Digital Commons Network^™

Photographing The "Uncelebrated" Truth: The Newspaper Pm, New York 1940-1942, Nancy Wechter

Theses and Dissertations

The left-liberal NYC newspaper, PM, used photography with unprecedented transparency as a crucial element in its mission to inform ordinary working people, teach them to be literate about the photographic message, and encourage them to be a participating audience during the tense period just before World War II.

Analysis Of The Clarksdale Municipal School District's Eight Magnet Schools In Relation To Accountability Status And Per Student Expenditures, Edwin Marcus Robinson

Theses and Dissertations

This descriptive case study investigated eight magnet schools in the Clarksdale Municipal School District (CMSD) in relation to Mississippi Department of Education (MDE) accountability status and expenditures before and after implementation of the magnet school program for the purpose of determining whether positive or negative changes occurred. Using multiple school district and statewide data sources, the investigation was delimited to CMSD to assist school district officials in clearly and concisely determining whether or not the decision to establish eight magnet schools resulted in a positive outcome in relation to MDE accountability status and expenditures. The accountability status and expenditures were …

Marketingu Në Mediat Sociale: Mundësitë Dhe Sfidat, Palush Doda

Theses and Dissertations

Gjatë viteve të fundit kemi parë një rritje të madhe të mediave sociale e që është për shkak të rritjes së numrit të përdoruesve të internetit dhe platformave të ndryshme në mbarë botën. Përderisa shumë e më shumë njerëz fillojnë të përdorin internetin, ata fillojnë të lidhen me njëri tjetrin nëpërmjet platformave të ndryshme, disa prej tyre janë Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etj. Mediat sociale ofrojnë mundësi të madhe për marketerët që të bashkveprojnë me audiencën në kohë reale. Aty, konsumatorët dhe kompanitë mund të komunikojnë me njëri tjetrin pa marrë parasysh kohën dhe pa vonesa, si dhe pa nevojen e …

Exploring Family Heritage And Personal Space To Find Meaning And Content In Student Art, Rebecca Link Wilhelm

Theses and Dissertations

As an art educator, I found student art lacking in meaning and students lacking personal engagement. I sought a way to engage students in more meaningful art-making in the classroom by exploring family heritage and personal spaces. This case study searched the family heritage and personal spaces of students in a junior high art class to engage students and find deeper meaning and context for student art-making. The research was informed through an arts-based inquiry with a/r/tographic influence. It was a qualitative inquiry, mining the familiar for development of a curriculum rich in context and personal significance for students. This …

Using Design Thinking To Enhance Construction Site Problem Solving, Ehab Mokhtar

Theses and Dissertations

Problem solving is one of the most important issues in Construction Management (CM), it influences the outcome of the project due to the amount of decisions and problems that the Construction Manager faces in each project. Construction Management is a vital subject that has been in the spotlight of academic research for decades, which led to its emerging by going through the cycles of developing and evolution. The criteria of decision-making and problem solving have also evolved from focusing on the technical and objective aspects of construction to the soft and subjective ones. (Bakht, El Diraby 2015). Nevertheless, the last …

Comfort Toys: Coping Tools For Children With An Epileptic Parent, Benjamin Evjen

Theses and Dissertations

When a caregiver suffers from epilepsy, a child can often feel frightened, vulnerable, and alone whenever a seizure occurs. In my thesis project I intend to help children negotiate this struggle with the use of therapeutic toys. Through play, children can navigate feelings that are often overlooked by adults. The visual appeal, simplicity, and materials used in their creation help facilitate comfort through sensory cues. By applying coping mechanisms to deal with stress caused by the passage of time, provide tactile comfort, and equip the child with tools to take action, their emotional needs are met. These toys address an …

From The Multi To The Modal: Relations In Multimodal Composition, Sebastian Ivy

Theses and Dissertations

In response to the development of multimodal composition over the last twenty years, significant questions regarding its relationship to traditional composition and the discipline’s pedagogical practices have been posed. These questions are most often raised regarding the way that multimodal composition isolates media and modes, and is thus “tacked on” to composition courses. These concerns are primarily due to the way that multimodality has been theorized, which is usually rooted in the work of the New London Group. Developing a version of multimodal composition that can avoid both isolating its various parts and being tacked on to traditional concerns requires …

