Spring 2017 Senior Project Presentation Schedule
Monday
5/1
Garey Café
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10:30 AM |
Title: |
Get Woke Nova
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Presenters: |
Serene AlHalabi
Kat Gowland
Brynn Bannister
Sarah O'Connor
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Description: |
Get Woke Nova is a student campaign
that aims to facilitate dialogue around issues of race and promote
the importance of allyship and inclusivity on our campus. Our goal
is to help students become more comfortable talking about the
uncomfortable by “getting woke” about the discrimination some
students face. We have done this through social media, handing out
“Get Woke Nova” merchandise, and implementing creative installations
all over campus throughout the semester. Our presentation will
outline our process in more detail, the progress we've made, the
challenges we’ve faced, and the overall reactions to our campaign.
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Advisor: |
Dr. Billie Murray
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Second Reader: |
Dr. Terry Nance |
11:30 AM |
Title: |
Analyzing Sex Work Identity Through
The Lense of Instagram
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Presenters: |
Ciara Earry
Faith Wells
Andrea Pinckneh
Michael Williams
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Description: |
This study investigates the social
media platform of Instagram and its role in showcasing the
stigmatization that exists in the sex industry. Due to the lack of
research surrounding this specific phenomenon and the increasing
popularity of sex workers' Instagram accounts, this study seeks to
bring to light the role in which Instagram plays in influencing
complex idealized perceptions around sex work which has ultimately
led sex work to be highly stigmatized. This study explores and
seeks to understand how the images and content that individuals are
exposed to on Sex workers' Instagram accounts influence their
creation and portrayal of self. The extant research shows that
female sex workers have been found especially susceptible to the
stigmatization and judgement that arises from any mention of sex
work. Due to the social media's strong influence over this
population and the increased use of technology and social media in
everyday life, this study will focus on the effects of Sex Workers'
Instagram accounts on both sex and non-sex workers. The research
questions how the identities communicated through images and
captions on Instagram influence sex workers concept of the ideal
self and non-sex workers perception of sex workers.
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Advisor: |
Dr. Amy Way
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Second Reader: |
Prof. Hezekiah Lewis |
12:30 PM |
Title: |
Innovation In The Work Place
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Presenters: |
Jacqueline O'Neill
Michaela Frost
Catherine Connolly
Grace Massimino
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Description: |
Qualitative study using interview and
observation methods to analyze how innovation is created or
encouraged in the work place. Specifically looking at innovation
centers on college campuses.
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Advisor: |
Dr. Amy Way
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Second Reader: |
Prof. Derek Arnold |
Tuesday
5/2
Garey Café
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8:30 AM |
Title: |
Care for CARES
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Presenters: |
Peter Prokop
Sarah Freitag
Anne Johnson
Caroline Foley
Anthony Pelkey
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Description: |
For decades, immigrants and refugees
have been characterized as usurping national resources, dangerous,
disease-ridden and criminal --such rhetoric in the America is
dangerous and certainly not new.
Our project has two main goals.
Firstly, the broad goal of our project is to positively shape the
dialogue surrounding refugees and immigrant issues while debunking
myths and stereotypes about the migrant experience. We hope to
accomplish this through our second primary goal, which is to help
Villanova Law School’s CARES Clinic, a clinic run by the Villanova
Law School that provides student representation to refugees who have
fled their home country due to human rights abuses and are seeking
religious or political asylum in the United States, to engage local
and regional audiences via social media and video content. By
engaging a broader audience, we hope that CARES will be able to more
effectively carry out their service.
Our project seeks to draw upon the
spirit of Boggs (2011), to use our campaign not only to help our
audiences learn facts, but also to inspire them to become active
citizens. Of course, facts will be an important aspect of the
campaign, but by partnering with CARES, an organization that
actively works to make a change for people who need help. It is
interesting however that Boggs mistrusts politics and suggests that
millennials rightly mistrust politics as a vehicle of social change.
On one hand, we have to fight against the political climate and
offer a counter-voice with our campaign. On the other hand, we
recognize that instead of just trying to beat the system, CARES uses
their political understanding and resources to help refugees. Like
CARES, we hope to adopt an attitude of working with the political
system, in order to make full use of the resources that we do have
and to understand the forces we are up against. We are combining
civic engagement and advocacy, hoping to prove to our audience that
the situation is not hopeless and that we can still do something to
help refugees within the political system we have right now.
