Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Media Gender Bias In The 1984 And 2008 Vice Presidential Elections, Katherine Shaunesi Reeves

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

Media coverage in political campaigns helps shape public opinion and can be a factor in people determining how to vote. Thus, bias evident in the coverage of political candidates should be a concern for a society which values fair elections. In the 2008 general election, for the first time in 24 years, a woman was on a major party ticket. The treatment of female candidates historically has been sexist. To understand the media coverage of Sarah Palin I chose to look at editorials in The New York Times. I compared her editorial references to Joe Biden’s in The Times. Then, …

2008 U.S. Presidential Election: Persuasive Youtube Interactions About War, Health Care, And The Economy, Lindsey Zimmerman

Psychology Theses

Persuasive appeals posted to United States presidential candidates’ YouTube videos were coded using a grounded theory mixed-methods design. 37,562 comments about education, energy, Iraq, health care, the economy, and the presidential debates were randomly collected by date and time for three studies using coding analysis: pilot, presidential primaries, and the presidential election. Seven argument types were identified and theoretically refined according to dual process models of persuasion: reason-based, candidate-based, emotion-based, endorsements, enthusiasmheuristic, other-interest and self-interest. Theoretical comparisons and hypothesis testing of argument types were conducted by issue and election event. Consistent with impression involvement, reason-based appeals were more frequent during …

Media Use And Body Image Among Senior Participants Of The World Senior Games, Lisa Nicole Harding

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between media use and body image in senior citizens. This study specifically targeted older people who participate in regular physical activity. Seniors participating in the 2006 Huntsman World Senior Games in St. George, Utah were surveyed concerning current body image and total media use. The sample included 691 participants. Lower body image scores were recorded among seniors who watched greater amounts of television. Magazine readership and body image displayed no relationship among men or women. Total media use did not influence body image scores among seniors. Male participants exhibited a …

Commercialism, Materialism And The Drive To Fulfill Beauty Ideals In The United States, Katie Hickey

Social Work Theses

I surveyed 90 students on the amount of money they spend on beauty products and procedures and simultaneously tested their level of body dissatisfaction.

Chaotic But Popular? Extreme-Right Organisation And Performance In The Age Of Media Communication, Antonis A. Ellinas

Antonis A. Ellinas

A notable strain in the literature suggests that party organisation has a net causal effect on the electoral performance of extreme-right parties. This view rests on a somewhat fuzzy definition and static conceptualisation of party organisation. Moreover, this organisational exegesis fails to fully acknowledge the impact of media communications on modern parties. The analysis of the evolution of the French National Front and the consideration of other extreme-right party trajectories casts doubt on conventional accounts of organisational effects pointing to various venues for future research. Party organisation does not affect how parties perform at the ballot box during their earlier …

Latin Victims Are Invisible To The International Media, Vinicius Souza, Maria Eugênia Sá

The Journal of Conventional Weapons Destruction

Colombia continues to be the country with the highest number of new anti-personnel landmine victims in the world, with 10 other countries on the American continents having problems with mines as well. This situation, however, seems not to exist for the international news media. Even specialized publications seldom show a picture or publish an article about Central or South America; consequently, most people still believe that the landmine problem is confined exclusively to Africa, the Middle East and Southeast Asia.

Characteristics Of Contemporary Gag Order Requests In Media Law Reporter Volumes 19 Through 33, Brad Leavitt Clark

Theses and Dissertations

The conflict between the First Amendment and the Sixth Amendment is not new nor is it easily decipherable. Both amendments appear to have absolute priority, yet they appear to conflict (Erickson, 1977). The First Amendment declares unequivocally, "Congress shall make no law...abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press[,]" while the Sixth Amendment states with equal force, "In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy public trial, by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed..." (U.S. Constitution, Amendment I, Amendment VI). Free speech and an unrestricted …

Constructing Legal Narratives: Law, Language And The Media, Jane Johnston, Rhonda Breit

Jane Johnston

This paper proposes using the theory of narratology to connect to legal discourses and processes with the way the media translate the law into news. Focussing on the Australian context, it looks at the choice of language used my media in covering courts, how stories are told and retold within these primarily textual environments, as well as the selection processes used by journalists in covering these rounds. The paper extends the argument for a narratology of courts, to a narratology of court reporting, suggesting fundamental criteria of story, discourse and the interpretative context be examined. It foreshadows the need for …

