Communication Commons^™

"Warning: This Is A Must Read": Participation And Disruption In Social Artifacts And Spaces, Angela M. Harrison Eng

English Theses & Dissertations

As I show in three separate case studies, content, technology, and participant relationships are key components in the design of social artifacts and spaces. One study highlights the invention and evolution of content across multiple spaces. The second shows content used as leverage for authority. The last case study examines the relationship between content and technological interfaces and how disruption may not always be successful.

All of these components make up what I refer to as disruption. Disruption describes participant acts that are executed to change existing power-based structures of information sharing. Using the insights gained from this research, I …

Refusing A Spoiled Identity: How The Swinger Community Represents On The Web, Barbara Kreston

English Theses & Dissertations

This dissertation examines whether and how Websites provide a way for the unique community of swingers, also called Lifestylers, to represent a new (and revise an old) deviant identity without risk to their social and employment standing. Unlike many marginalized social groups who publically rally, swingers have had to take advantage of virtual space to safely appeal to their audiences. The time period studied includes the history of the swingers "spoiled" identity via academy articles, newspaper headlines, and moral turpitude clauses from the 1950s to the current use of the Web to showcase swingers and their clubs. The study used …

Revisiting The Spiral Of Silence In A Social Media Environment: Egypt’S 2014 Presidential Election As A Case Study, Heba T. Saleh Elshahed

Theses and Dissertations

With the advent of the Internet and anonymous features of online media, users have established novel platforms to voice their opinion freely without fear of negative feedback. This thesis explores the application of a long-standing public opinion theory– the spiral of silence by Elizabeth Noelle-Neumann–within the prevalent Social Networking Sites (SNS), particularly Facebook. When applying spiral of silence to online mediated environment, it seems intuitive that the lack of verbal cues and anonymity offered would serve to undermine the fear of isolation and restlessness that results in unwillingness to express minority views. This research contributes to understanding how the spiral …

Fantasy-Theme Analysis Of Food Documentaries: Contention, Collaboration, And Consultation As Health Promotion Approaches, Vanessa Brandon

Communication ETDs

In this study, the medium of documentary film is explored as a potential health-promotion tool. Food documentaries have become more popular recently, and the public's awareness of food-related health issues is growing. By analyzing different approaches to documentary films about food, I unpack the many functions and social perceptions of food with regard to health. Using fantasy-theme analysis, I explore the visions of the filmmakers of three food documentaries and the health-promotion strategies employed within them. Three different approaches to motivating health-behavior change emerged from the documentaries--contention, collaboration, and consultation. Each documentary employed a different well-established and effective health-behavior change …

Exploring Organizational Culture And Intercultural Communication Practices In A Teaching Hospital, Jaclyn R. Devine

Communication ETDs

As the population in the United States becomes more diverse, communities are increasingly experiencing disparities in health care quality that follow racial and ethnic lines. It has been documented that improving health care providers' intercultural communication is one way to help reduce these health disparities. This study investigated the intercultural communication practices of employees at a large teaching hospital in the Southwest that is actively working to reduce health disparities in its community. Recognizing the influence of organizational culture on communication in a workplace, this study looked not only at communication practices, but also at organizational culture and at diversity …

Mediated Narratives On Citizenship, Immigration, And National Identity: The Construction Of Dreamer Identities In Public Discourse Surrounding President Obama's 2012 Deferred Deportation Announcement, Marisa Garcia Rodriguez

Communication ETDs

In the present study, I explore mediated constructions of citizenship, immigrant identities, and national identity in the coverage of the debates that surrounded President Obama's 2012 deferred deportation announcement. My goals in this study are to understand (1) how citizenship is constructed in mediated discourse in response to President Obama's announcement; (2) how immigrant identities, specifically young undocumented immigrants (DREAMers), are constructed in mediated discourse; (3) how national identity is constructed through these mediated discourses; and, (4) how the representation of DREAMer identities reproduces or challenges dominant public discourses on citizenship, immigrant identity, and national identity. Using social constructionism and …

Constructing The Conspiring Community: Using Practices Of Invitational Rhetoric To Create Sustainable Solutions To Community-Identified Needs, Sarah Upton

Communication ETDs

The purpose of this study is to identify practices of invitational rhetoric that create sustainable solutions to community-identified needs. Working with East Central Ministries, a Christian community development organization in Albuquerque's international district, I used a co-conspiring method of research; meaning I worked alongside community members to jointly create projects, discuss theory, and create shared understanding of themes which emerged in my analysis. My analysis showed that the community surrounding East Central Ministries is characterized by bordered elements; by choosing to encircle the border space, co-conspirators create opportunities for practicing invitational rhetoric. Initial practices used by co-conspirators at ECM to …

The Process Of Diagnosis Delivery Of Autism Spectrum Disorders, Natasha A. Barnett

Communication ETDs

The process of diagnosis delivery of Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) is a topic area that has not been given ample attention by academic researchers. Some researchers have focused on delivering bad news (i.e.Buckman, 1992; Gordon, 2008; & Myers, 1983). Yet, no communication researcher has utilized communication theory and/or method to focus on diagnosis delivery of ASD. This study expands this area of focus in academic research using a communication perspective that provides an understanding of the process of diagnosis delivery of ASD at the Center for Developmental Disabilities'(CDD) Early Childhood Evaluation Program (ECEP)--New Mexico's number one center for providing a …

