Social Influence and Political Communication Commons^™

The Other September 11th: El Mercurio Media Coverage After The Chilean Coup Of 1973, Valeria A. Gurr‐Ovalle

Graduate Research Symposium (GCUA)

This thesis provides an exploratory overview of the role the El Mercurio newspaper played along with the military after the Chilean coup of 1973. The study reviews the contents of the newspaper’s front pages, including their coverage of the events during the coup. The thesis will show how the paper revisited its coverage each year on the September 11th anniversary, beginning with the years dominated by the military government, from 1973 through 1990, and continuing through the transition to democracy, from 1991 through 2007. The primary method used in the course of this examination is a content analysis, which ...

President Barack Obama's Commencement Addresses: Revising The Functions Of Ceremonial Rhetoric, Milene Ortega Ribeiro

Graduate Research Symposium (GCUA)

Commencement speakers are typically expected to praise students for their achievements and motivate them for the path that is to come. When the commencement speaker is a President, however, the expectation is different. In times of rhetorical presidency, no presidential address is apolitical, and this project investigated the functions of ceremonial rhetoric in light of the rhetorical presidency doctrine. Close textual analysis of the three most controversial commencement speeches delivered by President Obama, revealed that the challenge of fulfilling the expectations of a commencement address, while also responding to rhetorical problems, required the President to adopt complex rhetorical strategies. The ...

Because I Said So: Constructing Identities In Argentina's Dirty War, Danielle N. Olean

Honors Theses

No abstract provided.

A Need For Green: An Approach For Motivating Environmentally Sustainable Practices At The University Of Rhode Island, Alyssa Mason, Mary Vidal

Senior Honors Projects

“Never underestimate the power of a few committed people to change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has." -Margaret Meade

Colin Beavan’s No Impact Man details his yearlong experiment to live without creating any environmental impact. As sophomores we were inspired by Beavan’s journey but also skeptical of living a completely no-impact lifestyle as college-students. Although we were motivated to try to live sustainably, our efforts were dormant until our junior year. That year we decided that we would attempt to live up to the standards set forth by Beavan--understanding that some practices would ...

Can We Say More Now? A Closer Look At Online Public Opinion Change In China, Ran Duan

Theses and Dissertations--Sociology

This study examined the pattern of online public opinion change in China by investigating the top one hit blog and its following commentaries of every day from July 2009 to March 2012 on a famous Chinese website, and then discussed potential factors that affected the formation of online public opinion. The extent of freedom of online public opinion during this period presented regular fluctuations. Whether criticisms were registered by commentators was influenced by four factors. First and most important, the negative tone of bloggers increased criticism and the positive tone decreased criticism, which shows that the news that flows from ...

Emergency Service Leader Perceptions Of Legitimacy, John R. Fisher, R. Jeffery Maxfield

Dr. John R. Fisher

This study adds to the qualitative data showing how leaders in the emergency services perceive legitimacy and the bases of power. The study examines leader perception of the reasons their subordinates view their leadership as legitimate. Two definitions of legitimacy are presented: the traditional viewpoint of French and Raven (1959) associating legitimate power “with having status or formal job authority” and the other proposed by Maxfield (2012) in the LEAP leadership model basing legitimacy more on the characteristics leaders bring to their positions. Emergency service students interviewed leaders in their career fields, determining their view of legitimacy. They found that ...

The Disaster Press Conference: Form And Function, John R. Fisher

Dr. John R. Fisher

This study uses a structural functional perspective in examining the form and function of a presidential disaster press conference on May 27, 2010 about the Deepwater BP Oil Spill. Clayman and Heritage (2002) proposed a framework to examine the questions and responses in a press conference while Fisher (1991) offered a method to study media function. These were both applied to the disaster press conference. Findings were used to develop recommendations for public officials and PIOs in working with the media. Despite the fact that this case suggests an adversarial relationship between public officials and the media, public officials need ...

Boko Haram - Media Representation And The Manufacture Of Consent, Nafisah Ayobola Raji, Yunana Ahmed

Master's Level Graduate Research Conference

This paper takes a look at the media representation of an Islamic group in Northern Nigeria Jama’atu Ahlis Sunnah Ladda’awatih wal-Jihad aka Boko Haram and effect these representations has had in shaping ideologies of international public towards the country, and Nigerians towards northern Nigeria.

Terrorism, Islamic group, Media representation, Sensationalisation, Subjectivity, Ideologies, socio-economic, disenfranchisement, Politics, Poverty

Press Freedom In The European Union And Candidate Countries: A New Regional Reality, Stephanie Benedict

Claremont-UC Undergraduate Research Conference on the European Union

No abstract provided.

Journalism In A Pr World, Michael I. Niman Ph.D.

Michael I Niman Ph.D.

Mike Niman discusses the future of journalism in a PR-dominated communication environment. In particular, he examines the migration of talent from journalism to the PR industry, the collapse of mainstream journalism and the role of an emergent alternative media as American journalism goes through metamorphosis from what it was to what it could become. Journalism is a social good that should equip people to understand and resist spin. Niman argues that mainstream American journalism, rather than rising to this challenge, has transparently succumbed to serving as an arm of the corporate PR industry, thus laying the groundwork for its own ...

