Other Communication Commons^™

She Speaks For Millions: The Emergence Of Female Diplomatic Voices In The Russo-Ukrainian War, Amber Brittain-Hale

Education Division Scholarship

This research critically investigates the public diplomacy strategies deployed by a cohort of influential female European leaders on Twitter during the Russo-Ukrainian War of 2022-2023. The study comprises eight leaders - Kallas (Estonia), Marin (Finland), von der Leyen (President of the European Commission), Metsola (President of the European Parliament), Sandu (Moldova), Simonyte (Lithuania), Zourabichvili (Georgia), and Meloni (Italy) - representing millions of constituents. By mirroring the analytical attention given to Ukraine's President, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, this study scrutinizes the distinct approaches and dif erences in emotional, cognitive, and structural language use between these influential female figures and President Zelenskyy in their …

American Vibe Check: Based, Mid, Or Cringe? Measuring Gen Z’S Attitudes And Perceptions About American Democracy, Bethany Perryman

Masters Theses, 2020-current

Democracy is a concept, process, and practice, and American democracy is a specific flavor of it. Public opinion is influenced and shaped by mass media, and messages about American democracy emerge in a web of powers and among power dynamics. These messages include the actions and relationships of the American civic system with its citizenry and the world. Generation Z is a socially, culturally, economically, and politically unique population in American life, who form their own perceptions and attitudes about American democracy based on their experiences and with the ecosystem of communication and interaction they have with mass media messages. …

Re: Beyond Fake News, Nate Floyd, Jaclyn Spraetz

Journal of Media Literacy Education

A student success librarian with a Ph.D. in mass communication and an information literacy librarian with an M.A. in secondary English education describe their efforts to innovate in the field of news literacy by incorporating the media effects research tradition. By highlighting the emotional, behavioral, and cognitive elements of information processing, the authors hope to show students how professional norms, institutional and market pressures shape the news while their own predispositions influence how they interpret the news they consume. The authors emphasize agenda-setting and framing, two fundamental media effects paradigms, and report on their effort to develop news literacy classes …

Transnational Dominican Activism: Documenting Grassroots Social Movements Through Esendom, Nelson Santana, Amaury Rodriguez, Emmanuel Espinal

Publications and Research

Dominican-descended people are one of the most dynamic Caribbean and Latin American ethnic and cultural communities in the United States. Whether in the Dominican Republic or as members of a transnational community, the Dominican population has a long and rich history of challenging the powers that be, confronting unjust acts, and opposing oppressive laws within the communities they inhabit through their civic engagement. This paper addresses one question: As Dominican society and the world have evolved, what has been the role of U.S.-based online media in sustaining, disseminating, and rescuing the long tradition of civic involvement and struggle exemplified by …

Searching For A Solution To Political Polarization In The U.S. Through A Feminist Ethics Of Care, Marissa Smith

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

American politics have seen growing polarization in the past few years (Serrano-Contreras et al., 2020; Wojcieszak & Warner, 2020). Polarization is generally defined as “the distance between opposing political views” (Serrano-Contreras et al., 2020, p. 65). With focus on college students, this thesis considers ways to bridge the political divide in the United States and to promote generative engagement with differences across the political spectrum. The specific research questions this study explored were: 1) How do Ethics of Care principles and practices appear in and impact conversations on politically-charged topics among college students? and 2) How does participating in a …

The Great Resignation: A Content Analysis Of News Sources' Portrayals Of The Covid-19 Labor Shortage., Mackenzie Williams

College of Arts & Sciences Senior Honors Theses

When workers left the labor market in large numbers during the COVID-19 pandemic, proclamations of a labor shortage emerged extensively throughout the news. In this study, I analyze the coverage of the worker shortage among three news sources with different political orientations. Several themes emerged from analyzing a total of 75 articles. The findings showed that the perspective shown in the article, the cause of the labor shortage, restaurant worker portrayal, support of solutions, and opinion of the labor shortage all differed based on the political identity of the news source. This research supports previous findings that show there is …

