Communication Commons^™

An Analysis Of The Programming Of Local And Foreign Content In Kenya’S Tv Programming, Christine Kasiva Muthee

Master of Arts in Digital Journalism

This study analysed the content programming on Kenyan TV and established the factors that inform TV managers' preference for foreign content and the attendant effects such preferences have on the local filming/production industry. This research was guided by three objectives, to investigate: What is in the programming menu of Kenyan TV stations. The factors that inform TV programming managers preference for foreign TV content and the ways that programming of foreign content influence the local filming/production industry. This study was anchored on two theories that is the cultural imperialism theory and the political economy of mass media theory. This research …

How The Print Media In Kenya Framed State Of The Nation Addresses On Covid-19 Pandemic By President Uhuru Kenyatta, Victor Odhiambo Edwin

Master of Arts in Digital Journalism

This study sought to find out how the print media in Kenya framed State of the Nation addresses on COVID-19 by President Uhuru Kenyatta. The objectives of this study were; (a) to ascertain the main messages or themes that were dominant in President Uhuru Kenyatta’s State of The Nation (SOTN) addresses on COVID-19, (b) to determine the frames the print media used in the coverage of the State of the Nation addresses by President Uhuru Kenyatta in regards to the containment measures, (c) to determine the sources that the print media incorporated in their coverage of the State of the …

News Media Presentation Of Basic Education Teachers During The Covid-19 Pandemic: A Content Analysis Of The Daily Monitor And The New Vision In Uganda, Andrew Arinaitwe

Master of Arts in Digital Journalism

The studies in Uganda on the coverage of basic education teachers in the press are very few and this research went a long way to bridge the gap and to paint a picture of the nature of the coverage of education issues during the COVID-19 pandemic. The objectives of this research were to examine how teacher coverage in the Daily Monitor and the New Vision related with the frames and themes, identify the teacher frames and examine the major themes published. The theoretical framework included the framing theory and the agenda setting theory. The researcher used mixed methods research approach. …

Rising From The Flames: How Researching Burnout Impacted Two Academic Librarians, Robert Griggs-Taylor, Jessica Lee

Georgia Library Quarterly

In 2021, four tenure-track academic librarians surveyed academic library workers who are parents to gauge how parenting affects symptoms of burnout. The COVID-19 pandemic caused an explosion of burnout related literature resulting in an oversaturation of the word in today’s society; however, the authors remain deeply impacted by their research. In this paper, two of those four librarians reflect on the effect that the survey on burnout had on their approaches to management, work, and personal life. Societal pressures to ‘return to normal’ has not alleviated burnout, instead these pressures caused these librarians to reframe their views around what library …

The History And Continuing Impacts Of Press Staff And Media Relations In Congress, Madelyn Cutrone

Honors Capstones

No abstract provided.

Protests And Calls For Boycotting The Qatar World Cup 2022 Spark Online Discussion And Action Away From The Soccer Pitch, Yi Luo, Jin-A Choi, Stephen P. Andon, Bond Benton, Keith Green, Keith Strudler

College of Communication and Media Scholarship and Creative Works

Global sporting events regularly spark conversations on issues beyond the playing field, including those at the nexus of sport and geopolitics. This year’s World Cup is no exception, a conversation that began soon after the event was awarded by FIFA to Qatar, a Middle Eastern nation with a population of just over 3 million residents – exponentially smaller than typical hosts of such events – and with a record of exploitative labor systems and a highly questionable human rights record. While this conversation has led to protests and investigative reports on a range of news networks, it has also become …

An Analysis Of Players, Teams And Trends As The World Cup Approaches, Jin-A Choi, Yi Luo, Stephen P. Andon, Bond Benton, Keith Green, Keith Strudler

College of Communication and Media Scholarship and Creative Works

While the World Cup is historically a source of national pride for competing nations, the globalization of the sport of soccer and the expansion of coverage of top soccer leagues from around the world also creates the opportunity for sports fans to build a strong sense of fandom for athletes from around the globe. Therefore, while we would expect fans to cheer for their “home” nation and athletes in the upcoming World Cup, we also recognize that fans may have cheering alliances that reside outside national borders. Using the United States as example, its fans have increasingly chosen favorite teams …

A Preview Of Post Amnesty Twitter: Analysis Of “Groomer” On Twitter After The Colorado Springs Shooting, Bond Benton, Yi Luo, Jin-A Choi, Keith Strudler, Keith Green

