2020-

Permanent URI for this collection

https://hdl.handle.net/10217/182111

Browse

Now showing 1 - 6 of 6

Open Access
Autonomy in local digital journalism: a mixed-method triangulation exploration of the organizational culture and individual moral psychology factors of digital news workers
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2021) Zlaten, Rhema, author; Anderson, Ashley A., advisor; Plaisance, Patrick L., advisor; Abrams, Katie, committee member; Rollin, Bernard, committee member; Tropman, Elizabeth, committee member
The main purpose of this mixed-method dissertation was to examine the shifting digital news industry, especially in regard to individual and organizational-level autonomy. Specifically, this work responds to calls in media ethics, media sociology, and moral ecology to better understand how organizational structure and individual moral psychology factors influence the levels digital news workers exhibit autonomy within their digital news organization. The autonomous agency of news workers is an essential indicator of how journalism work is fulfilling its role as the fourth estate in American democracy. This dissertation examined how autonomy is either inhibited or enabled by a myriad of factors in the digital news frontier. I worked with the editorial staff at a hyper-local digitally native news organization, The Golden Gate, over the course of one year. I began the research process with a participant observation period. Then a few months later the staff completed a moral psychology-based survey online. My data collection period ended with in-depth participant interviews based on the themes found during the first two phases. My data collection resulted in several themes to answer my research questions concerning the organizational structure, leadership, socialization, and autonomy of The Golden Gate. These themes included company culture (divided into several sub themes), routine and workflow (also divided into several sub themes), individual autonomy, individual processes of growth, organizational autonomy (also divided into several sub themes), and professional autonomy. The first overarching perspective I gained during this study was that the experimental hyper-local journalism model enacted by The Golden Gate digital news organization represented a new wave of digital journalism. The Golden Gate's digital product was a carefully curated newsletter representing a richer take on conveying not just their original reporting, but the story of the city. A second overarching perspective I gained during my research process was seeing the strength of how the moral psychology components informed the media sociological considerations of my research site. The moral psychology survey components teased out the ethical climates of the staff. The highest ranking ethical climate (according to the Ethical Climate Questionnaire results) for The Golden Gate was the social responsibility climate, a climate that speaks to journalistic professional norms of serving the public good. The second highest ranked ECQ was the teamwork climate. These ethical orientations stemmed in part from the company's structuring vision of an audience-first focus, but they also flowed from the staff's strong allegiance to professional journalistic norms, as deciphered from the moral psychology components of my survey. I also found support for my variables. When I examined my data on the variable of The Golden Gate's organizational structure and routines, I found that in some ways, the company practiced traditional news culture. They exemplified high levels of independence in their reporting processes. The routine of the staff needing to divide their time between traditional reporting and public relations roles, however, was where the culture of the organization shifted significantly. They also exemplified a highly collaborative and role sharing work ethic. When I evaluated the leadership structure at The Golden Gate, I found a culture where each staff member was expected to take complete ownership of their role in the company. From the top down, everyone pitched in as needed, and they were all asked to actively participate in money and workflow committees as part of their regular duties. When I evaluated levels of autonomy, The Golden Gate staff exemplified high levels of autonomous agency in nearly every area of their work. Even in collaborative moments, the staff members each contributed their unique strengths and perspectives to get stories out. The staff also expressed a high level of freedom from top-level oversight as they shaped the voicing and coverage of their city. The staff did convey, however, a tension of the audience-first focus as a major driver of what stories they would work on. I also explored future research implications for media ethics, media sociology, and moral psychology, all research paradigms that can offer rich and varied perspectives on the future of digital journalism work.
Open Access
Comparing the social psychological drivers of personal sphere, social diffusion, and civic action behaviors for native plant gardening
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2023) Tamlyn, Kaiya, author; Niemiec, Rebecca, advisor; Teel, Tara, committee member; Abrams, Katie, committee member
