Digital Commons Network^™

Designing A Loving Robot: A Social Construction Analysis Of A Sex Robot Creator’S Vision, Annette Masterson

Human-Machine Communication

In 2018, one of the world’s first sex robots was released by CEO Matt McMullen and his company, RealDoll. With artificial intelligence capabilities, the Harmony model is meant to support and converse with users. Using a social construction of technology theory lens, this study develops the theory’s fourth level of analysis, emphasizing mass media’s construction abilities. A critical discourse analysis of 38 publicity interviews found a tendency to emphasize the companionship of sex robots while envisioning a future where integration is normalized, and a sentient robot is possible. As the creator, McMullen’s vision could determine the future of robotic design, …

Report From The 2022 National Communication Association Annual Convention, Mick Brewer

Title III Professional Development Reports

The following is a brief descriptive report of some of the work that took place at the 2022 National Communication Association's annual convention.

Making In Media Education: An Activity-Oriented Approach To Digital Literacy, Thomas Knaus

Journal of Media Literacy Education

Why is maker education a suitable approach for giving learners the 21st century skills they need to cope with the digital transformation? This article provides an answer and represents a defense of maker education in the field of educational science. Taking a human-media-machine interaction model as the basis for discussion, this article highlights the growing importance of digital technology as well as technological principles for human communication and interaction. Communication technology and the influence of technology on culture and society require a broad understanding of media literacy in the sense of digital literacy. By broadening the theoretical basis of media …

An Event-Without-Witness: A Nietzschean Theory Of The Digital Will To Power As The Will To Temporalize, Talha Issevenler

Publications and Research

This article offers a Nietzschean theory of digital will to power to conceptualize the temporality of social media feeds run by algorithms. Stylistic and methodological temporalities of Nietzsche are discussed as well as their influence in subsequent social theory of political technologies. The paradox of heavy investment in both subjective expression and nonhuman temporalization in social media milieus is addressed with the concept of an event-without-witness drawn from Nietzsche’s account of himself as the solitary thinker of catastrophe of nihilism and psychoanalytical and deconstructive literatures on the catastrophes of the 20th century. Nietzsche’s fundamental resistance to and fascination with the …

Reconnecting With The Truth: Conspiracies, Perspective Taking, And Misinformation, Scott Sellnow-Richmond, Mili Pinski

Discourse: The Journal of the SCASD

“I’ve done my research.” Misinformation has become a prevalent topic in communication courses, particularly those focused on argumentation, public speaking, or even interpersonal and family communication. Students thus benefit from adapting public speaking-focused assignments to illuminate how to understand - and thus combat- disinformation in their own lives. This assignment works toward this goal in two stages, allowing students to argue not just against misinformation and conspiracies, but also to argue for them as an act of empathy and understanding. The applied nature of this exercise also empowers instructors with a way to concretely address this issue in the classroom. …

Front Matter

Discourse: The Journal of the SCASD

No abstract provided.

Terminally Ill Documents: The Lasting Impact Of Ephemera, Deama Khader

Proceedings from the Document Academy

Murals and portraits of cultural icons such as George Floyd and Ahed Tamimi are more than aesthetically engaging objects. They can inspire viewers to act, attend protests, and share their own feelings on an issue, whether that be in the form of more street art or something as simple as a social media post. This is often how social and political movements are made.

Street art poses a unique challenge to information professionals since the documents that are created with the intention or expectation of disappearance. They are documents suffering from terminal illness. Their ephemerality is their disease. Per the …

How South Asian Activists Queer The Model Minority Myth: A Critical Oral History Project, Noorie Baig

Communication ETDs

The model minority myth (MMM) is predicated on stereotypical perceptions of Asian Americans as subservient high-achievers who comply with the ideologies of meritocracy, whiteness, and capitalism. However, South Asian American (SAA) activists and community organisers, the focus of this study, are working to confront and abolish racist, heterosexist, and other exclusionary injustices, policies, and practices. This dissertation seeks to understand the historical influences of the MMM, the challenges SAA activists and organisers face, and the communication strategies they use to negotiate the MMM through their activism. Oral history methods and critical thematic analysis are used to elicit and analyse personal …

Abduction Threat Surviving Skills In Basic School Education Curriculum In Nigeria: Teachers' Views, Eke Ogbu Eke, Ibebuike Ursla Obiageri, Ngozi Enwereuzoh, Ijeoma Ubochi

Young African Leaders Journal of Development

This descriptive survey was on abduction threat surviving skills in basic school education curriculum in Nigeria: teachers' views. The purpose of the descriptive survey was to determine Lower and Middle Basic School teachers' views on infusing abduction threat surviving skills in Basic school curriculum for schoolchildren safety in school environment. The population comprises 209 public school primary teachers in Umuahia North L.G.A. of Abia State. The simple random sampling technique with non-replacement technique was used to select the sample of 143 primary school teachers (41 male and 102 female teachers). Researchers' made attitude questionnaire titled” Basic School Teachers Questionnaire on …

