Digital Commons Network^™

“Bad Hombres”: Trump Era Politics And Media In Shaping The Perceptions Of The Mexican Diaspora In The United States, Angelica Soria

Master's Theses

My research delves into the anti-Mexican immigrant rhetoric spread throughout the United States under Donald Trump’s presidency by himself, mainstream media news outlet Fox News, and the U.S. government. Furthermore, examining the social identity of ethnic Mexicans in the United States in response to and as a consequence of the negative rhetoric. This thesis analyzes discourse including the harmful rhetoric and its impact on policy formulation, public perception, and the lived experiences of Mexican immigrants and ethnic Mexican communities. By looking at existing discourse, this research provides a critical discourse analysis of political speeches, media coverage, and ethnic Mexican testimonios. …

Drama: A Burlesque And Melodramatic Frame Analysis Of The January 6Th Committee Final Report, Makayla Chadwick Lindsay

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Fall 2023 to Present

On January 6^th, 2021, former president Donald Trump stated "...if you don't fight like hell, you're not going to have a country anymore". Following his speech thousands of Trump supporters marched to the United States capitol under the belief that they were stopping nationwide voter fraud. In the months following, the U.S. congress created The Select Committee to Investigate the January 6^th Attack on the United States Capitol with the goal to investigate those responsible for the insurrection that took place at the U.S. capitol. This paper examines the committee's communication as they attempted to hold Trump …

Queer Crises: Movements From Queerness And Feelings Of White Religion In The United States, Austin Williams Miller

Communication ETDs

Anchored by contemporary crises surrounding queer and trans people in the United States, I employ movements from queerness within an affective queer phenomenological framework to understand how arrangements of “white religion” (Schaefer, 2015, p. 63), a process whereby U.S. American Christian forms escape ideology into religious affective economies in the United States, relegate queer people “to the background… to sustain a certain direction” (Ahmed, 2006, p. 31). I assemble a queer rhetorical context analyzing white religious space in documentary film, secular sexual regulation through contemporary U.S. legal contexts around marriage, and settler colonial Christian nationalist political imaginations to critique how …

Public Mediations Of Accountability In The #Metoo Era, Amanda Brand

Department of Communication Studies: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Tarana Burke initially launched the Me Too movement to cultivate solidarity among sexual assault survivors in 2006, and public appropriations of this effort have resulted in a kairotic moment of accountability in sexual assault cases. Particularly, the 2017 hashtag, #MeToo populates media platforms as the public invokes it to make sense of sexual assault cases, bearing witness to victim-survivors, assigning blame, or disavowing culpability. Challenging legacies of public denial, #MeToo marks a cultural shift in which victim-survivors are not only speaking out, they are also being heard and believed. I argue that accountability is rhetorically-constructed, negotiated, and imposed through …

The "Othering" Of America: How The Strategic Use Of Crisis And Ressentiment Succeeded In The Trump Era, Laura J. Franklin

Dissertations

The establishment of a crisis theme through public rhetoric often triggers widespread attention, resulting in public concern and media coverage of an issue that could potentially be overblown or deceptive. In right-wing political discourse, this crisis warning is typically delivered by a White male leader with ready access to the powerful news media. An “us versus them” theme often occurs. Within this mode of a hegemonic exclusion, a culture of immigrants or an American minority are often depicted, perhaps aggressively, as a threat: A threat used to motivate, enrage and create the frustrations inherent in ressentiment. This dissertation explores the …

Communicating Indirect Feelings: American Stories Of Indirect Experiences, Susan Hess Lawson

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The words people use to describe indirect human experiences and how narratives play a role are examined within qualitative research. The problem is that some people have difficulty communicating indirect experiences, and few studies have examined the issue. The purpose of this qualitative narrative research study was to examine how people who encountered indirect communication in their lived experiences can communicate the indirect experiences and messages they received. The theory guiding this study is the indirect communication theory as it relates to Communicating Indirect Feelings (CIF). The definition of CIF is how people attempt to communicate indirect feelings for shared …

Political Rhetoric And Civility: A Challenge To “The Legacy Of ‘Life, Liberty, And The Pursuit Of Happiness’”, Timothy P. O'Brien, Melissa O. Stewart

Helm's School of Government Conference - American Revival: Citizenship & Virtue

“As you stand for your values do so with gentleness and respect—that’s how we move our country forward.”

