Communication Commons^™

Ypsilanti: A Cultural Assessment, Sarah Mark

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

This research examines the culture of Ypsilanti, Michigan. Participants consisted of four leaders and five residents, all long-term citizens of Ypsilanti. Participants were interviewed and first asked to describe the general culture of Ypsilanti, then asked to comment on the potential presence of a music and arts scene as part of the culture of Ypsilanti. These questions are research questions one and two, respectively. Participants were recruited through word-of-mouth as people heard about the research through people I know. A content analysis of the interviews was conducted to find conceptual patterns in participants’ descriptions of the general culture as well …

Performing The Self: Character Agency And Impression Management Within The Narrative Of Survivor: Samoa, Carolyn Davis Hedges

Mass Communications - Dissertations

This study used an in-depth textual analysis of the television show Survivor: Samoa to demonstrate that the unscripted characters of the program and shows like it have agency within the narrative. In addition to the 19th season of the Survivor series, the sample also included Jeff Probst's (host and executive producer of the series) weekly blog for EntertainmentWeekly.com. Unlike most popular television narratives, the unscripted characters of Survivor: Samoa have the opportunity to tell their own story. This doctoral project was an in-depth analysis at how that authorial power was shared between the Producers of the show and the individual …

Fashioning The Self: Performance, Identity And Difference, Jessica L. Neumann

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis project will examine cultural and rhetorical communication studies to determine how these modes of analysis can be compared with interdisciplinary literature to better understand the role fashion plays within everyday performances and the shaping of identity. Criticisms by second-wave feminist scholars have focused on the fashion industry's overarching male influence; in more recent scholarship, feminist academics have often considered an affinity for fashion to be un-feminist and oppressive. I argue that fashion can instead be viewed as a tool for female agency and expressing individuality, rather than just a mode for reinforcing gendered norms. Using feminist rhetorical analysis …

A Research Study Examining Forgiveness, Empathy, Commitment, Trust, And Relational Satisfaction Among Adult Friends After Relational Transgressions, L. Lori Poole

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This research project examined how forgiveness was managed by adult friends after relational transgressions. It studied how the emotion of empathy promoted the act of forgiving and why the construct of commitment related to trust and relational satisfaction among friendship dyads. Isolating the specific emotion empathy in regards to forgiveness heightened the understanding of what emotional behaviors were used to maintain friendships once a relational transgression was experienced. Measuring and analyzing the interaction between commitment, trust, and relational satisfaction helped to determine how these constructs promoted forgiveness among adult friends.

The Effects Of Commercialization On The Perception Of Hip Hop Culture And Black Culture In Mainstream Culture In The United States, Chris A. Robinson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis is examines how the perception of a sub-culture can be altered by a dominant culture. Specifically this project addresses the effects resulting from the assimilation of Hip Hop Culture by mainstream culture in the United States, and its subsequent use as a marketing tool. Because Hip Hop Culture originated in Black Culture, the perception of Black Culture as reflected by hip hop music is also discussed. All of these themes are addressed creatively through a narrative script project.

The Affective Dimensions Of Social Controversy, Susan Ann Sci

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Social controversy is a sustained, mediated debate between at least two oppositional parties which is more than just a difference of opinion; rather it is a persistent conflict over the political and cultural implications that dominant forms of communicative reasoning, practices, and norms have for a public. Simply put, during social controversies the norms guiding public life can be negotiated, reaffirmed, negated, and/or transformed. This can lead to progressive political, cultural, and/or social change in some instances, while establishing or reifying conservative and even oppressive norms, practices, and laws in others.

Building upon Olson and Goodnight's (1994) theoretical and methodological …

Parented Emotion: A Study Of Adult-Children's Emotion Socialization And Family Communication Patterns, Joseph Grant Velasco

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Using the General Theory of Family Communication Patterns (FCPT) and Emotion Regulation Theory (ERT) of Meta-emotion, Parenting, and Child Outcomes, this dissertation sought to investigate adults' emotion socialization in their family of origin through an examination of multiple family schemata. Furthermore, the interactions of parental meta-emotions, family communication patterns, and family communication environments were investigated. Two surveys were used in this study. First, 228 adult-children across two universities in the western United States responded to items retrospectively describing the family communication patterns and family communication environments within their home of origin during their adolescence. Additionally, adult-children described the meta-emotion philosophies …

