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- All Subjects: Social Media
- Creators: Barrett, The Honors College
Description
Young voters are the future of the country, yet are disengaged and disinterested in politics, leading to low turnout rates. This paper focuses on the Millennial generation, which consists of adults ages 18 to 33, and at times, narrowly focuses on the subset of college students. Since individuals should learn about the presidential candidates and the election before casting a vote, I analyze the similarities and differences between receiving election content through television news, a traditional source, compared to social media. Next, I examine the importance of political expression and political discussion, along with how millennials engaging in such activity on social media allows for a deeper level of engagement in elections than what was possible before the birth of social media. Thus, as opposed to focusing on the reasons milllennials shy away from politics, the purpose of the first three chapters is to highlight the potential benefits for using social media during presidential elections. Lastly, I analyze millennials' voting behaviors, particularly the generation's preference for liberal social values. Since we are currently in the 2016 U.S. presidential election season, the purpose of this chapter is to highlight current research regarding millennials' voting patterns, which should then be compared to the future 2016 general election studies. By analyzing consistent and divergent trends, researchers can further add to the discussion of millennials' political behavior. Although I dedicate a brief part to the 2016 presidential election in Chapters 2 through 4 to discuss how trends are similar or different from current research, the overall purpose of this paper is to inform readers about how millennials learn, engage, and participate in presidential elections.
ContributorsLarson, Dakota Alexis Ok-Ran (Author) / Ackroyd, William (Thesis director) / Cisler, Sherry (Committee member) / Department of Management (Contributor) / School of Social and Behavioral Sciences (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-05
Description
Nonprofits often struggle in fully implementing a successful social media strategy. These organizations neglect to create and maintain relationships with stakeholders, engage their audience, and build brand awareness in an online setting. As social media has essentially become one of the largest sources of information dissemination and one of the most populated platforms in the online world, a nonprofit's online presence has become increasingly important. Through a 22-day content analysis and 43-question survey that was distributed to the general public on Twitter and Facebook, this paper looks comprehensively into the elements and tactics used by Make-A-Wish, Halo and ALS Association. Based off of the research findings from this study, important aspects of these nonprofits' online strategy will be identified and analyzed.
ContributorsJoseph, Teresa Marie (Author) / Wu, Xu (Thesis director) / Thornton, Leslie (Committee member) / Department of Marketing (Contributor) / Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-05
Description
Background: As the growth of social media platforms continues, the use of the constantly increasing amount of freely available, user-generated data they receive becomes of great importance. One apparent use of this content is public health surveillance; such as for increasing understanding of substance abuse. In this study, Facebook was used to monitor nicotine addiction through the public support groups users can join to aid their quitting process. Objective: The main objective of this project was to gain a better understanding of the mechanisms of nicotine addiction online and provide content analysis of Facebook posts obtained from "quit smoking" support groups. Methods: Using the Facebook Application Programming Interface (API) for Python, a sample of 9,970 posts were collected in October 2015. Information regarding the user's name and the number of likes and comments they received on their post were also included. The posts crawled were then manually classified by one annotator into one of three categories: positive, negative, and neutral. Where positive posts are those that describe current quits, negative posts are those that discuss relapsing, and neutral posts are those that were not be used to train the classifiers, which include posts where users have yet to attempt a quit, ads, random questions, etc. For this project, the performance of two machine learning algorithms on a corpus of manually labeled Facebook posts were compared. The classification goal was to test the plausibility of creating a natural language processing machine learning classifier which could be used to distinguish between relapse (labeled negative) and quitting success (labeled positive) posts from a set of smoking related posts. Results: From the corpus of 9,970 posts that were manually labeled: 6,254 (62.7%) were labeled positive, 1,249 (12.5%) were labeled negative, and 2467 (24.8%) were labeled neutral. Since the posts labeled neutral are those which are irrelevant to the classification task, 7,503 posts were used to train the classifiers: 83.4% positive and 16.6% negative. The SVM classifier was 84.1% accurate and 84.1% precise, had a recall of 1, and an F-score of 0.914. The MNB classifier was 82.8% accurate and 82.8% precise, had a recall of 1, and an F-score of 0.906. Conclusions: From the Facebook surveillance results, a small peak is given into the behavior of those looking to quit smoking. Ultimately, what makes Facebook a great tool for public health surveillance is that it has an extremely large and diverse user base with information that is easily obtainable. This, and the fact that so many people are actually willing to use Facebook support groups to aid their quitting processes demonstrates that it can be used to learn a lot about quitting and smoking behavior.
