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- Creators: Barrett, The Honors College
- Creators: Kavazanjian, Edward
Description
Korean popular music, commonly referred to as K-pop, has become globally popular through its dissemination on social media. The K-pop industry is known to adapt to, and capitalize on, the shifting landscape of social media ever since the early 2000s. Recent integration and utilization of livestream services on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube have created a necessity for the K-pop industry to adapt to the dynamic landscape of social media in order to appeal to a growing transnational internet audience. In accommodating the shifting social media landscape, the relationships among K-pop fandoms, producers, and the performers, known as "idols," as well as the spaces in which they interact, have transformed. This transformation can be seen in the media content produced by fans and K-pop groups. Companies that manage K-pop groups and produce their music utilize livestreams to promote the idea that K-pop groups are accessible and relatable to fans. The idea that K-pop groups are accessible creates a dynamic that encourages fans to invest time, money, and subtitling skills into livestream apps like the V-app in order to support their favorite K-pop groups. Korean entertainment companies also use trainee competition shows to turn the trainee experiences into reality television shows, in which viewers' votes are a significant factor in determining winners. These shows encourage a co-dependent relationship between K-pop groups and the show's viewers. On YouTube, which has always been an important platform for global dissemination of K-pop, fan-produced media content, such as dance cover videos and reaction videos, are now contributing more to global popularity of K-pop. TWICE, a K-pop girl group, which is under contract with the prominent K-pop production company, JYP Entertainment, debuted through a trainee competition show and regularly participates in new practices on social media by connecting with fans on livestreaming videos, by hosting cover dance contests, and by promoting fan-reaction videos on YouTube. With the girl group, TWICE, as a case study, I delineate the complex interactions among fandom, Korean entertainment companies, and the K-pop groups. My analysis focuses on the interactions among those three parties in the social media. First, I assess how the K-pop industry utilizes trainee competition shows to foster fan attachment to the K-pop groups even before they debut as a process of commodification. I then examine fan-produced media content, using the cultural studies scholar, John Fiske's idea of productive fan culture, or "fan productivity," a concept that confers socio-cultural value to participation in fan-related activities. Finally, I use statistical analysis to compare how dissemination tools such as livestreams, dance cover videos, and reaction videos contribute to the growing popularity of TWICE.
ContributorsHuynh, Simon (Author) / Shin, Jiwon (Thesis director) / Noah, Aggie (Committee member) / Ross, Andrew (Committee member) / School of Social Transformation (Contributor) / School of Nutrition and Health Promotion (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05
Description
The multibillion dollar fantasy sports industry is comprised of two main groups: traditional fantasy sports (TFS) and daily fantasy sports (DFS). TFS users play in seasonlong leagues while DFS users play in oneday contests. In November 2015, New York Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman opened an investigation into the DFS businesses FanDuel and DraftKings following allegations of “insider trading” by employees who may have had access to information that was not available to the public. Schneiderman’s investigation generated questions about DFS and how they differed from TFS. It was also the first instance of the differentiation between the two. This study looks at how TFS users and DFS users are similar and different in their motivations to play.
Our study surveyed 43 DFS users to determine how they began playing DFS, what they like about DFS, and what they dislike about DFS. From the data collected, it was determined that TFS and DFS users are similar in their competitive nature, in their increased levels of sports consumption and investment, and in their increased favoritism towards individual players over teams. The main differences between TFS and DFS users were how each felt they were at a disadvantage, the levels of camaraderie within the sport, and their stance on gambling. TFS users felt their disadvantages came from lackluster commissioners while DFS users felt that the companies themselves were setting them at a disadvantage. TFS users placed more value on the camaraderie and social sport while DFS users placed more value on profit and excitement. TFS users felt that TFS was not gambling and that DFS was, while DFS users accepted DFS as gambling.
Our study surveyed 43 DFS users to determine how they began playing DFS, what they like about DFS, and what they dislike about DFS. From the data collected, it was determined that TFS and DFS users are similar in their competitive nature, in their increased levels of sports consumption and investment, and in their increased favoritism towards individual players over teams. The main differences between TFS and DFS users were how each felt they were at a disadvantage, the levels of camaraderie within the sport, and their stance on gambling. TFS users felt their disadvantages came from lackluster commissioners while DFS users felt that the companies themselves were setting them at a disadvantage. TFS users placed more value on the camaraderie and social sport while DFS users placed more value on profit and excitement. TFS users felt that TFS was not gambling and that DFS was, while DFS users accepted DFS as gambling.
ContributorsLandauer, Kevin James (Author) / Ingram-Waters, Mary (Thesis director) / Fette, Donald (Committee member) / W. P. Carey School of Business (Contributor) / School of Molecular Sciences (Contributor) / WPC Graduate Programs (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-05
Description
There are many fans who invest a lot of time, money, and effort into fantasy football. Finding a balance between maintaining loyalty to a favorite team while trying to win a fantasy league has become an issue. There are those fans who take precautions to assure loyalty while playing and then there are those who put their loyalties aside and treat fantasy football as its own entity outside of their fandom. In this project I am studying how playing fantasy football affects an individual's team loyalty.
