Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'General communication studies'

This study suggests the audience that needs to be reached in the Catholic Church and that audience’s characteristic behavior towards using the tools of the new media in relation to their attendance in and commitment to church activities.

Three hundred and two young Catholics ages 12 to 24 residing at the St. Cloud diocese, Minnesota, U.S.A. responded to the survey. An electronic non-random survey was carried out. The study asked what tools of the new media the Catholic youths use the most and how they use them.

The results revealed a strong involvement by the Catholic youths in the use of the Internet. Eighty-three percent of Catholic youths are likely to use the Internet on a daily basis. The results show that Catholic youths are more likely to be familiar with social network sites than with weblogs, and are likely to be found more on social network sites such as Facebook and YouTube. The most likely activity carried out by this group online is watching video webcast or clips. The results suggest loss of interest on religious issues by Catholic youths. The findings show that more Catholic youths are undecided if they will participate in activities organized online by the church.

This study concluded that although the results do not point to enthusiastic Catholic youths who are ready to participate in all kinds of activities organized by the church online, the findings of this study show that the church has ample opportunities to utilize this new means of social communications to appeal to its younger audience. Of particular interest will be the use of social network sites, especially those that provide visuals and motion.

Future studies may focus on the Church in developing countries to determine how the young are doing in their use of the Internet in an environment of slower technological advancement.

How do social media contribute to groups engaged in contentious politics within a domestic environment? While many have examined the influence of social media on the Arab revolutions of 2010-2011 from an international perspective, there are fewer studies examining the impact of social media within a national environment after these events. Through interviews with a group of 40 Tunisians, many of them active in contentious politics from 2010-2013, this research identifies what sources initially informed the group members of a movement as well as the sources that ultimately pushed them to become active. While information gleaned via social media certainly played a role in the decisions of many interviewees to join the movements examined in this research - unsurprising, given the high rates of internet use within the group - social media were often cited as less trustworthy than other sources and were more likely to inform the respondents of a movement's existence than to push them to act. While these findings are not unexpected, they do require that future efforts examining the role of social media in contentious politics within a country's borders differentiate how different types of sources are viewed by potential supporters and how they might contribute to mobilization in different ways.

This paper examines national Internet control from a policy regime perspective. The mechanisms through which governments attempt to control the Internet may be developed and implemented by different institutions and agencies, or fall outside of a formal regulatory structure entirely. As such, the totality of the institutions and practices of national Internet control is better conceptualized not as a regulatory regime, but as a control regime. After a survey of the critical policy and control dimensions, a six-part typology of control regimes is proposed. The purpose of this study and typology is exploratory. With comparative research about Internet control regimes at a relatively early stage, this paper aims to enable the formation of concepts and hypotheses about the interrelationship, or co-presence, of key distinguishing variables in different Internet control regimes.

This qualitative study investigated the information culture and beliefs within two United Church of Christ congregations in Northeast Ohio. One congregation was Open and Affirming (ONA), and one congregation was not. ONA refers to a congregation's decision to be listed as a place where LGBT individuals—in particular—are welcomed and accepted. Using a purposive sampling technique, 8 focus groups of 4-8 participants each were asked to discuss content derived from three research question areas: participant beliefs, information that participants used to inform these beliefs, and how this information was used.

Analysis found that both congregations espoused the superiority of their beliefs about inclusivity, thus creating a paradox whereby their inclusivity involved excluding beliefs of exclusion. Because the ONA congregation preferred a personal expression of belief, they were more comfortable with the potential divisions caused by this paradox than the non-ONA congregation, which preferred a communal expression of belief.

Analysis also found that most participants relied heavily and placed great authority in information from internal sources, e.g., prayer, meditation, and emotion. The ONA congregation reflected the presence of more unique information, indicating that they approached the Bible and other common religious information critically and with more freedom to come to different conclusions than fundamentalists and biblical literalists.

Despite these differences in belief expression and information type, the analysis found that both groups showed evidence of Chatman's Small Worlds theory. First, participants showed evidence of unmet information needs. Many lacked confidence in the ability to articulate personal beliefs. Second, participants noted the presence of long-term attendees who determined the relevancy of incoming information. Finally, participants tended to guard against disclosing information about personal problems to other congregants, preferring to anonymously seek out answers.

The research highlights the social nature of belief formation and the impact of religious tradition, pastoral sermons, and external information on these beliefs. It contains important implications for pluralistic communication and the social nature of organizational legitimization. It extends the literature on belief formation and information science by developing mid-range theories about the processes by which individuals in religious communities use information to form beliefs.

Communication in professional settings is essential to arriving at end results. Managers use speech acts to delegate, instruct, and in other ways get subordinates to perform everyday tasks. The present study aims to investigate how speech acts are performed using different politeness strategies, how these politeness strategies affect the motivation in subordinates, and how politeness can be used strategically in specific situations. The results indicate that politeness strategies used by managers are important for the motivation of subordinates and that different situations and different individuals call for different politeness strategies. Thus it is necessary for managers to make conscious and strategic linguistic choices adapted to specific situations and individuals.

