Communication Commons^™

Delegitimizing Rural Public Health Departments: How Decaying Local News Ecologies, Misinformation, And Radicalization Undermine Community Storytelling Networks, Nik Usher

Communication: Faculty Scholarship

This article considers the public communication challenges that health officials in rural America faced during the COVID-19 pandemic. I analyze the role that public health officials played in communicating news and information about the pandemic in 29 rural counties in Illinois. These officials were challenged by a diminished reporting capacity among local media outlets, and by a political radicalization of local Republicans, who no longer regarded local media as trusted nodes in local storytelling networks. I find that while public health officials can help fill a community’s critical information needs about risk and emergency, the public’s take-up of this information …

Incorporating Mini Lessons On The Hidden Curriculum In Communication Classrooms, Sophie Downing, China C. Billoette Verhoff

Communication: Faculty Scholarship

The hidden curriculum (HC) consists of the implicit and embedded knowledge rooted in college curricula and found throughout students’ experiences navigating higher education (e.g., understandings of professional email etiquette, knowledge about graduate school applications and funding opportunities, and often taken-for-granted programs such as Title IX and disability accommodations). In this semester-long activity, we propose that communication instructors integrate HC mini-lessons to share important information that mitigates social capital and knowledge disparities, facilitates student reflection on their own experiences with the HC, and fosters classroom community. Through considering one’s positionality as an instructor, incorporating strategic HC mini-lessons, and seeking student feedback, …

How Class Matters: Examining Working-Class Children’S Home Technology Environments From A Developmental Perspective, Vikki Katz, Brianna Hightower

Communication Faculty Articles and Research

Social class is seldom engaged by scholars as a lens for investigating variations in children’s digital technology engagement. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with 33 working-class children in a postindustrial community, we examine how social class shapes these children’s digital technology experiences. Bronfenbrenner’s ecological theory of child development guides our examination of children’s views on digital technology integration into their interactions with proximal influences (i.e., parents, siblings, and friends) and distal influences that indirectly shape their technology environments by affecting their parents’ circumstances. We find that working-class children’s experiences share key commonalities with both their lower- and higher-income peers, consistent with …

Not Just A Hashtag: Using Black Twitter To Engage In Critical Visual Pedagogy, Mia L. Knowles-Davis, Robert L. Moore, Susan Köseoğlu (Ed.), George Veletsianos (Ed.), Chris Rowell (Ed.)

Teaching & Learning Faculty Publications

[First Paragraph] We live in a global society in which we are constantly exposed to new technologies, people, and situations that transform our perceptions and worldviews. As we are exposed to these new experiences, it is increasingly necessary to maintain a critical eye and question what we are seeing. It is not enough for higher education merely to teach material; instructors should also teach the responsibilities and ethics that coincide with it. Encouraging criticality in higher education helps learners to develop a deeper understanding of social justice, inequality, and oppressive systems, and it teaches learners how to combat those issues …

It Helps And It Doesn’T Help: Maternal Perspectives On How The Use Of Smartphones And Tablet Computers Influences Parent-Infant Attachment, Rebecca Hood, Juliana Zabatiero, Desiree Silva, Stephen R. Zubrick, Leon Straker

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

As families increase their use of mobile touch screen devices (smartphones and tablet computers), there is potential for this use to influence parent-child interactions required to form a secure attachment during infancy, and thus future child developmental outcomes. Thirty families of infants (aged 9–15 months) were interviewed to explore how parents and infants use these devices, and how device use influenced parents’ thoughts, feelings and behaviours towards their infant and other family interactions. Two-thirds of infants were routinely involved in family video calls and one-third used devices for other purposes. Parent and/or child device use served to both enhance connection …

Mapping The Research Trends On Social Media In The Hospitality Sector From 2010 To 2020, Eunjung Kim, Alexander Rolfe Best, Kijung Choi

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Purpose: This study undertakes a systematic review of the literature to gain insight into existing studies on hospitality in social media and provide an update on current trends and themes in scholarship. Design: This study employs the systematic literature review to identify, evaluate, and synthesize the existing literature. Methodology: A total of 165 papers published between 2010–2020 were examined using content analysis and Leximancer. Approach: This review uses a hybrid review structure that incorporates structured reviews and narrative elements supported by Leximancer analysis. Findings: The review highlights the theories and methods used, research fields and perspectives, and key research topics …

Provider Racial Concordance And Medical Mistrust In Pediatric Dentistry, Chinelo Eke

Theses and Dissertations

Purpose: Studies have drawn varying conclusions on the importance of a racially concordant patient provider relationship. Medical mistrust has continued to garner attention as healthcare enterprises thread equity, diversity and inclusion throughout their organizational policies, practices and systems.

