An in depth look at the rhetoric behind the campus carry debate at the University of Texas at Austin. This thesis researched and examined primary sources from The Daily Texan and The Austin-American Statesman attempting to analyze what was at stake for both sides of the argument and what the most effective rhetorical tool was.

This thesis examines the differences in how professional male and female athletes and teams are portrayed in the media. Specifically, I analyze the ways female professional athletes and teams are typically not marketed as elite and are usually portrayed as lesser than their male colleagues. Given the scholarly literature on the disparity between how male and female athletes are portrayed in sports media,, we might expect that news sources will diminish the accomplishments of female athletes through less coverage. Similarly, we might also expect that the themes covered in articles about female athletes and teams differ greatly from the themes that are covered with male athletes and teams. Through a quantitative analysis of media exposure and a qualitative analysis of radio articles from Arizona Sports 98.7FM from September of 2014, 2018, and 2020, we see that, while most news sources do write about female athletes and teams on a semi-regular basis, the themes explored do not always focus on the athletes but ten to emphasize their lives outside of the game. We are left with an understanding that female athletes and women’s professional sports teams are portrayed in a different light than male athletes and men’s professional sports teams. While female athletes are increasingly recognized in the media, men are still thought of as premier athletes while women are simply good among other women

Music can be an incredibly powerful tool, and in an age where technology allows us to connect with those that don’t live near us, finding ways to use music to encourage that bonding can be incredibly beneficial. Particularly, in a global pandemic such as COVID-19, finding ways to connect with others remotely is more important than ever. In this study, I will be looking at how one artist in particular, Tessa Violet, manages to continue to not only grow her community, but also encourage her community to bond with each other. She achieves this by finding various ways, unique to her and her branding, that allows her community to connect with each other. By using her platform to give scavenger hunts to her fanbase, promoting and fostering community growth through various platforms, and livestreaming in ways unique to her style, she is able to connect her audience with each other. By engaging and observing these various actions on her part, I am able to see and experience this community bonding myself. I also look at ways this might be able to expanded to other artists and their communities as well. The hope is that the internet and social media can be just another form of music encouraging people to connect with one another.

In a COVID-19 world, student engagement has suffered drastically as organizations and universities shifted to an online format. Yet, there is still an opportunity and a space for digital content creation to bridge the gap in a virtual and hybrid university lifestyle. This project looks at how student groups can still engage students at ASU Tempe through digital content creation and which tools to use to enter the space.

There is a noticeable trend within audiences, made exceptionally more prominent by the rise of social media, in how fan artists and fandoms depict their favorite characters from particular media. In the case of anime like My Hero Academia and JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, hypermasculine characters often emulate intense energy and toxic traits that viewers should normally recognize as problematic. However, there has been a growing movement within fandom culture to depict these hyper violent male characters in increasingly peaceful ways, often softening the character or surrounding them with flowers in a “flower child” vibe. This begs the question of why fandom has been attracted to this archetype in such a different way than before, and what attributes of traditional hypermasculinity lead to this level of admiration. Trends of romanticizing masculine energy is not new to fandom but while many focused on the admirable friendship and bonds between characters, this new trend seems to either idolize toxic and damaging behavior, or ignore it entirely. This research paper studies on notable case of this transformation process in the character of Katsuki Bakugo from My Hero Academia, demonstrating how an aggressive and violent character can be depicted in soft and gentle settings through fan created artworks.