Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Racialized Reality: Crime News And Racial Stereotype Framing, Warrington Sebree

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Research shows that crime news is a primary mechanism for shaping public consciousness surrounding legal order, social morality, and threats present in their citizens communities. This research explores how news media influences negative attitudes towards criminal justice reform and Black identity. Utilizing Framing Theory, this study focuses on whether negative stereotypes in crime news triggers racial prejudice and bias towards African Americans. Participants of this study will consist of current students at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville. The findings suggest that knowing the race of a potential criminal assailant influences respondents’ attitudes towards presumptions of guilt, future criminality, and criminal …

Instagram And Eating Disorders: An Empirical Study Of The Effects Of Instagram On Disordered Eating Habits Among Young Girls, Katherine Wayles

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Scholars have studied the relationship between body dissatisfaction and social media use, particularly focusing on young women as vulnerable consumers. Many studies concentrate on the amount of media consumed, rather than the specific activities and behaviors associated with feelings of low self-esteem or poor body image. It is important to determine exactly what behaviors and social media engagements contribute to disordered relationships with food, assessing a user’s pre-existing weight/body concerns in relation to the amount and type of media they consume. Instagram in particular is included in this study, as it is an image-based social networking site where users can …

Painting The Leaky Pipeline Pink: Girl Branded Media And The Promotion Of Stem, Juniper Patel

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis provides a critical feminist analysis of girl branded media depictions of girls in STEM. Through close textual analysis of three case studies—Disney Fairies films, Barbie: Dreamhouse Adventures, and My Little Pony: Equestria Girls media—I found that such STEM promotion tends to emphasize traditional gender roles and neoliberal market values. Disney Fairies films promote traditional gender roles via portrayals of play STEM, white hegemony, and western beauty standards. Additionally, these films promote the neoliberal ideal of industrialization as consequence free. Dreamhouse Adventures depicts STEM in relation to traditional gender norms such as caretaking, heteronormativity, and girl culture. Furthermore, this …

Socially Constructing Marijuana Policy And Target Populations In The News Media, Jonathan Taylor Langner

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This research focuses on different aspects of the co-construction African Americans and marijuana in the news. First, the historical background of modern drug laws, including marijuana prohibition, and how this was dependent on racialized fears in the wake of the abolition of slavery. Next, the prevalence and variety of marijuana constructions in a national newspaper, with careful attention paid to associations with racial identifiers. Finally, how African American athletes and marijuana are co-constructed in an exemplary article.

Chapter 2 describes how racial fears relate to the social construction of disadvantaged population in the media. We first describe the current situation …

A Focus On The Us Narrative: Does The New York Times Portrayal Of Women Living With Hiv And Aids In Southern Africa Perpetuate Hiv/Aids Stigma?, Boitshepo Monte Balozwi

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The aim of the study was to determine the dominant and recurring frames influencing the narrative and media portrayal of women living with HIV and AIDS in Southern Africa, a region characterized by a low socio-economic status and the highest HIV and AIDS infection rates globally. The study analyzed 238 stories published in The New York Times from 1985 to 2017. Findings of the study show that news reports frequently associate sex workers and pregnant women to coverage on HIV and AIDS therefore stigmatizing them as vectors of the disease. The newspaper stories provided adequate socioeconomic context resulting in African …

Human Nature And Cop Art: A Biocultural History Of The Police Procedural, Jay Edward Baldwin

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Prior to 1948 there was no “police procedural” genre of crime fiction. After 1948 and since, the genre, which prominently features police officers at work, has been among the more popular of all forms of literary, televisual, and cinematic fiction. The received history suggests that much of the credit for this is due to Jack Webb, creator of Dragnet.

This study complicates that received history and traces the historical emergence of this signifying practice to early 20th century ideologies of Social control and the conjuncture of Social forces that ultimately coalesced in the training practices of the Los Angeles Police …

Media Focus In Afghanistan News Coverage, Abdul Qahar Jawad

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study explored the Media Focus in Afghanistan News Coverage to examine what categories of Afghanistan-related news received the largest amount of coverage during periods from 2010 to 2012. This study covered reports in The New York Times, The Washington Post, USA Today, and The Daily Outlook Afghanistan, a national Afghan news outlet, as a sample within a period of three months over three years (June 2010, July 2011, and August 2012). The 147 news stories' headlines of the four news organizations were studied to find what categories (process: peace talks, negotiation, and economic development; conflict: violence and military action; …

Chinese International Students' Cross-Cultural Adaptation And Online Communication, Chen Wei Wu

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study explored Chinese international students' computer mediated communication with both Americans and Chinese during their studying in the U.S. based on a Cross-Cultural Adaptation theory. The specific purpose of this study was to test five theorems of the theory with a sample of Chinese international students and to explore how Chinese international students' intercultural transformation, adaptive personality, host communication competence, and their interpersonal and mass communication with both host and ethnic groups associate together.