Speech and Rhetorical Studies Commons^™

Designing A Drama-Based Arts Ministry For The North 10th And Treadaway Church Of Christ, Curtis Alexander King

Doctor of Ministry Theses

The North 10th and Treadaway Church of Christ (“Treadaway”) is a small, predominantly African American congregation located in Abilene, Texas, home of Abilene Christian University (“ACU”) and several other institutions of higher learning. Considering ACU’s Church of Christ heritage and continued affiliation with the Churches of Christ, it is no surprise that Treadaway has often served as a “home away from home” congregation for ACU students and recent graduates who choose to remain in the city. The level of integration of the students from ACU and other local colleges into the life and ministry of Treadaway has varied greatly over …

“Yo Sí Soy Boricua, Pa’ Que Tú Lo Sepas”: A Decolonial And Intersectional Analysis Of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Jocelin Monge

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

Historically speaking, political representation in Congressional districts in the U.S. has been predominantly White and male. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) is an example of a type of new mestizaconsciousness (Anzaldúa, 1987) given she is the youngest Latina congresswoman ever been elected to serve New York’s 14th Congressional District. This study employs an intersectional analysis on AOC’s viral moments with ‘The Squad’, Puerto Rico, Vogue, and Met Gala. Through a theoretical lens composed of elements of intersectionality (Crenshaw, 1991) and mestiza consciousness (Anzaldúa, 1987), this study focuses on three significant recurrent themes found in AOC’s estilos de resistencia or sensibilities …

Argumentation For Critical Heterogenous Political Discussions: Constructing A Rebuttal, Rebecca Oliver

Discourse: The Journal of the SCASD

This activity seeks to explain to undergraduate students how to craft a proper attack and defense in argumentation and debate, persuasion, or political communication courses. The activity teaches students 1) the parts of a basic argument structure and 2) how to construct a rebuttal using a basic argument structure. Students will argue against their true political typology by selecting an opposing typology from the Pew Research Typology Quiz. Broadly, this exercise is designed to encourage students to engage in dialogues with people who disagree with their political positionality. Specifically, the activity accomplishes this by teaching students the value of basic …

Encoding & Decoding: Artfully Modeling Communication, Daniel L. Foster, Ashley D. Garcia

Discourse: The Journal of the SCASD

Drawing objects and concepts, such as cats, trees, love, democracy, and family, is probably the last activity students expect to do in a communication course. Although this sounds like an introductory art activity, creating visual representations provides a nuanced understanding of the encoding and decoding processes. Encoding and decoding are the most hidden and often the most unfamiliar and complex fundamental components of communication for students to comprehend. By engaging in this activity, students translate their decoding process into drawings, which serve as personal artifacts representative of their encoding and decoding. Students come to better conceptualize this cognitive process with …

“Party In The Communication Classroom”: Exploring Communication Competence To Raise Social Awareness, Nancy Bressler

Discourse: The Journal of the SCASD

This activity demonstrates communication competence and allows students to observe, assess, and ultimately utilize the model of communication competence to engage with other people successfully. To understand how to engage in communication competence, students must recognize that appropriateness and effectiveness are crucial aspects of their communication. Through the communication competence model, students examine how to achieve effectiveness in their communication by setting goals for specific contexts; they also consider to what extent their goals are achievable given the particular situation. Using a 2014 MTV Video Music Award example, students can analyze why Miley Cyrus allowed a homeless man to accept …

Introducing Public Speaking Self-Concept (Pssc): A Novel, Qualitatively-Derived Communication Anxiety And Competence Variable, Karla M. Hunter, Joshua N. Westwick

Discourse: The Journal of the SCASD

Despite numerous quantitative assessments of teaching interventions that have helped mitigate public speaking anxiety (PSA), this common barrier to public speaking persists. In addition, quantitative measures may not be appropriate for all instructional goals, especially with students from across a variety of cultures. To enrich educators’ capacity to help diverse bodies of students overcome the challenges presented by PSA, this qualitative study asked students to “Please describe yourself as a public speaker” at the beginning and the end of a freshman-level, general education public speaking class. Thematic analysis identified a two-dimensional pattern within student responses (N = 51) (a …

Front Matter

Discourse: The Journal of the SCASD

No abstract provided.

Discourse: The Journal Of The Scasd, Volume 8 (2023), The Speech Communication Association Of South Dakota

Discourse: The Journal of the SCASD

No abstract provided.

Off The Rails: Cinematic Trains As Technological Controls Of The Natural World, Trinity Thompson

Honors Theses

Short train rail lines across the United States are seeing increased national funding to reduce toxic chemical spills caused by train derailments, the most notable of which happened in February 2023 in East Palestine, Ohio. A year prior, the film White Noise (2022) featured a similar toxic train derailment incident, taking place, too, in Eastern Ohio, and featuring actors from the town of East Palestine. In considering other films featuring trains, I identified a pattern of environmental conflict, leading me to question the relationship between trains and the natural environment as portrayed in popular cinema. To conduct my research, I …

Queer Crises: Movements From Queerness And Feelings Of White Religion In The United States, Austin Williams Miller

Communication ETDs

Anchored by contemporary crises surrounding queer and trans people in the United States, I employ movements from queerness within an affective queer phenomenological framework to understand how arrangements of “white religion” (Schaefer, 2015, p. 63), a process whereby U.S. American Christian forms escape ideology into religious affective economies in the United States, relegate queer people “to the background… to sustain a certain direction” (Ahmed, 2006, p. 31). I assemble a queer rhetorical context analyzing white religious space in documentary film, secular sexual regulation through contemporary U.S. legal contexts around marriage, and settler colonial Christian nationalist political imaginations to critique how …

