Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Mujeres En Movimiento: La Posmigración En Obras Contemporáneas De Hijas De Inmigrantes En España Y Estados Unidos, Olatz Sanchez-Txabarri

Dissertations and Doctoral Documents, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2023–

This dissertation investigates contemporary works of daughters of immigrants in Spain and the United States. Through a postmigration approach, this study delves into the analysis of Ser mujer negra en España (2018), by Desirée Bela-Lobedde, Hija del camino (2019), by Lucía Mbomío, A Cup of Water Under My Bed (2014), by Daisy Hernández, Juliet Takes a Breath (2016), by Gabby Rivera, La hija extranjera (2015), by Najat El Hachmi, Hija de inmigrantes (2022), by Safia El Aaddam, and the documentaries Fruits of Labor (2021), by Emily Cohen Ibáñez and Vida diferida (Life, Deferred) (2017), by Brenda Ávila-Hanna. I …

Intersectionality In Tennis (Wta) Sports Media, Emily Stoner

Honors Program: Senior Projects (Public)

This “applied knowledge” project investigates and observes intersectionality in tennis sports media via the women’s professional tour (WTA). Intersectionality in Tennis (WTA) Sports Media analyzes how intersectionality as a concept and social justice lens impacts and is impacted by media. By considering intersectional identities and their implications in sports media narratives and coverage, this piece displays some telling patterns and perpetuations.

At the professional level, tennis certainly does not garner the most profit or attention, but it provides a unique world of intersecting identities, cultures, geography and tradition. This work aims to shed light on the state of sports media, …

The Transformative Impact Of User-Created Mods Within Fallout: New Vegas, Tanner Webb

Theses

Video game modding is one of the fastest growing trends in the gaming industry and it is changing how players interact with games. Review of current literature and research shows that these modders are an integral part of the gaming market. Using the principles of participatory culture and digital aesthetics, this research investigates how modding practices serve as both a form of creative expression and an inspiration for technological innovation within the video game industry. Video game modifications serve as catalysts for creative expression, foster the development of innovative user communities, prolong the life of game titles, cultivate a pool …

A Texas-Sized Problem: Abortion Policy And Public Perception On The Border, Sabrina Bustillos

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The present study is an examination of the impacts Texas' abortion restrictions have had on residents of El Paso, Texas. As of 2022, virtually all instances of abortion are illegal in the state of Texas. Despite the complete overturn of Roe V. Wade, in addition to Texas' passage of the "Texas Heartbeat Act", lawmakers have continued to propose and enact laws that encourage the intimidation, investigation, and punishment of anyone suspected of aiding and abetting an abortion, regardless of whether it occurred outside of state lines. These policies are ever-changing and impact millions of Texans, whether they know it or …

Black Events As Narrated By Black People: Contextualizing America’S Framing Of Progression In News, Social, And Academic Writing, Tyrina Horton

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

This paper is a critical examination of collective and public memories of public events that impact Black lives as constructed in news, social, and academic writing. Using Black mundane life to explore and build localized context and attitudes towards these events, I examine whether the collective memory of an event, as framed by public discourse, accurately portrays how Black communities experienced them. This paper explores what it means for Black people, to experience a disconnect with written accounts of public events that do not properly account for the many layers of Black experience, highlighting where there’s a failure to tell …

Community Media Coalitions: Best Practices To Support Healthy Local News Ecosystems, Stepfanie E. Alfonso

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

Local U.S. journalism is in crisis. Communities across the country are suffering from a loss of local outlets, journalists, and a shortage of original coverage that addresses critical information needs. Yet, community media coalitions (CMCs) offer a promising solution. These coalitions bring together media outlets, educational institutions, and civic organizations to collaboratively support local news ecosystems. However, little is known about these coalitions or how to effectively build and operate them from the perspective of their creators.

