Television Commons^™

This Sounds Like An Episode Of The X-Files: Analyzing How Twitter Users Interpreted The Covid-19 Pandemic Through The Lens Of Sci-Fi Television, Nicole Neece

Proceedings from the Document Academy

While science fiction has a long-standing habit of predicting future technologies, The X-Files’ focus on anatomical manipulations as a means of control resulted in a plotline that inadvertently mirrored the COVID-19 pandemic which occurred a few years later. The proximity to such a similar, real-world situation resulted in some audiences interpreting their own experiences through the framework of sci-fi television, demonstrating that the discursive environment crafted through the text of The X-Files is continually applicable to contemporary anxieties and paranoia even after the show finished airing. In this article, I argue that The X-Files’ critiques of real-world abuses of …

Exploiting Non-Western Women In Media Representations, Gabrielle Miller

sprinkle: an undergraduate journal of feminist and queer studies

Media representations and advertisements serve as visual mediums through which cultural values are projected and reinforced. Western capitalism relies on Eurocentric media representations that exploit perceived differences of non-white and non-western cultures to sell western products. This paper analyzes recent advertisements from Kellogg’s and Suit Supply as examples of media representations that employ Eurocentric perspectives of non-western cultures to uphold white masculinist and colonial power structures. Therefore, I suggest that the non- western cultures in the Kellogg’s and Suit Supply advertisements exist within a western capitalist vacuum. This way of consuming and representing serves to reinforce western ways of knowing …

The New Profits Of Pleasure: Reality Television And Affective Exploitation In Post-Pandemic Neoliberalism, Sophia Aepfelbacher

Dissertations and Theses

This thesis uses reality television and the parasocial relationships it cultivates as a microcosm to better understand the current form of neoliberalism as well as the implications it has for democracy. I extend the preexisting scholarship surrounding neoliberalism and reality television by emphasizing the importance of social media in understanding that link. By conducting a case study of Netflix's Love is Blind, I demonstrate how both reality television content and the reality-television-participant-to-influencer pipeline serve to reinforce neoliberal values by constructing powerful cultural imaginaries such as a model of care and self-sufficiency that centers marriage and the household. I argue …

Mood: A Zine Exploring The Value Of Youth-Oriented Media, Patricia K. Paul

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Media is a constant, persistent force in human lives that informs and influences through published, broadcasted, and digitally mediated formats. Mass media industries produce and distribute content consumed by diverse audiences, though the facilitators represent only a fraction of the demographics they serve.

Youth denote one of the most frequently misrepresented groups, with very few practical opportunities for young people to make decisions about the texts available to them. A jarring absence of youth participation in media creation at all levels suggests cultural contributions through art exclude young people's authentic perspectives and desires. Moreover, media portrayals of youth cannot adequately …

Colonialism's Creation Of Machismo And Its Influence On Domestic Violence And Sexual Assault: A Film Analysis Of Telenovela Dv/Sa Anthologies, Yoselin Aguirre Perez

University Honors Theses

Using Lothar Mikos' (2014) content analysis framework, this thesis uses a Xicana feminist epistemology to conduct a film analysis on telenovela anthologies Mujer, Casos de la Vida Real (1986-2007) and Lo Que Callamos Las Mujeres (2001-today). The impact that harmful depictions of domestic violence and sexual assault, and their foundations in colonialism, is discussed throughout my writing. The cynical and racist implications that problematic portrayals of domestic violence and sexual assault within the Latinx community is analyzed. This thesis claims that popular media, while attempting to bring awareness to these sensitive and life-threatening issues, have perpetuated a culture of recrimination …

T. Hanks For Nostalgia: The Power Of Tom Hanks And Film Branding, Jacob Higgs

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In March 2020, Tom Hanks announced he had contracted COVID-19 while shooting the Elvis Presley Biopic in Australia. On Instagram, he encouraged fans to take the disease seriously and be aware of how severe of a disease it was. Character brands and nostalgia have been found to foster trust in products and encourage relationships with those brands. Using the lens of nostalgia and uses and gratification to examine Tom Hanks as a character brand, the researcher analyzed five blockbuster films with Tom Hanks as the lead character. The study used narrative thematic analysis to observe Hanks and the depictions of …

