In a time of expanding globalization and worldwide interconnectedness through the Internet, the need for a better understanding of diverse cultures has taken on a new urgency. One way people learn about cultures other than their own is through the news media. Yet journalists have long been criticized for their inability to represent the complexities of cultures. The concept of cultural competence has been used to enhance cultural understanding in a variety of professions, including health care, social work, psychology, business and public relations. This dissertation applied the concept of cultural competence to journalists, using as theoretical frameworks the social construction of reality and concepts related to social cognition. The study explored factors that contribute to or hinder the cultural competence of journalists, including multimedia journalistic practices that influence the cultural competence of reporters and their news coverage. To answer the research questions posed in this dissertation, an extensive case study was conducted in a multimedia journalism laboratory at Temple University in Philadelphia, PA, in which student reporters produce news pieces about urban neighborhoods. The research involved 223 surveys, 28 observations of students reporting in the field, and 71 in-depth interviews with student reporters, news sources, neighborhood representatives, and lab professors. A textual analysis also was conducted of selected multimedia news packages produced by the student reporters. Five key factors were found to influence the cultural competence of journalists: awareness of self; awareness of the complexity of "insider" or "outsider" status; use of journalistic ethics, norms and routines; knowledge of the other, and skills and attributes that influence knowledge of the other. New multimedia journalistic practices were found to provide the potential to move journalists and their news texts toward more cultural competence. This study provides new meaning for what it means to be a journalist as one who dwells in the borderlands, occupying liminal spaces and promoting understanding over current norms of objectivity. This new meaning could be supported by journalism education programs that encourage future reporters to strive for a culturally competent approach to reporting and news production that promotes understanding for themselves and their audiences. / Mass Media and Communication

In this paper, I explore digital history and community engagement. I do so by exploring intersections between public history and new media theory, distilling a set of nine best practices, and applying these to several digital history initiatives: Historical Society of Pennsylvania's PhilaPlace, Baltimore County's Baltimore '68: Riots and Rebirth, and two projects initiated and hosted by Temple University. / History

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Yes / The pre-emption procedure is an important part of the Radio Resource Management (RRM) when dealing with the emergency traffic. It allows resources to be allocated to higher priority connections by pre-empting lower priority connections. The provision of the pre-emption mechanism becomes much more important in the case of satellite systems such as the Inmarsat Broadband Global Area Network (BGAN) system which aids in providing the communication during a catastrophe. This paper focuses on the preemption framework for a UMTS based satellite systems. Three algorithms have been proposed, Greedy, SubSetSum and Fuzzy pre-emption algorithm. Extensive simulations are carried out for the three algorithms and their performances are compared against each other. Simulation results show that the Fuzzy pre-emption algorithm performs better than the other two algorithms. / European Space Agency/Inmarsat

Research in the area of multimedia instruction has yielded results that indicate that learning is better when verbal information is presented auditorily instead of visually (i.e. modality effect) and when redundant on-screen text is removed from the instructional environment (i.e. redundancy effect). The present study aimed to extend these findings by exploring the effects of presentation modality and redundancy of verbal information on students' ability to apply and recall a historical inquiry strategy. Fifty-six students were randomly assigned to three treatment groups, which differed according to the presentation mode combination used to present the strategy instruction. Specifically, students received the instruction either as animation and narration, animation and text, or animation, narration, and text. The students were engaged in a multimedia strategy intervention for a total of five days, for approximately 25 minutes a day. Three strategy application tests (i.e., pre-test, post-test, maintenance test) and a recall test were used to measure the students' learning. Data attained through the strategy application tests and recall tests were analyzed using Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) procedures. The results of the study revealed significant differences in the training main effects analysis indicating that strategy instruction can be effectively provided in a multimedia learning environment. However, no significant differences were found for the modality and redundancy main effects indicating that there was no difference in strategy application or recall between the groups. Although the results did not provide the statistical significance that supports the literature on the modality and redundancy effects, the implications of the findings of the research provide several viable areas for future research. / Ph. D.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of context-dependency of seductive details on recall and transfer in multimedia learning environments. Two experiments were conducted. In Experiment 1, the purpose was to identify context-dependent vs. context-independent seductive details in a lightning animation. Seductive details were considered as interesting yet irrelevant sentences in the narration of lightning animation. Sixty-seven undergraduate students participated in Experiment 1 and assigned interestingness scores to the 28 content irrelevant sentences. Participants were assigned to two different groups, context-dependent seductive details group (CDSD) and context-independent seductive details group (CISD). Participants in the CDSD group assigned interestingness scores after watching a lightning animation to be familiarized with the context of lightning formation. Participants in the CISD group watched a historical inquiry animation as a distraction task before assigning interestingness scores. The results of Experiment 1 revealed that 13 of 28 sentences in the lightning formation text were seductive details according to participants of the study. Ultimately, 6 of the 13 seductive details were determined to be context-dependent and 7 were determined to be seductive details were context-independent. The purpose of Experiment 2 was to investigate the effects of context-dependency of seductive details on recall and transfer in multimedia learning environments. Undergraduate students (n = 184) were randomly assigned into four groups. Participants in all groups watched a lightning animation, and performed a recall and a transfer task. The first group watched an animation that did not include any seductive details. The second group watched the animation with context-dependent seductive details only. The third group watched the animation with context-independent seductive details only. The last group watched the animation with both types of seductive details. A 2x2 ANOVA for both recall and transfer, and contrast analyses were conducted to determine the effects of context-dependency of seductive details on recall and transfer. The results indicated that there was no significant effect of context-dependency of seductive details on recall or transfer. The findings are discussed in the context of the related literature and directions for future research are suggested. / Ph. D.

