Communication Technology and New Media Commons^™

Microblogging As A Facilitator Of Online Community In Graduate Education, Vincent Anthony Rhodes

English Theses & Dissertations

Part-time and distance-learning students can experience a sense of isolation from their peers and the university. Concern about this isolation and resulting student attrition has increased in the midst of explosive growth in online course enrollments. One possible solution: building a stronger sense of community within the online graduate classroom using microblogging technology such as Twitter. Unfortunately, scholars across disciplines define community in different ways with some rejecting the concept altogether in favor of other theoretical constructs. And, few scholars have examined the notion of online classroom community from an English Studies perspective exploring the rhetorical exigencies that underpin this …

"Warning: This Is A Must Read": Participation And Disruption In Social Artifacts And Spaces, Angela M. Harrison Eng

English Theses & Dissertations

As I show in three separate case studies, content, technology, and participant relationships are key components in the design of social artifacts and spaces. One study highlights the invention and evolution of content across multiple spaces. The second shows content used as leverage for authority. The last case study examines the relationship between content and technological interfaces and how disruption may not always be successful.

All of these components make up what I refer to as disruption. Disruption describes participant acts that are executed to change existing power-based structures of information sharing. Using the insights gained from this research, I …

Refusing A Spoiled Identity: How The Swinger Community Represents On The Web, Barbara Kreston

English Theses & Dissertations

This dissertation examines whether and how Websites provide a way for the unique community of swingers, also called Lifestylers, to represent a new (and revise an old) deviant identity without risk to their social and employment standing. Unlike many marginalized social groups who publically rally, swingers have had to take advantage of virtual space to safely appeal to their audiences. The time period studied includes the history of the swingers "spoiled" identity via academy articles, newspaper headlines, and moral turpitude clauses from the 1950s to the current use of the Web to showcase swingers and their clubs. The study used …

Designing Playful Games And Applications To Support Science Centers Learning Activities, Michail N. Giannakos, David Jones, Helen Crompton, Nikos Chrisochoides

Teaching & Learning Faculty Publications

In recent years there has been a renewed interest on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education. Following this interest, science centers' staff started providing technology enhanced informal STEM education experiences. The use of well-designed mobile and ubiquitous forms of technology to enrich informal STEM education activities is an essential success factor. The goal of our research is to investigate how technology applications can be better used and developed for taking full advantage of the opportunities and challenges they provide for students learning about STEM concepts. In our approach, we have conducted a series of interviews with experts from science …

An Exploratory Study Of Generational Differences In Health Information Seeking And Smoking Behaviors In Bulgaria, Iva Stoyneva

Communication & Theatre Arts Theses

Smoking is a serious global public health threat that causes more than 6 million deaths annually (WHO, 2013). Smoking is also the single, most preventable cause of death (CDC, 2014). According to a recent study, Bulgaria was ranked as one of onlyl 1 countries in the world, in which half of the adult male population smokes, as well as one of 11 countries in which more than one-quarter of the adult female population smokes. Research suggests that the most significant predictors of smoking behavior in Bulgaria were age and geographic location (Balabanova, Bobak & McKee, 1998). Contributing to these finings, …

New Media And The Nfl Fan: Determining The Impact Of New Media On Team Identification In Displaced Nfl Fans, Dorothy R. Collins

Human Movement Studies & Special Education Theses & Dissertations

Sports team identification, when viewed through the lens of social identity theory (Tajfel, 1978), can be seen as a powerful means of maintaining one's sense of self and feelings of belonging as part of a group. In some cases, team identification has been found to be based on one's feelings of connection with the geographic location of that team (Uhlman & Trail, 2012). Furthermore, prior research has shown that bonds of team identification forged in one's youth are particularly strong (James, 2001). The surge of new media options that have appeared in the last decade are changing the way in …

Digital Identity Formation: How Social Networking Sites Affect Real World Authenticity, Matthew Joseph Montoya

Institute for the Humanities Theses

The purpose of this paper is to explore the application of Heidegger's authenticity to online identity formation. This paper will attempt to determine if there is any way in which an authentic identity can be created, either online or offline, by using social networking sites. It will examine the positive and negative consequences of social networking sites to determine if these sites can help to contribute to our overall being, or determine if these sites serve only as a dangerous distraction to an authentic personal identity.

