Journalism and Communication Theses and Dissertations

Permanent URI for this collection

https://hdl.handle.net/1794/4665

Browse

Browsing Journalism and Communication Theses and Dissertations by Author "Alilunas, Peter"

Now showing 1 - 6 of 6
  • Thumbnail Image
    ItemOpen Access
    Box Office Back Issues: Historicizing the Liminal Superhero Films, 1989--2008
    (University of Oregon, 2021-04-27) Roman, Zachary; Alilunas, Peter
    Although the superhero film became a dominant force in Hollywood early in the 21st century, the formation of the superhero genre can be attributed to a relatively small temporal window beginning in 1989 and ending in 2008. This dissertation argues that a specific group of superhero films that I call the liminal superhero films (LSF) collectively served as the industrial body that organized and created a fully formed superhero genre. The LSF codified the superhero genre, but that was only possible due to several industrial elements at play before they arrived. An increasing industrial appetite for blockbusters coming out of the 1970s, the rise of proprietary intellectual property after the corporate conglomeration that occurred at the end of the 20th century, and finally, the ability of the LSF to mitigate risk (both real and perceived) all led to this cinematic confluence.The LSF streamlined the superhero genre through a mechanism I characterize as “generic pruning.” This is a process that indexes the modes, tropes, and production decisions that came to form the genre through years of formal, representational, and narrative trials. Although many LSF were critically panned, the experimentation that occurred in the liminal era aided Hollywood by informing it about the types of superhero films that would be produced and replicated, while also inculcating audiences as to the normed contours around a superhero film genre that had previously been illegible.
  • Thumbnail Image
    ItemOpen Access
    Bucket in My Hand: Kentucky Fried Chicken Advertising, American Dream Discourse, and the Hunger-Obesity Paradox
    (University of Oregon, 2016-10-27) Smith, Rachel; Alilunas, Peter
    As a cornerstone of American identity, the American Dream serves as a hegemonic ideology rooted in myth. This myth centers on an ardent belief in equity despite the existence of systemic racial and economic exclusions, which includes inconsistent access to healthy food resulting in the hunger-obesity paradox. Because fast food plays a leading role in generating this paradox where an individual can be both hungry and obese, this thesis analyzes the 2015 Kentucky Fried Chicken advertising campaign to identify how the campaign perpetuates Dream discourse and understand how that discourse contributes to the hunger-obesity paradox. With the Colonel anchored at the heart of this campaign, the analysis found that he embodies the Dream and acts as a megaphone for Dream discourse. And ultimately, because Dream discourse overlooks and even admonishes low-income people and people of color, the people who most often face hunger and obesity, it contributes to the paradox.
  • Thumbnail Image
    ItemOpen Access
    Filtered Morality: Theatrical Film Sanitization in Utah County, Utah, 1960s-1980s
    (University of Oregon, 2024-01-09) Cowley, Brent; Alilunas, Peter
    This dissertation examines a history of theatrical film sanitization in Utah County, Utah, primarily from the 1960s to the 1980s. Regional censorship boards throughout the Hollywood Production Code era labored to ensure that film content corresponded with the moral standards within a region. However, the rise of the MPAA rating system and U.S. Supreme Court obscenity rulings in the 1970s changed how society consumed films. These changes were problematic for citizens of Utah County, most of whom were members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormon/LDS), who are warned against viewing film content considered “obscene.” In the 1960s, city-wide obscenity ordinances were passed to regulate the influx of films with objectionable content. Citizen groups and decency commissions were instrumental to this regulation as they pressured the enforcement of the ordinances. City attorneys required edits, banned films, and prosecuted those that violated the ordinances. Despite these efforts, many citizens attended films considered objectionable, especially when local media reported on “obscene” films. After several ordinances were tested in court and lost, a new battle was waged. The roles were reversed once citizens outside the majority sought autonomy to view edited versions of films without constraint. As a result of the culture’s deep interest in the arts and popular entertainment, there soon came a desire for many citizens to seek sanitized versions of mainstream movies rather than prohibiting them. These efforts reestablished a self-imposed regional “Production Code,” allowing citizens the autonomy to view films adapted to their own standards. This intense interest eventually established Utah County as