Allison Fortner, along with co-author Katie Sanders, presented a poster at the Association of International Agricultural and Extension Education’s 2022 conference in Thessaloniki, Greece, April 4-7.
The poster titled, “Exploring the Influence of International Scholars on Social Media Engagement across Platforms,” explored the influence of the presence of international versus domestic scholars in social media content from a research university. This poster was a collaborative effort between Fortner, Sanders and Dr. Alexa Lamm.
The co-authors were thrilled to share this research at the in-person poster session as part of the conference proceedings. International scholars are those not born in or whose first academic degree is not from the country where they have their current and primary academic appointment. The poster shared an innovative look at how faculty and student researchers’ domestic or international status may affect how users engage with content featuring photos of the researchers and their work on social media – specifically Twitter and Instagram.
The exploratory study found engagement levels differed on Twitter and Instagram based upon whether the featured researchers were domestic or international scholars. These results suggest future studies focus on why these differences exist and if engagement depends upon the cultural social media practices associated with platforms in a researcher’s country of origin.
This poster presentation was part of research presented by several Lamm Lab members at the 2022 AIAEE Conference, at which Sanders also received a distinguished presentation award for her work on poetic transcription as a method for communicating impacts of community-based health initiatives.
