Digital Commons Network^™

Democratic Innovations In North America, Christopher F. Karpowitz, Chad Raphael

Communication

This chapter assesses the state of democratic innovations in North America, including the United States, Canada, and English-speaking countries of the Caribbean. We begin by setting these innovations in the contexts of democracy on the continent, which includes both established democracies and countries that have only recently decolonised. We go on to discuss major trends in democratic innovations over the past two decades in North America, including referendums and initiatives, mini-publics and collaborative governance, and digital participation in political and civic life. We note the broad range of issues addressed by these innovations and their effects on democratic institutions at …

Soap Opera», Molto Più Che Intrattenimento: Storia E Sviluppo Di Ungenere Di Culto, Paul A. Soukup

Communication

Le soap opera sono ben note ai telespettatori di tutto il mondo e hanno destato l’interesse degli studiosi specializzati fin quasi dai primi passi della scienza della comunicazione.

Il genere prende il nome dalle aziende che per prime sponsorizzarono questi drammi a puntate, ossia quelle che producevano articoli per la casa, in particolare prodotti per le pulizie (soap, sapone): il formato si era dimostrato facile da produrre a un costo relativamente basso e «catturava» abitualmente il pubblico delle donne che lavoravano in casa.

La costante popolarità delle soap si deve a molti fattori: le trame, tanto avvincenti quanto …

Facebook: Changing The Face Of Communication Research, Paul A. Soukup

Communication

The ubiquitous social networking site, Facebook, registered over one billion active users in 2012 and continues to grow (Facebook, 2018a). Not surprisingly, communication researchers around the world noticed this phenomenal shift in communication practice, a practice aided by a combination of digital communication tools—easy to access communication networks, low cost bandwidth, smartphones, application features, and so on. These developments transformed the understanding of “social networks,” turning them from face-to-face interactions among small groups into world spanning digital connections, from networks of business or professional associations supported by analogue or “old” communication practices (such as letter writing, telephone calls, or conference …

La «Net Neutrality.», Paul A. Soukup

Communication

A meta dicembre 2017, la Federal Communications Commission (Fee) degli Stati Uniti ha votato per riclassificare gli Internet Service Providers (isp, cioe fornitori di servizi che connettono Ie imprese e gli individui a internet: compagnie telefoniche, linee via cavo eec.) come servizi di informazione anziche come common carriers, «pub" blici vettori» (quindi assimilati ad altn fornitori di servizi pubblici). Benche se ne fosse discusso almeno dal 2003, la Fee e 2;iunta soltanto nel 2015, sotto 1'amministrazione Obama, alia classificazione del providers come vettori pubblici. Gli attuali componenri della Fee, la cui maggioranza rispecchia gli orientamenti dell'amministrazione Trump, hanno sceko di …

L’Autorità, I Nuovi Media E La Chiesa, Paul A. Soukup

Communication

I social media, come Facebook e Twitter, e i motori di ricerca hanno cambiato le dimensioni e la comprensione del concetto di autorità nel mondo contemporaneo. Le persone si rivolgono a essi in quanto li considerano fonti di informazione autorevoli.

È una questione che ha implicazioni anche per la Chiesa e nella Chiesa, la cui pratica e la cui comprensione dell’autorità si esprime in contesti di comunicazione molto differenti. Nel mondo contemporaneo c’è infatti un crescente divario fra l’autorità di insegnamento che la Chiesa è consapevole di avere e l’autorità che la gente sembra disposta a riconoscerle.

In una riflessione …

How Do Presence, Flow, And Character Identification Affect Players’ Empathy And Interest In Learning From A Serious Computer Game?, Christine Bachen, Pedro F. Hernández-Ramos, Chad Raphael, Amanda Waldron

Communication

This study develops and tests an integrated model of how three psychological variables—presence, flow, and character identification—contribute to interest in learning and empathy with people from other cultures through a simulation game. U.S. college students played one of two roles (an American journalist or Haitian survivor) in the game that dealt with the aftermath of the 2010 Haiti earthquake. Presence was a powerful predictor of flow, character identification, and empathy felt during the games. Furthermore, empathy experienced by game play significantly predicted interest in learning more about the game topics. Flow and identification made secondary contributions to learning outcomes, with …

Studying Soap Operas, Paul A. Soukup

Communication

This present issue of Communication Research Trends will focus on research about soap operas published in the last 15 years, that is, from the year 2000 to the present. This more recent research shows one key difference: the interest in soap opera has become worldwide. This appears in the programs that people listen to or watch and in communication researchers who themselves come from different countries.

