Digital Commons Network^™

Democratic Communication: Lessons From The Flint Water Crisis, Mindy Myers

Wayne State University Dissertations

This dissertation develops an approach to institutional critique that re-works Porter, Sullivan, Blythe, Grabill, and Miles’ foundational configuration. This project argues that John Dewey’s concept of democratic communication articulated in his debate with Walter Lippmann provides a useful heuristic for developing democratic communicative practices that allow citizens and experts to communicate with one another about technical issues such as water quality and safety. Through an analysis of Michigan’s emergency manager law, the relationship between citizens and experts that exposed the crisis, and the Flint Water Advisory Task Force’s Final Report, this dissertation establishes that citizens must participate in technical decision-making …

Information Availability And Congeniality, Selective Exposure, And Reinforcement Effect, Kunto Adi Wibowo

Wayne State University Dissertations

This study examined the effect of information availability on selective exposure and the effect of selective exposure on attitude reinforcement through emotional arousal. Cognitive dissonance and confirmation bias theories were utilized as framework to answer the effect of information availability. For the attitude reinforcement through emotional arousal, cognitive dissonance, selective exposure, and affective intelligent theories were employed. This study employed a novel approach by utilizing different proportions of congenial and uncongenial information as experimental conditions, high congenial, high uncongenial, and control conditions, to test the effects of information availability on selective exposure.

Results demonstrated that information availability affects selective exposure …

Constitutive Memories Of City Space: Rhetorics Of Civil Rights Memory In Detroit’S Urban Landscape, Scott Mitchell

Wayne State University Dissertations

This dissertation examines public memories of civil rights injustice and resistance as constitutive rhetorics of urban culture and spatiality for the city of Detroit. By studying the city of Detroit as it navigates an ongoing period of dramatic change and redevelopment, this study demonstrates how material manifestations of memory become the constitutive forces that define what many describe as “Detroit’s heart and soul.” This project illustrates the embedded cultural logics produced from sites of public memory, thereby arguing city spaces as locations bound to their legacies and beholden to material and symbolic consequences of their past. This dissertation proceeds through …

The Process Of Ostracism Message Reception And Meaning Making, Lukas John Pelliccio

Wayne State University Dissertations

Ostracism is defined as the exclusion of an individual or group by an individual or group. Research suggests that being ostracized can create severe negative psychological reactions in targets. However, there is much less research explicitly focused on how ostracism is communicated and the process of meaning making that allows a target to interpret communication as an ostracism message. Through grounded theory and qualitative interviews, this study asked: What is the process of interpersonal ostracism message meaning making, and what are the key elements that influence this process? Analysis revealed a seven-phase process that explains the stages of meaning making …