Book Summary: Popular culture helps construct, define, and impact our everyday realities and must be taken seriously because popular culture is, simply, popular. Communication Perspectives on Popular Culture brings together communication experts with diverse backgrounds, from interpersonal communication, business and organizational communication, mass communication, media studies, narrative, rhetoric, gender studies, autoethnography, popular culture studies, and journalism. The contributors tackle such topics as music, broadcast and Netflix television shows, movies, the Internet, video games, and more, as they connect popular culture to personal concerns as well as larger political and societal issues. The variety of approaches in these chapters are simultaneously situated in the present while building a foundation for the future, as contributors explore new and emerging ways to approach popular culture. From case studies to emerging theories, the contributors examine how popular culture, media, and communication influence our everyday lives.

This presentation will provide participants up to date and comprehensive information regarding tinnitus mechanisms, special populations, and interventions. Contemporary findings from research studies will be summarized and audiologic implications addressed. The presenters will review intervention approaches that employ hearing aid fittings as well as emerging sound-based and counseling strategies for tinnitus management.

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Excerpt: Tinnitus: Clinical and Research Perspectives summarizes contemporary findings from basic and clinical research regarding tinnitus mechanisms, effects, and interventions. The text features a collection of international authors, active researchers, and clinicians who provide an expansive scope of material that ensures relevance for patients and professionals. Reviews and reports of contemporary research findings underscore the text s value for classroom use in audiology and otolaryngology programs. Patients and students of audiology will benefit from the text s coverage of tinnitus mechanisms, emerging practice considerations, and expectations for outcomes--for example, recent successes of cognitive behavioral therapy, neuromodulation, and hearing aid use. These and other topics, such as the effects of noise and drugs on tinnitus, are reported in a way that enhances clinicians ability to weave such strategies into their own work. The influence of tinnitus on all aspects of life is explored, from art to medicine and communication to isolation, thereby providing clinicians and patients a deeper understanding of and greater facility managing a tinnitus experience. Finally, this text includes case studies that provide a practical view of tinnitus effects and management approaches. The editors hope that the consideration of mechanisms, interventions, and outcomes resonates with patients, clinicians, and students of audiology.

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Purpose ReadNPlay for a Bright Future develops a variety of projects aimed at promoting healthy living in families with young children in Appalachian Tennessee. The purposes of this research are to collect parents’ and caregivers’ perspectives on healthy eating for the purpose of designing a new book in the ReadNPlay children's book series to be entitled A Farmers Market Adventure and to collect the preferences of parents and guardians related to website and mobile application (app) usage to help shape the development of a new ReadNPlay My Baby Book app. Methods Anonymous clipboard surveys were administered to attendees of regional community events during July of 2014. Survey items asked parents about healthy eating in the context of their families and the role of parenting websites and mobile apps in their families. The results from these surveys were summarized using Excel. A total of 100 surveys were collected. Results It was found that when parents were asked to identify barriers to healthy eating, the most common responses were picky eaters in the household (30%) followed by lack of time (22%). When asked to identify things that have helped parents to encourage healthy eating in their families, the three most common responses were good recipes (20%), good role models (16%), and farmers markets (16%). Twenty-eight percent of parents surveyed do not use websites or apps for parenting, while those who do use parenting websites or apps identified advice from experts (20%) and advice from other parents (18%) to be the two features most commonly desired in such a resource. When asked what they do not like about website and app usage, 20% of parents indicated that these tools are “too complicated.” However, when parents are told that our group of pediatricians was developing a free mobile application for families designed to help them keep track of their baby’s growth, development, and eating habits, 75% of parents said such an app would be very helpful to them (25% said a little helpful). Conclusion These results will inform a new ReadNPlay children's book themed around healthy eating behaviors, overcoming pickiness, and shopping with families at farmers markets and a new ReadNPlay mobile app for families to use in conjunction with infant-toddler well child visits.

This study explored the perceptions and lived experiences of 10 transgender and gender nonconforming individuals who had interacted with the various sectors of the criminal justice system (i.e., law enforcement, the prison system, and the court system). The focus of this phenomenological qualitative study was providing insight into how sexual orientation and gender identity influenced transgender and gender nonconforming individuals' experiences and perceptions of the criminal justice system. Procedural justice theory guided this study by providing an understanding of how the behavior of the actors in the criminal justice system shaped the cooperation or resistance of transgender and gender nonconforming individuals. During semistructured telephonic interviews, participants were asked open-ended questions about their feelings, experiences, and perceptions regarding the various sectors of the criminal justice system (i.e., law enforcement, the prison system, and the court system). Using Moustakas's modified Stevick-Colaizzi-Keen approach, 3 themes were identified: (a) interactions with the criminal justice system, (b) thoughts about the criminal justice system, and (c) experiences with the criminal justice system. Findings indicated that the criminal justice system is not adequately prepared to accommodate or appropriately deal with transgender and gender nonconforming individuals and their unique needs. Implications for social change include the development of transgender-affirmative training programs and education for the criminal justice system and its personnel.

