Offering Hope and Making Attributions through YouTube: An Exploratory Ethnographic Content Analysis of the Social Change-Oriented “It Gets Better Project”

In response to multiple youth suicides, Dan Savage and Terry Miller founded a YouTube channel that later became the It Gets Better Project (IGBP). The ever-growing corpus of IGBP videos now includes over 50,000 “messages of hope” targeting at-risk LGBTQ and questioning youth. Employing Ethnographic Content Analysis (ECA) and the theoretical lens of attribution, this study offers insight into how LGBTQ bullying and harassment are discussed in the IGBP and to what they are internally and externally attributed. Findings revealed external attributions were more prevalent than internal attributions pertaining to types of harassment and bullying experienced as well as explanations of how “it gets better,” with a focus on institutions as both the cause of and remedy for bullying and harassment

How Millennials are Engaging and Building Relationships with Organizations on Facebook

More than half of Facebook’s 900 million active users in the U.S. consist of the Millennial generation (ages 13 to 29). With more organizations taking advantage of the site’s reach, determining how organizations are interacting with Millennials on Facebook is important.  This study used qualitative focus groups and a quantitative survey to examine how Millennials preferred to interact and engage with organizations on Facebook. Results found participants were not opposed to interacting with organizations on Facebook, but were very specific in terms of how, with who, and why they wanted to engage. While Millennials did want updates and other information depending on the type of organization or group, they also wanted discounts or other benefits. Millennials identified reasons why they would actively terminate the relationship with an organization

I just look it up: Undergraduate student perception of social media use in their academic success

College students are increasingly using social media.  This case study explores how traditionally aged college students perceive social media use contributes to their academic success.  We used survey data collected at a college student union to understand the social media students use in their academic pursuits and to inform a focus group discussion.  Findings indicate that students do not differentiate between technology and social media, and that they rely heavily on social media to facilitate their academic success.  This case study indicates that while using social media extensively may create minor issues for students, proper use can support academic endeavors

An Examination of the Role of the Communicator on Gratifications Attained on Social Network Sites

The many features available on social network sites complicate interpretation of research results in uses and gratifications studies.  This paper proposes a perspective that focuses on the communication role of the user that may promote greater understanding of uses and gratifications results, and applies its use.  Results of this analysis suggest that our understanding of uses and gratifications based on survey research questions will benefit from distinguishing between user role as a message source or receiver. More specifically, results of this analysis found the communication role of the user was able to predict certain social network site gratifications.  While results were promising, additional research should be conducted to refine these categorizations for predicting media gratifications

Examining Gender Differences in Self-disclosure on Facebook Versus Face-to-Face

Previous studies have shown that women disclose to their close friends more often than men. However, no study has compared the intimacy of their disclosures across different media and different relationship types. The purpose of this study was to examine gender differences in self-disclosure between Facebook friends and between face-to-face friends.  One hundred ninety-seven college women and 120 college men in this study were asked to report their levels of self-disclosure with three types of friends: an exclusive Facebook friend, an exclusive face-to-face friend, and a recently added Facebook friend. One-way MANOVA was used to test the hypothesis that women will self-disclose to their Facebook and face-to-face friends more than men. Results provided partial support for the hypothesis. Women disclosed to their exclusive face-to-face friends and exclusive Facebook friends more than men; however, men had more intimate discussions with their recently added Facebook friends than women did. Both men and women disclosed more to their exclusive face-to-face friends than to exclusive Facebook friends.  Overall, these findings suggest that, regardless of the medium, both genders disclose more to the person they consider more intimate

Employers' Use of Social Networking Sites in the Selection Process

Organizations are increasingly turning to social networking websites for insight into prospective employees. While existing research addresses many of the facets of human resource selection, the context of social networking sites is unique. Issues such as privacy, appearance, stigmas, and discrimination require study in the context of social networking to bridge past research with evolving practice. This article discusses human resource practices as they relate to the use of social networking sites for hiring purposes. The authors present an overview of social networking sites, briefly discuss applicable existing literature, offer relevant theory and propositions, discuss potential impacts on stakeholders, suggest guidelines for practitioners, and conclude with future research directions

Online Reading Communities: From Book Clubs to Book Blogs

Online reading challenges offer participants an opportunity to discuss their reading, form bonds with similar readers, and get recommendations for future reading. Through an analysis of the challenge announcements posted to the blog “A Novel Challenge” and case studies of three reading challenges, the social dynamics behind online social reading events are examined