Other Communication Commons^™

Communicative Responses To The Painful Self-Disclosures Of Familial And Non-Familial Older Adults, Craig Fowler, Jordan Soliz

Department of Communication Studies: Faculty Publications

Data from 365 college students were used to assess young adults’ communicative responses to older persons’ painful self-disclosures (PSDs). Coupland, Coupland, and Giles (1991) proposed that recipients of PSD may respond to such disclosures via a variety of “next moves.” These responses may broadly be considered to reflect forms of prosocial engagement, passive disengagement, and active disengagement. We investigated whether young adults’ tendency to use certain responses to PSD were influenced by their affective reactions to PSD, their communicative background and characteristics, and the socio-relational context of the encounter in which PSD occurred. Results are discussed with respect to their …

Attachment And Delayed Gratification In The Technological Age, Susan G. Pomerantz

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

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Manual Evaluation Of Synthesised Sign Language Avatars, Robert G. Smith Mr, Brian Nolan Dr.

Conference Papers

The evaluation discussed in this paper explores the role that underlying facial expressions might have regarding understandability in sign language avatars. Focusing specifically on Irish Sign Language (ISL), we examine the Deaf community’s appetite for sign language avatars. The work presented explores the following hypothesis: Augmenting an existing avatar with various combinations of the 7 widely accepted universal emotions identified by Ekman [1] to achieve underlying facial expressions, will make that avatar more human-like and consequently improve usability and understandability for the ISL user. Using human evaluation methods [2] we compare an augmented set of avatar utterances against a baseline …

Defensive Communication Between Professors And Students And Its Effects On Student Outcomes, Alexa Pomerenk

Honors Program Theses

This study investigated the relationship between defensive communication and student outcomes in college classrooms. The researcher hypothesized that students would perceive a greater defensive climate in classes taught by their least favorite professors, and that the defensive climate would encourage the use of coping mechanisms. Defensive communication was also hypothesized to negatively affect student grades, attendance, and course satisfaction and to increase student burnout. Surveys were administered to college students, and results supported all hypotheses. Findings showed that students linked defensive attributes to their least favorite professors more frequently than they did to their favorite professors, and they reported using …

Screenplay: Joe And Ruby, Felicia Bradberry

All Student Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Disciplinarity, Crisis, And Opportunity In Technical Communication, Jason Robert Carabelli

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In this thesis I argue that technical communication as an academic curricular entity has struggled to define itself as either a humanities or scientific discipline. I argue that this crisis of identity is due to a larger, institutional flaw first identified by the science studies scholar Bruno Latour as the problem of the "modern constitution." Latour's argument, often referred to as Actor-Network Theory (ANT), suggests that the epistemological arguments about scientific certainty are built on a contradiction. In viewing the problem of technical communication's disciplinarity through the lens of ANT, I argue that technical communication can never be productive if …

Dead Man's Switch: Disaster Rhetorics In A Posthuman Age, Daniel Patrick Richards

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

When a disaster the magnitude of the Deepwater Horizon blowout and oil spill takes place, is it natural for the news media stories, investigative reports, and public deliberation to focus almost exclusively on finding the person or group responsible for such a horrendous scene. Rhetorically speaking, the discourse surrounding the event can be characterized as a reductive form of praise and blame rhetoric (epideixis). However, these efforts, while well-intentioned, are troublesome because searches for the one technical cause and the sole personal culpability are thwarted by the sheer complexity of the ecological, technological, scientific, institutional, and communicative network required for …

Accounting For Lesbian-Headed Families: Lesbian Mothers’ Responses To Discursive Challenges, Jody Koenig Kellas, Elizabeth A. Suter

Department of Communication Studies: Faculty Publications

Although lesbian mothers are often called to justify their family’s legitimacy, we know little about these interactions. The current study included 44 female coparents across 10 focus groups discussing the interactive process of discursive legitimacy challenges. Using the theoretical framework of remedial accounts (Schönbach, 1990), inductive and deductive coding revealed several existing and new types of challenges, accounting strategies, and evaluations relevant to interactions of lesbian mothers. Communicative processes unique to the interactions of female coparents included challenges emerging from societal master narratives (e.g., health care, education, politics, religion); accounting strategies such as leading by example; and evaluations related to …

The Impact Of Competition In Forensics On Future Careers, Jace Thomas Lux

Dissertations

Each year, thousands of college students participate in forensics (competitive speech and debate). Despite previous studies that identify numerous benefits to forensics participation, the activity is often eliminated from college campuses due to financial constraints. Although previous literature identifies the benefits of forensics participation to competitors, these studies do not address the lasting impact of college forensics participation on the careers of former competitors.

This exploratory study sought to identify the forensics outcomes that former competitors felt are used most frequently in their current careers, as well as the amount of emphasis forensics programs are placing on teaching these particular …

The Right Call: Baseball Coaches' Attempts To Influence Umpires, Kevin Warneke, David C. Ogden

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences (through 2013)

On-field conversations and confrontations between baseball coaches and umpires have long been a part of the game. An umpire's decision can alter the course of the game, but little has been written about the exchanges between a coach or manager and umpire, especially in relation to theoretical considerations. This study applies management and leadership theories in exploring the strategies baseball coaches use to contest an umpire's decision. By using leadership scholar John E. Barbuto's concept of influence tactics and the various types of social power discussed by sociologists John R. French and Bertram Raven, the study also tests the congruence …

Neocolonialism And The Global Prison In National Geographic’S Locked Up Abroad, Casey Ryan Kelly

