Communication Commons^™

Information Use And Decision-Making For Evacuation At Fuego Volcano, Guatemala, Beth A. Bartel

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

For populations living with risk to rapid-onset environmental hazards, an effective early warning system (EWS) may be the most viable short- to mid-term solution for risk reduction. At Fuego volcano, Guatemala, more than 60,000 people distributed between more than 30 small communities live within the identified hazard zones for pyroclastic density currents (PDCS), highly lethal hot avalanches and surges of volcanic gases, rock, and ash. Despite ongoing risk reduction efforts by scientific and civil protection authorities, more than 400 people died during a paroxysmal eruption on 3 June 2018 when PDCs reached populated areas. A high-end resort, La Reunión, evacuated …

Not A Do-Or-Die Affair: Freelance Journalists In Nigeria And Ethical Dilemmas, Tolulope O. Olasoji

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

This study explores the ethical dilemmas Nigerian freelance journalists face and their implications for their work. It will use in-depth interviews with select freelance journalists. Several studies have established that ethical concerns are rife in—and indeed the bane of—journalism in Nigeria. However, these pieces of research reflect the reality across conventional newsrooms, where, ideally, there is some organizational structure and support. No scholarly attention has been given to freelance journalists, otherwise known as entrepreneurial journalists, due to their autonomous nature, to understand the ethical dilemmas they may be entangled in primarily. This study seeks to address this gap in research. …

Giving Power To Corporate Social Responsibility: A Case Study Of The Organization-Public Relationship Between A Public Utility And Its Community Stakeholders, Rhyanna C. Wiethe

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

The purpose of this research is to examine how, if at all, relationships between public utility companies and their stakeholders changes following a corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiative, and based on the results, how can companies restructure their initiatives to better serve their publics in order to build stronger, more positive relationships. A multi-method case study using in-depth interviews and two content analyses (a social media analysis and a news coverage analysis) was used to explore the relationship between a public utility company and a community affected by the implementation of a CSR initiative. The findings suggest that the relationship …

Source Credibility And Trust Of Media Information Based On Gender Of Reporter, Madison R. Urse

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

An experiment was used for this study to explore if the gender of a reporter impacts perceived source credibility and thus trust in information. Previous research has shown how gender biases can affect how topics are covered, reported on, perceived and marketed in the journalistic world. Modern media and newsrooms are meant to mirror reality as they convey information to the public, yet women continue to be gatekept out of reporting on certain types of news. Further, changes in the mode of delivery of news are also impacting the journalism landscape. Thus, this study employed a digital stimulus to explore …

The Truth-Default, Diagnostic Utility, And The Value Of Contextual Knowledge In Deceptive Interactions, Heath A. Howard

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

This dissertation describes and reports an experimental study examining the predictions of truth-default theory (TDT). TDT is an expansive, modular theory of deception detection which explains the processes by which people abandon the truth-default state and navigate judgments of message veracity in conversations. The first goal of this study was to test TDT’s seventh proposition, which explains how communicators abandon the truth-default state through trigger events (i.e., actions which prompt communicators to be uncertain about the accuracy of the message) such as decreased sender believability and message coherence. The second goal of this study was to test the predictions of …

Depersonalizing Troubles In Institutional Interaction: Routinizing In Parent-Teacher Conferences, Danielle M. Pillet-Shore

Faculty Publications

This article advances our understanding of institutional interaction by showing when and how it can be advantageous for professionals to treat addressed-recipients as non-unique. Examining how teachers talk about children-as-students during parent-teacher conferences, this investigation illuminates several specific interactional methods that teachers use to depersonalize the focal student’s trouble, delineating as among these the novel practice of “routinizing”—citing firsthand experience with other similar cases. Analysis demonstrates how teachers use routinizing to enact their expertise, both responsively as a vehicle for attenuating and credentialing their advice-giving to parents/caregivers, and proactively to preempt parent/caregiver resistance to their student-assessments/evaluations. This research …

Empowering Elderpreneurs Scommerce For Genx Consignment Store Owners In West Virginia, Joyita Sarkar

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

In an ever-evolving digital landscape, this research explores Generation X (GenX) consignment store owners in West Virginia and the transformative power of Social commerce (sCommerce). Despite the ubiquity of Social media platforms, little attention has been given to the impact of sCommerce on the consignment store industry. Drawing from the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) and the Diffusion of Innovation Theory (DIT), this study examines the factors influencing sCommerce adoption decisions for GenX consignment store owners.