To address this information gap, a guidebook was created titled A Best Practices Guide for Community Media Coalition Building: How to Wrangle All …

Dancing In The Digital Age: How Social Media Shapes The Commercial Dance Industry, Luke Lisowski

Honors College Theses

Social media has fundamentally transformed the commercial dance industry, reshaping how dancers establish careers, connect with industry professionals, and promote their artistry. This thesis examines the impact of social media platforms – such as Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube – on career growth by facilitating networking opportunities, increasing visibility, and redefining industry standards. The research explores how digital platforms have shifted the traditional pathways to success, enabling dancers to showcase their work independently while also creating challenges related to self-promotion, competition, and mental health.

Through a series of in-depth interviews with professional dancers and choreographers actively working in the industry, this …

Rhetorics Of Vigilance: Refracting Discourses In Technologies Of Self-Managed Health & Wellness, Haley Swartz

All Dissertations

Rhetorics of Vigilance explores the limits of feminist health rhetorics by examining technologies that promote women’s self-managed health and wellness practices. By establishing a corpus of personal health technologies and associated texts including mobile health applications, pelvic floor training devices, and perimenopause information shared on social media, this dissertation analyzes how discourses refract––redirected and often distorted––to implicate women in persistent self-monitoring. Drawing from interdisciplinary scholarship on women’s health from feminist rhetorical studies, rhetorics of health and medicine, science and technology studies, and digital studies, I theorize rhetorics of vigilance as a framework through which women understand and interpret issues …

Am I Woke Enough To Serve In Healthcare: A Secondary Analysis Of Pre-Health Students’ Personal And Professional Growth By Engaging In Cultural Competency Assessments, Harolynn Williams

All Dissertations

Healthcare providers must be equipped to serve an increasingly diverse population, yet cultural competence remains underemphasized in undergraduate pre-health education. This study explored how embedded cultural competency training influences undergraduate pre-health students’ perceptions of personal and professional growth. Using a qualitative descriptive design, the research incorporated intercultural assessments, the Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI), and the Global Competence Certificate (GCC), along with qualitative reflections from students enrolled in three versions of a cultural competence course: a year-long course, a semester-long course, and a short-term study abroad immersion six-week course. Findings revealed that students demonstrated measurable growth in cultural awareness, knowledge, communication, …

Ua12/2/2 Talisman: Connection, Wku Student Affairs

WKU Administration Documents

Spring 2025 Talisman:

• Alali, Cecilia & Ragan Harrington. Connection
• Hardesty, Emma. On a Roll – Dungeons & Dragons
• Muscutt, Carson. Grinding Through Life – Molotov Skateshop
• Cox, Kate. Stopwatch
• Harrington, Ragan. 1 Campus, 7 Strangers – Logan Hesse, Nicholas Basile, Spencer Winterbottom, Alliyah Jones, Alex Gehring, Annie McClurg, Rowan Finley
• Vickers, Abigail. Forged in Combat – Mixed Martial Arts
• Wood-Morris, Oli. Survivors to Neighbors – Bosnian Refugees
• Jordan, Shylin. Severed Roots
• Bivens, Emily. Behind the Screen – Social Media
• Dean, Clarissa. Shear Talent – Shake Rag Barbershop
• Sutton, Avery. For the Love of the Old – Thrift Shopping
• Phelps, Maggie. …

A Focus On Face-To-Face Communication As A Source Of Relational Life And Renewal Of Community Within The Church, Ronald Edwin Hammer

DMin Project Theses

Increased digital engagement at the cost of in-person interactions has negatively impacted communal life in the Gateway City Church — St. Charles Ministry. Amid an increase in online connectivity, relational connections have suffered as church members add more and more to their already busy schedules. Research has noted multiple ways in which this significant drift from inperson engagement has brought harm to people’s overall health. The literature demonstrates a key root of this phenomenon to be widespread efforts to incorporate digital church engagement in an attempt to supply convenient access to spiritual resources. This tension between convenience and suffering relational …

The Icarian Dilemma: The Battle Of Faith Versus Identity Addressed With Scenic Design, Allistar G. Barrett