Porting Transmedia Storytelling To Journalism, Kevin Timothy Moloney

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines how the methods of transmedia storytelling emerging in the entertainment industry might be used in a journalism context. Journalism is facing many crises, not the least of which is a loss of readership and perceived relevance to its public. Presented with an ever-expanding array of media with which to interact, the public is more difficult to attract to a socially relevant issue or a politically important story. Faced with similar issues, the entertainment industry has developed a means to engage with fans in a way that draws them across multiple media platforms, better captures their imagination and …

The Calm In The Midst Of A Chaotic Life: Learning Personal Social Communication In A Media-Saturated World, Lavonne Michelle Renno

Theses Digitization Project

This project takes Theatre of the Oppressed and Theater Games to elementary age students in the High Desert, helping them work through emotional issues and developing responses that would enable them to resist the allure of gangs, which offer the pretense of security and a sense of belonging. The objective of the project is to help teach students to have positive interactions with each other and adults. A group of fifth and sixth grade under privileged low income students from the High Desert region was selected to participate in this after school program. The program was based on psychodrama and …

Crosstalk 2.0: Asylum And Communicative Breakdowns, Marco Jacquemet

Communication Studies

Using ethnographic evidence on asylum proceedings for refugee recognition from various sources (Italy, Belgium, United Kingdom, and Canada), this paper updates Gumperz’s notion of crosstalk by exploring the massively flexible and multilingual nature of late-modern communication as epitomized in one of the most complex adjudication procedures performed by Western nation-states. Every year thousands of displaced people seek the protection of various European countries by filing asylum claims, which are examined by national commissions. This paper explores how the problematic nature of these encounters can be traced to the nature of late-modern communication, characterized as it is by asymmetrical power, multiple …

Ua12/4 Stall Street Journal, Vol. 3, Wku Health Services

WKU Administration Documents

Broadsides developed by WKU Health Services to convey public health information in students in bathroom stalls.

Saying Goodbye To Friends: Situation Comedy As Lived Experience, Anne Marie Todd

Faculty Publications

The series finale for NBC’s sitcom Friends was a media event, a two-hour broadcast promoted for months, and immediately followed by cast appearances on late night comedy shows and the next morning’s news shows. The show’s popularity demonstrated by fan response to the last episode positions the online and broadcast media discourse surrounding the finale as a rich cultural text for examining the influence of the modern sitcom on fans’ cultural identities and social communities. The Friends broadcast finale taken together with the online discussion of the show creates a site for the production and consumption of fan culture in …

Recollection, Regret, And Foreboding In Frederick Douglass’S Fourth Of July Orations Of 1852 And 1875, Bernard K. Duffy, Richard D. Besel

Communication Studies

No abstract provided.

An Inconvenient Truth, Richard D. Besel

Communication Studies

No abstract provided.

Earth Day, Richard D. Besel

Communication Studies

No abstract provided.

The Art Of Nursing: An Evaluation Of Congruence Of Nurse-Patient Perceptions Of The Healing Interaction, Gillian Yvonne Dargan-Doxzon

Theses Digitization Project

The purpose of this study is to pilot a new tool that encompasses both patients' and nurses' perceptions of the nurse-patient interaction. This pairing of surveys will measure congruence of the perceptions between the nurse and the patient.

Blackness As A Weapon: A Critical Discourse Analysis Of The 2009 Henry Louis Gates Arrest In National Mainstream Media, Ashley Ann Jones

Theses Digitization Project

This study analyzed the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Boston Globe, and USA Today's contributions to portraying the 2009 Henry L. Gates arrest. This study is interested in finding out how nationally circulated mainstream dailies and weeklies framed the indident and Gates' image within their news coverage. This study also seeks to find out how the media constructed race. Most importantly, this study seeks to uncover racial stereotypes as they relate to race and social status.

International Graffiti And The Israeli Separation Barrier, Veronica Evangelina Miranda

Theses Digitization Project

This purpose of this study is to show that graffiti can be more than mere vandalism and can be a powerful way of communicating resistance to injustice when used as protest. Graffiti on the Israeli Separation Barrier is one way people can speak against an oppressive force that alters their physical environment, which can be a site of continuous argument.

An Evaluation Of The California Brief Multicultural Competence Scale And Training For Mental Health Practices, Catherine Tillie Smith, Dahlia Avila

Theses Digitization Project

This study was designed to investigate the effectiveness of the California Brief Multicultural Competence Scale (CBMCS) and training as a tool to increase cultural competency skills. The interest of this was to determine if the training brought about a change in empathy or effectively increased knowledge about the importance of culture.