Through qualitative research, this study uncovers untold stories within this entrepreneurial landscape. Purposeful sampling of 11 women and 20-60 minutes of in-depth interviews reveal the …

What Gives? Leveraging Marketing Knowledge To Increase Consumers’ Charitable Giving, Caitlin Michael

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Marketing plays a central role in nonprofit organizations that compete for the donations of individual consumers to achieve their respective missions. To this end, marketing researchers and practitioners have devoted much attention to the antecedents of charitable giving and ways in which solicitations may be made more effective and efficient. This gives rise to the questions: “What has the field learned?” and, relatedly, “What novel effects have not yet been explored?” Within this dissertation, three essays address these questions through the use of multiple methodologies.

The first essay seeks to outline what the marketing field has learned about consumers’ charitable …

Social Comparison Theory: The Effects Athletic Influencers Have On An Appalachian Generation Z Men Audience, Aaron David Dickens

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Many studies have highlighted how social comparison can influence self-efficacy for exercise, body dissatisfaction, and motivation to exercise, especially on social media; in addition, several studies have supported how attitude toward exercise and confidence toward exercise correlate with one another. However, these dependent variables have not been examined in the context of Generation Z men in Appalachia. Despite the lack of literature on this demographic, it is important to study Generation Z Appalachian men because of the frequent health problems this demographic faces, such as obesity. Therefore, this pretest-posttest between-subjects lab experiment investigated how an athletic influencer on social media …

Paradox As Resistance In Male Dominated Fields And The Value Of (Sur)Facing Enthymematic Narratives, Jennifer J. Mease (Also Peeksmease), Bronwyn Neal

Department of Communication Studies: Faculty Publications

Women working in masculine organizational contexts face a challenge of balancing (1) access to power by co-opting masculine discourse in ways that risk reinforcing it, with (2) challenging and resisting practices that privilege masculinity. In this manuscript, we address one communication strategy for navigating that challenge: The denial/acknowledgment paradox in which women explicitly deny that gender affected their experience, but also describe the many ways it affected their experience. To do so, we examined transcripts of interviews with 11 women candidates who ran in the 2017 Virginia House of Delegates election in the United States and demonstrated this paradoxical communication …

Exploring The Impact Of Pediatric Short Bowel Syndrome On Parent Well‐Being Using A Disease‐Specific Pilot Survey, Marie L. Neumann, Jessica Y. Allen, Amy Ladner, Swapna Kakani, Meaghann S. Weaver, David F. Mercer

Department of Communication Studies: Faculty Publications

Background: Children with short bowel syndrome (SBS) have complex care needs, most of which are met in the home by family caregivers who may experience a range of stressors unique to this experience. Prior research suggests that parents of children with SBS have poorer health‐related quality of life than peers parenting children without health needs, but the mechanisms shaping parent outcomes are understudied.

Methods: A pilot survey was developed using a community‐driven research design to measure the impact of disease‐specific items on parent‐perceived well‐being. The cross‐sectional survey, which included both closed‐ended and open‐ended items, was distributed to a …

Learning Outcomes And Learner Satisfaction: The Mediating Roles Of Self-Regulated Learning And Dialogues, Sean Eom, Nicholas Jeremy Ashill

Journal of International Technology and Information Management

The interdependent learning process is regarded as a crucial part of e-learning success, but it has been largely ignored in e-learning empirical research. Grounded in constructivist and social constructivist theory, we present and test an e-learning success model consisting of eight e-learning critical success factors (CSF) derived from constructivist and social constructivist models. Three hundred seventy-two on-line students from a Midwestern university in the United States participated in the survey. The data collected from the survey was used to examine the partial least squares structural equation model. The results highlight the importance of self-regulated learning and dialogical processes to explain …

Acceptance Of Interoperable Electronic Health Record (Ehrs) Systems: A Tanzanian E-Health Perspective, Emmanuel Mbwambo, Herman Mandari

