This thesis explores the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party's 1965 Challenge to the legitimacy of that state's Congressional Delegation. It examines that Challenge as a rhetorical act and places it in the context of the broader Civil Rights discourse. Further, it seeks to establish that the Challenge, as a rhetorical act, played an important role in the development of crucial Civil Rights legislation, namely 1965's Voting Rights Act. / A Thesis submitted to the Department of Communication in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science. / Degree Awarded: Spring Semester, 2009. / Date of Defense: December 16, 2008. / Congress, Mississippi, Rhetoric, Civil Rights / Includes bibliographical references. / Davis Houck, Professor Directing Thesis; John Mayo, Committee Member; Jennifer Proffitt, Committee Member.

This study aimed to 1) uncover the participants' attitudes when a purchasing decision touches any element of their culture, 2) assess consumers' view on marketers in terms of consideration of their needs and cultural backgrounds, 3) identify the commonalities among the participants' purchasing decision-making processes and consuming habits across cultures, and 4) indicate the features that would urge consumers to buy a certain product and the factors that would make a product valuable. The sample was comprised of two groups, Arabs and non-Arabs (i.e. Saudi citizens and US citizens.) The survey was conducted from February 01, 2008 through March 07, 2008 and yielded 453 participants. Significant differences were found between the two groups when buying a product that doesn't adhere to four out of six elements of culture. Both groups showed low satisfaction towards marketers' consideration of their cultural backgrounds. Participants' ranking of characteristics that urge them to purchase a certain product put high quality as the most important feature and money savings next. The ranking of elements that create a perception of a valuable product suggested that Arabs tend to reflect the habit/repeat bath model and non-Arabs tend to prioritize the sentimental values of products. / A Thesis submitted to the Department of Communication in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Masters of Science. / Degree Awarded: Spring Semester, 2008. / Date of Defense: April 10, 2008. / Consumer behavior, Culture, Purchasing Decision-making, Effect / Includes bibliographical references. / Steven McClung, Professor Directing Thesis; Stephen D. McDowell, Committee Member.

The purpose of this dissertation was to understand Black publishers views, perspectives and experiences as they relate to the social construction of news, online news and the Black Press. Recording the views, perspectives and experiences of Black publishers, in their own words, was one of the major outcomes desired from this research. Using non-structured standardized interviews as the primary methodology, ten publishers participated in this study and shared their views, perspectives and experiences on the news creation process, on publishing Black news websites and their thoughts on the Black press and mainstream news organizations. A descriptive content analysis was also conducted to further understand the publishers' views and perspectives on the social construction of news and how it manifested into a final product, the actual website. Findings indicate that the majority of publishers in this study follow the traditional processes and procedures of mainstream news organizations outlined by media scholars. However, resources (i.e., staff size, advertising revenue or capital) influence how closely the publishers adhere to these practices. When publishers have little resources they use different modes of behavior, utilizing the advantages available through the Internet. In addition, the majority of publishers in this study use agenda setting mainstream Internet news organizations as an agenda setting tool for their own news websites. The research also demonstrated that publishers consider themselves as a part of the traditional Black press but also realize that they have the potential to reach larger, diverse and more complex audiences than their offline predecessors. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Communication in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Degree Awarded: Spring Semester, 2007. / Date of Defense: March 19, 2007. / Black History, Website, News, African American, Internet, Publishers / Includes bibliographical references. / Stephen D. McDowell, Professor Directing Dissertation; Maxine Jones, Outside Committee Member; Andy Opel, Committee Member; Felicia Jordan, Committee Member.

Le problème majeur des communicateurs à balayage pour personnes handicapés moteurs est la lenteur de la communication qu’ils induisent. Un moyen d’améliorer la vitesse de sélection des messages consiste à optimiser en temps réel le délai élémentaire de défilement. Notre méthode de travail dans cet objectif est basée sur l’analyse des données enregistrées dans des « fichiers logs » lors de l’utilisation du système de communication et de contrôle de l’environnement multimédia EDiTH développé au laboratoire. De cette analyse, en s’appuyant sur le modèle du « Processeur Humain modèle » (MHP), nous déduisons un modèle de l’interaction humain-machine dans le contexte de l’étude puis un algorithme de calcul adaptatif du délai de défilement, « l’algorithme des anticipations/erreurs ». Nous avons validé notre propos en se basant sur les résultats obtenus en scénarios imposés sur des personnes valides et des personnes handicapées, et en situation écologique sur des personnes handicapées. / The main problem with the scanning systems is that the communication process tends to be exceedingly slow. One way of raising the speed of message selection is to optimise the elementary scanning delay in real time. Our method of work in this objective is based on an analysis of the data recorded in « log files » while applying EDiTH, the system of communication and control of the multimedia environment developed in our laboratory. This analysis makes it possible to develop a human-machine interaction model specific to the study based on the « Model Human Processor » (MHP), and then to establish an adaptive algorithm for the calculation of the scanning delay: the « anticipations / errors algorithm ». We validate our work based on the results obtained in imposed scenarios with persons with and without disability, and then in ecological situation with people with disabilities

