<p> Major hurricane landfalls are the most dangerous natural hazard threats experienced in the U.S. Television news is a primary sources of hurricane hazard information and has the ability to influence what viewers understand about and how they respond to these events. While it is understood that media plays a central role in communicating weather, it is unknown whether or not news media content communicates the recommended hurricane hazard adjustments that are needed for preparedness and protection. Thus this study supports prior research calling for a closer examination of the role and effects of visual information in media documents. Using the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season, the present research employs qualitative media analysis to explore the framing of hurricane preparedness through television newscasts covering Hurricane Katrina from August 23-29, 2005. Key findings from this study suggest that there are five common frames through which hurricane information is presented to viewers of the national news broadcasts surveyed in this study. Preparedness information was found to be mainly represented through visual content but sparsely mentioned in reporting. The study also found that more often visuals were used to aid story development instead of provide educational or instructional messages that model the adoption of hazard adjustments and have the potential to motivate protective actions and behaviors by helping to increase self-efficacy. The present study concludes by discussing underlying aspects of conflict present within the media frames and offering recommendations for better integration of media content into risk communication campaigns for severe weather.</p>

<p> Collaboration between groups is a critical component in community resilience. Yet, memorable disaster mismanagements illustrate the difficulty of collaboration. Historically, it was thought that poor interoperability between communications equipment was to blame, but as technology differences were resolved, collaboration efforts continued to suffer. Recently, experts and practitioners are turning to group culture to explain collaboration failures. However, the literature is disjointed and dispersed with many gaps. The purpose of this research was to better understand the essential culture aspects important to good collaboration. A survey was utilized to examine the culture of a long-standing, successful collaboration: The Washington State and Local Tsunami Workgroup. The Workgroup endeavors to balance both Home Agency and Workgroup identities, utilize a flat hierarchy to its full advantage, and value openness and diversity as a means to reach the goal of mitigation of tsunami damage. Resulting themes centered on identity, commonality, structure, and attitudes.</p>

<p> Mediation offers an increasingly popular way for disputing parties to work together toward resolving their conflicts, yet there are few studies of the actual voiced interactions between mediation parties and experienced mediators. This research project studied 10 face-to-face interpersonal mediation sessions involving 34 participants. The study provides in-depth and multidimensional understanding of how experienced mediators assist disputing parties in refraining from or moving beyond the futility of blamescaping, toward cooperating on mutually acceptable resolution of their conflicts. (<i>Blamescaping</i> refers to verbal blaming behaviors, including accusations in the form of scapegoating.) </p><p> Findings from initial data analysis, employing the Voice-Centered Relational method&rsquo;s Listening Guide, showed that experienced mediators were able to help disputing parties by interceding and interposing in a variety of co-implicated ways related to the form, process, and content of mediation discourse. These ways emerged as strong patterns, and include cooperation coaching, encouraging short opening statements, interrupting blamescaping, supporting focus on the future rather than the past, mutualizing statements, avoiding criticism of the parties, frequent use of questions, and parties echoing mediators. Through a second level of in-depth data analysis and interpretation, those patterns of interpositions and intercessions were found to be consistent with each of three conceptual lenses: Ren&eacute; Girard&rsquo;s mimetic theory of conflict, genre analysis in conflict resolution, and narrative mediation praxis. </p><p> Implications of how the research findings can serve as a resource for conflict resolution practitioners, mediator training and continuing education, and applied mediation ethics are discussed. Recommendations for ways the mediation profession can support additional research, along with suggestions for future research studies, also are provided. </p><p>

