Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

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 …

Relationships To Video Game Streamers: Examining Gratifications, Parasocial Relationships, Fandom, And Community Affiliation Online, Michael G. Blight

Theses and Dissertations

Advances in media consumption and viewership have expanded the use of virtual communities such as streaming platforms (e.g., Twitch,tv, Azubu.tv, YouTube Gaming, AfreecaTV) and the ways individuals satisfy individual and social gratifications within these communities. Further, the connection viewers make with streamers as both fans and parasocially (i.e., a perceived friendship with media figure) has a number of implications for the communities that support them. This dissertation tested fandom and parasocial relationships (PSR) as mediators of the relationship between sense of community (SOC) and gratifications. Users of streaming platforms (N = 624) were surveyed regarding the gratifications they seek from …

Collective Management In A Cooperative: Problematizing Productivity And Power, Avery Edenfield

Theses and Dissertations

Since the mid-twentieth century, the structure of the workplace has undergone a transformation. While the conventional firm with its rigid bureaucracies is still in use, many businesses have grown increasingly flexible, flat, and polycentric: “empowerment” and “innovation” are the coin of the realm. As the way we work changed, professional communication scholarship pivoted to consider communication practices in these structures.

While professional communication scholars have long discussed these kinds of organizations, they have not discussed an increasingly popular alternative: cooperatives. Owned and operated by the people who use them, these organizations can significantly affect the communities in which they operate. …