On Migrant Workers’ Social Status In Taiwan: A Critical Analysis Of Mainstream News Discourse, Hsin-I Cheng

Communication

It is estimated that around 20 million Southeast Asians work outside of their home country. In 1991, Taiwan first introduced about 3,000 migrant workers from Thailand. In mid-2015, there were approximately 579,000 migrant workers who came under the category of foreign laborers mainly from Southeast Asia. However, there is scarce research on representations of the south–south international migration. This study critically analyzes mainstream news discourse on migrant workers in Taiwan to discern their relations to their residing society. Four themes emerged: objectification of foreign laborers; differentiated and gendered marginalization; multilevel triangulations over migrant bodies; and imperialistic cultural attitudes toward migrant …

Civic Play And Civic Gaps: Can Life Simulation Games Advance Educational Equity?, Christine Bachen, Pedro F. Hernández-Ramos, Chad Raphael, Amanda Waldron

Communication

Digital games and simulations (DG&S) could help mitigate inequities in civic education and participation, which are found in many contemporary democracies. Yet incorporating DG&S into the curriculum may reinforce or introduce inequities for students who are less engaged by game-based learning. A quasi-experimental study of 301 U.S. high school students in social studies classes examined whether prior academic performance, civic engagement, civic game play experience and gender affected how (and which) students benefit from playing a life simulation game. Dependent variables included several civic dispositions: justice-oriented citizenship norms and interest in politics, news, and global issues. The simulation game especially …

Smartphones, Paul A. Soukup

Communication

Many of the research approaches to smartphones actually regard them as more or less transparent points of access to other kinds of communication experiences. That is, rather than considering the smartphone as something in itself, the researchers look at how individuals use the smartphone for their communicative purposes, whether these be talking, surfing the web, using on-line data access for off-site data sources, downloading or uploading materials, or any kind of interaction with social media. They focus not so much on the smartphone itself but on the activities that people engage in with their smartphones.

Communicatively Restricted Organizational Stress (Cros) I: Conceptualization And Overview, Justin P. Boren, Alice E. Veksler

Communication

In this article, we conceptualized a new organizational variable, Communicatively Restricted Organizational Stress (CROS). CROS is a perceived inability to communicate about a particular stressor and functions to exacerbate negative outcomes related to the appraisal of that stressor. To aid in our conceptualization, we reviewed extant literature on organizational stress and social support. We also collected open-ended data from a national sample of 354 workers. The responses to these questions lead us to specific themes about the nature and function of CROS. Finally, we propose a conceptual conditional process model with two primary propositions: (a) An organizational member who reports …

The Relationships Between Co-Rumination, Social Support, Stress, And Burnout Among Working Adults, Justin P. Boren

Communication

Workers regularly report high levels of stress and burnout because of their daily interactions at work. Workers also tend to seek social support as a mechanism to reduce stress and burnout. Social support buffers the negative effects of stress on health-related outcomes and is inversely associated with both burnout and perceived stress. However, recent research has revealed that not all social support is beneficial. Co-rumination, or excessive negative problem talk about an issue, has been linked to increasing levels of stress and burnout. Working adults (N = 447) completed a survey exploring the relationships between social support, co-rumination, stress, and …

Grounded Theory, Laura L. Ellingson, Kristian G.E. Borofka

Communication

Grounded theory (GT) is a common approach to inductive analysis of qualitative health communication data. GT analysis generates a typology of themes or categories based on "emic" (research participant) perspectives that together constitute a new theory or extension of existing theory. GT is used to analyze data in written form, including researcher-generated data (e.g., interview transcripts, ethnographic field notes), participant-generated data (e.g., journal entries, narratives), or mediated representations (e.g., news coverage, Web site postings). GT contrasts with deductive research designs in which researchers begin with a theory and test ways in which data may (or may not) support its tenants. …

Looking At, Through, And With Youtube, Paul A. Soukup

Communication

This review essay will first examine the commonly accepted history of YouTube and how people have defined it. It will then turn to studies of YouTube itself, then to studies of some of the main uses for YouTube, ending with a particularly apt research use: to employ YouTube as a source of data.

Political Communication, Paul A. Soukup

Communication

This review seeks to introduce political communication by showing the kinds of studies currently published. Of necessity not complete, it does not list every study nor does it include every possible approach to political communication, but only those published in the sample of journals—one hopes enough to indicate the scope of this wide area of communication study

Introduction To Deliberation, Democracy, And Civic Forums: Improving Equality And Publicity, Chad Raphael, Christopher F. Karpowitz

Communication

Innovative forums that integrate citizen deliberation into policy making are revitalizing democracy in many places around the world. Yet controversy abounds over whether these forums ought to be seen as authentic sources of public opinion and how they should fit with existing political institutions. How can civic forums include less powerful citizens and ensure that their perspectives are heard on equal terms with more privileged citizens, officials, and policy experts? How can these fragile institutions communicate citizens' policy preferences effectively and legitimately to the rest of the political system? Deliberation, Democracy, and Civic Forums proposes creative solutions for improving equality …

