Digital Commons Network^™

A Certainty-Weighted, Belief-Based Model Of Political Attitudes: A Bayesian Analysis Of American Public Attitudes Toward The Affordable Care Act, Gabriel Miao Li, Josh Pasek, Jon A. Krosnick

Communication Faculty Articles and Research

This study proposes a novel, certainty-weighted account of the process by which political beliefs shape political attitudes. Building upon expectancy-value frameworks, this paper introduces belief certainty as a moderator of belief impact. A Bayesian partial-pooling approach is used to test a model positing how beliefs about what the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act does and does not do relate to overall attitudes toward the law. This analytic method manages the complexity of multiple potentially correlated beliefs and evaluations by imposing a structural constraint to avoid multicollinearity and enable accurate estimation of parameters. Data from a nationally representative sample survey …

Navigating The Storm: A Qualitative Metaphor-Based Analysis Of Resilience And Identity Reconstruction Among Displaced Professionals, Erhan Atay, Serkan Bayraktaroglu, Leo Johannesberg

The Qualitative Report

Building on previous management scholarship, this paper explains how Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT) and metaphorical expressions inform organizational resilience and leadership communication in employee support strategies. It tries to capture the interplay between personal sensemaking and collective adaptation. The study aims to provide practitioners with hands-on insights into developing inclusion, resilience, and identity reconstruction in organizational and societal contexts of disruption. The analysis identifies three critical metaphorical themes: resilience, which is likened to "climbing a mountain;" isolation, which is likened to being "trapped in a bubble;" and identity reconstruction, which is likened to "picking up the shattered pieces of a …

State Narrative Dominance In Terrorism Reporting: A Critical Discourse Analysis Of Kompas Coverage, Putri Khairunnisa

Journal of Terrorism Studies

This study examines Kompas.com’s news construction of the bombing at the Makassar Cathedral Church on 28 March 2021 by integrating Entman’s Media Framing theory with Fairclough’s Critical Discourse Analysis. Using all news reports published between 28 March and 5 April 2021, the study finds that Kompas frames the event through security-oriented diction, agent–action structures that foreground state authorities as the primary actors, and high-modality statements that minimize uncertainty during the early crisis phase. Intertextual references to previous terrorism cases accelerate the labeling of the perpetrators as part of the JAD network. At the level of discursive practice, reliance on official …

“It’S All Fun And Games Until Someone Loses An Eye (-Test): On The Presence And Consequences Of An Argument Scheme That Re-Works Our Notions Of Evidence And Support”, Matthew P. Brigham

Studies in Debate and Oratory

This essay explores an argument scheme commonly employed in sport communication, the “Eye Test,” which claims that a good faith watching of two teams or athletes, for instance, provides its own evidence as to which is superior. A distinction is drawn between a weak version of the argument, the earned eye test, and the strong version, the universal eye test. Focusing on the latter, which does not rely on expertise but claims that any individual should be able to see the proof of the argument, the essay explores a range of everyday and public sphere arguments that operate …

Truth Will Out: Combating The Rhetoric Of Modern Conspiracy Theory, Seth Kelley

Communication and Theater Association of Minnesota Journal

This essay explores modern conspiracy theories’ relationship to hatred and ignorance, and how specious ideas do not hold up to classical rhetorical analysis. It posits reasons why power embraces conspiracies that it has traditionally rejected and explains power and conspiracy theory’s symbiotic relationship in the age of misinformation. It champions rhetoric as the best tool to combat conspiracy theories.

Thesis: In order to effectively combat conspiracy theory’s undermining of human progress, we must hold conspiracists accountable for spreading dangerous lies, directly teach formal rhetoric in all public schools (and how to spot specious content), effectively foster multicultural respect and appreciation, …

Volume 48, 2025 Communication And Theater Association Of Minnesota Journal

Communication and Theater Association of Minnesota Journal

Complete digitized volume (volume 48) of Communication and Theater Association of Minnesota Journal.

