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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
open access

Guåhan: A (De)Colonial Borderland

Description: Answering the call to decenter whiteness and coloniality within communication studies (#RhetoricSoWhite), this project attempts to reclaim space for indigenous knowledge and to serve decolonial struggles. Written as a project of love for my fellow indigenous scholars and peoples, I expand upon Tiara Na'puti's conceptualization of "Indigeneity as Analytic" and chart how indigenous Pacific Island decolonial resistance operates through a paradigm of decolonial futurity. By recognizing Guåhan (Guam… more
Date: May 2022
Creator: Torre, Joaquin Vincent, Jr.

"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
open access

Exploring the Narrative and Family Identity Constructions of Adult Children with Visible Disabilities

Description: Using communicated narrative sense-making model and discourse-dependence, the present study examined the retrospective narratives parents told their adult children with visible disabilities in order for them to make sense of their disabilities in their families and to build personal identity. Eleven participants ages 18 to 30 with visible disabilities participated in the study and told retrospective narratives while also relying on internal boundary management strategies to communicate in the f… more
Date: May 2022
Creator: Lyssy, Kendal
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
open access

Desire Lines: Dérive in Heterotopias

Description: This study provides an examination and application of heterotopic dérive, a concept that combines spatial theories originated by Foucault and psychogeographical methods advocated by the Situationists, as enacted within theatrical performance spaces. The first chapter reviews theories related to space, place, and heterotopias, as well as the psychogeographical methods of the Situationists, particularly the dérive. The literature review is augmented with accounts of my experiences of serendipit… more
Date: August 2018
Creator: Snider, Jesse Rhea
open access

This is Your Brain on Football: Making Sense of Parents' Decision to Allow Their Child to Play Tackle Football

Description: Parents make decisions on behalf of their children on a daily basis. Some parents in the United States face the unique decision of whether or not to allow football participation for their child at a very young age. Using sensemaking theory, I examined how parents assessed the risks involved in making the decision to allow their child to play tackle football. I interviewed 24 participants in the form of 12 parental couples who had children playing middle school football and coded their response… more
Date: May 2018
Creator: Boneau, Rebecca Dunnan
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
open access

The Power of the Servant Teacher

Description: An instructor's power in the classroom is constructed and sustained through communication. The aim here is to examine how a teacher's power can be negotiated through a lens of servant leadership in hopes of furthering modes in which communication scholars can train future teachers to utilize their power in the classroom. I hypothesize that a teacher utilizing a servant leadership framework employs more pro-social behavioral alteration techniques (BATs). Participants were asked to answer an onli… more
Date: August 2016
Creator: Brandon, Joshua R.
open access

Tracing the Evolution of Collaborative Virtual Research Environments: A Critical Events-Based Perspective

Description: A significant number of scientific projects pursuing large scale, complex investigations involve dispersed research teams, which conduct a large part or their work virtually. Virtual Research Environments (VREs), cyberinfrastructure that facilitates coordinated activities amongst dispersed scientists, thus provide a rich context to study organizational evolution. Due to the constantly evolving nature of technologies, it is important to understand how teams of scientists, system developers, and … more
Date: August 2016
Creator: Trudeau, Ashley B
open access

From Brecht to Butler: an Analysis of Dirty Grrrls

Description: “From Brecht to Butler: An Analysis of Dirty Grrrls” is a production centered thesis focusing on the image of the mudflap girl. The study examines the graduate production Dirty Grrrls as a form of praxis intersecting the mudflap girl, the theory of gender performativity, and Brechtian methodology. As a common yet unexplored symbol of hypersexual visual culture in U.S. American society, the mudflap girl acts as a relevant subject matter for both the performance and written portion of the study. … more
Date: August 2014
Creator: Lugo, Joanna
open access

Shall We Play a Game?: The Performative Interactivity of Video Games

Description: This study examines the ways that videogames and live performance are informed by play theory. Utilizing performance studies methodologies, specifically personal narrative and autoperformance, the project explores the embodied ways that gamers know and understand videogames. A staged performance, “Shall We Play a Game?,” was crafted using Brechtian theatre techniques and Conquergood’s three A’s of performance, and served as the basis for the examination. This project seeks to dispel popular mi… more
Date: August 2014
Creator: Beck, Michael J.
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.
open access

The Relationship Between Interpersonal Communication Satisfaction and Biological Sex: the Nurse-Physician Relationship

