Digital Commons Network^™

Studying Global News: Methodological Issues, August Grant, Yicheng Zhu, Jeff Wilkinson, Diane Guerrazzi

Faculty Publications

This paper reports on the processes, challenges, and results of a study of news consumers in 16 countries: Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Egypt, France, Germany, India, Italy, Mexico, Russia, South Africa, Ukraine, United Kingdom, and the United States. This study employed a 10-minute, online survey measuring media consumption, news topic preference, news values and demographic information. The results of the primary study will be reported in later papers; the purpose of this analysis is to address the issues and challenges in conducting cross-national research, including language and idiom, sampling issues, data collection procedures, incentives, and time. The analysis begins …

The Shojo Within The Work Of Aida Makoto: Japanese Identity Since The 1980s, Laurel Rose Hartman

Master's Theses

The work of Japanese contemporary artist Aida Makoto (1965-) has been shown internationally in major art institutions, yet there is little English-language art historical scholarship on him. While a contemporary of internationally-acclaimed Japanese artists Murakami Takashi and Nara Yoshitomo, Aida has neither gained their level of international recognition or respect. To date, Aida’s work has been consistently labeled as otaku or subcultural art, and this label fosters exotic and juvenile notions about the artist’s heavy engagement with Japanese animation, film and manga (Japanese comic book) culture. In addition to this critical devaluation, Aida’s explicit and deliberately shocking compositions seemingly serve …

Wilderness State Park Volunteers: A Qualitative Case Study Of Meaning And Sustainability, Christina A. Peterson

Master's Theses

In an increasingly urbanized world, parks, open space and wilderness areas are vitally important to human well-being. California State Parks provide people with the ability to connect with nature and engage in outdoor recreation. Moreover, these parks protect natural and cultural resources and preserve biodiversity. California State Parks are underfunded and rely on volunteers to support essential park services. The Wilderness State Park Uniformed Volunteer Program provides essential recreation, resource protection, and biodiversity services. In order to determine the elements of the volunteering experience that contribute to a strong sense of volunteer identity and meaning, a qualitative case study was …

Movement And Mobility: Representing Trauma Through Graphic Narratives, Stella Oh

Asian American Literature: Discourses & Pedagogies

The formal and stylistic movements found within the comic architecture of From Busan to San Francisco and Mail Order Bride interrogate the ways in which the visual and textual narrative can represent the emotional landscape of trauma and displacement through comics language. Engaging in a visual and textual critique of the global economy that trades in feminine identities, these graphic narratives interrogate the mobility and visibility of those who are trafficked. In these works, transnationalism is artistically embedded in consumptive practices of reading and seeing that reinforce or challenge Orientalist cultural assumptions about the Asian female body. Geographical movements of …

On Such A Full Sea Of Novels: An Interview With Chang-Rae Lee, Noelle Brada-Williams

Asian American Literature: Discourses & Pedagogies

An interview with author Chang-rae Lee.

Introduction To Volume Seven: Confessing Racial Schizophrenia, Noelle Brada-Williams

Asian American Literature: Discourses & Pedagogies

A short meditation on teaching ethnic American literature in 2016, acknowledgments, and a summary of this volume's contents.

Spartan Daily, September 1, 2016, San Jose State University, School Of Journalism And Mass Communications

Spartan Daily, 2016

Volume 147, Issue 3

Spartan Daily, August 30, 2016, San Jose State University, School Of Journalism And Mass Communications

Spartan Daily, 2016

Volume 147, Issue 2

Information Need, Access, And Use For Social Welfare And Family Planning By Rural Dwellers In Ido And Akinyele Local Government Areas Of Oyo State, Nigeria., Oluwaseun Olubunmi Odefadehan, Ayodele Akinola, Olalekan Odefadehan Dr.

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

The information available to an individual goes a long way to influence decision such an individual will take per time. The rural dwellers have been said to be at a disadvantaged in terms of information access, use and availability when compared to their urban counterparts. Therefore this study sought to determine the information need, access and use for family planning and social welfare by rural dwellers, the study specifically identified the source of health information available to the respondents, and it determined the frequency of information available to the respondents on family planning and social welfare. The study also identified …

Information Providers Behaviour: Communication As A Process In Information Behaviour Of Pharmaceutical Companies: Part 2, Aondoana Daniel Orlu, Benjamin Jirbee, Kaase Dominic Imeh

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

As pharmaceutical companies are sponsors and producers of much of the research evidence for new medicines, it is important that they make that evidence available to the NHS as soon as possible and that users in the NHS are able easily to access it, evaluate it and use it in clinical decision-making. When healthcare professionals refer to information provision by the pharmaceutical industry, however, they often focus on advertising and promotional information and question its value or they claim that the industry supplies biased information. In order to gain in-depth insights into information providers’ views of their roles and activities, …

Exploring The Links Between Legislator’S Education And State Spending, Megan Thiele, Kristen Shorette, Catherine Bolzendahl

