Digital Commons Network^™

Racial Bias In Risk Allocation And Resource Utilisation: A Contributing Factor To Ethnic Minority Overrepresentation In Missing Person Investigations?, Amy Van Langeraad, Fiona Gabbert, Adrian J. Scott

International Journal of Missing Persons

Statistics from the National Crime Agency reveal that people from ethnic minority backgrounds are over-represented within the missing population in the United Kingdom, and previous archival studies have shown there is a discrepancy in the recovery of ethnic minority missing persons compared to White missing persons. A wider body of research shows that racial bias is prevalent in the criminal justice system and law enforcement, resulting in different outcomes for victims depending on their racial background. Such outcomes have yet to be examined in the context of missing persons. Therefore, this study tries to address this gap in the literature …

Unmasking Male Voices In Woman Hollering Creek: Contributions To Pedagogy And Masculinity Studies, Ramón Javier Guerra, Joan Latchaw

Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy

In teaching Sandra Cisneros’ Woman Hollering Creek to undergraduates, we have developed a sociocultural and historical framework, beginning with the theoretical work of Gloria Anzaldúa’s Borderlands and the concept of transfrontera feminism. With incidents of seduction and sexual abuse of women, spousal abuse, and patriarchal family structures, the collection of stories strongly indicates the oppressive representation of machismo. Scholars and teachers have drawn important critiques of Cisneros’s work based on destructive sociocultural forces on women. However, in rereading the text with an intended focus on the representations of male characters, we have surmised that Cisneros structured the stories in the …

Sexual Harassment Effects On Bodies Of Work: Engaging Students Through The Application Of Historical Context And Communication Theory To Pop Culture And Social Media, Bryan Vizzini, Kristina Drumheller

Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy

Rarely do professors have the opportunity to branch out and create a course that is literally shaped by the day’s news. The mediated unveiling of sexual predators in the summer of 2018 provided an opportunity to teach an honors seminar that wrote itself over the course of five weeks. Professors from the communication and history disciplines drew on theory commonly used in the communication discipline and used historical readings to frame a discussion of popular culture and its relation to current events. Each week, a film was incorporated for discussion and student projects were drawn from examples of popular culture, …

Triple Threat Or Triple Opportunity: When A Pop Culture Course Goes Online At A Community College, Lance Eaton, Alex Rockey

Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy

Teaching popular culture comes with many opportunities and challenges in a traditional classroom, but equally interesting and valuable are the possibilities that teaching such a course online can provide. This article explores how “Popular Culture in the US,” an online course at a community college, embraces some key attributes of the digital world such as multimodal communication and Web 2.0 interactivity. Evolved from a face-to-face community college course, the online version has increasingly developed to move from an instructor-centered to a student-centered approach that relies upon various engagement strategies. By using student choice, OER-enabled pedagogy, and constructivist approaches, the instructor …

Relandscaping The Rhetorical Tradition Through Hip Hop, Robert Tinajero

Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy

The field of rhetorical studies is rich and complex but has, in many ways, ignored or marginalized the study of rap music and hip hop culture. This article analyzes ways in which hip hop rhetoric adds to the terrain of rhetorical studies and posits ways that it can shift perspectives, subjects of study, practice, and theoretical frameworks within the discipline. There are also reasons hypothesized for why hip hop has been marginalized in pedagogy and academic writing within the rhetorical tradition and why it should not be ignored.

The Seventh Amendment Right To Jury Trial In The Administrative State: Recognizing The Dangers Of The Constitutional Moment, Martin H. Redish, Samy Abdelsalam

Notre Dame Law Review

One prominent constitutional scholar has sought to legitimize this constitutional transformation through resort to a strange and controversial analytical model he describes as the “constitutional moment.” In this Article, we plan to establish two important points: (1) there exists no principled mode of analysis of the Seventh Amendment right to jury trial that justifies the Court’s categorical dichotomy between Article III and non–Article III forums for purposes of the right’s applicability, and (2) while the theory of the “constitutional moment” would in fact justify the Court’s insulation of the administrative state from Seventh Amendment applicability, reliance on such a theory …