Mike Pence, 48^th Vice President of the United States of America (2017-2021)

Since the founding of the United States of America, political discourse has often taken an unpleasant and nasty tone. Partisan disagreement concerning public policy is normal and policy should be the subject of vigorous debate. Disagreement, bickering, and even fights on the floor of Congress, are not new phenomena. However, today there is a growing sense in the country that civility and intolerance are on the rise. This study …

Neil Postman's Loving Resistance Fighter: A Philosophy Of Communication In The Age Of Technopoly, Ryan Mccullough

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This project walks the work of Neil Postman (1931-2003) into the philosophy of communication. Traditional conceptions of Neil Postman’s body of work position his ideas within the traditions of media ecology, general semantics, or, more broadly, as a form of media studies and criticism. In addition, others label Postman’s work, especially in Technopoly (1992), as pessimistic, deterministic, and/or imbibed with Luddite tendencies. This project articulates a different view and contends that Postman’s scholarship, in particular his articulation of the loving resistance fighter in the final chapter of Technopoly, is committed to resisting the nefarious forces embedded in both technology …

The Solidarity Manifesto: A New Network For Future Change, Sofia Calicchio

Graduate Program in International Studies Theses & Dissertations

Colonialism is a scheme of standpoint; colonizer versus colonized, West versus East, good versus bad. When put in the foreground, the value of what we see heavily relies on our perspective and knowledge. When learning to dissect, deconstruct, and decolonize spaces, we need to start utilizing decolonial thought as an historical tool rather than a true depiction of reality. Decolonizing spaces and recognizing Western colonization practices means challenging the normative structures in colonial history, thus breaking the cycle of oppression through building community and fostering solidarity. Drawing on theories exploring access to public spheres, representation, protection, permanence, cultural displacement and …

The Myth Of Perfection: Charting The Rhetoric Of Veteran Disability For A Course To Stability, Nicholas Rader

All Dissertations

This dissertation rhetorically analyzes discrimination in Western institutional discourses and documentation procedures, such as architectural texts and procedures, through a historiographic lens. An analytical methodology will be offered to show how discrimination of intersectional bodies is historically informed and reaffirmed by the manipulation of Western myths and mythos. Specifically, by mapping navigational mathematics and cartographic methods over rhetorical, architectural, and historiographic theory, it will be shown how the manipulation of Western myths establishes and reifies patriarchal discrimination that eventually fissions into eugenicist logics in nineteenth and twentieth century France, England, and the United States. In modernity, the practice of manipulating …

"Ok, Groomer" :(Post) Truth Rhetoric And Transphobia, Adit R. Selvaraj

All HCAS Student Capstones, Theses, and Dissertations

Paying attention to anti-LGBTQ rhetoric circulating on social media in Fall 2022, this thesis situates political rhetoric on Twitter, by analyzing the use of the hashtag #okgroomer. This hashtag, a corruption of the popular phrase “ok, boomer,” has been used to show contempt on social media by equating left-wing ideologies to pedophilia. Informed by gender critical theory, this work espouses the idea that #okgroomer is constructed as a post-truth ideal aided by the mythos that queer people are dangerous to children. To study #okgroomer, this thesis employs a critical technical discourse analysis informed by ecological scholarship to a case study …

Norms Of Public Argumentation And The Ideals Of Correctness And Participation, Frank Zenker, Jan Albert Van Laar, Bianca Cepollaro, Anca Gâță, Martin Hinton, Colin Guthrie King, Brian N. Larson, Marcin Lewinski, Christoph Lumer, Steve Oswald, Maciej Pichlak, Blake D. Scott, Mariusz Urbanski, Jean H.M. Wagemans

