Communication Commons^™

Remember The Titans, Historical Fact Or Fiction?, Amy S. Tate

OUR Journal: ODU Undergraduate Research Journal

In the late 1990s, screen writer Gregory A. Howard wrote a screen play called Remember the Titans, based on the true story of T.C. Williams High School in Alexandria, Virginia. Jerry Bruckheimer and Walt Disney Pictures bought the script based on the fact that it is a true story, but much of the film‟s content is fictional. Gregory Howard admitted to ESPN writer Jeff Merron that “he made some big assumptions when writing his script” (qtd. in Merron 5). Though the film is not entirely historically accurate, it is successful because it appeals to Americans through its intense emotional …

The Role And Positioning Of Public Relations In Non Profit Organisations: A Case Study Analysis, Gillian Lyons

Theses

This study aims to explore the role and positioning of public relations (PR) in non-profit organisations (NPO’s). Two case studies are explored namely the Mercy Hospital Foundation and the Cork Simon Community. The lack of research in the area along with the belief that NPOs rely on PR more than any other industry prompted the research idea for this study.

The literature review deals with the need for PR to be accepted as a management function with many leading theorists agreeing on the matter. According to Grunig (1992), the organisational effectiveness theories provide organisations with the formula to make their …

Can The Effectiveness Of An Online Tourism Public Relations Campaign Be Evaluated?, Deirdre Mangan

Theses

The practice of public relations has changed dramatically in the past fifteen years, embracing a variety of new media tools in a fast changing, global market. New and social media have radically altered the work of public relations practitioners. One aspect of this which gives rise to much debate is evaluating the effectiveness of online public relations campaigns.

Travel and tourism is an industry that has been changed fundamentally by the internet. This industry led the way with online reservations and information systems. Online public relations followed this innovation. The aim of this study is to look at the process …

Who Shares? Managerial Knowledge Transfer Practices In British Columbia's Ministry Of Health Services, Gwendolyn Elizabeth Lock

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The British Columbia government's Ministry of Health Services will experience significant loss of operational knowledge from an aging managerial workforce, increased staff turnover, and difficulties in recruitment. The purpose of this study is to provide the ministry's Strategic Human Resources Planning branch staff with a map and description of knowledge transfer practices used by approximately 40 managers within the ministry's Health Sector Information Management/Information Technology division and its Vital Statistics Agency. The study is a mixed-methods case study of knowledge retention and transfer practices founded on a knowledge management and social network theoretical foundation. To understand the ministry's complex nature …

More Than Just Openness: Developing And Validating A Measure Of Targeted Parent-Child Communication About Alcohol, Michelle Miller-Day, Jennifer A. Kam

Communication Faculty Articles and Research

Research addressing parent-child communication on the topic of alcohol use relies heavily on assessing frequency of discussions and general assessments of openness in parent-child communication, ignoring the complexity of this communication phenomenon. This study adds to the literature by articulating a conceptualization and developing a measurement of parent-child communication—targeted parent-child communication about alcohol—and comparing the efficacy of targeted parent-child communication about alcohol in predicting positive expectancies of alcohol use and recent alcohol use. The predictive power of general openness in parent-child communication and frequency of communication about alcohol also were assessed. Students in 5th and 6th grade (N = 1407) …

Societal, Expert, And Lay Influences, Roxanne Parrott, Michelle Miller-Day, Kathryn Peters, James Dillard

Communication Faculty Books and Book Chapters

Families are influenced by many messages about genetics and health, which then affect communication with health-care practitioners and communication within the family. Using a discourse approach, this chapter identifies the various sources of these messages and explains the influences they might exert.

Intercultural Competence For The Nutrition Professional, Cynthia S. Klement

Senior Honors Theses and Projects

Diversity training for nutrition care professionals is essential in order to provide patients with culture-specific strategies that allow them to succeed with their health program. Nutritionists are faced with the challenge of understanding the dietary preferences of their cross-cultural patients, as well as appreciating a patient's religious beliefs regarding dietary selections by identify foods that will or won't support a prescribed nutritional program. Knowledge of intercultural nonverbal and verbal behaviors is becoming increasingly necessary, as is who ultimately makes medical decisions for the patient.

