Communication Commons^™

Evaluating The Quality Of Information Found In The Most Common Health Websites In Google Using Discern And Craap, Ivan A. Portillo, Scott Yosuke Johnson, Catherine V. Johnson

Library Presentations, Posters, and Audiovisual Materials

Objectives: Google search results can have an outsized impact on the health information that consumers find and trust. The researchers analyzed the health-related websites that show up most frequently on the first page of Google search results. After determining the websites that appear most frequently, the authors would evaluate the quality of the health information on these websites using the DISCERN instrument and the CRAAP test.

Methods: To replicate a common health information search, a list of search terms was gathered from the most frequently searched health-related topics on Google Trends. Each term would then be searched on Google and …

Playing On The Threshold: Topological Chronotopes And Video Games, Michael Joseph Piero

English Theses & Dissertations

This study argues that the chronotope—literally “timespace”—is a useful, flexible heuristic for understanding how video game timespace is ideology, often encoding hegemonic norms of heteronormativity, misogyny, sovereign power’s control of bare life, and dualistic thinking. Adapting and reforging Mikhail Bakhtin’s “chronotope of the threshold,” I track the topological movements of threshold chronotopes across a series of games and game genres that reveal threshold experiences of play, ontology, and justice. This work of theory takes into account video game mechanics, interfaces, narratives, iconography, and materiality within the context of a player’s experience as a player-reader given to a bodily-rooted play with …

No Dogs Allowed: A Qualitative Study About Invisible Barriers Faced By Those With Disability, Kory Gaona

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

Service Animals (S.As.) are becoming more common throughout the United States and are seen more frequently on college campuses. This study uncovers the lived experiences of S.A. handlers on college campuses nationwide, to further understand the exclusion or inclusion that S.A. handlers experience throughout their everyday life. Utilizing Critical Disability Theory and Organizational Communication lenses through a series of open-ended questions, this study analyzes a handler’s experience with their S.A. Adopting a qualitative lens, I conducted one on one interviews. It filled a need for academia as present research on S.As. typically focuses on quantitative research. I was able to …

Counterpublics, Abled Sex, And Crip Discourses On Twitter: A Discourse Analysis Of Conversations Of Sexuality And Disability, Claudia Garcia Mendoza

Communication & Theatre Arts Theses

We live in an era in which essential conversations occur online. Social media has become the official voice of presidents and corporations. Donald Trump, the president of the United States, uses Twitter to address public issues and make policy announcements. Similarly, alternative voices have emerged from social media and evolved into public debates, social movements, and massive mobilizations (e.g., Gerbaudo, 2012; Tufeksi, 2017). The community gathering opportunities of social media (boyd, 2011; Parks, 2010; Chambers, 2013) and the possibilities to generate collective knowledge (Jenkins, 2004) stress the necessity to continue to expand the research in digital spaces.

It is important …

Uncertainty Reduction In Initial Interactions, Melissa Cabrera

McNair Summer Research Program

Uncertainty reduction strategies are among the most fundamental motivations for human communication. When interacting with new people, uncertainty reduction is a crucial tool people use to learn about that person and determine what their relationship will be like. Research related to the strategies that humans use to reduce uncertainty typically focus on initial interactions and the early stages of relationships. Many recent studies tend to focus on the comparison between computer mediated communication and in-person interactions. In contrast, the current project focuses on the strategies people are most likely to employ when they are working to reduce uncertainty in face-to-face …

Discretionary Dissemination On Twitter, Richard M. Crowley, Wenli Huang, Hai Lu

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

Using an unsupervised machine learning approach to analyze 12.8 million tweets posted by S&P 1500 firms from 2012 to 2016, we find that firms tweet more financial information around significantly negative or positive earnings announcements or accounting filings. Specifically, we observe a symmetric U-shaped relation between the number of financial tweets and the materiality of accounting information events. This relation is consistent with the theoretical prediction in Hummel et al. (2018) which assumes that managers are sensitive to their firm’s fundamental value. We document that this relation also holds for hyperlink usage in tweets about financial information around important events, …

Redeeming The Monster: The God Of War Subreddit's Narrative Of Rebirth For Hegemonic Masculinity, Mario Sanders

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

In a 2019 documentary on the development of the video game God of War (2018) for the Playstation 4, Cory Barlog, the game’s creative director, openly discusses his desire to give the toxic, hypermasculine protagonist, Kratos, a “second chance” after nearly a decade since the franchise’s previous installment. In giving Kratos his second chance, Barlog decided to make him a father, claiming that becoming a father changes one’s perspective on everything. Video games scholars have argued that games are a noteworthy element of players’ identities and interactions due to their promotion of the manufacture of player narratives. The following research …

