Gender, Race, Sexuality, and Ethnicity in Communication Commons^™

2026 Diversity Climate Survey Report, Illinois Math And Science Academy

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion: Resources

No abstract provided.

Corporate Response To The Black Lives Matter Movement: Determinants Of Speaking Out In Support Of Social Causes, A. J. Yuan Chen, Patricia M. Dechow, Samuel T. Tan

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

We document that firms vary in their timeliness of support for the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement following the death of George Floyd in May 2020, and that timeliness is an indicator of authenticity. We predict that firms that speak out quickly in support of BLM (via Twitter or their websites) have made more investments in diversity and inclusion, relative to firms that speak out slowly (via conference calls or annual reports) or that remain silent. Consistent with this prediction, quick-disclosing firms have greater workforce diversity, have boards with greater ethnic diversity, and are more likely to tie executive compensation …

Beyond The Sidelines: A Qualitative Analysis Proposal Of How Female Athletes Reclaim Narratives Via Digital Ownership, Kaitlyn Kirschner

Posters - 2026

The Gatekeeping Model: Traditional sports media operates through a centralized gatekeeping system, in which editorial filtering determines the information disseminated to the public (Wilderness Agency, 2021). Narrative Control: Such centralization strongly shapes the portrayal of athletes’ identities and restricts the visibility of individuals outside mainstream sports. The 90/10 Coverage Gap: Despite the expansion of professional leagues, women’s sports continue to receive less than 10% of total media coverage (I Play Like a Girl, 2024). Standardized Reporting: Established broadcasting practices and commercial priorities have historically resulted in standardized reporting that favors male-dominated sports (Doyle et al., 2021). Systemic Inequity: These frameworks …

Under The Cover Of Blackness: The Racialized Dimensions Of Netflix’S Personalized Cover Art, Daphne Gershon

Communication Studies Faculty Scholarship

This article explores the mechanisms that shape how race is represented in online TV interfaces by analyzing Netflix’s personalized cover art, an essential digital paratext designed to attract viewers through individualized images. Netflix has previously been accused of using its personalized cover art or thumbnails in racially biased ways, displaying either Black or white characters based on the presumed race of users. To further existing research on this digital feature, this article focuses not just on whether Black characters are represented, but also on how they are represented. Through an exploratory pilot study that involves the creation of different algorithmic …

Bridging Cultures: Developing A Culturally Responsive Educational Website For Pediatric Service Providers, Aimun Aziz, Wendy Tremaine

Spring 2026 OTD Capstone Symposium

The increasing cultural diversity of the pediatric population in the United States highlights the need for culturally responsive, family-centered care. However, many providers report limited training and practical resources to support the integration of cultural humility into clinical practice. This capstone project aimed to develop and evaluate an evidence-based educational website to support pediatric service providers in delivering culturally responsive care.

A program development framework was used, incorporating family needs assessments, pre- and post-intervention surveys of pediatric therapy staff, and thematic analysis of key factors related to communication, trust, and provider preparedness. Community field visits with diverse populations informed the …

Eyes Wide Shut: Sex Trafficking In The Black Community, Stephany Powell

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

No abstract provided.

What’S Critical In Critical Media Literacy? Barriers And Good Practices In Adult Education, Stefanie Mayer, Stefanie Fridrik, Josef Mühlbauer, Brigitte Temel, Viktoria Eberhardt

Journal of Media Literacy Education Pre-Prints

While there is broad consensus regarding the social and educational need for CML, its actual didactic content and especially the meaning of ‘critical’ are far from clear. The article argues for a turn to educational practices. Findings are based on empirical research on adult education in Vienna (Austria) consisting mainly of interviews with expert-practitioners in the field of adult education and media and/or digital literacy. We confront academic definitions of the critical impetus of CML with an analysis of innovative projects, which were designed for accessibility and addressed learners facing high educational barriers. Our findings encourage a turn towards the …

Reimagining The American Dream Of Aging: Filmic Portrayals And Implications For Transformative Advertising Research, Katherine C. Sredl, Julie Whiteman, Finola Kerrigan, Cagri Yalkin