Impact Of The Russo-Ukraine War African Students And Families: Community-Based Approach To Humanitarian Mutual Aid, Macire Aribot, Nassim Ashford

Young African Leaders Journal of Development

Africans and African-descent refugees from Ukraine have faced racism and discrimination since the onset of the Russian-Ukraine war. When seeking refuge in neighboring countries, African people experienced differences in treatment when crossing the borders of European countries. Historically, European countries have enforced strict anti-immigration policies to deter Black and Brown people of color from migrating to their countries. This paper explores racism and discrimination experienced by African and African-descent refugees fleeing Ukraine and the inequity in the global humanitarian response for Africans and other people of color affected by the Russia-Ukraine war. As a result, this paper will highlight community-based, …

Amjambo Africa! (December 2022), Kathreen Harrison

Amjambo Africa!

In this Issue

Amjambo Arts ..........................2

Holiday Greetings .................... 3

Education .................................. 4

Domestic Violence ...................5

Editorial .....................................6

Tips & Info ................................7

World Market Basket ...............8

Chance to Advance ..................9

Updates from Africa ..............10

Refugee Camp in Uganda .....11

All about the Workforce ........12

Legislative Update .............13-15

In 7 languages

Election Season..................16-17

Health & Wellness........18-23,25

In 7 languages

Financial Literacy/Cars .........24

Service Org. columns....... 26-27

Ukraine/New Voices ..............28

COCOMaine: New Leader ....29

Front Matter, Yaljod 4.1, Sombo Muzata

Young African Leaders Journal of Development

Includes: Forewords from Amb. Dr. Salah Siddig Hammad (Head, African Governance Architecture, African Union Commission), Vasu Gounden (Executive Director, ACCORD South Africa), and Asha T. Rodney (Board Vice Chair, Walter Rodney Foundation);Preface from Prince Ifoh (Founder, YALF); and Acknowledgements.

Refining The Eden Community’S Pathways For Shaping Regenerative Christian Culture In The Apprenticeship For Regenerative Culture, Laura Callarman

Doctor of Ministry Theses and Dissertations

This Doctor of Ministry thesis presents a project designed to meet a need of the Eden Community, an intentional Christian community, regarding the pathways it uses to shape regenerative Christian culture among college students in its apprenticeship program, ARC. In this thesis, I connect the pragmatic aims of the Eden Community to theological foundations regarding the importance of ecclesial diversity and creative contextualization, features that empower the church to embody a variety of life-giving “alternative stories” with the capacity to present the gospel as truly good news to the entire world.

In this project, a team of nine stakeholders met …

An Inclusive Framework For Ministry: Fostering The Spiritual Formation Of Children In A Multicultural Church, Jennifer Reinsch Schroeder

Doctor of Ministry Theses and Dissertations

This project thesis was designed to foster the spiritual formation of children in a multicultural church. A diverse team was assembled to design a curriculum to be used with volunteers in a children’s ministry context. Through seven two-hour sessions held over eight weeks in the spring of 2022, the curriculum development team first examined what it means to embody a multicultural perspective of the gospel while at the same time investigating the negative impact of a White, Eurocentric expression of Christianity. Next, they collaborated to develop a theological construct that centered around (1) the idea of being created in the …

Harnessing The Youth Bulge For Transformative Leadership, Transparency And Accountability In Africa: The Case Of Mozambique And Zimbabwe, Tendaishe Tlou

Young African Leaders Journal of Development

In every part of the globe, the 21st century has seen an increase in the youth bulge accompanied by a surge in youths' involvement in various issues. Youth alone now constitute more than 65% (both male and female) of Africa's population becoming impossible to leave youths behind in any processes. Perhaps in the new millennium, the Arab Springs in North Africa and the #feesmustfall South African protests changed the course of history and discourse around leadership issues in Africa. Historically, challenges and opportunities confronting youths in Africa are traditional. Hierarchy (both political and social) always defines the leadership criteria. Historically, …

Natural Disasters In Africa; Impacts On Sustainable Development, Shawgei Salah Ahmed Ismaeil

Young African Leaders Journal of Development

Environmental disasters in the world are among the leading causes of death in the recent past, and the African continent is no exception: drought, desertification, floods, landslides, hurricanes and earthquakes are prevalent. This paper draws attention to the deadly effects of natural disasters on Africa’s development, using the Star Analysis System in terms of presenting the overall situation in the five regions of the African continent, and identifying the significant threatening and constraining cost of development by showing that the large amounts lost could have been used to achieve sustainable development compared with the areas of sustainable development goals effected …

