Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Accelerated Culture: Exploring Time And Space In Cinema, Television And New Media In The Digital Age, Thomas J. Connelly

CGU Theses & Dissertations

This dissertation seeks to understand the impact of speed on the interrelation and the overlapping of the production and consumption of cinematic and televisual texts. It explores the immediacy of digital media and new economic processes, and how they are informing structures of perception, as well as lending themselves to new and different ways of seeing the moving image in the digital age. These visual expressions are evident in the changing perception of the long take; the increasing use of video gaming aesthetics and database narratives; new and variant forms of narrative and visual styles in television; and the speed …

Putting Multimedia Exhibits In The Palm Of Your Hand, Damecia Donahue, Rachael Clark

Library Scholarly Publications

Presentation given by Rachael Clark and Damecia Donahue in November of 2012 at the Michigan Library Association Annual Conference in Detroit, MI. The discussion revolved around topics related to libraries creating exhibits using their own collections and resources; this included the idea of incorporating multimedia tools and web applications to creatively and interactively provide access to library materials.

A Narrative In One Scene, Aliyah C. Anglin

Theses and Dissertations

Filmmakers are visual storytellers, thus it is important to understand basic film theory as well as the elements of a narrative, such as voice, look, and feel. It is just as important for filmmakers to understand how film theory and the elements of a narrative work together to effectively convey stories to the people viewing the film. In this thesis, I researched basic film theory and analyzed three personally influential movies and directors including Charlie Chaplin’s Modern Times (1936), Juan Antonio Bayona’s The Impossible (2012), and Akira Kurosawa’s The Seven Samurai (1954). I chose one technique from each of the …

Utah And The Civil War Press, Kenneth L. Alford Ph.D.

Faculty Publications

A discussion of how Mormons were treated in the national press during the American Civil War with an emphasis on polygamy, statehood requests, loyalty, and Brigham Young.

This chapter was originally published (and reprinted in "Civil War Saints" with permission):

Kenneth L. Alford, “Utah and the Civil War Press.” Utah Historical Quarterly 80, no. 1 (Winter 2012): 75–92.

Are We Cool Yet?: A Longitudinal Content Analysis Of Nerd And Geek Representations In Popular Television, Christopher Louis Cardiel

Dissertations and Theses

This study explores the representation of nerds and geeks in popular broadcast television programs over the course of the past twenty years. A content analysis of the five most popular scripted broadcast television programs for each year was conducted in order to assess the frequency of nerd characters, as well as the social competence, physical attractiveness, and demographic information of each such character. In addition, a supplemental survey design study was employed in order to collect public opinion data regarding perceptions of nerds in general and on television. The results of these studies indicated that while the per-year frequency of …

Editor's Introduction: Playing For Keeps: Games And Cultural Resistance [Special Issue], Marc A. Ouellette, Jason Thompson

English Faculty Publications

This edition is as much about Game Studies as it about the games being studied. At its heart there are really two impulses behind the collection of critical thought we have been fortunate enough to gather for this issue of Reconstruction. First, there is the sense that games can’t do anything. Second, there is the sense that games don’t do anything. Their origin (and the underlying biases) makes these sentiments particularly intriguing. In the simplest terms, these premises delineate competing camps, as well. Roger Ebert notoriously asserts that video games will never be art (Ebert). Similarly, and yet quite differently, …

Motivation In The Portland Chinuk Wawa Language Community, Abigail Elaina Pecore

Dissertations and Theses

Throughout the world, languages are becoming extinct at an alarming rate. Perhaps half of the 6,000-7,000 languages worldwide will go extinct in the next 50-100 years. One of these dying languages, Chinook Jargon or Chinuk Wawa, a language found in the Pacific Northwest of the United States, is in the process of being revitalized through the concerted efforts of the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde (CTGR). Reasons to revitalize endangered languages often seem irrelevant to our modern daily lives, and revitalizing these languages is a difficult process requiring much dedication, commitment, and persistence. In light of this significant struggle, understanding …

Mexican-Americans In Los Angeles: Strengthening Their Ethnic Identity Through Chivas Usa, Stephanie Goldberger

CMC Senior Theses

A large Mexican-American population already exists in Los Angeles and, with each generation, it continues to rise. This Mexican-American community has maintained its connection to its heritage by playing and watching soccer, Mexico’s top watched sport. In this thesis, I analyze how Major League Soccer's Chivas USA serves as an outlet through which many Mexicans in Los Angeles have developed their ethnic identities. Since the early twentieth century, Mexicans in Los Angeles have created separate residential communities and sports organizations to strengthen their connections with one another.

