Zalot defends dissertation

Andrew Zalot
Andrew Zalot

PhD candidate Andrew Zalot successfully defended his dissertation, "'Tweet of the Town:' Synthesizing Local and Social Media Discourse on Book Bans," on July 3.

His committee included Assistant Professor Rachel M. Magee (chair); Professor Emily Knox;  Associate Professor Kate McDowell; and Marianne Martens, professor in the School of Information at Kent State University.

Abstract: This dissertation examines the intersection of local and social media discourse during a book ban to understand how communities respond when a book ban takes place. This study explores the role social media discourse can play in community responses to book bans and the long-term effects of book bans. In 2022, the community of McMinn County, Tennessee, experienced a book ban when their district’s school board voted 10-0 to ban Art Spiegelman’s graphic memoir, Maus, from the district’s eighth-grade curriculum.  Through tweets collected on Twitter (X) about the ban and semi-structured interviews with residents of McMinn County, this study provides insights into how local and social media discourse can become entangled during a book ban. This dissertation provides a framework for understanding how social media discourse can intersect with local discourse through the concept of Localized Social Media Intervention, which builds upon Danielle Allen’s discourse flow model. LSMI suggests that outsiders, through social media, have the ability to influence local discourse and affect change in ways beyond the digital world.
 

Updated on
Backto the news archive

Related News

Join the iSchool at the 2025 ALISE annual conference

Join iSchool faculty, staff, and students for the annual conference of the Association for Library and Information Science Education (ALISE), which will take place from October 6–8 in Kansas City, Missouri. The theme of the 2025 conference is "Decolonising Pedagogies: Agency, Identity, Practices."

Ravury selected to serve on Homecoming Court

BSIS student Lauren Ravury has a new item to add to her resume: member of the 2025 Homecoming Court at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Ravury's resume is already impressive. She serves as president of the Student Alumni Ambassadors (SAA), an organization dedicated to fostering school spirit at the U. of I. Last year, she served as president of the Asian Pre-Law Association, a stint that led to her receiving the Outstanding Asian & Asian American Undergraduate Student Leader Award from the Asian American Cultural Center and the association being named the 2025 Outstanding Asian & Asian American Student Organization.

Lauren Ravury

Wang appointed to Autism Data Privacy Advisory Group

Professor Yang Wang has been appointed by Governor JB Pritzker to serve on the newly created Autism Data Privacy Advisory Group, established under Executive Order 2025-02 to strengthen protections for the civil and human rights of people with autism in Illinois. 

Yang Wang

Illini 4000 journey leaves lasting impact on Patllollu

As a member of the Illini 4000, BSIS student Riddhima Patllollu biked from New York City to San Francisco to raise awareness of cancer and raise funds for cancer research. Patllollu, a junior from New Jersey, decided to join the nonprofit organization in her freshman year to expand her worldview and mark a new chapter in her life. 

Riddhima Patllollu