The Impact Of The Gay And Feminist Liberation Movements On The Objectification Of The Male Body In Popular Magazines That Target A Male Audience, Miro Lestanin

Sociology Honors Projects

My study analyzes the change in the portrayal of the male body in the public sphere. I examine whether this change is related to the appearance of the gay and feminist liberation movements in 1960s that reintroduced the gay subculture into the mainstream political and social realm. Furthermore, I explore the influence of these movements on the commercialization and objectification of the male body that are used as marketing tools to attract homosexual and metrosexual customers. I analyzed a random sample of 600 advertisements that contained a representation of the male body covering the time span from 1930 to 1990 …

Hetero-Romantic Love And Heterosexiness In Children’S G-Rated Films, Karin A. Martin, Emily Kazyak

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

This article examines accounts of heterosexuality in media for children. The authors analyze all the G-rated films grossing $100 million dollars or more between 1990 and 2005 and find two main accounts of heterosexuality. First, heterosexuality is constructed through hetero-romantic love relationships as exceptional, powerful, magical, and transformative. Second, heterosexuality outside of relationships is constructed through portrayals of men gazing desirously at women’s bodies. Both of these findings have implications for our understanding of heteronormativity. The first is seemingly at odds with theories that claim that heterosexuality’s mundane, assumed, everyday ordinariness lends heteronormativity its power. In fact, the authors suggest …

Contemplative Video Art Interview, Joanna Spitzner

Anne Beffel

Flying The Pirate Flag: Understanding The Fight Against And Prevalence Of The Internet Gift Economy, Zachary G. O'Leary

Pell Scholars and Senior Theses

The number of citizens affected by common internet access makes arguments over its governance of primary concern to all. Peer-to-peer file sharing, oftentimes allowing for copyright infringement, is currently a major use of internet infrastructure. A review of the legislative and technological attempts to prevent such infringement, as well as the reasoning behind its prevalence, provides insight into the tension created by present intellectual property rights; this is a tension between those it intends to protect and to reward.

Youth Media Democracy: Perceptions Of New Literacies, Jan Pettersen

Reports

The conference ‘Youth Media Democracy’ was a two day event held in April of 2008. It set out to explore the effects that new media have on the younger generation with a focus on the tremendous opportunities that new media brings. The event had the ambitious aim to offer an integrated experience of a traditional academic conference, presenting recent research on topics like; new media; emerging literacies; the digital divide; new media as a platform for democracy in the lives of young people, and at the same time also engaging the participation of Youth through a series of workshops across …

Pedagogical Design For An Online Information Literacy Course: College Students' Learning Experience With Multi-Modal Objects, Hsin-Liang Chen, James Patrick Williams

Libraries' and Librarians' Publications

This project is an exploratory study on the use of multi-modal objects in an online information literacy course. This paper reports on the second phase of the project, which focused on students’ learning experience within five course modules employing different multi-modal media objects for instruction. Seven online surveys were conducted at the beginning of the course, immediately after each of the webcast discussion sessions accompanying each course module, and at the end of the course. The findings show significant relationships among computer skills, online teaching materials, use of communication tools, learning experience, and satisfaction with the course

Connecting Diversity: Paradoxes Of Multicultural Australia, Ien Ang, Jeffrey E. Brand, Greg Noble, Jason Sternberg

Jeffrey Brand

Commissioned by SBS, and published in March 2006, Connecting Diversity: Paradoxes of Multicultural Australia is a follow-up study to SBS’s 2002 report, Living Diversity: Australia’s Multicultural Future. The attitudes of many younger Australians from culturally diverse backgrounds reveal paradoxes about Australian multiculturalism today. This report sheds light on their views, experiences and expectations and the role of media in their lives. Younger, culturally and linguistically diverse Australians are often the subject of mediafanned controversy about disaffection, ‘ethnic gangs’ and cultural isolation. While these controversies tend to be localised – Cronulla, Inala or Bankstown – Connecting Diversity tells a national and …

Don't Criticise The Effects Of Video Games On Kids, Exploit Them!, Jeffrey E. Brand

Jeffrey Brand

[Extract] For young learners today, video games are part of the "cultural furniture". The development of boys and girls, their socialisation, and their formal learning (including literacy) are at risk if they reject contemporary media. What humanises technology most completely is appropriation of it. As any parent or teacher who has tried it knows, using popular media in the service of formal learning most readily overcomes the risk attributed to them. It also eliminates the source of moral panics: ignorance about the learners' world.

