Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Style Shifting In First-Encounter Conversations Between Japanese Speakers, Kenichi Shinkuma

Dissertations and Theses

This study examines style shift between formal and informal styles in first- encounter conversations between Japanese native speakers and demonstrates how the speakers shifted the speech style in the context. Many researchers have studied this type of style shift and demonstrated that style shifts occur within a single speech context where social factors, such as differences in age, status, and formalness remain constant (e.g., Cook, 2008; Geyer, 2008; Ikuta, 1983; Maynard, 1991; Okamoto, 1999). This study contributed support to these previous studies. In this study, both quantitative and qualitative analyses focusing on Japanese native speakers' use of style shifting in …

Elaborating Patient Agency In Breast-Cancer Care: A Grounded Theoretical Analysis Of Patients Asserting Treatment Preferences, Rachel Sofia Erdman

Dissertations and Theses

Successful physician-patient communication is increasingly being acknowledged as a vital aspect of healthcare today. Research in the field has not examined all aspects of patient-centered care and the aspects that have been studied have not been grounded in actual patient action. The research done in the field has largely been studied quantitatively. The present thesis research attempts to contribute to the gap in the field of physician-patient communication by qualitatively examining patient assertiveness. This thesis examines conversations between women in Portland, Oregon recently diagnosed with breast cancer talking to their surgeons about their diagnoses and treatment options. Using grounded qualitative …

"Your Information Station": A Case Study Of Rural Radio In The 21st Century, William Jacob Amadeus Pinnock

Dissertations and Theses

The study examined how the introduction of high-speed internet into a rural community affected audience members' use of their local radio station. A qualitative case study was guided by uses and gratifications and niche theory. The author conducted interviews with KMMR FM audience members in Malta, Montana, to investigate how the introduction of high-speed internet impacted listener habits. Twenty participants who either listened to or produced content for KMMR FM were interviewed. The author performed a thematic analysis of different uses for the radio guided by typologies created by Rubin (1983), Palmgreen and Rayburn (1979), and Katz, Haas, and Gurevitch …

The Stories We Tell: A Qualitative Inquiry To Multiracial Family Storytelling, Mariko O. Thomas

Dissertations and Theses

A narrative inheritance is comprised of the stories told by family members that are received by a younger generation and used to help construct identity. According to the communication theory of identity, identity is formed through communication. Additionally, the storied resource perspective looks at narratives as a major method of creating and maintaining identity. This study looks at the kinds of narrative inheritance concerning race that people in multiracial families receive and possible ways it affects racial identity formation. Findings from 12 semi-structured interviews indicate that narratives of racism, cultural pride, and hardship are prevalent in multiracial families. Additionally, findings …

The Effect Of Social Media On Public Awareness And Extra-Judicial Effects: The Gay Marriage Cases And Litigating For New Rights, Sarahfina Aubrey Peterson

Dissertations and Theses

When the Supreme Court grants new rights, public awareness is a crucial part of enforcement. Gerald N. Rosenberg and Michael J. Klarman famously criticized minority rights organizations for attempting to gain new rights through the judiciary. The crux of their argument relied heavily on the American media's scanty coverage of Court issues and subsequent low public awareness of Court cases. Using the 2013 United States v. Windsor and Hollingsworth v. Perry rulings as a case study, I suggest that the media environment has changed so much since Rosenberg and Klarman were writing that their theories warrant reconsideration. Minority rights groups …

Dialogue In Identity-Based Conflict (Study Of Intergroup-Dialogue With University Students), Lisha Shrestha

Dissertations and Theses

An individual's struggle with "self," which consists of personal identity and social identity, can create both intra- and interpersonal conflict. In this study, I explored how such struggles inform identity-based conflict and how such conflicts are addressed by intergroup dialogue. A dialogue was conducted with University students, consisting of discussions about participants' struggles with "self" and social identity. These conversations were analyzed using a mixed methods and content analysis approach. The study revealed that identities such as gender play significant roles in creating conflict within "self" and with others. National origin, race, and ethnicity also affect personal identity; however, these …

Community Connections: Exploring The Constructive Potential Of Facebook For Civic Engagement, Sarah Ruth Martin

