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Browsing by Author "Humphrey, Michael, advisor"

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    Continue playing: examining language change in discourse about binge-watching on Twitter
    (Colorado State University. Libraries, 2021) Peterman, Katharyn Alison Marjorie, author; Humphrey, Michael, advisor; Champ, Joseph, committee member; Hughes, Kit, committee member
    Utilizing data from Twitter, this study characterized the change in the use of the term binge and its variants from 2009-2019. While there is a significant amount of literature looking at either language change or digital media, this research considered the two as inextricable forces on each other. To examine this and the proposed research questions, a textual analysis was conducted of tweets containing the word binge. Overall, the findings suggest that the December 2013 press release published by Netflix deeming binge-watching as the "new normal" in media consumption, may have pushed binge-watching into the mainstream lexicon. Language use about binge-watching was typically positively connotated in contrast to the negative connotations associated with binge-eating and binge-drinking. The connotative change appears to align with a widening of the definition of "watch" to account for the normality of binge-watching. As the use of binge-watching spread throughout the United States, the pattern of the geographic diffusion of binge-watching did not follow traditional theories of the diffusion of language change. The difference in spread may derive from the corporate origins of the term. Lastly, Twitter enabled and reinforced the spread of binge-watching through the facilitation of the social aspect of binge-watching. The findings of this study provide rich ground for future study.
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    Does modality make a difference? A comparative study of mobile augmented reality for education and training
    (Colorado State University. Libraries, 2022) Kelley, Brendan, author; Humphrey, Michael, advisor; Martey, Rosa, committee member; Ortega, Francisco, committee member; Tornatzky, Cyane, committee member
    As augmented reality (AR) technologies progress they have begun to impact the field of education and training. Many prior studies have explored the potential benefits and challenges to integrating emerging technologies into educational practices. Both internal and external factors may impact the overall adoption of the technology, however there are key benefits identified for the schema building process, which is important for knowledge acquisition. This study aims to elaborate and expand upon prior studies to explore the question does mobile augmented reality provide for stronger knowledge retention compared to other training and education modalities? To address this question this study takes a comparative experimental approach by exposing participants to one of three training modalities (AR, paper manual, or online video) and evaluating their knowledge retention and other educational outcomes.
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    Framing the mass shooter James Eagan Holmes: serious mental illness and gun violence
    (Colorado State University. Libraries, 2019) Martinez, Nikki Lee, author; Humphrey, Michael, advisor; Christen, Cindy, committee member; Rosen, Lee, committee member
    This study examined the framing of serious mental illness (SMI) and gun violence focused on the single case of the 2012 Aurora Theater Shooting perpetrated by James Eagan Holmes. At the time, it was the most devastating mass shooting in U.S. history with 58 injured and 12 killed. The overarching question guiding the study asked how online news stories about the Aurora Theater Shooting frame serious mental illness and mass shootings. A content analysis was conducted on four news websites, two local publications and two national publications. This was designed to detect geographical trends in reporting. Key findings were a lack of causal attribution to SMI or any other cause, which disagreed with former research that found SMI as a commonly-attributed cause to gun violence after mass shootings in news media coverage. Gun restriction policy was found to be more prevalent in national news than in local news suggesting differences in coverage by geographic location. SMI and gun restriction policy proposals did not appear together in stories often pointing to a split in individual- or societal-level responsibility. A final finding was a singular mental health professional source utilized in the 187-story sample suggesting a lack of mental health experts in crime reporting after a mass shooting. Further research could explore the crime beat reporters' source-gathering habits particularly when dealing with crime purveyed by people with SMI as well as a study assessing mental health professionals' views on being used as a source in crime news reporting.
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    I want you to panic: a discourse analysis on the ways memes express affective responses when shared to protest climate change
    (Colorado State University. Libraries, 2023) Sakas, Michael Elizabeth, author; Humphrey, Michael, advisor; Badia, Lynn, committee member; Champ, Joseph, committee member
    This study analyzes how memes express affect when used to protest inaction on climate change. The climate movement is youth-led and young people use Instagram to create and share climate memes. These memes are hashtagged with #ClimateStrike and other similar words that then add these memes to the climate protest conversation. This study on how climate memes express affective responses increases our understanding of what is driving students to join this youth climate strike movement. This study conducted a critical discourse analysis to identify what important themes emerged when protestors used climate change memes to communicate affective responses. In total 400 memes were collected for this research. Half of them are graphic-based climate memes and the other half are protest-based climate memes. The content of these memes were then analyzed to find what affective responses were most often present. Negative emotions dominated the affective sentiment of both the graphic-based climate memes and the protest-based climate memes. The majority of the 400 memes shared negative emotions associated with feelings like frustration, criticism, fear and helplessness. Positive affective responses were associated with climate solutions, individual action and joining the youth climate movement. When memes share feelings of suffering, fear and despair, those memes call out groups in power who are doing little to halt climate change. If these protestors feel that nothing is being done to save the planet and their future, these negative emotions could be playing a role in their motivation to join the youth climate movement.
