Communication Commons^™

A Legacy Of Letters: The Construction Of An Aging Masculine Identity, K. Tiffani Baldwin

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study is to investigate the construction of a masculine identity through a qualitative analysis of personal letters written by an aging man over the last two decades of his life (age 68-89). Symbolic interaction and life-span communication are the guiding frameworks behind the development of the research questions and the subsequent analyses. Research question one asks: What themes emerge from the personal letters written by an aging man? The following two themes emerged: a) relationality, and b) age and aging. Research question two asks: What do the metaphors that emerge from personal letters reveal about the …

Active Learning With Efficient Feature Weighting Methods For Improving Data Quality And Classification Accuracy, Justin Martineau, Lu Chen, Doreen Cheng, Amit P. Sheth

Kno.e.sis Publications

Many machine learning datasets are noisy with a substantial number of mislabeled instances. This noise yields sub-optimal classification performance. In this paper we study a large, low quality annotated dataset, created quickly and cheaply using Amazon Mechanical Turk to crowdsource annotations. We describe computationally cheap feature weighting techniques and a novel non-linear distribution spreading algorithm that can be used to iteratively and interactively correcting mislabeled instances to significantly improve annotation quality at low cost. Eight different emotion extraction experiments on Twitter data demonstrate that our approach is just as effective as more computationally expensive techniques. Our techniques save a considerable …

Semantic Modelling Of Smart City Data, Stefan Bischof, Athanasios Karapantelakis, Cosmin-Septimiu Nechifor, Amit P. Sheth, Alessandra Mileo, Payam Barnaghi

Kno.e.sis Publications

Cities present an opportunity for rendering Web of Things-enabled services. According to the World Health Organization, population in cities will double by the middle of this century, while cities deal with increasingly pressing issues such as environmental sustainability, economic growth and citizen mobility. In this paper, we propose a discussion around the need for common semantic descriptions for smart city data to facilitate future services in "smart cities". We present examples of data that can be collected from cities, discuss issues around this data and put forward some preliminary thoughts for creating a semantic description model to describe and help …

Governing Confidence: Rhetoric, Affect, And Post-Crisis Financial Education, Samuel M. Jay

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The 2007-08 financial crisis has been characterized as a “crisis of confidence” (Akerlof & Shiller, 2009), a span of time during which the non-discursive energy needed to compel Americans towards profit-producing decisions evaporated. Amidst this decline, the US lost its competitive edge in the global marketplace. Initial responses to the crisis by national leaders failed, triggering a revision to reasoning that resulted in a new argument taken up by central government: the lack of financial knowledge experienced by the majority of US citizens led to a population of ignorant decision makers lacking the confidence needed to take the risks necessary …

Learn By Traveling Through Aiesec: The Importance Of Studying And Experiencing Intercultural Communication, Haley Gross

Communication Studies

No abstract provided.

Humble Me: Increasing Awareness Of Ethnocentrism And Of The Need For Ethnorelativism Through A Spoken Word Performance Event, Corinne H. Sherman

Communication Studies

No abstract provided.

Drenched Fitness: Marketing Toward Men, Erin Sydni Abzug

Communication Studies

No abstract provided.

Loose Connections, Strong Networks: Self-Enrollment And The Rhetoric Of 350.Org, Daisy Celine Lucile Brightman

Communication Studies

No abstract provided.

Cal Poly Open House: An Application Of Communication Principles, Jillian Syftestad

Communication Studies

No abstract provided.

Poly Royal 2014: Applying Communication Concepts In Order For A Successful Annual Rodeo Event, Shyan Souza

Communication Studies

No abstract provided.

The Power Of Plur: Edmc As A Reflection Of A New Generation, Nichole Lorenz

Communication Studies

With such a broad amount of musical expression and cultural appeal, EDM has quickly become a captivating phenomenon in the United States in recent years. There is a significant trend going on with EDM culture and what it represents for youth today. For this reason, I want to dig further into the growing phenomenon of EDMC (Electronic Dance Music Culture) in the United States. I want to better understand what is going on beneath the surface façade of costumes and drug use. Why does this culture appeal to so many young people? In addition, I seek to find out whether …

A Comparative Analysis Of The First Inaugural Addresses Of Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt And Barack Obama, Siobhan Miller

Communication Studies

No abstract provided.

