Digital Commons Network^™

“Home On The Phone”: How Black Students At A Pwi Use Digital Space To Form Community, Malaysia Barr

All Theses

College is a time when students are traditionally away from home in the hopes of not only securing a better future through higher education but have the ability to shape who they are as individuals. As Predominately White Institutions serve few minority students, this can prove to be challenging for them as they do not fit into the majority racial group. This thesis investigates how Black students at a PWI utilize the mobile app, GroupMe, as a method of connecting and networking within their racial community. Through focus groups and individual interviews, this study found that Black students use digital …

Recruiting Alzheimer's Association Volunteers From All Walks Of Life, Hailey Seipel

Strategic Communication Master of Arts Thesis Projects

No abstract provided.

Generosity And Philanthropy In The “Third Place”: A Documentary Short To Celebrate And Promote Cause-Driven Community Spaces, Patrick Dowell

Communication Science and Disorders Honors Theses

This thesis explores the vast potential inherently found within community spaces in fostering a sense of belonging and spurring positive social change. Through an in-depth examination of Indianapolis’ vibrant coffee culture and a local coffee shop– Calvin Fletcher’s Coffee Company– as a case study, the project delves into the dynamics of community building, generosity, and social impact within “third places”. Through interview-based documentary filmmaking, the study highlights the transformative power of community spaces like Calvin Fletcher’s Coffee Company in nurturing connections, supporting local causes, and promoting civic engagement. The documentary short film, Serving with Generosity, serves as both a celebration …

#Getinked: An Anthropological Exploration Of Tattooing And Social Media, Delanee Taylor

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis aims to address two inquiries regarding contemporary tattooing. The first goal is to explore how social media has changed the practice of tattooing while the second goal is to examine how tattoos are used to express or explore the differing facets of a person’s identity. Identity theory, social identity theory, semiotics, and the concepts of stigma and deviancy form the theoretical framework which allows one to understand the ways in which tattoos can provide insights into the various aspects of someone’s identity as well as how social media can influence members of the tattoo community. An online survey, …

Finding Joy And Community In Climate Action, Deanna Kellom

Cal Poly Humboldt Capstone Honor Roll

The goal of this paper is to discuss the ways that the conversation around climate action can be altered to center finding joy and community. Often when people hear about the state of the climate there is a sense of dread that people have reported feeling. Most people feel as though the climate has reached the point of no return and that there is nothing that any one person can do to really make a difference. This paper will talk about some ways that have worked for people in getting them to do climate action while also enjoying the work …

Tied Together, Eiko Nishida

Theses and Dissertations

The paper is about a site-specific installation that questions a viewer’s norms and perspectives, through the use of multilingual newspapers as a sculptural material.

“Tweeting During Emergencies”: The Egyptian Ministry Of Health Twitter Communication Strategy Under The Umbrella Of The Crisis And Emergency Risk Communication Model (Cerc) Case Study: Covid-19 Pandemic, Pakinam Elgohary

Theses and Dissertations

This research investigates using the Crisis and Emergency Risk Communication Model (CERC) for COVID- 19 communication by analyzing the content of Twitter messages posted by the Government of Egypt through the Egyptian Ministry of Health (MOHP). It further examines how official communicators and institutions utilize social media to contact the public during emergencies like the COVID-19 pandemic, highlighting critical strategies of recommendations. Crisis and Emergency Risk Communication (CERC), a five-staged theory, recommends a set of messaging and pertained communication characteristics to implement at each stage of the identified following stages: (1) “Pre-crisis, (2) Initial event, (3) Maintenance, (4) Resolution, and …

Impacting Michigan Latino Students’ Perceptions Of Higher Education: How To Better Communicate And Promote 4-Year College Degree Opportunities, Michael A. Guerra

Culminating Experience Projects

In the state of Michigan, the marginalization of Latino students continues due to historical and social factors; this is ultimately reflected in higher education enrollment and graduation rates when compared to their White peers, the dominant group in the state (MI School Data, 2022). For varying reasons, not every student will seek higher education after high school, but it is worth ensuring opportunities and reasons to attend are properly communicated for sake of helping Latino students better explore all their college and career options. While the Michigan Latino population has the highest labor force participation compared to other racial or …

Relocating Community To The Virtual: Sound Knowledge, Affective Listening, And The (Dis)Embodying Of Sound And Space, Zachery D. Coffey

