Communication Commons^™

Recognized Nonverbal Behaviors Of Leaders: Appearance Graphocentrism, Kinesics, Object Language And Proxemics, Carrie D. Hall

Theses and Dissertations

This study shows nonverbal behaviors adult students recognize as those leaders in classrooms use to convey their position of leadership.

The field of Public Relations is involved with clear, truthful two-way communication between senders and receivers of messages. It is desirable that all communication exchanges be complete with positive understanding of messages, especially those where one represents others with messages s/he delivers.

Existing research was reviewed to determine nonverbal behaviors leaders use in the five areas studied. A questionnaire was designed and administered to a non-probability quota sample. Semantic differential scales determined attitudes and beliefs students had about nonverbal communication …

Trends. Mixed Messages And Mixed Metaphors: 21st Century Political Discourse, Ibpp Editor

International Bulletin of Political Psychology

This article discusses the use of mixed metaphors in political communication.

Increasing Your Organization's Visibility: A Study Of Business And Financial Print Media, Sandra L. Mccollum

Theses and Dissertations

This study provides advice to investor or public relations professionals seeking increased national print media exposure for their organizations.

The author contacted 112 writers, editors and reporters from 16 business publications using postcards or e-mail. Twelve respondents participated in telephone or e-mail interviews.

The author found that reporters prefer to interview a chief executive officer for their stories. Participants also indicated they use outside sources, such as ex-employees, competitors and on-line databases, to learn more about an organization.

Participants were most interested in covering unexpected news, such as a fundamental change in the business, for hard news stories. The journalists …

Decreasing The Rate Of Turnover By Enhancing Employee Morale, Kyra De Blaker

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis studies the impact of morale on employee turnover. High employee satisfaction levels can reduce turnover. Eight in ten highly satisfied employees intend to stay with a company for more than two years, when compared to only two in ten dissatisfied employees.

To counter the disastrous effects of employee turnover, companies are establishing programs to boost employee morale. This thesis examines the morale programs of a New Jersey financial institution and the company's turnover rates. The author surveyed current employees to determine the level of employee morale and effective long-term motivators.

The financial institution recognizes the importance of employee …

Public Service Announcements For Broadcast Television: A Guide For Non-Profit Agencies, Karen Anne Jess

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of preparing this guide was to create a reference for non-profit agencies to assist in creating a public service announcement for broadcast television. The author assumed that non-profit agencies are often working with no budget and the quality of the prepared PSAs is unacceptable. Also, the techniques used to create and distribute the announcements are incorrect. Since public service announcements are key to reaching a large audience for little or no money, the author felt it essential to create a reference for non-profit agencies to guide them in the production of their public service announcements. The primary research …

Cybercrisis Management: Handling Crises At The Speed Of Light, Thomas Stanley Jason

Theses and Dissertations

This study's purpose was to compile information on how to handle different types of cybercrises and compile them into an easy to use guide for experienced public relations professionals. The data search included library and Internet searches for information on handling cybercrises. Additionally, an e-mail survey was sent out to on-line public relations personnel to determine their experience with cybercrises. From that survey, professionals who stated that they have handled cybercrises were interviewed via e-mail.

The study determined that 20 percent of those surveyed had faced a cybercrisis. The study determined that the most important parts of cybercrisis management were …

Understanding Students With Diabetes: A Communication Handbook For High Schools, Karen M. Ferguson

Theses and Dissertations

Effective communication between students with diabetes and school personnel is essential to the well-being of the student. The author conducted this study to identify the needs, feelings, and behaviors of students with diabetes.

The author performed literature searches and conducted informal, qualitative research techniques to obtain information for the handbook. The author conducted telephone interviews with seven nurses from selected counties in Southern New Jersey. The author asked the nurses questions about diabetes management in their schools. The author also questioned 15 students with diabetes regarding communication efforts with the school, signs and symptoms of high and low blood sugars, …

New Jersey Municipalities' Methods For Building Non-Emergency Community Relations, Lizabeth Miller Galantino

Theses and Dissertations

The objective of conducting this study was to record the various methods of community relations held in New Jersey municipalities between January 1 and December 31, 1999.

A literature search was conducted; an original mail survey distributed to 210 mayors statewide; data was analyzed and presented in a quantitative format.

The following major conclusions were drawn:

A. If given an unlimited amount of funding, direct mail is conceived as the most effective way to publicize events and projects.

B. Newspapers were reported as the most effective, measurable publicity tool to get exposure for events and projects.

C. Mayors play a …

Public Relations Efforts To Promote New Sports Teams, Nancy Urban

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this thesis was to accumulate information relative to the various public relations practices, methods, and procedures utilized by the four NHL expansion teams during the two-year period June 25, 1997 to October 7, 1999. The thesis determined the extent of common public relations elements among the four NHL expansion teams. The study was approached from four perspectives: public relations, media relations, community relations and player perspective.

