Critical and Cultural Studies Commons^™

“Perspective By Incongruity” Applied To Depictions Of Race In The Media, Darren Nana Yaw Adjei

Communication Studies

The city of Atlanta has become new center-point of cultural convergence in America. The profile of the city has grown due to the influx of money, flowing from several different areas of commerce. These include increased business ventures in Atlanta’s metropolitan area, expanding film production, and the development of a billion-dollar sports stadium. Not only does the city thrive in its business ventures, but music and television production in Atlanta have a profound effect on its artistic community. Artists such as Andre 3000, Migos, and Childish Gambino enjoy commercial success with accolades such as Grammy wins and nominations.

An American Hugo Chávez? Investigating The Comparisons Between Donald Trump And Latin American Populists, Charlotte Blair Harris

Honors Theses and Capstones

Following the 2016 presidential election of populist outsider Donald Trump, several think pieces throughout the popular press conjectured a comparison between Trump and former Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez. Citing their populist rhetoric, brash and coarse sense of humor, and shared propensity for fiery tirades against the press, these articles made foreboding predictions about the status of American democracy. However, these short and sometimes anecdotally-based opinion pieces failed to acknowledge several important differences between Trump and Latin American populists like Chávez. This paper will address this gap in understanding by evaluating the comparison from an academic perspective. Through in-depth case studies …

Media In Crisis: Journalistic Norms In Natural Disaster Coverage, Lindsey Hall

Honors Theses and Capstones

Nearing the end of 2017, the United States and the Caribbean were struck with back-to-back natural disasters that left the country in shock and turmoil. Among the three hurricanes that struck sequentially, Hurricane Harvey landed in Texas approximately on August 25th, 2017 and Hurricane Maria hit the Caribbean and Puerto Rico around September 20th, 2017. These disasters were a test for the new presidential cabinet of how they would handle their first natural disaster. Hurricane Maria and Hurricane Harvey caused similar levels of destruction, with Maria being a category five storm and Harvey a category four. However, the media reacted …

Media, Family, And Friends: Normative Environment And Global Citizenship Identification, Stephen Reysen Ph.D., Iva Katzarska-Miller Ph.D.

Journal of International and Global Studies

Prior research has shown that Bulgarian participants report greater global normative environment and identification with global citizens than U.S. participants; it has also shown that the relationship between country sample (U.S. vs. Bulgaria) and global citizenship identification is mediated by the perception that one’s normative environment promotes a global citizen identity. In Study 1 of the present research, we examined the number of global (vs. domestic stories) in U.S. and Bulgarian print media to find a greater number of global stories in Bulgarian media. In Study 2, Bulgarians’ frequency of media consumption was associated with self-reported global citizenship identification, and …

From The Fringe To The National Fabric: A Resurgence Of Disinformation And How To Neutralize It, Deana Brown, Memo Cordova

Library Faculty Publications and Presentations

GAME OF THRONES CALLING OUT POLITICAL CLIMATE?

Imagine you are sitting at home having just finished Sunday dinner when there is a knock at the door. Your friends have arrived to watch the Season Finale of your favorite show, Game of Thrones. The finale revolves around a number of warring houses whose past betrayals and chicaneries have made it difficult to join together and unite against an unimaginable threat.

Barack Obama’S Rhetoric Of Hope For Racial Reconciliation: An Examination Of American Mainstream Media’S Framing Of That Message, Zainul Abedin

Dissertations

This study explored Barack Obama’s rhetorical message for racial reconciliation and the framing of that message by the American mainstream news media. The study investigated Obama’s messages in texts and sound-bites of the news media—The Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, the New York Times, Fox News, CNN, and MSNBC. The research included Obama’s speeches on three major occasions from 2008 to 2014—(1) “a more perfect union” speech on March 18, 2008, in Philadelphia; (2) Washington speech on August 28, 2013, on the 50th anniversary of MLK’s “I have a dream” speech; and (3) LBJ Library speech on April …

Converging Horror: Analyzing The Importance Of Convergence Culture On A Digital Audience Through An Examination Of The Conventions And Politics Of The Horror Genre, Kelsey M. Fox

Media and Cultural Studies Honors Projects

This thesis draws attention to the genre of horror in new media through a close examination of various digital texts, arguing that these new texts, while built on traditional horror narratives used in cinema, are also examples of Convergence Culture, a mobile, multiplatform, participatory medium that engages professionals and amateur content creators. The thesis begins with a review of scholarly work about horror as a genre, continues with a close analysis of several digital horror texts and their online communities, and ends with the argument that these new texts are good examples of how horror has accommodated Convergence culture, morphing …

