Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Border Of Dreams: A Textura Documentary, Scott Winter

Day of Scholarship

The Problem: Textura magazines are expensive and consumers are moving to video.In light of those problems, how can Textura fulfill its dreams of connecting cultures and disciplines through social justice storytelling in a viable way that reaches a large audience? The Solution: An Edgren Scholars grant and NYCAMS grant to retell our best Textura Guatemala 2022 story as a social justice documentary called Border of Dreams. The process: By hiring a Guatemalan director and editor from former partnerships, the student-professor collaboration of Junior Soraya Keiser and Professor Scott Winter travelled through the summer of 2022 and spent a year building …

Media Suppression In Africa And The Balkans - How Economic Distribution Impacts Freedom Of The Press On An International Level, Lindsey G. Ingraham

INSPIRE Student Research and Engagement Conference

Freedom of intellectual expression and media are human rights that the United Nations argues should be available to all people on Earth. However, we continue to see suppression of the media by various states across the globe. There is plenty of research that examines abuse of human rights, but there is a significant gap in the literature regarding what role economic distribution within a state plays. One of the most common measures of economic dispersion within states is the Gini Coefficient. This places states on a scale from 0, perfect income equality, to 1, perfect income inequality where all of …

After Writing 730 Newspaper Columns Over 13 Years –Important Lessons Learned And Advice To Others, Don Daake, Edward Piatt

Scholar Week 2016 - present

Dr. Don Daake, Ph.D. (Florida State 1995), Business Professor Emeritus, and Dr. Edward Piatt, Ed.D. (ONU 2011), MBA Adjunct, share their secrets about writing and actually getting published. They are particularly interested in faculty and students who would like to join them as co-authors or anyone who enjoys writing and wants to get published. To paraphrase an old adage, "If a tree falls in the forest with no ears to hear, does it make a sound. It matters not for the tree has fallen." Our version “If you write something and practically no one reads it, have you really written …

Writing Towards Radicalism: On Biased Reporting & Its Effects On U.S. Extremism, Martha Tyler

Cybersecurity Undergraduate Research Showcase

Perceived influxes in biased reporting, disparities in reporting versus reality, and other factors have led many Americans to question the legitimacy of their most-frequented sources. These sentiments have encouraged migration from traditional sources to alternative ones, exposing many Americans to polarizing media. This report argues that unaddressed inadequacies in reporting force Americans to contend with a distorted reality or try their luck on the path toward alternative media.

Journalism In The Age Of Doxxing​, Kathrine Huntington

Scholars Week

Doxxing is something that is becoming more and more of a reality to many journalists today and that reality can quickly become a nightmare if used in the wrong way. Doxxing is known as the release of private information without consent of the person it is directed towards. It is important for journalists today to be familiar with what doxxing is, what ethical dilemmas it creates as well as how to protect themselves against being doxxed. Anyone can be doxxed but journalists face the highest risk in today’s modern world due to easy accessibility to technology as well as our …

Reducing Stress For Student Journalists, Melody Kazel

Scholars Week

As a student in JOUR 214 and 414, I noticed that stress levels in the class were high. I asked students, currently in the class or who’d taken it one quarter previously, to fill out a survey about their stress levels and causes of stress. In order to prevent unconscious negative bias because of the nature of a survey about stress, I included questions about student satisfaction levels and causes of satisfaction. The majority of students rated stress at an eight or ten out of ten. Satisfaction levels were more varied; most students rated their satisfaction at a four, five, …

Journalists Need To Be A Voice For The Weakest Stakeholders In The Climate Crisis, Lucille Giaccio

Scholars Week

The paper covers the ethical dilemma concerning Journalism and its lack of coverage of the animal perspective. The research was done using Western Washington University's library databases and other news articles about the issue. The articles and websites focused on the ethical aspect of the "Voice for the Voiceless" including animals and nature. The primary issue with news organizations failing to discuss the animal suffering in the climate crisis was because they claimed it was too complicated. The challenge after that is writing for a human audience with a nonhuman perspective. Many journalists have adapted their style to cover all …

An Analysis Of Vogue: Femininity & Intersectionality As A Societal Standard In Fashion, Cassidy Tamburro

Scholars Week

The goal of this research project is to see if Vogue has evolved or changed its fashion coverage to be more intersectional as well as evolved in what it means to be ideally feminine. The research question that guided my work is: How has Vogue’s intersectionality and feminine ideals evolved in its fashion coverage from 1975 to 2019? My methods include a semiotic analysis of Vogue magazine covers images from 1975 and 2019, examining model diversity, cover-photo elements, and representations of styles. A qualitative analysis, including content-coding, of Vogue fashion articles 1975 and 2019. The main findings included that Vogue …

