Communication Technology and New Media Commons^™

Lindenwood Digest, April 20, 2018, Lindenwood University

Lindenwood Digest

The Lindenwood Digest has been an employee newsletter since 2009.

Dismantling The Question Of "How Much Screen Time Should My Kid Have?", Kayt E. Frisch

Faculty Work Comprehensive List

"It feels like there is so much at stake when it comes to our kids and media usage, especially since most of the related headlines are negative."

Posting about ­­­­­­­­parenting wisely regarding technology from In All Things - an online journal for critical reflection on faith, culture, art, and every ordinary-yet-graced square inch of God’s creation.

https://inallthings.org/dismantling-the-question-of-how-much-screen-time-should-my-kid-have/

Social Media: On Tech-Caves, Virtual Panopticism, And The Science Fiction-Like State In Which We Unwittingly Find Ourselves, Michael Major

Theses

Making use of three historic philosophical thought experiments, this paper blends psychological perspectives with philosophical reasoning to show how social media is corrupting our perception of reality, the result of which is ultimately detrimental to society as a whole. This is accomplished by first using Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” to analyze and discuss the ways in which social media is limiting humanity’s access to real knowledge. Next, Michel Foucault’s analysis of punishment in its social context, Discipline and Punish, is used to discuss the ways in which social media is adversely affecting our behavior. Finally, Robert Nozick’s “Experience …

Lindenwood Digest, April 17, 2018, Lindenwood University

Lindenwood Digest

The Lindenwood Digest has been an employee newsletter since 2009.

The Reification Of Hegemonic Masculinity Via Heteronormativity, Sexual Objectification, And Masculine Performances In Tau Kappa Epsilon Recruitment Videos, Viki Tomanov

Butler Journal of Undergraduate Research

Fraternity members constitute a large percentage of men who hold highly influential jobs in politics, large corporations, and the like. Since fraternities are limited to men-only, it is important to examine how masculinity is both rhetorically constructed and subsequently performed. Tau Kappa Epsilon (TKE), the fraternity with the largest amount of chapters nationwide, is the focus of my analysis. Its popularity among college campuses signifies that its recruitment is successful and that, regardless of initiation into the fraternity, many men (and women) view TKE as an example of masculinity. In my analysis, I examine TKE recruitment videos from various universities …

Lindenwood Digest, April 13, 2018, Lindenwood University

Lindenwood Digest

The Lindenwood Digest has been an employee newsletter since 2009.

Broadcasting The Search For Understanding: The Essay's Relationship With The Podcast, Miriam Bay Sweeney

Undergraduate Honors Theses

In this creative thesis project, I explore the relationship between the modern essay and the podcast. I do so by producing the first three episodes of my own essayistic podcast, called Peer-Refined Health. In this foundational exploration, I consider the value of the podcast as a new medium of communication for the essay. I begin this project report with a background on both the podcast and the essay as well as a discussion of my project development. The transcripts of three episodes of Peer-Refined Health follow. Finally, I analyze the relationship between the essay and the podcast and suggest additional …

Social Media Choices And Uses: Comparing Turkish And American Young-Adults' Social Media Activism, Barbara R. Burke, Ayşe Fulya Şen

Communication, Media, and Rhetoric Publications

Advocates of new media—especially social networks, blogs, and photo/content sharing sites—argue that these tools create transformative impacts on society. Recently, around the world younger activists in popular democracy movements, uprisings, and protests, feeling disengaged by traditional forms of political discourse, have debated their positions on new media, and have used digital media to communicate, organize, and coordinate protest activities. While some media scholars suggest this is an indication that young people are active in creating a public sphere constructed by social media, there is still little real-world evidence that the technological potentials are widely realized. To address this gap, this …

Lindenwood Digest, April 10, 2018, Lindenwood University

Lindenwood Digest

The Lindenwood Digest has been an employee newsletter since 2009.

Lindenwood Digest, April 6, 2018, Lindenwood University

Lindenwood Digest

The Lindenwood Digest has been an employee newsletter since 2009.

What’S Next In Communications? Panel Discussion, Wendy S. Perez, Jessica Green, Rachel Schaefer

Media Literacy: How the Era of Fake News Affects Public Service

Moderator: Staci M. Zavattaro, Ph.D

Panel Participants:

• Tom Hope, Assistant VP for Communications and Marketing, UCF
• Jamie Floer, Public Relations/Outreach Specialist, Orange County Utilities Dept
• Brian Schulte, Marketing Manager, Edyth Bush Institute for Philanthropy & Nonprofit Leadership

Abstract:

As society has evolved, so have preferred communications, people today prefer to send a text message versus making a call or talking in person. Everywhere we go technology has a great impact on today’s society. These technological advances have affected everything we do, including how we read, interpret, and disseminate information. More than ever, media literacy has become an important part of …

Lindenwood Digest, April 3, 2018, Lindenwood University

Lindenwood Digest

The Lindenwood Digest has been an employee newsletter since 2009.

