VTechWorks Repository :: Browsing by Author "Horning, Michael A."

Browsing by Author "Horning, Michael A."

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Agenda Setting, Framing, and International Relations: A Thematic Analysis of RussiaToday's and Xinhua News' Coverage of the United States on Social Media
Whitley, Hayden O. (Virginia Tech, 2022-06-21)
This study seeks to identify, understand, and compare the themes created by Russian and Chinese state-run media online in their framing of the United States. The study will compare the Facebook posts made by a Russian news agency and a Chinese news agency: RussiaToday and Xinhua News, respectively. The study incorporates agenda-setting, framing theory, and previous research to understand the themes present in the coverage of the United States during 2020. Additionally, the lengthy history of Russian and Chinese malign influence toward the United States, combined with the immediate nature of social media creates a unique opportunity for understanding the intersection between communication processes and international relations in the 21st Century. A total of 100 Facebook posts were collected from CrowdTangle and analyzed using a software intended for qualitative data analysis to compare the frames that exist in the selected content. The findings reveal four major topics of importance that Russia and China primarily use to frame the United States. Additionally, the frames depicted in the social media posts were compared and examined. The findings reveal that in 2020 Russia and China overwhelmingly framed the United States in a negative light by describing the United States as an enemy and by highlighting American failures. However, some positive framing – though rare – also occurred by describing the United States as an ally and by emphasizing American successes. Lastly, the findings are consistent with previous research that indicates Russia and China craft specific, tailored narratives about the United States in the pursuit of national interests. The results of this study indicate that Russia and China capitalize on polarizing events to sow discord within American society. In general, this study has the potential to provide information that can be useful for multiple government agencies in identifying counter-messaging opportunities online.
Amplifying the Griot: Technology for Preserving, Retelling, and Supporting Underrepresented Stories
Kotut, Lindah Jerop (Virginia Tech, 2021-05-24)
As we develop intelligent systems to handle online interactions and digital stories, how do we address those stories that are unwritten and invisible? How do ensure that communities who value oral histories are not left behind, and their voices also inform the design of these systems? How do we determine that the technology we design respect the agency and ownership of the stories, without imposing our own biases? To answer these questions, I rely on accounts from different underrepresented communities, as avenues to examine how digital technology affect their stories, and the agency they have over them. From these stories, I elicit guidelines for the design of equitable and resilient tools and technologies. I sought wisdom from griots who are master storytellers and story-keepers on the craft of handling both written and unwritten stories, which instructed the development of the Respectful Space for technology typology, a framework that informs our understanding and interaction with underrepresented stories. The framework guided the approach to understand technology use by inhabitants of rural spaces in the United States--particularly long-distance hikers who traverse these spaces. I further discuss the framework's extensibility, by considering its use for community self-reflection, and for researchers to query the ethical implications of their research, the technology they develop, and the consideration for the voices that the technology amplifies or suppresses. The intention is to highlight the vast resources that exist in domains we do not consider, and the importance of the underrepresented voices to also inform the future of technology.
Can (S)He Close the Deal? The influence of Purchase Intention Through Gender-Assigned Artificial Intelligence
Cole, Jared Lee (Virginia Tech, 2023-07-28)
Artificial intelligence (AI) has become an increasingly integrated aspect of daily life. Particularly, businesses have been incorporating AI into many of their features from customer support to product personalization. While there has been a body of research exploring the interpersonal impacts of AI and human participants, there is limited research on the effects of human-like AI on its influence in the purchasing process. Taking the theoretical framework of the Computer Are Social Actors (CASA) paradigm, I utilized a 2 x 3 experiment to measure if the perceived sex of an artificial intelligence impacts consumers' purchase intention, trust, and sense of agency. Participants interacted with either a male-gendered or female-gendered AI chatbot, or a static website, which then recommended a water bottle based on the participants' preferences. The study indicated significance with both male and female participants preferring the control website over both AI sexes. The study also indicated significance in women participants feeling more overall agency than men participants during the experiment. The results indicate a potential need for a new level of human realism before CASA can be framed within some AI applications.
