Yukon is unique in Canada for its four orders of government—federal, territorial, First Nation and municipal. Determining the differences in communication characteristics, strategies, mechanisms, and processes of the governments can assist with effective communication among them, leading to new opportunities. Interviews with 20 participants representing elected, appointed, and senior staff positions from four orders of government extracted thoughts and experiences on intergovernmental communication through the phenomenological tradition. Strong internal communication complements effective external communication; government individuals do not understand all the structures and processes of other governments, but instead make assumptions that can create friction and conflict while a sincere desire to improve communication is evident. Lack of time, capacity, and knowledge are contributing factors to poor communication efforts. Interpersonal communication is the key to establishing stronger relationships and rebuilding trust. Recent self-government status for Yukon‘s First Nations provides opportunities for expansion and inclusiveness of intergovernmental communication. Key words: intergovernmental communication, interpersonal communication, Yukon governments, relationships.

In nursing literature, power is conceptualized as an object transferred, distributed, controlled or conquered by empowerment. In this management care paradigm, the service of care provides power to achieve the product of health. The socio-philosophical framework proposes power as intra-interpersonal set of relationships. Interdisciplinary collaboration allowed discovering power-and-relationships as inseparable mind-body subunits constituting micro and macro health interactions, through a mixed methods instrumental case study. Control and power mechanisms were revealed analyzing body movements and conversations in Case A-15min- and Case B-16.10min- nurse practitioner-patient videotaped encounters. Catalyzed by a hermeneutical music metaphor this thesis proposes relational healing care. Despite interruptions and disruptive postures, nurse practitioners-patients reverse differentials by sharing potentials in simultaneous connections. Power balance is developed by equitable-inequitable communication. Like diverse related tones, nurse practitioner-patient is an Intermelody solving tension continuum in concordance. Health struggles in that way are nothing to be fixed, but healing cycles to be played. / xiv, 436 leaves : ill. ; 29 cm

Problem background: There has been an extensive amount of research done within the field of learning among children. Research regarding the teaching and the context of which this research is aimed to be performed on, is on the other hand scarcer. Costa Rica is one of the countries that has focused on human rights, and with this background, this thesis intends to study how the principles of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) is communicated to children in Costa Rica. We will preform our study on two types of schools; both private and public. We will also examine the impact the context has on communication for teachers when instructing about children’s rights. Purpose: We aim to study the development communication and contexts of which the principles of the CRC are communicated and taught to school children in Costa Rica.  Method: This thesis contains qualitative research. We have relied upon conversational interviews with a hermeneutical approach. Conclusion: This thesis clearly indicates that choice of communication channel has an impact on the interaction between teachers and pupils. Digitized channels are effective in the sense of speed and quantity of information regarding the CRC. However, the context in which the pupils receive and the teachers teach about the CRC is of great importance. The teachers experience many difficulties when teaching since the context not only builds barriers but also challenges them to find more creative ways of teaching. The material used when communicating the CRC varied depending on the economic status of the school. The children wanted and expected technology and digitalization to be a fundamental part of their education.

This mixed method study examined differences in how face to face (FtF) and computer-mediated communication (CMC) were experienced for individuals communicating with their romantic partner. Forty-four individuals (22 couples) engaged in discussions in both FtF and CMC conditions in a laboratory environment, measuring communication satisfaction as an indicator of experience. Eight couples were also randomly selected to participate in interviews and their reports were used to add depth to the analyses and further inform the findings. Participants reported similar levels of satisfaction across communication conditions, which extends previous literature suggesting that users are able to adapt to text-based channels of communication to a degree that naturalness similar to that of FtF is achieved. Analyses also indicated a positive relationship between attitudes towards CMC use and history of CMC use. This relationship is discussed in terms of symbolic interactionism theory. Communication satisfaction item analysis and interview reports suggest that couples have varying attitudes and uses for CMC. Some couples report a hesitancy to use CMC given the lack of non-verbal cues and risk of miscommunication while other couples report that CMC is helpful in facilitating de-escalation of conflict and allowing partners to communicate more effectively around sensitive issues.

