There Is Water Everywhere: How News Framing Amplifies the Effect of Ecological Worldviews on Preference for Flooding Protection Policy

The purpose of this study is to examine the interactive effect of worldviews and media frames on policy preference. Using flooding as a case study, we examine the interplay of ecological worldviews and news framed as either emphasizing harmony with nature or mastery over nature on individuals' preference for flood protection policy. A total of 255 undergraduate students participated in a 2 (ecological worldviews: balance-with-nature vs. human-domination-over-nature) × 2 (media frames: harmony frame vs. mastery frame) between-subjects experiment. The findings indicate that both the balance-with-nature worldview and the human-domination-over-nature worldview have significant impacts on preference for flood protection policy. Furthermore, the harmony frame amplified the effect of the balance-with-nature worldview in supporting a natural approach to flood protection. In contrast, the mastery frame amplified the effect of the human-domination-over-nature worldview on the preference for a structural approach to flood protection. Implications are discussed.     

The Conflict over Origins: A Discourse Analysis of the Creationism Controversy in American Newspapers

The debate about human origins between creationists and biologists is hardly a new one. In its latest cycle, the dispute concerns the status of Intelligent Design and the teaching of evolutionary theory in public schools. The controversy is primarily political, motivated by deeply held feelings about identity. A discourse analysis using network modeling was applied to newspaper coverage of the controversy from September to December 2005, around the time of the Dover trial (Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District). The present study investigated how newspaper coverage of the trial framed the controversy. Arguments from the creationist viewpoint tended to portray the conflict as a dispute between “Darwinism” and a new theory. Arguments from the science position focused on the consensus regarding current knowledge and science teaching in public schools among professional biologists. Results suggest the elite frame was more common, just as other studies of science journalism have found. No significant differences were discovered comparing metropolitan and nonmetropolitan newspapers. Although there were some regional differences, the overall structure of the discourse was similar.     

Teacher e-mail message strategies and students' willingness to communicate online

In light of the prevalent use of e-mail between teachers and students, researchers have highlighted the need to assess its uses and effects. Relying on the research and thinking of teacher immediacy and extra-class communication, we developed a scale that measures those e-mail message strategies that influence students' willingness to communicate online with their teachers. Next, we isolated those reasons that students use e-mail to interact with their teachers: (1) to clarify course material and procedures, (2) as a means of efficient communication, and (3) for personal/social reasons. Finally, we examined student characteristics such as gender and ethnicity, and history of e-mail use that may (or may not) influence their attitudes toward e-mail exchanges with teachers.     

Predicting verbal plan complexity from decision rule orientation among business students and corporate executives

Integrating the verbal planning and decision science literatures, it was reasoned that individuals whose decision rule orientations are complex exhibit greater complexity in their verbal plans than do individuals who are simple in rule orientation. Verbal complexity was based on business student participants' plans for conducting a negative performance appraisal interview; decision rule orientations were assessed by participants' responses to choice‐making scenarios. Linear discriminant analysis substantiated a relationship between college business students' decision rule orientations and their verbal planning complexity. Seventy‐one percent of the business students were classified correctly into decision rule orientation groups based on their complexity scores. This finding was cross‐validated on a sample of executive level managers. Results are considered in terms of several tentative implications for administering of negative performance appraisal interviews and for management training and development generally.     

Comparing Separate Process and Intertwined Models for Reactance

This investigation compares whether an intertwined or a separate process model better explains message failure incurred by threat to freedom. The current project extends the intertwined model proposed by Dillard and Shen (2005 Dillard , J. P. , & Shen , L. ( 2005 ). On the nature of reactance and its role in persuasive health communication . Communication Monographs , 72 , 144 – 168 . doi: 10.1080/03637750500111815 [Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) by considering the additional persuasive message elements of weak argument and insult. Results indicate that the intertwined model provides not only a better fit but also a more general model of message resistance than previously considered.     

Leveraging Strengths and Meeting Demands: The Construction of a Modern and Comprehensive Electronic Reserves Service at Central Michigan University

The digitization of information has transformed how colleges and universities function; virtual classrooms, online course management systems, and digitized content have become the norm. Electronic reserves are the fulcrum of this transformation. Colleges and universities now have the opportunity to utilize their resources in new and transformative ways in order to provide the most effective education experience possible. For these dynamic opportunities to be fully realized, however, institutions must address the unique challenges that digital media create. This article analyzes how Central Michigan University changed the way it operates to create a modern and comprehensive electronic reserves system.     

Enhancing Resource Sharing Access Through System Integration

The application and IT ecosystem of academic libraries typically includes multiple systems, with crucial functions requiring using or sharing information between them. However, library systems are often not well integrated, making workflows and system interactions less than optimal for both staff and patrons. The method to integrate systems that the IDS Project took was to create a middleware platform, IDS Logic, that can connect multiple library systems and open or vendor web services to create the best resource sharing experience for staff and patrons. One specific application that is hosted within the IDS Logic middleware platform is Article Gateway, which uses resource-sharing technology and workflows to deliver fast or instant access to research material to users with little or no staff time and removes as many barriers to user access as possible. Where resource sharing has typically sought to deliver articles in one-to-two days, libraries using Article Gateway typically deliver a significantly higher percentage of articles to patrons within a few hours.     

Economic policy essay: Vertical integration,monopoly, and the first amendment

Tension between regulation of communication media and First Amendment values is explored by identifying conditions in which vertical integration by media monopolists into content provision will lead to changes in content. The author argues that although a profit maximizing monopolist is likely to raise prices, no predictable bias in content provision emerges, whether or not the monopolist is vertically integrated. More severe consequences attend integration by individuals or firms with non‐profit related motives or who expand into content markets to evade profit regulation.     

COMMUNITY COLLEGE FACULTY DEVELOPMENT: BRINGING TECHNOLOGY INTO INSTRUCTION

Community college faculty development programs assist faculty in the development of quality curricula, using current and expanding teaching technologies. The first step in helping faculty reach their respective goals is to help them articulate their instructional needs. Eighteen faculty members participated in this study, using a personal in-depth interview as the research method. Several implications for community college faculty and administration resulted from this study including: the need to emphasize information literacy, the faculty as lecturers who want to use technology as a means of enhancing that lecture, the need for more time to accomplish their instructional ideas, the need for help to incorporate technology in the classroom themselves, and the desire for training classes that fit their time schedules and location.     

Implementing electronic lab order entry management in hospitals: Incremental strategies lead to better productivity outcomes

This paper evaluates the impact of varying implementation of electronic lab order entry management (eLAB) system strategies on hospitals’ productivity in the short run. Using the American Hospital Association's Annual Surveys for 2005–2008, we developed hospital productivity measures to assess facilities’ relative performances upon implementing eLAB systems. The results indicate that different eLAB system implementation strategies were systematically related to changes in hospitals’ relative productivity levels over the years studied. Hospitals that partially implemented an eLAB system without completing the roll-out experienced negative impacts on productivity. The greatest loss in short-term productivity was experienced by facilities that moved from having no eLAB system to a complete implantation in one year—a strategy called the “Big Bang”. The hybrid approach of a limited introduction in one period followed by complete roll-out in the next year was the only eLAB system implementation strategy associated with significant productivity gains. Our findings support a very specific strategy for eLAB system implementation where facilities began with a one-year pilot program immediately followed by an organization-wide implementation effort in the next period.