<p> This project investigates the way that larger power structures and highly specific site architectures affect voices of contestation through a situated ethnographic study of the #BlackLivesMatter movement on Tumblr. Rather than a comprehensive study, this project looks at how protesters may utilize high media and social network literacy to strategically make their voices heard by seemingly isolated and uninvolved users. Rather than ignorant to the structures around them, the specifics of these choices or e-tactics demonstrate a degree of awareness by protesters of larger cultural forces that may limit or constrain their ability to be heard. Through this lens, this thesis compares the role of Tumblr and other social sites as arenas for democratic dialogue and the insertion of previously marginalized peoples and narratives. The use of blogs by #BlackLivesMatter protesters and other counter-hegemonic movements as a realm for civic journalism and &ldquo;counter media-errorism&rdquo; is also analyzed. Ultimately, this project shows a clear need for further ethnographic study on the particulars of Internet and information and communication technology structures and how activists pursue social change within these structures. </p>

Celebrity gossip blogs have quickly established themselves as a new media phenomenon that is transforming celebrity culture. This dissertation is an examination of the impact of the technological and textual shifts engendered by new media on the use of gossip as a form of everyday cultural production. Broadly, I investigate the historical role of gossip media texts in celebrity culture and explore how celebrity gossip blogs have reconfigured audience engagements with celebrity culture. Following Gamson's (1994) approach to celebrity as a cultural phenomenon, I separate celebrity gossip blogs into three elements—texts, producers, and audiences—and examine the interplay between them using ethnographic methods adapted to the new media setting. I begin with an investigation of what is being said about celebrity on gossip blogs, supported by my five-week online fieldwork observation of six heavily-trafficked, commercially-supported celebrity gossip blogs. I focus on visual images and blogger commentary as the key elements of gossip blogs as media texts. I supplement these observations with oral interviews of the producers of these texts, the gossip bloggers. I argue that the blogger, as the primary author of the site, retains authority as a cultural producer of these texts. The final component of this study focuses on the reading and cultural production practices of celebrity gossip blog audiences using data gathered online and through a qualitative survey. I examine the various ways these practices support the emergence of community within these virtual spaces. While I claim that gossip is an active engagement with celebrity culture well suited to new media‘s emphasis on immediacy and interactivity, I conclude that an active audience is necessarily a resistant one. Blogs can be seen as a space for intervention into celebrity culture that allows bloggers and readers to challenge the power of the media industry to define celebrity culture. However, gossip blogs often uphold oppressive norms, particularly around questions of gender, race, and sexuality. Gossip is an important area of inquiry because it reveals the way women, the predominant audience for and participants on gossip blogs, may be implicated in the normative ideologies forwarded by the celebrity media.

<p> This study examines whether or not empathy can be increased in school administrators through blogging. Five school administrators blogged for three months, shared posts with each other, and used narrative writing techniques. A mixed methods analysis was completed. The Davis Interpersonal Reactivity Index was administered as a pre and posttest. Results were calculated using a dependent <i>t</i> test. No statistical significance was found. The quantitative analysis was completed using a computer assisted qualitative data analysis program called MAXQDA. The analysis revealed that the majority of posts included reflection, an essential element of empathy. Currently, school administrators have been tasked with the dual roles of leadership and management. Their interpersonal skills, especially empathy, must be honed to ensure their efficacy. The study was modeled on research completed in the medical field using physicians in training. Results from the medical field showed that blogging did increase the physicians&rsquo; capacity to change perspectives and to reflect. The difference between blogging for physicians and school administrators, though, is that blogging also served as an easy way for administrators to establish a communication and professional network. Perhaps, through blogging, it is possible to increase the administrator&rsquo;s capacity for reflection, perspective taking, and ultimately, for empathy for all of their stakeholders.</p>

