Communication ETDs

Publication Date

7-1-2014

Abstract

Many employees feel underappreciated, unrecognized, and undervalued in todays corporate, white collar environment (Herman& Dasborough, 2008; Ariani, D. W. 2013). Global economic crises, rising housing prices and high unemployment have all contributed to the prevailing thought that it an employee should just be happy with having a job. However, many organizations have found that evoking positive emotion in the workplace is a win-win situation for them and their employees (Lutgen-Sandvik, Riforgiate & Fletcher, 2009). In order to investigate what is enacted to produce positivity in the workplace, this project applied content analysis to four commercial film dated 2004 to 2013. Verbal utterances, tangible awards, written forms of acknowledgement and symbolic actions were among some of the characteristics that were categorized as evoking positive, negative or ambiguous emotions. The findings of this study suggest that verbal utterances produced the most positivity while symbolic actions produced the most negative emotions.

Language

English

Keywords

Films, Content Analysis, Positive Emotion, Organizational Communication, The Social Construction, Broaden-Build Effects

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Communication

Level of Degree

Masters

Department Name

Department of Communication and Journalism

First Committee Member (Chair)

Schaefer, Richard

Second Committee Member

Gandert, Miguel

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