Computer-assisted language learning (CALL) programs developed earlier for vocabulary acquisition employed mainly word-list pedagogy and could not present information in a real world context. Advancement in computer technology has triggered the development of multimedia CALL programs which can present information in different formats using graphics, sound, text, and video with links to other chunks of information. The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of two multimedia CALL programs on vocabulary acquisition. Participants were 86 intermediate level English as a second language (ESL) students. They were randomly assigned to one of two treatment groups. Students in group one viewed a program with Motion Graphics and text. Students in group two viewed a program that had Still Graphics and text. Their task was to study ten names of hand and power tools. Both groups took the pretest, viewed the video of the tools, had an immediate posttest and a two-week delayed posttest.The results yielded no treatment effects. Further analysis revealed time effects but no interaction between treatment and time. Students who learned through Motion Graphics performed significantly better on the recall tests than those who learned through Still Graphics. Further research in this area involving the use of various graphic formats in a CALL environment is needed. / Ph. D.

Multimedia learning theory, and the research that has supported it, is largely focused on the cognitive elements of learning. Although motivation has been mentioned as a factor in learning in a multimedia environment, motivation has not been measured as a distinctive variable in most studies. Specific attributes of multimedia, including seductive details and segmentation, have been hypothesized to increase interest; however, only studies examining these attributes— effects on learning (measured by recall and transfer) have been conducted. The present study aimed to extend the examination of the use of seductive details and segmentation in multimedia learning by measuring interest in addition to recall and transfer. The participants were 167 undergraduate students who were randomly assigned to four treatment groups involving a tutorial on the formation of lightning, which differed according to the multimedia attributes featured in the tutorial. Treatment groups included seductive details and segmentation (SD+S), seductive details and no segmentation (SD+NS), no seductive details and segmentation (NSD+S), and no seductive details and no segmentation (NSD+NS). Participants took an interest questionnaire before engaging with the tutorial and immediately following the tutorial. Tests of recall and transfer were used to measure learning after the tutorial. Two trained raters evaluated responses. Data from the study were analyzed using Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) and correlation procedures. The results of the study revealed no significant differences among treatment groups in regards to interest, recall, or transfer. There was no significant relationship between interest and recall or interest and transfer. Although the results did not provide support for existing literature on seductive details and segmentation effects or reveal that these attributes increase interest, the implications of the findings present several valuable areas for future research. / Ph. D.

This study was designed to determine the degree to which learner affective and personal characteristics affect student achievement through multimedia and paper-mediated instruction. Two research questions were examined: (a) Is there a difference in gain between pretest and post test for the paper-mediated instruction group and the multimedia instruction group; (b) What is the effect of paper-mediated and multimedia instruction on achievement, when controlling for affective and personal characteristics? The statistical procedures used to examine the research questions were dependent t-tests and analysis of covariance. Participants were 61 students from four classes enrolled in introductory computer classes in a high school in the Roanoke region of Virginia. The classes were randomly assigned to either a paper-mediated or multimedia treatment. Procedures involved having the participants from both groups complete five stages, either on paper or on the computer, based on group assignment. First, they completed a personal characteristics form. Second, they completed an attitude toward computers Likert-type scale, consisting of four subscales (anxiety, confidence, liking, usefulness). Third, they completed a 20-question pretest on networking terminology. Fourth, they reviewed instructional material in either a paper or multimedia presentation form. Upon completion of the paper or multimedia computer tutorial, the participants completed a 20-item posttest on networking terminology. Based on the results of two dependent t-tests on the pretest and posttest for each treatment group, students did realize a gain in achievement from the pretest to posttest in both groups. In testing research question two, the analysis of covariance revealed a significant treatment effect and gender as a significant covariate. Students in the paper-mediated group performed better than those in the multimedia group. Females performed higher regardless of the treatment group. / Ph. D.

Various media (text, audio, graphics, and animation) were examined in the context of a multimedia environment. These media were used to test predictions based on a model of dual-coding theory (DCT) and on an engineering design principle named visual momentum. DCT is a general cognitive information processing theory. Under DCT, external stimuli are represented in either the verbal or nonverbal symbolic systems. The verbal system is specialized to handle language or abstract information. The nonverbal system is specialized to handle more concrete information such as images, environmental sounds, and writing patterns. Visual momentum is a general design principle used to demonstrate relationships between successively viewed computer screens. This study applied visual momentum through the use of animation to explicitly demonstrate the relationships between information represented in one format to that represented in another format both within and between computer screens. Subjects were required to complete a multimedia program explaining material about total quality management. A 3 x 3 between subjects design was modeled after DCT and visual momentum. Ninety subjects were exposed to various media conditions and were subsequently tested for retention and problem solving as well as several other measures. Generally, the results do not support DCT. However, some findings do support DCT. Dual—coded groups spent less time answering retention questions while performing better than single—coded groups. However, subjects spent more time on the material in these conditions. Subjects only receiving a single medium reviewed the material more often than those subjects receiving dual media except when presented with audio. This difference between text and audio does not support DCT. Those subjects in dual-coded graphic conditions reported more referential and associative processing than those subjects receiving dual-coded animation conditions. Generally, the results support visual momentum. Visual momentum reduce the time needed to answer retention questions as will as improved test performance beyond results predicted by DCT. Visual momentum also reduce the amount of cognitive processing needed to correctly answer the retention and problem solving questions. / Ph. D.