Master of Science / Department of Journalism and Mass Communications / Todd F. Simon / In the United States, the number of college-age students (19-24) who volunteer is rising rapidly. However, most of the research in regard to sustaining volunteers with nonprofits is targeted to the whole population, especially older adults. This research employed the first sample survey of college volunteers for the study of a public relations theory. The findings showed that theories developed for older adults may also apply to young adults and could provide insights about youth relationships. While using organization-public relationship model as the theoretical background, the results suggest that Access, Networking, and Assurance are important public relations strategies for nonprofits maintaining college volunteers. Nonprofits should try to cultivate a sense of commitment with college volunteers, which could greatly increase their volunteer intentions in the future. In addition, as suggested by the previous research, this study collected the data in regard to college volunteers' parents' social-economic status, and has found that parental involvement with nonprofits has a great impact on their children's volunteer behaviors in the future.

Master of Arts / Department of Communication Studies / Charles J. G. Griffin / The term and concept of identification is a familiar one. The modern communication scholar’s knowledge of the term identification is drawn more directly from the works of Kenneth Burke. In 1950 Kenneth Burke released his book “A Rhetoric of Motives” and from this Burke outlined his concept of identification. To Burke, identification is a rhetorical process that leads to persuasion, and the identification process encompasses all the traditional forms of rhetoric as a category of tools to establish identification within rhetorical discourse (Burke, 1950; Day, 1960). The concept of identification has been applied generously as the field of rhetoric has progressed. However, a minimal amount of research connecting identification and the rhetoric of social movements has been conducted. This is a problem, because social movements rely heavily on persuasion and influence to garner audience support, so a deeper investigation into identification and social movement rhetoric is warranted. In recent years the marriage equality movement has seen a rapid amount of success in establish same-sex marriage in a variety of states. What has changed that has allowed these movements to reach so much success so quickly? I believe the answer to this question lies in the rhetoric of these movements and their use of identification. This thesis asks an overarching question; “Does identification help to explain the success of a social movement?” Applying Burke’s concept of identification to two marriage equality movements, Minnesotans United for All Families and Fair Wisconsin, this thesis seeks to determine the role identification plays in a social movements success or failure. What this thesis finds is that identification is a vital component in determining a social movements overall success. Identification is a two-step process, where first identification strategies need to be present within a social movement’s rhetoric. For identification strategies to be effective not only must the strategies be present but also the audience must link these strategies with their subconscious and thereby include the movement as a part of his or her identity. In conducting this thesis critical implications are drawn in relation to identification theory, organizational recruitment and maintenance, as well as community building and engagement.

Master of Arts / Communications Studies / Charles J. Griffin / The 2011 Arab Spring Revolutions across the Middle East North Africa (MENA) region drew international attention to the collection action phenomenon of revolutions. Despite having a significant impact on today’s globalized world, revolutions have been widely unexplored by social movement rhetorical scholars. This lack of study has prompted scholars to call for the investigation of the role human agency plays during revolutions (Morris, 2000). Rhetorical scholars are well-suited to meet this call but lack a methodological framework to examine revolutions. In responding to Morris’ call and with an interest in adding to the body of rhetorical social movement literature, this thesis asks two research questions. What are the rhetorical characteristics of revolutions? Are revolutions rhetorically distinct from social movements? To answer these questions, this thesis translates Jack Goldstone’s (1998) Divergent View of Social Movements and Revolutions into a rhetorical model for studying revolutions. This adaptation of the political science model relies heavily on Leland Griffin’s (1969) and Charles Stewart’s (1980) models of social movements. Additionally, the adapted model also incorporates James Wilkinson’s (1989) discussion of revolutionary rhetorical functions. The application of the new rhetorical model to the Egyptian Arab Spring reveals revolutions rhetorically develop and function in ways that creates a clear distinction between revolutions from social movements. These findings prompt discussion of methodological and critical implications.

Master of Arts / Department of Speech Communication, Theatre, and Dance / Timothy R. Steffensmeier / On August 17, 1959 a jazz album entitled Kind of Blue hit record store shelves nationwide and changed the music forever. Recorded by the Miles Davis Sextet, the album popularly introduced a new sound, modal jazz, and has become one of the best selling jazz records of all time. A week after the release, following a concert promoting the album at the Birdland in New York, Davis was walking a white female friend to a taxi when he was stopped by a policeman. The officer told Davis to move along, and the two exchanged a few words and looks before the cop clubbed Davis over the head and arrested him. Davis was released shortly, but this incident is illustrative of a time in history where African-American music was embraced while the people themselves were treated as second-class citizens. This study explores rhetorical connections between jazz music and American democracy as it existed during the late 1950s. Using Sellnow & Sellnow's (2001) 'Illusion of Life' Rhetorical Perspective, this study analyzes the music of Kind of Blue as it connects with the political upheaval of the Civil Rights Movement. It concludes that the incongruity between the political and social tension of the country and the relatively laid-back sound of the music correlates with the non-violent resistance strategies used in the Movement. Implications are drawn about Sellnow & Sellnow's (2001) methodology, jazz music's potential in promoting/maintaining an inclusive democracy, and areas for future study.

