Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Technosexuality: Technology, Sexuality, And Convergence, John M. Wolf

Mass Communications - Dissertations

Convergence refers to a phenomenon where multiple communication technologies are integrated into a single device. Technosexuality proposes a convergence between sexuality as a social phenomenon and technologically mediated modes of interpersonal communication and sexual information consumption. The findings of this study indicate that though there is not a complete convergence between technology and sexuality, there nonetheless exists a relationship between the two constructs. Consistent with extant literature about computer-mediated sexuality, the technosexual behaviors in this study were organized primarily by arousal type; however, subsequent degrees of classification suggest that technology also plays a decisive role in the ways in which …

Diversity, Networks And Performance: An Empirical Analysis Of Metropolitan Planning Organizations In The United States, Yujin Choi

Public Administration - Dissertations

Achieving network performance is a vital goal in response to the increase of inter-organizational networks public organizations involve. The primary aim of this research is to examine the factors that predict performance in public management networks by disentangling the idea that collaboration requires both diversity and unity. Drawing upon diversity theories, social capital theory and management literature as theoretical lenses, this dissertation serves to investigate the following questions:

1. What is the collaborative decision-making process in inter-organizational networks?

2. How does social capital mediate the relationship between network member diversity and performance?

3. How does network management strategy moderate the …

Terra Nova, An Experiment In Creating Cult Televison For A Mass Audience, Laura Osur

Media Studies - Theses

When it aired in Fall 2011 on Fox, Terra Nova was an experiment in creating a cult television program that appealed to a mass audience. This thesis is a case study of that experiment. I conclude that the show failed because of its attempts to maintain the sophistication, complexity and innovative nature of the cult genre while simultaneously employing an overly simplistic narrative structure that resembles that of mass audience programming. Terra Nova was unique in its transmedia approach to marketing and storytelling, its advanced special effects, and its dystopian speculative fiction premise. Terra Nova's narrative, on the other hand, …

Thank You For Being A Friend: Women's Self-Disclosures And Social Support On Facebook, Emily A. Dolan

Media Studies - Theses

This study focused on women's self-disclosures on Facebook and how they functioned to both gain and give support on the site. After employing 17 textual analyses of participants' Facebook pages and 17 in-depth interviews, a variety of themes emerged in regards to how and why women give and seek support on the site, the types of information disclosed, and the benefits of self-disclosing to gain support on the site. More specifically, results indicate that gender role expectations, which for women include exhibiting behaviors that convey warmth, kindness and politeness, play a large role in giving and receiving support on the …

Court Of Public Opinion: How The Convicted Perceive Mass Media Have Affected Their Criminal Trials And Personal Lives, Marti Cecilia Howell-Collins

Mass Communications - Dissertations

This paper is designed to provide insights into a neglected aspect of crime news effects. This mixed-qualitative methods study explores what effects convicted criminals report experiencing in the wake of media coverage of their alleged crimes and trials. There are two primary areas of focus in this study: What effects inmates perceive media coverage has had on their cases and how they feel they have been personally affected by media coverage of their alleged crimes and subsequent trials.

Community Interest As An Indicator For Ranking, Xiaozhong Liu

School of Information Studies - Dissertations

Ranking documents in response to users' information needs is a challenging task, due, in part, to the dynamic nature of users' interests with respect to a query. We hypothesize that the interests of a given user are similar to the interests of the broader community of which he or she is a part and propose an innovative method that uses social media to characterize the interests of the community and use this characterization to improve future rankings. By generating a community interest vector (CIV) and community interest language model (CILM) for a given query, we use community interest to alter …

History And Memory In Gettysburg, Jeffrey M. Parrotte

Media Studies - Theses

Media productions have often turned to history as a source for a narrative. Wars have been refought, kingdoms have risen and fallen, and significant moments have been replicated for documentaries, films, television shows, radio productions, and other live mediums. These presentations give audiences access to moments in history that might have otherwise been forgotten. With this access, research suggests audiences will actually learn from the presentations available. This study focuses on the types of information available in a historical film.

