Social Media, Masculine Body Ideals, And The Drive For Muscularity: A Serial Mediation Model Across Sexual Identities, Sean P. Mcdaniel

Theses and Dissertations

Body image concerns among men are increasingly prevalent yet remain understudied compared to women’s experiences. Drawing on objectification theory, the present study examines the relationship between social media influence and men’s drive for muscularity through a serial mediation model. Specifically, the present study investigates whether the internalization of masculine body ideals and engagement in body surveillance behaviors mediate the link between social media influence and the drive for muscularity. Furthermore, the present study model attempts to explore how these processes differ across sexual identities, given evidence that sexual minority men face distinct sociocultural pressures regarding appearance. Adult male-identifying social media …

Creating "An Exemplar Of A Better World": A Dialogic Analysis Of Academic Freedom Surrounding Columbia University Activism From 2023-2025, Ellanore Foltz

Theses and Dissertations

From October of 2023 to August 2025, the community at Columbia University engaged in a series of debates regarding the meaning of academic freedom. Academic freedom, first institutionalized in the United States during the first world war, has shifted over the decades as the purpose of higher education and the threats to higher education changed. In recent years, campus protests regarding Israel and Palestine have sparked new debates about academic freedom that reflect ongoing and sometimes fundamental disagreements about higher education. This study utilizes Relational Dialectics Theory (RDT; Baxter, 2011) to explore the interplay between different discourses of academic freedom …

Designing Ai-Aware Media 101 Curriculum Through Faculty–Librarian Collaboration, Miranda Gale Smith, Elizabeth Oppe

2026 Scholarly Teaching Conference: Concurrent Session Papers

This presentation explores faculty–librarian collaboration as a teaching practice. It will inform attendees about the work done by a faculty member (Elizabeth) and a Student Success & Instruction Librarian (Miranda) to design and implement an AI-aware curriculum into an existing Media 101 course at West Virginia University. This resulted in the careful integration of subject-specific and information literacy expertise into the course’s curriculum. More broadly, this is meant to illustrate that in terms of practice, treating AI-aware curriculum development as a shared, iterative process grounded in mutual respect for distinct but complementary forms of knowledge has the potential to yield …

Choose Your Own Adventure: A Different Course Structure, Jacquelyn Kate Seymour

2026 Scholarly Teaching Conference: Poster Session Papers

As commonly accepted in upper-level courses, course work should appeal to higher levels of Bloom’s taxonomy such as analyze, evaluate, and create (Halupa, 2021). However, course design choices can limit a student’s potential in reaching these higher levels of learning when a preselected number of topics and assignment types are provided by the instructor (Halupa, 2021). Additionally, not all students will thrive with instructor selected assignment design. Instead, instructors can offer a “choose your own adventure” approach to course designs (Sutherland, 2023; Yetter, 2022). Specifically, this has taken the form of allowing students to choose their own assignments within my …

Wright State University Magazine, 2026, Wright State Alumni Association And Wright State Foundation

Wright State University Magazine

Fifty-two page issue of the Wright State University Magazine. This magazine is published once a year and focuses on news related to Wright State alumni, faculty, staff, and friends of the university.

Nostalgic Rhetoric: Unraveling An "Authentic" Past, Quinn Thomas Gienapp

Dissertations and Theses

Our changing awareness of time and memory can generate feelings of nostalgia that impact perceptions of the past, present, and future. Nostalgia should not be described as inherently good or bad. In certain contexts, nostalgia can be used as a positive or negative tool to convey values, arguments, and reactions to the past that are much more than simply appealing to feelings of longing. In this thesis, I examine how nostalgic rhetoric is used to convince individuals of various ideas surrounding memory, culture, and politics. In particular, I identify and describe three modes of nostalgic rhetoric: gratification, denial, and subversion. …

Determinants Of Digital Piracy: An Integrated Model, C. Christopher Lee, Peiyao Chen

Journal of International Technology and Information Management

Digital piracy is a form of copyright infringement, and challenges persist in addressing it effectively. Accordingly, understanding why people engage in digital piracy is crucial. Although prior studies have examined digital piracy from multiple perspectives, existing studies on the explanatory factors of digital piracy remain fragmented. To address this research gap, this study develops an integrated model that incorporates key theoretical perspectives, neutralization theory, social learning theory, and the theory of planned behavior (TPB), along with key determinants including gender, age, and the technology factor. Rather than conducting a meta-analysis of previous studies, this study adopts a survey-based approach to …

