Can you persuade 100,000 strangers on social media? The effect of self-disclosure on persuasion

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Boston UniversityDisclosure of personal stories and self-relevant emotions is an essential part of our daily conversations. We frequently talk about our thoughts, feelings, and emotions with our family, friends, and, in an online setting, even with strangers. Despite the frequent occurrence of self-disclosure on social media, research that examines the influence of self-disclosure on the persuasive impact of a speaker is surprisingly limited. Working to understand persuasion in social media, this dissertation looks at self- disclosure (i.e., the act of revealing personal information which ranges from demographic information to feelings, thoughts, values, experiences, and self-concepts) as a core construct. In particular, across two essays, this dissertation research focuses on how bloggers can use disclosure of their feelings, thoughts, and life concerns to increase trust and build relationships with their audience, thus increasing the persuasive impact of their word-of-mouth messages. The first essay is a qualitative study ofbloggers' communication practices, in which postings on a variety ofblogs were analyzed. Drawing on both the communication and social psychology literatures, this essay develops a conceptual framework of how blogs can be categorized based on audiences' perceptions and how bloggers use different strategies to shape or shift their audiences' perceptions and increase the persuasiveness of their messages. Specifically, it suggests that bloggers use two distinguishable communication strategies: (a) developing and sustaining an illusion of relationship between the blogger and the reader in order to individualize the communication and (b) maintaining a level of ambiguity in their commercial interests in order to conceal the commercial nature of some blogs. Tactics underlying the use of these strategies as well as the efficacy and ethics of these practices were discussed. The second essay examines how sharing of intimate self-disclosure (i.e., sharing ofa deeper level ofpersonal information that may potentially involve risk and a feeling of vulnerability) influences the communicator's ability to persuade. Across four studies, this essay demonstrates how a communicator's intimate self-disclosure is perceived and processed by their audience in different types of relationships (communal vs. exchange) and how it affects the persuasive impact of the message

KEER2022

Avanttítol: KEER2022. DiversitiesDescripció del recurs: 25 juliol 202

The Spanish media and the Internet: new practices built on traditional values

This research explores the convergence of journalism, an influential and well established profession, and the Internet, a technology that alters the communication experience. It focuses on how the Net and its associated practices intersects with deep rooted journalistic cultures; asking how this collision affects traditional values, how it influences new practices appearing in newsrooms, how the involved agents re-define their roles and how new media logics are emerging from this contact. This investigation has been developed through the prism of Bourdieu's theory of practice, which considers the journalistic profession as a field, where there are shared values, practices and routines, a sense of a group, a common identity, built on each actor's daily experiences. The latter, accumulated as a bodily habitus, operates in relation to the environment. The ethnography, a tool reckoned as well suited to capture and describe behaviours in newsrooms, is the methodology employed in this work, which combines participant observation and interviews. The studied media are four Spanish journalistic institutions; Diario de Mallorca, a regional print paper; Efe, a news agency, El País and El Mundo, the two biggest national newspapers and its online sites. This thesis argues that, in the negotiation of their adapted new role, journalists tend to align themselves with their traditional values and habitus. Well aware of the Internet related trends, they claim to keep an open mind to technological features, while filtering them through the sieve of their most cherished tenets. They see the gatekeeping role of journalism –as a profession with particular values– as something that can help save the public sphere from powerful and biased agents; the identification of sources and traceability of stories to guarantee its trustfulness, framing news in wider scenarios or a declared attachment to 'the truth' –all of these ‘news values’ and the practical activities designed to underpin them shape their professional ideology. Negotiating new media, and taking a view on journalistic transformation, they mostly stick to what they do not see as nostalgia (an attachment to values now rendered redundant in a new media environment), but as values related with, and indeed helping to enable, democracy, fairness, equality and a healthy public sphere

A Novel Form of Product Placement? The Use of Fashion Brand Names in British Chick Lit

