Other Communication Commons^™

What Makes A Man?: An Alpha Male’S Fight For Masculinity Against The Media’S Muscular Ideals, Julie A. Yockey

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

Previous studies have focused heavily on media effects on women however growing trends in male ideals are finding that men are no longer static observers. The media constructs the ideal male body as lean, strong and muscular and men exposed to these idealized images may experience body dissatisfaction. Therefore, this project explores the effects of media ideals on men and the possible relationship between the media depictions of the muscular ideals and masculinity. Current research analysis shows that exposure to media ideals not only causes body dissatisfaction among men; trying to achieve the perfect body may result in unhealthy behaviors. …

Public Subjects: Wayne State, Institutional Texts, And Public Rhetoric, Michael Mcginnis

Wayne State University Dissertations

Applying a public sphere approach to Wayne State, I argue that the university has defined itself as a public subject within public debates about race, educational access, and economic development in the city of Detroit, even when such commitments to its local urban public sphere have existed uneasily alongside its ambition to function as a research university with a primary research mission within a wider public sphere of peer research universities. I focus on Wayne State University’s urban mission and open for consideration the ways the university has both expanded and contracted its relationships to its local and academic public …

Active Listening "Debates" - Classroom Activity, Victoria Derr

Activities and Assignments Collection

Students will practice critical thinking, active listening, and the development and presentation of arguments and positions through oral and written communication.

Factors Impacting Older Adults' Adoption Of Mobile Technology In Emergency Communications, William A. Scerra

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

An increasing number of older adults must continue working, which requires that they maintain their competencies and work skills, including use of mobile technology (MT). However, little is known about older adult adoption of MT in relation to work. This study used Rogers's diffusion of innovation theory and Davis's technology acceptance model as a framework. The purpose of this exploratory sequential mixed methods study was to examine the experiences of older adults' who adopted MT in the emergency communications (EC) field. Participants came from an emergency services LinkedIn group. Data sources included surveys completed by 85 respondents and interviews of …

Distributed Cognition In Cancer Treatment Decision Making: An Application Of The Decide Decision-Making Styles Typology, Janice L. Krieger, Jessica L. Krok-Schoen, Phokeng M. Dailey, Angela L. Palmer-Wackerly, Nancy Schoenberg, Electra D. Paskett, Mark Dignan

Department of Communication Studies: Faculty Publications

Distributed cognition occurs when cognitive and affective schemas are shared between two or more people during interpersonal discussion. Although extant research focuses on distributed cognition in decision making between health care providers and patients, studies show that caregivers are also highly influential in the treatment decisions of patients. However, there are little empirical data describing how and when families exert influence. The current article addresses this gap by examining decisional support in the context of cancer randomized clinical trial (RCT) decision making. Data are drawn from in-depth interviews with rural, Appalachian cancer patients (N = 46). Analysis of transcript …

“I’M Here To Do Business. I’M Not Here To Play Games.” Work, Consumption, And Masculinity In Storage Wars, Mark A. Rademacher, Casey Ryan Kelly

Department of Communication Studies: Faculty Publications

This essay examines the first season of Storage Wars and suggests the program helps mediate the putative crisis in American masculinity by suggesting that traditional male skills are still essential where knowledge supplants manual labor. We read representations of “men at work” in traditionally “feminine” consumer markets as a form of masculine recuperation situated within the culture of White male injury. Specifically, Storage Wars appropriates omnivorous consumption, thrift, and collaboration to fit within the masculine repertoire of self-reliance, individualism, and competition. Thus, the program adapts hegemonic masculinity by showcasing male auction bidders adeptly performing feminine consumer practices. Whether the feminine …

Religious Pluralistic Language In A Computer-Mediated Context: Effects Of Intergroup Salience And Religious Orientation, Jennifer Kienzle, Chad M. Wertley, Jordan Soliz

Department of Communication Studies: Faculty Publications

This study investigated the degree to which religious pluralistic language varies as a function of the intergroup salience of a context and religious orientation. Based on a 2 (Religious Salience of Context) × 3 (Religious Salience of Topic) experimental design, participants (N = 239) were instructed to compose an e-mail to an interactional partner based on the randomly assigned condition. Messages were coded for religious pluralistic language, and participants completed measures of religious orientation and evaluations of the conversational partner. Modest effects were found for both intergroup salience of the context and topic as well as religious orientation.

The Man-Pocalpyse: Doomsday Preppers And The Rituals Of Apocalyptic Manhood, Casey Ryan Kelly

Department of Communication Studies: Faculty Publications

This essay argues that recent male performances of disaster preparedness in reality television recuperate a preindustrial model of hegemonic masculinity by staging the plausible “real world” conditions under which manly skills appear necessary for collective survival. Representations of masculinity in uncertain times intensify the masculinity-in-crisis motif to cultivate anticipation of an apocalyptic event that promises a final resolution to male alienation. An examination of Nat Geo’s Doomsday Preppers illustrates how these staged performances of everyday life cultivate a dangerous vision of apocalyptic manhood that consummates a fantasy of national virility in the demise of feminine society.

