Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Book Review: Palaces For The People: How Social Infrastructure Can Help Fight Inequality, Polarization, And The Decline Of Civic Life, Eric Klinenberg, Georgia Westbrook

School of Information Studies - Post-doc and Student Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Food Assistance May Help Families Prevent Emergency Department Visits For Child Asthma, Colleen Heflin

Population Health Research Brief Series

Childhood asthma is the leading cause of emergency department visits for children under the age of 15 in the U.S. Food insecurity may increase a child’s risk for developing asthma. This research brief shows that higher SNAP benefits are associated with fewer asthma –related emergency department visits.

Talking The Talk: Public Library Oral History Projects On The Web, Georgia Westbrook

School of Information Studies - Post-doc and Student Scholarship

This research-in-progress poster considers how oral history projects are, or are not, presented on the websites of public libraries who host them, and attendant issues related to accessibility, privacy, ethics, and community engagement. A study of 38 public library websites revealed several trends, and some surprising non-trends, in the presentation of oral history programs. This poster draws on those patterns to explore three critical questions:

• What are some best practices for sharing oral histories online?
• What are the ethical considerations of sharing oral histories online?
• What accessibility issues exist related to oral histories online and what are public libraries doing …

Forming Key Partnerships To Enhance Graduate Student Programming, Emily K. Hart, Alex Vincent Jannini, Alexander James Johnson, Katy Pieri

Librarian Publications

The graduate chapter of the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE@SU) and the SU STEM Librarian formed a collaborative and mutually beneficial partnership with the goal of enhancing non-curricular educational opportunities for graduate students in the College of Engineering and Computer Science (ECS). By combining the expertise of both organizations, including strategies for event planning, marketing, and outreach, as well as data garnered through event feedback surveys, significant strides were made toward connecting with and better understanding the needs of the ECS graduate students. The goal of this study is to share lessons learned and recommendations for developing successful graduate …

How New York State Stole $20 Billion From School Children In New York City, John Yinger

Center for Policy Research

It’s Elementary is a series of essays on topics in education and education policy. The main focus is on education finance in New York State, but general research findings in education and education policy issues in several other states are also discussed. John Yinger, Professor of Economics and Public Administration at the Maxwell School, Syracuse University is the author of most of these essays, although a few are written by or co-authored with other scholars.

Veteran Employment/Entrepreneurship Landscape: San Antonio-New Braunfels Metro Area, Rosalinda V. Maury, Brice M. Stone, Nicholas J. Armstrong, Misty Stutsman-Fox

Institute for Veterans and Military Families

A targeted analysis of veteran entrepreneurial activity in the San Antonio/New Braunfels Metro Area that helps understand aspects about veteran business ownership and how to better support VOBs.

The Stories Behind The Struggle: A Closer Look At First Experiences With Opioid Misuse, Khary Rigg, Shannon M. Monnat, Kate Mclean, Ashton Verdery, Glenn Sterner

Population Health Research Brief Series

Opioid use disorders and overdoses from prescription opioids, heroin, and fentanyl have become a national public health crisis. Improving our knowledge about how people first come to misuse opioids can help to inform prevention and treatment interventions. This research brief dives into the stories behind opioid use initiation and provides intervention strategies.

Aesthetic Liberation: Contemporary Black Visual Art And Typologies Of Activism In Atlanta, Spencer Laurielle Annancia Stultz

Theses - ALL

Historically, black visual art has held significance beyond its surface value as a source of beauty or entertainment. Black art has a long tradition of connections to activism. Black art advocates promoted the idea that art should be wielded as a tool for black advancement. However, in recent years, cultural theorists have declared that black art history has developed beyond this point and entered an era of post-blackness. Against this backdrop, I analyze the creative practices of contemporary black visual artists in Atlanta, GA to explore the varied ways that their art is a locus for activism and sociopolitical commentary. …

“A Growing Excitement That ‘Something Was Happening’”: A Rhetorical History Of Gay Liberation And Socialist Feminism In The New American Movement Between 1970 And 1980, Chris Dicesare

Theses - ALL

This project charts a rhetorical history of the New American Movement’s (NAM) organizational debates on gay liberation and socialist feminism between 1970 and 1980. NAM was a socialist feminist organization active across the 1970s in the United States that sought to create a mass movement through a conception of a particularly “American Socialism.” Through a periodization of NAM’s archival history, I highlight how NAM members were able to work in coalition with a wide range of individuals and groups both within and outside of the organization to build a socialist feminist conception of gay liberation. Drawing on original archival research …

Pain Characteristics And Nicotine Deprivation As Predictors Of Performance During A Laboratory Model Of Smoking Cessation, Jessica Powers

