Speech and Rhetorical Studies Commons^™

Detecting User Emotions From Audio Conversations With The Smart Assistants, Sunanda Guha

Graduate Theses/Dissertations

With the proliferation of smart home devices like Google Home or Amazon Alexa, significant research endeavors are being carried out to improve the user experience while interacting with these smart assistants. One such dimension in this endeavor is ongoing research on successful emotion detection from short voice commands used in smart home environment. Besides facial expression and body language, etc., speech plays a pivotal role in the classification of emotions when it comes to smart home application. Upon successful implementation of accurate emotion recognition, the smart devices will be able to intelligently and empathetically suggest appropriate actions based on the …

The Writing’S On The Wall: Using Multimedia Presentation Principles From The Museum World To Improve Law School Pedagogy, Cecilia A. Silver

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

Law school pedagogy is a relic. Nearly 150 years after Christopher Langdell pioneered the case method, the typical doctrinal course remains predominantly a verbal domain, featuring lectures, Socratic dialogue, and final exams. But the visual disconnect between legal education and legal practice does students a disservice. Under the proliferating influence of laptops, iPads, smartphones, and Zoom, students now read, work, and study electronically more than they ever have before. So instead of business as usual, it’s time to embrace “visualization”—using multimedia to enhance, or even supplant, the near-exclusive reliance on language—to build a more vibrant and inclusive learning environment.

Law …

Presidential Rhetoric In Times Of Health Crises: From President Eisenhower To President Trump, Abbi Murphy, Justin Kirk

Honors Program: Senior Projects (Public)

Three major health crises in American history include the polio epidemic in the 1950s, the Ebola crisis in 2014, and the coronavirus in 2020. Each of these viruses evolved under a different President, from President Eisenhower to President Obama to President Trump. Each of these presidents spoke to the people on their respective crisis, and here I examine speeches, addresses, and social media posts in order to examine the rhetorical strategies that each President utilized. Each of them had a similar goal in mind, to eradicate the disease and quell the public’s fears. However, they all had advantages and disadvantages …

Artists As Assets: Labor And Capital In The Unity Asset Store, D'An Knowles Ball

English Faculty Publications

The Unity Asset Store sells amateur designers and artists a promise of being able to participate in an idealized, rationalized vision of how the game design industry operates. However, the Unity Asset Store depends on marketing the content created by amateur artists in ways that require the artists to essentially package their work as labor and to mask their role as artists. This essay views labor and capital in the Unity Asset Store through a Marxist lens, informed by Kline, Dyer-Witheford, and de Peuter's (2003) model of technological, cultural, and marketing forces as "three circuits of interactivity" in the mediatized …

Safety Splash: Pool Safety For Children And Adults, Rachel Lofton

Honors Program: Senior Projects (Public)

This outreach project was made to address the issue of too many children drowning at pools due to a lack of water safety education. The dissemination of pool safety education is imperative to reduce accidental injuries and drownings. The goal of the Safety Splash video and supplemental materials is to provide pool safety education for children and adults. By encouraging conversations between children and adults before going to the pool, there can be an intervention that reduces the risk of injury and drowning once they arrive. Through research, I compiled information to support the effectiveness of a combination video, pamphlet, …

Best Practices Of Teaching Public Speaking Online, Sally Dufner

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

Teaching public speaking online has been highly contested by communication studies instructors. The need for having a live audience has been a staple in public speaking from its inception. The COVID 19 pandemic forced many reluctant public speaking faculty members to teach this pivotal course online. Communication studies departments were required to examine their stance of offering it online or not. The purpose of this qualitative research study was to answer the following three questions: (1) Is there validity in teaching public speaking online? (2) What are best practices in teaching public speaking courses online? and (3) How do best …

Social Movement Splintering: An Examination Of Stockton Stands With Minneapolis And News Media Representation, Kevin Ozomaro

University of the Pacific Theses and Dissertations

The phenomenon surrounding news media’s power to alter group identity and group cohesion is something that rarely a point of focus in communication studies. In this study I worked with a local social movement group called Stockton Stands with Minneapolis. This group illustrated the importance of maintaining shared values. Utilizing relational Interviewing, SSWM members provided evidence showing the connection between news media and group success. News media has had a role in shaping group members’ understanding of SSWM and activism. SSWM has faced internal conflict as a result of negative news representation. SSWM is a relatively small and young (2 …

"Not Liberating Women Means The Building Of A Socialist Society Is Only Half-Way Done": A Feminist Analysis Of Ho Chi Minh's Advocacy For The First Law On Marriage And Family In 1959 Vietnam, Hannah Nguyen

Senior Independent Study Theses

In October 1959, Ho Chi Minh attended and spoke before the North Vietnamese National Assembly at the “Meeting to Discuss the Draft of the Law on Marriage and Family.” The purpose of this study is to provide a feminist rhetorical analysis of this address to explicate the rhetorical strategies Ho employed to advocate for this law. I argue that Ho reframed the Marriage and Family Law into a policy that corresponded to the needs and demands of the National Assembly through methods of dissociation, association, and strategic repetition. I also found that Ho employed a dual leader/uncle first persona to …

The Future Is Full Of Monsters: Queer Survival One Click At A Twine, 'Aolani N. Robinson

All HCAS Student Capstones, Theses, and Dissertations

Spurred by a desire to explore queer rhetoric through interactive forms of media, this project analyzed the game-making program Twine to uncover how independent queer creators use the tool to explore queer survival against time, capitalism, and constrained identities. A more accessible platform than other game-making tools, Twine’s unique interactivity puts the ability to make interactive games and stories into the hands of indie marginalized creators who are often overlooked in both mainstream gaming and queer rhetorics (Anthropy, 2012). Thus, this thesis contributes to queer rhetoric, game studies, and trans rhetorics by exploring the strategies indie Twine creators use in …

