Digital Commons Network^™

A Constructed Peace: Narratives Of Suture In The News Media, Jody L. Madeira

Articles by Maurer Faculty

In the aftermath of violent crime, survivors are confronted by questions of comprehension, healing, normalcy, accountability, and restoration. These same issues are communicated to audiences via mass media coverage of the crime and ensuing legal proceedings that focuses upon survivors while they are in the public eye - and while those suspected of the crime are in the defendant's chair. Such stories bring a human face to the innocents most affected by the outcome of the proceedings, relaying their involvement in and response to legal developments from arrest to execution. This paper examines these chronicles through the lens of narrative …

Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Skilling; How Enron's Public Image Morphed From The Most Innovative Company In The Fortune 500 To The Most Notorious Company Ever, Nancy B. Rapoport, Jeffrey D. Van Niel

Scholarly Works

In this article, we explore the hypothesis that Enron's financial releases were so complex and misleading that no one could have predicted its rapid downfall, and we find that, contrary to our hypothesis, a number of people were contradicting Enron's own rosy view of itself long before the middle of 2001. We then talk about the ways in which Enron became part of the public consciousness, far beyond what it had done merely as a business entity.

Out Of Office And In The News: Early Projections Of The Clinton Legacy, Lori Cox Han, Matthew J. Krov

Political Science Faculty Articles and Research

During the first year after a president has left office, the tone and topic of news media coverage can influence a legacy greatly. This study examines coverage of Bill Clinton during his first year out of office in the New York Times and on network news shows and compares this coverage to that of Ronald Reagan and George Bush during their first years out of office. We find that Clinton received substantially more news coverage during the first year out of office than did either Reagan or Bush, and that Clinton's coverage in the media was also more critical and …

Panel Iii: The Current State Of Sports And The Media, Mark Conrad, Laurie Basch, David S. Denenberg, Jim Durham, Jerome S. Ebenstein, Brett Goodman, Nicole Coward

Fordham Intellectual Property, Media and Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Al.Com, "Eutaw Joins War On Death Penalty", Carla Crowder

Municipal Moratorium Resolutions

Al.com article on the Eutaw City Council passing a resolution calling for a moratorium on executions in Alabama.

Film In The Classroom: Toward A More Effective Pedagogy, Jonathan Godwin

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The postmodern critique has effectively called on anthropologists to reevaluate ethnographic authority when representing others. However, what is often found lacking in this criticism is an exploration of the ways in which audiences interpret anthropological knowledge. One crucial area that can be easily researched is audience reception of film in introductory anthropology classes. As professors of anthropology increasingly rely on film for illustrating anthropological concepts, we must have an understanding of how this medium is interpreted by student audiences. Film's ability to convey complex information without additional contextualization has yet to be substantiated and previous research has indicated that visual …

Miscellaneous Moratorium Coverage, Anne Ruisi, Marie Schaeffer

Moratorium Deliberations

Coverage of Project Hope Against the Death Penalty's moratorium advocacy from the Birmingham News, Greene County Democrat, Valley Times-News, and Marion Times-Standard.

How Safe Do Individuals Feel In Clayton County?, Scott M. Clemens

Theses and Dissertations

To determine if individuals feel safe in their communities, a self- administered questionnaire was distributed to six hundred residents of Clayton County, Georgia. In addition to overall safety, the survey sought to measure how being a victim of a burglary or rape and the level of income impacts the individuals' feeling of safety. The survey also sought to measure how safe those same individuals believed the community was for their children and how likely a terrorist attack was in the county. Non- probability sampling, specifically the accidental sample, was used for conducting the research. The results of the survey show …

Falun Gong In The United States: An Ethnographic Study, Noah Porter

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, has been described in many ways. It has been called qigong, one of many schools of physical exercises that aim at improving health and developing "supernatural abilities". Scholars and mainstream media have referred it to as a "spiritual movement" or religion, although practitioners claim it is not a religion. It has been called a cult, in the pejorative sense rather than in a sociological context, by the Chinese government and by some Western critics. In the writings of Li Hongzhi, the founder of Falun Gong, it is referred to in different ways, …

Press Controls In Wartime: The Legal, Historical, And Institutional Context, Stephen D. Cooper

Communications Faculty Research

News coverage of warfare poses a dilemma for social systems with a free press, such as the United States. In an era of high-tech weaponry and nearly instantaneous global communications, conflict is inevitable between the obligation of the press to inform the general public and the obligation of the military to successfully conduct war. The importance of secrecy to the conduct of warfare heightens the issue in the current counterterrorism operations. The competitive advantage of live coverage raises the stakes in a crowded media market. The military’s control over newsgathering during the 1990-91 Persian Gulf War set off a controversy …

Mormons And The Media, 1898-2003: A Selected, Annotated, And Indexed Bibliography (With Suggestions For Future Research), Sherry Baker, Daniel Stout

