Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Sexual Consent On Social Media: How College Students' Exposure To Sexualized And Party-Related Content On Social Media Relates To Their Sexual Consent Beliefs, Attitudes, And Intentions, Andrea Marie Smith

Dissertations - ALL

Sexual assault remains a prevalent issue on college campuses across the United States. Significant research has argued that to reduce the sexual assault rates on college campuses, it is vital to understand the cultural and contextual factors that may affect sexual consent communication between college students. One of these important contextual factors is social media. Social media are a persuasive and influential part of a college student's daily life, especially when it comes to creating and sustaining relationships with others. The purpose of this dissertation was to understand how college students may use social media to interpret a person's willingness …

Cultivating Courage: Medical Dramas And Portrayals Of Patient Self-Advocacy, Alyssa H. Harrell

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study investigated the influence of medical dramas on perceptions of patient self- advocacy. With a purposeful sample of college students, the study explored perceptions of information seeking preferences of a medical drama patient. With a quasi-experimental design using an online questionnaire containing both qualitative and quantitative measures, the study was able to compare four unique variables to perceptions of the information seeking preferences of a medical drama patient. The study analyzed the influence that (1) medical drama exposure, (2) patient advocacy rating, (3) perceived realism of medical dramas, and (4) previous experience healthcare each had on college students’ perceptions …

Military-Themed Video Games And The Cultivation Of Related Beliefs And Attitudes In Young Adult Males, Greg Blackburn

Doctoral Dissertations

Military themed games have been broadly critiqued as ideological vehicles that support western military institutions and militaristic attitudes. At the heart of these critiques is a concern for the potential influence these games may have on their audience, yet little empirical evidence exists to either support or refute that concern. Using cultivation theory as a general framework, this study investigates whether associations between playing military themed video games and military-related thoughts, beliefs, and attitudes can be found in an online, national survey of 410 young adult men. Consistent with cultivation theory’s predictions, significant associations between the use of military themed …

Crime Television Viewership And Perceived Vulnerability To Crime Among College Students, Madison S. Seymour

Honors Theses

This study focused on college students’ viewership of the crime drama television shows NCIS, Law and Order, Criminal Minds, and CSI as well as students’ perceived vulnerability to crime. The aim of the study was to determine if there is a relationship between the viewing of crime dramas and perceived vulnerability, based on the theories of mean world syndrome and cultivation. The study also examined the platform viewers used to watch crime dramas, whether that was streaming services or other options such as cable or satellite television. The chosen platform was also compared with perceived vulnerability to crime.

To collect …

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, …

Conceptualizing Television Viewing In The Digital Age: Patterns Of Exposure And The Cultivation Process, Lisa Prince

Doctoral Dissertations

With an ever-increasing variety of platforms, devices and services to choose from, new media technologies have altered and transformed the television viewing experience. With television more accessible and convenient than ever, viewers are consuming even more content, ensuring that television continues to dominate the cultural landscape. Therefore, it is imperative to understand how television viewing in the current media environment impacts audiences. For more than fifty years, cultivation theory has proven to be an enduring and generative research approach to understanding how exposure to the world of television shapes audiences' views of social reality. However, no cultivation study to date …

Cultivating Conceptions Of Masculinity: Television And Perceptions Of Masculine Gender Role Norms, Erica Scharrer, Greg Blackburn

Communication Department Faculty Publication Series

The potential of television to both reflect and shape cultural understandings of gender roles has long been the subject of social scientific inquiry. The present study employed survey methodology with 420 emerging adult respondents (aged 18 to 25) in a national U.S. sample to explore associations between amount of time spent viewing television and views about “ideal” masculine gender roles. The viewing of particular television genres was explored in addition to (and controlling for) overall amount of time spent with the medium, using cultivation theory as the theoretical foundation. Results showed significant statistical associations between viewing sitcoms, police and detective …

Parents’ Television Viewing And The Cultivation Of Materialism Among Families With Young Adult Offspring, Laras Sekarasih

Doctoral Dissertations

Employing cultivation theory as a guiding framework, and utilizing online survey responses from 303 young adults aged 18 to 25, this study examined how parents’ television viewing cultivates materialism among parents and young adult offspring, as well as offspring’s social comparison and life satisfaction. Path analyses revealed the evidence for intergenerational cultivation through parents’ materialism for the success and happiness dimensions of materialism. For the two dimensions, parents’ general television viewing positively predicts their own materialism, which in turn is positively associated with their children’s materialism. Somewhat differently, the analysis on the centrality dimension of materialism suggest that parents’ general …

Dating Across Difference: A Rhetorical Analysis Of Interracial Same-Sex Relationships In Targeted Media Outlets, Victor Santana-Melgoza

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The purpose of this study is to examine how interracial same-sex relationships are constructed and communicated within gay themed media outlets, specifically magazine publications, and the possible effects such construction may have on various consumer populations through the frame of cultivation theory. I studied three major gay publications and surveyed 90 articles for both textual content and visual representation. Categories were then created and articles were grouped by relevance to each category. Through iterative processes, the number of useable articles fell to 68. Articles were mainly captured using online sources. Through this medium of online reading, other access points were …

Chronic Pain In Entertainment Media: Using Empathy To Reduce Stigma, Rebecca Lang

LSU Master's Theses

Entertainment media represent a primary source of health information, making it a prime area of research for wide-spread health issues such as chronic pain. Chronic pain conditions can elicit stigmatization due to pain representing a subjective experience; coming to understand the experience of a person in pain can reduce stigma for that person as well as the entire group of people with chronic pain. Entertainment media, through the use of an engaging narrative and characters, can portray an illness experience that potentially elicits empathy and reduces stigma for chronic pain conditions. This study is among the few to employ empathy …

The Portrayal Of Science In Children's Television, Tristi Bercegeay Charpentier

LSU Master's Theses

Scholars argue that a scientifically literate public is a requirement for a democracy. Children are watching television more today than ever before, and studies have shown that children learn academically educational content from television. The Children's Television Act of 1990 requires broadcasters to provide educational and informational content for children. This study qualitatively evaluated a sample of 38 children's television programs to obtain a description of the scientific content contained in children's television. The study yielded a large quantity of scientific content, yet the quality of the content left much to be desired. Based on the findings of this study, …

Direct-To-Consumer Advertising Of Prescription Medicines: Framing With Imprecise Frequency Descriptors, Mikah Zangla

LSU Master's Theses

The purpose of the study was to determine how often and to what degree “imprecise frequency descriptors” are used in prescription drug print ads. These descriptors along with the side effects they describe were compared to their corresponding prescription medicine websites and analyzed to determine whether or not the general public is being misinformed and/or misled in terms of side effect warnings by current drug advertising. Content analysis of Direct-to-Consumer (DTC) prescription drug advertisements found in five of the top seven magazines most likely to be consumed by readers over age 65 was the method of investigation for this study. …

Behind The Scenes: Uncovering The Structures And Manipulations Of Tabloid Talk Show Workers, Guests And Audiences, Kelly Thompson Losch Deshotel

LSU Master's Theses

How talk show workers, guests and audiences behave behind-the-scenes is largely a mystery to the public. This research focuses on the behind-the-scenes workings of a daytime syndicated talk show to better understand the motivations of talk show guests and how talk show workers manipulate guests and audiences. While researchers have conducted studies of talk show guests using formal interviews and questionnaires, no researchers have posed as covert observers to study talk shows. The researcher conducted participant observation to study the behaviors of those involved with the on and offstage talk show structure. The researcher interned for the show without revealing …