Dissertations and Theses

Recognizing the importance of civic engagement to the health of local communities and the overall success of a democracy, this research sought to better understand the relationship between online media use and civic engagement. Specifically, the constructive potential of the social networking site Facebook was explored using the theoretical framework of communication infrastructure theory (CIT; Ball-Rokeach, Kim, & Matei, 2001). Results of a cross-sectional survey with a national sample of 375 participants indicated that Facebook does hold potential for civic engagement. The two most important findings of the research were that Facebook facilitated connection to neighborhood storytelling and that connection …

Cross-Cutting Concerns: The Varying Effects Of Partisan Cues In The Context Of Social Networks, Benjamin King Smith

Dissertations and Theses

The theory of motivated reasoning predicts that partisan cues in the media will affect political attitudes, by encouraging individuals to align their views with those of their party's elites. The effect has primarily been tested by looking at issues which have pre-established partisan positions (e.g. immigration reform, gay rights, etc.). This study looks at the effects of partisan cues in the media on attitudes toward a non-partisan issue, the NSA's collection of American's meta-data. Additionally, the study extends research on partisan cues by exploring the moderating role of an individual's political communication network and, specifically, exposure to cross-cutting political communication. …

It's Complicated: The Role Of Facebook In Romantic Relationships Concerning Relational Certainty, Attachment, And Self-Esteem, Jenna Rae Tucker

Dissertations and Theses

Facebook is among the top used websites in the world, and research has shown that Facebook use is related to individual personality characteristics such as well-being and self-esteem. This study builds on previous research, expanding to investigate attachment-related anxiety and avoidance and relational certainty. The current study examined relationships between Facebook use (both general and for surveillance) and relational certainty, attachment-related anxiety and avoidance, and self-esteem in undergraduate students (N = 261). Online methods were used for data collection, and individuals with their relationship displayed on Facebook reported more relational certainty; however, the more time they spent on the site, …

The Transformative Power Of Narrative As A Behavioral Change Communication Tool To Reduce Health Disparities In Cervical Cancer Among Latinas: Global Implications, Lourdes Baezconde-Garbanati, Joyee S. Chatterjee, Lauren B. Frank, Sheila T. Murphy, Meghan B. Moran, Lisa N. Werth, Nan Zhao, Paula Amezola De Herrera, Don Mayer, Jeremy Kagan, Dave O'Brien

Communication Faculty Publications and Presentations

Cervical cancer is the third most common type of cancer in women globally. Latinas carry a disproportionate burden of this disease. In the United States, when compared with non-Hispanic Whites (NHW), Latinas endure much higher incidence rates (13.86 vs. 7.70 per 100,000) with mortality rates 1.5 times greater than for non-Hispanic white women . In order to address this disparity, a multidisciplinary team engaged in a transformative study to test if narrative, developed in culturally specific ways as a behavioral change communication tool, works better than non-narrative in increasing knowledge and changing attitudes and behaviors and, if so, why. This …

School District Bond Campaigns: Strategies That Ensure Successful Outcomes, Linda L. Florence

Dissertations and Theses

When the polls close and the ballots are counted, the best sound is the roar of ecstatic cheering from delighted but exhausted campaign committee members. A bond campaign takes an inordinate amount of work, but the results are worth the effort when the campaign is managed in a systematic way. Districts can be successful bond recipients when they effectively market their schools to gain the support of their constituents.

Public schools across the U.S. are in dire need of major repairs, remodeling, and rebuilding to meet the educational needs of students. Unfortunately, passing a school bond election is entrusted to …

Black And Blue And Read All Over: News Framing And The Coverage Of Crime, Kalistah Quilla Cosand

Dissertations and Theses

This study explores the representation of crime in the news in relation to expressed emotion and intention for future action. Episodic and thematic framing (Iyengar, 1991) and narrative processing (Singer & Bluck, 2001) served as the theoretical foundations of this study and helped examine how scripted news stories involving crime influence levels of fear, anger, and empathy in individuals, and how these emotions subsequently affect behaviors. To measure these framing effects, an experimental manipulation was employed using three conceptually different news stories all involving gun-related crimes. One news story utilized an episodic format, while the other two stories used a …

Affect Perception In Computer Mediated Communication, Rachel E. Townsend, Chris Allen

Student Research Symposium

The perception of affect influences the subjective perception of an individual’s environment (Isbell & Burns, n.d.). Accurate affect perception leads to increased resilience and positive coping mechanisms when faced with daily life stressors (Robinson, 2012). Communication technologies have revolutionized the ways in which individuals connect to one another professionally and socially (Walther, 1996). This study investigated accurate affect perception in computer mediated communication (CMC) from a multidisciplinary perspective.