Too Warm To Win Big? Unpacking The Backer Dynamics Behind Female Crowdfunding Success Using A Warmth And Competence Perspective, Dan Liu

Journal of International Technology and Information Management

While crowdfunding is often heralded as a democratized funding avenue that empowers women with higher success rates, this study reveals a more nuanced picture of gender dynamics. The Stereotype Content Model suggests that women are often perceived as warmer but less competent. Using a large dataset from Kickstarter, we find that female-led projects can attract more backers, likely due to warmth-driven appeal, but receive smaller average contributions, potentially due to concerns about risk linked to lower perceived competence. However, the total funding raised by female-led campaigns is comparable to that of male-led ones, showing no clear advantage or disadvantage. This …

Online Community Dynamics: An Analysis Using Louvain During Major Sporting Events, Anushka Jaint, Yashodhan Karulkar, Kashish Jindal, Sri Sai Harshita Gadavarthi, Sanya Gulati

Journal of International Technology and Information Management

With the power of social media transforming the way people connect and interact with each other, the dynamics of community formation on platforms such as X during major events are of crucial importance. While social media is an increasingly key driver in determining interactions, little is known about the online influence forming and developing fan communities in high-stakes events. This study looks into the development of user communities for datasets drawn from Kaggle on two of the world’s largest sporting events: the FIFA World Cup 2022, or football, and the T20 World Cup 2022, or cricket, with the aim of …

Modern (Networked) Warfare: Its Concepts, Evolution, And Issues, Ramesh Subramanian

Journal of International Technology and Information Management

The on-going Russo-Ukraine war (February 2012-present), the recent India-Pakistan war (May 7-10, 2025), and the Israel-US attacks on Iran (June 13, 2025) have become interesting for a variety of reasons, and garnered a lot of attention in international defense publications and weapons manufacturers. To many defense analysts and defense industry professionals, these wars have become real-life testing platforms to examine and evaluate various present-day war technologies. They have opened up discussion on the future of war, the increasing use of inter-connected networks in warfare, and the increasing use of remote-operated drones in conducting surveillance and in offensive actions against …

Blockchain As A Digital Coordination Infrastructure For Project Management: A Systematic Review And Integrative Framework, Cherie Bakker Noteboom, Sai Neelima Seru, Aravindh Sekar

Journal of International Technology and Information Management

Blockchain technology has gained increasing attention as a digital infrastructure capable of improving transparency, trust, and coordination in complex, multi-organizational project environments. However, existing research on blockchain-enabled project management remains fragmented and industry-focused, providing limited guidance for organizational adoption and integration. This study addresses this gap through a systematic literature review of 29 peer-reviewed studies, following PRISMA guidelines, to examine how blockchain capabilities are incorporated into project management practices across industries and maturity stages.

Grounded in Resource-Based View and Coordination Theory, the analysis employs a feature-to-process mapping approach to link six core blockchain capabilities—decentralization, transparency, immutability, smart contracts, traceability, and …

Letter From The Faculty Editor, Beth Kegley

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

No abstract provided.

Featured Faculty Mentor/Student Team, Lauren Rogers, Danielle Reeves

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

No abstract provided.

Improving Staff Perceptions Of Effective Communication Through Frequent Micro-Team Huddles: A Quality Improvement Initiative, Sara Krslovic

Master's Theses and Capstones

Abstract 

Background: Effective communication among interdisciplinary team members is essential for safe, coordinated patient care. An outpatient primary care clinic identified inconsistent and non-inclusive communication within assigned micro-teams, particularly between nurses and providers, creating an opportunity to implement a structured communication strategy.

Local Problem: Communication within micro-teams lacked a standardized process, and nurses were often excluded from routine communication with providers. Prior to implementation, no formal micro-team huddles had occurred within the previous six months.

Methods: A four-week quality improvement initiative was conducted using the Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) framework. Weekly, micro-team huddles were implemented between nurses, providers, and the medical assistant …

Design Thinking For Corporate Social Responsibility Program Proposal Creation, Michelle "Mindy" D. Danovaro

University of the Pacific Theses and Dissertations

This qualitative study used action research to explore how the use of design thinking engaged employees in the creation of a corporate social responsibility (CSR) program proposal in a small- to medium-enterprises (SME) in the Sacramento region of California. The purpose of the study was to assess whether employee participation in a design thinking exercise could improve employee perception of engagement, inclusion, and reciprocity during the CSR program proposal creation. The study was grounded in social exchange theory, stakeholder theory, and design thinking methodologies. The iterative research process followed action research cycles (i.e., plan, act, observe, and reflect) integrated with …

