Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Introduction (To Emotional Expressionism), E. Deidre Pribram Ph.D.

Faculty Publications: Communication

The primary purpose of Emotional Expressionism: Television Serialization, The Melodramatic Mode, and Socioemotionality is to explore the forms, functions, and nuances of emotions in popular, mediated narratives. Clearly, emotions constitute a key means by which audiences experience and make sense of narrative media, in that mediated stories make compelling arguments or take up resonant positions through their emotional methods and meanings. The value of developing an emotional template for screen media lies in generating new analytical and interpretative approaches to narrative aesthetics, especially in terms of their pains and pleasures. As this study seeks to demonstrate, emotional analysis opens up …

The Supervisors Are Carrying The Bag: The Nurses' Emergency Council, Settlement Houses, And The 1918 Influenza Pandemic In New York City, Eric C. Cimino

Faculty Publications: History and Political Science

This article examines the combined efforts of the Nurses’ Emergency Council (NEC), settlement houses, and the Department of Health during the 1918 Influenza Pandemic in New York City. To coordinate public health nursing, the NEC united the settlements and municipal agencies into an umbrella organization that was chaired by Lillian Wald of the Henry Street Settlement. Together, the NEC and the Health Department recruited a corps of nurses to treat influenza patients, primarily in their homes. Historical accounts of the 1918 Pandemic often emphasize the incompetence of American cities in dealing with influenza’s spread. New York’s Health Commissioner Royal Copeland, …

“We Live In Two Worlds”: A Phenomenological Exploration Of The Experiences Of Foreign-Born U.S. College And University Presidents, Kristie S. Johnson Ph.D., Cfre, Donald Mitchell Jr., Ph.D., Jakia Marie Ph.D.

Executives, Administrators, & Staff Publications

Within this phenomenological study, we explored the lived experiences of 15 foreign-born U.S. college and university presidents (USCUP) to determine how their cultural background and traditions may have influenced their leadership and prepared them to lead. We also examined the strategies foreign-born USCUPs, who also self-identified as people of color, utilized to navigate to and through the presidential pipeline. We used asset-based community development to theoretically frame the study. The following research questions shaped this study: 1) What are the experiences of foreign-born USCUPs in their journey to the college presidency, and how do foreign-born USCUPs perceive the influence of …

Evaluating Universities Twitter Web Pages Responding To The Black Lives Matter Movement, Hind Albadi, Thomas Kenny

Faculty Publications: Communication

In the wake of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement in May 2020, many colleges and universities responded by making statements on their website and social media channels condemning racism. Higher education institutions began initiatives for diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) for faculty, staff, administrators, and students on campus. Three years later, this study investigates whether universities are still offering and promoting workshops, classes, events, and activities related to DEI to campus communities. To do so, the researchers conducted a content analysis on Twitter categorizing tweets over a one-month period, then they classified the Tweets using the top 10 colleges …

The Experiences Of Black Women Senior Student Affairs Officers: A Multiple-Case Study, Tamekka L. Cornelius Ph.D, Donald Mitchell Jr., Ph.D.

Executives, Administrators, & Staff Publications

Within this multiple-case study, we explored the experiences of Black women in senior student affairs officer (SSAO) positions at four-year historically white institutions (HWIs) and Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) in the United States. We used Black feminist thought and representational bureaucracy to theoretically frame the study. Participants included SSAOs representing three HWIs and two HBCUs. Four central themes—often expressed within experiences of marginalization—emerged across the cases: 1) I Have a Right to Be Here; 2) Creating Networks; 3) No Straight Line to the Top; and 4) I’m Thinking about the Black Girls Coming Behind Me. We conclude the …

Hidden Identity: A Constructivist Grounded Theory Of Black Male Identity Development At Historically Black Colleges And Universities, Therron Rogers Ph.D., Donald Mitchell Jr., Ph.D.

Executives, Administrators, & Staff Publications

Identity development models for Black males are limited, particularly within the context of higher education. Within this qualitative study, we used constructivist grounded theory to develop a theory of Black male identity development at historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs). We were guided by the following research questions: (1) How do the experiences at a historically Black college or university influence the identity development for Black males? (2) What externalfactors influence identity development for Black males who attend a historically Black college or university? Eight Black males participated in this study, each completing series of semistructured interviews. Derived from the …

Victims, Heroes, And Villains: Imaginary Beings In Contemporary Television Serials, E. Deidre Pribram Ph.D.

