Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

An Examined Life Of A Language Teacher Of Chinese: An Autoethnographic Investigation Into Agency, Ying Zhang

Doctoral Dissertations

There is a paucity of research about and done by L2 Chinese educators regarding the theoretical construct of agency. It is also noted that the qualitative inquiry is marginalized in L2 Chinese research field, let alone the narrative study of the agency of experienced by L2 Chinese-teachers. In this dissertation research, I aim at filling in the gap by conducting a longitudinal autoethnography which captures over a decade (1997-2017) of my personal and professional development with an agency perspective. The highly personalized autoethnographic accounts open up my personal and professional life as an experienced, college-level, transnational, early 40’s female native …

“You Can Be A Good Romanian, But Not A Romanian”: A Critical Discourse Analysis Of The Romanian History Textbook Narrative, Razvan Sibii

Doctoral Dissertations

Employing a version of the Critical Discourse Analysis methodology that privileges close textual readings, I examine in this dissertation the manner in which contemporary Romanian history textbooks put forward an essentialist view of ethnonational identity by tracing through history the development of a putatively homogenous “proto-Romanian” entity. I seek to show how the “Getae-Dacian” and “Daco-Roman” identity categories acquired their thing-ness and their boundaries as a result of deliberate rhetorical work performed by Romanian historiographers with the help of such heuristics as “Romanization,” “ethnogenesis” and the nation-as-family metaphor. I also scrutinize how the textbooks treat the two ancient texts that …

Life As A Reluctant Immigrant: An Autoethnographic Inquiry, Dionel Cotanda

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In this dissertation, I draw on memories inspired and heightened by compassionate interviews in order to produce a unifying narrative of interactions with family and friends prior to and following my exile from Cuba in 1960. I use autoethnography and narrative inquiry to understand how I made the decision to leave Cuba and the life I have lived in exile for almost sixty years. My dissertation focuses on what it means to live as a reluctant immigrant and how historically constituted power relations define the identity of many Cuban exiles. I discuss and contrast the politics of passion and the …

"Just Call Me Poe": An Autoethnographic Look At Codeswitching And Passing, Paola Andrea Joya

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

The following thesis is an autoethnographic look at codeswitching and passing in the children of immigrants. Specifically, this thesis uses methods of poetry, frameworks of re-photography, and narrative to investigate my personal experiences with these cultural phenomena over a lifetime. Grounding my work in theories on identity, culture, and co-cultural understandings, I investigate the evolution of my name from Paola, Paula, to Poe, as a representation of the length at which I attempted to assimilate and accommodate to the dominant group (U.S). It is my hope that this thesis helps to create community amongst those who have shared similar experiences …

Where Blackness And Cape Verdeanness Intersect: Reflections On A Monoracial And Multiethnic Reality In The United States, Callie Watkins Liu

Journal of Cape Verdean Studies

As a Black American and fourth generation Cape Verdean American growing up in the United States, I’ve found that race and ethnicity are frequently conflated in ways that obscure my social reality and identity or put two integrated parts of myself into opposition with each other. In examining my own ethno-racial experience, I use critical race studies and identity construction to disentangle the structural concepts of race and ethnicity and build a frame work for understanding my own integrated existence within the United States. My personal trajectory is situated within the current and historical sociostructural context of Diaspora, White Supremacy …

Family History And Genealogy: The Benefits For The Listener, The Storyteller And The Community, Anna Lima

Journal of Cape Verdean Studies

Thanks to the internet, discovering one’s ancestry is just a few clicks sway. Family histories and genealogies with intricate family trees filled with dates of birth, marriage dates, and death dates are meticulously documented for posterity. This process entails hours of research through census, immigration, baptism, and obituary records if you’re able to access them. There’s nothing greater for a genealogist to discover another generation of previously unknown ancestors and to tell the rest of your family. One would think that genealogy is a very new area of research since our ancestors obviously didn’t bother to pass this information on …

