Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Communication Studies'

The study starts off as a quest for the core meaning of the term communication. First, the epistemological grounds of the endeavour are investigated. Findings of experientialist cognition, backed up by e.g. Putnam’s results, indicate that intentionality as understood by traditional cognitive science might be an incomplete story; so, in parallel, constructivist approaches are investigated. The two approaches are here termed as linear and recursive models, respectively.

Through introducing the conduit metaphor and the mathematical theory of communication, the question of whether communication consists of a transfer is discussed. Arguments are presented to the effect that the mathematical theory neither does support this understanding, nor appears to be applicable (but as a cognitive model) outside the domains where probabilities are assigned to outcomes.

Communication research in three areas is presented: investigations from an ethological perspective, process approaches to human communication, and the study of the signification relation. Finally, a review of some work on simulations of communication and collective behaviour is given.

In conclusion, intentionality is required for the communicating entities, which – based on some of the arguments presented in this study – leaves inanimate objects, plants, bacteria, and most of the animal world (except molluscs, crustaceans, and vertebrates) outside the communicating world. Communication incorporates signs, and signs are interpreted. In the process, meaning is created. The objectivist science ideal of pointing to an appropriate event and claiming "This is real communication" has to be substituted by offering descriptions of some idealised cognitive models. One might argue about these, accept them, or reject them; this is what communication (amongst other things) is (and is for).

In general, if it is understood that there is no possibility of reaching ‘objective’, observer-independent knowledge, another way of reaching more certainty than what just an individual can get might be to turn to others. It is this that brings cognition and communication into close relationship.

What is community? What defines it, and what creates it? What—or who—is the gay community? Is the gay community the same as it was ten, twenty, or even thirty years ago? Those are some of the questions I will be answering as I explore the creation, expansion, and subsequent integration of the physical gay community into one that embraces an online, fragmented community. I will explore the creation and evolution of the gay community, examining its early years and the challenges it faced as a marginalized group. To help define community, I will use the concept of identity theory by incorporating the theory of play and weaving the idea of claiming public space into my argument to show how the physical, economic, social creation of the gay community is dependent upon a geographic and virtual community. Those examples will set up my argument that the idea of community has changed in part to the commonality of technology and social applications. I argue that the idea of the traditional gay and lesbian community, which relied heavily on where you lived, has become fragmented and disjointed because of the reliance of an online, virtual community which, in turn, has led to a lack of interpersonal connections among individuals of this marginalized group.

This communications study looks at gender-based self-reflexive theoretically guided practice, “praxis,” to explore the way in which a women's community media organization, femLINKpacific, pursues its goals of enhancing women's participation in governance structures and resiliency to extreme weather conditions. This study contributes to the nascent literature on mobile device and radio interaction by exploring the way in which women in rural Fiji utilize mobile devices to interact with femTALK, the community radio station of femLINKpacific. The study is based on the theoretical frameworks of inclusive innovation, post-development theory, and participatory communications theory in the context of gender-based ICT4D. Two main platforms, Mobile Suitcase Radio (MSR), a portable radio platform, and Women’s Weather Watch (WWW), a mobile-phone based weather reporting network, and an additional non-mediated communication venue of monthly women’s gatherings were explored through a 3-phase study, utilizing interviews and focus groups, with radio station staff and women leader’s networks.

Main findings included the role of WWW to transmit information for preparedness for Tropical Cyclone Winston, and indigenous food practices shared through the various platforms, as well as the role of MSR, when used in conjunction with the issues shared at the monthly consultations, to bring greater awareness to the women’s “voice.” This study extends to understanding the role of mutually supportive, systematic processes to enhance women's participation in governance structures, including the role and effectiveness of inter-ethnic groups in addressing community issues, and capacity building through incremental acclimatizing activities.