The study is a textual analysis the 1993 film Gettysburg, one of the most well-known and best remembered films about …

Exploring Consumers' Attitudes And Behavior Toward Product Placement In Television Shows, Eun Seon Kwon

Media Studies - Theses

In recent years, many studies have investigated consumers' attitudes toward product placement in media content such as movies and television shows. However, few studies have used systematic framework to assess influence of social structural variables and socialization agents on consumers' product placement attitudes and purchase intentions for product placements in television shows. Based on Consumer Socialization framework and agenda-setting, cultivation theory, current study investigates product placement attitudes and behavioral intentions among college students. The results show that peer communication, one of the socialization agents, has strongest relationship with for both placement-related attitudes and purchase intentions. Findings also show the associations …

Three Essays On The Quality Of Marriage, Jose V. Gallegos

Economics - Dissertations

In these essays I focus on issues that affect the quality of marriage. First, I analyze the effect of the Chilean divorce law on a woman's decision of when to have the first child. Using survival analysis, I find that the divorce law has had a positive effect on the hazard for highly-educated women. This result suggests that highly-educated women may have waited to have the first child until they were able to afford the additional costs that a child may bring to a divorce process in case the couple decided to separate. In the second essay I analyze the …

Enhancing Male Hpv Vaccine Acceptance: The Role Of Altruism And Awareness Of Male Specific Health Benefits, Katherine Bonafide

Psychology - Theses

While considerable research exists on female HPV vaccine acceptance, research is needed to clarify factors that facilitate vaccine uptake among boys and men. The benefits of male HPV vaccination exist on an individual and community level. Male HPV vaccination provides personal health protection to recipients, and can provide female health protection by minimizing transmission of HPV to sexual partners. As such, male vaccine acceptance may be enhanced by emphasizing both altruistic motives (female health protection) and personal health benefits. A sample of college-age men (N = 200; M age = 19.3; 31% Non-White) completed computer-administered surveys and were presented with …

Hands In The Pockets Of Mercurial Donors: How Three Theories Explain Ngo Responses To Shifting Funding Priorities, Khaldoun Abouassi

Public Administration - Dissertations

The NGO-donor relationship has become understood as exceptionally volatile. Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in developing countries rely heavily on foreign donor funding and potential over-reliance on donors becomes apparent. The research at hand concentrates on the relationship between environmental non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and international donor agencies in the local setting of a developing country. It explores the potential impact of changing funding priorities on NGO behavior and decision-making. It raises two questions: How do NGOs respond to changes in donor funding objectives? Why do NGOs react the way they do?

NGOs react to changes in the external environment in different ways …

The Effects Of Infrastructure Development And Taxation On Current And Future Earnings, Mukta Mukherjee

Economics - Dissertations

This dissertation is a collection of three essays, each of which studies a policy in India that provides a unique circumstance affecting directly or indirectly earnings. The purpose of this work is to analyze how taxation and infrastructure development aspects the current and future earnings using these policies

In the first essay, I use a national infrastructure development program initiated in India in 2001 to construct new all-season roads (roads that can be used in all-weather especially monsoons) in villages that previously had only had dry-season roads (roads that are difficult to use in monsoons). In the second, I use …

Three Essays On The Property Value Impact Of Neighborhood Disamenities, Alexander Nicholas Bogin

Economics - Dissertations

This dissertation employs hedonic analysis to examine market demand for three neighborhood disamenities. The first chapter investigates the property value impact of a No Child Left Behind "failing" school designation. The second chapter studies the property value impact of a local homicide. The third chapter examines the property value impact of proximity to a mosque post 9/11. Each disamenity has a negative and significant effect on property values with the magnitude of impact varying across household type.

"Women With No One": Community And Christianity In A Secular South Indian Homeless Shelter, Connie Etter

Anthropology - Dissertations

This dissertation examines daily life and social service practices in a secular homeless shelter for women in Tamil Nadu, south India. The residents of the shelter have diverse backgrounds but local staff members and volunteers describe them collectively as "women with no one": unwed mothers, orphans, widows, women abandoned or abused by husbands and lovers, former sex workers, prisoners' wives, and women deemed mentally or physically unfit for marriage. Daily negotiations of belonging take place among this transient and diverse group of marginalized women and equally diverse and transnational care providers. The closed shelter campus provides an opportunity to query …

Double Engagements: The Transnational Experiences Of Ethiopian Immigrants In The Washington, D.C., Metropolitan Area, Kassahun Haile Kebede

Anthropology - Dissertations

This dissertation explores the transnational experiences of Ethiopian immigrants in the Washington metropolitan area across generational units. Much of the recent research on transnationalism has focused on the ties immigrants maintain in the sending country. This dissertation adds to this analysis by looking at how the actions of Ethiopian immigrants contribute to nation building in the United States as well as in Ethiopia. The double engagements of Ethiopians challenge either/or views of immigrants and demonstrates how transnationality works in both directions.

