Digital Commons Network^™

Teaching For Social Justice In The Engaged Classroom: The Intersection Of Jesuit And Feminist Moral Philosophies, Karen L. Slattery, Ana C. Garner, Joyce M. Wolburg, Lynn H. Turner

College of Communication Faculty Research and Publications

No abstract provided.

Addressing Academic Integrity: Perspectives From Virginia Commonwealth University In Qatar, Nancy E. Fawley

Library Faculty Research

Understanding the cultural aspects that affect a student’s ability to appropriately use resources is important in developing outreach and instruction in multicultural settings. Differences in educational philosophies, students’ previous scholastic training and cultural differences in individual motivation are all factors that may affect a freshman’s ability to understand an American university’s idea of academic integrity and can inadvertently cause problems where independent work and critical thinking are required. At Virginia Commonwealth University in Qatar (VCU Qatar), a branch campus of the American university in the Middle East, a special class on academic integrity and ethical behavior was integrated into the …

Metaphor And Stories In Discourse About Personal And Social Change, L. David Ritchie

Communication Faculty Publications and Presentations

Barack Obama campaigned on the theme of ‘change,’ and as the first African-American to win the U. S. Presidency, he embodies changes of historical and cultural importance. Central among the changes Obama advocates is his attempt, throughout his campaign, to depart from the ‘old politics’ and keep racial issues in the background. However, at a crucial point in the campaign he was forced to confront these issues when a potentially damaging controversy erupted over a series of comments, widely regarded as unpatriotic, made by his personal friend and spiritual adviser, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright. How Obama dealt with this crisis …

Playing Italian: Cross-Cultural Dress And Investigative Journalism At The Fin De Siècle, Laura Vorachek

English Faculty Publications

This examination of late Victorian journalism reveals that one type of clothing offered middle-class women protection from street harassment: cross-cultural dress. In appropriate ethnic attire, reporters and social investigators ventured into the immigrant communities that made up a part of England’s urban poor, exploring such trades as Jewish fur-puller or Italian organ-grinder. This incognito ethnic attire afforded women both the means and the authority to carry out their investigations into the Italian constituency of the Victorian working poor. This study also examines how costumes enabled female investigators to manipulate class- and gender-based assumptions about who had broad access to the …

Hegemonic Peter?: A Critical Analysis Of Hegemonic Masculinity In Family Guy, Justin Danowski

Masters Theses

Hegemonic masculinity is a constantly evolving and highly nuanced theory. The original definition was designed to study the oppression males exert over females. Later definitions expanded on the original to include young, effeminate or gay men. In the realm of television, hegemonic masculine forces are perpetuated by not only male characters but marginalized groups as well. This creates gender stereotypes to be accepted and embraced as the norm in a culture. This project takes a critical look at the animated television comedy Family Guy and explains how hegemonic masculinity is portrayed throughout the episode "Family Gay". To accomplish this, the …

Technology Mediated Recruitment: An Exploration Of How Students Used Social Media To Choose College, Ashley Nicole Cooper

Masters Theses

This qualitative study explored the use of social media as a tool to recruit prospective college students. Social media was defined as any electronic media that serves as a networking tool with the ability to educate prospective and current college students about an institution of higher education (i.e. Twitter, Facebook, Blogs, etc.). The researcher met with two focus groups comprised of current college students to discuss their use of social media during their college search process.

Recommendations were developed for student affairs professionals and for future research. General themes and categories from participant responses were evaluated. The findings suggest that …

Tracking Onslow: A Community In Transition. Edition 1, 2012, Kayt Davies, Jasmine Amis, Jon Hopper, Claire Ottaviano, Aine Ryan

Tracking Onslow: a community in transition

Onslow, the town and community you live in, is in for a lot of changes over the next few years. Gas projects will bring new faces, while many old faces are leaving, and new money will buy new things. Will this mean that Onslow loses some of it’s ramshackle, rustic charm? Will it attract hordes of new tourists who’ll crowd out the old crew?

Maybe, maybe not — either way we want to know what you think.

