Critical and Cultural Studies Commons^™

An Ethnographic Co-Design Approach To Promoting Diversity In The Games Industry, Florence Chee, Larissa Hjorth, Hugh Davies

School of Communication: Faculty Publications and Other Works

Workplace diversity and inclusion are recognised as integral to the internal and public-facing success of organizations. The games industry worldwide has been notably slow to embrace reforms to bring diverse work cultures into practice. Not only does the industry rank very low in the diversity of its corporate profile but a series of high-profile controversies have underscored major problems with attaining and retaining individual staff and achieving overall corporate diversity. In recent years, a number of games media outlets, organizations and game companies have sought to ameliorate internal social and cultural problems by attempting to facilitate cultural change in the …

Effects Of News And Threat Perceptions On Americans’ Covid-19 Precautionary Behaviors, Riva Tukachinsky Forster, Megan A. Vendemia

Communication Faculty Articles and Research

Our study examines the relationship between news exposure at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, personal threat beliefs, beliefs about others’ threat perceptions, and participation in precautionary actions. A survey of 377 U.S . adults revealed a significant main effect of news exposure on various precautionary behaviors (e.g., facial mask wear, physical distancing). Personal threat beliefs and beliefs about others’ threat perceptions serve as unique mechanisms mediating the effect of news on specific CDC-recommended and less socially desirable actions. These findings can guide news sources covering health crises in a socially responsible manner.

Uncovering The Dirt On Cancel Culture: An In-Depth Analysis Of Publishing’S Relationship With Controversy, Alix Martinez

Book Publishing Final Research Paper

Cancel culture is a social phenomenon that has risen from the massive amounts of online users finding common issues and speaking up about them en masse on social media platforms. In recent years, this has become even more obvious as it is reported that social media users’ consumption has risen up to 72 percent more from the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. This has brought the topic into the forefront of many debates and people are taking issue with it. These issues can vary but one thing is for sure: cancel culture does not appear to be slowing down anytime …

The Influence Of Ursula K. Le Guin, Bailey Potter

Book Publishing Final Research Paper

The aim of this research study was to examine how Ursula K. Le Guin and her oeuvre were influential to contemporary and future writers, as well as what her influence was on the literary and publishing communities. Study was conducted through a qualitative interview process with seven Portlanders who have in some way been influenced by and/or who personally knew Le Guin. Using the transcripts from the interviews, I separated the information into themes and wrote out each section, synthesizing interviewee answers and using supplemental information to build my results. Ursula K. Le Guin influenced the literary and publishing communities …

With A Female Vice President In Office, Has Media Gender-Bias Left The Presidential Campaign Trail? The Short Answer Is No, And The Reason Why Is Deep Rooted., Nora Tarte

College of Journalism and Mass Communications: Professional Projects

An examination of treatment in the media of female vice presidential candidates—Geraldine Ferraro (1984), Sarah Palin (2008) and Kamala Harris (2020)—surfaces a trend of gender bias perpetuated by subtly sexist language in all three campaigns. While society has made strides in equality in the 36 years between campaigns, the media treatment of Vice President Kamala Harris is not that far removed from the treatment of Geraldine Ferraro. The bias exists both overtly and subtly with obvious sexist language and more subtle forms of sexist language in coverage doled out by top media outlets, but subtle sexism is what often flies …

Entre Mundos Y Fronteras: An Exploration Of Linguistic Visibility And Value In Libraries, Denisse Solis, Jesus Espinoza

University Libraries: Faculty Scholarship

In Part of Our Lives: A People's History of the American Public Library, author and library historian Wayne A. Wiegand describes how the mass migration of seven million southern and eastern European migrants between 1893 and 1917 shaped public libraries. “As neighborhoods changed ethnic and racial profile, the public library – main or branch- often became a place where newcomers assimilated.”1 This assimilationist praxis, specifically when it comes to the conscription of the English language, is problematic for library workers and patrons for whom English is not their first or only language and who want to see themselves reflected in …

Ethnography Of Reading Comic Books, Azadeh Najafian

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

This thesis explores why adults read comic books. This research used the ethnographic method and interviewing eleven people, four women, seven male, as its primary source. Based on information and common themes gathered from interviews, I built this thesis into one introduction, three body chapters, and a conclusion.

