Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Media and social communication'

Thinspiration and pro eating disorder (“pro ana”) social media content is prevalent and widely used by sufferers of eating disorders (ED). The risks associated with thinspiration and pro anorexia social media include continued disordered eating, poor self-esteem and perpetual body image dissatisfaction leading to depression and other psychological problems. However, little is known about why females continue to seek out this media or what are the reported impacts of continued usage. The goal of this research is to expand on current knowledge of the influence of social media imagery such as “thinspiration” and “pro ana” on disordered eating. The researcher qualitatively examined if sufferers use thinspiration to further their eating disorders (ED) and if sufferers report negative uses, feelings, behavior, family problems, life choices, body-image satisfaction or dissatisfaction when using social media platforms that promote or participate in thinspiration or pro ana. The study employed a confidential internet survey of 20 females, 18 years or older. Feedback was evaluated using a qualitative content analysis. Additionally, the author used the “uses and gratification theory” to explain how sufferers gravitate toward and participate in damaging social media platforms to prolong their ED. Young females suffering from ED reported using social media as part of their daily lives and reported negative impacts from this influence such as trouble with school, relationships, negative self-esteem, guilt, depression and body image dissatisfaction. The implications of these findings are discussed throughout the paper. It was concluded that thinspiration and pro ana social media represent a powerful and often damaging communication medium for those suffering from ED and can be a contributing factor to the severity and length of disordered eating.

The goal of this study was to determine how the Acadiana cultural region (St. Martin, St. Landry, Acadia, Vermillion, Lafayette and Iberia parishes) used social media in crisis response strategies. The researcher used a purposive sample and qualitative long interviews to gather data from six public relations practitioners in Acadiana. Practitioners were selected from the Lafayette Chamber of Commerce website in the section labeled "Advertising & Media" (http://business.lafchamber.org/list/ql/advertising-media-1). Results proved the hypotheses that practitioners used Twitter for the dissemination of information and Facebook was perceived to have the most interaction among all social media sites in the study. In addition, the results determined how practitioners used social media in the following categories and themes: usability, service and frequency.

For the past decade, the profession of journalism has been under intense pressure to adapt to changing business models, technology, and forms of communication. Likewise, journalism education has been under intense scrutiny for failing to keep pace with the industry and inadequately preparing students for a rapidly changing professional environment. Social media has become a nexus for the pressures being experienced by both the profession and academia. This study uses Wenger’s (1998) model of Communities of Practice to consider how a student newsroom functions and how student journalists adapt within a newsroom and on social media. This study used a quantitative self-reported survey (N=334) design to understand the relationship of students’ social media use and newsroom participation, social media use and digital skills, and the differences relationships between demographic variables and the use of social media. Items in the survey were in one of four categories: newsroom participation, social media use, digital skills, and demographics. Results demonstrated that as students take on more responsibilities in a newsroom, the more likely they are to have relationships in the newsroom, to have a voice (in both editorial content and newsroom policy), to share their experiences with newer staff members, and to see the importance of social media use in their newsroom experience. Findings also related to meaning, identity, and practice within Wenger’s (1998) notions of Communities of Practice. Significant correlations among items measuring digital skills are related to length of time on staff, use of social media (e.g. watch breaking news and find story ideas), holding a digital position, frequency of use of social media, and critical knowledge of digital skills (including high-level relationships among libel, audience analytics, and multi-media content). Analysis showed that participants who held primarily digital positions demonstrated patterns of the more sophisticated digital skills.

Developing effective social media marketing (SMM) strategies to engage customers is a challenge for business leaders. The purpose of this multiple case study was to explore the SMM strategies used by small business retailers to engage customers. The conceptual framework for this study was Rogers’s diffusion of innovations theory. Participants included 5 small business retailers who had been in business for at least 5 years, used effective SMM strategies to engage customers, and were located in the southwest region of the United States. Data were collected through semistructured, face-to-face interviews. Data analysis resulted in 3 emergent themes: (a) marketing strategies and platforms, (b) social media content, and (c) customer engagement and retention. Small business retailers might benefit from the findings of this study by understanding what other small business retailers consider the most beneficial social media platforms and strategies, what customers desire in social media content, and effective customer engagement and retention processes to create SMM strategies. The implications for positive social change could include providing small business retailers with SMM best practices and strategies to improve company sustainability and growth, generate employment, reduce local poverty, and enhance employees’ standards of living.

