Browsing by discipline "Fonetik (talkommunikation)"

The purpose of this study was to research patients with Type 1 diabetes and (of) their experiences and perceptions of supportive communication, as well as (and) social support received from the diabetes doctor and the diabetes nurse. The aim was to understand supportive communication at doctor or diabetes nurse's office, (as well as) what kind of social support for Type 1 diabetes was typically received from doctor or nurse, and (as well as) what kind of support would be desired. In the field of speech communication, interest has been a particular aspect of interaction. Supportive communication is described as verbal or nonverbal communication, which aims to provide assistance or support to another person. At it(')s best, supportive communication can have positive effects on both the physical and psychological well-being of a person. In this study the subjects of the review have been instrumental in regards to emotional support for self-esteem and informational support. In this research, the data was collected interviewing nine people with Type 1 diabetes, five of whom were men and four women. Based on the results of this study, a number of Type 1 diabetes patients have experienced supportive communication and social support from their diabetes doctor and nurse. There are many factors that influence of the possibility to get support. These factors are related to sender, message, recipient or context. This study shows that doctor offers most of the instrumental and informational support. From the nurse, in some situations, it is possible to get the emotional support. Support that patients have been receiving from their doctor or nurse has help related to blood sugar values and in terms of writing a referral to another specialist. Support has also been defined as listening and comforting, or encouragement with disease-related problems. One of the major factors related to social support and supportive communication is that the doctor and the nurse has to be aware of the patient's individuality and the fact that patients want and need different types of support. When interacting with a patient, it is important for the doctor and the nurse to use person-centered messages as much as possible. When person-centered messages are used, the support seems more real and focused. Supportive communication and social support needs from doctor and nurse also vary depending on (related to that) how much support is obtained from elsewhere. Peer group support is important for many Type 1 diabetics and it has at least partly replaced the need for support from diabetes doctor and a nurse. Despite this, many still consider that help from doctor and nurse could be useful.

Due to technological evolution, our work-culture has become more expert-focused and fast-paced. Work's fast pace and abstract assignments can lead to situations where workers can't evaluate whether their own actions are meeting the expectations. Therefore, the feedback from the other people becomes more important. Feedback enables well-being at the workplace and personal development and therefore can be associated with the work community's- and, finally, the society's operability. The feedback communication at the workplace has been somewhat studied, but also has been criticized for still being one-sided, postpositivist and carried out by the same format. The aim of this study is primarily to produce new, qualitative information about the feedback communication between superiors and their subordinates primarily for the scientific community and secondly for Yleisradio. The first research goal was to describe how subordinates define feedback. The second goal was to understand and describe those perceptions and experiences that subordinates have of their superior's feedback. This thesis was a qualitative case study, and it was carried out for public broadcasting company, Yleisradio. The study was conducted using qualitative methods. The data was collected by interviewing nine (9) employees working in Yleisradio. A semi-structured theme interview was used as a research method and the data was analyzed using thematic analysis method. The interviewees' age ranged from 25 to over 60 years and had been working at Yleisradio from four to over 40 years. Some of the interviewees were manual workers and some were working as content providers. According to the results the employees had many ways of describing feedback. Nine (9) main concepts that employees used to describe feedback were found: 1) All communication, 2) verbal feedback, 3) nonverbal feedback, 4) information sharing, 5) workplace atmosphere, 6) trust and getting work tasks, 7) self evaluation, 8) rewards and 9) silence "i.e. lack of feedback". The interviewees had multiple experiences from their superior's feedback. According to the interviewees, positive feedback was rewarding, increased work motivation and the work community's positive atmosphere. On the other hand, the positive feedback alone is not yet enough and negative feedback is needed as well in order to advance at work. According to the interviewees negative feedback could be divided into constructive and destructive feedback. Constructive feedback was seen as legitimate and work related and didn't get personal. Constructive feedback was created in a dialog and solutions were co-created. Destructive feedback was inappropriate, got too personal and the receiver of the feedback was not listened to. Destructive feedback was also tenuous, no solutions were created and there were no possibilities to improve one's performance or work. Feedback was also experienced as destructive when the person giving feedback was not considered wise or up to date on the situation at hand. The results and conclusions of this study were mostly similar with the previous feedback research. On the other hand the interviewees of this study were describing feedback in more versatile ways than had been described in earlier studies. For example, information sharing has not been part of the concept of feedback in most of the studies. In this thesis the concept of feedback has been extended to be more diverse. Although it must be noted that the data of this study was relatively small and therefore no generalizations can be made based on this study. More research is needed to be conducted on the matter to be able to generalize this study's results to apply to supervisor-subordinate feedback communication in work communities in general.