Empathy On Trial: The Role Of Neuroscience And Communication In Sexual Violence Jurisprudence, Samantha M. Gonzales

Honors Program Theses and Research Projects

Sexual violence remains a contentious public safety and legal challenge, which has become further complicated by the tension between supporting victim-survivors and safeguarding the falsely accused. False accusations, though still well below the numbers of rightly accused, are experiencing a rise in popularity given recent (past ten years) political climates. This thesis examines how communication theory, neuroscience, and law intersect in molding perceptions of truth, culpability, and justice in sexual violence cases; while also examining the intersectionality of those fields in addressing the candor of allegations, the rate of recidivism, and quality of public health and safety. The most prominent …

The Cowl - V. 89 N. 9 - November 20, 2025

The Cowl

The Cowl - student newspaper of Providence College. Vol. 89 No. 9 - November 20, 2025. 24 pages.

November 19, 2025: Vol 105, Issue 9, The Herald

The Herald

The top story for Wednesday, November 19, 2025 was "SGA unanimously votes to expand use of flex dollars."

Budget And Collection Management Communication Strategies, Tools, And Methods, Evan Rusch, Heidi J. Southworth, Daardi Sizemore Mixon, Lisa Baures, Nat Gustafson-Sundell, Joe Holtermann

Library Services Publications

Many libraries face challenging budget situations. Communication with departments and administration about budget management and related changes to collections can be crucial to maintain constructive relationships and to improve cooperative planning. Academic libraries often rely on librarian liaisons to communicate directly with departments, but additional communication efforts are sometimes pursued. Libraries could learn from one another by sharing their communication strategies, tools, and methods. Our library has recently focused on collections communication across a range of projects and audiences. These projects have included a budget reduction plan and major print deselection project, as well as ongoing, prospective budget management. The …

From Prompt To Prejudice: Visual Evidence From Ai Image Generation Platforms, Jinu K. Varghese, Padma Rani

Markets, Globalization & Development Review

This study examines how AI image generation systems perpetuate digital orientalism through systematic cultural representation patterns that increasingly shape global digital markets and international development discourse. Using visual social semiotics methodology, we conducted comparative analysis of Midjourney and ChatGPT platforms across nine culturally specific prompts examining religious imagery, contemporary social dynamics, and power structures in Indian cultural contexts. Our findings reveal that both platforms consistently reproduce colonial-era representational frameworks despite culturally sensitive prompting and advanced technical capabilities. The analysis identifies three systematic patterns: temporal displacement strategies that acknowledge modernity while containing it within orientalist categories, institutional validation requirements that privilege …

Joint Action (In)Action: A Communicatively Constituted Examination Of Shared Governance, Organizational Sustainability, And The Future Of Liberal Arts In Institutions Of Higher Education, Rebecca R. Todd

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

There are at least two versions of higher education today. One is that universities and curriculum need to be reformed to suit contemporary exigencies, particularly market-driven logics and direct paths to desirable job and career outcomes. The other is the story in this dissertation, namely, that the liberal arts hold value for the creation of new knowledge, critical thinking, and empowerment. With this admittedly one-sided corrective to the dominant narrative of higher education, this abstract and dissertation begin.

In the contemporary landscape of American higher education, the liberal arts are under siege. Once heralded as the cornerstone of democratic citizenship …

Commodification, Spatialization, And Structuration In Collaboration Between Local Media And Local Government In West Java, Awang Ruswandi

JURNAL KOMUNIKASI INDONESIA

In the era of local government autonomy and decentralization, numerous collaborations have emerged between local governments and local media, particularly in reporting government activities. Utilizing Vincent Mosco's political economy of communication framework, this study aims to elucidate the power relations manifested through commodification, specialization, and structuration between local media and government. This qualitative case study gathers data through in-depth interviews. Findings reveal that local government media cooperation funds serve as a mechanism to secure special coverage spaces with positive content about governmental activities, not in the form of advertising or advertorial, but in the form of news. While financially beneficial …

The Cowl - V. 89 N. 8 - November 13, 2025

The Cowl

The Cowl - student newspaper of Providence College. Vol. 89 No. 8 - November 13, 2025. 20 pages.

