Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), Bowling Green State University, 2022, Communication Studies

Digitalization becomes aggressively integrated into the policy agenda of modern nation-states arguably to accelerate their progress and impact democratization. Concurrently, digital surveillance is also growing worldwide. What happens to democracy when nation-states engage in such a paradoxical exercise of digitalization? This dissertation takes a fresh look at this problem in a transnational context and investigates the democratic implications of such digitalization practices. I examine the (un)changing development discourses within digital policy documents (N=41) and news articles (N=3,739) covering digitization in Bangladesh and Norway over 15 years (2003-2017). I specifically investigate the conceptual framing of three overarching elements of ICT4D — communication, technology, and development— using a new theoretical lens communication as critical freedom (CCF) that I propose uniting relevant works of Jurgen Habermas, Michell Foucault, and Amartya Sen. This inquiry explores how digital policy and news media discursively expand or limit democratization. An innovative mixed-method, computational-critical discourse analysis (C-CDA) is proposed and employed in doing the analysis, combining qualitative methods (i.e., critical discourse analysis) with computational techniques (i.e., LDA topic modeling). As the analyses suggest, Bangladesh and Norway advance a technocapital determinist logic of social change, which instrumentalizes “communication,” renders excessive agency to “technology,” and ultimately posits “development” as mere material progress. These nations' digital policy and news reports scrutinized in this study seem to have been shaped mainly by a transnational discourse of neoliberal globalization, making Bangladesh a digital proletariat and Norway a digital bourgeoisie in the spectrum of global development. Moreover, both nations are forging cybersecurity discourse as a new technique of power that legitimizes digital surveillance and control. Hence (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Srinivas Melkote Ph.D. (Advisor); Lara Lengel Ph.D. (Committee Member); Kei Nomaguchi Ph.D. (Other); Clayton Rosati Ph.D. (Committee Member); Syed Shahin Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Communication; Mass Communications; Mass Media

Master of Science (MS), Ohio University, 2018, Journalism (Communication)

This study examines the ideological representation of the U.S. Presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump in the editorial sections of the three English-language online newspapers in Russia: Sputnik International, Russia Beyond the Headlines and The Moscow Times. Through Jager's framework (2015), van Leeuwen's model of the social actors' representation (2008), and van Dijk's notion of ideological square (1995; 2006) as powerful tools of enquiry within Critical Discourse Analysis, several tactics could be identified that were applied by the online newspapers in order to influence public's opinion about the candidates. The results of this study showed that state-owned Russian media outlets made increasingly favorable comments about Donald Trump while consistently ridiculing and offering negative coverage of Hillary Clinton. In addition, the enemy image of America as the hostile scapegoat for Russia's negative actions and the country's negative development since the collapse of the Soviet Union as well as a Cold War image of the current Russian-U.S. relations were constructed within the discourse.

Committee: Bernhard Debatin (Committee Chair); Christian Hoffmann (Committee Member); Benjamin Bigl (Committee Member) Subjects: Journalism

Master of Science (MS), Ohio University, 2013, Mechanical Engineering (Engineering and Technology)

The purpose of this research was to evaluate the mechanical behavior of extruded (UNS-C12200) copper multi-channel tube for HVACR (heating, ventilation, air conditioning and refrigeration) systems. A model was developed to predict the burst pressure of the copper tube. The assumption for the model is based on plane strain plastic deformation to an instant of instability where differential internal pressure is equal to zero. Physical simulations were used to develop a relevant microstructure that is representative of the tube in a manufactured heat-exchanger. To this end, cold rolling was used to simulate post-extrusion straightening and sizing of the tube. A subsequent thermal treatment was performed in a tube furnace to simulate a brazing thermal cycle. Tensile tests were conducted to obtain material data, and to determine material constants for a Voce type constitutive equation. Burst tests were conducted to validate the predictive model. Burst pressures were predicted to within 6% of measured values. The effects from cold working and the simulated brazing cycle were also evaluated in this research.

