Communication Commons^™

Residential Broadband Access For Students At Walters State Community College., Mark A. Hurst

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to determine the availability of internet access for students attending Walters State Community College during the spring semester 2010. In particular, it is unknown to what degree broadband internet access is available in the counties that Walters State considers the service area of the college.

The research was conducted during the spring semester 2010 including the months February, March, and April of 2010. Data were gathered by surveying currently enrolled students of the college. Twelve percent of the population responded to the study. The survey instrument covered the areas of demographics, Internet connection type …

Advertising In Online Social Networks: A Comprehensive Overview, Silvia Stockman

Honors Scholar Theses

This paper examines characteristics of online social networking sites and their implications on advertising. The application of well known interpersonal and mass communication theories to the field allows for an in-depth look at behavioral cues and responses. The interactivity inherent in sites like Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, and in other forums encourages advertisers to tap into engaging their consumers. Types of targeting and the success of word of mouth referrals are examined, as are many of the common stumbling blocks. To better understand the potential versus the problems, we conclude with an analysis of return on investment.

'Race' On The Japanese Internet: Discussing Korea And Koreans On '2-Channeru', Mark J. Mclelland

Mark McLelland

This paper investigates discourse about race on the Japanese Internet, particularly regarding resident Koreans and their relationship to the Japanese. One board relating to arguments about Korea on the notorious ‘Channel 2’ BBS, Japan’s most visited Internet site, is investigated, since it is one of the main public forums in which racial vilification takes place, perpetrated by both Japanese and Korean posters. Nakamura’s (Cybertypes) contention that the Internet is ‘a place where race is created as an effect of the net's distinctive uses of language’ is taken as a starting point to investigate the differences between Japanese and Anglophone notions …

Free Speech And The Myth Of The Internet As An Unintermediated Experience, Christopher S. Yoo

All Faculty Scholarship

In recent years, a growing number of commentators have raised concerns that the decisions made by Internet intermediaries — including last-mile network providers, search engines, social networking sites, and smartphones — are inhibiting free speech and have called for restrictions on their ability to prioritize or exclude content. Such calls ignore the fact that when mass communications are involved, intermediation helps end users to protect themselves from unwanted content and allows them to sift through the avalanche of desired content that grows ever larger every day. Intermediation also helps solve a number of classic economic problems associated with the Internet. …

Promoting Children’S Interests On The Internet: Regulation And The Emerging Evidence Base Of Risk And Harm, Brian O'Neill, Sonia Livingstone

Conference Papers

Advocacy for child protection online has tended to flow against the tide of a dominant liberal discourse concerning the internet which posits that either the internet should not be regulated or that it can’t actually be regulated at all. Regulatory trends in Great Britain, in Europe and in the wider international arena have promoted models of co- or self-regulation whereby industries themselves with varying degrees of partnership or oversight by relevant state agencies practice ‘light-touch’ regulation based on codes established within industry fora with minimalist prescriptions on content and with ultimate responsibility for risk exposure shifted to the end user. …

Demand-Side Programs To Stimulate Adoption Of Broadband: What Works?, James Prieger, Janice A. Hauge

School of Public Policy Working Papers

We examine the evidence available on the efficacy of demand-side programs intended to stimulate broadband adoption. We review studies that attempt to measure results. Our suggestions for future program evaluations are to include cost-benefit analysis as a standard part of program review and to make clear that the purpose of evaluation is to assess progress made toward the ultimate policy goals rather than the program’s proximate implementation goals. Appropriate data must be collected to draw conclusions, and appropriate statistical methods must be used to determine the causal impacts of a program. This has rarely been done to date.

Vignetwork: An Exquisite Corpse Network Of Short Films, David Scott Calhoun

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Vignetwork (www.Vignetwork.com) is the name for an online system of interconnected short films that comes from the combination of the terms vignette and network. By developing Vignetwork as an experiment in narrative structure, it is possible to analyze what a hypertext is and what it means as a tool, environment, and model for understanding the world. By comparing it to various other films, projects, and ideas, Vignetwork emerges as a parable for how individuals define themselves in a shared, crowded world.

From Books To The Web: A Comparative Analysis Of Holocaust Denial In The Internet Age, Elise Nickerson

Honors Scholar Theses

An analysis of print Holocaust denial literature as it compares to internet Holocaust denial, with a focus on how the transition from print literature to the internet has affected Holocaust denial.

Campaign Finance & Online Oversight, Tali Gellert

Communication

No abstract provided.

Study Of Convergence In Nebraska Newspapers, Kathryn L. Schindler

College of Journalism and Mass Communications: Theses

This thesis studies Nebraska newspapers and their efforts to converge with Web, multimedia, radio, or television entities. It also studies the efforts by Nebraska newspapers to converge reporter roles and organizational roles. Paper surveys were sent and in-person interviews were conducted in Nebraska during the 2009-2010 academic year. The results showed more examples of multimedia convergence than role or organizational convergence. Nebraska publishers and editors say they do not want to attempt convergence or multimedia products just to be trendy. They say convergence has to make sense, be useful, and be profitable for their individual businesses, staff, and communities.
Advisor: …

User Motivation: Likability And Usability Of An Agricultural Web Site, Vishal Singh

College of Journalism and Mass Communications: Theses

Web communications has become a critical component of mass communications and media today. Web sites must be user-friendly if they are to communicate effectively. This study examines the relationship between user motivation and the likability and usability of web sites. Web designers, stakeholders, and web site owners need to pay close attention to the likability and usability of a web site since these are key components of its credibility.

