Researchers have studied adolescent bullying behavior since the 1970s, however, today's technological advances have opened the door to a new form of abuse. Teens can no longer escape the wrath of their bullies once they have left the school grounds, because bullies are following them home. Cyberbullying is a new phenomenon in which bullies use computer-mediated communication (CMC) to torment their victims. This research project focused on uncovering some of the mysteries surrounding this new means of bullying. A grounded theory analysis of stories written by victims revealed cyberbullies often use synchronous chat tools, e-mail, web sites, and cell phone text messages to reach their victims. Data analysis also revealed victims use of contextualization, descriptions of their bullying episodes, and discussions of their responses and outcomes to characterize their experiences. Interestingly, the researcher found victims of cyberbullying generally were also victims off face-to-face bullying as well.

Media psychology involves the scientific examination of the cognitive processes and behavior involved in the selection, use, interpretation, and effects of communication across a variety of media (e.g., via the Internet, television, telephone, film). Media are central to people's lives, with projections indicating that an average person spent over 3,515 hours using media in 2012. New technologies are increasing the importance of media. Data from two content analyses demonstrate the underrepresentation of media psychology in mainstream psychological literature and in undergraduate and graduate psychology course offerings. We argue for the importance of a psychological approach to the study of media because of its presence in people's lives and because psychologists use it in their research and their choices may affect the external validity of their findings. We provide a useful framework from which psychologists can approach the study of media, and we conclude with recommendations for further areas of scientific inquiry relevant to psychological science.

The lack of physical communication cues, such as facial expressions, in text-only communication has prompted the creation of emoticons to represent feelings. Moreover, the emoticon has become a new “cultural” language adopted by a community of users who find emoticons useful for expressing an emotional state during their online communication. Using emoticons in computer-mediated communication (CMC), which includes any means of communication on the Internet, especially instant messaging (IM) programs, helps users convey and enhance the underlying emotional aspects of their communication facilitating user communication by providing non-verbal cues and clues to clarify a message. Although many researchers have studied the differences in the use of emoticons between males and females and different age groups and some even report cross-cultural differences and similarities between CMC and face-to-face (FTF) communication such research is not sufficient to understand the effective use of emoticons. The current research explores three categories of emoticons - textual, pictorial, and animated emoticons – to ask the broad question: Do North Americans and South Koreans use emoticons differently? The research examines the cross-cultural differences involved in using emoticons, focusing on the visual aspect of online communication that provides emotional cues to understand the differences in their use. Textual emoticons and pictorial emoticons of MSN messenger are used in this study's questionnaires. The results indicate the cross-cultural differences of emoticon use and recognition between North Americans and South Koreans.

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The purpose of the current study was to examine the effectiveness of preparatory training for mentors and proteges with respect to relationship processes and outcomes. Specifically, it was proposed that training provided to mentors and their proteges should foster a high learning goal orientation and a low avoid goal orientation. The former is associated with learning for the sake of continuous improvement and the latter is associated with a willingness to be perceived by others as having failed at a task. It was hypothesized that mentors and proteges who received goal orientation training prior to beginning their formal mentoring sessions would engage in greater feedback-seeking and would be more willing to self-disclose potentially ego-threatening information. Moreover, it was expected that training would also lead participants to expect such behaviors from their partners and as a result respond more positively when the desired behaviors were demonstrated. Eighty (i.e., first and second semester freshmen) were paired with eighty mentors (i.e., college juniors and seniors with a minimum grade point average of 3.0), resulting in a total of 160 study participants. All participants received one hour of preparatory training. A two by two factorial design was employed whereby mentors and proteges each received either goal orientation training or training simply designed to orient them to computer-mediated communication. After training, mentors and proteges met with one another using online chat for four, 30-minute weekly chat sessions. Results indicated that a) proteges in a high state of avoid goal orientation felt they received less psychosocial support the more their mentor disclosed his/her own personal downfalls, b) mentors who received goal orientation training felt they had provided greater career support the more their proteges sought feedback but the reverse was true for mentors who did not receive goal orientation training, c) mentor self-disclosure was more strongly related to their protege's self-disclosure if the protege had received goal orientation training, and finally d) mentor and protege perceptions of the psychosocial and career support that had been provided/received during online sessions were more strongly correlated if the two had received the same type of preparatory training (especially if both received goal orientation training).

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Because distance learning (DL) programs provide students educational opportunities with minimal restrictions on location and/or time, the number of institutions that provide DL courses has grown at a tremendous rate over recent years and is projected to increase in the future. Foreign language courses through DL, however, have been criticized for limited opportunities to engage in speaking activities and to develop oral proficiency. While previous research consistently reports no significant differences, the focus of those studies has been the comparison of outcomes assessments between face-to-face and DL courses. This study analyzed the types of interactions that occurred in the virtual foreign language classroom while using asynchronous audio-based CMC, known as voice boards, to learn Spanish at a rural community college located in Southwestern Virginia, Patrick Henry Community College (PHCC). An embedded multiple-case study design and computer mediated discourse analysis were applied with activity theory to analyze the interactions holistically. During a 10-year period, the amount of students enrolled in on-line only courses or in the virtual campus at PHCC increased from 97 students in the summer 2001 session to 655 students in the summer 2011 session. These results showed a 575.3% (n = 558) increase of students enrolled in DL. Only 37.7% (n = 507) of the students attending the community college during the summer 2011 session were enrolled in only FTF courses. These increases were a result of students' needs to pursue degrees of higher education while working and taking care of family and other personal obligations. Students enrolled in the SPA 101: Beginning Spanish I course explained that employment schedules, family obligations, and financial reasons motivated their decisions for taking a DL course. When completing audio-based discussion board assignments, experimentation with the language was observed and participants took advantage of opportunities to listen to recordings multiple times before submitting responses. Forty-seven percent of the utterances were categorized as containing questions to encourage continued discussion. However, lexical chains for those utterances showed that only 11.6% (n = 11) of the utterances followed a three link chain of initial post-response-response (IRR) that represented extended conversations in the voice boards. / Ph. D.