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Advisor: |
Dr. Billie Murray
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Second Reader: |
Dr. John O'Leary |
9:30 AM |
Title: |
"If I win, they're going back." -
Developing a Refugee Resettlement Website
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Presenters: |
Kelsey Hanson
Ralph "Trey" Johnson
Isabel Manfredonia
Brittany Lam
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Description: |
When Donald Trump followed through on
his campaign promise regarding immigrants and refugees, he sent
immigration advocates across the country into a tailspin. Already
forced to the margins of society, families of refugees fleeing war
and poverty were left desperate and confused in airports and
immigration offices. After researching and discussing the relevance
of assisting organizations dedicated to refugee care, our team
reached out to HIAS Pennsylvania, a non-profit committed to
assisting the refugee population in the Greater Philadelphia Area.
One of the tasks that they had been hoping to address but did not
have the time nor the resources to execute was website re-design.
HIAS PA’s website is outdated, featuring programs that the
organization no longer offers and statistics that are no longer
relevant. Thus, we have developed a new website for them, with
updated an design and information, new content elements, and a
digital platform that engages both the public and their clients.
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Advisor: |
Dr. Billie Murray
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Second Reader: |
Dr. Amy Way |
10:30 AM |
Title: |
Conveying Authenticity in Modern
Mommy Blogs
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Presenters: |
Alexa Batsides
Marie Bouffard
Samantha Gibney
Shannon Murphy
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Description: |
We are conducting a rhetorical
analysis of various "mommy blogs" in an effort to identify the
communicative strategies through which they illustrate authenticity.
Because these blogs generate significant traffic, we argue that they
serve as narrative tools that contribute to modern discourses
surrounding motherhood.
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Advisor: |
Dr. Amy Way
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Second Reader: |
Dr. Emory Woodard |
11:30 AM |
Title: |
Spilling the T: Misrepresentations
and Redefinitions of Drag Identity and Culture
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Presenters: |
Aidan Borillo
Joanna Carbone
Breanna DiMaio
Julianna Furfari
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Description: |
This project used a qualitative media
criticism in order to analyze the fifth season of the show, RuPaul's
Drag Race, and its ability to accurately represent the larger drag
community; specifically, how “Rugirls” influence the self-perception
of lesser known or “local queens”—drag queens who perform at smaller
clubs across the country. We
look at the encouraged norms, including but not limited to:
linguistics, appearance, values, beliefs, and traditions of the
show. Specifically, how they compare to the drag audience at large.
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Advisor: |
Dr. Qi Wang
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Second Reader: |
Dr. Shauna MacDonald |
12:30 PM |
Title: |
Dating Applications and Relationships
During College
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Presenters: |
Cory Fugale
Michael George
Emma Moran
Ryan Spivey
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Description: |
Using the method of survey research,
we explored how students at the college level utilize online and
mobile dating applications in means of relationship building.
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Advisor: |
Dr. Qi Wang
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Second Reader: |
Dr. Sheryl Bowen |
1:30 PM |
Title: |
The Refugee Reaction: A study on the
effects of images of refugees on viewer’s perceptions, attitudes and
behaviors
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Presenters: |
Mona Hoorfar
Meliné Derderian
Matthew Moorhead
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Description: |
With the recent shift in political
power, the refugee crisis and attitudes towards “others” has
dramatically come into the spotlight again in the recent months. Due
to this realization, we conducted a quantitative experiment in order
to analyze the effects of images of middle eastern refugees that are
throughout media to understand viewer's perceptions, attitudes, and
behaviors.
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Advisor: |
Dr. Emory Woodard
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Second Reader: |
Dr. Sheryl Bowen |
3:00 PM |
Title: |
Mental Health Stigma on College
Campuses
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Presenters: |
Karlie Crispin
Bridget Dandrea
John Hinchen
Morgan Melnick
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Description: |
Our group is examining mental health
stigmas that exist on College Campuses today. While working
alongside the Villanova University Counseling Center, we created two
hand outs; one to promote a First-Year Adjustment Group hosted by
the Counseling Center for those struggling with adjustment to
college and another that had general information about the services
provided by the Counseling center that can be distributed to both
students and faculty. Our hope is that we have created something
that can be used annually to help those struggling with Mental
Health issues.
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Advisor: |
Dr. Billie Murray
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Second Reader: |
Dr. William Cowen |
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4:00 PM |
Title: |
Gender Stereotypes: Netflix vs.
