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"Being" a Stickist:  A Phenomenological Consideration of "Dwelling" in a Virtual Music Scene (open access)

"Being" a Stickist: A Phenomenological Consideration of "Dwelling" in a Virtual Music Scene

Musical instruments are not static, unchanging objects. They are, instead, things that materially evolve in symmetry with human practices. Alterations to an instrument's design often attend to its ergonomic or expressive capacity, but sometimes an innovator causes an entirely new instrument to arise. One such instrument is the Chapman Stick. This instrument's history is closely intertwined with global currents that have evolved into virtual, online scenes. Virtuality obfuscates embodiment, but the Stick's world, like any instrument's, is optimally related in intercorporeal exchanges. Stickists circumvent real and virtual obstacles to engage the Stick world. Using an organology informed by the work of Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty, this study examines how the Chapman Stick, as a material "thing," speaks in and through a virtual, representational environment.
Date: May 2010
Creator: Hodges, Jeff
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library
Virtual Entrepreneurship: Explicating the Antecedents of Firm Performance (open access)

Virtual Entrepreneurship: Explicating the Antecedents of Firm Performance

Prior research has examined entrepreneurial businesses spatially located in the physical or offline context; however, recent radical information and technological breakthroughs allow entrepreneurs to launch their businesses completely online. The growth of the online business industry has been phenomenal. Predictions for worldwide online sales estimate it to reach $2 trillion in 2016. Virtual entrepreneurship refers to the pursuit and exploitation of opportunities via virtual platforms. Web 2.0 cybermediaries offer web-based platforms that function similarly to traditional intermediaries in a virtual setting and minimize barriers to entry for virtual entrepreneurial firms. The use of such cybermediaries with increasing success suggests an implicit shift in the dominant logic that typically underpins the functioning of entrepreneurial firms operating in the physical world. In this relatively uncharted territory, marked by a focus on profit, cooperation, collaboration and community, three ideal-type institutional logics i.e. Market, Corporation and Community, blend together. It is posited that a Virtual Entrepreneurial Logic guides the norms, behaviors, and practices of entrepreneurial firms operating via these virtual platforms. This raises the question whether the blending of three ideal-type logics leads to the existence of different antecedents of performance. A business model antecedent addressing the economic dimension, a community antecedent addressing the …
Date: May 2016
Creator: Chandna, Vallari
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library
Lay Spirituality in Fourteenth-Century England (open access)

Lay Spirituality in Fourteenth-Century England

In fourteenth-century England, a form of lay spirituality emerged, influenced by the writings and example of the famous mystics, both English and continental, of that period, but much affected by other developments as well. Against the background of socio-economic and political change, the emergence of lay spirituality is examined, with particular emphasis upon continuity and change within the church, the religious instruction of the age, and the spirituality of the English mystics. Finally, the sole surviving written record of lay spirituality of the period, The Book of Margery Kempe, is investigated, along with its author, Margery Kempe - pilgrim, visionary, and aspiring mystic.
Date: May 1991
Creator: Field, Carol Hammond
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library
Extending the Apprenticeship through Informal Learning on Facebook: An Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis of the Lived Experiences of Music Faculty (open access)

Extending the Apprenticeship through Informal Learning on Facebook: An Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis of the Lived Experiences of Music Faculty

Facebook studio groups/pages are commonly used by applied music faculty to communicate with current students, recruit new students, share students' activities, and promote faculty members' professional performances and academic endeavors. However, the blurred lines between academic, professional performance, and social activities in the field have led to a wide variety of approaches to Facebook use by music faculty. This dissertation documents the first generation of music faculty social media users and investigates the beliefs, intent, and lived experiences of music faculty who use Facebook studio groups/pages to communicate with their students. Four music faculty were interviewed and a semester's Facebook studio group/page data collected for each faculty member. Interviews and Facebook data were analyzed using Interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) to identify emergent, and ultimately super-ordinate, themes from the data. The three super-ordinate themes that emerged were: Impact of Social Media on Studio Teaching and Learning, Learning through Enculturation, and Faculty Lived Experiences with Facebook Studio Groups/Pages. Findings of the study included: faculty concerns about personal and professional risk; the observation that teaching and learning are occurring through these Facebook studio groups/pages by way of the process of enculturation, but without evidence of a Virtual Community of Practice; and, a multitude …
Date: May 2017
Creator: Meredith, Tamara R.
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library
A Case Study of Interpersonal Influences in a Band Music Setting: Bohumil Makovsky (1878-1950) and His Association with Selected Individuals Involved in Instrumental Music in the State of Oklahoma (open access)