BYU Studies

Print, electronic, and other forms of communications media have been consistently perceived and characterized by leaders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as tools to assist in spreading and gospel message throughout the world. President Spencer W. Kimball said, "Technology will help spread the gospel.... We shall use the inventions the Lord has given us to awaken interest and acquaint people of the world with [gospel] truths." More recently, President Gordon B. Hinckley said, "The Lord has inspired skilled men and women in developing new technologies which we can use to our great advantage in …

The Electronic Polis: Media Democracy And The Invasion Of Iraq, Jeff Lewis, Kirsty Best

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

[First paragraph]

The American-led victory in Baghdad was announced to the world with scenes of Iraqi citizens dragging down the statues of the deposed tyrant. Like the spectacle of World Cup Soccer or the Olympic Games, the image was transmitted live through the global media network to the billions of people who had been closely watching the three week invasion. President Bush shared in the celebration, announcing the dawn of a new age for freedom and democracy in the Middle East. This new democracy, the president proclaimed, would bring stability and prosperity to the region through the obliteration of terrorism …

Homeland (In)Security : Roots And Displacement, From New York, To Toronto, To Salt Lake City, Marusya Bociurkiw

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

[First paragraph]

On September 11, 2001, broadcast and print media around the world narrated the destruction of New York City's World Trade Center and the deaths of thousands of its occupants. This paper will examine the ways in which television and its appendages (the telephone, the internet, the newspaper) operated to organize the discursive meanings of this traumatic event. I will propose that between September 11 and February 2002's Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, Utah, ideas about home, roots and rootedness (and their Others: foreignness, homelessness, nomadicism) operated as a discursive mapping of that which could otherwise not be …

Health Risks, Past Usage, And Intention To Use Weight Loss Products In Normal Weight Women With High And Low Body Dysphoria, B. L. Whisenhunt, D. A. Williamson, Richard G. Netemeyer, J. Craig Andrews

Marketing Faculty Research and Publications

Objective: There are many health risks involved with the use of weight loss products by normal weight women. The mass media may compound this problem through the promotion of weight loss products and a thin body size. This study tested women's perceptions of different weight loss product ads to determine if body dysphoria (i.e., an over concern with body size and shape in normal weight people) was associated with risk beliefs, past behaviors, and intention toward using weight loss products.

Method: Normal weight women (age range = 18-41 yr), who were classified as either high (n=45) …

War, Media And Public Opinion; Al-Jazeera's Role In The Recent Arab Israeli Conflicts", Marwa Ragaa Radwan Al-Mutafy

Archived Theses and Dissertations

The second Palestinian intifada and the way it was covered by the various media outlets caused a revolution in media coverage in the Arab World. Al-Jazeera TV channel emerged and gathered audiences, and regularly tuned in to catch the latest news and updates, reminding people of CNN during the Gulf War. However, no studies were conducted, that measured the impact of this channel on audiences and how it did or did not create a common public opinion among them.

This study's purpose is to testing the relationship between Media,

War, and Public Opinion. In other words, it studies the impact …

Media Consumption And Male Body Image, Catherine A. Larsen

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

The purpose of our proposed research is to examine the relationship between media consumption and self-appraised body image in male college students. That is, does a correlation exist between the amount and type of media consumed (magazines in particular) and how males perceive their own body. Our hypothesis postulates that since magazines often portray unrealistic and "ideal" physiques, men that purchase and read body-oriented magazines will be have a more negative body image than those who do not.

Mediums And Media: Review Of Ghostwriting Modernism, By Helen Sword, And Haunted Media, By Jeffrey Sconce, Alan Clinton

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

No abstract provided.

Making And Breaking The News: The Media In Sports Personnel Decisions, John Goddard Dedman

Undergraduate Honors Thesis Collection

Through reporting speculation and providing constant insider information, the media int1uences where coaches and players end up. This thesis studies the relationship between media framing: selecting some aspects of a perceived reality and making them more salient in a communicating text...

Reporting On Terrorism: Choosing Our Words Carefully, Jeffrey A. Dvorkin

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Mammography Screening Controversy: Who And What Is Heard In The Press?, Sonya Charles, Margaret Holmes-Rovner

Philosophy and Religious Studies Department Faculty Publications

The objective of this project was to analyze newspaper coverage of the January 2000 meta-analysis by Gotzsche and Olsen, “Is screening for breast cancer with mammography justified?” [Lancet 355 (2000) 129]. A content analysis was performed on a comprehensive set of newspaper clippings from the UK during the 2 weeks following publication of the Lancet article. The original authors were most quoted in Wave 1 (the first weekend); the screening programme was most quoted in Wave 2 (week 2). Screening programme description, and the “quality” of the Lancet article dominated Wave 1; patient testimonials increased in Wave 2. Newspaper articles …

Black Sitcoms: A Black Perspective., Miriam Chitiga

Faculty Working Papers from the School of Education

No abstract provided.

