Communication Commons^™

Broadcast News Organizations' Perceptions Of Viewer Generated Content, Christopher L. Atkins

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

Viewer generated content refers to the recent phenomenon of broadcast viewers taking to the streets and creating content for the stations they watch. This study surveys the managers in broadcast news organizations across the country gauging their thoughts and station usage of content produced by their viewers. This study shows how pervasive the use of viewer generated content is in the broadcast news industry today, and how it is utilized by not only some news organizations but by nearly all stations. The phenomenon of viewer generated content is not only widespread but also has broadcast news organizations rethinking the way …

The New Newspaper : Examining The Role Of Design In The Modern Print Edition, Matthew Joseph Haught

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

As the newspaper industry works to modernize because of a rapid move to Web technologies, editors and publishers are seeking ways to reach younger readers with the traditional print edition. This research examines the impact of design through methods of alternative story forms on readership in the target age bracket of 18-25 year olds. The study uses three models of storytelling to examine the impact of design and writing on the interest in the print edition in that age demographic. The study found that the theories of functionalism, when applied to newspaper design and writing, create a product that appeals …

Anthropocentric Distance In National Geographic’S Environmental Aesthetic, Anne Marie Todd

Faculty Publications

Tourism is the way we understand the world: tourists travel in an increasingly mediated environment in which ubiquitous promotional material and other popular artifacts employ stunning images and romantic travel narratives to describe local environments. Tourist texts “sell” local landscapes to entice visitors, employing an environmental aesthetic that urges travel. With its mission to “explore the planet,” the National Geographic Society contributes to this tourist aesthetic. This essay examines three special issues on Africa simultaneously published by the National Geographic Society: its official journal, National Geographic, and its sister magazines, National Geographic Traveler, and National Geographic Adventure. The photographic images …

Do I Really Need To Have That Test? Understanding Risk And Making Medical Decisions In The Age Of Tmi, Gene Elizabeth Harkless

The University Dialogue

No abstract provided.

A Philology Of Liberation: Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. As A Reader Of The Classics, Thomas Strunk Ph.D.

Verbum Incarnatum: An Academic Journal of Social Justice

This paper explores the intellectual relationship between Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the classics, particularly the works of Plato, Sophocles, and Aeschylus. Recognizing Dr. King as a reader of the classics is significant for two reasons: the classics played a formative role in Dr. King’s development into a political activist and an intellectual of the first order; moreover, Dr. King shows us the way to read the classics. Dr. King did not read the classics in a pedantic or even academic manner, but for the purpose of liberation. Dr. King’s legacy, thus, is not merely his political accomplishments but …

Dialectic Tensions Experienced By Resettled Sudanese Refugees In Mediating Organizations, Sarah Steimel

Department of Communication Studies: Faculty Publications

An increasing number of global migrants are refugees who have fled religious, racial, ethnic, or other political persecution. As these refugee populations have grown, governmental and nonprofit organizations have emerged to help mediate the resettlement experience. The current study explores the dialectical tensions Sudanese refugees face in communicating with the organizations designed to make their resettlement successful. Sudanese refugees participated in semistructured interviews about their experiences communicating with mediating organizations. Four dialectical tensions emerged from participants’ stories about their communication in and with mediating organizations: (a) dissemination and dialogue, (b) emancipation and control, (c) empowerment and oppression, and (d) integration …

Discursive Struggles In Families Formed Through Visible Adoption: An Exploration Of Dialectical Unity, Meredith Marko Harrigan, Dawn O. Braithwaite

Department of Communication Studies: Faculty Publications

Grounded in the interpretive paradigm and framed by relational dialectics theory, the present study addressed the question: What discourses interpenetrate to reflect dialectical unity as parents communicate about their child’s adoption? Interviews with 40 parents across 31 visibly adoptive families—families with an obvious lack of biological connection—highlighted four instances of dialectical unity resulting from the following discursive struggles: (a) pride and imperfection; (b) love, constraint, and sacrifice; (c) difference, pride, and enrichment; and (d) legitimacy, expansion, similarity, and difference. Each struggle contains seemingly disparate discourses that, in combination, contribute to how parents discursively make sense of adoption. Practical implications of …

Thriving And Surviving In A Multimedia World, University Of Montana--Missoula. School Of Journalism

Montana Journalism Review

The Unreachables -- Playing catch-up -- Small-town multimedia -- Tips and tricks -- Ethics of blogging -- New curricula -- Sports journalism -- Broadcast journalism -- Website comments -- Future tech is here -- Citizen journalism -- Freelance -- Oops! -- Twitter in the courtroom -- The mp3 sound of music -- Hyperlocal strategy -- Teen magazines online -- Editor's note -- Staff bios

Putting Privilege Into Practice Through "Intersectional Reflexivity:" Ruminations, Interventions, And Possibilities, Richard Jones

Faculty Research and Creative Activity

Engaging in intersectional reflexivity requires one to acknowledge one :S intersecting identities, both marginalized and privileged, and then employ self-reflexivity, which moves one beyond self-reflection to the often uncomfortable level of self-implication. This complex process may move critically minded people, both scholars and citizens, beyond individualized politics and expand our accountability from self, to others and self, creating possibilities for coalitional activism targeted toward broad-based social change. Further, privileged scholars should advocate for coalition building in cautious and reflexive ways that complement rather than appropriate the intellectual labor of scholars of color, who have long called for more intersectionality and …

Theorizing The Transcendent Persona: Amelia Earhart’S Vision In The Fun Of It, Robin E. Jensen, Erin F. Doss, Claudia Irene Janssen, Sherrema A. Bower

Faculty Research and Creative Activity

In this article, we define and theorize the ‘‘transcendent persona,’’ a discursive strategy in which a rhetor draws from a boundary-breaking accomplishment and utilizes the symbolic capital of that feat to persuasively delineate unconventional ways of communicating and behaving in society. Aviator Amelia Earhart’s autobiography The Fun of It (1932) functions as an instructive representative anecdote of this concept and demonstrates that the transcendent persona’s persuasive force hinges on one’s ability to balance distance from audiences with similarities to them. Striking such a balance creates a platform for rhetors to promote transformative visions of society. Earhart utilized the transcendent persona …

Blues Tourism In The Mississippi Delta: The Functions Of Blues Festivals, Stephen A. King

Faculty Research and Creative Activity

No abstract provided.