Turning The Page: A Design Thinking Approach To Increasing Literacy Advocacy In West Alabama, Justin C. Walters

Masters Theses

Through the problem/solution lens of design thinking, this research critically analyzes the promotional activities and materials used by the Literacy Council of West Alabama (LCWA) to determine their effectiveness in reaching both functionally illiterate populations as well as the fully-literate population aiming to work the advocacy front with this nonprofit organization. Qualitative data was gathered through the utilization of a web heuristic evaluation, as well as the evaluation of current marketing materials for LCWA; these insights were used to guide the design and creation of new print and digital marketing materials for the organization. Results of this research aimed to …

You Are Resilient: Trauma-Informed, Strengths-Based Treatment For Low-Ses, Urban Youth, Courtney Molina

Dissertations

The focus in this review was to explore the benefits and optimal use of trauma-informed, strengths-based care for the therapeutic treatment of low-socioeconomic status (SES), urban youth. Specific focus was given to evidence-based research on the treatment of emotional and behavioral dysregulation among low-SES, urban youth. The review was guided by the following research questions: How can emotional and behavioral dysregulation be symptoms of trauma among low-SES, urban youth; What makes trauma-informed and strengths-based care optimal for the treatment of low-SES, urban youth with dysregulation; and What are clear guidelines for providing trauma-informed, strengths-based care to low-SES, urban youth with …

An Examination Of The History And Evolution Of Senior Adult Theatre Accomplishments That Impact Intergenerational Theatre Of The 21st Century, William Français Charette

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This thesis explores senior adult theatre recorded interviews, several text book, internet, and published articles that report on findings conducted by educational scholars regarding senior adults in theatre 60 and older. Subsequent background research reflects on multigenerational accomplishments within historical American Theatre and The American Theatre Association discoveries regarding senior adult theatre. Further inquiries include reflections on The American Theatre Association of Senior Adult Theatre, Liz Lerman’s Dance Exchange of Maryland, Ohio State University Senior Adult Theatre programs, University of North Carolina Center for Creative Retirement, Montgomery County Maryland Senior Theatre program, University of Oregon, Art Age, the history of …

How Did The Nra Employ Presidential Election Year Propaganda Against Barack Obama Within The Shifting Paradigm Of The Digital Age?, Rodney James Edgar

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The National Rifle Association is one of the most successful lobbying groups in the United States of America. There are a few key elements that contribute to this perfect storm of passion, constitutional rights, misinformation and social division. Perception is often credited with being synonymous with reality. As an influential organization, the NRA has used its platform to spread communication, a practice which is enabled and enhanced by the technology, speed of delivery and vast reach that comes with the information age. The focus of this study will be on two artifacts from the digital archives of the NRA. For …

The Impact Of Social Media On The Self-Esteem Of Youth 10–17 Years Old: A Review Of The Literature, Jasmine M. Daniels

Dissertations

The world of technology has expanded quickly and vastly since its inception. The creation of social media sites and applications has changed the ways in which youth interact, connect, and share with one another. As the number of social media sites and applications increases, so does their use by adolescents. During adolescence, youth are undergoing the process of identity development and self-esteem is an important part of this development. During this developmental period, adolescents’ self-esteem is likely to be affected by the feedback they receive online through social media sites. There is limited research available that specifically evaluated the impact …

Collective Sensemaking Around Covid-19: Experiences, Concerns, And Agendas For Our Rapidly Changing Organizational Lives, Keri Stephens, Jody L.S. Jahn, Stephanie Fox, Piyawan Charoensap-Kelly, Rahul Mitra, Jeannette Sutton, Eric D. Waters, Bo Xie, Rebecca J. Meisenbach

College of Communication Faculty Research and Publications

Uncertainty is at the forefront of many crises, disasters, and emergencies, and the COVID-19 pandemic is no different in this regard. In this forum, we, as a group of organizational communication scholars currently living in North America, engage in sensemaking and sensegiving around this pandemic to help process and share some of the academic uncertainties and opportunities relevant to organizational scholars. We begin by reflexively making sense of our own experiences with adjusting to new ways of working during the onset of the pandemic, including uncomfortable realizations around privilege, positionality, race, and ethnicity. We then discuss key concerns about how …

The Prospector, August 12, 2020, Utep Student Publications

The Prospector

Headline: College in the Age of Coronavirus

When Doing More Requires Knowing More: Explaining The Intention To Seek Procedural Information About Recycling, Sonny Rosenthal, Yan Wah Leung

