembodied, participants constantly grapple with authenticity, largely through the threat of the "wannarexic." This paper documents the way in which tensions around authenticity and embodied practices are managed through treatment of the wannarexic, participating in group rituals, and deployment of individual tools. Participants grapple with these tensions through engaging in offline bodily rituals that …

August Roundtable: Introduction

Human Rights & Human Welfare

An annotation of:

The Two Faces of Twitter: Revolution in a Digital Age. By Darrell West. The Huffington Post. July 30, 2009.

Twitter And Youtube: Positive Developments For Human Rights Protection?, Nicola Colbran

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A number of statements have been made regarding the benefit to human rights protection of advances in technology. However, can these advances also have a negative impact?

Focusing on instant messaging and social network services such as Twitter and YouTube, the positives are quickly apparent. They can draw immediate attention to human rights violations that may otherwise go unnoticed, allow interested parties to stay abreast of developments in the protection of human rights, and create strength and courage in numbers for action that may not be anticipated by the perpetrator. These services also enable human rights activists to tweet their …

Stop The Revolution, Michael Jackson Is Dead!, William Paul Simmons

Human Rights & Human Welfare

We won’t soon forget the rapid fire pace of “tweets” and Facebook posts direct from the streets of Tehran. The haunting images of Neda Agha Soltan shocked the consciences of hundreds of thousands around the globe as it went “viral.”

Protest, Iranian Style: A Two-Way Conversation?, Shareen Hertel

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Darrell West gets it right when he argues that despite their promise, digital technologies alone “cannot produce revolutions. To generate fundamental change, it still takes strong leadership, powerful ideas, and people willing to risk detention and imprisonment.” West is writing about Iran—and the critical role that social networking has played in fostering social protest in the wake of a disputed election in that country. He also warns that oppressive regimes may turn the very same tool of protest against those fighting for freedom, by using digital technology to track protesters. Yet West underplays the importance of social networking for cracking …

Iran: Who Is Quicker - The Hacker Or The Twitter?, Anja Mihr

Human Rights & Human Welfare

For a moment we believed that we had entered into a new era of democratic movement. Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Google—chat have given proof that regardless where people live, what background they have, what system they adhere to or what religion they practice: they want to share the injustice and violence that happens to them with the world. They seek awareness, help and support and moreover they look for an end to the unfair and violent treatment. So have thousands of people in Iran—and still they do. They use what is the most widely available, quickest and the cheapest way …

Embedding An Im [Instant Messaging] Widget In Research Databases: Helping Users At Their Point-Of-Need, Kwabena Sekyere

E-JASL: Electronic Journal of Academic and Special Librarianship (1999-2009, Volumes 1-10)

Introduction

The rapid growth of internet users has made libraries eager to introduce online services for this new community, in addition to their traditional reference services. Virtual reference service has become a convenient and easily accessible option for the online community, particularly with increasing amounts of libraries resources now available electronically as well (Lou, 2007).

Virtual reference began in many libraries as email reference service (Janes, 2002) with a move to live chat reference as technology advanced. These live reference services were offered through chat software developed in-house or by vendors. Due to the high cost of purchasing and maintaining …

The Digitally Born Identity: The Influence Of Social Networking Sites On Teen Identity, Alexis Lynn

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Based on in-depth interviews, this thesis examines how teens use Social Networking Sites (SNSs) to negotiate their identities. The thesis concludes that SNSs, such as MySpace and Facebook, facilitate a social connectivity that influences how teens portray themselves online. The process of constructing a self-presentation, receiving input from peers, and then modifying one's self-presentation in response is not new, but the speed at which it occurs and the very public way it is displayed on an SNS constitutes a change in how teens understand the ways in which they make and constantly remake their identities. The findings suggest that, as …

What Do We Expect From Our Friends?, Stephen Leider, Markus M. Mobius, Tanya S. Rosenblat, Quoc-Anh Do

Research Collection School Of Economics

We conduct a field experiment in a large real-world social network to examine how subjects expect to be treated by their friends and by strangers who make allocation decisions in modified dictator games. Although recipients’ beliefs accurately account for the extent to which friends will choose more generous allocations than strangers (i.e., directed altruism), recipients are not able to anticipate individual differences in the baseline altruism of allocators (measured by giving to an unnamed recipient, which is predictive of generosity toward named recipients). Recipients who are direct friends with the allocator, or even recipients with many common friends, are no …

Intimate Strangers And Estranged Intimates: An Investigation Of The Impact Of Instant Messaging And Short Message Service On The Size And Strength Of Social Networks In Kuwait, Bashaiar Al-Sanaa

Dissertations

Information and communication technologies (ICT) have revolutionized how people experience spatial proximity, reality, and connectivity. These technologies provide inexpensive access to anything and anyone in the world. They also replicate face-to-face interaction in cyber-space and allow for participation in numerous modes of social exchange.

