Browsing by Department "Communication Studies"

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2 Brothers 1 Wife
(0000-00-00) Hopper, Robert, 1945-1998
2 Guys (Beach - SDCL)
(0000-00-00) Hopper, Robert, 1945-1998
A & A
(0000-00-00) Hopper, Robert, 1945-1998
A qualitative analysis of sibling communal coping in the context of parental substance use disorder
(2022-08-08) Nolan, Haley; Dailey, René M.
Substance use disorder (SUD) is a massive concern in the United States and has been exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic. Children everywhere are growing up in households where one or more family members, oftentimes one or both parents, are managing SUD. How to facilitate the communal coping (CC) process in this environment is of great interest to family communication scholars. The current investigation uses the Theoretical Model of Communal Coping (TMCC; Afifi et al., 2020a) and the Theory of Resilience and Relational Load (TRRL; Afifi et al., 2016) to better understand whether communal coping takes place between siblings who grow up in a household with parental SUD and how it may manifest in this unique relational and contextual environment. Findings indicate that siblings often engage in CC appraisal and action in ways that are prosocial and encourage adjustment, but also engage in CC in ways that may be maladaptive when certain conditions, such as poor relational and communication quality, are present. In addition, the majority of participants reflected on their sibling relationship as a positive factor in their life and in managing the difficult circumstances created by parental SUD. These findings highlight the importance of the sibling relationship in the coping process but also warn against the potential risks of it.
A qualitative exploration of daughters' reports of supportive and unsupportive responses from their mothers during the transition from college to career
(2018-08-14) Damron, Jane Haas; Donovan-Kicken, Erin E.; Dailey, René; Vangelisti, Anita; Horstman, Haley
The transition from college to career has been established as a stressful period of time for emerging adults, as well as a critical turning point for mothers and daughters. Effective support from mothers helps daughters cope with stressful events, but shifting roles and/or expectations during periods of transition can present communication challenges. As such, the current dissertation investigated mother-daughter communication during daughters’ transition from college to career. Framed by the lens of Goldsmith’s (2001, 2004) normative model of social support, this study used face-to-face, semi-structured interviews with 35 emerging adult women to gain new insights into daughters’ experiences transitioning and their evaluations of supportive/effective and unsupportive/ineffective messages from their mothers during this period of time. The investigation uncovered a variety of stressors experienced by participants before graduation (unknowns, decision-making, finances, and outside expectations) as well as after (change in pace and social isolation). In regards to communication with mothers, daughters reported a lack of satisfaction when mothers were overinvolved (challenging daughters’ autonomy, being too forceful with ideas, asking too many questions) or under-attentive (not listening well, asking too few questions). According to daughters, this led to increased stress and tightened control of information on their part. Conversely, daughters appreciated when mothers believed in them and were positively engaged (encouraging daughters’ autonomy, filling a cheerleading role, listening well, asking helpful questions). According to participants, this led to decreased stress, increased confidence, and a feeling of being anchored during the transition. These findings contribute to an understanding of the stressors of the transition from college to career, as well as what types of communication daughters find more or less helpful. In accordance with Goldsmith’s (2001, 2004) normative model of social support, daughters were most satisfied with behaviors and messages that attended to their task, identity, and relational goals.
A temporal perspective on flexible careers : reconciling multiple perspectives, levels of analysis, and time scales
(2017-12) Davis, Tasha Ford; Ballard, Dawna I.; Barbour, Joshua; McGlone, Matthew; Adams, Paul
Organizational scholars have given considerable attention to changing patterns of work and careers. A globalized economy and technological advances have created fast-paced work environments that are no longer supported by traditional organizational structures. The nature of the employee-employer relationship has also changed in many organizations with employees relying less on employers for stability and permanence, and employers shifting the responsibility for career planning and professional development to the employee. Individuals are also free to behave as active agents in creating innovative work-based practices that allow them to fulfill personal demands and commitments. These issues have opened the door for flexible work designs and arrangements. This dissertation explores the need and desire for flexibility among the qualified workforce, the negotiation strategies organizational members use to enact flexibility, and their attempts to extend work based flexibility across the lifespan. A five-month qualitative study is presented that considers the temporal nature of these changes, the varying time scales implicated in a range of flexible work practices and norms, and the various levels at which temporal flexibility is shaped. Findings support a perception of organizational flexibility as a temporal resource, and changing perceptions for employees working both within and outside of formal organizational policies. Results also demonstrate shifts in career behaviors as individuals actively engage in enacting flexibility across the lifespan. The temporal approach taken in this study contributes to our understanding of organizational flexibility by clarifying and disentangling theoretical concepts to more accurately explain the experiences of individuals in the contemporary organizational environment.
