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Expectations Of Artificial Intelligence And The Performativity Of Ethics: Implications For Communication Governance, Aphra Kerr, Marguerite Barry, John D. Kelleher

Articles

This article draws on the sociology of expectations to examine the construction of expectations of ‘ethical AI’ and considers the implications of these expectations for communication governance. We first analyse a range of public documents to identify the key actors, mechanisms and issues which structure societal expectations around artificial intelligence (AI) and an emerging discourse on ethics. We then explore expectations of AI and ethics through a survey of members of the public. Finally, we discuss the implications of our findings for the role of AI in communication gover- nance. We find that, despite societal expectations that we can design …

Eyecom: An Innovative Approach For Computer Interaction, Anam Mazhar

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

The world is innovating rapidly, and there is a need for continuous interaction with the technology. Sadly, there do not exist promising options for paralyzed people to interact with the machines i.e., laptops, smartphones, and tabs. A few commercial solutions such as Google Glasses are costly and cannot be afforded by every paralyzed person for such interaction. Towards this end, the thesis proposes a retina-controlled device called EYECOM. The proposed device is constructed from off-the-shelf cost-effective yet robust IoT devices (i.e., Arduino microcontrollers, Xbee wireless sensors, IR diodes, and accelerometer). The device can easily be mounted on to the glasses; …

Critical Media, Information, And Digital Literacy: Increasing Understanding Of Machine Learning Through An Interdisciplinary Undergraduate Course, Barbara R. Burke, Elena Machkasova

Communication, Media, and Rhetoric Publications

Widespread use of Artificial Intelligence in all areas of today’s society creates a unique problem: algorithms used in decision-making are generally not understandable to those without a background in data science. Thus, those who use out-of-the-box Machine Learning (ML) approaches in their work and those affected by these approaches are often not in a position to analyse their outcomes and applicability. Our paper describes and evaluates our undergraduate course at the University of Minnesota Morris, which fosters understanding of the main ideas behind ML. With Communication, Media & Rhetoric and Computer Science faculty expertise, students from a variety of majors, …

The Morphology Of Sex: Tracking Change In The Sex Discourse At Augustana College, Robert E. Burke

Women's and Gender Studies: Student Scholarship & Creative Works

ere, I track how the criteria for deeming sex as acceptable or unacceptable have changed over time at Augustana College. To do so, I apply two critical lenses to archived issues of the Augustana Observer. The first lens involves Rubin's concept of the "sex hierarchy," a variety of categories by which we may judge sex as good or bad. The second lens is related to Berlant and Warner's "national heterosexuality," a concept that claims that sexual norms are intrinsically elastic but politically, culturally, and economically firm under capitalism. Making use of a localized "snapshot" approach, I use recent Augustana history …

Mind The Gap: Understanding Stakeholder Reactions To Different Types Of Data Security, Audra Diers-Lawson, Amelia Symons

International Crisis and Risk Communication Conference

Data security breaches are an increasingly common problem for organizations, yet there are critical gaps in our understanding of how different stakeholders understand and evaluate organizations that have experienced these kinds of security breaches. While organizations have developed relatively standard approaches to responding to security breaches that: (1) acknowledge the situation; (2) highlight how much they value their stakeholders’ privacy and private information; and (3) focus on correcting and preventing the problem in the future, the effectiveness of this response strategy and factors influencing it have not been adequately explored. This experiment focuses on a 2 (type of organization) x …

Building Resilience For Stronger Communities, Barbara Gainey

International Crisis and Risk Communication Conference

Much of the early research in crisis management and crisis communication centered on the core competencies of crisis response: why do we need to plan for crises; what are the stages of effective crisis planning; what theoretical perspectives are helpful to scholars and practitioners; and what are the steps of an up-to-date crisis plan. Delineation of these core competencies goes on. Among these competencies, the crisis stage meriting the least attention arguably is post-crisis, the critical days and weeks immediately following the formal resolution of the crisis. Research attention has often focused on recovery and learning, positioning the organization for …

Constituting Safety In Hunter’S Education: An Analysis Of Safety Messages In Texas Hunter’S Training Discourse, R. Tyler Spradley

International Crisis and Risk Communication Conference

Risk communication includes safety messages to reduce the likelihood of hazard and increase the likelihood of reliability. Hunter’s education in the state of Texas uses safety messages to reduce fatal or injurious incidents and to promote a positive image of hunting as a safe, leisure sport. Analysis of Texas’ hunters education training materials and messages related to safety reveals that safety messages construct an image of hunters as practicing safety first, conservationists, ethical, law abiding, and other-oriented. Given Texas safety record, much is to be learned about safety messaging that adopts a positive or ideal image that the trainee identifies.