Protecting biodiversity and conserving water, especially in urban environments, are crucial facets of conservation efforts that can be supported by gardening with native plant species. However, native plant gardening at the individual or personal sphere level is not enough. There is also a need for citizens to participate in behaviors outside of the personal sphere, such as social diffusion and civic action, to influence the networks and social systems in which they are embedded to achieve more rapid, large-scale environmental change. Little is known, however, about whether the social-psychological drivers of behaviors outside of the personal sphere are distinct from the drivers of personal sphere action. To address this, we examined the factors influencing personal sphere, social diffusion, and civic action behaviors in the context of native plant gardening in the United States. Through a nationwide survey conducted in February 2023 (n = 1,201), we found that, while there was some overlap, each behavior type was motivated by distinct, often behavior-specific, variables. Personal sphere-specific self-efficacy and age predicted personal sphere behavior; social diffusion-specific dynamic norms (perceptions that the behavior of others is changing) and moral exporting (an individual's inclination to encourage others to embrace their moral position) predicted social diffusion behavior; introversion predicted civic action behavior; and behavior-specific personal norms predicted all three behavior types. We also examined the prevalence of each type of behavior and found that personal sphere behaviors are the most commonly practiced, followed by social diffusion behaviors and then civic action behaviors. Our findings suggest that to motivate social diffusion and civic action behaviors, practitioners may have to design outreach interventions that target the unique social-psychological drivers of these behaviors.
Open Access
Gender performance and the hyper-feminized cowgirl: a CTDA analysis of the @wprarodeo Tik Tok
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2023) Esposito, Cassidy L., author; Arthur, Tori Omega, advisor; Abrams, Katie, committee member; Aronis, Carolin, committee member
This study evaluates the Women's Professional Rodeo Association TikTok as a social media platform that uses video to represent rodeo culture and portrays the cowgirl identity. This representation is centered within a male-dominant sport that falls under the agriculture industry and is rooted in other agriculture practices and history. It is important to understand how this androcentric experience in professional rodeo functions on social media through the @wprarodeo TikTok because social media representation in different forms is used to construct and reconstruct culturally situated identities. Using CTDA (Critical Technocultural Discourse Analysis) this study found three cultural ideologies including: the cowgirl appearance, athletic performance, and women empowerment through collective identity, which are present on the @wprarodeo TikTok as a representation of female narratives in professional rodeo, which are bolstered through Tik Tok's affordances. Tik Tok in an increasingly integrated digital space with highly intuitive user-based content and interaction.
Open Access
Harnessing rock climbers for bat conservation: understanding the barriers and benefits for rock climbers to engage in citizen science
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2024) Gross, Emily, author; Solomon, Jennifer, advisor; Abrams, Katie, committee member; Davis, Shawn, committee member; Schorr, Rob, committee member
Citizen science is a valuable tool for crowdsourcing data, yet it remains underutilized at the nexus of conservation and recreation. The value of citizen science lies in its ability to expand the scope of research by reducing financial burden, increasing data collection over time, and tapping into a diverse pool of skillsets from individuals. Recreators, in particular, can broaden the extent of the project in new ways. Extreme sports participants emerge as a key subgroup of recreators due to their additional specialized skills, knowledge, and daring prowess. This research focuses on one such community of extreme sport participants— rock climbers. Rock climbers are distinguished by their ability to navigate and collect data from vertical environments that remain inaccessible to many biologists. The potential of collaboration is timely, as bats are facing unprecedented threats from white-nose syndrome, wind energy, habitat loss, and climate change. Thus, this research aims to (1) uncover the barriers and motivations for rock climbers to participate in a citizen science initiative called Climbers for Bat Conservation (CBC), (2) explore the relevance of environmental attitudes and knowledge of the organization on climber engagement, and (3) suggest strategies to increase the likelihood of reporting a bat to CBC, utilizing the Community-Based Social Marketing framework. Data for this project was collected using mixed methods, including two sets of semi-structured interviews and a structured survey. Semi-structured interviews were conducted at a rock climbing festival, Rocktoberfest, in Red River Gorge, Kentucky and through the video chat platform, Teams. Results from the semi-structured interviews were used to inform the structured survey. The survey was administered to climbers at Rocktoberfest and to an online database of climbers who reported seeing a bat to CBC. In Chapter 1. I present and discuss the semi-structured interviews, which revealed diverse motivations for participation, including knowledge and experiences with bats, the role of the climbing community, and the complexities of navigating climbing access and conservation. Results of the survey are discussed in Chapter 2., revealing the importance of situational barriers (time, forgetting, and fear of losing access), as well as highlighting the key role that the climbing community plays in influencing behavior. Results also revealed that accurate knowledge of CBC did not have a significant impact on the reporting behavior. It could be that the larger influence on the reporting behavior comes from environmental attitudes, as the results showed that climbers who reported to CBC had a significantly higher proportion of individuals who held pro-environmental attitudes as compared to climbers who had not reported. Both reporting and non-reporting climbers valued the ecological benefits of reporting a bat, highlighting a key topic that can be utilized in future message framing. These findings build upon the growing body of research that demonstrates knowledge alone does not change behavior. This is important for citizen science organizations seeking to utilize rock climbers because many climbers are guided by ecological motivations in tandem with the fear of losing access. My research suggests that acknowledging tradeoffs regarding management of climbing routes and bat conservation while maintaining transparency about how the data will be used will likely aid in recruitment and retention of climber volunteers. Results of this research may aid future citizen science projects in beginning a social marketing campaign for organizations with limited time, budget, and/or staff availability, while shedding light on the motivations of rock climbers to participate in pro-environmental behaviors.
