White, Daniel

From 1967-1989 President Nicolae Ceausescu and the Securitate (the secret or political police) repressed the Romanian people through the use of classic propaganda techniques and a unique manipulation of Romania's own national and cultural history. Ceausescu did this in order to cement his hold on the Romanian people and to ensure that Communism remained the dominant ideology within the nation. This thesis argues that Ceausescu manipulated Romania's Latin heritage, cultural and historical icons, and the nation's national identity and history to sustain his regime. Ceausescu used these native sources and the state sponsored repression of the Securitate to give his regime the trappings of legitimacy and to cement his rule.

This paper examines how technological developments in widely used recording devices and social networking sites have impacted scrutiny of police action. ―Police brutality‖ videos are becoming a popular trend on the internet, but various anti-wiretapping statutes have been interpreted to make such recordings illegal. Several case studies will be used, with a focus on Anthony Graber. Twelve states have strict anti-wiretapping statutes, three of which (Massachusetts, Illinois, and Oregon) are notably strict. This paper evaluates the constitutionality of these laws by looking to existing case law, as well as the First and Fourth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution. In light of First Amendment free speech protections, the anti-wiretapping statutes of the three states in question should be illegal; however, this paper will also explore the specific problems presented by video-sharing websites like YouTube to determine when and why police officers do have privacy rights that outweigh constitutional guarantees to free speech.

Individual anarchism, a social movement of the early nineteenth century, was founded on the principles of self-sovereignty and individualism. One such anarchist, Lysander Spooner, argues in “Vices are not Crimes” that vices should not be criminalized by the State. To do so, “deprive*s+ every man of his… liberty to pursue his own happiness.”1 I argue that Spooner’s essay lays the foundation for “lifestyle anarchism,” the doctrine that all the affairs of human beings within the domain of their lifestyle choices (provided they do not harm the person or property of another), should be managed by individuals or voluntary associations.
One method of resistance against the criminalization of lifestyle choices is jury nullification: the ability of the jury to return a verdict of “not guilty” despite evidence of guilt. Spooner, in An Essay on the Trial by Jury, argues that nullification can be used to resist oppressive laws. I contend that lifestyle anarchists should support efforts by organizations such as the Fully Informed Jury Association to educate the public of their ability to practice jury nullification.

In the 1960s, the French Communist thinker Louis Althusser undertook to reorient capitalistic
societies toward realizing socialist ideals. However, Althusser envisioned a self-sustaining capitalist state
placing, through ideological state apparatuses, seemingly insurmountable limitations on constituents’ ideas
and actions. In brief, his characterization of social phenomena as revealing a constructed ideology favoring
the state, itself supporting the economy, seems to have contradicted his revolutionary goal. This thesis
argues that communication theory, as explicated by the Canadian theorist Anthony Wilden, provides a
framework capable of rectifying Althusser’s theory of the state to meet his goal of creating a society whose
citizens are free from state control. Althusser thought undoing ideological apparatuses began with their
identification, proceeded through their disruption, and concluded with their transformation. Wilden’s theory
of morphogenic systems, conceptualizing “resistance” to ideological structures as “noise” in the “signal” of
the state apparatus, shows that generating noise permits political actors to foster morphogenesis in a
“repressive” state.

Media are constantly evolving and these changes have significantly altered our ways of thinking and our identities. In this thesis I discuss digital media – more specifically the Internet and social media – and their impact on the formation of identity. I undertake this examination by turning to previous changes in media technologies and how they have impacted identity formation. I use salient examples in the form of media personae to illustrate how identity formation is viewed and changes over time. I intend to demonstrate that the advancements made through social media and the Internet have resulted in the formation of “imaginary” identities that provide individuals in the digital era with a great degree of freedom to self-fashion their own identities. This new malleable and multi-dimensioned human identity is the basis for a new forms of social life, learning, and social control.

American writer Ishmael Reed defends literature as a mechanism for effective
protest and a form of comment on American politics. In his early works, Reed used
postmodern aesthetics to destabilize common assumptions about race and politics. Today,
Reed continues to grapple with racial inequality, but he has shifted away from
postmodern fiction producing mostly essays and reviews. Reed’s use of various mediums
to protest political injustice blurs the line between politics and literature. In this thesis, I
will use a textual analysis of Reed’s novel Flight to Canada, interviews with Reed, and
literary criticism to argue that Reed utilizes the concept of multiplicity (the state of being
various) to impart a political message that adapts to changing political climates. In turn,
Reed’s work is intended to influence the reader’s sense of political efficacy by
emphasizing the political power of the individual.

Management of nonnative invasive species (NIS) frequently involves removing
animals or plants from an area in order to conserve native communities. Methods of
removing invasive animals include killing individuals, justified as a means of protecting
broader ecological values. This management approach, however, is often controversial and highlights differences between discourses of environmental and animal rights. The former values life at a holistic level while the latter emphasizes the value of individual lives. Language both reflects and shapes belief and action, and to assess these divergent views, I compare invasive species rhetoric of a prominent environmental organization with that of an influential animal welfare group. The goal is to identify the most prevalent themes in the different organizations’ characterizations, highlighting areas of convergence and divergence regarding such themes, and, ultimately, to find out if their rhetoric points to any viable suggestions for compromise.