Widow Narratives On Film And In Memoirs: Exploring Formula Stories Of Grief And Loss Of Older Women After The Death Of A Spouse, Jennifer R. Bender

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation analyzes narratives (written and mediated) about widows’ post-loss experiences—specifically the ways in which these women embody and adjust/adhere to their post-loss widow identities—and whether or not the canonical/formula stories about widows reflect current experiences of widowhood. I look at older widowed women—both those in well-read widow memoirs and also in media portrayals of widows on film. The canonical view of widows as not attractive, not useful, and not interesting needs to be reexamined in light of changing ideas about gender roles and increased longevity. Surely older women have experiences, desires, and goals that encompass more than being socially …

Sensemaking And Identity In Complementary Alternative Medicine: Communication Study On Reiki, Caroline Reese

Master's Theses (2009 -)

Complementary alternative medicine (CAM) is rising in popularity, in particular, the practice of Reiki. While there is substantial research that focuses on the medical benefits of Reiki, little work has been done that addresses what Reiki means to participants and how it impacts an individual's sense of self. This study seeks to fill that void. To explore this, I argue that Reiki practice should be viewed through a communication lens that draws from theories of identity and sensemaking. Results show that identity is not seen as an individualistic concept but rather as a social process that shifts to a more …

The Communication Identity Of Drug Dealer, Lintang Nur Hemas, Prahastiwi Utari, Mahendra Wijaya

Jurnal Komunikasi Indonesia

This research aims to find out how drug dealers showed their identity communication. This research is a qualitative research which applied a case study as its research method. The data were collected by interviews. Then, the collected data were analysed using data reduction, presentation, and conclusion. The research took place at the detention centre of the Central Java National Narcotics Board. The conclusions of this research using four layers are personal, enacted, relational, and communal on the communication of identity theory by Michael Hecht. It show that partisipants hide or disclose their identities based on how others respond to them. …

Challenging Girlhood, Mary Ann Harlan

School of Information Student Research Journal

No abstract provided.

The Affective Politics Of Twitter, Johnathan C. Flowers

Computer Ethics - Philosophical Enquiry (CEPE) Proceedings

Given the increasing encroachment of Twitter into offline experience, it has become necessary to look beyond the formation of identity in online spaces to the ways in which identities surface through the formation of affective communities organized through the use of technocultural assemblages, or the platforms, algorithms, and digital networks through which affect circulates in an online space. This essay focuses on the microblogging website Twitter as one such technocultural assemblage whose hashtag functionality allows for the circulation of affect among bodies which “surface” within the affective communities organized on Twitter through their alignment with and orientation by hashtags which …

It Is In The Cards: An Analysis Of Greeting Card Selection Through Identity And Personality, Emily Topilow

Honors Projects

In this exploratory study, personal and social identity were analyzed for their effect on how consumers choose greeting cards. Factors, including personality, relationships, and identity will be qualitatively analyzed to understand people’s buying habits. Certain factors, including gender, personality, relationships, type of card, and frequency of receiving and giving cards, will be qualitatively analyzed for frequency. The two theories analyzed were the Social Identity Theory (SIT) and the Identity Theory (IT).

525 college-aged students were surveyed to examine their purchasing habits of greeting cards. The results showed that the identity of the card giver and the identity of the card …

Becoming A Master Manager: An Analysis Of Snap Recipient Stories Of Navigating Government Assistance, Kallie Gay

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study examines experiences of utilizing government assistance in the United States. It focuses on the ways in which persons participating in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) communicatively managed their lives in relation to their role in the program. Specifically, the research reveals that SNAP recipients are master managers. After synthesizing the pre-existing body of research concerning social assistance in the U.S. and its effects on those who utilize it, the author argues that sharing the stories of marginalized groups can serve to reduce stigma surrounding government assistance participation. Employing a Feminist Standpoint Theory sensibility to elicit such stories, …