Combating Problematic Information Online with Dual Process Cognitive Affordances
Bhuiyan, MD Momen (Virginia Tech, 2023-08-04)
Dual process theories of mind have been developed over the last decades to posit that humans use heuristics or mental shortcuts (automatic) and analytical (reflective) reasoning while consuming information. Can such theories be used to support users' information consumption in the presence of problematic content in online spaces? To answer, I merge these theories with the idea of affordances from HCI to into the concept of dual process cognitive affordances, consisting of automatic affordance and reflective affordance. Using this concept, I built and tested a set of systems to address two categories of online problematic content: misinformation and filter bubbles. In the first system, NudgeCred, I use cognitive heuristics from the MAIN model to design automatic affordances for better credibility assessment of news tweets from mainstream and misinformative sources. In TransparencyCue, I show the promise of value-centered automatic affordance design inside news articles differentiating content quality. To encourage information consumption outside their ideological filter bubble, in NewsComp, I use comparative annotation to design reflective affordances that enable active engagement with stories from opposing-leaning sources. In OtherTube, I use parasocial interaction, that is, experiencing information feed through the eyes of someone else, to design a reflective affordance that enables recognition of filter bubbles in their YouTube recommendation feeds. Each system shows various degrees of success and outlines considerations in cognitive affordances design. Overall, this thesis showcases the utility of design strategies centered on dual process information cognition model of human mind to combat problematic information space.
The Deliberative Potential of Social Media: Face Threat and Face Support in Online Political Expression
Smith, Anjelica Marie (Virginia Tech, 2016-08-01)
Engaging in productive political discussion has long been a valued aspect of American democratic life. Due to ease of access and the potential for exposure to diverse views, the Internet and social media may support mediated political talk. Literature on the concept of face and politeness theory provides a framework for understanding interpersonal interactions, both online and offline. To understand if social media has the potential to host political discussion among millennials, a survey (N = 352) of undergraduate students examined social media use and political interaction experiences. Facebook was the most popular platform for exposure to others' political opinions and political self-expression. Facebook users with more diverse networks engaged in more political expression. Across numerous platforms, participants reported frequently being exposed to others' political opinions but infrequently sharing their own views. Negative and positive political interactions on Facebook and Twitter were explored for their threat to and support of negative face (need for autonomy) and positive face (need for validation). Findings indicate that engaging in negative interactions leads to more face threat while observing negative interactions solicits more face support. Engaging in positive interactions results in more face support and observing positive interactions leads to more face threat. Across interaction type and platform, participants who actively engaged in political interactions as opposed to merely observing them reported significantly more subsequent online political engagement. Future research on political interactions across various social media platforms and the application of interpersonal communication theory to the study of mediated political talk is warranted.
Fanning the Flames: An Examination of Uses and Gratifications Sought During the Gatlinburg Wildfires of 2016
Bartos, Colleen Marie (Virginia Tech, 2018-01-29)
This research set out to explore how individuals used Twitter during the Gatlinburg, Tennessee wildfire event of November 2016. More specifically, how and what did people from different geolocations share via Twitter during the crisis event and what gratifications were sought by their use of Twitter. A content analysis was completed on a stratified sample of tweets separated by geographic location. Based on prior uses and gratifications research, tweet and retweet content was coded as informational, social, and/or distractive. Findings from this research showed that individuals tweeted and retweeted at a fairly even rate despite their geographical location and that while information seeking and sharing was an important factor for users, social connectivity was the most important gratification to users during this crisis.
Framing a Pope: Analyzing Media Frames in The New York Times Coverage of Pope Francis
Turner, Adam Chase (Virginia Tech, 2019-07-09)
This study extends notions of framing theory by drawing from research analyzing the framing of Pope Francis within coverage from The New York Times. The mass media has, since the election of Pope Francis in 2013, provided him extensive coverage on a myriad of issues. Previous studies have noted Pope Francis' propensity to draw massive amounts of media attention towards his actions and statements, even noting the potential for Pope Francis to control the media narrative through his own implementation of frames. Drawing on framing theory, this study examines the ways in which coverage of Pope Francis is defined by The New York Times by finding relationships between the issues addressed in Papal coverage, the frames implemented within this coverage, the valence of the messages, and the presentation of Pope Francis himself. This thesis yields that coverage of Pope Francis within The New York Times has shifted from positive valence to primarily neutral valence when comparing the first three years of his papacy to second three years. The findings of this thesis could potentially inform future studies which may wish to determine potential for frame transfer due to the content of articles or for studies which may wish to delve deeper into the issue with a much larger sample.