This dissertation served two purposes. The first purpose was to examine the relationships between the two dimensions of family communication patterns (i.e., conversation orientation and conformity orientation) and four student classroom communication behaviors (i.e., out-of-class communication, in-class oral participation, instructional dissent, and students’ motives to communicate with their instructors). The second purpose of this dissertation was to investigate academic resilience as a mediator in the relationship between family communication patterns and student classroom communication behaviors. It was discovered that students’ family conversation orientation was associated positively with their oral participation and the relational, functional, participatory, and excuse-making motives to communicate with instructors. Conversation orientation was associated negatively with vengeful dissent. Students’ conformity orientation was positively associated with their use of vengeful dissent and the relational, participatory, excuse-making, and sycophantic motives to communicate with instructors. It was also discovered that conformity orientation moderated the relationship between conversation orientation and academic resilience. Additionally, a conditional indirect effect was discovered in the relationship between conversation orientation and the functional motive to communicate with instructors through academic resilience, as it was conditional upon levels of conformity orientation. These results and implications were discussed in light of existing research findings on family communication patterns, academic resilience, and students’ classroom communication behaviors. The results of this dissertation should be interpreted with caution due to the structural validity issues of the instruments and the data collection procedures.

Intertextuality refers to the textual space where texts intersect and new (hyper)texts emerge. It is the shaping of a text’s meaning by other (inter)texts present in it. As a literary device taking forms like allusion, quotation, pastiche, translation, etc., it depends on the presupposition of the presence of intertexts (or hypotexts) in (hyper)texts and on the reader’s recognition of such presence. For the recognition of intertexts, authors usually rely on shared cultural knowledge with the reader. The presence of intertexts in a text can either open it to interpretations or direct the reader towards a one in particular. If such recognition can possibly be missed intraculturally, the possibility is doubled when the reading is intercultural, as in translation. To minimize the loss of the intertextual context of the source text (ST), translators adopt certain translation strategies (such as analogous intertexts, paratextual devices, and exegetical translation) that ensure such context is relayed into the target text (TT) and recognized by the target reader. While the semantic equivalence can neutralize the linguistic difference, relaying the intertextual relations in the ST remains the daunting problem encountered by the translator.

I argue in this dissertation that intertexts, particularly Quranic references, in the Arabic novel are a source of semantic density and pose a considerable challenge to the translator. Since semantic equivalence alone does not guarantee that the ST intertextual relations are maintained in the TT, a synthesis of other translation strategies is required to relay the ST intertextual relation into the TT. Drawing on Kristeva’s (1986) ‘vertical intertextuality,’ Fairclough’s ‘manifest intertextuality’ (Momani et al., 2010), Derrida’s ‘iterability’ and ‘citationality’ (Alfaro, 1996), Bakhtin’s ‘reaccentuation’ or ‘double-voicing’ (Kristeva, 1986), I opted for paratextual devices to ensure that the TT reader will capture those relations. Bracketed explanations were used extremely economically to avoid producing an enlarged translation.

This guide was created to serve as a tool for crisis communications to assist in crafting ethical responses to crises using social media as the primary communications channel. The guide combines Stakeholder Theory (Freeman, 1984)—a management theory that focuses on the importance of different groups of people, not just shareholders—with Situational Crisis Communication (Coombs, 2007). The guide also adheres to two of Kant’s Categorical Imperatives as the ethical basis and marker. To create the guide, the author relied on archival, or documentary, research to provide the background information and theory to inform the creation of the guide. The guide is broken up into four parts—an overview of crisis communication, pre-crisis planning, active crisis communication, and post-crisis communication/reputation rebuilding. The guide is meant to be used as a tool, and is not an exhaustive how-to for handling a crisis.

Research on subordinate-supervisor communication has revealed that employees in civilian organizations often stay silent about workplace problems. Comfort levels between subordinates and supervisors, was a major factor to this silence. Currently, there exists very little literature on upward communication from subordinate to supervisor amongst U.S. Naval Officers. The purpose of this thesis was to explore Junior Officer (JO) feelings and perceived obstacles about communicating up the chain of command with senior officers. Interview questions from a previous study (Milliken, Morrison, & Hewlin, 2003) on subordinate-supervisor communication were adapted for an electronic survey and used to explore JO feelings and perceived obstacles when communicating workplace problems with senior officers. Results answered the research question, revealing that while JOs are generally comfortable when communicating with their senior officers, the hierarchy does negatively affect their communication upward. Other major reasons to remain silent were attributed to feelings of futility and fear of being perceived negatively by others.