Remaking Identities, Reworking Graduate Study : Stories From First-Generation-To-College Rhetoric And Composition Phd Students On Navigating The Doctorate., Ashanka Kumari

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation responds to the decreasing number of first-generation-to-college doctorates in the humanities and the limited scholarship on graduate students in Rhetoric and Composition. Scholars in Rhetoric and Composition have long been invested in discussions of academic and/or disciplinary enculturation, yet these discussions primarily focus on undergraduate students, with few studies on graduate students and far fewer on the doctoral students training to become the next wave of a profession. In this dissertation, I argue that if we engage intersectional identities as assets in the design of doctoral programs, access to higher education and academic enculturation can become more manageable …

Goblin: Microaffirmations, A Theory Of Communication, Haunt Pitcher

Media and Communication Studies Honors Papers

This project is a study of nonbinary identity and the ways in which nonbinary individuals find validation from nonbinary communities, cisgender friends and family members, and themselves. It advances a theory of “microaffirmations,” or small acts that can have a large, positive impact on nonbinary individuals, with a significant focus on humor, language, and other forms of communication. Research for this project was conducted through a series of personal interviews with friends and families, as well as analyzing the author’s own experiences as a nonbinary individual. These interviews and experiences are filtered through lenses of feminist theory, trans theory, and …

Delicate Moments: Kids Talk About Socially Complicated Issues

Occasional Paper Series

The author offers an analysis of the failures and insights she experienced working with adolescents at a progressive school while discussing how the students understood and experienced race and identity -- their own and that of others. While she encountered students who were willing to take her into their worlds, her efforts fell flat when her questions turned out to be about their experiences of race and class. In response to such questions, Bauman received, on the whole, confusion, a few stories that distanced the teller from the events, and queries about whether this was "what she wanted." At that …

The Bride, Millennial Identity, And Instagram: A Case Study Of Hillsong Australia’S Instagram Account, Jessica Delp

Senior Honors Theses

Identity has become an incessant focus for millennials. They ascribe ever-growing significance to identity anchored in an accepting community that elevates their perception. Subsequently, identity is increasingly significant for brand and consumer relationships. Successful brands understand this and incorporate a pervasive sense of their unique identity into their brand, visually and otherwise. This case study of Hillsong Church hopes to help churches understand the importance of visuals in communicating identity. Hillsong Australia’s Instagram is examined using the Saussure model of visual semiotic theory to understand how they present their church identity in relation to millennial identity. The two most dominant …

Six Word Stories Through Spain And Morocco, Pola Isabelle Bonete, Astrid Gaytan, Jessica Cannon

Student Engagement Posters

Pola Isabelle Bonete, Astrid Gaytan, and Jessica Cannon discuss student engagement at Linfield College with regard to intercultural competence and cultural sensitivity gained through their January Term 2019 course in Spain and Morocco.

Hybrid Media Activism: Ecologies, Imaginaries, Algorithms, Dorothy Kidd

Media Studies

Review of Treré, Emiliano. Hybrid Media Activism: Ecologies, Imaginaries, Algorithms. New York and London: Routledge. ISBN: 978-1-138-21814-7.

Embodied Autoethnography, Courtney M. Fuller

Master of Liberal Studies Theses

In the past few decades, scholars have begun to combine research and personal experience, exploring the self through autoethnography. This thesis is a reflexive, arts-based autoethnographic study that investigates body, female body image, and identity. Though autoethnography has several subgenres (e.g., critical, performative), this thesis aligns most closely with embodied autoethnography. With this embodied autoethnography, I invite readers—you—inside several pivotal experiences in my life. Combining personal narrative and others’ research, I endeavor to understand changes in body image and identity in some of the most transformative experiences in my life. Specifically, I seek to address: (a) How do life-altering events …

Black Masculinities And The Media: An Interview With Filmmaker And Activist Byron Hurt, Kevin D. Thomas

