Television Commons^™

The “End” Of Neutrality: Tumultuous Times Require A Deeper Value, Carol Pauli

Faculty Scholarship

This essay has observed that, when times are tumultuous, third parties who intend to be neutral may need some mooring beyond the norms that are shifting. It argues that neutrality is an unsatisfying value in such times and suggests that neutrals look to the deeper values of their field. It proposes human dignity as a good place to begin, and it invites others to explore whether an initial commitment to the inherent worth of every person would make a helpful difference in practice.

How Marlon T. Riggs Queered The Documentary Form, Anthony M. Sweeney

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Marlon T. Riggs’s documentary films and their paratextual elements are rooted in his intersectional identities as a Black and gay man. His activist goal of Black gay liberation was based on what he saw as deeply engrained internal and external racist and homophobic societal structures that subjugated Black queers. In this thesis, I place research from Black cultural studies, gender and sexuality studies, and film studies in conversation with one another to show how Riggs’s filmography is an example of queer form. In doing so, I attempt to redefine the focus of the scholarship on Riggs from an avant-garde filmmaker …

The Significance Of Sonic Branding To Strategically Stimulate Consumer Behavior: Content Analysis Of Four Interviews From Jeanna Isham’S “Sound In Marketing” Podcast, Ina Beilina

Student Theses and Dissertations

Purpose:
Sonic branding is not just about composing jingles like McDonald’s “I’m Lovin’ It.” Sonic branding is an industry that strategically designs a cohesive auditory component of a brand’s corporate identity. This paper examines the psychological impact of music and sound on consumer behavior reviewing studies from the past 40 years and investigates the significance of stimulating auditory perception by infusing sound in consumer experience in the modern 2020s.

Design/methodology/approach:
Qualitative content analysis of audio media was used to test two hypotheses. Four archival oral interview recordings from Jeanna Isham’s podcast “Sound in Marketing” featuring the sonic branding experts …

The Madwoman In The Refrigerator And A Song Of Ice And Fire., Alex Herm

College of Arts & Sciences Senior Theses

There is an existing trope in the fantasy genre I call the madwoman in the refrigerator—in which a female character is killed, maimed, raped, depowered, and/or made to go mad or insane when she is no longer able to uphold the conventional genre expectations of her role in the narrative, such as the angel, monster, or angelic monster. It is a combination of the theory from Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar that women are demure angels when they are fulfilling stereotypical feminine roles in a narrative and when desire or agency is found, the woman is a monster, portrayed as …

What Is...Curiosity?: How Libraries Build Jeopardy! Champions, Raymond Goslow

Georgia Library Quarterly

Raymond Goslow, a paraprofessional at Cobb County Public Library, represented Kennesaw State University in 2022's Jeopardy! National College Championship, finishing 2nd out of 36 contestants. In this article, Goslow explores the connections between librarianship and Jeopardy! prowess both through his own experiences and that of other library staff members who have seen success on the show recently.

Authentically (Un)Real Assessing Vh!'S Basketball Wives And Its Violent & Colorist Portrayals Of Black Women., Wilma Denae Powell

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Does reality television serve as solely a form of entertainment, or could reality television also be maintaining hegemonic beliefs and reinforcing biased views of Black women? Since 2010, Vh1’s Basketball Wives has given audiences the opportunities to entertain themselves by watching women who are/were married to, dating, or are the mothers of children fathered by professional basketball players. Despite the show’s name, few members of the cast are currently married and audiences only get mere glimpses of the cast in motherly or marital interactions. So, what does Basketball Wives offer audiences who tune in to watch Black women for entertainment? …

The Glass Coffin: Gothic Adaptations And The Formation Of Sexual Subjectivity., Colton T. Wilson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

It is now an almost foregone conclusion that classic depictions of vampirism resonate with contemporary queer audiences. A sympathetic response to the monster’s persecution is often the key factor in these arguments, yet little attention is paid to the textual details that prompt such a process of identification. This study posits that the iconography used to establish a connection between monstrosity and non-normative sexuality has its origins in Victorian Gothic fiction, whose descriptions of vampirism were assimilated into the discourse of the fin-de-siècle medical field known as sexology. Theories that defined homosexuality as an illness with physical and psychological symptoms …