Theological Practices For Sustaining Community Renewal At Speedway Church Of Christ, Kent A. Ellett

Doctor of Ministry Theses and Dissertations

This project assembled a group of potential small-group facilitators for the purpose of drafting a small-group discussion guide to be used at the Speedway (Indiana) Church of Christ. The guide was intended to aid the discernment of missional practices which sustain the renewal of the wider community. Focusing on the Gospel of John, the intervention attempted to recover a temple Christology, construing the incarnation, ministry, death, and the lifting up of Jesus within the larger story of the temple’s ongoing re-creation of the world. In bestowing his glory upon the church, Jesus sends the church into all the world, as …

Memetic Rhetorical Theory: An Analytic Model For The Spread Of Information Online, Carleigh J. Davis

English and Technical Communication Faculty Research & Creative Works

Modern discourse is often characterized by such extreme polarization that participants operate from entirely different sets of facts. These alternative facts represent a new line of inquiry for rhetoricians, who must determine how false facts gain credibility. This article outlines Memetic Rhetorical Theory (MRT), a model for understanding how information evolves to become credible in a given environment.

Does Whispering Improve Children’S Memory? Comparing Auditory Vigilance And Salience Hypotheses, Christina M. Barnes

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Oral communication is one of the primary tools children use to learn new information and speech registers can deliver additional meaning to the words someone uses. Cirillo’s (2004) vigilance hypothesis states “Whispering can affect the psychobiological state of recipients, and in particular raise their auditory vigilance” (Cirillo, 2004, p. 76). Building on this theory, the current study investigates the role of whispering and children’s memory by examining a whispering vigilance, whispering salience which focused on the changes between normal and whisper registers, and combined vigilance and salience hypotheses to determine if whispering contributes to the recall of information. Using video …

“Othering” And Religion: Political Discourse Of 9/11, Emily Dawn Riley

Student Theses and Dissertations

The focus of this thesis is to understand the ways public figures discuss 9/11, religious, or racial controversy to sustain or modify national identity and the legacy it holds in American society. By examining artifacts from three well-known political figures, 43rd President George W. Bush, former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, and 44th President Barack Obama, I argue that politicians utilize elements of Kenneth Burke’s (1950) theory of identification and division to negotiate shared identities amongst Americans in times of heightened religious and racial controversy. Presidents and political leaders have the authority to shape and create how events, people, …

Volume 36, 1999 Speaker And Gavel

Speaker & Gavel

Complete digitized volume (volume 36, 1999) of Speaker & Gavel.

Volume 40, 2003 Speaker And Gavel

Speaker & Gavel

Complete digitized volume (volume 40, 2003) of Speaker & Gavel.

Volume 39, 2002 Speaker And Gavel

Speaker & Gavel

Complete digitized volume (volume 39, 2002) of Speaker & Gavel.

Toward An Invitational Andragogy: Articulating A Teaching Philosophy For The Andragogic Classroom, Whitney Tipton, Stephanie Wideman

Journal of Communication Pedagogy

Students older than 25 years are a growing population on our campuses. However, separating these students and labeling them as “nontraditional” further isolates them from campuses that are already geared toward younger learners. This reflective essay explains the need for a philosophy of invitational andragogy—a classroom approach rooted in invitational rhetoric (S. Foss & Griffin, 1995) and Knowles’s assumptions about older learners (1980, 1984). While inviting transformation is important in all classrooms, it is especially important for older learners who often feel separated from the campus at large. To explain how an invitational approach to the andragogic classroom can be …

Media Frames And Abortion Issue Polarization, Shianne Galuska

Master's Theses

The abortion issue is one of the most polarizing topics within the public and media sphere. How the media chooses to frame the abortion debate may influence public opinion and individual reactions. Specifically, articles that use incongruent abortion frames (pro-life/pro-abortion & anti-abortion/pro-choice) may be contributing to an ingroup versus outgroup mentality by highlighting who is the ingroup and who is the outgroup, thus generating moral disgust and polarization (characterized by anger, bias, and activism) amongst those with opposing views. This study sought to answer whether presenting individuals with an incongruent abortion frame increases anger, bias, and activism (polarization), as well …

Variations On Exposure Therapy: Best Practices For Managing Public Speaking Anxiety In The Online Communication Classroom, Sarah K. Chorley

Journal of Communication Pedagogy

Exposure and response prevention (ERP) therapy techniques offer unique opportunities for comprehensive management of public speaking anxiety in the online public speaking classroom beyond exposure to only the speech-giving act itself. This best practices article outlines nontraditional strategies for incorporating ERP practices in a distance-learning setting.

Leveraging The Rhetorical Energies Of Machines: Covid-19, Misinformation, And Persuasive Labor, Miles C. Coleman

Human-Machine Communication

The rampant misinformation amid the COVID-19 pandemic demonstrates an obvious need for persuasion. This article draws on the fields of digital rhetoric and rhetoric of science, technology, and medicine to explore the persuasive threats and opportunities machine communicators pose to public health. As a specific case, Alexa and the machine’s performative similarities to the Oracle at Delphi are tracked alongside the voice-based assistant’s further resonances with the discourses of expert systems to develop an account of the machine’s rhetorical energies. From here, machine communicators are discussed as optimal deliverers of inoculations against misinformation in light of the fact that their …