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Description
Over 2 billion people are using online social network services, such as Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn, and Pinterest. Users update their status, post their photos, share their information, and chat with others in these social network sites every day; however, not everyone shares the same amount of information. This thesis

Over 2 billion people are using online social network services, such as Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn, and Pinterest. Users update their status, post their photos, share their information, and chat with others in these social network sites every day; however, not everyone shares the same amount of information. This thesis explores methods of linking publicly available data sources as a means of extrapolating missing information of Facebook. An application named "Visual Friends Income Map" has been created on Facebook to collect social network data and explore geodemographic properties to link publicly available data, such as the US census data. Multiple predictors are implemented to link data sets and extrapolate missing information from Facebook with accurate predictions. The location based predictor matches Facebook users' locations with census data at the city level for income and demographic predictions. Age and relationship based predictors are created to improve the accuracy of the proposed location based predictor utilizing social network link information. In the case where a user does not share any location information on their Facebook profile, a kernel density estimation location predictor is created. This predictor utilizes publicly available telephone record information of all people with the same surname of this user in the US to create a likelihood distribution of the user's location. This is combined with the user's IP level information in order to narrow the probability estimation down to a local regional constraint.
ContributorsMao, Jingxian (Author) / Maciejewski, Ross (Thesis advisor) / Farin, Gerald (Committee member) / Wang, Yalin (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
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Description
Most new first-year composition (FYC) students already have a great deal of writing experience. Much of this experience comes from writing in digital spaces, such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest. This type of writing is often invisible to students: they may not consider it to be writing at all.

Most new first-year composition (FYC) students already have a great deal of writing experience. Much of this experience comes from writing in digital spaces, such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest. This type of writing is often invisible to students: they may not consider it to be writing at all. This dissertation seeks to better understand the actual connections between writing in online spaces and writing in FYC, to see the connections students see between these types of writing, and to work toward a theory for making use of those connections in the FYC classroom. The following interconnected articles focus specifically on Facebook--the largest and most ubiquitous social network site (SNS)-- as a means to better understand students' digital literacy practices.

Initial data was gathered through a large-scale survey of FYC students about their Facebook use and how they saw that use as connected to composition and writing. Chapter 1 uses the data to suggest that FYC students are not likely to see a connection between Facebook and FYC but that such a connection exists. The second chapter uses the same data to demonstrate that men and women are approaching Facebook slightly differently and to explore what that may mean for FYC teachers. The third chapter uses 10 one-on-one interviews with FYC students to further explore Facebook literacies. The interviews suggest that the literacy of Facebook is actually quite complex and includes many modes of communication in addition to writing, such as pictures, links, and "likes." The final chapter explores the issue of transfer. While transfer is popular in composition literature, studies tend to focus on forward-reading and not backward-reaching transfer. This final chapter stresses the importance of this type of transfer, especially when looking back at digital literacy knowledge that students have gained through writing online.

While these articles are intended as stand-alone pieces, together they demonstrate the complex nature of literacies on Facebook, how they connection to FYC, and how FYC teachers may use them in their classrooms. They serve as a starting off point for discussions of effective integration of digital literacies into composition pedagogies.
ContributorsShepherd, Ryan P (Author) / Gee, Elisabeth (Thesis advisor) / Matsuda, Paul Kei (Committee member) / Rose, Shirley K. (Committee member) / Daer, Alice (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
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Description
Scholars have identified that journalists have a strong occupational identity, leading to ideological conceptions of the rules of the field. However, while journalists are often the first to embrace technological change, they often do so in different ways than most people. With the arrival of digital technologies, journalists are often

Scholars have identified that journalists have a strong occupational identity, leading to ideological conceptions of the rules of the field. However, while journalists are often the first to embrace technological change, they often do so in different ways than most people. With the arrival of digital technologies, journalists are often faced with practices that run contrary to long-established ideology, and they often carry traditional practices over to new media. Using the theoretical lens of Giddens’s structuration theory, this research identifies traditional journalism structures that encourage or discourage journalists to interact with their followers on the social network Twitter. Using constant comparative analysis to interpret 23 interviews with contemporary journalists, this study identified multiple dualities between the use of Twitter and traditional newsgathering. It also recognized a cognitive dissonance among journalists who use Twitter. Though they can see advantages to using the platform to engage with followers, particularly other journalists and members of their audience, journalists do not seek out Twitter interaction and often avoid or resist it. Finally, this dissertation suggests three walls that block journalists from engaging in the Internet’s facilitation of personal connectivity, engagement, and a true community forum with followers. Although a wall of objectivity has somewhat been broached by Twitter use, walls of storytelling and routine and traditional news values continue to hold strong.
ContributorsJohnson, Richard G., 1981- (Author) / Thornton, Leslie-Jean (Thesis advisor) / Silcock, Bill (Committee member) / Gilpin, Dawn (Committee member) / Daer, Alice (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2015