Chastity For Democracy: Surplus Repression And The Rhetoric Of Sex Education, Casey Ryan Kelly

Department of Communication Studies: Faculty Publications

Moving from opposition to participation, the Adolescent Family Life Act (1981) and the development of abstinence education marks the conservative movement’s pivot to a rhetorical strategy of tolerance that enabled it to coopt the public culture of sex discourse. Working from Herbert Marcuse’s theory of “surplus repression,” I argue that the New Right seized the liberationist argument for open public discourse about sexuality to sublimate libidinal desires into a national project of familial (re)productivity. The AFLA is significant in the rhetorical history of sex education because it demarcates the transition to a productive form of biopolitics that sought to manage …

Camp Horror And The Gendered Politics Of Screen Violence: Subverting The Monstrous-Feminine In Teeth (2007), Casey Ryan Kelly

Department of Communication Studies: Faculty Publications

This essay argues that Mitchell Lichtenstein’s film Teeth (2007) is an exemplary appropriation of the femme castratrice, a sadistic and castrating female figure that subverts the patriarchal mythologies undergirding the gendered logics of both screen violence and cultural misogyny. The film chronicles Dawn’s post-sexual assault transformation from a passive defender of women’s purity to an avenging heroine with castrating genitals. First, I illustrate how Teeth intervenes in the gendered politics of spectatorship by cultivating identification with a violent heroine who refuses to abide by the stable binary between masculine violence/feminized victimhood. This subversive iteration of rape-revenge cinema is assisted by …

Embracing Discursive Paradox: Consultants Navigating The Constitutive Tensions Of Diversity Work, Jennifer Mease (Also Peeksmease)

Department of Communication Studies: Faculty Publications

This article addresses how diversity consultants manage the dual demands of social justice and organizational goals or priorities. I suggest that navigating this “discursive paradox” is one of—if not the—defining feature of diversity work. To investigate this discursive paradox, I analyze diversity work as a process (rather than a collection of products) as evidenced in interviews with 19 diversity consultants. The results offer two derivative discursive paradoxes that emerged in consultants’ talk about diversity work: the tension between broad and narrow constructions of human differences and the tension between emphasizing change at the organizational and individual levels. Rather than …

Sports Content Viewership Motivations Across Digital Devices, Mark Henry

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

U.S. advertisers spent over $2 billion on sporting events in 2014 directing advertisements towards consumers through digital devices used such as televisions, computers, smartphones, and tablets. The purpose of this cross-sectional study was to identify motivation factors that predict the intention to view sports content on digital devices. Knowing such factors is important for advertisers to prioritize distribution channels. Uses and gratification theory formed the theoretical framework for the study. The methodology adapted a survey that encapsulated 9 motives. The research questions examined what motives influenced sports viewership, what motives predicted the intention to view specific sports content, and the …

Emerging Genres Of Online Technical Communciation, Luke Anthony Thominet

Wayne State University Dissertations

Emerging Genres of Online Technical Communication is a study of how the proliferation of non-professional participation has the potential to significantly change the shape of technical communication. More specifically, I use a genre analysis methodology to investigate three forms of user-generated content: crowdsourced documentation wikis, video games user reviews, and video game open development. In the first study, I analyze five crowdsourced documentation wikis and find systemic inconsistency in the workflow and content quality of the documentation. Subsequently, I argue that practitioners should use minimalist documentation theory to design more effective user-centered author support for the wikis. My second chapter …

Environmental Dynamics: A Compendium Of Rhetorical Application, Annalisa Perez

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Technology, albeit exceedingly useful, has exponentially exacerbated the communications dilemma between the technical and the non-technical. Additionally, based on a current new understanding of the term environmental, it can no longer be fully defined by terms such as air, water, waste, or purification. Rather, the meaning of environmental has been globally transformed in several ways. The term environmental is encompassing an expansion of understanding and is further defined with words such as essence, perception, rapport and multi-dimensional spaces. This work, Environmental Dynamics: A Compendium of Rhetorical Application (EDC), provides a framework where communication can be enhanced in areas where communication …

Examining The Factors To Knowledge Sharing Within An Organisational Context, Paul Mc Manus

Conference papers

Abstract

In a global economy, knowledge may be a company’s greatest competitive advantage (Davenport & Prusak 2000). As such, competition for this resource has driven an increased demand for “a conscious strategy [by organisations] of getting the right knowledge to the right people at the right time and helping people share and put information into action in ways that strive to improve organisational performance” (O’Dell et al. 1998). Thus, it is the aim of this paper to provide an investigative look at the factors influencing the willingness of employees to knowledge share (KS) within an organisational context. Separated into two …