Political Science Commons^™

Seeing Candidates Through A Gendered Lens: How Differential Media Coverage Serves As A Barrier To Women's Political Participation, Shelby Bremer '10

Honor Scholar Theses

1992 was a banner year for women in politics, even earning the moniker “Year of the Woman,” thanks to the election of four women to the United States Senate at one time, an unprecedented feat in the realm of female political representation (‘Year of the Woman’). Twenty years later, in November 2012, that record was shattered, when more women ran for, and were elected to Congress than ever before. “Not since the so‐called Year of the Woman in 1992 have we seen such a leap in the number of women stepping forward to contend for Congressional seats, “ said Debbie …

Chieftaincy-Based Community Dispute Resolution: The Case Of Sierra Leone, Whitney Mcintyre Miller

Education Faculty Articles and Research

Sierra Leone suffered a destructive 11-year civil war that largely left its communities torn apart and in need of vast redevelopment. One of the ways that communities are rebuilding and making efforts to move forward is through the chieftaincy-based community dispute resolution process. Based on historical norms, this process involves the community leader, or chief, helping to resolve disputes within the community. This article reviews this chieftaincy-based community dispute resolution process, discusses the types of disputes settled, and provides broader lessons learned for communities who may be interested in truly community-based dispute resolution.

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 …

Disease, War, And Famine In The Sudan And Haiti: A Crisis Noticed And A Crisis Ignored, Melissa Whalen

Masters Theses

The media acts as a gatekeeper and decides what material to cover and what not to cover. In order to better understand why one disaster receives media coverage and another crisis is virtually unnoticed by the media, the motives behind covering one story over another is analyzed in this study. Three major American newspaper articles concerning the Haitian earthquake and the crisis in Darfur are examined in order to discover the media's motives for covering Haiti over Darfur.

Overseas Drone Attacks Test Constitution's Precepts, David Houghton

UCF Forum

We are occasionally reminded just how difficult it can be for Congress to keep tabs on what the executive branch does.

Teori Kekuasaan Michel Foucault: Tantangan Bagi Sosiologi Politik, Abdil Mughis Mudhoffir

Masyarakat: Jurnal Sosiologi

Power is often discussed in political discourse or in political sociology. In this context, power is understood as the attribution, capacity, or capital to achieve certain goals of the owners. Foucault does not reject this argument, but this perspective would not be able to expose the invisible subjugation. The more critical view of power appears in cultural studies. Gramsci’s concept of hegemony is often used to dismantle the cultural establishment in the process of domination that was veiled. The more sophisticated findings, power has surpassed even the hegemonic ways, which is factually or coined by Foucault as governmentality. This paper …

If We Are A 'Civilized' Society, We Must Find A Way To Stop Violence, David Houghton

UCF Forum

Other nations genuinely look to America as an example, a shining “city upon a hill,” as Massachusetts Bay colony’s first Gov. John Winthrop famously put it. But they cannot understand what they often call America’s “love affair” with guns.

A Propaganda Model Case Study Of Abc Primetime ‘North Korea: Inside The Shadows’, Sherri L. Ter Molen

Communication Faculty Research Publications

In 2006, Diane Sawyer became the first American journalist to broadcast live from inside North Korea. Her trip ended with an hour-long special programme scrutinising life in what she considers possibly ‘the most dangerous flashpoint on Earth’ (Sawyer 2006). The threat Sawyer actually presents, however, is not that of a nuclear-armed country but of a country whose regime, despite the will of the people, refuses to be a major market for US consumer goods. Applying Herman and Chomsky’s propaganda model of media operations, I conduct a discourse analysis of the textual and visual symbols Sawyer uses in illustrating …

Building Coalitions, Making Policy: The Politics Of The Clinton, Bush, And Obama Presidencies, By Martin A. Levin, Daniel Disalvo, And Martin M. Shapiro, Eds., José Villalobos

Selected Works Temporary Series

No abstract provided.

Ua35/4 2012-2013 Annual Report, Wku International Programs

WKU Administration Documents

2012-2013 report of WKU International Programs & Study Abroad & Global Learning.

