This research examines the impact of computer-mediated communication, distributed communication, and knowledge of prior baseline behavior on an individual's propensity to believe what is being communicated. This study is focused on the impact of technology and individual experience on a person's ability to make veracity judgments. Contributions from this study include a greater awareness of the added susceptibility to deception when using computer-mediated communication. This study found that higher deception detection accuracy rates could be achieved if individuals had prior baseline knowledge of their partner's nominal behavior. This study also showed that more detection confidence can come from knowledge of a person's prior baseline behavior, being proximally located, the type of communication media used, and perceived relational closeness. Subjects with a high level of confidence in their ability to detect truthful/deceptive behavior were more reliant on the truth bias to make veracity judgments. Findings also show that self-report measures used to operationalize truth bias were good indicators of detection accuracy. This finding would seem to indicate that individuals are generally good judges of truthfulness/deceptiveness when they utilize a heuristic of truthfulness. However, this study did find systematic error when individuals relied on their assumption of truthfulness. Thus, consistent with other cognitive biases, a truthful heuristic does generally result in correct decisions, but also introduces some systematic error. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Management Information Systems in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Summer Semester, 2003. / June 24, 2003. / Computer-Mediated Communication / Includes bibliographical references. / Joey F. George, Professor Directing Dissertation; Charles J. Kacmar, Professor Directing Dissertation; Katherine M. Chudoba, Committee Member; G. Stacy Sirmans, Outside Committee Member.

Computer-mediated communication (CMC) is one of the most widely utilized communication techniques in the business world. Although widely used, little is known about the effectiveness of communicating affective information, emotion in particular, through CMC. Most CMC research has investigated communication of cognitive information, however, only a few studies partially incorporate affects in their analyses. As a result, a primary objective of this dissertation is to investigate the following research questions: (1) Can CMC transfer affective information? (2) To what extent does CMC transfer affective information? Integrating relevant literature from psychology as well as communication research, this dissertation proposes a conceptual model based on a modified version of Brunswik's lens model. The research model and hypotheses were developed to guide the empirical tests of cue utilization, i.e, detecting a message sender's emotional intentions from email messages. A total of 225 student subjects participated in a 2 x 3 x 3 (with control groups) laboratory experiment. The results indicate that affective information can be transferred through CMC. In particular, message receivers were able to detect the sender's emotion by (1) associating the message content with positive or negative emotions, (2) using emotion cues such as emotion words, linguistic markers, and paralinguistic cues, and (3) combining these two techniques. The results further indicate that message receivers indicated a higher degree of senders' emotions when the number of emotion cues in the message increased. The results from this study provide some useful information for practitioners as well as for researchers. For practitioners, this study suggests that communicating emotions through electronic media requires careful selections of emotion cues that will be included in the message. For researchers, this study presents a research model that may be used as a foundation for future research in this area. Directions for future research include further examinations of variables that may affect the CMC of emotions. The current study can also be extended to investigate the CMC of emotions across different types of subjects, communication technology, and time frames. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Management Information Systems in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Summer Semester, 2004. / June 18, 2004. / Lens Model, Emotions, Computer-Mediated Communication, Experiments / Includes bibliographical references. / David B. Paradice, Professor Directing Dissertation; Martin. G. Fennema, Outside Committee Member; Joey F. George, Committee Member; Michael H. Dickey, Committee Member.

This ethnographic study describes the digital media ecologies of hip-hop artists in the marginalised township spaces of a town in South Africa. It shows how technology appropriation here is highly contextual and linked to social context, while simultaneously informed by limited digital infrastructure that characterises marginalised communities in the Global South. In describing their social context, the study situates these young people in a post-apartheid space of entrenched racialised inequality, where unemployed black youth have very few economic prospects. Here hip-hop offers protection against despair as it allows a young person to claim a dignified sense of self, which is partly constituted through digital media competency. Through the Black Consciousness philosophy, hip-hop artists in Grahamstown become highly critical of self-defeating narratives rooted in racism, colonialism and apartheid, which often manifest in violent forms of urban masculinity. Instead they find ways to "remix" their identities by incorporating alternative notions of a successful self. These new identities foreground agency and competency, and are informed both by knowledge of African tradition and language, and newly acquired competency in entrepreneurship, artistic genres and digital skills. The study argues that acquisition of digital skills in this space is best conceptualised through the community of practice approach, where skills development is social and linked to a sense of belonging and progress. Just as the hip-hop artists claim agency in remixing their notion of self, they also claim agency in remixing the limited digital technology available to them into various assemblages, so crafting innovative solutions to the constraints of limited and expensive digital infrastructure. Here, through a hip-hop culture that champions overcoming adversity, dysfunctional digital technology is constantly repaired and remixed. Hitherto, research on digital media use in the Global South has predominantly focused on the mobile phone in isolation. This study instead argues for the merits of a holistic digital ethnography, since observations of how these young people combine technologies such as mobile phones, computers and DVD players in everyday life, illustrate how innovation in marginalised spaces may be focused around the remixing of technology.