Healing Racial Injustice With Mindfulness Research, Training, & Practice, Danielle "Danae" Laura

Mindfulness Studies Theses

This thesis offers a collection of authors and studies in support of improved research, training, and practice connecting mindfulness with racial justice through intergroup applications. The paper identifies barriers at work (e.g., colorblindness, spiritual bypass, white fragility, and implicit bias) in contemplative science, Western Buddhist communities, and secular mindfulness centers, which block the sizeable contributions possible in studying the intergroup application of mindfulness practice—specifically Lovingkindness Meditation, among others—when used as an intervention with anti-racist aims. Through secondary qualitative research, I reviewed six key works from Black authors on mindfulness and race, as well as six sample studies on the prosocial …

Call Your Elected Officials: Identifying Predictors And Audiences For Collective Climate Action, Nathan Scott Bender

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Influential climate action in the United States is beyond the scope of individual actions, and instead requires collective action. This challenges governmental agencies and NGOs to promote enough collective action to inspire systemic change. Though decades of social research have identified broad trends in the drivers of this collective climate action, predictors of specific actions vary across individuals and contexts, and existing theory does not fully account for these shifting relative contributions. Additionally, the scale and urgency at which we must address climate change requires understanding and motivating climate action at all scales, from broad trends to predictors of specific …

Us Media’S Coverage Of China’S Handling Of Covid-19: Playing The Role Of The Fourth Branch Of Government Or The Fourth Estate?, Wenshan Jia, Fangzhu Lu

Communication Faculty Articles and Research

The present study is an analysis of a sample of reports on China’s handling of COVID-19 by several major US media with a focus on a controversial op-ed by the Wall Street Journal. It is found that instead of covering it objectively as a public health crisis, these media reports tend to adopt the strategy of naming, shaming, blaming, and taming against China. In other words, they seize the outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan as an opportunity to serve Trump’s “America First” doctrine by a coordinated attempt to destroy the Chinese dream and arresting China’s ascendency. First, the naming/shaming …

Implications Of Information: An Analysis Of How State Secrecy Prevails Over The Rights Of Free People, Cassandra Kostal

Honors Theses

This thesis is an analysis of the withholding of information at the hands of the federal government and the subsequent creation of a culture of secrecy that threatens the freedom of information. The primary research question was: How does the government keep information classified in the age of information and how does this penchant for secrecy and nondisclosure undermine the public’s faith in their leadership? Research into this question was conducted through two means: printed and online publications. The printed publications were books recommended to me by Dr. John Bender and the online publications were sources found through searches using …

Oral Argument In The Time Of Covid: The Chief Justice Plays Calvinball, Tonja Jacobi, Timothy R. Johnson, Eve M. Ringsmuth, Matthew Sag

Faculty Articles

In this Article, we empirically assess the Supreme Court’s experiment in hearing telephonic oral arguments. We compare the telephonic hearings to those heard in person by the current Court and examine whether the Justices followed norms of fairness and equality. We show that the telephonic forum changed the dynamics of oral argument in a way that gave the Chief Justice new power, and that Chief Justice Roberts, knowingly or unknowingly, used that new power to benefit his ideological allies. We also show that the Chief interrupted the female Justices disproportionately more than the male Justices and gave the male Justices …

Corporations And The American Polity, Patrick Labossiere

Student Theses and Dissertations

Research on corporate communications’ effects on politics presents an acknowledgement of a relationship between the two topics, leaving a void in the explanation and examination of this topic. The void presents an opening to introduce a conceptual process for how corporations are able to craft communications to influence the American Polity, the democratic social organization within the United States. This research begins with a historical review of how corporations gain prominence in American society, capturing the ability to participate in the democratic social organization of the polity. A qualitative analysis of several conceptual frameworks serves as data, to establish an …