Masters Theses

Music within Protestant church communities frequently reduces the distinction between performers and audience, emphasizing the collective, participatory role of all congregation members, in manners of music making similar to those discussed by Thomas Turino. This dynamic helps establish individual and communal identities. With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, church communities saw changes in their services, music, and ways of life. Meeting in a physical building proved impossible due to the dangers of COVID-19 and many churches mitigated these dangers by streaming, recording, and posting services online. Between 2020 and 2022, I observed and participated in changes to technological production …

Hot Licks And Rhetoric: Collecting, Community, And Disruptive Literacies, Joseph P. Serio

Theses and Dissertations

This ethnographic dissertation investigates the activities and tactical technical communications (TTC) of underground music collectors. Through this it explores the concepts of community and institution that compositionists and technical writing scholars use as ways to address social influences on writing, but which fail to explain how these milieus influence the writers and their genres. Collectors of Recordings of Independent Origin (ROIOs), through the use of increasingly disruptive technologies, moved from passive listeners to active producers of music for sharing freely, garnering opposition from the music industry as their activities moved online. This study views the relationship between the music industry, …

A Story Of The Social Life Of Yulupa Cohousing, Kayla Ho

Architecture Undergraduate Honors Theses

This capstone is a study of the lived social experience of one cohousing community. Cohousing communities are designed with the intention of fostering a community with a mixture of privately-owned units and publicly shared spaces and responsibilities. The study is conducted at a significant point in American history: these communities are a fast-growing phenomenon in the United States yet they remain unknown and/or unattainable to many Americans.

Qualitative information from the community’s current residents is gathered by using research tools of interviewing and photography. Interviews were completed virtually due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Photographs were created during a three-day visit …

My Journey To Create A Space For Young Adults To Grow In Community, Chelsea Simmeth

Creativity and Change Leadership Graduate Student Master's Projects

This project focuses on the development of a safe space for young adults to come together, create community and engage in activities. There is a gap in college-age students’ ability to find community outside the university. This project focuses on creating a place where they would be able to meet new people, play sports, and board games, and do arts and crafts. The development of marketing strategies, event planning checklists, and locations for holding events are outlined for the Young Adults (YA)- UNITE (Upbeat, New, and Inviting Transformational Environment) program.

The Role Of Memes In An Online Community Created By College Students: A Content Analysis, Jessica Probst

Student Research Submissions

This paper explores how a community is formed in the Facebook group The M in UMW Stands for Memes and what role memes play in shaping a sense of community and sharing information. Based on previous research, there was a common theme found within the results of the studies; memes can be used to communicate information and a shared understanding is needed to have a sustainable online community. I chose to complete this study using a content analysis which allowed for an evaluation of the shared language used in the posts revealing how this mode of communication creates a sustainable …

How Brazilians Used Media To Cope With The Issues Brought By The Covid-19 Pandemic, Vivian De Melo Campos

Theses and Dissertations

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the world faced lockdown and quarantine restrictions that encouraged or forced people to stay home. Along with the rest of the world, Brazil faced many difficulties during this period and it became one of the countries that lost more lives due to the Coronavirus infection worldwide. This study focuses on showing how people in Brazil coped with the challenges brought by the pandemic. It also focuses on showing if and how participants used media as a coping mechanism. The research was done through qualitative methods with semi-structured interviews with 25 adults who were living in …

Dear Maliha,, Na-Eela Djemil

Capstones

Dear Maliha is a short documentary film exploring the complexities of spiritual abuse through Maliha Fairooz. Spiritual abuse is a form of abuse that uses spiritual or religious beliefs to control or manipulate others. In some cases, spiritual abuse can be used to describe a religious leader who abuses their platform. But in Maliha’s story, we explore the concept of parental spiritual abuse. However, we learn more about this through Maliha Fairooz and the creative use of her journal.

