Jennifer Roth Miller, Ph.D., has served in administration, research, and faculty roles recurrently at the University of Central Florida since 2003. Jennifer’s research has sought to better understand social media engagement by exploring the convergence of communication, technology, philanthropy, and education in socially constructing collective views and actions for digital citizenship. Jennifer’s work has been published as articles in peer-reviewed communication-focused academic journals as well as book chapters in scholarly edited collections published by Brill, Routledge, University Press of Colorado, Utah State University Press, and Westphalia Press.

Specific digital citizenship research projects Jennifer has published center around multiliteracies for decoding and encoding increasingly visual communication in the context of social media engagement for causes. Deep dives in causes such as breast cancer awareness, domestic violence, and the Orlando Pulse tragedy response, elucidated expression of memetic ideas through identities as the grounds for answers regarding Jennifer’s overarching research inquiry. In response, Jennifer created the spectrum of engagement model and participation scale methodology as theoretical measurement tools for understanding social media engagement outcomes and impact.

Because identity emerged as such a powerful genre in social media engagement for the replication of directed ideas, but also as a “sweet spot” for introducing memetic and original ideas, Jennifer also crafted a visual pedagogy that students and everyday citizens can follow to understand their own identities while honing multiliteracies that restructure predispositions to digital citizenship and social media engagement.

“Ultimately, effective digital citizens must interrogate and then navigate their identities in the pursuit of expressing a sincerely relational authentic original perspective.”
                                                                                                         —Jennifer Roth Miller

Jennifer, while still connected to Central Florida, now resides primarily in Puerto Rico. The move to Puerto Rico reflects her life dedication to understanding 21st century citizenship (increasingly digital and global), identity, and modeling the ability to become more authentic, shifting in and out of ingrained beliefs and ways of life. Immersion in another culture with different language, customs, challenges, and ways of being affords dramatic opportunities to question our implicit notions of binaries such as right and wrong, good and bad, and true and false, while reimagining expression of authentic identities and original thought. 

Jennifer’s career and research has also elucidated how mainstream approaches are implicitly embedded in philanthropy. As a thoughtful and intentional philanthropist, Jennifer models supporting causes that offer space for multiple sincerely relational authentic original perspectives to contribute. For example, Jennifer and her family fund study abroad scholarships to provide related opportunities for University of Central Florida students to witness additional ways of being that may challenge their identity and allow them to access their authentic original perspective firsthand. The Miller family also funded a writing center at The Palmas Academy, a significant college preparatory school in the Caribbean, and coral reef restoration through The Coral Nursery of Puerto Rico.

While Jennifer’s research leverages complex academic, theoretical, and philosophical concepts such as semiotics, memetics, and epistemology, her approach makes these complexities relatable for students and everyday citizens. Jennifer initially sought to research social media engagement, but ultimately unpacked her own identity and authenticity in her work as a model to catalyze authenticity and original thought in others for sincerely relational and, therefore, impactful social media engagement and digital citizenship. 

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