Journal of International Technology and Information Management

The study assessed factors that influence the acceptance of interoperable electronic Health Records (EHRs) Systems in Tanzania Public Hospitals. The study applied a hybrid model that combined the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) and Technology-Organization-Environment (TOE). Snowball sampling technique was applied and a total of 340 questionnaires were distributed to selected clinics, polyclinics and hospitals, of which 261 (77%) received questionnaires were considered to be valid and reliable for subsequent data analysis. IBM SPSS software version 27.0 was employed for data analysis. Findings indicated that relative advantage, compatibility, management support, organizational competency, training and education, perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness, …

Analysis Of The Impact Of Vaccinations On Pandemic Metrics In The New York Metropolitan Area, Oredola A. Soluade, Heechang Shin, Robert Richardson

Journal of International Technology and Information Management

This study evaluates the relationship between pandemic cases and vaccination usage, ICU bed utilization, hospitalizations, and deaths in the New York City metropolitan area. The study includes variables for the lockdown period and confirmed infections. The evaluation addresses three periods: (1) before vaccinations, (2) after vaccinations, and (3) the lockdown period. In addition, the number of vaccines per day for the manufacturers (Pfizer, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson) are included in the study. Comparisons with New Jersey and Connecticut are used to validate that New York statistics are consistent with other states. The results provide a general model of the …

Novice Advanced Practice Nurses And The Delivery Of Unsatisfactory Health News, Jenny F. Schulte

Graduate Research Projects

No abstract provided.

Contents, Discovery Editors

Discovery, The Student Journal of Dale Bumpers College of Agricultural, Food and Life Sciences

No abstract provided.

Featured Faculty Mentor/Student Team, Gisela Erf, Alessandro Rocchi

Discovery, The Student Journal of Dale Bumpers College of Agricultural, Food and Life Sciences

No abstract provided.

Temporal, Phenotypic, And Quantitative Characterization Of Thyroid Infiltrating Mononuclear Cells During Development Of Spontaneous Autoimmune Thyroiditis In Obese Strain Chickens, Katelyn M. Clark, Chrysta N. Beck, Gisela F. Erf

Discovery, The Student Journal of Dale Bumpers College of Agricultural, Food and Life Sciences

The Obese strain (OS) of chickens spontaneously develops autoimmune thyroiditis (SAT) and is a well-established biomedical model for Hashimoto’s thyroiditis in humans. Both conditions are characterized by the infiltration of thyroid glands with mononuclear immune cells resulting in the destruction of thyroid tissue and impairment of the thyroid’s endocrinological functions. Past studies described immune cell infiltration in thyroids of the OS chickens, but the time-course, cell composition, and relative amounts of the various immune cells infiltrating the thyroids have not been well defined. In this project, frozen and stored thyroid glands that were previously collected at 1, 4, 7, 14, …

Determining The Effectiveness Of Rosemary Essential Oil On The Shelf Life Of Ground Beef Under Different Lighting Conditions, Jordan T. Looper, Kelly R. Vierck

Discovery, The Student Journal of Dale Bumpers College of Agricultural, Food and Life Sciences

This study determined the effectiveness of rosemary extract on the shelf life of ground beef patties under different retail display conditions. Ground beef patties were produced from an 85%:15% blend (lean:fat). Patties were formed from batches of control or amended with rosemary extract. Patties were individually packaged using overwrap. Groups were assigned into one of two lighting groups (3000K and 3500K). Patties were placed in a simulated retail display for 5 d under continuous lighting and rotated once a day. Lipid oxidation and color samples were taken each day. Relating to lipid oxidation, there was no three-way interaction between display …

Instructions For Authors, Discovery Editors

Discovery, The Student Journal of Dale Bumpers College of Agricultural, Food and Life Sciences

No abstract provided.

“My Ob/Gyn Has The Worst Bedside Manner…” A Qualitative Analysis Of Patient-Provider Communication And Mental Health Outcomes Of Women In Rural Georgia, Tobi F. Oloyede

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

Despite technological advances in medicine and public health innovations, maternal mortality in the United States remains significantly higher than in other developed countries. Specifically, Georgia ranks as the second worst place to give birth in the country. Maternal mental health conditions are common, manageable complications that can happen at any point during pregnancy, childbirth, or in the first year following delivery, with 1 in 5 women affected. Unfortunately, 75% of women who experience MMH symptoms are left untreated.