Theses - ALL

Although cigarette smokers with co-occurring pain report experiencing more severe nicotine withdrawal and greater difficulty quitting, limited work has examined the role of pain in smoking cessation-related outcomes. The goal of this study was to examine clinically-relevant pain characteristics (i.e., pain persistence, pain intensity, and pain-related disability) as predictors of withdrawal and smoking lapse/relapse outcomes using an established laboratory model of cessation. Participants (N = 120 daily cigarette smokers; 48% male; MAge = 36.17, SD = 12.16; MCPD = 20.51, SD = 6.99) were randomized to either continued smoking or 12-hour nicotine deprivation conditions prior to an experimental study visit. …

For The Culture: A Textual Analysis Of Black Placemaking Of Black Culture In “Beychella”, N'Dea Drayton

Theses - ALL

This qualitative research seeks to understand entertainment media that is developed ‘for the culture.’ This study illustrates how Hunter, Pattillo, Robinson and Taylor’s (2016) concept of Black placemaking can be used to understand how Black people place-make Black culture into American mainstream popular culture. Beyoncé’s 2018 Coachella performance, or “Beychella,” was used as an entry point to further develop the concept of Black placemaking in the media. A cultural studies framework was utilized to understand the work Black artists, like Beyoncé, are doing with Black culture in American popular culture. NVivo 12 Plus, Microsoft Word and Windows Media Player were …

Building An Ecological Church: Laudato Si’, Climate Change, And Clergy In The Roman Catholic Diocese Of Syracuse, Dominic Wilkins

Theses - ALL

Interest in the relationships between the Catholic Church and the environment has grown in recent years, especially following Pope Francis’s 2015 encyclical Laudato Si’, or On the Care for Our Common Home. His letter was widely praised by many Catholic and non-Catholic scholars, journalists, and activists who suggested that this encyclical marked a massive shift in Catholic views about the environment, particularly the climate crisis. Yet despite this early hope, policies around the world remain generally unchanged and the promise early commentators saw in Laudato Si’ lies unfulfilled.

This thesis investigates whether the Catholic Church has attempted to act on …

Branding White Saviorism: The Ethics And Irony Of Humanitarian Discourse On Instagram, Elizabeth Smith Cooney-Petro

Theses - ALL

Humanitarian aid work, service trips, and missionary volunteer opportunities are ingrained in much of Western society. Situated at the intersection of visual culture and rhetorical studies, this thesis uses a postcolonial feminist lens to explore how the online discourse of white saviorism came to be accepted and valorized while making invisible the imperial undertones of humanitarian work, and what strategies or efforts are being made toward disrupting this trend. I look at images and posts by current Peace Corps volunteers on Instagram to explore the performance and ethical substance of today’s humanitarian. Additionally, I examine ironic representations of this discourse …

Emotional Bonds And Fairness Experiences Between Transgender Women And Their Cisgender Partners: An Interpretative Phenomenological Exploration, Jennifer Coppola

Dissertations - ALL

In the field of couple and family therapy, limited literature on experiences of trans-including couples inhibits client care. Trans-including couples are subjected to experiences of marginalization within their communities and families. Transgender women including those of color are one of the most marginalized populations (Cornelius & Whitaker-Brown, 2017; Koken et al., 2009), experiencing high rates of abuse and negative mental health outcomes (Gamarel et al., 2014; Koken et al., 2009). Few studies focus on trans-including couples’ narratives of strength and fewer understand both partners’ experiences. The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore emotional bonding and perceptions of fairness …

The Persuasion Processes In Virtual Reality In The Context Of Technology Acceptance, Gyoung Kim

Dissertations - ALL

This dissertation investigates the extent to which a media audience’s degree of technology acceptance (as a mediator) and interactivity of the media influence the user’s sense of presence, enjoyment, and message engagement, and finally lead to attitude change (persuasion). The study also explores how the user processes a message and changes the individuals’ attitude, guided by the Heuristic-Systematic Model (HSM) of information processing.