To do this, this paper will analyze Heidegger's philosophy to see if it is …

Facebook And Dramauthentic Identity: A Post-Goffmanian Model Of Identity Performance On Sns, Dylan E. Wittkower

Philosophy Faculty Publications

Early and persistent scholarly concerns with online identity emphasized the ways that computer–mediated communications have allowed new, inventive, and creative presentations of self, and the lack of connection between online identity and the facts of off–line life. After the ascendency and following ubiquity of Facebook, we find our online lives transformed. We have not only seen online identity reconnected to off–line life, but we have seen, through the particular structures of social networking sites, our online lives subjected to newfound pressures to unify self–presentations from various constitutive communities; pressures different from and in some ways greater than those of off–line …

Digital Disruptions: An Interview With D. E. Wittkower, D. E. Wittkower, The Editors Of Interstitial Journal

Philosophy Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Lifespan Communication, Social Media Policy, And Societal Institutions: A Content Analysis, Jessica Larae Bedenbaugh

Communication & Theatre Arts Theses

This thesis is a qualitative study of the major societal institutions' social media policies. Three features are compared-length, readability, and legal orientation and punitive degree-in order to determine the homogeneity of the policies across the institutional categories. The top ten words featured in the policies, from highest weighted percentage to lowest, are the following: social, use, media, post, sites, content, personal, policy, communication, and web. The shortest policy length was 274 words. The longest policy was 36,036 words and the collective average word count was 2,571. The lowest reading level, based on the Gunning Fog Readability Index was 8.21, the …

Depression, Social Anxiety, And Attachment As Predictors Of The Use And Quality Of Cyber Communication, Stefan E. Latulip

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

This study examined the influence of depression symptoms, social anxiety symptoms, and adult attachment style on the use and the perceptions of the quality of cyber communications with close friends, romantic partners, and family members. One hundred thirty-five individuals completed an initial survey, with sixty five of the original group completing a follow-up survey five weeks later. Results indicated that anxious attachment was associated with a greater reported usage of social networking sites, whereas avoidant attachment predicted less instant message use over time. Depression symptoms and avoidant attachment were generally associated with perceptions of higher negativity and lower positivity with …

Plight Of The Gameur : Inhibitors To Empathic Connection With Representation Of Suffering In Outreach Games, Kristopher John Purzycki

English Theses & Dissertations

The field of serious game studies, while growing, is still working through the variables that create the conditions for a discernible effect towards real-world player behavior. One branch of serious games I refer to as outreach games aim at informing and prompting the player to take further real-world action. However, a significant impediment to this appeal is the relationship between the player and the game. Referring to the role of the flaneur in post-colonial literature, I describe how the relationship between whom I refer to as the gameur and the outreach game is similar to the urban wanderer, eavesdropping on …

The Residual Resistance Of The Individual Within The Rhizomatic Hegemony Of The Internet, Emma Katherine Wolfe

English Theses & Dissertations

Networked cyborgs that exist within the non-hierarchical rhizomatic network of the Internet risk losing the concept of their individuality as our identity becomes less important than the group. However, if the rhizomatic network is thought of as a hegemony that exists on the Internet, we can resist this through the residual notion of individual identity. Since cyborgs must perform in order to exist on the rhizomatic network, they can become aware of and perform their individuality through awareness of the computer medium. There are three methods for networked cyborgs to assert their individuality discussed in this thesis.

The first is …

“I Know It When I See It”: Style, Simulation And The ‘Short-Circuit Sign’, Marc A. Ouellette

English Faculty Publications

The contemporary production of “style” relies heavily on the implementation of the “short-circuit sign” and the relationship of both to the emptiness of fourth-order simulation and to the remediation of successive visual forms. In distinguishing the “short-circuit sign,” film scholar James Monaco highlights the important role of cultural codes in the naturalization and the reification of on-screen images so that signifier and signified become identical, or are perceived as such. It is the cultural codes, then, that distinguish this mode from the establishment of a sign’s iconicity, insofar as the “short-circuit sign” belongs, as it were, to the genre and …

Empathic Communication: Lifespan Influences And Transgressional Associations In Military Romantic Relationships, Samantha Faith Levan

Communication & Theatre Arts Theses

The purpose of this study was to examine the influences and transgressional associations of empathic communication in military romantic relationships. Through varying attachment styles, deployments, and combat experience, soldiers have a unique set of circumstances that impact the use of empathic communication in relationships. Since the effectiveness of empathic communication is also limited by unreliable communicative technologies, infidelity effects were also tested. A 66-item online survey was placed on Survey Monkey with links from social media networking websites, like Facebook and Twitter. Surveys were anonymous and only taken by soldiers who had experienced at least one deployment. The goodness of …

Crosswords At A Crossroad: The Puzzle Turns 100. What Is The Clue To Its Survival?, Lynn J. Feigenbaum

