Social Media Commons^™

The Impact Of Social Media Use On Well-Being And Stress In Adolescents And Young Adults, Elisabeth Moeller

ONU Student Research Colloquium

Over the past couple of decades, as technology has become more readily available to individuals, social media sites such as Facebook and Instagram have had an impact on how adolescents and young adults communicate with peers. There has been much debate on whether social media usage negatively impacts the lives of adolescents and adults or not. The present literary review examines findings from 20 studies that investigated the effect of social media usage on the well-being and stress levels of adolescents and young adults. The conclusion of this literary review is that there are many mixed findings in studies examining …

The Fear Of Missing Out Phenomenon On Belongingness In Secondary Students, Minnie Mcbride

Scholarly and Creative Works Conference (2015 - 2021)

The popularity of social media use by teens has come into question with the 2013 discovery of a phenomenon called the Fear of Missing Out (FOMO). FOMO is defined as “a pervasive apprehension that others might be having rewarding experiences from which one is absent” (Przybylski, Murayama, DeHaan, & Gladwell, 2013). According to the literature, FOMO can impact learning, health, and safety. The purpose of this qualitative study is to examine how FOMO on social media impacts students of color at one independent secondary school in Northern California. The researcher conducted personal interviews with six students of color in grades …

Best Practices For Voter Engagement Within Higher Education, Alyssa Tomins

Honors Projects

It is imperative that higher education institutions learn more about how to recruit members of younger generations to participate in future elections. Young people have historically voted at low rates, but that trend has started to change in recent years as more resources are being devoted to voter engagement among young people. This leads to the interest of understanding what best practices and strategies have academic institutions utilized to advance voter engagement on their campuses. This qualitative study analyzes these best practices and strategies at 84 colleges and universities, all of whom are members of The Andrew Goodman Foundation Vote …

Objectifying The Body Positive Movement: The Effects Of Sexualizing And Digitally Modifying Body-Positive Images On Instagram, Megan A. Vendemia, David C. Deandrea, Kyla N. Brathwaite

Communication Faculty Articles and Research

The body positive movement on social media seeks to challenge narrow conceptualizations of beauty that media outlets traditionally perpetuate and reinforce. Through a 2 × 2 between-subjects online experiment, we examined how the nature and authenticity of body-positive imagery on social media affects female viewers and their evaluations of body-positive content (N = 425, M_age = 35.47, SD_age = 13.52). Specifically, participants viewed and reacted to a series of 10 body-positive images of women on social media varying in their degree of sexualization (sexualized vs. non-sexualized) and evidence of digital photo modifications (modification icons vs. no modification …

Becoming A Youtuber, Johanna Bruhn

Undergraduate Research Conference

No abstract provided.

Nabisco Oreo Social Media Campaign: Be Oreoriginal, Abigail Adams

Undergraduate Research Conference

Be OREOriginal is an inspiring idea that encourages consumers to not only be true to themselves and their passions but create things that reflect their imaginations and creativity in any form that feels right to them. This campaign aims to involve today’s teenagers in something that will give them an opportunity to find a creative outlet and inspire them to follow their passions. In addition, this campaign hopes to help these young people connect with each other on a more personal level through the shared passions of art.

Tik Tok University: Rusche College Of Business, Johanna Bruhn

Undergraduate Research Conference

Across the country, universities have incorporated the use of social media platforms to target prospective students, keep current students in the loop, and create a stronger online presence overall In a world where certain platforms may rise to the top and others may just be a fading trend, it is even more important for these universities to determine what social media platforms to utilize and perform well on For the last two years, TikTok has become an increasingly popular social media application, particularly in regard to students Although its popularity seemed to only be temporary, the last year has shown …

#Clickbait: Social Media, Attraction, And Relational Development, Albani I. Berryhill

Honors College Theses

In the age of social media networking and online dating, interpersonal communication has evolved. Today’s young adults have grown up during the evolution of social media. Social Penetration Theory (SPT) proposes that interpersonal relationships develop through self-disclosure (Punyanunt-Carter, 2019). As we move from public to more private information in the process of self-disclosure, we develop deeper and closer interpersonal relationships. The purpose of this study is to analyze attraction, perceived authenticity, and relational development on social media through the SPT lens. I argue that Twitter is a popular social media platform that encourages user authenticity and that social media users …

The New Open Forum: Social Media Use In Georgia Gubernatorial Elections, John Mack

Honors College Theses

In 2018, Georgia saw one of the most contested elections in recent memory with Brian Kemp narrowly defeating Stacey Abrams. As a part of that election, social media would play a critical role in how campaigns are run. This thesis takes a look at previous literature on voter turnout and social media. This thesis asks: How did the campaigns use social media to spread their message, and in what stage of the election was social media most effective? To answer that question this thesis features a content analysis of Facebook posts and Tweets from the 2018 elections compared to posts …

Looking Into The Effects Of The Age Of The Internet, Sarah Schaefer

English Department: Research for Change - Wicked Problems in Our World

The internet has grown to play a large part in our society in the past couple decades, but with the rapid change in technology we have been ill prepared for the effects of our reliance on digital content. Looking into how different demographics and age groups are affected, we come to a conclusion that the general population needs to work to better educate themselves on the impact caused from an overuse of the internet.