The People Who “Burn”: “Communication,” Unity, And Change In Belarusian Discourse On Public Creativity, Anton Dinerstein

Doctoral Dissertations

The main intellectual problem I address in this study is how everyday communication activates the relationship between creativity, conflict, and change. More specifically, I look at how the communication of creativity becomes a process of transformation, innovation, and change and how people are propelled to create through everyday communication practices in the face of conflict and opposition. To approach this problem, I use the case of communication in modern-day Belarus to show how creativity becomes a vehicle for and a source of new social and cultural routines among the independent grassroots communities and initiatives in Minsk. On one level, I …

La Habana: A History Of Society, Livelihood, Movement, And Land Use On The Iquitos-Nauta Highway, Katie Brown

Undergraduate Honors Theses

With increasing infrastructural projects and land titling in the Peruvian Amazon, many changes are occurring within small roadside communities. In this case study, we investigate how these changes impact livelihoods, land use, travel patterns, and social relations within the broader concepts of development, privatization of land, and commodification of nature. Specifically we focus on the caserío La Habana situated on the Iquitos-Nauta highway in the Loreto region of Peru. Semi-formal interviews and ethnographic methods were conducted to gather information on social organization, history of the community, land use practices, migration patterns, opinions on the road, and livelihood strategies. After data …

Religious Nationalism And The Coronavirus Pandemic: Soul-Sucking Evangelicals And Branch Covidians Make America Sick Again, Peter Mclaren

Education Faculty Articles and Research

This article investigates the response to the coronavirus crisis by Evangelical Christian nationalists in the USA. The article outlines the curious mediaverse of religious nationalism—its post-truth and fake news aspects in particular—links religious nationalism to American exceptionalism, and analyzes conflicts between secular and religious authorities. Drawing upon some lessons from the past, the article addresses the wider implications of Christian nationalism on American politics, and capitalist ideology, as it has been played out virally in the corporate media. The article shows that the ideological underpinnings of evangelical Christianity prevent its proponents from understanding the virus in an historical and materialist …

Impacting Agriculture And Natural Resource Policy: County Commissioners’ Decision-Making Behaviors And Communication Preferences, Kati Lawson, Kevin Kent, Shelli Rampold, Ricky W. Telg, Ashley Mcleod-Morin

Journal of Applied Communications

Elected officials at the local, state, and national levels play key roles in shaping the agriculture and natural resources (ANR) sectors through the development and implementation of ANR policies and regulations. As such, it has become necessary for members of the ANR community to understand the policy formation process and how to communicate effectively with elected officials about ANR policies and issues. However, little research has been conducted at the local level to examine how local elected officials (LEOs) interact with information specific to ANR policies to make decisions. This study was designed to assess the communication and information-seeking preferences …

Donald J. Trump And The Rhetoric Of Ressentiment, Casey Ryan Kelly

Department of Communication Studies: Faculty Publications

This essay contributes to and reframes the preliminary scholarly assessments of President Donald J. Trump’s appeals to rage, malice, and revenge by sketching the rhetorical dimensions of an underlying emotional-moral framework in which victimization, resentment, and revenge are inverted civic virtues. I elaborate on the concept of ressentiment (re-sentiment), a condition in which a subject is addled by rage and envy yet remains impotent, subjugated and unable to act on or adequately express frustration. Though anger and resentment capture part of Trump’s affective register, I suggest that ressentiment accounts for the unique intersection where powerful sentiments and self-serving morality are …

The Dark Tetrad, Social Dominance Orientation, And Online Political Discussion, Cory D. Taylor

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

Previous literature into online trolling behavior has focused upon the role of the Dark Tetrad and political measures separately. This study extended the existing body of research by examining the relationship between the Dark Tetrad personality traits, social dominance orientation (SDO) and online political trolling in the United States of America. The data was collected using an online questionnaire from American users of Facebook and Reddit in the summer of 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, Black Lives Matter movement, and in the runup to a hotly contested national election. Positive correlations were found between all of the Dark Tetrad traits, …

