Communication Commons^™

Blue-Collar Discourses Of Workplace Dignity: Using Outgroup Comparisons To Construct Positive Identities, Kristen Lucas

Department of Communication Studies: Faculty Publications

People generally possess a strong desire to construct positive, dignified work identities. However, this goal may be more challenging for some people, such as blue-collar workers, whose occupations may not offer qualities typically associated with workplace dignity. Interviews with 37 people from a blue-collar mining community reveal three central identity discourses about workplace dignity: All jobs are important and valuable; dignity is located in the quality of the job performed; and dignity emerges from the way people treat and are treated by others. Participants communicated these themes by backgrounding their own occupations and drawing comparisons between two outgroups, low-status, low-paid …

Social Networking Sites: What They Are And How To Navigate Them (Participant Manual), Maria Deguzman, Deborah J. Weitzenkamp Dr., Anita Hall, Deanna Vansickel-Staudt, Car Mun Kok, Jessica Lake

Kimmel Education and Research Center: Faculty and Staff Publications

The use of social networking sites such as Facebook and LinkedIn has dramatically increased in recent years. Today, over 50 percent of teens and 35 percent of adults in the U.S. are using at least one type of social networking site. If used well, these sites can have many personal and professional benefits. Social networking can be a fun way to communicate with others, and an effective way to expand your social and professional connections. Nonetheless, it is important to practice good judgment and proper “netiquette” when developing personal profiles and interacting with others through such sites. This community program …

The Logos Of The Blogosphere: Flooding The Zone, Invention, And Attention In The Lott Imbroglio, Damien S. Pfister

Department of Communication Studies: Faculty Publications

This essay examines the significance of a particular metaphor, flooding the zone, which gained prominence as an account of bloggers' argumentative prowess in the wake of Senator Trent Lott's toast at Strom Thurmond's centennial birthday party. I situate the growth of the blogosphere in the context of the political economy of the institutional mass media at the time and argue that the blogosphere is an alternative site for the invention of public argument. By providing an account of how the blogosphere serves as a site of invention by flooding the zone with densely interlinked coverage of a controversy, this essay …

Jcpenny: Ready For Change, Plaidvertising, Allie Busch, Griffin Jelinek, Anna Loach, Liz Garcia, Betsey Stehlik, Megan Kester, Doug Flegle, Krista Mcdonald, Joshua Anstey, Zach Bock, Nick Goodwin, Breanna Stewart, John Erlandson, Mike Taylor, Alex Mcareavey, Christina Fraser, Dennis Bukowski, Molly Wheeler

College of Journalism and Mass Communications: Student Advertising Projects

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

For more than a century jcpenney has been a dependable retailer and a regular shopping destination for the American family. Founded in 1902 by James Cash Penney, the department store was established on the principle of the golden rule. Throughout the years they have developed a reputation for putting their customers first and providing them with their everyday needs.

However, in the minds of women between the ages of 25-34, the image of jcpenney has not been consistent. For a demographic so interested in fashion, these women prefer to do most of their shopping in specialty clothing stores …

Feminism, Neoliberalism, And Social Studies, Mardi Schmeichel

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

The purpose of this article is to analyze the sparse presence of women in social studies education and to consider the possibility of a confluence of feminism and neoliberalism within the most widely distributed National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) publication, Social Education. Using poststructural conceptions of discourse, the author applies second-wave feminist theory and Fraser’s (2009) work on neoliberalism as lenses to illuminate the limited attention to women and feminism in this text during the 1980s in order to better understand how women have been marginalized in social studies education and to consider the possibility that the …

Journal Impact Factor, Scott H. Church

Department of Communication Studies: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

In a recent issue of Human Communication Research, Thomas Hugh Feeley notes, “journal impact rankings provide objective data for tenure, promotion, and, possibly, grant review committees on the quality of scholars’ work.” Though the metric is widely regarded as the conventional measure to assess the influence of a journal in both the social and physical sciences, many doubts regarding its effectiveness have been raised. This essay assesses the effectiveness of the Journal Impact Factor (JIF) as a scholarly metric. After first considering the metric's history and developing a working definition of JIF (part one), next I delineate its strengths and …

