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- Creators: School of Life Sciences
This thesis project utilizes a multi-frame analysis from Bolman and Deal’s Reframing Organizations: Artistry, Choice and Leadership to reinvent a fundraising opportunity for a nonprofit organization named Save the Cats Arizona. This thesis begins with what makes Save the Cats Arizona stand out from other organizations. From there, a breakdown of the organization’s structure is provided. Next, research is provided on the impacts of fundraising on social media platforms and online engagement across nonprofit organizations. Additional research is provided to highlight the importance of social media management in nonprofit organizations. Save the Cats Arizona is then analyzed through Bolman and Deal’s multi-frame theory – which includes the structural, human-resource, political, and symbolic frame. Finally, the knowledge gained from the multi-frame analysis is implemented into ideas on how to improve fundraising opportunities for Save the Cats Arizona. This project ends with a reflection about this thesis and Save the Cats Arizona’s future.
With a prison population that has grown to 1.4 million, an imprisonment rate of 419 per 100,000 U.S. residents, and a recidivism rate of 52.2% for males and 36.4% for females, the United States is facing a crisis. Currently, no sufficient measures have been taken by the United States to reduce recidivism. Attempts have been made, but they ultimately failed. Recently, however, there has been an increase in experimentation with the concept of teaching inmates basic computer skills to reduce recidivism. As labor becomes increasingly digitized, it becomes more difficult for inmates who spent a certain period away from technology to adapt and find employment. At the bare minimum, anybody entering the workforce must know how to use a computer and other technological appliances, even in the lowest-paid positions. By incorporating basic computer skills and coding educational programs within prisons, this issue can be addressed, since inmates would be better equipped to take on a more technologically advanced labor market.<br/>Additionally, thoroughly preparing inmates for employment is a necessity because it has been proven to reduce recidivism. Prisons typically have some work programs; however, these programs are typically outdated and prepare inmates for fields that may represent a difficult employment market moving forward. On the other hand, preparing inmates for tech-related fields of work is proving to be successful in the early stages of experimentation. A reason for this success is the growing demand. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, employment in computer and information technology occupations is projected to grow 11 percent between 2019 and 2029. This is noteworthy considering the national average for growth of all other jobs is only 4 percent. It also warrants the exploration of educating coders because software developers, in particular, have an expected growth rate of 22 percent between 2019 and 2029. <br/>Despite the security risks of giving inmates access to computers, the implementation of basic computer skills and coding in prisons should be explored further. Programs that give inmates access to a computing education already exist. The only issue with these programs is their scarcity. However, this is to no fault of their own, considering the complex nature and costs of running such a program. Accordingly, this leaves the opportunity for public universities to get involved. Public universities serve as perfect hosts because they are fully capable of leveraging the resources already available to them. Arizona State University, in particular, is a more than ideal candidate to spearhead such a program and serve as a model for other public universities to follow. Arizona State University (ASU) is already educating inmates in local Arizona prisons on subjects such as math and English through their PEP (Prison Education Programming) program.<br/>This thesis will focus on Arizona specifically and why this would benefit the state. It will also explain why Arizona State University is the perfect candidate to spearhead this kind of program. Additionally, it will also discuss why recidivism is detrimental and the reasons why formerly incarcerated individuals re-offend. Furthermore, it will also explore the current measures being taken in Arizona and their limitations. Finally, it will provide evidence for why programs like these tend to succeed and serve as a proposal to Arizona State University to create its own program using the provided framework in this thesis.
To conduct research, we developed a survey that was distributed and taken by students at Arizona State University. The goal of surveying college students was to understand how young people who regularly use social media are persuaded by micro-influencers. To gain more insight, we interviewed three local micro-influencers that we discovered through Instagram and research. The goal of these interviews was to discover tactics that micro-influencers use when posting to market sponsored products. Additionally, we hoped to uncover a pattern that micro-influencers use when building their social media following. Ultimately, we developed a six-step guide from our research that aspiring micro-influencers can follow to strategize their rise as a social media micro-influencer. We also discuss the social media app TikTok, which we believe will be heavily used by influencers and micro-influencers in the future.
Social media posts included in the discussion were taken from Twitter and explored using the qualitative research-based Grounded Theory. Four celebrities were selected as case studies to illustrate hate that popular music artists receive. These celebrities were Justin Bieber, Shawn Mendes, Taylor Swift and Ariana Grande. Before the data collection process transitioned to Twitter for specific examples, Google Search was effective in providing background information on each celebrity's controversies. With open coding as the chosen stage of data analysis, tweets were grouped with those containing similar content (e.g. two tweets using the same insult).
Social media users can uncover problematic tweets and refuse to forgive celebrities for past mistakes, send threatening messages that encourage celebrities to kill themselves, shame celebrities for their physical appearances and sexualities and so forth. All of these concepts are observed within the respective literature review and discussion sections. The types of online harassment included are insults, devotion defending, threats and hacking.
The gathered data found that difference in the online harassment that female pop stars receive versus that toward male pop stars often lies in how people perceive their sexualities and physical appearances, as well as the distance perceived between the social media user and the celebrity. In the examples provided, women were regarded as “whores” for wearing certain clothing and blamed for issues in their relationships, whereas men were not seen as the problem and criticized for appearing too "feminine."
It is recommended that people become more aware of the consequences of online harassment in general, but particularly toward celebrities who are viewed as being unaffected by hate comments. Due to the limitations of this study, future research within this area should include people of color and various sectors of the entertainment industry.
Social media changed the system of networks and connectivity, making communication more tenacious, adaptable, and efficient than ever. Social media is often criticized as a reason for why social movements have not met desired results; however, this is not the fault of social media, rather the fault of the disorganization of people. In this essay, these ideas will be explored, and the many criticisms and misconceptions of social media will be addressed and challenged, creating a more realistic image of social movements with the added power of the new technology called social media.
