ASU Electronic Theses and Dissertations
This collection includes most of the ASU Theses and Dissertations from 2011 to present. ASU Theses and Dissertations are available in downloadable PDF format; however, a small percentage of items are under embargo. Information about the dissertations/theses includes degree information, committee members, an abstract, supporting data or media.
In addition to the electronic theses found in the ASU Digital Repository, ASU Theses and Dissertations can be found in the ASU Library Catalog.
Dissertations and Theses granted by Arizona State University are archived and made available through a joint effort of the ASU Graduate College and the ASU Libraries. For more information or questions about this collection contact or visit the Digital Repository ETD Library Guide or contact the ASU Graduate College at gradformat@asu.edu.
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- All Subjects: Linguistics
- Creators: SturtzSreetharan, Cindi
Description
The prevalence of Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) has resulted in research on treatment efficacy, lending itself to quantitative analyses. In contrast, ethnographic studies have offered the benefits of analyzing lived experiences and exploring the uniqueness of ASD individuals. Using the Linguistic Ethnography (LE) perspective, this case study investigates the connection between multilingual practices, behavior management, and behavior-logging app usage. It looks at one cross-cultural family (Indonesian-Belgian) with two children diagnosed with autism. Multimodal data were collected for ten weeks virtually and five weeks in the family’s home in Belgium. The data collection focused on the family's multilingual and behavior management practices and specifically on mobile app usage to document the behaviors of the non-verbal son. Analytical frameworks were drawn from Multimodal Ethnography (Dicks et al., 2006) and Multimodal Discourse Analysis (Kress, 2011a). The findings indicated that linguistic and cultural diversity, both internally and externally, caused a layer of complexity in attending to a non-verbal child. The case study showed positive outcomes of multilingualism. However, it highlighted the struggle of building consistent communication between family members and health professionals, which affected the effort to find a successful treatment plan. The behavior logging app helped parents identify parts of the son’s behaviors and reflect on their behavior management strategies. However, it also underscored the real-life challenges of documentation. In this case, mobile technology may be more useful when supported by health professionals. Although the case study notes family successes, it calls attention to the extraordinary realities of cross-cultural ASD families that need more representation through ethnographic research.
ContributorsQodri, Asri Nurul (Author) / Smith, David Bryan (Thesis advisor) / SturtzSreetharan, Cindi (Committee member) / Dixon, Maria (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2023
Description
The livestreaming platform Twitch allows users to engage with one another and with content creators, known as streamers, in real-time, creating a cyclical pattern in which viewers and streamers simultaneously influence one another and co-construct the livestreams. While this active engagement has resulted in numerous benefits, it has also led to a surge in toxic behavior – actions meant to disrupt the flow of the livestream and harm the streamer and viewers involved. Toxic behavior is often directed at individuals who do not conform to the norms of a space or community. Because Twitch evolved out of an interest in video game spectatorship, and video game culture is burdened by the gamer stereotype, which typecasts gamers as young, white, male, and cishet, Twitch users who do not fit this identity category (e.g., women; black, Indigenous and people of color [BIPOC]; queer people; etc.) are labeled as threats to the perceived homogeneity of video game (and Twitch) culture. This project examines toxic discourses surrounding three women Twitch streamers, considering how the streamers’ performances, community-building efforts, and methods of regulation impact the levels and types of toxicity in their livestreams. A critical technocultural discourse analysis of 30 hours of livestreaming data reveals diverse approaches to managing toxicity. While all three streamers expressed that they neither liked nor approved of toxic behavior, their methods of addressing it varied greatly, from active channel moderators and explicit rules to public acts of moderation. Furthermore, the manifestation of toxicity differed across the three streamers’ communities, signaling that the streamers’ strategies impact not only users’ willingness to engage in this behavior but also other viewers’ responses to this issue. Twitch’s positioning as a service provider, which places most of burden of regulating user behavior on streamers, further complicates this problem, as streamers are largely responsible for enforcing Twitch’s rules as well as their own, leading to disparate and conflicting social norms and enforcement patterns. This project underscores the need for Twitch and its streamers to create standardized methods of behavior regulation that are inclusive and hold users accountable for their behavior.
ContributorsRines, Olivia (Author) / Adams, Karen (Thesis advisor) / SturtzSreetharan, Cindi (Committee member) / Florini, Sarah (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2021
Description
Much of the literature around coming out narratives is concerned with monosexual coming out experiences. While some recent literature has expanded to include discussions of non-monosexual experiences, there is a lack of research surrounding the coming out narratives of non-monosexual individuals specifically. This thesis aims to investigate such coming out narratives. The coming out narrative genre as a whole has been examined by several researchers across several years, highlighting a variety of monosexual coming out experiences. This project aims to utilize past research of coming out narratives to build a framework of common themes within the genre and employ this framework as a basis of comparison between monosexual and non-monosexual coming out narratives. Since the experiences of non-monosexual members of the queer community are not being looked at within the coming out narrative genre, it is crucial to highlight non-monosexual experiences in narrative research such as this. Data for this study comes from several publicly available online coming out narratives from YouTube, with the final total equaling 12 narratives. This study finds that there are distinct differences between the coming out narratives of monosexual and non-monosexual narratives and, as such, provides evidence of unique lived experiences for non-monosexual individuals when coming out.
ContributorsHill, Taylor (Author) / Prior, Matthew (Thesis advisor) / SturtzSreetharan, Cindi (Thesis advisor) / Himberg, Julia (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2022