Faculty Publications, Sociology

In the current political climate of education financing, public institutions are often the targets of budget cuts. This erosion of the financial backing occurs alongside an expansion of higher education. This research investigates one component of this political realm. Based on research suggesting that policy-makers’ personal characteristics (e.g. gender, race, religious status) affect policy outcomes, this work investigates the extent to which legislators’ educational backgrounds matter for public higher education spending (Washington 2008). Do states with a larger percentage of legislators with a public higher education degree spend more on public higher education than do other legislatures, all other things …

Roles Of Information And Communications Technologies In Improving Fish Farming And Production In Rivers State, Nigeria., Ejiogu-Okereke, Ngozi Eucharia Dr, Chikaire, Jonadab Ubochioma Dr, Ogueri, Emmanuel Ifeanyi Dr, Chikezie, Ngozi Patience Dr

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

Abstract

The study examined the roles of ICTs for improved fish farming and production in Rivers State, Nigeria. The specific objectives were to ­- describe the socioeconomic characteristics of the responding fish farmers in the area; identify ICT devices used by respondents in the area; examine fish farming/production information needs of respondents; ascertain ICT roles in promoting fish farming and production in the study area; and identify problems of ICTs use by fish farmers in the study area. Multi stage sampling technique was adopted in sample selection. Data were collected with use of questionnaire and interview schedule. The sample size …

Learning From Bad Teachers: Leibniz As A Propaedeutic For Chinese Philosophy, Kevin Delapp

Comparative Philosophy

One of the challenges facing instructors of Chinese philosophy courses at many Western universities is the fact that students can often bring orientalizing assumptions and expectations to their encounters with primary sources. This paper examines the nature of this student bias and surveys four pedagogical approaches to confronting it in the context of undergraduate Chinese philosophy curricula. After showcasing some of the inadequacies of these approaches, I argue in favor of a fifth approach that deploys sources from the “pre-history” of comparative philosophy, viz. documents by some of the first Western interpreters of Chinese thought. Such sources give students an …

From Political Liberalism To Para-Liberalism: Epistemological Pluralism, Cognitive Liberalism & Authentic Choice, Musa Al-Gharbi

Comparative Philosophy

Advocates of political liberalism hold it as a superior alternative to perfectionism on the grounds that it avoids superfluous and/or controversial claims in favor of a maximally-inclusive approach undergirded by a "free-standing" justification for the ideology. These assertions prove difficult to defend: political interpretations of liberalism tend to be implicitly ethnocentric; they often rely upon a number of controversial, and even empirically falsified, assumptions about rationality--and in many ways prove more parochial than their perfectionist cousins. It is possible to reform political liberalism to address these challenges, but generally at the expense of the supposed normative force and universality of …

Indian Doctoral Research In Social Sciences With Specific Reference To Library And Information Science, Jyotshna Sahoo, Santosini Mundhial, Basudev Mohanty

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

The very purpose of the paper is to focus on the output of doctoral research in different fields of Social Sciences in India. Attempts have been made to project various indicators of Social Science research and more comprehensively Library and Information Science research by analyzing doctoral research works carried out during the period 2010-2012. While presenting quantification of research output in the form doctoral theses for the period of study, the paper highlights distribution of research output by discipline, language, ranking pattern of Universities, States, and supervisors by their output. The paper also indicates the core areas of research activity …

Sjsu Erfa News, Summer 2016, San Jose State University, Emeritus And Retired Faculty Association

Emeritus and Retired Faculty Association (ERFA) Newsletter

Volume 29, Number 4

Book Review: Madness In Civilization: A Cultural History Of Insanity From The Bible To Freud, From The Madhouse To Modern Medicine, Edward Cohen

Faculty Publications

A review of: Scull, Andrew. (2015). Madness in civilization: A cultural history of insanity from the Bible to Freud, from the madhouse to modern medicine. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. 448 pp. $39.50 (Hardback), ISBN 978-0-691-16615-5.

Learning How To Speak Like A “Native”: Speech And Culture In An Online Communication Training Program, Tabitha Hart

Faculty Publications

This article examines the oral communication training that took place in Eloqi, a virtual language-learning community. Eloqi (a pseudonym) was a for-profit start-up that built and operated a proprietary Web-based, voice-enabled platform connecting English-language learners in China with trainers in the United States. While it existed, Eloqi’s unique platform was used to deliver short, one-on-one lessons designed to improve students’ oral English communication skills. Using the ethnography of communication and speech codes theory, a theoretical–methodological approach, the author presents an analysis of the speech code, or code of communicative conduct, employed at Eloqi. This code of English logic, which Eloqi’s …

Expressions, Summer 2016, San Jose State University, College Of The Humanities And The Arts

Expressions (College of Humanities and the Arts)

College of Humanities and the Arts Newsletter, Volume 11

Defining News: A Ten-Nation Perspective, August Grant, Jeffrey Wilkinson, Diane Guerrazzi, Yicheng Zhu