Kitchen Witch: Animated Independent Property Pitch Bible Research And Development, Kelsey Eaves

All Theses

My thesis project centers around the production process for creating an animated program. My paper is a record of the development of my pitch bible and my efforts to raise outside interest in the property. I intend to use my work here to enter the animation industry as a jumping off point in my career. My research materials include various “Art Of” production books, Creating Cartoons with Character by Rocko’s Modern Life creator Joe Murray, and firsthand interviews from present and former television industry personnel. In this text I explore television animation pre production to highlight the creation of an …

Georgia, Lesley Brian Bargo

Master of Arts in Professional Writing Capstones

The Vietnam War cast a massive shadow, both home and abroad. Relationships, morality, and humanity hang in the balance.

As Seen On Tv: An Exploration Of How Sexual Assault Is Portrayed In Young Adult Television, Alyson Haslet

Graduate Dissertations and Theses

Sexual assault has affected countless people, whether that be directly or indirectly. The view and narrative around sexual assault is greatly influenced by television and popular culture, including shows with subliminal messaging such as young adult television. The significance of this project is examining the degree of influence of how sexual assault is portrayed in young adult television. By examining how potentially harmful or helpful the discourse on the matter can be in respective shows, conclusions can be drawn about how these narratives affect how individuals, as well as a collective society view sexual assault. In this explorative study, the …

As Seen On Tv: An Exploration Of How Sexual Assault Is Portrayed In Young Adult Television, Alyson Haslet

Graduate Dissertations and Theses

Sexual assault has affected countless people, whether that be directly or indirectly. The view and narrative around sexual assault is greatly influenced by television and popular culture, including shows with subliminal messaging such as young adult television. The significance of this project is examining the degree of influence of how sexual assault is portrayed in young adult television. By examining how potentially harmful or helpful the discourse on the matter can be in respective shows, conclusions can be drawn about how these narratives affect how individuals, as well as a collective society view sexual assault. In this explorative study, the …

As Seen On Tv: An Exploration Of How Sexual Assault Is Portrayed In Young Adult Television, Alyson Haslet

Undergraduate Theses and Capstone Projects

Sexual assault has affected countless people, whether that be directly or indirectly. The view and narrative around sexual assault is greatly influenced by television and popular culture, including shows with subliminal messaging such as young adult television. The significance of this project is examining the degree of influence of how sexual assault is portrayed in young adult television. By examining how potentially harmful or helpful the discourse on the matter can be in respective shows, conclusions can be drawn about how these narratives affect how individuals, as well as a collective society view sexual assault. In this explorative study, the …

Tú Dices “Plátano” Y Yo Digo “Mofongo”: Una Representación De La Normalización Del Biculturalismo En Alma’S Way, Jordan Carter

INSPIRE Student Research and Engagement Conference

Alma’s Way, a bilingual children’s animated television program from Fred Rogers Productions about a six year old Puerto Rican girl living in the Bronx of New York City with her family, premiered on PBS Kids in October 2021. Through the use of discourse analysis, this academic paper explores characters’ use of linguistic and cultural practices. Discourse analysis focuses on the main character, Alma, as well as her friends, her immediate family (Junior, Mami, Papi), and her mother’s side of the family (Abuelo, Tía Gloria, Uncle Nestor, Cousin Eddie). The analysis of 12 episodes chosen at random, a total of …

The Call Sheet: A Six-Part Podcast Interview Series On The Film Industry In Nebraska, Tanner Dykstra

Honors Program: Senior Projects (Public)