Methods: Parents/caregivers of pediatric patients at VCU Pediatric Dentistry were invited to participate. Surveys included questions about demographics, racial concordance, language preference, and the validated Group-Based Medical Mistrust Scale.

Results: A total of 246 guardians completed the survey. For guardians, 40% reported Black or African American, 31% Hispanic, and 19% Caucasian. Seventy-one percent of guardians reported speaking English, 18% Spanish, and 11% …

Enabling Customization Of Discussion Forums For Blind Users, Mohan Sunkara, Yash Prakash, Hae-Na Lee, Sampath Jayarathna, Vikas Ashok

Computer Science Faculty Publications

Online discussion forums have become an integral component of news, entertainment, information, and video-streaming websites, where people all over the world actively engage in discussions on a wide range of topics including politics, sports, music, business, health, and world affairs. Yet, little is known about their usability for blind users, who aurally interact with the forum conversations using screen reader assistive technology. In an interview study, blind users stated that they often had an arduous and frustrating interaction experience while consuming conversation threads, mainly due to the highly redundant content and the absence of customization options to selectively view portions …

An Arbitrary Aesthetic: Cultural Reproduction And Hegemonic Canonical Formations In The Western Theatrical Academy, Sim C. Rivers

Theses and Dissertations

Theatre as an artistic practice has often been celebrated as an art of and for the people, being a modality that in theory the common person has access to learn, explore and experience. In recent years I have become preoccupied with the growing rarification and privileging of this art form, particularly in how it is cognized and taught in the academic world. As such, I set out to investigate the mechanisms at work at levels structural, artistic, and personal that determine how theatre is taught and understood within the western academy.

This thesis seeks to examine and unpack the perceived …

An Artificial Therapist (Manage Your Life Online) To Support The Mental Health Of Youth: Co-Design And Case Series, Aimee-Rose Wrightson-Hester, Georgia Anderson, Joel Dunstan, Peter M. Mcevoy, Christopher J. Sutton, Bronwyn Myers, Sarah Egan, Sara Tai, Melanie Johnston-Hollitt, Wai Chen, Tom Gedeon, Warren Mansell

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Background: The prevalence of child and adolescent mental health issues is increasing faster than the number of services available, leading to a shortfall. Mental health chatbots are a highly scalable method to address this gap. Manage Your Life Online (MYLO) is an artificially intelligent chatbot that emulates the method of levels therapy. Method of levels is a therapy that uses curious questioning to support the sustained awareness and exploration of current problems. Objective: This study aimed to assess the feasibility and acceptability of a co-designed interface for MYLO in young people aged 16 to 24 years with mental health problems. …

A Model For Children’S Digital Citizenship In India, Korea, And Australia: Stakeholder Engagement Principles, Emma Jayakumar, Kylie Stevenson, Harrison See, Yeonghwi Ryu

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

This white paper communicates research activities and findings investigating digital safety and digital citizenship through multistakeholder collaborations in three countries—India, South Korea, and Australia. Performed by an Edith Cowan University-based research team from the ARC Centre of Excellence for the Digital Child, supported by the LEGO Group, this research additionally responds to many recent policy and practice reviews arguing for institutional and policy engagement in the Asia Pacific (APAC) that build children’s digital safety, literacy and citizenship. These include the UNESCO data-driven report, Digital Kids Asia Pacific (DKAP): Insights into children’s digital citizenship (UNESCO, 2019), an earlier UNESCO review of …

Another Covid Causality: Media Landscape In Bangladesh, Ershad Komal Khan

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

This study seeks to understand the pressure from both advertisers and the Bangladesh government on the local mass media between March 2020 and December 2021 concurrent with the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. Thus, this study aims to explore whether the local mass media compromised more with advertisers amid the COVID recession to earn advertising-based revenue and whether the Bangladesh government mounted more pressure on the press during the period as well as to analyze the influence of the aforementioned factors on newsrooms. To guide this work, this study employs the Market Theory of News Production (McManus, 1994), the Authoritarian …