This project is a collaboration between the journalism program at Edith Cowan University and the Shire of Ashburton and it’s all about tracking …

Organizational Communication, Social Media, And Sensemaking During A Cascading Crisis: Tokyo Disney And The 2011 Japan Earthquake/Tsunami/Nuclear Crisis, Holly Ann Roberts

Theses and Dissertations--Communication

This study examines the connection between organizational crisis communication and sensemaking. In particular, the research focuses on messages of instructing, adjusting and reputation management and the use of social media in distributing these messages through and by the Tokyo Disney Resort during the earthquake/tsunami/nuclear crisis that hit Japan in 2011. Case study methods are used to analyze news coverage, Twitter and YouTube videos, informed by personal interviews and documentation related to the crisis and the Tokyo Disney Resort. The analysis found that the Tokyo Disney Resort provided messages of instructing, adjusting and reputation management in order to effectively foster the …

Effects Of Image Congruency On Persuasiveness And Recall In Direct-To-Consumer Prescription Drug Advertising, Kristen M. Kiernicki

Theses and Dissertations--Communication

Although direct-to-consumer (DTC) prescription drug advertising is regulated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, content analyses (Baird-Harris, 2009; Frosch, Krueger, Hornik, Cronbolm, & Berg, 2007; Kaphingst, DeJong, Rudd, & Daltroy, 2004; Wilkes, Bell, & Kravitz, 2000) and other studies (Davis, 2000, 2007) have suggested that advertisers may not disclose drug risks to the same extent that they describe drug benefits. This study builds on previous studies by Baird-Harris and Smith and Shaffer (2000) and aims to test the relationship between image congruency in televised DTC advertisements, recall of risks and benefits, and perceived ad persuasiveness. Advertisements for Nexium, Advair, …

Withholding Political Authority: Civil Society And People's Power In Zimbabwe, A. Scott Dupree

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The relationship of civil society to the state is rarely antagonistic and at most times supportive. The political regime and civil society are taken to be interdependent social structures that interact through hegemonic, supportive and socially constructed dimensions. Given this interdependency, when does civil society challenge authority or does its efforts rise to the level of a people's power revolution? When does it act to dismantle the political regime or seek to reconstruct it? This project attempts to shed light on how civil society mobilizes a people's power capable of challenging political authority through the story of its ongoing struggles …

Reality Television And Its Effect On The Academic Achievement Of Inner-City High School Students, Natifia Mullings

Communication & Leadership Dissertations and Theses

The impact of heavy television viewing and the effects it has on young viewers has been a dominant topic since the 1960s. With the ever-changing landscape of television programming, reality television has become increasingly popular, especially among the pre-teen and teen audiences. This study explores George Gerbner‘s Cultivation Theory (1998), which assumes that television has the ability to influence the attitudes and perceptions of its viewers, and uses it as a foundation to determine if there is an association between reality television consumption and the attitudes inner-city high school students have towards education. A total of 251 inner-city high school …

This Just In: Breaking News With Social Media By The Newspaper Organizations In The Southwestern Corner Of New York State, Chris Chapman

Communication & Leadership Dissertations and Theses

Social media is the newest form of technology to tempt journalists. What is it? How can it be used to bring their information to the consumers? This thesis examines the ability of eight papers in the southwestern corner of New York state to break news on social media like Facebook and Twitter. The study, conducted by a survey of the journalists working for those papers, takes a look at the policies that govern social media within their organization. Through the lens of the agenda-setting theory, the data shows that the rural region of New York state has yet to find …

Bridging The Gap Between Academic And Practical Crisis Response Strategy Using A Public Risk Perception Model, Kyle Davidson

Communication & Leadership Dissertations and Theses

As risk is inherent in any profitable or viable business, it can be assumed that at some point an organization may face a crisis stemming from known or unknown risks. As such, it is important for organizations to understand how to respond to crises. Crisis communication really has one simple goal in mind: to minimize the effects of the crisis on the organization’s reputation. William Benoit’s “Image Restoration Theory” and Timothy Coombs’ “Situational Crisis Communication Theory” set a framework for how organizations can respond successfully in crisis situations. Yet much of the contemporary academic theory fails to translate from academic …

The Cat Is Back: Analyzing Newspaper Coverage Of Mountain Lions In The Midwest, Chloe Euston

Honors Capstones

No abstract provided.