<p>Advertising to children has been a topic of discussion for many years. In fact, the Federal Trade Commission is still researching way to better regulate advertising to children. This thesis investigates the persuasion intent as inferred from video content strategies, themes, and descriptions associated with YouTube videos that target preschool-age children posted on the Ryan ToysReview YouTube channel. With the advancement of technology and children?s growing ability to interact with technology, including social media networks, marketing and advertising professionals are finding new ways to promote toys to children during their unsupervised time on such platforms. From the research presented in the Literature Review, persuasion intent may be presented even if it is not in traditional advertising including YouTube videos. The significance of this study is to help add to the existing research that seeks to identify how YouTube videos may contribute to what scholars understand about the way children learn new skills and behavior and believe is associated with how they are being socialized into consumers. This was done to encourage change in regulatory issues by the Federal Trade Commission as well as suggest appropriate changes or updates to skills presently taught to future advertising professionals in undergraduate advertising curricula.

<p> Social media allows people to communicate and interact with friends and acquaintances around the world. This innovative avenue of advertisement is now helping companies create content and turn information into profit. This study seeks to understand the effects of social network advertisement (focusing on Facebook) on the biggest population of Facebook users. This population between 30&ndash;36 years old is highly engaged in Facebook; spending a critical part of their time on social media channels for several reasons such as: increasing their social life, networking, locating old friends, etc. Through the uses and gratifications theory, this research was able to examine the motivations behind users social media usage and how their levels of engagement in social networking sites can influence their purchase behaviors. The purpose of this study was to show the relationship between motivations for using Facebook in the age group previously mentioned and engagement/interaction with Facebook Advertising. Statistical tests were conducted to determine the relationship between elements of uses and gratifications theory and engagement with Facebook ads.</p><p>

<p> In 2008, a group of masked protesters stood in front of the Church of Scientology in Los Angeles to protest the organization's censorship on the Internet (Knapperberger, 2012). This protest was the first collectivized, localized, and material manifestation of the group Anonymous, a loosely coordinated decentralized group of Internet based-activists that began on the web. Amidst increasing regulation of the Internet, Anonymous is a key subject to watch to determine how contemporary social movements will unfold with the introduction of cyberspace as a place of organization and performance. To provide a foundation for this study, I review social movement theory in the U.S. with an emphasis on visual imagery in protests. While traditional movements relied on public collective action (Bowers, Ochs, &amp; Jenson, 1993), new social movement theory assumes movements rely on private and individual reclamation of identity (Buechler, 1999, 2000). Anonymous fits into neither theory but takes aspects from both, challenging social movement theory to go further and account for the Internet-driven conditions that change the nature of the protester, revealing anonymity and appropriation of images as two distinct markers of contemporary social movements, as initially depicted in the use of the Guy Fawkes mask. Next, I look at geographies of place and how protest changes in cyberspace based on the images that emerge, giving the group aesthetic control over their social construction. Mirzoeff's (2011) analysis of visualized authority explains how Anonymous creates a countervisual to the state control of aesthetic reality by guiding is visual representations. DeLuca and Peeples' (2002) concept of the public screen addresses the promulgation of protest images, which become the primary rhetoric of the movement and a means to establish aesthetic credibility. Anonymous exists as a character in a disembodied cyber-world, with the media creating myths of embodied protesters. Through Bahktin's (1981) analysis of the chronotope, I study the spatio-temporal relationships of traditional social movements and how Anonymous challenges those relationships by establishing new chronotopes that influence contemporary movements. Emerging chronotopes break down the distinction between the protester and the hacker, the public and private dichotomy, and allow for contemporary protesters to break out of these conditions and inhabit a space of legitimacy. Anonymous offers a case study for the future of contemporary social movements that will take place in cyberspace in an era characterized by a struggle over information in a virtual world. Because social movements are no longer primarily defined by traditional media outlets, Anonymous shows how protesters can determine their own aesthetic reality. The chronotopes that emerge speak to the movement's ability to expand social movement theory as both a public and private operation, functioning outside of state suppression tactics and normative restraints. As the chronotopes become recognizable by the public, Anonymous gains leverage in defining its own genre of social movements. Anonymous is a performance without a distinct beginning and end, but operates as an evolving ideological position. The visual realities that emerge into the material world may provide further insight into how the state will allow (or disallow) social movements to occur.</p>

