Political Science Commons^™

Controlling The Narrative: The Effects Of Media Coverage On Fear Of Crime And Socio-Political Ideology, Andrew Koppelman

Theses

Several decades of study have established an understanding that media have a unique power to influence the perspectives and worldviews of audiences. This phenomenon has been explored through the lenses of Social Learning and Cultivation theory, wherein media appeal to base human tendencies of self-preservation and teaches audiences how to maximize rewards for their actions by acting as a sort of instructor or friendly warning from members of the community. While prior studies have suggested the presence of this effect, little research has been devoted to understanding the ways that this may influence behaviors in viewers. My research seeks to …

Media Consumption And Islamophobia, Anastasia Athanasiadi

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

Islamophobia has been a growing issue in the United States, especially after the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center twin towers in 2001, from innocent people being harassed on the street or various social media platforms to a Muslim ban implemented by former President Donald Trump. The rise of online media has allowed individuals, organizations, politicians, and news outlets to post their opinions/ articles that perpetuate a fear of Muslims in the United States and worldwide. As media consumption has skyrocketed in recent years, American society has become more exposed to Islamophobic content than ever before, and its effects …

The "Othering" Of America: How The Strategic Use Of Crisis And Ressentiment Succeeded In The Trump Era, Laura J. Franklin

Dissertations

The establishment of a crisis theme through public rhetoric often triggers widespread attention, resulting in public concern and media coverage of an issue that could potentially be overblown or deceptive. In right-wing political discourse, this crisis warning is typically delivered by a White male leader with ready access to the powerful news media. An “us versus them” theme often occurs. Within this mode of a hegemonic exclusion, a culture of immigrants or an American minority are often depicted, perhaps aggressively, as a threat: A threat used to motivate, enrage and create the frustrations inherent in ressentiment. This dissertation explores the …

Political Theory, Activism, And Visual Media: The Ideology Of Protest Symbols, Jilly E. Crane-Mauzy Mx.

Whittier Scholars Program

Art changes culture while policy codifies it. Radical revolutionary movements are often accompanied by equally radical shifts in art and design. I cataloged, compared, and contrasted the semiotic power of three specific symbols and their most significant historical moments in the United States. Through the examination of; Stonewall, The Equality March March Against Death, The Day The World Said No To War, The 1968 Summer Olympics, and The 2020 Black Lives Matter, the shifting of each ideologies symbol from inflammation in the media to recognition showcases the clarifying function along with creating unity and pride in community that is integral …

Magic As Political Might: Harry Potter, Authoritarianism, And Youth Political Behavior, Alexis Cobbs

Honors Theses

This thesis examines how authoritarian structures found in J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series affect the political thoughts and behaviors of its readers, particularly those who read them at young ages. By examining how Rowling depicts authoritarianism and its opposition in the books, I hypothesized that increased exposure would correlate to an increased impact on readers’ political opinions. To test this hypothesis, I created an original survey designed to measure levels of exposure and participation in the Harry Potter fandom as well as respondents’ political opinions. I asked respondents to provide different examples of authoritarianism and its opposition in the books …

Transnational Dominican Activism: Documenting Grassroots Social Movements Through Esendom, Nelson Santana, Amaury Rodriguez, Emmanuel Espinal

Publications and Research

Dominican-descended people are one of the most dynamic Caribbean and Latin American ethnic and cultural communities in the United States. Whether in the Dominican Republic or as members of a transnational community, the Dominican population has a long and rich history of challenging the powers that be, confronting unjust acts, and opposing oppressive laws within the communities they inhabit through their civic engagement. This paper addresses one question: As Dominican society and the world have evolved, what has been the role of U.S.-based online media in sustaining, disseminating, and rescuing the long tradition of civic involvement and struggle exemplified by …

Media, Distrust Of Government, And Fear Of Terrorism In The United States, Lauren Rowe

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

The United States is experiencing a growing threat from domestic terrorism, though there is a relative lack of understanding of this threat by the public, and there is a need to understand how public perceptions of risk have been shaped around the fear of terrorism. This paper explores the impact of various forms of media usage and intake on individual perceptions of terrorism, as well as the ways in which public governmental distrust and party identification relate to the fear of terrorism. Using the results obtained by the Chapman University Survey of American Fears in which data was gathered from …

Framing Of Latinx Vote Choice And Voter Registration, Laurel E. Bennett

Student Publications

This work investigates media framing done by CNN between the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections. Although Latinx voters remain underrepresented and under researched, they have the ability to highly influence elections. Specifically, CNN uses the sleeping giant frame, the need for Latinx voter registration as a frame, and the importance of Latinx voter mobilization as a frame in the 2020 presidential election more prominently than in the 2016 presidential election upon consideration of Latinx vote choice and voter turnout.

