Digital Commons Network^™

Meaning What You Say, James Boyd White

Book Chapters

In this essay I talk about a wide range of themes in the hope of establishing a connection among them: writing (including the teaching of writing) and what is at stake, for the writer and the rest of the world, in doing it well or badly; certain forces in our culture-hard to define and understandthat tend to reduce or trivialize human experience, indeed the very value of the human being; the conception of the human being, not trivial at all, that underlies our practices of self-government in general and constitutional democracy in particular; and the idea of justice at work, …

Semantic Web Research Center Report: Lsdis Lab, Research In Semantic Bioinformatics, Semantic Analytics And Semantic Web Processes, Amit P. Sheth

Kno.e.sis Publications

The LSDIS Lab advances the field of distributed information systems by researching semantic techniques for exploiting heterogeneous multimedia information and improving processes, encompassing the central promise of the Semantic Web initiative. It is pursuing cutting edge research in ontology development for demanding scientific domains, semantic heterogeneity and integration, complex relationships discovery and semantic analytics, and Semantic Web services and processes. Past work of the LSDIS lab can be characterized by keywords: semantic interoperability, syntactic and semantic metadata for text and digital media, metadata based integration of Web content, ontology-driven information systems, multi-ontology query processing, transactional workflows and workflow management. Significant …

"Two Guns, A Girl And A Playstation™": Gender In The Tomb Raider Series, Marc A. Ouellette

English Faculty Publications

This article considers the combination of game play and narrative which combine to produce cross-gender identifications in video games, a previously underexamined potential for the production of alternate genders, one which calls into question the stability of gender, particularly masculinity, as a construct.

Assessing Sensitivity: A Critical Analysis Of Gender In Teaching Basic Communication Courses, Laura C. Prividera

Basic Communication Course Annual

This critical study utilized a liberal feminist perspective to examine how communication teachers talked about gender issues in their basic communication classes and displayed gender sensitivity in their pedagogical practices. In-depth interviews and observations were conducted with fifteen teachers from seven mid-western academic institutions. The data revealed six themes, which describe how gender issues were marginalized and minimized in the talk and teaching practices of many of my research participants. Such marginalization may perpetuate disparities in the academic experiences of male and female students taking the basic communication course.

University Reporter - Vol. 08, No. 05 - January 2004, University Of Massachusetts Boston

1996-2009, University Reporter

No abstract provided.

Bias In The Evaluation Process: Influences Of Speaker Order, Speaker Quality, And Gender On Rater Error In The Performance Based Course, Paul D. Turman, Matthew H. Barton

Basic Communication Course Annual

This study examines how variations in speaker order increase the potential for rater error in the performance based course. Seventy-six undergraduate raters were randomly assigned to one of eight treatment groups and asked to grade eight-week training course. Speaker order and presentation quality varied across groups and an ANOVA was used to examine significant differences across rater assessments, feedback quality and rater gender. Significant main effects were identified in each of the eight treatment groups suggesting that speaker order influenced rater scoring.

Communication Lab Peer Facilitators: What's In It For Them?, M. Tanya Bran-Barrett, Judith A. Rolls

Basic Communication Course Annual

Peer tutors have been used extensively within the communication discipline to enhance students' learning experiences (Hill, 1981; Webb & Lane, 1986). Research suggests that peer tutoring can have positive rewards for tutors and tutees (Goodland & Hurst, 1989; Topping, 1996). However, there is little to no research that explores the benefits received by peer tutors who run small group communication lab sessions for basic communication course students.

The qualitative data from focus group indicate that peer facilitators experienced: 1) self-development in terms of their self-esteem, confidence, and respect from themselves and others; 2) improved public speaking skills and better interpersonal …

Special Forum On The Philosophy Of Teaching Education As Communication: The Pragmatist Tradition, Chad Edwards, Gregory J. Shepherd

Basic Communication Course Annual

We take the basic course in communication to be a site where associated living is experienced, and where individuals practice the democratic art of referencing and articulating their own behaviors and beliefs to those of others. This democratic practice is associated living is, as American pragmatist and educational philosopher John Dewey insisted, communication itself -- "conjoint communicated experience." In this essay, we provide an overview of this pragmatist educational metaphysic and discuss a few consequences of metaphysical beliefs about education.

