Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Battle For The Mountains: Restructuring Extractive Production And The Socio-Ecological Crisis In West Virginia's Coalfields, Ben Marley

Geography and the Environment - Theses

The coalfields of southern West Virginia have faced recurring crises linked to its regional political economy. Today's crisis is constituted by the decimation on the United Mine Workers of America and the greater use of mountaintop removal coal mining in conjunction with policies and market conditions. This thesis argues that crisis in southern West Virginia's coalfields, like previous crises, will mean the reorganization of human and extra-human natures in which social movements along with economic conditions play an integral role in transcending the crisis. Tracing the history of crises in southern West Virginia's coalfields and interviewing retired coal miners, community …

A Matter Of Faith: U.S. Cable News Coverage And Definitions Of Terrorism, Adam Yehia Elrashidi

Media Studies - Theses

What makes an act of violence an act of terrorism? This qualitative study examines the ways in which three U.S.-based cable news networks--MSNBC, CNN, and Fox News--reported and contextualized four violent events within frameworks of terrorism: the mass shooting at Ft. Hood near Killeen, Texas (2009); the mass shooting near Tucson, Arizona (2011); a suicidal plane crash into an IRS building in Austin, Texas (2010); and the attempted bombing of the Federal Reserve in New York, New York (2012).

Although details between these four events seem analogous, the three networks appeared to contextualize only the Ft. Hood rampage and the …