For Maliha journaling is a form of therapy she uses to process her feelings and days. She also uses it as …

Operating The Digital Space In The Age Of Protest Participation, Kyle Stanley

LSU Master's Theses

This study examines young African American adults’ usage of social media and other digital spaces as tools to build community given the rise in protest participation in North American (U. S.) society while at the height of a global health pandemic. Since early adulthood is a time where African Americans are most active online, this study will examine how and why those African Americans are turning to digital spaces to find social connections. Racism and racial injustice are two of the most pressing issues in the African American community, and it is clear that it can be an emotionally laborious …

Community Journalism In Zambia: The Case Of Chikuni Radio, Vincent Tilimboyi Nchimunya

Master's Theses (2009 -)

Community journalism is steadily gaining prominence in most African nations. It is a conduit through which different communities develop social interaction. It is also a platform through which the public create connections among themselves to identify and resolve local and national problems that affect citizens. The goal of this study was to examine how community journalists at Chikuni Radio practiced their craft in an effort to build a sense of community in southern Zambia. The study presents a qualitative thematic content analysis of in-depth semi-structured interviews with three Chikuni Radio editors and six journalists. The journalists’ community journalism experience ranged …

The 2020 Awakening: A Study On Exhibiting Topics Of Race And Identity In Mid-Sized Art Museums, Samantha Becker

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

After the many racial injustices that occurred in 2020, cultural institutions have been motivated to educate the public on historical and contemporary topics of race and identity. This project sought to analyze exemplary cases of exhibition production with topics of race and identity in mid-sized art museums. The goal was to provide a set of recommendations for exhibiting these topics to bolster community trust. Two museums were studied–the Montclair Art Museum and Newark Museum of Art–which revealed that the exhibitions at both institutions were relevant to contemporary issues, engaging to their respective communities, and educational for a wide range of …

In Search Of Kinship: Traveling Into New Worlds Through Conversation And The Impact On Building Community, Daniel E. Mcclary Ed.D

Education Doctorate Dissertations

This dissertation reports on qualitative research done with a phenomenological methodology on the topic of building community. This was explored through the voices of over 200 participants representing more than 30 countries. Surveys and in-depth interviews examined international experiences and cultural background of participants alongside many stakeholder voices from within higher education, including international and domestic students, faculty, and staff. Though the study and application is focused on a higher education context, the research has broader implications to society in looking at how intentional conversations across cultural symmetry impacts relationships and community building. The data touched on feelings of isolation …

Framing Sports’ Corporate Social Responsibility: U.S. Women’S Vs. Men’S Soccer Leagues, Paul Schattschneider

Honors Program Theses

Professional sports are a rich industry for corporate social responsibility (CSR) research because today’s sports organizations are big businesses that generate shared identities and strong affective connections among fans, teams, and players. Further, today’s professional sports consumers expect organizations to behave in socially responsible ways and to give back to their communities. While nearly every sports organization, like most other major businesses, practices CSR, sports teams are in a unique position because they receive greater media coverage than other businesses. Not all of this coverage is positive, however, as news reports about the controversy over compensation inequities in women’s soccer …

Collective Healing Within Queer Paradoxes: Deconstructing Emotional Abuse In Lgbtq2sia* Communities To Cultivate More Accountable And Compassionate Worlds, Alexia Siebuhr

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

Emotional abuses within LGBTQ2SIA* communities are rarely acknowledged as existing or often normalized. Through care and anti-oppression works, transformative justice models such as community and self-accountability have helped carve out ways of addressing harm directly and breaking cycles of violence. The research in this thesis has been through mixed qualitative methodologies including semi-structured interviews and surveys. The participants' along with other authors, artists, activists and scholars’ narratives draws upon the experiences of emotional abuse lived within structural and social surveillance. The settler colonial state sanctioned projects have responded to harm by perpetuating violence upon those most marginalized. Deconstructing emotional abuse …

The Walking Stick: Technical Communication On The Journey Of Creating Genuine Travel, Sara Schaefer

Graduate Theses & Non-Theses

The Walking Stick project is intended to create a community for people who want to travel; experience authentic, local cultures; and share their journeys and discoveries of what the world has to offer with the motive of inspiring others to also experience “genuine” travel (that is, not just snapping selfies at tourist trap destinations). Through this methodology document the explanation of how technical communication tools were used to create a community will be viewed. The inspiration of the project covers personal travels and how the travels inspired the mission statement, and a code of ethics for the specific community that …

A Bilingual Approach To Pediatric Occupational Therapy: The Importance Of Communication Between Providers & Spanish-Speaking Families In Northwest Arkansas, Emily Ann Davidson

World Languages, Literatures and Cultures Undergraduate Honors Theses

Due to the demographic demands of Northwest Arkansas and the prevalence of disparities in health care, this study aims to assess the current practices, perceived need, and willingness to provide bilingual Spanish-English outpatient pediatric occupational therapy options in Northwest Arkansas. The hope of this study is to better inform pediatric occupational therapy providers of the growing need for bilingual services so that they may respond appropriately in order to better serve Latino and Spanish-speaking patients and their families or caregivers.

