Television Commons^™

Bait, Code, And Censor- Queer Representation In Animation Through Queercoding, Queerbaiting, And Effects Of Censorship, Link Bertrand

Capstone Showcase

This paper talks about how queerness has been portrayed in media, with a specific focus on animation. This paper includes discussions on queer theory, and the ideas of censorship and representation. Creative themes include film history, animation, and show production. The shows mentioned in detail as examples are The Owl House, Voltron: Legendary Defenders, and Gravity Falls, with other mentions of DeadEnd: Paranormal Park and Heartstopper.

Extra-Terrestrial: A Television Pilot Script, Landon Adams

Symposium of Student Scholars

How do you make a home out of a place you don’t feel welcomed? This is the plight of Beatrix Ivy, a passionate fashionista, humanoid-martian who dreams of opening her own fashion business. The only issue: fashion does not exist on Mars. She impulsively decides to ditch her hypercritical mother in pursuit of Planet Earth. Destination? Paris, France. However, a GPS malfunction lands her in the unknown town of Paris, Georgia. Mistaken for a drag queen, Beatrix is met with hostility from the bigoted locals, including local darling SunRay, an equally talented fashion designer. Beatrix eventually finds companionship in a …

Tú Dices “Plátano” Y Yo Digo “Mofongo”: Una Representación De La Normalización Del Biculturalismo En Alma’S Way, Jordan Carter

INSPIRE Student Research and Engagement Conference

Alma’s Way, a bilingual children’s animated television program from Fred Rogers Productions about a six year old Puerto Rican girl living in the Bronx of New York City with her family, premiered on PBS Kids in October 2021. Through the use of discourse analysis, this academic paper explores characters’ use of linguistic and cultural practices. Discourse analysis focuses on the main character, Alma, as well as her friends, her immediate family (Junior, Mami, Papi), and her mother’s side of the family (Abuelo, Tía Gloria, Uncle Nestor, Cousin Eddie). The analysis of 12 episodes chosen at random, a total of …

The Imagined Histories And Futures Of The Past: Wwi And The Cultural Imagination, Kelly Aliano

Far West Popular Culture Association Annual Conference

In this paper, I look at various modes of imagining the futures incarnated by the First World War, beginning with artists and writers, like Ernst Ludwig Kirchner and Erich Maria Remarque, who experienced and depicted the war from a firsthand point of view. From here, I expand that framework to include J.R.R. Tolkien, whose masterpiece Lord of the Rings may owe no small debt to his wartime experiences. I consider the Doctor Who episodes, “Human Nature” and “Family of Blood,” as contemporary attempts to reinsert WWI into the cultural consciousness. Finally, I look at the two versions of War Horse …

Black Culture And Community In Good Times, Angela Nelson

Far West Popular Culture Association Annual Conference

The situation comedy Good Times broadcast on the CBS network from February 8, 1974 to August 1, 1979, is a television milestone because it was the first series to feature a recurring, intact Black two-parent nuclear family, the Evanses, on American primetime television. In the conventions of seventies “TV World,” the “intact Black nuclear family” is a married, heterosexual, two-parent African American family with children all living in a single dwelling at the same time. David Marc in Demographic Vistas notes the focus of American situation comedies up to 1974: “The sitcom is a representational form, and its subject is …

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.

Community Of Creation: A Documentary On Finding Community Through Art, Sidney Thompson

Student Academic Conference

Community of Creation is a documentary project created under the film production program. The documentary itself focuses on the ideas of local art, fellowship, and adaptability throughout a small community gallery located in Rochester, MN named SEMVA. This presentation will focus on the communal influence of local art and the impact it had on the unique production of the documentary.

Podcasts, An Increasingly Effective Media Tool, Katherine Haines

Capstone Showcase

The importance of the world staying connected and up-to-date on current news and new information is only going to continue as technology improves and people look for new sources of education. As we see so many things shift online during the Covid-19 pandemic, it’s only natural that news would continue to shift that way as well. Even before the Covid-19 pandemic, podcasts were an alternate source of information that was becoming more and more popular. While the information distributed by podcasts and social media may not be as complete as news from stereotypical sources, they are much more effective because …

The “Science” Of Story Structure, Diana Witt

Virginias Collegiate Honors Council Conference

Stories are immensely human. They help us learn and understand cultural and social contexts. The stories that we tell, see, and read have profound effects on our ideas and emotions, causing us to have visceral reactions. Stories are truly at the crux of how people relate to each other. In this talk, I will explore the necessary elements of stories and why they are effective. Storytellers across all mediums build plot and characters to make an audience care and draw them in. Authors and screenwriters have theorized about the main structures into which all stories fall. In modern media, story …

The Cultivation Theory And Reality Television: An Old Theory With A Modern Twist, Jeffrey Weiss

Capstone Showcase

George Gerbner, a Hungarian-born professor of communication, founded the cultivation theory, one of the most popular and regarded theories in the communications world. Developed in the mid 20th century, the theory focus on the long-term effects of television on people. Longer exposure to signs, images and people on television cultivates their perception of reality in the real world. The television became a household staple during this time. Families often spent time together watching programming together, however, it played out different effects for each person. Television's constant visual and auditory stimulation on a person made it easier to cultivate certain messages, …

What "Sesame Street" Can Teach Us About Hbo, Shayne Pepper

Faculty Research and Creative Activities Symposium

In late 2015, news headlines announced HBO’s acquisition of first-run rights to air new episodes of Sesame Street nine months before their PBS debut. Some critics joked that it would birth an edgier version of Sesame Street for HBO, while others lamented the apparent stratification of children’s programming that such a move could create between kids whose families could afford cable and those whose could not. While most articles noted that HBO’s previous work with Muppets in Jim Henson’s Fraggle Rock (1983 – 1987), many conveyed a tone of surprise about this brave new world of Sesame Street on subscription …