Information And Communication Technologies And Employment In The Services Sector: The Case Of The Economic Community Of West African States, Kossi Naita Edem, Kokou Dzifa

Young African Leaders Journal of Development

The rise of information and communication technologies is a channel for job creation in the ECOWAS services sector because they make work more efficient and are a source of innovation. In this article, we analyse the impact of information and communication technologies on employment in the services sector in ECOWAS. In contrast to their ambiguous impact on employment in countries with a fairly high ICT penetration rate, we rather expect the internet to have a potentially positive impact on employment in the service sub-sectors of education, health, distribution, transport & communication and finance & insurance. Furthermore, most of the control …

Yaljod Full Issue 4.1, Sombo Muzata

Young African Leaders Journal of Development

The Young African Leaders Journal of Development (YALJOD) is a biennial journal and an official publication of the Young African Leaders Forum (YALF). It was established in 2015 to host scholarly analysis and competing viewpoints about the development of Africa; and it’s multidisciplinary approach makes it more formidable. YALJOD accepts papers from varied disciplinary areas — including Social Sciences, Physical Sciences and Humanities — that show direct relevance to the development of Africa. It publishes researches understood as the social, economic, political, cultural and technological processes of change in Africa. The intended audience of the journal remains the entire African …

Black Female Athletes’ Use Of Social Media For Activism: An Intersectional And Cyberfeminist Analysis Of U.S. Hammer-Thrower, Gwen Berry's 2019 And 2021 Podium Protests, Ariel Newell

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

Much attention has been paid to Black male athlete activism both historically and in the contemporary movement for black lives. Black female athletes have also made historic contributions as activists, and they continue to do so. However, Black female athlete activism has not always been acknowledged or heard. This is a problem, as Black women in American sports and society face overlapping racial and gender inequities and injustices that distinctly marginalize and oppress them. However, some Black female athlete activists (BFAAs) have begun using social media to challenge media narratives about themselves, to redefine what it means to be a …

Global Adverse Effects Of Scientific Prescribed Medications: Covid-19 Vaccines, Albert Mcbell Ninepence

Young African Leaders Journal of Development

The impact of scientific prescribed medications are tremendous and cannot be overemphasized. Irrespective of scientific prescribed medications impacts, in recent epoch it has attracted some criticisms on its efficacy. Prescribed medications are medications from scientific treatments or cure which is the widely accepted approach to curing or treating illnesses and diseases. On the other hand, traditional prescribed medications which are non-scientific tend to be less utilized, ignored and extremely criticized by pure scientists. The criticisms surrounding scientific prescribed medications escalated during the era of COVID-19. While some people resorted to the use of scientific prescribed medications of COVID-19 vaccines to …

The Implication Of Corruption On Sustainable Development In Africa: (Using Nigeria As A Case Study), Ezeifekwuaba Tochukwu Benedict

Young African Leaders Journal of Development

The scenario of the rise of corruption in Africa particularly in Nigeria is so much a problem. It cuts across the various Private Sectors including different tiers of government. This research paper applied collected secondary data from library materials, government publications, journals, the internet and daily newspapers. The kernel of the research paper is on the facts that corrupt practices among the class of political leadership have led to the undermining of the stability and growth of the country's economy. Also, it is discovered that corruption maximizes the poverty level that triggers criminal exercises in the Nation. The paper suggests …

Nation-Building And Africa's Development: A Historical And Philosophical Analysis, Adewale Onagbesan

Young African Leaders Journal of Development

From the 1960s onwards until recent time, a number of African States across the various regions have been faced with differing challenges that confront either stability, sovereignty, and in some cases, their permanent existence as evident during the period 1960-70 which was widely referred to as the decade of optimism, and the period 1970-80 which was clearly referred to as the decade of pessimism due to the number of events that manifested. Clearly in the light of this, Nation-Building in Africa has experienced chequered fortune in the past half a century of independence, up to present times, and the challenge …

Teachers Productivity In Nigerian Primary Schools: A Critical Analysis In The 21st Century, Ugochukwu Mercy Prince-Ifoh

Young African Leaders Journal of Development

Teacher productivity is a nagging issue in education. The teacher – as the most important factor in the business of teaching and learning – shapes the direction and influences, to a great extent, other educational inputs to achieve the stated goals of the education industry. All over the globe today, we have continued to see National Development being intricately tied to educational development – and the teacher is the critical element. Many countries of the world have realised this critical role of teachers in the educational process, and have started investing hugely on the teacher and fine-tuning his/her skills and …

Black Minds Matter: Exploring The Double Trauma Of Anti-Blackness And War On The Psycho-Political Well-Being Of African And African-Descent Refugees From Ukraine, Macire Aribot, Nassim Ashford, Korea S. Badio