Social Comparison Theory: The Effects Athletic Influencers Have On An Appalachian Generation Z Men Audience, Aaron David Dickens

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Many studies have highlighted how social comparison can influence self-efficacy for exercise, body dissatisfaction, and motivation to exercise, especially on social media; in addition, several studies have supported how attitude toward exercise and confidence toward exercise correlate with one another. However, these dependent variables have not been examined in the context of Generation Z men in Appalachia. Despite the lack of literature on this demographic, it is important to study Generation Z Appalachian men because of the frequent health problems this demographic faces, such as obesity. Therefore, this pretest-posttest between-subjects lab experiment investigated how an athletic influencer on social media …

Assessing Transfer Student Acclimation And Help-Seeking, Dylan Haase

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

No abstract provided.

The Mental Health Issue, University Of Montana--Missoula. School Of Journalism

Byline

'It Just Happens Here': In a perfect storm of risk factors, Montanans grapple with barriers to mental health care -- The Other End of the Line: Crisis line workers meet struggle with empathy -- 'The Most Eloquent Prayer': How the Chippewa Cree are fighting a suicide crisis on Rocky Boy's Reservation -- Their Own Remedy: Veterans navigate a lack of mental health resources -- Embracing Forest Bathing: Through meditation, guidance and science, locals are centering nature in their healing -- Tripping for Treatment: At the fringes of care options, some Montanans find hope through psychedelics -- The Montana State Hospital: …

The Challenge Of Measuring Traditional And Digital Audiences In A Global Market, Jorge Gallardo-Camacho, César García, Belén Puebla-Martínez

All Faculty Scholarship for the College of Arts and Humanities

This monograph titled Audiences and new forms of broadcast: linear, on-demand, streaming and/or social has five articles that represent the complexity of the phenomenon of audiences across fields and from different perspectives: Traditional television consumption, viewing of Netflix, the social audience of video platforms, the new tastes of viewers for vertical formats driven by mobile phones, and the relationship of influencers with their audiences. This number raises the problem of audience measurement, quantification, and comparison in the new digital age. The measurement of audiovisual audiences faces the problem of the lack of a measurement system accepted in all regions and …

Perceptions Of Organizational Politics And Interpersonal Relationships In Black Women's Organizations And Sororities, Mitzi S. Willis

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Although much research has addressed the relationships between leaders and followers, none has focused on these relationships between Black women—specifically, in the context of Black women’s social service organizations and sororities—and the impact the leader’s chosen style of leadership has on the followers’ use of voice. Self silencing is a prominent response to the power dynamic in many leader–follower relationships. The purpose of this study was to describe the interactions between leaders and followers in Black women’s social service organizations and sororities and identify the influence leadership style has on follower engagement. This study extends the application of silencing the …

The Rhetorical Art Of Risk Assessment: Lessons From Risk Management In Rural And Tribal Communities, John L. Velat

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Risk assessment, mitigation, and communication rely on data from multiple sources to form a complete understanding of hazards and how to manage them. Experts can use these data to make informed decisions about the nature and extent of risks and inform the public to protect health, the environment, and economic welfare. However, in an effort to objectively make decisions, technical experts and policymakers increasingly rely on quantitative data as the most important determiner of risk, which can alienate the public, limit risk understanding, and delay or miss obvious signals of impending catastrophe. I examine several cases based on my experiences …

ต้นแบบการจัดการการสื่อสารเพื่อการท่องเที่ยวโดยชุมชน, เณริศา ชัยศุภมงคลลาภ

Chulalongkorn University Theses and Dissertations (Chula ETD)

