Social Media Commons^™

Prevention Of Violence Against Women And Girls: A Cost-Effectiveness Study Across 6 Low- And Middle-Income Countries, Giulia Ferrari, Sergio Torres-Rueda, Esnat Chirwa, Andrew Gibbs, Stacey Orangi, Edwine Barasa, Theresa Tawiah, Rebecca Kyerewaa Dwommoh Prah, Rozina Karmaliani, Hussain Maqbool Ahmed Khuwaja

School of Nursing & Midwifery

Background: Violence against women and girls (VAWG) is a human rights violation with social, economic, and health consequences for survivors, perpetrators, and society. Robust evidence on economic, social, and health impact, plus the cost of delivery of VAWG prevention, is critical to making the case for investment, particularly in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) where health sector resources are highly constrained. We report on the costs and health impact of VAWG prevention in 6 countries.
Methods and findings: We conducted a trial-based cost-effectiveness analysis of VAWG prevention interventions using primary data from 5 randomised controlled trials (RCTs) in sub-Saharan Africa …

Hajj Pilgrims’ Perceptions Of Trust And Internet Use For (Emergency) Information, Sudha Arlikatti, Hassan A. Taibah, Praveen Maghelal, Simon A. Andrew, Saad A. Alkhurayyif

International Journal of Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage

This empirical study examines the patterns of internet use during Hajj, with the broader aim of providing suggestions on how organisations can improve risk communication at crowded religious venues using traditional and new media. The research team adopted a convenience sampling strategy to conduct in-person surveys of 348 Hajj pilgrims in the vicinity of the Grand Mosque in Madinah, Saudi Arabia during the October 2013 season. Of these, 150 pilgrims used the internet and their responses were analysed using simple descriptive statistics and binary regression analyses. The findings of this study suggest that Hajj pilgrims prefer accessing the internet through …

The Thin Ideal And Body Positivity: How Do Influencers Affect Female Instagram Users?, Jeralynn Servos

Master's Theses

With the vast increase in social media use, there has also been an increase of exposure to body image ideals via photos shared online. Accordingly, it has become more important to understand the association between social media and how its users view their body image, as well as how social media users’ practices are affected by posted pictures. Therefore, this study employed three focus groups to explore young women’s perceptions of potential ideal images, how they compare themselves to these images, and how these ideas affect the practices used within their own Instagram accounts. An analysis of the qualitative data …

Self-Medication Practices In Medical Students During The Covid-19 Pandemic: A Cross-Sectional Analysis, Farah Yasmin, Muhammad Sohaib Asghar, Unaiza Naeem, Hala Najeeb, Hamza Nauman, Muhammad Nadeem Ahsan, Abdullah Khan Khattak

Medical College Documents

Background and objectives: During the pandemic, the growing influence of social media, accessibility of over-the-counter medications, and fear of contracting the virus may have led to self-medication practices among the general public. Medical students are prone to such practices due to relevant background knowledge, and access to drugs. This study was carried out to determine and analyze the prevalence of self-medication practices among medical students in Pakistan.
Materials and methods: This descriptive, cross-sectional study was conducted online in which the participants were asked about the general demographics, their self-medication practices and the reasons to use. All participants were currently enrolled …

Correlation Between Social Media Use And Eating Disorder Symptoms: A Literature Review, Makenna Rose Burger

Kinesiology and Public Health

Importance: Social media is a pervasive influence in modern society presenting many potential public health implications.

Objective: The purpose of this literature review is to synthesize current research regarding social media and eating disorders.

Methods: Primary research was gathered from Google Scholar and OneSearch database resulting in 7 articles. Articles were examined for common themes.

Results: Common themes found in the resulting research is the prevalence of ‘thinspiration’, gamified content, and overlap of eating disorders with other mental illnesses. Several articles found a significant correlation between social media use and the severity of eating disorder symptoms. …

Understanding The Effect Of News Media And Social Media On First Responders, Jane M. Tucker, Michele P. Bratina, Briana Caprio

Criminal Justice Faculty Publications

Over the last twenty years, technological advances have created the opportunity to disseminate information to millions of end users within seconds. Empirical studies have indicated that this engagement with technology (particularly through social networking sites) has an influence on individual stress. Terms such as “technostress” and “social networking stress” have been invented to describe these conditions. Most studies, however, have not taken into consideration the occupation of the user. The current study investigates the influence of media, news media and social media, on first responders (firefighters, emergency medical personnel, police officers, dispatchers) and their self-reported stress levels. Findings from completed …