This study focuses on patient-provider communication through the birthing experiences of women who have been pregnant in Georgia to examine how their …

Treating A Viral Culture: Using Cultural Competency And Social Informatics To Design Contextualized Information Literacy Efforts For Specific Social Information Cultures, Rachel N. Simons, Aaron J. Elkins, Shengnan Yang (Ed.), Xiaohua Zhu (Ed.), Pnina Fichman (Ed.)

STEMPS Faculty Publications

This chapter proposes a novel theoretical framework, Social Information Cultural Competency (SICC), that may be used for designing contextualized information literacy efforts. The SICC approach leverages the frameworks of social informatics, cultural competency, and psychosocial understandings of information behavior to encourage information professionals to develop more nuanced understandings of specific social information cultures. After defining this approach, the chapter then applies the SICC framework to a case study considering information literacy interventions addressing a social information culture engaged in sharing COVID-19 misinformation through social media. As part of this case study, the chapter discusses three current information literacy approaches to …

การสร้างสรรค์เรียงความภาพถ่ายเพื่อสื่อสารเรื่องชีวิตและความตายจากวรรณกรรมเรื่องทิวส์เดส์วิทมอร์รี, ภัทรพร มะณู

Chulalongkorn University Theses and Dissertations (Chula ETD)

งานวิจัยเชิงสร้างสรรค์นี้มีวัตถุประสงค์ 1) เพื่อสร้างสรรค์เรียงความภาพถ่ายเพื่อสื่อสารเรื่องชีวิตและความตายจากวรรณกรรมเรื่องทิวส์เดส์วิทมอร์รี 2) เพื่อสำรวจทัศนคติของผู้ชมที่มีต่อเรียงความภาพถ่ายจากวรรณกรรมเรื่องทิวส์เดส์วิทมอร์รี มีเครื่องมือในการวิจัยดังต่อไปนี้ 1) วรรณกรรมทิวส์เดส์วิทมอร์รีฉบับภาษาอังกฤษและฉบับแปลไทย 2) บันทึกการสร้างสรรค์ 3) การทดสอบความเที่ยงของเครื่องมือจากผู้เชี่ยวชาญ 4) การสนทนากลุ่ม 5) แบบสอบถาม ผลการวิจัยพบว่า 1) ขั้นตอนก่อนการสร้างสรรค์ ต้องศึกษาและวิเคราะห์โครงสร้างการเล่าเรื่องของวรรณกรรมฯ เพื่อทำความเข้าใจและศึกษาเรื่องชีวิตและความตาย และงานดัดแปลงที่ผ่านมา 2) ขั้นตอนการสร้างสรรค์ ได้แก่ 1) การคัดเลือกและสังเคราะห์วรรณกรรมฯ บทที่แสดงถึงเรื่องชีวิตและความตายเพื่อสร้างสรรค์บทกลอนและตัวละคร 2) การสร้างฉาก 3) การถ่ายและตกแต่งภาพ 4) การจัดทำรูปเล่ม 5) การตรวจสอบโดยผู้เชี่ยวชาญ 3) ​ขั้นตอนหลังการสร้างสรรค์ การเผยแพร่ผลงานและสำรวจทัศคติผู้ชม 2 กลุ่ม ได้แก่ 1) กลุ่มการสนทนากลุ่ม 2) กลุ่มการตอบแบบสอบถาม แบ่งออกเป็นกลุ่มผู้ที่เคยและไม่เคยอ่านวรรณกรรมฯ ผลการสำรวจผู้ที่เคยอ่านวรรณกรรมฯ สามารถเข้าใจเนื้อหาและแนวคิดเรื่องชีวิตและความตายได้ราบรื่นกว่าอีกกลุ่ม ทั้ง 2 กลุ่มนั้นชื่นชอบองค์ประกอบด้านภาพถ่ายมากที่สุด ส่วนใหญ่มีความเห็นว่าภาพถ่ายและกลอนนั้นส่งเสริมกัน การประเมินด้านการรับรู้เรื่องชีวิตและความตายมีเกณฑ์ในแต่ละองค์ประกอบส่วนใหญ่คือ มาก

Provider Racial Concordance And Medical Mistrust In Pediatric Dentistry, Chinelo Eke

Theses and Dissertations

Purpose: Studies have drawn varying conclusions on the importance of a racially concordant patient provider relationship. Medical mistrust has continued to garner attention as healthcare enterprises thread equity, diversity and inclusion throughout their organizational policies, practices and systems.

