Communication Technology and New Media Commons^™

Writing Towards Radicalism: On Biased Reporting & Its Effects On U.S. Extremism, Martha Tyler

Cybersecurity Undergraduate Research Showcase

Perceived influxes in biased reporting, disparities in reporting versus reality, and other factors have led many Americans to question the legitimacy of their most-frequented sources. These sentiments have encouraged migration from traditional sources to alternative ones, exposing many Americans to polarizing media. This report argues that unaddressed inadequacies in reporting force Americans to contend with a distorted reality or try their luck on the path toward alternative media.

“Acts Of Pure Evil”: The Portrayal Of Mass Shooting Events On Online Media Platforms, Elizabeth Twitty

Sociology & Criminal Justice Theses & Dissertations

As media continues to integrate into everyday life, it is essential to critically examine the media and the messages that are forwarded to the public, who often lack personal knowledge of crime and justice issues, and thus rely on news media to glean information. This effort, also called media criminology, seeks to understand the media and the effect it has on understanding societal issues. This project forwards media criminology by examining online news articles, as media criminology has historically focused on traditional media formats, such as newspaper and television. Online news has surpassed these traditional formats and has become a …

The Myth & Legend Of E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial On The Atari 2600: The Fan’S Quick Start And Strategy Guide, Miguel Ramlatchan, William I. Ramlatchan

Distance Learning Faculty & Staff Books

As an instructional designer and technologist, my goal with this book is remarkably simple, to consolidate and create a job aid for a complex and often frustrating/misunderstood quest. Rather than hunting all over the Internet, the map, tips, and information about the game are all gathered and summarized here. Also, rather than being an obscure Easter Egg in Amazon (like an Earnest Cline/James Halliday egg, especially on the hidden Pacman arcade game), I want to make this guide easier to find. Along with the nostalgia, classic video games and the technology and applied message design behind their creation are fascinating, …

Critical Media Literacy And Black Female Identity Construction: A Conceptual Framework For Empowerment, Equity, And Social Justice In Education, Petra A. Robinson, Ayana Allen-Handy, Kala Burrell-Craft

Educational Foundations & Leadership Faculty Publications

This paper addresses the issues of knowledge production, which interrogate and disrupt dominant narratives that subjugate Black females related to their identity. We contextualize our discussion through the lens of critical consciousness and critical media literacy by exploring the role of popular media in identity development/imposition for Black females. We outline issues of Black female identity politics by framing them through the description of critical media literacy as a 21st century literacy, with Black Feminist Theory as our theoretical lens. Similar discussions have remained centered in the field of Media Studies and there has been inadequate attention to these issues …

Media Trust In America: Examining The Perspective Of Va College-Age Individuals, Ryan Whitmer

Virginias Collegiate Honors Council Conference

National statistics have been gathered for decades on public trust in mass media. Yet today, at a critical point in American history, this trust is on a severe decline. Are these findings reflective of the rising generation— that is, college-age youth? Data collected from college students in Southern Virginia reveal that there are significantly different opinions, particularly in the areas of overall trust and on the belief that trust can be restored. Additionally, college-age students show partisan divides opposite to the national average, as well as no variances between gender or race. These findings make it abundantly clear that actions …

Must Stay Woke: Black Celebrity Voices Of Dissent In The Post Post-Racial Era, Lily Kunda

Institute for the Humanities Theses

In today’s racially charged climate there is an expectation that black celebrities cry out #BlackLivesMatter, get on the field to #TakeAKnee and be #UnapologeticallyBlack whenever they are in the spotlight. This climate transcends what was once seen as a post-racial America— a time where the media portrayed race as no longer being an issue— and encourages black celebrities to address racism. Prior research on black celebrities by Sarah J. Jackson, Ellis Cashmore, bell hooks, James Baldwin and others acknowledges the historical burden placed on black celebrities to publicly discuss racism and represent blackness in order to challenge dominant narratives. Today, …

