Arts and Humanities Commons^™

A Player’S Sense Of Place: Computer Games As Anatopistic Medium, Kristopher John Purzycki

Theses and Dissertations

This project works to understand how open-world computer games help generate a sense of place from the player. Since their development over a half century ago, computer games have primarily been discussed in terms of space. Yet the way we think about space today is much different than how those scientists calculated space as a construction of time, mass, and location. But as computer games have evolved, the language has failed to accommodate the more nuanced qualities of game spaces. This project aims at articulating the nuances of place through phenomenological methods to objectively analyze the player experience as performed …

“Where Are We Now?” The Image Construction Of Arabs And Muslims In Bodyguard, Safa K. Khairy

Theses and Dissertations

Over the past decade Arab and Muslim representations in the media have been either negative or overly simplified as a way to avoid criticism from watchdog groups. Arab and Muslim culture is viewed by the mainstream Western perspective as different, and inferior. According to Edward Said this divide and hierarchy between Eastern and Western comes through the process of Othering and is at the heart of Orientalism. This thesis investigates how Arabs and Muslims are Othered through a case study of the successful BBC television series Bodyguard.

Bodyguard presents the British government and police force attempting to stop various terrorist …

Institutional Influence On Documentary Form: An Analysis Of Pbs And Hbo Documentary Programs, Mark Joseph Irving

Theses and Dissertations

INSTITUTIONAL INFLUENCE ON DOCUMENTARY FORM - A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF PBS and HBO DOCUMENTARY PROGRAMS

by Mark Irving

The University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee, 2015

Under the Supervision of Professor Michael Z. Newman

Beginning in the 1980s, the documentary genre has undergone a transformation to accommodate modes of stylistic expression and subjective thematic exposition previously not evident in the genre. This deviation from the form’s traditional modes of expression typically associated with fact-based, journalistic pursuits can be attributed to the institutional underpinnings of media outlets that exhibit documentary programming. These institutional factors, a consequence of an evolving marketplace and shifts …

The Rhetorical Construction Of Female Empowerment: The Avenging-Woman Narrative In Popular Television And Film, Lara C. Stache

Theses and Dissertations

In this critical rhetorical analysis, I examine the contemporary avenging-woman narrative in popular television and film. As a rhetorical text, the avenging-woman narrative can be read as a representation of cultural constructions of female empowerment. In this project, I situate the contemporary avenging-woman narrative within the context of a contemporary third wave feminist culture, in order to articulate how the representations of female empowerment in the texts may be a negotiation of cultural tensions about feminism. The four primary texts chosen for inclusion within this study are made up of two television shows, Revenge (2011-present) and Veronica Mars (2003-2007), and …