Transmitiendo La Identidad: Revalorización Sociopolítica Del Kichwa Por Los Medios De Comunicación \ Transmitting Identity: Sociopolitical Revaluation Of The Kichwa By The Media, Abi Mcdougal

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Este Proyecto de Estudio Independiente considera cómo los medios de comunicación kichwas están involucrados en la conciencia sociopolítica indígena. Establece una historia de la opresión lingüística hacia los kichwa; provee un marco conceptual de los espacios de uso sociolingüísticos en la diglosia; e introduce el tema de los medios de comunicación kichwas, localizados en Otavalo y los pueblos de Imbabura cercanos. Presenta la información primaria sobre los medios de comunicación, obtenida a través de entrevistas, diálogos informales, observación enfocada y participante, y una encuesta pública en Otavalo. Considera el radio, lo audiovisual, y publicaciones escritas, a través de unas organizaciones …

The Reflection And Reification Of Racialized Language In Popular Media, Kelly E. Wright

Theses and Dissertations--Linguistics

This work highlights specific lexical items that have become racialized in specific contextual applications and tests how these words are cognitively processed. This work presents the results of a visual world (Huettig et al 2011) eye-tracking study designed to determine the perception and application of racialized (Coates 2011) adjectives. To objectively select the racialized adjectives used, I developed a corpus comprised of popular media sources, designed specifically to suit my research question. I collected publications from digital media sources such as Sports Illustrated, USA Today, and Fortune by scraping articles featuring specific search terms from their websites. This experiment seeks …

A Case For Empathy: Immigration In Spanish Contemporary Media, Music, Film, And Novels, Constantin C. Icleanu

Theses and Dissertations--Hispanic Studies

This dissertation analyzes the representations of immigrants from North Africa, Latin America, and Eastern Europe in Spain. As engaged scholarship, it seeks to better the portrayal of immigrants in the mass media through the study of literature, film, and music about immigration spanning from the year 2000 to 2016. Because misconceptions continue to propagate in the media, this dissertation works to counteract anti-immigrant, xenophobic representations as well as balance out overly positive and orientalized portrayal of immigrants with a call to recognize immigrants as human beings who deserve the same respect, dignity, and rights as any other citizen.

Chapter 1 …

Water.Under, J. R. Carpenter

The Goose

Poetry by JR Carpenter

Officer On Duty: How An Image Can Change In An Instant, Derrick Battle

Masters Theses

The deaths of Eric Garner, Michael Brown, and Tamir Rice sparked an uproar in many communities across the United States. These incidents brought to light that there is an issue that remains prevalent between citizen and police officers. The New York Police Department, Ferguson Police Department, and the Cleveland Department of Police have all dealt with tension involving the communities they serve. Since these incidents changes have been made within each department. Some had the help of the Department of Justice to reform old polices. While law enforcement does what they believe it is necessary to protect the public, sometimes …

When Ink Turned Into Bullets: The Effect Of The Press In Buffalo, New York And The Nation Along With Its Role In Igniting A Civil War, Nicole C. Kondziela

History Theses

The American Civil War was a multi-faceted conflict: North versus South, states’ rights versus federal law, slavery versus abolition. Due to increasing and constant advancements in technology, this was the first war in American history that developed in full view of the public through newspapers. The Industrial Revolution and capitalism allowed the press to evolve into rich and powerful soap boxes for political bosses and editors alike to voice their opinions far beyond the village square. Unbeknownst to much of the public at the time, the Union had been at the mercy of newspaper editors and politicians in a grand …

The Ethnography Of Rhythm: Orality And Its Technologies [Table Of Contents], Haun Saussy

Literature

“Only Haun Saussy—with his historical range, theoretical breadth, and fine close-reading—could have pulled off this brilliant comparative history of ‘the perturbation caused by the idea of oral literature.’ The disciplinary range of this dazzling scholarly performance takes us from linguistics and philology to ethnography and religious studies, from physiology and psychiatry to the history of graphic and sound technologies. Be prepared to marvel—and learn.” —Linda Hutcheon, University Professor Emeritus of English and Comparative Literature, University of Toronto

Rural Reality: How Reality Television Portrayals Of Appalachian People Impact Their View Of Their Culture, Ivy Jude Elise Brashear

Theses and Dissertations--Community & Leadership Development

Appalachian people have faced stereotyping of their culture and region in popular culture, news media, and art for generations. For more than 150 years, images of the region have been extracted by outside media makers and disseminated widely, solidifying the “hillbilly” stereotype in the national lexicon. This study focuses on such images in reality television shows about Appalachia, and seeks to determine whether or not those images, and the proliferation of them, has an impact on the ways in which Appalachian people understand and accept their own culture.

