Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Exploring Cultural, Health, And Technology Intersections: A Focus On Migrant Experiences, Merna Mina, Sahij Gill

Bridges: An Undergraduate Journal of Contemporary Connections

Despite the plethora of theories and frameworks addressing culture, health, and technology adoption, there remains a notable absence of a unifying theory that comprehensively encompasses all three aspects, particularly concerning newcomers. The Health Belief Model, for example, underscores individual perceptions and attitudes toward health yet fails to consider the intricate interplay between cultural factors and technology adoption among immigrant populations. The Healthy Immigrant Effect, which posits that immigrants often exhibit better health outcomes than native-born individuals, does not mention the role of technology on health outcomes. Acculturation theories, while shedding light on the adaptation process, often fall short of explaining …

Dating Apps As An Outlet To Promote Sexual Autonomy Among Disabled Individuals: An Intersectional Approach To Change, Sarah Marrs

Sexual Ethics

As disabled individuals are forced into the social other and an asexual narrative, dating apps provide an outlet for this demographic to engage in their sexuality in a format that is more easily accessible. In an age of rising technology, the destigmatization and usage of dating apps highlights the self-expressive potential of an underrepresented and misunderstood demographic. This issue is addressed through historical perspectives of “crip sex,” a comparison between the disabled dating experience and the able-bodied dating experience, and a description of the significance of a dating app designed for individuals with disabilities.

Developing Intercultural Competence And Cultural Capital: Applying Virtual Reality To Study Abroad Pedagogy, Jenifer Butler

English Theses & Dissertations

As the world becomes increasingly globalized thanks, at least in part, to the ubiquity of digital technology, scholars in discourse and new media must explore the possibility of learning and composition to expand pedagogical practices and opportunities. This project uses study abroad programs and education as a test case for establishing the feasibility of easily incorporating existing virtual reality (VR) technology into the classroom. It examines the theoretical and technological question of whether advancements in virtual reality have achieved the potential for practical pedagogical applications, and if virtual technology can provide responsible, accurate, and educational access to concepts as complex …

Refigured: Separations In Portraiture, Caroline Myers

All Theses

Utilizing traditional painting techniques embedded with digital syntaxes, Refigured: Separations in Portraiture, serves as a catalog of my experiences with communication in a hyperconnected world. Processing illegible information caused by my hearing loss informs the process of imposing similar boundaries within my paintings. Like a technical glitch, these obstructions create an illegible visual experience, with evidence of my process remaining as a clue for the viewer’s understanding of the image.

Though personal in nature, I expand from my experience with auditory communication to employ pertinent explorations into the sustained unpredictability of today’s ever-expanding medium that is technology. My paintings …

And The Oscar Goes To... Tiktok, Dawson Bley

Senior Honors Theses

Companies have been forced to take note of the emerging social media app, TikTok, which has attracted more than a billion users to its platform and invited businesses into an uncharted market ready to be exploited. By seeking to understand and employ the unique features which have led to TikTok’s far-reaching success, many companies can similarly improve their position. In particular, traditional movie companies, which have recently suffered blows at the box office due to factors such as competition with online streaming, could benefit from an analysis of this tech to restore lost engagement and revenue. Specifically, how can the …

Digitalizing Religion In The Age Of Covid-19: A Uses And Gratifications Perspective, Abdulaziz Altawil

Dissertations - ALL

The current COVID-19 pandemic has impacted people’s religious behavior around the world. Due to the coronavirus outbreak, most in-person religious services have shifted to virtual platforms. The online religious transition amidst the outbreak has alleviated many issues for worshippers as it provided them with a sanctuary space to connect with their faith and community. According to a 2020 Pew Research analysis, the pandemic has made many Americans change their religious habits by watching religious content online instead of physically engaging with their local religious institution. This dissertation provides a preliminary examination of this phenomenon by exploring the role of digital …

The Problem Of The "Virtual": Virtual Reality, Digital Dualism, And Religious Experience, Jordan Brady Loewen

Dissertations - ALL

This dissertation uses resources from religious studies to critique the problem of digital dualism haunting notions of the "virtual" in the discourse of contemporary virtual reality technologies (VR). Digital dualism is the idea that digital or "virtual" worlds are fundamentally distinct from the "real" or physical world. Digital dualism is a problem because it mischaracterizes how we experience the spatial and temporal connections to our body in digital-virtual worlds and contributes to a false sense of subjective singularity rather than multiplicity that destabilizes how we relate to ourselves and others. Using the study of religion, philosophy, and aesthetics, we can …