Master of Arts / Department of Communication Studies, Theatre, and Dance / William Schenck-Hamlin / According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, overweight and obesity rates in the United States continue to increase. And yet, despite their resources to encourage healthy lifestyles, college campuses reflect the national trend. Colleges and universities often utilize health campaign strategies such as social norms marketing and peer health education to encourage campus-wide health initiatives. However, based on an application of effective health communication attributes, both strategies demonstrate limitations that must be addressed in future collegiate health campaign approaches. I analyzed the effectiveness of adopting an induced hypocrisy health campaign to encourage nutrition. The induced hypocrisy paradigm has resulted in successful behavioral change by having participants create a pro-attitudinal message. Then, participants are reminded of their past failure to engage in the behaviors they advocated. It was hypothesized that hypocritical subjects would purchase more nutrition bars than subjects in any of the other conditions. The results indicate that, although more hypocritical subjects purchased more nutrition bars than subjects in the other conditions, the findings were not found to be statistically significant. Interpretations of the study findings as well as implications for future nutrition campaign initiatives are discussed.

Master of Arts / Department of Communication Studies / Sarah Riforgiate / Internships provide students with valuable learning experiences in their chosen fields. Considering that one of the most important components of students’ learning experiences during an internship is learning how to socialize and assimilate into organizational settings, an internship stage model should be able to account for this particular process – organizational assimilation. This study contends that existing internship stage models overlap and can be enhanced by organizational assimilation theory (Jablin, 1987). Therefore, this qualitative study includes data from 13 semi-structured interviews with students who participated in formal internships in order to explore students’ assimilation experiences during the course of their internships. Additionally, how interns view the host organization’s identity and its impact on their assimilation experience was examined. Findings indicate that students are more adaptive to socialization than individualization in terms of their responsibilities and roles during organizational assimilation. Further, the concept of organizational identity was so complex and intricate that students could not grasp their host organizations’ identity during the course of their internships; instead, through their organizational assimilation experience, participants learned the culture of the organizations.

Master of Arts / Department of Communications Studies / Soo-Hye Han / The rise of partisan political news over the past two decades has influenced how political candidates discursively construct their image. While there is an extensive literature devote to presidential discourse, little is known about what gubernatorial discourse looks like and how they construct their image. This study examines how gubernatorial candidates discursively construct their image in a hyperpolarized electoral environment. An extensive content analysis of gubernatorial political interviews (n = 94), and specifically the utterances arising from those interviews (n = 1,524), was conducted. Findings show that gubernatorial candidates discursively construct their own image as a savior to the state, while creating their opponent’s and the DC elite’s image as a villain. Additionally, gubernatorial candidates do not adhere to the image bound by their party, and construct an image that is unique to their environment. Consequently, the environment that a gubernatorial candidate is situated influences how they communicate and construct their image and their opponent’s image. By examining gubernatorial discourse through political interviews, this study offers theoretical implications into understanding the influence of polarization, issue ownership, and tone in gubernatorial discourse. Practical implications examine the role of media outlets in gubernatorial discourse. This study contributes to scholarly understanding of gubernatorial discourse in a changing and polarizing political environment.

Master of Arts / Department of Communication Studies, Theatre and Dance / Timothy R. Steffensmeier / Social Identity Theory has long held that group affiliation plays a predominant role in how we interact with others and the types of communication strategies that we deploy. Traditional scholarship on Computer Mediated Communication maintains an excessively interpersonal focus, detracting from its ability to theorize intergroup communication and conflict. This research study, conducted at the Internet bulletin board Americanwx.com, investigates the role that group identity plays in the everyday discourse of online message boards. In an ethnographic study spanning the course of 8 months and thousands of exchanges, research found that the structure of message boards themselves is implicated in the formation and maintenance of groups, and that once formed, groups tend to act in a manner that is consistent with Social Identity Theory.

Master of Arts / Department of Communication Studies, Theatre, and Dance / Charles Griffin / Interpersonal hurt in romantic relationships describes many every day interactions couples have. However, these instances of hurt are difficult to identify, talk about, and react to, making the study of such interactions immensely difficult as well. This in-depth literature review of current scholarly work is compiled in an effort to provide groundwork for understanding what hurt is, how individuals conceptualize the hurt they feel, and the coping strategies used to overcome what some scholars call a communicative and social phenomenon. Further, a discussion of future avenues of research and the implications of an expansion on the current research aims to guide future scholars to better understand what so many scholars are attempting to get a handle on.

Listening to speech with competing speech in the background is challenging and becomes harder with age. Three experiments examined the auditory and cognitive aspects of auditory spatial attention in conditions in which the location of the target was uncertain. In all experiments, word identification was measured for target sentences presented with two competitor sentences. On each trial, the three sentences were presented with one from each of three spatially separated loudspeakers. A priori cues specified the location and identity callsign of the target. In Experiments I and II, sentences were also presented in conditions of simulated spatial separation achieved with the precedence effect. Participants were younger and older adults with normal hearing sensitivity below 4 kHz. For both age groups, the contributions of richer acoustic cues (those present when there was real spatial separation, but absent when there was simulated spatial separation) were most pronounced when the target occurred at “unlikely” spatial listening locations, suggesting that both age groups benefit similarly from richer acoustical cues. In Experiment II, the effect of time between the callsign cue and target word on word identification was investigated. Four timing conditions were tested: the original sentences (which contained about 300 ms of filler speech between the callsign cue and the onset of the target words), or modified sentences with silent pauses of 0, 150, or 300 ms replacing the filler speech. For targets presented from unlikely locations, word identification was better for all listeners when there was more time between the callsign cue and key words, suggesting that time is needed to switch spatial attention. In Experiment III, the effects of single and multiple switches of attention were investigated. The key finding was that, whereas both age groups performed similarly in conditions requiring a single switch of attention, the performance of older, but not younger listeners, was reduced when multiple switches of spatial attention were required. This finding suggests that difficulties disengaging attention may contribute to the listening difficulties of older adults. In conclusion, cognitive and auditory factors contributing to auditory spatial attention appear to operate similarly for all listeners in relatively simple situations, and age-related differences are observed in more complex situations.