Other Communication Commons^™

Critical Media Literacy And Black Female Identity Construction: A Conceptual Framework For Empowerment, Equity, And Social Justice In Education, Petra A. Robinson, Ayana Allen-Handy, Kala Burrell-Craft

Journal of Media Literacy Education

This paper addresses the issues of knowledge production, which interrogate and disrupt dominant narratives that subjugate Black females related to their identity. We contextualize our discussion through the lens of critical consciousness and critical media literacy by exploring the role of popular media in identity development/imposition for Black females. We outline issues of Black female identity politics by framing them through the description of critical media literacy as a 21st century literacy, with Black Feminist Theory as our theoretical lens. Similar discussions have remained centered in the field of Media Studies and there has been inadequate attention to these issues …

Effectiveness Of Protection Motivation Theory Based: Password Hygiene Training Programme For Youth Media Literacy Education, Hee Jhee Jiow, Florence Mwagwabi, Anita Low-Lim

Journal of Media Literacy Education

This study adopts an experimental design to investigate the effectiveness of a password hygiene training programme. The password hygiene training programme adopted the Protection Motivation Theory’s framework in its development, and was delivered online to 84 students aged 13 to 16. Strength of password measures, such as time taken, and number of tries required, to crack the password, were administered pre and post intervention. The findings revealed that the password hygiene training programme was effective in changing actual password setting behaviour. This study also provided hints on which perceptual changes, based on the theory’s framework, was most influential in the …

News Media Literacy Challenges And Opportunities For Australian School Students And Teachers In The Age Of Platforms, Jocelyn Nettlefold, Kathleen Williams

Journal of Media Literacy Education

News media literacy competencies and motivation in teachers are critical to media education initiatives. This article draws on a survey of 97 primary and secondary school teachers conducted as part of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and University of Tasmania’s national Media Literacy Project in 2018. The data reveals challenges in the implementation of media literacy in classrooms, highlighting a generational divide linked to Australians’ rising consumption of news from digital sources and social media platforms. While teachers overwhelmingly say critical thinking about media is very important for students, nearly a quarter of these teachers are not engaging with news stories …

Child Participation In The Design Of Media And Information Literacy Interventions: A Scoping Review And Thematic Analysis, Linus Andersson, Martin Danielsson

Journal of Media Literacy Education

The article presents findings from a review of scientific articles about media and information literacy interventions targeted at children and adolescents. More specifically, the review centers on the quantity and quality of child participation in the design of such interventions. The findings indicate that designs with high levels of child participation constitute a minority in the sample. Most of them aim at “behavior-relevant” outcomes, e.g., reduce smoking or obesity. Interventions aimed at “media-relevant” outcomes, e.g., helping children to become competent media users, seem less widespread. Based on these findings, we argue that top-down initiatives to the promotion of media and …

La Teoría Del “Generolecto” Observada En La Llamada De Lauren De Paloma Pedrero Y Entre Villa Y Una Mujer Desnuda De Sabina Berman, Thomas Tsai

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

Created and popularized by Deborah Tannen, the Genderlect Theory explains how through social contexts, men and women have different ways of communicating. According to Tannen, men focus more on status, while women focus more on forming connections. On the other hand, there is also machismo, the behavior and attitude men partake to show that they are “manly” or “superior” to women and others they deem as inferior. Through the literary theatrical works, "La llamada de Lauren" by Paloma Pedrero and "Entre Villa y una mujer" desnuda by Sabina Berman, we can see similarities and differences in the Genderlect Theory and …

The Rhetorical Mediator: Understanding Agency In Indigenous Translation And Interpretation Through Indigenous Approaches To Ux, Nora Karina Rivera

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

In 2018, I became involved in a collaborative community-based project to co-organize an event with the purpose of collecting resources to help in the professionalization efforts of Indigenous translators and interpreters. Drawing on Indigenous and decolonial theories, this interdisciplinary study examines the work done during this event through a user experience (UX) research lens that analyzes the various ways in which Technical and Professional Communication (TPC) and Translation and Interpreting Studies (TIS) can better support Indigenous language practices. The colonization of the Americas brought a layer of issues that continue to affect the way in which Indigenous communities conduct their …

The Role Of Translation In Multilingual User Experience, Tetyana Zhyvotovska

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Examining the intersections of technical communication, user experience, and translation, this study focused on the contexts of a user experience (UX) research center as a site where these intersections occurred and on practices of multilingual users while encountering translated information. In order to explore translation practices in relation to UX and cover the gap in understanding multilingual UX, the study examined how multilingual users worked with translated content, how they acted and reacted to it, and what they experienced during this process. Based on the existing scholarship in translation and usability studies in technical communication, this Dissertation undertook empirical research …

Human-Machine Communication: Complete Volume. Volume 2

Human-Machine Communication

This is the complete volume of HMC Volume 2.