Storytelling Technique For Peer Group Communication About Reproductive Health On “Bacarita Kespro”, Irene Aprilya Meok, Ana Nadhya Abrar

JURNAL KOMUNIKASI INDONESIA

This study examines storytelling techniques for adolescents in group communication as a medium for reproductive health education in the “Bacarita Kespro”, a program organized by Tenggara Youth Community. The use of new educational methods is essential as traditional lecture-based approaches have proven ineffective in educating adolescents about reproductive health. Guided by narrative communication theory and symbolic convergence theory, this study employs a qualitative approach combining observation and interview data. The results show that storytelling practices in group communication involve adolescents alternating roles as storytellers and listeners, focusing on the theme of changes during puberty. From the perspective of narrative understanding, …

People Living With Hiv Became Influencers On Social Media: Breaking The Stigma, Charisma Asri Fitrananda, Yogi Muhammad Yusuf, Qisthy Rabathy, Yusuf Bahtiar

JURNAL KOMUNIKASI INDONESIA

This study examines the differences in stigma experienced by people living with human immunodeficiency virus (PLHIV) on social media and in broader Indonesian society. When PLHIV disclose their HIV-positive status on social media and attempt to break the stigma by becoming social media influencers, they receive both supportive and critical responses. Negative reactions arise when they are perceived as promoting risky activities, as burdens to the state, or when they face challenges securing sponsorship for their initiatives. This research employs a case study approach to explore the experiences of PLHIV use social media influence as a means to counter HIV-related …

Ddx219.1 Social Media Analysis And Marketing Strategy Example 5, Sae University College

Exemplars

This project involved creating a suite of social media content tailored to the student’s chosen creative project. The work is exemplary for its consistent visual style, platform-specific content design, and alignment with the strategic goals defined on Project 1.

The Cowl - V. 89 N. 7 - November 6, 2025

The Cowl

The Cowl - student newspaper of Providence College. Vol. 89 No. 7 - November 6, 2025. 16 pages.

Communicating The Truth-Telling And Space-Making Of Black Women In Higher Education: A Trap Feminist Study, Chazman Deira Mckoy

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation adopts a “for Black women, by Black women” approach to examine how Black women’s lived experiences and performances of racialized gender become communicative acts of agency as they navigate the intersecting challenges of race and gender within pedagogical contexts.

Grounded in Black Feminist Pedagogy and expanded through Trap Feminism, this study celebrates the complexity of racialized gender performances and theorizes them as intentional communicative acts of resistance. These acts not only confront dominant ideologies but also create ongoing spaces for truth-telling, spaces where Black women can reframe how their stories, labor, and brilliance are recognized in academic contexts …

Investigating The Relationship Between Noun Classes And Plant Folk Taxonomy In Chasu Language Of Kilimanjaro Region In Tanzania, Peter Rabson Mziray

Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences

The current study investigates the relationship between noun classes and plant folk taxonomy in Chasu (G 22). The study focuses on two objectives: the first objective is to describe the plant folk taxonomy in Chasu and the second objective is to determine the relationship between noun classes and plant folk taxonomy in Chasu. Data were collected from rural villages in Same and Mwanga districts by using free listing, field interviews (jungle-walk-and-identify), and written texts containing Chasu plant names. The findings reveal that Chasu folk taxonomy reflects different ethnobotanical categories; including a unique beginner which is mmea/mimea ‘plant(s)’, and three life …

Fraggin’ The Superhero Genre: Parody And Carnival In Dc’S Lobo, Ryan L. Johnson

Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy

This essay examines the DC anti-hero Lobo as an ideal example of the constructive, creative power of parody and Bakhtinian carnival. Unlike Bakhtin’s assertion that carnival since the Renaissance has lost its spirit of play and become purely destructive, Lobo uses grotesque violence to create just as much as he destroys social norms. Ultimately, the mini-series under consideration provide a valuable tool for students to understand carnival, parody, and its power as criticism.

Social Media Sponsorship: Metrics And Strategies For Finding The Right Content Creator-Sponsor Matches, Shahryar Doosti, Stephanie Lee, Young Tan

Business Faculty Articles and Research

Social media video sponsorship, where sponsors partner with content creators to promote their brands, has become increasingly popular. Leveraging rich data on sponsored and nonsponsored videos on Facebook, we introduce two metrics, Content Similarity and Audience Closeness, to help sponsors find effective creator-sponsor matches. Content Similarity captures the thematic alignment between a creator’s content and a sponsor’s brand, whereas Audience Closeness measures how closely aligned a creator’s and sponsor’s audiences are within a social media network. We find that both metrics significantly increase video viewership, but their effects vary over time. Audience Closeness generates more immediate, short-term engagement, whereas …

