Thesis advisor: Stephen J. Pfohl / The Gezi Park protests, which started in May 2013 in Istanbul, rapidly turned into a movement for democracy across the country. Through in-depth interviews with protestors in Turkey, observation and content analysis, my research examines the role digital technologies played in the protests. These technologies, especially social networking tools, were used by protestors to construct personalized frameworks and forms of action. I show that this process depended on the individuals’ interpretations of their current political and cultural context, their alternative frameworks of reality. By expressing these frameworks individuals, first and foremost, challenged the politico-cultural adjustment of the society by various powerful actors. Moreover, as individuals got together in protest, alternative frameworks of reality interacted, leading to the emergence of empathy and dialogue among the protestors for long-term movement success. Digital technologies provided the necessary alternative sources for news and other information for the reconstruction of these frameworks. Moreover, they became the primary space for the production and circulation of jokes in various forms, as protestors used humor and creativity as central strategies to voice their dissent. Affective and humorous creations challenged the discipline of the political authority, hacked its presentations of reality and contributed to the formation of a carnivalesque society, where empathy and dialogue were maintained through collective effervescence. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2017. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Sociology.

Thesis advisor: Christopher Constas / Philosophers throughout the ages have grappled with the concept of glory-seeking and have offered many different references, analyses, insights, and explanations. Three great thinkers in particular stand out above the rest: Plato, Thomas Hobbes, and Jean-Paul Sartre. While these three minds span from circa 420 BC all the way up to 1980 AD, they all would agree that glory-seeking certainly matters – they would most likely argue over the following: In what way? For Plato, glory-seeking is an inherent part of the human soul. It matters because it is an essential part of our being. Plato’s model for the soul found in The Republic as well as a comparable illustration in the Phaedrus expresses this claim most thoroughly. Additional support for the idea of glory-seeking being an existing precondition of humanity can be found in other ancient works as well, most notably Homer’s Iliad. A current example is professional athletes in the NFL risking their earning potential in order to play injured. For Hobbes, glory-seeking is a tool to be used for social advantage. It matters because it can be used it for advantage and power. Chapters X and XIII in The Leviathan most critically highlight this sentiment. Further support for the idea of glory-seeking being a weapon in the self-made man’s arsenal can be found in Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Discourse on the Origin of Inequality. The largest modern-day example is celebrity culture: the news and entertainment factory so woven into current American culture, which is particularly embodied by the public behavior and lyrics of hip-hop artist Kanye West. For Sartre, glory-seeking provides an answer to existential angst. It matters because it helps us believe that we matter. The Sartre’s philosophical work, Being and Nothingness, as well as his existential novel, Nausea, provide ample evidence of this notion. More support for the idea of glory-seeking as a method of coping with the awareness one’s own existence can be found in Søren Kierkegaard’s The Present Age. Contemporary manifestations include the incessant self-promotion and self-presentation found on social media sites such as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube. The goal of this work is to first investigate glory-seeking for Plato, Hobbes, and Sartre and analyze what each thinker has to say on the matter. After that, modern examples and additional input from other relevant philosophers will be assessed within the overall context of glory-seeking for Plato, Hobbes, and Sartre. Finally, after everything has been considered, I will attempt to synthesize all that has been presented thus far while answering the question: Why does glory-seeking matter? / Thesis (BA) — Boston College, 2014. / Submitted to: Boston College. College of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: College Honors Program. / Discipline: Philosophy Honors Program. / Discipline: Philosophy.