Making Sense Of Membership: Organizational Socialization Of African Immigrant Employees In U.S. Workplaces, Ikeola J. Bodunde

Theses and Dissertations--Communication

This dissertation examines how African immigrant employees make sense of organizational socialization in U.S. workplaces. As global mobility reshapes the labor force, nearly one in five U.S. workers is foreign-born, making organizational socialization an increasingly complex communicative process. Classic socialization models assume linear, uniform adjustment, yet international employees often face ambiguity, cultural mismatch, and racialized expectations that complicate early workplace experiences. Guided by sensemaking theory, this study conceptualizes socialization as an ongoing, nonlinear process through which newcomers notice cues, construct interpretations, act on provisional understandings, and revise meanings as contexts shift. Using a qualitative, interpretive design, I conducted semi-structured interviews …

Educators' Uses Of Social Capital In K-12 Book Challenges, Danielle E. Sachdeva, Sue C. Kimmel

STEMPS Faculty Publications

In this case study, we apply understandings of social capital informed by Pierre Bourdieu and Nan Lin to analyze how seven educators used their capital to navigate book censorship incidents in K-12 public schools. Our findings indicate that participants often used social capital to meet expressive goals, such as seeking support from others, and less often to meet instrumental goals like advocating for policies and legislation in support of students’ intellectual freedom. These findings have implications for practitioners, school administrators, and university faculty, especially now as an unprecedented number of books is being challenged in public institutions throughout the U.S.

Improving Clinic Workflow To Enhance Rubeola Immunity Screening In Pregnant Patients, Courtney Mcduffie

Doctor of Nursing Practice Final Project Abstract

Purpose: The purpose of this quality improvement (QI) project was to improve provider adherence to Rubeola IgG serum order entry for prenatal care visits by implementing a standardized workflow and an electronic medical record (EMR)-based order-entry process in a high-risk maternal outpatient clinic.

Background: Rubeola infection during pregnancy is associated with significant maternal and fetal complications. Despite recommendations from the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) to use serologic testing to determine immunity status, inconsistent provider ordering practices and workflow gaps contribute to missed opportunities for identifying non-immune patients and planning post-partum vaccination.

Methodology: A ten-week intervention period utilized …

Creating A Social Media Campaign, Alexa Capeloto

Open Educational Resources

Students research an issue related to social good and apply visual, news, and digital literacy skills to design an original image and a proposed social media campaign.

Algorhythm: Commodification Of Hobbies On Social Media Platforms, Fariha Ahmed

Theses and Dissertations

Forcing the world online, the COVID-19 pandemic appeared to turn social-media-based hobbies into income-generating cash cows. Digital creative spaces became sites of capitalist logic where hobbyists came to operate as both laborers and commodities. Profit-focused algorithms operate imperceptibly, shaping creative behavior and decision-making in ways that are difficult to recognize, and even harder to resist. This thesis asks how algorithmic participation on platforms such as Instagram conditions a hobbyist, and how that conditioning can be made legible to audiences who inhabit such platforms without always seeing them. Using autoethnography, I position myself as both researcher and subject to document the …

You’Re Gonna Be Popular: A Semiotic Exploration Of Meaningful Tools Used To Promote Popular Music Artists, Maya Raye Kurth

Masters Theses

I have been to dozens of concerts, but after experiencing The Era’s Tour I became a Swiftie so quickly and passionately that I was looking for comparable concerts and fan experiences and found very few. It made me wonder how and why this fan experience stuck with me and what made it so special. With that question in mind, I started this project with the question of how successful indie music is marketed.

To answer this question, I used semiotics as the driving theory behind this study. Semiotics allowed me to establish a binary between organic and manufactured and allowed …

Bilingualsim In The Workplace: How Work Attitudes Influence Burnout And Turnover Intentions, Andrea Del Aguila

Honors Undergraduate Theses

Understanding whether language status functions as a risk or protective factor for employee well-being and retention is essential for developing organizational policies that support workers from varied demographic backgrounds. This study examined how work attitudes such as job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and work engagement are seen among bilingual and monolingual workers and how these outcomes relate to employee burnout and turnover intentions. An outside researcher from Talent Metrics Consulting collected data via an online survey utilizing previously validated measures of job satisfaction, organizational commitment, burnout, work engagement, and turnover intentions. Participants were recruited through online advertising and social sampling obtaining …

