Communication Commons^™

Online News Portrayal During The Covid-19 Health Crisis And Journalism's Role In Misinformation In The U.S., Michou Ducilon

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought a wealth of new information regarding the virus's origin and treatment. Regrettably, the vast amount of online information has resulted in the proliferation of misinformation, as the World Health Organization reported. To investigate whether journalists may have contributed to this problem, a qualitative analysis was conducted on 15 news articles from top-tier media outlets. Using NVivo software, the articles were analyzed to identify linguistic words and visuals that fell into coding categories based on Behrendt's (2008) contextual analysis for evaluating text. Each article was then coded again to identify common themes. During this process, new …

What On Earth Are We Doing (?): A Field-Wide Exploration Of Design Courses In Tpc, Jessica L. Griffith

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study explores design related courses within the field of Technical and Professional Communication (TPC) to uncover programmatic trends in undergraduate courses at a field wide level. This applied study uses a mixed methods approach to understand the following questions: what do the range of design courses look like in the field of TPC, how are these courses taught, and what would an effective design course look like? To answer these questions, this study uses a mix of three types of data: (1) institutional data on courses, (2) interviews with faculty and administrators who have taught (or are currently teaching) …

Reviving The Christian Left: A Thematic Analysis Of Progressive Christian Identity In American Politics, Adam Blake Arledge

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

While Christianity in American politics today is mostly dominated by the voice of the Religious Right, many are unaware that there also exists a significant number of progressive Christians throughout the country. This diverse group, often referred to as the Christian Left, is not as organized or outspoken as conservative Christians and tends to shy away from the restrictive influence of identity labels. However, members all share in common a passion for social justice issues. This study aims to gain a deeper understanding of the identity of Christian Left individuals through a thematic analysis of interviews. By interrogating participants’ identity …

An Analysis Of International Soccer Fans’ Knowledge Of Qatar, Perceptions Of Qatar’S Country Image, And Intention To Support The 2022 Fifa World Cup, Taleb Al-Adbah

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

International sporting competitions have become an essential tool for countries to promote a favorable image of themselves around the world. This study focuses on the FIFA 2022 World Cup, which will be hosted by Qatar - the first Arab country ever to host the event. Since 2010, when Qatar was awarded the FIFA 2022 World Cup, several studies have shown that soccer fans are hesitant to attend matches in Qatar. This study investigates the correlations between soccer fans’ level of knowledge, soccer fans’ perception of Qatar using a 4D model of country image, and soccer fans’ behavioral intention to support …

Grey’S Anatomy And End Of Life Ethics, Sean Micheal Swenson

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In this qualitative study, I analyze three episodes of the prime-time television medical drama Grey’s Anatomy to explore how the show stages conversations of end of life. I extend the work of end of life ethicists with attention to the ways that media may/should/could be used to teach and reflect issues of dying in America. Performing a close textual analysis, I identified two modes of storytelling within the structure of these episodes: Documentary Realism and Melodrama. I argue that if we are to understand medical dramas as a tool for the dissemination of information about end of life ethics, we …

Pad Beyond The Classroom: Integrating Pad In The Scrum Workplace, Jade S. Weiss

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Purpose: The “story” format used in Scrum ticket writing is confusing to developers and leadsto insufficient ticket content, which lends to miscommunication between team members and administrators, and disrupts workflow from the bottom up. A burgeoning methodology in Technical Writing, Purpose, Audience, Design (PAD) is an alternative ticket format that is easier to teach developers and improves the aforementioned conditions than the existing “story” format. The goal of this paper is to lay out why and how PAD can benefit developers on smaller Scrum teams who are tasked with writing their own tickets. This paper does not offer solutions for …

Curricular Assemblages: Understanding Student Writing Knowledge (Re)Circulation Across Genres, Adam Phillips

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation proposes that the field of Writing Studies (WS) as well as writing program administrators (WPAs) should integrate quantitative methods into curricular assessment in order to improve pedagogical practices within their curricula. Through the use of the theoretical framework of assemblage theory, a theory that has been underutilized within WS, and the lens of linguistic, cultural, and substantive (LCS) language patterns, this study attempts to identify and understand student writing knowledge circulation and recirculation within one local curriculum. As well, with the incorporation of technological tools such as RAND-Lex, WPAs and WS researchers can identify granular patterns within student …

