Communication Commons^™

We're Swarming Again! Swarming, Collectivity, And Trope: The Case Of Extinction Rebellion, Tyler J. Behymer

Department of Communication Studies: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This thesis explores the rhetoric of the eco-movement Extinction Rebellion, focusing on the use of swarming and nature tropes to mobilize collective action and revivify contemporary notions of collectivity. Drawing on rhetoric of social movement scholarship, cultural studies, and psychoanalysis, this essay theorizes swarming as a tropological economy that expands the conditions of propriety in the context of collectivity. Through an analysis of Extinction Rebellion’s discourse, this study demonstrates how the naturalization of swarming tropes works in various ways to rewild conventional political discourse, galvanize disruptive collective assembly, and challenge green neoliberalism.

Advisor: Casey Ryan Kelly

Black Radio’S Contribution To Collective And Cultural Memory: Personnel Perspectives Of Black Radio History In The United States, Kim Fox

Faculty Journal Articles

This interdisciplinary research investigates the significance of the community connection between Black radio personnel and their audiences through the lens of collective and cultural memory narratives. The study addresses two key research questions. First, how do Black radio personnel’s collective and cultural memories contribute to the Black public sphere? Second, what are the defining characteristics in developing parasocial relationships and interactions between Black radio personalities and their audiences? The qualitative research employs an autoethnographic methodology and a questionnaire, utilizing insights gained from the author’s experiences working at a Black-owned radio network and station. The questionnaire, distributed to key informants in …

Prisons Of The Imagination: Carceral Ideology And Race In Science Fiction, Daniel Allen Avant Blachman

Institute for the Humanities Theses

Popular science fiction film and television media commonly deploy narratives and images of prisons and policing, and these discourses in turn are inseparable from racial formations. At the same time, many fans and theorists view science fiction as a genre with immense potential for offering critical consideration of the difference between the fictional and the real world. This thesis examines a range of case studies from popular film and television exemplifying this tension between the perceived generative critical potential of science fiction media and apparent tendency of popular media productions to nearly always fall back on well-worn white supremacist, patriarchal, …

Forbidden Fruit: Mary Cassatt’S Mural Of “Modern Woman” At The World’S Columbian Exposition, Chicago 1893, Tricia Cusack

Dublin Gastronomy Symposium

This paper considers a large mural of “The Modern Woman” painted in France by the American artist Mary Cassatt for the Woman’s Building at the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893. It focuses in particular on the large central panel of the mural titled Young Women Plucking the Fruits of Knowledge or Science that depicts women and girls apple-picking. Cassatt’s mural drew on various traditions and myths. Apple harvesting was a common sight in America. Cassatt’s title though points to the story of Eve and forbidden fruit, in which Eve seeks knowledge, but is severely punished for it. Cassatt …

The Memory Of A Victory: The Spanish-American War Through Cocktail Names, “War Drinks” And The Art Of Mixing, Ilaria Berti

Dublin Gastronomy Symposium

The relevance of examining late nineteenth-century Cuba depends from its being a colony under two powers, one European and one extra-European: the formal Spanish empire that had the political power and the informal supremacy of the US economic influence. However, within the framework of of enlarging its authority in the American region, the US perceived Cuba as a strategic island that was under the Spanish dominion. For the US expansionistic aims, Cuba has, in fact, been defined as a laboratory for the US empire (Pérez 2008) Through the analysis of newspapers’ articles, images published in the satirical magazine The Puck, …

Imaginative Acts, Environmental Futurity: Re-Envisioning The Heroic White Male Savior In Snowpiercer, Michelle Yates

Green Humanities: A Journal of Ecological Thought in Literature, Philosophy & the Arts

In contrast to many Hollywood climate fiction films, Snowpiercer (2013) offers a more complex representation of the white male savior. In contrast to films like WALL-E (2008) and Interstellar (2014) that recuperate and invest in white masculine privilege, Snowpiercer highlights the more destructive aspects of a patriarchal capitalist system that privileges hegemonic white masculinity. While the ending of Snowpiercer may seem bleak, it also points to the possibility of a new system, an environmental futurity that centers indigenous knowledge and the experiences of women and people of color. Though Snowpiercer is not formally an American film, its casting of recognizable …

Make America(N Cinema) Great Again: The Rhetoric Of Nostalgia In Trump Era Cinematic Multiplicities, Courtney J. Dreyer

Department of Communication Studies: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This dissertation investigates the rhetoric of nostalgia in politics and popular Hollywood cinema during the Trump era. I argue that MAGA Cinema, the contemporary trend of reboots, remakes, and sequels related to properties from the late 1970s to early 1990s, both respond to and strengthen attachments to an imagined version of the 1980s. However, this illusory golden age more closely reflects the world as depicted in the cinema of the 1980s rather than the reality of American in the years of Ronald Reagan’s presidency. Through a close analysis of David Gordon Green’s Halloween Reboot series, Top Gun: Maverick, and …