the unofficial headquarters of film sanitization companies worldwide. This research expands upon the limited academic study of regional film regulatory organizations after the 1970s. It is argued that cultural policies influenced by BYU culture (extreme interest in arts, divinity, and community) resulted in continued regulation of Hollywood films long past the Hollywood Production Code era. It is argued that such cultural policies and media coverage often created more interest in the movie they were trying to ban. A historical exploration of the theatrical regulation of Utah County assists in arguing how BYU culture was instrumental in shaping the cultural policies that influenced not only theatrical film sanitization but, eventually, film filtering technologies standard today.
  • Thumbnail Image
    ItemOpen Access
    Representation and Exploitation of War and Conflict: Publicly Appropriable Media as Low Hanging Fruit
    (University of Oregon, 2024-01-09) McLaughlin, Andrew; Alilunas, Peter
    This dissertation examines the phenomenon of War Porn, a term that describes the visual destruction of bodies in conflict to elicit a visceral reaction in viewers for the purposes of titillation and entertainment. I examine the historical trajectory of the concept across mediums, genres, and platforms. I argue that War Porn has gone from niche and discrete collections to a professionalized industry, operating on mainstream social media platforms, and consequently raising new moral and ethical questions about the exploitation of the publicly appropriable archive (or PAM). I contend that War Porn has been exploited in Mondo films, shock videotapes, and shock websites because of its status as one of the low hanging fruits of the visual archive, able to be picked and put to use with little fear of legal recourse by shock entrepreneurs working across several decades, dating back to WWII. In part, this is because of much of the contents status as orphan media, or media with unclear ownership or copyright status. These forms of exploitation have been shaped and defined by a series of government regulations. I argue that a key regulation that has created the ecosystem for War Porn to thrive online is Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996, which has emboldened shock entrepreneurs to make dividends on large, user-submitted collections of War Porn. I conclude by suggesting that we look to alternative representations of the brutality of war and conflict, providing the model of Dattalion, a network of over 100 Ukrainian women collecting visual evidence of war crimes, as one possible answer.
  • Thumbnail Image
    ItemOpen Access
    "The Hold Out": The San Francisco Transgender Film Festival and Exhibition as Protest
    (University of Oregon, 2021-09-13) Robbins, Andrew; Alilunas, Peter
    This dissertation is an historical cultural analysis of the San Francisco Transgender Film Festival (SFTFF). Founded in 1997, this exhibition culture is the world’s longest-running documented trans film festival. Although content made by trans filmmakers or films with trans themes have been programmed at queer film festivals, trans-specific film festivals are an important and steadily growing phenomenon since the late 1990s. This dissertation seeks to address the limited scholarship that acknowledges the robust history of trans exhibition cultures, and by using ethnographic and historical methods, examines cultural and economic frameworks within which SFTFF emerged and persisted, illuminating tensions that cannot be disentangled. By tracing the festival’s interconnected queer, punk, and trans subcultural lineages, this dissertation outlines several of the festival’s counter-hegemonic practices. SFTFF’s enactment of punk as a sensibility translates to four key areas explored in this dissertation: identity, exhibition, spatiality, and economics.
  • Thumbnail Image
    ItemOpen Access
    Verified, Tracked, and Visible: A History of the Configuration of the Internet User
    (University of Oregon, 2018-04-10) St. Louis, Christopher; Alilunas, Peter
    The figure of the user is often overlooked in Internet histories, which frequently focus on larger treatments of infrastructure, governance, or major contributions of specific individuals. This thesis constructs a philosophical and ideological history of the Internet user and examines how that figure has changed though the evolution of the Internet. Beginning with the Web 2.0 paradigm in the early 2000s, a growing state and corporate interest in the Internet produced substantial changes to the structure and logic of the Internet that saw the user being placed increasingly at the periphery of online space as the object of state surveillance or behavioral tracking. The three case studies in this thesis investigate the combination of technological constraints and discursive strategies which have aided in shaping the contemporary user from active architect of the Internet itself to passive, ideal consumer of predetermined online experiences.