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In this thesis, I conduct a preliminary analysis of the Islamic State of Iraq and Al-Sham's travel manual-cum-propaganda ebook Hijrah to the Islamic State, which has been used by people from various parts of the world attempting to enter Syria and join the terrorist organization. Using techniques from discourse and propaganda analysis I examine how the author of the text uses discursive resources to construct the reader of the text, the author's expectations for the reader, and the act of traveling to Syria. I then use news articles from varying organizations as well as the Islamic State-produced periodical magazine Dabiq to locate the document within the context of Islamic State affairs and propaganda. Subsequently, I show that the use of discursive resources is consistent with the ethos espoused in Dabiq, and in addition to serving as a guide to entering Syria Hijrah to the Islamic State is also a soft introduction into the radical belief systems of the terrorist group itself.
ContributorsDelmonico, Edward Peter (Author) / Prior, Matthew (Thesis director) / Adams, Karen (Committee member) / Department of English (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-05
Description
For this thesis, I analyzed the discourse and content of Proposition 22, a California law which defined all workers utilizing gig-based apps to sell services as independent contractors meaning they were not legally entitled to certain protections such as minimum wage. The law was overturned in court in 2020, however, the advertisements in favor of and discourse behind the law has had a continued impact on all workers. Because of this it is important to examine and conceptualize the ideologies behind the law in order to understand how it was able to pass in a state which tends to vote in favor of increasing employee rights and regulation of industries. To do so, I utilized two methods of analysis, a discourse analysis of legal documents and a content analysis of advertisements. The former revolves around analyzing the discourse and ideologies around two versions of the legislation which were shown to the public, while the latter analysis categorizes and examines the implications of various advertisements utilized by companies to support the proposition. Ultimately, gig companies created an effective campaign that was able to repackage neoliberal deregulation for the general public while actively misrepresenting information around the law leading to long lasting effects that continue to harm workers while lining the pockets of investors despite its overturning.
ContributorsRodriguez, Anthony (Author) / Broberg, Gregory (Thesis director) / Martin, Nathan (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Social Transformation (Contributor) / Historical, Philosophical & Religious Studies, Sch (Contributor)
Created2022-05
Description
Education is an extremely important yet often overlooked part of our society and one that has faced little innovation and development in recent years. This thesis covers the history of education from its early roots to its modern version specifically in the United States in an effort to uncover the reasons for why the system is the way it is now. The problems and purpose of education are explored to try and signal what issues does education have and what potential remedies are there. Finally Dialectic is offered up as a way of solving these issues.
ContributorsKyle, Daniel (Author) / Cassanova, Carlos (Thesis director) / Cutler, Kelly (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Dean, W.P. Carey School of Business (Contributor)
Created2024-05
Description
Since commercial airlines are undergoing shortages and diversity in organizations is beneficial, it is critical to examine representation within industries, specifically aviation, and their quality of work-life balance. This study aims to understand how male and female commercial airline pilots describe and negotiate work stressors through an applied method. Before evaluating the participants of this study, a masculine culture in airline was developed from the image airline organization originally promoted to passengers and the pipeline derived from the military. To collect rigorous data in a traditionally masculine setting, qualitative data in the form of semi-structured interviews and demographic surveys were gathered through a convenient snowball sampling method. Findings indicate that male and female pilots experience and perceive gendered work stressors differently based on these emphasized structures such as competency, flexibility versus rigidity, task stressors, and health stressors. Male pilots perceived they experienced unfair treatment in terms of affirmative action policy, depended on their spouses to manage their home life, exercised self-preservation in stressful situations, and were emotional detached when discussing health concerns. Female pilots appreciated affirmative action but recognized they help fill organizational quotas, resisted and behaved over-competently to prove their capabilities, experienced work-life integration, considered others in the form perspective-taking, and utilized proactive maintenance behaviors to better their health. Even though male and female pilots mainly differed in their descriptions and negotiations, they experienced similarities in memory recall amidst stress and youth perspective-taking from their children. A discussion elaborates how these descriptions and negotiations lend themselves to less stress or more stress in each structure. The discussion will emphasize how the findings build upon previous literature on work-life balance and the unique population of airline pilots.
ContributorsFischer, Marley Rose (Author) / Zanin, Alaina (Thesis director) / Tracy, Sarah (Committee member) / Hugh Downs School of Human Communication (Contributor) / Department of Marketing (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2019-12
Description
Social media is explosively popular in discussing socio-political issues. This work provides a preliminary study on how polarization occurs online. Chapter I begins by introducing limitations of the internet in maintaining a free flow of information. Not only do users seek out groups of like-minded individuals and insulate themselves from opposing views, social media platforms algorithmically curate content such that it will be in line with a user’s preconceived notions of the world. The work then defines polarization and carefully discusses its most prominent causes. It then shifts focus to analyze a closely-related issue regarding political discourse: outrage, which is both a noticeable effect of and further cause of polarization. It is clearly prevalent in traditional media, but for completion, I provide a case study to measure its incidence in social media. In Chapter II, I scrutinize the language used in the #MeToo movement on Twitter and draw conclusions about the issues Twitter users focus on and how they express their views. This chapter details the method I used, the challenges I faced in designing the exploratory study, and the results I found. I benchmark patterns I find in the Twitterverse against those I find in The Wall Street Journal. The analysis relies upon the metric of word similarity, based on proximity of and frequency of words used together, to make distinctions about what users are most commonly saying with respect to given topics, or keywords. Chapter III closes the essay with conclusions of socio-political polarization, discourse, and outrage in social media. Finally, the essay outlines potential channels for future work.
ContributorsJain, Niharika (Author) / Simhony, Avital (Thesis director) / Lewis, Paul (Committee member) / Computer Science and Engineering Program (Contributor, Contributor) / School of Politics and Global Studies (Contributor) / Department of Information Systems (Contributor) / School of International Letters and Cultures (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2019-05