Communication Technology and New Media Commons^™

Identifying Youth Appeals In Alcohol Alternative Social Media Content Through Framing, Melina Oneal

West Chester University Master’s Theses

Proposed regulations for alcohol advertising prevent beverage companies from targeting people under the legal drinking age. However, similar regulations for alcohol alternative beverages are less explored, which could allow alcohol alternative products to create awareness for alcoholic beverages among youth. Alcohol alternatives beverages, including no-alcohol and low-alcohol products, are increasing in popularity and can function as compliments to alcoholic products to decrease the total alcohol volume consumed or as substitutes for alcoholic products. Framing theory can be operationalized through the Content Appealing to Youth Index, an index of content elements found in research literature to be appealing to youth, to …

(Re)Constructing National Memory In Neoliberal Chile Through Patricio Guzman's The Cordillera Of Dreams (2019), Mica Barrett

Scripps Senior Theses

One of the most renowned Chilean exile filmmakers is Patricio Guzmán. Best known for his documentary work regarding the Allende years, Guzmán has continued to make films regarding his homeland in the decades following his initial exile.

The Cordillera of Dreams is the concluding film in a trilogy exploring the natural lands of Chile and their relationship to physical remnants of the human past. The initial and most renowned film in the series, Nostalgia for the Light, centers the Atacama Desert and Chileans’ relationship to the geography as a gateway to revealing artifacts of Chile’s recent history of genocide …

Black Female Athletes’ Use Of Social Media For Activism: An Intersectional And Cyberfeminist Analysis Of U.S. Hammer-Thrower, Gwen Berry's 2019 And 2021 Podium Protests, Ariel Newell

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

Much attention has been paid to Black male athlete activism both historically and in the contemporary movement for black lives. Black female athletes have also made historic contributions as activists, and they continue to do so. However, Black female athlete activism has not always been acknowledged or heard. This is a problem, as Black women in American sports and society face overlapping racial and gender inequities and injustices that distinctly marginalize and oppress them. However, some Black female athlete activists (BFAAs) have begun using social media to challenge media narratives about themselves, to redefine what it means to be a …

Insight Into Project Insight: A Textual Analysis Of Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Samantha Margaret Morneau

Major Papers

This paper employs textual analysis to critically examine how the film Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014) represents post-9/11 surveillance technologies and techniques in light of the Edward Snowden revelations regarding data collection and analytics, the role of digital technologies in surveillance, and the sacrifice of democratic rights. It does this by employing David Lyon’s book Surveillance After Snowden (2015) to highlight core narrative points and scenic elements of the film that depict how surveillance is framed exclusively in terms of governmental surveillance practices, specifically drawing connections between the NSA and S.H.I.E.L.D. Focusing on narrative aspects of the film such …

Because Potato, Candice Evers

MFA in Illustration & Visual Culture

This thesis project explores the phenomenological qualities of the internet; asking, since the internet is difficult to grasp, what other modes of investigation might we have available? Using an investigative framework set forth by Jack Halberstam, this thesis declines to come to knowledge solely through understanding the formal, the structural, the highly visible and mainstream. The literature that I have gathered provides a range of modes for interrogating the simultaneously central and inconsequential subject of my thesis itself: the potato. Juxtaposing the physical, political and material conditions of the potato the internet’s least academic mode of knowing: the meme. Analyzing …

The Great Resignation: A Content Analysis Of News Sources' Portrayals Of The Covid-19 Labor Shortage., Mackenzie Williams

College of Arts & Sciences Senior Honors Theses

When workers left the labor market in large numbers during the COVID-19 pandemic, proclamations of a labor shortage emerged extensively throughout the news. In this study, I analyze the coverage of the worker shortage among three news sources with different political orientations. Several themes emerged from analyzing a total of 75 articles. The findings showed that the perspective shown in the article, the cause of the labor shortage, restaurant worker portrayal, support of solutions, and opinion of the labor shortage all differed based on the political identity of the news source. This research supports previous findings that show there is …

Indie Developers And The Queer Content Renaissance In Video Games, 2013-2017, Shane Michael Hansaruk Mr.

Major Papers

Queer content in video games has existed since the 1970s, but as time and technology have progressed, so too have the potential for queer content in video games. During the mid-2010’s, a sudden increase in the number of games with queer content began, lasting between the years 2013 and 2017. This research project examines this period in great detail to determine the cause of this drastic increase. Through examining queer games literature, two queer games databases, and two select titles from this period, I determine that independent, or “indie” developers, have a substantial impact on the increase of queer games …

The Disconnected Podcast, Sydney Wright

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Humans are social creatures. Yet when the pandemic forced the world into lockdown, social interaction became limited and more intentional. I explore the forms of communication people turned to during this time through a series of podcast episodes. I interview people who can provide first-hand experiences of how major areas of life changed. The areas I focused on are digital literacy in the elderly, online connections versus in-person ones, telehealth, education, journalism, and social media. The episodes can be listened to on the Disconnected website.

Theorizing #Girlboss Culture: Mediated Neoliberal Feminisms From Influencers To Multi-Level Marketing Schemes, Frankie Mastrangelo

Theses and Dissertations

I define girlboss feminism as emergent, mediated formations of neoliberal feminism that equate feminist empowerment with financial success, market competition, individualized work-life balance, and curated digital and physical presences driven by self-monetization. I look toward how the mediation of girlboss feminism utilizes branded and affective engagements with representational politics, discourses of authenticity and rebellion, as well as meritocratic aspiration to promote cultural interest in conceptualizing feminism in ways that are divorced from collective, intersectional struggle. I question the stakes involved in reducing feminist interrogations and commitments to discourses of representation, visibility, and meritocracy. I argue that while girlboss feminism may …

Hear Me Roar, Abigail R. Seethoff

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Hear Me Roar, a compilation of personal essays interspersed with short forms, grapples with the nuances of compliance versus autonomy in the context of the male gaze, beauty standards, and pop culture. The collection also explores what it means to treasure something—another person, an object—and how to express and deepen that affection.