The purpose of the study was to examine the communication of Finnish anti-immigration politicians, especially their representations of immigrants. Previous studies have shown that the self-named "immigration critics" have played an important part in making stigmatizing and derogatory talk about immigrants seem more acceptable. The theoretical framework of this study was built on Smith's (2007a) model of stigma communication. Stigmatizing messages consist of marks to recognize and categorize people, labels to distinguish people as a separate social entity, cues of responsibility to imply blame, and implications of peril linking people to physical or social dangers. The aim of the study was to find out if these contents can be found in anti-immigration discourse. The data were drawn from six blogs written by True Finn candidates who got elected in 2011 Parliamentary election. The data also contains the Sour Election Manifesto (Nuiva vaalimanifesti) signed by them. The main method in analyzing the data was theory-driven qualitative content analysis. Methods of rhetorical discourse analysis were used as a complementary analysis in reviewing the strategies of this communication. The results show that the strongest mark was affixed to the groups that have the lowest positions in the prevailing ethnic hierarchy. Muslims and people of African origin were marked most strongly, but marking was for most part indirect. The marked were labeled as culturally backward and strongly separated from "us". Responsibility was linked with the immigration itself: it was implied that the labeled people had only left their country in search of an easy life. Prejudice was claimed to be caused by the immigrants' own actions. Presenting the immigrants as both physical and moral threat to the Finnish community was the most dominant stigma message and it was used to justify stigmatization. Immigrants were presented as a homogeneous mass (part of label), but there were also claims that they should be seen and judged only as individuals. This color-blindness makes it possible for the stigmatizers to never actually face their victims, because they are not seen as members of a stigmatized group on an interpersonal level. It is also very hard for the stigmatized to change the stigma in these circumstances. The model of stigma communication proved out to be an effective tool for qualitative interpretation in this context. Further study should investigate the receiving end of these stigma messages, in this case it could mean studying the comments or the readers of political anti-immigration blogs.

Objectives. Communication is a basic human activity, and one that is also crucial for business. For those communicating with international audiences, lack of knowledge regarding how people communicate across cultures might create misunderstandings and in the worst case, conflicts. The research purpose of this thesis was to identify cultural discourses about nature and the environment that would illustrate deeply held values and beliefs about nature. The theoretical approach utilised in the thesis was Cultural Discourse Theory. This approach originates from the Ethnography of Communication tradition and contemplates not only the linguistic aspects of discourse, but also the context in which discourse is produced, utilised and maintained. Previous research has shown that communication is cultural and that both culture and communication can influence the way nature is constructed. The research question is aimed to identify beliefs and values about nature, personhood, and relationships hold by seven Finnish professionals of the environment working in the forest company UPM. Methods. The research material was collected through seven semi-structured interviews conducted in Finnish language and translated to English. The interviews were recorded digitally and lasted approximately one hour. To ensure confidentiality, the participants were given aliases and their real names were not disclosed publicly. The research participants reviewed the excerpts of text in the original language (vernacular Finnish) and also reviewed the translations to English language. The material was displayed in both Finnish and English language and analysed applying the Cultural Discourse Analysis (CuDA) method. The CuDa method proposed five analytical tools through which the research data could be analysed: dwelling, relations, feelings, action and identity. In this thesis the data was examined in light of the tools or themes of dwelling, relations, identity, and in some cases that of action. Results and conclusions. The research results indicate that three main discourses are present in the discourse of environmental professionals about nature. For the participants nature was a place to relax and calm down, to be with themselves and to maintain a sense of continuity. The values related to these discourses were peace, privacy, autonomy, identity, spirituality, and continuity as a way to preserve what is valued. The main value hold by the participants is that of continuation or sustainability. Further research could build upon the notion of sustainability as a cultural discourse. Research related to other business areas could be useful to understand how a deeply held value about nature like sustainability is common across businesses/industries.