College of Communication and Media Scholarship and Creative Works

On November 24, 2022 Elon Musk stated that “general amnesty” would be given to Twitter accounts previously suspended for violent threats, harassment and misinformation. This appears to reflect Musk’s previously stated intent to run the platform as a “free speech absolutist.” The question in many people’s minds is what such an incarnation of Twitter will look like. The tragic shooting at an LGBTQIA+ nightclub in Colorado Springs, Colorado on Nov. 19-20 and the reaction the event generated on the platform provide a case that demonstrates the tensions that will come with reduced platform moderation. “Groomer,” a previously Twitter restricted slur …

The "Roaring Flame": Pursuing Thymos In Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart, Samrand Avestan, Owen G. Mordaunt

International Dialogue

Drawing principally from Francis Fukuyama’s (1952–) conception of thymos, this article focuses on exploring Okonkwo’s desire and his rigid personality in Chinua Achebe’s (1930–2013) magnum opus titled Things Fall Apart (1958). This paper hopes to prove how Achebe’s most famous character, Okonkwo, attempts to gratify his thymos which is described as a ‘desire for recognition’. Consistent with Fukuyama’s notion, this research examines how Okonkwo struggles to gain his thymos in confrontation with Ibo people and how his thymos-driven emotions incite him to reject the white colonists’ dominance in the fictional clan of Umuofia in Iboland. Therefore, we argue why Okonkwo’s …

Notes From The Editor: Volume 12, Rory J. Conces Prof.

International Dialogue

No abstract provided.

Divided Memories About Building Peace In Chechnya (1995-2004), Cécile Druey

International Dialogue

The conflicts in and around Chechnya are intractable, with a perceived impossibility to find a negotiated solution. This paper focuses on the hostage crises of Budennovsk (1995) and Beslan (2004) which are episodes from the two Chechnya Wars and had an important impact on their further course. Based on the memories of key actors representing specific sides of the conflict, the paper identifies and contextualizes diverging approaches to negotiations and conflict settlement. Conceptual support for this analysis of open-source materials is provided by the theoretical literature on “ripeness” and “readiness” as conditions for the initiation and successful conduction of negotiations. …

Table Of Contents, Rory J. Conces Prof.

International Dialogue

No abstract provided.

Disorder In Heaven And On Earth: Heaven In Disorder Slavoj Žižek. Or Books, New York And London, 2021. Pp. 240., Edward Sankowski, Betty J. Harris

International Dialogue

This essay examines three main aspects of Slavoj Žižek’s book. Beyond interpretation, we also aim for a constructive account of what novel insights might emerge from critically examining Žižek’s efforts in this book. (1) One aspect of his text is his continuing insistence on the goal of a newly re-conceived Communism, so named, e.g., in remarks about ecological threats (65) and in the concluding section, “Why I Am Still A Communist” (212; 218). Žižek’s goal is Communism, but supposedly not the authoritarian variety of communism that emerged in the twentieth century (213). In Žižek’s view, Communism must be invented to …

Levinas, Adorno, And The Ethics Of The Material Other By Eric Nelson, Suny Press, 2020 Pp. 480, Emilia Angelova, Curtis Hutt, Leah Klmanson, Eric Nelson

International Dialogue

This is a number of reviews and responses to Eric S. Nelson's Levinas, Adorno, and the Ethics of Materials Other (2020) SUNY Press. This includes:

The Relation of the Ethics of the Material Other to the Rights of the Stranger by Emilia Angelova

Nelson's Defense of Asymmetrical Ethics: On Religion and Human Rights by Curtis Hutt

On Nelson and East Asian Philosophies by Leah Kalmanson

Author Response: The Ethics of the Material Other and the Right of the Other by Eric S. Nelson

Becoming Human: A Theory Of Ontogeny Michael Tomasello. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2019 Pp. 392., Benjamin Gregg

International Dialogue

No philosophical question is older than What are we, we humans? Michael Tomasello contributes a splendid, empirically based answer to this hoary debate in Becoming Human, with a programmatic subtitle, A Theory of Ontogeny. We humans are an evolved organism with a capacity to create culture only by means of which we can realize aspects of our biological selves—and just as our biology can realize aspects of our cultural selves. That is, our biology evolved in ways that released in us capacities for “culture” that, in turn, released in us biologically relevant capacities, with “enormous and cascading phenotypic effects”—but effects …