Scimago, Getachew Dinku Godana

Department of Communication Studies: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The degree to which a scholar’s work is cited by others has been regarded as an indicator of its scientific impact relative to other researchers in the web of scholarly communications. Likewise, various metrics based on citation counts have been developed to evaluate the impact of scholarly journals. Recently there has emerged a new research trend aimed at developing impact metrics that consider not only “the raw number of citations received by a scientific agent, but also the importance or influence of the actors who issue those citations.” These new metrics represent scientific impact as a function not of just …

Coparental Communication, Relational Satisfaction, And Mental Health In Stepfamilies, Paul Schrodt, Dawn O. Braithwaite

Department of Communication Studies: Faculty Publications

This study tested a series of actor–partner interdependence models of coparental communication, relational satisfaction, and mental health in stepfamilies. Participants included 127 couples (N = 254). Results revealed 2 actor-oriented models whereby parents’ and stepparents’ coparental communication quality positively predicted their own (but not their partners’) satisfaction and mental health. A final model revealed that parents’ relational satisfaction mediated the effect of coparental communication on their own mental health. A similar pattern emerged for stepparents, although coparental communication continued to have a direct, positive effect on stepparents’ mental health. Importantly, parents’ coparental communication produced an inverse partner effect on stepparents’ …

Mechanisms For Decisions About The Future, Jeffrey R. Stevens

Jeffrey Stevens Publications

Evolutionary and psychological perspectives on decision making remain largely separate endeavors. The bounded rationality approach integrates these two perspectives by focusing on simple, plausible mechanisms of decision making and the cognitive capacities needed to implement these mechanisms. Decisions about the future provide a class of decisions that lend themselves to a bounded rationality approach. Though many different mechanisms may exist for making decisions about the future, only a subset of these mechanisms actually require a representation of the future. The bounded rationality approach helps focus on the cognitive capacities and decision mechanisms that are necessary for a full understanding of …

Internet Usage Data, Adam Knowlton

Department of Communication Studies: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Interest in quantifying the the amount of traffic directed to specific websites grew soon after the rise of the internet in the early-to-mid 1990s. Drawing from scholarly metrics such as citation analysis, Larry Page and Sergey Brin developed a ranking system for the internet that would apply numerical value to a website based on the number of hyperlinks contained within, and linked to, that same website. This measurement tool opened the door for academic scholars to learn more about how their work circulates online. However, personal websites are not the only way that scholars have been able to make public …

H-Index, Travis Bartosh

Department of Communication Studies: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The h-index is a metric that uses both the number of an author’s publications along with the number of times those publications have been cited by other authors in an attempt to gauge an author’s perceived academic authority in their given fields of research. Balandin and Stancliffe explain how the h-index functionally operates: “If all of a researcher’s total of N publications are listed in order of the number of times they have been citd – from most to least – then that researcher’s h-index is the number of papers (h) that have been cited h or more times.” For …

Scholarly Books, Sarah Jones

Department of Communication Studies: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

As an academic’s career progresses, there are many landmarks: teaching that first class, completing the dissertation, publishing the first article, getting a tenure-track position, publishing that first book, and receiving the first promotion, among others. Tracking a scholar’s progress often apears to be linear and cumulative. Charles Bazerman and his colleagues point out that “publication of a scholarly book is frequently a central part of the evidence offered in support of tenure and promotion cases.” In fact, a brief review of tenure and promotion requirements for three prominent communication studies departments—University of Iowa, the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and the University …

Web Of Science Citation Data, Rachel Stohr

Department of Communication Studies: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The unprecedented challenges of “information overload” in the digital age have prompted academic institutions to develop new approaches to gauge scholarly authority and productivity, and disseminate research. The goal of this chapter is to consider the strengths and weaknesses of one such metric, and to speculate on the implications of its continued use for the academy, the communication studies discipline, and society. Specifically, I explore Web of Science citation patterns, a contemporary metric of scholarly authority that measures scholarly impact and influence via number of author and/or article citations over time. This report is comprised of four sections: (1) a …

