Digital Commons Network^™

Human Supremacy As Posthuman Risk, Daniel Estrada

Computer Ethics - Philosophical Enquiry (CEPE) Proceedings

Human supremacy is the widely held view that human interests ought to be privileged over other interests as a matter of public policy. Posthumanism is an historical and cultural situation characterized by a critical reevaluation of anthropocentrist theory and practice. This paper draws on Rosi Braidotti’s critical posthumanism and the critique of ideal theory in Charles Mills and Serene Khader to address the use of human supremacist rhetoric in AI ethics and policy discussions, particularly in the work of Joanna Bryson. This analysis leads to identifying a set of risks posed by human supremacist policy in a posthuman context, specifically …

Together Apart: Influences And Barriers To Engagement Among Remote Workers, Stacey-Robin H. Johnson

Student Theses and Dissertations

Organizations recognize the importance of having employees who do more than 'show up' for work. Rather, the goal is to have employees who will adapt to, embody, and promote the values, agenda, and strategic purposes of the organization beyond their work life. In the efforts around engagement, there are key influences in the organizational lifespan of an employee that can inspire or discourage engagement attitudes and behaviors.

Remote workers (defined here as those who work outside of a central, collective work setting) present unique challenges, the most pressing being maintaining a sense of connection and inclusion among the group in …

Examining The Relationship Between Media Consumption And Kenya's Political Culture, Gilbert Kipkoech

Theses and Dissertations

Using data collected from 206 participants, this country-specific study examines the relationship between media consumption and Kenya’s political culture. Political scientists and communicators contend that political culture encompasses several aspects. In this study, only four aspects of a country’s political orientations (culture) and its relationship with the media are examined (a) Political participation, (b) political trust, (c) patriotism, and (d) inter-ethnic attitudes. Drawing on past research, the study establishes a link between media use and political attitudes and behaviors of the Kenyan people, operationalized in the study as the political culture. While the literature is divided on whether the media …

Seeking Mirrors: Representation And Identity At Asian Pacific Islander Film Festivals, Yang Jiang

Dissertations

Media representation plays an important role in shaping how we perceive ourselves. For ethnic and racial minorities, studies have confirmed that exposure to stereotypical and negative representations can harm the development of ethnic and racial identity. Currently, however, there is little understanding of how representation can support the development of ethnic and racial identity. Essentially, what might visibility, rather than invisibility, in media representation look like, and what is the relationship between visibility and ethnic and racial identity?

This dissertation sought to address these questions by looking at the experience of Asian Pacific Islander (API) attendees at API film festivals. …

"The Chinese Animation Industry: From The Mao Era To The Digital Age", Stephanie Jones

Master's Projects and Capstones

Since the 1950’s the Chinese Animation industry has been trying to create a unique national style for China. The national style of the 1950’s and early 1960’s was one of freedom, fantasy, and creativity. With the success of “Heroic Little Sisters of the Grassland”/草原英雄小姐妹(1965), the government administration, namely Jiang Qing of the “Gang of Four”, demanded that all animation should follow specific guidelines based on Social Realism guidelines. This in turn, ushered in a new national style of animation during the Cultural Revolution(1966-1976). During this ten-year period government policies imposed strict restrictions on animators and cause a drain of creative …

To Listen: Semiotics, Deaf Representation, And A Silent Voice, Kristen Stedman

Senior Capstone Theses

A Silent Voice, a Japanese film released in 2016, serves as an example of how deaf communities in media can be more accurately portrayed.

Semiotics, the study of how we assign and derive meaning from language, images, and cultural phenomenon, often overlaps with film analysis and representational studies. These three fields are inherently interrelated in the power of film in conveying messages about an issue, location, or group to a wide audience. Too often, inaccurate portrayals of minority groups in film lead these groups to be simplified culturally, fostering misunderstanding and conflict between groups. Just one group that is …

To The Humanities: What Does Communication Studies Give?, Mari Lee Mifsud

Rhetoric and Communication Studies Faculty Publications

This special issue of Review of Communication presents new offerings of the study of communication, forging present and future humanities. This Introduction engages the six essays in this special issue—which extend and intersect across categories of the humanistic study of communication: communication philosophy and ethics, rhetorical theory, history, pedagogy, criticism, and digital humanities—to explore their contributions in defense of the humanities. Taken together, these essays explore the study of communication as (1) a resource for inquiring and exchanging with concepts, practices, and embodiments of difference, the other, and the posthuman; (2) a means of examining the ontological, epistemological, technological, existential, …

