Social Influence and Political Communication Commons^™

Sexual Harassment Effects On Bodies Of Work: Engaging Students Through The Application Of Historical Context And Communication Theory To Pop Culture And Social Media, Bryan Vizzini, Kristina Drumheller

Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy

Rarely do professors have the opportunity to branch out and create a course that is literally shaped by the day’s news. The mediated unveiling of sexual predators in the summer of 2018 provided an opportunity to teach an honors seminar that wrote itself over the course of five weeks. Professors from the communication and history disciplines drew on theory commonly used in the communication discipline and used historical readings to frame a discussion of popular culture and its relation to current events. Each week, a film was incorporated for discussion and student projects were drawn from examples of popular culture, …

From The Vertical To The Horizontal: Introducing Mikhail Epstein’S Transculture To Perplexed Educators, Sheldon S. Kohn

Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy

A shift in focus from supporting or opposing vertical, grand narratives to the horizontal, the ordinary and the everyday, can lead educators to transformative developments. Educators find themselves in a false dichotomy of being restricted to supporting or opposing competing vertical utopian visions of education. Mikhail Epstein’s ideas about transculture can help perplexed educators make a shift from the vertical to the horizontal, focusing their praxis and pedagogy on the ordinary and the everyday, including objects and artifacts of popular culture. In a radical move, Epstein argues that commodification represents resistance to totalitarian controls and impulses; he urges educators to …

Euphemism In Ai Discourse As Colonial Harm & Effect: Learnings From Subaltern Puerto Rico, Jacqueline Oquendo

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Through three integrated studies, this dissertation explores complex human-AI interactions by comparing the perceptions of two groups of U.S. citizens: subaltern Puerto Ricans and stateside Americans’ interactions with ChatGPT. This corpus-assisted Critical Discourse Analysis or CLCDA, triangulated with 1:1 semi-structured interviews, validates scholars’ concerns about the biases inherent in generative AI. Contributing to those concerns, this dissertation reveals that ChatGPT deploys discourse strategies that, when executed, facilitate digital colonialism. Euphemistic language is prominent among its discourse strategies, replacing controversial words, phrases, and topics with more palatable ones. When prompted on events of historical significance, I find that ChatGPT’s discourse obscures …

The Psychological Impacts Of Algorithmic And Ai-Driven Social Media On Teenagers: A Call To Action, Sunil Arora, Sahil Arora, John Hastings

Research & Publications

This study investigates the meta-issues surrounding social media, which, while theoretically designed to enhance social interactions and improve our social lives by facilitating the sharing of personal experiences and life events, often results in adverse psychological impacts. Our investigation reveals a paradoxical outcome: rather than fostering closer relationships and improving social lives, the algorithms and structures that underlie social media platforms inadvertently contribute to a profound psychological impact on individuals, influencing them in unforeseen ways. This phenomenon is particularly pronounced among teenagers, who are disproportionately affected by curated online personas, peer pressure to present a perfect digital image, and the …

Carceral Liberalism: Feminist Voices Against State Violence, Andrea Michaels

Feminist Pedagogy

The following book review of Shreerekha Pillai’s Carceral Liberalism: Feminist Voices against State Violence (2023) is an expansive and timely collection of essays on the carceral state in its implications for feminist educators. This review focuses on the connections and connectivity of two essays in the collection that attempt to address a minor examination of the person as political.

We're Swarming Again! Swarming, Collectivity, And Trope: The Case Of Extinction Rebellion, Tyler J. Behymer

Department of Communication Studies: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This thesis explores the rhetoric of the eco-movement Extinction Rebellion, focusing on the use of swarming and nature tropes to mobilize collective action and revivify contemporary notions of collectivity. Drawing on rhetoric of social movement scholarship, cultural studies, and psychoanalysis, this essay theorizes swarming as a tropological economy that expands the conditions of propriety in the context of collectivity. Through an analysis of Extinction Rebellion’s discourse, this study demonstrates how the naturalization of swarming tropes works in various ways to rewild conventional political discourse, galvanize disruptive collective assembly, and challenge green neoliberalism.