The Blind Leading The Blind: Who Gets Polling Information And Does It Improve Decisions?, Cheryl Boudreau, Mathew D. Mccubbins

Faculty Scholarship

We analyze whether and when polls help citizens to improve their decisions. Specifically, we use experiments to investigate 1) whether and when citizens are willing to obtain polls and 2) whether and when polls help citizens to make better choices than they would have made on their own. We find that citizens are more likely to obtain polls when the decisions they must make are difficult and when they are unsophisticated. Ironically, when the decisions are difficult, the pollees are also uninformed and, therefore, do not provide useful information. We also find that when polls indicate the welfare-improving choice, citizens …

Making Talk Cheap (And Problems Easy): How Legal And Political Institutions Can Facilitate Consensus, Cheryl Boudreau, Mathew D. Mccubbins, Daniel B. Rodriguez, Nicholas Weller

Faculty Scholarship

In many legal, political, and social settings, people must reach a consensus before particular outcomes can be achieved and failing to reach a consensus may be costly. In this article, we present a theory and conduct experiments that take into account the costs associated with communicating, as well as the difficulty of the decisions that groups make. We find that when there is even a small cost (relative to the potential benefit) associated with sending information to others and/or listening, groups are much less likely to reach a consensus, primarily because they are less willing to communicate with one another. …

Online Hyper-Local News Sites Fulfill Classic Functions Of Community Journalism, Jack Rosenberry

Media and Communication Faculty/Staff Publications

A content analysis of story topics published on 70 hyper-local online news sites indicated that these sites may have an untraditional way of delivering the news but they fulfill roles and functions that are very similar to the ones documented in historical research about community press and social organization.

Communally Discerning A Covenant Of Hospitality For The Care Of Children At Westview Boys' Home, Ron Bruner

Doctor of Ministry Theses and Dissertations

This project addressed the lack of a covenant defining the practice of hospitality towards children for team members of Westview Boys’ Home. The purpose of the project was to facilitate the creation of such a covenant. The Westview ministry team already claimed hospitality as a strength; the hope was that reframing the ministry around this strength would improve the quality of care for children and the quality of life for the community. Invited into a communal discernment process (the methodology), the ministry team invested weeks in the examination of biblical texts, theological tradition, personal and communal narratives, cultural trends, psychological …

Local Political Information On The Web: The Case Of The 2007 Philadelphia Mayoral Campaign, Lee Shaker

Communication Faculty Publications and Presentations

Scholars and pundits have widely discussed the decline of print journalism, but there has been very little empirical research focused on examining online alternatives. This article utilizes a unique sample of online local political content related to the 2007 Philadelphia mayoral campaign to address this void. A content analysis of this dataset has three objectives: to depict the range of sources of online local political information (LPI) available to Philadelphians, to compare the LPI provided by these various sources, and to determine the amount and provenance of the original LPI that is available on the web. New media sources of …

Finding A Voice: Using The Internet For Free Speech And Expression In Iran, Chelsea Zimmerman

Human Rights & Human Welfare

In July 2009, many Iranians took to the streets to protest the results of the presidential election in which Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won with a reported 62% of the vote. The protests, stemming from allegations of electoral fraud, quickly exposed the government's limited tolerance for dissent. In addition to street demonstrations, protestors utilized social networking websites to express their opposition to the election results. The world, following Internet feeds, witnessed the restrictive mechanisms Iran’s government placed on expression and speech. People throughout the world admonished Iran for the government's interference with cell phone and Internet networks. Iran’s free speech and expression …

Legal And Ethical Issues Associated With Employee Use Of Social Networks, Gundars Kaupins, Susan Park

Management Faculty Publications and Presentations

Social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter can help employees enhance a company’s marketing, recruiting, security, and safety. However, employee’s use of social networking sites and employers’ access of those sites can result in illegal and unethical behavior, such as discrimination and privacy invasions. Companies must gauge whether and how to rely upon employees’ use of personal social networking sites and how much freedom employees should have in using networks inside and outside of the companies. This research summarizes the latest legal and ethical issues regarding employee use of social networks and provides recommended corporate policies.

