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The Framing Of China's Bird Flu Epidemic By U.S. Newspapers Influencial In China: How The New York Times And The Washington Post Linked The Image Of The Nation To The Handling Of The Disease, Ning Song
Communication Theses
This study conducted a framing research that analyzed coverage of the bird flu (avian flu) in China by two major American newspapers that are influential in China (The New York Times and Washington Post). The goal was to examine how these two prestigious newspapers frame the bird flu epidemic in China and how they represent the country in this international health crisis. This study employed textual analysis regarding the way bird flu news articles were framed in terms of problem definition, causal explanation, moral evaluation and solution recommendations in both newspapers. The study found the epidemic was framed as more …
"My Loss Is Your Gain": Examining The Role Of Message Frame, Perceived Risk, And Ambivalence In The Decision To Become An Organ Donor., Elizabeth Leigh Cohen
"My Loss Is Your Gain": Examining The Role Of Message Frame, Perceived Risk, And Ambivalence In The Decision To Become An Organ Donor., Elizabeth Leigh Cohen
Communication Theses
The decision to become an organ donor involves considering both self-relevant risks and the needs of others. This study applied prospect theory to examine how message frames that focus on the possible survival or death of a potential organ transplant recipient affect participants' willingness to become organ donors. Perceived personal risk and ambivalence were examined as moderating variables. Results indicate that risk, rather than ambivalence, played an instrumental role in participants' decisions to donate. Although no main effects or interactions related to message frame emerged in initial analyses, a supplemental analysis revealed a modest persuasive advantage for the loss-framed message …
Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus: An Analysis Of A Potential Meme, Jo Howarth Noonan
Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus: An Analysis Of A Potential Meme, Jo Howarth Noonan
Communication Theses
The purpose of this study was to discover whether the phrase "men are from Mars, women are from Venus,” from John Gray’s book, had become a meme and to explore what its usage implied. Analysis of 510 references was guided by grounded theory. Coding over a decade of newspaper usage of the phrase into seven emergent themes allowed examination of usage against the theories of gender research, communication research, media research and meme theory research. This analysis revealed that this phrase meets the requirements to be considered a meme, and as a meme it has successfully assisted the survival, evolution …
Patronizing Speech In Interability Communication Toward People With Cognitive Disabilities, Vann Morris
Patronizing Speech In Interability Communication Toward People With Cognitive Disabilities, Vann Morris
Communication Theses
Some people without disabilities may use patronizing speech when they talk to people with cognitive disabilities. This study asked college-aged students without disabilities to evaluate patronizing speech toward people with cognitive disabilities. They randomly read either one of two vignettes; in one vignette a cashier with no disability used patronizing speech toward a customer with a cognitive disability, and in the other vignette a cashier with no disability used nonpatronizing speech toward a customer with a cognitive disability. The participants evaluated the patronizing speech as being significantly less professional, appropriate, and common than the nonpatronizing speech. They rated the cashier …
Civil Religion And Pastoral Power In The George W. Bush Presidency, Kristina E. Curry
Civil Religion And Pastoral Power In The George W. Bush Presidency, Kristina E. Curry
Communication Theses
American presidents have maintained an equilibrium between the role of church and state in government affairs via the nation’s civil religion and a “rhetorical contract” between those secular and sacred interests. While other presidents have incorporated religion in their rhetorical execution of office, George W. Bush has done so in a manner different from his predecessors, emphasizing the role of faith in his administration’s beliefs, actions, and policies. Such rhetoric upsets the tenuous relationship between sectarian and secular affairs. Bush’s breach of the rhetorical contract can be explained by Foucault’s notion of pastoral power. Using practices once associated with the …
Ethnic Media And Identity Construction: Content Analysis Of The Visual Portrayals Of Women In Latina And Glamour Magazines, Patricia Ricle Mayorga
