Mass Communication Commons^™

Stylizing, Commodifying, And Disciplining Real Bodies: An Examination Of Wwe Wrestling, Isamu Horiuchi

CGU Theses & Dissertations

This dissertation examines professional wrestling in the U.S., in particular, live and television shows produced by the World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE). Through the examination, it addresses complex issues of authenticity, audience, commodification, and discipline in contemporary popular culture and media.

I use three approaches in this study. First, I apply the theory of culture industry, developed by Theodor W. Adorno and Max Horkheimer, to understand WWE wrestling. I examine how the WWE thoroughly stylizes its products to attract fans and condition them to repeat the same calculable reactions. However, contemporary fans often refuse to react as the WWE wants them …

Rights, Principles, And Data Use: An Investigation Of User Knowledge And Opinion Of Facebook's Legal Contract, Nikolas D. Payne

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

This project investigated the legal contract to which users must agree before creating a Facebook account. Multi-methodological in nature, this research explored user knowledge and perception of the contract as well as how the contract measures up to the principles which Facebook claims serve as its foundation. For the quantitative portion of this analysis, a survey including measures of knowledge and perception was administered to respondents. The qualitative portion critically compared Facebook’s legal contract to the list of principles espoused by the company on their website. These analyses reveal that users rarely read this contract before agreeing to it, tend …

Australian National School Chaplaincy Program : A Critical Discourse Analysis Of Online Newspaper Portrayals, Ashley Donkin

Theses : Honours

The media’s representation of the Australian National School Chaplaincy Program has not currently been addressed by social theorists. This thesis analyses online newspaper portrayals of the National School Chaplaincy Program, examining a total of eleven major state newspapers. Norman Fairclough’s theory of Critical Discourse Analysis, and particularly his theory on the three main types of assumptions (Existential, Propositional and Value), is employed to examine how language is used to construct ideologies and discourses about the Chaplaincy Program. Four key issues are examined, which include: the role of chaplains, the use of government funding for the Program, as well as church …

"Nothing Sacred": Ignatian Principles Of Heroic Leadership In Entertainment Media, John Briand Levesque

Communication & Leadership Dissertations and Theses

The series Nothing Sacred lasted less than one full season on broadcast network television. Critically acclaimed for its writing but also vigorously opposed for having an anti-Catholic agenda, it embraced a set of values consistent with Ignatian leadership philosophy. Scholars paid little attention to the show after its cancellation in 1998, but an examination of several episodes and the writing of its co-creator, a Jesuit priest, suggests that the series propagated the principles of Ignatian leadership in much the same way as Lowney (2003), who proposed that the 16th-century philosophy of leadership espoused by Ignatius Loyola, founder of the Jesuit …

Authentic Blackness And The Portrayals Of African Americans In Prime Time Television Commercials, Dari L. Rogers

Communication & Leadership Dissertations and Theses

Though each African American person holds unique experiences, beliefs and preferences that are molded by his or her background, education, gender, sexual orientation and religion, he or she is often defined by superficial characteristics, such as how a person behaves, speaks and dresses, that determine his or her degree of authentic blackness. This thesis explores authentic blackness within the African American community and how television commercials help define what is considered authentically black. Based on the Social Cognitive Theory, Hall’s Theory of Encoding and Decoding, the Cultivation Theory and the Social Construction of Reality Theory, this thesis explores how African …

President Barack Obama's Speech In Cairo: A Metaphor Analysis, George Ebimobowei Oti

Communication & Leadership Dissertations and Theses

This study investigates the metaphors embedded in President Barack Obama’s speech in Cairo, delivered on June 4, 2009. Mr.Obama delivered his speech at a time when the dissonance between the Muslim world and the West expanded. The rhetor’s motive was to arrest the increasingly compounded atmosphere of rapprochements between the two worlds. The study employed two philosophical foundations, Burkean identification- consubstantiation and Buber’s I-thou personality theory. The two philosophies promote the notion of humankind’s sharing of a bond. The study categorizes the deployment of metaphors into archetypal and transcendent metaphors; the results show that both types of metaphors serve a …

This Just In: Breaking News With Social Media By The Newspaper Organizations In The Southwestern Corner Of New York State, Chris Chapman

Communication & Leadership Dissertations and Theses

Social media is the newest form of technology to tempt journalists. What is it? How can it be used to bring their information to the consumers? This thesis examines the ability of eight papers in the southwestern corner of New York state to break news on social media like Facebook and Twitter. The study, conducted by a survey of the journalists working for those papers, takes a look at the policies that govern social media within their organization. Through the lens of the agenda-setting theory, the data shows that the rural region of New York state has yet to find …

