Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, San Diego and San Diego State University, 2003. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 110-119).

With the propagation of individuals' presence in various online environments from social networks (e.g., Facebook, Twitter) and dating websites (e.g., Match.com, eHarmony.com) to personal blogs (e.g., WordPress.com) and employment websites (e.g., linkedIn.com), the need to understand online social dynamics has grown. In many cases, people are experiencing introductions online rather than in-person. In the absence of non-verbal information, one potentially important source of information available in virtual environments and communication is in the way people use language. With the development of computerized word count tools, it has become increasingly feasible to analyze large samples of text-based stimuli (e.g., Ireland, et al., 2011; Mehl, Gosling, & Pennebaker, 2006; Pennebaker, Mehl, & Niederhoffer, 2003; Tausczik & Pennebaker, 2010). These analyses have been able to reliably reveal a number of traits (e.g., Big Five, gender) and states (e.g., depression) about the authors of the texts. In a study of approximately 500 dyads, participants were asked to spend 10 minutes in an online chat room getting to know an individual for whom they were unacquainted. Participants then rated one another on a number of personality and individual difference traits. Analyses focused on sample-level, pair-level, and trait-level self-other agreement within the sample. Additionally, linguistic mediators of the self-other agreement were investigated. A Brunswick Lens Model was employed in order to interpret the relationship between linguistic cues and overall judgmental accuracy. Results revealed that self-other agreement in the online chat environment was achieved slightly above chance. Traits that were perceived accurately included Extraversion, Political Liberalism, and Tradition. Results also revealed that there were a number of valid linguistic markers to predicting accurate personality judgment. These cues, however, were rarely utilized to achieve accuracy. Also, counter to hypotheses, linguistic style matching (or the degree to which individuals were mimicking each other linguistically) was not predictive of self-other agreement. It was, however, significantly related to interaction quality. Taken together, the findings revealed that computer-mediated environments are a valid context for forming impressions. However, valid cues are either not available or not detected by perceivers. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed as well as areas for future research. / text

Each new medium of communication that has emerged over the past century and more has generated concern over its alleged negative effect on children. This concern has (in most cases) generated a moral panic, involving campaigning by moral guardians and office spokespeople, calls for greater regulation and subsequent response from the government or designated regulators. Based on continued inconclusive media effects research and debates over adults' and children's rights, regulation has become increasingly problematic. Such questions as how far you should restrict and protect children and how it may be possible to balance protection with rights, are complex and fraught with practical difficulties. These are the kind of questions that regulators have currently to consider. In addition, media convergence and internet technology threaten traditional regulatory structures. Such developments pose a further regulatory quandary. How are regulators attempting to tackle these issues? The thesis attempts to examine this question by exploring how regulators have responded to panics over children's media and whether their attempts have resulted in robust regulatory systems. The regulation systems analysed embrace advertising and obesity, internet chat-rooms and grooming, video games and violence and cinema regulation (the 12A classification). Case studies of these particular areas of current concern show how regulation has developed and how it works in practice, assess whether such regulation is effective and if not, recommends ways in which it could be improved.

published_or_final_version / Linguistics / Master / Master of Philosophy

Virtual humans and other virtual agents are becoming more common in our everyday lives. Whether in the form of phone-based personal assistants or automated customer service systems, these technologies have begun to touch more of our activities. This research aims to understand how this technology affects the way we interact with our computer systems. Using a chat bot, I studied the way a conversational computer system affects the way people interact with and perceive automated interviewing systems in two different contexts. Study 1 examines the impact of a conversational agent on behavior during deception. It found that a conversational agent can have a powerful impact on people's perception of the system, resulting in individuals viewing the system as much more engaging and human. The conversational agent further results in a suppression of deception-related cues consistent with a more human-like interaction. Study 2 focuses on the effect of a conversational agent on socially desirable responding. Results of this study indicate that a conversational agent increases social desirability when the topic of the interview is sensitive, but has no effect when the questions are non-sensitive. The results of these two studies indicate that a conversational agent can change the way people interact with a computer system in substantial and meaningful ways. These studies represent a step toward understanding how conversational agents can shape the way we view and interact with computers.