Respect, Cho Chang, And Asian Representation: A Critical Analysis Of The White Gaze In Harry Potter, Kaitlin Pham

Communication Studies

Within the Harry Potter series, females who are in charge of their sexuality seem egotistical and provoking; thus, seen as manipulative to their male counterparts, and the readers. That being said, the values that Hermione Granger possess that push her above Cho Chang’s become ultra-defined, preaching to the audiences how Rowling believes the ultimate female should behave and think, and how Chang has no possibility of attaining these qualities. In this paper, I will analyze and discuss J.K. Rowling’s role in perpetuating the White Gaze with her depiction of Cho Chang in her series, and how Chang’s interpretation in the …

Créativité Et Lecture En Langue Seconde : Propositions Pour La Lecture Des Textes Des Journaux Francophones Du Cameroun, Louis Martin Onguéné Essono

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

Nowadays, it is common to say that the French press in Africa greatly contributes to the lower level of French. If true, this assertion hides a much deeper problem that concerns the act of writing and the act of reading in a non-native language. The performance of newspaper, radio or television journalists show that these writers share the same competence and face the same difficulties as the entire French-speaking population who is compelled to transmit ideas and information in a second language they do not master, or just a bit. This paper aims at understanding the reasons why non-African readers …

How To Attract Children And Adults To The Same Beverage Through Package Design, Jessica C. Chaidez

Graphic Communication

The purpose of this study was to determine if children and adults could be attracted to the same beverage through package design. This study surveyed particpants in the San Luis Obispo Area on prefernece of different juice labels. The survey asked the preference of different juice labels based on typeface, size and layout of the logo, contrast, type of substrate, and color. The survey participants were in different age groups ranging from 4 years old to those over 40 years old.

Results from one hundred sixty-one responses indicated although not all age groups were attracted to the same elements of …

Report Of The Internet Content Governance Advisory Group, Brian O'Neill

Reports

No abstract provided.

Clinical Implications Of Internet Infidelity: Where Facebook Fits In, Jaclyn D. Cravens, Jason B. Whiting Phd

Faculty Publications

The Internet can enhance existing relationships or facilitate the development of new relationships, including illicit ones. Increased research in this area has predominately been on online sexual addiction and pornography, with few about social networking sites. Facebook, a popular social networking site boasting 1.15 billion active users. This article reviews existing literature on Internet infidelity, comparing online activities and Facebook-specific behaviors. Five areas related to Internet infidelity will be explored, such as definitions and the impact on relationships. Although several similarities exist between general Internet and Facebook-specific infidelity, unique differences exist. Implications for future research and clinical practice are presented.

Parasocial Relationship Via Reality Tv And Social Media: Its Implications For Celebrity Endorsement, Siyoung Chung, Hichang Cho

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

The purpose of this study was to explore the ways in which audiences build parasocial relationships with media characters via reality TV and social media, and its implications for celebrity endorsement and purchase intentions. Using an online survey, this study collected 401 responses from the Korean Wave fans in Singapore. The results showed that reality TV viewing and SNS use to interact with media characters were positively associated with parasocial relationships between media characters and viewers. Parasocial relationships, in turn, were positively associated with the viewers’ perception of endorser and brand credibility, and purchase intention of the brand endorsed by …

Website Usability: A Re-Examination Through The Lenses Of Iso Standards, Louis K. Falk, Hy Sockel, Kuanchin Chen

Communication Faculty Publications

The original conceptualization of usability was ease of use, this was later expanded into a multi-dimensional construct in ISO standards and usability literature. Such an expansion is seen as an improvement, since cross-study comparison or benchmarking cannot objectively be done without a common set of usability components being defined. The current issue lies in how these components are operationalized, measured and validated. Although ISO standards ties usability to contextual situations, recent research has started to also recognize psychographic and demographic variations within the same context. The purpose of this study is to review web site usability as it relates to …

Online Community Transition Detection, Biying Tan, Feida Zhu, Qiang Qu, Siyuan Liu

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Mining user behavior patterns in social networks is of great importance in user behavior analysis, targeted marketing, churn prediction and other applications. However, less effort has been made to study the evolution of user behavior in social communities. In particular, users join and leave communities over time. How to automatically detect the online community transitions of individual users is a research problem of immense practical value yet with great technical challenges. In this paper, we propose an algorithm based on the Minimum Description Length (MDL) principle to trace the evolution of community transition of individual users, adaptive to the noisy …

Semantics-Enhanced Geoscience Interoperability, Analytics, And Applications, Krishnaprasad Thirunarayan, Amit P. Sheth

Kno.e.sis Publications

We present our research ideas for developing cyberinfrastructure for Geoscience applications developed in the context of the EarthCube initiative, and our NSF-sponsored work on incorporating spatial-temporal-thematic semantics for enhanced querying and feature extraction from sensor data streams.