Re-Enchanting Adolescence: Using Story To Give A New Generation Fresh Hope, Susan Stratton

Doctor of Ministry

The repercussions of four distinct world shifts—the Reformation, Renaissance, Enlightenment, and the Scientific Revolution—has produced a narcissistic culture that impedes Gen Z’s ability to cultivate a transcendent personal narrative that is open to authentic spiritual formation. This “immanent buffered self,” so prominent in western culture, is taking a toll on the spiritual lives of 21st-century individuals of every age. The devastation in Gen Z, the newest generation, has severe consequences for the health of Gen Z and also for the church. One in three young adults do not believe in a Divine Being, and those young adults who are in …

Out Of Time: Temporal Performativity And Resistance In Popular American Film, Television, And Theater, Meghan Johnston Aelabouni

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation argues that religious world-making in popular culture can reveal and resist hegemonic times. Taking as my primary case study the United States in the 2010s, particularly the shift from the Obama to the Trump era, I analyze cultural constructions of time—as sacred history, destiny, and “the times”—that reflect and shape national identity and belonging in the American imagined community. In this context, such temporal constructions have privileged whiteness and heteronormative masculinity, positioning those who embody or approximate this norm as “of the times,” while also displacing BIPOC, women, and queer people as “out of time.” I posit time …

Expatriate Middle Eastern Muslim Mothers’ Stories About Sex Education In U.S. Schools: Communication Privacy Challenges And Narrative Typologies, Nada Alfeir

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

This study examines the stories of expatriate Middle Eastern Muslim (EMEM) mothers in the U.S. about how they talked with their children about the sexual education classes offered in U.S. public schools. Three concepts from the Communication Privacy Management theory (CPM; Petronio, 2002) were adapted to an interpretive narrative perspective drawn on Frank's (2013) typology of narrative types. A total of 15 EMEM mothers who had lived for more than one year in the U.S. were recruited in the study. Qualitative data were collected through written stories and interviews, and supplemented by the author's observations. All written stories and interviews …

Landscape Analysis And Content Strategy For Covid-19 State Response Websites, Kaitlin Price

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

There is a massive flow of information about the COVID-19 pandemic from news coverage, daily announcements from local and national political leaders and health authorities, as well as social media. Because of this, a focus on providing clear, honest, and valid information is needed. One way to achieve this goal is through impactful state websites that can act as the main resource for COVID-19 related news.

This project will be analyzing three COVID-19 state response websites, kycovid19.ky.gov (Kentucky’s website), oregon.gov (Oregon’s website), and ldh.la.gov (Louisiana’s website) in terms of their use of website design and crisis communication strategies. I will …

Theories On The Pedagogy Of Asla (Accelerated Second Language Acquisition): A Piikuni Student Approach, Robert Patrick Hall

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This thesis is an exploration in the pedagogy of ASLA to understand how and why it is successful at being a methodology that enables an instructor to teach endangered languages effectively. The paper explores the current deficits within language revitalization programs and argues that ASLA can improve endangered language programs

Visual Infrastructures Of Covid-19 Messaging, Julia Ross, Claudine Jaenichen

Art Faculty Articles and Research

Infecting more than two hundred and nineteen million people internationally as of September 2021, SARS-Cov2 (COVID-19) remains a major health crisis despite the availability of vaccines in many countries and publicized guidance on effective preventative measures (WHO, 2021). To combat the spread of the virus, governments worldwide have found themselves relying on their ability to exert control over health behaviors in public and private spaces. Visual communication, which includes both graphics and text, is an integral component of how these behavioral advisories are communicated to the public. Authorities translate scientific information into digestible designs for the public to achieve effective …

Rapid Shifts In Educators’ Perceptions Of Data Literacy Priorities, Kristin Fontichiaro, Melissa P. Johnston

Journal of Media Literacy Education

To meet the challenges of a data-driven society, high school students need new arrays of literacy skills. In the United States, school librarians, who work across disciplines, are well-positioned to help students improve their data practice, but they first need new domain knowledge. This article presents findings from an evaluating survey and session evaluation data from a virtual data literacy conference, which were part of a federally-funded project to develop data literacy skills among high school librarians and educators. Findings indicated a noticeable shift in participant perceptions of the need and urgency for data literacy instruction across content areas and …

Assessing And Fostering College Students’ Algorithm Awareness Across Online Contexts, Jessica E. Brodsky, Dvora Zomberg, Kasey L. Powers, Patricia J. Brooks