Building Coalitions, Making Policy: The Politics Of The Clinton, Bush, And Obama Presidencies, By Martin A. Levin, Daniel Disalvo, And Martin M. Shapiro, Eds., José Villalobos

Departmental Papers (PS)

No abstract provided.

Good Publicity: The Legitimacy Of Public Communication Of Deliberation, Chad Raphael, Christopher F. Karpowitz

Communication

Although deliberative democratic theory values the principle of publicity, few empirical studies systematically assess the public communication of civic groups that deliberate over policy. The proliferation of such groups in contemporary politics, and of uncertainty about their legitimacy, suggests the need for such study. Drawing on contemporary deliberative theory, we derive a set of legitimate publicity indicators for assessing how well groups report their deliberative processes and policy conclusions. We demonstrate the reliability and utility of these measures in a comparative content analysis of the final reports of three common kinds of deliberative bodies: a governmentstakeholder task force, an activist …

Sharing What Works Through South-South Cooperation: The Case Of The Risk Reduction Management Centre Replication Project, Rachel M. Cohn

Capstone Collection

The Risk Reduction Management Centre (RRMC) Replication Project, an initiative of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), aims to take a Cuban best practice in disaster risk reduction and adapt it to the local context of five other Caribbean countries. This project differs from most development projects in that the individuals and institutions providing the assistance (in this case technical training and know-how) are themselves from a developing country (Cuba). This model, wherein developing countries provide resources, information, and training to other developing countries, is known as South-South Cooperation (SSC).

This capstone uses the case of the RRMC Replication Project …

The Celebrity Burden: Celebrity Campaigns In The Pursuit Of Humanitarianism, Regina Akosua Dede Baiden

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports - Open

Celebrity participation in humanitarianism and politics has received a lot of attention in recent times. Though many researchers have sought to explain the reasons underlying this phenomenon, there appears to be little information as to the efficacy of these celebrity efforts. The present research thus undertakes an analysis of the celebrity's participation through a study on the effectiveness of the celebrity-led campaign. To achieve this, I conduct a discourse and visual analysis of media publications surrounding two celebrity-led campaigns. The research leans heavy on theories underlining the celebrity mechanism and Street et al's framework on celebrity participation in politics. The …

The Press, Democracy And History: Journalism And Democracy In Transitional Societies, Michael Foley

Doctoral

In 1989 the Berlin Wall came down signalling the beginning of the end of the post World-War-Two settlement that had divided Europe and created the Cold War. The communist world crumbled over a few years, but at a cost. There was a bitter war in the Balkans, shorter, but equally bitter conflicts in the Caucuses as well as in Central Asia. The Soviet Union fell apart leaving in its place new states varying in size from huge countries like Ukraine to the tiny states of the Baltic coast and Kyrgyzstan in far Central Asia. There was also enormous poverty as …

Sarah Palin And The Media During The Elections, Angelica Olmos Urbina

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The purpose of this study is to analyze former candidate Sarah Palin's portrayal by the media during the 2008 political campaign for vice-president of the United States. Through media framing, political communication, politics and the media, the study will present a qualitative study on her portrayal through two different media sources. The presidential elections of 2008 involved two women, a first in American history, and made waves for varying reasons. The purpose of the study is to build a greater understanding between the unique relationship between the media and political candidates.

Reading The Tea Leaves: The Media And Sino-American Rapprochement, 1963-1972, Guolin Yi

Wayne State University Dissertations

This dissertation aims to find out what role(s) the media in the United States and China played in their historic rapprochement from 1963 to 1972. In order to examine how they covered the major events that affected Sino-American relations, I select seven elite U.S. media and two Chinese official newspapers to study. These media include: the New York Times, Washington Post, Time, Newsweek, CBS, ABC, NBC, People's Daily, and Reference News,

The study is based on the assumption that media, instead of reporting the information "objectively," have the ability to affect the content they deliver and set the agenda for …

Cheap, Easy, Or Connected: The Conditions For Creating Group Coordination, Mathew D. Mccubbins, Daniel Rodriguez, Nicholas Weller