From Viruses To Russian Roulette To Dance: A Rhetorical Critique And Creation Of Genetic Metaphors, Marita Gronnvoll

Faculty Research and Creative Activity

This essay critiques and creates metaphoric genetic rhetoric by examining metaphors for genes used by representatives of the lay American public. We assess these metaphors with a new rhetorical orientation that we developed by building onto work by Robert Ivie and social scientific qualitative studies of audiences. Specifically, our analysis reveals three themes of genetic metaphors, with the first two appearing most frequently: 1) genes as a disease or problem 2) genes as fire or bomb, and 3) genes as gambling. We not only discuss the problems and untapped potential of these metaphors, but also we suggest metaphorically understanding genes …

Understanding Events Through Analysis Of Social Media, Amit P. Sheth, Hemant Purohit, Ashutosh Sopan Jadhav, Pavan Kapanipathi, Lu Chen

Kno.e.sis Publications

Users are sharing vast amounts of social data through social networking platforms accessible by Web and increasingly via mobile devices. This opens an exciting opportunity to extract social perceptions as well as obtain insights relevant to events around us. We discuss the significant need and opportunity for analyzing event-centric user generated content on social networks, present some of the technical challenges and our approach to address them. This includes aggregating social data related to events of interest, along with Web resources (news, Wikipedia pages, multimedia) related to an event of interest, and supporting analysis along spatial, temporal, thematic, and sentiment …

Mobicloud - Making Clouds Reachable: A Toolkit For Easy And Efficient Development Of Customized Cloud Mobile Hybrid Applications, Ashwin Manjunatha, Ajith Harshana Ranabahu, Amit P. Sheth, Krishnaprasad Thirunarayan

Kno.e.sis Publications

The advancements in computing have resulted in a boom of cheap, ubiquitous, connected mobile devices, as well as seemingly unlimited, utility style, pay as you go computing resources, commonly referred to as Cloud computing. However, taking full advantage of this mobile and cloud computing landscape, especially for the data intensive domains, has been hampered by the many heterogeneities that exist in the mobile space, as well as the Cloud space. Our research attempts to exploit the capabilities of the mobile and cloud landscape by introducing MobiCloud, an online toolkit to efficiently develop Cloud-mobile hybrid (CMH) applications. We define a CMH …

Korzybski, Luhmann, And Mcluhan, Lance Strate

CMS Faculty Publications

This paper revisits an earlier study of the common ground shared by Alfred Korzybski, founder of general semantics, and Marshall McLuhan, the central figure in media ecology, and makes explicit the use of systems theory to bridge the gap between the two. Following a brief summary of the systems approach and its relationship to the media ecology intellectual tradition, sociologist Niklas Luhmann is identified as an appropriate mediator between Korzybski and McLuhan, for his application of the concept of autopoiesis to the study of society. Korzybski’s key term of abstracting is compared to McLuhan’s emphasis on medium, and suggests that …

Media And The Non Profit World: A Case-Study On Wwf-Malaysia's Use Of Media Tools To Champion Advocacy, Anita Devasahayam

Social Space

As issues and campaigns for various causes in the non-profit space have begun to proliferate across Asia, the struggle to remain relevant and gain critical attention is growing. Author Anita Devasahayam discusses how the Malaysian chapter of the World Wide Fund for Nature tackled the challenge by devising new media strategies and advocacy campaigns to remain relevant in an increasingly connected and cause-conscious world.

Editor's Page, David W. Worley

Basic Communication Course Annual

No abstract provided.

A Tale Of Two Radios: Tracing Advocacy In A Deregulatory Milieu, Vibodh Parthasarathi, Supriya Chotani

McGannon Center Research Resources

No abstract provided.

Space Age Love Song: The Mix Tape In A Digital Universe, Megan M. Carpenter

Law Faculty Scholarship

Music sharing is one of the most controversial topics in copyright law. And mix tapes have been the classic, iconic form of music sharing for the last 30 years. Even in the face of technological development so rapid and far-reaching as to remove the literal “tape” from “mix tape,” there are nonetheless modern incarnations that crop up on a regular basis, from mix CDs to mix-sharing websites. Social norms permit and even encourage the creation of these modern mix tapes for such diverse reasons as wedding favors and birthday gifts.

If copyright law is meant to promote creativity and proscribe …

Social Media Perceptions And Usage By Generation Y And Relevant Marketing Implications, Irene J. Dickey, William F. Lewis

Management and Marketing Faculty Publications

One of the most common ways in which Internet users connect and network with each other is through "social media." Social media is the content that is provided and maintained by the user on a website. It is clear that social media such as Facebook and LinkedIn are becoming increasingly pervasive in the lives of students, professionals and consumers. A literature review, as well as the results from our survey, reveals that not only have social networks evolved rapidly during the last few years, but so too have consumers’ behaviors. Subsequently, marketing strategies and tactics, and the potential for practitioners …