Kulshan Gives: Helping A Nonprofit Choir Create A Culture Of Giving, Emily Jackson, Schuyler Shelloner

Scholars Week

How can a nonprofit organization change from a culture of caring to a culture of giving? Emily Jackson, Schuyler Shelloner and Emma Calvert sought to answer that question in Fall 2020 during their public relations course, Research and Campaigns. They formed the Skyline Group agency and developed a PR campaign proposal for the Kulshan Chorus. This nonprofit, social-justice-oriented choir wanted to raise awareness about their mission, increase funding and involve more choir members in more community outreach. In response to their request for proposal, the Skyline Group conducted research, defined target audiences and created a 53-page campaign booklet with deliverables …

Media Trust In America: Examining The Perspective Of Va College-Age Individuals, Ryan Whitmer

Virginias Collegiate Honors Council Conference

National statistics have been gathered for decades on public trust in mass media. Yet today, at a critical point in American history, this trust is on a severe decline. Are these findings reflective of the rising generation— that is, college-age youth? Data collected from college students in Southern Virginia reveal that there are significantly different opinions, particularly in the areas of overall trust and on the belief that trust can be restored. Additionally, college-age students show partisan divides opposite to the national average, as well as no variances between gender or race. These findings make it abundantly clear that actions …

A Communication Ethics Response To “Communication Under Siege”, Jeanne M. Persuit

International Crisis and Risk Communication Conference

Presented as a response to the keynote speaker at ICRC 2020, this essay considers the communication ethics implications to crisis communication informed by the work of philosopher Hannah Arendt and communication scholar Ronald C. Arnett.

Sorry Is Not Enough: Apology As A Crisis Management Tactic, Amiso M. George

International Crisis and Risk Communication Conference

Public admissions of personal or professional misdeeds, followed by apologies by high profile individuals and organizations are strategies and tactics of image restoration when a reputation is damaged. Although the ritual of an apology is an expected societal norm sometimes, they can make matters worse. Apology is effective depending on the offense, the place, time, language, tone of apology and if the recipient of the apology is willing to accept it. Another important element is the cultural factor. Apology that does not adhere to perceived cultural norms may not be received positively; thereby worsening the crisis situation. In 2018 and …

Communication Under Siege: The Example Of Steven Sotloff, Frank Smyth

International Crisis and Risk Communication Conference

The kidnapping and murder of Steven Sotloff is one of the most horrific examples of brutality against a journalist in memory. Sotloff was captured in 2013, ending up in the hands of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. After remaining in captivity for over a year, Sotloff was executed in September 2014 by beheading a month after another captured journalist, James Foley, was also beheaded. Since Steven Sotloff’s loss, his parents have supported Hostile Environments and Emergency First Aid Training (HEFAT) for young aspiring journalists not unlike their son. The original presentation of this keynote was enhanced by …

Habermas, The Public Sphere, And Wikileaks: The Public Sphere And The Right To Know, Mary Murray

Capstone Showcase

Jürgen Habermas, a German theorist, coined the public sphere as a place where citizens could interact, study, and debate issues together outside the realm of the home or family, which was defined as the private sphere. The public sphere can also be seen as a “manifestation of citizen sovereignty”. At its core, Habermas centered the public sphere around feudalism and the shift of one all-powerful individual reigning and representing the public to those citizens under the control of the state. Some critics argue voices encouraging the minorities were actually private voices leaking into the public sphere, while others argue the …

Betting On Casinos As A Community Benefit: Analyzing Local News Coverage Of The Development Of Casino Gaming In Ohio, Jessalynn Strauss

International Conference on Gambling & Risk Taking

This research examines news coverage of casino gaming in Ohio in the period 2008-2018. Ohio legalized gambling by popular vote in November 2009 and the state now has four casinos and 7 racinos with VLT gaming. This study will use a framing analysis to look at the way that news coverage portrays casinos with respect to social responsibility and their impact on the local community.

