Research Report

    The purpose of the second blog post of project 3 is to provide information about some of the

sources that I selected for my QRG. The analyses look at the validity of the author, the purpose, the

audience, and other aspects that make a source credible.

   1.     Contrary to popular belief, a particular survey indicated that social media did not act as a gate way to news reports.

2.     Just because social media doesn’t isolate you from society, it doesn’t necessarily serve as an alternate discussion area.

3.     Think social media isn’t harmful? Think again.

4.     Perhaps Facebook isn’t the best way to keep you occupied when you’re studying.

5.     Social media should be renamed to global media Citation: Massa, Paolo “If Facebook were a country, it would be the third largest country in the World!” 02/12/2010 via Flickr

(CC BY-SA 2.0)

6.     Social media is turning us into the opposite of its intentions: less social.

7.     Social media wastes time. Source: Experian Marketing Services

8.      Seemingly harmless rumors have turned into teen depression

9.     Each swipe, scroll, and share will increase your likelihood of developing ADHD.

10.   Twitter is ruining our relationships.

Descriptions

1.     -Title: Social Media and the ‘Spiral of Silence’

-Authors: Keith Hapton, Lee Rainie, Weixu Lu, Maria Dwyer, Inyoung Shin, and Kristen Purcell.

-Pew Research Center

-Weixu Lu and Maria Dwyer are studying to get their Ph.Ds. at Rutgers University

-Audience: The study done by them was of 1,801 adults who were 18+

-The poll was only done in America and was subjected to both genders

- Purpose A: To observe people’s “willingness to talk about the revelations in various in-person and online settings”

-Purpose B: To observe people’s “perceptions of the views of those around them in a variety of online and off-line” contexts

- The study was done by the Pew Research Center

- The study’s exact date and number of participants was given. They gave exact margins for error

- This will make my argument more exact and less subjective

2. Title: Social media doesn’t mean social isolation

-Author: Annalisa Rodriquez

- USA Today

-She studied at the University of Illinois to get her journalist degree

- She now works at Prime Publishing LLC, who have brands in social media, licensing, e-commerce, etc. (this can be found in her LinkedIn bio)

- Audience: College students (Lyana Delgado is referenced)

- Young adults use social media to “join a Facebook group dedicated…” (i.e. young adults who use social media as a way to organize groups)

-One purpose is to prove that social media isn’t an “isolating force”

-Another purpose is to prove that social media is actually good for you “tend to be more trusting, demonstrate greater social tolerance…”

- Referenced a study done by Pew Research Center

-Quoted from various professors (Chul-Joo Lee, William ward, etc.)

- The inclusion of other research in this publication will make the inclusion of this article in my claims more valid

3. Title: Twitter Troll Who Posted Fake Sandy News Apologizes to Internet

-Author: Sam Laird

-Mashable

-Graduate of UC Berkley

- Mashable’s Senior Sports Reporter

- Audience: New Yorkers who were falsely led by (the “troll”) Shashank Tripathi’s information about Hurricane Sandy (as the “anxiety and panic gripped New York”)

- Anyone actively involved in Twitter (as they would have seen the “havoc” caused by this false Tweet)

-One purpose is to inform everyone that Shashank “publicly apologize”(ed)

-Another is to update everyone who doesn’t have a Twitter on the impact that the Tweets had (he describes the event and how “panic gripped New York”.

-Reliability: takes the exact apology message (with username and all) and places it in the article

-He references exact time frames and directly quotes some of the Tweets

- The precise references eliminate ambiguity and provide for a more exact and thus valid argument

4. Title: Facebook and academic performance

-Authors: Paul A Kirshner and Aryn C. Karpinski

-Science Direct

-Paul Kirshner works for the CELSTEC at the University of the Netherlands

-Aryn Karpinski is at The Ohio State University in the College of Education and Human Ecology

- Audience: The journal’s target audience is the “current generation” (i.e. teenagers and young adults)

-It also references its audience as “young adult”

-One purpose is to exemplify the correlation between “Facebook use… and its relation to academic performance as measured by self reported Grade Point Average”

-Another purpose is to present the results regarding the “negative effects of attempting to simultaneously process different streams of information”

-Reliability: The journal references other organizations such as the Western Psychological Association

-It also constantly references other authors (such as Prensky and Wallis)

-The constant citing helps prove the validity of this source and thus the validity of my argument

5. Title: facebook takes over the world

-(original) Author: Buzzpoint (Lydia Hattrup and Tom Snyder)

- Tech Crunch

- Lydia Hattrup is the not only the VP of marketing but she also received her BA in Business and Economics from Wheaton College and an BMA from McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas

- Tom Snyder is the SVP of sales and marketing and was the EVP of Sales Marketing at a software retail solutions provider called BancVue

- Intended audience “Everyone” (people who are on Facebook)

- “250 million active users” is another instance of the audience

- One purpose is to exemplify how “facebook takes over the world”

- Another purpose is to state how “Facebook (is) the 4^th most populous country in the world”

-Reliability: The company that created the image seem to only higher staff that has had experience in the field (i.e. been a VP) or holds a Masters in some field

-The image uses exact statics (these came from Facebook but can be seen on this site).