As the country with biggest Internet population, by December 2011, China had at least 513 million Internet users. As the biggest developing country in the world, in the past three decades China experienced rapid social change and enormous economic development. The impacts of new media and ICT (Information and Communication Technology) on social change and development in China have attracted increasing attention among scholar communities. This dissertation aims to study the new media and ICT for social change and development phenomena in China. It draws upon data from my fieldwork and participant observations in the past three years as well as a nationwide large sample survey of ICT use among Chinese CSOs (civil society organizations). I situate this research primarily in the theoretical framework of communication for development and social change studies (e.g., Servaes, 1999; Servaes, 2008). In this research, new media and ICT for social change phenomena refer to the widely emerging new media and ICT for social change and development policies, projects, or actions initiated by different stakeholders including government, CSOs, and individual activists. Through a case analysis approach, this research analyzes specific new media and ICT for social change cases, conducted by different stakeholders, concerning urgent social change issues such as digital inequality, CSOs empowerment, government accountability and transparency, and hunger/malnutrition using various communication for development and social change theories as well as other new media studies theories and the ICT/new media for social change model that I propose in Chapter two. This research reveals: how different stakeholders engage in new media for social change and development interventions (policies, projects or actions); the communication channels involved in these interventions; the relation and the interactions of different stakeholders in these new media for social change interventions; the sustainability issue of these social change and development interventions. The findings of the research show that the new media for social change model I propose is an effective analytical framework for the study of new media for social change. The research reveals that a multi-channel perspective which incorporates ICTs and other communication channels as well as the interactions between different channels is of great significance in the study of new media for social change. Moreover, the analysis of the interactions between different communication channels shows that in the media environment of convergence culture (Jenkins, 2006), in social change actions, the relation between ICT channels and other communication channels is not an either/or relation. They interact with each and reinforce each other in the social change actions. The research also shows that the multi-stakeholders approach I employed can significantly enrich our knowledge of the new media for social change phenomena. The multi-dimensional relations and interactions between different stakeholders in social change interventions are important issues that the study of new media for social change should address.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Texas at El Paso, 2008. / Title from title screen. Vita. CD-ROM. Includes bibliographical references. Also available online.

Thesis (Ph.D. in Nursing) -- University of Colorado, 2006. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 278-301). Free to UCDHSC affiliates. Online version available via ProQuest Digital Dissertations;

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Florida, 2005. / Typescript. Title from title page of source document. Document formatted into pages; contains 84 pages. Includes Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

The diploma thesis deals with the proposal for the improvement of the communication mix in a selected company. The thesis is divided into three parts. The first part focuses on theoretical knowledge about marketing and definitions of selected analyzes. The second part consists of analysis of environment of the selected company and marketing research concerning the satisfaction of the company's existing foreign customers. The final part contains the proposals for improving the communication mix, which were created based on the analysis.

Patient-doctor relationships between same-sex attracted women and general practitioners (GPs) have been presented as problematic in the literature. The problems arise from women’s concerns about the potential for negative attitudes amongst GPs. They also relate to GPs’ concerns about offending patients if they ask about sexual orientation due to the stigmatised nature of minority sexual orientation. As a result, disclosure of sexual orientation can be difficult and the patient-doctor relationship can be compromised. The aim of this study was to explore the nature of patient-doctor relationships in this context and how optimal relationships can be achieved. / Using a critical hermeneutic approach, I conducted in-depth interviews with 33 same-sex attracted women and 28 doctors. This included 24 pairs of people in a current patient-doctor relationship. I found that women commonly experienced silencing of their minority sexual orientation within general practice settings, but that this was occasionally desired and not problematic for some women and most GPs. For other women and for many GPs, the silence resulting from a lack of disclosure was a response to perceived risks to women’s personal identity and GPs’ professional identity. Few GPs asked directly about sexual orientation, placing the burden of responsibility for disclosure on same-sex attracted women. Building reciprocal trust could overcome the perceived risks inherent in revealing minority sexual orientation. I initially defined optimal patient-doctor relationships in terms of existing models of cultural competence and patient-centredness; however I found that such relationships were built on cultural sensitivity rather than cultural competence, and relationship-centredness rather than patient-centredness. / I developed a new model of sexual identity disclosure that demonstrated the key influences on disclosure of sexual orientation to GPs for same-sex attracted women. These influences were women’s sexual identity experience, risk perceptions, and the level of knowing within the patient-doctor relationship. The model depicts women’s range and fluidity of sexual identity experiences and challenges current assumptions that disclosure is essential for effective health care. The model has transformative potential for general practice education and research. It could assist GPs to understand that not all women desire disclosure, but that the majority of women are happy to disclose if asked. GPs would be encouraged to take note of the socio-political environment in which women live and its influence on women’s fears and actual experiences of discrimination. Finally, understanding the role of trust and reciprocal knowing in mitigating perceived risks would encourage GPs to focus more on relationship building. This could also assist GPs to overcome their own perceptions of risk and encourage them to broach the subject of sexual orientation, ultimately enhancing the patient-doctor relationship.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Melbourne, Dept. of Medicine (RMH/WH), 2010. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (p. 359-392)