With the spread of gambling outside of traditional strongholds such as Las Vegas and Atlantic City, many have debated casinos’ benefit to communities, and some have criticized casinos’ impact on localities. This study will assess …

Nike In Politics: How Political Consumerism Impacts Corporate Social Responsibility, Samantha Frost

Scholars Week

How does Nike's campaign supporting Colin Kaepernick and the Black Lives Matter movement reflect the alignment of large corporations with political movements as a Corporate Social Responsibility strategy and how does political consumerism impact this decision? The purpose of this project is to examine how Nike used the ‘Dream Crazy’ campaign to piggyback off the Black Lives Matter movement as a public relations and marketing strategy as well as how political consumerism is shaping corporate social responsibility. How do political movements impact the corporate world and how do corporations impact political movements? Nike’s Colin Kaepernick campaign titled ‘Chasing Crazy’ was …

Representation Of Addiction In The Media, Lauren Gallup

Scholars Week

Presenting the story of addiction in news and entertainment media presents an ethical dilemma for those doing the storytelling. This dilemma faces the ethical paradigm of Right vs. Wrong. In this research project, I focused on how addiction is presented in the media. Media representation of addiction shapes how people think about this disease and can affect legislation to support assistance for recovering addicts. This led me to determine that media has an important place in shaping how we think about addiction. In this paper, I identified how media can do a public good by accurately and ethically covering stories …

The Education Beat In A Declining Industry, Jon Foster

Scholars Week

The collapse of the newspaper industry and the disappearance of the education beat on many local and national newspapers can have profound impacts on journalism, civic engagement and our democracy. In this paper, I look at the the current state of education reporting in America and examine the ethical dilemmas local and national news agencies face as well as the hopeful future it has in a transforming news industry.

“You Are Sexist!” “No, I’M A Sports Reporter.” An Analysis Of Females’ And Males’ Portrayal In Print Media, Lauryn Beam

Student Scholar Showcase

Media itself has always been an outlet for the public. It has been used for entertainment, information, and a societal tool from the time when it was first advancing. Sport media is a genre all its own. There has always been a gender divide in sport and sport media. For this critical study, print media sources from different outlets were analyzed to compare two female athletes against two male athletes. The athletes being compared were Serena Williams and John McEnroe, as well as Brandi Chastain and Nicolas Anelka. Each article was analyzed for how the journalist portrayed the athlete, in …

Measuring College Student And Faculty Media Literacy, Monica Ann Diaz

Kansas State University Undergraduate Research Conference

Measuring College Student and Faculty Media Literacy
Monica Diaz, Dr. Tom Hallaq, Yeng Xiong
A.Q. Miller School of Journalism and Mass Communications College of Arts and Sciences

Within our society, there is constant progression towards the evolution of media and its platforms. European and Commonwealth countries took fast to training students and educators on media consumption. However, in the United States, it has been a slower process of integration. The focus of study for this research is online digital media literacy amongst college students and faculty. The first step of this study focuses on a review of current literature. The …

Revenge Pornography: An Analysis Of Privacy, Obscenity, And The First Amendment, Kamrin Baker

UNO Student Research and Creative Activity Fair

An important issue in modern communication law and policy is the emergence of harassment via the Internet and social media. One form of such harassment is revenge pornography, the sharing of sexual images or videos without the consent of the individual depicted, usually at the hands of an ex-lover. In punishing the posters and purveyors of revenge pornography, perpetrators are often convicted of unrelated crimes such as identify theft or fraud, furthering the silence of revenge pornography. This new challenge in law raises some serious questions about the intersections of obscenity, privacy and the First Amendment in the effort to …

Electronic Media Written In Albanian A Mean Of Appropriately Informing The Audience, Respectively Media Of Kosovo, Ferid Selimi

UBT International Conference

Due to the fact that media in Kosovo is in itself an industry which consistently provides information and thereafter transmits it to the public, it’s worth emphasizing that its activity is regulated by law and the respective legal acts that are concerned with Media. Consequently, lack of respecting those rules that derive from normative legal acts, Media comprises in itself a precedent of disrespecting legal acts. According to Media scholars, the authenticity is the underlying aspect of evoking trustworthiness, which is enhanced by consciousness that is the gist of information. The course of technological developments has brought above changes as …

Impact Of Technology And Internet On The Media Market In Kosovo, In Daily Print Newspapers And Online Newspapers, Fatime Lumi, Ferid Selimi

UBT International Conference

Development of information technology and internet in Kosovo, particularly during 2010-2018, has strongly affected the decrease in edition of printed newspapers, whereas on the other hand there is witnessed an increase in the number of users of online media who would rather appreciate to acquire information through those sources rather than other means of information. Express Newspaper is among the most printed newspapers, but it has recently passed from hard copy version to online one. Due to the fact that it mainly operates online it has increasingly boosted the number of readers. Whereas Newspaper “Koha Ditore”, along with the printed …