Open Access
Shades of risk: a mixed-methods approach to designing and testing a new hurricane map graphic
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2023) Rosen, Zoey, author; Long, Marilee, advisor; Abrams, Katie, committee member; Sivakumar, Gayathri, committee member; Magzamen, Sheryl, committee member; Most, David, committee member
Map graphics are a popular tool for hazard risk communication, layered with numerical, verbal, and visual information to describe an uncertain threat. In the hurricane context, graphics are used to communicate the probability of different threats over a forecasting period. While hurricane graphics have been studied in the past, they have not been analyzed from the design phase through to the intended audience. Additionally, hurricane graphics have not been designed with colorblind-friendly accessibility in mind. This dissertation presents the results of a three-phase, mixed methods study: (a) graphic development, (b) testing with expert user groups, and (c) testing with a public sample. In the development phase (a), I used the best practices for using probability language, color schemes, and localization into map graphics from literature in forecasting, communication, universal design, and emergency management. Additionally, I held informal interviews with professionals from the National Hurricane Center to develop the prototype with their recommendations for the design. In the first testing phase b, I interviewed 19 expert users (emergency managers and meteorologists) from Florida and Louisiana about their preferences for and feedback on the design elements of a new hurricane graphic, as well as if there were individual characteristics that influenced how accurate they were in interpreting wind exceedance data, such as risk perception, confidence, experience, spatial cognition, and numeracy levels. In phase c, I tested the wind exceedance graphic prototypes using a public sample (n = 624) from Louisiana and Florida to gather data on the accuracy of their interpretations for the graphic, again measuring confidence, experience, spatial cognition, and numeracy levels, as well as their design preferences and risk perceptions. The results of the two testing phases (b and c) center around how accurate experts and the public were with interpreting the graphic, as well as if there were other factors that influenced this accuracy, such as spatial cognition or numeracy. Additionally, the results describe both groups' design preferences, risk perceptions of the color schemes and overlays, and how experts think about vulnerability when using the graphic. In both groups, numeracy and spatial cognition were found to predict accuracy of interpretation for a wind exceedance graphic prototype. Likewise, both confidence and experience were found to have a positive relationship with accuracy. Regarding the design choices, both experts and the public preferred a yellow-to-red scheme, though experts thought the yellow-to-red scheme presented the hazard as riskier and the public thought the reds-only was riskier. Adding overlays to the graphic, such as interstates or city landmarks, helped the participants to orient themselves on the map. Experts and the public preferred that there were overlays added to the graphic and scored this version of the graphic as risker than a version without any overlays. The addition of the overlays prompted expert users to think more about the risk and vulnerability of the people in those areas on the map. Vulnerability was conceptualized from both a physical and social standpoint by the experts and applied to how they would use the wind exceedance graphic in a briefing to communicate to their community partners. Overall, this research provides a model for how hazard risk map graphics can be studied from design through implementation. Additionally, I captured how experts think about vulnerability in their communities when shown a forecast map graphic. The conclusion of this dissertation also provides practical recommendations for experts who want to apply the universal design aspects into new hurricane graphics.
Open Access
There's something in the air: studying the behavioral intention of outdoor workers to protect their health during air quality events
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2023) Giesenhagen, Erica Therese, author; Anderson, Ashley, advisor; Abrams, Katie, committee member; Magzamen, Sheryl, committee member
Poor air quality has been an issue in the United States for decades and has been made more prevalent due to the world's changing environment. Exposure to poor air quality can lead to both short- and long-term health effects that can range in severity. There are a number of health-protective measures an individual can take in order to reduce the effects of poor air quality. The purpose of this study is to research what motivates outdoor workers to take health-protective measures during periods of poor air quality. This study utilizes the Health Belief Model (HBM) and a qualitative approach. Through focus groups with outdoor workers from the City of Fort Collins (n = 18), this study aimed to find out what motivates outdoor workers to take health-protective measures during air quality events. Main findings were that outdoor workers at the City of Fort Collins have experienced air quality events and have the knowledge of what health-protective measures they can take to limit their exposure. It was evident that there is limited action in taking health-protective action during periods of poor air quality. The study concludes with suggestions for ways that current functions of the City of Fort Collins can be improved to further support the outdoor workers for taking health-protective action from poor air quality.

Browse

Browsing 2020- by Author "Abrams, Katie, committee member"

Results Per Page

Sort Options