2019 Icrcc Proceedings Table Of Contents, Conference Organizers

International Crisis and Risk Communication Conference

These proceedings are a representative sample of the presentations given by professional practitioners and academic scholars at the 2019 International Crisis and Risk Communication Conference (ICRCC) held March 11-13, 2019. The ICRCC is an annual event that takes place the second week in March in beautiful sunny Orlando, Florida. The conference hosts are faculty and staff from the Nicholson School of Communication. The goal of the ICRCC is to bring together prominent professional practitioners and academic scholars that work directly with crisis and risk communication on a daily basis. We define crisis and risk broadly to include, for example, natural …

Inside The Mind Of Larry David: Navigating The Border Walls And Bizarre Social Customs Of "Curb Your Enthusiasm", Chris Mcvetta

Ray Browne Conference on Cultural and Critical Studies (2015-2021)

Whether real, imagined, or otherwise, there is no denying Larry David lives in a world with and without borders. Whether it is in one of his past (“Seinfeld”) or current (“Curb Your Enthusiasm”) television lives, Larry David inhabits an alternative universe of his own making. From the coffee house to the country club, the world of Hollywood is his playground where he continually builds walls between himself and the rest of “normal” society. And while Larry David is a master of his domain and crossing the proverbial line, he is even more adept at tearing down the walls of traditional …

The Newsroom, Anthony W. Smyth

SCOM Undergraduate Research Conference

An ideological criticism of the speech, "Why America isn't the greatest country in the world anymore" from HBO's The Newsroom. With a comparison to the roles of the other main characters from Aaron Sorkin's (the producer) work.

Research And Study Of Fashion And Costume History Spanning From Ancient Egypt To Modern Day, Kaitlyn E. Dennis Miss

Posters-at-the-Capitol

Through a generous donation to Morehead State University, research has been conducted on thousands of slides containing images of artwork and artifacts of historical significance. These images span from Egyptian hieroglyphs to the inaugural dress of every first lady of the United States. The slides are in the process of being recorded and catalogued for future use by students in hopes of furthering academic comprehension and awareness of the influence of fashion and costume history through the ages. Special thanks to the family of Gretel Geist Rutledge, faculty mentor Denise Watkins, as well as the Department of Music, Theatre, and …

Analyzing Media Representations Of Male Rape And Debunking Myths On 'Law And Order Special Victims Unit', Ryan J. Stephens

Celebration

The project that I have done shows the importance of recognizing that male rape does exist and that it is more frequent than people think. By using Law and Order Special Victims Unit I am able to portray how myths about male rape are debunked and how the show creates new ways of thinking about male rape. Little research has been conducted about male rape and what we do know comes from the myths that are created in society and reinforced by false representations in the media. The research also concludes that we need more research to fully understand the …

Gay Doesn’T Begin To Cover It: Non-Binary Sexuality In Community’S Dean Pelton”, Jessica Mae Harmon

SEWSA 2016 Intersectionality in the New Millennium: An Assessment of Culture, Power, and Society

In modern media, characters whose sexuality lies outside of binary gender and sexuality representations are few and far between. Most queer characters in mainstream American television are labeled as either gay or lesbian, and in a few rare cases bisexual. Bisexuality, while least visible among sexual minorities that fit within the prescribed LGBT acronym, is most visible outside of the gay/straight dichotomy. Meanwhile the spectrum of non-binary sexualities is largely ignored. In this essay I will examine one character that breaks this mold and forces the modern viewer to consider non-binary sexuality, Dean Craig Pelton of NBC/Yahoo’s Community. The …

Comparative Study Of Operating Mass Media Facilities In Texas, Al Greule

Bright Ideas Conference

Mass Media programs in colleges and universities endure competition from other programs and must also take on the challenges of rapid technological changes to keep their programs up to date (or “state of the art”) for their students. The focus of each program is slightly different and technology available to the student varies greatly from institution to institution. Furthermore there is only some similarity as to how each institution grants student access to equipment and lab facilities.

This study attempts to determine the issues that are most challenging to operating academic Mass Media programs and examine the various ways programs …

Unicorns: Past, Present And In The Imagination, Jill A. Jablonski

Ray Browne Conference on Cultural and Critical Studies (2015-2021)

In the last few thousand years, unicorn folklore has extensively evolved. In fact, the evolution of the mentioned above mythical creature has been so drastic, that the original unicorn lore of the Greek, Roman and early Christian people, would be unrecognizable to a modern day person. Consequently, to the historical figures (such as Julius Caesar and Ctesias) that contributed to the creation of the mythical creature, they would not recognize the unicorn as it is found in My Little Pony or any other pop culture sensation. To discover the cause of disconnect between the folkloric and pop culture unicorns, an …

Busting A Gut: Portrayals Of Obesity In Popular Culture, Carly Babel

Annual Undergraduate Conference on Health and Society

Obesity is America’s number one leading health epidemic, affecting more than 93 million Americans today (OAC). From 1985 to 2010, obesity has gone from affecting an average of 10% of individuals in just about every state to today affecting 33.8% of people within each state. Children and adults alike all over the U.S. are being diagnosed with obesity and encouraged to change their lifestyles. Doctors are prescribing patients to lose weight, exercise, eat healthy, and in extreme cases, go under the knife, but none of these recommendations are making a dent in lowering the rate of obesity. Rather, the number …

Tele-Visioning Terror, Caroline Zekri

Re-visioning Terrorism

This paper is devoted to the relationship between terrorism and media, with a special focus on the theoretical notions of “icon”, “mass” and “distance”. It aims to show how the phenomenon of modern terrorism calls into question the essence of modern democracies and their systems of information, based on the distance between vision and event.