My research, based on 12 months of fieldwork in the metropolitan area of Washington, D.C., used participant observation, interviews, …

The Impact Of Incentives On Neuropsychological Test Performance: An Analog Study, Laura Marie Spenceley

Psychology - Dissertations

Concussion, also known as mild traumatic brain injury (MTBI), represents a common injury in children, young adults, and athletes in particular. High rates of malingering have been demonstrated in individuals with MTBI when faced with monetary incentives, but research is yet to explore the impact of other incentives on test performance. The present study sought to examine the rate of effort test failure, symptom report, and neuropsychological test performance in college students assigned to one of three conditions: Fake Good, Fake Bad, and No Incentive conditions. All groups were asked to simulate concussion and provided a description of the injury …

Perceptions Of Factors Related To Therapeutic Change In Face-To-Face And Distance Counseling Environments, Stephen Harding Wright

Counseling and Human Services - Dissertations

Videoconferencing is quickly becoming a part of daily life as technologies using the Internet and computer advances are now being employed to deliver synchronous, highly discernible video and audio content on devices used for daily communication. Videoconferencing is also being increasingly used by counseling professionals to provide counseling sessions and other services, and counseling accrediting and licensing bodies have recognized its use in some professional practice situations.

This experimental study used a regional sample of counselors, other mental health professionals, and counselors-in-training (N = 126), to examine whether participants, randomly assigned, rated three different measures of counseling process-working alliance, session …

Global Career Development Facilitator Romania: Training Evaluation And Job Analysis, Elena Amalia Stanciu

Counseling and Human Services - Dissertations

The Global Career Development Facilitator (GCDF) Romania training program was the focus of the current study. GCDF is a paraprofessional certification program in the field of career counseling and development, which was created in the United States by the Center for Credentialing and Education, and was adapted to Romanian needs with the intention of preparing career specialists and of developing a national certification system. This cross-sectional quantitative study had two purposes: to evaluate the GCDF Romania training program and to conduct a job analysis of the tasks performed by Romanian GCDF career consultants.

Kirkpatrick's model was used in designing and …

The Impact Of Citizens' Knowledge On Public Administration: Exploring The Links In Three Social Movements, Vadym Pyrozhenko

Public Administration - Dissertations

The dissertation develops a conceptual framework linking social knowledge and public administration. Social knowledge is understood broadly as the knowledge used by people in various roles, including experts, ordinary citizens, and public officials, to solve social problems. Social movement knowledge is examined as one particular type of social knowledge. The conceptual framework used to study the relationship between social movement knowledge and public administration is a combination of several literatures: citizen participation, civic innovations, community of practice, policy learning, and knowledge production in social movements. The framework connects social movement, policy expert, and administrative knowledge through the processes of social, …

The Real Virtual World: Connectivity And Techno-Mediation In The Lives Of College Students, Alecea Standlee

Sociology - Dissertations

This dissertation examines the way in which techno-mediated communication technologies, such as social media, text messaging, and virtual communities are used to negotiate, establish and maintain interpersonal relationships among college students. Using in-depth interview and online participant observation, I explore the relationship between technological communication and social behavior, interpersonal relationships and social networks. I focus on three broad questions: how do developments and structures of technological communication allow for the emergence of new social expectations and behaviors in the realm of connectivity and social interaction? How do individuals experience social pressures for connectivity and how do such pressures shape relationships? …

The Essays On Unintended Consequences Of Public Policy, Andrew Ira Friedson

Economics - Dissertations

This dissertation studies three examples of public policies having consequences other than those intended when the policy was passed. They demonstrate that due to the interconnectedness of the economy, the intended effect of a policy is rarely the sole effect.

The first essay examines the Texas Top 10% Plan. This policy guarantees automatic admission to their state university of choice for all high school seniors who graduate in the top 10% of their high school class. The essay shows evidence that households reacted strategically to this policy by moving to neighborhoods with lower-performing schools, increasing property values by 4.9 percent …

Models Of Physical Activity And Sedentary Behavior, Jodi Canfield

Child and Family Studies - Dissertations

This dissertation tested conceptual frameworks for models of physical activity and sedentary behavior based upon social cognitive theory and ecological models. The sample consisted of 527 7th and 8th graders from 3 rural schools in upstate New York. Structural equation modeling demonstrated that there were direct influences of environmental support, intrapersonal factors, parental modeling for physical activity, and physical health to levels of adolescent physical activity. Sedentary behavior was influenced by parental modeling for sedentary behavior and parental encouragement for sedentary behavior. In addition, using a mediating conceptual framework, intrapersonal factors mediated the relationships of environmental support, encouragement, mental health, …

Cultivating The City: Urban Agriculture And Agrarian Questions In Brooklyn, New York, Evan Weissman