Coverage Of The #Metoo & Time’S Up Movement: Examining Who Is Quoted And What Terminology Is Used In Msnbc, Fox News And The Bbc’S Coverage Of The #Metoo And Time’S Up Movements, Stella Harvey

Scholars Week

The widespread conversation on sexual assault and harassment that has been growing since October 2017 has impacted many industries, including journalism. Movements such as #MeToo and Time’s Up aim to raise awareness about the prevalence of these issues and stop the cycle of abuse. Within these movements, many celebrities have spoken publicly about their experiences, resulting in extensive media coverage on an issue that has historically been swept under the rug. The terminology that is used when it comes to issues of sex crimes and allegations is incredibly important because there is a great amount of nuance between terms. It …

#Me Too: An Analysis On Whose Sexual Assault Stories The New York Times Publishes, Alyssa Evans

Scholars Week

Source representation in media impacts the public’s perception of social issues and groups represented. This study examines the extent to which coverage by The New York Times of the #MeToo movement includes a diverse background of victims of sexual assault and harassment. An extension of research is added to scholarly discourse on framing of sexual assault victims and the inclusivity of the Times’ reporting on sexual assault. Human sources most often sourced in #MeToo-related stories analyzed were white female victims who held jobs in the entertainment industry or politics. The second most often represented source was found to be white …

St. Vincent’S “Equal-Opportunity” Guitar, Lexi Foldenauer

Scholars Week

This research paper applied semiotics to examine the ways in which Ernie Ball Music Man's PR campaign for the release of St. Vincent's customized guitar utilized a third-wave feminist framework.

Out Of The Prison And Onto The Streets: The Trafficking Of Incarcerated Women (A Trans-Disciplinary Media Research Project), Mei-Ling Mcnamara

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

Women are being actively targeted for the sex trafficking trade within US prisons and are recruited by a network of fellow inmates who are given "finders fees" for supplying victims. In prisons from Florida to North Carolina, Ohio to Massachusetts, women are promised housing and food in exchange for work upon release but instead are deceived and prostituted for the human trafficking trade. Some traffickers stalk their victims through public-access profiles from statewide prison websites, then groom them over months through correspondence and phone calls.

Inside the largest women’s prison in the United States, the Florida Lowell Correctional Institution, officers …

Cross-National Coverage Of Cross-Border Transit Migration: A Community Structure Approach, John C. Pollock, Kevin O'Brien, Madison Ouellette, Maria Gottfried, Petra Kovacs, Lauren Longo, Taylor Hart-Mcgonigle

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

A community structure analysis (exploring variations in community/national demographics linked to differences in reporting on critical issues) compared cross-national coverage of cross-border transit migration through Mediterranean and Central European countries in leading newspapers, one per country, in 16 countries, analyzing all articles of 250 words or more from 10/01/14 to 11/01/15. The resulting 238 total articles were coded for “prominence” and “direction” (“government responsibility,” “society responsibility” — including foreign aid, or “balanced/neutral” coverage) and combined into composite “media vector” scores for each newspaper (range 0.1132 to -0.2785, a total range of .3917). A majority of 12 of 16 (75%) of …

Oral History In A Journalism Course: Sharing Stories And Reporting News About Public Education In Kentucky, Rochele Rosa

Posters-at-the-Capitol

Oral history as a method of gathering information is nothing new. However, in journalism, the method is gaining acceptance as a new, enriching way to report news, showing how issues and topics impact people.

The Murray State University JMC 397 Reporting for Print Media class recorded community oral history as part of an intensive focus on education reporting in fall 2017. Although many facets of the education “beat” were explored, students devoted much of the semester investigating and reporting the issues and challenges facing public education in Kentucky, from the K-12 to higher education levels. For the project to become …

Insulting And Denigrating Language In Media, Anisa Rada

UBT International Conference

The Internet is a network that consists of millions of private, public, academic, business and government networks, both local and global, linked by a wide array of electronic, wireless, and optical networking technologies. By increasing the use of the Internet and the creation of computer networks has increased the significance of what is called "internet language". Since the internet gives space for free expression to everyone, this working paper aims to give examples and to reveal the fact that this freedom has been misused in the name of freedom of expression through hate speech, defamation and prejudice expressed through comments. …