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open access

Homeless Abjection and the Uncanny “Place” of the National Imagination

Description: This project examines the effects of the homeless body and the threat of homelessness on constructing a national imaginary that relies on the trope of locatability for recognition as a citizen-subject. The thesis argues that homelessness, the oft-figured specter of public space, functions as bodies that are “pushed out” as citizen-subjects due to their inability maintain both discursive and material location. I argue that figures of “home” rely on the ever-present threat of dislocation to maint… more
Date: May 2014
Creator: Sloss, Eric J.
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

Ideographs, Fragments, and Strategic Absences: An Ideographic Analysis of <Collateral Damage>

Description: This study examined the ideograph of <collateral damage> through an analysis of the Bush Administration's rhetoric as well as visual photographs of Iraqi civilian deaths. The project argues that the psycho-dynamic rhetoric of the Bush Administration during a time of visual censorship lead to the dehumanization of Iraqi civilian deaths during the War in Iraq. The method consisted of a textual analysis of the Bush Administration's rhetoric and continued with a content analysis of news media's p… more
Date: December 2008
Creator: Rhidenour, Kayla
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

The Impact of Corporate Interlocks on Power and Constraint in the Telecommunications Industry

Description: Using the tools of structural and network analysis developed by Ronald R. Burt and others, this study investigated the communication patterns among corporate officers of American Telephone and Telegraph Corporation (A.T. & T.) and United Telecommunications Corporation (Sprint). Data on contacts, efficiency, network density, and constraint indicate that opportunities for power and constraint have remained relatively stable at United Telecommunications between 1980 and 1990. A. A.T. & T., on the … more
Date: December 1992
Creator: Hickerson, Jon D. (Jon David)
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

In good communication and in bad: A study of premarital counseling and communication skills in newlywed couples.

Description: This study examined the effects of premarital counseling on newlywed communication. It was predicted that individuals who had participated in premarital counseling would have lower levels of demand/withdrawal communication and higher levels of spousal support. The effects of the format of the counseling were also examined. Individuals who had been married less than two years completed a survey measuring their marital satisfaction, levels of demand/withdraw, and perceived spousal support. Socia… more
Date: May 2009
Creator: Norvell, Karen
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

Incorporating Flow for a Comic [Book] Corrective of Rhetcon

Description: In this essay, I examined the significance of graphic novels as polyvalent texts that hold the potential for creating an aesthetic sense of flow for readers and consumers. In building a justification for the rhetorical examination of comic book culture, I looked at Kenneth Burke's critique of art under capitalism in order to explore the dimensions between comic book creation, distribution, consumption, and reaction from fandom. I also examined Victor Turner's theoretical scope of flow, as an ae… more
Date: May 2010
Creator: Castleberry, Garret
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

The Influence of Police Training on Law Enforcement Officers Occupational Identity in an Evolving Police Culture

Description: The disproportionate number of police-involved shootings reflect the underlying conditions of traditionally conservative, racist policing. Recent updates and communication refinements to police training methodologies could improve training processes, which in turn, may improve societal perceptions of police in the United States. Law enforcement officers in the United States have become the focus of public policy outcry and generalized distrust, further complicating the dangers of contemporary… more
Date: August 2020
Creator: Fajardo, Ruth Noemi
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation

"It's like the only safe place on earth for kids like me!": Youth Queer World Making at Camp Half-Blood

Description: Queer youth enactments of agency, resistance, and worldmaking have been under researched in rhetorical studies. Investigating how queer world making for youth takes place at a space entitled Camp Half-Blood, a live action role playing (LARP) fantasy camp for ages 8-18, this study contends that queer youth at Camp Half-Blood utilize Burke's equipment for living, disidentifications, queer relationality, and queer hope as embodiments that create queer lifeworlds and mobilize queer campers toward q… more
Date: May 2022
Creator: Stueve, Madison Nicole
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

"It's never been this bad...ever": An analysis of K-12 teachers' standpoints related to parent-teacher communication.

