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Articles 1 - 12 of 12

Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

How Perpetrator Identity (Sometimes) Influences Media Framing Attacks As “Terrorism” Or “Mental Illness”, Allison E. Betus, Erin M. Kearns, Anthony F. Lemieux Nov 2020

How Perpetrator Identity (Sometimes) Influences Media Framing Attacks As “Terrorism” Or “Mental Illness”, Allison E. Betus, Erin M. Kearns, Anthony F. Lemieux

Criminology and Criminal Justice Faculty Publications

Do media frame attacks with Muslim perpetrators as “terrorism” and attacks with White perpetrators as the result of “mental illness”? Despite public speculation and limited academic work with relatively small subsets of cases, there have been no systematic analyses of potential biases in how media frame terrorism. We addressed this gap by examining the text of print news coverage of all terrorist attacks in the United States between 2006 and 2015. Controlling for fatalities, affiliation with a group, and existing mental illness, the odds that an article references terrorism are approximately five times greater for a Muslim versus a non-Muslim …


A New Twist On The “Un-African” Script: Representing Gay And Lesbian African Weddings In Democratic South Africa, Michael W. Yarbrough Oct 2020

A New Twist On The “Un-African” Script: Representing Gay And Lesbian African Weddings In Democratic South Africa, Michael W. Yarbrough

Publications and Research

This essay examines the media coverage surrounding two African weddings of lesbian and gay couples in South Africa, as a lens onto the evolving cultural politics of black queerness in that country. Two decades after South Africa launched a world-leading legal framework for LGBTI protections, I argue that these media representations depict the growing inclusion of black LGBTIQ people as a process of bridging the supposed “gap” between homosexuality and African culture. This new “bridging the gap” script seemingly rejects the older, dominant script portraying homosexuality as intrinsically “un-African.” But I argue that it instead reproduces the “un-African” script in …


Body-Worn Cameras And Transparency: Experimental Evidence Of Inconsistency In Police Executive Decision-Making, Brandon Tregle, Justin Nix, Justin T. Pickett Sep 2020

Body-Worn Cameras And Transparency: Experimental Evidence Of Inconsistency In Police Executive Decision-Making, Brandon Tregle, Justin Nix, Justin T. Pickett

Criminology and Criminal Justice Faculty Publications

Body-worn cameras (BWC) have diffused rapidly throughout policing as a means of promoting transparency and accountability. Yet, whether to release BWC footage to the public remains largely up to the discretion of police executives, and we know little about how they interpret and respond to BWC footage – particularly footage involving critical incidents. We asked a nationally representative sample of police executives (N=476) how supportive they were of legislation that would mandate releasing BWC footage upon request as public information, and presented them with an experimental vignette about BWC capturing one of their officers fatally shooting an [armed/unarmed] [Black/White] suspect. …


Cultivating And Reporting Of Campus Threats, Louis K. Falk, Douglas Stoves, Audrey W. Falk, Hilda Silva Aug 2020

Cultivating And Reporting Of Campus Threats, Louis K. Falk, Douglas Stoves, Audrey W. Falk, Hilda Silva

Communication Faculty Publications and Presentations

The consumption of media has been established as one of the elements responsible for changing the general population’s perceptions. Specifically, cultivation theory (depending on the amount of media use) points to an enhanced representation of a characterization conveyed through the media. This depiction has the potential to create an inaccurate portrayal (stereotype) leading to an increased level of anxiety. The proliferation of reported incidents (real or perceived) associated with mass shootings in the U.S. over the last 20 years is an example. This paper traces the relatively recent coverage of mass shootings in the U.S. by the media and the …


Domestic Bliss, Or Technological Diss? Problematic Media Use, Attachment, And Relationship Outcomes, Mccall A. Booth Jul 2020

Domestic Bliss, Or Technological Diss? Problematic Media Use, Attachment, And Relationship Outcomes, Mccall A. Booth

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to examine how problematic media use (technoference, internet gaming disorder symptoms, and pornography use) predicted later partner relationship outcomes, operating through the mediator of attachment behaviors. Participants (N = 1039) were from Waves II–IV of the Couple Relationships and Transition Experiences (CREATE) study, a nationally representative quantitative study on marriage relationships across the United States. Both spouses completed surveys reporting problematic media use, attachment behaviors, and relationship outcomes at three separate time points each spaced a year apart. In order to test the hypotheses, three longitudinal actor-partner interdependence models with indirect paths were estimated, …


Complications Of The Climate Change Narrative Within The Lives Of Climate Refugees, Raphaella Mascia Jul 2020