Faculty Publications: Communication

This chapter traces melodrama’s historical triumvirate of characters – victims, heroes, and villains – to examine how they are applied in contemporary television serial dramas. Looking in particular at the examples of Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul, the author argues that the characterological trio now often exists within singular protagonists who follow a narrative trajectory from victim through hero to arrive, ultimately, at villainy. Collapsing the characterological triad into single protagonists marks a late modern version of melodrama in which the possibilities for heroism are circumscribed, leaving characters able to opt only for victimization or villainy.

Ensemble Storytelling: Dramatic Television Seriality, The Melodramatic Mode, And Emotions, E. Deidre Pribram Ph.D.

Faculty Publications: Communication

This chapter considers seriality in contemporary television dramas in light of arguments that most popular culture falls within melodrama as modality (to include legal shows, police and detective programs, westerns, and medical series), instead of narrow genres, such as soap operas. The recent success of fully serialized dramas is a noteworthy development, producing highly popular and highly regarded programming. The traditions of melodrama, including its deep commitment to the uses of emotionality, address story worlds and audiences in terms of social relations, in contrast to psychological realism’s more individualized and inward turning tendencies. “Ensemble Storytelling” explores three specific strategies available …

Going In Thinking Process, Coming Out Transformed: Reflections And Recommendations From A Qualitative Research Course, Donald Mitchell Jr., Ph.D., Elizabeth Byron, Jeffrey Cross, O.J. Oleka, Stephanie Van Eps, Phyllis Clark, Natalie Sajko

Executives, Administrators, & Staff Publications

This article presents reflections and suggestions of an instructor and students from a doctoral-level qualitative research course. Given qualitative research courses often lack guidance for best practices and the well-being of doctoral students learning qualitative research is often overlooked, the purpose of this article is threefold: 1) to provide an introductory skeleton for designing a qualitative research course that is structured for classmates to interview each other throughout the semester, what the authors call a student-as-researcher-and-participant design; 2) to provide student reflections from the course; and finally, 3) to offer recommendations for using a student-as-researcher-and-participant design for a qualitative research …

Walking Titanic's Charity Trail In New York City: Part One, Gramercy Park And Madison Square Park, Eric C. Cimino Ph.D.

Faculty Works: HPS (2015-2021)

This article combines insights form travel writing, history, and urban studies to explore the social welfare milieu of early twentieth century New York City and its connection to disaster relief efforts for Titanic survivors in 1912.

Storied Feelings: Emotions, Culture, Media, E. Deidre Pribram Ph.D.

Faculty Publications: Communication

Mass mediated emotional experiences are central to late modern subjectivity. Narrative storytelling creates public sites where audiences encounter and negotiate shared sociocultural circumstances rendered in aesthetic terms. Popular narratives move us by providing access, through felt recognition, to aspects of our emotional existence that would otherwise remain inexpressible. Using examples from film, this chapter explores how emotions as public events, constituted as part of collectively experienced social, cultural, and historical conditions, are enacted or realized through narrative media.

Thoughts On The Postpartum Situation, Jennifer Scuro Phd

Faculty Works: PHI (2010-2021)

The event of childbirth carries with it a dominant narrative: that a pregnant woman happily gives birth to a baby. This appears to be quite a simple formulation—as if a natural fact, as if plain and common sense. Yet, the complexities masked by the mythological and whitewashed quality of this narrative, as I have already argued recently in The Pregnancy 6= Childbearing Project: A Phenomenology of Miscarriage (Feb 2017), harms and even kills women. In this paper, I expand on the problem of what I term “dismemberment after birth” as it operates invisibly in the “postpartum situation.” The dominant narrative, …

Black Male Persistence In Spite Of Facing Stereotypes In College: A Phenomenological Exploration, Taylor Benjamin Hardy Boyd M.Ed., Donald Mitchell Jr., Ph.D.

Executives, Administrators, & Staff Publications

Stereotypes often create threatening environments for Black males on college campuses. This study sought to break the deficit narrative surrounding Black males in college by highlighting how they persisted despite facing stereotypes. Six participants were included in this study. Through interviews and naturalistic observations, we explored how participants articulated their experiences with stereotypes, how they dealt with those experiences, how the experiences shaped future endeavors, and how they used strategies to dispel stereotypes and persist through threatening experiences. Findings suggest (a) the participants dealt with internalized feelings due to stereotypes; (b) stereotypes were reinforced in various ways; and, (c) they …

Melodrama And The Aesthetics Of Emotion, E. Deidre Pribram Ph.D.