Institute for the Humanities Theses

Celebrating the 100th anniversary of the crossword on Dec. 21, 2013 will be a dedicated, demanding and outspoken following – an online community that may be the key to its future as a popular American pastime. The crossword puzzle has always had a tight-knit core of fans, even in its earliest years. But, for the most part, doing a crossword was a solitary pursuit. That has changed with the advent of a burgeoning fan community on the internet, a virtual community of crossword enthusiasts. It is not far-fetched to regard the saga of the crossword as a microcosm of modern …

The User Experience Of Participation: Tracing The Intersection Of Sociotechnical Design And Cultural Practice In Digital Ecosystems, David L. Jones

English Theses & Dissertations

In this dissertation, I combine methods from Technical Communication, Cultural and Media Studies, and User Experience Design to trace the social and creative practices of social web participants. Using actor network theory, I explore the concept of participation as social and creative practice that demands coordinative knowledge work enacted within a cultural space. Leveraging the insight gained from this research, I develop the user experience of participation as a research and design methodology that privileges the movement of people and information in order to structure and re-structure social connections.

I explore this methodology through three intersections between people and technology. …

The Influence Of Social Networking Technology In An Engineering Organization, Derrick Marcus Tepaske

EMSE Doctoral Projects

Computer facilitated Social Networking (SN) is becoming more prevalent in our society, both in our personal and professional lives. As its use grows, there is a desire to determine how it will impact an organization. If it can positively impact an organization then it is an initiative that could be embraced and leveraged for any number of business related activities from marketing to engineering. This project develops and implements a social networking treatment for an engineering organization in order to determine how it impacts the responsiveness and performance of the organization. The treatment includes an online tool, a training package, …

A Phenomenology Of Sns Sharing, Dylan E. Wittkower

Philosophy Faculty Publications

In this contribution to a phenomenology of social network sites (SNS), we see how the share button brings about an alteration in our being-with others. On the side of the sharer, we see an experience of the world in a mode of possible retroactive sociality, creating an enigma in the constitution and attention of the subject of a given experience. On the side of the receiver, we see how being shared with creates sometimes unwelcome retrospective ideation of the sharer’s experience, and requires a choice whether, by liking or commenting, to bring the sharer into retroactive awareness of having been …

There Is No Word For Work In The Dragon Tongue, Kevin Moberly, Brent Moberly

English Faculty Publications

The past decade or so has witnessed a relatively steady stream of scholarly interest in the mundane medieval—in labor, local economies, and their influence upon wider cultural production.¹ Despite this interest (and perhaps as a reaction to it), popular medievalism has continued to emphasize versions of the medieval that are decidedly more heroic—productions that are simultaneously (and paradoxically) more “realistic” and more “fantastic.” Labor plays, at best, a supporting role in these fantasies: while not absent, it rarely, if ever, has the same productive presence as it does in recent scholarly treatments of medieval economies. Inasmuch as popular medievalism …

Managing Diversity In Virtual Teams Through Perspective Taking, Nina C. Magpili, Pilar Pazos

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Faculty Publications

The emergence of information and communication technologies has provided firms with global access to individual talent often resulting in virtual work teams with diverse sets of skills and perspectives. Diversity in the virtual workplace has been linked to richer and more innovative work solutions. However, diversity in surface attributes (ethnicity, gender, etc.) and deep-level attributes (values, attitudes, etc.) may also lead to conflict and misunderstandings which affect the level of trust and team outcome. A virtual environment further complicates diversity interactions because of reduced levels of awareness, isolation, and uninhibited behaviors. Perspective taking has the potential to help teams deal …

Digital Poetry From A Cyborg Perspective, Daniel James Hosmer

Institute for the Humanities Theses

This study analyzes digital poetry from a cyborg perspective, showing how its multiple material aspects are foregrounded to facilitate the reader's performance of poems. It explores the poetic functions, possibilities, and constraints of the medium of digital poetry through the application of Augusto Boal's Theatre of the Oppressed, comparisons with print methods of conveying meaning, and close readings of digital poems. The application of Theatre of the Oppressed as a framework also allows for the study of the power relationships involved in performing digital poetry and in using digital technology as a whole, while showing digital poetry to be …

The Effects Of Digital Technology On Basic Writing, Leslie Denise Norris

English Theses & Dissertations

At this study's research site—a small, Virginia community college—faculty, staff and students use digital technology to share information daily, which could cause a problem for some students: students may need digital literacy instruction before the college requires those courses. Another potential problem is that scholars (Stephens, Houser, and Cowan) indicate that some instructors across the academy treat students negatively if students do not demonstrate digital, rhetorical dexterity when communicating—particular digital skills that some students lack.

