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Few studies focus on the MOVE Organization (MOVE), let alone its presences in popular media during the years prior to the MOVE-Philadelphia Conflict (1978-1985), or pre-Conflict. To date, most information about MOVE derives from Conflict research which utilizes archival materials from the Philadelphia Special Investigation Commission (MOVE Commission) hearings. Generations

Few studies focus on the MOVE Organization (MOVE), let alone its presences in popular media during the years prior to the MOVE-Philadelphia Conflict (1978-1985), or pre-Conflict. To date, most information about MOVE derives from Conflict research which utilizes archival materials from the Philadelphia Special Investigation Commission (MOVE Commission) hearings. Generations of dominant representations about MOVE and its members, consequently, are mainly constructed by popular media from the MOVE Commission hearings, including video broadcasts of the proceeding. Using a Conflict documentary, I highlight concerns scholars face when heavily using archival materials from MOVE Commission hearings: (a) Archival materials from MOVE Commission hearings lack active MOVE members' voices and (b) Archival materials from MOVE Commission hearings include limited pre-Conflict information about MOVE members. Influenced by Kimberly Sanders and Judson Jeffries' (2013) work about the 1985 bombing newspaper reports' favorability, this project explores pre-Conflict popular media representations of MOVE to understand how the collective first got represented to Philadelphians and the ways which MOVE used popular media to respond to these dominant portrayals.

This mix-methods project utilizes 67-piece dataset materials of various popular media texts by MOVE members and non-MOVE members. It focuses on 48 Philadelphia Tribune newspaper entries as its main text dataset, with an emphasis on the 1975 "On the MOVE" editorial column space. This investigation employs a combination of Black feminist and critical discourse analysis (CDA) methods, with Sanders and Jeffries' (2013) favorability categorizations process, to explore the racialized, gendered, and classed aspects pre-Conflict representations of MOVE.

Quantitative findings suggest that MOVE got generally represented in favorable manners during the pre-Conflict years, with over 50 percent of pre-Conflict texts about MOVE portraying the collective in positive tones. Additionally, qualitative findings propose that MOVE members' authorship and presence in pre-Conflict texts within the Philadelphia Tribune functioned as a site of resistance against dominant portrayal of the collective. CDA findings propose that MOVE's racial attribute, beliefs, and culture, specifically related to self-determination, were central discussions within most pre-Conflict by MOVE members. Unlike Sanders and Jeffries (2013), this project concludes that overall pre-Conflict popular media depictions portrayed MOVE as a positive Philadelphia collective.
ContributorsEkeogu, Onyekachi Joi (Author) / Quan, Helen (Thesis advisor) / Bortner, Peg (Committee member) / Gomez, Alan (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
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Description
ABSTRACT This thesis analyzes the discourse surrounding proposed solutions to the immigration phenomenon in the United States. I conducted two qualitative media analyses on the rhetoric and conceptual frames found in mass media newscasts reporting on the immigration debate. The first analysis covered the general immigration

ABSTRACT This thesis analyzes the discourse surrounding proposed solutions to the immigration phenomenon in the United States. I conducted two qualitative media analyses on the rhetoric and conceptual frames found in mass media newscasts reporting on the immigration debate. The first analysis covered the general immigration debate and the second covered the appearance of American southwest ranchers. Specifically the analyses contrasted the media's coverage of root economic causes to the immigration phenomenon in comparison to reactionary solutions as proposed by leading immigrant attrition organizations such as the immigration think tank, Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) and Republican linguist, Frank Luntz. The main argument of this thesis is based on an analysis of how the media has used southwestern ranchers as expert witnesses for reactionary solutions on a national level. An acute qualitative media analysis was used to compare the rhetoric found in the media coverage of southwestern ranchers versus the rhetoric found in 12 in-depth interviews I conducted with ranchers in the American southwest. This thesis contends that the media has successfully turned southwestern ranchers into spokespersons for border security rhetoric, furthering the binary debates on border security and immigration reform and thus obscuring the conditions which force migrants to leave their home countries. The grounding theoretical framework for this thesis is based on David Altheide's qualitative media analysis which identifies how certain frames and common narratives ultimately construct a way of discussing the problem or the kind of discourse that will follow. This was structured on Atheide's qualitative media analysis protocols to dissect mass media newscasts covering the immigration debate and more specifically the mass media's coverage of southwestern ranchers. The qualitative media analyses were employed to determine whether the discourse found in nightly newscasts falls in line with root causes of immigration or FAIR's concern with reactionary solutions. To further assess the media's ability to shape discourse, and ultimately policy, these qualitative analyses were compared with in-depth interviews of the ranchers.
ContributorsFuente, Nicolás Antonio de la (Author) / Téllez, Michelle (Thesis advisor) / Stancliff, Michael (Committee member) / Gomez, Alan (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2010
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Description
This dissertation presents a new tool for analysis of the way difficult experiences

or phenomena influence the process for constructing self-identity in the performance of everyday life. This concept, refraction, emerged as part of a grounded theory methods analysis of ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Itacaré, Bahia, Brazil from January to July

This dissertation presents a new tool for analysis of the way difficult experiences

or phenomena influence the process for constructing self-identity in the performance of everyday life. This concept, refraction, emerged as part of a grounded theory methods analysis of ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Itacaré, Bahia, Brazil from January to July 2014. The work here contributes to the field of performance studies as a possibility for examining how affective responses to difficult experiences contribute to a shift in perspective and subsequently shifts in the performance of self in everyday life. This research was conducted with critical and reflexive autoethnographic methods in order to hold the research accountable for the ways subject position influences the research. In this case the most salient theme that emerged from these autoethnographic methods was an unpacking of unacknowledged tourist privilege in this setting. The resulting work-in-progress

performance will offer ways for spectators to question their own assumptions

regarding tourist privilege in Brazil, and in so-called developing countries in similar

tropical climates. An additional contribution to the field of performance-based research that resulted from this dissertation is the articulation of a dynamic locus of creativity wherein rigorous established qualitative research methods complement creative practices in conjunction with a spectrum of tacit knowledge and theoretical sensitivities. This juncture becomes the theoretical space where creativity in research can be articulated in ways that are legible to both artists and researchers.
ContributorsPorter, Laurelann (Author) / de la Garza, Sarah Amira (Thesis advisor) / Underiner, Tamara (Thesis advisor) / Mcelroy, Isis (Committee member) / Gomez, Alan (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2015