Incels, Compulsory Sexuality, And Fascist Masculinity, Casey Ryan Kelly, Chase Aunspach

Department of Communication Studies: Faculty Publications

Incel, the now-widely circulated portmanteau for involuntary celibacy, denotes a growing community of mostly cisgender men who are unable to find sexual partners or forge romantic relationships. Organizing in online networks, these men blame their exile from sexual relations on everything from feminism and sexual liberation to genetics and natural laws of attraction. In this essay, we offer an asexual critique of compulsory sexuality in online incel communities to illustrate how the sexual imperatives that animate fascism and the politics of the alt-right rest on myths of an insatiable male sex drive. We argue that incel discourse repurposes liberal conceptions …

Caregivers’ Perceptions Of Slp Talk About Child Language And Literacy Disorders, Karmen Porter Ph.D., Janna B. Oetting, Loretta Pecchioni

Communication Sciences & Disorders Faculty Publications

Purpose: This study examined caregiver perceptions of their child’s language and literacy disorder as influenced by communications with their speech-language pathologist (SLP).

Method: The participants were 12 caregivers of 10 school-aged children with language and literacy disorders. Employing qualitative methods, a collective case study approach was utilized in which the caregiver(s) of each child represented one case. The data came from semi-structured interviews, codes emerged directly from the caregivers’ responses during the interviews, and multiple coding passes using ATLAS.ti software were made until themes were evident. These themes were then further validated by conducting clinical file reviews and …

Let’S Get Personal: The Influence Of Personality Type Assessments On Team Communication And Structure, Kylee Baldwin, Selena Moua, Taylor Perryman, Alyssa Hayden

Concordia Journal of Communication Research

The balance of understanding and discussing personality types is a potential advantage to the effectiveness of a team’s work ethic and communication. Working in a team with members of different personality types that know how to work well with other personality types will achieve team effectiveness more efficiently than a team with a lack of understanding on their own and others’ personality types. It is predicted that the Truity's Type Finder Personality Test on personality types will have a strong, positive impact on overall team performance and team effectiveness. In addition, it can also be predicted that the team that …

An Analysis Of The Amount Of Sleep And The Effects It Has On Athletic Capabilities And Routine Tasks In College Athletes, Carly Simonian, Kira Sheahan, Kylie Christensen, Darice Haywood

Concordia Journal of Communication Research

College student athletes are under a lot of pressure to accomplish all that is expected of them which may lead to other areas of their lives being neglected, including sleep. The amount of sleep a student athlete gets is crucial in their accomplishments both off and on the field. The researchers chose to investigate how the amount of sleep an athlete gets affects their day to day life. Specifically, the researchers explored the correlation between the amount of sleep an athlete got and how positively they rated their day through an online daily survey throughout a two week span of …

How Communication With Parents Affects The Psychological Well-Being Of Traditional First-Year University Students, Jena Thormodson, Hannah Torkelson, Benjamin Diers

Concordia Journal of Communication Research

Traditional first-year university students are experiencing one of life’s greatest transitions. For many students, they are learning how to live independently for the first time, navigate relationships and support, and deal with new experiences that happen in college. Since traditional first-year students are not considered developmentally as adults, this study sought to determine how parental communication can influence how students feel during this time of transition of both college and emerging adulthood. More specifically we measured how the frequency of communication and type of parental support can affect the student’s psychological well-being. A survey was used to gather this data …

A Study Of Family Communication & The College Experience: A Comparison Between U.S. & Global Students, Iulia V. Popescu

Honors Undergraduate Theses

This study investigates the role that family communication patterns may play in predicting student experiences by looking at the experiences of native United States and international college students. Experiences in college are shaped by various factors including self-efficacy, stress, loneliness and depression. Data were collected from a sample of 152 students – 90 being U.S. natives studying at UCF and 62 being international students studying at UCF. Results indicated that conversation orientation, or a more open-conversation household, was positively linked with higher academic self-efficacy and negatively linked with stress, mainly for U.S. students. Conformity orientation, or a less open-conversation household, …