Charge The Cockpit Or Die: An Anatomy Of Fear-Driven Political Rhetoric In American Conservatism, Daniel Hostetter

Senior Honors Theses

Subthreshold negative emotions have superseded conscious reason as the initial and strongest motivators of political behavior. Political neuroscience uses the concepts of negativity bias and terror management theory to explore why fear-driven rhetoric plays such an outsized role in determining human political actions. These mechanisms of human anthropology are explored by competing explanations from biblical and evolutionary scholars who attempt to understand their contribution to human vulnerabilities to fear. When these mechanisms are observed in fear-driven political rhetoric, three common characteristics emerge: exaggerated threat, tribal combat, and religious apocalypse, which provide a new framework for explaining how modern populist leaders …

U.S. Government Agency Podcasts, Bert Chapman

Libraries Faculty and Staff Presentations

Presents podcasts from U.S. Government agencies which can be discovered through the U.S. Government Publishing Office's Catalog of Government Publications. Agencies whose podcasts are presented include the National Institutes of Health, U.S. Peace Corps, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Government Accountability Office (GAO), National Park Service, Department of Justice, Federal Reserve System, and U.S. Naval War College.

Negro Cloth: African American Textile Design History, Karen Baker

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

Negro cloth is American history. Filled with the contributions to free and enslaved African Americans, this history has gone untold. Even within the narratives and historical archives on African Americans' history with cotton, this conversation goes beyond suffering, pain, and separation. The research reveals how African Americans contributed to indigo and cotton agriculture, weaving, and manufacturing from 1745 to 1865. The historical and narrative research has revealed the buried history of African American textile history, the American Civil War in Federal Writers' Project: Slave Narrative Project. The narratives reveal that enslaved African Americans were weavers who carded, spun, dyed, and …

The Power Of Polish: Exploring The Impact Of Nail Adornments On Perceptions Of Attraction, Sara Demichele

Honors Theses

Understanding the significance of nail adornments in shaping perceptions of attractiveness and mate value provides insights into human behavior and preferences. In the current investigation, participants rated human nail length and color on physical attractiveness and partner desirability measures. Results revealed significant effects of nail length and color across different demographic groups. Medium-length nails consistently received higher ratings for physical attractiveness, cuteness, and partner desirability compared to short and long nails. White-colored nails were generally rated most attractive, while blue and black nails received the lowest ratings. Additionally, participants reported a moderate association between having manicured nails and feelings of …

Outpatient Fall Prevention In Ambulatory Adults 65 Years Old And Over, Dorothy L. Osborne-White

Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) Scholarly Projects - Archive

Background: In the United States (U.S.), falls are the leading cause of injury among adults 65 and over, resulting in 36 million falls yearly (Moreland et al., 2020). According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC, 2023), one in four older adults experiences a fall each year. Falls are the world's second most prominent cause of accidental deaths (World Health Organization [WHO], 2021). Falls are the leading cause of both fatal and non-fatal injuries among older adults (Moreland et al., 2020).

Methods: A quality improvement project that included a fall bundle was implemented in a primary clinic. A …

Listening To The Voices Of America, Kathryn J. Edin, Corey D. Fields, David B. Grusky, Jure Leskovec, Marybeth J. Mattingly, Kristen M. Olson, Charles Varner

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

We make the case for building a permanent public-use platform for conducting and analyzing immersive interviews on the everyday lives of Americans. The American Voices Project (AVP)—a widely watched experiment with this new platform—provides important early evidence on its promise. The articles in this issue reveal that, although public-use interview datasets obviously cannot meet all research needs, they do provide new opportunities to study small or hidden populations, new or emerging social problems, reactions to ongoing social crises, submerged values and attitudes, and many other aspects of American life. We conclude that a permanent AVP platform would help build an …

The Regenarrative: How To Change The Story In Order To Change The Future, S. Rose Bigheart O'Leary

Dartmouth College Master’s Theses

Abstract

In the era of Climate Change, many are concerned that the end of the Anthropocene, or the end of the era of human life on Earth, is upon us. Western European colonialism and its subsequent systems (settler-colonialism, colonial-capitalism, and globalization - sometimes termed “neocolonialism”) have all been implicated in contributing to unsustainable behaviors linked to accelerating climate change. In searching for possible solutions, some have called for listening to Indigenous Peoples, citing ethics of sustainability found among many Indigenous cultures. However, the cultural products of settler-colonialism are still dominant in ways that do not allow for Indigenous worldviews to …

The Crusading Days Of Jackie Stewart: Evaluating The Development Of Safety In Motor Racing During The 1960s., Alex Twitchen

Journal of Motorsport Culture & History

This article critically evaluates the contribution of Jackie Stewart in making motor racing a safer sport for competitors. It challenges the validity of the popular assumption that Jackie Stewart by himself developed a ‘culture of safety’ that transformed the sport. Instead, the role of other individuals are identified alongside the importance of three social processes. These processes are identified as the changing balance of power between different masculine identities, the development of commercial sponsorship and a growth in the coverage of the sport on television.