Co-Rumination Partially Mediates The Relationship Between Social Support And Emotional Exhaustion Among Graduate Students, Justin P. Boren

Communication

Graduate students regularly report high levels of stress and burnout. Many of those same students utilize social support networks, which can act as stress buffers. This study evaluated excessive negative talk about issues (co-rumination) and its effects on that social-support to burnout (emotional exhaustion) relationship and predicted that co-rumination would act as a suppressor variable. Graduate student volunteers (N = 213) reported their levels of social support, co-rumination, and emotional exhaustion. Data indicated that co-rumination did mediate the social support-to-emotional exhaustion relationship on two dimensions. This project purports that, while social support is important, the content of socially-supportive interactions may …

Examining The Relationships Among Peer Resentment Messages Overheard, State Guilt, And Employees' Perceived Ability To Use Work/Family Policies, Justin P. Boren, Shannon L. Johnson

Communication

This study sought to determine if frequency of peer resentment messages overheard in organizational settings was associated with employees' perceived ability to use work/family policies. Job burnout and state guilt were also included as potential predictors. In this sample of workers (N = 474), resentment messages, internalized guilt, and burnout were significantly and negatively associated with the likelihood of using work/family policies, accounting for 22% of the variance. An interaction effect was also discovered for burnout and resentment on perceived ability to use work/family policies. This study highlights the importance of understanding the messages embedded within an organization's culture and …

“A Wobbly Bed Still Stands On Three Legs”: On Chinese Immigrant Women’Sexperiences With Ethnic Community, Hsin-I Cheng

Communication

Through in-depth interviews with Chinese working-class immigrant women, this study highlights the meanings of their Chinatown community and adjustment to U.S. life. By adopting a phcnomenological approach, three themes based on the trope of the American Dream emerged that illustrated these women's experiences with compounded immobilities, structural injustice, and racial antagonisms. Nonethless, the interviews evidence resilience in the theme of a "wobbly bed" with implications for national immigration policies and intercultural communication models.

Teologia E Comunicazione. Il Pensiero Di W. J. Ong, Paul A. Soukup

Communication

Anche se incentrati sulla letteratura e sull’espressione, la ricerca e gli scritti di Walter Jackson Ong (1912-2003), gesuita statunitense, antropologo, insegnante di letteratura inglese e storico delle culture e delle religioni, hanno continuato a esercitare un considerevole influsso su settori accademici molto diversi tra loro, come la psichiatria, la teologia, gli studi culturali e la comunicazione. Ong si è interessato dei mezzi della trasmissione della conoscenza e del loro impatto sulla percezione dell’uomo. I suoi studi ci permettono di vedere quelle che egli chiamava le «correlazioni» tra le pratiche culturali: gestione dell’informazione, forme di espressione, media, modelli di interpretazione, pratica …

Information Management And Delivery Of The Bible, Paul A. Soukup

Communication

In the Bible, God definitely works through human means, with all their characteristics and even with all their limitations. From the perspective of human communication, the ideas of ‘delivery systems’ or media for the Bible give only a part of the picture. The larger story describes how God’s word in the Scriptures moves from generation to generation in a variety of forms. And that story (looked at as communication) concerns information management: the discovery, preservation, recall, and expression of information. This case study of the delivery system of the Bible in mission will draw on the media ecology approach to …

Good Publicity: The Legitimacy Of Public Communication Of Deliberation, Chad Raphael, Christopher F. Karpowitz

Communication

Although deliberative democratic theory values the principle of publicity, few empirical studies systematically assess the public communication of civic groups that deliberate over policy. The proliferation of such groups in contemporary politics, and of uncertainty about their legitimacy, suggests the need for such study. Drawing on contemporary deliberative theory, we derive a set of legitimate publicity indicators for assessing how well groups report their deliberative processes and policy conclusions. We demonstrate the reliability and utility of these measures in a comparative content analysis of the final reports of three common kinds of deliberative bodies: a governmentstakeholder task force, an activist …

Flow And Cooperative Learning In Civic Game Play, Chad Raphael, Christine Bachen, Pedro F. Hernández-Ramos

Communication

Flow theory offers an individualistic explanation of media enjoyment, while cooperative learning theory posits a social explanation for enhanced learning in groups. This classroom-based experimental study examines whether game players can experience both conditions and the influence of each on several types of civic knowledge, skills, and dispositions. We find that high quality cooperative learning contributed to acquiring civic knowledge and skills. In contrast, flow was more influential for developing dispositions to empathy and interest in learning more about the game topics. Thus, we conclude that players can experience flow while engaged in cooperative learning, but that these two conditions …

