Digital Commons Network^™

Internet Use And Economic Development: Evidence And Policy Implications, Joseph J. Macdougald

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation explores how Internet use impacts four different measures of economic development using several econometric techniques on multi-country panel data. The economic development outcomes investigated are: per capita GDP, per capita export revenues, per capita market capitalization, and societal well-being as measured by the United Nations Human Development Index (HDI). Data from the World Bank, the International Telecommunication Union, and the United Nations –covering 202 countries over the period 1996 to 2007– are combined to allow for empirical investigation using dynamic panel data and finite mixture model estimation techniques on the total sample and subsamples stratified by country income …

Who Gender-Bends And Why? A Qualitative Study Of World Of Warcraft, Clairellyn Rose Gregory

Dissertations and Theses

According to a 2009 study, 68% of American households played video games (Entertainment Software Association). With this number continually on the rise, video games and their cultures are in need of further scholarly exploration. A video game of particular interest is a massive online game known as World of Warcraft, drawing over twelve million players worldwide (Blizzard Entertainment, 2010). With a cyberspace-based culture, World of Warcraft exposes its players to phenomenon that are unique to it, and thereby not easily understood through the same measures and evaluations offered by society at large. One such phenomena is that of gender, or …

Crisis Management Post Hurricane Katrina: A Qualitative Study Of A Higher Education Institution's Administrators' Response To Crisis Management, Steven Lee Mccullar

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

From campus shootings to mass prolonged campus closures in the Gulf Coast due to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, the past decade has seen an increase in high profile crises at higher education institutions. Louisiana State University was one of the institutions impacted by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005. After the experience, university administrators created an Emergency Operation Center and a new plan for how to handle campus crises. In 2008, LSU administrators had an opportunity to test their full scale plan with the landfall of Hurricane Gustav. In this study, university administrators from LSU were interviewed about their experiences …

The Cowl - V. 75 - N. 12 - Dec 9, 2010

The Cowl

The Cowl - student newspaper of Providence College. Volume 75 - Number 12 - December 9, 20100. 36 pages.

Doctoral Program Quality And Scholarly Productivity, Steven G. Shenouda

Open Access Dissertations

The present study was undertaken to examine the relationship between the reputation of doctoral programs in Interpersonal Communication and the degree of research productivity associated with the faculty offering the program. Authors, institutional affiliation, number of authors, position of article, and related information for every article published in Communication Monographs and Human Communication Research from 1994 through 2004 were recorded. Based on this analysis, productivity factors were calculated for faculty of every Ph.D. program in the National Communication Association (NCA) reputational study (2004) focused on Interpersonal Communication. Data analysis was conducted to explore possible statistical associations between quality assessments of …

Still Flying: The Communicative Constitution Of Browncoat Fandom As Culture, Jonathon Nicholas Lundy

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

In contemporary western culture, fandom is common. Many academics and members of the general public alike conceive of fandom as outside the norms of spectatorship; to be a spectator is to enjoy an interest individually and passively. However, others contend that fandom is a more significant cultural achievement.

This study qualitatively investigated how Browncoats, or fans of the cancelled television series Firefly , communicatively construct their fandom culture. Methods included participant observation, semi-structured interviews, data analysis through Grounded Theory, and a comparative thematic analysis of the original Firefly source texts and Browncoat cultural data in order to discover meaningful themes …

America's P.R.I.D.E.: Entertainment Education As A Health Communication Intervention Strategy For Middle School And High School Students, Elizabeth Stephens

Electronic Theses and Dissertations Archive

The purpose of this dissertation research was to study the ways that members of the P.R.I.D.E. club at Houston High School in Germantown, Tennessee used entertainment-education communication strategies in their presentations and the interpersonal persuasive strategies members used when talking with peers about substance abuse. Participants in this study were members of the P.R.I.D.E. club and ranged in age from 14-years-old to 18-years-old. My research questions examined how P.R.I.D.E. incorporated constructs of entertainment-education (emotional involvement, identification with characters, self-efficacy, perceived realism, and fear appeals) into their presentations to persuade peers to abstain from using alcohol, tobacco, and drugs, and examined …

The Cowl - V. 75 - N. 10 - Nov 18, 2010

The Cowl

The Cowl - student newspaper of Providence College. Volume 75 - Number 10 - November 18, 2010. 36 pages.

The Cowl - V. 75 - N. 9 - Nov 11, 2010

The Cowl

The Cowl - student newspaper of Providence College. Volume 75 - Number 9 - November 11, 2010. 32 pages.