Committee: Frank Kraft (Advisor) Subjects: Materials Science; Mechanical Engineering; Metallurgy

EdD, University of Cincinnati, 2010, Education : Curriculum and Instruction

This qualitative research project is a comparative analysis of Discourses (D/D1) while focused upon the science processes of hypothesis generation and observation in an urban versus suburban elementary science classroom. D designates the instructional and formal academic science Discourse and D1 represents the students' informal, social or home language D1iscourses. In particular, this research study is a critical discourse analysis that examines how the science processes of hypothesis formulation and observation are constituted through the interplay of classroom Discourses (D/D1) as two third grade science teachers teach the same kit-based, inquiry science lessons with their respective urban and suburban students. The research also considers ethnicity, social class, language, and the central role science teachers play mediating between children's everyday world and the world of science. Communicative approach and distinctive patterns of interaction between the European American teachers and their respective students are analyzed through a critical lens to examine underlying issues of equity and power embedded in the instructional Discourse of science. Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) provides both the theoretical framework and analytical lens. The research informs development of linguistic-based "best" practices to contribute toward promoting greater science teacher awareness in creating linguistic environments that support all students' learning science Discourse and to serve as a springboard for future educational science researchers' use of CDA.

Committee: Helen Meyer PhD (Committee Chair); Jonathan M Breiner PhD (Committee Member); Susan Watts Taffe PhD (Committee Member); Long Tran EdD (Committee Member) Subjects: Curricula

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2005, Horticulture and Crop Science

Studies were conducted at the plant, population, and community level to address questions concerning (1) seed germination in Alliaria petiolata (2) weed community composition and structure in response to tillage, rotation and herbicide, and (3) variation in Abutilon theophrasti. Alliaria petiolata seeds are dormant at maturity, requiring approximately 90 to 105 days cold-moist stratification at 4 to 5 °C for germination to occur. Mechanically scarified, and H2O2 and H2SO4 treated seeds germinated within 35 days when GA3 was applied exogenously. The composition of the weed-seedbank community was characterized 35 years after the implementation of a long-term study involving cropping sequence (continuous corn, corn-soybean, corn-oat-hay) and tillage system (conventional-, minimum-, and no-tillage). Values of S, J, and H' recorded for all combinations of the three-crop sequence were typically greater than the values of S, J, and H' reported for either the one and two-crop rotations. As the intensity of soil disturbance decreased, values for S increased. Mean germinable weed seed density was greatest in the no-tillage treatments across rotations and years. Results suggest that the weed seed community in a corn-oat-hay rotational system differs in structure and composition from communities associated with continuous corn and corn-soybean systems. There is concern that the widespread use of genetically-modified glyphosate-tolerant crops (GTCs) will alter agricultural weed community dynamics with respect to glyphosate-tolerance and emergence phenology. Species associated with individual tillage and rotation treatments were not different from species recorded in the same plots prior to the exclusive use of GTCs and glyphosate, suggesting that significant changes in weed community composition and structure have not occurred. Abutilon theophrasti is a noxious weed in modern row-crop agriculture. This study characterized the morphological, phonological, and genetic variation ve (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: John Cardina (Advisor) Subjects: Agriculture, Agronomy

Master of Arts (M.A.), University of Dayton, 2013, English

In this thesis, following in the steps of Shah and Voorhees et al., I attempt to understand the ways in which the news media constructs representations of race. Contributing to calls made by scholars, such as Gunther Kress and Theo van Leeuwen, to expand methods of analyzing multimodal texts to include similar considerations as those of the critical disciplines (Kress and van Leeuwen 14), I build on the foundations of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA). Applying methods of multimodal discourse analysis and social actor analysis to CDA, I seek to extend a critical reading of the linguistic text to include other semiotic modes; specifically I will explore how these modes are used, individually and collectively, to represent race by the news media in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. In order to this, I will first establish the basic tenants of Critical Discourse Analysis; this section is presented to provide an important context to CDA attention to the centralizing forces of power in discourse. Because CDA only supplies scholars with one available mode of analysis, the linguistic text, I will then argue for the importance of multimodal discourse analysis. Lastly, I will use the front covers of two prominent newspapers covering the events of Katrina to consider how various modes (linguistic text and visual modes) influence audience perceptions of race. I believe this approach provides interesting insight into the ways in which the theoretical approaches of CDA and MMDA are intertwined and find greater validation in their collectivity.

Committee: Patrick Thomas Ph.D (Committee Chair) Subjects: Communication; Language; Linguistics; Sociolinguistics