Reproducing The Orient: A Critical Examination Of Western Media Representations Of China’S Uyghur Policies Between 2014 And 2021, R. Tiger Li

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This study examines the convergence of US state media and US-based mass media in news coverage of China’s policies in Xinjiang. Analysis of a sample of articles published by The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and CNN between 2014 and 2021 found that stories citing US state media, Uyghur exile advocacy groups, or non-government organizations receiving US funding were significantly more negative in tone than articles using other sources. Articles citing state media and exile advocacy groups tended to frame China’s policies as an ideological challenge while other articles were more likely …

Effects And Reflections Of The Media In Crisis Management Administrative Crises In Institutions As A Model, Raad Fadhil Jameel Al-Shakhli

Journal of STEPS for Humanities and Social Sciences

It is no secret to everyone that the media constitutes a creative message that adheres to transparency, thought and truth and overlaps with the philosophy and message of the public and engages with it in its pioneering and brilliant form. Today, a decisive factor for managing and confronting all crises, including administrative crises that harm the body of the institutions of the administrative apparatus of states internally and externally, in terms of the strength of institutional performance, or facing cases of corruption in both the administrative and financial aspects, organizational structures, the level of delivery of the services provided, or …

Black Lives Matter Vs. Anti-Lockdownand Stop The Steal: How Framing Affects Political Protests, Tarah Pierre-Louis

Honors Program Theses and Projects

For eight years the Black Lives Matter Movement has made consistent efforts to combat racial injustice, however, their message is often undermined by politicians, media elites, and partisan counter protestors who claim the movement is both aggressive and unwarranted. The same critics of the Summer 2020 Black Lives Matter protests drew comparisons to Anti-Lockdown protests in early 2020, and the insurrection on Capitol Hill in January of 2021 – despite inherently different messages behind each respective protest. This project sets out to find how the framing of the Black Lives Matter movement compares to other partisan protests such as the …

The Invisible Propaganda: A Case Study Of The Trump Administration’S And The Media’S Messaging On Sanctuary Cities, Valeriia Popova

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

How does systemic propaganda work in contemporary American democracy? The literature suggests that propaganda in its negative meaning is limited to authoritarian regimes. In democracies, it is the corporate and partisan newsrooms that acts as propaganda mouthpieces. This dissertation challenges this status quo and shifts the focus to the interaction between contemporary democratic governments and the media. This dissertation develops a model of democratic propaganda that accounts for the two- step propaganda process in contemporary democracies: the government (responsible for the original message) and the media (responsible for the final message). The project proposes an innovative eight-fold spectrum of media …

U.S. Extremism And Media: How The New Age Of Politics Speaks To Media Usage, Josephine R. Haneklau

Senior Honors Projects, 2020-current

On January 6th, 2021, the nation watched from their television screens as a group of extremists stormed the U.S. Capitol building in Washington, D.C. An interesting emotion fell over the U.S. public – it was both shocking and not shocking at all. The attack on the Capitol was a by-product of years of internal division, catapulted by Trump’s presidency. Between racial divisions and the progression of Black Lives Matter, the advancement of COVID and its governmental policies, and Trump’s divisive nature of president at a peak, it seemed almost inevitable that an offense like this would occur.

As political conversations …

The Politicization Of School Reopenings: Media Coverage Of Teachers Unions, Sarah King

Master's Theses

The process of school reopenings during the COVID-19 pandemic has garnered a significant amount of attention from various stakeholders including parents, school administrators, teachers, teachers’ unions, and the media. Negotiations over elements of school reopening policies, such as mask mandates and remote-learning options have, in certain school districts, been fraught with contention. The politicization of school reopening policies has been the source of a growing body of research, which tends to analyze policy decisions in conjunction with COVID data. However, a large gap in the literature has appeared concerning the politicization of school reopenings and the impact of the media, …

The International Perception Of The Irish Republican Army And Chechen Insurgency, Henry Forteith