Eighteen questions were asked of each team: Nashville Predators, Atlanta Thrashers, Columbus Blue Jackets and Minnesota Wild to determine the extent of communication elements common among them.

Through in-depth interviews, it …

Trends. No More Rogue Nations And The Power Of Words: A Coup For Ibpp?, Ibpp Editor

International Bulletin of Political Psychology

This article discusses the possible consequences of the choice of political language regarding "rogue nations," and "states of concern."

A Study To Determine How Casual Dress In The Workplace Affects Employee Morale And Productivity, Marisa Avallone Sharkey

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to provide managers and key decision makers insight into how casual dress work environments compare to traditional corporate cultures by assessing the impact of casual dress on employee morale and productivity, two vital influencers of the bottom line.

Using a survey, based on a literature review, the author surveyed 148 human resources and performance management professionals serving in a human resources capacity in American companies. Responses were hand-coded and double-checked for accuracy.

This study has indicated that, overall, employee morale does improve as dress codes become more casual. However, the percentage of those surveyed …

Prospectus, June 21, 2000, Aaron Turner, Mary O'Malley, Scott Stealey, Jim Folkerts, Theresa Landgraver, Neil Bernstein, Mary Ecker

Prospectus 2000

No abstract provided.

Central Florida Future, June 21, 2000

Central Florida Future

No abstract provided.

The Silly Season For Cubs And Congress, Richard C. Crepeau

On Sport and Society

It could be the full moon again. Or perhaps silliness is now the norm. Whichever the case, two items caught my eye this week. First, the Chicago Cubs are talking about trading Sammy Sosa, and second the U.S. Congress is considering legislation to ban legal betting on college sports. Which is the sillier of the two? Medieval theologians could debate that for decades.

Report On Sins Of Change, Sheila A. Malone

SWITCH

A review and analysis of a series of conferences and panels held at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis that sought to examine the position of art in the age of new media. The keynote speaker was professor Pierre Levy, and each panel is broken down into its essential thesis and themes, and then sorted and compared to the traditional seven deadly sins from the Bible. These sins are used as categorical definers for different problems that accompany present-day new media art. In order: Pride, Greed, Sloth, Anger/Gluttony, Envy, and Lust are broken into 6 different sections each taking a …

The Stanley Cup Final Has It All And Thensome, Richard C. Crepeau

On Sport and Society

It was one of the best events of the early summer. The finals of the NHL Playoffs, the Battle for Lord Stanley's Cup, hit high gear and produced two of the best games in any sport over recent months. Indeed the last two games were among the best ever.

Central Florida Future, June 7, 2000

Central Florida Future

No abstract provided.

Maurice Richard And The Canadian Psyche, Richard C. Crepeau

On Sport and Society

It's always difficult to think of Canada as a foreign country. I once went to Canada without a passport or any other legitimate documents for border identification. Oddly, only the U.S. authorities had a problem with that.

Anti-Ballistic Missile Defense Systems And Rhetorical Madness, Ibpp Editor

International Bulletin of Political Psychology

This article describes examples of political rhetoric on anti-ballistic missile defense systems from the two main presidential candidates in the United States. These examples may be undone by their consequential implications for military and politico-military deterrence and the development and proliferation of nuclear weapons even as they may garner success as campaign attack vehicles.

Review Of: Sharon M. Friedman Et Al. Eds., Communicating Uncertainty, Daniel D. Howard

RISK: Health, Safety & Environment (1990-2002)

A review of the book Communicating Uncertainty: Media Coverage of New and Controversial Science (Sharon M. Friedman, Sharon Dunwoody & Carol L. Rogers, eds.; Lawrence Erlbaum Associates 1999). Preface, introduction. ISBN 0-8058-2728-5 [261 pp. $32.50. Paperback, 10 Industrial Avenue, Mahwah, NJ 07430-2262].

On-Line Bayesian Speaker Adaptation By Using Tree-Structured Transformation And Robust Priors, Shaojun Wang, Yunxin Zhao

Kno.e.sis Publications

This paper presents new results by using our previously proposed on-line Bayesian learning approach for affine transformation parameter estimation in speaker adaptation. The on-line Bayesian learning technique allows updating parameter estimates after each utterance and it can accommodate flexible forms of transformation functions as well as prior probability density functions. We show through experimental results the robustness of heavy tailed priors to mismatch in prior density estimation. We also show that by properly choosing the transformation matrices and depths of hierarchical trees, recognition performance improved significantly.

Volume 29, Number 3, Post Amerikan

The Post Amerikan (1972-2004)

No abstract provided.

A Guide To Effective Public Relations For The High School Athletic Director, Joseph T. Cranston

Theses and Dissertations

The primary purpose of this research project was to develop a handbook for high school athletic directors so they can apply effective public relations practices to their athletic program on a daily basis. Fifteen high school athletic directors from different counties in New Jersey were interviewed to gain first-hand knowledge of the athletic public relations activities that are most effective. A review of several sources, including physical education and administration books, athletic journals and public relations books, supplemented the primary research by providing supporting research by some of the most well-respected public relations practitioners in the athletic arena.

