Matching Items (26)
Description
This dissertation explores the rhetorical significance of persecution claims produced by demonstrably powerful publics in contemporary American culture. This ideological criticism is driven by several related research questions. First, how do members of apparently powerful groups (men, whites, and Christians) come to see themselves as somehow unjustly marginalized, persecuted, or powerless? Second, how are these discourses related to the public sphere and counterpublicity? I argue that, despite startling similarities, these texts studied here are best understood not as counterpublicity but as a strategy of containment available to hegemonic publics. Because these rhetorics of persecution often seek to forestall movements toward pluralism and restorative justice, the analysis forwarded in this dissertation offers important contributions to ongoing theoretical discussions in the fields of public sphere theory and critical cultural theory and practical advice for progressive political activism and critical pedagogy.
ContributorsDuerringer, Christopher (Author) / Brouwer, Daniel (Thesis advisor) / Carlson, Cheree (Committee member) / McDonald, Kelly (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
Simultaneously culture heroes and stumbling buffoons, Tricksters bring cultural tools to the people and make the world more habitable. There are common themes in these figures that remain fruitful for the advancement of culture, theory, and critical praxis. This dissertation develops a method for opening a dialogue with Trickster figures. It draws from established literature to present a newly conceived and more flexible Trickster archetype. This archetype is more than a collection of traits; it builds on itself processually to form a method for analysis. The critical Trickster archetype includes the fundamental act of crossing borders; the twin ontologies of ambiguity and liminality; the particular tactics of humor, duplicity, and shape shifting; and the overarching cultural roles of culture hero and stumbling buffoon. Running parallel to each archetypal element, though, are Trickster's overarching critical spirit of Quixotic utopianism and underlying telos of manipulating human relationships. The character 'Q' from Star Trek: The Next Generation is used to demonstrate the critical Trickster archetype. To be more useful for critical cultural studies, Trickster figures must also be connected to their socio-cultural and historical contexts. Thus, this dissertation offers a second set of analytics, a dialogical method that connects Tricksters to the worlds they make more habitable. This dialogical method, developed from the work of M. M. Bakhtin and others, consists of three analytical tools: utterance, intertextuality, and chronotope. Utterance bounds the text for analysis. Intertextuality connects the utterance, the text, to its context. Chronotope suggests particular spatio-temporal relationships that help reveal the cultural significance of a dialogical performance. Performance artists Andre Stitt, Ann Liv Young, and Steven Leyba are used to demonstrate the method of Trickster dialogics. A concluding discussion of Trickster's unique chronotope reveals its contributions to conceptions of utopia and futurity. This dissertation offers theoretical advancements about the significance and tactics of subversive communication practices. It offers a new and unique method for cultural and performative analyses that can be expanded into different kinds of dialogics. Trickster dialogics can also be used generatively to direct and guide the further development of performative praxis.
ContributorsSalinas, Chema (Author) / de la Garza, Amira (Thesis advisor) / Carlson, Cheree (Committee member) / Olson, Clark (Committee member) / Ellsworth, Angela (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
In response to the rapid rise of emerging markets, shorter product lifecycles, increasing global exchange and worldwide competition, companies are implementing `sustainable development' as a mechanism by which to maintain competitive global advantage. Sustainable product development approaches used in industry focus mainly on environmental issues, and to a certain extent on social and economic aspects. Unfortunately, companies have often ignored or are unsure of how to deal with the cultural dimensions of sustainable product development. Multi-nationals expanding their business across international boundaries are agents of cultural change and should be cognizant of the impact their products have on local markets. Companies need to develop a deeper understanding of local cultures in order to design and deliver products that are not only economically viable but also culturally appropriate. To demonstrate applicability of cultural appropriate design, this research undertakes a case study of food systems in India specifically focusing on the exchange of fresh fruits and vegetables (FFV). This study focuses on understanding the entire supply chain of FFV exchange, which includes consumer experiences, distribution practices and production processes. This study also compares different distribution channels and exchange practices and analyzes the pattern of authority between different players within the distribution network. The ethnographic methods for data collection included a photo-journal assignment, shop-along visits, semi-structured interviews, a participatory design activity and focus group studies. The study revealed that traditional retail formats like pushcart vendors, street retailers and city retail markets are generally preferred over modern retail stores. For consumers, shopping is a non-choreographed activity often resulting in exercising, socializing and accidental purchases. Informal communication, personal relationships and openness to bargaining were important aspects of the consumer-retailer relationship. This study presents cultural insights into interactions, artifacts and contexts relevant to FFV systems in India. It also presents key implications for the field of design, design research, cultural studies, consumer research and sustainability. The insights gained from this study will act as guidelines for designers, researchers and corporations interested in designing products and services that are culturally appropriate to contexts of production, distribution and consumption.