Like Me: Generation Z, Instagram, And Self-Branding Practices, Emily Longley

Scripps Senior Theses

The newest generation, raised and immersed in today's hyper-consumer culture, has learned to define the self within a neoliberal and capitalist framework in which self-branding and ascribing to hegemonic principles appears imperative to one’s personal success.

Stay Woke, Langston A. Williams

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Throughout the pages of my thesis, I comprehensively analyze the processes, intentions, and production of my thesis film Stay Woke. My examination will exhaustively probe every stage of the film from development to preproduction to production to postproduction and beyond. Individual aspects of this process including writing, casting, locations, production design, cinematography, directing, budgeting, scheduling, and postproduction workflows will be detailed. As I make elaborations in each section, I will explain my learning experiences from each day’s new tasks, challenges, and lessons. All of these things will be framed with regards to the overall goal and themes of the …

Women, Convergent Film Criticism, And The Cinephilia Of Feminist Interruptions, Rachel L. Thibault

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation examines the ways in which female film critics practice film criticism in the convergent age. In original research drawn from ethnographic interviews with eight female film critics and bloggers as well as textual, historical, and reception analyses of criticism, this dissertation argues that women who write film criticism in the convergent era are not only writing from a space of marginalization based on the patriarchal dominance of the film industry, but also face a series of obstacles through gendered and discursive conflicts that are unique to writing online and which do not exert the same impact on male …

The Big Short, Elizabeth Armon

Communication Studies

The Big Short (McKay, 2015), adapted from the non-fiction novel The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine by Michael Lewis (2010), follows three separate but parallel stories leading up to the United States housing crisis of 2008. On a macro-level, the film brilliantly depicted the creation, and the ultimate burst, of the credit and housing market bubble. However, on a micro-level the audience is given an opportunity to realize and empathize with the internal struggle that many of the main characters faced as they grappled with the fact that their financial gain from shorting the market came with the caveat …

Confirmation Of Prophecy By Proxy: Audience Anticipation And Reception Of The 2014 Movie Left Behind And Its Relevance To The Dispensational Premillennialist Worldview, Andrew R. Burns

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Media has the potential to legitimize or spread a belief system to the general public. The 2014 movie Left Behind is an example of a deliberate attempt at promoting the belief system referred to as dispensational premillennialism (DPM), or belief in the imminent rapture of Christians. Producers of Left Behind (2014) sought to promote DPM to the general public, hoping for a mass conversion. Online discussion and interviews were gathered and interpreted qualitatively. Content analysis of audience anticipation and reception show believers were as concerned with the conversion of the general public via this movie than the movie itself. Differences …

Navigating The Social Landscape: An Exploration Of Social Networking Site Usage Among Emerging Adults, Kristen Colbeck

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This study explores how emerging adults (Arnett, 2000) in their first- and second-year of undergraduate study make use of social networking sites (SNSs) for their day-to-day sociality. This study compares emerging adults’ use of Facebook, which is the most popular and widely used SNS among this particular demographic, to increasingly popular SNSs Twitter and Instagram. This project seeks to discover how the use of different SNSs supplements, changes, or replaces the use of Facebook, considering social capital exists on each platform, and if and how each sites’ uses and gratifications differ. This study employs face-to-face semi-structured interviews to pursue the …

Breaking Into The Business: A Guide To Creating A Dynamic Resume Reel And Securing A Job In Today’S Television News Industry, Christina Favuzzi

Journalism

Broadcast journalists are experiencing turbulence in their field of expertise due to increasing digitalization and decreased funding. It is becoming commonplace for reporters to work as one-man-bands, or “multimedia journalists,” shooting and editing their own video in addition to writing and reporting. For people looking to begin a career in the highly competitive broadcast news industry, there is a great deal of information to understand and consider prior to beginning the job search. Creating a dynamic resume reel is central to landing a job as an on-air reporter. However, with the development of digital-first and multimedia journalism, there are certain …

Social Media & Audience Participation In Regard To Television, Jean Marie Mcbride

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

Jean McBride

Major: Communications: Radio/TV Broadcasting & Mass Media Production

Project Sponsor: Dr. Sylvia White

Number of Project Credits: 3

Social Media & Audience Participation in Regard to Television

The purpose of my honors project was seeing if social media had an influence on television show ratings and popularity by incorporating audience participation. Especially in regards to television shows that have been around for years, I was interested to see if television ratings went up when using Twitter compared to when they did not use Twitter to increase viewers and audience participation. I surveyed forty-nine collegiate women between the ages …

Multimedia Use In Small News Organizations, Robyn K. Keriazes

Honors Theses and Capstones

No abstract provided.

Promoting A Benefit Concert With Digital Media, Aubrea Felch

Graphic Communication

The introduction of digital media in mass communication and advertising had a powerful impact on the event planning industry, specifically in the promotion of benefit concerts. Not only can digital media promote an event, but it can also help event coordinators establish an image for themselves, be used as a means of benefiting those who have donated to the cause, and enhance the event itself. All digital media can be put into several different classifications: digital audio, digital video, digital photography, Internet technology, and interactive Internet applications. This study asks the question: In what ways can an event planner use …

Political Cartoons And Graphic Novels: A Study Of Political And Social Commentary In Comics, Daniella Orihuela-Gruber

Journalism

No abstract provided.