Advisor: Casey Ryan Kelly

Introduction To Strategies And Outcomes, Lisa A. Leitz, Socrates Mbamalu

Peace Studies Faculty Books and Book Chapters

"In this, Volume 48 of Research in Social Movements, Conflicts and Change, chapters contribute to scholarship on the strategies and outcomes of social movements, with only one (Corrigall-Brown, this volume) exploring the relationship between the two and others examining each aspect of social movement scholarship independently."

Progressive Paradox In Political Rhetoric: The Hart-Celler Immigration Act Of 1965, Amanda Rolston Henderson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation investigates the interplay between U.S. norms for inclusion, the embedded role of religion within these norms, and how political rhetoric challenges or sustains them. Using a historical lens, I outline key moments in U.S. history, unravel central ideologies entrenched in U.S. narratives, and illuminate the ideographic function of the key concepts land, family, and work. These terms serve as conduits for conveying complex systems of meaning, which are entrenched in societal assumptions and concretized through political discourse and action.

These dynamics are demonstrated in a case study of the discourse surrounding the Hart-Celler Immigration Act …

Call And Response : Experiments In Storytelling, Deanne Fernandes

Masters Theses

Being part of RISD's inaugural Masters of Illustration cohort has been an immense honor. This journey has been nothing short of transformative and healing, as it has allowed me to unearth layers of self-discovery through my creative practice.

In my thesis, I introduce a fresh research methodology rooted in the principles of call and response, with adaptability, creativity, and storytelling as its foundational pillars. Through the lenses of visual storytelling, experimental animation, graphic journalism, and fictional world-building, I demonstrate how these techniques can effectively bridge the gap between theory and practice. This dynamic approach fosters meaningful connections among diverse perspectives …

Police Identity And The Role Of Media In A Contemporary Society: A Look At The Personal And Professional Effect On Law Enforcement, Nedra Lachelle Jones

College of Education Theses and Dissertations

Abstract This research study examined the impact of media on law enforcement and the secondary impact of this media on the relationship between law enforcement and the communities they serve. In addition, the study examined whether those perceptions influence police and community interactions and/or behaviors on the daily basis. This study describes the perceptions of police officers both professionally and personally as it relates to media coverage and the changing of their normal police tactics. The specific events that were focused on in this study included the shooting of Michael Brown by police in Ferguson, Missouri in August of 2014, …

Forbidden Fruit: Mary Cassatt’S Mural Of “Modern Woman” At The World’S Columbian Exposition, Chicago 1893, Tricia Cusack

Dublin Gastronomy Symposium

This paper considers a large mural of “The Modern Woman” painted in France by the American artist Mary Cassatt for the Woman’s Building at the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893. It focuses in particular on the large central panel of the mural titled Young Women Plucking the Fruits of Knowledge or Science that depicts women and girls apple-picking. Cassatt’s mural drew on various traditions and myths. Apple harvesting was a common sight in America. Cassatt’s title though points to the story of Eve and forbidden fruit, in which Eve seeks knowledge, but is severely punished for it. Cassatt …

Supporting South Korea’S Aging Population: How Ai And Iot Acceptance Connects The Young And Old, Bobby Im

Master's Projects and Capstones

In 2024, South Korea surpassed every other nation by becoming the country with the lowest fertility rate (below 0.7%). Population decline will hinder future ability to care for their aging population and although the government and private corporations are investing millions of dollars on developing Artificial Intelligence-Internet of Things (AI-IoT) devices to support the aging, the acceptance levels and the amount of family support required is undervalued. By examining AI-IoT’s current use and role in South Korea’s public health system this paper shows how intergenerational support helps optimize existing procedures and equipment, increases the level of acceptance and use, and …

"Because They Recognized Us": Triangulated Perspectives Of Syrian Mothers' Resettlement Experiences In The Eastern United States., Kayte Thomas

