Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Social Studies Teacher Perceptions Of News Source Credibility, Christopher H. Clark, Mardi Schmeichel, H. James Garrett

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

Politically tumultuous times have created a problematic space for teachers who include the news in their classrooms. Few studies have explored perceptions of news credibility among secondary social studies teachers, the educators most likely to regularly incorporate news media into their classrooms. We investigated teachers’ operational definitions of credibility and the relationships between political ideology and assessments of news source credibility. Most teachers in this study used either static or dynamic definitions to describe news media sources’ credibility. Further, teachers’ conceptualizations of credibility and perceived ideological differences with news sources were associated with how credible teachers found each source. These …

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” …

Social Media Addiction And Fear Of Missing Out: The Moderating Effect Of Smartphone Ease Of Access, Angela Davina Seabrooks

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The development of social media addiction has become a phenomenon creating a potential public health crisis. While research has found correlations between the development of social media addiction and rising levels of fear of missing out, there is limited research surrounding the influence of smartphone ease of access. This study examined the moderating effects of smartphone ease of access to social media platforms and assessed appropriate treatment interventions. This study used an experimental within-subject design with 641 participants, ages 19-32 years. Part I of this study measured the participants’ levels of smartphone addiction, fear of missing out, and social media …

Media Impact On Public Opinion: Lgbtq Issues, Gabriel M. Galvan

Theses and Dissertations

This study’s research question asks what impact “new media” has on public opinion regarding LGBTQ issues. This study uses a survey conducted at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley on the student body on campus. Using an ordered logistic regression analysis to test for a variety of independent variables, this paper finds that the type of media has a minor impact in public opinion on LGBTQ issues. Other control variables include religiosity, race and ethnicity, perceived economic class, and political ideology. This research is grounded on the theory that media can have an impact on the political positions of …

Fascist Aesthetics From 1940 To Contemporary Times, Anna M. Gellerman

Publications and Research

Movies and literature all over the world share some common aesthetics: militarization, romanticization of death, beauty of perfection, and even purity. What most don't think about is how these tropes rose to popularity due to Nazi Germany's propaganda films. This work describes these fascist aesthetics, and uses famous publications from the 1940s until now to paint just how common these themes are.

College Of Liberal Arts And Sciences_Covid-19 Course Content, Kristin Vekasi, Frederic Rondeau, Marcella Sorg, Derek Michaud, Ayesha Miller, Kirsten Jacobson, Lillian Herakova, Mark Brewer

College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

List of COVID-19 related course content in the University of Maine's College of Liberal Arts and Sciences during the 2020 Spring Semester. Includes descriptions from:

• Kristin Vekasi, Associate Professor, Political Science for POS 349: Politics of Media and Censorship;
• Frederic Rondeau, Associate Professor, Modern Languages and Classics for Introduction to French Classics Novels of the XX-XXI century;
• Marcella Sorg (Research Professor, Department of Anthropology, Climate Change Institute, and Margaret Chase Smith Policy Center for ANT 260: Forensic Anthropology;
• Derek Michaud, Lecturer, Philosophy; Coordinator of Religious Studies and Judaic Studies for PHI 105: Introduction to Religious Studies and PHI 100: Contemporary …

Visual Rhetoric Worksheet, Janelle Poe

Open Educational Resources

Designed for a Writing for the Sciences course at CCNY, this worksheet is to be completed after watching an environmental journalism video on noise pollution by David Owens for The New Yorker (2019). Students can complete individually, in pairs, or groups. Largely focused on analyzing visual rhetoric, creator, publisher, and audience bias, students should complete this worksheet after learning the elements of visual rhetoric to assist with the development of their rough drafts for the Rhetorical Analysis/Visual Rhetoric essay assignment.

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

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 …

Racism In Media: How Media Shapes Our View Of People Of Color In Society, Semarial Wilder

Community Engagement Student Work

As a way to increase awareness about racism in the media, research was conducted to showcase the many ways racism is perpetuated against Black people through our everyday media consumption. A workshop was held and analysis of responses from pre-event surveys, activity post-it responses, and post-event surveys were completed by attendees. Using the cultivation theory, attendees increased their overall knowledge about how the media plays a huge part in how they see society. One attendee mentioned, “I learned how the media sets thoughts or images for you without you realizing it.” It is clear that the media does a wonderful …

Popular Television’S Health And Safety Message: What Has Changed In The Past Generation?, Heather Ann Leon

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

The assertion that television has an impact on viewers is well-supported in theory and empirical research. Hundreds of researchers have conducted hundreds of studies focused on limited, specific programming content or specific effects to contribute to this evidence. However, far fewer researchers have conducted broad, comprehensive programming content analysis. One exception is a 2005 study from Will et al. examining multiple health and safety behaviors including sexual activity, driving behaviors, intoxicating and unhealthy substance use, and violence depicted in the 1997/1998 primetime television season. Results of their research showed overall that primetime television promoted the perception that the observed health- …

