Digital Commons Network^™

A Page Of Her Own: How Women Navigate The Public And Private Facets Of Blogging, Emily Marie Flinders

Theses and Dissertations

This paper explores the complexity of the texts women create through blogging and their inherent value. I seek to explore how the mothers who blog are constructing online identities for their family units and family members in this space and how those constructions affect and inform the mothers' construction of their personal identities online. I analyze how perceptions of gender norms and practices of gender performance may affect and inform the identities thus constructed, and further complicate the liminal nature of blogging spaces. I begin with the sociological framework of Erving Goffman, which is commonly used to deconstruct identity performance …

Rhetorical Strategies Of Visual Pleasure In Situation Comedies: 'Friends' And Female Body Image, Deanna Sellnow, Jonna Reule Ziniel

Communication and Theater Association of Minnesota Journal

The visual messages conveyed by and about the female characters on Friends reinforce hegemonic ideals of femininity and an ideal female body image that is excessively thin. Messages of narcissism, voyeurism, and fetishism draw adolescent female viewers to identify with the images, characteristics, and behaviors of Rachel and Monica as models and to distance themselves from the images, characteristics, and behaviors of Phoebe and “Fat Monica” as anti-models. The messages sometimes overtly and often covertly perpetuate hegemonic stereotypes about women. Messages advocate that the ideal female body image is a sex object, and the most desirable sex objects are excessively …

Immigrants From Cabo Verde In Italy: History And Paths Of Socio-Educative Integration, Clara Silva

Journal of Cape Verdean Studies

Cape Verdean migration to Italy started in the early sixties of the nineteenth century as an exclusively female one, mostly caused by the demand for domestic workers by bourgeois families. In the late eighties, the Cape Verdean community migrated to Italy was still composed of more than 90% of women. In 1990, the introduction of a legislation setting forth the right to family reunification allowed many women to reunite with their husbands and children remained in their homeland. In Italy, the gradual social inclusion process and the creation of a network of Cape Verdean migrants’ association, allowed to overcome all …

Risk Information Seeking And Processing About Hpv Among Chinese Female Students In The United States, Shiyao Li

Master's Theses (2009 -)

The present study aims to examine the information seeking and processing behaviors about Human Papillomaviruses (HPVs) among Chinese female college students in the United States. HPV is the most prevalent sexually transmitted virus in the United States and all around the world. It is closely associated with cervical cancer, which is a major cause of death among women in developing countries. However, knowledge of the virus among women worldwide remains at low level despite of its severity and prevalence. Due to the fact that HPV vaccine is still going under clinical trials in China, the Chinese student body in the …

The Works Of Edna Staebler: Using Literary Journalism To Celebrate The Lives Of Ordinary Canadians, Bruce Gillespie

Journalism

Edna Staebler’s legacy as one of Canada’s early, mainstream literary journalists has been overshadowed by her later success as a cookbook writer and philanthropist. But her magazine profiles from the late 1940s to the mid-1960s deserve more recognition for their richly detailed narrative style and focus on ordinary Canadian families that lived in isolated communities or were members of marginalized cultural, ethic, and/or religious groups.

Depictions Of Beauty On Cosmopolitan Magazine: Content Analysis Of Covers (1959-2014), Azalee Maslow

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The media, especially advertisers, have long used beautiful women as an ideal image for attracting viewers and selling products. American women have been portrayed as, ideally, thin Caucasians with blonde hair and blue eyes. Research has found that women compare themselves to the beautiful women in advertising and in turn have negative feelings towards their own appearance. This thesis’ goal is to find whether the ideal American woman has changed through a content analysis of the women on the covers of Cosmopolitan magazine over the past 55 years, 1959 through 2014. This content analysis will focus on how the covers …

The Media, The Women And Stem Fields, Arooba Javed

Honors College Theses

This paper focuses on the urgent need to increase female representation in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) fields and the media’s influence on society’s view of women in STEM fields. Historically, women have held stereotypically maternal roles and have had less access to employment opportunities in STEM fields. Today, we have a shortage of women in these types of careers. STEM fields offer high paying and intellectually rewarding careers. Women bring varied experiences to the table, and can offer a fresh perspective on the problems our scientists and engineers are attempting to solve. The media influences society’s view of …

A Good Girl, A Graduate, A Gynecologist, And A Gladiator: A Qualitative Analysis Of Representations Of Women In Four Television Shows, Laura M. Figueroa

Senior Theses and Projects

No abstract provided.

