Communication Commons^™

Blue-Collar Scholars: Bridging Academic And Working-Class Worlds, Nathan Lee Hodges

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation explores one white working-class family’s hopes, fears, illusions, and tensions related to social mobility. I tell stories from my experiences as a first-generation college student, including: ethnographic fieldwork; interviews with my family, community members, and former teachers; and narratives from other working-class academics to provide an in-depth, evocative, and relational look at mobility. I explore the roots of vulnerability in my family and how I was socialized into understanding belonging and worthiness in particular ways, and how this socialization influences my feelings of belonging and worthiness in the academy. The goal of this research is bridging – past …

Excellence Beyond The Classroom: Meet The 2016 Dehaan Award Winners, Becky St. Clair, Chris Mclean-Wheeler

Andrews Agenda: Campus News

No abstract provided.

The Role And Usage Of Apps And Instant Messaging In Religious Mass Events, Juan Narbona, Daniel Arasa

International Journal of Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage

Over the last few years, large events have conferred great importance on Event Management, or the management of mass meetings. In the religious sector, for centuries, pilgrimages have been a clear example of mass events of a spiritual nature. Due to globalization and increased mobility, recent times have seen the multiplication of international events without a fixed location: Taizé encounters, Kumbh Mela (India), and World Youth Day are all good examples of this. These events imply at least a threefold spiritual, organizational and touristic challenge, and success in each one of these areas contributes to the favourable result of the …

The Importance Of Music Festivals: An Unanticipated And Underappreciated Path To Identity Formation, Kimberly F. Rudolph

Honors College Theses

The purpose of this study is to understand and explain the growing popularity of music and art festivals around the world. Music festivals are events consisting of a variety of bands and musical artists performing shows, on numerous stages, over a period of days to a large audience in outside and inside venues. Through field research, participant-observation, personal interviews, and survey research at the 2015 Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival, this study suggests that they are much more than simple entertainment venues. Because humans desire to belong and music functions in the capacity as a global language, music festivals are …

How Do Presence, Flow, And Character Identification Affect Players’ Empathy And Interest In Learning From A Serious Computer Game?, Christine Bachen, Pedro F. Hernández-Ramos, Chad Raphael, Amanda Waldron

Communication

This study develops and tests an integrated model of how three psychological variables—presence, flow, and character identification—contribute to interest in learning and empathy with people from other cultures through a simulation game. U.S. college students played one of two roles (an American journalist or Haitian survivor) in the game that dealt with the aftermath of the 2010 Haiti earthquake. Presence was a powerful predictor of flow, character identification, and empathy felt during the games. Furthermore, empathy experienced by game play significantly predicted interest in learning more about the game topics. Flow and identification made secondary contributions to learning outcomes, with …

Becoming The Change Witnessed: Strategic Use Of Empathy In Morgan Spurlock’S “Straight Man In A Gay World”, Michael W. Tumolo, Jennifer Biedendorf

The Qualitative Report

This essay examines the strategic use of empathic communication that fosters a loving struggle for Existenz in “Straight Man in a Gay World” (2005), an episode of Morgan Spurlock’s documentary-styled television program 30 Days. The show functions as a persuasive discourse designed to influence the heterosexual participant and, by extension, the implied audience. This essay offers an overview of key terms in the study of empathy and analyzes key moments of empathic communication in the episode.

Drop, Cover, And Hold On: Analyzing Fema's Risk Communication Through Visual Rhetoric, Samantha Jo Cosgrove

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This project seeks to understand the relationship between visual rhetoric and power structure between FEMA’s Earthquake publications and their audience. Research shows images leave a longer impression on readers than text, causing more studies to focus on visuals rather than just text in technical communication. Author uses Critical Discourse Analysis to analyze the images in relation to text, design, and intended audience to determine what information is being privileged. It is determined that homeowners are being privileged with information over non-homeowners, established through a collection of images and image types. The lack of information for non-homeowners could result in injury …

Columbia Chronicle (06/26/2016 - Supplement), Columbia College Chicago

Columbia Chronicle

A special edition of the student newspaper from June 26, 2016 entitled The Columbia Chronicle presents, Orientation Guide 2016. This issue is 40 pages.

A History And Analysis Of Cala's Social Media, Sai Deng, Xiao Hu

Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

Under the rapid development of social media and social networking sites, a number of social media channels have been deeply integrated into people's professional and private lives. The Chinese American Librarians Association (CALA), started its social media presence in 2012 with Facebook, and then expanded to YouTube and WeChat. While CALA's Facebook and YouTube channel are more public and social platforms for its news, announcements and documents, its WeChat group is more of an informal space for sharing news and embarking discussions. This poster will look into the various aspects of these social media channels and provide statistical and textual …

Social Media For Librarians And Users, A Global Perspective, Sai Deng, Ying Zhang, Jing Xu

Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

Social media has increasingly become an integral part of our personal and professional lives worldwide, and it revolutionizes how we communicate and share information. Libraries and librarians are early adopters and proponents for the use of social media. In countries such as China, social media has gained momentum in the recent years, and particularly in colleges and libraries.

