Digital Commons Network^™

The Long Fight: How Serbian And Albanian Media Narratives Sustain Conflict In The Balkans, Sarah Daknis

Senior Theses

Kosovo, recognized for its profound historical and cultural roots, remains a contentious region claimed by both Serbia and Albania. Despite Serbia’s territorial claims, the majority of Kosovo’s 2 million inhabitants identify as Kosovo-Albanian, comprising over 90% of the population. This paper delves into the pivotal roles played by Serbian and Albanian media narratives shaping the international community’s perception of Kosovo’s ongoing struggle for independence. In many instances, the U.S. media narrative casts Albania as the aggrieved party and Serbia as the aggressor, often omitting instances where Albania's actions were questionable. By examining both Serbian and Albanian media perspectives, this study …

The National Basketball Association Communications Strategy For The 2019-20 Season Restart, Trevor Dale Jones

Theses and Dissertations

This paper analyzes the NBA's communications efforts from June 4 to July 30, 2020 as it prepared for an unprecedented season restart in the early days of a global pandemic. While scholars have examined the media's framing of the NBA in this period, there is a gap in the literature when looking at the official NBA communications strategy of the organization itself. As the first study to use risk communication theory in a sports scenario while also employing corporate social advocacy as the second theoretical basis of analysis, this qualitative study is a thematic and textual analysis of 14 NBA …

An Analysis Of The Framing Of Supreme Court Decisions And Their Impact On The Voting Rights Of Marginalized Citizens, Nicole Anna Barlia

Communication Studies

The purpose of this paper was to examine how news media convey the impact and severity of decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court regarding the voting rights of marginalized citizens. Specific articles that discussed the decisions of the cases were looked at using Entman’s framing theory (1993) and considering the watchdog perspective (Donohue et al., 1995). An inductive, thematic content analysis was conducted to find common themes throughout articles in the top five newspapers in the nation. Themes that emerged were (1) threats to voting, (2) politicization of the Court, (3) polarization, (4) watchdog perspective, (5) judicial activism, (6) vote …

Identifying Youth Appeals In Alcohol Alternative Social Media Content Through Framing, Melina Oneal

West Chester University Master’s Theses

Proposed regulations for alcohol advertising prevent beverage companies from targeting people under the legal drinking age. However, similar regulations for alcohol alternative beverages are less explored, which could allow alcohol alternative products to create awareness for alcoholic beverages among youth. Alcohol alternatives beverages, including no-alcohol and low-alcohol products, are increasing in popularity and can function as compliments to alcoholic products to decrease the total alcohol volume consumed or as substitutes for alcoholic products. Framing theory can be operationalized through the Content Appealing to Youth Index, an index of content elements found in research literature to be appealing to youth, to …

Online News Portrayal During The Covid-19 Health Crisis And Journalism's Role In Misinformation In The U.S., Michou Ducilon

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought a wealth of new information regarding the virus's origin and treatment. Regrettably, the vast amount of online information has resulted in the proliferation of misinformation, as the World Health Organization reported. To investigate whether journalists may have contributed to this problem, a qualitative analysis was conducted on 15 news articles from top-tier media outlets. Using NVivo software, the articles were analyzed to identify linguistic words and visuals that fell into coding categories based on Behrendt's (2008) contextual analysis for evaluating text. Each article was then coded again to identify common themes. During this process, new …

Terror Management And The News: An Exploration Into The Effects Of Framing On Mortality Salience, Peter Montwill

Masters Theses, 2020-current

The present study explores the link between Terror Management Theory and the use of its principles within news media. Political news media in the digital age undergoes a variety of framing effects, more specifically episodic and thematic frames of stories. To induce mortality salience, college-aged participants were presented with stories framed from the perspective of an individual’s experience or a general theme of experiences regarding the controversial pro-life topic and a non-controversial hiking topic. These stories are presented in the style of Instagram posts to mirror how college-aged people consume news media. The stories also contain wording designed to induce …

News Media Framing Of Disabilities In Ghana: Journalistic Practices Amidst Advocacy Calls For Change, Pamela Ofori Boateng

Communication ETDs

The study contributes to expanding scholarly research on media portrayals of people with disabilities in Ghana. Drawing on theories of framing, ableism, and intersectionality, I analyzed news stories published in Graphic.com.gh. in 2021 and 2022 to explore how the editorial practices framed people with disabilities and how framing patterns revealed change and continuity in representation. The findings affirmed a shift to using more diverse and appropriate language to represent people with disabilities more fairly and accurately; the categorization of most of the disability stories under “General News,” which suggests the significance attached to disability related stories; and the …

Health-Oriented Nonprofit Organizations: The Influence Of Framing And Altruism On Intention To Donate, Abbey Dilatush