The finished …

[Introduction To] Slippery Characters: Ethnic Impersonators And American Identities, Laura Browder

Bookshelf

In the 1920s, black janitor Sylvester Long reinvented himself as Chief Buffalo Child Long Lance, and Elizabeth Stern, the native-born daughter of a German Lutheran and a Welsh Baptist, authored the immigrant's narrative I Am a Woman--and a Jew; in the 1990s, Asa Carter, George Wallace's former speechwriter, produced the fake Cherokee autobiography, The Education of Little Tree. While striking, these examples of what Laura Browder calls ethnic impersonator autobiographies are by no means singular. Over the past 150 years, a number of American authors have left behind unwanted identities by writing themselves into new ethnicities.

Significantly, notes …

Employee Efficiency: A Case Study Of Former Welfare Mothers, Julie Kozempel

Theses and Dissertations

Welfare is a social phenomenon that comes with a variety of stigmas and stereotypes. Recipients are often categorized as lazy, uneducated and socially unacceptable.

Recently, corporations and whole regions are unable to find the qualified labor force they need. This researcher will discover whether ex-welfare recipients make worthy hires, thereby reversing stereotypes and furthering efficiency in the workplace.

A major component of employee relations involves retaining good employees who will extend the company's good image. Image and profits matter to CEO's who worry about the second bottom line. After reading this study, public relations practitioners can approach the CEO and …

On Literariness: From Post-Structuralism To Systems Theory, Marko Juvan

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article, "On Literariness: From Post-Structuralism to Systems Theory," Marko Juvan argues that the question of literariness concerns the very identity and social existence of not only literature per se but of literary theory as a discipline. A literary theorist is not only an observer of literature; he/she is also a participant who -- at least indirectly, via the a priori systems of science and education -- is engaged in constructing both the notion and the practice of literature as well as the study of literature. Literariness is neither an invariant cluster of "objectively" distinctive properties of all texts …

Bakhtin, Genre Formation, And The Cognitive Turn: Chronotopes As Memory Schemata, Bart Keunen

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article, "Bakhtin, Genre Formation, and the Cognitive Turn: Chronotopes as Memory Schemata," Bart Keunen proposes a new reading of Bakhtin's notion of the chronotope. Bakhtin is widely taken to be a pioneer of genological thinking, but one of his key concepts -- the chronotope -- is still subject to highly divergent interpretations. Moreover, the epistemological implications of his genology have not yet been fully realized. In this article, a methodological grounding in schema theory is proposed. Bakhtin's concept can be used to study the way in which literary communication functions through what the psychologist Frederic Bartlett first called …

How Is A Genre Created? Five Combinatory Hypotheses, Johan F. Hoorn

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article, "How is a Genre Created? Five Combinatory Hypotheses," Johan F. Hoorn discusses that in genre theory, the creation of a genre is usually envisioned as a complex selection procedure in which several factors play an equivocal role. First, he advances that genre usually is investigated at the level of the phenomenon. For instance, questions may drawn on the effects of social status, education, or "intrinsic values" on forming a genre, on an author's decision with regard to in which genre to express his/her creativity. Second, Hoorn attempts to formulate a general mechanism that explains the forming of …

Comparative Cultural Studies And Ethnic Minority Writing Today: The Hybridities Of Marlene Nourbese Philip And Emine Sevgi Özdamar, Sabine Milz

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article, "Comparative Cultural Studies and Ethnic Minority Writing Today: The Hybridities of Marlene Nourbese Philip and Emine Sevgi Özdamar," Sabine Milz examines and compares strategies with which the Caribbean-Canadian woman writer Marlene Nourbese Philip and the Turkish-German woman writer Emine Sevgi Özdamar "de-colonise" ethnocentric Canadian and German discourse respectively and thus create their own spaces of hybridity. She argues that both Philip's and Özdamar's writings -- by going beyond cultural-national categories and boundaries -- display vital stimuli for multi-cultural and inter-national dialogue in a manner that facilitates cultural co-existence in spaces of hybridity. Responding to this stimulus, Milz's …

The Culture Of Using Animals In Literature And The Case Of José Emilio Pacheco, Randy Malamud

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article, "The Culture of Using Animals in Literature and the Case of José Emilio Pacheco," Randy Malamud argues that the animal poetry of Mexican writer José Emilio Pacheco, compiled in his 1985 collection Album de zoología (trans. 1993 by Margaret Sayers Peden as An Ark for the Next Millennium) embodies a vast literary account of a range of animals. This book represents one of the most extensive treatments of animals by any modern poet, and one of the most sensitive and ambitious attempts to craft a discourse that facilitates an approach to animals on their own terms -- …