Thesis (M.A.)--West Virginia University, 1999. / Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains viii, 49 p. Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 40-49).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1969. / Typescript. Vita. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliography.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1978. / Typescript. Vita. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 227-237).

<p> An increasing number of people are using the Internet for health purposes. Online social media makes it possible to find and share health-related information and to find social support by connecting with others who have the same issue or condition. This is true not only of patients or people experiencing health issues, but also of their caregivers. So far, little is known about caregivers&rsquo; use of social media for social support purposes. This study focused on caregivers of children of Down syndrome and implemented a uses and gratifications framework to examine their social media use, motivation, and perceived support outcomes. An online survey was followed by a content analysis of two popular social media sites utilized by the sample. Findings suggest that caregivers are indeed heavy social media users with the majority accessing their preferred sites on a daily basis to view content and at least once a week to post their own content or reply to content posted by others. The strongest motivation for using social media was to connect with people who understood what they were experiencing. Having access to other parents with children the same age and/or with the same medical conditions was a significant motivation for using social media over face-to-face support groups. Belonging support (the sense of belonging to a group similar to oneself) was also the highest perceived outcome of social media use. Caregivers felt that there were people who shared their same concerns and interests on their preferred social media site. Finding emotional support was another strong motivation for using social media and informational support was the second highest perceived outcome from social media use. This study sheds light on how caregivers use social media for support purposes and provides practical suggestions for improving the capacity of other health or care-related online communities focused on providing social support to better serve the needs of their users.</p>

<p> The ubiquity of social media has enhanced consumers&rsquo; ability to stay in touch as well as save and access information about others at will. This easy access to information on social media has the potential to change the way consumers seek and remember information. This dissertation sheds light on how information accessibility on social media shapes users&rsquo; cognitions. Using a professional social network context, we examine two types of information that consumers pay attention to &ndash; content (i.e., &lsquo;who knows what&rsquo;) and connections (i.e., &lsquo;who knows who&rsquo;) and how different types of social media influencers (content generators vs. content diffusors) strategically seek information under specific contingencies - when they are vs. are not connected to others (i.e., when information accessibility is high vs. low). We also suggest that individual differences in executive attention moderate this type of content seeking. Results across five studies reveal that content generators tend to focus on others&rsquo; content when they are not linked (vs. linked) but content diffusors tend to demonstrate the opposite, i.e., increased focus on content when they are linked (vs. not linked). Alternatively, when it comes to information about connections, content diffusors tend to focus on it when they are not linked (vs. linked) while content generators demonstrate no such active information seeking behavior. Interestingly, selective content seeking manifests only in users who rank high in working memory capacity &ndash; a factor that determines strategic attention control. Overall, this research shows that strategic content seeking happens on account of attention control processes and its outcome depends upon users&rsquo; social media roles. This thesis contributes to the emerging social media literature in marketing by outlining a new phenomenon, strategic content seeking, explicating its underlying cognitive mechanism and delineating relevant social and cognitive moderators.</p>

This thesis explores "reciprocity" as the distinctive feature of human communication. Herein are operational and ontological descriptions of reciprocity in the psychodynamics of the interpersonal, interexperiential communication system that is uniquely operative in human life. The main parts of this study are entitled: (1) The Reciprocal Event, (2) The Intentional Being, and (3) Communication.The operational definition of interhuman communication, about which this thesis revolves, is the five-dimensional Reciprocal Event. Sequentially, these five are as follows: (1) Natural integration of reciprocal endowment and relational uniqueness of persons, (2) Intentional Reciprocity, (3) Consummate Reciprocity, (4) Reciprocal Transformation, and (5) Natural expansion of reciprocal and relational endowments and potentialities. This ReciprocalEvent and its development are unique in the literature of this field. However, the import of this thesis is the crystallization of the research and communication inquiries from the concerned disciplines: psychology, sociology, biology, anthropology and philosophy. From George Herbert Mead and John Dewey to Ronald D. Laing and Carl Rogers, this thesis draws upon major insights since the 1940's--attempting to give them their most salient focus.Finally, this thesis establishes a clear foundation for communications research, therapy, and training.

Thesis (M.A.)--West Virginia University, 2009. / Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains v, 72 p. Vita. Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 49-55).

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1968. / eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.A.)--Ohio State University, 1987. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 67-71). Available online via OhioLINK's ETD Center

<p> The use of social technologies continues to grow at a rapid pace. Such technologies free individuals to communicate with one another in a multitude of ways without the need to be face-to-face in the same room This study was designed to explore, based on a small sample of case studies, the usefulness of one way that social technology is employed today, collaborative email letter writing (CELW), when used in conjunction with live therapy sessions to counsel a self-injuring population. Currently, most email counseling consists of exchanging communications without live clinical intervention (Heinlein, Welfel, Richmond, &amp; Rack, 2003). While self-injury behavior (SIB) is on the rise (Conterio &amp; Lader, 1998; Zila &amp; Kiselica, 2001), there is little evidence that shows that either traditional or systemic postmodern therapies are useful in treating SIB in adolescents or young adults. Alternative forms of communication, such as letter writing (Freedman &amp; Combs, 1996; White, 1995; White &amp; Epston, 1990), have proven to benefit a variety of clients who have a difficult time expressing emotions in live therapy sessions. However, research studies on CELW as an ongoing therapeutic technique with clients are extremely limited. To address this gap, I conducted a qualitative case study on a small sample of clients in which I explored how CELW could be used with certain clients. Considering the in-depth understanding of the therapeutic participant-observer, therapist CELW, client CELW, and the researcher's experience, I sought to establish the meanings of multiple perspectives for analysis of this underused therapeutic technique. I used a cross-case analysis of three individual cases to provide both an in-depth understanding of the similarities and differences across three case studies, and to understand how clinicians might incorporate this additional resource into their clinical practices.</p>