Communication Commons^™

I Will Defend My Self, Emily Ward Hawkins

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines caregiving and motherhood as forms of load-bearing infrastructure. Cultural narratives often portray motherhood through sentimental images of joy, tenderness, and devotion, obscuring the structural labor that sustains family life. This project examines maternal labor as a largely unseen system of support that organizes family life while often remaining backgrounded. Caregiving reorganizes time, space, ambition, embodiment, and future orientation within maternal life. Through sculptural works using architectural materials and construction systems, such as oriented strand board, blueprint racks, metal armatures, and graph paper, the project visualizes caregiving as a structural condition. These materials reference the language of architecture …

Breaking The Silence: A Content And Expert Analysis Of The 2025 Ramadan Series Lam Shamseya's Framing And Subversion Of Child Sexual Abuse Discourse In Egypt, Maya Abouelnasr

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis analyzes how the 2025 Egyptian TV series Lam Shamseya served as a sociocultural intervention and awareness platform for reframing and subverting the typical child sexual abuse (CSA) discourse in Egypt. Using a mixed-methods approach, the study triangulates framing theory and two complementary tools of the critical discourse analysis (CDA) and the circuit of culture model through a scene-level content analysis of 304 scenes across all 15 episodes of the series and ten semi-structured interviews with media experts, media practitioners, and psychologists. Key findings include reported corroboration of subversion of traditional tropes and archetypes, as well as reframing of …

Creating Public Value Through Public-Private Partnerships In Technical And Vocational Education And Training In Egypt, Aseel Amr Tajuddin

Theses and Dissertations

Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) has emerged in the last decade as a foundational pillar for Egypt’s workforce and economic development vision. More recently, the Egyptian Ministry of Education and Technical Education (MoETE) has scaled industry driven and Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) TVET models, industry affiliated dual education programs and Applied Technology Schools (ATS), seeking to strengthen alignment with the labor market and improving TVET graduates employability. Yet, TVET in Egypt continues to suffer from persistent social stigma, limited social legitimacy and low social ranking, despite the state led reform efforts. Existing TVET literature remains limited to examining …

Will Beauty Save The Brain? Exploring The Relationship Between Eudaimonic Reels Exposure And Egyptian Gen Z'S Mind And Motivations, Petra Zaky

Theses and Dissertations

Social media entertaining content includes a mixed bag of the meaningful and the trivial. For Generation Z, whose favorite daily entertainment is shallow yet funny short-form videos (reels), there is often an invisible price paid. The loss of ability to watch long meaningful videos, distractedness from self, “Brain Rot”, glamorizing of hedonism are among the maladies left behind the attractive rabbit hole of their daily media diet. This study explores the relationship between exposure to meaningful reels, in contrast to pleasurable reels, and Gen Z’s reflective thinking, “Brain Rot” symptoms, motivation to watch long meaningful videos and life motivations between …

The Style Of Decision: Consumer Wisdom And The Mediating Role Of The Heuristic-Systematic Model Of Information Processing In Clothes Shopping, Nourane Sakr

Theses and Dissertations

Rationality and emotions are often treated as opposing forces in decision-making. Yet what if the more productive question is not which one prevails, but how a balance between the two might be achieved? Wisdom offers precisely this kind of integrative paradigm. Wisdom is a central trait for self-development; yet, little has been explored on Consumer Wisdom from a communications perspective. The theory has been initially examining ecology principles with an extensive space in consumer behavior and marketing practices. This research approaches consumer wisdom in online fashion advertising context whilst understanding the common information processing modes; evoked by the mediation of …

Determinants Of Corporal Punishment And Severe Physical Punishment In Egypt: A Mixed-Methods Analysis For Child Protection Policy, Marwa Moustafa Nassef

Theses and Dissertations

Corporal punishment (CP) and severe physical punishment (SPP) remain a major public health, child rights, and child protection policy concern. In Egypt, despite legislative reforms, survey-weighted analysis of the 2021 Egypt Family Health Survey (EFHS) 2021 (CAPMAS, 2022) reveals prevalence rates of 60.5% for CP and 27.4% for SPP among children aged 1–14 (author’s calculations using EFHS-2021, n=7623), yet evidence distinguishing the determinants of routine corporal punishment from escalation to severe physical punishment remains limited in low- and middle-income contexts. Guided by Bronfenbrenner’s ecological framework, this mixed-methods study identifies key drivers of CP and its escalation to SPP among Egyptian …