Broadcast Television
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Presenters: |
Laura Westhoff
Kendall Peel
Joe Norton
Alex Yanoff
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Description: |
A content analysis of Netflix
original series and broadcast television series that looks
specifically at gender stereotypes in the categories of major and
minor characters, occupation, and physical features. The aim of our
study was to determine whether or not portray themselves differently
on a streaming service which is subscription based versus broadcast
television which has to abide by FCC standards.
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Advisor: |
Dr. Emory Woodard
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Second Reader: |
Dr. Qi Wang
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Wednesday
5/3
Garey Alumni Events Room
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9:30 AM |
Title: |
Reverse Culture Shock and Its Effects
on Sojourner Identity
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Presenters: |
Chin-Shih Huang
Madeline McCarthy
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Description: |
Young Yun Kim’s cross-cultural
adaptation theory not only applies to the people who enter a
completely new culture but also explains when sojourners who already
have experienced the adaptive process in foreign countries re-enter
their home countries and experience reverse culture shock. This
project investigates how Kim’s stress-adaptation-growth model
describes sojourner’s reentry shock and adaptation experiences and
how their self-identities (including personal and social identities)
develop after reentry.
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Advisor: |
Dr. Qi Wang
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Second Reader: |
Dr. Amy Way |
10:30 AM |
Title: |
Facebook’s Impact on Millennial Media
Trust
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Presenters: |
Alex Alden
Sam Cruse
Chris Scalia
Sean Fitzgerald
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Description: |
We (Alex Aldan, Sam Cruse, Sean
Fitzgerald and Chris Scalia), are senior Communication majors
completing a senior project analyzing the effects of Facebook use on
political participation and media trust among millennials. Through
this investigation, we hope to better understand how social media
use affects the way in which millennials access, interpret, and
advance their political knowledge. Utilizing a nuanced version of
the Multi-Step Flow paradigm, our study has culminated in a plethora
of important correlations related to the political knowledge,
information diversity, opinion seeking, and sharing behaviors of
millennials on social media platforms, with a specific focus on
Facebook.
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Advisor: |
Dr. Emory Woodard
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Second Reader: |
Dr. Qi Wang |
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11:30 AM |
Title: |
The Semester of Realizing Things: A
Case Study |
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Presenters: |
Marion Ahearne
Margaret Cavanaugh
Samantha Faust
Natalie Merlo |
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Description: |
In looking at the facets of group
efficiency, role negotiation and individual identity we intend to
uncover how people contribute to their group’s goals while
constructing their own identities. As individuals may not be
conscious of how influential their efforts are until they are given
the chance to reflect back on the work, we will be using Weick’s
(1993) Sensemaking theory to explore how individuals create stories
to help explain what unfolded.
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Advisor: |
Dr. Amy Way |
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Second Reader: |
Dr. Maurice Hall |
1:30 PM |
Title: |
The Triangulation of Friendship
Initiation, Media Effects, and Physical Attractiveness
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Presenters: |
Sara D’Onofrio
Rachel Kim
Jennifer Lambert
Kathleen Treganowan
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Description: |
Human interaction, the
need to belong, and community commonly call into question the
patterning of interaction. With research covering primarily the
initiation and happenstance of romantic relationships in terms of
physical attractiveness, the three key concepts proposed are
physical attractiveness, friendship, and the media. This study
explores the external variable of media to measure significant
aspects of friendship formation. This new research closes this gap
by examining how the media’s portrayals of physical attractiveness
as well as depicted friend groups are linked to college-aged
females’ friendship choices. Romantic partnerships are known to form
through the four laws of attraction: similarity, proximity,
perceived physical attractiveness, and reciprocity. According to the
matching hypothesis, friendships follow the same design. However,
with media that not only emulates real life, but also expose us to
“real life,” have we fallen victim to more than just physiological
relationship initiation?
By employing a survey
to investigate the potential relationships between organic
friendship initiation, “media driven” friendship initiation, and the
common denominator present in both schools of thought: physical
attractiveness, this study aims to measure the extent to which
people “match” organically or with media influence. To evaluate
whether people choose to initiate friendships with those who are of
equal or close to equal physical attractiveness to themselves as a
physiological reaction, or whether (and how) the media portrayals of
physically attractive personae and their friends that they follow
influence their friendship formation, this study additionally, looks
to discover whether this social condition is rooted on the notions
that physically attractive people are more trustworthy, more
persuasive, and have an easier time socializing and participating in
a social hierarchy.
