Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Wilderness And The Geotag: Exploring The Claim That "Geotagging Ruins Nature" In The Alpine Lakes Wilderness, Wa, Mara Gans

All Master's Theses

This research explores the claim that “geotagging ruins nature” by quantifying and qualifying patterns in geotag use and visitors’ experiences in the Alpine Lakes Wilderness, in Washington, United States. Many have raised concerns that geotags increase recreational visitation to public lands, which subsequently contributes to negative resource impacts. Others, however, claim that geotagging has made the outdoors more accessible to less privileged communities and raise concerns that condemning geotags will perpetuate the exclusion of certain groups from outdoor recreation. This debate is studied within federally designated Wilderness, which is legally defined as “untrammeled by man,” a definition rooted in problematic …

Black And White Health Disparities: Racial Bias In American Healthcare, Yasmeen Almomani

Bridges: An Undergraduate Journal of Contemporary Connections

This paper explores the historical implications of race in American society that have led to implicit racism in the healthcare system. Racial bias in healthcare against Black people is a factor in the health disparities between Black and white people in America, such as the gap in life expectancy, infant death, and maternal mortality. Black people are more likely to report racial discrimination from healthcare providers, which is a reason for the decreased quality of care received. The past justifications of slavery, the Tuskegee syphilis study, and the medical experimentations on Black women are horrifying but were considered acceptable in …

Analysis Of Newspaper Coverage Of Psilocybin From January 1, 1989 To December 31, 2019, Dax Oliver

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Psilocybin is a chemical compound that has received a lot of attention from medical researchers in recent years. However, this research is not merely a medical issue but a social and political one as well. In the 1960s, psilocybin and other psychedelic compounds were widely ingested outside of clinical settings. This alarmed some of the American public, resulting in severe legal restrictions on psilocybin use and research.

Today, many psilocybin advocates hope that it will avoid the negative public sentiment of the 1960s. To help gauge public sentiment about other psychoactive compounds, some studies have examined newspaper coverage, but there …

An Ecological Momentary Assessment Of Self-Improved And Self-Evaluation Body Comparisons: Associations With College Women's Body Dissatisfaction And Exercise, Rachel I. Macintyre, Kristin E. Heron, Abby L. Braitman, Danielle Arigo

Psychology Faculty Publications

Upward body comparisons are prevalent among college women and associated with body dissatisfaction and disordered eating. However, less is known about distinguishing features of the comparisons themselves as they occur in daily life. The primary purpose of the present study was to examine whether two types of upward body comparisons previously studied experimentally (self-improvement and self-evaluation) are differentially associated with body- and exercise-related outcomes in real-life settings using ecological momentary assessment (EMA). Undergraduate women (N = 74) between 18-25 years (Mage = 20.4, SD = 1.63) completed five surveys on smartphones daily for seven days. EMA measures …

How To Be The Perfect Asian Wife!, Sophia Hill

Art and Art History Honors Projects

“How to be the Perfect Asian Wife” critiques exploitative power systems that assault female bodies of color in intersectional ways. This work explores strategies of healing and resistance through inserting one’s own narrative of flourishing rather than surviving, while reflecting violent realities. Three large drawings mimic pervasive advertisement language and presentation reflecting the oppressive strategies used to contain women of color. Created with charcoal, watercolor, and ink, these 'advertisements' contrast with an interactive rice bag filled with comics of my everyday experiences. These documentations compel viewers to reflect on their own participation in systems of power.

Sugar-Sweetened Beverage Taxes In Vermont: Media Framing And Public Perception, Benjamin Lloyd Crosby

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

This thesis explores the conversation surrounding the recent attempts by the Vermont Legislature to pass a Sugar-Sweetened Beverage tax in the years 2014-2016. We explore the common perceptions expressed by a sample of Vermont residents and also look at how Vermont media outlets portrayed the tax through frames of reference. Framing is a method of emphasizing certain points of an issue. This thesis reports the common opinions of Vermonters, the media framing of the issue, and if there is any relationship between them in two academic journal articles.

