MA, Kent State University, 2011, College of Communication and Information / School of Communication Studies

As the use of Facebook continues to grow, individuals aged 35 and older represent the fastest growing demographic. Parents and children now have the opportunity to connect with each other through the website. However, research investigating parent/child Facebook interaction remains scarce. This thesis utilizes Communication Privacy Management (CPM) theory to better understand young adults' decisions regarding parental Facebook friend requests. In addition, the relational characteristics of parental trust and relational quality are examined in relation to young adults' decisions. Results indicate young adults generally accept friend requests from their parents while making few, if any, changes to their privacy management practices. Parental trust and relational quality are related to young adults' decisions when faced with a mother's friend request, but not those received from a father. Explanations for the differences in results by parent are elucidated. This study adds to a growing body of research demonstrating that individuals use Facebook to connect with a multitude of face-to-face social ties and addresses implications for this phenomenon.

Committee: Jeffrey Child Ph.D. (Advisor); Mei-Chen Lin Ph.D. (Committee Member); Jung Hyun Kim Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Communication; Families and Family Life; Mass Media

PHD, Kent State University, 2024, College of Communication and Information

Personalization for users can be a desired outcome of their interactions with social media algorithms (e.g., liking certain content to suggest they want more of it). This level of interaction can depend on users' awareness and affective evaluations of the algorithm. However, considering these two contextual influences, how do users perceive and subsequently act in response to social media algorithms predicting private information about the user that they do not wish the algorithm to know or understand? Over the course of two online survey studies, this dissertation integrates the Communication Privacy Management (CPM) theoretical framework (Petronio, 2002; 2013) into the human-machine communication (HMC) context. Users' experiences of privacy breakdowns and recalibration strategies with social media algorithms collected in the first study were used to develop and test two preliminary measures: the algorithmic privacy breakdown measure and the algorithmic privacy repair measure. We argued that, in addition to the preliminary measure, users' awareness of and attitudes towards social media algorithms, both positive and negative, play a crucial role in predicting their interaction behavior, regulating their desired co-ownership (i.e., granting the algorithm access to private information), and determining how the degree of co-ownership influences their breakdown experiences and the strategies they employ to rectify these breakdowns. Results suggest that greater positive attitudes predict greater co-ownership of private information with the algorithm. However, greater awareness and negative attitudes predict the inverse. Those with more awareness and negative attitudes are less likely to allow private information to be known by social media algorithms. Breakdown experiences involving targeted ads related to intimate personal information led to greater use of recalibration practices that adjust their platform settings, resemble human-algorithm interplay, and severe pulling (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Michael Beam (Committee Chair); Jeffrey Child (Advisor); Mina Choi (Committee Member); Judith Gere (Committee Member) Subjects: Communication; Computer Science; Information Science; Quantitative Psychology; Social Psychology

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), Bowling Green State University, 2022, Psychology/Clinical

Research on the mother-child relationship has often focused on the important socializing influence that maternal communication has on children's attitudes, views, and behaviors. Few studies have considered the socializing influence of maternal communication on children's understanding of mental illness. The present qualitative study examined the first-person accounts of 12 emerging adult children of mothers with major depressive disorder. Participants completed individual semi-structured interviews in which they recalled their mother's communication about her depression when they were growing up, the impact that they believe maternal communication about depression has had on them, and their own approach to discussing their mother's depression with others. Guided by principles of Communication Privacy Management Theory, thematic analytic techniques were used to describe participant accounts of maternal and personal approaches to concealment or disclosure of maternal depression. Emerging adults' reasons for their mother's concealment of her depression included a desire to protect her children and avoid social stigma while perceived reasons for mother's disclosure of her depression included a desire to explain her behavior and seek support from her children. Participants described how maternal communication about depression affected their relationship with their mother, their sense of personal well-being, their understanding of depression, and their relationships with others. Emerging adults' accounts suggest that their decisions about disclosing information about their mother's depression stemmed from a desire to protect their mother's privacy, to avoid family stigma, and to seek social support from other people. Implications of present findings for future research and family interventions are discussed.