Description: With the rise of "helicopter" parents within primary and secondary education, school officials nationwide have started to address how to manage parental involvement in the educational system, specifically with regard to parent-teacher communication. Beginning in the 1980s, school administrators actively implemented programs targeting increased parental involvement in K-12 public schools, though the use of contact and relationship building strategies, in order to substantiate school-teacher-pare… more
Date: May 2009
Creator: Thomas-Seltzer, Ashley
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

Leadership Communication Among Kindergarten Children in a Structured Play Environment

Description: This study examines the enactment of leadership communication during videotaped play sessions of thirty kindergarten children. Eighteen of the children demonstrated skills in a cluster of five specific leadership behaviors. All five coders agreed that these eighteen children were sometimes leaders of their individual triad. The coders further agreed that the leadership in the triads flowed from one child to another as the session progressed. The study concluded that leadership is a facilitative… more
Date: August 1995
Creator: Giraud, Jeffrey B. (Jeffrey Brian)
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

Learner-to-Learner: Refocusing the Lens of Educational Immediacy

Description: As the current body of instructional communication research focuses primarily on the relationship between teacher and learner, three studies investigating the relationship between learners were completed in order to better understand how student motivation and learning are influenced by learner-to-learner immediacy behaviors within the college classroom environment. Study I resulted in an extensive list of both positive and negative verbal and nonverbal immediacy behaviors commonly used by lear… more
Date: May 2009
Creator: Keller, Christine Ida
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

Living with s(k)in: An analysis of tattoo removal.

Description: This paper investigates the role of tattoo removal in postmodernity. Specifically, I suggest tattoo removal is a technology of self in which the tattooed person can attain absolution from a "sinful" tattoo. This paper explores the construction of the confessional act in two parts: the construction of the confessing subject and the construction of the medical clinic as the confessor's listener. Using the texts medical offices place on the internet to advertise their services, I investigate the t… more
Date: August 2004
Creator: Downing, Emily
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

"The Long Goodbye": Uncertainty Management in Alzheimer's Caregivers

Description: Caregivers for individuals diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease (AD) shoulder a remarkably complex burden as compared to other caregivers of elderly individuals. For long distance caregivers, geographical separation further compounds the problems experienced by AD caregivers, as they are isolated from family members and support networks. Both on-site and long-distance AD caregivers experience uncertainty; the findings from this study illustrate how AD caregivers manage the uncertainty of the dise… more
Date: May 2011
Creator: Shaunfield, Sara
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

Maximal Proposition, Environmental Melodrama, and the Rhetoric of Local Movements: A Study of The Anti-Fracking Movement in Denton, Texas

Description: The environmental problems associated with the boom in hydraulic fracturing or "fracking," such as anthropogenic earthquakes and groundwater contamination, have motivated some citizens living in affected areas such as Denton, Texas to form movements with the goal of imposing greater regulation on the industry. As responses to an environmental threat that is localized and yet mobile, these anti-fracking movements must construct rhetorical appeals with complicated relationships to place. In this … more
Date: December 2017
Creator: Hensley, Colton Dwayne
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

Mediated chameleons: An integration of nonconscious behavioral mimicry and the parallel process model of nonverbal communication.

Description: This study explored the state of art education in Turkey as revealed by pre-service art education university instructors, and the potential of incorporating visual culture studies in pre-service art education in Turkey. The instructors' ideas about visual culture, and popular culture, the impact it might have, the content (objects), and the practices within the context of Turkey were examined. Visual culture was examined from an art education perspective that focuses on a pedagogical approach t… more
Date: May 2009
Creator: Beatty, Keturi D.
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

Milk machines: Exploring the breastfeeding apparatus.

Description: Arguing that current discourse surrounding breastfeeding and the lactating body promotes management of the female body, I attempt to devise an explanation of the breastfeeding apparatus and its strategies. In this study, the strategies include visual and linguistic representations of breastfeeding through art, promotional materials for advertisement and recommendations from the medical community, and the language used in the legal protection of breastfeeding. Using a rhetorical lens, I explore … more
Date: May 2008
Creator: Kimball, Karen Yeager
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

More connections, less connection: An examination of the effects of computer-mediated communication on relationships.

