Communication Commons^™

Framing Race: An Analysis Of Media Coverage Of The Racially Motivated Murders Of Emmett Till And Trayvon Martin, Chloe Jackson

Honors Theses

In August 1955, Emmett Till, a 14-year-old Black boy from Chicago, was brutally murdered by two white men for “wolf whistling” at a white woman. Fifty-seven years later, 17-year-old Trayvon Martin was shot and killed by a neighborhood watchman on February 26, 2012. The unwarranted killings of these two Black boys caused uproars across the entire country. This study examines how the media framed and represented Till and Martin in the cases of their racially motivated murders. Prior research shows that Black male youth are framed in the media as deviant and lawless, continuously being represented as criminals. However, there …

Looking Back At The Media's Future: A Mixed Method Analysis Of Race And Gender Bias During The 2008 Democratic Presidential Primary Season, Tim Vance

Dissertations

Political knowledge has been defined as the individual’s ability to recall candidate names, personal characteristics, and qualifications. Furthermore, it is the ability to identify election issues, current campaign developments, and recognize connections between candidates and issue positions (C. Atkin & Heald, 1976). I posit that political knowledge has become much more…and much less.

I have introduced, in this paper, a number of sources for political learning: ads, newspapers, YouTube, and television news. All hold some interest for investigation as political knowledge sources, but methodology cannot be standardized across all sources. As such, the focus of the qualitative part of this …

Lgbt Parents On American Television, Heather Kahn

Honors Theses

Television is an ever changing medium used in mass communication, and people often rely on this medium for knowledge about different subjects. This study demonstrates how television depictions of marginalized groups can change over time. Focusing specifically on a subset of the LGBT community – parents – this study documents the evolution of LGBT parents on American television. A total of 14 television shows were selected for a qualitative analysis. The parents depicted in these shows were analyzed according to gender, race, class and sexuality. The results were then summarized and put into historical context. This study contributes to the …