Digital Commons Network^™

The Public Benefits Of Press Specialness, Ronnell Andersen Jones

Utah Law Faculty Scholarship

In many circumstances, a broad umbrella of shared rights for the press and the public is perfectly adequate. But there are also times when statutorily, and even constitutionally, we should be providing unique protection to those who, if granted rights beyond those available to all speakers, will use those rights to benefit society as a whole. In these areas, our ongoing refusal to conceptualize and legally recognize the specialness of the press function has robbed us of public benefits.

The Freedom of Information Act context is a perfect illustration of this. Federal agencies are so swamped by requesters with non-newsworthy, …

Decentering The Gendered Whiteness Of The Iconic American Cowboy: Media, Performance, And Race In The Rodeo World, Louise A. Blair

Tapestries: Interwoven voices of local and global identities

Throughout American history, cowboys have been a cultural fascination and iconic symbol of strength and masculinity. To this day, cowboys are readily present in popular culture and imagery, but are nearly always portrayed as an exclusively white character. This paper explores the historical inaccuracies of this portrayal, while decentering the whiteness of the cowboy by discussing media, performance, and race. Through this, case studies such as the Bill Pickett Rodeo, 21st century popular images of black cowboys, and the presence of horses in recent protests come to light as alternative images for a new American cowboy emerging in American culture. …

Abolish Copaganda!: An Acab Analysis Of Sisters And The Wicker Man And The Ramifications Of Abolitionist Spectatorship, Anjali Moore

Tapestries: Interwoven voices of local and global identities

After the 2020 Twin Cities Uprising, the term “ACAB” (All Cops Are Bastards) surged in popularity though it has been in circulation for nearly a century. Applying an ACAB lens to films suggests an intentional approach to spectatorship by integrating a critical consciousness about the systemic racism that the police embody. Portrayals of police are an omnipresent occurrence in media of all kinds and often function to cultivate trust in their authority. Brian DePalma’s 1973 slasher Sisters and Robin Hardy’s 1973 cult classic The Wicker Man exhibit notable anti-police sentiment that may feel unexpectedly radical for a pre-Uprising world. Using …

Gardner-Webb President William Downs Hosts Panel To Discuss Media’S Changing Landscape, Office Of University Communications

Gardner-Webb NewsCenter Archive

Podcasts, blogs, social media channels—the media in America and around the world is evolving. To discuss the media’s changing landscape, Gardner-Webb University President Dr. William Downs has invited a panel of local and regional journalists to campus. “Media Matters: News Gatherers and News Changers” will be held on Feb. 15 at 7 p.m. in Tucker Student Center.

The Association Between Perceptions Of Mental Illness And Law Enforcement’S Training And Treatment Of Individuals With Mental Illness, Melissa L. Bustamante

Student Theses and Dissertations

The current study obtained information on how police officers handle and improve their knowledge with individuals with mental illness and how certain factors, such as community, media, and perceptions of law enforcement, are potentially associated with how law enforcement handles individuals with mental illness. It is important to capture the law enforcement perspective because some research suggests that officers arrest individuals with mental illness at a higher rate than those who do not. Twelve officers from three local departments in the South were interviewed, with two having issues with the budget for CIT training. Some officers increased their understanding of …

Public Administration And Jokes: We Need To Vent, Laila El Baradei

Faculty Journal Articles

No abstract provided.

The Disappearing Freedom Of The Press, Ronnell Andersen Jones

Utah Law Faculty Scholarship

At this moment of unprecedented decline of local news and amplified attacks on the American press, attention is turning to the protection the Constitution might provide to journalism and the journalistic function. New signals that at least some Justices of the U.S. Supreme Court might be willing to rethink the core press-protecting precedent in New York Times v. Sullivan has intensified these conversations. But this scholarly dialogue appears to be taking place against a mistaken foundational assumption: that the U.S. Supreme Court continues to articulate and embrace at least some notion of freedom of the press. Despite the First Amendment …

The Future Of Media, Social Media, And Sports Media, Garrett Kramer Brown

Journalism

I hope that the findings of this project help guide and propel student media on how to create content tailored for social media. In my experience at times, it can seem like student media tends to throw everything at the wall and will just see what sticks. While that is sort of the nature of the business that doesn’t mean smarter methods can’t be taken. Also, it specifically gives guidelines to sports coverage, again, in my experience, it seems to me colligate sports coverage seems to be very stuck in their ways, which is not necessarily bad but at the …

“Officer-Involved Shootings”: How The Exonerative Tense Of Media Accounts Distorts Reality, Michael Conklin

University of Miami Race & Social Justice Law Review

In “Officer-Involved Shootings”: How the Exonerative Tense of Media Accounts Distorts Reality, the author examines how the use of passive language absolves officers from public and media accountability after a shooting. This Article reports the findings of a first-of-its-kind study designed to measure how the use of the phrase “officer-involved shooting” affects public perceptions of police behavior justifications.

