Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Conference Realignment And Coaching Perspectives: Examining Social Support From Coaches To Athletes In The Acc, Big 12, And Big Ten, Brannon H. Timms

All Theses

The purpose of this study is to understand, from a coach's point of view, their perspective on conference realignment and how, if at all, it has changed their relationship with their athletes as it pertains to social support. Findings indicate that coaches expressed awareness of social support needs for their student athletes; notable gaps remain in emotional, esteem, and informational support. Based on the participants' responses, tangible support emerged as the only form of social support provided by these coaches. Coaches also expressed a desire for further legislation regarding NIL to maintain competitive fairness among NCAA athletics. The results underscore …

Interpersonal Communication: A Mindful Approach To Relationships 2nd Edition, Jason S. Wrench, Narissra M. Punyanunt-Carter, Katherine S, Thweatt

Milne Open Textbooks

Interpersonal communication is the way we connect with others. Whether engaging with a spouse, a coworker, a close friend, or a stranger, our daily lives are defined by the messages we send and receive. Interpersonal Communication guides students through the complex landscape of human interaction, helping them navigate relationships in the twenty-first century.

A Mindful Perspective

What distinguishes this textbook is its integration of mindfulness into the study of communication. Moving beyond simple skills training, the text encourages students to engage in mindful awareness and mindful practice. By learning to be fully present, open, and non-judgmental, students develop the …

The Future Is Now: Empowering Society Through Ai Literacy, Jason S. Wrench, Sanae Elmoudden

Milne Open Textbooks

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is no longer a futuristic concept—it is the reality of the present. From the algorithms shaping our social media feeds to the generative tools transforming our workplaces, AI has permeated every aspect of modern life. The Future is Now moves beyond the hype to provide a comprehensive roadmap for understanding, navigating, and shaping this technological revolution.

Demystifying the Machine

This textbook serves as a user-friendly guide to the “black box” of AI. It breaks down complex technical concepts—from machine learning and neural networks to large language models—making them accessible to students across all disciplines. By establishing a …

Chasing The Dream And Buying The Promise In A Conceptual Framework For Consumer Decision-Making, Casey H. Prentice

Communication & Theatre Arts Theses

The American dream is a concept that is echoed across our society, and while the data show Americans do not overwhelmingly believe in the dream, marketers continue to pair it and the issue of economic prosperity in their agendas. Through a novel framework that overlaps a deeply studied mass communication theory with a decision-making framework used in marketing, this paper demonstrates a new lens to understand how marketers identify strategies and tactics, build agendas, and make sales by touting the American dream. As separate entities, decision-making models and agenda setting theory are powerful, but together can create an environment that …

Crux: Exploring Imperialism And Resistance Through Role-Playing Games, Devon Gronka

Institute for the Humanities Master's Papers, Projects, and Capstones

This is a game about power. The game is a Role-Playing Game, or RPG. As with nearly all RPGs, the game presents the players with choices about how their characters will interact with each other and with the world around them, and these interactions are woven together to more or less form a plot. However, oftentimes in life there are no good choices available, and there is no win state outside of what we might determine for ourselves.

The game is a social experiment. While playing a game, a player takes in information in a very different manner than when …

“No Man Is An Island:” A Critical Discourses Analysis Of Newspaper Reporting On The Marshallese Community In Northwest Arkansas, Johana Vazquez

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The aim of this study was to examine local newspaper coverage of the Marshallese community in Northwest Arkansas from 1998 to 2017 and analyze discourses that could be attributed to linguistic bias, stereotypes, and Pacific transnationalism. This analysis examines how marginalized immigrants are portrayed in local news coverage using a critical discourse analysis (CDA). The study analyzes the labels and metaphors used in the coverage of Marshallese immigration, adapts the Stereotype Content Model for a discourse analysis, and compares the experiences of Marshallese in the area with larger scholarly work on Pacific transnationalism. The researcher analyzed 11 published pieces from …

Does Social Media Undermine Trust? Institutional Trust In Civil Society And Governance Institutions, Christianna Sirindah Parr