Effects Of Deafness On Acoustic Characteristics Of American English Tense/Lax Vowels In Maternal Speech To Infants, Maria V. Kondauroava, Tonya R. Bergeson

Scholarship and Professional Work - Communication

Recent studies have demonstrated that mothers exaggerate phonetic properties of infant-directed (ID) speech. However, these studies focused on a single acoustic dimension (frequency), whereas speech sounds are composed of multiple acoustic cues. Moreover, little is known about how mothers adjust phonetic properties of speech to children with hearing loss. This study examined mothers’ production of frequency and duration cues to the American English tense/lax vowel contrast in speech to profoundly deaf (N = 14) and normal-hearing (N = 14) infants, and to an adult experimenter. First and second formant frequencies and vowel duration of tense (/i/, /u/) and lax (/I/, …

The Influence Of Acculturation On The Nonverbal Communication Of African People : A Study Of The Ibibio People In Rural And Suburban Areas Of Akwaibom State, Nigeria, John J. Okon

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Abstract

Stewards Of The Land : Demonstrations Of Agricultural Authenticity In Columbia County, Ny, Jaclyn Rose Bruntfield

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

The origins of food in the U.S. have come under close public scrutiny in recent years. An increasing number of farmers markets, certified organic products, and Community Supported Agriculture programs indicate that Americans are seeking out alternatives to the mainstream food system. The industrialization of food production in the post-World War II era, while providing larger amounts of inexpensive food than ever before, has arguably compromised people's relationships with food. While farming was once a common way of life in the U.S., today only one percent of Americans identify farming as their primary occupation.

On The Origins Of The Cute As A Dominant Aesthetic Category In Digital Culture, Dylan E. Wittkower

Philosophy Faculty Publications

In discussions of online culture, nobody has yet given sufficient consideration to the importance of cute animal pictures. While there are perhaps obvious reasons for this aspect of online culture being and remaining understudied, from an objective stance we should consider it both surprising and noteworthy that, once given the means of mass communications and internationally accessible publication, a primary activity that people are interested in and committed to is the sharing of cute and funny pictures, especially of cats. This presumably unforeseeable outcome is made stranger yet by the relative lack of commercial motivation for a communications category that …

How One Writes, Makes, Markets A Movie And How An Audience Reads The Movie: Two Biographical Films Of Hitler As A Case Study, Nick Chi-Shu J. Yeh

CGU Theses & Dissertations

According to John Lukacs, German people's views on Hitler and Nazism once got examined right after the fall the Third Reich in the 1950s but this subject has lost its appeal since then. How do Germans nowadays, specifically those young ones raised in the "New Germany" after the fall of the Berlin Wall, think of Hitler and their country's Nazi legacy? This dissertation is to explore how six young Germans growing up in the new "unified Germany" interpret two films' representations of Hitler and Nazism.

Contents, Discovery Editors

Discovery, The Student Journal of Dale Bumpers College of Agricultural, Food and Life Sciences

No abstract provided.

Discovery: The Student Journal Of Dale Bumpers College Of Agricultural, Food And Life Sciences - Volume 13 2012, Several Authors

Discovery, The Student Journal of Dale Bumpers College of Agricultural, Food and Life Sciences

No abstract provided.

Letter From The Dean, Michael Vayda

Discovery, The Student Journal of Dale Bumpers College of Agricultural, Food and Life Sciences

No abstract provided.

Instructions For Authors, Discovery Editors

Discovery, The Student Journal of Dale Bumpers College of Agricultural, Food and Life Sciences

No abstract provided.