The Media Reproduction Of Racial Violence: A Content Analysis Of News Coverage Following The Death Of George Floyd Jr., Keylon Lovett

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The media has played a critical role in reproducing anti-Black violence in the United States, which has often harmed African American communities. Historically, the white press has depicted graphic imagery and descriptions of Black people being brutalized, with little ethical regard to their harmful effects. The Black press has historically challenged negative portrayals in the white media and shown more nuance, to protect the Black audience it represents. This dynamic underpins media depictions of racial violence still seen today. Darnella Frazier’s video capture of George Floyd’s death by Minneapolis police, was widely shared in the weeks following the incident, across …

A Field-Wide Examination Of Cross-Listed Courses In Technical Professional Communication, Carolyn M. Gubala

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study assesses cross-listed courses (courses with a mix of undergraduate and graduate students) to uncover current pedagogical and programmatic trends at a field-wide level. The applied mixed-methods study provides important foundational insights into an under researched area in Technical and Professional Communication (TPC). Research questions include: What courses are cross-listed? How does offering these courses affect writing programs and writing program administration? Through the use of three types of data: (1) course data from institutional documents, (2) interview data from program administrators and/or faculty, and (3) pedagogical materials (syllabi and assignment sheets) from the courses supplied by administrators or …

When I Rhyme It’S Sincerely Yours: Burkean Identification And Jay-Z’S Black Sincerity Rhetoric In The Post Soul Era, Antoine Francis Hardy

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

‌ ‌ The‌ ‌slang,‌ ‌attitude,‌ ‌cultural‌ ‌memory,‌ ‌creativity‌ ‌and‌ ‌innovation‌ ‌of‌ ‌African‌ ‌diasporic‌ ‌youth‌ ‌created‌ ‌a‌ ‌ global‌ ‌cultural‌ ‌movement-hip-hop--that‌ ‌informs‌ ‌all‌ ‌aspects‌ ‌of‌ ‌our‌ ‌society.‌ ‌In‌ ‌this‌ ‌dissertation;‌ ‌ however,‌ ‌I‌ ‌examine‌ ‌how‌ ‌post-soul‌ ‌hip-hop‌ ‌featured‌ ‌black‌ ‌cultural‌ ‌conversations,‌ ‌specifically‌ ‌the‌ ‌ ‘conversation’‌ ‌between‌ ‌Jay-Z‌ ‌and‌ ‌his‌ ‌imagined‌ ‌black‌ ‌audience.‌ ‌Over‌ ‌the‌ ‌past‌ ‌25‌ ‌years‌ ‌Jay-Z‌ ‌has‌ ‌been‌ ‌ known‌ ‌as‌ ‌one‌ ‌of‌ ‌the‌ ‌most‌ ‌acclaimed‌ ‌and‌ ‌successful‌ ‌recording‌ ‌artists‌ ‌of‌ ‌his‌ ‌time;‌ ‌however‌ ‌this‌ ‌study‌ ‌ examines‌ ‌what‌ ‌I‌ ‌term‌ ‌his‌ ‌‌black‌ ‌sincerity‌ ‌rhetoric‌ ‌(BSR)‌.‌ ‌At‌ ‌times‌ ‌Jay-Z‌ ‌is‌ ‌praised‌ ‌for‌ ‌his‌ ‌commitment‌ ‌to‌ ‌ community‌ ‌in‌ ‌verse;‌ …

Women Entrepreneurs In China: Dialectical Discourses, Situated Activities, And The (Re)Production Of Gender And Entrepreneurship, Zhenyu Tian

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Despite the number of women entrepreneurs on the rise globally, the business world and the identity of the entrepreneur remain to be normed masculine and male gender stereotyped. This male gender stereotyping situates women who practice entrepreneurship in disadvantages, limiting their access to resources on which they depend to make meaning of their activities and identities. This imbalanced masculine gender order also manifests in China’s economy. Women entrepreneurs in China face complex contradictions and challenges when navigating an arena that privileges men and masculinity. However, not much is known about the micro-dynamics of Chinese women’s entrepreneurial experiences in light of …

