Finding meaning through video chat communication in longdistance romantic relationships

Advisors: Jimmie Manning.Committee members: David Gunkel; Andrea Guzman.Includes bibliographical references.This study explored meaning making through visually based computer-mediated communication in long-distance romantic relationships using Relational Dialectics Theory. Data was collected through 35 qualitative individual interviews. Contrapuntal analysis was conducted to answer the two research questions posed in the study. In answer to RQ1, two proximal tensions were discovered from the data. Those tensions include independence versus connection and certainty versus uncertainty. In response to RQ2, two distal tensions were gleaned from the data including "out of sight, out of mind" versus "absence makes the heart grow fonder" and private versus public. Based on the research presented in this study, future directions for scholarship on the topic of long-distance romantic relationships are provided.M.A. (Master of Arts