การวิจัยเรื่อง ต้นแบบการจัดการการสื่อสารเพื่อการท่องเที่ยวโดยชุมชน เป็นการวิจัยเชิงคุณภาพ โดยนำแนวคิดด้านการจัดการการท่องเที่ยวโดยชุมชน ทฤษฎีการสื่อสารแบบมีส่วนร่วมมาอธิบายการจัดการการสื่อสารของชุมชนในการกำหนดส่วนประสมทางการตลาด แนวคิดเกี่ยวกับการตลาดและแนวคิดการสื่อสารการตลาดมาศึกษากระบวนการทำงานด้านการกำหนดส่วนประสมทางการตลาดและการสื่อสารการตลาด รวมทั้งศึกษาปัญหาและอุปสรรคที่มีผลต่อการจัดการการสื่อสาร ทั้งนี้เพื่อเสนอต้นแบบของการจัดการการสื่อสารของการท่องเที่ยวโดยชุมชน โดยศึกษาในพื้นที่วิสาหกิจชุมชนชีววิถี ตำบลน้ำเกี๋ยน อำเภอภูเพียง จังหวัดน่าน และชุมชนท่องเที่ยวเชิงวัฒนธรรมบ้านเชียง อำเภอหนองหาน จังหวัดอุดรธานี เก็บรวบรวมข้อมูลจากการสัมภาษณ์เชิงลึกผู้ให้ข้อมูลหลักที่เกี่ยวข้องกับการท่องเที่ยวของชุมชน จำนวน 31 คน การสังเกตแบบมีส่วนร่วมในฐานะนักท่องเที่ยวและการวิเคราะห์เอกสาร ผลการวิจัย พบว่า ในกระบวนการทำงานของชุมชนในการจัดการการท่องเที่ยวด้านการกำหนดส่วนประสมทางการตลาด ชุมชนมีการใช้กระบวนการสื่อสารแบบมีส่วนร่วมในทุกขั้นตอนของการดำเนินงาน ตั้งแต่การตั้งแต่การเตรียมความพร้อมชุมชน การเตรียมความพร้อมเรื่องการตลาด และกระบวนการทำงานเพื่อเชื่อมโยงเรื่องชุมชนกับการตลาด โดยมีรูปแบบการสื่อสารทั้งแบบเป็นทางการและไม่เป็นทางการ พร้อมไปกับการสร้างเครือข่ายการสื่อสารของกลุ่มคนทุกวัยในชุมชน ด้านกระบวนการทำงานของชุมชนในการจัดการการท่องเที่ยวด้านการสื่อสารการตลาด ชุมชนมีการค้นหาจุดเด่นของชุมชนนำมาสร้างสรรค์เป็นแนวคิดหลัก เพื่อใช้ในการสื่อสารการตลาดตามแนวคิดหมู่บ้านเฉพาะเรื่อง (Thematic Villages) โดยมีเครื่องมือหลัก คือ การประชาสัมพันธ์ผ่านสื่อออนไลน์ของชุมชน ร่วมกับการเผยแพร่ข่าวสารผ่านสื่อมวลชน การจัดกิจกรรมพิเศษและการร่วมกิจกรรมของหน่วยงานที่เกี่ยวข้อง ทั้งนี้ ชุมชนยังขาดการบูรณาการเครื่องมือทางการสื่อสารการตลาด

Theoretical Motivations For Posting In #Metoo, Shannon Pappas

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In 2017, actress Alyssa Milano shared a tweet encouraging survivors of gendered violence to write “me too.” A media storm ensued as survivors answered her call in the millions. Anyone can look back at what survivors posted during the height of #MeToo, but we still don’t know why they felt the need to post in the first place. To answer this question, the social identity model of deindividuation effects and spiral of silence were utilized. The social identification, perceived anonymity affordances, and willingness to self-censor scales were used for this research, along with a perceived deindividuation scale that was created …

Listening To The Aftermath Of Crime: True Crime Podcasts, Amanda R. Keeler

College of Communication Faculty Research and Publications

No abstract provided.

Employee Sensemaking Of Csr: On Micro-Discourses Of Corporate Social Responsibility, Katharine Miller

College of Communication Faculty Research and Publications

Purpose: Recently, scholars are pushing for an internal corporate social responsibility (CSR) view through employee perspectives regarding CSR efforts, particularly in considering how organizations can act responsibly toward internal stakeholders (May, 2011). Thus, research has begun taking a “micro-turn” in analyzing CSR (Aguinis and Glavas, 2012), focused on individual analysis of such practices within organizations. The purpose of this study is to uncover the organizational sensemaking of CSR by an important yet less understood stakeholder group, employees.