Senior Honors Theses

American Christians and the LGBTQ+ community have long been in a cultural war with one another. However, queer Christians – individuals who are both LGBTQ+ and Christian – have rarely found solace in either community, instead being shunned and ostracized for their beliefs and identities. Using the transformative art of theatre to address cultural divides, a theatrical scenic design was developed for Joe Calarco’s Shakespeare’s R & J, a retelling of the traditional Romeo and Juliet script through the lives of four Catholic school girls. This design uses the Greek mythology of Icarus, Catholic culture, the original Romeo and Juliet, …

“Every Mother A Missionary”?: The Vlogs Of Mormon Mothers, Celia Golden

Departmental Honors & Graduate Capstone Projects

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) places high expectations on mothers because their role in the church is to rear children into godly adults. When their lives are made public through social media, Mormon mothers online avoid religious expectations by withholding information about their Mormon faith and scarcely showing their husbands on-camera. Mormon husbands are expected to be the providers for the family, but as demonstrated through mothers’ vlogs on Instagram, husbands’ erasure allows for mothers to market their expertise to others as a paid product to earn their own revenue. Through descriptive coding, this study …

Parlez-Vous Français? You Betcha: Revitalizing A French Cultural Center By Connecting To Its Minnesota Roots, Ashley R. Flygare

Research & Creative Achievement Day

The Alliance Française Minneapolis-St. Paul (AFMSP) is an independent chapter of an international organization aimed at promoting the French language and various francophone cultures. It provides language instruction, cultural programming, social events, and access to a range of resources. However, participation in its events and courses has declined in recent years, putting the organization’s financial stability at risk. This project employs research and analysis to identify strategic and creative solutions to help AFMSP thrive.  A review of applied research was conducted, which included industry reports, performance data, and local cultural trends. Key insights revealed the need for enhanced community engagement, …

A Pedagogy Of Peace & Prose: Helping Students Engage With And Articulate Perspectives On The Plight Of Palestine Through A Tripartite Textual Analysis, Sydney E. Brammer

Feminist Pedagogy

No abstract provided.

Centering Relation In Media Literacy Practice, Paul Mihailidis, Bobbie Foster, Shannon Burth, Srividya Ramasubramanian, Melissa Tully, Patrick Johnson

Journal of Media Literacy Education

As calls for media literacy in formal and informal learning spaces continue to grow, educators’ understanding of media literacies and their purposes remains complex. In 2021, the authors of this paper led a multi-methods research project on media literacy education in the United States, focusing on impact and equity. Findings showed that educators share a commitment to equity and justice but are unclear on how to incorporate them into their work. In response, our research team developed a field guide that maps out equitable media literacy practices for classrooms and communities. In this study, we detail the findings from 11 …

Digital Literacy For Participating In Presidential Election: A Study On Indonesian Students, Marwiyah Marwiyah, Labibah Zain, Aliva D. Kamila, Thoriq T. Prabowo

Journal of Media Literacy Education

Digital literacy is needed during the presidential election. This study aims to determine the level of digital literacy of Indonesian students concerning what they do with social media information in facing the 2024 presidential election. We conducted a survey in which questionnaires were used as a research instrument to measure the four digital competencies: technical skill, information usage, communication, and creation. The questionnaires are sent to four Indonesian public universities. One hundred ninety-seven students from four State Islamic Universities (Universitas Islam Negeri) participated in this study. We used the mean and percentage score for the data analysis. The research result …

Cognitive Diagnosis Of Media And Digital Literacy Knowledge Schema In Mexican High School Students, Janneth Trejo-Quintana, Guadalupe E. Morales-Martinez, Betsabe Hernandez-Alvarez

Journal of Media Literacy Education

This research explored the mental representation of media and digital literacy (MDL) in 242 Mexican high school students through a definitional task based on the natural semantic networks technique. The participants defined ten target concepts related to MDL, using verbs, nouns, and adjectives as definers, and then they rated each definer with a scale from 1 to 10. The smaller the number, the lower the quality of the definer to conceptualize the target, while the higher the rating, the higher the quality of the definer to define it. The participants showed a beginner level in MDL despite their daily navigation …