Thesis advisor: Karen Arnold / Traditional aged college students currently enrolled at institutions of higher education have never known a time without technology and through social media, can interact and engage with one another regardless of physical space. Technology provides fast, easy, efficient, and constant means of communication, and students use social media while simultaneously engaging in campus activities. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between student use of socially interactive technology (SIT) and engagement and involvement in the undergraduate experience. Social media included in this study refers to cell phones, text messaging, Instant Messaging, email, and social networking sites (SNS). Borrowing items from the Net Generation Survey and the National Study for Student Engagement (NSSE) an instrument was created to analyze time dedicated to technology, use by demographics, technology as a predictor student of engagement, as well as qualitative data. Results from 154 participants show that students use technology for approximately eight hours per day, male students in the sample are overrepresented at the lowest levels of social media use, and social media types are correlated with one another. Following a factor analysis on the independent technology items and the dependent engagement items, regression analyses were employed to explore this relationship. Qualitative data illustrate that technology use can distract students from academic activities, and limits interpersonal communication. Conversely, it is beneficial in that students are constantly updated on class discussions, campus events, and with peers and family. Given these findings, because of students' frequent use of technology while engaged or involved in campus activities, concerns regarding the quality of these experiences are discussed. Additionally, redefining the traditional meaning of campus involvement is appropriate. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2011. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Educational Leadership and Higher Education.

Internet-based new media—social media platforms in particular—have profoundly altered the boundaries and contours of civic and political life by offering new opportunities for participation and challenge, as well as new perils of communal competition, surveillance, counter-influence and disruption. Additionally, new media technologies have shown unprecedented capabilities for political communication to cross national boundaries. This project considers the complex factors that impact participation by members of a diaspora in the politics of the homeland—in this case Indian immigrants in the United States. A combined approach of historical inquiry and applied survey research attempts to disaggregate the influence of the digital media ecosystem (social networking platforms in particular), as well as core dynamics of personal identity and the dislocation associated with geographic migration. The tested hypotheses examine whether respondents are more or less likely to consider future political participation based on indexed independent variables related to identity, geographic migration and social media platform usage. Additionally, respondents’ sensitivity to exposure to certain types of news information is also considered through an experiment using hypothetical news stories that vary in content, geography and actor identity. These approaches reflect on the existing scholarship, but more importantly, builds new lines of questioning that span across previously disconnected streams of research, offering a more holistic appraisal that more accurately reflects the large, complex, varied mediascape in which migrants see, share and respond to many different forms of online information, communication and interactivity. Online recruitment of resident Indian and Non-Resident Indian (NRI) survey respondents provided two population samples that allows for comparative examination prior and subsequent to the event of migration. The survey questions themselves encompassed of a broad range of questions addressing socioeconomic status, prior civic activity, social media usage, perceptions about political institutions and expectations of future participation in the form of voting. The implications for this research may yield insights into the shape of possible future transnational phenomena, most notably the prospect of absentee voting in the near future. The specific questions and influences on diasporic participation are considered in this context, and recommendations for follow-up research are provided.

<p>The current research study examined the way one’s relationship with self affects their relational intimacy with others, while accounting for the role of social media has in influencing this effect. This study uses self-compassion to examine one’s relationship with self and expands on the current knowledge that self-compassion influences one’s relationships. It was hypothesized that self-compassion would be positively associated with relational intimacy and negatively associated with social media use. A total of 173 participants contributed to this study. No significant relationship was found between self-compassion and social media use, as measured by social media use integration in to social routines and emotional connection, and integration into social routines. There was a significant positive relationship between self-compassion and relational intimacy but no support for social media use was a significant mediating variable.</p>

One of the de ning characteristics of the modern Internet is its massive connectedness, with information and human connection simply a few clicks away. Social media and online retailers have revolutionized how we communicate and purchase goods or services. User generated content on the web, through social media, plays a large role in modern society; Twitter has been in the forefront of political discourse, with politicians choosing it as their platform for disseminating information, while websites like Amazon and Yelp allow users to share their opinions on products via online reviews. The information available through these platforms can provide insight into a host of relevant topics through the process of machine learning. Speci - cally, this process involves text mining for sentiment analysis, which is an application domain of machine learning involving the extraction of emotion from text. Unfortunately, there are still those with malicious intent and with the changes to how we communicate and conduct business, comes changes to their malicious practices. Social bots and fake reviews plague the web, providing incorrect information and swaying the opinion of unaware readers. The detection of these false users or posts from reading the text is di cult, if not impossible, for humans. Fortunately, text mining provides us with methods for the detection of harmful user generated content. This dissertation expands the current research in sentiment analysis, fake online review detection and election prediction. We examine cross-domain sentiment analysis using tweets and reviews. Novel techniques combining ensemble and feature selection methods are proposed for the domain of online spam review detection. We investigate the ability for the Twitter platform to predict the United States 2016 presidential election. In addition, we determine how social bots in uence this prediction. / Includes bibliography. / Dissertation (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2018. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

