This study investigates the political and social activities of black church congregations within a southern community by assessing the effectiveness of three churches in mobilizing their congregations and serving as channels for political communication. The study pays particular attention to the differences between affiliations within the black church, the influence of religious leaders on political involvement, attitudes regarding political involvement and political influences outside of the church. The thesis begins by placing the black church in its historical context as a giver of spiritual and community orientation as well as a social and political mobilization agent. Using survey results from Catholic and Protestant congregations, it then considers how members of the Black Church acquire their political information, their political activity and whether members feel that their religious leaders are politically influential. Interviews with religious leaders will also consider if his or her beliefs and motivations equal those of the congregation. The results reveal that while there are variations across congregations, the black church is still politically important today.

This study seeks to understand how and why television news editors impose meanings onto news packages through montage editing. Through a qualitative content analysis and in-depth interviews, this study will advance the notably few past narrative editing studies by investigating the norms and routines of television news editors. While other researchers recognize the significance of studying montage editing in television news, this is the first study to clarify the relationship between montage techniques and the creation of television news narratives.

Earlier studies have provided evidence for the importance of mass media in the acculturation process of immigrants. The current study intends to further investigate acculturation by exploring the influential factors in immigrants mass communication activities. A survey has been conducted among 208 participants from diverse ethnic backgrounds in the Baton Rouge area. Having examined the mass media and Internet consumption of the respondents, this study finds that psychological factors, not demographic backgrounds, are the primary influential variables in predicting immigrants media use patterns. According to this study, respondents stronger adaptive personality and acculturation motivation would lead to more consumption of host mass media and English Internet and, thus, promote immigrants acculturation. On the whole, this study casts light on the importance of psychological factors in immigrants acculturation process from the aspect of mass communication.

In a post-September 11, 2001 America and in light of the very real threat posed by radical Islamic terrorist, the courts must rethink the line between protected speech and incitement to violence. The Brandenburg test, which was previously understood to be the modern test to distinguish protected from unprotected advocacy, should be questioned. By examining the development of the Court's First Amendment doctrine leading up to Brandenburg v. Ohio (1969), I establish that Brandenburg is ill fitted to be applied to advocacy of terrorism. In Brandenburg, the Court actually conflated two previously distinct speech tests-Judge Learned Hand's incitement test and Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes' clear and present danger test-without explaining how these two tests fit together. In addition, the Court founded Brandenburg on sandy soil. The Court failed to distinguish between the two traditions. They cited Hand's incitement tradition as precedent for the clear and present danger test. In doing so, they credited Brandenburg's imminence requirement to Hand's direct incitement tradition, which did not include an imminence requirement. Therefore, Brandenburg should be abandoned. I conclude that the courts should apply the clear and present danger test and the direct incitement test separately according to the particular circumstances of each case. I will give two modern examples of advocacy of terrorism. I will show how the courts would be better off applying the clear and present danger test as developed by Holmes and Brandeis in one case and the direct incitement test as developed in by Judge Hand in the other. By taking a two test approach to advocacy of terrorism, the government will better posses the tools it needs to protect national security.

The potential political effects of late night comedy programs have been a subject of much debate and concern, particularly since the 2000 Presidential election. Research into this area has been characterized by inconsistency in operationalizations of audiences and an almost exclusive focus on quantitative research. This project was designed to address key concerns that are central to this burgeoning literature by examining âheavyâ viewers of late night talk shows (including audiences of Leno, Letterman, and Conan OâBrien) and âheavyâ viewers of âThe Daily Show with Jon Stewart.â A combination of qualitative and quantitative methodologies were used to understand the relationships between late night comedy viewership and how citizens engage with the political world and news media. In addition, I sought to understand the perceived benefits of viewership (entertainment versus information), including how audiences construct meaning around political information and integrate said information into their views of the world. Findings indicate viewers of late night talk shows tend to be politically unsophisticated and low news media consumers, relying on incidental exposure to news about current events that are introduced throughout the day in the course of other activities (i.e., news headlines on email servers, jokes in late night monologues). Viewers of âThe Daily Show,â however, are on the other end of the political spectrum, reflecting high levels of political sophistication and high news media consumption. They tune into âThe Daily Showâ for a âtwistâ on news stories with which they are already familiar, expecting Stewart and his team to provide a humorous slant on current events. The differences between these two audiences can be attributed to their political evolutions. A function of independence of thought and political sophistication, engaging in a political evolution process allows citizens to thoughtfully and deliberately consider (and re-consider) their political beliefs and perspectives. This conscious and effortful engagement with political information means those who are highly politically evolved have flexible and well-functioning mental schema in place to understand and contextualize new information, draw connections between seemingly disparate issues, and recognize and challenge media conventions in political coverage.