In the first chapter, I argued that comics could function the same as myths and explained this function and related examples under the “mythic effect” name. In the second chapter, I discussed how my informants use reading comics as a means to escape their everyday lives and how sometimes this escapism carries …

Us Media’S Coverage Of China’S Handling Of Covid-19: Playing The Role Of The Fourth Branch Of Government Or The Fourth Estate?, Wenshan Jia, Fangzhu Lu

Communication Faculty Articles and Research

The present study is an analysis of a sample of reports on China’s handling of COVID-19 by several major US media with a focus on a controversial op-ed by the Wall Street Journal. It is found that instead of covering it objectively as a public health crisis, these media reports tend to adopt the strategy of naming, shaming, blaming, and taming against China. In other words, they seize the outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan as an opportunity to serve Trump’s “America First” doctrine by a coordinated attempt to destroy the Chinese dream and arresting China’s ascendency. First, the naming/shaming …

Creative Placemaking In Singapore: A Critical Reflection, Su Fern Hoe

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

All across the globe, there has been increasing recognition of the transformative power of creative placemaking to revive the economic and cultural life of cities. Singapore is no exception. Since 2008, the Singapore government has been engaged in a concerted effort to placemake Singapore into a culturally-vibrant cityscape with “heart and soul”. However, despite its increasing global popularity, what constitutes creative placemaking and its processes remain vague and tenuous. Notably, scant critical attention has also been paid on how Singapore has tried to adopt this global buzzword, and its impact on the localised dynamics of urban spaces and arts practices.

The Utilization Of Broadcasting Media In Meeting The Information Needs Of Prospective Regional Chief Regarding Political News, Mohammad Zamroni, Suwandi Sumartias, Soeganda Priyatna, Atie Rachmiatie

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

Broadcast media is one of the electronic media that is widely used to meet the information needs of the public. One of them is television media which is currently still enjoyed by many people amid the presence of new media and social media. There are two private television stations, namely iNews TV and Metro TV as news television which are widely used by political parties and regional head candidate pairs in campaigns, building self-image, and offering work programs. Likewise, the community in fulfilling the information needs related to the 2017 Pilkada DKI Jakarta also took advantage of this television media. …

Global Cultural Shifts Induced By Covid-19, Wenshan Jia

Communication Faculty Articles and Research

"While COVID-19 has reportedly been bringing about numerous changes in geopolitics, economy, health, and security around the world, little has been written about changes in cultural practices it has been bringing about. I hereby unravel such emerging changes in the hope that readers could adapt to such changes."

Harold Innis’S Concept Of Bias: Its Intellectual Origins And Misused, Edward Comor

FIMS Publications

Harold Innis is one of the foundational theorists of media and communications studies. In the mid-20th century, he developed his concept of media bias (also called the bias of communication). It remains Innis’s most cited concept, but it is also significantly misunderstood. For example, since his death in 1952, bias has often been applied in ways that are akin to a form of technological or media determinism. This has been an ongoing problem despite the fact that Innis developed his concept as a means of compelling analysts to reject such mechanistic formulations. Indeed, his goal was to promote more self-reflective …

What Moves You?: Georges Didi-Huberman’S Arts Of Passage And Pittsburgh Stories Of Migration, Alexandra Irimia

Languages and Cultures Publications

Contemporary art historian, critic, and theorist Georges Didi-Huberman thinks of images not as static objects, but as movements, passages, and gestures of memory and/or desire. For the French “historian of passing images,” as he has been called, “all images are migrants. Images are migrations. They are never simply local” (D2017). His book, Passer, quoi qu'il en coûte ("To Pass at Any Price"), co-written with the Greek poet and director Niki Giannari, takes on precisely the visual dynamics of passages, passengers, and passageways in the context of contemporary migration flows. In April 2018, only several months after the launching of the …