For this study, I surveyed basic writing (BW) instructors and students at the research site to learn more about their digital experiences. The surveys yielded …

The Vital Non-Action Of Occupation, Offline And Online, Dylan E. Wittkower

Philosophy Faculty Publications

Using an Arendtian framework, I argue that we can understand distinctive and effective elements of the #OWS movements as forms of non-action related to prior strategies of non-violence, the propaganda of the deed, and coalitions of affinity rather than identity. This understanding allows us to see that, while the use of social media in the movement does not provide the same affordances for building and maintaining power as physical occupation, and while online community clearly cannot substitute for physical community in many relevant and consequential ways, Facebook does nonetheless provide a platform well suited to maintaining power through these distinctive …

On The Origins Of The Cute As A Dominant Aesthetic Category In Digital Culture, Dylan E. Wittkower

Philosophy Faculty Publications

In discussions of online culture, nobody has yet given sufficient consideration to the importance of cute animal pictures. While there are perhaps obvious reasons for this aspect of online culture being and remaining understudied, from an objective stance we should consider it both surprising and noteworthy that, once given the means of mass communications and internationally accessible publication, a primary activity that people are interested in and committed to is the sharing of cute and funny pictures, especially of cats. This presumably unforeseeable outcome is made stranger yet by the relative lack of commercial motivation for a communications category that …

How Web 2.0 Is Changing The Way Students Learn: The Darwikinism And Folksonomy Revolution, Helen Crompton

Teaching & Learning Faculty Publications

In the 21st century, some argue that we have a new breed of students (Oblinger & Oblinger, 2005; Prensky, 2001). Technologies such as Web 2.0 have been held responsible for these changes as students are now becoming active, critical consumers of information (Klamma, Cao, & Spaniol, 2007). Two components of this Web 2.0 revolution are the ideas behind Darwikinism and folksonomy. Darwikinism is a portmanteau of Darwinism and Wikis, which describes how a system similar to Darwin’s theory of evolution is ordering and processing wiki information. Folksonomy, again a portmanteau of folk and taxonomy, refers to the way in which …

Implementation Of A One-To-One Ipod Touch Program In A Middle School, Helen Crompton, Julie Keane

Teaching & Learning Faculty Publications

The purpose of this study is to investigate the implementation of a whole school one-to-one iPod Touch project in a middle school in the southeastern United States. While some focused studies have been undertaken in this new field of learning, there has been little research to date that documents activity within a whole school implementation (Chen, Kao, & Sheu, 2003; Conti-Ramsden, Durkin, & Simkin, 2010). Using Rogers' (1963, 2003) theory of diffusion of innovation as a lens for this research, we gathered data from observations, focus groups, and interviews. Our findings indicated that teachers focused on internet-based research activities, formative …

The Impact Of Online Collaboration Spaces On Virtual Team Outcomes, Anil Ustun, Pilar Pazos

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Faculty Publications

With the emergence of information technology, organizational teams often work virtually, relying on different technologies to successfully complete tasks. This paper investigates the influence of online collaboration spaces on team performance and team affective outcomes such as satisfaction with the process. An experiment will be conducted in which teams of 3 participants will work together on a survival decision-making activity (Lost at Sea). Teams will be collaborating in a web-conferencing (Adobe Connecta™) space and a 3D (three-dimensional) virtual space (Second Life). Based on Social Presence Theory, we expect that the avatar-based 3D environment will provide a richer environment for social …

Internet Usage And Religious Authority: A Case Study Of The Catholic Church Of South Korea, Youngho Park

Institute for the Humanities Theses

This study examines what impact the Internet usage by church members has on religious authority, focusing on a case study of the Korean Catholic Church. The goals of this study are to investigate the ways in which church members use the Internet for communication in the Church, to examine whether and how the Internet usage by church members affects religious authority, and to identify what kind of religious authority is affected. This study encompasses two main parts: historical background of the Church's Internet usage and analysis of the online forums about "The Four Major Rivers Project". The latter is divided …

Namaste: Pedagogical Methods For Designing Yoga & Art Experiences For/With Teen Participants, Tiffani Olivia Bryant

English Theses & Dissertations

Within this study, teens are asked to analyze yoga studio homepages in relation to their experiences with the practice of yoga. This dissertation research engages the teen girls as participants responsible for co-designing the learning constructs through which they make meaning out of their experiences. This research is rooted in informational design, experiential design, and design practices for a teen demographic through the artifact of yoga.

Participant observation is used to examine how eight teen girls understand yoga as a practice, internalize their experiences with yoga, and thusly communicate what they have learned about yoga and a sampling of digital …