Something Like Human explores corporate social responsibility through a triple lens, providing a content analysis using previous literature and history as the standards for evaluation. Section I reviews the history of corporate social responsibility and how it is currently understood and employed today. Section II turns its focus to a specific socially conscious corporation, Lush Cosmetics, examining its practices considering the concepts provided in Section I and performing a close analysis of its promotional materials. Section III consists of a mock marketing campaign designed for Lush in light of their social commitments. By the end of this thesis, the goal for the reader is to ask: Can major corporations be something like human?

Coverage of Black soccer players by Italian media outlets perpetuate narratives rooted in anti-Black racism. These narratives reflect the country’s changing attitude toward immigration. Historically a country from which citizens emigrated, it is now a recipient of immigrants from Africa. These changing demographics have also caused a shift in the focus of racism in Italy, from discrimination against southern Italians to anti-Black racism. As the country has explored what defines a unified Italian identity, Afro-Italians have been excluded. This study evaluates how these perceptions of Afro-Italian soccer players manifest according to various racial frames, and the frequency with which they do so in three Italian sports dailies: La Gazzetta dello Sport, Corriere dello Sport – Stadio, and Tuttosport. In this context, Afro-Italian refers to an Italian citizen of African descent, and anti-Black racism denotes any form of discrimination, stereotyping, or racism that specifically impacts those of African descent. For this study, a representative sample was collected consisting of website coverage published by the three sports dailies: articles devoted to Mario Balotelli that appeared between 2007 and 2014, and articles devoted to Moise Kean between 2016 and 2019. Three coders recorded the content of the sample articles on a spreadsheet organized by the type of racial frame applied to Black athletes. The analysis reveals that the players were frequently portrayed as being incapable of self-determination and of having an innate, natural athletic capability, rather than one honed through practice. The coders noted that in addition to explicit racial framing, there were also instances of implicit and subtle ways these racial frames manifest. In future research, the coding procedure will need to be adapted to account for these more layered and nuanced manifestations of anti-Black racism.

In recent years, advanced metrics have dominated the game of Major League Baseball. One such metric, the Pythagorean Win-Loss Formula, is commonly used by fans, reporters, analysts and teams alike to use a team’s runs scored and runs allowed to estimate their expected winning percentage. However, this method is not perfect, and shows notable room for improvement. One such area that could be improved is its ability to be affected drastically by a single blowout game, a game in which one team significantly outscores their opponent.<br/>We hypothesize that meaningless runs scored in blowouts are harming the predictive power of Pythagorean Win-Loss and similar win expectancy statistics such as the Linear Formula for Baseball and BaseRuns. We developed a win probability-based cutoff approach that tallied the score of each game once a certain win probability threshold was passed, effectively removing those meaningless runs from a team’s season-long runs scored and runs allowed totals. These truncated totals were then inserted into the Pythagorean Win-Loss and Linear Formulas and tested against the base models.<br/>The preliminary results show that, while certain runs are more meaningful than others depending on the situation in which they are scored, the base models more accurately predicted future record than our truncated versions. For now, there is not enough evidence to either confirm or reject our hypothesis. In this paper, we suggest several potential improvement strategies for the results.<br/>At the end, we address how these results speak to the importance of responsibility and restraint when using advanced statistics within reporting.