Keywords: communicative action, deck-plate leadership, effectiveness, interagency, junior officer, participation, subordinate-supervisor communication

Parents and speech language pathologist (SLP) typically establish and maintain hierarchical relationships which ascribe excessive authority to the therapist, thus limiting the possibilities for dialogue and mutual learning. The SLPs discussions of children?s communication development often fail to acknowledge the contributions that parents can make, based on their knowledge and experiences with children at home. Neglecting parents? voices in communication intervention means the parents? critical role in supporting children?s communication development is overlooked. By investigating with parents their perspectives on children?s communication facilitation and social interaction experiences in and out of the home environment, this study sought to understand the relationships between parent?s beliefs and practices for communication facilitation and to model processes by which parents and SLP?s develop a reciprocal dialogue. This study draws insights into how parent initiated communication facilitation and social interaction for children with complex communication needs (CCNs) in a rural rehabilitation center in Kerala can be improved through examining a collaboratively created communication partner training program for parents and used a participatory action research approach centered on cooperative inquiry. Six parents of children younger than 6.5 years with CCNs, joined me in a six-month long co-investigation. Individually and collectively we raised questions, observed, documented, and reflected on communication facilitation strategies in and out of the homes. Weekly meetings were held involving all the participants and occasionally with individual families. Data sources included research diaries written by myself about parent?s experiences, audiotapes of meetings, participants? reflective journal entries, and children?s communication profiles constructed jointly by parents and the researcher. When children?s communication was documented based on children?s communication at home, we observed a wide variety that was not assessed in the standard communication assessments. The study?s findings provide evidence that parents can be a rich resource for SLPs and researchers. The data reveal the perceptions and practices of parents for communication facilitation. It also shows some of the real-life challenges for communication and interaction facilitation. Parents raised issues about current practices in communication interventions, misunderstandings about speech therapy, and training/teaching and learning relationships. This suggests that organizing parent training programs based on western models would be inappropriate. Through the parent practitioner research process, we were able to develop and introduce `conversation books? as a way for viewing the child as a communication partner and to provide more interaction opportunities for the children viewed as `sick child.? This process provides further evidence for the importance of including parents? knowledge and experience in the design of effective learning contexts for their children. These findings suggest that beyond the currently existent routine clinician-parent meeting (5 minute or lesser sessions, of giving instructions to parents), alternative structures for dialogue with practitioners are needed that allow for parents? critical reflection and substantive contributions to the children?s communication intervention plans.

Liljedal Communication AB is a marketing company with twelve employees in Örebro. In the marketing business is it extra important to work creatively to reach the target market with a message.

Creativity is defined as the creation of new ideas where the idea is adequate, useful and feasible. Organisational creativity is created by individuals in the right environment for using their creativity. In this paper we present theories about creative individuals and the situation that affects their creativity. Furthermore theories are presented about different strategies that aim to increase creativity. The importance of the preparation of a problem is highlighted.

Two interviews were conducted with the Vice President and Creative Director, moreover did the authors visit an idea meeting at the company. This is the base for the empirical part. The situation and strategies for creativity in the theoretical part and the empirical part is compared. Liljedal has a focus on becoming a creative organisation; this is noticeable both in their work environment and their working strategy.

The conclusion is that Liljedals have good possibilities to work creatively. They also have a strategy worked out in detail for their creative work, this strategy is well conformed with the researchers strategies for increased creativity.

Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to investigate how SMEs in the Småland region define and communicate their CSR activities towards their stakeholders.

Background: Corporate social responsbility is a topic that is widely discussed today. In many cases the CSR agenda has been adopted by many large corporations. However there is a demand from governmental bodies to spread this agenda further to include and engage small-to-medium enterprises (SMEs). The main reason for this approach is due to SMEs being the most frequent type of business in Europe and is often influential in the local communities (Castka, Balzarova, Bamber, Sharp, 2004).