A Case Study of Interpersonal Influences in a Band Music Setting: Bohumil Makovsky (1878-1950) and His Association with Selected Individuals Involved in Instrumental Music in the State of Oklahoma

The purpose of this study was to investigate the interpersonal influences which Bohumil Makovsky, Director of Bands and Chairman of the Music Department at Oklahoma A&M College from 1915 to 1943, had on his students and peers, as confirmed through the perceptions of selected individuals, and to determine what personal characteristics and means he drew upon to induce changes in his students and peers.
Date: May 1992
Creator: Dugger, Richard Charles
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library
An Analytical Study of Paradox and Structural Dualism in the Music of Ludwig van Beethoven (open access)

An Analytical Study of Paradox and Structural Dualism in the Music of Ludwig van Beethoven

Beethoven's rich compositional language evokes unique problems that have fueled scholarly dialogue for many years. My analyses focus on two types of paradoxes as central compositional problems in some of Beethoven's symphonic pieces and piano sonatas. My readings of Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 27 (Op. 90), Symphony No. 4 (Op. 60), and Symphony No. 8 (Op. 93) explore the nature and significance of paradoxical unresolved six-four chords and their impact on tonal structure. I consider formal-tonal paradoxes in Beethoven's Tempest Sonata (Op. 31, No. 2), Ninth Symphony (Op. 125), and Overture die Weihe des Hauses (Op. 124). Movements that evoke formal-tonal paradoxes retain the structural framework of a paradigmatic interrupted structure, but contain unique voice-leading features that superimpose an undivided structure on top of the "residual" interrupted structure. Carl Schachter's observations about "genuine double meaning" and his arguments about the interplay between design and tonal structure in "Either/Or" establish the foundation for my analytical approach to paradox. Timothy Jackson's reading of Brahms' "Immer leiser word meine Schlummer" (Op. 105, No. 2) and Stephen Slottow's "Von einem Kunstler: Shapes in the Clouds" both clarify the methodology employed here. My interpretation of paradox involves more than just a slight contradiction between two …
Date: May 2016
Creator: Graf, Benjamin
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library
Information Structures in Notated Music: Statistical Explorations of Composers' Performance Marks in Solo Piano Scores (open access)

Information Structures in Notated Music: Statistical Explorations of Composers' Performance Marks in Solo Piano Scores

Written notation has a long history in many musical traditions and has been particularly important in the composition and performance of Western art music. This study adopted the conceptual view that a musical score consists of two coordinated but separate communication channels: the musical text and a collection of composer-selected performance marks that serve as an interpretive gloss on that text. Structurally, these channels are defined by largely disjoint vocabularies of symbols and words. While the sound structures represented by musical texts are well studied in music theory and analysis, the stylistic patterns of performance marks and how they acquire contextual meaning in performance is an area with fewer theoretical foundations. This quantitative research explored the possibility that composers exhibit recurring patterns in their use of performance marks. Seventeen solo piano sonatas written between 1798 and 1913 by five major composers were analyzed from modern editions by tokenizing and tabulating the types and usage frequencies of their individual performance marks without regard to the associated musical texts. Using analytic methods common in information science, the results demonstrated persistent statistical similarities among the works of each composer and differences among the work groups of different composers. Although based on a small …
Date: May 2016
Creator: Buchanan, J. Paul
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library
The Sounds of the Dystopian Future:  Music for Science Fiction Films of the New Hollywood Era, 1966-1976 (open access)

The Sounds of the Dystopian Future: Music for Science Fiction Films of the New Hollywood Era, 1966-1976

From 1966 to1976, science fiction films tended to depict civilizations of the future that had become intrinsically antagonistic to their inhabitants as a result of some internal or external cataclysm. This dystopian turn in science fiction films, following a similar move in science fiction literature, reflected concerns about social and ecological changes occurring during the late 1960s and early 1970s and their future implications. In these films, "dystopian" conditions are indicated as such by music incorporating distinctly modernist sounds and techniques reminiscent of twentieth-century concert works that abandon the common practice. In contrast, music associated with the protagonists is generally more accessible, often using common practice harmonies and traditional instrumentation. These films appeared during a period referred to as the "New Hollywood," which saw younger American filmmakers responding to developments in European cinema, notably the French New Wave. New Hollywood filmmakers treated their films as cinematic "statements" reflecting the filmmaker's artistic vision. Often, this encouraged an idiosyncratic use of music to enhance the perceived artistic nature of their films. This study examines the scores of ten science fiction films produced between 1966 and 1976: Fahrenheit 451, Planet of the Apes, 2001: A Space Odyssey, THX-1138, A Clockwork Orange, Silent Running, …
Date: May 2009
Creator: McGinney, William Lawrence
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library
A Case Study of Characteristics and Means of Person-to-Person Influence in American Kodály Music Education: Katinka Scipiades Dániel (open access)