Provision Of Brand Information And Critical Reasoning Predict Advertising Literacy, Eugene Zheng Yao, Alexandra List

Journal of Media Literacy Education

This study investigated students’ critical reasoning about commercials, as an aspect of advertising literacy. Critical reasoning was examined under two different experimental conditions. That is, students were tasked with watching four different commercials with 1) brand information provided or not, and 2) asked to engage in critical reasoning or not. The commercials chosen used various production techniques (e.g., socially conscious marketing) to mask their persuasive message. Students provided with brand information within commercials had significantly higher critical reasoning scores when viewing two, out of the four, commercials, and significantly higher overall Analysis of Persuasive Intent (API) scores and brand recall. …

Ua12/2/1 College Heights Herald, Vol. 100, No. 3, Wku Student Affairs

WKU Administration Documents

Magazine edition of the College Heights Herald for the period February 17 - April 20, 2025.

• Wilborn, Price. You Matter & You Are Not Alone
• Smith, Kane. Peggy Crowe Reflects on Counseling Center in Face of Staff Shortages
• Stafford, Hallie. Help with Horses – New Beginnings Therapeutic Horse Riding
• Hawkins, Kaylee. How a WKU Professor Helps Improve Student Mental Health – Jay Gabbard, National Alliance on Mental Illness Recovery Support Group
• McMahon, Jake. More Than a Coach – Brent Chumbley, Track & Field
• Simpson, Libby. WKU’s American Foundation for Suicide Prevention Brings Mental Health Into the Light
• Hardesty, Emma. Trans …

The Impact Of Mindfulness-Based Journaling On Psychological Well-Being, Jonah Guthrie

Honors Projects

This study investigated the effects of mindfulness-based journaling compared to free-form journaling on perceived stress, emotion regulation, and mindfulness in undergraduate students. Participants (N = 43) were randomly assigned to either a mindfulness-based journaling group or a free-form journaling group. Both groups journaled daily for two weeks and completed pre- and post-intervention assessments using the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS), Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS), and Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire (FFMQ).

A series of 2 × 2 mixed-design repeated measures ANOVAs revealed a significant main effect of time for perceived stress, F(1, 7) = 28.38, p = .003, …

A Qualitative Constant Comparative Analysis Of The Editing Evolution Through Walter Murch’S Fourth Rule: Eye Trace, Emphasizing Its Utilization In Black Cinema By Renowned Black Directors From The Late 1980s To Present, Hakim Robinson

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

Research using qualitative methods is growing, notably in media and communication studies. The proposed research will explore Walter Murch's fourth rule, Eye Trace, and its film editing guidelines, focusing on Black filmmakers' utilization of it and the evolution of editing overall. The study will use a Constant Comparative Analysis as the foundation of the research, with planned future use of Green and Bock's Transportation Theory to examine how media material immerses people in narratives; this research method often uses content analysis to identify and analyze text themes, patterns, and messages. The study examines whether content analysis can assess Murch's principles …

The Cultivation And Harvesting Of Parasocial Relationships For Evangelism: An Exploratory Multiple Case Study Of Pastors’ Use Of Video On Social Media, Larry D. Witzel

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The digital transformation of society has resulted in people living much of their lives online. Some believe the command of Jesus to “go into all the world” necessarily includes entering the digital realm for evangelistic purposes, particularly as the effectiveness of traditional evangelistic methods has declined. This research explored the communication techniques used for digital outreach by seven pastors on social media to cultivate parasocial relationships and the calls to action they used to harvest these relationships evangelistically. This qualitative multiple case study analyzed public video communication and other social media, comparing these pastors’ online ministry with the known techniques …

We Are Our Brains: Disembodied Brain Films In 1950s Cold War America, David P. Pierson

Faculty, Staff, and Alumni Books

Personified Body Parts in Cinema, Literature, and Visual Culture investigates the power of personifying body parts in cinema, television, visual culture, literature, erotica, folklore, and mystique.

