Journalism and Communication Theses and Dissertations

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Open Access
A Beautiful Death: Visual Representation in Death With Dignity Storytelling
(University of Oregon, 2016-10-27) Staton, David; Bivins, Thomas
This dissertation takes as its central topic visual narratives in Death with Dignity Storytelling and posits the author’s ideas of a beautiful death and the heard gaze. Its methodology includes a textual analysis of such images, which in turn leads to a typology, and the use of a digital tool to “sum images” to test the veracity of the typology. What creates the impulse to look at images of pain, suffering the withering body, the compulsion to bear witness to misery? That question is in part answered by Sontag (2003) Regarding the Pain of Others—“we are spectators of calamities” (p. 18)—and is evident in the indefinite pronoun that hangs at the end of the slim volume’s title. Because it is in those others, that we see ourselves. A Beautiful Death: Visual Representation in Death With Dignity Storytelling considers two case studies as examination and proofs of its claims.
Open Access
A Broader Spectrum of Habitus: An Autoethnographic Exploration of Adolescents, Technology, and Media in the Domestic Field and the Field of Public Education
(University of Oregon, 2021-04-29) Anderson Wright, Kristen; Chavez, Christopher
The implementation of technology is inherently flawed in the field of public education, affecting the ability to operationalize technology in a way that is effective for teachers and students. This unfortunate predetermination is beholden to social, economic and political issues that are deeply rooted in bureaucracy. This autoethnographic qualitative communication and media studies study utilizes social field theory and a Bourdieuian framework by exploring adolescent identity, relationships, habitus, cultural capital and interaction with technology in the field of public education and the domestic field through a cultural, political and economic prism. If we expand the notion of habitus beyond the influence of family and as we get older, school, to include technology and media, we can better understand how to best serve our students. Instead of remaining in the rut of antiquated institutionalized systems and understandings of how things are, we must open up our perceptions, awareness, insight and compassion to include a broader spectrum of habitus. This, in turn, requires a major shift in acknowledging the cultural capital of young people.
Open Access
A Change of Routine: Understanding the Relationship Between Newspaper Reporter Routines and New Technologies in the Age of Media Convergence and Economic Turmoil
(University of Oregon, 2016-11-21) Dean, Jenny; RUSSIAL, JOHN
This study examines the role of the reporter in the newsroom amid economic challenges and changes to technology over the past 10 years and how reporter routines have changed in response to those challenges and changes. The past 10 years are significant from a technological standpoint because of the rise of social media and the growth of video and use of smartphones. During that same time period, the recession of 2007 hit and caused a large number of layoffs and the need to restructure the newsroom due to smaller staffs—all of which affect reporter routines. This study employed in-depth interviews conducted at three newspapers across the country with business, features, news, and sports reporters. In addition, the managing editor and executive editor at each newspaper were interviewed because they, too, influence reporter routines. This study finds that reporters are working increasingly longer hours to address new duties created by technologies and social media. Sports, which was first to adopt new technology, was also the one to most harness the power of technology and enthusiastically use it in a variety of ways, from tweeting to blogging to creating video. Features came in second for embracing technology, while the news section adapted to it to a lesser degree, and business not at all. This finding was true at all three newspapers. On the economic side, staffing cutbacks have resulted in the elimination of investigative teams, as those reporters are needed for daily work. In addition, the cutbacks to copy editors, as well as the need for speed, have resulted in “community editing,” the reliance on readers to help edit materials once they have been posted. As surprising was the widespread shift to immediacy first, in that reporters are encouraged to write short stories for online posting, if necessary, followed with continual updates throughout the day until the story for the print edition was ready to be filed. All this results in a change of routines for reporters.
Open Access
A Discourse Analysis of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting in Reaction to Proposed Funding Cuts
(University of Oregon, 2017-09-06) Schroder, Matthew; Chavez, Christopher
Federal funding has been a frequent political issue for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB). The corporation has come under the threat of being defunded many times since its inception. Those calls have been renewed with the election of President Donald Trump. The CPB defends its existence by citing an inability of the commercial broadcasting market to produce content for certain demographics such as minorities and children. Public media’s opponents believe the opposite is true. This thesis critically examines the discourse of the CPB for appeals to fear that may be exuded as a result of existing in a state of frequent funding threat. A historical background is also established showing how public media in the United States exists as part of a broadcasting system that has been dominated by commercial interests, and how those commercial interests have been responsible for stifling non-profit and educational broadcasting in the country.
