Communication Commons^™

My Experience, Gabby Flores

First-Gen Voices: Creative and Critical Narratives on the First-Generation College Experience

This essay reflects personal experiences starting college and navigating new environments that are new to me.

Deceiving Angels Ii, Alejandra Rodriguez

First-Gen Voices: Creative and Critical Narratives on the First-Generation College Experience

I share a dream with my family. The dream of graduating from college, getting a good job, and living a better life. A life where we won’t be financially tied down. I am now attending Loyola Marymount University and pursuing a degree in Animation. I’m the first in my family to pursue a degree in Film & Television, and even though I can’t help the thoughts that I should be doing something more “impactful,” I know that it’s my passion and that it is the combined efforts of my family and those who have helped me, that led me here. …

Trailblazin, Zahir Pineda

First-Gen Voices: Creative and Critical Narratives on the First-Generation College Experience

My "trailblazin" collage is just a collage of me and my brother as we grew up. It was just us two for the majority of our childhood and we were always pushed to make the most of our education here in the US. Growing up I always relied on him, and he made sure to be there to guide me and help me learn from his mistakes. Fast forward to now and we're both at LMU together, and the same way he trailblazed the path for me, I hope to do for my two younger siblings. It symbolizes what has …

Introduction

First-Gen Voices: Creative and Critical Narratives on the First-Generation College Experience

No abstract provided.

Family Dynamics In Everything, Everywhere, All At Once, Isabell Lachinpour

First-Gen Voices: Creative and Critical Narratives on the First-Generation College Experience

This paper was originally a submission for my general psychology final. The prompt for it was to analyze any topic covered in class and connect to any form of fictional media. I chose to study the social psychology behind the relationships of immigrant parents and their children, connecting it to the movie Everything, Everywhere, All At Once by Daniel Scheinert and Daniel Kwan. I especially picked this movie because of how connected I felt to the characters in the movie as I have gone through some of the same experiences they have and know many immigrant children that have felt …

Disrupting Latina/X Media Representations: A Performance Art Installation Informed By Autoethnographic And Embodied Explorations, Sandra Cristina Roa

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In this dissertation I use autoethnography and performance methods to create a performance art installation that examines and re-imagines the role of media representations in shaping how I as a Latina actively negotiates belonging and identifies this concept as always in a processes requiring negotiation. I argue belonging is influenced by how I see myself or don’t see myself in media representation and offer the counter-narrative as a way of asserting agency and disrupting marginalization. In this project, I tend to the tensions felt between being a community member, media maker, and qualitative researcher in order to disrupt media messages. …

Missteps And Missed Steps, Karen Andrews

Alt Dialogue

No abstract provided.

“Tell Your Papa”: Aesthetics Of Confrontation And Visual Witnessing In Nigerian Protest Music, Omotayo Jemiluyi

Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy

This study analyzes the music video “Tell Your Papa” (2025), a politically charged protest song by Nigerian artiste Eedris Abdulkareem, as an exemplary case of aesthetics of confrontation, here conceptualized as a multimodal strategy in which direct address, anti-spectacle visual style, literalism, and discomfort converge to confront political power. Focusing on the song’s explicit critique of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, his son Seyi Tinubu, and other prominent political figures, the analysis demonstrates how Abdulkareem renders indistinct the line between music and political discourse through a visual-sonic language that is accusatory, documentary-stylized, and unflinchingly courageous. While building on the lineage …

Witnessing Healing Through Fantasy: Trauma, Community, And Art In A Court Of Thorns And Roses, Alexandria A. Remm

Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy

Drawing on theorists such as Bruno Bettelheim, Lucy Bonds, Stef Craps, Dominick LaCapra, and Laura Loumeau-May, this paper explores the role of trauma and healing in Sarah J. Maas’ A Court of Thorns and Roses (ACOTAR) series by examining protagonist Feyre Archeron’s journey. Specifically, Feyre’s journey with trauma and how she heals throughout the series. The analysis highlights how Feyre’s recovery is deeply tied to empathy, her acts of artistic creation, and her evolving relationships with others, especially with those who have also endured their own trauma. In addition to textual analysis, the paper incorporates reader and fan responses—particularly fanart …

Zine Labs As Centers For Public Interest Communication Design, Mina Bikmohammadi, Abigail Boafo, Ryan Cheek, Rachel M. Schneider, Carleigh J. Davis, Erin Clark