The Cowl - V. 75 - N. 8 - Nov 4, 2010

The Cowl

The Cowl - student newspaper of Providence College. Volume 75 - Number 8 - November 4, 2010. 36 pages.

A Proposal To Develop Christian Leaders For South Africa's Kingdom-Focused Church, Roney Lucas Ndala

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

My proposal centers around developing Christian leaders to believe in themselves and aspire to building kingdom- focused churches in line with the Great Commission. With the alarming growth of churches in South Africa it is imperative to focus attention to the development of leaders who will align and focus the growth to the kingdom. The purpose of this project is to introduce leaders to the concept of kingdom- focused churches that will move people within the ministry of the growing church. The project reviews some principles of a healthy growing church and the need for alignment during this growth stage. …

The Cowl - V. 75 - N. 7 - Oct 28, 2010

The Cowl

The Cowl - student newspaper of Providence College. Volume 75 - Number 7 - October 28, 2010. 36 pages.

The Cowl - V. 75 - N. 6 - Oct 21, 2010

The Cowl

The Cowl - student newspaper of Providence College. Volume 75 - Number 6 - October 21, 2010. 36 pages.

Videopoetry: Historical Photography In The Desert Garden, Peter Lutze, James Armstrong, Laura Woodworth-Ney

Literacy, Language and Culture Faculty Publications and Presentations

This paper presents an integration of poetry, history and photography through the video medium to convey a cultural history of the irrigated desert in southern Idaho, USA, around 1900. The VideoPoetry project is an investigation of cultural history that employs video and poetry to make it come alive. This social history is revealed through the lives of Clarence E. Bisbee and Jessie Robinson Bisbee of Twin Falls, Idaho. Their marriage focused on their photography business that involved documenting the transformation of the desert into farms, towns, and cities. This project brings out for public view a selection of historical photographs …

The Cowl - V. 75 - N. 1 - Sept 9, 2010

The Cowl

The Cowl - student newspaper of Providence College. Volume 75 - Number 1 - September 9, 2010. 20 pages.

The Cowl - V. 75 - N. 5 - Oct 7, 2010

The Cowl

The Cowl - student newspaper of Providence College. Volume 75 - Number 5 - October 7, 2010. 32 pages.

Specialization Research Group Project (Includes Rubric), Amber Hutchins

Information Literacy Resources for Curriculum Development

No abstract provided.

Library Scavenger Hunt Assignment, Kristen Norwood

Information Literacy Resources for Curriculum Development

No abstract provided.

The Cowl - V. 75 - N. 4 - Sept 30, 2010

The Cowl

The Cowl - student newspaper of Providence College. Volume 75 - Number 4 - September 30, 2010. 32 pages.

The Cowl - V. 75 - N. 3 - Sept 23, 2010

The Cowl

The Cowl - student newspaper of Providence College. Volume 75 - Number 3 - September 23, 2010. 32 pages.

Gender Bias As Evidenced On Political Blogs In The 2008 Presidential Election, Lori Ann Gardner

Theses and Dissertations

Political blogs played a significant role in the 2008 presidential election serving not only as news sources on the latest political coverage, but also as communities where people expressed political opinions, interacted with others who shared similar beliefs, as well as attempt to persuade and influence the audience members, often making calls to action. A rhetorical analysis, drawing from gendered mediation and frame theory, of 183 political blog posts revealed that gendered mediation was quite common on blog posts in the 2008 presidential election. Further, the mediation was often followed by gendered discourse that was much more blatant in content …

Impact Of The Extension's Soybean Podcast Alerts: A Case Study, Rebecca Carol Norman

Theses and Dissertations

Since 2004, podcasts have steadily emerged as valuable communication tools in both industry and academia. As an educational provider to the agricultural community, the Cooperative Extension Service strives to stay on the forefront of new communication technology. In 2009, the Communications department of the Arkansas Cooperative Extension Service developed a series of video podcast alerts for Arkansas soybean producers. These podcast alerts were intended to alert producers of potential weed and disease problems during the soybean growing season. Case study surveys were conducted at the beginning and end of the growing season to assess the impact of the podcasts alerts …

A Midsummer Night's Dream On The Radio: Technology In Voice And Speech, David Becker

Theses and Dissertations

Recent advances in sound technology have had significant implications for the teaching of voice and speech that are only now becoming apparent. As more students become “plugged in” it becomes more difficult, both for the instructor and the student, to communicate, let alone find a voice. We are becoming increasingly addicted to communicating through our devices, rather than through the traditional and accepted modes of the past: using the human voice. In light of these rapid and various new developments, voice training, especially at the introductory level, needs to be examined anew. A number of traditional approaches and teaching methods …