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

This study examines the relationship between the intention to recycle more and the intention to seek procedural information, in this case, information about how to recycle. In contrast to prior research that used information seeking as a predictor of behavior change, this study considers behavioral intention as a predictor of intention to seek information. Regression analysis of survey data from Singapore residents confirms that prediction, explaining 27% of the variance in intention to seek procedural information. Moderation analysis suggests the effect of intention to recycle more is stronger among individuals with low recycling self-efficacy. An alternative analysis suggests the greater …

An Attention-Based Rumor Detection Model With Tree-Structured Recursive Neural Networks, Jing Ma, Wei Gao, Shafiq Joty, Kam-Fai Wong

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Rumor spread in social media severely jeopardizes the credibility of online content. Thus, automatic debunking of rumors is of great importance to keep social media a healthy environment. While facing a dubious claim, people often dispute its truthfulness sporadically in their posts containing various cues, which can form useful evidence with long-distance dependencies. In this work, we propose to learn discriminative features from microblog posts by following their non-sequential propagation structure and generate more powerful representations for identifying rumors. For modeling non-sequential structure, we first represent the diffusion of microblog posts with propagation trees, which provide valuable clues on how …

The Role Of Student Engagement In The Relationship Between Classroom Motivation And Academic Achievement, Damodaran Shailaja

Student Works (2020-2029)

The aim of this study was to investigate undergraduate students’ perceived classroom motivation and perceived engagement in learning English course. It also examined the extent to which student engagement plays a mediating role in the relationship between classroom motivation and academic achievement. Using the Basic Needs Satisfaction at College Scale (Jenkins-Guarnieri et al., 2015) and Student Course Engagement Questionnaire (Handelsman et al., 2005), cross sectional surveys were conducted to collect data on classroom motivation and student engagement, respectively. Academic achievement was measured based on students’ course examination results. The sample comprised 137 undergraduate students from a public university in Malaysia. …

A Corpus-Assisted Discourse Analysis Of The Representation Of The 2017 Rohingya Crisis In The Daily Star, Nahar Sharufatun

Student Works (2020-2029)

There is a noteworthy lack of research on media coverage of refugees and other minority groups in South Asia. The aim of this study is to examine the discursive construction of the 2017 Rohingya Crisis and the representation of key social actors in The Daily Star, a popular Bangladeshi newspaper. The corpus contains 406 online articles reporting the Rohingya issue, published on The Daily Star’s website from August 2017 to August 2018. A mixed method combining quantitative and qualitative techniques from Corpus Linguistics and Discourse Analysis is utilized to analyze the data. Using the corpus analysis software AntConc 3.5.8, collocations, …

An Analysis Of Blends In Local English Newspapers, Manokaran Komalata

Student Works (2020-2029)

Numerous blends are often found in the newspapers such as brunch (breakfast + lunch), chocoholic (chocolate + alcoholic), and brick-tacular (brick + spectacular). Blend is a type of word-formation technique combining two clipped words termed as source words (SWs). This qualitative study explores blends found in local English newspapers; they are The Star, News Straits Times, The Malay Mail, and The Borneo Post. The study aims to (1) classify types of blends and (2) analyse the differences between paradigmatic and syntagmatic in blends. This research uses two theories dealing with definition of blends and types of blends. The types of …

A Corpus Study Of Online Reviews On The Suicide Themed Series 13 Reasons Why, Zaki Ummi Syafiqah

Student Works (2020-2029)

The present study aims to explore the reviewers’ perspectives on the suicide theme of 13 Reasons Why by examining the online reviews posted by these reviewers on Internet Movie Database (IMDb), Rotten Tomatoes, and Meta Critics. The corpus analysis tools adopted in the study are concordancing and keyword analysis. Concordancing is used to generate suicide-related concordance lines and to identify the evaluative items in the online reviews, while keyword analysis is used to explore the underlying key themes. Two frameworks applied to analyse these evaluative items and categorise them into positive and negative are evaluation in texts and discursive news …

Blame Avoidance And Image Restoration Strategies In The Mh370 Press Conferences, Ravinthar Thilaga

Student Works (2020-2029)

This study focused on the relationship between the field of crisis communication and discourse analysis. The crisis of MH370 was used as a medium to explore the blame avoidance strategies opted by four public figures in addressing the public. The public figures who were used in this research were Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak, Acting Transport Minister Datuk Seri Hishammudin Hussein, Director of Civil Aviation Dato’ Sri Azharuddin Abdul Rahman and MAS CEO Mr Ahmad Jauhari. The main focus of the study was to explore the press release and to illustrate the blame avoidance strategies opted during the …

Extending Ethos In Digital Rhetorics, Andrew J. Hillen

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

This dissertation researched the concept of ethos, or appeal to authority or trust, on the social media platform, Twitter. Looking at collections of tweets, I found that the characteristics of the Twitter platform, as well as the general qualities of writing online, pushed users to use short cuts to trust, such as focusing in on specific buzz words, or through referencing well known organizations and individuals. Users also used internet culture as its own source of authority. They demonstrated that they were up to date on the latest trends and memes, and so were trustworthy accounts to follow. Users appealed …

