Critical and Cultural Studies Commons^™

Steven Soderbergh, Contagion (2011), Aras Ozgun

Markets, Globalization & Development Review

No abstract provided.

Intermedialidad En El Documental Cubano Contemporáneo, Esteban Alfonso Lopez

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Cuban documentaries, which have experienced dramatic changes in the last two decades, are now more in tune with the most recent global trends in cinema. However, the scarce implementation within the documentary genre of other perspectives and modes of analysis, outside those that are purely cinematographic, has stalled investigations in the field, thus creating a disengagement with the structural and thematic renovation that has been taking place within the discourse of contemporary Cuban documentaries.

My dissertation “Intermedialidad en el documental cubano contemporáneo” examines a select sample of representative texts and Cuban documentaries, with a view to adapting and/or developing an …

Music Magazines And Gendered Space: The Representation Of Artists On The Covers Of Hot Press And Rolling Stone, Yvonne Kiely

Irish Communication Review

Over the past two decades the commercial music magazine industry has lapsed into a deepening cycle of continuous decline. The demise of the widely popular UK pop music magazine, Smash Hits, in 2006 and the announcement of the final print issue of NME in 2018 has been accompanied by music magazines worldwide reporting year-on-year declines in sales and readership. Meanwhile research has found that portrayals of gender on music magazine covers are largely unrepresentative and unreflective of social heterogeneity – yet the gendered media histories of the industry’s enduring and iconic music magazines remain largely under researched. In order …

New Flesh Cinema: Japanese Cyberpunk-Body Horror And Cinema As Catharsis In The Age Of Technology, Sarah Henry

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis provides a critical analysis of a specific group of films that combine the subgenres of cyberpunk and body horror which I call New Flesh Cinema. Films of this subgenre counter fears and anxieties of technological advancements by re-imagining the rise of technology and its societal effects as a transitional process through the illustration of literal and visceral depictions of the necessary alterations people will have to undergo in order to transition successfully into the new world. To contradict apocalyptic fears of advancing technology, these films offer a vision of a “New Flesh.” I argue the films share three …

“I’M Real I Thought I Told Ya”: Developing Critical Media Literacy Through U.S. Latinx Digital Media Representations, Solange T. Castellar

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis explores how audiences engage with U.S. Latinx media representations through the practice of critical media literacy. I interrogate how media consumers construct critical media literacy through interacting with U.S. Latinx figures on digital media platforms, particularly on the social-media app, Twitter, and the user-generated video content platform, YouTube. Throughout this thesis, I argue that users on these platforms who engage with U.S. Latinx pop culture figures, like Jennifer Lopez and Belcalis Almanzar (Cardi B), read, digest, and comprehend a variety of multimedia images, texts, or videos, and that this engagement becomes an accessible form of critical media literacy, …

Through The Lens Of Koreans: The Influence Of Media On Perceptions Of Feminism, Neha Cariappa

Master's Projects and Capstones

Regardless of country and culture, the media has the power to influence the opinions and perceptions of its viewers. This project evaluates specific Korean movies—and the reactions of South Koreans to gender representations in films that are considered “feminist”—along with the variety show genre, which also tends to reinforce gender stereotypes and imbalances. With these media representations as a framework, this research explores the impact of the internet in forwarding feminist views along with unearthing the reactions of Koreans. Given the anonymity of the internet and social media, these platforms allow for honest expression and counterpoints to sexist views and …

The Invisible Professional: Visual Culture Of Successful Black Women, Sophonie Gaspard

All HCAS Student Capstones, Theses, and Dissertations

Black women in the United States have been arguably the most underrepresented, stereotyped, and hypersexualized groups in society; their contributions in the workplace often reduced in significance. Similarly, the perceived values of the white majority have historically dictated the images of minorities in the media. In their research on visual culture, Keifer-Boyd, Amburgy & Knight (2007) suggest that those with social, political, and economic power define how groups without power are represented and stereotyped, illuminating the privileges of having visible positive portrayals. As contemporary American society shifts towards greater inclusion and participation from black women, the media is encouraged to …

The “Science” Of Story Structure, Diana Witt

Virginias Collegiate Honors Council Conference

Stories are immensely human. They help us learn and understand cultural and social contexts. The stories that we tell, see, and read have profound effects on our ideas and emotions, causing us to have visceral reactions. Stories are truly at the crux of how people relate to each other. In this talk, I will explore the necessary elements of stories and why they are effective. Storytellers across all mediums build plot and characters to make an audience care and draw them in. Authors and screenwriters have theorized about the main structures into which all stories fall. In modern media, story …

Night Of The Witch: Alternative Spirituality, Identity And Media, Andreana Tarleton

LSU Master's Theses

This thesis works to understand the relationships witches and conjurors have with the film and television depictions of them. Employing the method of film critique, I argue that the witch stands as a cultural symbol in the US of women and femmes with power, and that their stories serve as lessons to these populations about what it means to be an acceptable woman or femme, while simultaneously creating and perpetuating stereotypes of magic practitioners. Then, using the combination of hashtag ethnography, in-person and video interviewing and internet surveys, I argue that #witchblr and #witchesofcolor, as well as the space of …