A Case Study of Characteristics and Means of Person-to-Person Influence in American Kodály Music Education: Katinka Scipiades Dániel

The purpose of this study was to investigate the characteristics and means of Katinka Dániel's interpersonal influences through the perceptions of 20 selected students, protégés, and colleagues, and to study the behavioral and attitudinal changes they attributed to her influence. A case study design and structured interview questionnaire were used to study four variables coming from the social sciences' literature on influence: legitimate authority, attractiveness, expert authority, and trustworthiness. Responses were qualitatively analyzed to determine the role those variables played in Dániel's interpersonal influence. All interviewees were music teachers who used the Kodály method in their teaching and have studied or worked with Dániel. Two images of Dániel emerged from the interviews. The first, a business-like image, emanated from Dániel's work in the classroom, and the second, a maternal image, came from personal relationships with her students and associates. Attractiveness (defined as a willingness to respond positively to the requests of an influential person because one respects that individual and wants to obtain that person's approval) proved to be the principal characteristic of influence, followed by legitimate authority, then expertise. Trustworthiness played a lesser role. The greatest effect of Dániel's influence was on the interviewees' teaching. Among the factors interviewees …
Date: May 2003
Creator: Ferrell, Janice René
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library
Sing Rāga, Embody Bhāva: The Way of Being Rasa (open access)

Sing Rāga, Embody Bhāva: The Way of Being Rasa

The rasa theory of Indian aesthetics is concerned with the nature of the genesis of emotions and their corresponding experiences, as well as the condition of being in and experiencing the aesthetic world. According to the Indian aesthetic theory, rasa ("juice" or "essence," something that is savored, that is tasted) is an embodied aesthetic experienced through an artistic performance. In this thesis, I have investigated how the aesthetics of rasa philosophy account for creative presence and its experiences in Karnatik vocal performances. Beyond the facets of grammar, Karnatik rāga performance signifies a deeper ontological meaning as a way to experience rasa, idiomatically termed as rāga-rasa by South Indian rāga practitioners. A vocal performance of a rāga ideally depends on a singer's embodied experience of rāga and rāga-bhāva (emotive expression of rāga), as much as it does on his/her theoretical knowledge and skillset of a rāga's svaras (scale degrees), gamakas (ornamentation), lakṣhaṇās (emblematic phrases), and so on. Reflecting on my own experience of being a Karnatik student and performer for the last two decades, participant observation, interviews, and analysis of Indian aesthetic theory of rasa, I propose a way of understanding that to sing rāga is to embody bhāva opening the …
Date: May 2019
Creator: Krishnamurthy, Thanmayee
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library
Everything and the Kitchen Sink; or, Towards an Understanding of a Creative Practice, "Codex Symphonia," Metamodernism, and Rhizomic Composition (open access)

Everything and the Kitchen Sink; or, Towards an Understanding of a Creative Practice, "Codex Symphonia," Metamodernism, and Rhizomic Composition

Creativity is not a hierarchical, but an intertextual, rhizomic process, pulling from a vast array of interests, experiences, and influences. These feed into each other, to inform and motivate artists as creating persons in an ongoing process we call the creative act. Anytime an artist sets out to make something, they are experiencing a dynamic yet concentrated moment of energy in the chaotic cloud of creativity. To demonstrate this, I explore several ideas that inform my piece, Codex Symphonia, including musical influences, but also visual art, film, literature, philosophy, social theory, and politics. In this document, I show that the act of creating a musical work is a deeply personal process that relies heavily on the experiences and vast network of influences on the composer. With this document I look to the contextual structure(s) that point to the possibilities that a work might exist. That is to say that the composition Codex Symphonia is a specific result of an extensive network of ideas and influences not coming from a single origin—it is, in fact all of them together at the same time in a metamodernist act of reconciliation.
Date: May 2023
Creator: Reeder, Kory
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library
Orchestral Accompaniment in the Vocal Works of Hector Berlioz (open access)