A key finding of this study indicates there is not a direct relationship between likability of a web site and its usability. Often, web designers and web site owners judge web …

Quality Control, Jane Singer

Jane B. Singer

This study of local British newspaper journalists focuses on three aspects of entrenched newsroom culture—news values and norms, work routines and outputs, and occupational roles—to explore the boundaries that journalists see as distinguishing them from outside contributors. Findings suggest they view user-generated content (UGC) from a traditional professional perspective and weigh its benefits in terms of its contribution to the journalism they produce. While most are open to its inclusion on newspaper websites, particularly as a traffic builder and supplemental source of hyperlocal information, they believe UGC can undermine journalistic norms and values unless carefully monitored—a gatekeeping task they fear …

The Opppositional Framing Of Bloggers, Stephen D. Cooper

Communications Faculty Research

As a new feature of the media system, the blogosphere is an extremely interesting subject for scholarly inquiry. One might spend research time along a variety of lines: why people blog, why people read blog content, the relationship of the blogosphere to the established media outlets, the who/what/when of blog content production and consumption, the subject matter of blog posts, the effects of exposure to blog content, the potential for and limitations on interactions, and so on, for quite a long list. Given that the blogosphere is a recent addition to the media mix, and itself a (presumably) unintended consequence …

Finding A Voice: Using The Internet For Free Speech And Expression In Iran, Chelsea Zimmerman

Human Rights & Human Welfare

In July 2009, many Iranians took to the streets to protest the results of the presidential election in which Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won with a reported 62% of the vote. The protests, stemming from allegations of electoral fraud, quickly exposed the government's limited tolerance for dissent. In addition to street demonstrations, protestors utilized social networking websites to express their opposition to the election results. The world, following Internet feeds, witnessed the restrictive mechanisms Iran’s government placed on expression and speech. People throughout the world admonished Iran for the government's interference with cell phone and Internet networks. Iran’s free speech and expression …

The Schenectady Virtual Community : Exploring The Ecology Of Political Discourse In A Local Context, Andrea B. Baker

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

From Facebook to Twitter, ordinary citizens' use of social media to discuss, organize, and participate in the political process continues to grow in popularity (Davis, 2005; Rainie, 2005; Kohut, 2008). Researchers interested in this area have explored the demographics, patterns of behavior and motives of participants in online communities (Stromer-Galley, 2002, 2003), the dynamics of the online discussions (Dahlberg, 2001; Davis, 2005; Wilhelm, 2000), the effect of online participation on other forms of political activity (Brunsting, 2002; Kavanaugh & Patterson, 2001), and more recently the relationship between social media and the conventional press (Hiler, 2002; Park, 2004; Cornfield, 2006; Lenhart …

Radical Localism In The Network Society, Edward Russell Cole

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

This is an ethnographic study conducted upon third-party sociopolitical movements in American society. The research included participant observation in a Midwestern State Green Party, in addition to the Populist Party of America: a micro-party based in Los Angeles.

The Myth Of Fragmentation : Assessing Political Information Online, Alexis Marie Wichowski

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Internet technology has provided people with unprecedented abilities to filter the information they encounter, leading many scholars to fear that people will be exposed to less diversity of perspectives and fragment into homogeneous interest groups. Exposure to a wide range of topics and perspectives about political information in particular is considered necessary by many scholars in order for citizens to be informed participants in democratic life. However, fears that the Internet leads to fragmentation rest on three assumptions: 1. online, opportunities for unintended encounters with a diversity of information are limited, 2. people primarily pursue narrow interests when consuming online …

The Blame Is In The Frame: Inter-Reality Comparisons Of Crime Reports And Local News Crime Coverage On The Internet, Dana Marie Tumblin

LSU Master's Theses

Research of crime news suggests that Blacks are over represented as criminals when compared to crime reports; study of race and crime judgments reveals that viewers with heavy amounts of television news viewing associate Blacks with crime more often than viewers who watch lower amounts of television news. Further complicating the perception of Blacks is their lack of diversified coverage in the news. Most coverage of Blacks frames them as liabilities to their communities, while offering few positive depictions to counter the Black criminality frame. The Internet may aid in exacerbating stereotypes of Blacks by allowing users to selectively expose …

A New Focus For A University: Designing A Web Site To Feature Community Service, Andrea Louise Clesi

LSU Master's Theses

This research used focus groups and usability testing to determine how a major land-grant university should design a Web site that would feature the community service work of faculty and staff, students and alumni, also referred to as stakeholders. University public relations professionals planned to launch an interactive Web site as part of the university’s sesquicentennial celebration in 2010, but had concerns that the Web site would not attract stakeholders. The research sought to answer the following questions based on uses and gratifications and impression management theories: What uses and gratifications, if any, do social networking sites provide stakeholders? Does …

What Blogging Might Teach About Cybernorms, Jacqueline D. Lipton

Articles

Since the dawn of the information age, scholars have debated the viability of regulating cyberspace. Early on, Professor Lawrence Lessig suggested that “code is law” online. Lessig and others also examined the respective regulatory functions of laws, code, market forces, and social norms. In recent years, with the rise of Web 2.0 interactive technologies, norms have taken center-stage as a regulatory modality online. The advantages of norms are that they can develop quickly by the communities that seek to enforce them, and they are not bound by geography. However, to date there has been scant literature dealing in any detail …

Caution, The Use Of Humor May Lead To Confusion: Evaluation Of A Video Podcast Of The Midwest Teen Sex Show, Michelle Campo, Natoshia Askelson

Michelle L. Campo

Web sites about sexual health lack the interactivity, humor, and “viral” nature required to attract young adults. The Midwest Teen Sex Show (www.midwestteensexshow.com) is an interactive, humor-based Web site that provides sexual health information to young adults. One episode from the Web site was shown to six focus groups of young women, ages 18–30. Women found it funny, but some were offended or confused. Women were unable to differentiate between facts and humor; however, women could identify the key messages. Most women reported they would think about it later, visit the Web site, and share it with friends. Web-based interventions …