Committee: Catherine Stein Ph.D. (Committee Chair); Ganming Liu Ph.D. (Committee Member); Dara Musher-Eizenman Ph.D. (Committee Member); Carolyn Tompsett Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Clinical Psychology; Families and Family Life; Individual and Family Studies; Mental Health; Personal Relationships; Psychology

PHD, Kent State University, 2019, College of Communication and Information / School of Communication Studies

This dissertation examined how parents share and manage their depression-related private information with children. Based on the communication privacy management theoretical framework (Petronio, 2002; 2013), this study explored how cultural factors, personality characteristics, and collective privacy boundary management factors influence parental collective privacy boundary management satisfaction. More specifically, this study examined how stigma, family privacy orientation, disclosure/nondisclosure motivations, parental openness, parent and parental perceptions of child revisitation of the privacy boundary, and parental privacy rules influence parental satisfaction of the collective privacy boundary management process with children. The study found that families who cultivate more openness in their current family's interior privacy orientation are also more open with children regarding depression-related private information. Four parental motivations for disclosure were positive significant predictors of more openness, including catharsis, duty to inform/educate, close relationship, and similarity. Parents with higher levels of concern about protecting children are less open with them about depression-related content. A hierarchical multiple regression demonstrated the practicality and usefulness of the model in describing parental satisfaction with collective privacy boundary management with children. Each step of the model factored significantly into parental privacy management satisfaction levels. Parental motivations for disclosure/nondisclosure have the most significant impact on parental satisfaction with collective privacy boundary management. Understanding the perspectives that parents bring into their disclosure decisions is significant to helping parents to have healthy dialogue with their children regarding their depression.

Committee: Jeffrey Child T (Advisor) Subjects: Communication

PHD, Kent State University, 2018, College of Communication and Information / School of Communication Studies

Approximately one in five adults in the United States have experienced a mental illness (National Institute of Mental Health, Mental Illness, 2017), however, only a fraction of those people receives any type of support. For family and friends to be able to offer support they must be told about the mental illness, therefore, they become confidants. In this paper, the role of the confidant was studied using communication privacy management theory (CPM). The variables studied include empathy, stigma, confidant types, boundary rule coordination, rule fidelity, and boundary turbulence. Findings from this study indicate that when confidants have high personal stigma, they are more likely to be an uncomfortable reluctant confidant and they are more likely to break the privacy rules. Another important finding from this study was that when the privacy rules were explicitly discussed, people are still likely to break them. Finally, when the rules are broken, disclosers and confidants will typically experience boundary turbulence. When selecting a confidant, disclosers need to find people who are highly empathic; disclosers need to avoid people with high personal stigma.

Committee: Nichole Egbert Ph.D. (Advisor); Jeffrey Child Ph.D. (Advisor) Subjects: Communication

Master of Arts, Miami University, 2008, Speech Communication

The purpose of this study was to extend the body of research on teacher self-disclosure in the classroom through the theoretical lens of Petronio's communication privacy management (CPM). Through the rule-based process teachers use to make decisions about what private information is revealed, this study aims to understand the revealing of private information related to the course content and the relationship it has with student perceptions of teacher credibility and power use as well as student learning outcomes. Research results indicated that teacher self-disclosure related to the course content was positively associated with competence, character and caring, as well as referent and expert power. Furthermore, this study found that teacher self-disclosure related to the course content was positively related to student perceptions of their affective learning and learning indicators. Practical implications and suggestions for future research are discussed.

Committee: Ann Bainbridge Frymier PhD (Advisor); Lawrence Nadler PhD (Committee Member); Judith Weiner PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Communication

MA, Kent State University, 2010, College of Communication and Information / School of Communication Studies

With over 350 million users, Facebook is a popular social networking site individuals utilize to keep in touch with family, friends, and colleagues, yet the study of Facebook use in the workplace is still in its infancy. By employing Communication Privacy Management (CPM) theory as a theoretical framework to explore coworker Facebook friend request decisions and the antecedents that influence those very decisions. Participants most frequently accepted a coworker Facebook friend request; however, this study found that variations in coworker Facebook friend request decisions occurred due to a wide range of factors, including organizational privacy orientation, coworker communication satisfaction, intensity of Facebook use, and current Facebook privacy management practices. Both the need for impression management and impact of organizational socialization influence an individual's decisions when in receipt of a coworker Facebook friend request. The present study supports CPM theory, as results indicate the influence of privacy orientations and boundary management. This research indicates that as Facebook continues to allow the ability to blur the lines between our personal and professional lives, privacy issues and social media will continue to play a pivotal role in interactions.

Committee: Jeffrey T. Child Ph.D. (Advisor); Robyn E. Parker Ph.D. (Committee Member); Mei-Chen Lin Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Communication; Information Systems; Mass Media; Personal Relationships