This study used a training package to teach social media safety skills, using Facebook, to adolescents and young adults diagnosed with autism spectrum disorders in a small group setting. Participants were taught to decline, block and report when they received a lure from someone that they do not know. A multiple baseline design across lures demonstrated the effects of the intervention on participant performance. Results confirmed an increase in social media safety skills performed by all participants. Participants were able to maintain this skill set once the training package was removed. Spontaneous generalization was demonstrated by all participants for some lures. Generalization of social media safety skills was demonstrated across participants in a setting where they did not receive instruction. Limitations and implications for future research are discussed. / Includes bibliography. / Dissertation (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2018. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

This thesis project seeks to answer the question of how visual rhetoric put forward in social media content by pro-life and pro-choice organizations may persuade their audiences’ perspective on abortion. Using Sonja Foss’s guidelines for analysis of visual rhetoric, I analyze 24 selected examples of Facebook content posted by two pro-life organizations (Human Coalition and Feminists for Life) and two pro-choice organizations (Planned Parenthood Action and NARAL Pro-Choice America) in 2017. My analysis found that the visual rhetoric posted by both organizations on social media can and does function as a form of visual metonymy. Because of this, these visual strategies can stand in for more complex arguments in dramatic ways. / Includes bibliography. / Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2018. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

Social media is valuable when searching for information or to ease communication but what about the health risks, loss of productivity and physical activity, imaginary ideals and addiction? One third of women 16-29 years old suffer from a lower mental health and according to a large number of studies, social media has a big part in it. This study investigates how Instagram can be modified in order to reduce the nega- tive effects on young women caused by the app. Through interviews and a workshop, five concepts were produced and tested. The preferred solution for the users was to add a symbol if the image has been retouched, this was made to be able to separate the fake from the authentic uploads in Instagram. Totally removing the phone from the process was not an option since it is used in more situations like communication. Another concept that was instantly popular was the option to keep follow or unfollow recently added accounts. This makes the user aware of the content and is given the possibility to evaluate the accounts. Along with these concepts, it could be suggested that people need to be more aware of the problems caused by social media. It could also be suggested for users to work on their self-compassion, to not critique oneself too much, since fitspo-accounts affect users substantially. It is not the time spent on social media that matters but what people are actually engaging with.

There has been a digital transformation of the political public sphere. The political conversation is now taking place on multiple social media platforms and information is filtered through a new kind of gatekeeper, the influencer. The aim of this thesis is to describe how the public political conversation is framed in the Youtube-series Partitempen, and if deliberative discussion is taking place in the comment section. And whether the deliberative discussion is derived from the conversation in Partitempen or not. To answer the research questions two methods are used. A deductive qualiative tematic analysis, which applies the theory personlization of politics on the conversation between party leader and influencer in Partitempen. As well a content analysis based on the concept of deliberative discussion is used to research the comment section. To conclude, the conversation in Partitempen is framed around the themes in described in personalization of politics. New dimensions between themes appear by using the qualitative resarch approach. One of them is ’the role of the party leader’ which focuses on the change of private life when beeing a party leader. The other is that the ’private life is used as a benchmark for the party leaders’ own political stand. The result from the content analysis show that deliberative discussion is taking place in the comment section. The most common topic is substansive questions reagarding politics, and that those often derives from the conversation in Partitempen.