Digital Commons Network^™

Effects Of Rock Covering On Underlying Engineered Media In Bioretention Practices In Middle Tennessee, Usa, Blue Curry, Andrea Ludwig, Michael Essington

Journal of Contemporary Water Research and Education

Bioretention practices have become a common way to protect natural waterways in urban and suburban landscapes across the United States. However, optimal design, implementation, operation, and maintenance are still in need of study. A field survey of 52 bioretention practices was conducted in Davidson County, Tennessee, to address research questions related to operation and maintenance. A suite of site conditions were documented, such as size, signs of erosion, and dominant surface cover. Samples were collected from the surface of the engineered media layer and analyzed for organic matter content and bulk density. Vegetation was described in terms of dominant species …

“Everybody Better Care”: A Qualitative Exploration Of Environmental Documentaries And Psychological Distance, Cassandra Lc Troy

Kaleidoscope: A Graduate Journal of Qualitative Communication Research

Severe problems like climate change, pollution, and biodiversity loss demand urgent action. Unfortunately, people can tend to view such problems as distant, failing to feel that they are relevant to their lives. Psychological distance may play a role in such perceptions. In order to understand how environmental documentaries, which are often used to educate the public about the environment, may influence perceptions of psychological distance, environmental film festival attendees and organizers were interviewed. Qualitative analysis revealed complex reactions to depictions of environmental issues in films, with perceived severity playing a key role in conceptions of spatial, social, and temporal distance. …

A Qualitative Inquiry Into The Role Of Communication In Reputation Management During Compounding Health Crises, Shawna Dias, Romy Rw

Kaleidoscope: A Graduate Journal of Qualitative Communication Research

This research aims to evaluate how organizations manage their reputations with publics through compounding crises. The research applies concepts of public relations and crisis management, including situational crisis communication theory and organization-public relationship management. The research investigates a case of compounding health crises at a prominent American University, and assesses how communication managers prioritized publics and issue response, coordinated their communication strategies, and revised their communication practices in the wake of the compounding crises. Interviews were conducted with the three public relations managers who managed the events, and analysis was conducted on the University’s published social media content and artifacts …

Inauthenticity, Delusion, And Victimization: Interrogating Affective Rhetoric Targeting Trans* Youth, Ben Bishop

Kaleidoscope: A Graduate Journal of Qualitative Communication Research

In this essay, I interrogate Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s KP-0401, a 2022 legal opinion letter that frames gender affirming healthcare as dangerous, sterilizing, and therefore, child abuse. Within this framing, trans* youth are presented as both delusional and deviant, written off as victims of abuse and social contagion. In analyzing KP-0401 through a critical perspective of affect and performativity, I demonstrate how particular affects have gained power through their circulation to reify feelings and performances of cisheteronormativity, often through establishing the trans* body as a source of negative affect, like fear or repulsion, and trans* youth as infantile and …

Investigating The Effects Of Message Framing On College Students' Risk Perceptions And Protective Responses To Adenovirus, Shawna Dias, Romy Rw

Kaleidoscope: A Graduate Journal of Qualitative Communication Research

The purpose of this study is to investigate how message framing influences people’s risk perceptions, protective action decision making, and behavioral response. We make a case for both revising and extending the use of the protective action decision model (PADM) and message framing theory to examine the message characteristics of the adenovirus warnings during this crisis event, as well as participants’ impressions and behavioral responses to health risk communication messages. The data were collected from three focus group sessions, held at the University of Maryland. We found evidence to suggest that fear appeals and efficacy focused messaging may increase the …

Reinventing Black Womanhood: Alternative Media And Identity Discourse In The 2019 Chicago Mayoral Race, Ololade Afolabi

Kaleidoscope: A Graduate Journal of Qualitative Communication Research

This paper examines how a Chicago-based alternative medium covered the 2019 Chicago’s mayoral race. The study uses critical discourse analysis and the theory of Black feminism to argue for the need to examine the multiple identities of Black women and how such identities determine their representation in socio-cultural and political spaces. The findings from this study show that agency is a major part of media coverage and that the identities of Black women are better represented when the women are portrayed as agents in their own stories. These findings provide an alternative narrative to the discourse of Black womanhood which …

Listen When She Speaks: Young Women On Arriving At Reproductive Rights Opinions, Sydney Elaine Brammer

