Browsing by Subject "Twitter"
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Item Open Access Making History or Celebrating Change? The Role of Twitter in the 2011 Egyptian Revolution(2012-08-30) Chartoff, HannahThe Egyptian Revolution of 2011 and the popular protest movement that led to its success represent a significant departure from recent Egyptian history. Plagued by an authoritarian government and weak civil society, the Egyptian population as a whole had little incentive to risk openly opposing the government and demanding change. This paper forwards a model of how such an unexpected revolution might occur, then demonstrates how social media outlets like Twitter can assist in drawing protesters to the streets. The paper then examines the flow of information posted to Twitter during the Egyptian revolution by tracing the number of times key protesters were “retweeted” over time. Though social media is shown to have the potential to facilitate revolution, the data from January and February 2011 in Egypt suggest that Twitter in this case served as an expression of protesters’ sentiments as the revolution occurred, rather than as a force motivating the revolution; that is, the 2011 Egyptian protesters used Twitter to celebrate and document their success, not to make history or plan protests.Item Open Access Shark Week and Public Perceptions of Sharks(2019-04-12) O'Donnell, KatiePerceptions of predators, and the type of language used when describing them, can influence a person’s decision whether or not to support wildlife conservation. Many shark species are important apex predators that are found in oceans worldwide, giving sharks a unique role in our society. This study investigated social conversations about sharks by using sentiment analysis of the social media platform, Twitter. We wanted to see if popular annual programming, such as Discovery Channel’s Shark Week, influences the language used in public social conversations and how that affects attitudes toward sharks. Sentiment and statistical analyses show that Shark Week affects the sentiment of language used in Twitter conversations about sharks from 2012-2017. This study builds on the growing literature that increases understanding of public sentiment of sharks, which can contribute to more informative and effective policies to better protect sharks.Item Open Access The Adjudicatory Audible: The Impact of Social Media on the Punishments of NFL Athletes(2016-01-31) Lazarus, DanielleUnder its Collective Bargaining Agreement, the National Football League (NFL) has the ability to punish players who have been charged with a crime or arrested. Individual teams have the ability to punish players for off-field conduct, most commonly by releasing them to free agency; however, their authority is extremely limited. Thus, the power to discipline players is bestowed overwhelmingly to the commissioner’s office, which has assigned league discipline to 28.6% of arrests between 2000 and 2014. The severity of these punishments only increased slightly between 2000 and 2014; however, there exists a statistically significant, positive relationship between the number of Tweets about a crime and the severity of punishment of the resulting NFL punishment. Most disquieting, more-valuable players are punished less severely than less-valuable players, measured in terms of both better fantasy football rankings and in higher salaries. The results of this study clearly demonstrate that league punishment of NFL players is determined by the public response to the crime, and that the commissioner’s office allows for better players to escape more-severe punishments—or punishments at all—more frequently than their worse-performing counterparts. An impartial, independent arbiter, as opposed to an all-powerful commissioner’s office, would more effectively grant punishments that fit the crime as opposed to the degree of public outrage.Item Open Access Tweeting Feminism: African Feminisms, Digital Counterpublics and The Politics of Gendered Violence(2019-05) Kanyogo, MumbiTweeting feminism is a digital ethnographic and archival study of the ways in which Kenyan feminists appropriate Twitter as a site for community building. Firstly, I explore the mutually enabling modes of gendered violence that have been deeply engrained in Kenya’s public sphere for the duration of its existence as a nation-state – what I call a continuum of patriarchal violence. These modes of harm ultimately short-circuit women’s engagement in mainstream politics and therefore the use of public political space to contend with harm exacted on women. In the wake of this violence, I then contend that a “digital feminist counterpublic sphere” emerges – a term which I use to describe the alternative publics that radical Kenyan feminists have developed to survive their exclusion from formal public sphere engagement. I argue that in this online space, radical Kenyan feminists use disrespectability, care, solidarity practices and archival practices – what I call digital ululations – to generate and strengthen feminist community.Item Open Access "We Just Had to Stan" - A Qualitative Analysis of Fan Communities on Twitter(2024-04-15) Kovarik, VictoriaThe field of fan studies has analyzed various aspects of fan communities—fandoms, in short—both pre- and post-Internet, yet have failed to provide adequate discourse on Generation Z’s envelopment into the world of digitized Stan Twitter communities. Stan Twitter or “stan”— colloquially referring to obsessive fans—is a unique online arena where stans form connections with not only themselves but, in many cases, also the fan object—the celebrity or influencer which the stan idolizes. This qualitative analysis aimed to elucidate the role of Stan Twitter communities in facilitating individual and collective queer identity formation. More specifically, using interviews of Troye Sivan Stan Twitter community members, I aimed to provide insight into how individuals within this community navigate how to create community, meaning, and connection. The findings of this research highlighted that intentional navigation to these online spaces, queer identity formation, parasocial relationships, community dynamics, and expanding the global concept of fandom are key tenets of the Troye Sivan Stan Twitter community. This qualitative analysis reflected that the Troye Sivan Stan Twitter community may be used as a lens to understand the importance of queer online communities, particularly for queer youth and young adults.