Communication research posit several theories to accommodate the ways in which we communicate using CMC (J. B. Walther, 1996). Personality research has documented the correlation between the traits extraversion and neuroticism with …

The Impact Of Favela Painting, Fariha Rahman

Senior Inquiry High School Program

While Brazil is growing rapidly, increased attention is being paid to its many lowerincome “marginal” neighborhoods, called favelas, found near and within many major Brazilian cities. Three such favelas have been visually transformed by a Dutch design firm’s Favela Painting project, which consists of enormous murals painted on the walls of favela housing. The project was developed by two designers, Jeroen Koolhaas and Dre Urhahn or Haas&Hahn, after they first visited a Brazilian favela to film a music video. Their original intent had little to do with any negative conditions of favelas – they simply wanted authorization for a painting …

The Role Of Network Position For Peer Influences On Adolescents' Academic Engagement, Price Mccloud Johnson

Dissertations and Theses

Academic engagement has been found to significantly predict students' future achievement. Among adolescents, the peer context becomes an increasingly important point of socialization and influence on beliefs and behavior, including academic engagement. Previous research suggests that those peers with whom an adolescent spends much of their time significantly predict change in engagement over time (Kindermann, 2007). Bronfenbrenner's ecological systems theory (Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 1998) postulates that exosystem effects (those influencing factors that are not directly connected to individuals) play an important role in development, and social network theorists have suggested that the position one occupies within the greater network is …

Teaching And Learning For Intercultural Sensitivity: A Cross-Cultural Examination Of American Domestic Students And Japanese Exchange Students, Yoko Hwang Sakurauchi

Dissertations and Theses

Global student mobility has become a dynamic force in American higher education. Integrating international students into diverse campus environments provides domestic as well as foreign students with enriched learning opportunities. However, a diverse campus climate itself will not make college students interculturally competent. Intentional curricular design is critical for overcoming issues such as resistance and reinforcement of stereotypes, but the research literature is extremely limited on effective pedagogical strategies for cultivating college students' intercultural sensitivity.

This paper explicates a research study to investigate college students' development of intercultural sensitivity through an intentional course design utilizing Kolb's (1984) learning styles cycle …

Dead Newspapers And Citizens’ Civic Engagement, Lee Shaker

Communication Faculty Publications and Presentations

Using data from the 2008 and 2009 Current Population Survey conducted by the United States Census, this article assesses the year-over-year change in the civic engagement of citizens in America’s largest metropolitan areas. Of special interest are Denver and Seattle, where the Rocky Mountain News and Seattle Post-Intelligencer closed during the intervening year. The data from the CPS indicate that civic engagement in Seattle and Denver dropped significantly from 2008 to 2009 – a decline that is not consistently replicated over the same time period in other major American cities that did not lose a newspaper. The analysis suggests that …

Characteristics Of Spoken And Written Communication In The Opening And Closing Sections Of Instant Messaging, Kenta Nishimaki

Dissertations and Theses

This study examines opening and closing segments in instant messaging (IM) and demonstrates how openings and closings differ between oral conversation and instant messaging as well as the factors that account for the difference. Many researchers have discussed the differences and similarities between spoken and written languages. Tannen (1980) claims that spoken and written languages are not distinct categories and there is a continuum between them. She also holds that interpersonal involvement is one of the factors that determine if a particular communication is closer to spoken communication or written communication.