Culturally, socially, and poetically exposing hidden aspects and subtleties of human existentialism, this book vigorously questions and problematizes numerous artistic, aesthetic, technological, naïve, and macabre manipulations of body parts for various purposes. A diverse team of authors explore how scribing human traits to limbs, eyes, brains, genitalia, hearts, and other inner organs is grotesque and aesthetic, repealing and appealing, intimidating and intimate, rude and enjoyable, material and spiritual, surprising and mundane. Personified organs are …

Capturing Tradition: The Business, Branding, And Personal Identity Of Senior Portraits In The Modern South, Xenia R. Minton

Honors Theses

The rise of college students starting photography businesses, particularly in graduation portraits, has transformed the creative and entrepreneurial landscape in the South. This thesis explores the senior portrait culture at the University of Mississippi, analyzing its rapid growth through the perspectives of photographers and academic experts in Southern Studies. Grounded in eight years of experience as a photographer, this study examines the evolution of the industry, business strategies, and cultural significance. Through interviews with seasoned senior portrait photographers and Southern Studies professors, this research investigates how regional traditions, social media, and consumer expectations have shaped the profession. By analyzing these …

You Tube Et Les Représentations De La Femme Dans Le Contexte Multilingue Marocain, Naima Wahbi

Dirassat

New forms of communication and expression have emerged through the participatory web and its numerous Digital Social Networks. This infutation is in a constant global progression. Our country has a total of 31.59 million Internet users, 63.4% of which are on social media.

This new digital discursivity has allowed them to express themselves anonymously on all types of subjects and also to openly broadcast their personal representations.

This article will examine how YouTube contributes to the broadcasting of women's representations. We also intend to highlight the correlation between the choice of language, the speaker's gender and the position expressed.

In …

Sebta / Ceuta : Entre Marketing Architectural Et Communication Identitaire À Outrance : Quelle Éthique ?, Amal Ben Attou

Dirassat

Spanish architecture, in its volume, aesthetics, and architectural details, is of great importance in its northern Mediterranean context. However, its implantation, its duplication, and, above all, its communication to politics, both cosmopolitan and transnational, without any idealistic or imaginative connection, nor with the local vernacular, the native society, and with the aim of profit and the affirmation of a power apparatus focused on a bygone past, seriously lays the foundations for a communication devoid of ethics or morality.

Etude De L’Appareil Énonciatif De La Publicité Marocaine Post-Covid, Abdelmajid Aboutarik, Abderrahmane Talibi

Dirassat

In the digital age, social media have supplanted traditional media, and social media have developed new forms of communication and expression. Moroccan Internet users have also seized this tool to freely express their opinions on many topics that occupy and concern them, including the one in our article: women. Through a corpus of video comments, our analysis revealed the following points: three languages are used by Moroccan Internet users: first, French, then Darija, and finally Standard Arabic. But a correlation quickly emerged between the gender of Internet users, the theme, and the language used; Standard Arabic is thus favored by …

La Communication Publicitaire, Khalil Khyati

Dirassat

If advertising discourse is governed by a clear communicative intention, the goal of which is to encourage the potential consumer to become a true consumer of the product or service, then the question to be addressed is: how does this transition occur, and through what communicative forms and discursive mechanisms? This article attempts to answer these questions by analyzing the mechanisms that guide the construction of the advertising message and determine the interpretation process.

Particularités Discursives Du Slogan Électoral Des Partis Politiques Marocains, Amina Erradi

Dirassat

The electoral slogan, this short of linguistic form, is an intrument of political mobilization, having a certain role in the choice of voters. Through these syntactic and rhetorical characteristics, the slogan influences the orientation of the opinions of the receivers. Politicians use it to ratify their commitments and strengthen their position. This aphorizing construction will serve both to confirm the identity of political parties and to validate the relevance of their programs. In our contribution, we will focus on the study of the discursive strategies inherent in the electoral slogan, used by Moroccan political parties during the electoral campaign conducted …