English and Technical Communication Faculty Research & Creative Works

This paper introduces Zine Labs (ZLabs) as centers for public-interest communication design that treat as practices that foreground making, collaboration, and community knowledge. Launched in 2024 with multi-institutional support, the project established parallel ZLabs that partner with local artists, libraries, and community groups to run pop-up, hands-on events in flexible, welcoming spaces. We show how ZLabs prioritize process over product, negotiate privacy and anonymity alongside inclusion. We also resist top-down branding so community identities can lead. We report classroom applications, courses in AI, information design, and public writing, where students used zines to connect questions of technology, access, and ethics …

Think Piece: New South Korean Framework For Conceptualizing Nonkoreans?: Taehanoegugin And The Politics Of National Boundary-Making, Min Joo Lee

Asia Pacific Perspectives

Taehanoegugin is a newly coined Korean term that gained popularity around 2018 when a television program of the same name began airing on one of the Korean cable networks. It is a mixture of two independent and preexisting terms: the first part of the word, Taehan (대한), refers to the Republic of Korea; the latter part of the term, Oegugin (외국인), means foreigner. Hence, translated, the term means the Republic of Korean-foreigners. The term gained popularity enough to be adopted by other television entertainment programs and a sector of the government. What can we make of the term’s popularity? Does …

The Big Bang Theory’S Blurred (Tele)Vision Of Scientific Ethics: Some Thoughts For Educators Who Want To Change The Channel, Lee-Anne Broadhead, Sean J. Howard

Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy

This article investigates the way the popular American television program The Big Bang Theory represents the pursuit of scientific knowledge and reflects on the cultural and educational implications of the show’s contradictory problematization and valorization of the reductionist method at the core of modern Eurocentric science. Drawing on story-lines relating to military research, animal experimentation, and pharmaceutical drug trials, we consider the show’s precarious balance of implicit critique (the consistent exposé of systematically violent, often unethical research) and overt celebration (the presentation of science as “cool,” and its practitioners as flawed but endearing). This tension, we argue, enhances the show’s …

Teaching Oppositional Resistance To The Weaponization Of Artificial Intelligence In Acts Of Gendered Violence, Lili R. Romann, Elizab​Eth A. Hintz

Feminist Pedagogy

Meeting the aims of this special issue to take a uniquely feminist approach to understanding AI in higher education, we offer a critical commentary to help other scholars apply a critical feminist lens when teaching about the promise of artificial intelligence in the classroom. Specifically, we center pornographic deepfakes as a primal, contemporary, and disastrous example of the gendered weaponization of artificial intelligence. This critical commentary has staying power – equipping future teachers with feminist tools to tackle AI (as well as the inevitable future of AI to come) in pedagogical practice.

Terminating Pregnancies In Boccaccio, Anne C. Leone

Languages, Literatures, and Linguistics - All Scholarship

Analyzing examples from the Decameron (1349-51), De mulieribus claris (1361), and the Corbaccio (1365), I argue that Boccaccio (1313-75) demonstrates an awareness of theological, legal and medical opinions on abortion and contraception at the time. However, he is more attuned to the practical concerns of pregnancy than are many of his contemporaries. Acknowledging the variety of situations facing pregnant people and some parts of their lived experience that were ignored by many religious and legal authorities, Boccaccio highlights a disconnection between theory and practice, and thereby raises questions about the limits of abstract knowledge in the face of practical concerns.

The Reciprocity Of Misfortune: The Little Tradition Of Disasters In The Philippines, Greg Bankoff, Bianca Angelien Aban Claveria, David Lozada Iii, Camille L. Silva

History Department Faculty Publications

Just as there is a great and little tradition in religion and civilization, there is a great and little tradition in disaster. This article explores the origins of community resilience in rural areas of the Philippines based on local reciprocity and cooperation and how ­ these customary practices form the basis of national disaster risk-­reduction policies. The endless strug­gle to feed and shelter a family and contend with repeated hazards, whether natu­ral or human-­induced, promotes collective action. There is a need to cooperate with neighbors, a web of dyadic and community relationships born out of necessity that constitutes a “reciprocity …

Situating Media Literacy With A Theory Of Change: “Mapping Jmle”, Julian Mcdougall

Journal of Media Literacy Education Pre-Prints

This article uses a theory of change to identify the difference media literacy work makes to people’s lives, based on work published in the Journal of Media Literacy Education in 2024. This is a pilot study stage towards a global field mapping, aiming to make the case for media literacy as an essential element in the health of the communication ecosystem (forthcoming, 2025).

