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Theses and Dissertations

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Browsing Theses and Dissertations by Subject "affect"

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    Crystallizing change in a tourism-based economy during COVID-19: an intermountain western gateway case study of Nederland, Colorado
    (Colorado State University. Libraries, 2023) Branstrator, Julia, author; Cavaliere, Christina T., advisor; Bruyere, Brett, committee member; Cottrell, Stuart, committee member; Snodgrass, Jeffrey, committee member
    The COVID-19 pandemic has reshaped mobility patterns within the tourism system uniquely stressing parks and protected areas (PPAs) and respective bordering gateway communities. Tourism research has explored changes related to PPAs since COVID-19 at the international (Spenceley et al., 2021), national (Lebrun, et al., 2021), and regional and local scales (Cavaliere & Branstrator 2023; Sohn et al., 2021). Recent scholarship in tourism has brought attention to the experiences and knowledge of residents living within communities bordering PPAs to understand the impacts of COVID-19 from local perspectives (Jones et al., 2021). However, tourism scholarship related to COVID-19 underrepresents the experiences of intermountain western gateway communities (IWGCs) - small communities within remote mountain regions bordering PPAs that often live with tourism-based economies (Stoker et al., 2021). Throughout COVID-19, IWGCs have lived through societal, political and health crises compounded by climate disasters such as wildfires and flooding. The remote geographic location and economic basis of tourism shapes the impacts, adaptations and needs of IWGCs, imperative to inform crisis and disaster management due to the presence and power of tourism-based economies. Residents from the Town of Nederland, Colorado hold lived, situated knowledge of changes experienced during COVID-19 which can further tourism scholarship of resiliency as related to the COVID-19 crisis. Therefore, this research aims to explore the relationships between changes experienced by Nederland residents hosting a tourism economy during COVID-19 through a narrowed scope of identity, affect, and technology use – each representing important components of crisis and disaster management needing further exploration. Three objectives are established to achieve the aim of this research. First, to further the critical and affective turns within tourism scholarship through an embodied research design exploring identities of Nederland residents. Second, to assess the role of technology in navigating spatial and social realities of the COVID-19 pandemic impacting identities. Third, cultural realignment is used as a tool of analysis to explore processes and agents of change revealing power dynamics within Nederland including community resilience and representation during the COVID-19 pandemic. Influential literature from social-ecological and psychological resiliency, embodiment and affect, biocultural knowledge, identities, and technology underpins this research. Through an embodied approach, the worldviews of myself as researcher and Nederland residents become new contributions to knowledge by considering the body as an intersecting point between affective, biocultural, and technocultural influences. A crystallization methodology is employed guided by a feminist new materialist epistemology to construct a robust representation of resident accounts through critical qualitative methods. Reflexive thematic analysis of semi-structured, in-depth interviews is complemented by field notes and secondary sources such as online featuring and representation of Nederland to conceptualize identities at the individual and community scale. This investigation of identities within crisis management and resiliency through the research context of Nederland, Colorado conducts holistic, empirical reflection upon resident agency and community resilience to changes during COVID-19. This methodological approach elicits rich knowledge to conceptualize identities of Nederland residents as complex, affective embodiments of multi-scalar changes mediated by tourism impacts during the COVID-19.
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    Human responses to simulated motorized noise in national parks
    (Colorado State University. Libraries, 2013) Weinzimmer, David, author; Newman, Peter, advisor; Manfredo, Michael, committee member; Bell, Paul, committee member
    This thesis investigated the effects of three sources of motorized noise on laboratory participants' evaluations of landscape scenes, self-reported affective states, and physiological responses in simulated national park settings. Seventy-seven laboratory participants completed landscape assessments along 8 aesthetic dimensions and reported affective states while listening to audio clips of natural sounds, propeller planes, motorcycles, and snowmobiles. Each participant experienced all scenes and sound conditions in a pseudo-randomized order. The change from the natural sound baseline for each motorized source of noise was calculated. Results indicated that all motorized sources of noise had detrimental impacts on landscape assessments and self-reported affective states, compared to natural sounds. Motorcycle noise was demonstrated to have the largest negative impact on landscape assessments. Physiological response was also affected by experimental noise in some of the conditions (with the strongest effect in the snowmobile condition), but a consistent pattern of results failed to emerge to suggest that negative impacts to human physiology could be reliably detected under the present methodology. In addition to confirming that noise from motorized recreation has significant social impacts on potential park visitors, this simulation suggests that the specific source of the noise is an important factor in observer evaluations. These results could help park managers prioritize their educational and regulatory strategies for minimizing adverse impacts by motorized vehicles on natural soundscapes. Important advances in soundscape research methodology are also presented.