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Visual Rhetoric In Comics: The Rhetoric Of Sexual Assault In The Wake Of Mattress Girl, Brianna Marie Burke

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

This thesis analyzes the visual rhetoric of sexual assault through the unique medium of web-based comics composed by noncommercial artists. The focus was on features compiled from Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics and Gunther Kress and Theo van Leeuwen’s Reading Images: The Grammar of Visual Design, as well as one related to representation of those involved in sexual assault: abusers and survivors, art style, act and gaze, size of frame and social distance, horizontal angle, and vertical angle.

This examination reveals four things about the rhetoric of sexual assault and consent in these comics. First, the comics are used as documentary-like, …

From Tony Soprano To Donald Trump: Situating The Rhetoric Of The 2016 Trump Presidential Campaign In The Antihero Genre, Harry Bodell

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

In the wake of Donald Trump’s stunning victory over Hillary Clinton in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, scholars and political pundits alike were left scrambling to understand what had occurred. While there is no single explanation for this unexpected turn of events, the present study argues that an overlooked and central aspect of Trump’s appeal was foreshadowed by the increased prominence of antihero protagonists in American media, particularly exemplified by the recent “Golden Age” of television wherein television series like The Sopranos, Breaking Bad, Mad Men and Dexter found critical and popular success by building compelling narratives around morally flawed …

Disruption, Remix, And Mediation: Analyzing "Bot" Algorithm Case Studies To Better Understand Rhetorical Agency In The Digital Age, Aaron Geiger

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Algorithms are ubiquitous components of digital age rhetoric and communication. Although they are integrated within our daily online functions, shaping our discourse and interactions with one another and with other algorithms, little is known how they shape rhetorical agency. Most of our online communication occurs through social media on platforms such as Facebook and Twitter, and we rely on social spaces like Wikipedia for updated information that is shaped by social constructs. We presume that since we program algorithms, their communicating functions mimic human discourse and can be shaped similarly.

However, a rich text analysis of three different case studies …