Date of Award
8-2024
Document Type
Campus Access Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Department
Business Administration
First Advisor
Romilla Syed
Second Advisor
Kui Du
Third Advisor
Josephine Namayanja
Abstract
Gendered disinformation emerges as a particularly insidious threat, undermining women's credibility in public life and exacerbating social divides. This dissertation explores the complex relationship between information technology (IT) and human wellbeing, with a specific focus on gendered disinformation and its impact on social media polarization. The first part provides a comprehensive literature review of the relationship between IT use and wellbeing within the information systems (IS) discipline. It synthesizes existing research, identifies key themes, theoretical foundations, and methodological approaches to understand how IT use influences wellbeing. This section emphasizes the areas that need to be addressed in future research. Building on the findings of the first part, the second part examines gendered disinformation and social media polarization in the context of social wellbeing. This study utilizes Facebook data and employs content analysis to identify gendered disinformation topics, drawing on Intersectionality theory. Additionally, it examines social media polarization based on affective polarization theory. By connecting the insights from the literature review on IT use and wellbeing with the investigation of gendered disinformation in social media, this dissertation highlights the interplay between IT, social media dynamics, and wellbeing. These two studies provide significant theoretical contributions and practical implications that enhance our comprehension of gendered disinformation, intersectionality, and affective polarization in the context of social media and wellbeing. The integrated approach underscores the importance of considering IT's role in both promoting and undermining wellbeing, particularly through the lens of gendered disinformation and its polarizing effects on social media.
Recommended Citation
Jeong, Hyein, "Digital Wellbeing: Gendered Disinformation and Social Implications" (2024). Graduate Doctoral Dissertations. 1004.
https://scholarworks.umb.edu/doctoral_dissertations/1004
Comments
Free and open access to this Campus Access Thesis is made available to the UMass Boston community by ScholarWorks at UMass Boston. Those not on campus and those without a UMass Boston campus username and password may gain access to this thesis through resources like Proquest Dissertations & Theses Global (https://www.proquest.com/) or through Interlibrary Loan. If you have a UMass Boston campus username and password and would like to download this work from off-campus, click on the "Off-Campus UMass Boston Users