The Influence Of News Media On Esg Ratings: Analyzing Media Sentiment Around Esg Rating Changes, David Beverly

Dissertations

This dissertation investigates the complex relationship between media sentiment and Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) ratings, a pressing issue highlighted by the lack of transparency in the adjustments to ratings from some agencies and not others. The research aims to empirically examine the extent to which news media narratives influence ESG scores and contribute to discrepancies among rating agencies. With ESG investing becoming increasingly significant, as evidenced by the rise in global assets under management in ESG funds, the accuracy and reliability of ESG scores are of increasing importance to investors, policymakers, and academics.

The study explores the potential of …

Using Computational Thinking To Explore And Support Equity And Social Justice, Leslie Keiler, Sherone Smith-Sanchez, Zena Cooper, Natasha Cox-Magno, Lisa Dunn-Lockhart, Kara Hudon, Clare Pawson, Xin Bai

Publications and Research

Brief summary of presentation, suitable for inclusion in our conference program.

We explore the experience of teacher candidates who went to schools much like where they are preparing to teach. We investigate the implementation of Computational thinking-based (CT) learning experiences and examine the social justice implications. We investigate the impacts on their thinking about social justice and the faculty’s reflections on CT integration.

Strengthening Online Psychology Students’ Sense Of Belonging With Social Annotation: An Experimental Study, Alison E. Kelly, Virginia Clinton-Lisell

Education, Health & Behavior Studies Faculty Publications

Sense of belonging is associated with postsecondary student success outcomes and has largely been studied within face-to-face course contexts. The increasing demand for online courses after the COVID-19 pandemic necessitates identifying ways instructors can foster belonging in their online courses. This study experimentally tested the effect of using social annotation on students’ sense of belonging in asynchronous online courses. Students in two psychology courses (N = 44) were randomly assigned to complete annotation assignments individually (control) or in groups using a social annotation platform (treatment). Students completed a course-level sense of belonging measure at the end of their courses …

Unveiling The "Toxic" World Of #Meanspo: Understanding Users' Emerging Online Eating Disorder Practices In X/Twitter, Fayika Farhat Nova, Rachel Pfafman, Caralyn Logan Delaney, Jessica Pater

Health Services and Informatics Research

Meanspo, an antagonistic form of online support within the eating disorder (ED) community, involves the direct solicitation or sharing of aggressive and insulting online content. This study presents findings from a comprehensive qualitative analysis of #meanspo content on X (previously Twitter) from May 2020 (N=752). Our analysis of tweets reveals that posts tagged with #meanspo can be of various natures. While commonly associated with extremely derogatory ED content, more than 80% of posts with the meanspo tag on X were non-aggressive. The study also explores potential inconsistencies in voluntary and involuntary meanspo specific content moderation, prompting inquiries into X's …

Volume 17 - Issue 1: La Créole - A Journal Of Creole History & Genealogy, Emily M. Goldsmith, Alan Rosenberg, Charles Rosenberg, Kathryn Coleman Labat, Phebe A. Hayes Ph.D, Debora Lemelle Donato, Barbara Ricard Landix, Pat Marant Schexnayder, Sakinah A. Davis Dma, Ingrid R. Stanley

La Créole - A Journal of Creole History & Genealogy

The Louisiana Creole Research Association, Inc., known as LA Creole, was founded on August 21, 2004 as a New Orleans-based, non-profit family research and educational organization. Its purpose is to assist Creoles of Color in researching their ancestry, to educate the general public about Creole history and culture, and to celebrate the contributions and legacy of a unique, sometimes forgotten people. La Créole, the Association’s journal is published annually.