Beyond The Research/Service Dichotomy: Claiming All Research Products For Hiring, Evaluation, Tenure, And Promotion., Laura L. Ellingson, Margaret M. Quinlan

Women's and Gender Studies

As qualitative communication researchers, we encounter daily stories of the persistent reluctance in the academy to vaue work that steps outside of the traditional report format for hiring, evaluation, tenure, and promotion. Devalued genres include writing for the general public (e.g. op-eds, blogs), embodied performancees, reports for community organizations, and non-profit website material. Yet dismissing these "other" necessary creative products of our research reinforces a dichotomy between research and service. Although the former is valued almost exclusively as legitimate scholarship and its boundaries carefully patrolled, the latter is devalued and disparaged, ironically amid increased demands for such work as resources …

Simulating Real Lives: Promoting Global Empathy And Interest In Learning Through Simulation Games, Christine Bachen, Pedro F. Hernández-Ramos, Chad Raphael

Communication

In response to an increasingly interdependent world, educators are demonstrating a growing interest in educating for global citizenship. Many definitions of the “good global citizen” value empathy as an especially important disposition for understanding others across national borders and cultural divides. Yet it may be difficult for people to achieve empathy with others who are perceived as psychologically and geographically distant. Can computerized simulation games help foster global empathy and interest in global civic learning? This quasiexperimental classroom study of 301 Northern California high school students in three schools examined the effects of playing REAL LIVES, a simulation game that …

An Exploratory Study Of Communicatively-Restricted Organizational Stress (Cros) Ii: Associations With Organizational Stress And Elevated Cholesterol, Justin P. Boren, Alice E. Veksler

Communication

This study expands on prior research on Communicatively-Restricted Organizational Stress (CROS), which includes those stressors that individuals do not have a socially-supportive outlet inside or outside of their organizations. First, by using a sample of 405 organizational members, we explore the prevalence of the CROS by identifying the existence of the nature of this concept. After that, we explore the way that the CROS acts on an individual both physiologically and psychologically by evaluating its associations with organizational-level variables (stress, support, and commitment) along with markers of stress (LDL and Total Cholesterol). Results were generally inconclusive. Discussion focused on significant …

L’Insegnamento Islamico In Internet, Paul A. Soukup

Communication

Lislam ha adottato l'uso di internet con la stessa rapidita di altri gruppi religiosi; e tuttavia speclfici approcci teologici sono piu difficili da individuare. Si tratta di un fatto che in parte deriva dalla struttura deU'islam: queUo sunnita, a differenza di queUo sciita, e privo di una gerarchia organizzata di autorita preposte all'insegnamento religioso1. L'islam sunnita, da un lato, dctermina un numero ridotto di opinioni uffidali che tutti gli aderenti sono obbligati a rispettare; dall'altro, ha generate una grande quantita di siti online che offrono consigli religiosi di vario impatto e spessore. I seguaci delPislam sciita hanno invece accesso a …

Some Things Are Better Left Not Unsaid: An Exploratory Study Of The Communicatively-Restricted Organizational Stressor, Justin P. Boren, Alice E. Veksler

Communication

In organizations, individuals seek the support of others to manage their day-to-day stress. Researchers within a social support paradigm have found that individuals who have communicative outlets to discuss their stressors are healthier psychologically and physiologically. To the extent that those outlets are restricted, individuals may suffer the deleterious effects of stress. Therefore, this manuscript conceptualizes and explores one such stressor, the Communicatively-Restricted Organizational Stressor (CROS). Based on a sample of 405 organizational members, we identified the existence and explicated the nature of this stressor. Results were generally inconclusive. Discussion focused on significant findings and the need for better operationalization …

The Impact Of An Enacted Social Support Training Intervention On Worklife Interaction And Stress In A Sample Of Working Adults, Justin P. Boren, Jess K. Alberts

Communication

The present investigation explores utilizes an enacted social support intervention among a group of working adults. Reductions in psychological and physiological stress were hypothesized to occur following the experimental intervention. Participants (N = 46) were all full time staff members at a large university and were randomly assigned to treatment or wait-list control groups. Treatment group members attended two 90 minute enacted social support meetings over the course of four weeks. Psychological (perceived stress and worklife conflict) and physiological (salivary cortisol) data were collected at both pretest and posttest periods. Results did not support the research hypotheses; however, a research …

Mcluhan, Religion, Ground, And Cause, Paul A. Soukup

Communication

This paper explores the new environment generated by the convergence-television-internet social networks. To this end, we look to characterize the “environment” in concept proposed by Marshall McLuhan. Second, we seek a characterization of the first social networking as a means hot and cold, with the conclusion that each social network generates its own environment and that, according to the contents thereof, can be cold or hot. Finally, we propose a set of lines of work to follow the purpose of exploring the contribution oh McLuhan around the environments, over all the electronic age, since it is an important path to …