MA, Kent State University, 2015, College of Communication and Information / School of Media and Journalism

This exploratory qualitative study supports the applicability of Latane's Social Impact Theory to the measurement of influence, particularly online. Depth interviews and ethnography produced a lexicon of influence attributes that fit into Latane's hierarchy of Strength, Immediacy and Number of sources. The research shows that strength factors dominate in impact on influence, namely importance (mainly who the influencer is) and salience (what characteristics the influencer possesses,) with closeness in space/time also a contributory attribute. The data also indicate that the way the communication industry has been measuring influence, by social media activity, a la Klout, is not as important as evaluating the propensity to be influenced as well as the characteristics of the influencer. A robust review of relevant literature grounds the research, and specific recommendations for measuring influence in a holistic manner are included.

Committee: William Sledzik MA (Advisor); Michele Ewing MA (Committee Member); Stefanie Moore MA (Committee Member) Subjects: Communication; Journalism; Marketing; Mass Communications

Ph.D., Antioch University, 2019, Leadership and Change

More than a decade after the emergence of social and digital media, professional communicators increasingly use these channels to interact with a wide array of stakeholders. Simultaneously, public relations (PR) and communications leaders seek to understand whether their efforts to communicate and engage with stakeholders through these channels are effective in establishing and building relationships, as well as to measure “effectiveness” in the new technology-driven communications landscape. With this study, I addressed a gap in the academic research with regard to understanding the effectiveness of social and digital media as a communications tool by assessing employees' perceptions of their organization with respect to five communication concepts, both in general and based specifically on the company's social media communications. I assessed the relationship between the employee stakeholder and the organization from two viewpoints: first, from the viewpoint of the employees with whom the organization is communicating, and second, from the viewpoint of the communications professionals who post social and digital media messages on behalf of the organization. The results showed that an intervention to educate employees about the organization's social and digital media communications did not result in employees' increased positive perceptions of the organization as a whole or of the organization's sites with regard to each of the five communications concepts. The increase in employees' positive perceptions of the organization's social and digital media sites, which reflected the communication concept “promoting communal relationships,” was significant at p < .10; also, increases for three individual statements that were part of the communications concepts were sufficient for statistical significance. The intervention did result in statistically significant increases in employee use of social and digital media to engage with the organization and in usage of specifical (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Mitchell Kusy PhD (Committee Chair); Carol Baron PhD (Committee Member); Mike Porter EdD (Committee Member) Subjects: Communication; Management; Marketing; Mass Communications; Multimedia Communications; Organization Theory; Organizational Behavior; Web Studies