Exploring Llm Integration And Its Influence On Agent Behavior And Productivity In Insurance Call Centers, Gerardo L. Wibmer Gonzalez

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study investigates the theoretical impacts of supportive AI tools, specifically Large Language Models (LLMs), on agent behavior and communication dynamics in call centers. While technological advancements have streamlined operations, limited research addresses the indirect ways these tools influence agent behavior. Using frameworks like context switching—the cognitive shift required when external stimuli prompt attention shifts—and the Hawthorne effect, where perceived observation modifies behavior, we examine how LLMs shape communication patterns. In call centers, this context switching occurs indirectly as agents adapt to AI note-taking features, whereas in industries like Architecture, Engineering, and Construction (AEC), automation tools prompt more immediate changes …

Exploring How Funds Of Knowledge Is Utilized Among Teacher Educators In A Teacher Preparation Program Focusing On Arts Integration And Language Diversity, Gabrielle H. Pretto Ph.D

Teacher Education, Educational Leadership & Policy ETDs

In our current educational climate, teaching for social justice has become increasingly difficult. Teacher educators are faced with certification rules that prioritize test scores over teaching ability, scripted curriculums, and the limited understandings about differences related to culture, class, and race. This study examined how social justice teachings were sustained and enhanced through a Funds of Knowledge (FOK) learning approach. Case study was utilized and guided by the following research questions: (1) What are the FOK of teacher educators participating in the TEALi program? (2) In what ways are the FOK of teacher educators integrated or utilized in their university …

Internet Of Things-Based Automated Solutions Utilizing Machine Learning For Smart And Real-Time Irrigation Management: A Review, Bryan Nsoh, Abia Katimbo, Hongzhi Guo, Derek M. Heeren, Hope Njuki Nakabuye, Xin Qiao, Yufeng Ge, Daran R. Rudnick, Joshua Wanyama, Erion Bwambale, Shafik Kiraga

Department of Agricultural and Biological Systems Engineering: Faculty Publications

This systematic review critically evaluates the current state and future potential of real-time, end-to-end smart, and automated irrigation management systems, focusing on integrating the Internet of Things (IoTs) and machine learning technologies for enhanced agricultural water use efficiency and crop productivity. In this review, the automation of each component is examined in the irrigation management pipeline from data collection to application while analyzing its effectiveness, efficiency, and integration with various precision agriculture technologies. It also investigates the role of the interoperability, standardization, and cybersecurity of IoT-based automated solutions for irrigation applications. Furthermore, in this review, the existing gaps are identified …

Imagination Grows A Better World: Courage, Creativity, And Fantastic Futures, Janet Croft

Faculty Publications

Our field is requiring ever more courage from us as we face challenges to our bedrock beliefs in free access to information and the value of diverse viewpoints, of representation of different ways of being and living, of higher education, and of imagination itself. Where can we find inspiration to keep going? In order to meet the challenges we face with creativity and courage, we need both the ability to imagine a better world and the determination to work to bring this world into being. I’ll talk about some inspirational examples of the pairing of courage and creativity in my …

Hope Vs. Hate: Understanding User Interactions With Lgbtq+ News Content In Mainstream Us News Media Through The Lens Of Hope Speech, Jonathan Pofcher

Theses

This thesis makes three contributions. First, via a substantial corpus of 1,419,047 comments posted on 3,161 YouTube news videos of major US cable news outlets, we analyze how users engage with LGBTQ+ news content. Our analyses focus both on positive and negative content. In particular, we construct a fine-grained hope speech classifier that detects positive hope speech, negative, neutral, and irrelevant content. Second, in consultation with a public health expert specializing on LGBTQ+ health, we conduct an annotation study with a balanced and diverse political representation and release a dataset of 3,750 instances with fine-grained labels and detailed annotator demographic …

The Impact Of Hearing Aid User Speech On Environment Classification And Own Voice Listener Preferences, Robert Andrew Budinsky Iii

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Hearing aids (HA) have improved over the past few decades with advanced signal processing, such as environment classification and background noise reduction, but are still limited by challenges related to when the user is speaking. These challenges include the potential interference a HA user’s voice has on device environment classification and the potential influence a HA has on own voice (OV) sound quality. However, the effects of OV on HA environment classification and signal processing are not well established, nor are the desired HA program settings regarding OV listening preferences. In this study, a combination of electroacoustic and behavioral methods …