Purposes of the study The purpose of this study is to understand phenomenologically the experience of the communication anxiety among university students during speech communication special course. In addition, the purpose of the study is to discuss how the speech communication teachers can deal with the communication anxiety of the students. Anxiety among university students has been noted as a problem for their studies and future career. Within the branch of communication studies the communication anxiety has been conceptualized in many ways, and it's been highly noted field of study for decades. The aim of this study is to understand the communication anxiety as an experience: How is the experience formed, and how does it change during special course? In addition, this thesis views how speech communication teachers understand students experience of communication anxiety when trying to influence the experience pedagogically. Method For the purposes of this study six university students and four university teachers were interviewed. All interviewees participated a special course as a student or a teacher. In addition, 21 learning assignments written by students at the end of the special course were analyzed. The thesis pursues a phenomenological research approach. The data collected were analyzed by phenomenological method. Results and conclusions The experience of anxiety narrated by students was considered to be an experience of being an outsider. The experience lived changed during the special course. The certain communication situations that earlier had aroused anxiety, were considered not to isolate the student from the others any more. The results indicated that the teacher of the special course cannot understand the experience of anxiety lived by the student. However, via the communication of the student group and by his/her own teacher role, the teacher is able to influence the experience. Both the students and the teacher are able to build an approval of the experience of communication anxiety within the special course. The experience of communication anxiety lived in a special course is a layered phenomenon related to peer support, self-approval and pedagogical decision making.

Condom use negotiation in casual sex relationships is a topic that has not been studied in Finnish speech communication research. This study aimed to explore the negotiation strategies used in casual sex relationships among 20–30 years old young adults and examine the factors impacting these strategies and the negation as an interactional event. The theoretical reference frame consists of mostly American condom use negotiation studies, Finnish sex and sexuality research and the Goals-Plans-Action theory that was designed to explain the process by which influence messages are produced. The data was collected by interviewing fifteen 22–28 years old Finnish women and men who had all experienced at least one casual sex relationship. The interviews were conducted on internet chat platforms. The data was analyzed qualitatively using data-driven and theory-guided content analysis. The informants described a great amount of various condom negotiation strategies. These strategies were divided to strategies associated with the nature of communication and strategies associated with the content of communication. The previous were further categorized to considerate, self-centered, avoiding and open strategies. The latter were divided to condom-related and physical consequence-related strategies. The factors influencing the negotiation event and impacting the negotiation strategies were situational factors (e.g. alcohol intoxication), individual factors (e.g. significance of personal experience) and partner related factors (e.g. familiarity of partner). The results were in most part similar to the knowledge presented by the earlier research. Nevertheless some substantive differences were found, e.g. differences in arguments enhancing condom use and gender differences in using alternate negotiation strategies. It was concluded that communication in casual sex relationships differs from communication in more committed relationships. In addition, results gained in American studies cannot be directly applied to Finnish speech culture. On the grounds of this study it would be beneficial to pay more attention to teaching condom negotiation skills in Finnish sex education if the goal is to increase condom use in casual sex relationships.

Social anxiety has been widely studied, and it has been established to be a common phenomena. However, there are not studies on anxiety in media interviews or among researchers. Interview in radio or television is a special interaction situation. Firstly, it is a bilateral conversation, which still has an audience. Secondly, media interview often is a rare situation for the interviewee. On the one hand, researcher's media performance is a part of the societal interaction of universities. On the other hand, it is a personal communication situation of the researcher. Presumably people experience anxiety also in this kind of situations. This thesis approaches anxiety as a subjective experience. The aim is to describe and understand anxiety experienced by researchers, who are interviewed in media as professionals. The data of this qualitative research consisted of nine focused interviews. The interviewees were people of different ages and at different stages of career. They had a researcher's education, and they worked as researchers in either university or other research institution. A media interview record was listened or watched during each interview providing a stimulus to the interviewee. Transcribed interviews were analyzed using qualitative content analysis. Descriptions of anxiety were categorized based on the reported appearance and defined object of anxiety. The results of this study show the many types of anxiety experienced by the interviewed researchers. The most important reported aspect of anxiety was the experience of changes in concentration. It was interesting, that one interviewee could experience anxiety as having both the increasing and the decreasing influence on concentration. In addition, according to interviewees, anxiety appeared as physical sensations, changes in action, and emotions. Interviewees experienced, that one reason for the anxiety was their lack of competence. They were, for example, uncertain of their expertise. Another reason for the anxiety were some situational factors. In order to reduce or control anxiety, it could be useful for researchers to get communications training. Important competence in media interviews includes, for example, the skills to popularize and to understand the logic of media. In the future, it is advisable to examine more deeply the interaction between researcher and journalist. Another subject of further investigation would be the anxiety experienced in media by other groups of people.