Medusa As Victim And Tool Of Male Aggression, William S. Duffy

Verbum Incarnatum: An Academic Journal of Social Justice

While Medusa, like many monsters from Greek Mythology, has multiple origin stories, the one arguably best known to modern audiences is the one related in Ovid’s Metamorphoses 4.5750-803, in which Medusa is raped by Neptune in Minerva’s temple and subsequently punished by the goddess by being turned into the monster we all know. This means that Medusa is, to use the modern parlance, a survivor. Furthermore, Medusa’s experience after her violation echoes common elements of the survivor’s experience even millennia later. This suggests that many of the institutional responses to sexual assault that bedevil survivors today existed in some form …

Free Battered Texas Women: Survivor-Advocates Organizing At The Crossroads Of Gendered Violence, Disability, And Incarceration, Cathy Marston Phd

Verbum Incarnatum: An Academic Journal of Social Justice

This article recaps my symposium presentation, where I argue that feminist organizing strategies are central to healing our society and creating restorative justice from my perspective as a survivor of occupational injury, battering, and criminalization for self-defense. This includes the creation of Free Battered Texas Women. We prefer to think of ourselves as survivor-advocates who use a variety of tactics to empower ourselves, incarcerated battered women, and citizens. These strategies include pedagogy; poetry and other written forms; art; and legislative advocacy. I blend this grassroots activism with feminist disability theory, radical feminist theory, feminist ethnography, and feminist criminology.

2020 Icrcc Proceedings Table Of Contents, Conference Organizers

International Crisis and Risk Communication Conference

These proceedings are a representative sample of the presentations given by professional practitioners and academic scholars at the 2020 International Crisis and Risk Communication Conference (ICRCC) held March 9-11, 2020. The ICRCC is an annual event that takes place the second week in March in beautiful sunny Orlando, Florida. The conference hosts are faculty and staff from the Nicholson School of Communication and Media. The goal of the ICRCC is to bring together prominent professional practitioners and academic scholars that work directly with crisis and risk communication on a daily basis. We define crisis and risk broadly to include, for …

Minority Representations In Crime Drama: An Examination Of Roles, Identity, And Power, Megan E. Chatelain

University of the Pacific Theses and Dissertations

The storytelling ability of television can be observed in any genre. Crime drama offers a unique perspective because victims and offenders change every episode increasing stereotypes with each new character. In other words, the more victims and criminals observed by the audience, the more likely the show creates the perception of a mean world. Based on previous literature, three questions emerged which this study focused on by asking the extent of Criminal Minds’ ability to portray crime accurately compared to the Federal Bureau of Investigations Uniform Crime Report (UCR) and the Behavioral Analysis Unit’s (BAU-4) report on serial murderers and …

The Cultivation Theory And Reality Television: An Old Theory With A Modern Twist, Jeffrey Weiss

Capstone Showcase

George Gerbner, a Hungarian-born professor of communication, founded the cultivation theory, one of the most popular and regarded theories in the communications world. Developed in the mid 20th century, the theory focus on the long-term effects of television on people. Longer exposure to signs, images and people on television cultivates their perception of reality in the real world. The television became a household staple during this time. Families often spent time together watching programming together, however, it played out different effects for each person. Television's constant visual and auditory stimulation on a person made it easier to cultivate certain messages, …

The Evolution Of Revenge: Genre, Feminist Theory And Jennifer’S Body, Sophia Birks

Capstone Showcase

The representation and proliferation of violence against women in media, when applying genre theory, reflects the social climate of rape culture and the social response to sexual violence. Looking at the Rape-Revenge genre through the scope of Feminist Theory, the only way to reintroduce female agency into a trauma led narrative is to reclaim the tropes used to perpetuation female exploitation and a popular culture ambivalent to male on female violence. Within this subversion and deconstruction, a genre benefiting from female trauma finally includes an honest artistic retelling of that female experience. With the intention of the creator in line …

Hear Me Roar, Abigail R. Seethoff

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Hear Me Roar, a compilation of personal essays interspersed with short forms, grapples with the nuances of compliance versus autonomy in the context of the male gaze, beauty standards, and pop culture. The collection also explores what it means to treasure something—another person, an object—and how to express and deepen that affection.

Habermas, The Public Sphere, And Wikileaks: The Public Sphere And The Right To Know, Mary Murray

Capstone Showcase

Jürgen Habermas, a German theorist, coined the public sphere as a place where citizens could interact, study, and debate issues together outside the realm of the home or family, which was defined as the private sphere. The public sphere can also be seen as a “manifestation of citizen sovereignty”. At its core, Habermas centered the public sphere around feudalism and the shift of one all-powerful individual reigning and representing the public to those citizens under the control of the state. Some critics argue voices encouraging the minorities were actually private voices leaking into the public sphere, while others argue the …

Répresentations De La Banlieue Dans Le Cinéma Français Contemporain, Yaw Owusu Sekyere

Honors Projects

Inhabitants of the poor French banlieues are rejected and isolated from the larger French society, who refuse to acknowledge their marginalization. As a result, the cycle continues where no political change is made. The French film genre, cinéma de banlieue, seeks to explain the perspectives of the underrepresented and marginalized groups within France. This honors project analyzes the representations of the banlieue through the films of La Haine (Mathieu Kassovitz), Wesh wesh qu’est-ce qui se passe ? (Rabah Ameur-Zaïmeche), Bande de filles (Céline Sciamma), Divines (Houda Benyamina), and Banlieusards (Kery James & Leïla Sy). These films focus on the …