The Monsters In Twentieth And Twenty-First Century Illustrated Adaptation Of Beowulf For Children And Young Adults, Johanna Katharine Burton

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

I examine how some authors and illustrators of children’s and young adult literature adapt the old English Beowulf, how critics receive their works, and the functions these adaptations serve. My focus is on how the interplay between the visual and verbal text modifies or amplifies the overall story as well as how theories of translation/adaptation, monster, gender, and post-colonialism provide insight and aid in analysis. My ultimate objective is to demonstrate the significance of children’s and young adult adaptations of Beowulf and how these texts contribute to a rich and varied corpus. I argue that the adapter’s social/cultural context affected …

Community Outreach Vision Screenings With Student-Led Eye Health Education Improves Student Eye Health Knowledge And Ophthalmic Health Disparities Awareness, Tannia M. Rodriguez, Karim Dirani, Samantha M. Arsenault, Ryan Lee Freedman, John-Michael Guest, Kathleen George, Collin Richards, Leo Hall, Mark S. Juzych, Anju Goyal

Journal of Academic Ophthalmology

BACKGROUND: The high prevalence of vision impairment and discordant lack of eye care utilization makes it essential to develop effective avenues to educate the future physician work force regarding basic eye health knowledge and ophthalmic health disparities. The public is often not aware that blinding eye diseases can begin asymptomatically. It is important for medical students to understand basic eye health knowledge, such as blinding eye diseases can begin asymptomatically. The purpose of this study was to assess the impact of an eye health knowledge 5-Point Teaching Intervention (5PTI) and structured patient intake form on student eye health knowledge and …

Consider The Dementor: Discipline, Punishment, And Magical Citizenship In Harry Potter, Tracy Bealer

Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy

In his 2004 essay “Consider the Lobster”, David Foster Wallace investigated the ethics of boiling alive an aesthetically unappealing, yet sentient and perceiving, creature to augment the pleasure of a human consumer. In the Potterverse, dementors are described by our human heroes as “terrible things” with “rotting” bodies, “unseen” mouths, and characterized as “among the foulest creatures that walk this earth” . Their occupation as guards of Azkaban Prison does little to improve their reputation among wizard-kind. However, how much of the dementors’ evil is ontological? Is it possible that these beings have been actively constructed as villains by wizarding …

“No Te Voy A Dejar Nunca”: Culture And Second Language Acquisition For Survival In Fear The Walking Dead, Sharon M. Nuruddin

Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy

Popular culture reinforces and shapes the beliefs and values of the individual, the community, and the masses. It can also transmit hidden messages about aspects of human behavior that are reiterated in scholarly research. In the field of education, particularly in world language teacher education, film and television can be used as an effective tool for examining how we acquire a second language. Using a symbolic convergence theory perspective (SCT) (Bormann, 1972), I employ Sellnow’s (2014) three-step process for the rhetorical analyses of mediated popular culture texts to reveal “covert messages” (p. 9) within the popular American Movie Channel (AMC) …

Vol. 35, No. 12 - Whole No. 201, Eleanor M. Farrell

Mythprint

Mythprint is the monthly bulletin of the Mythopoeic Society, a nonprofit educational organization devoted to the study, discussion, and enjoyment of myth and fantasy literature, especially the works of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, and Charles Williams. To promote these interests, the Society publishes three magazines, maintains a World Wide Web site, and sponsors the annual Mythopoeic Conference and awards for fiction and scholarship, as well as local and written discussion groups.

Vol. 35, No. 10 - Whole No. 199, Eleanor M. Farrell

Mythprint

Mythprint is the monthly bulletin of the Mythopoeic Society, a nonprofit educational organization devoted to the study, discussion, and enjoyment of myth and fantasy literature, especially the works of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, and Charles Williams. To promote these interests, the Society publishes three magazines, maintains a World Wide Web site, and sponsors the annual Mythopoeic Conference and awards for fiction and scholarship, as well as local and written discussion groups.