Ethnic Media And Identity Construction: Content Analysis Of The Visual Portrayals Of Women In Latina And Glamour Magazines, Patricia Ricle Mayorga
Communication Theses
Media are powerful agents of socialization; mediated images affect individual and group behavior as well as inter-group attitudes. In the case of the Hispanic/Latino community in the U.S., frequently underrepresented and stereotyped in mainstream media, identity politics and perspectives of self-representation are complicated by the vast diversity of this membership. This project analyzed the current discourse on Hispanic/Latino ethnic identity proposed by Latina magazine and its social standing in relation to the mainstream culture. A quantitative content analysis that compared Latina’s visual portrayals of women to the female portrayals found in the mainstream magazine Glamour suggested that Latina constructed a …
"Pro-Ana" Web-Log Uses And Gratifications Towards Understanding The Pro-Anorexia Paradox, Dana G. Mantella
"Pro-Ana" Web-Log Uses And Gratifications Towards Understanding The Pro-Anorexia Paradox, Dana G. Mantella
Communication Theses
Eating disorders have the highest mortality rate of all mental illnesses. Currently, web-logs are hosts to thousands of pro-ana (short for pro-anorexia) blogring participants, joining together with a common claim that eating disorders are "lifestyles not illnesses." This study explored participation motives among pro-ana blogring participants, relationships to individual psycho-social factors, and to unique web-log features. Results from the cross-sectional online survey suggest three main participation motives among blogring participants (community, obtaining social/ emotional support, and ego-protection). Results also indicate individual factors such as; social support satisfaction, drive-for-thinness, and BMI were related to blogger motives in a various diverse ways. …
A New Approach To An Old Story: How Generation Y Views And Disseminates Echoes Of Vietnam Films As Seen In Videos Created By Troops In Iraq, Lindsey Ann Hagan
A New Approach To An Old Story: How Generation Y Views And Disseminates Echoes Of Vietnam Films As Seen In Videos Created By Troops In Iraq, Lindsey Ann Hagan
Communication Theses
This is an examination of how the fictional representation and re-creation of past wars is colliding with the personal video presentations of the Iraq War. It raises questions about how war and art are experienced in a new way and also how “instant history” is made available to the public. Personally recorded footage of the everyday experience of war has altered the way in which society views war and copes with its aftereffects because Generation Y has become a computer based generation. This is a reception study that will show how Generation Y has used the Baby Boomers’ input about …
Black Press Coverage Of The Emmett Till Lynching As A Catalyst To The Civil Rights Movement, Michael Randolph Oby
Black Press Coverage Of The Emmett Till Lynching As A Catalyst To The Civil Rights Movement, Michael Randolph Oby
Communication Theses
BLACK PRESS COVERAGE OF THE EMMETT TILL LYNCHING AS A CATALYST TO THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT by MICHAEL OBY Under the Direction of Leonard Teel ABSTRACT The movement for civil rights in America gathered momentum throughout the 1950s. In the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Brown vs. The Board of Education ruling, declaring unconstitutional permissive or mandatory school segregation, the white South responded with both passive and active resistance. In the midst of this ferment, an African-American boy from Chicago was lynched in Mississippi. Subsequent stories in the black press reported not only Emmett Till’s murder and the trial, …
When It Hits The Fan: A Public Relations' Practitioners' Guide To Crisis Communication, Joshua Lee Smith
When It Hits The Fan: A Public Relations' Practitioners' Guide To Crisis Communication, Joshua Lee Smith
Communication Theses
This project is designed as an aid to those interested in practicing, researching or teaching crisis communication. For public relations’ practitioners, it offers a comprehensive approach for structuring a crisis communication plan. For researchers, several theoretical frameworks for the study of crisis communication are provided, with the goal of allowing them a more complete foundation for executing future research. Those involved in teaching crisis communication are offered additional resources such as a sample crisis communication plan, media guidelines and a concluding case study for educating future practitioners.