Working With English Grammar: An Introduction Louis Cummings New York: Cambridge University Press, 2018, 372 Pp., Owen G. Mordaunt

International Dialogue

The purpose of this book is to give an introduction of the grammar of the English language to students with little or no knowledge or no prior knowledge of English grammar. It could be part of a linguistics program and could include students working toward a TEFL/TESOL degree or even those students working towards certificates in these areas. It could also be suitable for students in Advanced Placement in the U.S. and Advanced Levels elsewhere. In addition, this text could be useful to those who need to increase their knowledge of English grammar, be they professionals, writers, editors, teachers, speech …

Structures Of Loyalty: A Comparative Study Of Jewish And Palestinian Evangelicals' Acquiescence To Fundamentalist And Authoritarian Values, Anders P. Lundberg, Kristian Steiner

International Dialogue

This is a qualitative comparative study of two evangelical movements in Israel and in the West Bank: the Israeli Messianic (IM) movement and the Palestinian Evangelical (PE) movement. Through interviews on how informants understand the Middle Eastern conflict, our aim is (1) to compare the prevalence of fundamentalist/authoritarian (F/A) values in the IM and PE movements and (2) to understand how a particular socio-political context —Israel and the West Bank—might affect the acquiescence to a F/A mindset amongst the two movements. To accomplish this, we created a F/A construct that measures five values: literalism, social withdrawal, authoritarian aggression, authoritarian submission, …

How An Abusive Supervision Climate Impacts Business-To-Business (B2b) Sales Performance, And The Roles Of Leader–Members Interdependence And Team Psychological Safety, Matthew J. Daniel

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Sales supervisors can tremendously influence the sales teams they manage, and their behaviors can influence a team’s engagement and sales performance. Because of the supervisor’s influential role, their behavior, positive or negative, can ripple throughout the organization. As a result, a supervisor who role models abusive behavior within their organization also promotes a climate of abuse and incivility that can contribute to a toxic workplace. Abusive supervision (AS) is a significant problem in many business-to-business (B2B) sales organizations that negatively impacts the financial welfare and subjective well-being of organizations and their employees. This quantitative correlational study aimed to examine how …

Social Media & Agenda Melding: Understanding Trump’S Proposed Border Wall, Anthony Spencer, Stephen Croucher

Open Access Publishing Support Funded Articles

This study explores how belief in social media outlets is an important aspect of agenda melding in an online environment. In this study, the researchers employ agenda melding as a theoretical lens to explore how belief in social media outlet can predict support for the proposed Border Wall. The researchers surveyed 232 people to find out how belief in media outlet contributes to building an online media agenda in the context of immigration. Social media networks continue to grow in influence when it comes to understanding important political issues and the way they manifest themselves in mainstream United States immigration …

A Word From The Writing Team (November 2022), Pam Walter, Mfa, Liz Declan, Ma, Mfa

A Word From the Writing Team (Newsletter)

This issue includes:

• Upcoming Workshop
• Upcoming Writing Retreat
• Reception - You're Invited!
• Consultations
• Write Your Story Series Update

Hate Speech Spikes On Twitter After Elon Musk Acquires The Platform, Bond Benton, Jin-A Choi, Yi Luo, Keith Green

College of Communication and Media Scholarship and Creative Works

Unmoderated social media platforms frequently become a haven for misinformation, extremism, and hate. There are challenges unique to unmoderated social media platforms that make the removal of such content and the users who spread it particularly difficult (Artime et al., 2020). When a platform’s focus is unrestricted expression from users, those looking to share and spread antisocial content will presumably use such spaces to share perspectives that would likely be restricted on other platforms. Historically, examples of such “free speech absolutist” spaces suggest that this threat is very real. Specifically, 4chan serves as a space where online anonymity coupled with …

Politically Speaking: Ethnic Language And Audience Opinion In Southeast Asia, Jacob I. Ricks

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Language is one of the quintessential markers of ethnicity. It allows co-ethnics to easily identify one another and underscores in-group and out-group boundaries. Recognizing this, politicians frequently employ ethnic tongues to enhance their political appeal. To what extent does this shape the opinions of their audiences? Utilizing a survey experiment, I test the impact of an ethnic tongue against that of the common political language among the Javanese in Indonesia, the Tagalog in the Philippines, and the Isan people in Thailand. The experiment demonstrates that the ethnic language has a significant impact in both Thailand and Indonesia, but there appears …

