How Polarized Have We Become? A Multimodal Classification of Trump Followers and Clinton Followers

Polarization in American politics has been extensively documented and analyzed for decades, and the phenomenon became all the more apparent during the 2016 presidential election, where Trump and Clinton depicted two radically different pictures of America. Inspired by this gaping polarization and the extensive utilization of Twitter during the 2016 presidential campaign, in this paper we take the first step in measuring polarization in social media and we attempt to predict individuals' Twitter following behavior through analyzing ones' everyday tweets, profile images and posted pictures. As such, we treat polarization as a classification problem and study to what extent Trump followers and Clinton followers on Twitter can be distinguished, which in turn serves as a metric of polarization in general. We apply LSTM to processing tweet features and we extract visual features using the VGG neural network. Integrating these two sets of features boosts the overall performance. We are able to achieve an accuracy of 69%, suggesting that the high degree of polarization recorded in the literature has started to manifest itself in social media as well.Comment: 16 pages, SocInfo 2017, 9th International Conference on Social Informatic

Distance Personal Identification in the On-Line Environment: Problems of Financial Institutions in the EU

Electronic financial services are of key importance in the EU. However, the actual policies adopted in the field by individual member states differ from country to country. A great deal of legal acts have been adopted by the EU to encourage FinTech development, to prevent money laundering and in particular to lay down secure procedures of personal identification. However, measures applied by individual member states frequently differ. The purpose of this article is to focuses on actual legal instruments used by EU financial institutions and FinTech agencies in the digital environment for client identification and on major problems faced by FinTech companies rendering modern financial services. Financial institutions and FinTech agencies often face the problem of client identification which is of key importance in the field. The complex legal regulation of the field has been extended to include such concepts as customer due diligence, simplified customer due diligence, enhanced customer due diligence and customer identification in physical absence. Each of the ways of identification differs in the scope of collected personal data, methods of data collection, legal regulation and the use of technological instruments

Language Ideologies of Multilingual Learners in an Intensive English Program

Despite some rises and falls in the numbers due to various reasons, including the political climate in the Trump era and the COVID-19 pandemic (Laws & Ammigan, 2020), each year universities in the United States host a large number of multilingual international students from different parts of the world. Based on their TOEFL scores, many are required to enroll in an accelerated course of study in academic English, commonly known as the Intensive English Program (IEP) before they can begin their mainstream academic programs. Where there is language, there are language ideologies. Yet, often in monolingual, English-only classrooms, little is known by the instructors and, at times, by the learners themselves, about their linguistic and cultural repertoire and its potential influence on their language learning. This multilayered qualitative analysis explores the language ideologies and conceptualizations of multilingual learners in an IEP. The themes that emerged from the data include ideologies about multilingualism and English, language teaching and learning, raciolinguistic experiences, and the participants’ practice and ideologies pertaining to translanguaging. A critical metaphor analysis was also conducted to explore the participants’ subconscious conceptualizations about language. This analysis reveals the differences in the participants’ conceptualizations of their mother tongues and English. The study highlights the ways in which the language ideologies of multilingual learners in the IEP influence their acquisition of English and offers an insight into how they use their multilingual repertoire to learn English. The work concludes with practical implications for supporting multilingual learners in IEPs. Advisor: Theresa Catalan

Exploring Southeast Asian American Women in Community College Leadership: A Narrative and Life Story Study

Background: The numbers of Southeast Asian women in higher education, whether within administration, teaching faculty, or counseling and student services are scarce. The specific needs of minority women go largely unnoticed and remain unaddressed and may contribute to the low numbers of minority women in higher education leadership. Purpose: The purpose of this study is to understand how Southeast Asian women describe their leadership development over the years in higher education as it relates to their gender, race, and cultural identities. The sub-questions for the study included: 1. What are some of the challenges and obstacles facing Southeast Asian women in leadership roles? 2. In what ways, if any, did gender, race, and culture influence the career paths of Southeast Asian women in higher education leadership? 3. How important are internal support groups such as mentoring, professional development, and advocacy to the recruitment and attainment of Southeast Asian women? Setting: One in-person interview and four video conferencing and telephone interviews were conducted. Participants: The participants were selected based on the study’s criteria: program lead, manager, policy analyst, dean, and president at community colleges in the U.S. Three participants identified as Vietnamese, one identified as half Cambodian and White, and one identified with ethnic Chinese and Vietnamese roots. Intervention: The main instrument employed in this study was in the form of gathering data through the application of the interview process. Research Design: The narrative and life story methods were used in collecting the stories of Southeast Asian women’s development in higher education leadership due to the small sample size. Data Collection and Analysis: Through the method of narrative inquiry, the interviews were used to collect data, code the data in different levels, and develop themes using AsianCrit and critical reflection theory for analysis. The iterative process of coding and development of the themes was from a deductive approach using the research questions. Results: Five themes were identified from the findings: (a) leadership as an indirect career path, (b) the relocation and resettlement conditions in the U.S. after the Vietnam War, (c) the cultural and gender influences, (d) the impact of stereotypes on the experiences of Southeast Asian women, and (e) the importance of support for developing and retaining leaders. Conclusions/Recommendations: The findings suggested the need for further research and exploration of the complexities of Southeast Asian women as (a) their positionalities as immigrants or refugees with limited resources upon their arrival, (b) their statuses or roles as women, and (c) their female identities in the constructs of the family and cultural community. An implication for Asian women would be that they actively seek leadership opportunities. Institutions should develop mentorship and support and affinity groups in colleges and career pathways for Asian women at early stages. Policy for higher education should focus on implementing culturally sensitive recruitment and hiring policies