Communication Technology and New Media Commons^™

The Effects Of Digital Technology On Basic Writing, Leslie Denise Norris

English Theses & Dissertations

At this study's research site—a small, Virginia community college—faculty, staff and students use digital technology to share information daily, which could cause a problem for some students: students may need digital literacy instruction before the college requires those courses. Another potential problem is that scholars (Stephens, Houser, and Cowan) indicate that some instructors across the academy treat students negatively if students do not demonstrate digital, rhetorical dexterity when communicating—particular digital skills that some students lack.

For this study, I surveyed basic writing (BW) instructors and students at the research site to learn more about their digital experiences. The surveys yielded …

Sick With Fear: Popular Challenges To Scientific Authority In The Vaccine Controversies Of The 21st Century, Ellen Watkins

Annual Undergraduate Conference on Health and Society

In the 20th century, vaccines were heralded as one of the greatest medical inventions in history. In the late 1990’s, however, the myth of vaccine-caused autism caught fire. Despite mountains of evidence disproving the link, panicking Americans eschewed vaccines and turned against their physicians. Why did Americans turn their backs on doctors, scientists, and the health industry? This paper follows the vaccine controversy of the last thirty years, looking in particular at the relationship between science and the media. This paper analyzes the contrast between discussion of the hypothesized link in scientific circles and in popular news sources, seeking to …

The Human Flesh Search Engine: Democracy, Censorship, And Political Participation In Twenty-First Century China, Vincent Capone

Graduate History Conference, UMass Boston

The Human Flesh Search Engine is a recent, unique phenomenon on the Chinese internet. Comprising of thousands of forum, micro-blog, and entertainment websites and mobilizing the overwhelming number of Chinese internet users, or netizens, the search engine is able to quickly find obscure information and identify seemingly anonymous internet personalities. These websites allow netizens to have their voices heard in an otherwise restrictive government, however these websites also become a hotbed for dissent, with web users highlighting stories and figures which they deem harmful to society. Through clever investigative work, netizens hunt down an individual's identity with the goal of …

Mirror, Mirror On The Wall, Who's The Thinnest Of Them All?, Ann Marie O'Brien

Annual Undergraduate Conference on Health and Society

Societal standards of feminine beauty are presented in all forms of popular culture, thus bombarding women with images that portray what our society considers to be the “ideal body type.” These images, as seen on the cover of magazines, in popular films and in all forms of web and print advertising, are consistently depicted and easily described with one word: skinny. The regular use of unnatural, unhealthy and unrealistic models sends the implicit message that in order for a woman to be beautiful, she must attain this ultra-thin physique. Such adulation of these images encourages women to sacrifice their health …

Checking Bankruptcy Court? There’S An App For That: Mobile Technology For The Legal Professional, Jason Tubinis

Continuing Legal Education Presentations

Provides descriptions of useful computer programs designed to add functionality or perform particular tasks (apps), specifically designed to aid attorneys in their practice. Includes subscription-based apps, primary material apps, and general legal apps of special merit.

Ensuring An Impartial Jury In The Age Of Social Media, Amy J. St. Eve, Michael A. Zuckerman

Duke Law & Technology Review

The explosive growth of social networking has placed enormous pressure on one of the most fundamental of American institutions—the impartial jury. Through social networking services like Facebook and Twitter, jurors have committed significant and often high-profile acts of misconduct. Just recently, the Arkansas Supreme Court reversed a death sentence because a juror Tweeted about the case during deliberations. In light of the significant risks to a fair trial that arise when jurors communicate through social media during trial, judges must be vigilant in monitoring for potential outside influences and in deterring misconduct.

In this Article, we present informal survey data …

Children And E-Society: Identifying Barriers To Participation, Brian O'Neill

Conference Papers

Children are widely seen as direct beneficiaries and indeed often as the primary targets of information society policies, particularly those geared towards enhancing learning opportunities, access to information and building inclusiveness and participation in society. The European Union’s Digital Agenda places a safer and better internet for children at the heart of its policy platform. And yet, more often than not, children’s e-society participation has been a cause of concern and anxiety for policy makers, particularly with ever-increasing early adoption of new internet technologies and services by children and young people. Such concerns have been motivated by the responsibilities held …

Online Gaming As Sociable Media, Steven L. Thorne

World Languages and Literatures Faculty Publications and Presentations

Over much of the world, contemporary communicative practices are mediated by a wide range of digital technologies that support speech, image, video, and of course textual literacies. In dialectic tension with the rapid growth in digital information and communication media, Internet information and communication technologies have amplified conventional communicative practices in terms of breadth, impact and speed and have also enabled the emergence of new communicative, cultural and cognitive practices. These practices form dynamic cultures-of-use - that is, communication tools and the human activities they mediate co-evolve (Thorne, 2003). This article begins with a review of contradictory appraisals of digital …

Localized Deconvolution: Characterizing Nmr-Based Metabolomics Spectroscopic Data Using Localized High-Throughput Deconvolution, Paul E. Anderson, Ajith H. Ranabahu, Deirdre A. Mahle, Nicholas V. Reo, Michael L. Raymer, Amit P. Sheth, Nicholas J. Delraso

Kno.e.sis Publications

The interpretation of nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) experimental results for metabolomics studies requires intensive signal processing and multivariate data analysis techniques. Standard quantification techniques attempt to minimize effects from variations in peak positions caused by sample pH, ionic strength, and composition. These techniques fail to account for adjacent signals which can lead to drastic quantification errors. Attempts at full spectrum deconvolution have been limited in adoption and development due to the computational resources required. Herein, we develop a novel localized deconvolution algorithm for general purpose quantification of NMR-based metabolomics studies. Localized deconvolution decreases average absolute quantification error by 97% and …

Comparative Models Of Cooperative Journalism, Mercedes N. Rodriguez

Journalism

No abstract provided.