Kaleidoscope: A Graduate Journal of Qualitative Communication Research

While a significant amount of time has been devoted to researching and analyzing existing opinions about reproductive rights, few have aimed to identify how young women, between the ages of 18 and 35, have arrived at those opinions. This project includes a literature review, an analysis of a series of interviews with young women, and an in-depth discussion about the importance of understanding their experiences. Above all else, it suggests that there are several common points of interest and demands for change from women all across the spectrum on reproductive rights issues, and critical similarities in the ways that they …

With Action Comes Reflection, Jessica Clifford

Kaleidoscope: A Graduate Journal of Qualitative Communication Research

This paper is an autoethnography highlighting the reflections of a White, female, graduate student as she begins her protest journey to struggle for justice within a southern city facing an epidemic of police brutality. In this reflection, she contemplates and negotiates her ally identity while serving as a scholar-activist in a historic city for social justice. The autoethnography spans a college semester of activism, involving a march, weekly protests, and a storytelling event centered on police brutality. Communication scholarship undergirds this narrative that reveals entering activism is a rewarding journey to justice, and also to self-discovery.

Front Matter, Kaleidoscope Editor

Kaleidoscope: A Graduate Journal of Qualitative Communication Research

No abstract provided.

Psychology In A Podcast Context: Do Brand Personality Perceptions And Social Nudges Explain Consumers’ Behavioral Intentions To Subscribe To Breaking Points?, Stephen D. Berry

Dissertations

Two psychological variables are of interest in the study of consumers: brand personality perceptions (per social cognition, beliefs that brands exhibit human-like attributes) and nudges (per behavioral economics, an attempt to influence behavioral change that benefits the consumer without taking away their right to choose). However, no known research exists about whether these variables explain behavioral intentions to consume podcasts, specifically. This is relevant because perceptions of mass media brands are historically negative, and consumers increasingly seek out independent media (e.g., Breaking Points). Therefore, this dissertation’s purpose was to use Breaking Points as an example to study the influence of …

Religion And Political Orientation: An Examination Of Intolerance, Tyler Campbell

Research Papers

With the recent upsurge in challenges to the public’s ability to speak in certain settings, the presence of various college curricula, and the inclusion of certain books in public libraries and schools, the contemporary political climate demonstrates a need to look at intolerance. Using the Stouffer (1955) battery of intolerance data in the General Social Survey (GSS), we examine the relationship of religious affiliation, religiosity, and political orientation with intolerance. The analyses shows that fundamentalist religious denominations exhibit intolerant attitudes more than other denominations. Likewise, the analyses indicate a positive relationship between higher religiosity and intolerance. Unexpectedly, political moderates showed …

A Study Of Policies And Responses To Chronically Absent Students In Illinois High Schools In The Four Southern Most Regions Of The Illinois Associaiton Of School Administrators, Charles Shain Crank

Dissertations

No abstract

Ideas Weren’T Enough: The Strategies Behind Paul Simon’S Run For President, 1987-88, Robert Hartley

The Simon Review (Occasional Papers of the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute)

Ideas. That word best describes the fifty-two years Paul Simon spent as a public person, journalist, politician, author, and head of a policy institute. His ideas flowed nonstop at the local community level, state legislature, and in Congress.

When Simon opened his 1987-88 campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination, he did what he always did: fed the public his ideas for solving the ills of the federal government and setting a national direction. As he stated in his announcement, “I dream of an America at work in a world at peace.” Straight stuff. But would voters outside familiar ground in …

'A Day In The Life Of Saluki Sports', Dominic Hoscher

Research Papers

No abstract provided.

Scholarly Program Notes On Selected Trumpet Repertoire Featuring Works By Georg Philipp Telemann, Johann Baptist Georg Neruda, Eugene Bozza, Alexandre Arutiunian And Jacob Ter Veldhuis, Kristin Demos

Research Papers

The purpose of this paper is to provide insight and context for five selected compositions featuring trumpet as the solo instrument performed on this author’s graduate recital. The repertoire discussed include Georg Philipp Telemann’s Concerto in D Major, Johann Baptist Georg Neruda’s Concerto in E-flat Major, Eugene Bozza’s Badinage, Alexandre Arutiunian’s Aria et Scherzo, and JacobTV’s Close Fight.

Each chapter contains biographical information of the composer as well as brief analysis and performance considerations of the selected works.