Advancing Technology & Digital Lifestyles: Facilitating A Group Independent Study, Kailey Droz

WWU Honors College Senior Projects

For my senior capstone project, I facilitated a group independent study (ISP) through Fairhaven College of Interdisciplinary Studies at Western Washington University called Advancing Technology and Digital Lifestyles. A small group of students and I critically and creatively analyzed our relationship with technology, and its impacts on the individual, interpersonal relationships, culture, and society. Prior to facilitating, I did research within the fields of cyberpsychology, social psychology, communication studies, and media studies. I am sharing my syllabus and facilitation notes, my final project (two short stories), an annotated bibliography, and a reflection on the group ISP and my process.

Here …

Australia And A Wire Through The Heart, Addison E. Lomax

Student Publications

Throughout a period of exploration in the colony of Australia, the development of the Overland Telegraph, as discovered by Charles Todd, increased Australian interaction on a global scale. Although the documentary A Wire Through the Heart does not depict all of the complex struggles English colonizers faced when settling Australia, the film accurately reflects the technological advancements, the significance of explorers, and environmental difficulties many colonizers encountered in Australia throughout the early 1800s. Alongside the increase in communication with the rest of the world, the Overland Telegraph assisted in the development of a unique, Australian culture separate from its original …

Art And Internet Infrastructure, Liat Berdugo

Journal of Interdisciplinary Perspectives and Scholarship

In her essay Art and Internet Infrastructure, multimedia artist, curator, and professor Liat Berdugo contemplates and complicates our overreliance and relationship with networks and technology especially during shelter-in-place.

Virtual Newspaper Theatre: Zoom As A Theatrical Playing Space, Nabra Nelson

Pedagogy and Theatre of the Oppressed Journal

This article presents findings from a virtual Newspaper Theatre workshop that took place via Zoom on May 5, 2020 through Seattle Rep. Nelson reflects on the way that the constraints of the Zoom format can add meaning to Theatre of the Oppressed performance techniques in the era of quarantine and social distancing due to COVID-19. The article describes elements of the one-minute performances created during the one-and-a-half-hour workshop, and how the virtual sphere interacted with them and even enhanced them in meaningful ways. Nelson also describes “production” elements unique to Zoom, and the nature of the virtual “spect-actor.”

When Humanity Meets Technology: Contemplating Neil Postman's Critique Of Advertising, Yingwen Wang

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This project aims to contemplate Postman’s critique of advertising and offer insights to understand Integrated Marketing Communication (IMC) in today’s mediated environment. As an essential component of IMC, the history of advertising demonstrates and documents that the medium of communication has an extensive influence on IMC practices. The concern about how communication media affect human perception, understanding, and behavior, resides within the central claim of the study of media ecology. Thus, this project investigates IMC through the lens of Postman’s media ecology perspectives, and argues that Postman’s prescient ideas provide both hope and constructive insights. Moreover, Postman’s thermostatic perspective, rooted …

Fraud Detection Protocol For Web-Based Research Among Men Who Have Sex With Men: Development And Descriptive Evaluation, April M. Ballard, Trey Cardwell, April M. Young

Epidemiology and Environmental Health Faculty Publications

Background: Internet is becoming an increasingly common tool for survey research, particularly among “hidden” or vulnerable populations, such as men who have sex with men (MSM). Web-based research has many advantages for participants and researchers, but fraud can present a significant threat to data integrity.

Objective: The purpose of this analysis was to evaluate fraud detection strategies in a Web-based survey of young MSM and describe new protocols to improve fraud detection in Web-based survey research.

Methods: This study involved a cross-sectional Web-based survey that examined individual- and network-level risk factors for HIV transmission and substance use among young MSM …

For Better, Or For Worse: Photographing In A Digitally Cluttered Crowd, Dale L. Carty Ii

Masters Theses

In recent years, smartphones have been utilized to photograph treasured moments. However, some are unaware they are distracting others in events such as weddings. The distracting smartphone user could potentially obstruct professional wedding photographers and hinder them from capturing priceless shots. The purpose of this thesis is to research the motive behind the addictive nature of smartphones and potentially decrease the number of smartphone pictures taken during the wedding ceremonies. The goal of this study is to bring awareness to the problem and to create a mobile application, which could then reduce the intrusiveness of smartphones during weddings. The researcher …