Peminist Performance In/As Filipina Feminist Praxis: Collaging Stand-Up Comedy And The Narrative Points In Between, Christina-Marie A. Magalona

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This project documents the interdependent effort between performers, authors, and texts, through re/theorizing the role of the personal narrator in autoperformance as both an individual, and a part of a political collective. Through a scripted and staged performance, studied as the data, I critically engage with representations of first-generation women of color via comediennes (Ali Wong and Cristela Alonzo) and their personal narratives, and dialogically consider moments of dis/identification as a Filipina American.

Rooted in performance in/and communication studies, the overarching method employed is conspicuous aesthetic performance, via a scripted and staged narrative performance. I join performance and other methods …

The Communicative Constitution Of Environment: Land, Weather, Climate, Leanna K. Smithberger

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

My project examines the communicative constitution of environment: how we mediate environment in discursive practice, and arrange chaotic and complex timeplaces into organized relationships of agents and objects which act and are acted upon. Climate scholars across disciplines are calling for a paradigm shift in how we understand, study, inhabit, and relate to Earth’s varied environments. In this dissertation, I demonstrate how communication practices do the work of constituting the environment as we know it, and therefore conclude with the hopeful suggestion that these same practices can be used to do the work of a paradigm shift — that is, …

A Visit To Cuba: Performance Ethnography Of Place, Adolfo Lagomasino

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Bestowed to the Cuban government in 1956, The Parque Amigos de José Martí in Ybor City, FL is a historical site intended to symbolize the relationship between Tampa and Cuba that facilitated Cuba’s independence. Cuban cultural identity and the sense of Cubaness are confounded by the history of exile and the constraints of the United States Embargo. This project articulates the experience of the Cuban exile community and their descendants through descriptive accounts of visiting the Parque Amigos de José Martí. Visiting a place is framed as a means of identity performance and a method of performance ethnography, enabling discursive, …

When The Beat Drops: Exploring Hip Hop, Home And Black Masculinity, Marquese Lamont Mcferguson

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In this autoethnographic dissertation, I take readers on a narrative journey to three of my storied homeplaces and explore my lived experiences within each site. In the process of exploring my homeplaces, I analyze how I perform my black masculine self within the context of each location, how my cultural body supports and challenges hegemonic black masculinity, and how each location constrains and frees up my performance of self. With this dissertation, I will contribute to the field of communication studies by extending the method and writing practice of autoethnography, the theorization of the black masculine, and the exploration of …

9/11 Then And Now: How The Performance Of Memorial Rhetoric By Presidents Changes To Construct Heroes, Kristen M. Grafton

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study is concerned with American presidential rhetoric at the cross-section of hero rhetoric and memorial address. It analyzes presidential memorialization of the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. 9/11 is arguably the most significant tragedy in recent American history. The purpose of this study is to identify the type of hero each president since 9/11 has attempted to construct of himself for the public and discuss the rationale behind that hero construction. To complete this objective, I analyze the second 9/11 memorial speech from the presidencies of Bush, Obama, and Trump for hero construction. A close reading examining the …

Elemental Climate Disaster Texts And Queer Ecological Temporality, Laura Mattson

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis approaches climate disaster texts as an opportunity to challenge constructions of the body, space, and time. Developed from embodied experiential knowledge about hurricanes, my work will explore how climate disasters can teach us to reimagine human-nature relationships. In my two analysis chapters, I use critical textual analysis and autoethnography to challenge particular representations of the human-nature relationship as a binary between nature and culture. By intervening in the nature-culture binary, I theorize queer ecological temporality as an opportunity to reveal and challenge constructions of nature and time. Working at the intersections of queer and ecocritical theory, this thesis …