In His Image: A Content Analysis Of Evangelical Youth Books For Their Representation Of Gender Roles And Ideals, Taryn Renee Vis

Honors Projects

This content analysis discusses the results of the analysis of twelve major Evangelical books for young adults and their representation of gender roles and gender ideals. The background of the Evangelical church’s handling of gender, particularly in relation to media beginning in the 1970s is established and discussed at length in order to situate this analysis amongst previous discussion of Evangelical gender roles. This analysis found that each of the books discussed four main themes of gender roles and relations: biological essentialism, complementarianism, counter-cultural branding of gender, and sexual purity (especially for young women).

You Will Be Punished: Media Depictions Of Missing And Murdered Indigenous Women, Caitlin Elliott

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

The following thesis focuses on media depictions of Canada’s missing and murdered Indigenous women, a list that carries upwards of 1,200 names. The news coverage of these stories is reminiscent of television crime dramas in their depictions of minority victims of crime, specifically in regard to victim blaming. In order to examine this relationship, the present study compares coverage of missing and murdered Indigenous women in Canadian news articles to depictions of victims, particularly minority female victims, within crime procedural television shows. An ethnographic content analysis (ECA) was conducted in order to parse out common themes between news articles featuring …

Respect, Cho Chang, And Asian Representation: A Critical Analysis Of The White Gaze In Harry Potter, Kaitlin Pham

Communication Studies

Within the Harry Potter series, females who are in charge of their sexuality seem egotistical and provoking; thus, seen as manipulative to their male counterparts, and the readers. That being said, the values that Hermione Granger possess that push her above Cho Chang’s become ultra-defined, preaching to the audiences how Rowling believes the ultimate female should behave and think, and how Chang has no possibility of attaining these qualities. In this paper, I will analyze and discuss J.K. Rowling’s role in perpetuating the White Gaze with her depiction of Cho Chang in her series, and how Chang’s interpretation in the …

Manufacturing News: Exploring How Public Relations Content Is Presented As News From An Agenda-Setting Perspective, Katharine R. Gore

Journalism

This study, conducted in San Luis Obispo, California, analyzes and investigates the relationship between public relations professionals and journalists, the role of public relations in news and how often content developed by the public relations industry is later portrayed as news.

Public relations-developed content has a growing presence in news. This is due, in part to the fact that more people work in the public relations industry than do in journalism fields. There is also a symbiotic relationship between the two industries, which is confirmed by existing studies and scholarly texts.

An effort was made by the author to track …

What Did You Learn In School Today? The Recursive Relationship Between Media Coverage Of Public Education And The Crafting Of Education Policy, Elisabeth Reinkordt

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Theses and Other Student Research

How does the public learn about issues in contemporary education policy? While changes in the economics of the media industry have shifted the mass media landscape, local communities continue to receive information about the state of their local schools primarily through local newspapers or television stations. It is arguably the most important task of a local paper to provide education coverage, as the schools are often the primary beneficiary of local tax revenues. This thesis reviews the literature surrounding the interface between education reporting and the crafting of education policy, examines the way in which education stories are framed by …

Once Upon A Midnight Stalker: A Content Analysis Of Stalking In Films, Amy Sides Schultz, Julia Moore, Brian H. Spitzberg

Department of Communication Studies: Faculty Publications

Media portrayals of crime have been linked to biased information processing and beliefs about society and personal risks of victimization. Much of this research has either focused on relatively holistic analyses of media consumption, or on the analysis of elements of only a few types of crime (e.g., murder, rape, assault). Research to date has overlooked how media portray stalking in interpersonal relationships. This study content analyzed 51 mainstream movies with prominent stalking themes to compare and contrast such depictions with the actual scientific data about stalking. By considering victim variables, stalker variables, relational variables, stalking behavior variables, victim response …

Clash Of Civilization Or Clash Of Newspaper Ideologies? An Analysis Of The Ideological Split In British Newspaper Commentaries On The 2002 Miss World Riots In Nigeria, Farooq Kperogi

Faculty Articles

Riots that erupted in the northern Nigerian city of Kaduna over a newspaper article that some Muslims interpreted as blaspheming the Prophet Muhammad on account of Nigeria’s decision to host the 2002 edition of the Miss World beauty pageant captured the attention of the media around the world. This article investigates how the British press framed the riots in their opinion columns and editorials. Through an interpretive textual analysis of the opinion pages, the study shows that while the ideological persuasions of left-leaning British press predisposed them to express opinions on the Miss World riots that resonated with what might …

