Mama D's 2 Blocks tells the story of a neighborhood home in New Orleans that was transformed into a distribution center and used to assist residents impacted by Hurricane Katrina's devastation in 2005. Mama D stayed at her home throughout the storm and remained there until the floodwaters had subsided. After the water had drained, socially minded youth from all over the country were drawn to Mama D's home and stayed there while supporting local renewal efforts. The film documents their joining together, without electricity or running water, and assisting in the rebuilding process undertaken by Mama D and other neighborhood residents. This film captures a community in action, how it survived, and the first steps taken towards the rebuilding of New Orleans.

This written thesis accompanies a 32-minute documentary video, Journey for Jazz, which explores four Korean students who major in jazz at the University of North Texas in Denton. Detailed accounts of the pre-production, production, and post-production of the video guide the reader to understand the challenging and rewarding process of making this documentary. Theoretical issues are also discussed, including Bill Nichols's typology of documentary modes as a useful tool for analysis of hybrid documentaries and conventions of the observational and interactive mode in Journey for Jazz, which is considered a hybrid of both modes. The film focuses mainly on the scholarly and artistic experiences that the four students undergo while studying jazz in the United States.

This study of radio news stations adds to the field of Twitter research into broadcasters' use of this social media microblogging platform; previous research has predominantly focused on television. This case study, based on a survey with numerous open-ended questions completed in face-to-face interviews, begins to fill in data on how Twitter is being used in major market radio station newsrooms. Limited in scope, this exploratory study used answers from seven members of two radio newsrooms in trying to find out if there were stated goals for tweets; if separate, unique content was being tweeted or was content tied to the stations' on-air product; how tweets seek to increase station listenership and/or increase station website traffic; what were the most frequently tweeted topics; what hyperlinks were included in tweets for internal or external web content; and were tweets personal and/or opinionated, or kept more professional with just factual material. From a strategic management theory standpoint, there is neither a stated plan nor goals sought with these newsrooms' use of Twitter. Unique tweet content includes sending out photos which add visuals to the pictureless world of radio news and live-tweeting of ongoing news events, while complementary content is promotional to push …

This thesis examines if and how the Internet viewers of Saturday Night Live skits were influenced by the video skits. the viewers’ online comments were read, categorized and analyzed for content to explore and discuss how the viewers “read” the text of the online video skits. Each video in which candidates John McCain, Sarah Palin, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama appeared is summarized and analyzed through viewers’ comments. a sample of skits including actors’ portrayals of McCain, Palin, Clinton, Obama and Joe Biden is also summarized and analyzed to find and discuss how the viewers’ perceptions were influenced by the portrayals.