Pointing The Finger Of Blame: News Media Coverage Of Popular-­Culture Culpability, Erica Scharrer, Lisa M. Weidman, Kimberly Bissell

Faculty Publications

In the 1990s, three relatively high-profile tragedies occurred in which popular media products (including movies, recorded music, television talk shows, the Internet, tabloid newspapers, and video games) were argued to be the primary cause. This study analyzes the discourse surrounding the culpability that was placed on popular culture in major newspaper coverage of the car crash that killed Princess Diana, the murder associated with the “Jenny Jones” show, and the shootings at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado. The analysis reveals patterns in the assignment of blame—and relatively more rarely of exoneration—of popular culture, interpreting why and how popular culture …

The Usa Patriot Act: Civil Liberties, The Media, And Public Opinion, Lisa Finnegan Abdolian, Harold Takooshian

Fordham Urban Law Journal

This Essay offers an examination of the legal provision of the USA Patriot Act. It then looks at the distinct shift in U.S. media reporting on this legislation over time, and in-depth public opinion findings on people's mixed views of post-9/11 civil liberties. This Essay concludes that media coverage of events is best accompanied by tracking polls, to chart how much and why the U.S. public is coalescing or further dividing on issues of individual liberties during crisis.

Covering Women And Violence: Media Treatment Of Vawa's Civil Rights Remedy, Sarah F. Russell

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

This Article analyzes how newspapers described and characterized the civil rights provision over the past decade and shaped the public discourse about the law. The author examines how lower federal courts, and eventually the Supreme Court, categorized the VAWA remedy when deciding whether Congress had acted within its commerce powers. After considering why there may have been resistance in the press and in the courts to VAWA's categorization of violence against women as a civil rights issue, the author concludes by examining the remedies that have been introduced at the state and local level for victims of gender-motivated violence, and …

Signs Toward Change: Responding To How Print Advertisements Portray Women And Invent Reality, Kristin Hare

Whittier Scholars Program

This senior project is an art creation of 30 signs that address how the print media portrays women and imbues unrealistic and potentially harmful messages into their advertisements. This study discusses how advertisements contain information that is not obvious from a quick glance, but due to the numerous ads that people digest every day, this information becomes subconsciously absorbed and affects all aspects of one’s life. This study highlights how every aspect of what advertisements convey, intentional or not, matters a great deal and has a huge impact on people’s lives. This project also includes Senior Symposium notes, the aforementioned …

Filling The Void In First Amendment Jurisprudence: Is There A Solution For Replacing The Impotent System Of Prior Restraints?, Richard Favata

Fordham Law Review

No abstract provided.

A Media Literacy Curriculum For The Adolescent Learner, Chris Lopez

All Graduate Projects

The purpose of this project was to develop a media literacy curriculum for teachers of young adolescents. Media literacy is a new, evolving field of study that teaches students to become critical consumers of today's media. Media have often been blamed for the ills of student learning, critical thinking, performance and/or behavior skills. In the review ofliterature, the author investigated media's impact on the adolescent learner, the need to teach media literacy, and recommended curriculum that would benefit the adolescent learner. The curriculum unit is designed to be a useful teaching tool for teachers of adolescent and preadolescent learners who …

Race, Sex, And Redemption In Monster's Ball, Celeste Fisher, Carole Wiebe

Ethnic Studies Review

In this paper, we explore the way that interracial relationships between blacks and whites come to be represented as problematic for mainstream audiences. By looking specifically at the film Monster's Ball (2001), we examine how race is used to identify and characterize our culture's standard protagonist, the white male, and at how white male sexuality is constructed through the black female. Particularly striking in this film is how the social and institutional structures that create and reiterate problems of race are used to characterize the movie's central protagonists, yet then evaded and submerged in the discourse of romance.

Perceptions Of Minorities' Criminal Involvement In Grand Rapids: Community And Media Dialogue, Rafael E. Castanon

McNair Scholars Journal

This study examines media overrepresentation and its effects on community perception. The research examines the perception of racial/ethnic involvement in violent crimes in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Grand Rapids Police Department arrest reports for violent crime were dichotomized by race/ethnicity and compared to news articles reporting violent crimes found in the Grand Rapids Press to determine if a disparity exists between those data sets. To measure public perceptions, questionnaires were administered concerning racial/ethnic groups and their likelihood to commit violent crimes. The overall intention is to provide a better understanding of root causes of minority disparity within the Criminal Justice System.

Second Natures: Media, Masculinity And The Natural World In Twentieth-Century American Literature And Film., Jeanne E. Hamming

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

This multidisciplinary dissertation examines the cultural anxieties associated with masculine identity in relation to both technology and nature in key literary texts and contemporary films of the twentieth-century: Ray Bradbury's “The Veldt” and The Martian Chronicles, Philip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, James Dickey's Deliverance , Don DeLillo's White Noise, Fight Club, American Psycho, Brazil, 12 Monkeys, and Dark City. Exploring the theoretical intersections of technoculture, ecocriticism, and gender studies, this dissertation analyzes the relationship between masculine identity and nature, as it is mediated by American technoculture. This relationship is marked by a discernible cultural malaise—a sense …