Searching For Freedom: An Investigation Of Form In Japanese Storytelling And Animation, Dorcas Brou

2023

This project investigated characteristics of storytelling within Japanese animation known as anime. Through the use of textual analysis and historical research methods, I explored the story element of theme and it’s relation to character development and narrative structure within the anime and manga series, Attack on Titan (Shingeki no Kyojin). I identified two story themes: 1) The World’s Cruelty, Oppression of man and 2) Searching & Fighting for freedom against the cruel world—and a strong influence of folklore and Eastern and Western art that attribute to the story structure and aesthetic elements of the anime story. These findings informed my …

Where Is Illinois Now And Where Is It Going?, Rob Paral

The Simon Review (Occasional Papers of the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute)

Granted statehood in 1818, Illinois is slightly over two centuries old. During that time, in approximately fifty-year segments, our state has embodied trends that defined our nation. The early 1880s brought westward expansion by European migrants and the taking of natives’ land. The second half of that century saw a population explosion and rapid urbanization. In the first part of the twentieth century, Illinois industrialization was essential to helping our nation win two world wars and establishing the United States as the pre-eminent world power.

Most recently, a new half-century period can be identified. One of profound social and economic …

The 2022 Mid-Term Elections In Illinois: Unfinished Business Or The Wave Of The Future?, John Jackson, John L. Foster

The Simon Review (Occasional Papers of the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute)

Part I of this paper provides a description of the Democratic and Republican Primaries in Illinois for the mid-term elections of 2022.

Part II then turns to the general election campaigns focusing on the governor’s race between incumbent Democrat J. B. Pritzker and his Republican challenger, State Senator Darren Bailey. The race for the U. S. Senate between the incumbent, Tammy Duckworth, and Kathy Salvi, and the state’s Constitutional Offices are also analyzed. The unit of analysis utilized is the county-level aggregate data voting returns. Part III deals with the aftermath of the November election with a focus on the …

The Aesthetics Of News: Narrative Construction And Media Illiteracy In Contemporary India, Shashidhar Nanjundaiah

Dissertations

Amidst the public’s declining trust in news, media prosumers—that is, media consumers who have also become producers of mediated texts—are not equipped with any credible alternative mechanism to better understand the world around them. Prior academic studies of news and its delivery have not adequately explored the ideological framework we need to confront this frightening situation. This dissertation does so. I problematize the narration of news as an aesthetic process. Such mass-mediated narration stitches together our world in ideological ways. A tidal flow of stories highlights and obscures selected truths in a frenzy of “new” news cycles, the frequency of …

Fat And Queer: A Qualitative Exploration Of Womens' Experiences Of Fatphobia, Jaidelynn Keeley Rogers

Dissertations

A paucity of psychological research exists on the topic of fatphobia, a type of pervasive oppression that occurs for people with plus-size, large, and/or fat bodies. Much of the research that exists about fatphobia focuses on medical ideals, the associated weight stigma, and how these are related to fat people’s physical health. Medical researchers have determined that weight stigma is actually more harmful to fat people's health than being fat. Fatphobia impacts women at disproportionate rates. Plus-sized, queer, lesbian, bisexual, and pansexual (LGBTQ+) women may be at a heightened risk for experiencing marinization as a result of their intersecting identities …

Western Water Network: A Case Study In Water Network Formation, Travis Warziniak, Robert Heinse, Alexander Fernald, Michael Gaffney, Kristiana Hansen, Bret Hess, Lyla Houglum, Ginger Paige, Qin Zhang

Journal of Contemporary Water Research and Education

Increased water scarcity and drought frequency are creating water management challenges for many communities in the western U.S. In response, the Western Association of Agricultural Experiment Station Directors sponsored a virtual summit in August 2020 to develop a framework for identifying and addressing the most pressing water issues in the western United States (the West). Summit attendees were research scientists, university extension specialists and professionals, and federal/state agency representatives with knowledge and expertise of water management in the West. The summit elicited opinions from 54 experts on pressing water issues and possible methods for addressing them. A follow-on survey of …

Agency And Matrilineal Ties; Queen Victoria And Her Daughters, Lydia Catherine Pensel

Theses

This study examines the impact of Queen Victoria's political and diplomatic power on the marriages of her five daughters. Queen Victoria's influence on her daughters' marriages highlights her enduring behind the scenes power despite some claims to the contrary. Unlike the sons’ marriages, where considerable outside political influences brought to bear, the daughters’ marriages were almost solely influenced by Victoria. Examining the Queen's five daughters offers an alternate view of her motherhood while simultaneously exploring the diverse gender dynamics between her and her daughters.