Socializing Messages In Blue-Collar Families: Communicative Pathways To Social Mobility And Reproduction, Kristen Lucas

Department of Communication Studies: Faculty Publications

This study explicitly links processes of anticipatory socialization to social mobility and reproduction. An examination of the socializing messages exchanged between blue-collar parents (n=41) and their children (n=25) demonstrate that family-based messages about work and career seldom occur in straightforward, unambiguous ways. Instead, messages take several paths (direct, indirect, ambient, and omission). Further, the content of messages communicated along these paths often is contradictory. That is, sons and daughters receive messages that both encourage and discourage social mobility. Ultimately, these individuals must negotiate the meanings of family-based anticipatory socialization communicated to them through a mix of messages.

Barack Obama: A Semiotic Analysis Of His Philadelphia Speech, Theresa Catalano

Department of Communication Studies: Faculty Publications

In this paper, Barack Obama's March 18, 2008 Philadelphia speech is examined from the perspectives of Semiotics and Critical Discourse Analysis incorporating a theoretical framework from Social Identity Theory including models of metaphorical analysis from Semina and Masci (1996), Santa Ana (1999), and semiotic analysis of political discourse from Umberto Eco's "linguaggio politico" (1973). Jakobson's functions of signs (context, contact, code, addresser, addressee, and message) provide a basis for the analysis, which examines each function in detail. Emphasis is placed on the message of the speech by analyzing metaphors and metonyms ranging from "unity is nourishment" to "anger is a …

Revealing Darkness Through Light: Communicatively Managing The Dark Side Of Mentoring Relationships In Organisations, Kristen Carr, Erica P. Heiden

Department of Communication Studies: Faculty Publications

Existing research has indicated that mentoring in organisations serves a variety of beneficial functions, including socialising new employees, increasing employee self-esteem and competence, and teaching them how to navigate organisational politics. Although the benefits of mentoring are clear and well documented, there is a potential ‘dark side’ to mentoring that has the potential to result in role confusion, interpersonal conflict, the loss of individual power, and diluted organisational culture. It is our purpose in this paper to reconceptualise the role of communication in mentoring as a way to illuminate this dark side of mentoring within organisations.

Ex-Spouses’ Relational Satisfaction As A Function Of Coparental Communication In Stepfamilies, Paul Schrodt, Aimee E. Miller, Dawn O. Braithwaite

Department of Communication Studies: Faculty Publications

This study tested a series of actor-partner interdependence models of coparental communication and relational satisfaction among ex-spouses living in stepfamilies. Participants included 41 ex-spousal dyads (N = 82). Results revealed two actor-oriented models whereby ex-spouses’ supportive and antagonistic coparental communication predicted their own (but not their ex-spouse’s) relational satisfaction. A second set of models revealed that nonresidential parents’ supportive and antagonistic coparental communication with the residential stepparent predicted their own satisfaction with their ex-spouses, as well as their ex-spouse’s satisfaction with them (i.e., a partner effect). Importantly, the findings demonstrate the interdependence of coparenting relationships in stepfamilies, as supportive coparental …

Nebraska’S Centennial Mall: An Integrated Marketing Communications Plan, Shimmer Shack Advertising, Lauren Case, Jeff Price, Smidy Smidt, Kelsey Satra, Hilary Winter, Stacy James

College of Journalism and Mass Communications: Student Advertising Projects

“A present touch on the future.”

Shimmer Shack is a group of five senior advertising majors from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. We set out in August 2010, to assist Nebraska’s Centennial Mall (NCM) and the Lincoln Parks and Recreation to promote the renovation of NCM and to increase statewide awareness of the brand NCM itself.