Identity Performance And Space In The Albuquerque Poetry Slam Scene, Edward Hakim Bellamy

Communication ETDs

Public spaces where culture is co-constructed and performed by a community of people are rich sites for research on identity formation. This thesis explores the poetry slam as a space where poets and audiences co-construct and perform individual and group identities. From a social constructionist approach to identity formation and through the theories and methods of performance studies, the research design combines participant observation, interviews, and focus groups to elucidate the values and performative acts that define the distinct identity of the local slam community in Albuquerque, NM. The analysis of data identifies five major themes (authenticity, affecting change, building …

Walk Feminine, Talk Feminine: A Critical Textual Analysis Of Femininities, Performances, And Representations, Reslie Cortes

Communication ETDs

In this study I examine the multiple ways in which femininity is performed and how those performances intersect with race/ethnicity, class, and sexuality in the anime Bleach and Samurai Champloo. I also interrogate the implications of these performances in relation to hegemonic discourses of Japanese femininity in the U.S. as submissive, deferent, incompetent, and domestic. As I explain in this document many performances of femininity reinforce this Orientalist ideology, however there are also performances that can alter viewers perception of femininity and offer performances of gender identity that do not conform to hegemonic norms. By doing so, anime can shape …

Organic Is More Of An American Term--We Are Traditional Farmers': Discourse Of Place-Based Organic Farming, Community, Heritage, And Sustainability, Jeffrey Hoffmann

Communication ETDs

The following study looks at how traditional, organic, cooperative farmers who are starting a new farming cooperative in the Albuquerque South Valley in New Mexico communicate about their farming as a set of (sustainable) cultural practices. The study draws on environmental communication theories, the theory of the Coordinated Management of Meaning, and Actor Network Theory to construct a communication-based framework through which to view farmers stories about sustainability and visions for the future of their farming cooperative. This framework is productive, showing how some Nuevo Mexicano farmers (and others) orient toward farming, sustenance, and human-nature relationships through community, family, heritage, …

Agenda Setting, Framing And Government's Influence On Tobacco-Related News Coverage In China's People's Daily, Hengjun Lin

Communication ETDs

Tobacco poses one of the most dire public health threats globally. Whereas tobacco control policies and public education in developed countries reduced tobacco consumption in the West, China, as other developing countries, is targeted by the tobacco companies marketing efforts and is facing increasing rates of tobacco consumption. Previous studies in the western countries pointed at the importance of news coverage of tobacco-related issues on public opinion and agenda setting, but the role of government-controlled newspapers in China was not previously examined. In view of the potential conflict between public health and the importance of local tobacco production to the …

Lifetime Lexical Variation In Social Media, Lizi Liao, Jing Jiang, Ying Ding, Heyan Huang, Ee Peng Lim

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

As the rapid growth of online social media attracts a large number of Internet users, the large volume of content generated by these users also provides us with an opportunity to study the lexical variation of people of different ages. In this paper, we present a latent variable model that jointly models the lexical content of tweets and Twitter users’ ages. Our model inherently assumes that a topic has not only a word distribution but also an age distribution. We propose a Gibbs-EM algorithm to perform inference on our model. Empirical evaluation shows that our model can learn meaningful age-specific …

Digital Play: The Challenge Of Researching Young Children’S Internet Use, Donell Holloway

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Children’s Internet use is rapidly changing. Tweens' (9–12) usage patterns now resemble those of teenagers five to six years ago, and younger children’s (5–8) usage is approaching that of tweens. Primary school aged children are increasingly engaging in virtual worlds with social network functions (game sites such as Club Penguin, Minecraft or Webkinz). These digital public spaces carry with them opportunities as well as risk. With policy resources often targeting high school children, there is a need to map the benefits, risks and competencies associated with these trends, and develop recommendations for parents and policy makers. This paper analyses the …

Communiqué, June 30, 2014, Lindenwood University

Communiqué

The Communiqué was the faculty/staff newsletter for Lindenwood University/College from 1982 to 2016.

Strategic Planning For Recruitment And Retention Of Older African Americans In Health Promotion Research Programs, Laura Dreer, Cynthia Owsley, June Weston

Journal of Health Disparities Research and Practice

The purpose of this study was to 1) describe a strategic plan for recruitment and retention used in conducting eye health education research with African-Americans living in urban and rural areas of Alabama and 2) characterize recruitment and retention patterns for this project.

We evaluated an eye health education program tailored specifically to older African Americans. InCHARGE was designed to promote eye disease prevention by conveying the personal benefits of annual dilated comprehensive eye care and teaching strategies to minimize barriers to eye care. The InCHARGEÓ program or a social contact control program was delivered at 20 senior centers in …

Criss Chronicles, Volume 4, Issue 3

Criss Chronicles Newsletter

This edition of Criss Chronicles features From the Dean's Desk, the Distinguished Service Awards, A Conversation With... Bob Nash, New Faces at the UNO Library, Focus on Resources: The Reference Collection Movies, From the Archives: The Fifteenth Century Comes to Criss Library, Adventures in Interlibrary Loan, books at the Kaneko-UNO LIbrary, a calendar of events, and the 1955 Tangerine Bowl winners, then and now.