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

What is the relationship between social media use and trust in civil society and governance institutions? In many parts of Asia, trust in government remains high despite limited political accountability and civil liberties. This study examines whether online political expression reshapes institutional trust in governance institutions and civil society organizations. The analysis considers the dual role of social media as a site for civic engagement and a channel for disaffection with formal authority. Using data from the Asian Barometer, the findings show that political expression on social media is associated with lower trust in governance institutions and higher trust in …

Infectious Disease Crisis Communication After The Covid-19 Pandemic, Macy Lloyd

Capstone Experience: Master of Public Health

Since the COVID-19 pandemic, the United States has experienced a proliferation of mis- and disinformation, an increasing politicization of health and science, and growing distrust in government, science, and institutions. While these trends present challenges for normal public health communications, during a public health emergency, such as an infectious disease outbreak, these challenges are even more acute. To address challenges at the local level, health departments need plans, products, and tools that adapt health crisis communications to the current media environment and meet community members where they are across the trust continuum. To develop an infectious disease incident communication plan, …

Sex, Riots, And Holy Water: How Modern Society Desecrates And Reconsecrates The Sacred, Jodeyah J. Mills

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores how modern societies desecrate and reconsecrate the sacred through rhetoric, ritual, and visual performance. Using three case studies, Nazi Germany’s transformation of Quedlinburg Abbey, the January 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol, and Sabrina Carpenter’s controversial church music video, “Feather,” this project analyzes how sacred meaning is violated and restored in religious, civic, and popular contexts. Drawing on Kenneth Burke’s dramatistic cycle and postsecular theory, it argues that desecration and reconsecration are dialogic acts that expose competing moral vocabularies within culture. Each event demonstrates that even in a secular age, people respond to ruptures of ultimate meaning …

Communication And Privacy Management Between Female Veterans, Their Military Voluntary Kin, And Biolegal Family Members, Carol Lee Tschampl-Diesing

Dissertations and Doctoral Documents, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2023–

Military voluntary kin (MVK) refer to relationships between Service members and/or Veterans that they consider to be “like family,” despite lacking blood or legal ties. The purpose of this qualitative/interpretive communication study was to explore how female Veterans, who are the largest growing population of U.S. Veterans, discursively construct MVK relationships, navigate communication, privacy management, and boundary turbulence with their MVK and biolegal families (BLF). The researcher undertook in-depth interviews with nine female U.S. Veterans who reported having at least one MVK. The researcher posed four research questions, engaging in an interpretive analysis.

Participants described three ways they navigated interactions …

Entre La Sombra Y El Lienzo: Clea Dessendre Como Modelo De Personaje Secundario Complejo, Lydia Huijbregts Jaen, Antonio Horno López

GDI. Revista de investigación de Género, Diseño e Innovación

Introducción: Este artículo analiza a Clea Dessendre en Clair Obscure: Expedition 33, explorando su versión real y la pintada en el lienzo, y su impacto en la narrativa del juego. Metodología: Se aplicó un análisis narrativo, psicológico y ludológico, integrando teorías de duelo (Kübler-Ross), socialización (Baumrind) y comunicación (DiSC) vinculadas con la jugabilidad. Resultados: Clea-Real encarna disciplina y perfeccionismo; Clea-Pintada, una proyección maternal. El gameplay conecta su psicología con la experiencia del jugador. Discusión: Las identidades paralelas muestran cómo traumas y expectativas moldean personajes complejos. Conclusiones: Clea evidencia cómo la narrativa y la mecánica se fusionan para crear …

Social Media Participation And Scholarly Success In Law, Julian Nyarko, David E. Pozen

Faculty Scholarship

Using a novel dataset on Twitter activity as well as a novel corpus of law journal publications, this paper examines the impact of social media activity on the scholarly success of U.S. law professors. We find that joining Twitter increases citation counts by an average of 22% per year and improves article placements by up to 10 ranks for law professors, relative to a synthetic control group. These positive returns apply across nearly all classes of scholars and are magnified for those who post frequently about their own work. The identified citation boost would be even larger than 22% if …