There is also a demand from stakeholders to receive information about CSR. Research within the field of CSR Communication has mostly been focused on large corporations. Recently, the focus has shifted towards SMEs and  it is still an emerging field.  The research  concerning CSR and CSR communication within the SME context is limited and therefore it is an important area that needs to be addressed.

Method: The purpose of this thesis was achieved by using the case study approach. Two companies; Smålandsbygg and Sköna Hem AB were investigated. Four respondents from each company were interviewed and the outcome of the interviews was analyzed together with the frame of reference.

Conclusions: According to the findings it is difficult to provide one common definition of CSR that can be applied for the two companies in the study. In general it might be difficult to provide a common definition of CSR in SMEs. According to previous research the way SMEs conduct their business is dependent on the owner and the personalities of the management. Consequently, there can be a variety of ways that SMEs are engaging in CSR or percieve CSR to be.

There are three different communication strategies when communicating CSR towards the stakeholders. It could be interpreted that both companies applied different communication strategies depending on which stakeholder they were communicating with.

Syfte: Syftet med den här uppsatsen är att undersöka hur små och medelstora företag definierar och kommunicerar deras CSR aktiviteter gentemot sina intressenter.

Bakgrund: Företagets sociala ansvarstagande, även kallat CSR, är ett omdiskuterat ämne idag. I många fall har CSR agendan integrerats i de flesta stora företag. Emellertid finns det ett krav från statliga organ att sprida denna agenda vidare och engagera små och medelstora företag. Den främsta anledningen för denna ansats beror på att små och medelstora företag är den mest vanligt förekommande verksamheten i Europa och tenderar att vara inflytelserika i lokalsamhället. (Castka, Balzarova, Bamber, Sharp, 2004).

Det finns också efterfrågan från olika intressenter att få information om CSR. Forskning inom området CSR kommunikation har mest varit riktad mot större företag. Nyligen, har fokus skiftat till små och medelstora företag och är fortfarande ett område på frammarsch. Forskning inom CSR och CSR kommunikation i små och medelstora företag är begränsat och är ett viktigt område som måste uppmärksammas.

Metod: Syftet med den här uppsatsen uppnåddes genom att använda en fallstudie. Två företag; Smålandsbygg och Sköna Hem AB undersöktes. Fyra personer från varje företag blev intervjuade och resultatet från dessa intervjuer analyserades tillsammans med referensramen.

Slutsats: Enligt resultaten från studien är det svårt att tillhandahålla en allmän definition när det gäller CSR som kan appliceras i de två företag som var med i studien. Generellt sett kan det vara svårt att ge en allmän definition om CSR i små och medelstora företag överhuvudtaget. Tidigare forskning visar att sättet som små och medelstora företag drivs på, påverkas av ägarna och ledningens personlighet. Följaktligen kan det finnas flera olika variationer om hur små och medelstora företag är engagerade i CSR eller hur de uppfattar CSR konceptet.

Det finns tre olika kommunikationsstrategier när man vill kommunicera CSR till olika intressenter. De två företagen i studien applicerade olika kommunikationsstrategier beroende på vilken intressent de kommunicerade med.

Abstract

Title:A study of the internal communication at The Swedish Department of Taxes (En studie av den interna kommunikationen på Skatteverket)

Number of pages: 36 (52 including enclosures)

Author: Emma Kreü

Tutor: Peder Hård af Segerstad

Course: Media and Communication Studies C

Period: Atumn 2006

University: Division of Media and Communication, Department of Information Sciense,Uppsala University

Purpose/Aim: To resarch the internal communication within The Swedish Department of Taxes and the relationship between information sender and reciver.

Material/Method: By contedning critical discourse analysis on The Swedish Department of Taxes’ policy for internal communication and accomplish interviews with co-wokers in position of reciving information, in position of sending information and section managers.

Main Results: The co-workers in position of reciving information felt they had a good communicational relastionship with their closest section manager, but not with the upper management.

Keywords: Internal communication, communicational leadership, organizational communication.

