<p>My dissertation contains three empirical studies on firm and demand behavior in the U.S. high-speed Internet market. The first study examines the question that the probability of new entry varies with the characteristics of markets in which an incumbent firm is able to offer mixed bundling. Empirical findings present low entry rates in markets with high income and more years of schooling, because these markets are associated with low likelihood of switching. As the federal government aims to increase high-speed Internet access, more competition led by a new entry can increase high-speed Internet penetration and encourage the competitive provision of advanced high-speed Internet service. </p><p> The second study focuses on the relationship between Internet privacy concerns and offline businesses. The growth of online shopping has raised concerns about online privacy protection, which may lead consumers to be more likely to shop at offline stores. Empirical evidence suggests that Internet privacy concerns are positively related to the number of offline businesses, such as bookstores and travel agencies and the growth of offline businesses in the retail trade and the finance and insurance industries. This can provide interesting policy implications for local economies. </p><p> The third study examines two competing explanations regarding the demand for online health services: locations of consumers and the opportunity cost of time. The former expects that the longer distance to hospitals increases rural residents' demand for online health service, whereas the latter takes into account the possibility that urban residents whose valuations of time are high have a high demand for these services. This study finds that the demand for online health services does not vary with the location of consumers or the opportunity cost of time. The federal government has expanded this service in rural areas, which may provide limited benefits to these communities. </p>

<p> Microblogging service Twitter has taken the world by storm since its inception in 2006, growing from 340,000 users in July 2007 to 500 million active users in March 2013. At the same time, Twitter and other social media platforms are opening up new possibilities for organizations to engage with and be responsive to their stakeholders and to the public in general.</p><p> Despite the widespread use of social media among nonprofit organizations, very little empirical evidence is available concerning publics' responses to the messages they are sent. This thesis describes how stakeholders respond to different communication practices on Twitter. Focusing on the organizations on the <i>"Nonprofit Times 100"</i> list of 2011 as well as the list of nonprofit organizations with the most Twitter followers, this study combines qualitative and quantitative analyses at both the message level and the organizational level to develop an initial understanding of effective Twitter practices among nonprofit organizations.</p><p> Until recently, nonprofits have not fully taken advantage of the interactive possibilities Twitter has the potential to provide. After analyzing 3,415 tweets by 50 nonprofits, it became clear that it was difficult, if not impossible, to identify the "perfect" tweet - the type of tweet that would be most likely to elicit all types of engagement. This study's results suggest that nonprofits should target specific tweets toward retweeting and favoriting engagement, and others toward conversations - and not expect the same tweet to achieve both.</p>

<p>Millions of people are spending billions of hours each week playing digital games. These astonishing numbers point to a vast reservoir of psychic material that has been relatively unexamined by the field of depth psychology. Yet, in a realm of virtual games where image is primary and fantasy is played out, soul (psyche) is clearly present in its various disguises. </p><p> Through play and fantasy, unconscious content of the psyche is able to express its deep longings. Hypnogogic landscapes of video games provide immersive realms in which players enact psychological dramas. However, to date most psychological research of game experiences has been primarily empirical analysis within cognitive behavioral psychology and neuroscience. The question of soul-making within games is rarely approached. </p><p> In this qualitative interdisciplinary study of game studies and depth psychology, the relationship between digital games and psyche is explored through the lens of archetypal psychology. The overarching goal is to address whether the constructs of archetypal psychology provide an adequate psychological framework for understanding the phenomena of digital game worlds. </p><p> This study looks primarily to archetypal psychologist and Jungian psychoanalyst James Hillman, to ground the research in depth psychological concepts of archetype, image, and soul. Hillman&rsquo;s four concepts of personifying, pathologizing, psychologizing, and soul-making, as conveyed in <i>Re-Visioning Psychology </i> (1975/1992), provide the guideposts for the structure of interviews with four prominent game narrative designers, fieldwork discussions, and hermeneutic investigation of the literature. </p><p> The results of this dissertation demonstrate games as a virtual theater where psyche can play; the psychological necessity of personification and regression through fantasy; the role of archetypes in the creation process of game experiences; and the importance of archetypal influences within game realms for broader and richer context for soul&rsquo;s participation. In addition, this study provides initial languaging allowing archetypal psychologists and game designers to enter into both game analysis and exploratory conversations, resulting in deeper meaning-making in gameplay. This work introduces depth psychologists to the important domain of digital games for soul and suggests to game designers a new access path as game designs evolve in new directions. </p><p> Keywords: Archetypal psychology, Jung, Hillman, videogames, pathology, soul. </p>