This poster first investigates social media's presences and applications especially in university libraries in the U.S. and in China. The two countries use different social media apps such as WeChat, Facebook, Twitter, Weibo and Blog. It then focuses on a case study …

The Effects Of Visual Arts On Expressive Language In Participants With Dementia, Shannon Valentine Daly

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Visual aids such as memory books have been shown to help increase recall of information and facilitate improved communication in people with dementia (Bourgeois, 2014). Because of the effectiveness of visual aids for people with dementia, this study aimed to determine if the type of visual stimulus would produce differences in the quality of language expressed. It was hypothesized that a more realistic picture in full color would elicit more descriptive language than a black and white line drawing. Verbal descriptions of Norman Rockwell’s realistic painting, Coming and Going and descriptions of a black and white line drawing of the …

Creativity & Innovation In Leadership: 3-Day Workshop Teaches Unique Approaches To Leadership, Becky St. Clair

Andrews Agenda: Campus News

No abstract provided.

Communication Practices In The Us And Syria, Rebecca S. Merkin, Reem Ramadan

Publications and Research

This study highlights Syrian communication practices using comparative tests with the United States communication as a baseline. Additionally, theoretical findings on individualism and collectivism theory are extended to include findings from Syria. Multivariate Analysis of Covariance was used to test culture’s effect in demographically similar (in age, SES, and education) student convenience samples, with the covariate communication adaptability, on dependent variables: empathy, social confirmation, social composure, friendships, non-verbal immediacy, social self-efficacy, and general self-efficacy. Results indicated that Syrians possess more empathy, social confirmation, and perceived general self-efficacy in comparison to U.S. citizens who have greater social composure, friendships, non-verbal immediacy …

Change Is Constant – So You Better Learn To Adapt, Traci Evison

UCF Forum

I recently saw a turtle digging a hole to lay eggs in a neighborhood park that I walk through. This park has a lake but what surprised me about the turtle was the location she decided to lay her eggs. Instead of making the nest close to the lake about 50 feet away, where I would assume it would be easier for young turtles to begin their lives, this turtle was digging a hole a few feet from the street at the edge of the park.

The Prospector, June 21, 2016, Utep Student Publications

The Prospector

Headline: DWI Will Cost You More Than A Mug Shot

Professional Resource: The Routledge Companion To Remix Studies (2015), Benjamin Thevenin

Journal of Media Literacy Education

No abstract provided.

Padawan’S Journey: Remixing Star Wars Radio For Adolescent Literacy Education, Mark J. Davis

Journal of Media Literacy Education

The Star Wars phenomenon motivates adolescents who may be disengaged in the classroom. The wealth of visual content may overshadow the power of the music, sound effects, and dialogue. In literacy education, skills are often practiced by reading and discussing traditional texts. In this digital literacy project, struggling readers remixed the Star Wars canon through audio storytelling. Students served as actors, Foley artists, and directors in the recording of brief episodes based on the original trilogy. The project heightens students’ oral fluency and text comprehension by engaging in close reading and structured dialogue. The recordings demonstrate how students can be …

Confessions Of A Media Literacy Scholar-Practitioner: Job Market Advantages, Research Agenda Challenges, And Theory-Driven Production, Christopher Boulton

Journal of Media Literacy Education

This essay explores how higher education’s move away from the liberal arts tradition of learning by thinking and towards more vocational “experiential” approaches has implications for media literacy educators’ career options, scholarly identities, and teaching strategies. Specifically, I consider my own negotiation of increasing administrative and student demands for “hands-on” production courses by confessing both my advantages on the job market and my post-hire challenges in articulating a clear research agenda. I then conclude with a case study of how I repurposed my scholar-practitioner identity and used critical theory to drive production by bringing film students into a cultural studies …

Evaluating Online Media Literacy In Higher Education: Validity And Reliability Of The Digital Online Media Literacy Assessment (Domla), Tom Hallaq

Journal of Media Literacy Education

While new technology continues to develop and become increasingly affordable, and students have increased access to digital media, one might wonder if requiring such technology in the classroom is akin to throwing the car keys to a teen-ager who has not completed a driver’s education course. The purpose of this study was to develop a valid and reliable quantitative survey providing accurate data about the digital online media literacy of university-level students in order to better understand how digital online media can and should be used within a teaching/learning environment at a university. This study identifies core constructs of media …

The Think Aloud Approach. A Promising Tool For Online Reading Comprehension, Stefania Carioli, Andrea Peru

Journal of Media Literacy Education

Despite its unquestionable interest from a theoretical and practical point of view, so far there has been little research on online reading and there is a lack of attention paid to this topic in most European educational institutions. In particular, primary and secondary school teachers are not adequately trained on how and when to intervene to support students’ proficiency in the online reading comprehension. After presenting a rationale demonstrating why students may struggle with online reading comprehension and the importance to adopt a self-regulated reading, this study proposes a Teacher’s Guide that could support late primary and secondary school teachers …

The Issues And Challenges Of Assessing Media Literacy Education, Evelien A. Schilder, Barbara B. Lockee, D. Patrick Saxon

Journal of Media Literacy Education

In the media literacy literature, the challenges associated with assessment have, to a great extent, been ignored. The purpose of this mixed methods study was therefore to explore the views of media literacy scholars and professionals on assessment challenges through qualitative interviews (n = 10) with the intent of using this information to develop a quantitative survey to validate and extend the qualitative findings with a larger sample of media literacy professionals and scholars from around the world (n = 133). The findings offer an overview of the assessment challenges encountered by these participants.

