Other Communication Commons^™

The Campus Believer: An Online Magazine Looking At Spiritual Life On Campus, Madeline Buckley

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

The Campus Believer is a digital publication that covers the diverse spiritual life and religious culture on campus. Produced by and for college students, the publication goes beyond news events to examine how religion informs academics and pop culture, to provide guides and service journalism to help readers access and understand the interfaith activities on their campuses, and to introduce key players and intriguing personalities who comprise the spiritual communities on campus. This specific collection of stories, or “chapter” of the site, focuses on the religious and spiritual life on and around Syracuse University in Syracuse, New York, which is …

The Women's Advocacy: A Nonprofit By Women For Women, Samantha Aberizk

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

The Women’s Advocacy (WA) is a hypothetical, not-for-profit organization that empowers women of adverse or catastrophic backgrounds. With the support of female volunteers, the organization strives to prevent and respond to the oppressive behaviors that hinder potential for a healthy and successful lifestyle. Through marketing strategy and community outreach, the WA is expanding its network of volunteers so that we may offer the best services possible and foster social justice and equality within our communities.

A Relational Dialectics Approach To The Identity Development Of Millennial Mothers, Shawna L. Merrill

Graduate Theses/Dissertations

This thesis uses relational dialectics theory (RDT) to make sense of the experiences of millennial mothers. RDT is a heuristic theory of relational meaning making and asserts that relationships and identities are negotiated in states of competing and contradictory discourses. This thesis can be conceptualized as two projects: autoethnography and qualitative inquiry using semi-structured interviews. Autoethnography explores the researcher’s own experience with the topic. Interview participants were asked a series of questions about their lives as millennial mothers to identify competing discourses, management strategies, and implications for identity. Three primary tensions were identified of millennial vs. mother, authenticity vs. persona, …

Parasocial Romantic Relationships, Romantic Beliefs, And Relationship Outcomes In Usa Adolescents: Rehearsing Love Or Setting Oneself Up To Fail?, Riva Tukachinsky, Sybilla M. Dorros

Communication Faculty Articles and Research

The study examines the associations between adolescents’ emotional and physical aspects of parasocial romantic relationships with media figures, idealized romantic beliefs, perceptions of a current dating partner, and relationship satisfaction. A two-study design included concurrent data from 153 adolescents ages 13–17 (55.6% female), and retrospective data from 274 college students ages 18–22 (79.8% female). Across both samples, emotional involvement in a PSRR was related to more idealized romantic beliefs. The intensity of emotional involvement with the media figure during adolescence was associated with lower relationship satisfaction and less favorable perceptions of a current romantic partner in college students. However, there …

Stop Hovering Over Me! The Effects Of Helicopter Parenting On The Millennial Generation, Katie Bahr, Allie Fanning

Honors Student Research

The topic is the effects of Helicopter Parenting on the millennial generation, specifically focusing on conflict, mental health, substance abuse and parent-child communication. By performing thorough research on our millennial peers, we hope to uncover common themes among helicopter parents and the damaging and often life-long effects that they have on their children. The Family Systems Theory and Baumrind’s Parenting Styles will be used to help better understand the effects of this parenting.

Many theories explain how families communicate and how they build and maintain relationships. The Family Systems theory correlates with parenting and how what one person does in …

Driving Forces In Disclosure: Self-Disclosure Goals And Intimacy At The Podium, Layne Paubel

Theses

This study examined six underlying motivations (expression, self-clarification, social validation, relationship development, social control, and information sharing) for self-disclosure in a public speaking setting and a dyadic relationship setting. Five of these goals come from Derlega and Grzelak’s (1979) functional approach to self-disclosure and one is an additional goal examined by Bazarova and Choi (2014). This study found that the relative salience of self-disclosure goals in the public speaking classroom was identity clarification, information sharing, self-expression/relief of distress, social validation, relationship development, and social control. Findings indicate that the relative salience of goals in the dyadic relationship setting was self-expression/relief …

Middle Managers Working Beyond Senior Management’S Expectations: A Phenomenological Study Of The Managed Healthcare Industry In Southern California, Gerald Dugas

Dissertations

Purpose. The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore how middle managers and senior managers working in the managed healthcare industry in southern California perceive what factors motivated middle managers to work beyond senior management’s expectations.

Methodology. A qualitative phenomenology study was chosen because it allowed the researcher to acquire a firm understanding of the nature of everyday lived experiences. This methodology was used to capture the meaning of experiences that motivated middle managers to work beyond expectations. The researcher conducted semi-structured, face-to-face interviews to gain a deeper understanding of the lived experience of the participants. Participants …

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 …

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), …

Analysis Of User Interfaces In The Sharing Economy, Taylor B. Johnson

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis considers claims of discrimination and the interfaces that six platforms use as companies in the sharing economy.

In 2015, Benjamin Edelman, Michael Luca, and an Svirsky did an experiment with Airbnb to test the discrimination of names that sounded distinctly African American. Before and after their findings, there were members of the community who claimed that they had been discriminated against, some suing the company for not upholding their anti-discrimination policy. This leads to the question of how is one able to discriminate against someone whom they have never met and lives thousands of miles away? What information …

Research Benefits For Scholarly Authors Being Published On A Public Forum, Hunter M. Watson, Brent D. Bowen, Timothy B. Holt, Jacqueline R. Luedtke

Publications

The previous construct of research was focused on social media platforms as a benefactor in broadcasting towards a global audience with non-academic professions. Following along the same ideology, this research directs the attention to a pertained audience in academic profession.

