Social media

This thesis exhibition explores how digital culture affects identity and connection through a series of paintings made through collage, mixed media, and reflective surfaces. It looks at how identity is fragmented in the digital age when we construct personas online that are selected and, therefore, less authentic. The paintings juxtapose the use of analog methods with digital imagery, in order to ask about the tension between vulnerability and performance and the authenticity of online interactions. The series is about emotional exhaustion, curated personas, and the search for genuine connection. Reflective elements and textures mounted and layered encourage viewers to engage in a dialectic between themselves and the mediated world, between 'digital self' and the 'authentic self.' The thesis hopes that this work can provoke discourse regarding the ramifications of digital culture on self-perceiving and interpersonal relations in recognizing the human dependence on depth and vulnerability in our fragmented reality.

Social media’s role in daily life is on the rise, but as social media use increases, so do questions about its potential benefits or harms. This set of studies examined the relationship between social media use, wellbeing, and perceived network responsiveness, a measure of an individual’s perception about the degree to which their online social networks are caring, validating, and understanding. Two pre-registered correlational studies which employed surveys of undergraduate students (Study 1a: N = 218, Study 1b: N = 179) found that perceived network responsiveness was positively correlated with life satisfaction and negatively correlated with loneliness. A pre-registered experimental study was also conducted in which young adults recruited from a crowdsourcing platform (N = 236) were randomly assigned to either reduce social media use to ten minutes per platform per day or to continue their normal use for one week. Participants completed nine surveys (an initial survey, seven daily surveys, and one follow-up survey) about their wellbeing, perceived network responsiveness, and social media use. The results of the initial survey also showed that perceived network responsiveness was positively correlated with life satisfaction and negatively correlated with loneliness. Contrary to predictions, the relationship between experimentally manipulated social media use and change in wellbeing outcomes (i.e., life satisfaction and loneliness) was not significantly moderated by perceived network responsiveness. Additionally, there were no significant differences between conditions with regard to wellbeing outcomes. Overall, these studies demonstrated an association between perceived network responsiveness and wellbeing while underscoring the need for focus on the more social aspects of social media use.

The shooting at Stoneman Douglas High School in 2018 paved the way for activism controlled by youth led by key students banding together following the incident. Student activists from the school emerged particularly via social media and organized large-scale efforts in order to create discourse surrounding gun control through their March For Our Lives movement. Studying the overlap between youth activism, the response to trauma, the systems at play within social media, and the role of commercialization, this paper dives into the complexities of activist based discourse as it evolves and the forces at play within youth activism in general. Looking at these existing efforts aids in exposing both the pros and cons of activism mediated by social media and the role that larger systems play in an activist’s mission.

In 2016, Colin Kaepernick, the former starting quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers, unknowingly bartered his athletic aspirations by exercising his First Amendment Right to freedom of expression. Frustrated with what he and many others perceived as pervasive extrajudicial tactics of law enforcement and a seemingly incessant lack of accountability from the American legal system, Kaepernick silently protested by sitting during the playing of the National Anthem. Although, Kaepernick's actions begun as a singular, almost imperceptible act, he has ultimately redefined the significance of taking a knee, and etched his name in a long list of other malcontents in the struggle for racial equality in America. The purpose of this study is to explore in detail one of the most polarizing components of the Black Lives Matter Movement (BLM) and Black Social Protests in the United States. Analysis of social media content will argue the value of the Kaepernick "Anti Flag/Anthem" Protest, from a communication-cultural perspective.

An estimated 90% of U.S. companies including Tesla, 3M, McDonald’s, and UnitedHealth Group use social media such as Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat to connect with consumers and form community around their brands; yet little is known about the effects of different social media structures on consumer-brand relationships. The purpose of this research is to understand the unique nature of firm-hosted online brand communities on social networking sites and how they can be used to retain customers.
We review the literature on online brand communities as a tool for building relationships and apply network theory to understanding firm-hosted online brand communities on social networking sites. Relationship marketing provides a framework for how consumer-brand relationships are developed, built, and maintained. Network theory explains how different network structures interact with network processes to produce specific outcomes for individuals and groups.

