Communication Commons^™

Breaking Glass: A Pedagogical Approach To Understanding Voice In Media, Casey James O'Ceallaigh

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation aims to examine the remediation of voices in media, specifically focusing on the reproduction of voices across different genres and the pedagogical approaches used to teach writing and media literacy. Much of the extant media is created with practices that historically have excluded minority groups, such as people with disabilities and people who speak other languages in addition to English in the US. This project develops a theory of interstices, which are both physical and metaphorical spaces in genres that can become sites of intervention through the composition process. These interstices are burdened by their many complex relationships …

Metamorphis, Luca Lee Sobarzo Faust

Theses and Dissertations

Web3D interactive experience that explores time, communication, and transformation, from a personal storytelling perspective. Hosted on a web platform, the experience displays three environments: Metamorphis, Cuir AI, and Hain. These spaces propose a fragmented narrative that seeks to interrogate both the characters and the viewer’s perception on the linearity of time

An Arbitrary Aesthetic: Cultural Reproduction And Hegemonic Canonical Formations In The Western Theatrical Academy, Sim C. Rivers

Theses and Dissertations

Theatre as an artistic practice has often been celebrated as an art of and for the people, being a modality that in theory the common person has access to learn, explore and experience. In recent years I have become preoccupied with the growing rarification and privileging of this art form, particularly in how it is cognized and taught in the academic world. As such, I set out to investigate the mechanisms at work at levels structural, artistic, and personal that determine how theatre is taught and understood within the western academy.

This thesis seeks to examine and unpack the perceived …

Navigating The Cairene Table: Food And Family Between What Is Ideal And What Is Real, Iman Afify

Theses and Dissertations

Our daily encounters with food, especially during our childhood, play a crucial role in shaping and informing our identity and our habitus. In this research, by using multimodal and auto ethnography, I argue that due to the guiding path that our senses carve for us, we make sense and contextualise our surroundings through our senses, and not only the five senses of vision, smell, taste, hearing, and touch, but also through our inner senses of time and temporality, and how time and memory play an important role in the registration of our surroundings through our bodies and senses. I am …

“Mirrors Can Give Us Space To Imagine…” Representations Of Gender And Sexuality In Bbc’S Dracula (2020), Riana S. Slyter

Theses and Dissertations

What follows discusses how BBC’s Dracula uses character representations, scripted dialogue, and narrative to challenge and perpetuate the dominant ideologies of our society. Dracula exposes the tensions in the growing cultural acceptance of, but also increased resistance to, the fluidity of gender and sexuality in contemporary western culture. I contextualize representations of women and queer characters in Dracula with the broader issues of gender and sexuality in our current socio-political environment. Queer horror looks at Dracula as a text that arouses cultural anxieties concerning sexuality, while also attempting to illustrate fear within queer communities and subcultures. In many ways, the …

The Impact Of The Media Coverage Of Sexual Violence On Its Victims/Survivors, Jaidaa Taha

Theses and Dissertations

As part of their daily routine, journalists are often assigned to cover accidents or traumatic events to keep the public updated. With the high competition and the constant deadline pressure, reporters are usually pressured to talk to the subjects of these traumatic accidents too soon to publish their stories. This in turn leaves limited room for them to think about how this coverage is affecting their interviewees. This study aims to examine the impact of the media’s coverage of sexual assault on the victims/survivors of the assault themselves. Media outlets often follow stories of sexual violence, tackling a lot of …

Theorizing #Girlboss Culture: Mediated Neoliberal Feminisms From Influencers To Multi-Level Marketing Schemes, Frankie Mastrangelo

Theses and Dissertations

I define girlboss feminism as emergent, mediated formations of neoliberal feminism that equate feminist empowerment with financial success, market competition, individualized work-life balance, and curated digital and physical presences driven by self-monetization. I look toward how the mediation of girlboss feminism utilizes branded and affective engagements with representational politics, discourses of authenticity and rebellion, as well as meritocratic aspiration to promote cultural interest in conceptualizing feminism in ways that are divorced from collective, intersectional struggle. I question the stakes involved in reducing feminist interrogations and commitments to discourses of representation, visibility, and meritocracy. I argue that while girlboss feminism may …

Digital Mediation Of Dissent: The Stories Of Unveiled Women From Turkey, Atinc Gurcay

