Ph.D. - Communication and Information Sciences
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Item MULTIMODAL ANALYSIS: THE PERFORMATIVITY OF SHORT-FORM VIDEOS AND THEIR AFFORDANCES(2024) Wang, Yiting; Suthers, Daniel D.; Communication and Information ScienceItem Exploring Cultural Affordances On WeChat(2024) SUN, Yinan; Suthers, Daniel D.; Communication and Information ScienceItem TECHNICALLY UTOPIA: TECHNOLOGY AND CONTROL IN UTOPIAN FICTION(2024) Wilf, Joel; Winter, Jenifer Sunrise; Communication and Information ScienceItem THE VISUAL SOCIAL MEDIA ACTIVISM PRACTICE OF OPPONENTS TO COVID-19 VACCINE MANDATES(2024) Karabelnik, Moshe; Winter, Jenifer Sunrise; Communication and Information ScienceItem Aloha ʻĀina in the Library and Information Science Program: Understanding and Being a Hawaiian Place of Learning(2024) Valeho-Novikoff, Shanye Natsue; Gazan, Rich; Communication and Information ScienceItem Designing Usable Knowledge Graphs: The Case of an Interdisciplinary PhD Program(2023) Gardasevic, Stanislava; Gazan, Rich; Communication and Information ScienceItem TOP-DOWN APPROACH, BOTTOM-UP SOLUTIONS: OVERCOMING PERCEIVED CHALLENGES OF AN INDONESIAN E-GOVERNMENT-BASED SCHOLARSHIP PROGRAM(2023) Hamidati, Anis; Gazan, Rich; Communication and Information ScienceItem The College Esports Experience: Gaming, Identity, And Development(University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2022) Kauweloa, Nyle Sky; Winter, Jenifer S.; Communication and Information ScienceAn emerging esports scene has developed on college campuses across North America. The proposition universities are extending to students who qualify and become collegiate esports players includes expert training, access to dedicated competitive facilities, and university scholarships. Given the institutional investment in facilities and player support for esports programs, in an industry that still lacks a formalized process of professionalization, the purpose of this dissertation is to examine how players navigate the various demands, responsibilities, and tensions that constitute the role of a collegiate esports player. Employing Stebbins’ serious leisure perspective and Baxter Magolda's theory of self-authorship, the longitudinal study conducted at the University of California, Irvine’s Esports Program included on-site observations, repeated in-depth interviews with players, program staff, and student volunteers, along with an analysis of archival materials related to the program's development. The major findings of the study point to how a historical turn was implicated in the participants’ accounts. Instead of a sole focus on the future, players reflected on their pasts and the possibility of their time at UCI Esports as a means of redemption for unmet promises. Because UCI, as an educational institution, was seen as providing the “whole package,” players were excited by the prospects of pursuing a competitive collegiate career at a reputable school, while also fully engaged in a varsity program that could help prepare them with a structured path into upper echelons of professional play. However, the analysis also revealed nuanced motivations for why players selected to play for a collegiate program. For a select group of veteran players, a desire to meet parental expectations stood out as an important reason for participating in UCI Esports. Once on the team, the players revealed that commitment and effort at skilled development led to having to decide between one's passion for esports versus a focus on academics. Via the analytic framing of the “Crossroads,” an institutional battle between UCI Esports and its players emerged. Participants found themselves contesting the very institution that was supposed to support them. The expanded programmatic offerings that UCI Esports provided created tensions for players who wanted to use their time in the varsity program as a means of discovery and experimentation with elite competitive play. Players learned that institutional growth at UCI Esports conflicted with their cultivating competitive identities. Consequently, a sense of disillusionment overcame many players who faced disappointments in the program, with some seeing UCI Esports as not living up to the social, competitive, and institutional experience imagined. Thus, this work reveals novel and nuanced topics central to the discussion of balance and negotiation as part of the collegiate esports experience.Item Usability of advertising preference tools on smartphones: AdChoices and Facebook Ad Preferences(University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2022) Garlach, Stacia M.; Suthers, Daniel D.; Communication and Information ScienceOnline behavioral advertising (OBA) is the practice of targeting consumers with ads based on data collected by tracking their online activities over time, and now across their devices. The online advertising industry in the U.S. has developed self-regulatory