Three-Year-Old Photographers: Educational Mediation As A Basis For Visual Literacy Via Digital Photography In Early Childhood, Arielle Friedman

Journal of Media Literacy Education

The study examines two years of an educational program for children aged three to four, based on the use of digital cameras. It assesses the program’s effects on the children and adults involved in the project, and explores how they help the youngsters acquire visual literacy. Operating under the assumption that formal curricula usually marginalize visual and digital literacy, the program gives photography a central role in all areas of preschool learning: the children take pictures of all their daily preschool activities, and view and learn with photographs from various resources.

The findings illustrate the centrality of educational mediation – …

Political Engagement During A Presidential Election Year: A Case Study Of Media Literacy Students, Elia M. Powers, Susan D. Moeller, Yacong Yuan

Journal of Media Literacy Education

This exploratory, mixed-methods study uses data gathered during the previous U.S. presidential election in 2012 to evaluate student political engagement and digital culture. Survey results and media diary entries revealed that college students enrolled in a media literacy course during Super Tuesday or Election Day gravitated toward low-barrier political actions and expressive modes of citizenship, and they were most engaged when there was a social component to following election news. These results, coupled with recent data on political engagement and media consumption, present an opportunity to consider the role of digital platforms and online communities in the 2016 election.

Black Lives Matter | Special Edition Omaha Table Talk, Inclusive Communities

Newsletters 2015-2016

OMAHA, NE, July 20, 2016 - Inclusive Communities will host will host a special edition of its monthly Omaha Table Talk, Black Lives Matter at the University of Nebraska at Omaha (UNO) Barbara Weitz Community Engagement Center (Weitz CEC). Black Lives Matter sheds light on the issues surrounding the discussion of race in relation to the Black Lives Matter Movement.

A Clown, A Quartet & Los 33: How An Ensemble From Chile Uses A Flag To Bring Hope Around The World, Becky St. Clair

Andrews Agenda: Campus News

No abstract provided.

Implicit Bias & Blind Spot: 2016 Leadership Conference Features Brian Nosek, Chris Mclean-Wheeler, Becky St. Clair

Andrews Agenda: Campus News

No abstract provided.

A Spirit Of Collaboration: Envision Magazine Wins Associated Church Press Awards, Chris Mclean-Wheeler

Andrews Agenda: Campus News

No abstract provided.

Glu: An Online Type 1 Diabetes Information Community, Stefanie Witt

School of Information Student Research Journal

This research paper examines the online health community Glu (MyGlu.org), a type 1 diabetes social media site. Type 1 diabetes is a chronic medical condition that requires constant and specialized medical attention. Online health communities like Glu, are an important part of maintaining a healthy lifestyle for many of its members. This study discusses the composition of this information community, the motivations of its members, and the benefits members gain through their participation. It describes the major characteristics of the community and focuses on the information needs of type 1 diabetics. It concludes with reflections on how libraries and LIS …

The Impacts Of Microaggressions On The Performance Of Multiracial And Monoracial College Students, Jasmine S. Keith

PSU McNair Scholars Online Journal

This study attempts to contribute to the research on how microaggressions affect performance of multiracial and monoracial college students in both social and academic realms. Microaggressions were explored through online surveys distributed via email to several hundred students. Participants consisted of students over the age of 18 at an urban institution in the Pacific Northwest. Bivariate logistical regression and axial coding were used to analyze participant responses. The first hypothesis for this study is that multiracial college students experience more microaggressions in social settings, while monoracial students experience more microaggressions in academic settings. The second hypothesis is that multiracial students …

The Impact Of Mobile Technology On Micro And Small Enterprises In Zimbabwe In The Post-Hyperinflation Economic Era, Gamuchirai B. Perekwa, Tania Prinsloo, Jp Van Deventer

The African Journal of Information Systems

This paper investigates the impact of mobile technology on Micro and Small Enterprises (MSEs) in the developing world in the post-hyperinflation era. Data was collected from a multi-staged sample of 114 MSE owners within the capital province of Zimbabwe, namely Harare. The data was collected and analysed using descriptive quantitative survey methods, which comprised of hard-copy questionnaires, structured interviews and online questionnaires.

The findings suggest that mobile technology has incremental, transformational and production influence on MSEs in Zimbabwe. The findings show that mobile technology amplifies communication and relations with customers, MSE’s productivity and MSE’s revenues. Mobile technology is also spurring …