What Does A Pandemic Sound Like? The Emergence Of Covid Verbal Art, Karen E. Pennesi

Anthropology Publications

In times of social upheaval, people create and engage with verbal art for entertainment and a feeling of connection. While millions of people were forced to stay home to reduce the spread of COVID‑19 from March to July 2020, verbal artists posted recorded performances online and viewers had more time than usual to watch and share them. COVID verbal art refers to songs, poems, and comedy skits that mention social and physical distancing, quarantine and isolation, hygiene and cleaning practices, everyday experiences during the pandemic, as well as social and political critiques of policies and practices that explicitly mention COVID‑19 …

Techniques And Forces And The Communicative Constitution Of Organization: A Deleuzian Approach To Organizational (In)Stability And Power, Jennifer J. Mease (Also Peeksmease)

Department of Communication Studies: Faculty Publications

This article introduces five principles of Deleuzian ontology and the conceptual framework of techniques and forces into emerging CCO scholarship addressing (dis)organization and power. By introducing Deleuzian concepts of (1) the virtual, (2) mutual (in)stability of meaning and materiality, (3) forces (and techniques), (4) communication, and (5) power, this essay builds a relational ontology that centers communication, speaks across existing theories of CCO, and offers a more detailed emphasis on power. In doing so, it enhances the explanatory power of CCO in general, as a set of theories useful for describing how organizational constitution and power play out in an …

Society Doesn’T Owe You Anything: Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas & Video Games As Speculative Fiction, Marc A. Ouellette

English Faculty Publications

Since Donald Trump’s election in 2016, popular and scholarly commentators have been looking for speculative and/or dystopic literary works that might provide analogues for the Trump-era. Perhaps the most famous of these was the renewed popularity of Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale. In this regard, though, video games remain an underexplored fictional form. With its exaggerated and parodic satire of an America ruled by the corruption and greed of extreme right-wing populism, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (2004) offers a speculative fiction that players can enact as well as imagine and simulate as well as prepare. Thus, reading the …

Truth As A Victim: The Challenge Of Anti-Trafficking Education In The Age Of Q, Bond Benton, Daniela Peterka-Benton

School of Communication and Media Scholarship and Creative Works

The QAnon conspiracy threatens anti-trafficking education because of its broad dissemination and focus on a range of myths about trafficking. These myths are rooted in historic and ongoing misinformation about abductions, exploitation, and community threats. This article examines the extent of QAnon’s co-optation of human trafficking discourses and evaluates its connection to trafficking myths, particularly related to gender, race, class, and agency. From this perspective, the article considers how anti-trafficking education can respond to these myths and build a pedagogy in the age of Q.

The Uncanny Swipe Drive: The Return Of A Racist Mode Of Algorithmic Thought On Dating Apps, Gregory Narr

Publications and Research

As algorithmic media amplify longstanding social oppression, they also seek to colonize every last bit of sociality where that oppression could be resisted. Swipe apps constitute prototypical examples of this dynamic. By employing protocols that foster absent-minded engagement, they allow unconscious racial preferences to be expressed without troubling users’ perceptions of themselves as non-racist. These preferences are then measured by recommender systems that treat “attractiveness” as a zero-sum game, allocate affective flows according to the winners and losers of those games, and ultimately amplify the salience of race as a factor of success for finding intimacy. In thus priming users …

The Integration Of Records, Electronic Communication And Networks In Indonesia, Ike Iswary Lawanda

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

Purpose: This paper aims to show how managers/users’ communication and negotiations through electronic communication reflect individual and organizational resilience facing the global changes in ICT. The networked record structure, as the centre of the interactions, symbolizes the internal and external communication process in the organization.

Design/methodology/approach: We analysed the integrated network structures of the record from six government offices and three multinational corporations and one international Non-Government Organization in Indonesia as symbolic interactions between individuals and groups who easily cope with ICT innovation and who find the innovation to be challenging. To validate our findings, we interviewed eleven stakeholders, consists …