Communication Commons^™

Jour 7015: Advanced Media Writing (Syllabus), Roxane Coche

Journalism and Strategic Media Syllabi Archive

Course Description: Designed to help students become more precise as well as versatile writers by diagnosing their writing, polishing their grammar and editing skills, and teaching them to write with clarity, cohesiveness, and conciseness.

Jour 7050: Mass Communication Theory (Syllabus), Melissa Janoske

Journalism and Strategic Media Syllabi Archive

Course Description: Key concepts and development of theories offered to explain operation and effects of mass communication media; multidisciplinary overview of theories dealing with advertising, broadcasting, print, and public relations messages, media, and effects.

Jour 7050: Mass Communication Theory (Syllabus), Melissa Janoske

Journalism and Strategic Media Syllabi Archive

Course Description: Key concepts and development of theories offered to explain operation and effects of mass communication media; multidisciplinary overview of theories dealing with advertising, broadcasting, print, and public relations messages, media, and effects.

Jour 7015: Advanced Media Writing (Syllabus), Roxane Coche

Journalism and Strategic Media Syllabi Archive

Course Description: Designed to help students become more precise as well as versatile writers by diagnosing their writing, polishing their grammar and editing skills, and teaching them to write with clarity, cohesiveness, and conciseness.

Jour 7209: Meeman 901 Strategies Advanced (Syllabus), R. Spielberger

Journalism and Strategic Media Syllabi Archive

Course Description: Meeman 901 Strategies, a student run public relations firm, will gain hands-on experience by developing creative projects for campus and community clients at UM Crews Center for Entrepreneurship.

Jour 7400: Pr Principles & Issues (Syllabus), Melissa Janoske

Journalism and Strategic Media Syllabi Archive

Course Description: This class will analyze the research, theory, and practices of public relations in order to help you understand how public relations works, in both professional and academic areas. We’ll look at theories and areas of evolving interest in public relations, including but not limited to relationship management, persuasion, activism, social media, global public relations, the impact of gender/culture/race, and risk and crisis communication, in order to gain a more holistic understanding of the field.

Jour 7400: Pr Principles & Issues (Syllabus), Melissa Janoske

Journalism and Strategic Media Syllabi Archive

Course Description: This class will analyze the research, theory, and practices of public relations in order to help you understand how public relations works, in both professional and academic areas. We’ll look at theories and areas of evolving interest in public relations, including but not limited to relationship management, persuasion, activism, social media, global public relations, the impact of gender/culture/race, and risk and crisis communication, in order to gain a more holistic understanding of the field.

Unfriend?: An Analysis Of Friendship Comparing Subjects’ Perceptions Of Face-To-Face Versus Internet-Mediated Relationships, Matthew S. Harp

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

The purpose of this study was to find out how similar or different peoples’ perceptions are of friendships which are primarily face-to-face and those which are primarily internet mediated. It was hypothesized that, based on qualities which are shared by each respective medium, individuals would not find perceptions of face-to-face and Internet-mediated friendships to be significantly different. One hundred fifty-one undergraduate students at The University of Akron were given a survey developed from a literature review to test how important certain general friendship qualities were to their concept of each type of friendship. It was found that, while all of …

Looking Ahead: A Public Relations Plan For Servicemaster Of Hudson, Brianne Angell

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

This project examines the effectiveness of ServiceMaster of Hudson’s communication and proposes a public relations plan to generate business revenue by boosting awareness and engagement in the local community. Research revealed that the community is largely unaware of ServiceMaster of Hudson and that the company has a low reach on social media compared to competitors. Therefore, a public relations plan was created with focus on four areas: social media engagement, development of marketing materials, hiring of new employees, and employee engagement. The project also contains an appendix of materials created for ServiceMaster of Hudson, including advertisements and a schedule of …

Acculturation Of International Student-Athletes, Alexandra L. Frawley

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

This research project was conducted in order to investigate the current recruitment and assimilation processes experienced by international-student athletes at an NCAA Division I university, and to identify ways to improve those processes. The investigation was conducted through in-depth interviews with seven international student-athletes. The ages of these participants ranged from between 18 and 22 years old, 1 and 3 years of attendance at the University, and consisted of 5 females and 2 males. The participants play a variety of different sports, and each had a unique country of origin. The analysis revealed language, dietary changes, and social support are …

Mandarin Chinese As A Second Language: A Review Of Literature, Wesley A. Spencer

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

Mandarin Chinese has become increasing prevalent in the modern world. Accordingly, research of Chinese as a second language has developed greatly over the past few decades. This paper reviews research on the difficulties of acquiring a second language in general and research that specifically details the difficulty of acquiring Chinese as a second language. Based on this research, the author also reveals some areas that should be researched further in order to advance the field.