Satisfying communication is sometimes hard to come by. Due to differences in social expression and reception, individuals tend to express and receive communication in dissimilar ways, especially within different social contexts. In the present study, the effects of personality and channel of communication on individual and mutual satisfaction after a conversation will be tested. Participants will take a personality test to determine introversion or extraversion. They will then be randomly assigned to conversation pairs which will communicate either through an instant messaging (IM) program or face-to-face (FtF). Satisfaction will be determined using a modified version of the Interpersonal Communication Satisfaction Inventory (ICSI). It is hypothesized that individual satisfaction will be significantly higher for introverts in the IM condition and extraverts in the FtF condition. With regards to mutual satisfaction, it is hypothesized that pairs with dissimilar personalities in the FtF condition will be significantly lower than all other pairings. Finally, it is expected that individuals with high ratings of satisfaction will also report feeling as though they were able to express themselves more authentically. The results of this study will contribute to our view of interpersonal relationships in the modern digital age, as well as present possibilities for creating more mutually beneficial communication between differing personality types.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between perceived parental sexual communicator style and adolescent sexual behavior and information accuracy. Slightly revised versions of Norton's Communicator Style Measure, Jorgensen and Sonstegard's Sexual and Contraceptive Behavior Inventory, and the Miller-Fisk Sexual Knowledge Inventory examined 234 college students' perceptions of parental sexual communicator style and self-reports of sexual behavior and knowledge. The study also investigated the extent to which gender of the subject and gender of the primary source of sexual information (parent) impacted sexual behavior. Lastly, the study tested the impact of perceived parental communicator style on sexual activity and contraceptive use across three time frames: Junior High School, High School, and College.Pearson product-moment correlations revealed significant relationships between some perceived parental sexual communicator styles and sexual activity, contraceptive use, and sexual knowledge accuracy. Utilization of t-tests revealed significant difference only of parent-adolescent sexual between gender of the subject and sexual knowledge accuracy--female subjects reported a higher level of sexual knowledge than males. It was recommended that research be continued in the area communication. / Department of Speech Communication

The purpose of this study was to investigate the ways in which employees attempt to gain information about the relationship they have with their immediate supervisor. Uncertainty level and gender were predicted to be related variables. Prisbell and Andersen's uncertainty measurement scale, revised Baxter and Wilmot relational information-seeking tactics, and an original information-seeking frequency scale were utilized to examine 50 emergency service personnel on uncertainty level, frequency of information-seeking effort, and specific tactic utilization. Pearson product-moment correlations revealed no significant relationship between amount of uncertainty and frequency of information-seeking. Utilization of t-tests revealed no significant difference by gender in the frequency of information-seeking. The MANOVA results indicated no significant differences in the specific tactic utilization of males and females. However, Chi square values and univariate analyses identified the public presentation, joking, and hinting tactics as being used significantly more by males than females. It was recommended that research be continued in the area of working relationships. / Department of Speech Communication

Several researchers have successfully developed realistic models of real world objects/ phenomena and then have simulated them in the virtual world. In this thesis, we propose the opposite: instantiating virtual world events in the real world. The interactive 3D virtual environment provides a useful, realistic 3D world that resembles objects/phenomena of a real world, but it has limited capability to communicate with the physical environment. We argue that new and intuitive 3D user interfaces, such as 3D virtual environment interfaces, may provide an alternative form of media for communicating with the real environment. We propose a 3D virtual world-based add-on architecture that achieves a synchronized virtual-real communication. In this framework, we explored the possibilities of integrating haptic and real world object interactions with Linden Lab's multiuser online 3D virtual world, Second Life. We enhanced the open source Second Life viewer client in order to facilitate communications between the real and virtual world. Moreover, we analyzed the suitability of such an approach in terms of user perception, intuition and other common parameters. Our experiments suggest that the proposed approach not only demonstrates a more intuitive mode of communication system, but also is appealing and useful to the user. Some of the potential applications of the proposed approach include remote child-care, communication between distant lovers, stress recovery, and home automation.

Reason for information seeking by consumers and community members has been the subject of previous research to ascertain any unique issues about the personal attributes of the information seeker, the search environment and context or particular issues associated with the goods or services being researched. Several researchers have identified ways to study how information on health related topics is communicated to the community. While research is limited on the sources, search approaches and conditions associated with obtaining reliable information on health issues and topics, there is extensive literature on the important aspects of communication processes that impact on the unique, and at times complex, environment within which health consumer research occurs. This research project has enabled a review of the interpersonal and noninterpersonal communication modes to understand a range of issues that impact on the community member as the receiver of messages on health issues and topics. A qualitative and quantitative research approach has been utilised in original research to examine a number of issues associated with where community members in Australia turn to find information on health related topics. The study involves the comparison of a number of communication and information gathering approaches and expectations with a picture of information source experiences. The study highlights a range of considerations for campaign, individual communication, environment and background communication planning for those involved in engaging with the community to impart health care orientated messages.

[Truncated abstract] Attentional and interpretive biases are important dimensions of individual difference that have been implicated in the etiology and maintenance of a range of clinical problems. Yet there has been no systematic investigation into the relationship between these dimensions of individual difference. The current research program tested predictions derived from two competing theoretical accounts of the relationship between attentional and interpretive biases. The Common Mechanism Account proposes that cognitive biases represent concurrent manifestations of a single underlying selective processing mechanism. The Independent Mechanism account proposes that independent mechanisms underlie each bias. . . An apparent contradiction is that the manipulation of one bias served to also modify the other bias, despite the observation that the magnitude of the resulting change in both biases was uncorrelated. Neither the Common Mechanism nor the Independent Pathways accounts can adequately explain this pattern of results. A new account is proposed, in which attentional and interpretive biases are viewed as representing mechanisms that are related but that are not the same. Theoretical and applied implications of these findings are discussed, including the possibility that the two biases each may best predict emotional reactions to quite different stressful events and that training programs designed to attenuate allocation of attentional resources to threat may serve to reduce both attentional and interpretive selectivity in emotionally vulnerable individuals.