ContributorsAssi, Stephanie Faye (Author) / Ingram-Waters, Mary (Thesis director) / Soares, Rebecca (Committee member) / Dwyer, Brendan P. (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Politics and Global Studies (Contributor)
Created2015-05
Description
The sport of football has become one of the most widely loved and watched sports in the United States. Fans of football are extremely dedicated to the sport and form very personal, emotional attachments to teams within the National Football League. Through studying these fans, three main analysis topics will be addressed in this thesis: the established fan knowledge that creates rules within the fandom on how a fan participates and the exceptions to those rules, the need that fan's who do not fit into the normative patterns of the fandom feel to explain their motivations, and the degree of fanship that can be measured through a fan's explanation for their deviant behavior. For this fandom analysis, two sets of data will be referenced throughout the discussion. The first is anecdotal data pulled from various reddit threads on the personal experiences of each fan as well as some opinion sharing about the National Football League fandom. The second set of data is primary data that I have compiled via a survey. The established fan knowledge within this fandom is two fold: First, fans choose their team for a specific reason (usually based off of the team their parent's are a fan of or the state they grew up in), which typically takes place by age twelve. Secondly, once a fan chooses a team, they should stick with that team through their entire fanship. This second piece of fan knowledge is the most important rule within the fandom. This idea of loyalty is what guides fan participation. Identifying this rule led me to my main question about this fandom \u2014 if fans are so dedicated to their chosen team, what does it mean when someone switches to a new team. I feel that this breaking of a bond that seems so personal to fans is important and should be researched. This brought me to researching these fans that have switched teams, learning why, as well as what this group of fans can say about the National Football League fandom as a whole.
ContributorsGutierrez, Brooke Kathleen (Author) / Eaton, John (Thesis director) / Lee, Christopher (Committee member) / W. P. Carey School of Business (Contributor) / Department of Marketing (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2017-05
Description
This study observes two fanfiction speech communities, Danny Phantom and Detective Conan. The members of these communities write stories based upon the canon within these two animated cartoons and interact with one another through reviews, author's notes, and story summaries. Using the speech community model, this community's unique practices and communicative repertoire will be identified and analyzed. Both of these fandoms show similarities with the overarching general fanfiction speech community, but they also possess key differences that define them as their own separate community. Fan jargon is used frequently in author's notes, reviews, and summaries to indicate fan expertise and membership within the fandom as well as exclude newcomers from understanding the information. This jargon remains largely the same across languages, and using it properly is important to being considered a true fan. Furthermore, many stories share similar elements that are not present within the source material, indicating that the fandoms possess a shared communicative repertoire. Review practices also show strong cultural norms that demand that reviewers offer praise and encouragement to the writers. Most criticism is phrased extremely kindly to avoid breaking cultural norms. Those who do not follow these cultural norms are shunned by the community, and required to apologize to maintain proper fan membership. Fan hierarchy is also examined, including the ways that big name fans and reviewers exert centripetal and centrifugal forces upon the language, simultaneously pushing it towards standardization and variation. Authors also use many face saving techniques to demonstrate their own lack of knowledge within the community, especially if they are new or inexperienced. The members of these communities share a deep cultural connection that is strengthened by their practices and repertoires.
ContributorsDial, Ashtyn Nicole (Author) / Friedrich, Patricia (Thesis director) / O'Connor, Brendan (Committee member) / Computing and Informatics Program (Contributor) / Department of English (Contributor, Contributor, Contributor) / School of Music (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2017-05
Description
Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997-2003) is a cult-classic television show about Buffy Summers, a vampire slayer. As the slayer, her job is to protect the earth from monsters, vampires, and demons. Though she may protect the earth from the "bad guys", she still finds time in the day to be a teenage girl who sneaks out of the house and desperately wants a date for prom. Despite being off the air for over 10 years, Buffy the Vampire Slayer fans are still thriving on various online platforms such as Tumblr, Deviantart, and AO3. As a fan of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, I have engaged with fans online by writing and reviewing fanfiction from my teenage years onward. As I did this, I noticed that despite its message of young women saving the world, the Buffy the Vampire Slayer fandom replicates the gendered and racialized hierarchies that it strives to deconstruct. This paper will examine several top-rated SpikexReader self-insert fanfictions in order to argue that though long derided as a genre, self-insert fanfiction is a way for fans to map out their sexuality using a fictional character. In addition, this paper will analyze fan discourse on Tumblr concerning issues of race and racism both in Buffy the Vampire Slayer the television show as well as in the fandom itself. Finally, this paper will argue that though Buffy the Vampire Slayer posits itself as a progressive and feminist television show, it still struggles to move away from upholding white women's experiences with feminism and fandom as normative.