Gatekeeping Analysis of The Asian Magazine: A Case Study
Yang, Guolan (Virginia Tech, 2015-06-02)
As one of the most enduring theories in communication, gatekeeping suggests that stories have to move from one gate to another gate before being published. During this process, some stories are selected, while others are rejected. Previous studies heavily focus on traditional news media and explore the influence of internal and external forces on story selection. Very few studies, however, look at gatekeeping in new areas of technology. This case study extends this literature into social media. It looks at how editors at The Asian Magazine (TAM) select stories for its WeChat public account. Interviews with editors identify news values and news categories that these gatekeepers think are important. Results of the WeChat content analysis between May and August 2014 indicate that TAM editors do not strictly rely on established news values to select WeChat stories. News categories better predict story decisions. Examining which WeChat items generate the most reader engagement gives evidence of how well news content matches what attracts readers online. News category priorities closely match what readers want to read.
How the News Covers History: A Thematic Analysis of the New York Times and Wall Street's Journal's Coverage of Kamala Harris's 2020 Vice Presidential Campaign
Parvatam, Pranav (Virginia Tech, 2021-06-22)
Kamala Harris made history on November 7, 2020, when she was elected as the first female Vice President of the United States. In addition to being the first woman, she became the first African-American and Indian-American to attain this position. As a result, the media had to grapple with how to cover her historic campaign from the moment she was announced as the vice-presidential selection. This qualitative thematic analysis examined The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal's coverage of her campaign with significant analysis on important events such as the initial buzz surrounding her selection, the convention speech, and the vice-presidential debate. Specifically, this study examines 70 news articles total from both newspapers from August 11-November 3, 2020 to determine the recurring themes from her coverage. Results indicated that although traditional media frames and themes were not a significant focus, Harris's intersectionality brought about a new set of frames to explore, with subtle differences between the two newspapers. Implications of these results and future considerations for the media are discussed.
The Long Way Home: News Values in Stories Told by Appalachian Trail Thru-Hikers on Social Media
Kotut, Lindah; Horning, Michael A.; McCrickard, D. Scott (ACM, 2022-11-11)
Technology use by long-distance hikers provide a fascinating glimpse of the future of HCI research, as it intersects with technology isolation and (non)use. We can understand the use of technology, explore opportunities for rural and outdoor computing, and work with underrepresented communities in these spaces to amplify their stories. In this paper, we focus on the thru-hikers on the Appalachian Trail and the stories they share on Instagram. We apply narrative analysis to understand the story content, and also leverage a News Value framework to describe how they craft their stories. The findings highlight opportunities to understand the different storytelling categories that thru-hikers employ, and the platforms they choose for the telling. We discuss the usefulness of understanding technology and storytelling needs for each type of storyteller, and explore the implications for designing technology and tools to amplify stories from underserved users and to support the telling of compelling stories.
Narrative Maps: A Computational Model to Support Analysts in Narrative Sensemaking
Keith Norambuena, Brian Felipe (Virginia Tech, 2023-08-08)
Narratives are fundamental to our understanding of the world, and they are pervasive in all activities that involve representing events in time. Narrative analysis has a series of applications in computational journalism, intelligence analysis, and misinformation modeling. In particular, narratives are a key element of the sensemaking process of analysts. In this work, we propose a narrative model and visualization method to aid analysts with this process. In particular, we propose the narrative maps framework—an event-based representation that uses a directed acyclic graph to represent the narrative structure—and a series of empirically defined design guidelines for map construction obtained from a user study. Furthermore, our narrative extraction pipeline is based on maximizing coherence—modeled as a function of surface text similarity and topical similarity—subject to coverage—modeled through topical clusters—and structural constraints through the use of linear programming optimization. For the purposes of our evaluation, we focus on the news narrative domain and showcase the capabilities of our model through several case studies and user evaluations. Moreover, we augment the narrative maps framework with interactive AI techniques—using semantic interaction and explainable AI—to create an interactive narrative model that is capable of learning from user interactions to customize the narrative model based on the user's needs and providing explanations for each core component of the narrative model. Throughout this process, we propose a general framework for interactive AI that can handle similar models to narrative maps—that is, models that mix continuous low-level representations (e.g., dimensionality reduction) with more abstract high-level discrete structures (e.g., graphs). Finally, we evaluate our proposed framework through an insight-based user study. In particular, we perform a quantitative and qualitative assessment of the behavior of users and explore their cognitive strategies, including how they use the explainable AI and semantic interaction capabilities of our system. Our evaluation shows that our proposed interactive AI framework for narrative maps is capable of aiding users in finding more insights from data when compared to the baseline.