Governments since World War I have instituted radio broadcasts in foreign countries as a means of informing and influencing local populations, particularly in times of war and other conflicts. Frequently considered propaganda, such broadcasts also have been seen as a tool of public diplomacy, an evolving concept that generally refers to the use of mass communication, foreign exchanges, and other non-traditional diplomatic tools to advance foreign policy goals and cultivate positive international relations. This study concerned a particular case, the U.S. public diplomacy tool Voice of America (VOA) Deewa, a Pashto language radio service for the Tribal areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan. VOA Deewa was an ideal case for examining questions of public diplomacy and propaganda since it operates in a poor, neglected, war-stricken region where Taliban members spread anti-American sentiments and many citizens hold anti-American attitudes, that have been exacerbated by U.S. drone strikes in the region. Though the United States established the VOA Deewa to contain Taliban anti-America propaganda and change the hearts and minds of local citizens, it has been criticized as propaganda. To examine this assertion, and the extent to which VOA Deewa exhibited features of public diplomacy, extensive data were collected from senders, messages, and receivers. Twenty-seven VOA Deewa shows broadcast at the time of 2013 drone strikes were analyzed to determine the extent and nature of drone strike news and other topics. In addition, 11 Deewa staff from Washington D.C. and Pakistan were individually interviewed and focus groups with 78 university students belonging to Tribal regions were conducted, as well as 5 telephone interviews with locals and face-to-face individual interviews with 18 Internally Displaced Persons. Data collection and analysis was triangulated, and all qualitative content/textual analysis was conducted using Nvivo software. The findings indicate that a highly qualified, native Pashtun VOA Deewa staff delivered balanced and objective journalism on a variety of topics (education, health and hygiene, business and finance, social and moral ethics, freedom, democracy) from a U.S. perspective but with a focus on the target region. In addition, the shows frequently highlighted women's, human, and political rights, which are lacking in the Tribal region. Overall, VOA Deewa served as an effective platform for delivering awareness-raising messages, empowering local voices, and connecting locals to locals through on-air call-in programs that increased the sharing of ideas, understanding, and unity. Thus, VOA Deewa was found to serve as a public diplomacy instrument in accord with the VOA charter, and as such, to incorporate characteristics of positive propaganda and strategic communication. Though the findings may be unique to the VOA Deewa case, they contribute to the development of a theoretical framework for public diplomacy and provide a direction for future research. / A Dissertation submitted to the School of Communication in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Fall Semester 2015. / November 10, 2015. / awareness, drone, propaganda, public diplomacy, voice of America, war and conflict / Includes bibliographical references. / Stephen McDowell, Professor Directing Dissertation; Lance Dehaven Smith, University Representative; Jennifer Proffitt, Committee Member; Patrick Merle, Committee Member; Jay Rayburn, Committee Member.

<p>This study takes schema theory and schema incongruity and applies them to modern advertising on Facebook. Ad-brand schema incongruity?s effects are measured with a psychological social media engagement scale. This study finds success in applying this theory for the first time to social media and identifying three distinct levels of incongruity, proving schema theory can be applied to modern social media advertising efforts.

<p> This narrative inquiry sought to determine whether the strategic use of positive imagined interactions (IIs), or the conversations one has in their mind, could enhance cross-cutting political conflict while also testing the seventh theorem of II conflict linkage theory which states, &ldquo;In order to enhance constructive conflict, individuals need to imagine positive interactions and outcomes&rdquo; (Honeycutt, 2003a, p. 6). Undergraduate student participants were assigned to one of three conditions (positive II, negative II, or control) and engaged in a three-phase procedure. Phase one, pre-interaction, prompted the participants to engage in an II, and then reflect on their IIs by answering open-ended questions. During phase two, interaction, participants engaged in an actual, cross-cutting conversation about the political topic of their choice with a trained confederate. During the final stage, post-interaction, participants completed a second questionnaire to assess the constructiveness or destructiveness of their interaction. A thematic analysis revealed that 40 out of 45 total participants, regardless of their pre-assigned condition, engaged in a positive, constructive conflict with their conversation partner. The results also indicate that positive IIs aid in perspective-taking while negative IIs satisfy individuals by allowing them to mentally defend their beliefs. While the results neither confirm nor disprove Theorem 7 of II conflict linkage theory, they do support Theorem 3 which explains that negative intrusive IIs often occur when a person purposely attempts to have a positive II. </p><p>

<p> This study employs a survey of StoryBrand workshop customers to examine the influence of implementing the StoryBrand narrative framework into marketing collateral. The interpretation of the quantitative data is used to determine if the framework has positive influence on company success and which variables contribute to company success. Data for this research were then analyzed using statistical methods. The data analysis determined that the degree to which an organization implemented the StoryBrand methodology had significant influence on an organization&rsquo;s profitability, confidence of employees, and the time and money saved on marketing collateral creation. No other tested variable had significant influence, including company size, non-profit or for-profit, size of company, or audience focus. The knowledge gained in this study will add to the previous studies on narrative branding as well as expand understanding of the application of coherency and fidelity in Walter Fisher&rsquo;s narrative theory. </p><p>

