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Recently, the reputations of celebrities have been scrutinized. Reputation management was a concept thought to be beneficial for celebrities. Image restoration theory has been a concept formulated for use by individuals; therefore it was used for this study. This study is one of the first to review the theory's use in public relations, and its influence on celebrity status.Celebrity R. Kelly was the subject because he was involved in legal scandal. The objective was to determine if Mr. Kelly's publicist utilized image restoration theory as the basis for constructing response statements.A case study approach was utilized to provide an understanding of how this strategic plan might salvage reputations. The researcher reviewed documents and interviewed persons who had knowledge of the R. Kelly crisis. This study found use of elements of image restoration theory in this case as a form of reputation management, thereby confirming the usefulness of it as a cogent public relations tactic. / Department of Journalism

A gap exists between the fields of visual rhetoric and newspaper graphic design caused by three factors: the historic division between words as communication tools and design as artistic effect, the relative youth of visual rhetoric, and the recent evolution of newspaper design as a visual language. This thesis establishes one bridge between visual rhetoric and newspaper graphic design by defining the rhetorical function of newspaper graphic design. Using case study methodology, this report focuses on the rhetorical role of newspaper design in an attempt to further understand how people extract meaning from the newspapers they read. By engaging readers with various newspaper pages and requiring them to comment on their direct interaction with the content, this research illuminates the role of newspapers' visual elements by exploring the following questions: What role do visual elements (i.e. pictures, graphics, color) play in a newspaper reader's meaning making processes? How do page layout and the presentation of story packages affect a reader's understanding and opinions of the information at hand? / Department of English

Today, most of us work and many of us are full-time employees. Millions of people spend the majority of their time at an office place working with other people, often in a group working with other groups. We can sense that the office is a site where we connect with others.It seems fairly obvious that when designing any office place, the need for social interaction should always be considered. Still, the contribution of the office environment to any office worker's social life is often overlooked or unobserved. The central question posed by this thesis is: Can an office place be more responsive to the social needs of humans?To address this question, the first portion of this thesis documents the need for social interaction in our everyday life and its benefits for individuals as well as the community. The second portion interprets photographs taken outside and inside conventional office environments in Indianapolis, Indiana; the photo galleries reveal the behavior of regular people around and in the work place. Three cases studies are then offered; the cases provide insights into design and the participatory processes central tosocialization. To conclude, design recommendations are offered that will better connect people to other people in the office place.This work is based on personal observations along with readings done in related subject matter as observed by social psychologists, philosophers, architects, and designers. Research conducted in the field of management provides an additional line of inquiry and its own perspectives. / Department of Architecture

People who are in a different culture from their own often encounter and deal with various difficulties of culture shock in its broad sense. This ethnographic study of Japanese expatriates in the Midwestern U.S. delineates their culture change, concentrating on culture shock and its results. The problems in interpersonal relationships among the Japanese housewives whose husbands work for the same company in the community were found to be the source of their most serious culture shock. It made each housewife conscious of her previous cultural assumptions and those of the others regarding interpersonal relationships such as friendship, privacy, and the roles of housewives. These cultural assumptions were integrated into their new cultural order to support their solutions to the problem, i.e., changing the association with those belonging to the same company, or constructing new associations with those belonging to different Japanese companies. / Department of Anthropology

This study investigated the phonological awareness abilities of children who were typical and atypical. The primary purpose of this study was to determine whether there were developmental differences in the phonological awareness abilities (i.e., syllable, onset/rime, phonemes) of the two groups of participants through a sound segmentation task. The participants were arranged into preschool, kindergarten, and first grade groups. Stimuli included one and two syllable words, which were originally used by Treiman and Zukowski (1991) when they investigated the sound segmentation abilities of typical children. As part of the sound segmentation task, participants were asked to listen to a pair of words and indicate if the one and two syllable words had any sounds in common, either at the phoneme, onset/rime, or syllable levels.An analysis of Variance (ANOVA) was performed and results revealed a significant difference between children who were typical and children that were specific language impaired (SLI) on segmenting. The children who were typical were more effective at segmenting than children who were SLI. Results also revealed that there was a significant different between the first grade children and the preschool children in both groups to segment words at all three conditions. Significant differences were also noted between the types of phonological task completed among participants. The phoneme task was significantly different than the onset/rime and syllable tasks. Also, the onset/rime task was significantly different that the phoneme and syllable task.The combined data from this study revealed developmental trends in phonological awareness for the typical population. However, the developmental trend was not observed in the SLI population. It was noted that the typical population was more efficient in segmentation of words than the SLI population.The data that were obtained provides additional information on the phonological awareness development in typical children and children with SLI. The data may also assist researchers and clinicians in the identification and treatment of children with language impairments. The results may also provide researchers and practitioners important insight into literacy development, given the strong correlation between sound segmentation and the ability to read and write. / Department of Special Education

