Mass Communications

This study examines effective strategies of communication with Hispanic students through the use of printed material, specifically recruitment viewbooks used by colleges and universities. The Hispanic market is significant in south Florida. As colleges and universities begin to seek to communicate the benefits of their institutions to this population, it is important to produce printed communication in a manner that appeals to members of the Hispanic culture. Using a qualitative approach through focus group research, Hispanic freshmen students of a community college and upper division students at a public university were asked a series of open-ended questions about their preferences in the use of language, photographs and several design elements of three publications. One college viewbook represented a majority enrollment of Hispanics. The second viewbook represented a university that is culturally diverse. A third viewbook represented a university that has Hispanic enrollment of less than 4%.

This study examined 1994 gubernatorial election coverage by two Florida daily newspapers, The Miami Herald and The Sun-Sentinel, to determine if their coverage was biased. The author conducted content analyses of the titles and terms both papers used to describe the candidates, the total column inches devoted to each candidate, and the number of times the candidate's name appeared in headlines. The results of the analyses were inconclusive for both elections, but in the Republican primary The Miami Herald appeared to show slight favoritism for Jeb Bush, a Miamian. The Sun-Sentinel provided relatively equal coverage for all four major candidates. In the general election both papers mentioned Lawton Chiles more frequently with more attention directed to his stand on issues possibly because of his incumbency.

If black men and women, and some white women were--to some extent--successful in forming a coalition to fight some sociopolitical battles much as anti-slavery, civil rights, women's movement, etc., it appears that romantic interracial relationships--particularly between black men and white women--are on the verge of undermining this necessary coalition to "cross the bridge to the twenty-first century." Judging from three perspectives: (1) historical sexual-relations between blacks and whites; (2) the black female audience's attitude toward black man and white woman romance; and (3) media (movies and literature) portrayals of black women's reactions to black men who date or marry white women, this thesis argues that some black women appear to incorporate stereotypical themes in their "objectionable" discourse to black man/white woman romantic relationships. It further argues that these stereotypes appear to support the causes of racism and patriarchy through the pitting; of black women against black men and white women, and undermine black men and women relations, as well as racial unity between black and white women.

This thesis examines the rhetorical effects created by political cartoonists through their depictions of Ronald Reagan. A representative sampling of these cartoons demonstrates that the pictorial and symbolic language in their visual dialogue was extrapolated from the heroic, mythic character types Reagan portrayed during his film career and with which he sought to be identified. This thesis argues that because cartoons depicted and caricaturized Reagan as an archetypal hero, they touched a responsive chord in the electorate and persuaded them to regard Reagan favorably.

The issue of oppression becomes all the more complicated when it is realized that the language used by the dominant culture and, to a certain extent, those who are subordinate to that culture, is not only race- and class-biased but phallogocentric as well. It is primarily through language that social customs, beliefs and practices are normalized and viewed as "common sense" by the people engaging in them. Since it plays an integral role in constructing the "reality" for any given group of individuals, language is anything but a benign method of communication among human beings. Certain groups, however, often manage to break with the dominant discourses and rewrite the language. From within the hip-hop subculture, black female rap artists emerge as a challenge to misogyny and racial bigotry by resisting the hegemonic modes which construct and control the human subject.

Fashion and dress have a complex relationship to identity. The clothes we choose to wear can express our identities in terms of gender, race, class, and/or sexuality, among other things. This study examines how gender, race, and class are used to interpellate primarily female shoppers through store window advertising in the city of London, England. Using a feminist cultural and media studies approach, I analyze eight store window display advertisements as texts, and how their portrayals of women are presented to consumers. This study concludes that stereotypical, degrading, humiliating and violating representations of women and femininity abound in store window displays. Women are most likely to be portrayed as sex objects and signs of beauty. By representing store mannequins in sexual and fetishized poses, advertisers commodify female sexuality by associating it closely with beautiful, young bodies and the trappings of a glitzy lifestyle.

This study analyzes the programming, narrative structure and scheduling of Spike TV to reveal how this "first network for men" continues to support hegemonic masculinity through a strategy of gendered narrowcasting. Such representations mediate a crisis in masculinity by glorifying action-oriented males and, therefore, marginalize intellectual representations. The study suggests that such hegemonically masculine representations are contributing to the academic struggles currently plaguing young males in our culture.

This thesis examines how post-communist Romanian women's magazines engender a particular representation of women in transition. This is both a challenge to the previous communist ideology which promoted an asexual type of femininity, and the product of a hegemonically masculine culture revived by the reality of the newly born capitalist Romanian society. By means of a feminist semiotic analysis, the study concentrates on visual and textual discourses of femininity in two popular Romanian women's magazines. It concludes that Romanian women's publications during transition advance a concept of femininity constructed through a passivity/power complementariness. On the one hand, constructed images of femininity, according to Western norms, replicate a patriarchal system of values; on the other hand, agency becomes available to women by their own control over their embodied subjectivity, prompted by anxieties accumulated and repressed during the years of communism.

Images of beauty are social constructs that exist in historical contexts and are subject to change. A correlation may be made between social inequality and how images of beauty are used to maintain the status quo. Mode Magazine is an unique fashion magazine that depicts women of different sizes. This thesis examines how "realistically sized" images of women are represented, and whether representation challenges beauty hegemony. It critically examines both visual and non-visual textual representations using Hall's encoding/decoding model to discern potential meanings. It evaluates advertisements and articles for how women are interpellated by the text. It concludes by asserting that although counter-hegemonic elements are present, Mode's message is hegemonic. Mode posits that women can be realistically-sized and beautiful as long as they participate in all other aspects of beauty consumption and culture by purchasing the products and fashions showcased in the magazine.

The British Broadcasting Corporation is generally considered a reliable source for international news. Their web site includes a Northern Ireland news page, which provides daily coverage of the province including extensive information on the ongoing peace process. This study examines the online coverage of the Northern Ireland conflict in the year 2000. Through a textual analysis of 21 articles, an ideological critique of the BBC's rhetoric is provided. To reveal the ideological perspective of the BBC Online, the verbal text used in each article is carefully analyzed, the sources consulted are examined in terms of representation, and the images that accompany the article are studied to determine if the images match the stories or simply cater to browsers. The findings show that despite their promise of impartiality, the BBC presents a view of the Northern Ireland conflict that leans toward a unionist perspective.