Dis/Ableist Consumption: A Critical Thematic Analysis Of Avowed And Ascribed Neuro-Identities In The Classroom, Shaundi C. Newbolt

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In the United States, faculty and students are publicly claiming neurodivergent identities and support for the neurodiversity movement. This study uses Collier and Hecht’s cultural identity theories with Lang and Chen’s two-step process, critical thematic analysis (CTA), to examine avowals and ascriptions with four diagnostic terms, ASD, ADHD, bipolar disorder, and dyslexia, of students and professors from Rate My Professors (RMP) with Ritter’s frame of RMP as a phenomenon.

A total of 1,022 posts are analyzed to understand how students resist or re-inscribe popular medical model/deficit discourse in the classroom: student avowals (N = 232), professor avowals (N = 51), …

@Gretathunberg: Navigating Critique And Identity Within Youth Climate Activism On Twitter, Carina Robin Weadock

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Youth climate activist Greta Thunberg sat alone on the steps of the Swedish Parliament building in September of 2018, holding a bold black and white sign and demanding action be taken in the face of the climate crisis. Ever since, her activism and Twitter presence have sparked media attention, catalyzed youth activists globally to organize marches and strike from school, and have drawn critique. This thesis employs McKerrow’s (1989) critical rhetoric to uncover dominant discourses within tweets that undermine Thunberg based on identity and to explore the potential that Thunberg’s Twitter presence might or might not hold for future youth …

The Colored Pill: A History Film Performance Exposing Race Based Medicines, Wanda Lakota

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Of the 32 pharmaceuticals approved by the FDA in 2005, one medicine stood out. That medicine, BiDil®, was a heart failure medication that set a precedent for being the first approved race based drug for African Americans. Though BiDil®, was the first race specific medicine, racialized bodies have been used all throughout history to advance medical knowledge. The framework for race, history, and racialized drugs was so multi-tiered; it could not be conceptualized from a single perspective. For this reason, this study examines racialized medicine through performance, history, and discourse analysis.

The focus of this work aimed …

System Update: Technology Based Intervention For Students With Intellectual And Developmental Disabilities, Marisa C. Simoni

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Post-school outcomes are unfavorable to students with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD). Despite these outcomes and significant academic challenges, students with IDD have the potential to learn adaptive and life skills that lead to a more independent and fulfilling life through intentional intervention strategies. This dissertation explores technology-based interventions for students with IDD. Manuscript 1 presents a synthesis of literature related to technology, IDD, and a system of supports that schools utilize for tiered intervention delivery. Based on the findings, a new framework, Systems of Support for Technology Intervention (SSTI), is introduced to help guide school psychologists in choosing appropriate …

Rhetorical Genealogy And The Ethics Of Eugenics, David Mark Thomas

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation strives to critique contemporary rhetoric on eugenics. In recent years, scientists succeeded in mapping the human genome and subsequently developed new gene editing technologies. To situate current ethical discourses about eugenics, I trace histories of these discourses at several scales of society – from the macroscopic level of the body politic to the meso level where modes of assessment have been deployed purportedly to accurately evaluate human characteristics to the microscopic level of the gene. I employ Foucauldian genealogy to highlight how, despite marked differences over time in specific eugenic discourses and practices exist, the underlying rhetoric has …

Ua12/8 Annual Campus Safety & Security Report, Wku Police

WKU Administration Documents

This report is designed to provide students, potential students, parents, facility and staff with crime statistics and information on university services and crime prevention programs.

Ua19/16/2 Volleyball Press Releases, Wku Athletic Media Relations

WKU Administration Documents

Press releases, photos and game statistics for WKU volleyball team in 2020.

Ua19/16/1 Wku Lady Topper Basketball Media Guide, Wku Athletic Media Relations

WKU Administration Documents

2020-21 women's basketball media guide produced by WKU Athletic Media Relations, includes athletic records and statistics, photographs, schedule and information regarding opponents.

Communication And Leadership 2020: Intersectional, Mindful, And Digital, Carolyn M. Cunningham, Michael Hazel, Tracey J. Hayes

Communication & Leadership Faculty Scholarship

The article discusses the history of leadership studies and its more recent interdisciplinary integration with the communication field. It also provides an overview of relevant issues for leaders and communicators in the 21st century. Topics discussed relevant to communication and leadership contexts include the development of leadership theories, leadership and communication, gender research in leadership and communication, intersectionality, media representations, mindfulness research and application, digital communication, social movements, protest leadership, women and protest leadership, social media and crisis management, and social media and public health.