Exploration Of Mind Mapping As An Organizational Change Tool, Brenda G. Wilson

Theses and Dissertations

Mind mapping is a communication tool that has been around for decades though it is rarely discussed as a tool for facilitating organizational change. It is possible for this underutilized communication tool and the ever-present challenge of organizational change to work in harmony on a more consistent basis. This exploratory research asked Change Leaders and Change Participants about their current mind mapping usage or experience, and requested their input on the use of mind mapping for organizational change efforts. There were 76 Change Leaders and 11 others who self-described themselves as Change Participants who responded to a virtual data collection …

Exploring Visual Prevention: Developing Infographics As Effective Cervical Cancer Prevention For African American Women, Candace P. Parrish

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this dissertation is to explore the creation of a cervical cancer health prevention infographic, geared toward African American women ages 30 to 65, to be potentially used to raise health literacy and influence positive behaviors towards practicing prevention measures—ultimately preventing unnecessary deaths. This dissertation also produced a cervical cancer health prevention infographic prototype for African American Women ages 30 to 65 to be further tested and implemented within future health communication campaigns.

Cervical Cancer is both preventable and treatable (if diagnosed during early stages); therefore the amount of individuals dying from the cancer should be minimal. Still, …

Adornment And Modesty A Symbiotic Relationship Between Surface Design And Social Behavior, Hawa Stwodah

Theses and Dissertations

The impulse to beautifying clothing through acts of adornments or embellishments is an innate characteristic of humans. The added decorative details are used for identification and visual communication by the wearer and comprehension and visual appreciation by the viewer.

This thesis investigates the recent attention to female modesty, labeled as the Modesty Movement--the community that has developed around the apparel segment of the Movement and the framework of the behavior encompassing the participants within Movement. Additionally, the thesis focuses on adornment through the lens of textile/surface design (embellishment) specific to the Greater Middle East and the northern provinces of India …

Egyptianization: Culture Hacking As A Method, Hadeer Omar

Theses and Dissertations

In a broad sense, cultures undergo a metamorphoses due to the external influences and systems impacting the evolution of internal identities. Conversely, Individuals within cultures react to those external influences and systems.The act of hacking a culture is an opportunity to challenge an existing or imported system in order to bring about change and improvement. An aspect of culture hacking is to create messages of satire or irony in order to criticize, or completely reject established systems within cultures.

Post Arab spring, Egyptians practiced culture hacking by applying their cultural tools to external systems and influences, producing a process of …

Interhouse: A Place For Growing Up And Growing Adults, Nilufar Makhamatova

Theses and Dissertations

Society has become increasingly segregated by age which lessens the opportunities for communication between generations. Before the Internet, children and adolescents typically learned through traditional means - their parents, school teachers, and life experiences. Adults believed they were capable of recognizing and addressing the needs of children and adolescents. (Strom & Strom, 2012) Now, the global media is widely accessed by people of all ages which gives it the ability to influence a large population in different ways. This has led to children and adolescents being more heavily influenced and educated by the media than other traditional sources. Adolescents, in …

It's Slapstick Design, Thanks! Wait! No "Thanks"- Just Slapstick Design ..., Curtis A. Bailey

Theses and Dissertations

I'm arguing for an approach to generating graphic form based on slapstick. Slapstick is a genre of physical comedy involving humorous portrayals of clumsiness, mistakes, and nonsense. I investigate it as an approach to form, content, process, and communication. These methods were used to construct an immersive installation loosely based on The Tibetan Book of the Dead.

Graphic design is expected to function. It does this by conditioning users to its particular patterns or by skillfully implementing familiar patterns. A slapstick approach to graphic design is valuable as a critical tool for disrupting conditioned experiences for promoting empathy by relating …

No Woman Is An Island, Adele Ball

Theses and Dissertations

We have gathered the following pages to archive our time here in Richmond, Virginia. We have been here for two years, growing slowly, moving when needed to new anchorholds to avoid detection or arrest. We scrutinize the urban environment like modern archeologists. We collect stories and speculate about new uses of old things. It is imperative to be resourceful here, and we do so out of necessity but also in the spirit of practice. These pages were made en route, each an exploration of the tools at hand when on the move. The method of creation is just as important …

Nostalgia And Iphone Camera Apps: An Ethnographic Visual Approach To Iphoneography, Maria L. De Panbehchi