Exploring Bonding Through Outdoor Recreation In Foster Care Utilizing Attachment Theory, Casandra L. Barnes

Communication & Theatre Arts Theses

As of 2024, there are over 328,000 children in foster care in the United States (AFCARS, 2024), many of whom experience disrupted attachments and trauma that hinder their ability to form healthy relationships. Drawing from attachment theory, this study explores how outdoor recreational activities can facilitate bonding between foster parents and their foster children. Using a mixed method approach this explorative research project consisted of two phases: a pilot study at the Virginia zoo involving foster families participating in a cooperative outdoor activity and completing post event surveys, and semi-structured interviews with foster parents to examine lived experiences of bonding …

A Thematic Analysis Of What Australians State Would Change Their Minds On Climate Change, Amy S.G. Lee, Kelly Kirkland, Samantha K. Stanley, Abby Robinson, Zoe Leviston, Iain Walker

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

What do Australians believe would change their current opinions about climate change? In this study, we used audience segmentation analysis through the Six Americas Short Survey to identify groups of climate opinion holders within a representative sample of Australians. We had 4857 participants tell us what it would take to change their current opinions about climate change and leveraged OpenAI’s Generative Pre-Trained Transformer (GPT) to identify the presence or absence of themes (Nothing, Evidence and Information, Trusted Sources, Action, and Unsure) and subthemes in their responses. GPT performed at near-human levels, proving to be a highly useful tool for thematic …

Australian Teen Voices On Age Verification And Age Assurance Measures, Giselle Woodley, Harrison W. See, Brian O'Neill, Lelia Green, Elisabeth Staksrud, Paul Haskell-Dowland

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Age verification and age assurance technologies, including biometrics, facial recognition software and digital identification, have been explored as potential measures to restrict access of young people to social media and sexually explicit media (SEM), including pornography. However, there is limited data regarding how teens targeted by such restrictions feel about such strategies. Drawing on qualitative interviews with Australian teens and pre-teens (aged 11–17), this paper presents their views of age verification technologies, particularly in relation to restricting access to SEM. The participants in this study welcomed improved online protections but were ambivalent about proposed solutions. Age assurance and age verification …

In The Pursuit Of Parent Caregiver Well-Being: A Phenomenological Study, Glenda E. Hux, Natalie King, Sarah A. Schoen

Communication Disorders and Occupational Therapy Faculty Publications and Presentations

Unmet needs in parent of children with chronic and complex conditions often result in adverse outcomes to their mental health and well-being. This descriptive phenomenological study explores their lived experiences and daily participation patterns. Thirteen participants in a global cohort shared their experiences via a secure digital platform. Five themes emerged illustrating the parents' pursuit of well-being and the barriers encountered: Embodying the Caregiver Life, Navigating Intricate Realities, Emotional and Existential Landscape, Navigating Healthcare Systems, and Connected Yet Alone. This study underlies parents' occupational participation challenges and the crucial need to address them using parent-centered approaches to promote family well-being.

A Certainty-Weighted, Belief-Based Model Of Political Attitudes: A Bayesian Analysis Of American Public Attitudes Toward The Affordable Care Act, Gabriel Miao Li, Josh Pasek, Jon A. Krosnick

Communication Faculty Articles and Research

This study proposes a novel, certainty-weighted account of the process by which political beliefs shape political attitudes. Building upon expectancy-value frameworks, this paper introduces belief certainty as a moderator of belief impact. A Bayesian partial-pooling approach is used to test a model positing how beliefs about what the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act does and does not do relate to overall attitudes toward the law. This analytic method manages the complexity of multiple potentially correlated beliefs and evaluations by imposing a structural constraint to avoid multicollinearity and enable accurate estimation of parameters. Data from a nationally representative sample survey …