Faculty Scholarship

Argumentation as the public exchange of reasons is widely thought to enhance deliberative interactions that generate and justify reasonable public policies. Adopting an argumentation-theoretic perspective, we survey the norms that should govern public argumentation and address some of the complexities that scholarly treatments have identified. Our focus is on norms associated with the ideals of correctness and participation as sources of a politically legitimate deliberative outcome. In principle, both ideals are mutually coherent. If the information needed for a correct deliberative outcome is distributed among agents, then maximising participation increases information diversity. But both ideals can also be in tension. …

Faking And Conspiring About Covid-19: A Discursive Approach, Rosa Scardigno, Alessia Paparella, Francesca D'Errico

The Qualitative Report

In the more general climate of post-truth - a social trend reflecting a disregard for reliable ways of knowing what is true, mostly acted through massive use of misinformation and rhetoric calling for emotions - an alarming “infodemic” accompanied the COVID-19 pandemic, affecting healthy attitudes and behaviors and further lessening trust in science, institutions, and traditional media. Its two main representative items, fake and conspiracy news, have been widely analyzed in psycho-social research, even if scholars mostly acknowledged the cognitive and social dimensions of those items and devoted less attention to their discursive construction. In addition, these works did not …

Linguistic Techniques In Pilgrims: A Study Of The Poetic Movement In Jordan During The Emirate Period, Na’Emah Abuzreeg, Moustafa Al-Haiadreh

Jerash for Research and Studies Journal مجلة جرش للبحوث والدراسات

The poetic discourses for Emirate stage poets are considered as an intellectual heritage diary, Because they are one of the ancient literary and fluent texts that form,at most, reformatory approach and attempt for changing social, economic and politic life which is built on poetic texts that address the recipient for influential and convincing purposes. Also, these poetic discourses adopt linguistic verbs and rhetorical techniques that guide the recipient's brain, his soul and conscience in an argumentative guidance away from contradict and force.

This paper will give an intensed image for the most important linguistic verbs and rhetorical techniques found in …

Of Language And Thought: American Political Discourse, Normative Reason, And Essentially Contested Concepts, Riley Clare Valentine

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation analyzes progressive liberalism and neoliberalism as forms of normative reason that redefine specific political concepts, which are central to American liberalism – equality, liberty, the role of the State, and the pursuit of happiness. I contend that language is an important expression of normative reason. Language is how political reason and the norms accompanying it are expressed. I move through Presidents Franklin Delano Roosevelt to Barack Obama, exploring shifts in language and interpretations of political concepts through progressive liberal and neoliberal forms of normative reason. I argue that a tension emerges between progressive liberalism and neoliberalism, and a …

Alt-Right Of The_Donald And Authoritarian Communists On Reddit: Internet Memes To Build Community, Joshua Hendricks

Master's Theses

This project infuses Lacanian psychoanalysis further into the rhetorical study by exploring authoritarian discourses on Reddit. I analyze the alt-right community that found a home on the subreddit r/The_Donald and chart their discourse as it shaped from the quarantine to the establishment of an independent forum called TheDonald.win. I selected memes and the comments around them to build the analysis. The second aspect of this thesis examines authoritarian communist discourse on Reddit. The leftist community splintered when r/socialism banned a community member because the person made catgirl art. The ban sent shockwaves through the leftist community on Reddit and generated …

Zapatista Maya Literacies And Decolonial Civic Pedagogies, Juan Moisés García-Rentería

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Zapatista Maya Literacies and Decolonial Civic Pedagogies evaluates an educational outreach project led by an Indigenous grass roots mobilization in the high plateau of central México, the Zapatista movement. Using retrospective narrative inquiry and theoretically informed perspectives, this dissertation shows that the program of the Zapatista escuelita, Spanish for “little school,” is rooted in the Maya educational paradigm of nojptesel-p’ijubtasel, a cultural and political process of socialization at the heart of contemporary Maya peasant families. The research focus of this study offers rhetoric, composition, and literacy studies two interrelated points of insight tied to the overall Maya conception of the …

Is France Having A Populist Moment?, Emma Gilmore

Honors Theses

The word populism is often thrown around in news media and academic scholarship, but there is a lack of understanding of what it actually means as a political theory. In France, the two presidential candidates that made it to the second round in 2017, Emmanuel Macron and Marine le Pen, were both called populist, despite having vastly different campaign strategies and messages. This study used a computer-based method to analyze Campaign books from 24 candidates beginning in 1981 that determined that Populist language is on the rise, but not as aggressively as news media suggests.