ContributorsJones, Sofia Eleanor (Author) / Dove-Viebahn, Aviva (Thesis director) / Ingram-Waters, Mary (Committee member) / School of Social Transformation (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2017-12
Description
In this undergraduate thesis, I explore the relationship between politics and popular culture through an ethnography of Justice League Arizona, a cosplay ensemble devoted to costumed civic activism. While existing scholarship addresses cosplay ensembles and political theory, there is very little that examines how the act of cosplay can be a form of politics and what the impact of that interpretation has on both individuals and the community at large. Through both participant observation and interviews with members of the ensemble, I discovered that cosplay has the ability to intensify aspects of the self, the ability to expose new aspects of the self, and the ability to bring one closer to a particular character. I also found cosplay to be political through the sensibility and situated knowledge that proves to be in practice during cosplay, ultimately having the power to be used as a form of political resistance.
ContributorsBurrus, Ella Rene (Author) / Mack, Robert (Thesis director) / Behl, Natasha (Committee member) / School of Social and Behavioral Sciences (Contributor) / Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-12
Description
Currently conventional Subtitle D landfills are the primary means of disposing of our waste in the United States. While this method of waste disposal aims at protecting the environment, it does so through the use of liners and caps that effectively freeze the breakdown of waste. Because this method can keep landfills active, and thus a potential groundwater threat for over a hundred years, I take an in depth look at the ability of bioreactor landfills to quickly stabilize waste. In the thesis I detail the current state of bioreactor landfill technologies, assessing the pros and cons of anaerobic and aerobic bioreactor technologies. Finally, with an industrial perspective, I conclude that moving on to bioreactor landfills as an alternative isn't as simple as it may first appear, and that it is a contextually specific solution that must be further refined before replacing current landfills.
ContributorsWhitten, George Avery (Author) / Kavazanjian, Edward (Thesis director) / Allenby, Braden (Committee member) / Houston, Sandra (Committee member) / Civil, Environmental and Sustainable Engineering Programs (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2013-05
Description
Modern media meant for light consumption tends to lean heavily on tropes and assumptions that don't really exist in literary fiction. Authors writing today are aware of this manner of reading and often tailor their messages to it. However, the framework doesn't really work for older novels. They were not written for this modern lens, and therefore, make their criticisms in ways that modern readers might not understand. So what does this mean for modern readings of these books, modern adaptations of these stories, or even modern original stories set in these time periods? This thesis explores these questions through perusing Bram Stoker's Dracula, Jane Austen's Persuasion and the 2022 Netflix adaptation of such, and the first season of Netflix's Bridgerton.
ContributorsKhalsa, James (Author) / Soares, Rebecca (Thesis director) / Fette, Donald (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Computer Science and Engineering Program (Contributor)
Created2023-05
Characterization and Manipulation of Microbiomes From Arid Landfills for Improved Methane Production
Description
Environmentally harmful byproducts from solid waste’s decomposition, including methane (CH4) emissions, are managed through standardized landfill engineering and gas-capture mechanisms. Yet only a limited number of studies have analyzed the development and composition of Bacteria and Archaea involved in CH4 production from landfills. The objectives of this research were to compare microbiomes and bioactivity from CH4-producing communities in contrasting spatial areas of arid landfills and to tests a new technology to biostimulate CH4 production (methanogenesis) from solid waste under dynamic environmental conditions controlled in the laboratory. My hypothesis was that the diversity and abundance of methanogenic Archaea in municipal solid waste (MSW), or its leachate, play an important role on CH4 production partially attributed to the group’s wide hydrogen (H2) consumption capabilities. I tested this hypothesis by conducting complementary field observations and laboratory experiments. I describe niches of methanogenic Archaea in MSW leachate across defined areas within a single landfill, while demonstrating functional H2-dependent activity. To alleviate limited H2 bioavailability encountered in-situ, I present biostimulant feasibility and proof-of-concepts studies through the amendment of zero valent metals (ZVMs). My results demonstrate that older-aged MSW was minimally biostimulated for greater CH4 production relative to a control when exposed to iron (Fe0) or manganese (Mn0), due to highly discernable traits of soluble carbon, nitrogen, and unidentified fluorophores found in water extracts between young and old aged, starting MSW. Acetate and inhibitory H2 partial pressures accumulated in microcosms containing old-aged MSW. In a final experiment, repeated amendments of ZVMs to MSW in a 600 day mesocosm experiment mediated significantly higher CH4 concentrations and yields during the first of three ZVM injections. Fe0 and Mn0 experimental treatments at mesocosm-scale also highlighted accelerated development of seemingly important, but elusive Archaea including Methanobacteriaceae, a methane-producing family that is found in diverse environments. Also, prokaryotic classes including Candidatus Bathyarchaeota, an uncultured group commonly found in carbon-rich ecosystems, and Clostridia; All three taxa I identified as highly predictive in the time-dependent progression of MSW decomposition. Altogether, my experiments demonstrate the importance of H2 bioavailability on CH4 production and the consistent development of Methanobacteriaceae in productive MSW microbiomes.
ContributorsReynolds, Mark Christian (Author) / Cadillo-Quiroz, Hinsby (Thesis advisor) / Krajmalnik-Brown, Rosa (Thesis advisor) / Wang, Xuan (Committee member) / Kavazanjian, Edward (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2022