#Metoo And The Politics Of Collective Healing: Emotional Connection As Contestation, Allison Page, Jacquelyn Arcy

Communication & Theatre Arts Faculty Publications

Participants in the #MeToo movement on Twitter expressed emotions like rage, pain, and solidarity in their personal accounts of sexual violence. This article explores the digital circulation of these affects and considers how the outpouring of tweets about sexual harassment and abuse contribute to a feminist politics centered on collective healing. The particular emotions expressed in the #MeToo Twitter archive subvert the logics of quantification and visibility that undergird popular feminism and the attention economy, and produce an affective excess that works toward movement founder Tarana Burke’s original project of “mass healing.” At a moment wherein popular feminism emphasizes individual …

Hashmoney: Exploring Twitter Hashtag Use As A Secondary Ticket Market Price Determinant, Brendan O'Hallarn, Stephen L. Shapiro, Ann Pegoraro

Communication & Theatre Arts Faculty Publications

The growth and prevalence of sport event ticket transactions on secondary ticket market platforms such as StubHub has led to the creation of a body of academic research studying this new phenomenon. Factors such as team performance and perceptions of fairness have been explored for their relationship with the price of secondary market tickets. This exploratory study introduces a new potential price determinant – social media activity – itself a popular online phenomenon that has inspired considerable academic research. This exploratory study of prices for eight National Football League games adds use of official team hashtags on Twitter to a …

"Warning: This Is A Must Read": Participation And Disruption In Social Artifacts And Spaces, Angela M. Harrison Eng

English Theses & Dissertations

As I show in three separate case studies, content, technology, and participant relationships are key components in the design of social artifacts and spaces. One study highlights the invention and evolution of content across multiple spaces. The second shows content used as leverage for authority. The last case study examines the relationship between content and technological interfaces and how disruption may not always be successful.

All of these components make up what I refer to as disruption. Disruption describes participant acts that are executed to change existing power-based structures of information sharing. Using the insights gained from this research, I …

There Is No Word For Work In The Dragon Tongue, Kevin Moberly, Brent Moberly

English Faculty Publications

The past decade or so has witnessed a relatively steady stream of scholarly interest in the mundane medieval—in labor, local economies, and their influence upon wider cultural production.¹ Despite this interest (and perhaps as a reaction to it), popular medievalism has continued to emphasize versions of the medieval that are decidedly more heroic—productions that are simultaneously (and paradoxically) more “realistic” and more “fantastic.” Labor plays, at best, a supporting role in these fantasies: while not absent, it rarely, if ever, has the same productive presence as it does in recent scholarly treatments of medieval economies. Inasmuch as popular medievalism …

Commodifying Scarcity: Society, Struggle, And Spectacle In World Of Warcraft, Kevin Moberly

English Faculty Publications

Overrun by monsters and tyrants, and ravaged by fanaticism, excess, and greed, World of Warcraft offers players a chance to struggle metaphorically against that which oppresses them: the excesses of late capitalism as they are represented by the game’s spectacular antagonisms. In order to take advantage of this opportunity, however, players must employ the very thing through which their oppression is manifested. Interpellated into the game as fetishized images, players must construct themselves and function in accordance with the limitations imposed upon them by the race and class of their characters. Players, as such, are incorporated into World of Warcraft’s …

United States Diplomacy In The Age Of The Internet, Allison S. Greene

Graduate Program in International Studies Theses & Dissertations

The dynamics of international relations are constantly changing, and the origin of an extraordinary amount of that change can be traced to what has been coined the ‘Information Revolution.’ It is a revolution as profound and as significant as Gutenberg's invention of moveable metal type, and may result in social and political consequences of comparable magnitude. One of the most significant and far-reaching implications of this phenomenon is the emergence of the Internet. Since its inception, there have been many claims and assertions about existing and potential repercussions of the Internet within the diplomatic realm.

The purpose of this work …