Internet English used for online communication influences spoken and written language forms. However, little analysis on the question of electronic English can be found – it is studied in a superficial way in literary sources present. The purpose of this study was to explore the language of English chat room messages as a variety of Electronic English. The objectives of the research included the analysis of chat room English in comparison to speech and writing as well as the study of graphological, morphological, and syntactic features of the language of online communication. Qualitative content analysis, comparative analysis, and descriptive method were chosen for the study. To support the scientific data discussed 1100 of chat room sentences were surveyed and 153 presented as practical examples. The research demonstrated that English used for online communication is a separate mode of language possessing features different from the ones of spoken and written forms of language. / Elektroninė anglų kalba įtakoja sakytinę bei rašytinę kalbos formas. Tačiau informacijos susijusios su internetinės anglų kalbos analize galima rasti vos keliuose šaltiniuose. Šio darbo tikslas yra analizuoti pokalbių svetainėse naudojamą anglų kalbą kaip elektroninės anglų kalbos rūšį. Remiantis darbo tikslu, iškelti uždaviniai analizuoti pokalbių svetainių anglų kalbą lyginant ją su sakytine bei rašytine anglų kalba, tirti grafologinius, morfologinius bei sintaksinius ypatumus pokalbių svetainių anglų kalboje. Atliekant tyrimą naudojama turinio analizė, literatūros analizė bei aprašomasis metodas. Analizuojama 1100 praktinių pavyzdžių, 153 pateikiami kaip empirinis darbo pagrindas. Tyrimo rezultatai parodė, kad elektroninė anglų kalba negali būti laikoma nei sakytine, nei rašytine ir turi būti pripažinta kaip atskiras anglų kalbos porūšis, turintis specifinių bruožų.

Thèse numérisée par la Division de la gestion de documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal

Wiederkäuer können entsprechend ihrer Ernährungsgewohnheiten in Rauhfutterfresser, Konzentrat-selektierer und Intermediärtypen eingeteilt werden (HOFMANN 1989). Diese verschiedenen Ernährungstypen spiegeln sich in anatomischen Unterschieden des gesamten Gastrointestinaltraktes, insbesondere jedoch in der Vormagenanatomie wider. Ziel der vorliegenden Arbeit war es, die intrinsische Innervation des Pansens von Wiederkäuern des Rauhfutterfresser- und Intermediärtyps näher zu charakterisieren und mögliche Unterschiede zwischen diesen beiden Ernährungstypen aufzuzeigen. Dafür wurden im ersten Teil der Arbeit die Expression des generellen Neuronenmarkers HuC/D, der Syntheseenzyme Stickstoffmonoxidsynthase (NOS) und Cholinazetyltransferase (ChAT), sowie der Neuropeptide und der neuronalen Marker Neuropeptid Y (NPY), Vasoaktives Intestinales Peptid (VIP), Somatostatin (SOM) und Calbindin (Calb) an Häutchenpräparaten (whole mounts) des myenterischen Plexus aus dem Pansen der Rauhfutterfresser Schaf und Rind und der Intermediärtypen Ziege und Damwild immunhistochemisch untersucht. Desweiteren wurden die Parameter Gangliengröße (Neurone/Ganglion), Gangliendichte (Ganglien/cm² Plexusfläche) und Neuronendichte (Neurone/cm² Plexusfläche) der genannten Spezies tierartlich vergleichend erfasst. Beim Rind fanden sich mit 73±6 Neuronen/Ganglion (Mittelwert ± Standardabweichung) signifikant größere Ganglien als bei den kleinen Wiederkäuern Ziege (57±19), Damwild (51±20) und Schaf (45±18). Demgegenüber war die mittlere Gangliendichte beim Rind mit 6±1 Ganglien/cm² Plexusfläche signifikant geringer als bei Schaf (8±2) und Ziege (10±3), die wiederum eine signifikant geringere Gangliendichte als das Damwild mit 15±3 Ganglien/cm² Plexusfläche aufwiesen. Die Neuronendichte war im ventralen Pansensack von Damwild und Ziege (664±194 bzw. 584±295 Neuronen/cm² Plexusfläche) signifikant höher als beim Schaf (289±132). Die Neuronendichte des Rindes lag mit 432±238 Neuronen/cm² Plexusfläche zwischen den Werten der anderen Spezies. Alle untersuchten myenterischen Neurone waren entweder cholinerg oder nitrerg kodiert. Der relative Anteil nitrerger Neurone pro Ganglion war bei der Ziege (44±10 %) signifikant höher als beim Schaf (30±8 %). Dementsprechend war der relative Anteil cholinerger Neurone beim Schaf signifikant höher als bei der Ziege. Neben den Anteilen unterschied sich auch die Verteilung der nitrergen Neurone in den myenterischen Ganglien. Bei Rind und Ziege waren diese in Clustern am Rand der Ganglien angeordnet, während sie bei Schaf und Damwild locker über die Ganglienfläche verteilt erschienen. Mit Hilfe von Kolokalisationsuntersuchungen konnten bei allen untersuchten Spezies folgende Hauptneuronenpopulationen nachgewiesen werden: ChAT/SP>NOS/NPY/VIP>>ChAT/- und NOS/NPY. Dabei war die cholinerge Hauptpopulation ChAT/SP beim Schaf mit 67±7 % aller myenterischen Neurone signifikant stärker ausgeprägt als beim Damwild (58±11 %), während die nitrerge Hauptpopulation NOS/NPY/VIP bei der Ziege mit 40±9 % signifikant stärker als beim Schaf (26±6 %) ausgeprägt war. SOM und Calbindin fanden sich nur in einer sehr geringen Anzahl (vornehmlich cholinerger) Neurone, wobei SOM–positive Somata nur bei Damwild und Schaf nachgewiesen werden konnten. Im myenterischen Plexus von Rind und Ziege fanden sich ausschließlich Somatostatin-positive Nervenfasern. Im zweiten Teil der Arbeit wurden die Reaktionen von Zirkulärmuskelstreifen aus dem ventralen Pansensack von Schaf und Ziege auf Elektrische Feldstimulation nach Zugabe von Atropin bzw. L-NAME (NG-Nitro-L-Arginine Methylester Hydrochlorid), sowie die Reaktionen auf steigende Konzentrationen von Carbachol funktionell untersucht. Bei beiden Spezies führte Atropin zu verminderten, L-NAME zu verstärkten Kontraktionen als Reaktion auf Elektrische Feldstimulationen. Der muskarinerge Agonist Carbachol führte im Schaf- und Ziegenpansen zu einer konzentrationsabhängigen Steigerung der Motilität. Die Ergebnisse der neurochemischen Untersuchungen lassen auf eine stärkere cholinerge (und somit exzitatorische Kontrolle) des Pansens des Rauhfutterfressers Schaf im Vergleich zu Ziege und Damwild (Intermediärtypen) schließen. Die mikrobielle Fermentation grob strukturierten Rauhfutters erfordert starke, mixende Pansenkontraktionen. Es ist zu vermuten, dass ein höherer Anteil cholinerger myenterischer Neurone auch stärkere Pansenkontraktionen ermöglicht. Somit wäre die starke Ausprägung der cholinergen Innervation im Pansen des Rauhfutterfressers Schaf als eine Anpassung an die physikomechanischen Eigenschaften der bevorzugten Nahrungsquelle Gras zu sehen. Allerdings gelang es in der vorliegenden Arbeit nicht, diese Hypothese durch Unterschiede der in-vitro Motilität an ovinen und caprinen Pansenmuskelstreifen zu untermauern. In scheinbarem Widerspruch zu dieser Hypothese stand auch die nur gering ausgeprägte cholinerge Dominanz bei dem untersuchten großen Rauhfutterfresser Rind. Allerdings könnte diese genetisch bedingt sein, da es sich bei den untersuchten Proben um Material von auf hohe Milchleistung (und damit Konzentratverdaulichkeit) gezüchteten Rinderrassen handelte. Auch ein direkter diätetischer Einfluss auf die intrinsische Panseninnervation scheint in diesem Zusammenhang denkbar. Diese Annahme gründet sich auf Untersuchungen an kleinen Labornagern, bei denen die Aufnahme hoher Energiemengen zu einem Verlust enterischer cholinerger Neurone – und somit zu einem relativ höheren Anteil nitrerger Neurone führt. Deshalb sollte bei allen untersuchten Spezies neben einem möglichen genetischen Einfluss auch der Einfluss der Fütterung nicht außer Acht gelassen werden. Klarheit könnte hier neben vergleichenden Untersuchungen an Extensiv- und Hochleistungsrinderrassen auch die Untersuchung des Einflusses von bestimmten Fütterungsregimen auf die enterische Panseninnervation bringen.