Gender Bias In Network News Reporting: Inaccurate Risk Information About Male And Female Birth Control, Krista Currer

Communication & Leadership Dissertations and Theses

Pharmaceutical companies spend considerable amounts of revenue on advertising; therefore, media networks must portray an agenda which supports those companies. This thesis attempts to discover if and to what extent women are marginalized by the promotion of hormonal birth control. Particular focus is placed on the link between these drugs and breast cancer risk, as well as the existence of gendered messages. Framework for the study is established through Agenda-setting Theory and Marxist and feminist criticism. Media messages about birth control are then interpreted through content analysis. Only 9% of messages about female birth control mention the link with breast …

The Cat Is Back: Analyzing Newspaper Coverage Of Mountain Lions In The Midwest, Chloe Euston

Honors Capstones

No abstract provided.

Ua12/6 Diversity Programs - Publications, Wku Archives

WKU Archives Collection Inventories

Publications created by and about Diversity Programs.

Media Globalization, Margaretha Geertsema-Sligh

Scholarship and Professional Work - Communication

Margaretha Geertsema-Sligh's contribution to Encyclopedia of Gender in Media , pp. 212 - 216. Sage: Thousand Oaks, Calif.

Accelerated Culture: Exploring Time And Space In Cinema, Television And New Media In The Digital Age, Thomas J. Connelly

CGU Theses & Dissertations

This dissertation seeks to understand the impact of speed on the interrelation and the overlapping of the production and consumption of cinematic and televisual texts. It explores the immediacy of digital media and new economic processes, and how they are informing structures of perception, as well as lending themselves to new and different ways of seeing the moving image in the digital age. These visual expressions are evident in the changing perception of the long take; the increasing use of video gaming aesthetics and database narratives; new and variant forms of narrative and visual styles in television; and the speed …

Thin Is In: A Content Analysis Of Images In Women's Magazines From 2009-2011, Jennifer Kate Wilson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Many research studies have shown that women constantly compare themselves to the models they see featured in women's magazines, and in turn, develop body image issues, negative mood changes and even eating disorders. The majority of findings show that women often develop these serious side-effects because they are bombarded with images of mostly thin models. Yet editors of women's magazines continue to choose women much smaller, in most cases at least six times smaller, than the average sized American women to feature. It is very unusual to see fashion spread in a women's magazine featuring a model close to the …

The Sidis Case And The Origins Of Modern Privacy Law, Samantha Barbas

Journal Articles

The American press, it’s been said, is freer to invade personal privacy than perhaps any other in the world. The tort law of privacy, as a shield against unwanted media exposure of private life, is very weak. The usual reason given for the weakness of U.S. privacy law as a bar on the publication of private information is the strong tradition of First Amendment freedom. But “freedom of the press” alone cannot explain why liberty to publish has been interpreted as a right to print truly intimate matters or to thrust people into the spotlight against their will. Especially in …

Partnership Representation In Public Communications: An Analysis Of Community-Engaged Universities' Websites, Christy Kayser Arrazattee

LSU Master's Theses

This study examines the ways in which campus-community partnerships are represented in public communications produced by community-engaged institutions of higher education. Leading scholars of campus-community partnerships and service-learning agree that such relationships should be based on a reciprocal exchange between partners. In public relations endeavors, however, professionals concentrating solely on communicating the university’s achievements may overlook the equal contributions of the community partner. This study analyzed website content and universities publications from six colleges nationally recognized for their community-engagement efforts. Using quantitative and qualitative analysis, web content was analyzed for indicators of reciprocity developed from foundational literature regarding campus-community partnerships. …

Front Cover

Basic Communication Course Annual

No abstract provided.

Title Page

Basic Communication Course Annual

No abstract provided.

Editorial Board

Basic Communication Course Annual

No abstract provided.

Editor's Page, Stephen K. Hunt, Joseph P. Mazer

Basic Communication Course Annual

Without question, the popularity of the basic course in communication continues to grow, further entrenching it as a staple of the communication discipline. As several basic course scholars have persuasively noted, in the last 20 years, more and more colleges and universities in the United States have been charged with the daunting task of establishing an introductory course in communication as a central feature of general education curriculum.

Given the popularity of the course and increasing pressures on basic course instructors/directors to document the effectiveness of the course, basic communication course scholarship is more important now than ever. For more …

Contents And Abstracts

Basic Communication Course Annual

No abstract provided.