Matching Items (6)
Description
Aside from uplifting and tearing down the mood of a young LGBTQ+ kid, journalistic media has the potential to alter the way audiences understand and react to individuals of the LGBTQ+ community. Looking at the rhetorical approaches, frameworks, and expanded narratives of news sources, this project engages with the concepts of same-sex marriage, lifestyles, bans, and children in education in order to attain an understanding of what media messages are being shared, how they are being communicated, and what the implications of such rhetoric are. Summary of the findings:
• Same-sex marriage as the win that cannot be repeated.
Infamously known as the central legal battle for the LGBTQ+ community, same-sex marriage finds itself in many political speeches, campaigns, and social commentaries. Interestingly, after being legalized through a Supreme Court decision in the United States, Same-Sex Marriage finds itself framed as the social inevitability that should not be repeated in politics or any legal shift. In other words, “the gays have won this battle, but not the war.”
• There are risks around the “LGBTQ+ lifestyle” and its careful catering to an elite minority and the mediation through bans.
The risks of the LGBTQ+ “lifestyle” date back far, with many connotations being attached to being LGBTQ+ (AIDS epidemics, etc.). In modern journalism, many media outlets portray LGBTQ+ individuals to be a tiny minority (.001% according to some) that demands the whole society to adhere to their requests. This framework portrays the LGBTQ+ community as oppressors and obsessed advocates that can never “seem to get enough” (ex: more than just marriage). The bans are framed as the neutralizing factor to the catering.
• LGBTQ+ children and topics in academic and social spaces are the extreme degree.
When it comes to LGBTQ+ issues and conversations as they revolve around children, media outlets have some of the most passionate opinions about them. Often portrayed as “the line that shouldn’t be crossed,” LGBTQ+ issues, as they find themselves in schools and other spaces, are thus portrayed as bearable to a certain degree, never completely. Claims of indoctrination are also presented prominently even when institutional efforts are to protect LGBTQ+ kids.
• Same-sex marriage as the win that cannot be repeated.
Infamously known as the central legal battle for the LGBTQ+ community, same-sex marriage finds itself in many political speeches, campaigns, and social commentaries. Interestingly, after being legalized through a Supreme Court decision in the United States, Same-Sex Marriage finds itself framed as the social inevitability that should not be repeated in politics or any legal shift. In other words, “the gays have won this battle, but not the war.”
• There are risks around the “LGBTQ+ lifestyle” and its careful catering to an elite minority and the mediation through bans.
The risks of the LGBTQ+ “lifestyle” date back far, with many connotations being attached to being LGBTQ+ (AIDS epidemics, etc.). In modern journalism, many media outlets portray LGBTQ+ individuals to be a tiny minority (.001% according to some) that demands the whole society to adhere to their requests. This framework portrays the LGBTQ+ community as oppressors and obsessed advocates that can never “seem to get enough” (ex: more than just marriage). The bans are framed as the neutralizing factor to the catering.
• LGBTQ+ children and topics in academic and social spaces are the extreme degree.
When it comes to LGBTQ+ issues and conversations as they revolve around children, media outlets have some of the most passionate opinions about them. Often portrayed as “the line that shouldn’t be crossed,” LGBTQ+ issues, as they find themselves in schools and other spaces, are thus portrayed as bearable to a certain degree, never completely. Claims of indoctrination are also presented prominently even when institutional efforts are to protect LGBTQ+ kids.
ContributorsNieto Calderon, Ramon Antonio (Author) / Himberg, Julia (Thesis director) / Sturges, Robert (Committee member) / Department of English (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05
Description
Although smaller and more local elections could have implications more dramatic to an individual than larger district-, state-, and nation-wide elections do, very few citizens vote in them. Moreover, citizens are limited in procuring further information on candidates, issues, and the overall election when there are fewer sources of such information across various mediums. While existing literature on political communication and voter participation does not yet extend far enough to sufficiently address the most local aspects of media effects on elections, the political science field’s dominating frameworks would suggest that an increase in news media, social media, and ground mobilization tactics would increase civic engagement and voter participation. My research, which focuses on hyperlocal elections, both supports andrefutes certain elements of that suggestion. Based on surveys of potential voters in a university’s student government election and a school board election, interviews with two student government presidential candidates, and an analysis of social media engagement, my research compares three mass media platforms and two elections to characterize the effects of media on hyperlocal elections—that certain tactics have drastically different results on different populations. My research expands the body of media and politics knowledge to include hyperlocal elections, suggesting that civic engagement on the local levels require increased further study.
ContributorsRomanov, Andrew Samuilovich (Author) / Wells, David (Thesis director) / Brodie, Mark (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of International Letters and Cultures (Contributor) / Department of English (Contributor) / Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication (Contributor) / School of Politics and Global Studies (Contributor)
Created2015-05
Description
A guide to implementing empathy in crisis communications
ContributorsLong, Mary Louise (Author) / Schmidtke, Lisa (Thesis director) / Bovio, Sonia (Committee member) / Department of Marketing (Contributor) / Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Comm (Contributor, Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2021-05
Description
Video games are packed full of endless potential. They are the telling of impossible narratives with something for every type of person. So then why has the industry historically been one of the worst for representations of race and gender? In this thesis, I define "good" media representation and engage in the analysis of both Overwatch (2016) and Detroit Become Human (2018) to observe the ways these two video games, which so outwardly market their diversity, have failed marginalized groups. Accompanying the research paper is a video game poster representing a woman of color designed by the author which is meant to learn from the mistakes of its predecessors.
ContributorsBateman, Phoebe Jasmine (Author) / Dove-Viebahn, Aviva (Thesis director) / Holmes, Jeffrey (Committee member) / School of Humanities, Arts, and Cultural Studies (Contributor) / Department of English (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2021-05
Description
Throughout the 20th and 21st centuries, the dance industry has exponentially grown in its population and representation. As dance studios, companies, media platforms and films, dance industry continue to expand, there has been a substantial increase in the number of dancers around the world. Dancers are becoming more diverse with the styles they perform and how they perform a piece. One major factor to the growth of the dance industry is the ever-growing field of digital media and social platforms. These platforms expose people to different dance styles while also allowing dancers to showcase their art. Additionally, dance television shows and films contributed to this growth in the dance industry by developing a reputation and awareness of what dance is to the public. This project will analyze how certain aspects of the media influenced the modern dance industry, and whether this created a positive or negative impact.
ContributorsGodbehere, Amber (Author) / Schmidtke, Lisa (Thesis director) / Caldwell, Christina (Committee member) / Walter Cronkite School of Journalism & Mass Comm (Contributor) / Department of Marketing (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2020-05
Description
This analysis aimed to understand how and why certain representations of fraternity and sorority life are consistently used in media texts. Throughout this thesis I analyzed various media including films, a television series, a documentary, and coverage of a news story and found that fraternity and sorority representations reinforce different social issues. Additionally, this thesis discusses how fraternities and sororities are framed in the media texts as institutions which force members to abide by larger societal norms and gender roles. Stigmas and social issues surrounding fraternity and sorority life including hazing, violence, and toxic masculinity, femininity and feminism, diversity and racism, and partying, power and misogyny are the focus of many of the media used in this study. This thesis analyzed how media use these topics to generalize representations of fraternity and sorority life members and to perpetuate normalized gender roles and dominant narratives about race and sexuality.
ContributorsLockhart, Christine (Author) / Himberg, Julia (Thesis director) / Dove-Viebahn, Aviva (Committee member) / Department of English (Contributor) / Department of Marketing (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2020-05