To test hypotheses, two different types of media as stimuli sorted by levels of stereoscopic dimension (2D screen versus 3D virtual reality) describing a Syrian Refugee crisis were used for an experiment in the study. Stimuli were …

Addressing The Ultimate Form Of Cybersecurity Control, A Multiple Case Study For The ‘Internet Kill Switch’, Patricia Adriana Vargas Leon

Dissertations - ALL

The Internet has proved its capacity to defy the nation-states’ traditional borders. Facing this circumstance, governments became eager to control its infrastructure, as they did in the past with other forms of communication and they have attempted to shut down the Internet in several occasions. Academics and non-governmental organizations have focused their attention on authoritarian regimes because of the impact of Internet shutdowns on human rights. However, this extreme action of government control has also been part of the debate in non-authoritarian regimes. Thus, this dissertation contributes to the academic debate by analyzing democratic and hybrid regimes, their political discourse …

Malleable Territories: The Politics And Effects Of Mining Governance In Post-Soviet Georgia, Jesse Swann-Quinn

Dissertations - ALL

On December 13, 2014, the Republic of Georgia’s central government made a rapid series of decisions behind closed doors. These legislative moves allowed RMG Gold, the Russian-owned mining company operating in Georgia’s southern Mashavera Valley, to destroy the archaeological site at Sakdrisi-Kachgariani – the oldest gold mine ever discovered and a national cultural heritage site. The government’s decision followed more than a year of contentious struggle among competing political factions, yet in the end the mining work moved forward and continues expanding today. RMG’s destruction of Sakdrisi was just one event within Georgia’s broader political transition, de-centralizing resource governance toward …

Values In Knowledge Organization Standards: A Value Analysis Of Resource Description And Access (Rda), Brian Dobreski

Dissertations - ALL

Knowledge organization standards are important community artifacts that set forth agreed upon specifications and protocols, and though they may appear neutral they have been shown to harbor specific perspectives. These perspectives are often covert but hold implications for the ways in which knowledge is conceptualized, organized, and represented. Values are deeply held preferences for ways of acting and ways of being, and represent an effective lens for examining the perspectives embedded in societal practices and artifacts. To date, however, knowledge organization standards have not been approached through formal value analysis. This study addresses this gap through an examination of the …

The Power Of Protest Messages: An Information Model On Protest Participation In China}, Li Shao

Dissertations - ALL

This project explores how protest messages affect audiences' decision to join policy oriented protests in an authoritarian context. By proposing an information model, I argue that citizens' participation is affected by the behaviors of the government and the protesters included in the protest message. Such effects are moderated by (1) the partially free media environment that selectively displays certain behaviors and hides the others; and (2) individuals' personal attributes that influences their interpretation of the messages. I used a survey experiment and a comparative text analysis of social media posts and news articles to test the information model. I found …

Therapists' Experiences Of Trauma, Compassion Fatigue, And Compassion Satisfaction: The Role Of Post Traumatic Growth, Tracey Reichert Schimpff

Dissertations - ALL

Experiencing traumatic events can have a profound impact on human beings, ranging from mild distress to severe symptomology. The mental health professionals that serve traumatized populations are also at risk of exposure in their work. While there are many factors that contribute to negative and positive consequences of clinical work with trauma, the influence of a therapist’s own trauma seems to have mixed findings. This study was designed to better understand the role of a therapist’s personal trauma on negative and positive associations of clinical work, specifically compassion fatigue and compassion satisfaction. There were no significant correlations found between the …

A Study Of The Relationship Between Attorneys And Public Relations Counsel During Times Of Organizational Crisis In The 21st Century, Selin Demir

Theses - ALL

This thesis takes a mixed-method approach to the exploration of the relationship between public relations officials and attorneys during a time of organizational crisis. There has not been a significant amount of literature dedicated to the study of this relationship since the turn of the century, but the nature of business operations has changed significantly since then. The advent of social media and the increase in number of lawsuits filed by consumers against corporations and retailers means that the dynamic between attorneys and public relations professionals have likely changed (Radhakant & Diskin, 2013). Social media has become a large part …

Users' Knowkedge And Social Media Sharing Behaviors, Jianan Hu

Theses - ALL

The success of social media marketing tactics is highly dependent on the understanding of social media users' information sharing behaviors. Social media user’s likelihood to share is related to various factors, such as knowledge, belief and personality traits. Survey data from 504 American social media users reveals that users' perceived knowledge about social media marketing tactics positively related to their perceived benefits, which further associated with their likelihood of sharing information on social media. Findings also indicate that users' desire for control partially mediates relationship between users’ knowledge of social media tactics and their likelihood to share information. However, the …

Sexually “Broken”: The Rhetorical Production Of The Distressed Nonsexual In The Flibanserin Debate & Beyond, Hannah Helene Thompson

Theses - ALL

Using a Foucauldian-influenced approach to discourse and power, this thesis analyzes the production of nonsexualities, such as the lack of sexual desire, in the contemporary United States. In psychiatric discourse, the distressed nonsexual subject is produced as the patient with Hypoactive Sexual Desire Disorder (HSDD). This discursive formation was put to use in the debate surrounding pharmaceutical drug flibanserin (Addyi) in order to secure its approval by the FDA in 2015. I posit that, by emphasizing the distress of the HSDD patient experience, the rhetoric of pro-flibanserin advocacy succeeded in producing an ethical exigency, arguing that it would be cruel …