Onni Savola was a key person in the development of the art of poetry reading in Finland from the end of the 19th century to the beginning of the 20th century. Although he was often regarded as the first professional elocutionist in Finland, there was not much written about him in the literature. The aim of the thesis is to find out in what ways the career of Onni Savola as an elocutionist develops, and reflect that on his influence as a pioneer of the Finnish art of poetry reading and elocution. The aim was also to clarify the influence of Onni Savola on to the Finnish literature of recitation and the history of Finnish speech science. According to earlier research literature, the poetry reading and the recitation share the same roots in the history of Finnish speech science. The thesis is biographical and its context is the history of the art of poetry reading as well as the Finnish literature of the recitation. The data consist of official documents, press, biographies, memoirs, photos and approximately 20 pages of Onni Savola's autobiography. In addition the letters sent and received by Onni Savola as well as memoirs and interviews by Onni Savola himself and the people who has written about him were used. The data is from 1870's to 2000's. In his literature, Onni Savola had a profile in helping other elementary teachers working in the field of poetry reading as well as in authoring of books and teacher guides. When comparing Savola and his fellow teachers in terms of material production, he was a forerunner in his pedagogy with an emphasis on students' own interpretation and voice. He was also the first elocutionist who widely offered his services to many people in the field. The career of Onni Savola is a textbook example of the shift in the traditions of poetry reading in Finland from the end of the 19th century to the beginning of the 20th century. Yet, his main achievements are in teaching of poetry reading. One can say Onni Savola had a remarkable influence on derivation and the development of the traditions of theatre and academic poetry reading.

Aims The aims of this thesis were to examine the audience feedback given during the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics regarding ice hockey commentator Kaj Kunnas. Yle received an unprecedented amount of feedback about Kunnas via e-mail. Sports commentators have a significant role in sports broadcasting considering the viewing experience of spectators. The aim of this study was to form a view of the issues about Kunnas that existed in the audience feedback. Methods The thesis was conducted as a qualitative study. The original data was collected from the entire mass of audience feedback regarding all sports commentators in the Yle TV broadcasts during the Sochi Winter Olympics. The final research data that was used in the thesis consisted of 213 critical and reasoned, individual feedback that focused on the sports commentating of Kaj Kunnas. The 213 individual feedbacks were analyzed with an inductive content analysis method, using the Microsoft Excel spreadsheet program. Results and conclusions The results consisted of five subjects that described the themes within the critical audience feedback regarding Kaj Kunnas. The subjects are: 1. Speech and voice control, 2. Spoken language, 3. Knowledge about ice hockey, 4. Concentration, 5. Individual personality. These topics reflect the expectations of the public considering ice hockey broadcasts. They also reflect how the commentator should take account of the public viewpoint. The results of this study can be applied to the field of education, as well as a basis for further studies.

In the field of communication research, the academic literature on adaptation has examined the individual activities and abilities, as well as the relationship between adaptation and interaction. In addition, there has been research on adaptation as a communicative phenomenon where other people also affect the adaptation process. The aim of this study was to investigate the discourses on adaptation of Finns who lived abroad and what kind of adaptation they reproduce in the interviews. The research question was "What kind of adaptation is produced in the speech by Finnish who have lived abroad?". In this way, the aim was to gain better understanding of the phenomenon of adaptation. The study was conducted with qualitative methods by doing focused interviews. There were eight interviewees and the interviews lasted for 7 hours and 55 minutes in total. Recorded material was transcribed and there was 130 pages of transcribed text. The data was analyzed by methods of analytical discourse analysis and the focus of the analysis was on identifying the discursive structure, variations in the talk and the positions of the interviewees. As a result there were three discourses: individual adaptation discourses included active individual discourse and passive individual discourse, and the collectivistic adaptation discourse included the active community discourse. The active individual discourse emphasized the meaning of individuals' active action for adaptation. The passive individual discourse highlighted the meaning of individual qualities and characteristics of the persona for adaptation. The active community discourse emphasized interaction with others as a prerequisite for adaptation. As a conclusion, the study suggests that the versatility of adaptation discourses should be recognized and taken into account both in the societal conversation and in the field of adaptation research.