To appeal to Mexican-Americans, Chivas USA has branded itself closely to its sister …

Order And Disorder: Rational Acumen And Emotional Incompetence In The Television Detective Story, E. Deidre Pribram Ph.D.

Communications: Faculty Publications

‘Order and Disorder’ examines the relationship between emotional disorders and the exquisite rationality of contemporary televisions detectives as portrayed in such series as Monk (USA), House (Fox), and Cracker (ITV). Television heroes who combine both emotionality and rationality would seem a more integrated form of human characterization. However, the permitted configuration of emotion and reason is highly constrained. Theirs is an ongoing struggle between thinking and feeling, in which rationality is their gift and emotionality, depicted as illness, is the constant curse that both threatens and enables their gift. These characters’ conflicts become a barometer for contemporary attitudes about emotional …

“All Girls Are Barbies”: A Feminist Critique Of Nicki Minaj’S Barbie Persona, Camellia Sarmadi

Communication Studies

No abstract provided.

Barriers To Family Cancer Communication In Southern Appalachia, Kathryn L. Duvall, Kelly A. Dorgan, Amber E. Kinser

ETSU Faculty Works

This study examines cultural issues surrounding family cancer communication in Appalachia, providing insight into participants’ communication choices regarding their illness within their families. Stories of 29 female Appalachian cancer survivors from Northeast Tennessee and Southwest Virginia were collected via a mixed methods approach in either a day-long story circle (N=26) or an in-depth interview (N=3). Qualitative content analysis was used to identify unique barriers to family cancer communication in Appalachia. Two barriers emerged: 1) the health of other family members and 2) cancer in a “taboo” area. These findings suggest that Appalachian female cancer survivors struggle with similar issues as …

Navigating Family Cancer Communication: Communication Strategies Of Female Cancer Survivors In Central Appalachia, Kathryn L. Duvall, Kelly A. Dorgan, Sadie P. Hutson

ETSU Faculty Works

In a multiphasic study, the stories of 29 female Appalachian cancer survivors were collected through either a day-long modified story circle event (n=26) or an in-depth interview (n=3). Qualitative content analysis was used to identify emergent themes in the data. The analysis revealed 5 types of family cancer communication including both pre-diagnosis and postdiagnosis cancer communication strategies

Personal Identity Changes Of Female Cancer Survivors In Southern Appalachia, Kathryn L. Duvall, Kelly A. Dorgan, Sadie P. Hutson

ETSU Faculty Works

Navigating personal identity changes through the cancer journey can be challenging, especially for women in a culture that places emphasis on traditional gender roles and values close-knit families. Drawing on a story circule approach, this study examined the intersecting identities of female cancer survivors in southern Appalachia. Stories of 29 female Appalachian cancer survivors from Northeast Tennessee and Southwest Virginia were collected via a mixed methods approach in either a day-long story circule (N-26) or an in-depth interview (N=3). Transcripts from both phases were audio-recorded and transcribed verbatim; NVivo 8.0 facilitated qualitative content analysis of the data. Inductive analysis revealed …

An American Mess: How Colorblind Racism Prevents An Enlightened Conversation On Race In Television Media, Nathaniel Phillipps

McNair Poster Presentations

This project aims to demonstrate how the current racial ideology in America is portrayed through television media. It is primarily guided by the work of Eduardo Bonita-Silva and his masterful examination of post-civil rights racism in the United States in his book Racism Without Racists. From a firm understanding of the ideology of this new racism -- its frames, styles, and storylines -- the content of two televisions shows are analyzed to identify the racial ideology and the representations of people of color within.

Scandal (ABC) is progressive in the sense that it has a Black female lead, and two …

Placing Birds On A Dynamic Evolutionary Map: Using Digital Tools To Update The Evolutionary Metaphor Of The "Tree Of Life", Sonia Stephens

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation describes and presents a new type of interactive visualization for communicating about evolutionary biology, the dynamic evolutionary map. This web-based tool utilizes a novel map-based metaphor to visualize evolution, rather than the traditional "tree of life." The dissertation begins with an analysis of the conceptual affordances of the traditional tree of life as the dominant metaphor for evolution. Next, theories from digital media, visualization, and cognitive science research are synthesized to support the assertion that digital media tools can extend the types of visual metaphors we use in science communication in order to overcome conceptual limitations of traditional …

Reading Between The Numbers: The Colonial Rhetorics Of Fantasy Football And The Illusion Of Control, Robert Kyle Kellam