Social Media & Audience Participation In Regard To Television, Jean Marie Mcbride

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

Jean McBride

Major: Communications: Radio/TV Broadcasting & Mass Media Production

Project Sponsor: Dr. Sylvia White

Number of Project Credits: 3

Social Media & Audience Participation in Regard to Television

The purpose of my honors project was seeing if social media had an influence on television show ratings and popularity by incorporating audience participation. Especially in regards to television shows that have been around for years, I was interested to see if television ratings went up when using Twitter compared to when they did not use Twitter to increase viewers and audience participation. I surveyed forty-nine collegiate women between the ages …

Perceptions Of Social Bonds, Social Engagement And Social Capital By Social Network Site Users, Alisha Beckrow

Wayne State University Dissertations

ABSTRACT

PERCEPTIONS OF SOCIAL BONDS, SOCIAL ENGAGEMENT AND SOCIAL CAPITAL BY SOCIAL NETWORK SITE USERS

by

ALISHA M. BECKROW

May 2015

Advisor: Dr. Matthew W. Seeger

Major: Communications

Degree: Doctor of Philosophy

In this study we investigated the perceptions of social bonds, social engagement and social capital by users of the social network site Facebook. A survey questionnaire was distributed to three similar young professional organizations in the Midwest United States. The participants were asked about their use of Facebook as members of the organization. The results indicated that social network sites can be used to compliment other forms of …

Worker Use Of Social Media For Informal Learning In A Corporate Environment, Susan N. Genden

Wayne State University Dissertations

In the global workplace, workers must quickly adapt to changing information and productivity demands. Workers must filter information, avoid overload and find out what they need to know. How can use of social media technologies benefit the knowledge worker and the corporate workplace? This study presents a closer look at the use, perceptions, and reflections of active social media users within the corporate environment. The purpose of this study was to examine, through worker voice, factors in worker use of social media that lead to successful informal learning outcomes in the corporate environment. This qualitative research used a phenomenological methodology. …

Political Content And Political Behavior: Using Functional Theory To Test The Ability Of Political Content To Stimulate Political Interest, Ryan Stouffer

Wayne State University Dissertations

The health of the American democracy is up for debate. Digital natives will decide the future of this democracy. Fewer digital natives--those who have grown up with Internet access--are engaging in formal political participation, compared to their parents. Digital natives lack the information needed to participate. This study examined the effects of interactive political content on digital natives' political information efficacy (PIE) through an experiment. The results revealed a decrease in the participants' political confidence and a decrease in the likelihood they would vote. Exposure to political information harmed most digital natives' PIE and reinforced political attitudes in some. The …

A Comparative Content Analysis Of African American And Caucasian Role Portrayals In Broadcast Television Entertainment Programming, Scott Evan Burke

Wayne State University Dissertations

This study examines the nature and number of character portrayals in broadcast entertainment programming. More specifically, the portrayals of African American characters are examined and compared to Caucasian portrayals. The goal of this study is to determine what, if any, stereotypes may still be prevalent on broadcast television and if there are any discrepancies between portrayals of African American and Caucasian characters.

A content analysis methodology was utilized to code 577 character occurrences from broadcast television entertainment programs popular with African Americans and Caucasian audiences. Each character occurrence was evaluated using thirty-two schematic differential items with regard to portrayal attributes, …

Detroit's Sport Spaces And The Rhetoric Of Consumption, Anthony C. Cavaiani

Wayne State University Dissertations

This dissertation argues how Detroit’s spaces of sport consumption rhetorically configure the city’s identity. Specifically, this project interrogates the city’s sports spaces and argues how they anchor identity in the following ways: through the production of accessible discourses, through the emphasis on certain discourses and the de-emphasis of other discourses, through the regulation, control and biopower of the city’s sports spaces and their rhetorical effect on Detroit’s identity, and through the creation of distinct public memories produced from these discourses.

