Entertainment-Education in the New Media Landscape: Stimulating Creative Engagement in Online Communities for Social and Behavioral Change

The Entertainment-Education (EE) strategy uses dramatic serials on radio or TV to motivate audiences to engage in behavioral changes to designed to improve safety, health and equality. This dissertation explores how the EE strategy can be extended to the Internet

The Influencer Effect: Exploring the Persuasive Communication Tactics of Social Media Influencers in the Health and Wellness Industry

With the emergence of social media platforms such as Instagram and TikTok, social media influencers (SMIs) have been a growing source of information in the health and wellness industry. Through their creative, informative, and appealing content, SMIs have the innate ability to reach and attain a large following on social media platforms. The purpose of this study is to ascertain an understanding of the persuasive tactics employed by SMIs in the creation and dissemination of information in the health and wellness industry. Using the theoretical framework of Aristotle’s Rhetorical Appeals and Fisher’s Narrative Paradigm, this qualitative study seeks to examine the key persuasive tactics used by SMIs in the health and wellness industry. Using content analysis, the social media content of SMIs was collected and analyzed to find emerging themes related to the rhetorical appeals and narration. In addition, a comparative analysis of the persuasive tactics used by SMIs and subject-matter experts (SMEs) was conducted. Findings showed that SMIs rely heavily on the appeals that allowed them to present themselves as credible, relatable, and similar to their followers; SMEs rely strongly on the logos appeal using technical language, memes, and textual graphics to educate the audience. Through this study, using the findings of the content and comparative analysis, a list of best practices of key persuasive tactics has been established to enable SMEs to be more effective in encouraging online users to adopt health information

Social Media Analytics Use Among Small Business Owners

As of January 2018, small businesses created 47.5% of private jobs in the United States, but little is known about whether and why small business owners use social media analytics. This topic is important because social media analytics assist businesses in identifying social media effectiveness, gaining new customers, and staying connected with current customers. The purpose of this generic qualitative research study was to explore the use of social media analytics by small business owners, which can increase customer interaction and help monitor company perception and effectiveness. The conceptual foundation used in this study was the technology acceptance model. The study aimed to answer two research questions: “How small business owners use social media analytics” and “If small business owners are not using social media analytics, why are they not using it” A homogenous purposive sampling strategy was used to identify small business owners to interview. Data collection from 18 small business owners occurred during the global pandemic. Coding was used to organize interview data. Key findings of the study were that small business owners perceived social media analytics as beneficial for their business, analytic dashboards were easy to use, social media analytics was time-consuming, and there was a learning curve to interpret the results. A more in-depth study could be created using a larger sample or a different metropolitan area. The findings of this study may affect social change by teaching small business owners how to better understand social media analytics which can help identify opportunities to be social change agents in their communities

A Visual Analytics System for Making Sense of Real-Time Twitter Streams

Through social media platforms, massive amounts of data are being produced. Twitter, as one such platform, enables users to post “tweets” on an unprecedented scale. Once analyzed by machine learning (ML) techniques and in aggregate, Twitter data can be an invaluable resource for gaining insight. However, when applied to real-time data streams, due to covariate shifts in the data (i.e., changes in the distributions of the inputs of ML algorithms), existing ML approaches result in different types of biases and provide uncertain outputs. This thesis describes a visual analytics system (i.e., a tool that combines data visualization, human-data interaction, and ML) to help users make sense of the real-time streams on Twitter. As proofs of concept, public-health and political discussions were analyzed. The system not only provides categorized and aggregate results but also enables the stakeholders to diagnose and to heuristically suggest fixes for the errors in the outcome

Online Radicalization of White Women to Organized White Supremacy

Since its early mainstream adoption in the 1990s, the Internet has been leveraged by white supremacist groups to recruit and radicalize individuals. Twenty years later, social media platforms, like YouTube, reddit, and Twitter, continue to further this practice. The attention of researchers has been primarily centered on white supremacist men, and this focus on white men erases white women’s roles as active agents in the spread of white supremacy, skewing our understanding of white supremacy as a whole. This study used digital ethnography and interviews to examine the ways white women are radicalized to organized white supremacy through popular social media platforms YouTube, reddit, and Twitter. The study found white women were radicalized by engaging with posts and joining communities focusing on beauty, anti-feminism or “The Red Pill,” traditionalist gender values or #TradLives, and alt-right politics. White supremacist recruiters leveraged gendered topics and weaponized platform features – likes, sharing, comments, recommendation algorithms, etc. – to cultivate a sense of community. Through involvement with these communities, women were introduced to racialized perspectives on each topic, usually after a catalytic pop culture or newsworthy event, and slowly radicalized to organized white supremacy

