Reality TV is the most popular genre of television programming today. The number of reality television shows has grown exponentially over the last fifteen years since the premier of The Real World in 1992. Although reality TV uses styles similar to those used in documentary film, the “reality” of the shows is questioned by critics and viewers alike. The current study focuses on the “reality” that is presented to viewers and how that “reality” is created and may differ from what the participants of the shows experience. I appeared on two reality shows, Faking It and That's Clever, and learned a great deal as a participant observer. Within the study, I outline my experience and demonstrate how editing changed the reality I experienced into what was presented to the viewers. O'Connor's (1996) representation context web serves as a model for the realities created through reality television. People derive various benefits from watching reality TV. Besides the obvious entertainment value of reality TV, viewers also gather information via this type of programming. Viewers want to see real people on television reacting to unusual circumstances without the use of scripts. By surveying reality TV show viewers and participants, this study gives insight …

This study explores distinct levels of meaning from images of picture books perceived by 3- to 5-year-old children and investigates how the certain visual perception factors influence children's meaning making and if these factors are correlated. The literature review supports associations among visual perception, information, picture books, meaning, and children. Visual perception serves as the first channel that filters and interprets visual information, and picture books provide visual and verbal experience for children, who constantly search for meaning. Children age 3 to 5 years are potential users of picture books because pictorial information is considered useful to children's learning tasks. Previous research reveals that various factors influence visual perception, and meaning has been mostly associated with its semantic significance in information retrieval. In information science, little research has focused on young children's own way of categorizing information, especially visual information. In order to investigate the distinct levels of meaning perceived by children, the investigation employed both qualitative and quantitative methods including unobtrusive and participant observation, factor analysis, content analysis, and case study. The result of this study contributes to understanding the cognitive process of children related to visual literacy and their interpreting visual information in a digital environment.

This phenomenological study examines the motivations and experiences of librarians who author professionally-focused Weblogs. I constructed a model of librarianship based on Wilson and Buckland. The results show a close fit between librarian bloggers and the ideals of the field as expressed by two primary library and information science philosophers. A Web survey generated 239 responses to demographic and open-ended questions. Using the results of the survey, I analyzed demographic data and performed a phenomenological analysis of the open-ended questions. A list of category responses was generated from each set of answers via the coding of descriptive words and phrases. Results indicated the motivations of librarian bloggers are based around themes of sharing, participation in community, and enhanced professional development. Respondents reported feeling more connected to the profession and to colleagues across the world because of blogging. Respondents perceived the librarian blogosphere as a community with both positive aspects - feedback, discussion, and support - and negative aspects - insular voices, divides between technologists and librarians, and generational rifts. Respondents also reported an increased ability to keep current, improved writing skills, and opportunities to speak and contribute to professional journals.

This dissertation seeks to identify the elements that inform the model for competing message propagation systems in a restrictive environment. It pays attention to message propagation by sanctioned and clandestine radio stations in pre- and post-independent Zimbabwe. This dissertation uses two models of message propagation in a limiting information environment: Sturges' information model of national liberation struggle and Chatman's small world information model. All the message propagation elements in the Sturges and Chatman's models are present in the broadcast texts analyzed. However, the findings of this dissertation indicate that communication in a restrictive information environment is designed such that its participants make sense of their situation, and come up with ways to solve the challenges of their small world. Also, a restrictive information environment is situational, and message propagators operating in it are subject to tactical changes at different times, accordingly altering their cognitive maps. The two models fail to address these concerns. This dissertation focused on message propagation in Zimbabwe because there is military belligerence involved in the information warfare. It therefore provides an extreme situation, which can help our understanding of more everyday instances of communication and interference of communication. Findings of this dissertation recommend the need to …

The aim of this research, Reading Selection as Information Seeking Behavior: A Case Study with Adolescent Girls, was to explore how the experience of reading fiction affects adolescent girls aged 13 through 15, and how that experience changes based upon four activities: journaling, blogging, a personal interview, and a focus group session. Each participant reflects upon works of her own choosing that she had recently read. The data is evaluated using content analysis with the goal of developing a relational analysis tool to be used and tested with future research projects. The goal of this research is to use the insights of the field of bibliotherapy together with the insights of the adolescent girls to provide a higher, more robust model of successful information behavior. That is, relevance is a matter of impact on life rather than just a match of subject heading. This work provides a thick description of a set of real world relevancy judgments. This may serve to illuminate theories and practices for bringing each individual seeker together with appropriate documents. This research offers a new model for relevant information seeking behavior associated with selecting works of essential instructional fiction, as well as a new definition for …

This study used an interdisciplinary approach to examine an intervention for reducing public speaking state anxiety. A quasi-experiment was conducted to determine if a multiple-exposure treatment technique (TRIPLESPEAK) would help to attenuate public speaking anxiety. The treatment group reported experiencing significantly less state anxiety during their post-test presentation than did the control group. This lead to the conclusion that exposure therapy can be used to help students enrolled in basic communication classes begin to overcome their fear of speaking in front of an audience. Follow-up analysis of the treatment group's reported anxiety levels during all five presentations (pre-test, Treatment Presentation 1, Treatment Presentation 2, Treatment Presentation 3, and post-test) revealed an increase in anxiety from the last treatment presentation to the post-test presentation. In order to explore this issue, Shannon's entropy was utilized to calculate the amount of information in each speaking environment. Anderson's functional ontology construction approach served as a model to explain the role of the environment in shaping speakers' current and future behaviors and reports of anxiety. The exploratory analysis revealed a functional relationship between information and anxiety. In addition, a qualitative study was conducted to determine which environmental stimuli speakers perceived contributed to their anxiety levels. …

This dissertation emphasizes the importance of the human factor in the organizational change process. Change - the only constant - is inevitable for organizations and no change program can be achieved without the support and acceptance of organization members. In this context, this study identifies officer attitudes toward organizational change in the Turkish National Police (TNP) and the factors affecting those attitudes. The Officer Attitude Model created by the researcher includes six main factors (receptivity to change, readiness for change, trust in management, commitment to organization, communication of change, and training for change) and five background factors (gender, age, rank, level of education, and work experience) to explain officer attitudes toward change. In order to test this model, an officer attitude survey was administered in Turkey among TNP members and the results of the gathered data validated this model.

This study explored and described decision factors related to technology adoption. The research used diffusion of innovations and communities of practice (CoP) theoretical frameworks and a case study of Web services technology in the digital library (DL) environment to develop an understanding of the decision-making process. A qualitative case study approach was used to investigate the research problems and data were collected through semi-structured interviews, documentary evidence (e.g., meeting minutes), and a comprehensive member check. The research conducted face-to-face and phone interviews with seven respondents with different job titles (administraive vs. technical) from five different DL programs selected based on distinctive characteristics such as size of the DL program. Findings of the research suggested that the decision-making process is a complex process in which a number of factors are considered when making technology adoption decisions. These factors are categorized as organizational, individual, and technology specific factors. Further, data showed that DL CoPs played an important role in enabling staff members of a DL program to access up-to-date and experienced-based knowledge, provided a distributed problem solving and learning environment, facilitating informal communication and collaborative activities, and informing the decision-making process.