Representations Of Indian Christians In Bollywood Movies, Ryan A. D'Souza

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation uses discursive formation as the methodological approach to examine representations of Indian Christians in eleven Bollywood movies released during the 2004-2014 decade. The decade witnessed the exit and eventual re-entry of the Hindu Right, and the citizenry during that period experienced centrist, liberal, and secular governance. Since the present of Indian Christianity is inextricable from a colonial past, and Bollywood emerges in response to colonialism, a postcolonial intervention in methodology and theory is undertaken. A postcolonial perspective illuminates the discourses that enable the formation of the postcolonial nation, i.e., the ways a nation imagines its culture, people, traditions, …

The Peruvian Minstrel: An Analysis Of The Representations Of Blackness In The Performance Of El Negro Mama From 1995 To 2016, Ana Lucía Mosquera Rosado

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Peruvian mass media has failed in addressing and representing the cultural and ethnic diversity of its country, as the presence and representation of ethnic minorities (indigenous and Afro-Peruvian) are almost exclusively reduced to the reproduction of stereotypes in comedy shows, in which they are often racialized and the target of offenses directly related with their ethnic identities. The analysis will focus on the figure of El Negro Mama, a very popular character in Peruvian television thought to be a portrait of the Afro-Peruvian population. Through the use of textual analysis, the paper will explore of this character in order to …

Objectification Of Women In Bollywood Item Numbers, Zahabia Z. Slatewala

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Although sexual objectification is commonplace in media culture, music videos provide the most potent examples of it. The current investigation makes an important contribution to the relevant literature regarding the objectification of women in song lyrics while simultaneously broadening the content used to assess objectification. It reflects the ways of objectification of women in India by analyzing Bollywood rap and item songs. Based on objectification theory, one of the primary goals in the present study was to measure differences between visual and behavioral sexual objectification, drawing on theoretically derived indicators of sexual objectification. It also concentrated on measuring the change …

The Spectacle Of The Bomb: Rhetorical Analysis Of Risk Of The Nevada Test Site In Technical Communication, Popular Press, And Pop Culture, Tiffany Wilgar

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation is a rhetorical analysis of presentations of risk across three different sites of inquiry: technical communication, the popular press, and pop culture. This dissertation focuses on The Nevada Test Site (NTS), a nuclear testing facility near Las Vegas, Nevada, and analyzes presentations of risk in language of the technical report following an NTS accident in December 1970. Project Baneberry, a routine underground nuclear test, became the accident known as "The Baneberry Vent" when it cracked through the earth and vented into the atmosphere, exposing NTS employees and nearby communities to radiation. Presentations of risk in the technical document …

Becoming A Woman Of Isis, Zoe D. Fine

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In this study, I examine how terrorism is produced and consumed in communication. Using discourse analysis, I investigate how terrorism is constituted in the accounts of four women described in online news reports as having joined, or almost joined the so-called Islamic State (IS): “Alex,” constructed as having been lonely and flirted with IS; “Khadija,” presented as a schoolteacher turned member of IS’s all-women’s brigade; Laura, described as a woman whose partner abandoned her, who met a man online, and who brought her son with her to join IS; and Tareena, referred to as a health worker who brought her …

The Portrayal Of Women In The Oldest Russian Women’S Magazine “Rabotnitsa” From 1970-2017, Anastasiia Utiuzh

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study focuses on the portrayal of women images in Russia, particularly the transformation from Soviet woman to modern woman based on the analysis of one of the oldest Russian women’s magazine- “Rabotnitsa”. The sample for this study covers two periods: three decades of Russia during the era of the Soviet Union period (1970-1990) and two decades of the Post-Soviet period (1991-2017). A total of 586 relevant images were identified; 311 images by Rabotnitsa over the three decades during the Soviet Union’s period by random sampling of 20 issues published by Rabotnitsa between 1970- 1990, and 275 images by Rabotnitsa …

Analysis Of User Interfaces In The Sharing Economy, Taylor B. Johnson

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis considers claims of discrimination and the interfaces that six platforms use as companies in the sharing economy.