Advancing collective communication design for fertility tracking
(2023-04-17) Call, Shelbey Rolison; Barbour, Joshua B.; Costa Figueiredo, Mayara; Donovan, Erin E; Shorey, Samantha
This dissertation employs a design lens and grounded methods to examine collaborative sensemaking around fertility data tracking. I investigated how members of an online fertility data support group, Lilac Fertility Collective, made choices about their communication together and how their choices revealed the problems, techniques, and situated ideals that shape collaborative sensemaking about fertility tracking. This work advances collective communication design (CCD) beyond a theory of communication towards a theory of organizing in three ways. First, it illuminates how CCD is deeply tied to organizing because negotiations about communication rely on members’ shared understanding of their organizationality. Their fluid organizing led to disagreements about how to manage information, wield labor, and interact in accordance with the group’s purpose. Second, this work advances CCD as contextually grounded because members’ desires for interaction and their ability to act towards those desires together were shaped by their personal experiences of emotion, embodiment, and temporality. Finally, this work scales up CCD theorizing to the institutional level because members’ beliefs in how communication should be wielded were also grounded in their beliefs about and efforts to reclaim their agency against institutions of technology and medicine.
After Break-up
(1983) Hopper, Robert, 1945-1998
AI assistants in workplaces : implementation, workers, agency, and organizational policies a qualitative study
(2024-05) Li, Siyu Catherine ; Stephens, Keri K.; Shorey, Samantha
Artificial Intelligence is becoming more and more common in every aspect of people’s lives, including their work routines. Workplace integration presents individual employees and organizations with both opportunities and challenges. On the one hand, individual employees are able to gain help from an intelligent assistant, possibly reducing their workload and increasing their productivity. On the other hand, organizations might not have developed clear guidelines to manage employee’s use of AI assistants, leading to associated issues, such as data security. This study explores the interplay between employees’ AI assistant usage and organizational dynamics, with a specific focus on employees’ autonomy, organizational policies, and the material features of AI assistants. It uses qualitative research methods to investigate the topic through in-depth semi-structured interviews across multiple industries, grounded theory data analysis, and a participant-centered oral history lens. These methods enabled the researcher to facilitate conversations that lead to a deeper understanding of the complexities involved in the dynamics of employees’ AI assistants adoption and organizational policies. The study results indicate that while employees generally view AI assistants as tools capable of enhancing productivity, their actual implementation in work routines still requires significant human labor. This includes tasks such as training AI assistants and ensuring data security, which are necessary due to their limited capabilities and the absence of clear organizational guidelines. The findings also suggest a complex relationship between increases in productivity and changes in workload. Additionally, the results highlight employees’ agency in utilizing AI assistants, which is reflected in three aspects: resistance to AI assistants at an individual level, self-disclosure of AI assistant usage, and data security concerns. Notably, the absence of clear organizational policies around AI assistants’ use creates strategic ambiguity, allowing employees to adapt the technology to their specific needs. Finally, the study underscores the importance of clear and supportive organizational policies for the use of AI assistants in workplaces and stresses the importance of incorporating employees’ input in the policymaking process.
Algorithmic or Human Source? Examining Relative Hostile Media Effect With a Transformer-Based Framework
(Cogitatio, 2021) Jia, Chenyan; Liu, Ruibo
The relative hostile media effect suggests that partisans tend to perceive the bias of slanted news differently depending on whether the news is slanted in favor of or against their sides. To explore the effect of an algorithmic vs. human source on hostile media perceptions, this study conducts a 3 (author attribution: human, algorithm, or human-assisted algorithm) x 3 (news attitude: pro-issue, neutral, or anti-issue) mixed factorial design online experiment (N = 511). This study uses a transformer-based adversarial network to auto-generate comparable news headlines. The framework was trained with a dataset of 364,986 news stories from 22 mainstream media outlets. The results show that the relative hostile media effect occurs when people read news headlines attributed to all types of authors. News attributed to a sole human source is perceived as more credible than news attributed to two algorithm-related sources. For anti-Trump news headlines, there exists an interaction effect between author attribution and issue partisanship while controlling for people’s prior belief in machine heuristics. The difference of hostile media perceptions between the two partisan groups was relatively larger in anti-Trump news headlines compared with pro-Trump news headlines.