Description: This study examined to what extent the biological sex of the nurse-physician interactants affects the interpersonal communication satisfaction experienced by the nurse. Hypotheses One and Two predicted that communication satisfaction would differ significantly across various combinations of sex of nurse and sex of physician dyads. Hypothesis Three predicted that male nurses would experience higher levels of communication satisfaction than would female nurses. Interpersonal communication satisfa… more
Date: August 1994
Creator: Glenn, Theresa Hammerstein
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.
open access

Social Drama at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary : The Dilday Controversy

Description: This study examines the events surrounding the firing of Russell Dilday at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary as a social drama. The results suggest that, for application to post-industrial cultures, adaptations need to be made to Victor Turner's original method. The addition of Thomas Farrell's anticipation phase, identification of the breach with the transgression, and examination of unique facets of post-industrial cultures such as economic factors and the role of the media are recomm… more
Date: December 1995
Creator: Drake, Webster F. (Webster Ford)
open access

A Study of the Relationships among Relational Maintenance Strategy Usage, Communicator Style and Romantic Relational Satisfaction

Description: This thesis examined student-participants' self-reported use of romantic relational maintenance strategies and their partners' reports of relational satisfaction. Additionally, individuals outside the romantic relationship reported on student-participants' general communicator style. The research proposed that general style reports would be predictive of relational maintenance strategy usage and of romantic partners' relational satisfaction. The study found that general style behaviors may not … more
Date: August 1996
Creator: Hardin, Charla (Charla LeeAnn)
open access

A Rhetorical Analysis of Major Oil Companies' Advertisements in 1990 : A Semiotic Approach

Description: This study demonstrates how discourse is used to construct popular myths. This study analyzes magazine advertisements used by businesses in overcoming the rhetorical problem posed by a public opinion that blamed them for environmental problems. This study shows how businesses used advertisements to construct a popular myth that businesses were doing their part in overcoming the environmental crisis.
Date: May 1998
Creator: Barton, Mica Waggoner
open access

Protecting Patriarchy: an Historical/Critical Analysis of Promise Keepers, an All-Male Social Movement

Description: The historical survey of social movements in the United States reveals that the movement is a rhetorical ground occupied by groups who have been marginalized by society. Today, however, the distinctions between those who are marginalized and those who are part of the establishment have become difficult to distinguish. This study considers the emergence of Promise Keepers, an all-male social movement, and the rhetorical themes that emerge from the group. This study identifies five rhetorical the… more
Date: December 1998
Creator: Eddleman, Libby Jean
open access

The Differences in the Media Constructions of the Narratives of Male and Female Political Candidates

Description: This study views the media as a powerful agent which constructs the narratives of political candidates. In order to determine whether the media constructs the narratives of male and female political candidates differently, newspaper articles were analyzed for two 1994 Congressional races, each involving a male and a female candidate (Thurman versus Garlits and Byrne versus Davis). The first research question posed the following question: Does the media devote more coverage to male or female can… more
Date: May 1998
Creator: Paschal, Lori L. (Lori Lynne)
open access

Protection or Equality? : A Feminist Analysis of Protective Labor Legislation in UAW v. Johnson Controls, Inc.

Description: This study provides a feminist analysis of protective labor legislation in the Supreme Court case of UAW v. Johnson Controls, Inc. History of protection rhetoric and precedented cases leading up to UAW are provided. Using a feminist analysis, this study argues that the victory for women's labor rights in UAW is short lived, and the cycle of protection rhetoric continues with new pro-business agendas replacing traditional justifications for "protecting" women in the work place. The implications … more
Date: December 1998
Creator: Lowery, Christina
open access

A Dialectical Approach to Studying Long-Distance Maintenance Strategies

Description: Using both qualitative and quantitative methodology, this thesis investigates the tactics used by long-distance relational partners, the differences in use of the tactics between long-distance and proximal partners, the relationship among the maintenance tactics, and the relationship of the tactics to relational satisfaction. Seven relational maintenance strategies were identified from the investigation: affirmation, expression, high tech mediated communication, low tech mediated communication,… more
Date: August 1997
Creator: Maguire, Katheryn C. (Katheryn Coveley)
open access

Enacting Racism: Clarence Thomas, George Bush, and the Construction of Social Reality

Description: This study analyzes the confirmation hearings discourse of Clarence Thomas and George Bush. Language constructs social reality. The United States has a history of racism and this history manifests itself in our language. The discourse of Clarence Thomas and George Bush created a social reality that equated opposition to Thomas' confirmation with racism using rhetorical strategies that included metaphor and narrative construction.
Date: May 1995
Creator: Ramsey, Evelyn Michele Eaton
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