The Status Of Csr In Corporate America: A Content Analysis Of The Organizations With The Top-Performing Csr Programs Within The Fortune 500, Laura C. Thomas

Theses and Dissertations

Corporate social responsibility has become an accepted part of business for organizations of any size. Organizations are not only expected to be profitable and successful, but they are also expected to be responsible global citizens. However, though this has become an accepted part of business, there remain many areas of CSR research that are under researched. This study examined the top 16 CSR programs of organizations headquartered in the United States to better understand what they communicate about their programs, their relationship with both the news media and government entities, which issues they address the most, and where they implement …

Lazy Days Of Summer: Time To Relax And Contemplate, Mark Routhier

UCF Forum

It’s summertime! The solstice just went by and as the days now become shorter, summer has officially begun. It’s a time to relax and reboot. It’s a time to find some water to splash around in. And it’s a time for contemplation...

The Prospector, June 24, 2014, Utep Student Publications

The Prospector

Headline: Better Business Ballpark

Assisting Coordination During Crisis: A Domain Ontology Based Approach To Infer Resource Needs From Tweets, Shreyansh Bhatt, Hemant Purohit, Andrew J. Hampton, Valerie L. Shalin, Amit P. Sheth, John Flach

Kno.e.sis Publications

Ubiquitous social media during crises provides citizen reports on the situation, needs and supplies. Previous research extracts resource needs directly from the text (e.g. "Power cut to Coney Island and Brighton beach" indicates a power need). This approach assumes that citizens derive and write about specific needs from their observations, properly specified for the emergency response system, an assumption that is not consistent with general conversational behavior. In our study, Twitter messages (tweets) from Hurricane Sandy in 2012 clearly indicate power blackouts, but not their probable implications (e.g. loss of power to hospital life support systems). We use a domain …

The Once And Future World: Nature As It Was, As It Is, As It Could Be By J.B. Mackinnon, Pamela Banting

The Goose

Review of The Once and Future World: Nature As It Was, As It Is, As It Could Be by J.B. MacKinnon.

Mapping A History Of Applied Communication Research: Themes And Concepts In The Journal Of Applied Communication Research, Sarah Steimel

Department of Communication Studies: Faculty Publications

In recognition of the National Communication Association’s 100^th Anniversary, this article maps the content published in the Journal of Applied Communication Research (JACR) over the last four decades to develop a picture of what applied communication research has emerged and how that research has changed through the journal’s history. This study mapped 678 research articles over the four decades of JACR’s existence. Results reveal a strong overall orientation towards applied research in nine interest group divisions: organizational, health, public, group, family, interpersonal, training, women, and media. Analysis of the four individual decades that span JACR’s history depict …

Living Through The End Of Nature: The Future Of American Environmentalism By Paul Wapner, Taylor Kraayenbrink

The Goose

Review of Living Through The End of Nature: The Future of American Environmentalism by Paul Wapner.

Parks, Peace And Partnership: Global Initiatives In Transboundary Conservation Edited By Michael S. Quinn, Len Broberg, And Wayne Freimund, Fenn Stewart

The Goose

Review of Parks, Peace and Partnership: Global Initiatives in Transboundary Conservation edited by Michael S. Quinn, Len Broberg, and Wayne Freimund.

Humanesis By David Cecchetto, Max Ritts

The Goose

Review of Humanesis by David Cecchetto.

Stories In A New Skin: Approaches To Inuit Literature By Keavy Martin, Allison K. Athens

The Goose

Review of Stories in a New Skin: Approaches to Inuit Literature by Keavy Martin.

Crisis Communication: Sensemaking And Decision-Making By The Cdc Under Conditions Of Uncertainty And Ambiguity During The 2009-2010 H1n1 Pandemic, Barbara Bennington

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Abstract

This study focuses on the process of communication between government agencies and the public during crisis situations, and the development of an effective response strategy when a significant threat to public health and/or safety is believed to exist. My specific research interests are (1) the nature of the decision-making process that influences the communicative choices made during such events, and (2) how decision-makers make sense of an evolving, ambiguous, and unpredictable situation, in order to establish credibility with the public, determine the appropriate response strategy, and gain the public's trust in order to influence its behavior. This is a …

Press Definition And The Religion Analogy, Ronnell Andersen Jones

Faculty Scholarship

n a Harvard Law Review Forum response to Professor Sonja West's symposium article, "Press Exceptionalism," Professor RonNell Andersen Jones critiques Professor West's effort to define "the press" for purposes of Press Clause exceptions and addresses the weaknesses of Professor West's analogy to Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church & School v. EEOC in drawing these definitional lines. The response highlights distinctions between Press Clause and Religion Clause jurisprudence and urges a more functional approach to press definition.

Appreciating The Simple Moments More Than Onslaught Of Technology, Leandra Preston-Sidler

UCF Forum

I admit it. I’m addicted.