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    Mere music or more? Investigating the effects of soundtracks in video game narratives
    (Colorado State University. Libraries, 2021) Callendar, Chaz, author; Humphrey, Michael, advisor; Martey, Rosa, committee member; Parks, Elizabeth, committee member
    Narratives in video games can be highly complex, and due to Game Studies' over-reliance on Film scholarship, the complexities of the co-creation of these narratives have yet to be understood. There are many elements within games that are not present within film, and this can alter how a narrative is experienced within the medium as compared to film (Salen & Zimmerman, 2004). One of the major elements of narratives that is understudied within games is music. This thesis analyzed player reports of how music affected their ability to experience the narrative within two games. Specifically, how the music affected their transportation into the world, as well as how the music affected their ability to identify with the main characters. Through a combination of in-game and postgame interviews, transcripts were created and thematically analyzed along with the video and audio data. Through this analysis, participants consistently demonstrated that they were unable to identify or recognize the music with the game. However, the emotions evoked from the music seemed to be the same emotions felt during the scenes where those tracks existed. While the explicit memory of the music was almost nonexistent, there was evidence of implicit memory of this music embedded within the world and characters of the game. Finally, rather than attributing music as the source of the emotions used by the narrative, it is possible that the music was simply part of the narrative, so any reference to the music alone was inaccessible to the players.
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    The role of master and counter-narratives in conceiving a carbon-neutral society a discourse analysis of a French podcast
    (Colorado State University. Libraries, 2024) Carle Dorville, Coralie, author; Humphrey, Michael, advisor; Anderson, Ashley, committee member; Luna, Jessie, committee member
    In the context of the climate crisis, narratives that stimulate our imagination to create a desirable view of the future are tremendous for understanding and defining our society's goals. This study analyzed four scenarios designed by the French governmental ecological agency ADEME which present different alternatives for a carbon-neutral society in France in 2050. The podcast series "Tomorrow is Not Far Away," which was created in 2022 to introduce the four scenarios, was examined to capture the master and counter-narratives. The method centered around critical discourse analysis provided crucial insights into the dynamics of power and social relations that contribute to the futuristic master and counter-narratives. Futuristic master narratives are grounded in the narrative of human domination over nature. With narratives on eco-technological solutionism, unlimited economic growth, and personal freedom, the future is not bright for everyone, and the consequences of climate change are heavier on those who are the most vulnerable. The debate held by the experts unraveled each futuristic counter-narrative and demonstrated the complexity of creating a carbon-neutral society that does not leave anyone behind. The panelists brought back nature at the center of the conversation and discussed the delicate balance between sufficiency and technology. They also reminded us that climate justice needs to be organized and ensured by public policies.
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    Virtual reality and news audiences: empathy or more?
    (Colorado State University. Libraries, 2020) Rodenbaugh, Mikaela, author; Humphrey, Michael, advisor; Long, Marilee, committee member; Parks, Elizabeth, committee member
    In this master's thesis, I analyzed the following question: "Does VR journalism increase empathy or prosocial behavior in news audiences?" In doing so, I also balanced considerations of other modifiers of prosocial behavior. Multiple pre-test orientations were measured via the Toronto Empathy Questionnaire, the Five Factor Model of Personality, and the Ideological Consistency Scale. Then, participants were asked to watch or read The New York Times documentary "The Displaced" in three randomly assigned conditions: via a head-mounted display (HMD) Oculus Go device, using a computer mouse to click around in the YouTube 360- degree video, and via print from The New York Times Magazine. After watching or reading "The Displaced," participants were given the SUS Presence Questionnaire which measures immersion as well as the helping behaviors scale. Results showed no strong relationship between VR journalism and empathy or helping behavior in news audiences, in contrast to previous studies, however there was a strong relationship between level of immersion and story medium. There was also a strong relationship between personality disposition, empathetic capacity, and political ideology with participants' willingness to help those affected by the refugee crisis. I discuss both the ramifications of this study for newsroom practices and future research of immersive media.
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    When we're backed into a corner, we learn how to fly: two ways local journalism can grow, thrive, & evolve to fit the needs of a new kind of local information ecosystem
    (Colorado State University. Libraries, 2022) Scaccia, Jesse, author; Humphrey, Michael, advisor; Kodrich, Kris, committee member; Carcasson, Martin, committee member; Stecula, Dominik, committee member; Luft, Gregory, committee member
    The local news industry and local information ecosystems face dual threats: collapsing business models that have taken with them traditional pipelines of community dialogue, and an often broken, divisive, still-top-down dialogue when conversation within our communities do happen. This dissertation proposes to address partial solutions for each concern in turn. First, by looking at how journalism teaching hospitals, long a steady source of news in the communities they call home, are formed and what makes them thrive. Then, in the interest of not recreating a broken system, by exploring the intersection of journalism and deliberative democracy, and proposing a method for local deliberative journalists to uncover the issues a community itself would most like to address.