codes and practices over the past 20 years in response to privacy concerns raised by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). These codes typically require providing notice that behavioral targeting may be occurring and offering consumers a choice to opt out of receiving behaviorally targeted ads. The FTC has raised concerns about how OBA practices affect consumers’ privacy in the mobile environment, due to the additional tracking technologies mobile devices afford. This research builds upon previous work that explored consumers’ comprehension of and attitudes toward OBA practices in general, and the online advertising industry’s notice-and-choice mechanisms in particular. It consists of two qualitative user studies that explored newer permutations of the industry’s OBA preference-setting tools in the mobile environment: AdChoices and Facebook Ad Preferences. These companion studies are related in that they both employ hands-on usability research of the live tools on mobile devices, document usability problems, and examine users’ mental models of what the tools do and how they function in the context of Norman’s (2013) Action Cycle. The results of both studies were consistent with previous research that has found serious usability problems that impact users’ ability to even find the tools, let alone understand what they do, and use them to exercise meaningful choice. Participants in the AdChoices study had limited awareness and almost no experience using the AdChoices icon; only one knew of and had used the Consumer Choice page for mobile web; and none knew about or had used the AppChoices mobile app. Participants in the Facebook study had some familiarity with its in-ad preferences controls, but most had never seen the account-level Ad Preferences tools. If users do not know these tools exist, it is impossible for them to be useful in helping users regulate their preferences for receiving behaviorally targeted advertising. Recommendations are made for improving the visibility and usability of these tools, but in the end, this only addresses a small part of a much larger problem. Online advertising is only the tip of an iceberg of the pervasive and often surreptitious practices of consumer data surveillance, collection, profiling, targeting, and algorithmic filtering that are deeply impacting our society.Item Examining Open Access Information Infrastructures: A Sociotechnical Exploration Of Institutional Repository Models In Japan And The United States(University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2021) Beamer, Jennifer E.; Gazan, Richard; Communication and Information ScienceThis dissertation investigated the relationship of organizations with open access institutional repositories (IRs), the institutional and social contexts in which the IRs and the organizations evolved, and the social contexts in which they have been deployed and used (Kling, Rosenbaum and Sawyer, 2005). In terms of organizations supporting and maintaining IRs on a national level, the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC) in North America and its global affiliate SPARC in Japan are similar, and for this research they were examined and compared as case studies. Thus far, the literature has explored some aspects of the technical infrastructure of IRs, including various social practices and processes that have led to IR growth. Still, fewer studies have been conducted on how organizations shape IR socio-technical contexts in one society compared to another. For its analytical framework, this research used social informatics (SI) principles, i.e., the premise that technology user practices and research outcomes are mutually constituted by the interactions between technology affordances and broader context (Kling et al., 2003). Moreover, Scott's (2008) Institutional theory was used as a lens to understand organizational characteristics, including norms, rules, and activities of the organizations, thus providing a framing device for establishing boundaries via pillars and carriers to shed light on how SPARC NA and SPARC Japan have supported IR development. This study’s methods of data collection and analysis, i.e., Kling et al.’s Socio-Technical Interaction Networks (STIN) and Scott’s Institutional theory, provided direction for bounding, collecting, and analyzing of SPARC NA and SPARC Japan. Multiple research field-site visits were made, and qualitative semi-formal and in-depth interviews were performed with selected individuals in these organizations. Additionally, the analysis of data from supporting documents, websites, reports, and participant observations at organization-sanctioned activities contributed to the findings of this research. This study aims to contribute to the expansion of the Socio-Technical framework for understanding organizations and IRs in specific, and to the literature on the technological transformation and communication of research in general.