Rise Of Social Media Influencers As A New Marketing Channel: Focusing On The Roles Of Psychological Well-Being And Perceived Social Responsibility Among Consumers, Jihye Kim, Minseong Kim

Integrated Strategic Communication Faculty Publications

This empirical research investigated the structural relationships between social media influencer attributes, perceived friendship, psychological well-being, loyalty, and perceived social responsibility of influencers, focusing on the perspective of social media users. More specifically, this study conceptually identified social media influencer attributes such as language similarity, interest similarity, interaction frequency, and self-disclosure and examined the respective effects of each dimension on perceived friendship and psychological well-being, consequently resulting in loyalty toward social media influencers. The authors collected and analyzed data from 388 social media users in the United States via Amazon’s Mechanical Turk with multivariate analyses to test the hypothesized associations …

Oral Presentations: Social Sciences Ii, Sachi Ajmera, Mykayla Williamson

Mississippi Undergraduate Honors Conference

Video is provided of MyKayla Williamson's presentation.

Breakfast With Q-A-Mom: Understanding & Combatting The Stealth Threat Of Women Engaged With Digital Domestic Terrorist Organizations, Leah A. Plunkett

Notre Dame Journal on Emerging Technologies

This essay proceeds in three parts. It provides (1) a high-level description of what QAnon is and who the Q-A-Moms are; (2) an analysis of how and why women join QAnon, importing the general “quest for personal significance” framework (characterized by “need[s], network, and narrative”) from researchers in psychology to legal scholarship for this specific query into Q-A-Moms; and (3) an initial thought challenge to building the solution space for combatting the threat Q-A-Moms pose. This approach takes the core of the Facebook Supreme Court model (creating new quasi-judicial and law enforcement structures within the private digital sector to address …

What Really Matters?: Characterising And Predicting User Engagement Of News Postings Using Multiple Platforms, Sentiments And Topics, Kholoud K. Aldous, Jisun An, Bernard J. Jansen

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

This research characterises user engagement of approximately 3,000,000 news postings of 53 news outlets and 50,000,000 associated user comments during 8 months on 5 social media platforms (i.e. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, and Reddit). We investigate the effect of sentiments and topics on user engagement across four levels of user engagement expressions (i.e. views, likes, comments, cross-platform posting). We find that sentiments and topics differ by both news outlets and social media platforms, and both sentiments and topics by the four levels of user engagement expression. Finally, we predict a volume of four user engagement levels for given news content, …

New-Media Advertising And Retail Platform Openness, Jianqing Chen, Zhiling Guo

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

We recently have witnessed two important trends in online retailing: the advent of new media (e.g., social media and search engines) makes advertising affordable for small sellers, and large online retailers (e.g., Amazon and JD.com) opening their platforms to allow even direct competitors to sell on their platforms. We examine how new-media advertising affects retail platform openness. We develop a game-theoretic model in which a leading retailer, who has both valuation and awareness advantages, and a third-party seller, who sells an identical product, engage in price competition. We find that the availability of relatively low-cost advertising through new media plays …

In A Digitally Connected World Through Likes, Hashtags And Followers - Advancing Surgical Research Through A Social Media: A Narrative Review, Sabah Uddin Saqib, Qamar` Riaz, Russell Seth Martins, Amna Riaz, Hasnain Zafar

Department for Educational Development

In this era of modern information technology, the world is now digitally connected through various platforms on social media, which has changed the way medical professionals work, communicate and learn. The use of social media in surgery is expanding, and it is now becoming an essential tool for surgical training, research and networking. Articles, journal clubs and surgical conferences are within reach of everyone regardless of geographical location worldwide. Electronic publications have now resoundingly replaced printed editions of journals. Collaborative research through social media platforms helps collect diverse data, enhancing the research's global generalisability. The current narrative review was planned …

Screen Time And The Psychological Well-Being Of U.S. Teenagers: An Exploratory Re-Analysis Of Data From The Youth Risk Behavior Survey, Russell Miller

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Numerous studies, notably secondary analyses of survey data, have examined the possibility of adverse effects from teenagers' use of digital screen-based media--with correspondingly diverse findings. One research group in particular, led by Jean M. Twenge, has been prolific and forceful in associating adolescents’ screen time with reported increases in depression, suicidal ideation, and attempted suicide. Others have pointed to small effect sizes, construct validity issues, and other methodological problems in the Twenge research. However, one characteristic of the group's analyses of survey data, including data from the CDC's Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS), has remained unexplored: the use of metric …