“Civil Dialogue” As Feminist Pedagogy: Engendering Material And Symbolic Movement, Sarah E. Jones

Feminist Pedagogy

In the United States, we are socialized to think in Western dualisms, and these patterns of communication characterize discussion of social issues. Consequently, discussion becomes debate and dominant approaches to inquiry are privileged over experience with persuasion being the end goal. Fostering agency, cultivating empathetic understanding, and facilitating critical thought are made more difficult—outcomes that are neither productive nor edifying in the college classroom. This original teaching activity resists hierarchical forms of debate in favor of visibility and solidarity in discussions of gendered violence. Grounded in principles of invitational rhetoric and provocation, the activity uses a “Civil Dialogue” format to …

Recovering A Missional Ecclesiology: A Framework For Reviving Congregational Mission Within The Baptist Union Of Victoria, Gayle Hill

Doctor of Ministry Theses

ABSTRACT This project is an intervention to develop a theological and theoretical framework

that will become the foundation for a future curriculum for recovering a missional ecclesiology for the pastors of the Baptist Union of Victoria (BUV). Despite mission being central to the overall vision of the BUV, declining numbers, the post-COVID context in Victoria, and an overarching post-Christian and pluralistic context have significantly challenged the centrality and functioning of mission across our denomination. The impetus of this project was the observation that our churches were floundering rather than flourishing in the missional space. Many chronic and acute provocations were …

"Don't Put Restrictions On Us": The Dangers Of Conservative And Populist Appeals For Abortion Access In Post-Roe America, Kayla Schmitz

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

This thesis critically analyzes Kansans for Constitutional Freedom’s campaign ads for their campaign against the Value Them Both Amendment in Kansas in 2022. Value Them Both would have stripped the Kansas constitution of its protection of personal autonomy and therefore abortion rights. Kansans for Constitutional Freedom used populist and otherwise conservative appeals in their ads to reach audiences across the political “spectrum” to gain their votes against Value Them Both. While the campaign was widely successful, there are many things it did not do for the broader concern of reproductive healthcare access in the United States, particularly for those living …

The Erasure Of Rural West Texas Voices In Higher Education Institutions An Autoethnographic Study Of Minoritized Students Of West Texas In Their Journey To Obtain Success In Higher Education Institutions, David Whaley-Weems Sr

All Dissertations

I was once told there is a person in the world who has locked within his or her mind the framework for the cure for cancer or even the ability to create an energy model that will revolutionize how society consumes natural resources. Now imagine if I told you I have seen that person alive and well working as an oil well driller on a rig in Mentone, Texas. The first question most people would ask is, “Why is the person drilling in the middle of nowhere Texas instead of impacting the world by way of displaying his or her …

“We Felt Powerful And Rebellious”: Contested Spaces, Lesbian Identity, And The Evolution Of Separatism, Sarah Cooper

All Dissertations

Drawing on theoretical perspectives from lesbian studies, queer theory and studies and, feminist rhetorics while using rhetorical analysis, interviews, and archival research, this project traces the relationships lesbians have had to place, through case studies. To date, research on how space occupancy or land practices have contributed to the constitution of a contemporary lesbian identity in the United States lack scholarly attention. My following chapters ask: how has separatism historically and at present contributed to the constitution of lesbian identity? To answer, I turn to archival evidence of women’s lands in Southern Oregon, Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival, and Olivia Travel. …

Constructing A Theological Framework That Revitalizes The Missional Nature Of Churches Of Christ In South Australia, Mark Daniel Riessen

Doctor of Ministry Theses

This thesis addresses the need for a theological framework that revitalizes the missional nature of Churches of Christ in South Australia. The problem identified within this ministry context was a lack of clear theological principles that informed a common understanding of identity for missional engagement. The purpose of the project was to create a study guide that informs common theological commitments and grounds congregations for missional vitality. A research and development team made up of seven Church of Christ ministers from different backgrounds was assembled to design a curriculum that addressed the problem. Through eight two-hour sessions over four months …

Stand-Up Comedy Visualized, Berna Yenidogan

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Stand-up comedy has become an increasingly popular form of comedy in the recent years and comedians reach audiences beyond the halls they are performing through streaming services, podcasts and social media. While comedic performances are typically judged by how 'funny' they are, which could be proxied by the frequency and intensity of laughs through the performance, comedians also explore untapped social issues and provoke conversation, especially in this age where interaction with artists goes beyond their act. It is easy to see commonalities in the topics addressed in comedians’ work such as relationships, race and politics.This project provides an interactive …

Faking And Conspiring About Covid-19: A Discursive Approach, Rosa Scardigno, Alessia Paparella, Francesca D'Errico

The Qualitative Report

In the more general climate of post-truth - a social trend reflecting a disregard for reliable ways of knowing what is true, mostly acted through massive use of misinformation and rhetoric calling for emotions - an alarming “infodemic” accompanied the COVID-19 pandemic, affecting healthy attitudes and behaviors and further lessening trust in science, institutions, and traditional media. Its two main representative items, fake and conspiracy news, have been widely analyzed in psycho-social research, even if scholars mostly acknowledged the cognitive and social dimensions of those items and devoted less attention to their discursive construction. In addition, these works did not …