Traditional education system on campus has been using as a legacy over decades to support educational learning. The major change over time has been made by the use of technology supporting students in the academic community. As the majority of students in higher education today belong to the digital-age-student generation, they frequently use online technology to interact with instructors, other learners, and to access online materials. In this study, the result is primarily presented from campus students’ perceptions, to gain a deeper understanding of how social media is being used to support educational and collaborative/cooperative learning. Although, almost all the respondents are frequent social media users, only a quarter of them use such media regularly for academic purposes. Through use of social media in academia, students have encountered with benefits─ as convenience, possibility of interaction anywhere/anytime, time-saving, low price and many others─ in addition to facing to limitations─ such as less effective or spontaneous contact, connection problems, lack of platform compatibility, less creative and innovative thinking, and other issues─ which have been discussed in this study.

This thesis adopted a qualitative research and the characterization of knowledge that is used is exploratory research method with the use of interview as a tool for empirical data collection. Twenty interviews have been conducted with Uppsala University higher education students within random subject disciplines. Among many different social media, the most frequent ones used by majority of students are e-mail, a common asynchronous media to interact with instructors and other learners; and Instant Messaging (IM), a synchronous communication way to interact with co-workers, classmates, or group-mates. Furthermore, learners use social media to coordinate their collaborative/cooperative work, share documents and ask questions. Facebook, Wikipedia, YouTube and other popular social media are also sometimes used for educational purposes.

The findings indicate that social media seems particularly beneficial for supporting educational learning; though there are some negative aspect and limitations. Learners look at using the technology and social media as a complement to support their studies and collaboration/cooperation. However, not many of them consider using such media as a substitute for face-to-face interactions and the traditional campus education. By drawing on this thesis and the previous studies, proposition on how use of social media supports educational learning in the future has been emerged.

An increasing number of people are using the Internet for health purposes. Online social media makes it possible to find and share health-related information and to find social support by connecting with others who have the same issue or condition. This is true not only of patients or people experiencing health issues, but also of their caregivers. So far, little is known about caregivers’ use of social media for social support purposes. This study focused on caregivers of children of Down syndrome and implemented a uses and gratifications framework to examine their social media use, motivation, and perceived support outcomes. An online survey was followed by a content analysis of two popular social media sites utilized by the sample. Findings suggest that caregivers are indeed heavy social media users with the majority accessing their preferred sites on a daily basis to view content and at least once a week to post their own content or reply to content posted by others. The strongest motivation for using social media was to connect with people who understood what they were experiencing. Having access to other parents with children the same age and/or with the same medical conditions was a significant motivation for using social media over face-to-face support groups. Belonging support (the sense of belonging to a group similar to oneself) was also the highest perceived outcome of social media use. Caregivers felt that there were people who shared their same concerns and interests on their preferred social media site. Finding emotional support was another strong motivation for using social media and informational support was the second highest perceived outcome from social media use. This study sheds light on how caregivers use social media for support purposes and provides practical suggestions for improving the capacity of other health or care-related online communities focused on providing social support to better serve the needs of their users.

The primary purpose of this study was the exploration of social media utility as a crisis communication practice on three selected university campuses. The overarching research question for this study was “How and what social media technologies are selected, planned for, implemented, and monitored in crisis management in selected universities?”. This study examines how these institutions used social media during crisis, pinpoints the emergent themes, analyzes the engagement between the selected universities and their social media audience, and analyzes the effectiveness of social media during campus crisis situations.

The findings of this study include the documentation of institutional practices that contribute to successful social media crisis communication integration. These elements ultimately coalesce into the identification of a series of best practices that can help inform the field and contribute to the establishment of best practices for social media use during campus crisis situations. (Abstract shortened by ProQuest.)