Media Messages And Womens' Body Perceptions In Egypt, Shaima Ragab
Media Messages And Womens' Body Perceptions In Egypt, Shaima Ragab
Communication Theses
This study explores the association between media exposure and women’s body perceptions in Egypt. The thin ideal perpetuated through the media, eating disorders and body dissatisfaction and drive for thinness were thought to be a culturally linked phenomena confined to Western societies. This study has contributed to the debate on cultural determinism of eating disorders and body dissatisfaction in women as it has shown that these concepts are on the rise in non-Western societies in general and Egypt in specific. When exposed to media messages, women in Egypt demonstrated eating disordered attitudes, body dissatisfaction feelings and also chose other compensatory …
An Internal Communications Analysis Of A U.S. Credit Reporting Agency, Styletta Carter
An Internal Communications Analysis Of A U.S. Credit Reporting Agency, Styletta Carter
Communication Theses
Audits of organizational communication have been viewed as an efficient means for collecting data and diagnosing common communication problems (Meyer, 2002), and evaluating employee communication satisfaction has proven to be a vital component of the auditor’s overall goal of assessing communication effectiveness. While communication audits have been used for the past 50 years by practitioners and scholars alike to evaluate the effectiveness of both external and internal communications, this particular analysis will explore the internal communications of a business-to-business sales division within a major U.S. credit reporting agency. Using Goldhaber’s (2002) method for administering Web-based communication surveys and a combination …
The Political Use Of "Family Values" Rhetoric, Elizabeth Caroline Powell
The Political Use Of "Family Values" Rhetoric, Elizabeth Caroline Powell
Communication Theses
The bipartisan political slogan “family values,” coupled with discourse surrounding the supposed breakdown of the American family, is a rhetorical move used by political agencies in an effort to excuse the socio-economic failings in America and to reassign responsibility for these failings to the private sphere. This rhetoric tends to promote the idealized nuclear family, while marginalizing the poor and non-traditional family groups.
The Rhetoric Of Volunteerism: Strategies To Recruit And Retain Volunteers In Nonprofit Organizations, Terry Bell Woods
The Rhetoric Of Volunteerism: Strategies To Recruit And Retain Volunteers In Nonprofit Organizations, Terry Bell Woods
Communication Theses
This study analyzes the rhetorical strategies of an international public service organization. Drawing upon narrative criticism, volunteer related literatures of the Continental Societies, Inc. were studied in order to gauge their rhetorical efficacy in light of the existing literature on nonprofit organizations and volunteerism. By analyzing the organization’s literatures – their “story” – it was discovered that part of it was missing. In an attempt to fill this void, more effective materials related to volunteer recruitment and retention have been created to exemplify greater narrative fidelity, along with recommended organizational transformations that create a better fit between these “stories” and …
Excellence In Incompetence: The Daily Show Creates A Moment Of Zen, Megan Turley Hodgkiss
Excellence In Incompetence: The Daily Show Creates A Moment Of Zen, Megan Turley Hodgkiss
Communication Theses
Jon Stewart, the anchor and purveyor of “fake news,” has catapulted television's The Daily Show into prominence. The show functions as both a source of political humor and a vehicle for political commentary. This thesis explores how the program visually and rhetorically problematizes the hegemonic model of traditional television news, and how it tips the balance between what is considered serious news and what has become cliché about the broadcast industry.