Faculty Scholarship

In both legal and political settings there has been a push toward adopting institutions that encourage consensus. The key feature of these institutions is that they bring interested parties together to communicate with each other. Existing research about the success or failure of particular institutions is ambiguous. Therefore, we turn our attention to understanding the general conditions when consensus is achievable, and we test experimentally three crucial factors that affect a group's ability to achieve consensus: (1) the difficulty of the problem, (2) the costs of communication, and (3) the structure of communication. Using multiple experimental approaches, we find that …

Governing Through Permanent Campaigning: Media Usage And Press Freedom In Ecuador, Maria J. Flor Agreda

Calvert Undergraduate Research Awards

In Ecuador, media and politics have been historically tied together. Over time, the banking industry has had financial stakes in the media and vice versa. Yet, from the time that President Rafael Correa took office in 2007, the situation has been turned around. Correa has used a permanent campaign to appeal to the public and change the media ownership environment of the country. The President’s strategy has included the acquisition of private media such as newspapers, and radio and television station; as well as the establishment of governmental media entities. Additionally, as part of Correa’s permanent campaign scheme, the president …

Intercultural Training: A Thesis Project, Laura Snyder

Communication & Leadership Dissertations and Theses

This study examines the scholarly journals and literature of intercultural competency, intercultural communication, and the communication theories examining culture shock, cross-cultural adaptation, immersion techniques, and training methods used in multicultural competence. It then presents intercultural training modules with the ambition to be adopted and incorporated into all intercultural expatriation trainings utilized both by private individuals, as well as international businesses and government programs with employees relocating internationally. The training modules are specifically directed at learners who need to know about the cultural climate, rules, and communication expectations of Singapore.

Women For Obama: A Metaphor Criticism Of Political Facebook Use, Natasha Merkle

Communication & Leadership Dissertations and Theses

The political rhetoric of U.S. Presidential Elections has been studied for years, but not significantly through the lens of social media. While the statistical relevance of social media as a political communication tool is not yet widespread, the numbers have grown drastically since 2008. This increase in usage prompted the author to determine how rhetoric is most effectively communicated over social media to key audiences. This study is a metaphor criticism of the Women for Obama Facebook page as it appeared during the final 90 days prior to the 2012 U.S. Presidential Election. Four metaphors are used to describe the …

Examining The Influence Of National And Organizational Culture On Performance Evaluation And Recognition Structures In A Multinational Organization, Katie Bliven

Communication & Leadership Dissertations and Theses

This study examines how well organizational culture functions as a mechanism to support diversity and respect for employees’ national culture in a multinational organization. Hofstede’s theory of cultural dimensions and Ting-Toomey’s face negotiation theory provide a framework for understanding the needs and expectations of individual employees regarding performance evaluation and recognition from leaders for culture-specific skill sets. The study was conducted at a multinational call center located in Ireland, where employees negotiate the collection of negative balances for online payment accounts belonging to customers in the EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa) and APAC (Asia Pacific) regions of the world. …

Voter Suppression: The Rhetoric Of New Voting Laws And The Republican Agenda, Michael C. Mcgee

Communication & Leadership Dissertations and Theses

This study examines the rhetoric used by Republican politicians regarding voter ID laws. Using Kenneth Burke’s theory of cluster analysis, key words and clustering terms are analyzed to identify the speaker’s worldview. The main sections include: philosophical assumptions about political rhetoric, the theoretical basis derived from Burke’s identification and victimage theories, a review of literature on the history of voting in the United States, results and discussion from the analysis of selected rhetoric from Republican politicians, and areas of further study. Statements from Republican politicians in Iowa, Texas, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania were selected for the analysis. The results of …