Communication Effectiveness And The Emerald Ash Borer Mitigation Campaign, Jonathon Heide

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

Environmental risk communication is scrutinized by several research fields including, as Herndl and Brown (1996) show, technical communications. This technical communications thesis rhetorically analyses how large and small government agencies in the State of Minnesota communicate a specific environmental risk: emerald ash borer (EAB). EAB is an insect native to Asia and arrived in Detroit on a cargo ship sometime in the 1990s (Cappaert 2005, 153; Poland 2011, 46). By 2012, it spread to the 15 states and two Canadian provinces (USDA--APHIS 2012). EAB's life cycle will causes tree decline in Minnesota, the state with the most ash (MNDNR 2012). …

Speaking Ill Of The Dead: Anonymity And Communication About Suicide On Mydeathspace.Com, Lynette G. Leonard, Paige W. Toller

Communication Faculty Publications

From birth to death, many individuals chronicle their lives online through blogs, pictures, games, Web sites, and social networks. Online spaces, created by the living about the dead, provide a glimpse into often invisible or silent grieving practices. To investigate the role computer-mediated communication (CMC) plays in influencing communication surrounding the often private and taboo topic of suicide, we analyzed the comments sections of MyDeathSpace.com. Our results suggest both a breaking down of social taboos (speaking ill of the dead) and a reaffirming of strict social norms (enforcing a narrow range of acceptable presentation of identity and purpose in life), …

Haptics-Augmented Training Software For Undergraduate Engineering Mechanics, Ernur Karadogan, Robert L. Williams, David R. Moore, Tian Luo

STEMPS Faculty Publications

This paper presents the development efforts for a set of software activities and tutorials to augment teaching and learning in standard required undergraduate engineering mechanics courses. Using these software activities, students can change parameters, predict answers, compare outcomes, interact with animations, and feel the results. The overall system aims to increase teaching and learning effectiveness by rendering the concepts compelling, fun, and engaging. The problem with current examples and homework problems is that they are flat, static, boring, and non-engaging, which may lead to student attrition and a less than full grasp of fundamental principles. We implement integration of haptics …

Partnership Representation In Public Communications: An Analysis Of Community-Engaged Universities' Websites, Christy Kayser Arrazattee

LSU Master's Theses

This study examines the ways in which campus-community partnerships are represented in public communications produced by community-engaged institutions of higher education. Leading scholars of campus-community partnerships and service-learning agree that such relationships should be based on a reciprocal exchange between partners. In public relations endeavors, however, professionals concentrating solely on communicating the university’s achievements may overlook the equal contributions of the community partner. This study analyzed website content and universities publications from six colleges nationally recognized for their community-engagement efforts. Using quantitative and qualitative analysis, web content was analyzed for indicators of reciprocity developed from foundational literature regarding campus-community partnerships. …

Advice In Troubles Talk Conversations Between Strangers: The Role Of Problem Seriousness And The Impact Of Advice On Helper Supportiveness And The Desire For Future Interactions, Andrea Jean Vickery

LSU Master's Theses

In troubles talk conversations, problems are disclosed and discussed. When responding to problem disclosures, advice is one common response where the respondent recommends how to think, feel or act in response to a problem. This thesis focuses on extending our understanding of advice messages, with a main research question focused on determining if advice occurs in initial interactions between strangers. Through an analysis of 125 transcribed conversations, advice was present in 38.4% (n = 44) of the conversations. Advice was offered in response to less serious problems, supporting the first hypothesis. There was no support found for the positive association …

Community As Metaphor: Dialectical Tensions Of A Racially Diverse Organization, Joseph Jacob Jenkins

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In recent years, a sense of community has declined throughout the United States. Common Point Community Church has responded to this trend by prioritizing "community" as an organizational metaphor. The present study explores how this metaphor is co-constructed through the communication practices of current organizational leaders and members. I begin this process, first, by positioning the study within existing literature on institutional theory, institutional legitimacy, community, community of practice, social construction of race, sensemaking, organizational metaphor, tension-centered approach, and dialectic theory. Building upon more than three years of ethnographic field work, I then outline the study's context and methodology. Next, …

Nastasia Is All About Interpersonal Communication, Aldemaro Romero Jr.

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.