Complications Of The Climate Change Narrative Within The Lives Of Climate Refugees, Raphaella Mascia

Department of Environmental Studies Student Scholarship

With projections of rapidly increasing numbers of climate refugees in the next decades, the discourse surrounding climate refugees becomes ever more pertinent within the field of sustainable development and the public sphere. I offer an alternative analysis of the processes which surround “knowing” and “defining” climate refugees by employing an interpretive framework which disseminates the term “narrative” according to Jean François Lyotard’s The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge. In the discourse surrounding climate refugees, two main narratives interact with each other: the dominant climate change narrative and the individual narratives of climate refugees themselves. I contend that the …


The Opaque Operations Of 21st Century Populism, Konnor Callihan May 2020

The Opaque Operations Of 21st Century Populism, Konnor Callihan

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

In my capstone, I claim that the populism of the 21st century should be considered a political style as elucidated by Benjamin Moffitt. But Moffitis’s understanding of political style does not adequately address how populism morphs through new technological systems, such as algorithms, filter bubbles, echo chambers in our internet devices. This theoretical framework takes necessary elements from past theories and stresses the performance that is vital to populism in our modern media ecosystem. The charismatic leader is no longer necessary, but the "opaque operations"( i.e algorithms, filter bubbles,echo chambers) allow populism to be almost self replicating. These “populist actors” …


Socially Constructing The #Metoo Movement In The New York Times, Hannah Jureller Apr 2020

Socially Constructing The #Metoo Movement In The New York Times, Hannah Jureller

Sociology

In 2017, The New York Times published an article titled, “Harvey Weinstein Paid Off Sexual Harassment Accusers for Decades” written by Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey (2019), exposing one of the most abusive sexual predators in Hollywood. This sparked a movement among victim-survivors and their allies now known as the #MeToo Movement. This movement brought issues of sexual assault to the forefront. The New York Times covered this movement extensively and can be considered very influential in their coverage of the movement. For this project, I conducted a content analysis of 31 New York Times articles to identify how The …


The Abodamfo: Ghana’S Marginalization Of Their ‘Other’, Rockling Afariwaa Apr 2020

The Abodamfo: Ghana’S Marginalization Of Their ‘Other’, Rockling Afariwaa

Student Writing

Traditional practices and thinking of most Ghanaians, has kept them from accepting and adapting to the social needs of their mentally ill population. The mentally ill are no longer accused of being witches, hung, or killed, and although the way people perceive and react to the mentally ill, in general, has evolved since the periods of Sigmund Freud, other forms of persecution against them exist in today’s societies. These persecutions are in the form of stigmatization, discrimination, and marginalization. Through Individual stigmatization and structural stigmatizations of mentally ill people in Ghana, by the societies and communities in which they are …


Representations Of Virginity In The Media, Dakota Murray Jan 2020

Representations Of Virginity In The Media, Dakota Murray

Sociology Student Work Collection

This presentation focuses on representations of Virginity in media. Specifically, it uses the three virginity scripts presented within Kelly's Virginity Loss Narratives in ‘‘Teen Drama’’ Television Programs. This includes virginity as a gift, virginity as a rite of passage, and virginity as a stigma. This is supported with the inclusion of various prominent movie and television examples.


The Grieving Kangaroo Photograph Revisited, David Brooks Jan 2020

The Grieving Kangaroo Photograph Revisited, David Brooks

Animal Studies Journal

Early in 2016 a photograph circulated widely of a male kangaroo holding up a dying female in the presence of a joey. Although initially taken as a moving and powerful photograph of grief, ‘experts’ quickly determined that this male may have killed the female in the process of coition. The male was in effect accused and convicted of rape and murder. Was this judgement correct? Was the male innocent or guilty? What are the nature, strength and politics of the assumptions involved in this judgement? Might he be exonerated, and why should this matter? The photograph is read and contextualised. …


Effects Of The Black Lives Matter Movement On Media Portrayals Of Accused Criminals, Samantha Strine Jan 2020

Effects Of The Black Lives Matter Movement On Media Portrayals Of Accused Criminals, Samantha Strine

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Media impacts our everyday lives and shapes how we understand the world around us. It assists in creating social hierarchies which impact how groups of people are represented and understood. These hierarchies have led to the generation of stereotypes and disparate reporting practices in media. However, social movements tend to be created to provide evidence against these stereotypes and the movements attempt to undo disparate treatment of marginalized groups. This study had three hypotheses: Hypothesis 1 stated that prior to the generation of the Black Lives Movement, media depictions of black and white accused criminals will differ. Hypothesis 2 stated …