Faculty Publications: Communication

Melodrama has long been associated with emotion, frequently in a pejorative sense due to its apparent emotional excesses. Conversely, scholars have argued that the melodramatic mode expresses “forces, desires, fears which... operate in human life," for which we have “no other language” (Gledhill tool, 31,37). In this chapter I explore how emotionality serves melodrama as an alrernarive “language" precisely to express forces, desires, and fears that operate beyond cognitive or ideological explanation.

Van Gogh: Changing Perceptions Of Mental Illness And Art, E. Deidre Pribram Ph.D.

Faculty Publications: Communication

This chapter explores interconnections among conceptualizations of mental illness, artistic genius, and emotional suffering. It does so through the extended example of Vincent Van Gogh from 1890, the year of his death, to the 1990s, a period of record-breaking sales of his work. My intention is to assess, first, how popular culture in contrast to modernist high art circles regard the place of emotionality in aesthetic activity. Second, I examine the role of emotions and emotional disorders in public perceptions of mental illness when applied to twentieth century art. Emotional disorders, as I use the term, encompass mood, anxiety, and …

Editorial: Conflicts, Sarah Evans Ph.D., Matthew Barr, Landon Kyle Berry, Mahli-Ann Butt, Daniel Joseph Dunne, Charlie Ecenbarger, Lorraine Murray, Michael James Scott, Lars De Wildt

Faculty Works: DH & NM (2010-2019)

The Editorial Board reflects on the theme of 'conflict', as observed in the work published in this issue, and in the wider world.

Editorial: Negotiating Gamer Identities, Sarah Evans Ph.D., Matthew Barr, Landon Kyle Berry, Mahli-Ann Butt, Daniel Joseph Dunne, Charlie Ecenbarger, Lorraine Murray, Michael James Scott, Lars De Wildt

Faculty Works: DH & NM (2010-2019)

The term ‘gamer identity’ is hotly contested, and certainly not understood as a broadly accepted term. From the outdated stereotype of white, heterosexual, teenage boys playing Nintendo in their parents’ basement to the equally contested proclamation that “‘gamers’ are over”, the current game culture climate is such that movements as divisive and controversial as #gamergate can flourish.

For this latest special issue of Press Start, we invited submissions regarding the recent controversies surrounding the notion of player identities, with the aim of receiving papers from different viewpoints on gamer identity and culture.

G L Î † C H É D I N † R A N $ L A † I O N: Rèading †Ex† And Codè As A Plaÿ Of $Pacés [Glitched In Translation: Reading Text And Code As A Play Of Spaces], Matt Applegate Ph.D.

Faculty Works: DH & NM (2010-2019)

In the decline of floppy disks, pixel art, and 8-bit video games (i.e., the 1990’s), emerging technologies routinely exhibited a plague of inexplicable glitches that would present the user with multi-colored screens, aberrant lines, and stacks of indecipherable characters. The fear of file corruption was lurking around every corner. We backed up our floppy disks onto more floppy disks, blew into our video game cartages, and added more random access memory (RAM) to our computers – all in the hope of eliminating the lurking presence of the glitch. But the glitches that once signaled the fear of data loss are …

"Yeah? Well, My God Has A Hammer!": Myth-Taken Identity In The Marvel Cinematic Universe, Jeff Massey Ph.D., Brian Cogan Ph.D.

Faculty Works: ENG (1995-2016)

With box office returns of well over a billion dollars worldwide, The Avengers (2012) clearly struck a chord with audiences beyond Marvel's loyal comic book fan-base. The script is tight, the action intense, the production values high, and the casting stellar, but are these elements enough to warrant the insane popularity of one superhero film amidst a Hollywood landscape already saturated with spandex-clad do-gooders and four-color villainy? As many film critic has lamented of late, we currently live in an age of superhero cinema. Combined, the "Big Two," Marvel and DC, have overseen more than 30 live-action superhero films featuring …

The Power Of Virtual Space, Katherine G. Schmidt Ph.D., Derek C. Hatch

Faculty Works: TRS (2010-2022)

The following essay emerges from the consultation of Evangelical Catholics and Catholic Evangelicals at the 2016 convention of the College Theology Society, which brings together Catholica and Protestant voices concerning a shared topic. In 2016, the theme of liturgy and contemporary social and communications media was in focus. As panelists, we offered complementary papers that have become two sections of this essay. In the first section, Katherine Schmidt provides a theological account of media from a Catholic perspective. Through reflections on the mediatory character of the incarnation, she argues that para-liturgical or extra-liturgical spaces are integral to the Eucharistic assembly …

How 9/11 Changed The Movies: The Tony Scott Barometer, E. Deidre Pribram Ph.D.

