<p> Over the years, local television news stations across the nation have seen a dramatic decrease in viewership. Much like newspapers, fewer people are relying on television news for several reasons. Two of the biggest culprits are the age of new technology and social media. These two factors alone have reprogrammed people's daily habits, changing the landscape of television news viewership and resulting in uncertain times at local television news stations. Few studies have been done on the future of local television news. Of the studies that have been conducted, it is clear to see that local news is still relevant even in times of change, uncertainty and evolution, but can it make enough of a profit to survive? The million dollar question TV executives are trying to answer is: How will local TV news stations stay afloat in these uncharted waters? In an attempt to answer this question, qualitative research in the form of ethnography and interview was conducted. The findings in this study reveal television news stations must stay on the cutting edge of technology in order to engage their viewers. They must also think of creative ways to generate revenue besides the traditional way of advertising. Without healthy news ratings, local television news organizations are forced to lower their advertising rates to those seeking to spend money on commercial time. This, in turn, has resulted in a loss of millions of dollars a year for TV stations. The end result will be evident to both stations and viewers. The future of local television news and the direct impact to viewers is discussed. </p>

<p> Extrinsic motivation may affect knowledge sharing in a virtual community. As virtual communities have become ubiquitous, understanding knowledge sharing in virtual communities has become very important. Knowledge sharing is one of the factors that allow virtual communities to be viable. This study sought to observe knowledge sharing in a virtual community, which does not use extrinsic motivation techniques as incentives to share knowledge. This correlation study used a framework that included the elements of social capital and outcome expectations. This study found that extrinsic rewards over time appear not to be important in knowledge sharing. The long term effect may be that extrinsic rewards are much less important than the design of the virtual community and the internal motivation of the members of the virtual community. One-hundred and thirty-three persons participated in this study.</p>

<p> The goal of this study was to determine how the Acadiana cultural region (St. Martin, St. Landry, Acadia, Vermillion, Lafayette and Iberia parishes) used social media in crisis response strategies. The researcher used a purposive sample and qualitative long interviews to gather data from six public relations practitioners in Acadiana. Practitioners were selected from the Lafayette Chamber of Commerce website in the section labeled "Advertising &amp; Media" (http://business.lafchamber.org/list/ql/advertising-media-1). Results proved the hypotheses that practitioners used Twitter for the dissemination of information and Facebook was perceived to have the most interaction among all social media sites in the study. In addition, the results determined how practitioners used social media in the following categories and themes: usability, service and frequency.</p>

<p> This study uses conversational analysis to identify how adolescents with pragmatic difficulties use text messaging to establish friendship networks. Individuals diagnosed with Social Communication Disorders (SCD) have normal intelligence, however reportedly exhibit difficulties interacting in face-to-face social situations due to differences in their interpretation of both social and linguistic cues. These miscues often lead to problems in deciphering subtle linguistic meaning indicators or in decoding physical concomitants of communication signaling nuances of conversations in friendship networks. Text messaging eliminates meaning-making social cues and subtle linguistic markers present in face-to-face interactions. With text messaging becoming a ubiquitous form of interaction for adolescents, it remains to be seen how individuals diagnosed with SCD use texting to establish and maintain social practices. This dissertation study examined text messaging use in a group of adolescents diagnosed with SCD. Six adolescents collected and saved text messages for a period of 1-4 months. Using a conversational analysis framework, texts were parsed into conversational units and coded for specific communicative indices that marked communicative competencies. In addition, individual interviews with adolescent participants and their parents served to contextualize the analysis of the collected text conversations. Results indicated that the participants showed communicative competencies that belie their language use in face-to-face interactions. These adolescents, though they all report that they prefer face-to-face interactions, effectively used text messaging as a medium for maintaining social relationships, and all participants related that friendships are enhanced when they have access to friends via phone. The adolescents in this study used diverse language styles to communicate with different people. Instances of creative language found throughout their texting bodes well for these adolescents diagnosed with SDC, as success in this context may further encourage other forms of both written and verbal language use. If the creative nature of the texting sphere is exploited, and individuals show communicative competence in this medium, we need to redefine competence and recognize more instances of appropriate communication with peers, thus expanding the social networking of these individuals in meaningful ways. Additionally, culturally established categories framing this particular disorder should be reconstructed to constitute these individuals as capable communicators.</p>

This dissertation explores the collaborative process and use of language that went into the creating the United States Constitution in 1787. From a technical communication perspective, the collaborative process explored did not develop any new theories on collaboration, but instead, allows scholars to track the emergence of a well-documented America collaborative process from the early period of the developing American nation on a document that has remained in use for over 235 years. in addition to examining this collaborative process, the author also discusses the use of passive voice and negative language in the first article of the Constitution.

Comics is a writing style that is often written off as just something done for entertainment or design. However, there are many facets of comics that make it a suitable candidate for technical documentation. By nature, comics is a visual and universal language and, as such, is the basis for an investigation of comics within the scope of technical communication. This research investigates whether comics can be automatically generated, based on a set of predefined panel templates, for such purposes while also providing for flexibility in both content and ultimate consumption format. A within-subjects study run with over 200 participants compared comics to two of its traditional documentation style contenders, prose and step-oriented, in terms of understanding and evaluation metrics, including those related to user experience. Results indicate that comics as a documentation style can offer enhanced, more positive user experiences, albeit not being overall better than the other styles. / Master of Science

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Although there have been many attempts to mediate the longstanding gap between technical communication academics and practitioners, the field has yet to become a unified community. This study tracks the history of the field to identify the causes of the breach. The goal of this thesis is to assess technical communication's current industry and academic environment based on data collected from interviewing selected academics and practitioners. For my research, I compared my interview findings to the information from my bibliographical research in order to contribute to creating a healthy research-to-practice loop by producing a course syllabus for a senior seminar for the Professional Writing option within Virginia Tech's department of English. This syllabus contains readings, assignments, projects, and industry tests that are meant to help students contribute to bridging the gap between academia and industry by combining the important components from both sides of technical communication. Research indicates that important professional skills for the workplace include knowing how to transform writing into products through topic-based writing, structured authoring, and information typing. Examples of other important professional technical communication skills include search engine optimization and content repurposing. Advanced technical communication-related jobs in industry include content strategist and information architect. Methods of diminishing the gap between academics and practitioners and providing an environment that is conducive to collaborative research include generating awareness among technical communicators about what the other group does, changing the paradigm for research and faculty requirements for technical communication academics, and the two groups collaborating to develop more technical communication-related internships for students. / Master of Arts