Thesis advisor: Margaret E. Guider / Thesis advisor: Dominic Doyle / Thesis (STL) — Boston College, 2017. / Submitted to: Boston College. School of Theology and Ministry. / Discipline: Sacred Theology.

Disappearing Architecture Media facades dominate the skylines of many of our cities. A quick stroll through today’s urban areas involves a one-sided conversation directed at pedestrians. Advertisements aggressively compete for attention, creating a visually chaotic battlefield of logos, brand names, and flashing lights. Structures themselves recede into the background behind this visual confusion, withdrawing completely under giant billboards that are plastered with images and LED lights. In the visual order, architecture comes second, if at all, behind graphics and media messages. Building facades are now covered with flat images and advertisements which use savvy marketing schemes. The vast and overtly stimulating messages, however, have gradually desensitized viewers as they become increasingly accustomed to this visual noise. More explicit images, brighter lights, and larger movements are now required to make an impact. As media facades are such a large part of the competitive communications industry, these facades have come to influence architectural practices which are in danger of succumbing to the demands of the ad industry. It is thus important to create a balance between media and architecture, which is mutually beneficial to both. Architecture can be preserved while advertisements can also flourish. This thesis examines the use of digital media to enhance the public’s connection to the built form within public spaces. Chapter one explores the various spaces in which people gather and their relationships to the city. Specifically, this chapter looks at the progress and decline of public realms in North America. Case studies of Times Square in New York City, Shinjuku Station in Tokyo, and the Las Vegas Strip in Nevada illustrate how each city negotiates media saturation. Chapter two presents eight design principles for the successful integration of digital media in public spaces. These principles were established through the use of historical references, case studies, and precedents showcasing each principle’s potential. Chapter three looks at Galt City Centre in Cambridge, Ontario where the principles outlined in chapter two are demonstrated through a video application that was part of a public Christmas event in Cambridge. The project in Galt addresses the existing features of the city which engage its public spaces, encouraging a symbiotic relationship between the architecture and video facade. The integration of digital media and architecture can be enriched in the choice of strategic locations highlighting local character. Installations can be cultural, create local identity, become reactive for community engagement, and encourage the public to inhabit the city by transforming existing spaces into communal areas. Installations connect with users in their use of the characters inherent to outdoor spaces; texture, sounds, emotions, and the experiences of different seasons and times of day. With a more responsive approach to content design and implementation, the outcomes of the use of digital media on facades can be positive.

Thesis (M.A.)--Ball State University, 2009. / Title from PDF t.p. (viewed on Nov. 30, 2009). Includes bibliographical references (p. 88-91).

Disappearing Architecture Media facades dominate the skylines of many of our cities. A quick stroll through today’s urban areas involves a one-sided conversation directed at pedestrians. Advertisements aggressively compete for attention, creating a visually chaotic battlefield of logos, brand names, and flashing lights. Structures themselves recede into the background behind this visual confusion, withdrawing completely under giant billboards that are plastered with images and LED lights. In the visual order, architecture comes second, if at all, behind graphics and media messages. Building facades are now covered with flat images and advertisements which use savvy marketing schemes. The vast and overtly stimulating messages, however, have gradually desensitized viewers as they become increasingly accustomed to this visual noise. More explicit images, brighter lights, and larger movements are now required to make an impact. As media facades are such a large part of the competitive communications industry, these facades have come to influence architectural practices which are in danger of succumbing to the demands of the ad industry. It is thus important to create a balance between media and architecture, which is mutually beneficial to both. Architecture can be preserved while advertisements can also flourish. This thesis examines the use of digital media to enhance the public’s connection to the built form within public spaces. Chapter one explores the various spaces in which people gather and their relationships to the city. Specifically, this chapter looks at the progress and decline of public realms in North America. Case studies of Times Square in New York City, Shinjuku Station in Tokyo, and the Las Vegas Strip in Nevada illustrate how each city negotiates media saturation. Chapter two presents eight design principles for the successful integration of digital media in public spaces. These principles were established through the use of historical references, case studies, and precedents showcasing each principle’s potential. Chapter three looks at Galt City Centre in Cambridge, Ontario where the principles outlined in chapter two are demonstrated through a video application that was part of a public Christmas event in Cambridge. The project in Galt addresses the existing features of the city which engage its public spaces, encouraging a symbiotic relationship between the architecture and video facade. The integration of digital media and architecture can be enriched in the choice of strategic locations highlighting local character. Installations can be cultural, create local identity, become reactive for community engagement, and encourage the public to inhabit the city by transforming existing spaces into communal areas. Installations connect with users in their use of the characters inherent to outdoor spaces; texture, sounds, emotions, and the experiences of different seasons and times of day. With a more responsive approach to content design and implementation, the outcomes of the use of digital media on facades can be positive.