A Comparison Of Sexual Health And Sexual Pressure Among Young African American And Caucasian Women, Ann Gakumo

Journal of Health Disparities Research and Practice

Introduction. Condom self-efficacy, positive attitudes toward condom use, condom negotiation skills, HIV knowledge, and self-esteem have been associated with decreased HIV risk behavior among young women, but few studies have examined racial disparities that may exist in these social health indicators. Moreover, sexual pressure (inclusive of both coercive and non-coercive pressures to engage in unwanted or unprotected sex) has been understudied in women of different racial groups.

Study Purpose. The purpose of this study was to compare racial similarities and disparities in indicators of sexual health and sexual pressure in an urban sample of young African American and Caucasian women …

Playing Italian: Cross-Cultural Dress And Investigative Journalism At The Fin De Siècle, Laura Vorachek

Laura Vorachek

This examination of late Victorian journalism reveals that one type of clothing offered middle-class women protection from street harassment: cross-cultural dress. In appropriate ethnic attire, reporters and social investigators ventured into the immigrant communities that made up a part of England’s urban poor, exploring such trades as Jewish fur-puller or Italian organ-grinder. This incognito ethnic attire afforded women both the means and the authority to carry out their investigations into the Italian constituency of the Victorian working poor. This study also examines how costumes enabled female investigators to manipulate class- and gender-based assumptions about who had broad access to the …

How Women Of Color Are Portrayed On The Cover Of Magazines: A Content Analysis On The Images Of Black/African, Latina, Asian And Native American (Balana), Connie Johnson

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

Historically, women of color with little knowledge can blindly imitate the images of themselves as portrayed in mass media, which can be harmful to their self-esteem, contradictions of self-identification, and daily interactions with majority people. Media literacy is important in understanding how images of minority women are distorted to fit the dominant group's ideals and cultural relevance, which affect the identity of minority women. The researcher through the use of BALANA and content analysis examined some attributes of how women of color (WOC) are portrayed on the cover of eight selected magazines, for example, 1) Good Housekeeping, 2) Cosmopolitan, 3) …

Creative Women In Peru: Outliers In A Machismo World, Marta Mensa Torra, Jean M. Grow

College of Communication Faculty Research and Publications

Gender segregation begins early and is reinforced within the workplace. Advertising creative departments appear to have extreme gender segregation with women representing just 20% of all those working within creative departments worldwide. Yet, creativity does not depend on gender. Thus, the underrepresentation of women is particularly troubling. In Peru women comprise 3% to 10.4% of all people working in advertising creative, which suggests the situation for creative women in Peru is dire. In order to understand this phenomenon, and with the hope of finding solutions, this study uses in-depth interviews to explore the experiences of Peruvian women working in advertising …

A Mixed Methods Study: Dimensions Of Cross-Cultural Professional Success: Experiences Of Western Women Living And Working In Eastern Cultures, Tami J. France

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

In this world of global interconnectedness women continue to develop cross-cultural careers and their experiences impact and influence global scholarship and practice. Through this study, the relationships, resources, and characteristics that support female expatriate success were explored, with additional focus on the role of mentor and coach relationships. The mixed-methods study was conducted using a sequential approach to research that began with one-on-one semi structured interviews with ten professional women from the United States and Canada working or formerly working in China and Hong Kong. A survey was designed based on the interview findings. Professional women from western countries working …