Journal of Media Literacy Education

Internet users may fail to recognize how algorithms filter and personalize information. Two studies explored college students’ algorithm awareness across varying contexts. Study 1 examined Facebook users’ awareness of its algorithms (N = 222). Only about half recognized that Facebook does not show all their friends’ posts. These students more often reported making adjustments to News Feed settings than students lacking algorithm awareness. Study 2 compared students’ (N = 244) algorithm awareness for online shopping and search, and the efficacy of video instruction to increase awareness. Students were more algorithm aware for online shopping. Compared to those who …

Data (Il)Literacy Education As A Hidden Curriculum Of The Datafication Of Education, Pekka Mertala

Journal of Media Literacy Education

This position paper uses the concept of “hidden curriculum” as a heuristic device to analyze everyday data-related practices in formal education. Grounded in a careful reading of the theoretical literature, this paper argues that the everyday data-related practices of contemporary education can be approached as functional forms of data literacy education: deeds with unintentional educational consequences for students’ relationships with data and datafication. More precisely, this paper suggests that everyday data-related practices represent data as cognitive authority and naturalize the routines of all-pervading data collection. These routines lead to what is here referred to as “data (il)literacy” – an uncritical, …

Technology Criticism And Data Literacy: The Case For An Augmented Understanding Of Media Literacy, Thomas Knaus

Journal of Media Literacy Education

Reviewing the history of media literacy education might help us to identify how creating media as an approach can contribute to fostering knowledge, understanding technical issues, and to establishing a critical attitude towards technology and data. In a society where digital devices and services are omnipresent and decisions are increasingly based on data, critical analysis must penetrate beyond the “outer shell” of machines – their interfaces – through the technology itself, and the data, and algorithms, which make these devices and services function. Because technology and data constitute the basis of all communication and collaboration, media literate individuals …

Data Literacy And Education: Introduction And The Challenges For Our Field, Leo Van Audenhove, Wendy Van Den Broeck, Ilse Mariën

Journal of Media Literacy Education

Data literacy is a hot topic, which is currently discussed in many different fields from open data initiatives, statistics, computer societies, coding initiatives, and beyond. The resulting literature is inspiring but not always satisfying from the perspective of the media literacy scholarly field. The goals behind data literacy are often instrumental and utilitarian in the function of job-related skills or open data initiatives. We hope that this special issue will contribute to a broader discussion about data literacy. In this introductory essay we provide an overarching introduction, highlighting some of the main themes, questions, issues, and insights addressed in …

“We Didn’T Have A Lot Of Money, We Worked Hard, And We Ate Beans”: Examining The Narrative Inheritance From An Appalachian Father To His Son, Thomas Townsend

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The author contends that narratives, shaped not only by events but also by socioeconomic and geographic factors, are narratives that require exploration and analysis because these narratives build the lives in which individuals exist. By understanding narratives passed down with which they have built their lives, individuals can come to greater understanding of the narratives in which they live. To understand the narratives, he created and continues to craft about his life, the author needed to understand his narrative inheritance. When a proposed thesis study imploded, the focus of the study shifted to exploring the circumstances of a single interview …

Along The Tevere: A Gastro-Historic Portrait Of The Region, Anke Klitzing

Articles

In June 2009, a group of masters students from the University of Gastronomic Sciences in Italy spent nine days visiting the lands of the Tevere river, travelling from its springs on Monte Fumaiolo in Emilia-Romagna to Rome by way of Umbria and the Lake Trasimeno. This article is a gastro-historic portrait of the lands of the Tevere, linking contemporary social, cultural and economic activities around food and tourism to the rich and long history of the region and highlighting persistent patterns, continuity and change.

Encounter And Counter: Critical Media Literacy In Teacher Education, Rick Marlatt

Journal of Media Literacy Education

This practitioner article describes the recent implementation of critical media literacy (CML) activities in secondary teacher education at a large university in the Southwestern United States. Preservice teachers in a content area literacy course analyzed a variety of media coverage of events that occurred near their university. Using an analytical framework for approaching texts, images, and messages, preservice teachers practiced critical exploration of media sources and motivations while articulating hidden figures of power and authority behind the dissemination of content for public consumption. Highlighting the pursuit of independent media and the cultivation of intellectual self-defense, this “Voices from the Field” …

Interest-Driven Sociopolitical Youth Engagement: Art And Gun Violence Prevention, Janíce Tisha Samuels

Journal of Media Literacy Education

This exploratory case study examines the National Youth Art Movement Against Gun Violence intervention launched in Chicago in 2017 that used public art and new media creation to engage youth in activism for gun violence prevention. Five African American and Latino youth artists participated in the program; the study focuses on three of the participants’ experiences. The researcher’s goal was to determine whether the unique mix of media and education practices used to develop and deliver the intervention curriculum impacted participants’ art practice, understanding of gun violence, and/or self-concept. A theoretical thematic approach to coding was applied to the audio, …

