Communication Commons^™

Perez Family: Francisco Cardenas (Youth), Tammy Hunt

Native American Stories

Sometimes Francisco Cardenas felt tense growing up, but he always found peace at a Mother Lode retreat—the tribal roundhouse in Volcano. He remembers people dancing and talking, but also leaving him space to stop and think. “It was a calm, soothing place,” he recalls. He could leave school and work behind. Outside this sanctuary, however, being an adolescent was a challenge. He craved independence, but he also wanted recognition from his family and community…

Canepa Family: Remo Canepa (Elder), Regina Beltrama

Italian American Stories

During his first 18 years, Remo Canepa lived the conventional life of an only child. As the twinkle in mother’s eye, and the future of the family name, Remo was the source of pride and joy for his parents. They wanted only the best for him, as most parents do. But the day would soon come, when he would have to stand on his own…

Stallworth Family: Lewis Stallworth, Jr. (Middle), Andrew Gelber

African American Stories

African Americans like Lewis Stallworth Jr.’s family did not migrate to Stockton as a part of the California Gold Rush. Instead, they sought stability in changing times: a home, a job, a place to worship and a chance to raise a family. Lewis Jr. was born in Wewoka, Oklahoma in 1944. As the eldest child, his brothers and sisters admired him. The family moved to Stockton when Lewis was still a young child and he has lived here for the past 60 years…

Sorn Family: Leakhena Sorn (Youth), Christina Tran

Cambodian American Stories

In October 1991, Leakhena Sorn was 13 years old when she immigrated to Stockton from Cambodia. Learning a new language and adjusting to a new culture often made her feel isolated during the transition to life in Stockton. Because of Leakhena’s arrival after the first major emigration from Cambodia, she enjoyed the support of an already established Cambodian community. Many Stockton Cambodians were already graduating from universities and had established careers as pharmacists, physicians or as business owners…

Wong Family: Nancy Wong (Elder), May Lin

Chinese American Stories

Nancy Wong was born in Ung Hong village, Toy San District, China, to a restaurant owner and housewife. Growing up, Nancy felt like a child who did not know much about the world. When Nancy was seven, her mother left Nancy and her younger brother to travel to the U.S. Nancy and her brother Donald, were left with their grandmother. At age nine, her grandmother sent her to school. When Nancy was 15, her mother returned to China with three sisters and four brothers for which Nancy was to care. This began her adulthood in her mind…

Stallworth Family: Kimberly Hamlett (Youth), Brett Kaufman

African American Stories

As a child of the ’60s, a person might think Kimberly Hamlett would show signs of her rebellious generation. However, those who know this warm, kindhearted and Christian woman would say differently. Kimberly, born in 1965, was the first child born to her large family. She is the oldest of seven children, four girls and three boys. She was born in Walnut Creek, but grew up in Stockton and continues to live here…

Wong Family: Violet Chan (Middle), Jacob Lethbridge

Chinese American Stories

There was hardly a time growing up when Violet Chan did not have responsibilities. As a child in China, she had a major role in obtaining food for her family and caring for her mother. Later, as a teenager, she had primary responsibility for taking care of her baby brothers. Despite the duties asked of her, Violet had an underlying passion for an education and she fixed her sights on that goal…

Wong Family: Sandra Won (Middle), Oksana Ivashchenko

Chinese American Stories

Growing up in a close-knit Chinese family, Sandra Won had a happy upbringing with parents who didn’t impose adult roles on her. They made sure that she had time to be a child, to play and to experience a wide variety of activities. Her entrance into adulthood was gradual and, in her mind, was marked by a variety of ordinary events in her life…

Canepa Family: Thomas Canepa (Youth), Lucy Buck

Italian American Stories

As the alarm sounds, a teenager wakes up from his slumber and begins his daily routine. It is Friday morning, so after school, he’ll be able to hang out with his friends. Unfortunately, the teen, Thomas Canepa, won't be able to stay out late. The next day is Saturday, and he has to work. When he was younger, Thomas relished the freedom of playing with his friends without having any family obligations. But at age 16, Thomas has a part time job at the family business, a car wash where he pumps gas and prints receipts for customers…