Description: The impact of computer-mediated communication (CMC) on relational behavior is a topic of increasing interest to communication scholars (McQuillen, 2003; Tidwell & Walther, 2002). One of the most interesting issues that CMC raises concerns the impact of CMC on relational maintenance and development. Using dialectical theory, social exchange theory, social information processing theory, and the hyperpersonal perspective as theoretical frameworks, this study used quantitative and qualitative analy… more
Date: December 2006
Creator: McGlynn, Joseph
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

The Myth of Emmetropia: Perception in Rhetorical Studies

Description: This thesis sets up the problem of sight in a visual society, with the aim to answer how the visual makes itself known. The conversation starts on visuality, and where there are gaps in understanding. The first of two case studies examines the absence of sight, or blindness, both literal and figurative. Through a study of blind photographers and their work, this chapter examines the nature of perception, and how biological blindness may influence and inform our understanding of figurative blind… more
Date: August 2012
Creator: Kaszynski, Elizabeth
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

A Narrative Analysis of Korematsu v. United States

Description: This thesis studies the Supreme Court decision, Korematsu v. United States, 323 U.S. 214 (1944) and its historical context, using a narrative perspective and reviewing aspects of narrative viewpoints with reference to legal studies in order to introduce the present study as a method of assessing narratives in legal settings. The study reviews the Supreme Court decision to reveal its arguments and focuses on the context of the case through the presentation of the public story, the institutional … more
Date: December 1999
Creator: Santos, Bevin A.
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

Network Analysis of the Symmetric and Asymmetric Patterns of Conflict in an Organization

Description: Missing from extant conflict literature is an examination of both symmetric and asymmetric conflict ties. To address this void, network analysis was utilized to examine the responses (both symmetric and asymmetric conflict ties) of 140 employees and managers in four divisions of a large agency of the Federal Government. The study was limited to conflict over scarce resources. Conflict management methods were examined as well as the perceptions of how respondents both cope with and feel about co… more
Date: May 1993
Creator: Helt, Kimberly M. (Kimberly Mae)
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

No Escape from Modality: Impact of Video vs. Text on Perceived Credibility and Engagement with Misinformation

Description: Misinformation remains pervasive in digital platforms, shaping how individuals receive news online. Prior work suggests that credibility perceptions of misinformation can differ based on the modality of the misinformation message. Informed by the MAIN model, this quantitative study conducted two separate 2 (Modality: video or text) x 2 (Social endorsement cues: high vs. low) between-subject experiments to assess the influence of message modality and social endorsement cues on misinformation cre… more
Date: May 2022
Creator: Tran, Jacinta T
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

Nontraditional name changes for men: Attitudes of men and women.

Description: Recently, some men have taken their wives' last names upon marriage rather than following tradition. The goal of this study was to examine the attitudes that men and women have toward these nontraditional men. Ideological hegemony and social identity theory comprised the framework for examining participants' beliefs. A survey first elicited participants' extant sexist beliefs about men and the characteristics of a nontraditional man compared to a traditional man. An open-ended question further … more
Date: May 2008
Creator: Millspaugh, Jennifer Diane
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

On Viewing Press Releases of the Texas State AFL-CIO as Rhetorical Genre

Description: Previous scholarship on labor rhetoric has concentrated on the impact of declining union membership and contemporary activist strategies on the part of unions. The press release is a common form of communication that organized labor employs in order to reach its publics. This study explores the press releases of the Texas State AFL-CIO to determine to what extent this level of labor discourse meets the criteria of a rhetorical genre. This study employs the methodology for generic criticism laid… more
Date: May 1992
Creator: Welborn, Ronny D.
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

Organizational Rhetoric in the Academy: Junior Faculty Perceptions and Roles

Description: The purpose of this project was to examine the perceptions of junior faculty members as they relate to roles and expectations related to the tenure process. The study utilized a mixed methods approach to gain a multifaceted perspective of this complex process. I employed a quantitative and qualitative survey to explore junior faculty perceptions regarding roles related to promotion and tenure policies. In addition, I conducted fantasy theme analysis (FTA) to explore the organizational rhetoric … more
Date: December 2008
Creator: Gordon, Cynthia K.
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

Pedagogical Approach and Instructional Format: An Exploration of the Introductory Communication Course

Description: The goal of this study was to analyze the impact of instructional format and pedagogical approach on students' learning and motivation within the introductory communication course. Three hundred eighty-five students participated in this study within one of four contexts: face-to-face instruction with service-learning, face-to-face instruction without service-learning, blended instruction with service-learning, and blended instruction without service-learning. A series of MANOVAs was utilized fo… more
Date: May 2008
Creator: Tucker, Kristan Ann
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
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