Faculty Publications: Communication

In an essay written some years ago on the 1945 film, Mildred Pierce, Linda Williams raises the intriguing question, why does the narrative frequently allude to but refrains from ever specifically mentioning World War II (22)? Williams’ assessment is that certain films are capable of addressing the most significant political events of the era in ways they could not have had they chosen to use direct depictions (24). Released in October 1945, following the end of U.S. involvement in the war, Mildred Pierce coincided with a period of demobilization and the economic and social reintegration of the returning American, largely …

Introduction: What Is New And Digital Media?, Thomas Kenny Mphil, Jamie N. Cohen Ma

Faculty Works: DH & NM (2010-2019)

First edition

The word media, the plural term for medium, covers a broad spectrum describing communications through television, film, radio, and print. Media require a viewer, a listener, a reader, or a spectator to carry any effect whatsoever. In our rapidly advancing hypermedia landscape of the present, where all traditional media have become singular on the screen-based Internet, the reader, viewer, and listener can participate as as well and truly use media as communication. Technology has inevitably transformed our traditional media into a multitude of interactive platforms, now read and listened to on mobile devices, tablets, e-readers, flat screens, and …

Review Of Gitelman, L. (2014) Paper Knowledge, Sarah Evans Ph.D.

Faculty Works: DH & NM (2010-2019)

Media histories are valuable in an age when an increasingly high percentage of our lives are mediated through new and constantly evolving technologies. By conducting such excavations one can see the influences that guide technologies’ inception, growth, and decline as they facilitate societal changes. Typically, media histories are performed through the recovery and analysis of various documents providing support for a particular occurrence or argumentative position. Though seemingly objective, these evidentiary artifacts are shaped by the same types of sociocultural, economic, and political influences as the technologies that produce them. Through tracing a media history of this neglected genre, Lisa …

Glîtchéd In †Ranslation [Glitched In Translation], Matt Applegate Ph.D.

Faculty Works: DH & NM (2010-2019)

In this paper, I think precarity in digital communication on two overlapping registers. The first is perhaps best described as an aesthetic intervention at the level of critical code studies, or, as Mark C. Marino describes it, “an approach that applies critical hermeneutics to the interpretation of computer code, program architecture, and documentation within a socio-historical context.”i What I am interested in examining here is the representation of natural languages by computer languages (specifically Unicode), but also natural languages’ ambiguation by computer languages in the production of aesthetic objects. The second intervention follows from the first. There is an architectural …

Episode 13: Katilyn Herzog, Thomas Kenny Mphil

Podcasts - Streaming

Professor Tom Kenny speaks with Kaitlyn Herzog, communications alumnus. They will discuss communications media and Kaitlyn's work in the post production industry. This final podcast of the fall 2014 semester also includes an excerpt from episode 6 with Mike Mendez.

Episode 12: Lauren Zafonte & Cathy Ciccone, Thomas Kenny Mphil

Podcasts - Streaming

Professor Tom Kenny speaks with Lauren Zafonte (current student) and Cathy Ciccone (alumnus) about professional communications. They will talk about classes, internships, and give the student perspective of professional communications. This podcast includes a sound clip for a communications department production, Day Dreamer Sleep Walker which can be found at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5wIrv56J0Y

Episode 11: Anna D'Aloisio, Thomas Kenny Mphil

Podcasts - Streaming

Professor Tom Kenny speaks with Anna D'Aloisio, communications department faculty member. They cover professional communications, public relations, writing, brands, internships, LinkedIn, and more. This episode also includes a clip of The Welcoming Committee which can be viewed at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UsJaCc2xnoI

Episode 10: Matt Rizzo, Thomas Kenny Mphil

Podcasts - Streaming

Professor Tom Kenny speaks with Matt Rizzo (alumnus & former employee) during the first episode of the Fall 2014 semester. This episode also features a clip from the student work Witness by Jess Schaefer which can be found at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rc_o5TG2T0A

Episode 9: Mike Boland, Thomas Kenny Mphil

Podcasts - Streaming

Professor Tom Kenny speaks with friend, colleague, & mentor Mike Boland. Mike worked for over 30 years with NBC and also worked 5 Olympics, one of which happened after his retirement.

Episode 8: Chris Perkowski, Thomas Kenny Mphil

Podcasts - Streaming

Professor Tom Kenny speaks with Chris Perkowski, current student. Chris is a communications major specializing in media. Chris talks about his home town, family, and communication studies.