“And We’Re Happy, So Happy, To Be Modern Women”: Dissociative Feminism On Screen And In Literature, Michaela Elizabeth Flaherty

Honors Scholar Theses

On-screen and literary works have increasingly represented a new, digital-age wave of postfeminism: dissociative feminism, which rejects happy-go-lucky, sex-positive fourth-wave feminism, instead embracing nihilism. Fleabag, the titular character of the hit BBC miniseries Fleabag (2016–9), embodies dissociative feminism, though she ultimately comes to reject this darkly relatable perspective. However, social media largely ignores this latter, essential aspect of her character arc and has taken to romanticizing Fleabag’s feminist ideology, effectively constructing a harmful and dangerous virtual echo chamber of dissociative feminism. Participants in this online discourse should instead turn to the HBO limited series I May Destroy You (2020) for …

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 …

Miracles Happen: An Exploration Of Girlhood And Celebrity, Sarah Thompson

Media and Communication Studies Honors Papers

Throughout the 2000s and early 2010s, many children’s programs were about fame and featured female protagonists while being written and produced by men. Despite being written by men, these shows clearly interpellate a young female audience. “Miracles Happen” explores this media and considers what girlhood is and what this media is teaching its audience. The first chapter looks at Disney’s studio and its history on how it inserts itself into the private lives of children. This chapter also analyzes this history and makes connections to how these traditions are carried into shows meant for girls on the Disney Channel. It …

There Goes My Antihero: How Wendy Byrde Broke Bad, Melissa Vosen Callens

Heroism Science

Despite the increase of male antiheroes in popular culture, the number of female antiheroes is sparse, particularly when female characters are romantically involved with male antiheroes. There are several reasons for this disparity, partially which can be explained by affective disposition theory. First, female characters are rarely given agency and adequate backstories. Second, in order for female characters to be antiheroes, they typically must challenge gender role stereotypes, especially as they pertain to motherhood. Finally, they are often treated poorly by other characters in the series. All of these reasons have a profound effect on how audiences perceive female characters …

The Wheel Of Power In Hbo's Game Of Thrones, Inbar Shaham

Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature

Maps the familial power struggles and patterns of inheritance of Westeros as depicted in the television adaptation of George R.R. Martin’s Song of Ice and Fire series by using A.J. Griemas’s semiotic square. Applying this framework to the title logo of the series also supports this interpretation.

Casting Call

DePaul Magazine

With the help of technology, DePaul alumna Brittani Ward brought her Hollywood career home to Chicago. The founder and principal of Brittani Ward Casting describes her career journey, how she approaches her profession, and how the evolution of traditional film and TV to streaming platforms provides a remarkable opportunity for entertainment professionals.

Ethical-Reparative Reconfigurations Of The Literary Today, André Cechinel

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

This essay aims to debate the evidence of an ethical-reparative function for literature and literary studies today. Therefore, it is divided into two fundamental moments, two argumentative channels that, without a totalizing intention, point out the general perspective of the current, changing, stuation. On the one hand, the literature of the 20th century is presented through the image of a supposed negativity or radical intransitivity, capable of “undoing the work” in its “aesthetics of suppression.” On the other hand, from an introductory debate around some of the places of transitivity envisioned for literature at the beginning of the 21th century, …

“It Is Not All That Bad”—Hitler And Identity-Building In Er Ist Wieder Da (Look Who’S Back), Yuan Xue

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In Germany, multiculturalism and “leading culture” (Leitkultur) are a pair of closely connected but opposite concepts. Multiculturalism has been accused of being the main reason why culture loses its core cohesion. Despite the persistence of calls for a leading culture in Germany in recent years, many scholars argue that the concept is also problematic. A monopolistic leading culture may be hard to realize in an already pluralistic Europe. I argue that the choice between the two reflects the dilemma of the establishment of German cultural identity. Focusing on the German bestseller Er ist wieder da (Look Who’s Back, 2012), this …