Several studies have noted the frequent use of fashion brand names in contemporary fiction, but to date there has been little academic research into this phenomenon and the effect that it has on the reader. This study therefore set out to address this research gap. Focusing specifically on chick lit (a type of contemporary popular fiction, typically featuring and aimed at young women), the present study aimed to explore the use of fashion brand names in women’s fiction, concentrating on the relationships between fashion brands, authors, fictitious characters and readers, with a view to establishing whether there might be potential commercial benefits of fashion brand product placement in chick lit novels. A mixed methods approach was used to explore the topic from multiple perspectives. A summative content analysis was undertaken to investigate the frequency, variety and types of fashion brand names used in a corpus of 19 chick lit novels drawn from the Bridget Jones, Shopaholic and I Heart series. A qualitative analysis of the novels in the corpus focused on the ways in which the characters interacted with fashion brands in the text. An online survey of 166 chick lit authors was used to explore why writers use fashion brand names in their work, and a survey of 96 female students was used to investigate readers’ response to fashion brand names in novels. The study findings indicated that chick lit authors use fashion brand names to support characterisation due to the ability of fashion brands to express the values, self-concepts and stereotypes of their typical brand users. The outcomes of the consumer survey suggested that readers use textual cues, including those related to fashion consumption, to help them to develop their impressions of characters in novels, however the study was unable to demonstrate a clear relationship between readers’ perceptions of character personality and brand personality. In terms of product placement, the findings confirmed that readers demonstrated high levels of recall and recognition of fashion brand names used in chick lit narratives, but no evidence was found to indicate that the appearance of brand names in the text had an impact on consumers’ brand attitudes. Readers were found to be broadly positive about the use of brand names in novels, indicating that they preferred to see real brands, rather than fictional brands, in books. Readers appeared to have no significant objection to commercial product placement in fiction books, provided that such placements were accompanied by a disclosure. The results of the study therefore provide support for the proposal that chick lit novels are a potential product placement medium for fashion brands seeking to generate brand awareness. The frequent mentions and positive treatment of fashion brand names in chick lit mean that it would be relatively easy to incorporate paid-for placements of fashion brands in chick lit novels without compromising the narrative

Tocqueville and Democracy in the Internet Age

Tocqueville and Democracy in the Internet Age is an introduction to Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859) and his monumental two-volume study Democracy in America (1835, 1840) that pays particular attention to the critical conversation around Tocqueville and contemporary democracy. It attempts to help us think better about democracy, and also perhaps to live better, in the Internet Age

Tocqueville and Democracy in the Internet Age

Tocqueville and Democracy in the Internet Age is an introduction to Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859) and his monumental two-volume study Democracy in America (1835, 1840) that pays particular attention to the critical conversation around Tocqueville and contemporary democracy. It attempts to help us think better about democracy, and also perhaps to live better, in the Internet Age

To my betas, endless chocolate frogs! : exploring the intersections of emotion, the body, and literacy in online fanfiction.

This project examines the complex intersections of identity, including gender, sexuality, and social class, in the literacy practices of online fanfiction. Previous scholarship has focused solely on the gender and/or pedagogical implications of fanfiction communities, and my project engages and extends these conversations by analyzing how fanfiction practices provide a distinctive space to explore how we understand identity, digital technologies, and fannish participation. I conducted textual analysis of stories, authors\u27 notes, how-to guides, and questionnaires and interviews. A close inspection of fanfiction practices provide insight into how digital technologies and literacy practices interact within exchange economies. My dissertation is divided into five chapters. Chapters 1 and 2 include a review of the literature as well as a theoretical approach to the project and its methods. Chapters 3 and 4 address the functions of online fanfiction by looking at fan websites, fan stories, and how-to fan documents, as well as questionnaires and interviews. Finally, Chapter 5 develops a theory of online fanfiction literacy practices, and the ways in which these practices are shaped by power structures, identity construction, community norms, and material circumstances. I focus, in particular, on developing a theory of emotion in terms of literacy practices—what I come to call “emotioned literacy” (borrowing from Micciche).The investigation of online fanfiction spaces is especially valuable for rhetoric and composition because it highlights how writing is a deeply embodied and emotional, life-long (learning) process. In addition, this project highlights the importance of a network of dedicated participants with knowledge(s) in different areas. Finally, this project highlights the importance of paying closer attention to the ethics of our online research methodologies

Digital media and storytelling in higher education

Anita Lanszki's book is about storytelling in the digital media environment. The enterprise is both classical in that it explores the nature of storytelling, which is found in all historical periods and human communities, and modern in that it undertakes a broad overview of contemporary digital culture from the perspective of storytelling. The book is also a methodological guide, illustrated with numerous examples, which has emerged organically from the author's many years of teaching experience. Although the title reflects a focus on the use of digital storytelling in various fields of higher education and research, this excellent work can also be used by professionals working in other spheres of education. Whatever our views on the digital space and age may be, we can probably all agree that we are witnessing a democratization of storytelling in our time. The insights in this book are therefore extremely useful for anyone who is interested in how the timeless practice of storytelling is adapting to the new media environment