Sociology Commons^™

Reversing The Gaze: Using Indigenous And Western Worldviews To Compare Coverage Of Climate Change And Indigenous Peoples In The News Media, Gina Mccrackin

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The news media acts as an important conduit for shaping societal views of the socio-politics of climate change. While climate change will indeed affect everyone, it will not affect everyone equally. Indigenous peoples are among the populations whose well-being is threatened the most by climate change. International scholarship finds it is not uncommon for Indigenous cultures, communities, and perspectives to be underrepresented and misrepresented in Western climate change media. Research also indicates that fair Indigenous representation occurs when Indigenous peoples are the authors of news articles themselves. We evaluated the differences in discussions of climate change and environmental issues …

Collaboration And Reflexivity In Wildland Fire Risk Governance In The Western United States, Brett Alan Miller

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

This dissertation presents both quantitative and qualitative analysis on different aspects of wildland fire risk management in the western United States. Each of these chapters is framed by and examines the sociological concept of reflexivity, which describes a process of individual and/or collective reflection. This reflexivity is needed to identify and enact alternative management strategies that contend with the expected increases in the number and severity of wildland fires in the future due to the combined effects of even-aged forest growth after years of timber extraction, a legacy of fire suppression, climate change, and increasing human development in the wildland-urban …

Public Opinion On Renewable Energy: The Nexus Of Climate, Politics, And Economy, Shawn K. Olson-Hazboun

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

This dissertation research examines the factors underlying public opinion toward renewable energy in the United States. U.S. citizens in general support the continued development of renewable energy, yet opposition has been widely observed toward a variety of renewable energy facilities at the local level. Previous research on public responses to renewable energy has focused on one or a small number of communities experiencing renewable energy development. In this research I examine public views more broadly, in communities with and without renewable energy development, and also using nationally representative opinion data. I ask the following questions:

What local experiences influence how …