Young African Leaders Journal of Development

Amid the horror of the Russia-Ukraine war, Black refugees from Ukraine have suffered multiple traumas: The trauma of war and the trauma of anti-blackness. The world caught a glimpse of this via social media and news reports that African people were physically blocked from boarding trains and buses by Ukrainian officials, as well as neighboring countries denied entry to people who were not “Ukrainian.” These double traumas have undoubtedly placed Black refugees in Ukraine among the most vulnerable group of people in this humanitarian crisis. However, despite the psycho-political suffering Black refugees have experienced during the Russia-Ukraine war, their voices, …

“It’S About The Two Selves”: Experiences In Code-Switching Between Home And Academic Environments, Travis Wolven

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This qualitative research study is an exploration of how college students navigate code-switching between their home and academic environments. Data were collected from five participants using interview and small group methods. Through the lenses of Coordinated Management of Meaning (CMM) and Memorable Messages (MM) frameworks, the researcher explores how key MMs affect how participants coordinate and manage meaning in communications with others in their home and college environments. Findings were fourfold: 1) participants chose between following established and creating new rules when code-switching; 2) participants shared experiences and strategies regarding knowing when and how to code-switch; 3) preparing audiences for …

¿Aviso O Alerta? Developing Effective, Inclusive, And Consistent Watch And Warning Translations For U.S. Spanish Speakers, Joseph E. Trujillo-Falcón, América R. Gaviria Pabón, Joseph T. Ripberger, Abby Bitterman, Jonathan B. Thornton, Mackenzie J. Krocak, Sean R. Ernst, Estilita Cassiani Obeso, John Lipski

National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration: Technical Reports and Related Materials

Spanish-speaking populations in the United States are more vulnerable in disaster contexts due to inequities, such as language barriers, that prevent them from receiving life-saving information. For the past couple of decades, governmental organizations have addressed these issues by translating weather watches, warnings, and advisories into Spanish. Previous studies suggest that these Spanish translations do not communicate the same level of urgency as their English counterparts. To identify whether these translated products result in inequities between English and Spanish speaker reception and comprehension of forecast information, we asked a representative sample of U.S. English (n = 1,550) and Spanish (n …

Strangers Switching Their Identities: Cultural Identity Management And Performance On Social Media A Qualitative Analysis Of International Students’ Intercultural (Ex)Change Processes And Perceptions Regarding Their Stay In The United States And Countries Of Origin, Vivian Kretzschmar

All Theses

In this globalized world, cross-country travel for education has been a prevalent (5.6 million students identified as international students in 2020) and ever-increasing (with a predicted increase of 250% by 2030) trend through the past decades. The sojourn impacts the students’ experience of the new culture and the ensuing shocks and adaptations. The understanding of something as complicated as culture, trying to be integrated into a new culture, and its perception to individuals, of course, have their ways of distinct communication trends through social media.

The struggle of maintaining and changing one’s cultural identity and adaptation across cultures has been …

A Quantitative Examination Of The Influence Of Social And Structural Communication Variables On The Social Connectedness Of People Experiencing Homelessness, Shawn Michael Evans

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examined the influence of social and structural communication variables on the perceived social connectedness of people experiencing homelessness in the Northwest Arkansas (NWA) and Joplin, Missouri areas. This study employed the ecological perspective of communication infrastructure theory (CIT; Ball-Rokeach et al., 2001) and a communication perspective which envisions communicative interaction as constitutive of social experience. Using survey data from 166 participants, this study examined 11 research questions and hypotheses drawn from extant literature on homelessness, social connectedness, and CIT. ANOVAs, t-tests, and hierarchical multiple regression analyses revealed a complex relationship between individuals and the communicative environment. This study …

Alfred Russel Wallace Notes 24. Wallace At 200: Potential Subjects For Student Theses, Charles H. Smith

Faculty/Staff Personal Papers

The bicentennial of Alfred Russel Wallace’s birth in 2023 will likely produce a wide array of reviews of his life and work; here, we pause for a short look at some Wallace-related questions that might be adapted for student theses and dissertations. Some of the subjects treated fall in with established lines of research, while others are suggested by other Wallace interests or activities that have not been much explored.

Everything’S Gonna Be Kinda Queer: Autistic Gender & Sexuality In Everything’S Gonna Be Okay, Jinx Mylo

Ought: The Journal of Autistic Culture

This paper analyzes the representations of autistic characters in the television show Everything’s Gonna Be Okay in relation to gender and sexuality. In contrast to previous screen representations, the four autistic characters provide a variety of gender expressions and sexual orientations, challenging the stereotypes that perpetuate the idea of autism being limited to heterosexual men. Issues explored include attitudes toward autistic sexual consent and agency, sexual experimentation, and the impacts of communication norms on romantic relationships.