Browsing by Subject "internet"

Now showing 1 - 5 of 5
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    Are Tourism Businesses Using the Internet?
    (St. Paul, MN: University of Minnesota Extension, 2012-10) Muessig, Hans; Daun, Tara R.; Darger, Michael
    In an increasingly digital world, if a business (or a community) fails to adapt and establish a digital presence many customers won’t easily find them. This was the premise for creating the Minnesota Intelligent Rural Communities (MIRC) program that the Community Economics field team implemented from 2010 to 2012. Workshops, 1:1 technical assistance and educational materials were offered to 18 rural business communities, including to tourism oriented businesses. For two reasons, we examined the digital presence of businesses in the 18 MIRC communities as well as five other control nonparticipating communities. We assessed 13,931 rural businesses in the 22 communities. Beyond helping to evaluate our MIRC programming, these data establish a baseline that can be used by researchers to assess impact on rural business of massive investments in Broadband infrastructure (e.g., ~$400 million in Minnesota).
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    The Context of Democratic Discourse: Deliberation and Debate in Online Discussion Spaces
    (2023) Pharris, Mark
    Political talk can take on many different forms and occur in many different contexts. Throughout this dissertation, I examine how and why political talk occurs in specific online settings. In the process, my investigations can shed light on the nature of political talk in general. In Chapter 2, “Democracy, Technology, and Mediated Speech,” I provide a literature review and intellectual history of the role mass media plays in shaping democracy. In Chapter 3, “Newspaper Comment Sections and The Deliberative Potential of Online Spaces,” I examine how online news commenters organize conversation and debate. In Chapter 4, “r/Minneapolis and Framing Online Political Speech,” I investigate how forum users evoke various senses of locality to frame political speech. Finally, in Chapter 5, “Twitter and Semantic Territorialization,” I discuss how social media platforms lend themselves to the strategic manipulation and dissemination of political discourses. Throughout my analysis of virtually mediated communication I reveal how virtual speech frameworks necessarily require a series of compromises and metonymies, which can have a significant impact on the type and tenor of political talk involved. Combined, and in the absence of further efforts to establish locality and co-presence, these frameworks tend to produce fragmentary speech and limited forms of engagement. Productive political talk can only flourish when speakers recognize each other as stakeholders and embrace a common means of at least potentially reaching consensus. Virtual spaces that are deliberately set up as more intimate and communal—coffee houses rather than vast public squares—are vital in encouraging this local sense of politics. Ultimately, the internet is a triumph for democracy in terms of significantly reducing the barrier for entry in the political arena, bringing diverse audiences together in conversation, and undermining the influence of the state and other powerful institutions as gatekeepers. But these are necessary rather than sufficient conditions for realizing the deliberative ideal and nurturing civil solidarity. The nature of the forum, the medium of communication, and the mode of interaction can either encourage or discourage various forms of public engagement, but civil society remains an event that must be accomplished and re-accomplished by people.
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    Creating a Virtual Network Laboratory
    (1997) Lee, Yen-Jen; Ma, Wei-hsiu; Du, David H.C.; Schnepf, James A.
    Networking technologies have entered an unprecedented era after the explosive growth of the Internet and the roll-out of high speed networks. This paper addresses the concept of using existing multimedia and computer networking technologies to create a remotely accessible, virtual network laboratory that can expand student access and eliminate many of the time, geographical, and cost constraints that currently exist. The authors propose a framework for constructing lab modules for a virtual network laboratory. A prototype has been developed for a series of Java-based modules that allow students to access and interact with the virtual laboratory databases and physical networking devices in a user-friendly manner. It provides a demonstration of networking concepts by using the developed materials in new courses at each of the participating universities.
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    Internet tools can help aid in weight loss
    (2010-09-15) Frommer, Sarah
    Almost half of Americans are overweight or obese. It is well known that in order to lose the weight they need to modify their diet and increase their physical activity. However, many have not been properly educated or do not have the proper tools to achieve this goal. Face-to-face programs such as Weight Watchers have been proven effective for long term weight management however many people can not afford this program or would prefer a more private setting. In this age of technology, increased internet access and smart phones can be a valuable tool to provide education and support for these patients.
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    A Rhetorical Perspective on Trust in E-Health Websites
    (2015-07) Bakke, Abigail
    This dissertation is centered on the issue of trust in e-health, a product of the internet opening access to information at a broad scale. Medicine, as a discipline whose authority has traditionally been based upon expertise and hierarchy between physician and patient, is one domain in which this increased access has led to special concern. My study intervenes in ongoing discussions about e-health information by asking "How does trust operate in e-health sites?" �and does so from a rhetorical perspective. Through a comparative rhetorical analysis of three e-health sites that represent a continuum of informational to interactive, I found that trust operates in e-health sites in ways one might expect such as the use of credibility features to construct an expert ethos, but trust also operates socially in newer ways that are based upon community and personal experience, aligning with the broad shift to Web 2.0. This study has implications for the field of rhetoric and technical communication, in that it poses trust as a viable framework for understanding online information rhetorically and views e-patients as citizen technical communicators. This study also has implications for the design of trustworthy e-health communication.