Digital Commons Network^™

Explaining Associations Between Relational Turbulence, Communal Coping, Stressors, And Relational Satisfaction During Military Reunions: At-Home Partners' Perspectives, Jennifer Sue Owlett

Open Access Dissertations

The current study examined how 179 romantic partners of U.S. service members perceived that they and their service members experienced the reintegration transition following a recent deployment. The relational turbulence model (Solomon & Knobloch, 2004) and the theoretical model of communal coping (TMCC; Afifi, Hutchinson, & Krouse, 2006) were used to frame this study. These frameworks had not been previously joined in this context. A revised communal coping measure was constructed to examine 17 hypotheses and 8 research questions because of challenges with the construct and external validity in prior measures. Participants completed an online questionnaire that assessed their perceptions …

Advice On Facebook: Channel Effects On The Evaluation Of Advice, Douglas E. Pruim

Open Access Theses

This thesis explores the evaluation of advice given in comments on Facebook status updates. To date, most research on advice has focused on dyadic, face-to-face interactions. The masspersonal channel of Facebook introduces a public into advice exchanges, including not only an audience but multiple advisors. The current study extends advice response theory by examining how advice recipients are affected by perceived consensus and tailoring in advice messages, and by the trait of conformity or the desire to conform to others' opinions. Participants (N = 269) completed questionnaires about past status updates on Facebook in which they disclosed a problem and …

Makers: Technical Communication In Post-Industrial Participatory Communities, John Timothy Sherrill

Open Access Theses

In the past few decades, web technologies and increasingly accessible digital fabrication technologies such as 3D printers and laser cutters have made it easier for individuals and communities to create complex material objects at home. As a result, communities of individuals who make things outside formal institutions, known as maker communities, have combined traditional crafts and technical knowledge with digital tools and web technologies in new ways. This thesis analyzes maker communities as post-industrial participatory design communities and examines them as participatory spaces where technical communication occurs between individuals with varying levels of expertise and sometimes drastically different knowledges. Ultimately, …

La Leche League, The Media, And The Nursing Mother: A Broader Perspective On Persona Theory, Erin F Doss

Open Access Dissertations

This dissertation builds on current breastfeeding-related scholarship by suggesting that the lived experiences of nursing mothers could be effective arguments for initial and continued breastfeeding. To do this, I analyzed archival materials related to La Leche League, specifically League newsletters, and media articles from publications across the United States to determine how the "nursing mother" functioned as a persona throughout the second half of the twentieth century. First, in my analysis of League newsletters I theorized a new category of personae, the constitutive persona, which includes personae used by a collective to attract new members and provide them with language …

Integration Of Z-Depth In Compositing, Kayla Steckel

Open Access Theses

It is important for video compositors to be able to complete their jobs quickly and efficiently. One of the tasks they might encounter is to insert assets such as characters into a 3D rendered environment that has depth information embedded into the image sequence. Currently, a plug-in that facilitates this task (Depth Matte®) functions by looking at the depth information of the layer it's applied to and showing or hiding pixels of that layer. In this plug-in, the Z-Depth used is locked to the layer the plug-in is applied. This research focuses on comparing Depth Matte® to a custom-made plug-in …

Dismantling The Great Wall Of Prejudice: A Look At Centrality And Issue Importance In The Perpetuation Of Influence And Prejudice Reduction, Zachary Robert Wittrock

Open Access Theses

This study sought to utilize social network analysis to better understand how prejudice reduction can be spread from one person to another via interpersonal influence. Different types of prejudice reducing interventions were combined into one intervention. The role of centrality in the spread and perpetuation of influence was examined by measuring prejudice reduction in socially connected individuals who did not undergo the direct intervention. To further understand the role of centrality in prejudice reduction, the concept of issue importance was included to understand the differential impact that centrality has on interpersonal influence. Study 1 examined the effectiveness of the intervention, …

More Than A Game: Examining Sensemaking And Self-Organisation In Alternate Reality Games, Yeo Yun Ting Alanna

Open Access Theses

Alternate Reality Games (ARGs) are an emerging brand of online role-playing games, immersive and highly interactive. This new genre of games pioneered an effective and efficient form of collective play and problem-solving in loosely-defined situations, showcasing powerful and efficient sensemaking and self-organization at work. I intend to study an ARG titled "We Are Earthborne" in order to understand the processes of communication, sensemaking, and selforganization that occurs in the course of an ARG. Using the structure of Weick's organizational sensemaking and Latour's Actor-Network Theory as a lens, this study intends to break down how distributed groups of people can come …

