Seeing the Invisible: Understanding the Implications of Social Media Invisible Responses for Well-Being and Relational Development

Large swathes of current social media scholarship monolithically treats browsing behaviors as passive behaviors, per the passive versus active behaviors approach to social media activities. Such labeling fails to capture the numerous ways that people respond to social media sharing beyond visible clicks on the platform, such as relational distancing or switching channels to respond. Moreover, understanding what people do with information seen on social media platforms and how they respond to such information is integral to theorizing the implications of using these platforms. My dissertation tackles these challenges by first proposing the concept of invisible responses to unify the diverse approaches of responding possible to social media. Specifically, I define invisible responses as reactions to social media sharing by viewers that are invisible along any of the following dimensions: (1) to the original platform, (2) to the sharer, and (3) to the viewer’s imagined audience of third parties. The dissertation presents three empirical studies to investigate the different dimensions of invisible responses. Study 1 examines viewing time and visible clicks while browsing Facebook feeds. While viewing time—a proxy for visual attention—is largely invisible, public feedback of clicks are visible to everyone. Study 1 reveals that the combination of these two types of responses, along with the amount of social content in feeds, can predict important well-being outcome, namely self-esteem. Study 2 explores how people practice self-presentation and relational maintenance in an environment where responses are invisible to third parties. These findings suggest that, given responses that are invisible to third parties, sharers feel lower self-presentational pressure. However, what remains unchanged compared to public feedback is the emphasis on the amount of attention and effort as signaling investment in a relationship. Finally, Study 3 investigates when and why people would make their reception of a social media post invisible or not to the original sharer of the post. Once again, the findings underscore that sending signals of attention and effort is meaningful for relational maintenance. Together, the studies in this dissertation illustrate the importance of invisible responses in understanding well-being and relational outcomes of social media use, as well as opening up future avenues for research. Specifically, responding to the research agenda outlined by the communication visibility theory (Treem, Leonardi, & van den Hooff, 2020), I highlight questions around the management of visibility on social media.PHDInformationUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/162891/1/dieptl_1.pd

APPLYING ANALYTIC HIERARCHY PROCESS (AHP) TO SELECT CLIMATE CHANGE ADAPTATION METHODS IN AGRICULTURAL SECTOR: A LITERATURE REVIEW

Abstract: According to Conference of the Parties 22 (COP22) statement, climate change adaptation is the concern of not only an individual but also the whole society. Since the climate change issue is a multidimensional problem, decision-making in climate change adaptation is a complex process. In this paper, we analyze the advantages and disadvantages of three main group of decision-support tools, namely Expert preference, Monetary valuation, and Multi-criteria analysis (MCA). The paper recommends MCA in general and AHP in particular as effective tools to compensate for the disadvantages of other techniques as well as to overcome the challenges and requirements from the climate change adaptation decision-making process.Keywords: climate change, AHP, MCA, monetary valuation, expert preferenc

An Empirical Analysis of the Relationship among Social Institutions and Juvenile Arrests in Virginia

The United States has unusually high rates of violence among developed nations, including the victimization of and perpetration by youth. Using Institutional Anomie Theory (IAT) as the theoretical framework, this study analyzes the relationships between social institutions and crime and the interactive relationships among the institutions in a sample of Virginia localities. Multivariate analyses are conducted to produce additive and multiplicative models, and simple slope analyses are conducted to clarify interaction/moderation effects. Findings yield mixed support for IAT. Localities with higher levels of monthly welfare per recipient (a measure of polity) have lower juvenile violent crime arrest rates, and welfare moderates the relationship between income inequality and juvenile violent crime arrests. Controlling for all variables, no support was found for the direct effects of any other institution on juvenile violent crime arrests. Policy recommendations include maintenance of welfare programs and improvement of work participation supplementary programs

Re-Interpreting the Will Of God in the Discernment of Spirits According to Ignatian Tradition for Young Women in Vietnam

Young Vietnamese women seeking to discern a religious vocation often confuse their own unconscious motivations and desires with what they perceive as the “will of God” for their lives. This study argues that a clearer understanding of the “will of God” will lead young women to a more mature decision-making process when discerning a vocation to religious life. The thesis investigates how the “will of God” has been interpreted and understood in the Christian tradition and uses these insights to develop a systematic structure aiming to assist young Vietnamese women in their life discernment. It first examines how the will of God has been variously interpreted in the Scriptures and the lives of several distinguished spiritual figures in the Church. Second, it analyzes this concept in the life of Saint Ignatius of Loyola, whose writings and spiritual practices have been considered one of the most important tools for discernment in the Christian tradition—for detecting the language of God. Notably, the study will consider how the practice of active listening (by both director and directee) supports candidates in understanding their own inner motions and authentic desires, and through these movements, to hear the voice of God. Finally, it demonstrates how contextualizing these insights for the Vietnamese context will enlighten and empower young Vietnamese women in discerning their life vocation. The study makes a contribution to the academic discipline of Christian Spirituality concerning the concept of the “will of God,” proposing that a clearer understanding of this concept can lead to a richer and more effective discernment process. The discussion also seeks to assist spiritual directors of religious communities who are accompanying candidates in their spiritual journeys. It is my hope that it may also prove beneficial to all those who are interested in their own discernment process or in directing others in their spiritual journey