Open Access
A Media Archaeology of Online Communication Practices through Search Engine Social Media Optimization.
(University of Oregon, 2021-09-13) Estlund, Karen; Sheehan, Kim
The control of information is embedded in the cultural politics and institutions that regulate access to information. In its most basic form, communication is a practice of enabling the exchange of information. Websites have become one of the primary ways that people access information; however, most of the access is mediated through search engines and social media platforms. Communication research has explored the role of these platforms as gatekeeper and critical studies have attended to the ideologies of search algorithms. From the advertising and public relations industries, advice has emerged to communicators on how to make their content accessible through these gatekeepers using optimization strategies. Critical communication studies have not examined the relationship between these optimization strategies that are used on actual webpages and access to information. This dissertation seeks to fill that gap by asking how optimization techniques are structured in online communications to increase access to information. How do the techno-infrastructure of HTML and embedded assumptions shape communication online? Where are points of resistance and opportunities for influence? How does this differ from historic methods of preparing communications to be discovered and retrieved? This dissertation explores the history of search engine and social media optimization through a media archaeological approach to uncover the invisible infrastructures, habits, and assumptions that surround and shape communication online. By utilizing a media archaeological analysis, I will be able to situate the multi-layered practices in the form of optimization strategies. Critical histories are meant to be emancipatory. This dissertation is important for communication studies to develop an understanding of how we enable and influence discussions in our current digital cultural moment and to provide strategies for how communications are accessed.
Open Access
A MEDIA GENEALOGY OF THE JAPANESE MOBILE PHONE, 1997–2007
(University of Oregon, 2024-01-09) St. Louis, Christopher; Sen, Biswarup
The mobile phone—in its present form, the smartphone—has become a ubiquitous part of everyday life. We use it to facilitate personal and professional communications, access entertainment media, and purchase goods and services, among other things, and yet it has become so thoroughly familiar that it is seen as unremarkable and we take its presence for granted. These meanings of mobile media—what it is to be used for, and in what ways—are not intrinsic to the form of the mobile phone itself or the natural outcomes of technological development, but are instead the result of significant processes of negotiation of meaning that have occurred and continue to occur throughout media history.This dissertation is a media genealogy of the keitai denwa (lit. “mobile phone”) in Japan from 1997 to 2007, when the keitai denwa emerged and transformed from a limited office technology aimed at professionals to a commonplace fixture used by people of all ages to facilitate the experiences of everyday life. Drawing from a range of contemporary print media, this dissertation shows how the keitai was constituted as a discursive formation through media representations, and how these changing representations subsequently helped shape the expectations of what mobile media could do, for whom, and how. As a media genealogy, the dissertation attends to the social and technological conditions of 20th-century Japan which made it possible for the keitai to emerge and assume its particular form, at the same time contesting mainstream Western histories of media and the Internet that frame the keitai ecosystem as an inconsequential, geographically-limited failure. Instead, I argue that what we have come to understand as “mobile media” today is an assemblage of affordances, expectations, and cultural meanings that are the result of the contingent negotiations and technological developments that were in constant play during this period of media transition, and that understanding how discourses of keitai and mobile media became established in this period is vital to our understanding of mobile media today.