Theoretical Approach To Diplomatic Rhetoric, Oqila Bayjanova

Philology Matters

Speech culture is a branch of linguistics, and later, as a result of further researches, another new term, rhetoric, entered the field of linguistics. The culture of rhetoric is a science that goes hand in hand with the field of public speaking, which is primarily focused on the formation of a person's abilities and talents. While rhetoric is the science that studies the talents of the speaker, the culture of speech is the science that studies the literary language and its norms. Rhetoric is a complex art that requires persistence, patience, skill and experience. Real speech requires great skills and …

Voices Of The Say Her Name Campaign: Theorizing An Activist Rhetoric Of Blame, Alisa Davis

Theses and Dissertations

There is a lack of research in communication scholarship that analyzes how Black women employ blame from their unique standpoint. To combat this, this thesis analyzes the Say Her Name Campaign to demonstrate the ways Black women employ an activist rhetoric of blame that deconstructs their historical erasure in the discourse about antiblack police violence. Drawing upon Black feminist scholarship and epideictic rhetoric, I argue that an activist rhetoric of blame, used by Black women, dramatically puts on display the life of individuals who have experienced injustices and exposes blameworthy misogynoir attitudes in order to criticize the inherent flaws within …

The Role Of Translation In Multilingual User Experience, Tetyana Zhyvotovska

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Examining the intersections of technical communication, user experience, and translation, this study focused on the contexts of a user experience (UX) research center as a site where these intersections occurred and on practices of multilingual users while encountering translated information. In order to explore translation practices in relation to UX and cover the gap in understanding multilingual UX, the study examined how multilingual users worked with translated content, how they acted and reacted to it, and what they experienced during this process. Based on the existing scholarship in translation and usability studies in technical communication, this Dissertation undertook empirical research …

¿Y Los Condones? The Rhetoric Of Birth Control In The Latinx Community Of The United States, Carey Vanessa Cuevas

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This project aims to explore the current rhetorical strategies used in framing reproductive technologies and how these frameworks influence the sexual health outcomes of Latinx communities. Despite the wealth of information made available to individuals in order to make more informed choices regarding their sexual health, literature supports that Latinx communities are at a perpetually higher risk for poor sexual health outcomes. Additionally, other influences such as mass media, culture, and legislation play roles in how this community engages around birth control and safe sex practices. This project seeks to investigate how entities utilize language in discourse over birth control …

The Rhetorical Mediator: Understanding Agency In Indigenous Translation And Interpretation Through Indigenous Approaches To Ux, Nora Karina Rivera

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

In 2018, I became involved in a collaborative community-based project to co-organize an event with the purpose of collecting resources to help in the professionalization efforts of Indigenous translators and interpreters. Drawing on Indigenous and decolonial theories, this interdisciplinary study examines the work done during this event through a user experience (UX) research lens that analyzes the various ways in which Technical and Professional Communication (TPC) and Translation and Interpreting Studies (TIS) can better support Indigenous language practices. The colonization of the Americas brought a layer of issues that continue to affect the way in which Indigenous communities conduct their …

The Vote: Gender Identification In The Women's Suffrage Movement Through The Rhetoric Of Carrie Chapman Catt, Sarah Perkins

Masters Theses

Throughout the women’s suffrage movement, rhetoric was used as a powerful tool of persuasion to convince men that women should have the right to vote. It was also used as a tool of persuasion to convince women to join the fight for suffrage. One of the most influential rhetoricians in the movement was suffragist, Carrie Chapman Catt, who was able to use both.