This thesis research aims to define, identify, and promote community theatre as a “third space” for disadvantaged youth. A third space is defined by the Oxford dictionary as “...the in-between, or hybrid, spaces, where the first and second spaces work together to generate a new third space. First and second spaces are two different, and possibly conflicting, spatial groupings where people interact physically and socially: such as home (everyday knowledge) and school (academic knowledge)” (Oxford Dictionary, 2021). For disadvantaged youth, the creation of a third space in the theatre can give them a safe environment away from issues they may have at home or at school, it can further their learning about themselves and others, and it can also help those youth feel a sense of belonging to a community larger than themselves. Because of these benefits, it is clear that performing arts programs can offer a great impact on disadvantaged youth; however, many theatre companies struggle to market their programming to said communities. This may be in part, due to low marketing budgets, no specificity in labor resources dedicated to youth programming, or ineffective marketing strategies and tactics.<br/>In order to ideate marketing recommendations for these organizations, primary research was conducted to determine the attitudes and beliefs revolving around youth participation in community theatre, as well as the current marketing strategies and tactics being utilized by programmers. Participants included program managers of youth theatre programs, as well as youth participants from several major cities in the U. S. The secondary research aims to better understand the target demographic (disadvantaged youth), the benefits derived from participation in arts programming, and marketing strategies for the performing arts. Following data analysis are several recommendations for the learning, planning, and implementation of marketing strategies for theatre programmers.

This study utilized a literature review and an analysis of Google Trends and Google News data in order to investigate the coverage that American men’s soccer gets from the media compared to that given to other major American sports. The literature review called upon a variety of peer-reviewed, scholarly entries, as well as journalistic articles and stories, to holistically argue that soccer receives short-sighted coverage from the American media. This section discusses topics such as import substitution, stardom, and American exceptionalism. The Google analysis consisted of 30 specific comparisons in which one American soccer player was compared to another athlete playing in one of America’s major sports leagues. These comparisons allowed for concrete measurements in the difference in popularity and coverage between soccer players and their counterparts. Overall, both the literature review and Google analysis yielded firm and significant evidence that the American media’s coverage of soccer is lopsided, and that they do play a role in the sport’s difficulty to become popular in the American mainstream.

Media Mentality is a media education resource website designed to aid students in early career development. This project was developed with a few goals in mind: improve accessibility, provide opportunity and inspire a new generation of the workforce. We wanted to level the playing field as students enter undergraduate programs with varying degrees of experience. We see this website as an opportunity for interested parties to continue the research and add to the wealth of knowledge in a student worker role. The hope is that students, particularly freshman and first-year transfer students will utilize the site, expand their horizons, learn about all the career opportunities available to them, and push the envelope when it comes to the curriculum taught at Arizona State University. Visit www.mediamentality.com

Americans today face an age of information overload. With the evolution of Media 3.0, the internet, and the rise of Media 3.5—i.e., social media—relatively new communication technologies present pressing challenges for the First Amendment in American society. Twentieth century law defined freedom of expression, but in an information-limited world. By contrast, the twenty-first century is seeing the emergence of a world that is overloaded with information, largely shaped by an “unintentional press”—social media. Americans today rely on just a small concentration of private technology powerhouses exercising both economic and social influence over American society. This raises questions about censorship, access, and misinformation. While the First Amendment protects speech from government censorship only, First Amendment ideology is largely ingrained across American culture, including on social media. Technological advances arguably have made entry into the marketplace of ideas—a fundamental First Amendment doctrine—more accessible, but also more problematic for the average American, increasing his/her potential exposure to misinformation. <br/><br/>This thesis uses political and judicial frameworks to evaluate modern misinformation trends, social media platforms and current misinformation efforts, against the background of two misinformation accelerants in 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic and U.S. presidential election. Throughout history, times of hardship and intense fear have contributed to the shaping of First Amendment jurisprudence. Thus, this thesis looks at how fear can intensify the spread of misinformation and influence free speech values. Extensive research was conducted to provide the historical context behind relevant modern literature. This thesis then concludes with three solutions to misinformation that are supported by critical American free speech theory.

Green Pages is a sustainability-focused magazine publication created by our team in response to the need for increased post-secondary awareness and interest in the ethical circular economy. The magazine, designed and written by Dale Helvoigt, Caroline Yu, and Anne Snyder is available digitally and free of charge so that students and non-students alike have access to information and resources regarding sustainability. Each article is thoroughly researched with references provided so our readers seek to continue their education into our content. The end goal of Green Pages is to foster interest in all individuals, especially young people, on the current environmental climate and the sustainable practices that can be adopted into one's lifestyle in pursuit of a "greener" future.