Computer Mediated Communication: Interaction And Interactivity, Mark Agle
Computer Mediated Communication: Interaction And Interactivity, Mark Agle
Communication Theses
This study examines three popular theories of computer-mediated communication (CMC) and how they relate to increased modes of interactivity. The research takes place in a highly interactive virtual world called "There." A total of 18 participants took part in the study. Using participant-observation and in-depth interviews, the study found that all three perspectives manifested themselves in both the reported and observed behavior. The three perspectives examined are the social information processing theory (SIPT), the social identity model of de-individuation effects (SIDE), and the hyperpersonal perspective. The study found that SIPT and the hyperpersonal perspective did the best job at explaining …
A Community Of Smarks: Professional Wrestling And The Changing Relationship Between Textual Producers And Consumers, Shane Toepfer
A Community Of Smarks: Professional Wrestling And The Changing Relationship Between Textual Producers And Consumers, Shane Toepfer
Communication Theses
This analysis of the professional wrestling genre attempts to understand the complex reading practices employed by wrestling’s fan community. I argue that wrestling fans consume these texts in the context of both the official narratives of media producers and the meta-narratives that exist independently of the official texts. In addition, I argue that wrestling fans display characteristics normally reserved for traditional media producers, collaborating with those producers over the direction of the official narratives. This process of collaboration is indicative of the blurring of the boundaries between textual producers and consumers and necessitates a theoretical conception of the audience that …
The Discourse Of Planned Parenthood Of The Atlanta Area: 1964 – 1972, Melissa N. Miller
The Discourse Of Planned Parenthood Of The Atlanta Area: 1964 – 1972, Melissa N. Miller
Communication Theses
Objectives. The purpose of this study is to determine whether or not the mainstream reproductive rights organization Planned Parenthood of the Atlanta Area (PPAA) considered reproductive justice issues typically advocated for by non-traditional reproductive rights organizations. Methods. This research was a qualitative content analysis of discourse internal to PPAA (meeting minutes) and discourse communicated to the public externally via print media channels. Results. A total of 105 documents were analyzed as part of this study: 57 meeting minutes and 48 press clippings. The analysis revealed that, internally, PPAA did consider reproductive justice issues but that this was not directly communicated …
March's Gendered Madness: An Analysis Of Print Media Representations Of A Female Division I Ncaa Women's Basketball Coach - Pat Summitt, Cindy Marie Allen
March's Gendered Madness: An Analysis Of Print Media Representations Of A Female Division I Ncaa Women's Basketball Coach - Pat Summitt, Cindy Marie Allen
Communication Theses
This study explores the extent to which national newspaper coverage of a successful female coach reflects the broader gender ideology of society. This study looks specifically at the New York Times, The Washington Post and USA Today's coverage of six Women's Division I national basketball tournaments in which Pat Summitt coached the University of Tennessee in the championship game. The years included for this analysis are 1996, 1997, 1998, 2000, 2003 and 2004. This rhetorical analysis examines this print coverage to determine if, consistent with previous research on media coverage of the female athlete, Summitt's traditional gender role is privileged …
Framing Hillary Clinton: A Content Analysis Of The New York Times News Coverage Of The 2000 New York Senate Election, Amy Beth Busher
Framing Hillary Clinton: A Content Analysis Of The New York Times News Coverage Of The 2000 New York Senate Election, Amy Beth Busher
Communication Theses
This study used a combination of qualitative and quantitative content analyses to examine how news articles written by the New York Times portrayed Hillary Clinton during the 2000 New York Senate Election. The study combined research on political elections, gender stereotypes and an inductive analysis of coverage of the election to derive at four dominant frames. These frames, political activity, horserace, gender stereotype and traditional first lady were used to determine how the media responded to Hillary Clinton’s unprecedented decision to run for election. Results show that Hillary Clinton received more coverage based on her political activity than any other …
In Search Of Communication Satisfaction At The State Bar Of Georgia, Christopher Tyler Jones
In Search Of Communication Satisfaction At The State Bar Of Georgia, Christopher Tyler Jones
Communication Theses
It has long been established that “communication is of fundamental importance in the operation of all organizations, and a knowledge of the efficiency of the general communication system is vital to achieve high levels of organizational effectiveness” (Greenbaum, Clampitt, & Willihnganz, 1988, p. 245). With this in mind, over the past forty years many organizations have turned to communication audits to identify strategies to improve their organizations’ communication practices. One such organization is the State Bar of Georgia. Using Downs and Hazen’s (1977) Communication Satisfaction Questionnaire, this study assessed the health/effectiveness of the Bar’s formal and informal communication channels, identified …