From images of distance education (DE) in advertisements to examples of extant DE theory and practice, and finally to a possible dystopia and utopia for DE, this dissertation investigates the rich representations at the intersection of feminism, pragmatism, and web based distance education. It is composed of three parts. The first part is the construction of a feminist-pragmatic theoretical and analytical tool, motivated by images of DE in commercial advertisements. These images include control of nature (and the natural body), gendered experience, transactions of bodies and tools, loss of bodies, and atomic individualism. In response to these images, the main unifying theme of the tool is organic holism where the world as a dynamic system connects with culture, biology, history, and context. It draws heavily on the work of John Dewey, Charlene Haddock Seigfried, Timothy Kaufman-Osborn, Shannon Sullivan, Nancy Fraser, Donna Haraway, Sandra Harding, and Carolyn Merchant in order to form a rich weaving useful to instructional technologists and philosophers of education. The second part explores three examples of extant web based distance education using this tool. Lastly, I explore alternatives to current instantiations of distance education including a dystopia and a melioristic option that I call sustainable technology. / Ph. D.

Touch is an expressive and powerful modality in affect conveyance. A simple touch like a hug can elicit strong feelings of affection both in the touch initiator and recipient. Therefore delivering touch over a distance to a long-distance family member or significant other has been an appealing concept for both researchers and designers. However compared to the development of audio, video channels which allow the transmission of voice, facial expression and gesture, digitally mediated touch (Remote Touch) has not received much attention. We believe that this is partially due to the lack of understanding of the capabilities and communication possibilities that remote touch brings. This dissertation presents a review of relevant psychological and sociological literature of touch and proposes a model of immediacy of the touch channel for affect conveyance. We advance three hypotheses regarding the possibility of remote touch in immediate affect conveyance: presence, fidelity and context. We posit that remote touch with relatively low touch fidelity can convey meaningful immediate affect when it is accompanied by a contextualizing channel. To test the hypothesis, two sets of remote touch devices are designed and prototyped which allow users to send/receive a squeeze on the upper arm to/from others effectively. Three in-lab user studies are conducted to investigate the role of remote touch in affect conveyance. These studies showed clearly that remote touch, when contextualized, can influence the affective component in communication. Our results demonstrated that remote touch can afford a rich spectrum of meanings and affects. Three major categories of the usage are identified as positive affect touch which serves to convey affects such as affection, sympathy and sharing, comfort etc., playful touch which serves to lighten the conversations, and conversational touch which serves to regulate the dynamics in the discourse. Our interview results also provide insights of how people use this new channel in their communication. / Ph. D.

Family group chats are a popular form of technology-mediated communication. Family group chats represent an understudied area of family communication. In this qualitative multi-method study, I aimed to investigate how and why families use family group chats and how family processes are enacted within them. This grounded theory study was informed by family systems theory and uses and gratifications theory. Families participated in multi family member group interviews and were invited to submit the last one-month's history of their family group chat. Forty-nine participants from thirteen families across the United States participated in this study. I identified four themes from the data: (1) entering the chat, (2) growing and aging with the group chat, (3) accepting terms and conditions, and (4) holding the invisible string. I present a theoretical explanation of how these themes interact. Family group chats held a significant place in family life that extended family members' availability to one another and kept them in near constant contact, even when they were separated by geographic distance. I propose the possibility of family group chats as a protective factor to increase family functioning. This research generates future directions for the field and has implications for families, professionals who work with families, and group chat application developers. It provides one of the earliest investigations into family group chats from a family science perspective. / Doctor of Philosophy / Family group chats have grown in popularity over the last decade as a way for multiple family members to communicate at once. Yet, in the family science field, little is known about how families use these chats. In this study, I examined how and why families use family group chats to perform family processes, which are the interactions that make up family life. I used qualitative methods to study this topic and was guided by two theories, family systems theory and uses and gratifications theory. I invited family members to participate in a group interview and submit their family group chat text messages from the last month. Forty-nine participants from thirteen families across the United States participated in this study. I identified four themes across the family interviews and group chats: (1) entering the chat, (2) growing and aging with the group chat, (3) accepting terms and conditions, and (4) holding the invisible string. I present a visual model to explain how these themes work together. I found that family group chats held a significant place in family life that extended family members' availability to one another and kept them in near constant contact, even when they were separated by geographic distance. I suggest the possibility of family group chats as a protective factor that may improve family life. This research can guide future research on this topic and makes an impact for families, professionals who work with families, and for companies that develop group chat platforms.