Allusions of grandeur : figurative language use in rap lyrics
(2016-05) Christopher, Roy (Editor); Brummett, Barry, 1951-; Gunn, Joshua; McGlone, Matthew; Davis, Diane; Sconce, Jeffrey
This dissertation examines allusions among a corpus of rap lyrics to find their uses and functions. The functions of the allusions, as defined by Leppihalme, 1997, of interest are the puzzle (to identify someone with similar social knowledge), humor, to indicate cultural breadth, and characterization (taking on a character to make a situation more understandable). This study is important for many reasons not the least of which is the focus on language use, a tack that is often taken for granted in studies of hip-hop culture. It is also important for the culture because the so-named “Hip-hop Nation” is a community constituted by communicative action and is now a global phenomenon. According to Fiske (1987), intertextuality is “the understanding of a media text by bringing to bear understandings of other media texts” (p. 108), thereby it is the understanding of a text through the interpretation of allusions to other texts. Allusion has been variously defined as reference to another literary work, to another art, to history, to contemporary figures, or the like (Preminger, 1965); a reference, explicit or indirect, to a person, place, or event or to another literary work or passage (Abrams, 1984); a figure of speech that compares aspects or qualities of counterparts in history, mythology, scripture, literature, popular or contemporary culture (Lass, Kiremidjian, & Goldstein, 1987); Gorham and Gilligan (1997) distinguishes media allusions, calling them, “adaptations of or reference to a scripted line from the popular media” (p. 1), and referring to them as “cultural handshakes.” The limited empirical research in the area of allusion has focused on users' reasons for and use of media allusions (Gorham & Gilligan, 2006) and reader responses to the translation of unfamiliar allusions (Lippehalme, 1997). An allusion creates “a new entity greater than any of its constituent parts” (Kellett, 1933, p. 13-14). The use of allusion is traditionally thought of as adding a layer of richness to a piece of art or literature. I believe the same can be said for rap lyrics and the overall pastiche that has become hip-hop culture
Am I in danger here? Incorporating organizational communication into an extended model of risk information seeking at work
(2016-05) Ford, Jessica Lynn Isabel; Stephens, Keri K.; Barbour, Josh; Donovan, Erin; Kahlor, LeeAnn
There is a notable deficiency in organizational communication literature on the topic of risk information seeking (Real, 2008), given that 3.7 million nonfatal occupational injuries occurred in 2013 (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2014). Previous research on organizational communication addressing health and safety at work tends to focus on employee attitudes toward risk (Real, 2008) or looks at the discursive emergence of safety in the workplace (Zoller, 2003), while overlooking how organizational-level constructs, such as information seeking norms and safety information availability influences employees’ search for risk information. In general, communication scholarship on this subject is fragmented, and lacks a representative model accounting for both individual and organizational influences on risk information seeking behaviors. In light of the frequency of on-the-job injuries and fatalities, this dissertation calls attention to the lack of research by organizational communication scholars on employee risk information seeking within high-reliability organizations (HROs). Using quantitative survey data from a large oil refinery, this dissertation expands the Planned Risk Information Seeking Model (PRISM: Kahlor, 2010) to (a) include organizational-level variables, and (b) account for information seeking sources and strategies used by employees. Originally, the goal of Kahlor’s (2010) PRISM was to integrate the relationships from well-known health information seeking models to build a model of risk information seeking that was independent of any health context. However, to fully capture the various constraints—power, control, status—which employees confront to either encourage or avert risk information seeking attempts, this dissertation alters Kahlor’s PRISM. This dissertation offers a set of theoretically-driven hypotheses and research questions to assess the explanatory value of the extended PRISM, aptly named the Organizational Planned Risk Information Seeking Model (O-PRISM). Using Analysis of Moment Structures (AMOS) to conduct structural equation modeling tests reveals that the O-PRISM accounts for 62% of the variance in risk information seeking behaviors. Follow-up testing of the PRISM revealed that Kahlor’s original model explained only 34% of risk information seeking behaviors. In addition to answering Real’s (2010) call for “health-related organizational communication” research concerning occupational safety (p. 457), the findings from this study offer insight for safety personnel tasked with encouraging risk information seeking. First and foremost, this study encourages high-reliability organizations to consider how organizational norms are communicated both formally and informally. The results also provide evidence that employee risk perceptions are a poor motivator for information seeking behaviors. Lastly, from a theoretical perspective, the present study provokes a discussion about the added value of model adaptations for organizational studies.
Ambiguous artifacts : exploring sensemaking towards organizational identification
(2019-07-08) Rolison, Shelbey Liray; Barbour, Joshua B.