Journal of Applied Disciplines

Research indicates that post-resettlement experiences can be particularly challenging for people with refugee status. Despite finding safety in and adjusting to their new home, former refugees have indicated that this time can be stressful and even traumatic. The current Syrian crisis has created the largest wave of refugees ever known, and Syrian women are amongst the most vulnerable. However, women’s needs and preferences are often not taken into consideration during the resettlement journey and when they are, there is no distinction between mothers and their childless counterparts. As social workers strive to empower the individual person within their environment, it …

Researching Emotional Experiences As Discursive Elements – A Suggested Qualitative Method, Magnus Danielson

The Qualitative Report

As scholars in the fields of political science, media research, and social psychology endeavor to understand crucial aspects of emotionality in the media, there is a growing need to methodologically address the communicative and discursive aspects of affective constructions in media texts. This article argues that by breaking down mediated emotional experiences represented through language in a set of identifiable elements, such as subject, emotion type, valence, intensity, proposed action, and object, those experiences could be used as workable and potent units of analysis when studying discursive and ideological media constructs of emotionality. By connecting insights from emotion science, the …

That Way: An Examination Of Male Relationships In Film During The Hays Code, Jane Knudsen

Theses/Capstones/Creative Projects

The Hays Code (1934-1968) influenced the construct of United States masculinity and the discourse surrounding masculine presentation between the 1920s to the 1960s. The Hays Code and World War II affected the culture surrounding male/male relationships in the United States. Previous research done by David Lugowski (1999) and Jeffrey Suzik (1999) shows that both World Wars led to crises of masculinity in which the hegemonic ideal of masculinity was restructured to establish men as providers and warriors, and Code-era films reflected the discourse. To understand the gender roles in the 20^th century, I analyzed the Hays code, male bonds, …

A Compilation, Analysis, And Categorization Of 403 Atmospheric And Climate Science Misconceptions, Haeli Leighty

Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The National Association of Geoscience Teachers (NAGT) has listed the inaccessibility of research related to misconceptions in atmospheric and climate science as a Geoscience Education Research Grand Challenge (Cervato et al. 2018). This project was a direct response to this call for research and consisted of three distinct steps: 1) data gathering, which included reviewing the literature for relevant misconception data, 2) a qualitative analysis, which included compiling, organizing, and categorizing the data collected, and 3) a quantitative analysis, which included determining the prevalence of each misconception across topic categories, demographic categories, and over time. A total of 403 misconceptions …

A Rhetorical-Sociological Understanding Of Emotion, Amy Boone

All Dissertations

This project presents a rhetorical-sociological understanding of emotion while foregrounding the place and role of language. Born from Sara Ahmed’s work in The Cultural Politics of Emotion, it presents a simplified equation (contact + orientation = emotion) as both a prescriptive and descriptive formula for making sense of human emotional experience. Starting with an exploration of the difficult-to-understand affect system, this dissertation identifies both rhetoric and affect as energies which cannot be understood apart from their traces, the things they move, produce, and become. As a way to get at these often-invisible forces, two trace studies are conducted which explore …

Charge The Cockpit Or Die: An Anatomy Of Fear-Driven Political Rhetoric In American Conservatism, Daniel Hostetter

Senior Honors Theses

Subthreshold negative emotions have superseded conscious reason as the initial and strongest motivators of political behavior. Political neuroscience uses the concepts of negativity bias and terror management theory to explore why fear-driven rhetoric plays such an outsized role in determining human political actions. These mechanisms of human anthropology are explored by competing explanations from biblical and evolutionary scholars who attempt to understand their contribution to human vulnerabilities to fear. When these mechanisms are observed in fear-driven political rhetoric, three common characteristics emerge: exaggerated threat, tribal combat, and religious apocalypse, which provide a new framework for explaining how modern populist leaders …

Between Pages And Politics: An Interdisciplinary Exploration Of Book Bans, Hannah Morrison