Collaboration In The Technical Communication Classroom: Negotiating Team Contracts In A Pwi, Alyssa Herman

Theses and Dissertations

As TPC teacher-scholars, we must acknowledge the overwhelming Whiteness of our field and the racism, ableism, and sexism inherent in our institutions. We must actively work toward inclusivity and socially just collaborations in our classrooms by encouraging dominant-identified students to confront their privileges and implicit biases in order to better engage with historically marginalized students. With that said, this thesis examines how teacher-scholars might take up a cultural-rhetorical approach to teaching TPC and how we might negotiate team contracts in PWIs. Firmly situated within the social justice turn, Herman draws from both feminist disability theory and critical race theory to …

Does Expectation Influence Relationship? A Mixed Methods Investigation Of Parental Expectation And Parent-Child Relationship Among Chinese Family Groups 期望是否會影響關係？華裔家庭中父母的期望對親子關係的影響之研究, Sharon Chiang, Sharon Chiang, Sharon Chiang

Education Dissertations

Abstract

Parental expectation, particularly among Chinese family groups, is understood to be formative upon their children’s identity, behavior in family relationships, educational success and decisions in career choices. China's long history of traditionalism in its social values, heavily based on Confucian philosophy of the family, bears this out. Significant social changes have happened in recent years due to political shifts, modernization, capitalization, immigration, and government population control policies. However, expectation is an element on which both academic study and educational research are rather limited. Current study has touched on the topic of parental expectation and raised some awareness, but the …

Religious Nationalism And The Coronavirus Pandemic: Soul-Sucking Evangelicals And Branch Covidians Make America Sick Again, Peter Mclaren

Education Faculty Articles and Research

This article investigates the response to the coronavirus crisis by Evangelical Christian nationalists in the USA. The article outlines the curious mediaverse of religious nationalism—its post-truth and fake news aspects in particular—links religious nationalism to American exceptionalism, and analyzes conflicts between secular and religious authorities. Drawing upon some lessons from the past, the article addresses the wider implications of Christian nationalism on American politics, and capitalist ideology, as it has been played out virally in the corporate media. The article shows that the ideological underpinnings of evangelical Christianity prevent its proponents from understanding the virus in an historical and materialist …

Lived Experience Of Music Therapists As Musician-Therapists, Kotoe Suzuki

Expressive Therapies Dissertations

The dissertation research explored the lived experiences of music therapists who are performing musicians. A conceptual foundation of music therapists as musicians, a “musician-therapist” who is deeply versed in the unique properties of music can be identified in the literature (Ansdell & Verney, 2008; Nordoff & Robbins, 1973). The objectives of this study were to explore three topics: 1) deeper understandings of music therapists’ musical improvisation both in clinical and nonclinical settings, 2) the connection between music therapists’ personal and professional musical growth, and 3) identity formation. A qualitative method was chosen for this research including reflexive/embodied/interpretative phenomenology, and arts-based …

Friendship In The Digital Age: Implications From A Philosophy Of Communication Approach, Tiffany Petricini

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Friendship is a central relationship-style that grounds us. Much of the literature on the effects of technology on our relationships, especially friendship, has taken a skeptical approach. The notion of friendship is historically-situated, thus, it requires attention in each era and has prompted questions throughout human history. Our time is no exception. Changing cultures and redefinitions of basic human institutions have led us to our current moment, in which we are experiencing a loud and continuing debate on the effect of technology on our lives. Advancements in science have allowed us to understand our past and present in new ways. …

Pierre Hadot's Holistic Philosophy Of Communication, Jonathan Crist

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Pierre Hadot’s holistic philosophy of communication attends to the health of the self and community through practice of spiritual exercises for the transformation of one’s entire being, working at the nexus of mind, body, soul, and cosmos. The task is ever-incomplete, works in an understanding of “human being as essentially an exposure that lacks a closed identity” and “keep[s] sight of the opening, wound, or lack that remains at the heart of any community and all communication” (Butchart 136). This is responsive to the present moment experiencing disjointed experience of time and space, increased anxiety, underdeveloped capacity for attention, and …

The (In)Visible Woman: A Performative Autoethnographic Exploration Of Queer Femme-Ininity And Queer Isolation, Bri Ozalas

Masters Theses, 2020-current

This thesis is a performative autoethnographic exploration of my experiences existing betwixt-and-between the intersection of queer femme-ininity and isolation. Through a creative, affective rendition of my experiences, I detail and connect the nuances of queerness, femme-ininity, and queer isolation to provide a closer look at understanding queer identity with an absence of connection to the queer community. First, I provide an overview of the main theoretical and methodological approaches, and main concepts I utilize throughout my project. I then provide the intricacies of queer theory, queer intersectionality, and affect theory to provide theoretical explanations of my approach to queer isolation. …