Living Diversity: Australia’S Multicultural Future, Ien Ang, Jeffrey E. Brand, Greg Noble, Derek Wilding

Jeffrey Brand

In 2002, SBS commissioned research into trends in multicultural Australia. This study gives us a glimpse of the ‘diversity within diversity’of Australians’engagement with multiculturalism, their senses of identity and belonging, the ways in which they engage with others of different backgrounds, and their uses of media in a multicultural society. The overall picture is one of a fluid, plural and complex society, with a majority of the population positively accepting of the cultural diversity that is an increasingly routine part of Australian life, although a third is still uncertain or ambivalent about cultural diversity. In practice, most Australians, from whatever …

Abandoning Identity Protection For Juvenile Offenders, Duncan Chappell, Robyn Lincoln

Robyn Lincoln

Extract: In what is believed to be a case without precedent in Australia the media organisation, John Fairfax Pty Ltd, publishers of the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age newspapers, recently made application in the NSW Court of Criminal Appeal (NSWCCA) to have a name suppression order removed on two juveniles and their cooffending adult siblings.2 The prohibition on publishing their names meant that they could only be known by pseudonyms, namely their initials, on the premise that the naming of the adult brothers would automatically identify the younger ones. In a unanimous decision the NSWCCA (Spigelman CJ, Basten JA …

Government Media Relations: A 'Spin' Through The Literature, Mark Pearson, Roger Patching

Roger Patching

Extract: Government media relations is deserving of serious study because it sits at the interface between the executive and journalism, two of the fundamental institutions in a modern democratic society. That line of communication is central crucial if citizens are to be kept informed of the workings of government and the machinations of the political system. The Australian High Court underscored its importance in the 1990s when it introduced an ‘implied constitutional freedom of communication on matters of politics and government’ through a series of decisions (2007, pp. 35-38). It is a communication channel where truth and transparency should be …

Partisan Webs: Information Exchange And Party Networks, Gregory Koger, Seth Masket, Hans C. Noel

Working Papers

What is a party? We argue that the formal party apparatus is only one part of an extended network of interest groups, media, 527s, and candidates. We systematically measure a portion of this network by tracking transfers of names between political organizations. Our analysis reveals two distinct and polarized networks corresponding to a more liberal Democratic group and a more conservative Republican group. Formal party organizations, like the Democratic National Committee and the Republican National Committee, tend to receive information within their respective networks, which suggests that other groups serve to funnel information toward the formal party.

It’S ‘A Good Thing’: The Commodification Of Femininity, Affluence, And Whiteness In The Martha Stewart Phenomenon, Melissa A Click

Doctoral Dissertations 1896 - February 2014

This study examines the ideologies of gender, race, and class present in Martha Stewart's unprecedented popularity, beginning with the publication of Stewart's first magazine in 1990 and ending in September 2004, after Stewart's conviction for her involvement in the ImClone scandal. My approach is built on the intersection of American mass communication research, British cultural studies, and feminist theory, and utilizes Hall's Encoding/Decoding model to examine how social, cultural and political discourses circulate in and through a mediated text and how those meanings are interpreted by those who receive them. Drawing from textual and ideological analysis of over thirteen years …

Media And Teaching About The Middle East, Khodi Kaviani

All Faculty Scholarship for the College of Education and Professional Studies

This qualitative study was conducted in 2006-2007 and found that teachers relied on a variety of readily available media to stay informed about the Middle East and used some of them in their teaching. Teachers tried to explain to their students that every Middle Eastern Muslim is not a terrorist and Iraq was not behind the 9/11 terrorist attacks. The guiding questions were: (1) What are the sources of news that teachers use to teach about the Middle East? (2) How do teachers use the media to teach about the Middle East in the post 9/11 schools? Semi-structured interviews were …