Open Access
A Multi-Stakeholder Approach to Risk Management, Corporate Sustainability Communication, and Risk Perception: The Case of Tullow Oil in Ghana
(University of Oregon, 2015-08-18) Ofori-Parku, Sylvester; Steeves, H. Leslie
In the West African country Ghana, which has a history of poor natural resource management, discovery of offshore petroleum resources in 2007 and subsequent commercial production in 2010 (with British multinational Tullow Oil as lead operator) is a potential source of potential wealth and inequality. Using the Cultural Theory of Risk, Social Amplification of Risk Framework, and the Corporate Sustainability Framework — a proposed model—as theoretical foundations, this dissertation examines corporate sustainability practices, communication, and their implications for local residents’ risk perceptions, corporate reputation, and risk management. The study also assesses how cultural worldviews and informational networks (e.g., an environmental group, opinion leaders, and media) amplify or attenuate residents’ risks perceptions. Data were collected via interviews with key actors including a non-governmental organization (NGO), a survey of a representative sample of Half Assini residents in one of the six coastal districts that adjoin Ghana’s offshore petroleum region, and analyses of Tullow’s corporate social responsibility (CSR) reports and other communication texts. Extant worldview and corporate reputation measures were also developed/adapted and tested. The study finds support for the view that cultural worldview and affect are associated with public risk perceptions. Thus, individuals who (a) do not subscribe to the worldview that government ought to regulate corporate behaviors, (b) show a relatively high sense of attachment to their communities, (c) rate the images associated with Ghana’s offshore oil production favorably, and (d) rate the images associated with Tullow Oil positively are more likely to be worried that Ghana’s offshore oil production poses significant risks for the country and their local communities. Regarding corporate sustainability communication, the study observes that Tullow uses a predominantly technical, expert-driven approach, which seeks to discursively position it as an aspirational, engaged, and responsible organization. While critiquing Tullow’s corporate sustainability and communication approach, the research also argues that corporate sustainability (CSR and risk) communication has the potential to constitute desirable corporate practices and could ultimately culminate in meaningful social change. Theoretical contributions to risk perception, risk management/communication, corporate reputation, and CSR communication are discussed. Practical implications for advocacy, corporate practices, and public participation in environmental decision-making are discussed.
Open Access
'A Tomb for the Living': An Analysis of Late 19th-Century Reporting on the Insane Asylum
(University of Oregon, 2019-01-11) Deitz, Charles; Soderlund, Gretchen
This study examines newspaper portrayals of the American insane asylum between 1887 and 1895. The focus is on the way the mental health system was represented to the public in the era of Nellie Bly, the stunt journalist who investigated a Manhattan insane asylum in 1887. The project reveals the ways in which the newspapers aggregated a variety of narratives around the insane asylum which ultimately presented the institution in such a way that served the needs of the press. For those without firsthand knowledge of the insane asylum, the newspaper was the primary source of information. In that medium, there was a system of knowledge created and disseminated, one that integrated and conflated the public answer to mental illness with other sociopolitical issues such as economics, crime, gender, and ethnicity. The content created a meaning in which the deteriorating asylum system was presented contradictorily as an ineffective yet permanent public reality. Furthermore, newspapers reinforced and augmented an existing shame around mental illness. Mental illness evolved from a private/family concern to one of public import over the course of the 19th century. Thus, mental affliction became more than a moral failing or a character flaw; it had been elevated to a social problem to be tended by the government. Therefore, the problem of the mentally ill fell under the jurisdiction of the metro newspaper, which often published articles relaying asylum expenses, investigations into the failing asylums themselves, or speculations as to the cause of a person's sickness.
Open Access
A Trip to the Beach: Experimental Investigation of Mood, the Body, and Presence in Virtual Reality Meditation
(University of Oregon, 2018-09-06) Bennett, Spencer; Davis, Donna
This study sought to explore the effects of virtual reality (VR) as a technology that can potentially improve guided meditation practices; VR guided meditation sessions and audio guided meditation sessions were compared. Specifically, this study investigated VR’s impact on an individual’s self-perception of psychological factors that reflect mood or emotion; it also examined VR’s impact on an individual’s self-perception of presence and relaxation. After examination, VR guided meditation had no significant impact on an individual’s self-perception of mood and emotion or self-reported feelings of relaxation. However, guided VR meditation had a significant impact on an individual’s self-reported perception of presence; participants who meditated with VR felt “as if they were at the beach.” Although this study demonstrated that a fairly inexpensive VR system can enhance feelings of presence, that sense of presence did not enhance feelings of well-being and relaxation; this could be attributed to the novelty effect.