Theses and Dissertations

The iPhone is the most popular smartphone and camera on social media. iPhoneography, the photography taken or edited with the iPhone, has set the trend of nostalgic photography on social media during the 2010s; thus, the iPhone, a high-tech camera, produces low-tech-looking images. This dissertation attempts to find out why iPhone photographers (iPhoneographers) take, edit, and share images that mimic photographs taken with analog photographic equipment. I argue that nostalgia allows iPhoneographers to use the iPhone as a creative tool and to belong to a community. Based on the arguments of Vilém Flusser—who suggested that photographers are more interested in …

A Phenomenological Study Of The Experiences Of Parents Of A Child Or Children Diagnosed With Deafness, David Patrick Leach

Theses and Dissertations

This qualitative study examined the lived experiences of twelve parents who have a child or children diagnosed with deafness, and the meaning these parents have made of their experiences. The researcher conducted individual, semi-structured interviews and analyzed the data in accordance with the practices of phenomenological research. Thirty-seven themes were identified in the interview data, which were discussed in terms of their implications for efficacious clinical services to this population, as well as for the field of counselor education.

Bridging The Gap: A Pictorial History Of The Arkansas Affiliate Of The Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation, Nikki K. Senn

Theses and Dissertations

The Arkansas Affiliate of the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation, based in Little Rock, Arkansas, functions as a not-for-profit, philanthropic entity within the breast cancer movement, which gained momentum in the 1980s. This process paper delves into how the Susan G. Komen Arkansas piece fits into the puzzle that is the breast cancer movement. I assessed the breast cancer movement and the development of medical philanthropic entities. The paper also covers methodology and guidelines followed throughout the project. Results of my research exist in this process paper that accompanies the actual project portion of the thesis, a coffee table …

Simplification: An Effective Visual Solution For Graphic Design, Yihan Wang

Theses and Dissertations

Simplification, as an effective visual solution, is frequently applied in modern graphic design. During my graduate studies, this method was integrated with each project including identity design, package design and print design. As a result, it not only helped clarify thoughts in the creative process, but it also helped form a relatively consistent style. However, since graphic design refers to communication via visual elements, this presents the problem of whether simplification affects the transfer of information. In other words, the degree to which the visual language should be literal needs discussion and exploration. Contrary to the simplified expression of graphic …

Effects Of Land Management On Mammalian Species Abundance And Richness Among Four Sites In West-Central Georgia, Kelsey A. Champagne

Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

The Visualization And Representation Of Gender In Egyptian Comics, What Is The Fuss All About?, Sara Hany Shaker Rizkallah

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis investigates gender visualization in Egyptian comics published in 2011 and afterwards, focusing on three main themes: the veil, violence against women, and the role played by women during post-revolutionary Egypt. The three main comics utilized in this study are: TokTok magazine, Al-Shakmgia, and Qahera. The main purpose of the study is to examine whether these three comics re-inscribe or challenge the stereotyped gender representation of women in the previously mentioned themes. By examining these three comics, this thesis argues that the binary conception of gender is no longer based on stereotypes of men and women, of masculinity and …

The Edgy Relationship Between Sports Media And Sports Organizations In Egypt: The Urgency For An Effective Media Policy, Inas Mohamed Ali Mazhar

Theses and Dissertations

This study delves into the edgy and often tense relationship between sports organizations and sports media in Egypt. The study confirms how this relationship, which is usually known as being "symbiotic", based on mutual benefits, has now become a burden on the two sides in their day-to-day working relationship. The study is based on qualitative research with data collected through in-depth interviews. A purposive sample of journalists and members of sports organizations were selected to discuss the reasons behind the broken symbiotic ties which led to the relationship being at stake. The study also aims at finding solutions and recommendations …

Finding Unfound_Graphic Hybridity, Yaeyoung Park

Theses and Dissertations

Hybridity is the result when visual form, color or tools interact. While not every combination of multiple elements result in success, I believe creativity, intuition and serendipity determines the successful hybridity. This is the documentation of my journey to develop a personal definition of successful hybridity in graphic design.

Imaging The Early Cold War: Photographs In Life Magazine, 1945-1954, Kathryn L. Lewis

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation analyzes Life’s early coverage of the Cold War (1945-1954) in order to explicate this publication’s creation and reinforcement of prescriptive attitudes about this ideological engagement through photographically illustrated news. By uncovering Life’s editorial approach this project proposes a new diagnostic for evaluating documentary images by re-configuring Hayden White’s incisive theory of emplotment—the process of engendering historical narratives with meaning— through semiotic models proposed by Louis Hjelmslev and Roland Barthes, thereby offering a useful tool for future scholars to re-examine modern media’s transition towards prizing visual immediacy over critical engagement.