Love The Customer: Principles Of Interpersonal Relationships Applied To Social Media, Tracey Kyles

Showcase of Osprey Advancements in Research and Scholarship (SOARS)

Social media has changed the way virtually all of us communicate and its influence is far-reaching. Companies have even adapted and tweaked their marketing strategies to more personal approaches to reach their audiences. This is especially evident in recent years. We can see, for example, fast-food Twitter accounts attracting the attention of online users through witty personas and sarcastic tweets. Observing this phenomenon is what motivated me to look into relationships between brands and followers. Here, I refer to interpersonal relationship theories to uncover what encourages these kinds of relationships as well as discover which methods deliver the most positive …

Educating And Motivating Students To Get The Covid Vaccine, Ady Dewey

Strategic Public Relations Projects

The 2020-2021 academic year was one of many different challenges as the COVID pandemic ravaged the world. Classes at Bridgewater College were HyFlex, which meant some students were present, in-person, masked, while other students participated online via Zoom. This split arrangement presented significant challenges for everyone – those on campus and those remote. The college experience, needless to say, was totally rewritten and this importantly included communication efforts.

The 2021 Strategic Public Relations class (COMM 347) identified the need of educating their peers about the availability—and advantages—of getting the COVID vaccine. (At this point in March, the College had not …

What Makes A Successful Social Media Influencer?, Catherine Jokela

Honors Projects in Communication

Social media have changed the way people communicate and live their lives. And as might be imagined, with new platforms come new opportunities. One of those opportunities is becoming a social media influencer. Social media influencers can earn fame and fortune, but how is that success measured? In depth interviews with Katy Bellotte and Mikayla Nogueira, two successful social media influencers, will be analyzed to answer the question, “What makes a social media influencer successful?”

Found Media: Interactivity And Community In Online Horror Media 2021, Jax Mello

Master's Theses

Being isolated is a common fear. The fear can take many forms, from the fear of being the last one alive in a horrific situation to being completely deserted by everyone you love. This is a fear that has been showcased many different times in movies, novels, and every other piece of media imaginable. Although not always tied to the horror genre, the fear of being isolated is tightly intertwined with many horror stories. Therefore, it is interesting when a horror production goes out of their way to encourage interactivity within its audience. This goes beyond an artist’s desire for …

For [Redacted], Lalini Shanela Ranaraja

Vázquez-Valarezo Poetry Award

This poem was written following the attempts of a close friend and myself to create awareness for the ongoing genocide in Tigray, Ethiopia in particular, and in reaction to activism in the age of social media in general. The digital age and related phenomena, such as hashtag activism and cancel culture, has enabled certain social justice movements to gain rapid traction while other equally worthy movements struggle to find a foothold. Simultaneously, standards of accountability and ethics continue to decline among global news media, with non-Western countries such as Ethiopia and my own home country of Sri Lanka bearing the …

Roles Of Social Media In The Black Lives Matter Movement During Covid-19, Reilly E. Olson

Honors Projects

By definition social movements reflect unique times in history. To fully grasp the implications of a movement the social and political climate that induce them must be understood. An intersectional model should be used when framing and studying the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement, a modern descendant of both the NAACP and Civil Rights movement. From its inception, BLM has utilized social media as an important tool by coining #BlackLivesMatter, a hashtag that frequently comes to life offline as BLM organizers use it as a call for action and mobilization. The accessibility of social media made its role in the …

Partisan Trust In Social Media: Who Trusts The News On Social Media And Who Does Not?, Kenneth Morris

Political Science Theses and Capstones

Social Media has changed the way Americans and people around the world receive their news. This advancement in media has political scientists questioning who trusts the information they read on social media sites. The PEW Research Center provides excellent data from a public opinion survey they conducted in 2019. My analysis of the data found that found that the older generations (50 years and older) are more warry of the news they receive on social media. More specifically, the older Republicans have less trust than the other demographics. With President Trump’s Twitter account being permanently banned from the site in …

Reimagining Non-Profit Communications: The Importance Of A Digital Media Plan For Rhody Outpost, Madeline Burtt

Senior Honors Projects

Ever since social media went viral in the early 2000s with the platform MySpace, the theory of what media is, and how to spread one’s ideas, has never been the same. The emergence of digital media, specifically, social media, has reimagined what it is to market products, organizations, and ideas. With the ever-growing population of social media users, it is important now more than ever to develop a strong, consistent social media presence, no matter how big or small an organization might be, and the findings of my Honors Project prove just that.

In this Honors Project, I will be …

The Evolution Of Women's Opportunities In The Workplace: A Look At The Past To Interpret The Present, Emily Milich

Senior Honors Projects

No abstract provided.

You And I: Parasocial Relationships, Social Media, And Fan Labor In The One Direction Fandom, Kathryn Meese

Honors College Theses

This study aims to analyze the ways in which fans of the band One Direction developed parasocial relationships, or one-sided, non-reciprocal relationships with media personae, through social media marketing, and to explore the economic implications of these relationships in terms of fans’ free promotional labor. At the heart of social media marketing is relationship marketing, or attracting and maintaining customer relationships, a strategy we explore here within the context of the music industry. Previous studies have explored the dynamics of online fan communities, or fandoms, and the free labor they carry out on the part of an artist, such as …