Today, the issue of gender plays a larger role in our social discussions than in the past. Over the last decade, new and groundbreaking television shows and movies that showcase gender nonconforming characters and plots that challenge traditional gender roles have become more common. The aim of the present study was to examine the potential effects of gender-neutral representations in media programming and particularly whether different representations of gender might influence audience attitudes toward characters and overall enjoyment of the media. Affective Disposition Theory and Moral Foundations Theory were used as a framework for understanding people's perceptions of gender-neutral media characters. The project involved a pretest/posttest experimental method with random assignment of participants to one of three conditions. Participants completed a pretest including measures of moral modules and trait empathy among other characteristics during week one. The next week, they were assigned to read one of three versions of a dramatic plot synopsis in which the gender of the main character was male, female or ambiguous. After reading the assigned synopsis, participants reported their disposition toward the main character in the stimulus and their enjoyment of the synopsis. Results indicated that depictions of gender that don't activate traditional male and female gender schemas can have a negative influence on the participants' initial dispositions toward the character. The gender representation in the stimulus was not related to reported enjoyment of the plot. Intrinsic moral modules appeared to influence participants' dispositions toward the main character and their enjoyment. However, different modules were important to each of the different outcomes. Implications of the findings are discussed.

This research study examined teachers' understanding of risk factors and characteristics of potential perpetrators of school shootings, as well as the steps to take when they are identified in students. Participants completed a survey that contained Likert-type scale items regarding self efficacy and open-ended questions regarding school violence experiences. A mixed methods analysis revealed three primary conclusions. First, teachers have high levels of self-efficacy regarding the importance of and ability to deal effectively with troubled students. This conclusion suggests that teachers do internalize the relevance of this issue to them. Second, this study revealed a gap in terms of the explanation and distribution component of the IDEA model. More specifically, teachers are under-informed about how to identify characteristics of potential perpetrators and what forces may influence them to engage in school violence. Third, this study revealed a need for additional modes through which training modules and sessions should be distributed to prepare teachers to dissuade violent acts from occurring in their classrooms and schools.

Snapchat's beauty filters have become a prominent force in the social media realm. It's vital in understanding the impact in how Snapchat's beauty filters shape beauty standards among young women. This became the primary motivation of conducting this qualitative study. Six focus groups were conducted to explore the depths of why female college students between the ages of 18-25 decide to post either selfies with Snapchat's beauty filters applied or natural images. Dialectical tensions theory was used as the foundation for this study to explore both the internal and external discursive struggles young women face when deciding to post natural or filtered selfies on their social media accounts. Integrating impression management, self-objectification, and self-esteem as components of understanding this phenomenon and using a thematic analysis to uncover prevalent and reoccurring themes discussed in the focus groups yielded remarkable results. Themes of perceptions of attractiveness, presenting a facade, and the power of self-esteem highlighted possible reasons why women were attracted in utilizing Snapchat's beauty filters or posting natural images. Findings also showed how the internal struggles between perfectionism-reality and external struggles of fitting in-standing out from the crowd became tensions women were often plagued in decision making to post natural or filtered images. This study serves as an epitome for beauty standards imposed in social media especially in HVSM (highly visual social media) sites like Snapchat and Instagram. There's limited research on Snapchat filters and the implications it has on females' overall perceptions of themselves of whether to implement filters within their photos. Understanding the reasons why women feel the need to use beauty filters or post natural selfies through a discussion-based setting embarked discoveries of how the media and society should integrate new sets of beauty standards.

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In this dissertation, I make a theoretical exploration into the mass communication of ecological issues, a phenomenon bound to become increasingly important through the on-going dual process of economic-cum-ecological globalization and information revolution. Such an exploration is warranted, first, because, despite the highly visible coexistence of global warming and the digital divide on the same world-stage, sociohumanistic research generally has continued to focus on ecology and (mass) communication in their mutual separation. Since interconnections of ecology and communication have received attention from only a limited number of media analysts and environmentally sensitive journalists, mass communication of ecological issues is as yet an under-examined theme. Secondly, the scarce research on the topic - though it has occasionally been done and shared under the generalized rubric of environmental or ecological communication (EC) - actually amounts to little more than disparate case studies and empirical reports related to risk and hazard communication, disaster communication, environmental journalism, or science journalism. In other words, mainstream research on communication of ecological matters falls short of a theoretical exploration into the probable interfaces between ecology and communication, pointing to the research community's overall complacency with uncoordinated and narrowly-framed case studies. Furthermore, the majority of existing EC accounts represent a positivistic, solution provider's ideology, even though they are invested in the progressive cause of environmentalism. They generally accept the media as a probative solution to ecologically suspect acts of the State or corporate sector, and are not particularly invested in the speculative realm of possible silences that may characterize the communicative landscapes of global ecologies. I contend that the issues neglected by EC researchers have already been delved into independently - even though to unrelated ends - by thinkers from other more mature discourses such as communication systems theory, development studies, philosophy and sociology of technology, political theory, and cultural and literary theories. Engaging with selected contributions from the above discourses, and drawing from the approaches of critical traditionalism on one hand, and semiotics, on the other, I attempt to go beyond EC's erstwhile media focus by theorizing EC critically. As part of that effort, I postulate and develop upon the following analytical and theoretical axes: (1) technology; (2) the nation-state; and (3) and development. I devote exclusive sections to two of the above components: against the general background of development. / Ph. D.

This study investigated how a medium's richness, the type of organizational communication message, and organizational level of the respondent affected two dimensions of communication competence: appropriateness and effectiveness. In total, 93 employees of a single organization responded to a three-part questionnaire that posed episode specific questions assessing the competence that they would attribute to the use of each of five media in each of the three episodes. Research questions addressed the effects of the richness of five media (face-to-face; voice mail; electronic mail; written memo; and typed document) on communication effectiveness and appropriateness ratings when episodes involving production-, innovation-, and maintenance-type organizational functions were considered. Also considered as an independent variable was respondent occupation level (physical, clerical, managerial) to determine if ratings of communication competency change given the organizational level of the respondent. A 3 x 3 x 5 factorial analysis of variance (AN OVA) was employed to analyze the effect of the three independent variables on perceived communication effectiveness and appropriateness. Results showed that the effect of type of medium on perceived communication effectiveness and communication appropriateness of a message depended on the nature of the situation in which the medium was used and that the effect of organizational level on perceived communication competence depended on the type of medium used. Organizational level alone did not have an effect on perceived effectiveness and appropriateness, nor did the interaction of organizational level and type of message affect communication competency ratings. Strong support was found for the role of face-to-face communication as the most effective and appropriate medium for organizational communication regardless of the situation.

Intraorganisational communication and its integration in the organisation is increasingly being recognised as a fundamental contributor to organisational success and needs to be prioritised as a strategic priority. In light of the contribution that intraorganisational communication can make, the measurement of its effectiveness, especially in relation to its integration, is critical. As such, a measurement instrument that measures the integration of intraorganisational communication would enable organisations to improve such integration of intraorganisational communication from a holistic perspective. In the context of this research the Communication Audit provides the framework for the measurement of intraorganisational communication and its integration and endeavours to establish whether the Communication Audit can measure the integration of communication / Communication Science / M.A. (Organisational Communication)