Usability Of Health-Related Websites By Filipino-American Adults And Nursing Informatics Experts, Kathleen Begonia

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Filipino-Americans are an understudied minority group with high prevalence and mortality from chronic conditions, such as cardiovascular disease and diabetes. Facing barriers to care and lack of culturally appropriate health resources, they frequently use the internet to obtain health information. It is unknown whether they perceive health-related websites to be useful or easy to use because there are no published usability studies involving this population. Using the Technology Acceptance Model as a theoretical framework, this study investigated the difference between website design ratings by experts and the perceptions of Filipino-American users to determine if usability guidelines influenced the perceived ease …

Hudson Yards: Hybrid Capital's New Home, Massimo D. Scoditti

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis focuses on the material and metaphysical aspects of the Hudson Yards, the largest private development in US History. With its roots in the administration of Michael Bloomberg, the site is representative of neoliberal ideology. It is also one in which cultural production is central. This is in terms of the rationalization and mythos of the building of the space itself and the dreamworlds created to obscure the mechanisms of extraction and accumulation that make such a complex possible. The Hudson Yards is particularly interesting because, as Cindi Katz might suggest, topography lines connect it to transnational capital. And …

Promoting Climate Change Mitigation & Supporting Ngos: Converging The Theory Of Planned Behavior & The Elaboration Likelihood Model, Passant Mostafa Halawa

Theses and Dissertations

In the 21st century, public opinion's attention in developed nations has increasingly been directed to climate change and the urgency for humanity to take action. The main discourse is that climate change would have devastating consequences on a global scale, threatening humanity’s existence. However, in most developing countries climate change is generally not regarded as an important topic and climate change messages suffer from poor public engagement. Most recent research has investigated climate change communication efficiency in developed countries. The novelty of this study lies in understanding the effectiveness of climate change messages in the Egyptian context. More specifically this …

"News At Its Best:" A Case Study Of Boundary Crossing In Social Media Journalism, Bailey L. Williams

LSU Master's Theses

Digitalization continues to redefine the news ecosystem and boundaries that distinguish traditional news organizations from their nontraditional competitors. However, we still know little about how nontraditional organizations that operate entirely on social media are situated within their news ecosystems. This study examines “Reporter News,” a Facebook page that reports local and breaking news in Shreveport, Louisiana. A traditional journalist used the page to report news independently. In January 2020, he left the page in the care of a team of amateur journalists who contributed content to the page. In the amateurs’ care, the Facebook page has continued to amass a …

Winter 2022

Conversations

Dean's Letter; Remembering Jill O'Brien (1947-2021); Mastering the Art of Professional Communication: A new online master's program helps communications professionals advance their careers; Inclusive Journalism for a Diverse Society: Faculty member Judith McCray aims to deepen the bench of diverse journalists; An Alumna with an Ear for News: Rachel Hinton; Interorganizational Networks for Social Impact: A conversation with Assistant Professor Kate Cooper

The Impact Of Social Media Platforms On Societal Security “A Study On A Sample Of Facebook Users In The Emirati Society”, Adnan Aldhmour

Journal of Police and Legal Sciences

This study aims at identifying the impact of social networking websites on societal security. The study adopts the descriptive analytical approach, whereas the study population consisted of 280 Facebook users in UAE community , intentionally selected to serve the purpose of the study.

The most important results showed that the most basic motives for using social networking websites are to communicate and to keep in touch with family and friends, and to make sure that they are safe and sound. The most important risks involved include the individual’s isolation and introversion and rebellion against societal values, which may eventually lead …

Excessive Use Of Social Media And Its Impact On The Values Of The Institution Of Marriage «The Case Study Of The Lebanese Society», Rabea Yakan

Al Jinan الجنان

In light of the acceleration of contemporary human life at all levels, the matrimonial institution faces in Lebanon a large number of challenges and difficulties due to digital development and unlimited openness, so that this institution is no longer the basic building block to instill values and adjust the rhythm of life as it was before, but perhaps It has become the weakest link in that process, as it faces a process of fragmentation by many modern electronic means and others, as it may no longer be as strong and cohesive as it has in a previous crisis, so that …