Through our research these last few months, we have seen the need for a newly renovated space that connects two great entities of our state: the State Capitol and the University of Nebraska. We discovered that Nebraskans are very proud of their state and that …

Nebraska's Centennial Mall -- Where You Go To Grow: An Integrated Marketing Communications Plan, Secret Radio, Pam Orr, Brianne Hake, Jessica Simpson, Stephanie Scharf, Charles Wetzel, Stacy C. James

College of Journalism and Mass Communications: Student Advertising Projects

Situation Analysis
Nebraska’s Centennial Mall, extending from the State Capitol seven blocks north on what would be 15th Street, serves as a scenic connection between Nebraska’s iconic State Capitol and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. The Mall is currently in a state of disrepair, but a restoration project will soon begin. Our task is to implement a statewide awareness campaign to encourage all Nebraskans to visit and take pride in Nebraska’s Centennial Mall. In essence, the new Mall is the front yard and primary entrance to the State Capitol and should be viewed and appreciated as a symbol to the state …

An Integrated Marketing Communications Plan For Nebraska’S Centennial Mall, B. Bach Advertising, Brian Muhlbach, Crystal Wulfekuhl, Bryce Wergin, Kelsey Nowka, Colin Clifford, Tyler Vaughan, Stacy C. James

College of Journalism and Mass Communications: Student Advertising Projects

Built in 1967 to commemorate the state’s Centennial year, Lincoln’s Centennial Mall is the open pedestrian mall area spanning from the Capitol Building on K Street north to the Nebraska State Historical Society on R Street. Managed by the Lincoln Parks and Recreation Department, the Mall has been the site for many important political and social events, including Robert Kerry’s announcement for his candidacy for President as well as local festivals and functions like Rib Fest and World Day on the Mall. But, as of 2010, the once-grand fountains have been mostly filled in, the steps are not handicapped accessible, …

News Consumption Habits Of Students At The University Of Nebraska, Ford G. Clark

College of Journalism and Mass Communications: Theses

People in America today have many choices when it comes to the media. There are hundreds of channels available on cable or satellite television, hundreds of radio stations across the United States, as well as myriad newspapers. Many of these traditional media outlets have Internet websites available as well. Many studies have been done as well as current ratings, subscription information and website tracking to determine who is consuming news in this country. However, information about college students and news consumption is difficult to find. This study attempts to find out what, if any, news is being consumed, and through …

Commenting On Cannabis: Testing News Fragmentation Using Reader Comments On California's Proposition 19, John D. Beecham

College of Journalism and Mass Communications: Theses

This content analysis studies reader comments on news articles pertaining to the issue of California’s Proposition 19—the “Tax Cannabis Initiative” to legalize marijuana. It investigates whether these reader message boards are consistent with news fragmentation theory, by examining whether the distribution of “yes” and “no” opinion on alternative media sites’ message boards is more homogenous than the distribution of opinions on mainstream news sites’ message boards. This study also uses a thematic analysis to investigate whether the mainstream media, as represented by editorial board endorsements by daily California newspapers, influences themes used by reader comments on Proposition 19. Results show …

The Post-Nuclear Family And The Depoliticization Of Unplanned Pregnancy In Knocked Up, Juno, And Waitress, Kristen Hoerl, Casey Ryan Kelly

Department of Communication Studies: Faculty Publications

This essay explores three films from 2007, Knocked Up, Juno, and Waitress, which foreground young women’s unplanned pregnancies. These movies depoliticize women’s reproduction and motherhood through narratives that rearticulate the meaning of choice. Bypassing the subject of abortion, the women’s decisions revolve around their choice of heterosexual partners and investment in romantic relationships. Although they question the viability of the nuclear family for single pregnant women, these films represent new iterations of post-feminism that ultimately restore conservative ideas that valorize pregnancy and motherhood as women’s imperatives. We conclude by addressing how these movies present a distorted and …

Coaching Efficacy With Academic Leaders: A Phenomenological Investigation, Deanna Lee Vansickel-Peterson

College of Education and Human Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The purpose of this psychological phenomenological research was to understand the efficacy of life coaching from the perspective of academic leaders. To date, not one investigation or attempt has been made towards the above stated purpose. This study includes a theoretical overview and a review of the coaching literature from Socrates (469-399 BC) to current day Humanistic theory presented in part by Roger (1902-1987). This process included data collection from five academic leaders who have been coached for at least two years. Levels of analysis of 365 statements, quote and/or comments produced finding of efficacy in life coaching with academic …