On Trust, Editorial Intent, and Recommender Systems for Supporting Higher Education
Hassan, Taha (Virginia Tech, 2024-09-12)
Institutional support of higher teaching and learning at scale poses three unique challenges. The first challenge is poor institutional accounting of instructors' use of educational platforms and software, especially the learning management system (LMS). The second challenge is a deficit of trust among stakeholders with unique job roles, prerogatives, and editorial preferences. The third challenge is one-size-fits-all, open-loop, or stopgap support processes. To address these challenges, this three-phase dissertation project proposes a novel sociotechnical framework for institutional support using trustworthy educational recommender systems. This framework accounts for LMS platform contexts, multiple stakeholders, and editorial trust relationships. In its first phase, the project proposes ``Depth of Use" (DOU): a first-principles framework of frequent LMS use-contexts. DOU is found to highlight low-adoption course cohorts, evaluate course design interventions, and improve IT emergency preparedness. The second phase of this project proposes a novel model of recommendation trustworthiness based in stakeholder allocation of RS editorial tasks. The study discovers a spectrum of faculty intentions about editorial division-of-labor and its frequent rationales, including student expertise, professional curriculum needs, authorship burdens at scale, and learner disengagement. In its third phase, the project investigates how editorial trust might be enhanced by transparency cues (guarantees, social proof, content tags). The dissertation concludes with a set of design guidelines to aid HCI practitioners in enhancing editorial transparency and algorithmic explainability, and increasing process efficacy of institutional support.
Pilot feasibility of a yoga and Ayurveda-based virtual group health coaching program to increase flourishing in Cooperative Extension employees of one state system
Gregg, Morgan (Virginia Tech, 2022-06-03)
Virginia Cooperative Extension (VCE) agents build local relationships with participants and stakeholders to translate evidence-based information to improve "economic, environmental, and social well-being" of Virginians. However, Extension agents have reported high rates of employee burnout and stress. To mitigate the impacts of agent stress and burn-out, application of mindfulness and yoga through health coaching is emergent, but the impact is yet to be empirically tested. To holistically evaluate the individual-level impacts (i.e., behavior) as well as the system impacts (i.e., costs and sustainability), this project tested the initial feasibility, cost, reach, and efficacy of a virtual health coaching program for VCE agents. The CHAT (Coaching for Health and Togetherness) program consisted of nine weekly, one-hour modules including goal setting, self-reflection, behavior change strategies, group yoga and grounding exercises as well as resources on Ayurveda (an ancient Indian system of medicine and sister science to yoga). The program facilitated group dynamics through relationship building, group goal setting, group distinctiveness, and support. The impacts of the coaching module were measured longitudinally (pre, post, and 3-month follow up) through previously validated scales in flourishing (i.e., complete human well-being), group cohesion, physical activity behaviors, and yoga self-efficacy. Additionally, qualitative data were collected at the 6-month follow up point through semi-structured interviews. Participants in CHAT reported increased flourishing scores from baseline to post-program, t(7)=4.42, p=0.003 with a medium effect size (d=0.53) as well as at the three-month follow-up, t(7)=3.06, p=0.018 with a small effect size (d=0.14). Participants significantly increased aerobic physical activity behaviors from pre-program to post program, X2(1, N=11) =7.21, p=0.007, as well as at the three-month follow up, X2(1, N=11) = 4.95, p=0.026. Participants did not show significant changes in yoga self-efficacy or group cohesion. Future implications of this project include sustainability and scalability of virtual group health coaching programs for behavior change.