Scholars have long sought to understand how professionals construct their identity relative to the organizations in which they work. Organizations put in place loose and flexible structures to be responsive to emerging opportunities and challenges and to encourage and manage organizational and industry changes. New organizations may be especially likely to adopt unorthodox or intentionally ambiguous structures to set themselves apart and address problems that motivate their founding and diversify their structures. Research in turn needs to understand how organizational members accommodate uncertain and shifting organizational structures by negotiating the personal, professional, and organizational aspects of their identity through communicative sensemaking. I contribute to the study of organizational identity and sensemaking processes through a qualitative case study that explores how individuals construct their identity in the absence of conventional sensegiving artifacts. Discursively vague job titles, indefinite and inapplicable job descriptions, and unclear and ambiguous organizational structures prompt continuous sensemaking. Analysis of interview data and field notes uncovered alternate schemas and resulting work practices individuals engage in as they negotiate their organizational identity to cope with uncertainty and ambiguity.
An application of the theory of resilience and relational load : family communal orientation, social support, stress, and resilience during gender transition
(2020-06-22) Table, Billy; Donovan-Kicken, Erin E.; Dailey, Rene; Vangelisti, Anita; Sandoval, Jennifer
This dissertation aimed to explore vital questions in health communication scholarship focused on the role of family communication in transgender individuals’ coping with stress. As posed by the Minority Stress Theory (MST; Meyer, 1995; 2013), transgender individuals endure chronically high levels of stress as a consequence of discrimination. Studies demonstrate that transgender people have fewer sources of familial and network support, and overall have fewer places to turn during times of duress and health crises (Gamarel et al., 2014; Meyer, 2003). The present study was framed with the Theory of Resilience and Relational Load (TRRL; Afifi et al., 2016; 2017; 2018). The central idea of the TRRL is that relationships (partners, families, and on) that frequently enact positive relational maintenance behaviors demonstrate more resilience when faced with stressors. Because families have a distinctive capacity to influence individuals’ coping strategies (Segrin & Flora, 2011), there is a need to examine the ways that transitioning individuals perceive the support and conflict communication with family members, and what influence this communication can have on their mental health. In order to test the propositions of the TRRL in this context, a web-based questionnaire was administered, and 257 individuals who identify as transgender responded. Participants were asked to think about their relationship with one member of their family of origin with whom there is ongoing communication. Participants responded to measures of communal orientation, enacted support, conflict, relational load, stress, and resilience. To analyze these data, a series of multiple regressions were performed and three path models were fitted. Findings from this study illustrated mixed results regarding the impact of relational maintenance on stress and resilience outcomes. While family members that are more communally oriented and use more constructive conflict strategies demonstrate a positive effect on lower stress and higher resilience; more communally oriented family members that employ more enacted support foster more stress for transgender individuals. Findings suggest that those with higher stress about transitioning may be seeking more support, and or support providers may be offering ineffective support to their loved ones in ways that contribute to their feelings of stress.
An integrated approach to metadiscourse in text-based masspersonal advice
(2023-04-21) Jia, Mian; McGlone, Matthew S., 1966-; Vangelisti, Anita L; Donovan, Erin E; Feng, Bo
In everyday interactions, people seek advice from others about personal relationships, self-development, or career development. How to communicate clear, polite, and effective advice is a question receiving increasing attention in communication research. Previous studies on message style have focused on linguistic politeness strategies such as conventional politeness markers and face-redressive expressions. Theories of interpersonal metadiscourse suggest that communicators regulate their message style by employing a wide range of linguistic devices such as frame markers (e.g., first, second, my point is) and hedges (e.g., probably, could, might). These devices, however, have not been fully explored in the advice-giving context. I argue that metadiscourse constitutes an essential collection of stylistic features that enable advisors to communicate their messages clearly, respectfully, and effectively. These markers are important in text-based masspersonal advice which features asynchronicity, interactivity, anonymity, accessibility and personalization. Adopting a mixed-methods approach, I designed two studies to examine the distribution and effects of metadiscourse markers in communicating text-based masspersonal advice. Study 1 was a corpus analysis of 120 “masspersonal” advice exchanges (i.e., advice that is tailored to individuals but is accessible to online groups). The results indicate that advisors strategically used interactive and interactional metadiscourse to fulfill different communicative purposes. Using a 2 (Hedges: present vs. absent) × 2 (Frame Markers: present vs. absent) × 2 (Scenarios: No Passion for Work vs. Ask for A Raise) between-subject factorial experiment, Study 2 tested the effects of metadiscourse on people's evaluations of advice quality and implementation intention. The results showed that using frame markers significantly improved participants' evaluation of advice quality and their intentions to take the advice. These main effects are mediated by advice clarity and advice quality. Using hedges also significantly elevated participants' evaluation of advice quality and this effect is mediated by advice quality. The two reported studies represent an interdisciplinary approach to exploring metadiscourse use in masspersonal advice-giving. The integration of metadiscourse extends the message style construct in advice research by moving beyond a focus on linguistic politeness and facework. This research aims to celebrate the very best human altruism of passing wisdom from one individual to another.