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study investigated the influence of framing and altruism on individuals' intentions to donate to a health-oriented nonprofit organization. One hundred ninety-three participants were recruited from social media to complete an experiment online. Participants reviewed fundraising messages using either a statistical frame or a narrative frame. Following the presentation of a fundraising message participants completed close-ended self-report scales to evaluate their perceptions of the ad, their intentions to donate, and their personal altruism. Results demonstrated there was a correlation between intention to donate and ad evaluation. Next, there was no relationship between altruism and intention to donate and neither frame …

How The Taiwanese Podcast Bailingguo News Framed The 2019 Hong Kong Movement: A Framing Analysis Of The Anti-Extradition Law Amendment Bill, Yu-Fei Chiu

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Nowadays, people can access different types of media to get information. Podcast is one of them and became more popular in recent years. In Hong Kong, the anti-Extradition Law Amendment Bill movement took place in 2019. In this research, we are looking for the frames that Kylie and Ken as the hosts of the Taiwanese podcast - Bailingguo News used when they talked about the movement. The researcher applied framing theory to conduct this study, using textual analysis to analyze five episodes that mentioned the movement on Hong Kong from Bailingguo News. The researcher extracts the themes in the podcasters' …

Master's Project: Framing Emotion In The Social Media Posts Of A Regional Sample Of National Park Sites, Sarah T. Raimondi

Rubenstein School Masters Project Publications

Public communication is one of the most important aspects of a natural resource manager’s job, and social media has opened new channels of communication between agencies and their audiences. Not only do most agencies now maintain an overall social media presence, but units within agencies typically create unique social media pages. This is true for the National Park Service (NPS) in the U.S., where over 400 individual parks have a social media presence. Many of these use Facebook for social media communication; Facebook is currently the largest social media platform, with over 2.8 billion monthly users. Drawing from prior research …

Florida Punks: Punk, Performance, And Community At Gainesville’S Fest, Michael Anthony Mcdowell Ii

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Fest is an annual punk rock music festival held in Gainesville, Florida. At Fest, participants engage in aesthetic creation and participation, negotiate identities, participate in political discourse, and forge communities. In this dissertation, I use theories of performance, framing, and culture to understand Fest. To do so, I theorize Fest using three approaches to performance: performance as an object of study, performance as a metaphor for everyday life and identity, and performance as a method of inquiry. Using these three approaches to performance, I understand Fest as performance, as a site that permits and constrains performances of self, identity, and …

Print News Media And Prisoner Reentry: An Exploratory Study Of Local Newspapers In 2018, Sydney Gaughan

Sociology and Criminology Undergraduate Honors Theses

In hopes to fill gaps on this subject, the current study uses ethnographic content analysis on newspaper articles while investigating the following research questions: (1) How does local news media portray recidivism by reentering prisoners? and in turn, (2) What are some characteristics of those news articles associated with the likelihood of local media using specific portrayals or “frames”?

There are several reasons to examine these research questions. First, this research aims to convey how local news media might use their positions to create narratives for public consumption that foster worry and panic. This study can shed light on the …

The Effects Of News Framing On Policy Support For Incarcerated Black Women, Rebecca Pool

All Theses

Mass incarceration has disproportionately affected many people; however, Black women have been routinely dismissed from the majority of prison scholarship and are at a particular risk through harmful stereotypes that serve as justification for their imprisonment. By examining their unique stance in the prison-industrial complex, this thesis draws attention to mechanisms to generate support for these women. Under the framework of framing theory and critical media effects, this research determined whether individual attribution of responsibility frames or societal attribution of responsibility frames affect individuals’ support for anti-mass incarceration public policies. According to the results, there were no effects between Black …

A Critical Analysis Of The Media Representations Of Venezuelan Immigrants, Refugees, And Asylum-Seekers (Venezuelan Iras) In Peru, Emily G. Espinoza-Lewis

Major Papers

The Venezuelan migration phenomenon is currently the second-largest external displacement crisis worldwide. As the number of Venezuelans leaving their country has risen, migration policies in Latin American countries have become more restrictive. In Peru, the second-largest recipient of Venezuelans and the largest host of Venezuelan asylum-seekers worldwide, the securitization of migration policies started in August 2018 with a passport requirement for Venezuelans, and intensified in June 2019 with another, yet virtually unreachable requirement: the Humanitarian Visa. Utilizing media-framing theory and Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), this study analyzed the media discourse built by El Comercio newspaper between April 1 and June …

Appalachian Broadcast News Coverage Of The Coronavirus: A Content Analysis Of Media Framing In The Midst Of A Health Crisis, Jensen M. Mills

