Category: Uncategorized

St. Patrick’s day is a holiday celebrated on March 17. This holiday is inspired by Irish culture. On this day people who celebrate wear all green and gold and consider themselves to be lucky individuals.  When searching the key words “St. Patricks Day”, Talkwalker produced 84.4 thousand results with a 787.1 thousand engagement rate. The main media outlets that the results came from were Twitter and other forums. This tells us that the majority of the users creating conversation about the holiday were news outlets and other individuals. The local news media outlets that engaged in conversation were spreading awareness…

by Daria Parfenova On February 23rd, Illinois State University students came together for a day of giving back to their school through the “Birds Give Back” campaign. The SMACC lab was monitoring social media activity and analyzing the outcomes of this philanthropic event. Through exploring social media engagement, fundraising efforts, and other metrics, we will uncover insights into the success of this initiative and the university’s ability to mobilize its community for the common good. So, let’s take a closer look at #BirdsGiveBack and the power of collective philanthropy at Illinois State University.  Overall, the social media discussion engaged many…

As Nigeria’s February 25th presidential election approaches, it’s crucial to acknowledge the potential impact of this event on the country’s future. The election holds immense importance not only for Nigerians but for the concept of democracy as well. As a Nigerian in the diaspora, I see the significance of this election and believe it’s an opportunity for all citizens of the giant of Africa to set aside their differences and work toward progress.  Although, the promises made by each presidential candidate are a topic of frequent discussion. Our concern should be who is interested in enhancing education, security, healthcare, and…

By Mary Valentine, SMACC Graduate Assistant Analyst 2022 was one of the first years “back to normal” after the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic. With all the wild happenings that have occurred in the past few years, it’s been difficult to remember if an event or trend happened this past year or back in the hibernation days of spring 2020. Google trends has laid out the most remarkable trends in the United States to remind us where we’ve been and what has happened in 2022. According to Google Trends, the top overall searches in the U.S. were: In addition to simply listing…

By Daria Parfenova  “Dealing with AI” – this title popped up on my screen when I was preparing for the spring semester. Recently all the Illinois State University faculty members and instructors received an email from the ISU administration about how to manage AI-generated content in the classroom. The advancement of AI technology has created a new frontier in natural language processing. One of the most noteworthy developments in this area is ChatGPT, a language model developed by OpenAI that has captured the attention of both experts and the general public. With its ability to engage in human-like conversations, ChatGPT…

by Yasmin Carrillo, Nathan Carpenter, and Tony Alva With the recent activity with Twitter being taken over by Elon Musk, the American social media company as been experiencing some hardships. From lose in revenue to lose in the number of active users. Twitter’s continued slippery slope is shown to affect the Bloomington-Normal area. According to Sheila Dang’s Exclusive: Twitter is losing its most active users, internal documents show, “Twitter is struggling to keep its most active users – who are vital to the business.” With the changes insighted by Musk these past few months we are beginning to see the…

by Bella Ogurek, SMACC Analyst A Brief History National Preparedness Month occurs every year during September where it aims to bring awareness to the public on planning for disasters and other emergencies. September was declared preparedness month due to 9/11 being in September, and became official in 2004 under FEMA’s (Federal Emergency Management Agency) Ready Campaign. “Ready” is a public service campaign under FEMA that educates and brings awareness to planning for disasters and that they can happen at any time. It encourages people to stay prepared and make a plan. During the month of September, several states were preparing for…

By: Yasmin Carrillo We are less than one month away from the general elections and in 2022, social media is a huge contributing factor to not only following but staying informed on what candidates find important enough to share with the world on their account. Using the rtweet package for the R programming language, this study collected and compared the last 3,200 tweets of J.B Pritzker (3,152 tweets), Darren Bailey (2525tweets) and Scott Schluter (68 tweets), all running candidates for governor of Illinois. Data for Pritzker and Bailey was retrieved on October 6, 2022, and data for Schluter was retrieved on September 20,…

by Bella Ogurek On the night of Sunday September 18th through early Monday September 19th, there was a large storm in Bloomington-Normal and other surrounding areas which led to power outages, road flooding, heavy winds, heavy rain, hail, and some minor damages as well. People reported poles down, trees struck by lightning, and even a tree into a car. Barstool Barstool Sports is a well-known account on different social media platforms with anything from falls to bad sports plays. Many large colleges have their own Barstool account where people send in videos that occur at their school specifically. Illinois State’s…