Alternative Realities/The Multiverse: A Metaphysical Conundrum, Freda A. Wynn
Alternative Realities/The Multiverse: A Metaphysical Conundrum, Freda A. Wynn
Communication Theses
Films of every era reflect the concerns and fears of Western society. The acceleration of technology, the loss of a concrete world, the uneasy relationship with humans and ever increasing complex machines are inducing a fear of losing the ability to discern reality. The reality of ideas from science and the world around are woven into the narratives that we use to explain life.The films we watch reflect our hopes and fears and as the fears increase so do films with a shared theme of alternative realities. To know reality and search for the true Self is the job of …
Alice Hamilton: The Making Of A Feminist-Pragmatist Rhetor, Vicki J. Mccoy
Alice Hamilton: The Making Of A Feminist-Pragmatist Rhetor, Vicki J. Mccoy
Communication Theses
ABSTRACT Dr. Alice Hamilton (1869-1970), the leading American figure in industrial medicine during the early to mid-1900s, left behind a body of rhetoric that is important in the history of American feminist discourse and American public address. Her discourse is the exemplary of feminist-pragmatist rhetoric, a genre of cross-gender communication developed by New Women associated with Hull House and the University of Chicago between 1892 and 1918. Hamilton’s rhetoric illuminates a key event in the history of the American rhetorical tradition—the emergence of the modern woman from her late-Victorian beginnings through her Progressive self-transformation. This study is approached as a …
Tabloidization In The Modern American Press: A Textual Analysis And Assessment Of Newspaper And Tabloid Coverage Of The “Runaway Bride” Case, Nichola Reneé Harris
Tabloidization In The Modern American Press: A Textual Analysis And Assessment Of Newspaper And Tabloid Coverage Of The “Runaway Bride” Case, Nichola Reneé Harris
Communication Theses
The media have extensive power in that they represent the primary, and often the only, source of information about many important events and topics. Media can define which events are important, as well as how media consumers should understand these events. The current trend towards tabloidization, or sensationalism, in today’s American media, has caused an uproar among media traditionalists, primarily in the fields of news and print media. This study seeks to examine the actual influence of tabloidization in newspaper media. My primary research question is as follows: Do tabloid newspapers in the United States set the agenda for more …
The Television Portrayals Of African Americans And Racial Attitudes, Joni G V Dubriel
The Television Portrayals Of African Americans And Racial Attitudes, Joni G V Dubriel
Communication Theses
Television often portrays African Americans in unfavorable positions in comparison to Caucasians. Typically these unfavorable depictions reinforce negative stereotypes associated with African Americans. Research indicates that television portrayals can influence people’s attitudes toward one another. A question left unanswered by current research: are mass-mediated images as influential at reversing or counteracting stereotypes as they are at reinforcing them? An experiment with undergraduate students was conducted to investigate the relationship between the positive portrayal of African Americans and subsequent racial attitudes. Participants viewed a video clip with either an African American or Caucasian chairman for the Georgia Division of Public Health. …
Preserving The American Community Newspaper In An Age Of New Media Convergence And Competition, Stephen Michael Wilson
Preserving The American Community Newspaper In An Age Of New Media Convergence And Competition, Stephen Michael Wilson
Communication Theses
The intention of this project is to provide broad based and practical advice for American community newspapers. Print editions of papers have experienced stagnation and decline over the past several decades and today face an increasingly complex media environment, and as a result there is the potential for them to be rendered obsolete. Competition with technology based media, or technomedia, is the primary catalyst for this decline. Through a combination of background research and interviews with industry professionals, this project will attempt to develop tools for print newspapers to remain relevant and even profitable in the American media landscape of …
Gender Images And Power In Magazine Advertisements: The Consciousness Scale Revisited, Lorie N. Bonham
Gender Images And Power In Magazine Advertisements: The Consciousness Scale Revisited, Lorie N. Bonham
Communication Theses
This study re-evaluates the Consciousness Scale originally formulated by Pingree et al. in 1976. The element of assumed power was added to the Consciousness Scale, which was then used to evaluate 516 magazine advertisements from 1999 to determine if the Consciousness Scale still accurately evaluates sexism in media. A set of advertisements was culled which had contradictory Consciousness Scale and power ratings. The set was evaluated, revealing common themes, which created difficulty in coding these modern images. The study revealed that while the Consciousness Scale can still provide a valuable tool in evaluating media images, the change in the social …