Department of English: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Across the United States, school boards are being inundated with requests to ban books. While these conversations are often localized, what the rise in censorship across the country suggests is that there is a fierce movement behind censoring young adult literature. What is frequently erased in these campaigns are stories of people of color and queer communities, alongside topics such as sexuality, drugs, or violence. The presiding conclusion within childhood studies on how we have reached a point where censorship is abundantly common in American schools is that public discourse views children as less than or not fully formed, thus …

When The Opposition Dominates The Conversation (Twitter Network Analysis About The Controversial Indonesian Constitutional Court Decision), Rifki Nur Priyansyah, Rudi Reynal Sulaiman, Ferdi Raihan Firdaus

JURNAL KOMUNIKASI INDONESIA

The Constitutional Court of Indonesia decided to grant a request of the Deputy Chairman of the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) to extend the term of office of the KPK from 4 years to 5 years. This brought up public attention on Twitter, including members of the House of Representatives (DPR). Social network analysis was used to discover how the discussion appeared on the Twitter network and the actors involved (using indegree, outdegree, and betweenness centrality derived from graph theory). The Netlytic program recorded 6,195 uploads from May 25, 2023, to June 1, 2023. the Gephi application detects 3377 nodes and …

News Deserts And Voter Turnout: How Local News Shortages Decrease Voter Participation, Lauren Penington

Honors Program: Senior Projects (Public)

How does local news impact a county’s registered voter population, associated voting patterns, and political participation? Electoral turnout is one of the most studied topics in political science, and substantial research exists into demographic factors — including race, age, and socioeconomic status — that influence an individual’s likelihood to vote. Recent studies have begun to examine the impact of societal factors — such as the internet, social media, and news — on an individual’s ability to and likelihood of fulfilling their civic obligation. This paper explores the relationship between expanding news deserts and decreasing voter turnout, proposing that as a …

Age And Ideology: The Emergence Of New Political Cleavages In Thailand’S 2566 (2023) Election, Napon Jatusripitak, Jacob Ricks

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

The Move Forward Party’s victory in Thailand’s 14 May 2566 (2023 CE) election surprised most observers, defying widespread predictions of a Pheu Thai win. Departing from traditional vote-mobilization strategies, Move Forward’s campaign focused largely on social media and broad calls for political reform while eschewing the vote-canvassing networks and economic policy promises that had delivered victory after victory for Pheu Thai. Does Move Forward’s win indicate changes in Thai voting behaviour? Relying on data from an original survey collected the week before and the week after the election, as well as observations from fieldwork, we identify two political cleavages that …

Trust Me: Film + Q&A; (February 22, 2024, 5:30 Pm, Sheldon Museum Of Art) [Poster], Sheldon Museum Of Art, University Of Nebraska-Lincoln

Sheldon Museum of Art: Catalogs and Publications

Poster for Trust Me: Film + Q&A held February 22, 2024 at 5:30 PM at the Sheldon Museum of Art (University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln, Nebraska, United States).

Poster blurb:

In today's information landscape, how do you know whom--and what--you can trust? Watch the award-winning, feature-length documentary Trust Me, which explores how media technology is influencing society and what we can do about it.

A Q&A with Rosemary Smith, filmmaker and managing director of the non-partisan Getting Better Foundation, follows.

More information about the screening is available at https://news.unl.edu/newsrooms/today/article/trust-me-documentary-to-screen-at-sheldon/.