Management of the celebrities’ self-brand on social media by celebrity agencies

Social media have brought the opportunity for regular people to become famous. However, it has also given the possibility for celebrities, who were known for being actors, singers, sportsmen, among others, to have a new medium for communication to their audiences. Over the last years, regular celebrities have taken up the role of digital influencers. Celebrities as influencers have millions of people following every post about their private lives or work related. This following has allowed many celebrities to do partnerships with brands, share their daily lives, have a stronger relationship with fans but also throughout to create a self-brand online that helps distinguish themselves from the competition. Agencies of celebrity marketing have an important role in creating a brand for a celebrity. Agents aim for the biggest financial return but also help celebrities on establishing an online brand that is coherent, authentic and the audience connect with it. This dissertation is an overview of celebrities’ presence on social media, but also an analysis of how influencer marketing has renewed the way celebrities are perceived by the public and the significance that a self-brand has for its success. The study focuses on the role that agencies have in developing the celebrities’ brands, with the main research question How do agencies construct the self-brand of a celebrity on social media?. To answer this question, the study has applied two different methods: interviews with agents that work on influencer marketing and content analysis on celebrities’ social media profiles. In this dissertation it was concluded that agencies have an important role on helping celebrities evolve their identities into a self-brand and aid them on the monetization of it. Agencies create a strategy around a celebrity brand and manage it. Agencies advise celebrities in which brands should they work it and how to seem authentic and coherent. Through professional and personal contents, a celebrity defines a brand, and a strategic communication is the tool for sharing it with the public

The Dynamics of Influencer Marketing

YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, Vimeo, Twitter, etc. have their own logics, dynamics and different audiences. This book analyses how the users of these social networks, especially those of YouTube and Instagram, become content prescribers, opinion leaders and, by extension, people of influence. What influence capacity do they have? Why are intimate or personal aspects shared with unknown people? Who are the big beneficiaries? How much is vanity and how much altruism? What business is behind these social networks? What dangers do they contain? What volume of business can we estimate they generate? How are they transforming cultural industries? What legislation is applied? How does the legislation affect these communications when they are sponsored? Is the privacy of users violated with the data obtained? Who is the owner of the content? Are they to blame for ""fake news""? In this changing, challenging and intriguing environment, The Dynamics of Influencer Marketing discusses all of these questions and more. Considering this complexity from different perspectives: technological, economic, sociological, psychological and legal, the book combines the visions of several experts from the academic world and provides a structured framework with a wide approach to understand the new era of influencing, including the dark sides of it. It will be of direct interest to marketing scholars and researchers while also relevant to many other areas affected by the phenomenon of social media influence

The Potential of Social Media Intelligence to Improve Peoples Lives: Social Media Data for Good

In this report, developed with support from Facebook, we focus on an approach to extract public value from social media data that we believe holds the greatest potential: data collaboratives. Data collaboratives are an emerging form of public-private partnership in which actors from different sectors exchange information to create new public value. Such collaborative arrangements, for example between social media companies and humanitarian organizations or civil society actors, can be seen as possible templates for leveraging privately held data towards the attainment of public goals

A Social Media Method for Eliciting Millennials’ Worldviews on the Coastal and Marine Environment

A lack of involvement by participants with traditional data collection methods for research has led to insufficient data regarding millennials’ worldviews on the coastal and marine environment. Understanding millennial worldviews could provide insights for policy interventions for sustainable use of the marine and coastal environment. The aim of this research is to design, develop and evaluate an appropriate social media method to elicit millennials’ worldviews on the coastal and marine environment. The methodology used for the research was Design Science Research (DSR), which is a legitimate approach to conducting research in the field of Information Systems. The methods used were a literature review, interviews with social media experts and Social Media Influencers (SMIs), and a focus group discussion with researchers from the field of social sciences. The proposed artefact (the method) can be used to provide guidance to researchers for engaging and eliciting opinions and worldviews of millennials on social media. The method includes a Social Media Influencer Model that illustrates the relationship between SMIs’ characteristics and techniques for engaging the public, and a Social Media Analytics (SMA) Process model that can guide researchers through the steps of eliciting worldviews from the public. Although there are several SMA techniques that can be used, the proposed method uses sentiment analysis as an SMA technique for deriving sentiments from social media data. The method was evaluated by researchers who require a social media method for eliciting millennials worldviews. The findings confirmed some of the techniques identified in literature as well as some additional techniques and processes. It was also evident that using this method could assist researchers for data collection and specifically to obtain worldviews on the marine and coastal environment. The contribution of this study is an artefact that fulfils the need for a social media method for data collection that is more convenient for researchers and millennials and can guide researchers through the steps of eliciting worldviews from the public