Building Brand Identity And Organizational Growth For A Small Media Company, Reginald L. China

Education Projects

The global Coronavirus pandemic exacerbated the need for increased media content. It also showed that media content was integral to communication and stakeholder engagement during community lockdowns. I worked with the Jones Media Company to gauge the need for media services in faith-based organizations. The survey results revealed that religious institutions are not exempt from using media content to engage congregations, the community, and potential members. According to Auxier and Anderson 2021, the ability to access multimedia content is in the palm of our hands. Their research showed that some 84% of adults ages 18 to 29 say they ever …

Impacts Of Censorship On Political Polarization, Sofia Frasz

Honors Program Theses

Ideological and affective polarization across party lines has grown significantly in the United States in the past several decades. It has hit a high point in the years since President Donald Trump’s election. At the same time, citizens who identify as conservative, Republican, or libertarian have expressed concerns over a perceived increase in social media censorship of their ideas. Whether real or perceived, the fear of censorship has directly contributed to a vicious cycle of political antagonism: those who feel censored (most likely to identify as right-leaning) blame members of the other party (who are often assumed to be left-leaning) …

Drugs, Ethnic Profiling, And The American Perception Of Colombian Immigrants, 1979-1990, Laurisa Sastoque

Armstrong Undergraduate Journal of History

This paper analyzes how the media’s portrayal of Colombian drug trafficking turned into a stigma that affected the Colombian community in the United States. By reviewing periodical sources between the years 1979-1990, this paper argues that the formation of the drug trafficking stigma stems from the media's almost exclusive portrayal of Colombians as drug traffickers, within a context of U.S.-Colombia relations that encompassed tensions regarding responsibility for the growing transnational drug problem. Ultimately, this study proves that the drug trafficking stigma for Colombian immigrants is inherently tied to how American society viewed the Colombian government’s actions in the war on …

The Bigger Picture: Wrongful Conviction Documentary Thematic Vs Episodic Framing, Alecsandra N. Vac

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

True crime documentaries have gained popularity in the past decade, but those focusing on wrongful conviction cases have been on the rise (Doughty, 2018). Advocates against wrongful conviction, such as the Innocence Project, have been utilizing entertainment media to increase awareness on the issues present in the criminal justice system. However, the framing of wrongful conviction causes and cases (ex: focusing on extreme accusations of police misconduct and intentional forensic evidence tampering) could lead to a bias in how the viewers understand how miscarriages of justice occur. The primary research question being investigated here is, how are these advocacy-recommended documentaries …

The Bachelor Machine - A Short Film By Jack Rose, Jack Rose

Honors Theses

My Bucknell Honors Thesis submission for the Film and Media Studies department consists of two different parts. The first part is a 5-minute short film, titled “the bachelor machine” that I created through a year-long process of pre-production (idea generation), production (the film shoot itself), and post-production (editing, sound design, color grading). The second part of my Honors Thesis submission is an Artist’s Statement that explains the processes by which I created the film, outlining each aforementioned step in the production process. I also examine the avenues by which I was inspired to create this product, through my previous experiences …

News Treatment Of The Supreme Court: Language Selection, Ideological Directions, And Public Support, Alexander Denison

Theses and Dissertations--Political Science

In an increasingly diverse media landscape, how much of the ideological trends seen in current news reporting affect coverage of the U.S. Supreme Court? This work examines two different aspects of the Court's activities, their decisions and the confirmation hearings of Court nominees, analyzing what factors, if any, lead to differences in coverage language. Finally, through the use of a survey experiment, I analyze whether these differences in language, in combination with positive symbolic imagery, affect attitudes toward the institution. This work provides a novel consideration of whether the Court is subject to the same ideological slant found in coverage …

Ecocinema Theory And Practice 2, Stephen Rust, Salma Monani, Sean Cubitt

Gettysburg College Faculty Books

This second volume builds on the initial groundwork laid by Ecocinema Theory and Practice by examining the ways in which ecocritical cinema studies have matured and proliferated over the last decade, opening whole new areas of study and research.

