Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 40-09, Section: A, page: 4804. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1979.

Speeches of black college students were content analyzed for selected stylistic features. The purposes of the investigation were to collect normative data on the speaking styles of black college students in public speaking and to determine whether selected stylistic features of speeches of black college students at a predominantly black university were different from those of black college students at a predominantly white university. / Audiotapes were made of students presenting speeches in beginning speech classes at Florida A & M University and at Florida State University. From these speeches, 25 presented by black college students were randomly selected from the predominantly black university and 21 by black college students from the predominantly white university. Three samples selected from each of the 46 speeches were taken from the beginning, middle, and ending of the speech. These samples were coded for the following stylistic variables: word length, sentence length, segmental Type-Token Ratio, Adjective-Verb Quotient, T-unit length, main clause coordinate index, clause length, subordinate clause index, Flesch's Reading Ease Score, Flesch's Human Interest Score, nonfluencies, and black dialect syntax. / The means computed for the speeches of the black college students on the 12 variables were as follows: (1) A mean word length of 1.46 syllables per word. (2) A mean sentence length of 18.04 words per sentence. (3) A mean segmental Type-Token Ratio of .74. (4) A mean Adjective-Verb Quotient of .33. (5) A mean T-unit length of 14.86 words per T-unit. (6) A mean main clause coordinate index of 1.22 T-units per sentence. (7) A mean clause length of 9.48 words per clause. (8) A mean subordinate clause index of 1.59. (9) Flesch's Reading Ease mean score of 60.68. (10) Flesch's Human Interest mean score of 41.65. (11) A mean nonfluency index of 3.28 nonfluencies. (12) A mean black dialect syntax score of .70. / As a group, the speeches were similar to speeches of other college students on the twelve variables studied. Great variability in speaking ability existed among the black college student speakers. / A significant difference was found between the speeches of the black college students at the predominantly black university and those of the black college students at the predominantly white university on mean word length, mean sentence length, mean main clause coordinate index, and mean Flesch's Reading Ease Score. A comparison of the means of the two groups of speeches suggested a more complex speaking style for the speeches of the predominantly black university group. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 41-03, Section: A, page: 0848. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1980.

This study attempts to quantify the coverage of Nigeria and the attitudes toward that country expressed by the United States press. It also attempts to answer the question of whether the press framed the content of its Nigerian stories in terms of U.S. political and social ideals. The study is based on a content analysis of news of Nigeria published in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Chicago Tribune, and The Miami Herald. / The news stories of the four newspaper were randomly sampled during the periods between October 1, 1960 and October 31, 1979. A total of 62 news stories were recorded in the four newspapers. / The measuring instrument for the study was designed: (1)To determine the amount of coverage given to Nigeria. This included comparing the news stories over time periods and comparing the coverage of Nigeria by the newspapers in terms of number of stories, trends followed, space covered, and the type of coverage. (2)To determine the attitude of the press toward Nigerian newsmakers (Was the story favorable, unfavorable, or neutral toward the referent?). Using a two stage coding procedure the stories were submitted to raters for evaluation. The raters identified the newsmakers and the direction and intensity of attitudes expressed toward them. / The following results were found: The Nigerian coverage in American papers was much higher during the Nigerian Civil War than during any other period. The New York Times printed more news stories, by far, on Nigeria and devoted more space to that country than any of the other three newspapers. / The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, and The Chicago Tribune wrote more hard news on Nigeria than The Miami Herald, but The New York Times and The Miami Herald printed more feature stories than the other papers. The four newspapers did not follow the same trend in coverage across the total time period. The similarity between the papers occured during the Civil War when they all showed an increase in their coverage of Nigeria, followed by a decline after the Civil War. / The space devoted to the Nigerian news in the four newspapers was scarcely enough to inform the American readership of significant developments in Nigeria. / The foreign newsmakers who were concerned primarily with humanitarian, economic, and political matters and Nigerian Ibos and Ibo institutions were the entities most covered in the four newspapers. / A majority of foreign individuals and institutions and some of the Nigerians who were covered in the reported events that included participation of foreign nationals were treated favorably by the four newspapers. / Nothing was repoted on United States dependence on Nigerian oil, arousing a speculation that the United States press was not sensitized to the oil problem or was not partisan in its reporting because of it. / Results show in part, that American ideals and interests sometimes seemed to influence the way the four newspapers treated and covered Nigerian affairs. But the general finding of the study was that the United States press did not always report Nigerian news in terms of its relationship to American ideals and interests. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 42-03, Section: A, page: 0911. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1981.