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

Media framing of broadcast news is more than identifying an issue, but rather interpreting and explaining the issue for others to better understand. Previous framing scholarship in broadcast news, as well as COVID-19 specifically, has focused mostly on national or international news, so this research explores broadcast coverage from a local perspective in a rural location. During the health crisis of COVID-19, the specific use of media frames can impact how people made sense of the pandemic. Through a content analysis of 165 newscast scripts from five different local news stations in Appalachia, this study contributes to the understanding of …

Public Relations Of Inclusion: A Critical Reframing Of Autism Inclusion With Professors Of Teacher Candidates, Jessica Block Nerren

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

There is a problem when inclusion is broken in our communities and in our schools while preliminary teachers call out for more preparation for Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) inclusion in their credential programs (Bryant, 2018; Busby et al., 2012; Finch et al., 2013; Loiacono & Valenti, 2010; Morgan, 2015; Robertson et al., 2003; Walters, 2012). The purpose of this study is to explore the framing of ASD inclusion by professors of multiple and single subject preliminary teacher candidates. At this stage in the research, the framing of inclusion is defined as a pre-conscious sensemaking of inclusion for individuals with ASD …

Media Frames And Abortion Issue Polarization, Shianne Galuska

Master's Theses

The abortion issue is one of the most polarizing topics within the public and media sphere. How the media chooses to frame the abortion debate may influence public opinion and individual reactions. Specifically, articles that use incongruent abortion frames (pro-life/pro-abortion & anti-abortion/pro-choice) may be contributing to an ingroup versus outgroup mentality by highlighting who is the ingroup and who is the outgroup, thus generating moral disgust and polarization (characterized by anger, bias, and activism) amongst those with opposing views. This study sought to answer whether presenting individuals with an incongruent abortion frame increases anger, bias, and activism (polarization), as well …

Corporate Social Advocacy On The Blm Movement: A Content Analysis Of Corporate Responses Via Instagram, Oromidayo Racheal Tunji-Ajayi

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Black Lives Matter (BLM) has been a concern in the US since 2013, thereby becoming an increasing interest. Several US corporations’ attention has been drawn to BLM due to its radical strategy on social media to facilitate engagements. Research shows that a company's engagement in activism by taking a stance on socio-political issues often records growth. Also, scholars have focused on corporate responses to BLM through the lenses of the implications or intentions of the brand’s engagement. This study, however, analyzes 236 corporate Instagram BLM posts through the lenses of the attributes of their responses. It is assumed that brand …

“Acts Of Pure Evil”: The Portrayal Of Mass Shooting Events On Online Media Platforms, Elizabeth Twitty

Sociology & Criminal Justice Theses & Dissertations

As media continues to integrate into everyday life, it is essential to critically examine the media and the messages that are forwarded to the public, who often lack personal knowledge of crime and justice issues, and thus rely on news media to glean information. This effort, also called media criminology, seeks to understand the media and the effect it has on understanding societal issues. This project forwards media criminology by examining online news articles, as media criminology has historically focused on traditional media formats, such as newspaper and television. Online news has surpassed these traditional formats and has become a …

Framing Of Female Leading Roles In Drama Series On Video Streaming Platforms, Manatalah Soliman

Theses and Dissertations

This comparative study examines the female-centered drama series aired on VOD services from three different genres. While several studies have established the stereotypical representation of women in the drama series, most research has focused on individual countries. The significance of this study relies upon the fact that the series is from VOD services, notably Netflix and Shahid VIP. The study bridges a gap in the literature by adopting a comparative perspective to analyze gender portrayals from six drama series, three from each country, from three genres. The contemporary drama genre included Valeria from Spain and Leh Laa?! Why Not?! from …

Climate Change Frames And Emotional Responses On Reddit, Isabel Iruani Villanueva

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Climate change remains a highly polarized topic in the United States. Research suggests that the divide in climate change beliefs is partly a result of news media’s representation of select aspects of the problem, or framing. Frames influence individuals’ attitudes, emotions, and behaviors towards climate change. Overwhelming representation of certain climate change frames has led to a lack of emotional connection to the issue, resulting in inaction or dismissal. Climate change researchers have investigated the presence and effects of frames on both news media and select social media sites, particularly Twitter. However, little research has investigated the climate change conversation …

Pick A Horse, Ditch The Goat: The Rise Of The Spoiler Frame In A Bipartisan Election Discourse, Barbara Alexandra Raftes Dahlgren

Theses and Dissertations

Increasingly, public opinion shows Republican and Democratic presidential candidates are some of the most onerous in recorded history, and Americans want to see third-party options alongside them. Half of Americans use televised news to stay informed, but the two-party horserace leaves little room for the multiple candidates on the ballot. This analysis explores the prominent horserace discourse of the 2012 and 2016 televised coverage of the U.S. presidential races and the “spoiler effect” frame within. Following Jill Stein’s Green Party candidacy through the months surrounding each election, the coverage advanced her portrayal from “nonfactor” to “spoiler” despite the consistency in …

Theory And Practice: Selecting And Implementing Effective Framing To Present Climate Science To A Lay Audience, Lauren Wilson

Honors Theses

The purpose of this thesis is to explore the advantages and effectiveness of using storytelling in the form of narrative journalism to communicate the topic of climate science to a lay audience. The thesis combines personal experience with secondary research in order to support the claim that framing the issue in such a manner effectively communicates the severity and impact of climate change.