Media Discourses That Normalize Colonial Relations: A Critical Discourse Analysis Of (Im)Migrants And Refugees, Meng Zhao, Jorge Rodriguez, Lilia D. Monzó

Education Faculty Articles and Research

The im(migration) and refugee crisis that are being exacerbated under the Trump administration, is a manifestation of empire-building and the long history of colonization of the Global South. A Marxist-humanist perspective recognizes these as consistent aspects of a clearly racist global capitalism that functions in the interest of multibillion dollar U.S.–based corporations and increasingly transnational corporations. Trade agreements, international economic policy, political intervention, invasion or the threat of these, often secure corporate interests in specific countries and regions. The authors use critical discourse analysis to examine the discourses around Mexican, Central American, and Syrian im(migrants) and refugees as examples of …

Thinking About Engaging North Korea: A Study On The Framing Of The U.S. Human Rights Public Discourse In The Washington Post And New York Times Between 2001 And 2017, Rachael M. Rudolph

History and Social Sciences Faculty Journal Articles

North Korea said in January 2019 that it was exploring ways to engage the human rights issue. This was a much welcomed announcement because the issue must be addressed in order for the two countries to reach a formal, comprehensive peace agreement and the lifting or easing of unilateral sanctions. This study utilizes framing as an analytical tool to examine how the North Korean human rights discourse is framed in the United States for the purpose of identifying the salient rights‐based issues covered in two traditional media outlets, namely, the Washington Post and New York Times. Next, it reframes the …

Media Literacy Policy In Flanders – Belgium: From Parliamentary Discussions To Public Policy, Leo Van Audenhove, Hadewijch Vanwynsberghe, Ilse Mariën

Journal of Media Literacy Education

The discussion on media literacy in Flanders starts in the Flemish Parliament in 2006. It will take until 2013 before the Flemish Government will set up the Knowledge Center for Media Literacy—Mediawijs. Flanders is therefore rather late in establishing a dedicated institute for media literacy. The same can be said for developing a formal policy framework in relation to media literacy. This article starts with a theoretical discussion of three major trends in the current media literacy debate. The article moves on to describe and analyze Flanders media literacy policy debates and policy formulation. It highlights the development and remit …

Judicial Conflicts And Voting Agreement: Evidence From Interruptions At Oral Argument, Tonja Jacobi, Kyle Rozema

Faculty Articles

This Article asks whether observable conflicts between Supreme Court justices—interruptions between the justices during oral arguments—can predict breakdowns in voting outcomes that occur months later. To answer this question, we built a unique dataset based on the transcripts of Supreme Court oral arguments and justice votes in cases from 1960 to 2015. We find that on average a judicial pair is seven percent less likely to vote together in a case for each interruption that occurs between them in the oral argument for that case. While a conflict between the justices that leads to both interruptions and a breakdown in …

Teaching The Presidential Elections Using Media Literacy In The Ld Classroom, Jaclyn K. Siegel

Journal of Media Literacy Education

This paper examines how an educator at a school for students with learning disabilities (LD) used various types of media to engage her students, to develop their academic and executive functioning skills, and to heighten their awareness of media literacy and the 2012 and 2106 Presidential elections. Teacher-created curriculum materials and activities are provided that support students’ ability to analysis media coverage in the context of a special education history classroom. Both media literacy and academic skills were developed through activities that enabled students to find and select resources from their media use at home.