ContributorsMolina, Daniel Antonio (Author) / Li, Baoxin (Thesis director) / Tian, Qiongjie (Committee member) / School of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-05
Description
This thesis will examine the recruitment process of educated millennials coming from four-year institutions to their first job out of college. When referring to millennials throughout my research, I am specifically focusing on current college graduates in order to better relate to my own experiences as a soon-to-be-graduate seeking a job. I will examine the various recruiting techniques, i.e. channels to connect with graduates, and the hiring and interview process as a whole. This thesis will also discuss the challenges and differences of recruiting millennials versus other generations. It will also discuss the latest trends in college and early talent recruiting. In order to do this, I conducted a number of in-depth interviews with recruiters and hiring managers from various companies that recruit heavily from Arizona State University (ASU), in order to determine what these companies have done to be successful among young college graduates. I aimed to identify the specific techniques that these companies use to connect with recent college graduates, what skills these firms are looking for, and what the hiring process looks like for new millennial employees. I also conducted an extensive online literature search about recruiting educated millennials in the workforce, and I used that information as a basis to form my interview questions. The interviews were meant to confirm or deny that research, but the interviewees also revealed many new trends and insights. I hope that this information will be beneficial not only to college seniors seeking first-time employment, but also to other companies who feel that they are struggling to capture young talent.
ContributorsCapra, Alexandria Luccia (Author) / Kalika, Dale (Thesis director) / Eaton, Kathryn (Committee member) / W. P. Carey School of Business (Contributor) / Department of Marketing (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-05
Description
The purpose of this study is to examine how social connectivity in a collaborative business environment translates to online social communication, namely to social media. Not a lot of academic research focuses in-depth on how startups and entrepreneurs within the technology industry perceive social media, or how their work environment can influence the ways they see the role of these platforms. Gangplank was chosen as the subject of this case study based on the emphasis they as a coworking space put on connecting to others in order to accomplish mutual goals. Initial research showed that entrepreneurs using social media did so with a collaborative focus in mind. However, it was unclear if, by developing their businesses in a space devoted to fostering social relationships, entrepreneurs would be more likely to engage and interact with other users on social media platforms. Furthermore, it was unclear if their attitudes toward online and offline communication would be affected by spending time in a dedicated social workspace. In order to find how some entrepreneurs that started or worked closely in the beginning stages of a collaborative, connection-driven workspace used social media and see whether or not they used the platform to establish and build relationships and connect with others, three entrepreneurs from such a workspace were personally interviewed. In these interviews, each entrepreneur gave their personal feelings and opinions on the space itself, their view on the role of social media, and whether or not they connected their space to their social media use. The study also examined each entrepreneur's social media profile on one prominent social network to see how each was practically using the platform, and to analyze how each entrepreneur's use of the platform compared to his perceptions of social media as a whole. The study found that entrepreneurs who became established in a collaboration-oriented space definitely interacted frequently on social media. Each entrepreneur interviewed expressed the importance of working closely with others and forming valuable connections through both online and offline means. These entrepreneurs were established to have followed all the best practices of social media use outlined through research, and to have had a large number of personally engaging interactions and conversations on observed social media platforms.
ContributorsThompson, Lauren Elizabeth (Author) / Wu, Xu (Thesis director) / Dodge, Nancie (Committee member) / Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2015-12
Description
Media influences the way people understand the world around them, and today's digital media environment is saturated with information. Online media consumers are experiencing an information overload, and many find it difficult to determine which messages to trust. Media consumers between the ages of 18 and 34 are increasingly turning to social media, especially Facebook, for news and information. However, the nature of information exchange on these networks makes these users prone to seeing and sharing misleading, inaccurate or unverified information. This project is an examination of how misinformation spreads on social media platforms, and how users can utilize media literacy techniques to surround themselves with trustworthy information on social media, as well as develop skills to determine whether information is credible. By examining the motivations behind sharing information on social media, and the ways in which Millennials interact with misinformation on these platforms, this study aims to help users combat the spread of misleading information. This project determines techniques and resources that media consumers can use to turn their social media networks into healthy, trustworthy information environments. View the online component of this project at http://lindsaytaylorrobin.wix.com/info-overload
ContributorsRobinson, Lindsay T (Author) / Gillmor, Dan (Thesis director) / Roschke, Kristy (Committee member) / Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2015-12
Description
With social media rapidly expanding and evolving throughout the years, a new door has been opened to allow instant, two-way communication between an organization and its desired audience. The days of force-feeding information to mass audiences are diminishing as a consumer's quest for identity and connection is driving organizations to engage with specialized audiences through online conversation, where information can flow in both directions. Through research and analysis, an organization can identify which media platforms and communication strategies work best in successfully reaching and engaging the target audience. Content marketing in conjunction with effective messaging strategies can increase an organization's success by raising awareness for the brand and inviting the audience to spread the word both online and in person. In the following pages of this document, three successful marathons in the Greater Phoenix area are analyzed: the Phoenix Marathon in Mesa, the P.F. Chang's Rock 'n' Roll Marathon in Tempe, and the IMS Arizona Marathon in Glendale. Each analysis provides examples of how strategic messaging and campaigns are used via social media to build relationships with current and prospective race participants. In addition, demographic and psychographic information specific to athletic event participants is analyzed in order to provide an understanding of the target audience and their motives for participating in athletic events.