College of Communication Faculty Research and Publications

In this interview, Byron Hurt reflects on his career and how he has become a prominent activist, speaker, filmmaker, and writer about media's roles in shaping Black identities and culture, especially constructions of Black masculinity. In addition to detailing his career trajectory, Hurt discusses many important topics: his inspiration to make films, the power of filmmaking to make cultural change, the filmmaker's place within a documentary, changing notions of Black masculinity, the constraints advertising and media place on Black men and boys to define their manhood, Black men's assertion of power over Black women, intersectionality, digital media's possibilities for more …

Constructing Lumbersexuality: Marketing An Emergent Masculine Taste Regime, Mark A. Rademacher, Casey R. Kelly

Department of Communication Studies: Faculty Publications

This article examines the online retailer Huckberry.com as a singular, centralized authority responsible for marketing “lumbersexuality” as an emergent, gender-normative taste regime. As an evolution of the devalued hipster marketplace myth, analysis reveals Huckberry promotes an adaptable taste regime to its young, educated, urban, White male clientele that unites goods, meanings, and practices across multiple fields of consumption that reconnect indie consumption and taste with a fantasy of “authentic” masculinity. We argue that Huckberry offers men semiotic resources that merge the urban with the outdoors in a way that enables the enactment of a fraught though seemingly durable masculine identity …

“I Was Prepared To Stay Here And Die With My Animals”: Pet Owners, Hurricane Harvey, And The Role Of Communication In Disaster Sense-Making, Ashleigh Day

Wayne State University Dissertations

Companion animals (also referred to as “pets”) are omnipresent in society and, increasingly, many companion animals are considered members of the family unit. However, crisis planning, preparedness, and communication efforts are sparse in including pets and their owners/guardians. This study investigates the disaster experience(s) and sense-making process(es) of pet owners (POs) and animal guardians (AGs) that were affected by the 2017 Hurricane Harvey. More specifically, examination pays close attention to the role and function of PO/AG identity and crisis and risk communication in individuals’ sense-making of their disaster experience. Importantly, participant experiences provide the means to examine the larger context …

Holy Alliance? Navigating Evangelical Political Identity In The Era Of Donald Trump, Anthony Comer

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

Evangelical Christians have always had a complex relationship with political issues in the United States, especially with the rise of the Christian right in the 1980s. Pastors and church leaders function as crucial communicators of political values in a contemporary American context. Since 2017 the Trump presidency has provided a new set of issues to consider. With Festinger’s (1957) Cognitive Dissonance theory and Tajfel’s (1981) Social Identity theory as the foundation, this study examines how evangelical Christian pastors conceptualize their religious and political identities, how they communicate with their congregants about political issues and how they handle differences between their …

Greyhounds And Racing Industry Participants: A Look At The New South Wales Greyhound Racing Community, Justine Groizard

Animal Studies Journal

Subsequent to the exposure of live baiting and animal cruelty within the NSW greyhound racing industry in 2015, a public debate emerged about animal welfare, oppression and exploitation. It resulted in a community outcry, an inquiry into live baiting and animal welfare within the industry and a proposed ban of greyhound racing in the state of NSW. Whilst the proposed ban of greyhound racing was celebrated amongst animal activists, it was met with a mixture of sadness, shock and animosity from people from within the industry. Many of the people within the greyhound racing community felt stigmatised and discriminated against, …

Understanding The Relationship Between Discursive Resources And Risk-Taking Behaviors In Outdoor Adventure Athletes, Mira Ione Cleveland

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This study explores the various discursive resources influencing the identities of outdoor adventure athletes, specifically in regard to risk taking behaviors. The qualitative analysis reported here relied on participants’ accounts on how they understood themselves, specifically as outdoor adventure athletes. Interviewees had the opportunity to reflect on their identities when they were asked questions about their experiences in their sports. Discourse was the means to both develop and express understanding of their identities. Results indicate that personal relationships and mountain environments were perceived to have a major influence on both identity and risk taking. These influences emerged through the processes …