Cyberbullying has been called a public health concern (Achuthan et al., 2023; Cheng et al., 2023; Patchin et al., 2023) and continues to be an issue that plagues students throughout the country (Hindu et al., 2022). The purpose of this study was to investigate the guidance and policy offered by federal legislators, state legislators, and school…

This dissertation examines the nexus of communication, diversity, and policy setting in major institutions--higher education, the media, and government--in an historical era when the Internet, social networks, mobile devices, and other forms of digital media define the times. The ultimate aim is to develop a new, conditional lexicon that provides…

This dissertation aims to investigate how advanced information technologies cope with the various demands of disaster response. It consists of three essays on the exploration of micro-blogging and FOSS environments. The first essay looks at the usage of micro-blogging in the aftermath of the massive 2008 China earthquake and explores the…

This dissertation addresses three important questions, together with optimistic and pessimistic views, about people's access/use of the Internet, its ability to promote their participation in politics, and its role in government provision of information and public services. Chapter Two addresses the question of the determinants of people's access…

The objective of this dissertation is to explore the socio-cultural contextualization of the digital divide in Japanese society. I undertake this task by developing a theoretical and methodological framework based on the notion of "culture as models," while explicating the cultural dimensions of the digital divide and the dynamics of…