Group-living sets the scene for complex social behaviours such as cooperative breeding, and exploring the factors that shape group-living is crucial in understanding these behaviours. This thesis explores the ecology of a population of the facultative cooperative breeding southern anteater-chat (Myrmecocichla formicivora), a group-living bird species endemic to southern Africa. It reveals a breeding system based around a breeding pair and up to three auxiliary males. Despite equal numbers of males and females produced as fledglings there was a surplus of adult males, which remained philopatric. Dispersal was strongly female biased. Females dispersed within their first year, they dispersed further than males, and they lost the benefits of the natal site. The sex skew in the population suggested that these factors drive differential mortality, with juvenile females having much lower annual survival than juvenile males. Adult survival was higher, with female survival only slightly lower than male survival. Dispersal distances suggested that males selected the breeding location, nearer to their natal site. There was no evidence of surplus non-breeding females. On the loss of a breeding female there was no replacement until new females entered the population, yet if a breeding male disappeared the female promptly re-paired with a male from another group. There was no indication of birds floating in the population, and if males were orphaned or widowed they joined other groups as unrelated helpers in preference to floating. There was no sign of inter-group or individual aggression among chats, and unrelated helpers were peacefully accepted into groups, suggesting mutual benefits. In fact all birds in a group helped raise offspring of the breeding pair, and groups with more helpers fledged more offspring, which implies that both direct and indirect fitness benefits can be gained through joining a group and helping. There was surprisingly little inheritance of breeding position by auxiliaries, and strikingly low levels of extra-pair paternity. This study suggests that the Southern anteater-chat group structure arises through male philopatry due to a shortage of breeding females, the benefits of remaining on the natal site and helping, and the potentially high costs of living alone.