Reluctant to Share: How Third Person Perceptions of Fake News Discourage News Readers From Sharing “Real News” on Social Media
Yang, Fan; Horning, Michael A. (Sage, 2020)
Rampant fake news on social media has drawn significant attention. Yet, much remains unknown as to how such imbalanced evaluations of self versus others could shape social media users’ perceptions and their subsequent attitudes and behavioral intentions regarding social media news. An online survey (N = 335) was conducted to examine the third person effect (TPE) in fake news on social media and suggested that users perceived a greater influence of fake news on others than on themselves. However, although users evaluated fake news as socially undesirable, they were still unsupportive of government censorship as a remedy. In addition, the perceived prevalence of fake news leads audiences to reported significantly less willingness to share all news on social media either online or offline.
Replicating the Kaepernick Effect: The Power of Polarizing Frames to Make or Break Consumer Loyalty
McCaul, Emily Patricia (Virginia Tech, 2020-07-07)
This thesis evaluates the ways media frames influence attitude towards brands when the brand endorses a controversial celebrity spokesperson. This research was created with the intent to fill a current gap in communication research, providing original data and addressing the influence that external factors, specifically media frames and political orientations, hold over an audience's perception of spokespeople and the brands they later endorse. This was accomplished through an original, cross-sectional experiment that measured how celebrity athletes, who speak out about partisan issues, function as agents for messaging in brand advertisements. This thesis draws upon the communication theories of agenda setting, and primarily framing, in order to evaluate how impactful media frames of an athlete can become to consumers once the media highlights the spokesperson through a polarizing frame. This experiment attempts to replicate 'the Kaepernick effect,' inspired by the polarizing media coverage of Colin Kaepernick over his 2016-NFL season with the 49-ers, leading up to his partnership with Nike for its 2018 "Dream Crazy" advertisement. The findings from this study reveal that media frames, though carrying some impact, are not the most influential factor in shaping audiences' attitudes towards spokespeople or the brands they advertised. This study contributes new data to the discipline of media effects research, extending the conversation about celebrity athlete endorsers, the influence of media frames on consumer response, and implications for future studies.
Semantic Interaction for Symmetrical Analysis and Automated Foraging of Documents and Terms
Dowling, Michelle Veronica (Virginia Tech, 2020-04-23)
Sensemaking tasks, such as reading many news articles to determine the truthfulness of a given claim, are difficult. These tasks require a series of iterative steps to first forage for relevant information and then synthesize this information into a final hypothesis. To assist with such tasks, visual analytics systems provide interactive visualizations of data to enable faster, more accurate, or more thorough analyses. For example, semantic interaction techniques leverage natural or intuitive interactions, like highlighting text, to automatically update the visualization parameters using machine learning. However, this process of using machine learning based on user interaction is not yet well defined. We begin our research efforts by developing a computational pipeline that models and captures how a system processes semantic interactions. We then expanded this model to denote specifically how each component of the pipeline supports steps of the Sensemaking Process. Additionally, we recognized a cognitive symmetry in how analysts consider data items (like news articles) and their attributes (such as terms that appear within the articles). To support this symmetry, we also modeled how to visualize and interact with data items and their attributes simultaneously. We built a testbed system and conducted a user study to determine which analytic tasks are best supported by such symmetry. Then, we augmented the testbed system to scale up to large data using semantic interaction foraging, a method for automated foraging based on user interaction. This experience enabled our development of design challenges and a corresponding future research agenda centered on semantic interaction foraging. We began investigating this research agenda by conducting a second user study on when to apply semantic interaction foraging to better match the analyst's Sensemaking Process.
Sense of community, political participation, and civic engagement: An examination of the relationships between local daily newspapers, news websites, and their communities
Atkins, Daniel Aaron (Virginia Tech, 2016-08-02)
Newspapers have been shown to have positive correlations with their readers, sense of community, political participation, and civic engagement. Using McMillan and Chavis, Sense of Community Theory and its accompanying SCI-2 as well as questions on demographics and media use, political participation, and civic engagement, this thesis conducts a survey study of two community newspaper readerships in differing locations within the continental United States. This study aims to discover and develop further understanding of the social, political, and community-building effects of community dailies and their mirrored-content news websites. First, it examines media consumption preferences and measure the sense of community (SOC) felt by readers of print-edition newspapers and their mirrored-content websites. Second, it examines the differences in SOC felt by print and website readers. Third, it examines the influence of SOC and print-news website-reading on political participation, and fourth, it examines the influence of SOC and print newspaper-website reading on civic engagement, both with the intent of discovering how SOC might mediate this relationship. This thesis will provide contextual information and build a case for the relevance of community dailies in an ever-increasingly fast-paced, technocentric society. Findings include a significant relationship between SOC and both print and online readers, and the question of whether readers of both print and online community news feel a stronger SOC than either on its own is answered. Further findings include newspaper website-reading shares a significant relationship with both political participation and civic engagement, and print does not. Implications and limitations are discussed.