Turning The Page: Fandoms, Multimodality, And The Transformation Of The 'Comic Book' Superhero, Matthew Alan Cicci

Wayne State University Dissertations

Superheroes are increasingly becoming more affiliated with film media than comic books. The amount of revenue generated, the formation of new fans, and the interests of comic publishers’ parent companies all suggest that superhero film adaptations are the medium most associated with the superhero character. Such a monumental shift in the distribution of superheroes—comic books were long the dominant medium of superhero characters—is indicative of ongoing media convergence practices; the success of these contemporary adaptations, from 1998 on, have not only caused the filmic superhero to eclipse the comic one, it has inevitably led to a rewriting of superhero comic …

“We Send Our News By Lightning . . .”: The Information Explosion Of The Nineteenth Century And Adaptation In The Press, 1840-1892, Timothy L. Moran

Wayne State University Dissertations

This dissertation examines the change that came to American newspapers and reporting between 1840 and 1892 as the result of increasing communication bandwidth and the emergence of fast communication networks. Improvements in news distribution by post roads, steam navigation, and steam railways, followed by application of telegraphic communications, significantly speeded the news and changed the news cycle itself by linking metropolitan news centers with peripheral newspapers. The American Civil War brought this new information technology together with an event that created massive audience demand for timely and factual news, as opposed to purely political or commercial information. In postwar years …

Knowledge Acquisition Processes: Understanding The Communication Event, Richard Jack Ulrey Jr.

Wayne State University Dissertations

This research project’s two key discoveries offer new insights into Huber’s (1991) KA sub-processes (congenital learning, experimental learning, vicarious learning, grafting, and searching) and understanding the key elements (who, what, when, where, why, and how) of communication events. Organizational leaders and scholars of communication have a better understanding about how one organization’s team of leaders have addressed and responded to the Great Recession of 2008 and the recent explosion of social media in 2003 by practicing a thematic cycle of KA efforts (identification, strategizing, execution, and reflection) to achieve organizational objectives (partners, technologies, and policies) and a strong communication culture …

Laughing Our Way To Stronger Democracy: Political Comedy's Potential To Equalize Political Interest And Political Knowledge In Community College Students, Lisa Lynne Lawrason

Wayne State University Dissertations

Political comedy is the one off-line news source – albeit soft news – that young adults access in higher rates than older adults. They are tuning into political comedy to be entertained, but while watching, they also get a healthy dose of politics. For otherwise apolitical young people, does exposure to politics in this format heighten their political interest? Does it make them more politically knowledgeable citizens? Through a 4-weeklong experiment, this study tests the effects of exposure to The Daily Show with Jon Stewart on political interest and political knowledge in a sample of community college students in mid-Michigan. …

Distant Localities: The Rhetorical Contradictions Of Local Food Narratives, Anna Grace Zimmerman

Wayne State University Dissertations

This dissertation explores the rhetorical construction of the local food movement through the narrative genre of the food exposé. On its face, local food appears to be a grassroots movement, and yet, through an analysis of the tropes used to describe and construct the movement, another story emerges – one intended for elite audiences. Using narrative critique, this project explores both the narratives of local food, as well as the deployment of that narrative into the material world and in the construction of particular identities. Ultimately, I argue that the narratives of local food give the impression that this way …

The Internet Grows Up?, Neil M. Richards

Scholarship@WashULaw

Danielle Citron’s Hate Crimes in Cyberspace is one of the most important publications to date in the emerging fields of privacy and cyberlaw. In her thoughtful and insightful book, Citron explains the uneven playing field and frequently shocking acts of abuse that women face online, and demonstrates practical steps that we can take to remedy the problem of online hate through law, education, and the development of better, more inclusive norms. Other contributors to this Symposium have examined these contributions in great detail, pointing out important nuances of Citron’s argument, urging her in at least one case to be even …

A Digital Dud? New Media, Participation, And Voting In The 2004 And 2008 United States Presidential Elections, Jeremy D. Hickman