Posting Straight From The Art: An Analysis Of How Nonprofit Performing Arts Centers Use Social Media To Engage Audiences, Sean Quinn

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

With the NEA in jeopardy under President Donald Trump, nonprofit performing arts centers need to connect with potential donors now more than ever. Yet little research has been done into how venues should accomplish this. This project attempted to remedy that by analyzing what types of messages six nonprofit performing arts centers in the New York metropolitan area posted on Facebook and Twitter over a one-week period and which kinds of messages online audiences engaged with the most. Using the results, the study proposed seven recommendations public relations staff members can use to enhance their social media efforts and build …

A Cartography Of Roots: An Exploration Of Plant Communication, Place, And Story, Mariko Oyama Thomas

Communication ETDs

This study uses oral history and auto-ethnography to collect thematic data on relationships and communication between plants and people in New Mexico, USA. Western and industrial cultures tend to be plant-blind, which is extremely dangerous in the wake of climate disruption and associated loss of plant biodiversity. This study works to collect and produce a generative landscape of narratives of non-binary relationships between humans and plants. These narratives show a range of hopeful, relational connections between human and more-than-human worlds. Overall results indicated the existence of many positive relationships between plants and people in the Western world, and that these …

Multifaith Families And Their Narratives Within Society, Josh Friedberg

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The goal of this project is to nudge the conversation about interfaith families in a direction that examines the family post–interfaith dialogue. The term multifaith better represents this new aim because it encompasses all interactions and does not limit the family to the constraints of the moniker interfaith. I apply Walter Fisher’s concepts of coherence and fidelity, in coordination with family communication literature, to structure this project and to study the various aspects of a multifaith family and narrative. I also use three typologies of multifaith family (Passive/Passive, Passive/Active, and Active/Active) to better understand the variations of this family. The …

Black Body Memory: A Philosophy Of The Talk, Autumn Redcross

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This project offers the term Black body memory to point toward the threatened existential disposition of Black people in society today. Moreover, Black body memory points to the narrative paradigm of a shared experience. While popular conceptions theorize race as a social construction, the lived reality of Black people is frequently imbued by racialization and racism. Black body memory emerges from the intersection of the Black body articulated by Franz Fanon, Charles Johnson, and George Yancy, among others, and body memory, as described by Edward Casey and Thomas Fuchs. Black body memory is a culturally-laden and sedimented lived reality. The …

When Humanity Meets Technology: Contemplating Neil Postman's Critique Of Advertising, Yingwen Wang

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This project aims to contemplate Postman’s critique of advertising and offer insights to understand Integrated Marketing Communication (IMC) in today’s mediated environment. As an essential component of IMC, the history of advertising demonstrates and documents that the medium of communication has an extensive influence on IMC practices. The concern about how communication media affect human perception, understanding, and behavior, resides within the central claim of the study of media ecology. Thus, this project investigates IMC through the lens of Postman’s media ecology perspectives, and argues that Postman’s prescient ideas provide both hope and constructive insights. Moreover, Postman’s thermostatic perspective, rooted …

An Examination Of Sound Resource Libraries And Their Applications At Bowling Green State University, Madeleine Grimm

Honors Projects

In this applied research project, I have explored the uses and limitations of sound resources at Bowling Green State University for student projects. My goal has been to create a stock music library for students on campus to have easy access to for class projects and portfolio work. In this project I address: How can a university best manage its stock music and sound resources; are there any standards for best practices or outstanding examples? What sound resources currently exist for student use in general and at BGSU? How are these sound resources currently managed at BGSU? What are the …

Tone-Based Incivility And Content-Based Incivility: A Framework To Examine Online Uncivil Discourse, Sreerupa Sanyal

Electronic Theses & Dissertations

This research study is an attempt to distinguish between two types of incivility; tone-based incivility and content-based incivility. Building upon and extending on the theoretical framework proposed by Muddiman (Muddiman, 2017) on political incivility, this paper is an attempt to construct a two-dimensional framework within which online incivility could be analyzed. 624 comments were quantitatively analyzed from two news stories on the page of the New York Times on Facebook. The study established that tone based uncivil comments and content based uncivil comments could be a two-dimensional framework, within which to examine extant online discourse. It also found that despite …

