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Comm-Entary 43rd Edition, 2022-2023 - Full Issue

Comm-entary

No abstract provided.

The Pacific Sentinel, May 2023, Portland State University. Student Publications Board

The Pacific Sentinel

Editor: Dan Chilton

Articles in this issue include:

• Letter From the Editor
• Ghosts of Plant & Place
• Everybody Reads Ozeki
• Shrinking: Rethinking New Approaches to Therapy
• Braiding Sweetgrass
• Lana Del Rey Album Review
• The Perseverance of R*pe Culture in Rock & Metal
• Pay What You Will, Take What You Need
• What We're Enjoying
• Comics & Games

Civil War Journalism: Two Rough Drafts Of One History, Brianna Collora

History Honors Program

This paper addresses journalism in the Civil War by analyzing both Northern and Southern reporting. The severity of censorship changed throughout the duration of the war, with it less harsh in the Union by the end. Southern officials did not censor as much, both because their resources were scarcer, and their officials were more opposed to the use of censorship. While past historians have argued that the decrease in Northern censorship is because the Union began to have the upper hand in the war, I argue that the decrease in Union censorship was not only because the Union was now …

Crafting Journalism: The Pseudonyms Of American Reform, Sierra Fishman

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

The late 19th and early 20th centuries in the United States saw the rise of "Stunt Girls" and "Sob Sisters" in journalism. These pioneering women defied traditional societal expectations of housewives and pursued careers in reporting, gaining recognition for their accomplishments through the dangerous nature of their work. While many may know the name Nellie Bly, the pseudonym for Elizabeth Jane Cochrane, other reporters played a vital role in the transformation of journalism, including Caloipe, Nellie Bly, Lola, Annie Laurie, Dorothy Dix, Enid, Eva Gay, Nora Marks, Girl Reporter, Nell Nelson, Grace Ermine, Meb, and Olivia. It is important to …

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 …

Examining The Effectiveness Of The Mandatory Training On Relationship Violence Administered By California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, Sophia Mcdevitt

Journalism

This project intends to examine the effectiveness of California Polytechnic State University’s (“Cal Poly’s”) current student requirements on the subject of intimate partner violence. The existing mandatory training is meant to inform students on the prevalence of intimate partner violence and advise them on prevention and intervention techniques. The research in this project explores a broad contextualization of intimate partner violence from a social and historical perspective, which intends to explore the possibility that students may be more likely to internalize the significance of the information if such context was included in the training model. The research also presents information …

2023 Staff Bios, Author Bios, And Abstracts Brochure

Comm-entary

No abstract provided.

Content For Change, Kaley Lambert

Comm-entary

This piece considers the perspectives of environmental activist Paul Kingsnorth, and author of Anthropocene Unconscious: Climate Catastrophe Culture Mark Bould when assessing the power of storytelling in efforts for climate crisis action. Stories hold the potential to change perspectives and encourage new mentalities. Media content is able to perpetuate, develop, and share stories to a massive audience. This paper argues that if media content were, on a wide scale, to deliberately shift narratives to encourage compassion, action, and concern for the environment, and to discourage wastefulness and mentalities of expansion and colonialism, then it may become more feasible to mitigate …

The Almost-Feminism Of Midsommar, Kaley Lambert

Comm-entary

This paper argues that the 2019 horror film Midsommar accomplishes almost-feminism. It includes a matriarchal society, respects older women, punishes toxic masculinity, rewards emotional vulnerability, has complex and unique female characters, and has a strong female protagonist. There is also, however an overt lack of intersectionality, as Midsommar exhibits a lack of consideration for class, ableism, racism, or body diversity. This film is nevertheless a worthwhile counterweight in a sea of actively sexist horror films.

Pandemic Through The Lens: An Examination Of Repeat Photography During Lockdown, Lauren Cole

Comm-entary

The Covid-19 pandemic had sweeping effects on environments across the globe including, decreases in pollution, greenhouse gas emissions, and many others. Repeat photography and social media became tools to document these changes for people to see. Generally, traditional climate imagery and repeat photography depict the degradation of the environment rather than its recovery. This paper works to show how the use of this unique situation, to promote positive environmental change, might work better as a persuasive tool in the fight for climate action.