This study described and analyzed the experiences of college students that participated in a volunteer community service program and those that participated in a service learning program using a case study method. The evidence suggests that students describe their service experience in much the same way regardless of the type and circumstances of the service performed. While the subjects that participated in service learning described the activity of providing service as positive, many of the components of service learning did not seem to be present, including formal reflection. While there was recognition of different social classes served by the sites or agencies and within the community, the subjects had not explored core social issues that may arise from class differences. Participants in both service learning courses and volunteer community service activities found the experience valuable in either selection or continuance of academic major, as well as general career development skills. / Department of Educational Studies

Women have historically been underrepresented in the field of information technology. The literature related to the underrepresentation of women in information technology has focused on developing strategies for attracting more females into the industry. Despite these efforts, the number of women in information technology has been declining. The factors that contribute to the career persistence of women in information technology were investigated. An exploratory multiple case study methodology was used with nine women who have been employed in the information technology field for a minimum of five years. The subjects underwent a series of two interviews that focused on the reasons why they thought they had been able to have sustained careers in information technology. A qualitative analysis of the interviews was conducted to determine the factors that the subjects identified as contributors to their career persistence. The interviews were also analyzed to discover whether women that have had sustained careers in information technology conceptualize their experiences from particular feminist perspectives. The findings provided insights into the following factors that contribute to career persistence among women in information technology. These factors included how a woman 2 transitioned into her first information technology position, personal traits, effective career strategies, and effective coping strategies. While there will be individual differences, each subject presented that a combination of the stated factors directly contributed to her sustained career in information technology. Women in information technology were found to conceptualize their experiences through a variety of feminist perspectives. The existential feminist perspective was used extensively as a rationale for how societal expectations shape peoples view of women in information technology. The Marxist/socialist feminist and radical feminist perspectives were utilized when describing the barriers against women in information technology. The liberal feminist and postmodern feminist perspectives served as a foundation for recommendations to increase the likelihood for women entering and staying in the field of information technology. / Department of Educational Leadership

This case study describes the organizational culture of a small, private Midwestern university (SPMU). Specifically, the study employs the Competing Values Framework (CVF) (Quinn & Rohrbaugh, 1981) and the Organizational Culture Assessment Instrument (OCAI) (Cameron & Quinn, 1999) to diagnose overall institutional culture and identify distinctive subcultures along representative demographic criterion. The cultural diagnosis achieved with OCAI is expanded through data analysis and used to investigate and demonstrate the utility of the Three-perspective Theory (TPT) of culture offered by Martin (2002).The results of this investigation support the ability of the Organizational Culture Assessment Instrument (OCAI) data to demonstrate simultaneously the three perspectives offered by Martin (2002): integration, differentiation and fragmentation. The integrationist bias of CVF and OCAI is shown to be overly narrow given its ability to quantitatively demonstrate multiple perspectives of culture with appropriate analysis. The intersection of OCAI data with the Three-perspective Theory is shown to expand the implementation and interpretation of both approaches to cultural investigation. This is the first time the OCAI has been used in intersection with the Martin (2002) Three-perspective Theory and the second time the OCAI has been used to test for subcultures in higher education as indicated by Paparone (2003) and available research published to date. This is the first published account of subcultural testing with OCAI in a traditional, comprehensive institution of higher education along demographic parameters. / Department of Educational Studies

Performance measurement in higher education is examined during this study, in particular university performance indicators are reviewed and discussed. The conclusion is made that appropriate input and output indicators require some form of combination in order to allow practical consideration to be made. The technique of Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) is reviewed and found to have a number of conceptual drawbacks. The model is considerably developed within the thesis, primarily by the introduction of weight restrictions on the variables. Taken as a whole the developments, coined the DEAPMAS process, create a technique which can be used to assess cost effectiveness rather than simply efficiency. Data for two examples of subject areas, defined by recognised accounting units, are applied to the program as inter-university comparison was felt to be impractical at institutional level; due to differing subject mixes. A considerable computer implementation of the developed theory was written and utilised to provide results over a number of data runs for the examples. It was concluded that the results obtained represented a considerable improvement over separate consideration of numerous performance indicators.