Wayne State University Dissertations

In this project, I build on existing research in the critical intersection of media, sport, gaming and race to explore how fantasy football, an entertainment byproduct of the National Football League (NFL), rearticulates and recontexualizes the colonial ideology already prolific in the NFL and other products of American media culture. I investigate how fantasy football may represent an innocuous, yet exigent place to study the commodification and consumption of bodies in our contemporary media landscape because of the way that the increasingly popular game operates in a capitalistic logic, where NFL players are almost exclusively valued for their statistical production …

Facebook And Its Users: Using Grounded Theory To Understand Perceived Interactivity As A Constraint In The Rhetorical Situation, Katie Lee Retzinger Pruitt

English Theses & Dissertations

The general term interactivity has been used in a variety of disciplines to describe phenomena that occur in website interfaces; however, definitions and explanations about what constitutes interactivity and how it functions do not consider the specific ways in which interactivity can function and be perceived by users in specific rhetorical situations. In this study, I address the problems with the literature about general interactivity in writing studies and in other disciplines such as computer science, advertising, marketing, and communication studies by distinguishing between two types of interactivity—functional and perceived. I situate the different types of interactivity rhetorically, which can …

Withholding Political Authority: Civil Society And People's Power In Zimbabwe, A. Scott Dupree

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The relationship of civil society to the state is rarely antagonistic and at most times supportive. The political regime and civil society are taken to be interdependent social structures that interact through hegemonic, supportive and socially constructed dimensions. Given this interdependency, when does civil society challenge authority or does its efforts rise to the level of a people's power revolution? When does it act to dismantle the political regime or seek to reconstruct it? This project attempts to shed light on how civil society mobilizes a people's power capable of challenging political authority through the story of its ongoing struggles …

Etymology, Contemporary Usage And Intercultural Implications Of The Word: Gringo, Jaren Scott

Communication & Leadership Dissertations and Theses

This thesis examines intercultural perceptions between Americans and Mexicans, and the etymology/implications of the term gringo. Whereas most investigations have focused on the Hispanic experience within the United States, this research asks participants to create a cultural casting of the typical gringo. Historical events combined with current academic literature in intercultural communication theory examine these stereotypes and their implications in a rapidly merging, or mutually integrating society, consisting of the United States and Mexico. The thesis surveys modern Mexican attitudes in regards to their North American neighbors with emphasis on Stella TingToomey’s identify negotiation and face theories. More importantly, the …

Source Credibility And How New Churchgoers Choose A Church, Stephanie Araujo

Communication & Leadership Dissertations and Theses

The church as a faith community seeks to expand interpersonal and ethical communication by inviting new members. However, much of the effort to successfully communicate with non-attenders has fallen on deaf ears as the church in the United States has seen stagnant growth over the last few decades. This study considers the various tactics employed by the faith community to overcome this malaise and attract new people by asking how new churchgoers choose a church. Using source credibility as the theoretical basis, this study attempts to show that most churchgoers choose a faith community based on the pastor’s source credibility; …

Exploring The Use And Effectiveness Of Mediated Communication By Churches, Sarah Christine Syptak Hinrichs

Communication & Leadership Dissertations and Theses

In an era categorized by a decline in traditional religious participation, Protestant church leaders in the United States are utilizing computer mediated forms of communication to attract and retain members. Research shows, however, that many churches lack the resources or knowledge to communicate effectively online. To aid in a greater understanding of webbed communication tools, this thesis looks at the ability of dialogic mediated communication to contribute to satisfaction with communication in the church as well as overall organizational satisfaction and involvement. Rooted in the phenomenological tradition and in relationship management theory, the study focuses on mediated communication as a …

Actor Skills In Managerial And Professional Development: Effective Leadership Training For The Information Age, David Hendrik De Vries

Communication & Leadership Dissertations and Theses

The knowledge-based economies of today’s information age demand a higher level of communication skills in the workplace. One viable method of teaching communication skills leverages the techniques found in actor training. This thesis explores the use and effectiveness of actor training in the training and development of managers and professionals. The theories of Aristotle, Burke, Dewey and Ong are referenced to understand the value of the performance metaphor—“As a leader, you’re always onstage”—as an underlying approach, while the theories of Wiener, Watzlawick, Baxter, Ting Toomey and others reinforce the viability of actor training in the field of communication. A review …

Authentic Blackness And The Portrayals Of African Americans In Prime Time Television Commercials, Dari L. Rogers

Communication & Leadership Dissertations and Theses

Though each African American person holds unique experiences, beliefs and preferences that are molded by his or her background, education, gender, sexual orientation and religion, he or she is often defined by superficial characteristics, such as how a person behaves, speaks and dresses, that determine his or her degree of authentic blackness. This thesis explores authentic blackness within the African American community and how television commercials help define what is considered authentically black. Based on the Social Cognitive Theory, Hall’s Theory of Encoding and Decoding, the Cultivation Theory and the Social Construction of Reality Theory, this thesis explores how African …