Information Sharing, Transparency, And E-Governance Among County Government Offices In Southeastern Michigan, Lawrence Bosek

All NMU Master's Theses

The Internet has given rise to the availability of information at our fingertips. While the public, particularly consumers, are more commonly described as being the leading users and beneficiaries of electronic information services, businesses and governments are also players in the arena for sharing official information. Information can be easily stored on Internet websites for the public, businesses, and other governmental offices to search and peruse when needed. This study examined the ease of locating county governmental information, such as contact information for public officials and financial reports, and surveyed elected county officials for purposes of identifying how information is …

Issue Ownership And Framing Of Digital Privacy On Twitter, Ashik Shafi

Wayne State University Dissertations

The issue ownership theory states political parties tend to emphasize the issues they are perceived to own in a bid to gain an advantage in public opinion. Although tested on different established political issues and in mass communicational settings, the theory has not been adequately tested for new and evolving political issues and on social media. This study attempts to test issue ownership theory and examine episodic and thematic media framing in Twitter conversations of US senators regarding the issue of digital privacy. Combination of computerized and manual content analysis is used to download and analyze all US senators’ tweets …

The Power Of Creativity: How Web-Based Parody Encourages Chinese Civil Participation, Amber Boczar

International ResearchScape Journal

This article investigates that relationship between e’gao (parody using web-based media) and Chinese civil participation. E’gao (恶搞 EUH-gow) uses videos, images, and text based campaigns that use humor to remove fear of political commentary and action. By detailing the development of China’s internet use, and the creation of the e’gao movement, I argue that e’gao removes the fear of participating in campaigns and movements, which criticize government policy and actions on both local and state levels, by using humor and anonymity of large online numbers. E’gao can provide a way for the common citizens to mold policy, and hold authority …

An Interpretive Plan Guide For Wilderness Park In Lincoln, Nebraska, Rachel J. Ward

Community and Regional Planning Program: Professional Projects

Wilderness Park, located in Lancaster County, Nebraska, is a public park of unique ecological and historical value to the city of Lincoln and to the surrounding region. The natural and historical features of the park present an opportunity to communicate environmental and historical topics that are relevant on local, national, and global levels, as well as inspire a lively sense of pride in the community. The problem is that many topics relevant to Wilderness Park are not currently being interpreted at the park, and that there are relatively few interpretive resources available to park visitors.

The purpose of this project …

The Politics Media Equation:Exposing Two Faces Of Old Nexus Through Study Of General Elections,Wikileaks And Radia Tapes, Ratnesh Dwivedi Mr

Ratnesh Dwivedi

The important identity of a responsible media is playing an unbiased role in reporting a matter without giving unnecessary hype to attract the attention of the gullible public with the object of making money and money only.After reporting properly the media can educate the public to form their own opinion in the matters of public interest. Throughout the centuries, the world has never existed without information and communication, hence the inexhaustible essence of mass media. The government has the power to either make or reject whatever that will exist within its environment. It also determines how free the mass media …

Chieftaincy-Based Community Dispute Resolution: The Case Of Sierra Leone, Whitney Mcintyre Miller

Education Faculty Articles and Research

Sierra Leone suffered a destructive 11-year civil war that largely left its communities torn apart and in need of vast redevelopment. One of the ways that communities are rebuilding and making efforts to move forward is through the chieftaincy-based community dispute resolution process. Based on historical norms, this process involves the community leader, or chief, helping to resolve disputes within the community. This article reviews this chieftaincy-based community dispute resolution process, discusses the types of disputes settled, and provides broader lessons learned for communities who may be interested in truly community-based dispute resolution.

Wiki Leaks Revelations In Global Context—The War Between ‘Right To Publish’ And ‘Ethical Code Of Conduct, Ratnesh Dwivedi Mr

Ratnesh Dwivedi

WikiLeaks is an international non-profit organisation that publishes submissions of private, secret, and classified media from anonymous news sources, news leaks, and whistleblowers. Its website, launched in 2006 under The Sunshine Press organisation claimed a database of more than 1.2 million documents within a year of its launch. WikiLeaks describes its founders as a mix of Chinese dissidents, journalists, mathematicians, and start-up company technologists from the United States, Taiwan, Europe, Australia, and South Africa. Julian Assange, an Australian Internet activist, is generally described as its director. The site was originally launched as a user-editable wiki, but has progressively moved towards …