Social media played a pivotal role during The Never Again MSD Movement. This study examines the communicative tools social media, specifically Twitter, provides its users in order to communicate and distribute information. Authors Evans, Twoney, and Talan describes Twitter as “a valuable tool because it allows for instant communication to a wide audience” (9). Twitter is a valuable tool for communication because it fosters an online space where activists utilize the following communication tools: conversation, community, connection, collaboration, and accessibility. The study describes how activists use those tools in the type of messages being communicated on digital spaces. Through a context analysis on tweets from 3 prominent leaders of the movement: Sarah Chadwick, David Hogg, and Cameron Kasky, common themes were identified. The data was collected from a 6 week period ranging from February 14th, 2018 - March 28th, 2018. The purpose of this study is to ultimately examine how activist communicate on online spaces during social movements. Twitter offers activists a series of communication tools such as community, accessibility, and collaboration. Activists use these tools to first communicate about a variety of different topics relating to the movement as well distribute information and encourage involvement from other users. The results from the analysis determined that there is indeed power in communicating your message in online spaces. The study concludes with these findings: social media, specifically Twitter, is represented as a communication tool. The leaders of the Never Again MSD Movement use those tools in a variety of different ways such as communicating their personal opinion, encouraging involvement as well as promoting collaboration, community, and accessibility.

An increasing number of individuals are looking for health information,
interacting with health care providers, and participating in health-related online support
groups The virtual landscape of the internet offers the opportunity for individuals to
establish contact and relationships with persons having similar health concerns anywhere,
anytime The phenomenon of health-related social media use generated an interest in why
persons in the transplant journey chose to participate in an online support community,
how they interacted and made use of the online community, and how this knowledge
could assist nursing in improving care for this growing population A six month sample
of internet postings from an international transplant-related social media site was
analyzed using an inductive qualitative content analysis adapted from Graneheim and
Lundman (2003) within the theoretical lens of Unitary Caring Science (Smith, 1999) The
study provided a unique perspective of how members used the social media support group The synthesis of four pandimensional interconnected patterns, expressing
emotions, sharing experiences, exchanging information, and offering reciprocal support
lead to a theme of being known and understood Healing transcendence emerged as a
unitary transformative metatheme that reflected the holistic nature of the member
interaction in the online support experience

This research examines how incorporating interactivity into online video
advertisements effects the following key marketing dependent variables: a) Involvement
with the Advertisement, b) Ad Recall, c) Attitude towards the website, d) Attitude
towards the Advertisement, e) Attitude towards the Brand, and f) Purchase Intention.
Deriving from past Interactivity research, three important facets of interactivity are
identified; User Control, Two-way Communication and Synchronicity. In order to test an
Internet based 2 (User Control: high or low) X 2 (two-way communication: high or low)
X 2 (synchronicity: high or low) between subjects experimental design, 8 different online
video platforms were created. The online video experiment was administered to
approximately 400 students in a large South-Eastern school.
Overall the findings regarding interactivity in online video advertising found no
significant effect of synchronicity on the dependent variables. There was however a significant interaction effect of user control and two-way communication on the
dependent variables. These interaction effects were examined further with a cell means
multiple comparison analysis. User control and two-way communication were found to
have a significant interaction effect on ad recall, purchase intention and attitude towards
the brand. User control had a significant effect on involvement and two-way
communication had a significant effect on attitude towards the website. There was no
effect of UC or TWC on attitude towards the ad.

A social network is a structure of individuals and organizations, which are connected by one or more types of interdependency, such as friendship, affinity, common interests or knowledge. Social networks use Web 2.0 technology, which is mostly based on a service-oriented architecture. We are studying patterns for social networks in this environment. A pattern is an encapsulated solution to a software problem in a given context, secure threats are possible in this context. We present a collection of patterns associated with the most important aspects of social networks, with emphasis on controlling the actions of the users of these networks.