I use computer-assisted textual content analysis to detect systematic reporting bias in financial news articles from 1985-2008 in the U.S., France, and Hong Kong in order to discern whether such biases contribute to country-level differences in household participation in equity markets. Today about 50% of American households hold stock (or equity) directly or indirectly in publicly traded corporations, while only 24% of French households and 36% Hong Kong adults do so. Publications analyzed include: in the U.S. the Wall Street Journal and the business section of The New York Times; in France Le Monde, Le Figaro, and Les Echos; and in Hong Kong the Standard and the South China Morning Post. The content analysis revealed consistent, country-level differences in how newspapers report financial news. These differences corresponded not with the overall level, but with the rate of growth in household equity market participation from one country to the next. In Hong Kong, where household equity market participation grew 171% from 1992-2004, financial news sources followed consistent patterns that, taken together, could be described as pro-business. In contrast in France, where ownership grew by just 2.5% over the same time period, news sources were the least pro-business. In the U.S., where ownership grew 37% from 1992-2004, news sources fell somewhere in the middle in terms of pro-business language. By "pro-business, "I mean that Hong Kong newspapers used the most positive, the fewest negative, the most investment-related, and the fewest scandal words, while French publications used the fewest positive, the most negative, the fewest investment-related, and the most scandal-oriented words. While word use fluctuated with time, and with equity markets, country-level differences withstood these changes. Country-level differences also withstood left-right bias within countries. In other words, a left-leaning French publication looked much more like a right-leaning French publication than it looked like a left-leaning U.S. publication. Positive story bias does not, on its own, fully explain the extremely high level of American household stock ownership, but may help to explain the faster growth in stock ownership among Hong Kong citizens compared with those in the U.S., and the relatively slower growth of equity ownership in France from 1992-2004.

The topic of this dissertation is the significance of industrial design in the work of architect Marco Zanuso (1916-2001), who lived and practiced in Milan, Italy. As a leading architect, as well as a pioneer in industrial design in the early postwar period, Zanuso was a key protagonist in the relationship of postwar Italian architecture culture to industrialization and capitalism. He is therefore an indicative figure with respect to the broader shift from Modernism to Postmodernism in architecture. Whereas previous studies of Zanuso have addressed either his architecture or his industrial design, this study traces the mutual influence of these practices in Zanuso's early work. The four chapters examine a selection of his projects to reconstruct their relationships to concurrent discourses in Italian art, architecture, and industry. In addition, the chapters show how these projects can be understood as conceptual and practical benchmarks along the way to the eventual realization of a continuum of design from small to large scale, and especially an architecture in which the serial nature of mass production would be explicit. The first chapter, whose topic is Zanuso's relationship to Italian modern architecture between the two World Wars, relates his embrace of mass-production around 1946, in essays on prefabricated architecture, to his student work in the 1930s and to his first projects during Reconstruction, emphasizing the influence of the Gruppo 7, Giuseppe Pagano, and Ernesto Nathan Rogers. The second chapter, whose topic is architecture and art, looks at Zanuso's mural-covered Viale Gorizia building and other projects, and at his involvement in the "synthesis of the arts" discourse with adherents of the Italian <bold>arte concreta</bold> ("concrete art") movement, including Gillo Dorfles, Mario Ballocco, Bruno Munari, and Gianni Dova. The third chapter identifies the mass-produced apartment complexes on Via Laveno (1963) and Via Solaroli (1965) as Zanuso's first realized examples of industrial architecture, and places these in the context of the broader assimilation of industrial production methods by artists and architects in Milan around 1960. In addition, the third chapter examines the portrayal of Zanuso in the press in relation to the emergence of the architect-designer as a public figure in Italy and the identification of the industrial product with consumerism. The fourth chapter, whose topic is Zanuso's association with Olivetti, considers his factories for the company, designed between 1953 and 1972, in relation to the corporate program conceived by Adriano Olivetti, with Leonardo Sinisgalli and others, to intercalate rational design and planning into the fabric of civic and social life, from the object to the territorial scale. By scanning Zanuso's early work through these topics, this study demonstrates that he drew imperatives from various sources. Together, these investigations show that his industrial design practice proceeded in tandem with his incorporation of production into architecture, in keeping with his longstanding ideas about the architect's responsibility to maintain civility in the use of technology. The argument of the dissertation is that, while Zanuso's interest in design reflected a wider fascination with technological capacities, it was also a means by which he gained access to practices of mass production that he went on to apply to architecture and interiors as well as to furniture and appliances. From this point of view, his work belies the generalization that in Italian industrial design, the aims of modern architecture were subordinated to the consumerism and commercial culture that arrived in Italy after the War, and overtook Milan during the 1960s.