<p> This project sought to understand how individuals establish credibility online through impression management strategies. Applying Goffman's (1959) impression management theory, the literature review highlighted four leading self-presentation tactics that bolster credibility effectively on the Internet: structure and aesthetics of personal websites, publication of content that is consistent, insightful and authentic, the use of self disclosure, and verification of expertise through testimonials and references. These four self-presentation strategies were applied to analyze eight entrepreneurs who have successfully built a credible presence online. These case studies were further developed through the design of online course that teaches entrepreneurs how to use impression management effectively online.</p>

<p> This study investigates how professional sports organizations are using social media to develop long-term relationships with supporters as well as to explore additional functionalities social media have within their marketing and communication strategies. This qualitative comparative case study uses relationship marketing as the base theory and semi-structure interviews as the method of data collection. The interviews were performed to key marketing and communication personnel of the Saint Louis Rams (Rams) of the National Football League (NFL) and the LA Galaxy (Galaxy) of the Major League Soccer (MLS) in order to gather valuable insight into this phenomenon.</p>

<p> Photography is increasingly used as conversation in social media. Photography has been used as evidence of activity, for influence and identity, and for persuasive rhetoric. Current demand for understanding social photography is due to its modern inclusion as a standard communication process for creating and affirming community. Mobile technology and increased data rates through available bandwidth have resulted in the answer and response interaction cycle now happening with photographs. Facebook users share over 300 million photographs a day (Facebook, 2013) which indicates a mass of communication occurring between individuals, small groups, communities, and the public that does not have the same level of communication understanding as written and spoken language. A second level of inquiry concerns the lower levels of understanding concerning small groups and communities. The majority of communication studies concern individuals, the public mass, and Western hierarchical organizations. This research leverages tools from iconic photojournalism in order to analyze ease of use and applicability for future social photography studies. Hariman and Lucaites (2007) five primary tools of aesthetic familiarity, civic performance, semiotic transcripts, emotional scenarios, and contradictions and crises are evaluated through the data sample photography shared by the Burning Man community. The data set concerns photographs and their associated responses shared through Twitter as a social media tool intended for open, public access. The intent of this study concerns the ability to leverage the process for past, present, and future sharing of photography in order to analyze and apply ways to build community. This analysis reveals the minimal use of sharing a photograph as an emotive invitation to join with the community's performance enables a high success of visualizing community. This study investigates analysis and application tools for visualizing community through social photography. </p>

<p> This dissertation explores the role soft control plays in the relationship between the television industry and short forms of digital media. Following James Beniger and Tizianna Terranova, I define soft control as the purposive movement by the television industry towards shaping audience attention toward predetermined goals through a range of interactions where development happens somewhat autonomously, while being interjected with commands over time. I define such things as media environment design, branding, and data collection as soft control practices. I focus on television as a way to understand how an industry historically patterned around more rigid forms of audience control deals with a digital media environment often cited for its lack of control features. And while there is already a robust discussion on the shifting strategies for the online distribution of shows, there is less of a focus on the increasing importance of shorter forms of digital media to the everyday operation of the television industry. Shorter forms of media include digitally circulated short videos, songs, casual digital games, and even social media, which is itself a platform for the distribution of shorter forms of media. I refer to all these forms of short media as "micromedia" and focus my interest on how various television companies are dealing with media environments saturated with it. </p><p> To do this I look at, for instance, how television companies use the data available on Twitter and appropriate the user-generated content of audiences, as well as how standard digital communication interfaces are utilized to more easily retrofit previous audience retention practices into new digital environments. Through the investigation of how television creates and appropriates micromedia as a way to reconfigure practices into the everyday lives of participatory audiences, I argue that we can see soft control elements at work in structuring the industry-audience relationship. These soft control features call into question the emancipatory role attributed to participatory audiences and digital technologies alike. If we think about media forms in their specific contexts, making sure to focus on their intermedial connections and their materiality, we can complicate ideas about what the categories of audience or industrial control mean.</p>