Industrial Stagecraft: Tooling And Cultural Production, Jennifer A. Hambleton

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The tooling of theatrical spectacle requires collaboration between stagecraft technicians and designers in an increasingly globalized and standardized manufacturing process. While hand skills are still used and remain useful, digital fabrication and other tools are now incorporated in labour processes in scenery manufacturing workshops, altering collaborative work in complex ways. This thesis is an inquiry into the epistemological role of software and digital fabrication tools in stagecraft practices and explores how the politics of craft labour intersect with material practices in media production labour. The technical aspects of the fabrication of theatrical spectacles and display environments, the way objects are …

Dimensions Of Online/Offline Social Communication: An Extension Of The Hyperpersonal Model, Devin Joseph Kelly

ETD Archive

With the rise of technology it becomes important to measure and analyze the communication patterns that are emerging from these changes. Technologies open up different communication patterns for individuals to use (Tomas & Carlson 2015; Walther, 1996; Wei & Leung, 1999). Thus, this study develops the “ASOHIO” perspective, which incorporates a range of new and old communication patterns, online communication, offline communication, synchronous communication, asynchronous communication, interpersonal communication, and hyperpersonal communication. This work also looks to extend the hyperpersonal model greatly by developing an actual multi-item scale to measure the construct at the individual level. Walther’s (1996) basic description of …

Digital Mindfulness: An Emerging Field Of Inquiry And Practice, Sherri Henderson

Mindfulness Studies Theses

This two-part paper explores digital mindfulness as an emerging field of inquiry and practice into the integration of technology and contemplative practices. The first part surveys the growing research on the effects of technology on health and well-being. Investigating Buddhist teachings leads to a more balanced and aware approach towards integrating mindfulness with the digital world. Digital mindfulness encourages meaningful engagement while online. It also encourages thoughtfulness, awareness and intention. Digital mindfulness also reshapes and encourages conversations in our homes, schools, and proposes digital responsibility and digital citizenship. The second part of the paper proposes a framework for a workshop …

Converging Horror: Analyzing The Importance Of Convergence Culture On A Digital Audience Through An Examination Of The Conventions And Politics Of The Horror Genre, Kelsey M. Fox

Media and Cultural Studies Honors Projects

This thesis draws attention to the genre of horror in new media through a close examination of various digital texts, arguing that these new texts, while built on traditional horror narratives used in cinema, are also examples of Convergence Culture, a mobile, multiplatform, participatory medium that engages professionals and amateur content creators. The thesis begins with a review of scholarly work about horror as a genre, continues with a close analysis of several digital horror texts and their online communities, and ends with the argument that these new texts are good examples of how horror has accommodated Convergence culture, morphing …

How Mobile Learning Initiatives Can Empower Women, Helen Crompton

Teaching & Learning Faculty Publications

The Sustainable Development Goal 5 provides a call to action to promote gender equality and to empower women. This article responds to that call by providing insight into how mobile learning initiatives have been used to support that aim. A critical analysis is conducted of studies in the past decade to review what strategies have been effective in empowering women. The analysis revealed that initiatives were targeted towards three areas: Education, health, and financial empowerment.

Findings show that in certain topics women should play an active role to further the empowerment process. This article also aligns with Objective 4 of …

Meaning In Motion, Kara Hendrickson

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis essay and accompanying exhibition examine the capacity of interactive art to stage situations for participants to explore embodiment. In presenting the four-part interactive suite "Body Language" by Nathaniel Stern, the exhibition invites viewers to engage with digital projections that track and respond to movement by producing animated text and spoken utterances. Through the juxtaposition of motion performed by the viewer’s physical body with computer-generated words and speech, "Body Language" explores the complex ways in which the body and language depend upon each other to create and communicate meaning. This essay also proposes that the gallery uses its power …

Choosing To Choose: The Impact Of Technology On Choice, Aaron J. Alford

Channels: Where Disciplines Meet

The development of modern technology has increasingly focused on efficiency over expression. Interfaces limit and scale down human choice and expression. Entertainment and communication now use interfaced technology for even basic human expression, artificially limiting the number of potential choices to the options presented by the interface. The logic of technology has become a totalizing phenomenon, bringing all areas of human life under it purview. According to Heidegger, Ellul, and Flusser, the result of this development is a different way of being-in-the-world for humans. The traditional man has been the constant in production and communication, which the medium and technology …

Evaluating Online Media Literacy In Higher Education: Validity And Reliability Of The Digital Online Media Literacy Assessment (Domla), Tom Hallaq

Journal of Media Literacy Education

While new technology continues to develop and become increasingly affordable, and students have increased access to digital media, one might wonder if requiring such technology in the classroom is akin to throwing the car keys to a teen-ager who has not completed a driver’s education course. The purpose of this study was to develop a valid and reliable quantitative survey providing accurate data about the digital online media literacy of university-level students in order to better understand how digital online media can and should be used within a teaching/learning environment at a university. This study identifies core constructs of media …

Social Media And Persuasion - Great Expectations, Bruce Kuiper

Faculty Work Comprehensive List

"Using social media is often considered a standard, and any time you’re not using a standard, you ought to have good reason."