ContributorsDhadphale, Tejas (Author) / Giard, Jacques (Thesis advisor) / Boradkar, Prasad (Thesis advisor) / Broome, Benjamin (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
This dissertation explores the discursive construction of work and family identities in the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) regulatory rulemaking process. It uses dramatism and public sphere theory along with the critical legal rhetoric perspective to analyze official FMLA legal texts as well as over 4,600 public comments submitted in response to the United States Department of Labor's 2008 notice of proposed rulemaking that ultimately amended the existing FMLA administrative regulations. The analysis in this dissertation concludes that when official and vernacular discourses intersect in a rulemaking process facilitated by the state, the facilitated public that emerges in that discourse is bounded by official discourses and appropriated language. But individuals in the process are able to convey and contest a range of work and family identities that include characteristics of public, private, abuse, accountability, sacrifice, and struggle. It further demonstrates that different circumferences for crafting work and family identities exist in the regulatory rulemaking process, including national, international, and time-bounded circumferences. Because the law is a discourse that has far-reaching rhetorical implications and the intersect between vernacular discourses and legal discourses is an underexplored area in both communication and legal studies, this dissertation offers a contribution to the ongoing work of scholars thinking about work and family identities, the material consequences of the intersect of work and family, and the rhetorical implications of legal discourse.
ContributorsDavis, Kirsten (Author) / Carlson, Adina (Thesis advisor) / Brouwer, Daniel (Committee member) / Sigler, Mary (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
Description
The People's Republic of China's inexorable ascendancy has become an epochal event in international landscape, accentuated by its triple national ceremonies of global significance: 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, 2009 Beijing Military Parade, and 2010 Shanghai World Expo. At a momentous juncture when the PRC endeavored to project a new national identity to the outside world, these ceremonial occasions constitute a high-stake communicative opportunity for the Chinese government and a fruitful set of discursive artifacts for symbolic deconstruction and rhetorical interpretation. To unravel these ceremonial spectacles, a public memory approach, with its versatile potencies indexical of a nation's interpretive system of social meaning, its normative framework of ideological model, and its past-present-future interrelationships, is contextually, conceptually, and analytically diagnostic of a rising China's sociopolitical constellations. Thus employing public memory as a conceptual-methodological matrix, my dissertation focuses on the prominent texts in these ceremonies, excavates their historico-memorial invocation and sociocultural persuasion, and plumbs their discursive agenda, rhetorical operation, and sociopolitical implication. I argue that the Chinese government deliberately and forcefully strove for three interrelated communicative objectives at these three ceremonies--re-imaging, re-asserting, and re-anchoring its national identity as an ancient, emergent superpower. Yet in contemporary Chinese context, its discursive (con)quest to recast its leadership as a historically continuous, culturally orthodox, and ideologically legitimate regime has always been compromised by its mythologized historical representation and hegemonic rhetorical reconfiguration, countervailed by its political and ideological fragility, and contested by domestic and global publics. Besides its contributions to the current conversation on the PRC's ceremonial phenomena, discursive formations, and communicative dynamics, this dissertation further offers its diagnosis and prognostication of this projected leading country in the 21st century.
ContributorsGong, Jie (Author) / Brouwer, Daniel (Thesis advisor) / Broome, Benjamin (Committee member) / Wu, Xu (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
Description
This dissertation examines the organizational discourse of business meetings in a Kuwaiti financial organization (Innovative Kuwait Co., pseudonym) and an American non-profit trade organization (Global Phoenix, pseudonym). Specifically, I explore the discourse and social identities, agency, and power used in staff members' task-oriented business meetings (Bargiela-Chiappini & Harris, 1997). The study is based on ethnographic business meetings data collected during eight months of fieldwork in 2010, 2011 and 2012. I used three major qualitative methodologies: observation, audio recording, and feedback focus group. In this study, I propose three research questions: 1) How does agency of staff members reflect membership in the corporate culture of an organization as a whole? 2) How is power used in relation to agency in business meetings? And 3) How are discourse and social identities of staff members enacted in business meetings? The analyses of ethnographic and fieldwork data demonstrate similar and different business linguistic behaviors in the two companies. In Innovative Kuwait Co., male managers are responsible for opening and closing the meetings. They also perform power by using language directives and suggestions directed to staff members. In contrast, female staff members in the Kuwaiti company participated insignificantly in meetings and produce more nonverbal cues. However, in one meeting, a female manager organized the discussion by controlling topics and giving directions. In Global Phoenix, female managers outnumber their male counterparts; therefore, agency, power, discourse, and social identities are performed differently. Female managers are responsible for opening and closing the meetings and for organizing the overall discussions. Additionally, female and male staff members participate equally and they interrupted their colleagues less frequently compared to staff members in Kuwait. Interestingly, American staff members laugh and joke more together than staff members in Kuwait. The findings of this dissertation will contribute to existing linguistic literature on business discourse and the examination of social meanings and structures in organizations, explaining how language shapes the actions and relationships of business staff members. This dissertation will also encourage business people to become mindful of the role of language and language training in developing and maintaining the corporate culture of their organizations.