This study aims to determine how women’s suffrage leader, Carrie Chapman Catt, used persuasion through her speeches to win the 19th amendment. This study specifically investigates one speech to the all-male United States Congress and the other …

The Reagan Administration And The Aids Epidemic: The Relationship Between Rhetoric And Marginalization, Leah Pimm

Honors Theses

The use of rhetoric can be a powerful tool to persuade individuals. Politicians are no stranger to using this tool and often employ it when speaking to their constituents. One politician who utilized his own forms of rhetoric is former President Ronald Reagan. Reagan used rhetoric to discuss major issues with the American public, including the AIDS epidemic. This thesis analyzes Reagan and his administration’s use of rhetoric regarding the AIDS epidemic in order to answer the research question: How did the Reagan administration’s use of rhetoric further marginalize the risk groups associated with the AIDS epidemic? Although previous literature …

Reading Memory: A Dual Heuristic Method For Interpreting Rhetorical Architectural Memory Texts, Diane Quaglia Beltran

All Dissertations

Memorials operate rhetorically, architecturally, and spatially as a written mode of remembrance. The rhetorical potential of memory texts has been discussed in rhetorical theory and includes the idea that the monuments and memorials are conveying something to someone for the purpose of influencing memory and remembrance of a place, person, or event. Still what makes them public, rhetorical, and architectural is not as clearly defined, so understanding only what the objects are saying and to whom misses the opportunity to more fully understand the ways in which they are rhetorical and architectural: rhetorical in their epideictic functions and kairotic possibilities, …

“But You Have To Have Been There To Know What We Are Talking About”: An Examination Of The Rhetorical Environments Of Cults And Other Extremist Groups And How They Lead To Violence, Katherine Camille

Honors College

Popular culture often cites charismatic leaders as the catalysts for violent acts in cults and other extremist groups. This explanation is insufficient and oversimplified, and this thesis challenges the idea that a single speech or person can move a large group to act violently and without their own best interests in mind. This thesis examines two well- known cults: The Peoples Temple and Heaven’s Gate, to determine what compelled their followers to commit violent acts 3⁄4 particularly mass suicide. I then take this analysis and look at QAnon, a far-right conspiracy theory group, whose participation in the January 6th, 2021 …

مقاربةٌ أسلوبيّةٌ لِمعلّقة عنترة بن شدّاد آلْعَبْسِيّ, محمد العز جعفورة

Dirassat

Title : A stylistic approach to the Moallaca of Antarah ibn Shaddad al-Absi

Stylistics is said to be dead in the year sixty-nine nine hundred despite the attempts keep it alive. However, its openness to multiple disciplines such as psychology and phonetics enabled it to trespass the boundaries. Our selection of the Moaallaca of Antarah ibn Shaddad was deliberate so as to show the the ability of the poet to grab the reader's attention and And introduce him into a unique and wonderful world. One of the most important features of this Moaallaca is displaying the rhetorical, linguistic and cultural …

Not Angry But Angy: The Rhetorical Effects Of Non-Standard Language In Memes, Cailin Rhiannon Wile

Online Theses and Dissertations

The use of non-standard language on the internet has long been a topic of controversy, as some believe its prevalence indicates carelessness or a lack of intelligence in the (mostly) younger generations who use it. Non-standard language can refer to spelling or grammar that deviates from preferred language conventions, and is popular in what are called internet “memes.” Though the definition of a “meme” can vary, the term can be used to refer to pieces of culture that are remixed and disseminated by internet users. This thesis identifies patterns of non-standard language in memes to demonstrate that these changes are …

Doing Things With Arguments: Assertion, Persuasion, Performance, Blake D. Scott

OSSA Conference Archive

In “Three Perspectives on Argument,” Wenzel argued that scholars should orient their research around the well-known triad of rhetorical, dialectical, and logical perspectives on argument. Despite the success of Wenzel’s triad in orienting pluralistic research, he nonetheless maintained that an “eventual synthesis” of the three perspectives was both possible and desirable. In this paper I reconsider Wenzel’s idea by asking what might be preventing such a synthesis today. I argue that one obstacle to this is a common philosophical assumption about rhetoric that opposes assertion to persuasion, truth to effectiveness. Following Barbara Cassin, I challenge this assumption and consider how …