Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 2020, Geography

User-generated data are the key to access and engagement in the modern digital ecosystem, shaping not only the ways we interact with platforms and applications but increasingly how we move through the physical world as well. The scope and magnitude of what data enables is matched only by the diversity and complexity of ways that internet users can generate it. Thus, the data-driven shaping, coercion, and regulation of behaviors by the digital traces of individuals movements and actions is a key component of algorithmic governance, within which race acts as a determining factor of differentiation and intensity. To that end, examining how Black people are surveilled, coerced, and quantified within digital ecosystems prefigures how engagement is eventually shaped for all users, and in many cases serves as impetus to enroll non-Black individuals into regimes of control requires a reckoning with the foundational influence of anti-Blackness on the internet. It is not enough to look at the data and formulate hypotheses about what actions could have produced it, if we do not understand those behaviors as rooted in an individual's awareness of their specific context and identity. The secretive, “black box” nature of these algorithms means that users know little, if anything, about how they function, their outputs, their priorities, or their inaccuracies. Yet how individuals perceive their own position within digital ecosystems, and conceive of what responses are available to them, are widely divergent. To discern how individuals perceive their ability to exert control over their data and privacy, it is necessary to first understand how user engagement with digital platforms relies on asymmetries in experience, knowledge, and access in order to facilitate the production and collection of user data.

Committee: Nancy Ettlinger (Advisor); Madhumita Dutta (Committee Member); Roselyn Lee-Won (Committee Member); Treva Lindsey (Committee Member) Subjects: Geography

Doctor of Philosophy, Case Western Reserve University, 2023, Management

Digital platforms, such as Facebook, Amazon, and Uber, are becoming crucial components of modern societies' infrastructure. In addition to driving innovation and economic growth, they shape political opinion and facilitate social change. Despite their pervasiveness, digital platforms are increasingly challenged with emerging uncertainty that stems from a variety of sources and affects a wide range of platform actors. Without a proper and prompt approach to navigate such uncertainty, digital platforms are susceptible to potential failures and business discontinuity. This dissertation provides a preliminary understanding of the emerging uncertainty in digital platforms. It focuses on uncertainty associated with negative events that range from incidents in the interactions between the platform's external users to major exogenous shocks that have a system-wide impact on the digital platform. Drawing on qualitative methods and interdisciplinary research, the dissertation is comprised of three independent studies. The first study utilizes a grounded theorizing approach to understand how users of digital platforms attribute blame for negative incidents. It follows media coverage of extreme incidents in two major platforms: YouTube and Airbnb. Findings show that the initial attribution of blame is transformed into a collectively distributed attribution through a retrospective sensemaking process. Study 2 seeks to understand how digital platforms organize for high reliability to manage uncertainty in negative incidents. An in-depth case study of the support function in a marketplace platform demonstrates evolving routine dynamics in the upstream (preventing incidents) and the downstream (resolving incidents) processes. Study 3 adopts a macro perspective on negative incidents by studying how digital platforms maintain operational resilience against major shocks. A longitudinal case study follows the response of a marketplace platform to the disruptions caused by the recent C (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Kalle Lyytinen (Committee Chair); Youngjin Yoo (Committee Member); Satish Nambisan (Committee Member); John Paul Stephens (Committee Member) Subjects: Information Systems; Information Technology; Management; Organization Theory

Master of Arts (MA), Bowling Green State University, 2023, Media and Communication

The conceptualization of feminism and rise of feminist individuals and groups in Ghana have evolved within the Fourth Republic era (from 1992 to the present), leading to growing misunderstanding about the nature, role, and scope of the feminist activism in Ghana. This thesis examines how individuals who uphold feminist thought and practice, and gender equity nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in Ghana use social media to advocate for women's and children's health and well-being, women's participation in politics and media, and elimination of crises, including rape culture and gender-based violence (GBV). The thesis analyzes how Ghanaian feminists and gender equity NGOs contribute to principles of UN Sustainable Development Goal 5 (SDG5): Gender Equality and ascertains how social media is used for gender equity advocacy efforts. In-depth interviews with self-identified Ghanaian feminists and leaders of gender equity NGOs were conducted. Interview data was analyzed using grounded theory. The result of Research Question (RQ1), on how Ghanaian feminist activism has evolved, indicates growing acceptance of feminism during the latter half of the current Republic era. Findings for RQ2, on how feminist and gender equity NGOs use digital platforms to advocate for Ghanaian women and children, indicate digital platforms are used for training women on leadership and entrepreneurship, defending themselves and their children against GBV, and amplifying women's and children's interests. Findings for RQ3, on how Ghanaian feminists and NGOs contribute to UN SDG 5, reveal productive efforts to educate on gender equity, collaborate with women celebrities to take leadership roles on gender equality to broader publics, and advocate for women's representation in Ghanaian institutions. Finally, RQ4, on roles Ghanaian social media play in amplifying Ghanaian feminists, digital platforms are vital to enable collaboration, support change in public policies negatively affecting women, an (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Lara Lengel Ph.D. (Committee Chair); Ellen Gorsevski Ph.D. (Committee Member); Radhika Gajjala Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: African Studies; Black Studies; Communication; Gender; Gender Studies; Law; Mass Communications; Mass Media; Technology; Web Studies; Womens Studies

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), Bowling Green State University, 2021, Media and Communication

Social media is an increasingly important space for community formation and interactions. Coinciding with the rise of social media has been an increasing interest in leftist ideologies once outside the mainstream. This analysis seeks to understand the social media siteReddit.com's enabling and constraining features on the community /r/socialism. Using the communicative theory of identity and Marxist media theory not only to look at Reddit and/r/socialism's relationship, but five key functions of a media: capital-economic, media sales and media market function, commodity circulation, domination, and the audience. Employing a mixed-methods approach enabled various data to be analyzed and relationally understood. Qualitative content analysis was used to examine user's salient topics and their uses for the community. Survey methods were deployed to the community to gather demographic data on the/r/socialism community and user opinions on the group's relationship with Reddit. Finally, secondary documents were analyzed to provide greater context to the other findings. Findings from the content analysis of salient subjects showed a preference for contemporary capitalist critique, socialist quotations, and class issues. However, topics impacting women and other minority groups were light to nonexistent. Analysis of platform uses found the top three uses to be a general discussion, information-seeking, and information-giving. The user survey was plagued by low participation and participants who were under the age of consent. As such, data from a community-administered survey filled in the gaps. Secondary document analysis shed light on many features of Reddit, particularly how the social media's systems are designed to elicit data and authenticity. Reddit'sprimary focus was on creating a space suitable for advertising with minimum corporate input. To attract users, Reddit sells the premise of community and interactions. For businesses, Reddit serves as an ad platform that ca (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Radhika Gajjala Ph.D. (Advisor); Samuel McAbee Ph.D. (Other); Lara Lengel Ph.D. (Committee Member); Yanqin Lu Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Communication