You Watch, You Give, and You Engage: A Study of Live Streaming Practices in China

Despite gaining traction in North America, live streaming has not reached the popularity it has in China, where livestreaming has a tremendous impact on the social behaviors of users. To better understand this socio-technological phenomenon, we conducted a mixed methods study of live streaming practices in China. We present the results of an online survey of 527 live streaming users, focusing on their broadcasting or viewing practices and the experiences they find most engaging. We also interviewed 14 active users to explore their motivations and experiences. Our data revealed the different categories of content that was broadcasted and how varying aspects of this content engaged viewers. We also gained insight into the role reward systems and fan group-chat play in engaging users, while also finding evidence that both viewers and streamers desire deeper channels and mechanisms for interaction in addition to the commenting, gifting, and fan groups that are available today.Comment: Published at ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2018). Please cite the CHI versio

Mobility is the Message: Experiments with Mobile Media Sharing

This thesis explores new mobile media sharing applications by building, deploying, and studying their use. While we share media in many different ways both on the web and on mobile phones, there are few ways of sharing media with people physically near us. Studied were three designed and built systems: Push!Music, Columbus, and Portrait Catalog, as well as a fourth commercially available system – Foursquare. This thesis offers four contributions: First, it explores the design space of co-present media sharing of four test systems. Second, through user studies of these systems it reports on how these come to be used. Third, it explores new ways of conducting trials as the technical mobile landscape has changed. Last, we look at how the technical solutions demonstrate different lines of thinking from how similar solutions might look today. Through a Human-Computer Interaction methodology of design, build, and study, we look at systems through the eyes of embodied interaction and examine how the systems come to be in use. Using Goffman’s understanding of social order, we see how these mobile media sharing systems allow people to actively present themselves through these media. In turn, using McLuhan’s way of understanding media, we reflect on how these new systems enable a new type of medium distinct from the web centric media, and how this relates directly to mobility. While media sharing is something that takes place everywhere in western society, it is still tied to the way media is shared through computers. Although often mobile, they do not consider the mobile settings. The systems in this thesis treat mobility as an opportunity for design. It is still left to see how this mobile media sharing will come to present itself in people’s everyday life, and when it does, how we will come to understand it and how it will transform society as a medium distinct from those before. This thesis gives a glimpse at what this future will look like

The Cowl - v.82 - n.21 - Apr 12, 2018

The Cowl - student newspaper of Providence College. Volume 82, Number 21 - April 12, 2018. 28 pages

The Cowl - v.79 - n.10 - Nov 13, 2014

The Cowl - student newspaper of Providence College. Vol 79 - No. 10 - November 13, 2014. 20 pages

The Impact of Distance Learning on Nontraditional High School Students\u27 Attendance and Dropout Prevention

High school dropout rates have long been a problem for school districts, and various contributing factors have excavated the problem. Most of these students have been plagued by the inability to integrate into the mainstream of school life, due to socioeconomic standing, lack of parental support, and many other problems. This qualitative study examined how distance learning courses have the potential to increase high school graduation rates and attendance rates. The research perspective was conducted at an alternative high school where the primary goal is to ensure nontraditional students\u27 academic and personal support needed to graduate from high school. A single instrumental case study was conducted at an alternative high school utilizing a sample of twelve nontraditional students that took distance learning courses which allowed the researcher to understand a particular phenomenon, dropout, and attendance. Individual interviews were conducted to explore student experiences with distance learning courses and how these courses played a part in their graduation attainment; focus group methods, the analysis of learning analytics reports, lesson plans, and progress reports were conducted to understand student experiences. The researcher analyzed the data by coding the participant’s answers. Eight themes emerged from the participants responses: Academic Acceleration, Flexible Scheduling, Academic Support, Safe Environment, Transportation, Socializing, and Teacher Instructional Pace. These themes data was consistent with previous literature that supports the success and demand of distance learning settings and the lower dropout rate for older students

Building Momentum to Sustain Social Change Evaluation of the of Katrina Women's Response Fund

In the time that has passed since powerful hurricanes decimated the Gulf Coast region in 2005, the recovery and rebuilding process continues to expose the deep vulnerabilities of a society that has not effectively addressed the legacy of racism. In response to the injustices, human suffering, destruction, and massive displacement caused by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, the Ms. Foundation for Women, WFN and its partner funds, with the $1.3 million support of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, continued to strengthen the Katrina Women's Response Fund (KWRF)

An examination of online ratings on hotel performance indicators: An analysis of the Boston hotel market

This research study is designed to examine the impact that a posted online review rating has on the financial performance of a hotel room in the lodging industry. The popularity ratings of hotels in the Boston, Massachusetts market, as posted on the popular online travel review website TripAdvisor, will be examined against the hotel performance metrics of average daily rate (ADR), occupancy, and Revenue per Available Room (RevPar). This study examines the literature to better understand the previous research behind the impact that word-of-mouth communication, both in traditional and electronic forms, has on customer satisfaction. The emergence of social technologies has created an environment in which businesses can be rated and reviewed in an open market for potential future customers to read, and the development of user-generated content has become a more trusted and credible source of product and service information. The purpose of this study was to determine the influence of these online ratings on hotel performance, specifically that of TripAdvisor rating attributes on the financial performance of a hotel. The study found that the various attributes had varying levels of significant impact on Average Daily Rate (ADR), Occupancy, and Revenue per Available Room (RevPar). Based on the natures of the lodging properties in Boston, Value was found to be statistically significant across all categories analyzed. Ultimately, the contribution of this research is both academic and practical, as this study will be among the first to examine and test the various TripAdvisor rating attributes on each hotel financial performance metric. In addition, this study will expand upon the current body of knowledge in the areas of user-generated content, online reviews, ratings of TripAdvisor, and electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM)