Communication

Permanent URI for this communityhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/2223

Browse

Now showing 1 - 20 of 206

An Analysis of Presidential Campaigns of Sitting and Former Vice Presidents: So Close and Yet so Far
(2014) Mansharamani, Neil Hiro; Kendall, Kathleen E; Klumpp, James F; Communication; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
This study examines the presidential campaign communication of American sitting and former vice presidents. In recent history, four sitting U.S. vice presidents have run for president with only one (George H. W. Bush) succeeding. Three, Richard Nixon in 1960, Hubert Humphrey in 1968, and Albert Gore in 2000, lost close elections, with Nixon and Gore losing in very close and controversial contests. In the two cases of former vice presidents who ran for president, Nixon prevailed in 1968, whereas Walter Mondale failed in 1984. All of these candidates faced similar rhetorical problems attributable to their vice presidential status, particularly in defining their relationship with the president and their role in the administration. This study is a content analysis and historical analysis of campaign speeches, statements made during debates, and television advertisements by sitting and former vice presidents in the elections of 1960, 1968, 1984, 1988, and 2000. The purpose is to understand each vice president's discourse regarding both the president and the administration in which he served; and better appreciate how the inherent rhetorical situation that accompanies a superior-subordinate relationship is illustrated in these types of campaigns. Results showed that some vice presidents (e.g. Richard Nixon) chose to discuss their president/administration more often, while others chose to almost never discuss their president/administration (e.g. Al Gore). This analysis shows that when a vice president seeks election to the presidency, he has tended to pursue one or more of the following strategies: run on the administration's record; minimize the record and argue that if elected, he will produce better results; emphasize their own personal involvement and achievements in the administration; or mostly avoid discussing the president/administration.
Another Episode in the Great American Adventure: A Fictional Play (based on a speech by Richard Nixon "The Cambodia Strike," April 30, 1970
(Moments in Contemporary Rhetoric and Communication, 1972) Klumpp, James F.
A fictional representation of the writing of the speech in which Richard Nixon justified to the Nation the incursion into Cambodia.
Are you prepared for the next storm? Developing social normsmessages to motivate community members to perform disasterrisk mitigation behaviors
(Wiley, 2022-06-14) Lim, JungKyu Rhys; Liu, Brooke Fisher; Atwell Seate, Anita
Preparing for natural disasters and adapting to climate change can save lives. Yet, minimal research has examined how governments can motivate community members to prepare for disasters (e.g., purchasing flood insurance or installing water barriers in homes for floods and hurricanes). Instead, studies have focused on how to communicate actions individuals should take during disasters, rather than before disasters. This study develops messages targeting social norms, which are promising approaches to motivate community members to adopt disaster risk preparedness and mitigation behaviors. Specifically, we developed a variety of messages integrating descriptive norms (i.e., what others do), injunctive norms (i.e., what others believe should be done), and a social norms-based fear appeal, or social disapproval rationale (i.e., a negative social result of [not] taking behaviors). Then, we tested these messages through two between-subject factorial online experiments in flood- and hurricane-prone U.S. states with adult samples (N = 2,286). In experiment 1 (i.e., purchasing flood insurance), the injunctive norms message using weather forecasters and the social disapproval rationale message significantly increased social norms perceptions, which in turn influenced behavioral intentions. In experiment 2 (i.e., installing water barriers), the injunctive norms message using weather forecasters, the injunctive norms message using neighbors, and the social disapproval rationale message significantly increased social norms perceptions, which in turn influenced mitigation intentions. However, the descriptive social norms message was not effective in increasing social norms perceptions. We provide some of the first empirical evidence on how organizations’ risk communication can empower community members to prepare and mitigate the impact of disasters.
Attributional processes in accounting for conflict behaviors
(2009) Yao, Shuo; Cai, Deborah A.; Fink, Edward L.; Communication; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
One simple way to handle interpersonal conflict is to use accounts to explain one's behaviors. Although accounts play a significant role in managing conflict, relatively little research has explored the processes offenders use to determine the accounts selected in conflict situations. The goal of this dissertation is to investigate the attributional processes offenders use that determine their accounts in conflict. Ten hypotheses were proposed about how the severity of the conflict outcome and the closeness between the parties involved in the conflict influence offenders' choice of accounts. A structural equation model was developed and tested based on the proposed hypotheses. An experiment was conducted, with two levels of outcome severity and three levels of relational closeness. Offenders' attributions (i.e., the degree of internal attribution, the degree of external attribution, controllability, and uncontrollability), anticipated consequences (i.e., expected responsibility and expected anger), and offenders' expected choice of accounts (i.e., the likelihood of selecting concessions, justifications, excuses, and refusals) were measured. Two hundred thirty-eight participants were recruited and randomly assigned to one of the six experimental conditions. Participants read a hypothetical conflict scenario, imagined that they were the offender in the scenario, and completed a questionnaire that had the dependent measures. Results indicated that outcome severity influenced offenders' choice of accounts directly and indirectly. Offenders tended to choose a more defensive account when they perceived the outcome to be severe than when the outcome was not severe. The influence of outcome severity on offenders' choice of accounts was also mediated by the attributions offenders made, the responsibility expected to be assigned to offenders, and anger expected to be felt by victims. When offenders perceived the outcome to be severe, offenders made more attributions, expected more responsibility to be assigned to them, and expected that victims felt angrier about offenders' behavior than when the outcome was not severe. Consequently, when offenders expected more anger from victims, they tended to be less defensive. Interpretations and implications of results, the limitations of the study, and future directions were discussed.
THE BATTLE OF IDEOLOGIES: A STRUGGLE FOR OWNERSHIP IN THE DEAF COMMUNITY
(1992) Jankowski, Katherine Anne; Klumpp, James F.; Communication; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md)
This dissertation examines the rhetorical process of the Deaf social movement as it evolved from the beginnings of community conception in America to the early 1990s. Specifically, this study employs a Foucaultian approach to address how rhetoric shapes the empowerment of the cultural identity of the Deaf social movement. Such a study contributes not only to our understanding of social movements, but also how members of a movement empower themselves through language. Although rhetorical analyses traditionally place communication as the means, the study of the Deaf social movement further contributes to our understanding of the phenomenon of communication because for the Deaf community, communication is the central issue of their struggles with the dominant society. The rhetorical strategies of the Deaf social movement suggest a theory for community building, especially within a multicultural vision of society, which require three necessary attributes: creating a sense of self-worth, strengthening the internal foundation of community building, and accessing the public sphere.
The Black Body in Political Photography, 1990-2020
(2021) Sharma, Artesha Chardonnay; Parry-Giles, Dr. Shawn; Communication; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
Black political art has been an important element of Black liberation efforts in the 20th and 21st centuries. Black artist-activists of the past and present have demonstrated a concern with systems of oppression that perpetuate multiple forms of racial trauma in the lives of Black people. This project examines the various strategies deployed by artist-activists between 1990-2020 to re-instantiate political trauma in U.S. collective memory. In the process, the project spotlights continued oppression by visually connecting past atrocities with current forms of physical, emotional, and representational violence and examines artists’ depictions of the Black body to remember racial trauma and visualize Black agency. In Chapter One, I examine Carla Williams’s How to Read Character (1990-1991) and the ways she revisits the history of scientific racism to expose strategies used to predetermine character based on race. Williams uses her nude body as a means to critique by positioning her self-portraits next to early scientific documents to evoke Black agency and to subvert the dominant gaze that has contributed to Black subjugation of the past and present. In Chapter Two, I examine how the photo-text installation series by Carrie Mae Weems, From Here I Saw What Happened and Then I Cried (1995-1996), intervenes in the circulation of archival images of the Black body to contemplate and challenge past and current notions of Black embodiment across race, gender, class, and sexuality. In the process, Weems re-politicizes historical and contemporary representations of Blackness and collective remembrances of Black trauma to call for retribution and healing. In Chapter Three, I interpret how Julian Plowden’s Project #Shootback (2014-2020), offers a haunting reminder of the continued racial inequalities through political street photography of the Black Lives Matter movement. Drawing from collective memories of earlier Black liberation movements, the collection situates Black Lives Matter within a legacy of Black activism committed to ending inequalities faced by Black people. Plowden ultimately re-politicizes Black emotion and Black embodiment as a means to resist racial oppression, survive racial trauma, and expose ongoing atrocities. In the Conclusion, I analyze LaToya Ruby Frazier’s photographic exposé on the life and memory of Breonna Taylor featured in Vanity Fair’s, “A Beautiful Life.” I argue that the emotional photography of Taylor’s loved ones pushes back against negative stereotypes about Taylor and Black women to assert Black worth and visualize the suffering that police brutality causes to the Black community. Situated within the context of continued racial tension, the images in this project demonstrate the multiple strategies of resistance and empowerment used by contemporary artist-activists in the U.S. to expose and end racial injustice. Overall, the images highlight the continued importance of photography in the current fight for Black liberation.
A BLACK NATIONALIST WORLD: THE RHETORIC OF LEADERS OF THE UNIVERSAL NEGRO IMPROVEMENT ASSOCIATION FROM 1914 TO 1925
(2022) Carroll, Darrian Robert; Parry-Giles, Shawn; Communication; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
Black people continue to struggle for freedom. This project examines the way that leaders of the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) fought for the freedom of Black people from 1914 to 1925. UNIA leaders rhetorically fought for Black people’s freedom by building on their belief in Black self-determination to practice world-making and envision a public. Turning back to UNIA leaders’ espousal of evaluations of the present and expectations for the future illustrates how UNIA leaders developed a view of a public capable of including all Black people and left behind a roadmap for how to make a more equitable world now. Chapter One investigates Marcus Garvey’s “Address to the 2nd Universal Negro Improvement Association Convention.” Garvey’s evaluations and expectations, his world-making, and his freedom dream, provided the foundation for UNIA leaders’ view of their public as one that included all Black people. Chapter Two examines the rhetoric of UNIA leaders Henrietta Vinton Davis, William Ferris, and Marcus Garvey during the “Africa for the Africans” campaign. The second chapter reveals how leaders’ world-making rhetoric provided them with the opportunity to envision a parallel public—a public inclusive of all Black people and insulated from the negative views of the “dominant” public. The third chapter examines how leaders articulated evaluations of the past and present and expectations for the future to develop a view of their public as one still capable of supporting Black self-determination despite the imprisoning of Marcus Garvey. UNIA leaders like Henrietta Vinton Davis, William Ferris, Amy Jacques Garvey, William Sherrill, T. Thomas Fortune, and Marcus Garvey exemplified a rhetoric of champions as they predicted the future success of their public. The fourth chapter investigates how the most indispensable women leaders of the UNIA reflected on the UNIA’s successes from 1914 to 1925 after the UNIA had passed its prime. Chapter Four turns to Amy Ashwood Garvey’s and Amy Jacques Garvey’s reminisces of Marcus Garvey in their interviews for “The Ghost of Garvey” conducted by Lerone Bennett Jr. In their interviews, Ashwood Garvey and Jacques Garvey produced a rhetoric of falling forward by evaluating the UNIA’s past and expecting that the efforts of the UNIA leaders would have purchase for Black people fighting for freedom in the future. Ashwood Garvey’s and Jacques Garvey’s rhetoric pushed a view of leaders’ public as strong and supportive of Black self-determination into perpetuity. This project concludes by reflecting on what UNIA leaders’ world-making and envisioning of a public illuminate about Black Nationalism in the 1960s and world-making now. Leaders did not get to see their Black Nationalist world come to fruition, but UNIA leaders did bring millions of Black people together around the idea that if they believed in self-determination, the future was theirs for the making. Turning back to UNIA leaders’ rhetoric from 1914 to 1925 evinces how by believing in Black self-determination and articulating their own evaluations of the present and expectations for the future, UNIA leaders charted a path to a different world.
Black women's meaning-making of HIV/AIDS campaigns: A Black feminist approach to the impact of race on the reception of targeted health communication
(2007-05-09) Curry, Tiphane' Patrice; Aldoory, Linda; Communication; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
The purpose of this exploratory study was to understand how Black women make meaning of HIV/AIDS communication. This study combines Black feminist epistemology with the situational theory of publics in an examination of Black females' meaning making of HIV/AIDS communication. Twenty in-depth interviews were conducted with Black women under the age of 35. Findings suggest targeted publics may choose not to process messages because they feel the messages inaccurately represent their identity, or not to seek information because they do not want to face judgment from others who associate their identity with a health problem because of targeted messages. This study added to the situational theory of publics by proposing an emerging model describing the relationship between identity and the variables of the situational theory.
Boosting the Mythic American West and U.S. Woman Suffrage: Pacific Northwest and Rocky Mountain Women's Public Discourse at the Turn of the Twentieth Century
(2013) Lewis, Tiffany; Maddux, Kristy L; Communication; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
This project examines how white women negotiated the mythic and gendered meanings of the American West between 1885 and 1935. Focusing on arguments made by women who were active in the public life of the Pacific Northwest and Rocky Mountain States, these analyses illustrate the ways the mythic West shaped the U.S. woman suffrage movement and how Western women simultaneously contributed to the meaning of the American West. Through four case studies, I examine the ways women drew on Western myths as they advocated for woman suffrage, participated in place-making the West, and navigated the gender ideals of their time. The first two case studies attend to the advocacy discourse of woman suffragists in the Pacific Northwest. Suffragist Abigail Scott Duniway of Oregon championed woman suffrage by appropriating the frontier myth to show that by surviving the mythic trek West, Western women had proven their status as frontier heroines and earned their right to vote. Mountaineer suffragists in Washington climbed Mount Rainier for woman suffrage in 1909. By taking a "Votes for Women" pennant to the mountain summit, they made a political pilgrimage that appropriated the frontier myth and the turn-of-the-century meanings of mountain climbing and the wilderness for woman suffrage. The last two case studies examine the place-making discourse of women who lived in Rocky Mountain states that had already adopted woman suffrage. Grace Raymond Hebard, a Wyoming historian and community leader, participated in the pioneer reminiscing practices of marking historic sites. Hebard's commemorations drew on the agrarian myth and Wyoming woman suffrage to domesticate Wyoming's "Wild West" image and place-make Wyoming as settled, civilized, and progressive. When Jeannette Rankin was elected as Montana's U.S. Representative in 1916, she introduced herself to the nation by enacting her femininity, boosting Montana's exceptionalism, and drawing on the frontier myth to explain Western woman suffrage. As I conclude with an analysis of Henry Mayer's "Awakening" cartoon, I illustrate the ways place-based arguments for woman suffrage and the boosting of Western woman suffrage worked together to construct the meaning of the West as a place of gender equality in the early twentieth century.
Building online communities after crises: Two case studies
(2014) Janoske, Melissa; Liu, Brooke F; Communication; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
Building community in a crisis situation offers individuals a chance to not just survive, but potentially thrive through a disaster. Communities offer a unique benefit in a crisis by expanding beyond the geographic to include virtual spaces, particularly when other media are not available for survivors. This project applies theoretical frameworks from both complexity theory and the community of practice model to explore how individuals form online communities after crises, how those communities impact crisis recovery, and how the model can be used to understand communities' crisis communication. This project used a qualitative case study method, including content analysis of two communities that formed online after two crises, and interviews with nine members, including the founder, of one of the communities. The first case is the Jersey Shore Hurricane News Facebook page, formed during Hurricane Sandy in October 2012. The second case looks at a hashtag-based (#batman and #shooting) community on Twitter after the shooting at a Colorado movie theater in July 2012. The results show that instead of a typical one-to-many communication model and organizational focus, utilizing a community of practice allows for both a one-to-one model and a consequent focus on affected individuals. The community of practice model accommodates findings which suggest that location is important in building community, a need for adapting information needs to the community, and the acceptance of multiple relationship types. A new, alternate final dimension of communities of practice, continuation, is suggested and exemplified. This project argues for developing these online communities prior to a crisis. There are also specific suggestions for tools within technology that would be most useful to crisis-based communities of practice, and both benefits and drawbacks to the platforms studied. Practically, social media platform designers need to spend time thinking through how people connect during a crisis, and to make it easier for them to get the information they need quickly. In showcasing how to integrate social media, crisis communication, and a community-based model, this dissertation offers theoretical and practical suggestions for altering and improving current understandings of the best way to aid individual crisis response and recovery.
"BUT I'M JUST A LITTLE VOICE:" EXPLORING FACTORS THAT AFFECT RURAL WOMEN'S MEANING MAKING OF EMPOWERMENT AND HEALTH
(2011) Austin, Lucinda; Aldoory, Linda; Communication; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
This research study explores how empowerment can be incorporated as an element of health communication campaigns to positively affect rural women's everyday health activities. This study questions how rural women make meaning of empowerment and health, the factors that affect rural women's empowerment, and how health communication campaigns may bolster individual and community empowerment. Building from multiple theoretical--including empowerment theory, the situational theory of publics, the theory of planned behavior, the social cognitive theory, and a socio-ecological perspective--this study explores empowerment as a critical link in health communication and public relations theory. Dimensions of individual empowerment such as self-efficacy and perceived behavioral control were explored in more depth, as were other factors that affected empowerment, including social support, religiosity, and involvement as a construct of the situational theory of publics. This study employed a qualitative research method to explore empowerment through these rural women's lived experiences. Research was conducted through 41 qualitative, in-depth interviews with women residing in a small rural community; 15 of these women also participated in photovoice as a research method. Findings from this research demonstrate the importance of multi-level and multi-faceted socio-ecological approaches to health communication campaigns, involving communication at many levels such as the individual, organizational, and community levels. As findings from this research highlight, rural women's notions of empowerment may be impacted by their community and social interactions, their religious involvement, and their experiences with personal and family health problems. Physical and structural factors in women's lives also left them with feelings of powerlessness in certain health situations, suggesting the need for health communication campaigns to also address larger changes in structure and policy. Based upon the research findings and the prior literature, a model is proposed to aid in understanding of the factors that influence women's feelings of empowerment.
The Carnival of the Courtroom: Public Moral Argument, Antiwar Protest, and the Chicago Eight Trial
(2017) Depretis, Abbe Sentina; Gaines, Robert N.; Communication; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
In this project, I examined rhetorical activities of the 1969–1970 Chicago Eight Trial, focusing on discourse from the trial itself (e.g., from the eight defendants, the judge, the lawyers, and the court reports) and discourse occurring outside the trial (e.g., newspaper reports) from 1968 to the present. Because the Chicago Eight Trial played an important role in the discussion of the Vietnam War and the antiwar movement, I sought to interrogate the rhetorical dimensions of the discourse within the trial, in the media coverage of the trial, and among the participants during the trial. This case was situated within the context of antiwar protests in the United States as well as the transformative context of the 1960s, specifically contestations about the Cold War, civil rights, political assassinations, and the military draft. Overall, this project was intended to deepen understanding of how public moral argument, Baktinian carnival, and guerrilla theater functioned in discourses of the Chicago Eight Trial, whose defendants aimed to challenge the dominant sociopolitical culture over the U.S. war in Vietnam. In addition, the Chicago Eight Trial was a prime example of the ways that public moral arguments can be used to disseminate messages about the political, ethical, and social conditions in the United States. Finally, in this project, I sought to understand how the rhetoric involving the Chicago Eight Trial was framed by the defendants and by the media. The project contributes to literature about framing, protest movements, and social change.
The Child Labor Movement's Night Messenger Service Campaign: Rights and Reform in the Progressive Era
(2016) Gardner, Elizabeth Ellen; Parry-Giles, Shawn J.; Communication; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
The Progressive Era is known for the democratization and expansion of government and the professionalization of occupations. The campaign to regulate child labor in the night messenger service (NMS) exemplifies the symbiosis and clash of these progressive forces. Specifically, this study analyzes how NMS reformers adopted rhetorics of social science, moral citizenship, and rights to define social problems and to expand the power of states over childhood. To this end, this study examines the NMS campaign’s discourse between 1909 and 1915 to demonstrate the ways in which reformers used technical arguments to renegotiate the process of reform and to realign the rights of children, parents, and states. These chapters follow the evolution of this campaign as it defined the NMS problem through its investigative reports, constructed the American public as under threat in its public appeals, and realigned the rights of adolescents within the states during its legislative process. As part of their technical arguments, campaigners identified experts as the instigators of reform, constructed the American public as an educated but inactive moral ideal, and established the leaders of the newly-formed child labor organizations as the undisputed managers of legislative initiatives. In so doing, the NMS campaigners helped establish the legitimacy and centrality of child welfare organizations within reform. In the NMS campaign model, technical expertise was necessary to collect research and guide a legislative campaign. As the American people were not experts, campaigners simply called on the general public to be vigilant and responsive to the directives of reformers. In the process, this study looks at the ways in which this reform campaign renegotiated the boundaries of adolescence in the Progressive Era. NMS campaigners sketched the independence of these adolescent laborers as a threat to the good of the community, and on the basis of that threat, reformers successfully lobbied to place the work of adolescents under the authority of the state. The NMS legislation positioned state governments rather than the family as the primary overseer of an adolescent’s labor and moral education and redefined the confines of adolescent labor in terms of age, time, and space.