Vol. 35, No. 9 - Whole No. 198, Eleanor M. Farrell

Mythprint

Mythprint is the monthly bulletin of the Mythopoeic Society, a nonprofit educational organization devoted to the study, discussion, and enjoyment of myth and fantasy literature, especially the works of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, and Charles Williams. To promote these interests, the Society publishes three magazines, maintains a World Wide Web site, and sponsors the annual Mythopoeic Conference and awards for fiction and scholarship, as well as local and written discussion groups.

Vol. 35, No. 7 - Whole No. 196, Eleanor M. Farrell

Mythprint

Mythprint is the monthly bulletin of the Mythopoeic Society, a nonprofit educational organization devoted to the study, discussion, and enjoyment of myth and fantasy literature, especially the works of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, and Charles Williams. To promote these interests, the Society publishes three magazines, maintains a World Wide Web site, and sponsors the annual Mythopoeic Conference and awards for fiction and scholarship, as well as local and written discussion groups.

Vol. 35, No. 6 - Whole No. 195, Eleanor M. Farrell

Mythprint

Mythprint is the monthly bulletin of the Mythopoeic Society, a nonprofit educational organization devoted to the study, discussion, and enjoyment of myth and fantasy literature, especially the works of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, and Charles Williams. To promote these interests, the Society publishes three magazines, maintains a World Wide Web site, and sponsors the annual Mythopoeic Conference and awards for fiction and scholarship, as well as local and written discussion groups.

Vol. 35, No. 5 - Whole No. 194, Eleanor M. Farrell

Mythprint

Mythprint is the monthly bulletin of the Mythopoeic Society, a nonprofit educational organization devoted to the study, discussion, and enjoyment of myth and fantasy literature, especially the works of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, and Charles Williams. To promote these interests, the Society publishes three magazines, maintains a World Wide Web site, and sponsors the annual Mythopoeic Conference and awards for fiction and scholarship, as well as local and written discussion groups.

Vol. 35, No. 3 - Whole No. 192, Eleanor M. Farrell

Mythprint

Mythprint is the monthly bulletin of the Mythopoeic Society, a nonprofit educational organization devoted to the study, discussion, and enjoyment of myth and fantasy literature, especially the works of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, and Charles Williams. To promote these interests, the Society publishes three magazines, maintains a World Wide Web site, and sponsors the annual Mythopoeic Conference and awards for fiction and scholarship, as well as local and written discussion groups.

Vol. 35, No. 2 - Whole No. 191, Eleanor M. Farrell

Mythprint

Mythprint is the monthly bulletin of the Mythopoeic Society, a nonprofit educational organization devoted to the study, discussion, and enjoyment of myth and fantasy literature, especially the works of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, and Charles Williams. To promote these interests, the Society publishes three magazines, maintains a World Wide Web site, and sponsors the annual Mythopoeic Conference and awards for fiction and scholarship, as well as local and written discussion groups.

Reinterpretation: Situating Culture From Pedagogy To Politics [Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal Of Popular Culture And Pedagogy, Volume 6, Issue 1 (February 2019)], Anna S. Cohenmiller

Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy

Reinterpretation: Situating Culture from Pedagogy to Politics [Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy, Volume 6, Issue 1 (February 2019)]

Editorial

Reinterpretations of Popular Culture and Pedagogy, Anna S. CohenMiller

Articles

Scarlett O’Hara, Solomon Northrup, and Ta-Nehisi Coates: Helping Students Grasp the Relationship between Popular Culture and Contemporary Racial Politics, Allison Rank

“Every Time I Write a Rhyme / These People Think It’s a Crime”: Persona Problems in Catullus and Eminem, Jesse Weiner

Making the Case for Teaching Character Change in Complex TV: The Closer and Major Crimes, Emily Hoffman

Human Sacrifice and Propaganda in Popular Discourse: More …