Life’s editors’ link narrative devices …

Sankofa Art Education: A Cultural Basis For Ghanaian Art Education, Esi Sam Annan

Theses and Dissertations

This study is a curriculum research project that focuses on teaching the traditional arts of Ghana and enduring artistic ideas to Ghanaian basic school students. It has been designed based on data from a survey conducted with experts in Ghana arts history and on the traditional arts of Ghana. The curriculum covers the major arts practiced by the traditional artists. It also recognizes some contemporary Ghanaian artists and their artworks.

This study offers insights into Ghanaian basic school art teachers’ philosophies and experience with their traditional arts. Through analysis of the findings, the major themes that emerged were changes in …

Avatar, Cyborg, Icevorg: Simulacra’S Scion, Guido E. Alvarez

Theses and Dissertations

I propose a theoretical framework that describes how avatars incorporate media as an inherent part of their nature and find a hosting body in cyborgs to navigate and spawn in media. I propose the birth of a new scion that combines avatar, medium and cyborg into a conceptual being that I call “ICEVORG.”

The ICEVORG expands beyond representation into the actual physical world by means of media transgression—more specifically, by the use of the Strange Loop also known as Metalepsis ICEVORG find an effective soil to thrive and interrogate our ideas of reality by means of iteration, expansion, fragmentation and …

Visual-Audio Media: Transformation And Communication, Alexander Bruno

Theses and Dissertations

Designers are often concerned with communication through the visual; we focus on the printed object, images on screens, furniture, spaces, and other visual experiences. We should also be cognizant of audio and its communicative properties, especially when contextualized with visual content. Pairing visuals and audio can make a greater impact upon a viewer/listener than each media might make alone. My research focuses on a practice of working within strict sets of rules and boundaries to create visual-audio work. This visual-audio work not only communicates a concept or idea, but also lives as a research artifact of my design processes.

Polycultural Interactions: Fuzzy Identity, Xi Lu

Theses and Dissertations

“Robin D.G. Kelley coined the term polyculturalism as an alternative to multiculturalism, ‘since the latter often implies that cultures are fixed, discrete entities that exist side by side—a kind of zoological approach to culture.’ ”

Polyculturalism assumes the whole world’s cultures are interactive and fluid instead of independent and static, and individuals’ relationship to cultures are complex and cannot be categorized. Yet an individual constitutes multiple cultures, and individual identity embraces the various forms of culture in all aspects of one’s life.

My research examines how polyculturalism affects aspects of communications among people who hold a multiplicity of voices. It …

The Orphanage Of Things: A Narrative Of Abandonment, Malaz Elgemiabby

Theses and Dissertations

In Sudan, 110 babies are abandoned in the streets of Khartoum every month. The majority of abandoned children are born out of wedlock. Young women with illegitimate pregnancies are often ostracized by their families and society, and the lack of emotional, financial and legal support has led many to take desperate measures, including the abandonment of their children. Relinquishing mothers exist like ghosts in Sudanese society. The only evidence of the mother’s experience is her anonymous, abandoned child. In order to understand and examine this phenomenon, I used ethnographic performance art informed by design research practice (Performative Research Design). I …

Tracing Motion, Stephanie M. Clark

Theses and Dissertations

This document explores the use of motion within design to defamiliarize a message. The objective is to expand a viewer’s level of understanding through prolonged perception. I experiment with this idea using present-day tools which afford my own movement during the capturing process to create various visual interpretations of motion. I look to László Moholy-Nagy, Aleksandr Rodchenko and Eadweard Muybridge who explored the use of the camera, the new technology of their day, to understand its potential to create a new visual language. They believed the lens of the camera was the eye of the future—and the public’s exposure to …

Molecular Mechanisms Underlying Wing Color Pattern Development In Vanessa Cardui And Evolution Of The Polycomb Repressive Complex 2, Heidi Connahs

Theses and Dissertations

In this dissertation, I present four papers. Three explore different aspects of wing color pattern development in the painted lady butterfly, Vanessa cardui; while the fourth examines the evolution of an epigenetic silencer complex across invertebrate animals. In the first paper, I used transcriptomics to identify patterning genes from the Drosophila wing gene regulatory network (GRN) in larval and pupal wings of V. cardui and to examine how temporal expression dynamics of this gene network correspond to expression of ommochrome and melanin pigment genes. This study identified key developmental periods of gene upregulation and highlights the temporal separation between peak …