<p> This study deems that to play a videogame is to gain a literacy of the body. The motor aspect of human interaction with videogames has largely escaped analysis in hand-held controller interactions, yet this is a mass cultural phenomenon in which human movement is technologized and uniquely, digitally expressive. Videogames are motor imperative in some form or another; it is a condition of interaction with this medium that symbolically transposes human movement into far-flung digital action. Contrary to the assumption that full-body interactions present richer embodied experiences in videogame technology, the data reveal that subtle motoric phenomena have aesthetically significant substructures that are imaginatively unbounded, like high literacy. The subtlety of player hand-motor effort is difficult to observe and therefore describe, yet encompasses a constellation of observable dual phenomena expressed in the ties between human and digital processes. In order to better understand this human engagement with technology, this study uses a phenomenological frame as a first person research method combined with principles of linguistics and Rudolf Laban's system of movement transcription and analysis. The intention of this project is to provide a methodology for describing and analyzing this remarkable, complex human interaction with technology in order to discuss its interdisciplinary implications for designers and theorists interested in the phenomena of videogames, as well as to anchor this interactive complexity in the humanities.</p>

<p> An overview of transmedia experiments in which the body and experience is shown dematerialized through character play and reconfigured, into multiple consumable and interactive gestures of isolated fetishization or form. By questioning gender assumptions within secure networks of policy driven performative expectation, form is made. Investigating the values that drive fetishization and form significance in direct violation of accepted data sets, this work leverages intersectional data or generative power, towards solutions requested by the cyborg or humyn condition of bondage to technologized power.</p>

<p> My work is inspired by modes of production that involve the creation, sampling, and remixing of objects, processes, and ideas that surround us. This methodology is especially prevalent in the creation and consumption of electronic music in recent decades. The fluidity and proliferation through digital processes are fascinating and not many rules of engagement have yet been established. I have created an installation where the viewer is free to engage the space, the process, or the single object. The components used to form the installation were grown, collected, or created using multiple methods of production. Some were printed employing computer numerically controlled fabrication, others were made through analog processes, and some were even grown naturally, were found, bought, or mined for. Concurrently I was working with an active 3D printer in the space, forming more components to the installation as time passed. I invited the viewer to explore the physical space as well as the objects and processes themselves. Together they built a sculptural space.</p>

<p>I returned to my hometown and recorded Mongolian folk music&mdash;Mongolian Long Song and Mongolian Throat Singing. I wanted to combine technology and traditional folk music and write an electronic piece based on Mongolian vocal materials. I used what I&rsquo;ve sampled, manipulated the sounds, composed the music, gathered the videos together and created this multimedia piece&mdash;On Horseback. The names of the four movements&mdash;Sand, Cloud, Water, and Fire&mdash;are four elements that I chose to represent the lifestyle in Inner Mongolia. </p><p> This thesis covers the journey of how I created this piece. I&rsquo;ve explored many variations of technology such as sound sampling, mixing, and video editing. I&rsquo;ve also gained the chance to bring traditional Mongolian folk vocal music out of my hometown and present it in my own work. </p>

Thesis (M. Phil.)--University of Hong Kong, 2008. / Also available in print.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 2004. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 65-69).

Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2009. / Full text also available online. Scroll down for electronic link.