Basic Communication Course Annual Vol. 16

Basic Communication Course Annual

Full Issue (332 Pages, 3.945 MB)

Humor Works: Communication Style And Humor Functions In Manager/Subordinate Relationships, Diane M. Martin, Craig Rich, Barbara Mae Gayle

Communication Studies Faculty Works

This study explored humor production and communicator style within the dyadic communicative relationship between organizational managers and subordinates. Research questions considered positive, expressive, and negative humor functions and manager-subordinate relational style, communication style, sex, and dyad characteristics. Results indicated that both organizational managers and subordinates report using conversational humor, mostly positive and expressive humor. Results also indicate communicator image, dominant or affiliative communication style, and sex are related to the type of conversational humor initiated by organizational managers and subordinates. It appears that organizational power/dominance and sex are better predictors of humor usage than other characteristics. Overall, results suggest that …

Flesh And Spirit Onstage: Chronotopes Of Performance In Medieval English Theatre, Gregory Lee Cavenaugh

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This study uses Mikhail Bakhtin's chronotope, which is the informing principle of one's experience of space and time, to explore different relations among space, time, actors, and audience in medieval theatre. Relations between the material and spiritual worlds as understood in the Middle Ages are considered in the context of relations between performers and audience members with two goals. First, I explore how the ontological status of the metaworld created through performance changed in the context of specific chronotopes. Second, I explore how diverse religious discourses affected medieval modes of representation. This study posits three chronotopes of performance informing medieval …

Under The Thumb : The Role Of Sms In The Forming And Maintenance Of Adolescent Dating Relationships, Jason Noble

Theses : Honours

The use of the mobile phone is a ubiquitous feature of many an individual's social life within contemporary society. Given this, it is somewhat surprising that little academic research has been undertaken into its effects on the social and cultural lives of key user populations. In particular, the Short Message Service- SMS texting- is a mobile phone application that has transformed the lives of large numbers of adolescent city dwellers. Moreover, teenagers and young adults, who represent the adolescent population, have adopted this mobile phone application and subsequently applied it to their social lives in ways that never would have …

Credibility And Authority On Internet Message-Boards, Ryan Goudelocke

LSU Master's Theses

This research aimed to provide some proof or refutation of the hypothesis that online communities develop specialized vocabularies, often technical jargon, and use elements of those vocabularies, here labeled “tokens,” to ascribe credibility and/or authority to other posters. The literature from a variety of communications fields relating to this topic was summarized as a progression from an early “limitations” model of computer-mediated communication (CMC) to a later “opportunities” model. The drawbacks of current research were outlined and some new paths were sketched, including the methodology employed here. Several discussions from different Web sites, each containing hundreds of posts, were tabulated …

Audiating The Lsu Drumline: An Ethnographic Performance, Andrew Michael Causey

LSU Master's Theses

This is an ethnographic study of the drumline of the LSU Marching Band and the mock-fraternity they created called Phi Boota roota (ΦBr). I argue that ΦBr was created as a site to flesh out the various tensions members experience as members of the LSU drumline; they create a rite of passage ritual that functions as a carnivalesque and celebratory inversion of the system they find themselves submerged within. Phi Boota roota marks a created articulation of the transition members make when they become part of the larger ritual of Tigerband; it is a voluntary or liminoid ritual that allows …

Semantic (Web) Technology In Action: Ontology Driven Information Systems For Search, Integration, And Analysis, Amit P. Sheth, Cartic Ramakrishnan

Kno.e.sis Publications

Semantics is seen as the key ingredient in the next phase of the Web infrastructure as well as the next generation of information systems applications. In this context, we review some of the reservations expressed about the viability of the Semantic Web. We respond to these by identifying a Semantic Technology that supports the key capabilities also needed to realize the Semantic Web vision, namely representing, acquiring and utilizing knowledge. Given that scalability is a key challenge, we briefly review our observations from developing three classes of real world applications and corresponding technology components: search/browsing, integration, and analytics. We distinguish …

Selected Bibliography Of Work About And Of Edward Said's Texts, Clare Callaghan

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

No abstract provided.

From Plato To Derrida And Theories Of Play, Simona Livescu

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her paper, "From Plato to Derrida and Theories of Play," Simona Livescu proposes a reevaluation of the concept of play. By examining various critical interpretations of this term from Greek antiquity to modern structuralists and poststructuralist theories, Livescu analyzes the common denominator in philosophical, cultural, and religious facets of the play. In her discussion, Livescu emphasizes the ultimate importance of the ludic presence in every fundamental human action. Among the conclusions of the paper, Livescu suggests that play exists as an essence of consciousness and that it is, actually, a way of being, not only a way of knowing. …

On Edward Said, Scholar And Public Intellectual, F. Elizabeth Dahab

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her paper, "On Edward Said, Scholar and Public Intellectual," F. Elizabeth Dahab pays tribute to Edward Said, 1935-2003. Dahab discusses selected aspects of Said's trajectories as a scholar and Palestinian-American activist including aspects of Said's numerous activities and work as a musician, an ardent political polemicist, a music critic, a Columbia University professor of comparative literature, a humanist, President of the Modern Language Association of America, and an exiled Palestinian as evident in the vast corpus of this eminent scholar's publications over the course of almost four decades (twenty-four books and hundreds of articles and interviews). Said's work elicited …

