Other Communication Commons^™

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.

Communication Strategies To Restore Working Relations: Comparing Relationships That Improved With Ones That Remained Problematic, Jon A. Hess, Katelyn A. Sneed

Communication Faculty Publications

When considering problematic workplace relationships, the question naturally arises of how people can deal most effectively with these challenges. What people most want with difficult relationships is a way to make the problems go away. That desire calls for research on strategies to transform problematic relationships into non-problematic relations. For this issue, there is both good news and bad news.

First, the bad news: There are few easy answers when dealing with problematic relations. Problematic relationships are difficult by definition. Relationships that involve challenges a person can easily resolve are not difficult relationships. The co-construction of these relationships often intertwines …

When Talking Helps: A Quantitative Study Of Privacy And Resilience After Bereavement, Carrie Lynn West

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Using the theoretical framework of Communication Privacy Management, this study sought to determine how trait resilience, state hopefulness, distress disclosure, use of social networks, and boundary turbulence relate to bereaved spouses' life satisfaction. Bereaved spouses (N=149) completed questionnaires at Camp Widow, a weekend-long conference for bereaved spouses held in San Diego, from August 12-14, 2011. Participants were single, engaged or remarried. The average age of the participants is 46.24 years. The average age at time of bereavement reported was 43.71 years. The amount of time that had passed since the death of their spouse was 2.83 years, and the average …

Speech Center Support Services, The Basic Course, And Oral Communication Assessment, Karen Kangas Dwyer, Marlina M. Davidson

Basic Communication Course Annual

This study examines the role a speech center plays in supporting university-wide oral communication assessment. Specifically, this study queries student usage of speech center support services and perceived changes in public speaking anxiety, public speaking confidence, and public speaking skills. The findings indicate that students who report more visits to the speech center also perceive that using the speech center helped reduce their speech anxiety and increase their confidence in public speaking. In addition, those who report it “helpful” to self-evaluate recordings of their in-class speeches also report a greater reduction in speech anxiety, a greater increase in confidence, and …

Reconsidering Consultants’ Strategic Use Of The Business Case For Diversity, Jennifer Mease (Also Peeksmease)

Department of Communication Studies: Faculty Publications

The business case for diversity—the practice of connecting human differences to an organization’s bottom line—has been critiqued for its compromised treatment of human difference. Through a grounded in action discursive analysis of 19 interviews with diversity consultants, this research identifies three occupational demands that prompted consultants to use the business case: organizational access, motivation, and emotion work. The analysis also identifies strategies consultants used that met these demands without relying on the business case: connecting to mission statements, connecting to individual tasks, appealing to personal experience, sequencing, combining, balancing discourses of emotion and business, drawing on spiritual grounding, and using …

The Implications Of Arminius’ Understanding Of The Intellect On Knowledge Exchange Strategies In The Mission Of The Sda Church, Terry Dwain Robertson

Faculty Publications

Arminius differed from the Calvinism he debated in the causal role of information in bringing a person to salvation. This accounts for the distinction between an Adventist Philosophy of Education, following Arminius, in which the outcome of education is to lead the student to a saving relationship with God, a bottom-up eternal salvation perspective. A Calvinist Philosophy of Education, on the other hand, suggests that the outcome of education is to change society, a top-down, temporal perspective. Therefore, it is necessary for the Adventist Church to assume a more intentional role in providing quality information sources to emerging institutions training …

Communication Technology In Disaster Management, Denise Nicole Walker

Wayne State University Theses

ABSTRACT

COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY IN DISASTER MANAGEMENT

by DENISE WALKER

This thesis will analyze different case studies involving catastrophic disasters. I will compare their rescue response from the government to FEMA's response to Katrina, to establish a basis for comparison. The Midwest Floods and California fires will be compared to Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans because these places are prone to natural disasters. I will look at each of these states ecology to explain why these states are prone to floods, fires and hurricanes. Unlike the Midwest and California, Hurricane Katrina received far less help from the government and FEMA. I …

From Strangers To Siblings: An Ethnography Of The Appalachia Service Project Summer Staffers, Rachel Elizabeth Tish

Honors Program Theses

Communication research has typically focused on relationship development in fairly regular, true-to-life settings; there is a lack of focus on friendships that grow out of situations in which people have no relational alternatives. This ethnographic study of the Appalachia Service Project (ASP) offers a contrast: observations, interviews, cultural artifacts, and researcher memories shed light on the friendship processes within various groups of four college-aged individuals who are assigned as work teams for 12 weeks. Together the members of these teams repair homes, oversee volunteers, and typically form relationships that reach a deeper level than most friendships. The study of how …