Medium as King: Social Media & the Political Campaign

There is a growing need for a greater understanding of the intersection between great content, effective targeting and proper media usage in mediated communication and especially in American politics. As more campaigns move their efforts online in an attempt to reach a rapidly growing digital constituency, more content will continue to be less visible. The major quest for this study will be to challenge the long-standing idea that “content is king” which Bill Gates termed at the inception of the internet. A theoretical background of Marshall McLuhan and Kathleen Hall Jamieson will not only allow us to answer this question, but then will also allow for future researchers to build upon these concepts. This study will aim to demonstrate how the Ted Cruz presidential campaign of 2016, prior to his departure from the race, was an excellent example of the sweet spot in content creation, voter targeting and medium implementation

Issues of using information communication technologies in higher education

Social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter are examples of information communication technologies (ICTs) that have been widely adopted by students, and could potentially be useful as a resource for teaching and learning in further and higher educational institutions. Facebook tops the charts in social networking space, but when it comes to social messaging on mobiles WhatsApp walks away as the winner (Spohr, 2013). Facebook have recently purchased the popular social mobile app (Tech2, 2013). However, the use of social media has brought about numerous logistical issues and ethical issues relating to interactions with students. For example, the use of some tools in educational institutions is rather informal raising problems of accessibility and inclusion. Based on this phenomenon, we will conduct research to explore the usage of social networking sites and mobile social apps within further and higher education. We will use the survey method to ask students and staff their views on the use of this technology for learning and communication purposes. In this way we hope to compare the views of students in higher education on courses in Music Business and Psychology. While self-report methods are inherently subjective, we believe it is important to explore how both staff and students both use and view different features of these technological tools. Using focus groups, we hope to identify the main themes concerning the use of educational technology for staff and student groups. A larger sample will be obtained using a questionnaire to garner opinions on the main concerns raised. Analysing this data may help in providing recommendations for educational institutions, keeping in mind the important logistical and ethical issues some are unaware of

The role of desire thinking in the problematic use of social networking sites among adults.

The problematic use of social networking sites (SNS) is associated with several psychiatric disorders. This behavior closely resembles addiction in terms of neurological basis and behavioral patterns. Nevertheless, successful intervention strategies and the etiology of problematic SNS use are not yet thoroughly investigated. We aimed to study whether desire thinking is associated with problematic SNS use among adults when controlling for some confounders, including boredom, affect, and impulsivity. With the help of convenience sampling, we enrolled 546 Turkish adults in this study to whom we administered a sociodemographic form, the Social Media Addiction Scale (SMAS), the Leisure Boredom Scale (LBS), the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS), the Barratt Impulsiveness Scale (BIS-11), and the Desire Thinking Questionnaire (DTQ). To explore the association between the variables, we performed Pearson correlational and hierarchical regression analyses. The results showed that higher scores on two sub-dimensions of desire thinking, namely verbal perseveration and imaginal prefiguration, were associated with higher scores on problematic SNS use after we controlled for boredom, affect, and impulsivity. This study demonstrates that desire thinking may play a role in problematic SNS use among adults. We recommend targeting desire thinking as a potential area in treatments which may help alleviate problematic SNS use. [Abstract copyright: © 2022 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Social Media Influencer Motivation: Exploring What Drives Micro-Celebrities to Produce Content Using Social Exchange Theory

Social media influencers are online celebrities who have the power to shape the opinions of audience members due to their relatable qualities. Influencer sponsorships have changed the nature of social media platforms and the strategy by which the content is posted. But besides the potential to be sponsored, why do influencers post content? The purpose of this study was to understand what motivates influencers to post content through the lens of social exchange theory by identifying resources exchanged between the social media influencer and the audience and explain how this affects their motivation to post content. I interviewed 15 lifestyle influencers with more than 10,000 followers or subscribers on Instagram or YouTube or TikTok. The results show that the comments, direct messages, and other forms of engagement received by influencers from their audience give them friendship and support, but also negative mental health consequences. Participants also shared several internal drivers that motivate them to share their lives with others, including wanting to inspire and help others

Gestures and Interaction: exploiting natural abilities in the design of interactive systems

Collana seminari interni 2012, Number 20120606.This talk explores the role of gestures in computer supported collaboration. People make extensive use of non-verbal forms of communication when they interact with each other in everyday life: of these, gestures are relatively easy to observe and quantify. However, the role of gestures in human computer interaction so far has been focused mainly on using conventional signs like visible commands, rather than on exploiting all nuances of such natural human skill. We propose a perspective on natural interaction that builds on recent advances in tangible interaction, embodiment and computer supported collaborative work. We consider the social and cognitive aspects of gestures and manipulations to support our claim of a primacy of tangible and multi-touch interfaces, and describe our experiences focused on assessing the suitability of such interface paradigms to traditional application scenarios

STRATEGIC FRAMEWORK FOR ADVERTISING ON FACEBOOK BUSINESS MANAGER : Building an effective strategy for utilization of Facebook Ads

As social media usage increases every year, business try to take advantage of social media marketing as the most affordable and effective channel. Facebook is the most popular social network leading in amount of daily active users, and offering a wide range of advertising options. The purpose of this research is to help businesses to build an effective strategy for utilizing Facebook Ads, including developing a strategy, deciding what processes to include, and establishing a conceptual framework. The thesis is based on the prior research in the area of strategic management and advertising, social media marketing, and Facebook Meta advertising process. The empirical part of the study applies qualitative approach by analyzing best practices of Facebook advertising professionals which are actively using Facebook Ads. Initially the framework is build based on the results of theoretical review and insight from online sources, and the reviewed after interview results were in. Even though social media advertising is constantly changing and evolving, the existing academic knowledge can still provide a strong base for Facebook advertising strategy and is still used by advertising professionals today. The main steps in Facebook advertising strategy are internal/external analyses, setting SMART goals, designing a customer-driven marketing strategy, creating Facebook ad and analyzing its results to improve the existing strategy. The changes to the framework after the interviews were minimal, and showed that the main challenge is to stay current with the changes and new tools offered by Facebook advertising platform. It also important that Facebook advertising is not used on its own, but integrated into the overall business strategy

Doctor of Philosophy

dissertationThis dissertation constructs a theoretical approach to understanding the moral value of personal privacy. In its current state, the philosophical literature on the moral value of privacy is fractured in that there are several differing approaches, each emphasizing different aspects of the problem. Some approaches, referred to as "functionalist," consider the value of privacy as being based on the goods that it brings about. Others emphasize respect for the autonomy of the individual in question, referred to as "autonomy-based." The view developed in this dissertation combines the central intuitions behind both of these approaches by basing the moral value of privacy on the notion of relational autonomy. Relational autonomy is a conception of autonomy that emphasizes the interpersonal and social embeddedness of individuals, instead of treating autonomy as a singular ideal of independence from such influences. By understanding the value of privacy as a kind of respect for relational autonomy, the relational approach is technically a kind of autonomy-based approach, but one that manages to incorporate consideration of the socially oriented goods emphasized by functionalist accounts. The examples of social media (such as Facebook) and lifelogging are used to explain this approach to the value of privacy