Theses and Dissertations--Sociology

This dissertation analyzes the linkages between new media and the possible emergence of the youngest members of the voting population (the “digital native” generation, who have grown up concurrently with the rise of the internet as a means of communication). The main question is whether this digital native generation will have more civic and political participation due to their use of online news sources and social media communication on news media websites and elsewhere on the internet. Regression analyses are used to explain civic and political participation, using American National Election Studies (ANES) from the 2004 and 2008 presidential elections. …

Russian Soft Power Cultivation In The United States Of America: A Media Content Analysis Of "Russia Beyond The Headlines", David Evans

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

The relationship between Russia and the United States of America has been a dominant feature of the international relations landscape for much of the last century. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, this relationship has been significantly altered. Over the last decade, a resurgent Russia has begun to exert its influence on the global stage once again. This effort has been characterized by a mixture of traditional "hard power" and a relatively new form of "soft power." The government of the Russian Federation has developed a broad strategy for engaging the rest of the world with the intention of …

The Motivation To Express Prejudice, Patrick S. Forscher, William T.L. Cox, Nicholas Graetz, Patricia G. Devine

Psychological Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

Contemporary prejudice research focuses primarily on people who are motivated to respond without prejudice and the ways in which unintentional bias can cause these people to act inconsistent with this motivation. However, some real-world phenomena (e.g., hate speech, hate crimes) and experimental findings (e.g., Plant & Devine, 2001; 2009) suggest that some expressions of prejudice are intentional. These phenomena and findings are difficult to explain solely from the motivations to respond without prejudice. We argue that some people are motivated to express prejudice, and we develop the motivation to express prejudice (MP) scale to measure this motivation. In seven studies …

In The Eye Of The Storm: Hurricane Katrina And Its Local News Coverage, Anna Karrer

Center Austria Research

For this paper on the news coverage of Hurricane Katrina I analyze the original footage of 2005 from the local station WWL-TV1 in New Orleans. The corpus of this analysis consists of footage from the first five days after Hurricane Katrina made landfall. From each day two hours of material will be analyzed, which adds up to about 600 minutes of footage. While watching the material a list of questions concerning the content, the language and the images will be used to enable a thorough analysis. Since WWL-TV is a local station that was affected by Katrina directly, the journalists …

Effective Methods Of Communicating Organizational Values: A Case Study, Caralin B. Mchan

Master's Theses

Organizational values affect business success, and employee satisfaction and commitment. Value training begins during socialization. This qualitative case study of Adventist Frontier Missions explored effective methods the organization’s trainers used to communicate and motivate newcomers to assimilate organizational values during the2015 short-term missions training. Through observation, surveys, focus groups and interviews, I found that newcomers were motivated by seeing a connection between the organization’s values and its mission, and by seeing the values enacted by the trainers. I also found that newcomers perceived nonverbal communication of organizational values to be integral to their value-assimilation process. These findings should be useful …

Campaigning For Judicial Office, 2012, Robert J. Zuercher

Theses and Dissertations--Communication

Concerns over the way in which judicial campaigns are conducted have been voiced since the 1970s. Judicial elections are thought to have become rough and tumble contests, featuring increasing campaign expenditures and controversial campaign speech. With the widespread deregulation of judicial candidate campaign speech in the early 2000s, scholars have become increasingly concerned with how judicial candidates campaign. This dissertation examines the role of the media in judicial elections, campaign communication methods used by candidates, how candidates develop campaign messages, controversial campaign speech, the consequences of campaigning, and candidates’ attitudes toward judicial selection reform. Data gathered from a survey of …

From Grapes To Wine To Brands To Culture: A Qualitative Study Of Kentucky Wineries And Kentucky Wine Producers, Benjamin J. Triana

Theses and Dissertations--Communication

The Kentucky wine industry has grown from six wineries in 1999 to more than sixty wineries as of 2013. However, the industry has reached a crucial point in its development as funds allotted from the Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement ended in 2014. As a result, Kentucky wine producers must navigate the demands of local, regional, national, and international wine markets without the same amount of economic support provided in the early stages of the industry’s development.

The purpose of this study was to investigate (1) how Kentucky wine producers use cultural associations to manage their brands, (2) communicate with multiple …