The purpose of this study was to examine a large normally speaking population of young black college students in order to determine the durational characteristics of speaking and reading. Further, it was the purpose of this study to make an extensive comparison of the results of Walker's (1979) study of young white college students and the results of the current investigation. / In order to accomplish the goals of this research, the exact instrumentation, method and procedure reported by Walker (1979) were employed. Normative data were reported on the five following speech durations: (1) Total speaking time which represented the total time necessary for the production of the message. (2) Articulation time which was the total speaking time exclusive of the pauses. (3) Phonation time which was the time that the vocal folds were active in the production of voice. (4) Voiceless speech which was the amount of time spent in voiceless articulation. (5) Pause time which was the amount of time in a message when no acoustic signal was present. / A total of 120 Native Black American college students served as subjects for this study. These subjects were undergraduate students enrolled at Florida A&M University and The Florida State University; 60 were males, and 60 were females. All subjects used in this study were judged to be normal with respect to speech, voice and hearing, and they had no formal voice training. / Three tasks were required of each subject. These tasks were to read a standard passage, to converse with the experimenter for three minutes and to read the written text of their conversational speech. / In addition to providing descriptive data concerning the performances of the three tasks in terms of durations, rates, percentages, and ratios for all subjects by race and sex, the following statistical tests were utilized: analysis of variance, t test, Newman-Keuls Multiple Range Test and the Pearson Product Moment Correlation. / The results indicated that there was a significant difference among the four groups of subjects for all measures except total rate of conversational speech and the reading of the conversational speech passage. The black male subjects and the white male subjects were similar on all measures. The black female subjects had the lowest rate of speaking and reading and the least pause time. The white females had the highest rate of speaking and reading and they had the greatest pause time. For all subjects, total speaking and articulation rates for conversational speech were slower than the same measures and the same material in the reading of the conversational speech sample. The total rates and the articulation rates for the reading of the conversational speech sample were significantly higher than the reading and articulation rates for the reading of the standard passage. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 42-06, Section: A, page: 2366. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1981.

Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 40-09, Section: A, page: 4801. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1979.

This study presents an examination and analysis of John F. Kennedy's rhetoric in the 1960 presidential primary. First, a survey is made of Kennedy's political background prior to the West Virginia primary. Kennedy's early congressional and senatorial campaigns are discussed, along with his fortunately unsuccessful bid for the 1956 Democratic vice-presidential nomination. Kennedy's decision to run for the presidency in 1960 and preparations for his campaign are also examined. The study then explores the background of the West Virginia primary. The link between West Virginia's socio-economic status and the state's 1960 political structure is investigated. Because of the critical importance of the religious issue in the primary campaign, West Virginia's religious profile is described. / The study reviews the progress and setbacks of Kennedy's West Virginia campaign and discusses problems that arose and how they were handled. Attention is focused on Kennedy's treatment of the religious issue, his most formidable West Virginia hurdle. A description of Kennedy's three brief tours of West Virginia is given together with an account of his campaign organization and his supporters. Kennedy's immediate opponent, Hubert Humphrey, and his campaign receive brief attention. Kennedy's other opponents both in and out of the state are also discussed. Kennedy's campaign techniques, including television appearances and advertising, receive attention. / The study then focuses on Kennedy's West Virginia speeches. It examines his ethical (ethos), emotional (pathos), and logical (logos) proofs/appeals according to Aristotelian and contemporary rhetorical theory. The study analyzes Kennedy's development of six major speech themes relevant to West Virginia: religion, West Virginia's economic problems, West Virginia's potential, the federal government's neglect of West Virginia, Humphrey's unsuitability as a presidential candidate, and Kennedy's viability as a presidential candidate. / Kennedy's audible and visual delivery in the West Virginia primary (as elsewhere) also come under investigation. His mode of delivery, general appearance, bodily action, and voice are examined, together with problems of presentation and how he overcame them. Finally, the study reviews Kennedy's style in the West Virginia primary. It inspects the popular concept of style as image building. Kennedy's language is examined for the traditional classical elements of correctness, clearness, appropriateness, and embellishment. In addition the Fry formula and graph for readability/listenability is applied to twelve of Kennedy's prepared West Virginia speeches for which delivery is verified, and the results are examined for significance. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 41-09, Section: A, page: 3778. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1980.

This study was designed as an investigation of the speeches of known charismatic leaders to see if the elements stated in House's "A 1976 Theory of Charisma" were indeed present and evident in their speeches. The purpose of this thesis was to identify and to develop objective methods which could be used in investigating the theory and to apply those techniques to the speeches of charismatic leaders. This was done through a series of content analytic methods. / Ten American charismatic leaders (1930-1980) were chosen by a select group of raters. Two speeches by each of the charismatic leaders were examined. Each speech was analyzed for evidence of specific charismatic behaviors, goal articulation, role modeling, personal image building, demonstration of confidence, high expectations for followers, and motive arousal behaviors. / The traits and specific behaviors that House theorized would be found in charismatic leaders were generally evident in the speeches analyzed; however, the study suggests that religious leaders possess different characteristics and displayed behaviors different from other types of charismatic leaders. / Power and achievement were not as prevalent in the speeches of the religious leaders as in the other leaders, and they did not display as positive a concept of their followers as did other types of leaders. Yet a strong belief in the moral righteousness of their belief seemed more of a necessity for them. Future studies should explore the differences between the religious charismatic leaders and charismatic leaders in other fields such as military or politics. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 41-09, Section: A, page: 3780. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1980.