Craft As A Form Of Mindful Inquiry, Louise Valentine, Georgina Follett

DRS Biennial Conference Series

In this research project ‘Communication of Craft Practice’ is the subject and the problem is one of transparency of the intellectual act and accessibility to the embodied knowledge. Why? The skill of coherently expressing the intellectual and personal voice within the development of craft practice is usually missing. There is a gap in our knowledge. The methodological framework is Mindful Inquiry which is a synthesis of critical social science, hermeneutics, phenomenology and Buddhism (Bentz and Shapiro, 1998).The research involves working directly with professional practitioners to embark on a series of creative journeys from which craft as an experience, process, product …

The Effect Of Cross-Chain Discussion By Eyewitnesses And Non-Eyewitnesses On Rumor Accuracy, Samuel Brougher

Theses

As rumors travel from person to person, information is lost during the transmissions. Discussion, however, increases retention of the original account and organizes later transmissions. This organization then decreases the attentional load of the listeners, thus allowing them to attend to and retain a more complex message. Further, the information that is lost tends to be explanatory statements (instead of event statements). Such explanatory statements make ratings of a negative event more neutral, but are lost when the listener's attentional load is increased, and the central (event-based) message is more likely to be retained. With this in mind, the effects …

“I Found It On The Internet” Preparing For The E-Patient In Oman, Ken Masters, Dick Ng’Ambi, Gail

Sultan Qaboos University Medical Journal

In the Information Age, the communication patterns between doctor and patient are changing. Using Everett Rogers’ theory of Diffusion of Innovations, this paper begins by examining the diffusion of the Internet in the world and in Oman. It then considers the emergence of e-patients. The characteristics of e-patients are described in some detail. The paper ends by describing steps that should be taken when teaching medical students in Oman so that they can be prepared for e-patients.

Teaching Conflict Reconciliaton To Those Who Use Technological Communication - A Ministry For Postmodern People, Jeffrey E. Skopak

Doctor of Ministry Major Applied Project

With a large group of postmoderns at Fountain of Life Lutheran Church I have access to the community I wish to study and assist with biblical communication, conflict, and reconciliation tools. With that in mind, the purpose of this project is to equip postmodern people with biblical communication, conflict, and reconciliation tools so that they may maintain and nurture healthier relationships with other people by better understanding and using biblical communication, conflict, and reconciliation tools. In order to accomplish this task I have developed four critical events that focus on the topics of communication, relationships, conflict, and reconciliation. These critical …

Using Critical & Creative Thinking To Enhance Productivity In Integrated Marketing Communications Meetings And Procedures, Ashley N. Smith

Critical and Creative Thinking Capstones Collection

This paper provides a teaching model for how to effectively incorporate Critical and Creative Thinking (CCT) methods into a business setting to initiate organizational change. I developed a workshop on workplace meetings based on the imperfections of the marketing team at “ICS.” The workshop touches on CCT methods that are needed in order for organizations to change. I also integrated CCT methods into the Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC) Procedure to enhance productivity and produce results. Integrated marketing is made up of many pieces of the media field, but often the participants in IMC are searching for the same end result. …

Where Were The Media In The Financial Crisis Of 2008, And Have We Seen This Trend Before?, Margaret Dickinson

Honors Projects in Communication

In the fall of 2008, the United States and the rest of the world experienced significant financial turmoil. The financial industry as we knew it crumbled before our eyes. After experiencing this event and the media's fragmented and inconsistent coverage of it, I felt an interesting topic to look into was the financial press' failed coverage of the finance industry, both today and in the past. In looking at this event, I will focus on both the financial press that failed to cover the happenings of the financial industry, as well as those that did recognize the issue at hand. …

Examining The Dissemination Of Innovations In The Sporting Goods Industry., Marion E. Hambrick

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

US consumers spend $87 million annually on sporting goods and services (National Sporting Goods Association, 2008). Each year sporting goods manufacturers also spend millions of dollars creating innovative products for consumers looking to improve their playing performances and enjoyment of the sport (Reisinger, 2002). Manufacturers want to receive adequate returns on their research and development investments and create innovations consumers support and want to buy (Berman & McLaughlin, 1973). To facilitate the dissemination of innovations, manufacturers provide information about their innovations to increase product awareness and help consumers make informed purchasing decisions (Rogers, 2003). The purpose of the current study …