Rhetorics Of Opacity, Social Change, And Communal Cultivation: Case Studies Of Glbtq Christian Advocacy During The 1960s And Early 1970s, Joshua Holman Miller

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation probes questions about community and advocacy, analyzing four case studies involving GLBTQ Christian advocacy from the early 1960s to the early 1970s. Each case study involves the use of rhetoric to hide or downplay markers of the at-the-time stigmatized “homosexual” identity. The examined case studies are Bayard Rustin’s advocacy work with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the Council on Religion and the Homosexual, William Johnson’s ordination paper, and the 1973 Christian Reformed Church’s study report. To engage these texts, the dissertation develops theories about and methods for examining rhetorics of opacity—silence, hidden appeals, discourse that obscures, rhetorics of …

The Uses Of Community In Modern American Rhetoric, Cody Ryan Hawley

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study examines the functions of the term “community” in American social and political rhetoric. I contend that community serves as a god-term, or expression of value and order, which rhetors use to motivate actions, endorse values, include/exclude persons, and compensate for modern losses. Informed by the philosophy of Kenneth Burke, I explore the general features of “rhetorics of community,” including community’s ambiguity and status as an automatic good, the relationship between community and modernity, the myth of communal loss, and the uses of community as a site of political unity and contest. I analyze the writings of John Humphrey …

Rock ‘N’ Roll Radio: A Case Study Of ‘Tactics’ And Teenage Identity In Perth, Wa, 1955-1960, Lorna Baker

Theses : Honours

Post-war Australia was a time of celebration, of prosperity, abundance and consumerism. The booming economic and technological forces within Australia propelled the rise of popular culture and led to a transformation of traditions and identities. Most notable of these transformations was that of youth culture. The rise of the teenager, as a category of person and a consumer of culture, had an impact on the social interactions of many communities. At the same time, new technologies combined with newfound prosperity meant that popular culture, such as music, was available to all and radio became a prominent feature of everyday life. …

Migrant Archives, Byronaé Lewis

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

Migrant Archive is the cultural exploration of what design can be when it intertwines with the depth of ethnographic narratives . No longer allowing stationary boundaries to define where a culture begins and ends, as the space explores the migration patterns between divisions of each neighborhood within a city. The migrant hub works to capture and drop-off memory relics to tell the history of each region. The focus is to understand a culture through design while celebrating the positive and negative aspects within the past that have influenced the current moments.

Beyond The Bike; Identity And Belonging Of Free Cycles Members, Caitlyn Lewis

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

A qualitative analysis was conducted at the community bicycle shop, Free Cycles, in order to examine participants’ identities and belonging within a community of practice. Semi-structured interviews with 19 members of the community and 50 hours of participant observation were conducted. Data analysis followed the grounded theory methodology of Strauss and Corbin (1990). Four research questions were proposed to examine the ways participants at Free Cycles identified with the bicycle-related practices of bicycle riding and maintenance, co-constructed the collective organizational identity, and developed a sense of belonging within the community amongst other members. The constructs of identity and belonging were …

Leadership Development Programs: Exploring The Real Impact Upon Communities And Organizations, Brandon Steinert

Master's Theses

Leadership development programs are a popular tool utilized by communities and organizations to influence culture, challenge status quo and develop individuals. Research targeting the effectiveness of these programs is voluminous, but much of the work done thus far measures program effectiveness by one of two methods: either by the change in the attitudes and behavior of participants, or by the opinions participants held regarding the content and curriculum of the program. This study sought measure program effectiveness by looking at the real impact upon communities and organizations. This study explored the potential relationship between health and vibrancy of communities and …

In Search Of Solidarity: Identification Participation In Virtual Fan Communities, Jaime Shamado Robb

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study questions the way sports fans create (a sense of) community through online conversations. Here, ‘community’ and ‘internet’ are seen as invitational terms that suggest an authentic social interaction. By examining the language used by fans to sustain a sense of solidarity in the virtual realm, this study questions the ways in which rhetoric frames the situation. Participation in the virtual space relies on practices of identification derived from physical engagements. By using a rhetorical approach, this study illuminates the way individual participants operationalize a rhetoric in virtual conversations that spiritualize the fan’s experience at the base of a …