Although internet chat is a significant aspect of many internet users’ lives, the manner in which participants in quasi-synchronous chat situations orient to issues of social and moral order remains to be studied in depth. The research presented here is therefore at the forefront of a continually developing area of study. This work contributes new insights into how members construct and make accountable the social and moral orders of an adult-oriented Internet Relay Chat (IRC) channel by addressing three questions: (1) What conversational resources do participants use in addressing matters of social and moral order? (2) How are these conversational resources deployed within IRC interaction? and (3) What interactional work is locally accomplished through use of these resources? A survey of the literature reveals considerable research in the field of computer-mediated communication, exploring both asynchronous and quasi-synchronous discussion forums. The research discussed represents a range of communication interests including group and collaborative interaction, the linguistic construction of social identity, and the linguistic features of online interaction. It is suggested that the present research differs from previous studies in three ways: (1) it focuses on the interaction itself, rather than the ways in which the medium affects the interaction; (2) it offers turn-by-turn analysis of interaction in situ; and (3) it discusses membership categories only insofar as they are shown to be relevant by participants through their talk. Through consideration of the literature, the present study is firmly situated within the broader computer-mediated communication field. Ethnomethodology, conversation analysis and membership categorization analysis were adopted as appropriate methodological approaches to explore the research focus on interaction in situ, and in particular to investigate the ways in which participants negotiate and co-construct social and moral orders in the course of their interaction. IRC logs collected from one chat room were analysed using a two-pass method, based on a modification of the approaches proposed by Pomerantz and Fehr (1997) and ten Have (1999). From this detailed examination of the data corpus three interaction topics are identified by means of which participants clearly orient to issues of social and moral order: challenges to rule violations, ‘trolling’ for cybersex, and experiences regarding the 9/11 attacks. Instances of these interactional topics are subjected to fine-grained analysis, to demonstrate the ways in which participants draw upon various interactional resources in their negotiation and construction of channel social and moral orders. While these analytical topics stand alone in individual focus, together they illustrate different instances in which participants’ talk serves to negotiate social and moral orders or collaboratively construct new orders. Building on the work of Vallis (2001), Chapter 5 illustrates three ways that rule violation is initiated as a channel discussion topic: (1) through a visible violation in open channel, (2) through an official warning or sanction by a channel operator regarding the violation, and (3) through a complaint or announcement of a rule violation by a non-channel operator participant. Once the topic has been initiated, it is shown to become available as a topic for others, including the perceived violator. The fine-grained analysis of challenges to rule violations ultimately demonstrates that channel participants orient to the rules as a resource in developing categorizations of both the rule violation and violator. These categorizations are contextual in that they are locally based and understood within specific contexts and practices. Thus, it is shown that compliance with rules and an orientation to rule violations as inappropriate within the social and moral orders of the channel serves two purposes: (1) to orient the speaker as a group member, and (2) to reinforce the social and moral orders of the group. Chapter 6 explores a particular type of rule violation, solicitations for ‘cybersex’ known in IRC parlance as ‘trolling’. In responding to trolling violations participants are demonstrated to use affiliative and aggressive humour, in particular irony, sarcasm and insults. These conversational resources perform solidarity building within the group, positioning non-Troll respondents as compliant group members. This solidarity work is shown to have three outcomes: (1) consensus building, (2) collaborative construction of group membership, and (3) the continued construction and negotiation of existing social and moral orders. Chapter 7, the final data analysis chapter, offers insight into how participants, in discussing the events of 9/11 on the actual day, collaboratively constructed new social and moral orders, while orienting to issues of appropriate and reasonable emotional responses. This analysis demonstrates how participants go about ‘doing being ordinary’ (Sacks, 1992b) in formulating their ‘first thoughts’ (Jefferson, 2004). Through sharing their initial impressions of the event, participants perform support work within the interaction, in essence working to normalize both the event and their initial misinterpretation of it. Normalising as a support work mechanism is also shown in relation to participants constructing the ‘quiet’ following the event as unusual. Normalising is accomplished by reference to the indexical ‘it’ and location formulations, which participants use both to negotiate who can claim to experience the ‘unnatural quiet’ and to identify the extent of the quiet. Through their talk participants upgrade the quiet from something legitimately experienced by one person in a particular place to something that could be experienced ‘anywhere’, moving the phenomenon from local to global provenance. With its methodological design and detailed analysis and findings, this research contributes to existing knowledge in four ways. First, it shows how rules are used by participants as a resource in negotiating and constructing social and moral orders. Second, it demonstrates that irony, sarcasm and insults are three devices of humour which can be used to perform solidarity work and reinforce existing social and moral orders. Third, it demonstrates how new social and moral orders are collaboratively constructed in relation to extraordinary events, which serve to frame the event and evoke reasonable responses for participants. And last, the detailed analysis and findings further support the use of conversation analysis and membership categorization as valuable methods for approaching quasi-synchronous computer-mediated communication.