Communication Commons^™

Chris Vein: What Forensics Did For Me, Chris Vein

Speaker & Gavel

ALUMNI CORNER: The forensic community is filled with alumni who will tout the benefits they received through their participation in intercollegiate speech and debate activities. As directors of forensics programs face battles for budgets and sometimes for their program’s very existence, having a collection of published testimonies about the positive influence of forensics can be a tremendous help. To that end, Speaker & Gavel is setting aside space in each issue for our alumni to talk about how forensics has helped them in their professional life. These are our alumni’s stories.

Tyson Carter: What Forensics Did For Me, Tyson Carter

Speaker & Gavel

No abstract provided.

Imitatio, Civic Education, And The Digital Temper, Jessy Ohl

Speaker & Gavel

This essay advocates for the reinvigoration of imitatio pedagogy to reestablish disciplinary commitment to civic education in perilous democratic times. I argue that imitatio offers a needed response to several contemporary democratic challenges. After mapping out three theoretical relations of imitatio, I describe one approach for inculcating democratic citizenship via imitatio designed for undergraduate education. Finally, I conclude by reflecting on the specific affordances of imitatio education in the digital age and call on educators of rhetoric and communication to once again perceive democratic well-being as a disciplinary responsibility.

Fighting The Formula: Adherence To Unspoken Rules Limit The Value Of Individual Events, Eric Mishne

Speaker & Gavel

Forensics is one of the most valuable activities in which college students can be involved. However, the strict adherence to formula and unspoken rules diminishes the educational benefits. This article explores an extensive body of literature highlighting the concerns of formulaic practices in collegiate forensics. The author asserts that authenticity, genuine learning, transferability of skills, innovation, and high quality speaking are the biggest victims of stringent adherence to the forensic formula. Specific recommendations for competitors, judges, coaches, and organizing bodies are given, suggesting that there are alternatives which can mitigate growing concerns.

A Letter From The Novice National Forensic Association, Matt Delzer

Speaker & Gavel

A letter of welcome from the Executive Director of the Novice National Forensic Association.

A Letter From The Speaker & Gavel Editor - Big Change, Little Change, Todd T. Holm

Speaker & Gavel

A letter from Speaker & Gavel editor Todd Holm about the future of Speaker & Gavel.

A Letter From The Dsr-Tka President, Mary Moore, Mike Edmonds

Speaker & Gavel

A letter from the President of DSR-TKA announcing the dissolution of Delta Sigma Rho-Tau Kappa Alpha (DSR-TKA).

Front Matter

Speaker & Gavel

Front matter and table of contents for volume 56, issue 1 of Speaker & Gavel.

Privatio Dialogus: Toward A Phenomenology Of Aloneness For The Philosophy Of Communication, Timothy Michaels

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The intent of this dissertation is to utilize the phenomenological method to elucidate the experience of aloneness and its relationship with human communication. Aloneness, for the purposes of this research, is understood as the broad experience of feeling alone. This dissertation first seeks to understand some essential principles of previous interdisciplinary literature on this topic before establishing a typology of experiences of aloneness, including isolation, escapism, and solitude. I present a phenomenology of each of these types of aloneness through a representative philosopher for each one, with Hannah Arendt, Emmanuel Levinas, and Henry David Thoreau, respectively. Finally, I conclude that …

When Humanity Meets Technology: Contemplating Neil Postman's Critique Of Advertising, Yingwen Wang

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This project aims to contemplate Postman’s critique of advertising and offer insights to understand Integrated Marketing Communication (IMC) in today’s mediated environment. As an essential component of IMC, the history of advertising demonstrates and documents that the medium of communication has an extensive influence on IMC practices. The concern about how communication media affect human perception, understanding, and behavior, resides within the central claim of the study of media ecology. Thus, this project investigates IMC through the lens of Postman’s media ecology perspectives, and argues that Postman’s prescient ideas provide both hope and constructive insights. Moreover, Postman’s thermostatic perspective, rooted …

Silence As A Strategy, Jarvis L. Steele

Honors College Theses

Understanding the struggle that is peaceful protest is a task that has two unexplored components. The first is how leaders of political movements and protest groups are able to influence the masses to not waiver in their non-violent, peaceful approach. The second is how political groups learn from the failures and successes of the previous campaigns. We are given these circumstances where governmental violence and abuse would normally lead to a retaliatory response from groups, but in order to maintain the fidelity of the movement leaders of these political protests have to protect the nonviolent approach. These are instances where …

An Examination Of Sound Resource Libraries And Their Applications At Bowling Green State University, Madeleine Grimm

Honors Projects

In this applied research project, I have explored the uses and limitations of sound resources at Bowling Green State University for student projects. My goal has been to create a stock music library for students on campus to have easy access to for class projects and portfolio work. In this project I address: How can a university best manage its stock music and sound resources; are there any standards for best practices or outstanding examples? What sound resources currently exist for student use in general and at BGSU? How are these sound resources currently managed at BGSU? What are the …

A Social Media Analysis Of Coastal Carolina Football, Sean Ference, Andrea M. Bergstrom

Honors Theses

This is an undergraduate senior capstone project that analyzes how social media can be used to enhance CCU Athletics, specifically football.