In this thesis, I define 'Playculture' as a primary portal through which 'everyday life' is experienced in the US and the UK. I then argue that online 'cultural structures' have begun, more and more frequently and for a variety of reasons, to take the form of games - games that are destabilised by female participants. 'Feminist' methods of various kinds, 'intervention disruption', and iterative game design are all modes and methodologies I have chosen to apply to the creation of the practical parts of the research. Examples discussed at length in these pages illustrate the tensions between everyday popular culture and interventionist working practices, highlighting a process informed by feminist scholarship of marginalised groups. I argue that specific and identifiable historical play patterns and larger technological developments have been linked to gaming practices. If play has become an integral part of everyday life, then the history of 'banal' play - especially domestic play -- takes on new importance. Paper playhouses of the 19th Century reinforced the notion that the house was implicitly known as a gendered space, and I interrogate gender and play and girls' subversive resistance in this space. I argue that it is both possible and useful to identify three main types of subversion in operation by women players: reskinning, un-playing, and re-writing. I use these types of subversion to design artist's computer games as practical work in [rootings] and [domestic], and in the design of a larger collaborative work RAPUNSEL. I conclude the thesis by utilising my selected methodologies for a final feminist intervention and subversion, through a case study of the design and creation of the practical work [six. circles], which demonstrates how one might rework game goals and creating artists' games as a form of social activism. I end with a summary of the significance of this body of research as well as a summary arguement outlining the potential contributions of this study to future researchers, scholars and practitioners.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2010. / Title from title screen (site viewed May 18, 2010). PDF text: iii, 96 p. : col. ill. Publication: Dissertations and Theses from the College of Journalism and Mass Communications. Includes bibliographical references.

This thesis is based on a two-year ethnography, conducted in a special school, on how young people with physical disabilities use the internet. The thesis focuses on four key areas identified during the research. Firstly, the thesis highlights the embodied rhythms or pace and journeys or wayfaring that characterise how young people move in and between digital media and that are not captured by studies focusing on typologies of internet use. Secondly, the thesis discusses how young people with physical disabilities struggle to overcome stigma and exclusion in their online relationships, as rather than facilitate disembodied communication(s), digital media is increasingly saturated with normative visuality. Thirdly, the thesis discusses how young people with physical disabilities use of digital media is regulated by their teachers and parents, often limiting their use of this medium. Finally, the thesis explores how the young people enact disability in different contexts including the special school, mainstream colleges and the home, and what this tells us about these institutional contexts. In addition to participant observation the fieldwork also involved in-depth interviews with a small cohort of young people with physical disabilities and video diaries produced by participants that showcased how they use the internet in the home. Interviews were also carried out with some school staff from the special school as well as parents of participants. Home visits enabled observation of how participants use the internet in domestic settings, and some participants were followed to their mainstream colleges as they progressed into further education, or attended placements during the two-year period. A concern addressed in the thesis is how inequalities are reproduced and embedded in young people with physical disabilities habitual use of the internet. At the same time, the study found that these young people used the internet much in the same way as their able-bodied peers, for example, to play games, socialise and post images to garner approval. Video diaries revealed significant differences in the rhythms and journeys underpinning the way in which the young people used digital media, articulating contextual and habitual factors and the level of their disability. Furthermore, these young people used the internet to find, build and maintain social relationships online, to explore their sexuality and to engage in self-promotion on social networking sites. However, when online they also encountered various obstacles and struggled to overcome bodily stigma and exclusion within the visual and narrowly normative presentation of the self-online. School teachers and parents were found to adhere to regulatory policies and advice on how to mediate young people s access and use to digital media. This study found the regulatory practices (monitoring, blocking, filtering content) restricted how young people with physical disabilities could access and use digital media in the home and at school. For some participants their gender and ethnicity was found to intersect with their disability making them subject to substantial regulatory practices in the home. Moreover, the students who were more able-bodied found ways to evade the regulatory practices encountered in the school and at home. Finally, the study also found that the special school created a protective environment that fosters an inclusive space, where students with different abilities can prosper. In contrast however, their transition to mainstream colleges reveal that when they are expected to practice and adjust their disability to the normative practices in place for able-bodied students, they become hindered in their ability to feel included and perform academically.