Social Media Commons^™

"A Short Burst Of Inconsequential Information": Networked Rhetorics, Avian Consciousness, And Bioegalitarianism, Damien S. Pfister

Department of Communication Studies: Faculty Publications

This essay uses the concept of “avian consciousness” to reconsider assumptions about human communication and theorize networked rhetorics. By adopting an ornithomorphic frame, I critically read Don DeLillo’s The Body Artist as an exploration of overlaps between human and avian consciousness. I then argue that avian consciousness provides a richer metaphor for understanding networked rhetorics than autistic consciousness, which is an increasingly dominant trope for explaining interaction with digitally networked media. I explore how Twitter, explicitly modeled on avian communication, can be understood as circulating information in ways analogous to the contact and assembly calls of birds. The essay concludes …

Editors Use Social Media Mostly To Post Story Links, Sue Burzynski Bullard

College of Journalism and Mass Communications: Faculty Publications

A survey of senior editors of U.S. print broadcast and online news outlets found that while 98 percent of the 376 respondents say they use social media, they primarily use it to post links to stories on Facebook and Twitter. Far fewer use social media to interact with audiences by posing questions and responding to comments

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 …

Multi-Roles Affiliation Model For General User Profiling, Lizi Liao, Heyan Huang, Yashen Wang

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Online social networks release user attributes, which is important for many applications. Due to the sparsity of such user attributes online, many works focus on profiling user attributes automatically. However, in order to profile a specific user attribute, an unique model is built and such model usually does not fit other profiling tasks. In our work, we design a novel, flexible general user profiling model which naturally models users’ friendships with user attributes. Experiments show that our method simultaneously profile multiple attributes with better performance.

Measuring User Influence, Susceptibility And Cynicalness In Sentiment Diffusion, Roy Ka-Wei Lee, Ee Peng Lim

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Diffusion in social networks is an important research topic lately due to massive amount of information shared on social media and Web. As information diffuses, users express sentiments which can affect the sentiments of others. In this paper, we analyze how users reinforce or modify sentiment of one another based on a set of inter-dependent latent user factors as they are engaged in diffusion of event information. We introduce these sentiment-based latent user factors, namely influence, susceptibility and cynicalness. We also propose the ISC model to relate the three factors together and develop an iterative computation approach to …

Review Selection Using Micro-Reviews, Thanh-Son Nguyen, Hady W. Lauw, Panayiotis Tsaparas

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Given the proliferation of review content, and the fact that reviews are highly diverse and often unnecessarily verbose, users frequently face the problem of selecting the appropriate reviews to consume. Micro-reviews are emerging as a new type of online review content in the social media. Micro-reviews are posted by users of check-in services such as Foursquare. They are concise (up to 200 characters long) and highly focused, in contrast to the comprehensive and verbose reviews. In this paper, we propose a novel mining problem, which brings together these two disparate sources of review content. Specifically, we use coverage of micro-reviews …

Chalk And Cheese In Twitter: Discriminating Personal And Organization Accounts, Richard Jayadi Oentaryo, Jia-Wei Low, Ee Peng Lim

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Social media have been popular not only for individuals to share contents, but also for organizations to engage users and spread information. Given the trait differences between personal and organization accounts, the ability to distinguish between the two account types is important for developing better search/recommendation engines, marketing strategies, and information dissemination platforms. However, such task is non-trivial and has not been well studied thus far. In this paper, we present a new generic framework for classifying personal and organization accounts, based upon which comprehensive and systematic investigation on a rich variety of content, social, and temporal features can be …

Facebook For Health Promotion: Female College Students’ Perspectives On Sharing Hpv Vaccine Information Through Facebook, Ni Zhang, Joann Tsark, Shelly Campo, Michelle Teti

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

Facebook, a social network site, has been widely used among young adults. However, its potential to be used as a health promotion medium has not been fully examined. This study explored Facebook's potential for sharing human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine information among female college students in Hawai‘i. Culturally tailored flyers and handouts were developed and distributed at one large university in Hawai‘i to recruit female college students between the age of 18 and 26 having an active Facebook account. Three focus group meetings were conducted to gather student perspectives about how information about HPV vaccine may be best shared via Facebook. …

A Risk Based Approach To Node Insertion Within Social Networks, Chancellor A. J. Johnstone

Theses and Dissertations

Social Network Analysis (SNA) is a primary tool for counter-terrorism operations, ranging from resiliency and influence to interdiction on threats stemming from illicit overt and clandestine network operations. In an ideal world, SNA would provide a perfect course of action to eliminate dangerous situations that terrorist organizations bring. Unfortunately, the covert nature of terrorist networks makes the effects of these techniques unknown and possibly detrimental. To avoid potentially harmful changes to enemy networks, tactical involvement must evolve, beginning with the intelligent use of network in filtration through the application of the node insertion problem. The framework for the node insertion …

Fearless Friday: Tiarra Riggins, Christina L. Bassler

SURGE

As we conclude Yik Yak Awareness Week, we’d like to recognize Tiarra Riggins ’17, the fearless organizer behind this week’s events. ”People don’t realize how words can damage a soul,” says Tiarra. Her efforts this week have been aimed at stopping cyberbullying and changing the culture of Yik Yak to a more positive and uplifting space. The events during this past week ranged from a discussion on the effects of cyberbullying to daily CUB tables, encouraging students to sign a banner against cyberbullying and the negative aspects of Yik Yak. [excerpt]

An Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis Inquiry Into Facebook Newcomer Motivations For Participatory Activities, Kristin Raub

