Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons™

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Communication

Cleveland State University

2011

Articles 1 - 7 of 7

Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

Structural Pluralism And The Community Context: How And When Does The Environment Matter?, Leo Wayne Jeffres, Edward Horowitz, Cheryl Campanella Bracken, Guowei Jian, Kimberly Neuendorf, Sukki Yoon Nov 2011

Structural Pluralism And The Community Context: How And When Does The Environment Matter?, Leo Wayne Jeffres, Edward Horowitz, Cheryl Campanella Bracken, Guowei Jian, Kimberly Neuendorf, Sukki Yoon

Communication Faculty Publications

Several long-standing theories intersect in discussing the impact of community characteristics and of the mass media. The structural pluralism model popularized by Tichenor and his colleagues says that social structure influences how mass media operate in communities because they respond to how power is distributed in the social system, whereas the linear model says that the increasing size of a community's population leads to more social differentiation and diversity and corresponding increases in subcultures with their own beliefs, customs, and behaviors. Recently, there has been a concern about how changes in society have led to a decline in organizational activity …

Go to article

Viewing The Public Sphere With Influentials And Citizens, Leo Wayne Jeffres, Guowei Jian, Jae-Won Lee, C. Ellen Connally, Josie El Seikali Oct 2011

Viewing The Public Sphere With Influentials And Citizens, Leo Wayne Jeffres, Guowei Jian, Jae-Won Lee, C. Ellen Connally, Josie El Seikali

Communication Faculty Publications

The currently popular emphasis on democratic discussion in the “public sphere” often is critically viewed by observers commenting on issues of participation, empowerment, and efficacy without input from influentials, whose voices often are the content of public debates. Habermas was critical of the quality of democratic discourse, arguing for an “ideal speech situation” where participants are free to question all proposals; introduce proposals; and express their attitudes, wishes, and needs. This article examines perceptions of the climate of communication in the public sphere by influentials and the general public of a major urban area.

Go to article

A Qualitative Investigation Into The Active Level Of Perception Of Dissociation Of Source From Content Under Narrative Conditions, William J. Weaver Jan 2011

A Qualitative Investigation Into The Active Level Of Perception Of Dissociation Of Source From Content Under Narrative Conditions, William J. Weaver

ETD Archive

This thesis explores what media users perceive about the authors and creators of narrative media based solely on the content of that media itself. It contrasts traditional notions of source credibility (established via rhetoric or debate) versus models of media effects which exert themselves through mere exposure to message, and where a direct evaluation of the message source may be neither salient nor possible. A sample of nine undergraduates were individually interviewed in order to investigate the thematic trends associated with the perceptions of credibility and of authorial source while exposed to narrative. The interviews gave rise to the notion …

Go to article

The Convergence Of Media, Candidate, And Public Agendas As Predictors Of Voter Choice, Jonathan M. Simon Jan 2011

The Convergence Of Media, Candidate, And Public Agendas As Predictors Of Voter Choice, Jonathan M. Simon

ETD Archive

This thesis examined the role of agenda setting effects in creating conditions that could predict vote choice within the context of the 2010 general election in Cuyahoga County, Ohio. This survey utilized a mail survey sent to independent voters to measure the public agenda and thorough content analyses of local television news, the major local newspaper, candidate television advertisements and candidate websites to measure the media and candidate agendas. These agendas were compared using an innovative convergence score which reported the percent similarity between any two given agendas. This thesis found that relationships do exist between agenda convergence and vote …

Go to article

Promoting Disrespect Through Children's Television, Amy B. Brown Jan 2011

Promoting Disrespect Through Children's Television, Amy B. Brown

ETD Archive

The purpose of this study was to examine the frequency and portrayal of disrespectful behaviors as they occur on popular children's cable television shows. A content analysis of children's shows appearing on The Disney Channel and Nickelodeon was conducted. Disrespectful acts were organized into three categories: non-verbal, verbal, and physical. A total of 468 acts were recorded across the 18 episodes sampled for this study. Disrespectful acts that were classified as verbal in nature were the most prevalent, with 73 of the 468 identified acts falling into the verbal category. Fourteen percent of the acts were physical in nature, and …

Go to article

Facebook Anonymous Information Seeking (Fais) Behaviors: Emerging Definitions And Conceptual Relationships, Julie A. Cajigas Jan 2011

Facebook Anonymous Information Seeking (Fais) Behaviors: Emerging Definitions And Conceptual Relationships, Julie A. Cajigas

ETD Archive

One of the fastest growing modes of Computer Mediated Communication (CMC), Social Network Sites (SNS) are revolutionizing the way that people communicate andacquire interpersonal information. The largest of these is Facebook, with more than 500 million users (Facebook.com, 2011). A new lexicon of terms has evolved to describebehaviors specific to Facebook, including the term "Facebook stalking," a term which is used to describe a specific type of browsing behavior on Facebook. This exploratory research study attempts to define and measure "Facebook stalking," a behavior that has anumber of interpersonal and network communication implications.Using previous research as a guide, the terms …

Go to article

A Content Analysis Of Advertising In Popular Video Games, Peter G. Lindmark Jan 2011

A Content Analysis Of Advertising In Popular Video Games, Peter G. Lindmark

ETD Archive

There have been a plethora of analyses on the effects of and brand image of advertising in video games, but a dearth of analyses simply examining the role advertising has played in video games over the years. This study seeks to add to the available research on this topic. This study has yielded a great amount of information which should have pre-dated any analysis of the effects of advertising in video games, or brand placement and recall, and certainly any analysis on purchase intent as a result of interacting or observing brand or product placement in video games. Not only …

Go to article