CIVIC ENGAGEMENT AMONG STUDENTS IN A COMMUNICATION COURSE: A CASE STUDY
(2009) Lamm, Erica Jane; Wolvin, Andrew D.; Communication; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
This study examines the thoughts about civic engagement of six unique undergraduate communication students as they take an upper-level argumentation and debate course. Although some scholars (Putnam, 2000) lament the drop in civic engagement in the United States, Jacoby (2009) and others argue that the 1990s "saw a dramatic increase in efforts to bring college and university resources to bear on both broad social issues and local problems" and that campus-community engagement has become increasingly important in recent years (p. 13). As communication scholars, one of our missions is, or should be, to enhance the communication skills that students need to be engaged citizens (Hogan, Andrews, Andrews, and Williams, 2008). To understand the role communication courses may play in the enhancement or creation of a sense of civic engagement in students, this case study followed six undergraduates through the course of their upper-level argumentation and debate course. Through interviews and journals, thick descriptions were written of these students' experiences, and themes were discovered. Several key themes emerged from the interviews. Students mentioned the importance of listening, though they did not explore the ethics of listening. Whether or not Americans are more or less civically engaged today met with mixed views. Definitions of civic engagement led students to the importance of local community. Interestingly, national or global efforts were not identified, even though President Obama was mentioned as the most prominent proponent of civic engagement. Attributes of civic engagement extended beyond listening to confidence and to media/technology literacy. Finally, audience, an important component of public speaking, was recognized as a critical skill necessary for civic engagement. Surprisingly, the students in this study were unable to articulate how to translate their considerable skills into the public arena, to actually become civically engaged.
CODE ME A GOOD REASON: JOSEPH WEIZENBAUM AND A RHETORIC OF ETHICAL AI
(2021) Yang, Misti Hewatt; Pfister, Damien S; Communication; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
Joseph Weizenbaum was a Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor often credited with creating the first chatbot, or automated computer conversationalist, in 1966. He named it ELIZA. Ten years later, however, he wrote Computer Power and Human Reason: From Judgment to Calculation, a book questioning the ethics of natural language processing, AI, and instrumental reason. This dissertation presents Weizenbaum as an early 20th century rhetorical theorist of computation. With an understanding of rhetoric as the material means for generating good reasons for living together, I articulate how Weizenbaum’s rhetorical interventions around the early development of computational culture can inform the ethics of engineering broadly and the development of AI specifically. The first chapter provides an overview of my historical and theoretical framework. The second chapter starts with Weizenbaum’s childhood and ends with the release of ELIZA. The third chapter chronicles his growing disillusionment with computers in society in the context of the Vietnam War. The final two chapters are dedicated to the book and reactions from a prominent figure in the history of AI, John McCarthy. Informed by Weizenbaum, I recuperate rhetoric as a practice of reason composed of technē that requires phronêsis in order to be realized in its full ethical potential. I argue that recognizing the practice of rhetoric inherent in engineering and ethics can better equip engineers and the public to manage scientific and technological uncertainty with the care necessary for a humane future.
The cognitive dynamics of beliefs: The role of discrepancy, credibility, and involvement on microprocesses of judgment
(2004-11-30) Chung, Sungeun; Fink, Edward L; Communication; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
This dissertation investigates the process of belief change by examining the time course of beliefs. The time course of belief change during judgment provides information about dynamic aspects of the cognitive system, cognitive responses during judgment, and the effect of distal variables on belief change. Several previous studies obtained individual belief trajectories using a computer mouse technique to observe the time course of belief change. Based on characteristics of belief trajectories, this study developed a new framework for their analysis. This framework allows analyses not only of overall but also of micro aspects of belief change during judgment. Hypotheses about the time course of belief changes were developed and tested with four data sets from three previous studies. Total N = 267. This study found the following: (1) Belief change during message receipt reflects the structure and properties of the message; (2) belief change during the post-message phase shows some oscillatory and some damping dynamics; (3) message discrepancy and source credibility have dynamic effects on belief change during judgment. This study generally supports dynamic models of belief change. Methodologically, this study suggests that belief trajectories can provide on-line information about cognitive responses and micro belief changes during judgment.