Examining The Acculturation Experiences Of Syrian Refugee Emerging Adults In The United States Of America, Fatemah Alghamdi

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Refugees are vulnerable populations who experience premigration traumatic events and postmigration acculturation stress. While research on immigrant mental health issues has been plentiful, there has been a clear lacuna of scholarly investigation into the acculturation experiences of Syrian emerging adults, particularly as it relates to the types and dynamics of acculturation behaviors. Acculturation is a factor that predicts emerging adults’ academic and occupational success and their interpersonal and intrapersonal relationships.

This qualitative investigation was conducted within the framework of interpretative phenomenology, which allows for meaningful, organic exploration and description of participants’ stories. Data were collected from 12 emerging adult Syrian …

Multifaith Families And Their Narratives Within Society, Josh Friedberg

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The goal of this project is to nudge the conversation about interfaith families in a direction that examines the family post–interfaith dialogue. The term multifaith better represents this new aim because it encompasses all interactions and does not limit the family to the constraints of the moniker interfaith. I apply Walter Fisher’s concepts of coherence and fidelity, in coordination with family communication literature, to structure this project and to study the various aspects of a multifaith family and narrative. I also use three typologies of multifaith family (Passive/Passive, Passive/Active, and Active/Active) to better understand the variations of this family. The …

The Ethics Of Occultic Communication: An Invocation Of Joshua Gunn And Sissela Bok, James Thomas Begley Jr.

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Occultic rhetoric, according to Joshua Gunn, is a genre of discourse concerned with the study and practice of secret communications. The strategic sharing of secret messages involves a host of methods and conventions designed for the selective disclosure of hidden knowledge, thus controlling the boundaries of (and accessibility to power between) insider and outsider groups. Occultic rhetoric has its uses in everyday encounters, but the abuse of such manipulative strategies, especially by those in the academy and other positions of power and trust, calls for an ethical response. This dissertation submits occultic rhetoric to moral investigation by incorporating the works …

The Dialectics Of Cyberspace: Communication Ethics As First Response To Cyber Attacks, Matthew P. Mancino

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This project recognizes the need to re-conceptualize cyberspace according to its characteristic dialectical tensions in order to offer lasting, adequate responses to cyber attacks. Scholars across multiple disciplines recognize the ineffectiveness of perimeter defense strategies, or the raising of defensive walls to protect sensitive information as the primary response to cyber attacks (Denning, 2001; Jang-Jaccard & Nepal, 2014; MacKinnon, Bacon, Gan, Loukas, Chadwick, Frangiskatos, 2013). Thus, this project suggests that in addition to a literacy in coding, corporations and policy makers must attend to what Ronald C. Arnett, Janie Harden Fritz, and Leeanne M. Bell McManus (2009/2018) term “communication ethics …

Black Body Memory: A Philosophy Of The Talk, Autumn Redcross

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This project offers the term Black body memory to point toward the threatened existential disposition of Black people in society today. Moreover, Black body memory points to the narrative paradigm of a shared experience. While popular conceptions theorize race as a social construction, the lived reality of Black people is frequently imbued by racialization and racism. Black body memory emerges from the intersection of the Black body articulated by Franz Fanon, Charles Johnson, and George Yancy, among others, and body memory, as described by Edward Casey and Thomas Fuchs. Black body memory is a culturally-laden and sedimented lived reality. The …

Lifestyles Of The Instagram Famous: What Fashion Micro-Influencers Want From Brands And How Brands Should Partner With Them., Reed Ashton Kevin

Honors Theses

In an age of social media, Instagram ranks among the most popular mobile sharing platforms in the world. Created in 2010, Instagram now boasts over 800 million users and has widespread community engagement, leading worldwide trends.With the exponential growth of Instagram, it is no surprise that companies and their brands began to pay close attention to its marketing potential. And although marketers have utilized Instagram in many ways, perhaps the most successful tactic has been through influencer marketing. An influencer is any person in a position to affect the decisions of others. Influencer marketing works well for brands because of …

Reclaiming Rhetorical Intersectionality: From Silence To Parrhesia And Attuned Listening, Tahirah Walker

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Intersectionality is a term applied by Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw in the late 1980s to a social experience. A person experiences intersectionality when different aspects of her identity converge in a way that causes uniquely amplified marginalization or oppression. The classic three identities that produce intersectionality experiences in the United States are race, gender, and class, making poor women of color the central figures of intersectionality study. Crenshaw explained that these forces take three main forms: structural, political and representational (“Mapping the Margins” 1243).