The first article looks at the common frames used in Vermont media …

Television Consumption And Child Obesity: Linking Children's Contemporary Television Use, Physical Activity, And Advertising To Putnam's Displacement Hypothesis, Brittany L. Altamirano

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This study observed the relationship between television consumption and child obesity through the theoretical construct of Putnam’s displacement hypothesis. It did so by updating the previous research through the investigation of the displacement of both physical activity and advertisements on contemporary television platforms. The inclusion of Putnam’s displacement hypothesis was to provide a foundational framework, not found in previous literature, to study two important paradigms that were represented in previous research: 1) the displacement of physical activity; and 2) the displacement of traditional advertisement exposure.

Several trends became apparent within previous literature. Previous literature did not include an explicitly stated …

Slides: New Era Of Water Banking And Refined "Water Accounting", Bonnie Colby

Innovations in Managing Western Water: New Approaches for Balancing Environmental, Social and Economic Outcomes (Martz Summer Conference, June 11-12)

Presenter: Professor Bonnie Colby, Departments of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Hydrology and Water Resources, University of Arizona

23 slides

Design, Programming, And User-Experience, Kaila G. Manca

Honors Scholar Theses

This thesis is a culmination of my individualized major in Human-Computer Interaction. As such, it showcases my knowledge of design, computer engineering, user-experience research, and puts into practice my background in psychology, com- munications, and neuroscience.

I provided full-service design and development for a web application to be used by the Digital Media and Design Department and their students.This process involved several iterations of user-experience research, testing, concepting, branding and strategy, ideation, and design. It lead to two products.

The first product is full-scale development and optimization of the web appli- cation.The web application adheres to best practices. It was …

Theatre For Development: “The Wanna Be”, Joshua Dominguez

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

The college experience in American culture is a popular topic that is being questioned throughout the media. It is being questioned on a weekly basis in today’s media and brings to light issues that have not been questioned for decades. Some of the main issues such as diversity within institutions, the "Greek System", and sexual assault are all being spotlighted and widely advertised as problems that need focusing on putting an end to. This new era of college students are being challenged to recognize these heavy, yet important issues that are effecting campuses across the nation. Through Theatre for Development …

Saving Lives Or Raising Revenue: Analysing Media Coverage Of The Alcopops Tax In Light Of The Evidence On Its Effects, Sandra C. Jones, Laura Robinson

Sandra Jones

The Australian Government increased the tax on ready-to-drink (RTD) alcohol beverages in 2008, in order to address concerns about increasing alcohol consumption among young people. This decision resulted in significant debate and discussion in the media, and in academic circles. The aim of the current study was to examine media coverage of the debate – and particularly the arguments posed in favour of and against the tax – now that we have objective evidence of its impact. We find that business owners and industry groups were vocal in the media, raising a number of arguments in opposition to the tax; …

News Of Corporate Failure: Evaluating The Relationship Between Individual Assessments And Market Investments, Ann Williams

Ann E Williams

Individuals’ comprehension of communication is shaped by the use of metaphor. This study illustrates how the use of metaphor in business and economic news coverage shapes individuals’ responsibility attributions in ways that can ultimately influence consumers’ investment decisions. In a randomized experimental design, participants were invited to read news articles that described the bankruptcy of a business. The treatment text narrated the bankruptcy using metaphor, while the control text narrated the same event without the use of metaphor. After exposure to the communication text narrated with metaphor, responsibility attributions and subsequent investment decisions were significantly altered. The findings suggest that …

Growing Use Of Social Media: How Can Dietitians Embrace This Trend?, Qingcai Peng, Yasmine Probst

Faculty of Health and Behavioural Sciences - Papers (Archive)

No abstract provided.