Fidelity has traditionally been defined as congruence between transmitted and received signals, and has long been a concern of communication scholars and educators. In the present study, the definition was expanded to include the effectiveness of a message according to the source's purpose or intent. The intent assigned to sources was to nonverbally reward a partner during a conversation. Thus, fidelity was a function of how rewarding a source intended to be relative to how much satisfaction a partner experienced. / Previous research in the fidelity of nonverbal communication has focused on encoding and decoding of emotions. The research indicates that nonverbal communication of emotion does occur; females are better decoders and perhaps better encoders than males; and a variety of situational and modal factors influence encoding and decoding of emotions. / Encoding and decoding research has generally ignored other messages which may be communicated nonverbally, and it has ignored the transaction that occurs in communication events. The research has also overlooked the relationship between the sources and receivers of nonverbal messages. According to the developmental approach to interpersonal communication, the depth of a relationship influences the communication patterns. Nonverbal communication should also vary according to the relationship of the participants: friends should communicate more effectively than strangers. / Thus, the purpose of the present investigation was to determine the effects of sex and friendship on the fidelity of communicating rewarding nonverbal messages. Dyads composed of friends and females were predicted to display greater fidelity of nonverbal communication than dyads of males and strangers. / Fidelity was operationalized two ways. The Product Score represented an overall dimension of fidelity. It was based on the absolute difference between how rewarding the source intended to be and how satisfied the receiver felt after a conversation. The Process Score represented an ongoing dimension of fidelity, and was based on audience analysis procedures. / The experiment was conducted in a laboratory setting. The unit of analysis was the dyad; it was composed of a Sender (instructed to transmit rewarding nonverbal messages) and a Receiver of the same sex. Senders were drawn from students in a nonverbal communication class; Receivers were friends of Senders or strangers. Twenty-nine dyads contained strangers; 42 contained friends. Thirty-five dyads were male; 36 were female. / Data were analyzed using two-way analysis of variance, with sex and friendship as the main effects. The Product and Process Scores both resulted in a trend supporting the prediction regarding sex differences, with p values ranging from .05 to .10. Several exploratory analyses were also performed. Fidelity was correlated with how natural subjects felt and perceived their partners to feel. When the Receiver's perception of how natural the Sender felt was covaried using ancova, a trend supporting the friendship difference was revealed using the Process Score as the dependent variable. / Although none of the hypotheses was confirmed, the results provided some support for the predictions. Sex appears to be more important than friendship, although lack of naturalness and the artificiality of the procedures appeared to have confounded the effect of friendship. The dependent variables were uncorrelated, but both appear worthy of continued research. / Future research should continue to examine the effects of sex and friendship, it should pursue theoretical and empirical understanding of fidelity, and it should utilize other populations of subjects and nonverbal messages. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 41-11, Section: A, page: 4539. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1980.

The effects of selected extra-evidential factors on the decision-making of mock jurors were investigated. The propositions of Equity Theory were employed as a conceptual framework for understanding the dynamics of the judicial process. / The present research was designed to replicate and extend the findings of the prototype mock juror study conducted by Landy and Aronson (1966). The experimental procedures employed by Landy and Aronson were adapted for use in the current research. In addition to the traditional predictions regarding the impact of the participants' relative character attractiveness, the present study investigated the impact of mock jurors' Just World Belief on their sentencing behavior. It was hypothesized that mock jurors reporting high Just World Belief would sentence defendants to longer prison terms than jurors with low Just World Belief. / The results of the data analyses provided partial support for the Landy and Aronson hypotheses and failed to support the predictions regarding Just World Belief. The absence of the effect of the defendant's character attractiveness on the sentencing behavior of mock jurors was attributed to the intervention of the potentially confounding variable of defendant suffering. / Comparison of the sentencing patterns of the high and low Just World Belief jurors suggested that high believers may base their sentencing decisions, in part, on the attributes of the victim, and low believers may base their sentencing decisions, in part, on the attributes of the defendant. / Finally, an extension of the equity theory formula was proposed. It was suggested that future research focus upon the verification of the elements and relationships described in the extension formula. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 42-10, Section: A, page: 4201. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1981.

Traditionally, organization theorists and researchers have held to the idea that the intrinsic and extrinsic forces that affect human motivation are independent and additive. The maximum motivation to perform a task would occur, then, when both intrinsic and extrinsic rewards are at their grea / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 41-01, Section: A, page: 0020. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1979.