Art In Climate Argumentation, Matthew Morely

Comm-entary

My paper examines the role of art in the environmental crisis that we are currently facing. I believe that the climate emergency is largely the result of a disconnect between the scientific community and the non-scientific community. In other words, scientists are trying to portray scientific information to a non-scientist demographic. I believe that if we are to prevail during these uncertain times, we need a middleman between these two parties. We need someone who is able to take the information that the scientists are bringing to the table and break it down to non-scientists in a way that makes …

Empathy Meditation To Soothe Division, Kaley Lambert

Comm-entary

In that widespread lack of empathy and the presence of excess stress may be contributing factors toward harsh social division in the United States, programs to increase empathy and decrease stress may help to soothe these issues. Classrooms act as spaces which may be specially suited to trial and implement such programs. This research presents the foundational backing for such programs, and offers a detailed proposal for one set within the structure of a college level course.

Remembering The Aids Crisis & Act Up: The Failures Of The American Public, Government, And Cultural Institutions, Céilí Flot

Comm-entary

This paper discusses the history of the AIDS crisis and the activist group ACT UP. During the early stages of the outbreak, there was much confusion and hysteria surrounding the nature of the illness. Many misconceptions about the illness had led to inaction from the public and government. In response, ACT UP had formed to address this inaction. This paper analyzes a set of six photographs taken during ACT UP’s protest efforts and analyzes the arguments within them.

Kill ‘Objectivity,’ Save The Planet, Kaley Lambert

Comm-entary

This piece argues that objectivity is a flawed journalistic standard that is detrimental to pursuits for climate crisis action. Objectivity encourages practices that reiterate structures of injustice, disadvantage voices from marginalized communities while simultaneously advantaging stances with minimal scientific backing, and worsens matters of audience disengagement. In pursuit of reducing or eliminating this environmentally burdensome practice, this paper proposes a transition toward transparent objectivity as a possible alternative to objectivity for journalistic standards.

Rhetorical Analysis Of 'Surviving R. Kelly', Grace Righini

Comm-entary

This essay discusses the documentary Surviving R. Kelly, which details allegations of sexual abuse against the musician Robert "R" Kelly. The documentary provides a platform for young black women to speak out against Kelly and explain why he is an abuser. It also sheds light on victims' difficulties in obtaining justice, particularly when a celebrity is involved. The essay analyses the impact of the documentary and how it has empowered women to come forward with their own stories, regarding other women speaking out during the #MeToo movement and paving the way for future documentaries speaking out against other powerful celebrities. …

Nebraska Women In Journalism: The Groundbreakers Before Us And Surrounding Us, Jolie Peal

Honors Program: Senior Projects (Public)

Nebraska women in journalism: The groundbreakers before us and surrounding us is a 30-minute documentary about six Nebraska women and their journeys as journalists. This project seeks to answer the question: “How do women in the media overcome gender bias?” I interviewed six women ranging in age and from a variety of journalistic fields to discover what biases they faced in the industry as well as their advice for young journalists as we enter into a field that is constantly evolving. I discovered that Nebraska women in the media do experience the bias we see throughout the nation and in …

A Rhetorical Criticism Of “Bothsidesism” In Journalism, Jess Kirby

Departmental Honors & Graduate Capstone Projects

In recent years, a term called “bothsidesism” has come into public use as both a critique of journalists participating in false balance and as an expectation that journalists should cover all sides of an issue—no matter if a side’s claims are unfounded. I argue that bothsidesism is problematic because 1) bothsidesism is a fallacious rhetorical tactic that minimizes objective fact; 2) the term “bothsidesism” and the act of practicing it both reinforce bipartisan thought, which stymies political action; 3) false balance is at odds with the role of a journalist; and 4) false balance is perpetuated by comment sections. I …

Spartan Daily, April 27, 2023, San Jose State University, School Of Journalism And Mass Communications

Spartan Daily, 2023

Volume 160, Issue 37

Spartan Daily, April 26, 2023, San Jose State University, School Of Journalism And Mass Communications

Spartan Daily, 2023

Volume 160, Issue 36

Winonan, Winona State University

The Winonan - 2020s

This issue of the Winona State University student newspaper The Winonan was published on April 26, 2023.