Recognizing Anti-Blackness In Media And Other Institutions, Marissa Lucero

Black History at UNM

Myra Washington, Associate Professor in Communication and Journalism at The University of New Mexico, discusses how dehumanizing portrayals of Black people in the media desensitizes people to brutal violence against Black people. She defines anti-blackness as multiple institutions working together to marginalize Black people. Washington explains, if people choose to discuss anti-blackness in media, it’s imperative to discuss other instances that showcase anti-blackness within different institutions, including education, policy, healthcare, religion, economy, and family. Associate Professor of Communication and Journalism at UNM, Shinsuke Eguchi, also reflects on the politics of race and anti-blackness in this article. This article is a …

Provost Newsletter - July 31, 2020, Office Of The Provost, Wright State University

Office of the Provost Newsletters and Announcements

The Newsletter from the Office of the Provost regarding another update on the Fall 2020 Semester Class Schedule and course delivery options, as well as a few other topics.

Lindenwood Digest, July 31, 2020, Lindenwood University

Lindenwood Digest

The Lindenwood Digest has been a digital employee newsletter since 2009.

The Scicommdiversity Travel Fellowship: The Challenge Of Creating A Sustainable Intervention, Alberto I. Roca, Cynthia-Lou Coleman, Tara S. Haelle, Danielle N. Lee

Communication Faculty Publications and Presentations

Diversifying a community requires outreach, recruitment, and retention which in this case targets the science communication (SciComm) workforce. Establishing a strategy to accomplish such diversification includes designing, launching, and sustaining the new intervention. Here we review the 6-years history of the DiverseScholar SciCommDiversity Travel Fellowship. This intervention was designed to build a community of minority science communicators that would interact with experienced professionals at the ScienceWriters conference. The travel fellowship reduces the financial burden of conference attendance while introducing the fellows to mentors who facilitate networking and knowledge-building during the event’s professional development opportunities. The first two years of the …

Self Protection And Stop Bullying Campaign For Kids At Rptra Sungai Bambu, Tanjung Priok, Jakarta Utara, Suraya Mansur

ASEAN Journal of Community Engagement

This paper presents a socialization and counseling program anchored on the themes “self-protection” and “stop bullying.” The program aims to explain the importance of knowing what parts of our body can and cannot be touched by other people, the need to be vigilant when invited to quiet places either by known or unknown people, and how to act in such situations. Bullying is sometimes undetected because it is considered normal or funny. Therefore, children must be told that calling names in the form of ridicule or hitting others is an unjustified action. The methods used in this program are socialization …

Rugby League As A Televised Product In The United States Of America, Mike Morris

College of Journalism and Mass Communications: Professional Projects

Rugby league is a form of rugby that is more similar to American football than its more globally popular cousin rugby union. This similarity to the United States of America’s most popular sport, that country’s appetite for sport, and its previous acceptance of foreign sports products makes rugby league an attractive product for American media outlets to present and promote.

Rugby league’s history as a working-class sport in England and Australia will appeal to American consumers hungry for grit and authenticity from their favorite athletes and teams. Established coverage of English soccer has paved the way for rugby league media …

“To Ask Freedom For Women”: The Night Of Terror And Public Memory, Candi Carter Olsen

Journalism and Communication Faculty Publications

On the night of November 14, 1917, 31 suffragists and members of the National Woman’s Party (“NWP”) were taken to Occoquan Workhouse in Virginia and tortured and beaten. This so-called “Night of Terror” captured national headlines at the time and has been memorialized through digital sites today. This article examines versions of the Night of Terror from the NWP’s official newspaper, The Suffragist, national newspapers of the day gathered from the Chronicling America database, and modern digital memorials of the event to understand the ways that the mediated telling of events create the fractured popular memories that are retold …

Rights And Representation: Media Narratives About Disabled People And Their Service Animals In Canadian Print News, Lana Kerzner, Chelsea Temple Jones, Beth Haller, Arthur Blaser

Political Science Faculty Articles and Research

Canadian news coverage is reflecting and shaping an evolution of thought about how we must publicly account for animals’ roles in the disability rights movement. Through a textual analysis of 26 news media articles published between 2012 and 2017, this research demonstrates that the media play a key role in reporting on discrimination, yet media narratives about service animals and their owners too often fail to capture the complexity of policies and laws that govern their lives. In Canada, there is widespread public confusion about the rights of disabled people and their service animals. This incertitude is relevant to both …