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Critical and Cultural Studies Commons

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Full-Text Articles in Critical and Cultural Studies

“I’M Real I Thought I Told Ya”: Developing Critical Media Literacy Through U.S. Latinx Digital Media Representations, Solange T. Castellar Jun 2020

“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, …


Like Me: Generation Z, Instagram, And Self-Branding Practices, Emily Longley Jan 2018

Like Me: Generation Z, Instagram, And Self-Branding Practices, Emily Longley

Scripps Senior Theses

The newest generation, raised and immersed in today's hyper-consumer culture, has learned to define the self within a neoliberal and capitalist framework in which self-branding and ascribing to hegemonic principles appears imperative to one’s personal success.


Mashup Archeology: A Case Study In The Role Of Digital Technology In Cultural Production, Zachary Mcdowell Jul 2016

Mashup Archeology: A Case Study In The Role Of Digital Technology In Cultural Production, Zachary Mcdowell

Doctoral Dissertations

Through examining the phenomena of the musical mashup against the backdrop of the contemporary American legal and economic situations, this work explores the complicated role of digital technology in contemporary cultural production and how it helps to constitute an agency of the contemporary digital subject, oriented towards participation and access. This research comes together in four parts, first weaving together against an understanding of the cultural and technical background as well as the legal and social backdrop that helped to birth the mashup, setting the stage for understanding the different powers at play. Secondly, through considering the construction and determination …


Damsels And Heroines: The Conundrum Of The Post-Feminist Disney Princess, Cassandra Stover Mar 2013

Damsels And Heroines: The Conundrum Of The Post-Feminist Disney Princess, Cassandra Stover

LUX: A Journal of Transdisciplinary Writing and Research from Claremont Graduate University

This research explores cultural shifts in the popularity of the Disney princess in American culture, especially its postmodern resurgence, as well as the complex relationship between Disney’s recent representations of women in the 1990’s and post-feminist ideology. My project begins by analyzing the historic appearance of the Disney female in relation to the women’s movements. I also examine lingering anti-feminist backlash in representations of what I call “New Wave” Disney heroines. Finally, I examine the implications of post-feminist discourse and advertising for young female viewers.


Monsanto Discovers New Social Media, Wilhelm Peekhaus Jan 2010

Monsanto Discovers New Social Media, Wilhelm Peekhaus

Wilhelm Peekhaus

As a number of critical commentators have pointed out for some years now, the Internet and other information and communication technologies are subject to capture by actors motivated less by calls for openness and democratic communication practices than by control, power, and profit. Employing the concept of “framing,” this paper offers a case study of how one company in particular, Monsanto, recently has engaged in vigorous efforts to develop and implement new communication and public relations strategies employing various forms of new social media. The findings are based on interviews with key communications personnel at Monsanto’s corporate head office in …