Political Ideology And Media Consumption, Andrew Robinson

Georgia College Student Research Events

Politics is a far reaching phenomenon that, in essence, controls everything that we do in our daily lives without us even realizing it most of the time, and it is constantly evolving and changing to fit the narrative of the age. In this modern world, we see an increase in political radicalization, especially in the United States. Politics has become more of a social experience than a set of beliefs, with some going so far as to incorporate it into their personal identity and seek and find the ideas that best fit them. This research analyzes the effect that a …

Mirror, Mirror On The Wall: The Effect Of Listening To Body Positive Music On Implicit And Explicit Body Esteem, Sarah M. Coyne, Emilie J. Davis, Wayne Warburton, Laura Stockdale, Imogen Abba, Dean M. Busby

Faculty Publications

The current article used 3 studies to examine the impact of listening to body positive music on both explicit and implicit measures of body esteem in women. Study 1 found that women who viewed a mainstream popular body positive music video reported higher levels of body esteem than those who viewed a popular body objectifying music video. In Studies 2 and 3, we wrote and recorded our own songs to keep the musical features apart from the lyrics constant (e.g., rhythm, melody, and singer identity). Study 2 also found that women showed higher levels of implicit (but not explicit) body …

How We Talk About The Press, Erin C. Carroll

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

In 2017, the term “fake news” was so popular that it received the “Word of the Year” honor from the American Dialect Society. Since then, its popularity may have abated some, but its use persists. Most obviously, anti-press speakers weaponize the term fake news to undermine journalists and the press as an institution. Perhaps more surprisingly, however, the term is also in regular rotation among many who would seem to support a free and independent press, including scholars, teachers, and journalists themselves.

The continued and often-uncritical use of fake news should worry us. As thinkers across disciplines have recognized for …

Media & Trust: Exploring The Differences Between Traditional And New Media Forms, Alexandra Jones

Undergraduate Honors Thesis Collection

This research seeks to explore how news media, traditional versus new, influences public trust, as well as, what types of consumers use traditional versus new media. My hypotheses are that (A) that those who use primarily new media to access news will have less trust in the news they are consuming and (B) those who have at least a college degree, are below 30 in age, and use, daily, a computer in the course of their work, will use primarily new media to access news. Using an online survey administered through the platform Qualtrics, distributed through Amazon Mechanical Turk, I …

The Politicization Of Water: Transboundary Water-Conflict In The Indian Subcontinent, Ananya Gupta

Honors Papers

The Himalaya-Hindu Kush mountain range and the Tibetan Plateau birth ten of Asia’s most prominent rivers providing irrigation, energy, and drinking water to over two billion people across several countries today. Therefore, transboundary water sharing is a constant source of conflict for several South Asian countries that rely on rivers to support their primarily agrarian economies.

In recent years, climate change has drastically increased global temperatures. As a result, the Indian subcontinent has been plagued with extreme riverine flood and drought events.

Climate change-related events like riverine floods and drought, exacerbate the politicization of conflict between nations that share natural …

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

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. …

‘It's The Outline Of A Pig And Then It Has The Words Underneath, “Vegan For Life”‘: Vegans And Their Tattoos, Peter John Chen

Animal Studies Journal

This paper examines the relationships between vegans living in Australia and their tattoos. While tattooing has become an increasingly popular part of mainstream consumer culture, vegans often identify their tattoos in terms of major life events (of which catalysts to become vegan and vegan transition are but one), marks of remembrance or aides-mémoire, and tools to signal to other vegans and begin conversations with non-vegans. Defying simple classification, many of the tattoos sported by vegans are overlaid with multiple meanings. While some aspects of tattoo culture are found within this subset of tattooed people, practice behaviours such as ingredient checking …

Review Of The Age Of American Unreason In A Culture Of Lies By Susan Jacoby, Mark Olson

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Review of The Age of American Unreason in a Culture of Lies by Susan Jacoby, Vintage (2019).

Doing Gender: Cars And Culture In The United States, Adrian L. Zavala

Communication Senior Capstones

This qualitative research study aims to define and describe gender stereotypes and car culture. It will also explain how these stereotypes influence car culture and vice versa. This paper aims to explain how the mass media uses car culture in the United States and imposes gender stereotypes. The mass media I will be discussing includes but is not limited to commercials and magazine adverts. This paper asserts that by portraying what it means to be a man and what it means to be a woman, car companies build car culture and use pre-existing constructs of gender for marketing it. According …

Shifting A Culture, Ardeshir J. Arjomand

Communication Senior Capstones

What is popular culture and how does it influence us? How can we be more critically aware consumers of media messages? Are we always "online", or is there some way we can disconnect? These are the questions I've attempted to define through my research and experience studying contemporary "pop culture". Consider this a beginner’s guide on how to become aware of and deal with the constant bombardment of media messages, and how to become a filter for content, rather than a sponge. As critical consumers of media we can cater our consumption to better suit our needs and lifestyles. This …