Division I Female Student Athletes’ Self-Image Perceptions And The Association With Photo Centric Social Media Platforms, Logan Paul

Honors Projects in Applied Psychology

The purpose of this study is to describe self-image (body image) perceptions of female, Division I student athletes and discover how photo centric social media platforms and the frequency of their use may shape these perceptions. Body image is a complex phenomenon influenced by many factors including peers, parents, coaches, and social constructs. In the general population, data has shown that media messages play a powerful role in shaping perceived self-image and body satisfaction. Body image may not match the actual body and the athlete may strive more often to achieve a body ideal. It is hypothesized that female athletes …

Chasing Success: A Cultivated Reality, Anastasia Bevillard

Honors Projects in Communication

George Gerbner’s cultivation theory claims that people who consume heavy amounts of media are more likely to be influenced by those messages to believe the media reality as opposed to actual reality. Using cultivation theory as the basis for study, I performed a cultivation analysis examining the intersection of mass media and perceptions of success among college-aged young adults living in the United States. The analysis focused on three main points: (1) How mass media perceives and subsequently demonstrates success. (2) The impact of mass media on young adults living in America. (3) What reality of success is cultivated by …

Too Many Cooks: Redesigning The English Program Website, Joshua Horton, Alex Battitori, Tyler Breedlove, Morgan Ebbs, Courtney Schlund, Chanda Williams, Celia Patterson

Paper Presentations

The purpose of this project was to produce new content for the English Program webpages for Dr. Patterson’s course, ENGL 875 Seminar: Writing for the Web. Throughout all stages of this project, we consulted Janice Redish’s book Letting Go of the Words. The first stage of the project was to identify the webpages’ target audiences; this was achieved through the creation of personas that reflected the demographics of users. Through these personas, we developed a series of tasks for a preliminary usability test. Subsequently, we conducted the preliminary test on the existing English Program webpages using test subjects that reflected …

Butte’S Online Service Community, Charity Lovshin

Graduate Theses & Non-Theses

The problem that needs to be solved is that there is not one direct and/or instantaneously link/connection to service opportunities in Butte, Montana. The Coalition of Southwest Montana Continuum of Care is a group located in Butte that was formed the later part of 2017 to try and end homelessness in Butte. This online service community will be a catalyst in connecting the coalition, and other service groups, to the Butte community. Jesse James Garrett, in his book The Elements of User Experience, explains the process of how to build a successful online community. Tharon W. Howard, in his book …

Applying User Centered Design Principles To Deliver Surface Water Data To Diverse Audiences, Luke Buckley

Graduate Theses & Non-Theses

User-Centered Design (UCD) is an iterative process that allows designers and developers to create useful products. Using a combination of brainstorming, in-person interviews, usability testing, and design evaluation, the Montana Bureau of Mines and Geology (MBMG) is building a web portal to deliver Montana’s Surface Water Assessment and Monitoring Program (SWAMP) data in an efficient manner.

Data from the MBMG and the Department of Natural Resources and Conservation (DNRC) are currently being collected and stored. The MBMG has more than 100 surface-water monitoring sites in its Ground Water Information Center (GWIC) database. In addition, the DNRC has stream stage (ft), …

Fake News, Political Narrative, & Social Media: A Structuration Approach, Adam M. Housh

Capstone Collection

This research aims to unveil a connection between fake news distribution, readership demand, and social media networks, in this case, Facebook. In this research, fake news is defined as “content that is deliberately false and published on websites that mimic traditional news websites (Johnson and Kelling 2017, p3)”. It is argued that fake news content is not produced at random, but is tailored to particular political demographics and narratives. Exposure to such media not only validates ideological positions, it polarizes political beliefs. Furthermore, Facebook not only acts as an effective distribution medium, but allows individual users to skip structural filters …

Confidential Publics: Digital Reconciliation And Queer Muslim Identities, Mariam Mustafa

Masters Theses

In this paper, I trouble constructions of community through exploring temporal spatial configurations of support for queer-identified Muslims living in America. I assert that when community is not something one can physically access, use of the internet to create temporary spaces of community is critical in assessing identity reconciliation between intersectional conflicting identity. As it relates to queer Muslims, where there is a distinct lack of public community, the level of crisis some individuals face is explored through their use of online vehicles to establish social support systems that would otherwise not be available. My paper provides a framework in …

How Different Generations Perceive Political News, Elizabeth C. Hilfrank

Student Publications

The 2016 presidential election was one of the first elections to see new media play a large role. While also being the first presidential election many millennials could vote in, this research paper looks at how different generations used various news sources to receive political news in 2016. The paper is supported by a documentary video case-study of the author's close close family and friends' perception of political news in 2016.