President Barack Obama's Speech In Cairo: A Metaphor Analysis, George Ebimobowei Oti

Communication & Leadership Dissertations and Theses

This study investigates the metaphors embedded in President Barack Obama’s speech in Cairo, delivered on June 4, 2009. Mr.Obama delivered his speech at a time when the dissonance between the Muslim world and the West expanded. The rhetor’s motive was to arrest the increasingly compounded atmosphere of rapprochements between the two worlds. The study employed two philosophical foundations, Burkean identification- consubstantiation and Buber’s I-thou personality theory. The two philosophies promote the notion of humankind’s sharing of a bond. The study categorizes the deployment of metaphors into archetypal and transcendent metaphors; the results show that both types of metaphors serve a …

The Prettiest President I Ever Saw: Cold War Film Portrayals Of Women Political And Military Leaders, Michael Flannery Hatchett

Communication & Leadership Dissertations and Theses

This thesis offers generic criticism of the portrayal of women political and military leaders in Cold War films. The study uses textual analysis of several films to judge certain factors, including ethical, philosophical, and aesthetic concerns. The films examined in this thesis are: Project Moonbase, The Manchurian Candidate, Kisses for My President, and By Dawn’s Early Light. This thesis traces the evolution of attitudes about women leaders, identifies qualities that are shown to be important to leaders during the Cold War, and examines the ways in which these leaders manage to defy stereotypes in each of their films. It also …

Gender Bias In Network News Reporting: Inaccurate Risk Information About Male And Female Birth Control, Krista Currer

Communication & Leadership Dissertations and Theses

Pharmaceutical companies spend considerable amounts of revenue on advertising; therefore, media networks must portray an agenda which supports those companies. This thesis attempts to discover if and to what extent women are marginalized by the promotion of hormonal birth control. Particular focus is placed on the link between these drugs and breast cancer risk, as well as the existence of gendered messages. Framework for the study is established through Agenda-setting Theory and Marxist and feminist criticism. Media messages about birth control are then interpreted through content analysis. Only 9% of messages about female birth control mention the link with breast …

The Reconciliation Of Personal-Corporate Identity Conflicts By Evangelical Christian Workers, Michael E. Anderson

Communication & Leadership Dissertations and Theses

Communication can be viewed as a negotiation of identity. In that negotiation it is inevitable that conflicts in identity will occur (Lederach, as cited in Stewart, 2006). When that conflict is between one’s personal identity and the corporate identity an organization asks, or even requires of that person, what processes are used to reconcile those differences? This question becomes even more salient in an organization utilizing a cultural style of organizational structure (Conrad & Poole, 2005). Cultural organizational structures are rooted in a belief that people, as emotional beings, need to feel connected to their work community. Understanding identity reconciliation …

The Rhetoric Of Evidence In Recent Documentary Film And Video, Steven W. Schoen

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Documentary is a genre of film that portrays "real" events using depictions that connote the objectivity and facticity implied by the processes of photorealism. Many contemporary documentary theorists and critics observe a constitutive problem in this ethos: despite the apparent constructions and agendas of documentary filmmaking, the framing and assumption of documentary as a window on the world tend to naturalize its own constructions as "real." Critics who engage documentary trace the multitude of ways this problem plays out in particular films. These projects yield many important insights, but they most often approach documentary as a form of inherently deficient …

Understanding Involuntary Job Loss Among Former Newspaper Staff Photographers, Ryan K. Morris

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study examines former newspaper photographers' experience with being laid-off from their staff positions. The purpose was to identify emerging themes within the context of involuntary job loss, job satisfaction, and occupational identity via interviews with 8 photojournalists who experienced the phenomenon of being laid-off. The newspaper industry has long been considered both the starting point for young and aspiring photojournalism careers and the most consistent and stable venue for an income. Yet recent changes in the media landscape, particularly economic stress on traditional business models and rapid adoption of digital technology sway the occupational future of photojournalism within newsrooms. …

Global Csr And Photographic Credibility: Exploring How International Companies Portray Efforts Through Photographs In Csr Reports, Janel Lynn Norton

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

We are living in the age of the visual. Imagery is an important element in constructing and deriving meaning through symbols, colors, and context. Images may hold persuasive power, be used as evidence, or simply provide a moment of beauty. Organizations rely on photographs to help them convey an image to their stakeholders within annual reports. Telling an organizations' story through photographs has become an intrinsic part of their efforts to convey sustainability. We live in the age of transparency, and organizations that construct an image that is not truthful will face consequences in today's socially connected and conscious world. …