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Advisor: |
Dr. Qi Wang
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Second Reader: |
Dr. Thomas Ksiazek |
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3:00 PM |
Title: |
Analyzing Cyberbullying Through
Social Media Outlets
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Presenters: |
Josh Hart
Kris Jenkins
Darryl Reynolds
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Description: |
As technology grows so does
cyberbullying and the effects from it can be devastating. As a
group, we looked at the case of Amanda Todd who took her own life in
October 2012 due to being cyberbullied. We looked at how
cyberbullying has a platform on social media outlets specifically
Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. We looked at comments and posts and
judged the severity of the cyberbullying. Cyberbullying is something
that goes on every day and there is not an answer for it. Social
media outlets need policies that will protect its users and create a
safe environment for all.
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Advisor: |
Dr. Qi Wang
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Second Reader: |
Dr. Thomas Ksiazek |
Thursday
5/4
Garey Alumni Events Room
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8:30 AM |
Title: |
Too Crass for Class
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Presenters: |
Elizabeth Manheimer
Sophia Pizzi
Maureen Paglia
Carolyn Hanuschek
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Description: |
Our senior project asks: what are the
ways dating apps communicate notions of class? We engage in a
rhetorical analysis of the marketing materials and app structures of
Tinder, Bumble, and the League to explore whether or not these
dating apps break or reinforce class boundaries.
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Advisor: |
Dr. Susan Mackey-Kallis
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Second Reader: |
Dr. Shauna MacDonald |
9:30 AM |
Title: |
The Uses and Gratifications of Social
Media Platforms
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Presenters: |
Connor Brewer
Meghan Joumas
Ekiah Lewis
Haley Millstein
Julie Piscina
Katie Tangney
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Description: |
As social media and the ability to
constantly communicate evolves, the way in which individuals
converse across these various platforms changes, too. Although there
is vast amounts of literature published regarding the evolution of
language and communication through social media platforms, the
studies published are not always relevant, as technology is
constantly evolving. Many studies focus on outdated communication
and social media platforms, or only focus on the uses and
gratifications for one or two specific platforms. It is especially
difficult, as many social platforms now have similar communicative
motives.
Why do individuals choose one
platform over the other? Previous studies focus on social media as
well as digital communication platforms, but neglect to identify
specific interactions in order study the evolving new structure of
language and communication. It is clear that there is a gap in the
literature regarding why individuals choose to communicate over
certain platforms. Why do we communicate with one person through one
medium versus another, and is there an underlying reason for it?
What drives us to use one platform over another? Do we use platforms
for different purposes, uses, or gratification? How does our
communication style change from one platform to the other?
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Advisor: |
Dr. Susan Mackey-Kallis
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Second Reader: |
Dr. Emory Woodard |
10:30 AM |
Title: |
The Cinematic College Experience:
Forming College Realities through Retrospective Sense-making |
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Presenters: |
Trevor Davis
Sam Garger
Madeline Murphy
Pat McNulty |
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Description: |
Through interviews and rhetorical
analyses of college films, our qualitative research study looks into
college-aged films and the realities formed around their experience.
We specifically look at how first-year college students formulate
their realties based on the influence of the films Superbad and Animal
House. With the
unfortunate prevalence of sexual violence on college campuses
nationwide, our goal is to see whether comedy college films play a
role in this epidemic. This study seeks to explore how the dialogue
and visuals of these two comedy films influence student’s perception
of what their college reality may be like upon entering their first
year. We also seek to discover whether the light-heartedness and
comedy portrayed in the films plays a role in desensitization of
sexual violence and the downplaying of sexual assault on college
campuses. |
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Advisor: |
Dr. Emory Woodard |
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Second Reader: |
Dr. Susan Mackey-Kallis
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11:30 AM |
Title: |
Branding the Body: Healthy is the New
Wealthy
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Presenters: |
Gabrielle Maniscalco
Leah Connolly
Michael Dombrowski
Valerie Renda
Jasmine Truong
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Description: |
We are focusing on the idea of
fitness influencer's "fitspiration" posts on Instagram, which often
feature expensive workout clothes, equipment and food that the
average person cannot afford. We believe that the fitness
communities these influencers create and urge their followers to
strive towards are only achievable for those with endless money and
time, and thus create a sort of health gap. We will be examining
influencer's Instagram posts, captions, and comments from their
followers to evaluate this suggested link between wealth and
fitness.
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Advisor: |
Dr. Susan Mackey-Kallis
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Second Reader: |
Dr. Thomas Ksiazek |