This is an exploratory pilot sharing provisional evidence, but this is the point of the the broader work this article is a part of which seeks to is describe how media literacy can make a difference to …

Promotion Of Religious Tourism In Pakistan Through Destination Marketing Strategies, Noor-Ul- Huda, Musa Khan, Noman Ahmed Ansari

International Journal of Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage

The aim of this study is to identify the key factors that attract religious tourists to Pakistan and the strategies that are effective in promoting religious tourism. The paper takes a comprehensive approach to guide Pakistan’s development by evaluating international literature, focusing on religious tourism as a pivotal source of revenue. The study explores diversification prospects, aiming to equip policymakers and tourism authorities with actionable insights. This research establishes the groundwork for realising the economic, social, and cultural potential of religious tourism in Pakistan by studying marketing techniques using a qualitative methodology, examining revival approaches, and investigating cutting-edge communication technologies. …

A Word From The Writing Team (October 2025), Pam Walter, Mfa, Laura Deloretta, Phd

A Word From the Writing Team (Newsletter)

This issue includes:

• Publications Spotlight
• Wiley is Hosting Two Workshops
• Join us for the Launch Party of Evanescent Issue 6: Growing. Learning. Aging.
• Pam is Out of the Office until October 14^th!
• October 3rd is our First Friday Writing Retreat!

Strategic Branding: The Critical Role Of Brand Strategy For Successful Branding Initiatives, Sara Virginia Abell

Senior Honors Theses

In the increasingly saturated world of branding, the ability to rise above the noise and establish meaningful connections with an audience is essential. This thesis explores the relationship between brand strategy development and successful branding outcomes. An initial review of relevant literature is conducted, focusing on the importance and creation of strategy. Further consideration is given to the unique challenges associated with rebranding efforts. The practical impact of brand and rebrand strategies is underscored through case studies across varying contexts. Following this, the implementation of strategy is discussed, with an emphasis on the role of design elements and principles in …

Literary Networks Everywhere: An Analysis Of Literary Connections Across Time And Culture, Rachel Riffel

Journal of the Symposium of University Research and Creative Expression

Project Mentor(s): Katharine Whitcomb

This paper explores the concept of literary discourse as a networked form, using Caroline Levine’s theory of “networks” as expansive systems of meaning. Through the poetry of several postmodern poets and their texts such as Terrance Hayes’ American Sonnets for My Past and Future Assassin, Anne Carson’s The Beauty of the Husband, and Maggie Nelson’s Bluets, this essay analyzes how contemporary poets use intertextuality, historical references, and classical forms not as rigid structures but as connective nodes in a broader literary web. These texts illustrate how poetry continues to participate in an evolving cultural and literary …

Plastic Makes Perfect: An Analysis Of Plastic Surgery As Rehabilitation In Early To Late 20th Century Prison Populations, Jack West

The Ozark Historical Review

As early as 1910, journalists from around the United States reported on the cause-and- effect relationship between a criminal’s physical appearance, their offenses, and the plastic surgeons willing to help them. These surgeons were interested in changing the physical “causes” of criminality to sever the mental roots of crime, inferiority, and anti-social attitude. This paper examines the use of plastic surgery programs as reform in prison through the lens of popular newspaper and journal articles and argues that public perception and reaction revealed in these articles shaped the prison program’s journey from its underground beginning to its eventual demise.

The International Perception Of The Irish Republican Army And Chechen Insurgency, Henry Forteith

The Ozark Historical Review

The purpose of this article is to explain how acts of violence influenced the media’s description of the Irish Republican Army and Chechen insurgencies and how the label of ‘terrorist’ affected the perception of the Anglo-Irish and Russo-Chechen conflicts. Quantitative data from the New York Times and International Newsstream databases are used to examine the change in word frequency to describe the IRA and Chechen fighters across a twelve-year span and four-month span before and after certain international events.

Interservice Rivalry: Examining The Relationships Between The Intelligence Organizations Of The Navy, The Army And The Oss In China 1939-1943, Samuel G. Peterson

The Ozark Historical Review

Intelligence gathering had a profound impact on WWII. In war-torn China, the US Navy, the Army, and the fledgling OSS contested with each other during the Chinese Nationalists’ fight against the Japanese Empire. The stories of the OSS, the Navy and the Army in China have all, until now, been told from three distinct but interrelated points of view. With each study solely based on a particular organization, bias toward others is inevitable. By synthesizing the sources together and weaving the different interpretations of events simultaneously, a clearer picture of the interdepartmental struggles can be seen. The primary goal of …

Machine Credibility: How News Readers Evaluate Ai-Generated Content, Alexander Wasdahl