School of Business: Faculty Publications and Other Works

Transformative advertising research uses institutional theory to position advertising as a site for transformative well-being, highlighting the role of ideology in shaping industry practice and output. Our study into discourses of successful aging in three films addressing the lives of older women demonstrates how film uses cinematography, dialogue, and mise-en-scène to discursively create film templates of successful aging. Templates provide cultural ideological frameworks for film audiences in their materialized representations of subject positions, thereby creating consent for the conditions and consumption that symbolize those positions. Although film can offer advertising and its audiences potentially transformative ideological templates of aging and …

Exploring The Mental Health Impacts Of Dating Experiences For Racial And Ethnic Minorities At A Predominantly White Institution, Maya Sánchez, Mylina Garza, Emma Chung

Communication Studies

The present study examined the mental health implications of racial and ethnic minorities’ dating experiences at a Predominantly White Institution (PWI). The authors conducted retrospective interviews with 20 minority-identifying college students that attend California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo. Three primary themes emerged from the conducted research. 1) Feeling excluded from racialized beauty standards threatens self-worth, 2) struggling to find romantic belonging limits emotional safety in relationships and navigating cultural differences in dating produces identity hyperawareness. This study also offers interesting theoretical and practical implications. Theoretically, findings display the communication maintenance of identity to how romantic involvement impacts …

Designing Visibility: Addressing The Hidden Curriculum For First-Generation Cal Poly Students Through Graphic Communication, Issac Enrique Cervantes

Graphic Communication

First-generation college students often encounter invisible barriers in higher education, including unspoken terminology, institutional practices, cultural norms, and academic expectations that are rarely made explicit but are essential for student success. While this information is frequently transmitted informally through family networks or prior exposure to higher education, first-generation students, particularly those from historically marginalized communities, often lack access to these channels. As a result, students may experience confusion, a reduced sense of belonging, and inequitable academic outcomes.

This senior project investigates and addresses this gap using inclusive graphic communication and user experience (UX) design principles. Through semi-structured interviews with stakeholders …

The Disproportionate Impact Of Hiv On Young Women In Durban: Exploring Gendered Vulnerabilities And Socioeconomic Barriers, Adrian A. Nolasco

Capstone Collection

South Africa has a high rate of HIV, with young women in Durban especially affected due to social, economic, and cultural challenges. This study looks at the experiences of young women living with HIV and the views of healthcare professionals caring for them in KwaZulu-Natal. Using a qualitative, phenomenological approach, semi-structured interviews were conducted with five women and three medical professionals to explore how HIV affects their lives, the challenges they face, and how they cope.

The findings show that both structural and personal barriers make it hard for young women to stick to treatment. Long waits at clinics, limited …

Lyari: A War Unseen, Sammi Deen

MSJ Capstone Projects

This capstone explores the conflict in Lyari Karachi and its enduring aftermath on the locals. It examines the lived experiences of conflict victims, their families and the profound psychological traumas resulting from prolonged violence. The study highlights how the conflict continue to shape everyday life in Lyari.

My capstone provides overview of the Lyari conflict, followed by an in-depth analysis of its social and human consequences. It documents the impacts on locals’ communities, particularly victims’ families, and illustrates how the conflict not only devastated lives but also contributed to the spread of drug abuse, lawlessness, and a culture of unaccountability, …

Motherly Love: A Critical Autoethnography On Identity Formation Through Mental Illness In Maternal Bonds, Ellie E. Monge

Communication Studies

This critical autoethnography is an examination of my personal narrative on how growing up with a mother with mental illness formed my identity as a woman, and as a daughter. I utilize the lens of communication scholarship to understand the effects that this interpersonal relationship had on communication patterns, and ideology. Through personal, and societal analysis the discourse adds to how gendered expectations of womanhood, motherhood, family communication patterns, and dominant mental health rhetoric shape identity for daughters raised in the absence of maternal stability. I implore Family Systems Theory, Family Communication Patterns Theory, Muted Group Theory, and scholarship on …

Sometimes I Picture You Dreaming: How American Female Directors Use Women-In-Prison Films As A Pathway For Public Education And Activism In The Era Of Mass Incarceration, Nicolette Natale