Featuring fourteen new essays organized into three sections around the themes of cinematic materialities, discourses, and communities, the volume explores a variety of topics within ecocinema studies from examining specifc national and indigenous flm contexts to discussing ecojustice, environmental production studies, flm festivals, and political ecology. The breadth of the contributions exemplifes how ecocinema scholars worldwide have sought to overcome the …

Creating "Good Government", Linda Hoffman Kimball

BYU Studies

Creating an image that represents the quest for good government was a meaty challenge. There are so many opinions, so many priorities, so many personalities. How do power, choice, cooperation, force, fear, aspirations, and even geography impact how a society will structure itself and relate to others whose priorities vary?

Media Merger Madness: An Event Study Analyzing Acquiror Returns In Media & Entertainment, Samuel Johnson

CMC Senior Theses

Utilizing an event study methodology, this paper studies the effect that mergers and acquisitions (M&A) announcements have on media acquirors’ stock returns. This study also examines the effect that various characteristics of the target and acquiror have on acquirors’ returns. These characteristics include: location of the acquired company, year of the acquisition, industry of the acquired company, price of the acquired company, size of the acquiror, and serial acquiror status of the acquiror. My findings are consistent with previous literature that find that, in a short-term event window surrounding the announcement of a merger or acquisition, acquirors experience returns that …

Will The Real News Reporters Please Stand Up?: A Study Of Bias In The Media, Hannah Claussen

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

The goal of my project is to define what news media bias is and examine its history and the effects it currently has on our country and democracy. I will examine its electoral effects as well as how media bias has contributed to lower trust in the news media as a whole.

My project will consist of a general news story on the subject of media bias; a smaller news story focusing on the history of media bias and public perception of the press; an abbreviated research paper on newspaper endorsements and their efficacy in a modern news landscape; and …

The Extent To Which Tiktok Has Become A New Platform For Political Expression: An Analysis Of Us Public Opinion, Social Media, Celebrity Endorsements And Youth Voting Behavior, Jill Shaughnessy

Capstone Showcase

Tiktok has a function in society to act as a platform of political identity and expression. This thesis aims to find out if its growth is correlated to youth voting behavior and politics, specifically how does the consumption of mass media and the exposure of social networks like Tiktok influence youth voting behavior and public opinion in modern elections and act as platforms for political expression? Employing the analytic method of process tracing, my research illustrates how young people found a political identity with groupthink structures, were mobilized to vote with initiatives and celebrities and used social media to speak …

No Laughing Matter: Political Humor And Media In Egypt’S January 25th Revolution, Julia Brock

Scripps Senior Theses

The January 25th Revolution in Egypt began in 2011 when protestors took to the streets in Cairo and other Egyptian cities demanding that President Hosni Mubarak resign. They were armed with a savvy tool: humor. This study is a historical and theoretical approach to understanding political humor’s position as a space for politically subversive conversation in Egypt in the decade leading up to the January 25th Revolution, as well as during the revolution itself. Humor, media, and social movement theories are mobilized within this thesis to explain humor’s unique position within Egyptian society and its function within subversive, informal political …

Wilderness And The Geotag: Exploring The Claim That "Geotagging Ruins Nature" In The Alpine Lakes Wilderness, Wa, Mara Gans

All Master's Theses

This research explores the claim that “geotagging ruins nature” by quantifying and qualifying patterns in geotag use and visitors’ experiences in the Alpine Lakes Wilderness, in Washington, United States. Many have raised concerns that geotags increase recreational visitation to public lands, which subsequently contributes to negative resource impacts. Others, however, claim that geotagging has made the outdoors more accessible to less privileged communities and raise concerns that condemning geotags will perpetuate the exclusion of certain groups from outdoor recreation. This debate is studied within federally designated Wilderness, which is legally defined as “untrammeled by man,” a definition rooted in problematic …

A Free Press Without Democracy, Erin C. Carroll

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

For several decades, the American press has been fighting for its economic survival. But while it has been consumed with this effort, the political threat to a free press has grown perhaps greater than the economic one. Democracy is eroding globally, including in the United States. Given the importance of a free press to democracy, the press needs to more urgently consider how it maintains its freedom as erosion persists.

