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An Open Conversation: Deliberating Perceptions Of Power Through New Media, Abigail Barnes
An Open Conversation: Deliberating Perceptions Of Power Through New Media, Abigail Barnes
Dissertations
This research aims to investigate aims to critically assess how mediated participants utilize new media spheres deliberate upon perceptions of power through rhetorical criticism and critical discourse analysis. Since the conception of social media, users have utilized the platforms to network, negotiate, and dissent from controversies through mediated public deliberation. The present study aims to nuance how Habermas’ original conception of deliberative rhetoric has transformed through new media deliberation. To exemplify this change in deliberative rhetoric, the present study will also critically evaluate online social movements through the case study of the AOC Tik Tok Challenge, responses to online controversies …
Exploring Demagoguery And Political Rhetoric’S Impact Through Social Media, Avery Palsma
Exploring Demagoguery And Political Rhetoric’S Impact Through Social Media, Avery Palsma
Honors Thesis
Demagoguery refers to political rhetoric and activity that seeks support by appealing to the desires and prejudices of ordinary people. Demagogues are political leaders, such as Donald Trump and Adolf Hitler, who gain power by using a destructive approach to popular discourse. They influence culture by perpetuating and influencing ideologies, allowing them to take advantage of and fuel a dominating culture. Demagogues are present in today’s culture as the political divide becomes greater. This study aims to explain why demagogues are so influential and how social media might be contributing to their growth. In order to do this, three communication …
Queer Crises: Movements From Queerness And Feelings Of White Religion In The United States, Austin Williams Miller
Queer Crises: Movements From Queerness And Feelings Of White Religion In The United States, Austin Williams Miller
Communication ETDs
Anchored by contemporary crises surrounding queer and trans people in the United States, I employ movements from queerness within an affective queer phenomenological framework to understand how arrangements of “white religion” (Schaefer, 2015, p. 63), a process whereby U.S. American Christian forms escape ideology into religious affective economies in the United States, relegate queer people “to the background… to sustain a certain direction” (Ahmed, 2006, p. 31). I assemble a queer rhetorical context analyzing white religious space in documentary film, secular sexual regulation through contemporary U.S. legal contexts around marriage, and settler colonial Christian nationalist political imaginations to critique how …
Neil Postman's Loving Resistance Fighter: A Philosophy Of Communication In The Age Of Technopoly, Ryan Mccullough
Neil Postman's Loving Resistance Fighter: A Philosophy Of Communication In The Age Of Technopoly, Ryan Mccullough
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
This project walks the work of Neil Postman (1931-2003) into the philosophy of communication. Traditional conceptions of Neil Postman’s body of work position his ideas within the traditions of media ecology, general semantics, or, more broadly, as a form of media studies and criticism. In addition, others label Postman’s work, especially in Technopoly (1992), as pessimistic, deterministic, and/or imbibed with Luddite tendencies. This project articulates a different view and contends that Postman’s scholarship, in particular his articulation of the loving resistance fighter in the final chapter of Technopoly, is committed to resisting the nefarious forces embedded in both technology …
Is France Having A Populist Moment?, Emma Gilmore
Is France Having A Populist Moment?, Emma Gilmore
Honors Theses
The word populism is often thrown around in news media and academic scholarship, but there is a lack of understanding of what it actually means as a political theory. In France, the two presidential candidates that made it to the second round in 2017, Emmanuel Macron and Marine le Pen, were both called populist, despite having vastly different campaign strategies and messages. This study used a computer-based method to analyze Campaign books from 24 candidates beginning in 1981 that determined that Populist language is on the rise, but not as aggressively as news media suggests.