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis examines the role of female directors in creating media that showcases how prisons perpetuate sexism or gender-based violence. As mass incarceration began to take off in the 1970s, this paper begins with an analysis of Jack Hill’s The Big Doll House (1971), which often served as the model for women-in-prison (WIP) exploitation films. While Hill perpetuated the white and male gaze in The Big Doll House, Stephanie Rothman subverts oppressive gazes in her WIP film, Terminal Island (1973), and demonstrates a concern with the historical gendered realities of prison – moving beyond representations of prison on the …

Talking Black: The Construction Of Blackness In Film, D'Andre M. Person

Undergraduate Honors Thesis Projects

Media, such as film, plays a pivotal role in representing marginalized groups to general audiences. The portrayal of Black people in advertisements, novels, art, and film has perpetuated harmful stereotypes which associate Black men and women with negative traits that justify their marginalization, such as the "Coon" stereotype that frames Black men as lazy or the "Mammy" stereotype that positions Black women as subservient. Stereotypes in film are produced through images, but language plays a vital role in constructing general audiences' understanding of Black people as well. Through a rhetorical analysis of seven films released between 2016 and 2026, I …

Marginalizing Messages, Emotional Impacts, And Coping Strategies: Exploring The Experiences Of Bangladeshi Female Gamers In Online Multiplayer Gaming Spaces, Tahura Tabassum Tari

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

This study explores the experiences of Bangladeshi female gamers in online multiplayer gaming spaces, focusing on the marginalizing messages they encounter, the emotional and social impacts, and the coping strategies they use. Although online gaming is often seen as an open and inclusive digital space, for many women it remains shaped by sexism, exclusion, and cyberbullying. In Bangladesh, these experiences are further influenced by patriarchal norms, moral policing, and gendered expectations. Using a qualitative research design, this study employed in-depth semi-structured interviews with Bangladeshi female gamers who actively participate in online multiplayer games, along with cyber-ethnographic observation of gaming-related Facebook …

"Just Let Your Soul Glo": Humorous Music In Black American Comedy Films, Drew Brady

Music Theses and Dissertations

In this thesis, I inspect ways in which music has been used to create humor and meaning in black American cinema. In doing so, I address gaps in film music scholarship, as music in comedy films and in black cinema are both neglected topics. I suggest that humor in these films arises out of a particular blend of musical irony, parody, and satire, the exact combination of which is contingent on various historical, cultural, and political factors. In order to track this trend, I analyze humorous music in eight films, each representing a unique manifestation of this tradition: Watermelon Man …

The Gender Binary And Its Effects On Athletes And Society At Large As Described In Newspaper Accounts Of Competitors In The Summer 2024 Olympics, Neo Zheng

Honors College Theses

The purpose of this paper is to look at the impact of gendered language and gender rhetoric on the continued social maintenance of gender, especially as it relates to athletes. This project focuses on the patterns that arise in language of news articles on two female athletes participating in the 2024 Paris Olympics who are accused of being transgender or male, shedding light on how media outlets talk about the topic of gender in athletes specifically, and society itself more generally.

Gendered Resistance: Women’S Strategies Against Military Dictatorships, Argentina And Chile, Maricarmen Canales-Moreno

Publications and Research

This article compares the Madres de Plaza de Mayo in Argentina and the Agrupación de Familiares de Detenidos Desaparecidos (AFDD) in Chile to examine how women transformed their identities as mothers, wives, and daughters into strategies of political resistance under military dictatorship. It argues that maternal imagery, public mourning, and the transformation of private grief into collective defiance enabled women-led human rights organizations to challenge authoritarian regimes while strategically drawing on gender roles those regimes sought to enforce. The article traces the emergence of both organizations, their occupation of public space, hunger strikes, legal action, and engagement with international human …

Children's Peer Selection In Stem: The Influence Of Gender, Ethnicity, And Disability, Meagan Girard, Kim P. Roberts

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

The present study examined how children’s peer selection in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) may be influenced by gender, ethnicity, and physical disability. Sixty-four children (ages 6-12) from elementary schools in Southwestern Ontario completed three tasks: a simulated peer selection task, an attribution of ability task, and a stereotype belief questionnaire. In the peer selection task, participants were repeatedly asked to select one peer from a set of AI-generated photographs showing children who differed by gender (male, female), ethnicity (White, Black, East Asian), and physical disability status (able-bodied user vs. nondisabled). The Peer Selection Task was based on the …