How Warm-Versus Competent-Toned Ai Apologies Affect Trust And Forgiveness Through Emotions And Perceived Sincerity, Joon Soo Lim, Nalae Hong, Erika J. Schneider

Media Studies - All Scholarship

As generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) becomes more integrated into corporate communication, its role in crisis messaging raises critical questions about audience perception and trust. Drawing on theories of machine heuristics, this study explores how relational cues in AI-authored crisis apologies shape emotional and cognitive responses that ultimately influence trust and forgiveness. A 3 (authorship attribution: AI vs. human vs. control) x 2 (relational tone: warmth vs. competence) between-subjects factorial design with 464 participants was conducted to assess if and how incorporating a warm tone into AI-generated apologies can help overcome AI's inherent limitations associated with machine heuristics. Results show that …

How Warm-Versus Competent-Toned Ai Apologies Affect Trust And Forgiveness Through Emotions And Perceived Sincerity, Joon Soo Lim, Erika Schneider

Media Studies - All Scholarship

As generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) becomes more integrated into corporate communication, its role in crisis messaging raises critical questions about audience perception and trust. Drawing on theories of machine heuristics, this study explores how relational cues in AI-authored crisis apologies shape emotional and cognitive responses that ultimately influence trust and forgiveness. A 3 (authorship attribution: AI vs. human vs. control) x 2 (relational tone: warmth vs. competence) between-subjects factorial design with 464 participants was conducted to assess if and how incorporating a warm tone into AI-generated apologies can help overcome AI’s inherent limitations associated with machine heuristics. Results show that …

"I Come From The Witches You Weren't Ableto Lynch And Burn": Metaphysics And The Rise Of Black Women's Online Spiritual Activism, Blake Montgomery

Theses (2016-Present)

From ancient Black gods to field women who conjured and worked the land. Ancestral griots to church mothers, magicikal practitioners, spell workers, healers, and supernatural rebels. From evil Black witches persecuted and lynched, to dark-skinned devotees, these powerful femmes emerge from centuries of Black metaphysical labor. They are the women we know, may have been raised by, deeply love, yet often fail to acknowledge. If the title of this thesis hasn’t already scared you off—or at worst, confirmed your biases—then you may already know that Black women’s spiritual experiences have long been central to literature, as vividly portrayed by fiction …

The Cowl - V. 89 N. 6 - October 30, 2025

The Cowl

The Cowl - student newspaper of Providence College. Vol. 89 No. 6 - October 30, 2025. 20 pages.

Exploring Patient Perspectives On The Availability And Demand For Patient-Friendly Resources In Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer, Danielle Brazel, Aakash Desai, Fawzi Abu Rous, Jill Feldman, Eric Singhi

Advances in Cancer Education and Quality Improvement

Introduction: The growing emphasis on patient-centered care, along with the rise of open-access publications and online platforms, has increased patient demand for education about their medical conditions. In this context, patient-friendly language summaries of fundamental cancer clinical trials may be valuable resources for patients to learn more about their disease and treatment options.

Methods: We surveyed patients diagnosed with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) to assess the availability and need for easy-to-understand resources related to treatment decision-making and side effect profiles. Patients were also provided an example patient-friendly language summary and asked for feedback.

Results: One hundred fourteen patients responded …

The Current - Volume 36 Issue 4, Nova Southeastern University

Student Newspapers

No abstract provided.

The Cowl - V. 89 N. 5 - October 23, 2025

The Cowl

The Cowl - student newspaper of Providence College. Vol. 89 No. 5 - October 23, 2025. 20 pages.

Think Piece: New South Korean Framework For Conceptualizing Nonkoreans?: Taehanoegugin And The Politics Of National Boundary-Making, Min Joo Lee

Asia Pacific Perspectives

Taehanoegugin is a newly coined Korean term that gained popularity around 2018 when a television program of the same name began airing on one of the Korean cable networks. It is a mixture of two independent and preexisting terms: the first part of the word, Taehan (대한), refers to the Republic of Korea; the latter part of the term, Oegugin (외국인), means foreigner. Hence, translated, the term means the Republic of Korean-foreigners. The term gained popularity enough to be adopted by other television entertainment programs and a sector of the government. What can we make of the term’s popularity? Does …