ContributorsJakubek, Megann Kay (Author) / Wu, Xu (Thesis director) / Knott, Mary (Committee member) / Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2015-12
Description
In recent years, marketing has taken a large shift into the digital world. With the growing popularity of social media, many companies have been doing most of their advertising through platforms such as Instagram, and have been heavily using influencers, in order to drive their business. With the popularity of social media, small online businesses have been emerging. According to sources like eMarketer, e-commerce is the only trillion-dollar industry growing at a double-digit percentage each year (Moore). Among these small businesses, is the growing idea of dropshipping. Dropshipping is a system in which products can be chosen from a manufacturer, and sold via a website, with no need for inventory from the selling party. The goal of this research is to harness the power of social media, in order to drive a successful e-commerce business. The research entails creating a Shopify dropship store, and using social media platforms, such as Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook to effectively advertise and drive the online business. The first steps were to create social media pages for the business, in order to establish credibility. All the products will be sourced from AliExpress, and then sold via the website created on Shopify. Consumers will order from the website, and process their payment that way as well, but will be receiving the package from AliExpress, which removes the necessity to have inventory, and minimizes shipping costs. The products sold were chosen based on survey results, for what consumers would most likely purchase from an online store. The store's name is “Urban Angel”, and primarily sells accessories, such as phone cases, jewelry, hair accessories, and purses. These are all priced at a neutral pricing strategy, and can compete with other online retailers. This is necessary, because there are so many e-commerce businesses emerging every day, it is important to make sure that it can stand out in some way.
ContributorsMcMillan, Angela Sophia (Author) / Eaton, John (Thesis director) / Olsen, Doug (Committee member) / Watts College of Public Service & Community Solut (Contributor) / Walter Cronkite School of Journalism & Mass Comm (Contributor) / Department of Marketing (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2020-05
Description
The primary goal of our nonprofit organization, Plant-ED, is to deepen the average individual’s knowledge regarding sustainability and to inspire our users to engage in a community of like-minded individuals who share a passion for sustainability. To accomplish this vision, we have created a digital platform where users can easily find information on upcoming events, activities, and alternative products that truly embody a mindset of sustainability. Our team will be the main and constant source of content for our website, however our users are also able to interact with the website through blog posts and subscriptions. Additionally, our platform has a section dedicated to explaining the impact of recycling and shows the devastating effects if humans do not take accountability for their choices and develop more sustainable habits. The ultimate goal for our website is for it to be a place where we can promote our partners’ products which are either alternatives to unsustainable products or companies who donate some of their proceeds to help create a greener world. The profit from the commission we receive from our partners and subscription services will be reinvested into expanding our digital platform and partnerships.
ContributorsMahoney, Emma (Author) / Weiderhoft, Isabella (Co-author) / Meyers, Zoe (Co-author) / Smith, Connor (Co-author) / Byrne, Jared (Thesis director) / Balven, Rachel (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Dean, W.P. Carey School of Business (Contributor) / Department of Finance (Contributor)
Created2024-05
Description
In the current digital marketplace, local small businesses and consumers encounter challenges in establishing an online presence and discovering trustworthy services respectively. The Loki mobile application, presented in this work, aims to reduce the disconnect between these parties through specific features and tools in a mobile application that address each party’s concerns. Small businesses and individual service providers such as barbershops, private tutors, babysitters, and house cleaners, often face difficulties garnering attention from their communities and executing social media marketing campaigns with limited financial and human resources. Consumers struggle to filter through the abundance or lack of online information about businesses to find reliable reviews and choose where to acquire their services. The Loki mobile application intends to serve as a forum for community-driven reviews through which businesses build their public image and enhance the visibility of their services. This comprehensive system encourages verified reviews that foster consumer trust and promote local economic growth.
For an application of this complexity to be developed, the creation of aesthetic and intuitive user interfaces in frontend development is significant to the success of the platform’s mission. However, constructing a scalable, maintainable, and secure backend infrastructure is fundamental to transforming these static pages into operational interfaces through which the users can interact and reap the benefits. The intentional decisions for technologies and frameworks selected for the application development and design choices relating to the organization and structure of routes, entities, and controllers contributed to achieving this goal. Next, performance testing was conducted in a local development environment by simulating heavy-load conditions to determine whether the backend server could handle increased traffic without impacting response times and error rates. The limitations that were identified include the steps that can be taken for performance optimization and the need for cloud-based solutions before the application is pushed to production. The lessons learned from the initial performance testing emphasize the importance of building a backend infrastructure that is scalable and maintainable to meet the dynamic needs of small businesses and consumers. Future efforts for the Loki platform involve thoroughly evaluating the application’s functionalities and user experience and testing the application against the same performance metrics before being released to the app stores. Additionally, the development team of the Loki mobile application will prioritize refining existing features and introducing new ones based on real user feedback.
ContributorsSelvakumar, Shri Sanjay Kumar (Author) / Chavez-Echeagaray, Maria Elena (Thesis director) / Mahalingam, Hamsharan (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Computer Science and Engineering Program (Contributor)
Created2024-05