I will analyze IM, which is best thought of …

Exploring Communicative Aspects Of Client Satisfaction, Loyalty, And Retention In A Private, Non-Profit Organization: A Qualitative, Interview-Based Study Of Catholic Charities, Amanda Michelle Fortin

Dissertations and Theses

This thesis focuses on Catholic Charities (Hereafter CC), a non-profit agency that provides pregnancy and adoption support to families in times of crisis. Research and agency data reflect a positive association between the amount of time clients engage in services and the resolution of crises. Both theoretically and empirically, a key determinant of the depth and breadth of clients' engagement with both for-profit and non-profit services is their satisfaction with such services. In 2009-2010, CC's in-house, client surveys reported a decreasing level of client engagement with services. One clear trend was that clients discontinued services after thirty days or less. …

"What Does This Graph Mean?" Formative Assessment With Science Inquiry To Improve Data Analysis, Andrea Dawn Leech

Dissertations and Theses

This study investigated the use of formative assessment to improve three specific data analysis skills within the context of a high school chemistry class: graph interpretation, pattern recognition, and making conclusions based on data. Students need to be able to collect data, analyze that data, and produce accurate scientific explanations (NRC, 2011) if they want to be ready for college and careers after high school. This mixed methods study, performed in a high school chemistry classroom, investigated the impact of the formative assessment process on data analysis skills that require higher order thinking. We hypothesized that the use of evaluative …

Peer Conversations About Inter-Racial And Inter-Ethnic Friendships, Lana Lee Buckholz

Dissertations and Theses

The purpose of this study was to understand how early adolescents talk about cross-racial and cross-ethnic friendships. Gordon Allport's intergroup contact theory provided the framework for studying the elements needed for inter-racial and inter-ethnic friendship formation. Qualitative data were drawn from four separately recorded peer group conversations. Participants (n=18) were recruited from Parrish Middle School in Salem, Oregon. Patterns that emerged from the data were sorted, categorized and identified according to the tenets of intergroup contact theory or extensions of intergroup contact theory. Analysis also looked at the use of metaphors and storytelling among adolescents. Results showed that while intergroup …

A Study Of Small Talk Among Males: Comparing The U.S. And Japan, Chie Furukawa

Dissertations and Theses

This study seeks to understand the social interaction of small talk in two different countries. Defining small talk as 'phatic communion' and 'social talk' as contrasted to 'core business talk' and 'work-related talk,' Holmes (2000) claims that small talk in the workplace is intertwined with main work-talk. Small talk can help build solidarity and rapport, as well as maintain good relationships between workers. Much of the research on small talk has been focused on institutional settings such as business and service interactions; thus, there is a need for research on non-institutional small talk between participants without established relationships.

This study …

“Now Everyone Knows I’M A Serial Killer” Spontaneous Intentionality In Conversational Metaphor And Story-Telling, L. David Ritchie, Elena Negrea-Busuioc

Communication Faculty Publications and Presentations

Drawing on data from a series of informal conversations about public safety and police-community relations, we distinguish between a speaker’s generalized communicative intentions with respect to metaphor use and story-telling, based on what Chafe (1994, p. 145) calls “unifying ideas that persist in semiactive consciousness” and the spontaneous intentions that arise within the short-term focus or spotlight of consciousness and guide the production of actual utterances. Although speakers occasionally enter a conversation with a fixed intention to express an idea with a particular metaphor, tell a particular story in a particular style, or accomplish some other speech act, such as …

Teaching Australian Literature In A Class About Literatures Of Social Reform, Per Henningsgaard

English Faculty Publications and Presentations

This article presents an intriguing thesis about proximity and identification, distance and empathy based on the experience of teaching Sally Morgan’s My Place to American university students alongside Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle and Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin in a class examining literature as an agent of social change. Indeed, its response to the question, “How does the Australian production of My Place influence its American reception?” will surprise many people. Students more readily demonstrate empathy with characters and are prepared to ascribe their unenviable life circumstances to social structures that propagate oppression when reading literature about cultural groups …

Open Hearts Or Smoke And Mirrors: Metaphorical Framing And Frame Conflicts In A Public Meeting, L. David Ritchie, Lynne Cameron

Communication Faculty Publications and Presentations

The concept of framing has been widely used to help understand how aspects of messages can shape people’s expectations and consequently influence the outcomes of communicative interactions. In this study we examine transcripts of a contentious and ultimately unsuccessful public meeting between police officials and members of the African-American community following the fatal shooting of a young African-American woman by police officers. We show how contradictory framing between public officials and members of the community as well as within each group may have contributed to unintended and asymmetrical ironies, and ultimately to the failure of the meeting to achieve the …