Title: The engagement letter influence on the expectation gap – An empirical study on the expectation gap between auditors and small incorporated companies.

Keywords: Engagement letter, Expectation gap, Misunderstanding, Auditing, Audit, External Auditor, Client, Communication, Knowledge, General view

Problem: People outside the audit society have some mood points in what an external auditor is and what she/he does. Not everybody can understand an audit report and connect the auditor’s responsibility to it. These mood points mutually with ignorance about the auditor and its tasks can result in disagreement between auditors and interested parties, who have different needs and expectations on the auditor, which leaves the auditor-role with a built-in conflict in its role. The authors, in this essay, investigate whether, the relative new law, who request the auditors to establish an engagement letter with the clients, has decreased the misunderstandings between auditors and small limited companies.

Purpose: This essay is meant to investigate if the engagement letter has decreased the expectations gap between external auditors and clients.

Method: Facts has been gathered with the help of interviews with external auditors as well with clients. The questions that were asked during the interviews were half-structured, which gave the respondent the freedom to answer the questions freely but within the scope that was interesting for this essay.

Result: This study show that FAR through its new regulations in RS, in this particular essay, the engagement letter has not fulfilled its purpose to decrease misunderstandings between external auditors and clients, in this case, small firms. The engagement letter has been received as a contract as one of many. Our study shows that there have been no evident differences in knowledge-transfer between external auditors and clients. The engagement letter is designed by auditors with expertise which is not understood by the clients, which leads to a lack of interest by the clients that also reflects on the auditors. It seems though the engagement letter considers as insurance, above all by the auditors in situations when an actual misunderstanding, with legal actions as consequences, occurs.

Titel: Uppdragsbrevets påverkan på förväntningsgapet – En empirisk studie på förväntningsgapet mellan revisorer och små aktiebolag

Nyckelord: Uppdragsbrev, Missförstånd, Förväntningsgap, Revision, Små aktiebolag, Revisor, Klient, Kunskap, Kommunikation, Allmän syn

Problem: Det finns delade meningar bland människor utanför revisionskåren om vad en revisor är och vad han/hon gör. Långt ifrån alla kan läsa en revisionsberättelse eller koppla revisorns ansvar till den. Den delade mening och okunskap om revisorn och dennes arbete kan leda till meningsskiljningar och missförstånd mellan revisorn och intressenter som har olika behov och förväntningar på revisorn, vilket lämnar revisorn med en inbyggd konflikt i sin roll. Författarna undersöker i uppsatsen om lagen om införandet av uppdragsbrevet har lett till ett minskat missförstånd mellan revisorer och mindre aktiebolag.

Syfte: Uppsatsen syftar till att undersöka om införandet av uppdragsbrevet har minskat förväntningsgapet mellan revisor och klienter.

Metod: Data har insamlats med hjälp av djupintervjuer med revisorer såväl som klienter. Frågorna som ställdes under intervjuerna var ostrukturerade där respondenterna kunde svara fritt på frågorna men där författarna styrde in diskussionen i områden som var aktuella för uppsatsen.

Resultat: Uppsatsen visar att FAR genom nya stadgarna i RS, i detta berörande fall, uppdragsbrevet, inte lyckats minska missförstånden mellan revisorer och klienter i småföretag på ett förebyggande sätt. Uppdragsbrevet har mottagits som ett avtal, bland många, där ingen märkbar skillnad kring kunskapsöverföringen mellan revisorer och klienter kan identifieras. Uppdragsbrevet utformas av revisorer vilka besitter expertkunskaper, inom revision, kunskaper som klienterna inte innehar, som i sin tur leder till ett ointresse bland klienterna, som även reflekteras på revisorerna. Däremot upplevs uppdragsbrevet som en trygghetsfaktor för framförallt revisorer vid eventuella fall där ett missförstånd, med rättsliga påföljder, skulle uppstå.

The language used in Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games (or MMORPGs) is a form of computer-mediate communication. It consists of elements from both written and spoken language, but it is a highly abbreviated and innovative form of written language. This study focuses on the English language used in a MMORPG called Warhammer Online. The aim of this study is to identify abbreviations, interpret their meanings and to analyze the word formation processes and semantic changes that are involved in new words. The method used in this study is a qualitative case study of the English language in a MMORPG from a synchronic point of view. The secondary sources used in this study include previous works on morphology and semantics. The material used is based on logs acquired from the game Warhammer Online as a subscribed player. The results presented in this study show new and unique words created by players in Warhammer Online, along with other semantic changes that have taken place. It is concluded that the English written language has not seen such a major change in its entirety before, within one community.