Podesta Family: Kathleen Salmon (Youth), Jessica D'Anza

Italian American Stories

Kathleen Salmon is that rare young American who thoroughly enjoys being rooted in family life. Now, 20 years old, she loves her Italian American family, its customs, teachings and celebrations. As an only child, Kathleen Salmon was the center of her parents attention. Raised on a farm in Linden, she was part of a loving, extended family. She came to value rural life—the natural surroundings and the integration of work and home. She has never rebelled against her background, but instead prided herself on the strengths and values that have framed her world…

Intersections Of Race, Identity, And Co-Cultural Practices: A Qualitative Content Analysis Of A 'White Black Woman', Tammy Lynn Jeffries

Masters Theses

Notes of a White Black Woman by Judy Scales-Trent (1995) was the text used for this analysis and offered insight to the process of identity development, and the co-cultural communication practices of an African American woman whom others mistake as European American-a 'White Black Woman.' The basis for this body of research was embedded in the premise that co-cultural communication practices are intrinsically linked to the normal communication of the White Black person's identity development negotiation process. The initial exploration of this study began with explaining Kich's (1992) bi-racial identity model from a mono-racial perspective allowing for new interpretations of …

An African American Cultural Critique Of Weight, Race, Gender And Class Using A Semiotic Analysis Of Queen Latifah’ S Film Roles, Angela Denise Prater

Masters Theses

This project examined the interconnectedness of race, gender, class and the physical body as interrelated marginalization factors in media representations. Using the feminist body image literature, critical/cultural theory and Black feminist thought this study examined the significance of weight as a marginalization variable interdependent with race, gender and class. The motion picture character portrayals of the iconic figure Queen Latifah are subjected to a semiotics analysis, a traditional method in critical cultural studies to examine media representations. This analysis is informed by the cultural standpoint of the author as an overweight African American female. This study revealed that Queen Latifah's …

Dialectics In Mother-Child Relationships Among First-Generation Asian Indian Women In The United States, Chitra Akkoor

Masters Theses

The purpose of this study was to explore the experiences of Asian Indian immigrant women raising children in the U.S. as value contradictions between Asian Indian culture and U.S. culture. Relational dialectics in parent-child relationships among Asian Indian immigrant women and their children was also explored using the dialectcial perspective. Participants for the study were 20 Asian Indian women chosen randomly from the Kalamazoo-Battle Creek (MI) AI community who participated in one-one-interviews. Results of the study showed that participants experienced value contradictions in child-rearing. All four contradictions addressed in research on relational dialectics were also discovered in the context of …

Stepchildren’S Perceptions Of The Contradictions In Communication With Stepparents, Leslie A. Baxter, Dawn O. Braithwaite, Leah E. Bryant, Amy Wagner

Department of Communication Studies: Faculty Publications

This interpretive study, framed in relational dialectics theory, sought to identify stepchildren’s perceptions of the contradictions that animate communication with the stepparent in their household of primary residence. In-depth interviews were conducted, producing 802 pages of double-spaced interview transcripts, which were analyzed inductively for commonly experienced contradictions of stepchild-stepparent communication. Three underlying contradictions were identified. First, stepchild-stepparent communication was perceived to be characterized by a dialectic of integration, characterized by both closeness and distance. Second, stepchild-stepparent communication was perceived to be characterized by a dialectic of parental status, in which the stepparent was, and was not, granted legitimacy in a …

From The Executive Director, Paisley Currah

Center for LGBTQ Studies (CLAGS)

CLAGS joins other LBGT groups in condemning the sexual humiliation and other forms of torture inflicted on Iraqi detainees by US military forces. As the AI-Fatiha Foundation for LGBTIQ Muslims noted in a press release last month, "forcing men to masturbate in front of each other and to mock same-sex acts or homosexual sex is perverse and sadistic, in the eyes of many Muslims."