Department of Communication Studies: Faculty Publications

This essay examines the reformulation of colonial ideologies in National Geographic Channel’s Locked Up Abroad, a documentary program that chronicles the narratives of Westerner travelers incarcerated in foreign nations. An analysis of Locked Up Abroad evinces neocolonialism in contemporary media culture, including the historic association between dark-skin and savagery, the backwardness of the non-Western world, and the Western imperative to civilize it. The program’s documentary techniques and framing devices sustain an Otherizing gaze toward non-Western societies, and its portrayals elide a critical analysis of colonialism in its present forms. I advocate for neocolonial criticism to trace how NatGeo remains …

Thank You For Being A Friend: Women's Self-Disclosures And Social Support On Facebook, Emily A. Dolan

Media Studies - Theses

This study focused on women's self-disclosures on Facebook and how they functioned to both gain and give support on the site. After employing 17 textual analyses of participants' Facebook pages and 17 in-depth interviews, a variety of themes emerged in regards to how and why women give and seek support on the site, the types of information disclosed, and the benefits of self-disclosing to gain support on the site. More specifically, results indicate that gender role expectations, which for women include exhibiting behaviors that convey warmth, kindness and politeness, play a large role in giving and receiving support on the …

An Exploration Of Social Media Use In Local Television News Stations: An Evaluation And Development Of A Successful New Media Strategy, Aniseh Ebbini

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This paper examines the ways in which Social media have gained popularity over the last decade, amongst the public, and especially in the television news industry. After evaluating the current ways Social media are being implemented and observing national trends, I developed a comprehensive new media strategy to serve as a guide and reference for any television station wanting to incorporate these tools into its regimen.

The Relationship Of Women's Magazines And Their Websites: A Comparative Analysis Of Print And Web Content, Allison Walker Ruff

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

With the digital expansion of magazines, it is essential to determine how a magazine's online and digital content compares to its print content. The editorial strategy for print content versus Web content could make a difference in consumers' brand attachment and loyalty to a magazine. Magazines must have a dynamic online strategy that offers a different experience than printed material in order to gain new relationships and strengthen those relationships people already have with the brand. A comparative analysis of the print content versus the online website content of four separate women's publications can help determine if each magazine is …

Prosody-Based Query-By-Example Spoken Utterance Retrieval, Steven D. Werner, Nigel G. Ward

COURI Symposium Abstracts, Summer 2012

Current spoken dialogue retrieval systems are almost entirely lexically based, using automatic transcription by imperfect speech recognition technology. Once audio is reduced to text, little more than existing text search methods are used to retrieve results. However, spoken dialogue contains rich latent prosodic information about dialogue activities - such as agreeing, arguing, deciding, planning, storytelling, showing surprise - and this extra information can often be relevant to the searchers aims. Searching for similar speech acts rather then similar words enables similar contextual results, returning points where the speaker had the same sentiment during a topic. Previous research yielded 76 dimensions …

A Study On Facebook Advertisement Strategies: Facebook Wall Posts Promote Higher Response Than Private Messages, Bria Park

Communication Studies

In this study, I focused on whether Facebook wall posts or private messages create a higher response rate from the receivers. First, I explain the background of internet communication and how certain strategies have created higher response in the past. Then, I present my method for discovering whether wall posts or private messages are more efficient in gaining response. Lastly, I reveal my results and discuss both what I could’ve done better to create more precise results and how this experiment is beneficial for modern day advertisement companies.

Communicating Effectively In Rapidly Changing Times, Anne Marie Casey

Staff Works - Hunt Library

This presentation explores communication in academic libraries that experienced rapid changes during the Great Recession and its aftermath. The investigator conducted a multi-case study, in which she interviewed library and university participants in three U.S. academic libraries in 2010. Results show that communication existed for the most part in the three libraries, all of which were maintaining strategic priorities while experiencing dramatic changes.

Selective Amnesia And Racial Transcendence In News Coverage Of President Obama’S Inauguration, Kristen Hoerl

Department of Communication Studies: Faculty Publications

The mainstream press frequently characterized the election of President Barack Obama the first African American US President as the realization of Martin Luther King’s dream, thus crafting a postracial narrative of national transcendence. I argue that this routine characterization of Obama’s election functions as a site for the production of selective amnesia, a form of remembrance that routinely negates and silences those who would contest hegemonic narratives of national progress and unity.

Out Of Our Depth: Hyper-Extensionality And The Return Of Three-Dimensional Media, Justin Alan Brecese

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This work theorizes the contemporary attraction to three-dimensional media. In doing so, it reframes ongoing debates surrounding digital three-dimensional media in order to critique the neoliberal social relations such media engender. I argue that the contemporary interest in dimensionality, especially regarding digital media, is symptomatic of a broad cultural shift, wherein millions of lives are now essentially being lived through two-dimensional, "flat" media, which have consequently generated a lack of spatial relationships and a craving or desire for "depth." This "desire for depth" has arisen in contemporary society because people are being "spread too thin" through a combination of the …

Assessing The Presence And Use Of Nonverbal Communication In Primary Reading Instruction, Amelia C. Ferrell

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

This research examined the presence and types of nonverbal communication presented in primary reading instruction. Primary instructors were surveyed about their use and types of nonverbal communication employed during reading instruction. Nonverbal communication variables studied were determined from relevant literature regarding nonverbal immediacy, primary education, and reading instruction. Findings revealed that almost all nonverbal communication variables studied were employed frequently and most respondents had no prior training. Findings suggest how future studies can better evaluate the role of nonverbal communication in reading instruction and provide education for primary teachers in hopes of improving literacy education.