Orchestral Accompaniment in the Vocal Works of Hector Berlioz

Recent Berlioz studies tend to stress the significance of the French tradition for a balanced understanding of Berlioz's music. Such is necessary because the customary emphasis on purely musical structure inclines to stress the influence of German masters to the neglect of vocal and therefore rhetorical character of this tradition. The present study, through a fresh examination of Berlioz's vocal-orchestral scores, sets forth the various orchestrational patterns and the rationales that lay behind them.
Date: May 1994
Creator: Lee, Namjai
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library
Change, Longing, and Frustration in Djent-Style Progressive Metal (open access)

Change, Longing, and Frustration in Djent-Style Progressive Metal

The progressive metal style "djent" emerged in the mid-to-late 2000s with bands that modeled their use of extended range instruments and complex rhythmic cycles after that of Swedish metal band Meshuggah. The addition of a new vocabulary of melody and harmony by bands such as Periphery, Tesseract, and Animals as Leaders has come to define djent in a new way and provided fruitful ground for voice-leading and metrical analysis. In this dissertation, I approach analysis in two steps. The first step is the production of detailed transcriptions of four djent songs. The process of transcription has allowed for the development of Transcription Preference Rules, modeled after Lerdahl and Jackendoff's preference rule approach in their Generative Theory of Tonal Music. The Transcription Preference Rules account for the selection of key signatures, time signatures, and other features of the scores that may affect analysis. Second, using these scores, I examine the connection between the textual topic of change and the voice-leading and metrical structures in Periphery's "Insomnia" and Tesseract's "Of Matter." I show how this topic is reflected by techniques such as change melodic direction, multidimensional metrical dissonance, and auxiliary cadential events. Finally, I apply voice-leading and metrical analysis to Animals as …
Date: May 2021
Creator: Sallings, Patrick Nolan, 1982-
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library
A Motivic Analysis and Performance Practices of "Akrodha" (1998) by Kevin Volans, including Comparative Analyses of "She Who Sleeps with a Small Blanket" (1985) and "Asanga" (1997) (open access)

A Motivic Analysis and Performance Practices of "Akrodha" (1998) by Kevin Volans, including Comparative Analyses of "She Who Sleeps with a Small Blanket" (1985) and "Asanga" (1997)

This dissertation presents an analysis of Akrodha (1998), a multiple percussion solo in two movements, composed by Kevin Volans. The analysis is focused on the motivic content and subsequent iterations written within the tempos that provide the structural form of the piece. The structural tempos are supported by the presence of various motifs that serve as the tempos' characteristic traits, thereby giving the tempos more tangibility. As the work develops, these motifs reappear either as note-for-note reiterations or as variations that still maintain the unique qualities of the motifs. For comparison, similar analyses of Mr. Volans' other multiple percussion solos, She Who Sleeps with a Small Blanket (1985) and Asanga (1997), are also presented to further explore Mr. Volans' use of motifs as they relate to structural tempos. In addition, a comprehensive performance practice of Akrodha is presented based on a synthesis of considerations and methods from individuals involved in the piece's development and early performances. These include Dr. Volans himself, Jonny Axelsson (for whom Akrodha was written), and Robyn Schulkowsky (for whom She Who Sleeps with a Small Blanket and Asanga were written), as well as the author's personal experiences. This dissertation provides a deeper understanding of Akrodha for …
Date: May 2017
Creator: Feerst, Timothy A.
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library
Cracking the Closed Society: James W. Silver and the Civil Rights Movement in Mississippi (open access)

Cracking the Closed Society: James W. Silver and the Civil Rights Movement in Mississippi

This thesis examines the life of James Wesley Silver, a professor of history at the University of Mississippi for twenty-six years and author of Mississippi: The Closed Society, a scathing attack on the Magnolia State's history of racial oppression. In 1962, Silver witnessed the campus riot resulting from James Meredith's enrollment as the first black student at the state's hallowed public university and claims this was the catalyst for writing his book. However, by examining James Silver's personal and professional activities and comparing them with the political, cultural, and social events taking place concurrently, this paper demonstrates that his entire life, the gamut of his experiences, culminated in the creation of his own rebel yell, Mississippi: The Closed Society. Chapter 1 establishes Silver's environment by exploring the history and sociology of the South during the years of his residency. Chapter 2 discusses Silver's background and early years, culminating with his appointment as a faculty member of the University of Mississippi in 1936. Chapter 3 reveals Silver's personal and professional life during the 1940s, as well as the era's notable historical events. The decade of the 1950s is discussed in chapter 4, particularly the civil rights movement, Silver's response to these …
Date: May 2010
Creator: Fox, Lisa Ann
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library