Nonverbal communication such as body language is a vital component of our communication, and since scholars agree that there are some notable differences in the way men and women use body language, the study of gendered nonverbal communication as a social construction is vital to our understanding of how we create gendered identities. The aim of this paper is to investigate how social gender norms concerning body language appear in constructed communication. By studying the body language of the characters in the American sitcom Friends, and with focus on leg postures, I examine how the show Friends enacts and represents stereotyped sex differences in body language. The study encompasses both the distribution of leg positions between the genders, and what these postures seem to accomplish in interaction. As for the relationship between gender and leg postures, I observed the sitting positions of the characters Chandler, Ross, Joey, Monica and Rachel in six episodes from the 1999/2000 season of Friends for the first study. For the analysis of leg postures in relation to the communicative situation, the entire corpus of ten episode recordings was used. Based on repeated inspection of scenes where leg positions could be studied in relation to gender and communication, systematic patterns were identified.

The results of the study are consistent with the findings of scholars like Vrugt and Luyerink (2000); women tend to sit in closed postures or with their legs crossed, which is regarded feminine, while men sit in wide positions with their legs spread, which is regarded masculine. Furthermore, the characters/actors in Friends seem to perform their gender roles partly by using different leg positions and wideness of postures. However, leg positions alone were not found to be decisive in the messages communicated, and emotions and stance were communicated using verbal and other non-verbal channels and cues. Instead, leg positions remained gender-stereotypical regardless of the message communicated, and men and women seem to communicate the same message using different leg positions. It is therefore concluded that leg positions are an inherent part of “doing gender”, but that leg positions as such are not necessarily related to the type of message or emotional stance that is communicated.

Internet har sedan starten öppnat nya portar för kommunikation. En av de allra populäraste just nu är att blogga. Att uttrycka sig språkligt har kommit att bli så mycket mer än bara att använda sig av ord. På bloggen ges möjlighet att tillföra bild, film, färg och att använda olika typografiska medel, såsom att kursivera eller göra text fetstilt. Element som alla bidrar till hur text tolkas.

Utifrån fjorton dagboksbloggar och totalt 289 blogginlägg har min uppsats syftat till att undersöka hur framställning på dessa bloggar, tillhörande gymnasieelever, skett.

Mina frågeställningar jag utgått ifrån lyder:

• Hur använder sig gymnasieungdomar av olika uttrycksmedel för att estetiskt och kreativt skapa ett blogginlägg på så kallade dagboksbloggar?

-          Hur används rubriksättning, bild, film, färg och olika stilformat på texten för att skapa kommunikation och olika uttryck på blogginläggen?

• Hur förhåller sig gymnasieungdomars dagboksblogg till den traditionella dagboken vad det gäller utformning och kommunikationsmöjligheter?

Genom en strukturalistisk analys, med utgångspunkt hos Jurij Lotman, har jag gripit mig an blogginläggen på olika plan där jag både undersökt detaljer i texten och övergripande utformning. Jag har funnit att dagboksbloggen och dagboken skiljer sig på flera plan. Främst i fråga om kommunikationen som sker öppet på dagboksbloggen. Språkligt utmärker sig bloggen främst genom att ord och meningar betonas genom fetstilt och kursiv text, både för att göra texten mer lättövergriplig men också för att betona uttryck. Smileys och andra känslouttryck visar i sin tur hur ungdomarna undviker missförstånd på ett sätt som inte kräver bearbetning av texten. Jag vill säga att uppsatsen visar på hur en vidgad syn på språklighet och kommunikation idag är nödvändig, i och med de nya medel som tillkommit i dagens IT-samhälle.

Internet has since the beginning widened the form of communication. In recent times one of the most popular form is via blogs.

To express yourself has become more than words. The blogs give you the ability to add pictures, videos, colors and more. You are also able to use typological medium like italic and bold types. All these elements contribute to how the text is read and interpreted.

From 14 different diary blogs written by high school students and 289 posts in total my thesis intend to study which method of fabrications these blogs use.

The question formulations I have based my thesis on are:

·         How do high school students use different ways of expressions to esthetical and creatively create posts at the so called diary blogs?

-          How does headlining, pictures, film, colour and different typological medium being used to create communication and different expression on the posts?

·         How does the diary blog relate to the traditional diary regarding the formation and forms of communication?

Through a structuralistic analysis method based on Jurij Lotman’s analysis I’ve approached the posts on different levels, where I examine details in the text but also the structure. I’ve found that the diary blog and the diary separate from each other on several plans, foremost the way of communication which is overt in a diary blog. Linguistically the diary blog distinguish itself from diaries by the way to be able to emphasize words or a sentence with italic and bold types. Smileys and different kinds of emotional forms of expressions are used by the blogger to avoid misconceptions.

The thesis has proven that a widening way of looking at linguistic and communications are necessary due to the new medium that comes with the IT.