On A Small Glossary Of Academic Anti-Intellectualism, William Díaz Villarreal

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

This article presents the Small Glossary of Anti-intellectualism, where the most common rhetorical strategies and themes of contemporary academic anti-intellectualism are commented on. Anti-intellectualism is as old as intellectual life itself. However, its contemporary version is historically and sociologically rooted in the very structure of modern culture industry. It is a manifestation of a now universal pseudo-culture (Halbbildung) which, according to Adorno, has become the “dominant form of contemporary consciousness.” Arthur Schlesinger said that anti-intellectualism has long been the anti-Semitism of the businessman; today, anti-intellectualism is certainly the antisemitism of several social and political groups, including academia …

The Brazilian System Of Television, Or How To Get A President, Tauan F. Tinti

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

The purpose of this essay is to draw attention to some perhaps unexpected affinities between a considerably expressive segment of the Brazilian culture industry that for several reasons seems to usually fly under most interpretive radars and a certain regressive frame of mind that is becoming increasingly manifest and now holds both considerable political power and a surprisingly firm grip over a portion of the population whose size is still unclear. The following remarks and associations gesture tentatively at what could be preliminarily defined as a constellation of cultural junk being outlined, its shape against the night sky sometimes resembling …

Introduction: A Return To The Bad Old Times, Fabio Akcelrud Durão, Fernando Urueta

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

No abstract provided.

Curb Your Heroism: How Larry David, An Old, Bald Misanthrope, Won The Hearts Of Millions, Scott T. Allison, James K. Beggan, Olivia Efthimiou

Heroism Science

For eleven television seasons, viewers of the series Curb Your Enthusiasm have been witness to a main character in Larry David who paradoxically displays attributes that are both endearing and revolting. This article offers an analysis of Larry David’s character with the goal of ascertaining his heroic nature, specifically focusing on whether he best meets the scientific criteria for a hero or for an antihero. Drawing from the literature of heroism science, we examine a large body of evidence from episodes of the series supporting arguments for both heroism and antiheroism in Larry’s character. Consistent with definitions of heroism, Larry …

Discursive Constructions In Televised News: The Case Of Mindanao, Philippines, Estelle Marie Macuja Ladrido, Ariel Robert Ponce

Department of Communication Faculty Publications

News stories carry boundary setting language that constructs nations as homogenous imagined communities and furthers the us-vs-them metanarrative that separates those who belong to one nation from those who do not. However, it may be possible that boundary-setting representations may be applied to groups within the nation-state. This article explores this possibility by examining the discourse constructed by mediated communication such as local and national television news programs about the Mindanao region in the southern Philippines. Results show that Mindanao-based journalists present Mindanao to local viewers as different, neglected, and violent. This is possibly an indication of how historical social …

Poetic Explorations In Bill F. Ndi’S Worth Their Weight In Thorns: (De)Constructing Hegemonic National Integration And Debating Francophonecentric National Governance., Hassan Mbiydzenyuy Yosimbom

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

This paper explores “hegemonic national integration” and “Francophonecentric national governance” in The Cameroons (TC) poetic scape. The former refers to La République du Cameroun (LRC)-British Southern Cameroons (BSC) or Southern Cameroons (SC) interconnectedness dominated by Francophones. The latter is governance that promotes a Francophone cultural superiority that refuses to see the Cameroonian world through Southern Cameroonians’ eyes. Cameroonians live in a time of enormous fragmenting “Francophonizing” and “Anglophonizing” processes. To flesh this argument out, this paper borrows critical perspectives from Benhabib’s “democratic iterations” and “deliberative democracy” and Rosenau’s “six-governance typology’ as requisites for good governance. It contends that …

Socrates The Degenerate: Irony As Trope Of Decadence, Daniel R. Adler

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

Decadence is typically associated with a fall from, or an opposition to, ideals of civilization. Western Civilization traditionally traces its roots to the culture of Ancient Greece. While theorists of periodicity from Vico to Nietzsche and Deleuze, to Hayden White and other contemporary scholars, associate decadence with excess, artificiality and over-indulgence, they also recognize that decadence often incorporates pre-civilized, base or “Other” tendencies. Paradoxically, decadence as a degeneration of an original culture’s values can also rejuvenate that culture’s core values through mutation so that a new version of the original culture arises. In literature, degeneration has also been associated with …