More information about the film is available at https://www.trustmedocumentary.com/ …

What Does One Billion Dollars Look Like?: Visualizing Extreme Wealth, William Mahoney Luckman

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The word “billion” is a mathematical abstraction related to “big,” but it is difficult to understand the vast difference in value between one million and one billion; even harder to understand the vast difference in purchasing power between one billion dollars, and the average U.S. yearly income. Perhaps most difficult to conceive of is what that purchasing power and huge mass of capital translates to in terms of power. This project blends design, text, facts, and figures into an interactive narrative website that helps the user better understand their position in relation to extreme wealth: https://whatdoesonebilliondollarslooklike.website/

The site incorporates …

Religious Symbolism In Rhetoric Of Right Populist Parties, Serhii Kostiuchkov, Dmytro Garaschuk, Viacheslav Serhieiev, Kateryna Volkova

Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe

This article explores the use of religious symbolism in the populist rhetoric of Poland's Law and Justice (PiS) party and Hungary's Fidesz party. Both parties leverage historical and cultural narratives emphasizing Christianity's role in their national identities to legitimize their political agendas and mobilize support. The study examines how these populist leaders incorporate religious imagery and language to create a moral dichotomy between the “righteous people” and the “corrupt elite,” thereby deepening societal divisions and undermining democratic governance. In Poland, the PiS party's close alignment with the Catholic Church reinforces its nationalist and anti-EU stance, while in Hungary, Fidesz employs …

Identifying Youth Appeals In Alcohol Alternative Social Media Content Through Framing, Melina Oneal

West Chester University Master’s Theses

Proposed regulations for alcohol advertising prevent beverage companies from targeting people under the legal drinking age. However, similar regulations for alcohol alternative beverages are less explored, which could allow alcohol alternative products to create awareness for alcoholic beverages among youth. Alcohol alternatives beverages, including no-alcohol and low-alcohol products, are increasing in popularity and can function as compliments to alcoholic products to decrease the total alcohol volume consumed or as substitutes for alcoholic products. Framing theory can be operationalized through the Content Appealing to Youth Index, an index of content elements found in research literature to be appealing to youth, to …

When Ballots Are Blank: Write-In’S Serving Local Government And The Implications For A Healthy And Vibrant Democracy, Thomas J. Ruter

School of Business Student Theses and Dissertations

Our democracy depends on having a supply of candidates running for elected office, but in some instances, no one wants to run. This phenomenological study asks what the effects on a healthy and vibrant democracy are if ballots are blank and the seat is filled through write-in or appointment. Rooted in democratic theory, this study explores small, rural city elections where write-ins won election. Understudied, local governments are responsible for decisions affecting the lives of millions of people each day. Workforce scarcity, the alienation of young Americans from politics, government bashing, nasty campaigns, threats of physical harm, and other barriers …

Women In White Christian Nationalism, Danielle M. Urton

SPARK Symposium Presentations

This paper analyzes the appeals of White Christian Nationalism (WCN) to the “subordinate” demographic of white women, with specific attention to the use of rhetoric across the movement to attract women as allies, supporters, and promoters of the ideology.

Effects Of Dehumanization And Disgust-Eliciting Language On Attitudes Toward Immigration: A Sentiment Analysis Of Twitter Data, Katherine S. Wahrer, Cynthia J. Najdowski, John V. Passarelli

Psychology Faculty Scholarship

Attitudes towards immigration have been shown to be driven by dehumanization and disgust. The more people dehumanize immigrants and the more disgusted they feel, the more negative attitudes they tend to have toward immigrants. However, little is known about how exposure to social media content that links dehumanization, disgust, and immigration influences users’ attitudes on this issue. This is important to consider because the majority of adults in the United States are on social media. We used Twitter data, machine learning, and sentiment analysis to investigate whether exposure to dehumanizing or disgust-eliciting tweets about immigration impacts users’ own sentiment toward …

Discourses That Undermine Union Movements: A Multimodal Analysis Of Union-Busting Videos, Theresa A. Catalano, Julia Schleck

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

Labor unions in the United States have experienced decades of decline, but recent years have seen a rebirth of union campaigns and successes. Because unions are once again becoming a threat to large companies, it is reasonable to assume that efforts to discourage organizing efforts will increase and become even more robust in the near future. Although traditionally, companies have worked to suspend union organizing through captive audience meetings in which unions were discussed via verbal or written modes, more recent means of reaching workers with anti-union messages incorporate a variety of communication strategies to get the message across. As …