Implementation Of Health Communication In Tb Management In Indonesia, Olih Solihin, Djuara P. Lubis, Pudji Muljono, Siti Amanah

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

Tuberculosis (TB) remains a public health problem in Indonesia despite various efforts to combat it. TB is the leading cause of death in Indonesia and requires more comprehensive action, including in health communication. Indonesia ranks second after India in the number of TB cases and fourth in TB deaths in Asia. Efforts to address TB in Indonesia continue, including the implementation of more comprehensive prevention and treatment programs and effective health communication campaigns. However, the implementation of health communication in TB management in Indonesia still faces challenges such as infrastructure, policy, human resources, and community participation. Evaluation of the effectiveness …

Spartan Daily, April 25, 2023, San Jose State University, School Of Journalism And Mass Communications

Spartan Daily, 2023

Volume 160, Issue 35

Spartan Daily, April 20, 2023, San Jose State University, School Of Journalism And Mass Communications

Spartan Daily, 2023

Volume 160, Issue 34

The Cowl - V. 87 N. 16 - April 20, 2023

The Cowl

The Cowl - student newspaper of Providence College. Vol. 87 No. 16 - April 20, 2023. 24 pages.

Content-Based Unsupervised Fake News Detection On Ukraine-Russia War, Yucheol Shin, Yvan Sojdehei, Limin Zheng, Brad Blanchard

SMU Data Science Review

The Ukrainian-Russian war has garnered significant attention worldwide, with fake news obstructing the formation of public opinion and disseminating false information. This scholarly paper explores the use of unsupervised learning methods and the Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers (BERT) to detect fake news in news articles from various sources. BERT topic modeling is applied to cluster news articles by their respective topics, followed by summarization to measure the similarity scores. The hypothesis posits that topics with larger variances are more likely to contain fake news. The proposed method was evaluated using a dataset of approximately 1000 labeled news articles related …

Re: Beyond Fake News, Nate Floyd, Jaclyn Spraetz

Journal of Media Literacy Education

A student success librarian with a Ph.D. in mass communication and an information literacy librarian with an M.A. in secondary English education describe their efforts to innovate in the field of news literacy by incorporating the media effects research tradition. By highlighting the emotional, behavioral, and cognitive elements of information processing, the authors hope to show students how professional norms, institutional and market pressures shape the news while their own predispositions influence how they interpret the news they consume. The authors emphasize agenda-setting and framing, two fundamental media effects paradigms, and report on their effort to develop news literacy classes …

The Promise Of Media Literacy Education When “Everything Is At Stake” And “Everything Is Expected”, Monica Bulger, Gina Baleria, Renee Hobbs, Kimberly R. Moffitt

Journal of Media Literacy Education

In the midst of a tumultuous time in American and global history, the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication Annual Conference 2021 hosted a panel to explore the promise and limits of media literacy. Panelists discussed the vital role of media literacy education in responding to challenges to democracy, social justice, and public health. With “everything at stake,” the panelists moved through responses to current crises while grounding in a historical context and offering recommendations for the future. Curated transcripts share a pivotal moment when much was expected of media literacy and media literacy experts explored promise and …

Spartan Daily, April 19, 2023, San Jose State University, School Of Journalism And Mass Communications

Spartan Daily, 2023

Volume 160, Issue 33

Spartan Daily, April 18, 2023, San Jose State University, School Of Journalism And Mass Communications

Spartan Daily, 2023

Volume 160, Issue 32

The Prospector, April 18, 2023, Utep Student Publications

The Prospector

Headline: Inglorious Bastards