The marketplace in today's world is more dynamic than ever with the growing trends of environmentally-conscious business practices and products. The popular phrase of "going green" is used by many companies and organizations striving to provide environmentally safe products and services. With this growing industry, consumers are exposed to more and more "green" advertisements each day. However, many question if the practice of green advertising is worthwhile.

By looking at the way consumers react to different kinds of advertisements, it can be seen that green advertising is not always a smart choice. Researchers suggest that the reactions vary on many factors such as the type of consumers and the type of product.

This study analyzed the idea of green advertising versus non-green advertising based on the levels of high and low involvement products. An experiment was conducted using college students who completed a survey that presented a set of eight different advertisements for an array of brands and products. The participants included two groups made up of those who were exposed to green advertisements and those who were exposed to non-green advertisements. Both groups were shown the same set of four high involvement products and four low involvement products. The group of high involvement products included two kinds of cars and two kinds of laptops. The group of low involvement products included two kinds of pens and two kinds of bottled water.

The findings show that green advertisements work best with high involvement products. Unlike low involvement products, green advertising positively influences the consumers' attitude toward the advertisement and the brand, as well as purchase intention. Low involvement products did not have the same results and the influential power compared to high involvement products.

Photography is increasingly used as conversation in social media. Photography has been used as evidence of activity, for influence and identity, and for persuasive rhetoric. Current demand for understanding social photography is due to its modern inclusion as a standard communication process for creating and affirming community. Mobile technology and increased data rates through available bandwidth have resulted in the answer and response interaction cycle now happening with photographs. Facebook users share over 300 million photographs a day (Facebook, 2013) which indicates a mass of communication occurring between individuals, small groups, communities, and the public that does not have the same level of communication understanding as written and spoken language. A second level of inquiry concerns the lower levels of understanding concerning small groups and communities. The majority of communication studies concern individuals, the public mass, and Western hierarchical organizations. This research leverages tools from iconic photojournalism in order to analyze ease of use and applicability for future social photography studies. Hariman and Lucaites (2007) five primary tools of aesthetic familiarity, civic performance, semiotic transcripts, emotional scenarios, and contradictions and crises are evaluated through the data sample photography shared by the Burning Man community. The data set concerns photographs and their associated responses shared through Twitter as a social media tool intended for open, public access. The intent of this study concerns the ability to leverage the process for past, present, and future sharing of photography in order to analyze and apply ways to build community. This analysis reveals the minimal use of sharing a photograph as an emotive invitation to join with the community's performance enables a high success of visualizing community. This study investigates analysis and application tools for visualizing community through social photography.

After the bloody Tiananmen crackdown in 1989, the legitimacy of the Communist Party of China (CCP) suffered a devastating blow among the overseas Chinese (OC). The CCP responded to the challenge by implementing transnational outreach policy in the OC community, which includes substantial efforts to increase the Party’s influence in the overseas Chinese-language media (OCLM). By conducting a qualitative analysis of the evolution of the CCP's OC policy, this thesis finds that the Party has made tremendous progress in achieving the policy’s strategic goals: modernization and transnational legitimacy. The CCP’s increased influence in the OCLM has made crucial contributions to the Party's success in restoring transnational legitimacy in the OC community. This thesis finds that the China News Service (CNS), China's second-largest news agency operating under the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office of the State Council, plays a major role in the CCP's attempt to influence the OCLM and centralize the production of Chinese-language news.