Open Access
A Voice in the Wilderness: A Political Economic Examination of Three Alaska Public Broadcasting Organizations
(University of Oregon, 2024-08-07) Schroder, Matthew; Wasko, Janet
This dissertation examines three public broadcasting organizations in the state of Alaska. Alaska’s public broadcasting system was defunded by the state government in 2019. Amidst the cuts and during other times of duress, Alaska’s public broadcasters often used narratives like those distributed by national public broadcasting organizations to justify the existence of public broadcasting in the state. The national narratives were often missing a sense of context, history, and purpose about Alaska’s public broadcasters and often left them without an identity and voice of their own. Using a political economy of media and communications framework, this dissertation provides the context, history, and purpose of KUAC in Fairbanks, KYUK in Bethel, and Alaska Public Media in Anchorage. The research explores the general history, operational and programmatical trends, and past and present economic trends of the three organizations.
Open Access
Actualization through Activism: Transgender Media Making in Central Appalachia
(University of Oregon, 2022-10-26) Banks, Beck; Newton, Julianne
Using ethnographic methods, this dissertation explores transgender media makers and their works in Central Appalachia. It employs audience studies, queer/trans migration, and queer rurality to understand the drive of these makers and their audiences. A documentary tour, an Instagram account/zine, and a filmmaker provide the means to further understand trans life in the region and what compels the makers to do their work. Through this media making activism, a new migration theory, “actualization through activism,” and a new area of study, “trans rurality,” are developed and proposed.
Restricted
Adidas, the All Blacks, and Maori Culture: Globalization and the Reformation of Local Identities
(University of Oregon, 2013-10-03) Goris, Michelle; Chavez, Christopher
As corporations transcend international borders new questions arise concerning the formation of identities. This study looks at adidas advertising campaigns "Bonded by Blood" and "Of This Earth" and how they represent and commodify Māori culture. "The Making" of "Bonded by Blood" is the video component for that campaign. The "Of This Earth" file is the TV commercial from 2007. Furthermore, this study looked at whether or not these advertisements are in fact reaffirming already established stereotypes about indigeneity and "Otherness." This thesis is informed by Stuart Hall's article "The Spectacle of the Other" as well as works by other scholars who discuss ideologies of Otherness, globalization, glocalization, mobility, and corporate sports sponsorship. The posters of each campaign as well as the video components were analyzed through textual analysis. The results show that patterns of cultural appropriation and reaffirmation of stereotypes do occur in the posters and videos of those campaigns. The two video components are included as supplementary files for this thesis.
Open Access
Advertising Bias in Video Game Magazines
(University of Oregon, 2018-04-10) Dewar, Gregory; Russial, John
The potential for advertising bias forming a conflict of interest with editorial content is a problem for any publication, and those with a gaming focus are no exception. Reviews in these publications can make or break a game and in some cases — a developer. The purpose of this content analysis of three gaming magazines is to examine whether publications in which developers purchase advertising are biased in favor of those developers’ games. The magazines chosen were: Game Informer, GamesTM, and Edge. The working definition of bias used is the financial pressure that advertisers exert on the editorial content of publications through the purchasing of advertising space. Video game magazines were chosen for this study due to readers’ reliance on reviews to make purchase decisions. No overt advertising bias was found. There was no significant link between the coverage of games and ads for those games in the same issue. A more subtle case for bias was found, however, when the entire sample of each magazine was looked at. For example, games reviewed anywhere in the sample in a given magazine tended to more often have an advertisement and for it to be larger, and this was especially true if the game received positive coverage. Other interesting results showed that magazines had a largely varying spread in the tone of reviews and that the majority of ads were for non-games, though game ads were larger on average.
Open Access
Aesthetics of Historiophoty: The Uses and Affects of Visual Effects for Photography in the Historical Documentary Film
(University of Oregon, 2016-11-21) McDaniel, Kyle; Newton, Julianne
This dissertation examines the origins, applications, and functions of visual effects in the historical documentary film. This research study investigates how aesthetic and editorial practices and tools are used for different image forms and as part of the visual presentation. A research design that implements qualitative interviews, visual analysis, and focus groups was incorporated to examine visual effects and images at three specific sites. The pan-and-zoom effect and its variants as well as select titles from the filmography of Ken Burns were used as case studies for this dissertation. The findings from the analyses suggest that visual effects for still image forms and the repetition of these applications and strategies are significant to the content depicted in images, the scope of the visual presentation, and the capacity for audiences to connect to historical information in the film.