Semantics Centric Solutions For Application And Data Portability In Cloud Computing, Ajith Harshana Ranabahu, Amit P. Sheth

Kno.e.sis Publications

Cloud computing has become one of the key considerations both in academia and industry. Cheap, seemingly unlimited computing resources that can be allocated almost instantaneously and pay-as-you-go pricing schemes are some of the reasons for the success of Cloud computing. The Cloud computing landscape, however, is plagued by many issues hindering adoption. One such issue is vendor lock-in, forcing the Cloud users to adhere to one service provider in terms of data and application logic. Semantic Web has been an important research area that has seen significant attention from both academic and industrial researchers. One key property of Semantic Web …

Google Analytics: Analyzing The Latest Wave Of Legal Concerns For Google In The U.S. And The E.U., 7 Buff. Intell. Prop. L.J. 135 (2010), Raizel Liebler, Keidra Chaney

UIC Law Open Access Faculty Scholarship

The next wave of concern regarding Google involves web analytics. Web analytics is the measurement, collection, analysis, and reporting of Internet data for the purposes of understanding and optimizing web usage. The concerns of web analytics use touches on issues of online user privacy, government use of personal information, and information on website user activity. While Google Analytics is not the sole web analytics product on the market, it is widely used by corporate, non-profit, and government organizations. The product has been reported to have a 59% market share among web analytics vendors in a 2008 study.

Web analytics technology …

How T.V. Promotes An Unrealistic Image Of Romantic Relationships, Tonoah P. Merritt

All Capstone Projects

This study aims to explore and prove that media (as defined in T.V. sitcoms and dramas) portrays an unrealistic expectation that is placed on romantic relationships. More specifically, it can affect the way people think and behave when it comes to marriages and serious relationships. Some may begin to compare their present relationship with a romantic relationship within the sitcoms and dramas. This study will. be used to promote awareness when making conscious and sensible decisions in regards to choosing partners. This will be done by conducting surveys that will exhibit the direct emotional effect of sitcoms and dramas on …

The Mediated Hero: Superman In The Post 9/11 Era, Paul Thomas Enger

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Comic books make up a relatively underappreciated segment of the mass media. At the same time comic books portray different messages about good and evil from those depicted on television or film. Superman has been regarded as a hero for the past seventy two years since his creation in 1938. However, as the saying goes..."9/11 has changed everything." The purpose of this study is to analyze the portrayals of heroism contained in the Superman comic book narratives of the post 9/11 era. In order to see just how the heroic ideal is portrayed in this particular mediated context, interpretation analysis …

Jealousy And Attachment 2.0: The Role Of Attachment In The Expression And Experience Of Jealousy On Facebook, Megan Cole

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The main objective of this research was to investigate how people use Facebook within the context of their romantic relationships from an attachment theory perspective. In the present study, a convenience sample (n = 179) completed an online survey with questions about Facebook use, attachment style, uncertainty-related behaviors, jealousy, relationship satisfaction and commitment. Results indicate that 1) there is a positive correlation between jealousy and Facebook use; 2) also, there is a positive correlation between jealousy and the time an individual spends viewing their partner's profile; 3) further, jealousy is positively related to uncertainty-reducing behaviors. Taken together, these results support …

Exploring The Media's Negative Effects On Body Dissatisfaction And Self Esteem Among Adolescent Girls, Aliscia Doriety

All Capstone Projects

Research has suggested that adolescent girls may be influenced by the media to such a degree that their body image and dissatisfaction tends to increase, as exposure to media increases. In the current study, 75 adolescent girls completed a questionnaire evaluating self-esteem and body image to determine if there were other factors that related to the media's overwhelmingly strong influence. The study concluded that there was a positive correlation between other variables such as, family, which had a stronger influence than media.