No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

There is much evidence to indicate the role of speaker accent expectations and its impacts on the subsequent rating of the speaker. Additionally, examples including the Central Park Five as well as Rachel Jeantel of the Trayvon Martin case indicate the impacts of this speaker rating particularly in the context of the courtroom. This necessitates the further evaluation of the impact of dialectal bias on speaker ratings especially in the context of a courtroom due to the severity of the impacts. Utilizing a 4x2 between subjects experimental design manipulating on the basis of both dialect and speaker expectation, this study demonstrated that the usage of AAVE compared to SAE decreased overall ratings of perceived credibility of the speaker. However, this was not replicated with perceived favourability. No clear link between expectation violation and speaker ratings was established as well.

Using a qualitative approach, this study examined disclosure patterns of women who have experienced symptoms of postpartum depression (PPD). Postpartum depression is a mental illness that new parents are at risk of developing. If left unresolved, PPD can have severe, negative impacts on the development of the baby and the well-being of the parent. Unfortunately, due to the stigmatized nature of the illness, parents are sometimes reluctant to bring up their struggles with this illness and seek help. Eighteen women who had experienced PPD within the past five years were recruited and participated in an interview where they were asked questions regarding their disclosure behaviors. Using Communication Privacy Management Theory (CPM), the data were examined to explain disclosure patterns. Findings were discovered using a thematic analysis. Themes of disclosure processes, disclosure considerations, boundary maintenance, and effects of disclosure were prompted by the theory and several subthemes were discovered in the data.

In the modern age of internet telecommunication, such as Face Time, Skype, and Zoom, how does the choice of synthetic visual representation (i.e., image, or avatar) impact trust during a first impression situation? The present study evaluated morphological variations (anthropomorphic, zoomorphic, technomorphic, and hybrids) of static images' effect on participants' (n = 327) trust in the absence of any other context or cues. Findings indicated that morphology significantly impacts trust during this critical first impression. Additional findings indicate that there are clear preferences of morphological representation.

Given the growing popularity of the tabletop role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons, or D&D, this thesis study applied the Uses and Gratifications theory to determine what players of the game get from engagement with this particular, previously overlooked form of entertainment media. Additionally, this research sought to determine whether these discovered gratifications overlapped at all with perceived similar media, specifically massive multiplayer online roleplaying games, MMORPGs, and social media. A series of in-depth, semi-structured interviews designed to elicit relevant responses were conducted with 14 respondents, followed by a thematic analysis to determine gratifications. The qualitative analysis determined a set of 24 gratifications, each categorized under social, immersion, narrative, and achievement labels. Among these included potentially unique gratifications such as story creation, control, creativity, freedom, and identity exploration. Moreover, while many similar gratifications were determined for D&D and MMORPGs, very few overlapping gratifications emerged between D&D and social media, possibly due to the latter's lack of available immersion gratifications. This research provides an insight as to why audience members choose to actively engage with a form of entertainment media previously discounted in scholarly literature, and how these reasons to engage differ from more modern, similar available media types.

This study examined graduate students' experiences with social support in relation to stress and uncertainty during the COVID-19 global pandemic. Graduate students as a population have significant levels of stress and uncertainty which may have negative effects on their lives and academic experiences. Graduate students often utilize social support as a way to cope with or mitigate the effects of stress and uncertainty. This qualitative study consisted of six focus groups, ranging from three to six participants, total of 22 participants, who were found using a purposeful snowball sampling method. The participants were masters and doctoral level students in communication graduate programs. Findings were made using thematic analysis which identified main themes of; stress, uncertainty, social support, the program, and feelings words. Findings were also examined through the lens of Relational Dialectics and found evidence of openness-closedness, autonomy-connection, and novelty-predictability. Implications, limitations and suggestions for future research were discussed in chapter five.