The development of motor racing from the 1960s onwards as a safer sport in which …

Book Review- Racing With Rich Energy: How A Rogue Sponsor Took Formula One For A Ride., James Miller

Journal of Motorsport Culture & History

No abstract provided.

Book Review: I Was A Nascar Redneck: Recollections Of The Transformation Of A Yankee Farm Boy To A Southern Redneck In The Golden Era Of Nascar And Beyond., Quinn Beekwilder, Daniel Dean

Journal of Motorsport Culture & History

No abstract provided.

From "Our Poor" To "Personal Responsibility": Changing Welfare Rhetoric In Political Party Platforms Of The Carolinas And The Nation, 1950-2005, Felicity N. Ropp

Senior Theses

In this thesis, I track political rhetoric surrounding poverty and welfare from 1950-2005. I first provide thorough context on the history of welfare policy in the United States and the way these issues were framed by politicians leading up to the period my data covers. My analysis centers on 108 political party platforms from the national Republican and Democratic parties and from state parties in North and South Carolina, ranging from 1950 to 2005 (31 of which I located in archives and manually digitized for the first time ever). I explain the significance of party platforms and review the literature …

Women's Interracial Friendships: Cultivating Coalitional Possibilities Across Difference Through Dialogue, Akie Fukushige Wenk

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

In my dissertation, I thread through the macro-structure as well as micro-operations of hegemonic ideologies, namely white-supremacist capitalist cis-hetero patriarchy (hooks, 1995, Valdes, 1996), that has historically plagued the United States, eventually gaining a global reach over time. I center interracial friendship between Black and White cis-women, where I locate coalitional possibilities that begin at the grassroots level. I situate this interracial relationship within the socio-ecological system where the personal meets the social (including racialized backgrounds). I use a series of analogies to equate these ideologies as toxins in the air, water, and soil. Soil is where we can work …

Citing Seeds, Citing People: Bibliography And Indigenous Memory, Relations, And Living Knowledge-Keepers, Megan Peiser Choctaw Nation Of Oklahoma

Criticism

By turning the page or reading further, you are accepting a responsibility to this story, its storyteller, its ancestors, and its future ancestors. You are accepting a relationship of reciprocity where you treat this knowledge as sacred for how it nourished you, share it only as it has been instructed to share, and to ensure it remains unviolated for future generations.

This story is told by myself, Megan Peiser, Chahta Ohoyo. I share knowledge entrusted to me by Anishinaabe women I call friends and sisters, by seed-keepers of many peoples Indigenous to Turtle Island, and knowledge come to me from …

Trees And Texts: Indigenous History, Material Media, And The Logan Elm, Mark Alan Mattes

Criticism

Settler accounts of the Cayuga Native American Soyeghtowa (Logan), such as Thomas Jefferson’s Notes on the State of Virginia, interpret his famous mourning speech, “Logan’s Lament,” as the words of a melancholic, noble savage and vanishing Indian. This essay decolonizes settler accounts of Logan’s words and deeds such as Jefferson’s book by considering Indigenous relationships to a once-living memorial on Shawnee land in central Ohio, the Logan Elm, which nineteenth-century settlers apocryphally identified as the site of Logan’s speech. Drawing on scholarly work on Indigenous writing and historical media by Native American and settler intellectuals, as well as local …

A Guide For The Everyday Woman Surfer: How Surf Culture's Patriarchy Marginalizes Ocean Lovers, Alexis S. Di Stefano

Women's, Gender and Queer Studies

Humans are naturally drawn to the water by wind and tide. It is a place of solace that we have a desire to know deeply, yet we have kept one another from experiencing it through biases that perpetuate inequality. White-supremacist hegemony has historically kept communities of color from coastlines, women from lineups, and queer communities from participating in surf culture. As more people from all social groups return to the water through surfing in the 20th century, surf culture needs to adapt to become more inclusive. This paper outlines surf culture's historical transition into whiteness and how female beauty standards …

Professional Athletes Tell All: Communication Techniques To Assist In A Successful Podcast, Wilnir Louis