Wisdom is a multi-faceted, multi-dimensional, multidisciplinary construct which has been discussed and examined since the beginning of recorded history. Many classical and contemporary scholars have sought to define wisdom, but a precise definition has proven elusive. Since wisdom often defies easy categorization, this dissertation examines wisdom using a multi-methodological perspective. Four chapters of this dissertation discuss the historiography of various societal attributions of wisdom using performance studies techniques. Three chapters examine wisdom and the instruments constructed to measure the construct from a social scientific approach. This study seeks to clarify, while simultaneously deconstructing, the definition of wisdom. The four performative chapters address wisdom primarily from the perspective of Gregory Ulmer's "mystory." The three social scientific chapters discuss the existing social scientific literature, information about the sample and questionnaire, and the results of the statistical analysis of the 12 hypotheses and 17 research questions posed. The discussion considers how the methodologies used clarify and obscure wisdom. Conclusions about the elusive nature of wisdom are posited. The role of different methodological approaches, age, and poor performance of existing wisdom scales suggest directions for future research.

This dissertation will contribute to the project of explaining what environmental communication studies may offer theoretically to an understanding of communication and rhetoric in general, investigate a complex problem in rhetoric from a variety of methodological approaches, offer examples of rhetorical criticism relevant to environmental communication researchers, and delve into certain salient aspects of ecological rhetoric (defined herein as rhetoric from an ecological perspective). The hypothesis of this doctoral thesis is twofold: 1) studying environmental communication can illuminate much about communication and rhetoric in general, and 2) ecological rhetoric has considerable persuasive potential in itself for reasons that can be demonstrated through criticism and ascertained through theoretical reflection. This dissertation is a critical and conceptual project that might also shed light on some practical questions about environmental advocacy. Case studies in historically significant instances of environmental communication from Garrett Hardin and Al Gore, as well as reflections upon the Interstate and the erosion of the Louisiana coastline, analyzed by means of rhetorical criticism, media ecology, semiotics, and quantitative methods, should highlight the narrative, material, and indexical quality of ecological rhetoric. Finally, a survey of concepts from network science will connect ecological rhetoric with recent debates in rhetorical theory.

Despite the prevalence of family firms, researchers often ignore the significant impact of the family on the business. Thus, if organizational scholars do not account for the family as a variable in their research, they will not account for a significant number of the organizations they purport to understand. The fact that family businesses comprise such a large percentage of organizations proves that the family business context deserves more attention from both organizational and organizational communication scholars. With this in mind, the original intent of this dissertation was to explore the impact of family relationships on communication practices and behaviors within the family business. Initially, the goal of this project was to investigate the ways in which the combination of the family and business systems impacted the communication within the family and within the business. Although this general objective is accomplished, the data collection and analysis process reveals a new angle that explains the findings more specifically. In particular, the data suggests that the broad categories and themes derived from a review of family business literature reflect aspects of family business that are mostly negative. The family business literature does not seem to offer much explanation for the positive experiences within the family business. Since the data mostly reflects positive experience, the prevailing family business research does not adequately explain or fit the data. As a result, the data prompted a new search for literature and research that includes the positive experiences of the family business as well as the negative. This dissertation uses theories of Enrichment and Depletion to compare the prevalence of positive experiences versus negative experiences. Data collection involved case studies of four different family businesses. Participants from these businesses were interviewed and transcripts of the interviews were then analyzed to compare and contrast the enriching (positive) and depleting (negative) experiences. The findings revealed that although family business members face issues of depletion, the participants overwhelmingly reported enriching experiences within their business. These findings suggest that the enrichment occurs within the family business and should be included within family business and family business communication literature.

This study contributes to the body of research on public opinion and media coverage of foreign news by examining the coverage of nine foreign countries in The New York Times and The Times. Media coverage and the public opinion about foreign nations were strongly correlated. Specifically, negative coverage tends to have more agenda-setting effects than neutral and positive coverage. The findings also suggest that media portray foreign countries in a unidimensional fashion, by limiting the coverage around a few policy issues. Finally, the U.S. and the U.K. media coverage of foreign nations were very similar.

The purpose of the current study is to examine how the prime time television show 24 frames torture by US government officials almost exclusively in scenarios of high-consequence, high-confidence that are not supported by public opinion polls, provide contextual rationalizations that are unrealistic, show torture methods as a viable means to gain needed information, and show enemy combatants torturing U.S. citizens. Through a quantitative content analysis of torture on the television series 24 and an analysis of focus groups reactions to select episodes of 24 portraying torture in such scenarios, the study seeks to investigate the role of entertainment media in influencing public opinion and providing backstage context from which opinions may be formed. The study examines how fictional portrayals of an event or issue such as torture can enter into political discourse on the subject. The study builds on prior research on how and when entertainment media provide context and frames to the public that the news media cannot, and helps further our understanding of how entertainment media can enter into public discourse and inform public opinion.