Breaking Barriers: Exploring Women's Identities And Challenges Around Work Through Photos And Reports In Delhi Ncr, Sonal Vij

Research Papers

This paper explores the relationships between women and their work in India's Delhi National Capital Region. Using a journalistic ethnographic research approach, the study examines women's experiences from different socioeconomic backgrounds, professions, and castes. The research aims to understand the complex dynamics of female relationships at work, focusing on how women negotiate and resist patriarchal structures. The research uses participant observational techniques and involves spending time with the participants in their workplaces, observing their interactions, capturing them on camera, and conducting semi-structured interviews. The data is analyzed thematically to identify the patterns and themes that emerge from the participants' experiences. …

Sea Grant Center For Great Lakes Literacy Shipboard Science Workshop Evaluation, Jennifer Hunnell, Heather A. Triezenberg, Brandon C. Schroeder, Meaghan J. Gass

Journal of Contemporary Water Research and Education

Youth have an important role in current and future Great Lakes stewardship. Educating youth and empowering them to be Great Lakes stewards requires educators to be knowledgeable and confident, and therefore more likely to engage in teaching Great Lakes literacy activities in their classroom, thus contributing to a Great Lakes-literate public. The Shipboard Science Workshop (SSW) for educators is a vessel-based professional learning opportunity aboard the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's research vessel (R/V) Lake Guardian . During the week-long SSW, educators learn from professional scientists, Sea Grant staff, and each other about Great Lakes research through the lenses of place-based …

Kukama Radio: The Politics And Aesthetics Of Indigenous Media In Peruvian Amazonia, Gabriel Torrealba Alfonzo

Dissertations

This dissertation is about the political and aesthetic dimensions of Indigenous media in Peruvian Amazonia. It explores how Kukama media-makers use aesthetic mastery to engage in three key political fields in Amazonia: indigeneity, historicity, and environmentalism. I specifically examine the audiovisual discourses and media-making practices coming from an Indigenous radio station called Radio Ucamara, located in the town of Nauta in Northeastern Peru (Loreto region). Drawing on place-based ethnography and digital research methods, I analyze the way this radio station instrumentalizes multiple digital and non-digital media forms to make visible (and also audible) their identities, violent histories, and cosmological worlds …

Acting Locally: Vegetable Gardening In Southern Illinois, Aimee L. Trojnar

Dissertations

This dissertation explores the everyday practice of home and community vegetable gardening in a small southern Illinois city. The project engages with questions of how diverse elements of practice interact over time in the development of both gardens and gardeners, dwelling particularly on how the material agency of nonhumans contributes to what emerges. Combining a broad investigation of societal influences and constraints involved in gardening practices with a granular focus on material interactions in the garden, I consider the kinds of relationships individuals forge with the nonhuman environment in a modern, Western context and how they do so. Understanding such …

Voices From The Street: The Perception Of Crime, Disorder, And Police In Chicago Neighborhoods, Courtney Boyce

Research Papers

How do Chicago residents feel about police, crime, and disorder? Using qualitative interviews with 20 Chicago residents, this study examines the ways Chicago residents perceive and feel about police, crime, and disorder in their neighborhoods. The relationship between perceptions of police, crime, and disorder is compared to the way it is framed in the broken windows theory by Wilson and Kelling (1982). The first research question addresses how residents understand the relationship between police officers, policing, and crime in their Chicago neighborhoods. The second research question focuses on how residents understand the relationship between disorder, other neighborhood characteristics, and crime. …

There She Is: How Beauty Pageant Standards Affect Asian American Beauty Queens, Rebecca Chia

Research Papers

Beauty pageants were created to celebrate a woman’s beauty. However, beauty pageants then and now seem to celebrate Eurocentric beauty standards, and this is apparent in the lack of racial and cultural representation and diversity in premier pageants like Miss America, Miss USA, and Miss Universe. Using in-depth interviews, the author examines how Asian American women who compete in pageants navigate their racial and cultural identities and how they define beauty standards in a white dominated space. This study identities two significant themes: 1) the Asian women control the narrative around their racial and cultural identities in a space where …

The Isba’S Rural Practice Initiative: Addressing The Problem Of Legal Deserts In Illinois, Timothy A. Slating

Southern Illinois University Law Journal

Wide swaths of Illinois’ rural areas are increasingly being defined as “legal deserts” where there are not enough licensed lawyers to serve the public’s legal needs. In an effort to address this problem, the Illinois State Bar Association (ISBA) created its Rural Practice Initiative (RPI) in 2020. The RPI works to address the legal deserts problem by matching Summer Fellows and Associate Fellows with rural law firms in Illinois and subsidizing their pay. This article provides background on the RPI’s implementation, discusses the first two years of the Initiative, and provides thoughts on future ISBA efforts to address the legal …

2022-2023 Annual Report, Southern Illinois University Board Of Trustees

Annual Report Archive

No abstract provided.