My University of Nebraska-Lincoln Honors Thesis project is a six-part podcast interview series entitled The Call Sheet. This is classified as an Applied Knowledge project and encapsulates my interests and areas of study in Journalism, Broadcasting, and Film Studies. I sought out interviews with people who currently reside or once resided in the state of Nebraska who work in association with the film industry. This industry is broad, and my interview subjects reflected this. The six episodes comprising my project are as follows: writer/director Aliza Brugger, writer/professor Michael Svoboda, director of the Mary Riepma Ross Media Arts Center Danny Lee …

Remembering Complicity And Resistance: A Review Of Mihaela Mihai’S Political Memory And The Aesthetics Of Care: The Art Of Complicity And Resistance (2022), Sofía Forchieri

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

This article offers a review of Mihaela Mihai’s book Political Memory and the Aesthetics of Care: The Art of Complicity and Resistance (2022). In it, Mihai courageously brings together insights from critical theory, political and legal science, philosophy, literary studies, and feminist theory to argue for the need of rearticulating how we remember complicity and resistance in the aftermath of political violence. Mihai develops her argument in three steps. First, she provides an account of how complicity and resistance are misremembered after systemic violence. Second, she tracks the political, epistemic and ethical consequences that this faulty work of memory-making holds …

Terada Torahiko, A Physicist And A Haikai Poet, Akira Komiya

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

Terada Torahiko is known as a scientific essayist in Japan, but hardly anyone knows he was a haikai poet as well as a physicist. According to him, haikai poetry and physics are two different ways of conceiving Nature, both valid and perhaps complementary to each other. Seeing his research in physics looking for regularities in apparently irregular phenomena in everyday life, we may say his haiku haikai spirit is manifest there and that he was pioneering a new science such as the one developed later by Ilya Prigogine. His association of haiku haikai poetry and Freudian interpretations of dreams leads …

Orature: The Political Interpretation Of Performance Framework In Anthills Of The Savannah And Half Of A Yellow Sun, Jing Duan

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

The focus of discussion in this paper lies in a perception that orature of African written literature is not innocent but a form of control. Operated through its performance framework, the concept of orature provides an angle to observe how African oral tradition penetrates written literature and cultivates an awareness of the political nature both of the material to be written and of the writing process itself. This paper explores the performance framework in two African novels — Achebe’s Anthills of the Savannah and Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun. Through such key concepts as event, narrative and self-reflexivity …

Bozo The Clown: An Icon As American As An Apple Pie In The Face, Gregory Kent Oswald

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

There is no single path toward the creation of an American icon, a person or item with resonance to all in the country as well as having an ability to serve as a symbol of America itself for those outside the borders. This thesis considers certain elements that propelled the journey of the entertainment for children, Bozo the Clown, into a representational figure in the minds of young and old. Like all things American, his roots include many elements from outside the country: the name derives from foreign tongues mostly in derisory terms, but in at least one instance as …

The Social Sinthome, Ryan Engley

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

Much of the critical discourse on social media misidentifies its problematic features as bugs, or problems to solve. Supposed solutions to these problems tend to focus on individual actions. We should delete the apps, own our own data, never click on recommended videos, and realize that we are the product. But if predatory algorithms succeed by individuating people—selling people “choice” and “options” as it harvests user data—then an entire online ecosystem arranged through the logic of that design can neither be meaningfully challenged nor effectively understood at the level of the individual alone. Transformative action addressing social media can only …

Lacan And The Algorithm, Clint Burnham

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

Exploring the development of algorithms in Lacanian theory, specifically the "R schema" in the 1950s, I argue that psychoanalysis, read through contemporary debates about the "algorithmic cult" of Netflix and other avatars of popular culture, can be said to reveal the inhuman, machinic essence of subjectivity. The etiology of algorithms, mathemes, and other formulae and diagrams in Lacan’s oeuvre has been under-studied, in part because for some readers they are not as attractive as his more bravura flourishes of word play as exegetical excess, and in part because they derive largely from the ‘hard’ structuralist moment of his work in …

Platform Psychoanalysis: What Does The Algorithm Want?, Matthew Flisfeder

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

No abstract provided.