Face-To-Face Communication Versus Memo Communication To Announce Mergers And Acquisitions The Importance Of Media Richness, Janell Marie Hopeck

Theses Digitization Project

The purpose of this study was to examine the current research on mergers and acquisitions which includes organizational factors, such as communication processes, and their impact on employee reactions. The current study addresses this issue through a simulated M&A announcement laboratory experiment with 156 CSUSB undergraduate students.

Caring Work: Opening A Space Of Possibility For Exploring Transnational Feminist Solidarity Between Privileged And Marginalized Women, Beverly Romero Natividad

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Neoliberalism, through its emphasis on personal responsibility and individual freedom in accelerating economic development globally, has only pushed women further into the margin of society. Structural adjustment programs (SAPs), which impose state budget cuts on healthcare and welfare programs, particularly have kept poor women and women of color in poverty and generally, have exploited women's labor. However, in this age of neoliberalism, women's solidarity becomes more significant. Because neoliberalism is founded on individualism, its downfall rests on alliance-building. Against this backdrop, I explore the possibility of fostering transnational feminist solidarity between privileged and marginalized women engaged in formal caring work. …

Ua98/2 Potter College For Young Ladies Administration, Wku Archives

WKU Archives Collection Inventories

Administrative records related to Potter College. The series includes grade books, textbook list and a receipt.

A Communication Approach To Understanding Rapid Responses To Others: The Importance Of Flexibility Across Goal Conditions, Betsy App

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Two studies evaluated the communication approach to rapid display responses (RDRs) to others by 1) examining the influence of specific communicative goals on RDRs and, 2) identifying the social outcomes associated with correspondence between communicative goals and responses. Both studies showed that people in general can change the magnitude of their most rapid responses according to communication goals to either respond or suppress responses. For some stimulus-response pairs, the ability to flexibly deploy RDRs to align with goals is associated with positive social outcomes for those who are socially active. In Study 1, individual differences among socially active first-year college …

Ua3/9/2 I.T. Division Annual Report + Tactical Plan, Wku Information Technology

WKU Administration Documents

Annual report of WKU Information Technology Division submitted to WKU President Gary Ransdell. Report is housed in UA3/9/2 Subject Files.

Ua19/16/1 Volleyball Media Information Guide, Wku Athletic Media Relations

WKU Administration Documents

Athletic media guide for volleyball team.

Ua30/2 2011-2012 Parking 101, Wku Parking & Transportation Services

WKU Administration Documents

2011-2012 parking map and instructions which includes list of possible fines for Western Kentucky University.

Ua42/1 Wku Winter Term, Wku Summer Sessions & Winter Term

WKU Administration Documents

Annual report of the WKU Winter Term giving a summery of course enrollments, college data, course section information and marketing efforts.

A Systematic Property Mapping Using Category Hierarchy And Data, Kalpa Gunaratna, Sarasi Lalithsena, Prateek Jain, Cory Andrew Henson, Amit P. Sheth

Kno.e.sis Publications

Relationships play a key role in Semantic Web to connect the dots between entities (concepts or instances in a way that enables to absorb the real sense of the entities. Even though relationships are important, it is difficult to categorize or identify them because they consist of complex knowledge in the schema. Therefore systematically identifying relationships yield many advantages and open doors for new research avenues. In this work, we try to identify a specific type of relationship (part of) in a multi-domain dataset and devised an algorithm using Wikipedia to identify patterns of part of relationships in the dataset. …

Cloudvista: Visual Cluster Exploration For Extreme Scale Data In The Could, Keke Chen, Huiqi Xi, Fengguang Tian, Shumin Guo

Kno.e.sis Publications

The problem of efficient and high-quality clustering of extreme scale datasets with complex clustering structures continues to be one of the most challenging data analysis problems. An innovate use of data cloud would provide unique opportunity to address this challenge. In this paper, we propose the CloudVista framework to address (1) the problems caused by using sampling in the existing approaches and (2) the problems with the latency caused by cloud-side processing on interactive cluster visualization. The CloudVista framework aims to explore the entire large data stored in the cloud with the help of the data structure visual frame and …

Understanding Online Knowledge Sharing: An Interpersonal Relationship Perspective, Will W.K. Ma, Allan H. K. Yuen

Support & Other Units (THEi)

The unique features and capabilities of online learning are built on the ability to connect to a wider range of learning resources and peer learners that benefit individual learners, such as through discussion forums, collaborative learning, and community building. The success of online learning thus depends on the participation, engagement, and social interaction of peer learners, which leads to knowledge sharing. Thus, without frequent and persistent interaction, it is doubtful whether knowledge sharing can take place in online learning. This study argues that theories about the development and maintenance of social relationships provide a theoretical foundation for understanding the motivation …