Modeling The Spread Of Competing Narratives In Multimodal Social Media Network, Mayor Inna Gurung

Theses and Dissertations

Social media has fundamentally transformed how narratives are produced, contested, and disseminated, enabling competing interpretations of the same event to spread rapidly across networked populations. Understanding how narratives gain traction over others in these environments is critical for addressing misinformation, supporting informed public discourse, and designing effective counter-messaging strategies. Yet existing research largely treats narrative propagation as a single-process phenomenon and focuses predominantly on textual data, overlooking both the competitive dynamics between opposing narratives and the growing role of visual symbolic communication in shaping how narratives are received. This dissertation addresses these gaps through a multi-platform, multimodal framework applied to …

Multimodal Analysis Of Content Drift And Algorithmic Bias In Youtube Recommendations, Mert Can Cakmak

Theses and Dissertations

Recommendation systems play a major role in shaping how users encounter information on digital platforms, yet their influence often unfolds through sequences of recommended content rather than isolated outputs. This dissertation investigates recommendation bias on YouTube by examining how recommendation pathways evolve across long-form videos and YouTube Shorts. Focusing on politically sensitive narratives, including the China–Uyghur conflict, the South China Sea dispute, and Taiwan’s 2024 presidential election, the dissertation develops a unified framework for understanding how recommendation systems reshape exposure across platform formats. Using an audit-based and multimodal methodology, the dissertation combines controlled recommendation collection, topic and relevance analysis, emotion …

How To Talk To Zionists, Samuel Bischof

Theses and Dissertations

This paper offers rhetorical tools for weakening Liberal Zionists' commitment to the Israeli State, including a call to action, a typology of American Zionists, reflections on the author's Zionist upbringing, and an analysis of the pseudo-leftist phenomenon of Decolonial Zionism.

Moodify: A Mood-Based Music Recommendation System, Meghana Kagitha

Theses and Dissertations

Music has long been recognised as a powerful tool for emotional regulation, yet existing music streaming platforms often fail to align song recommendations with a user's current emotional state. Moodify is a mood-based music recommendation system designed to bridge this gap by delivering personalised playlists that reflect how a user feels in real time.

This project presents the design, development, and evaluation of Moodify, a mobile application that leverages the Circumplex Model of Emotion to capture user mood through an intuitive two-dimensional valence-arousal interface. Rather than relying on text input or manual search, users plot their emotional state directly onto …

The Impact Of Violent Content Media Exposure On Behavioral Outcomes: The Mediating Role Of Media Engagement, Melissia Emad Eskander

Theses and Dissertations

This study explores how repeated exposure to violent content in films, television series, and video games may influence behavioral outcomes among Egyptian media consumers. Drawing on the General Aggression Model, Social Learning Theory, and Cultivation Theory, it examines how individual interpretation, emotional involvement, and narrative absorption mediate the effects of media violence. It also considers how personality traits shape audience responses, specifically aggression, empathy, and narrative immersion.

A mixed-methods approach was adopted. A structured survey of 200 Egyptians aged 18 and above assessed media exposure, aggression, empathy, narrative engagement, and behavioral outcomes. In parallel, a content analysis of Egyptian films …

Refugees In Egypt: State Framing, Ministerial Narratives, And The Politics Of Representation On Social Media, Habiba Kohail

Theses and Dissertations

This study examines Egyptian government discourse on refugees in 2024, a year characterized by heightened regional displacement and the enactment of Egypt’s first Asylum Law (Law No. 164 of

2024). Using a multidisciplinary framework that combines framing analysis with van Dijk's socio-cognitive approach, the study systemically analyzes how the government construct refugees on social

media and sets the boundaries of their inclusion in Egypt.