King Fisher: The Short Life and Elusive Career of a Texas Desperado

Access: Use of this item is restricted to the UNT Community
America’s Wild West created an untold number of notorious characters, and in southwestern Texas, John King Fisher (1855– 1884) was foremost among them. To friends and foes alike, he insisted he be called “King.” He found a home in the tough sun-beaten Nueces Strip, a lawless land between the Nueces River and the Rio Grande. There he gathered a gang of rustlers around him at his ranch on Pendencia Creek. For a decade King and his gang raided both sides of the Rio Grande, shooting down any who opposed them. Newspapers claimed King killed potential witnesses—he was never convicted of cattle or horse stealing, or murder. King’s reign ended when he was arrested by Texas Ranger Captain Leander McNelly. In no uncertain terms he advised Fisher to change his ways, so King became deputy sheriff of Uvalde County. But his hard-won respectability would not last. On a spring night in 1884, King made the mistake of accompanying the truly notorious gambler and gunfighter Ben Thompson on a tour of San Antonio, where several years prior Thompson shot down Jack Harris at the latter’s saloon and theater, the Vaudeville. Recklessly, King Fisher accompanied Thompson back to the theater, where assassins were …
Date: May 2022
Creator: Parsons, Chuck & Bicknell, Thomas C.
Object Type: Book
System: The UNT Digital Library
The Choral-Orchestral Works of Hector Berlioz (open access)

The Choral-Orchestral Works of Hector Berlioz

In this study the choral-orchestral compositions produced by Hector Berlioz are examined in detail for characteristics of musical form, textual setting, and methods of scoring for chorus and orchestra. Reasons for the preponderance of the choral-orchestral medium in Berlioz' output are examined in two introductory chapters. The initial chapter concerns Berlioz' personal experiences as an observer, conductor, and critic of choral music, while the second is devoted to Parisian customs in regard to the choral-orchestral medium during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Included in the historical chapter is a discussion of the haute-contre (high tenor or countertenor) voice preferred in French choruses of that period plus a short review of French orchestral practices, operatic choruses, the French Chapel, Parisian concert societies, and the Paris Conservatory. Especially important is the segment on revolutionary musical fetes which fostered grandiose compositions for chorus and instruments of extremely simple structure. Berlioz' sense of form was governed by his Gallic heritage and for this reason many critics have accused him of formlessness, when in fact his compositions invaribly revolve around a succinct formal plan, admirably executed. Berlioz added to the conservative French tradition which favored the strophe and the Rondeau (an unvarying refrain following …
Date: May 1978
Creator: Alexander, Metche Franke
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library
Fractures for Clarinet and Computer (open access)

Fractures for Clarinet and Computer

Fractures for Clarinet and Computer is a piece for live interactive performance using custom software designed in Max/MSP. the work explores musical borrowing and transformation of music from works such as Tchaikovsky’s Fifth Symphony, Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, and several fragments from synthesizer recordings of the late 1960’s and early 1970’s. the dissertation focuses on both the musical aesthetics that informed the creation of the work and the software programming that enables live sampling and harmonization systems as well as flexible control of global parameters.
Date: May 2012
Creator: Dixon, Gregory Hart
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library
The Shrinking Opera Diva: The Impact of Sociocultural Changes upon the Casting of Women in the 20th and 21st Centuries (open access)

The Shrinking Opera Diva: The Impact of Sociocultural Changes upon the Casting of Women in the 20th and 21st Centuries

For most of the twentieth century, opera singers were not beholden to the ideal physical standard of women dictated by popular culture, but rather focused on serving the music and perfecting their artistry. Unprecedented sociocultural changes throughout the twentieth century exposed the shifting ideals of each generation and how they were promoted through mass media and advertising. This thesis surveys the time period of the 1890s to the present day for the purpose of analyzing cultural trends, philosophies and technologies that shaped the century. Societal pressure to make the body a project and the focus of one's own intense attention now reflects back onto the opera stage where audience members expect to see what society has dictated to be an acceptable female form. Artistic and stage directors are influenced by society's decree that only thin is beautiful, imbedding into the mindset of the art form notions that now affect how female professional opera singers are depicted and even employed.
Date: May 2017
Creator: McNeese, Lauren
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library
On Preserving Games and Perseverance for the Future: A Developer Perspective (open access)