Human-Machine Communication

The advent of AI-generated news as a novel form of content demands renewed attention toward modes of understanding reader perceptions. This research sought to answer: What are the evaluative criteria used by readers in their perception of automated news content generated via natural language processing? A series of exploratory factor analyses (EFA) was conducted on results of a survey using items obtained in an initial survey phase to uncover underlying factors contributing to differences in reader article rankings. When compared with the results of factor analyses for human-generated news content, the findings offer new constellations of terms that reflect the …

A Not-Quite-Assessment Of Assessing Autoethnography: Ekphrastic Compositions On Quality, Clarity, And (Un)Certainty In Autoethnography, Aaron Hoy

The Qualitative Report

Taking an ekphrastic approach, this essay responds to and reflects on my reading of Assessing Autoethnography: Notes on Analysis, Evaluation, and Craft by Andrew F. Herrmann and Tony E. Adams. It has three parts. First, I summarize the book’s central chapters and discuss their practical uses, especially as prompts for in-progress autoethnographies. Second, using clarity as a point of entry, I explore a tension I felt while reading the book—between the comforting utility of specific criteria and the marginalizing power of criteria themselves. Finally, I share a found poem composed in response to the book and reflect on the impermanent …

Cultural Representation In Global Film Discourse: A Bibliometric Analysis Of Dominant Themes And Western Hegemony, Nur Fajri Hijriyani, Hanun Dzikra Arienda, Firmansyah Firmansyah, Nur Wijaya Hariadi, Alem Febri Sonni

JURNAL KOMUNIKASI INDONESIA

This study investigates the dominant themes and discursive structures within global film scholarship through a bibliometric analysis of 404 Scopus-indexed articles published between 2019 and 2024. Using VOSviewer to map keyword co-occurrence, citation networks, and authorship patterns, the research identifies five major thematic clusters: Hollywood, feminism, representation, Bollywood, and popular culture. The findings reveal a persistent dominance of Western narratives positioning them at the centre of global film studies. In contrast, themes related to non-Western cinema, such as Bollywood, appear less central and more fragmented within the academic discourse. These results highlight how bibliometric patterns reflect broader ideological structures, reinforcing …

"Elements Don’T Mix!": Unearthing Racial Scripts And A Rhetorical Economy Of Whiteness In Disney And Pixar's Elemental, Linsay M. Cramer, Gabriel A. Cruz

Communication, Media, and Culture

Using a narrative rhetorical approach, we map how Disney and Pixar’s 2023 film, Elemental, sustains a rhetorical economy of whiteness, as theorized by Asen and Kelly, which emphasizes the degree to which rhetorical constructions of racial difference are foundational to whiteness and economic systems. We identify and critique how Elemental discursively contributes to a system of exclusivity for those within the bounds of whiteness concerning economic mobility via racial scripts. Created and produced during Joe Biden’s United States (U.S.) presidential term (2021–2025), Elemental offers a metaphorical tale that engages the fractious, politically conservative anxieties concerning diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) …

English King And German Commoner: An Exploration Of Sixteenth Century Clothing And Identity, Bradley Moore

The Ozark Historical Review

There is perhaps no other external article which is more closely tied to one’s sense of identity than clothing. With a quick glance, one can readily gauge a person by their dress. So too, in the sixteenth century; clothing was used to construct identity, and in some cases to deconstruct it as well. This paper seeks to explore how identity and clothing are in many ways, inseparable. Concepts of religiosity, gender, nationalism, and “the other” were all intimately tied to dress and fashion. During the sixteenth century, perhaps even more strongly than now, clothing could be read like a book …

A Word From The Writing Team (September 2025), Pam Walter, Mfa

A Word From the Writing Team (Newsletter)

This issue includes:

• Our New Editor!
• Publications Spotlight
• Check out these Free Workshops Wiley is Offering in September
• Sign up for the First Friday Writing Retreat (Online)
• Did you Know Jefferson Provides Funding Support for Article Processing Charges (APC)?

Ai, Celebrities, And Their Fans: The Cyber-Pseudo-Event*, Gabbie Iorio

Proceedings of the New York State Communication Association

Tech companies often use celebrities to facilitate adoption of new technologies, and they’re doing the same with AI. For example, Meta is employing celebrities to attract users to their AI products, not only to adopt the technology, but to provide the company data for testing and optimizing the products. Fan communities, such as Nicki Minaj’s Barbz, have also taken up AI technology as a new medium for fandom expression. This paper will explore the varying degrees of success of these applications of AI technology, while putting them in conversation with scholarship on images, celebrity, and fandom.

*Top Graduate Paper