Best Practices For Effective Corporate Crisis Management: A Breakdown Of Crisis Stages Through The Utilization Of Case Studies, Katelyn Smith

Journalism

In the most recent decade, there has been a shortage of effectively managed corporate crises. This study is meant to discover the reasons behind the ineffective crisis management responses through the inspection of past corporate case studies in crisis management, as well as what can be done to help corporations use crisis management more effectively. The best practices in effective corporate crisis management in the three different stages of a crisis were attained through the utilization of case studies and expert opinions. The recommendations for practice include making pre-planning and evaluation regarded as more important in crisis management plans, choosing …

Going Mobile: A Guide To Mobile Website And Application User Preferences, Kevin M. Weeks

Graphic Communication

Mobile devices are rapidly gaining popularity. There is an increasing demand for individuals who can develop quality mobile websites and applications. In the world of mobile, the most important consideration is the end user. Who is the application or mobile website trying to target and what do they want? This study was designed to determine what users value and whether current developers are accurately reflecting these values. Determining this was accomplished through surveys of mobile users, interviews with mobile web developers, and analysis of successful websites and apps through case studies. The survey included questions to determine what qualities mobile …

Transparency In The Fashion Industry: Social Media Use In Public Relations Strategies, Teri Akahoshi

Journalism

No abstract provided.

Nonprofit Organizations And Social Media: Streamlining Communications To Build And Maintain Relationships, Kristin Ann Kenney

Journalism

No abstract provided.

Irish Kids Online: Comparing Youth And Parent Perspectives, Brian O'Neill, Thuy Dinh

Other resources

Summary

Parents in Ireland do take an active interest in their children’s internet use. However, they tend to be more restrictive in their approach compared to other countries in Europe with a consequent reduction in children’s online opportunities.

This report compares young people’s and parents’ responses in the EU Kids Online survey. It shows that parents are not always aware of risks their children encounter, are perhaps more fearful of online dangers, and express less confidence about their ability to help their children to cope with problems they encounter.

The implications of these findings suggest that it is important that …

Optimizing Social Media In Humanitarian Crisis Responses, Mark J. Mullaney

The Macalester Review

The social media boom has brought about a new age of communications and connectedness in our world. Just as the advent of televised news brought more attention to humanitarianism, social media has the capability to alter how humanitarian responses are viewed, coordinated, and executed. However, despite the vast potential of social media, humanitarian actors have been hesitant to fully incorporate it within their modus operandi. This essay explores the reasons for their skepticism and looks at cases where social media was put to good use during humanitarian crises. Using that information, we will argue that several measures can be …

The Central Role Of Information Systems In Managing Crises, Singapore Management University

Perspectives@SMU

Crisis management research recognises the importance of timely information in coordinating a suitable and rapid crisis response. However, the transmission of information would depend on the information systems assets available, how they work with other resources and how they facilitate coordination – areas that have not received much scholarly attention.

Framework For The Analysis Of Coordination In Crisis Response, Hemant Purohit, Andrew Hampton, Valerie L. Shalin, Amit P. Sheth, John M. Flach

Kno.e.sis Publications

Social Media play a critical role during crisis events, revealing a natural coordination dynamic. We propose a computational framework guided by social science principles to measure, analyze, and understand coordination among the different types of organizations and actors in crisis response. The analysis informs both the scientific account of cooperative behavior and the design of applications and protocols to support crisis management.

The Ethnocentric Bias: Why One Size Does Not Fit All In The World Of Digital Communication, Michael A. Netzley

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

In this chapter Michael Netzley, PhD at Singapore Management University, discusses the opportunity to see beyond traditional markets. Asia is filled with diverse and fragmented markets, more so than we typically find in the West's mature markets. The larger social media conversation reflects values and market assumptions of these mature markets, and all too often the needs of Asia's many emerging markets go unrepresented. Professional communicators must stop relying on advice crafted within different market conditions and instead lead the way forward by producing solid research as the basis for data-driven communication decisions.

Discovering Fine-Grained Sentiment In Suicide Notes, Wenbo Wang, Lu Chen, Ming Tan, Shaojun Wang, Amit P. Sheth

Kno.e.sis Publications

This paper presents our solution for the i2b2 sentiment classification challenge. Our hybrid system consists of machine learning and rule-based classifiers. For the machine learning classifier, we investigate a variety of lexical, syntactic and knowledge-based features, and show how much these features contribute to the performance of the classifier through experiments. For the rule-based classifier, we propose an algorithm to automatically extract effective syntactic and lexical patterns from training examples. The experimental results show that the rule-based classifier outperforms the baseline machine learning classifier using unigram features. By combining the machine learning classifier and the rule-based classifier, the hybrid system …