Theses and Dissertations

This research project studies the digital mediation of the politics of communication and everyday life by examining the tweets of Turkish women who voiced their dissent regarding veiling practices during the #10YearChallenge trend in 2019. Like so many places, the question of veiling is central to the politicization of women's bodies in Turkey. The politicization of women’s bodies, in turn, is central to competing secular and conservative visions of the modern Turkish nation-state. By examining the digital dissent in relation to these competing national projects, I map the historical context of modernization and its impact on the contemporary discussion of …

“Being Cute And Hella Gay:" Pokémon Reborn, Fan Labor, And Queering The Pokémon World, David Peter Kocik

Theses and Dissertations

Created in 2012, Pokémon Reborn is a fan game made by and for queer fans of the Pokémon franchise. Featuring an LGBTQ+ development team and multiple queer characters, from pansexual Rival Cain to gender non-binary Gym Leader Adrienn, Pokémon Reborn articulates queer desires in a franchise and gaming industry notorious for ignoring and dehumanizing queer individuals. While most research on independent queer game development focuses on how creators subvert heteronormative gameplay elements, Pokémon Reborn challenges dominant industry practices through its queer characters and stories. The fan game incorporates LGBTQ+ lived experiences and queer temporalities in its narrative, queering the traditional …

The Business Of The Girl: Celebrity And The Professionalization Of Girlhood In Early Twenty-First Century Media Culture, Jessica Elizabeth Johnston

Theses and Dissertations

The achieving “can-do” girl, who thrives in her personal, academic, and aspirational endeavors, emerged in response to self-help crisis literature of the 1990s urging mothers to manage their daughters’ low self-esteem. However, even as media industries have adopted the successful girl subject in popular film, television, and digital marketing campaigns, public conversations of tween and teenage girls still identify rising levels of anxiety and self-doubt that diminish girls’ confidence well into adulthood. Responding to what critics call the “confidence gap,” girl culture of the twenty-first century has organized itself around the affordances of social media and digital celebrity in the …

Bi The Wayside?: Shifts In Bisexual Representations In Teen Television, Analise Elle Pruni

Theses and Dissertations

Television can be a reflection of the values we have as a society and its representations can have an impact on the way people, especially youth, shape their identities. This examination of teen-oriented television shows on the CW network looks at bisexual and queer representations and compares them with previous representations. I ground this essay in the youth-oriented television context, the progression of queer television representations, and ideas about media representation in a post-gay era. My assessment of the CW’s bisexual protagonist Clarke Griffin in The 100 and several sexually fluid characters in Legacies help show how the network has …

"We Need To Stop Temporarily Caring: "Pulse, Spoken Word Poetry, And Audience Counter-Narrative Creation, Hannah G. Trew

Theses and Dissertations

On June 12, 2016, 49 people were killed, and 53 people were injured in a shooting at Pulse, a popular gay club in Orlando, Florida. The Pulse Nightclub shooting was the deadliest mass shooting in the United States at that time and the deadliest violent act against the LGBTQ+ community in the United States (Hancock & Haldeman, 2017; Jackson, 2017; Walter, Billard, & Murphy, 2017). The media were divided in labeling the shooting a terrorist attack or a hate crime, creating a master narrative surrounding the shooting. However, LGBTQ+ spoken word poets rejected the media’s storylines, developing counter-narratives, and instead …

Why Katniss Everdeen Is Our Favorite Feminist – An Analysis Of The Heroine Of The Hunger Games Film Saga And Her Reception By Young Female Spectators, Paula Talero Álvarez

Theses and Dissertations

THROUGH THE FIGURE OF FICTIONAL CHARACTER KATNISS EVERDEEN, THIS DISSERTATION STUDIES HOW THE FILM INDUSTRY SIMULTANEOUSLY ENTRENCHES AND DISRUPTS GENDER, SEXUAL, AND RACIAL NORMATIVITIES. THE PROJECT USES TEXTUAL ANALYSIS AND PARTICIPANT RESEARCH TO ANALYZE HOW THE FILMS AND NOVELS OF THE HUNGER GAMES SAGA ENCAPSULATE BOTH DOMINANT AND ALTERNATIVE CONCEPTIONS RELATED TO FEMININITY, MASCULINITY, WOMANHOOD, AND MOTHERHOOD. IT ALSO EXPLORES IF AND HOW THE FEMALE HEROINE CAN BE READ AS FEMINIST AND PRODUCES A SENSE OF EMPOWERMENT. I CONCLUDE THAT ALTHOUGH THE INDUSTRY IS PRODUCING NEW MODELS OF WOMANHOOD THAT CHALLENGE TRADITIONAL GENDER ROLES, IT STILL PERPETUATES ROMANTIC IDEALS AND …

The Institute Of New Feelings: Plastic Identities And Imperfect Surfaces, Weijian Zhou