The thesis analyzes the Egyptian government discourse on refugees across official social media platforms from January 1, 2024, to December 31, 2024, a period that witnessed an increase in the government engagement in the refugee issue …

The Impact Of Universities’ Social Media Content And Digital Brand Equity On Potential Students’ Perception, Engagement And Trust: The Case Of Egyptian Private Universities, Mahy Shoukry

Theses and Dissertations

Universities are increasingly using social media platforms as tools for marketing, brand building, and student engagement as a result of the digital transformation in higher education. This study investigates how prospective students' perceptions, levels of engagement, and trust are impacted by universities' digital brand equity and social media content. This study attempts to close the knowledge gap on how visual and user-generated information influences the decision-making processes of potential students, given the competitive environment among Egyptian private institutions. Particular focus is placed on how authenticity, video content, and images influence educational institutions' online appearance and reputation. The methodology used a …

Social Media And Public Opinion In Times Of Conflict: How Arab Social Media Impacted International Perspectives On The Gaza War, Mariam Rizk

Theses and Dissertations

This exploratory study examines how Arab social media content creators impacted the international public perception of the 2023 Gaza war through English-language content. The research is conducted through semi-structured interviews with 19 participants: 4 Arab social media content creators and 15 English-speaking university students (13 American citizens and 2 international students studying in American universities). Through these semi-structured qualitative interviews, the research investigates the agenda-setting capabilities of social media during conflicts and identifies effective cross-cultural communication strategies. The study employed purposive sampling with snowball technique, targeting content creators with established social media presence (37,000-426,000 Instagram followers) and university students who …

An Impact Assessment Of The Effectiveness Of Utilizing Informal Health Communication Interventions To Spread Health Recommendations And Change Public Perception, Lina Mohamed Ezzat Ahmed Abdel Mawgoud

Theses and Dissertations

Brain health is an increasingly urgent but critically under-addressed public health priority in Egypt and the wider MENA region. Despite its centrality to aging, productivity, and overall quality of life, public understanding of brain health remains limited, and stigma continues to shape responses to dementia and cognitive decline. This study evaluates the effectiveness of informal, culturally adapted health communication as a tool to shift perception, increase awareness, and promote behavior change among non-medically trained adults in Egypt.

Grounded in global evidence on cognitive reserve, neuroplasticity, and the life-course approach to brain health, the intervention translated expert-informed brain health recommendations into …

Mass Tourism And Sustainability Discourses: A Rhetorical Analysis Of Stakeholder Communication Across The Canary Islands, Iceland, And Puerto Rico, Carmen Collins

Theses and Dissertations

This study analyzes 123 websites from the Canary Islands, Iceland, and Puerto Rico, each including an equal number of tourism businesses, environmental organizations, and governments from each region, to examine the rhetorical digital communication strategies used and the textual differences between these websites. Thematic analysis was the methodology employed in this study. Ten themes were found inductively from the data, which are: 1) economic value framing, 2) cultural identity and heritage, 3) technological mediation, 4) inspiring guilt, awe, and urgency, 5) sustainability as an instrument, 6) intergenerational responsibility, 7) global versus local contestations, 8) accessibility and inclusion, 9) transparency and …

Advising With Heart: How Institutional Selectivity And Size Shape Emotional Labor In Higher Education Academic Advising, Dallas W. Maddox

Theses and Dissertations

Academic advising serves as a vital bridge between students and their educational experiences and success, yet the emotional complexities of this meaningful work remain underexplored. This mixed-methods study examined how institutional selectivity and size influence emotional labor awareness and application among academic advisors, addressing a critical gap in understanding the human dimensions of advising relationships. The research explored whether advisors at smaller, selective institutions demonstrate enhanced emotional labor competencies compared to colleagues at larger, more inclusive institutions. Eleven dedicated academic advisors participated in this study, representing experienced professionals with 5-17 years of advising experience across four institutional categories defined by …

Deconstructing Shifting Narratives: Critical Discourse Analysis Of Terminology Trends In Unfpa’S State Of World Population Reports (1978-2024), Naqib A. Noory

Theses and Dissertations

Rooted in both scholarly inquiry and lived experience in global development, this study explored how language shapes power, inclusion, and representation. It analyzed the evolution of population and development discourse in UNFPA’s State of World Population reports (1978–2024) using Fairclough’s Level 1 Critical Discourse Analysis framework. Giddens’ Structuration Theory provided a broader lens linking linguistic change to the interaction between institutional structures and human agency. A theory-based coding framework, drawing on Malthusian, Senian, Spivakian, and MDG/SDG paradigms, guided the analysis of evolving discourse. Findings revealed a layered narrative: earlier scarcity framings persisted beneath newer development language; rights and empowerment rhetoric …