In 2008, a group of masked protesters stood in front of the Church of Scientology in Los Angeles to protest the organization's censorship on the Internet (Knapperberger, 2012). This protest was the first collectivized, localized, and material manifestation of the group Anonymous, a loosely coordinated decentralized group of Internet based-activists that began on the web. Amidst increasing regulation of the Internet, Anonymous is a key subject to watch to determine how contemporary social movements will unfold with the introduction of cyberspace as a place of organization and performance. To provide a foundation for this study, I review social movement theory in the U.S. with an emphasis on visual imagery in protests. While traditional movements relied on public collective action (Bowers, Ochs, & Jenson, 1993), new social movement theory assumes movements rely on private and individual reclamation of identity (Buechler, 1999, 2000). Anonymous fits into neither theory but takes aspects from both, challenging social movement theory to go further and account for the Internet-driven conditions that change the nature of the protester, revealing anonymity and appropriation of images as two distinct markers of contemporary social movements, as initially depicted in the use of the Guy Fawkes mask. Next, I look at geographies of place and how protest changes in cyberspace based on the images that emerge, giving the group aesthetic control over their social construction. Mirzoeff's (2011) analysis of visualized authority explains how Anonymous creates a countervisual to the state control of aesthetic reality by guiding is visual representations. DeLuca and Peeples' (2002) concept of the public screen addresses the promulgation of protest images, which become the primary rhetoric of the movement and a means to establish aesthetic credibility. Anonymous exists as a character in a disembodied cyber-world, with the media creating myths of embodied protesters. Through Bahktin's (1981) analysis of the chronotope, I study the spatio-temporal relationships of traditional social movements and how Anonymous challenges those relationships by establishing new chronotopes that influence contemporary movements. Emerging chronotopes break down the distinction between the protester and the hacker, the public and private dichotomy, and allow for contemporary protesters to break out of these conditions and inhabit a space of legitimacy. Anonymous offers a case study for the future of contemporary social movements that will take place in cyberspace in an era characterized by a struggle over information in a virtual world. Because social movements are no longer primarily defined by traditional media outlets, Anonymous shows how protesters can determine their own aesthetic reality. The chronotopes that emerge speak to the movement's ability to expand social movement theory as both a public and private operation, functioning outside of state suppression tactics and normative restraints. As the chronotopes become recognizable by the public, Anonymous gains leverage in defining its own genre of social movements. Anonymous is a performance without a distinct beginning and end, but operates as an evolving ideological position. The visual realities that emerge into the material world may provide further insight into how the state will allow (or disallow) social movements to occur.

This dissertation explores the role soft control plays in the relationship between the television industry and short forms of digital media. Following James Beniger and Tizianna Terranova, I define soft control as the purposive movement by the television industry towards shaping audience attention toward predetermined goals through a range of interactions where development happens somewhat autonomously, while being interjected with commands over time. I define such things as media environment design, branding, and data collection as soft control practices. I focus on television as a way to understand how an industry historically patterned around more rigid forms of audience control deals with a digital media environment often cited for its lack of control features. And while there is already a robust discussion on the shifting strategies for the online distribution of shows, there is less of a focus on the increasing importance of shorter forms of digital media to the everyday operation of the television industry. Shorter forms of media include digitally circulated short videos, songs, casual digital games, and even social media, which is itself a platform for the distribution of shorter forms of media. I refer to all these forms of short media as "micromedia" and focus my interest on how various television companies are dealing with media environments saturated with it.

To do this I look at, for instance, how television companies use the data available on Twitter and appropriate the user-generated content of audiences, as well as how standard digital communication interfaces are utilized to more easily retrofit previous audience retention practices into new digital environments. Through the investigation of how television creates and appropriates micromedia as a way to reconfigure practices into the everyday lives of participatory audiences, I argue that we can see soft control elements at work in structuring the industry-audience relationship. These soft control features call into question the emancipatory role attributed to participatory audiences and digital technologies alike. If we think about media forms in their specific contexts, making sure to focus on their intermedial connections and their materiality, we can complicate ideas about what the categories of audience or industrial control mean.

Media and culture are interrelated, which shapes what is culturally relevant. War films reflect a culture?s view on war as well as the viability of a culture?s mythology of war. Grounded in the concepts of war myth and genre, this thesis takes the stance that the Iraq and Afghanistan War film genre transforms the image of the American warrior. Iraq and Afghanistan War films, specifically The Hurt Locker, Green Zone, Lone Survivor, and American Sniper illuminate the destructive reality of war and the humanness of the warrior hero. They reaffirm the warrior?s heroism and sacrifice while also acknowledging war as damaging to the warrior?s psyches, hearts, minds, and bodies.