Effects Of Social Media On Individual Voting, Noel Albert Bermudez

Communication & Leadership Dissertations and Theses

In the 2008 presidential campaign, Barack Obama established social media as an essential part of the campaign toolbox. Twitter, a widely-used social media site, provides a means of creating virtual communities that can instantly send messages and move "followers" to action. This thesis seeks to ascertain if Twitter messages - sent to known supporters by a presidential campaign asking a person to vote - can positively affect that person's likelihood to cast a ballot and, if so, would that vote be for the candidate whose campaign tweeted the message. Media ecology, as proposed by Marshall McLuhan and developed by Neil …

The Effects Of The Norm Of International Election Monitoring On Voters' Confidence Levels In Francophone West Africa's Presidential Elections 1990-2011, Lauren E. Gilliss

Senior Independent Study Theses

International election monitoring is a phenomenon that began to spread rapidly in the 1990s and has since become an essential element of elections in the developing world. This study assesses the relationship between the presence of international election monitors during presidential elections and levels of voters' confidence in the electoral process. Several questions guide the study: How did the norm of international election monitoring develop and how widely do governments adhere to this norm? Are citizens more confident in the efficacy and transparency of presidential elections when international monitors are present? I hypothesize that when governments adhere to the norm …

Bowling Online : The Internet And The New Social Capital., Jason Gainous, Kevin M. Wagner

Faculty and Staff Scholarship

The decline thesis proponents in the social capital literature have largely ignored the fastest growing venue for new social capital formation – the Internet. We argue that the Internet is making a larger impact than the current research acknowledges. Using survey data from the Pew Internet & American Life Project combined with a survey of college students, we confirm a strong positive relationship between online social networking and political participation. Further, we present evidence that, at least in 2008 election, there was a bias toward voting for Democrats among those who utilized online social networking services including Facebook and Twitter. …

Iran In U.S. Corporate And Regional Media: A Content Analysis Of The New York Times, The Washington Post, Rooz Online, Al Jazeera And Iran Review, Justin Hyde

Master's Theses

There has been an increase in tension between the United States government and the Islamic Republic of Iran over the past decade. A number of events including the US- led invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan and the expansion of Iran’s nuclear program have strained this fragile relationship. The U.S. and its allies contend that Iran’s nuclear program is intended for arms proliferation while the Islamic Republic of Iran states it is for domestic power and research. Much of this conflict has played out in news media, which have a vital role to provide information, analysis and opportunities for dialogue as …

Is The Daily Show Bad For Democracy? An Analysis Of Cynicism And Its Significance, Evan Bartlett

Honors Projects in History and Social Sciences

In recent years, satirical news programs like The Daily Show with Jon Stewart have emerged as an important development in contemporary American society, culture, and politics. Critics have argued that The Daily Show has a negative impact on the political attitudes of American citizens by making them cynical about government and the political process as a whole. As a result of these attitudes, they argue, citizens are less apt to participate in politics and, in turn, this behavior is detrimental to American democracy. The purpose of this research project is to explore the debate over whether or not The Daily …

Manager-In-Chief: Applying Public Management Theory To Examine White House Chief Of Staff Performance, David Cohen, Justin Vaughn, José Villalobos

Selected Works Temporary Series

In an effort to examine the causal determinants of performance dynamics for the administrative presidency, we apply empirical public management theory to White House administration to explain managerial performance. Utilizing original survey data that measures the perceptions of former officials from the Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and Clinton administrations, we conduct quantitative analyses to determine the extent to which a chief of staff’s background, relationship with the president, and internal as well as external management approaches shape overall perceptions of White House administrative efforts. We find that managerial dimensions matter considerably when explaining the dynamics of White House organizational performance.

Manager-In-Chief: Applying Public Management Theory To Examine White House Chief Of Staff Performance, David Cohen, Justin Vaughn, José Villalobos

Departmental Papers (PS)

In an effort to examine the causal determinants of performance dynamics for the administrative presidency, we apply empirical public management theory to White House administration to explain managerial performance. Utilizing original survey data that measures the perceptions of former officials from the Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and Clinton administrations, we conduct quantitative analyses to determine the extent to which a chief of staff’s background, relationship with the president, and internal as well as external management approaches shape overall perceptions of White House administrative efforts. We find that managerial dimensions matter considerably when explaining the dynamics of White House organizational performance.