Media Exposure To Crime, Fear Of Crime, And Social Interaction Anxiety, Genea Shoulders

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

In 2000, approximately 30% of all news stories in mass media focused on crime. According to research, increased exposure to the media directly correlates to an increased fear of crime; however, little research has been conducted into this influential relationship and the extent of which it could affect a person’s social interaction anxiety. Therefore, the study’s purpose was to examine the relationship and consequential impact of media exposure and the extent of which the fear of crime had on individuals’ social interaction anxiety levels. Through a quantitative approach, this study used the theory of cultivation. Question one examined the effect …

A Study On The Information Collecting Mode Of Secondary School Students In A Digital Setting, Nancy Waral

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

The widespread use of the Internet has opened up a significant amount of knowledge and is available immediately upon any search at anytime and anywhere. The Internet is tremendously useful for educational purposes by teachers as well as students and educational administrators and it has superseded libraries as a source for information gathering and research. In the present scenario the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) have brought tremendous changes in gathering information among the primary and secondary students. The information-gathering of the students moved from print to online. The main focus of the study was to know the various information …

The Association Of Romance Movies, Gender, And Relational Identity Among Emerging Adults, Sara Hare

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Emerging adults are motivated to form intimate relationships and explore their relational identity. Little is known, however, about the development of relational identity in emerging adults. Given that external influences such as movies can impact how people view relationships, and that emerging adults are more likely to watch movies than other forms of media, it is essential to explore the relationship between movies and relational identity in emerging adults. The purpose of this quantitative, nonexperimental study was to examine the relationship between relational identity, gender, and the preference for romance movies among emerging adults. The theoretical foundations for the study …

Impacts Of Media Communication To Motivate State Level Policy Action: The Case Of The Colorado River Basin, Abigail Rader

CSB and SJU Distinguished Thesis

The cultivation of life within the American Southwest would not have been possible without the Colorado River Basin. The water in the basin today maintains 40 million people and one-twelfth the American economy. As a result of the significance of this river, the Colorado is one of the most regulated waters in the world, yet drought concerns continue to proliferate due to climate change. Drawing from communication and political science literature, the media have frequently been cited as impacting the policy agenda, particularly local media. This paper addresses how the frequency of The Denver Post news reporting and its framing …

An Ecological Momentary Assessment Of Self-Improved And Self-Evaluation Body Comparisons: Associations With College Women's Body Dissatisfaction And Exercise, Rachel I. Macintyre, Kristin E. Heron, Abby L. Braitman, Danielle Arigo

Psychology Faculty Publications

Upward body comparisons are prevalent among college women and associated with body dissatisfaction and disordered eating. However, less is known about distinguishing features of the comparisons themselves as they occur in daily life. The primary purpose of the present study was to examine whether two types of upward body comparisons previously studied experimentally (self-improvement and self-evaluation) are differentially associated with body- and exercise-related outcomes in real-life settings using ecological momentary assessment (EMA). Undergraduate women (N = 74) between 18-25 years (Mage = 20.4, SD = 1.63) completed five surveys on smartphones daily for seven days. EMA measures …

Adolescent Perspectives On Media Use: A Qualitative Study, April Fiacco

Antioch University Full-Text Dissertations & Theses

This qualitative study looks at adolescents’ engagement with media and explores their perceptions of how media plays a role in their lives. For the purpose of this study, media includes watching television shows, watching and reading the news, and involvement in various types of social media. The influence of parents and peers is also explored to examine adolescents’ views of whether parent and peer opinions affect the types of media with which the adolescent participants choose to engage. The study used a semi structured interview to collect data with participants from a Massachusetts public high school. The data were analyzed …

The Cultivation Theory And Reality Television: An Old Theory With A Modern Twist, Jeffrey Weiss

Capstone Showcase

George Gerbner, a Hungarian-born professor of communication, founded the cultivation theory, one of the most popular and regarded theories in the communications world. Developed in the mid 20th century, the theory focus on the long-term effects of television on people. Longer exposure to signs, images and people on television cultivates their perception of reality in the real world. The television became a household staple during this time. Families often spent time together watching programming together, however, it played out different effects for each person. Television's constant visual and auditory stimulation on a person made it easier to cultivate certain messages, …

The Effect Of Newspaper Closure On Local Media Ecology, Cody David Nespor

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

On August 31, 2019, the local newspaper of Youngstown, Ohio, The Vindicator, ceased publication after 150 years. The Vindicator’s closure left Youngstown as the largest city in the United State without a major newspaper. As local newspaper closures become more and more common across communities, there are questions on how, and if, the coverage and content those newspaper provide to their communities can be replaced or will simply be lost forever. This study has three research questions. Question one pertains to the amount of original reporting that will exist without The Vindicator. Questions two asks about the amount of locally …