Resilience To Spare: The Resettlement Process Of Black Cuban Migrants In Albuquerque, New Mexico, Suyent Rodriguez Candeaux

Theses - ALL

Using oral history interviews, this study collects and analyzes the narratives of fourteen Black Cuban migrants, residents of Albuquerque, New Mexico. Participants migrated to Albuquerque between 1994 and 2013, and either self-identify or were identified by others, as negro(a) or Afro-descendant. This study rejects notions of assimilation and focuses on the resettlement process and life experience of participants. This thesis uses many words used by participants to describe themselves and their experiences. The study investigates their resettlement process, paying close attention to how they navigate the notions of race and ethnicity in Albuquerque. This research identifies community and language as …

Institutional Death: Effects Of Carceral State And Education Institution On Black Men, Shontoria Dashon Pratt

Theses - ALL

African American men have been dying at an alarming rate for many years. Issues such as violence, prison, education success rates, and health related issues, as well as institutional injustice, have been significant factors in these physical and mental deaths of African American men. The purpose of this research is to investigate the correlation, if any, between the quality of life of African American men in urban cities and their level of Afrocentric knowledge. To what extent does the exposure of Afrocentric knowledge affect the views or help African American men avoid these deaths? This research will present preliminary ideas …

The Minzu Debate: Policy Subsystem, Knowledge Community, And Academic Discourse In Post-Mao China’S Ethnic Policy-Making, Sinan Chu

Dissertations - ALL

How do intellectual innovations in policy fields occur under authoritarian China? In this study, I answer this question through a political-sociological investigation of the academic policy debates of the People’s Republic of China about its ethnic minority policy (a.k.a. “minzu policy”) in the Post-Mao period. Building off existing literature, I propose a theory of academic policy debates. This theory is predicated upon the political-institutional context of a policy subsystem and the internal dynamics of the knowledge community. My central argument can be summarized as follows: academic policy debates in Post-Mao China vary along two dimensions – the level of academic …

A Drop In The Bucket: Transnational Philanthropy For Development Work In India By The Indian American Community, Bernadette Marie White

Dissertations - ALL

The role that diasporas play in development has received focus from academic scholars, policy planners, and politicians in developing countries, especially within the context of globalization and cross-border flows of human capital. India has drawn a lot of attention for these issues because of the migration of highly skilled, highly educated migrants. This dissertation focuses on the work of volunteers and philanthropic voluntary organizations in the Indian American community supporting development-related issues in India. Additionally, because of the unique landscape of Indian American organizations, I will also look at differences between religious and secular organizations. This dissertation answers the following …

Towards An Explication Of The Presence Effects On Information Processing And Persuasion: A Construal Level Framework, Mincheol Shin

Dissertations - ALL

Dissatisfied with the existing theoretical account of the effects of presence on the mode of information processing (i.e., heuristic vs. systematic processing) and how this leads to persuasion in the context of mediated communication, the current study suggests an alternative framework that could provide an efficient and reasonable way of understanding the underlying psychological mechanism of the presence effects on persuasion. Drawing on presence theory, construal level theory, and the dual process model of persuasion, this study proposes a conceptual model that posits construal level as a key variable that mediates the effects of presence on the mode of information …

Three Essays On Public Policy: Physician Labor Supply, Food Insecurity, And Income Inequality, Judith Liu

Dissertations - ALL

This dissertation comprises three papers on physician labor supply, food insecurity, and income inequality. My research broadly explores how public policies and government programs affect individual behavior and how effectively they alleviate inequality and poverty.

Chapter 1 estimates the impact of a transitory reduction in hours during physicians’ early career on their long-term labor supply. I exploit the work-hour regulations that limit the maximum workweek by residents as the source of exogenous variation. The results show that exposure to the regulations significantly decreases practicing physicians’ labor supply by about four hours per week on average, with female physicians being more …

Essays On Urban Economics, Social Networks And Innovation, Yanmin Yang

Dissertations - ALL

My dissertation comprises two papers on urban economics, social networks, and innovation. The main question that connects these two papers is what the trade-off between inventor teams and social networks in patent development is. Two papers provide empirical evidence and answer the question from different perspectives.

Chapter 1 examines the joint effect of inventor social networks and team size on patent impact. Using data from the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) from 1975 to 2010, results confirm that the marginal effect of network size on patent impact decreases as team size expands, indicating that inventor networks and team …