International and Global Studies Undergraduate Honors Theses

This purpose of this project is to examine how the labels used to describe the Irish Republican Army and Chechen insurgency changed after certain acts of violence. This paper begins by describing the history of imperial subjugation of Ireland and Chechnya, as well as examining the similarities between the actions and motivations of the IRA and Chechen insurgency. Then, to study the change in language to describe these groups, two searches were conducted into the New York Times and International Newsstream databases. The first search examined articles about the IRA and Chechen insurgency published between 1998 and 2009, while the …

“Effective Immediately”: A Qualitative Analysis Of The Reaction Of Mississippi Newspapers To 1969’S Alexander V. Holmes County Board Of Education Decision, Phoebe Waters

Honors Theses

This qualitative study analyzed articles from Mississippi newspapers in three regions. In North Mississippi, Greenville and Tupelo were surveyed. In Central Mississippi, Jackson, Meridian, and Natchez were surveyed. In South Mississippi, Hattiesburg, McComb, and Biloxi were surveyed. These newspapers were chosen as they were among the biggest in the state and reported either daily or weekly and would be able to provide a wide range of opinions. These newspapers were surveyed from October 30, 1969, through November 14, 1969, and headlines, editorials, and other opinion pieces were analyzed. This study analyzed articles in order to investigate what the media response, …

The Influence Of Right-Wing Media On Political Racialization, Alex Regan

Student Research Submissions

The rise of right-wing media in the United States begs the question of how it is impacting American political culture. The recently increasing rate of political polarization in the United States, specifically along racial lines, poses a potential issue for American democracy. Through comparative analysis of Fox News and their counterparts in the United Kingdom, France, and Germany, this study seeks to address what specifically has caused Fox to be so successful in reproducing racial propaganda.

No Justice, No Peace: An Examination Of The Conditions Of The George Floyd Protests To Determine How To Facilitate Successful State Legislative Outcomes, Emily R. Funk

Undergraduate Theses, Capstones, and Recitals

This thesis examines the relationship between the conditions of the George Floyd protests from May to August of 2020 to the impact they had state on policing reforms within state legislatures. I examine protests in all 50 states and the District of Columbia, looking at those protests’ size, media coverage, and violence and compare that to the degree of policy change achieved within each state. I find that, contrary to expectations, protest size was not associated with policy change, but that the party control of the state government was a strong predictor of how states responded to protests. Within some …

News Treatment Of The Supreme Court: Language Selection, Ideological Directions, And Public Support, Alexander Denison

Theses and Dissertations--Political Science

In an increasingly diverse media landscape, how much of the ideological trends seen in current news reporting affect coverage of the U.S. Supreme Court? This work examines two different aspects of the Court's activities, their decisions and the confirmation hearings of Court nominees, analyzing what factors, if any, lead to differences in coverage language. Finally, through the use of a survey experiment, I analyze whether these differences in language, in combination with positive symbolic imagery, affect attitudes toward the institution. This work provides a novel consideration of whether the Court is subject to the same ideological slant found in coverage …

Will The Real News Reporters Please Stand Up?: A Study Of Bias In The Media, Hannah Claussen

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

The goal of my project is to define what news media bias is and examine its history and the effects it currently has on our country and democracy. I will examine its electoral effects as well as how media bias has contributed to lower trust in the news media as a whole.

My project will consist of a general news story on the subject of media bias; a smaller news story focusing on the history of media bias and public perception of the press; an abbreviated research paper on newspaper endorsements and their efficacy in a modern news landscape; and …

À La Carte Cable: A Regulatory Solution To The Misinformation Subsidy, Christopher R. Terry, Eliezer J. Silberberg, Stephen Schmitz, John Stack, Eve Sando

Catholic University Journal of Law and Technology

Although “fake news” is as old as mass media itself, concerns over disinformation have reached a fever pitch in our current media environment. Online media outlets’ heavy reliance on user-generated content has altered the traditional gatekeeping functions and professional standards associated with traditional news organizations. The idea of objectivity-focused informational content has primarily been substituted for a realist acceptance of the power and popularity of opinion-driven “news.” This shift is starkly visible now: mainstream news media outlets knowingly spread hoaxes, conspiracy theories, and the like.