Design/methodology/approach: This study takes a primarily qualitative, micro-approach via interviews (n = 42) to understanding the internal sensemaking of various organizations' CSR …

Anti-American Stance In Turkey: A Twitter Case Study, Gowri Prathap, Alex Korb, Luke Palmieri, Ekrem Kaya, Saltuk Karahan, Hamdi Kavak

School of Cybersecurity Faculty Publications

The availability of social media and biased actors exacerbated Anti-American and Anti-Western views to extremes. In this paper, we report our efforts in analyzing anti-American views on Twitter. We have collected over three years of Turkish tweets related to the US, translated them into English, and analyzed these tweets using various computational social science tools. We found that Turkish tweets related to the US are significantly negative, and emotions reflect disgust and anger. Furthermore, we found that the source of the negative views stems from political actors like Trump or Biden rather than general hatred. Our results shed light on …

Comparison Of The Effects Of Telehealth Versus N95 On Nurse-Patient Communication, Tony Christopher Bloomfield

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Telehealth and face masks are some of the infection control measures nurses use while attending to patients. Nurses provide the most patient care in hospital settings and thus spend the most time with patients in their recovery journey. Because communication is paramount to the role nurses play as health care professionals, there is a substantial need to investigate how infection control measures affect the quality of nurse-patient communication. The purpose of this quantitative cross-sectional study was to describe the relationship of methods aimed at maintaining social distancing between nurses and patients to nurse-patient communication and to compare differences in the …

Underwater Communication Acoustic Transducers: A Technology Review, Laila Shams, Tian-Bing Xu, Zhongqing Su (Ed.), Branko Glisic (Ed.), Maria Pina Limongelli (Ed.)

Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering Faculty Publications

This paper provides a comprehensive review on transducer technologies for underwater communications. The popularly used communication transducers, such as piezoelectric acoustic transducers, electromagnetic acoustic transducers, and acousto-optic devices are reviewed in detail. The reasons that common air communication technologies are invalid die to the differences between the media of air and water are addresses. Because of the abilities to overcome challenges the complexity of marine environments, piezoelectric acoustic transducers are playing the major underwater communication roles for science, surveillance, and Naval missions. The configuration and material properties of piezoelectric transducers effects on signal output power, beamwidth, amplitude, and other properties …

Closing The Gap Between College Students: An Intergroup Dialogue Program To Reach Understanding And Reduction Of Disparities, Lilly Zhou

Honors Program: Senior Projects (Public)

The goals of the intergroup dialogue program are exploration and collective action. The goal of exploration is to spread awareness by presenting the situation. Several students are not aware that disparities between students exist, so this dialogue provided awareness of the issue. With increased understanding of each other, collective action can be taken. Actions by a small number of students are still steps taken to reduce the gap between the financially supported and not financially supported students. Action can look like spreading awareness of the issue, advocating for policy changes, and more.

The structure of the intergroup dialogue program required …

A Word From The Writing Team (January 2023), Pam Walter, Mfa, Liz Declan, Ma, Mfa

A Word From the Writing Team (Newsletter)

This issue includes:

• New Year, Monthly Writing Sessions
• Upcoming Workshops

Organizing (Eternal) Identity And Identification: An Upward Glance Into Religious Institutions, Casey M. Stratton

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

This dissertation disrupts at least two religious spaces: First, scholars religiously adhering to (social) scientific norms, and second, people identifying with religious organizations (i.e., churches). First, we begin constructing a theoretical lens using poststructural ideas offered by Foucault, Derrida, and Bakhtin to read and disrupt (religious) discourse. Second, we complicate organizational identification as a concept, deeming it fixed and fluid—a paradox within religious discourses that endorse Truth and Perfection. Here, we draw from the communication constitutes organization (CCO) approach. Third, we further curate the lens by applying poststructuralism, identification, and CCO in a specific context: The Church of Jesus Christ …

Testing The Theory Of Resilience And Relational Load In The Context Of Empty Nesters, Lauren E. Fellers

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

In examining the marital communication of recent empty nesters, the aim of this study was to test the theory of resilience and relational load (TRRL) (Afifi et al., 2016). The postparental period that follows directly after children leave their parents’ places of residence may present unique challenges for married individuals to navigate together. The TRRL offers a potential explanation as to why some married couples demonstrate resilience and flourish through a stressful season while others do not. To test the TRRL in this context, 113 married persons who became empty nesters within the previous 18 months filled out an online …

Editorial: Resilience In The Face Of Environmental Disasters In The Age Of Covid-19, Sumana Chattopadhyay

College of Communication Faculty Research and Publications

No abstract provided.