-The exact numbers and trustable sources will help improve the validity of my argument

6. Title: Is Technology Really Making Us Less Social?

-Author: Dr. Andrew Read

- Sites at Penn State

- Dr. Read is a professor of Biology and Entomology at Penn State

- He holds various awards and has published multiple reports relating to biology and pathogens

- Intended audience: “When teens are looking…”

- He refers to “us” as “students and colleagues”

-Purpose: To pose an open-ended question on whether “enhancements in technology making us less social”

- The author then analyzes the two perspectives by discussing the “yes” and “the opposite”, no.

-Reliability:  He references Dr. Hampton, a professor at Rutgers University of Communication and Information

-He also references Professor Larry Rosen’s perspective on the matter

- This source will help with my argument as it incorporates a professor’s take on the subject, thereby increasing the validity of my claims

7. Title: Social Media Takes Up 27% of Time Spent Online

-Author: Ashley Johnston

- Marketing Profs

- Ashley Johnston has received various awards that pertain to marketing and advertising

- She is the Senior Vice President in Global Marketing and went to the University Washington

- Intended audience: “US… UK… Australia Internet users” (the “user” is not age or gender-restricted)

- “consumers” (i.e. people who use the internet on a semi-regular basis)

-Purpose: To exploit that 27% of an hour spent on the computer “would be spent on social networking and forums”

-To exemplify that the US “has been the most dominant in social media consumption”

-Reliability: All data comes “from Experian Marketing Services”

- The data also comes from the “2013 Digital Marketer Report”

-This is a good fit for my project because it will allow me to provide the straightforward statistics that I need to reach my audience

8. Title: “Social Influences on Cyberbullying Behavior Among Middle and High School Students”

-Authors: Sameer Hinduja, Justin Patchin

- Journal of Youth and Adolescence

- Dr. Hinduja is a professor at Florida Atlantic University in the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice

- Dr. Patchin is a Professor of Criminal Justice Department of Political Science at the University of Wisconsin

- Intended Audience: “affecting a meaningful proportion of youth”

- “the extent to which peers, parents… influence the cyberbullying behaviors of adolescents”

- Purpose: “to determine the extent to which peers, parents, and educators influence the cyberbullying behavior of adolescents”

- They determined that “youth who believed that… their friends… (cyberbullied)… were themselves more likely to report cyberbullying behaviors”

- Reliability: They use dozens of references to other researchers and professors (“Tokunaga 2010”, “For example, Finkelhor”, “Juvonen and Gross found that…”)

- They describe their results using quantitative data (“I cyberbullied others- 4.9%”, “ranged from 0 to 15 (mean = 7.70; SD = 3.59)”)

- The reliability of the data will help validate my claims and hopefully decrease any bias that I may have

9. Title: “Can media Use Cause ADHD Symptoms in Children?”

- Author: Romeo Vitelli

- Psychology Today

- Dr. Vitelli earned his Ph.D in Psychology from York University and has gone into private practice

- Dr. Vitelli is also the author of a novel called “The Everything Guide to Overcoming PTSD: Simple Effective Techniques for Healing and Recovery”

- Intended Audience: Although the article references “children” a lot, although the article is intended for parents: “paying closer attention to how much time your child spends online…”

- “children under the age of eighteen”

- Purpose: to explore “the link between media exposure in children and ADHD symptoms”

- “the researchers were able to find a significant correlation between media use and measures of ADHD”

- Reliability: References studies done by a different team of researchers from “the University of Amsterdam and Ohio State University”

 - The article combines “the research results from 50 studies” and concluded that there is a “correlation between media use and measures of ADHD”

   10.  Title: The Third Wheel: The Impact of Twitter Use on Relationship Infidelity and Divorce

-       - Author: Russell B. Clayton

-      - Cyberpscyhology, Behavior, and Social Networking

-     -  Russell Clayton is an Assistant Professor of media, health, and cognitive psychology at Florida State University

-    -   He earned a Ph.D in Journalism from the University of Missouri and a B.S. in psychology and M.A. in health psychology from Texas State University

-      - Intended audience: “amounts of Twitter-related conflict among romantic partners”

-    -  “the effects of Twitter usage on relationships”

-    -   “from 18 to 67 years”

-       -Purpose: “to examine how social networking site use… influences negative interpersonal relationship outcomes”

-     -  “specifically Twitter use, can contribute to negative relationship outcomes”

-     -  Reliability: This publication is a scientific report with dozens of references to similar research conducted (“As Chen¹³ notes”, “Johnson and Yang¹⁴” to give a few examples)

-     -   The methods section is very scientific with exact specifications (“The participant’s ages ranger from 18 to 67 years… 62% were Caucasian, 15% Asian,”)

-      - They also specified p-values and SD (“SD=66.3”, “p = 0.082 [95% CI -0.01, 0.05)”)

-      - The inclusion of other research and exact values in this publication will strengthen the validity of my argument.