This current state of affairs is not some freak accident. The Supreme Court’s First Amendment …

No Laughing Matter: Political Humor And Media In Egypt’S January 25th Revolution, Julia Brock

Scripps Senior Theses

The January 25th Revolution in Egypt began in 2011 when protestors took to the streets in Cairo and other Egyptian cities demanding that President Hosni Mubarak resign. They were armed with a savvy tool: humor. This study is a historical and theoretical approach to understanding political humor’s position as a space for politically subversive conversation in Egypt in the decade leading up to the January 25th Revolution, as well as during the revolution itself. Humor, media, and social movement theories are mobilized within this thesis to explain humor’s unique position within Egyptian society and its function within subversive, informal political …

The Extent To Which Tiktok Has Become A New Platform For Political Expression: An Analysis Of Us Public Opinion, Social Media, Celebrity Endorsements And Youth Voting Behavior, Jill Shaughnessy

Capstone Showcase

Tiktok has a function in society to act as a platform of political identity and expression. This thesis aims to find out if its growth is correlated to youth voting behavior and politics, specifically how does the consumption of mass media and the exposure of social networks like Tiktok influence youth voting behavior and public opinion in modern elections and act as platforms for political expression? Employing the analytic method of process tracing, my research illustrates how young people found a political identity with groupthink structures, were mobilized to vote with initiatives and celebrities and used social media to speak …

Tucker Carlson, Oann And A White Nationalist: A Quantified Look At The Disinformation Pipeline Surrounding Covid-19, Juliet Jeske

Capstones

A quantitive exploration of extremist media and its effect on misinformation surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic.

America's Declining Trust In Government, Megane Bos

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

The world of media has grown immensely, from 24-hour daily news to social media platforms to business and advertising, and it’s taken the American population by storm in a surprisingly short amount of time. Media exposure and usage increases with each passing year as new technologies emerge and are made available to a larger number of the population, including America’s youth. This paper will examine how media exposure, age, and ideology influence public opinion on trust in government, looking at which types of media exposure people receive and how often they are exposed to it. Then, I will see how …

The Rise Of Social Media And The Fall Of Internal Peace: How Do Media Influence People's Fear Of Mass Shootings?, Christian Grevin

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

The impact of traditional versus social media on people’s fears of a mass shooting is a matter worthy of study given the scarcity of research and analysis, as well as the prominence mass shootings have gained in American society and media. Many studies have been conducted evaluating the connection between local TV news and fear, showing that the consumption of local TV news has increased people's fear of crimes. However, there have been few studies examining the relationship between social media usage and one’s fear of crime. In this paper, I will examine the correlation between fear of mass shootings …

Media Framing And The Election Integrity Protection Act Of 2021, Timothy Fay

Student Publications

It is no secret that today's media landscape is saturated with various narratives and frames that dictate how political events and debates are consumer by the American public. This paper seeks to analyze how national and local media outlets frame the Election Integrity Protection Act of 2021, one of the numerous voting bills that followed the 2020 Election. My expectation is that these sources will vary in terms of their partisan skew as a result of their geographic location and the ideologies of their viewers. This qualitative media analysis focuses on how each publication does or does not align one …

The Decline Of Local News And Its Effect On Polarization, Stanley D. Taylor

Governance: The Political Science Journal at UNLV

In recent decades, local news has seen a sharp decline while political polarization has seen an increase. In this paper, I will analyze how these two trends affect one another. I hypothesize that as local news declines, there will be an increase in polarization. To test this, I use figures on newspaper circulation from Pew Research Center as a proxy for local news as well as Voteview’s polarization scores given to each US Congress. After conducting my data analysis, I found support for my hypothesis. There are statistically significant figures that show that as newspapers in circulation decrease, polarization increases. …

Hbo’S "The Wire" And Its Portrayal Of Baltimore Politics, Schools, And The Judicial System In Season 4: Was It Accurate Then And Does It Stand The Test Of Time?, Josephine Klingeman

Honors Theses

This thesis is a content analysis of HBO’s fourth season of The Wire. After conducting an in-depth analysis of the content in the thirteen episodes of season four, I then assessed the level of accuracy in the show’s portrayal of two major topics discussed throughout the season: Witness protection and police informant harassment. I did so by conducting several interviews with professionals who have several decades of experience working in the criminal justice system. I compared their personal experience with witness protection programs, witness harassment, and police informant harassment with the content presented in The Wire on these topics. …

Media Frames And Their Impact On Support For Immigrants And Immigrant Policies, Lisbeth Rosales

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

In this paper we will examine how media framing and how certain types of frames influence support for immigrants in the United States. I examine how likely a potential voter is to support immigrants and immigrant policies based on the information they are presented in the media, paying special attention to the use of equivalency frames, policy frames, episodic and thematic frames. The influence these frames have varies, depending on how they are used and what specific groups they target. It was also discovered that political ideology and location does influence the support or opposition for immigrants and immigrant issues. …