Theses and Dissertations

Digital media are moldable spaces where an image is simultaneously a thought. This instance and flexibility enables digital existences to be malleable, transformative, situational, and unstable. They are plastic images. Video games generate digital bodies that are a fusion of subjectivities and cybernetic simulations, in a perceivable and ambiguous process. Such bodies are extensions of ourselves, being girlish, imperfect, unfinished and happening—digesting and emitting clusters of feelings, regardless of our biological gender and age. The performative experience of play is progressively departing from spectacle, gambling and competition, and increasingly shifting towards an emotional journey of alternate realities, spreading subjectivities into …

Negotiating Desire: Resisting, Reimagining And Reinscribing Normalized Sexuality And Gender In Fan Fiction, Charity A. Fowler

Theses and Dissertations

Fan studies has examined how fan fiction resists heteronormativity by challenging depictions of gender and sexuality, but to date, this inquiry has focused disproportionately on slash, to the exclusion of other genres of fan fiction. Additionally, scholars disagree about slash’s subversive effects by setting up a seemingly stable dichotomy—subversive vs. misogynistic—where one does not necessarily exist.

In this project, I examine multiple genres of fan fiction—namely, slash arising from bromances; femslash from female friendships; incestuous fan fiction from dysfunctional familial relationships; and polyamorous fics. I chose fics from four televisions shows—NBC’s Revolution, MTV’s Teen Wolf, the CW’s The …

Restoration, Shannon M. Slaight-Brown

Theses and Dissertations

The marks I make in clay have different characteristics, and the physical mark of one’s fingertips or visual record of the hand is personal and intimate. This visible activity is the evidence of my constant presence and control within each object. Its repetitive meditation produces a private relief from my persistent anxieties. This exploration for me is not only visual, but also physical. This is the start of my infatuation with the idea of pattern. It has its own discrete visual language and modes of communication; and through my research I am developing a method of intercommunication.

Gay Liberation Is One Thing, But Nobody Likes A Dyke: Emerging Frames In Queer Radio, Ryan Charles Sugden

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines how a social movement uses the media to progress in society. I conduct a framing analysis on the queer community’s use of radio during two time periods: 1970s queer radio program Gay Perspective and a 2015-2016 program, Queery. I examine the show through three emerging frames: Cultured, Diversity, and Assimilation. The thesis studies how segments of the LGBTQIA+ community framed the discussion of gay rights in the 1970s and how those frames have (and haven’t) changed in 2016. Gay Perspective focused much of its energy on trying to demonstrate the need for rights and attempts to demonstrate …

"Anne Rice For Kids" And Twilight For Tv: Young Adult Media Franchising And The Vampire Diaries, Megan Corinne Connor

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines The Vampire Diaries as representative of the contemporary state of feminized media franchises, especially those that address young women. The Vampire Diaries exists primarily as a book series and a television series, produced by Alloy Entertainment and The CW Network respectively. Alloy’s production of the franchise, and others like it, connects to the company’s history of feminized media production as a book packager, and is indicative of its current transmedia consumerist model. Further, it underlines the importance of trends and the problematic role of the author in YA literature. The CW’s use of franchises like The Vampire …

Doctor Who And The Creation Of A Non-Gendered Hero Archetype, Alessandra J. Pelusi

Theses and Dissertations

This project investigates the ways in which the television program Doctor Who creates a new, non-gendered hero archetype.

When Breast Cancer Is All About The Boobs: Postfeminist Culture's Influence On Breast Cancer Awareness Campaigning, Robin Frances Turnblom

Theses and Dissertations

This project analyzes the relationship between breast cancer culture and postfeminist culture, looking at materials from both American and international breast cancer activist groups. Postfeminist culture has an influence on breast cancer culture in several ways, through a neoliberal focus on consumption as a form of activism, continual self-monitoring for beauty and health, a "girling" of women, and the sexual subjectification of women. This project focuses on four main breast cancer activism groups and includes a textual analysis of the groups' awareness and education materials. Included in the textual analysis are responses from popular press and blog sites, which have …

A Rhetorical Analysis Of Catholic Feminism: Understanding Prophetic And Deliberative Responses To The Institutional Catholic Church, Mridula Mascarenhas

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation contrasts the Catholic Church's rhetorical framing of feminist activism within the Church against the rhetoric of two organizations that speak on behalf of Catholic feminism. The study conceptualizes the engagement between the Church hierarchy and the feminists as a chorus of voices, each claiming to advocate for authentically Catholic principles. The rhetorical voice of each agent is analyzed to uncover underlying rhetorical strategies. The dissertation argues that although the Church establishment, through the use of the doctrinal voice, claims a contradiction between Catholicism and radical feminism, Catholic feminists attempt to dissolve the alleged contradiction with the use of …