Faculty Publications

Worldwide, the consumption of news and information is greater than ever before. But twenty years of Internet news and a decade of social media have permanently altered the patterns of behaviors associated with how consumers look for news and even how they perceive what ‘news’ is for them. As the media landscape changes and old approaches no longer fit, it may be time to re-assess the fundamental definition of “news.” Traditional news values have been defined and extensively studied by Western researchers, but little attention has been paid to the correspondence of these definitions of news with consumers’ behavior in …

An Investigation Into The Usability Of Europe Pubmed Central Database., Aondoana Daniel Orlu, Benjamin Jirbee, Agbenyi J. Idikwu

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

Healthcare professionals and lay people are challenged by the availability and plethora of health information particularly web based which has become increasingly important when diagnosing, advising of preventive measures and in prescribing future care. Access to accurate, reliable and current information in a useable format is becoming essential particularly at the point of care and if patients are to be part of that process.

Method: Three volunteers were observed carrying out three separate queries to better evaluate the search engine. Ease of access, user experience, relevance of results and an analysis of the usability method were evaluated. (Appendix 1 …

Police Response To Trump Protest, Gil Villagran

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

Dear Editor: As a veteran of protests in San Jose against the Vietnam and other illegal wars, police shooting, immigration raids, other injustices in our community, I have seen both appropriate and inappropriate responses by police.

Cultural Influences In Political Ideology: Conservatism And Vertical Individualism, Cyrus Sarrafpour

Master's Theses

After an extensive literature review on authoritarianism and right-wing ideology, Jost, Kruglanski, Glaser, and Sulloway (2003) developed a model of conservatism as motivated social cognition. The model asserts that feelings of uncertainty, fear, and threat stimulate existential, epistemic, and ideological social-cognitive motives, which in turn lead to political conservatism in the forms of resistance to change and endorsement of inequality. The model, however, generally bypassed the notion that situational factors, such as cultural values, might also be influential in the manifestation and shaping of conservative ideologies. This study included situational factors such as the role of a hierarchical cultural dimension …

Maker: Redesign Of A Multipurpose Hardware Tool To Improve Its Functionality And Marketability, David Alexander, Vimal Viswanathan, Shraddha Sangelkar, Johnathan Moody

Faculty Publications, Mechanical Engineering

In this maker project, we redesigned a hardware tool that is primarily used by linemen working in power companies. At the top of the posts where they work, it is essential to have easily accessible and easy-to-use tools with firm grip. With the use of a multi-purpose product that combines the functionalities of many other common tools, the handling of the tools can be made easy. This maker project is conducted as a case study for a larger research study where the investigators developed a new set of guidelines for the development of multi-purpose products. Though multi-purpose products are very …

Trust And Complacency In Cyber Security, Ashley Allison Cain

Master's Theses

Improved understanding of conditions that foster appropriate use of security tools by cyber security professionals is crucial for protecting companies from financial losses. Trust has been an important topic in the literature because of its role in allowing for cooperation among humans and automation and because of its relationship with appropriate use. The current study aimed to extend the finding that high trust leads to complacency in the domain of cyber security and to clarify a discrepancy in the literature about complacency’s operationalization by measuring information sampling behaviors directly. The sample consisted of 101 first year psychology students. The independent …

46th Chicano Commencement, 2016, San Jose State University, Associated Students

Chicano Commencement

46th Annual Chicano Commencement

"La educación no cambia al mundo, cambia a las personas que van a cambiar al mundo" The 46th Annual Chicano Commencement was held on Sunday, May 29, 2016 at the SJSU Event Center.

34th Annual African American Commencement, 2016, San Jose State University, Associated Students

African American Commencement

34th Annual African American Commencement

"Black Grad: Cultivating Black Excellence." The 2016 African American Commencement ceremony was held on Friday, May 27, 2016 in the Student Union Ballroom at San Jose State University.

Spartan Daily, May 12, 2016, San Jose State University, School Of Journalism And Mass Communications

Spartan Daily, 2016

Volume 146, Issue 42

Spartan Daily, May 11, 2016, San Jose State University, School Of Journalism And Mass Communications

Spartan Daily, 2016

Volume 146, Issue 41

Honor Killing Attitudes Among San Jose State University Students, Pedja Ilic

Themis: Research Journal of Justice Studies and Forensic Science

This study examines honor killing attitudes amongst a sample of sixty graduate and undergraduate students in the Department of Justice Studies at San Jose State University and offers a systematic review of published academic literature on honor killings. It hypothesizes that students who strongly adhere to patriarchal traditionalism are more likely to endorse legitimacy of honor killings, controlling for gender, education, family size, religion, religiosity/religious conviction, and female chastity expectations. Descriptive findings suggest that the majority of respondents disagree that honor murders are justified, regardless of circumstances, dependent variable honor killing attitudes. Respondents also report negative attitudes toward authority and …