Food Discourse: The Communicative Gateway Toward Understanding Formerly Colonized Representation In Parts Unknown, Mitch Combs

Theses and Dissertations

CNN’s television series, Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown, merges food and travel genres to communicate representations of local, indigenous, and other formerly colonized cultures. This thesis will present the significance of Parts Unknown through a review of literature that concerns postcolonial theory and food discourse to which critical insights emerge and explain how indigenous cultures are represented within Western “foodie” television. These insights will then guide a postcolonial investigation of the food rhetoric used to represent/discuss colonized and local groups within three episodes of Parts Unknown. Additionally, potential applications for rhetorical criticism are discussed by using Parts Unknown as an example …

Communicating Environmental Risks: Local Newspaper Coverage Of Shellfish Bacterial Contamination In Maine, Brianne Suldovsky, Eva Arbor, Victoria Skillin, Laura Lindenfeld

Communication Faculty Publications and Presentations

Coastal resources play a vital role in Maine’s cultural and economic wellbeing, contributing an estimated 168 billion dollars to the Maine economy. There are numerous risks to the sustainability of Maine’s shellfishing industry and working waterfront, including pathogenic bacterial pollution. In this study, we ask a broad fundamental question central to science and environmental journalism: how do newspapers cover localized environmental risks and what are the implications of those approaches? Utilizing the northeastern US state of Maine’s shellfishing industry as an exemplar environmental issue, this study examines how Maine’s two most read newspapers, the Bangor Daily News and the Portland …

History Of Journalism Education: An Analysis Of 100 Years Of Journalism Education, Hilary Akers Dunn

LSU Master's Theses

This quantitative content analysis uses course descriptions to find changes in journalism education at the University of Missouri, Louisiana State University, and the University of North Carolina over 100 years. This study found that there are two influencing factors that are inherent to the journalism profession: advances in technology and the maturity of the profession itself. These two influencing factors produced changes in technology used in curriculum, course focus (e.g. skill, theory, general knowledge, and history), and course topics (e.g. advertising, broadcasting, public relations, etc.) This study also found that leadership is the most influential factor of change in journalism …

Lindenwood Digest, March 27, 2018, Lindenwood University

Lindenwood Digest

The Lindenwood Digest has been an employee newsletter since 2009.

Lindenwood Digest, March 23, 2018, Lindenwood University

Lindenwood Digest

The Lindenwood Digest has been an employee newsletter since 2009.

The New Media, Globalization, And The Public Interest: A Conversation With Newton N. Minow (2003), Marcy Murninghan

New England Journal of Public Policy

This article provides a summary of a weekend-long convocation held in April 2002 that was sponsored by the Coudert Institute in West Palm Beach, Florida. The motto of the nonprofit group, which was founded by Dale Coudert in 2001, is, “Subjects That Matter, with People Who Make a Difference.” Each mid-winter through early-spring season, the nonpartisan and nonideological Coudert Institute organizes conversations and seminars on an eclectic array of topics featuring prominent academics, artists, musicians, and practitioners. The institute’s goal is to spark open and inclusive dialogue directed to critical reflection and enlightenment. This selection contains the fruits of a …

Lindenwood Digest, March 20, 2018, Lindenwood University

Lindenwood Digest

The Lindenwood Digest has been an employee newsletter since 2009.

Exploring Screen Time Habits And The Life Empowerment Divide At An Hbcu, Kim Smith, Tobin Walton, Alvin Keyes

Faculty Publications

College students at a historically black university used their social media accounts to recruit 1,232 of their peers to take an online survey that explored digital screen time and social media habits at this HBCU. The study revealed that 51% devoted daily screen time to academic empowerment, 31% devoted it to leisure, and 11% devoted it to life empowerment. Sixty-six percent said they spent too much screen time on leisure and not enough on life empowerment, i.e., using resources in the digital world to improve their lives. The paper explored the divide, its implications, and how to narrow it.

Adolescents’ Perceptions Of “Cheating” In Gaming And Educational Settings, Brandon Nease, Michelle Samura

Education Faculty Articles and Research

Background. Given the widespread popularity of video gameplay among adolescents, it is important to understand the relationship between video gameplay and adolescent behaviors in various contexts.

Aim. This exploratory study aimed to explore adolescent gamers use of player guides and cheat codes during video gameplay in order to understand how they reason about the relationship between cheating in video games and cheating in academic settings.

Method. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with adolescents in order to gain in-depth insight into participants’ perspectives on video gameplay and their perceptions of cheating in video games and academic settings. Interview data was coded and …

Lindenwood Digest, March 16, 2018, Lindenwood University

Lindenwood Digest

The Lindenwood Digest has been an employee newsletter since 2009.