Is Maternal Touch Used Referentially?, Rana Abu-Zhaya

Open Access Theses

Early social interactions are highly multimodal and include a wealth of cues (e.g., speech, facial expressions, motion, gestures and touch). Infant-directed speech (IDS) by itself may aid in language development. Touch by itself has been also shown to play an important role in dyadic interactions affecting both the infant and the caregiver. However, little is known about the impact of the combination of these two modes of communication on infant language development. In this thesis, I hypothesize that caregiver touch is provided in synchrony with speech, providing the language-learning infant with cues that may not only help her to find …

Online Naturalization: Evolving Roles In Online Knowledge Production Communities, Jeremy David Foote

Open Access Theses

Web-based peer production communities, like Wikipedia and open source software, have created digital artifacts of growing cultural, financial, and technological importance. Understanding how and why people choose to join these communities, and why they eventually leave them, is therefore an important topic.

We take all of the edit data from six years of activity on the online genealogy wiki WeRelate, and create monthly snapshots of behavior and interaction networks for all 9,570 users who edited the site. We use machine learning to cluster these behavioral snapshots into four "behavioral roles". We identify one of these roles as being indicative of …

Playing On The Periphery: Metagaming And Transgressive Play, Patrick S. Love

Open Access Theses

Gaming and play exist in connection to forces outside of the game systems themselves. Together, all these intersecting forces make up a meta game that informs and enables variance in play as well as creates barriers to entering play. This thesis fleshes out the framework of a metagame and shows how players can take a metagame perspective to transform, transcend, or even transgress barriers. This thesis discusses sources of metagaming and encompasses examples from video and traditional games.

The Rhetorical Constitution Of Online Community: Identification And Constitutive Rhetoric In The Community Of Reddit, Bradley Stephen Ludwig

Open Access Theses

The concepts of online identity and online community within the context of social media have been major research interests in the field of communication in recent years. Questions of interest include how the Internet and social media contribute to the construction of identity both online and offline, and what factors encourage participation in and contribution to online communities. This thesis will address these questions related to online identity and community from a rhetorical perspective to examine the role rhetoric plays in these processes and build on the application of rhetorical approaches to online contexts. Specifically, this project proposes a rhetorical …

Computer Animation For Learning Building Construction Management: A Comparative Study Of First-Person Versus Third-Person View, Jun Yu

Open Access Theses

In this paper, we have explored the effect of perspective view in educational animations on students' learning of building construction management tasks and on students' preference of perspective views. We conducted a pre-test and post-test and found no significant advantages of computer animation presented in different perspective views across three different groups. Results showed that although students have preference on perspective views, perspective views did not influence learning outcome. The study also investigated the efficacy of animation as a teaching/learning tool in comparison to the traditional textbook. Findings showed that animation enhanced student learning, although the difference was not statistically …

Software Architecture And Development For Controlling A Hubo Humanoid Robot, Anne Giulia Pellicciotti

Open Access Theses

This study considers the level of involvement of participants viewing bilingual and English language TV commercials. It analyzes results from 295 non-Hispanic participants studying at a Midwestern university. In the study, participants were asked to view four commercials. Using Zaichkowsky's (1994) 10-item Personal Involvement Inventory (PII), participants scaled the advertisements on a 7-level scale. The scale evaluated participants' emotional and cognitive involvement with the ad. This between-subjects design required that participants be randomly separated into viewing all-English or all-bilingual advertisements. Findings showed no significant difference in involvement levels between bilingual or English commercials within this demographic group. Those with higher …

Jpmorgan Chase, Bank Of America, Wells Fargo, And The Mortgage Crisis Of 2008, Lauren Berkshire Hearit

Open Access Theses

The practice of financial public relations is widespread in the field of public relations, but there is little research concerning the practice of financial public relations. In response to the call for additional research on financial public relations, this paper will examine the intersections of financial public relations, issue management, and organizational communication. Specifically, this project will explore how contemporary issue management requires companies to maintain their actional and institutional legitimacy. ^ Following the Financial Crisis of 2008, major banks such as JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, and Wells Fargo attempted to rebuild stakeholder and shareholder trust in the American …

Don’T Worry, I Am Fine: A Qualitative Analysis Of Family Communication And Depression In Chinese International Students In The Us, Lan Jin

Open Access Theses

Depression and associated mental health problems are increasingly a critical health issue for Chinese international students in the U.S. (Lyubomirsky, Kasri, & Zehm, 2003; Cheung, 2011; Liu, 2009). Recent studies in different U.S. universities found a 32% to 47% rate for depression symptoms among Chinese international students (Cheung, 2011; Wei et al., 2007). The statistics suggest that Chinese students face a high prevalence of depression problems (Han et al., 2013). To address the depression problems, family communication provides substantial support for Chinese students (Liu, 2009). However, little is known about family communicative practices of this population (Wei et al., 2010). …