COLD WAR II: UKRAINIAN SOVEREIGNTY AND IDENTITY
(2017) McCloskey, Thomas Laurence; Parry-Giles, Shawn J; Communication; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
Ukraine’s 2014 Revolution of Dignity showcases tensions between nationalism and internationalism in a post-Cold War era. Ukraine’s political leaders and ordinary citizens express opposing views about the identity and sovereignty of their nation, as some want closer ties with the European Union, while others seek closer relations with the Russian Federation. The myths and memories of Ukraine’s Cossack past, as well as its time in the former Soviet Union, animate discourses throughout the conflict. These debates result in no clear consensus about Ukrainian identity. The inability of Ukraine to find a unified nationalist identity in the conflict highlights a post-Cold War paradox. Ukraine is unable to articulate a unifying identity because the myths and memories of the Cold War continue to circulate in public discourse. International organizations are largely unable to legitimize either side’s claims of identity in the conflict. This chaos has invited outside intervention, as both the Russia Federation and the United States attempt to influence Ukraine’s decisions about sovereignty and identity in ways benefitting Russian or American interests. These discourses mirror Cold War debates over Soviet satellite countries, as a propaganda battle for the hearts and minds of the Ukrainian people rage on in political speeches, online forums, and in international organizations. Ukraine is thus mired in a cycle of unrest, as corruption and language issues continue to prevent the nation from articulating a unified nationalist identity. Ukraine’s crisis showcases the inherent conflict within notions of sovereignty, as both self-determination and freedom from outside intervention often contradict the expected obligations of nations to protect not only their citizens but also those of other nations whose human rights are threatened. This project challenges the notion that post-Cold War states can easily move beyond the legacies of the Cold War, as their past myths and memories continue to define their sovereignty and identity well after the conflict ends.
COMBATTING WHITE SUPREMACY ON CAMPUS: RACIALIZED COUNTER-MEMORY AND STUDENT PROTESTS IN THE 21st CENTURY
(2021) Farzad-Phillips, Alyson Beata; Maddux, Kristy; Communication; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
Over the past two decades, we have witnessed an abundance of student protests at colleges and universities in the United States. Many of these protests cluster around the issues of white supremacy and anti-Black racism as they function in higher education settings—issues that have historically and contemporarily plagued United States colleges and universities. In this project, I analyze the arguments produced by college student protestors during race-based controversies at the University of Missouri, the University of Maryland, and the University of Georgia between 2015 and 2020. In each of these cases, college student activists have addressed racist cultures, actions, and policies upheld by their white peers, faculty, and university leadership. The student protest discourses developed during these controversies illuminate a theory of racialized counter-memory, which I define and elaborate throughout each chapter. Racialized counter-memory, as a rhetorical concept, brings together scholarship concerned with race, memory, and place/space, and it is best understood as public memory that centers race and racialized experiences in a way that counters dominant or institutional memory and promotes an anti-racist perspective. This study shows how racialized counter-memories—and the students that create, negotiate and circulate them—can combat the challenges of hegemonic white supremacy on college campuses by making white supremacy known, by marking racism’s existence on campus, and by envisioning anti-racist solutions. I also illustrate the ways in which students’ use of racialized counter-memory re-constituted the places and spaces of campus towards anti-racist ends, such as redistributing campus resources, constructing memory sites, and altering town-and-gown relations. Overall, this dissertation analyzes specifically how and in what way college students demonstrated the power of racialized counter-memory, in theory and in practice. I posit that rhetorical scholars should further develop and study racialized counter-memory, enacted in anti-racist protests and social change, as a rhetorical lens that can address and combat the assumed white standpoint and white supremacist systems imbedded in U.S. institutions and landscapes, including higher education institutions and their campuses.