On Preserving Games and Perseverance for the Future: A Developer Perspective

Using ethnographic research methods, I worked with the International Game Developers Association (IGDA) to conduct an exploratory study about developer perspectives on video game preservation. I conducted in-depth interviews with independent developers in the Dallas-Fort Worth region, a hub for Texas game development. These interviews explored developers' knowledge and awareness of game preservation as a topic of concern, archival culture and practices in the industry, and the IGDA's potential role in addressing issues related to preservation work. This research contributes to a growing body of literature on game preservation, urgently needed as many gaming technologies face obsolescence in the near future. I use Ellen Cushman's concept of "perseverance" to examine the difference between simply preserving video games for the future, and the perseverance of game development as a professional trade and artistic craft.
Date: May 2019
Creator: Gonzalez, Stephen
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library
Texas Jewish Post (Dallas, Tex.), Vol. 74, No. 19, Ed. 1 Thursday, May 7, 2020 (open access)

Texas Jewish Post (Dallas, Tex.), Vol. 74, No. 19, Ed. 1 Thursday, May 7, 2020

Weekly Jewish newspaper from Dallas, Texas that includes local, state, and national news along with extensive advertising.
Date: May 7, 2020
Creator: Wisch-Ray, Sharon
Object Type: Newspaper
System: The Portal to Texas History
Appropriating Language on the Usenet (open access)

Appropriating Language on the Usenet

The Usenet is a global computer conferencing system on which users can affix textual messages under 4500 different categories. It currently has approximately 4,165,000 readers, and these .readers have appropriated language by adapting it to the Usenet's culture and medium. This thesis conceptualizes the Usenet community's appropriation of language, provides insights into how media and media restrictions cause their users to appropriate language, and discusses how future media may further cause users to appropriate language. With the Usenet we have a chance to study a relatively new community bound by relatively new technology, and perhaps we can learn more about the appropriation process by studying the two.
Date: May 1994
Creator: Spinuzzi, Clay I. (Clay Ian)
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library
Playing Nice: the Limitations and Stereotypes Placed on Female Hero Representation in Video Games (open access)

Playing Nice: the Limitations and Stereotypes Placed on Female Hero Representation in Video Games

This thesis provides an investigation of how gender stereotypes affect the narrative, mechanics, and experience of three different console based video games (Venetica, WET, and Velvet Assassin) with female protagonist. Each game is addressed within separate case study chapters and discusses how gender is integrated and intertwined with each narrative structure, image representation, and interactivity. Further analysis is provided in each case study as gender is addressed across several parts of each game, beginning with the female protagonist’s role as hero, her representation throughout the game (i.e. body image, attire, and weapons), and the game play experience. In conclusion, this thesis shows that the protagonist gender within a video game does affect the game in its entirety. More specifically, all three female heroines discussed in this thesis showcases stereotypes associated with the dominant sexual representation of female video game characters, as well as similar traditional feminine and masculine stereotypes associated with heroines in film and television. This provides for rather problematic representations of female heroes, alone with the games designed for them which are equally as stereotypical in their narrative, mechanics, and game play.
Date: May 2014
Creator: Cisneros, Linet L.
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library
Academic Reading Online: Digital Reading Strategies of Graduate-level English Language Learners (open access)

Academic Reading Online: Digital Reading Strategies of Graduate-level English Language Learners

English language learners (ELLs) face many linguistic and cultural challenges in their attempts to succeed academically. They encounter complex academic text, which is increasingly presented online. Although some research has addressed the challenges that university-level ELLs face when reading online texts, almost all of this prior work has focused on undergraduates. The purpose of the current study was to investigate the reading strategies employed by graduate-level ELLs when reading an academic English text online. Participating in the study were four foreign-born doctoral students from different first-language backgrounds—Arabic, Korean, Urdu, and Vietnamese—and the focus was on commonalities as well as differences among them. All four were enrolled in the same doctoral-level course, which included the reading of a specific online academic article as a course requirement. When reading this text individually, each student participated in a think-aloud procedure, followed by post-reading and discourse-based interviews. Analyses included unitizing data from the think-aloud protocols, coding units for strategies employed, and considering related interview commentary and classroom contributions. In their reading, these students made major use of problem-solving strategies, especially reading segments aloud and questioning. They also employed evaluative strategies as well as metacognitive strategies, which included affirming their understanding or indicating lack of …
Date: May 2015
Creator: Knezek, Lois Ann
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library