Assessing Sustainable E-Cigarette Prevention Messaging In Public Health Communication, Addo Anim Adinkrah

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

This study examines the sustainability of e-cigarette or vaping prevention messaging on X (formerly Twitter) and the message-design strategies used by public health institutions to maintain message visibility over time. Using the McGuire Communication/Persuasion Model and Media Framing theoretical frameworks, the research employs a qualitative thematic analysis based on Braun and Clarke’s six-phase approach to analyze 506 tweets from official accounts affiliated with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The findings reveal that prevention messages are sustained through repeated core warnings and reinforcement of institutional authority rooted in scientific and …

The Only Duck I’Ve Ever Loved Is Daffy In Drag: A Textual Analysis Of Gender Norm Reinforcement In The Looney Tunes Show, Sara Bahaji

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

In 2011, Warner Brother’s latest attempt to make Looney Tunes appeal to modern audiences was released, The Looney Tunes Show. This was a departure from classic Looney Tunes, from its slice-of-life sitcom setting to the changes in the characters. But one of the ways it stood out in not just classic Looney Tunes but contemporary cartoons, was its treatment of Daffy Duck. This thesis is a textual analysis of the show’s presentation of Daffy Duck’s gender. Different frameworks were used to build the analytic tools: signifying theory, as presented by Savoy (1995), gender accountability from West & Zimmerman (1987) and …

The Final Boys' Club: Conceptualizing A Final Boy Of 1980s Horror, Ej Newton

Masters Theses

Carol J Clover’s (2015) Final Girl, the female slasher protagonist who survives to the end of the movie, has become a staple of horror scholarship, providing insight into the function of gender within the genre as well as our cultural beliefs surrounding femininity. Given the attention paid to horror’s leading ladies, however, another fascinating figure has gone unexplored: the Final Boy. This project analyzes nine horror films from the 1980s with young male protagonists in order to conceptualize and critique this previously unidentified trope. Utilizing McKerrow’s (1989) critical rhetoric as a guide, this research not only provides a thorough definition …

It Takes A Village: Residents’ Perceptions Of Mount Prospect’S Place Branding, Jenna Strauss

Masters Theses

The Village of Mount Prospect has heard a fair share of negative critiques about the village’s branding; however, officials have not yet taken the initiative to rebrand. As stated by a village official, the village needs to understand what residents think about the branding before considering a rebrand. This knowledge offers valuable insight into what branding elements are liked/valued by residents, but also whether a rebrand would cause resistance or a mini crisis. Place branding literature highlights that residents determine the authenticity of a place brand (Braun et al., 2013), so Mount Prospect officials seek to make future branding decisions …

Assessing Global Citizenship Pathways In A Communication, Advocacy, And Global Citizenship Classroom In The Midwest, Satveer Kaur-Gill

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

To assess instruction in an undergraduate communication course titled Communication, Advocacy, and Global Citizenship, this qualitative inquiry examined how undergraduate students at a Midwest university engaged with global citizenship as a communicative process by conducting a content analysis of student assignments, guided by three key research questions formulated from four course objectives. The assessment found that place-based learning on global issues enhanced students' understanding of the meaning of global citizenship in a globalized world. Based on a qualitative evaluation of their key assignments, students successfully articulated threads and connections between local community concerns and issues as globally situated communicative phenomena. …

The W.A.I.T. Method - Better Listening In Conversations, Gedaliah Dimbert

B. Listening In Conversations

A 1-page infographic on the W.A.I.T. Method based on an article by Tod Perry. W.A.I.T. has two different meanings, as the horizontal and vertical presentation in this infographic demonstrates.

Manatee Dock Sign Distribution And Its Influence On Publicly-Sourced Sighting Reports In Alabama, Daniela Payán Arias, Sophia C. Corde, Ruth H. Carmichael

Gulf and Caribbean Research

No abstract provided.

Doping And The Discourse Of Crisis: A Communication Case Study Of Paul Pogba, Emmanuel Karikari

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

This study examines crisis communication in elite sports through the case of Paul Pogba’s doping scandal. The study addressed the existing crisis communication frameworks, which primarily focus on strategic messaging and reputation management while giving limited attention to identity and audience interpretation. As a Black Muslim athlete and global sports celebrity, Pogba’s case provides an opportunity to explore how crisis communication, identity, and audience responses interact in contemporary digital media environments.

A qualitative case study design was employed. Data consisted of public statements, interviews, media reports, and audience responses on X/Twitter collected across different stages of the crisis. Public texts …