Fishing For Animal Rights In The Cove: A Holistic Approach To Animal Advocacy Documentaries, Carrie Packwood Freeman

Communication Faculty Publications

The Oscar-winning 2009 documentary The Cove serves as a thrilling and poignant advocacy tool promoting activism to save free-roaming dolphins off the coast of Japan from kidnapping, enslavement in marine parks, and slaughter for meat. This essay evaluates the ethical and social justice implications of The Cove not just for dolphins but for the animal rights movement as a whole, particularly in terms of how it could challenge the ethicality of humans killing any nonhuman animals for food. Strategic media recommendations are made for how animal protection advocates could better deconstruct the human/animal dualism that is at the root of …

Trust Or Bust?: Questioning The Relationship Between Media Trust And News Attention, Ann E. Williams

Ann E Williams

This article establishes the theoretical significance of media trust and explores the relationships between individuals' levels of media trust and news attention. Three distinct types of media trust are introduced: 1) trust of news information, 2) trust of those who deliver the news, and 3) trust of media corporations. The findings indicate that these different types of media trust relate to news attention in distinct ways, specifically when examined across medium. The theoretical significance of the findings are discussed and contextualized in light of an evolving media environment.

Saving Lives Or Raising Revenue: Analysing Media Coverage Of The Alcopops Tax In Light Of The Evidence On Its Effects, Sandra C. Jones, Laura Robinson

Faculty of Health and Behavioural Sciences - Papers (Archive)

The Australian Government increased the tax on ready-to-drink (RTD) alcohol beverages in 2008, in order to address concerns about increasing alcohol consumption among young people. This decision resulted in significant debate and discussion in the media, and in academic circles. The aim of the current study was to examine media coverage of the debate – and particularly the arguments posed in favour of and against the tax – now that we have objective evidence of its impact. We find that business owners and industry groups were vocal in the media, raising a number of arguments in opposition to the tax; …

Media Evolution And Public Understanding Of Climate Science, Ann Williams

Ann E Williams

This paper employs public opinion data from a nationally representative probability sample to examine how information encounters and exposure to different media sources relate to individuals' beliefs about global warming. The analyses indicate that media source exposure (i.e., exposure to news and information about science presented through different media outlets), intentional information exposure (i.e., deliberate exposure to global warming news coverage), and inadvertent information exposure (i.e., unplanned exposure to news and information about science that is encountered online while searching for other forms of information) relate to beliefs about global warming, in significant and meaningful ways. Namely, the findings show …

Use Of Unnamed Sources Drops From Peaks In 1960s And 1970s, Ann Williams

Ann E Williams

This content analysis of The Washington Post and The New York Times finds that the use of anonymous sources peaked in the 1960s and 1970s. The analysis also finds that contemporary journalists are more likely to explain the reason for anonymity.

Who's To Blame When A Business Fails? How Journalistic Death Metaphors Influence Responsibility Attributions, Ann Williams

Ann E Williams

This study unites a textual analysis and an experimental audience study to document the use of death metaphor in business news and to assess the impact that death metaphor has on audiences' attributions of responsibility for corporate failure. The findings show that death metaphors are frequently used in financial press coverage and that the use of death metaphor influences audience members' responsibility attributions by intensifying overall levels of blame, while simultaneously deflecting blame away from the executives responsible for managing the firm and diffusing it to other factors, including the state of the economy, the government, and individual consumers.

Stratification And Global Elite Theory: A Cross-Cultural And Longitudinal Analysis Of Public Opinion, Ann Williams

Ann E Williams

Many scholars have argued that globalization involves the emergence of a global elite, who are attached more to supra-national identities than others, who remain more local. Two variants of the global elite can be found in the literature: cosmopolitan and capitalist. This literature suggests more broadly that cross-nationally stratification has a consistent influence on attitudes pertinent to globalization such as support for global economic institutions. Using a social stratification approach, we examined nine developed societies from the World Values Survey to test whether stratification is related to attitudes towards globalization, and find only modest support for the contention that the …

The Seven Deadly Sins Of Communication Research, Ann Williams

Ann E Williams

We analyzed anonymized copies of the complete reviewer comments for 120 recent submissions to the Journal of Communication and attempted to identify the scholarly "sins" and "virtues" most frequently mentioned by the reviewers and most closely associated with the decision to publish the submission. We assessed levels of interreviewer agreement and patterns of evaluation in different subfields of communication scholarship. An explicit connection to a clearly identified theoretical corpus and novel findings or perspectives proved to be the most important predictors of publication. We discuss the ramifications of these findings for the current state of communication research.