Navigating The Storm: A Qualitative Metaphor-Based Analysis Of Resilience And Identity Reconstruction Among Displaced Professionals, Erhan Atay, Serkan Bayraktaroglu, Leo Johannesberg

The Qualitative Report

Building on previous management scholarship, this paper explains how Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT) and metaphorical expressions inform organizational resilience and leadership communication in employee support strategies. It tries to capture the interplay between personal sensemaking and collective adaptation. The study aims to provide practitioners with hands-on insights into developing inclusion, resilience, and identity reconstruction in organizational and societal contexts of disruption. The analysis identifies three critical metaphorical themes: resilience, which is likened to "climbing a mountain;" isolation, which is likened to being "trapped in a bubble;" and identity reconstruction, which is likened to "picking up the shattered pieces of a …

State Narrative Dominance In Terrorism Reporting: A Critical Discourse Analysis Of Kompas Coverage, Putri Khairunnisa

Journal of Terrorism Studies

This study examines Kompas.com’s news construction of the bombing at the Makassar Cathedral Church on 28 March 2021 by integrating Entman’s Media Framing theory with Fairclough’s Critical Discourse Analysis. Using all news reports published between 28 March and 5 April 2021, the study finds that Kompas frames the event through security-oriented diction, agent–action structures that foreground state authorities as the primary actors, and high-modality statements that minimize uncertainty during the early crisis phase. Intertextual references to previous terrorism cases accelerate the labeling of the perpetrators as part of the JAD network. At the level of discursive practice, reliance on official …

From Digital Divide To Equity-Enhancing Diffusion: Generative Ai And Writing Quality, Rebecca Tukachinsky Forster, Kerk Kee, Gabriel Miao Li

Communication Faculty Articles and Research

This study investigates whether generative AI can narrow the gap between stronger and developing writers and explores the mechanisms underlying these effects. In a within-subject experiment, students wrote two essays, with and without AI assistance. Computer-aided analysis of the writing quality confirmed that while all students benefited from AI, that less skillful writers gained more. There was also no evidence of skillful writers using AI in more sophisticated and beneficial ways. The study contributes to theorizing the digital divide and offers insights into maximizing the benefits of AI tools. Theoretically, we situate generative-AI use within Diffusion of Innovations, treating ChatGPT …

How Experiencing Eudaimonic Emotions Through Music Shapes Prosocial And Altruistic Behavior: Introducing A Unified Model Of Music-Listening-Induced Eudaimonia (Ummie), Rebecca Tukachinsky Forster, Daniel H. Spitz, Tal-Chen Rabinowitch, Roni Granot

Communication Faculty Articles and Research

This paper introduces the Unified Model of Music-Listening Induced Eudaimonia (UMMIE), which offers an integrated novel theoretical framework to explain how music listening promotes prosocial and altruistic outcomes. Drawing on communication and psychology research, UMMIE maintains that elicitation of eudaimonic emotions can be appraised inwards, towards oneself, and thus contribute to the individual's personal growth, wellbeing, and development, or outwards, by connecting to something bigger than oneself, to humanity in general, which could possibly then lead to enhanced prosocial and altruistic attitudes and behaviors. The model specifies musical, situational, and individual variables that serve as moderators and increase the likelihood …

“It’S All Fun And Games Until Someone Loses An Eye (-Test): On The Presence And Consequences Of An Argument Scheme That Re-Works Our Notions Of Evidence And Support”, Matthew P. Brigham

Studies in Debate and Oratory

This essay explores an argument scheme commonly employed in sport communication, the “Eye Test,” which claims that a good faith watching of two teams or athletes, for instance, provides its own evidence as to which is superior. A distinction is drawn between a weak version of the argument, the earned eye test, and the strong version, the universal eye test. Focusing on the latter, which does not rely on expertise but claims that any individual should be able to see the proof of the argument, the essay explores a range of everyday and public sphere arguments that operate …

Trusted Advisor: Reality Or Fading Myth?, Stephen C. Carlson, Susanna Warnock, Gerald Sullivan, Margaret Ryder