At one time, Providence, Utah, was well-known for its fruit production, especially on the north and south benches, but changes in population growth patterns, technology, and local economy have dramatically reduced reliance on agriculture and have completely eliminated fruit farming on the benches. In order to capture a slice of Providence history which is quickly disappearing from public memory, this thesis relies on a series of interviews I conducted with former workers on the fruit farms in the Providence bench area. Through their memories of their work and childhoods, I set out a folk history which focuses on family and worker relationships, gender roles, and work techniques. Throughout the entire body of work, I pull from a variety of genres and themes within the field of folklore to answer my research question of what fruit farming entailed and the importance it played in the lives of the farmers, their families, the workers, and the community. I begin with sections of historical ethnography in order to transport the reader into a time past and to convey the nature of these farmers’ and workers’ lives and occupations. The voices of my informants have a large role in shaping the history through their commentaries and personal narratives about this period. I continue with further textual analysis of the informants’ personal narratives about work and childhood, using theories of children’s folklore and oral narrative to discuss trickster tales and their role in my informants’ lives and their life histories. This analysis further focuses on power relationships and gender roles, while acting as a collection of occupational and children’s folklore as revealed through my informants’ interviews. I also draw on psychoanalytic interpretations of gender roles within work. I also discuss teenage relationships, flirting, and jokes about sexuality during this time period through this theoretical lens. My analysis concludes where it started: with the stories and their nostalgic themes, drawing the body of this thesis back to a discussion of life, land, and family and the nature of the stories told about these themes now. Throughout, this folk history relies on the present to understand the past, and by way of the nostalgic quality of all of the stories told by my informants, the past defines the present.

A state of conflict has existed in the Niger Delta for fifty years. The nature of the conflict, whether it is terrorism or civil insurrection, has not been resolved by the respective legislative entities. This qualitative case study was designed to explore the nature of the Niger Delta conflict from the perspective of several members of the Nigerian National Assembly and determine whether terrorism in Nigeria is related to the general conflict. Social conflict theory provided the basis for the exploration. An ancillary question explored whether antiterrorism legislation in 2006 alleviated the Niger Delta conflict. Interview data were collected from 1 senator and 5 representatives of the Nigerian National Assembly. These data were inductively coded and manually analyzed for major themes, and then triangulated with a review of internal and public documents pertaining to the relevant legislation. The study established that the root causes of the Niger Delta conflict were economic inequities. Three conclusions were drawn from the case study and data regarding legislative attempts to address the conflict: (1) the antiterrorism legislation of 2006 did not criminalize the Niger Delta conflict, (2) the legislation did not have an impact on fiscal resource allocations to the region, and (3) no link between the conflict and current terrorism activities in Nigeria was evident. Recommendations are given for the Nigerian state to engage in fiscal federalism as a means of equitable allocations of resources to the region, thereby contributing to positive social change.

Despite a significant drop in the number of pregnant adolescents and reforms to fight gender discrimination under Title IX, teen pregnancy and risk factors including poverty, stigma, and substance abuse, which may lead to different negative outcomes, such as depression, social isolation, and lowered self-esteem remain a persistent problem in the United States. Due to these factors, pregnant and parenting teens have been noted to drop out of high school prematurely. Using incrementalism as a theoretical framework, the purpose of this qualitative exploratory case study was to explore and describe Title IX compliance and local policies and practices of educators as well as their role in the lives of pregnant and parenting teens pursuing secondary education. As a public policy, the purpose of Title IX is to protect students regardless of gender. Data were collected through in-depth interviews of 4 policy makers and 16 educators from public school districts across a northeastern state. To analyze the data, interviews were transcribed, inductively coded, and subjected to a thematic analysis procedure. Regardless of the existence of Title IX, the findings show it is incrementally enforced, coming into play slowly or even ignored. The themes included stigma, discriminatory segregation, funding gaps, support of programs largely outside of school, accountability for programs, denial of educators' voices on policy and practices, and recommendations of real life skills for pregnant and parenting students. This study provides relevant information to use as a basis for Title IX compliance and local educational policy modifications. This study suggests compliance and modifications may contribute to positive academic progress for pregnant and parenting adolescents.