The News Media And Public Opinion: The Press Coverage Of U.S. International Conflicts And Its Effect On Presidental Approval, Kristen Mccullough

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

A standing phenomenon exists in the fields of both political science and communication studies regarding the impact that the news media have on public opinion. This study recognizes the average American citizens' reliance on the press to gain information about international conflicts. Hence, it is theorized that news reports on a political occurrence could very well influence the mass-level opinion of an event such that positive news stories generate positive public opinion, and vice versa. Since foreign crises define a presidency in the public's minds, presidential approval ratings determine the degree to which the news media manipulate public opinion. Specifically, …

Claims Of Mistaken Identity: An Examination Of U.S. Television Food Commercials And The Adult Obesity Issue, Cristina Delgado

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Obesity is one of the major public health issues in the United States, often regarded as part of a global crisis. Companies invest billions of dollars each year towards television advertising campaigns aimed at convincing audiences how their ground-breaking discovery 'battles the bulge' or somehow offers an increased health benefit. This study examined how advertisers presented health-related claims, including health and nutrient-content claims, in U.S. adult-targeted television food commercials. The claims were compared to FTC, FDA, and USDA laws, regulations, and recommendations. A content analysis of food advertising was conducted of commercials from major and cable network programs broadcast during …

Inside The Image And The Word: The Re/Membering Of Indigenous Identities, Dina Fachin

Ethnic Studies Review

By appropriating the power of writing of the phonetic Latin alphabet and recent visual technology, new generations of indigenous people from the Americas have been able to articulate and reinforce their own sense of identity from "within" their cultural constructs. In so doing, they have been shaping new narratives of indigenous adaptation and survival based on native ontologies and epistemologies that critically decolonize the homogenizing forces of national and global rhetoric. I argue that the texts under examination put forward ways to conceive and to know individual and communal identity that cannot be understood outside specific, ancient notions of territoriality …

Volume 11, 2009, Ellen Hazelkorn, Nora French, Wolfgang Truetzschler

Issues

No abstract provided.

Desecrating Scriptures, James W. Watts

Religion - All Scholarship

Desecrations of books of scripture appear regularly in media coverage of religious and political conflicts. Twenty-first century news media have reported scripture desecrations in various Western, Middle Eastern, African, and South Asian countries. Though political tensions also arise from the desecration of sacred sites, objects, and persons, books of scripture have emerged as particularly potent objects of contestation. That is because, as a (very) old form of media themselves, scriptures encapsulate the religious experiences of many people who are used to handling the physical book with veneration. News of such a book’s desecration thus inverts a common religious experience and …

Peripheral Architecture, James Utterback

Architecture Thesis Prep

"By 2012 the 4G 'Anytime, Aywhere' digital age will be upon us and the air will be loaded with new possibilities for those with the hardware to tap into it. In the latter half of the 20th century, screen-mediated technologies generated an abundance of hybrid local/peripheral places. Movie screens, televisions, and computers challenged notions of privacy, location, and place by stretching people across the screen and into the screenspace. Where screens became pervasive the architecture became passive, often acting as an experiential shield from the local space, wholly privileging the space of the screen over the context in which we …

Use Of Multi-Modal Media And Tools In An Online Information Literacy Course: College Students' Attitudes And Perceptions, Hsin-Liang Chen, James Patrick Williams

Libraries' and Librarians' Publications

This project studies the use of multi-modal media objects in an online information literacy class. One hundred sixty-two undergraduate students answered seven surveys. Significant relationships are found among computer skills, teaching materials, communication tools and learning experience. Multi-modal media objects and communication tools are needed to strengthen course interactions and student engagement.

Media Art: Mediality And Art Generallly, Brogan S. Bunt

Faculty of Creative Arts - Papers (Archive)

The wide ranging, trans-disciplinary interest in technological media suggests the possibility of a new discipline concerned with the history, implications and practice of mediation. Within this context, the field of media art gains a new sense of coherence and identity. Given the lingering tension between media art and mainstream contemporary art, this may lead the latter to assert its disciplinary autonomy. This paper argues against such a move. Media art is better positioned as an integral strand within contemporary art and, more particularly, as a key space of creative enquiry and practice within a generally conceived contemporary art education.Keywords: media …