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

An increasing number of athletes are utilizing various mediums to communicate to fans. A rising medium that athletes are adopting is podcasting. While there are studies that discuss the benefits of podcasting, there is limited research that provides individuals, specifically athletes, with the proper knowledge on how to effectively communicate on a podcast platform. This project investigates what athletes can do to make their podcasts engaging for viewers and listeners. A case study was conducted that included textual and content analysis of the top episodes of two successful athlete-driven podcasts. Findings from the research guided the creation of a visual …

Talking Heads, Fear Of Music, And The "Different Thinking" Of David Byrne, John Bruni

Ought: The Journal of Autistic Culture

This article proposes that the 2006 post on the website of David Byrne, the vocalist/guitarist of Talking Heads, announcing his self-diagnosis as an autistic person, invites a reappraisal of the band’s discography, especially Fear of Music (1979), which foregrounds his lyrical approach. Fear of Music, I suggest, relies on “autistic misdirections” that illustrate Byrne’s “different thinking” about his body, mind, communicative (in)ability, and relationship to physical spaces – all prominent and productive areas of exploration within critical autism studies.

“Different thinking” is taken from the 2020 memoir of Chris Frantz, the drummer of Talking Heads, in describing, retroactively, how …

The Landscape Does Not Care It Is A Landscape: A Utopian Pessimist Journey In Kentucky., Shachaf Polakow

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

These thesis and exhibition, invite the viewers to travel through different places in Central and Eastern Kentucky. The region’s landscape, like many other American landscapes, is often known to the public through the settler colonial lens—a lens that ignores Indigenous peoples’ history in the region. The work in the exhibition is a response to landscape art's history and its complicity with American settler colonialism- art that was recruited to create a new identity for the settlers and for the country from the beginning of the American Colonial Project. Landscape art was a crucial part of this effort, presenting the land …

Effects Of Stereotypes On Black Women Audiences, Darian M. Shorts

LSU Master's Theses

This study focuses on the effects that televised racial stereotypes have on the self-perception of viewers who identify as Black women. This paper lists three commonly used stereotypes for Black women in television and provides detailed background and analysis of each. There were three goals that I wanted to achieve with this study. The first goal of this study was to measure the amount of stereotyped entertainment these specific viewers consume. The second goal of this study was to understand the positive and negative effects that racial stereotypes have on Black women. The last goal of this study was to …

Still Lending You The World: The Toledo Lucas County Public Library In The 21st Century, Cade Clem

Honors Projects

This research paper focuses on how the Toledo Lucas County Public Library (TLCPL) has adapted to the 21st century, with an emphasis on the impact of digital materials and the Internet. This paper looks at these changes primarily through three lenses: official policies, services and programs, and internal culture. This paper uses quantitative data to determine if TLCPL has maintained overall growth in areas such as number of cardholders, customer counts, circulation, computer usage, and program attendance. These numbers show that, while not always maintaining growth, TLCPL has adapted quite well to the 21st century, bringing in record high numbers …

Amjambo Africa! (January 2023), Kathreen Harrison

Amjambo Africa!

In this Issue

War in eastern DRC ............2-3

Updates from Africa ................4

Depression/refugee camps...... 5

Editorial .....................................6

Amjambo Arts: Phuc Tran ......7

Advice: Someone to trust .....8-9

In 7 languages

Notable inaugurations .....10-11

Coastal resilience ...................11

All about the Workforce ........12

Financial literacy/New Year ..12

Legislative Update ..................13

MCA Giraffe awards ..............14

Tips & Info ..............................15

Year in Review .................. 16-17

Health & Wellness.......18-23, 25

Protecting vision

Health in winter

In 7 languages

Portland Adult Ed. .................27

Abolitionist movement ..........27

Languages are similar ............27

Ukrainian perspective ...........28

The Dances Of The Presidency, Robert Chapin Poyser

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

This thesis will analysis the ideologies of Presidents Barack Obama, Donald Trump, & former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. The thesis will focus on the use of feminist critiques of the political rhetoric spoken by all three politicians to argue the discourse in the Obama era, Hillary Clinton’s two Presidential campaigns and President Donald Trump rise as a politician.

Epistemological Insecurity In The Anthropocene, Dustin Purvis

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

This dissertation analyzes how increased mainstream awareness of climate change and other complex environmental phenomena transforms some of the basic tools we use to understand the world, including notions of agency, evidence, and causality. More specifically, this project highlights numerous contemporary literary and cultural narratives that formally and thematically depict impromptu systems of action and comprehension developed by humans confronting the unique forms of information overload that result from damaged and rapidly changing environments. Following critics like Ulrich Beck, Rob Nixon, and Stacy Alaimo, I suggest our current era of ecological instability and destructive environmental practices dictate what I refer …