People use Information and communication technologies to write web logs (blogs), send electronic mail (email), socialize through networking sites (such as Facebook and MySpace), text each other through mobile phone Short Message Service (SMS) and chat via online instant messaging (IM).With all these applications, a debate has ignited that actual physical communication is decreasing in favor …

Vodcasting, Itunes U, And Faculty Collaboration, Jason Paul Michel, Susan Hurst, Andrew Revelle

E-JASL: Electronic Journal of Academic and Special Librarianship (1999-2009, Volumes 1-10)

Introduction

In the summer of 2008, the Miami University Libraries began a pilot project to integrate Web video tutorials (vodcasts) into a multiplicity of access points to enhance and extend library services. By the end of the project, Web video tutorials had been embedded in specific course sites in the course management system Blackboard, as well as in our institution's iTunes U site. The libraries were, in fact, the first entity on campus to feature publicly-available content on iTunes U. This brief article will delineate the project and explain why we believe this effort has helped position the library within …

Patrons Cataloging? The Role And Quality Of Patron Tagging In Item Description, William Lund, Allyson Washburn

Faculty Publications

With the advent of Web 2.0 technologies, user participation in the description and evaluation of content has come to the library. User tagging is almost a given in applications such as Del.icio.us, Flickr, and LibraryThing. The question is whether tagging provided by users with their own motivations is better in some sense then descriptions provided by professionals. Is the tagging provided by the wisdom of the crowd a better description of an item?

Facebook : Friend Or Foe, Angela Draeger

Graduate Research Papers

Facebook is an online social networking site that is growing with popularity daily. Due to the current lack of research on this social network the researcher has proposed the following study. This study would survey three populations: high school students, college students, and community members. Areas of interest are: communication, miscommunication, self-esteem, introversion, extroversion, friendships, long distance relationships, and closure.

Consumer Generated Media: Evolving Marketing Opportunity For Consumer Engagement, Irene J. Dickey, William F. Lewis

Management and Marketing Faculty Publications

This paper examines consumer-generated media (CGM), also called user-generated Web sites or social media, and the evolving and broad consumer behaviors associated with it. CGM websites have evolved rapidly during the last few years, but so have consumer behaviors and subsequently marketing tactics and future potential opportunities. Marketers should be aware of the characteristics of this type of website and understand how they are being used by consumers and other practitioners. CGM sites are primarily used by consumers to connect with others for many reasons. This connectivity, also called engagement, appears to be an opportunity for marketers to connect with …

Take Two Tablets And Do Not Call For Judicial Review Until Our Heads Clear: The Supreme Court Prepares To Demolish The 'Wall Of Separation' Between Church And State, Terence Lau, William Wines

Management and Marketing Faculty Publications

In this article, we examine the issues that bring First Amendment jurisprudence to the grant of certiorari in Pleasant Grove v. Summum, scheduled for oral argument in the Supreme Court of the United States in November. We examine the historical basis for America’s religious heritage, the historical judicial treatment of the religious clauses, and the erosion of the wall of separation between church and state. We examine the Ten Commandments, finding inherent discrimination present in modern-day attempts to advance a particular version of the Ten Commandments as secular. By drawing upon Rousseau’s civic religion, we suggest alternative routes for the …

Cyberbullying, Phyllis I. Schoenholz, Deborah J. Weitzenkamp, Jennifer S. Nixon

Kimmel Education and Research Center: Faculty and Staff Publications

Technology now allows people — often children — to bully online. Social messaging sites can open up the user to a variety of bullying techniques outside of the playground. How parents and other adults can help reduce bullying over the Internet is examined in this NebGuide. ...

What can a parent do about cyberbullying? First, it’s important that parents and youth not reply or respond in any way to cyberbullies. Research indicates that being responsive may, in fact, escalate the activity. Instead, parents will need to think like a detective or lawyer. Document the activity with dates and times and …

You Can Take It With You? Student Library Employees, Eportfolios, And “Edentity” Construction, Gabriella Reznowski, Brian Mcmanus

E-JASL: Electronic Journal of Academic and Special Librarianship (1999-2009, Volumes 1-10)

Abstract

ePortfolios have become an important tool for assessing and tracking employee development. In 2008, the Washington State University Libraries became involved in the institution’s ePortfolio initiative. Library supervisors hoped that as a dynamic online tool, the ePortfolio concept would provide an effective method for assessing the library’s body of student employees. Collaborating with the Center for Teaching and Learning (CTLT), the Center for Advising & Career Development (CACD), and Student Computing Services (SCS), the WSU Libraries explored the possibility of using ePortfolios to drive employee assessment. The Access Services unit, with the assistance of the Library Instruction, Library Systems, …

Social Software Programs: Student Preferences Of Librarian Use, Annie Epperson, Jennifer Leffler

University Libraries Publications

PURPOSE: The purpose of this paper is to present findings of an electronic survey to determine the extent of use of social software programs.

DESIGN/METHODOLOGY/APPROACH: The study was conducted to discover the extent to which students use social software programs, namely Facebook, MySpace, Instant Messaging and Second Life, and to determine their level of desire for having a librarian or library presence within those settings. A web survey was developed and distributed using convenience sampling. The survey was distributed to students at two college campuses located in the state of Colorado in the USA.

FINDINGS: The majority of respondents use …

The Purpose Of Facebook: The Value Of Facebook Friends In Increasing Self-Perceived Popularity, Michael J. Cronin

Honors Program Theses

A survey of 407 students was conducted at a medium-sized Midwestern university to examine what motivates college students to have friends on Facebook. The goal of the study was to see if people interact with more Facebook friends than they do offline friends on a regular basis and to see if the primary reason students become friends with others on Facebook is to increase their popularity. The results suggest that students do not become Facebook friends with others to increase their popularity, which is in contrast to previous research. Results were inconclusive in determining if people regularly interact with more …