•Embry-Riddle is the host of Scholarly Commons which collects the research of authors (faculty members), and assists in developing a digital portfolio. This portfolio creates metric measurements on a dashboard to indicate where downloads are occurring, and aids in providing current information pertaining to the authors’ publication. •In this case, the publication of the National Airline Quality Rating (AQR) ( …

Trends Of Parent-Adolescent Drug Talk Styles In Early Adolescence, Youngju Shin, Jonathan Pettigrew, Michelle Miller-Day, Michael L. Hecht, Janice L. Krieger

Communication Faculty Articles and Research

The present study seeks to understand how parents as prevention agents approach substance use prevention messages during the period of early adolescence. Students (N = 410) in a drug prevention trial completed surveys from 7th to 9th grade. Using longitudinal data, a series of latent transition analyses was conducted to identify major trends of parent–adolescent drug talk styles (i.e., never talked, situated direct, ongoing direct, situated indirect, and ongoing indirect) in control and treatment conditions. Findings demonstrate a developmental trend in drug talk styles toward a situated style of talk as youth transitioned from 7th grade to 9th grade. …

Differential Effects Of Parental “Drug Talk” Styles And Family Communication Environments On Adolescent Substance Use, Youngju Shin, Michelle Miller-Day, Michael L. Hecht

Communication Faculty Articles and Research

The current study examines the relationships among adolescent reports of parent–adolescent drug talk styles, family communication environments (e.g., expressiveness, structural traditionalism, and conflict avoidance), and adolescent substance use. ANCOVAs revealed that the 9th grade adolescents (N = 718) engaged in four styles of “drug talks” with parents (e.g., situated direct, ongoing direct, situated indirect, and ongoing indirect style) and these styles differed in their effect on adolescent substance use. Multiple regression analyses showed that expressiveness and structural traditionalism were negatively related to adolescent substance use, whereas conflict avoidance was positively associated with substance use. When controlling for family communication …

Finding Meaning At Work: The Role Of Inspiring And Funny Youtube Videos On Work-Related Well-Being, Sophie Janicke-Bowles, Diana Rieger, Winston Connor Iii

Communication Faculty Articles and Research

Watching online videos on social media is a common activity in today’s digital age, but its’ impact on employee well-being at work has not been investigated yet. The current study tried to fill this gap by investigating the role hedonic and eudaimonic online videos play on employee’s stress levels and well-being at work. An online experiment with 200 full time employees in the US was conducted exploring the role of inspiring affect and positive affect on three distinct well-being outcomes: subjective well-being, psychological well-being and social well-being at the workplace. A path model suggests unique effects for inspiring videos on …

Conversations That Matter: How A Thriving Public Sphere Makes Better Citizens And Better Neighbors, Kylie Schreiber

Bridge/Work

While it is true that the most recent presidential election cycle highlighted deeply rooted divisions lying in our American democracy, there is more to this separation than politics. Globalization and polarization have acted as catalysts, in part, to the decline of neighborliness and citizenship in America. I argue that a return to the “public” sphere in local communities can remedy this. This paper tests this theory by strategically selecting public policies and civic engagement activities that attempt to accomplish this goal of returning to the public and evaluating them on their ability to do so.

There are important questions about …

The Psychology Of Marathon Television Viewing: Antecedents And Viewer Involvement, Riva Tukachinsky, Keren Eyal

Communication Faculty Articles and Research

This study focuses on the expanding trend of marathon (“binge”) television viewing. It examines the personality antecedents of such media consumption (attachment style, depression, and self-regulation deficiency) as well as the psychological experiences of marathon viewers relative to the narrative (transportation, enjoyment) and its characters (parasocial relationship, identification). In a two-study design, theoretical models of media use and involvement, on one hand, and models of media addiction, on the other hand, are applied to predict the extent of marathon viewing and to compare it with “traditional” viewing. Results advance understanding of enjoyment and involvement theory and support cognitive theories of …

Call For Manuscripts

Basic Communication Course Annual

Submissions are invited for publication consideration in Volume 31 (2019) of the Basic Communication Course Annual. Managed by the Basic Course Division of the National Communication Association and published by the University of Dayton, the Annual publishes the best scholarship available on topics related to the basic course and is distributed nationally to scholars and educators interested in the basic communication course. Each article will be published online at http://ecommons.udayton.edu/bcca/ and indexed on the journal’s website. All manuscripts submitted to the Annual will undergo blind peer review. Two or three members of the editorial board read and review each manuscript. …

The Impact Of Class Size On The Speech/Time Ratio In The Public Speaking Course, Brent Kice

Basic Communication Course Annual

Authors were asked to prepare an essay as if they were writing a letter to their dean (whose academic training was in another discipline) who (1) asked that enrollment in each basic course section be increased to a level that compromises the pedagogy of the basic course or (2) proposed that the required basic communication course be eliminated from the university’s general education program.

Here, the author discusses the pressures of increased class sizes. The nature of public speaking requires that class time be divided between instruction and graded student speeches. An increase in allotted time in one area results …

Class Size For The Basic Communication Course: A Recommendation For The Dean, Delia O'Steen, Luke Lefebvre, Brian Ott

Basic Communication Course Annual

Authors were asked to prepare an essay as if they were writing a letter to their dean (whose academic training was in another discipline) who (1) asked that enrollment in each basic course section be increased to a level that compromises the pedagogy of the basic course or (2) proposed that the required basic communication course be eliminated from the university’s general education program.