Domestic Worker Abuse Among Diplomatic Force: The Need To Enhance Communication For Domestic Worker Safety, Martyne A. Volcy

Theses and Dissertations

This study investigates patterns of domestic worker abuse in the working relationship between a foreign migrant domestic worker and their diplomat employer. This study focuses on the role of communication as a protection for domestic worker safety. The aim of this research is to explore the unique employer-employee relationship between a domestic worker and diplomat, and whether there are safeguards in place that allow for the domestic worker to perform their duties, without circumstances of domestic worker abuse. This study examines the relationships between communication, knowledge, and power within the system of Diplomacy through the lens of domestic employees alleging …

The Effects Of Inadequate Training On Knowledge Management Systems: Retention Crisis Of Captains In The United States Army, Lexis R. Grudzinski

Theses and Dissertations

This research explores the relationship between the United States Army’s communication strategy in knowledge management for officers and the desires of captains to continue serving beyond their service obligation. Amidst the current retention crisis (Winkie, 2023) at the captain rank, blame often falls on factors outside of the Army’s control. This research, however, seeks to investigate a factor within the Army’s control and offer workable solutions.

For this research, we will use the common definition of knowledge management (KM): the process of creating, capturing, and organizing knowledge within an organization in a way that improves efficiency. KM includes both explicit …

Social Media, Masculine Body Ideals, And The Drive For Muscularity: A Serial Mediation Model Across Sexual Identities, Sean P. Mcdaniel

Theses and Dissertations

Body image concerns among men are increasingly prevalent yet remain understudied compared to women’s experiences. Drawing on objectification theory, the present study examines the relationship between social media influence and men’s drive for muscularity through a serial mediation model. Specifically, the present study investigates whether the internalization of masculine body ideals and engagement in body surveillance behaviors mediate the link between social media influence and the drive for muscularity. Furthermore, the present study model attempts to explore how these processes differ across sexual identities, given evidence that sexual minority men face distinct sociocultural pressures regarding appearance. Adult male-identifying social media …

Turnover Talk: Organizational Turnover Communication And Its Effects On Turnover Intention, Organizational Identification, And Job Satisfaction, Ethan L. Carroll

Theses and Dissertations

Employee turnover intention has been a focus of organizational research within the field of communication. Communication can affect organizational culture, relational dynamics, and even information flow throughout organizations, which all have influence over employee decisions. The body of literature that pertains to turnover is vast; however, the gap that this study aimed to fill was looking at communication about turnover. The purpose of this study was to investigate and explore communication related to turnover within organizational practices and interactions. This study used a mixed methods approach that first explored the concept of turnover talk and, second, investigated the impact of …

Leading The Temporary Workforce: Leadership Communication And Adaptation Among Seasonal Employees, Alfred Kwabena Obiri

Theses and Dissertations

Seasonal employees constitute an essential yet understudied workforce sustaining organizational operations during peak demand periods across industries. Despite the growing organizational reliance on temporary employees, organizational communication studies have primary focused on permanent employees with extended socialization periods, leaving important questions about how leadership communication operates in compressed timeframes inadequately addressed. This qualitative study examined how leadership communication practices shape seasonal employees’ adaptation, belonging, and morale within the temporal constraints characteristic of temporary employment. Drawing on organizational socialization theory, leader-member exchange theory and cultural dimensions, this study employed semi-structured interviews with 19 seasonal employees across hospitality, camp, retail, and education …

From Deference To Dialogue: How International Gtas From High Power Distance Cultures Adapt To U.S. Classroom Dynamics, Deborah Akua Afi Appiah

Theses and Dissertations

International graduate teaching assistants (GTAs) from high power distance cultures play a significant role in undergraduate education at U.S. universities, yet they face challenges that go well beyond language proficiency. Coming from educational backgrounds where teacher authority is unquestioned and hierarchical, these GTAs must navigate American classrooms that operate on fundamentally different assumptions, where authority is earned rather than assumed, informality is the norm, and students expect to question, negotiate, and be personally known by their instructors. The present study examined how eighteen (18) international GTAs from seven (7) high power distance countries perceived and adapted to these differences while …