Revising The Ap Stylebook: Q&A With Editor David Minthorn, Sue Burzynski Bullard

College of Journalism and Mass Communications: Faculty Publications

David Minthorn, the deputy standards editor of the Associated Press, answered questions in an e-mail interview about how the AP Stylebook comes together. Minthorn has been a correspondent or editor with the Associated Press for more than 40 years. He has worked on style issues at the news cooperative since 2000. Minthorn is one of three editors of the AP Stylebook and answers questions on the Ask the Editor website.

Constitutive Discourse Of Turkish Nationalism: Atatürk’S Nutuk And The Rhetorical Construction Of The “Turkish People”, Aysel Morin, Ronald Lee

Department of Communication Studies: Faculty Publications

This article explores the “Great Speech” Nutuk, delivered in 1927 by Turkey’s founder, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. In analyzing Nutuk and its rhetorical features, we identify the mythic underpinnings Atatürk employed to construct a modern “Turkish people.” We use this case to further our understanding of the constitutive discourses of nationalism. We believe Atatürk’s Nutuk provides a profitable discourse to think with as we attempt to understand Muslim nations and their negotiation of modernity.

Blogs: An Essential Teaching Tool, Sue Burzynski Bullard

College of Journalism and Mass Communications: Faculty Publications

Blogs are a good way to teach journalism. In fact, there are many journalism professors who contend that they are an absolute necessity if students are going to have marketable skills for potential employers. Or for those students who head down the entrepreneurial path, a blog can be the lifeblood of that enterprise. In creating and using blogs, students become aware of—and familiar with the use of—a popular and ubiquitous and (virtually) no-cost digital platform on which journalists work these days. For them, it’s like collecting “clips,” only without having to clip anything.

Introduction To Special Issue: Public Argument/Digital Media, Damien S. Pfister

Department of Communication Studies: Faculty Publications

This introductory essay to the special issue of Argumentation and Advocacy on Public Argument/Digital Media makes the case for a sustained interrogation of digitally-networked argumentation practices. To complement current scholarship on how new forms of digital mediation produce group polarization and truthiness, I suggest that argumentation scholars look at digital media as a rich source for the production and criticism of argument. Each of the essays in the special issue is then introduced by examining five cross-cutting themes that argumentation scholars may consider when examining how digital media produce networked argument practices: interactivity, instantaneity, scale, archiving, and search.

Transmitting Relational Worldviews: The Relationship Between Mother-Daughter Memorable Messages And Adult Daughters’ Romantic Relational Schemata, Jody Koenig Kellas

Department of Communication Studies: Faculty Publications

This study investigates memorable messages that daughters report hearing from their mothers about romantic relationships to examine the development of meaning in the content of parent-child communication and the ways in which these messages may affect and reflect adult daughters’ relational worldviews. Findings from a study involving 149 adult daughters revealed 4 supra-categories of memorable messages: value self, characteristics of a good relationship, warnings, and value the sanctity of love. Moreover, statistical analyses reveal that memorable message types significantly related to daughter’s romantic relationship schemata as operationalized by Fitzpatrick’s (1988) couple types. Both message and couple type predicted intergenerational transmission.

Innovator In Residence: Oh Yeon-Ho, Yeon-Ho Oh

College of Journalism and Mass Communications: Presentations

Oh Yeon-ho, CEO and founder of the citizen journalism website OhmyNews, will be the second Innovator in Residence at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln College of Journalism and Mass Communications. He will visit Oct. 12 to 14.

Operating under the motto "Every citizen is a reporter," OhmyNews receives between 200 and 250 stories each day from 100 countries worldwide. Launched in 2000 in Seoul, South Korea, OhmyNews began by working with 727 citizen journalists. Today, it is an international media outlet with nearly 62,000 citizen reporters and 70 full-time editors and reporters.

"OhmyNews, one of the first citizen journalism sites, is …