CCAC Theses and Dissertations

This qualitative study provided insight into the phenomenon of newcomers in social networking, in particular, to understand what role specific Facebook features play in motivating content sharing and contribution among newcomers. Research indicated that the first several months or years of social networking site (SNS) membership are the most crucial in terms of indicating long-term participation and commitment to the SNS. Long-term participation is specifically manifested through interactions with peers who are members of the same website and through interactivity such as content sharing and contribution. A number of quantitative studies have focused on motivations for user contribution in social …

P-18 Narcissism And The Selfie: Investigating Millennial Narcissism On Instagram, Megan Reed

Honors Scholars & Undergraduate Research Poster Symposium Programs

Recent research shows a correlation between self-promoting images on social media and higher levels of narcissism. This research will further demonstrate the positive correlation between the proportion of selfies an individual posts on Instagram and Millennial narcissism. The proportion of pictures that are selfies is measured in two ways: in the subject’s past 4-weeks of picture posting and in the last 30 pictures the subject posted. The standard Narcissistic Personality Inventory is used to measure the subject’s level of narcissism. The subject’s proportion of selfies and narcissistic score is then analyzed for any possible correlation.

Mymedialife - Population-Driven New Media Social Marketing And Branding, Kenny Shults, Victoria Sterkin, Emily Hanlen

National Youth Advocacy & Resilience Conference

This workshop is intended for adolescent service providers and anyone interested in discovering new ways to conduct community outreach and marketing. This workshop will:

1. Examine how youth are consuming and utilizing new media in their lives, and the impacts of the new-media revolution on adolescent behavior, learning, and socialization.
2. Demonstrate how behavior science is organically infused into social marketing efforts.
3. Provide practitioners with an overview of a program that both teaches adolescents the fundamentals of social marketing (behavior-change) campaigns, but structures a process wherein youth envision, design, produce, and disseminate the campaign on behalf of the host agency.
4. Present MyMediaLife …

Facebook: The Power Of Leverage, Singapore Management University

Perspectives@SMU

Entrepreneurs like Suria Mohd have gained a large following of Facebook users that enables her to enjoy a thriving business and celebrity status in Singapore’s television scene. Here’s how.

The Strategies And Tactics Used To Create A Successful Personal Brand: The Implications For Career Development In Public Relations, Jane Redmond

Journalism

With the technology and access to information that is available in today’s day and age, people are learning to become more cautious in how they are presenting themselves. In a professional sense, it is important that people are aware of the image they portray and that they are doing so in a consistent manner. Professionals can do this by defining their own personal brand in order to benefit their career and demonstrate who they are as an individual in a consistent manner. This project will study how one can be effective in creating their own personal brand and what strategies …

Examining Social Network Site Usage By Older Adults: A Phenomenological Approach, Betsy Baugess

CCAC Theses and Dissertations

The Internet has infiltrated our daily lives in many ways. Social networking on the Internet is a great example of how the Internet has expanded interpersonal communication. Many individuals have made social networking sites, like FaceBook and Twitter, an essential part of their lives and use these platforms to communicate daily. Until recently, young people have been the primary participants in this fast-growing phenomenon, and older adults' participation in the Internet, specifically social networking sites, has lagged far behind. However, in recent years, there has been a noteworthy increase in the number of older adult participants. The increase in older …

Breaking Into The Business: A Guide To Creating A Dynamic Resume Reel And Securing A Job In Today’S Television News Industry, Christina Favuzzi

Journalism

Broadcast journalists are experiencing turbulence in their field of expertise due to increasing digitalization and decreased funding. It is becoming commonplace for reporters to work as one-man-bands, or “multimedia journalists,” shooting and editing their own video in addition to writing and reporting. For people looking to begin a career in the highly competitive broadcast news industry, there is a great deal of information to understand and consider prior to beginning the job search. Creating a dynamic resume reel is central to landing a job as an on-air reporter. However, with the development of digital-first and multimedia journalism, there are certain …

Social Media And Celebrities: The Benefits Of A Social Media Presence, Kristin Wright

Journalism

This study analyzes celebrities and their social media presence and how they can benefit from using different social platforms. The rise of social media has caused people to rely on it for news, viewing content, and making connections with others. Celebrities no longer have to relay messages or content through their managers and publicists before releasing it. The way people interact through social media has allowed celebrities to engage their fans, enhance their career, and ultimately increase their stardom. This study investigates how social media impacts a celebrity’s career and what the best practices are for receiving positive benefits.

Nirmal: Automatic Identification Of Software Relevant Tweets Leveraging Language Model, Abishek Sharma, Yuan Tian, David Lo

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Twitter is one of the most widely used social media platforms today. It enables users to share and view short 140-character messages called 'tweets'. About 284 million active users generate close to 500 million tweets per day. Such rapid generation of user generated content in large magnitudes results in the problem of information overload. Users who are interested in information related to a particular domain have limited means to filter out irrelevant tweets and tend to get lost in the huge amount of data they encounter. A recent study by Singer et al. found that software developers use Twitter to …

Prediction Of Venues In Foursquare Using Flipped Topic Models, Wen Haw Chong, Bing Tian Dai, Ee Peng Lim

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Foursquare is a highly popular location-based social platform, where users indicate their presence at venues via check-ins and/or provide venue-related tips. On Foursquare, we explore Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) topic models for venue prediction: predict venues that a user is likely to visit, given his history of other visited venues. However we depart from prior works which regard the users as documents and their visited venues as terms. Instead we ‘flip’ LDA models such that we regard venues as documents that attract users, which are now the terms. Flipping is simple and requires no changes to the LDA mechanism. Yet …