The Future Is Full Of Monsters: Queer Survival One Click At A Twine, 'Aolani N. Robinson
The Future Is Full Of Monsters: Queer Survival One Click At A Twine, 'Aolani N. Robinson
All HCAS Student Capstones, Theses, and Dissertations
Spurred by a desire to explore queer rhetoric through interactive forms of media, this project analyzed the game-making program Twine to uncover how independent queer creators use the tool to explore queer survival against time, capitalism, and constrained identities. A more accessible platform than other game-making tools, Twine’s unique interactivity puts the ability to make interactive games and stories into the hands of indie marginalized creators who are often overlooked in both mainstream gaming and queer rhetorics (Anthropy, 2012). Thus, this thesis contributes to queer rhetoric, game studies, and trans rhetorics by exploring the strategies indie Twine creators use in …
God Of War: Masculinity And Fatherhood Through Procedural Rhetoric, Andrew A. Morgan
God Of War: Masculinity And Fatherhood Through Procedural Rhetoric, Andrew A. Morgan
University of the Pacific Theses and Dissertations
Video games and academia have a long history with one another. Academic researchers have continued to debate the extent to which video games can materialize real world effects. In this thesis, I employ procedural rhetoric and feminist scholarship to analyze the rhetorical power of God of War. I focus on the game’s immersive procedures and the performances of masculinity from Kratos, Atreus, and Baldur. These three characters all perform different masculinities, and their interactions with one another inform the game’s portrayal of masculinity and fatherhood. By engaging in violence and depicting nuanced performances of masculinity, God of War positions the …
Rhetsec_ | Rhetorical Security, Jennifer Mead
Rhetsec_ | Rhetorical Security, Jennifer Mead
Culminating Projects in English
Rhetsec_ examines the rhetorical situation, the rhetorical appeals, and how phishing emails simulate "real" emails in five categories of phishing emails. While the first focus of cybersecurity is security, you must also understand the language of computers to know how to secure them. Phishing is one way to compromise security using computers, and so the computer becomes a tool for malicious language (phishing emails and malware) to be transmitted. Therefore to be concerned with securing computers, then you must also be concerned with language. Language is rhetoric's domain, and the various rhetorical elements which create an identity of the phisher …
When Humanity Meets Technology: Contemplating Neil Postman's Critique Of Advertising, Yingwen Wang
When Humanity Meets Technology: Contemplating Neil Postman's Critique Of Advertising, Yingwen Wang
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
This project aims to contemplate Postman’s critique of advertising and offer insights to understand Integrated Marketing Communication (IMC) in today’s mediated environment. As an essential component of IMC, the history of advertising demonstrates and documents that the medium of communication has an extensive influence on IMC practices. The concern about how communication media affect human perception, understanding, and behavior, resides within the central claim of the study of media ecology. Thus, this project investigates IMC through the lens of Postman’s media ecology perspectives, and argues that Postman’s prescient ideas provide both hope and constructive insights. Moreover, Postman’s thermostatic perspective, rooted …
Budweiser In The 2017 Super Bowl: Dialectic Values Advocacy And The Rhetorical Stakeholder, Benjamin P. Windholz
Budweiser In The 2017 Super Bowl: Dialectic Values Advocacy And The Rhetorical Stakeholder, Benjamin P. Windholz
Theses and Dissertations--Communication
Organizational-public relations discourse is changing given the advent of social media, and corporate statements are evaluated under different criteria in the digital age. Grounding Budweiser’s response to controversy over their 2017 Super Bowl advertisement in terms of consumer expectations for corporate social responsibility provides a new perspective for approaching Bostdorff and Vibbert’s (1994) conceptualization of values advocacy. This study recognizes the power of the rhetorical stakeholder, a discursively created public, and demands re-evaluation of the values common to society from a co-creational OPR perspective. Conceptualizing dialectic values advocacy outlines the changing values among contemporary, common stakeholders as well as the …
Your Face Betrays You: A Fantasy Theme Analysis Of Lie To Me, Caroline Campbell
Your Face Betrays You: A Fantasy Theme Analysis Of Lie To Me, Caroline Campbell
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Research concerning the consequences of edutainment has revealed that television shows have the capability to influence audience members. As the lines between education and entertainment are becoming increasingly blurred, viewers may not be aware of how watching such shows impacts them. Lie to Me is a popular edutainment television series that educates viewers about the power of micro expressions. Ekman has dedicated a large part of his life to the development of research related to micro expressions. The show’s main character, Cal Lightman, portrayed Paul Ekman’s special talents and knowledge through his ability to detect micro expressions. The first three …
The Writing Is The Wall: Expanding The Means Of Communication With Multimodal Approaches To Teaching Composition, Matthew Williams Schering
The Writing Is The Wall: Expanding The Means Of Communication With Multimodal Approaches To Teaching Composition, Matthew Williams Schering
All Student Theses
As the paradigm of communication shifts into the digital realm, it seems only logical that instructors’ pedagogical approaches to teaching writing should shift as well. Though there is still much merit to teaching tradition approaches to composition, are there more modern methods that could be employed to teach communication in a contemporary setting? This thesis shall examine the role that new media can play in a multimodal composition course, as new media seems to be the most effective way to teach rhetorical communication skills in a modern setting. By looking at new media elements, such as podcasts, wikis, and images, …