Open Access
American and Norwegian Press' Approaches to Identification of Criminal Suspects or Arrestees: The Public's Right to Know Versus the Private Citizen's Right to Privacy, Reputation, and Presumption of Innocence
(University of Oregon, 2013-10-10) Bowers, Jonathan; Maier, Scott
This thesis examines the processes the American and Norwegian press go through when identifying (or not) private citizens who are suspected of or arrested for a crime. Four central principles are explored in detail and elaborated upon as they relate to the press and individuals in the criminal justice system: the public's right to know, the right to privacy, protection of reputation, and presumption of innocence. Three Norwegian newspaper editors and an independent consultant to the Norwegian Institute of Journalism elaborated on how identification of criminal suspects is determined in Norway. The Norwegian case study provides an alternative approach to identification. Both legal and ethics solutions are proposed as a way to help protect the privacy, reputation, and presumption of innocence of private individuals suspected of or arrested for a crime but without unconstitutionally intruding on press freedom.
Open Access
American local radio journalism: A public interest channel in crisis
(University of Oregon, 2008-03) Sanders, Tyrone, 1951-
This study looks at the status of local radio news in the United States in light of changes in policy, economics, production and distribution technology and the dynamic media environment. It examines how differences in ownership relate to the amount of news programming offered on local stations, how those stations are staffed and the working conditions for today's radio journalists. Two areas of communication theory provide the basis for the study, Political Economy of Communication and Localism. Both offer excellent perspectives for studying the radio broadcasting industry and the people who work in it. Political economy allows the study to look closely at the impact of ownership in our capitalist society, how government regulates ownership and programming, how those factors affect the working conditions for journalists and how they ultimately impact the public interest. Political economy is a holistic approach that also calls upon us to consider a moral philosophy and make recommendations for the good of society. Localism is a long-held policy objective of the Federal Communications Commission that has been a part of the regulatory process relating to ownership and programming of news and public affairs throughout the existence of radio in the United States. Using a triangulation of both quantitative and qualitative methods, the study documents the news operations of four different types of ownership structures within a single radio market, Salt Lake City, Utah. The primary quantitative method used content analysis to examine a sample of 255 hours of radio programming across the ownership groups. Qualitative methods of in-depth interviews and observation were used to examine how the stations were staffed, the working conditions for local journalists and how the news programming is produced. The study found the overall amount of local radio news programming to be low, with locally owned stations generally producing more news then those with large, outside corporate ownership. It also found working conditions to vary greatly among ownership groups. Local owners tended to be much more supportive of local journalists and provide better conditions for the production and programming of local radio news.
Open Access
An Analysis of First Amendment Protection for Student Expression, Mid-1900s-2011
(University of Oregon, 2012) Conaway, Anne; Conaway, Anne; Gleason, Tim
This dissertation sought to determine if federal-level, post-secondary student freedom of expression case law was developing in a similar path to that at the K-12 level of education. It also investigated the ways in which a K-12, highly speech-restrictive legal standard arising from the K-12 case Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier has been utilized at the post-secondary level of education. The question of this case's applicability to post-secondary freedom of expression case law has resulted in a federal circuit court split on the matter. The U.S. Supreme Court has denied certiorari in these cases, leaving lower courts to guess as to whether or not to utilize it in decision-making. In answering these research questions, all federal-level case law found at both levels of education from 1940 to 2011 was analyzed through both traditional legal case analysis and an analytical process specifically designed for this project. The findings revealed that, for the most part, post-secondary student expression case law is, indeed, developing both substantively and at the same pace as that at the K-12 educational level. Much of this consistency is due to utilization of another K-12 freedom of expression case, Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District. This case has been highly protective of student expression at both levels of education. In regard to the second research question, this research found that one federal circuit court case declined to apply Hazelwood, indicating it was not an appropriate standard for use at the post-secondary level of education. Three federal circuit courts and one federal district court, however, have decided cases per Hazelwood. Application, however, has been neither consistent nor speech-protective. Further, it is expected that unless or until the U.S. Supreme Court rules on its applicability to post-secondary student expression, the number of cases in which it is utilized will continue to rise.