In 2015, Benjamin Edelman, Michael Luca, and an Svirsky did an experiment with Airbnb to test the discrimination of names that sounded distinctly African American. Before and after their findings, there were members of the community who claimed that they had been discriminated against, some suing the company for not upholding their anti-discrimination policy. This leads to the question of how is one able to discriminate against someone whom they have never met and lives thousands of miles away? What information …

Documenting An Imperfect Past: Examining Tampa's Racial Integration Through Community, Film, And Remembrance Of Central Avenue, Travis R. Bell

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This research examines the Civil Rights Movement in Tampa, Florida through documentary film to recognize an imperfect past and visually reconstruct Central Avenue as a physical and Thirdspace site of remembrance located at an intersection of race and community. Motivated by an ethnographic approach and through community engagement, Tampa Technique: Rise, Demise, and Remembrance of Central Avenue is a 54-minute film that explores Central Avenue’s rise to prominence through segregation, its physical and symbolic demise as a racialized site of communal space, and how it is remembered through collective and public memory in the location it once occupied. Documentary film …

Performing Narrative Medicine: Understanding Familial Chronic Illness Through Performance, Alyse Keller

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study presents the process of creating a performance ethnography of my family’s narratives about familial chronic illness and disability. I label this process performing narrative medicine. By documenting and granularly analyzing the process of my performance ethnography, the following chapters provide a step-by-step discussion of how families communicate about chronic illness/disability through storytelling and humor, and how/what performance does as a method, metaphor and object of study to further our current communicative practices and understandings of chronic illness and disability in families. I argue that performing narrative medicine is a heuristic for families living with chronic illness and …

Chemotherapy-Induced Alopecia And Quality-Of-Life: Ovarian And Uterine Cancer Patients And The Aesthetics Of Disease, Meredith L. Clements

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study is an examination of ovarian and uterine cancer patients’ perceptions of chemotherapy-induced alopecia and how it impacts quality-of-life over the course of chemotherapy. The chapters in this dissertation address the following research questions: How do ovarian and uterine cancer patients communicate about their experiences of alopecia over the course of chemotherapy? How does chemotherapy-induced alopecia influence patients’ understandings of quality-of-life? Longitudinal interviews were conducted with a patient population of twenty-three, and each patient was interviewed at least twice over the course of chemotherapy. The data set was composed of fifty-five interviews, and a thematic analysis was performed across …

Countering The Questionable Actions Of The Cpd And Fec, Brian C. Cole

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

For his study, the author determines whether the Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD) and the Federal Elections Commission (FEC) are sovereign entities, or if they are pawns of the Democratic and Republican parties (Political Duopoly) aimed to prevent smaller candidates from participating in the CPD’s Presidential Debates.

The author’s rationale for his research is based on the fact that, despite a large majority of American voters want to hear other voices in the CPD debates, the CPD has not allowed other voices to participate in the debates since 1992, through use of the CPD’s fifteen-percent support requirement. Every time an …

Practical Theology In An Interpretive Community: An Ethnography Of Talk, Texts And Video In A Mediated Women's Bible Study, Nancie Hudson

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study of social interaction in a small religious group used ethnography of communication as a research method to collect and analyze data from 20 months of fieldwork. As a long-term participant-observer in a women-only interdenominational Bible study, I investigated the group’s patterned ways of speaking, how print and electronic learning materials influenced the practical application of Scripture to daily life, and how the contemporary format for women’s Bible study alters the traditional Bible study experience. Patterned ways of speaking in this setting included group discussions and conversational narratives about religion, motherhood and lack of time. Using affirmations of faith, …

Institutional Review Boards And Writing Studies Research: A Justice-Oriented Study, Johanna Phelps-Hillen

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In this multi-method dissertation project I conduct policy analysis and utilize results from a discipline-wide survey (n=258) to examine the intersection of Writing Studies researchers’ disciplinary affiliation, research context, and personal disposition in relation to the local implementation of federal policy regarding human subjects research. I elaborate on the context of this project, discussing the September 2015 release of the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) to revise and update the Common Rule, 45.CFR Part 46, and the Conference on College Composition and Communication’s formal comment in response to the proposed rule’s provisions. I discuss the process of designing and implementing …