Through my research I discovered that storytelling is not only a social tool for humans, but a means to safely and efficiently pass on vital information to those unfamiliar with certain knowledge. The use of narrative has …

Asian Male Stereotypes: An Investigation Of Current Beliefs About Asian Males And Stereotypes Perpetuated By U.S. Modern Cinema, Noelle Knopp

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This is a triangulated two-part study with a quasi-experiment design. Study Part 1 performed a textual analysis supported by the theory of framing on the films Crazy Rich Asians, To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before, Always Be My Maybe, and To All the Boys: P.S. I Still Love You to find commonalities among portrayals of prominent East Asian male characters. Using Wong et. al’s findings of common perceived stereotypes by Asian American males, the author used the six traits defined by Wong et. al as a base to see if the films corresponded to or deviated from the stereotypes …

Framing And Newspaper Coverage Of Racial Integration, Amy Unruh

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

For many Americans who grew up in the 1960s, the first published information about Africans came directly from Africa, in the form of exotic photographs and stories in National Geographic. Susan Goldberg, Editor in Chief of National Geographic, addressed the issue of race portrayals in the magazine, reflecting on the realization that National Geographic often provided readers “their first look at the world” while rarely acknowledging the struggles of race in the United States. The magazine displayed full-color photographs depicting Africans from many nations, dressed in native clothing and jewelry, positioned in settings that implied dignity, beauty and strength. Meanwhile, …

Framing Death And Suffering: An Examination Of Photographs Of Dead And Dying During The U. S. Civil War, World War Ii, And The Vietnam War, Richard Anthony Lewis

Dissertations

The dissertation analyzes photographic images of dead bodies that appeared in news settings related to warfare in the United States in three distinct eras – the 1860s, the 1940s, and the 1960s. The primary subject of the analysis are photographs of corpses created in the context of the American Civil War (1861-1865), World War II including the immediate aftermath of the Holocaust (1939-1946), and conflict and war in Vietnam (1950-1975). While the sample represents a partial catalogue of images of the dead in the context of warfare since photography emerged in the 1840s as a medium for disseminating news, the …

Biographical Availability In The Climate Movement, Nicole Cortes

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

The focus of this study was to understand how social movements against climate change include or engage with the age demographics. This study is a qualitative analysis by observing Monterey and Santa Cruz climate events and interviewing activists from local organizations. The individuals who participated in this study have shared their experience being involved in the climate organizations as well as their perception of the climate movement’s impact. This research has been conducted to theorize and understand how youth climate movement frames the presentation of age and how that compares to the actual capacity of age in the movement. As …

Strategies To Mitigate Negative Social Media Communications In Collegiate Athletics, Jennifer A. Parks

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Harmful social media communications in collegiate athletics are challenging, compelling athletic administrators to implement strategies to mitigate costly damage to the university. Grounded in framing theory, the purpose of this qualitative multiple case study was to explore strategies some collegiate athletic administrators use to mitigate negative social media communications by their student-athletes and coaches that may cause problems resulting in reputational damage to the brand, negative publicity, financial loss, sanctions, and fines for the university or college. Participants were 4 collegiate athletic administrators located in the southeastern United States, who had a social media policy and strategies to successfully mitigate …

Climate Translators: The Impacts Of Broadcast News On The Political Divide Over Climate Change In The United States, Dylan V. Macy

Pitzer Senior Theses

In many instances, television news is the primary outlet through which the public gains knowledge on climate change. Both the perceived threat of climate change and American news media have grown politically divided since the 1980s. I make the argument that American news media influences the partisan divide over climate change. In addition to the political landscape of news media, focus on political events and figures in climate coverage further contributes to a partisan divide. Supporting these claims are research displaying how climate change news is processed in a partisan manner and a selection of three case study periods in …

“Where Are We Now?” The Image Construction Of Arabs And Muslims In Bodyguard, Safa K. Khairy

Theses and Dissertations

Over the past decade Arab and Muslim representations in the media have been either negative or overly simplified as a way to avoid criticism from watchdog groups. Arab and Muslim culture is viewed by the mainstream Western perspective as different, and inferior. According to Edward Said this divide and hierarchy between Eastern and Western comes through the process of Othering and is at the heart of Orientalism. This thesis investigates how Arabs and Muslims are Othered through a case study of the successful BBC television series Bodyguard.

Bodyguard presents the British government and police force attempting to stop various terrorist …