ContributorsAlHaidari, Fatma M. (Author) / Adams, Karen L (Thesis advisor) / Prior, Matthew (Committee member) / Broome, Benjamin (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
Description
This dissertation explores South Asian American (SAA) emerging adult daughters' roles as their parents' reluctant confidants and mediators of conflict. Using Petronio's (2002) communication privacy management theory (CPM) as a framework, this dissertation investigates daughters' communicative strategies when engaged in familial roles. Findings from 15 respondent interviews with SAA women between the ages of 18 and 29 reveal daughters' intrinsic and extrinsic motivations for role-playing within their families, such as inherent satisfaction and parental expectations, respectively. Additionally, findings highlight daughters' use of coping and thwarting strategies after they become the recipients of their parents' unsolicited private information. Namely, daughters engaged in coping strategies (e.g., giving advice) to help their parents manage private information. Likewise, they enacted thwarting strategies (e.g., erecting territorial markers) to restore boundaries after their parents (the disclosers) violated them. Consequently, serving as parental confidants and mediators contributed to parent-child boundary dissolution and adversely affected daughters' well-being as well as their progression toward adulthood. This study provides theoretical contributions by extending CPM theory regarding reluctant confidants within the contexts of emerging adult child-parent relationships and ethnic minority groups in America. Practically, this study offers emerging adult children insight into how they might renegotiate boundaries when their parents change the relationship by disclosing personal information. Information gleaned from this study provides SAA emerging adult daughters with an understanding of the ramifications of prioritizing their familial roles and being a reluctant confidant, in addition to potential avenues for remediation.
ContributorsNemmers, Geeta Khurana (Author) / Alberts, Janet K (Thesis advisor) / Broome, Benjamin (Committee member) / Christopher, F. Scott (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
Description
Abstract Piecing Together Peace: Do AIESEC International Internships Promote Global Peace by Fostering Individuals' Cosmopolitan Identity Eryn Spence The mission and vision of AIESEC (L'Association Internationale d'Etudiants dans les Sciences Economiques et Commerciales or the International Association of Students in the Economic and Commercial Sciences) are conducive to the cration of cosmopolitan sensibilities in the program's participants. Cosmopolitanism was first posited as an ideology by Diogenes of Sinope, and since this time, numerous forms of cosmopolitanism have eveolved, mainly focusing on the promotion of the idea of global citizenship, rather than allegiance to a single nation, group of people, or cultural ideology. This paper seeks to address AIESEC's success in promoting these sentiments in participants who take on international interships designed to foster cross-cultural relations and understanding on an individual level.
ContributorsSpence, Eryn (Author) / Peskin, Victor (Committee member) / Broome, Benjamin (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2011-05
Description
In a mere thirty years, hospice has grown from a purely ideological philosophy of care for terminally ill individuals and their families, to a large and well organized healthcare entity. And government statistics project that healthcare will generate more new jobs than any other industry in America until at least 2018. While most of the extant literature that has been published on healthcare workers has focused on negative organizational processes, such as stress and burnout, there has been a recent shift in scholarly ideology in which researchers have been challenged to consider the positive aspects of organizational life as well. Compassion, theorized as a three-part interrelated process, is one area that is garnering interest within organizational studies. Utilizing grounded theory, this study engaged literature from organizational studies on emotional labor, stress, and burnout, as well as literature on positive organizational communication. What emerged from the data is a richly detailed picture of the emotional highs and lows that hospice workers experience in their jobs. Research was conducted at two large hospices in the desert southwest, utilized qualitative methods of participant observation (161 hours), and informal and semi-structured interviews (29 interviews) as a means to understand hospice workers--nurses (32), nursing assistants (23), social workers (14), and spiritual care providers (4)--experiences of emotion. Through data analysis, compassion emerged as a salient concept in worker's daily experiences. Yet, my data suggested a reconceptualization of the way in which compassion has been theorized in the past--as noticing, feeling, and responding. Based on my findings, I argue that the three subprocesses could more accurately be described recognizing, relating, and responding.
ContributorsWay, Deborah (Author) / Tracy, Sarah J. (Thesis advisor) / Carlson, Cheree (Committee member) / Kastenbaum, Robert (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2010
Description
The main reason behind this video recorded interview is to understand what today’s Jewish population believes about tattoos. There are many different rumors that are believed to be true by a larger portion of the Jewish population. This project will choose to focus on an array of different members of the Jewish community, and their differing opinions when it comes to tattoos. This documentary video will discuss the different aspects of who is “allowed” to get a tattoo, what the burial myth is, why it exists in the first place, etc. The people interviewed will range from Rabbi’s to Jewish kids in college. The reason why this project is being created is in order to better understand one religions viewpoint on body modification and what this means for future generations to come. Will also at one point discuss what the project meant to me personally, and also the implications of COVID-19. The video recorded interview will help to uncover opinions, and beliefs of Jewish people alive today.
ContributorsBarry, Tira Nadine (Author) / Brouwer, Daniel (Thesis director) / Edson, Belle (Committee member) / Hugh Downs School of Human Communication (Contributor) / Department of Marketing (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2021-05