Open Access
Analysis of the Social Media of the Obama and Romney Campaigns in the 2012 Election
(University of Oregon, 2014-09-29) Buratti, Brenda; Davis, Donna
This study is a quantitative content analysis of the Facebook and Twitter communication of the Obama and Romney campaigns on seven dates within the 30 days prior to the 2012 presidential election. Specific rhetorical techniques are explored for similarities or differences in how these techniques have appeared in political communication in legacy media and how they are expressed in social media. Repetition, collective language, self-reference language and Benoit's functions of attack, acclaim and defend are examined. Additionally, the study identified what topics each candidate emphasized in their social media communication. Findings show that both candidates used repetition to reinforce key messages. The use of attacks, acclaims and defenses bore some similarities to uses in legacy media. However, the primary focuses by both candidates centered on motivating citizens to show support for the candidate and get out the vote. Few policy issues appeared in the communication of either candidate.
Open Access
Ancient archetypes in modern media: A comparative analysis of "Golden Girls", "Living Single", and "Sex and the City"
(University of Oregon, 2008-09) Macey, Deborah Ann, 1970-
Recombinant television, a common television practice involving recycled, prepackaged formulas, updated to create programming that is perceived as novel, impacts more than industry processes. While the industry uses recombinants to reduce risk by facilitating aspects of production and audience affiliation, the inadvertent outcomes include a litany of narratives and characters that influence our worldview. As did the myths of earlier oral societies, television serves as one of our modern storytellers, teaching what we value and helping us make sense of our culture. This study focuses on how the prevalence of recombinant television limits portrayals of women and the discourse of feminism in three popular, female cast American sitcoms. This study comparatively examines the recombinant narratives and characters in Golden Girls, Living Single , and Sex and the City . While these programs are seemingly about very different modern women, older White women in suburban Florida; twenty-something African-American women in Brooklyn; and thirty-something, White, professional women in Manhattan, respectively, the four main characters in each show represent feminine archetypes found throughout Western mythology: the iron maiden, the sex object, the child, and the mother. First, a content analysis determines if a relationship exists between the characters and archetypes. Then, a comparative textual analysis reveals the deeper meanings the archetypes carry. Finally, a comparative narrative analysis examines the similarities and differences among the series. The findings reveal that a relationship exists between each modern character and her corresponding ancient archetype, reflecting particular meanings and discourses. The iron maiden archetypes, for example, generally bring forth a feminist discourse, whereas the child archetypes exhibit traditional values. While the sex object archetypes are self-absorbed, consumed with their own beauty and sexual conquests, the mother archetypes seek psychological wellness for themselves and those around them, generally providing much of the emotional work for the group. As reflected in these popular U.S. television series, the similarities among the archetypes and narratives depict limited views of women's lives, while the variance indicates differences among age, race, and class demographics. These recombinant portrayals of ancient archetypes as modern women suggest that our understanding of women's lives remains antiquated, reductionist, and conventional.
Open Access
“And the middle of that is reproductive justice”: A qualitative exploration into the practicality of intersectionality for sexual health professionals
(University of Oregon, 2016-11-21) Del Rosso, Teri; Curtin, Pat
This study explores how the complicated and nuanced identity theory, intersectionality, can be implemented as a communication strategy for sexual health professionals. From interviews with sexual health professionals in Oregon, this research indicates that through the adaptation of a reproductive justice lens professionals can practice intersectionality in their day-to-day work. Strategic communication has longed focused on the “cash value” of theory and suggested that theory is best when it can be applied in real world instances. This research identifies three strategies for application: the use of explicit language, the building of transformative coalitions, and the centering of marginalized voices, stories, and lived experience. This, in combination with an exploration into how sexual health professionals see their own professional and personal identities, indicates that there are very real world applications of intersectional theory that benefit practice.