Posting about the appropriate use of new forms of communication from In All Things - an online hub committed to the claim that the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ has implications for the entire world.

http://inallthings.org/social-media-and-persuasion-great-expectations/

Through Google-Colored Glass(Es): Design, Emotion, Class, And Wearables As Commodity And Control, Safiya Umoja Noble, Sarah T. Roberts

Media Studies Publications

This chapter discusses the implications of wearable technologies like Google Glass that function as a tool for occupying, commodifying, and profiting from the bio- logical, psychological, and emotional data of its wearers and those who fall within its gaze. We argue that Google Glass privileges an imaginary of unbridled exploration and intrusion into the physical and emotional space of others. Glass’s recognizable esthetic and outward-facing camera has elicited intense emotional response, partic- ularly when “exploration” has taken place in areas of San Francisco occupied by residents who were finding themselves priced out or evicted from their homes to make way …

Techno-Apocalypse: Technology, Religion, And Ideology In Bryan Singer’S H+, Edward Brennan

Books/Book chapters

This essay critically analyses the digital series H+. In the near future, adults who can afford them, have replaced tablets and cell phones with nanotechnology implants. The H+ implant acts as a medical diagnostic and can overlay the user's senses with a computer interface. The apocalypse comes in the form of a computer virus which infects the H+ network and instantly kills one third of humanity. The series represents the anxiety and religiosity that surrounds the possible social consequences of digital technology. It also explores the tensions and intersections between technology and faith. This essay makes the case, however, that …

"Digital Natives" Or "The Dumbest Generation?", David J. Mulder

Faculty Work Comprehensive List

A common part of the conversation about Millenials is to describe them as exceptionally technologically-savvy; some have called them "digital natives." But research does not bear this out; people of older generations can be equally tech-savvy, and while many Millenials love their phones and social media, etc., the reality is that all of us are acculturated into a particular era of technology, and members of each generation can exhibit a range of comfort and skill working with different technologies.

The New Curricula: Propelling The Growth Of Media Literacy Education, Tessa Jolls

Journal of Media Literacy Education

As new online and cellular technologies advance, the implications for the traditional textbook model of curricular instruction are profound. The ability to construct, share, collaborate on and publish new instructional materials marks the beginning of a global revolution in curricula development. Research-based media literacy frameworks can be applied to all subjects, and they enable teachers to have confidence that, in employing the frameworks to address academic subjects, themes or projects, students will gain content knowledge. Teaching through media literacy education strategies provides the opportunity to make media literacy central to teaching and learning, since media literacy process skills enable students …

Accessible Lust, Aaron Baart

Faculty Work Comprehensive List

"Rapid access to information can also lead to the activities that steal rather than give life."

Posting about the dangers of online pornography­­­­­­­­ from In All Things - an online hub committed to the claim that the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ has implications for the entire world.

http://inallthings.org/accessible-lust/

Technology At Every Moment, Justin Vander Werff

Faculty Work Comprehensive List

"We interact with technology every day, every minute, pretty much every second. And on rare occasions, we may stop to ponder how technology is affecting our lives and relationships."

Posting about ­­­­­­­­how technology affects the way people relate to each other from In All Things - an online hub committed to the claim that the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ has implications for the entire world.

http://inallthings.org/technology-at-every-moment/

Facing Technology : Creative Solutions To Real-World Problems., Taylor Juanita Beisler

College of Arts & Sciences Senior Honors Theses

We are shaped by technology. This simple idea has become more familiar to social scientists, technical engineers, and some tech users. The first section of this thesis finds unfavorable consequences of constant social media usage, such as unawareness, behavioral and cogitative modifications, and disconnection as societal ills. The second part of this thesis explains how these social side effects can be best ameliorated by “serious” designers, or those whose work is conceptual with real world applications (McLuhan, 8). The final section proposes a creative expression as it relates to bringing awareness to the social side effects of tech usage, linking …