Exploring The Margins Of Kotha Culture : Reconstructing A Courtesan’S Life In Neelum Saran Gour’S Requiem In Raga Janki, Chhandita Das, Priyanka Tripathi

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In their article, “Exploring the Margins of Kotha Culture: Reconstructing a Courtesan’s life in Neelum Saran Gour’s Requiem in Raga Janki,” Chhandita Das and Priyanka Tripathi discuss the invisible challenges in life of a famous courtesan Janki Bai Ilahabadi through close analysis of Neelum Saran Gour’s 2018 novel, Requiem in Raga Janki. In this novel, Janki belongs to the infamous kotha but she never fails to seek her subjectivity. This marginal place of Janaki’s belonging will be discussed by appropriating and the theoretical framework of Indian feminist Lata Singh’s (2007) for whom courtesans have been represented as “‘other’ …

Identity Reconfigurations, Memory And Personal History In Norman Manea And Saul Bellow’S ‘Spoken Book’, Simona Antofi, Nicoleta D. Ifrim

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In their paper, “Identity Reconfigurations, Memory and Personal History in Norman Manea and Saul Bellow’s Spoken Book, ”Simona Antofi and Nicoleta Ifrim analyze the book of interviews Settling My Accounts Before I Go Away: A Words & Images Interview, a two-authored mirror-like writing in which two biographical courses and two scriptural identities engage in dialogue. Their aim is to define a double reading effect embedded into the self-oriented narrative: a collective history of the Jewish exile from the communist totalitarian space (Soviet and Romanian) towards the “promised land,” with literary, cultural and political insertions; then, the legitimation of an …

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 …

The Ableist Gaze And Disability Trauma: How Onscreen Representation Erases The Truth, Emily Brown

Departmental Honors Projects

This project critically engages with disability representation in the media through an uncensored autoethnography of everyday ableism. In particular, it focuses on how the Netflix series Special reveals the duality of representation: being seen is validating yet (re)traumatizing. As a queer woman with Cerebral Palsy, I’ve spent my whole life trying to find myself in TV shows and movies, latching onto the few disabled and disabled-coded characters available. I never felt fully seen until I watched Special: a show about a gay man with Cerebral Palsy gaining independence through a writing internship and romantic prospects. Special allowed me to acknowledge …

The Reflective Age: Nostalgia At The End Of History, Zachary Griffith

Theses and Dissertations--English

This project investigates the ways in which nostalgic American media of the last decade reflects the sociopolitical conditions of the end of history. It begins with the assertion that the end of history represents a confounded, contradictory moment in which large-scale political change is relatively scarce, and belief in a progressive future has largely been abandoned, while cultural change has also accelerated at a pace never before seen––spurred on, in particular, by the constant return of dead styles and dormant IP. In other words, it seems as if nothing is changing and everything is changing simultaneously. The recent boom in …

La Representación De La Masculinidad En El Personaje Del Policía: Cine, Televisión Y Novela Española Del Siglo Xxi, Daniel Fonfría-Perera

Theses and Dissertations--Hispanic Studies

This research focuses on the type of hegemonic masculinity—a term that has traditionally belonged to a purely sociology domain—exhorted in the works of fiction published and released in Spain in the last two decades, searching for patterns that indicate that a normative type is encouraged. After tracing the different types of hegemonic masculinities that have characterized policemen since the late 30’s, the findings show how the modern notion of masculinity depicted in the works analyzed, even though it can no longer be considered monolithic, still shares some patterns with the masculinity predominant in cultural products during Francoism.

The Teleserye Story: Three Periods Of The Evolution Of The Filipino Tv Soap Opera, Louie Jon A. Sanchez

English Faculty Publications

The essay chronicles the history of the teleserye or the Filipino TV soap opera, one of today’s transnational televisual products making waves in different parts of the globe. It covers three periods—the period of transition from radio to TV (1962 to 1986), the period of competition (1986-2000), and the period of transformation (2000-present). Traversing through 60 years of the form’s enduring presence in Philippine television, it traces the format’s beginnings as it was introduced to the medium in a highly volatile social environment, and assesses its continued flourishing in democratized, contemporary times and consequent entry into the highly competitive global …