An E-Learning Adaptation Of An Evidence-Based Media Literacy Curriculum To Prevent Youth Substance Use In Community Groups: Development And Feasibility Of Real Media, Anne E. Ray, Kathryn Greene, Michael L. Hecht, Sarah C. Barriage, Michelle Miller-Day, Shannon D. Glenn, Smita C. Banerjee

Communication Faculty Articles and Research

Background: There is a need for evidence-based substance use prevention efforts that target high school-aged youth that are easy to implement and suitable for dissemination in school and community groups. The Youth Message Development (YMD) program is a brief, four-lesson, in-person curriculum that aims to prevent youth substance use through the development of youth media literacy. Specifically, YMD aims to increase understanding of advertising reach and costs, along with the techniques used to sell products; develop counterarguing and critical thinking skills in response to advertisements; and facilitate application of these skills to the development of youth-generated antisubstance messages. Although …

Its Skin Is My Skin, Bryan Page

Graduate School of Art Theses

This text examines the complexity of attempting to empathize with bodies that are vastly othered from my own. This broad yet nuanced subject crosses epistemological boundaries and complicates the dualities between both the mind and body, and between the corporeal and the virtual. My desire to better understand the conditions of another’s experience originates from a painful traumatic loss which caused me to feel isolated and incomplete. In response to this suffering, I long to emotionally connect with other beings and create artwork that attempts to bridge the qualia of individual experience.

I am interested in the capacity (or lack …

Spartan Daily, May 8, 2019, San Jose State University, School Of Journalism And Mass Communications

Spartan Daily, 2019

Volume 152, Issue 42

Chimes: May 3, 2019, Calvin College

Chimes

Ken Heffner's faith influenced by unique Calvin College theology by Jonathan Boer

A spoiler-free review of "Avengers: Endgame" by Katherine Benedict

SAO being saved through fundraising efforts by Annette Espinoza

White nationalism rises nationwide; Calvin maintains anti-racist commitment by Garrett Strpko

Calvin alum named new women's coach by Ellington Smith

Opinion: Calvin College administration needs to talk about abortion by Caroline Smith

It's okay to not know everything by Jacob Baylor

The Cowl - V.83 - N.24 - May 2, 2019

The Cowl

The Cowl - student newspaper of Providence College. Vol. 83 No. 24 - May 2, 2019. 36 pages.

Extra-Activism: Counter-Mapping And Data Justice, Dorothy Kidd

Media Studies

Neither big data, nor data justice are particularly new. Data collection, in the form of land surveys and mapping, was key to successive projects of European imperialist and then capitalist extraction of natural resources. Geo-spatial instruments have been used since the fifteenth century to highlight potential sites of mineral, oil, and gas extraction, and inscribe European economic, cultural and political control across indigenous territories. Although indigenous groups consistently challenged maintained their territorial sovereignty, and resisted corporate and state surveillance practices, they were largely unable to withstand the combined onslaught of surveyors, armed personnel, missionaries and government bureaucrats. This article examines …

Spartan Daily, May 1, 2019, San Jose State University, School Of Journalism And Mass Communications

Spartan Daily, 2019

Volume 152, Issue 39

“Greening” Worcester: Municipal Best Practices For Sustainability, Erin Mckeon, Charline Kirongozi, Jared Duval, Antannia Greene, Qianshu Sun, Zewei Yao

School of Professional Studies

In response to the urgent threat posed by climate change, more and more cities, including Worcester, are attempting to become more environmentally responsible and sustainable. Worcester is attempting to develop ways to become more sustainable; both to strengthen their communities and to protect the planet. The Green Worcester Working Group (GWWG) tasked the Clark Capstone Team with researching best practices for municipal sustainability. The GWWG has set the following priorities: climate change mitigation, resilience, open spaces, sustainable resource management, education and awareness. Taking these into account, the Clark Capstone Team researched the sustainability practices of cities in New England, across …

Emoji Disorder: Using A Universal Digital Dialect To Enhance Architectural Communication, Doria Miller

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

The rise of digital communication has intertwined visual and textual information. As language continually updates to include pictograms, there is potential to update the language of architecture using these visual icons. Emojis are finding their way into our day-to-day vocabulary. In 2015, the word of the year, selected by Oxford Dictionaries, was the ‘Face with Tears of Joy’ emoji. These amicable emoticons tap into the architectural conversations from Learning from Las Vegas of the duck (symbol) and the decorated shed (signage) and themes of iconography as in Somol’s Green Dots 101. As emojis are not grounded in a specific verbal …

Friends Of The Libraries Newsletter, Spring 2019, Freinds Of The Libraries

Friends of the Libraries Newsletter

A thirty-three page newsletter that details news of the Friends of the Libraries group including the winners of the Library Student Assistant Awards, new members joining the Friends Board, STAR winners, Top Scholars, the Annual Luncheon and more.