Analyst statements, stockholder reactions, and banking relationships : do analysts' words matter?
(2009-05) Mendonca, John; Daly, John A. (John Augustine), 1952-
This dissertation investigates the immediate effects of securities analysts' statements on shareholders. Two of the most important questions posed in research on capital markets are when and how analysts matter. A time at which analysts might matter is when they make pronouncements regarding a firm or industry; ways in which they might matter is through their word choices and the context of their words in these pronouncements. The question, "Do analysts matter?," has been explored before and has been answered in terms of the securities analysts' quantitative earnings forecasts and their effects on the capital markets. I investigated the discourse used in these earnings forecasts and other statements regarding the focal firm or industry in analyst reports. Therefore, I answered the question, "Do analysts matter, as defined by their words used, and do they change investors' judgments about a firm's future prospects?" The study employed content analysis of analysts' language to determine whether the words they use in their statements cause a response in the market. The study also investigated how the analysts' language differs based on their affiliations. To examine this question, I drew on the efficient markets theory from finance. Data sources included the Chicago Centre for Research on Security Prices (CRSP) tapes and First Call analyst reports. The research applied quantitative computer text analysis, the event study methodology, and regression to test the hypotheses. By studying statements from the All-American Team analysts, the present work shows that investors do consider the pronouncement of analyst statements significant. The results demonstrate support for the idea that analyst statements have an impact on the stock market. Moreover, the statement characteristics have an incremental effect on the market response. The key findings illustrate that words in the analysts' report matter. The analyst characteristics were instrumental in deciding the words that the analysts use in their reports. Finally, analysts use words to signal information to investors when they are pressured from investment banking relationships.
Anatomy of emotions in politics : the role of discrete emotions in political information search and participation
(2018-06-15) Choi, Sohyun; Stroud, Natalie Jomini; Vangelisti, Anita; Hardesty, Sharon Jarvis; Johnson, Thomas
Discrete emotions in response to politics have increasingly been examined. However, there has been a negativity bias where scholars have been primarily focusing on discrete negative emotions. Despite documented evidence of their distinctiveness in cognitive psychology, discrete positive emotions, such as enthusiasm, hope, and pride, have received little to no attention from communication scholars and political scientists. Drawing from appraisal theories, this dissertation advances our knowledge about the different constructs of discrete emotions, especially positive emotions, and their effects on information search and political participation. I answered two main questions in this research: First, how different are enthusiasm, hope, and pride from one another in terms of their constructs of appraisal components? Second, to what extent do discrete positive and negative emotions result in differential effects on people’s information seeking and political participation? I employed a multi-methodological approach to analyze the cognitive constructs and effects of discrete emotions. First, I executed an online survey to find out which appraisal components predict each positive emotion. The confirmatory factor analysis captured three different sets of cognitive appraisal dimensions for enthusiasm, hope, and pride. Second, I conducted an online experiment to test the varying effects of six discrete emotions on participants’ information seeking behavior and their intentions to participate in eight political activities. I investigated the differential effects for three positive emotions and three negative emotions. This research uncovers that enthusiasm, hope, and pride, prevalent positive emotions in the political realm, are different from one another in regard to their cognitive appraisal constructs. Moreover, the dynamics among emotions, information seeking, and participation intentions are found to vary across discrete emotions with the same valance in several instances. The dissertation sheds light on different profiles of discrete emotions as well as their varying effects on people’s political life. The closer look at the role of discrete emotions in politics increases our chance to better democracy as citizens become more aware of their own emotions enacted by the media, politicians, parties, and can thus make conscious decisions about exercising their rights as a citizenry.
Answering Machine
(0000-00-00) Hopper, Robert, 1945-1998
Answering Machine 2
(0000-00-00) Hopper, Robert, 1945-1998
Answering Machine 3
(0000-00-00) Hopper, Robert, 1945-1998