Methods: Parents/caregivers of pediatric patients at VCU Pediatric Dentistry were invited to participate. Surveys included questions about demographics, racial concordance, language preference, and the validated Group-Based Medical Mistrust Scale.

Results: A total of 246 guardians completed the survey. For guardians, 40% reported Black or African American, 31% Hispanic, and 19% Caucasian. Seventy-one percent of guardians reported speaking English, 18% Spanish, and 11% …

Fakestack: Hierarchical Tri-Bert-Cnn-Lstm Stacked Model For Effective Fake News Detection, Ashfia Jannat Keya, Hasibul Hossain Shajeeb, Md Saifur Rahman, M F Mridha

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

False news articles pose a serious challenge in today's information landscape, impacting public opinion and decision-making. Efforts to counter this issue have led to research in deep learning and machine learning methods. However, a gap exists in effectively using contextual cues and skip connections within models, limiting the development of comprehensive detection systems that harness contextual information and vital data propagation. Thus, we propose a model of deep learning, FakeStack, in order to identify bogus news accurately. The model combines the power of pre-trained Bidirectional Encoder Representation of Transformers (BERT) embeddings with a deep Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) having skip …

An Arbitrary Aesthetic: Cultural Reproduction And Hegemonic Canonical Formations In The Western Theatrical Academy, Sim C. Rivers

Theses and Dissertations

Theatre as an artistic practice has often been celebrated as an art of and for the people, being a modality that in theory the common person has access to learn, explore and experience. In recent years I have become preoccupied with the growing rarification and privileging of this art form, particularly in how it is cognized and taught in the academic world. As such, I set out to investigate the mechanisms at work at levels structural, artistic, and personal that determine how theatre is taught and understood within the western academy.

This thesis seeks to examine and unpack the perceived …

Sport Celebrities’ Covid-19 Prevention On Social Media: The Effect Of Credibility, Social Distance, Identification, And Message’S Power Style On Health Behavioral Intentions, Kyu-Soo Chung, Chad Goebert

Faculty Articles

During the COVID-19 outbreak, there emerged on social media an active cohort of sport celebrities, promoting through their messages virus-prevention behaviors. The study tested how people’s intentions to adopt COVID-19 prevention practices were affected by their perceived credibility of sport celebrities, perceived social distance of sport celebrities, and identification with sport celebrities. The study also tested how the message’s power style moderated those relations. The researchers selected four sport celebrities who were active on social media and applied powerful and powerless linguistic styles in developing their social media messages. College students (N = 284) were randomly exposed to one of …

Nigerian Media: A Comparative Media Analysis, Temilade Inumidun Adeeko

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

The comparative media analysis of Nigeria using Hallin and Mancini's model provides an insightful examination of the country's media system. Hallin and Mancini's model analyzes four dimensions: the degree of state intervention, the degree of political parallelism, the level of journalistic professionalism, and the role of the state. They offer three models of media and politics: The Liberal model, the Democratic Corporatist, and the Polarized Pluralist. Nigeria’s media system is characterized by high state intervention and political parallelism, significant control over media content by the state, a close relationship between the media and political parties, and a low level of …

Social Media, Gender, And Cancel Culture In The Punk Scene, Elizabeth Alexandra Mitchell

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

This thesis intends to examine the technological, political, and social dynamics surrounding the cancelation of musicians within the punk scene, specifically, modern Bay Area punk band, SWMRS. The technological dynamics involve the internet, networked publics, and digital politics. The social dynamics are not separate from sociality facilitated by social media and the networks they create. The politics of this context involves gender and the struggle over women’s agency to fight against sexual abuse and the social injustice it perpetuates. Because this thesis is interested in these issues within the context of popular music, it draws on the work on music …

The Toolkit For Social Support And Social Anxiety: S*A*S*S*, Cynthia E. Kmety

Masters Theses

The purpose of this study was to create a toolkit for social support and social anxiety using the Communal Coping method. There was background research conducted on social anxiety and social support, COVID impact, Communal Coping, and resilience and skill building. Before constructing the toolkit, a survey was conducted with 29 Eastern Illinois University students to measure their assessment of their social anxiety and social support. The results of this survey found that students have a need for social support and are affected by their anxiety. Once the toolkit: the workbook and the facilitator’s manual, were completed, a pilot class …