This Article sets out a framework for American press priorities in this pivotal moment. It suggests that to resist and weather a turn to autocracy, the press must endeavor to …

America's Next Top Model Magnified, Nina Violi

Capstone Showcase

America's Next Top Model was a reality television show that aired from 2003 to 2018 and the show gave women (and men in the later seasons) a chance to become models and be trained by the best in the business. While the show looked like a positive experience from the viewers' perspective, there were many situations when the models were put in uncomfortable situations. The show is related back to the feminism theory.

Los Audiovisuales En Su Función Coadyuvante O Vehicular: Una Aproximación, José Gabriel López Antuñano

Teatro: Revista de Estudios Escénicos / A Journal of Theater Studies

A pesar de la plena integración en la escena de los audiovisuales al comienzo del siglo XXI, en sus dos primeras décadas hemos asistido a una evolución técnica y estética de los medios que argumenta un nuevo acercamiento a las vertientes del audiovisual en la escena teatral. En esta aproximación se distingue la función coadyuvante y la vehicular, según sean empleados por los creadores en diálogo con el resto de integrantes de la escenificación o bien su presencia se imponga sobre ellos, ensamblando materiales de variados orígenes. Dentro de cada una de ellas se diferencian varios modos de operación, que …

The U.S. Supreme Court's Characterizations Of The Press: An Empirical Study, Sonja R. West, Ronnell Anderson Jones

Scholarly Works

The erosion of constitutional norms in the United States is at the center of an urgent national debate. Among the most crucial of these issues is the fragile and deteriorating relationship between the press and the government. While scholars have responded with sophisticated examinations of the President’s and legislators’ characterizations of the news media, one branch of government has
received little scrutiny—the U.S. Supreme Court. This gap in the scholarship is remarkable in light of the Court’s role as the very institution entrusted with safeguarding the rights of the press. This Article presents the findings of the first comprehensive empirical …

Hierarchy And Responsibility In Media: Cults, Culpability, And Culture, Max Hargett

Online Theses and Dissertations

This is a descriptive research project that investigates how popular entertainment media portrays cults. My intention is to see how the selected films and television shows portray issues of hierarchy and culpability within the cult and to explore how the genre and theme of the content was utilized in order to evoke certain reactions and sentiments in the audience. The selected films were The Sacrament, Martha Marcy May Marlene, and Midsommar. The selected television shows were Waco and American Horror Story: Cult. Each film and series is given its own analysis. Findings indicate that a common theme of the rigid …

The Disappearing Freedom Of The Press, Sonja R. West, Ronnell Anderson Jones

Scholarly Works

At this moment of unprecedented decline of local news and amplified attacks on the American press, attention is turning to the protection the Constitution might provide to journalism and the journalistic function. New signals that at least some Justices of the U.S. Supreme Court might be willing to rethink the core press-protecting precedent in New York Times v. Sullivan has intensified these conversations. But this scholarly dialogue appears to be taking place against a mistaken foundational assumption: that the U.S. Supreme Court continues to articulate and embrace at least some notion of freedom of the press. Despite the First Amendment …

Review: W. Paul Reeve, Project Manager And General Editor. Century Of Black Mormons. J. Willard Marriott Library, University Of Utah. Https://Exhibits .Lib.Utah.Edu/S/Century-Of-Black-Mormons/Page/Welcome., Lauren Cooper

Mormon Studies Review

W. Paul Reeve opens the statement of purpose on the Century of Black Mormons’s “About” page by capturing the mainstream media and pop culture commentators’ disbelief that a population of Black Mormons exists. In statements culled from sources during the 2012 US presidential election with Mitt Romney, a White Mormon, running against the reelection of Barack Obama, an African American Protestant, comedians describe Black Mormons as “mythical creatures” and news broadcasters speculate there may be “between 500 to 2,000.” In actuality, according to a 2009 Pew Research Study that Reeve references, the estimated Black Mormon population is between sixty thousand …

"It Costs Us Something": Mike Mansfield And The Effort To Evaluate The American Foreign Aid Program In South Vietnam, 1953-1960, Kristin D. Gates

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

No abstract provided.