“If You Hit Me Again, I’Ll Hit You Back”: Conflict Management Strategies Of Individuals Experiencing Aggression During Conflicts, Loreen N. Olson, Dawn O. Braithwaite

Department of Communication Studies: Faculty Publications

In interpersonal relationships characterized by aggression, the negotiation of conflict is especially significant. The present study examined the conflict management strategies used by 31 individuals who had experienced verbal and/or physical aggression during conflicts with their partners. Sillars’ (1986) conflict tactics coding system was used as a framework to analyze 960 pages of transcribed data. The results of this deductive content analysis indicated that the participants reported using primarily Distributive conflict strategies. Analytic induction was also used to interpret nonverbal forms of conflict management, revealing three common tactics: crying, nonverbal avoidance, and aggression. Implications for using these conflict strategies in …

Mirror Images Of Invisibility-The Hispanic Journalist: How Does The Disproportionate Ratio Of Local Hispanic News Anchors And Reporters Impact San Antonio Hispanics?, Rosa Sylvia Cruz

Theses & Dissertations

The U.S. 2000 Census reveals San Antonio's 671,394 Hispanic or Latino population is 58.7 percent of the city's 1.14 million people. This statistic contrasts nationwide to 12.5 percent or 35.3 million Hispanic or Latino people. San Antonio, ninth-largest U.S. city in total population, compares to two other Texas cities, Houston ranking fourth-largest and Dallas eighth-largest. San Antonio, fifth-largest city in Hispanic population on the U.S. Census chart of "Ten Largest Places in Total Population and in Hispanic Population," outnumbers Dallas, listed eighth-largest in Hispanic population. Only Houston, remaining the fourth-largest Texas city, outranks San Antonio in Hispanic population. San Antonio …

Mood, Tense, And Copula Verb Selection In Near-Native Speakers Of Spanish, Antonio Medina-Rivera

World Languages, Literatures, and Cultures Faculty Publications

The present study focuses on the use of Spanish by near-native speakers in the United States. I will consider near-native speakers to be those individuals who speak Spanish as a second language, who are capable of having a complex conversation in that language, who are able to understand any speaker, and who are able to function as professionals using Spanish in their field of work. The near-native speakers for this study consist of clergy and religious sisters from Allentown, Pennsylvania, who incorporate the use of Spanish in their ministry to the Hispanic communities in the United States within the Catholic …

On Aaron Baker's Contesting Identities: Sports In American Film And Stephen C. Wood And J. David Pincus's Reel Baseball: Essays And Interviews On The National Pastime, Hollywood And American Culture, Marc Ouellette

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

[First paragraph]

Aaron Baker's Contesting Identities: Sports in American Film is an indictment of the key American myth that anyone can succeed through self-reliance. Baker finds that sports films, in general, comprise a site in which the myth is represented and reproduced. Baker's focus, though presented from multiple analytical perspectives, is singular in its purpose. That said, Baker does concentrate on what he considers the four core American sports: football, baseball, basketball and boxing. Approximately ninety movies, from the silent era to the present day, provide the content of the analysis, but several are exemplary and are cited repeatedly in …

Visions Must Be Re-Visioned : Gender Politics In Earthsea, Audrey Barton

Theses : Honours

This thesis analyses Ursula Le Guin's interpretation of gender and genre in her Earthsea novels, A Wizarf of Earthsea (1968) and Teha1111 (1990). Examining Le Guin's assertion for the need to "re-vision" her former work with the latter, I interrogate the ways in which she attempts to "break free" from the ideologies that impose themselves upon her work. Part one explores the mode of the hero quest used in A Wizard of Earthsea and examines the significance of this in terms of "gendering" the text. Part two examines the revisioned text Tehanu and the ways in which the …

The Changing Identity Of Feminism In The Third Wave: A Critical Analysis, Jillian Marie Klean

Masters Theses

This thesis examines three texts: Three Black Skirts, The Vagina Monologues, and The Art and Power of Being a Lady to discover the changing identities of women in the third wave movement of feminism. A rhetorical criticism is conducted of the images of feminism put forth by the texts to discover the identities that the authors are advocating and advancing for third wave feminists. This thesis argues that the multiple identities found in these texts are essential to the feminist movement. This thesis also explores the tension between individualism and community in the third wave.