Censura Dhe Autocensura Në Mediat Online Kosovare Dhe Si Manifestohet Ajo, Egzon Hyseni

Theses and Dissertations

Tema e titulluar : “Censura dhe autocensura në mediat online kosovare dhe si manifestohet ajo” , mendoj se ka një dobi të pritshme për faktin se zhvillimi i medieve online nuk mund të mendohet pa këto dy elemente profesionale. Punimi im andaj e rritë nivelin e dijes për të kuptuar më qartë, më saktë dhe më me kompetencë fenomenin e censurës dhe autocensurës në mediet online. Përmes këtij punimi të diplomës do të njohim më mirë dhe më afër esencën e censurës, si shfaqet ajo, kush ndikon që censura të jetë e pranishme në mediet online. A janë shkrimet e …

Comm-Entary, Spring 2019 - Full Issue

Comm-entary

In this issue:

We Are the Crystal Gems: Themes of Identity in Steven Universe by Hannah Baum

A Media Analysis of ‘Nikes’ by Frank Ocean by Emily Bourne

Street Art: A Crime or a Movement by Taylor Chieffalo

Sorry (Not Sorry): Who Carries the Weight of Digital Public Shaming? by Eva Ford

Directed Versus Reflective Gestures by Jordan Kafka

How a Generation is Changing a Century-Long Stigma by Kristiana Osbourne

David Koresh: Irreverently Divine by Kieran Reardon

It’s Like, A Highlighter: A focus on responses to the ‘Focalizer Like’ by Matthew Santangelo

#Aerie Man: An Analysis by Grace Smith

Living …

Culture Of Mobile Phone Novels In Japan: A Comparison Of Cultural Particularities Of Mobile Phone Novels And Service Providers, Sarah Trinh

Undergraduate Theses and Capstone Projects

Honor thesis on the Culture of Mobile Phone Novels in Japan: A Comparison of Cultural Particularities of Mobile Phone Novels and Service Providers.

American Sign-Language (Asl) For Audiologists, Colette Vossler-Welch

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The goal of this project is to provide a means for Audiologists, Speech-Language-pathologists and related personnel to improve their ability to communicate and connect with culturally Deaf individuals through the use of video-animated sign-language interpretations. Arguments for or against the bilingual approach of using ASL and the spoken language with regards to Deaf education will be discussed through both a personal memoir and a review of current literature. This study will also shed light upon the history of the American Deaf population, American Sign-Language (ASL) and will conclude with a training module in ASL. The training module will be available …

#Pawnderadoption Creating A Public Relations Campaign To Increase Adoption Rates Among Shelters In The United States, Hannah Allison

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

Pet overpopulation has been a national issue for years. With thousands of unwanted stray cats and dogs found on the streets annually, local shelters are doing their best to rehabilitate and rehome animals. However, funds and resources are limited, and communication efforts are poor. Animal shelters need to begin to focus on public relations efforts in order to boost identity within their local communities. The purpose of this research was to discover what inherently goes into developing a comprehensive, successful public relations campaign. This study specifically focused on the following research questions (a) what makes a public relations campaign successful? …

Socially Constructing Marijuana Policy And Target Populations In The News Media, Jonathan Taylor Langner

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This research focuses on different aspects of the co-construction African Americans and marijuana in the news. First, the historical background of modern drug laws, including marijuana prohibition, and how this was dependent on racialized fears in the wake of the abolition of slavery. Next, the prevalence and variety of marijuana constructions in a national newspaper, with careful attention paid to associations with racial identifiers. Finally, how African American athletes and marijuana are co-constructed in an exemplary article.

Chapter 2 describes how racial fears relate to the social construction of disadvantaged population in the media. We first describe the current situation …