Geography and the Environment - Dissertations

Driven by social and environmental criticism of the conventional agro-food system, food is now highly politicized. In this context, urban agriculture enjoys renewed interest as a primary space to engage the politics of food. In this dissertation, I explore urban agriculture as a window into food politics. Using the contemporary period of urban agriculture expansion in Brooklyn, New York as a case study, I investigate the ways in which urban agriculture is working to challenge the problems produced by conventional agro-food, and the engendered contradictions that arise in the tensions between the goals of urban agriculture and its practice in …

Recreation Capital: Natural Resources, Amenity Development, And Outdoor Recreation In Bend, Oregon, Brent Olson

Geography and the Environment - Dissertations

This dissertation examines the production of recreational resources associated with amenity development. I argue that recreational resources are produced along lines similar to the production of timber, water, or mineral resources. Their production depends on the material characteristics of the resource, infrastructures of development, institutional arrangements, and the cultural symbolic value of rural and natural spaces. Scholars of amenity development have glossed over both the material elements of recreational resources and the history of resource development related to amenity landscapes. As a result, these scholars have overlooked insights concerning the production of resource spaces and evolving relationships between the city …

A Tale Of Three Cities: An Evaluation Of Urban World Heritage Management In Mexico, Claudia Ruth Asch

Geography and the Environment - Dissertations

UNESCO's World Heritage list aims to protect tangible and intangible World Heritage of "universal value." Mexico ranks third worldwide, surpassed only by Italy (16) and Spain (12), with ten World Heritage cities, an accomplishment frequently touted in official rhetoric and tourism promotion. This dissertation seeks to shed light on the "World Heritage experience;" the designation history, what occurs after the designation, in relation to long-term planning, investment, and how do local, state, and federal government infrastructure cope with the pressures and obligations of preservation. Drawing on newspapers, official government reports, and interviews with officials, civil servants, and tour guides, I …

Nothing Is Free: A Screenplay, David Hetzron

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

Film has been an invaluable part of American society for nearly a century. From having political significance, to solely entertaining purposes, this versatile medium has only garnered more and more cultural investment each year of its existence. While it may not always be a vital component to a completed project, it is within the script writing process that ideas, themes, and messages are negotiated and developed. The real meaning of a story is encoded within the words. The script can be considered provocative, emotional, informative, and may incite a unique effect for each of its readers. While no reader is …

Frente Al Mar (Oceanfront): A Short Film, Adriana González-Vega

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

The inspiration for Frente al Mar (Oceanfront) came in 2009 during the winter break vacation in my first year of college. I was visiting my home in Puerto Rico, when the story broke in the news about a group of families being evicted from their houses after living there for many years.

According to the reports, the government identified these families as squatters and Dominican immigrants. As I was watching the news, TV reporter Efrén Arroyo was giving a summary of the entire situation, as well as placing it in the context of similar cases in the past.

February 6, …

Connecting The Peaces: Working To Make The World A Better Place – The Encompass Journey Of Understanding, Alison Sara Kurtzman

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

On October 12, 2002, the Indonesian island of Bali experienced the worst terrorist attack in the country’s history. 202 people were killed when a bomb was detonated outside of a nightclub in the tourist city of Kuta. Among those killed was Daniel Braden, a young British man who was in Bali for a rugby tournament. Daniel’s parents believed that the attack happened because the majority of people in the nightclub were white and therefore viewed as “the enemy.” They believed that if young people had the opportunity to meet and speak with people different from themselves a lot of terrorist …

How Digital Media Affects The Nature Of Social Interactions, Johnny Liang

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

The purpose of this paper is to provide a framework for evaluating and understanding the roles of digital media, in particular the mobile phone and the internet, in our interpersonal and societal relationships. Though this paper is essentially grounded in research, drawing from the work of psychologists, cyber anthropologists, philosophers, and professors of communication studies as well as years of personal observations, it should be understood as more of a theoretical rather than research-based primer on the effects of digital media in our everyday lives. While this paper includes various ways digital connections can improve our relationships, it primarily discusses …

The Prefrontal Cortex: A Predictor Of Psychotic Symptoms In Children With 22q11.2 Deletion Syndrome?, Nicole Addonizio

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

Up to 30% of young adults with velocardiofacial syndrome (VCFS; 22q11.2 Deletion Syndrome) develop schizophrenia or psychosis. As a result, identifying the neuroanatomic trajectories that increase risk for psychosis in youth with VCFS is of great interest. Pinpointing a specific subregion of the brain that has a pattern of change in VCFS could aid in further research of schizophrenia and help to distinguish neuroanatomic changes.

In this study, high-resolution anatomic magnetic resonance brain images and measures of psychiatric function (i.e. symptoms of psychosis) were recorded in 40 youth with VCFS, 14 unaffected siblings, and 19 age-matched community control subjects at …