2003 Plan For Multicultural Development, Illinois Mathematics And Science Academy

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion: Resources

No abstract provided.

Race And Local Television News Crime Coverage, Jeremy Harris Lipschultz, Michael L. Hilt

Communication Faculty Publications

Viewers of local television newscasts across the United States are regularly exposed to crime news stories. Crime coverage by local television stations is studied with an interest in how live reporting, dramatic video, and timeliness influence perceptions of race in the United States. Crime coverage did not always identify the race of a suspect because that information often was not available from police. However, when violent criminals or suspects were identified, race normally was shown through a mug shot, photograph, or video from the scene. When an African-American suspect was shown in police custody, the images tended to reinforce existing …

Changing Of The Guard, Alisa Solomon

Center for LGBTQ Studies (CLAGS)

After four gratifying years, i have decided to step down as the executive director of CLAGS to focus again on research, writing, and teaching. As much as I have enjoyed the position and as proud as I am of all we have accomplished, the truth is, I don't have the temperament of an administrator. I'm yearning to teach graduate students again, to be more available to my undergraduate students at Baruch, and eager to jump back into the scholarship that I've had to put aside since 1999.

“Parent Teams” And The Everyday Interactions Of Co-Parenting In Stepfamilies, Dawn O. Braithwaite, M. Chad Mcbride, Paul Schrodt

Department of Communication Studies: Faculty Publications

Family scholars have yet to explore substantially the day-to-day interactions of stepfamily systems. Our focus was on the everyday interactions of parent teams, adults who are co-parenting within different stepfamily households, describing the characteristics of their communication. Twenty-two parents, stepparents, and partners (N = 22) kept diaries for two weeks, each time they interacted with an adult in the other household. Results detail the frequency, timing, location, and length of interactions; initiator, channel, and topics; and reasons for interaction. Interactions were short, everyday encounters rather than extended, planned meetings. The majority of the interactions were via telephone, followed by …

Volume 32, Number 3, Post Amerikan

The Post Amerikan (1972-2004)

No abstract provided.

A Symbolic Interactionist Study Of Teenagers' Fashionable Dress In Hsimenting, Taipei, Taiwan, Mei-Hsueh Hung

Morehead State Theses and Dissertations

A thesis presented to the faculty of the Caudill College of Humanities at Morehead State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts by Mei-Hsueh Hung on May 7, 2003.

Depictions Of Ethnicity And Gender On The Front Pages Of College And University Websites., Mackenzie Blair Frazier

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study examined how women and men and people of different ethnicity are represented in the photographs found on the front screens of websites of colleges and universities offering four-year degrees and above in the United States. A content analysis analyzed 1,677 images of men and women found on the front pages of 412 colleges and university websites. A six-point Body Index Scale coding instrument was used to determine if emphasis was placed on the face or the body of the human image, determined through an analysis of where the images were cropped.

Frequencies of men and women were moderately …

Volume 32, Number 2, Post Amerikan

The Post Amerikan (1972-2004)

No abstract provided.

Bridging The Gender Gap In Computing: An Integrative Approach To Content Design For Girls, Kathleen-M. Lynn, Chad Raphael, Karin Olefsky, Christine M. Bachen

Communication

Although some observed differences in males' and females' attitudes toward and uses of computers appear to be narrowing, the gender gap remains widest in relation to programming and software design, which are still male preserves. In response, software and Web site designers have applied feminist theories to develop three distinct approaches to creating content for girls that might increase their interest in computers. These approaches involve appealing to girls' traditional “feminine” interests, nontraditional “masculine” interests, and gender-neutral interests. This study proposes that to bridge today's gender gap, prior approaches need to integrate appeals to girls' traditional and nontraditional interests, and …