COMICS AND MORALS: COMMUNICATING THE RISKS OF VAPING TO YOUNG ADULTS THROUGH MORALIZED GRAPHIC COMICS
(2024) Lin, Tong; Nan, Xiaoli; Communication; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
In 2020, the global population of e-cigarette users reached 68 million (Jerzyński et al., 2021), with adults aged 18 to 29 more likely to use them than older individuals (Lin et al., 2022). The increasing prevalence of vaping among young adults is a pressing public health issue. The rapid adoption of e-cigarettes has surpassed the spread of evidence-based information, posing challenges for health educators and policymakers. As nicotine addiction threatens a new generation through vaping, developing effective communication strategies that resonate with this demographic is urgent. This dissertation explores the effectiveness of graphic comics with moralized narratives in conveying the risks associated with vaping, aiming to examine their persuasive power compared to traditional methods. It seeks to answer three main questions: Firstly, what is the efficacy of graphic comics as a persuasive tool according to existing research? Secondly, how do graphic comics influence young adults’ responses to anti-vaping messages compared to text-only messages? Thirdly, how do moral appeals influence young adults’ responses to anti-vaping messages compared to non-moral appeal messages? In Study 1, I conducted a systematic review examining the effectiveness of graphic comic-based messages on persuasion outcomes. Eleven articles using randomized controlled trials published from 2007 to 2023 were analyzed. Graphic comics emerged as a dynamic and effective tool for health education, addressing a wide range of topics, audiences, and objectives. Their ability to combine visual appeal with narrative depth allows for a unique engagement with health issues that transcend traditional educational barriers. Study 2 examined the efficacy of utilizing moral appeals in graphic comics to communicate the risk of vaping to young adults. I conducted a 3 (moral appeals: care, sanctity, non-moral appeal) x 2 (communication formats: graphic comics vs. text-only) between-subjects online experiment among young adults aged between 18 to 25 years old (N = 596). Results showed that care and sanctity moral appeal messages elicited stronger negative emotional reactions than those without a moral appeal, which positively influenced individuals’ perceptions of message effectiveness and heightened their beliefs about the risk of vaping. When comparing sanctity and non-moral appeals, such effects were found to elicit stronger negative attitudes toward vaping which decreased intentions to vape in the future. Furthermore, I found that individuals’ endorsement of care moral foundations moderated the effect of sanctity appeals on negative emotions, highlighting complex dynamics in processing information and how individuals’ perceptions and beliefs can be influenced by their existing moral values. Although graphic comic stimuli did not show a statistically significant direct effect on negative emotions when compared to text-only messages, they positively impacted satisfaction with the message and perceived argument strength. This dissertation provides several theoretical and practical implications. First, it enhances our understanding of moral appeals by examining their role not just as simple emotional triggers but as complex frameworks that influence persuasive outcomes. The finding of the experimental study is empirical evidence of the propositions in the Moral Foundations Theory by showing how moral appeals can influence perceptions of the message’s effectiveness and beliefs about the health risks of vaping, by engaging individuals on emotional levels. Such perceptions and beliefs are likely to enhance individuals’ thoughts of vaping being negative and less socially acceptable, which lowers their intentions to vape in the future. This dissertation is also the first to utilize moral appeals in the medium of graphic comics in vaping prevention among young adults, providing new avenues for health educators and commercial advertisers to craft innovative anti-vaping messages and to foster a community ethos that discourages vaping. As we continue to explore and understand these dynamics, the findings suggest the use of graphic comics could be more widely adopted in public health campaigns, providing an engaging way to communicate risks and encourage healthy behaviors.
COMMEMORATIVE ACTIVISM: TRACING BLACK NATIONALISM THROUGH CONTEMPORARY CAMPAIGNS TO MEMORIALIZE U.S. SLAVERY, 1991-2017
(2018) Fitzmaurice, Megan Irene; Parry-Giles, Shawn J; Communication; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
While much of current public discourse focuses on the ways that black activists are working to desecrate or destroy racist memorials, there has been less discussion about the ways that lobbying to produce antiracist memorials can also serve as a form of protest. This study engages three case studies wherein black activist groups fought for the construction of slavery memorials in New York City, Philadelphia, and Richmond. These instances of commemorative activism are the focus of this study, wherein activists challenge existing commemorative culture by engaging alternative memorial practices. The underlying premise of this study is that these slavery memorials and the activists’ rhetoric resisted absent and/or distorted memories of slavery in their communities. This study analyzes the debates surrounding these memorials to demonstrate ways that the activists recirculated historical ideologies of black nationalism in their protest rhetoric. Specifically, the activists engaged themes of self-determination, black liberation, black power, and Pan-Africanism as they sought to challenge a commemorative culture rooted in white supremacy. This study accordingly situates commemorative activism as a contemporary strategy of resistance in the ongoing black freedom struggle. The black activists in this study fought to determine the commemorative landscape, liberate their ancestors’ memories from post-slavery containment, recover memories of black resistance from selective amnesia, and advance global solidarity surrounding memories of the slave trade and ongoing anti-black racism. This study also examines ways that the subsequent commemorations represent enduring repositories of black nationalist ideologies, challenging racist cultural attitudes embedded in the memorials’ environment. Through their form and function, these commemorations visualize the continued relevance of self-determination, black liberation, black power, and Pan-Africanism within post-slavery communities. These memorials ultimately reflect the beliefs of the activists who fought for their construction, revealing the radical potential of commemorative activism to challenge racist attitudes, structures, and landscapes.