Intersectionality has always been rhetorical. Structural, political and representational intersectionality are supported in language. The power of …

Lindenwood Digest, May 10, 2019, Lindenwood University

Lindenwood Digest

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

Tone-Based Incivility And Content-Based Incivility: A Framework To Examine Online Uncivil Discourse, Sreerupa Sanyal

Electronic Theses & Dissertations

This research study is an attempt to distinguish between two types of incivility; tone-based incivility and content-based incivility. Building upon and extending on the theoretical framework proposed by Muddiman (Muddiman, 2017) on political incivility, this paper is an attempt to construct a two-dimensional framework within which online incivility could be analyzed. 624 comments were quantitatively analyzed from two news stories on the page of the New York Times on Facebook. The study established that tone based uncivil comments and content based uncivil comments could be a two-dimensional framework, within which to examine extant online discourse. It also found that despite …

The Sweet Tale: A Pilot Study Of An Interactive Narrative Health Communication Intervention Using Positive Deviance To Highlight Communicative Acts That Lead To Effective Management Of Diabetes Among Hispanics, Claudia M. Boyd

Communication ETDs

In this dissertation, I conducted a pilot study that applied positive deviance (Singhal, 2011; Pascale, Sternin, & Sternin, 2012) findings from my master’s thesis (Boyd, 2015) to an entertainment-education (Singhal & Rogers, 1999) driven intervention in a Hispanic community (Baezconde-Garbanti et al., 2014; Murphy et al., 2013; Wang & Singhal, 2016), using an interactive narrative (Green & Jenkins, 2014) to develop achildren’s book. In the current pilot study, I created a children’s book The Sweet Taleusing extensive formative research and created a framework to aid in the development offuture Hispanic children’s books on diabetes. To evaluate The Sweet Tale, I …

Spartan Daily, May 9, 2019, San Jose State University, School Of Journalism And Mass Communications

Spartan Daily, 2019

Volume 152, Issue 43

Prospectus, May 9, 2019, Ayla Mcdonald, Emma Flemming, Paul Mcdonald, Nicoline Hansen, Paul Benson, Scott Landells, Sidney Mounts, Morgan Parrish, Savannah Weishaar

Prospectus 2019

President Obama Speaks at Foellinger Auditorium; Humans of Parkland: Fernando Rodriguez Andrade; Mr. Smith Goes to Springfield; Isolation vs. Interaction on a Multicultural Campus; Meet the Staff; Parkland Soccer Attracts World-Wide Attention; Study Abroad at Parkland; Parkland Celebrates Earth Day with Sustainability Fair; Student Voices Heard at CAS Event; Hunger and Homelessness at Parkland; Parkland students give back on spring break; Humans of Parkland: Nour Kibech; Christmas, Navidad, Natal; Controversial Cartoon Receives Public Backlash; Photos

An E-Learning Adaptation Of An Evidence-Based Media Literacy Curriculum To Prevent Youth Substance Use In Community Groups: Development And Feasibility Of Real Media, Anne E. Ray, Kathryn Greene, Michael L. Hecht, Sarah C. Barriage, Michelle Miller-Day, Shannon D. Glenn, Smita C. Banerjee

Communication Faculty Articles and Research

Background: There is a need for evidence-based substance use prevention efforts that target high school-aged youth that are easy to implement and suitable for dissemination in school and community groups. The Youth Message Development (YMD) program is a brief, four-lesson, in-person curriculum that aims to prevent youth substance use through the development of youth media literacy. Specifically, YMD aims to increase understanding of advertising reach and costs, along with the techniques used to sell products; develop counterarguing and critical thinking skills in response to advertisements; and facilitate application of these skills to the development of youth-generated antisubstance messages. Although …

Its Skin Is My Skin, Bryan Page

Graduate School of Art Theses

This text examines the complexity of attempting to empathize with bodies that are vastly othered from my own. This broad yet nuanced subject crosses epistemological boundaries and complicates the dualities between both the mind and body, and between the corporeal and the virtual. My desire to better understand the conditions of another’s experience originates from a painful traumatic loss which caused me to feel isolated and incomplete. In response to this suffering, I long to emotionally connect with other beings and create artwork that attempts to bridge the qualia of individual experience.

I am interested in the capacity (or lack …

Spartan Daily, May 8, 2019, San Jose State University, School Of Journalism And Mass Communications

Spartan Daily, 2019

Volume 152, Issue 42

A Rhetorical Analysis Of Opening Statements In Trial: Reconsidering The Classical Canon Of Invention, Andrew Chandler

Undergraduate Theses

This analysis of 21 opening statements probes at current persuasive practices employed by trial attorneys through the lens of mainstream legal advice and an expanded definition of rhetorical invention – one which includes both discovery and creation. An evaluation of such practice reveals the utility, and furthermore the duty of the advocate, to draw upon an expanded realm of available arguments.

A Conversation About Cultural Appropriation As Explored By An Emerging Media Professional, Shikha Shrestha

Honors Theses

This thesis investigates cultural appropriation for the benefit of emerging media professionals. I use a personal encounter with cultural misappropriation as a starting point for the study. To further my exploration, I call upon the theory of symbolic interactionalism and scholarship in sociology, anthropology, and art criticism to better understand the concept. Then I interviewed many students and faculty members in the university community and they provided both insight and personal reflections on the concept, especially the media’s role in how they view cultural appropriation. Finally, I provide case studies, choosing three areas where cultural misappropriation has occurred, and suggest …