Creating "An Exemplar Of A Better World": A Dialogic Analysis Of Academic Freedom Surrounding Columbia University Activism From 2023-2025, Ellanore Foltz

Theses and Dissertations

From October of 2023 to August 2025, the community at Columbia University engaged in a series of debates regarding the meaning of academic freedom. Academic freedom, first institutionalized in the United States during the first world war, has shifted over the decades as the purpose of higher education and the threats to higher education changed. In recent years, campus protests regarding Israel and Palestine have sparked new debates about academic freedom that reflect ongoing and sometimes fundamental disagreements about higher education. This study utilizes Relational Dialectics Theory (RDT; Baxter, 2011) to explore the interplay between different discourses of academic freedom …

Rhetoric Of Realignment: An Analysis Of Trump's 2024 Campaign Rhetoric, David Valadez

Theses and Dissertations

When political coalitions include groups with opposing policy goals, leaders face a challenge: satisfying all constituencies without making commitments that alienate essential supporters. The present study examines strategic ambiguity in the form of deliberately vague political messaging as a tool for managing this challenge. Combining rhetorical analysis with selectorate theory, which explains how leaders achieve and maintain power through reward distribution, the research analyzes Donald Trump’s 2024 Republican National Convention acceptance speech, focusing on immigration rhetoric.

The analysis reveals that Trump’s ambiguity was selective rather than habitual. On immigration, where tech/corporate interests wanting skilled workers clashed with nationalist groups demanding …

Algorhythm: Commodification Of Hobbies On Social Media Platforms, Fariha Ahmed

Theses and Dissertations

Forcing the world online, the COVID-19 pandemic appeared to turn social-media-based hobbies into income-generating cash cows. Digital creative spaces became sites of capitalist logic where hobbyists came to operate as both laborers and commodities. Profit-focused algorithms operate imperceptibly, shaping creative behavior and decision-making in ways that are difficult to recognize, and even harder to resist. This thesis asks how algorithmic participation on platforms such as Instagram conditions a hobbyist, and how that conditioning can be made legible to audiences who inhabit such platforms without always seeing them. Using autoethnography, I position myself as both researcher and subject to document the …

Prescriptive Behaviors: Tracking The Social Impact Of Film Portrayals Of Black Men, Garfield Ronald Benjamin

Theses and Dissertations

Cinematic and televisual media express the thoughts and emotions of people and cultures with the potential of unifying people through the social realities that are created around the visuals, narratives, and on-screen interpersonal interactions. Through media like film, television, and short-form online video, people interact with others in ways that, because of barriers like physical distance and/or social structures, they may not be able to in real life. The images, sounds, and stories depict their own realities, which are consumed, interpreted, and understood by viewers and can inform their perceptions and interpersonal interactions. Stuart Hall, Jamaican-British, cultural theorist, and political …

“America Is For Americans Only”: Journalistic Professionalism, Populism, And Latino Ethnic Media In The 2024 U.S. Presidential Election, Maria Villarroel

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation examines how journalistic professionalism shaped news coverage of Latino-related issues during the 2024 U.S. presidential election across mainstream and Latino ethnic media outlets. In a polarized political environment, immigration and the “Latino vote” were not only central campaign issues but also sites of radicalized rhetoric that frequently targeted Latino communities and journalists. In this context, journalists were tasked with reporting on highly contentious, hostile narratives while adhering to professional norms. This study argues that these norms influenced how journalists selected, framed, and contextualized political rhetoric, and how media coverage further elevated immigration and Latino communities as key electoral …

Determining Knowledge Gaps In Natural Disaster Preparedness: An Exploratory Analysis Of Socioeconomic Variables And Response Quality, Michelle S. Repass

Theses and Dissertations

This exploratory study examines potential knowledge gaps in natural disaster preparedness across socioeconomic groups in Lee County, Alabama and identifies communication barriers affecting response behavior through the lens of the knowledge gap hypothesis. Survey data from 20 residents were analyzed using an objective socioeconomic status (OSES) score based on household income and highest level of education. Results indicate that while most respondents reported access to weather alerts and favorable behavioral responses that align with current guidelines from the National Weather Service, gaps are present in comprehension, response timing, and engagement in risky behavior that could delay protective action. Findings suggest …