Social Media And The Transformation Of The Humanitarian Narrative: A Comparative Analysis Of Humanitarian Discourse In Libya 2011 And Bosnia 1994, Ellen Noble

Political Science Honors Projects

Within humanitarian discourse, there is a prevailing narrative: the powerful liberal heroes are saving the helpless, weak victims. However, the beginning of the 21^st century marks the expansion of the digital revolution throughout lesser-developed states. Growing access to the Internet has enabled aid recipients to communicate with the outside world, giving them an unprecedented opportunity to reshape discourses surrounding humanitarianism. Through a comparative discourse analysis of Libyan Tweets, 1994 newspaper reports on Bosnia, and 2011 newspaper reports on Libya, this paper analyzes whether aid recipient discourse can resist the dominant humanitarian narrative and if that resistance can influence dominant …

Power Girls Before Girl Power: 1980s Toy-Based Girl Cartoons, Katia Perea

Publications and Research

The socio/cultural history and partnership of toy advertisement and children’s television is rich and well documented (Schneider 1989, Kunkel 1988, Seiter 1993). In this article I discuss the influence of policy in girl’s cartoon programming as well as the relationship between commercialization and financial motivation in creating a girl cartoon media product. I then discuss the formulaic, gender normative parameters this new genre set in place to identify girl cartoons as well as girl media consumption and how within those parameters girl cartoon characters were able to represent an empowered girl popular culture product a decade before the nomenclature Girl …

Introduction: A Game's Study Manifesto, Jason C. Thompson, Marc A. Ouellette

English Faculty Publications

In the epigraph to this collection, we return to a foundational text of the western literary canon, Homer’s Odyssey, and see in Penelope’s “bow contest” an illustrative moment in the history of game culture. Having fought in the Trojan War and having survived his ten-year trek home, the weary Odysseus cannot simply show up—the returning hero must rout the odious suitors whom Penelope has forestalled. In order to buy more time for vengeance, Odysseus disguises himself as an old beggar; in order to buy more time for deferral, Penelope creates an unwinnable game: she will marry the suitor able …

Social Learning Theory In The Frontline Documentary “The Merchants Of Cool”, Alixe A. Wiley

Faculty Curated Undergraduate Works

In the Frontline documentary The Merchants of Cool, the relationship between major media conglomerates and their hedonistic teenage customers is examined through exploring the different tactics industries use to discover and market the next “cool” thing. Industries maintain what the documentary refers to as a “feedback loop” with their customers, which is a cyclic, supply-and-demand relationship that blurs the line between fiction and reality. It has become impossible to tell which side is imitating the other: who do the products and trends that define popular youth culture belong to? What's more, are the sexual and aggressive hormone-fueled behaviors on …

Norcal Vs. Socal: Culture As Communication, Jillian J. Smith

Communication Studies

No abstract provided.

Still Flying: The Communicative Constitution Of Browncoat Fandom As Culture, Jonathon Nicholas Lundy

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

In contemporary western culture, fandom is common. Many academics and members of the general public alike conceive of fandom as outside the norms of spectatorship; to be a spectator is to enjoy an interest individually and passively. However, others contend that fandom is a more significant cultural achievement.

This study qualitatively investigated how Browncoats, or fans of the cancelled television series Firefly , communicatively construct their fandom culture. Methods included participant observation, semi-structured interviews, data analysis through Grounded Theory, and a comparative thematic analysis of the original Firefly source texts and Browncoat cultural data in order to discover meaningful themes …

The Metaphysics Of Electronic Being, Michał Ostrowicki [Aka Sidey Myoo]

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article "The Metaphysics of Electronic Being" Michał Ostrowicki discusses the electronic environment as a sphere of being. To this end, the notion of the "electronic sphere" is used as a subject of ontological analysis. Ostrowicki postulates that the problematics of the electronic sphere represents a part of ontology and designates it as "ontoelectronics." He makes a distinction made between an electronic image and an electronic being, thus indicating that they differ from each other in their existential status and thereby deny any metaphysical equivalence between the two. This distinction between an electronic image and an electronic being is …

The Opppositional Framing Of Bloggers, Stephen D. Cooper

Communications Faculty Research

As a new feature of the media system, the blogosphere is an extremely interesting subject for scholarly inquiry. One might spend research time along a variety of lines: why people blog, why people read blog content, the relationship of the blogosphere to the established media outlets, the who/what/when of blog content production and consumption, the subject matter of blog posts, the effects of exposure to blog content, the potential for and limitations on interactions, and so on, for quite a long list. Given that the blogosphere is a recent addition to the media mix, and itself a (presumably) unintended consequence …