Imagining King Street In The Gay/Lesbian Media, Andrew W. Gorman-Murray

Faculty of Science - Papers (Archive)

The identities of places do not exist a priori, but are derived from various representations constructed through social and cultural processes. The media is a key producer and disseminator of place images and identities in contemporary society. This paper examines the way the gay/lesbian media have imagined the King Street precinct, one of Sydney’s ostensible gay/lesbian localities, between 2003 and 2005. Through textual analyses of these media commentaries, I argue that King Street is often represented in comparison with Sydney’s other notable gay/lesbian space, the Oxford Street precinct. I find, moreover, that this imagined binary relationship is shifting and changing: …

Slides: Wisconsin County Forests, Neil Paulson

Community-Owned Forests: Possibilities, Experiences, and Lessons Learned (June 16-19)

Presenter: Neil Paulson, Bayfield County Forest, WI

25 slides

Talking Politics And Engaging Politics: An Examination Of The Interactive Relationships Between Structural Features Of Political Talk And Discussion Engagement, Ann Williams

Ann E Williams

This study takes a process-oriented approach to understand the current status of political discussion research and identifies discussion engagement—discussion attention and integrative discussion—as an unexplored but important facet of political discussion. As a block, these two variables of discussion engagement independently accounted for significant variance in two criterion variables of political engagement, political knowledge and political participation, after controlling for not only a host of demographic, attitudinal, and media use variables but also three most researched structural features of political discussion—network size, discussion frequency, and network heterogeneity. In addition, the study analyzes the interplay between various attributes of political discussion …

To Broadband Or Not To Broadband: The Relationship Between High-Speed Internet And Knowledge And Participation, Ann Williams

Ann E Williams

This study tests 2 competing theoretical models that attempt to understand the roles that broadband Internet plays in society. The linear model posits that the gains or harms introduced by the Internet via narrowband will further increase with the adoption of broadband. On the contrary, the differential gains model proposes that changes stemming from advances to different stages of Internet connection technology should be unique to each technological advance. Findings show that support for these models was contingent upon the domain that each criterion variable represents. For hard engagement, such as political discussion, hard knowledge, and civic participation, there was …

Poorer European Countries Are Less Concerned About Biotechnology Than Richer Countries, Michael Siegrist

RISK: Health, Safety & Environment (1990-2002)

The author examines the relationship between GNP, media coverage, and public perceptions of the utility, risk, and acceptability of medical and food-related applications of biotechnology.

Media Coverage Of Epa's Draft Dioxin Reassessment Report, Sharon M. Friedman, Megan A. Fitzpatrick, Brenda P. Egolf

RISK: Health, Safety & Environment (1990-2002)

Using content analysis, the authors examine the utility of news media in democratic decision making.

Ethical Problems And Dilemmas In The Interaction Between Science And Media, David Resnik

Ethics in Science and Engineering National Clearinghouse

Science and the media are not strange bedfellows since they both gather information, value accuracy and objectivity, and recognize their enormous social responsibilities. The public often benefits from interactions between science and the media, and these two institutions often complement each other. However, since they have different standards, goals, expertises, competencies, and funding sources, science and the media can sometimes interact in ways that produce unintended, adverse consequences for the public. Sometimes the public may become misinformed, deceived, or confused as a result of the media's coverage of science. This unfortunate effect can lead to poor policy decisions, ill-informed public …

The Animal Research Controversy: Protest, Process & Public Policy, Andrew N. Rowan, Franklin M. Loew, Joan C. Weer

Experimentation Collection

The controversy today regarding the use of animals in research appears on the surface to be a strongly polarized struggle between the scientific community and the animal protection movement. However, there is a wide range of opinions and philosophies on both sides. Mistrust between the factions has blossomed while communication has withered. Through the 1960s, 1970s and early 1980s, the animal movement grew in numbers and financial resources, and developed much greater public recognition and political clout. The research community paid relatively little attention to the animal movement for much of this period but, alarmed by several public relations coups …