Smartwatch Centered System for Facilitating Group Processes of Small Teams in a Statewide Health Promotion Program
Esakia, Andria (Virginia Tech, 2018-08-16)
Physical inactivity is a major cause of disease in the United States and globally. Effective physical activity interventions often use community based approaches due to the demonstrated effectiveness of combining individual and group based behavioral strategies towards encouraging physical activity behaviors and influencing social norms. Such interventions can increase their impact by adopting technology based solutions to facilitate the underlying behavioral strategies. Current technologies for persuading physical activity primarily focus on facilitating the individual level behavioral strategies and de-emphasize the interpersonal aspects. This dissertation focuses on the development and evaluation of technology that is aimed at facilitating group dynamics-based strategies for promoting physical activity within small socially connected teams. This dissertation introduces a multi-component smartwatch-centered system (FitAware) that uses sensors to automatically track physical activity and leverages the advantages of the watch form factor to facilitate both group and individual level behavioral strategies via non-interruptive, glanceable, and frequent feedback updates. This manuscript describes the design and evaluation of FitAware in the context of an 8 week statewide physical activity community-based intervention, culminating in guidelines for system development that have been tested in educational settings.
The Story of Wearable Technology: A Framing Analysis
Baumann, Lindsey Michelle (Virginia Tech, 2016-07-14)
The global wearable technology market is forecasted for strong growth over the next five years with revenue expected to reach $14 billion in 2016 and grow to $34.2 billion by 2020 (CCS Insight, 2016). The wearable industry has undergone a long metamorphosis and growth and is presently becoming more mainstream with the popularization of fitness trackers and smartwatches. Because media portrayals influence public perception of topics covered by the media, exploring media portrayals of wearables is an important component part of understanding trends in growth and popularity of wearables. No other study has analyzed how the media has talked about wearable technology. This study examines newspaper coverage of wearable technology from 1988-2016 using the news framing perspective. A systematic content analysis was conducted on 182 articles from the Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, USA Today, New York Daily News, New York Post and The Washington Post analyzing issue frames, interview sources, episodic vs thematic frames, and type of wearable. This study found that among the four issue frames (progress, regulation, conflict, and generic risk) progress was the dominant frame. Episodic news frames emphasizing individual or specific examples were heavily relied on over thematic frames. The frequency of mentioning sources was not related to episodic/thematic coverage except for professor as an interview source. This study also found a significant relationship between interview source and year for no source. The results of this research provides useful insight into how wearable technology has been framed over the past 28 years by the news media which is helpful for companies creating and marketing these technologies, journalists writing about this type of technology, and scholars interested in understanding how the media talks about a new technology while it is in the process of diffusion.
Supporting Open Source Investigative Journalism with Crowdsourced Image Geolocation
Kohler, Rachel (Virginia Tech, 2017-08-10)
Journalists rely on image and video verification to support their investigations and often utilize open source tools to verify user generated content, but current practice requires experts be involved in every step of the process. Additionally, lacking custom tools to support verification efforts, experts are often limited to the utility of existing, openly available tools, which may or may not support the interactions and information gathering they require. We aim to support the process of geolocating images and videos through crowdsourcing. By enabling crowd workers to participate in the geolocation process, we can provide investigative journalists with efficient and complete verification of image locations. Parallelizing searching speeds up the verification process as well as provides a more extensive search, all while allowing the expert to follow up on other leads or investigative work. We produced a software prototype called GroundTruth which enables crowd workers to support investigative journalists in the geolocation of visual media quickly and accurately. Additionally, this work contributes experimental results demonstrating how the crowd can be utilized to support complex sensemaking tasks.

Browsing by Author "Horning, Michael A."

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