Atlantic Marketing Journal

The role of trusted advisor has long differentiated the role of community banking from traditional national banks in its relationship with small businesses. This study serves two purposes. First is to confirm presence of a trusted advisor relationship and secondly, understand the impact of digital banking services on the community banker – small business owner relationship. Using data collected in a survey of community bankers and small business owners in five southeastern United States, this study assesses the viability of the trusted advisor construct by applying the Integrative Model of Organizational Trust (Mayer, Davis, & Schoorman, 1995, 2007), trust-building behaviors …

You Can't Be Kind Of A Lesbian: Mass Media's Representation Of Bisexual Woman, Shannon Pappas

Communication and Theater Association of Minnesota Journal

In the present day, many societal beliefs and ideas are cultivated through mass media messaging. This study aims to examine mass media’s representation of bisexual women, specifically in pornography, and how those ideas lead to harmful stereotypes. Television show characters and song lyrics depicting bisexual women were examined using cultivation theory. Analysis found much of the representation involving force or coercion, indecisiveness, hypersexuality, and group sex. Pornography is an integral space for people to explore their sexualities. However, bisexual videos tend to only depict hypersexual or violent fantasies. With over 80,000 people logging onto PornHub each minute, negative stereotypes of …

Truth Will Out: Combating The Rhetoric Of Modern Conspiracy Theory, Seth Kelley

Communication and Theater Association of Minnesota Journal

This essay explores modern conspiracy theories’ relationship to hatred and ignorance, and how specious ideas do not hold up to classical rhetorical analysis. It posits reasons why power embraces conspiracies that it has traditionally rejected and explains power and conspiracy theory’s symbiotic relationship in the age of misinformation. It champions rhetoric as the best tool to combat conspiracy theories.

Thesis: In order to effectively combat conspiracy theory’s undermining of human progress, we must hold conspiracists accountable for spreading dangerous lies, directly teach formal rhetoric in all public schools (and how to spot specious content), effectively foster multicultural respect and appreciation, …

Verbal Aggressiveness And Argumentativeness In College Forensics Students, Ben Walker

Communication and Theater Association of Minnesota Journal

Roth (2017) found competitive parliamentary debate participants score lower in verbal aggressiveness than those who have not competed in parliamentary debate. While there is some research regarding verbal aggressiveness in academic debate, there is not much in terms of individual events. This study examines verbal aggressiveness and argumentativeness in both debate and individual event college students. Results indicate debate students to have higher levels of verbal aggressiveness than IE students when trying to influence students not in forensics. Male students scored higher on verbal aggressiveness as did seniors. Conclusions about college forensics are drawn and suggestions are made for future …

From The Editor, Tanya Miller

Communication and Theater Association of Minnesota Journal

Letter from the Editor of the Communication and Theater Association of Minnesota Journal, Dr. Tanya Miller, for Volume 48, 2025 issue.

Volume 48, 2025, Communication And Theater Association Of Minnesota Journal, Front Matter

Communication and Theater Association of Minnesota Journal

Front matter and Table of Contents for Volume 48 (2025) of the Communication and Theater Association of Minnesota Journal.

Volume 48, 2025 Communication And Theater Association Of Minnesota Journal

Communication and Theater Association of Minnesota Journal

Complete digitized volume (volume 48) of Communication and Theater Association of Minnesota Journal.

Empathy On Trial: The Role Of Neuroscience And Communication In Sexual Violence Jurisprudence, Samantha M. Gonzales

Honors Program Theses and Research Projects

Sexual violence remains a contentious public safety and legal challenge, which has become further complicated by the tension between supporting victim-survivors and safeguarding the falsely accused. False accusations, though still well below the numbers of rightly accused, are experiencing a rise in popularity given recent (past ten years) political climates. This thesis examines how communication theory, neuroscience, and law intersect in molding perceptions of truth, culpability, and justice in sexual violence cases; while also examining the intersectionality of those fields in addressing the candor of allegations, the rate of recidivism, and quality of public health and safety. The most prominent …