Cultures Of Populism And The Political Right In Central Europe, Patricia Chiantera-Stutte, Andrea Petö

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In their paper, "Cultures of Populism and the Political Right in Central Europe," Patricia Chiantera-Stutte and Andrea Petö analyze the common points and differences in which imagined and mythologized histories are serving as a mobilizing force for extreme-right movements in three Central European countries, in Austria, Hungary, and Italy. The authors discuss how populist and right-wing political parties in these countries construct their conceptions of an alternative identity for the European Union. Further, the authors analyze the politico-territorial myths constructed by the three populist right-wing parties, the Freedom Party in Austria, the Northern League in Italy, and the Party of …

Comparative Literature Versus Comparative Cultural Studies, Tomo Virk

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his paper, "Comparative Literature versus Comparative Cultural Studies," Tomo Virk discusses debates of the role, essence, and the future of comparative literature as it has developed since the 1995 publication of the Bernheimer Report. Virk explores the situation of the discipline in its North American context: "contextualists" argue for the abandoning of comparative literature understood as the study of literature with theoretical investigations of literariness while the "non-contextualists" underscore the study of the linguistic structure(s) of the text. Virk supports comparative literature understood as the traditional concentration of the discipline with focus on the specificities of literary questions while …

Spartan Daily, November 20, 2003, San Jose State University, School Of Journalism And Mass Communications

Spartan Daily (School of Journalism and Mass Communications)

Volume 121, Issue 59

Semantic E-Workflow Composition, Jorge Cardoso, Amit P. Sheth

Kno.e.sis Publications

Systems and infrastructures are currently being developed to support Web services. The main idea is to encapsulate an organization's functionality within an appropriate interface and advertise it as Web services. While in some cases Web services may be utilized in an isolated form, it is normal to expect Web services to be integrated as part of workflow processes. The composition of workflow processes that model e-service applications differs from the design of traditional workflows, in terms of the number of tasks (Web services) available to the composition process, in their heterogeneity, and in their autonomy. Therefore, two problems need to …

University Reporter - Vol. 08, No. 03 - November 2003, University Of Massachusetts Boston

1996-2009, University Reporter

No abstract provided.

Central Florida Future, Vol. 36 No. 19, October 27, 2003

Central Florida Future

Faculty urges support for campus gays; Dogs maul student as he leaves class; Take a walk on the wild side of UCF's campus.

Spartan Daily, October 10, 2003, San Jose State University, School Of Journalism And Mass Communications

Spartan Daily (School of Journalism and Mass Communications)

Volume 121, Issue 31

Spartan Daily, October 2, 2003, San Jose State University, School Of Journalism And Mass Communications

Spartan Daily (School of Journalism and Mass Communications)

Volume 121, Issue 25

Ravers At The Bush: Generation Ecstasy Goes To The Theatre, William C. Boles

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

[First paragraph]

Determining that seminal moment when a new theatrical movement comes to life has been one of the points of debate surrounding the challenging new plays and their talented, twenty something authors that have appeared on the British stage since the mid-1990s. Plays and authors like: Mojo (1995) by Jez Butterworth; Blasted (1995) by Sarah Kane; Closer (1997) by Patrick Marber; The Beauty Queen of Leenane (1996) by Martin McDonagh; Butterfly Kiss (1994) by Phyllis Nagy; Love and Understanding (1997) by Joe Penhall; Essex Girls (1994) by Rebecca Prichard; Shopping and Fucking (1996) by Mark Ravenhill; and Ashes and …

Semantic Web In Action: Ontology-Driven Information Search, Integration And Analysis, Amit P. Sheth

Kno.e.sis Publications

No abstract provided.

University Reporter - Vol. 08, No. 01 - September 2003, University Of Massachusetts Boston

1996-2009, University Reporter

No abstract provided.

Holy Fools, Secular Saints, And Illiterate Saviors In American Literature And Popular Culture, Dana Heller

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article, "Holy Fools, Secular Saints, and Illiterate Saviors in American Literature and Popular Culture," Dana Heller identifies and analyzes characteristics of the holy fool figure in American literature and culture. Heller defines the holy fool, or divine idiot, as a figure central to U.S. myths of nation. One encounters such figures in American literature as well as in American folklore, popular culture, and mass media. In American culture, the Divine Idiot is a hybrid form which grows out of the crossings of numerous literary and historical currents, both secular and non-secular. This unwieldy hybridity -- the fact that …