Disputes Over The Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands: Communication Tactics And Grand Strategies, Chin-Chung Chao, Dexin Tian

Communication Faculty Publications

This study explores the communication tactics and grand strategies of each of the involved parties in the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands disputes. Under the theoretical balance between liberal optimists and realist pessimists and through the hermeneutic analysis of the primary data of relevant remarks of governmental officials, official statements, letters and memoranda, declassified CIA reports, interview transcripts of scholars and experts, relevant media reports and readers’ online responses from the LexisNexis news database and Google News website as well as secondary data of relevant study results of scholars and researchers, we found that the Japanese have been secretive and opportunistic, the Americans …

Congruency And Engagement Test In An Event Marketing Sponsorship Context, James Pokrywczynski, David L. Brinker

College of Communication Faculty Research and Publications

Intercept survey data collected at a medium-size Midwestern ethnic festival are used to assess how top-of-mind and aided brand recall are influenced by ethnic congruence among attendees, brand sponsors, and the event, and by the use of passive or engaging sponsor tactics. The results are contextualized by the Elaboration Likelihood Model. Attendees who identify as ethnically congruent are shown to perform significantly better on the aided brand recall instrument. Engaging tactics are shown to produce higher brand recall than passive tactics, as well as more favorable evaluations and higher purchase intent.

Designing Playful Games And Applications To Support Science Centers Learning Activities, Michail N. Giannakos, David Jones, Helen Crompton, Nikos Chrisochoides

Teaching & Learning Faculty Publications

In recent years there has been a renewed interest on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education. Following this interest, science centers' staff started providing technology enhanced informal STEM education experiences. The use of well-designed mobile and ubiquitous forms of technology to enrich informal STEM education activities is an essential success factor. The goal of our research is to investigate how technology applications can be better used and developed for taking full advantage of the opportunities and challenges they provide for students learning about STEM concepts. In our approach, we have conducted a series of interviews with experts from science …

Socio-Physical Analytics: Challenges & Opportunities, Archan Misra, Kasthuri Jayarajah, Shriguru Nayak, Philips Kokoh Prasetyo, Ee-Peng Lim

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

In this paper, we argue for expanded research into an area called Socio-Physical Analytics, that focuses on combining the behavioral insight gained from mobile-sensing based monitoring of physical behavior with the inter-personal relationships and preferences deduced from online social networks. We highlight some of the research challenges in combining these heterogeneous data sources and then describe some examples of our ongoing work (based on real-world data being collected at SMU) that illustrate two aspects of socio-physical analytics: (a) how additional demographic and online analytics based attributes can potentially provide better insights into the preferences and behaviors of individuals or groups …

Virtual Brand Communities And Brand Loyalty: A Case Study Of Mindbody Inc.'S Virtual Brand Community, Dillon Katz

Communication Studies

This case study explores how the fast-growing software company MINDBODY, Inc. utilizes their virtual brand community on Facebook in order to build brand loyalty. My research primarily explores how Communication Studies researchers have come to understand the effects of virtual communities on brand loyalty from the perspective of Social Capital, Attribution, and Social Identity theories. It discusses what virtual brand communities are, how they are formed, and how marketers and consumers utilize them. Furthermore, I discuss how virtual brand communities facilitate the growth of social capital among users and why this is a key step in their sustainability. I divulge …

Where Does It Hurt? A Cultivation Theory’S Perspective On Domestic Violence, Kendra Grace White

Communication Studies

This study investigated Cultivation Theory and its role in the issue of domestic violence. I hypothesized that people who are exposed to larger quantities of pop culture mediums will have less negative attitudes towards the issue of domestic violence. My study also posed research questions about the relationship between the attitudes towards domestic violence with both basic domestic violence knowledge and personal experience with the issue. I gathered my data through a thirty-question survey and distributed it online, using convenience and snowball samples. My results did not support my hypothesis; however, I did find statistical significance for a negative correlation …

Brave: A Feminist Perspective On The Disney Princess Movie, Danielle Morrison

Communication Studies

No abstract provided.

From Print Culture To Digital Culture: Effects On Communication, Culture, And Technology, Brent Weber

Communication Studies

No abstract provided.

Emergency Medicine Triage As The Intersection Of Storytelling, Decision-Making, And Dramaturgy, Colin Ainsworth Forde

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation presents a comprehensive qualitative study of the decision-making aspects of emergency department (ED) triage at a large urban Trauma I hospital in the Southeast. Specifically, this study addresses the following research questions: (1) What do triage nurses perceive as the primary role of the triage process? (2) How do triage nurses interpret patient performances? These questions are explored through illuminating the intricacies of triage decision-making by the use of semi-structured interviews and observations.

The findings of this study indicate: (1) a better understanding of the triage decision- making process yielding more practical insights related to the informal, emergent, …