Amjambo Africa! (January 2020), Kathreen Harrison

Amjambo Africa!

In This Issue...

Transportation planning ...........p. 2

Celebrating Diversity in Maine .p. 3

Opinion on refugee numbers....p. 4

Jamat Ibrahim dreams big..........p. 9

In Her Kitchen ...........................p. 10

Lewiston author pens children’s book.........................p. 13

Food Co-op and MAIN ............p. 18

World Affairs Council...............p. 19

Youth Get Together..................p. 19

A Hard Row To Hoe: Suicide Among Kentucky Farmers, Olivia Eiler

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, male farmers die by suicide at nearly twice the rate of the general population. My research focuses on understanding the factors contributing to this trend and identifying potential solutions, with a specific focus on the Commonwealth of Kentucky. I have collected qualitative data through video interviews with political leaders, scholars, and youth who are active in the agriculture community. These individuals have identified several key stressors, including stigma, a lack of healthcare providers in rural areas, financial insecurity, a lack of appreciation from the public, and uncertainty due to decisions made …

Audience Engagement Strategies In The Lizzie Bennet Diaries, Rachel Halle

Masters Theses

Audience engagement research examines the strategies content creators use to enhance audience involvement beyond simply watching the content. This analysis applies audience engagement strategies generated from television, branding, and social media research to video blogs (vlogs), specifically in the context of the narrative of The Lizzie Bennett Diaries. As part of that analysis, this effort also identifies ways in which those strategies integrated into the vlog format. The strategies included addressing the audience directly, mentioning the vlog within the narrative, mentions of YouTube or the internet, asking the audience for input, and mentioning audience input with the vlog. All strategies …

Ua1b3 Confederates In Our Attic - Discussion Guide, Wku Naming & Symbols Task Force

WKU Administration Documents

Guidelines created by the WKU Naming & Symbols Task Force for conversations regarding naming of buildings for Confederate sympathizers.

University Of Nebraska At Omaha Department Of Biomechanics Annual Report 2019-2020, Department Of Biomechanics, University Of Nebraska At Omaha

Biomechanics Annual Report

This report contains:

A letter from the Director: Dr. Nick Stergiou

Articles on research that impacts the community

Article about the Movcentr Impact

Articles on Expanding horizons

Article on the people of UNO Biomechanics

Student Centered articles

Articles on Community Engagement

and Fun.

Child Protection Services: The Developmental Consequences Of Arbitrary Removal (2020-2021), John Jackson

CPN 101: Researched Inquiry

This research inquiry example details the developmental consequences for children removed from their biological homes by Children’s Services. Jackson uses sources to discuss physical, mental, and emotional implications for removing children from their homes or parents in their future development as both children and adults. Not only does Jackson present an alternative perspective thinking about negative consequences and how the process of removal puts parents at odds with regaining custody, but he also proposes an alternative solution in the conclusion.

The Medical Ethics Of Hela Cells (2020-2021), Elizabeth Pratt

CPN 101: Researched Inquiry

Pratt’s research inquiry essay focuses on the medical ethics issues involved in the case of Henrietta Lacks and her cancer cells (known as HeLa,) which have been used and reused in medical research without hers or her family’s consent. Throughout this essay, Pratt moves between several areas for concern including medical agency and patients’ rights to their own bodies, financial implications, legal definitions, and issues for privacy. Pratt concludes with a call for future regulations and focus on medical ethics.

The Doppelganger Effect (2020-2021), Jessica Jean-Baptiste

CPN 101: Researched Inquiry

In this example of a research inquiry, Jean-Baptiste focuses on the use of cameras and mirrors to create doubles, or “doppelgangers” for the character of Nina in the film, Black Swan. In thinking about the “doppelganger effect,” Jean-Baptiste moves through an argument for how doubling fulfills not only one purpose or message within the film, but three. Her claim in synthesizing multiple sources of film analysis is that the doppelganger allows Aronofsky to comment on mental disorders, sexism within the community of ballet, and the overall mood for the film as a thriller as opposed to only a drama.