Disease, War, And Famine In The Sudan And Haiti: A Crisis Noticed And A Crisis Ignored, Melissa Whalen

Masters Theses

The media acts as a gatekeeper and decides what material to cover and what not to cover. In order to better understand why one disaster receives media coverage and another crisis is virtually unnoticed by the media, the motives behind covering one story over another is analyzed in this study. Three major American newspaper articles concerning the Haitian earthquake and the crisis in Darfur are examined in order to discover the media's motives for covering Haiti over Darfur.

Jpc Editorial Advisory Board 2012

Journal of Professional Communication

Listing of members of the Editorial Advisory Board of the Journal of Professional Communication.

Packaging Inspiration: Al Qaeda's Digital Magazine Inspire And Self-Radicalization, Susan Currie Sivek

Faculty Presentations

Inspire magazine, a digital publication of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, seeks to motivate potential terrorists to carry out attacks in the West. The magazine has seemed to be effective, resulting in its connection to a number of recent plots. This presentation discusses the magazine’s potential for aiding prospective terrorists through the self-radicalization process.

Ethnopolitical Discourse Among Ordinary Malaysians: Diverging Accounts Of “The Good Old Days” In Discussing Multiculturalism., Richard Buttny, Azirah Hashim, Kiran Kaur

Richard Buttny

No abstract provided.

Packaging Inspiration: Al Qaeda’S Digital Magazine Inspire In The Self-Radicalization Process, Susan Currie Sivek

Faculty Publications

Al Qaeda is today a fragmented organization, and its strategic communication efforts now focus largely on recruiting individuals in the West to carry out “individual jihad” in their home countries. One Al Qaeda–affiliated publication, Inspire, represents an unusual use of the digital magazine format and content for recruitment. This study examines the content and design of Inspire to determine how the magazine may advance the self-radicalization that it seeks to induce in its readers. This analysis finds that the magazine weaves together jihadist ideology, a narrow interpretation of Islam, and appropriations of Western popular culture to maximize the publication ...

Death Squads And Diplomacy: An Investigation Of British Attitudes Towards Sectarian Assassinations In The 1970’S, Hannah Nelson

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

I conducted my research for this paper during a three-­‐week internship at the Pat Finucane Center in Derry. I gathered evidence from a series of declassified British government documents provided to me by the center. I focus my study on the British government’s attitude towards sectarian assassinations, particularly committed by loyalist paramilitaries, in the first part of the 1970’s. I examine the issues of responding to international pressure, framing the problem, evaluating security force effectiveness, and screening strategies. I find that in the public sphere, the British government hid information to downplay the severity of loyalist-­‐led ...

Mapping Participation Gaps In Wikipedia, Laura Quilter

Laura Quilter

No abstract provided.

Journalists’ Discursive Construction Of Public Opinion On President Obama And The Economy: The Uses Of Voters’ Voices From A Focus Group., Richard Buttny, Kathleen Haspell

Richard Buttny

This study investigates the journalistic construction of the news from a focus-group of eleven Philadelphia-area voters. The journalists not only represent the participants’ voice, they also present themselves as keen observers—they attempt to display expertise as journalists. The written stories use the participants’ voices more than was found in the journalists’ oral discussion about the focus-group. In both the oral and written stories, the journalists ventroloquise participants’ voices within the genre, the news-feature story--how the dire political economy affects ordinary people. The journalists may represent the participants’ opinions while simultaneously recontextualizing participants’ voices within their own storyline.

Promotional Ubiquitous Musics: New Identities And Emerging Markets In The Digitalizing Music Industry, Leslie Meier

University of Western Ontario - Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This dissertation examines the intensifying relationship between the digitalizing music industry and corporate brands. It analyzes the ‘crisis’ and recuperation of popular music’s commodity form in the digital era; in an increasingly post-CD music marketplace, it argues, ‘artist-brands’ tied to multiple revenue streams and licensed to brand partners constitute the foundation of music’s capitalization. Contemporaneous with key shifts in music marketing and monetization strategies, advertising firms have taken increased interest in branded entertainment strategies that employ popular music. These colliding commercial dynamics have produced a proliferation of what I term ‘promotional ubiquitous musics’: original music by recording artists ...

Social Cognitive Theory Vs. Social Comparison Theory: Examining The Relationship Between Social Influence And Weight Loss, Emily Grigg

Masters Theses

This qualitative study investigated the impact of social influence on weight loss, more specifically, the internal and external elements that effect response and success of those who are trying to lose weight. The research focused on three questions: (1) How great of an influence does self-efficacy have in weight loss success? (2) How great of an influence does social comparison have in weight loss success? (3) Which factor has the largest impact on weight loss: self-efficacy, peer efficacy, or positive social support, or negative social support? Data was collected by the researcher conducting semi-structured interviews. These interview were conducted with ...