Articulating The "L" Word Online: A Study Of Chinese Slash Fandom Of Super Girl, Jing Zhao

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis presents a case study of one of the most popular online Chinese fandoms, Fei Se Chao Nv. This online Chinese fan forum is dedicated to slash writings and queer readings of androgynous female celebrities of a sensational Chinese reality TV show, Super Girl. The purpose of this study is to explicate the intricate negotiations between queer and normative cultures within this online, non-mainstream, fannish space. Through a discourse analysis of how the slash fans imagine lesbian relationships, narrate lesbian stories, and queerly gossip about the Super Girl androgynous celebrities in the forum, the study concludes that the fans' …

"Woman Arise!": Political Work In The Writings Of Lu Dalton, Sheree Maxwell Bench

Theses and Dissertations

In 1872, Mormon plural wife, educator, and suffragist Lucinda Lee Dalton began writing fiery political essays and insightful poetry for the Woman's Exponent from her small community in southern Utah. Through her writings Dalton endeavors to shape the opinions of Exponent readers by working within public discourse toward the goal of equality for women. At times both optimistic and troubled, she uses the rhetorical strategies of humor, irony, reason, identification, and persuasion to educate men and women on disparities and to encourage women to participate actively in their own emancipation. She often engages in a dialogical process with other writers …

President Mrs. Kimball: A Rhetoric Of Words And Works, Janelle M. Higbee

Theses and Dissertations

Scholars of rhetoric and speech communications have suggested that the study of a women's rhetoric should focus on the "distinctly female modes of leadership" that may be found among women in "out-groups" that challenge established political authority. Such leaders must be especially inventive to be effective, and are thus likely to be talented rhetoricians. In looking for such leaders, the religious and political rhetoric of early Latter-day Saint women provides a noteworthy, unique study. Nineteenth-century Mormon women not only battled discriminatory political norms—arguing fervently for both universal woman's suffrage and for the freedom to practice polygamy—they did so from their …

The Influence Of Out-Group Network Ties On The Television Usage And Attitudes Of Mormon Women, Lois D. Brown

Theses and Dissertations

Analysis of survey data collected from more than 400 LDS women (n=429) indicates that as the number of non-LDS or inactive LDS network associates increases, so does the women's identification with modern female TV characters. The frequency of network conversations about television also correlates to several television behaviors and attitudes such as watching entertainment and informational TV programming, identifying with modern characters, and regarding TV as useful. Mirroring the national trend, LDS women who are more educated use television less. A model is presented which details the flow and impact of personal network influence on the television habits and attitudes …

A Qualitative Study Of Interpretive Communities Among Lds Women, Oleah Clegg

Theses and Dissertations

Recent studies have shown that a number of researchers have turned to the concept of the interpretive community to explain how audiences interpret the media within the context of their everyday experiences (Biocca, 1989; Gunter, 1989; Lindlof, 1989, 1992; Radway, 1984; Schrøder, 1994). D. A. Stout (1993) conducted a study that discovered three interpretive communities among LDS women who watch television, establishing that interpretive communities do exist among religious media audiences.

In 1994, K. Schrøder showed that the interpretive community can be further understood by taking a "social semiotic" approach to analyzing interpretive community members' social interaction with other communities. …

Age, Gender, And Religious Differences In Moral Perspective, Samuel L. Clay

Theses and Dissertations

An investigation was conducted to see if age and gender are related to a preference for a caring versus a justice morality. The World View Questionnaire with 40 word pairs was used to measure a preference for a caring morality. It was found that there was a significant gender difference in the caring score, with the females scoring higher than the males. There also was a significant religious difference in the caring score with religious and especially Mormon subjects scoring higher than non-religious subjects. There was not, however, a significant age difference as was predicted.

Belle S. Spafford: Leader Of Women, Gayle Morby Chandler

Theses and Dissertations

This historical/descriptive study analyzes the speaking career of Belle S. Spafford and attempts to document the relationship between her speaking and her influence with her peers. For over fifty years, the dedicated woman served as a spokesman for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the National Council of Women, briding the gap between the secular and religious world of women. A rhetorical analysis of four speeches indicates the following findings: Mrs. Spafford appealed to her audiences through a focus on shared values; she had credibility because of her positions of authority and used it wisely; she effectively …