From The First Encounter: A Communication Program For High Volume, High Acuity Patient Care Locations, Shazam Bacchus

Student Scholarly Projects

Effective communication is a true value to healthcare organizations. Far too many communication sessions are detrimental to patient health outcomes. National data and hospital records are proven information to suggest communication is a major barrier to overall patient satisfaction. Organizations struggle to increase market share and patient satisfaction with a likelihood to recommend because of poor communication by physician and nurses. The use of a strategic communication tool like AIDET plus the Promise can influence the improvement of an organization’s quality of care.

This paper examines the use of AIDET plus the Promise as a strategic communication tool. High volume, …

The Prospector, November 1, 2022, Utep Student Publications

The Prospector

Headline: The Basketball Issue

Localizing Content: The Roles Of Technical & Professional Communicators And Machine Learning In Personalized Chatbot Responses, Daniel L. Hocutt, Nupoor Ranade, Gustav Verhulsdonck

School of Professional and Continuing Studies Faculty Publications

This study demonstrates that microcontent, a snippet of personalized content that responds to users’ needs, is a form of localization reliant on a content ecology. In contributing to users’ localized experiences, technical communicators should recognize their work as part of an assemblage in which users, content, and metrics augment each other to produce personalized content that can be consumed by and delivered through artificial intelligence (AI)-assisted technology.

A Mixed Methods Approach To Improving Provider Counseling Of Patients Who Vape, Leah M. Ranney, Sarah D. Kowitt, Kathleen Mottus, Susan Mcdowell, Amber N. Beane, Sheri Denslow, Kit Sturm, Noah Rice, Michelle Hernandez, Ilona Jaspers, Elise Hickman, Jacqueline R. Halladay

HCA Healthcare Journal of Medicine

Significance

Vaping is an epidemic among young people, but there is little guidance on how medical providers should counsel young adults about vaping. To address this gap, we examined how electronic health record (EHR) systems prompt providers to collect vaping data and interviewed young adults about vaping communications with providers and preferred information sources.

Methods

In this mixed methods study, we used survey research methods to explore if prompts exist in EHR systems to guide discussions about vaping with youth seen in primary care. We collected primary care practice information about EHR prompts regarding e-cigarette use from 10 rural North …

Book Censorship In Post-Tiananmen China (1989-2019), Yuwu Song

Journal of East Asian Libraries

Abstract: Censorship has become more prevalent in Chinese cultural and social life since the 1989 Tiananmen Square Massacre. Modern commentary on Chinese censorship focuses on news media and Internet, but neglects print books, which is part of a broader crackdown on dissent. To fill this gap, the project aims to map the contours of book censorship in China during the past 30 years. The emphasis is on the Chinese authorities’ increasing attempts to dominate people’s minds under Xi Jinping, who ascended to power as the leader of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in 2012. The project reveals different levels of …

Chimes: October 31, 2022, Calvin University

Chimes

Preparing to vote: A guide to your Michigan midterm ballot by Grace Buller

U.S. Court of Appeals ruling a boon for international students and U.S. universities by David Ogboro

Calvin Swim and Dive teams looking "as good as they've ever been" as season begins by Lauren Nyong

Student loan forgiveness applications are now open for students by Emily Thomas

Grandville Calvin Christian 2nd graders become Calvin engineering students for a day by Adelaide Mai & David Ogboro

A Calvin tradition graveyard by Ezra Craker

Emerging from the lavender haze: Ranking Taylor Swift's "Midnights" by Katie Rosendale

The Current - Volume 33 Issue 2, Nova Southeastern University

Student Newspapers

No abstract provided.

Social Media And Contentious Action: The Use And Users Of Qq Groups In China, Zixue Tai

Journalism and Media Faculty Publications

This article presents an analysis of a netnographic study of QQ groups engaged in contentious activities in China. Informed primarily by semi‐structured in‐depth interviews of 34 participants and field observations through years of grounded research, the findings shed light on the communicative dynamics and mobilization strategies of QQ groups in nurturing contentious action and motivating mass participation in social protest. In‐group communication stays highly focused on the respective mission of the groups, and it cultivates a sense of shared awareness conducive to collective action. There is also a noticeable contagion effect that transfers the spirit of contestation in terms of …